When I returned to the station I was informed that all trains were cancelled – c’est la guerre, mon capitaine, said the clerk in the ticket office, who was in the process of closing down for the rest of the day. I trudged around the town once more until I found a hotel with a vacant room.
In the morning: good news. The trains were running once more. I bought a ticket for the first one. It left punctually, travelled quickly, and was in Calais in good time for me to catch a ferry to Dover. Boarding was delayed because there were reports of a German U-boat in the Channel, but finally the passengers were allowed aboard. The boat was not crowded. I found a quiet corner of the saloon, wrapped myself up in my coat and tried to blank my mind. There was a short delay outside Dover Harbour and it was late afternoon before we docked. Once on land I found again that there were problems with trains. Controlling my impatience I located a harbourside hotel where I then spent the night, and the next morning was able to catch the first train to London.
Eventually, around two in the afternoon, after an uneventful journey through the Kentish countryside, the train rumbled across the long iron bridge over the Thames and arrived at Charing Cross Station.
I disembarked to the platform with a feeling of immense relief. All I wanted was to get home to my flat as soon as possible, read whatever mail might have been delivered while I was gone, sit quietly and untroubled in my own room. The station was the familiar bedlam of incontinently released steam and distant unidentifiable thuds. Whistles blew shrilly. The railway workers communicated by loud shouts. Pigeons fluttered across the joists of the high, glassed-in roof and strutted erratically across the platform floor. It was undeniably good to be back in London. The problem of whether or not I was a deserter from His Majesty’s Royal Navy was something I would resolve in due course, and anyway my position as a commissioned officer felt increasingly academic. They had not wanted me there.
I had to wait on the platform for a porter, but soon enough I was heading along towards the wide concourse of the terminus.
Then, ahead of me on the platform, and also moving towards the taxi rank outside, I saw the short figure of another officer. He was fussing alongside a porter whose trolley was laden with a large suitcase and several small packages. From behind the man himself looked little different from other serving officers, of whom many were passing through the station, but what I could not fail to notice was that his uniform trousers were streaked and coated with mud.
I overtook him just as I crossed with my porter into the main concourse.
‘HG?’ I said, when I was sure it was he.
He stared straight ahead, a lack of response I took to be deliberate.
I tried again. ‘HG?’ I said. ‘Mr Wells?’
He turned towards me this time, but there was the strain of a dark mood on his brow. He was not pleased to be accosted. But then he recognized me.
‘Oh yes,’ he said. He frowned again, narrowing his eyes. He smiled, but only briefly, a conventional courtesy, a man who was used to being recognized in the street. ‘The magician with the wizard’s cloak.’
‘I wondered if I should see you again,’ I said.
‘Times like this, when we are eager to be back where we started!’ he said, not explaining anything.
‘I don’t intend to delay you, HG,’ I said. ‘If you are hurrying home, I certainly understand—’
‘Yes, well.’
We had temporarily ceased our progress and were facing out across the station yard, where horse cabriolets and motor taxis were in competition for our business. There was always a noisy scramble outside London’s main termini, the horses which drew the Hansom cabs restive and alarmed by having to wait in close contact with the noisy and smelly motor taxis. I glimpsed the familiar sight of London’s traffic, moving slowly out of Trafalgar Square and into the Strand, and the pavements crammed with pedestrians. The indescribable but unequalled smell of London’s streets: that unmistakable blend of coal smoke, horse droppings, dust, sweat, food, petrol engines. Queen Eleanor’s famous cross rose high above us.
Our two porters had come to a halt a short distance beyond us, waiting for our decisions about which of the taxis we wished to hire.
‘I’m glad to be home,’ I said.
‘I echo that,’ HG replied, glancing around at the welcome chaos of our capital city. ‘Did you reach the Western Front?’
‘Yes. And you?’
Briefly, the look of irritation I had seen as we met flickered across his face again.
‘That is what I was there to do,’ he said. ‘But having finished, or at least having been informed in no uncertain terms that I had finished, I took a quick look-around at the sector I was in and then came home. In short, I was told to push off, and none too politely, either.’
‘That’s more or less what happened to me.’
‘You don’t surprise me. It was not what I hoped for, nor even expected. So – there is no call for a magician in the trenches, then?’
‘Sadly not.’
‘You have come away empty-handed,’ he said.
‘I am simply glad to be out of it, and on my way home. The same for you, I suppose?’
‘Well, because of past experiences, I always make sure that I travel with more than one commission. This time I had two, or three if you count my temporary induction into the British Army.’
‘You told me about your system of communication,’ I said.
HG glanced around us in a warning sort of way and in particular towards our two porters, who were it not for the constant hubbub of noise from the yard and the street would certainly have been within earshot.
‘You and I know nothing of that,’ he said, and the frown was back, creasing his high forehead. ‘Military secret.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean no one would tell me anything about it. Not if it had been tried out, not even if they had built the rig. The chap assigned to me pretended he had heard nothing about it, and yet he was the officer named in my orders.’ HG was leaning towards me, a fierce expression on his face, and his words came quietly but insistently. ‘There was I, inventor of the blessed thing, given the ear of no less a personage than Mr Churchill, and no one in the trenches was prepared to say anything about it. The whole business was fishy, if you ask me. I went as far up the ranks as I could, but none of those officers would say anything to me either. Except to give me strong advice to catch the next train home and not mention anything to anybody at any time.’
‘Did you see any evidence of it?’
‘That’s what I found fishy. The whole front is a mess of mud and cables and holes and dumps of things. The Germans don’t help by sending over artillery shells every five minutes, blowing everything up and making an even bigger mess. It’s impossible to make sense of what’s going on until you’ve been there a while. But right in the middle of it I noticed an elevated wire strung out on big strong poles, and it looked close to the device I had drawn and sent in. It was still clean, as if it had been there only a few days. But when I asked what it was the chap told me it was a kind of field telephone, or a warning cable, or something like that.’
‘So nothing was being carried on it?’
‘Not a damned thing.’
‘I thought you had been invited out to the front to inspect it and make recommendations.’
‘That is what I thought too,’ said H. G. Wells. ‘But either some Higher Up has decided my idea was not worth the scrap of paper on which I drew it, or they have sold it to the Germans, or, well . . . I am furious with them. I think the truth is that when they saw me they decided not to trust me. Me! My idea, my plan.’
‘I’m really sorry to hear this,’ I said.
‘You’re right. I should not say these things. Nor even think them. I have no right to question the leaders of those unfortunate young men in the trenches.’
The expression of despair was slow to leave his face, though. Looking at him I felt that his experiences and mine had mirrored each othe
r.
‘You said you had more than one commission,’ I said.
‘I’m a writer, Mr Trent. It’s hard enough making a steady income, even for one such as myself, who has had a few popular successes in the past. And in time of war the climate is even tougher for writers. So these days I cannot afford to go anywhere unless I first secure an agreement from a newspaper, or sometimes a publisher. This time I was travelling as an ex officio representative of the Daily Mail, and my experiences will now amount to an Opinion. I told you some people think I’m a meddler, but in fact I am much sought for my Opinions. They sometimes amount to the same thing. So, I shall write this new Opinion for the many hundreds of thousands of intelligent readers of that organ, and then, I dare say, I shall later transfer that Opinion to the pages of a new book. There I shall find another audience. In the process I will no doubt offer a Suggestion or two. That is my only true constituency: the interest and common sense of the ordinary man or woman. If my lifesaving idea has no influence on the military or their political bosses, and I am forbidden to discuss it between now and the end of time, at least I hold a strong Opinion on everything else I have seen. I also have the means to express it, and a public who will benefit from reading about it. That is anyway my belief and intention.’
I nodded dumbly. I was of course one of those many readers who would welcome anything he could write that would enlighten us about the war. In spite of my brief visit to la rue des bêtes I was feeling less informed about the war than I had been before I left home.
While HG and I continued to talk on the side of the station yard, many other passengers were pushing past us. Our porters were still waiting, but they had let go the handles of their trolleys and were standing together, smoking cigarettes.
‘What about you, Tommy?’ HG said. ‘Do you feel as I do now, that this war is unwinnable? That the just cause we thought we had at the beginning has already been lost?’
‘I was most struck by the quality of the men I met in France. They are a generation who are doomed, which they know full well but they go on with it. Their bravery leaves me speechless. My experience of the fighting was minimal. Not even a skirmish or a dogfight, in the words of one of the people I met. Even so, I have been pitched into gloom by the whole experience. The war is a monstrosity!’
I knew my words probably sounded over-excited, but they poured out before I could think how they might sound.
‘I believe we both travelled to France bearing ideas,’ HG said. ‘We have been disillusioned about the worth of those ideas. War is no place for ideas. It is about armies, fighting, determination and gallantry. Would that sum it up for you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then that adds to the horror. When the imagination dies, so does hope.’
We fell into silence then, avoiding each other’s eyes. HG was staring down at the stone pavement.
‘Did you see anything of the trenches?’ he said suddenly.
‘No – I saw hardly anything. I was at an airfield, a way back from the line.’
‘Just as well, perhaps. Enough, though?’
‘Enough, and more,’ I confirmed.
HG stuck out his hand and we shook again. This time our gaze met. Those memorable blue eyes, that open expression!
‘It seems we have both come home with an Opinion. I at least have somewhere I might express mine. I presume you do not.’
‘No,’ I said.
‘I shall think of you as I write.’
We parted then, our porters hauling their trolleys to the cab rank. H. G. Wells took the first of the motorized taxis, while I selected one of the Hansoms. We drove off into the London streets, never again to meet.
PART 3
Warne’s Farm
1
THE TEACHER
Tibor Tarent was standing outside the Mebsher, the great armoured bulk high and dark beside him, the turbine idling but still screeching and the exhaust gases washing across the long grasses, battering them into constantly shifting patterns. The vehicle had halted on the side of a bracken-covered hillock. It stood at an angle, the right side higher than the left, which made clambering down to the ground without falling more a matter of luck than judgement.
While he protected his cameras from knocking against the sides of the metal stairs, Tarent gashed the heel of his hand on one of the sharply jutting catches that held the hydraulically operated door to the shell of the main hull. Pressing the wound to his mouth, Tarent looked to see what it was that had snagged him – it was not the catch itself, but part of the metal cover of one of the clasps which had been torn back somehow, with a jagged edge curling nastily down.
Beset by a blustering wind charged with tiny particles of ice, he had to stand by and watch as the co-driver Ibrahim struggled to find and extract his bag from the space beneath the passenger compartment. The soldier was working hard against the steep gradient inside the vehicle, caused by the angle at which the Mebsher had come to rest.
Finally the bag was found and Ibrahim placed it outside on the uneven ground. He made what looked to Tarent like a perfunctory semi-military salute, but said correctly and courteously enough, ‘Inshallah, Mr Tarent.’
‘Upon you too be peace,’ he replied, with the automatic response.
The crewman operated the door mechanism and they both watched as the integrated steps folded up and out of sight, and the door swung down into place. Tarent noticed that the jagged piece was forced in by the weight of the door, but after a moment it jerked back out. He wondered whether he should point it out to the crewman but he already knew from experience of the Mebshers that the driving crew were normally not willing to service or repair the vehicles.
Ibrahim turned to clamber back towards the drive compartment.
Tarent said, ‘Just a minute, Ibrahim. Where is the place I’m supposed to be going?’
‘You have global positioning software on your smartphone?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then the coordinates will already be filed.’
‘But which direction is it from here?’
‘Along this ridge,’ the driver said, gesturing with his hand. There was a trace of an old footpath leading away. ‘Parts of it are too narrow for this vehicle. You’ll have to walk the rest of the way. Sorry about that but it’s not far. This is as close to the place as we could take you, and this diversion means we are now running late.’
‘All right.’
Ibrahim moved back towards the drive compartment. Tarent knew that it would take about two minutes for the crew to run through the cockpit checklist, ensuring all systems were running, then power up again to drive speed. Tarent saw it as two more minutes in which he might still change his mind.
He looked around at the terrain where the Mebsher had halted. There was little or no shelter where he was standing: the vehicle had halted close to the crest of a ridge, beneath which a stretch of cultivated land spread out, undulating intermittently. There were few hedges and almost no trees. Lightly dressed because of the heating inside the Mebsher passenger compartment, and not having been given enough time to put on his outer clothing, Tarent now felt chilled and exposed. He found the coat where he last placed it, between the handles of his case, and he struggled quickly to put it on. The whining of the Mebsher turbine remained at idling speed, showing that the cockpit checks were still not complete.
That afternoon, as they travelled inside the Mebsher, Flo had quietly passed him a second handwritten note. It came as almost as much of a surprise as the first, the day before. He had not seen her alone again after their liaison at Long Sutton, not even at breakfast in the small canteen. She was already seated in the Mebsher when he boarded, apparently deep in the study of her laptop, speaking quietly into a headset. She repeatedly tapped the area behind her ear, a code of intermittent but systematic beats, the fingers touching the sensor area at different angles. Tarent tried several times to make eye contact with her, but failed. After that, he slowly reverted to the state of uncomfortable introsp
ection that had been with him the day before.
Then the handwritten note: Change your plans? Skip Warne’s Farm and come with me. I can tell you something about your wife.
The paper had been torn from some kind of official document, because in the top corner there was a small segment of an embossed seal. All that was legible was the end of an internet or electronic address: fice.gov.eng.irgb
He thought for a few moments, staring once more at the back of her head. What could she tell him now about Melanie that she had not been able to tell him the evening before? Would this information explain the activity that was going to and fro in her digital implant? But for him the only thing that would matter now about Melanie would be the news that she had been found alive and well. His loss of her was still a poignant pain. He knew beyond doubt that she was dead. Assuming Flo had some new information, it could only be some extra detail about the way she was killed, or something about the people or group who had killed her. Tarent was not sure he wanted or needed any more of that kind of information.
Maybe Annie and Gordon Roscoe would welcome more facts about what happened to their daughter, but he was still too much in a state of torpid confusion: regrets, guilt, missing her, wanting her, remembering the best of her, loving her, wishing they had not argued so violently that last day together, feeling inadequate. Above all guilt and love intermingled, because he was certain she would not have left the comparative safety of the field hospital compound if had not been for him. Flo could hardly tell him anything more about that.