by Eoin Colfer
“Ah,” said Linus. “A new propeller.”
This pronouncement stopped Conor in mid-motion. “You are blind, are you not? How can you possibly know what I’m doing?”
Linus laid the breakfast tray on a bench. “I have mystical powers, boy. And also you’ve been talking to yourself this past hour. Lift, drag, propulsion, all that interesting stuff. We blind folk ain’t deaf, you know.”
The scientist in Conor wished to continue to work, but the ravenous young man dragged him away from his precious propeller to the delicious breakfast. Linus listened to him tuck in with a cook’s satisfaction. “I picked up the bread fresh in the village. The folk down there are all a frenzy over stories about this Airman creature. Apparently he slew twenty men on the island last night.”
“I hear he’s ten feet tall,” said Conor, around a mouthful of bread.
Linus sat beside him at the bench. “This is no joke, Conor. You are in danger now.”
“No need to fret, Linus. The Airman’s short career is over. No more night flying for me. From this day on, scientific flights only.”
Linus stole a strip of bacon. “Perhaps you might think of finding yourself a girl. You are of an age, you know.”
Conor could not help but think of Isabella. “Once there was a girl, or could have been. I will think of females again when we reach America.”
“When you reach America. I plan to stay here and conspire against Bonvilain. There are others who think like I do.”
“You mean it,” Conor realized sadly. “I had hoped you would change your mind.”
“No. I lost friends. We both did.”
Conor had no desire to rake over the coals of this familiar argument. “Very well,” he said, pushing away his plate. “The tower is yours, and there will be abundant funds, too. But I am going. In America, there are airmen like me, eager for the sky.”
“I see. And when will you go?”
“I had planned to leave today, but now I am impatient to test this new propeller. She is a thing of beauty, don’t you think?”
Linus Wynter tapped the velvet sleep mask that he now wore over his ruined eyes. “I’ll take your word for it. I had this mask sent from the Savoy. Did I ever tell you that I once stayed there?”
“Let us make a bargain,” said Conor. “Today I transport my aeroplane to Curracloe beach. It will take two days to assemble and another to test. When I return, we will ship my equipment to New York and go by ferry and train to London. We will live like kings for one week in the Savoy, with no talk of revolution or science, then review our situation.”
“That is a tempting offer,” admitted Linus. “Some of the suites have pianos. My fingers twitch at the thought.”
“Let us agree, then. One week for ourselves, then back into the world. Separately perhaps, but I pray that we will be together.”
“I pray for that too.”
“Then we are agreed. The Savoy.”
Linus extended a hand. “The Savoy.”
They shook on it.
Bonvilain and Sultan came ashore incognito, faces shadowed by broad-rimmed Toquilla hats. Their Saltee uniforms lent them no authority on the mainland, and they would probably not attract attention dressed in civilian clothes. Local rowdies were far less likely to trouble dangerous-looking strangers than they were soldiers off their patch. In fact, some of the Kilmore lads knocked huge sport from taunting Saltee army boys, who were under strict orders not to retaliate. Bonvilain and Sultan were restrained by no such orders. They made no overtly hostile gestures and were the very definition of gentility, but still the local harbor boys got the impression that to trifle with this odd pair would lead to immediate and lasting discomfort.
They strolled down the quayside and into the smoky depths of the Wooden House. “I have visited taverns all over the world,” confided Hugo Bonvilain, ducking under the lintel. “And they all have one thing in common.”
“Drunks?” said Sultan Arif, toppling a sleeping sailor from his path.
“That too. Information for sale, is the common factor I had in mind. That wretch, for example . . .”
The marshall pointed to a solitary man, elbows on the bar, staring at an empty glass.
“A prime candidate. He would sell his soul for another drink.” He sidled up beside the man, and called to the innkeeper for a bottle of whiskey.
“Do I know you?” asked the innkeeper.
“No, you don’t,” replied Bonvilain cheerfully. “And I recommend you keep it that way. Now, leave the bottle and make yourself busy elsewhere.”
Most good innkeepers develop an instinct about their customers and their capabilities. This proprietor was no exception. He would ask no more questions, but he would check the load in his shotgun just in case the oddly familiar broad-beamed customer and his grinning companion unleashed the trouble that they were surely capable of.
Bonvilain opened the bottle, turning to the solitary, glass-gazing man. “Now, good sir, you look like a gent that could use a drink. I certainly hope so, because I have no intention of imbibing one drop of this ripe spirit, which by the smell of it has already been passed through the stomachs of several cats.”
The man pushed his glass along the bar with one finger. “I’ll do you a favor and take it off your hands.”
“Very noble of you, friend,” said Bonvilain, filling the glass to the rim.
“We ain’t friends,” said the man, grumpy in spite of his sudden good fortune. “Not yet.”
Half a bottle later, they were friends, and Bonvilain steered the conversation as though the man had a rudder fixed to the back of his head.
“Stupid gas lamps,” said the man. “What’s wrong with candles? A candle never ruptured and exploded. I hear a gas explosion destroyed an entire city in China, ’cept for the cats what are immune to gas.”
Bonvilain nodded sympathetically. “Gas. Dreadful stuff. And as for foreigners buying our buildings . . .”
“Stupid foreigners,” blurted the man vehemently. “Buying our buildings. With the big smug heads on them. Do you know the English own one hundred percent of the big houses around here? If not more.”
“And don’t they just love living in towers, lording it over the rest of us.”
“That they do,” agreed the now sozzled man. “We got us a right scatterfool at Forlorn Point. Takes on a blind musician to cook and clean for him.”
Bonvilain was extremely interested in this scatterfool. “A boy like that shouldn’t even own a tower,” he prompted.
More whiskey was slopped into the glass. “No! Blast it. No, he shouldn’t. Boy like that. Should be out cutting hay like the rest of us at that age. But what does he do? Buys reams of material. Sends off for all sorts of mechanical parts. What’s he building up there? Who knows. Like Doctor Frankenstein, he is. Whatever he’s doing, the noise coming out of that tower at night is enough to waken a dead pig.”
The man downed his drink in one, its harshness shocking his system from stomach to eyeballs. “And don’t tell me lobsters aren’t getting smarter. I caught a lobster last month, and I swear he was trying to communicate. With the clicking claws and the pointy-head yokes.”
The landlord rapped the bar with a knuckle. “You can shut up now, Ern. They’ve gone.”
“Don’t matter,” said Ern, clutching the bottle protectively to his chest. “I don’t like fellows with hats anyways. Never trust a hatter.”
The landlord was tactful enough not to point out that Ern himself sported a jaunty cap.
It took mere minutes for Bonvilain and Sultan Arif to find Forlorn Point. The old British Army marker stone by the roadside helped quite a bit.
“The place is well named,” noted Arif, placing his shoulder satchel on a tree stump. From inside he selected twin revolvers and a selection of knives, which he arranged on his belt. “I presume we are not sending for help.”
“As is occasionally the case, Sultan, you are correct,” said Bonvilain. “This is a Martello tower; we could have a
battleship off the coast and still not gain entry. We proceed cautiously. Diplomacy first, then guile, and finally violence, should it become necessary.”
They stepped over the ruined remains of the wall and across the yard, careful not to snag their boots on treacherous creepers that snaked from the rocky soil.
“It doesn’t look much,” said Sultan, picking moss from the tower wall.
Bonvilain nodded. “I know. Clever, isn’t it.” A quick circuit of the tower confirmed that there was indeed only one doorway, above head height and plugged with a wooden door.
“I’ll wager that door is not as flimsy as it looks,” muttered Bonvilain.
Sultan placed his cheek against the wall. “The stones vibrate from a generator, Marshall,” he noted. “I can hear classical music. It sounds as though there is an entire orchestra in there.”
“A phonograph,” said Bonvilain sourly. “How very modern. Conor Broekhart always liked his toys.”
“So, how do we get in? Throw stones at the doorway?”
This is the Airman’s tower, thought Bonvilain. He enters and leaves from the roof.
“I throw stones,” he said to his captain.
“You always had a good arm for stone throwing. What can I do?”
“You can search in that bag of yours and see if you brought your crossbow.”
Sultan’s eyes glittered. “No need to search. I always bring my crossbow.”
Linus Wynter was enjoying Beethoven’s Ode to Joy while he fried up some traditional Southern grits on the pan. His secret ingredient was cayenne pepper, of course. Conor’s limited galley did not have any pepper, so he was forced to use a pinch of curry powder instead. It might not have been quite up to his normal culinary standards, but it was unlikely that Conor would complain after two years of Little Saltee food.
At any rate, Conor had left for Curracloe beach not more than five minutes previously, and by the time he returned, the grits would be no more than a distant memory.
That phonograph was a scientific wonder. Conor had explained how an orchestra could be transferred to a wax cylinder, but in all honesty, Linus hadn’t made much of an effort to understand. The sound was scratchy and the cylinder had to be changed every few minutes, but it was sweet music all the same.
In spite of the crackling music and the sizzling grits, Linus heard the muffled voices outside. At first he assumed it was the local lads poking about, but then he heard the word Marshall, and his mild curiosity turned to a ball of dread in his stomach. Bonvilain had found them.
Wynter had never been much of a marksman, but all the same he felt a little comforted once his thin fingers closed around the stock of the repeater rifle concealed beneath the worktop. Just let Bonvilain open his mouth, and I will do my utmost to close it forever.
Seconds later, a rock thumped against the door, followed in quick succession by three more, the last ringing against a steel band. “I thought as much,” said a voice. “A reinforced door.”
Linus checked the breech with his thumb, then shouldered his way along the wall to a gun port. Loaded and ready. Say something else, Marshall.
Bonvilain did. “Conor Broekhart. Why don’t you come down so I can finally kill you? May as well be blunt.”
Linus sent six shots winging toward the voice. Perhaps God will favor the virtuous, he thought as the gunshots echoed around the tower’s curved walls and the discharge smoke sent his windpipe into spasms.
“So,” called Bonvilain, “Conor is not at home and the blind servant pulls the trigger. Just so you know, blind man, you just grievously wounded the pillar I was sheltering behind.”
Or perhaps the devil looks after his own, Linus concluded, covering his nose and mouth with a wet cloth from the sink. I must warn Conor. He must not be taken. I will fire the emergency flares.
Conor had worried about leaving Linus alone in the tower, in spite of the fact that the American had survived wars and prison for fifty years without his help, and so had rigged a series of emergency flares to the roof. The fuses trailed down to various spots throughout the tower and were capped with sulphur sleeves. It was only necessary to yank off the sleeve to light the fuse. The fuses were linked, so if one sparked, they all sparked.
The nearest fuse was in what they jokingly referred to as the lounge, a collection of chairs clustered around the fireplace, which Linus was using as a gin still. Fifteen steps from the rifle slot to the lounge. One step down. A bench by the wall. Nothing I don’t pass by a hundred times a day.
Linus coughed the last of the rifle smoke from his lungs and began his short walk carefully. What a shame it would be to come unstuck from a twisted ankle. There was plenty of time. Bonvilain would be reluctant to enter through the front door, as there could be any number of guns pointed at that target.
Walk slowly but surely. Linus was thrown into turmoil by a series of gunshots, each one clanging against the door, setting the metal ringing like a bell. Wynter dropped to all fours, puzzled. Has the marshall grown stupid? The door is reinforced; he said it himself. Why shoot at it?
The answer was obvious, and occurred to Linus almost immediately. He is not trying to kill me, he is trying to distract me. The marshall is not alone. . . .
Something cold, sharp, and metallic pressed against Linus’s neck.
“You left the roof door open, old man,” said a voice in heavily accented English. Linus knew immediately who it was. Sultan Arif, Bonvilain’s deadly second-in-command.
“You of all people should know,” continued Sultan, “that sometimes trouble comes from above.”
The fuse. I must ignite it. Linus made a lunge for the lounge, suffering the blade at his neck to gouge deeply, but there was no escaping Sultan Arif. The captain grabbed him as though he were a struggling pup and hoisted him to his feet.
Keep your bearings. Know where you are. It was a difficult task with such distractions to his senses. There was pain in his neck and wet blood down his back. The gunshot echo had not yet faded, and Sultan swung him around. Linus was utterly disoriented.
Concentrate. Where are you?
In the end, Sultan made it easy for him. “Let’s go down and meet our master, shall we?” he said, pushing Linus across the room. Wynter heard the door bolts scrape back and the gush of cool air against his face.
I am in the doorway, he thought, fingers questing for the frame.
Sultan’s voice was loud by his ear. “I have him, Marshall,” he called. “The blind man is alone. There is a rope ladder here—I shall tie it off.”
“Don’t be so tiresome, Sultan, throw him down,” said Bonvilain. “Nothing is more amusing than watching a blind man fall.”
Sultan sighed; this was a task without honor, but honor was not a quality greatly prized by the marshall.
“Relax, old man. Tight bones are broken bones.” The leather in his coat creaked as he bent his arm to push. Linus waited for the right moment, and as Sultan propelled him into space, he screamed. Loudly enough to mask the sound of a sulphur sleeve being ripped from a fuse running along the door frame.
Linus cried as he regained consciousness, for as his head had struck the earth, he had seen something. A flash of light. Just for a moment—now all was dark again. His breathing was restricted by the weight of a boot on his chest.
“I remember you,” said Bonvilain. “You played piano for the king. Very clever, a blind spy. Well, old boy, your piano-playing days are over. Your spying days too, come to think of it.”
“Damn you, Hugo Bonvilain,” rasped Linus valiantly. “There is a special pit in hell reserved for your ilk.”
The marshall laughed. “I have no doubt of it, which is why I intend to delay my departure from this life as long as possible. Your departure, however, is imminent, unless you answer my questions promptly.”
Linus’s own laugh was bitter. “Just kill me, Bonvilain. Your prison couldn’t break me, and neither can you.”
“Do you know, I think you’re right. I believe that you would resist
me with your final breath. I shall never understand you principled people. Sultan has a few principles, but he can ignore their berating voices when the situation calls for it. I don’t really need you at any rate; Broekhart will be back and I will be waiting, simple as that.”
“Perhaps not so simple,” said Linus. At that moment, the linked fuses sent half a dozen flares rocketing into the sky. They exploded pink and red, their light reflected on the bellies of dark clouds.
Bonvilain watched their slow descent with catty dismay. “Warning flares. How this young Broekhart wriggles. I swear, sometimes it seems I have been trying to bury him for his entire life.”
“Help is on the way,” gasped Linus. “The fire brigade will be called.”
Bonvilain thought briefly, knocking his knuckles on his forehead, then called to Sultan. “Fetch me pen and paper from the tower. I will nail a special invitation to this man’s head.”
“I am not eager to murder a blind man, Marshall,” said Sultan calmly.
“We have talked about this, Captain,” hissed Bonvilain in the tone of a parent who does not wish his children to hear. “In your soldiering days, you had no such morals.”
“That was war. They were soldiers. This is a blind old man.”
“Fetch me the pen,” insisted Bonvilain.
“I did not unfurl the ladder.”
“Unfurl? Unfurl? Are you William Shakespeare now? Fire another bolt then, climb up another rope.”
Sultan nodded toward the village. “That will take several minutes. I do not believe there is time.”
Bonvilain scowled petulantly. “This is really too much, Sultan. I fervently hope this old man is the one who puts a knife between your ribs. I will lean over your dying body just to say I told you so.”
Sultan bowed low, to show his continued loyalty.
“Too late for bowing now, my good man. I am very disappointed in you.”
“My apologies, Marshall.”
“Yes, of course, apologies. How useful. At least do me the kindness of tying this spy to the pillar.”