The Doomsday Machine (Horatio Lyle) (33 page)

Another match guttered and Lyle fumbled in the darkness, lifting above the water line the scant handful of matches he had in an effort to keep them dry. In that moment of darkness towards the end of the line, he heard a splashing, and a voice call out, ‘Can someone help me? Is anyone there?’

‘Hold on!’ He managed to isolate just one match, struck it, looked in the darkness and saw a shadow that had somehow managed to fall behind him in the dark, half-bowed over, head nearly touching the water, leaning against a wall for support as if at any second it might break under its own weight. Lyle struggled back towards it, took it by the shoulders and murmured, ‘Come on, we just need to . . .’

The upward swipe caught him squarely in the throat with the butt of the gun, trailing water as it came up to hit. Lyle, his fall cushioned by the rushing tide, was flung backward, barely managing to keep afloat as his head exploded in pain. His lungs caught fire as every part of his throat tried to constrict all at once. He clawed at his neck and tilted his head back to try to get air, the match falling from his fingers and landing in the water, still burning though beneath its surface, reflecting a dozen strange shimmers on to the walls. Havelock marched down on Lyle, ramming the soaking gun into his chest and hissing, ‘I don’t know if it’ll fire, Horatio, but it will be an interesting test to find out.’

Lyle wheezed and tried to speak and couldn’t.

‘Is it really worth dying so you can save
them
?’ demanded Havelock.

Lyle pressed his head back against the tunnel wall and felt the water cold against his middle, and tried to slow his breathing. ‘No,’ he whispered.

‘Then why do it?’ boomed Havelock in the darkness.

‘It’s not . . .
who
the Tseiqin are,’ hissed Lyle, his voice like the dust in his mouth. ‘It’s who
I
am, who we
want
to be. More than a war, Augustus. More than this.’

‘Fool,’ hissed Havelock. ‘I should let you live so you can see the day that they burn your books.’

‘You should let me live for a much better reason than that,’ whispered Lyle.

‘Tell me.’

‘It isn’t
necessary
to kill me.’ Havelock hesitated, just for a second. Lyle smiled grimly. ‘Oh, and because there’s someone who’d like to have a word with you.’

Havelock didn’t seem to understand. So Lin, standing calmly in the rushing waters, tapped him on the shoulder and said, ‘Hello, you nasty evolutionary specimen, you.’

Havelock spun round and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. Lin’s smile widened, her white teeth shining in the dark. ‘I do believe that your weapon is soggy. Good word, “soggy”; should be used more often. As for that nasty magnetic field your Machine was giving off . . .’ she sighed and shook her head. ‘Sometimes I have to remind myself of the beauty of the polka, if I want to recall humanity’s good side.’

Havelock swung the gun towards Lin’s face. She caught his arm by the wrist and twisted it easily, bending him round and back until his fingers opened and the gun flopped into the water. She looked at Lyle and said, as the match finally guttered out, ‘Is there anything in particular you want done, Mister Lyle?’

Lyle shook his head, and felt stupid; but Lin saw well enough. She smiled and turned to Augustus Havelock. ‘Now, sir,’ she said, ‘your death
is
a necessary one. But then . . .’ She drew in a long sigh of contemplation. ‘All deaths are necessary deaths, all people must age and decay and make stupid mistakes that really are wince-making to contemplate, and die. You will die, Mr Havelock, and I will die, and your people shall die, and my people shall die, and the empire will fade and ideas will fade and in a hundred years people will look back on you, and their strongest impression will be that you wore a funny kind of hat. Your death is necessary, and mine is necessary, and Lyle’s is necessary so that, frankly, we can all move on with life and change and learn and be ourselves, unique to our own time and place and ideals and so on and so forth. Wouldn’t you agree, Mister Lyle?’

‘I wouldn’t have put it quite that way, Miss Lin.’

‘I imagine you would have used shorter words,’ she said nicely.

‘You play with thoughts, Miss Lin. It’s just a difference.’ Lyle’s voice, quiet in the darkness, asking a question.

Lin sighed, switching her attention. ‘Mr Havelock, you are lucky; perhaps, just for today, life has more to offer than its conclusion. ’

And though it was dark, Augustus Havelock looked up and saw nothing but bright green eyes, filling his world, filling his thoughts, and could hear nothing but a voice like wind chimes, and knew only that he would do anything for those eyes, because they were beautiful.

In the dead of night, just south of Piccadilly Circus, something goes bump.

A cat squeals and runs away, as much from the smell as anything else.

A grate in the middle of the newly polished street next to the newly polished statue near the newly polished clubs where gentlemen with exceptionally polished manners and often equally shiny skulls sit and play bridge and drink port and discuss yet
another
Reform Act to please the masses. It lifts up on a pair of small, muck-coloured hands. It’s pushed to one side. A small, muck-coloured head appears, followed by a small body that is, indeed, covered in muck and a red velvet jacket. This is followed by two more children, one of whom is carrying a dog.

The first child says, ‘Is this . . . London?’

The second says, ‘This is bigwig land!’

The third says, ‘I say - that’s my father’s club! Oh my . . .’

And behind them are more hands, and more faces, clambering out into the street, nestling under the street lamps and peering in at the windows of the clubs until even the occupants, usually determined not to see anything unless it’s out of the eye which has the monocle, are forced to notice. Slowly but surely, the street starts to fill up with people, rising from the darkness out into a cold but clear London evening. Faces drift around each other, lost and dazed. One or two recognize where they are and know the way home, but somehow, it doesn’t seem quite right to walk away - everyone appears to be waiting for the police, or for the army, or for someone with some sense of authority, or maybe just for a miraculous sign to say, yes, it is all over, well done, go to bed.

Tess and Thomas are forced away from the grate in the middle of the street by the press of dripping bodies scrambling to get up. Some people simply lie down on the cobbles, too exhausted to move, some sit on the pavement’s edge, kicking at old horse droppings left from the day’s cabs, some try to convince the men guarding the doors to the aristocrats’ clubs that they really, really need a whisky.

Tess, Thomas and Tate sit and wait. More than fifty people, maybe more than a hundred, filthy and wet, fill the street.

Tess says, ‘I smell horrid. I wonder if this means I’ll ’ave to ’ave a bath?’

Thomas says, ‘I do hope Father didn’t go to the club today. I wonder how I’d explain this if he saw me?’

Tate rolls over and over and over like a puppy in the mud, and looks contented.

Tess thinks about what Thomas has said. ‘Bigwig, this is against my principles an’ all, but . . . maybe what you should do with your pa is try the whole truth thing for a while an’ see how it works out. An’ if it don’t work out, then just learn how to fib better, ’cos I gotta say it, you’re rubbish at the yarn.’ Then as an afterthought, in the middle of a yawn she adds, ‘An’ you smell too, bigwig. Horrid an’ all.’

Eventually, some in the gaggle of faces start to break away, and the clocks strike one in the morning, and Tess finds herself yawning even more, eyes drifting shut and head flopping to one side as she makes Thomas her personal pillow. The faces don’t say anything much: no one seems inclined to talk about what happened. They just split off, some heading towards Haymarket, some towards St James’s Park, some back down towards the river, some west into the streets behind Piccadilly, some up towards the slums of Soho.

Scuttle stands in front of Tess and says, ‘That’s my best jacket what you gone an’ ruined!’

Tess says through a yawn, ‘Bigwig’ll buy you a new one.’

‘I suppose I could . . .’ begins Thomas.

‘See?’ says Tess. ‘It’s good ’avin’ friends what understand you.’

Scuttle looks suspicious. ‘You’ll really go an’ get me a new jacket?’

‘If you like, yes.’

‘A really big proper one, what has all the pockets?’

‘What do you mean by all the pockets?’

‘For the gear, the swag, the goods, the boodle, the booty! All the pockets!’

‘Well, if you want, I’m sure my tailor could arrange something. ’

Scuttle beams. ‘In that case, mister, it’s been a pleasure workin’ with you an’ you know where to find me for next time an’ for my payment what I have rightly earned.’

‘Uh, yes. Good man,’ says Thomas. ‘Well done. Carry on.’

‘You ain’t so rubbish,’ agrees Tess sleepily.

Eventually, even Scuttle scuttles off.

 

‘Hello.’

Thomas opened his eyes sleepily, and for a moment didn’t know where he was. There was a lamp post on one side, and Tess on the other, and Tate in his lap and he was on the street where he’d been, last time he’d checked.

‘Hello,’ he said.

‘You fell asleep here?’

‘I think I must have.’

‘You must be tired.’

‘No, I mean . . . of course not, I’m ready for anything . . .’ Thomas yawned. On his shoulder, Tess snored.

‘Past your bedtime, I should think.’

‘I don’t have a bedtime!’ replied Thomas indignantly.

‘Careful, lad, you’ve still got a long way to go before you don’t have a bedtime.’

‘Are you all right?’ asked Thomas, suddenly worried.

‘Me? Yes, fine.’

‘You sound . . . hurt.’

‘I’ll be fine.’ Horatio Lyle bent down and bundled the sleeping Tess into his arms. The street was long since empty, no one else left. The church clock struck quarter to - but quarter to what, Thomas couldn’t tell. Tess stirred, opened one eye, saw Lyle and muttered, ‘You smell like poo.’

‘Past your bedtime too, lass,’ replied Lyle. ‘And tomorrow, baths all round.’

‘An’ a really big breakfast,’ added Tess from somewhere in Lyle’s shoulder. ‘An’ a discussion about pocket money.’

‘Come on,’ said Lyle. ‘Let’s go home.’

CHAPTER 19

Night time in London.

Many of the best things about the city happen in the night - for a start, there’s the lights, which when seen from a hill or tall tower, spread out in glimmering candlelight and gas lamps, turning the city orange-yellow and full of stars. There’s the theatre, the music hall, the best of the entertainers, and the costermongers who sell their special sweets and sticky caramels to the customers who indulge in these pleasures - somehow, at night, the city seems to heave a sigh of relief and conclude that whatever the day may bring, this time is for its personal consumption and joy.

 

Night time by the riverside. A single stub of candle burns down in the bottom of a tin bowl. The mudlarks gather round the bathtub throne and listen in awe to their king in his huge green velvet coat, bulging with pockets.

‘So there I was . . . in this
huge
underground place full of machines, an’ everyone else was in trouble or captured so I had to save the day, just me, by myself! Well, I went to work, I wasn’t gonna let this happen to my friends, so, all on me lonesome I took down three of the guards - bam wham bam! - and raced over to this big banging type device in an iron case, which I exploded by use of these things that sparked what I used to carry round in my old jacket, though I went an’ lost my old jacket but now I got this new one, ’cos of how I was
soooo
brave . . .’

And Scuttle, king of the sewers, spins his yarn, and spins it well, for the awestruck listeners, and tells tales of wonders and delights, long into the night.