In the Bleak Midwinter: Kit Hardwicke, #1

FORWARD AND GLOSSARY

This novel is set in 1915/16, during what was known at the time as the Great War, now known to history as World War I. A few of the facts mentioned are true. However, it is for the most part an alternative history, and as such is full of anachronisms, inaccuracies, and plain lies. It is also has a predominantly Steampunk setting.

I thought some explanations might be helpful. Or you can just skip over them and get straight to the story.

BASKING SHARK SUBMARINES: Steam powered submarines existed from the mid-nineteenth century. I thought they looked rather like basking sharks, which are kindly beasts who would probably object to me borrowing their name for a weapon of war. Modern nuclear submarines could also be described as steam-powered.

CHAINSAWS: Before the development of petrol-powered, portable chainsaws, steam-powered drag saws were used in the logging industry. They were not portable in the sense of being able to be picked up and used in a chainsaw fight, but they were very efficient for their time.

CRYPTIDS/CRYPTOZOOLOGY: In ‘real life’, cryptozoology is considered to be a pseudoscience. It was founded in the 1950s, so the use of the word is anachronistic in this work. It includes beasties like the Loch Ness Monster, Mothman, Bigfoot and the like. Cryptids are a gift to the fiction writer, as they can be neither proved nor disproved.

CU SITHE: Speaking of cryptids... The Cu Sithe (the ‘e’ is optional) is a large green dog who roams the Scottish Highlands in popular mythology. It is believed that if one emits three terrifying barks, and you does not run away before the third bark is finished, you will die of sheer terror. It hunts silently. Given the British Royal Family’s predilection for dogs, and the amount of time spent by Queen Victoria and subsequent generations at Balmoral, I can see no reason why they should not have adopted the Cu Sithe as family pets. Kaiser Wilhelm II did visit Balmoral at least once as a small child (there is a photograph of him there looking glum) and that thread of the story wrote itself from the moment I found that photo. It is indeed pronounced Cushie, more or less.

DIABLERIE: An archaic term for sorcery or witchcraft. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle used it when writing to congratulate Bram Stoker on the publication of Dracula.

THE FEALTY: What were actually known as the Allies or the Entente Powers during the Great War. To swear fealty to someone is to declare one’s faithful service. It also has an Arthurian tone to it, and as legend has it, when England is at its lowest depths, King Arthur and his knights will arise from the dead to defend her. I keep wondering just how low those depths have to go. Waiting, waiting...

GARM: Garm (or Garmr) is a wolf (or dog) associated with Ragnarok in Norse mythology. Given the fascination many Germans had for Norse mythology, and the nature of the Cu Sithe, it seemed like a good name.

GIANT DEATH’S HEAD MOTHS: If I was going to invent something to frighten the living daylights out of someone, this would be high on my list. The real thing is eery enough to look at, being about 15cm in wingspan with a scary looking pattern on its thorax. They have a loud chirp if annoyed and can pulsate their brightly-coloured abdomen at the same time. Imagine what a human-sized one could do to instil irrational fear into someone. They are, of course, totally harmless to humans.

GOLDBEATERS: The German war machine needed to produce many zeppelins for aerial attacks during the war. (The zeppelins were far more effective than I have suggested in this book). Running low on the previously used fabrics, they had to resort to the outer membranes of cows’ intestines. These had been used in the production of gold leaf, hence the name, and even more importantly, as sausage skins. The Germans were forced to choose, or have chosen for them, between sausages or bombing raids. Bombing raids it was. It seemed like a good nickname that poked fun at them for choosing weapons over sausages.

GURNEY CARRIAGE: These steam-powered carriages were invented in the mid 1820s by Sir Goldsworth Gurney, who took out patents on them and attempted to become the head of a dynasty of carriage manufacturers. They could travel at a top speed of twenty miles an hour, and one even managed to make it from London to Bath and back again. But they were not a commercial success. Reasons included protectionist behaviours in the interests of horse-powered carriages. I like to think that nearly a century of progress could have turned them into a far more useful vehicle.

GYPSIES: It is most inappropriate to use this term in the early 21st century. However, it was common parlance in 1916, and the ‘gypsies’ in this book are of no named nationality, so I did not want to ascribe a more specifically ethnic name to them. At one point, one of them is referred to as a Kurd, but that is the opinion of the Germans only.

THE ORIENT: Again, this is not the most appropriate term to use in the present day. However, in 1916 it was used to mean ‘The East’, as opposed to the Occident, which meant ‘The West.’

STEAMGRAMS/STEAMPHONES: Steampunk demanded steamgrams instead of telegrams, and steamphones instead of telephones. However, whenever I have tried to write descriptions of them, I have ended up plagiarising the late Sir Terry Pratchett. So, I’m leaving it up to your imagination. I can’t think of a better explanation of them than his.

Date (redacted)

To (redacted)

From (redacted)

Dear (redacted)

Thank you for sending me this manuscript of these so-called ‘memoirs’ for clearance. They are most entertaining.

Please see that they are published in the Fiction list.

I have removed any sections that are contrary to national security. I am fully cognisant of the events and the individuals involved. Please rest assured that the supposed author is well known to certain parties as an exceedingly unreliable narrator. They have however done a decent job of muddying the waters so that no-one will ever be able to identify them or their ‘companions’.

I apologise for the fact that the manuscript is now half its length. But you may publish what is left over, with my blessing.

I might even buy a copy.

Yours

(redacted)

CHAPTER 1

Ihad just finished my breakfast when I got Manwearing’s steamgram. I was at Whitehaven, the comfortable country mansion where I was convalescing from injuries suffered at the Battle of Loos; Robbie, who had been injured alongside me and was equally recovering by my side, was hunting for the marmalade. I dropped the ‘gram on the table in front of him and he whooped.

‘There you go, Kit, that must be the battalion you were expecting. Or a nice soft staff job. You’ll be a bally pen pusher ordering around the over-worked and under-paid regimental officer. Do you remember all the appalling language you’ve spent on people exactly like that in your time!’

I had to sit and think for a bit, while Robbie spread marmalade on his kipper. The sight of Manwearing’s name reminded me clearly of that last long hot summer just before the war, when I had got myself caught up in a few capers that had largely been forgotten in the bloody grind of the trenches subsequently. We had not met since then, though his name was in the papers from time to time. Fighting the Goldbeaters and trying turn raw recruits into decent soldiers, and then losing them at a rapid rate and having to start again, had rather concentrated my mind. Loos had been the ultimate test of my training abilities however, and I was pretty proud of my Highlanders when we went over the top into that bloody battle. Now I was ruminating over what Manwearing had sent me into before I’d joined up.

I had been hoping for my own battalion, and another chance to bloody the Goldbeaters’ nose. But the sight of this steamgram had started me wondering about what other things might have been laid in train. Maybe I could do something other than out and out fighting. Why on earth would the Foreign Office want to see me otherwise? I’d been a good Major but an obscure one, and there was no real reason why they should know anything of me other than through Manwearing’s say-so.

‘I’d better go up to town on the next train. I’ll be back for dinner.’

Robbie snorted and continued eating his marmalade-smeared kipper. He was trying not to look envious.

‘You’ve recovered well enough by now, haven’t you, Robbie? If I ‘gram you from London, would you like to pack your stuff and mine and join me?’

‘Hell yes! You’ll hire me on your staff? That’ll be jolly. If you do come back tonight, though, could you bring an icebox of oysters with you though? Haven’t had oysters for ages’.

I travelled up to London through a chilly November drizzle, which mixed with the steam and the smell of the coal burner, reminding me of more peaceful times. I hated London during the war. It seemed to have come adrift from its moorings. It was full of uniformed soldiers, which looked wrong. Everyone looked glum, understandably, except for those who were furiously, hysterically, cheerful. It was the confusion of war without the sheer bloody-minded intensity of the real thing.

At the Foreign Office I was ushered into Manwearing’s office promptly. I expected to see the same man that I had dealt with in 1914. To my shock he had lost weight and was pasty faced and unhealthy looking. What little hair he had left was greying and there were more lines on his face than I would have expected. He looked like a man who worked long hours, got little fresh air, and cared too much. I recognised those hawkish eyes, however, which managed to look kindly as well as ferociously intelligent.

‘Under no circumstances are we to be disturbed for the next hour’, he told his secretary, ‘not even if Kaiser Bill knocks on the door’. After the secretary’s departure he personally locked those doors from the inside.

‘Well, Major Hardwicke, it’s been a while. How has your war been so far?’

‘Fine, I suppose. I can’t say I like this war. It’s bloody and miserable and we are losing too many men. It has felt pointless most the time. But I think we’ve worked out the mindset of the bloody Goldbeaters now and we’ll plough on until we’ve buried them. I’m hoping to be back in active service by the end of the month.’

He smiled ruefully. ‘You’ve been doing better than you give yourself credit for. I don’t doubt either your ability or your courage, nor your way with your men. I’m just wondering whether your abilities are best sent back to the trenches or used somewhere else.’

That muddled me. That didn’t sound like a battalion was coming my way. I started to feel indignant and wondered how soon I could get out of here, go and buy those oysters for Robbie, and get the next damn train out of there.

‘I take it you are in this to serve your country?’

‘Well, I’m not in it for my health. Which is excellent now, thank you for asking, I’ve made a full recovery from the injuries I suffered in the service of my country.’

‘We have many fit, healthy, enthusiastic men to send to their death on muddy battlefields, Hardwicke. I’m just wondering if your talents could be put to better use doing something else.’

So, it was the staff job. I’d give Robbie the best post in my office that I could invent. I could feel my temper rising, however, and I think he could see it in my eyes.

‘Warfare is changing, Hardwicke, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. Most of the people we send out to the trenches need to be averagely good at their job, not necessarily exceptional. Think of a steam engine – all the parts need to be machined to the right specifications and put in the right place to perform their specific functions. Few of them are more important than other part, but they are all necessary, and together they get the job done as efficiently as possible. Broken parts are replaced. The driver needs to be highly skilled and cannot be produced from an automated system. He can be replaced if absolutely necessary but, it is better to keep the trained man in the job for as long as possible. And then we need other operatives.’

He'd thoroughly confused me by now. It had the effect of diffusing my rising temper at least.

‘We need a smart, nay, a canny man of great courage, a nimble mind, capable of working alone and not as a cog in the army machine. I want you’.

The healed wound in my leg from where most of the shrapnel had been excavated started to ache. As did my head. ‘I am a soldier and I obey orders.’

‘Which the Foreign Office thoroughly appreciates, and the results that you have achieved from doing exactly that. What I’m talking about isn’t quite the same thing, though. What I am going to suggest to you, you may decline, either at once or after some thought. No-one will blame you. Hell, in your place I think I would probably walk out of this room right now’.

He had the keys to the locked doors, so I assumed that was rhetorical.

‘I don’t run away from gun fire. I’m not a quitter or a deserter. Whatever it is, Sir, please be straight with me.’

He unlocked an ornate polished wooden cabinet. The scrap of paper he pulled out of a drawer looked as though it had been torn from a schoolboy’s exercise book.

‘Have you ever travelled to the Orient, Hardwicke?’

I was pretty damn sure he knew everything I had ever done since the day I was born. He knew I’d never travelled in Eastern lands.

‘Not the Orient, no. What’s the weather like at this time of year?’

‘I’d have to check. Have you been reading the papers while you’ve been recuperating? Or are they considered bad for your health?’

‘We read them avidly every morning. I don’t think the nurses approved to start with, but they eventually realised that we were better patients if they let us have our own way. I know a bit about what’s happening in the East. I know some chaps in Mesopotamia. I’m concerned about the campaigns that are supposedly coming for Gallipolli and Salonika. I’ve heard that Egypt is doing ok?’

‘Let me tell you what’s not in the daily rags. Bring you up to speed.’

Apparently, Turkey was pissed off with the Fealty. We’d confiscated their battleships for our own purposes. I’d have been pretty annoyed too, it wasn’t really our place to do that, but of course there were the usual excuses of ‘The War’ and us needing the machines more than they did. And then of course the Germans sent them some replacements, so they decided to be on the side of the Goldbeaters. And then there was all that Turkish nationalism that was happening.

On the outside it appeared that it was a raggle taggle group of various nationalities who had got involved with Turkish nationalists and egged them on, but Manwearing went on to explain that another misconception being put about was that it was all German money and manipulation. I had heard that rumoured among the men on the battlefield too. There was talk about it being a religious war, but again Manwearing poured cold water on that. It wasn’t just Turkey, there was trouble brewing in Syria, Persia and possibly even on the borders of India; and this included peoples of at least three different religions, so it wasn’t a straightforward religious tiff either. There was a growing interest in Turkey in nationalism, and whispers that the Turks would rather not be dependent on the Germans for their materiel. A group called the Young Turks seemed to be gaining traction. As for Syria and the other places, I think they were just sick of the Fealty, and especially Britain, having anything to do with them. All of this was of importance to the Foreign Office because these lands lay in between Russia and the German troops, and if one of those two powers broke through and defeated the other, the war would go rapidly in one direction or the other while we were still dying in Flanders fields.

Manwearing asked me if I could come up with an explanation. My response was that religion made the most sense to me, as there have been centuries of religious wars going back into the distant past, and religion tended to knit people together who might otherwise have disparate ideas and interests. But also that I couldn’t see the Germans managing to manufacture a religious war in the Orient, having neither the imagination nor the skills. I thought the Russia thing might have more traction.

‘I think you underestimate the imagination and skills that exist in some sections of the hierarchies of our enemy, Hardwicke. We have crafty people and so do they. But I do agree that this isn’t being run by the Germans, though some have caught on to what is happening and will aid and abet it. In a sense it is a religious war, though not in the sense you are thinking of.’

‘If it isn’t an Islamic movement in Turkey, what could it be?’

‘It’s complicated. Reports are coming on from our agents everywhere over there.’

‘Of course, you have a network of agents over there.’

‘Of course we do. Greek traders in the Persian Gulf, North African Sheiks, Afghan horse-dealers, pilgrims still managing to find a way to Mecca despite the state of the world, sailors in the Black Sea, pedlars in the southern parts of Russia, even some Consuls who appear immensely respectable but smuggle us ciphers – we have people everywhere. And they all say the same thing. Something is coming to the East. And it’s coming from the West. And the Germans know, and a tiny number have a good idea of what it is, and it’s going to be their trump card and they will use it to devastating effect when we are least expecting it.’

‘Why would an Islamic leader come out of the West?’

‘Haven’t you been listening? This is not about Islam. This is not about religion in any sense of the word that you or I understand.’

‘Do you know what it is? Or who it is?’

‘I want you to go and find out the answer to that question.’

‘That’s the mission you’ve been leading up to?’

‘Yes, it is. A crazy and impossible mission.’

‘You do realise that I have never been to the Orient, which I think was how we started this conversation. But then I suppose the way this war has been run so far has been to take chaps with specific knowledge of an area and post them somewhere totally different, just to be perverse. I applied to go to Africa, considering that I spent twenty years mining there and know a bit about it. Where did I get sent? Hampshire to start with, until the African caper was over, and then Flanders. I became friends with a chap who could disguise himself as an Arab if he tried, and where was he posted? Next to me. Not much call for disguising oneself as an Arab in Flanders. Actually, it was a good thing, because he saved my life, but that’s beside the point when it comes to military administration. Don’t you have access to men who have actually spent time in the Orient and can speak the lingo?’

‘Think about your former career, Hardwicke. You were a mining engineer. Skills that can be applied anywhere. If you were hiring staff to prospect in a particular area you would obviously want men who knew the lay of the land, literally, maybe some knowledge of native languages if applicable.’ I made a strangled noise. ‘But the most important thing you’d be looking for would be people who knew about mining. You wouldn’t want to hire a housewife for the job just because she had lived in the area all her life and spoke the native lingo. She wouldn’t know a thing about mining. You could afford to pick the right men and give them a little time to acclimatise, to get to know the country, maybe to learn some native words or at least hire a translator. That’s the picture I’m looking at right now. You have a knack for putting two and two together and making a dastardly conspiracy. You can smell a secret in plain sight. You are brave and keep your head under fire. And you’re very good at improvising your way into and out of sticky situations.’

Despite myself, I could not help but feel a bit chuffed at this rather over-inflated account of my potential. But then I remembered that Manwearing had made his career out of shrewd judgement, and I felt as though a shiver of ice-cold water had slipped down my spine.

He unrolled a large map of Europe that hung on the wall. ‘I can’t tell you where to start, because I honestly don’t know, but it will be in Europe. This will culminate in the Orient, but it’s still in the West and will be for another few months, I think. At the most it might be lurking around the edges of Constantinople, but I think that unlikely so far. But, you must remember this at all costs, it IS moving East and it will continue to do so. And when it gets to the right place at the right time, it will go up like touchpaper to Guy Fawkes’ gunpowder.’

‘I’d appreciate some instructions, please. Even if you can’t tell me what, where, who or how, I think I deserve that much. Oh, and presumably there’s no fail safe if it all goes to pot?’

‘Correct. You would, quite literally, be beyond the pale.’

‘But I have a free hand?’

‘Of course. How could it be otherwise? Try not to get killed or imprisoned. I’ll ensure you have access to as much money as you want, whatever help you think might be useful. You can do and go where you like, when you like. You are not under orders. This mission does not exist. We have not had this conversation. Or, rather, this conversation was to explain why you cannot be promoted at the moment, because of your on-going war injuries, and that we are concerned that you may have to be invalided out completely. That would be a terrible shame, but you might be on the road to being permanently affected by shell shock of the most severe kind, and we need to husband our resources.’

‘Can I ask one last question?’

‘Of course.’

‘This is obviously important. Can you tell me just how important? Truthfully?’

He looked even more solemn than he had done a few minutes ago. ‘It is literally a matter of life and death. For millions of people. Not just for soldiers who have volunteered to serve their various countries. It is a matter of life and death for millions of innocent civilians as well. We do not know the exact nature of this menace that is hovering over us, but we know that when it comes – if it is allowed to come – it will be of Biblical proportions and no-one will be safe, anywhere in the world. While we remain uninformed, we risk the entire world being engulfed by an unimaginable darkness the like of which has not been seen before. The war will be won or lost in Europe, mark my words. Something huge may flare up in the Orient, but it will be a distraction, nothing more, nothing less. Designed to draw our attention and our resources away from the true evil. You want to know what is at stake? Victory or defeat – life and death – safety and damnation.’

Well, that tore it. I started to wander around the room restlessly. Having sat still for forty-five minutes listening to this increasingly implausible stuff, my leg had got stiff and I limped slightly. Was I even fit enough for anything battle-related, let alone what Sir Barnabas wanted to get me into? I had been looking forward to returning to battle in due course. I quite liked the work, and I liked mixing with my fellow officers. I’d been in masculine company since I first went to boarding school at the age of eight, and it suited me. War was dangerous but it was a danger that I felt I understood by now. This, however, was something very different. I was supposed to wander around enemy territory looking for God knows what, and I wasn’t sure that I felt up to it. It would be lonely, dangerous in ways I doubted if I could even imagine properly. I wasn’t a master of disguise or an adept of languages, both of which sounded like good things to be on a mission like this. My nerves would be stretched to breaking point. I would never know what I was doing, who I could trust. Deadly peril would clothe me like a winding cloth. It would be so much easier to return to active duty and spend my time organising pitifully young men to go over the top to almost certain death, and leading them from the front. At the Front. But then I’d been told in no uncertain words that I wouldn’t be allowed back to that sort of active duty. There was also the veiled threat of ending up in a mental hospital suffering from ‘shell shock of the most severe kind.’

On the other hand, and there always is another hand in life, Manwearing had quite clearly referred to this mission as not only a matter of life and death, but safety and damnation, for millions upon millions of the world’s inhabitants. Could I walk away and consign the innocent civilians of the world to whatever unholy terrors might be lying in wait to be unleashed? I still couldn’t fully comprehend what was going on, but I was realising that I had only one choice. I truly did not believe I was the right man for the job, but if Sir Barnabas had chosen me for it, he must be able to see hidden depths in me that I had forgotten about in the mud and flood of Flanders fields. I knew in my soul that if I walked away, I would never be truly at peace with myself again. And it wasn’t really the fear of the mental hospital ward that made me feel this way. The scheme might be madness, but was it not a better sort of madness than the other alternatives?

It is interesting, how one makes a major decision that will have profound consequences on one’s life. I still think that when I turned around and opened my mouth, I was going to refuse. I was going to accept the inevitable rustication that would face me and hope to make something new out of my life in due course. Of course, the word that tumbled out of my mouth was ‘Yes’ and I had crossed the Rubicon.

I barely recognised my own voice at that moment. Sir Barnabas shook hands with me vigorously, but instead of looking pleased I thought his eyes were misting over. We barely knew each other. Was he really that emotionally affected at the thought of sending me to my inevitable death?

‘I may be sending you to your death, Hardwicke,’ he said, echoing my thoughts. ‘And that will haunt me, and I apologize in advance. You won’t regret it, though – even if you don’t make it, I think you will get far enough in your quest to understand the enormity of what you are trying to do, and to know that you did the right thing, even if you die trying.’

This was not terribly encouraging, but I tried to look like a brave chap who was raring to go.

He handed me that scrap of paper that he had been holding. The one that looked as though it had been torn out of a schoolboy’s exercise book. There were three things written on it – diablerie, Die Toten reiten schnell, and A.E.

‘This is the only solid clue we have so far. As I’ve told you, we’ve had a network of agents working for us for years. Some of them have been young officers in the Indian Army. Every now and then things go tits up and they end up in a Bagdad sewer. But between them they have produced many excellent snippets of information that sometimes we can cobble together into a whole cloth. It is from them that we have acquired what knowledge we do have about this danger rising in the West. But no-one ever came up with anything written down, any place name or anything else, until one of our very best found himself on the trail of something that was, just possibly, concrete. Unfortunately, the enemy agents were one step behind him, and he paid the ultimate price. He staggered into another agent’s camp full of bullet holes, bleeding out. All he was able to mumble