Robert Rankin - Retromancer

‘Oh, don’t be so silly,’ said Fangio. ‘They only drew lots amongst the long-standing seaman types. And a worthy fellow now steers the ship.’

‘Well, thank whatever for that,’ I said.

‘And funnily enough,’ Fangio continued, ‘he’s a Brentford man. I wonder if you ever ran into him. His name is Pooley, Jimmy Pooley.’

There was a moment of silence there.

Just before I screamed.

‘Hold on, hold on, hold on, please,’ said Fangio. ‘No screaming in the posh bar. Not until tomorrow night anyway. I have been elected games and entertainment officer and put in charge of bar fun generally. I thought I’d start off with a Weeping and Wailing Competition tomorrow night.’

‘No!’ I protested. ‘You do not understand. We are all doomed, doomed, I say.’

‘You’d be in with a chance with that kind of wailing. But please keep it down now, you are frightening my monkey.’

‘Sorry, Clarence,’ I said to the creature, ‘but we really are all doomed.’

Mr Rune said, ‘Please speak clearly.’

So speak clearly I did.

‘James Pooley,’ I said, ‘Brentford’s James Pooley is now captaining the ship. And this would be – how should I put this? – well, how about James Jonah Pooley, sole survivor of many a shipwreck, scourge of the seven seas. A man, if ever there was one, who was born to wear an albatross around his neck.’

‘I agree that he does have something of a reputation for that kind of thing,’ said Fangio. ‘But you shouldn’t go tarnishing someone with a sticky brush just because they ate the parson’s nose. Or is it the other way round?’

‘It does not work for me either way,’ I said. ‘But trust me on this: if James “Down-with-all-hands-but-me” Pooley is at the helm, I am wearing my lifebelt for the remainder of the voyage.’

‘I’ve been wearing mine since we left port,’ said Fangio, lifting the hem of his blouse to expose said item, ‘although not by choice. I was trying it on for size in my cabin and sort of got stuck in it. Funny thing that, really. Once I was vacuuming the house and it was a hot day and I was vacuuming naked and I fell forwards and you’ll never guess what happened-’

‘Correct,’ said Hugo Rune, ‘because we will certainly never attempt to. Let us take another cocktail, Rizla, then let us take to our beds.’

I have to admit that I did not sleep well. My dreams were haunted by snapping wolves on sinking ships and all was not right with the world. But then all was not right with the world and I was seriously beginning to wonder whether Hugo Rune and I really would be able to put the world to right. To my reckoning there were three tarot cards left. THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE, THE TOWER and the one with the sticking plaster on it, the terrible card known as DEATH. Just the three. And how near were we to putting the world to right? To stopping America being blown into nuclear fragments? Not too near, in my opinion. In fact just about as distant as we could possibly be. And so I did not sleep well and I did not have pleasant dreams.

Mr Rune woke me early and he looked bright enough. ‘I have been thinking, Rizla,’ he said, ‘and thinking all of the night. We have but three cards left to be dealt and time is running out. If von Bacon’s Hell Hound was aboard this ship, I am wondering what else might be down in the cargo hold. I feel that after we have fortified ourselves with a suitably heroic breakfast we might acquire the ship’s manifest and take a little look around downstairs.’

‘Splendid,’ I said, ‘because I was dreaming-’

‘Rizla, I know what you dreamed.’

We breakfasted in the forward salon. It was all white Lloyd Loom chairs and tables, potted palms and posh folk. And I grew grumpy at the sight of these.

‘Look at them,’ I whispered to Hugo Rune, ‘pointing at me and muttering behind their manicured hands. They know I was marked for death. The horrid rotten bunch.’

‘I think it more likely,’ said Himself, ‘that they are commenting on the fact that you are wearing your lifebelt. It quite ruins the cut of your jacket.’

‘This stays on,’ I said. ‘Even when I am using the toilet. And that is a challenge, believe you me.’

‘I am prepared to believe you, Rizla. Now what shall we take for our brekkie?’

I had made the suggestion to Mr Rune that we should employ the services of Fangio’s monkey as a food taster, just in case there were those aboard who might now seek to poison us. More werewolves perhaps, for they are known to exist in packs. Or SS officers mourning the loss of their Hell Hound. But Hugo Rune sniffed at each course as it came and pronounced that each passed muster.

And he was clearly confident in his talents (if belatedly demonstrated) as food sniffer, because he wolfed down his breakfast and goose-stepped many cups of tea.

‘A stroll now, Rizla,’ he said, when we were done, ‘and let us see what we shall see.’

We wandered topside and mooched about the decks. Ignoring the sporting opportunities of deck javelins, tossing the grimble, sidestepping and that evergreen favourite ‘pluck one out on a bended knee’. Although I never really saw the point of that game. Too many balls involved.

We gazed at the sea, which was flat as turquoise glass with no visible join to the sky. Mr Rune smoked a post-breakfast cheroot and I had another go at a Wild Woodbine but still was not making a lot of progress on the smoking front.

‘I think,’ said Hugo Rune, ‘that we should now evade the eyes of our watchers and slip away to the cargo hold.’

‘Our watchers?’ I whispered. ‘Now this is new.’

‘Two gentlemen, wearing trenchcoats and snap-brimmed fedoras, have been following us since we left the forward salon. Clearly our cards are now marked, as they say, and we must be on our guard.’

I glanced back over my shoulder and noticed two fellows in trenchcoats. As my eyes caught theirs they turned away, confirming Mr Rune’s thoughts.

‘Assassins, do you think?’ I whispered.

‘They have the look of Americans, Rizla. And there’s no telling with them.’

Hugo Rune now performed a number of classic manoeuvres to avoid surveillance without giving the impression of doing so. He employed the ‘double-footed swan-dive’, the ‘partly-taken-aback’ and the ‘there-goes-ninepence-again’ stratagems to splendid effect and soon we were at the cargo hold unfollowed.

The heavy padlocks now barring our entry were dealt with by Mr Rune and he and I slipped into the hold to see what we might see.

‘There are many steamer trunks,’ I said. ‘Did you manage to acquire the cargo manifest?’

‘Sadly, no, Rizla, it is locked in the captain’s safe. The new captain would happily have allowed me to peruse it, but apparently he has mislaid the combination.’

‘Oh dear,’ I said, but quietly. But thought many more ‘oh dears’.

‘So employ your intuition, Rizla, and let us see what we can find.’

And so we searched. And there really did seem to be some most extraordinary things stored in that hold. A London taxicab, for instance, under a tarpaulin. And a number of coffins that I really did not want to open. But then, after much nosing about into other people’s private possessions, I discovered what must surely be the mother lode.

‘Mr Rune,’ I called out. ‘Mr Rune, you will never believe what I have just found here.’

And Mr Rune was soon at my side and Mr Rune asked, ‘What?’

‘See for yourself,’ I said and I pointed. And Himself saw for himself. ‘Oh, Rizla,’ he said. ‘Oh, well done indeed.’

And he read the label aloud.

HANDLE WITH EXTREME CARE

MARK ONE TESLA

IONIC FIELD GENERATOR

‘It is the field generator that was stolen from your conservatory,’ I said. ‘But what is it doing here?’