Chapter 58: Slicing Through the Ice
Chapter 59: A Diamond Dust of Stars
Chapter 60: Ships Ahoy!
Chapter 61: Open Fire!
Chapter 62: Down But Not Out
Chapter 63: Surrender!
Chapter 64: A Pool of Blood
Chapter 65: Hard Rain
Chapter 66: A Watery Grave
Chapter 67: Heads Bowed
Chapter 68: Battered and Bruised
Chapter 69: Some Kind of Machine
Chapter 70: Behind You!
Chapter 71: Smothering to Death
Chapter 72: A Perfect Circle
Chapter 73: Headlines Across the World
Chapter 74: A Fleet of Carriages
Chapter 75: An Audience with the Queen
Chapter 76: The Bravest
Chapter 77: Never Forget
Chapter 78: Not a Day Goes By
Afterword
Notes on the Real Victorian World
More from the World of David Walliams
and we’re in Victorian London. Meet the characters in the story…
Elsie is a homeless orphan, who lives on the streets of London.
Dotty is the cleaning lady at the Natural History Museum. She is as daft as her brushes.
Private Thomas is Dotty’s boyfriend, the shortest soldier who ever served in the British Army. His fellow soldiers call him “Titch”. He is now retired, and lives at the Royal Hospital Chelsea, making him a “Chelsea Pensioner”.
Mrs Curdle is the nasty old boot who runs
Mr Clout is the brute of a security guard at the museum, infamous for his hobnailed boots.
Commissioner Barker is the fearsome head of the London Metropolitan Police, famous for his tiny moustache.
Many years ago, the Professor was the top scientist at the museum, until one of his experiments went catastrophically wrong.
Lady Buckshot is an aristocratic big-game hunter. Across Africa she shoots elephants, giraffes and lions and brings their bodies back to the museum to be stuffed and put on display.
The admiral is the only sailor to live at the hospital. He was thrown out of the old sailors’ home for being drunk and disorderly.
The colonel and the brigadier are also Chelsea Pensioners.
The one-eyed sergeant major is in charge of everyone and everything that comes in and out of the hospital, and don’t you forget it.
All the Chelsea Pensioners are overseen by the Royal Hospital’s formidable Matron.
Queen Victoria is the ruler of the British Empire. In 1899, she had been on the throne for what was the longest reign in British history, a staggering sixty-two years.
Abdul Karim is always at the Queen’s side. He is her handsome young Indian attendant, also known as “Munshi”.
Sir Ray Lankester is the museum’s portly director.
The sandwich-board man roams the streets, trying to convince everyone that “THE END IS NIGH”.
The captain is in charge of what was, in 1899, one of the Royal Navy’s most modern warships, HMS Argonaut.
