Clockwork Souls (9 page)

He came up to the crowd just as a great shout of wonder went
up. The sight was so astonishing he stopped in his tracks. A great gold serpent
seemed to writhe high above the deck of the
Tripolitania,
catching the rays of the morning sun. It was not flesh the color of gold,
but the real metal. Then a mighty head hove into view, with magnificent
flapping ears articulated of strips of gold. Huge curving tusks of genuine
ivory were longer than a man and capped at the ends with gold filigree wrought
into wreaths of flowers. The eyes were dark glass lenses surrounded by rubies
and brilliants, and the gold-fringed and tasseled head-cloth was of green satin
embroidered in a thousand vivid hues. With another lurch and a puff of steam
from the chimney at the back the entire mechanism clambered out into the weak wintry
sunshine. The jeweled howdah on its back flashed in the light, so inexpressibly
gaudy it made everyone gasp. Surely those could not be sapphires the size of a
fist, capping the handrails? Pearls, dangling in a fringe from the canopy? The
thing must be worth a ransom for fifty kings.

Suddenly McAvers saw what was happening. The great
mechanismic beast was treading ponderously down the gangway, setting each
tree-trunk leg down with exquisite care. And standing on land was the welcoming
crowd in frock coats and tall hats. Far the tallest among them was a familiar
lean figure, with his dark chinstrap beard—Abraham Lincoln, the president
himself. “Let me through!” McAvers cried. “I am on an errand of life and death!”

He shoved himself between the broad backs blocking the way. “Hey,
watch yourself!” “You have some nerve, sir!” But ignoring all complaint and
obstruction he thrust himself forward with frantic speed. If only Mrs. Inglis
was wrong! But he did not dare to risk it. Anything was possible in the presence
of a wonder like this.

At last the great golden creature was ashore. Airavata
swiveled, trumpeting with a brassy blare that made the entire town ring. The
noise echoed eerily back across the river from the leafless forests on the
Maryland side. Then the machine beast turned to salute the dignitaries with a
flourish of its ivory tusks. The great glittering golden trunk, three yards
long, writhed in the air and reached to lovingly encircle the mahout who sat on
the embossed golden nape. Well here at least was a small proof of Mrs. Inglis
and her cousin Anna’s veracity. When he was set down on the planking it could
be seen that the lean little brown fellow was indeed wearing nothing but a
piece of unseamed turquoise Oriental silk hitched around his middle. In
February, in Virginia? He must be freezing. The mahout clutched an ankus nearly
as long as his torso, impossibly bejeweled with sapphires, rubies and diamonds
in a crazily opulent salute to the Stars and Stripes. The mahout prostrated
himself on the dirty boards before the president, a shocking abasement for a
fellow human being—even a black slave would not grovel like that.

And behind him mighty Airavata bowed down as well. First one
leg bent in front, and then the next. Another puff of steam, and then the back
end sank majestically down as the mechanical beast couched itself down on the
planking. The mahout leaped to his bare feet and bowed deeply, holding the
ankus out flat in both brown hands. The president smiled all over his homely
face, and bent to hear a word from an undersized Asiatic gentleman dressed in a
formal coat and tall hat—possibly the Siamese ambassador? Great God, they were
going to mount the beast and ride!

The lieutenant was close enough now to see the assassination
attempt. As the mahout straightened up, he spun the ankus in his hands. The
hooked end was lifted high. And the curved iron-tipped spike came down hard,
right onto the silk stovepipe hat on Abraham Lincoln’s head. The president
dropped like a rock, and with a shout McAvers flung himself forward to seize
the mahout by his naked brown ankle. The assassin made to strike at McAvers
with the massive ankus, but others were there to knock the weapon aside and
throw the mahout to the planking. “The president!” McAvers cried. “What of Mr.
Lincoln?”

But before anyone could reply there was a metallic creak.
Steam huffed white into the chilly air, and Airavata surged to its huge golden
feet, trumpeting like a dozen military bands. The tremendous brassy noise froze
everyone in their tracks. If the metal monster defended its master then McAvers
realized they were all doomed. And what if the machine was indeed booby-trapped
with an explosive? The controls must be—yes, in the ankus! He scrabbled for the
massive staff as it rolled, glittering, under the feet of the terrified
onlookers.

Then there was a shrill cry. “Sam, hand me that staff!”

“Oh, great God!” He gaped up past the gleaming golden flank.
Up on top in the gaudy howdah was a flurry of brown plaid skirts and the
flutter of a Shetland shawl.

Mrs. Inglis clambered into the front-most seat and frowned
down over the sapphire-studded rail at the green satin head-cloth on the
massive head below. “I don’t see reins, or levers, or handles,” she called. “Oh!”

Airavata turned. Could real elephants gallop? The
mechanismic beast had no turn for speed, but its tree-trunk legs were
inexorable as golden pistons. It strode down the wharf as wailing bystanders
scrambled out of the way. Mrs. Inglis clung to the howdah rail, the pearl
fringe jerking above her brown bonnet. Barrels were smashed, bales of cotton
went flying, and a loading crane toppled over with a tremendous splash into the
icy water. McAvers ran after and slid his gloved fingers over the gaudy jeweled
grip of the ankus. There must be controls here somewhere—how could he recognize
them? There were curly Siamese letters in the gold, only just recognizable as
writing—would the Siamese ambassador read them, or was he too in on the
assassination plot?

But Mrs. Inglis was doing something. Tying herself to the
howdah rail? No, by God—she was unfurling her shawl. It was a substantial
square nearly five feet on a side, and with a toss she caught its crocheted
fabric onto one of the bits of elaborate golden flower filigree encrusting the
end of an ivory tusk. Its eye on that side suddenly hooded, Airavata shook its
massive head in the manner of a horse troubled by a fly. Its brazen bellow of
annoyance made McAvers’s blood run with ice. The great articulated metal trunk
snaked up to swat the obstruction away, and Mrs. Inglis ducked down between the
silk-cushioned seats.

But even a mechanical elephant needs two eyes to steer
straight. In its distraction the creature veered over the edge of the wharf and
onto the shingle. The soul of the tropical elephant embodied within must not
realize that the ice crusted over the shallows was not substantial enough to
bear any weight. Airavata strode right out over the gray winter-weary ice, and
broke through. It screamed with a shredding sound of metal on metal, dragging
first one leg free and then another, before collapsing half onto its side in a
wallow of trampled reeds and mire.

Heedless of his riding boots McAvers waded into the icy
muck. Here in the slow-moving shallows the Potomac stank with effluvia and
dumped chamber pots. “Quickly, ma’am! No, curse it, leave the shawl!”

A huge hissing and gouts of steam showed that water was
encroaching upon vital systems in the machinery. Mrs. Inglis clambered
precariously down over the tumbled scarlet satin cushions. “Sam, I can swim,
you know!”

But after the incident of shinning down a rope McAvers was
having none of it. “Cling to my back—may I invite you to grip my neck tightly?
No, not with your hands! That’s the way of it, hug my head . . .”
In fact her pagoda sleeves and loose mantelet hampered him considerably, and
her long skirts quickly became soaked and dragged at his legs. Their combined
weight sank his feet into the mud so that icy water poured over the tops of his
boots. With a grim effort he waded toward shore, two yards, three—

The explosion was so near and so loud that he almost could
not perceive it. It was like a gigantic hand, swatting him. He was flying
through the air, Mrs. Inglis still clinging to his back. He slammed flat as a
pancake into a wall.

Only some while later did he realize that the wall had been
made of yielding cotton bales, and not brick. He was alive! He sat up. His nose
was bleeding, his ears rang worse than they had after Bull Run. The mass of his
revolver had left an indentation on his thigh that was going to be the bruise
of the century. A tremendously tall lean figure all in black loomed over him,
so tall that he had to crick his neck. For a moment in his befuddlement he
thought it was an undertaker. But then he realized—“Mr. President,” he croaked.
“You’re alive!”

“Thanks to you, lieutenant—may I know your name, and that of
the lady?”

Mrs. Inglis stepped in. “This is Samuel James McAvers, sir.
Of the 113
^th
New York Volunteer Infantry. And I am Lucinda Inglis,
wife of Col. Jeremiah Inglis. He was at Vicksburg and is currently stationed at
Cape Fear.” She was soaking wet and disheveled, her bonnet crumpled and her
hair coming down in a snarl of brown braids at the back, but she was not
discomposed in the least. “May I confide to you, Mr. President, how all this
came about?”

“If the President is injured, ma’am, he needs a doctor’s
attention immediately.”

“Not in the least, Lt. McAvers,” Mr. Lincoln said. “My tall
hat broke the blow.” He was bareheaded, but now held out his tall stovepipe hat
for them to see. The crown was punctured by the ankus spike, and the entire top
half crushed down by the blow. But within the crumpled cylinder of silk plush
McAvers saw flat black strips gummed to the sides. “Mrs. Lincoln has instructed
Davis, my hatter, to reinforce all my hats with strips of gutta-percha, for
fear of attack. The spike did not even crease my hair. How delighted she will
be, to hear that her foresight has paid off so nobly. And you, Mrs. Inglis,
have the valor of a soldier’s wife. Tell me all, if you would.”

Mrs. Inglis poured out her story, cousin Anna in Siam, the
crochet patterns, all the womanish flapdoodle. McAvers levered himself
squelching to his feet and groaned. She was visibly quite unhurt, lively as a
cricket. It seemed very unfair that he was the one with the nosebleed and the
pounding headache and what might be a cracked rib. It was going to be the
devil, to mount his horse again. And his new forage cap was gone forever, blown
halfway to Maryland. One of the president’s bodyguards had a flask, and McAvers
felt better for a gulp of cheap whiskey. He wondered if there was any hope of a
meal. It was too late for breakfast, but what about luncheon?

The president heard Mrs. Inglis’s tale in patient and grave
silence. “I shall discuss the matter with the Siamese ambassador, but I suspect
that this is not an act of war. The Poet King’s devotees have simply used the
king’s gift as a vehicle for their own ends. There is but one point that you
may clarify for me, lieutenant. Your gallantry to Mrs. Inglis has been
remarkable. Are you perhaps . . . kin?”

When McAvers realized that the president suspected he was
dangling after Lucinda Inglis he blushed to the roots of his hair. Mrs. Inglis
grinned at the sight. “Mr. President, you should know that the colonel has a
half-sister nearly twenty years younger than himself. Miss Emmelina Inglis
accepted Lieutenant McAvers’ hand at Christmas.”

“The colonel didn’t half like the betrothal, she being but
seventeen,” McAvers admitted. “It would not prosper my suit in the least if I
had let Mrs. Inglis kill herself saving you. We’re looking to be wed once the
war is over. Soon, I hear tell,” he added hopefully.

“We have had a meeting about a peace settlement.” The
president’s deep-set eye glinted. “Not for common gossip, mind you.”

“Oh no, sir.”

The garrison had been called out to keep back onlookers and
scavengers. A crew of Negro dock workers was just dragging up the first chunks
of golden wreckage. Sgt. Fanning watched them sharply as in a clamor of happy
comment and excited remark they hoisted a muddy and reed-tangled mass of metal
onto the wharf. It was a fragment of elephantine head and shoulder, streaming
water. Under the gold-plated skin the gears and pistons and levers that had
given Airavata its power could now be seen. The lifelike motion had been driven
by the soul of the elephant, presumably now departed. Bits and chunks clattered
and tinkled in a costly shower to the dirty planking. The larger portions could
easily be salvaged, but the lads of Alexandria would be picking shards of gold
out of the reeds for a generation.

Mr. Lincoln shook his head at the sight. “Lieutenant, as
your commander I am now giving you a direct order. When this cruel war is over,
go home. Wed your Emmelina, and be happy. I shall inform Col. Inglis that the
marriage has my approval. And you, Mrs. Inglis—write to your cousin in Bangkok.
Tell Mrs. Leonowens all, and thank her for her timely warning. If ever she
comes to the States, I would be pleased to meet her and proffer my personal
thanks.”

Mrs. Inglis dipped in a damp half-curtsey. “Of course, sir.”

“The secret of leadership,” Mr. Lincoln remarked with a
twinkle, “is to command people to do what they incline to anyway. Now,
sergeant—have the lieutenant and Mrs. Inglis escorted back to your offices, so
they may dry out before their journey home. Ah, and here.” He bent and picked
up a fallen bit. “Miss Inglis will be in need of a ring.”

McAvers gaped at the little stone Mr. Lincoln dropped into
his palm. It was one of the rough red rubies that had encircled the great dark
lens of Airavata’s eye, relatively tiny compared to the impossibly large gems
studding the wreckage but still the size of a comfit. Mrs. Inglis gasped, “Oh!
Mr. President, your thanks fully suffice!”

“Nonsense, Mrs. Inglis. I am a fond husband myself, and I
know how the ladies like pretty things. But don’t tell Mr. Fessenden—the
Treasury Secretary will dedicate the wreckage to defray our national expenses.
Now, here is your carriage—you had better be off, before you catch a chest
chill.”