Tom Derringer and the Electrical Empire, page 19
The story mentioned, anecdotally, one fellow who had come to the bank that morning intent on withdrawing money, who, upon learning there was no money to be had, had gone around the corner to the office of one of the bank’s directors and loudly threatened legal action, whereupon he was removed by force. I wondered if perhaps that had been Mr. de la Rue.
But no, that had been Tuesday morning, and Mr. de la Rue made his withdrawals on Wednesdays. Any pleasant fantasy I might have of his violent ejection from someone’s office was merely that, a fantasy.
Still, I realized, this changed everything. So far as I knew, Sebastien Boireau’s power came entirely from his wealth. He had no authority beyond what his money bought him. He was able to hold Professor Vanderhart captive because he paid the Pinkertons to do so. He had not used any sort of moral argument or rational persuasion to build his empire, but only his money. He had deliberately chosen to rely on his personal wealth to convince others to support him, rather than trying to sway them with explanations of the perceived threat from the Lost City of the Mirage. While perhaps understandable after having had his pleas rejected by various governments, this dependence on money was now shown to be a possible weakness. He undoubtedly still had the majority of his fortune safely tucked away somewhere in his native France, but by all indications he had kept all of his liquid assets on this side of the Atlantic at the Marine National Bank, where he and Mr. de la Rue could no longer get at them. There would be no payroll delivered today.
That might be just what I needed to prevent needless bloodshed.
I ate quickly, and then hurried out to the street, where I flagged down a newsboy and bought his entire stack of the Times, some thirty copies. I considered looking for more, but decided that these would be sufficient, and I had a train to catch. I made a quick return to my room, where I packed my belongings; then to the desk to settle my bill, and I was on my way once more, back to Cape May.
Chapter Twenty-One
Miss Darlington’s Scheme in Action
My train arrived at 2:30 in the afternoon. I returned to the Hotel Chalfonte one more time, where I made my final preparations; then I set out to engage the Eliza Anne again, for what I believed would be the last time. I had my prepared pack, with axe, ropes, gun, and all the usual tools – and with thirty copies of the New-York Times added.
I did not know the exact time of Miss Darlington’s planned assault, nor its nature; I hoped that it had not already begun, and that I would be able to reach the fortress before she and her allies did. Perhaps news of the failure of Monsieur Boireau’s bank could forestall the entire thing. I asked Albert to take me up the west side of the island again, to see just what was happening, and he agreed, with the understanding that I would not ask him to enter Post Creek.
We set out shortly before four, and with the help of a brisk west wind we quickly made it past Thoroughfare Island into Jarvis Sound. It was there that we first spotted the smoke.
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing.
“Looks like a steamer,” Albert replied.
“Here? Not out on the ocean? Isn’t it a little shallow?”
Albert shrugged. “I would have thought so,” he said.
The source of the smoke was moving northeastward, up the channel into Sunset Lake – our own intended course. We followed, and even gained ground on the mysterious steamer.
We came around Shaw Island without getting a good look at it, but then, as we rounded a headland, I finally had a clear view. I stared, astonished, at the huge gray metal monstrosity chugging its way up the channel.
“That’s a monitor!” I said.
It was, indeed, one of the famous warships, the first of which was notoriously described as “a cheesebox on a raft.” The cylindrical turret stood high out of the water, but the deck was so low that the hull was almost invisible. A circular canvas awning shaded the turret, and I could see figures standing atop the turret beneath that awning. I did not see any guns; presumably they were pointed forward, on the far side from my own position.
What, I wondered, was a naval vessel doing here?
Then I realized that the boat was flying no ensign, and those figures on the turret were not in uniform. In fact, one had long white hair and wore a blue dress.
This was Sarah Darlington’s secret weapon.
“Where the devil did she get a monitor?” I said aloud, speaking more to myself than anyone else.
“Who?” Albert asked.
“An adventurer I know,” I replied. “I believe that’s her in the blue dress.” I pointed.
“You know, I saw all those pictures from the war, with the Monitor fighting the Virginia,” Albert said. “I never realized how big the Monitor was.”
He had a point; the simplicity of its design made it easy to underestimate the size of a monitor. While nowhere near the size of the largest modern battleships, it was not a small vessel. This one appeared to fill practically half the width of the channel.
I wondered whether anyone aboard the ship had yet noticed our own little craft. We had no smoke, no chugging engines, to draw their attention. The people on the turret all seemed to be looking to the east, toward Wildwood Island and the strange wooden fortress thereon. I looked that way myself and could make out one of the newly added watchtowers and the peaks of two or three domes.
“I think I’d like you to put me ashore soon,” I said.
“Good,” Albert said. “I don’t think I want to get much closer to that machine.”
“Up ahead,” I said, pointing. “Where the channel narrows; the shore of the island looks pretty solid there.”
Albert nodded. “The water’s deep enough to get close in,” he said. He shifted the tiller. Then we both looked ahead at the monitor again.
We both stared in amazement as it did not turn with the main passage, but instead steamed directly into Post Creek.
“They’re mad!” Albert said. “They’ll never get that thing in there! And if they do, they won’t have room to turn it around to get back out!”
I was trying to think how to best word my agreement when there was a tremendous grinding sound and the ship ahead of us shivered violently, then stopped moving.
“You’re right,” I said. “They’ve run aground.” I looked up at the bank above them. “They’re in range of the compound, though.”
“The what?”
“Never mind. Just get me ashore.”
Albert shrugged. “Whatever you say.” He steered the Eliza Anne to starboard .
As I clambered ashore with my pack I could hear voices shouting aboard the monitor – and other voices shouting on the shore. I was not able to make out the words, but my impression was that the two sides were shouting ultimata back and forth. I hurried up the slope, pushing my way through the brush.
A moment later I emerged onto the cleared land around the compound, where a guard was pretending to patrol the western wall. In fact, he was clearly trying to listen to the dialogue between ship and shore, and paying little attention to anything else. I made no attempt to hide my approach, but he failed to notice me until I was perhaps a dozen yards away, waving at him. When he finally spotted me I called, “Hallo! I need to see Mr. de la Rue!”
He belatedly drew a revolver and pointed it at me; moving deliberately, I raised my hands. “I’m here with a message for Mr. de la Rue,” I said. “Can you take me to him?”
“Is it about that monstrous metal ship?” he asked.
“More or less,” I said.
He hesitated, then lowered his gun and beckoned. “Come on,” he said.
He made me walk a couple of paces in front of him, his gun once again at the ready and aimed at my back, and directed me to and around the northwest corner, beneath the newly-built watchtower there.
As we marched from the corner along the northern wall I could see the top of the monitor’s turret some distance away to my left, with half a dozen people standing on it, and ahead of us the enclosure’s gate, with three men standing atop that. The turret had rotated so its two immense guns were aimed directly at the gate.
And at last I could make out some of the dialogue between the two. A man on the ship was bellowing through a megaphone, “...final warning! If you do not surrender within the next ten seconds, we will open fire!”
One of the three men atop the gate raised a megaphone of his own and shouted back, “Go to Hell!” Another was turned to face the compound and was making a great looping gesture with one arm, as if in imitation of a windmill.
“Ten!” the man with the megaphone aboard the monitor shouted. I thought I could see someone next to him holding out a large watch.
Something inside the enclosure hummed loudly, and a metal contraption unlike anything I had ever seen rose up from behind the wall. It had a narrow conical peak encircled by half a dozen brown rings perpendicular to the cone’s axis.
“Nine!”
The cone continued to rise.
“Eight!”
The cone now stood atop a framework of metal beams that cleared the wall by several feet.
“Seven!”
I picked up my pace.
“Six!”
The cone began to pivot, pointing its tip toward the basin – and toward the ship therein.
“Five!”
I was trotting now; I glanced back over my shoulder and saw that my escort had stopped in his tracks, staring at the machine above the wall.
“Four!”
The machine turned, bringing the point of that cone to bear on the monitor’s turret. One of the men on the gate had noticed me and was pointing me out to his companions. I waved.
“Three!”
The humming began to rise in pitch. I broke into a run, waving wildly.
“Two!”
The tip of the cone began to glow red, and sparks rained from it.
“One!”
Two of the three guards were now watching me, while the other kept his attention focused on the monitor.
“Zero!”
Simultaneously, the ship’s guns roared, and the cone spewed out a bolt of lightning. The flash of the cannon was almost lost in the astonishing blazing brilliance of the artificial lightning, and the smoke that billowed up from the guns was lit vivid orange, like a storm cloud lit from within.
The lightning bolt struck the monitor’s turret, but had no discernable effect beyond showers of sparks here and there; I knew enough to realize that it must have grounded out through the metal hull and the water beneath, as if the ship itself was a gigantic lightning rod. The figures on the turret jerked and staggered, but none of them fell; I guessed that some tiny portion of that immense burst of electricity had reached them, but not enough to do any real harm.
Meanwhile, the shells from the ship’s guns tore through the upper edge of the flimsy wooden walls of the compound, still rising; as best I could judge, they would either pass entirely over the rest of the enclosure, or knock the tops off a couple of the domes. From somewhere behind the wall came a spray of sparks.
I reached the gate and shouted, “Stop! There’s something you need to know!”
“Are you ready to surrender?” came a hail from the ship.
The man on the gate raised his megaphone, but I waved desperately and shouted, “Tell him you need to discuss it!”
He paused, and glanced down at me. “Who the devil are you?” he asked.
“Tom Derringer,” I said. “I’m here to talk to Mr. de la Rue – it’s vitally important!”
“De la Rue isn’t here. Now...”
“Shouldn’t he be?” I interrupted. “Isn’t it payday?”
The man on the gate glanced at his companions.
“I know why he isn’t,” I called. “I know where your pay is.”
“Did those bastards steal it?” He turned. “Harry, get the electromagnet ready.”
“They didn’t steal it! Let me show you!” I dropped my pack and pulled open the flap, groping for the bundle of newspapers.
Two other guards had emerged from the gate, and the man who had been watching the western wall came up behind me. “What are you talking about?” he asked.
I pulled out the papers. “Look, I’ll show you! You aren’t going to get paid, any of you! The money’s gone!”
“Well?” came a call from the monitor.
“Hold on!” the man above the gate called back. “We’re discussing it!” Then he looked down at me. “What’s this about?”
I held up a copy of the Times. “Boireau’s bank has gone bust!” I shouted. “He can’t pay you! He can’t pay anyone!”
“Give me that,” one of the guards on my own level barked, snatching the paper from my hand. I pulled another from the stack and held it up so that one of the trio atop the gate could stoop down and reach it.
The three men on ground level were now sharing their copy, reading the featured story. The three above the gate also held theirs in common, reading it.
“The Marine National Bank,” one of them said. “That’s what it says on the purses every week.”
“It’s where Boireau had all his money!” I cried. “De la Rue isn’t here because he can’t get the money to pay you!” I gestured in the direction of the warship. “Do you want to see this place get knocked down around your ears and not even get paid for it?”
“Go get Andrews,” the man with the megaphone ordered, and one of his companions hurried through a door into the compound.
“What’s going on over there?” demanded Miss Darlington’s spokesman. “We’ve got the range now; our next shot will take down that infernal machine of yours!”
The enclosure’s spokesman looked up at the lightning generator. “Harry, shut that thing down,” he said. “It didn’t do a damn bit of good against the ironclad anyway.”
“What about the electromagnet?”
“Keep it ready.” Then he knelt down and beckoned to me. “Give me those newspapers.”
I handed him perhaps half my supply. For a moment he seemed inclined to argue and demand the rest, but then he shrugged and stood up, just as a man in a business suit appeared from inside the compound.
“What’s going on?” the newcomer demanded.
He and the spokesman huddled together, speaking quietly; the spokesman held out a copy of the newspaper.
One of the ground-level guards took a newspaper and vanished through the gate.
I waited patiently, handing out another half-dozen copies of the Times as men came and went, talking among themselves.
After a few moments, the man on the ship called, “What’s going on over there?” A grinding noise came from the lightning generator, and it began to sink back down out of sight.
Finally, the man atop the gate lifted his megaphone again and called, “What are your terms?”
There was a pause, and I could see the people on the ship’s turret conferring. Finally, the spokesman’s voice boomed out again.
“You must release all the scientists and other prisoners! We will transport them back to the mainland and arrange for them to return home to their families.”
“What if they don’t want to go?”
That seemed to baffle the crew of the ironclad. While they were arguing, the man on the gate raised his microphone again.
“Listen,” he said, “we’re done here. You can come and do whatever you like.” Then he dropped the megaphone, turned, and walked through the door into the compound.
Unsure what I should do, I stood waiting, handing out copies of the Times to anyone who wanted one. Men came and went through the gate for several minutes; then the gates opened wide and men began to stream out. Where up until now everyone I had seen on the shore, save the one man in a business suit, had been guards, in their standard uniform, now I saw people in a variety of clothing, including white coats, emerging. Most of them were heading down to the little pier – but the steamer wasn’t there. Presumably it was in Cape May, waiting for Mr. de la Rue.
And looking at the basin and the upper end of Post Creek, I didn’t think it would fit past the ironclad.
The people atop the turret seemed to have finished their argument; a man raised the megaphone and called, “We’ll send a boat!”
I looked at the crowd gathering on the dock. “You’ll need more than one,” I called, to no one in particular.
Then I pushed past the exodus and through the gate, making my way into the enclosure to find Professor Vanderhart.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Professor Vanderhart’s Homecoming
I will not bore you with the details of the evacuation of Wildwood Island. The operation was haphazard and disorganized, and it was not until midday on Thursday, the eighth of May, that everyone who wanted to leave had left.
Miss Darlington’s monitor had to unload most of its crew and supplies and wait for the tide to rise, before it could be freed from the mud of Post Creek; in fact, it required a tug from a gigantic electromagnet in Monsieur Boireau’s fortress to jar it loose. Once freed, however, the crew wasted no time in taking aboard roughly a hundred of the island’s erstwhile inhabitants.
Professor Vanderhart and I did not wait, however; once I had found the professor we gathered up his luggage, including a valise that held his accumulated pay, and made our way to the shore, where I signaled Albert as agreed. The professor, half a dozen of his friends who had seen where we were going and followed along, and I all waded out into the cold water and boarded the Eliza Anne without mishap and made it safely back to Cape May in time for a late supper. I suggested to Albert that he might find paying passengers if he were to make a return trip, and I believe he acted upon this suggestion, as he was already putting out to sea once more by the time we were out of sight of the dock.
I led the way back to the Hotel Chalfonte, where the professor and I were both delighted to find Betsy seated in the lobby, a book in hand. She caught sight of us at the same instant I spotted her; she dropped her book and leapt up from her chair with a shriek of joy. “Papa! Tom!” She ran toward us, and I stepped back, to make sure that her father received the first embrace.
