Frankenstein's Legions (21 page)

And yet Ada—and even Foxglove—were still minded to criticise Julius. For instance, for taking things too far and making a game of it all.

But before they could frame words it was brought home to both just how much his crawling had cost Frankenstein. Directly they were outside the Cathedral and out of sight, Julius sought a quiet corner and sicked his stomach up.

Lady Lovelace curled her lip at all the tiger noises and averted her eyes, but afterwards she said nothing. Naturally, Foxglove followed her lead.

Belatedly, Ada was reassured. There was dignity in travelling with a man of honour. But also comfort in finding his honour so flexible.

Chapter 19: NO MAN’S LANDS

‘ “Beginning near the Belgian town of Nieuwport on the North Sea, the system extends in a zigzag through France to the bastions constructed along the Swiss border just south of Pfetterhouse in the Alps”...’

‘How far is that?’ snapped Lady Lovelace, plainly far from pleased. Foxglove consulted the guide till he found the required passage.

‘…“totalling almost four hundred miles in length and consisting of never less than three lines of trenches on each side, the front occupies a band usually three miles wide, including ‘no man’s land’.  Estimates vary but it is believed that the war zone contains no less than twenty-five thousand miles of trenchworks in total, more than enough to circle the Earth’s Equator”.’

Too far to walk then.

The plan had been to hit some isolated bit of French shore and work their way inland via unpopulated places. Meanwhile, they’d wait for inspiration to strike about contacting Neo-Napoleon. Now it was clear that the greatest war in the history of their species stood between them and their objective.

Standing on a high hill at a safe distance, the little group surveyed and were dismayed. A titanic plough had been through here but never returned to sew seed or turn the furrow. There remained a wound, a suppurating gash, the like of which Mother Earth had never suffered before. Nothing grew there and it reeked of death. And brimstone. And residual poison gas.

Though both Ada and Julius were temperamentally inclined to dark thoughts it had never occurred to either there could be such a wound upon the world. They’d read of course, they’d heard stories, even seen etchings in the news-sheets, but nothing could prepare for the reality. Even Foxglove was visibly shocked.

For his part, the Belgian coachman who’d brought them here no longer even looked. Once during his first trip conveying tourists had been enough. The wisdom in that was confirmed by the fact that no group ever requested a second visit. Nowadays, he just deposited people with averted eyes  and headed back to comfort the horses. They could smell abomination even better than human noses.

‘Is this where they broke through?’ asked Lady Lovelace.

The coachman didn’t even raise his gaze.

‘No. That’s further down. Maybe fifty kilometres. But don’t bother: it’s all the same.’

Ada overlooked his blunt impertinence in favour of looking again. The prospect didn’t charm any better second time round—or third—or thousandth probably.

Meanwhile, their driver was off, without, be it noticed, being dismissed.

‘Just shout when you’ve finished,’ he said as he went. ‘I’ll be by the coach. And don’t go any closer. ‘Tisn’t safe.’

They got the strong impression it wasn’t so much that he cared about them, but that they hadn’t paid yet.

Julius understood why. It was ghoulish to ride out in smart brand-new clothes just to gawp at where so many, so very many, had died. He did not even have the excuse of lost loved ones to justify such a pilgrimage, for Julius’ country had wisely stood aloof—save for mere mercenaries who knew the risks. Likewise, his English companions looked like non-combatants.

‘It might not be for me to say, madam,’ said Foxglove, ‘but I do not think we should attempt to get through here...’

The French had managed it of course, but they were a People’s army, levee en mass, preceded by unprecedented numbers of ‘New Citizens,’ and led by a military genius. Whereas they were merely three civilians. Their modicum of (hot) money might have helped them this far, but neither it or they could afford the quarter million casualties it cost Neo-Napoleon.

Actually, the true extent of the losses wasn’t known and might well be more. Most of the fallen had no grave—or not one they were allowed to stay in.

Frankenstein had assumed the plain hopelessness of this route would free Lady Lovelace from her mad plans. He should have known better.

‘Foxglove, you are right,’ she replied, and wickedly paused just long enough to wrongfoot her devoted servant. ‘It is not for you to say!’

Foxglove blushed and bowed his head.

Yet he had a point, and one that could hardly escape her. Even a blind man could have smelt it. Hell’s Mouth stretched for mile upon appalling mile between Lady Lovelace and her objective. She had to inwardly regroup before she could push herself on.

‘What precisely would you say are the dangers?’ Ada asked.

Thinking himself addressed, Foxglove flicked through his guidebook in search of a definitive answer. Lady Lovelace hissed and snatched it from him, flinging the thing away.

‘Do you mean me?’ enquired Julius. He’d been preoccupied, trying to outrun the horrible notion that a lot of the white gravel underfoot was actually bone fragments. And if so, should he spread the news?

Ada was as acid as she ever got: victim of an aristocratic upbringing. When thwarted she turned the whip on whoever was nearest to hand.

‘Who else, sirrah?  There must be some reason for you to be here!’

He was not employed by her, he had no bonds of affection; even their history together was short. There was no reason not to play her at her own game.

‘Tush, madam,’ said Julius. ‘It’s perfectly safe. After the Great Breakthrough the lines were left unoccupied. Mostly. Some feral undead remain, so they say: a negligible few hundred thousand of them, getting their daily bread the Lord knows how. And certain timid commentators talk of millions of mines, and unexploded shells, and lakes of more than man-height mud, and shoot-on-sight galloon patrols, and...’

‘Shut up,’ said Ada.

Frankenstein pressed on regardless.

‘If you ask me, I think we should reserve it for an after tea stroll on Sunday. Our innkeeper tells me he expects good weather on Sunday...’

‘Foxglove, make him shut up.’

‘No, milady,’ said he. ‘It’s for your own good...’

Which was a turn up for the book. It impressed her more than anything Reason or Frankenstein had to say. Nimble as a ballerina, Ada re-evaluated her options.

‘We could get a ship,’ she suggested, burying Foxglove’s slave rebellion in silence. ‘Risk the Channel again...’

‘No,’ said Julius—and he had never sounded firmer.

‘No,’ said even Foxglove.

Ada thought on and remembered.

‘No,’ she agreed. But then: ‘Yet we have got to get through somehow.’

For a space, Frankenstein deluded himself he had an ally in Foxglove, but when he looked across at the man his gaze was avoided.

So, here he was alone again: the most unlikely ever ambassador for sanity.

‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Why must we? 

‘I refer you to the Council of Box Hill,’ snapped Ada. ‘It was all dealt with there. I got the distinct impression you were present...’

Indeed he had been. He’d not had voting rights, but he’d been an observer. And therefore complicit in the lunatic resolutions passed.

Julius Frankenstein looked behind him. There lay Belgium and, beyond it, using the eye of faith, Holland. Two statelets too crazed with commerce to realise the state they were in. Come the day the Convention could abide their offensive bourgeois presence no longer, they would be swept away in an afternoon: toy armies and all. It wouldn’t even take Bonaparte himself, but just one of his galaxy of star-generals, to deal with them in short order.

They would be juicy plums to pick. What little Julius had seen confirmed the legend that the Low Countries had exploited Lazaran economics about as far as they would go—even to the far side of the world in fact.

Belgic and Netherlands Lazarans dug dykes and forced the sea back, field by field, careless of casualties. Their treadmill power turned the windmills which dotted that reclaimed land. Then the money that earned bought merchant ships for which Lazarans were shipwrights, dockers and crew; making and ‘manning’ a fleet that carried forth manufactured goods and brought back riches. Naturally, or perhaps unnaturally, it was Lazarans who laboured twenty-four hours a day, chained to benches in the factories that made those manufactured things. Word was there were even undead explorer ships, completely expendable of course save for a living captain to report back, sent to seek out new lands—and markets.

In short, this was the virtuous economic circle that had let the Republics scale the moral high-ground and abolish slavery. They were bursting with the prosperity that came from bursting open the grave.

In the few short hours he’d graced Belgium with his presence, Frankenstein had seen as many Lazarans as living humans; perhaps more. Reports said Holland was worse. They were asking for trouble of course: sooner or later some Revived Spartacus would do the arithmetic and rise up, but in the meanwhile there was a lot of money being made. The French Convention, for all it was supposedly above things like worldly wealth, would thank the Lowland Republics for that in due course. When ransacked they would sponsor the invasion of some other countries, maybe other continents.

Telescoping down to personal considerations, the big question was: did Julius want to turn back and be a part of that, to await, albeit in comfort, the arrival of the inevitable in the form of the French?

Answer: no. Or NO!  If the French were fore-destined it was better to go meet them now, on his own terms, at a time of his choosing. Which, however weirdly, meant his thoughts coincided with Ada’s.

Which in turn meant his thoughts must be wrong, though he couldn’t quite see how at this moment.

Therefore he cast about for other options. How about home?

That thought provoked a bitter laugh. Leaving aside the  country-wide outlawry notice on him, the Helvetic Republic contained too many memories of murdered family. The first Lazaran of all had not only deprived him of kin but indirectly of Fatherland too. Even a Swiss firing squad was preferable to a moment’s actual residing and reflection there.

Which just left going forward. Which implied crossing the forsaken front-line before them. Which was impossible save for an army—and a army careless of its men’s lives at that.

Ada was still waiting for his response. She must have sensed he was at a cross-roads, for she never normally waited for anyone.

If it was going to be done, it was best done quick and get it over with. Frankenstein drew deep breath.

‘Upon reflection,’ he said with finality, ‘I see that you are right. France it must be.’

When she wanted, Lady Lovelace could fake sincerity like no other. She also thought she knew which strings made Frankenstein dance.

‘Well, that is where the ‘escape and adventure’ I promised you lies...,’ she said, in warm, welcome-home-prodigal-son, tones.

Julius only heard half of it: the ‘promised you lies’ bit: which happened to be the true portion, so he didn’t protest.

Thus are decisions made. Yet Frankenstein was still distracted, pondering whether he should tell all. About his terrifying vision.

It only took a further second. Being here, in this horrible place, emboldened him. Here, where so many lives had been thrown away like they were nothing, or less than nothing, put his own petty story into perspective. Why was he making such heavy weather of living a mere three-score years and ten, if you were lucky?  One way or the other, not a great deal mattered much anyhow...

‘Live your life, Julius’ he told himself.

And so he said:

‘I have this idea....’

Chapter 20: FROM ON HIGH

Several scenes from a bird’s-eye view: an all-seeing, all hearing, but nosey bird, with no regard for people’s privacy.

*  *  *

‘Well, I think it’s a very bad idea,’ said Foxglove, before passion subsided and he remembered himself. ‘Milady...,’ he added.

‘But very stylish,’ said Frankenstein, knowing it to be a done deal anyway. ‘Bags of style!’

‘Indeed,’ concurred Lady Lovelace, not actually caring a damn about style or any other inessentials, but willing to conscript it to her side. She deemed no more need be said.

Nor need there. Foxglove’s outbursts were few and short (if not sweet), but came from the heart and with the best of intentions. The house-broken bruiser sat back and became like a statue again.

The undisputed good thing was their heading away from the terrible trenches. Less unanimous was their trajectory to the Free City of Luxembourg: as ‘agreed’—but only after argument and Julius putting his foot down. Deplored by all was the fact of their new inseparable companion.

The sinister sealed coach followed them at a discreet distance.

*  *  *

It had shown up not long after they arrived at the former frontline viewing point. Frankenstein noticed it directly and long before the others would. Products of their relatively happy national history, the English tended to be less skittish on such scores than continentals.

He’d let his companions in on the news directly after the great ‘what-next?’ debate. Ada had queried why they had to go all the way to Luxembourg to catch a France-bound galloon?  ‘The Belgians have them too you know’ she’d said.

‘Because of that,’ Julius answered succinctly. With a flick of the thumb he indicated their new companion. ‘No, don’t turn round: they’re watching us. Just be aware we have company and act innocent.’

Foxglove complied by not looking at all, but Ada could not be deterred from a slow motion turn. Eventually, the second coach came into Lady Lovelace’s peripheral vision.

‘Mere sight-seers, like us,’ she decreed. ‘A young couple; honeymooners I shouldn’t wonder...’