Wanderers of Time

by John Wyndham

  Were we sure all the explosive had been jettisoned? Might there not have been some other kind of explosive concealed among the tillfer fibre or in the stacked ganywood? How many ringbolts and parachutes had we attached? Just how had we come to lose the Excelsis? How much gold was there on board of her?

  The men knew their job. Their questions were apposite and exhaustive. It went on for quite a time. We answered all we could and they seemed satisfied with our replies.

  The Captain told them all they asked and kept to the point. Not until they appeared to have finished did he put a question of his own.

  ‘Can’t you tell us something about it?’ he said. ‘We’ve only heard that the Excelsis fell and did damage somewhere in Germany.’

  For answer one of the interrogators picked up a newspaper which had recently been brought in and handed it to him. The First Officer and I got up and read it over his shoulder. The headline was right across the page:

  ‘ROCKET SHIP WRECKS TOWN’

  There followed a short but lurid account. It needed only half an eye to see that it had been hurriedly written up from very scanty information.

  We learned that the disaster had occurred in Pfaffheim, Wurtemburg, shortly before 12.30 p.m. (11.30 a.m. G.M.T.). A series of colossal explosions had occurred, rocking the whole town, shattering a number of buildings and causing the collapse of many more. So great had been the detonation that it had startled citizens in Stuttgart, 40 miles away. No figures of the dead and injured were yet available, but it was feared that they would run into thousands. The loss of life might have been greater but for the fact that most workers had left the factories for their mid-day meal.

  Numerous witnesses had testified to seeing a rocket ship unbraked by any parachutes falling rapidly into the town immediately before the explosions occurred. Inquiries at the Salvage Register Office revealed that only one ship was known to be approaching Earth in a free fall, the Excelsis, It was unlikely, in the extreme, that there could be another.

  We read the sketchy and unsatisfactory account rapidly. I don’t think any of us doubted for a moment that it was the Excelsis. The Central Office would have been sure to know of another ship in a similar condition, for it is in every salvage ship’s interest to register her claim to a wreck as soon as possible. But, for all that, we did not clearly understand the account.

  ‘A series of explosions?’ asked the Captain, looking up at the three officials. ‘What do they mean by that? If there had been explosives on her she’d have gone up in one mighty bang.’

  ‘Where is Pfaffheim?’ asked Sinderton, before the others could answer. ‘I thought I knew Wurtemburg fairly well, but I’ve never heard of the place.’

  ‘Our own official notification from Germany speaks of one explosion, not a series,’ said the man who had given us the newspaper. ‘As for Pfaffheim-’ He reached for a gazetteer, found the right page and pushed it across the desk.

  He watched us with raised eyebrows as we read:

  Pfaffheim: Village, Wurtemburg, river Jagar, 30 miles S.E.

  Stuttgart, pop. 2,100. Agricultural.

  ‘There seem,’ I said, ‘to be some differences of opinion here. One explosion, not a series, 30 miles from Stuttgart, not 40, thousands of casualties in a population of 2,100, among factory workers in an agricultural district.’

  I looked at the date on the gazetteer. It was current all right.

  ‘Well?’ I asked.

  Our leading questioner shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘It appears certain enough that the Excelsis fell there and that one or more explosions followed. Further than that, well I frankly don’t understand at present. There is more than the usual first report inaccuracy, but we ought to be able to clear it up before long.

  ‘You gentlemen will have to appear before a magistrate, of course, but I think you may safely assume that there will be no difficulty about bail.’

  He was quite right about that. There was a special and expeditious handling of our charge, and we were able to return to our families that evening. Sinderton went home, I know, with the same feeling as I did: that a day or two would see the whole mistaken business satisfactorily explained. But Captain Belford—well, perhaps he had a naturally more suspicious mind than we had, or it may have been some kind of premonition.

  So far, the public had no interest in the affair. The reports were, of course, in all the evening papers, but even in those days nobody paid serious attention to an evening paper’s headlines. So it can be said that the Belford affair, as it came to be known, really started the next day, with such introductions as:

  ‘TREASURE SHIP WIPES OUT TOWN’

  ‘GOLD ROCKET DESTROYS THOUSANDS’ ‘DEATH SHIP DROPS IN CITY’

  The last was particularly effective on the contents bills; it left it to the readers to find out that the city referred to was not the City of London.

  I bought several papers and read them carefully without learning much. They were all on much the same lines as yesterday’s report. Pfaffheim was still taken to be a town of several thousands of working-class inhabitants, though a single explosion, not a series, was now reported. All reports still bore an appearance of being written up from meagre information. Nevertheless, in spite of its slender knowledge, The Radiogram seized the opportunity for improving the occasion with a leader in which it demanded a public inquiry and more than hinted at inefficiency and carelessness in the handling of salvage.

  I read it through. It was in its usual vituperative style. I could not take it very seriously, and I did not suppose anyone else would. Who was going to believe that rather than open a few fuel-cocks we were going to run the risk of almost certainly losing our salvage money? Fuel is valuable, of course, but apart from anything else it must be obvious to everyone that the extra weight of full tanks would inevitably have torn the Excelsis free from her cables and crashed her.

  I was still skimming the various accounts when the telephone rang and a voice told me that the D.A.C. of the Special Branch would be pleased to see me if I would step along about 12 o’clock. There are several ways of being invited to Scotland yard. This one was perfectly amiable.

  Captain Belford and Sinderton were already there when I was shown in. The D.A.C. and his secretary were the only others this time. The three were bending over a photograph on the desk. The D.A.C. pointed to it, and I looked more closely.

  It showed a rocket-ship lying on her side. In the foreground and far into the background was a scene of desolation and utter destruction. Here and there were deep craters; the only vestiges of buildings were piles of bricks and rubble. The vista suggested a vast, dreary rubbish dump.

  The angle at which the picture was taken showed that one side at least of the ship had been badly gashed and battered. Nevertheless, to those as well acquainted with her as we were, it was not difficult to recognise the old Excelsis.

  While I was still looking at it, the Captain straightened up.

  ‘What does this mean?’ he asked the D.A.C.

  The policeman took a cigarette and pushed across the box.

  ‘As far as we can see it means quite a lot. I’m not sure how much yet, but I shall be surprised if it doesn’t spell trouble of some kind.’

  He offered us chairs.

  ‘Perhaps the best aspect of it,’ he went on, ‘is that it will clear you gentlemen of the charge of negligence. It’s perfectly obvious that if the Excelsis had been in fuel when she hit there wouldn’t be a plate or a rivet of her to be found—but here she’s only a bit battered. No, it may be more serious than that.’

  ‘Well, what did happen? Let’s have it,’ said the Captain.

  The D.A.C. was not to be hurried.

  ‘Since you were here we’ve been in touch with the Secret Service and learned quite a few interesting things. The chief one is that Pfaffheim ceased to be an agricultural village about two years ago. What you’ve done is to drop your Excelsis right into the centre of a new thriving and extremely hush-hush

  cent
re of explosives manufacture. As a result, you’ve achieved the destruction of five or six factories, wiped out an unknown number of storage depots, and utterly wrecked innumerably buildings. Furthermore, you have caused the sudden departure to Valhalla of several high officials, dozens of skilled chemists to say nothing of between three and four thousand employees. That is what happened. And I may add that the authorities over there are very annoyed about it.’

  He paused. ‘They’re even more annoyed that the report of the disaster got out. They moved fast, but not quite fast enough. It was too big a thing for even their censorship to hold in. News of a series of explosions was half across the world before they put out their official version of one explosion, and a British Agent had got this picture before they were reorganised enough to stop him.

  ‘According to his report, the Excelsis landed right on top of one of the largest subterranean stores. He doesn’t know the type of explosive stored there, but apparently it went off on concussion. Someone told him that so immense was the force of the explosion that the ship was blown into the air again andlanded a full hundred yards to the side of its first hit. No one can say quite how that set off the rest, of course, but there seem to have been eight or ten major explosions, if not more.’ We were all a bit stunned. Our own satisfaction at being cleared from suspicion of neglect was rather damped down by the scale of the catastrophe.

  ‘The Foreign Office,’ the policeman went on, ‘is inclined to link it up with reports that they’ve found a method of stabilising liquid oxygen bombs—which means very cheap production of explosives. They think that the stabilising may require several processes and the Excelsis concussed and set off some which were in an intermediate stage. The detonation of these might then conceivably have… .’

  But we were in no mood for theoretical consideration of causes. Our own position was by now uppermost in our minds again. Captain Belford asked what all three of us wanted to know when he said:

  ‘I suppose this means that the charge against us will be dropped?’

  The other broke off and switched his attention to this side of the affair.

  ‘You will have to attend the hearing, I’m afraid. But it will only be a matter of a few minutes. The police will inform the magistrate that in the light of further information they do not wish to proceed. That will dispose of the police side. The Government inquiry into the loss of the Excelsis is a different matter; that will take place in the usual course.’ It was a relief to all of us to hear that. It is a funny thing that for most men the whitest conscience is no protection from some apprehension in the presence of the police.

  CHAPTER SIX

  CRIMINALS OF SPACE

  We three had lunch together and went our ways with the feeling that it had all blown over quite satisfactorily for us. The prospect of a formal inquiry did not worry us: after all, that follows in three out of every four cases of salvage. For me the feeling lasted until 7 o’clock when I read in a late evening edition that Captain William Belford had been arrested at his house at Highgate.

  I found the news in the stop-press after I had read the rest of the paper. They had, it appeared, now discovered that Pfaffheim was not an agricultural village, but they cautiously refrained from saying just what it was. However, I noticed that some emphasis was laid on the series of explosions in contrast to the official report. I only happened to notice the sentence in the stop-press by accident; two minutes later I was on the ’phone to Scotland Yard. I gave my name and they put me through to the D.A.C. at once.

  ‘What’s this about arresting the Captain?’ I demanded. ‘Have they repeated yesterday’s news or something?’

  ‘No. It’s right enough,’ he told me. ‘We’ve been looking for you, too. Where are you?’

  ‘What’s it about?’ I asked cautiously.

  ‘It’s about murder and attempted murder. You didn’t go home this afternoon did you?’

  ‘No. I’m just on my way there now.’

  ‘Well, change your mind. I want you round here as soon as you can manage it.’

  ‘But….’

  ‘No buts. This is serious. I’ll tell you when you come.’

  I hesitated.

  ‘All right. In about ten minutes,’ I told him.

  ‘Glad you saw that news.’ he said, as I entered. ‘We hoped you would. Didn’t know how else to get at you before you went home.’

  ‘But you said this morning….’ I began.

  ‘Oh, this morning. That’s different. Let me tell you this. If you’d gone home you’d most likely not be alive now. Captain Belford was shot at and wounded in front of his house about half-past three. Mr. Sinderton was murdered on his own doorstep about the same time. It’s ten to one they were ready for you, too.’

  ‘Sinderton dead?’ I said, incredulously.

  ‘With five bullets. The Captain had only a flesh wound in the arm, luckily.’

  I just gaped at him.

  ‘But I don’t understand. Who… ? What… ? What do you mean, ready for me?’

  ‘I mean that your two friends were the subjects of deliberate attacks—And I’m pretty sure you would have been, too, if they’d known where to find you.’

  ‘But I don’t understand,’ I said again. ‘Who do you mean by “they?” Who on earth would want to shoot me?’

  ‘Might it not be some friends or—er—associates of the people at Pfaffheim?’ he suggested.

  I pulled myself together and considered. I couldn’t see it. ‘Quite unlikely, I should say,’ I returned, pretty calmly. ‘What on earth would be the good of that? What would be the point of shooting us on account of an accident? It’s not sensible.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said slowly. ‘But can you think of any other reason why there should be attempts on them both?’

  ‘I can’t think of any reason at all. What you suggest certainly isn’t a reason,’ I told him.

  ‘Possibly you’re right. We shall see. At any rate, I shall be glad if you will make arrangements to stay away from home for a night or two until it is cleared up.’

  I argued with him a bit. I couldn’t see any reason why I was in danger, but he was persuasive. Without actually putting it into words, he somehow suggested that there was a lot at the back of the business. By the time he got through I had an uneasy feeling that any corner might hide a gunman waiting for me. It’s not a nice sensation. In the end I agreed to stay, though not without a sense that I was scared of a shadow.

  Either the Secret Service had released their photograph or some enterprising journalist had contrived to smuggle out another, for there was the picture of the damaged Excelsis among the debris she was supposed to have caused, large in every paper, and on the front page of most. It made it clear to

  everyone that the ship had not blown up. Furthermore, the later editions ran a translation from German papers. Realising that their censorship had broken down, they were shouting their heads off with another theory.

  The whole thing, we learned, was an infamous plot. Jewish influence, combining behind the Jewish Captain Belford, had aimed a blow at the defences of the Reich; the first blow in the covert war which World Jewry was opening against Germany: the blood of two thousand five hundred German martyrs was on their heads. Investigations by the Gestapo had revealed that Captain Belford and his officers had been bribed to the extent of £250,000 to drop the Excelsis on the defenceless town of Pfaffheim and to make it appear an accident. It was no accident. It was a bolt fired at Germany and German defence. The two thousand five hundred Aryan Germans who had been its victims had fallen for the Fatherland as truly as any soldier in the field. They would be avenged. The people of the Third Reich demanded that the murderers be surrendered to German justice.

  The well-known technique of ‘the big lie’ was at work again. I had been given quarters with the Captain and we read the stuff through together, marvelling that anyone should find it worth printing.

  ‘But I’m not a Jew,’ said the Captain, bewilderedly.

&n
bsp; ‘What do you think that matters?’ I said. ‘You’re accused of an anti-Nazi plot, so you must be a Jew.’

  ‘And how the hell do they think I did it? Don’t they know that even under the best conditions you can’t be sure within fifty miles either side where a derelict will fall?’

  ‘Of course they know. But does the public? After all don’t we spend a deuce of a lot of time trying to convince them of the accuracy and dependability of the Rocket Service?’

  ‘Two-fifty thousand. H’m. It’d almost have been worth trying,’ muttered the Captain.

  The D.A.C., accompanied by the Assistant Commissioner himself, came to visit us.

  ‘Well,’ he said, as his eye fell on the papers. ‘They’re out for your blood, aren’t they? We’ve already had a demand from the Embassy for your extradition.’

  ‘I’ll sue them for libel,’ said the Captain.

  ‘In a German court?’ asked the Assistant Commissioner, with a smile.

  ‘But this stuff’s all rot. They must know that,’ I protested.

  ‘Of course they do. But they’re out to get you one way or another, aren’t they?’ he pointed to the sling which held the Captain’s arm. ‘The question is why?’

  ‘It’s absurd. A state doesn’t revenge itself like that on individuals for what it knows must have been a pure accident,’ I told him.

  ‘Quite. I agree. So there must be another reason, mustn’t there?’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘Have you forgotten the Excelsis’s cargo? There was gold, they’re very short of that.’

  The Captain gave a snort. He showed signs of launching himself on one of his customary attacks on gold, but thought better of it.

  ‘And there was ganywood—nearly as valuable. And there was a lot of tillfer fibre—how about that?’

  It was an aspect which had not struck me before. Tillfer fibre under treatment produces Etherium, the lightest known gas; we used to use it in the wings of ’planes to give added lift, among other things. Since tillfer grows only on Ganymede and in limited quantities there, and also because there was an Anglo-American trade protectorate in force there, the Germans couldn’t get it. It was one of the raw materials they felt sore about. Hard on them, of course, but how much would they have let us have if it had been their trade protectorate? That’s an easy answer.