Under Gornstock

by Clive Mullis

  ‘And that, I believe,’ said the Bagman. ‘Is where it stops.’

  ‘Apart from Brooksturner, Phimp and everyone else,’ said the earl.

  ‘No, it will definitely be it for them as well. They wanted a return to the bad old days of summary executions and oppression. Well, we can certainly provide the former for Mr Brooksturner,’ replied the Bagman with a wink.

  Cornwallis, Rose and Frankie emerged from the tunnel with Fluffy, Trugral and the rest of the dwarfs; Clarence Fogg accompanied them dejectedly, his arms tied and a rope around his torso acting as a lead. All of them were wet, bedraggled and covered in muck.

  It had taken all their resources to stop the leak and all their expertise. It took several sheets of metal to stop the flow and several wooden beams to prop it all up. It had been a close-run thing but eventually, they succeeded.

  The earl and Maud’s faces broke out into a relieved smile as they saw them emerge and immediately they rushed over.

  ‘You’re safe,’ exclaimed the earl in delight, ignoring Cornwallis and wrapping his arms around the soggy Rose.

  Chapter 45

  ‘You should really take that smug look off your face,’ said Rose, staring at Cornwallis, not unkindly.

  ‘I’m not smug,’ replied Cornwallis, smugly.

  ‘Yes you bloody are,’ countered Frankie, making a grab for his pint.

  ‘All right, I admit I’m feeling pleased,’ said Cornwallis, holding his hands up in defeat. ‘But you all saw those queues and it’s only day one.’

  ‘Well, it’s shut for the night now,’ said MacGillicudy. ‘I would have thought you’d be down there with Goodhalgan, counting out all that money.’

  ‘Ah, yes, all that lovely money. Did you see the size of that chest? Of course you did, how silly of me.’

  ‘Jack,’ warned Rose. ‘You’re in danger of having that pint tipped over your head if you don’t shut up about it.’

  ‘Yes, yes, all right,’ he conceded, to keep the peace. ‘Bloody heathens,’ he added as an afterthought.

  Despite everything that had happened deep underground, The Pipe continued to run. The excited passengers drowning out the noise of the explosions as they queued for their turn for a ride on the brand new, new fangled, transportation system.

  The first day of The Pipe proved an unparalleled success and Cornwallis felt that he had an entitlement to feel just a little bit pleased with himself.

  Fortunately, Eddie had reserved some tables for them in The Stoat, in the corner where they could have a little privacy, away from the hurly-burly and the rucks. Unfortunately, the earl answered a summons to the House of Assembly to try to sort out some of the mess that Brooksturner and a couple of other ministers left behind. Maud felt that she would rather have a small sherry at home and take things easy; but everyone else was there, including a few dwarfs and the bears that MacGillicudy had rescued from the ship, who were making up for lost time with the pints and the skittles.

  The Pipe seemed to be the major topic of conversation amongst the patrons in the pub, most of it positive, which pleased Cornwallis no end. After all the work, the hassle, the danger to those that mattered most to him, he wouldn’t have been able to bear it if everybody thought it a total waste of time and effort.

  He felt pleased, gratified and he wanted to bathe in the rosy glow of success — but Rose and his friends wouldn’t let him.

  Rose nudged him, forcing him out of his reverie — again.

  ‘Felicity just asked you a question, Jack. Aren’t you listening?’

  ‘Yes, of course I am,’ he blustered, his mind still with The Pipe. ‘I’m just mulling over my answer.’

  ‘What’s to mull over?’

  ‘Er…?’

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Felicity with a grin. ‘Cecil just glazes over sometimes when I talk to him. I think it’s a man thing.’

  ‘Well, this man and his thing better get his act together or he’ll find his thing will get very lonely pretty bloody quickly,’ said Rose, a whimsical tone to her threat.

  ‘Okay, okay, what was the question again?’ he said contritely. ‘I drifted a bit there.’

  ‘A bit? You were miles away.’

  ‘I was actually just thinking about what could have happened to everyone if it had all gone wrong.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘But it didn’t, so I think it’s time to go over it all, to get it straight in our minds.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said MacGillicudy. ‘Which was really what Felicity asked you to do.’

  Cornwallis smiled. ‘See, I did hear the question.’

  ‘Bollocks, you did,’ countered Frankie.

  ‘Yeah, Jack. Loads of bollocks,’ came the voice from beneath the table.

  Cornwallis hardly missed a beat. ‘Eddie,’ he yelled, as he aimed a kick at the ginger fur-ball. ‘Another round here, please.’

  ‘That’ll do,’ said Rose, leaning down and patting Fluffy. ‘He’s had a traumatic experience.’

  ‘Yeah, I ‘ave,’ agreed Fluffy. ‘Traumatic it was; used up one o’ me lives down there, I did.’

  ‘You’re not the only one,’ answered Cornwallis. ‘And anyway, you cause trouble and I’ll be speaking to the Bagman.’

  ‘Wot?’

  Cornwallis bent down. ‘Talking of bollocks; you like Tiddles, don’t you?’

  Fluffy looked aghast. ‘Youse wouldn’t, would youse?’ he replied, his eyes widening.

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘How do youse know I went back there?’

  ‘I didn’t, but I do now. Risky business, that; considering what you’ve got to lose.’

  ‘Bastard!’ hissed Fluffy, forming himself into a ball.

  ‘Right then,’ said Cornwallis, sitting up and slapping his hand down on top of the table, right into a puddle of beer. ‘Erm… just as soon as I dry my hand, that is,’ he said, wiping his appendage on the sleeve of Frankie’s jacket.

  Frankie turned and looked down his nose at Cornwallis in disdain.

  ‘It was your beer,’ argued Cornwallis.

  Frankie shrugged. ‘Yeah, but it was your bloody hand that hit it.’

  ‘A mere detail, Francis.’

  ‘Oi, don’t you pair start again,’ said MacGillicudy laughing.

  The barmaid came over with a tray, collected the empties and wiped the table just as Eddie came over with the refills. Fluffy uncurled from his ball and attacked the cream with relish. Cornwallis waited until everybody had a fresh drink in front of them.

  ‘I’ll start at the beginning,’ he said smiling at them all, settling himself down. ‘Brooksturner had for sometime been accruing like-minded individuals, those hard-liners who wished for the old Morris to make a re-emergence. Over time, he drew in several members of the Assembly and a good few from the guilds. They started planning, what would amount to, a coup d’état. Then we announced that we were going to provide an underground transport system.

  ‘Brooksturner hates dwarfs and anything breathing that isn’t human; as it happens, he’s not so keen on humans either. However, the thought that the dwarfs were going to build something that was good for the city got under his skin. Being minister responsible put him in a quandary, a position which, as you know, he was appointed to in order to get rid of him, the Warden hoping he would resign. He began to lobby against The Pipe, quietly, using his associates to do the dirty business.

  ‘While all that was going on, Goodhalgan had ordered ore to make the tracks and wood and other materials through his own contacts up north. The dwarfs used their own ships to transport everything down here and that got up the nose of the Ship Masters Guild. The dwarfs couldn’t smelt all the ore themselves so they used the iron foundry who were only too pleased to get the massive order.

  ‘Lots of guilds could see money slipping through their fingers: the Guild of Sign-writers, because of all the posters they weren’t putting up; the Guild of Lamplighters, because of the candles and oil used to light the trains and the stations; the Gui
ld of Labourers, because the dwarfs were doing all the work; the Guild of Coal Merchants because of the coal supplied by Goodhalgan to the foundry to heat the furnaces. There are others that Brooksturner recruited, but they are the main ones and these began to work in earnest to get the guilds on their side.

  ‘Brooksturner, in his position of Dwarf Minister, had been underground to meet Goodhalgan so he knew that a tunnel ran under the river. That got him thinking on how to ruin The Pipe and overthrow the government at the same time so he changed tack a bit and didn’t lobby quite so hard so that the Warden would allow The Pipe to go ahead.

  ‘Wentlebury provided the drilling ship and also knew of a man who hated dwarfs even more than Brooksturner: Clarence Fogg, a dangerous lunatic. Fogg could be relied upon to get into the tunnels and blow them up.’

  Tiffany asked a question. ‘What about those lads we caught using the ironworkers’ houses?’

  ‘Ah, yes. Phimp came across them when they were up to no good, chucking stones at windows, so he paid them to cause disturbances and to scrag Sigi the dwarf at the beginning, they attacked and stripped him on Phimp’s orders to supply clothes for Clarence Fogg for when he arrived in the city.’

  ‘Hang on, this is getting confusing,’ said MacGillicudy, holding up a hand.

  ‘Bear with me,’ said Cornwallis. ‘I’ll jump around a bit. These were the clothes you found on the ship when you searched it together with that false beard. Clarence Fogg disguised himself as a dwarf, and this is where it gets interesting because Fogg is a dwarf. He got banished from his community up north for being a homicidal maniac, killing several dwarfs and injuring a few others, needless to say, he was eager to add to his tally. He shaved and cut his hair and pretended to be a very short human. As a dwarf, he had a natural affinity with dwarf tunnels, so as our dwarfs were busy building The Pipe, he got in and mapped the tunnels; no one would notice an extra dwarf.’

  ‘He wanted to kill his own kind?’ asked MacGillicudy, a bit shocked by the revelation.

  ‘A bit like humans, really: don’t we like killing each other?’

  ‘You have a point.’

  ‘Now, Wentlebury nicked the keys for the ironworkers’ houses from the guild in order to implicate them should it all go wrong, and Phimp gave the keys to the lads that we caught. Is that all clear so far?’

  ‘Er, sort of,’ said Dewdrop hesitantly.

  ‘Good, now the ship needed somewhere to drill in order to flood the underground, so Clarence Fogg marked the tunnel under the river. He managed to shove a steel rod through the clay at either end of the tunnel then one of the crew went and put some flags on them during the night so that the ship could line itself up against those rods. Easy when you think about it; they could be pretty certain they could drill in the right place.

  ‘The various guilds supplied the gonepowder for Fogg to take into the tunnels and put it where it would cause the damage to block the necessary tunnels.

  ‘They planned the big day for when The Pipe opened as Brooksturner knew that the Assembly and the guilds would be invited for the event. Once they were all down in the chamber they could set off the gonepowder and block those tunnels needed to flood it all.

  ‘Clarence Fogg had drawn a map for Phimp, showing him where he had put the gonepowder and also the way to the river tunnel and to the exit on the other side once he had set it off; Fogg would blow one tunnel, Phimp, the other. However, Phimp panicked and Brooksturner had to force him to do it, hence we saw him shove Phimp down the steps. Phimp had become surplice to requirements by this time, so it was hoped that he would get killed in the flood; if not, Clarence Fogg was going to do the business anyway.’

  ‘And we stopped it all,’ said Tiffany. ‘Just us.’

  Cornwallis grinned and nodded. We did, all of us. You four when you boarded the ship and us lot down there. The Warden and the Bagman are very grateful.’

  Frankie snorted. ‘My arse, they are. How grateful?’

  ‘That remains to be seen, Frankie.’

  ‘What about Brooksturner and those others who were on the other side of the collapsed tunnel?’ asked Tiffany.

  ‘Oh, yes, I’d forgotten about that bit. The Bagman suspected, or knew, that something was going to happen, so he suggested to Goodhalgan that he, and a few others, might be more useful away from the reception and up near The Pipe where there were a few of the Bagman’s men waiting.

  ‘As soon as the blast happened, Brooksturner and the others were nabbed and then the dwarfs cleared the blockage so that we could all escape.’

  Cornwallis leant back in his chair and took a pull on his pint to wet his throat. ‘The good bit is that apart from Phimp, nobody died.’

  ‘Yet,’ added Rose. ‘You said the Bagman and the Warden indicated that there were going to be repercussions?’

  ‘I did,’ replied Cornwallis. ‘All of them are due to swing for it; the only discussion being, whether it should be a long drop, or the short one. They wanted a return to the old ways, so in some sense, they’ve got what they wanted.’

  ‘And deserved,’ observed MacGillicudy wryly.

  Epilogue

  Isabella came downstairs with Tulip in her arms. She had come to say goodnight to her daddy before bedtime.

  ‘When are you going back home,’ asked Rose of Frankie, as Isabella dodged the tables on her way over.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ he replied. ‘I think it’s about time. Can’t outstay our welcome or Eddie might get annoyed.’

  Rose smiled. ‘He won’t, but you’ll be glad to get back, I should think.’

  Frankie raised his eyebrows. ‘You mean glad to give up living over a pub? Beer on tap? Food whenever you wanted it?’

  ‘Yes, all right. Maybe not for you, but definitely for those two.’

  Frankie chuckled. ‘Yeah, I suppose you’re right.’

  ‘Here’s your daddy,’ said Isabella, planting Tulip in Frankie’s lap. ‘And here’s his pint,’ she added, swopping one for the other.

  ‘Hey!’ cried Frankie in alarm.

  ‘It’s okay, I’ll get you another,’ placated Cornwallis.

  ‘Ahem,’ said a voice from below.

  ‘Yes, and you too.’

  Frankie was in his element as he bobbed his daughter on his knee, enjoying the soft fresh baby smell, instead of the powerful acrid whiff that generally came from the other end.

  Fluffy jumped up onto the table and sat down, licking his paw and eyeing the big detective.

  ‘What?’ asked Frankie, as he noticed the cat.

  ‘Nuffink. I were jest wondering how many kittens I got out there.’

  ‘Well, just hope you’re not going to get some more in the near future.’

  Fluffy grinned. ‘Yeah, that’s a thought. Imagine, a litter of kittens jest like me, eh?’

  ‘Oh gods,’ said Cornwallis. ‘That doesn’t bear thinking of; I don’t think I could stand any more like you.’

  Fluffy grinned again and jumped back down, threading his way to the front door and waiting for a punter to let him out.

  ‘Wonder where he’s going?’ asked Cornwallis.

  ‘Can’t you guess?’ said Rose.

  ‘Saves getting the cream in,’ said Cornwallis. ‘Though I reckon he’s taking a risk.’

  ‘All’s fair in love and war,’ said Rose, wistfully. ‘Maybe he thinks she’s worth it.’

  Tulip enjoyed the attention as she was ritually passed to Rose and then to Cornwallis and then over to MacGillicudy, but now there were three others and she stuck her arms out hopefully at Dewdrop.

  Dewdrop received her with a degree of unease and trepidation which Felicity found both cute and endearing. Quickly he passed her on just as she began to gurgle.

  Once Felicity and Tiffany had had their go, she was once again back in Isabella’s arms.

  ‘I’ll pop down later, once she’s asleep. One of the girls said she’d look after her for a time, so…’

  Frankie leapt up, kissed his girl again and then gave the stupid da
d wave that every daddy gives and Tulip smiled and giggled then dribbled a nice dollop of saliva.

  ‘So, you make sure there’s a drink for me,’ Isabella finished.

  ‘Of course, sweetheart,’ replied Frankie, meekly.

  The door opened and in walked Big George, ready for his shift. Straight away, he saw Tulip and hurried over, sweeping her out of her mother’s arms and into his big hairy ones. He grinned stupidly as he always did when he had hold of this little girl.

  George acknowledged Eddie with a wave and accompanied Isabella over to the door that led upstairs.

  ‘Shame about George,’ said Rose to Cornwallis. ‘We never found him a missus George.’

  ‘Not so far, but I’m sure you haven’t given up just yet.’

  George handed Tulip back and then closed the door gently behind Isabella as she went up. He sighed and then noticed the bears from the ship that MacGillicudy had brought with him to the pub. They were playing skittles and evidently enjoying their new-found freedom. George just stood and stared, his arms hanging loosely by his sides.

  One of the bears looked up and saw George staring, and froze, mid-throw.

  George’s eyes widened and then the other bear dropped the ball in shock.

  As far as the two bears were concerned, there were no others in the pub and they staggered towards each other, scattering table, chairs, and punters, alike.

  ‘What’s happening?’ asked Rose aghast, standing up and staring.

  ‘No idea,’ replied Cornwallis, equally stunned.

  ‘It looks like George means business,’ observed Frankie. ‘He’s going for that other one.’

  Dewdrop, the girls and MacGillicudy turned in their seats to watch.

  ‘No,’ said Rose. ‘He’s not going for them, he’s going to them.’

  Big George and the other bear finally reached each other and with paws out wide embraced in what would seem as the biggest bear hug ever.