The Demi-Monde: Winter (37 page)

Despite this outward show of confidence, her inexperience nearly did for them. Although Dabrowski managed to free the hawsers tethering the barges to the dock, in her excitement Trixie had forgotten that there was always a security line connecting the steam-barge to an alarm bell. As the unshackled barges, caught by the pull of the tide, began to slide ponderously away from the dock, so the security line tightened until, when they had gone less than twenty feet the alarm bell began to toll. The response was immediate: lanterns were illuminated, orders were shouted, the sound of hobnailed boots echoed along the quay and then out of the snow-thick darkness raced a detachment of Checkya militia.

‘Fire, you useless fuckers,’ screamed Sergeant Wysochi. A tattered salvo of rifle fire crackled along the barge. It was difficult for Trixie from her position in the wheelhouse to see through the swirling snow how effective the fusillade was, but the screams suggested some of the shots had found their mark.

There was some desultory return fire from the Checkya and a bullet smacked into the side of the wheelhouse, making her flinch away as splinters flew. Instinctively she crouched down, trying to make herself as small a target as possible, then, cursing herself for being such a coward, she stood back up straight. This was no time for cowards. A soot-blackened face appeared around the door jamb. ‘Steam’s up, Miss,’ the boy yelled and gave her a thumbs-up. Immediately she hauled back on the drive lever. There was a bellow from behind as the engine powered up and
the steam-barge began to shudder and shake as the pistons pounded. The deck beneath her feet trembled. She felt the jerk as the propeller of the steam-barge was engaged and then a shove in the back as the craft began to move under its own power. The noise in the wheelhouse was deafening, she could barely hear herself think.

‘You, soldier, get forward to the bow,’ she screamed at the top of her voice. She saw the look of incomprehension on his face. ‘Get to the front of the barge and shout when you see the Oberbaum Bridge. I can’t see a thing in this snow. You’ve got to help me aim for the central span.’ The boy disappeared into the snow.

Manoeuvring the heavy barges was a nightmare. Heaving and straining, Trixie had to use all her strength to manage the wheel as the barges, caught by the current, bucked and squirmed along the river. Her muscles ached from the struggle to keep them straight.

Two more bullets smacked into the wheelhouse, but Trixie was so intent on hauling on the wheel, sawing it desperately back and forth, trying to bring the drifters in line directly astern, that she hardly noticed. A wild-eyed Wysochi joined her. ‘Help me,’ she gasped. ‘I need to bring this barge around.’

It was only thanks to Wysochi’s enormous strength that they managed to wrestle the barges into line. It wasn’t a moment too soon. There was a shout from the bow. ‘I can see the bridge, maybe a hundred …’

The sentence was terminated by the crack of a rifle and a splash as the man toppled over into the river. ‘Get forward, Sergeant!’ Trixie shouted. ‘I need you at the bow, directing me.’

Wysochi hesitated for a moment and then was gone. Without his strength to help her, controlling the barge was almost impossible. She could feel the wheel twisting and squirming ever
more violently under her hands as the barges came closer and closer to the eddies that rippled so powerfully around the piers of the bridge. The stern of the steam-barge began to pull out of line, dragged by the drifters as they were caught in the current. Frantically Trixie signalled for more power, doing everything she could to compensate for the yawing of the drifters, terrified that the barges would run out of control, that they would meet the bridge beam-on, that the drifters would be trapped lengthways against the bridge by the ebb tide.

Lieutenant Gorski’s head appeared around the door.

‘What about the second drifter?’ she shouted over the pummelling of the steam engine as it struggled to provide the extra power she demanded. ‘Have you cut it loose yet?’

‘Major Dabrowski is still trying to cut the hawser. The Checkya are making it hot for him. He’s lost two men already.’

‘Get rid of the fucking thing,’ Trixie screamed, aghast that a girl of her breeding should swear in such a foul manner, then ducked down as a salvo of shots smashed into the barge. Whoever was in charge of the Checkya had obviously worked out that she was intent on taking the barges upstream and that to do so she would have to sail them under the Oberbaum Bridge. The steam-barge was now so close to the bridge that she could see the muzzle flashes from the rifles of the Checkya who had already positioned themselves on the bridge and were firing down on the barges.

‘Get under cover,’ she heard Wysochi yell at his men as he emptied his revolver at the bridge that was now looming over them through the darkness and the snow.

Two pillars of the bridge passed on either side of the steam-barge’s bow. Now the turbulence was stronger and it took all of Trixie’s strength and all the engine’s power to bully the steam-barge, banging and scraping, under the bridge. Then, like
a cork popping out of a bottle, the steam-barge was in open water, but her elation was short-lived. Although, miraculously, the first drifter got under the bridge without fouling or capsizing the second drifter didn’t. It twisted, beam-on, jamming itself immovably along the length of the bridge, between the two central spans. Now, no matter how hard Trixie forced the propeller, no matter how urgently she sawed at the wheel, the trio of barges was stuck fast, anchored by the third, the soldiers on board sitting ducks for the shots raining down from the bridge above. The only option Dabrowski’s men had was to cower away under the bridge itself and in consequence the Checkya concentrated their fire on the steam-barge’s wheel-house. It was fortunate for Trixie that she had a steel roof over her head, otherwise she would have been killed for certain. As she struggled and strained, twisting the wheel this way and that, furiously trying to edge the barges free, breathing prayers to the Spirits that they would come to her aid, there was an incessant banging and slapping of bullets above her head.

Fate intervened. The commander of the Checkya on the bridge had the bright idea of throwing grenades down on the barges and their first target was the trapped drifter. As luck would have it, the third grenade blew the hawser that connected the two drifters apart. Freed of the trapped drifter, Trixie felt the steam-barge leap forward, powering away from the bridge, dragging the remaining drifter with it.

Then the second drifter exploded.

The blast was enormous. It was as though the steam-barge was lifted into the air by a huge hand and then hurled back down onto the river. Trixie was thrown across the wheelhouse, her head smashing against a bulkhead, bashing her into unconsciousness. She came to, her head throbbing, her left arm
twisted at an unnatural angle. Excruciating pain lanced across her shoulders and her ears rang from the crash of the explosion. With laboured difficulty she hauled herself back up onto her feet. All the glass in the wheelhouse windows had been blown in and now the thick snow and the ice-cold wind was swirling around, slashing into her face and eyes. The steam-barge seemed to be alight, burning debris and cinders from the destroyed drifter covered the decking and this, coupled with the black smoke that enveloped the river, made for a Helish scene. The stench of cordite in the air was suffocating, and she retched, spitting dust and bile from her mouth.

Fortunately the compass had survived the explosion. She tore a strip of cotton from her blouse, used it to wipe the glass clean, and checked her heading. Satisfied that she now knew where they should be going, she used her one good arm to drag the barge back to a northerly direction.

As the steam-barge settled on its course, Trixie took a quick look around. At first she thought that she was the only survivor, but then, slowly, painfully, figures began to rise up and after brushing burning cinders from their coats, staggered about as though drunk.

Thankfully Wysochi was one of the survivors, though he had suffered in the explosion. His cap was gone and part of his hair seemed to have been burned away, his face was soot-black and flecked with a myriad of tiny cuts and scratches. Peculiarly, it also appeared that he was steaming: as snow landed on his savaged jacket it dissolved into white steam.

‘Are you hurt?’ he shouted, and that was when Trixie discovered she was deaf in one ear. She touched it with her fingers; part of her right ear seemed to have been sheared away.

‘I think I’ve dislocated my shoulder,’ she shouted back; a ruined ear hardly seemed to be worth commenting on. She
barely recognised her voice: torn ragged by all the screaming she had been doing, it seemed to have dropped an octave. ‘I’ll need help to dock the barge.’

Wysochi gave a curt nod and then disappeared into the darkness. He returned a minute or so later. ‘Better than I feared, worse than I hoped. Ten survivors. Some are a bit knocked around but they’ll live.’

‘Major Dabrowski?’

‘Took a bad knock on the head from a piece of flying spar. He’ll make it all right.’ He staggered as the steam-barge bucked against the tide. ‘By my reckoning, Gdańsk docks are over there. That’s where we’re headed, maybe a half-mile distant. I’ll take over from here, Miss Trixie … and thanks.’

Trixie had to admire Wysochi’s energy. Despite his wounds, despite the rough bandage that swathed his left hand, despite the savage burns on the side of his face, he still drove the men on. No sooner had they docked the barges than he was all business, dividing what was left of the little army into two groups, braying orders at them to round up men and steamer-trucks and to get them back to the barges as quickly as possible. He wanted the barges unloaded before dawn.

In stark contrast to Wysochi’s energy, Dabrowski sat slumped against the side of the barge. The bang he’d taken to the head had been a bad one and he was only semi-conscious, not quite understanding what was going on around him.

‘I need someone to rouse Dock Captain Kowal,’ Wysochi said to his Major. ‘I need someone to get the winches and cranes working.’

Dabrowski slowly raised his head and stared at the Sergeant through glassy eyes. As best Trixie could judge, his mind was concussed and he would be no further help that night.

‘I’ll go. Let the Major rest,’ she said and before the Sergeant could object she was off striding in the direction of the Dock Captain’s house a hundred yards along the quay from where they had moored the steam-barge. The house was in darkness when she got there, but it didn’t remain so for long, not after Trixie pummelled on the front door with the butt of her pistol.

When the Dock Captain finally opened his front door, he seemed less than impressed by the soot-covered apparition disturbing his sleep. Dressed in just his nightshirt, Dock Captain Kowal studied Trixie as she stood in the doorway, lantern in hand.

‘Who the Hel are you?’

‘I am …’

Trixie paused for a moment, trying to decide just who she really was.

‘… Lieutenant Dashwood of the Warsaw Free Army. We have captured two barges from the ForthRight and need you to round up every docker, yard worker and winch operator you can and assemble them to offload the barges now tethered at Number Two Dock.’

‘Fuck off,’ he said and made to shut the door. Trixie’s boot prevented it closing. She would, she decided, have to be firm with him.

‘It is imperative that …’

‘I said fuck off and I meant fuck off. I’m head of the Guild of Bargees and in that capacity I must tell you that, as we are not at war with the ForthRight, taking those barges by force is an act of piracy. I will not permit my members to risk imprisonment or their lives.’

His oration was interrupted by the cocking of a Mauser pistol. Trixie held the weapon to the side of the man’s head. ‘Unless you follow my orders, Dock Captain, I will have no hesitation to blow your fucking mind out.’

Kowal looked at Trixie, took a moment to assess just how serious she was and then nodded.

The unloading of ten thousand Martini-Henry rifles and five million rounds of ammunition and the transporting of the same to a secure warehouse was completed an hour after dawn. Exhausted and emotionally drained, the men slumped down and gratefully accepted the bottles of Solution that were handed around.

For her part Trixie sat on a crate of ammunition, trying to ignore the pain radiating out from her left shoulder and the throbbing of her ear, and doing her best not to fall asleep. Never had she felt so tired, so completely wrung out. She closed her eyes for a moment and when she opened them she found the bulk of Sergeant Wysochi standing in front of her with his hand extended.

‘Would you do me the honour, Miss Dashwood, of shaking my hand? I would like to thank you for what you did tonight, to thank you on behalf of my Major, my men and the Polish people. You are the bravest person with whom I have ever had the honour of serving. If he were alive to see you, Miss Dashwood, your father would be a very proud man.’

Trixie took the hand. It was the most moving moment of her life.

The principles of Eugenics may be applied not only to matters of racial management but also to the interpretation as to why certain city-states within the Demi-Monde are more successful than others. This form of macroEugenics has been named ‘Political Eugenics’ (Reinhard Heydrich: Race, Eugenics and the Survival of the Fittest City-States, Party Rules Publications). Using the principles enunciated by the Quartier-Chaudian naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck – that all organisms strive towards perfection and that this struggle is stimulated by competition within the bio-system – and applying them in the political arena, the Great Leader has concluded that the success of the ForthRight is a demonstration of the maxim ‘the survival of the fittest’ writ large. In sum the Demi-Monde is a battlefield wherein the races fight for supremacy and it is the ForthRight – and the Aryan people – that has emerged supreme.

– The Principles of UnFunDaMentalism: His Holiness Aleister Crowley, Ministry of Psychic Affairs Publications