The Eternal War

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 acceptable, 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.’