by Tony Pollard
38
If I had expected a dream-free sleep that night I was to be disappointed. Dropping off as soon as my head touched the pillow, I immediately found myself in that old familiar place, scrabbling around in never-ending pursuit of my fellow inmate. Everything was as before: the boilers, the burning metal and the scalding air. But there was no sense of disappointment – things were just as they always had been and would always be.
Or so it seemed. For, after I don’t know how long, there was a change, and a new part of the metal maze opened itself before me. Crawling through a narrow tunnel, itself familiar enough, I happened upon a hatchway in the wall, the existence of which I had not before been aware of. I turned the handle and pushed the little door open, the hinges carrying it away from me into whatever space lay on the other side.
Squeezing myself through the aperture, I entered into a much larger compartment and, standing, which itself was a great relief, I looked up to see a shaft, square-walled and laddered, rise up above my head. So high was the thing that it was impossible to see all the way to the top, the iron ladder simply disappearing into a gloom that settled like low cloud at an indeterminate altitude.
Finding little merit in returning to the dreadfully confined space I had lately left behind, there seemed no option but to climb the ladder. As was always the case, the metal was uncomfortably warm to the touch.
Up I went, hand over hand, foot following foot. At one point I rested and looking down saw that the floor of the shaft had shrunk to a tiny illuminated square, the open hatchway just visible where it protruded into the space. Then the ascent continued into the gloom, from where it was impossible to see the hands in front of my face, let alone the floor so far below me.
Falling from the ladder never once entered my mind, even when my arms and legs began to ache almost beyond endurance. With still no end to my climb in sight I paused once again, holding on with just one hand then the other as I tried to shake its partner back into life. It was then that a slight vibration coming up through the ladder was joined by the sound of someone climbing up behind me. I doubled my effort and continued upward.
For the first time I could recall the metal did not feel hot, or even warm to the touch. Pausing momentarily to take stock of this sensation, I once again heard the sound of feet striking against the rungs below me. Reinvigorated by the drop in temperature, which was far from uncomfortable, I carried on upwards.
Another twenty feet or so and my hand, raised to pull me on to the next rung, came in contact with an obstruction. There, just above my head, a hatchway signalled the top of the ladder. Finding the handle, I took a step down, just in case it opened downward rather than up, and pulled the latch to one side. Nothing happened. So, stepping back up a rung, I put my shoulder against the hatch and, straightening my knees, applied all the upward pressure of which I was capable. Begrudgingly, the hatch gave and began to open upwards.
Light flooded through a crack, which quickly became a gap and then a skylight as the door of the hatch fell back on its hinges. The cool breeze ruffled my hair and began to soothe the stinging sensation in my eyes. Advancing upward just one more rung was enough to put my head and shoulders out through the hatch, from where I saw the deck stretching out before me. Freeing my arms, I pulled myself out, and lay there on my back, looking up at the masts and beyond them to the clear blue sky.
On shaking legs I hobbled over to the railing and from there looked out over the sea, as blue and calm as the sky above. Tears trickled down my cheeks and I turned to see Ockham pulling himself from the hatchway. I stepped back and looked down to see the whites of his eyes shining out from a face blackened with coal dust. He took my outstretched hand and with one last effort was also free, standing beside me on the deck of Brunel’s great ship. He too was on the verge of full collapse and so I guided him to the rail, where he could find support, and there we stood, side by side, watching the gulls as they traced low arcs over the water.
Postscript
For the first time in months, I woke feeling refreshed and ready to face the day. To my everlasting relief the dream was never again to haunt my sleep, though at times I did find myself on the deck of the great ship, taking the sea air and stretching my legs on its expansive promenade.
I should perhaps regard this as a happy ending to my story, but not everything worked out the way I would have liked. It would be nice to say that my love for Florence blossomed but, alas, I knew all along that this could never be. Though I do not doubt that she loved me also, and perhaps loves me still, her devotion to her work was marriage enough for her. A year on from its opening, her nursing school is a great success and she is mother in kind to all of her students.
I did see Tarlow once more. The dog was indeed grateful for his bone and he sought me out to thank me for the tip-off about Catchpole and to tell me he’d been made a chief inspector for his part in the affair. After our brief conversation I remained none the wiser as to how much he really knew about my role in the ‘River Angels’ case, though it was undoubtedly more than the newspaper which had coined the term when the story of the bodies in the Thames finally broke. Of course he took the credit for solving that one as well, the sly dog.
My own career did not weather the storm so well. There was no question of my return to the hospital, not after all that had happened. Perhaps if I had thrown myself on Brodie’s mercy he would have accepted me, like the prodigal son, back into the fold, but the place carried with it too many associations, too many ghosts.
And so I returned to my father’s house and took over his practice, staying long enough to deliver my sister’s child, whom she named after me. But the pace of life was far too slow and I soon found myself yearning for pastures new. At first I tried to ignore these urges but in time they overwhelmed me.
To Lily’s great distress, but eventually with her blessing, I sailed for this country aboard the Great Eastern, leaving Liverpool docks and arriving in New York ten days later. There were times during the crossing when I would catch a glimpse of Ockham, taking a break from the engine room, where his role as a ship’s engineer kept him voluntarily confined for much of the time. On these rare occasions words for some reason seemed superfluous and so we would simply exchange a nod before going about our business.
Not much more than a year has passed since my arrival in the New World and my skills have ensured that making a living has not been a problem. Quickly tiring of a metropolis which perhaps reminded me too much of London, I took to travel, dispensing my services in small towns which at times made my native village seem like a city in comparison.
Then, not long after, the war that Catchpole had predicted broke out and turned the nation against itself. Soldiers dressed in grey fought those dressed in blue; neighbours called one another enemy and the storm of battle swallowed all in its path.
Although Catchpole wasn’t around to see it, having committed suicide just days before his trial, the North did impose a naval blockade on Confederate ports and, despite the stubborn efforts of blockade runners, some of them sailing out of Liverpool, the export of cotton has all but ceased. Whether Russell’s torpedo, powered by Brunel’s device, would have made any difference is a matter of speculation and perhaps best left to future historians, but what is certain is that there will be a lot more suffering before this war is over.
For a time I tried to avoid the war, but I am my father’s son and so here I am, dressed in the uniform of a Union army surgeon, operating on yet another poor victim of the dreadful slaughter which yesterday took place on the banks of the Bull Run, near a small railway junction called Manassas. The battle went badly for us and the army, along with those civilians foolish enough to think battle a spectator sport, were chased most of the way back to Washington, DC.
But this is not just anyone lying before me, with a bullet lodged in his side. His is a face I know. His fellows-in-arms tell me that Nate had been among the first to enlist in their rifle company, his thirst for adventure entirely unquen
ched by his experiences back in England.
Removal of the ball should not be too much of a problem, but whether he survives the infection, which takes away so many of these young men, and makes it to the end of the week, will be entirely in the lap of the gods. Taking a respite from my labours, I take up a week-old copy of the New York Times, which in the absence of its longer-established namesake I have taken to reading whenever I can get hold of it. Among the war news, which bears little resemblance to the terrible reality, another story has caught my eye: ‘Body of woman pulled from Hudson.’ I probably wouldn’t give it a second thought were it not for the next line: ‘Organs removed – police hunt lunatic.’
Meanwhile, thousands of miles to the east, Brunel’s great ship plies her course, straight and true, with all her engines pounding. I know – I can feel them in my heart.