The Derring-Do Club and the Empire of the Dead (28 page)

She listened at the door and was relieved to hear silence.

She went in.

“Dummkopf! Schnell, schnell.”

Earnestine rushed through, understanding the Graf’s yells only too well.

She caught a glimpse of a luxurious room, plush, with four round dining tables big enough to accommodate four chairs easily. It took up the entire width of the gondola section. Charlotte was sitting looking wide eyed and expectantly as the Graf poured some vile concoction from an overly elaborate bottle.

“Ach, Dieses ist untragbar!”

Earnestine raced through the room as quickly as she could. In the brief moment and the narrowing gap as she closed the door, she saw the Graf storming towards her.

“Graf, Graf,” Charlotte called after him.

Why hadn’t Earnestine heard him speaking?

All she could hear was her own breathing, loud and clear.

She took off the bug–eye mask.

That feeling of claustrophobia and heat left her immediately. The rubber mask was slick with… horses, men… the residue of her glow.

Earnestine found the cabins numbered ‘1/2’ to ‘19/20’, in pairs, and the two at the bow end were larger. One had clearly been used recently, but the others appeared empty. She picked one: her age 20. It had bunks and the white linen looked so inviting. She almost sat down, but realised that she’d mark the sheets.

However, Earnestine realised that she couldn’t hide here. Whatever her personal feelings, she was responsible for her sisters. Back along the corridor, she looked around in the next cabin and it showed signs of occupation. She knew she couldn’t just sit there either; she’d have to hide as Charlotte might come in at any moment with someone else. There was a gap under the bunks, so Earnestine lay on the floor, shuffled underneath and squeezed herself against the wall as tight as she could.

Plan: she’d stay awake and wait. Charlotte would come to bed and that would give her a chance to have words – sharp words – with the silly girl. Sooner or later they’d have to land and she’d nip down the ladder when the Aerial Ratings disembarked. Good plan, she thought, although she had a terrible feeling they were simply going back to the castle.

She touched the ruby ring.

Perhaps she could close her eyes for a brief moment…

No, she mustn’t.

Perhaps just until the stinging stopped completely.

Miss Georgina

There had been a moment when the Zeppelin had been upon her and then, with a plunging roar, the train had fallen into the depths of a seemingly endless tunnel shuddering in a cacophony of steam and sparks. Georgina had been born again, screaming, on the other side. The engine hurtled on.

Georgina fell to her knees and the dawn light split across the sky. Her energies were spent, the shovel fell from her hands and coal tumbled across the juddering metal floor to skitter and dance in time to the clattering.

She was alone now: father was gone, mother too, uncle, Charlotte lost and Earnestine dead.

“Arthur,” she murmured.

No–one replied.

Presently, the steam subsided, the screaming fell silent and the stations sliding by slowed. Soon the speed dropped to walking pace and below. Georgina lifted herself up and flopped over the edge, hanging briefly and choosing a grassy bank to drop onto. She hit it and rolled down coming to a blissful rest below.

The engine, pockmarked with bullet holes, went on without her, past signals that were up or down, and meant nothing to Georgina. It rained, she raised her head and drank the water as it stung her face. Onwards, away from the train line, or sideways: Amazon, Amazo… Am as lost…

There was a French village not far off, guarded by a farmer moving cows from one field to another. They were spooked by a shadow moving across the sun and coming under the arch of a magnificent rainbow, the dark shape of an airship circled.

“S’il vous please, please…” she begged.

Dumped on a cart, she bounced along with an old Frenchman guiding an old horse to a town. Her money was no good, they had no Queen here in their Republic, but he was a kind man.

There were troops from the Gendarmerie gathered on a street corner. Georgina was half–way across and she would reached them had not the direction of the horses and other traffic being on the wrong side of the road confused her, when she heard them speaking German. There were other men in their midst. She backed away, a tram nearly struck her, and every face she saw seemed to be watching her, chasing her, informing on her – there were spies everywhere.

She ran down a side street and into an alleyway, dodging past the piles of litter and mess. The next street was full of shops, patisseries and cafés. Georgina was hungry, but every face hid a glance and every corner had a person to ambush her. She moved with the crowd, then against the flow, working around the town until she came to the main road leading north. There was a road sign: Paris was included, and at a hump backed bridge a four horse carriage was stalled waiting for the bridge to clear.

She ran up to it: “Paris?”

“Oui.”

“Will you take me to Paris?”

“Non. Plus de place.”

“Please, s’il vous please… for pity’s sake.”

“Non.”

They wouldn’t take her. It was so unfair.

She felt utterly lost, am–as–lost, and ineffectual, as–an–ant.

To have got as far and to have failed: Earnestine would be cross – no worse, Earnestine would be disappointed. She’d let the side down, badly, and added to the bad name of Deering–Dolittle (Kent). The worst part of many worst parts was that Earnestine would have known what to do.

“Excuse me! I’m British. Take me to Paris!”

The carriage stopped and Georgina, raising her head imperiously, marched up to the door, waited for someone to open it, and for the other passengers to shift across, before she climbed the steps and sat down.

With a jerk, she was off towards what she hoped was the French capital. The other passengers looked at her suspiciously, full of resentment as if she had been personally responsible for Agincourt, Trafalgar and Waterloo. She decided that she would simply sit there, aloof, and not close her eyes at all once.

Maybe…

A man attacked her, prodding her with a small whip.

She fought back: “What?”

“Paris, vous êtes à Paris.”

The coach was empty and stationary, and it was dark outside.

She struggled out, her neck seemed permanently twisted.

“Thank you, oh merci, merci, thank you.”

Paris seemed huge, quite on the scale of London, and the strangeness of the signs was enough to thoroughly disorient her. She needed to eat and drink, she knew that: adventures required one to keep one’s strength up. She wanted to sleep, a proper sleep in a bed with clean sheets and–

She stumbled.

A man came up to her.

“British Consulate?” Georgina said.

He shook his head.

Georgina tried the next person and the next, and was finally rewarded with a pointing gesture and a lot of French. So, street by street, corner by corner, French or accented English, she was guided to an imposing building. She went up the stairs and banged on the door. Inside, a porter waved her away.

“I’m British.”

“Passport?”

“No, I… please.”

“Go away!”

“I’m Georgina Deering–Dolittle.”

“From Surrey?”

“No, Kent.”

“Pah.”

“Please.”

“Passport?”

“Please, please…”

“Go away.”

“Please…”

“I will get men to throw you out.”

She slipped down the glass; the Paris cold bit into her and the warmth of technically British soil felt forever from her reach. Below, skulking in the shadows were dark shapes wrapped in scarves and black woollen hats. They spoke German and edged up the steps towards the light to carry Georgina off into the night. Other men arrived from inside, strong well–dressed men to throw her back like a small fish that didn’t come up to the mark.

They surrounded her.

“I say,” said Merryweather, bending down and plucking her up from the paving.

“Arthur?”

“Come in before you catch your death.”

She was saved, utterly and completely swept–off–her–feet saved. The door opened and Arthur carried her over the threshold.

The Porter intercepted them: “You can’t–”

“Don’t be an arse,” Arthur said.

And there was Caruthers and McKendry too, and quite soon there was also sweet tea and cake.

Miss Charlotte

“I apologise for before,”? the Graf said. “When the culprit is found, he will be severely punished. My airmen are trained to obey, instantly and without question.”?

“The interruption didn’t bother me,” Charlotte replied, standing and smoothing down her uniform.

“The schnapps now, mein Liebchen?”

“That would be lovely. Why not in my cabin, then we won’t be disturbed.”

“Would that be allowable?”

“We are related after all,” said Charlotte. “Let me check everything is all right.”

“I will get the schnapps and perhaps something warming.”

“Lovely.”

Charlotte went from the lounge section to her cabin to give it a quick check. Everything was stowed and in order, as she had known it would be. She was about to return and call the Graf through, when she heard a strange noise, a wheezing as if the engines were labouring with a… Charlotte knew that noise and knew it well. She took a couple of steps and turned her head and located the source under her bunk. She knelt down and looked: Earnestine, dressed as a soldier, was tucked underneath, sound asleep.

So it was her sister who had rushed through the lounge: typical of her to try and ruin everything. Well, Charlotte would just follow Earnestine’s own advice to always tell your elders and betters everything – she’d inform the Graf and–

There was a knock at the door.

Charlotte stood, kicked sharply under the bunk, and said, loudly, “Graf, just a moment, just a moment, Graf.”

There was a mumbled complaint brewing from under the bunk.

“Graf! Do come in, come in Graf, good to see you Graf!”

“Liebchen, are you all right.”

“Yes, Graf,” she said, and then she had to cough, loudly and continuously until the noise coming from under the bed piped down. “Everything is fine, Graf.”

“I brought you a nightcap: hot chocolate.”

“Lovely,” Charlotte leapt forward and looked, wrinkling her nose: “It’s not Cadbury’s?”

“Nein, Belgian dark chocolate.”

Charlotte took a sip: it was rich, thick and bitter.

“I suggest a measure of schnapps.”

Charlotte nodded and the Graf poured a generous helping from a bottle.

“Please,” Charlotte said, indicating a chair by the table, but the man came around and held the chair out for her. Charlotte settled herself and the Graf chose the place next to her just around the corner.

They sat for a moment, three sips of hot chocolate each.

“Tell me about your plans,” said Charlotte.

“They will be tedious and technical to you.”

“Not at all,” she laid her hand on his. “I’m interested.”

The Graf frowned.

“I spoke with Doctor Mordant,” Charlotte continued. “She told me some of it, but she did not have the same… vision as you.”

“Nein, she was unambitious.”

“She wanted the discovery for herself.”

“Ja, and I solved the major technical issue.”

“Do tell,” Charlotte simpered.

“The problem that this Mordant Process has – or had – is its reliance upon Nature’s galvanic processes.”

“Lightning.”

“Ja, exactly!”

“To bring someone back you require a storm.”

“We have engines that can create galvanic energy for one or two Lazarian events, but, alas, to perform the process on a large scale would require more power than all the factories in Britain’s Lancashire, Yorkshire and their Black Country combined.”

“So?”

“It is our little secret and it will make us the Masters of the World.”

“How exciting,” said Charlotte. “But won’t the British Empire resist?”

“How? With what? They don’t even have a Sky Navy. Let them fire their mighty guns into the air and you will find their shells falling back to Earth long before they reach us. They lack the range, whereas we can drop bombs from any height. Military strategy has always dictated that whoever holds the high ground, wins the battle and we hold the very highest ground possible, the sky itself.”

“Brilliant.”

“It is the classic military strategy to catch the enemy in a pincer movement, but not from the sides: death from above and death from below.”

“They’ll attack your men too.”

“Nonsense, we have these little devices courtesy of Marconi and Tesla. They generate a pulse in the ether, which travels to the detectors attached to the unfortunates: a little shock, more than enough to persuade their cannibalistic tendencies to go elsewhere.”

“Oh yes, Doctor Mordant showed me.”

“Think of it,” he said, “in military terms. We create an army that does not suffer attrition. We fight, and so long as we take the battlefield, then our army is the same for the next battle. We have ten thousand untoten against a thousand enemy, we outnumber them ten to one. We fight and, yes, they kill more of our troops, two thousand, maybe even half our number, five thousand, but then we bring our troops back to life
and theirs!
”

He pointed his finger and then stabbed it down on the table. The cups jumped and the hot chocolate shook.

“So, for the next battle, we have eleven thousand troops. Think of it – every city, every town, every village has a graveyard, recruits at every turn, the whole of Europe’s dead rising from the ground at our beck and call, a whole empire.”

“Surely the British Empire, the greatest empire the world has ever seen would stop you?”

“How? Each of their men wounded takes ten from the battle in terms of stretcher bearers, medics, nurses and if you are lucky the injured man can be back in the war within a few months; whereas with our army, we stretcher off the dead, reanimate them and then we can return them to the front in the same engagement. Our enemy has to kill us over and over again, we kill them once and then they are dead – kaput. Worse than dead for, with our little electrical box, they are on our side.”