Frankenstein transcended the pain without expression and also got the message. The official was none the wiser.
‘So,’ said Julius, when he trusted his voice again, ‘if you could make the carte valid for all points to the Swiss border, then we need take up no more of your valuable time.’
The official liked his time being deemed valuable. He poised his validating stamp above the document with extra added dignity.
‘I wish you bon voyage, monsieur, and better luck this time!’
The stamp crashed down and suddenly they were legal again.
They ought to have been grateful to Fortune for simply being alive, and to Frankenstein for their freedom. Not only that, but for the first time since Lady Lovelace rose again and Julius fled the Hecatomb, they were respectable once more—after a fashion. Albeit coated in the wrong names, they were entitled to be… well, to be. No one could legitimately hunt them for sport like they were vermin. It was a heady feeling not to have to skulk.
And yet Ada—and even Foxglove—were still minded to criticise Julius. For instance, for taking things too far and making a game of it all.
But before they could frame words it was brought home to both just how much his crawling had cost Frankenstein. Directly they were outside the Cathedral and out of sight, Julius sought a quiet corner and sicked his stomach up.
Lady Lovelace curled her lip at all the tiger noises and averted her eyes, but afterwards she said nothing. Naturally, Foxglove followed her lead.
Belatedly, Ada was reassured. There was dignity in travelling with a man of honour. But also comfort in finding his honour so flexible.
Chapter 19: NO MAN’S LANDS
‘ “Beginning near the Belgian town of Nieuwport on the North Sea, the system extends in a zigzag through France to the bastions constructed along the Swiss border just south of Pfetterhouse in the Alps”…’
‘How far is that?’ snapped Lady Lovelace, plainly far from pleased. Foxglove consulted the guide till he found the required passage.
‘…“totalling almost four hundred miles in length and consisting of never less than three lines of trenches on each side, the front occupies a band usually three miles wide, including ‘no man’s land’. Estimates vary but it is believed that the war zone contains no less than twenty-five thousand miles of trenchworks in total, more than enough to circle the Earth’s Equator”.’
Too far to walk then.
The plan had been to hit some isolated bit of French shore and work their way inland via unpopulated places. Meanwhile, they’d wait for inspiration to strike about contacting Neo-Napoleon. Now it was clear that the greatest war in the history of their species stood between them and their objective.
Standing on a high hill at a safe distance, the little group surveyed and were dismayed. A titanic plough had been through here but never returned to sew seed or turn the furrow. There remained a wound, a suppurating gash, the like of which Mother Earth had never suffered before. Nothing grew there and it reeked of death. And brimstone. And residual poison gas.
Though both Ada and Julius were temperamentally inclined to dark thoughts it had never occurred to either there could be such a wound upon the world. They’d read of course, they’d heard stories, even seen etchings in the news-sheets, but nothing could prepare for the reality. Even Foxglove was visibly shocked.
For his part, the Belgian coachman who’d brought them here no longer even looked. Once during his first trip conveying tourists had been enough. The wisdom in that was confirmed by the fact that no group ever requested a second visit. Nowadays, he just deposited people with averted eyes and headed back to comfort the horses. They could smell abomination even better than human noses.
‘Is this where they broke through?’ asked Lady Lovelace.
The coachman didn’t even raise his gaze.
‘No. That’s further down. Maybe fifty kilometres. But don’t bother: it’s all the same.’
Ada overlooked his blunt impertinence in favour of looking again. The prospect didn’t charm any better second time round—or third—or thousandth probably.
Meanwhile, their driver was off, without, be it noticed, being dismissed.
‘Just shout when you’ve finished,’ he said as he went. ‘I’ll be by the coach. And don’t go any closer. ‘Tisn’t safe.’
They got the strong impression it wasn’t so much that he cared about them, but that they hadn’t paid yet.
Julius understood why. It was ghoulish to ride out in smart brand-new clothes just to gawp at where so many, so very many, had died. He did not even have the excuse of lost loved ones to justify such a pilgrimage, for Julius’ country had wisely stood aloof—save for mere mercenaries who knew the risks. Likewise, his English companions looked like non-combatants.
‘It might not be for me to say, madam,’ said Foxglove, ‘but I do not think we should attempt to get through here…’
The French had managed it of course, but they were a People’s army, levee en mass, preceded by unprecedented numbers of ‘New Citizens,’ and led by a military genius. Whereas they were merely three civilians. Their modicum of (hot) money might have helped them this far, but neither it or they could afford the quarter million casualties it cost Neo-Napoleon.
Actually, the true extent of the losses wasn’t known and might well be more. Most of the fallen had no grave—or not one they were allowed to stay in.
Frankenstein had assumed the plain hopelessness of this route would free Lady Lovelace from her mad plans. He should have known better.
‘Foxglove, you are right,’ she replied, and wickedly paused just long enough to wrongfoot her devoted servant. ‘It is not for you to say!’
Foxglove blushed and bowed his head.
Yet he had a point, and one that could hardly escape her. Even a blind man could have smelt it. Hell’s Mouth stretched for mile upon appalling mile between Lady Lovelace and her objective. She had to inwardly regroup before she could push herself on.
‘What precisely would you say are the dangers?’ Ada asked.
Thinking himself addressed, Foxglove flicked through his guidebook in search of a definitive answer. Lady Lovelace hissed and snatched it from him, flinging the thing away.
‘Do you mean me?’ enquired Julius. He’d been preoccupied, trying to outrun the horrible notion that a lot of the white gravel underfoot was actually bone fragments. And if so, should he spread the news?
Ada was as acid as she ever got: victim of an aristocratic upbringing. When thwarted she turned the whip on whoever was nearest to hand.
‘Who else, sirrah? There must be some reason for you to be here!’
He was not employed by her, he had no bonds of affection; even their history together was short. There was no reason not to play her at her own game.
‘Tush, madam,’ said Julius. ‘It’s perfectly safe. After the Great Breakthrough the lines were left unoccupied. Mostly. Some feral undead remain, so they say: a negligible few hundred thousand of them, getting their daily bread the Lord knows how. And certain timid commentators talk of millions of mines, and unexploded shells, and lakes of more than man-height mud, and shoot-on-sight galloon patrols, and…’
‘Shut up,’ said Ada.
Frankenstein pressed on regardless.