I spent the morning assembling a picric bomb, the small metal sphere one sees in political cartoons, then we took it out and exploded it in a small bunker that had been dug for the purpose. Van Rhyn pointed out the pieces of shrapnel on all sides of the dirt walls and described in too-vivid terms the results if my sphere had been thrown under the carriage of the Czar or Emperor Franz Josef. At least he stopped at mentioning the Queen.
We ate in a small mess, a term which in every way describes the lunch I had there, then returned to the eccentric bomb maker’s little potting shed laboratory. Van Rhyn seemed no more particular about food than Barker, and he came away wearing much of it on his beard and shirtfront. He had another similarity to my employer, I thought, which was a detached air, as if while speaking to you, he was also thinking other, deeper thoughts. With van Rhyn it was abstruse chemical formulas and shrapnel trajectory, while with Barker … well, one never knew with Barker. He was either contemplating the universe or figuring out the most expedient way to get someone in a headlock.
In the afternoon, we made our own version of Mr. Nobel’s dynamite. We started out with a bowlful of crystalline silica, which van Rhyn insisted was known as kieselguhr, and a test tube that contained a yellowish liquid that he informed me was nitroglycerin.
“This is very unstable. The least thing could cause it to blow up-sudden jarring, a change in temperature. I would swear that sometimes it explodes out of sheer bad temper. I am very vain, Mr. Llewelyn, about the fact that I have all ten of my fingers, and each one is intact. You don’t know how many of my associates are missing digits. It is the badge of our profession. We are not a long-lived group, you see, and so far, there has been no need for pensions.”
One would think pouring some crystals into a cardboard tube, saturating them with liquid, and attaching a fuse and primer would be a matter of a few minutes, but producing dynamite is a slow and dangerous process. The kieselguhr is supposed to stabilize the nitroglycerin, so it can be transported and handled safely, but the old bomb maker handled the harmless-looking length of tubing far more gingerly than the lethal-looking sphere of the picric bomb. He also made sure the length of the fuse was long enough for us to get far away. Van Rhyn lit a little German cheroot that looked like a sausage, and used it to light the dynamite. He tossed it into the bunker and we didn’t need an invitation to run as fast as our legs would carry us. The second explosion was much louder than the first. I momentarily lost my hearing, and there was a high-pitched ringing in my ears when we came back to explore the bunker. Actually, “hole” would be a better word now. The shape had been altered from a rough rectangle to a circle, and there was a concentric ring of dirt clods around it. Van Rhyn was going on about the purity and simplicity of explosives, but I was catching only every fifth or sixth word.
That was my introduction to the world of bomb making. Johannes van Rhyn promised that the next day we would explore low-impact bomb making, followed by high-impact explosions on the next; and near the end, the course would conclude with me actually making my own nitroglycerin from scratch in van Rhyn’s little lab. I wasn’t looking forward to that. For one thing, I’m awfully fond of my fingers, every last one of them.
“Allow me, sir,” the German said, taking a heavily carved walking stick from a corner, and locking the windows and doors, “to walk you partway to the station.”
“That is almost two miles,” I said. “There is really no need.”
“I am a great walker, young man,” van Rhyn told me. “It shall give us a chance to talk further. How long have you been working for Mr. Barker?”
“About two months, sir.”
“This is quite a plan Barker has concocted,” he said. “Your employer will have to keep his wits about him, but he is essentially correct. The Irish have laid hands upon a supply of old industrial-use dynamite from America, but it had degraded. Some of it will no longer explode, and some will at the slightest provocation. They need an explosives expert, and I am the only recognized authority. I have been wooed by the Irish before. Some of them tried to recruit me half a year ago.”
“Really?” I asked. I was curious about the old German. “Why didn’t you join their organization, if I may ask?”
“I thought it unlikely that they would win, and I had just arrived in England and did not relish the idea of being thrown out.”
Van Rhyn and I walked along the side of the wide road talking, while uniformed soldiers marched and drilled at our elbows.
“So how did you get tossed out of your own country?” I asked.
“There was a little misunderstanding. Filling a statue of Bismarck with explosives did not necessarily mean that I wished it to be delivered to the Iron Chancellor himself.”
“Of course not,” I said, wondering what the English authorities would think of a hollow statue of Her Majesty, filled with explosives. “But, tell me, what do you get out of this?”
“Well, Mr. Llewelyn, I have been promised a small remuneration from your boss, but, principally, I am paying off a debt. It was he who helped to secure me this work. He spoke to the army, and told them who I was. They are not pushing me here, and, for once, I have room and board and a place to work in peace. They let me alone most of the time, and they are never so happy as when I blow something up. We shall make them very happy this week.”
“Do you really think you can train me in a week?”
“Well enough,” van Rhyn said. “If you can show them a few simple tricks, they will take you for a genius. My impression is that the slightest thing will impress them. Here we are.”
We were at the gate near the entrance to the drive. I had driven through in the cart before.
“Is this where you stop?” I asked.
“Ja. They do not use the word ‘prisoner’ around me, Mr. Llewelyn, but I cannot exactly walk about freely. The English are not so stupid as to let a German bomber go anywhere he wishes. Tomorrow morning, then. Be early. And bring some schnapps, if you can find some. All I can find here is English beer and Scotch whiskey.”
“Schnapps, then. Good day, sir. Thank you for the lesson.”
As the train steamed out of the station back toward London, I wondered to myself what would happen if I couldn’t remember all the instructions that were to be given to me during this all too brief week of training. Could I carry out such complex instructions, in the midst of trying times? Then, a worse thought gripped me. What would happen if I could?
8
I came home tired from my day at Aldershot. The work itself hadn’t been strenuous, but emotionally I’d been conscious the entire afternoon that any moment I might be atomized. It did not make for a relaxing day, and I still had four more to go.
Having the cab drop me in the alleyway, I lifted the small ornamental latch and opened the moon gate. I always liked going from the rather ugly and prosaic alleyway into a miniature Eden. The latch clicks home and one is in another world entirely: a stream mutters, a small windmill turns. Birds come from miles around to congregate in our garden.
Using one of the little tricks Barker taught me, I inhaled slowly through my nose, then exhaled through my mouth, mentally sloughing off all the details and distractions that had mounted since breakfast. I’m not as good at it as Barker, of course. It took me a couple of times before I got it all out. I passed by an archipelago of black basalt rocks in a sea of white stones. One of the rocks stirred and looked at me. It was Harm, of course. He had a way of blending in among the elements of the garden, as he had the first day I’d seen him, when he’d impersonated a bush. I wondered if it was accidental, or if Barker had trained him-if in fact the little creature was able to be trained at all.