He purchased a few things for his personal stores aboard L’Eole. She sailed on the morning tide two days hence.
Commander Burton was not much company on the passage home. He was not his usual self. He cared little for the men aboard, and even less about the ship. L’Eole was only a vehicle to escape those memories.
He felt changed. He was changed. He wanted his life in Jamaica back. He left the work of the ship to his officers. First Lieutenant Dodd was a mean drunk, and was often in his cups. The second lieutenant was a bumbling fool. That’s probably why these louts are being sent home. They’ll throw them out of the Navy when we get there. He kept to himself as much as a captain can. There were no letters to write. I could write to my mother, to Elizabeth, or to Mary, but what would they think? What would they do with my letters? Throw them away in disbelief? Hell, I’ll be home as soon as the letters would get there anyway. Who am I now? Some lieutenant who has been away for three years... where has he been? Why am I being sent home on this ship? Am I going home to be thrown out of the Navy, too? I suppose I had better fabricate a story… a simple one!
The men sensed a leaderless ship as well, and morale was low. He paced the quarterdeck incessantly. The time crawled by, glass after glass, and Neville drank too much rum.
They took no notice of the dozens of ships they sighted along the American coast. Britain was not at war with the fledgling United States, and with only a skeleton delivery crew, they could chase no French merchantmen. They had no business ashore. He could never explain himself to the family he knew was in Norfolk. His father would be gone like Thomas Fuller, anyway. They would not stop until Plymouth.
25 - “Mulholland’s Meeting”
Two gentlemen sat in Sir William Mulholland’s London club rather late one dreary afternoon, alternately watching rain run down the windows and staring into the fire, while having drinks with a political discussion. Sir Mulholland’s visitor was Captain Wilson, a navy officer experienced in scientific expeditions. He was in full dress, as one would expect of a navy captain calling on a senior Navy Office bureaucrat that he correctly suspected was connected at a high level within Whitehall.
“So you are saying, Captain Wilson, that the French in Guadeloupe would be happy to leave the place if only we English would guarantee that their traditional territories there were left in peace. That seems preposterous! How could you come to such a conclusion? An ‘undred-some years ago Governor Jean-Pierre de Charitte of Martinique promised to make every island in the Caribbean speak French.”
“That speech, I’m afraid, has been subject to the rumors of time and the bias of our English outlook. That’s not exactly what he said, and it is certainly not what he meant. And you certainly know that it is not how time has played the game out.”
“How come you to claim such detailed knowledge of a conversation an ‘undred years ago on the far side of the great Atlantic Ocean, Captain? Again, simply the bias of our English outlook?”
The conversation had been preceded by a sufficiency of drink after a hearty warm lunch and half an hour in a warm room. Captain Wilson, obviously a bit more under the influence of the alcohol than he should have been, took the question as a slur on his credibility. The brandy took over. His tone changed to that of one challenged. “Why no, sir!” he replied. “I was there and heard him speak it with my own ears. The subject of the discussion in his drawing room was…” and he paused in mid-sentence, looked quickly into the eyes of Sir William, furtively about the room, and then back down to his hands. “I mean….,” he began again, pausing as if to conjure the end of a reasonable sentence. “I’ve been reading a history. It’s the drink, Sir, I apologize.”
Sir William glanced quickly around the dim club room. The overstuffed chairs were empty. Used newspapers lay on the lamp tables and some in the chairs. A few lamps still burned. The smell of cigar smoke and cognac lingered and empty glasses and crumpled serviettes littered the small tables. No members slumped in their seats; all had apparently gone to their afternoon business.
Captain Wilson was looking around the room warily now, as well. His eyes then settled upon Sir William. “I’m sure I misspoke, Sir Mulholland. I must apologize for being a rude guest. It has been an educational luncheon and I may have had one cognac too many. I think I should bid you a good day and retire. We…”
“I don’t think you’re alone, sir,” interrupted Sir William.
“Sir?”
“Alone. You may be a student of history, but I do not believe you are the only time traveler. I am becoming convinced that your – experience - is not unique; nor is it so uncommon that I cannot find others. Neither is it something you can present to the Royal Society or discuss at whist. You would be thought mad. I don’t mean only you, but anyone enjoying such a voyage. But for this slip of the tongue, I would guess you’ve never spoken of this to anyone. Am I wrong? Have you indeed exceeded the normal boundaries of the common man’s lifetime?”
“As you say, sir,” responded Captain Wilson after a few moments of awkward silence. He glanced once more around the room and very carefully chose his next words, which were spoken very quietly: “Anyone claiming to have spent a part of his life an ‘undred years before he was born would be thought mad, as you say, or at the very least an incorrigible drunken storyteller. The more he insists upon it being true, the less credibility his words would have. Do you wish me disrespect, sir? Would you have me lose my career for a stumble of the tongue?”
“You are a scientific man, Captain. Would you like to hear my hypothesis on the movement of man across the borders of time?” queried Sir William, looking earnestly into Captain Wilson’s eyes.
After another long pause he replied as calmly as he could muster, intentionally leaning nonchalantly back into the leather bolsters, “So long I am the listener to a preposterous story and not the teller of a tall tale, I might be bribed to stay by a short glass of port,”
Sir Mulholland smiled and tugged twice on the velvet cord beside the small table.
They were both thankfully aware that several minutes passed before a tall thin waiter in a white jacket appeared. No one had been close by who might have heard a word of the conversation so far. The waiter came and went. The additional passage of time also gave each an opportunity to organize his thoughts. The waiter returned with two glasses of a rather sweet port, and vanished again, undoubtedly hoping that these two old codgers would make a quick end to any need for him to remain on station.
Sir William Mulholland began. “In my position with the Navy Office I have noticed curious absences among some officers. I say curious, as these absences usually cannot be explained. The whereabouts of a Prisoner of War, for example, often cannot be confirmed. We only know our officer is missing. After unsuccessful sea battles, men may be ‘marooned’ on an enemy vessel, reported to have fallen overboard, or left ashore unconscious. These men reappear later - a few days or several years. They have stories that are credible, though barely. I actually met one of these men who sailed into London with the rank of senior lieutenant when he had left as a midshipman three years before. However, since he had been on a supply ship that met with a scientific expedition and transferred ship, I could see no reason why the reports of his deceased captains should be challenged. Nevertheless, they described this knowledge of the world they were exploring to be ‘surprising’ and ‘prescient in detail’.
“I do not believe that mariners should expect to experience this phenomenon more than landsmen, but their freedom to move about and, shall we say, ‘cover their tracks’ provides an opportunity to continue their existing lives and careers. Landsmen may have to disappear and take up a new life where they’re not known or face being thought mad for simply explaining where they’ve been. Certainly, there are no records of them as in the navy. Captain Wilson, if I examine your service record closely, what will I find? One who could not be you, yet was? Another Wilson, perhaps of a more junior rank than captain, mentioned in the records of Barbados or Antigua or
Jamaica those hundred years ago?”
“An excellent idea, indeed,” Mulholland more mumbled into his glass than asked the captain, “I must take a look at that account.” Turning back to Captain Wilson, he declared, “I will not make a public spectacle of you. This knowledge, if true, must remain a military secret, not to mention a valuable addition to an understanding of our world.”
“You will find gaps, I should call them, Sir William, and it would relieve me no end to be able to discuss these gaps with another living being. You might indeed find something in the papers of Governor Codrington the Younger, if I made such an impression as to be mentioned. But not here, as quiet as it is. Can you suggest an alternative location to continue this?”
Sir Mulholland pulled his pocket watch from his pocket and glanced down at it. “Yes,” he responded, “But I am expecting someone any moment now. I shall call you tomorrow at the….?”
“The Queen’s Rose, Sir.”
“Right,” he finalized, rising and stretching out his hand.
A shuffle at the door then caused both men to turn. The tall waiter in the white jacket was ushering another officer into the foyer, helping him to remove his dripping greatcoat. The stocky figure entered; this time a young commander.
“He’s in here, Sir,” the waiter was saying, and they came through the narrow door as Captain Wilson moved to leave.
The two officers stopped for only a moment, looking at each other directly. “Lieutenant Neville Burton, Sir,” said Neville, removing his hat. It was difficult to tell if the motion was in respect or if he was removing the hat simply because he had come in out of the rain. Captain Wilson glanced over him quickly, as a liveryman would inspect a new horse, or more a like a captain would inspect a new lieutenant. “Captain Wilson, Sir, of the Isis.”
“I am proud to make your acquaintance, Sir. I sailed under Captain Yorke with your squadron to Skagerrak in the Stag back in… umm… 1795.”
Wilson stared at him a second longer, then waved at the white coat for his street wear without responding. Over his shoulder, he would have heard Neville saying, “Sir William, it’s been quite a while. You look well.” He did hear it, surely, for he turned to look back at the two of them curiously. It would have seemed unusually personal. He himself may not even have known Mulholland’s first name.
Mulholland looked Neville in the face for a full minute and said, “It has certainly been too long, Neville, but you look quite haggard, I must say. We must have a lot of tales to tell! Come sit by the fire and dry the rain from your stockings!”
Neville Burton entered the warm room where Sir William Mulholland, his mentor and family friend of many years, stood. After fifteen minutes of the usual small talk about the London weather and that of Bury St. Edmunds, the home town of both, they came to Mulholland’s questions: “How long have you been here? On which ship did you arrive? Do you have orders? etc., Sir William began to sense an uneasiness he had not known with Neville before, and he decided to satisfy his burning curiosity forthwith.
“How goes the war, Neville?” he asked.
“I’ve been away some time,” Neville replied, beginning a test of his fabricated story in an attempt to deflect a question to which he had no idea how to respond, “I’ve come straight in from Plymouth to London to see you on the way home.”
“Yes, that much I know. Where did you go?”
“First to the Caribbean, then south and around Cape Horn on a scientific expedition,” Neville lied. “I’m sorry I didn’t write, but there was no way to post a letter. On the way back I was set on the L’Eole to bring her home.”
Mulholland looked at him with appropriate disbelief, saying, “I did not know of this expedition.” Coming from a man whom Neville knew to be in the intelligence trade, this was the equivalent of calling him a liar, and Neville’s face flared red – not at being called a liar, but at being caught at it. “What ship?”
Neville stood dumbfounded. He had not thought to research that question.
“I think it’s a good thing you’ve stopped in to see me first, then. I have something of enormous importance to ask you, Neville. It’s business, if you will, not pleasantries, so please bear with me a few minutes for some explanation. First, take a glace ‘round the house. It’s only we two. There’s no one here this afternoon except us and that waiter and we can pause while he comes and goes. Before we begin, would you like something?”
The waiter was called. He came and went twice before Sir William began: “In the 1790’s my interest was piqued by research of our naval files, which I do, of course, in conjunction with my duties.” He did not have to say, “... as one of England’s major spymasters in the war(s) against France, who is always looking for ways to annoy the enemy…,” which Neville knew already and would not have mentioned aloud.
“I understand, Sir. I have already been involved with some of your activities, as you remember.”
“Oh, it is not exactly that, I assure you, although I cannot doubt it might lead us there. I’m not quite sure how to begin. I find myself at a very unusual loss for words…..”
“Continue, please, Sir William. You have my confidence, for all love!”
“The navy keeps almost everything, you know; official letters, orders, and sometimes even battle plans scribbled on the backs of napkins. It can be quite a treasure trove for those who would take time to look through. “I found… anomalies… several officers and a few significant warrant officers who have large - multi-year - gaps in their histories. There is not sufficient mention of those of lesser rank to draw any conclusions with them. I’m sorry; I digress, so I shall return to my prepared course.
“One instance is the man you just met – another is Sir William Mitchell, then of the Dolphin who was rumored to have been flogged ‘round the fleet in 1768 for desertion, if you could believe that!” Then he simply disappeared for three years. One would expect it to be for recuperation, but he then reappeared on the HMS Hector in the American theater in 1777. I don’t know how. I can’t find any record of it, except the order to go aboard.
“He’s not the only one I have found or have spoken with in the last few years, and I have found their independent responses compelling for a theory of time….time…. what shall I call it? Time travel, maybe one would say, though the phenomenon seems to be rather random. My scattered thoughts were that if I could identify officers with the potential to travel again through time and send them on missions, we might find a military advantage. I say ‘send’ them on missions, but it seems I could not ‘send’, but only inform and hope for a result.
“The missions have only a chance to affect the near future – or what I suspect the near future holds – because I cannot see the future, and I have never met anyone who appears to have traveled forward in time. The only way I have of finding individuals who travel time is by my review of naval records – historical documents. No one comes to me. I must find them. There may be many others, you know, among army officers or even the general populace, but I have no way of finding them. They all would be thought mad if they were to tell their stories publicly. For that matter, I must be careful whom I approach, lest they begin prattling abroad about ‘That mad historian of Whitehall’ or whatever they might call me.
“But I have not been wrong. Not yet, at least. Every poor soul I have encountered, after a brief period of extreme guardedness, has not only told his tale, but has been awkwardly thankful to me for hearing him out. I could see the anguish drain from their bodies as they told me of their years in other places; of miseries to test them, of fortunes and loves lost, and of great adventure. Most walked in as tired men and walked away with the step of a much younger man. Not simply was the burden of a secret that cannot be told lifted, but hope was given that it might actually happen again. Most surprising interviews, every one!
“And now I come to it! You reappear now after being gone for three years, and you know nothing of the war, unless I miss my guess entirely, and you don’t even know the na
me of the ship in which you went on an exploration. You, sir, fit the mold from which these others are struck. Not only you, but also your father. Certainly, many men go missing from our fighting ships, but usually there is someone who has seen something of an officer’s demise. Your father, for example - nothing! He disappeared in a puff of smoke. Does that make you a better candidate for this phenomenon than your friend Daniel Watson? I’m certain I don’t know, but it’s worth a look in the records, is it not?”
Neville could feel the heat rising, even though the temperature of the room had not changed a whit. The candle still guttered from a silent unfelt draught, probably from the next room where the door had been left open, and the fire crackled no more than it did five minutes before. Was he showing a red face or fidgeting? Despite hearing Sir William’s stories of the others, he still felt a need to remain quiet on the subject, and for exactly the reasons given by Sir William. Sir William was coming at him, though, he could feel it.
“And so I did,” continued Sir William, pausing for a sip of brandy.
“Did what, Sir?” asked Neville, a bit more quickly and a bit more formally than he would have liked.
“Looked you up, of course. You’ve gone missing, in case you’ve forgotten, for three years. I didn’t even have to go to the records, actually. Your mother and sister were most distraught for some time, as was Miss Mitchell. They came to me for advice. You must have an excuse why you didn’t write, mustn’t you? We’ll have to work on the one you just tried to give me. Did you know that there have been mentions of a British officer named Neville Burton before you?” Sir William paused there again, watching Neville intently.
A Journal of The Experiment at Jamaica (The Neville Burton 'Worlds Apart' Series Book 2) Page 38
