Hairy London (21 page)

Velvene stared. Lily-Bette shrieked and struggled in the claws of the dragon’s right foot.

“
No!
” he yelled. “I will
not
be beaten this time!”

He ran to the stables at once, to see a row of equinoxes in which five horses stood, all with their heads poking over the doors. Velvene assessed them as quickly as he could. Too old, too small, too fat... that left two at the end, a bay stallion that looked perky and a pure white mare, neither too old nor too young.

“You, my pretty!” Velvene said, opening the white mare’s equinox door.

In the yard outside he checked his lance, then saddled the mare, mounted her and tapped her flanks with his heels.

“To the house!” he cried.

The mare leaped forward and Velvene cantered across the yard into the iris garden, from where it was a short step to the rose garden; but the hair was growing thick and fast, and he struggled when he approached the house. As he entered the rose garden he saw dozens of people, most of them wounded soldiers, but many nurses and a couple of doctors.

To the nearest nurse he shouted, “Why are you all out here?”

“The house is choked with hair,” she replied.

Velvene looked up at the walls to see blonde hair falling down in great tresses, while most of the surrounding garden was also choked. “Well, we shall see about that,” he said.

He urged the mare up the back steps of the house until he faced the open doors, where he paused. He could see that the corridor inside was half blocked with hair growing from the walls and ceiling, and he knew the rooms would be in a similar state.

“Nothing for it,” he told the mare. “Forwards!”

The mare did as she was urged, at first wary, but, once inside, confident, and Velvene rode her to the nearest stairs.

“Upward!” he cried.

The mare struggled on the steps – the hair wrapping itself around her hooves – but she forced a way up, then cantered along the corridor to the next set of stairs. In this way Velvene ascended to the top floor of the house.

Here, the hair was thick and crinkled and white, and smelled of shampoo, but at the end of the great corridor running the length of the manor he saw a tumbledown wall, a ruined door, and a red glow: the lair of the dragon.

“This is it,” he told the mare. “This is our hour of necessity. We shall gallop down that corridor and meet whatever is at the end. Courage will be required, but we have that courage, you and I, and we shall prevail, eh? With you, and with my lance, I shall succeed!” He paused, drew breath, then shouted, “For Lily-Bette!”

He charged down the corridor as fast as the mare could take him. A few feet away from the ruined door he got his first view of the lair, a chamber created from rooms with knocked down walls, piles of rubble in every corner; silver, gold and jewellery piled high, and in one corner, trembling with fear, Lily-Bette. And the dragon at the rear of the lair, breathing fire.

He galloped into the lair at full tilt, swerving to make straight for the dragon. It leaned forward, screamed, then let out a column of flame, but Velvene pulled on the reins, slowed the mare, then kicked her forward when the dragon pulled its neck back; and in that flame-free moment, when the dragon was between breaths, he flung himself forward and lunged with the lance. It struck, plunged deep into the chest.

With a bellow that shattered windows and hit Velvene like an artillery explosion, the dragon turned on its back, its wings beating the floor. The mare collapsed beneath him; he leaped off, then struggled to his feet and ran to Lily-Bette, grabbing her, then running out. The mare followed moments later, neighing in terror.

Velvene staggered down the corridor, the stench of singed hair making him cough, the mare cantering ahead to escape the din of the dragon’s demise. Lily-Bette gasped as she ran, but seemed unharmed. Velvene took the stairs down as quickly as he dared, then ran to the front of the house, where he paused.

“Are you injured?” he asked.

Lily-Bette shook her head. “Not physically injured, Velvene dear, but in shock after my terrible ordeal.”

“It is over now.”

“Thank you, thank you so much for your courage in rescuing me!” she said.

“It was the very least I could do.”

“You were always so helpful, Velvene dearest.”

Velvene grinned. Even he, a founder member of the Suicide Club, who had tramped, battled and spied his way across every continent in the world, had not imagined that one day he would kill a dragon.

He glanced around. Hair was falling from the ceiling and every wall, great hanks of it, to land on the floor in dull, lifeless mounds. He rushed to the front door of the manor to see the same happening outside; and there was more than a hint of green in the gardens as natural life was revealed.

He leaned against a wall, exhausted, and glancing down saw that morning’s copy of the
Times
.

COCKNEIGH UPRISING RAMPAGES ACROSS LONDON TOWN

Working Classes Of East End In Revolt

He picked up the newspaper with a gasp. “Great Oates,” he said. “It surely cannot be.”

But it was. He turned around to tell Lily-Bette the news, but she was not there.

“Lily-Bette? Lily-Bette, where are you, eh?”

No reply.

“Lily-Bette, there is news from London. We must fly!”

But nothing. Lily-Bette had vanished.

~

Half an hour after the crash, the King of the Underwater Realm was dead, his body decomposing in minutes into a mess of moist, white slivers.

Kornukope was alive and conscious, but with a broken arm. Eastachia improvised a sling from a headscarf she kept in her handbag, then helped him out of the horseless carriage.

They stood in a ruined, muddy, isolated environment. Eastachia could not grasp where they were – they had crashed somewhere between Shepperton and Sunbury – because everything looked different. Even the hair that plagued London was here reduced to bedraggled tufts. And she could hear gunfire, and explosions.

“It is like a war zone,” Kornukope said. “I remember seeing something like this in Southern Africa, when we went to bop the Zulus.”

Eastachia nodded. The wind moaned across muddy flats and there was not a person in sight. Bombed houses let fall clouds of masonry; smoke rose from half dead bonfires. It did not look promising.

Finding Fordbridge Road, they followed it east for a while, but halted when they came across a number of bloated horse corpses, and, in an adjacent field, a line of hastily erected white crosses.

“Graves,” Eastachia said.

Kornukope pointed along the road to where it met Thames Street. “There are some men over there.”

They approached the men, all of whom wore uniforms of the British Army. “Who are you?” the group’s corporal asked in a gruff voice.

Kornukope pointed back down the road and replied, “We crashed our horseless carriage back there. I am Kornukope Wetherbee of the Suicide Club, on official government business. What’s going on here?”

“The Germans have broken out of their pens and started a small war,” the corporal replied. “We turfed them out of their Swiss Cottage lair, but it turned out the Kaiser had an even larger base around Fulwell Park and Hampton Hill, which he disguised beneath all the hair. All bally hell has been let loose. You’re in danger here, you mustn’t go onwards.”

“We have to return to London as soon as possible to see the Prime Minister,” Kornukope said. “We
have
to go onward.”

“I can’t guarantee your safety. You go east at your own risk.”

Kornukope looked at Eastachia, who in response said, “We’ve got no choice.”

The corporal, his mood now softened, said, “Look here, I can’t let you go on without any gear. My lads will give you food and a revolver each. But I warn you – the Germans have got terrible machines of war, not just rifles and cavalry.”

“Any advice about what route to take?” Eastachia asked.

“Try to go around the central war zone – through Hampton, Hampton Wick, Kingston-upon-Thames if you can make it. But all the bridges are under fire around here, and I don’t rate your chances of crossing the Thames. Twickenham and Richmond seem fairly safe, that’s where I’d head for if I was in your position. Then if you’re lucky you might get a train to Waterloo... but the services now are patchy at best.”

“Very well,” Kornukope said, shaking the corporal’s hand. “Thank you for the advice. And good luck, sir.”

Having received their equipment and food, and a new sling and willowbark painkillers for Kornukope, they trudged on, following the way to Upper Sunbury Road. Peering north Eastachia saw flashes of light over Hampton Hill, heard explosions like thunder, and even, when it was quiet for a moment, the faintest hint of men shrieking and horses neighing. She shivered. Hairy London was a city in which the vital role played by transport had become obvious. Chaos had come to live in the city now that people could not move freely.

For a while the war seemed far away, but as the afternoon faded into grey clouds and drifting smoke they heard the unmistakeable noise of conflict. Hiding in a bomb crater they waited for the fighting to fade or move on, but it did not, and in the end the noise of rifles and whizzing bullets was too much to bear, so they ran to a collapsed building and hid inside. Two soldiers were already there.

“Keep yer ’eads down!” one shouted.

“Wot the ’ell you doin’ round ’ere?” asked the other.

“We’re lost,” Eastachia replied. “We’re trying to get to Richmond.”

“Serge is comin’ just now in the wagonette,” the soldier said. “We’ll give yer a ride far as we can.”

As he spoke a clattering wagonette rolled up, pulled by bakelite shires, whose great flanks sweated oil and kerosene. Kornukope jumped aboard the trailer at the back, then pulled Eastachia up, so that, on their knees, they huddled amidst a group of sweaty, tin-hatted soldiers.

The wagonette rolled on down Hampton Court Road, turning left before reaching the bridge and the palace, but as they struck the wilder reaches of Hampton Court Park a great explosion rocked the land all around, the wagonette falling on its side, the trailer collapsing. Luckily Kornukope landed on his uninjured side. Then Eastachia saw troops rushing towards them down Chestnut Avenue. Bushy Park had been taken by the Bosch.

“Retreat! Retreat!” came the cry from the officers.

Kornukope took Eastachia’s hand and ran towards the palace, visible as a bomb-blasted ruin behind clouds of smoke and nitro-vapour. By now Eastachia was out of breath, and had to rest, so they hid in an abandoned bunker.

Eastachia lit a zoo-lantern and peered around. The funkhole was deserted. “Look,” she said, “biscuits, tea, and a bowl of fruit.”

“The soldiers are long gone,” Kornukope replied. “It is every person for themselves, I fear. We must eat this food.”

They ate as the bombs exploded along Hampton Court Road, then packed the uneaten fruit with their other supplies, taking also a map and a packet of automatic candles before leaving.

Outside, the scene was infernal. To the flare-red, smoking, wasted north they saw the silhouettes of gun towers striding between Bushy Park and Hampton Court Park. Dead bodies flew into the air as explosions rocked the road, and always they heard the terrified neighing of horses.

Eastachia said, “We must follow the Thames around the park and hope Kingston-upon-Thames is still in our hands. Crossing the river by boat is going to be impossible, but the main road might be passable up to Twickenham.”

“It is our best hope,” Kornukope agreed. “Come along! While we still have each other!”

They hugged, kissed, then headed south, but in the gathering gloom, and with smoke and vapours rolling like sea fog across the park, they soon got lost; and then they hit Hampton Court Road again.

Eastachia listened. The noise of strife was receding, there were few explosions and only a little gunfire, and she wondered if the combatants had packed it in for the night.

“Let’s follow the road to Kingston-upon-Thames,” she whispered.

They walked on, hand in hand. The rainclouds dispersed and the moon rose, lighting a scene of eerie carnage: banks of smoke, horse corpses with their legs in the air, craters, ruins and shattered houses. Bodies lay unburied in their dozens, some plundered, half naked, others torn limb from limb.

And then Eastachia saw a great figure striding amidst the banks of smoke. It looked like a giant man, but surely he was too tall to be real and living. Darkness followed him like spectral mist. His hat was wide-brimmed, his cloak black as coal, but his eyes, though invisible, glittered as if they were made of adamantina. Then he saw them, and approached, kneeling down a few yards away so that he could speak with them.

„Wer sind Sie?”

His voice was like rolling boulders in a mountain valley, and it seemed to come from Germany itself, reflected and amplified by the nocturnal aura. Kornukope replied, “Ich bin Kornukope Wetherbee, und das ist meine Frau, Eastachia Wetherbee. Wer sind Sie?”

„Ich bin der Tod.”

Eastachia, though she knew almost no German, grasped nonetheless that this was Death, the Teutonic Death, patrolling the fields of the Kaiser’s mini-war. She grabbed Kornukope’s hand and whispered, “We’ve got to get away!”

„Niemand kann dem Tod entkommen.”

“He said nobody can escape death.”

“Well, he’s right,” Eastachia replied, “but if you tell him we’re not German he might let us go.”

“Wir sind Engländer,” Kornukope explained.

„Engländer? Sie gehören mir also nicht. Wohin gehen Sie?”

“Where are we going?” Kornukope muttered to himself. “Nach Richmond.”

„Ich kann Sie bis Cross Deep in der Nähe von Twickenham tragen.”

“Will we be safe with you if you take us to Twickenham?”

„Ja, für Deutsche bin ich verantwortlich. Ich trage Sie am Rucken.”

“He’s going to carry us,” Kornukope said. “Germans are his prey.”

Death stood upright then picked them up and nestled them in his arms, one on each side, as if he was carrying a couple of sacks of grain. He walked north through the shattered land, the rattle and clank of his knees reverberating across the fields. From his front teeth two beams of yellow light emerged, which he used to navigate the bombed out wastelands of eastern Bushy Park, and on occasion he would stop, listen, then walk on. His breath ponged with the odour of sauerkraut and paraffin.