Prologue: The Great Stink
July 8, 1858
Location: Royal Society, London
"We can colonise the remotest ends of the earth! Conquer India! Pay the interest of the most enormous debt ever contracted! Spread our name, and our fame, and our fructifying wealth to every part of the world! But we cannot clean the River Thames?" thundered the great Sir Joseph Bazalgette to the astonished members of the Royal Society in attendance at the emergency session of the learned body.
In the sweltering summer heat, the miasma emanating from the Thames had intensified from noisome to pestilential. And then the sewage monsters had begun to emerge from the sludge.
Pocket handkerchief applied fastidiously to his nose, Benjamin Disraeli was heard to wonder whether the noble Lords in attendance had taken any measures for mitigating the effluvium and discontinuing the nuisance.
A Member of Parliament, silk handkerchief similarly clasped to his delicate nose, replied haughtily that the River Thames was not under his jurisdiction.
Disraeli glowered at the dandy. "By a perverse ingenuity, one of the noblest of rivers has been changed into a cesspool, and I wish to ask whether Her Majesty's Government intend to take any steps to remedy the evil!"
As the lords squabbled, Thomas Crapper, master plumber and inventor extraordinaire, rose to his feet. "My Lords! I have designed a weapon capable of destroying all those slimy creatures, the sewer monsters, which infest the Thames!"
"You have indeed," said Lord Brougham, smiling benignly at the young man who stood before him. "I am told you have invented an ingenious weapon, powered by the marvels of science and reason, for destroying these monsters."
"Yes, my lord," said Crapper, nodding eagerly. "It is a simple device, but effective beyond belief..."
***
Chapter 1: The Cholera-Beast
July 9, 1858
Location: Sewers under London
Master Crapper led me into the fetid depths of the sewers under London. My Crapper Cannon was a reassuringly heavy presence cradled in my arms: