by Mark Hayes
I thought fast and remembered something my old mum used to tell me when I was a lad. “If you’re going to lie, Harry, my son, then lie big…”
Of course, mother was generally off her trolley on gin most of the time, but in essence, it was still sound advice. People are always more likely to believe a big lie than a small one. If only because they are used to believing large lies. It’s the basic principle on which all politics is constructed. Human nature can be a wonderful thing. With this in mind, I went for it.
“Okay Captain, if you insist. However, I must caution you this is to go no further than this room. I assume you can vouch for everyone present?” Maythorpe all but rolled his eyes and looked poised to speak, but a look from the Captain silenced him. Instead, he just narrowed his eyes at me. I suspect he was hoping I’d just give myself enough rope, as it were, and not entirely figuratively.
“I can vouch for my men of course,” the Captain replied, sounding at least partially intrigued. People, I have observed in the past, like secrets, and offering them one is always a good way to bring them over to your side. Then with a delightfully obtuse look on his face, he added, “Mr Maythorpe however?”
I could have kissed him for that one. I don’t mind admitting. However, I replied, “Maythorpe is as loyal to the crown and honest as they come, I have no fear on that score.” In all honesty, more’s the pity. I wouldn’t have been in this mess but for the priggish buffoon after all.
“Whereas Smyth here is a liar and murderer,” the prig scowled.
“Mr Maythorpe, for the last time be silent. I will hear this man speak,” the Captain snapped, shutting him down before he could rant once more.
I nodded my thanks while Maythorpe glowered.
“Okay, if I may…” I said in what I felt was a dramatic and conspiratorial tone. “For propriety’s sake, I’ll have to keep to broad strokes rather than details, you understand. Matters are delicate and of great import, but I’ll explain what I can.”
“While I was serving in Her Majesties Royal Air Navy, I became aware of a group of criminals within the service. A simple smuggling operation, or so I thought at the time, but when I reported it to the rightful authorities, they engaged me to operate in the shadows for them. They wished me to infiltrate the group, you see, and play the disgruntled naval officer. They recognised that while my loyalty to the service and indeed the crown was absolute, matters of my… station, shall we say… were such that I could pass for one of more flexible loyalties. I am, you see, one who began my career as a member of the working class which has unfortunately caused some little friction with those of higher birth, regrettable as that may be. As such while I’m nothing if not loyal to the core, there are always those willing to question my position, earned as it was on merit not privilege.”
Captain Singh nodded knowingly at this. It always pays to know your audience, and if anyone knew about earning a position through merit and still being looked down upon by those who owe their own positions to a privileged birth, it’s an airship captain of an Imperial liner of Indian descent. Buoyed by this, I continued in much the same vein.
“I was asked to discover the extent of this smugglers’ ring. Why authorities believed I would have a talent for such work? I couldn’t say, but when I discovered I did, well, I was as shocked as anyone. Nevertheless I saw it as my duty to take on this mission, Queen and country demanded it, and who was I to refuse? What can you do but your all when your country calls after all? A man must take a stand for what he believes. It does not become him to ask what it may cost him. Duty is all, I am sure you would agree, Captain Singh.”
I was warming to my subject, pacing back and forth, having been released by the heavy-handed stewards. Hands clasped behind me, straight-backed, and full of vim. I could see the men nodding at my vitriol, and, dare I say it, feeling privileged to hear me speak of such things.
“I joined the smuggling ring as a mole, reporting all that I found, what profits came my way I donated to charity, a children’s hospice in Croydon I know only too well. If good came of my deceptions, it was there I hope the most good came. I regret only that I never had chance to visit in that time and see what little joy those gains ill got may have brought to the children’s cherubic faces.”
Yes, I know what you’re thinking, but as I say if you’re going to lie then lie big and lay it on with a trowel. Lay it on I did, to appreciative smiles from one or two of the stewards. Thugs though they were to a man, even thugs love a tale of smiling children. I continued…
“Over a year of my life was spent infiltrating this group. In that time, it became clear the ring was larger than we had ever imagined. Worse, its plans extended far beyond smuggling. They had infiltrated into every facet of the Imperial services. I was afraid for my life, for the Empire, for the crown itself. There were nights I couldn’t sleep for fear of discovery. I don’t mind admitting the stress my double life was causing me to suffer. The further I infiltrated the organisation. The more names I collected, the more dangerous it became. But through it all, I kept my upper stiff as any of us here would do, I am sure.”
I was playing to my audience, I must admit. But it was a performance and a half. Hand gestures, righteous indignation, thinly disguised anger at the villains of the piece. I have often thought that I should tread the boards one day. Though the thought of having to spend every day with a bunch of Lovies puts me off, I must admit.
“Finally, my luck ran out. An airman called Hardacre, who was in deep with the ring discovered my true loyalties by ill chance and sought to gain favour with his sinister masters by killing me. I have little doubt the black heart would have blamed my death on an accident. There had been other accidents, after all. I would not have been the first, for the perfidiousness went far beyond mere avarice. I would just be another body to dispose of. By chance I saw him coming and we fought, crashing around the bomb deck, till luck being with me I managed to scupper his plans to kill me. Sadly, to my shame I was forced to kill the man to save my own life. I wish I could have merely overpowered him, but at the last he tripped and fell out of the ship through the same hatch he would have thrown me through had fate not spared my life. That is my one regret in all this, the necessity of killing him. I consider it to be a failure on my part that he didn’t live to stand trial for his crime. That he could not have been made to reveal all he knew of the conspiracy that rots at the core of the Empire. But fall he did, and it was then by ill fate that Maythorpe came upon us, just as the blackheart fell.”
“He’s lying. I saw him murder Hardacre with my own eyes,” Maythorpe cut in, though the look on his face was unsure all of a sudden. My performance had unsteadied his own belief in the events he had witnessed. I almost broke out in a grin at that point, but I did my best to remain earnest in my portrayal of the wronged hero.
“Yes, yes you did,” I replied, my voice laced with phoney regret. “And I can’t blame you for drawing the conclusions you did from what you saw, and would that the agency for which I worked could have stepped forward and illuminated you as to the truth of events. But there was a problem, the sinister ring of conspirators was still intact, and should they discover I was, in fact, a spy in their ranks they would have time to hide their tracks. To slip back into the darkness and plot further against us all. The agency needed time to uncover more. They had other agents in place, and they needed to be protected, until they can bring down the whole job lot of them. So my trial was arranged, as was my execution staged and a commission arranged in the East India Company to keep me out of sight. It’s a cruel trick of fate that Maythorpe is on the same ship and recognised me, as I am supposed to be travelling incognito. Captain Singh, you have my sincere apologies that I’ve brought this trouble to your ship. I would ask you forgive poor Maythorpe as well. He acts only according to events as the agency would have people perceive. But with all I have told you now in mind, I trust I can rely on your discretion.”
You have to admit, it isn’t a bad story. To say I made up
most of it as I was going along, I was quite proud of it. Sowing the seeds of doubt around Maythorpe’s chain of events. Massaging the egos of all present. I could see in his eye that even Maythorpe half doubted himself now. It helped I’m sure that Hardacre had been a less than exemplary airman to start with. He wanted to believe me, I think. I could see it in his eyes.
I realised at that moment that Maythorpe was the kind of romantic fool who believed in honour. The kind that believed those who wore the same uniform as he did, his fellow officers, were all men of duty and courage. Indeed, that was probably why he had come to hate me so much, for in his eyes I had let down that uniform, and in doing so let down them all.
Yes, I was certain that he wanted to believe me. That he was indeed, fully taken in by my performance. He opened his mouth to speak, and I knew what he would say. He would make apologies to me there and then for doubting my honour and commitment to the crown. No doubt, he would offer to stand me a scotch, call me a hero and a damnable brave one at that for all I had sacrificed.
Sadly neither Maythorpe nor Captain Singh had read the script.
“What a load of tosh,” Maythorpe said.
“I agree. Boys, throw him in the brig,” Singh put in, adding, “And don’t be too gentle about it.”
Which was about the point something heavy which may have been a steward’s blackjack hit me from behind and the world turned what to me was becoming an increasingly familiar shade of black.
CHAPTER THE EIGHTH
Whispers Louder Than Sin
My head, which had been sorely abused of late as I am sure you recall, hurt like something which had been beaten repeatedly over several days when I next awoke.
To be fair, that would seem to be an accurate enough description of my last few days. The loud pounding noise that seemed to be rattling my skull made it all the worse.
Thump, thump, thump.
Constant, and as steady as a drum beat. It echoed through me.
Things were all the worse because I was in the dark. Literally, as it happens. Wherever they had put me, there was no light to be had. No portholes letting in starlight. There was not even a slim slither of light seeping under a doorway. Even the cells underneath the Old Bailey had had more light than this.
It was warm too. Well, hot would be a better word, uncomfortably so and cramped with it. I was sitting down because when I tried to stand, I realised I had no room to stand in. The bang on the head from my encounter with the ceiling did little to help my headache. While the thumping, I now realised was probably the engines, continued unabated.
Thump, thump, thump.
Wherever they had put me, I realised it must be somewhere in the bowels of the ship. Close to the engine room. From the smell of coal dust and the confined space, what passed for the brig on this ship was actually a spare coal bunker.
My wrists were tied with loose cord but otherwise I was unrestrained, though being in a room too small to stand, in pitch blackness, served to keep me very much contained. There are, I am told, rules about these things. The conditions you’re allowed to restrain people in, and conditions you’re not allowed to do so. Apparently, the latter did not apply on Captain Singh’s ship.
I could feel an approaching migraine from the thump of the engines, or perhaps it was the repeated blows to the head. That, and all else I had endured of late, was possibly the source of the pain I suddenly felt around my eye. Though I suspect it was caused by something more sinister. Which it proved to be as the darkness was suddenly flooded with explosive bursts of light, with that now familiar afterglow.
As a method of communication, it had some painful drawbacks as I may have mentioned.
“W.. W..I..L..L.. C..O..N..T..A..C..T.”
Was the message all but burnt into my iris. As I remember, at the time, in between a bitter outburst of swearing that would have shocked even my old dear mum. I was angry that they repeated that first ‘W’. Bad enough someone was doing their best to blind me, but you would think they could type their messages correctly at the very least…
The pain in my eye eased off, and I ceased to vocalise impassioned outbursts of anger. The thudding in my head grew worse all the same thanks to that ever-present thump, thump, thump, of the engines. I was, it’s fair to say, a tad on the miserable side and doubting the efficiency of The Ministry’s devices. Something which would have cheered me up in other circumstances.
Typical of the civil service, informing you that you’re going to be contacted, just after you get incarnated in the darkest pit that someone could find.
Thump, thump, thump.
The engines continued unabated, and I started to recognise a slight whine in their pitch every few seconds, caused by a loose bearing probably. So to add to my woes, I was not even incarcerated on a well-maintained craft. I started to sulk at that point.
I’ve read, as I am sure well-read people like your good selves have also, that it is at moments like this when people take stock of their lives. You know the kind of thing. Consider all they have done. What brought them to these straights and what not. Then having considered all this they come to some great conclusions about their lives. What had gone wrong, what they should have done. How, indeed, they could be better people. How they could make their world and everyone else’s, come to that, a better place.
Thump, thump, thump.
The longer you’re confined in such a small dark place, cramped up and sweating profusely from the heat, the more time you have to dwell on such things. I expected they would frog march me off the boat when it arrived in Cairo. Clapped, no doubt, in irons. Until then I wasn’t going anywhere and had nothing but time. I was not even sure how much of that I had, how long it would take to get to Cairo, or how much time had passed since I took yet another trip to the land of the unconscious. But I suspected it would both not be long and would seem like some time just short of an ice age. A very hot, humid, dark ice age…
Regardless, I found myself dwelling on the recent past, and I did come to one very firm conclusion about what I could have done differently. Indeed I identified my only real mistake. To wit, not throwing Maythorpe out of the bomb bay doors right behind Hardacre when I’d the chance. Something I felt determined to rectify should I get the opportunity.
So then, so much for a prisoner’s self-reflection.
Some more time passed…
Mostly as I tried to ignore the ache of my head, and the groan of my stomach that was trying to remind me I still had not eaten since that breakfast in the Bailey. And while I tried to ignore these twin pains I dwelt not so much on my mistakes, but upon the various ways I could kill Maythorpe. Which became a string of happy delusions. As were the various looks that I imagined on his ratty little face when I finally did him in.
There are small victories, and there are really small victories, but sometimes the really small victories are all you have to get you through the dark hours.
I think my favourite involved throwing him into a giant piston shaft made of glass so I could watch the crank turning the piston head down on him with constant thudding repetition. That I will concede was probably inspired by the noise of the engine I was having to endure.
Thump, thump, thump.
It was driving me a little towards the edge of what you may laughingly call my sanity, I don’t mind admitting, that constant, unrelenting noise.
Finally, after what could have been aeons, there was an eruption of bright light which flooded my cell. In an instant, I went from slowly being deafened to utterly and painfully blind. As such, it took me a few moments to gather my shredded wits enough to realise what was happening as someone started dragging me out of there. I was struggling as well, in a quite ungentlemanly fashion as I tried to break the Queensbury rules by the placement of my foot in the groin of one of the stewards doing the pulling. I was rewarded with a cry of pain, which, at least, meant I’d brought tears to someone else’s eyes for once.
I can say in my defence at this point Lord Queensbury did
not envision a man being tied at the wrists and spending several hours confined in a coal bunker when he drew up the rules of gentlemanly conflict.
Frankly, I was in a mood to do some more kicking when my wits finally cleared enough that I could make sense of what Captain Singh was saying.
“Mr Smyth, I really am most terribly sorry.” He sounded flustered. He’d also repeated this sentence, at least, three times before I heard it properly. At which point I didn’t cease to kick immediately but got at least one more good one in before I stopped struggling.
It was after all not a sentence I’d been expecting to hear anyone say, so it caught me off guard a moment.
“What?” I managed, eyes still adjusting to the light, and my wits with them.
“I said that I really am terribly sorry. I must ask you forgive your confinement. It is utterly regrettable, I trust you’ll make no mention of this unfortunate misunderstanding in any report to your superiors,” the Captain said, repeating himself once more.
There was a somewhat toadying edge to his voice. A wringing of hands you could almost hear in his tone. Like a politician caught with his trousers round his ankles and a King’s Cross rent boy’s lips on his… well, you get the gist. He was obviously uncomfortable. No man, least of all the captain of his own ship, likes to discover they have been batting for the wrong eleven. And I suspect an Indian captain of a passenger airship is not a man who wants his ship’s owners to hear about entanglements with Imperial government officials. However, and I blame my hours of confinement for this, I was still struggling to catch up, so all I managed was…
“What?”
“Miss Wells has explained everything. We were unaware you were part of her… her party. She confirmed you’re working for…” He almost choked the next words out. “The Ministry… Again, please, I must say how terribly sorry I am that I mistakenly was taken in by that fool Maythorpe’s story and did not pay rightful credence to your own, as I should undoubtedly have done. I am sure you understand, under the circumstances, it was a simple error of judgement on my part. I did not make it with malice towards your good self or… The Ministry…”