by S G Read
‘The Titanic.’ Sarah answered.
James smiled and after looking up something on his computer he made note in his book.
‘At least we know the year that was and the location the Titanic sank on its maiden voyage to America on April 14th 1912, so it was a little before that and that helps a lot, well it would have done, if the telly hadn’t blown up.’
He made another note in his book and closed it again.
While James started on the next television Sarah and William took a taxi back to the flat and returned to the nineteenth century, they knew how long James took, he was a perfectionist. They remained there with Sarah doing what she was supposed to for once, without finding any excuse not to work. It was not that she minded the work, she was a nineteenth century girl and used to it by now but what was going on in the workshop, was much more exciting.
One day she looked up and saw James crossing the street during the day, this was unusual, he had taken to coming through to eat his evening meal with them in the tavern but they did not usually see him during the day. She watched with interest as he sought out William and sat down beside him. Sarah was soon over there cleaning the table even though it did not need it. She caught the end of the conversation.
‘When do we try it?’ William asked.
‘As soon as you want, I took the liberty of turning it on before I came through so it should be coming on soon after we return, if it follows the same routine the others have.’ James answered.
‘Let’s go then,’ William exclaimed, then added, ‘I suppose you want to be included in this?’ He aimed that at Sarah.
‘Of course, if that is alright with you?’ Sarah answered.
‘Is it alright with your mother though?’ William asked.
Sarah stopped cleaning and sought out her mother, she returned a few minutes later not looking very happy.
‘It appears she has a surprise for me and I have to stay around for a while, so you’ll have to go without me.’ She complained.
The two men looked at each other.
‘A few more minutes won’t matter, will it?’ William asked James.
‘No we have at least another hour.’ James answered.
They stayed where they were and Sarah continued with her cleaning. When Mary finally finished what she was doing she took Sarah to one side to talk to her. They watched Sarah’s face to see what she thought of the surprise. When Sarah put her arms round her mother and gave her a big hug, they knew she liked it but they had to wait until she returned before they found out what it was.
‘I am going to have a brother or sister.’ Sarah announced when she did walk over.
It was the cue for a celebration, Goliath served food, Gus poured drinks and everyone enjoyed their selves. So much so that both William and James spent the night in the tavern, in one of the spare rooms. Neither of them thought about the workshop and the television inside which should be working by now.
After a huge breakfast William and James travelled through the time window and took a taxi back to the workshop. Nothing looked out of place except for a strange mist seeping through the letterbox. They took the time to peer through the window and did not like what they saw inside, the whole room was filled with the same green mist and neither wanted to venture inside.
‘What do we do now?’ James asked.
‘Turn the power off to the television somehow.’ William answered.
‘How,’ James asked, ‘without going in there?’
‘Where are the fuse boxes?’ William asked.
‘On the back wall.’ James answered.
‘Show me.’
They walked round the back of the workshop, making sure they kept clear of the green mist. They had no idea what it was and it was safest to keep away from it, in case they found out the hard way. James paced the wall until he came to where he thought the fuses were on the other side of the wall.
‘If we make a hole that gas will come out a lot faster.’ James warned.
‘Not if we make the hole in the ground and find the power cable as it comes in, we can use some sort of cutter to cut through it and that will stop the gas from coming through. If anything is alive in there it will die sooner than later as the gas seeps out, there will be no food for anything to eat. All we have to do is to wait them out.’
‘I’ll get a breaker then and start digging.’ James answered and went off to find a taxi.
Normally he would have done it all on line but his laptop was inside the workshop and there was no way that he was going in to get it. He returned empty handed as the hire company had to deliver the breaker and the trailer which gave it its power. With it came some heavy duty cutters with thick rubber handles they could use to slice through the cable, once they had exposed it. They took turns as the breaker broke up the concrete to expose the soil below, then they carried on using the breaker to loosen the soil and expand the hole until they came to the black power cable which fed the workshop. William put the cutters on the cable but James laid his hand on his arm to stop him from cutting.
‘You have live and neutral there, when you cut it there will be a big bang and half of London might be blacked out.’ He explained. ‘We need to remove the outer covering to expose the sheath which acts as the neutral and the earth, then we remove that carefully and then we can cut the inner cable.’
William knew no better and nodded. He removed the cutter and watched as James stripped off the wire’s covering to expose the steel cable beneath. Then he cut through each steel cable one by one until there were only a few left.
‘I just had a thought, if this is the neutral then when I cut these it should do the trick without having to cut the feed into the building.’ James observed, before he continued.
‘Well don’t electrocute yourself, James.’ William warned.
‘Believe me I shall try very hard not to.’ James assured him.
He cut another strand and pulled it well away from the rest of the wire, then another. As they watched the remaining strands started to smoke as they were taking all the current, when they started to glow red both James and William retreated. What they expected was a bang when the wires melted and they were not disappointed. The explosion threw soil in the air and the office was plunged into darkness.
‘Well that did the trick.’ James declared and walked up to the hole. ‘Now we need to keep it dry or any water laying on the wires will cause the circuit to work again.’
‘We don’t want that, do we now?’ William agreed, ‘what do we cover the hole with?’
James produced a plastic sheet.
‘This DPM but it should do the trick.’ James answered.
William had no idea what DPM was but he helped James cover the hole with the plastic sheet. They piled the spoil round the edges to keep any falling rain out and then James rang the hire company to get them to collect the tools. They spent the next two hours waiting for the truck to arrive to collect the tools and they took the time to look through the windows of the office. Inside things were moving about but the green gas was seeping out of the letter box, under the doors and through the open vent on the toilet window. That meant that the gas would soon dissipate.
‘So how long do we wait?’ James asked.
‘Are you in any hurry to go in there then?’ William asked.
‘No I am not!’ James assured him.
‘Then we’ll come and have a look in a week and if we don’t like what we see we’ll leave in another week.’ William decided. ‘It will give you the time to explore the nineteenth century, I know you have been wanting to have a look round.’
‘What are you going to do?’ James asked.
‘I think I will bring a few more trinkets back, I have built up a cliental who want certain things but I have to be careful who I buy them off, it has to be something that did not make it into the twenty first century or it will cause a paradox or something and I don’t want that to happen. I will eat at the tavern though, I like the food there and the company
.’
They left the creatures that had taken up residence in the workshop to perish through lack of food and the change in atmosphere and took a taxi back to the flat. James changed into Victorian clothes and wandered through to explore the nineteenth century, while William started searching databases for any fires in Victorian London.
Chapter 10
William saw no sign of James over the next week but then he had enough money to keep him in food and board for a year on him when he left. At the end of the week William returned to the workshop and, not liking what he saw inside, he deferred going inside for another week. He returned to the tavern and carried on with his business, buying and selling antiques. Buying in the nineteenth century and selling in the twenty first century. He took to ordering direct from the manufacturer, his thinking was that if they were never bought and sold in the nineteenth century. Then selling them in the twenty first century could have no impact on the nineteenth century and thus not change the future. All it meant was that the manufacturer sold one or two more of their wares that week. The lack of wear marks on the base of any ceramics was explained by the fact that the goods had been stored since they were made and they were still in their original box and wrappings when found. William bought a large warehouse which still existed in the twenty first century but was now unused. He carefully concealed what he bought in the nineteenth century, under the concrete floor for him to discover in the twenty first century. He was able to buy the warehouse and then buy it again in the twenty first century and discover the hidden artefacts, it caused quite a stir when the find was announced and William was soon a household name. His wealth grew considerable, as did his standing in the twenty first century. His new fame meant that he was invited to parties, especially charity functions and he made large donations. He met several girls who took a shine to him but he was never at ease with them and constantly fled back to the nineteenth century, just to escape their advances. He did not understand his reluctance, as he always dreamed of having girls as pretty as the girls who showed an interest with him when he went out on the town, now somehow it was different.
A month after the invasion of the green gas, William opened the workshop door, there was still no sign of James and he was starting to wonder where he was. The gas was all gone and anything still in the room was well dead, they consisted of large worms or creatures with lots of legs like centipedes but larger than anything he had ever seen. He bought an incinerator and burnt everything which had come through. He turned the television off and had the power reconnected to the workshop, this time with an exterior switch in a locked box to save having to dig up the tarmac again.
With the workshop functional again William adjusted the controls on the television and turned it on again, he did not want any more green gas in the workshop. This time he sat and watched the screen until the television started to work. No waves this time and no green gas but it was in the twenty first century. He found out the date by going through and buying a paper then marked each control with a green line. He wrote the result in James’ book and made another adjustment, this time to one control to find out which one controlled the destination.
The result was the same area as it had been and it was still in the twenty first century. He marked it on the dial and in the book, this time in red and readjusted going in the other direction. Now it was the seventeenth century but still in the same area. It was harder to find out the date but he did manage to it and marked the result in yellow. He adjusted it back to be in the nineteenth century and marked that in blue.
Knowing the century quite well now, he left that control and adjusted the destination control to start marking that on the dial. The adjustment only needed a little tweak to change the destination by some miles and it soon became apparent that he needed only to mark which country a section would display.
When he could see Tooley Street, he smiled and adjusted the time to the present day. He walked through with the intention of walking up to the tavern but he was in the middle of the street, anyone might end up in his workshop. He spent the next hour tweaking until he could step out into the house he owned and walked round to the Tavern for a well-earned rest.
He spent the next week playing with the adjustments but marked the house settings in pink, so that he could always pop through to eat. He walked through one day to news that he did not want to hear, Tom Barber had been broken out of prison by accomplices and there was a hue and cry to find him. William thought first of Sarah and then James.
‘You stay close to Goliath, Sarah, while Barber is one the loose.’ He ordered.
Sarah just nodded, she did not want to die again, once in a lifetime was already too many times. It meant that she no longer went to see her inventor friend or went into the twenty first century but it was better than coming face to face with Tom Barber again. Goliath took the pistol from the shelf under the bar and made sure it was ready to fire then laid it back down there again.
‘He will not get past me in a hurry.’ He declared.
‘That I am sure of,’ William agreed, ‘now I need to find James and warn him.’
Finding James was not as easy as William expected, there was no sign of him anywhere. He returned to the Tavern and considered his next option in the hunt for James, he needed to find him before Tom Barber did.
He returned to the twenty first century and adjusted the date in Tooley Street to the day James went off on his travels. Now he adjusted the destination and followed him without being seen to follow him, he was just looking through the television. It was not easy, as a little movement took him a long way both in time and destination and several times he despaired that he would never get it right. James would have to do something about the adjustments but at least it was workable.
While he followed James as best he could, James seemed to disappear, one minute he was walking along the road and then he was gone. Now William started looking in all the buildings near where to James disappeared, it led to him seeing sights that he would rather not have subjected himself to but in the end he found James. He was tied up in a cellar two days after he left to explore London, some of Tom Barber’s accomplices had snatched him off the street in broad daylight and he was their prisoner.
William stopped and thought about his next move, did they just kill him or did they keep alive until Barber was free to do it? He kept the destination where it was and altered the time, but there was no sign of James in the next time line. William worked his way back until James was there again and just watched what happened next.
Two men carried James out and he was loaded into a cart, the cart then headed out of London for the Kent countryside. Barber obviously wanted to do the deed himself and William was sure he was on Barber’s list as well. Whether or not he would bother Sarah again, William did not know but she did testify against him in court, why they did not hang him William did not know but he was sent for ten years hard labour.
Now William had another problem, he had to follow the cart to see where it went, only then would he know where they took James and that was not going to be easy. The air turned blue as William played with the controls, one minute he was way too early and then he was too late. Whenever he was close he tried not to move the controls very far at all. The control seemed to stay just where it was and then it went too far. William watched the cart as it drove away and took a picture of it with his camera, so that he could be sure it was the right one if he found it again.
Now he fought with the controls again this time to change the destination but it was two hours before he saw the cart again on the road into the Kent countryside. Another two hours and he found the cart again, this time turning into the drive of a house in Kent. William watched a little longer until the cart went out of sight and came to a decision. He stepped through into the Kent countryside and crept up to the house in time to see James carried inside the house. When the door closed, William walked up to the top of the road to see if there was a sign with the name of the house on it. I
t was not going to be that easy, there was no name or number. The only way he could find out was to walk to the nearest house and ask, he considered that option and decided that it was the best way forward. He started walking, he could go left or right and chose to go left, the way the cart was heading when it turned into the house. No one in that direction could have seen the cart, William just wanted the name of the house and the name of the area.
It took half an hour to find the first house and he looked at it warily from the road he was walking along. It was far enough away from the other house, not to be part of the kidnap but that did not mean it was safe. He needed to know and walked up the drive but he went to the tradesman’s entrance, even though he was not dressed as a tradesman, he thought it might be for the best. The kitchen maid answered his knock on the door.
‘Good day, what are you calling about?’ She asked when she saw his expensive clothes.
‘My chaise lost a wheel and while the driver was seeing about the repair I decided to go for a walk and I find myself in need of refreshment, I am quite willing to pay for the refreshment that is why I decided to use this entrance.’ William answered tiredly.
The cook was in the kitchen and could hear the conversation and she appeared behind the maid.
‘Well ask the gentleman in Anne, don’t leave him standing in the doorway.’
William was invited to follow the maid and found a kitchen chair waiting for him when he reached the kitchen.
‘Sit down sir, and I’ll serve you some of my lemonade.’ The cook ordered in a good natured way.
William sat and waited. When the cook poured the lemonade he started talking to her, she was soon sitting next to him and swopping gossip. She knew the house up the road but she thought it was empty, as the owners both died suddenly of some strange illness. She did not go near the house after that, in case she caught it as well. Over the next hour he found out all he wanted to know about the area and was quite happy to pass over a sovereign when he left as a token of his esteem. The cook was reluctant to take it at first but William persuaded her that she might be called on for more refreshments in the future, as he was likely to come back this way soon.
