The Educated Ape and Other Wonders of the Worlds Read online

  In truth, the concept of ‘crating up’ servants was a new one to him. But he had been away for a very long time and consequently was presently out of touch with many of the latest innovations, fashions and whatnots.[2]

  His lordship shrugged his shoulders, rose to his feet and with all the grace of gait normally attributed to a Devonshire dancing duck set off in search of a crowbar.

  Presently a four-wheeled growler crackled the gravel before Syon House and a cockney coachman, cheerful and chipper as any of his caste, stilled the horses, stepped from his conveyance, raised an unwashed hand and knocked with the unpolished knocker.

  Presently the door swung open to reveal Lord Brentford, now somewhat far gone with the drink.

  ‘Have at you, blackguard!’ the inebriated nobleman declared, fumbling at the place where the hilt of his sword, had he been wearing one, would have been.

  ‘No blackguard I, sir, guv’nor,’ replied the cockney character, a—hitching up of his trousers and tipping his cap as a fellow must do when addressing himself to the gentry. ‘But ‘umble ‘erbert is me name. Come as to deliver your staff.’ And he gestured with a grubby mitt towards the four large packing crates that rested on his growler.

  ‘Rumpty-tumpty,’ said his lordship. ‘Had you down as some Romany rogue, come to strip the lead off me roof. Sorry pardon and all the rest of it. Get ‘em down from your wagon and hump ‘em around to the servants’ quarters.’

  ‘That would be a two-man job,’ observed the chirpy chappie.

  ‘That would be a kick up your ragged arse,’ Lord Brent-ford observed, ‘if you don’t do what you’re told.’

  ‘Right as ten-pence, guv’nor.’

  Lord Brentford slammed shut the door.

  The cockney coachman muttered certain words beneath his breath. Paeans in praise of the landed gentry, in all probability. Then he drove his growler around to the servants’ quarters, shivering slightly at the sight of the Bananary, drew his horses to a halt and with the aid of his hobnailed boots relieved himself of his cargo. The job now done to his satisfaction, he stirred up the horses and left at a goodly pace.

  Lord Brentford. was forced to do his own unpacking. But he was pleased at least with what he had received: an upstairs maid who was spare and well kempt; a portly chef both bearded and bald; a monkey butler in waistcoat and fez; and a bootboy by the name of Jack.

  A month had passed since this day and Lord Brentford had, during this time, managed to restore a degree of order to the chaos that had reigned in Syon House. Whether word of his return had reached he of the freakish trousers was unknown, but he had not returned and so had not been shot at.

  Tonight, upon this special night, his lordship’s new staff stood with heads bowed in politeness as Lord Brentford. mounted the flag-bedecked rostrum and. smiled. upon all and sundry.

  The all and sundry whose heads were not bowed returned smiles to the noble lord. The Jovian ambassador raised a thumb the size of a savoury sausage and offered words of well wishing.

  ‘Cheers be unto thou, bonny lad,’ he said.

  Lord Brentford did that little cough which in the right kind of society indicates that silence is required, then formally greeted his guests.

  ‘My lords, ladies and gentlemen,’ he said. He would dearly have loved to have prefaced this with, ‘Your Majesty,’ but Queen Victoria had been unable to attend, having a previous engagement at a charity Wiff-Waff competition in which she was now through to the semi-finals.

  ‘My lords, ladies and gentlemen, Emissaries and ecclesiastics of Venus, His Magnificence the Ambassador of Jupiter. ‘The ambassador broke wind, which caused some chucklings, but only amongst his entourage. ‘I am honoured tonight by all your exalted presences. As you will know, I set off four years ago upon the maiden voyage of this world’s greatest airship, the Empress of Mars, on a journey that was intended to girdle the globe in less than eighty days. That magnificent vessel of the sky came to a terrible end with many fine lives lost — a sad conclusion to what would have been a marvellous achievement. I was pitched into the sea and later found myself washed up on the beach of a cannibal isle. Alone was I and subject to the untender mercies of the savages. And well they might have dined upon me had not their instincts, base as they were, revealed to them that as an Englishman I was their natural superior. Within a month they had crowned me their King. Within two, I had taught them not only the Queen’s English, but also the correct manner in which to lay out the knives and forks for a fish supper.’

  There was hearty applause at this, for which his lordship politely paused.

  Lord Brentford continued, ‘The island was many miles from the nearest shipping lanes and if I was to return safely to England, it became apparent that a seagoing craft would need to be constructed. Under my direction the savages built such a craft. With only the most primitive of tools at my disposal and a willing though unskilled workforce, this task took more than three years to complete.

  ‘My ship, the Pride of Syon, is now berthed at Greenwich.’ Considerable applause followed this disclosure. Although one or two folk appeared. to be finding interest in the Heavens.

  Lord Brentford continued once more. ‘During my time upon the island, when not educating the natives or supervising their shipbuilding, I had pause to think long and hard of our Queen and our Empire.’

  There was some applause at this but more folk now appeared concerned with the dark sky above.

  ‘We stand now upon the pinnacle of history, on the threshold of the twentieth century. Great achievements have been attained, but greater still are yet to come. It is my firm conviction that at this special time a Grand Exposition should be held, to exhibit the Wonders of the Worlds. Just as the Great Exhibition of eighteen fifty-one displayed the marvels of art and of industry of this world, so, then, the Grand Exposition will showcase the skills and sciences of the three worlds — Venus, Jupiter and Earth.’

  The Venusians displayed enigmatic expressions. The Jovians applauded with vigour.

  ‘More than this, I contend—’ But here Lord Brentford paused, for more and more folk were now gazing skywards. Gazing and pointing and shifting about in unease.

  ‘What of this?’ The noble lord surveyed the crowd, then turned and raised his eyes towards the sky. ‘Oh goodness me!’

  Lord Brentford. fled. He took to his heels with hands a-flapping and his legs goose-stepping, too. Not alone in this was he, for now the crowd was all in a panic, making to escape as best they could according to their capabilities, running, screaming, tripping and falling, spreading as some human tsunami across the lawns and gardens. Away, away to escape what was to come.

  And what was to come was tumbling down from above. It was a dark and terrible something, as would strike much fear in all who saw it coming. Down and down it tumbled, end over end, falling, falling, down and down.

  Those who saw it knew it for the awful thing it was.

  A battered Martian man—o’—war, such as was last seen during the Martian invasion.

  Down it came, this horrible ship of space, this ugly vessel built only for war, moving now, it appeared, in slow motion, but moving ever down.

  Until finally it struck planet Earth with a mighty explosion, a rending and mashing of metal and glass, of blood and bones and who knew what else. It rolled, it skewed, it swerved, it crashed, and finally it came to rest its terrible self upon the Bananary.

  3

  n unholy silence prevailed in the gardens of Syon.

  A silence broken periodically by the occasional tinkling of glass, the settling of stonework and the woebegone grindings of clockwork. For Mr Mazael’s Clockwork Quartet now had a spaceship upon it.

  Gone, all gone, were the glitterati who had adorned the gardens with their fragrant presences. Now but four folk stood amongst the ruin and the mess, four folk who would probably be expected to play a major part in tidying it up: a portly chef, an upstairs maid, a monkey butler in a fez and a bootboy factotum named Jack. As Lord Brentford had
neglected to issue them with instructions to run for their lives, these obedient servitors to the noble one remained standing where they had been told to stand, with heads politely bowed.

  In truth not all of them were standing, and those who were, were not quite as clean and tidy as they had previously been. The spacecraft’s concussion had blown off the upstairs maid’s bonnet, the portly chefs bald head was smutted and the monkey butler had been toppled from his feet. He lay now with his legs in the air, but his head was still bowed in politeness. And he still had on his fez.

  The portly chef spoke first. He cleared his throat and said, ‘This is a pretty pickle, to be sure.’

  The upstairs maid, both spare and kempt, said nothing.

  The bootboy, being cockney, tried to see the brighter side. ‘Well, if that ain’t saved ‘is lordship the price of a gang of navvies to knock down that there Bananary, you can poach my Percy in paraffin and use me for a teapot.’ Stealing a glance at the ruination, he added, ‘Strike me pink.’

  The portly chef sighed deeply.

  ‘If it’s Martians,’ the bootboy piped up, ‘I’ll go and cough on ‘em — I’ve a touch of consumption on me. That’ll teach the blighters to come back.’

  ‘It is not Martians,’ said the portly chef ‘I perceive this to be a Martian craft converted for use as a pleasure vessel. There will be men aboard this craft, not Martians.’

  ‘Men, is it, guv’nor?’ the bootboy chirped. ‘And perceiving it that you’re a-doing? What’s all that about, then?’

  ‘There is something familiar about that spaceship,’ said the chef, helping the monkey butler to his feet and dusting him down around and about. ‘Are you uninjured?’ he asked of the ape.

  The monkey butler looked somewhat startled, but as he was a monkey, he had nothing to say.

  ‘I suggest we enter the spaceship and tend to any survivors,’ said the chef.

  ‘You might be wrong with your perceiving there, guv’nor,’ the bootboy had to say. ‘Best we all just ‘ave a good old cough then ‘ave it away on our toes.’

  ‘Follow me,’ ordered the chef and, turning to the upstairs maid, he said, ‘You should wait here, my dear.’

  The upstairs maid remained silent and the chef took the monkey’s hand. If the monkey harboured any doubts, none were apparent from his expression. He ran his long and pointy tongue around his lips. There now were a very large number of squashed bananas in the wreckage of the Bananary.

  ‘Follow me,’ said the portly chef The monkey butler and the bootboy followed.

  The Martian hulk was a sturdy affair, and the collision with a glass-house had barely dented it. Some of the paint-work looked a bit scratched here and there, but the enamelled Union Jack and the nameplate were intact. The chef read from the nameplate. ‘The Marie Lloyd,’ he read. ‘That rings a bell with me somewhere.’

  The bootboy slipped on a banana skin and fell upon his bottom. The monkey butler laughed at this, for the classic humour of a man slipping upon a banana skin transcends all barriers of race and species.

  ‘Ain’t funny,’ said the bootboy, struggling up.

  The chef placed a plump palm upon the spaceship’s hull. ‘Hardly warm,’ said he. ‘It has therefore not plunged down from outer space.’

  The bootboy tapped the hull. ‘Anyone ‘ome?’ he called.

  ‘Best display a modicum of caution,’ said the chef ‘Stand back, if you will.’

  The chef threw the emergency release bolts of the spaceship’s entry port with a degree of expertise that surprised even himself There was a hiss as atmospheres within and without equalised, then the port dropped down to form an entry ramp.

  ‘Perhaps both of you should remain here,’ the chef told the boy and the monkey. ‘If folk are injured, their injuries may not be pleasing to behold.’

  The monkey butler munched a banana.

  The bootboy said, ‘I ain’t never been upon no spaceship. I’ll come in there with you, if you please.’

  ‘And you?’ the man asked the monkey.

  The monkey made a puzzled face, then twitched his sensitive nostrils.

  ‘Ah,’ said the chef ‘You smell something, do you?’

  The monkey glanced up and a strange look came into his eyes.

  ‘We had better make haste,’ said the chef ‘Come on.

  Many of the Martian spaceships, abandoned by their occupants when they were struck dead by Earthly bacteria, had been re-engineered for human piloting. The British Government had taken control of all these spaceships and as they had only landed in England, this meant that the British Government now had effective control over all human space travel. This caused considerable complaints from other countries, notably the United States of America, who insisted that they should have a share of the captured technology.

  Knowing what was best for all, Queen Victoria decreed that space travel and the exploration of other worlds would remain the preserve of the British Empire. And also decreed that the one and only spaceport on Earth would be constructed in Sydenham on lands beneath the Crystal Palace. The Royal London Spaceport.

  A number engraved beneath the name the Marie Lloyd indicated that the crashed spaceship was registered there, rather than at one of the many spaceports on Venus or Jupiter.

  The chef stepped up the entry ramp and entered the fallen ship. The bootboy followed him then whistled, for just as most boys of the Empire had been told the bedtime story of the Martian invasion, so too had most boys read comics that displayed cut—away diagrams of spaceships’ interiors.

  ‘This ain’t right,’ said the bootboy. ‘What’s all this ‘ow’syer-father?’

  For how’s-your-father there was a-plenty. The interior of the Marie Lloyd had been stripped bare of all its fixtures and fittings, along with the dividing walls between cabins, saloons and ‘excuse-me’s’, and within was crammed a vast array of complicated electrical gubbinry. Tall glass tubes that flashed with miniature lightning storms. Cables and copper coils. Intricate panels sewn with valves that pulsated as if in time to a human heartbeat. Many and various wonders and weirderies of the modern persuasion. Bits and bobs were sparking and smoking and there was a definite sense that the whole damn kit and caboodle was likely at any moment to erupt in a devastating explosion.

  ‘No sign of any passengers or crew,’ said the portly chef, fanning at the air. ‘Best have a look in the cockpit.’

  He edged warily towards the prow of the crashed vessel. The monkey butler followed and Jack the bootboy tinkered away with things he should not be touching.

  ‘Don’t do that,’ the chef called over his shoulder. ‘And be prepared to run if the need arises.’

  The door to the cockpit was jammed, so the chef put his shoulder to it. For a portly fellow the chef was surprisingly strong. The door, a panelled-oak affair, gave up an unequal struggle and toppled from its hinges into the cockpit beyond. The chef then entered the cockpit, dusting himself down as he did so.

  Then he came to a halt.

  ‘Oh my,’ said he. ‘Oh my.’

  ‘Dead ‘un, is it?’ called the bootboy. ‘‘Ead knocked orf or somethin’?’

  ‘Wait where you are,’ the chef called back and took another step forwards.

  Within the cockpit was a pair of seats, one apiece for pilot and co-pilot. Only one of these was occupied and this by a curious being slumped over the controls spread out before him. He was small and slight and wore a one-piece silver suit with a modern zip-fastener running up the front. A single glance told the portly chef that this being was not human. The chef stepped forwards and lifted him carefully, setting him back in his seat. A face looked up, a hairy face, small eyes blinked and a broad mouth opened and closed.

  ‘A monkey,’ whispered the portly chef ‘A monkey pilots this craft.’

  The monkey butler took a step forward. Then took another one back.

  ‘There is nothing to be afraid of,’ said the chef, and he stroked the pilot’s head. This remark might well have been addressed
to both monkeys. The one in the seat made coughing sounds, while the other looked somewhat upset.

  The monkey pilot gazed up at the portly chef The monkey pilot was old, his hair grey, the skin of his face and his hands lined with age. He opened his mouth and raised a withered palm.

  ‘You are thirsty,’ said the chef ‘Jack, fetch water, if you will.’

  ‘I’m not your servant,’ said the bootboy.

  ‘Then let me put it another way. Fetch water now or I will box you brutally about the ears.’

  ‘Your word is my command, guv’nor,’ said the willing lad. ‘Though if you’ll take my advice when it’s offered, you’d best ‘ave it out of ‘ere afore the ‘ole thing goes up in a ruddy big bang.’

  ‘Water!’ ordered the portly chef.

  The bootboy left at the trot.

  ‘I think there is truth in his words, though,’ said the chef to the monkey pilot. ‘We’d best get you out of here. Have no fear, for I will carry you.

  The aged monkey shook his aged head and coughed a little, and then, ‘I cannot leave the ship,’ he said.

  The chef jumped back a pace in amazement.

  ‘There is something you must have,’ croaked the monkey.

  ‘You speak.’ The chefs befuddled head was fiercely shaking now.

  ‘No time to explain. You must take the letter.’

  ‘The letter?’ The chef stilled his shaking head and gaped at the monkey pilot.

  ‘It will explain everything. You must not open it. Just take it to the address written upon it.’

  ‘Where is this letter?’ asked the chef.

  ‘Here.’ And the monkey pilot gestured to his heart. The chef leaned down, unzipped the silver suit and drew out an envelope. He glanced at the name upon it. That name was Ernest Rutherford. The monkey butler peered towards the pilot.

  The pilot glimpsed the butler. And the pilot smiled. ‘So young,’ he whispered. ‘Ah, so long ago. ‘What was that?’ asked the chef But now a noisy kerfuffle was to be heard.

  ‘Out of my way, you foolish boy,’ called the voice of Lord Brentford.