Ghosts of Engines Past (41 page)

I returned to my room and stretched out on my bed, practically melting with relief. I had confirmed that the spark semaphore was indeed a priceless weapon, and that the people in and around Ballard House were about as stable as a sack of gunpowder beside a blacksmith's forge. My duty was done, and I could retreat in good order.

The following morning I prepared to leave for Portsmouth, and with the sun still on the horizon I saddled my horse and set off. I had just passed out of sight of Ballard House when Captain Hartwell stepped out from between the trees flanking the road ahead, attended by a sergeant and corporal. Glancing behind me, I saw another two guards blocking the way back. They were all armed with Brown Bess muskets, except for Hartwell. He was holding a glass of red wine and had a pistol in his belt. His eyes were wide and his expression manic.

“Get down from your horse, sir!” he shouted. “Do so now!”

“I am about the crown's business,” I began.

“And I am about honour's business! Get down, sir!”

“I can have you charged with treason.”

“Sergeant Adams, if he does not dismount... shoot his horse.”

As my foot touched the ground Hartwell flung the red wine in my face and smashed the glass.

“What is the meaning of this?” I asked in a deliberately level tone.

The sergeant cleared his throat.

“I have been, ah, seeing a maid from the manor,” he said. “She said that you spent last night in Lady Monica's bed chamber.”

While that was not true in the strictest sense, telling Hartwell that Monica had spent twenty minutes in
my
bedchamber would have done me no good at all.

“He can't order you to do this, sergeant,” I said. “Duels are illegal.”

“His father has influence, sir. He can have our entire squad away to Spain to get shot by the Frenchies before you can say God save the King. Best you come along.”

I tethered my horse and was escorted into the meadow beyond the roadside trees. Sergeant Adams and a corporal named Knox agreed to stand seconds for Hartwell and me.

“You have the choice of weapons,” said Adams. “Guns or sabers?”

Sabres did not seem like a good choice. I had not touched one until three years earlier, while Hartwell had probably been tutored by expensive fencing masters since he could walk. Pistols were not likely to be his strength. Young nobles favoured rifles, which were better suited for hunting both game and poachers.

“Pistols, at forty paces.”

Hartwell and I presented our pistols for the inspection of our seconds. They were both Tower flintlocks of about the same age. Starting back to back, we both took twenty paces as Adams counted, then turned.

“Lieutenant Fletcher, as the challenged party you may take first shot,” called Adams.

“I concede the first shot to Captain Hartwell,” I replied.

Hartwell was sure to miss, and I planned to show mercy. He fired. He missed, but the ball passed so close that it clipped the sleeve of my shirt. The little wretch actually had some skill in the use of pistols! This was a surprise. Offering a prayer of thanks heavenwards, I deliberately fired wide.

“Honour is satisfied, sir, now may I be about the crown's business?” I called.

“Honour is most certainly not satisfied, sir!” Hartwell called back. “Reload!”

Suddenly my confidence deserted me. The rent in my shirt was at the level of my heart. I had been lucky, and from my time in Portugal and Spain I knew that Lady Fortune could be a fickle mistress for those who relied upon her too heavily. The sergeant reloaded for Hartwell, but I reloaded my own Tower.

Hartwell and I faced each other again, and he had the first shot.
If he misses again, should I—

His ball struck my side, little below the ribs.

With the breath all but knocked out of me and pain like a splash of boiling water within my abdomen, I dropped to one knee and steadied myself with my left hand. If I now conceded, Hartwell could just as easily have his men abandon me in the meadow to bleed to death. If he died, I was the senior officer present and the guards were under my command. With all the strength that remained to me, I put the pain out of my mind and forced myself to stand.

Across forty paces Hartwell must have seen the change in my expression. His smile of triumph became a forced grin. I was wounded, angry, and not inclined to show mercy. More to the point, I was holding a loaded gun. This was no longer a game. It was probably the first time in his life that he had faced real danger.

“Allow me to introduce myself,” I panted across the distance between us. “I am Death.”

His uneasy grin dropped into a gape of horror, and a dark stain spread down his white riding breeches and began to steam. I fired. The cloud of smoke cleared to reveal Hartwell lying face down in the grass. The back of his head had burst outwards as the ball had flown clear.

“Sergeant, you will fetch my horse and escort me to the physician in Wimbourne Minster,” I ordered.

“But sir, you're not fit to ride. Ballard House—”

“Ballard House has no physician. Now fetch my horse!”

The ride was five miles of torment, but it was the wise choice. I did not want to spend days or weeks recovering in Ballard House, because Sir Charles would be sure to ask why Hartwell and I had been dueling. The sergeant walked ahead, leading my horse. We were within sight of the town when he stopped and turned.

“Best we stop for a rest, sir. I'll help you dismount.”

“Best you raise your hands, sergeant,” I said, pointing my pistol between his eyes. “I reloaded as you walked, and you are aware that I am a very good shot.”

His frown told me everything that I needed to know.

“But sir, your wound needs checking.”

“You want to delay me by the roadside, so that I bleed to death.”

“Oh sir, why would I do that?”

“To conceal your part in an illegal duel! Now fling your knife and musket into that ditch and walk on.”

The world was spinning before my eyes by the time we reached Wimbourne Minster, and I have patchy memories of a physician probing for the ball in my abdomen. When next I opened my eyes it was August.

I awoke to a very different world. Major Jodrel had been ordered to join Sir Arthur Wellesley on the same day as the duel. His letter was lying unopened beside my bed, and it authorized me to act in his stead regarding anything to do with the spark semaphore. The doctor said that I still had many days of rest ahead of me before I could travel. My blood had been poisoned by the shot, and my fever had been higher than any he had ever seen in a patient who had survived.

“To be honest, sir, I was surprised that you awoke at all,” he said. “Your body has been healing, but I feared that the fever might have so damaged your brain that you were but a dead man with a beating heart.”

It was another two days before I could even walk about the room, but my strength returned steadily. My saddlebags were beside the bed, and within these were the two journals belonging to Sir Charles. Knowing that it would be some time before I could ride again, I decided to read right through them.

As I expected, the journal for 1809 began as a chronicle of disappointment. Sir Charles had applied electrical charge across a pair of amber balls, then varied its intensity. Each dot and dash that he applied to one of balls was repeated back to him, and at first he thought that the pulses from the transmitting ball were being reflected back from the other. Without first conducting proper tests, he tried to demonstrate the effect to Sir Henry. The result was the quite humiliating failure that I already knew of.

After further tests he noticed that the pulses that he detected were not always the same as those he transmitted. Garbled messages began to come through. Now he suspected that the French had a similar device, and that he was listening in on their distant conversations. The truth was far, far stranger, as the journal soon showed.

Today the realization came upon me. The reflections and messages are coming from within the sphere of amber. It is as if someone were inside, learning my code of thirty-six electrical intensities, trying to speak with me. The longer the electrical charge is continuously applied, the more advanced are the messages when the intensity is varied. It is as if the person's recent memories were wiped clean every time the electrical charge ceases. I intend to buy a steam engine to drive a Winter generator, thereby supplying continuous charge. Voltaic piles are drained too quickly.

After this there was a break of several weeks, with only notes here and there about equipment arriving. Once the generator began operating there was a flood of entries.

Day by day her grasp of English improves. I know now that the spirit within the amber sphere is female. She does not have a name as we have names, but I call her Electrica. Unlike my wife, she has a love and mastery of the natural philosophies. Her grasp of all matters electrical defies belief. I have not as yet worked out what civilization is hers, whether Egyptian, Chinese, Indian or of some unknown people. To better facilitate the conversation between us, she has developed a system of short and long bursts of electrical charge in groups of four to represent letters and numerals. It has now replaced my own clumsy system of thirty-six charge intensities in the conversations that we have.

I read on, scarcely believing what was before my eyes. Just as we may preserve dead animals in jars of spirits, Electrica's people could control electrical charge by means of willpower alone, and by this means fit the image of a mind within a sphere of amber. She was no longer alive as such, but while electrical charge was applied to the amber sphere, the image of her mind could function.

Today she described her people, and what a contrast they are with us. They combined all the virtues of the ancient Greek philosophers with those of noble savages. All possible effort must be made to find the ruins of their civilization, for therein will be found a treasure chest of knowledge and secrets. My feeling is that they lie not far from Egypt, for this is where I bought the amber sphere from a vendor of curios in a market. Electrica's people did not till the soil as we do, but looked upon the world as a vast hunting estate. They were unencumbered by weapons, they would run free, pulling down large and noble game animals, in the fashion of a pack of hounds setting upon a stag.

I looked up from the journal. A group of people with only bare hands and teeth might overwhelm and kill a goat or a sheep, but killing a large beast without weapons is not possible for humans. Wolves can do so, but wolves have strong jaws and large, sharp teeth. I read on.

Electrica now suggested a way to give herself sight, hearing and a voice by means of charged metal plates and wires. Two dozen charged plates were arranged around the amber sphere, and wires were trailed from these to the head of a raven, ravens being known for their ability to mimic human speech. Sir Charles developed the device by means of trail and error, and at least a score of birds were killed by an excess of electrical charge before he perfected the technique. By the middle of 1809 Electrica was able to see, hear and speak through a raven connected to his amberscope by harpsichord wires.

As strange as it sounds, all of Monica's jokes about Sir Charles having a mistress upstairs were true. He doted on the bird, whose cage was the whole of the raven room. Electrica was restricted by the wires attached to the bird's head, but otherwise she was free to do as she would. He brought books there once she had learned to read, and she was able to turn the pages with her beak. By this means Electrica learned of our industrial arts, steam and electrical devices, geography, history, mathematics and philosophy.

All the while my darling Electrica entreated me to keep the electrical charge constant, for if it were to fail, all the learning, conversation and memory of the months past would vanish. This is because what is within the amber sphere is not a mind, but instructions for the building of a mind. To ease her fears I have added a second steam engine and generator, but also retained the array of Voltaic piles in the event that both engines should fail. No expense is too great to protect my beloved Electrica.

At last I reached the end of the journal for 1809, and I lay back against the pillows, closed my eyes and rested. Even though the journal had been absolutely consistent, I suspected that Sir Charles was deluded. He reminded me of lonely soldiers who pay clerks to write letters to sweethearts who do not exist, then burn the pages when they think nobody is watching. Reassured by my own wishful thinking, I drifted into sleep.

I spent most of the following day reading through the journal for 1810. It was generally concerned with the books that Electrica was reading, philosophical discussions between herself and Sir Charles, how his wife did not understand him, and how the love between himself and Electrica was flourishing. He was definitely in love with the idea of Electrica, whether she existed in his mind or in reality. Then, in the closing days of December 1810, came the entry that I was seeking.

My beloved Electrica and I were at the window, her host raven upon my shoulder, watching a storm. Perhaps inspired by the flashes of lightning, she suggested a means of instantaneous messaging with all the virtues of my quite futile idea, the amberscope. She said that wires arranged in a circuitous fashion and tuned in the manner of a musical instrument might draw electrical potential out of the air. The American philosopher Franklin had taken faltering steps in this regard, but Electrica described to me a means of causing small and harmless lightning discharges in a box the size of a sea chest, then invisibly casting them through the air by means of a great length of wire. I prepared drawings, even though my wife beat at the door and shouted that the guests were arriving to celebrate the eve of the New Year.

That was the end of the journal for 1810. Clearly the device had worked, but I still did not believe in Electrica. Sir Charles was very lonely, and of course he was fabricating her within his mind, yet...

I got out of bed and walked into the parlour. Here my physician was mixing tonics in a jar and pouring them into a row of bottles. He was a wiry little man with wispy, graying hair and thick spectacles. His manner was always firm but optimistic.