by Kim Newman
Now, everyone looked at us. I raised the paw not pinned by the lady’s grip in an attempt at a cheery wave.
‘Don’t mind me,’ I said. ‘Play on. Though, apropos of nothing, Oberstein: when you’re introduced to people, you start to click your boot heels then remember not to. Few English parsons have that habit. If you’re to continue your, ah, theatrical career, you might try to get that seen to.’
Oberstein spat on the platform. That wasn’t like a clergyman, either.
Ilse von Hoffmannsthal took out her revolver, as she had been dying to do all evening, and pointed it at people who didn’t notice or care.
The fire down the way wasn’t dying down. The worm wasn’t moving. It had no funnel and wasn’t expelling steam. I wondered in an academic sort of way why it was so bloody fast. I had more immediate concerns, though. Blood was dribbling into my collar.
Young James was off his stride.
‘Sophy,’ he said. ‘Is that you?’
The lady pushed me away. I stumbled, but got my balance and clapped a hand to my throat. For a moment, I was worried this Sophy Kratides person had slit my throat. They say you don’t feel it if the knife is sharp enough, though who ‘they’ might be who’ve lived to pass on this intelligence, I couldn’t say. Everyone whose throat I’ve cut has only managed a minute or so of inarticulate gurgling before shutting up permanently. I let my wound go and saw only spots of blood on my fingers. She’d just administered an attention-getting scratch.
Turning, I saw Miss Kratides peel off her mask of sticking-plaster, taking off the moustache and eyebrows with it. Sophy had a handsome, if severe face, and held a knife like someone practiced in its use. She slid it between her fingers, wiping off my blood. The top three buttons of her uniform jacket were undone. A smaller knife was holstered in the front of her corset, handle nestled between prize plums. How many other blades had she concealed in out-of-the-way portions of her anatomy? It might be diverting, if dangerous, to discover the answer. Her flashing eyes and sharp edges reminded me of other exciting ladies of my acquaintance... Mattie Ball of Wessex, Malilella of the Stiletto, Lady Yuki Kashima, Mad Margaret Trelawny. Yes, I never learn. I like the dangerous ones.
‘You’re not supposed to be here,’ the Stationmaster said to her. ‘You’re supposed to be on the Kallinikos. Keeping an eye on Lampros.’
‘Miss Kratides is where I want her to be, James,’ said a voice from the other side of the platform. ‘Keeping an eye on you.’
‘James?’ sputtered Stationmaster Moriarty.
I looked at the Professor, who raised his shoulders in a ‘not me’ shrug.
‘Yes, James,’ said the voice.
Out of the fog stalked Colonel James Moriarty.
We had the full set.
VI
So this is what the Colonel meant by ‘supplies’. Secret weapons. I should have known no Moriarty would spend his life on bully and boots. I still took him for a sickly desk-rider, but he could do damage enough while sitting on his arse.
‘James,’ the Colonel said to the Stationmaster, ‘I gave you this position to perform one duty, and one duty only. To revive and disseminate the legend of the Fal Vale Worm. To keep prying eyes away from the Kallinikos...’
Just to show I paid some attention at Eton... the war train was named for Kallinikos of Heliopolis, inventor of ‘Greek fire’, as used by the Byzantine Empire against the infidel circa 672 AD. The secret of the weapon, a forerunner of arsonists’ accelerants, was supposedly lost. It seemed it had been rediscovered.
‘Not only have you failed in this, James. You have contrived to gather all the prying eyes in one party.’
‘Yes, James,’ responded Stationmaster Moriarty. ‘On my own initiative. You can round them up. Buy them off. Shoot them. Whatever you do, they won’t be spying on your trials and reporting back to their masters. Isn’t that more useful than leaving them at large?’
‘Not cricket, eh what,’ Lucas said. ‘You’ve got to have some standards!’
‘No, Mr Lucas, you do not,’ Young James responded. ‘Do you not understood your own profession? As a spy, you must have no standards at all!’
M. Sabin – Herbert de la Meux, Victor-Duc de Souspennier – tried to step back into the shadows. My new girlfriend was there behind him, two interesting little knives slipped out of her bracelets. She made symbolic slices in his jacket. He didn’t try to escape again.
We were all going to have to play audience to this family discussion.
‘James,’ the Stationmaster appealed to the Professor, ‘tell James about human nature.’
The Colonel blew his nose. ‘I see you are in this too, James,’ he said. ‘Despite express instructions.’
‘Your cover is outmoded, James,’ the Professor told the Colonel, his voice dripping with scorn. ‘Putting the spook story about to scare off the curious might have done for Dr Syn. In those days, a dab of phosphor on an old sack-mask could turn a smuggler into a marsh phantom frightening enough for ignorant folk to shiver under their bedclothes on nights when the ghosts rode. But this is a world of telephone and telegraph. Entire societies of busybodies chase ghosts with anemometers and Kodaks.
‘Reviving the worm legend is not a sensible tactic for keeping people away from military secrets. Rather, it is an invitation to every crank in the land to crawl over your proving ground. Frankly, it’s a wonder this party consists only of spies. It won’t be long before someone hires the real Thomas Carnacki to poke about with his electric pentacle and plum-bob. If a circulation-chasing newspaper puts a bounty on the worm, you’ll have to deal with Moran’s game-hunting fraternity too.’
The Colonel was on the ropes, his brothers ganged against him.
All three heads oscillated as they stared at each other, like a convocation of cobra. It was hard to look away from, but harder to look at.
The Kallinikos was on the move, coming back this way. I glimpsed the Greek invertebrate’s operators through slits in its hide. Like the Cornish worm, the war train had a head at both ends. Two engines. It could move at equal speed in either direction, so long as there were rails to run on.
Metal snail tracks were creeping all over the world. The machine was not made for my sort of war: putting down natives, chasing hill-bandits, looting dusky potentates’ treasure stores. It was built to roll over Europe, pissing fire on uhlans, cathedrals and shopkeepers. The contraption stank of bloody cleverness. The representatives of foreign powers took mental notes. Which wouldn’t do anyone’s empire any good without the plans. It’s always the plans spies are after.
The worm slid into the station.
I didn’t swallow Stationmaster Moriarty’s latest version of events, in which he’d selflessly rounded up the most dangerous spies in Britain. I judged young James had the cold, calculating self-interest of his eldest brother. No atom of patriotism stirred in his breast. He might have planned a double-cross – technically, a triple-cross – but, if not for the early arrival of Colonel Moriarty and Miss Kratides, he’d at least have tried to get paid for the secrets of the worm before turning his catch over to the mercies of the Department of Supplies.
Lucas considered the Kallinikos wistfully. I could imagine the riches the Emperor of Japan would bestow on the man who brought him such a dragon.
I just felt a kind of congealed disgust.
It was like the first time I saw a Maxim gun in action. Oh, for a minute or two, the rat-tat-tat is exciting, and it’s quite amusing to see wave upon wave of spear-chucking, astounded natives jigging like broken marionettes as red chunks of their bodies fly off in all directions. Then, a battle which would once have raged for three days – and seen seven Victoria crosses bestowed (five posthumously) on the brave, foolish lads who defended some flyblown ridge just because a Union Jack fluttered above it – is over and done with inside two minutes. As the operator fusses about his overheated precious gadget, wiping grease off his spectacles and calling for tea and biscuits, it all seems terribly empty.
&n
bsp; Anyone who can direct a hosepipe can turn the crank of a wonder-gun and murder more heathens in a single burst than a sharpshooter with clear eye, steady nerve and taste for the kill – which is to say, Basher Moran or the nearest offer – can pot in an entire campaign. I knew how handloom weavers must have felt when factory owners installed the spinning jenny. One thing about Mr Hiram Maxim’s gun, though: a sock full of blasting powder and pebbles, shoved down a fat barrel and packed tight with a swagger-stick, makes for an amusing incident the next time the clerk in charge gives the machinegun a test-fire to impress the staff officers.
Professor Moriarty, who had science instead of a soul, was interested in the Kallinikos. He quizzed Colonel Moriarty, who – I saw – was not beyond wanting to impress his older brother.
‘You have George Lampros, then?’
‘This is a Lampros–Partington design,’ the Colonel admitted.
Now, it was the Professor’s turn to lecture. ‘The formula for “Greek Fire” has been preserved since the Byzantine Empire by a family of alchemists and engineers. George Lampros is the last of them. Moran, you will recall I drew your attention to his obituary in The Times and listed the seven significant factors that suggested his death had been faked to cover a new, secret employment ...’
I did not recall. Quite often, I didn’t pay attention when the Professor was off on one of his tears. I’d probably been waiting for him to hand over the paper so I could see how much I’d lost at the races the day before.
‘Lampros is a Greek patriot,’ continued the Professor. ‘Why has he shared his secret with Britain?’
The Colonel made a pfui gesture. His face was dark red in the light of the still-burning fields. He responded, ‘As a Greek patriot, Lampros envisions a coming war between Christian Europe and the Ottoman Empire, in which our island fortress will be the last redoubt. He is politically naïve, of course. We have a contingency plan for modern crusades against the infidel Turk, but it is but one among many potential conflicts for which we must prepare. The Kallinikos is a prototype, the first launch of a land fleet which will take the rails against any threat to the interests of our Empire. One day, soon, half the world will be in flames thanks to the Lampros formula... I intend to make sure Great Britain is in the other half.’
Sadly, I had no sock of blasting powder about me.
‘You disagree, Colonel Moran?’ Colonel Moriarty said. ‘Does the Kallinikos offend your sensibilities?’
Like the Professor, the Colonel could read my face. It’s not such a trick. When I’m angry, I frown like thunder. When I’m enjoying myself, I grin like an ape. Only when I’ve got a better hand than the other fellow does the curtain come down and I present an aspect of stone. I was frowning, now.
‘It does take the sport out of it,’ I suggested mildly.
Three Moriarty brothers craned their necks to glare electrically at me.
‘Sport!’ spat the Stationmaster. ‘Have you missed the last fifty years of history?’
‘No, chummy, I’ve been in the thick of it, where the medals are won and the bodies are buried. I’ve had the fun, while you’ve been clipping platform tickets.’
‘In a generation, you’ll be obsolete,’ Colonel Moriarty told me. ‘The first time the Kallinikos sees off a cavalry charge, your type of soldier will be one with the dinosaurs. It may be less sporting, less fun, but we shall win.’
‘You may be right, Colonel,’ I told him. ‘But you’ll have the deuce of a battle first. Not with the enemy, with your own lot. You’re still in the British army and they’ll never stand for...’
‘I’m not in the British army,’ he said, with a Moriartian gleam in his eyes. ‘I am the British army. Just now, in command of a single train, I outgun all the medal-laden idiots who rode into the Valley of Death but didn’t learn from it.
‘You think the Empire’s war machine is still run by public school bullies who went into their father’s regiment and had a commission warm and waiting? I admit there are all too many of that breed. You can find them guzzling brandy in deadly dull clubs or sweltering in Turkish baths, swapping yarns about the wily Pathan and Johnny Zulu. They’re for show, Moran. For parades and guarding Buckingham Palace and skirmishing with brown bandits.
‘When we go against, say, Kaiser Wilhelm – and, make no mistake, we will – the Kallinikos, designed by scientists and operated by engineers, will carry the day. We’ll keep you on, of course. Your kind of soldier. We might call you a land captain and put you on top of the train like a figurehead. We’ll give you medals when you get your head shot off. But soldiers in overalls, not scarlet uniforms, will carry the fight.’
Colonel Moriarty looked at me and saw the sort of men who sneered at his precious Department of Supplies and would never let him sit at the top table no matter how many battles his choo-choo juggernaut won. He couldn’t even make or operate the Kallinikos – just fill in the forms to get it on the rails.
I took my revolver from my coat pocket and pointed it at the Colonel’s head. That shut him up.
‘Moran,’ cautioned the Professor, mildly.
In that moment, I couldn’t tell whether Moriarty would be grateful or furious if I killed his brother out of hand.
‘I could have you burned where you stand, before you manage to fire,’ Colonel Moriarty said.
I had noticed the nozzles of the flame-cannons swivelling to point at me.
Turning, I fired... and took off one of Oberstein’s kneecaps. He was felled and the palm-sized compression pistol – disguised as a big pocket watch – rolled from his grip. He had been creeping into a position where he could have shoved the thing in the small of the Colonel’s back and blasted his spine.
‘Can I have another medal for that, chief clerk?’ I asked. ‘I seem to have saved your life.’
Sophy Kratides’ face was burning. She’d been behind Oberstein and had not seen him reaching under his cassock.
At my shot, Lucas and Sabin had thrown themselves on the ground. Ilse von Hoffmannsthal, however, stood straight.
Oberstein swore in German.
Lucas and Sabin began to roll along the platform and – in a flash! – I perceived something not one of the brothers Moriarty had yet realised.
I can’t sniff dropped cigar ashes and tell you the inside-leg measurement of the smoker. But I’ve come through numerous battles with skin relatively intact because I don’t suffer from a maths teacher’s need to dwell on my workings-out. I just know things, without really troubling with how or why I know them. It’s a whiff in the air, sometimes; or a broken twig on the trail which is just too neatly snapped to be natural. Now, it was two men who – we had been told – acted for different masters moving in unison.
Stationmaster Moriarty thought he had summoned rival bidders, but his bogus psychic investigators were a spy ring. The card game which had tipped me off that Oberstein and Ilse were in cahoots was a double-bluff to convince me Sabin and Lucas weren’t in it with them.
Sophy Kratides whipped out throwing-knives, and might have skewered both the rolling men but for von Hoffmannsthal, who stepped in front of her and launched a kick which would have done credit to a cancan dancer – it turned out her skirts were loose trousers tailored to seem like conventional feminine attire, until the wearer made a move like this – and planted a boot-heel into the Greek woman’s sternum. I heard the thump of impact and Sophy staggered back.
Ilse then pulled a comb from her hair, which turned out to be a long, thin dagger. Sophy recovered her balance and thrust both of her knives toward the other woman’s eyes, only for the blades to be struck aside – with sparks – by a sweep of Ilse’s dagger.
Then, it was on... an expert knife-fight between fit fillies who whirled like dervishes and slashed at each other with well-matched precision and clinical malice. Their loose hair tossed as they hissed insults at each other in several languages. Both took minor cuts and sustained rents in their clothes, but avoided the other’s would-be killing thrusts.
&nbs
p; Entertaining, I admit, but a distraction. I rapped on the worm’s metal hide with my revolver.
One of the plates of the Kallinikos slid aside, making an aperture in the carapace. An engineer – our old friend Berkins, in tailored overall and a peakless cap like a convict’s – was puzzled by the sudden commotion.
‘You can’t do that yurr,’ he said.
Lucas and Sabin had rolled away from the train, and stood up. They got busy with the big wheel which worked the points. Lucas struggled with the control. Sabin – whose walking stick was a disguised shotgun – kept us from interfering.
It wasn’t them I was bothered with, anyway. Though I saw what they were up to.
The Professor spotted him first.
‘Moran,’ he shouted. ‘Up there.’
On top of the train crouched a thin, spidery figure. He wore a black body-stocking and a tight-fitting hood with slit-holes for eyes. He must have been lying on the roof of the waiting room.
It was the double-fake Carnacki. Chief of the spy ring, it appeared.
I took a shot, which went true. It spanged against my target’s chest, and he was pushed backward but not knocked down. He was armoured, just like the worm. The gaunt, lithe fellow made sure I hadn’t another shot at him, stepping off the other side of the train and dropping behind it.
‘All aboard,’ I shouted, and barged past Berkins.
‘You’re not cleared for the Kallinikos,’ complained Colonel Moriarty. ‘You could be shot for treason!’
It wouldn’t be the first time they’d tried.
The Professor held his brother back. Which showed a faith in me I’d come to expect. At least the Professor understood what I was doing. Neither of us could have said why, though. Oh, we wanted to slap down the false-face fellow who thought he could pull off a coup under our noses, but it’s not as if we felt an obligation to preserve Her Majesty’s secrets for the Department of Bloody Supplies. I’ve lived long enough with my impulse to hare off into dicey situations where death and danger lurk to know I could no more moderate this tendency than a tiger could decide to be polka-dotted for a change.