Frankenstein's Legions Read online

  CONTENTS

  PART ONE: DEATH

  Prologues

  Chapter 1: They March By Night.

  Chapter 2: A Day in the Life of Julius Frankenstein.

  Chapter 3: A Day in the Death of Lady Ada Lovelace.

  Chapter 4: No Fire Without a Spark.

  Chapter 5: Withdrawals.

  Chapter 6: Duck Island Discussions.

  Chapter 7: Dead Man Walking.

  Chapter 8: A Cravat Interrupted.

  Chapter 9: The Council of Box Hill.

  Chapter 10: Dead Man Still Walking.

  Chapter 11: A Vision of Vectis.

  Chapter 12: Lip Service.

  Chapter 13: Oh, I Do Like to be Beside the Seaside.

  Chapter 14: A Festival of Falsehoods

  Chapter 15: Honesty is the Best Policy. Discuss.

  Chapter 16: Ada Walks on Water.

  Chapter 17: Don’t Mess With the Belgians.

  Chapter 18: A Swiss Hero Exhumed.

  Chapter 19: No Man’s Lands.

  Chapter 20: From On High.

  Chapter 21: We Can See You.

  Chapter 22: Come Fly With Me

  The Way of the World: Miscellaneous documents

  PART TWO: LIFE

  Chapter 1: A Day in the Life of Julius Frankenstein (2).

  Chapter 2: R.S.V.P.

  Chapter 3: Moustachioed Elopement.

  Chapter 4: Spick n’ Span.

  Chapter 5: Behold the (Former) Man.

  Chapter 6: Mummy!

  Chapter 7: Sun-dried Promotion.

  Chapter 8: Sword of Damocles (2).

  Chapter 9: In Pharaoh’s Boudoir.

  Chapter 10: Lust-crazed Nurses.

  Chapter 11: What the Butler Saw.

  Chapter 12: Eat! And Be Merry.

  PART THREE: LIFE MORE ABUNDANT

  Chapter 1: Staring in the Sistine.

  Chapter 2: True Confessions.

  Chapter 3: Meet the Family.

  Chapter 4: Top-Secret Terminology.

  Chapter 5: Sistine Solutions.

  Chapter 6: Peeking at Posterity.

  Chapter 7: Joy in Heaven?

  Chapter 8: No One Expects…

  Chapter 9: Hello Sailor!

  Chapter 10: Getting Ahead.

  Chapter 11: When Fellatio Fails.

  Chapter 12: Earning Emma.

  Chapter 13: A Sweet Treat.

  Chapter 14: Loseley Liberation Day.

  Chapter 15: World Liberation Day.

  Epilogue: Tomorrow (& Yesterday) Belongs…

  About the author

  Publisher’s details

  FRANKENSTEIN’S LEGIONS

  by

  John Whitbourn

  ‘Even if they [his creations] were to leave Europe, and inhabit the deserts of the new world, yet one of the first results of those sympathies for which the dæmon thirsted would be children, and a race of devils would be propagated upon the earth who might make the very existence of the species of man a condition precarious and full of terror.’

  Thoughts of Victor Frankenstein, 1796.

  PART ONE: DEATH

  ENGLAND EXPECTS!

  TO ALL YOU JOLLY JACK TARS & STOUT FELLOWS OF OLDE ENGLAND! AN EXHORTATION & OPPORTUNITY.

  WHEREAS ENGLAND HAS BRED YOU BOLD & STRONG, YOUR NATION DESERVES SERVICE IN RETURN.

  OUR GRACIOUS SOVEREIGN REQUIRES MEN OF ALL DEGREES TO SERVE ABOARD HIS NAVY OF SO MANY GLORIOUS TRIUMPHS.

  LIKEWISE, BRAVE LORD NELSON OF IMMORTAL MEMORY.

  FRESH VICTORIES AWAIT!

  SHALL THE CALL GO UNHEEDED? SHALL THE DASTARDLY FRENCH ACCOUNT OUR RACE AS COWARDS ? WHAT STORIES SHALL YOU RECOUNT IN AFTER-TIMES TO YOUR LITTLE ONES AND SWEETHEARTS? WHEN DEATH CALLS (AS IT MUST TO ALL IN DUE FRUITION) WHAT TALE WILL YOU TELL?

  REPAIR TODAY TO HIS MAJESTY’S DOCKYARD, PORTSMOUTH WHERE BOLD LORD NELSON OFFERS GENEROUS TERMS & ADVENTURE TO:

  ABLE & ORDINARY SEAMEN &

  MERCHANT MARINERS &

  WAISTERS & LANDSMEN &

  TIME-SERVED MARINES & SOLDIERY &

  WILLING APPRENTICE LADS &

  OWNERS OF RECENTLY REVIVED UNDEAD.

  ENGLAND EXPECTS THAT EVERY MAN—LIVING OR LAZARAN—WILL DO HIS DUTY.

  GOD SAVE THE KING

  Printed under Royal license and gracious permission by Thomas Pothecary, bookseller and stationer by appointment. Mincing Lane, London, the Year of our Lord 1835.

  PROLOGUES (plural)

  ‘More wine!’ ordered Ada—but got death instead.

  True, Foxglove, her butler, whom she expected to bring the wine, occasionally looked like death warmed up, especially after a night on the tiles or a boxing bout, but he was most definitely numbered amongst the living. Those who answered Ada’s call down the voice-tube couldn’t say as much.

  In fact they couldn’t say much at all. Low grade Lazarans were the product of low grade serum which started the heart but would never fire up witty conversation.

  They did bring wine though. A bottle of it with which they broke poor Ada’s head.

  The bottle contained a fine vintage and when shattered against her skull released the ghost of a long lost Spanish summer. Likewise, the skull it shattered released a ghost of equally fine lineage: the descendent of soldiers and poets mixed with a heady dash of genius or madness.

  Her many admirers said that Ada was a blue blood as well as ‘blue-stocking.’ Not so. The deep-dark wine proved a perfect colour match to Ada’s lifeblood as it ebbed away. Both pooled on the writing desk on which they killed her, too free-flowing to be soaked up by the piles of paperwork.

  Ada’s calculations for Mr Babbage were quite spoiled.

  * * *

  Wine was Mr Babbage’s downfall too. A single glass (never more nor less) was his invariable habit before retiring for the night, but it had never made him sleep so sound before...

  ‘Oh dear,’ said the police constable who eventually shook him awake. ‘Oh dear. What a busy bed!’

  Through a thick head and eyes prickled by broad daylight Mr Babbage perceived that his bed did indeed seem heavily laden, even more so than when dear Mrs Babbage was still alive. That was another mystery to add to this shockingly late rising and there being a policeman in his bedroom.

  The constable enlightened him on the latter conundrum.

  ‘Your man-servant alerted us, sir. Shortly after delivering your morning tea and Times. And he begs me to inform you that he has quit your service to never return. Likewise all your staff when they saw.

  ‘Saw? Saw what?’

  With curling lip the constable drew back the covers and thus resolved another puzzle. The mattress sagged because Mr Babbage had company.

  Two oiled youths, one to either side, smiled invitingly—or as best those revived from death can. They signalled every sign of intimate acquaintance.

  ‘We—go—again?’ enquired one, in typically Lazaran flat tones. And reached out.

  ‘Errrgh!’ exclaimed Babbage, and tried to hurl himself from the bed.

  ‘Too late, sir, I’m afraid,’ said the constable, detaining him. ‘Likewise, I much regret I’m the unbribable variety of officer, so don’t try that malarkey, there’s a good gentleman.’

  Babbage was half tangled in the sheets, half still embroiled in the Lazarans’ loathsome embraces. Prisoners of their programming, they called to him.

  ‘Come —back —to —bed —master...’

  Babbage tried to bat them off with his night-cap.

  ‘I can explain everything, officer!’

  But the policeman merely sighed and shook his world-weary head. And Babbage, being an honest man, saw his point.

  ‘No, you’re right,’ he conceded heavily. ‘I can’t...’

  Th
e arresting officer had the decency to look downcast as he took out notebook and pencil.

  ‘Sodomy’s a hanging offence as well you know, Mr Babbage. Sexual relations with Lazarans likewise. So we’ve really gone to town viz a viz capital crime, haven’t we, sir? But be of good cheer; maybe your—previous—good name—will get sentence commuted to the treadmill...’

  There was nothing more to be said. Babbage’s mind was like the calculating devices he sought to construct. Even as he pondered the injustice of it all. Innocent as an angel of any wrongdoing and the victim of a wicked plot, his brain dispassionately processed the new data.

  Farewell, house of thirty years and marital memories. Farewell, workshop wherein he’d laboured at machines to make miracles. Most certainly farewell, reputation and government grants towards his project.

  Obviously blueprints and prototypes were now out of the question for the foreseeable future, even assuming he didn’t swing. However, perhaps mental computations might still be possible whilst turning a treadmill?

  It was no idle question. History hung in the balance that morning in number 1 Dorset Street, Manchester Square, Westminster. The world’s future depended on the answer.

  Alone of those present, only Babbage could perceive that. He saw, with a clarity that banished personal considerations like shame and sorrow, precisely what lay at stake. On the one hand stood further same old same old. History at its customary snail’s-pace. On the other a huge shovel load of coal stoked into the fireplace of human progress.

  In short, was the Analytical Engine merely delayed or forever aborted?

  When that question was resolved, then and only then, Babbage would turn his great intellect towards exactly who’d framed him. And why.

  * * *

  It wouldn’t work out that way. Reality shoulders innocence aside. It has powers of veto over even clever plans laid by clever people.

  Mr Babbage was a clever man (perhaps the very cleverest of his Age) but the police constable (who’d barely skimmed schooling) could have corrected him. The difference was that the constable had been around the seamier seams of life. So, in some specific cases, he knew better.

  Like about penal conditions for instance. Like how hard-labour and the treadmill left no energy for thinking, let alone detective work. Neither during the long days or at day’s end.

  And when each of those of days had done with you there was no margin left for luxuries. No reserves. By the end of the first week Mr Babbage would be doing well to remember his name. One month in and his world would have shrunk down to his resultant double hernia. The treadmill had that focussing effect.

  Sad to say therefore, this side of the grave, whoever had done Mr Babbage this ill-turn stood a good chance of escaping scott-free.

  But this world is not an entirely cold place. When he was able (which was infrequent), the constable was a kind man. And so he kept his counsel and left Babbage a little while longer in blissful ignorance.

  * * *

  Unlike Mr Babbage, Lady Ada Lovelace didn’t go quietly. She’d no idea that was the done and dignified thing when faced with the inevitable. Her parents were to blame.

  Papa, a poet, had scandalised his age (and wife) and so Mama, fearful of feeding the bad blood, fiercely shielded young Ada from all philosophy and liberal arts. Her education being strictly scientific Ada grew to womanhood having never heard of stoicism or noble resignation.

  Thus when the Lazaran assassins came into her study Ada fought back in a most unladylike way. A lighted candle thrust in the face saw one off, and bringing the curtains down, pelmet and all, draped two more in a velvet shroud. Meanwhile, Ada shrieked like a banshee and generally made a drama out of a crisis.

  Wasted wails and vain tears. From Lord Lovelace to the humblest servant in Horsley Towers, all were fast asleep, as all good people should be in the early hours before a busy day. Even the peacocks in the grounds who might have added their screams to hers dreamt peacock dreams. In short, she was the only living soul about. Unnatural Ada had troubled the silent night with her scribblings once too often.

  Finally, the whey-faced Lazarans caught her. One pinned Ada to her desk and another brained her repeatedly with a bottle.

  While her spirit and the other assassins fled, the best looking Lazaran stripped off his clothing and awaited developments.

  Chapter 1: THEY MARCH BY NIGHT

  ‘Twenty pound and not a farthing more. Don’t waste breath trying to budge me.’

  ‘You’re a thief!’ said the solicitor. It demeaned him, haggling in the street like this, a source of amusement to urchins and passers-by, but he knew Babbage’s yard and workshop held material worth ten times that, even at scrap value.

  The scrap merchant looked down on the solicitor from a great height of commercial and moral advantage.

  ‘That’s rich coming from a land-pirate!’ he said. ‘Anyhow, I’m the only ‘thief’ interested in the deal. Take it or leave it.’

  He spoke truth: word had got around and a sulphurous taint hung over 1 Dorset Street and all its appurtenances. Offers for the house and contents had been thin on the ground. What respectable family wished to buy an abode where it was a blessing the walls could not speak? ‘Crimes against Nature,’ and ‘Unspeakable necrophilic depravity,’ as the judge had termed them, hardly enhanced property prices

  Early hopes for some perfumed confirmed-bachelor house-buyer to appear and save the day went unfulfilled (there was never one about when you needed one). Accordingly, winding up Mr Babbage’s affairs had been a tale of woe and robbery and waste.

  The hagglers had to leap for their lives as a hackney cab ploughed through without so much as a ‘mind y’backs!’ or flick of the whip. Arrogant prole-aristocrats!

  Then, adding insult to injury, in passing it splashed them with mud and probably worse. Yet the indignity seemed strangely appropriate in the circumstances.

  ‘Done,’ snapped the solicitor. ‘And I damned well have been!’

  Beggars (or buggers) could not be choosers—which was an apt epithet. By the time the solicitor’s fees and reasonable expenses were deducted from the proceeds of sale Mr Babbage might find begging his sole career option once his prison term was done.

  The scrap merchant spat into his palm and offered to shake on it. The solicitor shrinkingly brushed two fingers past that general direction.

  In went the scrap merchants’ street-arabs. Out in due course and in carts came metal components galore, off to be reused or recycled. A short while before they’d been Mr Babbage’s ‘Analytical Engine’: his hope of immortality and the blessing of mankind with mechanical computers.

  So that was the end of that for a century or so.

  * * *

  When the sun set, the columns set out. There was no law against daylight movement, but it was for the best.

  The Heathrow Hecatomb: a brutal slab of jerry-built concrete, devoid of the slightest humanising touch. Not even a Royal coat of arms graced the gate, for no one on earth, from high to low, wished their name associated with it.

  Happily, Nature’s revenge for the blot on the landscape had a head start due to that careless construction. Rain selectively streaked those parts with excess sand in the mix and drove its fingers in. The Hecatomb’s hard edges were already crumbling. Particles of it dissolved down to whiten the dying grass below.

  Accordingly, Heathrow Hecatomb wasn’t going to outlive the great Cathedrals it matched in size—but that hardly worried its begetters. It kept people out and other people (sort of) in, and that sufficed. Aesthetic considerations could go hang—and appropriately enough there were gibbets enough atop the place, gibbets so busy there was a queue for their services.

  A moat had been started but never completed: the finished structure’s appearance and contents were found to be deterrent enough. Now the demi-ditch was a dog’s graveyard and rubbish-record of every successive inhabitant. Other than in the depth of winter it stunk to high Heaven and glowed yellow-green in the dark.
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  So, all in all, the Hecatomb was no adornment to Hounslow Heath! Coaches passing through on the Great West Road put on a burst of speed—or even extra speed.

  Because even before the Hecatomb arrived, ‘Heathrow’ had an evil reputation: the haunt of highwaymen and sad wanderers. As the name suggested it was a waste with a road running through it. Few lingered there by night and fewer still with honourable intentions.

  Come the Hecatomb in the Year of Our Lord 1823, things soon reverted to business as normal—only more so. The scattered natives (innkeepers and/or misanthropes) barred all doors as dusk fell and then stayed indoors till morning. Highwaymen they could deal with, but now there were stories about escapes…

  Unofficial escapes, that is. The regulated kind occurred regularly, as they did this particular night. The Hecatomb’s main doors cracked to spill yellow light onto the heath. There emerged scouts—bona fide human hussars in scarlet and gold—to check the coast was clear. They scattered all over the scene in the interests of thwarting spies and scandal.

  Then redcoat infantry—living soldiery with torches blazing—trooped forth to line the first part of the route. It was a sad necessity. Newly Revived recruits sometimes chose their first breath of fresh air as the signal to mutiny, go mad or otherwise malfunction. Recycling body pits awaited them behind the Hecatomb.

  Finally, to the tolling of a sombre bell, columns of new Lazarans emerged from the nest; those most complete and with best matched limbs to the fore. Conversely, the more shoddily made ‘Shamblers’ were placed at the back and shot if they could not keep up.

  Fife and drum and flag parties proceeded each regiment, manfully trying to add vitality to what painfully lacked it—and to drown out the perpetual groaning.

  The Lazarans’ grey uniforms were the least of their differences to the living men shepherding them along. The latter’s pale faces were just the result of lack of sunshine, the former’s the lack of something much more profound.