Lempriere's Dictionary (97 page)

People are standing up in their seats as more and more of the mob pour in. Even more are massed outside, ringing the building and the streets around. The silk weavers at least know what they’re looking for (the Militia) but the others are only spoiling, prodding Stalkart’s patrons and pushing them aside as they surge up and around the tiers and aisles. A posse of equerries take exception to this treatment and lash out, which is the start of the mayhem.

The fighting spreads from its central tussle into adjacent rucks and mauls, tough little skirmishes and general fisticuffs. Two scrawny harridans take a grab at Lady Brudenell’s gauze cravat and Count Traut-mansdorf gallantly threatens them with transport to Brussels and dinner. Tom Willis aims a punch at the Honourable Miss Petre but only bruises his knuckles on her resilient Sleath’s Improver, reels around in agony, and is laid to waste by a tactical alliance between the Duke of Norfolk and the Marquis of Lansdowne who, victory assured, engage each other in half-nelsons. Albert Hall, vintner, thuds to the ground, stunned by a clout around the earhole from a sock weighted with Welch’s pills for Female Obstructions and Complaints peculiar to Virgins, and soon everyone’s involved. People are spilling over the balconies and rolling around in the aisles, falling to the ground with great theatrical groans, then getting up and whacking their opponents when their backs are turned.

Caught up, swept in and stranded amidst this amiable pandemonium, Lemprière ducks and weaves a criss-cross path through the combatants, straining and craning for the better view he needs. Towards the front of the
auditorium, nearest the stage (so far untouched by the conflict) the mêlée seems less frantic, more considered; calculated even. The battle is dying here, its participants are separating and standing off, eyeing each other warily. More and more of them break off as Lemprière skirts about. They’re standing quite quietly now, most facing the stage where the chorus stand nervously together. Lemprière smells smoke, coming from somewhere behind them. Realisation is dawning. The chorus turns and sees flames begin to lick up the wall at the back of the stage. Furtive rick-burners sidle away up the right-hand aisle. Suddenly the papier-mâché storm-scape catches and the roar of the flames turns everyone’s heads; surprised, startled faces watch the fire spread up into the rigging, all attention focused on
that
part of the theatre as the chorus turn back slowly, nervous military heels grinding on the boards, those uniforms just a little too realistic for one of Stalkart’s productions, the faces just a little too anxious. And far too many of them….

The first gangplank comes down in flames and the Militia crack. They spill forward off the stage, a panicked undisciplined herd into the waiting boots and fists of the mob. Thick black smoke is already filling the dome far above and the upper tiers are draining down into the pit. The soldiers are running a gauntlet as the stage empties and huge plumes of smoke waft from the wings. Abruptly a sheet of fire bursts up the wall opposite and mob, Militia and cognoscenti alike grow sensible of their peril.

Someone thinks of water and shouts, ‘The river!’, but the cry is taken up as a second call to arms, ‘The river! The river!’ A brutal scramble for the doors begins. Thick waves of choking smoke roll down from above. Men and women cough and hold handkerchiefs to their faces. Flames spread from one side to the other and the air is hot, whirling with ash and burning fragments. Lemprière splutters and pushes through the bodies, staring into faces streaked with smoke and ash, almost indistinguishable from one another now. None of them her.

Sad putti stare down from the proscenium, their gilt blackening in the heat. The plaster cracks audibly above the noise of the fire and begins to rain down on the last of the fleeing bodies below. Stucco angels wither and weakened joists begin to groan. The weight is too much. Smoke comes at Lemprière in waves, engulfing, choking as he moves towards the stage. A shape is moving there in the blistering heat, framed and lit by fires to either side. He passes Stalkart standing in the pit, arms raised to the failing roof and crying up, ‘Fly! Fly!’ The roof is blazing. He moves past, eyes watering, skin cracking in the heat. Great jets of flame are shooting to right and left. Ahead he can see the white dress drifting, visible for brief moments as the waves of smoke and ash roll across. He reaches her with his lungs bursting, pulls her about and to him. But her face is blank,
uncaring. Above them both, the first joist breaks and crashes down into the theatre. He grasps her and drags her forward but she will not walk, looking back into the inferno and resistant to his efforts, without energy or will.

‘Leave me,’ she says. He pulls her face up to his own.

‘Why?’ he shouts over the roar of the fire. Her eyes look anywhere but his own.

The explosion blew an arm of water, reaching up fifty, sixty feet, a swelling column which hung, then broke into droplets of sudden liquid raining down on the river’s surface below. On the quayside, pirates and mob all stare at the falling column. The commencing battle is forgotten and its combatants frozen in place as the river accepts this last of the night’s weird benedictions. Pieces of wood drift to the surface: splintered planks, barrel-staves, mollusc-encrusted timbers of one sort or another, most of it charred beyond recognition. Some weak regurgitation from below….

Walking back towards his crew-mates, Wilberforce van Clam looked down at the sad raft of flotsam gathering on the surface and doffed his hat. The other pirates followed suit. Peter Rathkael-Herbert lowered his cutlass and Stoltz’s men began to stand easy.

Huffing and puffing up the quay came Captain Guardian, followed at a distance by Captain Roy.

‘You’ll be Stoltz,’ he addressed the most non-descript of the gathering. Stoltz nodded. ‘Good, good,’ the captain went on. ‘Now, I’ve already spoken with young Lemprière and the plan is this….’

‘Plan? What plan?’ broke in Wilberforce as he rejoined the disconsolate pirates.

‘And who on earth is “Young Lemprière”?’ added Stoltz. ‘Who on earth are any of you for that matter?’ Wilberforce took his pipe from his pocket and began to pack the bowl with resin.

‘Well now,’ he said, ‘that is a yarn certainly worth the telling. Perhaps you remember the Comb Riots back in ‘53.’ He patted his pockets. ‘Does anyone have a match?’ A handful were proffered from below. ‘Thank you.’

‘That’ll be tuppence,’ said Captain Roy.

An hour later perhaps, the pipe had made a couple of rounds and no-one was exactly sure, Stoltz’s men and the pirates sat intermingled together in little clumps dotted up and down the quay. From time to time, someone would clamber to his feet and carry the pipe to an adjacent group, swap a word or two and wander back. The wind was lighter now, the river quiet as the tide began to turn. To the west, an orange halo glowed above the city.
Pieces of the
Heart of Light
tapped gently against the jetty below. They were becalmed. Behind them, the Pool was a dim chaotic sculpture of masts and spars. The compact bulk of the
Vendragon
rocked gently in the tidal swell.

‘… so here we are.’ Wilberforce ended up. Stoltz nodded lazily. Peter Rathkael-Herbert sucked on the pipe and handed it to Eben, who refused for the third time. Wilberforce glanced over his shoulder at the darkened vessel behind. Eben watched him.

‘You know her?’

‘After a fashion,’ said Wilberforce. The two men eyed each other warily. ‘Thought I might take a look belowdecks,’ he offered. Eben nodded. ‘We’re rather in need of a ship. Our own was, well, swallowed.’

‘We saw,’ said Eben. Wilberforce rose to address the pirates who lolled about on the quay.

‘Men,’ he began. ‘Once again we find ourselves in something of a desperate strait….’ He spoke on, outlining their position and its attendant perils,’ … and so, I propose the following plan.’ One or two of the pirates looked up as Wilberforce pointed to the ship and argued his point. ‘After all, what have we to lose?’ Horst struggled to his elbows and focused wearily on Wilberforce.

‘Wilberforce,’ he said, ‘enough is enough,’ then collapsed. The others were shaking their heads. It was late and they were tired and too old. Eben looked about the retiring crew.

‘Looks like just the two of us,’ he said to Wilberforce.

‘Three,’ said Roy. Eben rose and looked back along the waterfront. The Crow’s Nest stood like a dark turret against the orange sky. Thick plumes of smoke could be seen rising up out of the glare. The roofs of the city were a drab mosaic.

‘Fire,’ he said.

‘Opera House,’ murmured Stoltz from the depths of an engulfing dream. There but for the grace of God, thought Eben. Wilberforce was moving amongst his comrades, bending to pat shoulders, shake hands. Presently, he straightened and nodded to Eben and Roy.

The three captains walked down the quay together towards the waiting ship. As they reached the
Vendragon
’s gangplank, footsteps were heard behind them. They turned as one. Peter Rathkael-Herbert stood there, bleary-eyed, a little self-conscious.

‘Thought I’d better, you know, come along. If that’s alright….’

‘Good man, said Eben. Wilberforce clapped him on the back. The four men grinned at one another. ‘Come on then,’ said Roy.

The decks were deserted. They crept over the poop and down onto the quarter-deck.

‘We should split up,’ suggested Roy, ‘and….’

‘No!’ Wilberforce almost shouted. Eben looked at him in surprise. ‘I mean, stick together, alright?’ he added in quieter tones. Roy nodded.

‘If you like.’

Peter Rathkael-Herbert lifted the hatch and together they looked down into darkness. Eben smelt Stockholm tar and warm stale air. He thought of the procession of months and the men he had watched from the safety of the Crow’s Nest, his rash promise to young Lemprière. Crates, statues…. Not enough. They climbed down, waiting at the foot of the ladder for Roy, who declined to be lifted. Moonlight poured down the open hatch, showing them the bulky column of the mainmast. Beyond it there were only cleared cabins and neatly stowed gear in both directions. They moved along carefully, pushing open hatches from below but the middle deck was empty as the upper. They climbed down once more, to the lower deck. The moonlight did not reach down this far. Wilberforce felt his way forward by the breaches of the Indiaman’s guns which reduced the deck to a narrow gangway. His head knocked against the timbers of the deck above, then on something which swung. A lamp.

‘Matches, Captain Roy,’ he whispered over his shoulder. Roy moved forward. A match flared and Roy shouted suddenly, loudly in the confined space. All four looked about the illuminated deck. The cannon stretched away to either side, fore and aft until the light from the lamp gave out. Beside each cannon stood a man and as the light fell on their faces the eyes opened,
click, click, click, click, click…
. They were surrounded by weather-tanned faces.

Then, heavy footsteps moved towards them and out of the darkness came a man. His face was tanned as those of his fellows, his beard as full and his eyes as dead. Eben looked once, then again. It was impossible. He pushed past Wilberforce as the figure halted before them. It was true.

‘Alan?’ he blurted in disbelieving tones. ‘Captain Neagle? Is that….’

‘The command,’ the figure spoke. His eyes were fixed on Guardian. The voice was flat and uninflected, almost metallic. The four looked at one another, puzzled and dumbfounded at once.

‘I think it’s a question,’ said Peter Rathkael-Herbert. Roy looked at Neagle and the crew lining the gunports.

‘Cast off,’ he commanded and stepped smartly back as the
Vendragon
’s crew jumped into long-awaited action.

She was dead weight, a lifeless thing as he dragged her through the smoke and flames. The roof was a pyre exploding above them, hurling down beams into the burning pit below. The structure groaned, then began its final collapse. Lemprière looked up and saw the buckling roof give way. Something massive crashed down through the tiers, cutting through them like matchwood, then another, and another. From their stations far above, the tortoises were plunging earthwards, bringing down the last of the roof as they smashed through the rails and balconies. He felt flames lick his back as he skirted the bombardment. The stairs were a blazing corridor where the smoke spiralled and sucked the air from his lungs. He pulled her along behind him, choking and heaving, never looking back until he saw the street beyond where he knelt suddenly, feeling faint, his chest tightening. He heard glass shatter somewhere behind him. Men running after the soldiers. He closed his eyes and the black smoke seemed to roll over him again in thick protective waves, darker and darker….