Onyx City (The Lazarus Longman Chronicles Book 3) (18 page)

They bundled back into the Clarence and headed north east. By the time they had reached Limehouse, the evidence of the riot was clear. Smoke from burning buildings hovered over the streets like a fug, lit from beneath by an orange glow. People were everywhere; most were frightened Londoners wandering about in a state of shock. Others were looters taking advantage of the situation by smashing shop windows and snatching what they could, resulting in ferocious brawls with the proprietors.

“Take us down some back streets,” Commissioner Warren told the driver, poking his head out of the window. “Don’t try to get through this.”

The Clarence lurched to the left and wound off down a narrow side street. It wasn’t long before they found their way blocked once again. A Clarence much like their own lay overturned in the street, one of its horses dead and the other broken free from its reigns and nowhere in sight. The carriage was on fire and a crowd stood around it. The two passengers lay dead in the street, their fine clothes torn and their faces bloodied.

“The bastards!” Abberline hissed, drawing his pistol.

Warren grabbed his arm. “Leave it, Frank.”

“Why do this?” Abberline said, seemingly on the verge of tears.

“It’s the glorious revolution,” Lazarus told him. “No toff is safe now. These people have been stirred up into a frenzy for the blood of those who have lorded it over them for centuries.”

“Turn around, driver!” Warren called up.

“Can’t, sir!” came the reply. “Street’s too narrow.”

“Well back it up or something, man!”

It was too late. The crowd had spotted them. Their angry cries swept towards them like a tsunami as they surged forward, bricks, bats, clubs and knives in their hands.

“You have my permission, Inspector,” said Warren, his face pale as he fumbled for his own revolver.

Lazarus drew his too and as one they opened the doors of the carriage and leaned out, firing into the crowd. Several of the rioters fell dead and Warren yelled to the driver to plough through them.

The carriage trundled forward, and the terrified horses reared up at the faces of the crowd that pressed close. The driver lashed them on and one rioter was crushed under the wheels of the carriage. Abberline, to his credit, thought of a plan that Lazarus wished he had. Reaching out through the window and plucking one of the lanterns from the carriage’s side, the inspector hurled it at the feet of the rioters.

The explosion of flame forced the crowd back. Lazarus did the same from his window and they quickly found themselves engulfed by fire on either side. They could hear the driver’s moans and feverish prayers as he pushed on, the horses eager to leave the inferno behind them.

More people pressed in from the right and crashed against the side of the carriage, pawing, clawing at its doors to get in at the occupants. Abberline fired again and again through the open window, but there weren’t enough bullets between them for the entire mob.

The carriage began to tip under the press of bodies. Lazarus grabbed Mary. “Keep your head down and be ready to run when I say,” he told her.

She squeezed him tight and shut her eyes in terror as the carriage toppled. All the windows shattered as the overturned carriage struck the cobbles. The occupants were tumbled end over end in a jumble of flailing limbs. Then the crowd was upon them.

Chapter Seventeen

In which London faces another Great Fire

Scrambling over the cursing Abberline, Lazarus booted open the door of the carriage and rose up as one might rise from a grave. He shot the closest rioter to him, then slammed the butt of the revolver down on the temple of a man who was trying to climb up over the axle of the ruined carriage.

Warren and Abberline joined him and between the three of them they managed to hold the crowd at bay. Lazarus helped Mary up and out of the carriage and they jumped down onto the cobbles, dashing towards a row of darkened and looted shops.

Lazarus did not notice Warren and Abberline taking off in a different direction until they had ducked into an alleyway. It was deathly silent but for the muted cries of the crowd on the street behind them. None had apparently seen them slip away and for a moment, Lazarus felt a twinge of guilt and sympathy for the commissioner and the inspector, who had no doubt drawn the brunt of the crowd’s attention.

“This is a bloody nightmare!” Mary said. “What are we going to do? We can’t get through to Whitechapel. It’s impossible!”

“Then we head for the police station in East India Dock Road,” Lazarus told her. “Or, failing that, my place. It’s not exactly safe, but we can lie low for a bit and hope we can hold out for the night.”

They made their way east, using the narrow backstreets and alleys and avoiding Commercial Road until it became East India Dock Road. Rejoining it, they found that another mob was rampaging up and down within yards of the police station, smashing windows and stealing goods.

“Lazarus, I’m scared,” Mary said, clutching him as they stood in the shadows of the alley, peeping out like spectators to the end of the world.

Lazarus was scared too. The whole city was going up in smoke, but he had to remain firm for Mary’s sake. “Look how we’re dressed,” he told her. “A docker and a bag-tail. They won’t care about us. We’ll blend right in.”

They moved out onto the street and followed its gutter. Up ahead, a crowd had gathered around some poor wretch like scavengers around a wounded animal. They struck at him with bats and bits of pipe, and Lazarus had to wonder how anyone could withstand such a beating. Then he recognized the tattered greatcoat encasing the massive muscles and knew why.

“It’s Clumps!” he said.

“Oh, the poor thing!” Mary exclaimed, and then remembered herself and added, “does he feel pain, do you think?”

“I’ve often wondered that myself. Look at him stand up to them, though!”

The mechanical was not going down without a fight; that much was clear. He swung with his fists as if he were batting at flies, felling men left, right and centre. The ground was littered with the bodies of the fallen, but that only seemed to drive the mob on in their ferocity. The sight of his grotesque face with all its pipes and tubes had probably frightened them into a rage. People will always seek to destroy what they fear, Lazarus thought grimly.

There was nothing for it. Although he desperately wanted to deliver Mary safely to the police station, he could not pass by and leave his old comrade to be torn apart by his fellow Londoners. He fired into the crowd and felled a man who was swinging a crowbar at Mr. Clumps. Heads turned, including that of the mechanical.

The sight of Lazarus and the danger he had brought on himself by killing a rioter spurred Mr. Clumps to even greater brutality. Smashing the face of the nearest assailant, he ploughed forward like a great bear protecting its young. People were crushed underfoot as he came towards Lazarus, decreasing the number of hostiles even further.

Feeling less confident about beating a lone man to death when that man’s comrade was opening fire on them from the rear, the crowd fell back and contented themselves by yelling “Freak!” and “Get gone, monster!” at the back of the mechanical’s coat.

“Glad you made it,” Lazarus said to Mr. Clumps, slapping him on the back as the reunited trio took off down the street.

“Likewise,” the mechanical replied in his usual calm voice. He puffed on his cigar and exhaled a vast cloud of steam. “And you, Miss Kelly.”

“What the devil’s been happening to you?” Lazarus asked him.

“I lost Pedachenko’s men in the tunnels and caught a train headed east.”

“Caught a train? Didn’t your face alarm the passengers?”

“I hung on to the back of the last carriage and rode it to Stepney, where I managed to get into the police station without drawing attention to myself.”

“I’ll bet you gave those coppers a fright!” said Mary, with a short laugh.

“They didn’t know whether to greet me or shoot me,” he continued. “But your message had got through to all the stations and so I was made as welcome as best the circumstances allowed. I stuck near the telegraph operator and kept tabs on incoming messages. He didn’t like that too much, but I pointed out to him that as top secret government property I probably outranked him, and he didn’t have much of a choice but to be my friend for a while.

“It wasn’t long before word came through that you had been at Muswell Hill Station, but had moved on to Greenwich. If you were still in the company of Commissioner Warren, then you were expected at either Leman Street or East India Dock Road within the hour. The rioting was so bad in Whitechapel that nobody could get through. The mobs and Pedachenko’s soldiers have blockaded most of the streets and are engaged in fire fights with the infantry regiments as we speak. I decided to try for East India Dock Road.”

“That’s where we’re headed,” said Lazarus. “It’s the only safe place nearby. We can hold out there.”

“No we can’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“There are no policemen left at the station.”

“What? Where are they all?”

“Killed. The mob succeeded in storming the station not long after I got there. It was a bloodbath. I am the only one left. They dragged me out into the street to kill me and they would have succeeded had you not come by in the nick of time. Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Lazarus replied, but his head was whirling.
The police station overrun? Every copper killed?
It was abominable
.

“Where the hell do we go now?” Mary asked, desperation showing in her voice.

“North,” said Lazarus. “To Edmonton.”

“That’s miles away! What’s in Edmonton anyway?”

“My... the man who raised me. We can follow the River Lea. The mobs won’t have spread to the valley and we’ll be under the cover of darkness.”

Mary seemed unsure. She must have been exhausted, and her boots were falling apart. But she bore herself up bravely. “All right,” she said. “Let’s get a move on.”

They passed the police station, and had to cross the street to avoid being scorched by the inferno. Flames roared from every window. To Lazarus, it was a symbol of chaos’s victory over order. How could sanity hope to survive in a world gone insane?

As they headed north they saw evidence of hard fighting between the military and the mobs. A few dead horses along with their riders—both police and Hussars—lay in the shadows cast by the streetlights, like giant slugs oozing liquid. The bodies of rioters choked some streets, strewn between smashed barricades of fruit carts and furniture, beaten and trampled by the passing of the military.

The factories at Homerton were eerily silent since the desertion of their workers. Their gates hung open onto empty yards, where goods and tools lay abandoned. They crossed the fields and descended into the Lea Valley, following the tow path north. Once they were above Hackney Marsh, they felt well out of the city and for the time being, out of trouble.

It was pitch black. The moonlight shone through the trees on their left, screening off the hell that had consumed London. The peace was enjoyable but it was not to last. They approached a public house in Tottenham which had been visited by the rioters. The door had been kicked in and its yard was in a shambles.

“Probably looking for drink to spur them on,” said Lazarus.

“There’s a light burning inside,” said Mr. Clumps.

“Let’s move on,” said Mary. “No point hanging around here.”

“Aren’t you hungry?” Lazarus asked her.

“They won’t be open at this time.”

“Open? The place barely has a door.”

“So you intend to steal from the proprietor like common looters?”

“Let’s just see if anybody’s about.” He drew his pistol but let Mr. Clumps go in first. The sight of him alone should terrify any lingering looters into submission.

It was dim inside, but the light came from behind the door of a back room. Mr. Clumps slowly opened it and found himself staring down the barrel of a Martini-Henry rifle. It was held by a member of the Royal Horse Artillery.

“Bloody hell!” the soldier said at the sight of the mechanical’s face. “Now I know I’ve gone mad!”

“At ease, soldier,” Lazarus said, slowly holstering his pistol. “Don’t be alarmed by my friend here. He’s quite harmless. I understand your shock but he’s something of a new science project the government is working on.”

“Government fellows, are you?” the soldier asked. “What are you doing here, then?”

“We saw the door broken in and a light burning. Just thought we’d take a look.”

“Why are you abroad at this time of night?”

“Escaping the madness in the city. We’re headed for Edmonton. What happened here?”

“A bloody massacre, that’s what happened. They came on this place like a swarm of Zulus, not like Englishmen at all. They were looking for drink.”

“Where’s the proprietor?”

“Dead. They knocked his head in before we got here.”

“We?”

“Me and Tommy, here.” He indicated a wounded man who was stretched out in the corner of the room, almost hidden by the shadows. Blood soaked through the bed sheets that had been used to cover him. He was watching them through half-closed eyes.

“What are you fellows doing so far out if it?” Lazarus asked, conscious that he may be dealing with deserters.

“We’re all that’s left! They tore us apart! You can drop us in it for deserting if you will but I’ll not regret our actions. It was flee or be butchered. We’re not trained for this!”

“What happened?”

“They’ve been storming the prisons and arming the convicts. We were sent down to Newgate to disperse the mob at its gates. It was a proper siege! They had men in uniform standing on overturned carriages giving speeches about overthrowing the old system and starting from scratch, new laws, new philosophies and that meant that all incarcerated under the old system had to be freed! We fired grapeshot and canister into the crowd and that pushed them back a bit, but they came at us with bloody war machines! Like the ones they have in America you see illustrated in the papers.”

“Not quite like them,” said Lazarus. “These revolutionists have no access to mechanite, thank God.”

“Say what you like, mister, it made little difference to us. Those things are impenetrable! We fired everything we had at them and they kept on coming. Then they opened fire and decimated our guns and there wasn’t a bleeding thing we could do about it! We fell back. It was chaos. I saw good mates of mine blown apart before my very eyes. Tommy here took a piece of shrapnel in the arm.”

“Let me take a look at him,” said Mary, kneeling down at Tommy’s side.

“We headed north,” continued the soldier. “The fires and the looting had spread ahead of us. Well to-do houses were being ransacked right in front of us and their occupants dragged out into the street. I just kept pushing on with Tommy over my shoulder, resting whenever there was a safe spot and moving on when it got too hot. We were ravenous and needed clean water, not to mention somewhere to get a bit of kip. We came upon this place just as the looters were moving on.”

All throughout the soldier’s story his eyes had been flitting to the half-face of Mr. Clumps. “I never seen anything like this fellow,” he mumbled. “Are you all from the government?”

“I and my friend are, but Mary here is just somebody we picked up. A friend.”

“Got any water?” Mary asked. “His wound wants washing.”

“Got some here,” the soldier said, handing her his canteen. “I was gonna get around to doing it myself but I heard you lot approaching. Besides, he’s the better for a woman’s touch. You a nurse?”

“Do I look like one?” she replied. “But I’ve patched up enough cuts and scrapes in my time. He’ll need a doctor’s attention, but I think I can fix him up enough so’s he’s likely to survive the night.”

“Much obliged, miss,” the soldier said.

“Got any gin?”

Lazarus fetched her half a bottle from the next room that had survived the mob and handed it to her. “I thought you were against the idea of looting.”

“It’s for disinfecting the wound,” she said, giving him a withering look. She uncorked it with her teeth and took a long swig. “Anyway, the proprietor is dead so it’s not really thieving.”

Lazarus sent Mr. Clumps to scavenge what he could from the larder while he helped himself to some weak ale in the bar. The mob had left little, but there was some dried sausage to be had, some cheese and a few old biscuits. They shared their feast with the soldiers and enjoyed the brief respite.