Blast it!
I never liked that darned piece of sea! Why couldn’t England be part of the Continent, like every other decent European country? It was simply not fair, the tortures that were inflicted on poor people trying to cross the Channel stacked on top of each other in a small wooden crate!
The motion of the waves grew ever stronger, pressing me against Mr Ambrose with a devilish, regular rhythm. Blood thrummed in my ears, and my breathing became laboured.
‘Mr Linton?’
‘Y-yes, Sir?’
‘Are you sure you do not suffer from fever? Your skin is getting hot again.’
‘N-no, Sir. I’m perfectly fine.’
Desperately, I grasped around for something to talk about, something to distract me, so I would not succumb. But there was nothing. Nothing I wanted to say, or do, or know…
Wait a moment. That wasn’t strictly true. There was something I wanted to know. Something I wanted to know badly enough to even drive thoughts of Mr Ambrose from my mind for a few precious moments.
‘Mr Ambrose, Sir?’ My voice was unsteady.
He turned his head towards me without bothering to lift it from my chest. I could fell his chin press into my soft flesh.
‘Yes, Mr Linton?’
I could feel the breath of his words on my face, smell his scent of rough soap and too much money. What had I been about to ask again? And was it really that important…? I could just surrender and…
No!
‘I just wondered, Sir… the centre of the world. What is it? I mean, if we are going to die in any event, you can tell me, right?’
Silence. Silence and darkness. The only other sensation was the feeling of his closeness: omnipresent, omnipotent, omniinconvenient.
Damn him! Why wouldn’t he tell me, even now? What could be so important that he wouldn’t divulge it even at the brink of my, and his own, destruction?
‘Tell me!’
Nothing but silence. I could feel myself yielding, feel my arms snaking around him again, my lips moving closer to his. What did it matter if I betrayed my principles? What would it matter if he pushed me back, laughed at me, mocked me? At least I would get to taste his lips again. Nobody would ever know.
Wrong. You would know. You would regret.
Still, my lips moved ever closer to their destination. I could feel his breath on my tongue now, so close was I.
‘Tell me!’ I whispered, in a last, desperate attempt to distract myself, though at this point I wasn’t sure that even the long-sought mystery of the centre of the world would hold me back. ‘Please. Don’t people who are condemned to death usually get a last wish before they die? Well, I have one.
Kiss me.
No!
‘Tell me. Please. Tell me what the file I’m going to die for is about.’
A shudder went through his still form.
‘You want to know what the file contains?’ Some part of me marvelled how he managed to keep his voice calm and controlled, even at such a moment as this. ‘You want to know what the centre of the world is, Mr Linton? Fine! I’ll tell you…’
Lessons in Power
‘The centre of the world is a canal. A canal in Africa.’
It took a few moments for his words to register. Had he really… had he really just said that? That couldn’t have been the truth! He had to have told me a joke just now, right?
Stupid question. This was Mr Ambrose.
He had been serious. Absolutely serious.
My hands flew up to grasp his collar, and not with the intention of kissing him. I started to shake him like a rattle.
‘What? A canal? I have been risking my life for a bloody irrigation ditch?’
His hands shot up to grasp mine, and ripped them off his collar. There was the sound of tearing cloth.
‘That uniform cost one pound and ten shillings, Mr Linton! And the tailcoat underneath was almost new!’
‘It was ten years old, you blasted miser! Ten years old is not almost new!’
I tried to kick out at him, but he captured my well-aimed knee between his legs. Next I tried to butt heads, but he ducked to the side.
‘That is a matter of opinion, Mr Linton. I shall deduct the cost for repairing the collar from your wages.’
‘You’re never going to pay me any wages, you son of a bachelor, because we'll never get out of this alive! And for what? A bleeding, stinking irrigation ditch!’
‘Mind your language, Mr Linton! You have been warned that you will have to address me respectfully.’
‘You can take your respectful address and stuff it respectfully up your…’
‘Mr Linton!’
With all my might, I shoved against him, and somehow managed to haul him to the side, slamming his back against the wall of the crate. Wood wool flew around us like snow in a blizzard. Only conditions were not cold here. Oh no. They were just about to get hot.
‘Mr Linton!’
‘My name is Lilly! Do you hear me? Lilly!’
‘Mr Linton, I forbid you…’
I tried to bite him. To my credit, I must say that I only missed by inches. My teeth sank into the cloth of his precious, nearly-new-10-year-old tailcoat and probably left a good set of teeth marks. Hopefully, they would be expensive to remove, or better yet, permanent!
‘Mr Linton! Be rational.’
‘Rational? Don’t you dare tell me to be rational! It’s you who is crazy; crazy enough to risk your life and mine on this damned adventure! And for what? For a bloody irrigation ditch!’
My hands were still firmly caught in his grasp. I tried to bite again, but this time caught only air between my teeth. We rolled around in the little, dark space we had, bits of wood flying all around us, and I flatter myself that I got a few good kicks in now and again. But I didn’t manage to free my hands, which was a pity. You need hands for strangling someone.
‘You… you… I’m going to kill! Do you hear me! I’m going to-’
Suddenly, he pushed against me with unbelievable force, and I realized that he had been holding back up to that moment. In a flash, he was on top of me again and pressing my arms down at my sides. His legs snaked around me, trapping mine, and preventing me from delivering any more kicks. He had me. I could not hope to escape from his stone-hard prison.
‘Firstly,’ he said, his voice as cold as a winter solstice night, ‘Nobody made you risk your life. In fact, I seem to remember locking you up to prevent that exact possibility.’
I hesitated. Admittedly, he had a point there. A small, but nonetheless existent, point.
‘Secondly, you asked for the contents of the file. It is most ill-bred behaviour to try and bite my fingers off for a truthful answer. And thirdly, if you ever call the masterpiece of diplomacy and engineering which has been stolen from me an irrigation ditch again, I will deduct half your wages for stupidity.’
Colour rose to my cheeks. Thank God it was too dark for him to see.
‘So what exactly is this canal, if not an iri…’ I remembered his threat just in time, and amended, ‘…if not what I said before?’
There was one more moment of silence. I waited. I could feel it in the air: he was finally going to talk.
Yet when he started, it wasn’t at all how I thought he would.
‘Four years ago, a British officer and explorer called Francis Rawdon Chesney submitted a report to Parliament. Nobody paid much attention to it at the time - the country was too busy with the death of King George and the general election. But I heard of the report and tried to get hold of it. Something which, interestingly enough, proved to be more difficult than usual with official Parliament papers. Somebody had taken very good care to suppress this particular paper, which made me only more eager to lay my hands on it.’