The Derring-Do Club and the Empire of the Dead

by David Wake

  “One thousand metres,” Charlotte said. “Steady at one eighty, speed thirty eight… nine kilometres an hour.”

  “Look sharp,” Earnestine said. She noticed pairs of binoculars clipped into wall brackets and she handed them to Georgina before selecting a pair of her own. It took a few moments to adjust and find the best position to avoid seeing her own eyelashes, but then the clouds below jumped into focus. They looked the same despite being magnified, there was nothing to give them any sense of scale in this strange cotton wool landscape. There were no trees, houses or animals to act as a yardstick.

  “There!” Georgina said.

  “Where?”

  “Down… sort of left a bit by that fluffy pointy one just down from that.”

  Earnestine scanned left and up and down: fluffy wasn’t really specific enough and she was just about to remonstrate with Georgina when she saw it. A black shape like a whale swimming in a sea, it undulated, rippling as it moved and appeared very unlike the rigid superstructure of an airship. It can’t bend like that, so…

  “Shadow!” Earnestine said. “It’s… the sun is there, so…”

  She nearly blinded herself and had to take the binoculars down to blink away the orange spots. When she put them back, she moved with more care and direction and found the source of the shadow. There, the evil shape of the Zeppelin glided above them. She could make out the cruciform shape made by the airship’s fins, the motors on their spindly arms flicking as they cut through the sunlight, and the tiny gondola beneath.

  “We’re getting closer,” Georgina said.

  They were and Charlotte was turning the wheel to move them into position behind the other airship, rising to their level slowly like a hunter closing in on its prey.

  Dust spattered the front window.

  Georgina spoke for all of them: “Silver iodide, they’ve started.”

  Earnestine wondered how long they had been spraying the chemical and how much was required to start a storm. They must have done tests, flying Zeppelins over Europe and drenching the ground: they’d know – it wouldn’t be guess work.

  “Now what?” Georgina asked.

  “Well, this is a ship of the sky,” Earnestine said, “so forward guns or torpedoes or… height charges.”

  “There are bombs and a Gatling gun,” Charlotte said.

  They didn’t need binoculars now to see their opponent. The other airship was clearly travelling slowly, possibly to optimise the density of silver iodide striking the clouds.

  “Right,” Earnestine said. “Charlotte, get us above the other Zeppelin. Georgina, you man the Gatling gun and I’ll find some bombs.”

  “I don’t know how to use a Gatling gun.”

  “Gina, you’ve driven a steam train, how hard can it be?”

  “You’ve driven a steam train?” Charlotte said, excited.

  “Yes, I have,” said Georgina.

  “Wow… oh, Ness, can I? Can I?”

  “Charlotte, you are flying a Zeppelin,” Earnestine replied. “You’ll just have to be satisfied with that.”

  “Why does Gina get all the fun?”

  “This is not a game.”

  “No, it’s an adventure.”

  “It most certainly is not.”

  Mrs Arthur Merryweather

  Georgina was too frightened to be really cross. Earnestine was being bossy again and then Charlotte, the younger sister, had taken over. She seemed to know how to fly a Zeppelin and how to fire a Gatling gun and... it must be something to do with wearing trousers. Why couldn’t saving the British Empire involve embroidery?

  Earnestine and Georgina fussed over the Gatling gun. Charlotte manoeuvred their airship above the target. The enemy in their gondola were below the rigid dirigible envelope and so their approach was hidden.

  They came close, very close.

  Earnestine aimed and… nothing.

  “Get Charlotte!” Earnestine shouted.

  “Can you not get it to work?”

  “Get… oh, I’ll do it.”

  Earnestine ran off and moments later Charlotte appeared.

  “Sit here,” she said.

  “I can’t kill anyone,” said Georgina.

  “We just shoot the tail off and then they’ll have to land.”

  “Right.”

  “Pull this.”

  Georgina didn’t see what Charlotte did, but she heard a metal sound like a bolt moving.

  “Now… aim… and just a gentle squeeze…”

  Georgina aimed at the eagles on the tail fin, squeezed ever so gently and–

  Sound! Kick! Fire! Screaming… her own screaming as the thing came alive and spat angry sparks that traced a fiery path to the other airship. The fins exploded, and then because the monstrous machine had a life of its own, it sprayed bullets everywhere. Holes appeared in the side of the Zeppelin, lines of dots like unpicked sewing. The canvas covering ripped as the wind tore at the panels.

  It stopped: Georgina had her mouth open, but nothing came out.

  “That was spiffing,” Charlotte said: “Move over, my turn.”

  Georgina moved away feeling sick.

  Charlotte blazed away for a while, the ratta–tat–tat–TAT–TAT–TAT–

  “Stop it, stop it!” Georgina had her hands over her ears.

  It stopped, but the noise rang on in Georgina’s head.

  “That was horrible,” said Georgina, “we’re never doing that again… I can still hear it.”

  “That’s…”

  Charlotte stuck her head out of the open doorway, craning up.

  “Careful!”

  “We’re being shot at,” said Charlotte. “Another Zeppelin. I’ll tell–”

  There was a crashing noise, wood splintering, and they both knew that the barricade at the back of the gondola section was being attacked.

  Charlotte dragged the Gatling gun into the middle of the corridor and fired a burst of from the appalling gun.

  “Don’t!” said Georgina, but it was too late.

  “I’ll tell Earnestine,” said Charlotte. “You keep them out.”

  Georgina took hold of the gun and prayed no–one would try and break through the flimsy door.

  Miss Charlotte

  When Charlotte reached the bridge, she saw that the first Zeppelin, the one they’d shot at, was going down, pushing the clouds aside in its descent.

  “Well done,” said Earnestine.

  “We’re being shot at.”

  “Are we?”

  “Yes, from above, the other Zeppelin.”

  “Kroll.”

  Charlotte grabbed the controls and yanked a lever back.

  Georgina arrived: “They’re in.”

  “Why didn’t you shoot them?” Charlotte shouted back.

  “I can’t…”

  Something pinged around the bridge, a bullet.

  Out of the starboard side, Kroll’s Zeppelin loomed, a dark shadow in the bright sunlight.

  “Achtung!”

  The sisters stopped: an Austro–Hungarian soldier stood in the doorway.

  Charlotte winked at Earnestine: “Hold on.”

  She pulled again: the engines whined and the floor tilted from a gentle upward slope and turned into a wooden cliff. Objects fell backwards, cups, maps, Georgina, the approaching soldiers…

  “Not up! Down!” Georgina shouted.

  “Up!” said Charlotte.

  “Down,” said Georgina, who was half–way up the wall by the door. “Sooner or later one of those lunatics is going to puncture the airbag and we don’t want to fall too far.”

  “Up,” said Charlotte, “because the higher we are, the more likely those lunatics will see sense and stop firing.”

  “Down!”

  “Up!”

  “Will you two stop arguing?” Earnestine yelled.

  “Zeppelins fire downwards, so if we are above them they can’t hit us.”

  “We have to destroy that Zeppelin.”

  “How? The Gatling is…
back there.”

  An engine stuttered, but kept turning.

  “The air’s getting thin,” Charlotte explained. Her breathing was laboured as if she was wearing a particularly tight corset, but she was in her aerial uniform.

  “Then we have to go down,” Georgina pleaded.

  As their forward momentum waned, the airship began to settle back to the horizontal.

  “We need to go up,” Charlotte cried out as she desperately tried to get more out of the controls.

  “Down.”

  “We need to lose weight.”

  “Shall we kick a few Austro–Hungarians overboard?” Earnestine joked.

  They looked at her, knowing that it was her decision between up and down, between Georgina and Charlotte.

  “Up or down?” Charlotte asked, hopeful that Earnestine would pick her suggestion.

  “Forward!” Earnestine said. “Ram this Zeppelin into that Zeppelin.”

  “That’s… decisive,” said Charlotte. Oh, her big sister had some wonderful ideas sometimes. “Jolly good.”

  “You’re insane!” Georgina wailed.

  The engines whined and complained as the massive Zeppelin slalomed around the sky. The other Zeppelin loomed in the front windows, turning to give them a broadside. Tiny lights winked from the windows, clearly they were being shot at, and then the pilot of the other air vessel realised the danger and tried to dive.

  Both Zeppelins, ponderous beasts that they were, reacted tardily, so they had plenty of time to see the collision developing.

  There was a loud hollow sound at the moment of contact, the tension in the canvas skins enough to absorb the impact as they jostled and bumped along, then their port propeller struck the side, ripping and shredding until it connected with a metal strut and then the rotor tore itself to pieces.

  Everything pitched.

  There was a hideous grinding sound as the two airships, pushed together by the starboard engine, slid along and then stopped.

  Charlotte turned the ship’s wheel, but only achieved a sickening motion back and forth.

  “We’re caught,” said Charlotte.

  Earnestine looked: “It’s the ropes, they’ve tangled in the metal framework.”

  Charlotte risked a quick glance. Sure enough the ropes from the bow had caught on the exposed frame of the dirigible. The two airships were locked together.

  “We can board it,” Earnestine shouted. “Come on!”

  “What!?”

  “Someone is going to have to climb down the cable and stab the other Zeppelin’s airbag.”

  “Are you going to bedlam!?” Georgina yelled: “It’ll drop like a stone.”

  “The bag will deflate and the airship will float safely to the ground,” said Earnestine. “You’ve had mountaineering experience.”

  “What! No, no, no…” Georgina begged.

  “Not you, Gina, you’re married, you have to keep the Deering–Dolittle line going, whereas I’m expendable, but I could do with some advice.”

  “What about me?” said Charlotte.

  “I think Lottie, you should just keep out of trouble.”

  Oh, Charlotte thought, she was going to miss out again. Ness never let her do anything.

  “Ness, please, think,” Georgina implored.

  “Once I’m across,” said Earnestine, busy collecting a pair of goggles and a Verey Pistol from the rack at the side of the bridge. “I’ll set a fire or some sort of sabotage.”

  “It will explode!”

  “Don’t be silly, Gina, no Zeppelin has ever exploded.”

  Chapter XXI

  Miss Deering-Dolittle

  Everything in the gondola was smashed to pieces and packed against the far end. The feeble barricade had now been reinforced by every piece of furniture. At the exit ramp, open to the elements, the other Zeppelin filled the view, a wall of canvas, ripped and holed in places.

  Earnestine put the Verey Pistol into her bodice and put on the goggles, which needed tightening, and then she leant out reaching for the rope.

  The other airship was lower and only 20 yards away, give or take, and the interior was holed, so she’d be able to clamber inside. It would then be easy to use the criss–crossing struts as a ladder to reach the deck. But first she had to reach the mooring rope.

  She couldn’t.

  “I can’t reach it,” she said.

  “This is insane,” said Georgina.

  Earnestine thought it was crazy too, madness beyond belief.

  No adventures, Earnestine thought, avoiding her calling. Oh to hell with this, we’re Deering–Dolittles. Not Surrey, but Kent, known for disappearing up rivers and mad schemes and – yes, for adventures.

  “Give me my umbrella,” she said.

  “Here,” said Gina, “but we’re above the clouds, so it won’t be of any use.”

  She reached out with it… a bit further and yes, it hooked over the rope.

  “Ness!”

  Firm grip, she kicked off and her skirts caught the wind and she flew out, blown horizontal by the slipstream around the two airships. For a moment she dangled between the two great walls of canvas, and then she slid down to bounce against the outer skin of the other Zeppelin.

  For one dreadful moment, she thought she’d fallen off and hit the ground, but she’d thumped into the hard surface of the outer skin of the other Zeppelin.

  Now she had to open her eyes and actually find handholds, but she found she couldn’t move.

  The wind whipped around her, stinging her face. There was a ladder, set against the outside, clearly designed for someone to clamber about risking their lives, probably to trim the mainsail or whatever this damned stupid aerial boat required. It was too far away, yards and yards – too far. The wind was blowing her towards it, sideways, backwards along the vessel, so it would just be a case of letting go.

  She’d fly, briefly, and then grab hold. All she had to do was let go. Let go.

  “Let go,” she said aloud, the wind grasping her words and flinging them into the bluster and buffet of the slipstream. “Let go!”

  She unhooked the umbrella and let go.

  The wind did exactly what it had been doing, so she flew back, missed the ladder and struck the exposed metalwork that had been ripped into jagged struts by the collision. She struggled through the opening and into the main fuselage itself.

  Suddenly, after the roaring gale outside, it was a quiet, reverberating space. She was again stunned by the sheer size of the vessel, like a hangar containing the round balloons that kept the airship aloft.

  She worked her way down gingerly. The last time her knees had been this scraped and gashed was when they’d all played Source of the Nile down in the woods as little girls. That seemed a long time ago.

  Crew appeared, disgorged from the gondola below, as orders were shouted in German.

  Earnestine sank to the deck, conscious of how ludicrous it was to try and bring down the ultimate war machine single–handed.

  A crewman ran past her with an axe and clambered nimbly up the superstructure to hack away at the rope. It zinged when it split and whipped away like a venomous snake.

  “Deering–Dolittle!”

  It was Kroll, the huge man standing over her.

  “I can see why Pieter finds you attractive, you are such a spitfire.”

  Earnestine pulled herself upright and stumbled away over the metal deck.

  Kroll was laughing: “Where can you run, we are kilometres away from the ground.”

  He pressed a button on a machine and a figure lurched towards Earnestine. She shied away, changed direction. Coming towards her was the ruined visage of a man with buck teeth and she recognised him as the March Hare.

  “Schneider!”

  The dead man reacted to the noise but not to his name. The brass fitting in this skull fizzed and his groping arms came up to grab her.

  “We kept him here because we didn’t want the Prince finding out,” said Kroll. “He is one of the Untotenfal
lschirmspringer.”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “The Undead Parachute Corp.”

  Earnestine doubled back, nimbler than the monster, but running out of options: “I’m none the wiser.”

  “These,” said Kroll, turning round to show her his backpack. “They are inventions to allow one to descend to the ground.”

  “Really, how lovely.”

  “This is a new age, the age of air war, when we, a landlocked country, can go over any defences, any blockades, any fortifications to attack the very heart of an empire. This war of air and untoten, we call it Blitzkrieg.”

  “I don’t know German.”

  “Blitzkrieg means ‘Lightning War’,” the Oberst said, laughing. “When the lightning comes there will be war.”

  “But why?” Earnestine shouted, dodging away from the pursuing creature. “Why all this killing?”

  “I’m a soldier,” said Kroll. “What else would I do?”

  She was back where she started at the port side, the open sky in front of her marked by the blot of the other Zeppelin, now an expanding distance away.

  The walking corpse closed in, stumbling and lurching on the pitching walkway.

  At Earnestine’s feet was her umbrella. She flipped it up and brandished it like a sword, poking at the Schneider’s approach. They circled each other until the blue spark ordered the creature to attack.

  Leading with her right foot, Earnestine stabbed forward. The point of her improvised weapon pierced the creature’s flesh, cracked a rib and was sucked forward through its body as its attack continued. Earnestine pushed. The monster jerked and toppled backwards, hovering for a moment on the edge of the precipice before being ripped out into the void.

  Earnestine herself was dragged forward until the handle of the umbrella wrenched free of her grip. She tottered on the edge before grabbing a handhold and her knees slammed against the deck by the opening. Schneider was a flailing shape and then a receding dot.

  She heard Oberst Kroll stumble, his polished boots slipping on the walkway.

  “Fräulein, such courage.”

  She’d die now, she knew it, and that meant she’d never see Pieter again. Instinctively, she reached for his ring and felt the bulk of the Verey Pistol. She pulled it out, turned and aimed at the big man.

  “I can’t miss you at this range,” she said.