by G. P. Taylor
‘We shall sail on that?’ Mariah asked, unsure if anything so vast would ever be able to float.
‘And sail we shall. Nothing is grander – bigger, smoother, faster – than the Triton. We have a cabin as vast as my room in the Prince Regent and, Mariah, they have a Montgolfier balloon for pleasure rides.’
Mariah laughed. He had seen a Montgolfier once before. It was a large hot-air balloon that had carried a cart across the London sky. He remembered seeing it one bright winter morning when he had watched from the gardens of the Colonial School long before he had met Captain Charity or travelled north to the Prince Regent Hotel. The Montgolfier had flown from east to west, nearly touching the clouds. In the cart a man had waved at him and thrown packets of sweets to the mass of people gathered below.
‘A ride in a balloon from the back of the ship?’ Mariah asked.
‘Not for the faint-hearted – but imagine the view of the Atlantic.’
Mariah wasn’t listening. All he could see was the Triton. The four gold funnels of the ship shimmered in the rays of a vast sodium light that burnt brightly on the quayside. It was festooned in ribbons and garlanded in flags. It was the biggest ship Mariah had ever seen.
‘How can something that big, float?’ Mariah asked.
‘Science, my dear Mariah, and at midnight we shall see for ourselves.’
As the train drew to a halt on the long pier, it was as if the whole world had gathered to see the ships set sail. A hundred men waited on the platform with iron trolleys to carry the baggage of the passengers leaving the train. Mariah watched one man tap impatiently on his barrow handle.
The steam train stopped quietly, its noise drowned by the shouting of the crowd. As the doors to the train opened, the people waiting began to applaud their arrival.
‘We shall wait until the last passenger has left the train and slip aboard quietly,’ Charity said. ‘We don’t want to be seen if we can help it. Perhaps, whoever wanted you dead is still waiting …’
[2]
The Great Race
FOR the next hour Mariah and Captain Jack Charity sat in the cold compartment of the steam train. Mariah stared out of the carriage window. Madame Zane and her son were quickly carried off in a makeshift ambulance, a donkey cart covered in a green tarpaulin with their luggage stacked on the back. Strangely, Mariah thought, they were taken to the ship and not to the hospital. He could only believe that the lad would be better cared for on board. What perplexed Mariah was the way in which Sir Lorenzo Zane greeted his son. He had been the first to approach the train and when he saw his son being lifted from the carriage had tutted as if what had happened to him was quite trivial. Then, when Madame Zane had almost fallen to the platform, her husband had chided her loudly.
Still, people were leaving the train. Some fought over their luggage as porters grabbed whatever they could and stacked it upon their barrows in search of a meagre shilling to push it across the wharf to the awaiting crane nets.
Mariah stared at the quayside packed with people. They shouted and moaned, waiting for the great race to begin. Impromptu betting stalls littered the jetty as tattered bookies shouted the odds as to which vessel would win the race.
‘Will we have to wait much longer?’ Mariah asked, eager to be on board the ship as the shouting crowd pressed against the side of the train.
Charity reached into his pocket for his fob watch.
‘I am waiting for a suitable diversion,’ he said, as if he knew what was to come.
A gigantic crane lifted roped parcels of luggage high into the air, swung them out across the harbour and then into the rear hold of the ship. It laboured back and forth, its steam pistons churning and whirring in time with a brass band of uniformed men who played pompous military music. The vast lamps that lit the ship beamed back and forth. They cast deep black shadows high into the air and sparkled upon the newly painted gantries. From where Mariah watched he could even see the captain high upon the bridge of the ship. The man was looking down and pointing in a manner that suggested he was not pleased with the celebrations far below.
‘I can see the captain,’ Mariah said as Charity looked at his watch yet again.
‘Tharakan, the old sea dog,’ Charity replied without looking up from his watch. He was counting the seconds towards the eleventh hour. ‘I met him a long time ago. It was in the Sudan – he knew your father. Tharakan was the captain of the vessel that your parents sailed out on.’
Mariah didn’t reply. Charity’s words brought back a cold memory. He remembered the day well when he had said goodbye to his mother and father and was then taken to the Colonial School, a neatly ironed five pound note in his pocket. He could still see them waving to him as the ship set sail from Southampton docks. Little did he know he would never see them again, and that soon Professor Jecomiah Bilton, headmaster of the Colonial School, would break the news to him that they were both dead.
‘Did he know them well?’ Mariah asked, gulping the words.
‘They told me that they had dined with him. Tharakan is a compulsive man. I don’t think that would have suited your father,’ Charity replied.
‘But Tharakan would have spoken to them, known them a little,’ Mariah said, in his heart hoping that he could speak to the captain about them.
‘Good people live on in the memories of those they have met,’ Charity said.
‘Do you think they could be –’ Mariah stopped before he finished the sentence.
‘Alive?’ Charity asked. ‘We would have heard by now, we would have had news of them. I believe they are lost to the desert and that we have to carry on.’
‘I can’t see my mother’s face. When I think of her I can see everything but her face,’ Mariah said. ‘With every year it gets worse and I fear she will vanish completely from my memory.’ He traced the outline of the ship in the misting windowpane.
There was a sudden roar of the crowd. Everyone rushed from the train and pressed towards the Triton.
‘On time, just as I thought,’ Charity said as he got to his feet. ‘The gold has arrived.’
Mariah looked out as hordes of people pushed to get closer to the gates of the dock. Charity took his Gladstone bag and a small case from the rack and slid open the door.
‘Time for us to leave. I have made arrangements for our trunk to be taken to the ship.’
‘Is that really the gold?’ Mariah asked, as the screams of excitement grew louder.
‘It is whatever they want it to be,’ Charity replied as together they stepped into the corridor and disembarked from the train. ‘I did make a suggestion that the gold be put on board this afternoon and that what is seen to go on tonight is in fact just lead bricks, stamped and proved … covered in gold leaf, of course.’
‘A deception?’ asked Mariah as they walked quickly over the quayside and onto the long wooden bridge that led to a narrow steel door in the side of the ship.
Charity stopped on the gantry and pointed to the procession entering the docks. A long funeral carriage was flanked by a regiment of Marines. The crowd parted as it drew near and their shouting ceased as they gazed in awe at the bars of bullion. They were stacked neatly, to form a peculiar sarcophagus. The inside of the hearse was dimly illuminated by two red carriage lamps that swung back and forth as the wheels of the carriage rattled over the cobbled road. The dock fell completely silent. Men took their caps from their heads as the procession passed by. It was as if they were spectators at the funeral of a great statesman drawn by the black landau towards his grave.
‘Quite spectacular,’ Charity said as if pleased with himself. ‘I thought of that myself. It was hard to convince the Bureau of Antiquities that it should be done this way.’
‘So it’s real gold?’ Mariah whispered.
‘To those who look on with greedy hearts, it is worth more than gold. See how they clamber to be in its presence, as if they stand before a god. In their silence they give reverence.’ Charity looked at his fob watch. ‘Now …’
At that precise moment the carriage stopped. The Marines took their rifles from their shoulders and stood to attention, forming a phalanx from the carriage to the gangway of the Triton.
There was a sudden loud blast on the ship’s horn. It rattled the windows of the houses for miles and miles and sent a gigantic squall of squawking sea birds high into the night sky. They swirled above the ships like a host of angels that flew in and out of the searchlights. The crowd applauded as the doors to the hearse were opened and the gold bars were passed in a human chain from man to man.
‘They look so real,’ Mariah said as Charity smiled to himself. ‘Do you think anyone will try to steal the gold?’
‘Not tonight, not here. It would take an army to do such a thing,’ Charity replied as they watched the gold disappear into the ship one brick ingot at a time.
‘And it is really gold?’ Mariah asked, hoping Charity would be truthful.
‘I have arranged for it to be displayed in the grand entrance – suitably guarded, of course.’ He laughed. ‘Good Bureau business.’
Mariah had known Charity long enough to understand what he meant. The Bureau of Antiquities always went to elaborate lengths to hoodwink and misinform the world.
Aldo Rafden, he was told, had formed the Bureau of Antiquities a hundred and fifty-three years before. He was an explorer, collector and government spy. To those who knew him, he was a scandalous thief who loved nothing more than finding something precious and taking it for himself. He had plundered the tombs of the East and put the loot on display in Bloomsbury. Rafden had a particular interest in the mummified remains of animals and had so filled his displays with dead cats so that the whole museum looked like a charnel house.
The sole purpose of the Bureau, as it was known, was to find those mysterious objects of power and legend that were only spoken about in whisper. Often the objects the Bureau found were so secret that people would never dare mention even their names in public or admit to know of their whereabouts. The Bureau could not be bought for any price and those called to its service would rather die than give away its secrets.
‘So why is this Bureau business?’ Mariah asked.
‘All will become clear when we are at sea,’ Charity said quite sternly. ‘I think this will be our most dangerous task yet. We do not know our enemy or why we are really here. All I have been told is that three weeks ago a strange light was seen in the far north of Greenland. It burnt as bright as the sun and it shuddered the ice. The Bureau received a telegram from one of our agents. It said that there was death on the ice. Five days ago the agent was found dead. He had been badly burnt. It looked as though he had spontaneously combusted.’
‘Hexagenamite?’ Mariah asked. ‘Just like at the Prince Regent?’
‘As if it were the same,’ Charity replied. ‘There have been reports in the press that the ice cap is moving. A catastrophe has occurred and a vast land of ice is in motion.’
‘And what has that to do with the Triton and the Ketos?’ Mariah asked.
‘The Bureau of Antiquities looks at all these things with interest. It is our experience that whenever something of this magnitude happens, then a human element follows close by.’
‘Then who could it be?’ Mariah asked.
‘Stew … I can smell beef stew,’ Charity replied as he sniffed the air, picked up his bags and walked into the ship. ‘I think they are serving beef stew for supper.’
Mariah took a final glimpse at the procession as the gold bars were loaded from the funeral cart to the ship. The crowd was still silent as they counted the ingots. Turning quickly, Mariah followed Charity through the small doorway and into the Triton. He nodded to the guard and showed him the ticket in the leather wallet. The guard grunted for him to follow on, muttering that it was highly irregular that guests should enter the ship by the crew hatch. Already, Charity was far ahead. He strode up the steel stairway two treads at a time with a bag in each hand.
‘Quickly, Mariah,’ he bellowed loudly. ‘We shouldn’t be here – crew only, didn’t you read the sign?’
By the second landing, Mariah had caught up with Charity. It was as if he knew the ship as he walked on, coat flapping and cases clattering against the freshly painted white walls. They went up several decks and on and on through steel hatches with brass wheels to make them watertight. Then up a final flight of stairs.
‘I wish we could have gone through the guests’ entrance,’ Charity said quite breathlessly as he stopped outside a closed hatch. ‘All I will say, is that what is on the other side of this doorway is quite breathtaking.’ Charity spun the wheel on the door and pulled slowly. The aroma of beef stew, red wine and cigars floated through the opening and into the stairwell. ‘Delicious,’ he said as the noise of excited conversation flooded in. ‘I think you should go first.’
Mariah stared and stared. He could not believe what he saw. Opening before him was a sumptuous sight, a grand hallway with two golden stairways circling down from high above. Hanging from the ornate ceiling was a vast chandelier bedecked with tiny and yet dazzling white lights. Beneath his feet was a soft carpet embedded with golden unicorns woven into the fabric. In the centre of the room, below the circular balcony, was a grand piano, and next to that was a large catafalque. Two Royal Marines in uniforms of blue and gold neatly stacked the bars of Charity’s bullion on a sheet of black velvet. The crowd of passengers now seemed to give it little attention. Its value paled against the vast majesty of the ship and the wonder and awe of all that was around them. It was as if the Triton were a city of the seas. There were avenues of small shops selling goods from around the world. Cafés and restaurants lined the upper deck, and thousands of people from every nation milled about in their finery.
‘Did you know it would be like this?’ Mariah asked.
‘Never,’ Charity replied, as if lost for words. ‘Magnificent …’
A man tapped Charity on the shoulder. ‘Captain Jack Charity and your young guest,’ he said.
‘Tharakan. It is years since we last met,’ Charity said warmly. ‘This is my godson, Mariah Mundi.’
‘I heard much of you from your parents – I took them to Africa. Tell me, how are they keeping?’ Tharakan asked.
‘They are dead. Lost in the Sudan,’ Mariah replied.
‘And you, Captain Jack – how are you?’ Tharakan asked as if he had not heard or wanted to hear what Mariah had said.
‘Well, very well,’ Charity replied as his hand squeezed Mariah’s shoulder.
‘I hear that you have already met Madame Zane. She told me that you had helped them on the train whilst young Lorenzo had his accident.’ Tharakan’s dark eyes flashed about the room as if he searched for someone.
‘Did she mention me by name?’ Charity asked.
‘As if she has known you for a lifetime. But then again, once you have met Captain Jack Charity then he is never forgotten – eh, Mariah, do you agree with that?’
Mariah smiled as he examined the buttons on Tharakan’s deep blue uniform with interest. Each one looked as if it had been carved from the pearled shell of a deep-sea creature. Engraved within each pearl was the three-bladed spear.
Tharakan was even taller than Charity. Mariah thought his eyes, suspended in deep brown circles of wrinkled skin, seemed lifeless. His long dark beard, flecked with blades of grey, hung down to his chest. It made him look like an ancient god of the sea.
‘When do we go to our rooms?’ Mariah asked.
‘Rooms?’ snorted Captain Tharakan. ‘There is not a single room on the ship – every guest has a suite and nothing finer will you ever find in the whole world. Not even in Claridges Hotel. Ah,’ Tharakan snorted as he finally saw who he had been looking for. ‘Lorenzo Zane … I must speak with him. Come to the bridge at midnight – you will be surprised by what you see. And bring Mariah.’
Captain Tharakan walked off without saying goodbye. Mariah watched as he took Zane by the arm and led him away deep in conversation.
‘He ment
ioned Claridges Hotel. Does he know about Room 13?’ he asked anxiously.
‘Even if he does then it will be of no consequence. Room 13 at Claridges Hotel doesn’t exist. It is a code for the headquarters of the Bureau of Antiquities, not the place itself.’ Charity didn’t continue because there, coming towards them, picking her way through the hundreds of people in the room, was Madame Zane. As she walked through the crowd of eager sojourners every head turned to look at her.
‘She’s coming to talk to you,’ Mariah muttered under his breath, as a small waiter with a scar across his cheek attempted to force him to eat what looked like the squashed remains of a dead crab.
‘And we cannot escape.’ Charity grimaced through gritted teeth.
‘Captain Charity, I feel I must again try to give you my thanks,’ she said politely as she held out her hand.
‘No need – it was Mariah who was of greatest help,’ he replied.
‘And so like young Lorenzo – they could be mistaken for brothers,’ she said. She turned to watch as the last bars of gold were placed on the catafalque and covered in a gigantic glass case. ‘We will have to stare at all that gold for the next five days.’
‘A fortune for all to see,’ Mariah said.
‘Yet so ugly,’ she replied. ‘I feel I have met you before, Captain Charity – do you remember where?’
Mariah noticed that Charity appeared to be embarrassed. He coughed and covered his face with his hand as if to wipe his brow.
‘I can’t say I do. But then I meet so many people. Perhaps you have been a guest at my hotel, the Prince Regent? Do you know of it?’ he asked.
‘A friend of my husband stayed there recently, an American … Dedalus Zogel – do you know him?’ she asked.