Andy Luke's Blog, page 6
April 26, 2018
Chapter 38
Colombo, British Ceylon/Sri Lanka.
Tuesday 8 December, 1925: Bodhi Day.
Prismatic a rainbow colours the sky. Monks sit in damp; and think; and walk barefoot over twigs, while bells sing. The deities are ever present: watchful eyes; multi-tasking hands with candles, scripture and birds. Red lanterns are set at the foot of the sacred Bodhi tree. Under the Bodhi, the Lord Buddha sat for seven days without moving. This tree was grown from one of thirty-two saplings brought by King Asoka’s daught...
April 19, 2018
Chapter 37
Batavia, Java.
Friday 17 October, 1924.
Clifford sits alone in the hallway, listening to Father pitch (through the walls) to the Principal. Batavia wouldn’t be his first school, no. The cheerful thirteen year old has learned in London, Hamburg and Nanking. The Principal hears tales of monasteries and warlords and the pirates of the Yangtze. They left China only days after Wu Peifu’s forces suffered a major loss to Zhang Zuolin in another fruitless Zhili–Fengtian conflict. He had warned Wu, a...
April 12, 2018
Chapter 36
St. James’ Square, London.
Friday 28 September, 1923.
The sale goes in Hamptons’ ledger, another commission earned. The nineteen year old tells Brian he can maybe sell the properties on Lambeth Road. The rain lashes on the glass front of the office. It is only a silver street by the time he’s out onto the embankment. There’s a homeless man, about fifty, and he gives him a penny; tells him he was once on that same bench and they wish each other better days. John’s home is a single room in Spit...
April 5, 2018
Chapter 35
Piazza San Marco, Venice.
Monday 3 September, 1923.
Venice’s centre and everywhere is calm; life relaxes. People buy fish and hand-crafted lace. The rain from the night before has created a mini-canal across the centre of the square. On the south side a brass band plays ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ and a man feeds pigeons. They hobble around the porch, under the tables of Caffe Florian, established 1720. Maximillian Bauer is in tight fitting clothes; clean shaven; unflinching. He looks just as he...
March 29, 2018
The Watch Thief Chapter 34
Yang-Sen’s Home, Chongqing.
Thursday 19 April, 1923.
From the mouth of Trebitsch’s New York brogues a cockroach raised its bulbous head. It climbed out, onto the concrete floor, and made for the desk as monastery bells rang. It trekked to the bed where Trebitsch slept and remembered Chi’s message: Wu Peifu had given them tens of thousands of men to call upon. Still, Yang-Sen wanted another recruitment drive. The bell’s chimes continued and he dreamt of looking down to a serene and leafy enclo...
March 22, 2018
The Watch Thief Series 4 (Chapter 33)
Upper Yangtze, Chongqing.
Saturday 13 January, 1923.
Geoffrey Corlett had used his charm , status and cash to borrow the sampan for bridge night. It gave cover from the pelting winds. There was a lavatory, stove, and benches built-in tight against the card table. Mark Davidson, an English banker, with tidy black fringe and a trimmed moustache looked at his cards for some combination to move the game along. Suddenly a fit of vile coughing erupted from Corlett. This set off young Steptoe, wh...
February 15, 2018
The Day Off has been Prophesied
It comes to us all. Some day this week I’ll be delving into a few of those films pushed at me. I’ve not seen ‘The Exorcist’ in full, and Richard Barr, devil that he is, has compelled me to watch it. Richard has had a few shorts published recently. ‘A Dismemberment of Corpses’ is dark beyond slapstick, a spide horror of the most gruesome. It features Danny Pongo, not-star of downedalbitros blog, and several strips, and I probably should deny reading it, but it feature...
February 8, 2018
Chapter 32
Prison Vienna Josefstadt.
10 June, 1921.
Officer Daly passed the screaming addicts and the inmate mopping away the old man smell. The drip-drip-drip fell like seeds in the corner of the cell, where the prisoner looked to imaginary people and country fields. Daly’s keys turned like crashing waves and the bars rolled back with a roar. Lincoln sat under a furrow of light, fields of sparkling dust shifting. He seemed almost unaware of the guard at first. Then he stood. His eyes were hot and blink...
February 1, 2018
Chapter 31
Supreme Court of Justice, Vienna.
Friday 20 May, 1921.
My application for legal counsel has been denied once more: I will continue to represent myself. This week, the court heard of my experience as a British member of parliament and leader in the German putsches. Reaching Vienna last September, I was knocked down by a horrendous fever. Appendicitis? An assassination attempt? I do not know. I was laid in the sick bed, while Bauer and Miss Engler went off to Villach. Two weeks, thinking I woul...
January 25, 2018
Chapter 30
Ministry of Defence,
Buda Royal Palace
, Budapest.
Tuesday 24
August, 1920.
From the back of the room, Trebitsch surveyed the twenty men. The Bavarians: Georg Escherich, Captain Ernst Röhm and General Ludwig Maercker. Next to Escherich, the Hungarian Regent Miklos Horthy with hook nose and dossiers; his Minister for War, Gyula Gömbös, fat faced with cubist hair casting many shadows. There was the Foreign Office secretary for press, Tibor von Eckhardt: handsome, intense, even when he smiled; an...
