There was a long walkway, timber walls on their left, paling fences on their right, no turning to be seen. They ran, Delahey in the lead, pulling the boy along. Chatham followed, revolver in hand, glancing over his shoulder for sounds of pursuit. None came. For a moment, Chatham regretted abandoning his beer. Then a shattering, this narrow and tight passage was wrenched open with a crash of splintered timber. Tri-spiked grappling hooks snatched the fencing away like snapped matchsticks. Many clawing brown hands grabbed at the three men and dragged them into deeper darkness. Through dense and scraping bushes they went and then suddenly stumbled down, as if gulped in dry by the parched earth.
They could smell the spices on the brown hands that reached out to grab them. Sinewy arms encircled them pinning their arms. Instinctively, both sergeants reacted. They stamped down hard with steel shod boots on sandaled feet. They heard bones cracking and yelps of pain. Chatham freed a hand and pulled out his revolver firing blindly into darkness. A burst of flame but the bullet went who knows where, echoing harmlessly, scraping unseen cavern walls. Delahay stamped down hard and lifted his powerful arms to break his own encirclement hitting out with his elbows. He reached for his revolver but found it gone from its holster. He froze in panic. Was his own gun being pointed at his back even now? But glancing down he dimly perceived that his Webley was in Noone’s unwavering hand, held just below the level of his eyes. Noone peered and fired - a scream. He peered again and fired a screetch. Peered again, fired again, a torrent of babbling hate from scorched pain. Then they heard the sound of scampering feet receding in the darkness.
Delahay lit a match and stared at Noone unbelievingly.
‘I do it better than you do, Sergeant’, said the boy flatly.
‘And tell me, if I may ask, how do you know how well I do it?’ the Ulsterman asked.
‘I’m just guessing that you do it much the same as everybody else, Sergeant, and I’m grateful for what you did back there but when it comes to shooting, I think I might be the best.‘
‘ ‘And how did that come to be, boy?’
‘We’re glad it did mind,’ said Chatham, looking over his shoulder as he scanned the darkness.
‘I don’t know,’ Noone replied. ‘I wish I did’.
‘You mean it’s a sort of knack you have; killing people in the dark?’ said Delahay.
‘No, or at least it might be, I don’t know. The thing is you see, that I can’t remember why it is that I can do it.’
‘You can’t remember learning to shoot, being a good shot?’
‘Sergeant... Sir, I can’t remember anything at all.’
Chatham fired off a shot in the direction of where the scampering may have led. All he achieved was acrid gun smoke adding to the darkening gloom.
Then from the barely lighter entrance of the tunnel, advancing through the darkness, bayoneted rifle at the ready, was the American Colour Sergeant. Moving stealthily from shadow to shadow, he advanced.
Next, some way behind him, came the unmistakable chug, chug clatter of a patrol at the double. Lanterns were raised, rifles cross chest.
‘Here they are. Sir,’ shouted the company sergeant in the lead. ‘We found them.‘
Captain Oswald Fitzgerald, of the Bengal Lancers was the sort of officer of empire who could dance, sport, run and battle without removing his monocle except to polish it to a glassy gleam. Perhaps he could even make love with it clamped into his face, although looking at him would make that situation seem unlikely. He strode forward taking control. It came naturally to him.
‘Ah, well done, Colour Sergeant’ he waved. ‘In the lead as ever, I see, well done, excellent.’
Then, out of the darkness came an almost naked figure running, blood on his brow. His hands reached out to grab the Colour Sergeant. Too slow to react, Delahey could only watch approvingly as the American, regulation style, pushed his bayonet into his assailant’s chest twisting and withdrawing the blade in one movement. Then, as the Indian fell forward onto his knees, his white eyes wide, his mouth gaping noiselessly, he thrust the blade into the falling man’s throat. There was a gurgle and then lifelessness.
‘He was well trained somewhere, then,’ Delahey muttered to Chatham.
‘Thorough, isn’t he?’ Chatham replied.
‘A bit Showy, do you think?’ said Delahey.
‘Showy, yes and very thorough.’
There was silence then as they all strained to hear the merest shifting of a pebble in the darkness.
‘Well that seems to have finished this fracas’ said Fitzgerald, holstering his revolver.
‘Sergeant,’ he said turning to the patrol sergeant, ‘take your men and advance down the tunnel, take prisoners if you can but be careful.’
Right, you two’ he turned to Delahay and Chatham. I can’t think what you’ve been playing at. Never mind, you can explain later, I doubt it matters much. I’m Captain Fitzgerald and I know who you two are. The C in C wants to see you.’
‘Now?’ said Chatham.
‘About an hour ago, actually,’ said Fitzgerald. ‘Kitchener won’t be kept waiting at the best of times and he is in a foul mood now.’
‘No, not quite this minute,’ said Chatham. ‘Bring me a lantern.’
Holding the light above him Chatham walked into darkness. There was the body of one of the men that Noone had shot. Chatham had no doubt that there should have been two others. Wounded or dead they had been carried away. On a plinth in a niche in the cavern wall there was a ghastly figure, an idol poised as if guarding the tunnel. It was the figure of a crazed and dancing woman. She had four arms. In one hand there was a sword, wickedly slashing. It was held above another hand, this one dangling a human head, red painted blood dripping. Her other two hands made gestures that meant nothing to him.
‘Well, gentlemen, meet the Hindu Goddess Kali’, said Fitzgerald. ‘Enough to give you nightmares, don’t you think?’
‘But on the other hand, she is a good mother, apparently,’ said the American, smiling. ‘I’m Mortimer Angel. I’m happy to have rescued you.’
‘Does this mean that these men were Thugs?’ asked Chatham, ignoring the word “rescue”.
‘No, said the American. I doubt it. Your Company did for them near half a century ago. Past them their salt and then some, I’d say.’
‘Just Dacoits then,’ said Fitzgerald, ‘common murderers and thieves.’
‘Seems we put them to a lot of trouble then’, said Chatham. A fair bit of breaking and entering, if you ask me, just to rob a pair of down at heel Sergeants.’
‘Should we be in full fig, Sir?’ Delahey asked the Captain.
‘There isn’t time,’ said Fitzgerald. Follow me quickly and try to smarten up a bit as we go. Who’s the boy, what is he doing here?’
‘He’s with us’, said Delahey, ‘and what he is doing here is being with us.’
‘Quickly then,’ said Fitzgerald.
Welcome
This blog is just to record my experience of writing a story. That is something I have wanted to do all my life. I guess it is now or never.
I am just doing it for fun. I do not really intend to publish it. Mind you, I shall give that a try if I ever get it finished :).
The blog is only intended for me to keep a diary of my thoughts and for some of my close friends, especially those at the Richmond Writers' Circle (bless them for their patience).
If you have found your way here by accident, comments are welcome - especially the kind ones.
If you are, like me, attempting to write your first novel, please share the ups and downs.
Tuesday, 20 March 2012
Gosh I missed a whole week
But the writing is going quite well. Admittedly I only advance at a rate of 6 pages a week but I think I'm likely to keep on at that pace for a while. I tend to go at the rate prescribed by reading at the Richmond Writers' Circle. The time allotment is about 10 minutes, hence 6 pages. Total I roughed out the first scene of the second chapter. For a bit I found the prospect of a second chapter a bit daunting but I seem to be moving into it quite well.
Tuesday, 13 March 2012
Scene 3 part 1
We are now going apace, aren't we. Here is Scene 3 - the first half at least - in which the reader gets to meet the Gentlemen Rankers. Did I leave it too late? The reason my scenes are cyt to about 1,200 words words is that the Richmond Writer's Circle - not unreasonably give us each a maximum of 10 minutes. I have to gabble a bit and my stammer must be a pain for all concerned. I'll say more about the Gentlemen Rankers in the next post.
Sifting slowly, seeping in – sand became encroaching dust. The giant fan pulled lazily to and fro by the punkah wallah in the courtyard outside only moved hot air from one place to another. The smells of India suffused this ramshackle army barracks. There was tension all around - sand, binding heat and writhing gods – gods of this, gods of that, gods of forever heat and dust. If that were not enough, there was a rumour that the Commander-in-Chief was around and about in the encampment. He had arrived with the dawn, before his time, and was working into the night. Grand strategies might be left in tatters, requisition lists might be once-overed with a fly-swat and roll-calls supervised with a baleful eye. The Commander in Chief wanted more, wanted different and wanted his way. He wanted it now. Somewhere, an adjutant would have been wearily putting blotting paper to his brow and flicking iced water into his reddened eyes.
All around, soldiers untrained for idleness but all too familiar with its ways were idle. The great transit camp of Deolali, one hundred odd miles North East of Bombay was at its sultry worst. Here, the sergeants’ mess, the kernel of its troubled soul, contained the usual sloth of men with sweat stained shirts and clinging draws. Among them, at the long bar, were Sergeants Ambrose Delahey and Reuben Chatham. Each contemplated in silence the glass of ale just below his lips. Beer was contemplated. Beer was drunk. The empty glasses were briefly eyed, the froth left at the bottom examined as if some future or another might reveal itself. Then, empty of prediction, they were pushed back across the bar to be refilled. Any future could wait until the dawn when the world might be ready for it. With the dawn might come some knowledge of why they had been summoned here.
Delahey and Chatham were quietly enjoying a time of nothing happening that terrified, shamed, sickened or hurt them. India sullenly weighed upon them. They didn’t care. As if by some dull magic, nothing was happening, ale was consumed and fellowship enjoyed. It was enough.
The bar steward, waited ready to grab at the empty glasses and refill them. These men were of the kind that you wanted to go away happily back their sleeping quarters, happily and, yes, as soon as fortune would allow. Affable and generous in their tipping so they might be but the always possibility of danger hung over them like the dew-dank morning before a battle.
The barman had been warned of course. These men acting like toffs, talking like toffs and wearing black frock coats, elegant and unfingered by His Majesty’s regulations, were seriously bad news. They were sergeants, right enough, sergeants of engineers, and as such fully entitled to loll against the sergeants mess bar and take a drink if that was what they wanted to do. But a proper sergeant would only shout your balls off on the parade ground. These men might fry them too and fork feed them to you through your teeth. He just wanted them gone before any trouble caught their eye. He noted their wariness – how they glanced at the big mirror behind him, always alert to everything about them in the mess.
Carrying a tray of drinks across the room Percival Noone, private of the Buffs, as he would be when the parade bugle sounded, but for now a steward in the Sergeant’s Mess, would catch any eye. Even as he tried his best do be inconspicuous, he drew attention. However he tried to position his arms and legs he was possessed of a devil may care swagger that pierced across the room and crowd. If you caught his eye just then, as Chatham did, you could see that the devil did indeed care – and was staring right back at you through godless eyes. Chatham had the instincts required for such things. Trouble was about to tug his sleeve and he knew it. He nudged Delahey, the big Ulsterman.
‘Look over there at the young steward with the tray’, he nodded.
‘Right enough’ said Delahey, ‘I saw already. He don’t fit, does he?
‘Time for us to go’ said Chatham. ‘This is our time to start at shadows, my friend. Whatever happens here is nothing of our business. I suspect we’ll soon have more important things troubling us. And look there, under the Queen’s portrait, man’, he muttered.
‘The Yankee sergeant?’
‘Yes,’ said Chatham. ‘A Yankee soldier of the King, now that’s a turn up isn’t it? Didn’t we see him though not so long ago? A different uniform he was wearing then. Peking wasn’t it? - in and around the legations. Strange it is. Somebody should be keeping an eye out for that one – not us though.’
‘And neither is the boy any of our business?’ asked Delahey.
Just then, from behind him a large hand pushed Noone’s shoulder jerking him forward.
‘Come on,’ said Chatham. ‘Let’s go’.
‘No’ said Delahey. ‘No, he is our kind, Reuben. Wait and see.’ He put a hand on Chatham’s shoulder. ‘Wait.’
‘Well now’ came a cockney sneer from behind Percival Noone,
‘A pretty speaking boy. Such a lovely way of speaking his mummy taught him. Didn’t she?’
The voice belonged to a big faced and bearded sergeant of dragoons. Giggles and guffaws came from his cronies reeling in his spacious hinter.
‘And his hands, look,’ said one. ‘Not working hands those. Posh hands, I’d say, all soft and manicured.’
‘All pretty, new and fresh for us’, said the dragoon sergeant, and virginal too, I’ll bet. He turned to his followers as they nudged each other and smirked. The dragoon sergeant reached behind Percival’s neck and, topping him by half a foot nearly, pulled his face towards his chest. He was oblivious to those empty, except for the Lucifer, grey eyes looking up at him.
‘Oh pretty soldier,’ he said, ‘you will earn a stripe tonight, by God, you will’. The man’s years of harsh soldiering glowered over Noone’s scant seventeen summers of life.
‘That lot look like baboons on booze,’ said Delahay standing. The dragoon sergeant turned to spread a leer over the men behind. ‘Pretty, like the drummer boys used to be before the Zulus cut them up.’ Then he turned back and found himself nose to chin with Ambrose Delahey, patiently smiling down.
‘Back to barracks now, Sergeant,’ Delahey smiled. ‘And you’ he said to the others without a glance at them, ‘this is a quiet establishment for men of a certain quality. You can all leave now.’
‘Oh I’m outranked by a sergeant of sappers, am I?’ the dragoon sergeant laughed to his mates.
‘Not so much outranked’ said Delahey, ‘as out boxed. Potentially out boxed, I should say, to be fair to your undoubted pugilistic skill.’
The dragoon took another sneering look over his shoulder, a look too many. Before he could move defend himself, Delahey lifted has hand languidly as if to flick off a speck of fluff from the dragoon’s shoulder. The punch came from nowhere. Delahey’s left hook moved no more than six inches and cannoned against the side of the dragoon’s skull. The head snapped sideways and back and then for just a moment it seemed suspended in air while his body hung from it in tattered ribbons. But the moment was long enough for Delahey’s right fist to hit into the man’s unprotected stomach, below the encasing ribs. And all that was left now was the retching and groaning on the sawdust floor.
Chatham strained to hear in the sudden silence the opening of knuckleduster clasp knives that he knew were being fingered in pockets. But if they were drawn it would be by men more retreating than advancing. The gang were uncertainly working up some courage but lacking a leader. They turned from Delahay as a click in the sudden silence sounded to them as loud as a clang of a Sunday bell. Chatham had cocked his revolver, hidden except for the barrel under his coat.
‘You can’t do that here! The Colonel would bring back flogging for that, he would,’ said a voice from the crowd.
Chatham laughed softly. He levelled his revolver at the mouth where the voice had come from.
‘Better to be flogged than a man with no head’, said Chatham.
‘You come with us, young man’, said Delahey.
‘But I’m on duty here.’ said Noone, ‘I’m supposed to be...’
‘Not now, now you’re with us; quickly!’
Delahey and Chatham glanced at each other and Delahey nodded. Chatham flickered a roll of eye and then nodded back. Delahey reached out and took the boy by his collar. Half, dragging, half carrying him they bundled through swing doors into the kitchen, through the smells of simmering mulligatawny soup, past staring kitchen hands and out into the alley behind. A high pitched babbling of voices rose behind them as they stumbled into the dark heat.
Sifting slowly, seeping in – sand became encroaching dust. The giant fan pulled lazily to and fro by the punkah wallah in the courtyard outside only moved hot air from one place to another. The smells of India suffused this ramshackle army barracks. There was tension all around - sand, binding heat and writhing gods – gods of this, gods of that, gods of forever heat and dust. If that were not enough, there was a rumour that the Commander-in-Chief was around and about in the encampment. He had arrived with the dawn, before his time, and was working into the night. Grand strategies might be left in tatters, requisition lists might be once-overed with a fly-swat and roll-calls supervised with a baleful eye. The Commander in Chief wanted more, wanted different and wanted his way. He wanted it now. Somewhere, an adjutant would have been wearily putting blotting paper to his brow and flicking iced water into his reddened eyes.
All around, soldiers untrained for idleness but all too familiar with its ways were idle. The great transit camp of Deolali, one hundred odd miles North East of Bombay was at its sultry worst. Here, the sergeants’ mess, the kernel of its troubled soul, contained the usual sloth of men with sweat stained shirts and clinging draws. Among them, at the long bar, were Sergeants Ambrose Delahey and Reuben Chatham. Each contemplated in silence the glass of ale just below his lips. Beer was contemplated. Beer was drunk. The empty glasses were briefly eyed, the froth left at the bottom examined as if some future or another might reveal itself. Then, empty of prediction, they were pushed back across the bar to be refilled. Any future could wait until the dawn when the world might be ready for it. With the dawn might come some knowledge of why they had been summoned here.
Delahey and Chatham were quietly enjoying a time of nothing happening that terrified, shamed, sickened or hurt them. India sullenly weighed upon them. They didn’t care. As if by some dull magic, nothing was happening, ale was consumed and fellowship enjoyed. It was enough.
The bar steward, waited ready to grab at the empty glasses and refill them. These men were of the kind that you wanted to go away happily back their sleeping quarters, happily and, yes, as soon as fortune would allow. Affable and generous in their tipping so they might be but the always possibility of danger hung over them like the dew-dank morning before a battle.
The barman had been warned of course. These men acting like toffs, talking like toffs and wearing black frock coats, elegant and unfingered by His Majesty’s regulations, were seriously bad news. They were sergeants, right enough, sergeants of engineers, and as such fully entitled to loll against the sergeants mess bar and take a drink if that was what they wanted to do. But a proper sergeant would only shout your balls off on the parade ground. These men might fry them too and fork feed them to you through your teeth. He just wanted them gone before any trouble caught their eye. He noted their wariness – how they glanced at the big mirror behind him, always alert to everything about them in the mess.
Carrying a tray of drinks across the room Percival Noone, private of the Buffs, as he would be when the parade bugle sounded, but for now a steward in the Sergeant’s Mess, would catch any eye. Even as he tried his best do be inconspicuous, he drew attention. However he tried to position his arms and legs he was possessed of a devil may care swagger that pierced across the room and crowd. If you caught his eye just then, as Chatham did, you could see that the devil did indeed care – and was staring right back at you through godless eyes. Chatham had the instincts required for such things. Trouble was about to tug his sleeve and he knew it. He nudged Delahey, the big Ulsterman.
‘Look over there at the young steward with the tray’, he nodded.
‘Right enough’ said Delahey, ‘I saw already. He don’t fit, does he?
‘Time for us to go’ said Chatham. ‘This is our time to start at shadows, my friend. Whatever happens here is nothing of our business. I suspect we’ll soon have more important things troubling us. And look there, under the Queen’s portrait, man’, he muttered.
‘The Yankee sergeant?’
‘Yes,’ said Chatham. ‘A Yankee soldier of the King, now that’s a turn up isn’t it? Didn’t we see him though not so long ago? A different uniform he was wearing then. Peking wasn’t it? - in and around the legations. Strange it is. Somebody should be keeping an eye out for that one – not us though.’
‘And neither is the boy any of our business?’ asked Delahey.
Just then, from behind him a large hand pushed Noone’s shoulder jerking him forward.
‘Come on,’ said Chatham. ‘Let’s go’.
‘No’ said Delahey. ‘No, he is our kind, Reuben. Wait and see.’ He put a hand on Chatham’s shoulder. ‘Wait.’
‘Well now’ came a cockney sneer from behind Percival Noone,
‘A pretty speaking boy. Such a lovely way of speaking his mummy taught him. Didn’t she?’
The voice belonged to a big faced and bearded sergeant of dragoons. Giggles and guffaws came from his cronies reeling in his spacious hinter.
‘And his hands, look,’ said one. ‘Not working hands those. Posh hands, I’d say, all soft and manicured.’
‘All pretty, new and fresh for us’, said the dragoon sergeant, and virginal too, I’ll bet. He turned to his followers as they nudged each other and smirked. The dragoon sergeant reached behind Percival’s neck and, topping him by half a foot nearly, pulled his face towards his chest. He was oblivious to those empty, except for the Lucifer, grey eyes looking up at him.
‘Oh pretty soldier,’ he said, ‘you will earn a stripe tonight, by God, you will’. The man’s years of harsh soldiering glowered over Noone’s scant seventeen summers of life.
‘That lot look like baboons on booze,’ said Delahay standing. The dragoon sergeant turned to spread a leer over the men behind. ‘Pretty, like the drummer boys used to be before the Zulus cut them up.’ Then he turned back and found himself nose to chin with Ambrose Delahey, patiently smiling down.
‘Back to barracks now, Sergeant,’ Delahey smiled. ‘And you’ he said to the others without a glance at them, ‘this is a quiet establishment for men of a certain quality. You can all leave now.’
‘Oh I’m outranked by a sergeant of sappers, am I?’ the dragoon sergeant laughed to his mates.
‘Not so much outranked’ said Delahey, ‘as out boxed. Potentially out boxed, I should say, to be fair to your undoubted pugilistic skill.’
The dragoon took another sneering look over his shoulder, a look too many. Before he could move defend himself, Delahey lifted has hand languidly as if to flick off a speck of fluff from the dragoon’s shoulder. The punch came from nowhere. Delahey’s left hook moved no more than six inches and cannoned against the side of the dragoon’s skull. The head snapped sideways and back and then for just a moment it seemed suspended in air while his body hung from it in tattered ribbons. But the moment was long enough for Delahey’s right fist to hit into the man’s unprotected stomach, below the encasing ribs. And all that was left now was the retching and groaning on the sawdust floor.
Chatham strained to hear in the sudden silence the opening of knuckleduster clasp knives that he knew were being fingered in pockets. But if they were drawn it would be by men more retreating than advancing. The gang were uncertainly working up some courage but lacking a leader. They turned from Delahay as a click in the sudden silence sounded to them as loud as a clang of a Sunday bell. Chatham had cocked his revolver, hidden except for the barrel under his coat.
‘You can’t do that here! The Colonel would bring back flogging for that, he would,’ said a voice from the crowd.
Chatham laughed softly. He levelled his revolver at the mouth where the voice had come from.
‘Better to be flogged than a man with no head’, said Chatham.
‘You come with us, young man’, said Delahey.
‘But I’m on duty here.’ said Noone, ‘I’m supposed to be...’
‘Not now, now you’re with us; quickly!’
Delahey and Chatham glanced at each other and Delahey nodded. Chatham flickered a roll of eye and then nodded back. Delahey reached out and took the boy by his collar. Half, dragging, half carrying him they bundled through swing doors into the kitchen, through the smells of simmering mulligatawny soup, past staring kitchen hands and out into the alley behind. A high pitched babbling of voices rose behind them as they stumbled into the dark heat.
Sunday, 11 March 2012
Richard Rassendyll
I am going to keep the reader in dark for a while longer as to the identity og the Master of Dover Castle. Richard Rassendyll, however, I see as the son of Rupert Rassendyll of Prisoner of Zenda fame. Here are two famous film Rassendylls - Robald Coleman and Stuart Grainger
But probably Mathew Crawley of Downton Abbey best fits my mental image
But probably Mathew Crawley of Downton Abbey best fits my mental image
Thursday, 8 March 2012
Ch 1 Scene 2
Well having at least partially fixed and posted Ch 1 Scene 1, I can now post Scene 2
Inside time it is the Northern Spring of Nineteen Hundred and Four of the Christian era.
Such was the certainty of their coils and springs that the eight great clocks ticked in unison. In the quiet of the late evening the sound grew to become like an unseen spanner tapping a pipe. Gliding, scarcely a rattle, in his wheelchair along and around the network of tracks in the Conning Hall, the Master of Dover Castle glanced at his clocks approvingly. You knew where you were with time. The clocks measured the motion of the sun and chimed its progress as it travelled, without setting, the Empire.
Moonlight pierced through a window set high in the eight foot deep wall. Dover, as he was known to his colleagues, had turned off the electric light; he knew this room well enough. His wheelchair tracks gave him access to every device and control. He knew each clock without looking. Each had its own polished wood, mahogany, teak, oak, its highly polished metal plating in set square geometry. The hands moved over pale faces, tick-tocking the telling of time. He saw each pair of hands in his mind, a chess master playing blindfold.
Caught by the moon in that moment, he seemed a wasted spirit of a man. Once he had been corpulent perhaps but now yellowing flesh hung folding from his near enough cadaver. His eyes were rheumy and bloodshot. A dressing gown, once red at a guess, shrouded his frame, yellow smudges on the collar suggested a rapidly eaten egg or nicotine perhaps.
The Master pulled a lever on the wheelchair and it sped down to a turntable, another lever and it faced a new direction and powered by magnetics, travelled up a short incline. There on a table a glass orb rested on a tripod. Under it there was a Bunsen burner and this the Master lit, his arthritic fingers bent claw like fumbling the lucifers. The match flamed: the burner ignited. In a short while a pool of blue liquid in the bottom of the orb simmered. Gasses were released, tiny fitful billows in the glass. Lighting a cigarette in the Bunsen flame, Dover watched intently as if seeking some salvation amidst the vapours. ‘What would she have done?’ he muttered.
‘Bah’ he said, quietly and seemingly without rancour as if resigned.
‘Rassendyll’, he shouted. He wrenched the chair, turning it without using the lever, by will alone and it sped downwards on a new track leading to the door. He pulled urgently at a cord. ‘Rassendyll’, he called again.
Richard Rassendyll opened the door framed in the light from the room behind. Such a sharp contrast he was to the dishevelled figure in the wheelchair. Tall, elegant, his fair hair guardee smart, He was in evening wear, all starch and servant pressed.
‘Oh! You are dining this evening, Richard?’ said Dover.
‘I missed my train a couple of hours ago,’ Rassendyll grinned. I had thought to catch Mrs Eynsford-Hill, in London, after her performance tonight.’
‘Ah, Richard, yes, I’m sorry,’ murmured Dover, almost to himself. ‘I have kept you, haven’t I?’ I have been distracted. I am sorry.’
Dover’s face sank a little as if exhausted by the uttering of a sentence. Rassendyll smiled and shrugged. In this place long hours and tedious ones were much the usual state of affairs. He had grown used to it and there was a closeness to the centre of authority that is narcotic to an ambitious diplomat.
‘I wonder, Rassendyll, would you be so kind as to tell the Laird of Boleskine that I wish to speak with him at his earliest convenience? If not that then at my earliest convenience, please. Here, mind, in this place, the telephone won’t do. Where is he at this moment?’
‘Paris, I believe. God knows what mischief he is up to there.’
‘Get him here on the first train, then’. Perhaps you would go and fetch him. Please do.’ He might conjure up something or another that scares him more than I do.’
‘Can I tell him what it is concerning, Dover?’
‘It is concerning me. I am very concerned, Richard. There is something afoot. I am unsure...... I suspect that an ugly little claw is pulling at the loose threads of the fabric of Empire. I want to know whose it is... or what. And then I think I shall want it stopped. See to the Laird immediately, would you?’
The wheelchair turned. Dover re-entered his world of tracks and pulleys, the constant ticking of the reality of time and was lost to the darkness.
He turned his face a little. ‘I am sorry to have kept you, Richard,’ he murmured unheard.
Inside time it is the Northern Spring of Nineteen Hundred and Four of the Christian era.
Such was the certainty of their coils and springs that the eight great clocks ticked in unison. In the quiet of the late evening the sound grew to become like an unseen spanner tapping a pipe. Gliding, scarcely a rattle, in his wheelchair along and around the network of tracks in the Conning Hall, the Master of Dover Castle glanced at his clocks approvingly. You knew where you were with time. The clocks measured the motion of the sun and chimed its progress as it travelled, without setting, the Empire.
Moonlight pierced through a window set high in the eight foot deep wall. Dover, as he was known to his colleagues, had turned off the electric light; he knew this room well enough. His wheelchair tracks gave him access to every device and control. He knew each clock without looking. Each had its own polished wood, mahogany, teak, oak, its highly polished metal plating in set square geometry. The hands moved over pale faces, tick-tocking the telling of time. He saw each pair of hands in his mind, a chess master playing blindfold.
Caught by the moon in that moment, he seemed a wasted spirit of a man. Once he had been corpulent perhaps but now yellowing flesh hung folding from his near enough cadaver. His eyes were rheumy and bloodshot. A dressing gown, once red at a guess, shrouded his frame, yellow smudges on the collar suggested a rapidly eaten egg or nicotine perhaps.
The Master pulled a lever on the wheelchair and it sped down to a turntable, another lever and it faced a new direction and powered by magnetics, travelled up a short incline. There on a table a glass orb rested on a tripod. Under it there was a Bunsen burner and this the Master lit, his arthritic fingers bent claw like fumbling the lucifers. The match flamed: the burner ignited. In a short while a pool of blue liquid in the bottom of the orb simmered. Gasses were released, tiny fitful billows in the glass. Lighting a cigarette in the Bunsen flame, Dover watched intently as if seeking some salvation amidst the vapours. ‘What would she have done?’ he muttered.
‘Bah’ he said, quietly and seemingly without rancour as if resigned.
‘Rassendyll’, he shouted. He wrenched the chair, turning it without using the lever, by will alone and it sped downwards on a new track leading to the door. He pulled urgently at a cord. ‘Rassendyll’, he called again.
Richard Rassendyll opened the door framed in the light from the room behind. Such a sharp contrast he was to the dishevelled figure in the wheelchair. Tall, elegant, his fair hair guardee smart, He was in evening wear, all starch and servant pressed.
‘Oh! You are dining this evening, Richard?’ said Dover.
‘I missed my train a couple of hours ago,’ Rassendyll grinned. I had thought to catch Mrs Eynsford-Hill, in London, after her performance tonight.’
‘Ah, Richard, yes, I’m sorry,’ murmured Dover, almost to himself. ‘I have kept you, haven’t I?’ I have been distracted. I am sorry.’
Dover’s face sank a little as if exhausted by the uttering of a sentence. Rassendyll smiled and shrugged. In this place long hours and tedious ones were much the usual state of affairs. He had grown used to it and there was a closeness to the centre of authority that is narcotic to an ambitious diplomat.
‘I wonder, Rassendyll, would you be so kind as to tell the Laird of Boleskine that I wish to speak with him at his earliest convenience? If not that then at my earliest convenience, please. Here, mind, in this place, the telephone won’t do. Where is he at this moment?’
‘Paris, I believe. God knows what mischief he is up to there.’
‘Get him here on the first train, then’. Perhaps you would go and fetch him. Please do.’ He might conjure up something or another that scares him more than I do.’
‘Can I tell him what it is concerning, Dover?’
‘It is concerning me. I am very concerned, Richard. There is something afoot. I am unsure...... I suspect that an ugly little claw is pulling at the loose threads of the fabric of Empire. I want to know whose it is... or what. And then I think I shall want it stopped. See to the Laird immediately, would you?’
The wheelchair turned. Dover re-entered his world of tracks and pulleys, the constant ticking of the reality of time and was lost to the darkness.
He turned his face a little. ‘I am sorry to have kept you, Richard,’ he murmured unheard.
Monday, 5 March 2012
Ludens
Ludens was the origin of this story. He came from me reading an erudite book on trickster gods, that I half understood. I picked it up from a second hand bookshop. The next week I saw a childrens' picture book about trickster god stories at my local library. That coincidence started my mind working on this story.Foir reasons I don't understand Michael Moorcock's Fireclown came into my head. I was a big fan of Moorcock in the 60s but never read that novel. I think the cover of the book must have stuck in my mind.
But of course traditional images of pierrot and harlequin were also in my head, I like the sinister and tragic connotations of clowns
Finally this image of Twiggy in the boyfriend has always stuck with me
But of course traditional images of pierrot and harlequin were also in my head, I like the sinister and tragic connotations of clowns
Finally this image of Twiggy in the boyfriend has always stuck with me
Sunday, 4 March 2012
Ch 1 Scene 1 revised
Ludens is free. He rips himself into consciousness and lives. He abandons what must have been...him. He floats clumsily, topsy turvey, unpractised limbs awry. Ideas torrent into his head as if borne on dreams.
Then there is nothing until...
On a gust of frost a snowflake twists and turns, in it a happenstance of thresholds. Strange algebra shreds and tatters at the razor’s edge of chance.
Figures of men resolve slowly into confrontation with each other. Heady vapours of aether puff within their sinuses. Nascent energy crackles in their ears. One, pink faced, perspiring casts down his hiking stick.
‘Is it only me who had to walk all the way up?’
Another raises a cane in his hand. His eyes burn cold. He shouts,
‘Conjuring dolt, buffoon, it is impossible that you are here at all!’
A third says nothing and watches. His lips, as well as they can be discerned through his unkempt beard, curl a sardonic smile. He is tall and wears a ragged woollen cloak. His beard makes you want to scratch at imaginary lice. His eyes are a predator’s, wary and cruel and hungry.
Now there is a fourth who tripping from a precipice above falls into the triangle of the three. Rising, he raises his hand as if to silence them. He seems younger than they and savagely beautiful. He glows radiant, his eyes golden. He waves his arms in clumsy circles as if to draw everything into his ambit.
‘This in my time!’ he shouts, his voice hoarse and broken as if unused for days or weeks.
‘A fool has no time,’ says the man with the cane. ‘For such as you it is merely a clicking by of Lumiere frames, a fanciful dream. You sleep.’
‘You lack the will’, says the pink face turning florid in the shifting light. ‘You do! The will is not in you to create. Ludens, for I do know you, I know who you are, from what unknown hell have you been released?
The predator face entangled in knotted hair only smirks and turns away.
‘No belief,’ he mutters. ‘One day we shall meet and I shall defeat you. Belief is mine.’
‘My time! Mine.’ says the clown. ‘My century! A time come. My time.’ Now, hoarse as he is, he is almost screaming out. He shakes his fist. He raises his face to where stars would have, had stars been possible in this place. He gulps air into his body and stops. Clasping his arms around himself he lets the anger and lust escape from within him. In a voice cold and now controlled on wavered breath, he says –
‘My time, yes, not yours, my time to make, yes, mine’
‘There will be light!’
‘It brings reality!’
‘Reality, light will damn you all!’
The snowflake settles at last wearily onto the ageless still of a glacier. It rests for a second trembling fitfully. The glacier splits. Avalanche is unloosed.
It begins.
‘My time!’
Then there is nothing until...
On a gust of frost a snowflake twists and turns, in it a happenstance of thresholds. Strange algebra shreds and tatters at the razor’s edge of chance.
Figures of men resolve slowly into confrontation with each other. Heady vapours of aether puff within their sinuses. Nascent energy crackles in their ears. One, pink faced, perspiring casts down his hiking stick.
‘Is it only me who had to walk all the way up?’
Another raises a cane in his hand. His eyes burn cold. He shouts,
‘Conjuring dolt, buffoon, it is impossible that you are here at all!’
A third says nothing and watches. His lips, as well as they can be discerned through his unkempt beard, curl a sardonic smile. He is tall and wears a ragged woollen cloak. His beard makes you want to scratch at imaginary lice. His eyes are a predator’s, wary and cruel and hungry.
Now there is a fourth who tripping from a precipice above falls into the triangle of the three. Rising, he raises his hand as if to silence them. He seems younger than they and savagely beautiful. He glows radiant, his eyes golden. He waves his arms in clumsy circles as if to draw everything into his ambit.
‘This in my time!’ he shouts, his voice hoarse and broken as if unused for days or weeks.
‘A fool has no time,’ says the man with the cane. ‘For such as you it is merely a clicking by of Lumiere frames, a fanciful dream. You sleep.’
‘You lack the will’, says the pink face turning florid in the shifting light. ‘You do! The will is not in you to create. Ludens, for I do know you, I know who you are, from what unknown hell have you been released?
The predator face entangled in knotted hair only smirks and turns away.
‘No belief,’ he mutters. ‘One day we shall meet and I shall defeat you. Belief is mine.’
‘My time! Mine.’ says the clown. ‘My century! A time come. My time.’ Now, hoarse as he is, he is almost screaming out. He shakes his fist. He raises his face to where stars would have, had stars been possible in this place. He gulps air into his body and stops. Clasping his arms around himself he lets the anger and lust escape from within him. In a voice cold and now controlled on wavered breath, he says –
‘My time, yes, not yours, my time to make, yes, mine’
‘There will be light!’
‘It brings reality!’
‘Reality, light will damn you all!’
The snowflake settles at last wearily onto the ageless still of a glacier. It rests for a second trembling fitfully. The glacier splits. Avalanche is unloosed.
It begins.
‘My time!’
Sorting out Scene 1
An avatar of Elmore Leonard sits on my shoulder like a scornful parrot. He said, I think 'if it looks like writing I rewrite it.' Y told me my first scene was over-written and, making one of the most typical mistakes of the amateur writer, I was reluctant to cut any of my carefully chosen words. In any case though I had to rewrite it as my plot has changed requiring an alteration or two at the beginning. So I faced up to it and cut cut cut. Perhaps not enough but it looks more respectable now. Obviously from the point of view of drawing in the reader it is so important to get it right.
So here it is - this version at least - in the next post
Saturday, 3 March 2012
The things I like
From time to time I shall write about things I like such as I did in the last entry. This is purely because I happen to like them. I have no commercial or other interest in promoting anything or anyone. One of the reasons that I blog is that it could at least help someone climbing the same mountain to know that someone else is climbing too.
Learning on the job

Seeing as how I am learning on the job I read as I go books on how to do it. There are a lot of them. Many are worthy without being special. But a few I really have found helpful - I think this is a personal thing. One I am enjoying at the moment is Louise Doughty's 'A novel in a year'. This is a gentle 'let's have a cup of tea and talk about it' approach with some well thought out exercises. And yes I do wish I had done the exercises before I started! (I did do some of them, mind.)
Rewriting Ch 1 Scene 1

Everyone agrees that the opening is so important. I have never been satisfied with mine and have had to change it anyway since since I wrote it I have made a big plot 'discovery' that has been a major structural enhancement to the story. Despite a debilitating head cold I made a draft rewrite that I think can be made to work. Y gave the thumbs up to my nest Writer's Circle reading so all in all I think I'm ahead of the game! Of course I should have worked out all the plot before I started writing I expect. And then again I should have done all my research first and in fact should probably have learned to write first. The trouble is I want to get on with the writing and anyway I usually get the best plot ideas in the process of writing. My hero, George MacDonald Fraser, author of Flashman, had it all worked out I think. He learned to write crisply as a journalist and for each novel did about six month research at the London Library and then six month writing. Alas, the London Library is beyond my means and if I were to do it all in the write order I should still be writing when I'm in the grave.
I think of it sometimes as someone painting in oils, they seemed always ready to smudge over something and repaint it when it seemed not right. This is what I'm doing.
Friday, 2 March 2012
Steampunk - the art of Victorian Futurism - Jay Strongman

Knowing I am labouring over my story my delightful friend Sabine bought me "Steampunk - the art of Victorian Futurism" by Jay Strongman. I really enjoyed it but it did make me think. As a child I did read most of the antecedents of the Steampunk genre. And I did know that there was such a genre. I had NO IDEA though that it was so well developed and widespread. Y said I'd have to write fast to catch up. But what can I do to make more than a tiny addition to all the really clever things that have preceded me? I shall just have to plod on.
Isabelle Ebenhardt
Images of my characters


Thursday, 1 March 2012
Writing a scene
The only formal training I have had in creative writing I got from the Sydney Writers' Studio
www.writerstudio.com.au/
I only did a short course which was on how to write a scene. Their course material was basically many quotes from successful writers that supported their approach. Since doing the course I have come across many other remarks by writers that confirm it. When I try this approach my writing is always better than when I don't. Here it is (perhaps with a couple of additions, I have picked up on the way)
Decide on the objective of the scene and the things it has to include.
Try and go into an almost meditative state of mind where you focus on the main emotion of the scene.
Scribble out as fast as possible (pen not typing) the scene giving free reign to imagination.
Put it aside
Without reading what has been written do that all again. (The second version is most always better)
Then get on with wordsmithing and editing
The point is to separate the creative and the craftsmanship.
It does work.
Lapsing already?
Oops I see I have not posted for a couple of days. My promise to myself was to say something each day at midnight. The Wednesday meeting ot the Writer's Circle has come and gone. I really look forwards to it. If you are interested my reading was almost entirely stammer free. There are a few really good readers there so I shall have to try harder. In truth they a tolerant of a steampunk mash-up rather than longing for the next episode :) but they are very tolerant and that is one on the things that makes me so look forward to Wednesday evenings. Well that and the beer afterwards, I suppose. I spent a big chunk of my life in Australia. Australians are lovely people but have funny ideas about beer. They think their beer is drinkable. They are wrong. A pint of proper ale on a Wednesday night does not go amiss in my book. Well I'll confess to two pints and then a struggle up the hill to hope for a 33 bus.
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