Harry Takes Off: Astounding Stories of Adventure (Iron Pegasus Book 1) Read online

  He guided her through servants’ passages with walls of bare stone and flooring of simple brown tiles. They mounted two flights of steps and came out through a door into a corridor that appeared to run the entire length of the building. The walls were plastered and decorated at intervals with tapestries. It was cool despite the heat of the day.

  A short distance along the corridor a guard stood at attention outside a door. The two men spoke briefly in a language Khuwelsa didn’t understand; then the guard unlocked the door. The factotum knocked lightly, and on receiving no response he pushed the door open.

  He stepped back and gestured for Khuwelsa to enter. She passed through into an airy bedroom and heard the sound of water splashing through a doorway.

  She had been right; Harry was in the lap of luxury.

  * * *

  When they were younger Sellie and Harry had always bathed together (never mind the times they ended up in rivers and lakes), but once they had reached thirteen Mrs Hemingway had decided they were too old to share.

  With her hair washed, her back scrubbed and her stomach filled (though there was plenty more to eat), Harry lay in the water, drifting back to sleep.

  “Replaced me already then, have you?”

  xvii

  Harry sat up in the bath. “Where have you been?”

  Khuwelsa sat heavily on the side of the tub and splashed the foam, then picked at the tray of food. The maid looked horrified at her presumption. “You know, I could really do with a bath too.”

  “I’m not entirely sure that would be allowed,” said Harry. “They’re a bit funny about servants having a soak in their mistress’s pool.”

  Khuwelsa raised an eyebrow. “You know that’s not even funny.”

  “Do I look like I’m laughing?”

  “I saw Dad.”

  “Is he all right?”

  Khuwelsa sighed. “You know how he gets when he’s really angry?”

  Harry grimaced. “Sorry I wasn’t there to back you up.”

  “Not at us, Harry,” she said. “Well, not directly. At the sultan, at the whole situation.”

  “I don’t understand—you mean the fact we’re not exactly privileged guests.”

  “Well, I’m just your servant.”

  “Not my fault, Sellie.”

  “I know.” Khuwelsa glanced at the maid who was sitting back on her haunches, apparently paying no attention to their conversation. “Does she speak English?”

  “I don’t know, probably not.”

  Khuwelsa pursed her lips and looked serious. “You’re a hostage.”

  “I thought it might be something like that. They don’t usually lock guests in their bedrooms.”

  Khuwelsa took another of the small parcels of food from the plate and bit into it.

  “At least they feed you well.”

  For a few minutes they didn’t speak. But Harry could tell from the way Khuwelsa didn’t meet her eye there was more.

  “Spit it out.”

  “I will not, it’s delicious.”

  Harry gave her a look. Khuwelsa swallowed the food.

  “Dad said that he won’t be able to stop the navy from attacking.”

  “You told him about the Germans?”

  “Of course.”

  “And?”

  “He said they’d have to check it out themselves.” Khuwelsa’s voice became strained. “He said they wouldn’t believe a couple of girls.” She looked as if she were holding in a volcano of anger as big as Kilima-Njaro itself. “He said they would say I was not a credible source of military information.” She got up slowly and turned to face the wall.

  Harry stood up abruptly; the maid jumped and pulled a bath sheet from where she had laid it earlier. She went to wrap it around Harry, but Harry just grabbed it from her and did it herself.

  Khuwelsa had her palms pressed against the wall and was taking in deep steady breaths. Harry put her arms round her. Khuwelsa tried to shrug her off but Harry just held her more tightly.

  “It’s not fair, Harry.”

  “They wouldn’t believe me either, Sellie.”

  “I wish I wasn’t black.”

  “I wish I wasn’t a redhead.”

  It was old ground. Every once in a while the prejudice would get too much, and over the years they had developed a formula.

  “I wish you weren’t a redhead too.” There was a hint of a smile in her voice.

  “And I wish your feet didn’t smell.”

  “Yours smell worse.”

  “Zebra breath.”

  “Hippo fart.”

  Khuwelsa turned round and they held one another for a short while.

  “You really do need a bath.” Harry sniffed and pushed her away. “And some clean clothes.”

  “Thanks, I’ve been slaving over the Pegasus while you’ve been living like a queen.”

  “Like an imprisoned queen, who’s been asleep for most of it so didn’t get to enjoy anything.”

  “Except the bath.”

  “Except the bath,” Harry agreed. “Look, why don’t you have a dip while I see what they’ve got that’ll suit me.”

  “As you wish, your majesty.”

  “I should slap you.”

  Harry grabbed up the plate of food and carried it through into the dressing room, leaving Khuwelsa to her bath.

  “Did Dad say how long we have?” she shouted.

  “He didn’t know exactly,” came the voice from the bath. “But, Harry, he was really worried. He said they would shell the palace.”

  “But not today?”

  “No, the deadline is tomorrow morning.”

  The maid rummaged in wardrobes and drawers, pulling out diaphanous tops and pantaloons which Harry rejected with an imperious wave of her hand.

  She grabbed the maid by the wrist and went back into the bathroom where Khuwelsa was in the process of submerging her head and scrubbing at her scalp. Harry picked up Khuwelsa’s heavy skirt and almost shook it at the girl. She held up the cloth and pointed at it.

  “Like this,” she said slowly and loudly, then followed up with French and German. She was not sure that the maid had understood any of the words but she went back into the dressing room and opened a different wardrobe. This time she brought out a dress similar to the one worn by the sultan’s daughter. Heavier cloth. It would have to do.

  Half an hour later Harry and Khuwelsa were in the bedroom, seated beside a small table. Khuwelsa had put her dirty clothes back on. Harry was in a voluminous robe which she’d tied round the middle much to the disgruntlement of the maid, who had apparently decided that this European woman had no breeding and therefore did not require as much respect as she had initially shown.

  She did, however, leave the room—Khuwelsa confirmed there was a guard outside the door—to fetch more food along with coffee. Harry and Khuwelsa seldom had coffee. It certainly seemed to sharpen the mind.

  “We do have one advantage,” said Harry, smiling secretively over the top of her coffee cup.

  “What’s that?”

  “We’re women.”

  “How does that work then?”

  “Men always underestimate us.”

  Khuwelsa looked sceptical. “That’s all very well, Harry, but at this moment in time they seem to be holding all the cards.”

  xviii

  Jonathan Edgbaston sighed and put down the dispatch his secretary had placed on his desk a few minutes earlier. Cyril returned with a fresh cup of tea and hovered expectantly.

  “Any response, sir?” he said finally.

  “There’s nothing to say, Cyril. Just send an acknowledgement in clear.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Jonathan picked up the dispatch again. The top part was filled with the verbatim transcription of the encoded message from the gunboat in the bay. Below it was Cyril’s translation, written in the man’s excellent copperplate hand.

  “No change of orders received. Attack will commence at 08:30. Recommend evacuation of any British
subjects within a half mile of the palace.”

  The final sentence had been in direct response to his plea to delay the attack until something could be done about his daughters. The Empire would not stay its hand, even for his family.

  Jonathan looked at the tea that was slowly cooling in the delicate porcelain cup on its matching saucer. He thought how easy it would be to break. A trifling bump would knock it to the floor where it would smash into a myriad pieces, spilling the liquid everywhere.

  He stood up firmly and went to his drinks cabinet and poured himself something more potent than tea.

  * * *

  Khuwelsa left Harry and was escorted to the exit through the servants’ passages. She made her way down a flight of steps at the side of the palace and headed out towards the workshops. Plans swirled in her head; mentally she rehearsed how things needed to go, for her idea to succeed. The men were already hard at work when she strode into the room where their bird sat.

  She pointed at the propeller still mounted on the ship that had been gutted. The man she had come to think of as the one in charge shook his head. “No.”

  She wanted to press the point but the disagreement was already drawing attention from a couple of the soldiers who patrolled the area. She did not want to risk what little freedom she already had.

  Instead she returned to the Pegasus and sat in the pilot seat, staring out at the wall.

  Harry was right. The pilot could only see ahead and up from this position, and if the plane was climbing even “ahead” was mostly hidden. Whatever had possessed the builders to design something like this? Hadn’t they ever flown?

  She got down on her hands and knees under the control display. There really was nothing important from the edge of the Faraday grid to where the dorsal support strut went across the front, with the movable canopy above it. The control wires and cables went behind a panel at the front but they could be easily rerouted.

  She remembered noticing spare window sections from one of the defunct military vehicles in a corner of the next building. Khuwelsa climbed to her feet thoughtfully, went out into the workshop and gathered tools.

  * * *

  They had fed Harry in the afternoon. She had another visit from the daughter of the sultan. The young woman was polite and seemed most interested in where Harry had been, and in her flying machine.

  Harry was not stupid and did not mention the German task force, which must be massing on the coast by now; taking down the bridge would only have delayed them for a short time. It would not have stopped the Zeppelins at all. In fact, now she came to think of it, if she were in charge of the German force they would set down an airship and use it as a bridge, at least for the infantry.

  The interrogation lasted through the meal and into the evening. The subject moved from her activities during the last couple of days to her father. She had no difficulty in pretending ignorance, since that was more or less her normal state in regard to her father’s job.

  The approach of the evening prayer took her inquisitor away. Darkness fell and she switched on the electric lights in the room.

  Harry chafed. She was not used to being cooped up in a cage, even a gilded one. She went to the window. Her room was two flights up. Khuwelsa had said she was in workshops close to the boundary fence, but there were no buildings on this side. Harry went into the dressing room, pulled a dozen dresses from the wardrobes, and set about plaiting and knotting them. She hid the completed escape rope under the bed.

  More food arrived later in the evening. At least they weren’t trying to starve her. The maid returned and sat in a chair beside the door. Did they really expect her to make a break for it through the door and into the palace?

  Perhaps the idea she might climb out the window seemed unlikely for a woman.

  Well, let them think that.

  There was nothing to do and Harry found herself drifting off. She would wait for the late evening prayer, and when the maid left the room she would tie the sheets and make her escape through the window. Then it would just be a matter of finding Khuwelsa and getting out. She had no idea how they would achieve that. She would just have to make it up as she went along.

  That was what she usually did.

  She jerked awake as the call to prayer drifted across the city. She glanced across to the door. The maid was still sitting there. Harry frowned. Why hadn’t she left? The maid got to her feet and pulled out a mat from behind her which she laid out on the floor, then knelt on.

  Harry turned away partly in annoyance and partly because it felt like an intrusion to watch the girl at prayer. She knew how embarrassed she got in church, at least on the occasions she went.

  Now what?

  She glanced at the bathroom and an idea formed. While the maid was on her knees, Harry went through and opened the valves that let the water in. In truth it was very tempting to have a bath and wash away the sweat of the day. But now was not the time. She took up a position leaning over the incoming water as if she were studying something.

  She wasn’t sure how long the praying went on, so she waited. Her muscles began to protest at being held in such an awkward position for so long. Finally she heard the maid coming through the dressing room and glanced round.

  “Hey!” She gestured to the maid and pointed at the water. The girl innocently leaned over to see what Harry was pointing at. Harry stuck out her foot in front of the girl’s legs, reached back and heaved her into the water.

  The girl pitched forward with a cry and went headfirst into the foamy water. Harry did not leave immediately; she waited until the girl twisted and righted herself so her head was out of the water. Drowning the poor maid was not Harry’s plan.

  Once she was sure the girl was safe enough, Harry dashed back down the corridor and slammed the door. There was no lock on it but with an effort born of desperation she pulled a chest of drawers in front. Then she went to the other door and jammed the chair under it. Hopefully it would hold long enough if someone tried to enter.

  She pulled the knotted dresses from under the bed, tied one end around the bedpost nearest the window and threw the rest through the opening. She took a moment to switch off the light and headed back to the window.

  There was a thump on the door to the bathroom, then a louder one. She was unable to see if the door was being opened, but it went quiet again.

  She hitched up her skirts and tied them off around her waist, giving herself reasonable freedom. Looking out it seemed further down in the dark and she wasn’t even sure the rope reached all the way to the ground.

  But she was committed. She swung herself out and clung to the knotted dresses as she edged her way down. There was a window directly below her with the flicker of fire or candlelight so she pushed herself to the side and continued down.

  There was a resounding crash from the room she had vacated. She ignored it and kept going. Another crash. Then some shouting. She reached the end of the rope. Closing her eyes, she let herself down until she was hanging from her straining arms—and let go.

  xix

  She hit the ground with a jarring thump. Her knees were bent as she landed so she ended up sitting on the damp earth of a flower bed. Easy as falling off a log, she thought. And considering some of the logs I’ve fallen off, a lot drier.

  Two floors above her, a woman continued to shout. She looked up and saw the maid’s outline against the light. It disappeared and was replaced the silhouette of the guard and his rifle.

  Harry glanced both ways along the building. The nearer corner was toward the south. She set off at a slow run as her eyes hadn’t adjusted to the dark yet and she couldn’t see the ground ahead of her. She passed darkened windows. The first gunshot made her jump. She kept going. The farther she got from the window the harder it would be for the guard to get a good angle on her.

  A second shot ricocheted off a stone to her left. She decided this was a sign she was right, and kept moving. She was almost at the corner. There was another shot from behind but she
didn’t notice it striking anywhere close.

  Her experiences of the last two days came to the fore. Instead of running round the corner, she came to a stop and flattened herself against the wall. There was no way the rest of the guards could have failed to hear the shots and the shouting. And by now the maid would probably have alerted more of the soldiers within the palace so they would be joining the ones from the perimeter in looking for her in very short order. The air was filled with the scent of jasmine from the plants on which she was standing.

  A wave of fear washed across her, pricking at her skin. Her hands were cold even though the day’s heat had not yet leaked into the sky. Where was her sister? Why hadn’t they arranged something? They had had all that time together, and the only plan they had made was to escape before the British artillery opened up on the palace? Perhaps she deserved to fail.

  But if she didn’t succeed, what would happen to Khuwelsa? At best she would end up a slave again, more likely dead. And her father could be killed, too.

  She pursed her lips and stared into the blackness ahead. In the distance she could see dark shadows of soldiers on the move. They could not see her now but as soon as she moved it would only be a matter of time before they could.

  If only her skin were as dark as Khuwelsa’s. Well, she could do something about that. She crouched down and dug her fingers into the soil beneath her feet. Taking it up by handfuls she rubbed it into her face. She tied her long hair back in a rough knot to stop it flying about and rubbed the dirt into that as well. The maid had oiled her hair to make it shine, and now that made the soil stick. She had no way of knowing how effective it was but simply doing something positive helped.

  She listened. There were still no shouts nearby. The guard in the bedroom window was no longer there. Still in a crouching position, she held her hair back and peered round the corner, keeping as much of her face hidden as possible.

  The gardens were dark but there were groups of figures marching and running, criss-crossing the lawns. One might have hoped the grass would have been interrupted by artistically placed bushes, trees and flower beds. Unfortunately it seemed that military sensibilities prevailed. The lawn was devoid of any cover she could use.