The Derring-Do Club and the Empire of the Dead (4 page)

At the end of the landing was a ladder leading upwards into a loft. Pieter went first, pulling Earnestine after him, and Metzger followed with Kroll standing guard with his useless gun. Kroll climbed then, slowly for his bulk, and then they pulled the ladder up after them and dropped the hatch.

“Where’s Schneider?” Pieter asked.

“Hush…” said Kroll.

Below they could hear the sounds of struggle and that peculiar shambling gait these ghouls used. They huddled into the darkness, slowly going cold, feeling utterly useless. When it had been quiet for a long, long time, Earnestine asked: “What is–”

“Shhh…” Kroll answered and his tone brooked no argument.

Earnestine shivered.

“Here,” Pieter whispered, almost inaudibly. He wrapped a great coat around her – it was the one she’d been kidnapped in – and, although it was thick and insulated, she could not stop trembling. It was the cold and not the fear, and most certainly not because of his proximity.

Miss Georgina

The river was wide and tumbled down the rocks, the ice broken like panes of glass, and Georgina struggled to her feet. Her petticoats froze; a frost shimmered over her and turned her white as if forming a deathly bridal gown. She waded to the shore. Snow caked around her feet and ankles, and her long dress, soaked from the water, became hard and brittle.

Black shapes, thin and skeletal, jerked out of the blizzard; trees stripped of their needles by the wintery gales stood like sentries.

Perhaps she could just sit down for a moment, rest and then move on with her strength restored. Perhaps…

But she couldn’t. She’d die. She’d become like Hideous Helga, whom the girls talked about in whispers. That poor lost soul had gone out in a storm to meet her lover only to be abandoned. Her flesh had been frozen off her features and her tormented ghost haunted the hills and mountains searching for her lost beau, and with every passing storm the wraith screeched and rattled at the windows.

A sound like an engine moved overhead and then, as she craned her neck to look, she saw a dark, ominous shape, whirring and phutting above, until it was lost in the blustering Alpine flurries.

Georgina’s limbs were no longer cold, just numb; wooden as if they belonged to someone else.

She stumbled, saw her own hands in front of her, but she could feel nothing.

She tried standing, but her dress seemed made of card, stiff and unforgiving.

She crawled: her progress measured in yards, then feet and finally inches.

Three trees loomed over her, their branches leaning down to pluck her up; no, it was a bear with gigantic looming eyes, each reflecting a strange tormented face. She saw a pair of Hideous Helgas, but they were her own pitiful self, already as pale and insubstantial as a ghost reflected in the monster’s eyes. Great arms reached down and huge hands swept her up from the snow.

The creature spoke: “I say,” it said.

Miss Charlotte

Charlotte worried about what her sisters would say with the same gut-wrenching feeling she had when she looked down. The ground was so far away now: it made her dizzy and excited. And it was a Zeppelin, they’d understand, surely? She’d put her thick blue coat on before going outside, like they kept telling her to, and she hadn’t left the school grounds... as such, until the airship had taken off and flown east.

It had just landed at the back of the school, with airmen in dashing uniforms tying it to trees with thick ropes, and she’d only gone for a closer look, a teensy peek, and then, well, no–one had been watching, so she’d not exactly sneaked on board, but rather she’d gone to have a look inside. It had been floating off the ground, so she’d had to climb the ladder, hadn’t she? Only a few rungs, no more than fourteen, and once she reached the top, she thought she’d just take a couple of steps inside.

When the rotors had fired up to speed giving her such a fright, she’d instinctively hidden in one of the cabins, but that was only so she wouldn’t be caught. Earnestine would not want her to be caught, so she had done the right thing and Earnestine would be proud, and not cross as she usually was, wouldn’t she?

But what did any of that matter: Charlotte was flying!!!

She’d hidden in a cabin and, opposite the wooden door made of the lightest wood, was a single small porthole. With her face pressed against the glass, she’d seen the trees zoom away and the school itself shrink to a doll’s house, and then smaller still and the sky had become huge. There was no sense of movement, no buffeting like a carriage or a train, or a swaying of deck on a boat, just a gentle change of angle and a surge of engine noise. It had rained briefly, but then she realised that they had risen through the clouds. Above the dreadful weather, it was a bright, dazzling sunny day and the crisp Swiss air allowed a view of the entire world!

And there were mountains
below her
.

What was the point of hacking through a jungle or riding a camel, when you could simply soar above the unknown?

Charlotte looked up: a huge whale of darkness blotted out half the blue sky. The black skin of the beast was stretched over the visible ribs of a steel skeleton. The thrumming noise was not in her head but from the huge propellers that were turning lazily on outstretched beams.

It was magnificent.

Perhaps a little look round before she thought about how to get back to needlework class.

Charlotte returned to the corridor on tiptoe.

The propellers were strung out on wings halfway along, so perhaps the engine room was not at the stern. Instead there were signs for ‘Damen’ and ‘Herren’. The doors to the cabins on either side were all identical, each with two numbers. The room she’d come out of had been ‘19/20’. The doors weren’t numbered like a street, but rather clockwise starting, and ending, at the front with ‘1/2 3/4’ on her right and ‘13/14 11/12’ on her left. Wait, it was an air
ship
, so the big numbers were on the ‘port’ side. These end cabins were obviously quadruples. The door towards the ‘bow’ – see, she wasn’t glocky – was blank.

Charlotte could hear voices from the room beyond. There were several men talking; the walls, thin presumably to save weight, let through every word. Unfortunately they were speaking in a Germanic language.

Well, she thought, what to do?

She’d have to wait until they descended and then sneak off while they were tying up. It wouldn’t do to have ‘stowaway’ added to her school report, which was already going to rack up another ‘absent’ to its collection.

There was another noise, this one from cabin ‘1/2 3/4’ – someone was inside. If she wasn’t careful, she’d be outflanked.

She put her ear to the panel and heard a girlish whimpering, so it was unlikely to be Earnestine or Georgina. It was possibly another girl from the school, although her classmates had been singularly reluctant to climb out of the dormitory window when she’d suggested it.

Charlotte tried the handle: it turned and the door clicked open, but then jammed on a bolt. Strange that it was locked from the outside. Charlotte unlocked it and looked inside.

The cabin beyond was more opulent than the one she’d first hidden in, with a fine table and four chairs commanding the centre. There were bunk beds on either side, enough for four people, with the walls striped in blue and ochre with gold patterns matched by the curtain drawn across the window. Charlotte could not tell where the murmuring was coming from, until she stepped inside and looked over one of the expensive travelling cases.

It was another girl, not one from the school, who was backed into the gap between the table and the bunk bed, her legs and arms rigid like spears, and she gripped a butter knife in her hand. Her expression was a mix of terror and grim determination.

“Shhh, shhh,” said Charlotte closing the door behind her. “I’m Charlotte, Lottie… Lottie.”

“Lottie?”

“Yes, Lottie,” said Charlotte. “And you?”

“No–one!”

Charlotte smiled: “I can’t call you no–one. How should I address you?”

“Your… nothing. Just Fräulein…”

“Just Fräulein?”

There was no sense of movement and the whirr of the propellers was distant. They could be two girls hiding in a cabin anywhere and not, as they were, flying.

The other girl relaxed a little.

“I’m to… it’s worse than death.”

“Is it?”

Charlotte had heard the phrase ‘worse than death’ before. Miss Jones had used it in one of her tirades when she’d warned the girls against going down to the village where there might be boys. Charlotte suspected that this was going to turn out to be one of those foolish things that adults kept from children, men kept from women, and everyone kept from Charlotte.

Considering Miss Jones’s, and now this Fräulein’s, reaction, it was most likely to be more important than, say, brandy or cigars, but in her bones, Charlotte suspected it would turn out to be something dreary like a lecture on workhouses or sewerage. For her own good, apparently, Charlotte had had to sit through visiting speakers droning on about solving poverty, supplying clean water and building sewers. Old men, bearded and reeking of brandy fumes and cigar smoke, seemed to be inordinately interested in sewers.

Charlotte never wanted to go anywhere near sewers, but she knew far more about the passages under London than she did about interesting subjects like Fusiliers, Cavalry Officers and… and… flying airships.

“Gott… what to do?” the Fräulein said.

“I can’t… perhaps.”

Charlotte was simply stringing words together, hoping that her gentle tone would keep the other girl talking. Perhaps she would know how to escape from a Zeppelin and get back to school.

“My parents promised me to…” And then, like the students running down corridors after the break time bell, the words tumbled out in a rush: “I’m betrothed. A political alliance. Once I’m there, my life will be over. I love Franz.”

“Franz?”

“He’s an Alferes.”

“Ah, the uniforms.”

“Ja.” The girl laughed, joining in with Charlotte’s giggle.

Charlotte had an idea: “Uniforms…”

“Uniforms?”

“What if we were to change clothing? They can’t marry me off, can they? If it comes to the ‘just cause’ moment, then I’ll just admit who I am. They won’t marry me because they want an alliance. And you? Well, there’s a chance that wherever we’re going, you can escape if you tell them you are of royal blood.”

“How did you know I was a Princess?”

Charlotte just smirked.

“It does not sound like a good plan,” said the Princess.

“No, I suppose not.”

“It is better than doing nothing.”

“That’s the spirit.”

Charlotte jumped up and took off her dark blue coat. The Princess realised and began to take off her clothes, turning away, and then asking Charlotte for help. Clearly Her Royal Highness was not used to dressing unaided. Charlotte handed over the patched blouse that Earnestine had discarded when it was torn, the petticoats that had been Georgina’s, and Earnestine’s before that, and the second–hand corset. In return, she put on the Princess’s fine silk dress. Soon they were fussing over each other: the Princess inexpertly put Charlotte’s hair up with a jewel encrusted diadem.

“You’re English,” said Charlotte, tugging down the Princess’s hair.

“Nein.”

“No, I mean you are English now.”

“Ja.”

“Yes.”

“Yesss. And you are Bavarian.”

“Ach, mein Gott, bratwurst, yawol.”

“Perhaps it would be better if you kept quiet.”

Charlotte was none too pleased by this comment: “We can’t be found together.”

“Nein, where were you?”

“I was in the… back at the stern. Cabin nineteen and twenty.”

“Ja.”

They went to the door and the Princess peeked out: “At the stern, you say?”

“Yes… I mean, Ja.”

“Ja,” the Princess corrected.

“I said ‘Ja’.”

The Princess closed the door behind her leaving Charlotte alone.

“You’re as bad as Ness,” Charlotte said to the teak panel.

The bolt clicked back across locking her in.

Charlotte tried the handle.

“Shhh…” said the Princess, “they will be suspicious if it is unlocked.”

“But Fräulein,” Charlotte hissed back, “Fräulein… your Highness… oi!”

Silence: except for the rotors of the Zeppelin and distant creaking of metal fuselage.

Around her, large trunks were flipped on their ends and opened at their hinges. Inside them, Charlotte found fine clothes, silk handkerchiefs and ribbons arranged in shelves and integral drawers. There was a dressing table with a mirror. Charlotte saw how badly her hair was arranged, so she sat down, the light wicker chair creaking under her, to fix it. Eventually she had to take it all down, brush it and start over.

If only Earnestine and Georgina could see her now, all smart and grown up and sensible. How clever she had been to come up with the idea, all by herself, of swapping clothes: how stuffy they both were with their talk of ‘responsibility’ and ‘duty’ and ‘thou shalt not blah–blah’. From now on, Charlotte resolved, she would be her own person, so she stood and twirled around, admiring her reflection and imagining herself as the Princess. This was something she could choose for herself and not something imposed by her bossy sisters.

What was she now? An Acting Princess certainly, and she had the little crown to prove it. It was surely better than being a stowaway, and certainly better than being the little sister; whereas Earnestine was only a mere Prefect and Georgina was… nothing, so they’d both have to bow and scrape and show respect all the time, and then perhaps they’d understand what it was like to be the youngest and never allowed to have any fun. She would have pudding without finishing her vegetables, and she would talk all the time and they’d have to listen for once.

But not until after a snooze, she thought, because it had been such an exciting day.

Chapter III

Miss Deering-Dolittle

Earnestine felt warm, cosy and safe. A heart beat strong and steady nearby, its deep resonance comforting, and her body gently rocked by waves of breathing: in, out, in, out...