Lady Lovelace turned her head aside lest at this vital moment her eyes betray her.
‘The Pole you say? How so, I wonder?’
‘How what?’ asked Julius.
‘How construct a pyre? ‘Tis said the polar region is a tree-less place…’
At first Julius put it down to her scientific bent: a sad affliction always dragging its slaves to facts and pedantry.
‘It had a sled: if broken up that presumably served as fuel…’
Then a less innocent explanation occurred.
‘You know!’ he exclaimed. ‘About the papers!’
Ada turned back and looked coquettishly at Frankenstein over her fan, eyelashes fluttering at full power.
‘One may have heard whispers…’
‘Pipe down there!’ hissed Mariner from the stern. ‘The Revenue sail silent and listen out, you know!’
A Frankenstein-deceived didn’t take orders from menials. The admonition sank unheeded into the sea.
‘You knew the creature stole my Uncle’s research papers and carried them about its person!’ he said. ‘You thought-’
Lady Lovelace was shameless.
‘I thought perhaps they might be retrievable. A second string to our bow should the present plan fail. One’s been awaiting an opportunity to broach the subject. When you mentioned my father…’
So Julius had brought all this unwelcome history on himself. He cursed the minefield of small-talk.
Ada was implacable.
‘Now, herr doctor, as I recall, this very first Lazaran had the notion of commissioning a bride for itself, is that not so?’
Julius now handled her questions like a viper.
‘Allegedly…’
‘Leastways, having perused its creator’s notes the creature believed it feasible: a life-mate to share its years. Therefore the papers were profound. It follows that the secret of the serum may be therein…’
‘Madam,’ said Julius, exasperated, ‘there is no secret: only a formula, widely known.’
‘So you say—and possibly speak the truth. Ah, but if one only had the inventor’s directions! Then who knows what additional wonders might be possible?’
‘Your ‘spark’?’ ventured Frankenstein.
‘Exactly!’ answered Ada, as if a slow pupil had at last caught up.
‘For the last time,’ interrupted Mariner, ‘shut your traps or I’ll…’
Foxglove dealt with the impertinence. He raised a fist and Mariner observed it was almost the size of his face and covered in scar tissue.
‘Just keep it down then,’ he compromised.
Down went both Foxglove’s fist and the volume. But it was in genteel deference to their pilot’s agitation rather than caution. Passions remained high.
‘You bang a broken drum, madam,’ hissed Julius. The monster’s ashes are scattered by the Arctic winds and any papers likewise.’
‘Perhaps. Though the French thought otherwise…’
So: she was as wise as she was wicked. Lady Lovelace had heard of the enemy’s secret Polar expedition to find the creature’s last resting place—and anything that might still survive in its pockets. The British Government were quietly alarmed about it, and Julius had been quizzed about the nothing he knew the minute he arrived in England. He recalled a surreal conversation with a spy-chief about the propensity of polar wind and snow to put fires out before they’d completed their destructive task. As if a mere military doctor might know!
Accordingly, a British force had gone in pursuit, just in case. Neither nation’s party returned, or so rumour said. Right then Julius wished Lady Lovelace with them.
‘Ahem…,’ said Foxglove.
‘Yes?’ answered Ada, giving permission to speak.
The servant cleared his throat.
‘My lady, As a mere ‘landlubber’ I am not sure of the correct terminology in this situation, but I believe it is something along the lines of ‘ship ahoy!’’
And he pointed to their left (or port).
Mariner swivelled like he was greased and then said something not fit for mixed company. Followed by:
‘You wouldn’t listen, would ye?’ He was full of a crazed admix of fear and fury which freed his tongue. ‘More noise than a wagon load of women! Bloody gentry! Ruination of the country and everyone! The Convention’s got it right: to the guillotine with the friggin’ lot of yer!’
‘Steady on, chappie…,’ Foxglove warned him, quite mildly in the circumstances.
Julius turned in the direction of all the fuss and couldn’t see what all that fuss was about. The sizeable ship was way off, even if heading in their direction.
Mariner wasn’t so deceived. He wanted—he powerfully desired—everyone aboard should share his concern.
‘Twenty minutes,’ he advised them, careless about shouting now. ‘One hour tops!’ He pointed accusingly at Lady Lovelace. ‘Then we’ll all be as dead as she!’
High above, the galloon kept them in sight as it had since they launched, describing wide circles round and round the suspect vessel. Where possible it scraped the undersides of low clouds, avoiding the moonlight even as it took advantage of it. There was no point in being sighted by the target even at this late stage.
Lantern semaphore kept the craft in contact with the customs cutter below. One towering intellect amongst the Lazaran crew was entrusted with its operation.
‘Signal four aboard,’ ordered galloon-commander (and sole living soul aboard) Lieutenant Neave. ‘No obvious cargo. South-east by east. I will continue close pursuit.’
Play upon the lantern’s shutters sent flashes to convey those words. A code had been constructed so simple that even the Revived conscript couldn’t muck it up. Whatever ‘Lazaranisms’ the signaller inserted, His Majesty’s Navy would get the gist of it.
When he joined that honourable service straight from school, Lieutenant Neave envisaged something more romantic than hanging beneath a bag of gas pedalled into motion by the undead. However, his promotion board had strongly hinted the ‘Fleet Air Arm’ was the place to be for accelerated progress, and he’d swallowed the poisoned bait. That they’d failed to mention career advancement usually came as a result of some poor devil spiralling to the ground in flames still rankled with him. He’d been wet behind the ears then, not making any connection between the power of modern artillery and the fragility and flammability of the gasbags called galloons. He ought to have guessed though, if only from the practice of putting just one live man per craft. The balance of motive and bombing and reconnaissance power was entrusted to expendable Lazarans—and not even the choicest of those.
‘Oh, shut up!’
Neave wondered if he wasn’t really addressing himself and his gloomy thoughts, not the crew with their infernal, eternal moaning. He’d had ample opportunity to get used to that, even blank it out, by now. Ditto the stench of serum and that… cold-pork smell the really bargain basement Lazarans gave off. If so, talking to yourself was maybe just another symptom of spending so many hours in the air, alone (or effectively so). It gave a man too much time to think.
Like thinking of how he’d once dreamed of a posting to the Mediterranean Fleet, or the Far East, where great things were being achieved in India, so it was said. There an enterprising officer with access to Lazaran troops could acquire a private empire amongst the native Hindoos and Mohammedhans who foolishly scrupled to raise such soldiery. Not to mention a harem of exotic houris. Far better company than clouds…
Mind you, his frustration had moderated somewhat when the great Lord Nelson was revived and given the Home Blockade Fleet command. Neave had to grant there was honour and stories for your grandchildren in serving under him, in whatever capacity.