The Devil's Breath

by Tessa Harris

  “What do you mean?” asked Bullimore, puzzled, but the young man turned his back on him and mounted his mule.

  “There are signs, sir,” he replied, settling himself in the saddle. “Smell the wind. Listen to the birds,” he said, and he lifted his black eyes heavenward. The foreman listened.

  “I hear nothing,” he concluded after a moment.

  The young man smiled. “Just so,” he said, and he touched his forehead with his finger and kicked his mule. “Good luck to you, sir,” he called as he headed off inland, away from the coast.

  Bullimore looked grave. That smell was lingering in his nostrils. It was true, too, that the skylarks were no longer singing and the harvest flies that were such a plague to both man and beast seemed to have flown. But what of it? The threat of the sea fret had subsided. They could work until sundown—another seven hours. The cooler air was welcome. The breeze was picking up now. They would easily finish the field that day; perhaps even start on the next. He shrugged his broad shoulders, dabbed the cold sweat from his brow and began to walk toward his own scythe, which was propped against a sheaf nearby.

  He looked up to the heavens once more, shaking his head. Where had the skylarks gone? Why had they flown? And what was that faint acrid whiff that clung to the air? Perhaps he should go and check, just once more. Another look to err on the side of caution. He tramped back up the slope again, his pace quickening with every step. Shaking his head he told himself that he never did like travelers: they’d put a curse on you as soon as look at you; make a man doubt his own judgment. They took pleasure in putting dread into the hearts of God-fearing folk.

  Taking a deep breath, he heaved himself up onto the wagon once more. Looking down, he could see the men were making good progress. The women and boys, too. They were gathering and twining as quickly as he had ever beheld them. Needs must when the devil drives, as the saying went, but now the devil was gone.... Or was he? First a look of puzzlement, then of shock, then of fear scudded across Bullimore’s face. The fret was gone, true, but what was that looming over the horizon? Not mist, but a bank of billowing cloud, its great curves and sweeps and pillows of vapor easily visible, like the full sails of a galleon. It was heading straight toward them. Spread out across the entire skyline, it seemed to be traveling at speed, like an enormous wave blown by the gathering wind. It was rising high, above the skylark’s domain, and would soon block out the sun.

  It was then that he felt something settle on his arm. Whereas an hour or so ago he had been swatting away the flies that plagued him about his eyes and nose, drops of water now fell on his skin. He looked up and saw the rain falling, mingled with flakes, settling like gray snow on the ground.

  Rooted to the spot, Bullimore watched the approaching cloud roll in. He had never seen such a sight before, not in all his years in the wolds. His thoughts turned to the men and women below. He began to call to them, but when he opened his mouth, the sound did not come. There was a harshness on the air; the acrid stench had intensified and clawed at his tongue and inside his nostrils. The rain made his eyes smart and soon tears were streaming down his cheeks. The drops pricked his skin, too, stinging with a painful intensity. His breath no longer came easily. Gasping and spluttering, he staggered back toward the reapers. By now they, too, had seen the ominous cloud looming up over the fields and smelled the stifling vapors. The rain, mingled with the gray snow, was falling heavily, drenching the stubble and making it harder to see.

  “Run!” one cried. “Run!” As panic took hold, they dropped their scythes and sickles and leather gauntlets where they stood.

  “To the barn,” cried Bullimore above the din.

  The threshing barn lay in a hollow, just beyond the field gate, and every man, woman, and child headed toward it as fast as they could. The vast bank of cloud seemed to be gathering pace, churning within itself, belching out a foul miasma.

  One of the women stumbled. A man picked her up and carried her. Another remained transfixed with fear. Her eyes filled with tears as she watched the thick gray veil draw itself across the sun, blocking out the light.

  Now many of the women were screaming, and those who were not screaming were choking and coughing. The men, too, found themselves fighting for breath as they staggered toward the barn in the mysterious half light. One of them, in his teen years, doubled over coughing and dropped to his knees before he reached the gate. But the cloud was almost upon them and no one stopped to help.

  By this time Bullimore had reached the barn and, joined by two or three of the men, he managed to prize open the huge wooden doors, herding everyone in like sheep.

  “Hurry, for God’s sake,” he gasped, pulling women and boys inside.

  He could still see some fighting their way through the narrow field gate, jostling and pushing each other, but he feared it was too late. The young man he had seen fall was already swallowed up and he knew there were half a dozen others who would not make it to the barn before the noxious fog enveloped them, too. He had to think of those who were already inside.

  “Close the doors,” he ordered. The men hesitated for a moment, and in that split second Bullimore looked out to see the terrified face of Hester, arms outstretched, groping her way toward them. He saw her body jerk backward, as if the very devil himself had gripped her for an instant, only to spew her out with such force a second later that she fell flat on the ground not twenty yards in front of them. Another second and she had disappeared, smothered by the advancing smog.

  “Close them, I say!” cried Bullimore and in a trice they pushed the great doors to and let down the bolt with a thud just as the deadly vapors began to lick at the timbers outside.

  “May God save us!” cried Mistress Pickwell before clutching her chest. They were the last words she uttered.

  On a ridge half a mile or so away, above the hollow, the knife-grinder stopped his mule and watched with a morbid fascination as he saw the valley and the land below the escarpment disappear under the thick blanket of cloud. Licking his finger, he held it aloft to gauge the direction of the wind. A northwesterly. Next, taking his scarf from around his head, he covered his nose and mouth and secured it at the back with a knot. The hollow had slowed down the march of this monster, but he knew it would soon rise up the scarp and continue its relentless progress inland. He kicked his mule hard in the ribs and took one last look back at the scene below. The threshing barn had disappeared completely now, swathed in a mantle of deadly vapor. The dense fog muffled the cries of those trapped inside. He headed south.

  Chapter 3

  Even before the first deaths, even before the fog, Dr. Thomas Silkstone detected a certain strangeness in the air. It was a strangeness barely perceptible to most; indeed it was only felt by those who knew the signs, men rooted in the ways of the land or of science. Some might call it a sixth sense or clairvoyance, others perception or intuition. The Delaware Indians of his native Pennsylvania even had a symbol for it—the bat. It helped their shamans see through illusion or ambiguity and go straight to the truth of matters. But, whatever the truth behind the small, and to most, insignificant, happenings that the young anatomist noticed on that bright June morning, he felt an acute disquiet.

  The following day he would leave London for Boughton Hall, the Oxfordshire country home of Lady Lydia Farrell, the woman with whom he planned to spend the rest of his life. Theirs was not a straightforward relationship. He would be the first to acknowledge that. Lydia’s husband, Captain Michael Farrell, had been charged with her brother’s murder, but the captain had been found hanged as he awaited trial. A string of deaths followed and conspired to lead Lydia to attempt to take her own life. But it was only recently that she had revealed the real reason for attempting suicide. When she discovered she was pregnant with Michael’s child before their marriage, he had made her submit to John Hunter, an anatomist favored by ladies who found themselves in an undesirable predicament. But the barbarous bid to kill the child in her womb had failed. The son she bore, however,
was left with a crippled arm. Then, shortly after the birth, Michael told her that the babe had died in its sleep and no more was said. That was six years ago. In the past few months, however, documents had come to light that gave Lydia hope that her son may still be alive. This was the mission that Thomas had promised to undertake; to track down Lydia’s long-lost child. That was why his excitement at the prospect of seeing his beloved once more was tempered with apprehension.

  He had slept fitfully the previous night. The air in his room hung hot and humid. He had pulled down the sash in the vain hope that a cool breeze would waft through the opening, but all that permeated from the street was the stench of rotting rubbish and the cries of restless babes and stray dogs. It was only when he managed to turn his thoughts to Lydia’s loving smile, her gentle voice and her tender touch, that he felt a sense of calm wash over him and he finally drifted off in the early hours.

  His sleep was short-lived, however. He rose at dawn to pack. Pulling out a large valise from under his bed, he began to muster a change of clothes and some toiletries. He hoped he would be able to stay at the hall for at least a month, possibly longer. The events of the past few weeks had left him drained, both physically and mentally, and he relished the idea of spending time with his beloved, away from the stinking dissecting rooms of London.

  An hour later the sky was lightening over the rooftops to reveal yet another cloudless day. Thomas walked across the courtyard and down the short flight of steps to his laboratory. Inside it was pleasantly cool. The rising morning heat was kept at bay by the absence of large windows. There was only one, high up in the wall, facing the street. Even so, a shaft of strong light was already warming the stone flags. Thomas was grateful there was no cadaver awaiting dissection. For the last three or four days the city heat had been so stifling as to make any teaching, or indeed study, out of the question. Even he, with his cast-iron stomach and trusty clay pipe that was so often called upon to mask unpleasant odors, was inclined to feel nauseous in such circumstances. When the mercury on his wall thermometer rose higher than eighty degrees, even he found the reek of death intolerable.

  Yet there were others who suffered a great deal more than he. The Thames, from which so many of the common people drew their water, was turning into an even more deadly stew of detritus and disease. Horse troughs were running dry and remained unreplenished and small beer was becoming scarce. At noon even the costermongers and hawkers around Covent Garden sought the shade of the Piazza’s cloisters and ladies with corsets laced too tight were regularly fainting in the street.

  Closer to home, Mistress Finesilver, the housekeeper, complained that her pantry had been invaded by an army of red ants that had taken refuge from the scorching heat outside. Worse still, the milk was lasting no longer than three hours before it soured.

  Thomas wondered how Franklin, his white rat, had fared in the stifling night. He walked over to his cage in the corner of the room, unfastened the door, and held out a length of bacon rind he had purloined from his own breakfast plate. Yet instead of the usual greeting from the rat that always jumped into his master’s hand, the creature darted out of his cage like a thing possessed and headed straight toward the closed door.

  Strange, thought Thomas to himself, forlornly holding out the bacon as he approached him. But the rat ignored his master and simply scratched at the door, making loud squeaking sounds as he did so.

  “What’s wrong?” Thomas asked out loud, frowning. “What ails you?” Bending down he cupped his hands and picked up the rodent by the scruff of its neck, but it squirmed round and promptly bit him, so that Thomas let out a cry and dropped him the short distance onto the flags. The rat scurried back to the door but, undeterred, the young doctor scooped him up once more and quickly placed him back in his cage, securing the door firmly.

  “I shall have to tell Mistress Finesilver to keep an extra eye on you while I’m away,” he scolded, pointing accusingly at the rat as it scratched frantically at its cage door. As he did so, Thomas noticed a droplet of blood on his finger. It was the first time Franklin had ever bitten him. Something had, indeed, unsettled the creature. But he could not let the rat’s unpredictable behavior trouble him. His coach left in two hours and he had not begun to pack his medical bag.

  He had just put the case on his workbench when, from somewhere in the deep recesses of the laboratory, a solitary bluebottle headed straight for him and began to buzz about his head. He swatted it away and it withdrew, but not upward toward the window as Thomas expected. This was where the flies usually gathered, attracted by the light. No matter how careful he was with his specimens, there would always be flies that laid their eggs in the tiniest of cracks and crevices. And yet . . . It was strange, he mused, that they seemed to be hiding away from the heat, preening themselves in the darkest, coolest corners. There was a constant hum and yet they were not flying. It was as if even they wanted to conserve their energy.

  Thomas glanced up at the window once more, his eyes tracing the strong beam of sunlight up to the square of clear blue sky above. The flies were still droning in the background but from somewhere outside he could hear another, much shriller sound that seemed to be growing louder. He stopped what he was doing to listen. Within a few seconds the noise had become a discordance; a squawking, shrieking cacophony that was coming nearer and nearer. Then he saw it; a great, gray wave rolling over the rooftops, completely blocking the light, plunging the room into semidarkness.

  Rushing through the door he ran up the steps into the courtyard. Even outside the sky was darkened. The sun, still low over the chimneys and spires, was eclipsed from view by the huge cackling silver cloud that came from the north.

  “My God,” mouthed Thomas in awe as he stood transfixed.

  Hundreds upon hundreds of geese were flying overhead; wave upon wave of them, relentlessly heading south, their silver wings beating in unison. Thomas had never seen anything like it; not even as a child when, together with his father, he had watched excitedly as the annual bird migrations skirted along the eastern seaboard on the long journey south for winter.

  From somewhere in the house he could hear Mistress Finesilver shriek.

  “What’s the ballyhoo?” called out Dr. Carruthers. The old anatomist appeared at the back door, his long stick flailing in his hand. “Silkstone? Silkstone? Are you there?”

  The last legion of honking geese had just disappeared over the roof of the next-door building and the light had returned. But it made little difference to Dr. Carruthers, who was almost completely blind.

  “Yes, sir. I am here,” Thomas reassured him. “Do not trouble yourself. They were geese, sir. As big a flock of Canada geese as I ever laid eyes on.”

  “Geese?” repeated the old doctor, tapping his way toward the young doctor across the courtyard. “What the deuce were they playing at?”

  Thomas knew exactly what his mentor meant. “Yes, odd that they should be flying south in early June,” he agreed.

  “Most peculiar, if you ask me,” replied Carruthers, mopping his brow.

  Now that the flock had passed, the sun’s rays became even more unforgiving and Thomas saw that the old doctor was suffering.

  “Would you not be more comfortable in the shade, sir?” he suggested.

  Together they walked into the cooler laboratory and Dr. Carruthers sat himself down on a chair by the workbench.

  “So, I daresay you shall not miss the smells of piss and rotting cabbage and dead cats,” he chortled, tapping his stick on the stone flags.

  Thomas smiled as he began to gather basic medicaments, smelling salts and arnica, from the shelves for his medical bag.

  “I have to admit that even I find myself retching within half a mile of Smithfield in this heat,” he said, reaching for a bottle of iodine.

  The old doctor nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, you deserve a few days in the country, young fellow, especially after all that has passed.”

  Thomas did not argue. The ghastly episode that had seen
the acclaimed Irish giant, Charles Byrne, so humiliated at the hands of the infamous John Hunter had left him feeling deeply wounded. Thomas regarded the giant not only as his patient but also his friend, and his fate had left lasting scars, yet he could not share his pain with Lydia. It was simply another secret he would have to keep from his beloved for fear of plunging her into yet a further bout of melancholia.

  Over the past three years she had endured so much; the deaths of her brother Edward, husband Michael, cousin Francis, and mother—plus a forced marriage, but, most terrible of all, the reawakening of the deep-rooted and painful memories of losing a child. Yet in among this gloom, there was a glimmer of hope. There was just the very slightest chance that Lydia’s lost son was still alive. Thomas had promised that if that were so he would do all in his power to find him and reunite him with his mother. In the coming weeks this would be his quest, although it, too, would have to remain a secret, between only them.

  Dr. Carruthers cocked his head to one side, his mouth curling in a smile. “I am sure your heart will be gladdened when you see Lady Lydia.”

  Thomas was thankful the old doctor could not see the color rise in his cheeks. Lydia was the first woman in all his twenty-eight years who had ever held his heart so entirely in her hands. “Indeed, it will.”

  “Excellent, then I wish you a safe journey and a relaxing sojourn at Boughton Hall, young fellow.” He mopped the sweat from his brow once more. “Let us hope the weather becomes more temperate. I am not sure I can stand this heat much longer.”

  Thomas looked up from his bag. His mentor’s words reminded him that he had not checked the barometer that day. He walked over to the long glass case on the wall. As he expected the mercury was high, indicating a period of settled weather, but when he tapped its face, he did not anticipate the result.

  “Strange,” he said.

  “What does your barometer say?” queried Carruthers.

  “The mercury has risen again,” replied Thomas.