The Oversight

by Charlie Fletcher

  The plan, worked out in the warmth of the kitchen, was this: when they reached the spot, they would drop the first and most important casket, the double-walled one holding the Wildfire. It was attached by a chain which in turn was attached to a thick rope. They would let the casket hit the bottom, by which time the rope would be whipping out of its neat coils and paying out as they drifted beyond the spot. Emmet would grab the rope as his hands were immune to pain and thus not susceptible to rope burn and would slowly grip it, acting as a brake. Once the lighter was held against the tide by the unconventional anchor, they would all take hold of the line and help Emmet warp them back upstream to the spot directly above the first casket. They would know they were on top of it because The Smith had taken soundings and had made the length of the chain match the depth of the river, so when they reached the point where the chain came back out of the water on the end of the rope, they would know where they were.

  And then they would drop the other caskets.

  Emmet would sink down the chain and they would wait while he–as un-needful of air as he was un-heeding of pain–took the same chain and bundled all the caskets together with it. Then he would simply walk out of the river and hurry back to the Safe House to stand guard on Sara until they returned from mooring the boat at The Folley.

  Plans made in warm kitchens are one thing; plans executed on something as wild and wilful as a great river in the thickest fog are another thing entirely.

  The Smith and Hodge kept lookout forward, and Jed took up position next to Cook, his warmth leaning against her leg as he stood with his forepaws up on the steersman’s thwart, looking aft into the blank miasma behind them.

  Their progress was eerily silent since they had no need to make way against the river, going as fast as the tide and no quicker. They seemed to slide through a damp and dreamy half-world with little sound other than the gentle lap of water and the distant sound of church bells ringing. And as with all dreamy and unvaried experiences, there was a danger of being lulled into a kind of half-sleep. Cook shook herself and kept her eyes on the dark bird floating in mid-air just ahead of them, easing the tiller to keep the bows centred on its leisurely progress.

  Time also seemed to be a little odd in the cotton-wool seclusion of the fog, for it seemed like hours but may only have been twenty minutes or even less when the bird flared its wings and dropped to perch on the bow post.

  “Now!” said The Smith, and Emmet took the topmost lead casket and tipped it easily over the side. There was a deep gulping plop as the river slapped closed over the sudden hole it made in it, then a short sharp rattle as the chain followed it on down, followed by a softer hiss as it gave way to rope. Emmet stepped back and gripped the cable, slowly braking the boat against the urgent press of water heading towards the sea, and then The Smith and Hodge joined him as they hauled the rope back upstream.

  “This would be the moment for one of your sea shanties,” gritted Hodge.

  “One of the clean ones,” added The Smith quickly.

  “Quiet!” hissed Cook, and looked down.

  Jed’s hackles were up and he was emitting a low growl that she felt vibrating against her leg.

  “What’s up, Jed?” said Cook.

  “He smells something,” said Hodge, peering back the way Jed was now looking, his tail straight out behind him, legs quivering in excitement, a hunter on point.

  They heard a distant triple ring of a ship’s bell.

  The Raven hopped the length of the boat and stood next to Jed, head cocked on one side.

  At that moment, the slight breeze freshened and cut a momentary gap in the fog. A hundred and fifty yards back they saw the outline of the paddle-launch and the small crowd standing on the deck, and heard the chunka-chunk of the steam piston turning the cam-shaft.

  “Doesn’t mean anything,” said Hodge. “Not necessarily.”

  They heard the triple ring again.

  “We could see what…” began Hodge, and then his words were cut off by a distant gunshot cracking across the gap between the two boats, followed by a smacking noise and yelp as the bullet scored a bloody furrow along the fur on Jed’s side and hit Cook, spinning her round and toppling her into the water with a colossal splash.

  The Smith sprang to the side, his eyes searching the water for her, but it was as if the river and the fog had swallowed every trace of her.

  “Cook!” he roared into the blankness to no reply. He whirled on Emmet.

  “Emmet—” he began. But in the moment that all this had taken, the golem had secured the anchor chain to a cleat, his hands blurring with speed, and was already stepping over the side. He hit the water and he too disappeared.

  Hodge was at Jed’s side, the dog trembling with shock, but still standing as Hodge quickly examined him.

  “No bones broken,” he said with relief, hands red with his friend’s blood as he stroked his rough fur, calming him. “Good dog. Good man. You’ll be fine…”

  His eyes, when they looked up at The Smith, were like flint.

  “Right then,” he said. “Where’s that damn cutlass?”

  Coram rode pell-mell back to his father’s establishment and alerted Mountfellon to the departure of the lighter. In short order Mountfellon had made his way to the second steam launch at St Katherine’s Steps and they were on the water, heading downstream at great speed.

  “You are sure they are on the move?”

  “Oh yes, Milord,” said Coram. “And my father will have them by now, or I’m a Chinaman. He’s thought of everything, even this rotten weather and the darkness coming in. They’ll ring the ship’s bell every minute, three quick strikes so we shall find ’em in the fog, and we shall do the same as we approach.”

  “A sensible precaution,” said Mountfellon approvingly. “And will there be unpleasantness?”

  “Do you mind if there is, Milord?” said Coram.

  “Not at all,” condescended the noble lord. “In fact I should prefer it. Those people endeavoured to make me look a fool. I cannot tolerate that.”

  “No, Milord,” said Coram, and peered forward into the fog.

  In the distance he could swear he heard a gunshot, but it might as much have been someone dropping a piece of timber.

  When the steam launch drew level with The Oversight’s lighter, it appeared to have been abandoned. One of the Wipers clamped on with a boat hook, and looked to Bassetshaw for instructions.

  It was a pregnant moment: a frozen tableau isolated in the fog, unworldly in its stillness, the only thing moving being the passing river kicking and gurgling beneath the hulls of the two craft and the gang, armed and ready, clamped onto a boat which appeared to be deserted but for a tall stack of lead caskets lashed on its deck, armed and ready, yet somehow unwilling to board the other vessel.

  “They’re behind the caskets,” said Garlickhythe, shouting over the noise of the steam-engine and prodding one of the gang. “Go on then, you shy buggers, go get them out!”

  As the man stepped forward, two heavy grappling hooks sailed into the air and dropped onto the deck of the launch. Immediately, the ropes were yanked taut, the hooks scraping across the deck, one catching Bassetshaw by the heel and tripping him as it passed. They crunched into the side of the launch, splintering wood as they bit in, the ropes twanging with tension while invisible hands behind the caskets dogged them tight.

  “I told you they were behind the caskets!” shouted Garlickhythe. “Get over there and shoot the bastards.”

  “No,” said a voice behind him. “We’re here. And my parents were very happily married, thank you.”

  He spun to see a soaking Cook and a very large and equally wet Emmet step over the railing on the opposite side to the lighter. One of Cook’s arms was dripping blood, but since the bullet had missed the bone she was ignoring it for the moment. She had her boarding axe in one hand and a cutlass in the other. And then–because Cook felt there was not much point talking if you were about to start a fight with people who hav
e announced their intention of shooting your friends–the axe was spinning through the air towards a man who had had the misfortune to think faster than the others and turn his pistol towards her.

  Things happened very swiftly after that.

  Cook’s now empty hand plucked the other cutlass from her belt even before the axe found its mark, and she and Emmet fell on the murderous gang. It was a peculiarity of the golem’s make-up that he could not harm a human, but he could certainly protect Cook from any attack which meant that she could concentrate on dealing blows to left and right without worrying about parrying or defending herself, which the clay man did for her. Zebulon was the first casualty, Emmet just slapping him away so that he sprawled on the deck, twisted up in his carriage blanket, his blunderbuss skittering out of his grasp and across the deck.

  As the broad-bosomed berserker fell on them on one side, The Smith and Hodge took advantage of the confusion to come at them over the caskets with a cold fury which matched hers in both speed and intensity.

  The Wipers were used to weak and frightened victims–young women, or the elderly, or those with reactions muddled by drink–and the truth is they were predators and not fighters in the same mould as their opponents. Hodge, enraged by the wound to his dog, wielded his cutlass with a brutal severity rivalled only by that of Jed himself who joined the boarding party in a snarling ball of fury, attacking at knee level.

  The Smith hit the enemy like a battering ram, his hammer shattering weapons and bones with terrifying impartiality. The Oversight were outnumbered two to one, and surprise and speed will only get you so far, so there were some blows received as well as the many given. Hodge took several cuts across his body and one bad razor slash across his nose.

  Magor lashed out with a heavy boot which sent Jed across the deck to slam against the side-rail with a loud yelp of pain.

  Hodge looked round, grabbed the axe sticking out of Cook’s first victim and took Magor’s head off his neck in one vengeful sweep of steel.

  The Wiper standing behind Magor froze at the red mist spraying out of his leader’s still upright body, and then choked in horror as he saw Hodge come through it like a bloody whirlwind, swinging the axe in a double-handed back-swing his Viking forebears would have been proud of.

  The rattled Wiper fired his gun too early and the bullet went wide, but before he could begin to register disappointment the scything axe blade had cut him off from this and any future cares.

  Zebulon had regained the blunderbuss and smiled nastily as he swung it towards The Smith.

  The Smith had nowhere to hide, nowhere he could reach in time given the blunderbuss’s wide shot pattern.

  Hodge saw the inevitability of what was going to happen and didn’t think.

  He just threw himself into the three feet separating them, and swung his axe in the same moment. He swung underhand because there was no time to do otherwise, but it was a good thing as the blade hit the muzzle of the gun and knocked it upwards just as Zebulon pulled the trigger.

  The spread of shot blew a large hole in the smoke-stack instead of The Smith, but Hodge took the powder blast in his eyes at point-blank range.

  He staggered backwards, silently grabbing at his face, and then Jed snarled over him and into Zebulon, latching onto his throat in a terrible snarling death grip.

  Zebulon screamed and his eyes found The Smith’s as his hands futilely tried to tear the implacable terrier from his throat.

  “Please…!” he shrieked raggedly. “Mercy!”

  “Certainly,” said The Smith, and swung his hammer in a blow which made the deck bounce.

  Then he bent and ruffled Jed’s fur.

  “Let go, boy,” he said. “He’s gone.”

  As fast as it had begun, it was over: the last Wiper standing dropped his weapon, retched at the sight of what had been Zebulon’s face and tried to dive overboard, but he was too slow for The Smith who snatched his foot as it flew past and swung him so that this head crunched decisively against the lead caskets.

  The Smith dropped the foot and stood there, breathing hard but unscathed. Emmet was the most damaged and the least affected, having been shielding Cook and absorbing the cuts and blows intended for her.

  “We shall have to get you a new coat,” said Cook, breathing hard and leaning against the smoke-stack. “Thank you.”

  “Put the dead ones over the side,” said The Smith.

  “And what of the living?” said Cook.

  Hodge said nothing. He was sitting holding a bunched kerchief to his eyes, a curtain of blood seeping down his face, reddening it from the nose down.

  “Hodge…” said Cook.

  “Be fine in a moment,” he said. Jed nuzzled up to him, making low whining noises of concern.

  Emmet began tossing bodies into the river, two at a time.

  Now it was over, Cook looked grey and tired. Her left arm was leaking blood in a wide scarlet ribbon dropping off her fingertips onto the deck.

  Emmet dragged the last unmoving body to the side and tipped it into the passing tide. Cook watched it get swept away into the fog and shivered.

  “That was a bloody bit of business,” she said. “Tie this up for me, if you would be so kind…”

  Emmet beat The Smith to her side and unwound his neckerchief to use as a bandage. The Smith looked at Bassetshaw Templebane who had crawled backwards until he could go no further, jamming himself in the angle of the bows. His arm was broken and he was panting with shock. As The Smith approached him he scrabbled in his waistcoat pocket and tried to put on a pair of smoked-glass spectacles. The Smith batted them away.

  “Whar… what… are you?” Bassetshaw gibbered.

  The Smith made a fist and showed him the ring on it.

  “We are The Oversight,” he said, and pressed it to Bassetshaw’s forehead. “And you will forget what happened today, and you will forget us. And then you are free to wander the country as you will, but returning to the city is forbidden you. You will seek out someone less fortunate than yourself, and you will dedicate your life to making him or her happier. But first you will tell us who sent you…”

  “Father,” said Bassetshaw. “The fathers sent me…”

  “Cook,” said The Smith. “We will help Emmet unload the caskets. Better for us all to be on dry land soon as we can. Listen to what he has to tell you, then we shall set him adrift in this boat.”

  “It’s not a boat,” said Cook. “It’s a contraption.”

  And while she listened to what Bassetshaw said in answer to her questions, The Smith tied an impromptu bandage across Hodge’s nose, holding the wadded handkerchief in place, clucking his teeth in concern at the damage.

  “Just powder-flash,” said Hodge, looking blindly up at him. “Wasn’t shot. Eyes’ll adjust in time, I’m sure–right?”

  The Smith looked across at Cook and shook his head.

  “You just rest,” he said.

  He went back to the lighter with a grim face and helped Emmet drop the heavy lead caskets down the anchor chain. It was hard work, and he was sweating despite the chill once it was done.

  Emmet then dropped into the water and was gone for several minutes, taking the chain with him as he joined the caskets on the river bed together for safety.

  As the weight came off the lighter, it rose higher and higher in the water on one side, kept low on the other side by the steam launch it was still grappled to, so that the deck tilted alarmingly.

  Emmet resurfaced and nodded at The Smith, and then held the boats together while Cook freed her grappling hooks and tossed them back on the lighter. She looked back at Bassetshaw who was sitting blankly on the deck of the launch, the impression made by The Smith’s ring already fading on his forehead.

  “Come,” she said.

  He shuffled to his feet and staggered over on to the lighter.

  “We’ll set his arm and cut him loose on the Isle of Dogs,” she said. “If his punishment is to help another, we’d as best not send him to do it half
crippled.”

  “And what of the other boat?” said The Smith.

  “It’s not a boat,” repeated Cook, but he waved her down before she could elaborate again on her dislike of steam navigation.

  “Cut it loose and send it back the way it came,” said Hodge, allowing them to lead him back across to their own boat.

  At that moment they heard a distant triple bell. It was the same rhythm as the one they had heard from the launch, a signal Bassetshaw had warned them about. They looked at each other.

  “Best be gone,” said Cook. “Sounds like the confederates have arrived.”

  “A moment,” said The Smith. “Emmet. Stay on this boat and answer the bell. Stoke this boiler as you wait. When they see you, push this—”

  He looked closely at the pipes and gauges attached to the steam-engine.

  “No, this lever, all the way over and swim to the shore. Then home as fast as you can, for Sara Falk is alone and in peril.”

  CHAPTER 71

  REGENT’S BASIN

  In her mind Lucy had anticipated arriving in London as a difficult thing, a sudden entanglement in a thicket of streets and alleys, complicated by a threatening press of people assailing them on all sides. She was girding herself for the jarring change of plunging back into the seething belly of the great metropolitan beast after the gentler rhythms of the road and the countryside. She had enjoyed that time, and though it was scarcely past she had begun to think of it as an almost idyllic interlude in a life normally spent feeling hunted. She had resigned herself to the prospect of them making their way through the mobbed labyrinth and probably getting lost several times on their way to Wellclose Square, despite Charlie’s airy assertion that he knew the East End like the back of his hand.

  But the great tiredness which had been creeping up on her had become too much to fight on the night after the Sluagh had walked beside them on the towpath, and so she slept long and deep. She didn’t wake up as they made the change from the Grand Union Canal to the Regent’s Canal at Bull’s Bridge Junction, and so she slid into the city without noticing as the water took them from Paddington on the westernmost edge of the city all the way east. She only woke when Charlie shook her shoulder and grinned down at her.