Текст книги "Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon"
Автор книги: Mark Hodder
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 29 страниц)
He didn't move.
Then: There!
He'd heard a faint noise, a tiny rasping sound.
He waited.
Again, an almost imperceptible scrape.
He allowed a few minutes to tick by.
“You should have asked before borrowing Sister Raghavendra's copy of Poems and Ballads.”
Silence.
He spoke again. “You made a scapegoat of Vincent Sneed. I have no fondness for the fellow, but why? What was the point?”
Thirty seconds or so passed.
A small, whispery voice said, “Distraction, Captain Burton.”
“There you are! Hello, lad! I take it Sneed and Willy Cornish smuggled you onto the ship in the replacement section of pipe?”
“Yes. I had ordered the previous two funnel scrubbers to purposely damage a section in order to facilitate my presence here.”
“So the Beetle, the chief of the League of Chimney Sweeps, finds himself en route to Africa. A bizarre circumstance indeed, and I imagine you must have a very good reason for leaving your chimney. Distraction, you say? Who are you trying to distract, and from what?”
Burton stood and moved to the middle of the room. He looked up at the grille in the thick ventilation pipe. Vaguely, he could discern something moving behind it.
“Don't turn the lamps up,” came the whisper.
“I don't intend to. I know how you abhor light.”
“One of my boys was killed.”
“Who?”
“Bingo Stokes. He was ten years old, and one of the few not an orphan. But his father mistreated him terribly, and Bingo often sought refuge in a chimney.”
“Ah. Now I understand. He cleaned the chimney of a house in Ilford, then went back there to steal food and spend a night in the flue.”
“That is correct, Captain. And while he was there, he overheard four men plotting. Three were Prussians, but, fortunately, they spoke in English on account of the fourth man. That individual was instructed to bring down this ship, if he couldn't kill you first. Unfortunately, Bingo's presence was detected, and though he got away, he was shot. By the time he reached me, it was too late to save him. He bled to death, but not before repeating to me everything he'd heard.”
“So there is still a saboteur at loose?”
“Yes, but I do not know who it is. I arranged to be smuggled aboard and I instructed Vincent Sneed to steal the bearing cradle.”
“You're conversant with the engineering of the Orpheus?”
“I had already read a great deal of material pertaining to her construction.”
Burton thought for a moment, then said, “So you alerted us to the fact that a saboteur was aboard by arranging a fairly harmless act of sabotage yourself?”
“Exactly, and in doing so, I made it difficult, if not impossible, for the Prussian agent to act, for your people were all on the lookout for suspicious behaviour. The first leg of your voyage was thus protected. I then placed the cradle in your room, knowing that Sneed would be recognised and accused.”
“Why do that?”
“Because now Sneed's been dealt with, your enemy will think that you consider yourselves safe. He'll be of the opinion that he can act with impunity when, in truth, you'll be watching out for him.”
Burton pondered this, then said, “You've done me a service, and I thank you, but I don't understand. Why such an extravagant scheme when you could've got a message to me before the Orpheusleft Battersea?”
“If I had, what would you have done?”
“I'd have dismissed the entire crew, hired a new one, and had every inch of the ship thoroughly checked.”
“And how long would that have taken?”
“Perhaps four days. Maybe five or six.”
“Bingo Stokes learned something else. The man who owned the house, Steinruck, was taking care of some business in Yorkshire-”
“His real name is Zeppelin and he went there to arrange my poisoning.”
“I see. I'm glad he failed. Upon completing this business, he was going to fly to Prussia to join an expedition to Central Africa led by Lieutenant John Speke. I realised, therefore, that warning you would result in a delay you can ill afford, for you are in a race.”
“Bismillah!” Burton cursed. “I thought a rival expedition might be a possibility! So Speke and Zeppelin are already on their way?”
“They are, and that is why I chose the removal of the bearing cradle as my means of false sabotage, for I knew that it would result in a dangerous turn of speed. Maybe it will get you ahead in the game.”
Burton smacked a fist into his palm and paced up and down. “Damnation!” he muttered.
“You have no time for this stopover in Cairo,” the Beetle urged. “You must get this ship back into the air at once. The saboteur will make a move but he will undoubtedly lack the appropriate caution. Catch him, then catch up with your opponents.”
Burton hurried across the room and snatched up his clothes. “What of you?” he asked as he started to dress.
“I will watch and listen and try to identify the agent. After you are delivered to Zanzibar, I'll remain with the ship while it returns to London. Willy Cornish-who, incidentally, has been following my orders-will facilitate my return to Limehouse.”
“And Sneed?”
“He has a history of bullying my lads. This was his chance to redeem himself. He performed his part well and will be compensated for the inconvenience he is currently suffering.”
Burton quickly buttoned up his clothes and tied his bootlaces. He stepped to the door and grasped its handle. “I have to tell my people what you've done, then get us moving,” he said. “Thank you, lad. I'm in your debt.”
First Officer William Henson had just dropped off to sleep when a hammering at his cabin door awoke him. Swearing under his breath, he pulled on a gown, yanked open the door, and was confronted by the captain.
“Sleep is cancelled, Mr. Henson. I need all hands on deck.”
“Right away, sir. Is there a problem?”
“A change of schedule. No layover in Cairo. We're departing immediately. Mr. Gooch and the riggers will be recalibrating the four stern engines while we're in mid-flight. That means four external doors are going to be wide open in the sides of the engineering bay. We'll keep a low altitude, of course, but nevertheless I feel uneasy flying so exposed. I'd like you to oversee things down there until we're properly sealed up again.”
“Certainly, sir, though I'm sure Mr. Gooch-”
“Will have everything under control. I don't doubt it, Henson, but since we have only three riggers and there are four engines that require attention, Mr. Gooch will be out on one of the flight pylons.”
“Ah. I see. I'll get down there at once.”
“You can shave and tidy yourself up first. There are some internal repairs and adjustments to be made before Gooch and his team go outside. Get down there within the hour, please.”
“Yes, sir.”
Henson's door was the first of a number to be knocked upon over the course of the next few minutes, and in very short measure the majority of the Orpheus'saeronauts found themselves unexpectedly back on duty.
It was a few minutes past midnight.
The rotorship's flight crew gathered on the bridge. Sir Richard Francis Burton was there, watching each of them carefully. They looked bleary-eyed and dishevelled. Captain Lawless did not. His uniform was buttoned, his eyes were bright, and he was all efficiency.
“What's going on, sir?” Arthur Bingham, the meteorologist, asked.
“I'll have your report, Mr. Bingham, not your questions,” Lawless snapped.
“Yes, sir. A wind has picked up. Rather strong. Easterly, currently at a steady twenty knots. No cloud.”
“You heard that, Mr. Playfair?”
“Yes, sir,” the navigator responded. “Taken into account. Course plotted to Aden.”
“Good man. Mr. Pryce, call down to Mr. Gooch and have him start the engines.”
“Aye, sir.” Wordsworth Pryce, the second officer, moved to the speaking tubes. Moments later, a vibration ran through the rotorship.
“Engage the wings, Mr. Wenham.”
“Engaging. Opening. Rotating…and…up to speed.”
“Take us to two thousand feet.”
On an expanding cone of steam, the Orpheusrose into the night sky and began to power into the southeast, leaving the ill-lit city of Cairo behind her. Above, the Milky Way arced across the heavens, but below, the narrow Red Sea and the lands to either side of it were wreathed in darkness, so it seemed that the ship was sailing through an empty void.
With her stern engines still operating abnormally, the huge vessel rattled and shook as she ate up the miles, speeding at almost 150 knots toward Aden, on the tip of the Arabian Peninsula.
In the engine room, the bearing cradle had been refitted, but it took Daniel Gooch and his fellow engineers almost four hours to reset the synchronisation system, which they achieved by shutting down the four rear engines one at a time while adjusting the various components to which the cradle was connected.
Now all that remained was to recalibrate each of those stern-most engines.
Gooch and the riggers Gordon Champion, Alexander Priestley, and Winford Doe, positioned themselves at the four hull doors and buckled themselves into harnesses. They clipped safety straps to brackets above the portals.
First Officer Henson pulled a speaking tube from the wall.
On the bridge, his call was answered by Oscar Wilde, who said, “Captain Lawless, Mr. Henson is asking permission to open the external doors.”
Lawless was standing by the window with Sir Richard Francis Burton. They were watching al-fajr al-kaadhib, the zodiacal light, which was rising column-like in the western sky. He said, “Tell him permission is granted, Master Wilde.”
“Aye, sir,” the boy replied. He relayed the message down to the engine room.
Lawless stepped over to the helmsman and stood beside him, quietly ordering, “Steady as she goes, please, Mr. Wenham.”
“Aye-aye, sir, but-” Wenham hesitated.
“What is it?”
“I-um-I think-” The helmsman turned to Cedric Playfair, the navigator. “Shouldn't we still be over the Red Sea?”
“Yes,” Playfair answered, glancing at his instruments.
“Then why is there desert below us?”
Lawless and Playfair both looked up and saw what Wenham had spotted-that the vaguest glimmers of light were skimming not over water, but sand dunes.
“Impossible!” Playfair gasped.
Burton joined them and watched as the navigator checked over his console.
“The compass says we're travelling south-southeast,” Playfair muttered. “But if that were true, we'd be where we should be.” He tapped the instrument, then bent, opened a panel in the console, reached in, and felt about, muttering: “Maybe something is interfering with-hello! What's this?” He pulled out a small block of metal, and as he did so, the compass needle swung from SSE to SE.
“A magnet!” Burton observed.
“How the devil-?” Playfair exclaimed.
Lawless clenched his teeth and bunched his fists.
“But it shouldn't make any difference!” Francis Wenham objected. “That compass is just for reference. It isn't used to set the course.”
“He's right, sir,” Playfair put in. “Mr. Wenham follows the instrumentation on his own console. It indicates the degrees to port or starboard he should steer the ship to maintain the course I set. Taking into account the compensation I calculated, if he's followed his indicators exactly, we should be slap bang over the Red Sea.”
“And I have done,” Wenham noted.
“Compensation?” Burton asked.
“For the wind, sir,” Playfair replied.
Burton stepped back to the window. He turned and gestured for Oscar Wilde to join him.
“Yes, sir?” the boy asked.
“Can you find me some field glasses?”
“Right over here,” said Wilde, crossing to a wall cabinet and returning with a large-lensed brass device. Burton took it and raised it to his face, clipping its bracket over his head. He turned back to the window, and with the fingers of both hands rotated the focusing wheels on either side of the apparatus.
The land below was wreathed in darkness, with just the tips of dunes visible in the faint light of al-fajr al-kaadhib. The field glasses threw them into sharp relief.
“Captain Lawless,” Burton murmured, “I have a reasonably clear view of the sand dunes below us.”
“What of it, Sir Richard?”
“They are entirely motionless. There is no sand rippling across their surface or spraying from their peaks. In other words, the strong wind Mr. Playfair just mentioned is nonexistent, at least at ground level, and since we're flying low-”
“If I've been taking into account a wind that isn't actually blowing, it would certainly explain our position,” Playfair put in.
“Mr. Bingham!” Lawless roared, but when he turned to the meteorologist's position, he saw that it was unoccupied. “Where the devil is he?” he demanded.
“Mr. Bingham left the bridge some little time ago, so he did, sir,” said Oscar Wilde.
“Playfair, Wenham, get us back on course! Sir Richard, come with me. We have to find my meteorologist. He has some explaining to do!”
Some minutes later, they located Arthur Bingham in the engine room, standing with Daniel Gooch, Shyamji Bhatti, and Winford Doe near one of the open hull doors. Doe was unbuckling his harness.
“Hallo, Captain Burton, Captain Lawless!” Bhatti called as they approached.
Gooch turned and said, “Almost done, Captain. Mr. Champion is just putting the finishing touches to the last of our wayward engines.”
Lawless ignored the chief engineer and glared at the short, fat meteorologist. “You appear to have deserted your post without permission, Bingham.”
“I–I just came down to watch Mr. Gooch at-at work, sir,” Bingham responded.
“Worried he'd be blown off the pylon by the high winds, were you?”
Bingham took a couple of steps backward.
“Is there a problem?” Gooch asked.
Lawless's eyes flashed angrily. “There most certainly is!”
Bingham pulled a pistol from his pocket and brandished it at them. “Get back, all of you!”
“Bloody traitor!” Lawless snapped.
“Hey! Drop that!” Bhatti cried out.
Bingham swung the pistol toward the constable, then pointed it at Burton, then at Lawless. His lips thinned against his teeth and his eyes flashed threateningly.
Lawless said, “Why?”
“Because I have a wife and two children,” the meteorologist snarled. “And I also happen to have a tumour in my gut and not many months to live. A certain party has agreed to pay my family a large amount of money in return for the sacrifice I'm about to make.” He directed his gun back at the king's agent. “I wouldn't have to do it at all but for you, Burton. I followed you to Ilford and back and took a pot-shot at you.”
“You ruined a perfectly good hat.”
“It's a crying shame I didn't spoil the head it was adorning. If you'd have been decent enough to die then, this ship and its crew would have been spared.”
“You're not the only man Zeppelin hired to kill me,” Burton revealed. “The other was promised money and received instead the count's hands around his neck.”
“Ah, so you know my employer, then! But what do you mean?”
“My other would-be assassin was strangled to death, Bingham. Had you managed to put a bullet in me, I have little doubt that Zeppelin's associates would have then put one in you. As for money being paid to your family, you can forget it. The Prussians will feel no obligation to you once you're dead.”
“Shut your mouth!” Bingham yelled. His finger whitened on the trigger as he jerked his pistol back and forth between Burton, Lawless, and Bhatti.
“Give it up, man!” the latter advised. “Don't leave your family stained with the name of a traitor!”
The meteorologist backed away a step. “Not another word out of you!” he spat at Bhatti. “As for you, Burton, they want an end to your little jaunt to Africa, and this-” With his free hand, Bingham undid his tightly buttoned jacket and pulled it open. He wasn't the fat man they thought he was. He was a slim man made bulky by a vest fashioned from sticks of dynamite. “This will ensure they get what they want!”
“Hell's teeth!” Captain Lawless shouted. “Are you bloody insane, man?”
Bingham sneered nastily. “Blame your friend here, Lawless. He's left me with no choice but to eliminate you all.”
“You do have a choice,” Burton said. “Shoot me now and spare the ship.”
“No. I've overheard you and your companions enough to know that, now they're on their way to Africa, they'd continue your mission without you. This is it for all of you.”
He placed his left index finger over a button in the middle of his chest.
“Bingham! There are women and children on board!” Lawless bellowed.
“To protect my own woman, and my own children, I would do anything, even-”
Shyamji Bhatti suddenly threw himself at the meteorologist, thudded into him, and with his arms wrapped around the saboteur, allowed his momentum to send them both toppling out of the open hull door. There came a blinding flash from outside and a tremendous discharge. The floor swung upward and slapped into the side of Burton's head, stunning him and sending him sliding across its metal surface. Bells jangled in his ears. Through the clamour, as if from a far-off place, he heard someone yell: “We're going down!”
CHAPTER 5
Through the desert
“A Phenomenal Success.”
FLOR DE DINDIGUL
A Medium-Mild Indian Cigar
“Will bear favourable comparison
with choice Havanas,
while the cost is about one-third.”
Indian Tobacco, grown by Messrs. Slightly and Co.,
is eugenically enhanced for exquisitely choice
flavour and delicate aroma.
A DELIGHTFUL WHIFF
22/– per 100 from all good Tobacconists.
Sir Richard Francis Burton was leaning against a palm tree just beyond the final cottage of Kaltenberg. Beside him, Bertie Wells, sitting on a rock, was dabbing at a small wound on the back of his neck with a handkerchief. Burton had just used a penknife to dig a jigger flea out from beneath the war correspondent's skin.
From the trees around them, the shrieks and cackles of birds and monkeys blended into a cacophonous racket.
High overhead, eagles wheeled majestically through the dazzling sky.
The terrain in front of the two men angled down to the outlying houses and huts of Tanga.
Burton squinted, looking across the rooftops of the sprawling town to the ocean beyond. It was like peering through glass; the atmosphere was solid with heat. The humidity pressed against him, making his skin prickle. Respiration required a conscious effort, with each scalding breath having to be sucked in, the air resisting, as if too lethargic to move.
Wells pointed at a large building in the western part of the seaport.“That's the railway terminal. Two major lines run from it-the Tanganyika, all the way west to the lake; and the Usambara, up to Kilimanjaro.”
“Language is an astonishingly liquid affair,” Burton muttered. “We pronounced it Kilima Njaro in my day. Like the natives.”
“Perhaps some still do,” Wells replied. “But it's the fluid quality that makes language an excellent tool for imperialists. Force people to speak like you and soon enough they'll be thinking like you. Rename their villages, towns, and mountains, and before they know it, they're inhabiting your territory. So Kilimanjaro it is. Anyway, as I was saying, that's the station and our forces need to capture or destroy it to slow down the movement of German troops and supplies.” He indicated a twin-funnelled warship lying at anchor in the bay. “And that's HMS Fox.She's almost two decades obsolete but such is our desperation that we have to resort to whatever's available. She's been sweeping the harbour for mines. Look at her flags. Do you understand the signal?”
“No.”
“It's a demand for surrender. The British Indian Expeditionary Force transports have already offloaded the troops onto the beaches. They're awaiting the order to attack. The Fox'scaptain will lead the assault. He's probably waiting for Aitken to get our lot into position. It won't be long now.”
Burton frowned. “The town looks uninhabited.”
Wells glanced at his bloodstained handkerchief and pushed it into a pocket. “They're all hiding indoors,” he said. “They've known the attack was coming for a couple of days.”
Burton closed his eyes, removed his helmet, and massaged his scalp with his fingertips.
Wells looked at him and asked, “Is that tattoo of yours hurting?”
“No. It's just that-I don't know-I feel like I should be somewhere else.”
“Ha! Don't we all!”
They lapsed into silence, broken a few minutes later when Wells said, “I have a theory about it. Your tattoo, I mean. It looks African in pattern. You still don't recall how you got it?”
“No.”
“I think perhaps you were captured and tortured by some obscure tribe. There are still a few independent ones scattered about, especially up around the Blood Jungle where you were found. Certainly the state you were in suggests some sort of trauma in addition to the malaria and shell shock, and the tattoo possesses a ritualistic look.”
“It's possible, I suppose, but your theory doesn't ring any bells. Why is it called the Blood Jungle?”
“Because it's red. It's the thickest and most impassable jungle on the whole continent. The Germans have been trying to burn it away for I don't know how long but it grows back faster than they can destroy it.”
An hour passed before, in the distance, a bugle sounded. Others took up its call; then more, much closer.
Wells used a crutch to lever himself to his feet. He leaned on it, raised his binoculars, and said, “Here we go. Stay on your toes, we're closer to the action than I'd like.”
A single shot echoed from afar and, instantly, the birds in the trees became silent. For a moment there was no sound at all, then came a staccato roar as thousands of firearms let loose their bullets. An explosion shook the port.
Below and to his left, Burton saw a long line of British Askaris emerging from the undergrowth, moving cautiously into the town. They had hardly set foot past the outermost shack before they were caught in a hail of gunfire from windows and doorways. As men fell and others scattered for cover, Wells let loose a cry: “Bloody hell!”
A stray bullet whistled past him and thudded into a tree.
“Get down!” Burton snapped. The two observers dived onto the ground and lay prone, watching in horror as the Askaris were shredded by the crossfire. It fast became apparent that armed men inhabited all the houses and huts. Tanga wasn't a town waiting to be conquered-it was a trap.
A squadron of Askaris ran forward, threw themselves flat, and lobbed grenades. Explosions tore apart wooden residences and sent smoke rolling through the air. Similar scenes unfolded all along the southern outskirts of the town as the allied forces pressed forward. Hundreds of men were falling, but by sheer weight of numbers, they slowly advanced.
A sequence of blasts assaulted Burton's eardrums as HMS Foxlaunched shells into the middle of the settlement. Colonial houses erupted into clouds of brickwork, masonry, and glass.
“There goes the Hun administration!” Wells shouted. “If we're lucky, Lettow-Vorbeck was in one of those buildings!”
A Scorpion Tank scuttled out of the smoke and into a street just below them. The cannon on its tail sent shell after shell into the houses, many of which were now burning. When a German soldier raced from a doorway, one of the Scorpion's claws whipped forward, closed around him, and snipped him in half.
Harvestmen were entering the town, too, firing their Gatling guns and wailing their uncanny “Ulla! Ulla!”
Forty minutes later, the last of the troops with whom Burton and Wells had travelled moved past the observation point and pushed on into the more central districts of Tanga. As the clamour attested, the battle was far from over, but it had passed beyond Burton and Wells's view now, so they were forced to judge its progress by the sounds and eruptions of smoke. A particularly unbridled sequence of detonations occurred in the eastern part of the town, and, shortly afterward, a Union Jack was spotted there by Wells as it was hoisted up a flagpole at the top of a large building.
“That's the Hotel Nietzsche!” Wells exclaimed.
Pain lanced through Burton's head.
“Nietzsche!” he gasped. “I know that name! Who is he?”
“Bismarck's advisor,” Wells replied. “The second most powerful man in the Greater German Empire!”
“He-he's going to-he's going to betray Bismarck!” Burton said hoarsely. “He's going to take over the empire! This year!”
Wells regarded his companion, a confused expression on his face. “How can you possibly know that? You're from the past, not the future.”
Burton was panting with the effort of remembering. “I-it-something-something to do with Rasputin.”
“If Ras-”
“Wait!” Burton interrupted. “1914. It's 1914! Rasputin will die this year. I killed him!”
“You're not making any sense, man!”
Burton hung his head and ground his teeth in frustration. A tiny patch of soil just in front of his face suddenly bulged upward and a green shoot sprouted out of it. He watched in astonishment as a plant grew rapidly before his eyes. It budded and its flower opened, all at a phenomenal speed.
It was a red poppy.
Wells suddenly clutched at the explorer's arm. “What's that over there?”
Burton looked up and saw, writhing into the air from various places around the town, thick black smudges, twisting and spiralling as if alive. They expanded outward, flattened, then sank down into the streets. From amid the continuing gunfire, distant screams arose.
“What the hell?” Wells whispered.
Some minutes later, British troops came running out from between the burning buildings. They'd dropped their rifles and were waving their arms wildly, yelling in agony, many of them dropping to the ground, twitching, then lying still. One, an Askari, scrambled up the slope and fell in front of the two onlookers. He contorted and thrashed, then a rattle came from his throat, his eyes turned upward, and he died.
He was covered in bees.
“We've got to get out of here!” Wells shouted. “This is Eugenicist deviltry!”
Many more men were now climbing the incline toward them, all screaming.
Burton hauled Wells to his feet, handed him his crutches, then guided him from the observation point back into Kaltenberg. Behind them, gunfire was drawing closer.
“Counterattack!” Wells said. “Go on ahead, Richard. Get out of here. Don't let me slow you down.”
“Don't be a blessed fool!” Burton growled. “What manner of ridiculous war is this that our forces can be routed by bees?”
Even as he spoke, one of the insects landed on the back of his hand and stung him. Then another, on his neck. And another, on his jaw. The pain was a hundred times worse than a normal sting and he yelled, slapping the insects away. Almost immediately his senses began to swim and his heart fluttered as the venom entered his system. He staggered but found himself supported on either side by a couple of British Tommies who began to drag him along.
“Come on, chum!” said one. “Move yer bleedin' arse!”
“Bertie!” Burton shouted, but it came out slurred.
“Never mind your pal,” the other soldier snapped. “He's bein' taken care of. Keep movin'. Have you been stung?”
“Yes.” Burton's legs had stopped functioning and he had tunnel vision; all he could see was the ground speeding by. There was a buzzing in his ears.
The soldiers' voices came from a long way away: “He's snuffed it. Drop him.”
“No. He's just passed out.”
“He's slowing us down. Aah! I've been stung!”
“I'll not leave a man. Not while he still lives. Help me, damn it!”
A shot. The whine of a bullet.
“They're on us!”
“Run! Run!”
Burton's senses came swimming back. Two men were dragging him along.
“I can walk,” he mumbled, and, regaining his feet, he stood and opened his eyes.
Light blinded him. It glared down from the sky and it glared up from the sand.
He raised a hand for shade and felt a big bump over his right eyebrow. It was sticky with blood.
“Are you dizzy, Captain?” asked Wordsworth Pryce, the second officer of the Orpheus.
“You took quite a knock,” observed another. Burton recognised the voice as that of Cyril Goodenough, one of the engineers.
His vision blurred and swirled then popped back into focus. He looked around, and croaked, “I'm fine. Somewhat dazed. We crashed?”
“The bomb destroyed our starboard engines,” Pryce replied. “It's a good job we were flying low. Nevertheless, we turned right over and came down with one hell of a thump.”
Burton saw the Orpheus.
The huge rotorship was upside down, slumped on desert dunes, its back broken, its flight pylons snapped and scattered. Steam was pouring from it and rising straight up into a clear blue morning sky. The sun was not long risen, but the heat was already intense. Long shadows extended from the wreckage, from the figures climbing out of it, and from the bodies they were lining up on the ground some way from the ship.
William Trounce was suddenly at his side. The detective's jacket and shirt were badly torn and bloodied but his wounds-lacerations, grazes, and bruises-were superficial; no broken bones.
“I think we've got everyone out now except the Beetle,” he said. “The boy is still in there somewhere.”
“What state are we in?” Burton asked, dreading the answer.
“Thirteen dead. First Officer Henson; Helmsman Wenham and his assistant D'Aubigny; Navigator Playfair; riggers Champion, Priestley, and Doe; the two firemen, Gerrard and Etheridge; Stoker Reece-Jones; and, of course, that cur Arthur Bingham. I'm afraid Daniel Gooch bought it, too.”
Burton groaned.
“I'm told Constable Bhatti died a hero's death, heaven bless him,” Trounce said.
“He did. There'd probably be no survivors at all but for his sacrifice. What of the wounded?”
“Tom Honesty is still unconscious. Captain Lawless was pierced through the left side. Engineer Henderson and the quartermaster, Butler, are both in critical condition with multiple broken bones and internal injuries. Miss Mayson has just had a dislocated arm snapped back into place. She'll be all right. Everyone else is battered, cut, and bruised in various degrees. Swinburne is fine. Mr. Spencer has a badly dented and twisted leg. Sister Raghavendra is unharmed, as are Masters Wilde and Cornish. Krishnamurthy was banged around pretty badly but has no serious injuries. He's devastated at the loss of his cousin, of course.” Trounce paused, then said quietly, “What a confounded mess.”
“And one that's fast heating up,” added Pryce. “We're slap bang in the middle of a desert.”
“I suppose the captain is out of action,” Burton said to him, “which makes you the commanding officer. I suggest you order the wreck stripped of everything useful. As a matter of urgency, we should employ whatever suitable material we can find to build a shaded area beside it. Please tell me the ship's water tanks are intact.”
