Captains Stupendous

by Rhys Hughes

  And before you object to the implausibility of that, let me state that the factory owner and his brother had many clients and friends all over China and that it was a fairly simple matter to recruit them, using the telephone, into shepherding Mr Rolfe along the correct route. With roadblocks and false signs they were able to create the necessary detours to ensure that he arrived in Fuzhou docks on schedule.

  Clever people, those Chinese! Don’t you agree?

  I do. Good writers too. Permit me to recommend one named Lu Xun. I have just finished reading a slim collection of his short stories called Old Stories Retold. In some ways this book is untypical of his work: it’s much less political in tone and less realistic.

  I never intended to use my memoirs to recommend writers to you, but it can’t hurt just this once. Having said that, I have already praised Robert Graves, haven’t I? No matter. I can’t force you to read anyone’s books. It’s not even compulsory to read this one!

  Mr Rolfe vanished over the watery horizon.

  In the meantime, Sadegh Safani, the Persian alchemist responsible for guiding Jason Rolfe into Alirgnahs in the first place, was making his way back home. Over the mountains to the west of that fabled land he trudged, stopping for the occasional break in the treeless landscape. He was seated on a boulder when he noticed something.

  A tiny speck was approaching him. It was another traveller, a very rare occurrence in these wild parts. Sadegh waited patiently. The speck slowly grew larger. It was a man garbed like a sailor, which made him seem even more out of place. Sadegh watched and waited. When the newcomer was within earshot, the alchemist shouted:

  ‘Good day to you! Nice bleakness for a stroll.’

  ‘Indeed so,’ came the reply.

  The stranger soon stood before Sadegh. He wore a black pea coat and his chin was unshaven; his hypnotic eyes were a match for Sadegh’s own mysterious orbs. They regarded each other.

  ‘I’m going home to get back to work. I work from home,’ said Sadegh with a tinge of defiance in his voice.

  The sailor without a ship smiled thinly and nodded. ‘You haven’t seen a journalist around here, have you?’

  Sadegh frowned. ‘What sort of journalist?

  ‘He’s Welsh. He works for The Western Mail. His first name is Lloyd and his surname is Griffiths. I promised to accompany him to Wales. We were going to overthrow the English.’

  Sadegh chewed a thumbnail. ‘I haven’t, sorry.’

  The sailor sighed. ‘Pity. I lost him in Dresden. I’ve been searching for him ever since. My name is Scipio Faraway. He had a weird odour about him, the stench of a fungal infection, which theoretically should make his trail easy to follow; but I’ve lost it—’

  A sudden impulsive generosity seized Sadegh Safani; this happens to alchemists. He blurted, ‘Look, I’m an adept. Back at my castle in Persia, I have a magic mirror. If you stare into it and concentrate, you can find the location of anyone you seek. Why not come back with me and have a go? I have other amazing things too. Carpets that can fly, spirits in bottles and even a potion that can blend people.’

  ‘Blend people? You mean merge individuals into a single whole? That is very interesting. I’m intrigued …’

  ‘So you’ll come back to my castle? The battlements are slippery, but it is mostly an extremely nice edifice.’

  Scipio nodded. ‘Sounds great. Yes, I accept.’

  A Transindianocean Tunnel, Hurrah!

  Neary slackened his speed, came to a gradual halt and sent me to fetch a pail of water for his boiler. I misunderstood his instructions. ‘I couldn’t find any pale water,’ I said, ‘so I brought you this greenish kind instead. It came from a murky pond yonder.’

  I can’t honestly describe his gaze as withering, partly because it was an unusual combination of spinning grey wheel and fluttering blinds, neither of which wither much, but I felt reprimanded by it. Then said he with the most amount of sarcasm any sentence can hold without spillage, ‘Did you say you were a writer, Mr Griffiths?’

  ‘A journalist,’ I corrected.

  ‘Even so, Mr Griffiths! What newspaper?’

  ‘The Western Mail,’ I replied.

  ‘Ah! That explains everything. Fill me up.’

  I did. ‘Enough?’ I said.

  He gurgled. ‘Yes. All aboard. Off we go! Choo choo!’

  We continued our journey, crossing the invisible border that separates North India from the much greener South. As he went, he told me a secret that made me gasp with wonderment.

  Do you ever gasp with wonderment? Not much, I bet!

  Be honest. With yourself and me.

  Because gasping with wonderment is something human beings only do correctly when they are youthful and still optimistic about the future and their place in it. As a callow youth I gasped with wonderment every other day. The stars, the moon, the curve of girls. I gasped with wonderment at them all, to an excessive degree. Now I do it only every other plot twist, or less often than that. Sad but true.

  ‘There is a series of railway tunnels under the oceans of the world. It’s a huge engineering project that the major railway companies of the world have been collaborating on for ages.’

  ‘My wonderment levels are dangerously high in reaction to this news! You aren’t toying with me, Monsieur?’

  ‘You’ll see the truth for yourself if you accept my offer.’

  ‘What offer is that, pray tell?’

  ‘We are rapidly approaching the town of Nileswaram, which is one of the main turning-off points for the Transindianocean Tunnel. That tunnel is a shortcut back to Europe. In fact it comes out in Wales in a place with a name I’ve forgotten. So tell me now.’

  ‘Tell you what?’ I blinked metaphorically. All my blinks, squints and other eye muscle manipulations are merely figures of speech, but I guess you’ve already worked that one out.

  ‘Do you want me to turn into that tunnel’s mouth?’

  ‘Yes, yes!’ I shouted in delight.

  He nodded. ‘Very well. On your own head be it.’

  That sounded like a threat.

  I puzzled at the oddness of his tone; as if he was warning me against the very course of action he had recommended! But I shelved my doubts, for the advantages of a direct line to Wales were too significant to ignore. My luck is changing, I informed myself!

  Are you quite sure about that? came my own reply.

  Don’t scowl at me! I retorted.

  Why not? I am you! I snapped back.

  Uppity for a bleedin’ skeleton, aren’t you? sneered I.

  You can talk! And I’m not bleeding!

  It was a cuss word, stupid!

  This ridiculous argument with myself might have gone on indefinitely, with no obvious winner, but Neary distracted me with a shout, ‘Here’s the turning ahead. I change tracks now.’

  Suddenly we were on a set of glittering rails that curved away from the main line that led into the station at the coastal town of Nileswaram. Very close to the sea we were. I smelt the brine, felt the spray of the waves. It’s an interesting part of India, a region of waterways and islands; but I didn’t get a chance to appreciate it fully.

  The line dipped down, entered the mouth of a tunnel. We were in pitch darkness; and in other kinds of darkness too, surely? Neary activated the lamp that doubled as his third mystic forehead eye. The clattering of rails was louder down here, as the echo reverberated off the bricks of the walls and ceiling. It was claustrophobic, yes; but I couldn’t deny the talents and vision of the people who had built it.

  Neary gave me a brief lecture on its history.

  ‘A railway genius by the name of Kingdom Noisette was responsible. He drew up the plans, did all the calculations, managed the whole thing. I told you it was a collaborative effort. And so it was in terms of labour and finance! But Noisette was the main force behind it. He is my hero, in fact. Funnily enough, he also turned himself into a train when he was young. I didn’t slavishly follow his example in that regard; it is coincidence.
I am a train, he is a train. No causation at all.’

  ‘Great minds chuff alike?’ I ventured.

  He was pleased with that maxim and giggled. Then he increased speed and said, ‘It’s a long way to Wales.’

  ‘I’m prepared for the hardships of the journey.’

  ‘It’ll be boring. Terribly so.’

  ‘Monsieur! I have read the novels of Jane Austen!’

  ‘You consider yourself immune?’

  ‘To tedium? Heavens no! But I am tough enough.’

  And I truly believed I was!

  Beneath his steamy breath he hissed, ‘We’ll see.’ And that was the end of the conversation. Nothing can daunt me now, I decided; but I failed to convince myself of that truth. The sombre walls flashed past without any kind of variation in their appearance.

  The pressure kept increasing. We were far beneath the seabed. I guess my ears would pop if I had them.

  With no sky above, and no sun, moon or stars to fill it, I was quite at a loss to tell night from day. The hours crept past; or were those ‘hours’ just minutes? Neary wasn’t much company. He had lapsed into a reverie and it was utterly impossible to extract meaningful talk from him. Occasionally a snatch of melody would issue from his pig-iron lips, but it was always a melody I didn’t recognise and I was unable to accompany him or even tap the correct rhythm with my knuckles.

  I slept standing up. My dreams were pointless.

  For some bizarre reason, I dreamed of Jason Rolfe, the man who kept trying to kill me. He was still mounted on his bicycle; but his bicycle was mounted on a treadmill that was turning so fast it was smoking. On every side around him was the ocean. Somehow he had got hold of the tusk of a narwhale and was cradling it like a lance. He muttered to himself: ‘I’ll get you for this. Lloyd Griffiths! I will!’

  I snapped awake. Nothing in the tunnel had changed.

  But then I squinted. What was that?

  Far ahead the tunnel came to an end. A brick wall!

  I screeched, ‘Stop the train!’

  Neary ignored my shout. In fact he went faster.

  ‘Choo choo!’ he chortled.

  We were about to smash into the wall! Then I noticed the mouth of a second tunnel, a narrower passage that curved down and to the left. With a shout of pure fear, I gripped Neary’s shoulders and jerked them with all my strength, steering him manually!

  He choked back a curse and struggled against me.

  But it was too late. I had won.

  We had switched lines!

  ‘You idiot. What the hell are you doing?’ he roared.

  ‘Saving our lives,’ I responded.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We were about to crash into a solid wall.’

  ‘No we weren’t, you oaf! That was just a curtain painted to look like a solid wall! Such curtains are hung at specific points throughout the tunnel to make it easier for train drivers to know where they are in relation to the geography of the planet’s surface.’

  I reluctantly acknowledged my error. ‘Oops!’

  ‘You have diverted me down one of the abandoned tunnels. This is a very bad outcome. I can’t reverse.’

  I was flabbergasted. ‘You have no reverse gear?’

  ‘Why should I? It’s not normal for skeletons with dead midgets inside them to travel with me and twist my shoulders without an invitation to do so! I have never needed a reverse gear!’

  ‘What shall we do?’ I asked.

  ‘We have no choice but to keep going.’

  ‘Where does this tunnel go?’

  ‘Africa, Mr Griffiths. It comes out in the jungles of Guinea. But there is something else I need to tell you.’

  ‘What’s that?’ I trembled.

  ‘The reason why this tunnel was abandoned …’

  And he told me. I blanched.

  Next Stop: The Future

  No I didn’t. How can a skeleton covered in brown fungus blanch? It was another figure of speech. At that particular moment, I felt like a figure of derision, which is even browner.

  The tunnel to Africa was abandoned because of a curious anomaly in the magnetic field directly below it. Thanks to all the latest bunkum, hoo-ha and other pseudoscientific flapdoodle, I am able to reveal that the anomaly influenced the chronoflow, the flow of time itself! There was a time dilation effect.

  Anything moving along that tunnel would exist in a time-stream faster than the one on the Earth’s surface.

  Days would pass below; but weeks above.

  In other words, the tunnel was an accidental time machine!

  And we were stuck inside it …

  The year when we entered the tunnel was 1915.

  It would be later when we emerged. Later than it ought, I mean. It was our fate to be cast into the future.

  I badgered Neary to give me an estimate. He finally stated that perhaps our journey to Africa would ‘take’ two decades. When we surfaced in the forests of Guinea it could be 1935.

  We would end up in a science fiction world!

  I couldn’t imagine what enormous changes might have taken place in a span of 20 years. It was inconceivable. All sorts of weird marvels and miracles of science and engineering would be commonplace. Helicopters would exist for real; those female men called ladies might have the vote; I was even willing to speculate that the nations of Europe would gather into a federation with a single currency!

  I did share some of these ideas with Neary.

  ‘Don’t be an ugly, stupid, moronic, worthless fool!’ he growled. Clearly he was devoid of sufficient vision.

  Abruptly I realised I would miss having any wartime adventures. The conflict between Britain and Germany would surely be over by then? I’m against war in principle, but I had been looking forward to witnessing the astounding campaign of Spicer-Simson against Von Lettow-Vorbeck on Lake Tanganyika. If you don’t know who either of those gentlemen were, I recommend finding out in books.

  Anyway, I digress … And during this digression, things on the surface of the world are moving much faster than beneath it. Jason Rolfe crosses the Pacific Ocean and reaches the shore of California; then he zooms off across the United States of America. And as for Scipio and Sadegh, not to mention Distanto, they will soon—

  But everything in its proper place. Patience!

  It dawned on me that Hywel Owl, the deceased midget inside me, was bound to go rotten in the heat of Africa. Eventually, of course, his corpse would turn completely to slime and drop out of me in foetid gloopings of stinky miniature man mush; but before that stage, he would be maggoty. I would be ashamed to be seen in public like that. The only alternative was to pay a surgeon to cut him out of me.

  But I had no money. And I was scared of doctors.

  ‘There is another option …’

  It was Neary who said that. I suppose I must have been articulating my thoughts aloud. ‘Truly, Monsieur?’

  ‘Yes. We’re headed to Africa, Mr Griffiths. West Africa. The original home of voodoo! I’m sure we can ask some sorcerer to turn Hywel into a zombie. That way, he won’t go off.’

  It was an intriguing notion.

  To pass the time, I asked Neary to tell me any stories he might know. I didn’t want anything harsh and factual; something light and escapist was a better option, I insisted. He took a deep, shrill breath and began reciting a short novel from memory, some nonsense about a miser, a brace of ghosts and a disabled boy. When it was done, he asked me to return the favour; I attempted to tell him the story of The Shaving of Shagpat, but the order of events was hopelessly jumbled.

  ‘You’re not a very entertaining passenger, Mr Griffiths.’

  ‘I apologise,’ I said sincerely.

  ‘Who was the author of that fantasy you messed up?’

  ‘George Meredith,’ I replied.

  ‘Very well. I shall seek out the original book.’

  ‘Do they have bookshops in—’

  ‘Africa? Of course! It’s not a landmass of savages!’

&
nbsp; I chewed my bony lower lip.

  This tunnel was much thinner than the one that stretched to Wales and I was compelled to duck several times in order to keep my poor skull intact at the apex of my spinal column. And the rails were warped; Neary almost overturned on several bends.

  It was impossible to estimate when we reached the coast of Africa, for the tunnel passed under the majority of the continent in order to surface in Guinea in the far west. In my mind I felt the weight of hippopotami, lions and giraffes far above my cranium.

  After what seemed an eternity, a point of light appeared at the furthest limit of my vision. ‘The exit!’ cried Neary. ‘Be sure to protect your vision, Mr Griffiths, from the bright daytime sun. Ready?’

  I nodded. I was more than ready. But I didn’t take his advice. As soon as we burst out of the ground, I allowed the rays of our parent star to fill the craters of my sockets with gold.

  ‘Fresh air again!’ I gasped. ‘Freedom and life!’

  Neary applied his brakes.

  And came to a halt with a squeal.

  Here was the end of the line. A pair of buffers jutted from a rock, and a rotting wooden platform served as a station. But there was nobody there and the entire facility was overgrown.

  ‘It was abandoned,’ Neary reminded me.

  I gazed at our surroundings. To be truthful, there was little to see. Just vast trees, dangling vines, impenetrable undergrowth. Monstrous blooms puffed their decadent scent at me.

  ‘Do you know your way around these parts?’

  ‘No, Mr Griffiths. Do you?’

  ‘I don’t. Do you suppose we are near civilisation?’

  ‘Nowhere close, is my guess.’

  ‘Surely there must be ports and embassies?’

  Neary offered me a leer.

  ‘We are as far away from those as it’s possible to be in West Africa. In Guinea all the main cities lie on the coast. We are high in the mountains. I daresay there are some settlements within walking distance, but they will hardly be equipped for visitors.’