Onyx City (The Lazarus Longman Chronicles Book 3)

by P J Thorndyke

  “Welcome to our little republic beneath the heel of capitalism,” said the man in the frock coat, in a heavy accent Lazarus instantly recognized as Russian. “I am Dr. Alexander Pedachenko.”

  “How do you do, doctor?” said Lazarus. “Are you in charge of this underground society?”

  “We do not have rulers in the way that society upstairs do, but yes, I suppose that if anybody takes the responsibility of making sure all runs smoothly around here, then that man is me. I understand you both have army training.”

  “Actually only I do. But my friend here lets his size and strength speak more than any military training would.”

  “Yes, he is a magnificent specimen, isn’t he?” Pedachenko said, looking Mr. Clumps up and down with almost perverse fascination. “Phossy jaw, I’m told? Nasty... But the mask only adds to your intimidation, comrade. It’s rather spectacular, I must say. And you, comrade? Where have you served?”

  “The Soudan,” Lazarus replied.

  “Excellent. Do you have any experience in training recruits?”

  “Some. We had to train up a batch of Egyptian reserves. I was put in charge of a company.”

  “Good, good. Desert fighting is a lot like street fighting, I imagine. One must sometimes blend in with the surroundings and then strike from the shadows as a viper striking from the sand.”

  “As you say.”

  “Comrade, I want to put you in charge of training some of my own companies.”

  Lazarus stifled a smile. Pedachenko, for all his talk of a leaderless republic, had just betrayed himself by referring to the companies as ‘his’. This was no socialist.

  “We have no shortage of men, but they are in dire need of steering and discipline, not to mention experience.”

  “I’ll do my best,” said Lazarus, “but forgive me for asking, what is the aim of all of this?”

  Dr. Pedachenko blinked. “Comrade Levitski did not tell you?”

  “Oh, I understand about the overthrow of the thieving class and the rise of the proletariat and all that, but I’m just wondering how? And when? And how you, a Russian doctor of all things, came to be in charge of it? There seems to be an awful lot of Russians involved. Not to mention Jews.”

  “Russians, Englishmen, Jews, Christians, what is the difference when all are under the heel of the corrupt and greedy state? We have all suffered, and through our suffering we have become united in a single cause. Anarchism transcends race, religion, nationality and creed. We are not foreign conquerors but home-grown liberators! The concept of nationality is an outdated one and patriotism is the true cause of all wars. Our aim is to destroy all that is and start from Year Zero. To rebuild everything from the bottom up! To do this we shall return control of this city to its people! And with the fall of London comes the fall of Britain, then its empire and then the world!”

  “Well, we’re dealing with a megalomaniac,” Lazarus said to Mr. Clumps once they were in the privacy of their quarters; a pair of army cots in a secluded brick archway. “For all his talk of the proletariat and democracy, he’s set himself up as a Caesar down here—a Napoleon of the Mole Kingdom. Did you see poor Ivy in there, sewing away at her bench as if she never left that sweatshop on Goulston Street?”

  “And Ivan is in the gun shop putting together weapons for this illegal army,” Mr. Clumps said.

  “With armed guards at all the exits, those poor souls are more slaves than they ever were before in the world above.”

  “And we are just as imprisoned as they are.”

  “That’s true.”

  “So what’s the plan?”

  “Well, I need to get word of this lunatic sect to Whitehall before that madman’s plans for bloody revolution are put into place. But short of fighting our way out in a blaze of glory, I think we’re stuck here for the moment. We’re going to have to play along and appear to train this little army of his to his satisfaction. I’m not mad keen on the idea of preparing troops for the overthrow of the British Empire, but maybe we can learn some useful Intel that might help the authorities defeat them. Numbers, equipment, that sort of thing.”

  After breakfast on the following day, they were taken to a wide area in the complex that appeared to have been some sort of underground goods yard. Lines showed in the ground where the tracks had been ripped up. A regiment of troops was going through drill in their uniforms of grey and red. Several mannequins of sand-filled sacks were strung up on a petty gallows for the men to practice their bayoneting.

  The drill instructor was a broad-shouldered man with a thick moustache. By his brisk way of talking, Lazarus could tell that he had been in the military—though for what misdemeanor he had been drummed out of the army for and into the laboring world from which he had been plucked, Lazarus could not guess.

  “You’re the new drill instructor, eh?” the man said, shaking Lazarus’s hand. His eyes fell on Mr. Clumps. “I say, he’s a big ‘un! He an instructor too?”

  “Of sorts,” Lazarus said. “He’s mainly here as my assistant.”

  “Right-o. Well, as you can see, the lads are getting fairly good with the old bayonet. I’ve been teaching them how to do horses too, although we don’t really have weapons long enough for it, of course. So, tell me about your service years. Soudan wasn’t it?”

  Lazarus spent the afternoon making up lies about his heroics against the followers of the Mahdi and going through drills with his new troops. Their training may have left much to be desired, but he was surprised by the quantity and quality of their equipment. As well as the rifles and carbines churned out by the gun shop, there were pikes, demolition kits and barbed anti-cavalry obstacles known as Cheval de frise. But most alarming of all were the armored vehicles dreamed up by Pedachenko’s engineers.

  They were kept in a storeroom that lay on the other side of a culvert spanned by an iron bridge. Lazarus commented on the gushing water that rushed beneath them as they crossed it to view the war machines.

  “That’s where we get our fresh water from,” said the drill instructor. “Clean as rain. It comes into the city from the reservoirs, and is carried through culverts to the pump works and city reservoirs before being dispersed among the populace. We just get to help ourselves directly from the source. If you want an example of the proletariat taking what’s owed them by bypassing the capitalist masters, look no further than this culvert.”

  Many of the war machines were still being worked on with spanner and welding iron. Lazarus recognized the two men they had seen in Pedachenko’s office among the mechanics. The machines were the size of Brougham carriages and entirely plated in iron. Instead of wheels, they had bands of continuous track on either side, fashioned from metal segments. A narrow slit in the fore served as a window for the driver and a capsule on top seated a gunner who would control the twelve-pounder gun.

  “Great, ain’t they?” Lazarus’s guide said. “Nothing like them this side of the Atlantic. The designs are based on stuff used by the Americans, but the Doc’s designers have put their own spin on them. Fantastic articulation. The gunner can turn his turret around three-hundred-and-sixty degrees and hit just about anything. And they’re fast too, not to mention agile. They can rumble over barricades and damn-near plough through buildings. With these in our army, we’ll be invincible!”

  Lazarus thought that a bold claim, but he had to admit his worry for the British Army should they have to go up against these mechanical monsters.

  It was a little after noon. Lazarus was beginning to wonder when the lunch hour was and what sort of food might be served to officers and troops, when a message came down from headquarters that he and Mr. Clumps were to report to the Doc immediately.

  As soon as they entered his office Lazarus knew that the game was up. Sitting on a chair, her hands bound and her eyes defiant through the barest dampness of tears, was Mary Kelly. Levitski stood by, his face severe with either anger or embarrassment. A revolver was in his right hand.

  “I always knew that the governm
ent would try to penetrate our security down here,” Dr. Pedachenko began. “I knew that they would use common laborers posing as socialists, but I must admit, I didn’t imagine that they would employ whores as their go-betweens.”

  Lazarus didn’t try to deny he knew the girl. Levitski had seen her leaving their lodgings on the morning of the riots. He could only direct his anger at Mary for getting involved in all of this. “What the devil are you doing here?” he demanded of her.

  Levitski answered for her. “I found her snooping around outside our house in Winthrop Street.”

  “How did you know about that?” Lazarus asked Mary.

  “I followed you,” she said, keeping her voice slow and steady. It was clear she was frightened but she seemed angry too, angry at him. “I knew there was something rotten about you.”

  “Mary, all this, this isn’t what you think. I’m not...”

  “No, I’m afraid it is worse than you think, my dear,” interrupted Pedachenko. “This man is an agent for either the police or the government. He has deceived you and you have become yet another victim of the state’s lies. He has been using you, as they use all of us, to his advantage. I don’t know if he told you if he is an anarchist, a socialist or a revolutionary, but he is, I am afraid, a spy.”

  “I know,” Mary mumbled. “I wasn’t talking...”

  But Pedachenko cut her off. “These people have infiltrated us, Levitski, and you were the one who brought them here.”

  Levitski was visibly sweating. “Komrad, I...”

  “Don’t worry. You are too valuable as a procurer to be disposed of just yet. And everybody slips up sometimes. This is not a problem that does not have a solution. Fetch some men and take these two away. You know where.”

  Relieved, Levitski moved to the door and poked his head out, calling to someone in the corridor.

  “And what of the girl?” Lazarus asked Pedachenko.

  “She stays with me,” the doctor replied with a smile. “Her crime is not yours and so neither shall her fate be.”

  Two burly soldiers entered the office and stood either side of them. As they seized Lazarus by the elbows, Mr. Clumps lumbered forward and sent one of them tumbling across the room. The other cocked his rifle and Lazarus cried out, “No, Clumps! Now is not the time!”

  He did not doubt the big lug’s willingness to clear the room and smear the walls with the blood of Pedachenko and his cronies but there had to be a smarter way. He still had his Bulldog revolver in his breast pocket, but he didn’t want Mary to be caught in the crossfire. There would be another chance. There had to be.

  Mr. Clumps allowed the revolutionary behind him to pound him over the back of the head with the stock of his rifle. When that did not have the desired effect of felling him, the soldiers seized him by the collar and pulled him from the room. The mechanical was entirely biddable, rendered meek by Lazarus’s wishes.

  Levitski pointed his revolver at Lazarus. “Come on, class-traitor. Let’s be off.”

  They wound their way out of the office complex and down onto the tracks, which they followed for some time. In the enveloping darkness, Lazarus tried to think of some way of breaking free, but before any plan could be drawn up in the interior of his gradually panicking brain, they emerged into a storage yard, lit by shafts of daylight that seeped in from vents in the roof.

  The stench in the place was awful. Detritus was littered about, and as Lazarus inspected it he could make out bones, rags, clumps of matted hair and skulls. This was the killing fields; Pedachenko’s refuse pile for all the unwanted or troublesome members of his revolution.

  “Kneel,” Levitski said, jamming the barrel of his pistol into the small of Lazarus’s back.

  “No,” said Mr. Clumps. “Me first.”

  “As you wish, the Russian said.

  Lazarus watched, helpless as the big man knelt down on the gravel, his massive arms still raised. One of the soldiers lifted his rifle and took aim at the spot on the back of Mr. Clumps’s head where the hair showed between the steel mask and the brim of his hat.

  “I’m going to hang that mask of yours on my bedroom wall,” Levitski said with a smirk. “Once I’ve washed the blood off of course, and taken a good hard look at that rotted face of yours. I’ve been wondering what that looks like.”

  The chamber resounded with the deafening shot but the bullet ricocheted upwards, scoring a deep, bloody line in the back of Mr. Clump’s skull. He rose.

  Levitski and his soldiers gaped in disbelief. The one who had fired desperately tried to chamber another round, and the second soldier lifted his own rifle. Lazarus saw his opportunity and seized it.

  With Levitski distracted by what was unfolding, Lazarus was able to move out of the line of his gun. He quickly brought his own revolver to his palm and aimed it at the second soldier. The bullet left its barrel just as Mr. Clumps swung around, balling his fist as he turned. It struck his target in the temple as Mr. Clump’s meaty fist connected with his would-be executioner’s jaw. It was no light tap this time. The force of the blow caved the man’s teeth and jaw in and lifted him off his feet.

  His body and the body of his comrade, shot through the head by Lazarus, hit the ground almost simultaneously. Levitski gibbered with fright at this sudden turning of the tables and fumbled with his revolver, firing off two shots, both going wide. In a panic he took off back down the tunnel, leaving Lazarus and Mr. Clumps in the chamber of death that smelled no sweeter for the fresh blood that now spattered its gravel floor.

  Chapter Fifteen

  In which our heroes return to the world above

  November 29th, 1863

  The palace is swept by a feeling of fresh air such as after a humid storm or the first scent of spring after the snows have melted. The bodies and blood have been cleared and the gates are under repair. There is to be a great celebration tonight in honour of the loyalist victory and of those who died to achieve it.

  I was shown to my new quarters this afternoon and it is here that I write as dusk touches the rooftops of the city below me. I will not have time to write more this evening. I am to be honoured as well in the celebrations tonight, and my Siamese regalia is laid out on the bed ready for me to put on. The king himself granted me this estate in the city as his thanks for my help in defending his throne. It is a large place with several rooms already filled with furniture of fine craftsmanship. The house looks out over the thatched roofs of the bamboo huts below, framed by the peaks of the mountains.

  I have servants too; men and women I have not the slightest idea what to do with, especially as we do not understand each other. Further gifts from the king have made me a man rich beyond my dreams; clothes of fine silk, chests of rubies and gold and enameled charms studded with diamonds, gilded statues of Hindoo gods, gold plate and other treasures. This wealth and estate surely mean that I have been given some noble rank by the king.

  It is more than I could ever hope for in a lifetime. And yet, how can I remain here? Sarah and Michael await me in Bangkok. I cannot desert them for a life of luxury here. Besides, I do not speak the language and my noble rank will surely entail some sort of duty to my king, which I would rather avoid. I must return and yet I do not know how. I have not a hope of finding my way across Isan towards the coast without help, but who among my new friends will guide me when I am now a vassal of their king?

  If only I could bring Sarah and Michael back here, we might live out our days in a far more comfortable fashion than we could ever hope to back in England. But how to explain to my king that I wish to take a leave of absence so soon after his most generous gifts?

  So many problems and so many possible answers! I have not time to write more. I must prepare myself for his Majesty’s celebrations. All I know for now is that I must remain here for a time and try to learn the language, so that I may explain my predicament and hope to gain the king’s sympathy.

 

  “If we head down the tunnel in the opposite direction we
should find some way out,” said Mr. Clumps.

  “Undoubtedly,” Lazarus agreed. “But we’re not leaving without Mary.”

  “That is very unwise.”

  “I don’t care,” Lazarus replied irritably. Mary had got herself into this mess by her own meddling but he could not leave her in Pedachenko’s clutches.

  “She is not essential to the mission,” Mr. Clumps stated.

  “Then you head off on your own if the blasted mission is all you care about!”

  “No. My orders are to protect you. Where you go, I go.”

  “Then come on!”

  As they jogged down the tunnel back towards the complex, Lazarus knew they were heading into danger so great that it may be considered suicide. Well, damn anybody else’s opinion.

  “Are you in love with her?” Mr. Clumps asked, barely out of breath.

  “No! Why do you ask?”

  “This sort of irrational behavior indicates an infatuation with her that overrides your sense of logic.”

  “Overrides my...? Let’s get one thing straight, Clumps. I am not you. I don’t run on a furnace and cogs. I’m a human being with human feelings of empathy and compassion. I haven’t got a mechanical heart.”

  “Actually, my heart is...”

  “Oh, come on!”

  They scrambled up onto the platform and instantly found themselves under fire from the guards who were watching the exits. Lazarus flung himself against the brickwork as bullets chipped off chunks of the platform. Mr. Clumps stood stock still and let several shots tear holes through his clothes and flesh while he drew his Webley.