Mark Hodder - The curious case of the Clockwork Man

“Conceit!”

“Fact! I can certainly make the world a more efficient place!”

“But maybe,” Burton whispered, “efficiency isn't all it's held up to be. Maybe it's the inefficiencies and mistakes that give us the best impetus to change and grow and improve!”

“No! Miscalculations slow us down! I don't make them. I deal only with the proven and the certain, yet who can dispute that I am evolved? Hand me the diamonds!”

Burton passed the five black gemstones to the old man.

“You can kill me now,” Babbage said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Kill me, Sir Richard. Brunel will do the rest.”

With a shaking hand, Burton pulled the blade from his swordstick.

“Are you sure? You really want me to kill you?”

“Of course I do. Get on with it, man! I have work to do!”

“You are absolutely certain that your memories will be transferred to the diamonds?”

“Yes!”

“Then you illustrate my argument admirably. Nothing in life is certain, Sir Charles. The diamonds are fakes.” He stepped forward and plunged his rapier into the scientist's heart. “Do you now get my point?”

Babbage whispered: “Fakes?”

He died. His corpse slid from Burton's sword and crumpled to the floor.

The king's agent turned and faced the Steam Man.

The hulking machine stood motionless but for the bellows on its shoulder, which scraped up and down incessantly. Little more than an inch of the cigar remained.

Bells chimed: “The Francois Garnier Collection is not genuine?”

“The stones are onyx crystals.”

“Impossible.”

“Look for yourself.”

Burton stepped back. Brunel lumbered past him and retrieved a stone from Babbage's hand, holding it up with a pincer while another arm held a magnifying tool in front of it.

Burton had no idea what the engineer used for eyes.

“You are correct,” Brunel rang. “Then Babbage is dead and his device is useless.”

The king's agent felt his knees giving way. He sheathed his sword.

“I can't fight you, Brunel. I'm not sure I can even stand up for much longer. The best I can do is offer some advice.”

“Advice?”

“Stop associating with insane scientists. The authorities are already concerned about you after your involvement with Darwin and his cronies. This latest caper will do your reputation no good at all. Redeem yourself, Isambard. Redeem yourself.”

Even as the words left his lips, the room began to reel and Burton staggered to one side and collapsed onto the floor.

The massive engineer loomed over him. “Sir Richard, there are those in my faction who would have me kill you.”

“I don't doubt it,” Burton whispered, as darkness pushed in at the periphery of his vision. “And I bet John Speke is foremost among them.”

“You are wrong. Lieutenant Speke is no longer affiliated with the Technologists. He and a small group of Eugenicists absconded to Prussia some weeks ago.”

Burton's eyes began to close. “Do your worst,” he said sleepily. “I'm at your mercy.”

“I would rather make a request of you.”

“A request? What-what is it?”

“My fiancee, nurse Florence Nightingale, is missing. She has not been seen or heard of for slightly over a month. Find her for me.”

“You want me to-”

“Find her. Will you try?”

Burton managed to nod. The room tumbled.

Distant bells: “I shall take Sir Charles and locate a quiet graveyard for him. He so abhorred noise. We will meet again, Sir Richard.”

Oblivion.

Shouts.

Gunshots.

War cries.

Orange light flickered across the canvas roof.

John Speke stumbled in. His eyes were wild.

“They knocked my tent down around my ears!” he gasped. “I almost took a beating! Is there shooting to be done?”

“I rather suppose there is,” Burton replied. “Be sharp, and arm to defend the camp!”

A voice came from behind: “There's a lot of the blighters and our confounded guards have taken to their heels!” It was Lieutenant Herne, returning from a scouting mission. “I took a couple of potshots at the mob but then got tangled in the tent ropes. A big Somali took a swipe at me with a bloody great club. I put a bullet into the bastard. Stroyan's either out cold or done for. I couldn't get near him.”

Have they killed William Stroyan? God! I'm sorry, William. It's my fault! I'm so sorry!

A barrage of blows pounded against the canvas. Ululating war cries sounded. Javelins were thrust through the opening. Daggers ripped at the material.

“Bismillah!” Burton cursed. “We're going to have to fight our way to the supplies and get ourselves more guns. Herne, there are spears tied to the tent pole at the back. Get ’em!”

“Yes, sir!” Herne responded. He turned, then cried: “They're breaking through the canvas!”

Burton spat expletives. “If this blasted thing comes down on us we'll be caught up good and proper. Get out! Come on! Now!”

He hurled himself through the tent flaps and into a crowd of twenty or so Somali natives, setting about them with his sabre, slicing right and left, yelling fiercely.

Clubs and spear shafts thudded against his flesh, bruising and cutting him, drawing blood. He glanced to the rear, toward the tent, and saw a thrown stone crack against Speke's knee. The lieutenant stumbled backward.

“Don't step back!” Burton shouted. “They'll think that we're retiring!”

Speke looked at him with an expression of utter dismay.

A club struck Burton on the shoulder. He twisted and swiped his blade at its owner. The crush of men jostled him back and forth. Someone shoved him from behind and he turned angrily, raising his sword, only recognising El Balyuz, the expedition's guide, at the very last moment.

His arm froze in midswing.

White-hot pain tore through his head.

He stumbled and fell onto the sandy earth.

A weight pulled him sideways.

He reached up.

A javelin had pierced his face, in one side of his mouth and out the other, dislodging teeth and cracking his palate.

He fought to stay conscious.

The pain!

Damn it, Speke-help me! Help me!

A damp cloth on his brow.

Dry sheets beneath him.

He opened his eyes.

Algernon Swinburne smiled down at him.

“You were having a nightmare, Richard. The nightmare.”

Burton moved his tongue about in his mouth. It was dry, not bloody.

“Water,” he croaked.

Swinburne reached to the bedside table. “Here you are.”

Burton pushed himself into a sitting position, took the proffered glass, and drank greedily.

His friend plumped the pillows behind him and he leaned back, feeling comfortable, warm, and unbelievably weak. He was in his own bedroom at 14 Montagu Place.

“It was a bad attack,” Swinburne advised. “I refer to the malaria, not to the Berbera incident,” he added, with a grin.

“Always the same bloody dream!” Burton grumbled.

“It's not surprising, really,” the poet noted. “Any man who had a spear shoved through his ugly mug would probably have nightmares about it.”

“How long?”

“The spear?”

“Was I unconscious for, you blessed clown.”

“You were in a high fever for five days then slept almost solidly for three more. Doctor Steinhaueser has been popping in every few hours to keep you dosed up with quinine. We forced chicken broth into you twice daily, though I doubt you remember any of that.”

“I don't. The last thing I recollect is talking with Brunel in the priory. Eight days! What happened? Last time I saw you, you'd just taken a tumble through some trees.”

“Yes, that confounded swan was an unmanageable blighter! I rounded up a little squadron of constables and we drove the pantechnicon to Scotland Yard. Of course, it was an utter waste of time; there were neither fingerprints nor any other admissible evidence to connect it either with the Brundleweed robbery or with Brunel and his clockwork men.