But to his dismay this suggestion only served to make his brother even more determined to tame the steam, because the man said, tapping the side of his nose, ‘That’s because oi reckon they weren’t as clever as oi!’
There is something vaguely worrying about the word ‘reckon’ that leaves the ear, for many hard to understand reasons, wishing it was something else a little more certain and a little less frightening. And as bad luck would have it, some twenty minutes later an ear was exactly what spiralled down out of the settling steaming fog and through mangled trees that looked as if they had been scythed by dragons, and the birds that were coming down cooked …
Moist was, by inclination, a stranger to the concept of two in the morning, a time that happened to other people. He didn’t object to a certain amount of early alfresco when he was on the road, especially on the rail road, which was more like camping and therefore fun, but to be awakened in his own bed in the small hours was an ab
omination. That cried to the heavens for justice, although he did not cry at Sir Harry, who had just arrived in Scoone Avenue with all hell following him.
Crossly the butler rushed to get in front of Sir Harry as etiquette required, but Sir Harry swarmed up the stairs waving a clacks flimsy at anyone he could see, and burst into Moist’s bedroom, booming, ‘Someone has been buggering around with a steam contraption and has managed to kill two people, including himself, down in the Effing Forest. And you know what? Clacksmen on the Scrote tower spotted the explosion then went out and found the carnage, and you know the clacksmen! The news is already all over the bloody place! And so, apparently, are bits of the poor buggers! Two people dead, Mister Lipwig. The press’ll have our guts for garters.’
By this time Moist had managed to get his pants on the right way up. He spluttered, ‘But Harry, we aren’t doing anything in the Effing Forest at the moment. There’s going to be a little branch line that goes to Scrote and that’ll be a very good earner, but this is nothing to do with us. Crossly, please get Sir Harry a stiff brandy and a soft chair.’
‘Nothing to do with us or not, Moist, you know the press will be round us like flies on a midden.’
Moist said, to the annoyance of Harry, ‘Trust me, Harry. Trust me. It wasn’t us and I see no reason to worry. I’ll deal with the press. I imagine they’ll all be going to the Effing place as soon as it gets light, so if you don’t mind I’ll head there right now and be ahead of the game.’
‘It’s no bloody game!’ Harry boomed.
And over his shoulder, Moist said, ‘I’m sorry, but it helps to think of it like that, Harry.’
Just as Moist was heading down the stairs with Harry simmering behind him, Adora Belle arrived home. She sometimes worked nights on the Grand Trunk; she told Moist that it was to keep people on their toes, but he knew that she actually loved the quiet watches of a clear night when messages would twinkle from hill to hill like fireflies.
That was the spell of the clacks, and it wasn’t only goblins who felt it. Adora Belle knew and didn’t mind that the clacksmen and clackswomen would fraternize along the wonderful scintillating lines of light. After all, quite a few marriages had been brokered through the unsuspecting ether in the small hours of the night and sooner or later little clacksmen and women would be born.
Adora Belle had once told Moist, ‘You know that it takes a special kind of person to be a clacksman and especially a clackswoman, and it’s important that they marry and have children with the right kind of blood. They’re our future, and heaven help them if their spouse doesn’t also work on the clacks. Clacks people are a type and like attracts like.’
When Moist told her the news of the accident in the Effing Forest she disappeared into her office, and Moist could hear the goblins stampeding towards it and then a rattle of the clacks on the roof. Before long she sent down another goblin with a flimsy that said, ‘News from Scrote. Stop. It’s a boiler that burst. Stop. Not a train. Stop. Horrible deaths of two people, but no engine as such. Stop.’
That latest discovery made Moist doubly sure of himself and he clamped his hand on Harry’s shoulder and said, ‘Please, don’t worry, Harry. I know how this one is going to go. All I need is for you and Mister Simnel to meet me in the Effing Forest as quickly as you can. And, oh, I think we might need Thunderbolt.’
It was time to talk to the golem horse once more. Moist was rather concerned about taking it on another long journey so soon, but the horse said, ‘Sir, I am a horse. Being a horse is my passion in life, and getting to the Effing Forest will be a breeze. Saddle up, please, and let’s be off.’
Moist had found something like a sweet spot in the gait. No muscle and bone horse could possibly gallop at this speed without legs getting tangled, but even so he covered the fifty miles to the Effing Forest by sunrise without much in the way of groinal sprains.
He immediately sought out the nearest pub to the accident, which was the premises of Edward Forefather, purveyor of fine beers, stouts and ales. At least that’s what it said on the rather large plaque behind the bar and Moist was not going to argue.
The publican, already up and dressed, looked him up and down and said, ‘I’ve been expecting somebody like you. You’re from the city, aren’t you? It’s about the explosion, isn’t it? Are you one of them reporters? Only I wants money if you’re a reporter.’
Moist said, ‘No, I’m not, I’m with the railway. I heard about the explosion and came to see what had happened.’
Forefather looked him up and down again and said, ‘We know all about it. It was them Wesley brothers. How good is your stomach, young man? Of course, I’d leave the bar to help you, but that means I’d have to get my wife up to start on the early shift for the miners. They’ll be coming up for their breakfast soonish.’
Moist understood the unspoken request and handed the man a reasonable sum, then followed him outside where he was led along a path into the forest. This part of the forest was quite pleasant, not too dark, the kind of place where people would go for a picnic, but as they got in further, Moist could see that whatever they were going to find next, it wasn’t going to be a picnic.
In a clearing just a short walk from the pub the trees were stripped of their leaves, tangled wood was everywhere and the remains of the forge were embedded in various trunks. And there were fragments of the stricken boiler, too, some of them driven so hard into mighty oaks that Moist couldn’t pull them out. The haze in the clearing sent a chill down his spine.
He took a deep breath and said, ‘What happened to the bodies, Mister Forefather?’
‘Oh, yes, sir. I’ve got them back in my cellar, it being quite cold down there. They’re in a bucket. It isn’t a big bucket, either. It was two brothers, strapping great lads. Crucible was the brains and Jed was the blacksmith. Although in the bucket I couldn’t tell you which bits were whose. Jed was boasting about building a railway engine one day, and to tell you the truth, sir, he was a very good blacksmith, but what he knew about locomotives I wouldn’t dare think of. But he thought he could do it and all his mates were egging him on.’
He hesitated for a moment and then said, ‘I was the first one to arrive here and mostly all there was was a mist, and I didn’t like that at all. It was clammy and hot and made you want to puke. And that’s it, sir. Not much more to be said, sir.’
Moist looked up and said, ‘Should there really be an anvil up in that tree?’
The publican looked at him and then at the tree and said, ‘You’re a man with his eye on the business, aren’t you? Generally speaking, the anvil has always been on the ground, by and large, but it was a most powerful bang.’
Moist brightened up as best he could and said, ‘Thank you, Mister Forefather. Pretty soon there’ll be a lot of journalists coming to see all this and I’m sorry about that, but they turn up like flies.’
‘That’s all right, sir. Good for business. Journalists drink twice as much as anyone else and for twice as long. We had them around when the mine fell in and they really can take their liquor.’ Mr Forefather was rubbing his hands in anticipation.