Текст книги "Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon"
Автор книги: Mark Hodder
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 29 страниц)
It occurred to Burton that the prime minister's face had been stretched so taut by his Eugenicist treatments that those eyes appeared almost oriental.
“A complex situation,” Palmerston muttered. “There are great moves being made, Captain, moves that will reshape the world, and you are in the thick of it.”
“How so?”
“Tomorrow afternoon, I shall make an announcement to parliament. You'll be out of the country by then, so I came to give you the news personally. Excuse me-”
Palmerston turned his head to one side and let loose a prodigious sneeze. When he looked back, there were hundreds of deep wrinkles around his eyes and nose. Over the next few minutes, they slowly flattened out and disappeared.
“What news?” Burton asked.
“Lincoln has surrendered. America is ours.”
Burton's jaw dropped. He fell back into his seat, speechless.
“Some time ago,” Palmerston continued, “I told you that if this should occur I would demand of the Confederates the abolition of slavery as repayment for our role in their victory. I fully intend to do that. But not just yet.”
Finally, Burton found his voice and asked, “Why not?”
“Because of Blut und Eisen.”
“Blood and iron?”
“Three months ago, while you were clearing up the Tichborne business and our turncoat Eugenicists were defecting to Prussia, Chancellor Bismarck made a speech in which he declared his intentions to increase military spending and unify the Germanic territories. He said-and believe me, I can quote this from memory, for it is seared into my mind: ‘The position of Prussia in Germany will not be determined by its liberalism but by its power. Prussia must concentrate its strength and hold it for the favourable moment, which has already come and gone several times. Since the treaties of Vienna, our frontiers have been ill-designed for a healthy body politic. Not through speeches and majority decisions will the great questions of the day be decided-that was the great mistake of 1848 and 1849-but by blood and iron.’”
Burton said, “I read accounts of the speech in the newspapers. Is he warmongering?”
Palmerston clenched his fists. “Indisputably. It is the first blatant move toward the world war Countess Sabina has predicted. There is no doubt that Bismarck is seeking to establish a Germanic empire to rival our own. Empires require resources, Captain Burton, and there is one vast untapped resource remaining in the world. I refer to Africa.”
“So you suspect Bismarck will try to establish a foothold there?”
“I think he intends to carve it up and suck it dry.”
“But what has this to do with America's slaves?”
“If a united Germany can count Africa among its territories, and if war breaks out, it will find itself with an almost limitless source of expendable manpower.”
“Expendable?”
“I believe the term is ‘cannon fodder.’”
The king's agent felt ice in his veins. “You surely aren't suggesting-” he began.
Palmerston interrupted him. “If we are faced with such a situation, we will require our own disposable units.”
“You mean America's slave population?”
“Yes. A little over four million individuals, though I'm including women in that number.”
Burton's jaw flexed spasmodically. “Hellfire, man! You're talking about human beings! Families! You're not only suggesting support for state sanctioned slavery-you're talking about bloody genocide!”
“I mean to ensure the survival of the British Empire, whatever it takes.”
“No!” Burton shouted. “No! No! No!” He slapped his hand down on the leather arm of his chair. “I won't stand for it! It's despicable!”
“You'll do whatever you're damned well ordered to do, Captain Burton,” Palmerston said softly. “And what you are ordered to do is help me to ensure that no such circumstance ever arises.”
“Wha-what?”
“Your primary mission hasn't changed-you are to retrieve the Eye of Naga so that we might employ it to infiltrate and coerce the minds of our opponents. However, there is now a secondary purpose to your expedition. You are to employ your military and geographical experience to determine which are the most strategically advantageous African territories and how we might best secure them. I intend to claim that continent before Bismarck makes his move, and I'm relying on you to advise me how to do it.”
Burton's heart hammered in his chest. His mind raced.
He looked into Lord Palmerston's impenetrable eyes.
“And if I do, sir, and if we make Africa a part of the British Empire, then what of the inhabitants? What of the Africans?”
The prime minister-returning Burton's gaze steadily and without blinking-replied: “They will be accorded the rights granted to all British subjects.”
There was a moment of silence, broken only by Gregory Hare clearing his throat slightly, then Burton said, “You refer to the same rights enjoyed by those undernourished Britishers who toil in our factories and inhabit our slums? The same given to those who beg on our street corners and doorsteps? The same extended to servant girls abused and impregnated by their employers then thrown onto the streets where their only means of survival is prostitution? Is this the marvellous civilisation that you, the great imperialist, have to offer Africa?”
Palmerston shot to his feet and yelled, “Shut the hell up, Burton! Am I to endure your insolence every time we meet? I'll not tolerate it! You have your orders!” He stamped to the door, snapping his fingers at Burke and Hare. They rose and followed. He ushered them out first, then, with his hand on the doorknob, turned to face the explorer.
“Do your bloody job, Captain!” he snarled.
The prime minister stepped out of the room and slammed the door shut behind him.
“Illiterate baboon,” Pox squawked.
“In the maelstrom of making history,” Bertie Wells said, “very little of it is accurately recorded. When the time finally comes for an account of the events that have passed, human nature takes over.”
He and Burton were in an ambulance sharing that rarity of rarities, a scrounged cigar. The oxen-drawn vehicle was part of a convoy, a seemingly never-ending line of soldiers and vehicles moving up from the south toward the port of Tanga, some hundred miles north of Dar es Salaam.
It was early morning but already ferociously hot. The troops were dripping sweat. They were exhausted, ill, and miserable. Occasional bursts of chanting broke out-the usual sad native dirges-but these quickly tailed off, overwhelmed by the rhythmic tromp tromp trompof boots. At one point a company of Britishers broke into song, their mock cheerfulness shot through with resentful hatred. The tune was “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” but the lyrics were rather more colourful than those of the original hymn:
When this lousy war is over, no more soldiering for me,
When I get my civvy clothes on, oh how happy I shall be.
No more church parades on Sunday, no more begging for a pass.
You can tell the sergeant major to stick his passes up his arse.
The sergeant major in question harangued the men for a three-mile stretch after that.
Burton was sitting on the ambulance's tailgate, leaning against the side of the vehicle's open back. He couldn't stop scratching.
“Human nature?” he said. “What do you mean?”
Wells, perched on a bench just behind him, responded, “I'm of the opinion that we possess an inbuilt craving for narrative structure. We want everything to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. That way, we can make better sense of it.” He looked down at Burton. “How many days did that uniform last before it got infested?”
“Four. The lice are eating me alive.”
“Chin up, old man. It could be worse. Fever, trench foot, dysentery, having your bloody legs blown off-all the perils of wartime Africa.”
“Bismillah! What are you people doing? You've created hell from an Eden!”
“Is my generation responsible, Richard, or is yours? I've heard people say over and over that we are all products of the past. They'd lay the blame for this war squarely at their fathers' feet. In other words, welcome to the world you created.”
“Absolutely not! None of my contemporaries intended the creation of this Jahannam!”
“As you say. Besides, I disagree with the philosophy of what you might term sequentialism. The problem, as I see it, is that we don't truly understand the nature of the past. We mythologise it. We create fictions about actions performed to justify what we undertake in the present. We adjust the cause to better suit the effect. The truth is that the present is, and will always be, utter chaos. There is no story and no plan. We are victims of Zeitgeist. I apologise for using a German word, but it's singularly appropriate. Are you familiar with it?”
“Yes. It translates as ‘ghost tide,’ or, perhaps, ‘spirit of the age,’ and refers to the ambience or sociopolitical climate of any given period.”
“Exactly so, and in my view it's a phenomenon entirely independent of history. History doesn't create the zeitgeist, we create the history to try to explain the zeitgeist. We impose a sequential narrative to endow events with something that resembles meaning.”
The ambulance jerked as its wheels bounced through a pothole. Burton's head banged against the vehicle's wooden side.
“Ouch!”
“How's your arm?” Wells asked.
“Aching. How's your leg?”
“Broken. How's your head?”
“Shut up.”
“Have a cigar.”
The war correspondent passed what remained of the “Hoffman” to the explorer, who glanced at its much-reduced length and muttered, “Your lungs are healthy, at least.” He raised it to his lips and drew in the sweet smoke, savouring it while observing the column of men and vehicles that snaked back over the rolling landscape.
The supply wagons and ambulances were mostly towed by steam-horses or oxen. There were a few mangy-looking nonmechanical horses in evidence, too, including mega-drays pulling huge artillery pieces. Harvestmen stalked along beside the troops, and Scorpion Tanks thumped through the dust with their tails curled over their cabins, the guns at their ends slowly swinging back and forth.
“Hey! Private!” Burton called to a nearby Britisher. “Where are we?”
“In it up to our bloody eyeballs, chum!”
“Ha! And geographically?”
“I ain't got a bleedin' clue. Ask Kitchener!”
“We're almost there, sir,” an African voice answered. “Tanga is a mile or so ahead.”
“Much obliged!” Burton said. He turned Wells. “Did you hear that? We must be near your village. Shall we hop out here?”
“Hopping is my only option, unfortunately.”
Burton slid from the tailgate into the ambulance, then moved to its front and banged his fist against the back of the driver's cabin. “Stop a moment, would you?”
He returned to Wells and, as the vehicle halted, helped him down to the ground and handed him his crutches. The two men put on their helmets, moved to the side of the column, and walked slowly along beside it.
“So what's your point, Bertie?”
“My point?”
“About history.”
“Oh. Just that we give too much credence to the idea that we can learn from the past. It's the present that teaches the lesson. The problem is that we're so caught up in doing it that we can never see the wood for the trees. I say! Are you all right?”
Burton had suddenly doubled over and was clutching the sides of his head.
“No!” he gasped. “Yes. I think-” He straightened and took a deep, shuddering breath. “Yes. Yes. I'm fine. I'm sorry. I just had a powerful recollection of-of-of a man constructed from brass.”
“A statue?”
“No. A machine. But it was-it was-Herbert.”
“What? Me?”
“No, sorry, not you, Bertie. I mean, its-his-name is-was-is Herbert, too.”
“A mechanical man named Herbert? Are you sure your malaria hasn't flared up again?”
Burton clicked his tongue. “My brain is so scrambled that the line between reality and fiction appears almost nonexistent. I'm not sure what that particular memory signifies, if anything. Perhaps it'll make more sense later. Where's the village?”
Wells pointed to a vaguely defined path that disappeared into a dense jungle of thorny acacias. The trees were growing up a shallow slope, and Burton could just glimpse rooftops through the topmost leaves. “Along there,” Wells said. “Kaltenberg is right on the edge of Tanga-practically an outlying district. It was built by the Germans in the European style, on slightly higher ground. The occupants fled into the town a few days ago. We'll get a good view of the action from up there.”
“I gather the role of war correspondents is to climb hills and gaze down upon destruction?”
“Yes, that's about it.”
They left the convoy and followed the dirt track. The boles of the trees crowded around them, blocking the convoy from sight. The sky flickered and flashed through the foliage just above their heads. Mosquitoes whined past their ears.
“Who's Kitchener?” Burton asked.
“One of the military bigwigs. Or was. No one knows whether he's dead or alive. Damn this leg! And damn this heat. In fact, damn Africa and all that goes with it! I'm sorry, we'll have to slow down a little.” Wells stopped, and, balancing himself on his crutches, struck a match and lit a cigarette. He took a pull at it then held it out to Burton.
“Thanks, Bertie, but I'll pass. My fondness for cheap cigars doesn't plummet to such depths. Besides, it would ruin the taste of my toffee.”
“You have toffee?”
“I scrounged it from the ambulance driver. Four pieces. I'd offer you two but I fear they'd be wasted after that tobacco stick.”
“You swine!”
Burton grinned.
“And don't do that with your ugly mug,” Wells advised. “It makes you look monstrously Mephistophelian.”
“You remind me of someone.”
“Who?”
“I don't recall.”
They set off again, the war correspondent swinging himself along on his crutches.
Burton said, “Remind me again why we're attacking Tanga.”
“Firstly,” Wells replied, “because we're trying to regain all the ports; secondly, because we want to raid German supplies; and thirdly, and most importantly, because it's believed the commander of the Schutztruppe, Generalmajor Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck, is holed up there, and we would dearly love to deprive him of his existence. The man is a veritable demon. He has a military mind to rival that of Napoleon Bonaparte!”
By the time they reached the first of the Kaltenberg cottages, both men were sweating profusely. “Do you remember snow?” Wells muttered as they moved out from beneath the acacias and into the village. “What I wouldn't give for a toboggan ride down a hill with a tumble at the bottom.” He stopped and said quietly, “Richard.”
Burton followed his companion's gaze and saw, in a passageway between two cottages, the body of an Askari in British uniform. They approached and examined the corpse. A laceration curved diagonally across the African's face, the skin to either side of it swollen and puckered.
“That's a lurcher sting,” Wells observed. “He's recently dead, I'd say.”
“This was a bad idea, Bertie. We should have stayed with the column.”
Wells shook his head. “It's the job of a war correspondent to watch and report, Richard. When we reach the other end of the village, you'll find that it offers an unparalleled view across Tanga. We'll see far more from here than we would if we were in the thick of it. Not to mention the fact that we'll stand a better chance of staying alive.”
The silence was suddenly broken by a rasping susurration, similar to the sound of a locust, but shockingly loud and menacing.
“Hum. I might be wrong,” Wells added, his eyes widening. “Where did that noise come from?”
“I don't know.”
They stepped out of the passage and immediately saw a lurcher flopping out of one of the cottages they'd just passed. It was a hideous thing-a tangle of thorny tentacles and thrashing tendrils. From its middle, a red, fleshy, and pulsating bloom curled outward. Extending from within this, two very long spine-covered stalks rose into the air. They were rubbing together-a horribly frantic motion-producing the high-pitched ratcheting sound. The wriggling plant rolled forward on a knot of squirming white roots-and it moved fast.
“We've got to get out of here!” Burton cried out. “Drop your crutches, Bertie! I'm going to carry you!”
“But-”
Wells got no further. Burton kicked the crutches away, bent, and hoisted the shorter man up onto his shoulder. He started to run, heavy-footed.
“Bloody hell!” he gasped. “This is a lot easier with Algy!”
“Who?”
“Um. Algy. Bismillah! That's who you put me in mind of! How in blazes could I have forgotten him?”
“I don't know and right now I don't care. Run!”
Burton pumped his legs, felt his thigh muscles burning, and heard the lurcher rapidly drawing closer behind him.
“It's on us!” Wells yelled.
The famous explorer glimpsed a house door standing ajar. He veered toward it and bowled through, dropping Wells and banging the portal shut behind him. The lurcher slammed into it with terrific force, causing the frame to splinter around the lock. Burton quickly slid the bolts at the top and bottom into place. Thorns ripped at the wood outside.
“This door won't keep it out for long. Are you all right?”
“I landed on my leg,” Wells groaned.
Burton helped the war correspondent to his feet. “Let's get upstairs. God, my head! I was just knocked sideways by memories!”
He gave support to his friend and they made their way up and through to the front bedroom. The other upper chamber was given over to storage.
The din of hammering tentacles continued below. Burton was breathing heavily. He lowered Wells onto a bed, then staggered back and leaned against a wall, pressing the palms of his hands into his eyes.
“Algernon,” he whispered, and when he looked up, there were tears on his cheeks.
“What is it?” the shorter man asked.
Burton didn't answer. He was looking beyond his companion, at a dressing table mirror, and the face that stared back from it was that of a total stranger. It was all he could see. He fell into its black, despair-filled eyes and was overwhelmed by such a powerful sense of loss that his mind began to fracture.
“Richard!” Wells snapped. “Hey!”
The room sucked back into focus.
“Where am I?” Burton gasped. He felt hollow and disassociated.
Wordlessly, Wells pointed at the window.
After drawing a shuddering breath, Burton crossed to it, but he quickly stepped back when he saw thorny vines crawling over the glass.
“Manipulated and accelerated evolution,” the war correspondent observed. “Another of the Eugenicists' ill-conceived monstrosities. That thing was once a man in a vehicle. Look at the damned thing now! So who's this Algy person?”
“Algernon Swinburne.”
“The poet? Yes, of course, you knew him, didn't you?”
“He is-was-my assistant.”
“Really? In what?”
“I have no idea. But I recall fleeing from a fire with him slung over my shoulder.”
“Fire is what we need now. It's the only way we'll destroy the lurcher. Step a little farther back from the window, Richard. The stalks are strong enough to break through the glass.”
Burton hastily retreated. He looked around the room at the furniture, the pictures, and the ornaments. Everything was crawling with ants and cockroaches. Even this fact stirred buried recollections. The name “Rigby” rose into his awareness then sank away again.
Wells said, “My leg is hurting like hell.”
“Stay here while I have a poke about in the other room,” Burton responded. He went out onto the landing and into the chamber beyond. Wells sat and massaged his right thigh.
A loud crack sounded from below as the front door split under the lurcher's continued assault.
Burton came back in.
“Any luck?” Wells asked.
“A whole bottle of it.” Burton held up a wide-necked container. “Turpentine.”
Wells pulled something from his jacket pocket. “And a box of four whole matches. Yours for the price of two pieces of toffee.”
“Deal.”
Burton crossed to the window and, after putting the bottle on the floor, used both hands to slide the sash up. It squealed loudly and jammed, with less than a foot of it open.
“Look out!” Wells shouted.
The explorer staggered back as two flailing stalks came smashing through the glass and wood, showering splinters over both men. The spiny appendages coiled and slashed around the room, gouging the furniture and ripping long gashes across the walls.
Wells, acting without thinking, threw himself back onto the bed, clutched the thin mattress, and rolled, wrapping it around himself. He lunged upright and dived at the window, letting out an agonised scream as pain knifed through his wounded leg. He landed across the stalks, pinning them to the floor. They bucked under him and curled back, slapping against the bedding, shredding it.
“Quick, man! I can't hold it!”
Burton sprang at the bottle, which was rolling over the floorboards, scooped it up, and untwisted the cap. Unable to get past Wells to stand directly in front of the window, he stuck his arm through it from the side and poured the turpentine, praying to Allah that it would land on the target.
“The lucifers, Bertie!”
“I dropped the bloody things!”
A ragged length of the mattress's cotton cover was ripped away exposing the horsehair stuffing beneath. The material flew into the air as one of the stalks whipped up and back down, thumping across the correspondent's body.
Burton, having spotted the matchbox lying on the floor, scrambled across the room. He crawled and rolled on broken glass.
“Have you got them?” Wells yelled.
“Yes!”
Snatching up the length of torn material, Burton reeled back to the front wall, thudded against it, and slid into a crouch beside the window.
Wells was suddenly sent spinning into the air as the long stalks jerked violently and slid from the room.
The battering noises ceased.
Burton, with a puzzled expression, stood and cautiously peered out of the window. The stalks were nowhere in sight. Carefully, he leaned out and looked down.
The lurcher was below, quivering and jerking as if in the grip of a seizure.
“What's happened to it?” he murmured.
He pulled a match from the box, struck it, put the flame to the torn cotton, and dropped the burning cloth onto the plant, which immediately exploded into flames.
As he watched, the fire turned from blue to yellow and started to belch thick black smoke.
He turned and started to speak but realised that Wells was unconscious.
“Bertie, are you all right?”
The war correspondent shifted and groaned.
Pulling away the tattered mattress, Burton helped his companion to sit upright. Wells's uniform was ripped and bloodstained.
“You're bleeding, Bertie.”
“Nothing serious,” his friend croaked. “So are you. Is it dead?”
“Yes. It was odd, though. The thing appeared to lose control of itself just before I set fire to it. Let's get out of here.”
They limped from the bedroom and down the stairs, pulled open the wrecked front door, and tumbled out onto the street.
The lurcher had already been reduced to a twitching bonfire.
“Wait here,” Burton said. “I'll get your crutches.”
He retrieved them from outside the alley farther down the road and returned.
“You did exactly what he would have done,” he said, handing over the sticks.
“Who?”
“Algernon Swinburne. He's the most fearless man I've ever known.”
“That's where the comparison fails, then. I was scared out of my wits.”
“You're a good chap, Bertie.”
