“I’m chipping as quickly as I can, gentlemen!” Garrity cried, stabbing the pick into the block repeatedly.
“Almost done,” Barker said. “Mr. Penrith, will you scoop out some of the water? Dash it on the floor, if you wish. We need room for new ice. And time me with this watch of mine, please.”
Finally, he had a thick layer of glycerin floating on top of the acid mixture. Gingerly, my employer inserted a glass pipette and stirred. I could see the nitration occurring, the bubbles dancing in the acid. This was the most critical stage of the process. Barker had to stir for ten solid minutes, and if he stirred too quickly or too slowly, we wouldn’t live to tell of it.
“Ohhh.” My head began to throb. Garrity made a face, and even Barker turned his head uneasily.
“How is the temperature?” he asked.
“Twenty-eight and steady,” I answered. “You’ve been stirring three minutes.”
“Keep chipping, Garrity. We’ll need yet more ice.”
Gamely, he chipped away. Barker stirred, and I scrutinized the thermometer. I watched the glycerin at the top of the beaker slowly becoming nitroglycerin through the chemical process. It was a filmy, yellowish substance that looked rather like liquid wax. One would think we were making candles or soap instead of explosives.
“Five minutes,” I intoned.
I could see Barker’s arm was getting tired, but I dared not interrupt to take over stirring. At any moment, we could cease to exist, atomized by the chemical reaction. In a detonation, the reaction releases gases that rapidly expand and give off energy as they ignite. The effect is so fast it is nearly instantaneous. There is no time for pain. One second one is there, and the next one is not.
“Two more minutes. The temperature is twenty-nine.”
“Ice!” Barker thundered. “We dare not gain another degree.”
There was a twitch in his shoulder. I felt as if he’d been stirring for an hour. Perspiration was sticking the shirt to my back, and I could have poured the sweat out of my rubber gloves.Fifteen seconds … ten seconds … five.
“Time!” I cried, and we all three exhaled at once. “The temperature in the beaker is twenty-eight degrees Fahrenheit.”
Barker filled a bowl with water from a pitcher, and slowly poured the nitroglycerin into it. The nitroglycerin, instead of rising again, formed a sediment on the bottom. With my aid, Barker carried the bowl over to an empty carboy, inserted a funnel, and slowly poured the water and acid mixture into it, leaving only the sediment on the bottom. Gently, very gently, I set the bowl on the table.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “we have our nitroglycerin. There is enough here to pull down three streets. You can finally stop chopping now, Garrity. Could you mix me some of this bicarbonate of soda in water?”
Garrity did as requested. “What is the soda water for?”
“It neutralizes the acid and stabilizes the mixture.”
Garrity poured the soda over it, and we watched the compound fizz until it was done. Then, finally, with a spoon, Barker transferred the nitroglycerin gently to a beaker.
“Shall we test it?” he asked us. Grimly, we nodded.
Barker took the dropper and set a single drop on a bar of iron we had collected for the occasion.
“Mr. Garrity, would you do the honor of igniting it? If I have mixed the compound correctly, it should burn with a blue flame.”
I heard the scratch on the Irishman’s matchbox and he lit the small drop. A clear flame of the deepest blue danced atop the bar, like a fairy light. A very lethal fairy light, it was, too.
“It is good,” Barker pronounced, and we all shook hands, as if we’d done something clever, rather than having just created an engine of destruction.
“What do we do now?” Garrity asked. “How do we add it to the silica?”
“We must pour it slowly into the tubes full of kieselguhr,” Barker said. “Ach, my poor head! We must fill each tube, add the cap and fuse, then lay them on this oilcloth to set.”
“Thank you, gentlemen. It has been an honor to work with you,” Garrity said. “After this is finished, I’ll stand you both a pint downstairs. If you’re going to have a headache, anyway, why waste it?”
“Danke, Herr Garrity,” Barker responded. “I am certain we could use a pint to steady our nerves. I shall start assembling the devices now, while you gentlemen pour the nitroglycerin into the tubes of kieselguhr.”
My hope was to distract Garrity while Barker incorrectly assembled the clocks and primers. Since Garrity had already been unsuccessful with two bombs, I hoped we could pull the wool over his eyes. The last thing we wanted to do was to put live bombs into the hands of these terrorists.
My employer began wiring the first pistol to the clock.
“When shall we set the devices?” Garrity asked.
“Tomorrow, just before they leave. The first batch will be set for six-thirty, the next for seven o’clock, and the last for seven-thirty,” Barker said. “We must give the boys time to get to their destinations and back again. It would be easier if they set the timers when they put down their satchel, but unfortunately, that is when they have the least time and the most mistakes are made.”
“Let me help you wire the primer to the cap.” He looked closely at the device that Barker was working on. “Mr. van Rhyn!You have set up the primer incorrectly!”
Barker looked over his shoulder. “Surely not,” he said. “That is how I always set them.”
“I have spent my time in Paris studying explosives manuals, trying to learn more about the art. The way you have it, the bullet will miss the primer entirely. This way the bombs shall be inert.”
“Surely, it will not miss,” Barker said, looking affronted. “I have been building bombs for decades.”
“No,” the Irishman said. “I insist. The primer must be shifted over against the barrel. Come, take a look at this, Penrith.”
Reluctantly, I came forward. We were in a fix, thanks to Garrity’s recent studies in Paris. I pretended to look carefully, but I was watching Barker out of the corner of my eye. He lowered his chin just a fraction of an inch, then raised it. He was right. I had to agree with Garrity or raise the bomber’s suspicions.
“I’m afraid he is right, sir. You have wired them too far to the right.”
“My apologies, meine Freunde, my eyesight is not what it was.Danke, Garrity, for checking over my work. I would not like to have come all this way, and waste time and your brave countrymen’s money, only to build bombs that will not explode.”
“We all make mistakes,” Garrity said with a shrug. “I’ll rewire them. Won’t take but a few minutes.”
Within ten minutes I was looking down at my first completed infernal device, with enough explosive power to blow up a small building. Garrity set an identical one beside it, and soon there were three rows of them in front of us. My stomach hurt, as well as my head, and I was idly thinking that it might be better if I did something now to make these bombs explode. We’d lose our lives, of course, but even Barker might agree it was better to leave this small section of London as nothing but a large crater, rather than allow this mission to scatter satchels like deadly seeds throughout London. Perhaps Barker could overpower Garrity, and we could find a way to get these bombs out of here without attracting attention. While we were at it, I thought bitterly, perhaps we could grow fairy wings and carry the bombs out the window.
“Nice work, gentlemen,” Garrity said, surveying the bombs. “It has been an honor working with you.”
“The honor has been ours, Herr Garrity,” Barker replied with a Prussian bow. “I can only hope in our small way, we can help your countrymen attain their freedom.”
“Shall we test one now?” Garrity asked.
“Let us put the devices into the satchels first, gentlemen, before we test the bombs.”
Twenty-nine bombs were gently eased into the unmatching satchels. From the thirtieth, I cut one of the sticks of dynamite away before inserting it into the last bag.