Not Dead Yet: A British Zombie Apocalypse Series - Books 1-3, page 55
I placed the shako upon my head and nodded. “Send a card the next time he’s away, you know where to find me.” Gallant as ever, I stamped and turned on my boot before leaving her amongst the palace’s linen.
It took fifteen minutes to locate the Ballroom and Fitzgibbon, who was seated amongst a cluster of other regimental commanders, snapped open his watch lid as I appeared in the grand entrance behind the lord chamberlain. At the far end I could see the Queen standing on a red-carpeted platform pinning a Victoria Cross to a man’s breast. One of his sleeves was bereft of an arm and seated just off to the side were around twenty men, all in uniform, likewise decorated, and almost all missing a limb or three. A military band was playing and after the recipient bowed his head, the hundreds present applauded.
“Captain Jack Strapper of the 11th Hussars,” the lord chamberlain proclaimed.
I breathed and began treading towards the most powerful woman that had ever lived, silently cursing as my overly utilised sword snagged between my legs. The Queen was smiling but trying not to and those seated nearest grinned as I passed.
“Yes, quite, quite, old boy, that’s the spirit.”
“You’ll do well, good sir.”
“Don’t he look bloated.”
I don’t remember much about receiving my knighthood, other than Vicky who, without the jewellery and fine frocks, might have been any ordinary forty-year-old woman. At one point She averted Her eyes to the badge I wore and whispered sweetly, “oh, that’s the regiment my Alby chose, mostly thanks to you, and we’ll soon be renaming it Prince Albert’s Own, but keep that hush hush.” I’m a self-admitted coward and although this event ought to have terrified me enough to prevent my going through with it, it was a different kind of fear, meeting the Queen, having a blunt sword placed upon my shoulder, being handed a box with the words Sir Jack Strapper inscribed on the plate, sitting front and centre amongst real heroes and receiving their praise and adoration as though I was one of ‘em. I was safe and I knew it, which was why I was able to go through with the thing. When I opened the box it contained a brass spyglass, a wonderful instrument that extended to six times its original length, it felt heavy and I wouldn’t hazard at its cost. Engraved into the metal were the words For Sir Jack, With gratitude, Her Majesty The Queen.
After that there were formal speeches by various officers and courtiers, the Empress floated off to attend some business or other and we were seated at the tables for a feast from when I had to undergo the usual attempts from various women at having their daughters inflicted upon me for marriage.
From across the table, Lord Rotheby rolled his eyes with good nature for my benefit and after the goose, fried sole, roast snipe and orange cake, he joined me for a glass of port over by a large portrait of the royal couple.
“She laments abandoning the Empire but what else was there to be done about it? The order came and I had to watch, helpless, as She signed the papers. I’ve never seen Her so distraught but old England must come first, of course, and we’ve not been in such a state of peril since the Armada.” He was a tall, elegant man, a major in Her Majesty’s service and he looked dapper in a redcoat, if somewhat thinner than the last time we’d conversed, which had only been the other week. We’d met on several occasions, either at Horse Guards, the officers club or in the foyers of London theatres and I’d liked him at once because unlike most, he wasn’t a complete sycophant and treated me almost like we’d been acquainted since long before my gallantry became known. “Nature abhors a vacuum, Jack, and with us pulling out, all those places are now fair game for the first despotic savage who decides to install himself king, chief or God’s eternal anointed upon earth.”
I snorted derisively, “until the French decide to pluck them up, that is.”
“The French!” Rotheby sighed and I could see the hurt in his eyes and in that instant he looked older than his thirty years. The royal courtiers were being worked silly. “And we’d only just restored order in India after that Mutiny nonsense … the waste, Jack, all those lives … well, the French can have it all now, I suppose.” He shook his head and I could tell he knew things I didn’t. I said nothing, instead waited for him to fill the silence. “Things are desperate, Jack.”
My port was shivering in its glass. “Desperate? George, you really are despondent and on this, my special evening.”
“I’ve reason to be…” he fumbled with a cheroot and finally managed to light it before sucking on its end and blowing out a large plume of dirty smoke, “let me tell you this, Jack,” despite the music and the thrumming of a hundred conversations, he leaned in close and spoke sotto voce, “I suspect this whole damned Brunel Line is nothing but a ruse to keep the stupid masses quiet, to make it look like we’re doing our damnedest to help them, make them think we give a damn,” he laughed inappropriately, “Lord knows, perhaps we’re even trying to deceive ourselves but I cut my teeth as a young officer in the Engineer Corps and I’ll tell you now, we ain’t finishing this bloody line before the doomsday after this one.”
I liked the man but he could be a real mood killer. “Oh George, come along now…” a spot of port trickled down my wrist.
He held up a hand, “…oh, sure, we have the manpower, finally, with more muscle arriving by the hour but let me ask you this … where’s the stone coming from, aye? The coal to make the steel?” He sucked nervously on his cheroot, his hand was shaking. “If there’s a man in Newcastle left with any sense then he ain’t in the pits, I can tell you that. No, Jack, and between you and I, we ain’t getting it shipped from France either, or anywhere else. Blast it, but what little we have for the line they take … big men with uniforms and accents, waving papers sealed by the Secretary of State for War … they take it, along the canals, diverted some other place, God only knows where, for they threaten any man who asks.” He finished his cheroot and crunched it beneath his boot. “I hear rumours, Jack,” he glanced nervously over his shoulder, “incredible rumours. Apparently, there’s some secret place deep down below London … a bunker or other.”
I shook my head vigorously. “Oh, what tosh, George.”
“It’s true, Jack. Her Majesty is aware of its existence, but not where it is. She says She won’t abandon the people when … if the time comes but between you and I, She don’t got no choice in the matter. If there is such a place, I mean, if it truly exists then She will be kept safe, don’t you worry about Her,” and now he placed a clammy paw upon my shoulder, “but what does that mean for people like you and I?” He removed his hand and rubbed at his face, his nails had been bitten almost down to the cuticles. “And where is Brunel anyway?” The question struck me. Nobody knew the answer to that. “The man ain’t been seen in months, our brilliant chief engineer, who the whole bloody thing is named after, no less … goes walkies at the most crucial moment of his bloody life, the bloody fool.” He grabbed a fresh glass of port from a passing steward, clasped it in both hands and downed half in one. He saw my expression. “Perhaps you think me unduly apprehensive but I tell you now, I have family up north and it pains me that the telegraphs are no longer operational outside the capital but what could I tell them anyway? To get behind this fictitious line? No, and let me promise you this, because we ain’t any safer down here than they are up there.”
Having taken all necessary measures, perhaps I had right to feel more confident than Rotheby but regardless, I wasn’t having this talk, no sir. “Come along, man, it can’t all be doom and gloom, surely? The whole country’s on a war economy, total war, even if it took them forever to get their act together.”
“Without coal, Jack, what good is that?”
I shook my head with vigour. “No, no, our boys are back, and they’re the finest fighting men in all the world.”
“And how do we feed them once the dead have taken everything north and west of Oxford?”
“They won’t! Every town and village has been instructed to form a militia.”
“Oh, you mean our much vaunted Home Guard?” He made a high-pitched laugh and rubbed a mitt over his breeches. “Those who were thought too short, too fat or too stupid to join the local regiment. At best they’re manned by crippled and elderly veterans of the Peninsula campaign, men who’ve long since lost either their sight or their wits, armed with pitchforks and shovels, or else ancient muskets that can hardly be expected to fire.” His face softened. “I’m hard on them and you must forgive me, it seems our countrymen are doomed either way, irrespective of whether they stay or move south below our imaginary line.”
By this point, he’d well and truly managed to sour my special day, the day I became Sir Captain Jack Strapper, by Jove. “It can’t all be so bad, surely?” I wanted something, anything to grasp at. What I got was worse, far worse than anything I could ever have expected.
He again looked over his shoulder, and mine, then waited for a file of officers in their finery to pass. “There is that Churchill chap…”
“Bloody hell,” I could have vomited. If this was our biggest hope then we well and truly were in grave trouble.
“A neighbour of yours, I believe?”
I groaned loudly into my hands. There was no escaping it. Even after I’d left the man with no question as to the lay of the land, he’d still thought fit to send people around looking for me. I’d happened to be in the stable at the time, busy rogering one of the maids when I saw them approaching and absconded at once to Woodstock, from where I’d festered for several hours in the corner of an alehouse.
“Sir, a representative of the duke called,” upon my return, Groves had handed me a card, which stated simply and cryptically, ‘You are hereby summoned to attend a gathering of the Hallowed Churchy’s Chums. Attendance is mandatory.’
I’d torn it to pieces and thrown the scraps to the fire before turning on my butler. “If Churchill or anyone else from Blenheim sets foot on my land again, they are to be shot on sight.” Soon after, I’d left for London and even now, I was unaware whether or not my man had been forced to carry out my wishes.
“Did I say something wrong, Jack?” Rotheby touched my hand, the moisture coming off this man was astonishing. “It’s just that you’ve been scratching at your face for almost a minute.”
I waved away the concern.
“As I was saying, he’s not been seen in the Lords for a while, you know, the Duke of Marlborough, and people are beginning to whisper he’s up to something.”
I shook away the fog and responded, “you hear too many whispers, George,” before checking my timepiece. I briefly caught something move in my periphery and made to leave this despondency but suddenly found myself unable to stir…
…Because even now, Fitzgibbon was hobbling towards me faster than one might think possible for a man gripping a cane, pointing it and prodding at the air before him. He jabbed a man out of the way and port was spilled down a courtier’s best, with every step his left boot thumped the floor with considerably more force and fright than the right. “You fiend!” He growled, his cheeks red and puffing.
All conversation ceased as my knackers shrank within my breeches.
He was coming right for me, my commanding officer, that ridiculous moustache leading the way like a police constable’s truncheon. “You bloody fiend!” He spat as the press of officers and clerks and lords and ladies parted to let him through. The military band stopped playing. He was also grasping a glove and my bowels were just about to loose when the colonel drew back his arm and slapped the leather hard across Rotheby’s face.
He staggered back as his glass smashed against the boards and bright red port stained his adornments. “What…” Rotheby hissed incredulous, bringing a hand up to meet his reddened cheek, “what…?”
Astonishingly, the colonel was fixing not on me but Rotheby. “That you would offend my lady wife in such a way, you absolute fiend.” He threw the glove at my dazed and hapless friend so that it smacked across his forehead, prompting one or two sniggers from within the silence. Georgette had slipped in behind her husband and now stood out of the way, all innocent, and we briefly made eye contact. It reassured me.
By this point, my feet, of their own volition, had made several unconscious steps away. My mouth, I had also lost control over, as it was still gaping like a bloody wound. What usually happens in such circumstances is that a third party, often one mildly acquainted with both injured and offended persons, strides confidently forwards to mediate, to seek clarification on behalf of the bemused spectators as to the nature of the offence caused. I found myself glancing around for just such a person when, after several seconds of painful silence, and still no such mediator had come forth, I realised such a man, was I.
“Sir, I must protest,” I declared as I took a single bold step forth into the fray, à la Captain Jack Strapper, “but you have embarrassed a fellow gentleman publicly. I trust you have just cause for having taken such rash action?” A few people in the throng murmured agreement.
His top lip twitched, the moustache didn’t, and his gaze was maintained on Rotheby. “This gentleman,” he spoke the word grudgingly, “befouled my dear lady wife.”
It always astounded me just how little shame military men possessed when it came to such disgraceful matters, that other men would rut their wives and they’d care not for who knew of it. Soldiers were of a different breed and I’d witnessed, indeed participated in, the passing around of wenches from trooper to burly trooper in all three barracks in which I’d spent time. Soldiers become isolated, living in their own worlds where everything is shared and many of those who’d spent their lives in the army, especially they who were losing their minds to boot, doubtless become incapable of later adapting to life in polite society, to know what one can and can’t say, and particularly where and in whose company. I could only imagine what was going through the minds of the nobles and dignitaries present, and in the Queen’s house, no less, which was by far the worst aspect of this scene.
Quickly gathering my wits and beginning to sense an opportunity, I struggled to conceal my grin, and could only do so by peeling back my lips whilst speaking so that doubtless, I looked half-demonic. “No, no, no, sir, this is a grave accusation, and Lord Rotheby is a gentleman, he would never do such a thing as what you say. What is your proof, sir?”
For the first time, Fitzgibbon’s eyes moved to me. “My proof, Strapper? How about the bloody marks upon my wife?” His accusation filled the entire ballroom, there was a collective gasp and then his eyes were again piercing into Rotheby. “You stand accused, you filth, of propositioning my wife, and upon being refused, turning your crop against her.”
Rotheby whimpered and glared at me with terrified, disbelieving eyes. I found them hard to meet and turned away from them, my mind was still searching for a way to best use the advantage. “I…I…” Rotheby stammered, his mind was so fagged from the workload of saving Britannia that even though he was innocent, probably, he was exceptionally slow to the defence.
“You deny it, filth? Do you deny last week calling on my wife?”
Rotheby’s hand was shaking as he moved for his kerchief, though if he’d intended to swab at the dark red stains upon his person, he soon forgot he was holding it. “My lord,” he finally managed, “I…I visited to advise on…on…on investing in insurance, as per your invitation. You were late, remember? Lady Fitzgibbon showed me in and…and we spent the interim discussing Seymour Hicks’s One of the Best at Drury Lane.”
“Yes, I remember, and I recall the way you were looking at her over the Earl Grey.”
Well, that was understandable though from what I’d thus far ascertained, Fitzgibbon had seen the marks from my crop, demanded to know what of it, and his dear wife had named the man he’d known had spent time with her alone. The colonel had not doubted it because evidently, he’d managed to convince himself that his wife was of a high moral character. Perhaps the two of them were slinking off together, whenever opportunity permitted, it would be more a surprise if I were the only one, though judging by the way Rotheby was reacting, he’d taken the hit for nothing. Not only that, but he was too damned nice to publicly accuse Lady Fitzgibbon of being a liar, amongst other things.
My friend again looked to me for safety he didn’t find then back to his assailant, “I…she’s…no…I did not, sir!”
“Yes you bloody well did, you fiend, you beat her bloody.”
“No, I most certainly did not!”
“You have no honour, to strike a woman, my wife, bigad, I’ll have your bloody hide, just see if I don’t.”
“And how dare you accuse me, an officer and a gentleman of such barbarism, and here, in this, this place.”
This went back and forth for a bit, in full view of the spectators, whilst I considered the obvious questions to the tale, the most pressing being that if Rotheby had indeed propositioned the tart and been turned down, before taking the whip to her backside, then under what terms had the three of them later come to be sitting down over tea and scones, discussing investment portfolios? Rotheby cleared his throat and, fearing this defence had finally materialised within his brain, I was quick to interject in his stead.
“George,” says I, “are you guilty of this most heinous of insults upon the honour of his lordship’s wife?”
He flashed me a look, “no, of course not, Jack,” he sounded more composed now and I had to act quick.
“Well then, sir, there you have it, he says he didn’t do it, so unless you can see fit to retract your accusation, issue an apology, both verbally and in writing, and offer some sort of monetary recompense, perhaps with some additional and small act of contrition … I don’t know, taking care of Lord Rotheby’s laundry perhaps, which is a given, but might I also suggest offering to undertake his errands for a while as well, because if not then I’m afraid there’s only one way this can possibly go.” I stepped closer to the man I wanted dead more than anyone else in this world and, after having steered the affair to the precipice of where I desired it, tried to sound as solemn as I could. “Please, sir, you must.” I considered reaching out to touch the man but in the moment decided that would probably be a bit much.
