by Mark Hayes
I was all too aware my own credentials were shaky at the best of times. Thus I’d carefully schooled myself over the years to sound like the gentleman I wished people to perceive. Even in such reduced circumstances as I found myself in right then, it was my natural default.
“Oh Mr Smyth, we are most definitely not being informal here,” M told me with a snide tone. “And indeed, if we’re being informal, I would venture I would be calling you Harry.”
I’ve no doubt that my face showed my surprise. It was all very well to try and hold myself aloof, but Harry was a name from my past. His use of it caught me completely off guard.
To the world, I was assuredly Hannibal Smyth, Gunnery Ensign in Her Majesty’s Royal Air Navy. An officer, a gentleman, and that special kind of straight bat playing Englishman that had made the Empire what it was today. At least, that is who I had been until my arrest and several unfortunate discoveries by the police afterwards. But despite that misfortune, to the world, I was still Hannibal Smyth Esquire. I was no longer plain old Harry Smith.
Harry Smith, you have to understand, was a ghost from the past. A long-forgotten dirty faced orphan, so far down the social ladder he’d not even seen the bottom rung. Harry Smith aspired to the gutter, which is a long way off from the vantage point of the sewer. Or he would’ve if the Harry Smiths of this world aspired to anything beyond their next meal and somewhere dry to sleep.
In short, Harry was a name I’d long buried. So long buried I barely remembered him myself. Hearing it now threw me somewhat out of my stride. Even the court hadn’t used that name when it condemned me to the noose. I said as much when I replied.
“You have the benefit of me, sir. That is a name I thought consigned to history,” I said, an edge of tartness in my voice. Blame my circumstances if you will, but I was struggling for the best of humours. This resurrection of old ghosts was doing nothing to help my mindset.
“Mr Smyth, you will find there is little consigned to history, and next to nothing is ever forgotten within certain quarters of Her Majesty’s government. We are nothing if we are not fastidious in this regard. Which is good news for you ‘Harry’, for if it were not so, we would not be having this conversation. For were you not ‘Harry’ you would not be of use to the crown.” That same snide undertone was there when he pronounced my birth-given name. He used it like a nasty little knife to jab at me.
Beneath his cold Whitehall aloofness, there lurked a malicious bastard, I realised. The kind of man given to tormenting his underlings. Something I clearly was considered to be. And he would do so for no better reason than because he could. A type of man I had come across all too often in my life.
Regardless of this I determined to ignore his little jibes. He held all the cards, after all, and sometimes not rising to the bait is all you can do.
“And what quarters of government would that be Mr M?” I inquired, enjoying the flicker of irritation that crossed his face.
Whoever he was, the ‘Mr’ rankled him, perhaps because he hid a Lordship or a sir somewhere before his actual name. It wouldn’t have surprised me if that were so. I’d little doubt the more common form of address niggled him. It was petty of me, I know, but I made a mental note of that irritation all the same. Small victories and all that.
“I represent a Ministry of the crown, one not given to the use of further title. We deal with things the other Ministries do not. Indeed we arrange matters so other Ministries do not need to,” he replied with a degree of aloofness.
“So, it’s M from The Ministry?” I pushed.
“Quite so, Mr Smyth. Quite so…”
“Just The Ministry?” I pushed a little more. Mainly if I’m honest because I could see that the note of inquiry in my voice irritated him. He was not a man used to answering questions, which only encouraged me to ask more because I found him quite objectionable, what with all his detached pretension. That and the very obvious way he let me know that I was insignificant to him.
It niggled me all the more, no doubt, as I was a man condemned. In such circumstances, you don’t need anyone to remind you that you’re of little note and I’ve never been fond of being looked down upon at any time, though of all my character flaws that is one I share with most I suspect. That fact that M looked down on me was self-evident. I was at best a tool he planned to use for his own devices, nothing more, and no one likes to be used.
That said, it had occurred to me that it was better to be a tool in someone else’s game than a corpse feeding worms. So I was fighting my worst impulses at this point and trying to swallow my over prickly pride. I just wasn’t being overly successful in that fight.
“Just ‘The Ministry’. Yes, it has a fuller name but one I have no reason to divulge to you at this time, Mr Smyth. It is of course another one of those state secrets you are not in a position to be privy to. I am sure you understand our position,” he said with a sniff, which suggested whether I understood my position or not was of little consequence to him. Which I am almost certain was true.
In any regard, I believed him about the name. The idea of any branch of government not having a full and embroidered title was all but laughable. Civil servants like their titles as much as the military. The smaller and less important The Ministry, the longer the title was always the rule in my experience. Noting that should have told me something about one known only as The Ministry if I had been paying attention to such details at the time. I was, however, a little preoccupied for such reflection.
“So, am I to take it you have come to offer me my freedom in exchange for a service to the crown?” I asked, with more bravado than hope.
Remarkably at this, his serious veneer vanished for a moment. The vaguest whiff of an amused smile crossed his lips.
“Your freedom?” He almost chortled. “My dear Mr Smyth, whatever freedoms are afforded the subjects of Her Imperial Majesty, may God save her, are no longer within your grasp. You are a convicted murderer and traitor. Your freedom was left behind in the courtroom. You are sentenced to death, and that sentence will be carried out have no fear that. So no, I am not here to offer you your freedom. I can assure you of this much, you will die at Her Majesty’s pleasure… so you have been sentenced, so it shall be.”
To be fair, his reply came as little surprise. All the same, hope suddenly leaving the building was disappointing, and I found the anger I’d been suppressing up to that point running in to fill the void left in hope’s wake.
“Then I am not sure why you’re wasting what little time I have left with this conversation, Mr M. I find you’re not to be the most entertaining of fellows, and I have better ways to spend my few remaining hours than listening to you. Such as sleeping, or perhaps a little self-abuse. I might even bang my head against the bars for a while and see if I can knock myself senseless for the hell of it. It would be still more worthwhile than listening to your odious nasal whine.”
It was a catty response, I know, and far from wise. But I was annoyed and past caring. I even went as far as to rattle my chains at him, ragging at my own wrists in the process. All of which made me feel a little better about myself for a moment at least. Besides, my bravado prickled him a little, judging by how his moustache bristled at me, and as I said, small victories.
“Oh, I believe you will wish to hear what I have to say, Mr Smyth. You are, it is true, sentenced to die at Her Imperial Majesty’s pleasure. I am, however, here to offer you a chance to extend that pleasure for a while. Indeed, a chance to be of some service to your Queen and country one more time. Perhaps you may even gain some little redemption into the bargain, as well as extending your worthless life a while longer.”
Now what I wanted to say at this point was something along the lines of ‘Her Majesty can go pleasure herself, the decrepit old hag’.
Or perhaps some insightful social commentary along the lines of ‘Last time Queen Victoria ever showed a moment’s pleasure was before Prince bloody Albert died a hundred and god knows how many years ago’.
Not, so you understand, that I’m some kind of anti-royalist like those idiot anarchists in the East End. I’m as loyal to good Queen Vic as the next man. Well, if the next man is an average Brit anyway. Her long life is a gift for the stability of the Empire, at least, that is what we are always told. So, like any other loyal subject of ‘Old Iron Knickers’, I’d defend her clockwork heart with every fibre of my being.
Well, just so long as I didn’t have to take too many risks with my own.
That said, even a lifelong royalist like myself struggles to care greatly about the pleasure of ‘She Who Is Seldom Amused’ when they are awaiting the noose. It is something that can make a man a little tetchy. But when you’re being offered a lifeline, it’s impolite to throw insults back at the man offering it. So what I actually said was…
“What is it you want me to do?”
Feeble of me, I am aware. But when someone is offering a choice between death today or death tomorrow, I’ll take tomorrow every time.
Besides, my mind was already working overtime. I was considering all the possibilities that could be present themselves to a man no longer confined to a death cell. London is, after all, a big place with plenty of dark alleys to disappear down. Much the same could be said about the Empire as a whole. No matter what use M might have for me, if I didn’t like it, I could always find an opportune moment to make a sharp exit.
I’d more than a few contacts on the darker side of London. People who could be, if not entirely trusted, certainly bought. Not that I had anything to pay them with, but that was a problem easily solved by a man such as myself. A little larceny goes a long way, after all.
So, whatever plans M had for me, I assured myself I would soon have plans of my own.
Go ahead, call me naïve.
“All in good time, Mr Smyth. All in good time. Am I to take it I can be assured of your co-operation in our enterprise?” M asked, leaning on a walking cane I’d not even noticed before. It had a long ebony shaft tipped in silver at both ends, with a handle that was a curious facsimile of the Queen’s head. So it looked for a moment as if she was peeking out from between his thin fingers. There was a touch of leer in his tone that should’ve warned me to tread carefully. But as I said, the lifebelt that is hope to a drowning man, is something always grabbed for.
I straightened up, well, as much as the chains allowed. Feeling, for some reason, it was expected of me to attempt to give off an air of military bearing and I managed some bluster.
“Sir, you have my word as an officer and a gentleman.”
He laughed again, that same irritating snivelling sneer of a laugh.
“Mr Smyth, you are no longer the former and were never the latter.”
I was about to further bluster a response to that that would’ve been both witty and cutting, but he bullied on regardless.
“However, be that as it may, even if we of The Ministry were fool enough to take you at your word, we would not be fool enough to do so without assuring ourselves of your acquiescence with some small form of guarantee. I am sure you can see our position here,” he said, and if a voice could bare its teeth at you, his did right then.
He tapped his cane on the floor two times, and the doors to the main cell block opened. Two men entered. At least, I say men. As in regards to their general appearance that is what they were. I could not, however, claim to know if they were men in any true sense. They wore heavy coats buttoned to the neck with huge brass buttons. Coats which were either heavy on the padding, or the men beneath them had the build of the average gorilla.
Their faces were hidden behind heavy gas masks with trailing pipes that went to brass boxes strapped or, for all I knew, bolted to their chests. Dark eyepieces, that somehow failed to reflect any light, made it impossible to discern the eyes of whoever wore the masks. Their heads were crowned with short top hats, as black as the rest of their sinister garb. Each had mounted on their left arms a heavy brass and glass instrument that resembled an oversized syringe, the needle of which extended out like a stiletto dagger beyond their gloved hands. On the sleeves and lapels of their heavy coats they wore an insignia. A pair of crossed syringes below a crown. A symbol that was seldom published but everyone in the Empire would recognise all the same. Not that I even needed the symbol to know what the hulking figures before me were.
Sleep Men.
A child’s nightmare made flesh, enforcers of Imperial will. You can run from the police, you can dodge the courts, you can avoid the army, and you could even avoid Her Majesty’s tax men. But if the Sleep Men came for you… At least, so it is said.
A tingling shiver of pure unadulterated dread ran through me and as I watched them draw near, a strange misty cloud seemed to be flowing out around them. It came rolling from beneath their coats and rising slowly as they walked towards where M stood in the doorway of my cell.
As the vapours began to reach me, vomit formed in my throat. There was a strange smell of almonds in the air, and as I looked, I realised M was now holding a small breathing mask over his mouth. Passively watching me, utterly unperturbed as I started to struggle for breath. An edge of panic struck me.
As they approached, I backed up towards the rear of the cell, as far as my chains would allow. As they passed through the open door, I found I was trying to get down into the corner and huddled tightly in a ball, fear washing over me as the sickly sweet smell of almond got stronger, the clouds of mist billowing around me.
I was aware of someone screaming. It took a moment to realise it was me.
I was fully gripped with utter panic. A fear that seemed to gnaw at the very core of me. I’ve many faults, but abject cowardice is not normally one of them. I’ve faced fear more than once and stood tall before it. I’ve even faced it bravely when called to do so. So when I say that this fear paralysed me, you must understand that it was not a normal reaction. It was far from normal.
By the time they reached out for me, those cold black eyepieces had come to resemble nothing so much as the eyes of giant insects. The trailing pipes of their masks were mandibles and the figures as a whole, some form of evil demonic creatures intent on devouring me.
I have the vaguest of recollections of pain as a needle pierced my arm.
Then nothing more but darkness.
An all-encompassing engulfing darkness into which I was falling.
CHAPTER THE THIRD
A Spider In The Eye
I was falling or rather was I watching Hardacre fall.
I was in both places at once.
The observed and observer.
The bomb bay doors opened out before me, as I watched him fall.
As I fell myself.
Gravity pulling me down towards oblivion.
Or was I floating, still and unmoving, as the airship rose up away from me?
I was falling through the clouds, it felt almost peaceful, tranquil. I wanted to stay there forever. In that endless plunge through the whiteness.
It was dreamlike, a dream that had become so often a nightmare of late. A dream I knew was a dream and yet, a welcome retreat from the hard realities of the world. An escape from the squalor of my cell, an escape from the impending doom before me. An escape from the world and all its horror, manifest in the hangman’s noose that awaited me.
Better to fall through the clouds, to feel this weightless nothingness that was true freedom…
Of course, that could not last. In reality, or this dream of reality, I was still plunging to my doom, but even knowing that, it was a peace, a freedom, a moment of blissful joy. Falling through the clouds and watching myself as I fell…
I was suddenly, shockingly, cold and wet.
Very wet.
The brightest of lights erupted before me. Burning into my eyes, making it hard to focus. Pain erupted on my left side just below the rib cage. Even in my dazed state I recognised that kind of pain but the sting from salty water running down my face stopped me from focusing on it. My vision swam and the lights seemed bright
er still. From beyond those lights, hidden behind impenetrable darkness, a voice spoke out, a voice harsh with authority, and it said…
“Again.”
I’d gained enough of my faculties at this point to focus a little and saw the bucket enter the pool of light. Propelled forward by thick arms in long black coat sleeves. Time enough to see the torrent of water hurtle towards me. On reflex alone, I tried to avoid it. Attempting to duck my head and move to the side.
It was, therefore, at this juncture the realisation came to me that I couldn’t. For I was heavily restrained in a chair of some description, and very tightly restrained at that. I could no more avoid an icy cold wall of water that hit me, than I could avoid the second punch to my side that followed it and the kind of pain that held the suggestion of something rupturing inside me.
I should perhaps admit, I’m not one unused to the concept of restraints. Although generally in more salubrious and recreational settings than these. To wit a small but discreet gentleman’s establishment in Soho. Had I the time or inclination at that particular moment I may have even reflected on just how very professionally I’d been restrained. Indeed, as something of a connoisseur of such arrangements I would probably have been impressed.
Instead, I had a panic attack and not a mild one. There is a difference between recreational restraint and the ones I found myself in. You see, I suspected a safe word, even if I’d known one, was not going to facilitate my release.
In any event, I couldn’t, as it turned out, duck the water. Not even slightly. Not only were my legs and arms very firmly strapped to the chair, but my torso and throat were too. Even my forehead was strapped back against a hard wooden board of some kind, making it impossible to even turn my head from the torrent.