David Clarke

Excelsior

Chapters 25-28

Chapter Twenty-five

Our plans for Tuesday morning went out of the window almost from the beginning: I'd put my uniform on before I'd been out of the house, and so I didn't realise quite how blowy it was. But there had been a storm overnight and the wind was still very strong and gusty – far too strong to risk bringing Excelsior out of its hanger. According to the forecast the weather was supposed to improve later, but it looked as if we were going to be limited to another short trip, and that wouldn't really give us the chance to get used to the ship in the way I had hoped. Of course, my uncle was right in saying that we could train on the way to Greece, but when you set out on a thoroughly dangerous mission it's nice to think that you have some idea of how to handle your ship first.

I was also hoping to experiment with crew numbers: I wanted to take the absolute minimum necessary to run the ship on a two-watch basis, because unless something went horribly wrong there would be no night flying necessary on this journey. The fewer people I took with me, the fewer lives I would be putting at risk. However, the problem with a steam-powered æthership is that you need stokers and greasers in every engine-room, and on this ship we had five of them. We also now had five rocket turrets, and while they wouldn't need to be manned at all times, if we came up against any Russians we had to have enough men to man all five simultaneously. The same was true of our eight guns. I wondered if we might do better to leave some of the guns behind, but I was reluctant to do that if we were going into enemy territory.

By using the rocketeers and gunners as general hands for the purposes of landing the ship – releasing mooring-lines and, if we were landing away from an established base, forming a basic ground crew – and by cutting back to three stokers per engine, I was able to reduce the ship's complement to seventy per watch, including a petty officer in each engine room. So apparently we needed a hundred and forty men, plus six officers including the Ship's Doctor.

Then I started thinking logically, and I realised that the only jobs that needed two full watches were those on the bridge and in the engine rooms. We didn't need two sets of artillerymen – after all, we'd only need to man the guns and turrets during an actual battle, so one crew for each gun and each turret would be enough. But even cutting out the second artillery teams only brought the number needed down to 106 men, plus officers, and that still seemed far too many. But I didn't think I could cut any further – at least, not until I had every member of the crew fully trained on multiple jobs, and we didn't have time for that now. And for the purposes of this training trip it was obviously best to take all the trainees and then select the one hundred and six best ones for the real journey.

We finally got airborne a little after one o'clock, and on the whole the afternoon was a disaster. There were a couple of bright spots: first of all, Sparrer showed that he was a natural as assistant helm, because by the time we'd been flying for an hour he'd mastered the balance of the new ship and was able to keep her steady, even though the wind was still quite gusty. The first thing he did was to move his chair out of the way and do the job standing up, just like the main helmsman.

"I can feel the ship through my feet like this," he explained. "You can feel every little twitch, and then you know what to do about it, sort of thing."

The bad news was that the other two assistants couldn't get it at all. The problem is that it takes a ship as big as Excelsior time to respond. A new assistant moves the elevators, sees that nothing is happening, and so he moves them even further, and then the ship responds too much, so he moves them in the opposite direction, feels that nothing is happening, and so on, with the result that the ship's nose goes up and down like a ride at the fairground, and if it goes on for too long everyone on board gets airsick. My uncle, who went to Oxford University when he was eighteen, said it's like steering a punt, but since I haven't tried that either I'm not sure if it's actually the same or not.

Anyway, with Sparrer standing right next to them and guiding them it worked well enough, but as soon as he stepped away we were back on the see-saw, and in the end I had to more or less give up and let Sparrer man the position for the rest of the afternoon.

There was better news on the other wheel: both Billy and Weasel, one of the other two helmsmen, adjusted to the new ship fairly quickly, although the third one had the same problem as the elevator operators, except of course in his case it meant that the ship went from side to side instead of up and down. The effect was equally unpleasant, and the idea of having both incompetents on duty at once was completely unthinkable.

We also lost one of the engines, which started to seize up about an hour into the journey. Fortunately the petty officer in that gondola realised immediately that there was a problem and so disengaged the engine straight away, thus avoiding further damage, but it was a problem that we couldn't solve in the air because we didn't have the necessary parts or tools on board. The one good thing that came out of that was that it gave me a chance to try running the ship on three engines, trying to balance the one starboard engine against the two port ones, and although it reduced our speed we were still able to manoeuvre like that.

We tried a 'Getting to Action Stations' drill, and that was pretty chaotic too, because the crew still hadn't got used to the layout of the ship, and that resulted in crewmen wandering around looking lost a full five minutes after the whistle had been blown. All in all, it wasn't a very encouraging voyage, and I wasn't the only person who thought so, either.

"You're not ready," said my uncle flatly, once we were back in the conference room. "You've got far too many who don't know what they're doing, and you don't need me to tell you what will happen if you run into even one Eagle with the ship as it was today.'

"We've got two thousand miles to practise in," I pointed out. "I've got two decent helmsmen and one solid assistant – if I can find someone else for the elevators we'll be fine. We'll be carrying tools and spares on the actual mission, and we'll have plenty of time to get the crew used to the ship. Yes, you're right about them not being ready to fight, but I'm not intending to fight. I promise you that at the first sign of trouble we'll run the other way. Look, Uncle, I have to do this. I'm not leaving Wolfie, and there's no other way to get there quickly enough."

"I don't like it," said my uncle.

"Nor do I," echoed Admiral Faulkner. "Whatever else happens, we simply cannot risk letting the Russians get their hands on your ship."

"I know," I said. "Don't worry: when we get to Greece we're going to set mines inside her, and if the worst happens we'll ditch in the Black Sea and detonate them. Tim says she's certain to sink if we do that, and he's confident that no equipment exists that can cut that armour underwater. They'd have to raise the whole ship, and I'm certain they wouldn't be able to do that."

The discussion lasted a little longer, but at the end of the day the Admiralty doesn't have the authority to tell privateers what they can and cannot do, and Uncle Gil stuck by his promise to me to let me make my own decisions, and so when the Admiral left us after supper, the trip was still on.

An enormous package had been delivered while were in the air, and it came with a note saying 'Have fun with this – and good luck!' signed by Charlie Cardington. Our false flag had arrived. I left it packed up for the time being as it would take up less room like that.

Also newly arrived was the militia interpreter, Lieutenant Beeching, who timed his arrival perfectly as we were about to sit down to supper when he turned up. I invited him to join us, and shortly after supper I took him upstairs to meet our resident Russian. I found Joe and Sparrer already sitting beside Dmitri's bed, and so I told them to go and have some fun for a while, saying that we could look after the patient for a bit.

Lieutenant Beeching said hello and exchanged a few phrases, establishing that Dmitri's accent wasn't too hard for him. Dmitri confirmed that he was feeling okay and that there was nothing he needed, and so I turned to go, but before I reached the door Dmitri said, "Wait! I want to talk about the Jew."

I don't like hearing any of my friends referred to like that. In Joe's case I hadn't liked it when Carmody referred to him in that way, and I liked it a great deal less coming from a Russian.

"What?" I said, and Beeching hardly needed to translate that for my hostility to be obvious.

"No, you misunderstand," said Dmitri. "You must realise that between my people and his there is a lot of history. Maybe you don't know a lot about Russia… do you know the meaning of the word 'pogrom'?"

I didn't, but it turned out that Beeching, who was four years older than me and so had been through more education, did.

"The Jews in Russia went through periods when they were tolerated, interspersed with periods when they weren't," he explained. "It depended on what was happening politically and who was on the throne at the time. And so every so often the Jews would be attacked and killed."

He said something to Dmitri, who nodded. "And when the Little Father decreed that the Jews had to go, it was usually we Cossacks who were given the job," Dmitri said. "Even today, Jews in the Empire view us with suspicion. So when I discovered that your servant was a Jew, at first I feared for my life – I thought he would smother me in the night. But instead he has done all that he could to ensure that I was comfortable and had everything I needed, and last night he moved a mattress into the room and slept on it, so as to be nearby if I were to wake up in the night. I could not have asked for more, even from a close comrade. Ask him yourself what he has done for me, and make sure he understands that I want him to tell you.

"To be treated as I have been, by you and by your servants generally and by the Jew in particular, seems to me to be extraordinary, and so I wanted to thank you. You have my deep gratitude. And if I can ever repay the service – without betraying my master, obviously – I would be happy for an opportunity to do so."

"Thank you, Dmitri Igorovitch," I said. "But please could you not refer to him as 'The Jew'? He has a name, you know."

"Yes, I know. But it is the fact of his religion that makes his behaviour so unbelievable. I meant no slur by it."

"Okay, then. I'll get either Joe or Lieutenant Beeching here to come by later to see that you have everything you need. And if you need us before then, just ring the bell."

I said 'Thank you' to the lieutenant and went to find Joe, eventually running him to ground in the reading room, where he was playing chess with Sparrer. I closed the door and sat down next to him.

"I've just been talking to Dmitri," I said. "He couldn't believe that you hadn't killed him in his sleep."

"You should have seen his face when I told him I was Jewish," he said, grinning at me. "You know I'm not much of a fighter, and so nobody has ever looked or acted remotely scared of me before. It was interesting. And when I told him that my grandparents had actually been born in Russia… well, let's just say it didn't seem to calm him down. But I told him that I really wasn't interested in ancient history, and that all I cared about was looking after him.

"It took him a while to relax, but after an hour or so we were getting on fairly well. It's difficult being stuck in bed, especially when you need the toilet, and he got quite embarrassed, but I got him to relax by joking about it, and that helped. And then when he woke up this morning he got really embarrassed because he'd had a wet dream. He said he wouldn't have told me, except that Dr Harries was supposed to be coming to check up on him and he didn't want to get caught with sticky pyjamas.

"So I got them off him and helped him to clean up, and I made some comment like, 'That must have been one hell of a good dream!' or something, because there was loads of it, and he said it was because he hadn't been able to masturbate since last Thursday, and he was afraid it was going to happen a few more times unless he could learn to do it left-handed. So I offered to do it for him."

"Bloody hell!" I said. "How did that go down?"

"Pretty well, actually. Of course, Cossacks already think that Jews are about as low as it gets, so a gay Jew couldn't be any lower… except he said he didn't think it was gay to get a friend to help you if you couldn't do it yourself. So I queried the 'friend' part of that, and he said he considered me his friend now, despite my religion – in fact he seemed to think that maybe he'd been misinformed about the iniquities of the Jewish people…

"Anyway, from that point on he relaxed completely and started calling me 'Osya' – I didn't even know that there was a diminutive of 'Ioseph' in Russian, but apparently there is – and asked me to call him 'Dima', so I guess you could say that we're getting on pretty well. Not so well that I'll be able to persuade him to stab Pasha in the back – he seems to look at Pasha rather in the way that your orphans look at you – but I should think he might be prepared to say some nice things about you when he gets home, if that's going to help."

"If he ends up back with Pasha it'll mean we've already achieved everything we want," I said, "because he doesn't go back to Pasha unless Wolfie comes back to us. Still, if you don't mind carrying on looking after him it might be no bad thing."

"I don't mind at all. Actually I'm starting to like him. So I'll carry on sleeping in his room and, er, giving him a hand when necessary."

"I'm sure that won't be too great a hardship for you!" I said.

The next interview was, I thought, not going to be half as much fun, because this was the point at which I was supposed to go to my uncle and give him my plan to rescue Wolfie, and, barring a half-formed idea about swapping him for Dmitri, I had no real plan at all.

"I'm going to talk to him," I told my uncle. "I'm going to try to persuade him to exchange Wolfie for Dmitri. I think there's at least a chance that he'll accept." I backed that up by showing my uncle the photo.

"What makes you think he won't just grab you as well?"

"Well… I know it's a risk, but so far we've both kept our word. After all, I had him and I let him go. Alex thinks it's a risk because he's convinced that Pasha is insane, but even if he is I hope that the photo is evidence that he does have normal human feelings, no matter how deep he tries to bury them. And if I tell him that Alex is in command of my ship in my absence – which he will be – and that what happens to Dmitri is going to be in Alex's hands, I think that'll help too: he seemed to think Alex doesn't have the same weaknesses that I do – things like honour, decency and so on. If he thinks that Dmitri's life really is on the line, perhaps he'll play it straight. And if he doesn't, I'm going to leave Alex with orders to fly over Pasha's villa and bomb it to hell and back, even if Wolfie and I are still inside. I think our armour will protect the ship from his rockets for long enough to make the point."

"You realise that could just get both you and Wolfie killed?"

"Obviously. But maybe I'll get Alex to concentrate on the æthership hangers instead of the house – that will make the same point with less risk to ourselves."

"Yes, that might do the trick. There's one problem with that, though: will Alex be able to land the ship again afterwards?"

"Ah. I hadn't thought of that. Still, maybe the threat will be enough – and maybe I can teach Alex how to do it before we get there. After all, it's not so very long ago that I couldn't do it either."

"Don't forget the added problem of losing gas," he reminded me. "Every time you land the ship, especially if you're trying to land vertically in a valley, you're going to have to vent hydrogen. You can probably get away with one landing like that, but anything more and you're going to reduce your lift."

"All right, but if we have to we can compensate by dumping ballast, and if that isn't enough I'll chuck a couple of guns into the sea. We'll manage, Uncle."

"Actually, I think you will," he said. "You're thinking like a captain, anyway. I wonder if Alex is able to think like a First Officer yet?"

He rang the bell-pull, and when Allchorn appeared he asked him to go and fetch Alex.

"Here's a scenario for you," he said to Alex when he arrived. "Leo and Wolfie are still in Romanov's villa, leaving you in charge of the ship. Your spotters report that there are three Eagles heading in your direction. What do you do?"

"I run," said Alex. "We can't beat three Eagles, so we head for Turkey. Of course, once they've gone we go back. And if they're still there, we wait until it's dark and then go back."

"Do you think you can navigate in the dark?"

"Yes, I should think so. After all, if we reverse our bearing we should get close enough to see the lights of Feodosia. The Eagles, if they're still there after dark…"

"Which I'm sure they wouldn't be," I put in.

"Right, but even if they are, they'll have to have their lights on to avoid crashing into each other. So we'll have three nicely-lit up targets to aim at, and our lights will be out, so they won't be able to see us. We give them a full broadside using everything, guns and all five turrets, and then run away again before they can aim at the rocket trails and fire back. How am I doing so far?"

Well, I was impressed: Alex had obviously been thinking about this.

"Good as long as there's no moon," said my uncle. "Have you checked what phase it will be?"

"No, but I can remember that it was a new moon the night Wolfie disappeared, so it won't be more than first quarter by the time we get to Feodosia," said Alex. "And provided there's some cloud as well we should be okay."

"Yes, he is," said my uncle to me. That confused me until I realised that he was answering his own question from a few minutes earlier about whether Alex was able to think like a First Officer. "Very well, Leo, you have my support. I've been talking to the French High Command, and they've agreed to mount a raid or two across the Weser in the direction of Hannover. Obviously that won't help you directly, but it will keep the Russian High Command preoccupied and less inclined to get involved in a minor skirmish on the Black Sea. But the most important thing is still going to be time: you must get in and out before Romanov can notify the two Russian æthership bases Sir Neil told you about. He probably has enough clout that they'd respond to an order from him without referring it to the High Command first.

"And now I'd suggest that you go to bed, because if you're leaving at first light you'll have to be up soon after five."

Alex followed me up the stairs, and when he opened his own bedroom door I told him to close it again.

"I don't want to be on my own tonight," I said, "because if I am I'm just going to lie there awake for ages thinking about everything that might go wrong. Maybe if you're there I won't do that."

"What you need," he said, following me into my room, "is a good massage."

I thought that was a really excellent idea, and it certainly got me relaxed: despite everything that had happened I slept really well.

***

Alex's watch alarm got us up just after five. We washed, dressed in our flying uniforms, packed a small bag each with changes of clothing, and then went down to breakfast.

"You're in luck with the weather," my uncle observed. "There's hardly any wind, so you should be able to get away as soon as it's light enough to see what you're doing. I'd get the stokers up to the ship at about half-past: I've already arranged for the ground crew to move her to the mast at that time."

"Thank you, Uncle," I said. Now that the moment had arrived I was feeling nervous again and I didn't really fancy breakfast too much, but I forced myself to eat something anyway to give me the energy to get through the day.

As soon as I'd finished I gathered up my friends (except for Joe, who was going to get Dmitri into the wheelchair and then bring him up to the ship) and we made our way to the upper mast. There was just enough light in the sky for us to be able to see the ship emerging from its hanger, so Alex headed off to round up the stokers while the rest of us watched as the ground crew moored the ship to the mast.

Of course we couldn't use the lights on the bridge gondola until the electric generator was running, and so to start with I just sat in my chair and waited, trying to plan ahead and think of ways to deal with everything that could possibly go wrong. That kept me busy for a long time, and in fact I felt I'd barely started to scratch the surface when the lights came on.

This ship was better equipped than Excalibur in that it had proper crew quarters with enough bunks for eighty crew and eight officers, and I had quite a nice cabin not too far from the ladder up from the bridge gondola. All the accommodation was at the bottom of the ship and so below the hydrogen bags, and this was also a big improvement on Excalibur, where cabins and sleeping areas had been fitted into small spaces all over the ship. So we took our bags to our cabins and then went back to the bridge, and Alex and I started to work out our first bearing: today's leg of the journey was to take us to Parma, which in this world was in France, in the département of Taro. We couldn't quite fly there in a straight line as that would have taken us over a corner of the neutral Swiss Confederation, so we were heading first for Lyon, where we would change course for Parma. That would keep us over French territory throughout the journey, which – in theory at least – meant that we would be free to run drills without any danger of a real attack developing.

Joe and Dr Harries brought Dmitri aboard and carried him, with some difficulty, up the ladder and along to the cabin which I had arranged for him, next to Joe's own and with the doctor not too far away. There was no point in bringing the wheelchair, since Dmitri would be in bed throughout the journey, so my uncle said he would take it back to the house when we left.

Alex went to take a roll-call of the crew, who had assembled outside the ship, and came back to say that everyone was accounted for, and that he had selected the names we had agreed the previous evening, thanked the rest and apologised that there was no room for them on this mission, but added that if we had to undertake any long, overnight journeys, we would need all of them.

My uncle shook my hand.

"Take it easy for the first couple for days," he suggested. "You'll get to Parma well before sunset even if you don't go above cruising speed, so take it a bit slower and use the time for training. If you can build the crew's confidence before you leave Greece they'll be a lot more relaxed about the third day.

"Good luck – and if you don't bring the ship back in one piece, you're in trouble!"

He shook my hand again and stepped out of the gondola, and the ground crew released the mooring cables and stepped back.

"Helm, up five degrees, one quarter speed," I ordered, and the ship began to move. I stood up and looked down at the house as we climbed, wondering if I'd ever see it again. Finally I sighed and looked away.

"Helm, come to bearing one-five-five and climb to seven hundred and fifty feet [225 m]. All engines, cruise speed. Mr Demetriou, you have the bridge."

It was about five hundred miles [800 km] to Lyon and then another two hundred and fifty [400 km] to Parma, which was around ten hours at cruising speed, provided that we didn't have to skirt around any heavy weather, and none was forecast. That would get us to our destination well before sunset, so we wouldn't have to strain the engines at all.

"Call me if anything happens," I said to Alex as I reached the foot of the ladder. "I'm going to have a walk round the ship."

Most of the off-duty watch were trying out their bunks, though some, and the gunners and rocketeers, who were strictly on duty, were sitting around in the two crew's quarters day-rooms, playing cards or dice or, in a couple of cases, reading books. I warned them that there would almost certainly be a drill before the watch was out and left them to their games.

Next on my list was one of the engine gondolas, and here I found two stokers working while the third rested, which was how it was supposed to be: it's hard to shovel coal non-stop through a four-hour watch. The gondola petty officer, who was also the engineer, did seem to be keeping a close eye on his engine, but the final crew-member, who was responsible for keeping the engine lubricated and helping the officer if a problem arose, was with the spare stoker, looking out of the window.

I was already starting to think that we were over-staffed: probably I only really needed two stokers to a boiler, not three, and maybe the grease-monkey could cover more than one gondola. And there were a lot of gunners and rocketeers who were likely to get through their entire watch doing nothing at all, unless we ran some drills for them. Of course, when we were in action I supposed that almost everyone would be busy, but right now it just looked inefficient.

I went forward again, stopping in at the small sick bay, where I found Dr Harries happily reading a newspaper, and then went on to the officers' cabins. The only one of the eight cabins currently occupied held Dmitri and Lieutenant Beeching, who had apparently just popped in to make sure that the patient was comfortable (Joe was on duty, of course).

"Everything all right?" I asked Dmitri.

"Yes, thank you. These cabins are better than the ones on Suvorov. I've never seen such a large bunk on an æthership."

There was a reason for that, of course: the likelihood was that some of the officers at least would prefer not to sleep alone, and in fact when the cabins were being installed Wolfie and I had worked exactly how much sleeping space we needed and had then asked for a bunk big enough to sleep both of us in comfort. Knowing that Alex and Joe were similarly likely to be sharing their quarters I had ensured that all the officer cabins were similarly equipped.

"There's no reason not to be comfortable in a warship," I replied. "Anyway, I just wanted to warn you that we'll be holding some drills before too long, so don't worry if you hear the alarm sounded. You just stay here and relax. If there's ever a real alarm I'll make sure that we don't forget you. In any case there's a jumpshade under your bunk, and I'm sure Joe will come and rescue you if we have to abandon ship. I'm fairly sure that won't happen today, though, not unless the French have changed sides without telling us."

I went back to the bridge and Beeching came with me. By now the sea was in view, so we were progressing nicely. I decided to run the first action drill once we were safely across the Channel. I also wanted to get at least one drill done before the watch changed and we found ourselves at the mercy of the trainee elevator operator… and then I had an idea.

"You live in Oxford, don't you?" I asked Beeching.

"That's right. Why?"

"Well, have you ever been in a punt?"

"Yes, of course."

"Then would you be so kind as to relieve Mr Sparrow at the elevator wheel? See, my uncle says handling the wheels is like steering a punt – there's a sort of delayed reaction problem which most people can't overcome. But maybe if you're used to handling a punt…"

"Well, I'll have a try if you like. But I've never even flown before, far less worked the controls."

"Ben, could you give him a quick lesson?" I asked.

"Yeah, why not? He's got to be better than them prick… sorry, them pillocks we had doing it last time. What do I call you, then?" he added to Beeching.

"You call him 'Sir'," I said. "He's an officer. You can tell that from his uniform."

"Yeah, a land officer," said Sparrer, scornfully. "That don't really count."

"Oh, yes it does," I started.

"It's fine," said the lieutenant. "If I'm doing a crewman's job you can call me 'Chris'. But when we're on the ground you'd better call me 'Sir', or else!"

"You don't scare me!" said Sparrer, grinning at him. "Besides, I ain't going on the ground, not this trip. So, you stand here, with your feet apart a bit – you can feel the ship better that way – and you take hold of the wheel. Normally you move both the elevators at the same time, but if you want to do one and not the other you use this lever here.

"Then you got a load of instruments to tell you what's happening: your little angle thingy what tells you what angle you're climbing or diving at, the other two angle thingies what show you the position each elevator is in, these two little bubble things what tell you if the ship is level sideways and longways, your altimeter, what tells you how far up we are, them two gauges what tell you what the wind's doing and how fast it is, and these other bits and pieces what I don't really understand, so I ignore them and you might as well too."

I didn't really like the sound of that and hoped there was nothing important among the 'bits and pieces'.

"Now you have a go," Sparrer went on. "Just remember it takes time for the ship to change what it's doing, so if you think we need to go down a bit, just move the wheel down a bit and then level off again – and don't do nothing else, even if you think it's not working. Wait, and it'll happen."

Beeching took his place at the elevator wheel, and I sidled over to the navigation table to have a look at the wind gauges. It was a little bit blowy here in mid-Channel, so I waited for the first see-saw bump, and sure enough we went down and then up again a couple of times for a couple of minutes. But then the ship levelled again.

"I think I've got it now," said the lieutenant, and indeed after that there were hardly any bumps at all.

"Bloody hell, you got that quick!" said Sparrer. "It took me at least half an hour to work it out, and them other kids never got it at all. Leo… Sorry, I mean Captain, I reckon he's a natural!"

"Do you want a job?" I asked Beeching. "I mean, provided we all get back in one piece from this trip, and provided the militia can spare you, that is. If we do and they can I'd like you to join the crew permanently."

"Really? I'd never really thought about flying… I tell you what – ask me again when we get back home. That should give me a chance to see if I like it. But I don't mind filling in here for this mission, if you like."

"Great! Thanks – that's really solved one of our biggest problems. I'll make sure you get a full crewman's pay on top of your interpreter's fee, too. All right, you're now assistant helm for Number Two watch. You're off duty at the moment, so you can give the wheel back to Mr Sparrow. But if you're off duty when we land this evening, could you please come and watch? I'd like you to be able to do that too, if at all possible."

Sparrer took over again and I went and sat down in the captain's chair next to Billy, feeling greatly relieved: at least now I wouldn't have half the crew feeing seasick.

Once we were across the Channel I told Alex to give me five minutes to get into position and then call battle stations. I made my way to the point where the main walkway intersected with the central staircase and waited, and a couple of minutes later the whistle was sounded and people started to scurry about. In fairness it was a little better than our attempt the previous day had been, but not by much. Once everyone had finally reached their correct station I made my way around the entire ship, checking that everyone was where they were supposed to be. This time I also thought to go and check up on the off-duty watch, and was dismayed to realise just how many people I had standing around doing nothing even under battle stations. We were definitely over-manned.

"All right," I told them. "For now you wait here, in the crew day rooms. If we take casualties, you'll be either directed to replace them by the communications desk or by one of us officers. Otherwise just wait here for further orders. But stay awake, because I can guarantee there will be more drills before today is over – and 'll expect you to get to your stations faster than the current bunch."

I went back to the bridge and told Joe to stand the crew down, and then I sank into my chair next to Alex.

"The trouble with making it up as you go along," I said, "is that if you do it after the mission has already started it's difficult to put things right. We've got about forty more people on board than we really need… well, maybe not as many as forty. But some, anyway. When we're at action stations, everyone should have a job to do."

"I'm not sure we can manage that," he replied. "What are you going to do with off-duty stokers?"

"If we'd thought to train all the stokers as gunners as well we could have left all the gun crews behind. God, I'm so useless! I should have worked all this out weeks ago!"

"No, you're not. Anyway, we didn't even know any of this was going to happen weeks ago – we thought we had at least a year to get the details right. Anyway, better too many than too few. And if it comes to a fight, we can always give all the extra crew rifles and get them to shoot at the enemy gondolas. That might be useful."

"No, we can't, because we didn't bring any rifles, either, which was pretty stupid, because actually that's a good idea. How did you think of that?"

He shrugged. "In the Napoleonic Wars, ships used to carry marines, and one of their jobs was to shoot at enemy officers during naval battles. That's how Nelson died, remember? And in a way, these ships aren't so very different: they're fairly slow and they fight close to the enemy ships. And since all our crewmen did some rifle training at Oxford…"

Of course I knew that history was Alex's best subject, but I hadn't realised how any of it could be applied today. But this was definitely an idea worth pursuing.

"If we get to Parma early enough, maybe we can buy some rifles," I said. "If we can arm the rest of our crewmen, at least it won't have been completely pointless bringing them all along. Nice one, Alex!"

At ten o'clock we changed watches. Since this was the first time that Albie had been in charge I said I would stay on the bridge for an hour or so, but he seemed to be coping with the bearings quite comfortably, and so I left him to it after half an hour and walked up to the forward observation post and watched the French landscape slip by for a while. We ran another drill about midway through Albie's watch, which was a bit better than the first one, and then a third one half an hour later. That one wasn't too bad at all, but it was still slower than I would have liked.

We landed at Parma shortly before four in the afternoon. The only tricky bit was exchanging signals with the ground at the Parma æthership base, because although Joe could by now manage the semaphore in English, he'd never had to use it in French before. Fortunately it turned out that Chris Beeching spoke French as well as Russian, and because he was a communications officer in the militia he also knew how to use a semaphore. I was starting to think that bringing him with us was about the only thing I'd got right so far.

Once we'd landed and I'd made the arrangements with the base commander for refuelling – I took Tim with me to do that, since his French was the best at my disposal – I asked if he knew where I could obtain some rifles, and he just asked how many I needed. It was that easy. So I ordered forty, with plenty of ammunition, and he said everything would be ready for our departure the following morning. Then I assembled the rest of the crew outside the barracks we were going to be using (we still had more crewmen than there were bunks on the ship) and told them what I thought of the day's drills. The gist of the message was 'improving, but can still be better', though I balanced it with the comment that I had no complaints at all about the actual flying of the ship. On the whole, I supposed things could have been worse.

The following day the drills were a bit better, and then, the second time around, a lot better. Overall it was a good day, though we had to divert a little to the east to avoid a thunderstorm over the Adriatic, and that meant that we had to fly over Illyria instead of over the sea for much of the day. We followed the coast all the way down to Ragusa and then went back over the sea to avoid overflying Montenegro or Albania (Albania was neutral, but I'd developed an allergy to two-headed black eagles). When we reached Corfu we headed east and reached Thessalonika shortly before five o'clock.

Now it was Alex's turn to struggle with the semaphore, and at least he understood which mast we were directed to, even if he didn't understand too much else – the fault of the semaphore system, he assured us, and not a deficiency of his Greek. And in fact once we were on the ground he found, much to his own surprise, that he was able to carry on a conversation with the duty officer at the base. Of course he lacked some of the necessary vocabulary: for some reason his Greek School classes in Palmers Green had neglected to teach him such essential phrases as 'Our æthership needs more coal, water and hydrogen' and 'We need a barracks for twenty-six crewmen' (the remaining eighty would be sleeping on board, of course), though he did find it easier to ask what time the mess would be open. In the end, with the help of a dictionary provided by the base officer, he managed to arrange everything we needed.

After we had eaten I sat down with the other officers, Tim and Beeching, whom I considered to be an officer even though he was working as a crewman, and we had a look at the map of the Black Sea.

"It's about seven hundred miles [1100 km]," I said. "We can do that comfortably enough. Ideally I'd prefer to approach from the north, because I bet Pasha won't be looking that way. But that's going to be too dangerous: we'd have to pass far too close to the Russian naval base at Sevastopol, and you can bet that there will be ætherships all over that. So I'm going to try to stay well to the south and then approach the Crimea from the south-east, as if we'd come from Georgia. That way there are likely to be fewer enemy ætherships to bluff our way past, and if we make a mess of the Russian – no offence to either Chris or Joe – they'll put it down to us being Georgian and so only having Russian as our second language.

"I want us to reach Feodosia a little before sunset. That should give us time to land before it gets dark but won't give them time to get a ship into the air to investigate if anyone sees us."

"Okay, but then what?" asked Alex. "Assuming everything goes well – big assumption, but still – and we manage to land without being attacked: what then?"

"Then I go visiting," I said. "I'll go to Pasha's villa and knock on the door."

"Just like that?" said Alex.

"Just like that."

"And what happens if you run into a patrol on the way and they take you somewhere else – or even shoot you?"

"I'll carry a white flag if you like."

"I think you should take someone with you," said Joe. "Me, preferably, because if we do meet any Russians I'll be able to speak to them for you."

"I don't want him getting his hands on anyone other than me," I said. "So I think I have to go on my own."

"My first question still stands," said Alex. "If you go on your own you might never reach Pasha's place at all."

"How about this?" suggested Albie. "You take Joe with you, and also a squad of men. That way you'll have a proper escort. When you get in sight of Pasha's front door, Joe brings the escort back here, so none of them gets captured, and you go on alone. That way you get there safely, but nobody else is put at risk."

"Well, that's fine unless we run into a bigger squad than the one I'm taking," I said. "It won't help anyone if we start shooting at each other."

"We can't cover all the possibilities," said Albie. "I think taking Joe and a small escort is your best option, though."

I wasn't totally convinced, but in the end I went along with it. I then showed them the photos that Admiral Faulkner had given me.

"If I'm not back with you by midday on Saturday," I said, "I'd suggest you make a flying pass of Pasha's villa and see if you can bomb his æthership hangars, or fire a couple of rockets at them, or both. But just one pass, okay? He's sure to have rockets, and while I think our armour will work in the short term, I don't want you to take any risks. After that we'll just have to play it by ear. Alex, I'll talk to you this evening about what to do if shooting up his estate doesn't work. The rest of you, get plenty of rest. Tomorrow is likely to be difficult."

That night Alex and I shared my cabin on the ship, first because I fancied another massage, and second, because there were some things I needed to say to him. The massage was every bit as good as the previous one had been, and I felt better afterwards.

"Okay, listen," I said, pulling him down onto the bunk next to me. "If he won't let me go even after you've shot up his place, you have to swear that you'll take the ship back to Greece. Shut up," I added, as he opened his mouth to argue. "You can't keep the ship there any longer because you can bet he'll send to the nearest æthership bases when you attack him at the very latest, if not before, and we know we can't fight multiple Eagles. So you have to get the ship back home, and then my uncle can make a formal application to the Russian government for me to be ransomed – I'm not as important as Wolfie, so they'll almost certainly accept.

"If you stay, all that will happen is that the ship will be destroyed and everyone on board will be killed, and that won't help me or Wolfie. If you make it back home there's a good chance that my uncle will be able to get me back. And maybe I'll still be able to persuade Pasha to let Wolfie come with me."

"Yeah, like that's gonna happen!"

"Well, it might. So I want you to swear, Alex, okay?"

"We can't get all the way back without you. Albie and I aren't that great at navigating."

"Well, make Graham up to Acting Second Officer. He's been trained. Or you could ask Chris Beeching, because he seems to be able to do just about everything else. But I'm really not prepared to argue about this, Alex."

"Neither am I. We're not going to leave you behind, okay? I don't know how many soldiers Romanov has, but I would imagine there aren't that many, at least not actually at the villa. It's supposed to be a holiday place, and it's deep in the heart of Russian territory, so why would he keep soldiers there? I'm betting there are half a dozen or so Cossacks like Dmitri and nothing much else. If we armed forty of our guys I bet we could take the whole place!"

"And what if you're wrong? Suppose there are fifty Cossacks? I wouldn't be surprised to find that he has some heavy weapons there, too. Sorry, Alex, but I can't let you do that."

"Well, let's see what the defence is like when I bomb the place. I should get some idea from that of how many men he's got."

"Well, okay, but if it turns out the place is well defended, will you promise me that you'll fly back to Greece?"

He was silent for a moment.

"Okay," he said, finally. "If it looks to be too well defended I'll order the ship back to Greece. But that had better not happen, okay? I'm counting on you to talk your way past him."

"Don't worry," I said. "I can promise you I'll be doing everything I can to do that."

"You'd better."

He snuggled up to me and went to sleep, but I lay awake for quite a long time thinking about what I could say to Pasha, and what would happen if I failed to convince him. And the more I thought about it, the less confident I felt.

Chapter Twenty-six

The first job we had to do the following morning was getting our false flag in position, and it was a hell of a performance, because you can imagine how big that canvas was. We carried it and put it on the ground in front of the ship's nose and then began to open it out, and it wasn't too long before we got a substantial surprise: I'd been expecting a black eagle, but the first colour we exposed was blue.

"What the hell's this?" I asked, but nobody knew, so we kept unfolding and unfolding until we found ourselves looking at a vast blue, yellow and red tricolour, in the centre of which was a pale blue shield that held a gold eagle.

"He's sent us the wrong flag!" I said.

"No, he hasn't," said Lieutenant Beeching. "Actually he's been quite clever. This is the flag of Romania. The Romanians are allied to the Russians but they're not part of the Russian Empire, and it wouldn't be too surprising to see Romanian ships above the Black Sea. And of course what you said about Georgia is even more true of Romania: if Joe and I slip up with our Russian they won't be surprised."

"Maybe not," I said. "But what happens if we meet a genuine Romanian ship? I don't suppose you speak Romanian – or do you?"

"Sorry," said Beeching. "I'd suggest that if we see a real Romanian we should have a problem with our semaphore: drop the pole down about halfway and then stop and jerk it about a bit, like it's stuck and we're trying to free it. Then we just smile and shrug at them out of the gondola window and sail happily on."

That seemed like a perfectly sensible answer to me, so I said so, and then we got back to the problem of trying to get the canvas into position over the ship's nose. It took us about an hour, and that was with the help of one of the base's crane operators, but eventually we had it perfectly positioned across Excelsior's nose. The canvas came back far enough to cover the ship's name, too: instead of Excelsior and a lion, we now had a gold, single-headed eagle above the name Vlad Ţepeş.

"Who's Verlad Teeps?" asked Sparrer.

"It's not 'Teeps'," Beeching told him. "It's pronounced 'Tsepesh'. Vlad Ţepeş was an ancient ruler of part of Romania, and he's something of a national hero. 'Ţepeş' actually means 'Impaler' – he liked to kill his enemies by impaling them on stakes, and since he was at war with the Turks for most of his reign he needed a lot of stakes. He's supposed to have executed about sixty thousand people that way."

"Vlad the Impaler," said Alex. "I've heard of him – wasn't he the original Dracula?"

Beeching looked blank. "Well, yes, his father held the title Dracul, meaning The Dragon or The Snake, and so his son was called Son of the Dragon, or Dracula. But what do you mean by 'the original Dracula'?"

"Ah. I guess you've never seen a Christopher Lee film, have you? I suppose cinema is a bit different here, if it exists at all. Well, someone wrote a book about a vampire called Dracula, and it's been turned into loads of films in my world. My world has this thing about vampires – there are loads of films, books and TV programs about them. If I ever get home I'll maybe bring a copy of Twilight back with me…"

He broke off, realising that everyone was staring at him: Beeching, for one, had no idea that he came from another world, and nobody else could understand half of what he was talking about.

"Never mind," said Alex. "Let's just get started, shall we?"

We checked that the canvas was properly anchored to the first and third upper turrets, the bridge, Engine Gondolas One and Two and the front gun port on each side, and then we notified the base that we were leaving and got aboard. The ship climbed into the sky and headed east.

"I think we should change our route," I said, calling the other officers to the navigating table. "Now that we're supposed to be Romanian it would be better if we went more or less straight towards the Crimea. I still want to stay well clear of Sevastopol – there's no point in looking for trouble – but once we're clear of there we can head straight for Feodosia. It'll save time, which is good, because we lost the best part of an hour and a half getting the canvas on."

"What do you want us to say if we get challenged by an Eagle?" asked Beeching.

I looked at the larger map. "Okay," I said. "Let's see: we're travelling on a friendship visit to… this place should do: Tsaritsyn. That's more or less in a straight line from Feodosia."

"Stalingrad," said Alex. "Tsaritsyn became Stalingrad after the revolution. Then they changed the name again after Stalin died, but I can't remember what to."

Even I had heard about what happened at Stalingrad during the Second World War.

"Okay," I said. It's a big enough place to warrant a friendship visit, anyway. And we come from… pick a Romanian town," I said to Beeching. "Preferably one with a short name."

"Iaşi?" he suggested. "Only four letters. But it's a bit far north – it would be odd to come south of the Crimea if we were going from there to Tsaritsyn. What about Constanţa? It's a longer name, but a much more logical route."

"As long as you can spell it on the semaphore it'll do," I said. "Let's hope we don't need to find out."

We cruised on, leaving Greece behind us. For about an hour we were over neutral Turkey, but there was no way to avoid that if we didn't want to trespass into Bulgarian air space, and that would have been a bad idea because Bulgaria was a very close ally of Russia. But there was no challenge from the Turks, and soon we could see the Black Sea ahead of us.

The weather was perfect for flying: what wind there was was behind us, and there were hardly any clouds in the sky. Soon we had left the coast behind and could see nothing but water. This was the first time that Alex, and later Albie, had needed to command the ship when there were no visible landmarks to refer to, but they both stuck to the bearing we had calculated before leaving Thessalonika and I saw no reason to change anything they were doing. We saw occasional surface vessels below us but no other ætherships, at least not for the first six hundred miles or so of the journey. That was the point at which I had decided that we would be far enough past Sevastopol that we could turn directly towards Feodosia, and so we changed to a bearing of zero-three-zero, which I thought ought to give us a landfall on the Kerch Peninsula, directly to the east of Feodosia, and so a nice distance away from the Russian æthership base at Alushta.

Of course it would have done that if we'd been exactly where we'd thought we were when we changed course. But the problem with changing course over the ocean is that you can't be absolutely sure of your position…

We'd slowed down a bit because I didn't want to get there too early: sunset was due at about half past six, so I certainly didn't want to get there before half past five, and six o'clock would be better.

"Land ahead," announced Sam Sullivan from the communications desk. "Forward observation post reports land off the port bow."

I got my telescope out, and sure enough there was land on the horizon. There was rather too much of it, though: soon I could see that we were flying on a converging course with a long coastline.

"We're too far west," I said, diving for the charts. "Helm, come to zero-five-zero. Maintain seven hundred and fifty feet. All engines, bring us up to cruising speed."

"Æthership to port," said Beeching, who was on the elevators and so looking out of the port side of the gondola. "It's coming straight for us."

I aimed my telescope over his shoulder.

"It's an Eagle," I said. "Mr Sullivan, call Mr Sparrow back to the bridge, because I think we'll need Chris on the semaphore. And then sound Action Stations."

The Eagle kept coming. I wondered whether our canvas had come loose. There was no way of telling from inside the ship, of course, so I just had to hope it was still in place. Lord Cardington's supplier had done an excellent job of matching the background colour of the canvas to our own blue-grey – I suppose my uncle had sent him a sample of the armour to work from – and the ropes were the same colour, so in theory you'd have to be very close to notice it, but if it was crooked, or if a guy rope had come undone, we'd be done for.

I cheered myself up by thinking about the excellent job Pasha's crew had done in transforming Suvorov into André Masséna – I hadn't been able to spot the canvas until I was fifty feet away from it. But obviously this situation was a great deal more dangerous.

By now the Eagle was turning to run parallel to us around a hundred yards off our port beam.

"Engines, drop to one quarter speed," I ordered. "Lower the semaphore."

Sparrer had taken Beeching's place at the elevators, so the militia man was free to sit at the semaphore desk. Joe was already on the bridge, even though he wasn't actually on duty, and so he was able to come and read the Russian's signals.

The Russian reduced his speed to match ours and deployed his own semaphore pole, which started to signal us.

"Identify yourself," read Joe.

"Send 'Vlad Ţepeş out of Constanţa'," I said, and Chris set to work.

"Destination?" said Joe.

"Stalingrad… no, Tsaritsyn," I corrected. "Friendship visit."

"You are too close to a restricted military area," said Joe.

"Apologise," I said to Chris. "Tell him we lost our bearings over the Sea and only realised where we were ten minutes ago."

That took a while to send even in signallers' abbreviations, but he got it done.

There was a worrying pause. Then, finally, the Russian's semaphore started moving again.

"Maintain current heading," said Joe. "Weather ahead clear. Good journey."

"Send 'Thank you'," I said. "Then get the arm up before he thinks to ask us anything else."

Chris did that, and I ordered, "All engines ahead at cruise speed. Maintain current heading and level."

The Russian turned and headed back towards the land, and I went and looked again at the charts, and then through my telescope at the coast.

"Good thing we changed course when we did," I commented. "If we'd kept going the way we were we'd have hit the coast right on top of their base at Alushta. No wonder they sent someone out to see what we were playing at. Okay, Mr Sullivan, stand the men down. Joe, Chris, thank you very much. Nice job."

We flew on. Soon I could see the coast curving out to meet us: that would be the headland close to Sudak, the last town before Feodosia, and once we were past the headland we were safely out of sight of the Russian base. Of course it didn't mean that nobody was watching us, but I hoped it meant that nobody who mattered was watching us.

"All engines, drop to half speed. Helm, come to zero-one-zero and take us up to one thousand feet – and watch where you're going, Mr Weasel: most of the mountains ahead are higher than that. Use your common sense and take us around anything that looks like it's in our way. We're looking for a suitable valley, big enough to take the ship and preferably without too much water in the bottom. Sam, pass that on to the forward spotters."

We reached the coast, but instead of going straight ahead Weasel took us along it for a short distance and then swung inland, following the course of a small river.

"Nice thinking," I congratulated him. "All right, follow this and see where it takes us. Engines, drop to one quarter."

We followed the river, which branched a couple of times. Weasel chose to follow the smaller arm each time, and soon we were following a stream that was leading us up into a narrowing valley. By now we were flying below the height of the peaks on either side of us.

This was just about perfect, because the land was rising ahead of us, which meant that all we had to do was to fly level and we'd be able to land almost without venting any gas at all. The valley we were heading into was more than wide enough to take the ship, and there was only grass along its floor, although there were trees along the top of the ridge to our left.

"Ground crew, stand by," I said. "Engines Three and Four to idle."

We moved gently forwards, the ground continued to rise gently to meet us, and it was as close to a perfect landing as I'd ever made. The ground crew were able to jump out easily, and within ten minutes the ship was properly secured. We were in a valley that ran roughly north-north-east, sheltered by ridges on either side of us, with a mountain ahead of us providing shelter from the north as well. We could have looked for hours and not found anything better.

"Okay, Alex, you're in charge from now on," I said. "I'd advise you to put some spotters up on both ridges, and keep the furnaces lit in case you need to leave in a hurry. If you need to come calling tomorrow I'd use Weasel at the helm, because he'll probably be able to remember the way back here. But give me until midday, okay? Maybe I'll be able to talk him round… Okay, Albie, can you find me an escort – preferably stokers, because at least they'll look the part, and if you can find some who can march, so much the better. I'll get a bag together."

I went to my cabin and put a change of underwear and socks into a small backpack, added my washing kit and turned to go back outside. But before I had left the officer's quarters Joe appeared from Dmitri's cabin and asked me to come in and talk to him.

"Osya says that you're going to try to persuade Pasha to take me in exchange for the Prussian," Dmitri told me. "It won't work."

"Why not? Won't he want you back?"

"I'm sure he will, but he'll want the science boy more. He won't do anything to harm Russia's interests, so he won't accept anything less than the scientist."

"I'll just have to try to persuade him, then."

"You won't be able to. Even if you start shooting bits off him it won't work – actually, that might just make him more stubborn than ever. You see, Pasha's… damaged. I don't know how he got like he is – probably it was something to do with his family – but he likes pain. He likes hurting other people – well, you saw that in Norway, and maybe that's not so unusual, but he also likes being hurt himself. It excites him. Sometimes he gets Seriozha and me to whip him, not just in play, but properly, even to drawing blood, and it gets him… you know, aroused. So it doesn't matter how much you hurt him or what you do to him, he'll never change his mind."

"Even if I threaten to cut his balls off?"

"Especially that. I think that would be the ultimate excitement for him. So what I'm saying is, please don't hurt him. There's no point, because it won't work, and I'd like him to be still all there when I see him again."

"How do I know you're not just lying to protect your friend?"

"You don't, but I'm not. If you get a chance to see him with his clothes off you'll see the scars."

"All, right, thank you. I wasn't really thinking along those lines anyway – it would be hard to get an opportunity in his own place – but at least if the opportunity arises I'll know not to waste my time. Do you have a message for him?"

"Nothing I might say will change what he's going to do. Actually you'd be better advised not to tell him I'm here, because if he knows that I am he's more likely to try to attack you."

"Don't you want to be rescued?"

"I don't want him to get killed trying."

"Okay," I said. "But I think I'll have to tell him you're here at some point if I'm really going to try to persuade him to swap you for Wolfie. Anyway, thank you for the advice. And I'll try to avoid hurting him."

"He won't try to avoid hurting you," he warned me. "You'd be a lot safer sending someone else, you know."

I shook my head. "I can't ask any of my friends to do that," I said. "It's my job. Anyway, I hope I'll see you again tomorrow."

Once Joe had translated that I headed back to the gondola, but as I reached the bottom of the ladder I was intercepted by Tim.

"I've been speaking to Dr Harries, and we've got a possible plan," he said in German. "I'm not too keen, for obvious reasons, but we think it has a chance of working. It's like I was saying before we left Culham: the deal is that you swap me for Wolfie. Well, what we do is this…"

"I don't want to know," I interrupted. "There's no way I could go along with any plan at all that involves you going to Pasha, dead or alive."

"Well, if there's no other way to get Wolfie back I'm ready to do whatever it takes," he said.

"You might be, but I'm not. Forget it."

I turned my back and went on out of the ship, thinking that there was absolutely no way I was prepared to let any of my friends sacrifice themselves in order to get Wolfie back.

Albie had found a dozen stokers and got them out of their overalls and into their proper uniforms, and when I stepped back outside Alex was equipping both my escort and the sentries who were going to take up position on the ridges with the rifles we'd bought in Parma.

"It's only about half an hour to sunset," I said to Alex, "and it'll take at least two hours to get there and back. It'll be really difficult for Joe to find his way back here after dark, so I'd suggest we want to form a human chain between the ship and the edge of the mountains, because I don't think it'll be possible for him just to stick to a single compass bearing, not in this terrain. So round up everyone except the sentries and the stokers who are going to be tending the fireboxes and we'll drop them off at hundred yard intervals. If you make yourself the last person in the chain and bring your flashlight with you, you can signal Joe if he looks like missing you. Joe, if you take a flashlight too it'll help."

Joe went back into the ship and came back a couple of minutes later with a bag, and then we were on our way.

"Albie, you're in charge until Alex gets back," I said. "I'd suggest you don't show any more light than you absolutely have to. Good luck."

I waited until Alex had managed to round up thirty or so crewmen and then we climbed up the ridge to the east. Alex stationed his sentries there while the rest of us continued down the far side following a magnetic bearing of fifty-two degrees which – according to the map – should take us all the way to Pasha's door. I didn't expect to be able to get there in a straight line, but it was fairly steadily downhill once we left the ridge, and the bearing brought us after about half a mile to the head of a broad valley, and from that vantage point we could see the sea.

"Alex, I don't think we'll need the rest of the chain after all," I said. "If you wait here Joe should be able to find you by simply reversing the bearing, providing that we mark the point where we meet the sea. I'd send the rest back to the ship – just leave three or four at intervals between here and the top of the ridge, just in case there's no moon."

"I don't think we need even do that," he replied, pointing back the way we had come. "You can hardly miss the ridge if you stick to the return bearing, and we know the ship's just beyond it. I'll keep a couple here with me, just in case I need to send a runner back to the ship, but the others can go back."

"Okay," I agreed. "And… look, Alex… don't forget what we agreed, okay?"

"Okay," he said.

"I mean it!" I added.

"I know. Go on – and good luck!"

I'd have liked to have hugged him, just in case… well, just in case, but I was a bit inhibited by having so many of the crew around us, so instead I just shook his hand, turned, and set off down the valley. Joe and the escort came with me, and somehow I managed not to look back.

By the time we reached the end of the valley the light was going: the sun was now hidden behind the mountains. We could see that our original bearing would take us over a rather unnecessary hill, and so I switched to a bearing of sixty degrees. This took us south of the hill, and eventually we reached the sea immediately before the start of a small stretch of woodland that lay maybe fifty yards above the beach.

"If you head back inland from here you should find the valley with no problem," I said. "Look, you might as well go back now – I just have to follow the coast from here, and there's obviously nobody around."

"I think we'd still better come a bit further," said Joe firmly.

I didn't argue – actually I was glad of the company.

It took about half an hour to get from there to Pasha's villa, but I sent Joe back when we were a couple of hundred yards away and walked on alone, now carrying the white flag Alex had insisted on giving me. But nobody intercepted me, though I was sure that I was being watched as I walked down the drive that led to the front door. When I reached it I straightened my hat, swallowed, took a deep breath and knocked.

I waited. Nothing seemed to be happening, so I raised my hand again, but at that moment the door swung open and I found myself looking at another red-shirted Cossack of around the same age as Dmitri.

Joe had taught me the Russian for 'His Imperial Highness, the Grand Duke Pavel Mikhailovitch Romanov, please,' and so I spouted it parrot-fashion now and handed the boy one of my own visiting cards. He took it, looked past me – presumably looking to see if I was alone – and then beckoned me in, closed the door and said, in heavily-accented but understandable English, "Wait one moment, please," before turning and heading off into the house.

I looked around. This was a lot less grand than my own place, but then this was more of a holiday home than a permanent address, and by those standards it was plenty big enough. It seemed to be mostly on one level – there was no staircase in sight, and indeed it had looked from the outside, as far as I could tell in the dark, like a single-storey building. But it was still big, and I found myself wondering how many soldiers were lurking inside it.

The Cossack came back, followed by Pasha, who was wearing a red and gold robe.

"Your Grace!" he said to me in German.

"Your Imperial Highness," I replied, bowing slightly.

He grinned at me. "How nice of you to drop by," he said. "Did you have any trouble finding us?"

"No, not really. Our intelligence service was most helpful."

"I'm surprised they bother with someone as insignificant as me," he said, grinning some more – I'd forgotten just how much he did that. "Anyway, come on through. Have you eaten? I'm afraid you've missed supper, but I'm sure we can knock something together for you."

"No, thank you," I said. "I'm not hungry."

"Tea, then?"

"Actually, a cup of tea would be nice," I said.

"Good. Come on."

He led me into a large room that looked out over the sea. There was a fire burning in the hearth. It wasn't too cold out, but the fire still made the room nice and warm.

"Take off your jacket and get comfortable," said Pasha, indicating a chair to one side of the fire. "You might as well relax."

I put my hat on a table, removed my belt and handed it, pistol holster first, to the Cossack – clearly it would be pointless to try waving a gun around here – and took off my jacket. The Cossack took it from me, picked up my hat and left the room, returning a minute or so later pushing a trolley that held a samovar. I'd never actually seen one before, but I had heard of them.

"Strong or weak?" Pasha asked me.

I had no idea of what either was likely to taste like, so I shrugged and said "Somewhere in between," which resulted in me being presented with a glass of dark liquid. Nobody offered me milk or sugar, so I supposed that it wasn't drunk that way in Russia. I took a sip and found that it wasn't bad – not quite what I was used to, but certainly drinkable.

"So," said Pasha, sipping from his own glass, "did you have a good journey?"

"Not bad. The weather was helpful, anyway."

"And where did you leave your ship?"

I smiled at him and said nothing.

"Oh, well, I expect we'll be able to find it if we need to. To be honest I wasn't expecting you until tomorrow: either you left only a day or so after I did, or you've been flying through the night."

"I don't like night flying," I said. "I like to see where I'm going."

"Likewise. How's your tea?"

"Fine, thank you. So where's the Margrave?"

"Patience!" he replied, grinning at me again. "We've got all night for business. Let's just enjoy the chance to sit and relax for a bit."

"If you like," I said. "Don't you feel just a little bit guilty, though? I mean, that was a bit of a dirty trick, especially after I kept my word to you."

"I kept mine too, don't forget," he reminded me. "You jumped to an incorrect conclusion. That wasn't my fault. Besides, we're at war, and I had to do what was in the interests of my country. So – since you insist on talking business – have you brought me young Duvallier?"

"You know I can't give him to you," I said. "I have to think about my country's future, just as you do, and we couldn't allow you to get access to someone who could make your Eagles even more dangerous than they already are."

"Really?" he said. "You mean he knows a way to actually improve our armour? I hadn't realised that. I just wanted to stop him giving you what we've already got. Now that is interesting…"

I realised I'd slipped up, but there was nothing I could do about that now.

"It hardly matters, because you can't have him," I said. "Look, Pasha, be sensible about this: if you had him you sure as hell wouldn't give him to me, so why would you think I'm going to give him to you?"

"Because I've got something you want – or don't you actually want your friend back?"

"Of course I do, but not badly enough to betray my country."

"Now that is disappointing. Maybe if I laid on a bit of a show for you, you might change your position. You see, I have this interesting collection of instruments of torture, and I thought that perhaps if you watched me trying some of them out on your friend you might change your mind…"

I tried to keep my face from showing a reaction.

"That wouldn't help," I said. "See, I don't have Duvallier with me. Actually he was the one who told me not to bring him on the trip so that I couldn't be tempted."

"Hmmm… but I bet you brought him anyway," he said. "I'm getting to know you by now, and I think you'd want all the angles covered. I'd lay you fifty to one that he's on your ship right now."

"Well, even if he was you still wouldn't get him. Remember Alex, the boy with the curly hair? Well, he's my first officer, and if I'd brought Duvallier with me I'd have made sure that Alex was under orders to shoot him rather than let him fall into your hands. And I can promise you that Alex isn't the type to be swayed from his duty by anyone, including me."

"An interesting problem, then! Of course, I now have two hostages that I could offer to swap for the scientist…"

"I'm here under a flag of truce," I reminded him. "But even so, you don't think I just walked in here without discussing the possibilities with Alex first, do you? He knows what to do if that happens, and it still doesn't involve giving you Duvallier."

"Then why did you bother coming? Did you think I would simply release the Margrave to you in exchange for nothing, just out of the goodness of my heart?"

"No, I rather hoped that you'd be prepared to exchange him for Dmitri."

He stared at me, and for once he wasn't grinning.

"You brought him with you?" he asked.

I nodded. "Look, Pasha, you've got something I want, and I've got something you want. Why don't we just forget we're on opposite sides for a minute and agree an exchange that will make us both happy?"

He was silent, and I waited, sipping at my tea, because this was the big moment and I didn't want to ruin it by talking too much. He had the facts. Would he bite?

"Is he all right?" he asked, eventually.

"Yes, he is. He's got a broken leg and some cracked bones in his wrist, but the doctors say he'll make a full recovery."

"Thank you," he said. "You didn't have to take him to hospital. Please will you make sure he's looked after in future?"

"You'll be able to do that yourself," I said.

"No, I won't. I'm sorry, Leo, but I can't accept anything other than the scientist. You'd say the same thing in my position. Look, finish your tea and I'll take you to see the Margrave."

I opened my mouth to argue but realised that this wasn't the time: if I was going to change his mind I had to leave him a little while to think about getting Dmitri back. So instead I finished my tea and stood up, and Pasha led me a little further into the house and then knocked at a door, opened it and put his head around it.

"Are you decent?" he asked in German. "Good. You have a visitor."

He stepped back and ushered me into the room. I'd more or less expected a prison cell, but this was actually quite a nice bedroom, containing an upright chair tucked under a small table, a decent-sized bookcase full of books and a bed. It also had an apparently unbarred window that looked out over a dark landscape. A fire was burning in the grate, making the room pleasantly warm, and in one of a pair of armchairs beside it sat Wolfie, who was reading a book. He looked up when I entered the room and his face lit up.

"I knew you'd come," he said, standing up. "You shouldn't have, obviously, but I'm still glad you did. Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," I said, hugging him. "What about you? Has he been treating you properly?"

"I really can't complain. I'm allowed to go anywhere I want in the house, I usually eat with Pasha, and nobody has done anything nasty to me. The only drawback is that I'm not allowed any clothes except for this nightshirt – the idea of that is to dissuade me from running. As Pasha says, I'd have nowhere to go anyway, but it would be a nuisance if he had to come looking for me. It would be too cold out there to survive at night without clothes…

"So what's going to happen to me? Have they agreed to ransom me?"

"No. Uncle Gil says they won't be able to, because if the Tsar found out you were here he'd want you himself, either to park on the throne of Prussia as a puppet, or to be locked up somewhere a long way away, like Siberia. No, the only way to get you out of here is to swap you for Tim."

"But you can't do that! Come on, Leo, you know we can't let them get their hands on him!"

"I know. But he won't accept anything less. I've already asked him to exchange you for Dmitri… of course, you probably don't know about that. Remember the two Cossack boys he had with him in Norway? Well, the older one got hurt while Alex and I were grabbing Pasha, and so when Pasha flew home he had to leave Dmitri behind. And I'd hoped he'd settle for a straight swap, but he's already turned me down. So I'm going to work on him. If he won't let you go and tries to hang on to me as well, Alex has orders to fly by and shoot up the æthership hangars in the morning, but if that doesn't work… well, we haven't really planned that far yet."

"What do you mean, Alex has orders? Isn't Uncle Gil in charge?"

"No. This is my mission, not his, and we came in Excelsior, not Excalibur. In your absence Alex is First Officer, so he's in command until I get back."

"So Excelsior is finished? How does she fly?"

"Pretty well. She's faster than Excalibur, and so far she's flown perfectly, even with a team of novices crewing her. You'll see for yourself on the way home, I hope."

"Right, but you can't attack this place! There are rocket batteries around the hangars – I've seen them. And if the ship is damaged none of us will ever get out of here."

"I think the armour can handle it provided Alex doesn't hang around. But we couldn't think of anything else to do. Listen, how many people live here?"

"I'm not sure. I would guess that there are around ten actually living here, but there are others who are around quite a bit during the day, so I'd guess that there's a barracks not too far away. Why?"

"Oh, Alex was wondering about attacking this place with ground forces. We've got forty rifles, so I suppose it would be possible."

"No, it wouldn't! There are machine guns in the house, and there's an auto-cannon in one of the hangars. It would be suicide to attack without heavy guns of our own."

"Oh, well, in that case let's hope Alex has the sense not to try," I said, even though I was afraid he'd risk attacking anyway. Still, maybe I could still change Pasha's mind about letting Wolfie go…

Five minutes later there was another knock at the door and Pasha came in.

"Satisfied that I haven't been pulling his fingernails out?" he asked me. "Then come with me."

I said "See you later" to Wolfie and followed Pasha from the room and along a corridor that led towards the back of the house, and then down a stone staircase and through a heavy iron door into an underground room.

"Welcome to my playroom," he said, grinning widely. "What do you think?"

There wasn't a lot of furniture – just a couple of upright chairs and a basic table – but there were unpleasant-looking instruments hanging from hooks around the walls or lying on shelves. Most of these were metal, but there was also a row of whips rising from a small riding-crop at one end up to a huge thick thing at the other. In one corner there was an unlit brazier, and in the middle of the room was something that I recognised immediately as a rack.

"Like it?" asked Pasha, his eyes sparkling. "It's not completely authentic, but it's actually a bit more efficient than the older versions, because the metal cables on this run more smoothly than the old chains and aren't likely to break the way ropes sometimes did. I had it built specially. Would you like to try it?"

"I don't think so," I said, firmly.

"Chicken!" he said.

"Chicken? Chicken?? You think it's cowardly not to want to get my arms and legs torn off? Are you completely insane?"

"Not completely, I don't think. But I wasn't actually intending to pull you to pieces. See, there's an art to using this: the idea is to stop when it hurts like hell but just before it does any permanent damage. See, that's what so many torturers don't understand: if you can cause serious pain but without permanent injury you can do exactly the same thing again once the victim has recovered. The second time he knows how it's going to feel, and that makes it more effective – his own imagination is working against him. It's like I told you in Norway: thinking about the pain is often more effective than pain itself.

"Of course, if the person you're working on has some information you need in a hurry, then you might not have time for repeat performances, and in that case you just keep going, but very, very slowly. But if there's no time limit a repeated punishment can be highly effective: eventually the victim just can't face it any more. That doesn't mean you have to stop, of course…

"I've been discussing with Sergei how long the Margrave will last without cracking. He reckons about four days will do it, but I think he's tougher: he might even last the week. What do you think?"

I stared at him. "Why? I mean, how can you even consider doing something like this?"

"Apart from the obvious reason – that it's fun? Well, how about 'Because we're at war'?"

"But that doesn't mean you have to torture people!"

He shrugged. "War excuses most things," he said.

"Yes, but… I don't even know why we're at war, and I bet you don't either!"

"Does it matter? Wars start for all sorts of reasons, most of them pretty stupid when you think about it. It makes no difference whether we're fighting over religion, politics, land, resources, or just because the ruler of one country has a grudge against the ruler of another – wars have always existed and they always will. It's the way we are."

"But that doesn't mean we should just accept it, surely? After all, your country and mine should be no threat to each other, given how far apart they are. The only reason we're fighting is because you're occupying the German states, and there's no real excuse for you to be there. If you withdrew to your own territory there'd be no reason to fight."

"Oh, don't be so naïve! We're in the German states because that way the next time one of the Napoleons decides to attack us, it'll be the German states that get devastated and not our own territory. Anyway, it's not like we're the only country operating outside our base territory, is it? What are the French doing in the Low Countries, Italy and Illyria? Come to that, what are the British doing in Africa? The Africans don't want you there any more than the Germans want us in their countries, but tough, that's how things are and they need to get used to it. Don't you know any history? Strong countries have always occupied weak ones. Persia, Macedonia and Rome are no different to Britain, France and Russia, and after our empires collapse new ones will begin. History repeats itself over and over again, and right now you and I are just doing what everyone else has always done: trying to get the best result for our country. So don't come bleating to me with questions like 'Why are we at war?' We just are, and that's all there is to it.

"Do you doubt that I'll use this, and anything else that I feel like, on your friend?"

"No," I said.

"Do you want me to?"

"Obviously not."

"Then give me Duvallier. It's that simple: I get Duvallier, or the Margrave dies in this room, very, very slowly "

"And what if I said that if you do that, I'll do the same thing to Dmitri?"

"I wouldn't believe you, because I don't think you're tough enough. You're scared of pain, and so you're reluctant to inflict it on anyone else. For you, pain is an enemy, something to be feared, but me, I know about pain. If you've never experienced pain yourself, you can never understand it and never control it. But even if you told me your curly-haired friend was going to do it to Dmitri and I believed you, it wouldn't change anything. This is the only lever I've got, and so I have to use it, whatever the consequences."

"Don't you even care about Dmitri?"

"Yes, of course I do! More than you can imagine, probably, and if there was a way to get him back without harming my country I'd take it. But there isn't. The difference between you and me is that I am prepared to give something up if necessary."

"No, the difference between us is that you're insane," I snapped, because by now I'd had about enough of this. "You know bloody well I can't give you Duvallier, but you still refuse to accept the sensible exchange of our two prisoners that would make us both happy. If that isn't mad, I don't know what is."

"You want to see mad?"

He went to the door and shouted "Seriozha!" up the stairs, and a few seconds later the younger of the Cossacks I'd met in Norway came into the room.

"I bet you'd like to hurt me right now, wouldn't you?" Pasha said to me. "Well, you're going to get your chance."

He began to get undressed, piling his clothes on one of the chairs, and when he was naked he climbed onto the rack and lay face down. The Cossack boy attached the cables to his wrists and ankles and then operated the lever until Pasha was immobilised.

"Over to you," he said, grinning at me. "Go and choose a whip from over there and beat me as hard as you want. There'll be no penalty, so this is a chance to show me what you really think of me. And maybe if you can draw blood I'll consider your proposition."

I didn't believe that for a moment, and looking at the scars across his bottom made me feel slightly queasy. I certainly didn't feel like taking him up on his offer.

"No, thanks," I said. "Perhaps there's something wrong with me, but I'm afraid I don't like hurting people unnecessarily."

"Now there's a surprise! Seriozha," and he spoke to the Cossack in Russian. The red-shirted boy answered him, and for a few seconds they seemed to be arguing, but in the end the boy shrugged, went and took a whip from the wall and used it to whip his master three times. As far as I could tell he was holding nothing back, and Pasha cried out each time. I didn't really want to watch, but it was hard not to, and of course I found myself imagining, as Pasha had no doubt intended, that it was Wolfie lying there instead of his captor.

Sergei went and returned the whip to its place. As he passed me he gave me a look that I interpreted as a mixture of apology and regret, but then he went back to the rack and released his master from the cables. Pasha stood up and – in view of what Dmitri had told me – I wasn't too surprised to see that he had an erection. He rubbed his bottom a couple of times and then went and got dressed again.

"You should have done that yourself," he told me. "You probably won't get another chance."

"Good," I replied. "Look, Pasha, I'm tired. Can you just find me somewhere to sleep? We can talk again in the morning."

"Oh, but I'm enjoying your company so much! I tell you what – why don't you come and sleep with me? Maybe you'll crack and strangle me in the night!"

"Is that what you want?"

"Well, it would probably be an interesting experience, but I'm not quite so keen to find out what hell is like just yet, so – no, not really. But maybe you deserve the chance. Come on!"

He led me back up the stairs and along the corridor to what was clearly the master bedroom: it held one large bed and two smaller ones and also had an en-suite bathroom, which was something my room at home lacked.

"You'll find your bag in the wardrobe," Pasha told me, starting to get undressed once more. "If you forgot to bring any washing materials I'm sure we can find you some."

I opened the wardrobe and found not only my bag but my jacket, hat and belt too, and the pistol was still in the holster. The idea of using it to hold Pasha up and try to walk out of here with Wolfie came to me straight away and was dismissed almost as quickly: he'd just laugh at me, and even if I shot him I didn't have enough bullets for all of his Cossacks, and neither did I have any means of communicating with them. And if they all felt about Pasha the way Dmitri did I'd end up dead, and so would Wolfie. So I left the gun where it was, took my washing kit from my bag, removed my shirt and went through to the bathroom.

I had a wash and cleaned my teeth, and by then Pasha had come to join me. He was completely naked and didn't seem to care that I could see everything he had to offer – at any rate, he made no attempt to cover up.

Once I was done I went back to the bedroom and removed the rest of my clothes except for my underwear, but I didn't know which bed I was supposed to use, and so I sat on the end of the big one and waited.

Pasha reappeared and got straight into the big bed.

"Which one am I using?" I asked.

"This one, obviously. Come on – and get rid of those shorts first."

I removed my underwear and got in, keeping as far away from him as I could. Sergei came into the room, locked the door behind him and put the key on a chain around his neck, and then he threw his clothes off, turned off the light and got into one of the small beds, so I guessed that the empty one belonged to Dmitri. And that was enough to make me try again.

"Pasha," I said, "what happened to you? How did you get like this?"

"Ah, he wants to know how sweet little Pasha turned into this hideous monster," he said, and I could imagine the grin even if I couldn't see it. "Well, that's easy: there never was a sweet little Pasha. The moment I first drew breath I became a murderer, and it's been all downhill since."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I killed my mother. She died bringing me into the world – apparently I was the wrong way round in the womb or something. And neither my father nor my brothers ever let me forget it: my father hates the sight of me so much that he's spent his entire life either on campaign or living at the High Command headquarters in Petersburg – so I probably killed your father, too, because if it hadn't been for me keeping my father in the field, some total incompetent would have been in charge instead and we'd never have reached the Rhine. I'll give the old man that: he's a damned good soldier. And as for my brothers, they were given free rein to do what they wanted to me, and so they did. Actually I came to prefer that to being completely ignored…

"Of course kids like me are educated at home, so I couldn't even escape to school, although my tutor at least treated me no worse than the way he treated my brothers, and he was the one who suggested to my father when I was eleven that I should start spending time finding out about life on our frontiers. My father thought that was an excellent idea because it would get me out of the house, and so he bought this place for me and arranged for me to be attached to the naval base at Sevastopol.

"Actually that was interesting: I learned quite a bit while I was there. But I'd learned a few other things from my brothers, and when I started practising those on other kids in the area… well, you know the rest. I got sent on a tour of the occupied territories and given an old æthership to travel in. I think my father was hoping I'd get killed… anyway, then I ran into you, and I'm counting on getting hold of your tame scientist to get me noticed, but in a good way. If I can help my country's cause I should think they'll be only too happy to grant me a privateer's licence, and then I'll be able to do whatever the hell I like. Of course once my ship's finished its commissioning I'll probably do that anyway, but I'd prefer to do it officially…"

He rolled close to me.

"So you see, I really want Duvallier," he went on. "And that's why I'm not prepared to accept any alternative. You know, I wish you'd admit that you hate me. It can't be good for you, keeping all that rage bottled up inside you. Just let it out."

He took my hand and pressed it against his genitals.

"Go on," he said, "dig your nails in and rip it off! Crush my balls like grapes! Think how much better you'll feel afterwards!"

I could feel his penis stiffening against my hand, but if anything that made me feel even less like hurting him. I gave it a gentle squeeze and then pulled my hand away.

"Hasn't anyone ever cared about you?" I asked. "Has anyone ever, even once, said that they love you?"

"What's this – pity?" he said. "Poor, twisted little Pashka, all bitter and hateful because of his past, sad little Pashka whom nobody ever loved? Love's a joke, de Courtenay: it's just another way to use people. It might be less violent than whips and acid, but it's just another means to the same end. Real love doesn't exist."

"Dmitri loves you," I told him.

"No, Dmitri's grateful because I took him from nowhere and gave him a future. Same with Sergei. That's the sort of love you get from a puppy if you feed it and give it shelter. Dmitri and Sergei are useful to me and, yes, I enjoy their company, but that's hardly love. I've told you, love is an illusion. Now shut up and go to sleep: you'd better get some sleep while you can, because after you've spent tomorrow watching the Margrave bleeding and screaming you probably won't sleep very well tomorrow night."

He rolled over away from me. Needless to say, I found it far from easy to go to sleep: there was no way that I could let him torture Wolfie, but I could see no way of getting Wolfie away from him alive other than doing what he wanted. And clearly I couldn't give him Tim – at least, not unless I did what Tim himself had suggested and handed Pasha Tim's corpse. Either way one of my friends was going to die. But, try as I might, I couldn't think of any way out of it.

Chapter Twenty-seven

I woke up at one point. I'm not sure what the time was, but it was too dark to see my watch and for obvious reasons I hadn't brought my flashlight with me. I wondered what the chances were of getting the key from around Sergei's neck without waking him up, letting myself out of the room, finding Wolfie, pinching some clothes for him and sneaking out of the house unseen. 'Pretty much zero' was the conclusion I came to: Pasha knew I had a crew not too far away, and so it was an absolute certainty that there would be guards and sentries about, both inside and outside the house.

Next I considered getting my gun and bashing both Pasha and Sergei over the head, and while that was probably an easier way of getting out of the room it still wouldn't get me past the sentries, because as soon as I fired the gun the entire household would come running. Maybe I could hold up one sentry – they couldn't all have as little sense of self-preservation as Pasha himself, surely? But there was no way I could hope to get past all of them.

On the other hand, what was the alternative? I already knew I couldn't just sit and watch Wolfie being tortured… so in the end I swung my legs out of the bed, stood up and took a step towards the wardrobe.

"Going somewhere?" asked Pasha, quietly.

"Oh! Sorry – I didn't mean to wake you up. But yes, I need a pee."

"It's in the bathroom. There's a gas light just inside the door on the right."

I found the bathroom door, groped around until I found the light, opened the valve, flicked the switch that struck a spark from a flint, and when the gas caught I adjusted it to a low light. I found the toilet behind its partition, and when I'd finished I rinsed my hands, came back into the bedroom long enough to pick up my watch, checked the time, turned off the bathroom light and went back to the bed.

"What time is it?" asked Pasha.

"It's a little after five."

"We don't need to get up for a couple of hours yet, then," he said. "Go back to sleep."

"Pasha… were you awake?" I asked. "Because I'm fairly sure I didn't make any noise."

"Yes, I was."

"Why? Didn't you trust me enough to go to sleep next to me?"

"Oh, I'd been asleep. I just woke up again. I'm not worried about you: first, you haven't got the balls, and second, you're too sensible: you know that if you actually did kill me you'd never get out of here alive. No, I was lying here planning out what I'm going to do to the Margrave, and in what order. Rack first, with a little carefully-applied acid – nipples and testicles, perhaps – and then extract a few teeth, because it's amazing how much that can hurt. Actually it's better to crush the tooth, rather than extract it, because that exposes the nerves and leaves them open. Then…"

"Shut up," I said, though without raising my voice. "I don't think that's what you were thinking about at all. I reckon you were thinking about Dmitri and how much you'd like to have him back with you."

"Think what you like!" he said shortly, and he rolled over, presenting his back to me.

I took the hint and kept quiet, but I wondered if, just maybe, I might have been right…

***

The next time I woke up it was getting light outside. Pasha was propped up on one elbow looking at me, and I wondered how much sleep he'd actually had during the night.

"Morning," I said, quietly – I didn't know if Sergei was awake yet and I didn't want to wake him up.

Pasha gave me one of his customary grins. "You're astounding," he told me. "You're lying next to someone who's going to torture your closest friend this morning, but what do you say to me? 'Morning'. I just love the way you English are such gentlemen."

"Well, you've always been perfectly polite to me."

"Yes, and I'll still be polite to you even while I drip acid onto the Margrave's balls. Do you really think good manners are all that matters?"

"Would it do me any good if I shouted and swore at you all the time?"

"It might be a bit more honest."

"It wouldn't change anything, though, so what's the point? Look, Pasha, I know you've had a pretty shit life so far, but there's no reason why it shouldn't change now that you're away from your family, is there? Even if things look less than perfect right now, you don't know what might happen in the future. I don't know how much you know about me, but almost five years ago I got lost. I'd banged my head and forgotten everything, including who I was, and the place where I ended up… well, nobody there knew who I was either. So I ended up in an orphanage. I was completely alone: there was nobody who knew me, I had no family, no friends and I couldn't even remember my own name. But then things got a lot better: I was adopted, I made some friends, and eventually I found my way back home again. So for all you know, your life might improve like mine did."

"I shouldn't think so. I know exactly who I am, and so does everyone else, and I can't imagine that's going to change. I didn't know all that about you, but I did know that you're an orphan, and I hate orphans. Do you know why?"

I shook my head.

"Because they're lucky: they don't have a family constantly treating them like dirt. They don't have anyone to tell them what to do. I really, really wish I'd been an orphan."

"Most families aren't like yours, Pasha. Take Duvallier: his mother died in childbirth too, exactly like yours did. But his father knew it wasn't the baby's fault – how could it be? And so he loved his son and looked after him. It's not your fault that your father was a moron."

"Well, it's too late to worry about it now, isn't it?"

"Maybe, but it doesn't have to poison your whole life. And you're wrong about love, too: it does exist, and it's got nothing to do with controlling people. It's just about liking each other a lot and being happy when you're together."

"How do you know your friends love you?" he asked. "How do you know it's not just because you're rich and powerful, and they want to get a slice of your money?"

"Well, first, because Alex was my friend when I was an orphan with no name and no money at all – he didn't care about that. He just liked me and I liked him. And I know that the way I feel about Wolfie has got nothing to do with him being royalty – obviously, because he's got no kingdom and virtually no money. I love him because being with him makes me feel good. If you and me were just ordinary kids, people would still want to be friends with us – I know, because I've already found that out for myself. I even think we could be friends if we'd met in other circumstances."

"You must be desperate for friends, then."

"No, I'm not. And nor are your other friends. If you think Dmitri and Sergei only stay with you because you're rich and powerful, you haven't been paying attention, and you must have missed the way Dmitri kept risking his life to try to protect you back at my house. And don't tell me he was just doing his duty: what he did went far beyond that. He loves you, Pasha. Love really exists."

He looked at me, and just for a moment I could see something in his eyes – a sort of longing mixed with regret… But it was only for a couple of seconds, and then it was like a shutter coming down.

"Good try," he said, grinning his broad grin once more. "You almost got me going there for a moment. I'm afraid I'm not going to bite, though. Come on – it's time to get up."

He rolled out of bed and headed for the bathroom, and I paused long enough to grab a clean pair of underpants from my bag and slip them on, and then I followed him. Once we were washed and dressed he led me to the dining room – Sergei had opened the door and left while we were in the bathroom – and there we ate some sort of pancakes served with jam or sour cream, which seemed a bit odd at breakfast time, and drank more tea. Pasha didn't speak much during the meal and so neither did I: I hoped he was thinking about what I'd said to him.

But once breakfast was over he spoke to Sergei in Russian. The Cossack boy left the room, and a minute or so later two rather bigger boys came in and took up position on either side of me.

"In a moment we'll be going back downstairs," Pasha told me. "We'll just give Sergei and the others a couple of minutes to get the Margrave ready and then we'll go and join them. Try to be sensible: I've told these two not to hurt you if it can be avoided, but it's likely that you're not going to be very happy and so you might do something stupid. Don't worry, I'll be taking it slowly: just a few minor burns, a couple of broken fingers and a dislocation or two will be enough for today. If I'm careful I'll manage to make him last right through to my birthday – I'll be fourteen in two weeks' time. Finishing him off on that day would be a nice present to myself.

"Now, you can shout 'Stop!' at any time, but there's no point in doing that unless you're prepared to make the trade, and if you waste my time by telling me to stop for any other reason I'll go for some more serious burns. Actually I quite want to see what happens if you drip acid into someone's belly-button. Shall we go and find out?"

And with another dazzling grin he turned and left the room. His two gorillas grabbed me by the elbows and marched me after him. I was getting close to panic by now, because I couldn't think of anything I could do or say that would prevent this, and Alex wouldn't consider attacking us for another four hours at the earliest – and heaven only knew what state Wolfie would be in by then. I tried to tell myself that Pasha was only bluffing, but from what I'd seen of him so far that didn't really seem likely.

I was half dragged, half carried down to the underground room, and there I found Sergei and two other older boys in the process of attaching Wolfie's arms and leg to the rack. They'd already removed his nightshirt, so he looked horribly vulnerable.

"This is going to be interesting," commented Pasha. "Obviously the rack was designed for two legs. I wonder how it will cope with an unbalanced passenger… I expect it'll manage, but perhaps we should strap the half-leg down – we don't want him kicking about with it and injuring himself, do we?"

"Remember, Leo," said Wolfie in English, trying to keep his voice steady, "you and I don't matter. What matters is Tim. Don't forget that, whatever happens to me."

I knew that, of course, but there's a difference between knowing something and being able to hold onto the knowledge when faced with terrible consequences.

"Listen, Pasha," I said, thinking that I still had one more card to play, "you know who Wolfie is. Why don't you send him to your uncle? He could use him as a puppet ruler of Prussia, which would be sure to at least divide the opposition to you there. Surely that would get you the recognition you want? I mean, you mounted a really dangerous expedition to England and captured someone seriously important. Wouldn't a public acknowledgement from the Tsar give you what you want?"

Obviously I didn't want Wolfie sent to St Petersburg, but at least there he'd be at no risk of being tortured, and by this stage I was ready to suggest anything that might avoid that.

"Well, that's probably true," acknowledged Pasha. "But really he's not that valuable. What is he, sixth in line to the throne?"

"Fifth," I corrected.

"Well, even so. That's not a lot better than me being eighth in line to our throne – it's never going to happen. Yes, it might give us a short-term propaganda gain, but it wouldn't make any real difference in the long term. Whereas if I could send my uncle someone who can improve our armour, and at the same time deprive our enemies of him – well, that would definitely get me noticed."

"Duvallier would never work for you. The Russians killed his father. He hates you. And it wouldn't do any good to torture him, either: no matter what you did he'd keep deliberately making little mistakes in the formulas and getting mixtures wrong and stuff, and your armour would never work properly. And every ship you sent up with his armour on would be shot down. Your uncle would end up hating you."

"I think you seriously underestimate the effects of torture. It's easy to be brave and defiant before it starts, and I'm sure the Margrave was being brave and defiant in whatever he said to you just now, but once it starts it's a whole new world. And when the time comes to start Day Two, I can promise you that nobody is brave or defiant any longer, because they know exactly what's coming and they know they can't take it.

"I tell you what: let's have a little wager. I'll bet you I can get the Margrave screaming and begging inside ten minutes. Deal?"

I shook my head, because I was sure he was right, especially when Sergei handed him the same bottle and pipette that I'd last seen in Norway. Pasha spoke to the Cossack at the head end of the rack, and the boy pulled on the handle until Wolfie gave a little gasp. Pasha went and checked him over, paying particular attention to his shoulders.

"Now he's at full stretch," he told me. "At least, he thinks he is. In a moment we'll pull another centimetre, and then we'll get to work with the acid. Are you sure you don't want me to stop?"

By this stage I was close to screaming myself. When I'd been in this position in Norway it had been easy to stop the torture: I'd only had to tell Pasha my name. But this was completely different, because I couldn't give Pasha what he wanted. I really wished I'd insisted on Tim staying in England.

Pasha nodded to the Cossack, who moved the handle a little further, and this time Wolfie cried out. Then Pasha opened the acid bottle and drew some into the pipette, and I knew that I simply couldn't allow this to happen – I just couldn't stand by and watch my dearest friend being destroyed an inch at a time.

"Put it away," I said, as calmly as I could. "You've made your point. I'll agree to the exchange."

"What? No!" shouted Wolfie, only to scream when Pasha released a drop of acid onto his shoulder.

"Are you sure?" he asked me.

"Yes!" I yelled.

"Your word on it?"

"Yes! I give you my word!"

Pasha spoke to Sergei, who sloshed some water onto Wolfie's shoulder, and to the other boy, who moved the rack handle back the other way, relaxing the pressure.

"If I have to come back down here later I'm going to be very unhappy," commented Pasha, signalling for the cables to be removed. "And in that case I'll start by putting the acid where I was going to when we were in Norway, so you'd really better hope that nothing goes wrong – like, for example, your curly-headed friend deciding to shoot the French boy."

"If you remember, the deal was simply that you'd exchange the Margrave for the scientist," I reminded him. "You didn't say he had to be alive."

"True, but I didn't say that the Margrave had to be alive either," he pointed out. "Or intact. So if anything fatal happens to Duvallier, count on something happening to the Margrave, too, starting with an injection of acid into his groin."

"Then you'd better let me send Alex a message," I said. "Otherwise he's likely to obey my order to kill Duvallier rather than let you have him."

"That seems reasonable," he said. "Come upstairs and I'll find you some paper."

We waited while Wolfie reattached his leg – his arms still seemed to be working, although he didn't look comfortable – and then we all went up to a writing room at the front of the house.

"Keep it simple," Pasha instructed me. "My English is poor, but I'll be able to tell if you write something other than what we've agreed."

I thought for a moment and wrote 'Alex: I've agreed to exchange Tim for Wolfie. Make sure Tim is ready to travel. He has to be alive, too, or we won't get Wolfie back.'

I signed it and gave Pasha a quick translation into German, and he looked it over and declared himself satisfied.

"You'd better tell him to send the scientist back with my messenger," he said.

"No," I said firmly. "Last time we trusted each other and it worked it fairly well – as you've said, you didn't break your word by keeping the Margrave. But this time I want you to meet me halfway – after all, if you had me, Wolfie and Tim all here… well, there wouldn't be a lot of incentive to let any of us go. We'll do the exchange at my ship. We're still in your country, so you'd be safe enough, especially if you bring an escort. Besides, if I'm not there in person to give the order, Alex might not be prepared to release Tim – he might think the message is a forgery."

He seemed to be thinking about it.

"Pasha, I'm a noble, the same as you," I said. "People like you and me, we keep our word, don't we? When you came to Culham I could easily have double-crossed you once your men were in the open with no weapons, but I didn't, did I? And I'm not going to double-cross you now. I swear that if you give me the Margrave, I'll give you the scientist – alive. And there'll be no attempt to kill or capture you, either. I still don't think Tim will cooperate with you, but that'll be your problem to solve. At least I'll give you the chance."

He looked at me for a moment.

"Very well," he said. "As I said this morning, you're a gentleman, and if I can't trust an English gentleman, who can I trust?"

He turned and handed my message to Sergei.

"Tell me how to get to your ship," he said.

Now it was my turn to hesitate, because I really didn't want him to know where the ship was. But there was no obvious way around it, and so I said, "Go along the beach for about two and a half kilometres [1½ miles] until you're just past a stretch of woodland and then take a bearing of two-four-zero. That will bring you to the opening of a valley. Go up the valley to the end. You might find someone there, but if not continue on a bearing of two-three-two and you'll meet our sentries on the ridge ahead of you. They won't understand you, but show them the message and they'll take you to Alex."

Pasha translated that into Russian and wrote the two bearings on the back of the message, and Sergei nodded and left the room. Next Pasha spoke to two of the other Cossacks, and they too went out.

Ten minutes later we were on our way. Pasha had rounded up twenty Cossacks and armed them with rifles or machine guns, but I wasn't too worried, because I knew that we had forty rifles and plenty of men if it came to a fight. I was counting on Alex and Albie coming up with a plan: I'd done everything I could by persuading Pasha to bring Wolfie with us: the tricky bit was going to be getting Wolfie back alive without losing Tim, and at this stage I wasn't sure how we could achieve that: if I was Pasha I'd have a gun rammed into Wolfie's spine until Tim was safely in his hands. Ultimately I supposed we could just ambush and shoot the whole party on their way back, but it would be impossible to guarantee Tim's survival if we tried that.

I wasn't remotely worried that I might have to break my word. As far as I was concerned, anyone who is prepared to use torture loses the right to be treated as a noble, and if I could find a way – or if Alex and Albie could – to keep both Wolfie and Tim, then I'd grab it with both hands, and to hell with my word. But right then I couldn't think of any sure way to achieve that.

We set off along the beach. Pasha seemed to be in no great hurry, but when I commented on that he pointed out that he wanted to make sure that Sergei reached the ship well ahead of the rest of us in order to make sure that there were no misunderstandings, and I supposed that made sense. It would give Alex and Albie more time to try to think of an answer, too, so when Pasha stopped to pick up a flat pebble and send it skimming across the sea I didn't argue – in fact I found a pebble of my own, and for a few minutes the whole party played the game, almost as if we were a bunch of friends on a visit to the seaside. But then Pasha glanced at his watch and said that we ought to get on, and so we continued our journey.

Eventually we reached the head of the valley. There were no sentries here, but I thought it would be surprising if there weren't some on top of the ridge, so I waved in that direction in case they were looking out for us. Soon we reached the ridge ourselves, and here we were met by a couple of sentries, who joined us as we continued to the crest and started down into the valley.

"New ship?" asked Pasha, looking at Excelsior.

"Not really. It's just that the ship we took to Norway was my uncle's, not mine. That one belongs to me."

"I like the flag," he said, looking at it through a small telescope.

"Lessons from a master," I said, giving him a small bow.

"And well learned," he said, acknowledging it. "So what's it really called? Just so I know what to look out for if we run into each other again, you understand."

"Excelsior," I told him.

"Ah. And does it actually go higher? That's what the name's supposed to mean."

"I don't know. We've never taken her above about a thousand feet. I think the name is just because it's the sister ship to my uncle's Excalibur, so he wanted a name that started 'EXC'."

I led the party down into the valley, noticing that there was some smoke visible around the engine gondolas: obviously Alex had the ship ready to fly. There was also a welcome party waiting for us just in front of the ship's nose, a dozen crewmen with rifles and a couple of officers, so I headed in that direction, stopping when Pasha told me to about twenty yards short. As I'd expected, Pasha was standing right behind Wolfie with a pistol in his hand.

"Did you get my message?" I said to Alex, who was one of the two officers – the other was Chris Beeching.

"Yes, I did," replied Alex. "Can you just confirm exactly what has been agreed?"

"We get Wolfie, and they get Tim. And Tim has to be alive."

"Oh, he's alive – well, sort of. Doctor, maybe you'd better explain the next bit – and Chris, could you translate this for the Russians' benefit?"

Doctor Harries emerged from the front gondola, followed by a pair of stokers who were supporting Tim between them. Tim was clearly alive, but he looked as if he was on drugs or something, because he seemed completely unaware of his surroundings. He had a blood-stained bandage around his head, too.

"Do you know what a frontal lobotomy is?" began the doctor, and I scarcely heard Chris's translation because I was staring from Tim to the doctor and back again. I simply couldn't believe they'd actually done such a thing – it had to be a trick of some sort. I looked at Pasha and saw that he was clearly thinking the same thing.

"Well," continued the doctor, "it's a fairly simple operation, at least in theory: you make a small hole in the skull, stick a probe in, and scramble part of the brain. Or, if you want to be absolutely certain, you make a slightly bigger hole and cut part of the brain away – this part, in this case."

He took a small plate from one of the stokers and showed it to us. Obviously I don't know exactly what brains are supposed to look like, but this looked pretty close to me, and so did the blood that the small chunks of grey stuff were sitting in.

"Now, I said it's simple in theory," the doctor continued, "but the problem with this sort of thing is that we don't know exactly which part of the brain does what, at least not with proper accuracy. I was trying for the memory – and nobody is completely sure where that lives – and the higher reasoning functions, and we do know more or less where they are. But I don't seem to have got it exactly right, because he seems to have lost quite a bit more – in fact only the basic motor functions seem to be intact. Sorry."

"This is a trick!" said Pasha, and I thought he was probably right. "Take that bandage off his head!"

Chris translated that, and Alex shrugged and started to unwind the bandage.

"Bring him closer," ordered Pasha.

Alex nodded to the two stokers who were holding Tim's arms and they moved forwards. Tim walked with them, although he still seemed to be unaware of what was happening: his mouth was partly open and he was dribbling a bit, and his eyes looked completely vacant. The stokers stepped away, leaving Tim standing on his own, and Alex continued to unwind his dressing.

Eventually the bandage came right off, and immediately the wound beneath it started to bleed, the blood running down, touching the corner of Tim's left eyebrow and then continuing down towards his cheek. And he didn't seem to be aware of it at all.

At that point I began to think that this wasn't a trick after all: I could remember Tim trying to tell me about a plan before I had left the ship, and how he had said that we wouldn't need him any more now that he'd written down the process for making the armour. But I couldn't believe that he'd be prepared to go to these lengths – or that Alex would have let him.

Pasha now looked uncertain, too, but he wasn't ready to believe it just yet.

"Can he still feel things?" he asked the doctor.

"No, I don't think so. He doesn't seem to respond to stimuli, anyway."

"No? Well, I bet he responds to this," said Pasha, and he brought his pistol out from behind Wolfie and shot Tim in the left arm. The arm jerked back from the force of the blow, but that was just about the only reaction: Tim simply stood there, blood staining the sleeve of his jacket and then running down his arm and dripping from his fingers.

My mouth dropped open, and then I closed it again, walked up to Alex and thumped him as hard as I could.

"Why?" I yelled at him. "You didn't have to go that far! We could have rescued him – or at least tried! And you – how the hell could you do this?" I added, looking at the doctor. "You're supposed to save lives, not destroy them!"

"It was Mr Duvallier's own idea," replied the doctor. "The alternative was shooting him. If I'd got the operation right he'd have been basically all right, just without the ability to think quite as clearly as he could in the past."

"Yes, but you fucked it up!" I shouted. "Look at him!"

I went and stood in front of Tim, but he just stared blankly straight through me. I took his left hand, and there was nothing fake about the blood there, either, which transferred onto my hand. I was dimly aware that Chris was still translating everything for Pasha, but by now I was actually past caring: how could Alex and the doctor have done anything so inhuman? It was worse than Pasha's torture, because at least victims of that had a chance of recovery.

"There was no choice," said Alex.

"Of course there was a fucking choice!" I yelled. I was aware that I was crying now, but I could still see him clearly enough that my next punch landed exactly where I'd wanted, on his jaw. He went over, and I looked around for someone else to hit, but the two stokers who had been guiding Tim grabbed me and I couldn't break free.

Alex got to his feet, rubbing his jaw, and put his hat back on.

"Time to exchange, Romanov," he said. "Here's your scientist. We'll take the Margrave."

"You're joking, of course," said Pasha, though he didn't seem at all sure of himself. "You expect me to take this lump of meat in exchange for the Margrave? You can fuck right off!"

"That was the agreement," insisted Alex. "You and Leo both gave your word. The deal was Duvallier, alive, for the Margrave. Well, he's alive. Leo hasn't broken his word, and I haven't broken it for him, either."

"No! All right, then: let's see if I can blow just enough of the Margrave's brains out to leave him alive but a vegetable!" said Pasha, pointing his pistol at Wolfie's head.

"No!" I screamed. "It's not my fault, Pasha – I never ordered this! You can't!"

"Of course I can. Let's see…" He put the barrel of the pistol against Wolfie's left temple.

"Wait!" said Alex. "We can still deal here: we've still got Dmitri, remember. And Sergei, come to that. I'll swap both of them for the Margrave, provided that he's undamaged."

Pasha hesitated. "No, it's a trick," he said, uncertainly.

"No it isn't. Look at it this way; neither of us has the scientist, so let's at least settle for a consolation prize. Your two friends for our one."

"Yes," I yelled, shaking myself free from the stokers. "Come on, Pasha, please? You know you want Dmitri back. Give me my Wolfie – please?"

"Well… on one condition," said Pasha.

"Yes! Anything!" I agreed. "What do you want?"

This," said Pasha, and he swung his gun towards Tim and fired, taking him in the middle of the chest. Tim was knocked off his feet by the impact and lay splayed. A red stain appeared on the front of his jacket and started to spread.

"Just in case there was something tricky going on," Pasha explained to me. "Now we really both don't have him."

"Thank you," I said, wiping my eyes. "Truly, thank you, Pasha. He couldn't have lived like that. At least now it's over with. I owe you. Alex, get Dmitri and Sergei out here."

Alex turned and shouted in the direction of the gondola, and another pair of stokers appeared carrying a stretcher on which Dmitri was lying. Sergei was walking beside them.

"Is he alive?" Pasha asked me, and then called the same question in Russian to Sergei, who nodded and said something in reply.

"He's unconscious," translated Chris, for my benefit.

"Yes, I'm sorry," said Dr Harries. "We slipped getting him down the ladder and he jarred his leg, so I gave him some pain-killers. The leg's all right, but it would have caused him a lot of pain. He'll be awake in half an hour or so."

I walked over to Pasha.

"I'm glad you've got him back," I said. "Remember what I told you too: love isn't imaginary. And thank you for giving me Wolfie back."

I gently detached Wolfie from him and pushed him in the direction of Alex and the doctor. I still wasn't sure that Pasha wouldn't shoot him in a fit of pique, and I really think he was considering it, but then he looked at me and put the pistol back in its holster.

"You're too soft to make a good captain," he told me. "But if your friend ever wants a job, I'd take him like a shot. He knows how to be ruthless. You could learn a lot from him, de Courtenay. Next time we meet I'll have to watch out for that one."

"Like I said last time, I hope we never meet again," I said. "Nothing personal."

"Don't count on that," he said. "Our next meeting might be sooner than you think."

The stokers handed over the handles of the stretcher to two of Pasha's Cossacks and headed back to the ship. Pasha and I looked at each other for a moment, and then he grinned at me once more.

"Have a good trip!" he said. "And good luck – you might need it!"

He turned and led his men back the way they had come. In the meantime the stokers had picked up Tim's body and were carrying it carefully back to the ship, and I thought that was the right thing to do: he deserved to be buried in France next to his father, not here in a foreign country. I walked back to the ship and found myself almost bowled over by a rush of crewmen hurrying to the ropes that held the ship on the ground.

"Confirm engines ready and stand by ballast," ordered Alex as I stepped back into the gondola. "Helm, stand by. Okay, release moorings and get the crew aboard."

"What's the rush?" I asked, scowling at him. "In a hurry to get away from the scene of the crime?"

"In a manner of speaking," he said. "I want us to be well out to sea before Dmitri wakes up. Are the crew aboard? Right, drop ballast, helm, up five degrees and all engines ahead one quarter. Desk, make sure the observation posts are manned."

The ship started to rise slowly.

"Billy, as soon as we're clear of the hills bring us to one-eight-zero," ordered Alex. "Engines, ahead one half. Leo, I think you should go and talk to the doctor."

"Why?"

"Just do it."

"Okay, you have the bridge," I said, ungraciously, and I climbed the ladder and made my way to the sick bay. I hadn't expected there to be anything happening, but I found Dr Harries and Albie frantically working on Tim's arm.

"What's the point of that?" I asked.

"Mainly because I would prefer to 'ave two arms," said Tim, in a slurred voice.

I gaped at him.

"You're dead!" I said.

"I do not zink zo."

"But I saw him shoot you!"

"Albie – my jacket?" said Tim.

They'd cut the left sleeve away, but the rest of the jacket was still intact, with a blood-stain in the centre of the chest. Albie undid the buttons and pulled the jacket open, and I saw a number of little skin bags attached to Tim's shirt. One of these was holed and leaking blood onto his clothes.

"Now my shirt," said Tim, and when Albie undid that I saw something blue-grey underneath.

"He's got a breastplate made out of æthership armour," Albie told me. "He made it for fun while he was experimenting with the stuff and he brought it with him just in case. He has some for his thighs, too, but not for his arms, which is why we're trying to fix him up now."

"Yes, but if the first shot actually did hit his arm, how come he didn't react?"

"Because he's up to his ears in tranquillisers," said the doctor. "I gave him as much as I could without it actually knocking him out. We were mainly aiming for a proper facial expression, but we thought it likely that the Russian would try hitting him to get a response, and it was vital that he didn't give one. We didn't actually expect him to shoot him in the arm, but in a way that worked even better, because it was a lot more convincing."

"It convinced me," I admitted. "Why didn't anyone tell me?"

"Well, we didn't really get a chance, but in any case I'd have advised against it because I wasn't sure you were a good enough actor," admitted Albie. "We were hoping that your reaction would help to convince Romanov it was real, and it seems to have worked perfectly – as long as you didn't actually break Alex's jaw, of course. I was watching from the gondola, and I almost felt that myself."

"He bloody deserved it for putting me through that," I said. "So where did that bit of brain come from?"

"We caught a rabbit yesterday evening," said Albie. "We thought it unlikely that Romanov could tell human brain from rabbit, so…"

There was a distant whistle, repeated three times.

"Bloody hell!" I exclaimed "Now what?"

I ran back to the gondola, where I could immediately see what the problem was: the ship had risen to about thirteen hundred feet [400 m] and was swinging round towards the south, but immediately ahead of us and only about a thousand yards away was an Eagle, effectively blocking our route back to the sea.

"Rear observation post reports another Eagle flying low at zero-six-zero," said Joe, and I ran to the back of the gondola and looked down. Sure enough there was another ship down there, close to the ground, and I was virtually certain it was Alexander Suvorov – I should have known that Pasha wouldn't let us go quite that easily. Right now it was probably getting Pasha and his party on board. And that explained why he'd dawdled on our way back here: he wanted to give his stokers time to raise steam on Suvorov and to get a signal to one of the Russian bases, because I didn't think the Eagle ahead of us was there by chance.

"First things first," said Alex. "Your uncle said that the first Eagle we met would get a nasty surprise. Time to see if he was right, I think – after all, if we can get past that one we can certainly outrun Pasha's old heap. Desk, tell the port gun crews to stand by. Helm, full ahead at one eight zero and prepare to turn to starboard on my mark. Oh, and Leo… I'm sorry, okay? We used you a bit there."

"No, you were right," I admitted. "Hell, I was convinced, and because I was I think Pasha was too. It was a good plan – at least, it will be if Tim doesn't lose an arm."

"Even if he does it's still a better result than we'd have had otherwise," Alex pointed out, and I thought that maybe Pasha had been right: maybe Alex really was capable of being as ruthless as Pasha himself.

"Anyway," Alex went on, "you're the one with experience here, so from here on you have the bridge."

"I have the bridge," I acknowledged. "But so far you've done everything perfectly. Desk, confirm all turrets manned and ready to fire to port."

"Confirmed," said Joe a few seconds later.

"Very well. Now, he's probably expecting us to try barrelling straight past him, so you got it right, Alex: we'll do the other thing. Helm… wait… all right, now, Billy – hard to starboard. All guns and turrets may fire at will as soon as they have a target."

The Eagle's turrets were already firing at us but hadn't managed to hit us yet, but then so far they'd only had our nose to aim at. But now we began to swing around to run parallel with them, and that brought all of their weapons into play, as well as all of ours. Tim's armour was about to get its first serious test.

I dropped the armour shutters over the windows on the port side of the gondola – this was a serious weak area, of course, which Tim had dealt with by fitting all the gondolas with armour flaps that could be lowered across the windows. Each flap had a narrow horizontal viewing slit, and in theory even a direct hit on one of the flaps wouldn't penetrate. It was a theory I'd prefer not to test, however.

"Slow to one quarter speed," I ordered, wanting to match speed with the Eagle: in a direct exchange of broadsides I was confident that we'd win, and the longer we were able to keep firing, the more chance we had of finding a weak spot. I could feel missiles hitting our own armour, but I could see plenty of ours hitting the other ship, and suddenly there was a flash towards the Eagle's stern and then the ship was falling away, trailing flames.

"Right," I said. Now let's get out…"

There was a bang from somewhere behind us and the ship began to veer to starboard, and then another bang, also somewhere to our rear.

"Desk?" I said.

"Nothing yet," said Joe. "Rear observation, report, please."

"The wheel's stuck!" said Billy. "I can't shift it!"

Alex ran to his side and tried to help him move the wheel, but it wasn't going anywhere.

"Engines two and four, one half speed; engines one and three, full speed," I ordered, hoping that the engines could compensate for whatever was jamming our steering.

"Engine Three is gone," reported Joe. "Direct hit on the propeller from the ship behind us. We have some injuries in the gondola."

"Disengage the engine if it hasn't already been done," I said. "Tell the gondola crew to bank the furnace and evacuate. Send half a dozen men from the standby crew to help get the injured to the sick bay. What can you tell me about the steering?"

"I can't raise the rear observation point," said Joe.

"We're stuck with the rudder at five degrees to starboard," Billy told me. "Sorry, Leo… Captain, but it won't shift."

"Call Gondola Four and ask them what's happening behind us," I said.

I could hear rockets flashing past us, so clearly either Pasha's ship was attacking us, or another Eagle had appeared from somewhere.

"There's an Eagle about five hundred yards astern of us and maybe four hundred feet below," Joe told me. "That's where the rockets are coming from."

"Turret five, fire on it," I ordered. "Then please try to find someone who can sort out the steering. Find Graham."

"I'll go," said Alex. "I can get there in a couple of minutes."

He disappeared up the ladder. Ten seconds later there was a bang and the whole gondola shook, throwing me off my feet. When I got up I saw that there was a hole in the rear port corner, between the semaphore desk and the door. The armour had done a good job, but the rocket must have hit right on the join and so had managed to push two plates apart, and now we had a hole a foot or so across, and part of the wooden structure that made up the inner part of the gondola wall had caught fire. Chris Beeching had already grabbed a fire extinguisher and so I wasn't worried about the fire spreading, but one more hit in the same place and we would all be toast.

"Alex says we took another direct hit just beside the rear observation post," Joe told me a couple of minutes later. "One spotter is dead and the other unconscious. The rudder seems to be intact, but there's something jamming it – a bit of the rocket, he thinks. He's going to try freeing it."

"Tell him to wait for help, and under no circumstances to go outside without a rope!" I said.

Joe relayed that order. Then he turned to face me.

"Captain, forward observation post reports four Eagles heading straight for us, bearing two-four-five, range approximately four thousand yards," he said.

"Oh, shit," I said quietly, because I knew we were done for: we couldn't steer, and even if we could there was no way we could survive an attack from five Eagles at once. Worse, we were still over the hills, and with the rudder stuck where it was we couldn't get back over water. When we went down it would be over land, which would give the Russians full access to our armour. And if we survived the crash we'd almost certainly end up back in Pasha's dungeon.

Chapter Twenty-eight

I wasn't anything like as good at history as Alex, but one period that I did know something about was World War Two. In 1941 the German battleship Bismarck, a very powerful and well-armoured ship, had made its way out into the Atlantic but had then been attacked by torpedo-bombers, one of which had successfully jammed her port rudder. The result was that the ship could no longer steer, and so was unable to avoid the large number of British ships chasing her and was eventually sunk, although the German crew helped matters along by scuttling the ship to avoid it falling into British hands. And now I was facing a similar fate: unable to steer and faced by superior numbers, it seemed almost certain that we were going to be shot down. We didn't even have the choice of scuttling the ship unless we could get back over water, which seemed unlikely with our rudder jammed at five degrees starboard.

"Joe, you'd better call Sam to the bridge," I said. "Once those ships reach us it's going to need two of you on the desk. And could you ask Albie to join us too? Maybe he can think of a plan."

Actually I didn't think it likely, because there was virtually nothing we could do here. Our only options were either to push both port engines up to full speed, which would have the effect of exaggerating our turn to starboard, or to climb and keep climbing in the hope that our gasbags were better than theirs, because the higher we went, the more the gas in the bags would expand. Neither was really a solution: climbing might take us out of range briefly, but once we reached a certain point we'd have to vent gas to avoid bursting the bags, and while the Eagles could afford to do that – they could refuel easily – we couldn't: once we came back down to a normal operating level we'd find that our lift was reduced. And turning to starboard might make us a bit harder to hit, but once there were five ships around us it would just be a matter of time.

Wolfie came back to the bridge. He'd been to our cabin to get changed – he'd been given his clothes back before we left Pasha's villa, but since I had optimistically brought a change of clothes and his uniform along for him he'd thought he might as well look the part. And that reminded me of something else.

"Desk, call turrets one and three, gun ports one and two and engines one and two and tell them to release the guy ropes for the canvas," I said. "Then call the forward observation post and tell them to open their hatch and pull the canvas aboard. If we're going to go down, let's at least do it under our own colours."

I opened the window at the front of the bridge and untied the guy rope there, and while I was there I looked at the approaching Eagles. They seemed to be getting closer terribly quickly.

"Got any ideas?" I asked Wolfie.

"Pray?" he suggested.

"Thanks. I meant practical ideas."

"Not really. I suppose that if we survive long enough a long starboard turn might bring us out above the Sea of Azov, which would at least give us the option of sinking the ship, but I really doubt if we'd last long enough to get there."

"No, that's what I thought," I said. "Oh, well… let's just see how many we can take with us, then. I'm sorry, Wolfie: this hasn't been much of a rescue, has it?"

"I'd far sooner die like this than on Romanov's bloody rack," he said. "I don't know about you, but I don't think I'm going to bother putting a jumpshade on."

I could understand that: if we jumped and lived we'd end up back in Pasha's torture chamber. It was strange how similar our position was now to my last memory of this world when I was ten, the day my mother's ship had been shot down. On that occasion there hadn't been any jumpshades: this time we had the shades but we recognised that we'd be better off not using them and going down with the ship, as my mother had done. And while this wasn't exactly chaos – this time I knew exactly what was going on – we still had the smoke from the smouldering wood where the rocket had hit the gondola, and we still had a hole, albeit a smaller one, in the bridge wall..

"There's another ship out there!" cried Wolfie, who was looking out of the port side of the gondola – he'd raised the window-flaps. This fit so perfectly into my mental rerunning of my recurring dream that I didn't even react, and when he went on, "It's the Gouvion-Saint-Cyr!" I thought he was somehow telepathically receiving what I was thinking.

"I know," I said, "'Trust the damned Frogs to turn up when it's too late', huh?"

"No! It really is the Gouvion-Saint-Cyr!" he insisted, pointing out of the window.

I grabbed my telescope and ran to join him, and he was right: there really was a French ship about two thousand yards away heading on a converging course with us, and it really was, unless my eyes were deceiving me, called Laurent de Gouvion-Saint-Cyr. At this stage I was thinking that it was some sort of an illusion, and that the ship was there as a harbinger of death, just as it had been for my mother and her crew. Surely there was no way that a real French æthership could suddenly materialise over the Black Sea? But if it was a ghost we weren't the only ones who could see it, because two of the Eagles that had been heading towards us changed course to head for the French ship instead.

Even then I didn't think our situation had improved very much: okay, so now it was two against five instead of just one against five, but Gouvion-Saint-Cyr wasn't carrying the new armour, which made it almost suicidal for it to actually attack a small fleet of Eagles. But then I saw the trail of a rocket coming from beyond the French ship, and suddenly the Eagle closest to the sea burst into flames.

"Bloody hell, that was a lucky shot," I exclaimed, grabbing my telescope again and aiming it past the French ship – and there were more of them out there, at least three more. Suddenly I started to think that we might just get out of this mess after all.

Of course, we still had our own personal nemesis to deal with: Alexander Suvorov was still firing at us, and since Pasha's ship had already destroyed one of our propellers, jammed our rudder and holed the bridge, it was clear that we couldn't take it lightly. I decided to try to spoil his aim.

"Engines two and four, maximum speed," I ordered. "Engine one to idle."

The crewman manning the telegraph and ballast desk adjusted the telegraphs, and a few seconds later the ship started to veer a bit more sharply to starboard.

Things were definitely looking up: the other three Eagles had now lost interest in us completely and were turning to face their attackers instead. But rockets were still hitting our ship, and if we lost another engine, or the elevators, we'd be in serious trouble, and of course our right turn was taking us away from the French and further over the interior of the Crimea.

Then Joe exclaimed "Yes!" and turned to face us once more.

"That was Graham," he said. "Alex has cleared the rudder. Billy, try the helm."

Billy spun the wheel and found that it responded normally.

"Great!" I said. "Right, then: helm, come to two-four-five. Engine one to maximum speed, engines two and four to three-quarters. Let's see if we can still fly this thing."

Now that the helm was responding I was no longer interested in running away: if the French ships had been sent to help us, as seemed likely, then it was now our duty to help them. So I decided to ignore Pasha for the moment and go where we were needed.

A couple of minutes later Alex returned to the bridge looking a bit dishevelled.

"That was fun!" he commented. "You get an amazing view from the back end of an airship when you're swinging on a piece of rope. If it hadn't been for Graham and Stoker Gardner I'd have been hoping I could learn to fly before I hit the ground, and somehow I don't think I'd have been able to do that. Anyway, I managed to knock the chunk of rocket clear before I fell and they managed to hang onto the other end of the rope, so no harm done. What's been going on at this end while I was away?"

"We've got some allies," I told him. "Someone – probably my uncle – seems to have arranged a rescue party."

"They seem to be doing rather well, too," observed Wolfie. "They might not need us after all: they've already shot down two of the Eagles. Maybe they've developed a rocket that is magnetically attracted to open gun-ports or something."

"That doesn't seem very likely," I said. "But who cares, as long as it works?"

And by the time we got close enough to join in we found we were too late: a third Eagle had been destroyed and the fourth one had had enough and was heading back towards Alushta as fast as it could fly. But the battle wasn't over yet, because apparently Pasha still wasn't prepared to pack up and go home.

"Okay, I've had about enough of this," I said, as yet another rocket rattled the gondola. "Helm, reverse bearing to zero-six-zero. Desk, tell all turrets to cease fire and await my command. Why won't he do the sensible thing and let it go?"

"Probably because Dmitri has woken up by now," said Alex. "See, Dmitri knows Tim is neither brain-damaged nor dead. He needed the toilet, and when nobody answered his shout he managed to get out of bed and drag himself as far as the sick bay, where he saw Tim putting his armour on. He probably saw the dead rabbit with its head cut open, too. That's why the doctor had to drug him. Any money says he's now told Pasha what he saw, and Pasha isn't very happy about it."

"Ah. Well, I suppose I can understand that. Still, it was his decision to walk away and leave Tim lying on the ground, and fairly obviously I didn't break my word to him, any more than he broke his when he captured Wolfie. As far as I'm concerned, we're quits, and if he isn't prepared to see it like that, too bad.

"Helm, take us to port of his ship and drop us to a thousand feet [300 m] – or to his level, whatever that is. All starboard guns and turrets, prepare to fire. Let's see if we can shoot as well as the French."

I went and lowered the starboard window-flaps, just in case, and then watched as the other ship headed towards us.

"Engine Four to idle," I ordered. "Engines one and two, one quarter speed."

The two ships were only about fifty yards apart and there were no flaps on Pasha's command gondola, so when his bridge was level with mine I could see him looking towards us. On impulse I raised the flap in front of one window and waved to him, giving his a cheery smile at the same time, and for once he wasn't grinning back at me. His own guns and turrets were firing and I could hear and feel the impact of every shell and rocket, but I was confident that this time he wouldn't be able to damage us – in this position he didn't have our control surfaces or propellers to aim at. I waited until our bridge was level with the halfway point on his ship and then ordered "Fire!" and watched as a full broadside of shells and rockets crossed the short gap between us and impacted on his hull. Most of them caused only surface damage, but one rocket hit his starboard waist gondola and blew it to pieces, leaving him with only one engine.

"Helm, come about to two-four-zero," I ordered. "Engines one and two, half speed. All port guns stand by; all turrets rotate to port."

My intention was to pass him on the other side: if we could knock out his other engine the game really would be over. I was half-hoping that he'd accept the inevitable and retreat inland, and if he had I wouldn't have gone after him: I had no objection to killing Pasha, but I did quite like Dmitri and I had nothing against any of Pasha's other crew either. But his ship began to turn, so apparently he was still angry enough to attempt another pass.

Once again the two ships began to approach each other. Then Suvorov dipped down a little, but I'd been half-expecting that: Pasha was trying to line his guns up on our gondolas rather than our hull, and I didn't like that idea at all.

"Helm, down five degrees," I ordered. "And try to stay on the same level as him."

Once again he started firing as soon as the ships' noses passed each other. We were still both angling down, so I ordered Sparrer to level off

"Turrets one and four, concentrate on his tail," I ordered. "Turrets two, three and five, aim for his gondolas. Ready? Fire, and fire at will until I shout 'Stop!'"

We didn't hit either gondola, but we didn't need to. Maybe we managed to hit an open gun port, but in any event we got something past his armour and the ship blossomed with flames.

"Cease fire. Helm, up ten degrees and come to one-eight-zero; all engines, maximum speed," I ordered, just in case the fire reached his powder-room and we got caught in the explosion.

I watched from the back of the gondola as Suvorov fell away. I saw a number of white jumpshades open as people leapt from the burning ship and I hoped that Dmitri was wearing one of them. I also hoped that Pasha would go down with his ship the way my mother had, although I was fairly sure that he wouldn't if he could possibly avoid it.

I kept watching until the wrecked ship hit the ground. It didn't burn for very long: once the hydrogen was gone most of what remained was metal or ceramic. But the twisted metal skeleton was enough to demonstrate clearly that at least this was one ship I'd never have to fight again.

I went back to the front of the gondola.

"Helm, level us off at twelve hundred feet [350 m] and bring us back to two-four-zero," I said. "All engines to cruising speed. Billy, tell me if you can steer comfortably like that or if you'd prefer to run the ship on two engines only."

"I think as I can manage like this," he told me a few seconds later. "It just needs a little touch of port rudder to balance her out."

"Good. Now, where are the French?"

"I can see one ship just off the starboard bow at about three thousand yards," said Wolfie, looking through his telescope. "I can't see the others, though."

"Okay," I said. "Let's go and have a chat with him. Helm, two-four-five, please."

Before we reached the French ship Albie arrived on the bridge.

"Sorry I couldn't come earlier," he said. "We were a bit busy in sick bay."

"Ah. Do you know how many…?"

"Three dead, two serious injuries, a few cuts and scratches," he told me. "That's not bad for a full-on battle, I suppose."

"It's still three more dead than I think is acceptable," I said. "Do you have the names?"

I didn't recognise any of them, so I guessed they were part of my collection of sewer-boys from London. I made up my mind that I was going to get to know everyone by name once we got back home – if we got back home, of course.

"Dr Harries recommends a burial at sea," Albie went on. "We don't really have anywhere to store the bodies, and it'll be better for morale to have a proper service and get them off the ship."

"Yes, okay," I agreed, wondering what I was supposed to say at that sort of service. "How's Tim?"

"He's going to be fine. His arm's a bit of a mess and he's got a broken radius, but the doctor's patched him up and it should mend. Tim's still more or less out of it at the moment: the doctor says it would be better to let him wake up of his own accord, rather than risking giving him stimulants."

"I won't argue with that," I said. "Just let me know as soon as he's awake. I want a word with him."

We drew level with the French ship and matched speed with it. This one was called Frédéric Lemarchand, who was presumably yet another French Marshal I'd never heard of.

"Lower the semaphore," I ordered, and watched as the French ship did the same. His semaphore began to move.

"Is your ship intact?" read Joe.

"Tell him we've lost one engine but are otherwise fine," I said to Chris.

"Do you still have armaments?" read Joe.

"Wait," I said, and I asked Sam to call round the turrets and gun crews.

"Plenty," I said to Chris once the inventory was done.

"Good. Follow me," said Joe, and the French semaphore arm swung up and the ship accelerated away. I ordered Billy to follow him, deciding after a couple of minutes to set Engine Four to idle – with three engines we were still faster than the French ship.

Once we were in line behind him I took a bearing and went to the map table, where I was amazed to discover that we seemed to be heading directly towards Alushta. An hour previously I would have said that this was a sign of insanity, but since then we had between us shot down four Eagles, so maybe it wasn't quite as mad as that.

We followed the coastline, gradually flying lower and lower. Alushta sat in a gap in the chain of hills that ran along the coast, and by the time we were drawing close we were flying at only two hundred feet [60 m]. I was amazed that nobody had shot at us yet, but when the town came into view I discovered that the defenders were far too busy to worry about us, because there were four French ships already creating chaos there – I could see three Eagles burning on the ground, and although there were rocket batteries defending the base the French ships were too low for the rockets to be aimed at them. This seemed too good an opportunity to miss, so I targeted a couple of æthership hangars on the far side of the base and ordered my turrets to attack them.

By the time we broke off the attack the place was a shambles, and there didn't seem to be any enemy ships left intact. I still had no idea what the French were playing at: this seemed to me to be just begging for retaliation. Still, I saw no good reason not to join in.

Once we'd broken off the attack we headed south-west for a couple of hours, which was probably long enough to take us well out of range of any attack by surface ships out of Sevastopol, and also far enough to make us hard to find if Russian ætherships came looking for us in force. And then another of the French ships dropped out of line and came to fly alongside us. This one was called Bernard Magnan and carried a rear-admiral's pennant above the tricolour.

"Are you the Duc de Cullam?" read Joe, spelling it for me.

Chris sent 'yes' without disputing the spelling.

"This is Admiral Giorgetti. Thank you for your help. Is your ship structurally intact?"

"I think so," I said. "We've lost one engine, but still have three that work."

"Can you fly to three thousand metres?"

Bloody hell, I thought – three thousand metres? That was near enough ten thousand feet, a ludicrous height for an æthership.

"What do you think, Wolfie?" I asked. "Could we go that high?"

"In theory, yes, but we'd have to vent an awful lot of hydrogen at that height. I think the calculation is something like 10% for each thousand metres, so we'd lose almost a third of our hydrogen. We'd be heavy as hell by the time we came back down, even if we dumped all our ballast."

"Could the ship still fly?"

"Just about. We might end up having to throw some of the guns overboard and dumping excess coal, though."

"Okay. Chris, send 'Possibly. Why?'"

"We need to head back to France by the shortest route," read Joe. "We're going to fly direct over Romania and Austria-Hungary."

"Can we do that?" I wondered aloud. Chris assumed I intended that to be sent, and so he sent it.

"We'd be over Romania at night, and AH is neutral but no friend of the Tsar," read Joe. "We can do it. Do you have sufficient fuel to return direct to France?"

"Yes, we have," I said. I'd made sure that we took on a full load of coal and water at Thessalonika in case we ended up having to run for Turkey, in which case we wouldn't have been able to land again until we'd reached Cyprus. Besides, we'd probably only be using two engines from now on, and we had enough coal for four.

"And do you have enough crew to fly through the night?"

Ah. That was trickier, because we only had two competent helmsmen and two assistants, and we could hardly ask them to work for more than four hours at a time – even that was stretching it. But if it came down to it I thought we'd manage, even if it meant that I'd have to learn to do it myself.

"We'll manage," I said to Chris.

"Good," read Joe. "In a while we'll turn onto a bearing of two-nine-zero and start to climb. Follow us. In emergency it is safe to land in AH but not before."

The French semaphore swung up and the admiral's ship moved to the head of the line.

"Wolfie, can you find me our third-choice helm and assistant?" I asked. "Then I want an officers' conference in five minutes, so Joe, you'd better get Graham down here."

Once Wolfie came back I handed the assistant, a street-kid called Mouse, and the helmsman, who was Tommy Green, one of my stable-lads, over to Sparrer and Billy respectively and told them in no uncertain terms that I needed them to be able to fly unsupervised before it got dark that evening.

"Your dad's my uncle's chief helmsman," I added to Tommy, "so if he can do this, there's no reason why you can't. Billy, we're going to be busy for a bit, so I just need you and Sparrer to latch on to the last French ship in the line and follow it. Shout if you need anything. Sam, if the observation posts spot anything, yell at me, all right?"

I gathered Wolfie, Alex, Albie, Joe, Graham and Chris Beeching around the navigation table and opened the map that covered south-eastern Europe.

"If we stick to the bearing he gave me we'll be going straight over the Carpathians," I said. "According to the map they go up to around eight thousand feet [2500 m] or so, which means we'll be pushing our limits hard. When you're on duty you'll need to monitor the gas desk closely, because we're going to have to vent quite a bit of gas but it's vital that we don't lose any more than is absolutely essential. Alex, I'd really like you on the desk when we're flying at our highest because you know what you're doing with it. Albie will be nominally in charge of the third watch, but I'd like you to work together if anything crops up. Wolfie, you have the second watch and I'll take the first, which will be back on duty at midnight."

We divided the stokers into three watches – since we were now only running two engines and the electricity generator we had plenty to go around – and arranged to rotate the observation post crew every two hours. The rest of the crew would be able to sleep – we now had almost exactly as many bunks as there would be off-duty crew.

Before we turned towards Romania we held our funeral service for the three dead crewmen. I made it up as I went along, and Albie, who had known two of them personally and who of course had been brought up in the house of a churchman, was able to add some suitably religious thoughts. The doctor had found some sheets to wrap the bodies in, and once the service was over we dropped them from the cargo hatch between the two lower turrets. It still seemed a bit like dumping rubbish to me, but I acknowledged that there wasn't really a good alternative, especially as we'd need to be carrying the absolute minimum extra weight once we'd lost thirty per cent of our gas.

About five minutes after the service had finished the lead French ship turned onto the new bearing and began to climb slowly, and we followed the last one. We were only climbing at a shallow angle – presumably the idea was to reach a high level only shortly before we reached the Carpathians.

My watch ended at four o'clock, and as soon as I had handed over to Wolfie I went to the sick bay to see how Tim was doing. I found him awake and sitting on a chair beside his bunk, his arm strapped to his body and a fresh bandage around his head.

"How do you feel?" I asked, in German.

"Not too bad," he replied. "It'll probably get worse once the drugs wear off, but for now I'm fine."

"Good. So whose bloody stupid idea was that frontal lobotomy stunt?"

"Mine. I thought it worked pretty well."

"It might not have done, though. What if Pasha had wanted to take you anyway?"

"We didn't think that was likely, but the doctor had given me some more pills to take just in case. With the amount I was already on he's confident it would have caused a fatal overdose."

"And suppose Pasha had chosen to shoot you in the head instead of the chest? What then, genius?"

"Well, then I'd be dead. But we thought he'd almost certainly aim for the body – it's a bigger target, and he'd have looked a fool if he'd aimed at the smaller target of my head and missed. And Albie reckoned that since I already had a head wound he'd be more likely psychologically to shoot me somewhere else. And he was right, wasn't he? Besides, even if I'd died for real, at least you'd still have Wolfie back."

"And how do you think I'd feel about that, you moron? Do you really think I want my friends to start chucking their lives away?"

"Leo, it worked," he reminded me. "We couldn't think of anything else that had any chance of success: if we'd started a shoot-out, lots of people might have died, including you, me and Wolfie. My plan worked and nobody got hurt… well, apart from my arm, and the doctor says it'll heal. So there's no point in worrying about what might have happened."

I supposed that was true. I still wasn't very happy about the risk he had taken, but as he said, it had worked.

"All right," I said. "Next question: can we fly at a height of three thousand metres?"

He stared at me. "Why would we want to do that?" he asked.

"Ask the French – it's their idea."

"What French?"

So I filled him in on what had been happening over the past three or four hours, adding that the bearing we were now on would take us over the Carpathian Mountains.

"I don't fancy that," he said. "In theory we can fly at that height, but in practice we'd be outside our safety margins if we lost that much hydrogen. When I was testing to see what we could lift I built in a good margin, obviously, but not as much as that. You'd have to be prepared to throw overboard almost everything that isn't bolted into place."

"That's pretty much what Wolfie said," I told him. "Well, the French think they can do it, and we ought to be lighter than they are, so we're going to give it a try. You just rest here and get some sleep if you can, because if we find ourselves in trouble in the middle of the night I'll probably want your help."

I went to my own cabin, removed my hat, jacket and shoes and lay down. I didn't manage to go to sleep straight away, because as usual I was worrying about all the things that could go wrong, but eventually I told myself that my position now was a whole lot better than it had been when I rolled out of Pasha's bed ten hours or so previously, and that this showed there was no point in thinking too much about what might lie ahead – at least, not when there was nothing I could do about it.

I woke up some time later to find Wolfie lying next to me, so obviously it was by now after eight o'clock and his watch had ended.

"How's it looking?" I asked him.

"Sorry," he replied. "I was trying not to wake you up. Anyway, it's fine so far: we're over Romania and up to around six thousand feet [1800 m], and the ship's still handling normally. Maybe we're going to manage this after all."

Well, that sounded hopeful, so I cuddled up to him and went back to sleep.

I woke up to find someone shaking my shoulder, and when I turned on my flashlight I saw that it was Bert Whitacre, one of my stable-lads, who was also one of our electricians.

"What is it?" I asked, because a glance at my watch showed me that it was only quarter past eleven – my watch wasn't due to start until midnight.

"Sorry, Captain," he said quietly, obviously not wanting to wake Wolfie up, "but can you come to the bridge? We're in trouble."

I sat up and got dressed and then followed him back to the bridge.

"Sorry to disturb you," said Albie, "but we need you."

"Where are we and what's happening?" I asked.

He led me over to the navigation table.

"We're approximately here," he told me, pointing to a range of mountains east of the town of Petrozsény. "As you can see, we're close to Hungarian territory, but we're not there yet so we still have to be really careful not to crash. If I knew exactly where we were I could avoid this range of hills ahead – those go well over seven thousand five hundred feet [2300 m] – but since we can't see where we're going we're going to have to stay high, and that's causing a bit of a problem. We're starting to ice up."

"What?" I exclaimed. "How can we be? It must have been at least sixty degrees [15°C] when we left the Crimea!"

"It gets colder as you get higher, apparently," Albie told me. "Chris Beeching warned me about it before he went off-duty – apparently the outside temperature drops by around ten degrees [c. 5 degrees C] for every two thousand five hundred feet [750 m] you climb. So now that we've climbed over eight thousand feet [2500 m] the outside temperature is well below freezing."

"Can we do anything to get rid of the ice?" I asked.

"Not really. It'll melt once we get down to a lower level, but we can't risk that until we're out of the mountains. We can turn all our heaters on, but that will have no real effect because the heaters are only in crew areas, not the hull. So there's not much else we can do except to keep dumping ballast, and now there's no more ballast to dump. How's it handling, Mr Mouse?"

I decided I was definitely going to have to do something about my street kids' names: at least half of them seemed to be known by nicknames, and while I supposed I could just about say 'Mr Weasel' with a straight face, 'Mr Mouse' was pushing it. And one of my ballast and telegraph operators rejoiced in the name 'Dustbin' because when he'd lived on the streets he used to sleep in one, and I hadn't yet been able to bring myself to call him 'Mr Dustbin'. In fact that was one reason why he was on Wolfie's watch and not mine – that way Wolfie could make up his own mind what to call him.

"She's still pulling dahn," said Mouse. "I've had ter rope the wheel, like wot Sparrer showed me. I 'ope there's nuffink too big in front, 'cos I sure as fuck can't get 'er to go any 'igher. An' – look, Captain: the Froggie in front is goin' lower. D'yer want me ter follow 'im?"

I wondered if the French ship we were following knew something about the terrain that we didn't, or whether he was having more problems with icing up than we were. Either way, his red tail light was dropping.

"How much gas have we lost?" I asked Alex, who was monitoring the gas bags.

"We've lost just over a million and fifty thousand cubic feet," Alex told me. "Provided we don't go any higher we can keep it to that, but that's still borderline as far as lift goes. Like Mouse says, if we see anything tall in front of us we'll have to go around it."

"Which might be tricky if we can't see it," I pointed out. "So no, Mr Mouse, don't follow the Frog. Keep us at this altitude as long as you can."

"I dunno if I can. The dial-fingy sez we're droppin' slightly even wiv the planes at level."

I went and looked at the altimeter by the navigation table and found that he was right: it was unwinding slowly. The French ship was dropping faster than we were, and now I could see that it wasn't following the line, because I could now see another red light that indicated that the ship ahead of it was more or less holding the same level as us.

"Mr Mouse, try to keep us behind that other light," I ordered.

"There's another problem," Albie said quietly. "Some of the crew are starting to feel sick. In fact, I don't feel too good myself: I've got a headache and I feel a bit dizzy. It could just be because I'm worrying about our situation, but I don't think so."

"Go and see Dr Harries," I said. "It's better to be safe. I've got the bridge now. Except: before you go to see the doctor, could you find me eight off-duty crewmen – stokers, preferably? Ask them to report to the bridge, then go and see the doctor."

I went and sat in the captain's chair next to Tommy Green, who was wrestling with the wheel. He didn't look well, either.

"Are you all right?" I asked him.

"Not really, Sir. It's the ship – I can hardly move the wheel. It's like trying to steer a brick. If we have to turn… well, I'm not sure as I'll be able to."

"All right, Tommy, just do your best," I said, checking my watch. "Another twenty minutes and you'll be able to go and rest."

The ship sailed on. Three or four minutes later a group of stokers came down the ladder onto the bridge, yawning. I noticed that one of them seemed to have a nosebleed, but he needed me to point it out to him.

"I need you to go up to the gun deck," I told them. "Open the outer hatches and shove guns three, four, seven and eight overboard."

"All right, Captain," said the one petty officer among them, "but can I ask why?"

"Because we haven't got any more ballast and the ship's going down," I told them. "Once you've dumped those four guns, close the hatches and go back to Crew Quarters Number Two, but don't go back to bed – we might need to dump the rest of the guns before too much longer. I'm sending you back to quarters because it'll be a lot warmer there than it will on the gun…"

"Bloody hell!" exclaimed Tommy, staring out of the gondola.

I ran to his side and saw a fire blazing out on a tree-covered hillside about three hundred feet [100 m] below us. The ship that had been immediately in front of us had apparently crashed and caught fire.

"Go now," I said to the stokers. "As fast as you like. Get rid of guns three and four first, then seven and eight. And if you want to chuck their shells out as well, that would be no bad idea."

I wondered if any of the French crew below us had escaped. If they had they might well find themselves stuck high up on a mountain in hostile territory, because as far as I could tell we were still over Romania. Of course my main aim now was to keep us from following them. I hoped no poor sod of a Romanian woodcutter was about to get a ship's gun plummeting through his roof, but I couldn't see any other way of keeping us in the air long enough to get over the next set of mountains.

The ship limped on. It was too dark to see the guns falling away into the night, but the altimeter slowed its movement a little, suggesting that we had bought ourselves a little more time.

At midnight the watch changed. I asked Mouse and Tommy to tell Sparrer and Billy what had been happening before they went off duty, but it didn't take the new watch very long to discover that the ship was about as manoeuvrable as a drunken elephant. All we could do was to fly in a straight line and try to keep from sinking too quickly. At least the lower we went, the less likely the crew were to succumb to altitude sickness, but a bit of a headache and some nausea were probably preferable to ramming a Romanian forest at fifty miles [80 km] an hour.

I went back to the map and did some hasty calculations. If we could survive for another two and a half hours we'd be past the mountains – or at least, past the highest of them – and from then on it should be a lot easier, because there would be nothing in front of us higher than about three thousand feet [900 m] – at least, not until we reached Austria. And in much less than two and a half hours' time we'd be over Hungary. I didn't particularly want to have to land in Hungary because nobody on board spoke Hungarian, but at least if we had to we'd be on neutral territory.

But the next two and a half hours were going to be tricky. The altimeter was still unwinding, even if it was doing so very slowly. I was reluctant to dump the remaining guns until we absolutely had to because we obviously wouldn't be completely safe from attack until we were back over France, but if I had to offload them in order to stay in the air I supposed I'd have to do it.

I went and sat down next to Billy again and watched the red light on the tail of the French ship ahead of us. It stayed where it was relative to our own position, so if we were descending slowly, so was he – and that at least meant that we would get a brief warning of an imminent crash, because he would hit the ground before we did. Whether I could actually do anything to prevent us from following him down was a different question, of course.

An hour passed, and then another. We were down below six thousand feet [1800 m] by now, and according to the map there were mountains not too far north of us that were higher than that, but still the French ship ahead of us sailed on without hitting anything. And by the time the third hour of my watch had passed I was starting to relax a bit. When Wolfie came onto the bridge to relieve me at four o'clock I was reasonably confident that we were out of trouble.

"We're here," I told him, indicating a point on the map a little to the north of the city of Szeged. "We're at about four thousand five hundred feet [1400 m], which is a lot higher than we need to be, but the problem is that we're still descending and we can't actually stop that. Our aim now has to be to reach Austria before we have to land, so we can at least make ourselves understood when we ask for a refuel. I estimate that we're now losing roughly a thousand feet [300 m] an hour, so we have four and a half hours' flying time left. There's no ballast left and I've already thrown half the guns overboard. It looks to me as if we should just about make it."

"I don't know," he said, studying the map. "There are a few hills we still need to get over, and if we fly in a straight line that might be difficult. Still, we're fine in this direction for a while yet. Let's see how things look when we reach Lake Balaton."

"Sunrise is at twenty-five past six," I told him, "so we should be able to see where we are by the time we reach the lake. We'll also be able to see what the French are going to do. Okay, then: you have the bridge. I'll take a walk around the ship and see how everyone is."

Of course most of the crew were asleep. I'd sent my team of stokers to bed as well once we were clear of the mountains, so the only people still around were the observation teams in the nose and tail and the crews of the two engine rooms and the electricity generator, and they all seemed to be working quite happily. Obviously they were unaware of our situation, and I saw no reason to enlighten them.

Once I'd finished my tour I went back to the bridge and sat in the captain's chair once more: I wasn't particularly tired and in any case I'd have to be awake when we reached the lake, which would probably be in another two hours' time. Nothing much happened during those two hours: the ship flew on, gradually losing height, and there was nothing to see except for the tail light of the ship ahead of us.

Eventually the sky behind us began to lighten just a little, and once there was enough light in the sky we were able to see water ahead: we'd reached Lake Balaton, a little further south than I had expected, but considering the distance we'd flown on that single bearing I thought the navigators on the French flagship had done an amazing job.

"We've got a problem," said Wolfie, beckoning me to the map table. "We need to get into Austria, but we also need a large enough town to have proper æthership facilities. We could try for Graz, but that would leave us south of some very high mountains. If we can get to Vienna we'll be able to carry on north of the Eastern Alps instead, which would make the next part of the journey much easier. But if we head direct towards Vienna we're going to meet this range of hills just north of this lake, see? The Nordsiedlersee. They're not very high, but at the rate we're sinking they'll be too high for us."

"So what do you suggest?"

"If we fly due north from here we'll hit the Danube, and then we just have to follow it to Vienna. No hills at all if we stay over the river. But obviously it'll be further doing that, and we might not have enough lift to get us to Vienna."

I looked at the map. "We'll do that," I said. "At least if we don't make it there should be enough flat land to put down in."

"Another thing," he went on. "I'd suggest that we fire up Engine Four again. If we move a bit faster, we'll get further before we have to land, and it'll also mean using up a bit more coal, which will help to reduce our weight. I know it'll make the ship a bit harder to steer, but I'm confident that Weasel will cope. If necessary, one of us can help him turn the wheel."

"Good idea," I said, thinking that I should have realised that myself a lot sooner than this. "We'd better tell the French what we're doing, then."

I composed myself and then managed to say, "Mr Dustbin, Engines One and Two to full power, please. Mr Sullivan, see if you can find Mr Reed for me. He's probably in his cabin, so try that first."

A minute or so later we started to speed up.

"Mr Weasel, can you try passing the French ships to starboard?" I asked.

Weasel wasn't a big kid by any means – in fact he'd told me that he'd got his name because of his ability to wriggle through small openings, like the sort of small window you sometimes find over a door or in a pantry. This was a very useful ability for a housebreaker, but not much help when it comes to shifting the wheel of a ship that is far heavier than it ought to be, and it took a fair bit of heaving from him and me together before we could edge the ship past the rearmost French vessel. I decided to ask Graham to supply us with a couple of his strongest stokers to help with the wheels from now on.

We moved past the ship we'd been following, which turned out to be Lemarchand, and then past Gouvion-Saint-Cyr, eventually drawing level with Magnan, at which point I ordered the speed to be reduced to cruising and the semaphore to be lowered. Chris was able to leave the elevator wheel because it had been roped into position for the past several hours, and so he was able to undertake the signalling for us. Joe was asleep, but Chris was able to read and send. I explained my reasoning to the admiral, who said that this seemed a good idea, and that if all went well he would meet us at the first æthership station we came to as we approached Vienna.

"Looks like the French lost two ships last night," I commented as we raised our semaphore. "I really don't know why it's so urgent to get back home, but it's starting to look like a bad idea."

I helped Weasel move us onto a bearing of three-five-five. Once the third engine was going we gradually drew away from the French, and although we were still dropping the land beneath us was still far enough below us to increase my confidence that we would make it. But by the time we saw the city of Győr off our port bow we were flying at something close to our normal level of around eight hundred feet [250 m] and Vienna was still a hundred miles away.

"We're not going to make it," I said quietly to Wolfie.

"We might," he said. "We're using up more coal now, and we still have four guns we can lose, haven't we?"

"I don't think it'll be enough," I said.

The Danube appeared ahead of us and Weasel, with a lot of help from the brawny stoker Graham had found for us, managed to get the ship into position above it.

"All engines, maximum speed," I ordered, once we were over the water. I'd been reluctant to order this while we were still heading north, because the imbalance between our two port engines and our one starboard one had a tendency to push us to starboard, which would have been away from Vienna. But now it didn't matter so much, because at this point the river had a gentle curve to starboard anyway.

On we went, still getting lower.

"We'll have to lose the rest of the guns," I decided, and we dumped them into the river close to the Hungarian border. It slowed our descent, but didn't stop it. By the time we'd passed Pressburg we were only two hundred and thirty feet [70 m] up and we still had more than thirty miles [50 km] to go.

"Do we start looking for a landing place?" asked Wolfie quietly about fifteen minutes later. "Only we're coming up into some woods, and if they go too far we might not be able to land at all."

"Not yet," I said. "The closer we can get to the city, the easier it'll be to get some sort of help. Let's keep going."

Before long there were trees on both banks and we were flying barely a hundred feet [30 m] above the river. I realised I'd made a serious mistake here, because the river was flowing quite fast, and if we set down on the water the ship would be swept onto the banks and wrecked against the trees. But I couldn't see any end to the woods on either side.

"Is there anything else we can dump?" I asked.

"Only the crew. Look, Leo, suppose I ask for volunteers to jump with me? If we can find fifty or so…"

"No!" I said, sharply. "We're far too low for shades, and if you jump into the river you'll be swept away. Either we all make it, or none of us do."

Our gondola was now below the level of the treetops, which meant that there was no longer any question of leaving the river. It was too late now to realise that I should have tried to find a landing-place near Pressburg. I hadn't because I was still worried about the language problem: most of the people there were Slovaks. But if I'd thought about it logically I'd have recognised that there must have been some German-speakers in a town of that size.

Instead I'd taken the ship into a trap: with no way to turn to left or right because of the trees, and with a fast-flowing river below us, it seemed certain that within the next few minutes the ship would hit the water. At best my stupidity was going to destroy the ship, and at worst it was going to kill a lot of the crew, including myself.

NEXT PART