Retromancer (27 page)

We headed to the topmost deck, for that would be the last to go underwater. By the time we reached it chaos reigned, with rich folk screaming and beating each other and fighting over the lifeboats.

‘Would I be right in assuming,’ I shouted to Hugo Rune, ‘that this ship owns to a deficit in the lifeboat department, as did its sister ship the Titanic?’

‘I rather suspect this to be the case,’ yelled the Magus. And then he laid a hand upon a well-dressed seaman in a rather superior lifejacket, who was seeking to sneak on board the nearest lifeboat. Hugo Rune hauled this fellow from his feet and spoke to his dangling person.

‘Speak to me, please,’ said the guru’s guru. ‘And with precise phraseology, lest an ambiguity or inconsistency result in severe skull damage upon your part.’ And he waggled his stout stick meaningfully. ‘What exactly has happened?’

The dangling fellow squirmed about, but spoke as best he could. ‘The ship has wandered slightly off course,’ he cried, ‘and has entered the Sargasso Sea.’

‘Slightly off course!’ roared Mr Rune. ‘One thousand miles or more. And what was the nature of the obstacle we struck?’

‘An ancient galleon, sir.’

Mr Rune let the fellow fall into the crowd. ‘Come, Rizla,’ he called unto me. ‘It is to the bridge with us, to see how affairs might be righted.’

And so I got to go onto the bridge of the RMS Olympic. Which was a very exciting place to be. There was the big ship’s steering wheel. And it was a really big one, nearly as high as a man. And there were those things with the levers on that the captain orders to be pulled for FULL STEAM AHEAD and suchlike. And big red buttons to press for foghorns and emergency sirens and so on. And a chart table and a framed picture of Queen Victoria.

And there was also my father. Dressed as the captain.

With a rather guilty look upon his face.

‘Captain Pooley?’ asked Hugo Rune, pushing onto the bridge.

‘It is private up here,’ said Captain Pooley. ‘Please go back the way you came.’ And then Captain Pooley caught sight of me and said, ‘This is a surprise.’

‘Do you know each other?’ asked Hugo Rune.

And I looked hard at the Magus.

Surely he knew that this was my father. All that business with the tarot card and the SUN being father to the Earth and everything. And so on. And so forth. And suchlike.

‘This is my-’ And I looked up at my father. ‘My casual acquaintance, ’ I continued. ‘I met him in Brentford a while back.’

‘I had no idea you were of wealthy stock,’ said my father. ‘Are you enjoying the voyage?’

‘Well,’ I said. And I did sort of noddings over my shoulder to where all that chaos reigned below and where rich folk were now leaping into the murky waters.

And indeed those waters were truly murky. Because from the lofty prominence of the wheelhouse you could get a really decent overview of the Sargasso Sea.

I had read about this sinister area when I was a child. The Ocean’s Graveyard, it was called, amongst many other uncomplimentary things. It was a portion of the North Atlantic Ocean bogged with a surface-growing seaweed called Sargassum. It dwelt within the notorious horse latitudes, in an area known as the doldrums. When sailing ships found themselves windless and caught in this mire, they rarely if ever made home port again.

And legend had it that there were many ghost ships to be found there, barnacled up and choked with seaweed. With naught aboard but skeletons and the wraiths of long-dead sailors.

And yes, looking out from that wheelhouse you could see the wrecks. And there were many of them too, from ancient Romanesque sailing barques to twentieth-century shipping.

‘Have you tried putting the engines into reverse?’ asked Hugo Rune of the captain.

‘You are Mr Hugo Rune,’ said Captain Pooley, all of a suddenly sudden. ‘I recognise you from your photograph in John Bull. Being congratulated by the King, after your famous four-way Channel swim.’

‘A bet with George Formby,’ Hugo Rune explained to me and he shook my father by the hand.

And that really meant quite a lot to me, though I would not perhaps wish to put into words just why.

‘I would be grateful for any advice you might have to offer, Mr Rune,’ said Captain Pooley. ‘I did try reversing the engines, but it seemed to make matters worse. Both screws are now jammed and there appears to be imminent danger of the boilers blowing up.’

Himself gazed over the mayhem below. ‘I think I see the stokers fighting their way into one of the lifeboats,’ he said, ‘so the boilers will probably be safe for now. Do you have any rum about yourself?’

‘The special captain’s bottle,’ said the special captain.

‘Then let’s crack it open and discuss matters,’ suggested Mr Rune, ‘until all the foolish people have left the ship and there is some peace and quiet.’

And so that is what we did. We drank rum up there in the wheelhouse and watched the rich people bashing each other up, falling over the side, crowding the lifeboats and generally carrying on in a manner which, I have to confess, I found most amusing indeed.

Schadenfreude I know it is called. Or epicaricacy, as the English will have it. From the original Greek.

But they would have let me be eaten.

It was nightfall before it began to grow quiet. There came a few distant cries for help as foolish people went down on the overcrowded lifeboats. A number of piercing screams which, I was given to understand, might have something to do with the shark-infested waters. But then mostly calm.

And we had the great ship to ourselves.

We had left the wheelhouse by this time and, as the special captain’s rum had all gone, adjourned to the bar to take advantage of the easy access to the counter.

And behind this counter stood Fangio.

And next to him sat his monkey.

‘Jolly good to see you, Fange,’ said I. ‘Decided against fighting your way aboard a lifeboat, then? Wise.’

‘Lifeboat?’ said Fangio. ‘I’ve been having a sleep and have only just come on shift. It’s very quiet in here this evening. What is all this about lifeboats?’

‘Nothing you should worry yourself about,’ I told him. ‘But this is the captain and the drinks are on him.’

‘Are they?’ asked my father. ‘Well, I suppose they are. Or on the house, at least. I’ll have a pint of Cooper Black, please, barman.’

‘I think the running gag about typeface beer names has run its course,’ I said.

‘Pint of Cooper Black coming up,’ said Fangio.

‘Then make that two,’ I said.

And, ‘Three,’ said Hugo Rune.

‘So,’ I said to my father, ‘the ship is not actually in imminent danger of sinking?’

‘Not in the least,’ he replied. ‘It’s just a bit stuck, that’s all.’

‘I find this encouraging,’ I said.

‘I did miss something, didn’t I?’ said Fangio. Presenting us with our ales.

‘I never saw you pull those,’ I said.

‘Because I never pulled them, it was my monkey. Did you know that if you sat an infinite number of monkeys down before an infinite number of typewriters, one of them would accidentally type out a book called Retromancer? So what did I miss?’ implored Fangio. ‘And why do you smell of white-wolf gonads, Rizla? I did miss something, didn’t I?’

‘The captain sort of bumped this ship a bit,’ said Hugo Rune, taking his beer glass to his mouth. ‘But it did lead to a lot of upper-class rats fleeing a non-sinking ship. So I think we must chalk it up as a success.’

‘Except that we are in a hurry to reach New York,’ I said.

‘Precisely,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘So regrettably we cannot enjoy the peace and quiet and perhaps upgrade to better accommodation. We must make haste to extricate the ship from the Sargasso and head for the USA.’

‘The Sargasso Sea?’ wailed Fangio. ‘Then all is lost. We are doomed, we are doomed.’

‘Ah,’ I said. ‘I had forgotten about the Weeping and Wailing Competition. What time does it start? I would like to enter it too.’

‘Eight o’ clock,’ said Fangio. ‘We are doomed, we are doomed, oh mercy, mercy me.’

‘Enough,’ cried Hugo Rune and he raised his stick. ‘Someone will have to don a diving suit and go down and cut free the screws. As originator of this idea that will save all of our lives, I nominate the captain to carry out the mission.’

‘And as captain,’ said the captain, ‘I nominate this barman here.’

‘And I nominate Clarence, my monkey,’ said Fangio.

Fangio’s monkey shook its head and pointed a finger at me.

‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘I am not doing that. I know all about the shark-infested waters and I would get claustrophobic in a diving suit. And I am not a very strong swimmer.’

‘Then I shall do it,’ said Hugo Rune.

‘You?’ I said. ‘Surely not.’

‘It will have to be done, Rizla. And someone will have to do it.’

‘We could perhaps draw lots for it,’ I said. ‘Or spin a bottle, or something. It does not seem fair that you should do it, you are rather-’

‘Old?’ said Hugo Rune. ‘Portly?’ he said also.

‘Too dignified,’ I said. ‘But it is a job for a younger man. Either Fangio, or the captain, or myself.’

‘Or the monkey,’ said Fangio.

And the monkey bit him.

We had it all planned. Well, we almost did. We would have a few drinks then take ourselves off to the ship’s casino. And there we would play cards, or throw dice, or otherwise gamble, but let fate decide by one means or another which of us should dive.

And I think we had at least come to the agreement that it would all rest upon a spin of the roulette wheel, upon THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE, as it were.

But then we heard the sounds.

That round of cannon shot.

And the blowing of many whistles.

And a kind of atavistic howling.

Which heralded the boarding party… of pirates.

Now I make no bones about it, in fact neither skull nor crossed bones, but I have always had this thing for pirates. How well I recall the dealings Mr Rune and I had with Captain Bartholomew Moulsecoomb, the Bog Troll Buccaneer
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and his crew of scurvy pirate types. I really took to those fellows, I did. I do not know exactly what it is about pirates that I like so much. It might be one of so many things. The tricornes or cutlasses, peg legs or hand-hooks, frock coats or eyepatches, parrots or treasure chests. One of them, or maybe all. But I do like pirates. Monkeys I also like. But I like pirates the bestest.

And even as Fangio, my dad and myself were discussing THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE and I was telling them that I had chosen the tarot card of THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE, so we must be doing the right thing, grappling hooks were being thrown up onto the passenger decks and pirates, many lacking for bits and bobs of themselves, were swarming up ropes, with knives between their teeth, arr’ing and arr-harr’ing and belching rum-tainted breaths.

A pause in our conversation was occasioned by the bursting in of the posh saloon bar door and the bursting through the opening of this by a group of the most wretched, hideous, horrible, scabrous, foul and filthy scum of the sea as should ever end their evil days doing a dance for Jack Ketch.

An overwhelming rankness, the very foetor of the damned, engulfed us in a healthless miasma. I coughed, my father coughed, Mr Rune and Fangio coughed, but Fangio’s monkey just grinned and chattered.

If they smelled bad, and they did, these malodorous blackguards, the looks of them were sufficient to strike fear into the bravest of hearts.

It was clear that any brief flirtations any of them ever had with hygiene had not led to a lasting relationship. They were filthy. They were bedraggled. Unkempt, unrinsed, soiled and begrimed. They were turbid, they were dreggy. Matted, caked and nauseatingly slimed.

And though I did have a thing about pirates, I did not take to this ghastly bunch.

‘Who be cap’n here?’ roared one of this putrid crew. One bigger and more repulsive than the rest. He wore a rotting tricorne titfer on his hideous head, a feculent frock coat, once of grey but now of gangrenous green. A pair of squalid seaman’s boots and a threadbare fusty necktie.

I noticed that this necktie was that of the Queen’s Own Electric Fusiliers. It is strange what catches your eye in moments of extreme terror.

‘Who be cap’n here?’ roared this malcontent once more.

Fangio now pointed at my father. As did his monkey and also Mr Rune.

My father began now to flap his hands and turn around in small circles. Which explained to me how I must have come by this undignified habit.

‘We be takin’ this ship,’ quoth the large ungarnished pirate to my father. ‘What say ye to this?’

‘I say such is the law of the sea,’ said my father. ‘If you would be so kind as to put me in a longboat with a few weeks’ supply of food and send me on my way, I’ll be happy to even let you have my cap, if you fancy it.’

‘’Tis the cap of a nancy-boy,’ now quoth the pulverulent pirate. ‘But I might take it with your head still inside, if such takes my fancy.’

‘Now hold on there,’ I said, as I did not fancy any insalubrious malfeasant parting my daddy’s head from his body. ‘He said you can have the ship – there is no cause to go chopping his head off.’

‘And who be you, my girly boy?’ asked the besmutted buccaneer. ‘We’ll find a use for your botty parts as we might for a Portobello harlot.’

‘Is he suggesting what I think he is suggesting?’ asked Fangio of Hugo Rune.

‘Silence!’ roared the rank and rotten ruffian.

‘If I might just crave a moment of your time, O lord of the sea,’ said Hugo Rune, stepping forwards and bowing low before our tainted tormentor. ‘There is much treasure aboard this vessel and I can lead you to its whereabouts.’

‘Such you will do indeed,’ went the unwashed one and then took to arr’ing and arr-harr’ing, after the manner of his kind. Although even this did not endear him to me.

‘But first,’ continued Hugo Rune, ‘why not slake your thirsts here? There is much fine liquor to be had and it would be our honour to serve you.’

‘Arrr!’ and, ‘Arrr-harrr!’ And the putrid pirates cheered at this.

‘Take yourself to the rear of the bar counter,’ said Hugo Rune to me, ‘and serve our guests. Hurry now.’

And he gave me a look.

And I understood this look.

And I took to the rear of the counter.

The mildewed multitude called out for liquor, wine and ale and whisky. Fangio shook cocktails, his monkey pulled the pints and I handed out bags of crisps.

‘Do you have any Kryptonite-flavoured crisps?’ asked a septic seaman who knew nothing of continuity.

I was by now becoming able to deal with the extreme taint foisted onto the goodly air of the posh saloon bar by the scrofulous scoundrels. By the simple expedient of dipping two cocktail umbrellas in Angostura bitters and ramming them up my nostrils. Fangio’s monkey was still looking happy enough.

Hugo Rune engaged the pirate captain in conversation. Whilst plying him with a mixture of drinks that could surely have brought down a rhino.

‘And,’ I heard him say, ‘this floating city could serve you as a luxurious headquarters, whilst in it you scour the seas for further wealth. All that would be needed would be for half a dozen of your men to dive down and free the propellers that drive the ship.’

And I gathered from the pirate chieftain’s reply to this that the notion of leaving the Sargasso Sea, where his forefathers had become trapped and where he and his father before him had lived since birth, preying upon the contents and crews of unhappy ships that fell victim to the Sargassum weed, found great favour with him.

‘And so,’ Mr Rune continued, ‘myself and my companions would be honoured to throw in our lots with you and offer the highly specialised skills, which take years of training, to manage the actual movement of this great ship. You will find us a valuable asset.’

The scummy ruffian nodded his mouldy tricorne to this and then asked Mr Rune what progress had been made in the world beyond during the last two hundred years and whether the iPod had been invented yet. Which certainly had me baffled. But I did think that we were all starting to get along quite well. And I was joining in with some of the shanty singing. And my father was telling a tale about how he had been aboard a cross-Channel ferry that had gone down with all hands but himself and how he had been washed up on the beach at Hartlepool. Where the locals would have hanged him as a French spy, had he not been able to convince them that he was in fact a monkey. And Fangio had even encouraged several of the pirates to enter the Weeping and Wailing Competition. And Clarence was dancing a jig and rattling a tin cup for money.

When things suddenly went the shape of a pear in an unexpected fashion.

The door to the posh saloon bar, which had been burst in by the arriving pirates, and which had been eased back into its frame by my father, whom it appeared to me for the first time had a thing about tidiness and was perhaps just a tad obsessive-compulsive, burst open again, this time to admit the entrance of something more foul and unwholesome than all of the pocky pirates put together.

‘Ahoy there to you, bonny lads!’ cried out Count Otto Black.

There was a moment of silence then. Followed by mighty cheerings. The squalid leader of the bog-rotten bunch did evil toothless grinnings towards Mr Rune. ‘I have enjoyed our conversation,’ said he, ‘whilst you tried to inveigle me with talk of your knowledge and the value of your fellows. But we need none of you, as we can move this mighty ship by other means. I only spared you my blade because I was ordered to do so by my master here, who predicted who would be found aboard this ship after she struck the Sargasso.’

Hugo Rune looked towards his arch-enemy. ‘Why, if it isn’t Count Rotto,’ said he. ‘We meet again. And how fitting that it should be amongst your own people. Those who share your fear of the bathroom.’

‘Shall I cut him down by a foot or two?’ asked the pongy pirate chief.

‘All in good time.’ Count Otto Black grinned. ‘For now I will have words with my fat friend. And then you may cast them all over the side.’

‘But we can jolly roger the little one?’ asked the pirate captain.

‘Be my guest,’ said Count Otto. And he produced from his pocket a Luger pistol and pointed this at Hugo Rune. The pirates resumed their carousing and the count had words to say.

‘This, I feel,’ said Count Otto, smiling with evil upon Hugo Rune, ‘will be our last time together. You are fighting out of your weight, my plump fellow, and that says much, does it not?’

I saw Mr Rune’s knuckles whiten on the hand with which he held his stout stick. But he retained his dignity and regarded his enemy with a look which combined nonchalance and contempt to a winning effect.

‘Poor old magician,’ crowed Count Otto Black. ‘Out of his time and out of his league. The world has changed, Hugo, changed for ever. The old Gods are reborn, but not within the frail bodies of men. Rather within mighty machines. Great engines of power. Do you understand anything of what I speak?’

‘I understand all,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘I understand that the enemies of Goodness and Peace are possessed of a great computer, which is itself possessed by the spirit of Wotan.’

‘Indeed, indeed.’ And the count clapped his hands together. ‘And Colossus was possessed by the spirit of Arthur, which you sent on its way.’ And the count laughed cruelly. ‘A bit of an error there on your part, I am thinking. An own goal.’

‘We shall see,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘Matters will adjust themselves, of this I have no doubt.’

‘Indeed they will, but you will not be here to see this occur. You will be deep at the bottom of the sea where you can cause no further annoyance.’

‘And as this is to be the case,’ said the Magus, ‘then there would be no harm in you revealing to me your plans for world domination. Such is the way of the supervillain, is it not?’

‘Indeed, indeed, indeed,’ said Count Otto Black, thrice more. ‘As you might well be aware, two days from now, at precisely twelve noon, an atomic bomb will fall upon New York. The Americans have been carrying out many experiments with atomic weaponry and they have a number of bombs in various stages of completion currently being transported hither and thus across North America. These will be triggered in a chain reaction by my bomb. America will cease to be, the Allies will capitulate before the nuclear might of the Third Reich and Germany will win the war.’

‘And what will that make you?’

‘I rather favour a position of power,’ said the count, preening at himself with grubby fingers. ‘Ultimate power! High Priest in the World Temple of Wotan rather suits me. For with the fall of the Allies, an ancient God will once more be restored to his rightful place and the beaten peoples of the world converted to his faith.’

‘All well and good,’ said Hugo Rune, in a voice that lacked not for irony. ‘But how do you intend to deliver an atomic bomb to New York unnoticed?’

‘It is on its way even now,’ said the count. ‘ Germany is all but done for in terms of resources and cannot survive another year of war. A means of transporting the bomb, using what remains in the armament factories of the Reich, has been created. A Zeppelin, Hugo. The biggest ever built, powered by jets. And aboard this craft, along with the bomb itself, the computer possessed by Mankind’s new God. Such will direct the dropping of the bomb, unseen from on high.’

‘Such a mighty craft will surely be seen and shot down,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘This plan will never succeed.’

‘Oh, I think it will,’ said the count. ‘Because no one will see the Zeppelin approaching New York. Because it will be invisible. Caught within the ionic beam of the Tesla field generator that I removed from your conservatory and which is even now down in the cargo hold. What think you of that?’

‘I think we shall see what we shall see,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘I thank you for supplying me with this valuable information. I shall of course use it to confound your evil scheme.’

‘No no no,’ said Count Otto Black, taking then to the laughter so beloved of supervillains. ‘Now you die, Hugo Rune. Hey, Captain,’ he called to the pestiferous pirate. ‘Weight this big one heavily and cast him over the side.’