The Eternal War tr-4

by Alex Scarrow

  Quite deliberately. She’s found us somewhere safe to head towards.

  ‘It’s a walk, so it is … but it’s not so hard. We’ll make an early start tomorrow.’

  CHAPTER 72

  2001, New York

  Wainwright sipped his coffee and smacked his lips approvingly. ‘And this is called “instant” coffee?’

  Maddy looked at the jar on the side table beside their kettle. ‘That’s right. We’re a bit lazy in our time. Coffee’s as easy as slapping on the kettle and spooning granules into your cup.’ She laughed. ‘None of this roasting-and-grinding-your-own-beans hassle.’

  It was a reassuring feeling having the power back on in the archway, seeing the soft glow of computer-Bob’s monitors and the hum of the displacement machine slowly recharging. Outside, out of sight but still chugging, the tank engine was turning over — a mechanized bad-tempered mutter that sounded like it was ready to throw in the towel at the first hint of criticism.

  The men were embedded in the trenches now; both Confederate and Union soldiers merged into one full-strength regiment between them. Dark blue and grey tunics side by side staring out at the broad moonlit East River and the broken skyline of Manhattan beyond.

  ‘The British rarely do night assaults,’ said Wainwright, returning to a discussion of their preparations. He snorted a laugh. ‘Something to do with being jolly unsporting.’ He sipped his coffee. ‘Of course, that doesn’t mean they won’t try one this time.’

  They had a small team of men over on the far side of the East River, watching for the first signs of the British approaching. The telephone cable was still running across the span of water. First sight and they’d make the call, give a rough estimate of the size of the force, then hasten back over the river in the motor launch.

  ‘I think, however, tonight we can afford to savour our coffee.’ Wainwright pulled a small dented hip flask out of his pocket. ‘Colonel Devereau? A little mule-kick to go with your “instant” coffee?’

  Devereau smiled and raised his mug for the Confederate to pour a measure of whisky into his coffee. ‘Just a little … not enough to keep your mother up.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Wainwright tapped his mug against Devereau’s and they both slurped a mouthful.

  ‘Miss Carter?’ said Devereau. ‘Tell me more about time travel. The idea of it I find wholly fascinating, if a little confusing.’

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  Devereau looked stumped. ‘Well … to start with, what is it like to actually travel in time?’

  She closed her eyes. Thinking. ‘It’s … it’s very weird. Ghostly white. You’re in this space, sort of between space. In another dimension, really. Because that’s what you’re doing, leaving conventional space-time and re-entering it at another place, earlier or later.’

  ‘What’s the phrase you just used?’ asked Wainwright. ‘Another dimension?’

  ‘That’s it. You understand the three dimensions, right? Up, down, left and right, forward and back?’

  ‘Ah! You mean axes of motion, Miss Carter?’ said Wainwright. ‘You are talking of those things?’

  ‘Yup. “Spatial dimensions” — that’s what we call them. Well, in my timeline, physicists talk about something like eleven spatial dimensions. Eleven axes of movement.’

  ‘That makes no sense!’ said Devereau. ‘Once you have up and down, left and right, forward and back, what other direction is there?’

  ‘Well that’s just it. We humans can’t visualize dimensions beyond three because that’s the space in which we live. But those other dimensions do exist, whether we believe in them or not … whether we can experience them or not. Look, imagine a two-dimensional world.’ Maddy pulled a sheet of lined paper off a pad on the kitchen table and laid it down between the colonels. She grabbed a biro and drew a stick man on the page. ‘And here’s Fred living in this two-dimensional world. Now, Fred can see and move around in four directions: up and down, left and right. OK?’

  They both nodded.

  She scrawled another stick character, this time with a skirt and pouty lips. ‘And this is Loretta. Now, if Fred takes a look at Loretta he won’t know if she’s a boy or a girl. Why do you think that is?’

  Both colonels stroked their beards thoughtfully.

  ‘What do you think Fred sees when he looks at her?’

  ‘A badly drawn stick lady?’ said Wainwright.

  ‘No. He sees nothing but a flat line. He can only look along the surface of the paper. And, if you put your head right down on the paper yourself, you can almost kinda see things from his perspective. Loretta is just a line. He’ll never see her luscious lips or girly skirt. He’ll only ever see a line because he can’t look down on, or more precisely, into, this page. He won’t know she’s a lady and so they’ll never fall in love.’

  Devereau frowned. ‘But can Fred look up? Could he see us?’

  ‘No. Even though we’re right here leaning over him, because he can’t comprehend “in to” or “out of” this piece-of-paper world, he can never be aware of us.’

  She sat back in her armchair. ‘That’s how, as natives of a three-dimensional universe, we can’t see or make sense of further spatial dimensions. But, just because we can’t see them, that doesn’t mean they’re not there.’

  ‘I see.’ She wondered if he did.

  ‘So, travelling in time,’ she continued, ‘for Fred, it would be like floating him off this piece of paper and dropping him down again in the other corner.’

  ‘That I imagine would be an unsettling experience for Fred,’ said Wainwright.

  ‘I’m not too keen on it when I do it,’ Maddy replied. ‘It feels like falling.’

  They were quiet for a while. Outside of the archway, somewhere in the night around a campfire, some of the men roared with laughter.

  ‘If you are successful, and this Abraham Linford — ’

  ‘Lincoln.’

  ‘Abraham Lincoln … is returned to his correct time, you say history will attempt to rewrite itself?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Tell me,’ said Devereau, ‘what will that be like for us? For me, James here … our men? What would we be aware of? Would we know it is happening?’

  She nodded. ‘You’ll see it coming. It’s quite a thing to see.’

  ‘Would you describe what we’d see, Miss Carter?’ asked Wainwright.

  ‘Well — ’ she looked at Becks who offered her no inspiration, just a calm passive gaze — ‘Well, it’s … it’s a wall of reality, like the front edge of a tidal wave. A wave that starts as a ripple and travels through days, months, years, decades … centuries, getting bigger and bigger. And when it finally arrives …’ She shook her head and closed her eyes. Goosebumps teased the skin on her forearms. ‘It’s like looking at … I don’t know … Like the crust of the earth has split and one edge is swallowing the other. It’s as big as a mountain range, but it’s all twisty and churning like liquid. And it comes fast, guys … really fast. You can’t outrun it.’

  She opened her eyes.

  Devereau looked pale. ‘It sounds truly terrifying.’

  ‘First time you see it — ’ she shrugged — ‘I suppose it is.’

  ‘And when this wave reaches us, Miss Carter — ’ Wainwright splayed his hands — ‘what then?’

  ‘You change. The world changes.’

  ‘Change? Would this be felt in any way? Would it hurt? Be unpleasant?’

  ‘No. You just cease to be and another version of you appears. Simple.’

  The men exchanged a glance. Wainwright’s eyes narrowed. ‘It sounds to me as if … as if I will be destroyed by this wave, vaporized.’

  Maddy bit her lip. He was actually quite right.

  ‘This wave would mean the end of me?’ said Wainwright. ‘The man I have become, a lifetime of memories sweet and bad. My family, back in Richmond, all gone? Destroyed?’

  She wondered whether she should spin the truth a little, make it sound a little more accept
able, palatable, for the Southern colonel. Instead she decided to be honest with him. ‘Yes … it does sort of mean the end of you. But …’ she added quickly, ‘but also a new you.’

  ‘Another me?’ Wainwright frowned. ‘Another me? Surely that would merely be another man who just shares my name and my likeness?’ He looked at Devereau. ‘William, is this not us sacrificing our lives so that other men, who look just like us, can enjoy a better life?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Devereau nodded slowly. ‘But, James … are we not dead men anyway?’

  The Confederate colonel’s uneasy frown deepened.

  ‘Our mutiny will be a short-lived one,’ Devereau continued. ‘I’d hoped the flames of rebellion would have spread further, but … well … it appears now that we are in this alone. There we are — that’s the way it is.’ He sat forward, the armchair’s old springs creaking. ‘But, Colonel, I put this to you …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If by dying on a battlefield or being destroyed by this wave, you could end this war, banish both the French and the British from our shores and unite our separate northern and southern states once and for all … and be able to achieve all of this in one instant. Is that not a good way to go?’

  Wainwright studied his colleague for a long while. Eventually his frown gave way to a grin that spread beneath his moustache.

  ‘Putting it like that, Colonel Devereau …’ He raised his mug and clanked it against his friend’s. ‘To foolish men who wish to change history.’

  CHAPTER 73

  2001, New York

  Sergeant Freeman squinted bleary-eyed at the hazy sky. Beyond the strip of Manhattan, beyond the broad and sedate Hudson River, was New Jersey.

  ‘The South.’

  Freeman realized that where he and young Ray were huddled, near the top of a tall building he guessed must have once been a bank or something — right here, was the closest he’d been to actually even seeing the South. From where they were sitting on dust-covered stools, looking out of a cracked window frame, it looked no different to the crumbling ruins in which he’d been living for more years than he cared to remember. The rising sun coming up behind them picked out the skeletons of dockside cranes, twisted and contorted; the rusting hull of an old Sherman Ironside, a navy ship scuttled nearly seventy years ago when the South made their second assault on New York.

  He shuddered as a fresh breeze sent dust devils spinning across the open floor. The wall to the east was completely gone, exposing a cross-section of the building’s many floors. He turned to look at all the old office things — typewriters, filing cabinets, desks and chairs — all of them coated in a thick layer of plaster dust and pigeon droppings.

  The sun was filling this floor, streaming in where the wall should be. He shaded his eyes from the glare. If he squinted a little, he could just about imagine how this office must have once looked. Busy with activity. Busy with smartly dressed young men moving purposefully, making money. And the big-framed windows looking down on New York, on all that promise and wealth and hopefulness. A doleful smile slowly pulled on his leathery face.

  ‘Helluva view folks musta had from up here,’ he muttered.

  ‘’Sup, sir?’

  Freeman shook his head. ‘Ain’t nothing, Ray. Just an old man’s nonsense.’

  ‘It’s darned cold.’

  ‘Sunrise’ll warm us up directly, son.’

  He rubbed his hands together. The young lad was right. It was cold up here. Wind chill an’ all. He should’ve asked the colonel if they could have taken a brazier up here with them. At the very least, several flasks of hot water or some such.

  Ray was looking up the long west side of Manhattan island. Thin tendrils of smoke in the distance signalled the canteen fires of other Southern regiments. ‘You reckon them other regiments upriver gonna join us too, sir?’

  ‘In due course … I’m sure. We just gotta make a show of things for a while.’ He glanced back at the hazy labyrinth of bomb-ravaged Brooklyn. ‘Our boys and them Southern boys … we just gotta make us a stand. Show them others upriver that we all are serious ’bout this rebellion. That we finally finished with this war.’

  Freeman doubted it was going to be that simple. More than that, he sensed that same doubt in their colonel.

  Bed’s all made up now. Nothing left to do but sleep in it.

  ‘Sir?’

  Freeman turned back to Ray. ‘What is it, son?’

  ‘What’s that?’ The boy was pointing. Freeman followed the direction of his finger and squinted once again to make better use of his old eyes. It looked like thunder clouds on the horizon. Made sense. They were due rain sometime soon.

  A row of heavily stacked clouds.

  ‘Pass me them field glasses, Ray.’

  The young man fished them out of a pouch and passed them to the sergeant.

  ‘Now then,’ he said, fumbling with the lens-focus dial. ‘Let me just get a …’

  The bell grabbed Maddy and hauled her out of a troubled dream. She opened her eyes and found herself staring at the springs of Sal’s bunk above. For a moment, with the gentle glow of the light bulb above casting a patchwork of shadows from its wire grille, and the hum of the computers, she thought all was well once more. That the idea of a civil war still being fought across the rubble of New York had been nothing but her sleeping mind’s fun and games.

  But then the long clattering trill of a bell again.

  She turned her head and saw Colonel Devereau jerking awake in one of the armchairs. He reached out and unhooked the phone from its cradle on the table.

  ‘Yes?’

  Maddy swung her legs on to the floor as Wainwright stirred and Becks ducked under the shutter and entered the archway.

  Devereau nodded solemnly as he listened. Then finally: ‘Good man. Come back immediately.’ He hung the phone up on its cradle.

  ‘They’re coming.’

  A moment later they were all emerging outside, stepping into the glare of morning. She followed the colonels along the trench, pressing past grim-faced men already mustering, checking their webbing, their ammo pouches, their carbines, buttoning their tunics, replacing forage caps with hard helmets. Up a short stepladder and out of the horseshoe-shaped trench, she joined them on the open ground sloping down towards the borderline and the river.

  A motor launch was steaming across the glass-smooth water towards them, leaving a rippling V in its wake.

  Becks stood beside her. ‘They are here.’

  Looming low in the sky above Manhattan like an archipelago of floating islands, a fleet of giant sky carriers had arrived.

  CHAPTER 74

  2001, en route to New Chelmsford

  Liam wiped sweat from his face. The morning had started out so chilly. Now, midday, with the sky a rich blue and the sun hanging high, it was a summer’s day come late.

  Traipsing across field after field punctuated by the occasional meadow … and now finally in an apple orchard that seemed endless, they were exhausted.

  ‘Five minutes,’ gasped Liam. ‘I’ve got a stitch in me side.’ He slumped against the trunk of an apple tree. ‘Five minutes’ rest here, then we’ll carry on.’

  Lincoln slid down beside him, equally spent and grumbling about blisters on his feet.

  Sal didn’t want to sit. She knew if she did she’d not want to get up again. Anyway, more pressing matters.

  ‘I need to, uh … to go and …’

  Liam waved her off. ‘Don’t wander too far.’

  ‘OK.’

  She turned away and ducked down under the low-hanging branches of the nearest tree. She could still see them which meant they could see her. She walked a little further from them, between rows of trees, through grass tall enough to tickle her fingers. She ducked down again, under another cluster of apple-laden branches and found herself on the edge of a clearing.

  A glance backwards. She couldn’t see them any more, although she could hear the gentle rumble of Bob’s voice.

  Good eno
ugh for modesty.

  She turned back and was about to step round the back of the tree trunk beside her and into the clearing when she spotted it. Almost yelping with shock as she immediately ducked down into the long grass.

  A eugenic.

  It was sitting on the edge of the clearing. Huge. One of the ape-like ones, a tiny head almost an afterthought emerging as little more than a lump from its huge shoulders. She froze where she was, petrified that if she moved again she might attract its attention.

  She peered more closely at it. It looked a size larger than the apes, half as big again, even more top heavy with muscle-mass. But it was the creature’s face that struck her.

  No mouth. Or, rather, where a mouth should have been a short length of pipe emerged, sealed at the end. It also appeared to be wearing a skullcap of some kind. She watched it for a good minute before suspecting it was quite dead.

  Liam squatted down in front of it and peered closely at its small face. Its eyes were open, dilated and glazed. They could hear it breathing, air that rustled in through the slits of its nose and wheezed out like a blacksmith’s bellows.

  ‘Well, it’s not dead; I can tell that much.’

  ‘The creature is in a stupor,’ said Lincoln.

  Sal reached out and touched its ape-like face, pale skin as smooth and as hairless as a baby’s. The cap she thought it had been wearing, a leather one, seemed to be attached. Fixed in place to a band round its forehead by a pair of clips. She looked at Liam. ‘It comes off, maybe?’

  He nodded. ‘Go on … I don’t think this brute’s going to mind.’

  Carefully, she undid one clip and then the other, and gently eased the cap up off the band.

  ‘Oh, that’s just gross!’

  Beneath a scuffed glass cover, they could see its skull had been scooped empty of brain. In the cranial cavity, through the scratched glass, they could see something grey and ribbed, the size, shape and texture of a walnut. It was penetrated by half a dozen small brass rods, linked by wires to a control box that blinked an amber light.

  ‘Information,’ said Bob. ‘Electronic impulses sent through the rods to the organic tissue stimulate brain activity. A much simpler version of the silicon-organic interface in my head.’