Flying Dutch

FOURTEEN

Danny Bennett peered through the perspex window of his helicopter and wiped away the little patch of view-obscuring condensation that his breath had formed on it. A BAFTA award, certainly, but probably posthumous. It looked decidedly hairy down there.

It hadn’t exactly been easy getting here. Even after he had managed to persuade Neville, the helicopter-flying stockbroker sidekick of megalomaniac academic Professor Montalban, to pilot the spare chopper—the gun had helped, of course, but he had still had to work at it—there had been the problem of persuading the camera crew to participate in the biggest scoop since Watergate. They had been rather less easy to persuade, since they were under the impression that possession of a valid union card made them bullet-proof, and he had had to resort to bribery. In fact, he had pledged the Corporation’s credit to a quite disastrous extent—tuppence on a colour licence would only just cover it—and had Harvey not backed him up and said he would square it with the Director-General the whole thing would have fallen through. Harvey, clearly, was so overjoyed at the thought of Danny Bennett flying to certain death that he was ready to break the habit of a lifetime and agree to authorise expenditure.

Still, here they were and there was the story, unfolding itself in vivid sheets of orange flame below them. On Danny’s knee rested a quite exquisite Meissen geiger counter, borrowed from Montalban’s study, and at the moment the needle was still a millimetre or so clear of the red zone. Probably far enough. Danny communicated with the pilot, and told the cameraman to roll ‘em.

Danny peered out through the perspex once again. Vanderdecker’s helicopter had touched down about half a mile away, just outside the red zone—pity he hadn’t been able to get an interview with him, but there it was—and the small party had scrambled out of it and started to trudge towards the distinctly unfriendly-looking power station complex. Even as he wittered frenetically into his pocket tape recorder, Danny’s eyes were fixed on his targets, as he expected them at any moment to dissolve into little whiffs of gamma particles (Danny’s knowledge of nuclear physics was mainly drawn from reruns of Buck Rogers). He glanced across at the cameraman to make sure that the Aaten was pointing where it should. It was. Would the radiation cock up the film? Well, too late to worry about that now. Better by far to have filmed and lost then never to have filmed at all.

“They’re approaching the main entrance now,” he muttered into his pocket memo, his voice as high and agitated as a racing commentator’s. “They haven’t been burned to death yet, but surely it can only be a matter of time. And who can doubt that the question on their lips—if they still have lips at this moment, of course—is, what reforms to the nuclear power station inspectorate can the Government propose now if they are to retain any credibility whatsoever in the eyes of the nation? Did anyone in Downing Street know that this was likely to happen? Was there a cover…?”

Before he could say “up”, there was a deafening roar, and the helicopter was jolted by a violent gust of air as the front part of the power station collapsed in a cloud of smoke and yellow flames. The Meissen geiger counter started to play “Lilliburlero”, which was presumably its quaint, Augustan way of signifying danger. Danny stared but there was nothing to see, just swirling clouds of smoke. He turned away and told Neville to take the chopper out of there fast.

“Did you get all that?” he asked the cameraman breathlessly. The cameraman looked at him.

“Oh sod it,” he said, “forgot to take the lens cap off. Only kidding,” he added quickly, as Danny’s face twisted into a mask of rage and his hand moved to the butt of the gun. “Can’t you take a joke all of a sudden?”

“No.” Danny snapped. “That’s my award you’ve got in that thing, so for Christ’s sake stop farting around.” The strains of “Lilliburlero” had died away, and the elegant needle was back out of the red zone. “Right, Neville,” he shouted at the front of the helicopter, “let’s go back and have another look.”

Neville shook his head. “No can do,” he shouted back. “No fuel. Sorry.”

Danny swore. “What do you mean, no fuel?”

Neville pointed at what Danny assumed was the fuel gauge, although for all he knew it could be the tape deck, and shrugged.

“You clown!” Danny shouted. “The story of the decade and you choose this moment to run out of petrol.”

“It’s not petrol,” said Neville, “it’s aviation fuel.”

“I don’t care if it’s methylated spirits,” Danny yelled. “Go somewhere where we can get some more and be quick about it.”

Neville consulted a map. “Inverness,” he said.

Danny, who had been to Inverness, shuddered, but there was nothing he could do. “All right,” he said, “but get on with it.”

As the helicopter turned, Danny peered frantically out of the back window, and could just see the bright glow of a burning power station through a miasma of black clouds.

“Don’t go away,” he said, “we’ll be right back after the break.”

Just another day at Broadcasting House. In the rather battered and uncomfortable suite assigned to the lost sheep who run Radio Three, a harassed-looking man in what had been, thirty years ago, quite an expensive tweed jacket told the listening public that they had just been listening to a sonata by Berg. Long ago, when the jacket had been new and the world had been young and not quite such a miserable place, someone out there might have cared.

The harassed-looking man announced Schubert’s “Unfinished Symphony”, took off his earphones and fumbled in his pocket for his packet of peppermints. All gone. Damn.

“George.”

The door of the studio had opened—a curious event during working hours. Had someone lost his way looking for the lavatory? No, for the stranger had spoken his name. George turned his head.

“News flash, George. We interrupt this programme, and all that.”

“Fancy,” George said. “The last time I did one of these was poor dear President Kennedy. What’s up this time?”

“Nuclear power station in Scotland’s blown up,” he was informed. George raised an eyebrow.

“Well, now,” he said, “how dreadful.”

“Indeed.”

“I mean,” George said, “we’ll have to reorganise the whole afternoon schedule. After all,” he explained, “I’m sure there’ll be lots and lots of these little bulletins as the long day wears on, and that’ll make it impossible to play the Bartok. Can’t play Bartok with holes in it, it’s not right.”

“Well absolutely.”

“I’m glad you agree,” George replied. “Have they come up with a revised schedule?”

“No, George, they haven’t,” he was told. “I imagine they’ve been too busy playing at being journalists to give any thought to anything so important.”

“Now, now,” George said, frowning, “there’s no call for sarcasm. You’d better leave it all to me, and I’ll just have to cobble something together.”

“That’s fine, then,” said George’s interlocutor. “I’ll leave it all up to you. Let no one say you didn’t stay calm and do your bit in the crisis.”

“Thank you.”

“Like the orchestra on the Titanic.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.” The door closed, and George thought for a moment. In the background the music played, but the only effect it had on George was to inspire the reflection that the “Unfinished Symphony” would be used to it by now, and he could safely take it off in a moment to read the news flash. What could he think of for an impromptu programme with interruptions?

From a purely aesthetic point of view, it would be appropriate at this stage to describe the interior of the power station in which Vanderdecker, Montalban, the crew of the Verdomde, and a cat of indeterminate breed are just now wandering about. However, there is such a thing as the Official Secrets Act, and authors don’t like prison food. Take Oscar Wilde, for example.

“What,” Vanderdecker asked as he opened a curtain door leading to a certain room in a building, “did you have to bring that cat for?”

“Guinea-pig,” replied Montalban through the charred wisps of fabric that had once been a handkerchief held in front of his nose. The first mate frowned.

“What, to catch one, you mean?”

Montalban stopped in his tracks and turned round. “To catch one of what?” he asked.

“A guinea-pig,” replied the first mate. “Is that why you brought the cat?”

Montalban smiled. “No, no, you don’t quite seem to follow,” he said. “The cat is a guinea-pig.”

“No it’s not,” the first mate replied, “it’s a cat.”

“That’s right,” Vanderdecker said hastily, “it’s a cat, isn’t it, Montalban? Are you still wearing your reading glasses?”

“The cat,” said Montalban slowly, “is here to perform the function of a guinea-pig.”

The first mate’s frown remained as constant as the Northern Star. “You mean, running round inside a little wheel or something?”

“Yes,” replied the Professor; he was a quick learner. “If necessary.”

“I see,” said the first mate, and added, “Why?”

“Because,” explained the Professor, and reached into his pocket for another handkerchief. Unfortunately, there wasn’t one. Nor was there a pocket. There wasn’t, in fact, a fibre of cloth among the whole party; just hot but invulnerable flesh.

“Stuffy in here, isn’t it?” said Wilhelmus. “Can’t we open a window?”

“Not really,” Vanderdecker said. “A bit counterproductive, that would be. Look, isn’t it about time we started doing something, instead of just wandering about like this?”

“If you’ll just bear with me a little longer,” the Professor said, “I hope to be in a position to make a final assessment of the extent of the problem facing us.”

A large and jagged slab of masonry dislodged itself from the roof and fell heavily onto the precise spot Sebastian would have been standing on if Vanderdecker hadn’t rather unceremoniously moved him. Sebastian scowled and muttered something under his breath.

“Right, then,” said the Flying Dutchman positively. Deep inside he could feel himself starting to get angry. The last time he had been angry was many years ago, when, thanks to a series of accidents and coincidences, he had wandered into the middle of the Battle of Trafalgar just as the French were on the point of victory, and a cannonball from a French ship of the line had smashed a hole in the Verdomde’s last barrel of Indian Pale Ale. The Flying Dutchman had felt guilty about what happened next ever since, and the sight of Nelson’s Column always made him feel slightly ill.

“Where are you going?” Montalban asked.

“Never you mind,” Vanderdecker replied. “Just lend me that cat for a moment, will you, and then you can go away and have a nice cup of tea or something. Cornelius, Sebastian, you follow me. The rest of you stay here.”

Montalban handed over the cat, which was growling slightly, and watched helplessly as the Flying Dutchman stalked off through a door whose existence is not explicitly acknowledged. The door closed, and a moment later flew open again as the room beyond it blew up.

“Now now, Sebastian,” roared a voice from the heart of the flames.

“Oh dear,” Montalban said. “I really don’t think he should have gone in there.”

The other members of the crew tried to peer through the cloud of smoke, flame and debris, but it was impervious to sight. They could, however, hear loud banging noises.

“Antonius, Johannes, Wilhelmus, Pieter, Dirk, Jan Christian! Over here, quick as you like!” came a thunderous command. “Cornelius, grab the cat!”

Montalban was left standing alone in the middle of a burning room. He didn’t like it much. It was unnerving, what with the falling masonry and everything, and he hadn’t had a rock cake in five hours.

“Wait for me,” he said.

Jane had always hated Ceefax. It wasn’t just the way the blasted thing played “That’s Entertainment” on the electronic organ at you while listing the latest casualties in the Mexican earthquake; it wasn’t even the mule-like persistence with which it kept giving you a recipe for chicken la king when you wanted the weather forecast. It was the little numbers at the top of the screen that really made Jane want to scream. She was alone in the house, and there were no neighbours close enough to be disturbed. She screamed.

Then she pulled herself together again and pressed some buttons on the remote control. Back to the index. Yes. Fine. Stay with it. News Update—351. Key in 351.Today’s recipe is Tournedos Rossini. Eeeeeeeeek!

Try the other channel, said a little voice inside Jane’s head. It’ll be just as bad, but the recipe may be different. She tried the other channel and found the index number for News Update. She pressed the necessary buttons. She got the Australian Football results.

A person could make a fortune, she decided, reinventing the carrier pigeon. Or smoke signals. Craftily, she went back to the main index and keyed in the code for the recipe. There was a flicker of coloured light, the television sang “I Did It My Way” and she got the Australian Football results. Melbourne, it seemed, was having a good run this season. Come on, you reds.

Perhaps, Jane reflected, it won’t be on the news at all. What if Harvey and his colleagues have organised a total news blackout? Was that why he had driven away in such a hurry just after the helicopters took off? Jane was a child of the media age, and there lurked in the back of her mind the instinctive belief that if a thing wasn’t on the news, it couldn’t really have happened after all. So if Harvey could keep it off the air, perhaps the whole thing could unhappen, like a film projector with the film in backwards. No. Unlikely.

Jane put down the remote control and wandered over to the window. Outside it was raining, that slow, gentle, extremely wet Cotswold rain that once used to turn watermills and was somehow or other connected with the rise of the wool trade. History had never been her best subject at school, and the wool trade had been the armpit of History as far as she was concerned, and so she found it hard to remember the details. What could rain possibly have to do with wool? Did it make the ground so soggy that you couldn’t keep cows because of foot-rot, so you had to keep sheep instead? Was rain connected with the wool trade at all? Had there ever been a wool trade? Yes, because she had met someone who had been involved in it. The Wool Trade, the Hanseatic League, the Spanish Netherlands, all that bit between Richard the Lion-Heart and Charles I, in the margins of which she had drawn little racing-cars. Strange, to think that one man could have seen all that.

There was that song, she remembered. We joined the Navy to see the world, and what did we see? We saw the sea. And the Atlantic isn’t romantic and the Pacific isn’t terrific and the Black Sea isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. The poor man. It must have been awful for him.

One thing in history that had registered with her was Robert the Bruce and the spider, because she was terrified of spiders. Back to the Ceefax, then, and let’s have one more go. Carefully, Jane selected the required index numbers for the Australian Football results and keyed them in. She got the Australian Football results, while the unseen orchestra played “They Call The Wind Maria”.

Like St Paul on the road to Damascus, Jane suddenly understood. Nobody else did, but she understood. Standing there in her stockinged feet in a sitting room outside Cirencester, Jane Doland had single-handedly solved one of the most inscrutable mysteries of the twentieth century. She knew why they played background music to Ceefax, and the principle by which it was selected.

All she needed to find now was the Professor’s decoder, but that wasn’t going to be easy. Given Montalban’s love of camouflage, it could be anything; the Georgian tea service, the Dresden shepherdess, the ormulu clock, the little black box labelled “Decoder’…”

With trembling hands, she plugged it in and switched it on. As the television set launched into “Thank Heaven For Little Girls”, there was a buzzing noise from the box, a whistling, a hissing, and then a mechanical Dalek voice started to speak.

“Melbourne,” said the voice, “sixteen. Perth nil.”

“Damn,” said Jane, and in a sudden access of fury she snatched up the remote control and dashed it to the floor. There was a snowstorm of coloured lights on the screen, and the news headlines appeared.

Jane peered at them. Latest on Dounreay crisis. Evacuation proceeding in orderly fashion. No cause for alarm as yet. Questions in the House. So that was how Harvey was handling it. How terribly unimaginative of him.

Then she caught the subdued muttering of the Dalek in the black box. It was urging the world to buy. Buy equities, it was saying. Buy gilts. Buy municipal bonds. Buy short-dated government stocks. Buy breweries, industrials, communications, chemicals, entertainments, even unit trusts. Buy.

Jane’s jaw dropped, and then she picked up the remote control, made a wish, and threw it at the wall. She got the City News. So that’s how it’s done.

Share prices, she discovered, were going through the roof. FT All Share Index reaches all time peak. Dow Jones explodes in buying frenzy. Hang Seng hangs loose. What, Jane asked, is going on?

The decoder wasn’t much help this time: it just kept on repeating its command to buy. Buy Czarist government securities. Buy South Sea Company five per cent Unsecured Loan Stock. A fat lot of help the decoder was being. Jane shrugged and went to look for a wireless.

She eventually found a portable in the kitchen and tuned it to Radio Three. We apologise for the continued interruption to the scheduled programme, it was saying, owing to the Dounreay crisis. Meanwhile, we continue with our impromptu Gilbert and Sullivan medley, and now let’s hear “Three Little Maids From School” from the D’Oyly Carte company’s 1956 recording of The Mikado.

The decoder raised its voice to a hysterical scream, conjured the world in the bowels of Christ to buy De Lorean 25p Ordinary Shares, and blew up. Jane shook her head several times, switched off the radio and the television, and went to the kitchen for a cup of tea.

The cat was having a thoroughly rotten time. It was hot, there were no mice, and slabs of pre-stressed concrete kept falling on its head. On the other hand, it had managed to get away from those lunatics with the silly names.

In that ineffably feline way cats have, it arched its back, stretched, flexed its claws and started to stroll quietly, a cat walking by itself. Four centuries of existence had taught it a sort of unthinking optimism. Although the odds against it seemed long, there might be mice somewhere, or birds, or even a decomposing chicken carcass. In this room here, for instance.

In the room there was a table, and on the table was a square white thing which the cat failed to recognise as a computer console. Made of the very latest space-age materials, it had not yet melted. It had been designed to withstand extremes of temperature which would long since have carbonised diamonds. This was necessary, because this was no ordinary playing-video-games computer, but the main instrument panel for the whole complex. Anything that was still capable of working inside this inferno was operated from here.

But the cat wasn’t to know that. To the cat, it looked like a nice place to curl up and sleep. With a delicate little hop, the cat jumped onto the table and made its way to the centre of the console, its velvet-padded paws resting ever so lightly on the many labelled keys. The cat turned round three times, lay down and went to sleep.

“Sebastian!” Vanderdecker yelled. “Over there, to your left.”

Sebastian looked round and saw the little patch of flame which was evidently distressing his commander. He stamped on it until it went out.

They had been at it for hours, and they weren’t making much headway. It was a big building, and most of it was on fire, and it takes time to beat out flames with nothing but your bare hands and feet. Meanwhile the needle on the Professor’s geiger counter (this one was enclosed in a Fabergé egg) was slowly creeping higher. Not galloping, just creeping. Not galloping yet.

“Look, Montalban,” Vanderdecker gasped, “are we getting anywhere or not? This is not a time for conventional politeness.”

“I’m afraid not,” the Professor said. “The fire is too widespread. There just isn’t time to put it out this way.”

Vanderdecker nodded. “So?”

“Well,” Montalban replied, “there doesn’t seem to be very much point in our staying here, does there?”

Vanderdecker shook his head vigorously. “The hell with you,” he said. “There has to be something we can do.” He jumped on a patch of fire, more to relieve his feelings than for any other motive.

“Unfortunately…” The Professor was suddenly quiet. The Fabergé egg started to tinkle out “The Blue Danube”. “Oh dear,” he muttered sadly.

“Now what?”

“Situation critical,” Montalban replied. “Such a pity.”

“All right, all right,” Vanderdecker shouted, “why don’t you do something for a change instead of going all to pieces like that?” And he looked round for somebody to shout at. Just then, the first mate came up.

“Skip,” he said. “I’ve lost the cat.”

“The what?”

“The cat. The guinea-pig. Whatever.”

“Really?” Vanderdecker growled. “What a bloody cataclysm!”

“All right, let’s go and look for the perishing cat. I’m getting bored just standing here.”

The first mate said that he had last seen it over there, so they went that way. And, in due course, they arrived at the door of the room with the computer console on it.

“What’s in here?” Vanderdecker asked, curiously. “It doesn’t seem as badly damaged as the rest of it all.”

“It’s the computer room,” Montalban replied. “Everything in here is the state of the art in heat-resistance technology.”

“Shoo!”

“Bless you,” Vanderdecker said instinctively, but the Professor wasn’t sneezing. He was getting the cat off the console.

“That explains it,” he said. “That dratted animal has pressed all the wrong buttons.” Montalban typed frantically for a moment, but the needle on the Fabergé egg continued to rise and “The Blue Danube” was getting faster and faster. “It’s switched off most of the failsafe mechanisms,” Montalban explained crossly. “You naughty boy!” he said. The cat looked at him.

“So that’s it, is it?” Vanderdecker asked. “There really is nothing we can do?”

“We could leave,” the professor suggested, “before the entire complex blows up, with a force approximately nine hundred times that of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs put together. I think in the circumstances that leaving would be extremely prudent.”

“Fine,” Vanderdecker said. “You just shove off, then. I think I’ll stay here for a bit.” He kicked the table.

“Well, goodbye then,” Montalban said, “it was so nice to have seen you again. Do drop in if ever you happen to be passing.”

The Fabergé egg had stopped playing “The Blue Danube” and struck up “The Minute Waltz”. Montalban dropped it, screamed, and fled.

“Here, Captain,” said Sebastian. Vanderdecker turned round and looked at him. He was standing by a small door like a safe-deposit box with a lurid black and red skull and crossbones stencilled on it. “Pirates?” he suggested.

“Very possibly, Sebastian,” said the Flying Dutchman, “very possibly.”

“Good,” Sebastian said. “I always loved pirates,” then he opened the door and walked in. There was a searing flash of blue light, and the world was blotted out.

Half an hour later, Sebastian got up. He looked around, pinched himself, and swore.

“All right then,” he said to the sky, which was visible through a large hole in the ceiling. “I give up. Forget it. You win.”

He realised he was still holding the handle of the door. The rest of the door was nowhere to be seen. Then he noticed something else. He sniffed.

“Hello,” said the voice from under the fallen lump of ceiling. “Is anybody there?”

“Is that you captain?”

“Yes. Sebastian?”

“Captain,” Sebastian said, and his voice was rather shaky, “I don’t think I smell any more. Do you think I smell, skip?”

“I don’t know, Sebastian. I’m not sure. Perhaps if you got this slab of concrete off me, I might be able to give you a considered opinion.”

Sebastian thought for a moment, and then went to get the others. This took time, as some of them were similarly covered in architecture, but eventually they were all assembled and together they heaved Vanderdecker out from under the slab.

“Thanks,” he said, brushing dust off himself. “You’re right, Sebastian, you don’t. Has anyone seen my egg?”

“Which egg?”

“The shiny Stone egg that plays tunes, Antonius.”

“Oh,” said the first mate, “that egg. Here you are.”

“Thank you.” Vanderdecker looked at it for a moment. “Well,” he said, “fancy that. Maybe it’s just broken.” He shook it vigorously. The needle stayed resolutely on Normal.

“In fact,” Vanderdecker said, “none of us do.”

“Do what, skip?”

“Smell, Antonius. The smell would seem to have disappeared. Isn’t that jolly?”

There was a ripple of whispering, and the crew of the Verdomde sniffed at each other. Then they started to cheer.

All except Antonius, the first mate. He would have cheered, but something was puzzling him. As always, when he was puzzled he consulted his captain.

“Skipper,” he said, “why don’t we smell anymore?”

“That,” Vanderdecker replied, “is the thousand moidore question. Why indeed? I can only imagine…”

“Yes?” Antonius said, his eyes alight with anticipation. Vanderdecker didn’t reply. He was frowning too.

“Well anyway,” he said. “I owe you a pint.”

“Why, skipper?”

“I promised I’d buy you a…”

“No,” said Antonius, “not that. Why have we stopped smelling?”

“I don’t know,” Vanderdecker confessed. “I really don’t. Nor do I know why the power station has stopped burning and the radioactivity has dropped down to its normal ambient level. I’d ask the professor, only he isn’t here. It’s a real mystery, if you ask me.”

“Oh.” Antonius’s face had caved in. “You sure you don’t know?”

Vanderdecker suddenly felt terribly guilty. “Of course,” he said. “I’m only guessing, but purely off the top of my head it would just be that we took the full black of the explosion when Sebastian inadvertently opened some sort of pressure lock and triggered off the nuclear reaction, and that all the radiation crashing into our systems carried out some sort of molecular change that counteracted the molecular change that took place when we drank the elixir in the first place. Meanwhile, the sheer force of the explosion, which must have used up all the available oxygen inside the place, just snuffed out the flames and furthermore triggered off some sort of chain reaction which somehow or other reprocesses away all the loose radiation which had escaped previously. And here we all are. Do you see what I’m getting at?”

“No,” said Antonius happily. “But if that’s what you say happened, that’s good enough for me and the lads. Isn’t it, lads?”

The lads, of course, hadn’t been listening. They were too busy cheering and yelling and generally not smelling horrible to listen to anything. But Vanderdecker had thought of something; what if the reaction had indeed reversed the effects of the elixir? And they were now all mortal again?

“I wonder,” he said to himself.

“What’s that, skipper?” Antonius asked, and Vanderdecker pigeonholed the immortality question. He was just starting to realise what life without the “smell” could possibly mean. So maybe he wasn’t immortal any longer. Maybe. There was no need to put it to the test immediately, now was there?

“I was wondering,” Vanderdecker said, “where we can get a pint or so of beer in these parts.”

“And some clothes, skip,” Antonius said. “We haven’t got any. They got burnt,” he explained.

“So they did,” replied the Flying Dutchman. “We’d better get some more, hadn’t we?”

“Good idea, skip,” Antonius said. “Where?”

Vanderdecker smiled. “Tell you what, Antonius,” he said. “You think of something.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you.”

“Oh.” Antonius considered. “I don’t know,” he said.

“Don’t you?” said the Flying Dutchman. “Sorry, I thought you were just going to volunteer to walk over to the nearest evacuated village, break a few windows, and come back with some clothes for us. Wasn’t that what you were just going to suggest?”

“No,” Antonius replied truthfully.

“Well,” Vanderdecker said, “what do you think of it, as a suggestion? You can be honest with me if you think it’s no good.”

“I’ll give it a shot, skipper,” Antonius said. “Which way to the village?”