Infernal Devices (26 page)

  "I– I think you've made some sort of mistake," I stammered. "I don't know what you think my… connection with all of this is, but–"

  "Silence!" Sir Charles stepped back from the three of us. "All such prevarications are useless. We know God's truth; you shall soon know what fate has been deemed appropriate for your kind. I bid you farewell."

  Two of the sailors assisted him down to a small boat that had been tethered at the ship's side. As they rowed him towards the harbour, the sails billowed over our heads. I gazed hopelessly at the edge of land sliding under the sea's horizon.

 
 

 
 

It has been my experience that being under a sentence of death produces in one's self a beneficial calm, both physical and spiritual. Time and the petty cares of the world recede, taking on their proper insignificance against notions of Eternity. These ennobling concepts are perhaps more easily entertained on board a ship, where the ceaseless rolling of the ocean and the featureless grey horizon provide no cheap distraction from one's meditations. But even here, in my refuge at a great city's edge, a fragment of that peace returns to me; the dog, my companion through so many arduous adventures, drowses before the fire, and I scribble on, heedless of the harsh costermongers' cries in the street below. I realise now that it was but a clearer vision achieved while under sail, of the condition to which we all, man and beast alike, are sentenced. Though at most times we are ignorant and forgetful of the fact, we all are on a Voyage of short duration, making towards the Landfall of our Death. Fortunate is that mariner who scans the horizon and spies a brighter cloud somewhere beyond.

 

The ship on which Scape, Miss McThane, and I found ourselves unwilling passengers was named the
Virtuous
Persistence
, though the faded evidence of an earlier incarnation as the
Miss Clementina Peckover
was still visible on its prow. The crew – more of a Godly Navy than Army, though they clung to the military forms handed down from Cromwell's time – was captained by one Lieutenant Brattle; he it was who took upon himself the duty of informing his cargo of their ultimate destination.

  "In time of war, cruel measures are often necessary." The lieutenant, a junior version of his superior Sir Charles, paced sombrely before us. Our party of three, four, counting the dog stationed at my feet, following the words spoken with keen expression if perhaps not full comprehension – had been assembled on deck a few hours after the ship had set sail. "And the war against Satan," pronounced the lieutenant, "is unceasing."

  "Shit," muttered Scape beside me.

  The lieutenant gave him a sharp glance, but pressed on. "This vessel is on a course bound for the Outer Hebrides. Very nearly the farthest from the coast of Scotland is the islet known as Groughay; it is the ancestral seat of the infamous Bendrays. What little population the island supported abandoned it some years ago. Its barren rocks will be the witnesses of the sentence passed upon you by the compassionate wisdom of God Almighty, through the persons of His appointed defenders–"

  "What a load of crap."

  Scape's louder comment brought an even sterner glare. "I would caution you to silence; you can only bring greater misfortune upon yourself through this show of disrespect."

  "Hah!" The blue lenses swung to myself and Miss McThane. "Get him." He turned back to the lieutenant, having divined what the speech's import would be. "How much worse can you make it, huh?"

  The lieutenant set his disdainful expression even more rigid. "Upon the island of Groughay, you will, each and all, be executed in a proper and merciful manner. It is the duty of myself and the men in my command, as soldiers in the service of Christ, to enforce this judgment upon you, for those heinous crimes committed against God and nation."

  "You sonsabitches," said Miss McThane. For a moment, I thought I saw her lower lip tremble; then she stepped forward and kicked the lieutenant in the shin. One of the men guarding us interposed himself; before he could lay hand on her, she had flounced back between Scape and myself.

  "Um… begging your pardon, Lieutenant." As much as I had expected his pronouncement, the words had still brought my heart surging into my throat. "Is it possible… do you think perhaps – you're being a bit… well, harsh?"

  He nodded once, gravely. "Only upon the erring flesh, Mr Dower; upon the transient envelope of your immortal spirit. And upon that we confer a great boon: it will be a considerable period of time before we reach Groughay, and our fervent prayers for your souls will assist you in commending yourselves to your Maker."

  "Thanks a bunch." Scape grimaced at the lieutenant's back as he and his men marched away. For a few moments he was silent, his head lowered in his brooding. Then he glanced over his shoulder at me, the corner of his smile flicking below the dark spectacles. "Well… that's the breaks."

  Miss McThane leaned back against the ship's rail, looked up at the grey-clouded sky, then back to the two of us. "Now what the hell are we supposed to do? Play shuffleboard?"

  I picked Abel up into my arms and stroked his head. The London streets down which he had come running after me, now seemed far away. "As the lieutenant said," I murmured, "perhaps we should make those certain preparations."

 

After the fury of my recent adventures, the life on board the
Virtuous Persistence
was not altogether disagreeable. Unlike poor Creff, betrayed by a poorly moored digestive system, I found myself to be one of those fortunates who find the sway and roll of a seagoing vessel to be comparatively relaxing. Even in the few bouts we had of blustery gale, I experienced little discomfort; so at ease was I that it occasioned some regret, not having discovered my mariner's ability until so late a date.

  The prisoners were given the freedom of the ship, there being possibly no more effective gaol than the billowing waves on all sides, and too few of us to pose any threat of commandeering the vessel by force. Food was coarse, but ample; the Godly Army-men, in their roles as sailors and captors, treated us with some measure of respect, due perhaps to the enormity of the crimes that had brought this justice upon us. An inquiry on my part, as to the fate of the dog, evoked a considerable debate among the crew, some arguing as to the poor beast's innocence, others (the more primitive in their beliefs) maintaining that it might be a witch's familiar and thus liable to the same sentence as its master.

  In such conditions of enforced leisure, and once a philosophical attitude towards one's imminent death had been adopted – that being the only possible attitude to take under the circumstances – I found the opportunity to reflect upon the singular experiences I had undergone. As a drowning man's life is said to flash before his eyes, so did the events since Creff announced an Ethiope in the shop pass, rather more slowly, through my thoughts.

  My fellow passenger Scape came across me as I was deep in just such a reflective mood. I sat against the frame of an open hatchway, idly scratching behind the ears of Abel, panting from his labours of chasing gulls from the deck. "Yo, Dower," Scape greeted me, before sitting down. He rested his arms on his raised knees, studying the smoke from a cigarette he had cobbled together from tobacco cadged from one of the Godly Army, rolled in a Bible page from the same source.

  "That's what you get," he said, nodding towards a group of the men engaged in some close-order military drill, "when you give people Bibles and guns. You should give 'em either one or the other, but not both. It just messes up their brains." The stub of his cigarette had a few words of Scripture still visible, before he flicked it over the rail and into the sea.

  I shrugged noncommittally. "They seem pleasant enough sorts. Doing their duty, and all that. And they are letting us live all this time, instead of dispatching us immediately, as they could have done."

  That brought a disgusted snort from him. "Get real. They've got their reasons for what they're doing. They want to pop us off, leave the bodies on that stupid island, and make it look like ol' Bendray had a hand in it. Groughay's his island, remember? These people just wanna stir up a ruckus on the old boy's head. So they can't very well kill us now – they want us to be fairly fresh meat when somebody else finds us."

  As usual, Scape had a base explanation for anyone else's actions. Unfortunately, I could find no flaw in his reasoning. As the practical results were the same whether he were right or wrong, I let the matter drop as being of no importance. After a moment's reflection, I spoke again: "There are many things that still puzzle me–"

  "Yeah, I bet."

  "–such as how a person of your character came to be involved in these matters–"

  "My character?" He gave me a glare of mock severity: "Hey, watch it!"

  I pressed on: "–or the reasons for so many apparently nonsensical actions. Say, for instance, back in London, at the church that night–"

  "Oh, that." He shrugged. "I could give you a reasonable explanation for all sorts of things."

  "Such as?"

  "Yeah, well, sure; why not? Got plenty of time now, I suppose." Scape flexed his spine against the edge of the hatchway, making himself comfortable.

  The discourse that followed so impressed itself upon my memory that I may safely warrant the accuracy of its transcription here. A good deal of Scape's speech various words, different cant phrases – had puzzled me since the blackguard's initial appearance in my Clerkenwell shop. The mystery had been continuously reinforced by the certain strangeness (for lack of a more precise word) in his general aspect; alien, yet at the same time familiar, as though I were seeing him in a clouded, distorted glass, one that magnifies certain aspects while diminishing others. We view such a wavering reflection, and say that we recognize the figure contained therein, but cannot say from where. So with the enigmatic Scape his divergence from myself, or any Englishman, was made more unnerving by the similarity that still remained.

  As to the veracity of the history he related to me, on board the 
Virtuous Persistence
, I can give no avowal. At the time,
tête-à-tête
in our mutual captivity, the vision be spun from the empty air, of fabulous machinery and the Future revealed by it, weighted my soul with an oppressive certitude. At this remove, safe by my sanctuary's fire, I entertain neither Belief nor Unbelief; in this one matter, at least, I have fallen into that dismal position, below that of the most wretched atheist, of not knowing what I believe. The reader must determine his own stance with no assistance from me.

  "The thing is," said Scape after a moment's thought, "I wasn't always this – what d'ya call it, 'person of your character'. I mean, I didn't talk like this, f'r instance. Maybe you've noticed I sound a little bit different from you?"

  "It had struck my attention."

  Scape nodded. "You see, I used to talk pretty much like you do; that kind of stodgy way. Maybe a little hipper, because I was – how d'ya say it – in the business. The life. You know what I mean?"

  I hazarded a guess: "Criminal activity?"

  His brow furrowed from the wince behind the blue lenses. "Christ, Dower; you don't have to make it sound that bad. Let's just say I was out there, doing a little… hustling. Just sorta getting by, no great shakes. Me and Miss McThane, she's still down below, sleeping; she had a late night, trying to put the moves on one of these Godly Army guys, before she gave it up as a lost cause anyway, the two of us had a little travelling-show sort of thing, what we called "An Assemblage of Curiosities". You see quite a few of 'em out in the towns and villages; those yokels really go for that sort of thing. We didn't have anything too impressive – a stuffed seal with a wig on it that we tried to pass off as a mermaid, a wind-up mannikin that could raise a horn to its mouth and go toot-toot except that it usually stuck it in its eye; just junk. Because, you see, the whole thing was really just an excuse to go travelling around from place to place, kinda give you a reason for pulling into some of these burgs." He nodded again, this time relishing some memory. "You'd be surprised, man, at the amount of money some of these old country squires have got stashed away. Or some pillar of the community in one of these grimy-ass manufacturing towns – fat city. Ab-so-lutely ready for the plucking. Because they got nothing else to spend it on, right – the old guy and maybe his hot-blooded eldest son – they're
grate
ful
for a little excitement in their lives. Plus they all think they're too friggin' clever to get taken, because they've had nothing to compare their brains to except a bunch of dumb dirt-farmers out in the field." He smiled to himself, deep in his reminiscence. "I tell ya, it was great. Shoulda stuck with it – me and her could've retired by now, instead of being stuck out here with the glum bunch."

  The recital disturbed me a bit. "What part did Miss McThane play in your enterprise?"

  "Oh, she was in on the hustle, too. She pulled her weight."

  "Are you saying–"

  He caught my meaning straightaway. "Naww – she didn't have to put out, or anything. Well… not often, at any rate. Didn't have to. She'd just give the marks the eye while they were at the table, and they'd jack up their bets just to try and impress her. By the time they figured out they'd been fleeced, we'd already have split, down the road to the next town." His voice took on a more philosophical tone. "It's a living. But then one time, this old dude – I think it was up around Birmingham – he got into us for more than he could pay off. Said he had a couple of interesting clockwork devices, valuable collector's items; made by that renowned inventor George Dower, Senior. I've always been a sucker for that kind of stuff, so I took 'em instead–"