"My God, the Stink!" Brian cried, ignoring him. He seemed near panic. "It's worse than a transportworse than a Russki trench! Christ Jesus, I saw 'em bury week-old pieces of Russki at Inkermann, and that smelled better than this!"
"Knife it!" Fraser whispered. "I hear something."
Footsteps. The tramp of a group of men, coming nearer. "They've got us," Fraser said in sharp desperation, gazing up the sheer wall and putting a hand to his pistol. "Our number's upsell your lives dear, lads!"
But in one momenta series of instants shaved so thin as to be normally useless to the human mindinspiration blew through Mallory like a gust of Alpine wind.
"Don't," he commanded the others, in a voice of iron conviction. "Don't look up. Do as I do!"
Mallory began to sing a chantey, loudly, drunkenly.
"Ahoy the shore!" Mallory shouted, craning his neck. He flung his arms wide in jovial greeting, and almost toppled backward. "How might we be o' service to you flash gentlemen?"
"Here's a conundrum!" the leader announced, in the elaborate tone of a man casting pearls of wit before swine. "Just how very lushed, how utterly well-pissed indeed, can four London pigeons be?" He raised his voice. "Can't you smell that dreadful stench down there?"
"Surely!" Mallory said. "But we want to see the India Docks!"
"Why?" The word was cold.
Mallory laughed harshly. "Because it's full of things we want, ain't it? Stands to reason, don't it?"
"Things like clean linen?"
said one of the other men. There was laughter, mixed with grunts and coughing.
Mallory laughed too, and slapped his naked chest. "Why not! Can you lads help us? Throw us down a rope or the like!"
The leader's eyes narrowed between his paisley wraps, and he tightened his grip on the pistol-butt. "You're no sailor! A jack-tar never says 'rope.' Rather, he always says line'!"
"What's it to you, what I am?" Mallory shouted, scowling up at the man. "Throw us a rope! Or a ladder! Or a bleeding balloon! Or else go to hell!"
"Jolly right!" Tom chimed in, his voice shaking. "Who needs you lot, anyway!"
The leader turned, his men vanishing with him. "Hurry up!" Mallory bellowed, as a parting shot. "You can't keep all that fancy swag to yourselves, you know!"
Brian shook his head. "Jesus, Ned," he whispered. "This is a damn tight pinch!"
"We'll pass as looters," Mallory said quietly. "We'll pose as drunken rascals, primed for any kind of mischief! We'll join their ranks, and make our way to Swing!"
"What if they ask us questions, Ned?"
"Act stupid."
"Halloo!" came a shrill voice from above.
"What's that?" Mallory cried roughly, looking up. It was a masked and scrawny boy of fifteen years or so, balanced atop the pilings with a rifle in his hands.
"Lord Byron's dead!" the boy yelled.
Mallory was dumbstruck.
Tom shrilled out in the silence. "Who says he is?"
"It's true! Old bastard's kicked the bucket, he's dead as mutton!" The boy laughed in giddy delight, and capered along the edge of the pilings with his rifle waggling over his head. He vanished with a leap.
Mallory found his voice. "Surely not."
"No," Fraser agreed.
"Not likely, anyway."
"Wishful thinking on the part of these anarchists," Fraser suggested.
There was a long, empty silence.
"Of course," Mallory said, tugging his beard, "if the Great Orator truly is dead, then that means" Words failed him in a foundering rush of confusion, but the others watched Mallory for guidance, silent and expectant. "Well," Mallory said, "the death of Byron would mark the end of an age of greatness!"
"It needn't mean much at all," Fraser objected, his voice under firm control. "There are many men of great talent in the Party. Charles Babbage yet lives! Lord Colgate, Lord Brunel the Prince Consort for instance. Prince Albert is a sound and thoughtful man."
"Lord Byron can't be dead!" Brian burst out. "We're standing in stinking mud, believing a stinking lie!"
"Quiet!" Mallory commanded. "We'll simply have to suspend any judgment on this matter until we have firm evidence!"
"Ned's right," nodded Tom. "The Prime Minister would have wanted it that way! That's the scientific method. That was what Lord Byron always taught us "
A thick, tarred rope, its end knotted in a fat noose, came snaking down the wall. The anarchist lieutenantthe dainty man with the paisley kerchiefsposed one bent leg atop the wall, with his elbow on his knee and his chin in his hand. "Put your arse in that, my friend," he suggested, "and we'll hoist you up in a trice!"
"I thank you kindly!" Mallory said. He waved with cheery confidence and stepped into the noose.
When the tug came, he braced his mud-caked shoes against the slick and nasty timbers, and stamped his way up, and over the top.