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Post By The Hooded Hood's next chapter, with apologies to AG for bumping "his" story back an episode till next time Fri Jun 11, 2004 at 08:40:07 am EDT |
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Sir Mumphrey Wilton and the Lost City of Mystery - Part the Twelfth: The Wounded Hero and the Train to Valetta | |
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| Part the Twelfth: The Wounded Hero and the Train to Valetta The night train to Valetta thundered on through the darkness Sir Mumphrey Wilton retched again, spewing the last vestiges of his stomach contents through the door of the freight carriage and distributing it at sixty miles an hour over the Spanish countryside. He shuddered, wiped his chin with his somewhat soiled handkerchief, then apologised anew to Miss Canterbury. “I’m sure even Debrett’s would excuse such a lapse in etiquette after several hours of torture,” the vicar’s daughter assured him, referring to the infallible guide to proper manners amongst the gentry. “I’m surprised there isn’t a section.” “Was taught long ago that it’s bad manners to spew in front of a lady,” the eccentric Englishman grunted. “Momentary weakness. I’ll try not to let it happen again.” “You’re probably not supposed to take your shirt off in front of a lady either,” Miss Canterbury noted, “but you’re going to. I need to see how your wounds are doing.” “No need. Perfectly fine, I assure you.” “The red stains on your linen seem to think otherwise,” Miss Canterbury said. “Now come on. I’ve treated injuries before when my father was on his missionary journeys. I won’t faint.” It was perhaps a sign of how much pain the British agent was in that he allowed his companion to help him peel off his bloody shirt and let her treat the burns and lacerations with the bandages and salve she had acquired in Seville. She could only wonder at how much her companion had suffered in his interrogation by the Third Reich’s best torturer. Yet she had the image of Sir Mumphrey as she had discovered him in the Seville cellar, hurt, soiled, but defiant, and somehow that made her feel proud of him as well. “Thank you,” admitted Mumphrey when she had finished her ministrations. “Feels much better.” “Now the lower half,” Miss Canterbury insisted. “Come on.” “Really no need, “ Mumph assured her. “I’ve set my Chronometer to accelerate my healing rate. I’ll be fine, really.” “Now,” frowned the young woman. “All your pocketwatch is going is accelerating how quickly your injuries will fester.” Mumphrey realised that he was going to have to take Miss Canterbury seriously when she pushed him back onto the pile of tarpaulins in the freight carriage and unbuttoned his trousers. He hastily did the job for her and stared at the wooden side of the truck while she treated the burns and scratches below his waist. “You don’t need to stand to attention,” Miss Canterbury told him, and he hoped she was referring to his posture. She worked quickly and delicately, even when she used the needle and thread she had bought in the Plaza de Santa Cruz to put a couple of stitches into his thigh. “You can use that pocketwatch in all kinds of ways,” she noted, more to distract her patient while she stabbed him with a needle than anything else. “That trick you did when those bundist thugs searched the train…?” “I just shifted us five minutes forward in time,” Sir Mumphrey answered, stifling a grunt as the needle bit. “But the train was moving,” the vicar’s daughter protested. “Why didn’t we reappear on the tracks with the train miles ahead of us?” “Time is relative to space, m’dear,” the Keeper of the Chronometer of Infinity told her. “The Earth is moving round the sun at eighteen and a half miles per second. The sun swirls round the Milky Way at a hundred and thirty-five miles per second. If we didn’t move in space as well as time when we jumped with the pocketwatch we’d find ourselves in hard vacuum when we reappeared. The Chronometer makes adjustments automatically, although I can override them if I wan to be very nasty.” “I see,” answered Miss Canterbury. “Then you may put your trousers back on.” Mumphrey complied, and tried not to wince as he moved. “Not used to bein’ able to discuss my pocketwatch” he admitted. “It’s been a long time since anyone really knew.” “I’m grateful you’ve been honest with me,” the young woman answered. She passed the wounded man the wine bottle from the marketplace and unwrapped him a lump of cheese. “I’m grateful for a lot of things. If it wasn’t for you… well, those awful marks on your body would have been on mine instead, wouldn’t they? Herr Wertham…” “I’ll be meetin’ him again,” Mumph promised darkly. “Oh yes.” He forced himself to unclench his fists. “You shouldn’t have jumped plane and stowed away to follow me, you know,” he noted. “They wouldn’t have been… kind if they’d caught you.” “Would you have left me behind to be their prisoner?” Miss Canterbury demanded. “No, but…” “Then what on earth makes you think I could leave you behind, Mumphrey Wilton?” The eccentric Englishman snorted. “Well then, Miss Canterbury, perhaps we’re even. We’ve saved each other more than once, what?” “Never even,” the vicar’s daughter answered, “but mutually indebted, perhaps.” The train slowed a little at a points junction then picked up speed again now Cordoba was behind. Miss Canterbury shuddered a little as the night became colder, but she kept staring out at the dark countryside that flew by. “You have a strange life, Sir Mumphrey,” the young woman said at last. “Is it always like this for you? Adventures, and talking monkeys, and ghouls, and Nazi agents, and metal people?” “Seen a few odd things in my time,” agreed the Keeper of the Chronometer of Infinity. “Chap gets around, y’know? But there’s always somethin’ new. I’ve never had an adventure like this one before.” Miss Canterbury looked up. “Really?” “Yes. Never had a lady along who could keep up with me.” The vicar’s daughter blushed. “I don’t think I’m your first damsel in distress, Sir Mumphrey.” “No,” admitted the adventurer, “but one of the very few who is much more than that.” Miss Canterbury raised a sceptical eyebrow. “A real lady,” Mumph told her, “isn’t just a lady in the society drawin’ room. She’s still herself in hardship and danger and crisis. And that’s a lady worth questin’ for.” “Are you questing for me then, Sir Mumphrey?” The eccentric Englishman shook his head. “Not really,” he admitted. “Working for King and country at the present to thwart Adolf and his ambitions, and jolly glad - if a little appalled – to have you at my side on the mission.” Then his face straightened and became deadly serious. “But one day, maybe, you will ask me to do something for you, on your behalf. Something difficult, or dangerous. Something impossible. Something important.” He paused and took a breath then concluded, “And I shall strive to fulfil that quest with every fibre of my being.” Miss Canterbury’s mouth formed a little startled O, and then she shook her head ruefully. “I’m sure you’ve quested for many ladies in your time, Sir Mumphrey,” she chided. “What would I be, number twenty? Fifty? Five hundred? Mumph shrugged and stifled the honest answer that nearly escaped his lips: You, my lady… you might just be number one. He looked over at her as she sat beside the open freight door watching the night countryside pass by. She was a little dishevelled and travel-stained – nothing like as bad as he was, of course – and her hair was flicking wildly in the wind. He thought he’d never seen anyone more splendid. She turned and caught him looking at her. “Hmph,” he said brusquely. “Better try the wireless again.” He busied himself with the battery-powered transmitter he had ‘acquired’ from the police station near the Puerta de Jerez. The best thing about broadcasting coded messages from a moving train was that while they were easy to intercept they would be very difficult to trace. When the morse message was sent Mumphrey shut off the equipment and settled back on his makeshift bed. “I hope we have somebody sharp on signals in Malta,” he said. “Otherwise Valetta could prove a trifle excitin’.” “I could cope with a few quiet days,” admitted Miss Canterbury. “Of course, then I insist we hunt down my father’s murderers, discover the secret of the Blanchford Diaries, and thwart whatever the Nazi masterplan happens to be.” “Seems reasonable,” Mumphrey considered. “After all, Bookman’s clear away to London with the translated text, and he’s supposed to be the codes whiz. Once we know what old Blanchford discovered on his secret journey we’ll know why Wertham and his Expediter chum are so worked up about it. Some kind of Black Dome apparently accordin’ to what the blot Wertham said. And then we shall smite the ungodly with the wrath that fell upon the Perisites and Jebusites.” Miss Canterbury settled comfortably down beside Sir Mumphrey, found a comfortable spot in the crook of his arm, and laid her head contentedly on his shoulder. “Let’s do that then,” she agreed. And the night train to Valetta thundered on through the darkness. In our next exciting episode: Something is killing civilians on the besieged allied fortress of Malta. So guess where Mumphrey and Miss C are going? Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2004 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2004 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works. The right of Ian Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. |
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