Bastard Anglos.
Swiftly Poisson recalculated, doubling, then trebling the number of men and machinery he would deploy, but still he couldn’t come anywhere near the two-week deadline. As he felt the sweat of panic begin to pool in his armpits, he racked his mind desperately trying to magic up a solution.
‘There is one way, Monsieur Kruchkov, but it is brutal … barbaric …’
‘Yes?’ prompted Kruchkov.
‘We could use explosives: blasting gelatine. The Tower could be dismantled in a moment but we would need two weeks to collect and remove the steel debris.’
‘Ah.’
‘Mais oui, ah. We could destroy these supports’ – he pointed to the nearest of the four base columns holding up the Tower – ‘and by doing so topple the structure along the Champ de Mars. It will create, as the Anglos might say, the biggest fucking mess, but it will be of the effectiveness most remarkable.’
‘And Mitraille de Medi has the expertise to undertake such a demolition?’
‘Mais oui.’
‘Then, on that basis, your company would seem to be worthy of inclusion in the tender.’
‘Tender?’
‘Of course, Monsieur Poisson. This contract will be awarded by tender.’
‘And who will be responsible for deciding the winner of the tender?’
‘Why, me, as it happens.’
Claude Poisson felt a weight lift from his shoulders. He was an expert in bribing civil servants.
46th Day of Spring
Captain Peregrine Jenkins was more than a little suspicious of this rather elegant Russian, Kruchkov.
He had been called into the major’s office to be introduced to the man, who, it seemed, was intent on selling the major a device which he claimed would turn the Puff Past to be performed by Jenkins’s steamers in celebration of the signing of the Declaration of Unification into an ‘unforgettable triumph’. The device in question was unprepossessing. It looked like a ball of soap six inches in diameter, and was, as far as Jenkins could see from the examples laid out on the major’s desk, available in three colours: red, blue and green.
‘These coloration tablets,’ the major explained, ‘if placed into the boilers of our steamers, dissolve at two hundred and twelve degrees Fahrenheit and colour the steam when it emerges from the funnel either red, blue or green.’
The penny dropped. It had been announced in The Stormer that to signify the Unification of the ForthRight and the Medi a new flag had been commissioned which superimposed a ForthRight Valknut symbol on top of the Medi’s tricolore. And as the tricolore was coloured red, blue and green, it was comfortably within even Captain Jenkins’s limited intellectual compass to see the patriotic possibilities of Kruchkov’s coloration tablets.
But whilst Jenkins might have been condemned to go through life in a haze of stupidity, this did not prevent him being naturally suspicious, especially where the well-being of his beloved steamers was concerned. ‘Isn’t it against ordinance thirteen of Standing Instructions Regarding the Operation and Maintenance of Armoured Steamers to place any foreign body or substance within the boiler of said steamers which might be injurious to the efficient operation of aforesaid steamers, sir?’
Major Tomlinson gazed at Jenkins as he might gaze at a backward child. It was a look Jenkins was familiar with, his father having used it all the time. ‘You will be pleased to know, Jenkins, that Mister Kruchkov’s coloration tablets have been fully tested and certified by the ForthRight Ministry of War.’ He pushed a heavily stamped and sealed certificate across the desk towards his subordinate.
‘But Captain Jenkins is correct in wishing to confirm that the coloration tablets will not impair the effectiveness of his steamers,’ noted Kruchkov. ‘Perhaps I might suggest that tomorrow my forewoman attends the captain, and he is able to test my device for himself?’
47th Day of Spring
Rivets didn’t like working. He didn’t like having to get up at seven in the morning, in order to be at the Ministry of Works’ mailroom by eight. He didn’t like having to put on the suit Miss Norma had bought for him (what a stroppy cow she had turned out to be). He didn’t like having to wash (or being washed – Miss Norma had nearly taken his fucking skin off with that scrubbing brush). He didn’t like his chef, the officious boss of the mailroom, Monsieur Anton Henry, who had the unnerving habit of turning up just as Rivets was doing something he shouldn’t be. He didn’t like being called Robert. And, most of all, he didn’t like the way that fat fuck Gaston Girard kept sidling up to him and asking how his sister was, all the while winking at him.
‘So, Robert,’ explained an excessively didactic Monsieur Henry, ‘in this sack are the many letters destined for the attention of the managers and directeurs ’oo manage this great Ministry. You, my leetle man, are to delve into the sack, remove the letters and then place them in these holes of pigeons. C’est facile, n’est-ce pas?’ Monsieur Henry made to pat Rivets on the head, which Rivets decided would be a slight too far. He would have to put one on the Frog. Fortunately, the grease he’d larded on his hair – it stuck up at the back otherwise – deterred him.
When Monsieur Henry had departed and Rivets had got a fag on, he started on his task. He worked diligently sifting through the mail and popping the letters into the requisite holes, all the while keeping an eye out for any letters destined for the attention of the Minister himself. As it turned out, there were nearly thirty of them that morning. Those with a stamp indicating that they came from outside the Quartier Chaud Rivets ignored, but any posted locally he studied with more attention. He eventually found the one Vanka had told him to be on the lookout for, and slipped it in his pocket.
The steamer arrived at the Steamer Park bang on the dot of ten o’clock and Kruchkov’s forewoman turned out to be a very sizeable and enormously strong Frog who had, surprisingly, a rather petite and attractive young girl as her assistante. Indeed the assistante was so attractive that Captain Jenkins was persuaded to modify his usual brusque demeanour and be almost polite. He directed the two girls to the test steamer, waited while the steamer sergeant broke the seals on the boiler and then watched as the large forewoman clambered up onto the side of the vehicle and dropped a coloration tablet into the water tank.
The test was a great success. The steamer chugged around the parade ground shrouded in bright red steam and the effect was such that even the crews desperately trying to scrape the mud and rust from their own steamers paused in their work and applauded as the test machine puffed by.
The forewoman’s assistante came to stand disturbingly close to Captain Jenkins, and then began talking to him in surprisingly good English. ‘There is one problem, Monsieur le Capitaine,’ she said amiably.
Jenkins’s brow furrowed. He always had difficulty solving problems.
‘It’s our experience that the coloration tablets have an effective life of only ten minutes, so if they are inserted into the boilers here in the Park, they will be expended before the steamers are more than halfway to the Champ de Mars where they will be performing their Puff Past.’
‘I see, but it’s no real problem. I can have the steamers’ BoilerMen nip out and insert them en route.’
‘Of course, but isn’t that a solution lacking a certain élégance, a certain je ne sais quoi? Perhaps you would permit me to suggest an answer to this dilemma?’
‘Mademoiselle, please.’
‘The symbol of Liberté has been commandeered – purloined rather – by those terrible and most unpatriotic women who count themselves members of the UnScrewed-Liberation Movement. Would it not be a coup if you were to reclaim Liberté – if, as a signal of the entente cordiale between our two great states, Liberté was to ride at the front of the steamers waving the flag of the Union and, at the appropriate time, dropping a coloration tablet into the boiler?’
‘I am not sure if I quite understand what you’re suggesting.’
‘Would you allow a demonstration?’
‘Certa
inly. Why not?’
‘Then I must change. To perform as Liberté, I must look like Liberté.’
Remarkably, this pretty young girl – Norma Dubois – had a costume and a tricolore tucked away in the back of her steamer lorry. And Captain Jenkins had to admit that it was a very fetching costume indeed, being particularly taken by the way her right breast was left bare. Major Tomlinson, who had wandered over to see why all the steamer crews had downed tools, seemed to agree with him. He watched, google-eyed and open-mouthed, as the assistante rode on the front of the steamer while it chugged up and down the parade ground, waving her flag as she went.
When finally she hopped down from the front of the steamer, she was greeted by a round of applause and cheers from the gathered crews. She gave the major a smile and bobbed a deep curtsy. His Adam’s apple bobbed in appreciation. ‘Very nice,’ he muttered, though Jenkins was unsure as to whether he was referring to the girl’s performance as Liberté or to the rather pert breast on display. ‘Captain Jenkins has been explaining your idea to me, Mademoiselle, and I must say it sounds very jolly. But tell me, young lady, will you be able to find twenty girls willing to play Liberté in quite such an enthusiastic manner as yourself?’
The girl’s lovely brow furrowed. ‘Only twenty? Does that mean you will not have the full might of your regiment of steamers on parade?’
‘Unfortunately not, my dear. Captain Jenkins does not have the manpower to clean and repaint any more than twenty of them in the thirteen days remaining before the Ceremony of Unification. A great shame, of course.’
What the major said was perfectly correct. Jenkins had more than one hundred and fifty armoured steamers lined up in the Jardin de Robespierre, and most of these were veterans of the Battle for Warsaw. Theirs had been a hard life, and they had the bashes, scratches and scrapes to prove it. Even working his crews and the maintenance corps day and night, two weeks wasn’t long enough to get the steamers painted and polished to a standard that would make them fit for inspection by the Great Leader.
The major’s comment sparked a rapid and somewhat heated exchange, all in incomprehensible Frog, between the assistante and her forewoman. Finally the assistante turned to the major. ‘Major, we believe it is our duty as good Medis to come to the aid of the ForthRight. If you would permit, Mademoiselle Odette here would be honoured to provide, at no expense, the services of a dedicated team of cleaners and renovators to help make your steamers perfect in both form and appearance. And, to adorn such symbols of ForthRight power and potency, I will recruit one hundred and fifty of the most beautiful girls in Paris to ride upon them.’
The major licked his lips, obviously contemplating the sight of one hundred and fifty girls clad as the assistante was. His Adam’s apple started jiggling again.
‘And afterwards,’ Norma continued, ‘perhaps there could be a célébration of our own?’
‘And what form would this celebration take?’
‘That would be a surprise, Major,’ she replied, a little too flirtatiously for Jenkins’s liking. ‘But if you wish, Major, I might tell you my plans in secret.’
With that both Norma and the major repaired to the major’s office.
48th Day of Spring
‘More wine, Monsieur Kruchkov?’ enquired Claude Poisson.
The Russian shook his head. Today he was all business. ‘I understand from the Minister of Works that you have been making enquiries about me.’
The bottle froze in Poisson’s hand. That this mysterious Kruchkov knew that he had written to the Minister demanding assurances of the Russki’s bona fides was disturbing. He had thought he had made it plain in his letter that his enquiry was a confidential one, but then, he supposed, even a minister had to be careful when dealing with the nephew of Lavrentii Beria.
There was no point, Poisson decided, in dissembling. ‘You are correct, Monsieur Kruchkov. As you might imagine, with a project so large and unorthodox as the dismantling of the Awful Tower—’
‘Monsieur Poisson,’ Kruchkov interrupted, in a voice which had suddenly become excessively precise and deliberate, ‘when we began our discussions I made it perfectly clear that confidentiality was a prime consideration in this matter. You even signed a confidentiality agreement confirming you understood that divulging any details of this project would be a violation of state security. Do you remember that?’
The mouthful of blood-claret Poisson was in the process of enjoying suddenly turned sour. The juxtaposition of the word ‘violation’ with ‘state security’ was enough to chill the SAE, especially as the man doing the juxtaposing had the ear of that murderous bastard Beria. Images of meat hooks and piano wire suddenly came to dominate Poisson’s imagination. All he could find the strength to do was give a meek nod.
‘Then you will know that this letter’ – here Kruchkov delved into the inside pocket of his jacket and produced the selfsame letter that Poisson had sent to the minister – ‘violates that undertaking. This letter describes in detail the project to dispose of the Tower – a revelation that could be interpreted as treason. Do you know the penalty for treason, Monsieur Poisson?’
‘Oui, Monsieur,’ said Poisson, his mouth suddenly so dry he could barely talk. His arsehole began twitching in nervous anticipation of the arrival of the Checkya, too.
‘Good. So can I take it that there will be no repetition of this deplorable lapse of judgement?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then let us not let this little faux pas spoil our mutually profitable relationship.’ With that, and to Poisson’s great relief, Kruchkov tore his offending letter into small pieces, deposited the fragments in the ashtray, and then set them alight. This done, he raised his glass. ‘So, a toast – to a fresh start.’
‘A fresh start,’ echoed Poisson, as he wondered whether it would be appropriate to fall to his knees and kiss the feet of this wonderfully forgiving man.
‘To business.’ Kruchkov pulled a second envelope out of his pocket. ‘This is the notification confirming that Mitraille de Medi has won the tender to demolish the Awful Tower, to remove the scrap metal resulting from the demolition, and to sell said metal on the open market. The ForthRight Ministry of Works will pay one hundred thousand guineas on completion of the demolition, which must be accomplished within thirteen days of the date on this contract – that is, one day after the Ceremony of Unification. Proceeds of the sale of the scrap metal will be divided on a fifty-fifty basis between the Ministry and Mitraille de Medi. Do those terms seem acceptable?’
Claude Poisson decided he would kiss the feet, the arse, or anything else the Russian might wish kissed. It was an amazingly generous contract, one which would make him rich beyond his wildest dreams, and he had entertained some pretty wild dreams in his time. All he had to do was get Kruchkov to let him have that envelope. Unfortunately, the way Kruchkov was hanging on to it signalled to Poisson that negotiations were far from over.
‘Monsieur Poisson’ – Kruchkov leant forward in a conspiratorial manner – ‘have you ever paused to consider how hard is the lot of those who toil so diligently for the public good? Have you ever thought how civil servants, by their selfless desire to serve the ForthRight, sacrifice themselves on behalf of their fellow citizens? Have you, Monsieur Poisson, have you?’
‘Er … no, not really.’
‘Then perhaps you should, Monsieur Poisson. Take my situation as an example. I am a Grade Four bureaucrat and earn a paltry one thousand guineas each season, a mere peppercorn of a salary.’
Poisson sat silently waiting for Kruchkov to put the bite on, but if the man expected him to believe that it was possible to buy the exquisitely tailored suit and marvellously crafted boots he was wearing on a bureaucrat’s wage, then the Russian must think that he was as green as the emerald that nestled amidst the froth of the man’s cravat.
‘So I must look to the generosity of people such as yourself to make my lot more endurable.’
Now it was Poisson’s turn to extract an envelope f
rom inside his jacket. He handed it over, as surreptitiously as he was able, to the Russian. ‘I trust this is a sufficient indication of the admiration I feel for men such as yourself, Monsieur Kruchkov. It is a symbol of my thanks for your selfless service.’
‘And how many times am I being thanked?’
‘Ten thousand.’
‘Excellent. But I trust there will be more thanks once the scrap metal is sold. After all, Monsieur Poisson, with scrap steel trading at one hundred guineas a ton, you will be receiving over half a million guineas as your share of the contract.’
‘Shall we say, 5 per cent of the gross sales value?’
‘Shall we say … ten per cent?’
The two men shook hands across the table, and as Claude Poisson sat back contentedly in his chair he wondered whether Naughty Nancy might not have two equally naughty sisters.
Kruchkov made to hand Poisson the contract and then paused. ‘There is one other thing. The Checkya insist that the explosives to be used in the demolition are held in secure bond until they are employed. This is a matter of state security, you understand.’
Poisson wasn’t sure he did understand, but he was so mesmerised by the contract being waved in front of him that he’d stopped thinking clearly.
Kruchkov continued, ‘I will have one of my men, named Bartholomew Bubble, come to your depot tomorrow to collect the blasting gelatine.’
‘Of course,’ purred Poisson as the contract was finally placed in his hand.
49th Day of Spring
Rivets felt decidedly put upon. When he had agreed with Vanka to take a job, he had thought it would be a job, not two of the damn things. But as soon as he’d left the Ministry’s mailroom, Vanka had secured him a new position with the Bureau de Feux d’Artifice, the Medi’s premier maker of fireworks.
New job or not, Rivets still didn’t like working. He especially didn’t like work which involved him having to scamper like a monkey along the long steel beams of the Awful Tower, ducking and diving through the metal latticework to tie the fireworks in position. It was just as well that he didn’t have a fear of heights, because dangling a hundred or more feet from the ground, with just a length of rope strapped around his waist as a safety harness, was not an occupation he’d recommend to those who suffered from vertigo. And there were a lot of fireworks to install. As his foreman had told him proudly, to Bureau de Feux d’Artifice fell the responsibility of turning the Awful Tower into a spectacle that would make the Ceremony of Unification an event that would never be forgotten.
Rod Rees - [The Demi-Monde 02] Page 36