fast for politeness.
“Put a sock in it, you pair of moaning Minnies,” growled the Gunner, coming up behind them and putting a great hand on their shoulders. “It ain’t the time for a competition about whose fault any of this is; but if it was, I’d say if I hadn’t broke my oath and let the Walker take me, we wouldn’t be in this trouble now. So stow it, or you’ll start making me feel all guilty and wobbly, and then I’ll be needing one of these ‘shrinks’ of yours, and then where will we be?”
He stopped abruptly as they turned a corner on to the Embankment.
“Bleeding Nora . . .”
George and Edie stopped too. The dark obelisk of Cleopatra’s Needle had been guarded by two Sphinxes the last time they had been there. Now it was girdled by a great jumbled throng: statues of all ages and types, bound by one common thing, which was that they were all human. It was a great gathering of the spits, and even as Edie and the others approached from a distance, two things were apparent: firstly, there was a debate in progress, and secondly, a ring of soldier statues at the edge of the crowd faced outward, their backs to the debate, rifles and muskets with bayonets fixed, swords drawn, eyes watching the sky and the approaches to the Needle.
“I’ve never seen a gathering like this,” murmured the Queen.
“I’ve never heard of one. I think this is the first time so many of us have been in one place,” agreed the Officer.
“Oh well. In for a penny, in for a pound,” said the Gunner, with an attempt at cheeriness as he led them onward.
George turned to Spout. “Better stay back here,” he said. “In case they don’t know you’re one of the good guys.”
“ Goog gai ,” agreed Spout, and jumped up to perch on a tree in the shadows.
The rest of them walked slowly toward the jumbled mass of spits bunched at the river’s edge ahead of them.
“I can’t see the Black Friar,” muttered Edie.
“Yeah, but you can see everyone else,” said George in a voice tinged with wonder.
And the closer they got, the more intense the strangeness around the obelisk became. Once the eye adjusted to the fact that this seething knot of humanity was made from stone or bronze, the smaller details began to stand out: their clothes displayed an extraordinary mishmash of epoques and professions—men in armor argued with men in suits and ties, and elaborately bewigged heads bobbed next to crowns and steel helmets and bearskins and tricornes, while at the center of one of the most vehement knots of debate, a bearlike man with a great bald head atop a large shambling frame swathed in a long overcoat swapped terse words with a tight-britched figure who buzzed around him like a wasp, cutting great swaths in the air with his hands as he tried to make his point. This was the second detail that became immediately apparent: a lot of men—and a few women—from all ages of Britain’s history were gathered in this crowd, and they all appeared to be talking at once. The reason the noise level was so high was that they didn’t seem to be complementing the talking by doing much listening, which only encouraged the people they were talking at to speak even louder.
It did seem that every spit in London was here: in the water beyond the Embankment wall George could even see a statue of a boy on a dolphin—which he recognized from farther down the riverbank in Chelsea—now jumping and diving into the river.
The outer ring of bayonets and blades relaxed and parted a little as they reached it. Two gray stone seamen, each armed with nothing more than sailors’ knives, made a gap for them.
The taller one grinned thinly. “Gunner.”
“Jack.” The Gunner smiled in greeting and nodded at the other sailor, who wore an oilskin coat tied around his middle with a piece of string. “Bosun. Strange days.”
“Aye, and worse weather to come, I’d say,” said the one the Gunner had called Jack.
“Strange days and strange
“Put a sock in it, you pair of moaning Minnies,” growled the Gunner, coming up behind them and putting a great hand on their shoulders. “It ain’t the time for a competition about whose fault any of this is; but if it was, I’d say if I hadn’t broke my oath and let the Walker take me, we wouldn’t be in this trouble now. So stow it, or you’ll start making me feel all guilty and wobbly, and then I’ll be needing one of these ‘shrinks’ of yours, and then where will we be?”
He stopped abruptly as they turned a corner on to the Embankment.
“Bleeding Nora . . .”
George and Edie stopped too. The dark obelisk of Cleopatra’s Needle had been guarded by two Sphinxes the last time they had been there. Now it was girdled by a great jumbled throng: statues of all ages and types, bound by one common thing, which was that they were all human. It was a great gathering of the spits, and even as Edie and the others approached from a distance, two things were apparent: firstly, there was a debate in progress, and secondly, a ring of soldier statues at the edge of the crowd faced outward, their backs to the debate, rifles and muskets with bayonets fixed, swords drawn, eyes watching the sky and the approaches to the Needle.
“I’ve never seen a gathering like this,” murmured the Queen.
“I’ve never heard of one. I think this is the first time so many of us have been in one place,” agreed the Officer.
“Oh well. In for a penny, in for a pound,” said the Gunner, with an attempt at cheeriness as he led them onward.
George turned to Spout. “Better stay back here,” he said. “In case they don’t know you’re one of the good guys.”
“ Goog gai ,” agreed Spout, and jumped up to perch on a tree in the shadows.
The rest of them walked slowly toward the jumbled mass of spits bunched at the river’s edge ahead of them.
“I can’t see the Black Friar,” muttered Edie.
“Yeah, but you can see everyone else,” said George in a voice tinged with wonder.
And the closer they got, the more intense the strangeness around the obelisk became. Once the eye adjusted to the fact that this seething knot of humanity was made from stone or bronze, the smaller details began to stand out: their clothes displayed an extraordinary mishmash of epoques and professions—men in armor argued with men in suits and ties, and elaborately bewigged heads bobbed next to crowns and steel helmets and bearskins and tricornes, while at the center of one of the most vehement knots of debate, a bearlike man with a great bald head atop a large shambling frame swathed in a long overcoat swapped terse words with a tight-britched figure who buzzed around him like a wasp, cutting great swaths in the air with his hands as he tried to make his point. This was the second detail that became immediately apparent: a lot of men—and a few women—from all ages of Britain’s history were gathered in this crowd, and they all appeared to be talking at once. The reason the noise level was so high was that they didn’t seem to be complementing the talking by doing much listening, which only encouraged the people they were talking at to speak even louder.
It did seem that every spit in London was here: in the water beyond the Embankment wall George could even see a statue of a boy on a dolphin—which he recognized from farther down the riverbank in Chelsea—now jumping and diving into the river.
The outer ring of bayonets and blades relaxed and parted a little as they reached it. Two gray stone seamen, each armed with nothing more than sailors’ knives, made a gap for them.
The taller one grinned thinly. “Gunner.”
“Jack.” The Gunner smiled in greeting and nodded at the other sailor, who wore an oilskin coat tied around his middle with a piece of string. “Bosun. Strange days.”
“Aye, and worse weather to come, I’d say,” said the one the Gunner had called Jack.
“Strange days and strange
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