Victorian Tales of the Weird

THE DRAGON OF ST PAUL'S

By Reginald Bacchus (1873-1945) and Ranger Gull (1875-1923)

Bacchus, who was married to the actress Isa Bowman, a former child friend of Lewis Carroll, had a louche career in 1890s bohemian London, which included friendship with the notorious publisher of erotica, Leonard Smithers. He wrote several pornographic works for Smithers's Erotika Biblion Society but he also produced novels and short stories for more respectable publishers and publications. Ranger Gull was a novelist and literary journalist who was to gain his greatest fame under the pen name Guy Thorne. His 1903 novel, When It Was Dark, told the story of the moral collapse which followed apparent disproof of Christ's resurrection. Only when this is revealed as part of a Jewish plot (the book is unashamedly anti-Semitic) is order restored. Between 1898 and his death, Gull published more than 100 novels, mostly potboilers, many of which would now be categorised as science fiction or horror. Reginald Bacchus and Ranger Gull collaborated on a number of short stories around the turn of the century, mostly published in the Ludgate Monthly. 'The Dragon of St Paul's', which reflects the era's fascination with the prehistoric past and with the possibility there might, somewhere in the world, be survivals from it, is the most memorable of them.

Ludgate Monthly, April 1899

First Episode

'It is certainly a wonderful yarn,' said Trant, 'and excellent copy. My only regret is that I didn't think of it myself in the first instance.'

'But, Tom, why shouldn't it be true? It's incredible enough for anyone to believe. I'm sure I believe it, don't you, Guy?'

Guy Descaves laughed. 'Perhaps, dear. I don't know and I don't much care, but I did a good little leaderette on it this morning. Have you done anything, Tom?'

'I did a whole buck middle an hour ago at very short notice. That's why I'm a little late. I had finished all my work for the night, and I was just washing my hands when Fleming came in with the make-up. We didn't expect him at all tonight, and the paper certainly was rather dull. He'd been dining somewhere, and I think he was a little bit cocked. Anyhow he was nasty, and kept the presses back while I did a "special" on some information he brought with him.'

While he was talking, Beatrice Descaves, his fiancée, began to lay the table for supper, and in a minute she called them to sit down. The room was very large, with cool white-papered walls, and the pictures, chiefly original black and white sketches, were all framed in passe-partout frames, which gave the place an air of serene but welcome simplicity. At one end of it was a great window which came almost to the floor, and in front of the window there was a low, cushioned seat. The night was very hot, and the window was wide open. It was late - nearly half-past one, and London was quite silent. Indeed the only sound that they could hear was an occasional faint burst of song and the tinkling of a piano, which seemed to come from the neighbourhood of Fountain Court.

Guy Descaves was a writer, and he lived with his sister Beatrice in the Temple. Trant, who was also a journalist on the staff of a daily paper, and who was soon going to marry Beatrice, often came to them there after his work was done. The three young people lived very much together, and were very happy in a delightful unfettered way. The Temple was quiet and close to their work, and they found it in these summer days a most peaceful place when night had come to the town.

They were very gay at supper in the big, cool room. Trant was a clever young man and very much in love, and the presence of Beatrice always inspired him to talk. It was wonderful to sit by her, and to watch her radiant face, or to listen to the music of her laugh, which rippled like water falling into water. Guy, who was more than thirty, and was sure that he was very old, liked to watch his sister and his friend together, and to call them 'you children'.

'What is the special information that the editor brought, dear?' Beatrice asked Trant, as soon as they were seated round the table.

'Well,' he answered. 'It seems that he managed to get hold of young Egerton Cotton, Professor Glazebrook's assistant, who is staying at the Metropole. Of course, various rumours have got about from the crew of the ship, but nothing will be definitely known till the inquest tomorrow. Cotton's story is really too absurd, but Fleming insisted on its going in.'

'Did he give him much for his information?' Descaves asked.

'Pretty stiff, I think. I know the Courier offered fifty, but he stuck out. Fleming only got it just at the last moment. It's silly nonsense, of course, but it'll send the sales up tomorrow.'

'What is the whole thing exactly?' Beatrice asked. 'All that I've heard is that Professor Glazebrook brought back some enormous bird from the Arctic, and that just off the Nore the thing escaped and killed him. I'm sure that sounds quite sufficiently extraordinary for anything; but I suppose it's all a lie.'

'Well,' said Trant. 'What Egerton Cotton says is the most extraordinary thing I have ever heard - it's simply laughable - but it will sell 300,000 extra copies. I'll tell you. I've got the whole thing fresh in my brain. You know that Professor Glazebrook was one of the biggest biologists who have ever lived, and he's been doing a great, tedious, monumental book on prehistoric animals, the mammoth and all that sort of thing that E T Reid draws in Punch. Some old scientific Johnny in Wales used to find all the money, and he fitted out the Professor's exploration ship, the Henry Sandys, to go and find these mammoths and beasts which have got frozen up in the ice. Don't you remember about two years ago when they started from Tilbury? They got the Lord Mayor down, and a whole host of celebrities, to see them go. I was there reporting, I remember it well, and Reggie Lance did an awfully funny article about it, which he called 'The Hunting of the Snark'. Well, Egerton Cotton tells Fleming - the man must be mad - that they found a whole lot of queer bears and things frozen up, but no very great find until well on into the second year, when they were turning to come back. Fleming says he's seen all the diaries and photographs and everything; they had a frightfully hard time. At last one day they came across a great block of ice, and inside it, looking as natural as you please, was a huge winged sort of dragon creature, as big as a carthorse. Fleming saw a photograph. I don't know how they faked it up, and he says it was the most horrid cruel sort of thing you ever dreamt of after lobster salad. It had big, heavy wings, and a beak like a parrot, little flabby paws all down its body like a caterpillar, and a great bare, pink, wrinkled belly. Oh, the most filthy-looking brute! They cut down the ice till it was some decent size, and they hauled the whole thing chock-a-block, like a prune in a jelly, into the hold. The ice was frightfully hard, and one of the chains of the donkey engine broke once, and the whole thing fell, but even then the block held firm. It took them three weeks to get it on board. Well, they sailed away with their beastly Snark as jolly as sandboys, and Cotton says the Professor was nearly out of his mind with joy - used to talk and mumble to himself all day. They put the thing in a huge refrigerator like the ones the Australian mutton comes over in, and Glazebrook used to turn on the electric lights and sit muffled up in furs watching his precious beast for hours.'

He stopped for a moment to light a cigarette, noticing with amusement that Guy and Beatrice were becoming tremendously interested. He made Beatrice pour him out a great tankard of beer before he would go on, and he moved to the window seat, where it was cooler, and he could sit just outside the brilliant circle of light thrown by the tall shaded lamp. The other two listened motionless, and as he unfolded the grisly story, his voice coming to them out of the darkness became infinitely more dramatic and impressive.

'Well, Cotton says that this went on for a long time. He had to do all the scientific work himself, writing up their journals and developing the photos, as the Professor was always mysteriously pottering about in the cellar place. At last, one day, Glazebrook came into the cabin at lunch or whatever they have, and said he was going to make a big experiment. He talked a lot of rot about toads and reptiles being imprisoned for thousands of years in stones and ice, and then coming to life, and he said he was going to try and melt out the dragon and tickle it into life with a swingeing current from the dynamo. Cotton laughed at him, but it wasn't any good, and they set to work to thaw the creature out with braziers. When they got close to it Cotton said that the water from the ice, as it melted, got quite brown and smelt! It wasn't till they were within almost a few hours from the Channel - you remember they put into some place in Norway for coal - and steaming for London River as hard as they could go, that they got it clear.

'While they were fixing the wires...