The Derring-Do Club and the Empire of the Dead

by David Wake

  “Yes, it can be quite a shock the first time.” The Doctor’s Scottish brogue sounded amused. “You’ll get used to it.”

  “I’ll never… used to it? No. It’s… no.”

  Now Doctor Mordant turned to face her, her green eyes catching the light and shining through the gloom.

  “You’ll have to, Your Majesty. You heard the Gräfin.”

  Charlotte hadn’t.

  “The Gräfin is a strict Catholic,” Doctor Mordant explained. “She wants the marriage consummated immediately.”

  Everything had been a daze: she felt cold, so cold, and yet she was covered in a wet sheen. Horses sweat, men perspire and women… yes, she’d been glowing badly and now she was shaking.

  “I… what?”

  Mordant hastened over in quick strides, pulled Charlotte’s head back before she could respond and examined her eyes.

  “Acute traumatic response… quite expected.”

  “Can you… I… help me.”

  “A brandy perhaps?”

  “Please.”

  “But I don’t have any, so–”

  Doctor Mordant slapped Charlotte across the face with such force that her head was wrenched to one side. Charlotte opened her mouth, her eyes wide, and the vague stone slabs beneath her suddenly became sharp: their relief as obvious as any mountain range and their cracks as clear as chasms. The moment was brief and then blurred as her eyes filled with tears.

  Charlotte struck back: Mordant caught her wrist easily.

  “Excellent, you seem much better.”

  “That hurt.”

  Charlotte touched her cheek tenderly and then thought better of the idea.

  Doctor Mordant led the way: “Come!”

  Charlotte followed, but kept the Doctor between her and the thing writhing on the examination table. It jerked as it responded to their approach.

  “There, there,” said Doctor Mordant gently and to no effect.

  “He was… dead.”

  “In German they are called ‘Die Untoten’, the undead.”

  “Then it’s…”

  “Very much alive, of course. There are only two states in biological philosophy: alive and dead. For thousands of years man, mostly the male of our species, has been quite capable of converting a living homo sapiens into a dead homo sapiens. Every nation has organisations dedicated to the task: armies, navies… now aerial forces. But, for the first time, death is commutative: I can bring the dead back.”

  “You’re playing God.”

  Mordant turned on her: “I am not playing!” she hollered.

  Even the monster was cowed.

  “My dear,” Doctor Mordant began in a reasonable and utterly unnerving tone. “I am a medical doctor. Here to save life, create life, I have taken an oath, the ancient Hippocratic oath. I am here to heal, nurture, give succour…”

  Doctor Mordant picked up a syringe.

  “Now, my dear, we must consummate the marriage.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  Mordant tut–tutted: “The education of women in modern society is woeful.”

  Charlotte waited as a kidney bowl, cotton wool and a bottle of alcohol joined the syringe. Mordant put them on a tray and took them over to the examination table. The thing kicked and struggled, but the table was wide enough to accommodate it and the tray.

  “A marriage requires many things: a priest, witnesses…”

  “A dress,” Charlotte said. She was still wearing her wedding dress, although the besmirched virginal outfit that had so delighted her had long lost its appeal.

  “Yes, and it must be consummated: a man must lie with a woman. For children.”

  Charlotte looked back and forth between the Crown Prince and Mordant: the patient and its Doctor, the creature and the Natural Philosopher, the man and the woman…

  “I am not getting on there next to that,” Charlotte said.

  “Oh, but it involves much more than that, but you are right. If we tried it the natural way, then this experiment… patient, with his shackles removed, would tear you apart. They are crazed. I have not perfected the technique. It’s something to do with the size of the skull. My predecessor used a specimen of unusual dimensions, significantly larger than the norm, whereas I have to raise individuals who are chosen for the colour of their blue blood or their work potential rather than for their cranial capacity. Oberst Kroll is the only one I’ve seen who might be big enough for the process. But I can control these experiments with galvanic charge across the cerebral cortex: even in this state, they soon learn.”

  “It’s wrong.”

  “Knowledge is always right.”

  “We’re responsible for our actions.”

  “Take off your undergarments.”

  “What? Never!”

  “I can call the guards – they’d enjoy undressing you.”

  “I refuse. I’m a Queen!”

  “You’re not royalty, your accent betrays you. I knew from the first moment. It amused me to see you putting on airs and graces. You’re from Essex.”

  “Kent.”

  “The Home Counties, so arrogant.”

  “I’m married to a King, therefore, whatever my background, I’m a Queen… and I command you to–”

  “You are a breeding engine! Don’t fool yourself into thinking you are anything more.”

  The Queen, the previous Queen, had given her a bottle of poison telling her that she’d know when to use it. It was now, but the bottle was… wherever Charlotte had put it down.

  “Don’t worry, this is an easy process. They do it all the time for cattle.”

  Doctor Mordant bent over the thrashing object on the examination table with the syringe. Charlotte took her chance, hitched up her ruined wedding dress and ran for the door.

  It was locked.

  She crossed over to the far door, raised the latch and pulled.

  It opened.

  “Guards!” Mordant shouted. “Bring her back!”

  A huge military chest was blocking Charlotte’s escape. She balled her fist and struck with all her might only to be casually moved aside. It was the Graf.

  “Doctor Mordant.”

  “Yes, what is it?”

  “We have been attacked. Agents were seen leaving. Spies.”

  “What is that to me?”

  The Graf stepped into the room, the gap between him and the door widened with every stride.

  “The battery was destroyed by explosive.”

  “That is your remit, not mine.”

  “It was blown up, completely.”

  Charlotte hesitated: blown up, destroyed… and she’d missed it.

  “It is an act of war, you know our agreement: I need my army.”

  “I’ve raised workers for you.”

  “Callow, weak creatures and too few,” the Graf roared. “I have command of the skies, weapons aplenty and regiments stored in readiness, but how am I to conquer without the secret?”

  “How indeed?”

  “You will show me the correct combination of your potions.”

  Doctor Mordant snorted.

  “Show me!”

  “I have work to do.”

  Charlotte didn’t know exactly what that work was, but she did not want to find out. If she could somehow fan the flames of the Graf’s disagreement, then perhaps she could avoid the fate the Doctor had in mind.

  “Make her show you,” Charlotte urged.

  “I will not show you, her or anyone,” Doctor Mordant said, her anger and determination making her Gaelic vowels all the stronger. “I am responsible for these developments, responsible for my actions, and I will not be responsible one iota for the death you intend.”

  Zala showed her the pistol in his hand.

  Doctor Mordant shook her head: “Never. Anyway, you can’t kill me without losing the secret forever.”

  “I think you will show me,” he replied.

  “Oh really? Shall I perform the operation on you? Your big head mi
ght easily cope with the process.”

  “I was thinking of someone else, Frau Doctor.”

  The explosive noise came far earlier than Charlotte had been expecting. He’d missed, she thought, and shot the bench or some piece of equipment, but there was no sound of tinkling glass or any sign of fallen debris.

  Doctor Mordant gripped her abdomen and then brought her hands up in a strange pleading gesture. Her palms were covered in blood and a dark stain began to spread across her stomach.

  “Physician, heal thyself,” the Graf commanded.

  Doctor Mordant put her hand out to steady herself against the bench, but her palm slipped along and she stumbled. She coughed, spittle dribbling down her mouth and her face faded of any pink colour as if she was becoming a daguerreotype picture.

  And then something extraordinary: her face contorted, resolve fixed her features and she lunged across the room, arms flailing to support herself on anything that came to hand, knocking over stools like skittles and cascading glassware to the floor. She was moving on her hands and knees when she reached the far workbench and pulled herself upright onto shaking legs. There was the fancy box there and she pulled the lid open, carelessly taking out the bottles within and yanking the stoppers out. She drank, pouring the liquid into her coughing mouth and letting it spill down her face and blouse. The second went the same way, but the third she poured over her stomach, howling like some banshee at the pain.

  As she went, the Graf followed with a sheaf of papers in his hand. With each action the Doctor made, he jotted down a note, carefully recording each phase of the woman’s struggle.

  Mordant weakened, slipping and sliding, her footsteps either splashing in the spilt chemicals or crunching the broken glass. As she went, taking a tortuous path, she threw switches and connected levers. The galvanic equipment sparked and glowed as the apparatus came to life.

  The Doctor, fading by the moment, hauled herself onto the examination table and fumbled with the connectors. She clamped one on her hand, her foot and then, tugging skin to collect enough flesh for the crocodile clip’s teeth to bite, her neck. She fell back, almost spent, and reached for the lever. Her fingers touched it, the last joint just hooking around it and she gasped as she made a Herculean effort to pull the metal down.

  The Graf’s hand was holding it in place.

  He watched as the woman struggled beneath him, dying slowly, her blood flowing out to mix with the other chemicals.

  Charlotte turned away.

  “Your secret is mine now,” the Graf said. “Such a pity you will not live, or even live again, to see the new world.”

  Doctor Mordant was gone: ready to live again, but dead.

  “Gustav… Graf,” Charlotte said.

  “Your Majesty?”

  Charlotte ran across to him and threw herself into his arms: “Thank you, thank you.”

  “Liebchen.”

  He stroked her blonde hair gently.

  “Take me away from here, take me with you,” Charlotte pleaded.

  “I cannot,” he said. “I must away into the skies to hunt down these spies.”

  “I still have my uniform. I can be an aerial officer and join you in the air.”

  “You cannot, you are the Queen here.”

  “Yes, I am your Queen: I command you!”

  “I am a Graf, an Air General, and you do not have any authority over the military.”

  “I am your…” Charlotte tried to work out her relationship with the man who towered over her. “I am your step–mother.”

  Behind her, the remains of his father thrashed and moaned.

  He laughed: “My new step–mother! Am I to be your Oedipus?”

  “Taking me could be your wedding gift to me.”

  “Ja, even a condemned man is allowed a last request.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Chaining a young girl with spirit to this festering corpse is immoral. This farce of a Great Plan has gone on long enough. We should take what we want by force. Yes, come with me, and when this weak and small man moves no more, you shall be my Crown Princess, my Gräfin. More than that, you shall be my Empress.”

  Chapter XI

  Miss Deering-Dolittle

  Captain Merryweather led them to a bothy by the side of the mountain. The small hut consisted of a single room and an outhouse for ablutions. Once they were inside, Merryweather made up a fire in the stove and this gave Earnestine a chance to take in the table, desk, bunk beds and sink: it seemed that each side of the square represented a different type of room present in a proper house.

  “Ah!” Merryweather exclaimed. He was patting his pockets.

  Earnestine fished out his flint and reflexively switched it to her right hand before passing it to him.

  “You gave me the letter with your left hand,” he teased.

  Despite the difficult introduction, entirely Georgina’s fault, Earnestine was beginning to like this man, he was just the right sort. She resolved to keep him away from Georgina, who was far too impressionable and needed protecting. It would be best if she kept her sister busy. She guided Merryweather over to one side.

  “It was an emergency,” she said, and then she remembered that Pieter had given it to her with his left hand and she had unthinkingly taken it with her left hand.

  He smiled: “I see–”

  “Nothing,” said Earnestine and she slipped the ruby ring off her finger and hid it in a pocket. She glanced across at Georgina, but thankfully she had not seen.

  “Ness,” Georgina interrupted. “I’ve got something for you.”

  Earnestine saw her treasured flashlight cradled in Georgina’s hands.

  “Oh, I thought I’d lost it.”

  “Yes, it’s yours. And Captain Merryweather…” Georgina said, putting her hand lightly on the Captain’s arm, “…and I found it together.”

  Earnestine took it back and pressed the button to satisfy herself that that Georgina hadn’t drained the battery. It gave the familiar glow. “Wherever did you find it?”

  “It was on the floor in the East Wing, you must have dropped it when you went exploring.”

  “Gina, I did not go exploring!”

  “Well, you have it back now, Ness. It’s important that you don’t take anything from other people.”

  What was she talking about, Earnestine wondered; it wasn’t like Georgina to place undue emphasis on certain words in her sentences – what had got into her?

  “Captain Merryweather,” Earnestine said, “may I have the envelope back please?”

  Merryweather took the letter from his pocket and passed it over, right handed.

  “Georgina, would you be a dear and copy out the letter please.”

  “Earnestine, I–”

  “I’m sure there will be some writing implements at the desk.”

  Georgina snatched the letter off her sister and stomped over to a small desk, where she took out what she needed from the drawer making the maximum amount of noise possible. She was such a child, but at least she wasn’t whining.

  Earnestine sat at the table. The wooden chair was hard, but bliss as her feet throbbed from the running.

  Merryweather busied himself with metal cups and a coffee pot.

  “This is in German!” Georgina said.

  “It uses the Latin alphabet, all you need to do is copy it,” Earnestine said. “And don’t whine.”

  “I wasn’t…”

  Georgina started writing carefully.

  Earnestine started to think about everything that had happened, trying to fathom it all out.

  “How would you like your coffee?” Merryweather asked.

  “Coffee is a degenerate drink,” Earnestine said. “We’ll all have tea.”

  “I’m afraid emergency rations on the continent don’t offer much choice.”

  “I see.”

  “I’ll make it medium with plenty of sugar.”

  He paused at the pot with the coffee and a spoon.

  “Five,” sai
d Earnestine.

  “Thank you,” he said, ladling five heaped spoonfuls in. “And one for the pot?”

  “I think best, yes.”

  The pot went on the stove, the heat finally thawing the cold room. Earnestine tilted her head back and closed her eyes. It was so seductive: she could fall asleep here or better still on one of the rude beds. She snapped awake – there was too much to do.

  Merryweather was in front of her, kneeling before her, and for a moment she thought…. but he had cotton wool and a bottle.

  “Antiseptic,” he said. “You’ve been…”

  Earnestine nodded.

  “It’ll sting.”

  “I’m not a baby.”

  He dabbed around her forehead, gently, but even so there was a shock. She kept her lip straight and it must have been the fumes from the antiseptic that caused her vision to blur. The man was thorough, wiping her left side carefully and checking her hairline.

  “There,” he said, when he’d finished.

  “Thank you.”

  “I’ll check it later, just to be sure.”

  “Didn’t one of you say that the school was attacked?”

  Merryweather looked to her right; Earnestine realised that he and Georgina had exchanged a look.

  “I’m afraid we found the school… everyone had been killed.”

  “It was awful,” said Georgina.

  “I’m sure,” Earnestine said, without looking round: “Everyone?”

  “Except Gina,” Merryweather replied pointing behind Earnestine, “yourself and Charlotte, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “You were lucky.”

  “We can’t stay here.”

  “No.”

  Georgina interrupted: “But, I thought we’d prepared this as the base camp for the others.”

  “Don’t whine.” Earnestine glanced back: “Sit up straight.”

  “The plan didn’t include being chased about the mountains by half the Austro–Hungarian army,” Merryweather added.

  “You exaggerate. We are outnumbered though. What ‘others’?”

  “Caruthers and Mac, my colleagues.”

  “Officers?”

  “We’re mountaineers looking at possible climbs in the area.”

  Earnestine raised her eyebrow: that was nonsense.

  “And we thought we’d have a shufti at certain goings on with the Austro–Hungarians.”