Out of Time: . (Steamside Chroncles Book 1)

by Symon A Sanderson

  She stopped as the passengers got out and walked through the gate and to the front door. They too were dressed in Victorian garb and Kate, smiling to herself, wondered where the fair was. It was only when the front door of the house was opened and Kate noticed a woman dressed in the same type of maids outfit that she had seen in the doctor’s house did she begin to wonder if something was wrong.

  The couple entering the house hadn’t seen Kate, but the driver of the carriage certainly had.

  “A bit early for a fancy dress party ain’t it?” said the driver hardly able to contain his laughter, “I wouldn’t go down to the river dressed like that darlin’, you might cause a disturbance,” he turned the carriage around in the wide street and with a glance back at Kate he shouted, “Women coppers?” He started towards the Fulham Road still laughing and shaking his head. Kate watched the carriage until she could barely hear the horse’s hooves and continued in the same direction.

  It was a short walk to Fulham Road and Kate spent the time trying to piece together everything she could remember. She remembered being in the Link, going into the access door and the blue light. But how the hell had she ended up on the other side of London it just didn’t make any…

  Kate froze as she looked at the traffic on the Fulham Road. Not cars, buses and bikes as she was expecting, but horse drawn-carriages. Hundreds of them making their way in both directions. Carriages drawn by one or two horses, omnibuses dropping off and picking up passengers, drivers wearing capes, hats and in many cases, goggles and facemasks. There appeared to be no control or organisation to the flow of the traffic.

  But there was something else; a horseless carriage. Kate immediately chided herself at the description, but it was very apt. A rowing boat-shaped shell sat atop four large, thin metal wheels. A man sat on a leather upholstered chair high and to the rear of the vehicle, above him an umbrella, similar to the one her dad used to have on his garden table, shading him from the bright sun. Behind him, a funnel fluted at the top and belching out copious amounts of black smoke.

  This wasn’t the only such contraption on the road. There were dozens of them all shapes and sizes. Kate couldn’t help but stare at the traffic and pedestrians. What kind of fair was this? The uneasy knot in her stomach was replaced by a tugging at her side.

  “What are you dressed as then?” asked a boy who couldn’t have been more than ten years old. “Here, Fred, come and look at this.”

  Kate looked up and saw three more boys all about the same age running towards her. She didn’t have time for this and, seeing a gap in the traffic, ran across the road. After a couple of very near misses Kate hopped onto the kerb and slowed to a quick walk.

  “So, what are you dressed as?” continued a very insistent voice. Kate looked round as the small boy grabbed her sleeve. “I’ve never seen a woman copper before, have you Fred?” One of the other boys shook his head and grinned, displaying a row of yellow teeth.

  Kate turned sharply in an effort to dislodge the unwanted hand. The force of the turn not only made the boy release his grip but also sent him sprawling backwards. He lost his footing on the slippery pavement and yelped out in pain as he fell onto his backside.

  “What was that for? I’m going to get a real copper out to you,” he shouted to anyone who would listen before running back to the Fulham Road.

  Kate realised she had another obstacle to cross, The Kings Road, which if anything was even busier than Fulham Road. The unexpectedly familiar smell of coffee made Kate look to her left, where she saw a young woman standing by a brazier alight with flames dancing around a large pot. An unsteady looking wooden barrow with an odd assortment of small china cups and saucers neatly arranged on the top stood just back from the kerb

  The woman looked at Kate and said, “Coffee miss? Only a penny a cup.”

  Kate looked closely at her clothing. If it was a fair they were taking it a bit too seriously. The woman looked and certainly smelled unwashed and her clothing had definitely seen better days. A squeal caught Kate’s attention and she looked back toward the woman. Two young girls, both about ten or twelve years old, were running around the brazier trying to keep warm, their appearance mirroring the woman’s.

  “Shouldn’t they be in school?” asked Kate. The woman scowled at her and turned her attention to several people who had just jumped off an omnibus. The omnibus resumed its journey down the Kings Road, passengers on the top wearing stove pipe hats attempting to read newspapers as the omnibus jolted down the road, smoke from a funnel at the rear blackening the sky. Kate watched as one of the departed passengers placed a coin on the barrow and the woman poured hot coffee into one of the cups, placed the cup onto a saucer and handed it to the man.

  Kate watched as the man stood and drank the contents of the cup before realising the owner of the barrow was walking towards her and she did not look happy.

  “What are you looking at? Ain’t you never seen someone drink at a stall before? Go on, clear off before I call a constable,” the woman looked back towards Fulham Road. “Looks like I won’t have to.”

  Kate looked down the street to see a man in an old style police uniform running towards her, with two young boys pointing in her direction. They looked vaguely ridiculous, but the day she was having she decided there was only one option, the other side of the Kings Road. She turned to see a two-horse carriage speed by only centimetres from her face. She glanced to the right, saw a gap and ran. Kate managed no more than ten steps in when she stopped, a one-horse carriage coming from the left only missing her because it was going into a gap to its left. She darted forward behind the carriage and almost ran into the back of one of the steam driven cars. Kate placed her hands on the carriage as a barrier, pulling them away instantly from the boiling surface. Looking down Kate saw the copper boiler of the vehicle sitting between the wheels. She ran behind the vehicle and to the relative safety of the pavement. As she approached Cheyne Walk she slowed and looked back towards the Kings Road. She heard several whistles blowing and started running again.

  Kate had almost reached Battersea Bridge when she felt the crack of a whip near her right ear and heard obscenities being shouted. She looked around to see where the noise had come from, but as she did so she felt her foot hit the kerb and her bodyweight went forward. Unable to stop, Kate’s momentum carried her forward until her outstretched hands painfully made contact with the pavement.

  Kate was on her hands and knees when she felt someone take her arm. She ripped it away and stood before her helper could speak.

  “Don’t worry darlin’, I was only trying to help. Are you all right?” said the man, staring at her.

  Kate looked at him as he pushed the front of his brown bowler hat up with his finger. His face had a burn mark on the right cheek which was wrinkled up by a large grin. She didn’t reply. The man took a large penknife from his jacket pocket and unfolded it. Kate took a step back at the sight of the knife but realised her fears were unfounded when the man sliced off one end of a thin cigar which he proceeded to light.

  Kate looked around. She knew she was on Battersea Bridge, it was exactly where the doctor had said it would be. Exactly where she knew it would be. But it was wooden. The wooden Battersea Bridge had been replaced over one hundred years ago but there was no doubt. She looked over the side of the bridge to the distinctive structure of the nearby Albert Bridge. Her gaze swept to the right and her attention was caught by the structure in Battersea Park itself. In what must have been the middle of Battersea Park was the charred remains of a metal pylon almost as high as Blackpool tower. That wasn’t all that captured her attention. Beyond the pylon, in the distance hovering in the air, were dozens of cigar shaped airships. They seemed to stretch out into the distance in several lines in, and out, of the city. Something registered in Kate’s mind and she brought her attention back to the pylon. There were no chimneys. There should be four chimneys belonging to Battersea power station. But they were gone.

  It’s a grade two listed buil
ding. Surely they wouldn’t have torn it down, Kate thought. “They couldn’t have in only a day. It’s not possible,” she said to herself.

  Kate’s gaze followed the Riverbank from the Park back to the bridge. Instead of modern steel and glass apartments that should have been lining the embankment, there, stood in their place, were small stone and wood buildings. In front of them cranes, swinging back and forth unloading freight from steamships moored on the Thames.

  “What the hell?”

  No sooner had she breathed the words when she felt a hand grip her arm. She tried to pull away again but this time the grip was much stronger. She looked up to see a man in a police uniform. Not the uniform she was accustomed to but the type she had seen in museums or television dramas.

  “Is this the woman?”

  “That’s her,” replied the boy who Kate had accidently knocked over, “I want her arresting.”

  “I think you’d better come with me miss,” said the constable, “before you cause any more problems.”

  Kate watched as a dark blue carriage stopped next to them and the constable opened the rear door revealing a row of four cells running down the right hand side of the carriage. A Black Maria. There were photographs of them in the Black Museum at New Scotland Yard, but she had never seen one in real life before.

  Another constable took hold of her free arm and Kate realised her destination was one of the small cells in the carriage. She began to struggle but it was no use. The two constables had her in a tight grip and with surprising ease they put old, iron handcuffs on her wrists before placing her in one of the cells. Kate heard the sound of bolts sliding across the cell door and then the outer door closing.

  Kate sat in the back of the carriage unable to comprehend what was happening. Outside she could hear voices, but they were not loud enough to understand. She couldn’t understand why the carriage hadn’t moved and strained to hear what was being said.

  Suddenly the doors opened and a constable grabbed her wrist. Kate stumbled out of the back of the carriage and onto the pavement. She looked up to see Jacob deep in conversation with another constable

  “I understand that she’s my responsibility,” he said. “She’s a patient of mine and I promise this won’t happen again.”

  The constables, whilst not looking completely happy, closed the doors of the Black Maria and slipped back into the traffic on the Kings Road

  Kate, rubbing her newly free wrists, looked at Jacob, “Your patient?”

  “It was the only way to avoid you being locked in a cell and taken before the assizes, it would have been far more difficult to secure your release from there. Most of the constables around here know me, I treat most of their families free of charge. I think you had better come back with me to St. Giles Square.”

  Kate climbed into a waiting brougham and sat opposite her rescuer.

  “What’s happening?” asked Kate in a low, almost inaudible voice.

  “I have no idea,” said Jacob, “but if you’re agreeable we’ll go back to my house and try to figure everything out.”

  Kate nodded and looked out of the window as the crowd that had gathered to watch dispersed and the traffic continued its slow crawl along the busy street.

  Chapter Eight

  Amos Coleman had watched the airship that had torn his small steamer to pieces and stolen his cargo, lift into the night sky and disappear, before dragging himself out of the freezing mud and water of the Charles River and head for the nearest town to get his wounds tended to. However, news of the one-sided fight had somehow already reached the town and it was no surprise to him when two Secret Service agents burst into the doctor’s house where he was being treated and dragged him away.

  A short ride on the floor of a carriage before his first trip in an airship had brought him to his present location. Amos wasn’t completely sure, but believed he had finally arrived at the Watertown Armoury. He sat at a plain wooden table and watched as two men entered the room and placed a large bundle of papers on the table.

  Amos looked down and tried to swallow, his swollen lips and grating jaw doing their best to hinder the process. He heard wooden chairs being scraped across the bare floor and screwed his eyes tightly shut in anticipation. The first man switched on a powerful electric arc light and pointed it straight at Amos’s face. He tried involuntarily to shield his eyes but his wrists were tied firmly to the chair.

  “Let’s try this again shall we?” said the man who had turned on the light.

  “I keep telling you what happened,” said Amos through gritted teeth.

  “Yes, you have,” said the second man, “but the problem is, Mr Coleman, the gentlemen who questioned you earlier didn’t believe you,” he leaned in over the table. “The American Government has had something stolen from it and would very much like it back.”

  “I’ve already told you all I know. I’ve never even been in an airship before you dragged me onto one, never want to again. I don’t know who they were.”

  The first man blew a cloud of smoke into the air, leaned forward and stubbed a cigarette out into a metal ashtray. “The thing is, Mr Coleman,” he said as he picked several documents from the pile of papers, “we believe that you do know who they are,” he pushed several photographs toward Amos, “and we also believe you would like the opportunity to find them.”

  The second man leaned back into his chair and folded his arms. “We know all about your past, Mr Coleman. Your smuggling operations in the Caribbean, the mutiny on your ship and your semi-retirement. We followed it with great interest. Whilst we would never condone your activities we also had no intention of taking any action to curtail them.” He lit a cigarette. “No Mr Coleman, we chose you because of your past, not in spite of it.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “We had intelligence there would be an attempt to intercept the cargo. So, we sent a fully armed airship on ahead as a decoy and sent the real cargo on a low key trip on the river. You were chosen as the carrier because of your rare ability to get out of a tight spot.”

  “What was in those crates?”

  The man smiled. “We have a few more questions for you Mr Coleman,” he said.

  “How many more times do I have to go through this?”

  “Until we get the truth, Mr Coleman,” said the second man, “until we get the truth. What exactly happened in the Caribbean? You seemed to be doing very well. How did you come to lose your ship? How do know this woman?” He pointed to the photographs on the table.

  Amos looked up and squinted as he tried to see the face of the man through the bright illumination of the lamp. He looked down at the photograph. It was blurred but there was no doubt. It was Ursula Marchford, the woman who had taken his ship and marooned him in Havana. He thought about the young soldier who had been cut down as he tried to get off the steamer. Coleman sighed, looked at the two men through the illuminated cigarette smoke and started talking.

  ***

  Amos had no idea how long he had been talking. There were no clocks or windows in the room, the only light coming from an oil lamp in the middle of the table. The electric arc light had been mercifully turned off and his restraints untied some time earlier. He had decided to tell them everything, most of which they already knew but he also filled in a few interesting blanks.

  He recalled the meeting in New Orleans, with some contacts from the Far East, in which he realised the cargo he was to take to Haiti was two dozen young women for transport to the other side of the world. He described in detail the gun battle that had followed his refusal and the subsequent release of the women. One of the women, a young, blonde Floridian, had begged to go with him. Against his better judgement he had agreed, little realising that a few short years later she would be forcing him into a small rowboat at gunpoint.

  Amos told the two men everything he knew about Ursula Marchford and the rest of his crew. He told them how he knew it was her that was in charge of the airship because he had seen the same surprise tacti
cs before. It was a refusal to agree with those same manoeuvres that had ended in a fire-fight with a British airship and their forced retreat into Havana and the resulting mutiny. It had not been the first time since that bloodless mutiny that he had considered those events but he suddenly found the memory of his four-day journey back to Havana in a small rowboat particularly bitter.

  Amos had told the two agents the same details repeatedly throughout the afternoon and into the evening. He was expecting the questioning to continue when one of them walked back into the room, but when he put a bottle of bourbon and two glasses onto the table Amos knew something had changed.

  “How would you like to serve your country?” the agent asked, nearly causing Amos to choke on his drink.

  “Why me?” he said coughing the words out.

  “No-one outside that crew knows them as well as you do, we could use your expertise, you’re very good at getting out of trouble. Also, no-one in London knows you.”

  “London. Why do you need me to travel there? Don’t you have operatives over in England?”

  “We do indeed, Mr Coleman, but the British are aware of most of them and we need to be sure of the information that is gathered.”

  The inference wasn’t lost on Amos, “You don’t trust your own people do you? Are the British better paymasters?”

  “Let’s just say there’s another interested party involved and the lines have become a little blurred.”

  Images flashed through Amos’s mind: Marchford’s face as he stepped aboard the rowboat, the electric arc lights sweeping the riverbank looking for survivors, the young soldier sinking to the bottom of the river, “I’ll do it.”

  The man smiled, leaned forward and poured more bourbon into Amos’s glass. “We thought you would,” he opened a paper folder and pushed a number of photographs towards Amos, “The gentleman in the first picture is Harry Finch.”