Overhead, the cannon fired another round into the belly of Westminster.
“No, my sweet,” said Otto. “I may be the master villain in this town, but I ain’t a bad man. Them are, in the main, innocent Jacks and Jills up there. And we shall truly be the high honorable regals in the Great Oven if’n we are the ones that slay the dragon.”
Witmeyer hung her head. “Very well, Otto. Tell the boy.”
Malarkey switched his caring face to his business one. “How many bang-bangs we got left?”
Riley looked in the trunk. A single missile lay cushioned in foam.
“Just the one,” he said, twisting it into the nozzle as he’d seen Chevie do. “Will it be enough?”
Malarkey scratched his beard. “I suppose we is about to find that out, ain’t we?”
He spent a minute considering, then issued his instruction as though it was a royal decree.
“The bridge is metal, except for the piers, which are stone. Aim for this end of the pier.”
The tank was directly over the sixth pier, which at low tide stood exposed like a spindly horse leg that could not possibly support the weight plunked on top of it.
Let’s hope not, thought Chevie.
“Take the shot, Riley,” she said. “I trust you.”
I don’t even trust me own self, thought Riley. As far as he could figure, if he did not knock that metal beast from its perch, then all manner of catastrophe would descend on his beloved country, the most immediate being the destruction of Parliament and all the toffs debating therein.
Though if they’re still debating with all this racket going on, then they’re a dimmer bunch than I thought.
“Shoot, Riley,” said Chevie. “Quick, before she reloads.”
Fingers crossed, thought Riley and he pulled the trigger for the second time.
Vallicose felt the second RPG hit and wondered, Could that be the end for me?
Was it possible that God had deserted her at the last moment?
No. Not possible.
This is my revolution, she thought inside the cauldron of the tank’s hellish heat. The Blessed Thundercat, they will call me. The faithful shall be named Clovites. And a clover shall be my symbol.
Perhaps it was a little premature to be considering symbols; better wait till the job was done.
The tank was listing severely, so a little recalculation was necessary in order to ensure maximum destruction of the old regime.
Lower the barrel twenty degrees, thought Vallicose happily. Maybe a smidge left. Five degrees.
There was a nice little fire raging in Parliament now. Vallicose could imagine the right honorables suddenly praying to a god they had ignored for decades.
It is too late, my fine fellows, she thought, loading the tube. She began to whistle the tune for “The Colonel’s Mustache” before stopping herself with a barked laugh.
That song is dead. Schoolchildren will sing songs about me.
A thought struck her and she was instantly sad.
Oh dear. I shall never be able to kill the queen now. Shame.
Still, she was reasonably sure the emancipated citizens would lynch Victoria in the street.
And that would have to do.
Malarkey shaded his eyes against the nonexistent glare while he studied the fissure the RPG had put in the near side of the stone strut.
“You botched it, Ramlet. You shoot like a…”
Chevie was not in the mood for stereotyping. “Like a what, Otto?”
Witmeyer found herself in exactly the same mood. “Yes, he shoots like a what, darling?”
Malarkey had not gotten to be king for so long by being slow on the uptake. “Like a novice, my sweet. Like a total novice.”
Chevie pulled the launcher from her shoulder one-handed and lowered it into the Thames to make sure no one else figured out how to use it.
Riley was despondent. “Well, believe it or not, those were my first times firing a rocket.”
Malarkey punched him playfully. “I do believe it, Ramlet. I have not a problem in the world believing it.”
Riley was staring up at the fissure, which was jagged and cavernous, as though the troll who lived under this particular bridge had taken a humongous bite out of the stone. But although the bite had penetrated almost to the very surface, it seemed as though the metal frame would hold.
“Well, that’s that then,” said Witmeyer, sounding a little relieved. “Even if we could fly, it would be too late. We should remove ourselves before the entire empire descends.”
Malarkey nodded. “The militia will finish her off eventually.”
“Eventually is too late,” said Chevie through gritted teeth. “We are so close. So close. After everything we have been through.”
Chevie could not shake the feeling that somehow, even though the soldiers had been scattered and the weapons washed into the Thames, the Revolution would still catch fire. Perhaps the destruction of their government would be enough to inspire the city’s malcontents.
If Vallicose were allowed to fire one more shell…
As if on cue, the tank shuddered, and from its long barrel blasted another shell. It arced over the barricade of carriages, cannon, and clotted humanity, and disappeared into the belly of the Palace of Westminster, where God only knew how much damage it was causing.
And as Chevie watched the shell’s progress, Riley watched the bridge.
“Look,” he said. “The troll is hungry.”
Vallicose pressed the fire button and felt the recoil force the tank deeper into the fissure. If the tank had been square on its treads, the dampers and suspension would have absorbed most of the recoil; but this tank was off-kilter and, truth be told, the grease monkey who had worked on the suspension probably hadn’t excelled in mechanic school. The recoil shock was transmitted through the tank and into the bridge, forcing the fissure open about a foot, which was just enough to shear off the chunk of bridge on which sixty percent of the tank’s weight rested. It happened so slowly that Vallicose had time to change gears and attempt to seesaw the tank from the widening fissure, but it happened too quickly for her to succeed. A rough pyramid of stone and iron twisted away from the bridge and plunged into the river below. The tank teetered for a long moment, its right track spinning in the air, but gravity was gravity and would not be confounded, and so, with a shudder and shrug, the tank tipped over and fell, groaning and shrieking all the way down.
For Vallicose the fall seemed interminable, and despite the ferocious buffeting and the screams issuing from her mouth, she found the time for some last thoughts.
This is a tight spot, she thought. It will be interesting to see how God extricates me from this one. Whatever happens, it will be the stuff of legend. Sister Vallicose, they will say, the risen phoenix.
A rhyme occurred to her, to the tune of “The Colonel’s Mustache”:
Gone in a flash
Gone in a flash
The Westminster Bridge
Was nothing but trash
But Vallicose brave
Had not breathed her last
Like the phoenix she flew
Up from the ash
Vallicose was not sure about rhyming trash with flash. Was the word trash popular in nineteenth-century London?
The truth was that Vallicose was occupying her brain with all this poetry and nonsense because she was distracting herself from a certainty that had suddenly nailed itself to the inside of her mind.
And though she had only a few seconds left to live, the thought grew louder and roared in her ears until she had no option but to scream it aloud.
“I was wrong!” she howled as the black river rushed up hard, as unforgiving as metal.
“I was wroooooong!”
Witmeyer followed the tank’s creak, yaw, and tumble.
&nb