The Derring-Do Club and the Empire of the Dead

by David Wake

  “And the silver iodide?”

  “I don’t think that reacts usefully.”

  “Perhaps it’s another weapon?”

  “It’s used to make daguerreotypes, Merry said.”

  “I said,” Georgina interrupted. “But they have far, far too much of it according to what Earnestine saw.”

  “Perhaps she was mistaken?” Caruthers suggested.

  “Earnestine, mistaken? No, never.”

  “Daguerreotypes? Galvanic processes? They are up to something. Mac, I think you should take the first train to England. Now. Don’t pack, go. The sooner you get word to the Club, the Admiralty and St John Brodrick, the better.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  McKendry turned on his heel and his long strides took him quickly away.

  “And I have arrangements to make too – Merry, Miss Deering–Dolittle,” Caruthers said, turning to take his leave.

  Georgina wanted to correct him. She was only Miss Georgina. The eldest sister was Miss Deering–Dolittle, Earnestine, who was… so now she was the eldest, and perhaps even the only one of them left. Arthur held out a handkerchief, which seemed a very strange gesture.

  “You are a remarkable girl,” he said.

  “I don’t feel so, but thank you.”

  “Georgina?”

  “Yes?”

  “I was w– w– wondering…”

  “Yes?”

  “Nothing, n– never mind, it’ll wait.”

  Caruthers, Merryweather and Georgina caught a cab to Gard du Nord station and then they boarded an express to Calais. Suddenly, speed was of the essence. There had been reports of Zeppelins manoeuvring north and Caruthers complained about the low cloud. Whole fleets of airships could be crossing the Channel utterly unseen. What could the Royal Navy do? There was nothing in Plymouth to stop this armada. Considering Caruthers and Merryweather’s fears, Georgina despaired: what could they do?

  The bustle of French gentlemen and Parisian ladies was too much for Georgina and the sight of the trains was a nightmare, but she steeled herself and climbed aboard: get back on the horse, she thought.

  The train was a step down from the Orient Express, but, after they’d settled, they made their way to the restaurant coach to find the menu quite tolerable, once it was translated from French. Georgina ordered coffee with croissants and then stared out of the window letting the blur of scenery defocus her eyes and empty her head.

  The journey seemed interminable and then Calais came all too quickly.

  Caruthers saw them through border control with their passports and a ten franc note. The Mary was already boarding, so they went straight up the narrow gangways and onto the black and white vessel, which had been decked out in colourful bunting.

  “I’m sure we were seen,” Merryweather said.

  “Yes, I saw them too,” Caruthers said.

  “Where? I didn’t see anyone,” Georgina said.

  “We’ve been observed at Gard du Nord and here at Calais,” said Merryweather. “Spies.”

  “Where?”

  Georgina looked round: suddenly all the men looked sinister, dressed as they were in black.

  “It’s all right,” said Merry. “We’re on the ferry now, there’s little they can do. They’ll hardly get an ironclad down the Channel in time.”

  They went to the restaurant to consider lunch or dinner with menus that couldn’t decide whether they were French or English, and fell between two shores. They ordered fish: plaice in lemon sauce with potatoes fried in the French manner, which turned out to be thin chips. Caruthers and Merryweather had bottled beer, whereas Georgina ordered lemonade so strong it stung her eyes from the inside.

  With loud hoots and horns, the Mary set sail. On the quay everyone was waving, sweethearts painfully separated, families bidding farewell, friends parting. Even Caruthers and Merryweather turned to look, and then they went on deck.

  Georgina was alone: she had longed to be back in England and now that she was crossing the Channel, it was all empty and hollow. Their house in Kensington would be there, but it would be dusty and quiet; there would be no more laughter and pranks, no more stories and excited discussions over maps.

  “Calm,” said Merryweather, when they returned.

  “Rough later,” Caruthers added: “You can see the clouds gathering north already.”

  “A little rain never hurt anyone,” said Merryweather.

  Merryweather drank his beer smudging the froth across his moustache. Georgina leant over and wiped it off with her napkin.

  “Oh Merry,” she chided.

  “Gina?”

  “I’ll pop along to the radio room again,” said Caruthers. “See if there’s a telegram reply.”

  Off he went.

  Georgina finished her lemonade, Merry found some dregs left in Caruthers’s bottle of best.

  “Georgina.”

  “Yes.”

  “I was w– wondering… we’ll be in England soon.”

  “Yes.”

  “I expect I’ll have a lot to do.”

  “Yes.”

  Outside the swell rose, white horses pranced on the breaking waves. Sunlight struck sharply highlighting the ebb and flow until the dark clouds gathered and the pitch and toss swung the lamps violently.

  “The thing is,” Merry said eventually, “we’ve been through a lot, you and I, and we work well together, so I w– wondered if perhaps you might agree to extend that arrangement and basically what I’m trying to say is–”

  “I feel sick.”

  “Oh.”

  Georgina could taste lemonade and lemon sauce and fish. She stood, lurched and sat down again.

  “Always best to look at the horizon, old girl.”

  The queasy sensation increased, particularly as she tried to navigate the treacherous tables and chairs to the exit, and the metal staircase was a test, but even so, at the back of her mind, she objected to being called ‘old girl’. She was young, the middle sister, and it was Earnestine at twenty who was the spinster on the shelf. Had been, she reminded herself. Even that aching loss was nothing next to the urgency in her stomach.

  The desk was awash with spray. Drizzle fell from the heavens, and Georgina slipped across the wooden planks to the hand rail. She held it, her hands going instantly cold against the slick wood, and she stared at the lurching horizon as if she was demented. The clouds gathered, rolling grey balls packed with rain and dark shapes; she could hear them grinding together.

  Spray showered her: salty, reminding her of the fried potatoes in the French style. Her hair, splattered with sea water and blown around, must be in such a state.

  Old girl indeed.

  Merryweather was there: ha! Ridiculous: ‘merry’ ‘weather’.

  She felt his presence behind her, knowing instinctively that he had followed her, so she turned, making sure that one hand gripped the rail. Captain Arthur Merryweather looked at her aghast.

  “Captain Merry… oh, weather–”

  Anger swamped the dreadful nausea: he wasn’t even looking at her.

  “Cap–”

  “Zeppelin!”

  She turned round, scanned the sky, but there was nothing except oncoming storms and–

  “Oh Lord.”

  As the dark clouds obscured the sun turning the day into dusk, so the pinpricks of light in the Zeppelin became sharper. It was a tiny constellation moving against the firmament of the sky.

  “I’ll get Caruthers.”

  Merryweather turned and lurched across the desk, leaving Georgina–

  He left her!

  Left her… and ‘old girl’, and drivels on about wondering this and wondering that and doesn’t get to the point.

  It was a truly awful day.

  The bunting trailed across the ship, flapped pathetically, wet and dark and limp. Georgina hated bad weather.

  The deep whirring of the Zeppelin’s engines cut through the noises of the gale and the Mary’s engines. It was overhead, travelling straigh
t across them, and turned to a parallel course. The ferry pitched alarmingly.

  It was very dark now: a dark ship on a dark sea under dark clouds with a dark shape brooding over them – a moment later the bright beams stabbing down from the Zeppelin. The light flailed about, losing its target. Georgina realised that the flying vessel must be having as much trouble in this weather as they were. The beams of light strode away like some sort of gigantic three legged war machine made of light.

  A wave struck the bow of the troubled Mary. The ship didn’t heave, but the wash flew across the deck, stinging Georgina when the curtain of salt and spray struck her. Although she fought the impulse, her hand still went to wipe her face and at that moment her feet slipped from under her. She fell awkwardly, striking her elbow: the pain was searing, funny despite the situation, and then the boat seemed to explode.

  Light was everywhere, the three beams from the hovering Zeppelin converged, straight down. The beast was above them, directly above them. The flash was just the dazzling illumination.

  “Miss!”

  One of the men was shouting. Georgina blinked: it was a sailor: young, honest, good natured, salt of the sea… and then the boat really did explode.

  Something, a black mark, had hit the bow and then, in a moment of fire, the deck seemed to rip apart. Planks of wood and other shrapnel went up, caught in the search lights as they spun and ricocheted off the metal walkways. The lad jumped in the air, caught for a moment with his arms wide, and then the blast caught Georgina, pinning her to the deck.

  She’d been lucky, she’d already been on the deck and so the force of the explosion had travelled over her to strike back the wind in one brief, fiery moment. But the crewman no longer existed.

  A second bomb missed, sending a column of water like a geyser heavenwards.

  The Mary juddered before the rolling sea caught up and began to roll her hither and thither. The sea reared up again, higher, and Georgina thought that the storm had intensified. Surely this metal tub could withstand the pounding weather better than that stretched fabric balloon?

  A cry: “Water! We’re taking in water!”

  Georgina clambered to her feet and tried to see who was shouting. Above her, the black lozenge of the Zeppelin blotted out the angry black sky. It was manoeuvring, coming back for another attack run.

  “Abandon ship!”

  “Arthur!” Georgina yelled, but even she couldn’t hear her own cries.

  There was a clang, like a low bell, followed by a series of further chimes: Georgina laughed; it sounded just like bell ringing as if a village campanology group was practising in the Channel. To her right, starboard, one of the lifeboats pitched and tossed, dropping alarmingly as it was released into the waters. It splashed as it struck the surface.

  The deck was no longer level and everything sloped towards the front of the ship. Georgina’s shoes started to lose purchase on the slick polished timbers. She struggled her way uphill knowing that she had to get into one of the lifeboats.

  Another cry: “Women and children first!”

  Once she’d reached the starboard gangway, she could see the sailors helping people off the ferry.

  A gentleman waved his cane and barged to the front: “Get out of my way!”

  The world went silent.

  Georgina could no longer hear the storm, the waves, even the strange siren bells were quiet. The bombs, if they continued dropping, exploded without a murmur. A sailor, caught by a gunshot from above, fell away, bounced once on the deck and then slid away to disappear into the churning white foam that engulfed the bow.

  Georgina threw herself sideways through the door and under cover. She went away from the murder and away from the lifeboat. She had, with that act, chosen death. Her hearing returned with the bumping noise of wooden lifeboats and a strange staccato thumping. She was alone, soaked and frozen on a sinking ship, abandoned by her comrades and sister–less in this godless sea.

  “Gina! Gina!”

  Stepping into the canting restaurant came Captain Merryweather. From nowhere! He’d not forgotten her, although Georgina forgot herself and fell into his arms: “Arthur.”

  “I told you I’d keep you safe.”

  “Yes.”

  “Shall we leave?”

  “Leave?”

  His question seemed quite preposterous. She must be drowning already and he was some messenger from another world.

  “Yes, leave,” said Merryweather, “and with some alacrity, if you don’t mind.”

  Georgina was already on the move, caught up in Merryweather’s grasp. He manhandled her onto the port side towards a hail of bullets. Flashes and bangs produced trails of fire from above that pinged and zinged about the dying metalwork of the sinking Mary. The Zeppelin, close enough to blot out most of the setting sun, was spitting sparks along its full length: the airmen were using small arms against them, trying to pick off Merryweather and herself.

  “Oh Lord,” she said.

  “Over you go.”

  “Over where?”

  Merryweather picked her up and threw her straight over the side.

  Georgina screamed.

  Miss Charlotte

  Charlotte felt the lurch again and she was thrown across her cabin. She’d been sick, suffering from the mal de mer... no, mal du ciel. She felt wretched, but it was not the storm that caused her the most grief for it was every gunshot and every bomb explosion that stabbed into her soul.

  She was crying, tears streaming down her face in a most un–English manner, but then she wasn’t English. She was something like Belgian by pretence and Austro–Hungarian by marriage: she was the enemy, she was the monster.

  There was another set of flashes from above and then from below. The dreadful crump of the bomb going off followed quickly and then… one, two, three… the roar of thunder.

  Strike us down, Charlotte screamed inside, let God hurl a thunderbolt and burn us all to hell.

  But it didn’t happen.

  The Zeppelin belonged to the new age: industrial, powerful, defiant and utterly unstoppable.

  She’d stop them.

  Drunkenly, Charlotte fumbled with the door catch, plunged out across the corridor and through the dining room. In the space beyond, a soldier manned the horrifying American gun, its multiple barrels spun and spat fire, racketing percussive detonations continuously. The endless firing lit the faces of these slaughter technicians as they killed from afar. There was no glory here, no shining uniforms and no medals; just killing that went on and on.

  On the bridge, the Graf threw back his head and roared.

  “Das Schiff sinkt!” he shouted and then he saw her: “Liebchen, she’s going down!”

  Charlotte went to the window and saw through her tears the lashing of the rain against the glass, the downpour and the churning sea. There was no boat, nothing – it had gone to the bottom.

  More innocent lives on her hands.

  “Does it not excite you, Liebchen?”

  She thought before she spoke for what seemed like the first time ever. She thought of many things, but she said, “Yes, mein Graf.”

  “When we get to England, we shall have this weather again and nothing will stop us.”

  “Jawohl!”

  Chapter XV

  Miss Deering-Dolittle

  Earnestine had fought against the grave until exhausted and now existed in a place beyond panic. The crates had been manhandled and then lifted through the air onto some vessel’s open deck. She’d seen glimpses of the merchantman through the knotholes and gaps before her box was surrounded and imprisoned by the rest of the evil cargo and the stygian gloom became impenetrable.

  Now, the ship lurched in a storm and waves overflowed the deck. The crates were soaked, the water spilling through the precious air–holes and cracks before flowing out as the ship rose again.

  Earnestine’s stomach had nothing more to give; she retched still, and drowned in the mix of vomit, salt water and putrefaction.

&nb
sp; The dead continued their voyage as if across an endless Styx.

  Miss Georgina

  Georgina had fallen, plunged into the wet spray and the cold depths, except that hands had grabbed her, manhandled her and passed her like a baton. Other men, naval sailors, all of whom seemed to be held by others, had taken hold of her in turn. Others leant with all their might striking the hull of the floundering ferry with long poles as they tried to keep the two vessels apart. Each time the sea swelled, the poles connected making bell-like sounds. This new boat appeared to be languishing on its side already half sunk, and as Georgina reached out and held the cold metal rungs, the Mary went down so that she reached upwards. Other hands had grabbed hers, pulled her up and then down through a metal hatch.

  “Miss Deering–Dolittle,” Caruthers said: a familiar face, ruddy and alive.

  “Caruthers.”

  “Mac’s ill – sea sick.”

  “Oh dear,” Georgina said. She pushed her dress down into position, soaked and bedraggled though it was. “That’s such a shame.”

  “Indeed. Mac was the one who had the foresight to intercept and follow you.”

  Caruthers took her by the shoulders and conducted her out of the way. Sailors fell into the ship that was more pipework than superstructure and finally her Arthur joined her. A sailor sprinted up the metal ladder and clanged the hatch closed, spinning the wheel to seal it.

  “All in!” Merryweather shouted.

  “Dive!”

  “Arthur, w–”

  A klaxon deafened her and the ship lurched violently: like the Mary it went down nose first, buffeted by the waves and then, magically, the rough churning that had become so much part of her life stopped.

  It was calm.

  The metal deck beneath her levelled and remained level, the tossing, rolling and yawing simply finished.

  “HMS Holland,” McKendry said by way of explanation. He was another familiar face, although pale and green. “I volunteered as the vessel’s Able Seaman – or not so Able Seaman as it turned out – and we thought we’d shadow you underwater.”

  “It uses a petrol engine on the surface, but batteries beneath the waves,” Caruthers added. “The French have the Gymnote and the Spanish the Peral, so we thought we ought to get into the game. We may not be able to get at those blighters in their airships, but they can’t get us underwater.”