Read Online The Chemickal Marriage by Gordon Dahlquist - Free Book Online

lost,’ she said.
    ‘Mr Cunsher was able to liberate a spare from the diplomatic compound – along with my medical bag and my cigarettes.’
    ‘How resourceful.’
    ‘Extremely so. I wonder if we will see him again.’
    They were the only patrons at the inn. The luncheon came as bleached of colour as the town – everything boiled to the near edge of paste. The men drank beer, while Miss Temple made do with barley water, impatient at how much time they seemed to be wasting. She stood well before the others had finished.
    ‘I will be outside,’ she announced. ‘Do take your time.’
    ‘What if you are seen?’ asked Mr Brine, a white potato spitted on the tip of his knife like an eye.
    ‘
Seen?
’ she replied waspishly. ‘We have been here half an hour.
That
cheroot has been smoked.’
    Their blunt entry to the town was Mr Phelps’s way of disputing her leadership, and the insistence on a meal – though they had not eaten since dawn, and did not know when they might eat again – another way to curb her personal momentum. She stood outside and scanned the dark huts, all scalded brick and planks tarred with paper. The air was crisp in a way she might have enjoyed, save for the metal tang in which all of Raaxfall seemed steeped. She saw where the road stopped at a towered gate, like a castle made of iron instead of stone.
    They had asked at the inn after Mr Ramper, but he was not remembered. Who was at the Xonck works? The townspeople did not know. Was anyone there at all? O yes, they saw lights, but could say nothing more.
    She looked up and saw doorways around the battered village square now dotted with pale faces. Had they never seen a violet jacket before? Miss Temple walked towards the river. Here too she passed faces, young and old and those aged too soon by work, peering at her and then stepping forward to follow. As the citizens of Raaxfall crept into view, they reminded Miss Temple of rats on a ship, emerging from every possible crevice. She picked her way to an especially long wooden dock, to its very end, ignoring the people behind her – none yet bold enough to follow onto the pier – and gazed over the water.
    Just beyond the river’s bend was her first glimpse of the Xonck works proper: high loading docks and a canal leading deeper inside. She looked directly below her. Several small oared skiffs had been roped to the pilings.
    A skittering
clomp
caused her to spin. The townspeople now formed a wall across the pier. Another
clomp
. A
stone
had been thrown from the crowd. Miss Temple looked with shock into the blanched faces and perceived that she was hated –
hated
. The fact stung like a swinging fist. Her first impulse was to pull out the revolver – but there were a hundred souls before her if there were five, and any such step would justify their rage.
    A ripple of bodies burst through the centre of the mob: Doctor Svenson, harried and out of breath, Brine and Phelps close behind.
    ‘Celeste – we did not see you –’
    The three men dropped their pace to a rapid walk, aware that the mob was slowly following them onto the planking. Svenson reached her and spoke low.
    ‘Celeste – what has happened? The townspeople –’
    ‘Pish tush,’ she managed. ‘There are boats below: I suggest we secure one.’
    Quite belying his bulky gait on land, Mr Brine swung himself over the pier like an ape, seized a rope and slid into an open skiff. Mr Phelps and Doctor Svenson took out their pistols and at this the mob halted, perhaps thirty yards away.
    ‘Citizens of Raaxfall,’ called Phelps, ‘we have come to discover why you have been put out of work – why the Xonck factory has barred its doors. We are here in your own interests –’
    With his city accent Phelps might as well have been Chinese; nor did the presence of Miss Temple – and a foreign soldier – help to make any credible show. Another rock whipped past Phelps and splashed into the water. Svenson seized Miss Temple with both arms