The Glass Galleon

Prologue

The strained silence in the room was only partly alleviated by raucous singing and the hubbub of conversation in the bar below. Two dusty gas lamps flickered, sending shadows of the two occupants dancing around the walls and over the rough rectangular table between them.

One wore dirty work-clothes made of heavy blue cloth and a dusty cap, the other blue trousers and a heavy dark blue duffle-coat with shiny brass toggle fastenings, his longish dark hair almost fully covered by a blue woollen cap.

Both men followed the fashion of mutton-chop whiskers, though one set was noticeably straggly, probably due to being nervously pulled at every five seconds or so. The man known as Squirrel constantly twitched fretfully; the other, known as Fraser – although that certainly wasn’t his real name - calmly took in the room and its sparse contents.

A particularly strong leg twitch made Squirrel’s dirty black hob-nailed boot clack! against the wooden floor making him glance in panic at the only door into the room. It also startled Fraser out of a memory. You should calm down, or you’ll probably explode when she arrives, he said.

All this gained though was a withering look and even more rapid finger tapping on the table top. I should go, Squirrel almost whined. I should never have agreed to bring you here.

Fraser debated about whether he should let his companion leave; then decided it would probably be best if he was seen with Squirrel. Though ‘Companion’ was too strong a word for their relationship; it was purely based on money: Squirrel had none and Fraser was offering a most specific item to a most specific buyer. In this situation Squirrel was acting as a broker; and starting to become a very annoying one, but a broker none the less. To disguise his annoyance (and so he could see Squirrel jump) he slapped at some dust and cobwebs that had found their way onto his trousers after Squirrel had led him through the secret alleyways to the bar’s back entrance.

His musing ended when the hubbub from the bar below them suddenly quieted. There was the scrape of wooden chairs against the floor as people stood up, a few moments of absolute silence, then the noise started again, but at a slightly lower volume.

Fraser’s eyes narrowed slightly; she was here, possibly the most dangerous woman in Britain; although nothing was ever proven. If either Squirrel or the person they were due to meet discovered what Fraser was really after then he’d be killed without a second thought. Even surviving meant heading into a possibly even more perilous situation. He gave an imperceptible sigh and decided to cross that bridge if he came to it. He’d been given the opportunity to turn the plan down, but he’d accepted and he’d see it to the end; whatever the end turned out to be.

Squirrel jumped up and started pacing around the room, ratcheting up his annoyance factor. Any more of this and Fraser would happily throttle him. Although from what he’d read and heard about Olivia she wouldn’t bat an eyelid if this happened right in front of her.

Steps could be heard past the plain wooden door and ended with a loud rap causing Squirrel to almost swallow his tongue in fright. Fraser wondered if he’d need to perform the Kiss of Life, and shuddered inwardly at the thought. When Squirrel stayed standing looking at the door like a scared rabbit he asked, Aren’t you going to open it then?

Squirrel looked at him as if he were mad. Then, thinking better of it, gave a little shake and hurried over to open it.

As Fraser had been told to expect from his sources the doorway was filled by a large, almost spherical woman dressed impeccably in a black evening suit. Her black hair was in a gleaming bun and severely pulled back from her face which had a strange sheen to it.

Her eyes hardened when she caught sight of Squirrel then, as if discarding him from her mind, she fixed an almost laser-like attention onto Fraser.

In the absence of our mutual acquaintance’s lack of social skills, please permit me to invite you in, Fraser said as he stood up. The woman, known as Olivia, quietly said something to someone out of sight of Fraser then walked in, a black wooden cane tapping the floor. Squirrel’s eyes followed her like a mouse watching a tiger stroll by. The feeling in the room suddenly changed into menacing. Fraser would have bet that the person outside the door was Lenk, Olivia’s henchman, the one with strange spectacles. He’d heard stories about him as well.

Thank you, Olivia said in a deep heavily accented voice and took out a white silk handkerchief to flick imaginary dust away from the chair Squirrel had recently vacated. It creaked in protest when she sat down. She held the cane across her on the table top. Without taking her eyes off Fraser’s she said, Leave us.

Fraser was quite surprised when Squirrel stood still, quivering slightly. He must be desperate, he thought.

A…a…about–

You will get your money, Olivia interrupted, Although if this doesn’t work out we will still find you. Go.

Like a greyhound after a rabbit Squirrel was out the door leaving his hat behind. Fraser didn’t believe he’d come back for it.

You have access to an item I require. Fraser felt this was more a statement than question, which meant his back-story had held up to scrutiny. If it hadn’t he wouldn’t be here meeting Olivia or, more likely, breathing.

Yes, he replied.

Why are you doing this?

He’d heard that the best lies were based in truth. Revenge for my brother. He did have a brother; that much was true, although the revenge part was overstating the case. And, of course, money, he added with a winning smile. Not necessarily true, but always useful.

Olivia ignored his smile and continued to examine him. Then she came to a decision. This is not the right place to discuss this. She took a piece of paper from an inside pocket and pushed it across the table to him. Time and place. Be there.

And?

You will be recompensed when I get what I want. She heaved herself up and without a backwards glance walked out of the room.

He allowed himself to relax slightly. The die was cast.

Part One

One

Samuel woke up lying on his side. The back of his head hurt and when he tried to move he found that his right arm had gone to sleep. He also couldn’t move his hands much and discovered that his wrists were bound behind him. There was rough cloth in his mouth and tied around his head preventing him from talking. He glanced around. It was dark but he could see slits of light. A faint glow seemed to be coming from behind him. There was a strong wood smell and when his eyes became more accustomed to the light he realised he was in a wooden crate. The slits of light were between the wooden slats where they weren’t flush with each other. He carefully rolled onto his back to see what the glow was and met two green eyes looking at him; it was the kitten sitting on Clara’s side. As far as he could tell Clara was still breathing, she was just asleep. She’d been tied up like himself. He looked up to see what was glowing and saw it was another butterfly. This one’s eyes were providing the faint light. It was probably running low on energy.

He raised his feet up and kicked them hard against the wooden side with a loud BANG! Startled the kitten meowed in protest and Clara jerked in her sleep. She must have been affected more by the stuff that knocked me out, thought Samuel. He listened for movement outside. Nothing. He kicked the side again and part of it cracked. Clara looked groggily over at him. Maybe he could kick a large enough hole for them to escape!

He kicked again and again, splintering the wood and filling the crate with noise. A shadow fell across the hole he’d created. Because of the noise he hadn’t heard anyone walk up to the crate.

He made out dark clothing moving down past the hole and then a face appeared. It was heavily bearded and wore glasses with darkened lenses. Whoever it was regarded their predicament with almost malevolent calmness. Why wasn’t he helping them? Samuel thought. Then it came to him – he was with them. The man must have seen the realisation in Samuel’s face as the barrel of a gun quickly replaced the face in the hole. They were going to be killed! He brought his feet up again to knock the barrel away but there was a faint phut! noise and he felt a sting on his chest. The barrel moved and another phut! and Clara slumped back down. The face re-appeared watching Samuel succumb to whatever had been fired at him.

As Samuel lay on the rough wood he realised there was a faint background noise of a steam engine, gears were engaged and the crate started a rocking motion. They were on water? The steam sound increased and so did the motion. Where were they being taken now?

He lay back in the darkness fighting the blackness rising up to take him in, remembering how it had all started.

Two

Samuel reckoned if they lived in an earlier century his sister would have been burned as a witch because of her strange abilities. It was at a picnic towards the end of summer that he recalled them first manifesting. His father at that time was only a junior civil servant so had no personal steam carriage. He remembered looking out of an upstairs window at the steam carriages passing by, each with its own unique sound of cogs, wheels, and smoke and steam exhausts. With each one heading towards their house he grew more excited hoping to see his father at the front driving it. After some time and several false alarms he recognised his father’s hat in the distance and ran down the stairs shouting, Mum! Mum, he’s here!

She laughed at his excitement trying to quiet him so he wouldn’t wake Clara - their month-old baby. He yanked open the front door and rushed to the kerb in time to see his father’s face screwed up in concentration as he brought it to a stop several yards past their front gate, and then the sigh of relief as he set the handbrake.

Samuel ran up to him and politely held out his hand to help his father get down. Can I drive it, father? he said eagerly.

No, Son. This isn’t ours and I wouldn’t like to know what Mr Trowbridge would say if he had to get it repaired. Seeing Samuel’s face fall at this news he thought quickly and said, You could though stoke it for me on the journey.

This did the trick and Samuel almost cried out Yes please!

Now, let’s get it loaded up, his father said.

With Samuel’s eagerness undiminished the picnic basket was soon loaded and his mother held Clara’s Moses basket as she sat behind his father. Clara’s white-blond hair was snug under a pink woollen hat, with her deep blue eyes peeking out from underneath it. Samuel was at the back ready to feed the fire under the boiler. Everyone aboard were in their travelling clothes with Samuel and his father in their caps. George set his goggles comfortably over his eyes and flicked the pressure gauge, turned the steam handle to its first setting and released the brake. They set off with a jerk. Samuel watched their house slowly become smaller and smaller through the black sooty smoke and steam of their carriage, until he couldn’t make it out from the others.

The ride was bumpy as the new tarmacadam roads hadn’t reached them from London yet. Samuel dearly wished they had as he kept spilling the coke off the shovel he was using to stoke the boiler as they bumped over the loose stones. Ahead fields separated by dry stone walls slowly came into view past the houses.

Finally they left the last of the houses behind and were surrounded by open fields. He wondered where they were going to have their picnic.

They slowed down as they came up to the entrance to a field between two loose-stone walls and his father warily stopped just outside the gate. He carefully disengaged the engine, set the handbrake and sighed with relief at another successful journey.

Where are we? Samuel asked.

This field is where Hannah and I had our first picnic, his father replied, nodding towards Samuel’s mother. At that time the first steam carriage hadn’t been built so we came here on horseback. Samuel had no idea how long ago that was as he’d always seen steam carriages on the road outside their house.

His father set his goggles on top of his cap and got off to help his mother down and then reached back for Clara’s cot. Samuel jumped off the back happy to get away from the heat of the fire for a while.

Then he and his father lifted the picnic basket off and carried it between them up the field to the start of the woods where a stream trickled down.

His mother laid the food out on a plaid blanket and they were admiring the view over the woods into the hills in the distance when a bee came and settled on Clara’s face.

George! his mother whispered fiercely. Samuel and his father turned round and saw the bee.

If you don’t annoy it it’ll just go away, George whispered back. And as if on cue the bee flew into the air but it didn’t go away. It stayed circling Clara. She was gurgling happily and to Samuel’s mind she seemed to be directing the bee’s movements. Even though it was a warm day Samuel felt a chill go down his spine as the bee started flying in a figure of eight which is what Clara’s pudgy hand was describing. He didn’t see the look that passed between his mother and father. They kept quiet and didn’t want to disturb Clara and have the bee sting her. She was giggling happily at it anyway.

Eventually it flew off into the distance and everyone except Clara gave a sigh of relief and the picnic continued in silence as they wondered just what had happened.

This one instance could have been explained away as an old senile bee but more strange occurrences happened. Samuel reckoned his mum and dad were glad to have a secluded garden as bugs, insects and, of course, butterflies unerringly made their way to his strangely quiet sister. She had no fear of any of them and even the spiders seemed to make their webs in pretty designs to please her.

This obviously wasn’t normal behaviour. What could they do? Who could they ask? Samuel sometimes caught his mother and father whispering about Clara and what she’d been doing that day with whatever bugs were to hand. Both his parents were worried about it but had no idea what to do. The only thing they could do was to try and keep it from general knowledge.

Where the idea of getting a puppy for Clara came from Samuel didn’t find out. He only knew that she was far happier and outgoing when Holby, as she christened him, was around her. He figured his parents thought that if people saw it acting strangely when it was around Clara then they’d think she was trying to train it and wouldn’t give it a second thought.

Samuel had always been interested in machinery, the way the cogs and gears worked together to produce movement, the way great steam engines were harnessed to whirl people around at the annual fair in the field outside their town, the way his father’s watch kept the time.

After the ruins of his father’s second watch were discovered under Samuel’s bed his father started bringing home mechanical devices from work for Samuel to take apart and examine. This was quite easy as he was in a department of the Home Office that dealt with technology and samples of items were always being examined; they’d only end up at the smelters otherwise. Samuel had been allowed to have a workshop in the garden where any loud noises wouldn’t be heard so much by any official visitors to the house. Frequently the visitors were kept waiting while Hannah extricated George from the workshop where he was with Samuel working on some mechanical device. Many times Samuel found his tools covered with patterned spider webs and a giggling girl and barking dog running away from his stern face.

Three

Time went on and Samuel and Clara grew like weeds. Clara though stayed quiet, even with Holby running around doing her bidding, and generally only speaking when she was spoken to. They also moved house due to his father progressing in the government. This new one was larger and in central London, much closer to the various government offices. Samuel had to leave his workshop behind, but to make up for it he was allowed to have a workbench in his now larger bedroom. As long, of course, as nothing he did exploded.

Even though Hannah stayed home and tutored Samuel and Clara she wasn’t able to look after the larger house by herself, so they reluctantly took on a day-maid, under strict instructions never to go upstairs. This also meant that Hannah could clear away the spider webs that started having letters of the alphabet in their design before any of his father’s guests arrived to see him.

Samuel became quite the aficionado of the various steam carriages that visited his father bringing important people and documents. George often told his visitors that his son could tell the manufacturer of each one just by its sound outside the house. More often than not their visitor turned out to be someone from the ministry wanting some paperwork that his father should have dealt with earlier but, because he was with Samuel working on something, hadn’t got round to.

*

Autumn was heralded by gales blowing the dark damp smogs away when Holby began to sicken. His fur started falling out in patches and the tricks he’d been taught by Clara got painful for him. Clara got upset at this and eventually after a long conversation between his parents that Samuel overheard one night his father took Holby away. In response to Clara’s wailing she was told he was going to a better place where he’d be able to run