Mechanicals

by Jordan Stratford

  Eleanor rose at this automatically, giving the slightest of curtsies; a brief bob, as she recovered her wits. She took a single step.

  "There was another question," she stated.

  "Mmm?" Avery barely replied.

  "You said that there was a mandatory question, which I believe I answered correctly, as you said. But you said there was another question, and I could answer, or not."

  "So there is. So there is indeed."

  Eleanor regained some of customary temperament. "Well, out with it then. Although it best not be about having your way with me or I'll have the constabulary right 'round, and you for an abbott."

  He sighed. "I had so hoped we'd be past all that. Now. Remember when I said that someone had taught me? Taught me how, with little effort and no exertion of superior strength, I was able to immobilize you and, theoretically, neutralize any harm you may have, again, theoretically, intended towards me?"

  "Of course."

  Avery smiled at the girl.

  "Would you like to learn?"

  FOUR

  The Auburn and Rochester Railroad had, the year before, connected with the Syracuse and Utica, and the whole thing had been renamed the Rochester and Syracuse Railroad. Billings had wondered how long this sort of thing could go on, at this rate of acceleration. The A to B railroad merges with the B to C railroad, creating the A to C railroad. Factoring in the D to E and the E to F, the A to F railroad could not be far behind, making the whole thing seem some vast conspiracy on behalf of an enterprising railway signage company.

  Naming conventions aside, Billings was unaccustomed to traveling in such luxury. He had never before sat on a couch with velvet of this pile. While he had walked briefly through hotel lobbies as pleasurably indulgent as the railway car he currently occupied, he had always been denied access to the hotel proper, and directed, however indirectly, to leave before being escorted.

  Colt had barged in like he lived here, rummaging through the humidor on the desk for the first of a series of cigars, lighting it before the train began rolling. Upon admitting that he was in possession of both pencil and paper, Billings scrambled to keep up with the torrent of notes, figures, and impending dates that poured from Colt like ammunition from one of his revolving field guns.

  "Powder order is going to have to go up, way up, but I'll be damned if I pay a nickel more. Bastards are charging me by the grain! Oh, cherry stock. Damned man, what's his name, keeps going on about cherry stock. Check to see how we're set for walnut. You can send a telegraph to Hartford when we get to Syracuse. And gardenias."

  "Gardenias, Mr. Colt?" Billings inquired.

  "Never mind, man, just remind me about the gardenias. Write it down, it's all I'm asking you to do. I presume you know how to spell it."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Wadding. Can't keep up with the damn wadding, and shipping it to the London factory is getting prohibitive. See what they grow in England we can use for wadding."

  "Sheep, at a guess."

  "Sheep? How the hell's a man gonna cram a sheep in a shell?"

  "I was thinking of the wool. Actually."

  "Ever set fire to wool, Billings?"

  "No, sir. Well, just the once. A blanket."

  "Don't prattle on, boy! I just need your notes, not your goddamn life story. Is that how it's going to be? With you as my secretary telling me about blankets?"

  "Not unless you want it to, Mr. Colt."

  "Well, you can infer that I do not. Now where the hell were we?"

  "Wadding."

  Colt closed and rubbed his eyes. Without opening them, and after a moment's silence, he asked "Anywhere we can get a drink?"

  Billings noted the cabinet perhaps four inches from Colt's cigar hand.

  "Fairly sure you could set fire to the whiskey from where you're sitting, sir."

  Colt's eyes shot open, looked around, and laughed.

  "That, Billings, is a practical observation. You stay put, I'll pour. You're in my employ as secretary, not nursemaid."

  "Damned pleased to hear it, Mr. Colt."

  Colt leaned forward and handed a cut-crystal glass to Billings. His first reflex was to knock it back, but the whiskey's deep and woodsy aroma made him want to just suck on the air atop the glass. He'd never experienced anything like it.

  "Easy there. There's whiskey for sawin' a man's arm off, and there's this stuff. To the war." He took a good belt.

  Billings went to drink, and hesitated. "War?"

  "It's coming, son. Best get ready."

  "Who exactly would we be going to war with, Mr. Colt?"

  "England! Imagined that should be obvious. They had, we have. They were, we are. And we both want. If that ain't a recipe for war, then the good Lord didn't make one."

  "You have a factory in England, Mr. Colt."

  "Because the English are buying, Mr. Billings. War should instigate business, not impede it."

  "England's at war with Russia, or should be in a month or two, so the papers tell me."

  "And England's marching to that war with Colt Repeating Rifles. Which the Russians don't have yet."

  "That's a mighty 'yet', sir."

  "And one I intend to address, soon as we get to Syracuse. How far out are we?"

  "Guessing an hour, sir, if we're on time."

  Colt nodded, and put his hands over his eyes again.

  The train’s rattle was soporific, as was the opulent comfort of the car and the heady aroma of the scotch. But Billings’ reporter-brain was nagging at him.

  "Mr. Colt, sir?"

  "Mr. Billings?"

  "I don't have a map in front of me, but it seems to me you've got a bit of a geography problem."

  "How's that, son?"

  "You put a boat load of Colt Repeating Rifles in the Atlantic, and give it a shove towards Russia, you're going to have some English attention. French too, if I recall rightly. And they may not take too kindly to your arming both sides."

  Colt chuckled. "Well, you'd be right about that. They would not take it kindly indeed, Mr. Billings. Hence, from Syracuse, you're apt to discover that I have altogether different intentions from shoving, as you put it, a boat load of firearms in the Atlantic. But for now, I'm planning to sit here in some silence, and that's going to require you to do likewise."

  Colt took a long drag from his cigar, and Billings managed to force half a smile before returning to the glass in his hand.

  FIVE

  While it seemed eccentric to some for a gentleman to shave himself, Blake found the mundanity of shaving to be extremely clarifying. One had to be fully mindful, fully present when preparing a shaving brush, whisking the shaving soap into the proper lather; not too many bubbles, nor too thick. He liked the sound of a stropped razor, the cleanliness of it, the suddenness of the sound in the early morning. And of course, the demands of a razor and the way it commands one's undivided attention, at one's peril. It was the same abandonment of distraction he found in fencing, in jumping his horses. All else could drift away in idleness. But when a man is shaving, he knows precisely where he is and what he is doing. So little of modernity seemed to be like that. He wondered, briefly, how many Englishmen slit their throats every year out of sheer inattentiveness.

  Corporal Landau, his new batsman, knocked and entered, bearing a steaming bowl of water and placing it on the basin stand. "Sir," was all he said.

  "Thank you, Corporal. Any sign of coffee?"

  "Kettle's on again, sir. One of the officers knicked the first round for tea."

  "Post watch with a gun next time, will you?"

  "Very good, sir."

  The corporal shepherded Blake into uniform; the cherry breeches and cropped blue jacket with gold braid. With extensive buttoning, some buckling and a quick brushing, Blake was transformed into a Captain of the Eleventh.

  “Quite fine, sir, if I may,” Landau offered. “Welcome to the Cherry-pickers, sir.”

  “Bertie’s own, eh, Landau?” Blake smiled. He recalled that the Eleventh, Pr
ince Albert’s Own, acquired the nickname “cherry-pickers” from a raid on a Spanish orchard in the Peninsular War, some forty-odd years ago. They were dragoons, then. Heavy cavalry, riding to the battlefield but fighting on foot with muskets of questionable reliability. That was before this European-wide madness for the Hussars and all the Hungarian trappings; plaited hair, Austrian braid and all. Hussars fought on horseback, the horse itself a weapon, but arching sabres finished what sheer momentum and striking hooves would begin.

  And now, of course, mechanicals. Equine grace and loyalty replaced by tons of clanking, billowing industrial brute-force. The horses were still for show, though, and inspection this morning was before the Colonel, Lord Cardigan, notorious for his irascibility. It would be a display from a vanishing age.

  “How did you sleep, sir?” asked Landau, as Blake checked himself in the glass.

  “Periodically. Damnably excited at reporting for duty, finally. Hoping to get on my horse today and shake that blasted train from my arse.”

  “Understood, sir, I’ll have her ready for inspection. She’s a real beauty.”

  “Glad you think so, and good of you to say it. She’ll need a keen a hand in grooming as she will in riding.”

  “Been grooming horses all my life, sir. Ever since I could reach ‘em.”

  Blake clapped a hand on Landau’s shoulder. “Good lad. Now find me some breakfast, I’ll not take it in the mess just yet. Let me meet the men on horseback. First impressions and all that.”

  “Understood, sir. Very good, sir.” Landau nodded, and was off to fetch sausages, eggs, and coffee.

  ---

  An hour later, Blake stole a sideways glance at his fellow officers abreast, identically attired in full dress, mounted to expensive and disciplined animals. No one trained an officer. As Englishmen, as gentlemen, it was assumed that one would merely know how to conduct oneself when the time arose, and this inspection proved the assumption. They were mostly lieutenants, mostly blondes for some reason known only to fate, and three dark captains; Nolan, Reynolds, and Blake.

  The rectangular field, boxed in by a tall verge on all sides, was green and lush; a small creek running through, and an apple tree with the first gold of an early February spring. Snowdrops and crocuses, too, in the bright chill. All was orderly, peaceful, green and good and proper–the very essence of England.

  The verge-box was notched on two sides, cut through by rails which ran diagonally. From the northern path rode Cardigan, expressionless, flanked by two aides. Marching behind was Kendrick, the staff sergeant from the train. None of the men assembled dare move, except to tighten their thighs to keep their horses motionless.

  Kendrick wailed two, distinct yet unintelligible syllables, at the second of which each man drew their sabres in flawless unison, bisecting their vision with the gleaming blades plumb-straight an inch from their faces.

  Cardigan peered at each rider, drawing his mount close, and exhibited one of two reactions; either the men were invisible to him and he proceeded to the next, or his moustache would twitch with dissatisfaction, and he’d quietly mention something over his shoulder to an aide before moving on. For the captains, each of them, he rewarded them with a curt grunt. Smartly, he spurred his horse and wheeled, exiting the grounds through the second rail-defined notch, aides in tow.

  Blake felt ill at ease. He was not nervous; certainly he had met those of Cardigan’s station and better, and been utterly unfazed. It was not in the man’s authority over him, as Blake had suffered an infinity of fools at school placed in fleeting dictatorships for sports, or houses, or for the savage amusement of schoolmasters. This was different. It was as though there were something utterly wrong with Cardigan, something so obviously distorted that it didn’t bear explanation. Corruption. Not of power but of the soul. Blake had never witnessed what he thought now must be the presence of an entirely corrupted soul. The thought of it ate at his gut.

  Kendrick, now center-stage in front of the row of mounted officers, saluted sharply.

  “Sirs! The Colonel has ordered that you dismount, and follow me to the mechanicals yard!”

  At that, the batsmen of the officers ran out, seemingly from nowhere, to take reins and help their officers off their horses. Blake acknowledged Landau with a nod. There seemed a general milling about for a moment or two as the men congratulated themselves for being looked at, and some joked noisily. This was brought to an abrupt end by the staff sergeant.

  “Sirs!” He saluted, about-faced, and marched along the rail lines to the slit, less than a dozen feet wide, between the verge. The officers followed in a gaggle, while the enlisted men took the horses to the stables.

  The rails led to a different world. Where the equestrian field was emerald and lush, the mechanical yard, a former gravel-quarry, was grey and devoid of growing things. Rather than the neat row of horses, the iron giants stood askew, or leaned against rusting chains from the cranes which ran along the tracks. The smell of metal, of grease and soot and spent powder caught in the back of Blake’s throat, as if he’d swallowed a hot penny.

  There were some thirty of the mechanicals here mustered. As Blake strode around the yard, he noticed that they were named, in a neat painted hand on the armour of the pilot house, upon the abdomen of each mechanical man. Dauntless. Valiant. Fearless. Indomitable. Audacious. Intrepid. Gallant. Victorious. Majestic. Impervious. Blake feared Her Majesty’s army was in grave danger of running out of adjectives, and found the matter somewhat inauspicious–until he turned to discover the Auspicious immediately behind him.

  Around the yard were a dozen or so French zouaves at ease, in baggy red trousers and floppy, tasseled caps. Most squatted in the rubble, smoking; some appeared to be napping in the narrow spaces between the cranes. Blake was a little annoyed at their cavalier disposition in the presence of such imposing machinery.

  Each mechanical was in a different state of either construction or repair, Blake couldn’t discern which. Most were unarmed, but some had canon or cylinder guns affixed, though he had no way of knowing if they were charged. A cadre of men, mostly sergeants, marched into the yard, eyes left to the officers in salute, and halting to report to Kendrick.

  “Sirs!” called the staff sergeant. “Each officer will be assigned a fireman. The fireman will see to the boilers, and to the munitions. They will provide you with the power to pilot your mechanical, and with the means to operate your weaponry against Her Majesty’s enemies.”

  A sort of disorganized cheer wandered amiably from the officers. Kendrick continued.

  “In the event of a fire, or a boiler explosion, the fireman has the authority to order – yes, order – an evacuation of the mechanical. This is a standing order from the Colonel, to be delivered to the officer at the fireman’s discretion, and it is expected to be obeyed immediately as such order comes directly from Lord Cardigan himself, for the preservation of life and the salvage of the engine.”

  The officers were horrified. Certainly no sergeant dared order an officer, even if the blasted thing were on fire.

  “From Lord Cardigan himself, as he has asked me to repeat.” It was obvious that Kendrick had heard such misgivings before, and didn’t give them a tinker’s damn.

  One of the firemen blew a whistle, and at this the zouaves leapt to their feet and scrambled to the mechanicals. Beneath each was a sizable pile of coal, and a scuttled. The Frenchmen would scoop a shovelful, and alight one-handed a short ladder suspended from the tank on the engine’s back. The baggy-trousered stokers would thrust in their coal in a small inlet, hop down like monkeys, and begin the tedious process of stoking again.

  Crane engines rattled to life, and chains groaned and clattered in protest as the iron men were brought fully upright. The firemen’s tight phalanx was scattered, as individually they strode to attend to their machines. Kendrick again brought himself ramrod straight, saluted, and continued.

  “Sirs! If you’ll follow me to the control box.”

  Midway in the ya
rd was a wooden crate, into which had been bolted a number of iron gears and controls, the most prominent was a wooden handle and what appeared to be a cart’s handbrake.

  “Now. This is simple enough. The gear of the mechanical is engaged by default. It wants to walk forward, and will do so forever until it loses steam. This,” he pulled the handbrake, “is the clutch, and releases the gear from the engine. Forward,” he released the handle, “and stop,” engaging it.

  “Beneath the carriage is a spinning-gear. This keeps the giant’s balance. You can adjust that by sliding these knobs, here, left and right. To wheel left, advance the left knob. To wheel right, advance the right knob. Questions?”

  “Sergeant?” popped up one tow-headed lieutenant. “What if it’s not marching, and you withdraw the knobs?”

  “It’ll fall on it’s arse, sir, and crush you to death in the process. It can’t negotiate if it’s not moving, if you follow me, sir.”

  “Ah. Quite right, Sergeant. Continue.”

  “But sergeant,” piped another, “what if you slide both knobs forward?”

  “She’ll topple forward, killing you and immolatin’ your remains on the spot, sir.”

  The officer parroted the first. “Ah. Quite right, Sergeant. Continue.”

  “Very good sir. That’s it. Forward. Stop. Left. Right. But only while forward. Your fireman will show you to your weapons, but we’ll have no discharges until we can get marching in line.” He was shouting now, as the mechanicals’ engines gathered steam, competing with the racket from the cranes.

  “But sergeant,” offered another pup, “how are we supposed to hear orders over this dreadful hubbub? No trumpet is loud enough to get through this!”

  “Flags, sir. You’ll be briefed and tested on the use of signal flags, same as the navy, sir.”

  Again, the officers grumbled. First being tasked by enlisted men, and now taking cues from the navy! An insult to every officer in the army. I’ll be buggered for a cabin-boy next, thought Blake.

  The officers lined up to work the stiff controls under Kendrick’s tutelage. Blake found the thing easier than rowing a boat – as long as the beast was in gear, the gyroscope was going to lean it left or right, step by step. He was eager to clamber into the pilot-house of one the things to give it a proper go.