David Clarke

Excelsior

Chapters 33-34

Chapter Thirty-three

I thought briefly about running and dismissed the idea immediately: there was absolutely no cover until we reached the foot of the slope, and we'd be shot long before we could get there. Wolfie couldn't move fast on a slope like this, and Simon and Danny were too far away – by the time they reached us the Cossacks would be on top of us. So we just climbed up the last few steps until we were standing on the top of the mountain and then we just waited for the Cossacks to reach us.

Using Joe as an interpreter they asked where we had come from – apparently they'd been keeping an eye on a proper footpath on the far side of the spur we were on, just in case anyone came up out of the forest along the path. But they'd heard our voices and come to investigate.

"Oh, we came up from the lake," I said, waving vaguely in the direction of the Feldsee, which I knew was some way south of the hole.

"That must have been quite a climb," said the squad leader, with some respect. "It's nearly vertical in places. Well, come on – I'm sure the captain will want to see you."

I thought he would too. I didn't recognise any of these four from my visit to Feodosia, but I had absolutely no doubt who their captain was. But there wasn't any real choice: the squad leader knew his business and had made sure that he and his colleagues stayed too far away from us for us to be able to jump them. So I turned and walked slowly towards the ship.

"How the bloody hell did the bastard find us?" Wolfie asked me. "Because I'm sure there's absolutely no chance that that ship is parked there by coincidence."

"God knows," I replied. "I expect he'll tell us, though, particularly if it demonstrates how clever he's been."

"What's the problem?" asked Simon – by now he and Danny had rejoined us. "Isn't that your ship?"

"No, it isn't. Didn't you hear me say that this place was behind enemy lines?"

"Well, yes, but… isn't it the Germans we're fighting? And aren't the Russians on our side?"

"No. In this war it's the other way around. Didn't you tell these two anything, Joe?"

"Not about the war," Joe replied. "I was trying to avoid mentioning it at all, because I was pretty sure that if my father heard the word 'war' before he met you he'd be off back to England on the next train."

"I see. Well, Simon, in this war it's us and the French against the Russians. Germany is occupied by Russia. And unless I'm wrong, that ship is commanded by the one Russian I hoped I'd never have to meet again."

"He isn't wrong," said Alex. "Nobody but 'The Black Flash'," (and he did the little inverted comma thing with his fingers – I know I've said before that I hate it, but here it was clear that he was aiming it scornfully at our opponent) "would give his ship a name like that. And no captain older than about fifteen would paint it that colour, either."

"Hey, I'm fifteen," I pointed out. "And I wouldn't paint my ship black."

"Fourteen, then. It's typical teenage rebellion thing. If he lived in my world he'd be a Goth."

"No, he wouldn't," said Danny. "I know… knew a couple of Goths, and they were alright. It's true they wear black a lot, but it's not really a rebellion thing, it's more…"

"Well, it doesn't matter," I interrupted. "Either way, we're in trouble here. If we end up on board that thing it'll be straight back to Feodosia and Pasha's basement, and that's one place I've been trying hard to forget."

"That goes for us both," said Wolfie, with feeling.

We walked the rest of the way to the ship. I was expecting Pasha to pop out and grin at us when we got there, but instead it was a boy in his late teens who emerged from the gondola. He was wearing a white military jacket, grey trousers and riding boots.

"Is he the captain?" I asked Wolfie.

"I don't think so. The rank badges make him a lieutenant."

"Then he's probably Pasha's Number One. Ask him where Pasha is, Joe."

I was expecting to hear something like the long, convoluted sentence Joe had taught me in the Crimea, giving Pasha's full name and rank. Instead he simply said "Gdyeh Romanov?", and the Russian officer glared at him and pulled a revolver from its holster.

"Nyet!" came a voice, and Dmitri hobbled out of the bridge gondola, supporting himself on crutches.

The officer turned to look at him and they spoke for a few seconds, but it was obvious that Dmitri was giving the orders, even though he wasn't wearing an officer's uniform. The white-jacketed Russian shrugged, put his pistol away and stood aside.

Next Dmitri spoke to Joe.

"What's he saying?" I asked Simon.

"Basically he's telling him not to be so stupid," said Simon. "Apparently not showing the captain respect is a really bad idea…. Leo, it sounds as if they know each other. How come? You just said we're enemies, didn't you?"

"It's a long story," I said. "The short version is that we captured Dmitri – the Cossack boy – a little while back. He was seriously injured, your brother looked after him and they became sort of friends."

"Oh. Anyway, he says the captain is away but should be back soon, so we have to wait here for him. And Joe says we don't seem to have a lot of choice… oh, he wants me. I'll be right back."

I watched as Joe introduced his brother to Dmitri, and then Simon spoke to Dmitri for a few seconds.

"He seems nice," he said, once he got back to my side. "He's going to call me Senya, which is the diminutive of Semyon, which is the Russian version of Simon. I hope the captain turns out to be as nice."

"The captain's insane," I told him. "He tortures people for fun. And he doesn't like us very much, either: we shot down his last ship. We'll be very lucky indeed if we get out of this situation alive."

We only had about ten minutes to wait before we saw Pasha, accompanied by Sergei, heading towards the ship. He was wearing a similar uniform to that of the lieutenant, but this one had rather more braid, and there was a row of decorations on his left breast. He didn't seem to be in a very good mood at all, but when he saw us his face lit up.

"It's my favourite English Lord!" he exclaimed in German. "And my favourite Prussian prince, too. What a nice surprise! I really didn't think it would be this easy… How wonderful!"

He turned to the white-jacketed officer and spoke to him briefly.

"He's telling him to recall everyone to the ship," Joe told me, at which Pasha turned and looked at us.

"What's this?" he asked. "You mean you've got another Russian speaker apart from Four-eyes? Oh, but… this is the Jew who likes Cossacks, isn't it?"

He said something to Dmitri, who nodded.

"Do you speak German?" he said to Joe.

"No, he doesn't," I replied for him. "But his Russian should be good enough."

"Good," said Pasha, and he began to talk to Joe in that language.

"He's saying thank you for looking after Dima – that's the short form of…"

I know," I cut in. "Does he mean it, or is he being sarcastic, do you think?"

"No, he definitely means it. He seems genuinely grateful. Are you sure he's insane, Leo? He really doesn't sound it."

"Just wait a bit," I said, gloomily.

"Oh, and you've brought Curly as well," said Pasha to me. "Wonderful! I've wanted to meet him ever since Feodosia. Does he speak Russian?"

"No," I told him. "Or German, either. But I can translate for you."

"If you would. What's his name?"

"Alex. Or we could do it properly: Your Imperial Highness, may I present Lieutenant Alexandros Demetriou. Alex, this is his Imperial Highness, the Grand Duke Pavel Mikhailovitch Romanov."

"We've met," said Alex, sourly.

"Ah, so you're Greek," said Pasha. "They always had a reputation for being wily. I was really impressed by that stunt you pulled with the French boy. The way you fronted that was terrific."

"It was mostly the French boy's idea," Alex told him.

"Even so. You were completely believable, you know. Hell, you didn't just fool me; you fooled your own captain, too. I hope he didn't hit you too hard."

"It was hard enough," said Alex. "But it was worth it."

"Yes, I believe it was." He looked around. "I don't see Mr Duvallier here. I wonder where he is…"

"By now he's probably at the French armour research laboratory," I told him. "Once the Froggies grabbed the stash at Friedrichshafen they took him back to lead their work on it."

"I'd like to believe you… well, no, actually I'd prefer not to believe you, because if that is true we'll have the devil's own problem getting hold of him again. I'd prefer to think he's still with your ship on that airfield in Basel… oh, yes, you can believe I've been following your progress over the last two or three days.

"Still, perhaps we can talk about that later. So, I've met you and the Margrave before, and now I've met Curly and the Jew – so who are the other three? Let's start with mini-four-eyes."

"Hello," said Simon, before I could say anything. The rest of what he said was in Russian, but I didn't really need Joe to tell me that Simon was introducing himself and offering his hand, not realising that this was akin to putting your willy in a pool of piranhas.

Pasha replied to him, shook his hand and then grinned at me, looking positively piranha-like.

"What a charming boy!" he exclaimed. "Haven't you told him I'm a fiend from hell?"

"Yes, but he doesn't seem to believe me."

Pasha burst out laughing. "God, I really enjoy talking to you," he said. "Come on – let's go and have a chat in my cabin."

"Not a bloody chance!" I told him. "I'd sooner be shot right now than be flown back to Feodosia."

"We're going nowhere," said Pasha. "My word on it: the ship stays on the ground. And you know perfectly well that I wouldn't have to shoot you: we could get all seven of you on the ship with no trouble if we wanted to. I'm a little hurt to think that you don't want to have a go on my rack, though… anyway, just tell me who Blondie and Mousy are, and then we'll go and relax on the ship."

I think he was referring to Danny's demeanour rather than his hair colour, which was actually a sort of red-brown.

"The blond one is Billy Rodgers – he's one of my helmsmen, but he's here because we were using horses earlier, and he's also one of my stable-lads; and the other one is a friend of Simon's. His name is Danny Carmody."

"Thank you."

He spoke to the officer, telling them that my friends could stay where they were, and then gestured for me to precede him into the command gondola, so I stepped aboard. The layout was a bit different, but it had the same basic stations as Excelsior. Without waiting to be told I climbed the ladder and then followed Pasha to a nicely furnished cabin a short distance away. Sergei followed us in and took up a position by the door.

"Nice," I said, sinking into a comfortable chair. "Isn't this stuff a bit heavy, though?"

"Not really. A couple of crewmen, a few shells, a bit of coal. I had quite enough of basic quarters on Suvorov, so now I have my own ship – thanks to you – I thought a little comfort would be nice. You'll like the bed, too: it's big enough for three."

"I wasn't intending sleeping in it," I pointed out. "And if it's really thanks to me that you've got a nice new ship, how about saying thank you by letting my friends go?"

"Just your friends? Aren't you going to ask me to let you go too?"

"Priorities," I replied. "Put it this way: if you let the others go, I'll go back to Feodosia with you without arguing."

He stared at me. "You're not much good at chess, are you?" he commented.

"Well, no, not really."

"Thought not. That's one hell of a big gambit to open with: normally I'd expect you to work up to something like that."

"Pasha, you're not stupid, and neither am I," I told him. "I know there's no way you're going to let me go. This time around I don't think you'd let me go even if I could deliver Duvallier to you – which I can't. So instead of pussyfooting around, let's just get down to business: my life for my friends'."

"The problem is," he pointed out, "that you're in no position to bargain. Assuming you're telling the truth about Duvallier – and on balance it would make sense for the French to want him back – you've got nothing to trade. What are you going to offer me – money? Power? A box at the Royal Opera? You might think that you can escape between here and Feodosia, or you might even have some thoughts about jumping without a jumpshade, since you'd expect that to be a better death than the rack. But all I have to do is keep you and your friends chained up all the way back and you'd all be mine to play with."

"Well, what do you want, then?"

"What I want is something you can't give me."

"Try me."

He looked at me. "What I really want is for someone to go and kill the morons on my uncle's General Staff, because the stupid bastards have lost us the war. But even if you could do that, it's too late now."

"Lost the war? What do you mean? Last I heard your army north of the Vosges was doing amazingly – in fact I'd been wondering if the French had lost by now."

"They should have done, if the clowns in generals' uniforms weren't stuck in the seventeenth century. I've just been over to the semaphore station on the north-west arm. It's part of the weather station, but it gets all the news… anyway, come and look at the map and I'll tell you what happened."

He spread out a map of the north-eastern part of the French Empire on his desk.

"We expected to get held up in the mountains," he said, indicating the Vosges. "And the north-easterly part of the French frontier is too far from Paris to matter. That leaves two corridors, one through the Belfort Gap and one north of the Vosges and south of the Ardennes. The Gap is too well-defended, and Belfort itself is well-nigh impregnable, but the northern corridor was a lot easier. The plan was to send the ships on ahead to destroy the French air force – on the ground, if possible – and then rush the infantry and autocannons along the corridor before the French could recover.

"And to start with it worked perfectly: the Eagles bombed ten bells out of the bases at Metz and Nancy, and the infantry columns and the autocannon units bypassed Strasbourg and headed down the corridor. And then some stupid anus of a Marshal got cold feet and started whimpering about supply lines and reinforcements and nonsense like that, so the advance was ordered to stop at Nancy and consolidate. Have you ever heard anything so pathetic?"

"What would you have done, then?"

"Isn't it obvious? We press on, as fast as we can. Nancy is nothing – the goal has to be Paris. I'd have collected as many Eagles as I could lay my hands on and bombed Versailles to the devil and back. Odds are Napoleon would have crawled out of the rubble waving a white flag. Meanwhile, the auto-cannons, together with as many steam trucks as we can find or steal from the French, are rushing our infantry along the corridor to the gates of Paris. At the same time, troop-carrying Eagles are landing masses of infantry right outside the city. We could have got there by Wednesday morning, while most of the French army was still pulling its trousers on and while the English milords were lying on their fat arses dreaming of roast goose.

"But, no, the rattling antiques that pass for military leaders decree that we have to stop at Nancy and 'consolidate', and of course that gives the Froggies time to round up some soldiers and counter-attack, and it also gives the bloody English time to overrule their normal caution and send a fleet of coastal defence ætherships to plug the gap we'd torn in the French air defence.

"We're still holding the ground we've taken, but we won't be going any further forward, so it's over: every day we sit bogged down in Nancy your friend Duvallier is churning out more and more fully armoured ships. It's just a matter of time before we're driven back, and this time the French won't stop at the Rhine. Oh, it'll take years, but in the long run this is a war we can't win any more."

I looked at him.

"Thank you for telling me," I said. "I won't lie and say that I'm sorry, because obviously I'm not, but… maybe you won't want to hear this, but you're absolutely right: if the High Command had followed your plan it would have worked, and almost certainly the French would have been forced to surrender."

"You think so?"

"I'm sure of it. After all, that's almost exactly what happened in 1940."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Suddenly I realised that I'd allowed myself to become so caught up in the situation that I'd forgotten who I was talking to.

"Oh," I said, thinking frantically, "It's a series of war games and planning scenarios the British military drew up to try to predict what might happen if Russia made certain moves. My father told me about some of them shortly before he died. And one of them was exactly what you're talking about now, a sort of lightning strike into France."

Of course we were speaking German, so I actually used the word Blitzkrieg.

"Blitzkrieg," he said. "That's a really good description, and perfect if it was applied to a plan I'd put forward… except that by the time I'm old enough for anyone to take any notice of me, the French will be at the gates of Petersburg."

"I doubt it," I said. "That scenario has been played through too – twice, in fact. And each time the Russians retreated slowly and then just waited for winter. Those scenarios are numbers 1812 and 1941, and the Russians won them both. I should think your worst case scenario would be losing the German territories, and perhaps Poland."

"Where?"

"Sorry, I mean the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. And there, unless they are completely stupid, the French will stop. I can't foresee any serious attempt to invade Russia proper."

"I hope you're right."

"So do I, because when the scenarios were played through, the result of trying to capture Petersburg and Moscow was a complete disaster for the Western Powers both times. I'll certainly be doing my level best to talk the High Command out of it."

"That gives me another reason to kill you, then," he said, grinning once more.

"Wouldn't you rather that I try to talk the High Command out of advancing too far east?" I said. "The sooner they stop, the more territory you get to keep, and the fewer soldiers on both sides have to die."

"I'm not too bothered about soldiers dying. It's what they're paid to do, after all. But I would prefer to avoid taking my ship up against too many of Duvallier's inventions. That damned ship of yours was a real bastard to shoot down."

"You came close, though: you destroyed one of our engines, damaged our rudder and weakened our armour so badly that when we were fighting at Ravensburg our hull was holed twice. It's sheer luck that we survived."

"I'm glad to hear that it can be holed," he said. "I really was starting to wonder back at Feodosia."

"Why did you keep attacking after we took out your engine?"

"Because I was bloody annoyed, that's why. Dmitri had just told me about Duvallier's breastplate, and you can imagine that I wasn't very happy about it. So I just couldn't stop trying to shoot you down."

"You know that was bad captaincy, don't you?" I said. "It must have been obvious by then that we had the better armour. If you'd broken off your attack I'd have let you go."

"Would you? I thought you'd be so mad about the Margrave and the rack that you'd never stop trying to kill me."

"Well, I was, obviously, but it would have been stupid to risk the ship and my crew just because I was angry."

"Is that a rebuke, de Courtenay?"

"Well, sort of. Anyway, what are you going to do? Kill me twice?"

"Well, I could keep you alive on the rack for a lot longer than you would want me to. But in this case, I suppose you're right – although, as I said before, losing the ship actually did me a favour, because when my uncle heard that I'd been shot down over Russian territory he was so furious that when I asked him for a privateer's licence he gave me one on the spot. I didn't actually tell him that I already had a ship that was ready for its proving flights, of course… Still, maybe you are a better captain than me. After all, you've been at it a lot longer."

"I'm not sure that I am. I've made loads of mistakes… look, Pasha, can we get back to my friends? Obviously I can't assassinate your High Command, but is there anything I could offer you in exchange for their lives?"

"Not really. I'm half-inclined to let Curly the Greek go because I respect him, and I know Dmitri doesn't want me to kill Joseph the Jew, but I can't really see any reason to let any of the others go, can you?"

"You could just do it to be merciful."

He laughed. "Merciful? Me? Pasha the Merciful? I don't think so. I'd get a reputation for being soft, and that would never do. No, I think we'll just have to kill them. Still, maybe I can be a bit merciful and just shoot them here, rather than taking them back to my playroom with you. What do you think?"

I didn't think anything I could say would make any difference, so I kept quiet.

"Now you look angry again," he told me. "Would you like to whip me? You said no last time, but maybe this time around… yes?"

"No," I said.

"And now you just look sort of defeated," he told me. "You realise getting angry won't help, and you're scared of giving into to your inner rage by beating me… come on, Leo, let the rage out! Stop holding back – you'll definitely be able to whip me bloody if you give in to the fury I can see growing behind your eyes again – come on… you know you want to…"

And I did want to – I wanted to hurt him and go on hurting him, worse and worse, for a very long time… but somehow I reined it back in. I took a few deep breaths.

"Wow, that was close, wasn't it?" he said, grinning at me. "I'm sure that next time I'll be able to push you that little bit further… I have got some acid on board, you know. I wonder which of your friends would be the best lever?"

"Why?" I asked. "Why do you want to be hurt all the time?"

"Because it reminds me that I'm alive," he said. "The pain, the feeling of wetness, the body being pushed further and further… it's like sex, I suppose, although probably sex is nothing like as exciting. I've never really felt the urge to try, to be honest, which I suppose is because I'm still not sexually mature yet – although I do find the idea of being taken roughly rather exciting. I'd get Dmitri to do it, but he's not really in a position to do very much at all at the moment, and Sergei isn't really big enough… Hey, Leo – how would you like to rape me? That might be almost as much fun as whipping me!"

"No, thank you," I said. "I probably am big enough now, but rape isn't my idea of sex. Sex is about loving someone and cuddling and being gentle with each other and trying to make your partner feel as good as you possibly can. It's the complete opposite of rape."

"Pity. Perhaps I can talk Curly or Joe into it, then? Or the Margrave?"

"I think you'll find that they feel the same way about it as I do. It's just a pity we didn't meet each other a few years ago, before your brothers and your father completely messed you up. Maybe then we could have showed you what real sex – and real love – is about."

He looked at me, and once again there was just a flicker of something sad and lonely behind his eyes. But once again it only lasted a moment.

"Too late," he said, grinning again. "I'm already fucked. So, is there anything else you want to tell me, or shall we go and start shooting your friends?" And he stood up.

"Like what?" I asked him.

"Well, there was one thing that I was wondering about," he said, sitting down again. "See, after our little run-in last year I had your photos added to the security list – that's foreign agents that we want to keep track of, especially if they enter our territory. All the border posts have lists and photos. Of course when things are quiet nobody bothers looking at them very much, but when we went onto a full war footing at the weekend the watch was stepped up.

"So when you and the Margrave drove over the border on Tuesday morning your presence was noted and a report was sent to the local police headquarters, and because I'd added a note to the file ordering the police to notify me if there was any sighting of you, a semaphore report was put out and it eventually reached me.

"I hadn't actually expected you to pop up again so soon – in fact I thought it had to be a mistake, because you'd only just got out of our territory and I couldn't for one moment believe you'd risk coming back in again without a very good reason. Still, you can imagine that I wanted to speak to you. Fortunately I'd already moved the ship into Bavaria, because if there was going to be a war it would give us a chance to see what we could do, and so I was able to get the ship down to Lörrach yesterday…"

"Hang on," I said. "It's only two weeks since we shot down Alexander Suvorov. Do you mean to say that you finished the new ship, got your licence from the Tsar and managed to fly to Bavaria in that time? I though your bureaucracy was even worse than ours."

"The ship was already finished, and the licence took almost no time because the Tsar flew into Kiev to find out for himself what had happened at Alushta," he said. "Like I said, he gave it to me on the spot.

"Anyway, when we got to Lörrach I interviewed the border guards myself, and I identified the carriage driver as your Russian speaker and confirmed with the guards that the vehicle had not yet returned. Of course you might not have come back the same way, but I'd notified the other border posts along the Swiss frontier that you were to be held if you tried to cross. And since you were driving a Swiss vehicle it seemed likely that you would come back the same way eventually.

"So I left a couple of my Cossacks at the crossing and just waited. You'd told the guards you were going to Todtnau, but that didn't make any real sense to me – it's a small place of no importance. So I thought it was possible that you'd lied and had actually gone somewhere else, although it also seemed sensible to concentrate on that area, just in case you hadn't been lying.

"Anyway, at a little after half-past one this afternoon the car crossed the border and went back into Switzerland. The people in it obviously weren't you, so we let it go because the driver told the guards that he'd be coming back for the rest of the party shortly. We flew up here, because this gives us an excellent view of the whole region, deployed our troops all around the hill, especially in Todtnau, and waited. And then you very kindly went and walked straight into our welcoming arms.

"One of our own vehicles will have been shadowing your driver as soon as he crossed the border again – just in case he was going in a completely different direction – and that means we'll be able to pick him up too. In fact by now we probably have. So the big question is: what on earth was so important that you deliberately re-entered our territory? And who were the people in the carriage? There was a little girl with them, so obviously they weren't military – in fact, it sounds like they were a family group, or possibly two. So what, then – spies? Surely not: spies don't leave their posts just when the fighting starts, because that's when they're at their most useful.

"Some of them could speak Russian, apparently, but nobody in the carriage could speak German. And that's particularly odd if they'd been living in Baden. So – can you throw any light on this?"

"Not really," I said.

He gave me a grin that was, if anything, even wider than usual.

"Oh, Leo," he said, shaking his head. "Why do you keep doing this? You did it in Norway, you did it at Feodosia, and now you're doing it again. You know perfectly well that you're going to tell me what I want to know the moment I physically threaten one of your friends, and yet you still refuse to do the sensible thing before we reach that stage. Well, come on, then – we'll do it your way, if you insist."

He stood up and gestured to me to leave the cabin, and when I took my time about standing up Sergei stepped forward and clouted my shoulder with the butt of his revolver. It hurt like hell, and if I'd needed a reminder of the situation I was in – despite the fairly friendly conversation we'd just been having – it did that job perfectly. I stood up, rubbing my shoulder, and allowed them to shepherd me back out onto the grass.

"Right," said Pasha. "Now let's start again: who were the people in the carriage, and why couldn't any of them speak German?"

I hesitated, and Pasha gave a sharp order to two of his Cossacks, who grabbed the nearest of my friends – it happened to be Danny – and dragged him forward. Pasha pulled his revolver from its holster and aimed it at Danny's balls. Simon tried to intervene, but was grabbed by the lieutenant.

"Happy now?" Pasha asked me. "Why we have to go through this nonsense every time is beyond me, but what the hell… so, who were they?"

Well, they were safely in Switzerland by now, so I supposed it wouldn't do too much harm to answer.

"Alex's and Joe's parents, and Alex's sister," I told him.

"And what were they doing in Baden?"

That was a much harder question, of course.

"Well… they were on holiday," I tried.

Pasha stared at me.

"That," he declared "is complete bullcrap, and it's going to cost your friend here a bollock."

He wrenched Danny's belt open, undid the button at the top of his jeans, stared for a long moment at his zip – which of course was something that hadn't yet been invented in this world – and then shrugged, ripped it down and pulled Danny's jeans and underwear down to his knees.

"Those people are English – well, maybe Greek and maybe even Russian, but they live in England. They surely must, because your friends aren't old enough to live apart from their parents. So the last place they would go on holiday would be in our territory, and especially if none of them can speak the local language."

He placed the barrel of his revolver against Danny's left ball. When I'd done this to Pasha when we were on the Lady Renée it had given him an erection and apparently amused him so much that he had made a joke about it, but Danny wasn't amused at all – in fact he was so scared that he urinated involuntarily. Luckily for him it missed Pasha, who was standing to one side.

"Last chance," said Pasha, ignoring the flow. "Five, four…"

At that point Danny's wallet slipped from his trouser pocket.

"Ah, yes: that might be interesting," said Pasha, passing his gun to one of the Cossacks who was holding Danny. He bent down, retrieved the wallet and opened it.

"Now, let's see what we can learn from…"

He pulled a ten Euro note from the wallet and stared at it.

"What the bloody hell is this?" he asked.

Next he dug out an English five pound note, and if anything this confused him even more, because of course it carried a portrait of Elizabeth II instead of James V. Pasha positively gaped at it.

"What the fuck?" he exclaimed.

"It's toy money!" I said. "I've got some, too – we use it for playing card games and stuff."

"I seriously doubt that – they're better made – much better made – than real money. And in any case there's no way a pretend note would carry a picture of a different monarch at all, let alone one as convincing as this. But Britain hasn't had a queen since Anne, and that must have been nearly three hundred years ago…"

He stared at me again, glanced back at Danny long enough to gesture to him to get dressed again, took his revolver back from the Cossack and then looked at me once more.

"There was a rumour," he said. "When you told me about getting lost for four years it seemed to be a hell of a long time for a member of an important noble house to disappear from view. So I got our agents to ask around. Nobody knew anything for sure, but there was some vague story about you having fallen into a different world, or something like that. Of course we all thought that was bollocks – obviously there's no such thing as a different world. And yet, and yet… it would explain why every policeman in England failed to find you for four years.

"Could it actually be true? Is there really another world where there's a woman on the British throne? And that metal thing on the front of his trousers – I've never seen anything like that before. Or those weird shoes he's wearing, either… and maybe in the other world Baden isn't under Russian occupation – in fact, maybe there isn't a war at all, and English people could live there safely, or go on holiday there…

"Is that it, Leo? And don't bother going into your usual stupid 'I'm not going to tell you' dance, because I'm done with fannying around: answer the question, or I'll kill them one by one. And if that isn't the right answer, you'd better have a pretty convincing alternative."

"Don't tell him, Leo!" said Wolfie.

Pasha turned and shot at him – or rather, almost at him. The bullet zipped past Wolfie's ear.

"Yes," I said to Pasha, "that's right. Alex, Joe, Simon and Danny were born in that world and I was there for four years."

"And how do you get there?"

"No!" bellowed Wolfie. "It's better that we all die than that he finds out how…"

I felt thoroughly sick. Of course Wolfie was right: to allow the Russians access to Alex's world would be disastrous: Alex and I had decided against importing technology like petrol engines and nuclear energy, but it was a certainty that Pasha would grab everything available. But even if we did keep quiet and let him shoot all of us there was a chance he'd still find the hole by accident – after all, the Cossacks who had captured us would be able to show him roughly where to look, and he would surely be drawn to that solitary patch of mist, just as we had been. And in that case I'd be condemning all my friends to death for nothing.

"All right," I said. "I'll tell you – in fact I'll take you there myself. But you can't imagine how much of a difference this will make to things, and so there's a price: I'll co-operate fully and guide you there, and I'll help to explain how things work, too, because it's a lot different from here. But in return I want your word that you'll let us go… shut up, Wolfie, there's no choice. All of us, including me. When you see it, you'll realise that it's worth it.

"If you don't agree to that, there's no deal: you can shoot us all, but you'll never learn how to find the hole or how to use it. Because really Wolfie is right: it is better that we should die than that you should find the secret."

"And do you still trust me to keep my word?"

"Yes. You've never broken it yet, and nor have I. So let's be clear here: the deal is that I show you the hole and explain how it works, and you let me and all my friends go – including our driver – and allow us to return to Switzerland. No stopping us at the border, no attacking us before we get there, nothing like that. Is that fair?"

He looked at me. "I'm suspicious," he told me. "If the other world really is better than this, telling me about it would be betraying your country, and I don't see you as a traitor, somehow. What's the catch?"

"No catch," I said. "Patriotism is a wonderful, noble ideal, but to me it comes second to protecting one's friends. Besides, as you can imagine, the hole isn't as simple as all that, otherwise everyone would know about it and people would be pouring back and forth all the time. It's not a path to instant riches. But I know you'll think it's worth it. In fact, if you don't, instead of letting me go with the others you can take me back to Feodosia after all."

"Ah, now that's a much better use of the self-sacrifice gambit," he said, approvingly. "Very well, I accept. So, where's this hole you keep talking about?"

"You'd better go and get changed first," I told him. "That jacket is going to attract far too much attention over there. Same goes for any of your Cossacks who are coming with us. Try to dress like us."

"We can do that easily enough," said Pasha, and he walked up to Simon and said something to him in Russian. Simon queried it, Pasha repeated it, and Simon shrugged and began to get undressed.

"He told him to swap clothes,' Joe explained.

"I'd sort of guessed," I replied.

Both boys stripped to their underwear, and then Pasha pulled the elastic of Simon's boxers forward, looked inside and said something.

"He says he's jealous," Joe translated.

Simon impudently did the same thing, made a remark of his own and Pasha cracked up laughing.

"Si said 'So you should be!' said Joe.

Pasha went and stood beside Simon and rested an arm on his shoulders.

"I like this one almost as much as I like you," he said to me. "Are you sure I can't keep him?"

"Quite sure. And he isn't an orphan, remember?"

"Nor is he," said Pasha, starting to put Simon's clothes on and indicating to Simon that he should get dressed too. "So how exactly did his parents come to be in Baden?"

"They travelled here by train," I told him. "This is the only hole now – there was one in England, but it was destroyed in an accident. This was the only place we could get them across. See, Alex was with me when I found the way back to this world. It was completely by accident… anyway, he decided he liked my world and wanted to stay, and then he invited Joe to come through as well, and he liked it too. So they both wanted to bring their families through to live here permanently, and this was the only place we could do it. You don't think I'd have come back into your territory if there was any way around it, surely?"

"No, I suppose you wouldn't," said Pasha. He picked out a pair of slightly older Cossacks and sent them to change clothes with Alex and Joe, then sent Sergei to swap with Billy. Billy was a bit taller, but he was the smallest in the party, so there wasn't any choice.

Simon finished putting on Pasha's resplendent uniform. Then he turned to the nearest Cossack and said (this time Pasha translated for me), "I'm the captain now, so I want you to shoot him," and he indicated the lieutenant. "Lieutenant, kill this Cossack."

Even the lieutenant managed to smile at that.

Pasha said something to Simon that made him laugh. "I told him not to cause a mutiny before I get back," Pasha explained to me.

"Pasha," I said, hesitantly as we waited for the clothes-swap to finish, "when you were joking around with Simon… well… you looked really happy, even though you weren't hurting anyone and nobody was hurting you. I don't think it's too late for you to live like a normal boy – you know, having fun with friends and stuff like that…"

"Still trying to save my poor black soul?" he replied, grinning at me.

"I'd like to," I said, quietly.

"Well, like you said inside, if you'd met me five or six years ago, maybe you could have. Not now, though – I'm far too set in my horrid, evil, vicious ways!"

He gave me another huge grin and walked off to try to speed his Cossacks up, while I tried to work out if there was any other way to get through to him. I was forced to conclude that there wasn't: as he'd said himself, he was just too far gone.

Once Sergei and the other two were ready, Pasha said, "Come on, then – where's this hole?"

"Wait", I said. "Joe, can you explain to him, and to the lieutenant, about what happens if the wind gets up? If that happens we'll just wait, and it's essential that the lieutenant does, too – I don't want him to panic and start shooting people if we can't get back for a day or two. The forecast was decent, but you never know."

I waited while Joe did that and fielded a couple of questions, and then I asked Pasha if he had any paint on board, or something that could be used to make a mark so that he would be able to locate the hole in future without me. One of the Cossacks went on board the ship and returned with a pot of black paint that was presumably intended to touch up any marks on the hull. Then I led Pasha and his three followers off to the north-east.

I led them down from the summit some distance before the hole, merely to get us out of sight of the ship. I could see that the mist was still there, but I ignored it until we reached the foot of the steep part of the slope, at which point I got my compass out, took a bearing that would lead us to the wooded part of the slope a short distance east of the hole, and started walking.

"It's a bearing of fifty degrees from the foot of the slope," I said. "I'm not quite sure exactly where on the slope that had to be measured from because I've only done this journey here once, and that was in the opposite direction. But if this doesn't take us directly to the hole you just turn left when you reach the edge of the trees."

So we reached the edge of the trees and turned left.

"It seems to be getting a bit misty," I commented – obviously I didn't want them making any connection between the hole and the mist. "It doesn't matter, though – if we stick to the edge of the wood we can't go wrong."

I went on into the mist, moving slowly, counting my steps. Fourteen paces later the mist began to thin, and I could see the other world ahead – I knew we were safely back there because I could see the restaurant.

"We've just passed the hole," I said. "Come back and I'll show you where to mark it, just in case you have a job finding it again."

I led them seven paces back the way we had come, identified a large rock on one side and a big tree on the other and got one of the Cossacks to splash both with copious amounts of paint.

"Now you shouldn't need me next time," I said. "Come on and I'll show you what the other world is like."

And I led them through to the other side. I knew exactly how dangerous this was: I was deliberately leading a Russian nobleman into Alex's world. I had a plan to deal with the situation, but it was entirely dependent on Pasha keeping his word. If he didn't, I might have just handed Russia the means of winning the war.

Chapter Thirty-four

"This doesn't look any different," commented Pasha suspiciously as we emerged from the mist. "Is this some sort of trick?"

"No. This place looks much the same on both sides, but if we climb back up to the top you'll be able to see the difference straight away."

"We'd better," he said darkly, but he followed me as I began to climb. And of course once we reached the summit he was able to see the difference straight away, not least because his enormous airship had completely disappeared.

"Oh my God, it's true!" he breathed.

"Yes, it is," I agreed. "Come on, and I'll show you just how different this world is."

I led them on across the summit, past the observation tower and down the path that led to the shops and bars below. The path came out next to a car park, and of course the vehicles in it immediately caught their eye.

"Is that an auto-carriage?" asked Pasha, staring at the first one we came to.

"Yes. Well, more or less," I told him. "The ones here run on liquid fuel rather than coal, but the principle is similar. The fuel – for this one, anyway – is called diesel. It's one of the technologies I decided not to bring back with me, because although the actual cars – carriages – are more efficient than the ones in our world, the fuel is hard to produce and has caused any number of problems for the other world. But I expect you'll find out about that once you start exploring the history here a bit."

I carried on towards the road, but just before we got there a man walked up, got into another of the parked cars and drove away.

"Bloody hell!" exclaimed Pasha. "He didn't have to light a boiler, or warm the engine up, or turn the cocks to let excess water out, or anything at all… we have got to get some of that fuel!"

"I know it looks attractive," I agreed, "but… oh, well, you'll find out soon enough. Now come on and I'll teach you some geography."

There was a small shop not far from the cable car station that sold food and drink and it also had a section that sold maps. These were mostly large-scale maps for walkers, but they did have some smaller scale ones, including a motoring atlas that covered the whole of Europe, so I bought that – I still had plenty of Euros left – along with five cans of Coke and a big bag of cheese and onion crisps, and then I led the Russians over to a table near the cable car station and sat down.

"Try this," I said, handing the Coke cans around. "It's different."

I started opening the crisp packet, but stopped when I saw one of the Cossacks produce a large knife and set it against the top of the can.

"No," I said, grabbing the can from him. "Like this."

I pulled the ring and handed it back to him, and the others worked out what to do and opened their own cans. I finished opening the crisp packet right up and placed it on the table so that everyone could get at the contents. Pasha was looking at his can suspiciously, so I took a drink from mine just to prove that it wasn't poisonous, and that encouraged him to take a small sip himself.

"It tastes… you were right, it is different," he said. "Sort of sweet and sharp… but interesting."

"You can buy that anywhere in the world," I told him. "And that includes Russia. Have a crisp."

I snaffled a couple of crisps and Pasha tried one for himself.

"What is it?" he asked, once he'd eaten it. "I mean, what's it made of?"

"Potato," I told him. "But it's flavoured with cheese and onion. These come in lots of different flavours."

"And is this supposed to be a proper meal?"

"No, this is just a snack. Proper meals aren't so very different to those in our world. I'll buy you some chips or something shortly… anyway, have a look at this."

I opened the atlas to the page at the front that had a map of the whole of Europe.

"In this world the empires have fallen," I said. "That means that there are a lot of independent countries that used to be part of either France or Russia – like Belgium and Holland, and over here, Lithuania and Latvia. Germany – most of what we call the Confederation of the Rhine – is united, but Prussia has lost its eastern territories to Russia and Poland…"

"Poland – that's what you called the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, isn't it?"

"That's right."

"So… when you were talking about those war games and planning scenarios… they weren't, were they? They're what actually happened in this world!"

"Yes, except that in 1940 it wasn't Russia that attacked France, it was Germany. They attacked just like you said, with motorised columns, tanks – that's autocannons – and with aerial support, and it was so devastating that it put France out of the war in less than six weeks, even though there was a British land army opposing them as well."

"And the attacks on Russia?"

"In 1812 the first Napoleon decided to attack Russia. In our world he stopped at Warsaw, but in this one he kept going until he reached Moscow. But his army wasn't equipped to handle the Russian winter, and it was severely weakened by the cold. Thousands died. In the end he had to retreat, and thousands more died on the way back, too. And that was more or less the end of the French Empire. Napoleon was deposed, and although he made a brief return in 1815, he was then defeated again and sent into exile, where he died.

"In 1941 it was the Germans who tried it, and more or less the same thing happened: the Russians fought back very bravely until winter came to help them, freezing the soldiers and making the autocannons unusable. The Germans reached the Volga and laid siege to Petersburg, but in the end the weather, and the Russian army, defeated them. They too were forced to retreat, and in 1945 the Russians entered Berlin and the war was over. That's why I really don't think the Allies will risk invading Russia proper."

"I suppose that's encouraging."

"So it should be – it means you're unlikely to have the French army knocking at your door in Feodosia. Oh, by the way: in this world the Crimea isn't in Russia. It's in Ukraine, which is an independent country. So if you moved here full-time you might have to find a new home. The other thing is that your family has no power here, any more than mine does. The last Tsar was Nicholas II, and he and almost all of his family were killed after the Russian Revolution in 1917. Alexei was killed with him – he'd have been about thirteen, I think – and so the main line ended there. Like most European countries, Russia is now a republic. This really is a completely different world."

"Well, I wasn't thinking of moving here," he pointed out, "just looking for useful technology to take back to our world – like that liquid fuel. I'm sure there are plenty of other things like that, too."

"There are," I assured him. "For example, look up there – see that white line in the sky, and how it's moving slowly away from us? Well, you can't see it because it's too high up, but at the front of that line is a flying-machine. That machine can fly at close to ten times the speed of an æthership, and at heights of around ten thousand metres [30,000 feet], too."

Pasha stared open-mouthed into the sky and then gave what was presumably a translation of what I'd just said to his colleagues, who then also stared at the vapour trail. I almost laughed, because they looked like a bunch of kids who have just seen their first conjuring trick.

"There's plenty more stuff like that," I said, drawing Pasha's eyes back to me. "This world has even sent rockets into space, and people have walked on the moon. Compared to our world, this place is amazing."

"Yes, it is, and that worries me," said Pasha. "You must realise that I'm going to try to use the technology here to help our armies, so there has to be some serious flaw in that plan that you're not telling us about."

"Not really. Yes, there is technology here, but the problem is that it would take your scientists so long to understand how it works, never mind trying to replicate it, that the war will be over long before you can actually use it against us. At least, that's what I'm counting on. And of course our scientists have been working on most of it since last autumn, when Alex and Joe last came through the hole in England – and they still haven't really got very far. All I'm doing by telling you about it is levelling the playing-field: now you'll have what we've already got.

"Of course, it'll do wonders for you personally: you'll be the one who introduced the new technology into Russia, and you'll make an absolute fortune from it if you want to, not to mention becoming vastly more important than your father. And I don't mind that at all, because if you keep your word and let us go you'll deserve it. See, most of this stuff – the liquid fuel, for example – has plenty of civilian possibilities. Yes, it'll improve your autocannons, but it will also mean that anyone with a little money will be able to buy and drive his own carriage, just as happens in this world. And if you own the patent to the liquid fuel carriage…"

I could almost see the rouble signs in his eyes, and for the first time I thought that maybe he might keep his word and let us go.

"How about this?" I said. "Once the war is over we could become business partners and carve up the world between us: I'll sell stuff to Western Europe and Africa; you sell it to Eastern Europe and Asia. Our scientists could work together to crack the technology faster than they could working alone, and we'd both become as rich as Croesus…"

His eyes lit up even more, and then I could almost see him calculating that he would become twice as rich as Croesus if he killed me first.

"My uncle has the patents in England," I pointed out, "so if anything happened to me it wouldn't stop the English scientists from going ahead. The difference is that my uncle wouldn't work with you. I will. Go into business in opposition to my uncle and you'll lose out because of the head start we've got. Go into business with me and I'll share everything with you, including all the work we've already done."

I let him think about that for a bit: I wanted him thinking lovely selfish thoughts about making huge piles of money, and not boring patriotic ones about why it would be in his country's interests to shoot us out of hand or drag us back to Feodosia.

"Come on," I said, when I thought he'd had long enough to think about his bank balance. "Let's see what else I can find to show you."

I finished my Coke and stood up, dropping the can into a nearby bin and encouraging the Russians to do the same. Then I led them a bit further up the road to a small pizza restaurant. I parked the Cossacks at a table outside and took Pasha inside with me to order, and that gave me a chance to show him something else, because there was a television inside the restaurant tuned to a news channel.

"See that?" I said, pointing it out to him, and once again he went into gobsmacked yokel mode. While he was gaping I went to the counter and ordered a large ham and mushroom pizza with extra pepperoni and five glasses of Coke, and then I retrieved Pasha and towed him back outside.

"That's called a television," I said. "It would take too long to explain how it works, but basically the moving pictures are sent through the air and that machine picks them up and displays them. Virtually every house in this world has one of those. They don't just show the news, either: you get drama – think of a play on a stage, but instead it's played out in a real place, filmed – continuously photographed – and then sent to everyone's television. So you can be entertained without leaving your house. Good, isn't it?"

"It's unbelievable".

"There's also a version without pictures, called 'radio', and that's more interesting to you and me because it has enormous military potential, because it means you can speak to someone in a distant place without using semaphore, or even without being within a hundred miles of them. That's something we did try to bring over, but it's so complicated that our scientists haven't found out how it works yet, and they've been trying for about six months. But I'm sure we'll get there one day. Ah, here's the pizza…"

"What the hell is this?" Pasha asked me as the waitress put the pizza on the table.

"It's sort of bread with a cheese and tomato topping, and then you can put whatever you like on top of that. I like ham and mushrooms and… it's a sort of meat sausage. Try a slice."

It turned out that the Russians liked pizza even more than they had liked crisps. We had a slice each, which left three slices for them to fight over, although in the end they managed to divide it up without too much arguing. Welcome to the world of 'your slice is bigger than mine!' I thought.

Afterwards Pasha pulled out his watch to check the time… well, actually it was my watch, the one he'd stolen in Norway.

"Snap!" I said, pulling my fifteenth birthday present from my pocket.

"Oh, so you got a new one," he commented. "I don't blame you. This one keeps excellent time."

"It does, doesn't it? Look… is there any chance of us doing a swap? After all, my mother gave me that one…"

"No. I've got sort of attached to it. Of course, you could give me your new one as well if you like. You haven't forgotten that it's my birthday tomorrow, I hope!"

"I had, actually. Happy fourteenth in advance. But I'd have thought showing you the hole and all this is birthday present enough, isn't it?"

"You're right, it is. Anyway, I suppose we'd better get back before Lieutenant Bulanin decides something's happened to me and starts shooting pieces off your friends."

He led us back towards the cable car station, but on the way I popped back into the little shop and bought a cheap birthday card – I was ready to try anything to put him into a good mood. Then I bought us all one-way tickets – once again I thought it unlikely that I would be coming back this way – and we took the cable car back to the summit, walked to the north-east corner and made our way back to the hole.

At first glance, nothing seemed to have changed at the ship: my friends and some of the Cossacks were sitting on the grass, though they all stood up when they saw us coming towards us. But as we reached the ship I saw that one thing had changed, because when the lieutenant emerged from the gondola he had Chris with him.

"Sorry, Leo," he said.

"Not your fault," I replied. "I underestimated him, so it's down to me."

"So what happens now?"

"That's a very good question."

I turned to talk to Pasha, but he was busy talking to the lieutenant. But then he sent his Cossacks to change their clothes again, beckoned to Simon and me and led us into the ship and back to his cabin.

Before I could say anything Simon spoke to Pasha in Russian. He sounded serious, and I caught Danny's name in what he was saying, so I guessed he was asking if Pasha had really intended shooting Danny's balls off. And there was a 'nyet' in Pasha's reply, and Simon looked a lot happier, so this time I guessed that Pasha was lying to him.

They began to get undressed, but I still couldn't get a word in because Simon asked another question and Pasha answered at great length and with great animation, so I guessed that this question had been along the lines of 'so what do you think of my world, then?'

The conversation went on enthusiastically until they were both in their underwear, at which point Pasha bent down to pick up his shirt from the chair Simon had dropped it on, and as he did so Simon grabbed Pasha's waistband and pulled his briefs down, following it up with a sharp push. Pasha's legs got tangled in his briefs and he fell to the carpet.

Simon obviously found that hugely entertaining, but I didn't, because I thought Pasha might not be quite so amused. But I needn't have worried, because Pasha laughed, grabbed Simon's ankles, pulled him to the floor and started wrestling with him. When the cabin door opened a minute or so later and Sergei came in, they were still at it.

I looked at Sergei and shrugged, and he smiled and leaned on the wall next to me, apparently quite happy just to stay out of it and watch.

It was quite a close fight: Pasha was older and an inch or so taller, but Simon took his sport seriously and had some muscles. But eventually Pasha got on top and twisted Simon's arm until he submitted.

Pasha stood up, apparently not caring that he was naked (he'd kicked his briefs right off) and seriously erect, and helped Simon to his feet, still speaking to him. Then he picked up his briefs, paused, looked at Simon's boxers – which were in a two-tone blue stripy pattern – and asked a question, and without a moment's hesitation Simon slipped them off and handed them to him. And now I could see why Pasha had said he was jealous, because Simon was a very nice size indeed, certainly no smaller than me and probably a bit bigger, and he had more hair, too, even though mine was finally making some real progress. And Simon's wasn't stiff, either: I thought he'd definitely show me up if that happened.

Pasha asked a question, and the two of them stood side by side, discussing (I assumed) man-made fabrics and elastic, apparently unconcerned that neither of them had a stitch on.

"Hey, Leo," said Simon. "Pasha says it's his birthday tomorrow. Did you know?"

I nodded. "I even bought him a card," I said.

"Great! Can I sign it too?"

"If you like," I said, and I pulled it from my pocket, removed the cellophane cover and passed it to him. Simon took the card, went and found a pen in his jacket pocket and wrote a message on it before handing it back to me. It was in Russian, so I couldn't read it.

"I hope this isn't rude," I said, taking the card to the table and signing it myself without adding a message (I didn't know how to write 'Drop dead' in Russian).

"No, it isn't, said Simon, who was now showing Pasha his pen, which was a quite nice ballpoint. I generally use cheap Biros, not least because in this world the usual writing implement was a fountain pen, which called for an ink bottle and blotting paper to be carried too. A disposable plastic thing was a hell of a lot easier, and they lasted for months, too – in fact the one in my pocket had been there since before I'd left London.

I put the card in the envelope, tucked the flap in (it seemed pointless to stick it down) and went and handed it to Pasha.

"Happy Birthday," I said, in German and without enthusiasm.

And then Simon said something – presumably the same thing in Russian – and gave Pasha his pen. And a miracle occurred: for the first time since I'd met him, Pasha smiled – a radiant, happy smile, just like a normal kid, and there was a flash of Pasha-that-might-have-been – and not just a flash, either: it lasted for several seconds. He said something quietly to Simon, and Simon answered him, and then Pasha hugged him, and when he let go again he was actually crying. He turned away, found a handkerchief and wiped his eyes and then started to get dressed, and Simon did the same thing, though he looked concerned.

His next question was fairly obviously 'Are you all right?' and Pasha nodded, smiled at him again – a smile that was a million miles away from his usual manic grin – and said something reassuring. They both finished getting dressed and then Pasha went over to the table and wrote something on a piece of paper, which he tucked into his pocket. Then he turned to me.

"This is a remarkable boy," he told me. "I'd really like to keep him. Do you think…?"

I simply translated that into English, and Simon thought for a moment.

"It would be really interesting to stay," he said, "but… there's my family, especially as they've only just got here. I don't think they'd be very happy. I mean, I like him a lot… perhaps we could visit each other?"

"Simon, we're at war," I reminded him.

"Oh… I'd forgotten that. But after the war, perhaps?"

I translated that for Pasha, adding that I would have no objection at all to any visits once the war was over, and also saying that if he wanted to come and visit us even before the war was over I'd guarantee him safe passage – after all, I'd owe him a serious debt of gratitude for letting us go.

"I'm sure you'll understand, though," I added, "that I really don't want to come back to Feodosia myself. And I think that goes for the Margrave, too."

"Of course," he said, adding something that was halfway between a smile and a grin. "Well, come on: I'm sure they're waiting for us outside."

They were, and now I realised that all my attempts to charm him had been wasted, because as we stepped out of the gondola I saw that all the Cossacks were now carrying rifles. I was looking at a firing squad.

Simon, who presumably thought nothing of the armed reception, said something else happily to Pasha, and this time Joe was close enough to hear.

"He just said he's really looking forward to Pasha coming to visit us!" he told me. "What the hell happened in there?"

"Later," I said.

I turned to Pasha, pretending I couldn't see the Cossacks, and took out my wallet.

"I just realised I can give you a birthday present too," I said, extracting all my remaining Euros. "This is the money they use over there, so you can buy yourselves a lot more pizzas, or use it to travel about. I'd take some jewellery if you intend going far, though – you can sell it in exchange for the local currency."

"Thank you," he said. "Do you still want to swap watches? I expect your new one is as good as the old one…"

I was pretty sure this was nothing more than a pantomime – after all, he could take it straight back from my dead body after I'd been shot, provided of course that none of the bullets hit it. But I saw no reason not to play along.

"Thanks," I said, taking my new watch from my pocket and handing it to him. He gave me back my tenth birthday watch, and I carefully tucked it into my back pocket. He didn't miss the gesture, either.

"One more thing," I said. "Be careful to check the weather. The weather has to be clear and calm on both sides if the hole is to open. If you go through when bad weather is forecast, be prepared to spend some time there before you can get back. And it might not work at all in winter – I don't know whether snow on either side could block it, but it might."

"Thank you," he said, his face deadpan.

I knew there was no point in running: there was absolutely no cover except the ship, and it would hardly be dignified to play hide and seek round the gondolas for the thirty seconds maximum it would take them to hunt me down. So I nodded to him once more and offered him my hand, and when he took it I looked him in the eye.

"Good luck," I said.

"You, too," he replied, without a trace of mockery.

"Where do you want us?" I asked.

He looked at me. His eyes flicked to Simon, who was beside me, and then back to me, and miraculously I found myself looking at Human Pasha again.

"Your carriage is at the foot of the slope," he told me, indicating where the cable car station was in the other world. He handed me the piece of paper he'd written in his cabin and went on, "This is a safe passage. It'll get you over the border into Switzerland. I'll send Sergei with you to make sure the border guards accept this and don't think it's a forgery. Go."

I gaped at him.

"Pasha, I…"

"Go," he repeated, and he turned his back on me and spoke briefly to Sergei. At that the lieutenant almost exploded.

"He said, 'What the fuck are you playing at?'" Joe told me.

"I think I could have guessed that. Come on, everyone – we're leaving."

Wolfie, Alex and Chris had clearly expected the worst, while the others didn't seem to have realised quite how close they'd been to being shot, but I didn't want to stop and explain now. We headed off briskly in the direction Pasha had indicated, trying to ignore the raised voices behind us.

"The lieutenant's going berserk," said Joe. "He wants to know why Pasha changed his mind… now Pasha's telling him that you're a weak captain, that you only care about saving your crew, and that once you're out of here they'll never see you again. The lieutenant doesn't agree – he thinks we're a dreadful security risk…"

"Yes, I think we get the picture," I said. "Come on, let's get out of here before the lieutenant wins the argument."

I hustled them down the slope. Our auto-carriage was parked at the bottom, but there was another vehicle parked right next to it and a couple of Cossacks standing guard. They raised their rifles when they saw us coming, but Sergei shouted something to them, and that was enough for them to lower them again.

When we reached our vehicle the guards still seemed unsure about letting us get into it, but Sergei said something to me and snapped his fingers at me.

"Give him the paper," Joe translated.

I handed him the pass Pasha had given me and the lead guard took it, read it, shrugged and gave it back to me. Somehow we all squeezed in – with Sergei there too it was a very tight fit, but I'd have clung to the roof of a cart full of manure if it would have got me off that mountain, so I didn't care that I was wedged uncomfortably between Alex and Joe.

"Fast as you can without coming off the road," I said to Chris.

Fortunately he'd only driven the final part of the ascent a few minutes before we arrived, and so the boiler was still warm and it only took about five minutes to get steam up. Throughout this time I kept my eyes on the summit behind us, expecting a horde of Cossacks to appear at any moment, but they didn't, and at last we started to move. I noticed that the guards were following us in the other vehicle, and I wondered briefly if I should be worried. But then I realised that they were probably only coming with us so that they could pick Sergei up for the return journey.

Chris drove fast, considering the steepness of the road and the many hairpin bends, but he seemed to be in control, even if he did cross onto the other side of the road a few times. The other car gradually fell back, but I was confident that it would still reach the border not too far behind us.

The road was better on the lower slopes, allowing us to go flat out, and we reached the border about forty minutes after we left the summit. This time the guards came out carrying rifles, but Sergei got out of the vehicle, spoke to the officer in charge and handed him Pasha's safe passage document. The officer still looked doubtful, but he clearly knew who Sergei was, and after a tense half-minute or so he shrugged, gave an order and the barrier was raised. Sergei came over to the car and said something to me.

"You can go," Joe translated.

"Thank you, Sergei," I said. I paused. "You love him, don't you?"

"With all my heart."

"Then go back to him," I said. "He's going to need you."

"I understand," he said, and, despite his youth I realised that he did indeed understand.

I nodded to him. "Back to the ship," I said to Chris, and the vehicle moved under the barrier and into Switzerland.

"Right, as soon as we get back to the ship I want the crew rounded up and brought…"

"It's done, Leo," interrupted Chris. "When I dropped the parents off I told Graham to fire up the boilers and Albie to get the crew back if they'd gone into town. By the time we get there the ship should be ready to go. I assumed you wouldn't want to hang about."

"Thank you, Chris, that's brilliant," I said. "I was afraid we'd have to wait half an hour to get the boilers going. Well done. All right, as soon as we're aboard I want Number One watch to their posts – except you, Billy. No offence, but you've been travelling all day, not to mention the stress back there… anyway, you can have a rest. I'll swap you and Weasel over just for this flight."

"Are we going home?" asked Joe.

"Yes, but there's something we have to do first. Wolfie, Alex, I want to talk to you in private as soon as we're back at the ship, please."

Chris took us through the centre of Basel as fast as was safe, dropping us all at the gate of the airfield while he went to take the carriage back to the hire firm. The rest of us walked over towards the ship, which, I was delighted to see, was already at a mast.

"Joe, we're just going to go and settle our bill," I told him. "As soon as you're on board call the first watch to their posts and tell Albie I want the ship ready to go as soon as everyone's on board."

I took Wolfie and Alex with me as I walked to the office, and once I'd thanked the officer in charge and settled our account I walked slowly back towards the ship.

"I'm not sure that I'm going to be able to do this," I told them. "Alex, I need you to be ready to take over command if necessary. Wolfie, you won't be on the bridge, so it'll have to be you, Alex. Are you okay with that?"

"Well, yes, but why… oh, I see."

"It has to be done, Leo," said Wolfie. "You know that, don't you?"

"Of course I do, but where I'd have done it without a qualm earlier, now it seems sort of dirty. He could have killed us so easily, and I think he was going to. If it hadn't been for Simon I think we'd all be dead now."

"What happened?" asked Wolfie.

"Later," I said. "Come on."

I strode ahead, but I could hear Wolfie say to Alex that he'd thought I'd have to be talked into this.

"He's a better captain than that," replied Alex, quietly. "I knew he'd…"

I stepped onto the bridge and out of earshot, and there I found the bridge crew already at their desks, with Sparrer on the elevators and Weasel at the helm.

"Ship is ready to go," said Albie. "It's all yours, Sweetie."

That actually drew a quiver of a smile from me.

"I don't believe that is ever going to catch on as a way to address your commanding officer," I replied. "At least, it had certainly better not!"

Albie grinned at me.

"Would you prefer 'Darling'?" he asked.

"No. And to be honest, Albie, I'm not in the mood, all right?"

He saw my face and realised that I meant it.

"Sorry, Captain," he said. "I was just happy you all got back safely, that's all."

"It's all right. I suppose that is something to be happy about. Where have you put the parents?"

"I assigned them cabins Seven and Eight, and I put Alex's sister in Six. Normally that's mine, but I can always share with Graham."

"I bet you can!"

"It's not like that," he assured me. "Graham likes girls. But we get on pretty well, so sharing for an odd night won't be a problem."

"Fine. Now, this is Simon and this is Danny. Simon is Joe's brother and Danny's his friend. Can you take them upstairs and put them in Cabin Two? Wolfie can come in with me."

"That'll make a change!" commented Albie, grinning again, but then he saw my face and added, "Sorry. I'll get straight to it," and he led Danny and Simon up the ladder.

Wolfie and Alex stepped aboard, and a couple of minutes later Chris appeared at the airfield gate and jogged over to join us.

"That's it," said Albie, who had just returned. "Everyone present and correct, captain."

"Very well. Signal the ground crew to release the lines. Are they clear? Okay, release extra ballast. All engines ahead one quarter. Helm, up five degrees and take us…" I took a deep breath. "Bearing zero-four-five."

Weasel spun the wheel straight away, but he gave me a sideways look.

"Are we goin' fightin' again, Captain?" he asked quietly.

"I hope not, Weasel," I replied. "I hope this is just going to be a short detour. But I want you and Sparrer to work together on this: we're going up into the mountains, but I don't want the ship to go any higher than it has to. If we can stay close to the ground we'll be a lot less visible. Ben, this goes even more for you: keep us low, but not so low we hit anything. You have full control of ballast and engines, so do whatever you need and shout out if you want Speedy to slow down or drop ballast. Speedy, you take orders direct from Sparrer, understand? And Ben, don't be afraid to take us up more steeply than normal. The main idea here is to keep us below the summit of the largest mountain.

"Joe, please broadcast a warning to the gondolas that we might end up pitching steeply. Make sure everything is fixed down. And when you've done that, call action stations and get the turrets manned."

I walked Wolfie over to the ladder.

"You're in charge of the bombs," I told him. "I'll try to hold us over the target. You'll see a rock splashed with black paint, and that should show even through the mist. Your job is to blow it to pieces, and when you've done that, unload every other bomb we have on the trees opposite it and on the ground between the rock and the trees. We're counting on you.

"I'm going to go and warn the families that the next half hour might be a bit bumpy. Alex, you have the bridge."

I followed Wolfie up the ladder, stuck my head around the doors of cabins Seven and Eight – Alex's sister was in with her parents, so that saved me one visit – and warned them that the ship would be climbing steeply for half an hour or so, and that they should stay in their cabins until we came to find them. Then I repeated the warning to Simon and Danny.

"Can't we come onto the bridge?" asked Simon.

"Not just yet. It's going to be a bit dangerous for half an hour or so. But as soon as it's safe we'll come and fetch you."

I went into my own cabin and sat at the desk, feeling pretty awful. I opened my writing pad, but I couldn't think what to say, because I didn't think that anything I could say would make any difference: I was about to commit what was sure to be interpreted as a massive act of betrayal. It didn't matter that we were at war; it didn't matter that I wasn't going to be breaking my word; it didn't even matter that in my position Pasha would have done exactly the same thing. For a short period he'd broken out of his shell and had managed, however fleetingly, to laugh and behave like a normal boy. And now I was going to destroy any chance of it ever happening again, because after this he would never let anyone inside his shield again.

Pasha, I wrote.

I'm sure that part of you expected this, whatever you might have said to Lieutenant Bulanin, and I'm sure that you understand too that I have no choice: I can't leave Russia with sole access to the only hole there is. At least if I succeed we'll be on level ground again, because, as I told you, our scientists haven't made much progress yet. The one thing they have made good progress with, called 'electricity', has no immediate military use.

Of course I'm not breaking my word by doing this, because we never discussed the possibility, and I know that in my place you would do the same thing. But after your generosity it still feels wrong. I thank you with all my heart for sparing our lives and I sincerely hope that when the war is over we can meet again as friends.

I hesitated over the ending: the usual formula ('I remain your obedient servant' or something similar) seemed hardly appropriate, so in the end I just signed it Leo and left it like that. Of course I didn't think there was a snowflake in hell's chance of us ever getting together as friends in the future, but I wanted to say it anyway.

I found a map-case and put the letter inside, and then I went back to the bridge. We were about halfway up the mountain by now, about a hundred feet [30 m] above the trees and so well below the level of the summit.

"Joe, tell the rocketeers that if the black ship is still on the ground they are not to fire at it even if it fires at us," I ordered. "If the ship shows any sign of leaving the ground – mooring cables being untied, propellers turning, that sort of thing – they are to fire at the tail assembly only. The aim is to disable the ship, not to destroy it. Absolutely no rockets are to be fired at either the hull or the gondolas."

"Leo, that's not very sensible," said Alex quietly. "It would be a lot safer to destroy the ship the moment we see it."

"Yes, it would, but we're not going to," I replied. "After all, it would have been a lot safer for Pasha to shoot the lot of us, but that didn't happen either. It's going to be bad enough shattering his dream of being a hero, and a very rich hero at that, by introducing our technology to Russia. I'm not going to kill him or his crew too. Of course if it's in the air when we get there we might have no choice, but I don't think it will be."

"And what if he's already gone back through the hole?"

"I really hope he hasn't, but we've got to destroy the hole regardless. But I don't think he'll risk doing that until he's sure that we're completely out of the picture. He won't want to risk getting trapped on the wrong side. I think he'll wait until tomorrow for his next expedition."

"About five minutes, Captain," said Weasel. "We're almost at the top."

"All right. Keep us to the east side of the summit – if the black ship is there that's its tail end – and bring us across to a point off the north-east corner of the flat bit on the top. I'll want you to hold station once we get there. I'll guide you into position. Sparrer, I'll want the ship close enough to the ground for accurate bombing. We'll probably need to do most of that by venting, so I'll take care of that.

"Joe, tell the gondolas to lower their armour flaps."

I kept ours up to start with, because I wanted to see clearly what was going on, and as we crossed the road that led down to Hinterzarten I saw a column of Russian trucks approaching the summit. Two of them were loaded with ground-to-air rockets, and two more were carrying the launch assemblies.

"Too late, Pasha," I said quietly: clearly he had intended to use these batteries to protect the hole.

"Forward observation point has a view of the summit," reported Joe. "The Russian ship is still moored in place."

"Tell the turrets not to fire," I reiterated.

Fifteen seconds later we crested the summit and I could see the black ship for myself. It looked as if our stealthy approach had worked, because we'd made it half-way across the summit, and past the Russian ship, before its first turret started to turn in our direction. The first rocket glanced off the top of our hull. "Hold your fire," I said to Joe. "Ben, as soon as we're clear of the plateau drop us far enough so that our gondolas are out of sight of his turrets, and Weasel, turn the ship around to head… let's say one-eight-zero for now. I'll correct once we're below the plateau."

Once our gondolas were protected by the slope and our tail assembly was protected by the rest of our hull I relaxed a little: I wasn't too worried about him hitting the hull, as long as not too many missiles hit it in exactly the same place. I guided Weasel towards the hole, and once we were roughly in position Wolfie was able to fine-tune our position by calling instructions via the tube beside the main cargo hatch. There was still almost no wind, so holding position was easy enough.

I couldn't see the hole from the gondola because it was immediately underneath us, but I could hear the explosions as our bombs detonated.

"Rear spotters report two Eagles heading this way, bearing three-three-five, range four thousand yards," Joe told us.

"Too late again," I commented.

There were four or five more explosions, then Joe said, "That's it, Captain: Wolfie says all bombs gone. The mist is gone and the rock with the paint on is in several hundred bits."

"Tell him to close the hatch and get back up here," I said. "Now, I want us to top the plateau again just for a moment – I've got a letter to deliver. Weasel, as soon as I've done that, head on one-seven-zero and hold that course. Speedy, drop the ballast from points two, eight and fourteen. Engines at idle."

The ship rose slowly until the gondola cleared the crest and I could see the black ship once more. It had stopped firing, but there were crewmen around it by the mooring cables and the propeller I could see was turning slowly.

"Tell the turrets to hold their fire," I ordered. "Weasel, take us towards the ship. Engines One and Two, ahead one quarter."

A white-jacketed figure emerged from Black Lightning's bridge gondola and walked towards us. It was too small to be the lieutenant, so now at least I knew I hadn't stranded Pasha in the wrong world. I imagined that Sergei was still on his way back from the checkpoint, but Dmitri was hobbling along in Pasha's wake.

"All engines to idle," I ordered, and the ship drifted a little further forward and then slowed to a stop. I opened one of the gondola windows and threw the map-case out and watched as Pasha jogged forward and picked it up. He opened it, took out the letter, read it quickly and then held it up towards me and deliberately tore it in half, and then in half again, and threw the pieces into the air. Then he turned and strode back towards his ship.

"Looks like your apology was not accepted," commented Alex.

"I didn't think it would be," I said, sadly. "Still, I had to try. Right, then: all engines maximum speed. Weasel, one-seven-zero. And Ben, as soon as we're clear of the plateau you may start to descend at five degrees."

The ship accelerated forwards and began its descent. Looking out of the rear of the gondola I saw Black Lightning appear above the mountain and turn to come after us, but we were a lot faster, and fairly soon it fell away behind us. We crossed the Swiss border and turned west.

"Wolfie, please plot us a course that will take us through the Belfort Gap and then on towards Paris," I said. "If we fly through the night we won't have to land again until we get home. And while you're doing that I suppose I ought to go and tell the parents that there's no way for them to go back…"

Epilogue

We made it home with no further incident. I took Excelsior straight to the works in Abingdon for a full overhaul and for the missing armour to be replaced and a new electricity gondola fitted, and it's still there now, though Tim assures me it'll be finished soon.

It's now May 7th 2012, which is Wolfie's fifteenth birthday. It's also exactly nine months since the first of the London riots, and also nine months after this record started. Obviously a lot has changed since then…

Pasha's prediction about the war seems to be accurate so far: the Russians are still holding a large chunk of Lorraine and most of Alsace below the mountains, but they haven't advanced any further, and the French æthership works near Rennes has already started producing ships fitted with the new armour, as well as plenty of the armour-busting rockets, and once they have enough of both I imagine that a counter-attack will be almost certain to succeed. Our own plant at Abingdon is busy too: Excalibur has been armoured and converted to take four engines, and Sparrowhawk is next in line once our own repairs are complete. I've already spoken to Uncle Gil about the wisdom, or otherwise, of attempting to invade Russia, and he says he'll help me to pass my thoughts on to the General Staff.

In fact they might know my name already, because the French seem to be very pleased with us: not only did Admiral Giorgetti give us a glowing write-up in his report on the Friedrichshafen business, but apparently the officer in charge of the defence of the Vosges above Sélestat also reported that his men had been given the time to dig in and receive reinforcements because we'd helped to keep the Russians pinned down. So maybe I can use this fame – even if I do think it's unmerited – to help persuade the French High Command not to invade Russia, should the question arise.

I found Joe's parents a house in Oxford that was within walking distance of the synagogue. Joe and Simon live here most of the time but go to stay with their parents from Friday afternoon to Sunday morning, and also during major festivals, and so far that seems to be working out well. Mr and Mrs Demetriou have a cottage on the estate, so we see quite a lot of them. Alex's sister goes to the local school – she's a bit too young to study with us – but Simon and Danny have joined our classes with Mr Devlin. I have to say that they weren't too enthusiastic about his methods at first…

We now have the only house in the world with electric lighting: there's a generator in our cellar, and so far it's worked so well that we're seriously thinking of removing the gas-lights. I suppose the next step will be to put in power sockets, though since we have absolutely nothing to plug into one except our computers, I expect that can wait.

With the addition of Simon and Danny we were running out of guest bedrooms, so I finally had the ducal bedroom cleaned and opened up again, and I moved into it two weeks ago. Wolfie moved into my room, which is of course perfect because it means he can come from his room down to mine and vice versa through the secret passage and so avoid scandalising the servants, although I suspect that a lot of them know about us already, and nobody seems to be too scandalised. Still, there's no harm in being discreet. In any case, I need Wolfie with me at night, because that bed is so big I'd never find my way out of it on my own.

We're going to get the tunnel to the ice-house cleared and reopened, just in case. I hope I never need to use it again for its intended purpose, but you never know…

I haven't heard from Pasha. I didn't expect to, of course, but I had hoped… because I still feel bad about that: having seen a glimpse of the boy he could have been I really wish I hadn't had to abuse his mercy in the way we did. But of course if it comes to a choice between one boy's happiness and the security of your country there's only one possible decision, and I'd done what I had to. I didn't like it, though. Not that my regrets will do me any good if we ever run into each other again, because I'm absolutely certain that next time he'll simply shoot me on sight. I just hope he never gets the chance.

Stonehenge has been fully restored to its former glory (or decrepitude, depending how you look at it) but there is no indication that the hole has ever opened again: I have sent people to check on calm days, but we've received no reports of abnormal patches of mist in the area since the reconstruction was finished. Of course it could simply be that there hasn't been a weather match on both sides, but I don't think so: I think we have to forget about it as a potential crossing-point.

Of course I promised Mr Silver I'd do everything necessary to find a new one, and although he seems to be settling in nicely he hasn't told me not to bother, so I suppose I have to keep trying. I'm thinking of taking my friends on holiday to either Rome or Greece this summer, or maybe even at half-term: that way we can combine a search for holes in the Ancient Civilisations with some sunbathing. I think we're going to need a break by then, because we're almost ready to go public with our electric generators, and hopefully that will bring in plenty of money that will both give Alex a healthy bank balance and allow us to get some more kids out of the sewers.

There's only one more thing that I'd like to happen: it would be nice to grow a couple of inches taller – I'm now about five feet seven [1.70 m] – and maybe a little more growth elsewhere would be nice too, although Wolfie says I'm perfect as I am. And if he's happy, who am I to argue?

***

All in all, it's been an interesting nine months but I won't mind at all if the next nine months are a lot less exciting. After all, I've got everything I could ask for: a home, money, my own æthership, good friends, and my very own beautiful red-headed Prussian aristocrat. Who could ask for more?

The End