The Derring-Do Club and the Empire of the Dead

by David Wake

  They surrounded her.

  “I say,” said Merryweather, bending down and plucking her up from the paving.

  “Arthur?”

  “Come in before you catch your death.”

  She was saved, utterly and completely swept–off–her–feet saved. The door opened and Arthur carried her over the threshold.

  The Porter intercepted them: “You can’t–”

  “Don’t be an arse,” Arthur said.

  And there was Caruthers and McKendry too, and quite soon there was also sweet tea and cake.

  Miss Charlotte

  “I apologise for before,”? the Graf said. “When the culprit is found, he will be severely punished. My airmen are trained to obey, instantly and without question.”?

  “The interruption didn’t bother me,” Charlotte replied, standing and smoothing down her uniform.

  “The schnapps now, mein Liebchen?”

  “That would be lovely. Why not in my cabin, then we won’t be disturbed.”

  “Would that be allowable?”

  “We are related after all,” said Charlotte. “Let me check everything is all right.”

  “I will get the schnapps and perhaps something warming.”

  “Lovely.”

  Charlotte went from the lounge section to her cabin to give it a quick check. Everything was stowed and in order, as she had known it would be. She was about to return and call the Graf through, when she heard a strange noise, a wheezing as if the engines were labouring with a… Charlotte knew that noise and knew it well. She took a couple of steps and turned her head and located the source under her bunk. She knelt down and looked: Earnestine, dressed as a soldier, was tucked underneath, sound asleep.

  So it was her sister who had rushed through the lounge: typical of her to try and ruin everything. Well, Charlotte would just follow Earnestine’s own advice to always tell your elders and betters everything – she’d inform the Graf and–

  There was a knock at the door.

  Charlotte stood, kicked sharply under the bunk, and said, loudly, “Graf, just a moment, just a moment, Graf.”

  There was a mumbled complaint brewing from under the bunk.

  “Graf! Do come in, come in Graf, good to see you Graf!”

  “Liebchen, are you all right.”

  “Yes, Graf,” she said, and then she had to cough, loudly and continuously until the noise coming from under the bed piped down. “Everything is fine, Graf.”

  “I brought you a nightcap: hot chocolate.”

  “Lovely,” Charlotte leapt forward and looked, wrinkling her nose: “It’s not Cadbury’s?”

  “Nein, Belgian dark chocolate.”

  Charlotte took a sip: it was rich, thick and bitter.

  “I suggest a measure of schnapps.”

  Charlotte nodded and the Graf poured a generous helping from a bottle.

  “Please,” Charlotte said, indicating a chair by the table, but the man came around and held the chair out for her. Charlotte settled herself and the Graf chose the place next to her just around the corner.

  They sat for a moment, three sips of hot chocolate each.

  “Tell me about your plans,” said Charlotte.

  “They will be tedious and technical to you.”

  “Not at all,” she laid her hand on his. “I’m interested.”

  The Graf frowned.

  “I spoke with Doctor Mordant,” Charlotte continued. “She told me some of it, but she did not have the same… vision as you.”

  “Nein, she was unambitious.”

  “She wanted the discovery for herself.”

  “Ja, and I solved the major technical issue.”

  “Do tell,” Charlotte simpered.

  “The problem that this Mordant Process has – or had – is its reliance upon Nature’s galvanic processes.”

  “Lightning.”

  “Ja, exactly!”

  “To bring someone back you require a storm.”

  “We have engines that can create galvanic energy for one or two Lazarian events, but, alas, to perform the process on a large scale would require more power than all the factories in Britain’s Lancashire, Yorkshire and their Black Country combined.”

  “So?”

  “It is our little secret and it will make us the Masters of the World.”

  “How exciting,” said Charlotte. “But won’t the British Empire resist?”

  “How? With what? They don’t even have a Sky Navy. Let them fire their mighty guns into the air and you will find their shells falling back to Earth long before they reach us. They lack the range, whereas we can drop bombs from any height. Military strategy has always dictated that whoever holds the high ground, wins the battle and we hold the very highest ground possible, the sky itself.”

  “Brilliant.”

  “It is the classic military strategy to catch the enemy in a pincer movement, but not from the sides: death from above and death from below.”

  “They’ll attack your men too.”

  “Nonsense, we have these little devices courtesy of Marconi and Tesla. They generate a pulse in the ether, which travels to the detectors attached to the unfortunates: a little shock, more than enough to persuade their cannibalistic tendencies to go elsewhere.”

  “Oh yes, Doctor Mordant showed me.”

  “Think of it,” he said, “in military terms. We create an army that does not suffer attrition. We fight, and so long as we take the battlefield, then our army is the same for the next battle. We have ten thousand untoten against a thousand enemy, we outnumber them ten to one. We fight and, yes, they kill more of our troops, two thousand, maybe even half our number, five thousand, but then we bring our troops back to life and theirs!”

  He pointed his finger and then stabbed it down on the table. The cups jumped and the hot chocolate shook.

  “So, for the next battle, we have eleven thousand troops. Think of it – every city, every town, every village has a graveyard, recruits at every turn, the whole of Europe’s dead rising from the ground at our beck and call, a whole empire.”

  “Surely the British Empire, the greatest empire the world has ever seen would stop you?”

  “How? Each of their men wounded takes ten from the battle in terms of stretcher bearers, medics, nurses and if you are lucky the injured man can be back in the war within a few months; whereas with our army, we stretcher off the dead, reanimate them and then we can return them to the front in the same engagement. Our enemy has to kill us over and over again, we kill them once and then they are dead – kaput. Worse than dead for, with our little electrical box, they are on our side.”

  “Sounds painful.”

  “They are dead, they feel nothing, and the last regiment of our troops will be en route soon.”

  They finished their hot chocolate.

  “Mein Liebchen, do you have any more questions?”

  “Oh yes,” said Charlotte. “Can I get to fly the Zeppelin again?”

  “Of course, you would be in charge of a fleet of Zeppelins. Princess, my Liebchen, I have such plans.”

  There it was: Her Royal Highness, Admiral of the Air; she’d have a uniform and wear trousers and be someone other than the youngest of three.

  “Yes,” she said.

  The Graf stood, clicked his heels and bowed: “I must check on progress. We are coming in to land.”

  The deck had shifted, the schnapps flowing up the side of the bottle showing the true angle of the deck. They had been descending for a while.

  “Of course, can I…” and then Charlotte remembered her sister hiding under the bunk. “I shall rest here if I may.”

  “Of course, until later then.”

  He bowed again, ever the officer and gentleman, and left.

  Charlotte considered him: his handsome features, the aquiline nose, his pointed beard, his piercing eyes and his funny, but charming, accent. Most of all, she thought about his uniform with its black epaulettes and–

  “Ow!”

&
nbsp; Earnestine hit her heel again and struggled out from under the bunk.

  “Charlotte! Charlotte! Words utterly fail me.”

  “He was nice and we are related.”

  “He’s planning to conquer the British Empire.”

  “Oh that.”

  “Yes, that.”

  “I’m sure not… I didn’t really… do you like my uniform?”

  “You are a silly girl, a stupid, silly girl.”

  “You can’t talk to me like that, I’m royalty.”

  “Do you know what happened to the Princess?”

  “I’m the Princess.”

  “The real Princess.”

  “I’m a real Princess, I’m married to a Prince.”

  “The real Princess with whom you exchanged places.”

  “No… yes, she went back to elope with her Hauptmann.”

  “She was thrown off the battlements of the Eagle’s Claw castle. In your coat, your best coat. Georgina thought it was you. You really upset her. And that’s what will happen to you. And you’ll deserve it. They’ll throw you out and it’s a lot further down to the ground from a Zeppelin.”

  Earnestine was angry, blinking and tightening her lips.

  “Did you listen to what that dreadful man said?” Earnestine demanded.

  Always about the listening, Charlotte thought: “Of course I listened.”

  “And?”

  “I get to wear a uniform and fly a Zeppelin.”

  “And the rest of it, the military strategy and his tactical plans.”

  “Oh, that. It sounded like a History lesson. Do you remember Miss Green and her interminable–”

  “Charlotte!”

  “Did he really kill the Princess?”

  “Yes, and everyone at the college.”

  “What college?”

  “The Eden College for Young Ladies.”

  “Oh.”

  Earnestine checked her strange rubber mask, fussing and angry. Charlotte thought about her own uniform, the tight cut and the wonderful trousers and suddenly realised what it represented. The badges weren’t mere brooches and jewellery, they had meaning: the Sky Navy had real bombs, real guns, real…

  “We shot at people on a train.”

  “I know.”

  “It was… far away.”

  “It wasn’t far away for me.”

  “They were like dolls. It didn’t seem to count. It was like a game. I didn’t think–”

  “No, Charlotte, you didn’t think. You were shooting at Georgina and me, and people died, quite horribly.”

  “Oh, bally hell.”

  “Don’t swear!”

  “Sorry.”

  Earnestine looked out of the window: trees tops were visible: “It’s bad enough with you being on the wrong side,” she said, “a traitor no less–”

  “I am not.”

  Earnestine turned on her: “Don’t lie! You’re a traitor.”

  Charlotte felt tears welling in her eyes. Earnestine never valued her and always had an angry word. It wasn’t fair: “I’m not, I’m just… playing the double game like… this is an adventure, isn’t it?”

  “Charlotte Deering–Dolittle, this is not an adventure.”

  “It’s not?”

  “No,” said Earnestine, emphatically. “Now, I’m going to disguise myself as a soldier and escape, and you will find a way to escape too. We have to warn Whitehall and the War Office and save the British Empire.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Yes, I do say so.”

  Earnestine pulled on her rubber mask, straightened her coat and marched out.

  Charlotte followed, utterly cowed. A soldier stopped Earnestine after they’d gone through the dining room. They struggled for a moment by the exit with the open air behind them, both dangerously close to the edge.

  “She’s… He’s with me,” Charlotte shouted.

  The soldier saluted.

  Without looking back, Earnestine swung herself out into the open air and disappeared.

  Other soldiers came past too.

  The airship had docked and the rope ladder descended to an open field. The soldiers hesitated at the end before they dropped the last few feet and rolled in the grass. Soon there were enough men deployed to handle the ropes and tie the massive vehicle to the ground.

  “Liebchen?” the Graf asked.

  Charlotte jumped in shock.

  The Graf put a concerned hand upon her shoulder. His touch was heavy.

  With the dexterity of long practice, the men off–loaded their equipment and then the ropes were released again. The Zeppelin took to the air, the ground below dropped away leaving her in this metal and canvas prison in the sky.

  “Mein Liebchen, are you all right?”

  “The wind in my eyes, that’s all.”

  “Ja, of course.”

  Below, one of the soldiers, masked, stared up at the rising Zeppelin with big, blank, but nonetheless accusing eyes.

  Chapter XIV

  Miss Deering-Dolittle

  Earnestine’s plan had failed at the first hurdle. There was far too much security and the fences were formidable. She was also still dressed as a Bug Eye, so she ended up helping with large canvas bags that required two people to carry. They sagged awkwardly in the middle, making them tricky to move. The man opposite had shouted some instructions in German, so Earnestine had replied with “Jawohl”? and then added some deep grunts.

  The bags went into wooden crates clearly marked in German, French and English for delivery to an address in London via the West India Docks. This immediately suggested another plan: she’d simply stow away in the crate and wait until she heard cockney voices unloading the crates upon arrival.

  She carried three bags in all. They arrived by horse drawn cart and the crates were being loaded into cattle trucks on a train. The rail line terminated here and went out through some woods beyond going presumably to a port. Thankfully the whole operation was performed with great efficiency, the carts being reversed as close to the train as possible, so that it could all be completed quickly.

  When the moment came, when the men were looking away, Earnestine put her leg over the crate and hopped in, quickly lying down and shuffling the last bag over herself. Another weight landed on top of her, before the crate lid was placed over and nailed down with awful finality.

  Panic!

  If the crate would be airtight, then she’d suffocate, but moving the bag aside she saw light streaming in from various knot holes and the gaps between the planks. The crates were well made, but from cheap materials.

  The crate was hoisted onto the train; she felt the giddy moment of flight and the unceremonious landing.

  She waited.

  Her bed, such as it was, was comfortable once she’d shifted it around. Whatever was in the bags was sharp and soft in varying degrees.

  Finally, she heard the carriages door clattered shut. It was dark now.

  After what seemed like an eternity, while they loaded the other cattle trucks, there came whistles, shouts and the familiar hiss of a steam engine. The crate jerked and then, in fits and starts at first, the train went on its way.

  Should she fall asleep?

  The clattering start of the journey had shifted her position, so she shuffled and jiggled until she was comfortable again… except for this sharp… what was this? It was awkward to reach her pocket, but eventually she eased out her flashlight and moved it up her body to her face.

  She couldn’t turn it on for too long.

  Flash: the bags were still sealed.

  Flash: the stitching could be pulled. She did this in the dark, feeling the rough cord with her fingers, finally she yanked it open.

  Flash: there was something dark, difficult to make out. She pulled the canvas apart again and it ripped coming open.

  Flash: it was some round object, dark and made of fur. She turned it.

  Flash: oh, it was a man’s face and I must not explore, I must not… Earnestine dropped th
e flashlight and retched. It was a body, a man’s body, and all the bags contained cadavers. She was trapped in a crate of corpses. Panic rose, utter terror, and she flailed about to escape, but all she did was cause the bodies to shift and so she sank between them.

  It was a train of the dead.

  Miss Georgina

  She asked only how Arthur had escaped; it seemed incredible that he was just here.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll always keep you safe,” he said.

  “But how?”

  “I caught the next train,” he said, sipping his whiskey. They’d all gathered in the smoking room once Georgina had freshened up. “Although there was something of a delay due to some problem on the line.”

  “The next train?”

  “It is the steam age, they have timetables on the continent too.”

  Gently, by tiny degrees, the trio extracted as much information as they could. Georgina wanted to help: she described the Zeppelin attack, the bomb that released the yellow smoke, the soldiers in their frightening masks with snouts like those doctors in plague times.

  Caruthers and Merryweather exchanged a worried glance: “Gas?” they said together.

  Georgina corrected them: “Smoke. It killed, choking death and their skin blistered, it smelt like cooking or mustard or beef: it was… horrible.”

  Arthur put his hand on hers.

  “We separated the engine from the coaches to get more speed and to keep – they boarded the train from the air – and Earnestine… she was on the other side when it came apart.”

  Arthur squeezed her hand: “Perhaps she survived.”

  “No, I saw her fall, fighting one of those Bug Eyes, and there was smoke everywhere. It’s all right, she would want me to be brave.”

  McKendry and Caruthers stepped aside to talk privately. It was so quiet that Georgina could hear every word.

  “Pyro?” McKendry asked.

  “Sulphur mustard from Zeppelins, it’s an horrific thought.”