David Clarke

Excelsior

Chapters 21-24

Chapter Twenty-one

There was one other significant change to my life that followed my birthday, and it was considerably less welcome than the presents had been. A couple of weeks later things were back to normal: Excelsior had been moved to Abingdon to have its electric wiring fitted and school had started again, and I was expecting life to continue much as it had before, at least until my ship was ready to fly. But I was wrong.

After breakfast one Saturday morning in mid-January my uncle asked me to go with him to his study. I found it amazingly tidy: all of the paperwork that had covered the desk on my previous visit had disappeared.

"I'm going back to Chisbury," my uncle told me. "You don't need me here full time any longer, and it's about time I dedicated a bit more time to my own estate."

"But… I won't be able to manage without you!" I protested.

"Yes, you will. It won't mean a lot of work for you anyway: Jon Hall manages the estate with complete competence when I'm not around, and Allchorn looks after the staff, so the only thing I normally have to do is sign the paperwork, and I know perfectly well you can manage that. If I didn't think you could handle it I wouldn't go, but as it is I can see no reason not to."

"But aren't you my legal guardian?" I asked.

"Yes, but that doesn't mean I have to live in the same house. Of course it would be different if you were just an ordinary boy living in a cottage on the estate – then there would be no question of you being left on your own. But you won't be on your own here: you'll have an entire household to look after you. You don't need me under your feet all the time.

"Obviously if something does come up I'll be happy to come back to help you to sort it out, and in any case I'll drop in every now and again anyway to make sure you're getting on all right. And if you need me urgently, Chisbury isn't that far away: you can get a galloper to me in under an hour, or you could send Murdoch to fetch me in the autocarriage."

"I suppose so," I said, unenthusiastically. Then I thought of something and perked up a little.

"Does this mean I'll have to stop studying?" I asked.

"No, it most certainly does not! You'll continue your education exactly as you're doing at the moment. It doesn't take that long to sign a few papers. Education is important, Leo: just because you have money doesn't mean that you don't need to improve yourself, understand? If Mr Devlin isn't happy with you I've asked him to let me know, and if that's the reason I have to come back for a visit, you'll really wish I'd stayed away!"

"What about flying?" I asked. "Does this mean no more missions together?"

"Of course not. I'll be moving Excalibur to Chisbury, but any time we fly – at least until your own ship is ready – we'll come and collect you and the rest of the crew. After all, it's not just you and your friends: quite a lot of the rest of my crew live here too. And I'll want you to attend any meetings I might have with Admiral Faulkner or the French naval command, too – in fact we'll probably continue to hold those here, because the facilities are better here than at my place. So don't worry, Leo – I'm not just going to abandon you completely!"

Obviously in one way I was glad to feel that my uncle trusted me enough to leave me to manage without him, but in another I knew I was going to miss having him around whenever I had a problem. I suppose it's part of growing up that you learn to stand on your own two feet, and at fifteen I wasn't a little kid any more, but even so…

Still, even without my uncle I wouldn't exactly be on my own. I already discussed just about everything with Wolfie, and the rest of my friends could give me help and advice too if I needed it. And I supposed that Mr Hall would probably be very helpful if there was a sudden crisis, too, so probably I'd get by.

My uncle moved out just before the end of January. In fact the only difference to my daily life was that I now had a half-hour session with Mr Hall at the end of each afternoon, in which I talked to him about anything that needed my attention and signed any papers that needed an official signature, and I didn't take too long to get used to that being a part of my daily routine.

The next issue I had to deal with was going to be finding a crew for Excelsior, and so one Saturday morning at the beginning of February I sat down with my friends in the conference room to talk about it.

"The problem is that most of the men on the estate are already part of the crew of Excalibur," I told them. "Okay, I expect my uncle will be able to find some replacements for some of them in Chisbury, but that's a smaller estate, so there won't be so many men available. And Excelsior's a bigger ship, too: we'll need five teams of stokers and engineers for each watch, for a start. I suppose I could go recruiting in Abingdon and the local villages, but I'd sooner not just take people off the streets without knowing anything about them."

"I know as how the rest of the lads will want to come," Billy pointed out. "It's true as some of them are probably too young, but most are close to my age."

"We'll have time to train them," Wolfie pointed out. "After all, your uncle said we won't be expected to fly proper combat missions until you're sixteen, so that gives us a whole year. So it won't matter if some of the crew are a bit young at the moment."

."I suppose that's true," I agreed. "There aren't all that many of them, but it'll help."

"If you don't mind them starting out young, I know where you can find plenty of volunteers," offered Albie. "Virtually every kid you've rescued from the sewers would fall over himself in order to sign up. They think you're the next best thing to God, and even if you told them how dangerous ætherships can be I don't think many of them would change their minds. If Sparrer and I did the rounds of the new Children's Homes you've set up we could probably get enough boys to crew half a dozen ætherships."

I thought about that, and I didn't need to look at Wolfie's face to know what he would think about a crew of pickpockets, thieves, con-artists and rent-boys, and I suspect my face reflected the same doubts, because Sparrer decided to chip in at that point.

"He's right," he said. "Yeah, we're scum, and when we was living down Bazalgette's you couldn't have trusted none of us. But now… now it's different. Now we're living like normal people, and we ain't stealing no more, neither. There ain't nothing they wouldn't do for you. Look at me: I was shit, and you still took me in, and now I've got proper friends and a proper life. I'd kill myself for you if you told me to – and so would any of them kids in London. Take them on as crew for your ship and I swear none of them will ever let you down."

Sparrer's English had come a long way since Christmas: he'd started attending the village school at the beginning of January and had been working hard at his diction, with a lot of extra help from Albie. His grammar was still all over the place, but he was putting in a real effort, and even Wolfie had told me how impressed he was.

As for the thought of a crew from the sewers… it was true that a crew full of Sparrers would be a handful, but by now I was pretty sure I could trust him with my life, and if what he and Albie were saying about their fellow orphans was true, then loyalty would be one thing I wouldn't have to worry about. And if we were supposed to be privateers, maybe there was no harm in having a crew of pirates… Put it this way: if it ever came to hand-to-hand combat, I'd back a crew of Sparrers over a crew of nicely brought up Wolfies any day.

"Okay, you're on," I said. "We'll work out what the complement of the ship will be when she's finished, and then you two can go to London to recruit as many as we need to make up the shortfall between what we have on the estate and what we need to run the ship on a full three-watch basis. Get some older kids if you can – we'll need to appoint some petty officers – and I'll arrange a training schedule for them with my uncle. I want every one of them to have made at least two flights in Excalibur before Easter."

"Where are you going to put them all?" asked Wolfie. "There won't be room in the house, even if…"

"Even if I'm prepared to fill the place up with criminals, you mean? We'll have to arrange some temporary accommodation somewhere. Tents, if we can't find anywhere else. I'll discuss it with Mr Hall this afternoon. But we don't want them here long term – at least, not until we're making regular flights in Excelsior – and I don't want to mess up their schooling too much, because they're bound to be miles behind as it is. We'll try to get as much as possible done in the holiday in the third week of the month.

"Now, I'm going to need a lot of help with this, because I've still got to look after the normal running of the place, so it would be better if one of you can take on the training. Any volunteers?"

"I'll do it," said Wolfie.

That came as a surprise. "Really?" I said. "Why would you want to do that?"

He shrugged. "I've got far more experience on an æthership than anyone else here, so I know what's needed. Besides, it'll be interesting."

"Yes, but… I know how you feel about sewer-kids…"

"No, you don't. You know how I used to feel. Yes, I still have my doubts, and I'm not sure it would be sensible to have huge numbers of them in the house – there's sure to be a bad apple or two somewhere. But you were absolutely right about Ben, and if he could turn out like he has, then I think we should give the same chance to some of the others. And organising the crew is one of the First Officer's jobs, anyway. So I don't mind working with them, although I might need Albie to interpret for me!"

I left the organisation of the training to Wolfie, who recruited Alex and Albie to help him. Albie and Sparrer made a couple of trips to London and had no trouble at all finding volunteers, even though Albie told me that if anything he'd over-emphasised the dangers of crewing a fighting æthership. Of course, in all probability any warning would have gone in one ear and out the other: once these street kids heard the word 'fly' everything else became meaningless. In any event, when we ran our first training course during the school half-term holiday in February, we ended up with more kids than we could accommodate and had to borrow some more tents from the army base in Oxford.

Uncle Gil was only too happy to help: he'd been doing some recruiting of his own and needed to train his own crew, and so he'd arranged to bring Excalibur back on the Saturday so that we could undertake our first training flight the following day. Our trainees had travelled down on the Saturday, too. I'd left everything to Wolfie, and so apart from noticing out of the window when the first batch arrived from the station I didn't get involved on the Saturday at all.

But when I got up on the Sunday I discovered that my day had already been organised for me. Wolfie went down to breakfast with me and then escorted me back up to my room and told me to put my uniform on.

"Do I really need to?" I asked. "We're not flying until later, are we?"

"Well, actually, we are – your uncle moved it forward to this morning. I think some of his own trainees have plans for later today. And in any case, I want you to make an impression. This is going to be your crew, and I want them to see you at your best. So, your full uniform, please – including the hat."

Unenthusiastically I put the uniform on, and as I took the jacket out of the wardrobe I found that Wolfie must have taken it and sent it back to the tailor's without telling me, because it now had some extra decoration: a pair of shoulder-tabs decorated with intricate criss-crossing silver thread and two gold pips, some extra buttons on the cuffs, which were now in two-tone green in what Wolfie told me was the Saxon style, and another red leaping lion badge above the right-hand breast pocket.

"What do I need all this shiny stuff for?" I asked.

"I'll explain later. Just put it on. Oh, and be careful with the belt: there's a gun in the holster. It's not loaded – at least, I don't think so…"

I stared at him.

"Wolfie, I know you don't trust the sewer kids," I said, '"but I hardly think they're likely to attack me!"

"No, that's not it. I just want you to look like a proper officer, that's all. Don't worry, if I thought they were likely to attack you I'd be carrying a machine gun myself. Actually I should think there probably isn't a group of people anywhere who would be less likely to attack you. Come on, get the jacket on."

I sighed and put the jacket on, did up the belt – complete with pistol holster – and settled the peaked cap on my head.

"Perfect!" declared Wolfie. "Now wait here – I won't be a minute."

He left the room and I stared at myself in the mirror. Okay, I suppose I did look sort of military, and it was definitely smart, but I've never enjoyed anything ceremonial. I've probably got Auntie Megan to thank for that: as a republican she had no time for what she called 'dressing up and poncing about', and if she caught the news coverage of the Trooping of the Colour, the Queen's Birthday parade, or anything similar, she would simply dismiss it as 'a total waste of money'. In any event, I thought that if she saw me looking like this she'd simply laugh.

Wolfie was actually gone for more like five minutes than one, but eventually I heard his voice outside the door telling me to come out, and when I stepped out into the corridor I found that he was wearing a uniform which was, at first glance, identical to mine.

"Where's the Prussian brigadier?" I asked.

"That helmet's too heavy. I thought that we ought to present them with a matched pair… well, not quite: you'll notice that I've dropped a few ranks."

He ducked a shoulder towards me and I saw that his shoulder-tabs had the same intricate silver braid as mine, but didn't have any gold pips. I'm no expert in Prussian or Saxon insignia, but I still didn't bother asking.

He led me down the stairs and around to the side of the stable-block, beyond which the tents had been set up. And I stopped dead when I saw that there was an army drawn up in front of them in parade-ground order.

"Keep going," muttered Wolfie, nudging me.

He guided me to a point in front of the troops, who had been drawn up in three blocks of thirty and one rather smaller block that was off to one side.

"Parade!" yelled Wolfie. "Parade, atten – shun!"

It wasn't even close to a unison movement, but at least the whole parade ended up in the same posture, eventually.

"I'd have got them to present arms," whispered Wolfie, "but it took them about three hours just to get 'Attention' right – well, sort of right. What do you think?"

I looked at the ranks ahead of me. Most of them seemed to be kids of around my age or a little younger, though there were a few older boys as well – and every one of them was wearing a dark green uniform.

"Where did the uniforms come from?" I asked Wolfie.

"The same place as yours. I'm financing them – call it a late birthday present. Now come and inspect the troops."

I let him guide me along the front rank of each of the three blocks. It was obvious that one of two of the smaller kids were finding it hard not to giggle, but somehow they managed not to lose control. The uniforms were simpler than mine, without the Saxon cuffs, but they all had two lion badges on the collar and one above the breast pocket, the same as me.

The smaller group was composed of boys I recognised – Graham Reed and his fellow stable-lads, together with some of the other junior staff of the house, indoor and out.

"What do you think of all this?" I asked Graham.

"I think it's great! I know we talked about this, but I thought it would be years away – but now it really seems… well, real!" He lowered his voice. "It might take a while to teach those London kids very much, though – they seem to spend most of their time just staring at the horizon."

"I expect they've never been in the country before," I pointed out. "They'll probably be fine when the real training starts."

Wolfie pulled out his watch. "Time to get them up to the ship," he said. "I'd march them there, but it would be a complete shambles."

He turned to face the boys and raised his voice. "In a moment I'll order you to fall out," he said. "Once you've done that I want you to follow us to the upper mast, where we'll get you on board. Stokers and greasers, make sure you bring your overalls with you. Parade, parade, fall… out!"

Half the kids didn't seem to know their right from their left, and I've never seen a less military manoeuvre. Still, I supposed we weren't training them to be parade ground soldiers.

The upper mast was on the far side of the house and so out of sight of the tents, which meant that the recruits hadn't seen Excalibur being towed from its hangar to the mast. So when we came around the side of the house most of them were seeing the ship for the first time, and there was a sort of collective gasp, followed by an excited burst of chatter.

"Keep the noise down!" said Wolfie, and the volume decreased by a decibel or two.

When we reached the ship I found the rest of my friends waiting for me, and by now I was unsurprised to find that they were all in dark green uniforms too. Wolfie had apparently already chosen some of the stronger boys to be stokers, but now he divided the rest of the recruits up into engineering staff, gunners and rocketeers, and general deck crew. He'd also picked out a number of brighter candidates for the specialist positions on the bridge. I left him to get on with it and went onto the bridge to talk to my uncle.

"Well, they look smart," he commented. "Will they be any good, though?"

"Ask Wolfie," I said. "He's running this show. I think he wants me to keep a couple of steps back in order to preserve the mystique of command, or some such thing, so I've had nothing to do with the programme."

I didn't get involved in the in-flight training either, though I did wander round the ship to see what was going on. In most cases the regular crew members were being shadowed by one or two of my trainees, and also in some cases by men in civilian clothes who I gathered were new recruits from my uncle's estate.

I had very little to do during that flight, but my friends were kept rather busier: Alex, Joe, Albie and Graham were all asked to calculate bearings. I was a bit surprised that my uncle involved Albie and Graham in this, but when I queried it I discovered that there was a good reason.

"All the officers on board need to be able to navigate," my uncle explained. "And that includes engineers. Imagine what would happen if a rocket destroyed the bridge and killed everyone on it but left the ship otherwise intact. The engineering team could jury-rig a pair of wheels, but it wouldn't do them any good if they couldn't find their way back to their base. So we keep a complete set of charts and instruments in the captain's cabin, and in an emergency the engineering officers can use them to get the ship home."

Uncle Gil did what he'd done to Billy on the first leg of our mission to Norway and left a trainee helmsman at the wheel as the ship came in to land at Culham at the end of the trip. The boy didn't look happy, but he stuck to the job without asking to be relieved, and Billy whispered the same sort of things in his ear as he'd heard himself just before his first landing, and in the end the landing went off without a hitch.

"Thank you, Mr…?" said my uncle.

"Weasel," supplied the trainee helmsman. "'Cept normally it's wivaht the 'Mister'."

"We might have to do something about that," said Albie apologetically. "Perhaps we can ask Sparrer to think up some suitable first names – eh, Ebenezer?"

"Yeah, alright," said Sparrer. "What about Obadiah?"

"Wot abaht I duff you up, Sparrer?" replied Weasel.

"We'll discuss it later," said Albie, stepping between them hurriedly.

***

I didn't see much of Wolfie over the next two days: he'd taken our recruits to the army base outside Oxford, where the gunners and rocketeers were being trained on the artillery range, where the whole crew was getting some basic firearms training, and where everyone was learning some simple drill from a regular army sergeant-major. I was glad to miss that: I wouldn't have known whether to bet on the orphans or the sergeant-major to crack first.

On the fourth and last day of the training we went up in Excalibur once more, but this time the trainees ran the ship while the regular crew stood back and watched. We'd flown more or less north-east from Culham, and we were probably about two-thirds of the way to Cambridge when the trainee at the communications desk gave a strangled yelp.

"What is it, Mr Sullivan?" asked Alex, who was acting as officer of the watch.

"There's… Sorry. There's an Eagle heading this way, bearing zero four-zero, approximately three thousand yards."

"What! Are you sure?"

"Yes, Sir."

I pulled out my telescope and looked, and sure enough there was a ship out there, and it did have an Eagle on its nose.

"You'd better take over," Alex said, staring at me.

"You're officer of the watch," said my uncle. "What are you going to do?"

"Um… we'd better attack, I suppose. Helm, come to zero-four-zero and… oh, yes, man the turrets… "

"How do you do that?" asked my uncle.

"Oh, right… sound action stations!"

Joe demonstrated to the boy on the desk how to open all the tubes and where the whistle was, and once he began to blow it I thought it might be interesting to see what was happening inside the ship, so I climbed the ladder and strolled to the nearest gun port. I'd expected to find headless chickens, but I was surprised to find the crew actually preparing the gun fairly efficiently. Interestingly, this was just the three-man trainee crew – the regular crew had disappeared.

"Do you know what your target is?" I asked the gun captain.

"Ivan ship, Sir," he said.

"Correct," I said. "Do you think the three of you can handle this gun on your own?"

"I think so, Sir. We done the training yesterday."

"A bit different doing it for real, I should think."

"Not really, Sir. Really this ought to be easier. Big target, see?"

I nodded. "Good. Carry on, then."

Of course, not everyone was quite as organised as that crew, and there were a few crewmen who didn't seem to know where they were supposed to be. I left the gun crew and headed back down towards the gondolas, but on the way I found a small figure huddled up on a staircase. I cleared my throat and the boy looked up at me with a pale face, realised who I was and stood up. He was trembling and had been crying.

"It's Freddie, isn't it?" I asked, recognising one of the youngest of the stable-lads and hoping I'd got the name right. Apparently I had.

"Y… yes, Your Grace," he replied.

"Just 'Sir' on board, Freddie," I said. "Where are you supposed to be?"

"D… Damage control point five," he replied. "But… but I don't know where it is."

"Ah. You're on the wrong staircase, that's why. Come with me."

I led him down and along a narrow passage and then up the next staircase along, until we reached a point where the staircase intersected with one of the main corridors running the length of the ship.

"This is your post," I said. "You've got the speaking tube here, see? You have to keep an eye open for any sort of damage – fire, smoke, anything else – anywhere on this passage or this staircase. If you see or hear anything, use the tube to report it to the desk. Do you think you can manage that?"

"Yes, Sir, I think so."

"Good. We're relying on you, Freddie. And don't worry: it's all right to be scared. Actually I'd think there was something wrong with you if you weren't."

"Really, Sir?"

"Really. You've got one of the hardest jobs on the whole ship, because you're on your own. Everyone except the damage control spotters has at least one other person with him, and in most cases there are several others. Down on the bridge, for example, there are usually nine or ten of us, and it's a lot easier to be brave when you've got friends all around you. How old are you?"

"Twelve, Sir."

"This isn't really a job for a twelve-year-old. Would you like me to find someone else to take this post? I'm sure we can find something else for you, something where you won't be on your own."

He was silent for a moment, but then he shook his head.

"I'll stay here, Sir," he said. "it wouldn't be right to leave this post while you try to find someone else, and I'm sure as how you haven't got time to go looking for spare crew. I'll be all right."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, Sir."

He was still trembling a bit, but he seemed ready to stick it out.

"Thank you, Freddie," I said. "I'm proud of you. Carry on."

I gave him a little nod and set off down the staircase once more. This time I went all the way down to Gondola Two to see how the stokers were doing: it's not that easy to go on shovelling coal in a battle. True, there was a team of four stokers and a couple of engineers here, so they weren't on their own, but gunners can fight back and most of the rest of the crew – other than the poor old damage control spotters – can at least see what's going on. But when you're tending a furnace you can't keep looking out of the window.

I was pleased to see that this team were managing to get on with their job, so just to stir them up a bit I opened the jumpshade locker.

"Have you been trained on using these?" I asked, and was rewarded with mass head-shaking.

"Ah," I said. "We'll have to make sure we include it in the next training – assuming we live long enough to have one, of course. Well, if the word is given to abandon ship you line up here, your officer will hand you each a shade, you put it on and you jump through that door there. You count to five slowly and then pull this cord, and the shade should open. You'll find that there are a couple of steering ropes, but if you haven't been trained it's best to leave those alone. And bend your knees when you land. All right, carry on."

With perfect timing a rocket flew past the gondola, and the crew looked at each other nervously.

"Tend your furnace," I told them, and looked out of the front of the gondola. The other ship was approaching us off the port bow, which meant that it would pass alongside us at a distance of fifty yards or so. Æthership captains generally avoid exchanging full broadsides with each other, because this quite often results in both ships suffering critical damage, but of course Russian commanders tend to trust that their armour will give them the advantage in such an exchange.

I made my way back to the bridge, arriving as the two ships were about to come together. Both ships were firing rockets, but so far no damage had been done on either side.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" I asked Alex.

"It's a bit late to ask that now," he replied.

"Not really," I said. "You could order a steep dive. If he's slow to react you might get below him, which would mean that his turrets would be useless. Of course, he might drop bombs on us…"

"You don't seem very worried about this!" he accused me.

"Oh, I have every confidence in your abilities," I said, grinning at him.

I expected him to realise what was happening then, but he didn't seem to. Instead he turned to the desk and ordered "All port guns, fire once you have a target. Turrets may continue to fire at will."

But if he didn't get it, Joe did. He picked up Wolfie's telescope from the chart table, looked through it at the approaching ship, and then started to laugh.

"What's so funny?" asked Alex, just as the ships began to come alongside each other and the guns started firing.

"Check out the name," suggested Joe, handing Alex the telescope.

"But I can't read Russian!"

"Try."

Alex took the scope, moved it along the enemy ship until he found the name, and then swore violently. He did it in Greek, but he and I have been friends for long enough for me to recognise most Greek swear words.

"Desk, all weapons, cease firing," he ordered.

The trainee at the desk stared at him.

"But…" he objected, gesturing in the direction of the 'Russian' ship.

"Do it," confirmed Alex. "That's not a Russian. It's a ship called Sparrowhawk, and it's British."

He turned to me, and he looked positively furious.

"You fu…" he started.

"Thank you, Mr Demetriou," interrupted my uncle firmly. "We'll save the debriefing until we get back to Culham. Helm, come to reciprocal bearing… sorry, I mean two-two-zero – and match speed with that ship. Signaller, prepare to lower the semaphore."

Lord Cardington had slowed his ship to a crawl, and so once we had turned around it didn't take us too long to come alongside him. My uncle exchanged a few pleasantries with him, thanked him for contributing to the training, and then wished him a pleasant trip home. Sparrowhawk's signalling arm swung up and the ship moved off.

"Desk, stand the crew down," my uncle ordered. "Let's go home. Mr Silver, could we have a bearing, please?"

I'd hoped that Alex would calm down a bit by the time we got back to Culham, but I could tell that he was still itching to punch me in the mouth even after we landed, and it was only the presence of my uncle that stopped him.

Before we disembarked my uncle spoke to the bridge crew.

"Well done, all of you," he said. "Just one thing: whether you're actually in a battle or not, it's absolutely essential that you obey orders straight away, even if you think the officer giving the orders has gone mad. Mr Sullivan, you did a good job overall, but we can't afford any hesitation in getting the captain's orders to the crew. I can understand why you hesitated, but it's not your job to think, just to transmit the officer's orders.

"Right, let's disembark. I'll have a word with the crew, and then we'll go inside and have a bit of a chat about the exercise."

We lined up the trainee crew in some semblance of order, while my uncle spoke briefly with Mr Hall – whom I hadn't even noticed, because he was wearing a dark suit instead of his psychedelic coat – and a couple of the other senior crewmen. Then he turned to face the crew.

"Hands up if you were scared when the alarm sounded," began my uncle, and a scattering of hands were raised.

"I make that about twenty honest people and a lot of liars," my uncle went on. "You're allowed to be scared in battle. If we're honest, most of us officers sometimes get scared, too, especially when the odds are against us. There's no shame in it – provided that you stay at your post and do your duty. And you all did that. It's only the second time that most of you have flown, and it's certainly the first time that most of you have been in a large, slow-moving machine that other people are firing cannons and rockets at – after all, there was no way for you to know that the rockets had no warheads and the cannon-shells were blanks, just like the ones we were firing ourselves, in fact. Leo, do you want to add anything?"

I hadn't expected to be asked to make an inspirational speech and I certainly had nothing prepared, but obviously I had to say something.

"Well," I said, "I personally saw the crews of Gun Number Three and Gondola Two in action during the alarm, and I was really impressed, especially since the senior crew had left you to get on with it on your own. If that's what you look like after a couple of days of training, you're going to be absolutely amazing by the time we've been flying together for a few weeks. I wasn't expecting to have a proper crew that I could rely on for at least a year; as it is, if we were ordered to fly into Russia tomorrow I'd be glad to have you with me. Thank you all, and well done!"

Okay, maybe that was overstating it a little, but I was damned sure that I'd have been wetting myself if I'd been put in the position we put some of those kids in after only one previous flight.

My uncle said a few more words and then Wolfie took the crew back to their tents to start packing up ready for the return trip to London. The ground crew arrived with their tractor to return Excalibur to the hangar, and my friends and I, less Wolfie, followed my uncle up to the house and into the conference room.

"If I'm honest," my uncle began, "that went a lot better than I had expected. According to Mr Hall and the other senior crewmen, nobody really panicked. There were a few who were close, apparently, but they got through it."

"You develop a certain fatalism in the sewers," Albie observed. "After a while you start to view life as fairly cheap, including your own. If it's your time, you tend not to fight it. Of course once they've been out of the sewers for a few months that might start to change – certainly my view has changed since I moved here. But for now, I think they'll be more reliable than you might expect."

"We'll arrange some more training for them over Easter, then," said my uncle. "Let's build on it before they discover what self-preservation is. Now, Alex: why did you decide to attack that ship? What alternatives did you have?"

"I didn't really consider any," admitted Alex. "It was already fairly close, and I thought it would be better if we attacked them before they could attack us, that's all."

"All right. So now that the pressure's off, can you think of anything else you could have done?"

"Well, the only real alternative would have been to run away, and I don't think the crew would have been impressed if I'd done that."

"Possibly not, but they would still be alive. Remember what I said to Leo after we fought those two Eagles? I said that you should never take on an Eagle one-on-one unless you have an edge. Their armour is better, and you can probably assume that any Eagle that flies into our air-space has a very experienced and efficient crew. In the situation we were in today, the safe thing to do would have been to head towards London as fast as you could and hope that we reached the city's air defence batteries and æthership stations before the Eagle caught up with us.

"However, I'm glad you didn't do that, because if you had I'd probably have had to countermand you: I wanted to see how the recruits would handle an attack. And I think that if we'd been in Excelsior instead of Excalibur you'd have been right to attack, because then we'd have had the better armour, and the heavier armament, too. The first Russian ship that meets Excelsior is going to get a nasty surprise – except that by then I hope to have had Excalibur re-armoured too, and if Tim can get enough catalyst out of his meteor, maybe we won't be the only ones.

"Anyway, it was probably a bad decision to take them on, but after that you didn't set a foot wrong. You gave decisive orders to the crew and you sounded confident, and even if you're not feeling confident you have to project that state of mind. You're going to make Leo a good officer, I think."

"If I don't get him killed first," muttered Alex, who was clearly still not completely happy.

"All right, thank you all – you can go and do whatever you need to do to recover. I'll see you at supper. Leo, if you could wait one moment, please?"

Once the others had gone, my uncle asked "How quickly did you realise that the Eagle wasn't one?"

"As soon as I looked at it through the telescope. I had an advantage over the others: they spent most of the mission to Norway sitting at their posts watching dials. I was looking out of the gondola window for most of the journey, and we had Sparrowhawk flying alongside us for quite a long time. Their front turret's been repaired with something black, so it sort of stands out. Even with that canvas eagle over its nose I recognised it."

"Ah. I should have got Crowborough or Wimbourne or one of the others you haven't met to do it, then! But still, thank you for going along with it. I wanted to see how everyone reacted under pressure, and I thought the bridge crew did well. Even young Sullivan – in fact he might be officer material himself.

"Now, there's one other post that we haven't considered yet. Which of your friends is the brightest, do you think?"

"Well… Joe's not stupid. Nor's Alex, come to that. I'm assuming you're not including Tim in this, so… I don't really know him that well yet, but I'd say Albie is probably the most intelligent. Why?"

"Because you're going to need a medic. I'm afraid I'm not going to give you Dr Harries – I want him for my own ship. So you'll need to train someone in the basics. I suppose we could try to persuade one of the other local GPs to sign up, but we're thinking of your crew staying the same for the foreseeable future, so one of your contemporaries would be best. And if he picks up the basics quickly enough there's no reason why we can't sponsor him to do a full medical degree when he's ready for university. Ask him what he thinks."

"All right. I'll have to find another senior engineer, but that'll be easier than finding another person who's capable of understanding doctoring."

I stepped out of the conference room and found Alex waiting for me. He seemed to have cooled down a little, but he still looked annoyed.

"Why didn't you tell me, you bastard?" he asked. "You didn't have to let me make a fool of myself. I thought we were mates."

"We are, and as far as I'm concerned we always will be," I said. "Sorry, but I thought you'd realise. It was only later that I realised you hadn't had a lot of chance to look at Sparrowhawk in Norway because you were having to watch the gas envelope pressure gauges. But you heard my uncle: once you'd made the decision to attack, you did everything else perfectly – and he also said that if we'd been on Excelsior it would have been the right decision, and since the only time you'll ever have to do it for real will be when you're officer of the watch on Excelsior I'm not worried at all. You did a good job, Alex, and, considering that it was the first time you'd ever been in command, it was really impressive. Besides, you didn't make a fool of yourself: every other person on that ship except for me, my uncle and the senior crew he'd told in advance thought the attack was real."

"I still feel like a dick, though."

"Don't," I said sincerely. "I bet if you go and talk to Billy he'll pretty soon change your mind for you."

"Now that," he said, "is a good idea." And he flashed his teeth at me and headed for the staircase.

The next four days were more or less an exact repeat: the second batch of new trainees came down and went through identical training. The only difference this time was that when we ran into a 'Russian' ship on the final day, Alex, Joe and the rest of my friends knew what was going on. They all played along for the benefit of the new bridge trainees, though.

We arranged some more training for the Easter holidays in April, and I hoped that by then we'd be able to do it in Excelsior. The armour was almost complete and most of the wiring had been done, and when I asked Tim, on one of the rare occasions he was actually in the house, he assured me that it would be ready to fly at the beginning of April – as long as nothing went wrong, he added.

February rolled on into March and the weather improved quite substantially, to the extent that we started actually spending time outdoors for fun, rather than simply when we had to. One Thursday as we finished afternoon school Wolfie asked me if I wanted to go for a ride with him.

"Can't," I said, reluctantly. "I've got a pile of stuff to sign. And it's not worth waiting for me because I don't know how long it'll take, and if you wait too long it'll be dark before you have time to go anywhere. Ask one of the others."

"I don't think we've managed to persuade Alex or Joe about the joys of horse-riding yet," he pointed out. "But I can always take one of the stable-lads with me, just in case I fall off."

"You won't fall off," I assured him. "Once you're aboard you look as assured now as you did before the accident. But it's probably still a good idea to take someone with you, just in case. Have a good ride, and if the weather stays decent we'll go out together on Saturday."

He gave me a wave and headed off to his room to get changed into his riding-kit, and I headed for Mr Hall's office feeling rather less content with my lot: I hadn't minded sitting at a desk reading and signing off accounts for horseshoes and tractor spares when it had been cold and dark outside, but now that spring was in the air my enthusiasm was, to say the least, diminished.

When I finally escaped from Mr Hall it was too late to think about riding, so instead I went down to the library, where I found Joe trying to teach Sparrer to play chess. I didn't know whether street cunning was an asset when playing chess or not, but he seemed to grasp the moves fairly easily. I helped out by giving Joe a game while Sparrer watched and Joe explained to him what the point of each move was, and that kept me occupied until supper-time.

Now that my uncle was no longer here I'd relaxed the rule about dressing for dinner, at least during the week, and now we just turned up at supper wearing our ordinary clothes. I don't think Allchorn entirely approved: he was an old-style butler who believed in old-style ways, and it was mainly for his benefit that I'd opted to retain the custom of dressing for dinner at weekends. But the only adult who regularly ate with us was Mr Hall, and he had said that he didn't mind at all if he didn't have to go and put his dinner jacket on every evening.

I wondered if Wolfie would turn up to eat in his riding kit, but in the event he didn't turn up at all. I didn't think too much about it: I thought it possible that he'd run into Lord Brookhampton or one of our other neighbours and accepted an invitation to dine with him. And so after supper I simply went back to the library with Joe and Sparrer to continue our game. But we'd only been at it for about a quarter of an hour when Allchorn appeared at the library door and showed in Graham Reed.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Well…" Graham looked over his shoulder, found that Allchorn was still there, and selected 'official' for his mode of address. "Your Grace, it's the Margrave," he said.

"What about him?"

"Well, he's not come back. Nor has Roger. But their horses have – they both returned to the stable five minutes ago, without their riders."

"Then we'd better start looking for them!" I said.

"We can't, Your Grace," said Graham. "It's full dark now, and there's a new moon tonight. We'd not be able to see anything out there. And we don't know which direction they took, neither. Come morning we'll be able to take on a proper search, but now, no."

I could see the truth of that, but the thought of Wolfie lying injured in a ditch somewhere meant that it was a truth I didn't like at all.

"I want you to organise a full search as soon as the sun rises," I said to Allchorn. "And first thing in the morning I want you to send someone to the æthership base at Oxford and ask if they can get a ship in the air to help us search. That'll be faster than sending to Chisbury for my uncle. Graham, if Roger turns up in the night I want you to come and wake me, understand? I don't care what time it is, either."

"He'll be okay," said Joe, when Allchorn and Graham had gone. "He's got someone with him, and it's not likely they're both injured. Probably one of them got hurt somehow and the other one's staying with him to look after him. I expect they sent the horses back so that we'd know to come looking for them."

And I supposed that was possible too, but I didn't like the thought of Wolfie out there in the open overnight, even if the weather wasn't too bad. In any case I was no longer in the mood for chess, so I excused myself to Joe and Sparrer and went up to my room. I was determined to be part of the search party next morning, and as I'd ordered it to start as soon as it was light enough to see I decided to go to bed. Sunrise was due at around six o'clock, and so I set the alarm for a quarter to. It took me quite a while to get to sleep…

I was awakened next morning by someone shaking me. It was still dark in the room, so I groped for the flashlight that I kept beside the bed and turned it on, and found Alex standing there, fully dressed.

"What's the time?" I asked, sleepily.

"About half past five. Get up, Leo, we're in trouble."

"What are you talking about?" I asked, crawling out of bed.

"I was up with Billy last night," Alex told me. "I knew we'd probably get woken up early this morning and I didn't want Allchorn or one of the footmen coming and finding me sharing Billy's bed, so I set my wrist alarm for quarter past five. I got dressed and came quietly down to this floor, but when I reached the top of the great staircase I could hear people talking quietly in the hall. Except they weren't speaking English. I peeped over the rail and saw that they had guns, so I thought I'd better come and find you."

"Not speaking English? Are you sure?" I asked, getting dressed in a hurry.

"Yes, I'm sure. It wasn't French, German or Greek, either. And I was afraid that…"

I strode to the door and opened it. At first I couldn't hear anything, but then I heard a shot, followed by some shouting and a lot of running feet. I slammed the door closed again and turned the key.

"You're right," I said, "we're in trouble. They're Russians."

Chapter Twenty-two

I put the key in my pocket, sat on the bed while I put my shoes on, got up, made the bed – I know it wasn't up to the standard of the chambermaid who usually did it, but at least to a casual glance it didn't look as if the bed had been slept in – and then went and looked carefully out of the window. There were soldiers out there, spaced at intervals all around the house – at least, as far as I could see – and they were all carrying rifles. Nobody who wriggled out of an unguarded window was going to get very far.

I dropped the curtain back into place and went and opened the wardrobe.

"Leo, you can't just hide in there," protested Alex. "That's the first place they'll look!"

"They can look as much as they like. Come on."

I took the skewer from its place on the coat-rail and used it to open the panel, and once it was open I grabbed a bag from the wardrobe floor, hesitated, went quickly to the smaller wardrobe where I kept my flying uniform, took the pistol from the holster on my uniform belt and tucked it into the bag along with the candles and other bits and pieces I'd packed soon after we'd discovered the secret room, just in case…

"Come on!" I said again. "We've got to go!"

"Go where?" asked Alex, who was still standing in the middle of the room.

"To Narnia!" I said, just to see the look on his face. Sure enough, for a moment he looked as if he thought I'd gone loopy. But then someone rattled the door handle, and that got him moving: he might have thought there was no point in hiding in the wardrobe, but he also seemed to think that it would be better than just waiting to get shot where he was.

Once he reached the wardrobe I pulled the outer door closed and then towed Alex through the panel into the secret passage beyond.

"Whoa!" he said. "Where does this go, then?"

"Somewhere where we can sit quietly and work out what to do next," I said, and once I'd closed the panel again I pulled him along the passage to the entrance to the panic room. I opened it, climbed down the ladder into the room and called to him to follow me, shining the flashlight on the rungs to make it easier for him.

Once he was down I pulled the lever, used the hook to lock it in place, fished a candle and a box of lucifers out of the bag, lit the candle, stood it on the ledge over the fireplace, turned off the flashlight so as not to waste the batteries, and sat down. Alex came and took the other chair.

"So how come I didn't know about this place?" he asked.

"Well, we were going to tell you," I said, "but somehow we never got around to it."

"That 'we' would be you and Wolfie, I suppose?"

"Yes. We used to play in here when we were kids… well, not in here, exactly, because we only found this room last year, but in the other passages… look, Alex, I wanted to tell you about it ages ago…"

"But somehow you never got around to it," he said. "Yes, you said."

"You have to remember how things were when we first got here," I reminded him. "Wolfie was really scared that I was never going to remember how we'd been before, and he was scared of you, too, because he could see that we were really good mates. He thought I'd be spending all my time with you and that he'd never be able to get his friend back. To him, the tunnels were something that he and I had shared since we were really small, and he wanted to hang on to them as something that was just about him and me.

"Of course once I got my memory back there was never any real danger of him losing me – you'd have to have known us from about the age of six to understand how close we were. But even then he still felt insecure, and I suppose I can understand why: I'd come back home with a really good-looking, totally fit and buff boy, and he thought that if I ever had to choose between you and him he'd have no chance. So he asked me to keep the passages secret so that there would be something that was just about him and me, in the same way that the last four years were all about you and me…. Oh, look, I'm messing this up. I can't really explain it right. But… can you see what I'm trying to say?"

"You think Wolfie was jealous? Of me?? Really???"

"Not jealous, really, more that he felt sort of threatened by you. He was afraid that you'd take me away from him."

"Yes, but… bloody hell, Leo, I can't compete with him! He's royalty, for God's sake, and I'm a builder's kid from the back streets of London. And, in any case, as soon as I saw you together I knew you belonged with him. I'd never do anything to break you up."

"I know," I said. "I'm sorry, okay?"

"Well, things worked out in the end," he said. "Yes, I'd have liked it if we could have… well, you know – become proper boyfriends as well as best mates. But, hell, the most important thing is that we're still mates, and I'll certainly settle for that. And then there's Billy: as consolation prizes go, he's about as perfect as I could ever ask for. It's not just that he's really fit – although obviously he is – but he's really nice with it. So… what are we going to do, Leo? It's all very well us being safe in here, but Billy's out there with the Russians, and I wouldn't be surprised if Wolfie is, too – probably he stumbled into them yesterday evening and they grabbed him. So what's the plan?"

"I don't know," I said. "The problem is that we don't know what they want. If that bastard Pavel Romanov sent this lot, they're probably after Tim. I can't believe he'd set up a really risky mission like this just to get back at me, or even to try to grab Wolfie. It's got to be Tim they want. If we're lucky he won't come back here for two or three days at least, and they'll never be able to hold the entire household hostage for anything like that length of time. So the question is, what will they do then? Will they cut and run, or will they turn nasty and start hurting people to try to find out where Tim is?

"My first idea was to use the escape tunnel and then to run into Abingdon and send someone to Oxford to raise the militia. But I don't think I can do that, not with my entire household held hostage. Once the shooting started – and it would only take one idiot on either side to get nervous and pull the trigger – far too many people would get killed. So right now I don't know what to do."

"Where does the escape tunnel go?"

"Down to the river. It comes out near the boathouse. But I can't just run away and leave everyone else as prisoners."

"Fair enough, but I don't think we can just sit here and wait for them to get bored and go home, either. Even if they don't turn nasty and start torturing people, sooner or later word is going leak out, and then the militia will turn up anyway, which will probably mean lots of people getting killed. Do you think there's any way we could negotiate with them?"

"I suppose it depends if there's someone reasonable in charge," I said. "But if they've come to get Tim, I'm not sure how I can persuade them to leave unless I give him to them, and I'm certainly not going to do that. Yes, I could surround the house with soldiers and then try to persuade them to give up, but if I was the Russian commander I don't think I'd give up while I was holding a house full of hostages. Except… maybe that's it, Alex! Suppose we just sit it out until tonight, and then tomorrow morning when everyone's asleep – at about four o'clock, say – we take their leader prisoner and agree to let him go in exchange for his agreeing to take his men and go back where they came from? Would that work, do you think?"

"Well, it might. But how do you think the two of us are going to take a Russian officer prisoner when he's surrounded by Russian soldiers?"

"Well, he's going to want to sleep, and if we're lucky he'll pick the ducal bedchamber. After all, whoever's in charge is likely to want the best room in the house, isn't he? And if he does that, we've got him, because there's a secret passage into the duke's bedroom, the same as into mine. We sneak into his room, hold him up with my gun, you grab his gun – he's sure to have one – and then we march him back through the passages and on to Abingdon. Once we've got him safely under lock and key it shouldn't be too hard to persuade his number two to agree to clear off back home in exchange for his release."

"And how are you going to make sure the British army allows a platoon of Russians to march unmolested through the country, onto a boat and off to Norway, or wherever they started from?"

"I don't think they could have come by boat," I said. "I reckon they've got an æthership not too far away, hidden in a valley, or even painted in British colours and sitting openly in a field somewhere."

"I suppose that makes sense. But you're not intending for us to simply sit here and look at the walls for the next twenty hours or so, I hope! What have you got in the bag apart from candles and matches?"

In our enthusiasm after we'd first found the secret room and the escape tunnel, Wolfie and I had each packed an 'emergency bag', so that if we needed to escape in a hurry we'd have the essentials ready to go. Of course we didn't think it would ever actually happen, but it had been fun trying to make sure we didn't forget anything.

"I've got some spare batteries for the torch, and some chocolate and biscuits, and a pack of cards and my old pocket chess set. There's a bottle of lemonade, too, so we won't starve or die of thirst. And I put in a couple of blankets in case we wanted to lie down, although I think the floor's too hard for us to be able to do that comfortably. Really we ought to have found a mattress to put in here. Anyway, that's about it."

"Well, I suppose the cards and chess set will come in useful. But if we get a chance later I think we should kit this room out properly – mattresses, my little gas ring and some tinned food, maybe a few books. If you're going to have a secret room you really ought to make the most of it."

He looked around. "Um… one question," he added. "What do you do when you need a pee?"

"Oh! We never thought of that – we were never in here for long enough to think about it. You'd better add a bucket to your list of equipment for the future."

"Fine, but that's not going to be a lot of good now, is it? So is there anywhere else I could use?"

"Not really," I said. "At least, not without going back out into the house, and that would be a bit risky – they're sure to be scouring the place looking for people hiding in box rooms and so on. If you can hold on for a couple of hours it might be a bit safer. If not, maybe I should show you the tunnel – you could pop out into the woods at the other end."

"I think that might be a good idea," he said.

"Okay. Well, there are two sets of stairs, one from the main system and one from this room. We might as well use this one."

I took the skewer out of my pocket, turned the flashlight back on and led Alex out of the rear door and down the stairs.

"Now we're on the same level as the wine-cellar," I told him, keeping my voice down in case there were any Russians in the cellar. "And the escape tunnel is here."

I used the skewer to open the tunnel entrance, allowed Alex to precede me into it, and then followed him and pushed the door closed once more. I pocketed the skewer and headed off down the tunnel.

"The cellar's that way," I said as we passed the spur tunnel. "There's another staircase that way too – I'll show you that part on the way back."

We went on down the main tunnel until we reached the little alcove that held the lever.

"What's that for?" asked Alex.

"We don't know. We can't be sure if it actually does something useful, like opening another way out, or if it's some sort of booby-trap that opens a big hole in the floor if an enemy tries pulling it."

"That doesn't seem very likely," commented Alex. "I'd have thought it a lot more likely that it does something useful, like dropping a door to close off the passage behind us, or something like that."

"You're probably right, but since we don't know for sure, and since we don't need another way out or a door to block the passage, we decided it would be safer to leave it alone. And I still think that's safest. So come on."

I led him on to the end of the tunnel and out through the ice-house, though I took that bit very carefully in case there were Russians patrolling this far from the house – we were still within the grounds, after all. But there was nobody in sight. Alex nipped off into the trees and had his pee, and then we made our way cautiously as far as the boathouse. There was still nobody around.

When I'd lived in Alex's world I'd always carried a little key-ring attached to my belt that held the keys to my house – just in case I got home from school before Auntie Megan finished work – and to the garden shed. And I still hadn't got out of the habit, even though I hardly ever needed keys where I lived now, because the doors to this house were always open. The only key I'd needed since I got back here was the key to the boathouse, and I'd added a copy to my key-ring, which meant that we were now able to go inside. I locked the door again behind us and we went up the ramp onto my boat and sat down in the cabin.

"I suppose we could stay here for now," I suggested. "It's a bit more comfortable: we can lie down on the benches if we get tired – and if we open the river door a bit we won't need artificial light, either."

"I suppose so," he agreed. "But it's not as safe: if they send someone to check all the estate outbuildings they might not be deterred by a locked door. And if they smash their way in they're sure to find us."

I thought about it. I didn't really think it was very likely that they'd have enough men to be able to check as far from the house as this. But on the other hand, if they did we'd certainly be captured, and then we'd have no chance of putting my plan into action.

"Okay, you're right," I said. "But at least we can take some of the bench cushions back with us. Then if we get tired we'll still be able to lie down."

So we removed some of the cushions from the benches and then made our way cautiously back to the ice-house and up the tunnel to the cellar. This time I showed Alex where the other staircase was, but at the last moment I realised we couldn't go that way because we wouldn't be able to get back into the secret room from that side: I'd locked the lever, and that would prevent me opening the panel into the secret room. So instead we went back the same way as we had come.

Once we were back in the secret room I lit the fire, because it wasn't particularly warm, and if we were going to be spending the next twenty hours or so here I thought we might as well be comfortable. Once the fire was going it soon became nice and warm in the room.

"Won't they see the smoke?" asked Alex. "There probably aren't too many other fires lit – it's warm enough out, after all."

"No, the chimney from here comes out in the same place as the chimney from the main hot water furnace in the cellar," I said. "We traced it one afternoon just to find out. Whoever built this system did an amazing job: even when you know the room exists it's just about impossible to find it from out in the rest of the house. It's virtually all storage rooms out there, and most of them don't have windows, so it's hard to tell if the rooms are smaller on the inside than they ought to be. So, what are we going to do for the next twenty hours?"

"Get undressed," Alex said.

"What?"

"Trust me."

I'd never stopped trusting Alex and so I got undressed, and while I was doing that he was arranging the cushions we had brought back from the boat in front of, but not too close to, the fire. And once he'd done that he got undressed himself.

"Now lie down," he said, so I did that too. He put a little more coal on the fire, blew the candle out and came and lay down next to me, wrapping a blanket around us both.

"Now go to sleep," he said. "You got woken up far too early this morning and you need to rest. There's nothing we can do at the moment anyway, so you should just relax. We'll be safe enough here, and there's nothing we can do to help anyone else at the moment anyway, so I want you to stop worrying."

"I don't think I can do that," I said.

"Yes, you can. I know you think you're responsible for looking after everyone in the house, and maybe you are, but the best thing you can do for them right now is to rest so that when we make our move tonight you'll be fresh. So rest, okay? You'll be all right: it might be your job to look after the others, but it's my job to look after you, and I'll make sure you're safe."

He was right, of course: there was nothing I could do right then. And so I just said, "Okay," and settled down to sleep, and he put his arm round me and held me. And maybe it was illogical, but somehow I did feel safe in his arms like that.

***

I woke up some time later. The fire had burned down, so I wriggled out of Alex's arms, went to the fireplace, found the lucifers and relit the candle, and then put some more coal on the fire. According to my watch it was half past ten, so at least I'd got a couple of hours' sleep.

I went and lay down next to Alex again, but trying to wrap the blanket around us I inadvertently woke him up.

"What's the time?" he asked sleepily.

"About half past ten."

"Morning or evening?"

"Morning," I said. "At least… I assume so. I don't think we could have slept for fourteen hours straight. Besides, the fire would have been out if we'd been asleep that long."

Alex squinted at his watch. "Yes, it's still morning," he confirmed. "That's one benefit of digital watches: you can set it to show the twenty-four hour clock. So, what's for breakfast?"

"Chocolate," I said. "Of course, I suppose we could risk going back down the tunnel and heading for Abingdon for breakfast, but it would be safer to stay here. I don't suppose one day of chocolate for breakfast will do us any real harm."

"Probably less than the fried stuff we normally eat," he said. "Not that I'm complaining, of course – I like bacon and sausages for breakfast. So where's the chocolate?"

We got up and I went to my bag. There was only one bar, and it wasn't very big, and the packet of plain biscuits I'd also packed wasn't very big either. I decided to save those for supper.

"I think you're right about getting some proper supplies put in here," I said, breaking the chocolate bar in half. "We'll have to put up a couple of shelves and stock it up with tinned and dried stuff. Come to that, it would be useful to get some plumbing put in – running water and a toilet would be handy. But I suppose that's not really practical if we're going to keep the place secret – at least, not unless one of us learns to be a plumber."

"I think that would have to be me," he said, taking his half of the chocolate and sitting cross-legged on the cushions without bothering to get dressed. "I'm the working-class one, after all."

"That doesn't mean I expect you to do working-class stuff," I said, grabbing the bottle of lemonade and coming to sit next to him. "As far as I'm concerned, you're like a member of my family."

"A sort of black sheep cousin, or something?" he asked, grinning at me. "The kind of relative who, when he knocks at your door, everyone pretends to be out?"

"Well, now that you mention it…" I replied, grinning back. "No, obviously not. After all, you're going to be an officer on Excelsior, and I'm sure that you can't let just any old oik command an æthership. So you must be a bona fide family member. If necessary – and I'm thinking about what will happen if we can't find a way back to your world – I'll adopt you into the family officially. That way if anything happens to me you won't get thrown out onto the street."

He looked at me. "You'd do that?" he asked.

"Of course I will. Looking after your friends is one of those things everyone is supposed to do, and since I'm in a position to do it properly, obviously I will. After all, you're still looking after me, aren't you? If I was stuck in here on my own I'd be tearing my hair out. Come to that, if you hadn't woken me up and warned me this morning I'd be a prisoner just like everyone else."

"We're still a team, then?"

"We've always been a team, and we always will be. That's why I'm not worried about going after their officer tonight: if you're with me I'll know that you've got my back, and having someone I can completely rely on with me is all I need. Lemonade?"

I passed him the bottle and he took a drink.

"You should have stored a few bottles of cider here," he said. "We'd be nice and relaxed after a couple of bottles each. Of course, you'd probably end up falling over and shooting yourself by accident."

"Are you suggesting I can't handle my alcohol?"

"You said it. Half a glass of wine, remember?"

"Aren't you ever going to let me forget about that?"

"What do you think?"

For a while we just sat quietly, looking at the flames of the fire. After a couple of minutes Alex put his arm around me, and I wriggled closer to him and rested my head on his shoulder. And once again I felt safe and calm, as if nothing could go wrong as long as Alex was with me.

***

After a bit I stood up. "Come on," I said. "Let's get dressed. I think we ought to do a little scouting around – after all, we're going to look stupid if the Russians have already packed up and gone."

So we put our clothes on and then I unhooked the lever and used it to open the second-floor exit. We went back along the corridor, up the stairs to the third floor and along to the corner room, where I opened the panel as quietly as I could and stepped out into the room. I needn't have worried: the room was empty and the door was closed.

"So that's why you and Wolfie chose this room!" commented Alex quietly as he followed me out of the passage. "Nice one, Leo – I'm pretty sure nobody else had the remotest idea."

I went over to the front window and peeped around the side. There were still a few soldiers outside the house, but they looked relaxed: their rifles were slung on their backs and some of them were smoking. They were wearing British uniforms, too, but I wasn't fooled for a moment: I guessed that they were there to deal with visitors as much as to prevent escapes. No doubt anyone approaching the house – the postman, for example – would be given some plausible story about military manoeuvres or something. From the side window I couldn't see any guards at all, so it looked as if the Russians were confident that nobody was going to be trying to escape.

Next I went to the door, listened for a moment, and when I didn't hear anything I opened it and put my head out into the corridor. It was quiet: there was no sign that anyone was around.

"Come on," I whispered, and we set off down the corridor towards the stairs that led down to the second floor.

I checked Sparrer's room, and Billy's, but both were empty. I looked around the corner into the East Wing corridor, but that too was as silent as the grave, and so I returned to the top of the stairs and began to tiptoe my way down them. Alex followed me down, looking thoroughly nervous.

I took the corner into the second floor corridor very carefully indeed, checking both ways and listening hard before I risked stepping out onto the carpet. I went past Wolfie's lift-shaft, which had been unused for nearly six months now, and on to the top of the main staircase. And now I could hear voices below us, and so I stopped dead. Then I dropped to the floor and wriggled out onto the landing at the top of the twin flights that led off in opposite directions down to the first floor. I kept going until I reached the carved wooden balustrade and very cautiously indeed I raised my head until I could see through one of the holes on the carving. From up there on the second floor landing you could see right down to the main hall on the ground floor, and now I could see people, soldiers in Russian uniforms. Most of them were looking fairly relaxed, like the ones outside the house, but over in the far corner there were a couple standing at attention with their rifles unslung. They were in front of the door to the ballroom, and I wondered if that's where my staff and friends were being held. It made sense: the room was big enough for the entire staff to be kept in one place.

Alex came and put his eye to the next hole in the balustrade, so I pointed out the guards and told him why I thought they were guarding that particular door.

We lay there watching for around ten minutes, but nothing very interesting happened, and nobody went into or came out of the ballroom. Then a couple of soldiers started to climb the great staircase. They might have only been going to the first floor, but it obviously wasn't worth taking the risk, so we wriggled back off the landing and made our way quickly up to the third floor and back into the corner room.

"Well, they don't look as if they're going anywhere in a hurry," Alex commented. "As long as Tim doesn't take it into his head to come visiting today I'd guess they'll stay right where they are."

"Let's hope he's busy," I said. "Since he moved his workshop to the base at Abingdon he generally only comes back on Saturday mornings, but if we're really unlucky he'll turn up this evening. And if that happens we're going to be in trouble. Perhaps we should have gone into Abingdon this morning to make sure he stayed away. Damn, I really should have thought of that!"

"It's not too late," he pointed out. "I could go now. It's only a couple of miles – I'm sure I can run that in fifteen minutes or so."

"It's not that simple. Parts of the Chase are too overgrown to get through, and if you came up into the Long Meadow the Russians might see you – in fact they almost certainly would."

"I could always swim. The current would carry me down into Abingdon even if I couldn't swim that far."

"Alex, it's March," I said. "I know the weather's been pretty good for the past couple of weeks, but that water will be freezing. But… that's a good point about the current. How about if we used the boat? We could just pole it out into mid-stream and let the current carry us. And by the time we got to Abingdon we'd have steam up, at least enough to manoeuvre. You can manage the boiler, can't you?"

"Yes, I think so, provided that you help me get it lit. I've never had to do that bit."

"And I think I can manage the wheel," I said. "We'd probably be able to get back the same way too, because the woods block the view of the river from the house. There's enough of a breeze to stop the smoke showing above the tree-line – at least, I think there is… Come on, Alex, let's go for it. I don't know what time the scientists finish work on a Friday, but I want to get there before then, whenever it is."

I opened the panel in the fireplace, ushered Alex through and then closed it behind us. I led him down the original staircase to the cellar and then back to the tunnel and so to the boathouse. There was no sign that anyone had been there since we had been there earlier, but I still locked the door behind us again.

We went straight down to the engine room and, after a bit of searching about, found the kindling that was supposed to make it easy to get the fire going. However, 'easy' is a comparative term, and it wasn't until we'd been fruitlessly wasting lucifers and kindling sticks for at least five minutes that Alex realised the dampers were in the wrong position. Once we had a draught we were finally able to get the fire lit, and at that point I left Alex to it – he was the one who was supposed to know about tending a boiler, after all, assuming that he'd been listening while Billy was explaining it to him – while I went up on deck to untie us and open the outside door. I was pleased to see that we weren't making any serious amounts of smoke, though whether it would stay that way was something I couldn't say.

I was having second thoughts about pushing the boat out into the river before we had sufficient steam to turn the propeller, though. I'd realised that no engine meant that the rudder wouldn't work, and if I couldn't steer, the boat would be uncontrollable – we could be spun around, carried against the banks and caught up on vegetation, or we might pile into a boat coming the other way – harmless if it was small, absolutely fatal if it was a heavy barge. On the other hand, staying here was equally dangerous: there might not be enough smoke to show as far away as the house, but if a patrol came down the path to the boathouse they would smell it even if they didn't see it straight away.

So I left us tied up by one line and went below to see how Alex was getting on. I found that the fire was going nicely, even though the water temperature gauge hadn't moved yet.

"How long do you reckon?" I asked.

"I think Billy said about half an hour when starting from cold. So that's about another twenty-five minutes. Do you want me to come and help push her out?"

"No," I said, and I explained my reasoning. "We'll wait here for as long as we can – unless someone tries the door, of course, in which case we'll have to get her out into the river as fast as we can and take our chance. Keep the fire going – I'm going to stick my head outside the door and see what's happening."

"Be careful," he said.

I nodded and made my way back to the door, where I listened intently for a few seconds before I risked unlocking it and stepping outside. But the only thing I could hear was birdsong, and I thought that was a good sign, because if there were people in the woods the birds wouldn't be singing – at least, I didn't think so.

I stayed by the door for fifteen minutes, but nothing changed, so I went back inside, locked the door and went back to the engine room.

"We're almost there," Alex said. "Another five minutes and we'll have enough steam to move." And he pointed at the steam pressure gauge.

"Good enough," I said. "Come and give me a hand with the ramp."

We went up on deck. I untied the last mooring line and then between us we pulled the ramp aboard.

"Engage the engine," I said to Alex, and he went back down to the engine room while I took the wheel and telegraphed Alex for one-quarter speed. For a few seconds nothing happened, and then the boat gave a little judder and started to inch forwards. We nosed out into the river – no other vessel was in sight – and I spun the wheel to the left, shoved the telegraph over to 'full speed' and waited for the surge forwards.

Nothing happened.

I couldn't really leave the wheel to go and find out what was wrong, so I just had to stay where I was, and a few seconds later Alex's head appeared at the top of the stairs.

"We've got a problem," he said. "I think there's a valve stuck open somewhere, because we're losing steam pressure. I'll try to give you enough to be able to steer, but unless I can fix the problem, this is about as fast as we're going to be able to go."

He disappeared again and I tried to manoeuvre us into the centre of the river where we would get the best of the current. If someone came the other way we might be in trouble, but at least it looked as if I was going to be able to keep the bow pointing the right way. And then I looked up and realised that we might have another problem: we were approaching the railway bridge, and I could clearly see two soldiers leaning over the parapet and watching our approach. At least they couldn't have seen us emerge from the boathouse, because there was just enough of a bend between the boathouse and the bridge.

"Alex!" I shouted. "Get up here!"

"What?" he said when he arrived a few seconds later.

"There are two soldiers up on the bridge," I told him. "They might well have my photo, but they won't know what you look like, so I want you to give them a nice big smile and a wave, okay? They can't see me if I stay in the wheelhouse, but we need to look innocent…"

One of the soldiers had now unslung his rifle, and at the speed we were making – barely faster than the current – they could hardly miss us. As we got closer the other one did the same thing, and at that moment Alex looked up at the bridge, gave them a big wave and called "Hello!" to them.

The soldiers appeared to speak briefly to each other.

"Pull over to the bank," one of them ordered, waving to our left.

If we'd had full power I might have risked ignoring them, but we'd be absolute sitting ducks if they opened fire. And, besides, when I looked to the bank beneath the bridge I could see three more soldiers standing there. There seemed to be no choice, so I angled the nose into the bank.

Alex came inside the wheelhouse and surprised me by wiping his hand down the side of my face and tousling my hair, but then I realised he had coal-dust on his hand: he was trying to make me look as little like a member of the aristocracy as he could.

"I'll do the talking," he said. "Hope they can't do anagrams." He dived back down the stairs for long enough to disengage the engine.

The anagram crack passed me by until I remembered what our vessel was called, and at that I felt a tremor of goose-flesh. If any of them spoke English well enough to read our alphabet…

As we neared the bank Alex ran to the bow, grabbed a mooring-line and threw it to one of the soldiers, and soon we were tied up. Two of the men came aboard.

"Vhere are you going?" asked one. He had a definite accent, but you wouldn't immediately recognise it as Russian.

"Into Aaabingdon," said Alex. "Moi maaster 'as zent uzz for to pick up zum vurniture."

I tried not to wince: if he'd laid on the hayseed accent any more thickly he'd have had turnips growing out of his ears.

"And your name?"

"Maaarco Vielding," declared Alex. "An' moi vriend…"

"Stop!" interrupted the soldier. "Write his name down."

He handed Alex a notebook and a stub of pencil and Alex laboriously wrote in it.

"You!" called the soldier to me. "Vhat is your name?"

I was flustered. I could remember the surname, and I knew I'd started out as 'Lee', but then…

"Jordan," I replied, groping in my memory. "Moi name's… Paul Jordan."

"Good," said the man, putting his book away. "Vhere have you come from?"

"Oxfaard," said Yokel Alex. "Moi maaster be head of Eeebeerian Studies at Saint Jaahn's Callege. Prafessar Ocuto, 'e izz. An' ee sez to us'n as how we wuz to tek booat ter Ramsbottom's vuurniture shaap an…"

"Yes, thank you," said the soldier, to my relief: Alex's accent seemed to be migrating from Somerset to Yorkshire. "You can go."

I turned to go back into the wheelhouse, only to find that Alex had apparently lost his mind.

"Excyuuse me, zurr," he said, "but… Oi don't zuppose as 'ow you knaaw about enjinns, do ye? Us'n 'ave a praablem with our'n, zee?"

He was lucky I'd left my bag in the secret room, because if I'd had it with me I think I'd have pulled out my gun and shot him. Somehow I stopped myself from screaming at him. Instead I prayed that the soldier would just tell us to go.

"I vill look," said the man, handing his rifle to one of his colleagues and heading for the stairs. I kept my eyes on the deck as he went past and wondered if I could imitate Alex's stupid accent if the other soldiers decided to make small talk. But they kept silent – probably they didn't speak English – and so I did too.

Alex and the soldier weren't below for very long – probably no more than five minutes – but to me it felt like an eternity. Finally they reappeared, and the soldier went and jumped ashore.

"Thank'ee, zurr," said Alex, now apparently morphing into Long John Silver. "Us'll be baack this waay shaartly, loike. Can we get yez onything at shaaps?

"No, thank you," said the soldier, untying the first mooring line.

"'T would be naa praablem," insisted Alex. "Naa? As yer loike. Say, yer're not fraam these yere parts, aare ye?"

"No," said the man, throwing Alex the second line. "Ve are from Vales."

"Aah," said Alex. "Uz'n ain't nivver been zo vaar. Vuurthest Oi been iz Didcaaat, moizelf… any road, thank'ee again!"

He waved at the man, grinned at me as he went back down the stairs, and pinged the telegraph to say that he was ready. I rammed the handle to half speed and swung the wheel to starboard, giving the soldiers a half-hearted wave as I did so, and once we were clear of the bank I pushed the handle to full speed. And this time it worked, and we moved off smartly.

I don't like swearing and try not to do it, but when Alex reappeared once we were a hundred yards downstream I let fly in several languages.

"Chill!" he said, once I'd run out of steam. "We're okay, aren't we? And he fixed our stuck valve – and they won't give us any trouble on the way back, either. Anyway, if we'd acted all shifty they would have been suspicious, but by coming on friendly I pulled the wool over their eyes. I should have been on the stage."

"Should have… Alex, that was the worst impression of a country bumpkin I've ever heard! There was hardly a corner of the British Isles that your accent didn't visit, and how they didn't tumble to it, God only knows!"

"They're Russians, remember? If someone spoke Russian to me I couldn't tell you if he came from Murmansk or Vladivostok, so why should they be able to identify different English accents?"

"But you didn't know that! I mean, ask Joe – he might easily be able to tell which part of Russia someone comes from because he speaks the language – and that guy might have been able to distinguish different British accents!"

"Do you think so?" he asked, suddenly seeming a lot less sure of himself.

"Yes. But you were lucky, so no harm done, I suppose," I said, beginning to calm down a bit myself. "But, bloody hell, Alex – I'm too young to die of heart failure!"

We negotiated the lock on the outskirts of Abingdon and I tied us up at one of the wharves close to Abingdon Bridge. The former school our scientists were now using for everything, making armour and researching electricity and radio, was about half a mile away, and so we banked up the fire and trotted off towards it – we could tell immediately where it was because of the huge æthership hanger that had been built to take Excelsior, which dominated the skyline on this side of town.

I ran into the armour works and found plenty going on, but no Tim.

"Where's Mr Duvallier?" I asked the first man I reached.

"Try the hangar," he suggested, and sure enough he was there, up on a platform of scaffolding supervising the fitting of armour onto one of the engine gondolas.

"Leo!" he greeted me. "What are you doing 'ere?"

"Let's speak German," I said. "I'm glad your English is coming on so well, but this is important, and I don't want any misunderstandings. We're in trouble, Tim: there are Russians in the house, and we think they're probably looking for you. So I don't want you coming back to the house until I tell you otherwise, understand? Use a hotel – that would be safer than staying here overnight, the way you usually do. We've got a plan, but it's absolutely essential that you stay out of the way, because if they get you, we'll lose every advantage you've given us."

"I understand. Send a message here when it's safe to come back," he said. "You'll want to come back yourself next week anyway, because we're just about finished: this is the last gondola to be armoured. The rest of the ship is done. And the wiring's finished, too. We haven't finished testing it yet, but we'll be able to do that during the proving flights. I was intending to hop her back to Culham on Monday so that you can get the coal and water loaded, plus any other equipment you want for the test flights – guns and so on, I imagine. Now I suppose it would be best to wait until I hear from you."

I nodded. "I hope we can resolve this problem tonight," I said. "If so we can go ahead next week."

Our next stop was the police station, where I spoke to the officer in charge, explained the situation, told him why I didn't want any overt action taken just yet, but asked if he could arrange a squad of militia – preferably including a Russian speaker – for early the following morning, and have them assembled at Culham School at around five o'clock.

"We'll send for them once we're ready," I told him. "They should be armed, but if all goes well there shouldn't be any actual fighting."

Of course, normally that would have provoked a flood of questions, but by now I could do the Duke thing if I had to, and so most of the questions didn't materialise.

Our final stop was at a furniture shop, where I bought on credit – another advantage of my title – an ornate but really rather hideous oak cupboard, which I had transported to the wharf and tied into place on the Lady Renée's deck.

"Why bother?" asked Alex. "They won't stop us on the way back."

"Not if it's the same lot. But what if they've changed the guard while we were here? I expect the original lot will have mentioned us, but the new ones might still expect to see the results of our shopping trip."

"Good point," said Alex. "Excuse me a moment."

He dived into a wine merchant's and emerged carrying a couple of small sacks.

"What's that?" I asked.

"A little present for the troops," he said.

We headed back for home, and when we reached the bridge we found the same five soldiers on duty. Alex got me to cut the engines and drift in close to the bank for long enough for him to be able to pass one of his sacks to the English-speaker.

"'Ere be a little thank'ee, loike!" he said. "Best watch for'n offizers, moind!"

The soldier opened the sack and pulled out a crate of a dozen bottles of beer and a bottle of whisky, which drew a murmur of approval from his colleagues.

"Thank you!" he called to us, raising a beer bottle to us.

"Aaarr, ahar!" replied Alex, and if he'd added 'Jim, lad!' I'd have throttled him. But the soldiers just waved, and we waved back until they were out of sight.

Half an hour later we were back in the secret room. We'd left the ugly oak cupboard on the boat, but Alex had brought his second small sack, which proved to contain some more beer, some lemonade and a collection of snacks to go with them.

"Good thinking," I said, accepting a bag of nuts from him. "But you owe me this, mind – I must have aged forty years while you were doing your Local Yokel routine!"

"It worked, though," he pointed out. "Of course, if they'd had a photo of your ugly mug we'd have been in trouble."

"We were lucky all round," I agreed. "Let's hope our luck holds tonight…"

Chapter Twenty-three

It was still only early afternoon, and that left us plenty of time to kill. We played chess for a couple of hours, and then to stretch our legs a bit I showed Alex around the rest of the passage system. He was impressed to discover how many passages and staircases there were, because, like me, he'd never seen anything from the 'normal' part of the house to suggest that these passages existed.

"If you know the second-floor passage exists and you look closely in the west wing, you can tell where it goes," I said. "But if you weren't looking for it, you'd never know."

We only went out into the house once, and that was at around six o'clock, when we swapped the empty coal-scuttle in the secret room for the full one in our third-floor HQ. On that occasion I did stick my head out into the corridor. There was no sound, but when I looked out of the window I could see that there were still soldiers outside the house, and they showed no signs of leaving any time soon.

"If I was the Russian boss I wouldn't leave just yet," said Alex when I pointed this out. "I'd give it until Saturday morning at least, and probably Saturday afternoon, because if he thinks Tim is working away from home, he'll expect him back by Saturday night at the latest. Since obviously nobody works on Sunday, that would seem logical."

"Of course, that's assuming it's Tim they're looking for," I said, as we went back into the passage. "If it's me you'd expect them to give up sooner – after all, if I'm not here I must be in London, and who knows how long I might stay there? In fact, I'd expect Allchorn to have told them that already in an attempt to get them to leave."

"It depends how good their spies are, I suppose," said Alex.

"You really think there are Russian spies around here?"

"Perhaps. We know we have spies in Russia, because you said that's how we found out about the meteors, remember? So if we have spies there I think we have to assume they have some here."

I wasn't convinced that a Russian spy would bother keeping track of a boy like me, but I supposed that if Pasha was paying him it was possible. I didn't like the idea of there being spies in this area, because the whole point of Tim staying with me was that he was supposed to be safer here than he would have been in France. I supposed it depended on whether or not Pasha had managed to identify him…

There was no point in speculating. Maybe if we succeeded in grabbing their officer we'd be able to ask him – if he spoke English, of course…If he didn't we were going to have a problem communicating with him at all. I'd just have to hope that the militia commander would be able to find an interpreter to send with the troops I'd summoned for the following morning.

"You've gone all quiet," said Alex (by now we were back in the secret room). "There's no point in worrying – let's just take it as it comes. Besides, you said earlier that you weren't worrying about grabbing their boss, and nothing's changed as far as that's concerned, has it?"

"I suppose not," I agreed.

"Good. Then let's have some fun. Get the cards out."

I'd learned by now that when Alex says 'Get the cards out' he only has one thing in mind, and at that moment I could think of no better way of taking my mind off what was going on elsewhere in the house. So I got the cards out of my bag.

"Pontoon," he suggested. "Cut for deal."

We did that and Alex won, so he started to shuffle the cards.

"Did you and Wolfie ever play cards in here?" he asked.

"No. We played a lot out in our room on the third floor, and sometimes that involved forfeits, stuff like going out onto the roof in our undies and stuff. We were too young then to think up the sort of forfeits we might now."

"Forfeits? You want to play for forfeits?" he said, grinning at me. "Oh, you're going to be sorry… I'm going to think up something special for you!"

"Can I just point out that you haven't won yet?" I said, picking up my first two cards and finding myself face to face with two kings.

"Stick!" I added. "Alex, you're in trouble – this time I won't have to hold back so as not to embarrass you in front of Billy."

"Like you've ever done that," he said, turning over a seven and an eight. "Twist. Damn, bust."

"How do you know? Oh, and don't forget to take something off before you deal again."

The game was fun, and it was almost like being back in Alex's world, in that we were free to insult each other without having to worry about what anyone else thought. Actually it was better, because apart from that one occasion in the tent just before we'd switched worlds we'd never played strip games with just the two of us, and we'd never played for forfeits at all. So as the game went on we went on insulting each other happily, and since the game was very even we were able to go on doing it for quite a while.

Finally I lost my underwear. This worried me a lot less than it had the first time this had happened, and even getting an erection as I removed my shorts didn't fluster me too much.

"Aha!" commented Alex. "Definite signs of progress there – you've got some proper hair at last. Not a lot, but some. If I was feeling nasty, my first forfeit for you would be making you shave it all off, but I suppose that since it took you so long to grow it, maybe that would be a bit unkind. And there's more of you, too. How long is it now?"

"About four and a half inches [11 cm]," I said. "It's still pretty pathetic for fifteen, but it's an inch longer than it was six months ago, so I suppose I shouldn't complain too much."

Alex lost the next two hands, and that cost him his underwear. He was definitely growing, too.

"I've reached the magic six inches [15 cm]," he told me when I asked. "Billy was suitably impressed, so I hope you are, too. Mind you, I think Billy will end up bigger than me, because he's already up to around five and a quarter [13.3 cm], and he was only fourteen last month. And he still hasn't got any proper hair, either, so he's barely into puberty. He's going to be seriously big, I think. Okay, so now we're playing for forfeits…"

I lost the next hand.

"Actually, I think we might start with some Truth or Dare," he said. "Except you don't get to choose. So, truth: are you really happy here, or would you rather be back in Palmers Green?"

"Well, right at this moment that's a difficult question. But, assuming we get rid of our visitors, I'd have to say here, because here I've got money and a really good place to live, and I've still got my closest friend from when I lived there. And I've got my own æthership, too. I miss Auntie Megan and Uncle Jim, but otherwise it's no contest."

"Don't you miss the internet and being able to chat to people whenever you want?"

"Not really. Yes, it was fun sometimes, but it did waste a lot of time. It would be nice if we had telephones here, but I can probably survive without Messenger or Facebook. What about you?"

"Hey, you don't get to ask me until I lose a hand… but, okay, I don't mind answering. It's probably harder for me because I've got a family, and I really miss them. And I had other friends as well, and of course I'm not mega-rich here, the way you are. But then I wasn't mega-rich there either…"

"You will be rich here eventually," I pointed out. "Your name is on the patents we took out along with mine, so when electricity takes off you'll probably be rich enough to build your own æthership if you want."

"I thought that money was supposed to go into orphanages and homeless shelters?"

"My part of it is. I can't see why you shouldn't get something out of it, though."

"To be honest, I'm happy the way I am," he said. "I might turn weird if I suddenly had a load of money."

"What do you mean, 'turn' weird?"

He grinned at me and dealt once more, and this time he dealt me a royal pontoon.

"I've already asked my question," I said. "Deal again."

"No, that didn't really count," he said. "If we're still on truth, you can ask me something else."

I put my cards down and looked at him.

"Okay, then: truth," I said. "Do you hate Wolfie?"

"Why would you think I might?"

"It's what you said this morning, about how you'd have liked it if it could have been you and me. Well, if Wolfie wasn't around it might be – actually, it probably would be. So you've got reason enough to hate him, haven't you?"

He put the cards on the table, got up and walked over to the cushions.

"Come and lie down," he said. "If we're going to have this conversation, we might as well be comfortable."

So I went and joined him, and he pulled a blanket over us and rolled onto his side facing me.

"I liked you almost as soon as I met you," he began. "Obviously back then it was nothing to do with sex – I didn't even understand sex when I was eleven. It was just that I liked your personality, the way you never gave up on stuff, the way you always stuck with me – like that time when I broke that window in the cloakroom and you insisted on coming with me to the head's office to tell him that you pushed me into the window, even though nobody saw you do it – and the way you were always there if I needed someone to talk to.

"Then about eighteen months ago I started looking at you and thinking that you weren't just a good mate, but you were cute too. And then, a bit later, I started fantasising about you – you know what I mean…"

"Why didn't you tell me?" I interrupted.

"Why do you think? You'd never shown any sign of wanting to do anything physical with me, so I had no reason to think you were gay. And there was absolutely no way I was going to risk saying anything, not when the likelihood was that you'd be disgusted by it and would tell me to fuck off and never speak to you again. I'm sure I'm not the first gay boy to fall in love with his best friend, but I sure as hell knew I could never tell you. The most I ever dared do was to make the odd jokey comment about how cute you were and hope that you might just respond positively. It was only when we were in the tent last summer that I decided to risk trying it on a bit…"

"Why then?" I asked. "If not before, then why then? What changed?"

"Because I'd just done something incredibly stupid, but instead of leaving me to stew you stuck by me, and even offered to come and keep me company when I ran. And I thought that if you were prepared to go that far for me, then maybe you might even be prepared to forgive me if I made a pass at you and you didn't want that sort of relationship. Besides, we were on our own, a long way from home, and I thought that even if you took it badly I might still have a chance to put it right before you went back to London.

"And when you didn't take it badly at all, I really thought that maybe I was going to get my wish. Of course it would have served me right if I'd been dragged off to prison straight afterwards, but even if that had happened I thought you'd still stand by me and wait for me…"

"Obviously I would have," I said.

"I know. Then we fell through the hole, and you know how freaked I was about that to start with. The one thing that kept me going was having you with me and knowing that we'd be able to do stuff together in the future. And then I saw Wolfie and the way he reacted to you, and I knew straight away that it wasn't going to work out after all. So – do I hate him? I wanted to, particularly at the beginning. I'd just had a dream come true, and then, only a day later, suddenly this German aristocrat had snatched it away from me.

"But I understood where he was coming from – after all, if you'd suddenly disappeared from my life I'd have been as miserable as sin for months afterwards, and he'd had to put up with you being gone for four years. And it was obvious from his whole behaviour that he really cared about you. Plus, of course, you and he had been friends far longer than you and me. So, no, I don't hate him. Actually, I like him, and he obviously makes you happy – and anything that makes you happy is fine by me. Obviously if something happened to him I'd hope to be able to pick up the pieces with you, but equally obviously you'd be shattered if he wasn't around. Yes, I suppose I'm a bit jealous, but I can live with it. Like I said this morning, the important thing is that we're still mates."

"I love him," I said. "But that doesn't mean I can't love you too. In your world there seems to be this stupid idea that you can only love one person at a time, like love is a gold ring that you can only give to one person. But it's not like that at all – love isn't a piddly little thing like a ring: it's more like a great big bucket of liquid gold, which you can give to loads of people at the same time. I told you that first day when we were on our way to Devizes that I loved you, and it's never stopped being true, even after I found out about Wolfie, or after I remembered who he was. I still love you, Alex."

He hugged me, and I hugged him back, and for several minutes we just lay quietly.

"What do you think about sex?" he asked.

"You're asking the wrong person," I said. "Talk to Albie – he's our resident sex expert!"

"No, I mean do you think it's okay to have sex with more than one person?"

"Well, I'm not really in favour of sex for money," I said. "Although maybe if I'd been in Albie's position… no, I don't think I could have done that even then. I think sex is supposed to be a part of loving someone – it's meant to be a way of sharing yourself with someone you really like a lot and making them feel good. But, like I said, I'm no expert: the only people I've ever done anything with are you, Wolfie and Sparrer – oh, and Albie, I suppose, but that was just when he came to teach me and Wolfie how to do oral sex. And I haven't done anything with Sparrer since Joe got here, so these days it's just you and Wolfie."

"You haven't done anything with me for quite a long time either," he pointed out.

"Well, that's just because we haven't really had an opportunity."

"But what if we did – I mean, would Wolfie mind?"

"I don't think so. I've already told him that you and I have done stuff in the past, and he knows about Sparrer, too. I don't think it's a big issue for him."

"Well, then… we've still got quite a lot of time to kill…"

"So we have," I agreed, smiling at him.

We took it very slowly and gently, stopping every now and again to rest or to have something to eat and drink. Eventually we put Albie's lesson into practice, although we decided to do it in turn rather than simultaneously. I discovered that Alex had developed a brilliant technique, because it felt as good to me as it had when Albie had done it to me, except that this was better because Alex actually finished me off.

"You're definitely growing," he assured me afterwards. "There was quite a lot there – certainly enough to taste."

"Bet you've got more, though," I said. "Let's find out."

"You can wait for a bit if you want," he assured me.

"No, I want to do it now, while you're still properly in the mood," I said, and I set to work. He was too big for me to be able to get all of it in my mouth, but I did my best, and it didn't take long before he got there, either. And, yes, I'm sure he had more than me – a lot more, in fact, although I did manage to deal with it without choking. I wriggled up to lie alongside him, and he kissed me gently.

"Thanks," he said. "At least if everything goes wrong tonight and I get killed I've had an amazing last evening."

"You don't really think that could happen, do you?"

"Well, it is going to be dangerous. Suppose he sleeps with a pistol under his pillow, for instance. If you have to shoot him, Leo, do you think you'll be able to?"

I thought about it. Obviously I'd never killed anyone – at least, not face to face: I suppose I'd been responsible for the deaths of some of the Russians whose ship we had shot down over Stonehenge. But then they'd attacked us – and, anyway, it might have been the French ship that fired the fatal rocket. But face to face?

"I don't know," I admitted. "But if it comes down to him or me – or him or you – then I'm fairly sure I can. And it's not just you and me, but everyone else in the house, so yes, I can do this."

"Okay. We probably ought to be all right anyway – he'll be asleep, and he won't be expecting us to suddenly pop up right in the room… I think we can do this."

"Yes, we can," I agreed. "We're a team, remember?"

Just before sunset we went back to the third floor room and checked that there were still guards outside the house, and there were, so it looked as if our speculation was correct, and the Russians were going to wait until Saturday morning at least. We didn't take the risk of going outside the room: instead we went back down to the secret room and played some more chess. By now we had some empty bottles to pee in, so we didn't need to leave the room again.

At around ten Alex set his wrist alarm for five o'clock and we settled down to sleep. It took me a while to go to sleep – it was hard not to keep thinking about everything that might go wrong the following morning – but eventually I was able to let it go.

When the alarm went off we got up and put our clothes on, tidied the room a bit and put everything we weren't going to need in our bags. I took nothing with me except for my pistol, which I put into the pocket of my jacket, my flashlight and the skewer, while Alex brought only his knife. I used the lever to open the lower exit, the one that led to the first-floor passage, and we left the room, closed the panel behind us, and walked quietly along to the panel that led into the ducal bedroom. I opened it with the skewer, took my pistol from my pocket and stepped out into the wardrobe, which was completely empty apart from a number of hangers.

"Ready?" I whispered, and Alex nodded.

I put my hand over the end of the torch to prevent it from shining too brightly, opened the wardrobe door and stepped silently out into the bedroom. I tiptoed over to the bed…

…and found it unoccupied: there was nothing over it except for a dust-sheet, and the room still smelled dusty, musty and abandoned, as it had when I saw it on the day of our arrival back in the summer.

"He's not here," whispered Alex. "Now what?"

"Maybe he decided against it when he found out it was dusty and unaired," I whispered back. "So it's just a question of which room he chose instead. If we're lucky, he picked my room. If not, he's in the room my uncle used to use, and if he's in that one, we're screwed, because there's no passage into it. We'd have to go along the corridor, and I bet he's got patrols or guards outside his room. Let's have a look at my room. Maybe we'll be lucky."

I led him back through the wardrobe and up the stairs to the second floor, opening the panel that led back into my own room and creeping out through the wardrobe. And this time the muffled light from my torch revealed a hummock in my bed. I tiptoed across the floor until I was right next to the bed, and then I drew my gun and shone the torch full onto the face of the sleeper.

"Well, well," I said aloud, adding in German, "who's been sleeping in my bed?"

He stirred and opened his eyes, squinting against the light, which I obligingly shone away from his face.

"Leo de Courtenay!" he said, staring at me.

"Pavel Mikhailovich Romanov," I replied. "Hi, Pasha – how have you been?"

"Not bad," he replied. "It would seem that I've underestimated you yet again, though – how did you get past the guards?"

"Why did you come yourself?" I countered. "I don't care how confident you were – surely it's a hell of …"

There was a noise from near the door and I saw something move. Alex saw it too and ran around to the far side of the bed, where he found the older of the two Cossack boys I'd met in Norway, who had been asleep on a mattress in front of the door and who was now waking up fast. I rammed the gun into Pasha's armpit.

"Keep still," I said. "If my man wins you've got nothing to worry about, but if yours does, you might lose an arm here. That's sneaky, though, parking a servant across the door. I once threatened my own personal attendant with making him do that, but then I told him that nobody actually does it any more. Clearly I was wrong."

The Cossack boy hadn't managed to disentangle himself from his blanket and stand up yet, so Alex had a big advantage and he didn't waste it, punching the boy's jaw as hard as he could. The boy amazingly didn't go down, so Alex hit him again, and this time the boy went over, his head striking the floorboards. Alex nudged him with his toe, but the boy didn't move.

"Come on," I said to Pasha, dragging him out of bed.

"Come on where?" he asked. "You don't think you can just walk out of here, surely? Why don't you just surrender now?"

"I don't think so. Come on."

"Can't I get dressed first?" He was only wearing a nightshirt.

"No, I don't think I really want to wait while someone comes to investigate the noise. Move."

"You won't shoot me," he said, confidently. "You don't have the balls."

"Maybe not," I agreed. "But Alex will."

I handed the gun to Alex, and he pressed the barrel back into Pasha's armpit and shoved him towards the wardrobe.

"Oh, now who's being sneaky?" commented Pasha when he saw the open panel in the back of the wardrobe.

"Serves you right for not being prepared to sleep with your men," I replied. "Go on, move."

With some difficulty Alex got Pasha through into the passage and I followed and started to push the panel closed once more. But before I got it all the way back it hit something, and then it was pushed back towards me, and I could see the Cossack boy glaring at me through the widening gap.

"You didn't hit him hard enough," I said to Alex. "Get him down the stairs, but pass me the gun first."

He managed to hand the weapon over to me and I passed him the flashlight in exchange and then waved the gun at the Cossack, but he made no attempt to stop pushing.

"He knows the shot would rouse the house," Pasha pointed out.

"So what? Once he's dead we'll be away before they find the passage."

"Not if he's blocking the door," said Pasha, and he added something else in Russian, at which the Cossack boy pushed the panel open and then lay down, half in and half out of the passage. And I thought Pasha was right: the Cossack was bigger and heavier than I was, and it would take time to shift his dead weight away from the door. And by then the guards from outside the room would have heard the shot and would be on top of me.

"Keep going," I said to Alex. "The moment he's clear of the door I can shoot him and close it, so he can't risk moving while I'm standing here with the gun. Besides, I can find my way through the passages in the dark. He won't be able to."

Alex forced Pasha down the stairs, but of course now I had another problem: as the light of the torch faded I couldn't see properly any longer, and once the light had gone completely the Cossack might be able to jump me in the dark. So I abandoned the panel and began to back away down the stairs. I couldn't hear anyone following me, so I turned and groped my way down until I caught up with Alex and Pasha just as they reached the foot of the stairs.

I used the skewer to open the passage into the escape tunnel, but now there was a flickering light further up the stairs: the Cossack had apparently improvised a torch out of something and was coming after us again, and once again he caught up with us before I could close the panel. This time I was inclined to shoot him, but I could hear shouting in the distance, which suggested that there were more Russians on the way – I supposed he'd opened the bedroom door and yelled for help before making his torch and following us. Once again he lay down in the doorway, and once again I decided that it would take too long to shoot him, move the body and close the panel again, because the shouts were getting louder.

Alex had frog-marched Pasha into the tunnel, and so I backed away after them. Once again the Cossack didn't dare leave the doorway, but I couldn't just stand there and wait for the rest of the Russians to arrive, and so I turned and followed Alex and then helped him to hustle Pasha along the tunnel.

We'd managed to get a hundred yards or so when the Cossack appeared at the point where the tunnel straightened out, and he was calling to someone over his shoulder. There were flickering lights behind him, so he wasn't bluffing. We dragged Pasha a bit further, and then the Cossack started to run towards us. I didn't really want to kill him, but I couldn't see any other way of discouraging him, so I fired in his general direction, but the shot missed and he simply kept coming. And now I could see other figures entering the tunnel behind him.

"Pull the lever," suggested Alex, who had just reached the alcove.

"But we still don't know what it does!" I protested.

"So what? Even if you kill that kid, all the others are on the way and you don't have enough bullets. They'll be all over us in a minute. And if half of what you told us about this one is true, he won't order them to stop either, no matter how much we threaten him. And if we do shoot him, we're fucked, and everyone else in the house will be, too. I reckon it'll drop a door between us and them, so pull the fucking lever!"

It made sense. I grabbed the lever, squeezed the handle and pulled it towards me. For a moment it didn't move, and then it came free with a jerk. There was a muffled bang, and then the tunnel behind us simply collapsed.

When the ground finally stopped shaking there was quiet for a moment, and then a shriek of pain. We couldn't see too much because of the dust in the air, but suddenly Pasha broke free from Alex's grip and ran in the direction of the rock-fall.

I was fairly sure that the tunnel was completely blocked, but we ran after him all the same, and caught up with him at the point where the rubble started.

The Cossack boy had almost made it: his top half was clear of the debris, but his legs were buried. Pasha was on his knees scrabbling away at the earth and stones, trying to dig the boy out. The boy was still conscious but he wasn't moving much.

I hesitated. There was clearly no way for the rest of the pursuers to get near us now, and even if they found some digging equipment it would take ages to dig their way down to us from the surface. So I dropped to my knees beside Pasha and started to help him.

"Leo, what are you doing?" demanded Alex. "We've got to get out of here!"

"We can't just leave him," I said.

"Yes, we bloody well can!"

"No, we can't. He's seriously brave – three or four times he risked me shooting him, but he still kept coming. He doesn't deserve to die alone in the dark."

Alex swore in Greek, but he dropped to his knees and started to help us. It didn't take too long to clear the debris above the boy's knees, but below there was a great slab of stone across his legs, and at first we couldn't shift it. By now I was starting to think we ought to go – after all, whoever was in charge back at the house might start thinking and if he did that he'd realise that the best thing to do would be to try to find the other end of the tunnel. But then I thought we should at least give it a couple more minutes – if we could move the stone the boy might survive.

"Pasha," I said, "Alex and I will try moving the stone. You try pulling him out from under it. And don't think about running off – there's a locked door at the end of the tunnel."

"You think I would run in these circumstances?"

"Maybe not. Grab his arms."

We'd managed to clear one end of the stone, and so Alex and I grabbed a corner each and heaved. It moved a little, so we dug it out a little more and heaved again, and this time it moved.

"Now, Pasha!" I shouted, and he pulled. The Cossack screamed, but Pasha kept pulling until his feet were out from under the rock and we were able to drop it. I picked up the torch and shone it at the boy's legs. The right one appeared to be intact, but the left was a mess, with a clear break and blood on the leg of his trousers.

"We need a splint," I said, looking around. The only thing I could see was the remains of the Cossack's improvised torch, which appeared to be a wooden coat-hanger from my wardrobe with a shirt or something wrapped around one end. It wasn't really big enough or thick enough, but there was nothing else.

I got rid of the burnt cloth and placed the hanger against the boy's leg.

"We need something to tie it on with," I said.

"Cut a bit off his night-shirt," suggested Alex, jerking his head towards Pasha and drawing his knife.

I nodded and explained to Pasha what we needed, and he didn't argue, even though it was the only thing he had on. Alex cut some wide swathes of material off and we used them, first to tie the splint to the boy's left leg, and then to tie his legs together.

"Pasha, I need you to carry his feet," I said. "Don't touch his left foot – just support his right one. Alex will take his shoulders."

I picked up the torch and led the way, drawing my revolver again when we reached the ice-house, just in case there were Russians waiting. But the ice-house was empty, and so – as far as I could tell – were the surrounding woods. I didn't know how long they would stay that way, but for now it seemed safe enough. We carried the Cossack to the boathouse – by now I was walking immediately behind Pasha with my pistol pointing at him, and I'd threatened to shoot him in the arse if he tried anything – and once we got there we carried the boy onto Lady Renée Ocuto and set him down on the deck next to the oak cupboard we'd bought the previous afternoon.

My original plan had been to walk out, because I was fairly sure that if we'd been able to get the enemy officer out of the house unseen we'd also be able to get around the edge of the Long Meadow before the sun rose. But the delay in the tunnel had scuppered that idea, because it was already getting lighter, and also because by now the house and the area around it would be like a hornets' nest.

"Question," I said to Pasha. "Have you still got guards on the railway bridge?"

"No."

"I'd love to believe you… let's put it this way: if there are guards there and they challenge us, you'll talk our way past them. If you don't, your Cossack goes overboard and I'll shoot your balls off, understand? I'd like you alive and intact, but alive and bollock-less would do."

"There are no guards," he said again.

"Good. Alex, tie him up."

We used some more of his night-shirt to tie his hands and feet, and for good measure we also tied him to the bench in the wheelhouse.

"Get the fire going," I said to Alex. "This time I am going to risk making a start without the engine, because I'd be surprised if they aren't scouring the woods in a lot less than half an hour. But we'll need it before too long."

He disappeared below deck, and I opened the river door, untied the lines and pulled the ramp aboard. Alex reappeared three or four minutes later to say that the boiler was lit, and then between us we used a pair of boathooks to pull and push the boat out into the river, using the landing-stage, the Lady Caroline and finally the doorway, until the current took us. Alex went back below to tend the boiler, and I went and sat in the wheelhouse with Pasha, because there wasn't a lot else I could do until we had steam.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"I've arranged for some militia to meet us," I said. "They'll look after him," and I indicated the Cossack boy. "What's his name?"

"Dmitri Igorovich Krasnov," he told me.

"Okay. We'll make sure he gets to hospital straight away. As for you… you're going to come with us back to the house, where you're going to persuade your comrades to surrender."

"I don't think so! They've got a house full of hostages – why should they surrender?"

"Because we've got you, and I imagine that if they go home without you they'd be in deep, deep shit."

"So they've got nothing to lose. They might just as well kill the hostages and then shoot it out with you."

"Good point," I said. Of course, I'd already realised this, but it was worth making him feel he'd scored a point. "Then maybe we could tell them that if they come quietly we'll send you back home."

"Would you? Because I don't think they'd believe that."

I looked at him. "Why are you here?" I asked.

"You know why I'm here."

"Indulge me."

He sighed. "I know who you are," he said. "I know who the Margrave is. And I know who the other kid was, too. I'm not interested in you or the Margrave, but Duvallier is another matter. If he's carrying on with his father's work – and we think he is – we can't leave him here. We want him helping us. We can make it worth his while, or if he's stupid and comes over all noble, we can force him. He knows that: he's already seen me in action, remember? We're here to take him back with us."

"You won't get him," I said. "I warned him yesterday not to come home. He's in militia HQ in Oxford, and he's staying there until you've gone home."

"Ah. Apparently we slipped up somewhere, then."

"Not really. I just managed to hide in the secret passages before you could grab me. Look, Pasha… actually I suppose I ought to call you Pavel Mikhailovitch, since we're not really friends…"

"No, Pasha is fine," he said. "We might not be friends, but boys of our age would generally use diminutives with each other. And we'll be here all day if you keep having to say 'Pavel Mikhailovitch', won't we?"

"Okay. Look, the point is that the only thing that interests me at the moment is getting my household back unharmed. So here's the deal: you agree to take your men and fly back home, and as long as nobody in the house has been hurt, we won't stop you. Does that sound fair?"

He stared at me. "Do you know what sort of a ransom you could get for me?" he asked.

"I don't care about a ransom. I care about my people. So, deal?"

"Well… there is a problem with that. When we took over yesterday morning, one of your servants tried to run. We couldn't afford to have the alarm raised, and so one of my men shot him. I'm sorry, but we didn't have any choice. But if you'll settle for everyone else, then I suppose we have the basis for an agreement."

I thought about that. I was sorry to hear that someone had died, but being awkward now wouldn't bring him back, and really all I wanted was to make sure none of my other people got hurt.

"Well, I suppose you're going to have to leave Dmitri behind," I said. "True, he won't be dead, but you'll have to manage in future without him anyway. I'd be prepared to call that quits."

"I'd be sorry to lose him… but you're right, he does need a hospital. So how are we going to play this?"

"We'll meet up with my militia, we'll get Dmitri to hospital, and then you'll come back with us. We'll wait outside, probably in one of the bushier bits of the garden, just in case your colleagues have any clever ideas about snipers. You call out your Number Two, explain the deal, and then your guys lay down their arms and come on out. We'll be checking to make sure that you don't try to sneak out any of the hostages in Russian uniforms, too. We'll escort you to your ship, you and I will shake hands and you'll fly away."

"I don't like the bit about my people having to come out of the house with no weapons and no hostages," he said. "How do I know you won't just shoot them, or take them all prisoner?"

"Because I'm giving you my word."

He looked at me. "All right," he said, "let's say I accept that. How do I know your militia commander won't do what he thinks is right?"

"For the same reason that no Russian militia commander, not even if he were four times your age, would disobey you. The only people in this country who have the power to countermand my orders are about a dozen dukes who are before me in the order of precedence, and the royal family. Everyone else will do what I tell them to."

"I still don't like it;"

"Pasha, it's the best you're going to get. You don't get Duvallier, but you do get to go home, with all your people. The alternative is going to be a shoot-out which will leave me with no household and you with no troops. And I promise you this: if any more members of my household get hurt, you really will be going home with no balls."

His nightshirt had been severely shortened by the need for ties of one sort or another, and it was now barely a third of the way down his thighs, and so I emphasised my point by lifting the front of it with the barrel of my gun.

"You cheeky bastard!" I commented. "How did you have the gall to make fun of my development when you look like that?"

"You're a year and a half older than me," he retorted. "I'm not fourteen yet, and a lot of thirteen-year-olds haven't reached puberty. I bet you hadn't when you were thirteen."

"That's true," I admitted, letting his shirt drop once more. "Actually I think I was smaller than you are now. But it was still a bit of a cheek."

"Sorry," he said. "But maybe next time I've got hold of you I really will burn your pubes off, and then we'll see who laughs at whom."

"You're not going to get the chance," I said. "Once you've gone this time I really hope we never meet again. So, back to the deal: what do you say?"

"We go up to the house with your soldiers, I order my men to put down their guns and come out of the house, you check that there aren't any hostages among them, you escort us to our ship and you let us fly away. Is that it?"

"That's it."

"Then… you have a deal," he said. "I'm trusting you here, de Courtenay."

"I never break my word," I told him. "You do your part and I'll stick to my end of the deal. And if I'm going to call you Pasha, I think you can call me Leo."

By now the current had turned us around so that we were drifting down the river sideways on. I wasn't too worried: we were still in the centre of the river, well away from the banks, and I thought it unlikely that there would be any traffic heading up river quite this early. But the railway bridge was looming up, and so I lifted Pasha's nightshirt once more and put the barrel of the gun against his small testicles. I was a little surprised to see that the only thing that happened was that he started to get an erection. Otherwise he never even flinched, and nor did he say anything.

"Remember what I said," I reminded him. "If there are any guards here, you tell them that Dmitri had an accident and we're taking him to get treatment. They'll be able to see him on the deck, so maybe they'll believe it."

"I told you, there aren't any guards," he said. "And would you mind taking your finger off the trigger? It would be a pity if you spoiled the moment by shooting prematurely."

I was amazed that he could make jokes – especially that kind of joke – in this position, but didn't want an accident, so I moved my finger outside the trigger guard.

We drifted under the bridge unchallenged.

"Believe me now?" he asked.

"All right, don't get cocky," I said. "I wonder if I fired a bullet right across the base of your penis if the scarring would prevent you growing any hair there?"

"I don't think you'd do that. You're neither cruel enough nor ruthless enough."

"You're probably right – I wouldn't do it. But only because I don't want to fire the gun and wake everyone up."

There was a ping from the telegraph, which had swung over to Engine Ready, so I stood up, pushed the telegraph to Half Speed and spun the wheel to get us facing downstream once more. Then I set it to Full Speed, and we started to make some proper progress. I turned us into our private cut, taking us past the swimming point and on to the far end of the cut, where I turned downstream once more. When we reached the wharf in Culham Village we moored the boat, knocked on the first door we came to and sent the person who answered it to tell the village squire that there was an injured boy on our boat, and that I would be grateful if he could arrange for the boy to be taken to hospital in Oxford. Then we walked on to the school where I found my militia ready and waiting.

The next part of the operation went smoothly: we borrowed a jacket for Pasha – it wasn't particularly warm out this early and he was shivering a bit, though he hadn't complained – and then we all went up to the house, flying a flag of truce..

"Have you got a Russian speaker?" I asked the militia captain, and I was pleased to find that they had found someone: a bespectacled lieutenant came to our side.

"Give them a shout," I said to Pasha, and he called out for someone called Captain Markov. This individual emerged from the house and Pasha told him what we had agreed. Not surprisingly the captain was unenthusiastic, but Pasha insisted, sending him back into the house to make the arrangements. I sent a couple of soldiers round to the back of the house to make sure they didn't try anything, and then we waited.

"How many soldiers are there in there?" I asked.

"Forty," Pasha told me. "And there are ten more back at the ship, as well as the normal crew. Look, can I send a runner to warn them to get the boilers alight? The sooner we have steam, the sooner we can leave you in peace."

I wasn't sure about that.

"Yes, there are weapons on the ship," he admitted, when I hesitated. "But when we get there you'll be the ones with hostages, so the crew won't try anything."

That made sense, so when the first soldier emerged from the house I allowed Pasha to send him straight to the ship to get the boilers lit. Our lieutenant confirmed that Pasha had told him not to do anything except light the boilers, so it looked as if he was playing it straight.

The rest of the soldiers came out, and we counted them and I personally checked that there were none of my people among them. And when I had forty I sent ten of my militia into the house to look for explosives – I thought that anything was possible – while the rest of us escorted the Russians across the Upper Field, over the fence onto Lord Brookhampton's land and finally down to a meadow close to the river, in the centre of which was what appeared to be a French æthership. It looked absolutely genuine, from the bees and eagles on its nose to the tricolour and the name André Masséna below it, although when you got close enough you could see that it was a well-fitted canvas.

"I take it that's actually Alexander Suvorov?" I asked, and Pasha nodded.

"Nice job," I congratulated him. "I take it too that you worked out that your gondolas are a bit of a give-away?"

He nodded again. "Hence a First Marshal class French ship," he said. "Those mostly have waist gondolas. Of course, I'll have my new ship ready soon, and then we won't need to fanny about pretending to be French."

We stood to one side and watched as his men went on board, though I made sure that Pasha himself was going nowhere just yet, because of course now we were the ones in the open, and it was entirely possible that the Russian soldiers were currently rearming themselves. Finally one of the bridge crew stepped out of the door and called something to Pasha.

"We have steam," translated our interpreter.

"Now you have to trust me," said Pasha. "You kept your word by letting my men get here unharmed. Now you have to trust me to keep mine and fly away without attacking you."

I looked at him and he offered me his hand, and after a moment I took it.

"Remember, I did exactly what you told me to," he said, and turned and walked briskly to the bridge. When he got there he shouted, "Could you please release the nose cable?"

His men had now released the other mooring cables and were scrambling aboard, so I sent Alex to the tree to which the remaining cable was tethered and asked him to untie it. He gave it a tug and the cable came free, and the ship began to rise. I watched it, wondering what exactly Pasha's parting remark had been about: I knew he'd done what I told him to, so why mention it?

We watched the ship rise almost vertically and I wondered why the engines were still barely turning the propellers. Perhaps he didn't have enough steam yet? But then I shrugged: we'd come out of it unharmed – or almost: I turned to head back towards the house to find out who the unfortunate victim of the shooting had been.

I'd gone about twenty paces when one of the militiamen shouted "Look!" and pointed at the ship, which had finally turned and was starting to move away. I didn't see it at first, but then a jumpshade opened and a figure began to float down towards us.

"What the hell?" said Alex. "Is it a defector?"

"I don't think they have defectors in this war," I said. "Besides, if someone wanted to swap sides he could just have stayed behind at the house when the others left."

"He doesn't look very big," commented the militiaman who had first spotted the jumper.

He was right, and the jumper seemed to be having trouble controlling the shade, too, because the breeze was carrying him away from us, further into Lord Brookhampton's fields. We followed, catching up shortly after he landed. Two of the militiamen got there first and helped to remove the shade and assist the figure to its feet, and as I got there myself he turned to face me and I saw that it was Roger the stable lad.

"I'm really, really sorry, Your Grace," he said. "He said as how I should give you this," and he handed me a folded piece of parchment.

Leo, I read, and it continued in German.

I want to remind you again that I kept my word to the letter, but I'm afraid I have the Margrave. He and his companion rode straight into us on Thursday evening, and it was easier to keep them here at the ship. So here's the deal: you bring me Duvallier, and I'll exchange him for the Margrave. I'll give you a week. After that… well, I understand that Wolfgang-Christian is an orphan, and you know exactly what that means. So don't keep me waiting, or I'll start amusing myself with him.

We'll be at my place on the Black Sea, near Feodosia. Ask for me there – anyone will show you the way. Just don't be late!

Pavel Mikhailovitch Romanov.

'PS Thank you for looking after Dmitri. Originally I'd intended pushing this one out of the ship without wasting a shade on him, but one good turn… Consider us quits!

'Pasha.'

I stared at Alex. "He's beaten us," I said. "The bastard's got Wolfie."

Chapter Twenty-four

I made my way back up to the house and was met at the door by Allchorn, who had taken the time to change into his usual morning coat and pinstriped trousers.

"The militia assure me that there is no trace of any explosive," he reported. "Of course we'll be sure to check more thoroughly in order to be completely certain, but for now it would appear that it is safe for you to come in."

"Thank you, Allchorn," I said. "I'm told that one of the staff was killed yesterday morning. Who?"

"That was Foulkes, Your Grace," he said. "I have already taken the liberty of notifying the undertakers."

"Good. I'll talk to Mr Hall and make sure that the family is cared for. Is Mr Francis in the house?"

"He went back to the stables to make sure that the horses were cared for, Your Grace."

"Very well, I'll go and talk to him there. Is anyone else hurt?"

"No, Your Grace, and there seems to have been no damage to the house, either. They were exceedingly considerate, for enemy troops. Will Your Grace require breakfast immediately?"

"No, thank you. You may tell Cook that we will take breakfast at the usual time. And I'll need the conference room for later this morning – a dozen places should be sufficient."

I went round to the stables and found Mr Francis and his lads looking after the horses.

"I need you to send a runner to the works in Abingdon," I told him. "I'll have a message for Mr Duvallier shortly – just ask the boy to come to the front door when he's ready to go. And I need someone else to ride to Chisbury to inform my uncle of what has happened here. Tell him I'll send the carriage for him as soon as Murdoch has got steam up. Oh, and please tell Graham Reed to report to the conference room at ten-thirty."

I went back into the house, wrote a short note telling Tim what had happened and asking him to come to the house for ten-thirty and handed it to Tommy the stable-lad when he appeared at the front door a few minutes later. Then I went looking for the rest of my friends and found them in Alex's room: Alex had apparently rounded them up while I'd been at the stables.

"First, is everyone OK?" I asked them, and they assured me that they were.

"Good," I went on. "Now, we'll be sitting down to discuss what we're going to do at half past ten, so…"

"What's to discuss?" asked Alex. "We're going after him, aren't we?"

"I'm going after him," I said. "There's no need for any of you to come."

The response to that was loud and, in some cases, quite abusive, but the gist of it was that anywhere I was going, they were going too. To be honest I'd hoped for that response, because if I was to stand any chance of getting Wolfie back I'd need a lot of help, but it was still good to know that my friends were all whole-heartedly with me.

"Thank you," I said. "We'll discuss it properly at ten-thirty in the conference room. Now, breakfast will be in an hour, so get some rest – I don't suppose you slept too well last night – and then get something to eat, and I'll see you all at half-past ten. Alex, could you come with me, please? And bring your torch."

We went into my room and found it as we'd left it, more or less: the bed was disordered, there was a thin mattress and a couple of blankets near the door where Dmitri had been sleeping, and the panel in the wardrobe was still open. We checked out the entire open part of the system, from the attic to the cellars and omitting only the secret room and second staircase, to which the Russians couldn't have gained access, but found nobody. We went as far along the escape tunnel as we could, and that turned out to be quite a long way: apparently the lever had only caused the collapse of a comparatively short stretch of it, which was probably good news for the Russians who had been following Dmitri: none of them had been close enough to get caught in the collapse.

Once we were sure that the system was clear we went back to my room, closing the panels behind us as we went.

"I suppose we'll have to get the tunnel cleared and repaired," I said. "It'll mean other people finding out about it, but that can't be helped."

"You could tell people it's simply what you said it started out as, a way to bring ice up to the house from the ice-house, and you're repairing it purely for historical reasons," suggested Alex. "That way they wouldn't have to find out about the passages inside the house."

"I suppose that might work. Anyway, thanks for coming with me to check them out. I'll see you at breakfast."

"No, you won't," he replied. "You'll see me until breakfast. If you think I'm leaving you on your own after what just happened, you're having a laugh."

"Go!" I said, as firmly as I could.

"Fuck off," he said, sitting down beside me. "You're not going to beat yourself up about this. I know exactly what you're like, Leo: you're thinking 'It was my fault' and 'I should have known' and stuff like that. Well, it wasn't your fault and you couldn't have known, okay?"

"I didn't even ask," I said, bitterly. "I was sitting next to that bastard in the wheelhouse for twenty minutes before you got the engine going, and I never once asked him if he was holding Wolfie. How could I have been such a complete cretin?"

"You think he'd have told you the truth? 'Oh, yes, Leo, I've got your boyfriend stashed on my ship, and letting him go wasn't part of our deal, so nyah-nyah-nyah to you'? He'd have lied through his teeth and either said that Wolfie was in the house with the others, or that he hadn't seen him at all."

"I don't think he would have lied. He was truthful about everything else."

"Leo, he's a fucking psycho! You read that bit about Wolfie being an orphan, and you told me what he was like in Norway. He'd tell you anything that would suit his cause."

"But I could have checked! If I'd just gone into the house for thirty seconds after the Russians left, I'd have seen for myself that he wasn't there…"

"Pasha would still have said that he didn't know anything about Wolfie."

"Yes, but then I'd have insisted on searching his ship!"

"I don't think he'd have let you do that. And even if you had, there must be any numbers of places you can hide something on an airship. Face it, Leo, there was nothing you could have done: once he had Wolfie you were stuffed. At least we got out of it without losing anyone else."

"Except Foulkes," I said, grimly. "Does Sparrer know?"

Alex nodded. "He was pretty cut up about it. He liked Foulkes a lot, even though he messed him about all the time he was taking lessons from him. Joe's looking after him, though, and he'll get over it. I expect he saw enough people he knew die when he was in the sewers."

I supposed that was true, but it didn't make me feel any better. Whatever Alex said, I still thought that there must have been something I could have done to prevent what had happened.

"Come on," he said, pulling me to my feet. "We've been wearing these clothes for twenty-four hours straight. Let's go and have a bath and put some clean stuff on ready for breakfast."

I'd have preferred to lie on the bed and feel miserable, but I recognised that Alex was right: I'd need to show some leadership later in the day, and I'd be able to do that better if I freshened myself up a bit. So I collected a change of clothes and followed Alex, first into his room and then to the bathroom, where he sat me on the chair in the corner and started to run the bath.

I'd shared baths with Wolfie before, but never with Alex, but this was still nice. He respected my mood by not doing anything erotic, but he scrubbed my back and shampooed my hair for me, and I returned the favour, and afterwards I did feel a bit better. Breakfast also helped, and after that he took me for a walk around the garden – he was clearly determined not to leave me on my own at all.

At half-past ten we made our way to the conference room. My uncle had arrived while I was in the garden and was still getting an account of what had happened from Mr Hall, so I waited until they had finished speaking. Everyone else there – Alex, Joe, Billy, Sparrer, Albie and Graham – knew what had happened from personal experience, and Tim knew everything except for the fact of Wolfie's abduction.

"So," I began, "now we have to decide what we're going to do. Who wants to go first?"

"We're going after him, obviously," said Alex, drawing a chorus of agreement from my friends.

"No," said my uncle firmly, "you're not. You can't seriously be considering flying into Russia in a ship that isn't even fully commissioned yet, with a crew who have only ever flown on two very short training trips. You might as well just line up your crew and shoot them one by one."

"They're better than that, and you know it," I replied. "You said yourself how well they did in training."

"Yes, against a friendly ship that was firing blanks! This is a completely different matter. For a start, Romanov knows you're coming, so he'll be ready. The main Russian Black Sea surface fleet is based less than a hundred miles from Feodosia, and you can be sure they'll have a vast number of Eagles close at hand to defend their shipping. I don't care how good your armour is, either – remember what happened to the Eagle we shot down over the Great Circle? That was well-armoured, and there were only two ships attacking it. If you go near the Crimea, you'll be trying to fight off twenty."

"Our armour is far better than theirs. You saw the tests."

"No armour can stand the sort of battering you'd get. Sorry, Leo, but I forbid it."

"You can't forbid it. It's my ship, and even if you refuse to allow the Excalibur crew to come, I've got enough crew of my own for two watches. Of course, if you can think of another way to get Wolfie back, I'm all ears."

"Couldn't we ransom him?" suggested Albie. "I know Romanov wouldn't let him go for money, but suppose we sent an official message to the Tsar, telling him that his nephew was holding Wolfie and offering to ransom him – could that work?"

I hadn't thought of that. "Do you think that would work?" I asked my uncle.

He shook his head. "Normally it might, but Wolfie is too important. If the Tsar found out he was there, Wolfie would either end up locked up in some fortress in Siberia, or they'd try to use him as a puppet to justify their control of Prussia. Wolfie would hate that."

"Yes, but at least he wouldn't have a psycho taking him apart a piece at a time," said Alex.

"No, but once he was an official prisoner we'd have no chance of getting him back," I said. "So that's out. Any more ideas?"

"What about if we was to attack with loads of ships at once?" offered Sparrer. "They'd never think as we'd be stupid enough to do that, so we might catch them with their pants down, sort of thing."

"Nice idea," I said, "but we've only got a week, and I reckon it'll take at least three days to get there. We'd never get enough ships together in time. Besides, my uncle is right about the danger: we couldn't really ask any other captain to go up against an entire Russian surface and air fleet just because I messed up."

"You might be able to do it better as zree days," said Tim, whose understanding of English was by now pretty good, even if his grammar and accent weren't. "You 'ave four engines now. 'Ow far izzit?"

I got the maps out and put the one of the whole of Europe on the table. Then I set to work with a ruler.

"Ah," I said. "There's another problem: he can go direct, but we can't, or we'd be over Russian-held territory for most of the way, and doing that in daylight would be asking for trouble. We'd have to go around the south, through Italy, Illyria and Greece, and that would be…. over two thousand miles. Call it two thousand two hundred [3500 km]."

"We estimate zat wiz four engines you can get one 'undred twenty kilometres [75 miles] in a hour, cruise speed, and maybe one 'undred sirty at full speed," said Tim. "Zat izz…at around twenty-nine hours of flying at cruise speed."

"Is that all? Great!" I said.

"But you would 'ave to land to refuel," Tim went on. "Per'aps in Greece? You will not 'ave fuel to return else, an' I do not zink zat you can refuel in Russia."

"Good point," I said. "Thank you, Tim. But even if we can get there that quickly, none of our other ships could match that speed, even if we could persuade any other idiot to come with us. So we're back where we were. Any other ideas?"

Silence. Then Tim said, "Of course, you could give 'im what 'e wants."

"Sorry?"

"'E wants me. If you give me to 'im, 'e will let your friend go."

"Not a chance! He'd force you to tell him everything you know about armour."

"Not if I am dead. See, 'e said 'e wants me. Did 'e say 'e wants me alive?"

"Well, no, but it was pretty obvious that's what he meant."

"And it was pretty obvious that you meant you'd let him go if you got your hostages back unharmed," Alex pointed out. "All of them – even if you didn't actually specify it. So if we gave them a dead Tim, he would have to keep his word and give you Wolfie. Of course, we don't tell him Tim's dead until we got Wolfie back… That way we'd be sticking to the letter of the agreement, just like he did with you."

"Yes, but… bloody hell, we can't kill Tim!" I protested.

"Why not?" asked Tim. "I 'ave finish ze work 'ere, and I 'ave write all zat I know about ze armour. You do not 'ave need of me."

"Don't be so bloody stupid! I'm not going to sacrifice one of my friends to get another one back!"

"Well, we could tell him Tim's dead," suggested Albie. "We could even hold a funeral for him, in case he has spies watching."

"I don't think he'd let Wolfie go without proof," I said. "Actually, I don't think he'd let Wolfie go even with proof. Sorry, but I don't think that's going to fly either. Any more?"

But that was the limit of the brainwaves.

"All right, then," I said. "Let's mobilise. Tim, I want Excelsior hopped over here today. You can continue any work that needs doing over the weekend – I'll pay extra for Sunday, obviously. At the same time I want her fuelled and fitted out with as much armament as she can comfortably carry – and, yes, I know that'll mean some testing. I'll leave that to you. Albie, I want you to go to London and collect as many of the trainees as you can. Tell them openly where we're going, and make sure they know I won't think any less of anyone who prefers not to come.

"Alex, you're Acting First Officer. If you need any more help with bearings and so on, talk to me afterwards and we'll go through it together. Albie, I know you've had no opportunity to study any more First Aid, but you're now also Acting Second Officer. Again, we'll arrange some extra work on bearings and so on later. Graham, you're Chief Engineer. You'll need to spend some time on the ship with Tim making sure you understand exactly how the engines work.

"Joe, you're chief electrical engineer as well as communications officer. That's really because you're the only other person who knows anything about electricity at all. Use the textbooks you brought back from your world and again, get Tim to show you how the generator operates. I also need you to learn semaphore, preferably in Russian as well as English, and Alex, I want you to try to learn semaphore in Greek, because if we're going to land in Greece we're going to need to be able to talk to their ground control.

"And I want everything done and the ship ready to leave at first light on Wednesday. Hopefully by then we'll have come up with something approaching a plan. Questions?"

I looked at my uncle, daring him to speak; but the only hand raised was Albie's.

"I can think of something else we need," he said. "He got into British airspace in disguise. Couldn't we do the same thing? After all, he's never seen Excelsior, so he can't warn the Russian ætherships to watch out for us. And if we had a false flag as well…"

"Good idea," I said. "There must be somewhere we can get a canvas made… I know, I'll ask Charlie Cardington where he got the one he used for Sparrowhawk during the training exercise. Anything else? No? Thank you, then – you all know what you need to do."

Most of them got up and left, but my uncle showed no signs of moving and so neither did I – after all, I could hardly avoid the conversation that I knew was coming, and I preferred to get it over and done with now. Alex stayed where he was, too, at least until my uncle said "Thank you, Mr Demetriou" in a pointed way. Alex looked at me and I nodded.

"Okay," he said, getting up, "but don't let him bully you!"

"I really like that boy," commented my uncle, once Alex had left and closed the door behind him. "You'd have thought he'd be much happier with Wolfie gone, but instead he seems to be the most determined to go with you to get him back."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, come on, Leo, I'm not stupid. I know how Alex feels about you, but I've never ever heard him say a bad word about Wolfie. That's the sort of friend you want to do everything you can to keep. Anyway, I'm not happy about you going, but when I gave you the ship I gave you the freedom to use it as you think best, and so I won't try to stop you, even if I could. But there are going to be a few conditions.

"First, and most important, it is absolutely vital that the ship doesn't fall into Russian hands. If the worst happens and you find yourself in a fight that you can't win, make absolutely sure that she goes down over the Black Sea, as far out as possible, and make sure that she sinks. Detonate a couple of rockets inside her and leave all the hatches open so that the sea can get in after the hydrogen has burnt out.

"Second, remember what I told you about facing bad odds: don't try to fight, just run. With your four engines you should be faster than anything the Russians have got anyway, but use cloud if there is any and don't be afraid to head for Turkey if you have to: the Turks are neutral, but they won't allow Russians into their air space, whereas they'll turn a blind eye to a single English ship.

"Third, you're responsible for every life on board. Don't stick your head into a hornet's nest in an attempt to rescue Wolfie if it's going to mean you run a serious risk of getting everyone on board killed. And I've already said this, but I'll say it again anyway: don't trust too much in your armour. It's good, but it's not infallible.

"Finally, use the flight to Greece to run some training: get the crew used to getting to action stations while it's safe, and they'll do it automatically when they really have to."

I stared at him, because I'd been expecting a tooth and claw attempt to keep me from going, and I simply wasn't prepared for this apparently easy capitulation.

"One more thing," he added. "I want you to come and see me on Tuesday evening and present me with a proper, considered and reasonable plan of action. And I don't want some sort of vague 'We'll make it up when we get there' nonsense, either. Oh, and I'll need to borrow Murdoch and the carriage for the rest of the day – actually for the next two or three days, because I've got a certain amount of running back and forth to do between here and Chisbury.

"Well, off you go – I' sure you have plenty to do. And send Tim in to see me, if you wouldn't mind. I don't suppose he's left for Abingdon just yet."

"Thank you," I said. "There is one thing you can do for me, though: ask Admiral Faulkner if British Intelligence can find me a plan of Pasha's place. It'll be easier to make a plan if I know where I'm going. Oh, and Lord Cardington knows you a lot better than he knows me, so perhaps you could ask where he got his canvas made?"

"I'll do that," he promised. "I might get the admiral to send someone down to brief you if I can arrange it quickly enough."

"Thanks again," I said, and I went to find Tim.

***

After he'd spoken to my uncle Tim went straight back to Abingdon, returning in Excelsior in early afternoon. The ship landed at the upper mast and was winched straight into Number One hangar for fuelling, and after a bit I went to see how she was looking. Tim took me on a quick walk round the ship, inside and out.

"I'll need to talk to the bridge crew," he said (we were speaking German, which was easier for him). "There are quite a few things that are different about this ship, both in the way it flies and in the best way to use her. I'll tell you now so that if I miss anything with the others you'll be able to correct me.

"First, landing: there are no steam bags on this ship, so if you use venting while landing you'll be venting hydrogen, and obviously any hydrogen you vent is lost. That doesn't mean you can't vent when coming in to a fully-equipped æthership base, because you'll be able to top up the gas before taking off again, but if you're landing in the country, or in hostile territory, you'll have to learn to land using the elevators as much as you can and only vent the bare minimum of gas.

"The same thing applies to buoyancy control in flight: try to maintain altitude without venting gas. It'll be harder in this ship because you're running four engines, and so you'll be burning up twice the amount of fuel and the ship will get lighter twice as quickly. I would advise over-ballasting and reclaiming as much water as you can from the steam engines: you won't regain the weight of the coal that way, but it'll help. We've put some guttering on the sides of the ship to help collect rainwater, too, but if it doesn't rain you won't be able to gain weight that way.

"A lot about this journey is going to be new territory for the whole science of flight: you're the first British ship since the experimental days to run on hydrogen alone, and the first four-engine ship, too. We'll keep a log of everything that happens, and hopefully that will help us to learn from anything that goes wrong."

"Let's hope that nothing goes wrong, then… hang on, you said 'we'll keep a log'. You're not coming on this trip!"

"Yes I am. First, you'll need me, because I know more about this ship than anyone else, which means that if anything does go wrong I'll know what to do – at least, I hope I will. And second, having me along means that you're keeping your options open – if all else fails you'll still be able to hand me over to Romanov if necessary."

"That isn't going to happen – not under any circumstances."

"You should never rule anything out. Don't get me wrong – I really don't want to have to get involved at all, but it would be stupid to shut the door until you have to. But your uncle said he wants me on board, and obviously that would be sensible, quite apart from the fact that Romanov wants me."

I could see the sense of taking him, because this was going to be a very long journey in a ship that hadn't flown anywhere before, and so it would be downright amazing if something didn't go wrong. Sure, we'd take a couple of short flights on the Monday and the Tuesday, but that was hardly a substitute for a full set of proving flights. But I was absolutely determined that he wasn't going to put one foot onto Russian soil.

***

The loading and final checks were completed on Saturday afternoon. On Sunday morning we all went to church as usual, and then Tim spent the rest of the day taking the ship up and down in order to find out what it could lift if it had to and what was a sensible working weight. I didn't see much of that because I was in the conference room with Alex, Albie and Graham, developing their map reading skills and making sure that they all felt confident about converting bearings from map bearings to magnetic ones and allowing for variations caused by wind, air pressure and the magnetic variation which could change enormously over a journey such as the one we were proposing.

My uncle came and went throughout the weekend. I wasn't quite sure what he was doing, but on Sunday evening at supper he told me that he'd arranged for one of Admiral Faulkner's staff to visit the following day in order to tell me what they knew about Pasha's place outside Feodosia, and that he'd sent a message to Charlie Cardington, as a result of which a false-flag canvas was being prepared for us.

"And there's one more thing," he added. "Contrary to what I said previously, I want you to take Dr Harries on this journey. I've already discussed it with him and he's happy to come with you. You can't fly into enemy territory with no medical team beyond a boy with a very basic knowledge of how to apply a bandage."

"Thank you," I said gratefully. "I admit that had been worrying me."

"I hope you don't need him, but it's better to be safe. Now, I won't be able to come with you tomorrow afternoon, but I'd like to come on Tuesday's test flight if I may. I won't get in your way, but I'd like to get an idea of what you can do with four engines. After all, if everything works out I'll be getting Excalibur converted to four engines too."

My uncle went back to Chisbury after supper – we'd moved supper forwards a bit so that he could get back to his home before nightfall. Of course, this meant that we didn't have the use of the steam-carriage on Monday morning, and so after breakfast I gathered up Alex, Billy and Joe – and Sparrer, who I hadn't specifically asked to come but who somehow attached himself to us anyway – and we walked to Culham village and went aboard the Lady Renée Ocuto, which was still tied up at the village wharf.

"What's that ugly thing?" asked Billy, indicating the cupboard – I'd half-hoped that somebody might steal it and so take it off my hands, but no such luck. I suppose everyone local would have known it was my boat, and so nobody would have dared to take it. I just hoped nobody was judging my taste from seeing it.

"Ah," said Alex. "There's a story behind that. Let's go and light the fire, and I'll tell you all about it."

Joe, Sparrer and I waited on deck until we had steam – this time we were sailing up river, so there was no way we could release the cables before we had an engine. While we waited I told them the same story that Alex was presumably telling Billy, but I was probably a little more critical of Alex's acting ability than he was himself: I doubt if Alex's own description of his yokel accent included words like 'appalling', 'hopeless' and 'God only knows how he got away with it'. I told them too about the second voyage, the one taken with a reluctant Pasha and a semi-conscious Dmitri as passengers.

By the time I'd finished that and had answered some questions we were ready to go, so we pulled the ramp aboard, released the lines and headed back upstream. The weather was still pleasantly warm for March, and in other circumstances it would have been a nice day for a boat trip, even if the water was probably still too cold for swimming. But my mind was on other things, and so I passed the swimming place without even looking at the bank and carried straight on past the boathouse, too.

"Where are we going?" asked Joe.

"Oxford," I told him. "Uncle Gil's got the carriage, and so I thought we'd use the boat. I haven't been upstream from the boathouse, so it's a chance to relax a bit. Probably the last chance we'll get for a long time."

I made a brief stop at the Folly Bridge wharf and jogged the short distance from there to the militia headquarters, where I asked if I could request the services of the bespectacled Russian-speaking lieutenant who had interpreted for me two days previously. Fortunately he was actually in the building, and so I was able to ask him in person how he felt about a potentially dangerous mission to Russia. His response was immediate and enthusiastic, and so I told him to report to the house the following evening. I suppose it would have been fairer if I'd warned him that he was going to be making the flight in an untried ship with a crew of complete novices, all of whom were under seventeen, but I needed him to come and so I said nothing.

"Why do you need him?" asked Joe when I explained what I'd done. "You've got me. This isn't some sneaky attempt to leave me behind, I hope?"

"No, it isn't. I'd actually be much happier if you stayed behind, and if you want to I'll be only too happy to let you, but somehow I don't think you're going to say that. And in any case, I need you. At some point we'll have to have a ground party of some sort, and I'll need a Russian speaker on the ground and in the ship, and in any case if I only have one interpreter and he falls ill… so I need you both."

We sailed a bit further, and then I moored up again and we walked through Jericho to the hospital, and this time I took everyone with me. I found that the squire of Culham had done me proud: he'd even arranged for Dmitri to be put in a small private room. Of course, the squire probably hadn't known the boy was Russian…

"Okay," I said to Joe. "Let's see what you make of a Crimean accent. Just do your best to translate both ways…"

We went into the room and found Dmitri awake and with his left leg and right forearm in plaster.

"How are you feeling?" I asked him.

"Where's Pasha?" he replied. "What have you done with him?"

That was interesting: I could hear myself that he'd actually said 'Pasha' and not 'His Imperial Highness', as I'd expected.

"He's fine," I told him. "He flew back to Russia on Saturday."

"You let him go?"

I nodded. "We had an agreement," I said. "At least, I thought we did… anyway, he didn't really want to leave you behind, but he knew you needed to get to hospital, so he didn't really have any choice. How's the leg?"

"It hurts, but less than it did. I don't know exactly what they did to it because none of them speak Russian and I can't speak English, but they seem to have saved it."

"I'll find out for you," I said, and asked Billy to go and find a nurse or a doctor.

"Why did you pull me out of the tunnel?" he asked.

"Because you were injured, and I thought you would die if we left you."

"So? I'm your enemy!"

"I thought you were very brave," I told him. "You were unarmed, and yet you kept coming even when I threatened to shoot you. I didn't think you deserved to die alone in the dark."

"I did what I had to. I'm sure your own people would have done the same for you – that one in particular," and he nodded at Alex, who gave him a little smile and nodded back.

"Well, I'm glad they fixed you up."

Billy returned with a doctor, who told me that the left tibia was broken in three places and the fibula in one, but that they had been able to put both bones back together, and they expected a full recovery over time, provided the leg was allowed to heal, which might mean several weeks in bed. Dmitri had also cracked some bones in his wrist, presumably when he fell. I hadn't even noticed that at the time, but it might have explained why he screamed when Pasha pulled him away from the fallen slab. Joe relayed the doctor's comments to Dmitri, who said 'Thank you'. The doctor left.

"Why do you call him 'Pasha'?" I asked. "He's your master, isn't he?"

"We've been together for a long time, and he encourages us – me and Sergei, at least – to call him by his diminutive. And he's not exactly my master. Our relationship is… unusual. Certainly we serve him, but it's through choice, not compulsion, and in return he treats us more like family than servants."

"That sounds familiar!" commented Alex. "Maybe you and he have more in common than you thought!"

"In some ways, perhaps," I said. "Not in others. I don't think I'm likely to take up torture for fun."

I turned back to face the patient.

"So, Dmitri Igorovitch," I said. "Would you like to be able to go back to Feodosia?"

"Obviously, but I can't imagine that you'll let me."

"On the contrary, I'll take you there myself, if you're prepared to risk it. After all, you heard the doctor: really you're supposed to stay in bed and rest that leg. If you come with us it might not heal properly."

"I don't care. But why?"

"I told you, I respect bravery. And as I'm going that way I can't see any reason not to take you with me."

He was silent for a moment. Then he said, "You shouldn't go, you know. I think Pasha will kill you if you do."

"Maybe," I said. "But I don't have a lot of choice, because he's holding my friend."

"Ah, yes, the crippled Prussian. Is he really worth risking your life for?"

"You risked your life for your friend," I pointed out.

"True. But my people are warriors, and risking death is natural to us. You, I think not."

"I think perhaps your code and mine are not so very different," I said. "Part of my code is not to abandon your friends, and I'm not going to abandon this one in particular.

"Anyway, I'll arrange for you to be moved to the house… actually it might be best if you come with us now, because we're travelling by boat, and that's probably going to be better for you than bumping about on the road. You can stay with us until we leave on Wednesday. My own doctor can give you any painkillers you need."

The doctor wasn't too happy about the patient being moved, even though his leg was enclosed in a cast, but in the end I talked him into it. He gave me the details of Dmitri's medication to pass on to Dr Harries, and he also supplied a pair of orderlies and a stretcher to carry the patient to the boat. I got them to put him on the deck next to the cupboard – sooner or later I supposed we'd have to find a home for that, but for now I supposed that it might as well stay where it was – and we sailed back home. When we reached the boathouse I sent Alex and Billy to go and get Wolfie's wheelchair out of the attic and bring it back to the boathouse. Wolfie had of course been able to bend his legs, but it was possible to use the chair with one or both legs raised, and so we set it up and carefully transferred Dmitri into it.

We installed him in one of the second-floor rooms and made sure that he could reach the bell-pull (these were fitted in every first- and second-floor room. My friends and I didn't use them, but if you wanted something you could pull the rope and a maid or footman would came to see what you needed). Joe gave him a piece of paper with 'Fetch Joe Silver' written on it and told him to show it to the staff if he needed something and was unable to indicate what it was without words. Then we left him to rest.

After lunch we took Excelsior up for her first proper test flight. Almost all of my trainees had come down from London, so I had more than enough crewmen to man the ship, and the trip gave them all a chance to get used to the layout of this ship and the difference in the way she handled compared with Excalibur. That applied to me and the other officers too, because I discovered that the bridge layout had changed since I had first seen it on my birthday.

"We decided that the elevator control was going to need complete concentration on this ship," Tim explained. "So we moved the telegraphs to the other side of the bridge. Now they're controlled from the same desk as ballast control. We left gas control where it was, next to the ballast and telegraph desk, but we've put you in a proper navigation area a bit further back, because it was too awkward getting at the table where it was, and there was nowhere there to store the charts, either.

"We took out the radio desk because there's no way we can replicate the radios – at least not in the near future – but we extended the communications desk a bit, because there are more tubes needed on this ship. The electrical desk is next to communications, and the semaphore control and signaller's desk is still where it was, at the back of the gondola. What do you think?"

I looked around and decided that the layout was logical. The First Officer's seat was now where the table had been, next to the Captain's seat at the front of the gondola, and certainly having the navigation position further back did give us more space. And I thought it was sensible to allow the assistant helm to concentrate fully on the elevators, instead of having to worry about the engines as well, because keeping an æthership steady is difficult even when you know the ship well, and none of us had tried handling a four-engine ship before.

"I like it," I said. "Nice job, Tim."

Even though this was a short trip I learned a few things, including the facts that my helm teams were going to need a lot longer to get used to handling her, that not all of my officers could get a bearing right first time, and that I myself needed a lot more practice at landing a ship without venting gas. In fact I came to the conclusion that it couldn't be done: even with the elevators doing much of the work it was impossible to bring the ship low enough for a landing without venting hydrogen – at least, not unless you had a huge open plain to land in.

Nonetheless, we'd got where I'd intended and successfully found our way home again, and we'd also managed to land the ship – eventually – in one piece, and so afterwards I told the crew that they had done exceptionally well. I really hoped that we wouldn't have to fight, though, because it's one thing to fly in a straight line, but another entirely to try to out-fly an opponent in a battle situation, and at present even keeping the ship straight and level was an effort.

When I got back to the house I found that Air Admiral Faulkner had come in person with the information about Feodosia and the surrounding area.

"Sorry I got here too late for the flight," he said. "I'd like to come with you tomorrow, if you don't mind. I want to see what can be done with a ship like yours."

"Of course," I said. "My uncle will be with us too, so he should be able to answer any questions you might have. So what can you tell me about Feodosia?"

The admiral placed a map on the table in front of me.

"This is Feodosia," he said, indicating a town in the south-east corner of the Crimea. "Romanov's place is here, about eight or nine miles [12-14 km] to the south-west of it, on the edge of this big bay here, see? Most of the surrounding land is his, and as far as we're aware nobody else lives there. Now, on the other side of the bay – here – you can see the start of a range of mountains that runs away west and then south-west. The peaks are mostly eight hundred to thirteen hundred feet [250-400 m], and there are plenty of valleys between them where you could park an æthership and be reasonably confident that nobody would see it unless they flew right over it. That would leave you about five miles [8 km] from Romanov's villa. The tricky part, obviously, would be landing, but if you can do that you'll be very well placed.

"The main Russian surface naval base is at Sevastopol, which is around a hundred miles [150 km] away, but there are æthership bases at Alushta and Simferopol, which are quite a bit closer, maybe sixty miles [100 km] from Romanov's villa. So you'll need to be in and out quickly – if you give him time to get a message to either of those you're probably done for.

"Here's the only photograph we have of the actual house. You can see that it's quite a lot smaller that this place, and it doesn't have external fences, so there's nothing to stop you walking right up to the front door, although as you can see there's no cover, so you'd only be able to arrive openly. You can see the two æthership hangars behind the house, and those are protected by artillery and rocket batteries. He also has two or three surface vessels – there's a large boathouse on the seafront south of the villa, though you can't see it in the photograph.

"I hope that helps, because we don't have anything further."

"No, that's fine – at least now I can envisage the area a bit. Thank you, Sir Neil. Are these originals or copies?"

"They're all copies, so you can take them with you."

So at least now I knew where I was going, and that I had a ship which could probably get me there. Unfortunately I still didn't have even the beginnings of a proper plan.

***

After breakfast the following morning I went back to my room to put my flying uniform on – I hadn't bothered the previous day because the flight was so short. I've got three different clothes cupboards – the large wardrobe that leads to the secret passage, where I keep most of my everyday clothes; a smaller one that holds my morning and evening suits for formal occasions; and another small one where I keep my flying uniform (it's ideal for that because, unlike the other two, this one has a shelf for a hat). And when I opened the third wardrobe I found myself looking at some clothes that didn't belong to me, and I realised that this must be Pasha's stuff.

I took it all out of the wardrobe and put it on the bed. It wasn't a uniform, just ordinary clothes not too different from the ones he'd been wearing when we first met in Norway. I went through the pockets, finding some Russian coins and some keys in the trousers and a small wallet in the jacket, and I opened this eagerly, hoping to find some sort of ID card that I might be able to use in the Crimea. There were a couple of documents in Russian, but nothing that looked like an ID. The wallet also contained some banknotes, three or four visiting cards not so very different from my own, and a photograph of three boys on a beach smiling happily at the camera, just like the sort of holiday snaps most families seem to have.

"Now that's interesting," I said to myself, because the boy in the middle was Pasha himself, with his two Cossacks, Dmitri and Sergei, on either side of him. They were all bare-chested, and they had their arms around each other's shoulders, and anything less like a master and two servants it would be hard to imagine. I remembered how desperate Pasha had been to rescue Dmitri from the collapsed tunnel, and Dmitri's own description of their relationship as 'unusual', and I wondered if, just possibly, I might have the answer to our problem right here in my hand: maybe I could persuade Pasha to swap Wolfie for Dmitri…

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