Chasing Schrödinger’s Cat - A Steampunk Novel (20 page)

Chapter
XXXXXVI:

Lieutenant
Liddel
? – Max’s Escape – A Missing Cable

O
ur host
disappeared into a storeroom at the rear of the workshop.
 
We heard boxes being shifted and the lids
being opened and closed.
 
At one point
there was a loud crash followed by yet another cry of ‘Blast and damnation.’
 
Babbage reappeared a few moments later
triumphantly holding a crocodile leather suitcase.

“I knew I still had it,” he said,
undoing the bag’s snaps.
  
There was a
sudden smell of mothballs as he held up an army officer’s uniform.
 
“Mine,” he said.
 
“From my youthful flirtation with
la vie
militaire
.”

“I
look like
a complete idiot,” I said, as I surveyed my khaki-clad reflection in the
mirror.

“I think you look rather dashing,”
Sarah said.
 
“Pity it isn’t a smarter
regiment.
 
Oh dear, I am sorry,” she
apologized, when she saw the offended look on Babbage’s face.

“We cannot all serve in the Brigade
of Guards,” he said, stiffly.
 
“Those
boots could do with a shine.
 
I think I
have some oxblood polish around somewhere.
 
And the buttons of course.”

W
e spent the
next half hour polishing boots and
brassoing
buttons.
 
I put the uniform back on once
we were finished and Babbage pronounced himself satisfied.

“Nothing to be done about the
mothball smell, I’m afraid,” he said.
 
“And you had better leave the holster since I no longer have my service
pistol.”

“No problem, I still have Lord
Newford’s
.
 
Hang on
while I get it.”

The back of the van was caked with
mud and I had to brace my right foot against the jamb and tug the door handle
to get inside.
 
I felt a furry shape race
past my leg as soon as the door opened and realized Max the Cat had made yet
another bid for freedom.
 
Normally I
would have tried to recapture him but I had more important things to attend to.

The Adams revolver fit the holster
perfectly.
 
If you are thinking “of
course it did” then you are an American.
 
Officers supply their own uniforms and equipment in Babbage’s world and
are given wide latitude as to how they configure their kit.

Babbage had placed the translator
inside the crocodile leather suitcase when I returned and was busy filling the
empty spaces with rags.
 
“Where is the
cable?” he said, when his packing was complete.

“What cable?”

“The cable that goes with the
translator.
 
You didn’t imagine you could
simply place the translator on the Particle Beam Generator, did you?
 
The two need to be connected.
 
Oh dear,” he said, seeing my look of
incomprehension.

“If it’s just a cable, couldn’t you
make one?
 
You did a great job on the
glasses.”

“The cable itself would be
relatively easy.
 
It is the end
connectors that would pose a problem.
 
Are you sure you haven’t seen it?
 
It is a flat, striped affair about four inches long.”

“Striped?”

“Each strand is individually color
coded.”

I permitted myself a long
sigh.
 
Why could nothing ever be
easy?
 
“Yes I have seen it,” I said.

“Well, where is it?”

“Probably out fighting or getting
some lady cat pregnant.
 
It’s Max’s
collar.”

We finally found Max on the roof of
the toll booth, getting ready to pounce on the starling that had crapped on me
earlier.
 
Ok, maybe it wasn’t the same
bird, but it sure looked like it.

“Max,” I shouted, “you get your ass
down here right now.”
 
Never let it be
said Max lacks focus.
 
He paid no
attention at all.
 
His whole being was concentrated
on the glossy black bird.
 
“Max, we don’t
have time for this,” I said.
 
“You’ve got
thirty seconds and then I’m going to shoot you.”
 
I unbuttoned Babbage’s holster to show him I
meant business.

“You will do no such thing,” Sarah
said, batting my hand away from the holster.
 
“He’s probably frightened to death up there.”

“Yeah, he really looks scared,” I
said.
 
“That’s why his tail is quivering
like a violin string.”

Babbage had gone to his workshop
while Sarah and I were discussing Max’s emotional state and now returned with a
folding library ladder which he placed next the wall of the toll booth.
 
He was about to climb up when Sarah pushed
him aside.
 
“Let me do it,” she
said.
 
“Neither of you can be trusted.”

This I had to see.
 
Sarah had already changed into her travelling
costume consisting of a long gray tweed skirt, matching jacket and straw
boater.
 
How she planned to climb a ladder
in that getup was beyond me.
 
Once again
I had underestimated her.
 
She spat on
her hands, pulled her skirt above her waist, stuck its hem between her teeth
and scrambled up the ladder like a buccaneer.
 
She was back a moment later with Max cradled in her arms.

“Who’s a pretty boy then?” she
said, nuzzling Max’s battered face.
 
“Where you very frightened up there?”

Max glowered at me with yellow eyes
that would have done credit to Old Nick himself.
 
Shoot
me, will you?
You could hear him thinking.
 
I’ll rip you a third nostril.

I had the last word though.
 
I told Sarah it would be best to leave him
with Babbage while we were gone.
 
She
agreed reluctantly.
 
“Mommy will be back
for you as soon as she has sorted out the naughty men in London,” she explained
to the cat.

“You shouldn’t have any trouble as
long as you keep your hands away from his mouth,” I whispered to Babbage.

Two hours later, we were sitting in
a first class railway carriage behind “The Spirit of Birkenhead,” a Brunswick-green
locomotive emblazoned with the gold-leaf logo of the Great Western
Railway.
 
I had objected to spending any
of our meager resources on first class tickets but Sarah was adamant that ‘an
officer would never ask a lady to travel second or third class.’

“What makes you an expert on military
matters?” I asked.

“It’s the sort of thing one
knows.
 
Most of the men in my family have
served as officers at one time or another.”

I found out how much she knew
during a crash course on army etiquette that started the moment I sat down.

“What on earth are you doing?” she
said, when I began to unfasten my Sam Brown belt.

“Getting comfortable.”

“Not by undoing your uniform.
 
An officer should be impeccable at all
times.”

So I spent the next two hours
harnessed like a draft horse learning the army rank structure in which,
paradoxically, a Major General is outranked by a Lieutenant General (pronounced
by some other quirk as ‘
Leftenant
General).
 
I learned that ‘one never salutes with one’s
hat off’ and that politics, religion and women are forbidden topics in an
officers’ mess.

“Must make for some quiet
evenings,” I said.

“And do try not to speak like an
American.”

“No problem.
 
I’ll swallow my consonants, round my vowels
and shove in
dipthongs
where they don’t belong.”

The steel-arched roof of Paddington
station finally came into view and we saw first-hand the effects of the
government decrees.
 
Armed soldiers
patrolled every platform.
 
There was none
of the milling about usually found in train stations.
 
Passengers collected their luggage as quickly
as possible and scurried out the exits.

Our only luggage was the crocodile
leather suitcase which I held under my left arm as I extended my right to help
Sarah out of the carriage.
 
I heard the
cadence of marching feet behind me as she was getting onto the platform
followed by the command “Eyes left.”
 
I
was all set to throw her over my shoulder and run when she kicked me in the
shin.
 
“Salute, salute,” she hissed.

I turned and performed a shaky
imitation of the drill movement Sarah had taught me a half hour earlier as a
khaki-clad
 
platoon of soldiers led by a
Sergeant with a bristling red moustache marched past.
 
“Eyes front,” the Sergeant bellowed as his
hand snapped back to his side in a display of precision that put my own poor
attempt at saluting to shame.
 

“Let’s get out of here,” I
whispered.

We had already agreed to hole up at the
Cowans
’
while we considered our next move.
 
The
steamcab
driver looked at us dubiously when I gave him the
address.
 
“Doesn’t seem like your sort of
place,” he said.
 
“Been a lot of bother
down that way lately.”

We saw what he was talking about when we reached the East End.
 
The military presence at the train station
was nothing compared to what was going on here.
 
There were patrols at every intersection.
 
It had been raining and the soldiers wore
glistening rubber capes extending from their
putteed
legs to their wash basin helmets.
 
They
looked medieval
seen through the mist, as though they had stepped from a panel of the
Bayeux Tapestry.

I paid the driver before we got out of the cab so that we could get to the
Cowan’s front door as quickly as possible.
 
I whispered a silent prayer as I knocked on the door.
 
If nobody was home I had no backup plan.
 
For once luck was with me.
 
There was a sound of footsteps from inside,
the door opened a crack and Edith Cowan’s face peered out.

Chapter
XXXXXVII:

A
Reunion – Percy’s Thoughts

“W
hy do you
lot keep bothering me?” Edith said.
 
“It’s like I told the other officer, Percy
ain’t
here and I don’t know where he is.”

“Edith, it’s us,” Sarah said,
pushing me aside.
 
“Let us in.”

“Lord I’m glad to see you,” Edith
said, pulling her inside and holding the door open for me as an afterthought.

“I
ought to wallop
you for showing up dressed like that,” she said to me a few moments later while
she bustled around making tea.
 
“You
didn’t half give me a turn.
 
Still, I can
see you’ve done your duty by our Sarah, so there’s that to be said for you.”

“She doesn’t need that much looking
after,” I said.
 
“Pretty much takes care
of herself.”

“I wasn’t talking about that you
great
git
.
 
Honestly, men can be so thick sometimes.
 
Isn’t that right Sarah?”

“Thick as two planks,” Sarah
agreed.

“How far along are you dear?
 
Couple of months?”

“A bit more.”

“Wait a second,” I said, now that I
understood what we were talking about.
 
“How did you know Sarah was pregnant?”

They both looked at me with
scorn.
 
“
Tchaah
”
they said in perfect unison as though they had pre-rehearsed.

“Y
ou really
reckon this Particle whatsit can put paid to them Black Shirts?” Edith asked
after I had finished telling her why we had come.

“Only if I can get into the British
Museum and from what I’ve seen today that might be harder than I thought.”

“Let me get hold of our Percy.
 
He’s got a better head for these things than
me.”

“I thought you said he wasn’t
here.”

“
Pfft
,” was
her only answer.
 
I began to wonder if I
should invest in some raingear since many of my recent conversations with women
seemed to involve getting sprayed with saliva.

“G
ood to
have you back,” Percy said over a best bitter in
Cowans
’
back room.
 
“Pity we can’t go to the
Lascar’s but I daren’t show my face around here just now.”

“Why?” I asked.
 
“What have you done?”

“It’s not what I’ve done, it’s what
you’ve done.
 
The
Rozzers
keep on at me about where to find you.
 
I
keep telling them I don’t know but somehow they don’t believe me.
 
What have you been up to anyway?”

I gave him a short rundown of
Sarah’s and my
escapades while we
were away, ending with the return of the oscillator.
 
My attempt at a dramatic climax fell flat yet
again.

“Go back a bit,” Percy said.
 
“Did I
hear you say you did for Benny Sherman?”

“It was an accident.
 
I was just
trying to defend myself.”

“
Cor
,
ain’t
you the
dark horse.”
 
I could already hear
Percy’s mind working on how he would spin the tale when it was safe to go back
to the Lascar’s Head.
 
Didn’t need no shooter our Bob.
 
Did for Benny Sherman with his bare
hands.
 
A real American desperado that
one.

“I’m sorry I got you into all this Percy.”

“No need for apologies mate.
 
I just
wish we could get rid of all these squaddies
so’s
I
can get back to drinking at the Lascar’s instead of hiding out here.

“It’s like I said.
 
I need to find a
way to get to the roof of the British Museum.”

“No hope of that.
 
Every public
building is closed and got the army guarding it.
 
Even some of the
toffs
are
brassed
off.
 
They’ve had to cancel this exhibition of some old statue they borrowed
from the
Eyties
.
 
Hermes, I think his name was.

“Where I come from Hermes is a French company that sells expensive fashion
accessories.”
 
I smiled for a moment,
remembering Mary Lou Bernstein, the trust fund anarchist.

“No, this Hermes is a bloke with little wings on his feet and nothing covering
his
willie
.”
 
Percy took another sip of his beer before continuing.
 
“If you want to get on top of the museum you
need to find a way to draw the soldiers off.”

I thought again about Mary Lou Bernstein.
 
Maybe she could teach me something after all.