by Guy Adams
He looked at Brother Clarence at this point, the most aged of them all and already suffering after having been on his knees for a minute or so.
“Yet we will prevail; have no doubt about that. Our mission is holy and our intent is pure.”
The image of the monk he had seen outside his window the night before flashed into his mind. That slick, bloody head, that accusing finger. He fought to push the thought away.
“However often we might feel the journey is beyond us, I ask you to remember that. God would not have set us on this path unless He knew we were capable of walking it. We will find our goal and we will achieve our mission. That is God’s will.”
There was a ripple of ‘amens,’ and Father Martin bid them all to stand
“Let the journey begin,” he said, the smile on his face a lie as bright and pretty as a shop sign hung outside a burned out building.
CHAPTER SEVEN
AND FOR A ROOF, A SKY FULL OF STARS
THE FORSET LAND Carriage made its way out of Omaha, much to the relief of both its passengers and the residents of said city. While some of its more forward-thinking citizens could admit that the behemoth was of engineering interest, that didn’t alter the fact that it was loud, smelly and liable to crush anything else trying to use the roads.
The rear carriage was loaded with coal and their equipment—crates that all but the Forsets treated with fearful suspicion—and the fore and central carriages contained living space for the party. Up front, growling and hissing like a rabid dog, was the engine that pulled it forward.
However much Lord Forset tried to negotiate otherwise, the engine was Billy’s domain. He had a bunk set up there and was of a mind to never leave the place.
“It’s like rolling a small town across the world,” he said. “Only a lunatic would take his eyes off that.”
Forset could see this was good sense but, as the machine’s inventor, he still insisted on a turn at the controls. Billy indulged him once they were in open country. He figured you could roll a small town around out there without killing too many innocents.
“It’s everything I hoped it would be,” admitted Forset, goggles and grin in place, both covered in soot. “A miracle of the modern age, and one that will revolutionise travel forever.”
“I don’t know about that,” Billy had to say. “It’s hungry as all hell, the coal it takes to keep us moving could fuel a whole town in the winter.”
“Mere details,” Forset insisted. “Wrinkles to be ironed out in the fullness of time.”
“And the boiler has a habit of creeping up to a lethal pressure. A lazy driver would have the whole lot blow up from underneath him if he forgot to vent it regularly.”
“I don’t build machines for lazy people! Just look at how fast we’re going!”
“It’s a fair old lick, I’ll give you that. Though I’ve had to plot our course carefully: the wheels compensate for a lot, but if we went over any major obstacles at this speed we’d be shaken to pieces.”
Forset would not be swayed from his childish enthusiasm. “I couldn’t be happier.”
“That’s nice,” said Billy with a sigh. “Why don’t you make sure the rest of our passengers feel the same?”
Forset was reluctant to leave, but he could see the engineer wanted to resume control. Maybe if he worked on the lad in stages, he’d let him drive the machine for a longer stretch.
“Very well! The controls are yours, I’ll see how our venerable monks are taking to a life of steam.”
NOT ALL OF them were taking to it well. Brother Samuel had retired to his bed, making noises about ‘infernal engines,’ and the aged Brother Clarence had begun to complain of a deathly ringing in his ears.
“It’s a warning!” he had claimed.
“It’s the water pipes,” Elisabeth had replied.
At least some of the holy men had taken to their new vehicle with enthusiasm. William had led a party to the windows, where they now hung their heads out, squinting against the plumes of steam.
Father Martin had done his best to affect a casual air, and was currently busying himself with the preparation of lunch.
Naturally, Quartershaft was not altogether at rest. It seemed to him that they were now travelling inside a giant stick of dynamite and, as much as he worked at relaxing himself, every bump and whistle had him clenching his teeth and stiffening his arms and legs. As a result he looked like a happy corpse, sat in the dining area. All did their best to avoid him.
Forset made another tour of the carriages, taking in the large communal area in the first carriage, a dining room and lounge with a small kitchen tacked to the front. He examined the provisions therein and helped himself to a mouthful of Father Martin’s soup, under the pretence of checking if it needed more salt.
The second carriage was entirely laid out as sleeping compartments, with a washroom at either end. There were eight compartments in all, the gentlemen sharing two to a berth, with Elisabeth afforded room of her own. Perhaps not quite to the standard of the finer trains he had travelled on in his time, but certainly more comfortable than they would have been as part of a horse caravan.
“I think,” he said to his daughter, who was going over the maps of their journey in her compartment, “that we are having a splendid adventure!”
“For now,” she replied with a smile. “You wait until we’ve been stuck on this thing for a few days.”
“I couldn’t be more comfortable. Side by side with you, travelling through new lands in a miracle of engineering. This is the sort of life a man needs! To hell with England and its social dinners, pompous old soldiers and dusty maids who sew and gossip.”
That, at least, Elisabeth could agree on. While Quartershaft was hardly ideal company, she missed the local gentry around their estate not one jot. Elisabeth Forset was not the sort of woman who came alive at tea parties.
“It seems to me,” she said, “that if Quartershaft’s information is right, we should be at Wormwood within a couple of days. Depending, of course, on what sort of speed we can maintain.”
“Billy tells me that we’ll have to slow down when we hit more uneven territory. He’s quite right, of course; as much as I love the great beast, she’ll fly off into a thousand pieces if she hits a rock at this speed.”
“Assuming we can maintain an average of, say, thirty miles per hour and travel for at least twelve hours per day, we can make it in three days.”
“Which gives us a four days’ grace, according to both Quartershaft and Father Martin.”
“Then we have a journey ahead that can be described as leisurely.”
“Well, that rather depends on what we meet on the way. The monks claim that we’re likely to brush up against trouble.”
“No surprise there.”
“The closer we get to Wormwood, the more the local environment is affected.”
“Affected?”
“Yes, well, he was rather vague about the details. I’ve heard stories of strange animal attacks, visions in the night sky... you know... omens and portents, all the usual sort of ballyhoo.”
“How I shall look forward to that, father.”
“Oh, I’m sure it’ll be alright. After all, in a whopping great thing like this it’ll take one hell of an animal to make a dent, what?”
AS THE FIRST night fell on the passengers of the Land Carriage, Billy slowly let the speed slacken off until they came to a gradual stop in a gathering cloud of dust. Lord Forset and Elisabeth had joined him in the engine’s cabin, the former rather hoping he might have been allowed to help.
Billy, far too concerned with anything going wrong, had insisted the peer kept his hands to himself.
“God help us if we ever have to stop quickly,” Billy said once they were completely still. He stepped down onto solid ground, resisting the urge to drop to his hands and knees and kiss it. “We’d be likely to concertina like an accordion. You just don’t move this weight of wood and iron through the world without complication
s.”
“All the more reason not to travel at night,” Forset agreed. “At least during the day we can keep a steady eye on the road ahead.”
“I’ve vented the boiler into the water system,” said Billy, “so we can all have a hot bath tonight.”
He found himself looking at Elisabeth and suddenly got himself flustered. “Not together, obviously,” he added, only making his awkwardness more profound.
“Of course not,” said Elisabeth with a smile. “You’d only make the water all sooty.”
Billy had no idea what to say to that, torn between an urge to laugh, cry or just scream in panic. Forset took pity on him.
“What say you come back with us and see if you can’t find some well-earned rest? Dinner will be ready shortly.”
“Then if you don’t mind,” Billy replied, “I’m going to head straight to the washroom. The last thing I want to do is stain your dinner table looking like this.” He smiled, white teeth shining bright from a dirty moon of a face.
BILLY WAS NOT a man used to refinement. He lived in oil, steam and smoke, not bleached cuffs and collars.
This had been of some concern for his boss in New York. Caspar Diogenes felt an English peer needed to be surrounded by people that glittered like diamonds.
“You mind your language,” he had insisted, nervously chewing on the tip of a cigar, “and take a decent suit. Do you even own a decent suit?”
“One that I wore to my father’s funeral,” Billy had replied, irritated. “If it’s good enough for my dead dad, it’s good enough for anyone.”
Even Diogenes, as insensitive as he was, knew better than to argue with that.
“Of course,” he said, “we should really be sending someone along from the executive level.”
“I don’t imagine you’ll find anyone willing to make the journey, sir. Unless you fancy taking the trip yourself?”
Diogenes shifted awkwardly in his chair, as if the very thought of those miles on the road were enough to make him ache.
“I’ve never been a great traveller,” he admitted, “and you have to play to your strengths in business.”
“Absolutely, sir. So you’ll just have to trust me to do the job well, won’t you?”
And they had, given little in the way of choice.
For Billy, travel was no great hardship. Admittedly this expedition carried extra complications, but he was a man without ties, and that meant the road held few problems he couldn’t handle.
He ran a little of the hot water he had boasted of and scrubbed hard at his skin, trying to remove the day’s grime. After a few minutes, he was pink and sore, but presentable.
Having no carriage of his own, he struggled to change his clothes in the compact washroom, banging his elbows against the walls as he fought his way into a clean shirt and jacket. As far as he could tell, tilting the small shaving mirror fixed to the basin, he looked good enough for polite company.
Dumping his dirty work clothes on his bunk in the engine, he returned to the dining car.
The monks were all gathered around the table. He was relieved that they seemed much more out of place, presented behind white linen and silver cutlery, than he did.
“Good evening,” he said, loitering to one side, unsure as to where he should sit.
“Good evening,” Father Martin replied, appearing from out of the kitchen, a towel draped across one shoulder. “I hope my meagre cooking will be enough reward for a hard day working the boiler.”
“I don’t take much pleasing, as far as food’s concerned,” Billy assured him. “It’s all just coal for the fire.”
“Indeed,” the holy man agreed with a smile.
The door opened and Quartershaft entered, walking as if the carriage was still in motion, frequently taking a hold of fixtures in order to guide him to the table.
“Brothers,” he announced, taking them all in with a sweep of his arm and dropping into one of the seats. He looked at Billy and gestured towards the seat next to him. “Stop cluttering up the place and sit down,” he said. “You can tell me all about this thing we’re riding in and how incredibly safe it is.”
“I’ll do my best,” Billy replied, sitting down and wondering whether he should put the napkin on his lap or not. Quartershaft was using his to wipe at his sweating brow, so he supposed it didn’t really matter.
“Though,” Billy continued, “the whole point of this trip is to see how safe the Land Carriage is, so maybe you’ll have to ask me again when we’re done.”
“I thought the trip was to find Wormwood,” said one of the monks, looking towards the fellow sat next to him in confusion. “Wasn’t that rather the point?”
“The trip has a number of uses,” said Father Martin, “though our destination is certainly the primary goal.”
“Can’t say I know anything about that,” Billy admitted. “I was just given the map and told to keep shovelling coal. So what’s so important about Wormwood?”
Quartershaft laughed and began the hunt for a bottle of wine.
The monks looked to one another, unsure as to who should do the explaining. Luckily for them, Lord Forset and his daughter entered and the subject of conversation shifted to how lovely the young woman looked. Billy had to agree, though he did his best to push the thoughts from his head. He was fairly sure that lusting after the client’s daughter was not something Caspar Diogenes would approve of.
“Now we’re all here,” said Father Martin, “I shall serve!”
The first course was the soup Forset had tested earlier, and all present declared it to be good. Billy watched the monks sip their noisy way through it with some amusement. They seemed to move as one, synchronised after years of shared dinners.
“I’m never quite sure if soup is a food or a drink,” announced Quartershaft. Silence met the observation, so he bowed his head and continued eating.
Billy decided that if he didn’t try and start a conversation, nobody would.
“So,” he said, finishing his soup with an appreciative sigh, “what’s the deal with Wormwood, then? Nice place is it?”
Of course, Lord Forset was only too happy to tell him the story, at great length. He told him the historical accounts, the rumours and the supposed eyewitness reports. He barely paused for breath as Father Martin brought the next course, a rather insipid stew that, in Quartershaft’s opinion, was merely another soup with bigger lumps in it. Finally, the peer sat back and looked at the young man with open amusement.
“I dare say it all sounds rather far-fetched?”
Billy wasn’t quite sure of the politic way to reply, but couldn’t quite manage a lie.
“It does at that,” he admitted. “Does the company know that’s what you’re hunting for?”
“I saw no need to tell them. As far as they’re concerned, I’m simply on an expedition to explore the wilder parts of your country.”
Probably just as well, thought Billy. He had little doubt that Caspar Diogenes would have treated the whole enterprise with scorn.
“From your point of view,” the peer continued, “might I suggest that it scarcely matters. My daughter doesn’t believe a word of it either...”
At this Elisabeth made to speak, but her father held her hand and smiled. “Don’t worry, my dear, I’m only too aware that you consider it little more than a fairy tale. But the point is: does it matter? Either it exists, as I believe it does, and you are about to see the most miraculous place on Earth. Or it doesn’t, and we genuinely are on nothing more than an exploratory trip to see new sights and test the limits of the Forset Land Carriage.”
“If I may,” interrupted Father Martin, “there is a slight difference. Our friend here is about to be plunged into potentially life-threatening situations; we all know that Wormwood fights back. I’m not sure that he should have been brought here under false pretences.”
“Wormwood ‘fights back’?” Billy repeated.
“It is said that the town has an effect on its environment,” For
set explained. “Which is natural enough, one would hardly expect such a miracle to intrude on our reality without there being consequences. If Wormwood is real, then the sight of it will not be the only thing to stretch your preconceived view of natural law.”
Only too aware that he was inviting the peer to offer yet another long winded speech, Billy asked for examples.
Forset gave them: animal attacks, supernatural creatures, the dead revived... it was a list of fantasies that Billy couldn’t begin to take seriously. The fact that the rest of the party did, however, unnerved him a great deal. Was he in the company of a band of lunatics? The Englishman seemed sane enough; eccentric, sure, but not a man prone to delusions. He looked to Elisabeth, who met his gaze with a sympathetic smile.
“And how do you know where this place is going to be?” he asked.
“That is where our colleague Mr Quartershaft comes in,” Forset explained. “He discovered a set of papers on one of his recent expeditions. Calculations, in fact, purporting to predict the precise date and time of the town’s next appearance, as well as map co-ordinates of the spot in which it will appear.”
“And we can rely on that information, can we?”
Quartershaft blustered a little at that. “I can assure you the papers are quite genuine, sir. They were found in a hut in Delhi. The work of a man renowned within his village as being a man of great learning and wisdom. Naturally it was only when I presented the papers to my publisher—”
“A friend of mine,” Forset chipped in.
“Indeed,” said Quartershaft, momentarily derailed, “as you say, a friend and... well, he put two and two together and proposed this trip.”
“I had already made plans along these lines,” Forset admitted, “but without the sponsorship of Fireside Quarterly, the Order of Ruth and, naturally, the fine chaps of the National Motor Company, I would have lacked the wherewithal to carry them through. Of course, the fact that Mr Quartershaft was able to provide such precise data made the whole trip a much more viable concern.”