The Aylesford Skull

TWENTY-SEVEN

ALOFT OVER LONDON

St. Ives had got perhaps four hours of real sleep, and in the middle of it had lurched awake from a nightmare that had filled him with a profound, breathless dread – a vision of Eddie and Alice disappearing into a black cleft in a stone wall, which had closed tightly behind them. Even so, he had fallen asleep again, and this morning his headache had quite disappeared, and he found that his mind was clear and sharp. He had no regard for the idea that dreams were prophetic. No doubt they sometimes illustrated one’s deepest fears, he told himself, but almost certainly in a manner that was merely symbolic.

Almost certainly, he told himself again, and in any event, last night’s blue devils had been consigned to Hell, where they could abide until he had some use for them, which wouldn’t be soon. He had been shown the way by Finn Conrad, a boy alone in London and with precious few resources aside from his wits and his cleverness. The lesson might have been humbling rather than inspiring to any reasonably competent man. To St. Ives it was a tonic of the first water, to coin a somewhat ridiculous phrase, and so was the eastern horizon, which, seen now from their great height in the airship, glowed a magnificent orange, the sun coming up dripping out of the Dover Strait, and London laid out below them.

The gondola was a skeletal-looking, boat-built structure, very much like an enclosed launch, its keel tapering into a bowsprit in front. The gondola’s wooden frame was stick-like, and scarcely seemed sturdy enough to bear the weight of the craft and its cargo. The plank floorboards creaked, and the breeze blew in through open ports – a potential irritation, perhaps, if St. Ives hadn’t been wearing goggles. There were glass windows, in fact, hinged open at the moment, which might be closed in the case of rain, but it was Keeble’s idea that the effect of the wind pushing against the gondola would be lessened if they remained open.

By now St. Ives felt safe enough, and was used to the movement of the spokes of the ship’s wheel, which felt like a living thing beneath his hands. As soon as they had ascended above the rooftops his attention had been drawn to the miniature city laid out below them. He saw the dome of St. Paul’s now, off the port bow, Queen Victoria Street and Blackfriars Bridge identifiable alongside, Hyde Park a leafy green acreage in the distance, everything small and neat. He took in the view of the shipping on the Thames, the first boats already plying back and forth to the Custom House or mooring at the Billingsgate docks. Smithfield Market lay dead ahead, with Billson’s Half Toad Inn somewhere nearby, but he couldn’t quite discern the inn among the many tiny buildings and streets, Lambert Court looking like any of a thousand other such courts from the air.

He had been aloft in balloons a number of times, but motive power made this something pleasingly different – a true, dirigible airship, not at the mercy of the winds, at least for the most part. He was a pilot rather than a passenger in that sense. Just as this thought came into his mind, however, a sudden gust shifted them bodily in the direction of the river, and for a moment he had precious little control of the craft as the nose quickly fell off course.

“She pays off to leeward prodigiously even in this moderate breeze,” St. Ives said to Hasbro, who was peering intently into the periscope lens.

“Dizzyingly, I might add,” Hasbro said, “what with the smaller view through the lens. One keeps losing perspective. I’m endeavoring to keep the St. Paul’s in sight…” He looked out through the gondola window, then back into the lens, adjusting the periscope controls. “There, I’ve found it again.”

First-rate practice, St. Ives thought. He moved the king-spoke of the ship’s wheel to starboard, the airship turning slowly, heading back into the wind at an oblique angle and making tolerable headway against it. He intended to come completely around in a circle to starboard if he could, to see what the wind would do in all quarters. The controls were simple enough, the propeller providing surprising motive power, towing them rather than pushing. At twelve nautical miles an hour it was as fast as a sailing ship or a steam launch, although it didn’t seem so, with the ground so far below and no visible wake or bow wave to judge by. He wondered what the effect of a thirty-knot headwind would be, or a quick downdraft, but he would have to wait until Aeolus provided him with useful examples of such things. God willing it wouldn’t mean disaster.

Keeble’s clever electric engine hummed as they made their circuit, St. Ives keeping an eye on the compass needle, which traced the course. An imagined Aylesford swept past somewhere in the hazy distance, Alice and Cleo comfortably asleep, he hoped, and then, much farther away, the Channel and Beachy Head, with the coast of France beyond. They circled around farther, looking away west now, up the Thames, Wales lurking out there somewhere, and then very shortly what must be the Great North Road appeared below. Around they came into the east again, and a flock of birds flew past, out of the sun, which had crept higher into the sky, well clear of the sea, although the city was still largely in shadow. The blue lenses of St. Ives’s goggles reduced the glare, but gave the world a strangely aquatic tinge, as if they sailed beneath a tropical ocean rather than through the sky. They were over Smithfield once again, back on course, although some distance west of where they had started their turn, no great time having elapsed in the experimental circuit.

“London is admirably quiet at this altitude,” Hasbro said, not looking up from the periscope lens.

“Are people taking notice of us?” St. Ives asked, the idea appealing to him.

“Indeed. They come out into the street and point skyward. Some seem to be determined to follow, although our circuitous route has confounded their efforts.”

“We’ll drop down a few hundred feet,” St. Ives said, “in order to give them a better view. See if you can pick out the Half Toad. I’d like to get several more absolute bearings before slanting away toward Greenwich.”

When released by a foot pedal, an iron tiller with a ball atop tilted the propeller up and down, shifting the craft vertically. St. Ives pushed the tiller forward now, the ship descending toward the rooftops and leveling off when they were quite low.

“I believe I have Billson’s in view,” Hasbro said. “There lies the Smithfield Central Market and the top of Shoe Lane, if I’m not mistaken. Billson’s must be one of the…”

There was a sudden, heavy concussion somewhere below them, a dull, muffled thud – an explosion, almost certainly. Abruptly the airship rushed upward nose first, was pushed as if from a great wind, the gondola sweeping downward on its pendulum to remain level. St. Ives had no control of the craft at all now, and it occurred to him that if the ship somersaulted, or came close to, the gondola might simply plunge into the rubberized skin of the craft and be engulfed. There was a terrible groaning noise, as if the bamboo struts that formed the skeleton of the craft were straining against their screws and rivets. Then the force lessened, and he eased forward on the tiller, depressing the nose, until they were level again. The ship answered the helm, the silence returned, and the engine hummed away as ever.

“A good deal of smoke seems to be issuing from the environs of the market,” Hasbro said, “or very near – the Farringdon Street edge below Charterhouse Street. A great billowing now.”

St. Ives could see it clearly as it rose into the sky ahead – black smoke, for the most part – and he was reminded of the Palm House at the Bayswater Club. He drew the tiller back, and the craft rose, passing over the leading edge of the cloud. People could be seen fleeing from the market, many running toward the grounds of St. Bartholomew the Less and others fleeing east along Charterhouse Street.

“My God,” Hasbro said, his usual equanimity shattered. “They’ve blown a hole in the wall of the Fleet River, I believe. There’s a torrent pouring out of the breach and washing down Farringdon Street, sweeping everything before it.”

St. Ives craned his neck, watching the floodwaters rage along toward the Thames, carrying away wagons and horses that had been coming up toward the market. People fled away on every side, broken wagons washing up against the buildings along the street. The flood and debris must have been making a din, for people some distance ahead of the waters climbed up onto whatever high ground afforded itself, others ran east or west, if they were lucky enough to be near an intersection. St. Ives had rarely felt as useless, for there was nothing he could do to help except pray that people could find their way clear.

Blackfriars Bridge arched over the Thames ahead of them. Behind them the smoke had thinned, blowing away on the breeze. The flood showed no sign of abating, which was odd. In fact, now that St. Ives considered it, the flood itself was odd. It was true that the waters of the Fleet came down from high elevation in Hampstead Heath,