Lessons From Underground Read online

  All our dear old mother had to say after that was, ‘Stay safe, you hear?’

  We saw him off at the dockside. Portsmouth or Southampton, I don’t remember now. Mother was all smiles while she waved her kerchief to him, but had a good cry when she got home—which was bad because it always sets me off too, you know? I’m sure you do.

  Anyway, Heck was off. His first adventure out into the world. Can’t say I was jealous at the time. I thought he was mad. I suppose I had a very strange idea of Africa at the time—it was all cannibal stories then, all that superstitious nonsense in books. Now I know that if anyone were going to eat him, it would probably be a Dutchman.

  You’ll have to forgive me if I forget some of the details. This isn’t something I’ve thought about for many a year. Heck’s ship would have reached the Cape of Good Hope first, with a trip by land to New Rush after that. It wasn’t hard. So many eager young men from all around the world were going there to get rich. Heck would have taken the coach with the rest. I’m sure everyone thought he was just like the others, about to get chewed up and spat out by the bigger fish in the pond. Fish growing into sharks.

  The history of the Cape Colony is, well, it’s a bit of a tangle. The Dutch were the first from Europe to claim it as their land, landing their ships there and finding the local people, farmers and hunters. The Cape was a useful place to have a port for Dutch trade routes to Asia, so they made a colony.

  Over the next hundred, hundred and fifty years, the colony became a big place, with the locals pushed out. But then the Netherlands got taken over by Napoleon, so the Cape became a territory of the French, because the French ruled over the Dutch, you see? Now, that gave Napoleon a base to attack other British colonies and British trade routes to places like India, which of course would not do. So we British go over with our armies and navies and have a battle like we always do. Always seems to be the way.

  Well, we win the fight and take over. Obviously, the Dutchmen there weren’t exactly happy. They didn’t like suddenly being told they weren’t Dutch or even French but British. They had been using slaves to expand the colony, slaves bought from traders in the west of Africa. Well, the Dutch definitely didn’t like being told they had to free them all, which was the British law. So those Dutchmen went and founded their own little state, which would probably have kept the fighting to a minimum for a moment. Except, of course, with the Lord’s usual sense of humor, diamonds had to be found right on the border between these places.

  So this is the kind of place Heck came to, if you can imagine it. The other end of the world, in the midst of a rush for riches, where Englishmen were clashing against everyone else who’d come there to get rich, as well as the Dutchmen and the local people too—along with the people who were a mix of both, from when the Dutch and the local people had married each other. Heck had money but he knew nobody. No arrangements for where to stay. All the lodgings were full, of course, even the most dreadful hovels built for the poor mine workers.

  But after a while of knocking on doors and finding no rooms, he met a girl who had opened a school for the children of the town. It may not sound like that new township was a place for children, but wherever there are people, there will be children sooner or later. As I recall, this young lady was named Miss Handle—part Dutch, if I recall Heck correctly, but with grandparents from one of the Bantu tribes. A common thing in that part of the world, though it usually means a hard life. But she wanted to start a school and had the means to do it, so I suppose her view was, ‘Just you try to stop me . . .’

  The way Heck tells it, he was all but collapsing on the floor outside her new school, and she came running out with a glass of water. He thought she was awfully kind, until she asked him if he was really a man, fainting like that just from being in the sun. Well, I suppose she took a shine to him in any case and said he could stay in the lodgings in exchange for teaching some lessons. And that’s what he did, when he wasn’t going around all the different claims looking for someone to agree to his research project.

  One of the other teachers was a fellow by the name of Bartholomew Hunter, who helped Heck to understand the school and the town as well. Of African descent as well. But like Heck, he also wasn’t a local fellow. He was actually from the United States—Louisiana, I think it was. His parents had bought their freedom sometime earlier, so he had grown up free where many like him were still slaves. This young man hated slavery, the idea of slavery, everything about it—and no surprise, it’s a terrible thing. His parents told him how they had suffered. It’s strange to think of it now, but he had come to the Cape because he’d heard it was an example to the world—and especially America—for how the races could live in harmony as equals.

  Now, the Union of South Africa is not an equal place. Whatever that poor young man was hoping to learn, the country demonstrated the opposite. But from the time the Cape Colony was founded until about twenty years ago, any man with twenty-five pounds to his name and the ability to read had a vote, be he black, white, Indian, or whatever else. This would’ve been the Cape that the young Mr. Hunter wanted to see.

  This Mr. Hunter had strong opinions about the equality of his people among all others, and those were not so popular with everyone he met. He’d argue with people, they’d end up getting in accidents—which was common enough—and he’d be blamed for it, no matter how long ago the argument had been. He had made an enemy of two brothers, Hubert and Basil. Like Heck, they were young British men. They had arrived in New Rush only a little before Heck, but they’d quickly gained influence amongst the diamond miners. They even held a few claims of their own.

  It might have been easy for Heck to distance himself from this Hunter fellow, but all the same, they became close friends. Perhaps because they were so unlike one another. Hunter loved spectacle and show business and putting on magic tricks for the schoolchildren. Heck, at the time, only cared for science and thought magic was ridiculous. He says they made friends when they argued about it. You can picture it, can’t you?

  ‘You want to come see my magic show?’

  ‘Bah, magic is all hokum,’ says Heck. ‘I’m not interested.’

  ‘How can you say that without even seeing it?’

  ‘Magic is the enemy of science, and science is the most important thing in the world.’

  ‘How about this: you come and see my show, and if you can figure out how the magic is done—scientifically—I’ll introduce you to some mine-owner friends?’

  Of course, the truth about prestidigitation and illusion is that everything is scientific, just with misdirection to make it seem like magic. In the end, Heck found the show rather charming. He and this Mr. Hunter ended up thick as thieves, if you’ll pardon the expression, and they took pride in teaching at the school together.

  Now, Heck being Heck, he didn’t sleep much and would go out on patrols at night. One day, he noticed that some of the children who slept in the school lodgings were sneaking out. He woke up Hunter, and the two of them went to town to see what the children were up to. They followed the children to one of the local taverns, where the students waited for someone who had insulted Mr. Hunter, tripping the man so that he fell into the horse trough. Schoolchildren, taking revenge for the slights directed at Mr. Hunter. Heck and Mr. Hunter helped the man, of course, but he only took a swing at Hunter in return—though it was probably easy enough to dodge.

  The experience awakened something in Heck. Even though he and Mr. Hunter told off the children and made them promise they wouldn’t do it again, Heck knew they would. He began to patrol the town at night, stopping fights, rescuing the drunkards who fell into holes, and trying to help the many, many people injured in the mines. I’m sure he learned a thing or two back then that he’s teaching you now.

  Disaster struck during a night such as that. The two brothers, Hubert and Basil, had quarreled with Mr. Hunter and left him in a very sore mood. When the children found out about it, they decided to take revenge. They went to one of the brot
hers’ mines, meaning to break the machines they found there. They probably hated the mines—friends and relatives, maybe even parents, went down into those pits and didn’t come back. So a little gang of four or five children arrived with destruction in their hearts, and though they may have been just children, a determined child can pull apart even the most robust machine.

  On this day, though, the schoolchildren were unlucky. Perhaps one of them simply hit the wrong part with a wrench, or perhaps Heck interrupted them, or perhaps one of the brothers or their men had set a trap. But a boy got his shirt tangled up in the moving parts of one of the machines, and it was pulling him in, where he would be certain to meet his end amongst the cogs and gears. Luckily, Heck had followed them.

  You can picture him, can’t you? Walking in and seeing this scene—‘What the devil have you done?’ Well, the drilling machine or whatever contraption it may have been, it was already in motion by then. Heck had to put his hands right into the whirring gears to free the lad. So that’s what he did. He wrenched the boy free, and, well, it’s probably no surprise to hear he spent the next few days in the hospital and never could quite move his left hand the same.

  So there you have it. The story of Heck in the Cape Colony. From what I know, after that, he just focused on the reason he went in the first place. He concentrated on his research, wrote the paper he was there to write, and once he left, well, from what I know, he never looked back.”

  IX

  A Bargain

  ncle Reggie’s story had given me a lot to think about, but it didn’t explain what had left Mr. Scant acting so strangely or what Aurelian knew about this time in my mentor’s life. And there was no time to stop to think about it.

  When Dr. Mikolaitis took me home, I found Mr. Jackdaw waiting for me. It was a strange scene—Mother receiving Mr. Jackdaw in the living room, where they sat having tea. Father was out on business, but evidently he had asked his valet to stay at home, so Mr. Scant stood at the side of the room in butler mode. Mrs. Winton, the kind old woman who was Mother’s lady’s maid as well as the housekeeper, sat on her little wooden chair by the door in case Mother needed her. While not as old as Mrs. Twiggs, Mrs. Winton was too old to stand too much these days, and normally she sat by Mother. But of course that wasn’t the done thing while the house had company.

  Mr. Jackdaw had made himself quite at home and was praising Mother for her taste in curtains.

  “This must be your son,” he said, standing up to greet me. His act of never having seen me before was once again remarkably convincing, and I could see no trace of his leg injury in the way he walked. “Oh, he looks much more like you than like Sandleforth. Good day to you, young man. My name is Mr. Pouncey. My company works with your father’s.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I said, making sure Mother couldn’t see how I glared at him as I stepped forward to shake his hand. “My name is Oliver.”

  “What a pleasure. Argh! Quite a firm handshake you have there, my boy.”

  I smiled sweetly and thanked him as he cradled his hand, though I was fairly sure he was just humoring me.

  Mr. Jackdaw turned back to my mother. “Well, I shouldn’t take up any more of your time, but thank you so much for the tea and the scone. I’ll call on your husband at his factory.”

  “It was my pleasure.”

  Mr. Scant left with Mr. Jackdaw, ostensibly to fetch our visitor’s coat and hat for him. It would have seemed strange for me to go with them, so I sat with Mother.

  “Did they announce the fencing team members?” she asked.

  “Not yet. I think it usually takes a few days.”

  “I’m pleased you’ve decided you like fencing. When I was a nurse, we had one patient who had the most terrible neck injury from his time as a scrum-half. He was only twenty and he never walked again. Just for a ball game. It did make me worry, when you were playing rugby so much.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me.”

  “What a big, tough rabbit!”

  All of a sudden, she grabbed me and pulled me toward her for a big hug.

  “Gah! Stop, stop, stop!”

  “Not tough enough to escape me yet,” she said, cackling as Mrs. Winton shook her head and took out her knitting.

  When I managed to extricate myself, I claimed I had schoolwork to do and took my leave. I did have schoolwork, but it could wait, because Mr. Jackdaw had clearly come to see Mr. Scant—and no doubt me as well. I hurried to the Ice House. Inside, I found Mr. Jackdaw looking flustered.

  “I don’t think you’re taking this seriously enough,” he was saying. “I’ve had to work my fingers to the bone just to stop this from becoming an international incident. We let multiple visiting police force representatives get shot.”

  “You let them get shot,” said Mr. Scant. “I was there as a guest. And so you could hold me up like some sort of trophy. Me and the boy.”

  He met my eye as I made my way down the stairs to join them at the bottom of the big underground space. The huge brick cylinder that was the Ice House always made me feel as though I had been shrunk down and dropped into the kind of jar people put butterflies into. The whole place still smelt vaguely of ash from the time the Woodhouselee Society had come to destroy it. Mr. Scant looked troubled and distracted—a subtle change from his usual surliness, but I knew him well enough that it was obvious to me.

  “The wretched Binns boy made a threat that we cannot just ignore,” Mr. Jackdaw said. “This is a direct consequence of your deposing his father, and I would thank you to take some responsibility.”

  “No,” said Mr. Scant. “It’s none of our concern. I didn’t stop Roland Binns because he once stole the sword from the Crown Jewels. I stopped Binns because he made my brother do it for him. It was a family matter.”

  “He shot at you. Surely that makes it personal enough?”

  “Many people have shot at me in my time. It never worried me unduly.”

  Only then did Mr. Jackdaw see me. He held up a hand beseechingly. “Ollie! Ollie, please help me talk some sense into him!”

  “What’s this about?” I asked.

  “Apparently,” Mr. Scant said, “it’s our duty to stop that boy from stealing the sceptre and its diamond, regardless of the risks. Well, I’ll tell you, I’m against it.”

  “What do you expect us to do?” I asked Mr. Jackdaw.

  “Who else has already studied the security measures of the Tower of London’s Jewel House? Who better to think like a thief than the famous Ruminating Claw himself?”

  Mr. Scant bristled, but I held up a hand. “Mr. Scant wasn’t a thief. He only ever took what had already been stolen and put it back where it belonged. And I won’t be any help. This business with the sword happened before I became Mr. Scant’s apprentice.”

  “All right, yes, I take back ‘thief.’ But Scant still broke into the Jewel House, despite the many precautions in place. His advice is invaluable.”

  “My advice is to flood the place with guards,” said Mr. Scant. “You have men, don’t you? Just make sure there’s a round-the-clock guard with dozens of men from the Yard.”

  “Of course that was my first thought,” Mr. Jackdaw said. “But this whole affair is still confidential. To get that kind of manpower, we’d need an official report about what happened, and Sir Frederickson still wants it kept hush-hush. Now, I can’t tell you why that is, but it’s not my place to question. And besides . . .”

  His voice trailed off.

  “Besides what?” I asked.

  Mr. Jackdaw looked uncharacteristically rueful for a moment. Then his false smile returned. “Besides, I pledged to deal with it myself.”

  Mr. Scant shook his head. “Arrogance.”

  “The truth is, I need help,” said Mr. Jackdaw. “If I don’t sort this out, my head will be on the block. I don’t want to lose this job. I’ve given up my life for it. In fact, giving up my life was the minimum requirement. You wouldn’t believe what I’ve sacrificed, so . . . I’m sorry if it wa
s arrogant, but I’m asking you, please, will you help me?”

  I looked to Mr. Scant, who was looking at the floor. After a while, he sighed, and to my surprise it was me he addressed.

  “This man is a manipulator. We have no reason to trust anything he says. If I say I will not help, my concern is that he will convince you to assist him anyway. And I won’t be able to protect you.”

  “Why does everyone think I need protecting?” I said, and in that moment, I saw Mr. Jackdaw sit up just a little. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to go,” I told him.

  Mr. Jackdaw’s perfectly white teeth reappeared. “Of course.”

  “I think it’s a matter of weighing up the pros and cons,” I reasoned. “If we don’t help, Aurelian takes the diamond, sells it, and then he has the money to make his—what was it?—his Third Day Society. If we help, maybe we stop him.”

  “Or maybe we end up dead,” said Mr. Scant.

  “I thought people shooting at you never worried you?”

  Mr. Scant sighed. “We don’t even know when he’s planning to strike. We can’t guard the jewels indefinitely.”

  “Nor would I ask you to,” said Mr. Jackdaw. “The plan isn’t to guard the sceptre. The plan is to steal it before he does. We leave at six o’clock tomorrow morning—be ready.”

  X

  The Tower

  his is ridiculous,” Mr. Scant said.

  I shifted uncomfortably. To enter the Tower of London, Mr. Jackdaw had disguised us with the red uniforms of the tower’s guards, the Yeomen Warders—better known as the Beefeaters. The outfits were ostentatious, all red with gold embroidery, not to mention a stiff ruff at the neck and tunics that went down to the knees. Mr. Scant had refused to put on the shoes, which were topped with flowery rosettes.

  “Firstly, this isn’t even the everyday Beefeater uniform,” he said. “This is their ceremonial outfit, so it’s meaningless for us to wear it. Secondly, these are old uniforms, still embroidered with V.R. for Her Majesty Queen Victoria, may she rest in peace. And thirdly, warders have to be retired military men who have served more than twenty-two years. How does a fourteen-year-old boy qualify?”