Gears of Destiny

My Clockwork Shangri-La-2

It appeared to be the cue for a mass evacuation. The whole deck cleared within minutes. Even the elderly dowager vacated her leather seat with the help of two middle-aged ladies and hobbled from the deck. They all followed the Field Marshal into exile, all except Miss Grace and the object of their distaste. Lords Jackson and Charlesworth were the last to leave, a most unpleasant scowl exchanged between the two as they muttered their way from the room.

“I’m not sure that went too well,” said Grace, sculpted eyebrows raised in arched perfection.

“Now you know why I remained in my cabin.”

“Do you not care for the others?”

“Do I look like I care?”

“Well…”

Mortimer sniggered, something he had not done for a long time. Miss Grace responded with surprise, then the tentative teetering of a giggle of her own. Mortimer, unable to look at the giggling girl without the contagion of humour affecting him, laughed some more. Within moments, the two had burst into joint hysterics and clutched the copper rail to prevent their toppling overboard. Despite their mirth, the judder of air as the Zeppelin crossed the threshold between India and Tibet soon returned them to their senses.

“Do you really think we shall find Shangri-La, Mister Headlock?” asked a becalmed Grace.

“Please, Mortimer.”

“Thank you. Then I ask the same to you, Mortimer.” Grace smiled with the sweetness of a child, but it did nothing to cover her apprehension.

“Only Britannians would treat the search for Shangri-La, a city of legend hidden deep within the world’s most inhospitable landscape, as though an unexpected pleasure trip to the seaside on a snowy January morn.”

“That is not a denial.”

“No, it is not.”

“Then, please, for me, shall we find it?”

“Oh, yes, Grace, I’m certain we shall,” replied a serious looking Headlock.

“Really! I didn’t expect you’d say that.”

“It’s what we do with it once we find it that troubles me.”

* * *

For a further two days, the Zeppelin sailed high into the plateau’s thin air barely clearing the inexorable lines of jagged ridges. If the ship looked to lose much-needed altitude, then the crew would loose themselves upon the brass gears and crank for all they were worth. The system perfected by Professor Sebastian Grace, Miss Grace Grace’s father, was one part ingenious and a second part miracle. By working a set of lightweight gears, half a dozen strong men could force air under pressure up into the balloon and keep it afloat far in excess of any other aeronautical vehicle. In theory, the airship could fly for an infinite amount of time, although, the arms of the crew might disagree. The HMS Victoria, unsurprisingly named after Her Majesty, was the closest thing to perpetual motion that man was ever likely to create.

The passengers were almost certainly ignorant of their means of aerial propulsion, but Mortimer Headlock, as always, was not. Where dandy, dilettante and, of course, their spouses had sailed over the lower halves of Britannia, a German infested Europa — with all the haste a back wind and nightfall could muster — across the top of Persia and on through a monsoon hit India without a thought to how they had travelled there, Mortimer Headlock had studied every available inch of the airship’s workings. That is how he knew something was amiss. Headlock’s sudden reappearance and insistence on checking the supplies secured in the hold signalled an end to any accumulated joviality. His fellow passengers were at least relieved to see him head below.

“Open this box, crewman.”

“It’s just full of furs, sir, like the others.” A perplexed look said the man believed his own words.

Mortimer Headlock did not. “Do it now,” he said with a tad more aggression.

“Yes, sir, of course,” said the crewman, sweating despite the cold thanks to the twenty-three boxes he had already opened.

It was with a great splintering of wood that the six-by-six crate’s lid split apart. Mortimer hauled his set of wooden steps to the crate and clambered up them to peer inside the great box.

“Looking for the Yeti?” came the melodious tones of the always canary-yellow Miss Grace.

“Not particularly, but if he’s in here, I’ll find him.”

“That’s somewhat reassuring.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” a bland response.

“It is an astonishing view from down here.”

“Yes, a full three-sixty. I would suggest it unparalleled.”

“And I would agree,” said Grace bending over in a most unladylike fashion to peer out of the hold’s half-sized windows.

“If the others shared even a portion of your interest, then this exercise in madness would be less tiresome.”

“I fear the wine bottles and cook’s meals hold more sway.”

“This time it is I who must agree with you. Unfortunately,” groaned Headlock.

“May I ask what you are really looking for?” asked Grace.

“Crewman.”

“Sir,” replied the young airman snapping his arms to attention.

“Would you mind stepping outside for a moment. I shall call you when I am done, so do not stray far.”

“Of course, sir.”

“Oh, and crewman, Johnson, is it not?” Headlock added.

“Yes, sir.”

“Thank you for your assistance. I wish everyone was as good a patriot as you.”

“Why, thank you, sir,” the young man beamed. With another salute and nod of his head, he departed.

“That was a nice touch,” said Grace.

“I think it is only fair to comment on good performance where demonstrated.”

“Indeed,” Grace purred.

“And I fear we may soon need every available friend we can muster,” scowled Headlock.

“That does not sound good. Not good at all, Mortimer. Especially so coming from someone who I imagine troubles with difficulty.”

“You are most observant, Grace, and correct. I do not worry about things that do not require it and try to position myself so I do not have to for things that do. And in answer to your earlier question, that is what I am doing now.”

“May I again ask how, as I am rather at a loss?” Grace furrowed her eyebrows in a manner that should have brought most men to their knees; it brought Mortimer Headlock down from his steps.

“I am not exactly looking for anything.”

exactly“Then what exactly are you doing?”

exactlyMortimer put one black-gloved finger to his lips and c****d his head to one side. In a manner not unlike a reflection, Grace mimicked him. Her visage’s transfusion from quizzical to understanding was, to her credit, almost immediate.

“You hear it?”

“I do,” replied Grace. “What on earth is it?”

“That frustrating ticking is an unknown quantity, dear girl. I neither know what it is nor like it. The only thing I can tell you is it has been with us from the start but only now at a tone where it is apparent to all.”

“If they listened for it,” Grace said.

“Correct,” replied Headlock. “One thing I can tell you, Miss Grace, is that it should not be.”

“But is this Zeppelin not enhanced by the addition of a gigantic clockwork mechanism? I know for a certainty that that is what papa specialised in before the accident.”

“Again, your supposition is correct, but you do not give your father full credit. His mechanism, as you put it, works in total silence. The steady clicking tone we hear is far from silent.”

“Do you not think it some remnant of the ship’s motor or some such thing?”

“I would suggest that what they are doing indicates it is not.” Headlock pointed behind where Grace stood. His ashen face told her that he did not jest; her eyes confirmed it.

“Oh, my god!” she screamed, as a half-dozen parachuting forms flew past the viewing windows. Before she could say more an explosion that would have rocked Hell not only drowned out the ticking but her own bellowed, “Bomb!”

* * *

Headlock was shouting for the young crewman, whilst Grace still screamed out nonsense. He shot up and out of the hold only to be thrown back a full ten feet to land in a heap on the floor by a second earth-shattering explosion.

“Grace!” Headlock barked. Then, “Grace, get a hold of yourself.” Headlock spoke her name in so steady a mode, she calmed instantly.

“Yes.”

“I need you to climb into the crate.” Headlock indicated to the last and most intact that he and Crewman Johnson had opened. “No arguments just do it. I’ll be right behind you,” he added, as the bloodied form of the young crewman stumbled into the hold and crashed to the floor at Headlock’s feet.

“It’s chaos, sir, utter chaos,” his weak voice barely audible.

Headlock smiled a warm reassurance to the young man despite the lurching of the Zeppelin and raining down of molten metal. “I’ve got you, son.” He grabbed the crewman under each arm and hauled him towards the crate of furs.

“We’re done for, sir. We’re done for,” the boy repeated, closing his eyes.

“Get in the crate, Grace, or I’ll toss you in.”

Grace, still in a trance, snapped into action and shot up the steps before leaning back out of the giant box to steady them for Headlock. He, in turn, struggled up after her with the recumbent form of the young crewman draped over his right shoulder. Shouts of pain and anguish hurled themselves against the pair’s ears from the upper decks. There was chaos and confusion abound, but the two somehow manhandled Johnson into the crate.

“We must bury ourselves deep within these layers, Grace.”

“I don’t understand,” she replied. “What is this madness? Who would do such a thing?”

“It is sabotage, my dear, and we shall soon be subject to it. We are to fall.”

“Fall!”

“Yes, fall.”

And as Headlock’s sombre appraisal of the situation hit home the very floor of the craft split asunder. Wooden floorboards peeled apart like a dead man’s ribcage, sending splinters flying into the air. All was fire and fury as the craft’s carriage disintegrated. Yet, still, Headlock reacted where others would have gawped. With less eloquence than he would prefer, he shoved Grace under the piled coats and threw several over the unconscious Johnson. A quick scowl over the crate’s rim and he joined his compatriots in a fur-lined embrace. It was not a moment too soon. The cavity of the airship bore the brunt of a third and ultimately devastating implosion which split it apart at the seams.

The sound of death was all that remained to be heard as the floor gave way and the crate dropped with such a sudden loss of altitude that Grace thought her stomach to have exited her mouth. An instant chill set about the poor girl’s frame, as she sought the reassurance of Headlock’s hand. He, in turn, was already bracing himself for what was to come, as the three colleagues fell, and tumbled, and spiralled, and plunged…

* * *

There was an echo of something that Grace recognised but could not quite place. If she hadn’t known better, she should have said it church bells, but the ringing came from within, not without. The auditory echo was more sensation than memory and was accompanied by something altogether more tangible, colder. Someone, or something, applied an iced pressure to her forehead, a chilling resurrection from whatever bizarre state she laboured in.