The Gilded Scarab (3 page)

Beckett nodded. “You should always guard against overusing your eyes. You may expect headaches if you do, even once your sight is settled with the correct lenses. But I’m confident your sight should not deteriorate further and, as I say, with advice from the right specialist—Carrington in Harley Street’s the man—your eyes may improve. But what you don’t have, and never will again, is perfect vision.”

A bullet needed biting. So I bit. Hard. “So, not good enough to fly?”

Beckett wouldn’t look at me. He put all his attention into packing up the ridiculous little black bag doctors insisted on carrying around with them.

“James, will I fly again?”

“No. I’m sorry, Rafe. But no.”

I’d known it all along, of course. But it still hurt.

He added, “At least, not military fighters. When you’ve seen Carrington, and become accustomed to spectacles to correct your vision to average normal, I’m sure you’ll qualify to fly civilian aeroships.”

Where was the comfort in that? Beckett’s words, their finality, meant my life had been cut away from me without chloroform to cushion the blow. I’d known. Of course I’d known. I’d braced for it, but even so, everything clenched again, and my thrice-be-damned eyes stung so badly I had to slip a finger behind the spectacles’s lenses and rub at them. It felt like a kick in the midriff from a horse.

Damn.

Flying was all I knew. All I had.

“All right, lad?” asked Beckett, tone gentle.

I drew a deep breath. “Have you ever had that feeling when you’re right on the edge of sleep and you kick out as though you’ve mistimed the last of a set of steps? It’s as if you’re falling into a deep hole. It always wakes me up when it happens.”

“Aye. It’s a kind of nervous tic.” The doctor chuffed out a mirthless laugh. He went back to the cabinet. “It’s a common enough thing.”

“Well, the step I fell off is about as high as the Monument.” I looked down to hide my face. A Lancaster never showed when he was beaten. Never. Damn. Damn and blast and what in Hades was I going to do now? “Thank you, James. I’ll get used to it, I suppose.”

“You’re alive, lad. And that’s a miracle in itself.”

“Yes. I suppose the commander will have me sent home? Have you told him?”

“He saw the report from the base surgeon two weeks ago,” Beckett said, “and all he wants me to do now is confirm it. I’ll have to do it. You do understand?”

Well, nothing to do there but nod. Of course Beckett had to tell the commander the truth. Of course he did. It wasn’t his fault he bore grim news.

“Aye. Well, I expect the wheels are already in motion for a medical retirement. They should give you a pension, at least. I’m sorry, Rafe. I know it’s not the best news.” Beckett returned and pushed something into my hand. “Here. Get this down you.”

It was a glass of scotch, his own remedy for all the ills to afflict humanity. It tasted wonderful.

He patted my shoulder. “I know you haven’t had much time to think about this, but any idea what you’ll do?”

“I’ve had over three weeks.” I looked up at him and managed a grin. It was time to paste on the Lancaster game face and look on this as a kind of hazard, win or lose on the toss of the dice. “I knew before you told me, James. I didn’t want to believe it.”

He nodded. “I thought so. What will you do?”

“Don’t know.”

“What about your House? Will they help?”

Like me, Beckett is a member of a Minor House, except for some odd reason he always called it his Clan, and on Burns Night he wore a dreadful tartan affair and drank lots of scotch. I can get right behind the drinking of a great deal of whiskey, but I draw the line at a kilt. Beckett doesn’t have the knees for one. His Clan paid for his education, of course, the way my House—Stravaigor—paid for mine. Beckett, though, is in good standing with his Clan. I was not in good standing with Stravaigor.

And that was an understatement and a half.

So I choked out a laugh of sorts at Beckett’s innocent inquiry. “Not a chance, James. I am not in good odor there.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised,” Beckett said, which was a touch unkind of him. “What did you do?”

“It’s what I didn’t do.” I finished off the scotch, and Beckett, bless him, refilled the glass. “I didn’t take holy orders.”

The expression on his face was priceless. He would have won plaudits on any stage in Londinium for depicting Astonishment or Wonder. I had never seen a man’s jaw drop so far and not dislocate. “You? Holy orders?”

I shared his astonishment. “I was twenty and just down from Oxford—”

“Sent down? What did you do?”

Really, this lack of confidence was tiresome. I’m afraid some acidity crept into my tone. “I graduated, James. I’m actually quite intelligent, little as you might believe it. First class honors. Greats.”

Beckett looked as dumbfounded at that as at the thought of me in orders.

“The problem was that, unlike my elder brother Peter, I have no interest in commerce. I wasn’t interested in a House position and couldn’t muster the saving grace of pretending an enthusiasm for managing my father’s lands and farms. I didn’t share his passion for sheep, to begin with. So he conferred with the Stravaigor. Between them, they decided to send me into the church.”

“The church,” repeated Beckett, eyes round as pennies. “No. I can’t fathom it.”

“Don’t I know it. Good God, if anyone were less suited than I to a life of religious service, I should like to meet him and shake him by the hand.”

“I’m trying to understand their reasoning. You said you had no passion for sheep, yet they thought it a good idea to make you a spiritual shepherd?”

“My House is fond of irony.” I finished the second glass, but Beckett, a true Scot, was of limited generosity. He pretended not to notice me shaking the glass at him or turning it upside down. “But forcing me into holy orders would likely have been the ruination of both me and the worldwide Anglican Communion.”

“I can think of no one more unlikely as a priest. They might as well ordain the Antichrist.”

“I’m hardly that bad!” I ignored Beckett’s doubtful expression. “In any event, I got out of it. Any port in a storm, and all that. The military had far more appeal, as well as being the usual career for excess younger sons. Still, it took every ounce of guile I had to convince the Stravaigor it would be cheaper to buy me a commission with a promise of no further calls on House coffers, than put me into a living and pay me to make poor sermons for the rest of my life. Thank the Lord he listened.”

“Aye, well. But if your House princeps is anything like my Clan chief, he’ll have washed his hands of you.”

“Precisely. I was left with the strong impression the House has no time for ungrateful sons who refuse to take its advice and direction. There’ll be no help now from that quarter.”

Unless, perhaps, I confessed to a lifelong regret to having missed out on the sermons. I wasn’t that desperate yet. I had a small income from the farms my father had left me and a box of jewelry that had been my mother’s and bequeathed to me in her will. I didn’t expect the jewelry was worth much; my father was a country squire, not a nabob. Still, it was something. And Beckett was right about the pension. I was owed something after almost ten years’ service. But all told, it wouldn’t be a lot to finance my new life.

“Well, you’ll have time to think about it, lad. Don’t rush into anything. Now, I had better go.” Beckett patted my shoulder and departed, presumably to relay the news to the commander, calling to my batman as he left. “Aye, I’m done there now. You can take the captain to his quarters.”

Hugh Peters slipped into the room, come to offer an arm in support to get me back to my cabin. He’d been with me since we were stationed at Lucknow in ’94, and he looked at me hopefully. His face fell at whatever he saw on mine. His grin became a grimace.

“That’s about it, Hugh,” I said, agreeing wholeheartedly with the grimace. “My eyes aren’t going to get much better. I expect the commander will send me home on the next ship.”

“Well, I’m heart sorry to hear it, sir, and I won’t be the only one. What will you do, sir?”

I shook my head. I had no idea.

Chapter 3

I
F
THE
week I’d spent sick and dizzy in the hospital tent had been bad, the one I spent superfluous was a torment. I almost begged to see Commander Abercrombie and get it over with. Almost.

If I were a poetic sort of man, I’d say I wandered the
Ark Royal
like a forgotten ghost. I wasn’t allowed on active duty. I had nothing to do and nothing to occupy me. Even with the improved spectacles Beckett had given me, I couldn’t read for more than an hour or two before my eyes watered and ached and I had to put the book or datareader aside. I spent the long days wandering around the ship’s corridors, watching the crew work. Hardest of all was watching the little fighters launch from the flight deck, knowing I’d never do that again.

On the day the commander finally sent for me, I’d spent an hour for’ard, in the starboard launch bay. The bay was empty. One of the engineers told me that three of the four flights of aerofighters in the Starboard Flight Wing were out on a mission over Bloemfontein. They weren’t expected back for hours, and the five ships from the remaining flight were on standby. It was very quiet. Three or four engineers were busy tidying up, getting the overhead rails back into the ready position to bring the remaining ships from the hangars if needed, and clearing away the soot from the launch tube. Aether from the aerofighters’ engine exhausts caught at the throat, and phlogiston from the augmenter pipes hung on the air, visible, pervading everything with the smell of hot tar.

I loved that smell. Loved it.

The engineers left me alone for the most part, and I stared for a little while down the launch tubes. They were as dark as the Earl of Hell’s waistcoat and a tighter fit than a miser’s purse. Far in the distance was a bright blue circle of sky. Nothing could beat it, the heady rush of a fighter craft hurtling down a tube at a hundred miles an hour, the sooty, smoke-smeared walls so close a man could almost reach out and touch them…. Damn. I’d miss that.

Staring down the tube was pointless, not to mention maudlin and self-indulgent. A wave to the engineers, and I headed aft. For a little while I wandered around the starboard landing bay. Sad when the most exciting thing to do was watch an engineer cleaning an inspection pit in the decking. He raised a hand in greeting, but I went no closer. The man was covered in oil and grime. Filthy job, that. Filthy.

I could use up several minutes crossing over to the port deck, letting the mechanics of getting there occupy me. The port deck would be as tedious as this one, but getting there was at least something to do. So, into the elevator I went, closing the metal grille gates behind me. The elevators went diagonally up the huge wings holding the fighter decks out from the main body of the ship. Damn elderly, those elevators, all brass and wood. Time they were refitted. It was a sign of desperation when I concluded that the elevator breaking down would at least offer a little novelty in my tediously long day, but I was thwarted there. It decanted me without incident into the antechamber at the top. A fire roared in the grate, warming the chamber for the few aeronauts who waited in reserve in case they were needed. They looked up when I got there.

“Rafe! Rafe, old chap. Whatever are you doing wandering around like some sort of pedestrianized Flying Dutchman?” Page was the Flight Captain of this little squad. A small man with a mouth of the right size for the foot he kept sticking in it. “Come and play a game of whist.”

“I’m tempted, but I’d have to let one of you deal my hand, and do I trust you enough?” I lifted my left arm, still in its cast. It itched like the devil under the heavy plaster of paris, but Beckett was pleased with its progress.

Page cocked an eyebrow at me. “Bored?”

“Positively jaded.”

One of the younger lieutenants laughed. “You can’t be! It must be heaven, having nothing to do!”

Idiot. Page’s foot in mouth disease must be contagious.

I forbore to beat the boy to death with my cast. “Not when it’s forced on you. I’m an idle sort of fellow, as you know. I always thought I’d like to be the one man on the whole busy ship to sit back with a beatific smile on my face and watch you peasants labor.”

Page grinned. “But it doesn’t work like that?”

“It saddens me to admit it, but idleness is only enjoyable when I can throw it off when I’ve had enough of it. I don’t enjoy tedium when it’s forced on me.”

“Poor old Rafe! We can’t have you moping about the place like this. Come and play cards and keep us company.”

They might be idiots sometimes, but really my fellow aeronauts were the best of good fellows. They had done their utmost over the last few days to stop me brooding. They probably all knew, bless them, that I was marking time and I wouldn’t be flying again. During the day most of them were out on patrols and engagements, or unable to leave the launch bay antechambers, yet they made the effort each evening to seek me out and made sure I had company at dinner at least. I was as lucky in my friends as I was in most things.