Novel - Airman

  Billtoe leaned over the edge, peering down into the lamplit abyss. The bell glowed and shimmered in the dark waters, humming with every stroke of the current. Through the filthy porthole he could see vague movements and shadows. Finn and Malarkey mining, he presumed. Best of luck, Salts. Bring back a goose egg for Uncle Arthur.

  Billtoe spat a second wad of chewed tobacco, and this time it sailed into the hole, landing on the bell’s rubber air hose. “Hmmm,” he grunted proudly, winking at Pike. Then he strode to the ladder, trying to project an air of incorruptibility. He wanted to be on the rocks when Finn and Malarkey surfaced.

  “Here, Arthur,” Pike called after him. “You’re walking funny. Was it that herring?”

  Billtoe scowled. He would have to do something about Pike. “No, you hunchbacked, hairless son of a circus oddity. I am being incorruptible.”

  “That would have been my second guess,” said Pike, who, like many dullards, had a streak of sharp wit in him. ***

  Conor Finn and Otto Malarkey fought like demons inside the diving bell. Their makeshift swords sang as they cut the air and sparked along each other’s shafts. Both men perspired freely, breathing so deeply that the water level rose at their feet. They were sucking in air faster than the pump could supply it.

  “Your Balestra is clumsy,” panted Conor. “More grace, Otto. You are not a hog in a pen.” Malarkey smiled tightly. “Hogs are dangerous animals, Conor. If you are not careful, they can run you through.”

  And with that, he abandoned the rules of fencing, dropping his blade and charging his opponent, arms spread.

  Conor reacted quickly, falling to his stomach and rolling underwater, knocking Malarkey’s legs from under him. The big man went down heavily, clanging his temple against the bell curve on his way down. By the time he recovered his bearings, Conor had his trident jammed under his chins. “Your hair looks well,” said Conor. “A healthy shine.”

  Malarkey preened. “You’re not the only one to notice. I’ve been eating the oily fish, as you suggested. It’s costing me a fortune in bribes and I hate the stuff, but with results like this I will suffer the taste.”

  Conor helped Malarkey to his feet. “You need to practice the Balestra. It is a dancer’s leap, not a drunken stumble. But apart from that, your progress is good.”

  Malarkey rubbed his head. “Yours, too. That was a neat little roll just then. The king of the tinkers couldn’t have done it sweeter. I have never seen a fighter like you, Conor. There’s the swordplay, which is mostly Spanish, but with some French. Then the proper pugilism, which I would class as English. But there’s the chopping and kicking too, which I have a notion is Oriental. I saw a fellow once in the West End, gave a demonstration of that chopping and kicking. Broke a plank with his foot. At the time I thought it was trickery, but now I am glad I didn’t call him on it.”

  An image of Victor flashed behind Conor’s eyes. He snuffed it out brutally. “I have picked up a few things in my travels,” he said.

  Malarkey huffed. “Typical Conor Finn. Most people in here are desperate for someone to listen to their story. Telling it to the walls, they are. Not Conor Finn. Two years you’ve been instructing me, and I have learned no more than a dozen useless facts about you in that time. The most obvious being that your beard is multicolored.”

  Conor bent at the knees, examining his burgeoning beard in the water. As far as he could tell, there were strands of blond, red, and even a few gray in the sparse growth. Surely gray was unusual in the beard of a sixteen-year-old boy. No matter. It gave him the appearance of someone perhaps five years older.

  He had changed utterly in the past two years. Gone was the gangly, skinny youth who had sobbed his way through his first night of imprisonment, and in his place was a tall, muscled, flinty young man who commanded respect from inmates and guards alike. People might not like him, or seek his company, but neither would they toss insults his way or interfere with his business.

  “You should shave that beard,” commented Malarkey. “All your lovely hair, then that ratty beard. People only notice the beard, you know.”

  Conor straightened. His blond hair was pulled back with a thong so that it did not interfere with his work. It had darkened a few shades since he last walked in the sunlight. “I am not as concerned with grooming as you, Otto. I am concerned with business. Tell me, how is our hoard?”

  “It grows,” said Malarkey. “Seven bags buried, we have now. All in the salsa beds.”

  Conor smiled, satisfied. Billtoe had ordered the Suaeda salsa beds planted on Conor’s own advice. The plants grew like weeds, were saline resistant, and provided cheap meals for the convicts. This meant a few pounds a month for Billtoe to steal from the food funds. Of course, prisoners had to be allowed to tend the beds, which was when Malarkey and his Rams buried their stolen diamonds.

  “Not that they do us much good in the earth,” continued Malarkey. “Unless a diamond bush sprouts, and even then Billtoe would strip it bare.”

  “Trust me, Otto,” said Conor. “I don’t intend being here forever. Somehow I will get our stones and send your share to your brother, Zeb. I promise you that, my friend.”

  Otto clasped his shoulders. “The Rams have certain funds, but with riches on that scale, my brother could bribe my way out of here. I could be a free man. I could stroll through Hyde Park with my magnificent hair.”

  “I will succeed, my friend. Or die in the attempt. If you are not free in a year, it is because I am dead.”

  Malarkey did not waste his breath asking Conor for details of his plan. Conor Finn laid out his cards sparingly. Another subject then: “Badger Byrne has not paid his due yet,” he said. “How’s about I issue a few taps?”

  “No more violence, remember. Anyway, Badger has been laid up with shingles, I hear. Let him rest awhile.”

  Otto Malarkey pursed his lips in frustration. “Rest, Conor? Rest? Always the same response with you. I haven’t dished out a beating since you took the ink.”

  Conor rubbed the Battering Ram tattoo on his upper arm. “That’s hardly true, Otto. You near drove MacKenna into open water.”

  “True,” admitted Malarkey, grinning. “But he’s a guard. And English too.”

  “All great strategists know when to use force and when to use reason. Alexander of Macedonia, Napoleon. . . .”

  Malarkey laughed outright. “Oh aye, little Boney was a great one for the reason. Just ask anyone that was at Waterloo.”

  “The point is that we have seven bags now, where we had none before. Seven bags. A tidy fortune.”

  “It might as well be seven bags of clay,” scoffed Malarkey. “Until your plan succeeds. I don’t know how you’re going to do it. Even the guards have not managed to smuggle diamonds from Little Saltee. A man would need wings.”

  Conor glanced sharply at Malarkey. Could he know something? No, he realized. It was just a turn of phrase. “Yes,” he said. “A man would indeed need wings.”

  * * *

  Billtoe was waiting for them at the shoreline, up to his ankles in water just in case another guard would beat him to the search. “Right, you two lemon-sucking, scurvy dodgers. Stand away from each other and raise your arms.”

  Conor fought the urge to strike this pathetic grafter. To assault Billtoe would surely be satisfying briefly; but it would just as surely lead to a beating that would leave him near dead and incapacitated. He could not afford to be incapacitated now, not when things were going so well with the design. Not with the coronation so close.

  Billtoe began his search, making a great show of being thorough. “You’ll get nothing past me, Finn. Not so much as a bubble of seaweed. No, sir. Arthur Billtoe knows all your tricks.” The man was as good as advertising his intentions. Protesting too much.

  Presently, he happened across the small stone in the leg of Conor’s much-repaired army breeches. Without a word, he flicked the diamond up his own sleeve. This was his payment for a lax search. “Any news?” Conor asked, while Billtoe moved on
to Malarkey.

  Billtoe laughed. “You Salts are devils for news, aren’t you. The most mud-boring happening is like a golden nugget to you.”

  “More like a diamond,” said Conor.

  Billtoe’s hands froze on Malarkey’s shoulders. “Is that insolence, soldier boy? Did I hear insolence?”

  Conor hung his head. “No, sir, Mister Billtoe. I was trying to be humorous. Friendly, like. I misjudged the moment, I think now.”

  “I think that too,” said Billtoe, frowning, but his expression improved when he came across the stone in Otto’s shirt pocket. “Then again, nothing wrong with a bit of humor. We’re all men, after all. Wouldn’t want you to think that we guards didn’t have hearts in our chests.”

  “Yes, Mister Billtoe. I will work on my delivery, perhaps.”

  “You do that,” said Billtoe. “Now let me deliver some news.” He paused. “Did you see that? You said delivery, then I repeated it in my sentence. Now, that’s delivery. Pay attention, Finn, you could learn something.”

  Only in prison, thought Conor, could such a bore be tolerated. “I shall keep my ears open and my mouth closed, Mister Billtoe.”

  “Good man, Finn. You’re learning, if slowly.” A year ago, Billtoe would have punctuated this lesson with a dig from his rifle butt, but he hesitated these days before striking Finn. It did not do to unnecessarily antagonize the Battering Rams, and Conor Finn himself was not a young man you wanted snapping on you. He cut a fearsome figure, except for the beard, which could have done with some foliage.

  “Anyway. My nugget of news. Queen Victoria of Great Britain has declared a wish to attend Princess Isabella’s coronation. She will not come on the fourteenth, because she believes the number to be unlucky, having lost a grandson on that date. So the coronation has been moved forward two weeks to the first of the month, though Isabella will be still sixteen. We will see your balloons then. Or should I say, my balloons.”

  Conor’s practiced composure almost slipped away from him, to reveal internal turmoil. The first. He was not ready. Everything was not in place. “The first?” he blurted. “The first, you say, Mister Billtoe.”

  Billtoe cackled and spat. “Yes, the first, Finn. Did you not receive your invitation? I keep mine with me at all times, tucked into my velvet cummerbund.” Billtoe’s tasteless chuckles died in his throat, as he noticed Conor’s expression. Fearsome was the best word to describe it. And while the prisoner made no aggressive move, Billtoe decided that it was best not to prod him anymore. He made a silent decision that Conor Finn would have to spend a few days in his cell alone, to learn some humility, Ram or no Ram.

  The guard relieved Conor and Malarkey of their diamond nets, ushering them toward the ladder. He thrust his fingers among the dozen or so wet stones in each net. The rough diamonds were like glazed eyes, slipping and clanking. Billtoe could tell it was mostly dross. The best was in his sleeve.

  “Traps shut now, both of you. Climb on out and thank God that I didn’t decide to shoot you for no good reason. You are alive today because of Billtoe, never forget that.”

  Malarkey rolled his eyes. “Yes, Mister Billtoe. We thank God for it.” They climbed from the pit and into the pantry. The entire room was in constant vibration from tidal shock, and scores of water jets spurted and drooped with each pulse of water. Every day for the past two years, it had seemed to Conor as though the subterranean mine must surely collapse. Every day he had longed to work above sea level with the so-called normal inmates, but his requests were refused.

  Orders from the palace, Billtoe had told him. If Bonvilain wants you underground, then that’s where you stay.

  In all his time on the island, Conor had only been allowed outside once, to supervise the planting of the salsa garden. On that day, the salt-blasted surface of Little Saltee had seemed like a paradise.

  Conor winked a farewell to Otto Malarkey as Pike led the Battering Ram to his cell. Billtoe led him away from the main building to the mad wing’s main door. As with all the wings, there were no keys to this door, just a heavy vertical bolt that was winched from the next floor up. Billtoe rang the bell, then doffed his hat and showed his face to the guard above.

  “The right place for you, Billtoe,” called the guard through the spy hole, then hoisted the bolt.

  “Every day,” muttered Billtoe, flinging the door wide. “Every blooming day, the same comment.”

  Conor waited until they were deep into the mad wing’s slowly collapsing corridor before speaking. His arrangements with Billtoe must be kept secret.

  “Have my sheets arrived?”

  This cheered Billtoe immediately. He had forgotten the sheets. “Ah, yes. His Majesty’s extra sheets. Today or tomorrow, I am not sure. What’s your hurry?”

  Conor strove to look shamefaced. “I cannot sleep, Mister Billtoe. My mind has convinced my body that if I had sheets, as though I were a boy in my mother’s house, then maybe a day’s rest would be mine.”

  Billtoe nodded at one of the chimney flues dotting the wall. “Maybe we should stuff you up the chimney. The ghosts could sing you a lullaby.” The flues ran in complicated routes behind the prison walls, once a network of hot air, now sealed tight by stone and mortar, but still Salts scrambled up, given the chance, only to lose themselves in the twists and turns, one stone corner looking much like another.

  “Anyway, sheets is against regulations,” Billtoe said, holding out his empty hand, though he had already been paid.

  Conor clasped the hand, passing on the rough diamond he had been keeping for himself. “I know, Mister Billtoe. You’re a saint. With a few hours’ sleep behind me, I will work doubly hard for you.”

  Billtoe squinted craftily. “More than double. Treble.”

  Conor bowed his head. “Treble, then.”

  “And I need more ideas,” pressed Billtoe. “Like the salsa and the balloons.”

  “I will set my brain on it. With some sleep, I feel certain the blood will flow more freely. I have a notion for a twelve-shot revolver.”

  “I don’t know about that,” said Billtoe, frowning. “It’s one thing to allow prisoners to dig in a garden or draw a balloon, but playacting with firearms . . .”

  Conor shrugged. “Think on it, Mister Billtoe. There’s a lot of coin in arms. We could be partners upon my release.”

  Greed shone in Billtoe’s eyes like yellow fever. Partners?

  Not likely. If Finn’s twelve-shot revolver worked, then it would be Arthur Billtoe’s notion. Bedsheets were a small price to pay.

  “Partners it is. I’ll get those sheets down to you next shift.”

  “Silk,” Conor reminded him. “They must be silk. I had silk as a child.”

  Billtoe balked, then checked himself. A twelve-shot revolver. His name would go down in history with Colt and Remington. “Very well, Finn. But I warn you, these balloons of yours better work on the day. If they do not, you will suffer.”

  If my balloons don’t work, I will do more than suffer, thought Conor. I will die.

  During his internment on Little Saltee, Conor had managed to barter for a few basic comforts. A bucket of mortar sat on a stone and was used to patch the weeping walls. A sewing kit to repair his worn uniform was wrapped in leather and hung from a peg. He had even managed to secure a straw mattress for his bed. Linus Wynter’s cot had been converted to a table, where he could study the few texts that Billtoe had deemed harmless and work on the plans for his approved schemes, such as the salsa garden and the coronation balloons.

  In fact the salsa garden had not been Conor’s idea. Victor had talked of it during one of their horticultural lessons. The Parisian had even written to King Nicholas about introducing the vegetable to the Saltees. The advantages of such a plot were threefold, he explained. It would allow the prisoners outdoors for some exercise, it would teach them a valuable skill, and the salsa itself would add a much needed vegetable to prison meals.

  It was a harmless idea, presented by Conor to gain Billtoe’s trust. There w
ere no disadvantages and no possibility of escape or injury. No one had ever died from vegetable assault. Coronation balloons were Conor’s next suggestion. Billtoe had seized eagerly on the idea, puffed with the success of the salsa garden. In Billtoe’s mind, the coronation balloons were his ticket to promotion; in actuality they were Conor Finn’s ticket to freedom.

  There were several major obstacles standing between Conor and escape to the mainland. There were locks, of course, and the doors around them, and the walls in which the doors were embedded, and the guards on duty outside these walls. But the main difficulty was the island itself. Even if an inmate could pass through the prison walls like a specter, there were still over two miles of ocean between him and the Irish village of Kilmore.

  This particular stretch of ocean was notoriously unsafe, with riptides and currents that lurked beneath the surface like malignant agents of Poseidon. So many vessels had been lost in this patch of St. George’s Channel that the British navy painted it red on their charts. And even if the seas did not do for an escapee, the famous Saltee Sharpshooters would put a few airholes in the back of his head. So swimming for the shore was not a realistic option. No, the only way to escape Little Saltee was to fly, and that was where Conor’s coronation balloons came in.

  It would be a spectacular addition to the coronation celebrations, he had told Billtoe one night on their walk to the Pipe, if the Saltee Sharpshooters could pick hot air balloons from the night sky. What a display of marksmanship.

  Billtoe was not convinced. Shooting balloons, he sniffed. A child’s trick.

  Conor was expecting this response. But what if the balloons were loaded with Chinese fireworks? he said. And when struck, would light up the night sky with a string of spectacular explosions?

  Billtoe stopped sniffing. Spectacular explosions, eh?

  This is a brand new invention, Conor continued. This has never been seen before. Marshall Bonvilain would be extremely impressed.