Before the Storm

by Sean McMullen

  The engine blew its whistle, then chuffed into life. The stations came and went, and people boarded and left the train. Daniel imagined that each and every one of them could see through his jacket to the postcards that were in his pocket. Some German doctor had invented rays that could do just that. He had heard his father talking about it. The German machine could even see through women’s clothing.

  ‘Roentgen Rays or something,’ he whispered to himself, then wondered if any other passengers might be carrying a machine that could generate them. What was that rhyme about them?

  They see through corsets, lace, and stays

  Those naughty, naughty Roentgen Rays.

  Daniel felt for the three incriminating cards in his pocket. Why bother with my dirty postcards when there’s real women to look at? Daniel assured himself with a guilty glance about the carriage. Two rather serious-looking men wearing top hats were staring out of the windows, while a strict-looking middle-aged mother sat between two daughters of around sixteen. Both girls were studiously staring at bibles, but neither had turned a page in ten minutes. Do girls dream about boys who have their clothes off? Daniel wondered.

  It seemed an eternity before they reached the Richmond railway station. By now literally everything was suggesting women to Daniel’s tortured imagination.

  Sweet lass of Richmond Hill

  Sweet lass of Richmond Hill

  I’ll crown design

  To make you mine

  Sweet lass of Richmond Hill.

  The words of the song sounded so loudly in his mind that Daniel was sure the other passengers would hear. None gave any sign of doing so, however. Daniel tried to distract himself by recalling that the original Richmond Hill was in England. The train chugged away from the platform, and soon they were approaching Flinders Street Station.

  Daniel waited until he could see Fox on the station platform before he got out of the carriage. He followed the youth out of the station, then watched him walk down Swanston Street and turn into Flinders Lane. That was not a very respectable area, according to what his mother said. Tailors and dressmakers had workshops there, along with artists and loose women. This must be where the photographs for the postcards are taken, Daniel decided, suddenly worried about the dangers of walking down a street crowded with loose French women. To his immense relief, Flinders Lane was deserted. Daniel saw Fox turn into a dilapidated building and vanish from sight. He slunk forward, close to the shuttered shop-fronts, trying to seem invisible. A face appeared at a window on the top floor and glanced down at the lane before withdrawing again.

  Without warning Daniel was jerked back into an alley by his collar, spun around, tripped, and slammed down into a pile of foul-smelling rags. His arms were twisted up behind his back as he gasped for breath, then his wrists were bound and finally a cloth was stuffed into his mouth. Hands scrabbled through Daniel’s pockets, and his postcards were removed.

  ‘Oi, dirty little cove, inne?’ laughed someone.

  At last the gang was satisfied that his pockets were empty. Daniel felt his arms being untied, but he was not inclined to fight. A foot shoved him out of the alley. He picked himself up and broke into a run, pulling the balled-up rag from his mouth as he made for the bustle of Swanston Street. He checked his pockets, and discovered that nothing at all had been left to him. Not a coin, not a return railway ticket, and certainly not a French postcard. He ran all the way to Flinders Street Station, and did not stop until he was on the platform.

  Now Daniel contemplated his options. Home was seven miles away. At a brisk walking pace that was about two hours, and it was already late in the afternoon. Daniel decided that he would take the train, in spite of having no ticket. Barry might be checking the tickets at North Brighton, after all.

  ‘Times are really desperate when Barry the Bag is my only hope,’ he muttered as he boarded a train on cramped, unsteady legs.

  Daniel was close to throwing up with anxiety as he got off the train at North Brighton, and he made a show of stopping to tie a loose shoelace on the platform. He had in fact untied the lace aboard the train. As he had hoped, he was the last person to approach the ticket collector at the gate. Even better, that collector was Barry the Bag.

  ‘Barry, I haven’t got a ticket!’ hissed Daniel as he reached the short, ratty youth.

  ‘’Course ya have, I sold ya one not three hours back!’ laughed Barry.

  ‘You don’t understand, I’ve been robbed!’

  ‘Robbed?’ exclaimed Barry, who had endured a very dull day at the station, and was in the mood to be entertained.

  ‘Yes! They took everything. My money, my ticket and the postcards.’

  Daniel held out his wrists, which still had the red weals left by whatever had been used to tie them. Barry whistled, even more impressed, then rushed Daniel across the walkway between the platforms and into the ticket office.

  ‘Get this inter the body, Dan,’ said Barry, handing him a mug with dark, steaming liquid in it.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Coffee, it’s mine.’

  ‘Mother says coffee is the drink of the devil!’

  ‘How’d she know? She ever met ’im?’

  Just then someone arrived to buy a ticket. While Barry attended the window, Daniel sipped at Barry’s mug of coffee. It tasted foul, but it had a curious strength about it, and Daniel was ready to try anything that might restore his strength. Barry returned.

  ‘Now then, man o’ mine, ya was rolled by a push?’

  ‘No, I was robbed by ruffians.’

  ‘That’s wot I said. And they took the cards?’

  ‘Yes, and I really liked that one of the girl on the swing, too.’

  ‘Cor, so did I. Was all set to buy it back. Ya hurt?’

  ‘Not really. I was taken from behind and pinned down. It was in an alley, I was watching someone.’

  ‘Yeah? Who?’

  ‘A friend. Fox.’

  ‘Spyin’ on ’im?’

  ‘Well, yes. No! Er, not quite. More or less.’

  There was a long and awkward silence. Presently Barry rubbed his face with both hands, then took Daniel by the shoulders.

  ‘Ya really don’t know the streets,’ he said.

  ‘Know the streets?’

  ‘Thought as much. Listen, is your mate Fox on the run?’

  ‘No, he was walking.’

  ‘I mean are the coppers onter ’im?’

  ‘Well, that’s what I was hoping to find out, but –’

  ‘Ya need to be told a few things, Danny Boy. Important things. Meantime, take this to raise the spirits, like.’

  Barry thrust a postcard into Daniel’s hand. It featured a rather cheery-looking girl with a fencing foil in her hand, but she was rather immodestly sitting backwards on a chair. This little indiscretion was overwhelmed by the fact that she was wearing no clothes at all, however.

  ‘You’re too kind,’ mumbled Daniel miserably.

  ‘Nah, we art fanciers gotta stick together.’

  Daniel sat sipping at Barry’s coffee as his friend and associate sold more tickets for the next train to the city. He took out the postcard that Barry had just given him and stared at it for some time. It was curiously alluring, but he had no idea why.

  Barry was the most notoriously wicked boy in the neighbourhood, according to Mrs Lang, yet Barry was the only person who would, or even could, show Daniel any sympathy on this, the worst day of his life. Barry, whose bag was always full of things that were for sale, and had seldom been paid for when their previous owners had parted company with them. Daniel felt absolutely wretched, yet this also made him feel as if he had nothing to lose. If he ever again had to do anything that involved criminals, he was going to make sure Barry was there to look after him.

  3

  LEADER

  Ever since she had seen the image of BC on Saturday night, Emily had not been able to get him out of her mind. BC had been so brave, BC had fought with more courage than Jason, or Horatio, or any bo
y in an adventure novel. Even when mortally wounded, he was shouting at Three to … to do what? Destroy a machine. What machine? Some terrible machine built by some terrible enemy. That had to be it. Images of BC cascaded through Emily’s mind as she lay there on her bed. BC running, BC leading, BC fighting … and BC covered in blood, dying.

  There was nothing that Emily could do to clear her mind of the images. She got up, took out a pencil and a sheaf of art paper, then tried to sketch BC from memory. Several attempts at a portrait from memory produced no real likeness of BC.

  ‘Well, I’d rather be bad at art than be like Muriel Baker, with her French accent and French beret, and, and French morals,’ muttered Emily, who then took the violet uniform off her doll and began sewing the coat more carefully.

  As the afternoon passed she remade her doll in a better image of BC, cutting its hair, painting out its rosy cheeks, and giving it a sort of stubby rifle weapon that consisted of several pencils and parts of a matchbox tied together with string. If only Mother knew, Emily thought with grim satisfaction.

  When Emily came down for dinner, Mrs Lang remarked that she looked very pale. Emily said that she had a slight headache, and returned to her room as soon as the meal was over. It was not until late that night that Daniel approached Emily to report on his adventure for the day. By then she was already in bed, with the reading lamp burning.

  ‘Fox went all the way to Flinders Street Station,’ Daniel reported sheepishly. ‘Then he went to a building in Flinders Lane. A lot of tailors seem to have shops there, but they were all closed. It was, er, well, hard to follow him after that.’

  ‘You mean you do not know where he went?’

  ‘I did my best. At least I saw the building he lives in, and what floor he went to.’

  ‘What did you do then?’

  ‘I returned to Flinders Street Station and came back here.’

  Emily thought for some moments.

  ‘Tomorrow is Monday. Mr Aitkinson has given Fox a job, so he will not be in his rooming house. I think that we shall search his room in the morning. You have a day off school, and I shall tell Mother that I have a slight chill from being half-drowned on Saturday.’

  ‘Perhaps we could hide behind … we?’

  Daniel’s eyes were bulging, but more with shock than fear.

  ‘Both of us are going.’

  ‘But you’re a girl!’

  ‘And you are a little boy.’

  ‘I’m big for my age, I’m as big as Fox, and –’

  ‘And you did not do everything that I told you today. I shall have to be there, to supervise.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘I think that Fox has done something terrible.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Stolen something, and perhaps worse. I saw his … his journal.’

  ‘What? You mean a book?’

  ‘Well, er, yes, a sort of book. He has been in some sort of fight. Daniel, as much as I am grateful to Fox, I think we might have to tell the police about him.’

  ‘But what did he do?’

  ‘That is what we must find out before we say anything to anyone. He may be innocent. We cannot judge him before we know what he has done.’

  Although Emily generally felt trapped by being a girl, she made sure that people always saw her behaving well, and she had a reputation for being clever and diligent. It was true that she often forced her younger brother on illicit missions to fetch adventure and romance novels that were considered unsuitable for young ladies to read, but that was as far as her sense of rebellion ever went.

  Now Emily’s world had changed, however. She had seen BC die. She had seen him die through Fox’s eyes, via some type of very expensive camera that he had been carrying, one of the new cameras that recorded moving pictures. Above all, Emily desperately wanted to make sure that BC did not die in vain. For her, it would be a crime were BC not remembered as a hero. She had no idea what he had done, but he had died a hero’s death, so he was obviously a hero.

  Emily resembled her mother more than she liked to admit, because both were very forceful, and not afraid of confronting people. They were both pillars of the British Empire, the solid foundations that their menfolk built upon. Emily wanted to be the pillar on which the monument to BC would rest, but unless she could learn about him, there could be no monument. Fox was the key to everything, he actually knew BC, and his image machine preserved BC’s last moments. Emily decided that she would soon face Fox with all the things that she had learned. She would threaten to go to the police, and that would make him tell her everything about BC and his death. What had he been like? she wondered. True heroes have sweethearts at home who are frail and beautiful, so any girl who could take BC’s fancy would be exquisite indeed. Had there been such a girl?

  ‘Probably tiny and delicate, with golden curls, like that sniffling little Cecily Thomson,’ muttered Emily, glaring at a class photograph on her wall. ‘Or would a hero love someone big, bold and healthy like Juliet Bristow? Could someone evil and artistic like Muriel Baker ensnare his heart?’

  As usual, Emily thought things through logically. She did not have to be such a girl. She was going to have to be a soldier for BC instead, because Daniel had proved himself to be unreliable. Soldiers did things to make themselves fitter and stronger. Emily knew that. Removing her shoes, she ran up and down the stairs several dozen times. That seemed to transform her thighs and calves into a pair of large pincushions filled with red-hot needles and razors. On her father’s theory that anything uncomfortable must be good for you, she allowed herself to enjoy a sense of triumph. She was training to defend BC’s memory. People would know her as BC’s champion, even though BC was gone forever.

  The matter of a weapon was somewhat harder. There was, of course, her father’s collection of guns, but she knew nothing about using them, and was frightened of guns. There were sharp knives in the kitchen, but the idea of going into battle with a kitchen knife seemed too silly for words. Thus it was that Emily borrowed a letter opener in the shape of a sword from her father’s study. It was only nine inches long, and did not have enough of an edge to even sharpen a pencil, but at least it looked the part and the point was quite sharp. Emily had seen Daniel at fencing practice, so she had some idea of how one held a sword.

  The following morning Emily nearly abandoned her expedition several times through sheer embarrassment, but each time the feeling washed over her she fought back. There was the matter of missing school, but she feigned a sore throat because of her dunking in the river, and that was enough to convince her mother. With her father gone to his business, and her mother away at some charity meeting at the vicarage, Emily briefed Martha with a covering story, then left with Daniel for the railway station.

  Once they were actually on the platform, Emily relaxed. It was too late to abandon the adventure. They were going into a sort of battle and, like BC she was in charge of a squad doing something dangerous. Admittedly she commanded only Daniel, and was armed with a letter opener, but for Emily even that was quite bold. The thought of what BC might think of a girl who was forceful enough to get mixed up in her own adventures was worrying, but that was not an issue she would ever have to face.

  It was while Emily sat on a station bench, contemplating BC and what she could remember of his face, that Daniel arrived with Barry the Bag. Barry looked very unhappy.

  ‘He goes with us, or I do not!’ said Daniel firmly before Emily could speak, then he turned back to Barry. ‘Barry, you know Aitkinson’s Groceries?’

  ‘’Course I do, I buy me postcards from there … oh, and the groceries, for me old man.’

  ‘Fox is working there this morning.’

  ‘If ’e manages to lift a few postcards, tell ’im I can move ’em along for sixpence per –’

  ‘Do you always buy your postcards?’ asked Daniel.

  ‘Ya mean does I ever pinch any?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can’t. Old Aitkinson keeps ’em locked in
a drawer. Take me a minute to pick that lock, and he’s never gone for that long.’

  ‘So, you can pick locks.’

  ‘Well yeah, I suppose.’

  ‘Barry, I’m not very good at being dishonest.’

  ‘That’s a factual.’

  ‘Could you … pick a lock for me?’

  ‘Wot? Git aht!’

  ‘I mean it.’

  ‘From Aitkinson?’

  ‘No, from Fox. He lives in Flinders Lane, and –’

  ‘Daniel!’ exclaimed Emily. ‘You can’t do that! Picking locks is dishonest.’

  ‘Well, how else do we get into his room?’

  ‘We shall ask the lady at the reception desk for a key.’

  ‘The place had CONDEMNED written on the door,’ said Daniel. ‘Do you really think they have a reception desk?’

  ‘I hates to be in agreement with yer sister, Danny Boy, but –’

  ‘Stay out of this!’ cried Daniel. ‘Emmy, we are about to do something criminal, so we need a criminal to help us.’

  ‘Now just a minute,’ began Barry.

  ‘Shut up!’ snapped Daniel. ‘Well, Emmy?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Emily reluctantly.

  ‘I never said I’d help!’ protested Barry.

  ‘About the canings I got when you stole those bottles of wine?’

  ‘I’ll help, I s’pose. But look, just so I knows when we all gets thrown in the slammer, just wot we are doin’ and why?’ asked Barry.

  ‘I just want to know what Fox is up to,’ said Emily. ‘I mean, I know he saved me, but we can’t let a criminal visit our house.’