Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon

GOVERNMENT NOTICE

IT IS ILLEGAL TO INTERFERE WITH STREET CRABS!

Those who seek to block a Street Crab's path, entangle its legs, extinguish its furnace, divert it into harm's way with a purposely laid trail of litter, or in any other manner prevent it from fulfilling its function, will be fined a minimum of £25.

STREET CRABS KEEP YOUR STREETS CLEAN!

“You?”

Richard Monckton Milnes, Algernon Swinburne, and Sir Richard Mayne had all spoken at once.

Burton nodded. “The poison was in a glass of port. It was pushed into my hand by one of the waiters. Tom drank it by mistake.” He addressed Monckton Milnes. “Would you order your waiting staff and household manager into the parlour, please? We'll question them there.”

This was duly done, and it was quickly made apparent by Mr. Applebaum, the manager, that a man was missing.

“Two of the waiters are permanent here at Fryston,” he told Burton. “The other four we hired from an agency, just for this party. These are the temporaries—” he indicated three of the men, “—and their colleague, sir, is the one that's made off.”

“Where is the agency?” Burton asked.

“In Thorpe Willoughby, a village about four miles east of here. Howell's by name. It has offices over the high street bakery.”

Burton turned to one of the hired hands, a small man whose fingers moved nervously. “What's your name?”

“Colin Parkes, sir.”

“And the missing man?”

“Peter Pimlico, but he ain't one of us. It was meant to be Gordon Bailey workin' tonight, but he was taken poorly, like, with a bad tummy, so he sent this Pimlico fellow, what is a friend of his, along in his stead. Leastways, that's how Pimlico explained it.”

“Do you know where he lives?”

“Pimlico? He said in Leeds, sir. He came with us in a carriage from Thorpe Willoughby. He's been renting a room there for the past few days. There are only two hostels and one inn in the village, so I reckon he's in one of them.”

“What does he look like?”

“Blond. Big side whiskers. Blue eyes. A bit soft around the middle. I should say he eats more'n he serves.”

“Thank you, Mr. Parkes.”

Sir Richard Mayne sent the staff back upstairs and said, “I'm going to order my men to search the house.”

Forty minutes later, the police commissioner reported back to Burton. “Commander Krishnamurthy found the missing man's fancy-dress costume dumped in a back room near the kitchen. The window was open. Doubtless that was his means of escape. I'll send Bhatti to the local railway station.”

“Pointless,” Burton said curtly. “There's no service at this time of night.”

“Then where do you think he—?”

The commissioner was interrupted by Swinburne and Hunt, who joined them, their faces drawn.

“Tom Bendyshe is dead,” the doctor said tonelessly. “Mercifully quick for strychnine. His heart gave out.”

Burton turned back to Mayne. “I'd like to borrow Detective Inspector Trounce. I have my basset hound here—he's an excellent tracking dog. We'll give him a sniff of that Medico Della Peste outfit and see where he leads us.”

“Very well.”

Burton—after quickly changing into rather more suitable evening attire—found Fidget happily gnawing on a bone in the kitchen downstairs.

“Sorry, old thing,” he said, lifting the dog's lead from a hook behind the door. “You're going to have to save that for later.”

Fidget growled and complained as the explorer removed the bone and clipped the leash onto his collar. He whined and dragged at the tether until Burton got him out of the kitchen, then settled down and padded along beside his master, up the stairs and out of the back door.

A cold breeze was blowing outside. Burton's breath clouded and streamed away. Stars shone in a clear night sky and a three-quarters moon cast its silver light over Fryston's grounds.

Swinburne—now in his normal day clothes but with the laurel wreath still entwined in his hair—and Trounce were waiting by an open window. The Scotland Yard man was squatting on his haunches, holding a lantern over the ground. “Footprints in the flower bed,” he said as the king's agent joined them.

Swinburne stepped back. Fidget had an unfortunate fondness for his ankles and had nipped at them throughout the train journey from London to Yorkshire. The poet held out a bundle of clothing and said, “Here's the waiter's costume, Richard.”

Burton took the clothes and applied them to Fidget's nose.

“Seek, boy!” he urged. “Seek!”

The basset hound lowered his head to the ground and began to snuffle about, zigzagging back and forth. He quickly caught the trail and dragged Burton away from the window and across the lawn. Swinburne and Trounce followed. The frozen grass crunched beneath their feet.

“Pimlico must be almost two hours ahead of us by now,” Trounce panted as he hurried along.

“We're heading east,” Burton noted. “I suspect he's gone back to Thorpe Willoughby. If he had a vehicle waiting there, he'll have made off and we'll lose the trail, but if he intends to travel back to Leeds by railway, he has no choice but to wait until the morning, and we'll nab him.”

Fidget pulled them to the edge of the estate, along the bordering wall, and over a stile. They proceeded down a country lane edged by hedgerows until they reached a junction. The basset hound veered right onto a bettertravelled road, and, as they followed, the men saw a sign that read: Thorpe Willoughby 3½ Miles.

“Confound it!” Swinburne muttered as they pushed on. “Tom was one of my best friends, even if he was a giant pain in the rear end. Why did this Pimlico chap try to kill you, Richard? I don't recall his name. He's not someone we've had dealings with, is he?”

“What? You?” Trounce exclaimed, not having been privy to the revelation earlier.

“I was meant to be the victim,” Burton confirmed, “but I've no idea why. As far as I know, Pimlico has no connection with any of our past cases. His motivation remains a mystery.”

The road led them to the brow of a hill and down the other side. They saw the outlying houses of the village some little distance ahead, lying beyond patchwork fields and dark clumps of forest. From the centre of the settlement, an irregular line of steam curved up into the night air, slowly dissipating in the breeze. It was instantly recognisable as the trail of a rotorchair.

“Hell's bells!” Trounce growled. “It looks like our bird has flown!”

Fidget, making little yip-yip noises as he followed the scent, led them into the village.

The exertion kept the men warm despite the low temperature, and by the time they reached the houses, Trounce was puffing and had to wipe at his brow with a handkerchief.

They passed cottages and small terraced houses, kept going straight past the inn, and eventually arrived outside a square and rather dilapidated-looking residence. The ribbon of steam was slowly drifting away above it. A notice in one of the lower windows read: Robin Hood's Rest. Bed & Breakfast. No Foreigners. Fidget stopped at its front door and pawed at it, whining with frustration.

Trounce reached out, grasped the knocker, and hammered.

They waited.

He hammered again.

A muffled voice came from within: “Keep yer bleedin' hair on!”

The portal opened and a fat man in an off-grey dressing gown blinked at them.

“What the bloomin' ‘eck are you wantin’ at this time o' night?” he demanded, his jowls wobbling indignantly.

“Police,” Trounce snapped. “Do you have a Peter Pimlico here?”

“More bloody visitors? I told him, none after ten o'clock, them's the rules o' the house, and what ‘appens? I get nothin’ but bleedin' visitors! You ain't foreigners, too, are yer?”

“We're English. Answer the question, man! Is Pimlico here?”

“Yus. He's in his room. I suppose you'll be wantin' to go up? You're police, you say? In trouble, is he?”

“It's distinctly possible,” Trounce answered, pushing his way past the man and into the narrow hallway beyond. “Which room?”

“Up the stairs an' first on yer left.”

Trounce started for the stairs but stopped when Burton asked the landlord, “You say there was a previous visitor for Mr. Pimlico? A foreigner?”

“Yus. A fat bloke with a big walrus moustache.”

“Nationality?”

“How the bleedin' 'eck should I know? They're all the same to me!”

“And when was he here?”

“'Bout ‘alf an hour ago. Woke me up landing his bloody contraption right outside, then thumped on the door. Pimlico came down the stairs like a bloomin’ avalanche to answer it, they both stamped up to his room, then a little bit later the foreigner came clod-hopping back down an' slammed the door behind him afore setting the windows a-rattling again with his blasted flying machine. I tell yer, it's been like trying to sleep in the middle of a bleedin' earthquake, and you ain't helpin'. Am I to get any kip at all tonight?”

“We'll not disturb you for long, Mr.—?”

“Emery. Norman Emery.”

“Mr. Emery. Remain here, please.”

Burton tied Fidget's leash to the bottom of the banister, muttered: “Stay, boy,” then, with Swinburne, followed Trounce up the stairs. The policeman knocked on the first door on the left. It swung open slightly under his knuckles. He looked at Burton and raised his eyebrows.

“Mr. Pimlico?” he called.

There was no reply.

The Yard man pushed the door open and peered into the room. He let out a grunt and turned to Swinburne. “Get Emery up here, would you?”

The poet, noting a grim aspect to the detective's face, obeyed without question.

“Look at this,” Trounce said as he entered the room.

Burton stepped in after him and saw a man stretched out on the floor. His face was a blotchy purple, his tongue was sticking out between his teeth, and his eyes were bulging and glazed.

“Strangled to death,” Trounce observed. “By Jove, look at the state of his neck! Whoever did this must be strong as an ox!”

“And a practised hand,” Burton added, bending over the corpse. “See the bruising? Our murderer knew exactly where to place his fingers and thumbs to kill in the quickest and most efficient manner. Hmm, look at these perforations in the skin. It's almost as if the killer possessed claws instead of fingernails!”

Trounce began to search through the dead man's pockets.

Swinburne reappeared with the landlord, who, upon looking through the doorway and seeing the body, cried out, “Cripes! And he ain't even paid his rent!”

“Is this Peter Pimlico?” Burton asked.

“Yus.”

Trounce uttered an exclamation and held up a small phial.

Burton took it, opened it, sniffed it, then tipped it until a drop of liquid spilled onto his finger. He put it to his tongue and screwed up his nose.

“Strychnine. No doubt about it.”

“It was in his pocket,” Trounce said. He addressed the landlord: “Does the village have a constable?”

“Yes, sir,” Emery replied. “Timothy Flanagan. He lives at number twelve.”

“Go and get him.”

“He'll be asleep.”

“Of course he'll be asleep! Bang on his door! Throw stones at his window! I don't care what you do—just wake him up and get him here, on the double!”

Emery nodded and disappeared down the stairs.

The detective turned back to the corpse, running his eyes over it, taking in every detail. He suddenly uttered an exclamation and bent close to Pimlico's swollen face.

“What is it?” Burton asked.

Trounce didn't answer. Instead, he pushed his fingers between the dead man's lips, groped to one side of the tongue, and pulled something out.

It was a small withered leaf, a dry brown colour with spitefully thorny edges, and it was attached to a tendril that, though Trounce gently tugged at it, refused to come out of Pimlico's mouth.

“Captain,” he said. “Would you prise the jaw open, please?”

Burton squatted, placed his hands around the lower half of the corpse's face, and pulled the mouth wide while Trounce pushed his fingers deeper inside.

“What in the blazes…?” the Yard man hissed as he drew out a second leaf and the vine to which it was attached tightened. “Look at this!”

He leaned back so Burton could peer into the mouth. The king's agent emitted a gasp of surprise, for the little plant was growing straight out of Pimlico's upper palate.

“I've never seen anything like it!” Trounce said. “How can it be possible?”

Burton shrugged distractedly and started to examine the dead man's head in minute detail. He quickly discovered other oddities. There were tiny green shoots in the hair, growing from the scalp, and a tangle of withered white roots issuing from the flesh behind both ears.

“I don't know what to make of it,” he said, rising to his feet, “but whatever this plant growing out of him is, it's as dead as Pimlico. What else did he have in his pockets?”

Trounce went through the items. “Keys, a few shillings, a box of lucifers, a pipe and pouch of shag tobacco, a pencil, and a 'bus ticket.”

“From where?”

“Leeds. Let's search the room.”

Swinburne looked on from the landing as the two men went over the chamber inch by inch. They discovered a small suitcase under the bed but it contained only clothes. No other possessions were found.

“Nothing to tell us who the foreigner might be,” Trounce ruminated. “And no clue as to where Pimlico lived in Leeds.”

“There's this,” Burton said. He held out the tobacco pouch—the brand was Ogden's Flake—with the flap open. On the inside, an address was printed in blue ink: Tattleworth Tobacconist, 26 Meanwood Road, Leeds.

“If this is his local supplier, perhaps the proprietor will know him.”

“Humph!” Trounce grunted. “Well, that's something, anyway. Let's wait for the constable, then we'll leg it back to Fryston. There are plenty of rotorchairs there—I'll commandeer one. It'll be close on dawn by the time I get to Leeds. No sleep for me tonight!”

“Nor for me,” Burton said. “I'm coming with you.”

“And so am I,” Swinburne added.

Some minutes later, footsteps sounded on the stairs and a young policeman appeared, looking somewhat dishevelled and unshaven. Mr. Emery lurked behind him.

“There hasn't really been murder done, has there?” the constable blurted. He saw Pimlico's body. “Blimey! In Thorpe Willoughby! And who are you gentlemen, if you'll pardon my asking?”

“I'm Detective Inspector Trounce of Scotland Yard. This is His Majesty's agent, Sir Richard Francis Burton, and his assistant, Mr. Algernon Swinburne. To whom do you report, lad?”

“To Commissioner Sheridan in Leeds.”

Trounce spoke rapidly: “Very well. I want you to wake up your local postmaster and get a message to the commissioner. Inform him that this chap—his name was Peter Pimlico—was strangled to death by an as yet unidentified foreigner. Then get the county coroner to call first at Fryston, then here to take care of business. I'll report to Commissioner Sheridan myself, later this morning.”

“Yes, sir. Fryston, sir? Why so?”

“Because this scoundrel—” Trounce gave Pimlico's corpse a disdainful glance, “—poisoned to death a guest there.”

Constable Flanagan gaped, swallowed, then saluted.

“What about me?” Emery grumbled. “Can I get back to me bleedin' bed?”

Trounce snorted. “If you think you can sleep with a corpse in the house, by all means. First, though, tell me—when did Pimlico start renting this room?”

“Five days ago.”

“Did he receive any visitors before tonight?”

“Nope.”

“What did he do while he was here?”

“Got drunk in the local boozer, mostly.”

“Did he cause you any trouble?”

“Not so much as he's bleedin' well caused since he kicked the bucket! He just thumped up an' down the stairs when he was comin' an' goin', that's all.”

“Were there any letters delivered for him?”

“Nope.”

“Do you know anything about him?”

“Nope, 'cept he said he was here to get work with Howell's agency.”

“Nothing else?”

“Nothin'.”

A few minutes later, Trounce, Burton, Swinburne, and Fidget were retracing their steps to Monckton Milnes's place. Glancing back at Thorpe Willoughby, Swinburne noted that the trail of steam had almost vanished.

“Which direction to Leeds?” he asked.

“West,” Trounce answered.

“Our strangler flew south. I wonder why he killed Pimlico?”

“Perhaps to stop him talking,” Burton said. “I'm certain I've never encountered him before, so I doubt he had any personal motive for doing away with me. I rather think he was hired to do it by our mysterious foreigner. He probably expected to be paid and assisted in escaping from the area tonight. Instead, he was killed.”

“Ruthless,” Swinburne muttered, “although I can't say he didn't deserve his fate, the bounder! But what of the strange growth?”

“That,” Burton said, “is a much bigger mystery. It seems unlikely that it was in his mouth earlier this evening, while he was playing waiter at Fryston. Such a rapidly growing monstrosity smells to me of the Eugenicists and the botanist Richard Spruce.”

They reached Fryston and found that a great many of the guests had already departed, despite the hour.

“I've sealed off the music room,” Monckton Milnes reported. “Poor Bendyshe will have to stay there until someone comes for him.”

“The coroner is on his way,” Burton reported. “May I ask a couple of favours of you?”

“Of course, anything I can do.”

“We need to borrow three rotorchairs. We have to fly to Leeds immediately.”

“Take mine, Jim Hunt's, and Charlie Bradlaugh's. They're on the front lawn. I'll walk you to them.”

“Thank you. I presume Mrs. Angell has gone to bed?”

“Yes. I gave her one of my best guest rooms.”

“Would you ask Captain Lawless to accompany her and Fidget to the airfield in the morning? Trounce, Algy, and I will have to fly there directly from Leeds. We'll see to it that the rotorchairs are delivered back to you later in the day.”

“I'll take her myself, Richard. I want to see you off.”

Monckton Milnes escorted his friends out of the house and to a group of flying machines parked in the grounds. As they walked, he pulled Burton back a little from Swinburne and Trounce and whispered, “Has this any connection with your mission to Africa?”

Burton shrugged. “I don't know. It's certainly possible, maybe even probable.”

They reached the rotorchairs and Monckton Milnes watched as the three men placed their hats in the storage boxes, put goggles over their eyes, and buckled themselves into the big leather seats.

“See you later, chaps,” he said. “And best of luck!”

They started their engines, which belched out clouds of steam. Above their heads, blade-like wings unfolded from vertical shafts and began to spin, rotating faster and faster until they became invisible to the eye.

Burton gave his friend a wave, then pulled back on a lever. The runners of his machine lifted from the grass and it rose rapidly on a cone of vapour. Swinburne and Trounce followed, and the three rotorchairs arced away and vanished into the night sky, leaving silvery white trails behind them.

An orange glow lit the eastern sky as three flying machines descended onto the cobbles of Black Brewery Road. Two of them touched the ground gently; the third hit it with a thump and skewed sideways for five feet amid a shower of sparks before coming to rest.

“Ridiculous bloody contraptions!” Trounce cursed. He turned off the engine, waited for the wings to fold, then disembarked and joined Burton and Swinburne.

It was their third landing in Leeds. The first had been to ask a constable on his night beat for directions. The second had been outside the Tattleworth Tobacconist on Meanwood Road.

Mr. Tattleworth, swearing volubly at his rude awakening, had eventually confirmed that he knew Peter Pimlico.

“A bloody thief,” he'd said. “What you might call a denizen of the underworld. But a regular customer. Lives a couple o' streets away. Number seventeen Black Brewery Road.”

They could have walked, but, preferring to keep their vehicles in sight, they took off and almost immediately landed again.

“It's this one,” Swinburne said, pointing at a terrace. “Let's see how many profanities our next customer can spit at us!” He reached for the door knocker and banged it with gusto.

After a couple of minutes and a second attack on the door, a gruff and muffled voice came from behind it.

“Oo's thah?”

“Police,” Trounce barked.

“Prove 'tis!”

“I have credentials,” Trounce said impatiently. “Open up and I'll show you.”

“Ah durn't believe thee. 'Tis a trick. Thou b'ain't no trapper. A tallyman, more like!”

Swinburne squealed. “Ha-ha! Tallyman Trounce!”

“Oo were thah?” came the voice.

“Algernon Swinburne!” Swinburne called. “The poet!”

There was a moment of silence, then the voice said, “Ah durn't need owt pottery fro' thee! Be off an' durn't come bah!”

“Sir!” Trounce bellowed. “Open the blasted door this very moment or I'll kick the damned thing in!”

The rattle of a chain sounded and a key turned in the lock. The door opened a crack and a rheumy eye peered out.

“Wah durst thou want? Ah aren't dressed. Am havin' us mornin' pipe.”

“Does Peter Pimlico live here?” Trounce demanded.

“Aye. In t' flat upstairs. Ee durn't be in. Not fur'n week.”

“I know. He's dead.”

“Huh?”

“He was murdered earlier tonight.”

“Good. Ee were a dirty oik an nowt else. So?”

“So we're here to search his rooms. Let us in.”

The eye took in Trounce from his bowler hat to his police-issue boots, then flicked to Burton and examined his swarthy and scarred face and broad shoulders, then down to Swinburne, who stood with laurel leaves tangled in his long bright-red hair, which was sticking out wildly after the flight from Fryston.

“A poet wit' trappers?”

“Police pottery,” Swinburne said. “Ceramics Squad. Stand aside, please!”

Trounce put his shoulder to the door and pushed, sending the man behind it reeling backward. “What's your name?” he demanded, stepping into the house.

The man, who would have been tall were it not for his rickets-twisted legs, stood shivering in his striped nightshirt. He was wearing a nightcap over his straggly brown hair and bed socks on his large feet. There was a hole in the left one and his big toe was poking out. A smoking corncob pipe was clutched in his gnarled hand.

“Ah be Matthew Keller. Thou can't barge int' us 'ouse like this!”

“Yes, I can. It's your premises? You're the owner?”

“Aye. Get thee out o' it!”

“Not yet. So you rent the upstairs to Pimlico, is that right?”

“Uh-huh, an' ah be glad t' be rid o' 'im, t' good-fer-nowt bastard.”

“Trouble, was he?”

“Aye! Alweez drunk n' thievin'.”

“Any visits from foreign gentlemen?”

“T'week past. Fat, ee were.”

“Name?”

“Durn't knah.”

“Nationality?”

“Durn't knah.”

“Walrus moustache?”

“Aye. Now then, ah 'ave t' get dressed fr' work.”

“You'll do nothing without my leave. We're going up to Pimlico's rooms.”

“They be locked.”

“Do you have a master key?”

“Aye.”

“So get it!”

Keller sighed impatiently.

“Jump to it, man!” Trounce exploded.

The householder flinched, then moved to the rear of the small hallway, opened a door beneath the staircase, and took a key from a hook. He returned and passed it to the detective.

Trounce started up the stairs and Swinburne followed. As he passed Burton, who stepped up after him, the king's agent noticed that his assistant's grin had quickly faded.

By nature, Swinburne's emotions were as fiery and wild as his hair, always changing rapidly, never consistent, and often entirely inappropriate. The poet was subject to a physiological condition that caused him to feel pain as pleasure, and, it seemed to Burton, this might be the origin of his quirky, unpredictable character. Emotional hurt, such as that caused by Bendyshe's demise, became internalised and concealed behind wayward behaviour, which, unfortunately, frequently involved the consumption of copious amounts of alcohol. Swinburne's inability to judge what might harm him made him one of the bravest men Burton had ever met, but also one of the most dangerously self-destructive.

“Follow us, Mr. Keller,” Trounce called. “I want to keep my eye on you.”

Keller protested, “Us an't gon' t' do nowt,” but mounted the stairs behind his unwelcome visitors and struggled up, groaning at the effort. “Legs,” he complained. “Bad all us life.”

Pimlico's flat consisted of a bed-sitting room and a kitchen. It stank of rancid lard and bacon and hadn't been cleaned in a long time. Threadbare clothes were scattered over the floor. A porcelain washbasin, containing dirty water and with a thick line of grime around its inner edge, stood on a dressing table in front of a cracked mirror. There was a cutthroat razor and a soiled bar of soap beside it. The sagging bed was unmade, a chair was piled with betting slips from the local dog track, and issues of the Leeds Enquirer were stacked beneath the window.

Swinburne and Keller hung back while Burton and Trounce went over the rooms.

“Notebook!” the Scotland Yard man exclaimed, lifting a small bound volume from the bed. He flicked through it, page by page. “Nothing but odds on dogs. He was a gambler, this Pimlico fellow.”

“Ee were a loser,” Keller said. “Lost every bleedin' penny ee earned. Nearly alweez late wit' rent.”

“How was he employed?” Burton asked.

“At t' Pride-Manushi factory, packagin' velocipede parts what they send to salesrooms o'er in Coventry. But ee was laid off a fortnight since, after ee got nabbed fr' thievin'.”

Burton's eyebrows arched. “What happened?”

“Ee climbed through t' window at Cat n' Fiddle, skanked a couple o' bottles o' whisky, an' jumped straight out int' arms o' trappers. Spent a night in clink.”

Trounce frowned. “Just one night? After breaking into a public house?”

“Aye.”

“Where was he held?”

“Farrow Lane Police Station.”

Some minutes later, the detective inspector called to Burton, who was searching the kitchen: “Captain, your opinion, please.”

Trounce pointed down at the bare floorboards near the window. Burton stepped over, looked, and saw a small glob of something blackish and fibrous. He squatted, took a pencil from his pocket, scraped its end in the dried-up substance, then raised it to his nose.

He winced in disgust. “Stinks of tooth decay—and something else. Mr. Keller, did Pimlico use chewing tobacco?”

“Nah. Ee smurked Ogden's Flake, same as what ah does.”

Burton stood and addressed Trounce. “I've made a study of tobacco odours. I'm certain this is Kautabak, a Prussian brand. Not widely available in England.”

“And you think it was left by the foreigner? Our murderer is Germanic?”

“I suspect exactly that, yes.”

They spent another twenty minutes searching but found nothing of any further use.

“Well then,” Trounce said, “we'll take our leave of you, Mr. Keller.”

“Aye, an' ah'll not be sad t' see thee go,” the householder muttered.

As they descended the stairs, he added, “Ee were expectin' t' come int' brass, ee were.”

Trounce stopped. “What?”

“Pimlico. Ee were expectin' brass—were goin' t' pay me what ee owed in rent, or so ee said.”

“Money? From where?”

“Durn't knah.”

Outside the house, the Yard man looked up at the sky, which was now a pale overcast grey.

“As from today I'm officially on extended leave,” he said, “but I'll be damned if I'll leave this alone.” He turned to Burton and Swinburne. “Next stop, Farrow Lane. I want to know why Pimlico was released.”

They climbed back into their vehicles and took to the air. Once again, they had to search for a constable to give them directions. Fifteen minutes later, they landed outside the police station and Burton and Swinburne waited in their vehicles while Trounce entered to make his enquiries. He was gone for twenty minutes, during which time the poet discussed his latest project, Atalanta in Calydon, with his friend.

“I'm moved to heighten the atheist sentiment by way of a tribute to old Bendyshe,” he said. “He was determined to drive the last nails into the coffin that Darwin built for God.”

“Tom would have appreciated that,” Burton responded. “For all his larking around, he never had anything but praise for you, Algy, and he adored your poetry. He was one of your most dedicated advocates.”

An uncharacteristic hardness came to the poet's eyes. “Do you remember me once telling you about how, in my youth, I wanted to be a cavalry officer?”

“Yes. Your father wouldn't allow it, so you climbed Culver Cliff on the Isle of Wight to prove to yourself that you possess courage.”

“That's right, Richard. And at one point, I hung from that rock face by my fingertips, and I wasn't afraid. Since that occasion, I have never once shirked a challenge, no matter how dangerous. I don't baulk at the idea of warfare; of engaging with the enemy; of fighting for a principle. As a poet, my roots are deeply embedded in conflict.”

“What's your point, Algy?”

“My point is this: as of now, I'm on a mission of vengeance.”

The Royal Naval Air Service Station was situated some twenty miles east of Fryston. It had originally been established for the building of dirigibles, an endeavour the Technologists had abandoned after a sequence of disastrous crashes and explosions. Those failures had led to the development of rotating-wing flight mechanics, and a breathtaking example of that particular form of engineering ingenuity currently dominated the largest of the station's landing fields.

HMA Orpheus was the most colossal rotorship Sir Richard Francis Burton had ever seen. Side-on, she appeared long and flat, two decks high, with a humped cargo hold slightly to the rear of centre, a conning tower at the front, and a glass-enclosed observation deck occupying her pointed prow. Eight flight pylons extended from either side of her—a total of sixteen, which made her the most powerful rotorship ever constructed.

Most of the crew and passengers were already aboard, ready for the short trip to London. Burton, Swinburne—sans laurel wreath—Captain Lawless, and Detective Inspector Trounce stood at the base of the boarding ramp, bidding farewell to Monckton Milnes and Sir Richard Mayne. The latter, nervous of flying, had opted to ride the atmospheric railway to the capital later in the week.

“So the fat Prussian bailed Pimlico out,” Trounce told the police commissioner. “He gave his name as Otto Steinruck, and an Essex address.”

Swinburne added, “Probably false.”

“No,” Trounce said. “The address had to be verified before his bail could be accepted. It exists and it's registered in his name.”

“You're off duty now, Detective Inspector,” Mayne said, “but if you want to pursue this in an official capacity during what little time you have left before your departure, then you have my permission.”

“I would, and thank you, sir.”

Mayne nodded, then looked up at the ship. “What a monster!” he exclaimed.

“The first of a new breed,” Lawless told him. “Mr. Brunel surpassed himself with this one!”

“And she'll take you all the way along the Nile?”

“Unfortunately, no.”

Burton said, “Mechanical devices refuse to function in the Lake Regions, Chief Commissioner. Some sort of emanation prevents it. Henry Morton Stanley's rotorchairs were found there, and their engines were as dead as a doornail. We fear that if the Orpheus flew too close she'd drop like a stone, and since we have no clear idea of where the zone begins, we have little choice but to go in on foot.”

“Besides which,” Lawless added, “this ship sacrifices economy for speed, so she'll need to stop for fuel, which can't be done in Central Africa.”

“So what's your route?” Monckton Milnes asked.

“Our first leg is London to Cairo,” Lawless replied, “the second Cairo to Aden, then we'll fly to our final stop, Zanzibar, where the collier ship Blackburn awaits us with a hold full of coal. The expedition will disembark, we'll refuel, offload the vehicles and supplies on the mainland, and head home.”

Burton added, “A hundred and fifty Wanyamwezi porters have been hired in Zanzibar and are already making their way inland with supplies purchased on the island. They'll deliver the goods to a village in the Dut'humi Hills and will await our arrival. When we get there, they'll be paid and fresh porters from the nearby Mgota tribes will be hired. We'll then push on and, hopefully, will reach Kazeh before we have to abandon the vehicles. From there, we'll hike north to the Lake Regions and the Mountains of the Moon.”

Lawless said, “Well, chaps, we'll never achieve any of that if we don't get under way, so I'd better check that my ship is flight ready. We'll be off in ten minutes. I'll leave you to say your goodbyes.” He gave a nod to Mayne and Monckton Milnes, touched a finger to the peak of his cap, and walked up the ramp and into the Orpheus.

Sir Richard Mayne drew Trounce aside and engaged him in a quiet conversation.

Monckton Milnes grasped Swinburne's hand and gave it a hearty shake. “Good luck, young 'un,” he said. “You stay safe, do you hear me?”

“Perfectly well, old horse,” Swinburne replied. “Don't you fret about me. I'll be fine. I'm too slight a morsel for a lion or crocodile to bother with, and I plan to keep myself soaked in gin to fend off the mosquitoes.”

“Good lad! I look forward to some inspired poetry upon your return.”

Swinburne caught Mayne's eye, gave him a salute, and boarded the ship.

“Are you sure he's up to it, Richard?” Monckton Milnes asked Burton. “As much as I admire him, he's the very last person I'd expect to be trekking through Africa.”

Burton gave a wry smile. “You know as well as I do that he's far from the delicate flower he appears. He's a tough little blighter and I need his insight into the Nāga business. Anyway, he'd never forgive me if I left him behind.”

“And you? What of your health? Last time you tried for the Nile you were blinded and crippled for months on end.”

“True, but mostly because John Speke was pouring huge doses of Saltzmann's Tincture into me. But that aside, we have Sister Raghavendra with us. That should make a considerable difference to our well-being.”

Monckton Milnes nodded thoughtfully. “The Sisterhood of Noble Benevolence is a confoundedly strange organisation. I've never understood how they move around the East End without coming to harm. You know there's a rumour they possess some sort of supernatural grace that protects them?”

“I've heard as much, yes. It may be that their ability to heal and soothe is, indeed, supernatural. Perhaps it's another effect of the resonance from the Nāga diamonds. Whatever the explanation, I'm sure she'll prove a most valuable member of the expedition.” Burton looked up at the grey sky. “Africa again,” he muttered. “Maybe this time—”

“You aren't obliged to put yourself through it, Richard,” Monckton Milnes interrupted. “Palmerston can find other pawns for his chess game.”

“For certain. But it's not just the diamond business. I want the Nile. Every day, I ask myself, ‘Why?’ and the only echo is, ‘Damned fool! The devil drives!’ That bloody continent has been shaping my life for nigh on a decade and I feel, instinctively, that it hasn't finished with me yet.”

“Then go,” said Monckton Milnes. “But Richard—”

“Yes?”

“Come back.”

“I'll do my level best. Listen, old chap, on the subject of Palmerston, there's something you might do for me while I'm away.”

“Anything.”

“I'd like you to keep an eye on him. Follow, especially, his foreign policies with regard to Prussia, the other Germanic states, and Africa. You are one of the most politically astute men I know, and you have a plethora of friends in high places. Use them. When I return, I'll need you to give me an idea of which way the wind is blowing where our international relations are concerned.”

“You think he's up to something?”

“Always.”

Monckton Milnes promised to do everything he could.

They shook hands and bade each other farewell.

Detective Inspector Trounce returned and joined Burton on the gangplank.

With a final wave to their colleagues, the two men entered the rotorship.

The great swathe of the world's territory that Britain had once controlled was still referred to, in its final days, as the Empire, even though there'd been no British monarch since the death of Albert in 1900. “The King's African Rifles” was a misnomer for the same reason. Traditions die hard for the British, especially in the Army.

Two thousand of the KAR, led by sixty-two English officers, had set up camp at Ponde, a village about six miles to the south of Dar es Salaam and four miles behind the trenches that stretched around the city from the coast in the northwest to the coast in the southeast. Ponde's original beehive huts were buried somewhere deep in a sea of khaki tents, and their Uzaramo inhabitants—there were fewer than a hundred and fifty of them—had been recruited against their will as servants and porters. Mostly, they dealt with the ignominy by staying as drunk as possible, by running away when they could, or, in a few cases, by committing suicide.

Perhaps the only, if not happy, then at least satisfied villager was the man who brewed pombe—African beer—who'd set up a shack beneath a thicket of mangrove trees from which to sell the warm but surprisingly pleasant beverage. The shady area had been furnished with tables and chairs, and thus was born a mosquito-infested tavern of sorts. No Askaris permitted! Officers and civilians only!

It was eleven in the morning, and the individual who now thought of himself as Sir Richard Francis Burton was sitting at one of the tables. It was an oppressively humid day and the temperature was rising. The sky was a tear-inducing white. The air was thick with flies.

He'd refused pombe—it was far too early—and had been provided with a mug of tea instead, which sat steaming in front of him. His left forearm was bandaged. Beneath the dressing there was a deep laceration, held together by seven stitches. His face, now more fully bearded, was cut and bruised. A deep gash, scabbed and puckered, split his right eyebrow.

He dropped four cubes of sugar into his drink and stirred it, gazing fixedly at the swirling liquid.

His hands were shaking.

“There you are!” came a high-pitched exclamation. “Drink up. We have to get going.”

He raised his eyes and found Bertie Wells standing beside him. The war correspondent, who looked much shorter and stouter in broad daylight, was leaning on crutches and his right calf was encased in a splint.

“Hello, old thing,” Burton said. “Take the weight off. How is it?”

Wells remained standing. “As broken as it was yesterday and the day before. Do you know, I snapped the same bally leg when I was seven years old? You were still alive back then.”

“I'm still alive now. Get going to where?”

“Up onto the ridge so we can watch the bombing. The ships should be here within the hour.”

“Can you manage it? The walk?”

Wells flicked a mosquito from his neck. “I'm becoming a proficient hobbler. Would you do me a favour, Sir Richard? Next time I pontificate about the unlikelihood of a direct hit, will you strike me violently about the head and drag me clear of the area?”

“I'll be more than happy to. Even retrospectively.”

“I must say, though, I thoroughly enjoyed the irony of it.”

“Irony?”

“Yes. You affirm that you are quite impossibly in the land of the living, and seconds later, you almost aren't!”

“Ah, yes. Henceforth, I shall choose my words with a little more care. I did not at all enjoy being bombed and buried alive. And please drop the ‘Sir.’ Plain old ‘Richard’ is sufficient.” He took a gulp of tea and stood up. “Shall we go and watch the fireworks, then?”

They left the makeshift tavern and began to move slowly through the tents, passing empty-eyed and slack-faced soldiers, and heading toward the northern border of the encampment.

The air smelled of sweat—and worse.

“Look at them,” Wells said. “Have you ever seen such a heterogeneous throng of fighting men? They've been recruited from what's left of the British South Africans, from Australia and India, from the ragtag remains of our European forces, and from all the diverse tribes of East and Central Africa.”

“They don't look at all happy about it.”

“This isn't an easy country, as you know better than most. Dysentery, malaria, tsetse flies, mosquitoes, jigger fleas—the majority of the white men are as sick as dogs. As for the Africans, they're all serial deserters. There should be double the number of soldiers you see here.”

They passed alongside a pen of oxen. One of the animals was lying dead, its carcass stinking and beginning to swell.

“Do you have a thing about poppies?” Wells asked. “You pulled one from your pocket just before we got bombed, and now I see you have a fresh one pinned to your lapel.”

“I think—I have a feeling—that is to say—the flower seems as if it should mean something.”

“I believe it symbolises sleep—or death,” Wells responded.

“No, not that,” Burton said. “Something else, but I can't put my finger on it.”

“So you're still having trouble with your memory, then? I was hoping it'd returned. As you might imagine, I've been beside myself with curiosity these past few days. I have so many questions to ask.”

“Odd scraps of it are back,” Burton replied. “It's a peculiar sensation. I feel thoroughly disassembled. I'll submit to your interrogation, but if you manage to get anything out of me, you must keep it to yourself.”

“I have little choice. If I publicised the fact that you're alive, my editor would laugh me right out of the news office and straight into the European Resistance, from which I'd never be seen again.” Wells jerked his head, coughed, and spat. “These bloody flies! They're all over me! The moment I open my mouth, there's always one eager to buzz into it!” He saluted a passing officer, then said, “So what happened? Did some quirk of nature render you immortal, Richard? Did you fake your own death in 1890?”

“No. I have the impression that I came here directly from the year 1863.”

“What? You stepped straight from three years before I was born into the here and now? By what means?”

“I don't know.”

“Then why?”

“I don't know that, either. I'm not even sure which future this is.”

“Which future? What on earth does that mean?”

“Again, I don't know—but I feel sure there are alternatives.”

Wells shook his head. “My goodness. The impossibilities are accumulating. Yet here you are.”

“Here I am,” Burton agreed.

“An anachronic man,” Wells muttered. He stopped to adjust his crutches.

Moans emerged from a nearby tent, its inhabitant obviously wracked by fever. The sound of his misery was drowned out as a group of Askaris filed past, singing a mournful song. Burton listened, fascinated by their deep voices, and was able to identify the language as Kichagga, a dialect of Kiswahili, which suggested the men were from the Chagga tribes that originated in the north, from the lands below the Kilima Njaro mountain.

They were far from home.

So was he.

“I once discussed the possibility of journeying through time with young Huxley,” Wells said, as the two of them got moving again. “It was his assertion that no method would ever be invented, for, if it were, then surely we'd have been overrun by visitors from the future. It didn't occur to either of us that they'd actually come from the past. You say you don't know how it was achieved? But was it through mechanical means or a—I don't know—a mental technique?”

“I have no idea. Who's Huxley?”

“A boy I was acquainted with. He had a prodigious intellect, though he was almost entirely blind and hardly out of short trousers. He was killed when the Hun destroyed London. I don't understand, Richard—how could movement through time have been possible in the 1860s yet remain a secret today?”

“My guess is that—that—that—wait—who is—was—is Palmerston?”

“Pah! That villain! In your day, he was prime minister.”

“Yes!” Burton cried. “Yes! I remember now! He had a face like a waxwork!”

“What about him?”

“I think he might have suppressed the fact that the boundaries of time can be breached.”

“The devil you say! I should have known! That wily old goat! Does he know you're here?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Maybe my editor would help you to contact him.”

“I have no means of sending a communiqué into the past.”

“I mean now, here in 1914.”

Burton exclaimed, “Surely you don't mean to suggest that he's still alive?”

“Ah. You didn't know. Yes, he's with us. Famously so. Or perhaps ‘notoriously so’ would be a more accurate assessment. He's a hundred and thirty years old!”

“Bismillah!” Burton gasped. “Palmerston! Alive! Is he still prime minister?”

“No, of course not. There's been no such thing since the Germans overran Europe. And let me tell you: few men who ever lived have had as much blood on their hands as Palmerston. He called us to war. We were making the future, he said, and hardly any of us troubled to think what future we were making.” Wells waved his hand at the tents that surrounded them. “Behold!”

Burton looked puzzled. “But there's more than this, surely? What of the Empire?”

Wells stopped in his tracks. “Richard,” he said quietly. “You have to understand. This is it.”

“It?”

“All that remains. The men commanding these two battalions of Askaris, plus perhaps three thousand in the British Indian Expeditionary Force, scattered groups of soldiers around the Lake Regions, maybe twenty thousand civilians and Technologists in our stronghold at Tabora, and whatever's left of the British European Resistance—there's nothing else.”

Burton looked shocked. “This is the Empire? What in heaven's name happened?”

“As I told you before, it all began here. By the 1870s, despite the efforts of Al-Manat, the German presence in Africa was growing. Palmerston was convinced that Bismarck intended a full-scale invasion. He believed that Germany was seeking to establish an empire as big as ours, so he posted a couple of battalions over here to prevent that from happening. The Hun responded by arming the natives, setting them against us. The conflict escalated. Palmerston sent more and more soldiers. Then, in 1900, Germany suddenly mobilised all its forces, including its Eugenicist weapons—but not here. It turns out that Bismarck never wanted Africa. He wanted Europe. France fell, then Belgium, then Denmark, then Austria—Hungary, then Serbia. The devastation was horrific. Britain fought wildly for five years, but our Army was divided. Almost a third of it was here, and when they tried to get home, Germany blockaded all the African ports. My God, what a consummate tactician Bismarck was! We didn't stand a chance. Then he gained Russia as an ally, and we were conquered. India, Australia, South Africa, and the West Indies all quickly declared their independence, British North America fell to a native and slave uprising, and the Empire disintegrated.”

Burton sent a breath whistling through his teeth. “And Palmerston was to blame?”

“Completely. His foreign policy was misjudged in the extreme. No one really understands why he was so obsessed with Africa. A great many Britishers have called for him to be tried and executed. After all, it's not reasonable that those who gamble with men's lives should not pay with their own, and he was the greatest gambler of them all. But Crowley insists that he should be kept alive—that, somehow, the survival of Tabora, the last British city, depends on him.”

They reached an area where the tents thinned out and row after row of Mark II Scorpion Tanks were parked, hunkered down on their legs, claws tucked in, tails curled up.

Burton noted that, though the war machines' design was new to him, the technology appeared to have advanced little since his own age.

“Let's rest again for a moment,” Wells said. “This bloody leg is giving me gyp.”

“All right.”

Burton leaned against one of the arachnids and batted a fly from his face.

Memories were stirring. He was trying to recall the last time he'd met Lord Palmerston.

Shut the hell up, Burton! Am I to endure your insolence every time we meet? I'll not tolerate it! You have your orders! Do your bloody job, Captain!

The prime minister's voice echoed in a remote chamber of his mind but he was unable to associate it with any specific occasion.

“So he's at Tabora?” he asked.

“Palmerston? Yes. He's kept under house arrest there. I find it incredible that he still has supporters, but he does—my editor for one—so it's unlikely he'll go before the firing squad, as he deserves. You know he buggered up the constitution, too?”

“How so?”

“When he manipulated the Regency Act back in 1840 to ensure that Albert took the throne instead of Ernest Augustus of Hanover, he left no provision for what might happen afterward—no clear rules of succession for when Albert died. Ha! In 1900, I, like a great many others, was a staunch republican, so when the king finally kicked the bucket, I was happy to hear calls for the monarchy to be dismantled. Of course, equally vociferous voices were raised against the idea. Things got rather heated, and I, being a journalist, got rather too involved. There was public disorder, and I'm afraid I might have egged it on a little. When a man gets caught up in history, Richard, he loses sight of himself. Anyway, Palmerston was distracted, and that's when Bismarck pounced. I feel a fool now. In times of war, figureheads become necessary for morale. I should have realised that, but I was an idealist back then. I even believed the human race capable of building Utopia. Ha! Idiot!”

They slouched against the machines for a couple more minutes, the humidity weighing down on them, then resumed their trek, moving away from the tanks and up a gentle slope toward the ridge. The ground was dry, cracked, and dusty, with tufts of elephant grass standing in isolated clumps. There were also large stretches of blackened earth—“Where carnivorous plants have been burned away,” Wells explained. “At least we're not due the calamity of rain for a few more weeks. The moment a single drop touches the soil, the bloody plants spring up again.”

The Indian Ocean, a glittering turquoise line, lay far off to their right, while to their left, the peaks of the Usagara Highlands shimmered and rippled on the horizon.

“But let us not be diverted from our topic,” Wells said. “I'm trying to recall your biographies. If I remember rightly, in 1859 you returned from your unsuccessful expedition to find the source of the Nile and more or less retreated from the public eye to work on various books, including your translation of The Arabian Nights, which, may I add, was a simply splendid achievement.”

“The Book of a Thousand Nights and a Night,” Burton corrected. “Thank you, but please say no more about it. I've not completed the damned thing yet. At least, I don't think I have.”

He helped his companion past a fallen tree that was swarming with white ants and muttered, “It's odd you say that, though, about my search for the source of the Nile. The moment you mentioned it, I remembered it, but I feel sure I made a second attempt.”

“I don't think so. It certainly isn't recorded. The fountains of the Nile were discovered by—”

Burton stopped him. “No! Don't tell me! I don't want to know. If I really am from 1863, and I return to it, perhaps I'll rewrite that particular item of history.”

“You think you might get back to your own time? How?”

Burton shrugged.

“But isn't it obvious you won't?” Wells objected. “Otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation, for you'd surely do something to prevent this war from ever happening.”

“Ah, Bertie, there's the paradox,” Burton answered. “If I go back and achieve what your history says I never achieved, you'll still be here, aware that I never did it. However, I will now exist in a time where I did. And in my future there'll be a Herbert George Wells who knows it.”

“Wait! Wait! I'm struggling to wrap my brain around that!”

“I agree—it's a strain on the grey matter, especially if, like mine, it's as full of holes as a Swiss cheese. These days, I hear myself speak but have barely a notion of what I'm talking about.”

Burton pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the sweat from the back of his neck. “But something tells me that if you go back into the past and make an alteration, then a whole new sequence of events will spring from it, establishing an ever-widening divergence from what had been the original course of history.”

Wells whistled. “Yet that original has to still exist, for it's where you travelled back from.”

“Precisely.”

“So existence has been split into two by your act.”

“Apparently.”

“How godlike, the chronic argonaut,” Wells mused.

“The what?”

“Hum. Just thinking out loud.”

They joined a small group of officers who'd gathered at the top of the ridge. Wells indicated one of them and whispered, “That's General Aitken. He's in charge of this whole operation.”

Burton tugged at his khaki uniform jacket, which he considered far too heavy for the climate. He felt smothered and uncomfortable. Perspiration was running into his eyes. He rubbed them. As they readjusted, the vista that sprawled beneath him swam into focus, and all his irritations were instantly forgotten.

Seen through the distorting lens of Africa's blistering heat, Dar es Salaam appeared to undulate and quiver like a mirage. It was a small white city, clinging to the shore of a natural harbour. Grand colonial buildings humped up from its centre and were clustered around the port—in which a German light cruiser was docked—while a tall metal structure towered above the western neighbourhoods. Otherwise, the settlement was very flat, with single-storey dwellings strung along tree-lined dirt roads and around the borders of small outlying farms.

A strip of tangled greenery surrounded the municipality—“They look small from here, but those are the artillery plants,” Wells observed—and beyond them, the German trenches crisscrossed the terrain up to a second band of foliage: the red weed. The British trenches occupied the space between the weed and the ridge.

Like a punch to the head, Burton suddenly recalled the Crimea, for, as in that terrible conflict, the earth here had been torn, gouged, and overturned by shells. Flooded by heavy rains some weeks ago, the horrible landscape before him had since been baked into distorted shapes by the relentless sunshine. It was also saturated with blood and peppered with chunks of rotting human and animal flesh, and the stench assailed Burton's nostrils from even this distance. Bits of smashed machinery rose from the churned ground like disinterred bones. It was unnatural. It was hideous. It was sickening.

He unhooked his canteen from his belt, took a swig of water, and spat dust from his mouth.

“That's our target,” said Wells, pointing at the metal tower. “If we can bring it down, we'll destroy their radio communications.”

“Radio?” Burton asked.

Wells smiled. “Well I never! How queer to meet a man who isn't familiar with something that everyone else takes for granted! But, of course, it was after your time, wasn't it!”

Burton glanced uneasily at the nearby officers, who were peering at the sea through binoculars.

“Keep your voice down, please, Bertie,” he said. “And what was after my time?”

“The discovery of radio waves. The technique by which we transmit spoken words and other sounds through the atmosphere to literally anywhere in the world.”

“A mediumistic procedure?”

“Not at all. It's similar to the telegraph but without the wires. It involves the modulation of oscillating electromagnetic fields.”

“That's all mumbo jumbo to me. What are they looking at?”

Wells turned to observe the officers, then raised his binoculars and followed the men's gaze.

“Ah ha!” he said. “The rotorships! Have a squint.”

He passed the binoculars to Burton, who put them to his eyes and scanned the eastern sky, near the horizon, until two dark dots came into view. As they approached, he saw they were big rotorships, each with twelve flight pylons, wings spinning at the top of the tall shafts. The black flat-bottomed vessels were rather more domed in shape than those from his own time, and he could see guns poking out of portholes along their sides.

“Astraea and Pegasus,” Wells said. “Cruiser class. The Pegasus is the one on the right.”

“They're fast. What are those little things flying around them?”

“Hornets. One-man fighters. They'll swoop in to shoot at the ground defences.”

“Actual insects?”

“Yes. The usual routine. Breed 'em big, kill 'em, scrape 'em out, shove steam engines into the carapaces. The method hasn't changed since your day. Look out! The Königsberg is bringing her cannon to bear!”

Burton directed the glasses to the city's harbour and saw that the decks of the seagoing vessel were swarming with men. A gun turret, positioned in front of its three funnels, was turning to face the oncoming rotorships. A few moments later, orange light blazed from the muzzle. Repetitive booms, lagging a few seconds behind the discharges, rippled out over the landscape, becoming thin and echoey as they faded away.

He looked back at the rotorships, both almost upon the city now. Puffs of black smoke were exploding around them.

Hornets dived down at the light cruiser and raked her decks with their machine guns.

“Come on, lads!” Wells cheered.

Burton watched men ripped into tatters and knocked overboard as bullets tore into them. A loud report sounded. He lowered the binoculars and saw that metal and smoke had erupted from the side of the Pegasus.

“She's hit!” Wells cried.

The rotorship listed to her left. As her shadow passed over the Königsberg, small objects spilled from beneath her. They were bombs. With an ear-splitting roar, the German vessel disappeared into a ball of fire and smoke. Fragments of hull plating went spinning skyward. Another huge detonation sounded as the ship's munitions went up.

The Pegasus, rocked by the shock wave, keeled completely over onto her side and arced toward the ground. She hit the southern neighbourhoods of Dar es Salaam and ploughed through them, disintegrating, until, when she finally came to rest, she was nothing but an unrecognisable knot of twisted and tattered metal slumped at the end of a long burning furrow. Hundreds of buildings had been destroyed, maybe thousands of lives lost.

Wells opened his mouth to say something but his words were drowned by thunder as the Astraea started to dump her payload onto the middle of the city. The noise slapped again and again at Burton's ears as the colonial district was pummelled and decimated. Soon, all he could see was a blanket of black smoke through which the red lights of Hades flickered, and gliding along above it, silhouetted against the glaring white sky, the menacing rotorship, drawing closer and closer to where the tip of the radio tower emerged from the expanding inferno.

Wells stood on tiptoe and put his mouth to Burton's ear, which was ringing with such intensity that the explorer could barely hear the correspondent's soprano voice: “We had no choice but to do it. I wonder, though—will the human race ever transcend the animalistic impulses that lead to such behaviour?”

Burton yelled back: “I suspect animals would be most offended to be associated with an atrocity like this! What of the people down there? What of the Africans?”

“Casualties of war. As I said, we had no choice!”

“But this isn't their bloody conflict! It isn't their bloody conflict, damn it!”

A quick succession of blasts marked the end of the radio tower. The Astraea slid over the belt of red weed and sailed northward with hornets buzzing around her.

The attack was already over.

Silence rolled back in from the surrounding countryside, broken only by occasional small explosions.

“She's probably on her way to give Tanga some of the same treatment,” Wells said, watching the rotorship receding into the distance.

Burton stood silently, struggling to stay on his feet. His legs were trembling violently, and his heart hammered in his chest.

“Bismillah!” he muttered. “Bismillah!”