Gideon Smith and the Mechanical Girl (4 page)

2
The Fate of the
Cold Drake

The sun burned off the sea mist a little after dawn, revealing the night’s dark bounty: the
Cold Drake,
drifting a hundred yards offshore, her gear-driven paddles wound down and still, her torn, empty nets spread out on the still sea behind. Arthur Smith and the rest of the crew were gone; the
Cold Drake
was abandoned.

By ten o’clock a crowd had gathered on the beach, the wailing wives of the
Cold Drake
’s crew side by side with Sandsend’s other fishermen, who ruminated and spat tobacco on the sand, wondering at the rare but not unknown feeling deep in their collective guts that had caused them to roll over in the small hours of the morning and decide not to take their trawlers out. The parishioners of St. Oswald’s Church, high up on Lythe Bank, had assembled around the dour, white-haired figure of the Reverend Bastable, and were joining him in a ragged rendition of “Eternal Father, Strong to Save.” Gideon Smith stood to one side by the wooden spurs of the breakwater, blinking back tears as their voices rose to sing, “Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee, For those in peril on the sea!”

One of the fishermen, Peek, broke away from the huddle of his crew and walked up the wet sand toward him. He stared at the toe caps of his boots and muttered, “Sorry for your loss, Gideon.”

Gideon nodded miserably. Peek turned to look at the
Cold Drake,
where she had been anchored by his crew. “I suppose she’s yours now. Will you put together a new crew? I could lend you Peter from the
Blackbird
for a couple of months, if you like, ’til you get on your feet.”

Gideon stared at him as the song of the parishioners swelled into a climax and then tailed off. Skipper the
Cold Drake
? Of course. It was expected.

“That would be good of you,” said Gideon flatly. Peek made way for a thin stream of mourners, the last in line being Reverend Bastable, his eyes shining pinpricks beneath his bushy white eyebrows. “The sea is a bountiful provider,” he rasped, “but a capricious mistress.”

Gideon felt an unaccountable anger at the thin, hook-nosed man rise in his gut. “Why did your God take my dad? What has He done with him?”

“You may think God has abandoned you, but He has not. Do not abandon Him. You need His succor now more than ever. His reasons for taking Arthur Smith are His own; your father is in a better place.”

Gideon thought back to the night before, his father half- dozing in his armchair as Gideon read the Lucian Trigger story to him, his belly full of the day’s catch, his blood warmed by a tot of brandy.

“No, he isn’t,” said Gideon. “God is wrong. He should have let my dad be.”

Bastable pursed his thin lips and seemed about to speak harshly, then thought better of it. Eventually he said, “You are grieving, Gideon Smith. Come and see me at St. Oswald’s. I will remind you of what Scripture teaches us of God’s love.”

Gideon watched him go, then spat on the footprints he left in the moist sand.

Gideon was not given to drinking, but at the cottage he dug out his father’s bottle of brandy, then found a quarter of a bottle of whisky and, wincing, forced it down. His head swimming, he turned his father’s chair toward the window, staring down the hill to the sea, the distant dots of the trawlers bobbing in the sunshine.

Where was the adventure tantalizingly presented to him in the stories of the penny dreadfuls? He spied the
World Marvels & Wonders
he’d brought downstairs with him that morning, wondering why his father hadn’t woken him for the day’s work and suddenly he hated it. Its stupid stories and wild claims, its tales of far-off lands and improbable escapades. He regarded it with loathing for a moment before angrily tearing it up and letting the pieces fall from his fingers like snow before he slumped into the chair and an empty, black sleep.

That afternoon brought a visit from old Peek, who had young Peter with him. Gideon, bleary eyed and sick to his stomach, let them in, and Peek raised an eyebrow at the empty liquor bottles rolling on the hearth.

“I’ve brought Peter,” said Peek unnecessarily. Gideon nodded at him. “He’s happy to come aboard the
Cold Drake
for a spell.”

“Two of us can’t handle her,” said Gideon.

Peek nodded and said, “There’s Walter’s lad, Eric, and young Clifford Griffiths.”

“Am I to crew the
Cold Drake
with children, then? Do no men want to sail her?”

Peek shifted uncomfortably. “You know what fishermen are like.”

Gideon looked into the middle distance. “He should have woken me,” he said softly. “I should have died out there with the rest of them.”

Peek laid an awkward hand on his shoulder. “Don’t be saying that, lad. What happened, happened. Best not to dwell on it. Say you’ll think it over, at least.”

“I will,” said Gideon.

After Peek and Peter had gone, he packed some bread and cheese, took his father’s old spyglass and a handful of
World Marvels & Wonders,
and headed out. He didn’t know where he was going, but his feet took him up the winding road toward the imposing shape of Lythe Bank.

When he’d eaten and washed down the food with water from his canteen, Gideon trained the spyglass on the horizon, bringing the factory farm into sharp focus. Could it be nefarious deeds by the Newcastle & Gateshead that had done for his father? It seemed doubtful, as the
Cold Drake
had been undamaged. Gideon swept his spyglass left and right, some small kernel of hope inside him insisting that he might pick out a tiny figure swimming to shore. But, aside from the factory farm and the three trawlers fishing closer to shore, there was nothing.

Gideon turned the spyglass on the
Cold Drake,
and duty wrestled with desire, his calling to continue the family business at odds with a longing to see the world that ached more fiercely than ever. Gideon sighed and stared out to sea as the sun began to descend behind him.

He heard a sound from over the lip of the promontory, from the beach far below. The coastline was full of crags and pebbles, and Gideon crept to the edge of the grass- tufted cliff and crouched down. The tide had already advanced to cut off the beach, and he could make out no boat moored by the breakwater. But there came the sound again, something wet slapping the large pebbles below. Gideon thought then of the caves and tunnels marbling the interior of Lythe Bank, which everyone said had once been used by smugglers and even pirates. He felt a sudden thrill. Adventure, of a sort, beckoned, and . . . his breath caught in his throat. Something to do with the disappearance of the
Cold Drake
crew? Gideon edged forward, training the spyglass on the beach below. He could see nothing. He wondered whether he should try to scale the cliff and get a closer look, but if there were indeed villains, then they would have the upper hand, and he’d be trapped by the rising tide. Quickly shuffling backward and packing up his knapsack, he decided to go back to the village and alert the village constable.

To get to Clive Clarke’s cottage he had to pass Peek’s, where the fisherman’s youngest, Tommy, was sitting cross-legged in the small front garden, drawing with a worn pencil on a scrap of paper. Peek was a prodigious sire of children and Tommy was his tenth or eleventh—and final, after Mrs. Peek had called a halt. Tommy was a sharp child, and keen on drawing, and from the copies of
World Marvels & Wonders
Gideon sometimes allowed him to borrow he taught himself his letters and copied the illustrations with uncanny skill. The boy waved and gave a gap-toothed grin, all thoughts of adventuring to America apparently forgotten, and his father appeared at the door.

“Get help,” called Gideon. “There’s trouble at Lythe Bank! Smugglers, perhaps!”

Peek shook his head sadly. “Go home, lad. And stay off the liquor.”

Gideon growled with frustration and left the cottage, making for Constable Clarke’s. The officer worked from his own dwelling overlooking the East Beck. Oil lamps already illuminated the window, and Gideon pounded on the door. Clarke, in his shirt and braces, opened at once, his jowls wobbling.

“Gideon Smith,” he said. “I was sorry to hear about your dad. A fine fellow. What’s to do?”

“I want you to get a party of men up,” said Gideon. “Investigate at Lythe Bank. Smugglers, or worse!”

“Not tonight,” said Clarke kindly. “Go home, Gideon.”

Gideon looked back at the shape of Lythe Bank, black against the indigo dusk. “Then I’ll just have to investigate myself.”

Investigations, however, were not quite so straightforward. Gideon brooded in his father’s chair, staring out the window until the black sky and the black sea were indistinguishable. And even then, no answers offered themselves; no course of action seemed the best. He could investigate Lythe Bank himself, of course, but he was no fool. If there were villains, what good could he do alone? Like every other Sandsend boy, he knew better than to venture inside the caves and tunnels that crisscrossed the interior of the promontory. Every generation of Sandsend boys had a cautionary tale of one of their number who had ignored the warnings drummed into them since before they could walk. For Gideon’s, it was Oliver Thwaite, who’d gone in there looking for pirate gold one spring day in 1875 and never come out, his ghost joining the grim roll call of those forever lost.

Over a breakfast of coffee and stale bread, Gideon flicked through his collection of
World Marvels & Wonders,
hoping some guidance from Captain Trigger would present itself. Lucian Trigger was an agent of the Crown, charged by Queen Victoria herself with tackling the more unusual threats to her globe-spanning empire. Trigger rarely worked entirely alone; he had a coterie of friends who shared his exploits, from the distinguished Yankee Louis Cockayne to the Tibetan mystic Jamyang, to the beautiful dirigible pilot Rowena Fanshawe, the Belle of the Airways. Wherever Trigger roamed, be it the lawless, untamed lands squabbled over by the British, Japanese, and Spanish at the heart of America, or the vast penal colony that was Australia, or even the wolf-haunted forests of Middle Europe and the bejeweled clockwork mysteries of the Tsarist lands beyond, he always had help. And ever waiting for him at home was his faithful friend and companion Doctor John Reed. Who did Gideon have? No friends, as such, because he’d always been a lonesome, bookish child, happy with his own company and that of his family. No family, not now. He had tried Peek, and Peek had thought him a drunkard. He had been to the Law, but Constable Clarke had not seemed of any mind to investigate. He sighed and turned the pages of the magazine, the drawing of the Hero of the Empire proudly standing tall. If only Trigger could guide him.

His eyes fell on the box giving the address and telephone number for the offices of
World Marvels & Wonders
. Who, indeed, was to say Captain Trigger couldn’t offer assistance?

Gulls as big as cats wheeled around the light house at the end of the stone jetty that pointed out to sea, hoping for scraps of battered fish from the tourists who flocked to Whitby. Queuing out of the door of the Post Office was a line of holidaymakers wishing to send telegraph messages or buy stamps for picture postcards. He shuffled along, glancing repeatedly and anxiously at the page where he had folded open
World Marvels & Wonders,
as though the telephone number might shift or change or disappear altogether. As he neared the kiosks he realized he hadn’t used the public telephones ever before, and was not really sure what the protocol was. He glanced around and met the gaze of a benignly smiling, tall man with a tidy, reddish beard and dark suit, waiting in line behind him.

“You need a chitty,” said the man in a pleasant Irish brogue, pointing to a prim woman sitting at a desk beside the kiosks. “You take a number from that lady, and when you have made your call she calculates the cost and takes your money.”

The man saved his place in line, and when Gideon had procured his chitty his new friend held out a shovel of a hand. “My name’s Stoker. Abraham Stoker. Most friends call me Bram. I am in Whitby holidaying.” He adopted a conspiratorial tone. “I am supposed to be writing, but the weather and location are simply too beautiful for work.”