Overhead, the cannon fired another round into the belly of Westminster.
“No, my sweet,” said Otto. “I may be the master villain in this town, but I ain’t a bad man. Them are, in the main, innocent Jacks and Jills up there. And we shall truly be the high honorable regals in the Great Oven if’n we are the ones that slay the dragon.”
Witmeyer hung her head. “Very well, Otto. Tell the boy.”
Malarkey switched his caring face to his business one. “How many bang-bangs we got left?”
Riley looked in the trunk. A single missile lay cushioned in foam.
“Just the one,” he said, twisting it into the nozzle as he’d seen Chevie do. “Will it be enough?”
Malarkey scratched his beard. “I suppose we is about to find that out, ain’t we?”
He spent a minute considering, then issued his instruction as though it was a royal decree.
“The bridge is metal, except for the piers, which are stone. Aim for this end of the pier.”
The tank was directly over the sixth pier, which at low tide stood exposed like a spindly horse leg that could not possibly support the weight plunked on top of it.
Let’s hope not, thought Chevie.
“Take the shot, Riley,” she said. “I trust you.”
I don’t even trust me own self, thought Riley. As far as he could figure, if he did not knock that metal beast from its perch, then all manner of catastrophe would descend on his beloved country, the most immediate being the destruction of Parliament and all the toffs debating therein.
Though if they’re still debating with all this racket going on, then they’re a dimmer bunch than I thought.
“Shoot, Riley,” said Chevie. “Quick, before she reloads.”
Fingers crossed, thought Riley and he pulled the trigger for the second time.
Vallicose felt the second RPG hit and wondered, Could that be the end for me?
Was it possible that God had deserted her at the last moment?
No. Not possible.
This is my revolution, she thought inside the cauldron of the tank’s hellish heat. The Blessed Thundercat, they will call me. The faithful shall be named Clovites. And a clover shall be my symbol.
Perhaps it was a little premature to be considering symbols; better wait till the job was done.
The tank was listing severely, so a little recalculation was necessary in order to ensure maximum destruction of the old regime.
Lower the barrel twenty degrees, thought Vallicose happily. Maybe a smidge left. Five degrees.
There was a nice little fire raging in Parliament now. Vallicose could imagine the right honorables suddenly praying to a god they had ignored for decades.
It is too late, my fine fellows, she thought, loading the tube. She began to whistle the tune for “The Colonel’s Mustache” before stopping herself with a barked laugh.
That song is dead. Schoolchildren will sing songs about me.
A thought struck her and she was instantly sad.
Oh dear. I shall never be able to kill the queen now. Shame.
Still, she was reasonably sure the emancipated citizens would lynch Victoria in the street.
And that would have to do.
Malarkey shaded his eyes against the nonexistent glare while he studied the fissure the RPG had put in the near side of the stone strut.
“You botched it, Ramlet. You shoot like a…”
Chevie was not in the mood for stereotyping. “Like a what, Otto?”
Witmeyer found herself in exactly the same mood. “Yes, he shoots like a what, darling?”
Malarkey had not gotten to be king for so long by being slow on the uptake. “Like a novice, my sweet. Like a total novice.”
Chevie pulled the launcher from her shoulder one-handed and lowered it into the Thames to make sure no one else figured out how to use it.
Riley was despondent. “Well, believe it or not, those were my first times firing a rocket.”
Malarkey punched him playfully. “I do believe it, Ramlet. I have not a problem in the world believing it.”
Riley was staring up at the fissure, which was jagged and cavernous, as though the troll who lived under this particular bridge had taken a humongous bite out of the stone. But although the bite had penetrated almost to the very surface, it seemed as though the metal frame would hold.
“Well, that’s that then,” said Witmeyer, sounding a little relieved. “Even if we could fly, it would be too late. We should remove ourselves before the entire empire descends.”
Malarkey nodded. “The militia will finish her off eventually.”
“Eventually is too late,” said Chevie through gritted teeth. “We are so close. So close. After everything we have been through.”
Chevie could not shake the feeling that somehow, even though the soldiers had been scattered and the weapons washed into the Thames, the Revolution would still catch fire. Perhaps the destruction of their government would be enough to inspire the city’s malcontents.
If Vallicose were allowed to fire one more shell…
As if on cue, the tank shuddered, and from its long barrel blasted another shell. It arced over the barricade of carriages, cannon, and clotted humanity, and disappeared into the belly of the Palace of Westminster, where God only knew how much damage it was causing.
And as Chevie watched the shell’s progress, Riley watched the bridge.
“Look,” he said. “The troll is hungry.”
Vallicose pressed the fire button and felt the recoil force the tank deeper into the fissure. If the tank had been square on its treads, the dampers and suspension would have absorbed most of the recoil; but this tank was off-kilter and, truth be told, the grease monkey who had worked on the suspension probably hadn’t excelled in mechanic school. The recoil shock was transmitted through the tank and into the bridge, forcing the fissure open about a foot, which was just enough to shear off the chunk of bridge on which sixty percent of the tank’s weight rested. It happened so slowly that Vallicose had time to change gears and attempt to seesaw the tank from the widening fissure, but it happened too quickly for her to succeed. A rough pyramid of stone and iron twisted away from the bridge and plunged into the river below. The tank teetered for a long moment, its right track spinning in the air, but gravity was gravity and would not be confounded, and so, with a shudder and shrug, the tank tipped over and fell, groaning and shrieking all the way down.
For Vallicose the fall seemed interminable, and despite the ferocious buffeting and the screams issuing from her mouth, she found the time for some last thoughts.
This is a tight spot, she thought. It will be interesting to see how God extricates me from this one. Whatever happens, it will be the stuff of legend. Sister Vallicose, they will say, the risen phoenix.
A rhyme occurred to her, to the tune of “The Colonel’s Mustache”:
Gone in a flash
Gone in a flash
The Westminster Bridge
Was nothing but trash
But Vallicose brave
Had not breathed her last
Like the phoenix she flew
Up from the ash
Vallicose was not sure about rhyming trash with flash. Was the word trash popular in nineteenth-century London?
The truth was that Vallicose was occupying her brain with all this poetry and nonsense because she was distracting herself from a certainty that had suddenly nailed itself to the inside of her mind.
And though she had only a few seconds left to live, the thought grew louder and roared in her ears until she had no option but to scream it aloud.
“I was wrong!” she howled as the black river rushed up hard, as unforgiving as metal.
“I was wroooooong!”
Witmeyer followed the tank’s creak, yaw, and tumble.
&nb
sp; “It’s only fifty feet or so. Clove might survive.”
Chevie, Riley, and Malarkey slid each other a triangle of glances that spoke volumes.
She ain’t surviving that, said the looks, and: Fifty feet? Who taught you to measure?
It was just within the realm of possibility that Vallicose might survive—if she was strapped into her seat and generously padded with teddy bears. Unfortunately for her, the huge chunk of masonry from the bridge had trapped a little air, and it stayed afloat long enough for the tank to land on top of it and blow itself to a million pieces of metal and bone.
The explosion was awesome in the biblical sense, which Vallicose might have liked if only she had held on to her faith in that final moment. It seemed that all of London recoiled from the detonation—from the swarms on the bridge to the river itself. Chevie swore she saw the pasty riverbed just before she ducked to avoid shrapnel that included granite chips, twisted rivets, and the skeleton of a small creature that seemed to be half-crab, half-pig.
Riley too saw the skeleton as it skimmed the gunwale, snapped its claws on the way past—an effect of its velocity, surely—then disappeared over the starboard bow.
I shall never speak of that, he decided.
In a comical line the amphibian’s crew peeped over the gunwale to witness a boiling mushroom of smoke with snakes of flame in its fat stem.
For a long moment after the terrific sustained commotion of shell, cannonball, and explosion, there seemed to be a noise vacuum into which even the birdsong and wavelets tumbled. Life proceeded silently, as if everyday sounds had faded to insignificance.
Then Lunka Witmeyer spoke.
“Well,” she said. “I don’t think there’s any point in combing the wreckage.”
And the sounds of the world came rushing back. From above, the shrieks and howls of the injured, and the horns and sirens of the water brigades. And from behind, the chug of engines and the shouts of authoritative voices through speaking-trumpets.
“Halt!” said the voices. And, “Heave to, there.” And, “Prepare to be boarded.”
Malarkey turned to see a ragtag flotilla of Her Majesty’s naval vessels, penny steamers, and flat barges bearing down on their position.
“So much for thank-yous. I was expecting a medal.”
Witmeyer linked arms with him. “This way is better, Otto. This way is mysterious.”
Malarkey smiled. “Already, you know me so well.”
He clambered onto the wheelhouse and played to the citizens hanging over the railings.
“Fear not, my people. The danger is past. Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair, for the Ram has slain the dragon.” He raised a stiff finger and projected to the heavens. “Remember that your queen could not save you—a king was needed.”
Otto bowed low and spoke sotto voce under his armpit to Witmeyer, who stood at the wheel. “That is your cue to motor us out of here, my love. Leave ’em breathless.”
From where she lay on the deck, Chevie thought that Malarkey probably would have risen to kingship in any age. And if not kingship, definitely reality-TV star.
Witmeyer toggled the gear lever into drive, then easily threaded the amphibian through the fleet of steam and sail vessels. Though scores of wide eyes stared at them and dozens of gaping jaws flapped their way, Witmeyer acknowledged not a single one, while Otto took bow after bow.
Riley cozied up beside Chevie, trying to cushion her from the worst of the boat’s jostling.
“We have done it, Chevie,” he said. “We have changed the world back to how it should be.”
Chevie huffed. “Not all the way back, kid. There’s a hole in Westminster Bridge that wasn’t supposed to be there. And half of London has seen a tank.”
Riley held her close. “At least Box is gone, eh?”
Chevie’s smile would not have looked out of place on a wolf.
“Yes. At least Box is gone.”
So perhaps her father would live, or at least die better. Same for DeeDee.
Once the amphibian had cleared the other craft and the flotsam from the explosions, Witmeyer opened the throttle wide and powered the amphibian across the silver-red sunset waves of the Thames. Within seconds, all that could be seen of the amphibian from Westminster was the twin arcs of its wake.
In the end there is no end, especially where time travel is concerned. As soon as you start thinking everything’s resolved, a whole lot of ramifications come down the wormhole. By the way, I know you people are calling my wormhole the Smarthole. That isn’t very complimentary where I come from.
—Professor Charles Smart
THE ORIENT THEATRE, HOLBORN, LONDON, 1899
Otto Malarkey lounged in a seat in the Orient Theatre, silent for an uncommonly long period. The first reason for his silence was fitting, as the last time he had been in the Orient he had witnessed the slaughter of his own brother and a band of his bully chums besides. Also, he had been considerably bashed about his own self. For these pains he was certainly due a ruminative moment. But his second reason was a little churlish, considering all that had happened.
“You had to sink the boat?” he finally said, nailing Chevie with a baleful eye. “That wonderful craft. King of the seas, I could have been.”
Chevie was in quite a bit of pain, despite the thimble of laudanum Riley had prescribed before he sealed the wound with a single stitch. She guessed rightly that the boy had often been forced to clean up the battle wounds of his old master. And being in such pain, she was not in the mood for any of Malarkey’s guff. “You are king of the city, which should be enough for you. And anyway, you saw what those weapons could do, Otto. You saw it up close.”
Chevie sat on the lip of the stage with her back to the drawn velvet curtain, picking at the doorstop sandwich Riley had prepared for her.
Carbohydrates haven’t been invented yet, she thought, so this doesn’t count. Also, I have been shot.
She had, however, refused the tankard of ale Riley had offered and was instead drinking a mug of sour water that she doubted had been filtered through Scottish Highland rock.
More likely it was filtered through a filthy drainpipe, she thought, and then: I am not having much luck with water in this century.
“Bah,” said Otto. “You have a mouth on you, girl. And you are one step away from royal disfavor. But I will make allowances on account of the scratch on yer shoulder.”
It had taken no time at all to lose the navy pursuit boats, and Otto had casually suggested that he knew a quiet dock in Limehouse where a cove might stick a boat he didn’t want investigated. Chevie could do little about the Limehouse berth, but she could certainly lob a couple of grenades into the weapons locker after they disembarked, just to make sure that the amphibian was not adapted by Otto’s boys for river piracy. Malarkey was still sulking about this, or more accurately, he had saved up the sulk until Lunka Witmeyer was out of earshot, and now that the ex-Thundercat was picking out some new duds from the Orient’s wardrobe room, Malarkey was letting fly at Chevie.
“It is a sin to destroy a thing of such grace and beauty,” he proclaimed. “And that boat were beautiful, no doubt about it. And dangerous with it.”
Chevie swallowed a corner of sandwich. “Oh, yeah. Beautiful and dangerous. They’re going to carve that on your headstone. Here lies Otto Malarkey, killed by something beautiful and dangerous.”
And speaking of beautiful and dangerous, the curtain opened in a series of swishes, revealing Lunka Witmeyer center stage. She was wearing a tan twill riding skirt, which would mark her as possibly American but nothing more out of the ordinary than that, and boots that buttoned to her knees. A red tapestry jacket and white ruffle-necked blouse completed the outfit. All in all, she looked quite striking.
“What do you think?” she asked.
Chevie glanced over her shoulder. “I think you should ligh
t a candle in that dressing room. Your outfit looks like you picked it out in the dark.”
It was clear that Chevie wasn’t about to forgive Witmeyer yet for her past transgressions.
“You better shut your entire face or I might forget you’re injured,” warned Witmeyer.
Chevie laughed. “Any time, Thundercat.”
Malarkey vaulted onstage and lifted Witmeyer’s hand, twirling her under his arm.
“Lord, oh Lord,” he said. “You is a picture, and no mistake.”
Malarkey had sent a boy with a list of errands to Figary, and the Irish butler, who had picked this moment to arrive at the theater, overheard Malarkey’s picture comment.
“A picture, is it?” he said, incorrectly assuming that the commodore was teasing this Amazonian warrior woman. Figary was not a cruel man, but like most Gaels he had trouble holding in a jibe, however cutting.
“A picture painted by a one-eyed, drunken monkey…” he said. But as the words were tumbling from his mouth, Figary registered the diverse cooing and fluttering that were passing between the commodore and this strange lady, and he decided he should change tack before his mouth got him killed as his dear old ma had always predicted it would.
“…which is exactly what I said last week to a man with a gallery on the Strand,” said Figary smoothly. “This, on the other hand, is a picture of physical perfection, so it is.”
He needn’t have bothered. Witmeyer and Malarkey were deaf and blind to anything besides each other.
Riley emerged from the wings with a platter of bread, cheese, and meats.
“I usually don’t allow foodstuffs on the stage. For one, it’s bad luck, and for two, I have to sweep the stage meself. Both star and skivvy, that’s me.”
Malarkey surfaced from the sea of love. “Riley, boy, you have done a fine job with the wardrobe. Miss Witmeyer is a stunner, is she not?”
Riley nodded but kept his mouth shut. Chevie could not keep quiet.
“She has certainly stunned me a few times,” she said.
Riley offered her a wedge of cheese. “Why don’t you stuff that in your trap? It would be healthy for both of us.”