“I–I just came down to watch Mr. Gooch at-at work, sir,” Bingham responded.
“Worried he'd be blown off the pylon by the high winds, were you?”
Bingham took a couple of steps backward.
“Is there a problem?” Gooch asked.
Lawless's eyes flashed angrily. “There most certainly is!”
Bingham pulled a pistol from his pocket and brandished it at them. “Get back, all of you!”
“Bloody traitor!” Lawless snapped.
“Hey! Drop that!” Bhatti cried out.
Bingham swung the pistol toward the constable, then pointed it at Burton, then at Lawless. His lips thinned against his teeth and his eyes flashed threateningly.
Lawless said, “Why?”
“Because I have a wife and two children,” the meteorologist snarled. “And I also happen to have a tumour in my gut and not many months to live. A certain party has agreed to pay my family a large amount of money in return for the sacrifice I'm about to make.” He directed his gun back at the king's agent. “I wouldn't have to do it at all but for you, Burton. I followed you to Ilford and back and took a pot-shot at you.”
“You ruined a perfectly good hat.”
“It's a crying shame I didn't spoil the head it was adorning. If you'd have been decent enough to die then, this ship and its crew would have been spared.”
“You're not the only man Zeppelin hired to kill me,” Burton revealed. “The other was promised money and received instead the count's hands around his neck.”
“Ah, so you know my employer, then! But what do you mean?”
“My other would-be assassin was strangled to death, Bingham. Had you managed to put a bullet in me, I have little doubt that Zeppelin's associates would have then put one in you. As for money being paid to your family, you can forget it. The Prussians will feel no obligation to you once you're dead.”
“Shut your mouth!” Bingham yelled. His finger whitened on the trigger as he jerked his pistol back and forth between Burton, Lawless, and Bhatti.
“Give it up, man!” the latter advised. “Don't leave your family stained with the name of a traitor!”
The meteorologist backed away a step. “Not another word out of you!” he spat at Bhatti. “As for you, Burton, they want an end to your little jaunt to Africa, and this-” With his free hand, Bingham undid his tightly buttoned jacket and pulled it open. He wasn't the fat man they thought he was. He was a slim man made bulky by a vest fashioned from sticks of dynamite. “This will ensure they get what they want!”
“Hell's teeth!” Captain Lawless shouted. “Are you bloody insane, man?”
Bingham sneered nastily. “Blame your friend here, Lawless. He's left me with no choice but to eliminate you all.”
“You do have a choice,” Burton said. “Shoot me now and spare the ship.”
“No. I've overheard you and your companions enough to know that, now they're on their way to Africa, they'd continue your mission without you. This is it for all of you.”
He placed his left index finger over a button in the middle of his chest.
“Bingham! There are women and children on board!” Lawless bellowed.
“To protect my own woman, and my own children, I would do anything, even-”
Shyamji Bhatti suddenly threw himself at the meteorologist, thudded into him, and with his arms wrapped around the saboteur, allowed his momentum to send them both toppling out of the open hull door. There came a blinding flash from outside and a tremendous discharge. The floor swung upward and slapped into the side of Burton's head, stunning him and sending him sliding across its metal surface. Bells jangled in his ears. Through the clamour, as if from a far-off place, he heard someone yell: “We're going down!”
CHAPTER 5
“A Phenomenal Success.”
FLOR DE DINDIGUL
A Medium-Mild Indian Cigar
“Will bear favourable comparison
with choice Havanas,
while the cost is about one-third.”
Indian Tobacco, grown by Messrs. Slightly and Co.,
is eugenically enhanced for exquisitely choice
flavour and delicate aroma.
A DELIGHTFUL WHIFF
22/- per 100 from all good Tobacconists.
Sir Richard Francis Burton was leaning against a palm tree just beyond the final cottage of Kaltenberg. Beside him, Bertie Wells, sitting on a rock, was dabbing at a small wound on the back of his neck with a handkerchief. Burton had just used a penknife to dig a jigger flea out from beneath the war correspondent's skin.
From the trees around them, the shrieks and cackles of birds and monkeys blended into a cacophonous racket.
High overhead, eagles wheeled majestically through the dazzling sky.
The terrain in front of the two men angled down to the outlying houses and huts of Tanga.
Burton squinted, looking across the rooftops of the sprawling town to the ocean beyond. It was like peering through glass; the atmosphere was solid with heat. The humidity pressed against him, making his skin prickle. Respiration required a conscious effort, with each scalding breath having to be sucked in, the air resisting, as if too lethargic to move.
Wells pointed at a large building in the western part of the seaport.“That's the railway terminal. Two major lines run from it-the Tanganyika, all the way west to the lake; and the Usambara, up to Kilimanjaro.”
“Language is an astonishingly liquid affair,” Burton muttered. “We pronounced it Kilima Njaro in my day. Like the natives.”
“Perhaps some still do,” Wells replied. “But it's the fluid quality that makes language an excellent tool for imperialists. Force people to speak like you and soon enough they'll be thinking like you. Rename their villages, towns, and mountains, and before they know it, they're inhabiting your territory. So Kilimanjaro it is. Anyway, as I was saying, that's the station and our forces need to capture or destroy it to slow down the movement of German troops and supplies.” He indicated a twin-funnelled warship lying at anchor in the bay. “And that's HMS
“No.”
“It's a demand for surrender. The British Indian Expeditionary Force transports have already offloaded the troops onto the beaches. They're awaiting the order to attack. The
Burton frowned. “The town looks uninhabited.”
Wells glanced at his bloodstained handkerchief and pushed it into a pocket. “They're all hiding indoors,” he said. “They've known the attack was coming for a couple of days.”
Burton closed his eyes, removed his helmet, and massaged his scalp with his fingertips.
Wells looked at him and asked, “Is that tattoo of yours hurting?”
