Attack! We try flee. Big battle, husband die, children die, comrade die. So many death. In battle, lose leg.
She pulled up the robe’s hem to her knee. Her left leg was gleaming brass, all bolts, springs, gears. She propped the leg up on the chair seat.
But escape. And I vow. I vow! Destroy all steam power. Kill Emperor. Put man, real man, on throne.
She smiled.
Or woman.
She picked up the hammer and tapped her false leg. It rang like the gong Mama summoned them to dinner with, a rusty fry pan she’d hung from a porch rafter.
Man power better steam power! Bring all pirate to-gather. Unite fleets, write laws. Work hard. Build many new ship, many weapon.
She sat down.
Emperor gunship, name White Jade Tiger. White all over, like Emperor, gleam white. I chase, long time. But I find. Close now!
She blew out a long stream of smoke, watched it rise to the ceiling.
Try as he might, George couldn’t keep his eyes open any more. He would half wake when bells ding-dinged at the speaking-cans; through crusty eyelids he saw the Queen with one pressed to each ear while she talked into a third. Men and women came and went; bundles of paper, scribbled-on maps. The Queen paced her cabin, smoking; gave orders, smoking; paced....
George was running down a long, long hallway, full of doors, but every time he came to one, it slammed shut, bang!, and there was no way out. He kept running. Boom. The floor shook. He had to get away! —You will do no such thing, George Washington Tarr, the Queen said. And she shook her broom and slammed another door in his face. He could hardly breathe, he’d been running, running, running for so long, he had, he had to, he had to find, he had to find a way....
* * *
We liv thru the big Battul.
Boom.
The whole ship shook. Glass rattled in the cabin’s window frames.
Come back here! someone said but George looked and there was no one there, just Frank asleep next to him.
The Queen was still pacing, still smoking, her limp worse, the early light like gray gauze draped over the windows. Outside, the sky was clotted with smoke, the river dotted with fire. The pirate fleet floated like wood-chips in a sawmill pond, bank to bank.
Downstream, something glinted white, catching the sunlight that hadn’t reached the water yet. George shook Frank.
Mama don’t say that, Frank muttered before opening his eyes.
What?
He sat up.
Look out, George said, look what’s coming!
A giant metal man, shiny bright as tin, towered over the river. Girders scissored and thrusted as he waded along and weights swung and gears turned and turned—polished brass ratchets, brass pivots, double-pronged escapements—and he was haired all over with tiny black flags. Below him, paddle-wheelers churned. The lead boat, glowing white too, was even larger than the Queen’s flagship, decks stacked up like a wedding cake.
You trying to catch flies with your mouth hanging open like that? Frank asked.
Look! George said. Just look at him!
The flags fluttered like wind rushing through a cornfield. The rising sun flared on white metal and the two crystal balls he had for eyes.
A bright cloud shot up out of his head, like a fountain or a whale-spout, and shredded in the breeze like a feather.
Half a minute later, a low keening, faint, like a dove’s cry.
Then nearby and distant righted themselves, and the metal man must be farther away than he’d thought, more gigantic, taller, bulking above the oncoming fleet. No, not flags: people! Black-clad people swarmed over his head and shoulders, up and down the arms, the vast machine rippled with movement.
Frank gave a low whistle.
Out the fry-pan, he said.
No power on earth com-pare to him, the Queen said.
She was standing behind them, watching too, her blue-and-white pipe clenched between her teeth.
Steam power! Steam Emperor! No one have the like. Not France Empire, not Russia Empire. No one.
She drew in a lungful of smoke, sighed it out.
Great white steam-man, white boat, now I come. Ha! Now battle begin. So we see, yes?
The approaching fleet disappeared in a sudden fog. A moment later, water-spouts appeared all around them, a spar on a neighboring ship went to splinters, one of the Queen’s windows shattered and the wall aft of it had a neat round hole.
Thunder roared all around them. George clapped his hands to his ears. It didn’t help much: guns, cannons, bomb-trebuchets, rockets. The air was blue with gunpowder.
The Queen climbed a ladder bolted to the wall and pushed open a trapdoor. She clambered out onto the roof.
What should we do? George asked Frank.
What can we do? Stay here, I guess.
But the cannonballs!
You know how to dodge them?
I just want to live through it, that’s all.
The Queen paced the roof. Between rounds of firing, they could hear her false leg on the planks: thump thump, thump thump.
I’m hungry, George complained. All that food in the saloon smelt good!
I don’t see no food here, Frank said.
We got to do something!
What?
But of course George didn’t know.
The boat kept on surging forward, faster and faster.
Ma’am! Ma’am! George shouted up. Let us go! I’m scared!
She passed the opening and glanced down at him. But she kept on pacing, puffing steadily at her pipe. Thump thump, thump thump.
* * *
We excape & find mor trubbles.
George said: You know, she aint doing nothing to keep us here.
Frank looked at him, then grabbed the gunnysack, stuffed the gun and dragon eggs in. He pulled on the door. It wasn’t locked.
They scurried along the verandah and down to the hurricane deck. The saloon was empty, the windows shattered. Sailors were forming up ranks where the nauscopiste’s post had been.
Where’s Mister Pear? George wondered.
Frank tugged his arm.
The big white boat was right ahead, smokestacks towering over them. Behind it, through gaps in the smoke, the Steam-Emperor strutted and gleamed. The Queen’s ship jerked as it put on even more speed.
George looked up. The Queen was leaning over the railing above, arms outstretched, her green robes unfurling like flags behind her.
You think we’re going to ram it? he asked.
Run! Frank shouted. Run aft!
They pounded down the verandah, crouched against the stern-rail. The ship bucked—
then a fierce: roar splinter, shake shatter
—the deck was a hillside and they rolled down it—
(smack, skidded face-down, skin torn raw)
—a mast, tatters of sail clinging to it, leaned over them like a felled tree, tilting bigger, wider; spars swung past, tore away half the verandah roof—
(whirled like a leaf)
and the railing whacked George’s ribs, spun him round, he clung to it, white-knuckled, but his grip broke
(the ship ground to a halt)
—mid-air!—
and his breath knocked out of him, huhnnhh!, and again huhnnhh! when Frank splayed on top of him, and the ship shuddered.
They’d landed on top of a bale of stuff on the lower deck. Frank rolled off him. They lay there, panting so hard their throats hurt.
From all around: cheering. Then feet pounding. At the bows, something green swung down onto the rammed ship’s white deck and ran into the smoke. Sailors swarmed and jumped across, shouting.
This aint going to end well, Frank said. We got to get out of here.
Which way? George asked.
Down there, Frank said. Paddle-wheelers always got life boats, don’t they?
But the stairs ended in twisted iron.
Forward then, Frank said. Then back round the other side.
George followed him, scrambling
up the deck’s slant. They crept past the tumbled tables in the saloon (something was on fire). The boat lurched and a platter bearing a whole fish slick with oil and piled with shredded vegetables slid towards them, like it was being passed at a banquet. George swiped the fish as it skidded past. They squeezed out through the smashed door on the other side.
A thin, shrill cry overhead, like a penny-whistle, and the deck bloomed flame. They tripped over each other trying to get back from the hiss and sear. George’s fish got smashed underfoot.
What now? he asked.
Can’t go back, Frank said, can’t go down, can’t go up, so—
No, George said.
We got to.
Not there, George said. Not the Emperor’s boat!
But we can’t stay here.
I’m afraid!
Frank took George’s hand.
Way I figure it, he said, there aint a good choice here. We can stay and drown, if we don’t burn up first, or we can go and maybe find a way out—but we’ll die for sure if we stay here.
The boat lurched.
Feel that? Frank asked. This boat is fixing to go down.
George tugged at his arm, eyes wide and brimming.
Don’t leave me here, he said.
Come on, Frank said.
George let Frank pull him up.
Another bomb screeched overhead. The river was flooded with fire, tongues of flame; the sun pale as a cinder in the murk.
At the bows, George said: You spect me to jump all that way?
Yep.
How?
Just jump.
You go first.
Frank shook his head.
Just try, he said, you done it before. Remember the church picnic, the sand pit? How far you’d jump?
Four feet!
That’s right. You can clear it.
There weren’t no river to fall into then. No bombs and cannonballs neither.
Take a deep breath, Frank said. Ready—get set—go! Run!
George stumbled but got his footing, faster faster. He hesitated near the edge but Frank shoved him, hard, and George went flying—arms windmilling in empty air—and cleared the gap, landed thump on the deck, like a tossed bag of taters, lay there splayed, panting and weeping.
I hate you I hate you I hope you die! he screamed at Frank.
Here, catch!
Frank tossed the gunnysack across and made the jump himself.
Stop blubbering. Come on.
Frank pulled George to his feet. Billows of smoke, shouts, shadows thronging. Metal clashed on metal. Gunfire. They scurried across polished white deck, slipped through a doorway.
Inside was murky and smelt of sweet smoke. Overhead, golden dragons wrapped around scarlet rafters, held up by pillars shiny black as boiling tar. The floor was black too, and the furniture—a few tables and one giant chair—red as blood. Outside, the battle raged, and the boat banged and rocked as it lost way and drifted.
I got a feeling like I been here before, George said.
* * *
We find away owtt.
Where we going? George asked.
Down, Frank answered. Looking for lifeboats.
George pointed at a sort of a window in the floor with a ladder poking out.
That’ll work, Frank said.
They climbed down.
Another corridor, this one stacked with crates and tuns to the ceiling. At the far end, a dim glow—a door, half off its hinges, led back onto the verandah. Frank crawled out and George followed, tugging the gunnysack behind.
The upper decks were on fire.
So was the river, grand and awful; barbed lightning, red blue orange, crossed and recrossed through the boiling black smoke.
The deck jerked like someone tugged a rug out from under them; the boat swung, shuddered.
What was that? George asked.
I expect we run into another boat couldn’t get out of the way.
Shadow slid over them, like a door closing.
The gun-, cannon-, rocket-fire had stopped. George’s ears buzzed and sang. In a quiet as violent as another battle: the chug-chug-chug of a locomotive working up an incline.
Now what? George asked.
He looked up
—into gleaming white and brass machinery all in motion.
Worlds away, in a head high as a mountain, two glass globes gazed down. A scalding wad of grease splattered the deck, and soot-stained water rained out of the Emperor’s arm as it swung against the boat’s superstructure. The deck shuddered and splinters flew. One wall stretched out like a mouth yawning—
Watch out! Frank shouted.
—and boards, joists, glass, timbers, a whole window
(George fell to his knees and hugged his head)
—rained down, smacked his legs, back, arms...
—and it all slumped over him, a heavy heap, like an unlit bonfire.
Through a gap, George watched two giant finger-struts reach into the remains of the upper deck above them, like a greedy eater snatching at the roast, and pull out a green-robed shape that fought and twisted in their pinch.
Cables winched, gears big as wagon wheels clanked, and the arm hoisted up to the Emperor’s gaping mouth.
The Emperor extended his tongue, a flight of stairs steep as a ladder, and opened his fingers. The green figure dropped, hung onto a steel tread, struggled upwards step by step.
The tongue clack-clack-clacked back up into the yawning cavern of a mouth. Gears caught and the jaw levered. The mouth (a house could fit inside! a big house!) closed. The Emperor pivoted away—
Oh no—! George said.
A flicker: a green flutter: in the shell of the Emperor’s ear.
But what could he do for her, what could he have ever done?
Frank? he called. Frank? Frank!
George got himself turned over. Frank lay just feet away, face bloody and legs twisted backwards, a black puddle under him and spreading.
Frank? George called. Help me! We’re trapped.
This aint happening, Frank was muttering, not to me, not yet, it just aint. I can’t be just another name carved on a stone, I aint going to end up like that.
George struggled under the heap so hard his coat ripped; whatever was holding him down let go. He wriggled on his belly under the helter-skelter wreckage to Frank. Frank’s eyeballs were rolled back, white in a mess of blood. His breath hissed.
What’s that smell? George asked.
Because it was an evil stink that even gunpowder and burnt oil couldn’t drown.
It’s me, Frank gasped. He let go of his belly. A wicked spear of glass jagged down from the wreckage above and stuck right through his guts, a big gaping gash, and things inside slid back and forth with every heave of his breathing.
Oh, George said. No. Frank.
Help me, Frank said.
How? I don’t know what to do with, with....
A gut wound, Frank said. A mortal one.
No, Frank—
Die fast, or die slow. Don’t do that.
George was trying to press the wound closed. Frank’s jaw clenched, worked.
Where’s Papa’s gun? Don’t do that.
George let go.
I lost it, he said.
Give it to me!
I don’t got it, George said. Tell me what to do. We got to get you help. Chinese got doctors too, for sure.
George got his hands under Frank’s armpits and tugged. He had to get him out of here! Frank gasped, eyes clenched. George tugged harder. Frank screamed.
The glass snapped off. Frank slumped, the wound gaped wider.
Frank! How do we get out of here? George cried.
Help me, Frank said.
He fingered the broken glass stump still in his belly.
Reluctant, George grasped it. Frank’s hands were icy and trembled.
And they started to pull it out.
Frank shuddered. His whole body jerked.
The glass only went in deeper.
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Frank, no! George cried.
He pulled Frank’s hands away, got a grip on it himself. It bit into his fingers but he pulled anyway.
Frank screamed; the glass, slick with blood, slipped out of George’s hand, sliced bowel.
No no no!
George tried again.
The glass slid out at last. He flung it away.
Frank’s belly gaped like an angry mouth, blood and black and straggly white rags.
Oh Frank oh Frank, no no.
Frank’s breath roared and clattered.
What should I do, Frank? What do I do now?
No answer. George reached for Frank’s hands. They slid loose, slashed to the bone, to the deck.
Frank?
Frank!
* * *
I wil hav no more Avenchers.
George twisted past broken beams and half a door, crawled between chairs, slats, floorboards, and tumbled out of the heap. He tugged his gunnysack out and lay there panting. The ship had already drifted from the battle, smoke closing in like a fog bank. No, he was not crying, it’s just sweat. How would he ever get out of here now, without, without—
Oh my dear boy, the priest said, here you are at last, at last, oh how wonderful! But where is your brother?
The fat nauscopiste tottered along behind him, both of them tattered and smoke-blacked, the priest’s left arm bound up in a sling, the fat man clutching a lumpy sack.
Are you wounded? the priest asked. You are fairly covered with blood.
George shook his head.
The nauscopiste dropped his sack, knelt by George, felt his forehead, pulled up one eyelid and peered in. He felt along George’s arms, torso, legs. He said something to the priest in French.
What is your name? the priest asked.
George, George mumbled.
Do you know where you are?
Stupid boat.
The priest looked to the nauscopiste, who shrugged.
Do you know what day it is?
Thursday? Don’t know. Fell asleep.
What is the month?
April.
The priest frowned.
And the year?
1879.
Today is Octidi, 28 Germinal, my dear boy, in the year LXXXVII of the Republic.
I didn’t know what to do! George blurted.
Do about what?
About Frank. He’s still under there. I think he’s, he’s....
Marie-François nodded gravely.
Ah, he said. I see. Yes. But there was nothing you could have done.
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