Prehistoric Clock

by Robert Appleton

  “I vote for Miss Agnes Polperro,” a resolute male voice announced. “She is a delegate from the Leviacrum Council, not to mention one of the brightest ladies I’ve met. We are lucky to have her, and it would give equilibrium to the leadership. One lady to run the Empress, another to run London.”

  “Seconded,” a gruff man added.

  “Aye!—Hear! Hear!—Capital idea!—Three cheers for Miss Polperro!—Hip, hip, hooray! Hip, hip, hooray…”

  During the final cheer, Reardon leaned over and spoke into Embrey’s ear, “That’s us confined to the ship, old boy. Miss Polperro incited the lynching last night, and she’ll have the knife in you for sure. This is a black mark on the whole show.”

  “We’ll see.” Embrey handed him back one of the pistols.

  He looked up to Lt. Champlain, hoping for a friendly acknowledgement, a gesture of reassurance that she bore him no ill-will despite the altercation and despite the fact she’d been publicly humiliated alongside him. She had, after all, vouched for the son of a convicted traitor.

  Her icy gaze chilled him to the core. He stormed away and, against the boy’s protests, left the ship at once, hatred for the world and all its epochs broiling inside him. High over the collapsed station house, the face of Big Ben read five past eight.

  It would read five past eight the next time he had to kill someone.

  Chapter 8

  The First Reconnaissance

  The Rt. Hon. Reginald Kincaid, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, and at eighty-one the eldest member of the group, finished his eloquent eulogy on the damp lawn of Speaker’s Green. The thirty-four graves were neat and egalitarian, no concessions made for race, class or gender. It was unanimously agreed that this was the most apropos resting place for those fallen—in London soil, not in the alien dirt of prehistory.

  Tangeni handed Verity the fourteen cotton badges they’d cut from the dead aeronauts’ uniforms. Each had the BAC insignia sewn onto it. With a heavy heart, she nailed them to the wooden ground pegs at the head of each grave, remembering the scores of African friends she’d lost in the corps over the years. Visualizing their faces was difficult—the recollection was broader, more enveloping, the kind of bittersweet cloak that wrapped the word “family.” Over the past several years, she’d bonded to these brave men and women as permanently as any friends she’d made in England or in Van Diemen’s Land.

  When she finished, Tangeni laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. Kibo saluted the graves, tears streaming down his proud face, while Reba and Philomena each blew a kiss to their fallen comrades. Reaching London was supposed to have been a homecoming or a chance at a new, better life for the Empress’s crew—most of whom had never seen England before. But where was this if not London? Verity felt as though she had one foot on home soil and another in a nightmare version of it. Any second now, one reality or the other would come crashing down. But right now, she was captain of purgatory and nothing seemed to belong, including herself.

  “They get to stay in London. Their troubles are over now.” Tangeni dabbed his eyes with his handkerchief. “But we, Eembu… we are no closer to Piccadilly than Angola. And no ice cream in sight either.”

  Miss Polperro glared at him as though he’d just blasphemed. Her thick-rimmed spectacles intensified her cold, grey eyes, but Verity didn’t know what to make of her. The men of Whitehall had vouched for her. She had a position of some note in the Leviacrum hierarchy. But what would she be like in a practical situation that demanded survival, not bureaucracy? Time alone would tell.

  “No, no ice cream yet, my friend,” Verity replied. “And you’re right, Piccadilly has seen better—”

  She felt a tug on the waist of her blouse and looked down. “Boy? What’s the matter?”

  Billy didn’t reply, instead tugged even harder as though he wanted her to follow him. Then he yanked Tangeni’s tunic, as well.

  “Sorry about this.” Embrey interceded, trying his best to calm the boy without using force. “He’s had a rough time. Rougher than any of us.” But the lad cried and wouldn’t stop pulling, and Embrey’s fake smile began to fail him. Colour filled his cheeks. Verity didn’t know where to look. This marvellous-looking man was inches away and turning beetroot, and she was honour-bound to despise him? No, she did despise him. His father and uncle had colluded with the enemy, facilitated the assault on the Benguela Leviacrum—the fire that had killed Bernie. Her Bernie.

  “Stop it, Billy.” Embrey shook the boy’s shoulders. “I said stop it.”

  The lad sobbed even louder and wouldn’t stop pulling. Embrey’s resulting scowl appeared so cruel and uncalled for, Verity suddenly hated him like she’d never hated anyone since the day Father’s telegram had arrived…with news of Bernie…

  She slapped Embrey’s face with all her might. The crack drew everyone’s attention. Stunned, he let go of the boy and withdrew, stumbling in the mud as he turned. The hushed voices and Kibo’s tearful frown and the lad’s incessant sobbing and the realisation that she’d hit a man at his most vulnerable strained her heart’s defences.

  Bitterness welled up. The weight of the surge was greater than she could handle but spying the Empress steeled her resolve. A captain should never cry in front of her crew. She needed somewhere to hide, yet the entire camp was watching. Her bottom lip quivered, so she wiped her mouth with her sleeve.

  Tangeni appeared to glimpse her emotion as he said, “Eembu, I think Billy has something to show us.” He took the youngster’s hand and then motioned for her to do likewise. “Lead the way, young master.”

  Like rummaging through an old drawer, being led by a child through the detritus of London drew long-forgotten memories. The way she’d once seen the world—not aggregated and mastered but magical. A child’s mind could not grasp Whitehall and Westminster. They were too imperious, too cold. They were permanent things the world could not do without, like soil and sunshine. So what could a child possibly make of those things in ruins?

  Bernie had loved the empire, and Verity had grown to love it. She sighed. When Bernie had died, that empire she’d revered, put her life on the line for, had collapsed for Verity the way London had just collapsed for Billy. She now saw it clearly for the first time, without the corps’ camaraderie to buoy her patriotism. She was living in the shadow of that day, and all this—flying Gannets, fighting wars, cropping her hair—was in Bernie’s name. Strangely, it all seemed to fit but why hadn’t she admitted it before now? Had no part of Verity wanted to join the Air Corps? If not, why was she such a talented aeronaut? Why had she loved her time in Africa? Loved her time in the air, on the waves, under the waves…?

  “This was your father’s wagon?” Tangeni asked Billy as they reached the uncoupled rear section of the tri-wheel vehicle. It was square, white, and was mounted on two wheels. Two painted red bands bisected all sides.

  “What have you got in here, Billy?” Verity asked.

  The lad unbolted a well-concealed door in the rear panel, opened it and climbed inside. He quickly returned with a metal container the size of a shoebox and two spoons. Without making eye contact with her or Tangeni, he prised the lid off with a spoon handle and passed the open container to Verity. “You said there were no ice cream,” he said in his thick Lancashire accent. “’Ere you go. That there’s me favourite—raspberry an’ vanilla. It’ll be soft by now but taste’ll still be there.”

  Tangeni looked at her, grinned with astonishment, and then dipped his finger in the ice cream. “Omashini…ojuice. It is wonderful.” He thanked Billy for the spoon and delved into the half-full trough. Verity joined in.

  “Mm, that’s divine,” she said. “And you’re full of surprises, my young friend.” She kissed Billy’s forehead. He looked up at her for the first time, a beatific smile lighting his pale face. Tangeni wiped the lines of tears from the lad’s cheeks with his handkerchief. As soon as the youngster saw the warmth in Tangeni’s eyes, he climbed back into the vehicle. Moments later, he returned with a spoon for hims
elf.

  “Reba, is that stay line doubled in?”

  “Yes, Eembu.” The rigger wiped her brow while the sun blazed relentlessly.

  Verity took a swig from the captain’s hipflask she’d filled with the lemonade Billy had given her. The lad had doled out the best of his father’s refrigerated supplies to herself, Tangeni, Reardon, and that son of a bitch, Embrey, whom Billy followed everywhere. Apart from a few bottles of sarsaparilla and flavoured water, the remainder of the ice cream wagon’s supplies were either wafer cornets or melted desserts. She’d given those to the Whitehall group, whose meagre rations, for the time being, would have to be shared from the contents of four residential kitchens, the larder and wine cellar in the gentleman’s club, a few freight crates containing foodstuff salvaged from the collapsed station house, and one cold dinner for twelve impeccably laid out moments before the disaster had hit. Not much to feed over two dozen mouths over an indeterminate period of time. No, as soon as the Empress returned, they would have to organise hunting and perhaps fishing parties to procure a sufficient diet.

  “Tangeni—peacock—are those ballonets filled and secured?” Her second in command had been strutting about the quarterdeck admiring his new first lieutenant’s insignia ever since he’d finished the steam-methane reforming operation, his specialty, over an hour ago.

  “Aye, Captain. Endothermic reaction successful, the pumps and pipes held, the ballonets have new life.”

  She whispered, “What do you make of that bastard Embrey roaming about the ship, free as you like? Seditious scum like that, he’s campaigned against the admiralty ever since his father and uncle were hanged. I wouldn’t bet against him being in cahoots with the enemy all along. Damned traitor—he should be clapped in irons.”

  “Sorry, Eembu, what was the question?”

  She rolled her sleeves up irritably. “No question. Just miffed at the thought of him having free access like this. Look at him, hand behind his back, hobnobbing with the crew like some condescending VIP. Damn him.”

  “Would you rather he be left to the politicians? They’ve already shown their idea of diplomacy, no? I wouldn’t bet against his neck being stretched by Miss Polperro and those old sharks with sideburns.”

  “Don’t be impertinent. The boy wants him here, so he stays. But I’ve got my eye on him. Mark my words, if he so much as belches a seditious—”

  “All repairs to the cables and envelopes completed, Captain.” Tangeni clearly wanted to change the subject. She let it slide this time. No one else had heard, and from his combative demeanour she inferred Tangeni still held Embrey in higher regard than she did. Maybe she was treating the young marquess unfairly. Maybe he was made of truer stuff than his antecedents. But her family honour and her allegiance to the crown demanded she keep him at arm’s length. His very name forfeited his right to be presumed innocent. By dint of association, he was a traitor.

  “Very well, unhook anchor stays and clear away,” she said. “Three-quarter engines, four points to port. Then steady on my mark.”

  “Aye.”

  As Tangeni relayed her commands, she ignored a solicitous stare from one of the gentlemen passengers, a young buck with a bandage over his brow who had politely offered his expertise in geology and botany to the expedition. Mr. Briory hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off her. He was dark-haired and a little overweight—the opposite of Embrey and therefore a safe choice—and she didn’t find him particularly attractive. He was guileless and sweet, though. She might have liked him before she’d joined the corps.

  The Empress Matilda rose smoothly away from the derelict site, her ballonets taut and well-balanced. The propellers hummed at the stern, and white steam clouds billowed out of the port and starboard exhaust vents. Verity’s breath caught. The gorge behind Big Ben widened considerably a half mile westward—they had escaped a deadly abyss by an infinitesimal fraction in the vastness of time and space. In that regard, they had been fortunate. In many others, however—

  “Captain! Water!” Reba hollered down from the bough nest—her basket affixed to the centre of the two lower cables joining the balloons. “Water off the port bow!” She mimed the breaststroke, indicating it looked deep and big enough to be either a sea or a large lake.

  A hopeful glow lit Verity’s heart. She ran to the port bulwark and looked through her telescope. The gap in the forest stretched on past the escarpment for about a mile, forming a grassy bottleneck before it met a sudden decline, possibly a short cliff. The beach beyond appeared to be full of rocks and kelp. An impenetrable sea mist masked her view of the west past the tree line. To the east, a procession of large, lumbering creatures dominated the beach as the coastline curved northeast toward a region of flat, low-lying sediment. Three or four geysers spewed their hot vapour over the flatland, giving the region a torrid, inhospitable appearance.

  “Reardon, where are you? Reardon?” She waited for him to bluster aft with little Billy in tow. “Oblige me with your observations. This is as much your reconnaissance as ours.”

  “On my way, Ver—Captain.”

  “And you too, Mr. Briory.” He was standing at her shoulder in an instant, a mite too close for comfort. She stepped away. “Can you pinpoint this prehistoric age, sir?”

  “I would say somewhere in the mid-Cretaceous.” He beat Reardon to the punch. The professor had already opened his mouth ready to speak but now closed it with chagrin. His curt nod to the younger man amused Verity. The idea of two scholars duking it out over the science of their prehistoric prison—where else would she get to hear this conversation?

  “Do you concur, Professor Reardon?” she egged him on.

  “Hmm, perhaps a trifle earlier, I’d say.” Stroking the stubble on his chin, he gazed eastward toward the geysers. “That alluvial plain is in its infancy, and this whole region—likely covering northern France and southern England—appears to still be in its submerged state. The land has yet to tilt, and the great Wealdon Lake has barely begun to empty.”

  Briory shook his head and gave a smirk. “I beg to differ, sir. You’re right about the alluvial plain but we have seen so little of the region, how can we possibly say how much is flooded and how deep the water is?” He lifted his head superciliously, then leaned out over the bulwark and roved his index finger over the forest below. “The plants give a clearer indication. Look at the trees. We have oak and maple, and in the south and east I noticed only a few Jurassic ferns. The angiosperms have taken hold, and the more primitive gymnosperms are struggling. Note the emergence of colour on the edges of the forest—those are early flowering plants, pollinated by the first bees, but they are widespread enough to indicate the evolution has been in action for some time. I believe we are in the mid-Cretaceous, about ninety million years ago. There are—”

  “Bury oryx…onyx.”

  “Don’t interrupt,” Briory scolded young Billy.

  “Oh, pipe down, you unctuous little organ grinder.” Reardon glared at Briory. Then with a defiant glint in his eye, he lifted the boy onto his shoulders. “What was that about an oryx?” he asked gently.

  “Yes, it’s the second time you’ve mentioned that,” Verity said.

  Billy lifted his pullover and retrieved a thin, cloth-bound book he’d tucked into his trousers. “It’s in ’ere. I don’t know ’ow to say it proper.” He opened it at the sketch of a large dinosaur, exactly like the one they’d encountered on the first night. “That bloody big ’un nearly got you, Cecil,” he went on. “I ain’t much good at readin’ but I knew it from t’ picture. That’s it there. Bury… Barry…”

  Verity leaned over to help him. “Baryonyx! That’s it. Well done, Billy.” Touching his shoulder, she read on, “A piscivorous predator from the early Cretaceous.” The three of them glanced over at Briory, who pouted and walked off with an hmmpf. She’d have loved to hear Reardon’s mumbled words of victory, but Billy tapped the page, eager for her to continue. She scanned the text for facts they didn’t already know about the monster,
while promising herself she’d study the whole book later. “Piscivorous means ‘fish-eater’…the baryonyx swipes at fish with its powerful claw…like a grizzly bear. It lays four to six eggs. Scientists think it might—”

  “Forget the homework.” Reardon leaned over the side, thrust his arm out. “There they are! On the shore—big as life.”

  A wasps’ nest stirred in Embrey’s stomach. These extraordinary animals were bigger than anything above the waves in the twentieth century, and they were also deadlier. If they attacked London again, or this airship whilst it was in dock, the loss of life could be catastrophic. The beach lay a little over a mile from the camp. If dinosaurs were at all territorial—he’d encountered firsthand the violent reactions of South American predators against interlopers in their marked territory—these monsters would return to London sooner or later.

  They lumbered back and forth across the black and grey beach, taking turns to eat from a rhinoceros-sized carcass while the other guarded the meal. Neither paid any mind to the Empress. At five hundred feet up, the airship would be like just another cloud.

  Tangeni approached from the bow. “Lord Embrey, have you heard? The professor, he says this is all fresh water. A giant etale from ancient times. That is good news, no?”

  “Tremendous news! I daresay a big piece of our survival puzzle is solved.” He gazed aft along the deck to where Reardon and Billy were busy reading a book with Verity Champlain. The wasps roused again. Being persona non grata under her command, the tainted strawberry tart, stung his heart. He despised feeling helpless as much as he hated her magnanimity. If his name offended her so much, she needn’t have allowed him on board the Empress at all. The fact that she had, and that he’d accepted, slighted him more and more as he thought on it. Trapped was not the word—he was in purgatory. No one wanted him here. He was the prehistoric pariah. And Captain Champlain had become the icy figurehead for the empire’s unforgiving rule—a rule that had cost him everything.