The Derring-Do Club and the Empire of the Dead (23 page)

“It is a euphemism for the ‘B’ word and we do not use the ‘B’ word.”

“You’re horrible!”

“Right, I see you have clearly been associating with the military and have forgotten yourself.”

“Ness,” Georgina howled as Earnestine grabbed her by the scruff of the neck, bent her over and frog–marched to the corner of the cabin. Earnestine wrenched open the cupboard to reveal the tiny sink and mirror.

“I say,” said Merryweather. “You’re not her colour sergeant.”

“I would thank you to mind your own business,” Earnestine said to his reflection.

“Yes, but I think–”

“No, you do not.”

“Perhaps–”

“This is a ladies’ bedroom!”

So it was, and Merryweather went red: “M– m– my apologies, sorry, so…” and he beat a hasty retreat.

“Right,” said Earnestine, when she and her sister were alone.

“Ness, please…”

Earnestine took Georgina to the sink, pushed her head over the bowl and then scooped up a few slivers of soap.

“Open!”

“Nn.. nn…”

Earnestine yanked her sister’s hair.

“Arr! Guk… neuurghh…”

Earnestine rubbed it back and forth until finally the old soap lathered. She forced her hand back and forth along Georgina’s gums and teeth.

“There,” she said, not unkindly. “Rinse. Spit. Again.”

Georgina ran the tap and cupped water up with her hand to try and remove the carbolic taste. Her hair was wrenched to one side and her eyes watered from the shock.

“And, Gina, don’t blub.”

Georgina held the bowl and did blub; she let it all out: not the shame of being punished or the vile taste in her mouth, but the horror that Arthur had seen this happen to her and anger that he’d done nothing to stop the hideous harpy treat her in such a… yes, bally rotten fashion.

Earnestine was unpacking.

“We cabled ahead for supplies,” Earnestine said. “After all, we don’t want to stand out.”

Georgina fought the impulse to sniff: “When?”

“You were asleep.”

“Is there something nice to wear?”

“You’ll wear what you’re given.”

They washed and dressed in silence. Hair brushing was particularly painful after their experiences and Georgina found the new corset would take getting used to. After it had been tied at the back, Georgina tried to loosen the cords, but she couldn’t and she absolutely was not going to ask Earnestine.

Once everything of theirs was stowed away, the remaining and ignored luggage became embarrassing.

“These…” Georgina began, but it was obvious whose they were.

“They are for your Captain.”

“He’s not my Captain.”

“I’ll have a porter take them to him.”

“Ness, he can’t wash and change in the restaurant.”

“He should have booked two cabins.”

“There probably weren’t two left.”

Because they were in the last passenger coach, they had to manoeuvre along the corridor for two coaches and cross the rattling divide twice, which was rather frightening, to reach the restaurant car. Captain Merryweather was standing at the bar looking very rough, but chipper with a whiskey in his hand. Earnestine gave him the key.

“Ah yes, I must give this a trim,” he said brushing his finger along his moustache. “And a shave.”

“Don’t be too long,” Earnestine simpered, much to Georgina’s irritation.

Merryweather gave a little nod and then squeezed past Georgina, his body forced to push against hers and so close that Georgina could smell the whiskey. She looked away, feeling it well within her rights to ignore him completely and yet, even craning her neck far to one side, she suddenly found herself looking into his blue eyes.

“Georgina,” he said, and then he went on his way.

“Arthur…” she murmured, but he was gone.

They had iced tea while they waited.

The Maître d’Hotel saw them to a table and held their chairs out for them to sit. Merryweather waited until they were settled. After a term of gruel at the Eden College for Young Ladies and hardtack rations on the mountain, Georgina found the menu utterly mouth–watering. Her attention darted around the many options, the French words a blur of promises. She adored choosing.

“Would you?” Earnestine asked Merryweather handing her menu over to him.

“Certainly.”

He called the Maître d’Hotel over and ordered in French, so Georgina had no idea what was coming.

The first course was oysters.

Merryweather and Earnestine relished them, cracking the shells with the sharp implements and slurping them down the gluttonous pleasure. Georgina tried as best she could, inserting the shucking knife near the hinge, but it just wouldn’t.

“Oh, give it to me,” said Earnestine. She leant over, snatched the cutlery off Georgina, and split a couple of shells for her.

“Expertly done,” said Merryweather.

Georgina hated them both: and she hated the look of the oyster and the way it slithered down her throat.

The soup came with Italian pasta, which was much better, as was the fish course, which was a turbot in green sauce. After that Georgina tucked into the chicken ‘à la chasseur’, but struggled when the fillet of beef with ‘château’ potatoes arrived, and could only pick at the ‘chaud–froid’ of game animals in a lettuce base. They’d started with white wine and by the time they switched to red, Earnestine relented and let Georgina have a glass. By the end of the evening, she’d had three!

When the waiter removed their plates, Georgina was simply engorged, the whalebones gripping her waist cut into her expanded stomach, and she felt that, even without the corset, she wouldn’t be able to bend. That was it, she’d finished until she realised that the dessert trolley had chocolate pudding amongst its buffet of delights.

Merryweather saw them back along the coaches to their cabin.

Again, when she went demurely past him, Georgina was very aware of his presence, now garnished with cologne.

“Good night,” he said. “Sleep well.”

Once the two sisters were back inside, it was a relay race to get their corsets off. Despite everything, they were soon giggling just like old times. There were no arguments about who would have the top bunk as they both elected for the lower bunk on either side.

“I couldn’t climb…”

“Neither could I.”

Georgina couldn’t stay mad at Earnestine or even sweet Arthur. If they wanted to step out together, then she’d approve. She would. They were right for each other. She also couldn’t stay awake even if she’d wanted to, despite Earnestine snoring.

The train rattled on to Munich and they both slept.

Miss Charlotte

Alarms sounded: great blaring horns.

Charlotte was torn: risk missing the airship to get her uniform or not.

She ran against the flow of men to her room, undoing her clothes like some harlot as she went. She pulled off everything as fast as possible and gathered the airman’s uniform, clipped it together with impatient fingers. The damned boots wouldn’t come up at first.

She paused to examine herself in the mirror: she looked smart.

She was still wearing the ruby ring. She took it off and flung the hateful thing down on the dresser. There, she wasn’t going to play.

She strode along the corridor and then sprinted up the spiralling stairs.

Outside the wind whipped her hair loose; she saw the mighty behemoth dominate the sky. It roared like a beast, its rotors whining as it strained against its moorings to be free.

A guard stopped Charlotte at the gangway.

“Nein.”

“I am your Crown Princess,” she told him: “Stand aside!”

He didn’t move.

Above, Graf Zala was passing the entrance. He saw her, their eyes met. They looked at each other over the distance from ground to air, and he laughed.

“Come, come!” he shouted.

With five strides she was aboard.

“Welcome aboard, Your Highness,” he said. “We shall be airborne in a moment.”

There were shouts, desperate activity below, and then Charlotte looked out of the front windows at the sky ahead.

There was a lurch and the ground no longer held them in its sway. The airship pitched, the gusts of wind pushing it dangerously close to the tower. The Graf gave an order, sharp and direct, and the pilot pulled the wheel around fighting the rudder, which did not want to turn against the wind. Charlotte leaned across, grabbed a handle and gave the last push required. The mighty vehicle turned and rose sharply, everyone leaning forward as the floor became a slope.

It rose, cleared the castle and picked up speed as it entered the valley proper where the air funnelled into a rapid stream. The ravine walls rushed past at an exhilarating pace.

Charlotte was laughing. She dragged her attention away from the flight to exchange a glance with the Graf. He too was excited, thrilled for her. Every foot climbed took her further away from the unholy actions below and closer to heaven. She would be like a bird of paradise and never land.

“Faster,” she implored.

“We are at maximum revolutions,” the pilot said.

“Faster!”

“Ja,” said the Graf. “Faster.”

The airship soared over the mountains and Charlotte felt so alive.

In the map room, the Graf had shown her the intricacies of navigation. It was not as simple as drawing a line between their start and destination, in this case Eagle’s Claw and Strasburg, as the wind’s direction and strength needed to be taken into account. Their height was a factor too as the air did not all flow in the same direction, but apparently varied at different altitudes. Once these calculations were made, the final heading was passed to the pilot either by shouting down a voice pipe or by written note. The pilot steered the airship on this heading and the wind blew them into the correct direction.

There had been reports that the spies were heading to Munich and the airship could intercept them at Strasburg.

Under the Graf’s approving gaze, Charlotte herself had plotted the heading to Strasburg.

“The advantage of airships is that they can go in a straight line,” the Graf explained. “Everything else has to follow a set route. Trains in this terrain must follow the contour lines, but we soar as the eagle flies over mountains, fields, lakes and English Channels.”

Their heading was North–Northwest, 340 degrees, but the easterly wind was dragging them further west. Charlotte continued marking their progress on the map, sighting every so often or taking a reading given to her by another air officer. Their progress became a series of jumps marked in pencil rather than a continuous straight line: the wind direction and strength was not consistent and it did shift as they changed altitude. They reached 250 metres, which, Charlotte thought, must be nearly the moon in miles.

It was so thrilling and before long she was so tired.

The Graf insisted that she rest and on his third attempt, Charlotte relented. There were fine rooms, small cabins, which she remembered from when she first sneaked aboard the Zeppelin. She was shown the same room in which she’d met the real Princess, and yet it was different. This was another Zeppelin, identical in design and manufacture, but fitted out with subtle differences.

“How many Zeppelins do you have?” she asked.

“A fleet… four, fitted with different ordinance: bombs, incendiaries and this one, the fastest my Liebchen, is one of three fitted with chemical dispersion units.”

“Chemical?”

“Ja, all in good time: navigation today, warfare tomorrow.”

When he left her, she slipped out of her uniform and went to sleep in the bunk wearing only her chemise. With the occasional creak, the gentle shifting of the whole world as the Zeppelin manoeuvred was utterly relaxing.

Charlotte thought about… she was tired and…

The airship tilted again, this time downwards, and there was a knock at the door.

“Liebchen?”

“Yes!”

“We are arriving in Strasburg.”

“I’ll get my uniform.”

Chapter XII

Miss Deering-Dolittle

The train hissed to a stop: Strasburg.

Merryweather came back, finally: “They are searching the train.”

Strasburg wasn’t France, it was still in Germany, so they hadn’t escaped. They weren’t due to cross the border until dusk. It was only about 25 kilometres away, which sounded close, and it would seem even nearer in miles. It wasn’t dark yet, but the evening was approaching. They’d be safe in an hour, if only the train would start rolling again.

Merryweather rocked back and forth in the cabin, clearly wanting to pace, and he rubbed his chin in that ‘what to do’ manner.

Earnestine pushed her face against the window pane. Outside there were men running about, the spikes on their helmets catching the light even if their insignia weren’t visible through the begrimed glass. Far ahead, towering above the others, Graf Zala directed the search.

“They started at the front,” said Merryweather. “We’ll stick together and try and bluff it out.”

“We don’t have any papers,” said Earnestine.

“I’ll say… I’ll come up with something.”

“I’m sure you will, Merry,” Georgina said.

Of course, Georgina was too busy simpering to the Captain to realise the gravity of their situation.

Earnestine coughed to command their attention.

“They don’t know you, Merryweather, or Georgina, but I’m a liability.”

“Well, M– Miss, I’d hardly–”

“Quiet! The Graf will recognise me. There’s more at stake than us, any of us. The message is more important. You go on. You’ve got papers. My letter. Here, have the silver io–wotnot,” she fished out the envelope and passed it over.

“I really think–”

“Luggage!”

“There’s no time to move luggage, Ness,” Georgina said.

Earnestine ignored her: “Did you book this cabin under your own name?”

“Captain Merryweather, yes.”

“But not ours?”

“No.”

“Then we move our luggage and you sit tight.”

Earnestine grabbed both their bags, manhandled them round in the cramped cabin and out of the door into the corridor.