The Japanese Devil Fish Girl and Other Unnatural Attractions

  ‘Time to leave,’ said Ada Fox. ‘Hurry, George dear, please.’

  From the cold and cloistered world that was Westminster, George and Ada emerged into a London bathed in sunlight. A London joyous of the Empire that surrounded it. Proud of its achievements. Certain in the knowledge that it would ever prevail.

  Here was London in the full throes of celebration. Whipped up to a frenzy of excitement by the arrival of the most sacred object in all of the universe. This London feared nothing. This London was of England. And England was for ever.

  George put his arm about his wife’s shoulder. ‘All will be well,’ he told her. ‘Somehow, all will be well.’

  A ragged paperboy approached them with his papers.

  ‘Special edition, guv’nor,’ he cried out.

  ‘All about the statue, is it?’ George asked as the lad approached.

  ‘Nah,’ said the paperboy. ‘It’s about the outbreak of war.’

  George purchased a paper and held it before him.WAR

  it read, in letters big and bold. And then went on in a polite and solicitous fashion to inform the population of London that regrettably a state of war now existed between Great Britain and the forces of Venus and Jupiter, which together formed an ‘unholy alliance’ and an ‘Evil Empire’. London, however, was well defended. But in order to guarantee the safety of its citizens, it would be appreciated if they would repair to places of safety – to wit, the platforms of the newly constructed London Underground Railway System – at the sound of an air-raid siren.

  ‘Air-raid siren?’ Ada queried. ‘What is an air-raid siren? Some kind of singing lady in a pilot’s uniform and high heels?’

  ‘Mm,’ went George, thoughtfully. ‘I am sure we will find out. But let us hope it does not come to that.’

  ‘I think Mr Churchill is a man of deeds rather than words,’ said Ada. ‘I do not think diplomacy will win the day.’

  They stood and looked up at Big Ben. The clock was striking four. ‘Time for tea, I think,’ said Ada Fox.

  ‘Tea?’ asked George. ‘At a time like this?’

  ‘What better time could there be?’

  They strolled together arm in arm along the streets of London, both aware now just how precious their surroundings were. Each storefront, café, restaurant or pub seemed suddenly something that must be clung to, treasured. Each somehow fragile, its very existence as frail as a bubble of soap.

  ‘The thought of all this being destroyed,’ said George, ‘is making me feel quite sick.’

  ‘Tea will help for certain, then,’ said Ada.

  As they strolled further they saw folk clutching the special-edition newspapers, pointing, raising fists towards the sky. And snatches of conversation came to them as folk walked briskly by.

  ‘Never trusted those Venusians.’

  ‘A rum lot. Should never have been allowed here in the first place.’

  ‘Down here, taking our jobs and our women.’

  ‘Send them all back to their own worlds.’

  ‘Wipe out the lot. Extend the British Empire.’

  George held Ada firmly by the arm. They stopped before a Lyons Corner House.

  ‘Come,’ said Ada. ‘We’ll sit and talk. Perhaps we’ll think of something.’

  It was somehow even worse within the Corner House for Ada and for George. Polite folk taking tea and making gentle conversation. Waiters, well dressed and attending with pride to their work. A string quartet playing a medley of popular songs. Palms in pots and crisp white linen on the tabletops. The mundane made achingly precious, through the fear that it all might be taken away.

  They were shown to a table, sat down before it, accepted the afternoon menus.

  Ordered tea.

  ‘I am thinking,’ said George, ‘about the plan you mentioned in passing, whilst we were in the cathedral, regarding the acquisition of the airship and the abduction of the statue. That plan is seeming more and more to me like a winner. What do you think?’

  ‘I think,’ said Ada. And then she paused. ‘What is that rumbling sound?’

  Knives and forks upon the tables rattled. A framed portrait of Queen Victoria fell from a wall. The string quartet became silent. The rumbling grew and teeth were set on edge.

  George Fox leapt from the table. ‘Earthquake!’ he shouted.

  Which perhaps was not for the best.

  Genteel folk now rose to their feet and made for the door in haste. A terrible squeezing and squashing of bodies occurred.

  ‘Back door, do you think?’ asked Ada, as the rumbling grew.

  ‘No,’ said George. ‘Now would you look at that.’

  The source of the growing rumblings now was apparent. Visible beyond the high front window of the Corner House, a gigantic vehicle hove into view, bulbous, built of steel with many rivets. A Union flag fluttered above a great raised turret that bristled with several odd-looking guns. High chimneys belched out smoke and steam. Iron wheels grumbled at the cobblestones. Upon this mighty war craft rode the soldiers of the Queen, coats of red and buttons brightly polished. The folk who were jammed in the doorway cheered. What hats could be reached for were flung into the air.

  ‘That, I assume,’ said George, ‘would be a Mark Five steam-driven Juggernaut tank.’

  ‘And more behind,’ said Ada. And there were more behind. Many more. The great war wagons trundled by on their huge iron wheels.

  George and Ada returned to their table. The waiter brought them their tea.

  ‘You will have to excuse me, madam,’ said he, as he poured with a trembling hand into a rattling cup. ‘I will have to serve you quickly, before I away and join up. Would you care to accompany me, sir?’ he asked of George. ‘Together we can sign on with the Queen’s Own Electric Fusiliers and fight for Queen and country and the Empire.’

  ‘I will give the matter some thought,’ said George. ‘But, as you can see by our manner of dress, we were only married today and we do have plans for later.’

  ‘Quite so, sir.’ The waiter poured tea for George, then bowed and turned away.

  ‘Matters are accelerating at preposterous speed,’ said George.

  ‘Perhaps it will all be over by bedtime.’ Ada winked at him.

  George said that he hoped it would and then drew Ada close. ‘I have a confession to make,’ he told her.

  ‘You do not share the tastes of Mr Oscar Wilde?’ said Ada.

  ‘No!’ said George. ‘I do not. But I took something. Something that I should not have taken. But I felt that I should.’

  ‘So that is where my spare pair of bloomers went.’

  ‘No,’ said George. ‘Be serious, please. This is most important.’ And he drew from his pocket a certain something. ‘I stole this,’ he said.

  Ada touched the certain something. ‘The Book of Sayito,’ said she.

  ‘I had to take it,’ said George. ‘The prophecy says that I will read from it. Perhaps there is something in this book that will save the day.’

  Ada smiled at George and said, ‘I put my trust in you.’

  But then a terrible sound was to be heard. A sound that had never before been heard in London. A vile screech of a sound, prolonged, fearsome, strident. It jangled the nerves of all and set their teeth to grinding.

  Folk, who had returned to their tables, were rising once again, flapping their hands and making the faces of dread.

  ‘What is that appalling racket?’ Ada asked of George.

  ‘That, I fear,’ said George, ‘is the air-raid siren.’

  42

  ‘Oh no,’criedAda. ‘It cannot be. It is all too soon.’

  And indeed it was true that things were occurring with a most disturbing rapidity.

  The declaration of war. The special-edition newspaper. The arrival of the Mark 5 Juggernauts. The banshee cry of the air-raid siren. All too fast indeed.

  ‘What do we do?’ asked Ada of George. ‘Run to an Underground station?’

  ‘No,’ said George. ‘I do believe not. Come wi
th me, if you will.’

  There was never going to be any doubt that Ada would accompany George. It was little more than a turn of phrase. George took Ada by the hand and when the patrons of the Lyons Corner House had squeezed themselves into the street and run screaming towards the nearest entrance of the London ‘Tube’, he and Ada took their leave with many a fearful skywards glance and much speed in their steps.

  It would later be reported in the press that a veritable armada of Magonian cloud-ships had for several weeks been orbiting Planet Earth. That thoughts of a planned invasion had lurked within the snow-capped heads of the visiting Venusians. That the ecclesiastics who had been aboard the ill-fated Empress of Mars had been in search of Sayito all along. These things would be made known. But to Mr Churchill and those now in the cabinet war room, these things should have previously been known.

  Within the war room, bunker as it was, deep beneath the streets of London, Mr Churchill lazed in a wicker chair. Cigar at full bore between his lips. A glass of port at his elbow. A monkey on his knee.

  ‘Get down, Darwin, if you will,’ said Mr Churchill. ‘And please don’t move the flags about on the war-board map table until I tell you to.’

  The ex-monkey butler of the late Lord Brentford, close chum of Mr Churchill, had called by at Westminster in search of George. Using that special seventh sense for which simians are so noted, Darwin had found himself reunited instead with that old friend of his late lamented master, Mr Winston Churchill. And having nothing else planned for the afternoon, had accompanied Mr Churchill to the war room.

  Darwin fished a monogrammed cigarette case from the waistcoat pocket of his best man’s suit and helped himself to a Spanish Shawl, a perfumed cigarette.

  A curious whistling sound was now to be heard. Mr Churchill reached for a speaking tube. The subterranean war room should have been fitted out with Mr Tesla’s new telephonic communication system, but Mr Churchill had spent the allocated funds on weaponry. So speaking tubes remained, and there were many indeed to choose from, being connected as they were to all manner of important secret locations. The blower at the other end of this particular speaking tube, whose blowing was raising the whistling sound, was located at an observation post atop the Crystal Palace on Sydenham Hill. He was gifted with a particularly strong set of lungs and a very loud voice indeed.

  ‘Mr Churchill,’ came his voice to Mr Churchill’s ear.

  ‘Not so loud,’ said Mr Churchill. ‘There’s no need to shout.’

  ‘Sydenham Hill position here, sir,’ came the voice once more in a more moderated manner. ‘Magonian cloud-ships moving in from the south, sir. I can count nearly twenty, but there may be more.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Mr Churchill. ‘They intend to raze the spaceport. Darwin, if you please, put one of those big yellow flags on the war-board map at the location of the Royal London Spaceport.’

  Darwin deposited something at that location.

  ‘Ah,’ said Mr Churchill once again. ‘Well, I suppose that will have to do for now.’ He spoke once more into the speaking tube. ‘Open fire from the Crystal Palace battery as soon as you have the cloud-ships within range.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said the voice. And that was that for now.

  Ancient generals in exaggerated uniforms swirled brandy in large balloon glasses and looked towards Mr Churchill for orders. None were presently forthcoming, so they continued with their conversations.

  Darwin sucked on his cigarette. The sky grew dark over Sydenham.

  They appeared to be almost transparent. Fragile, delicate forms. Sails frail as the fins of tropical fish. Wispy superstructures. But the cloud-ships of Magonia moved across the still, blue sky of late afternoon in a close formation, their trajectories arrow-straight, their helmsmen in perfect control. Did they truly move by the power of will alone, the power of faith, these Holier-than-Air craft? Or through some subtle aetheric fluid? Some all-pervading universal force as yet beyond the human understanding of even such luminaries as Mr Tesla and Mr Charles Babbage? How?

  At an order unspoken, two cloud-ships broke from the formation, swung down from on high, gained a vivid solidity and swept in low towards the Royal Spaceport.

  Those aboard could not have been aware of the whirring of gears. Of steam-driven pistons engaging and iron doors drawing back. The twin fountains before the Crystal Palace ceased their aquatic displays. The water-bearing statues shuddered and moved aside. From out of the fountain’s pools rose armoured gun ports. Brass-muzzled heat-ray cannons swung into view.

  Gunners donned their range-goggles. Adjusted their focus settings. Were given the order to ‘Fire’.

  Simultaneous discharges of red-raw energy belched from the brazen muzzles, swept down the hillside, over the spaceport and onto the low-flying cloud-ships. Flame engulfed the fabulous craft. Shrivelling the gossamer sails. Wreaking horrid destruction. Billowing smoke, ravaged and broken, the cloud-ships fell from the sky. Down to the cobbles of the landing field to die in pools of fire.

  First blood to the Empire of the Queen.

  Ladies and gentlemen, taking afternoon strolls upon the lawns before the Crystal Palace, applauded enthusiastically. News of the start of Worlds War Two had yet to reach the suburbs.

  ‘Splendid stuff,’ called gentlemen in tweeds. Assuming this to be an unscheduled afternoon entertainment. ‘Jolly good show,’ and, ‘Most convincing,’ and, ‘I say, there is more.’

  A vast and ghostly vessel, the flagship of the fleet perhaps, dipped its prow and then released a shower of crystal spheres. Like swollen hailstones, down from the sky they fell. And into the great hall of glass. Explosions ripped along the length of the Crystal Palace, erupting into the blueness above in a firestorm of destruction. Girders melted, sank, dissolved, wonders of the Empire turned to dust. Within brief seconds little remained.

  The Crystal Palace was gone.

  The Jovian warships lay somewhat further away from the Earth. They were harboured on the dark side of the moon, in garrison towns that had existed there for many hundreds of years. Jupiterians were noted for their jolly dispositions, which to a degree had been rightfully attributed to their gift for planning ahead. Jovian garrisons were stationed upon the dark sides of moons that swung in orbit around all the habitable planets of the solar system. Including Mars.

  Word of the declared war reached the garrison stationed upon the Martian moon of Phobos through the medium of Jovian pigeon post. The space pigeon, a species not native to Earth, inhabited the depths of space and had been domesticated by the burghers of Jupiter as an ideal form of speedy message transportation. Space pigeons, their flight-bladders filled with solar wind, travelled at close to the speed of light.

  Portly admirals of the Jupiterian battalion on Phobos perused the message lately arrived by speedy space bird, mounted up their chunky-looking ships of war and dropped down to the undefended planet to purge it with ease of Earth folk.

  The air-raid sirens ceased their awful cry. London was a city now of empty streets. A ghost town drained of life. Now and then the sound of breaking glass was to be heard as some looter took the opportunity of a lifetime.

  Shots soon followed on as armed police patrols sought out their prey. Dark wraiths moving but fleetingly in the dreadful stillness. The horses of abandoned hansoms munched away in their nosebags. Earthly pigeons circled overhead. A flyer advertising the Japanese Devil Fish Girl drifted on the breeze along the Mall.

  George and Ada skulked within the shadow of a butcher’s awning. Peering at the all but silent streets.

  ‘We must be very careful,’ said George. ‘I have no wish that we be shot as looters by mistake.’

  ‘So where are we going?’ Ada asked. ‘You have not told me yet.’

  ‘To St Paul’s Cathedral. To the statue.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘I intend to give it up,’ said George. ‘It may not truly belong to the Venusians. I do not believe that it truly belongs to anyone. It belongs to itself. But if it remains
in London, I fear that things will become far worse than when the Martians invaded.’

  ‘Do you remember that?’ asked Ada. ‘Where were you when it happened?’

  ‘In the East End of London,’ said George. ‘I never saw any of the Martian tripods. Only the refugees. Thousands of them streaming into the capital seeking safety. I remember the sadness.’

  ‘It must never happen again,’ said Ada.

  ‘No,’ agreed George. ‘And we are in the midst of all of this. I am very much to blame. That statue could have remained undiscovered by the “civilised world” for another thousand years.’