The Mechanical Messiah (45 page)

‘Ah,’ said the colonel.
‘That
Treacle Sponge Bastard platter. But it’s empty.’

Darwin the monkey shook his head. Most sorrowfully he shook it.

‘Oh dear,’ said the colonel. And then he addressed the Jovians. ‘As a matter of interest,’ he said, ‘and no recriminations or suchlike — did any of
you
eat the Treacle Sponge Bastard?’

The Jovians looked guilty. Stumpy raised his stump.

‘We all did,’ he confessed. ‘There was no more food. We were hungry.’

‘Oh dear,’ said the colonel. ‘Then any minute now. There was a kind of collective gasp. And the last folk alive on the
Marie Lloyd
were those born on Planet Earth.

‘Shame to see them go like that,’ said Colonel Katterfelto to Mr Cameron Bell, who was acting as co-pilot. The two sat in the cockpit. Cameron Bell looked glum.

‘Still,’ said the colonel, ‘accidents
will
happen, I suppose.’

‘I suppose,’ the detective agreed. ‘You all strapped in?’ the colonel asked. ‘All strapped in,’ said Mr Bell. ‘Then I will take us down.’

‘Just one thing,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘It has occurred to me that the Royal London Spaceport might not be now the best place to land. What with the captain of the ship missing and all those dead Jovians in the passenger compartment.

Questions might be asked. Questions that might be difficult to answer.

‘Take your point,’ said the colonel. ‘Where do you fancy, then? Isle of Wight’s rather nice.’

‘Perhaps a little far south. How about Ealing Common?’

‘Splendid,’ said the colonel. ‘We’ll set down there and go our separate ways. Plenty of public transport thereabouts.’

‘That will be fine, then.’ Cameron Bell settled back in his seat. ‘What does the co-pilot do?’ he enquired.

‘Haven’t the foggiest,’ said the colonel. ‘Hold on tight now. I am taking us down.’

Colonel Katterfelto pressed the joystick forwards. The
Marie Lloyd
dived into the atmosphere of Earth at a reckless speed.

‘Isn’t that a bit fast?’ asked Cameron Bell.

‘Sensitive controls,’ said the colonel. ‘Just need to straighten her up a little.’

Flames suddenly appeared before the cockpit. There was a definite feeling of
heat.

‘Slow down,’ cried Cameron Bell.

‘Trying to,’ cried the colonel in reply. ‘Controls not responding. Not doing anything at all.’

Cameron Bell now recalled what Corporal Larkspur had said to him. About Corporal Larkspur being the only one who could pilot the ship successfully.

‘Oh my dear dead mother,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘Larkspur altered the controls. We are—’

‘Doomed?’ asked the colonel as the ship plunged down.

‘Doomed!’ the detective agreed.

arth became bigger and bigger. The colonel clung on to the joystick and Cameron Bell threw what levers he could, but nothing seemed to help. The heat in the cockpit was becoming intolerable. Cameron shielded his face.

‘No good,’ gruffed the colonel.

‘Ship’s out of control.’

‘It was a pleasure to know you.

Cameron Bell clasped his hands in prayer and recommended himself to the Almighty. The ship was now shaking fearfully and the cockpit windscreen was surely starting to melt.

Down and down went the
Marie Lloyd,
heading to her doom. ‘Bail out somewhere,’ shouted the colonel. ‘Too hot in here, by golly.’

Ghastly groaning, crackling sounds announced the departure of riveted hull plates. The falling spaceship was also falling apart.

‘Best tell that Alice girl you love her,’ bawled the colonel above the growing din. ‘Go on, Bell, I’ll still do what I can.

Cameron Bell made to leave the cockpit as Darwin was suddenly entering it.

‘Let me at the controls,’ cried the ape of space. ‘I can steer the ship.’

Cameron Bell blundered past him. Darwin jumped up onto the colonel’s lap.

The superheated windscreen glass bulged dangerously inwards.

‘Let me take the controls,’ cried Darwin. ‘I know what I’m doing.’

‘Nothing works,’ the colonel shouted. ‘This is the end, my only friend. The end.’

‘I know these controls,’ insisted Darwin. ‘It was me they were altered for.’

‘Damn me,
what?’

The monkey took hold of the joystick. His little hands pressed buttons unseen to the colonel. The engines were flung into reverse, ailerons extended. Darwin tugged on the handbrake.

Shaking, groaning, grumbling and all but falling apart, the
Marie Lloyd
levelled out, slowed in speed and drifted over an ocean.

‘Good God!’ cried the colonel. ‘Well done, that man. Bravo and things of that nature.’

That man?
thought Darwin. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘But how?’ the colonel asked.

‘Because this used to be
my
spaceship,’ Darwin explained. ‘
Very
briefly, when I still had Lord Brentford’s inheritance money. I had the controls altered to make it easier for me to fly it. Sadly, though, I never got the chance. Lost all my money at the gaming tables of Monte Carlo shortly afterwards. Bet the spaceship too and that was that.’

‘Well, well, well,’ went the colonel. ‘What a fortunate coincidence
that
turned out to be.’

‘Some
might
call it
that,’
said Darwin.

Cameron Bell was back at the cockpit door.

And Alice was with him.

Colonel Katterfelto winked at Cameron Bell. ‘Well?’ he said. ‘Did you tell her?’

‘Tell me
what?’
asked Alice.

‘Nothing important.’ Cameron Bell sighed, mopping sweat from his brow. ‘But how—’ he indicated all around and about ‘—how did you save the day?’

‘Darwin did,’ said the colonel. ‘Long story. Somewhat unlikely one, too. But let’s not labour the point. Thing is we’re all still alive. That’s what matters, eh?’

‘That’s what matters,’ said Cameron Bell, gazing fondly at Alice.

‘From what I know of the topography,’ said Colonel Katterfelto, rum glass in hand, sitting in the co—pilot’s seat, ‘we are flying over the South China Sea. Take a good few hours to get back to Blighty.’

Alice sat in the pilot’s seat. Darwin sat upon Alice.

‘Well, I’m staying right
here,’
said Alice. ‘I don’t want to go back into the passenger compartment and sit with all those dead bodies.’

‘Understandable,’ said the colonel. ‘Where’s Tinker?’

‘Having a sleep,’ said Cameron Bell. ‘But we must discuss just where we are going to land.’

‘I must go back to the Crystal Palace,’ said Alice, ‘and collect my darling kiwi birds.’

‘If we land at the spaceport we will surely be arrested,’ said Mr Bell, helping himself to some of the colonel’s rum. ‘Where do you keep finding these bottles of drink?’ he asked the old campaigner. ‘I thought we were all out of alcohol.’

The colonel mumbled. But offered no explanation.

Alice said, ‘I’ve done nothing illegal.’

‘There would be so much explaining to do,’ said Cameron. ‘I suggest we put the ship down somewhere quiet, and I know just the place.’

Horsell Common, near Woking in Surrey, was the landing place of the first craft of the Martian invasion fleet, more than a decade before in eighteen eighty-five. Being the very small world that it was proving to be, the
Marie Lloyd
had been the very first Martian spaceship to land upon Earth, in the middle of Horsell Common.

‘Horsell Common,’ said Colonel Katterfelto. ‘Has a certain humour to it, I suppose.

‘Lost on me,’ said Darwin. ‘But you show me where to land this spaceship and I will land it for you. Do you suppose—’ And here he paused.

‘Suppose what, my dear fellow?’

‘Well…’ The monkey gave thought to his words. ‘After I have safely landed the ship, we could leave it, then return to it later, as if discovering it there, and then claim salvage rights, as one would for a sailing ship that had been brought ashore in a storm with all hands lost.’

The colonel glanced at Cameron Bell.

‘An ingenious plan,’ said the private detective. ‘But please let me be far away before you put it into action.’

‘You can come with me,’ said Alice. Which brought a smile to the face of Cameron Bell.

‘And we will pick up my kiwi birds together.’

Which did
not.

‘So, all agreed upon Horsell Common?’ asked Colonel Katterfelto.

And all agreed they were all agreed and the
Marie Lloyd
flew on.

Making rather unhealthy sounds, but flying nonetheless.

Hours passed and the colonel needed the toilet. He left the cockpit and took himself down the central aisle between the passenger seats. And here he encountered Major Tinker.

‘What are you doing there, Tinker?’ asked the colonel.

‘Looting,’ the major replied. ‘Dead men need no diamonds. I’m sure you agree.

‘Actually do.’ The colonel did. ‘And the fewer the traces left on this ship that she’s been to Venus the better.’

‘My thoughts entirely,’ said Major Tinker. ‘And the thought of what I might buy with the countless wealth from all these diamonds.’

‘Quite so,’ said the colonel. ‘Just popping off to the loo.’

Seas and lands passed far beneath and some time later Europe came and went.

The survivors of the voyage to Venus were all crammed into the cockpit. Which although not the safest way to travel was at least away from the corpses. Corpses that no one personally wanted the job of shifting.

‘Aha,’ said the colonel, pointing ahead. ‘Behold the white cliffs of Dover.’

Alice hugged at Cameron’s arm, raising hope within the private detective that some chance might exist for him.

In truth, Cameron Bell was a man of most troubled mind. What
exactly
was he returning to? He had no home. He had no employment. He was certain that Lord Andrew Ditch-field, manager of the Electric Alhambra, would have given up on paying his expenses many months ago. There would probably be several warrants out for his arrest and worst of all, in his personal opinion, he would eventually have to confess to Alice that in all likelihood her kiwi birds had been consumed in the great fire at the Crystal Palace. Those whose necks had not previously been wrung during the pecking to death of the dark and sinister being.

If not for his love of Alice, Cameron could find absolutely no reason whatsoever for returning to London.

The detective peered through the heat-scarred windscreen towards the white cliffs of Dover. These cliffs shone in fine bright sunshine. Cameron Bell’s watch told him that it might possibly be about three in the afternoon. But as to which month, or even which
year,
that was anyone’s guess.

‘You know, we should really wait until nightfall before we land,’ said Mr Bell. ‘Sneak in, unseen, as it were.

Darwin the pilot shook his hairy head.

‘No?’ asked Cameron Bell. ‘Why not?’

Darwin pointed towards the fuel gauge. The needle pointed to a red segment labelled EMPTY.

‘Oh my dear dead mother,’ said Cameron Bell.

‘We will have to land as soon as we’re there,’ said Darwin.

‘Colonel, point the way.

‘Quite so,’ said the colonel. ‘Head in that direction towards Brighton, then we’ll follow the A23.’

Nasty coughing sounds were now to be heard. The strangled gasps of engines becoming starved of fuel.

‘Couldn’t we stop somewhere and take some fuel aboard?’ Alice asked. ‘What sort of fuel makes the engines run, by the way?’

But no one was listening to Alice. So she folded her arms and grumped somewhat and tried to ignore the bad noises.