The Curious Case Of The Clockwork Man (5 page)

Sir Richard Francis Burton snapped his reins the way she’d shown him. His swan stretched out its wings, ran five steps forward, and, with a mighty flapping, soared into the air. The leather straps of the harness uncoiled, snaked up after it, jerked taut, and his kite shot upward.

Thrown violently back into his canvas seat, the king’s agent found himself rising at phenomenal speed into the sodden atmosphere. The rain pelted against his face. His swan spiralled higher and, when he glanced back, he saw that his colleagues were following behind.

The chase was on!

Errors using inadequate data are much less than those using no data at all.

—Sir Charles Babbage

The water-laden air jabbed cold needles into Burton’s face, but despite being hatless—for, like the others, he’d placed his headgear into a spacious pocket at the back of the kite—he actually felt unpleasantly warm; a sign that his malarial fever was developing rapidly. He tried to stay focused but a peculiar sense of disassociation was creeping over him.

“Bloody git-face,”
POX
JR5 mumbled.

The five giant swans began to circle over the western end of Orange Street. Visibility was poor in the rain so the men flew them close to the rooftops, except for Swinburne, who, despite being the most experienced flier, was having problems controlling his unruly bird. He was currently somewhere overhead, inside the low blanket of cloud.

Tracking the mega-dray proved easier than Burton had anticipated.

It was Bhatti who spotted the trail. He steered his swan in beside Burton’s, but the kites, at the end of their long tethers, were flying extremely erratically due to the wind and beating rain, making it impossible to shout across to one another.

Burton spoke to the parakeet: “Pox! Message for Constable Shyamji Bhatti. Message begins. What is it? Message ends. Go.”

The brightly coloured bird launched itself from his shoulder. A few moments later, when the constable’s kite tumbled upward past his own, Burton saw that the messenger was already squawking into the young policeman’s ear.

The explorer shifted his hips, trying to stabilise his vehicle. It was foul weather for flying!

The parakeet returned. “Message from dribbling sponge-head Constable Shyamji Bhatti!” it whistled. “Message begins. Look off to the right, snot-picker—the bloody litter-crabs are all along Haymarket. Message ends.”

Burton told Pox to take the message to Trounce, Swinburne, and Spencer. He then sent his swan wheeling to the right and along Haymarket. He passed over four of the large eight-legged, steam-driven street cleaners and spotted a fifth at the end of Piccadilly. Yanking at the reins, he veered to the left and followed the thoroughfare. He soared past a sixth crab, a seventh, an eighth, and Green Park hove into view. The ninth litter-crab was clearing up a mountain of steaming manure outside the exclusive Parthenon Hotel; after that, all the way to Hyde Park Corner, he didn’t see a single one.

Pox returned to his shoulder.

He circled counterclockwise around the edge of Green Park, peering into the gloom.

There!

The massive pantechnicon was in the park, close to the Queen Victoria Memorial, with the mega-dray towering in front of it.

Looking back, he saw his colleagues following. Swinburne’s bird suddenly plummeted from the clouds, honked loudly, and swooped downward to land in the park. Behind it, the box kite was dragged through treetops, splintering and ripping until nothing of it was left. Burton saw the tiny poet bounce from branch to branch and tumble from the trees to the ground.

With a heartfelt curse, he slowed his swan, pulled it around in a tight turn, and flew low over his friend.

“Are you hurt?” he bellowed as he flapped past.

He wheeled again; flew back.

“Yes!” came a small voice from below. “It was thrilling!”

Burton marvelled at his swan’s manoeuvrability as he pivoted it through the air to fly over Swinburne once more.

“Round up some policemen!” he shouted. “Capture that pantechnicon!”

He increased altitude, wiping the rain from his eyes, and rejoined the others, who were circling above the massive vehicle. The bulky figure of Isambard Kingdom Brunel could be seen at the back of it. He was unloading four machines, aided by his three clockwork men.

As always, Burton felt awed by the sight of the Steam Man.

The most famous and successful engineer in the world stood on three multijointed mechanical legs. These were attached to a horizontal disk-shaped chassis affixed to the bottom of Brunel’s body. The body was like a barrel lying on its side, with domed protrusions at either end. Each of these bore nine triple-jointed arms, and each arm ended in a different tool, ranging from delicate fingers to slashing blades, drills, hammers, spanners, and welders.

A further dome rose from the top of Brunel’s body. From this, too, arms extended—six in all—though these were more like tentacles, long and flexible. Each ended in a clamplike hand.

At various places around the barrel-body, revolving cogwheels poked through slots, and on one shoulder a piston slowly rose and fell. On the other, something resembling a bellows pumped up and down and Burton knew from previous experience that it made a hideous wheezing noise.

This massive mechanism kept Brunel alive—but what of the man inside? How did he breathe or see or hear or eat? How much of his humanity did he retain?

The king’s agent—along with Swinburne, Trounce, and two or three others—was aware that some of the engineer’s recent activities were not only ethically dubious but had, perhaps, gone beyond the boundaries of the law. However, as Sir Richard Mayne, chief commissioner of police at Scotland Yard, said: “It would be unwise to arrest a national hero—a man who has done, and secretly continues to do, great good for the Empire—unless we have absolute and irrefutable proof of his crimes.”

So far, that proof had not been forthcoming.

Burton gave a whistle of amazement. He’d just realised what Brunel and his assistants were doing. They were unpacking and unfolding ornithopters.

“Message for Detective Inspector Trounce,” he said. “Message begins. They have ornithopters. I don’t know how fast these swans are but they’re about to be tested. Message ends. Go.”

Pox plunged out of the kite.

Along with gas-filled airships and electrical engines, ornithopters were generally considered to be one of the Technologists’ “dead-end” inventions—good in theory but not in practice. The winged machines possessed great speed and could cover enormous distances without refuelling, but they were also impossible for a person to control; human reactions simply weren’t fast enough to compensate for their innate instability. It had been suggested that a babbage could fly them but, of course, babbages were rare and prohibitively expensive. Except, Burton thought, there were three of them down there right now, with Brunel, each housed in a clockwork body, each mounting an ornithopter’s saddle.

The engineer’s own flying machine was massive—the biggest of the type the explorer had ever seen—which it needed to be in order to carry Brunel’s great weight.

The four swans swooped overhead as the ornithopters started to roll forward.

The parakeet returned to Burton’s shoulder.

“Message from skunk-scented Detective Inspector Trounce!” it screeched. “Message begins. Use your gun. Shoot the blasted ornithopters, you sludge-brained nincompoop, but don’t fire at bilious Brunel. Message ends.”

Burton passed the right rein to his left hand and pulled a Smith and Wesson revolver from his coat pocket. It was difficult to steer the swan one-handed and the kite was swinging about wildly. What with that and the rain and the wind, making an accurate shot seemed impossible. His hand, too, was trembling with his oncoming fever. Hopelessly, he pointed the gun in the general direction of the ornithopters and pulled the trigger. Immediately, one of the machines disappeared in a ball of steam and a loud detonation echoed across the park. A brass head went spinning into the air, narrowly missing Herbert Spencer’s swan.

“Lucky shot!” Burton mumbled. “Must have hit the pressure boiler!”

The three remaining ornithopters accelerated over the grass, belching vapour from their funnels, their wings flapping. A ratcheting noise reached Burton’s ears as the machines angled into the air and picked up speed.

Gunshots sounded from Trounce and Bhatti’s kites, and one of the flying contraptions suddenly slid sideways, turned over, and thumped back down to earth, crushing the clockwork driver beneath it. Burton caught a glimpse of a mangled and twitching figure as he flew past.

He fired another shot, pocketed his revolver, grabbed at the reins with both hands, and gave them a hefty flick, urging his swan to greater speed.

The ornithopters, with wings beating so fast they became nothing but a blur, leaned to the right and turned, heading northward. They increased altitude and disappeared into the clouds. The swans followed.

Burton was wretchedly wet. His teeth chattered and he shook uncontrollably.

He wiped his face in the crook of his elbow and when he looked up he found that he’d unexpectedly emerged into clear, dry, still air.

The layer of cloud had fallen away beneath him and a full moon glared down, turning the top of the billowing weather front a bright silvery grey. There was no rain and hardly a breeze at this altitude, and his box kite immediately settled into smooth flight, losing the sickening weaving and bobbing motion that had marked the pursuit so far.

Brunel’s machine flapped ahead. Where was his companion?

Burton looked to his right and saw Bhatti and Spencer. He looked to his left and saw Trounce—and shouted a warning! Too late!

The surviving clockwork man’s ornithopter plunged from above straight into Trounce’s swan. A metal wing tore through the bird’s neck, slicing its head clean off.

The ornithopter arced away as the bird’s decapitated corpse plummeted down into the cloud, dragging the kite behind it. In the instant before Trounce vanished into the thick mist, Burton saw him yank his emergency strap, separating the kite from the bird.

He breathed a sigh of relief. His friend would float safely to earth, though the landing might leave him shaken and bruised.

He steered closer to his two remaining companions. Here, above the bad weather, his voice carried: “Where did it go?”

“I don’t know!” Bhatti yelled, peering up and around.

“Down into the cloud!” Spencer shouted. “It went right under your bloomin’ kite, Boss! It—
aaah!
”

The ornithopter shot up from below, passing straight through the harness that attached the vagrant philosopher to his bird. Spencer tumbled away in his kite while the swan, with no one to guide it, turned and flew back the way it had come.

Burton snatched at his revolver, fumbled, and dropped it out of the kite. He cursed and glanced across at the constable, hoping his moment of weakness hadn’t been witnessed. It hadn’t. Bhatti was looking this way and that, scanning the sky for their attacker.

“Coming down at you!” the policeman screamed, pointing upward.

The king’s agent yanked fiercely at his reins, sending his bird, with a honk of protest, swerving sharply to the left. Bhatti’s revolver barked twice as the ornithopter plunged past, narrowly missing a collision with Burton’s kite. The enemy vehicle twisted in the air and rose up beside the constable’s swan. The driver, mounted on the ornithopter’s saddle, turned to look at the giant bird. The frightened swan responded with its species’ characteristic belligerence. It whipped its neck sideways, gripped the brass head in its beak, and ripped it from the mechanical shoulders.

Bhatti cheered, but his delight was short-lived. With nothing to steer it, the ornithopter slid into his bird. Metal and fleshy wings clashed and a stream of blood showered back over the constable. The swan shrieked and started to fall, the ornithopter spinning down beside it, trailing a spiral of steam.

“Good luck, Captain!” Bhatti shouted, yanking at his release strap. He disappeared behind and below Burton’s kite.

Ahead, the Steam Man had gained some distance and was bearing slightly to the east.

A violent tremor ran through Burton’s body. He gritted his teeth.

“All right, Brunel,” he ground out harshly. “Now it’s just you and me.”

He cracked the reins.

The chase continued over the clouds and across rain-swept London. Burton struggled to keep his mind from drifting. He wondered where his onetime travelling companion John Hanning Speke was, and thought about the time they’d spent together in Africa. It turned into a hallucination; the canvas seat of the box kite became a canvas stretcher, swaying beneath him as natives bore him along. He saw Speke bending over him, sprinkling water from a flask onto his burning, fevered brow.

“Not long now, Dick,” Speke said. “We’ll reach Ujiji before sundown. We can lay up there awhile and get ourselves shipshape before we explore the lake more thoroughly. It’s easy going for the rest of the afternoon, old thing. Flat savannah. No more swamps. There’s lots of wildlife. I shot three gazelles and five vultures this morning!”

Shooting. Always shooting! God, how Speke loved to kill!

The water continued to sprinkle onto his face.

Enough!

Speke didn’t stop. The droplets fell with greater force, drenching him. He snapped awake.
Bismillah!
Where
’
s
Brunel?

Looking this way and that, furious with himself, he found that he’d dropped back into the clouds. He tugged angrily at the reins, guiding his bird back upward.

Emerging into the clear air, he spotted the ornithopter ahead and to the left. It was descending. He followed and the vapour swallowed him again. Moments later he was being tossed around by the wind and rain. Looking down at the streets below, he recognised nothing until he saw the familiar landmarks of Muswell Hill and Alexandra Park. He watched as Brunel steered his ornithopter in a wide arc and settled in Priory Park, a lesser patch of greenery to the southeast.