The Very First Damned Thing

by Jodi Taylor

  To the right of the door, a console with an incomprehensible array of read-outs, flashing lights, dials, and switches sat beneath a large, wall-mounted screen, currently showing only a view of an empty car park in the gathering dusk.

  Bunches of cables ran up the walls to disappear into a tiled ceiling. Two excruciatingly uncomfortable-looking chairs were screwed to the floor in front of the console. A row of lockers ran along the back wall, and in the far corner, a narrow door led into the toilet.

  The tiny space smelled of stale people, chemicals, hot electrics, damp carpet, and cabbage.

  ‘I have room for one passenger to sit alongside me in relative comfort,’ said Dr Bairstow. ‘Perhaps, madam, you would like to take advantage of our meagre facilities. I’m sure I don’t have to impress upon you the importance of not touching anything.’

  Somewhat gingerly, Mrs Green seated herself and looked around.

  ‘It’s a little bit …’

  ‘Cramped?’

  ‘Yes, but that wasn’t what I meant.’

  ‘Ah. You mean the smell.’

  She smiled slightly. ‘Well, I didn’t want to be rude …’

  ‘Yes, my profound apologies, but it is a complete mystery to us. We have no idea whence the cabbage smell emanates. We have, in the past, constructed new pods and the next day we are overwhelmed by the aroma of cabbage. One of the great unsolved mysteries of the universe, I’m afraid. You will soon grow accustomed.’

  As he was speaking, his hands were moving over the console. Lights flashed. ‘Computer.’

  The computer chirped acknowledgement.

  His passengers, as one man, looked apprehensively towards the door.

  Dr Bairstow said, in what he liked to think of as reassuring tones, ‘Please do not be alarmed. In the unlikely event of anything going wrong, we will certainly never know anything about it.’

  Mrs Green gripped the console with both hands.

  ‘There really is no need to hold so tightly. I am rather good at this. Computer, initiate jump.

  The world went white.

  Inside the pod, complete silence reigned.

  ‘You can open your eyes, now,’ said Dr Bairstow in some amusement.

  Four considerably shaken people opened their eyes.

  Major Guthrie said hoarsely, ‘Did something happen? We didn’t move.’

  ‘I told you I was rather good at this. Allow me to activate the screen.’

  Four people stared speechlessly at the screen.

  Thousands of tiny figures moved purposefully around a vast landscape. In silence. Cannons fired puffs of silent white smoke. Charging horses thundered silently across the screen. Chaos reigned quietly.

  ‘Dear … God,’ said Mr Brown, unable to tear his eyes away.

  Mr Black, however, was made of sterner stuff. ‘I don’t believe it. I don’t believe we’ve moved at all. This is just some holo projection and …’

  Dr Bairstow said, ‘Door.’

  The door opened, letting in the sights, sounds, and smells of one of the major battles of the 19th century. Thousands of voices rose over the sound of cannon fire. The thunder of hooves caused the ground to shake. The sharp smell of gunpowder hung in the air.

  As if in a dream, arm outstretched like a blind man, Mr Brown moved slowly towards the open door.

  ‘Everyone please remain where you are,’ said Major Guthrie sharply, drawing his weapon.

  Dr Bairstow closed the door and rose from his seat. ‘Major, I must ask you to surrender your weapon.’

  ‘I’m afraid I’m quite unable to do that, sir.’

  ‘I accept your instinct and training make it difficult for you to comply, but one of our cardinal rules is that no harm must ever come to a contemporary at our hands. I cannot emphasise the importance of that rule too strongly. If your life is in danger you may take steps to protect yourself with pepper spray, or a stun gun of some kind, but you must understand that killing a contemporary can have the gravest consequences. Please remember it is well known that the act of observing changes that which is being observed. We always, therefore, try to keep our interaction with contemporaries to an absolute minimum. Our primary function is to observe, record, and document. Nothing else. Therefore, Major, I must ask you, in the interests of everyone’s safety, to surrender your gun to me, please.’

  He held out his hand as he spoke.

  Still Major Guthrie hesitated. ‘My priority, sir, is the safety of my employers.’

  ‘As is mine. The people here are the potential source of my funding. I would be very distressed if anything should happen to them and I had to begin again.’

  Unseen, Mrs Green smiled faintly.

  Dr Bairstow continued. ‘Major, I understand your reluctance, but if you attempt to shoot a contemporary, then History will act to defend itself and you will be dead before such a thing can happen. And possibly your employers will be as well. And if you shoot me you will, all of you, be here for the rest of your lives because only I can operate this pod. So, again, Major – your gun, please.’

  Reluctantly, Major Guthrie removed the clip, broke open the gun, and passed it over.

  ‘Thank you, Major. I appreciate your good faith. As you can see, I shall simply place it here in this locker for safety. You can access it at any time. I trust you not to do so. And now, with the assistance of Mr Black, shall we endeavour to make sense of what is occurring here today?’

  He indicated the left-hand seat as he spoke and after only the briefest pause, Mr Black took his place.

  ‘You can angle the cameras, and zoom in and pan out by toggling these control keys here.’

  Mr Black visibly swallowed and then, tentatively at first, but with growing confidence, began to range the camera back and forth, making some notes on a pad of paper that Dr Bairstow found for him. Eventually, he cleared his throat and said, in an artificially high voice, ‘Napoleon Bonaparte has escaped from Elba and, in another attempt to make France the most powerful nation in Europe, he has resumed war against the European powers.’

  He stopped, cleared his throat again, and continued. ‘A coalition is formed, consisting of Britain, Prussia, the Netherlands, Hanover, Nassau, and Brunswick, under the joint command of Field Marshals Wellington and Blücher.

  He stared at the screen for a while. Dr Bairstow, who had spent some time studying this event thoroughly and who could have enlightened him, remained silent.

  ‘I believe, yes … I believe we are witnessing … yes … there …’ he pointed at the screen. ‘That’s the 92nd – the Gordon Highlanders. General Pack ordered them to charge, but they’d already lost nearly half their strength in a prior engagement at Quatre Bras. They’ve fielded less than three hundred men today.’

  They watched in silence as the Highlanders moved up, four lines deep, to close with the enemy some thirty yards away, advancing into a hail of French fire.

  Mr Black said quietly, ‘There’s rather a difference between reading the reports that say they were badly knocked about and actually seeing that happen in front of one’s eyes. Things are rather bloody down there, aren’t they? You can see, they’re falling apart in some disorder. Poor devils … they’re certainly taking a bashing.’

  There was silence in the pod. The Highlanders were indeed taking a bashing. On the screen, without a sound, men hurled themselves at their enemies, bayonets fixed, mouths open in silent screams, advancing without hesitation into a barrage of fire. Tiny puffs of smoke bloomed and it was as if they had run into a wall. Simultaneously, the front row flung up their arms and fell. Then the second row. All in complete silence. Everywhere the eye looked, men were dropping to the ground and not getting up again. Huge holes opened up in the lines as soldiers fell by the score. Desperately, the Highlanders struggled on but, inevitably, the moment came when they could go no further.

  Dr Bairstow, who had stepped back to make room, was watching them all very carefully; waiting for the moment when it would dawn on them, as it must, that these were not pages in
a History book, or even prints on an office wall. These were real people – struggling, striving, and dying. Here was fear and pain and mutilation and death.

  Under heavy fire, the Highlanders were retreating over the bodies of the fallen.

  ‘And not a moment too soon,’ murmured Mr Black.

  More French forces burst through the hedge behind which they had been concealed and fell upon them. Caught in a deadly crossfire, their attempt to retreat in good order was abandoned. Officers screamed their orders. Sustaining even heavier losses, the Highlanders were routed.

  Silence filled the pod. Three people could not look away. Mrs Green gripped the edge of the console.

  ‘I had no idea,’ whispered Mr Brown. ‘This is … unbelievable.’

  ‘I knew Wellington described the battle as “a damned close-run thing”,’ said Mr Black, seemingly unable to tear his eyes away, ‘but I had no idea they came so close to defeat. Look, the entire centre is beginning to give way. This is a disaster. Is there some way I can get a close up? Focus on that part of the battle?’

  ‘Allow me,’ said Dr Bairstow, leaning over his shoulder.

  Without warning, faces filled the screen. Real faces, running with blood. Eyes white in smoke-blackened faces. Mouths open, although whether in ferocity or terror was hard to see. Three people jerked back. Someone drew in their breath with a sharp hiss.

  ‘Re-form. Re-form your lines, for God’s sake,’ croaked Mr Brown.

  ‘They will,’ said Mr Black. ‘This is the 92nd. The Highlanders. They have been ordered to hold and hold they will. The few that are left.’ He stared at the slaughter on the screen.

  ‘Surely,’ whispered Mrs Green. ‘They cannot withstand much more. They must give way.’

  Mr Brown stared at the screen. ‘If the farmhouse at La Haye Sainte falls …’

  ‘You know that it will not,’ murmured Dr Bairstow.

  ‘How can you say that, man? Look at them. They’re being cut to pieces. There can surely be no way back from …’

  Unseen bugles sounded.

  ‘What’s happening?’ said Mr Brown.

  ‘There! There! See! General Picton’s men are on the move. Here we go. My God, this is it. I can hardly believe … Look. Look there.’

  From behind the top of the rise, there appeared a row of heads.

  The heads became men.

  Who, in turn, became mounted men.

  The Scots Greys were on the move.

  This was no desperate charge. There was no headlong gallop to engage the enemy. The ground was too broken, too uneven. Mud, bodies, even crops rendered a charge impractical.

  The Scots Greys advanced at a walk, swords drawn, passing quietly through the still-retreating Highlanders. The horses, snorting with the smell of blood in their nostrils, picked their way over the fallen, held in hard by their riders.

  Voices shouted new commands. The Highlanders rallied. Turning to face the enemy once more, they settled their bonnets firmly over their eyes and brought up their weapons. There were so few of them left that they could, legitimately, have fallen back to nurse their wounds. They did not.

  Every Highlander who could seized a stirrup with one hand and took a tight grip on his rifle with the other. More bugles sounded and the pod was filled with voices shouting, ‘Scotland Forever!’

  The scarlet-coated Scots Greys picked up the pace to a fast walk, emerging through the dust and smoke to confront the enemy like a vision from hell.

  The French 45th Regiment of the Line, still struggling to reform their square, looked up to see their death approaching. An unstoppable wave of giant white horses, all bared teeth and iron hooves, bearing down upon them. Each horse was bloodied to the knees, eyes wild with battle fury and ridden by an enormous, red-coated man, sword drawn and murder in his eyes.

  Still clinging to the stirrups, the remnants of the Highlanders re-entered the fray. Slow, stately, and unstoppable, they bore down on the frantically struggling French forces.

  In vain did the French officers scream new orders. There was no time. The enemy was already upon them. In desperation, many of them ran about, physically pushing their men into place. A regimental square, once formed, is well-nigh invincible to cavalry. A square in disorder is a sitting target.

  The Scots Greys rode them down, forcing their way into the very heart of the French ranks. Men disappeared under horses’ hooves. Those who by some miracle had managed to remain on their feet were cut down in an instant. The cavalry had a huge advantage over the infantry. Even standing on tiptoe and lunging with their bayonets at full thrust, the infantry could not reach the riders. Confused and milling around in complete disorder, they were hacked to pieces by the Scots Guards’ sabres and trampled into the ground by their horses.

  It was over within minutes. The entire square was destroyed.

  On the screen, a lone rider broke into a canter, pulling away from his comrades.

  ‘There!’ cried Mr Black. ‘Look! That must be Charles Ewart. Quick! Quick! I want to see.’

  Dr Bairstow adjusted the controls and the cameras zoomed in. A sergeant brandishing a sabre was urging his horse through the French lines, hacking about him like a lunatic. Soldiers fell away on both sides.

  ‘He’s after their Eagle. They’ll make him an officer for this. Go on, man. Go on.’

  A tiny group of men encircled the battle standard, defending it to the death.

  One brave Frenchman closed in and a slash from Ewart took him through the head.

  From nowhere, a lancer flung his lance at the red-coated sergeant who parried it with his sword, all the time urging his horse towards the Eagle.

  ‘Look out!’

  Another French soldier coolly knelt, took aim, and fired. At that range, he could not miss, but he somehow did. His bad aim cost him his life. Before he could reload, Ewart was upon him. Struggling to his feet, the French soldier stood his ground, stabbing wildly with his bayonet. His thrust was parried by Ewart, who, in one movement, cut him down and reached out for the battle standard.

  ‘Go on, man. Go on.’

  With his horse’s momentum carrying him forwards, Ewart dropped his reins, stood in his stirrups, and seized the standard with one hand, thrusting at the bearer with the other. The man fell backwards. The Eagle was won.

  A mighty roar went up as, sword in one hand and brandishing the captured Eagle in the other, Ewart turned and galloped back towards his own lines.

  Inside the pod, three people suddenly realised they had been holding their breath.

  ‘Look,’ said Mrs Green suddenly, ‘this isn’t right, surely? What is happening?’

  The tides of fortune can turn in the blink of an eye and now it was the turn of the Scots Greys to find themselves in trouble.

  They watched the screen as the troopers, now free from obstacles, picked up speed and charged headlong towards General Durutte’s infantry, who, unlike their unfortunate colleagues in the 45th, had had the time to form their square. Disorganised and out of control, the Scots Guards swept ineffectively around the outside, unable to penetrate the square and incurring heavy losses. Men and horses crashed to the ground under a hail of gunfire.

  Mr Black pointed. ‘Their commander, Colonel Hamilton, will urge them on to engage the French artillery. See, there they go.’

  In silence, they watched a small group peel away and thunder up the facing slope to engage a field battery of French cannon. Their success, however, was their undoing.

  Mr Black sighed. ‘As Wellington himself said, “The British cavalry never knows when to stop,” and he was right. Watch.’

  On the screen, the Scots Greys, their horses blown, and unable to rally, were taking heavy fire. The French cavalry, in a frenzy of revenge and retribution, fell upon them. The fighting was vicious and bloody. Colonel Hamilton was seen briefly, wounded in both arms and holding the reins in his teeth, attempting to lead his men back to safety. The French cavalry, ‘The 4th Lancers, I think, but I am not sure,’ murmured Mr Black, cl
osed in.

  Dr Bairstow, his objective gained, turned the cameras away, pulling back from the slaughter and muting the sound. Once again, tiny figures silently filled the screen.

  ‘The Scots Greys were three hundred and ninety men strong,’ said Mr Black, quietly. ‘One hundred and two men died. Another ninety-eight were wounded.’

  ‘True,’ said Dr Bairstow, ‘but by engaging the infantry and forcing them to turn to receive their attack, they caused them to be exposed to the Royal Dragoons who will rout them. Yes, things fell apart, but the centre held. And now will begin the attack on La Haye Sainte.’

  Again, the screen was filled with cotton-wool puffs of cannon smoke. Occasionally, the pod trembled.

  ‘Should we raise our shields?’ asked Mr Brown, anxiously.

  Dr Bairstow withdrew his gaze from the screen and regarded him with polite incomprehension. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Our shields. We do have shields, don’t we?’

  ‘I must confess I’m not entirely sure to what you are referring. Do you perhaps mean some kind of force field?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Something that would prevent us being blown to pieces by stray cannon shot?’

  ‘Yes, that’s it.’

  ‘No, we don’t have anything like that.’

  ‘We don’t? But what happens if we’re hit? What keeps us safe?’

  Dr Bairstow shrugged. ‘A combination of sturdy construction, a very carefully calculated landing site, and the erratic protection of the god of historians.’

  ‘I wonder,’ said Mr Brown, diffidently. ‘Would it be possible to go outside?’

  Mr Black and Mrs Green turned astonished eyes upon him.

  Dr Bairstow smile faintly. ‘Not that I wish to appear selfish in any way, sir, but should anything happen to you then my chances of getting this project off the ground would be severely jeopardised.’

  Mr Brown, who against all the laws of nature appeared to have shed at least twenty years in the last twenty minutes, grinned like a naughty boy. ‘My dear sir, to paraphrase, I invite you to consider the implications to your project of not letting us out for a better look.’