In the days that followed, though the intrepid young motorists kept their rifles and revolver at the ready, they saw no sign of bandits. And, though the skin of an enormous Siberian tiger had decorated the wall of the Grand Hotel’s dining room, the travelers spotted no wildlife more threatening than a small pack of wolves, which kept its distance from the smoke-belching machine.
The steppes gave way to forested hills and valleys with scattered farms. Four days west of Tchita, they topped a rise and found stretched out below them a lake so blue that it hurt the eyes and so extensive that they could not see the upper end of it. “Lake Baikal,” Charles informed them.
“And I expect you have some fascinating facts about it to share with us,” said Elizabeth drily.
“As a matter of fact, I do. It is the world’s deepest lake, and one of the largest. According to the guidebook, it is longer than the whole of England. It is also the only freshwater lake in the world where seals can be found.”
“Really?” said Elizabeth. “That actually is rather fascinating. Do you mind if I include it in my next dispatch?”
Johnny pointed toward the middle of the lake. “There’s a ferry.”
“If we take that,” said Harry, “it’ll save us a good deal of driving.”
To his frustration, they missed the ferry by minutes; the next wasn’t due for eight hours. They set up a temporary camp and, purchasing a salmon from a local fisherman, cooked an unusually sumptuous supper that included fried potatoes and the remains of a spice cake they had bought in Tchita.
After the meal, Harry had a long nap. When, at four in the morning, they finally reached the far bank of Lake Baikal, he was chipper and cheerful and ready to set off again. The temperature was near-freezing, but once they raised the rain hood and fired up the boiler, it became so cozy inside the car that everyone except Harry dozed off.
Just outside Irkutsk, the right front wheel of the Flash dropped into a large sinkhole, unseen in the faint light of the acetylene lamps. The shock rattled Harry’s teeth. The passengers groaned and stirred. “What was that?” muttered Johnny.
“Oh, nothing much.” Harry backed up and detoured around the spot. “Just the world’s deepest hole. Deeper than all of England, in point of fact.”
“Any damage?”
“No, no, everything’s fine. Go back to sleep.”
A few minutes later, Harry heard a faint but alarming clunk from beneath the car, then another. But when several miles went by and the sound didn’t recur, he shrugged and dismissed it. Probably just a stone caught in the wheel, he thought.
If Charles and Elizabeth had been awake when they reached Irkutsk, they would surely have requested a brief layover for food and freshening up. But since they were dead to the world, Harry drove through without stopping, relishing the fact that he had put one over on them.
It was not the wisest thing he might have done. In fact, in Harry’s long history of impulsive, ill-advised actions, this would take its place among those he regretted most.
THIRTY-ONE In which
AS WITH THE PROVERBIAL LOST HORSESHOE, A SINGLE NAIL CAUSES A DISASTER
West of Irkutsk the landscape changed gradually from grassland that resembled the American prairies to a thick forest of pines, firs, and birches that the Russians called taiga. Though the sun was nearly up, within the deep woods it remained dark as night.
The road was changing, too. It was no longer narrow and rutted, but relatively smooth and solid and nearly wide enough for two vehicles side by side.
One thing that had not changed was the vast emptiness. Harry met only one other vehicle, a postal tarantass , and the only dwellings were two shabby post stations. Ordinarily he wasted no time worrying about what might happen, but he couldn’t help thinking that this would be a desolate place to break down.
He pushed the thought from his mind. The Flash had proven even more reliable than they hoped. There was no reason to suppose it would suddenly suffer some major malfunction—no reason except for that nagging feeling of Johnny’s, the feeling that something was not quite right.
Unable to shake his sense of unease, Harry tried the meditation techniques he’d learned: carefully controlling his breathing, mentally focusing on some simple object—he chose a cricket wicket—and intoning the syllable om.
His concentration was broken by a grinding sound from beneath the rear seat of the Flash. Johnny sat up abruptly, clutching his head, knocking his workman’s cap askew. “Stop the car, Harry! Stop the car!”
Harry pushed in the throttle and disengaged the gears. The grinding sound immediately stopped. He and Johnny traded fearful looks. “It’s the differential,” said Harry. “Isn’t it?”
Johnny nodded grimly.
Elizabeth and Charles were awake now, too, and leaning over the back of the seat. “Is that bad?” asked Charles.
Johnny pulled his cap down over his ears. “Couldn’t be much worse.”
“I didn’t think to bring replacement gears,” said Harry. “I never imagined we’d need them. You said these would last forever.”
“They should’ve,” said Johnny.
Uncharacteristically, Elizabeth had not said a single word. Her blue eyes were wide and her face looked pale and drawn. “Are you all right?” Harry asked.
She nodded and shrank back in her seat. “This is going to set you back several days, at least, isn’t it?”
“Probably. We’ll just have to make it up by driving faster.” Harry took a deep breath and clapped his hands together. “Well. Let’s get at it, shall we?”
Johnny started to climb from the car but halted halfway and put his head in his hands.
Elizabeth came alive at last. “Oh, Johnny, you’re having one of your headaches, aren’t you?” She sprang from the car, retrieved the bottle of Dr. Pemberton’s Syrup, and gave Johnny a large dose. “You just lie back, now, until you feel better. I’ll give Harry a hand.”
“No, I’ll do it,” said Charles. “You don’t look well, either.”
Elizabeth gave him a wan smile. “Thank you.” After downing two capfuls of the syrup herself, she walked several yards into the woods and sat down on a fallen birch.
“Watch out for man-eating tigers!” Harry called to her.
“I say, Fogg,” said Charles, “you shouldn’t rag her that way. She’s not feeling well.”
“I was trying to cheer her up. Besides, who put you in charge of her welfare?”
“Someone needs to be, and you certainly don’t seem inclined.”
“How terribly old-fashioned of you, Hardiman. I think she’s pretty well proven that she can look out for herself.”
“I do not consider it old-fashioned,” Charles said haughtily, “to behave as a gentleman.” His tone implied that Harry couldn’t be expected to understand.
Harry chose, in the interests of keeping the peace, to ignore the implication. “Does it say anywhere in the Gentleman’s Behaviour Manual that you can’t help jack up a motorcar?”
Once they had the chassis raised and securely supported by chunks of wood, Harry set about removing the cover of the differential. Though the light was still poor, he could see that the gears had been badly damaged. The grease in the differential was filled with bits of broken metal. Most were the size of bread crumbs, but one larger piece projected from among the gears. Using his handkerchief, Harry wiggled it free and examined it. When he emerged from beneath the Flash, his face was set in an angry scowl.
“What is it?” asked Charles. “What’s wrong?” Harry extended the handkerchief. In the center lay a grease-covered object. “It looks like a nail,” said Charles.
“It is a nail. The question is, how did it get there?”
“Are you asking me? Or are you accusing me?”
“Both.”
Charles glared at him. “I’ve told you twice that I am not trying to damage your machine! I shan’t tell you again!”
“Who else could have put this there?” demanded Harry, thrusting the greas
y nail in the other boy’s face.
Charles knocked his hand aside, sending the evidence flying. Furious, Harry shoved him backward, but Charles quickly regained his balance and lashed out with his right fist, catching Harry on the side of the head. More blows were struck on both sides. Though Harry was the stronger of the two, Charles’s boxing experience gave him the upper hand. He landed a punch in his opponent’s ribs that totally took the wind out of Harry, who sagged down onto the running board of the car, grimacing and cradling his aching side. The anger had been knocked out of him, too. Through gritted teeth, he managed to murmur, “Good hit, old chap.”
Elizabeth hurried up to them. “What on earth has gotten into you two?”
Charles had fished out his own handkerchief and was dabbing at the blood that trickled from his lip. “He accused me again of sabotaging the car. I’ve had about enough of that.”
“Sabotaging it? How?”
Charles retrieved Harry’s greasy handkerchief and, picking off the pine needles, displayed the nail, which was still stuck to the cloth. “He found this in the differential.”
“Oh, dear,” said Elizabeth.
Charles sat next to Harry on the running board. “I didn’t want to mention this, Fogg, but have you considered the possibility that . . . well, that your father is behind this sabotage business?”
Harry stared at him. “My father? Why would he ruin my chances of winning this wager? He’s the one who’ll have pay up.”
“Perhaps it’s worth it to him.” Charles wadded up his bloody handkerchief. “I know about your agreement with him, Harry—that you’ll give up motorcars if you lose. Some of the men at the Reform Club overheard your conversation, and naturally they didn’t keep it to themselves.”
Harry gazed down at the ground, feeling dizzy and disoriented. Was Phileas Fogg actually capable of such a thing? He really had no idea. The sad truth was, Harry didn’t know the man well enough to know what he was capable of. Who would have imagined he could be so unscrupulous as to scuttle a ship? And yet, if Captain Keough’s story was true, he had done just that.
Despite his uncertainty, Harry felt obliged to defend his father. “But he couldn’t have done it. We changed the grease back in Des Moines, remember? We saw no sign of the nail then.”
Johnny sat up and adjusted his cap. “Could’ve been in back, out of sight.”
“Then it would have damaged the gears long ago, not waited until now.”
“What if it was stuck?” said Charles. “It may have needed a hard jolt, like the one earlier, to jar it loose. Besides, your father needn’t have done it in person. He could have hired someone—perhaps the same someone who messed about with the car in Philadelphia.”
Elizabeth, who had stood silently by, now spoke up. “I think you’re all being very unfair! I can’t believe that any man would do such a thing to his own son!” Thrusting the greasy handkerchief into Charles’s hands, she stalked off into the woods.
Harry was taken aback by her fierce defense of his father; until now, Elizabeth had seemed to regard Phileas Fogg as a scoundrel who kidnapped women and won wagers by underhanded means. With a groan, he got to his feet. “Well, there’s no way we can know anything for certain until we get home. All we can do now is try to fix the damage.” He turned to Johnny. “You can fix it, right?”
“Can’t cast a new set of gears.”
Harry looked up and down the road, scratching his head. “Irkutsk is about three hours’ drive back that way—say, seventy or eighty miles. It’s sure to have a decent machine shop. If I walk back to the post station, I’m sure I can hire a horse. We can’t wait until the next tarantass comes along; it could be half a day or more.”
“I’ll go,” said Johnny. “I know what’s wanted.”
“I just thought . . . well, I thought perhaps you’d rather not.”
Johnny shrugged. “I’ll manage.”
“Do you need to take the old gears?”
“No. I’ve got everything I need.” He tapped his head. “Up here.”
“All right, then, while you’re gone I’ll remove all the broken stuff.” He grinned and nudged Johnny. “Don’t forget to take along some tins of bully beef, in case you get hungry.”
Elizabeth insisted on accompanying Johnny. “I need to send a story to the Graphic. It’s been nearly a week since I last wired them.”
“Then I’d better come as well,” said Charles.
“No. Thank you, Charles, but it’s really not necessary. Besides, Harry will need someone to stand guard while he works. And, contrary to what he would have us believe, he does need to sleep occasionally.”
“If there actually are bandits skulking about,” said Harry, “they’re just as likely to attack you as they are me.”
“We’ll take the revolver, then.”
Harry sighed. “All right, all right, do as you like.” He and Charles traded glances that said, She will in any case.
It took Elizabeth and Johnny two hours to walk back to the post station. Though Johnny was shy and awkward in her presence, he managed to say a few words. “I don’t think Harry’s da did it.”
“Nor do I. But I don’t believe Charles did, either.” They strode along in silence for a time, then Elizabeth said, “This won’t ruin your chances to win the wager, will it?”
“I hope not. Harry says . . . Harry says we could make more motorcars.”
“Really? You mean actually go into the business of building them?”
Johnny nodded. “If we lose, we won’t have the money.”
“No, I suppose not. But perhaps you could find investors.”
He made a scoffing noise. “Who’d give money to a blacksmith and a tinkerer?”
Elizabeth either had no answer or was too out of breath to offer it.
The post station did have horses for hire, at the exorbitant rate of ten rubles per day. The days were growing short, so the pair made it only halfway to Irkutsk before darkness fell. They spent the night at another post station, a dismal log hut whose only furnishings were a flimsy table and chairs and several benches that served as beds. Their supper consisted of bowls of boiled millet and glasses of hot water; though she understood almost nothing the stationmaster’s wife said, Elizabeth gathered that travelers were expected to provide their own tea.
There was no bedding as such, only a pile of mangy-looking fur rugs infested with lice and fleas. Johnny wrapped himself in one, but Elizabeth covered herself only with her Mother Hubbard. By morning she was so chilled that she feared she might never get warm again. But perhaps it was better than the unbearable itching that plagued Johnny.
At dusk the following day, exhausted and aching from the long ride, they reached Irkutsk. Though Johnny insisted on staying in the stable with the horses, Elizabeth gratefully took a room—and a warm bath—at a surprisingly modern hotel.
After several tries, the machine shop managed to cast and grind a set of gears that satisfied Johnny. By the time they were ready to head back, it was the fourteenth of October; they had wasted four days, and the return trip on horseback would take another two. “Harry won’t be happy,” said Johnny.
“Well,” said Elizabeth, with a forced smile, “luckily I have some news that will cheer him up. I’m not rejoining the Flash.”
Johnny gaped at her. “But . . . but why?”
“I have my reasons.” From her reporter’s notebook, she tore a sheet of paper that was covered with her small, precise handwriting. She folded the note and, taking one of Johnny’s large hands in hers, she placed the paper in his palm and closed his fingers around it. “That will help to explain, I hope.”
“I can’t read it,” said Johnny.
“I know. If Harry wishes to read it to you, I can’t prevent him, but I’ve asked him not to.”
“Why?”
“Because.” Elizabeth paused and swallowed hard. “Because I want you to go on thinking well of me.”
“I will,” said Johnny. “I will, no matter what.”
“I wish that were so.” With her lace-edged handkerchief, she dabbed furtively at her eyes. “I’d better go now, before I make some sort of scene.”
“But where will you go?”
“I’ve made some inquiries. Apparently there’s a steamboat that takes passengers down the Angara River to some city with an unpronounceable name; from there, one travels by coach to the Ob River and takes another boat down it, to the eastern terminus of the railroad.” She gave a half hearted smile. “It sounds very scenic.”
“You’ll not write about our trip anymore?”
“No.” She gave a sharp, bitter laugh. “Unless I make something up. I’m quite good at that.”
“You’ll meet us in London, though?”
She took his rough hand again, for just a moment. “Perhaps. But don’t count on it. Good-bye, Johnny.”
If Harry had been there, he would have known what to do, what to say to keep her from leaving. All Johnny could do was watch helplessly as she walked away.
Certain that his friend would be seething with impatience, Johnny did not stop at the station where he and Elizabeth had spent such a miserable night. He rode straight through, hunched against the cold, dozing in the saddle, switching mounts occasionally to give each horse a rest. Traveling after dark was an open invitation to bandits, but he was too downcast to care.
Early the next afternoon he reached the station where he had hired the horses. He left them there and walked on, his legs so cramped and sore that he nearly fell. A few hours later he spotted the Flash, which Harry and Charles had pushed off the road. A short distance away, they had set up one of the tents. Johnny broke into a trot. “Harry?” he called. There was no reply.
Around the World in 100 Days Page 18
