Post by Lorpius Prime on May 7, 2007 2:55:59 GMT -5
Jay was awoken by someone shaking him. He had to blink bleary eyes several times before recognizing Thomas Glunz.
“Ungh…?” Jay asked.
“You should wake up, Mr. Blake,” said the German.
Jay didn’t even remember falling asleep. It felt like a few moments ago he’d still been telling his story to his hosts over a stein of beer. No, several steins of beer. Looking around, it seemed they’d put him on some small daybed, and sun was pouring in through a window over his stomach.
“What happened?” he rubbed his forehead.
“Sara insisted you stay, you were in no condition to walk on your own and you passed out quickly. It is almost eleven of the clock.”
Jay coughed and sat up; he’d slept in rather late. He swung his feet off the bed and groaned, stretching.
“I should, um…” he massaged his temples, trying to get a grip on everything that had happened. “I should get to a telegraph station. Or better, the office of a newspaper if you have one.”
Thomas shook his head, “That would not be a good idea. Herr Brauer says the Army is looking for you; they’ve put up notices in his pub. You have greatly upset Captain Diener.”
Jay shut his eyes and groaned again. “I have to tell someone. If I can get word to Barry, he should be able to pull strings and get me out of this.” He hoped Barry had that kind of power and that he would use it for Jay. He was reasonably confident of the first, and not at all of the second. “My family, too. Father’s in the Lords.”
Thomas frowned, a little sympathetically, “I am sorry. But I do not think the town is safe for you.”
“Well then what’s the point of waking up?”
“I am going to take the carriage to my Father’s house. You should come.”
Now Jay shook his head. He stood up, with a cautious hand on a bedpost. “No. No, I can’t just hide. Won’t ever make it back home that way. It’s the wrong direction anyway; I need to go back south first.”
“What is south?”
Jay glanced around and spotted his suitcase by the foot of the bed. He snorted, “Answers, I hope. I want to know what I just did all this for.”
He paused, and took a deep breath, “I want to know what Jack died for.”
Thomas’s eyes looked at him with pity.
The wind attempted to blow off Margaret’s hat. She attempted to remain discreet as she used a hand to secure it upon her head. The sky was filled with stormy gray clouds. Margaret hoped they would be finished before it started to rain. Then she regretted being so selfish.
Ahead, the Union Jack was being folded as a bugler played. Margaret flinched only slightly when the rifles were fired over the coffin, she was expecting the noise. Two more volleys rang out in salute.
Margaret wondered what was inside the casket. Father had said they did recover the body, but she didn’t know how they could be sure it was the correct one. She tried to push the ghastly images which came to mind away.
On the other side of the coffin, Lady Morgan’s head was lowered towards the ground; a black veil covered her eyes. Margaret pitied the old woman terribly; she’d lost her husband a few years back and now her only son. Margaret didn’t know that she had any family left at all.
Margaret scanned the other guests attending the burial service. Most of them were people she recognized vaguely as acquaintances of her Father, faces remembered mostly from stuffy parties during trips to London. A few more were familiar friends from around Exeter.
Catherine Morgan’s hand was gripping that of some grizzled old officer wearing his fancy uniform and ridiculous mutton chop sideburns. Margaret thought he had been Perry Morgan’s commanding officer in the Royal Air Corps, but wasn’t sure. On Lady Morgan’s right was a young woman in a wheelchair whom Margaret had never seen before either. She had been crying almost as much as Perry’s mother and Margaret was curious about her relationship to the man.
Perry Morgan had been an occasional visitor to the Blake manor for several years, mostly when he and Jay and Margaret were children. Baron Blake and Perry’s father had been friends, and Perry was one of the few “respectable” children in the area. The Blakes had tried to make Perry and Jay Thomson into friends, but it hadn’t worked very well. Perry was a strange boy and Jay Thomson never seemed comfortable in his presence.
Margaret remembered one time that Jay Thomson has come into her room asking her to let him hide from Perry, who was trying to enlist him into designing some wildly complex flying machine. Margaret had made him stand in a closet with her dresses and didn’t tell him Perry had gone home until their parents made her find him for dinner.
She covered her mouth to stifle a laugh. On her right, Lily Blake noticed and frowned at her. Sternly, Margaret recomposed herself.
Much later, her mother had tried to propose Perry Morgan as a good suitor for Margaret, and Margaret had made sure to crush that idea as quickly as possible. It wasn’t that she didn’t think Perry nice enough, he was always quite friendly, but he never quite seemed completely human, always far more interested in machines and math than he was in people.
Eventually, Perry had joined the Air Corps, and Margaret hadn’t seen him since. She hadn’t even known he’d been on Jay Thomson’s airship until her Father told them they were going to his funeral. At the time, Margaret had been too shocked to be remorseful. Now, she was a little distraught to discover she’d never really become close enough to the man to be much affected by his passing. She shifted her weight with the uncomfortable thought. Perry, odd though he had been, deserved better friends.
The casket and cover were in the ground, and the gathering was starting to dissolve as Father Bernard said his final words. As the crowd thinned on her left, Margaret led her family back towards the path which led out of the cemetery. Baron Blake moved to get nearer to Lady Morgan, who was holding up a handkerchief to her face.
Margaret’s ears caught the mutter of voices, and she turned her head while she walked. Colonel Holland, who had come along but remained on the edges of the ceremony, was being taken aside by an unfamiliar man who was not dressed in proper funeral attire.
“There’s news.”
Martin Bozeman Holland nodded, “Progress?” He kept his voice low, partly out of respect for his situation, but mostly to avoid calling attention to himself.
The agent from the Exeter office shrugged slightly. He was a foot shorter than Martin and wore a brown suit which was probably not quite dark enough to be appropriate. “We have one of them.”
“But not the one we wanted or you would have said as much.” Martin sighed quietly and steered the other man towards the trees which marked the edge of the cemetery, where people were talking more freely.
“No,” the agent confirmed, “it’s the other survivor. John Garvan Duggan, an Australian.”
“Duggan?” Martin’s brow furrowed.
“Yeah. Know something?”
“I’m not sure,” he scoured his memory, but nothing useful came forward. “What happened?”
“Apparently, the two of them returned to the Prussian garrison at Donauwörth. Captain Whitemore reports that they retrieved Blake’s suitcase from the barracks, with which Blake then escaped.”
Martin felt his muscles tighten and it took considerable effort to continue walking, “So are you telling me our package was in our hands this entire time? What exactly has Captain Whitemore been doing these few days?”
The agent rolled his eyes, “The Captain reports that Major Farragut left his records in a rather atrocious state. The Munich team has been having a devil of a time sorting out just this case.”
Martin resisted the urge to comment on how things would have been handled had he been the one in charge. It was unprofessional, and the Exeter agent, himself only a Captain, couldn’t do anything about it.
He had a burning desire to proceed at once back to London and demand to be allowed to go to Germany to sort things out directly, but that simply wasn’t feasible. Instead, he was going back to the Blake estate for the after-funeral luncheon.
Martin groped in his jacket for a cigarette.
Jay’s boots squelched as he dropped down into a lingering puddle. The carriage rocked on its springs behind him.
He waved to the red-faced bald man sitting behind the reigns. “Thanks,” he said.
Ernst Brauer nodded enthusiastically, showing a mouth full of slightly yellowed teeth. Then he babbled something in his native tongue.
His daughter Sara leaned out the side, “My father says he is sorry he cannot take you further. But he does have to look after his own business,” she patted one of the kegs beside her with an open palm.
Jay waved off the concern, “I’ve intruded on your hospitality enough already. I’m much obliged.” He grabbed his suitcase by its handle to haul it out of the carriage.
Before he noticed what was happening, Sara bent down and kissed Jay on the forehead. “Good luck Mr. Blake!”
Jay turned red as he righted his hat again. “Thanks…um, you and Thomas take care.”
She laughed at him, and her father called his team into motion. Jay watched the carriage recede for a few moments.
Then he sighed, shook his head, and hefted the suitcase up under his left arm. Thomas had been horrified by Jay’s plan to send out a telegram from the office in town, and eventually he and Sara had talked Jay out of it. Instead, Jay had agreed to travel back south to the old mansion of the Baron Münchhausen.
None of the Brauers nor Thomas seemed to have heard of the strange man, but he was a recluse that lived several villages away; Jay supposed he shouldn’t have expected anything different. Ernst Brauer had offered to drive him out to just past another small town in the proper direction, where he had a customer. Jay assured him he could find his own way from there.
Jay Thomson trudged alongside the rutted dirt track, hoping he was right.
Book One, Chapter:
-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20-21-
-22-23-24-25-26-27-28-29-30-31-32-33-34-35-36-37-38-39-40-41-42-
-43-44-45-46-47-48-49-50-51-52-53-54-55-56-57-58-59-60-61-62-
Appendix: -A-B-C-
“Ungh…?” Jay asked.
“You should wake up, Mr. Blake,” said the German.
Jay didn’t even remember falling asleep. It felt like a few moments ago he’d still been telling his story to his hosts over a stein of beer. No, several steins of beer. Looking around, it seemed they’d put him on some small daybed, and sun was pouring in through a window over his stomach.
“What happened?” he rubbed his forehead.
“Sara insisted you stay, you were in no condition to walk on your own and you passed out quickly. It is almost eleven of the clock.”
Jay coughed and sat up; he’d slept in rather late. He swung his feet off the bed and groaned, stretching.
“I should, um…” he massaged his temples, trying to get a grip on everything that had happened. “I should get to a telegraph station. Or better, the office of a newspaper if you have one.”
Thomas shook his head, “That would not be a good idea. Herr Brauer says the Army is looking for you; they’ve put up notices in his pub. You have greatly upset Captain Diener.”
Jay shut his eyes and groaned again. “I have to tell someone. If I can get word to Barry, he should be able to pull strings and get me out of this.” He hoped Barry had that kind of power and that he would use it for Jay. He was reasonably confident of the first, and not at all of the second. “My family, too. Father’s in the Lords.”
Thomas frowned, a little sympathetically, “I am sorry. But I do not think the town is safe for you.”
“Well then what’s the point of waking up?”
“I am going to take the carriage to my Father’s house. You should come.”
Now Jay shook his head. He stood up, with a cautious hand on a bedpost. “No. No, I can’t just hide. Won’t ever make it back home that way. It’s the wrong direction anyway; I need to go back south first.”
“What is south?”
Jay glanced around and spotted his suitcase by the foot of the bed. He snorted, “Answers, I hope. I want to know what I just did all this for.”
He paused, and took a deep breath, “I want to know what Jack died for.”
Thomas’s eyes looked at him with pity.
* * *
The wind attempted to blow off Margaret’s hat. She attempted to remain discreet as she used a hand to secure it upon her head. The sky was filled with stormy gray clouds. Margaret hoped they would be finished before it started to rain. Then she regretted being so selfish.
Ahead, the Union Jack was being folded as a bugler played. Margaret flinched only slightly when the rifles were fired over the coffin, she was expecting the noise. Two more volleys rang out in salute.
Margaret wondered what was inside the casket. Father had said they did recover the body, but she didn’t know how they could be sure it was the correct one. She tried to push the ghastly images which came to mind away.
On the other side of the coffin, Lady Morgan’s head was lowered towards the ground; a black veil covered her eyes. Margaret pitied the old woman terribly; she’d lost her husband a few years back and now her only son. Margaret didn’t know that she had any family left at all.
Margaret scanned the other guests attending the burial service. Most of them were people she recognized vaguely as acquaintances of her Father, faces remembered mostly from stuffy parties during trips to London. A few more were familiar friends from around Exeter.
Catherine Morgan’s hand was gripping that of some grizzled old officer wearing his fancy uniform and ridiculous mutton chop sideburns. Margaret thought he had been Perry Morgan’s commanding officer in the Royal Air Corps, but wasn’t sure. On Lady Morgan’s right was a young woman in a wheelchair whom Margaret had never seen before either. She had been crying almost as much as Perry’s mother and Margaret was curious about her relationship to the man.
Perry Morgan had been an occasional visitor to the Blake manor for several years, mostly when he and Jay and Margaret were children. Baron Blake and Perry’s father had been friends, and Perry was one of the few “respectable” children in the area. The Blakes had tried to make Perry and Jay Thomson into friends, but it hadn’t worked very well. Perry was a strange boy and Jay Thomson never seemed comfortable in his presence.
Margaret remembered one time that Jay Thomson has come into her room asking her to let him hide from Perry, who was trying to enlist him into designing some wildly complex flying machine. Margaret had made him stand in a closet with her dresses and didn’t tell him Perry had gone home until their parents made her find him for dinner.
She covered her mouth to stifle a laugh. On her right, Lily Blake noticed and frowned at her. Sternly, Margaret recomposed herself.
Much later, her mother had tried to propose Perry Morgan as a good suitor for Margaret, and Margaret had made sure to crush that idea as quickly as possible. It wasn’t that she didn’t think Perry nice enough, he was always quite friendly, but he never quite seemed completely human, always far more interested in machines and math than he was in people.
Eventually, Perry had joined the Air Corps, and Margaret hadn’t seen him since. She hadn’t even known he’d been on Jay Thomson’s airship until her Father told them they were going to his funeral. At the time, Margaret had been too shocked to be remorseful. Now, she was a little distraught to discover she’d never really become close enough to the man to be much affected by his passing. She shifted her weight with the uncomfortable thought. Perry, odd though he had been, deserved better friends.
The casket and cover were in the ground, and the gathering was starting to dissolve as Father Bernard said his final words. As the crowd thinned on her left, Margaret led her family back towards the path which led out of the cemetery. Baron Blake moved to get nearer to Lady Morgan, who was holding up a handkerchief to her face.
Margaret’s ears caught the mutter of voices, and she turned her head while she walked. Colonel Holland, who had come along but remained on the edges of the ceremony, was being taken aside by an unfamiliar man who was not dressed in proper funeral attire.
* * *
“There’s news.”
Martin Bozeman Holland nodded, “Progress?” He kept his voice low, partly out of respect for his situation, but mostly to avoid calling attention to himself.
The agent from the Exeter office shrugged slightly. He was a foot shorter than Martin and wore a brown suit which was probably not quite dark enough to be appropriate. “We have one of them.”
“But not the one we wanted or you would have said as much.” Martin sighed quietly and steered the other man towards the trees which marked the edge of the cemetery, where people were talking more freely.
“No,” the agent confirmed, “it’s the other survivor. John Garvan Duggan, an Australian.”
“Duggan?” Martin’s brow furrowed.
“Yeah. Know something?”
“I’m not sure,” he scoured his memory, but nothing useful came forward. “What happened?”
“Apparently, the two of them returned to the Prussian garrison at Donauwörth. Captain Whitemore reports that they retrieved Blake’s suitcase from the barracks, with which Blake then escaped.”
Martin felt his muscles tighten and it took considerable effort to continue walking, “So are you telling me our package was in our hands this entire time? What exactly has Captain Whitemore been doing these few days?”
The agent rolled his eyes, “The Captain reports that Major Farragut left his records in a rather atrocious state. The Munich team has been having a devil of a time sorting out just this case.”
Martin resisted the urge to comment on how things would have been handled had he been the one in charge. It was unprofessional, and the Exeter agent, himself only a Captain, couldn’t do anything about it.
He had a burning desire to proceed at once back to London and demand to be allowed to go to Germany to sort things out directly, but that simply wasn’t feasible. Instead, he was going back to the Blake estate for the after-funeral luncheon.
Martin groped in his jacket for a cigarette.
* * *
Jay’s boots squelched as he dropped down into a lingering puddle. The carriage rocked on its springs behind him.
He waved to the red-faced bald man sitting behind the reigns. “Thanks,” he said.
Ernst Brauer nodded enthusiastically, showing a mouth full of slightly yellowed teeth. Then he babbled something in his native tongue.
His daughter Sara leaned out the side, “My father says he is sorry he cannot take you further. But he does have to look after his own business,” she patted one of the kegs beside her with an open palm.
Jay waved off the concern, “I’ve intruded on your hospitality enough already. I’m much obliged.” He grabbed his suitcase by its handle to haul it out of the carriage.
Before he noticed what was happening, Sara bent down and kissed Jay on the forehead. “Good luck Mr. Blake!”
Jay turned red as he righted his hat again. “Thanks…um, you and Thomas take care.”
She laughed at him, and her father called his team into motion. Jay watched the carriage recede for a few moments.
Then he sighed, shook his head, and hefted the suitcase up under his left arm. Thomas had been horrified by Jay’s plan to send out a telegram from the office in town, and eventually he and Sara had talked Jay out of it. Instead, Jay had agreed to travel back south to the old mansion of the Baron Münchhausen.
None of the Brauers nor Thomas seemed to have heard of the strange man, but he was a recluse that lived several villages away; Jay supposed he shouldn’t have expected anything different. Ernst Brauer had offered to drive him out to just past another small town in the proper direction, where he had a customer. Jay assured him he could find his own way from there.
Jay Thomson trudged alongside the rutted dirt track, hoping he was right.
Book One, Chapter:
-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20-21-
-22-23-24-25-26-27-28-29-30-31-32-33-34-35-36-37-38-39-40-41-42-
-43-44-45-46-47-48-49-50-51-52-53-54-55-56-57-58-59-60-61-62-
Appendix: -A-B-C-