To Rescue General Gordon (a steampunk short story) Read online

be when he woke up. Henry couldn't even entice him with promises of gold and glory; Raheem was concerned with three things only: his god, his family, and his stomach. The first two were far away, and the last had recently been filled with some spicy glop from the Indian soldiers' mess. Henry's bowels protested at even the thought of it.

  His ruminations were interrupted by James, who exclaimed, sotto voce, "Someone's coming!"

  Indeed, two figures were approaching the airship through a gap in the tents. Henry could hear snatches of their conversation.

  He turned, "Pull harder!"

  James whispered hoarsely back, "Push harder!"

  The two young Britons grunted once more with the exertion of moving the stubborn Sikh. After a good thirty seconds of this effort Henry was exasperated, "Sod it! Let the big oaf get caught. Come on!"

  And, so saying, he scrambled up the gangplank, past the still unmoving Indian, and onto the deck of the Pegasus where he dropped to crouch in relative safety behind the railing. Billingsworth soon joined him.

  Raheem looked back and forth between the oncoming soldiers and his two friends, barely peeking above the gunwale. He seemed to be torn, trying to make up his mind in the fleeting few seconds before his bulk became unmistakably visible in the low light.

  Henry tried once more, "They'll see you! Get up here you lumbering idiot!"

  The approaching voices were growing louder. Raheem looked like a hapless spectator watching a fast-moving badminton match, his head turning back and forth, back and forth as he tried to make a decision. His feet remained frozen in place.

  The two interlopers were now close enough for Henry to see their faces in the reflected torchlight. He dug his fingernails into his palm. One of the men was Commodore Captain Stewart, captain of the HMS Pegasus and Henry Emerson's commanding officer.

  They were studying the ground now, picking their way through some desert shrubs, but at any moment they would look up, see Raheem's darkened shape on the cusp of entering the Pegasus, and the jig would be up. Henry couldn't move, his gaze fixated on Stewart as if just by its intensity he could will the other man to spare the airship a glance. It was no use. The Captain and his companion hopped the last bit of scrub and looked up towards the flying contraption with its trio of would-be delinquents, directly at Henry's hiding place. He froze. The jig was up.

  But the two men did not stop in their tracks, did not begin gesturing wildly or even angle their heads quizzically. They didn't give the airship a second glance, but continued their slow pace and amiable chatter.

  "I do not lumber."

  It was all Henry could do to keep from jumping out of his skin, and he strangled a surprised cry before it could get past his lips.

  "I may be an idiot, as you say, but I do not lumber" continued Raheem in a low whisper as he crouched behind Emerson.

  Henry let out a long breath he had not known he was holding in, and his tensed muscles relaxed. Raheem was safely aboard, and by some miracle Stewart had not spotted him.

  Billingsworth tugged at Emerson's sleeve, directing his attention back to their immediate danger. Captain Stewart and his companion (whom Henry now recognized as a particularly obsequious young ensign) were closing the last few yards to the yet motionless Albert Class Steam Zeppelin.

  "They mean to board her!" James hissed, and Henry knew he was right. For whatever reason, to perform last minute maintenance, check on the ship's store of coal, or retrieve a forgotten tobacco pipe, both men were headed directly to the gangplank.

  "Hide!" was Henry's immediate thought.

  "Where?" James gestured to the cramped deck behind them.

  There was no place to hide here, certainly not for three grown men. The gondola of the Pegasus was flat and open, save for the boiler and helm, and scattered bits of supplies. As soon as the Captain and his orderly topped the gangplank and saw over the railing they'd discover the would-be airship thieves and their store of guns and provisions. It would mean the brig for them and almost certain death for General Gordon.

  That could not be allowed to happen. Henry pulled a knife from a sheath at his side and went to work cutting one of the ropes that bound the Pegasus to Earth. James saw what his friend had in mind and, after a split second's hesitation, crawled to the far side of the craft to begin unloosening the ropes there. Raheem muttered something under his breath in Punjabi before removing the curved Kirpan from his belt and slicing at another of the tethers.

  The craft jostled as the gas balloon above them strained against fewer and fewer restraints. There was a shout and Henry imagined the look of shock on Captain Stewart's sideburn-bedecked face as he saw his command bucking and swaying, seemingly of its own accord.

  The last rope snapped off and the three miscreants swung side to side with the freed airship's undercarriage as it began rising slowly into the air. And not a moment too soon, Henry saw. Stewart's pith-helmeted head was so close Emerson could have reached out and given his surprised superior a friendly tap. The gunwale rose higher, however, and obscured the helmet from Henry's view.

  He breathed a sigh of relief, his second of the evening. They might make it after all. But then there was a violent jerk, and the gondola see-sawed dangerously. Stewart must have grabbed hold of a trailing rope or tether, his weight toward the rear of the craft added a pronounced tilt to the deck and slowed the ascent of the Pegasus perceptibly.

  Henry stood. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the dark shape of Billingsworth already moving aft. They needn't have worried. There was a sharp cry and the stern rose immediately as whatever Captain Stewart had grabbed onto gave way and tumbled with him the few feet back to the ground. His curses were proof that he was not, at least, terribly injured by the fall.

  Soon there were more shouts in the camp below. The dirigible was ascending at a maddeningly glacial pace it seemed to Henry, and he waited in tense silence for the crack of a rifle or a sergeant's call to "Fire!" But his luck seemed to hold, or the sleeping army was simply too caught off-guard to do anything timely about the impending loss of its only aircraft.

  Shortly the sounds of surprise and frenzied activity faded to whispers and the Pegasus, aided by warm air currents and its own natural buoyancy, drifted farther and farther away from the firelight and the tents and the closely guarded zeriba below.

  James was the first of the co-conspirators to speak, his voice jarring in the silence, "Right then, let's get to it. Time to rescue General Gordon." He stood up and began to shovel coal into the boiler.

  Emerson also stood and went about ensuring the ship was ready for their flight. Raheem, for his part, stayed crouched, arms outstretched, fingers splayed against the wood of the deck as if for purchase. His eyes, wide open, shone pearl white in the moonlight. Every errant sway of the deck, creak of the cables above, and pop of the warming boiler caused him to flinch and crouch lower. He would remain more or less in this position for the duration of the flight, his lips alternately muttering Sikh prayers and Punjabi curses.

  Feeling about in the dim illumination of the lit coal, Henry took stock of their situation. Their rifles were in good condition, the coal hopper for the little firebox was full, even Raheem's turban had made it onboard intact. In fact, everything seemed to be shipshape until Henry moved to the stern to check on their rucksacks. He groaned. One of them was missing.

  It was no faulty tether or weakened rope Captain Stewart had grabbed hold of to prevent their escape, but rather the overhanging strap of one of the rucksacks. The one stacked on top of the others near the railing. And the strap had not broken as the airship rose heavenward, Stewart's weight had pulled the rucksack right over the edge.

  The bag the Captain had taken to earth with him was also the only one which contained victuals for their trip; the others held nothing but tools, gear, or ammunition. The reality of it hit Emerson like a rifle butt to the jaw. They were about to embark on a two day round trip journey across the desert with no food, no medicine, and precious little water.

  III
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  It took them, by Henry's watch, nineteen and a half hours to reach Khartoum. When they arrived, the city was burning.

  The sky was just beginning to darken, and the clouds were glowing with the dusky oranges and grays peculiar to a desert sunset. It had not been an easy journey. The three renegades pushed their little craft hard, running her boiler at maximum for as long as they dared. At one point, the gears of the starboard propeller had been fouled by sand and dust, requiring a dangerous mid-air repair by James, who'd shimmied out along the propeller strut with a rag and oil can. Raheem had covered his eyes with his hands until James was pulled safely back aboard by Henry.

  All three were beginning to feel their hunger acutely. Water from the skins they'd brought had helped to delay the onset of stomach pangs, but it wasn't enough. Henry was beginning to think he'd happily endure a court marshal and the brig for even just a bite of some stale, mealy army hardtack. They were counting on being able to gather provisions upon landing in the besieged city.

  The Nile river, which had so far been their faithful guide south into the Sudan, forked now ahead of them. To the left, the Blue Nile, to the right, the White Nile, and on the estuary in between, Khartoum.

  The city, save for the palace and some other government and religious buildings, and the now abandoned houses of European expatriates,