One of Our Thursdays Is Missing

36. Middle Station

It took us an hour to steam through Comedy, and whilst mostly light and airy and heard-it-beforeish, the atmosphere became more strained and intimidating as we chugged slowly through Mother-in-Law Jokes and Sexist Banter. Despite being advised to remain out of sight, I elected to stay on deck and brazen out the worst abuses that came shouted unseen from the thick trees that covered the riverbank. The two ladies of negotiable affection had no difficulty with the comments, having heard much worse before, and simply retorted with aplomb—delicately countering the more vulgar insinuations with amusing attacks on the male psyche and various aspersions on their manhood or ability.

We came across the Middle Station at noon. The small trading town was right on the point where the Double Entendre River becomes the Innuendo, and although we had been traveling through the buffer genre of Bawdy Romp, replete with amusing sketches of people running in and out of each other’s bedrooms in a retro-amusing manner, we were now very much within the influence of Racy Novel, and we all knew it. The first part of the journey had been a pleasing chug up the river, but now we were here for business, and a sense of brooding introspection had fallen upon the boat.

The arrival of the paddle steamer at the Middle Station was welcomed not by sound but by silence. The constant tramp-tramp-tramp of the engines, for five hours a constant background chorus, made things seem deafeningly quiet when the engines were stopped. I stood on the foredeck as the steamer drifted towards the jetty. The Middle Station, usually a throbbing hub of activity, seemed deserted. Drake stood next to me, his hand on the butt of his revolver.

“I’m going ashore to check this out,” I said, “and I think it would be better if you stayed here.”

“Au contraire, Miss Next. It is you who will be staying here.” There seemed no easy way to say this, so I came right out with it.

“Drake,” I said in a quiet voice, “you’re the fodder, due for a tragic yet potentially heroic end.”

He looked at me for a moment. “It’s very good of you to warn me, but that’s not how I see it.”

“You think it’s someone else?”

“I think the fodder is you, Thursday.”

“No it’s not.”

“What are you if you’re not the fodder?”

“I’m the impostor.”

“You . . . could be the impostor and the fodder.”

“The unions would never allow it.”

“They might.”

“Look,” I said, “we could argue this all day, but here’s the thing: You graduated only this morning with a minimal backstory. I’ve been working the BookWorld for over three years—who’s most likely to cop it in the next few hours?”

“You might just think you’ve been working the BookWorld for three years. It could be your backstory.”

“Okay,” I said, beginning to get angry, “we’ll both go out there and see who gets eaten by a crocodile or gets a poison dart in the eye. Then we’ll know.”

“Deal.”

The rest of the peace delegation had joined us on deck, and they were staring silently towards the Middle Station. As we drew closer, we could see that the houses had been recently burned, for wisps of smoke hung in the air with the faint smell of scorched custard. We waited for the steamer to drift towards the jetty, until it touched with a faint bump. The crew made the steamer fast before jumping back onto the boat, and we watched and waited as the steamer slowly swung around in the current. There was not a single sign of life anywhere in the station.

“Well,” said Colonel Barksdale after a few minutes, “I’ve seen enough—doubtless skirmishers from Racy Novel causing trouble. Let’s steam on deeper into the genre and start getting some face time with this lunatic.”

“We’re not going anywhere until we load some coal,” said the captain.

I stepped off the steamer and onto the rickety old jetty, Drake at my side. We walked slowly into the town. Drake looked about anxiously, but not, I realized, about the deserted Middle Station.

“You’ll keep an eye out for crocodiles, won’t you?” I asked.

“As long as you watch my back for poison darts.”

We came across the first body near the mailbox on the corner. There was an ugly wound in the middle of his chest, and the small letters and words that made up his existence had been caught by the breeze and blown into the fishing nets set up to dry. We looked around and noticed more bodies and the detritus of conflict: discarded rubber chickens, feather dusters, strings of silk flags, spinning bow ties and custard-pie shrapnel that somehow seemed sadder and less funny than usual.

“Is this a garrison town?” I asked.

“No,” replied the adventurer.

“Then what’s a lance corporal of the Fourteenth Motorized Clown doing up here?”

The corpse was indeed a member of Comedy’s frontline troops. He had orange hair, a bulbous red nose, and he was wearing camouflage battle dress, along with a pair of size-twenty-eight shoes. Not much good for marching and a hangover from their days as an Alpine regiment.

Drake placed his hand on the clown’s bright red nose.

“Still warm,” he said, “probably been dead less than an hour. Any thoughts?”

“I don’t know,” I said, picking up a nurse’s hat from the ground. A little farther on, a stethoscope was lying broken in the dust. “But it wasn’t just clowns who died here today.”

We walked some more and came across a dozen or so other bodies. All clowns, all dead and none meant to be here. Bawdy Romp was within Racy Novel’s control and officially a demilitarized zone.

“This doesn’t make sense,” said Drake. “Comedy never had any beef with Racy Novel. Quite the reverse—they actually got on very well. Without Racy Novel, Comedy would be very poor indeed—especially for the stand-ups.”

“Let’s not hang around. Where did the captain say the coal was?”

We walked deeper into the station and saw more evidence of a pitched battle having taken place not long before. We found the remains of several burned-out clown cars; despite their being able to drive in either direction and having a device for shedding all the body work in order to lighten the vehicle for a speedy getaway, it hadn’t done any good. There was evidence of atrocities, too. Medical staff had been killed. I noted several pretty nurses and a handsome doctor lying in a doorway, and several crash carts were strewn about. There were a few dead rustic serving wenches, too, a ripped bodice and a couple of horses with ruggedly handsome and now very dead riders lying in the road amidst scorched brickwork and smoking rubble. We came across more dead clowns; it seemed as though an entire company had been wiped out.

“Looks like someone was making sure Comedy couldn’t come to Racy Novel’s aid,” observed Drake.

“It makes me wonder why we’re bothering with peace talks. Crocodile.”

“What?”

“Behind you.”

Drake jumped out of the way as the crocodile’s jaws snapped shut. “Thank you.”

“Now do you believe you might be the fodder?” I asked.

Drake thought for a moment. “He could have been trying to eat his way through me to get to you.”

“Sure,” I said with a smile, “and while we’re on the subject: If I were the fodder, why didn’t you warn me? I warned you.”

“Because I . . . didn’t want to ruin your day?”

“How very generous of you.”

We found the coal heap amidst a few more civilians—this time pretty secretaries who had died in the arms of their bosses. We filled a couple of wheelbarrows with coal before returning to the steamer. As soon as we were aboard, the crew slipped the moorings and the captain ordered, “Astern slow,” and swung the bows into the limpid river. We took the left branch up the tributary known as the Innuendo, and pretty soon the steamer was at full speed once more. Despite others’ misgivings, Jobsworth seemed adamant that the peace talks should go ahead.