The Fall

45

Dawn. Saturday 25^th December 1865 – Christmas Day.

‘God rest ye, merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay… for Jesus Christ our Saviour was born this Christmas Day…’

The words came from Ryan Keith. He’d hardly said anything since the death of his wife. Now the Christmas carol wasn’t sung so much as grunted syllable by syllable.

They were at the amphitheatre. It was eight in the morning. From the grey sky only the occasional flake of snow spiralled down with a luxurious laziness as if enjoying the slow glide to earth.

Sam watched Ryan. The man had armed himself with a double-barrelled shotgun. He didn’t say why he was here, but Sam hoped it was to inflict some damage on the Bluebeards. Not on himself. Nor on any of the other townsfolk and soldiers now preparing the vehicles that were dotted around the car park.

For a moment Sam actually regretted that the conversion on the vehicles was finished. While they’d been hammering, sawing, splicing away there in the brightly-lit barn they could make believe that the eventuality they were preparing for would never come.

But here it was.

Crunch time.

This was Casterton’s only line of defence against the Bluebeards. A fragile line at that. One that looked insignificant there on the car park that was surrounded by several hundred acres of snowbound meadows.

Sam allowed his gaze to travel to the huddle of vehicles. He saw the bus with its stumpy ‘wings’ housing the rocket-launcher tubes that gleamed a brassy yellow in the daylight; Carswell had decided the bus should be named, and he’d ordered Zita to paint Thunder Child on the side in chunky black letters. There too was the Range Rover with its own small ‘wings’.

Mounted on the roof of the ice-cream van was a muzzle-loading cannon, which as weapons went was already pretty much an antique in 1865. Parked in a line by the visitors’ centre were half a dozen cars. All of this formed Carswell’s army for his Operation Rolling Vengeance (named tongue-in-cheek, Sam guessed).

Sam turned his attention to the strip of land between the river and the rock face, along which the barbarians would come. It was nothing more than a grassy bank now buried beneath five or six inches of snow. Here and there were deeper drifts that threatened to bog down an unwary driver. At the top of the cliff Sam could see the edge of the forest. From here, with its dark, leafless branches, it looked like a heavy black fringe of hair running along the cliff. Half a dozen crows circled high above the trees themselves, their mournful cries filling the air.

Just at that moment Sam could picture the Bluebeards’ surprise at seeing the approach of this motley bunch of vehicles.

Somehow he couldn’t believe their reaction would be one of fear.

They were more likely to burst out laughing.

Along the track that led to the main road came the cavalrymen with their long steel-tipped lances held vertical. Behind them came horse-drawn carts that carried the foot soldiers, together with barrels of wood alcohol that would serve as a Victorian equivalent of napalm.

‘Ah, good.’ Carswell walked briskly up to Sam. He was dressed in a long tweed coat and riding boots. ‘You’re ready with the Range Rover?’

‘All the rockets are in the tubes, ready to fire.’

‘You will remember that the light-bulb triggers will work only once, then the whole trigger assembly has to be replaced when you come back to reload?’

Sam nodded. ‘We’re ready to go when the Bluebeards show themselves.’

‘Good man. Ah, here are the foot soldiers. Now, I don’t intend to deploy these fellows in the battle unless I have to. They’re our insurance if Johnny Bluebeard should happen to break through.’

Sam saw Jud catch his eye. Carswell’s plan sounded so slick. As if nothing could go wrong. But Sam remembered clearly enough his first demonstration of the electric rocket trigger he’d devised. It hadn’t fired.

Nevertheless, they’d all agreed to put their lives in Carswell’s hands. His plan seemed plausible; certainly it was the only one with any chance of success. Love it or hate it, they were stuck with the thing now.

Carswell pulled on his leather gloves. ‘I’ll see about having fires lit. This cold’s going to be a devil of a problem if we have to wait long. At least it’s no longer snowing to speak of.’

He walked away to where the soldiers were unloading their equipment from the carts.

‘Well,’ Sam said with a grim smile. ‘December 25^th. Merry Christmas, Jud.’

‘And a Merry Christmas to you, Mr Baker.’ Jud’s smile failed on his face. He looked a worried man. ‘Maybe we should have fortified some of the buildings in town after all; just in case…’

‘Don’t you think these vehicles are going to do the job?’

‘On paper they should.’

‘So Carswell was fond of repeating. But we’re not fighting this battle on paper. It will be on 50 acres of snow and ice.’

‘You know, Sam, if the Bluebeards do attack and it goes badly for us, there might come a time when we have decide it’s every man for himself.’

‘Don’t let Carswell hear you say that. He’ll accuse you of defeatism.’

‘That he might. But the bottom line is, we might have to concentrate on saving our own skins and the skins of individuals who are closest to us.’

Sam looked at him. ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’

‘Too bloody right I am. If Carswell’s Operation Rolling Vengeance goes up Shit Creek I’m going to get Dot and myself away from here on the river.’ He nodded to his boat, moored down by the jetty. ‘You, Zita, Lee and Ryan are welcome to join us.’

Sam nodded, thinking hard about Jud’s offer. For a lucky few a boat would be a means of escape. But what about the rest?

Jud glanced across the car park. ‘Rolle’s arrived with the Reverend Hather. Maybe that means we’ll have God on our side.’

After speaking to Rolle, Carswell walked briskly across the car park towards Jud and Sam. He shouted something to the commanding officer of the lancers. Sam didn’t catch the words. Maybe it was something about lighting fires to warm themselves as they waited.

Carswell walked up; a high red colour had flushed through his cheeks. The tremor had started again under his left eyebrow.

He spoke just two words.

‘They’re here.’

For a moment Sam thought the man was referring to the soldiers. Then, with a pricking of those two extra fingers that served as his thumbs, the penny dropped. They’re here.

He twisted to look back along the river where the strip of ground ran between water and rock face.

They’re here.

Like a solid wall of darkness he saw the figures. There was no flash of light, no pyrotechnics, no fuss, as the Bluebeards came through the time-gate. They were just there.

And they were marching this way. Thousands upon thousands of them. This was the beginning of the end.

Carswell took his position in the visitors’ centre that now served as the battlefield command post.

Sam watched Zita join Lee Burton on the bus as the soldiers clambered on board to assume their positions at the four artillery pieces: the big gun barrels jutted out from the sides of the bus where the windows had been.

Everywhere else there was a buzz of activity as people readied themselves.

‘D-Day,’ Jud said as he climbed into the passenger seat of the Range Rover.

Sam nodded. He opened the door, taking care not to knock his head on the ‘wings’ that held the rocket launchers out at either side of the car. The thing quirkily resembled a helicopter gunship without the rotors.

He belted himself into the driving seat, then turned the key in the ignition. Into the seat behind him climbed two apprentice infantrymen. Although they’d been deliberately ‘exposed’ to 20^th Century technology, even taken for a short ride in the cars to acclimatise them, they still looked round the interior with a mixture of astonishment and suspicion.

Sam glanced back as they sat with their rifles upright between their feet. ‘Everyone ready?’

They nodded, their round eyes still scanning the interior of the car.

‘You okay, Jud?’

‘Yes, touch wood.’ He tapped a finger on the short section of plank that had been fixed to the dashboard in front of him.

Nailed to that were eight switches, rudimentary things made from strips of metal cut from food cans. When a metal strip was pressed, the circuit was completed and a jolt of electricity would run from the car battery to the rockets set in the wings.

Carswell appeared at the doorway of the visitor’s centre and made a windmilling motion with one arm. ‘He’s waving us out… Damn.’

‘Sam, what’s wrong?’

‘Back in a minute.’ Sam opened his door. ‘One of the wires has come adrift from the rocket tube.’

‘Leave it.’

‘It won’t fire unless it’s connected. It won’t take long.’

Fixing the wire back to the light-bulb terminal took only a moment, but then Sam spotted something else.

‘Jud, there’s something wrong with the van. They’re not moving.’

Sam ran across the car park, his feet making a soft padding sound on the snow. ‘Why aren’t you moving out?’ he called to the man driving the ice-cream van.

‘It won’t start… the battery’s flat.’

God Almighty. Carswell’s perfect Operation Rolling Vengeance was showing cracks already.

‘Pop the hood,’ Sam called. ‘I’ll bring up the Range Rover and we’ll jump-start her.’

Sam drove the Range Rover across the car-park to the ice-cream van. While Jud lifted the bonnet, Sam brought the jump leads from the boot. In the back seat the Victorian soldiers sat and watched, mystified.

‘At least the rest are waiting for us.’

The bus had stopped at the edge of the car park. But now people were running from vehicle to vehicle to find out the reason for the delay.

Down there on the river bank the Bluebeards were approaching, slowly but surely. Sam guessed it would take them another ten minutes to reach the car park.

Carswell hurried towards them. His barely suppressed rage was quivering to the surface.

‘What’s the hold-up? Why aren’t you moving!’

‘Engine trouble,’ Sam replied.

‘Jesus wept. The thing ran perfectly well last night.’

‘It’s no-one’s fault.’ Sam snapped the big crocodile clips onto the battery terminals of the Range Rover. ‘The van’s battery’s on its last legs.’

‘Get a move on, man! The whole strategy will fall apart unless you hit the enemy at the narrowest part of the pass!’

‘I know. Just give me 30 seconds. Right!’ He called to the van driver. ‘Try it now.’

The van’s starter motor turned. It was a weary sound, like rusty metal plates grating together.

Sam ran back to the Range Rover, swung himself behind the wheel, stamped on the accelerator pedal. Then, revving the car engine until it howled, he nodded to the van driver. Try again.

The van driver twisted the key once more. A moment later his face brightened and he gave a thumbs-up.

Carswell shouted, ‘Now, for crying out loud, move it!’

Vibrating with rage, Carswell marched back to the building.

After Sam had stowed the jump leads in the boot, he climbed back into the driver’s seat and said in a low voice, ‘Here goes.’

They left the car park in line.

Ahead was the snowy strip of land between the river and the rock face.

First in the line of vehicles rumbling at little more than walking speed was the bus.

Sam could see the heads of the soldiers on board as they manned their positions at the field guns. At the front of the bus he recognised Zita by her thick ponytail that swished from side to side as she scanned the road ahead. Lee Burton would be sitting in the driver’s seat inside his armoured compartment. Surprisingly, there were also the red corkscrew curls of Rolle.

The stubby ‘wings’ of the bus’s rocket launchers waggled at each bump in the ground, however slight, as if the bus were some huge ungainly box-shaped bird flapping its wings ready for take-off.

It occurred to Sam once more that if one of those flimsy ‘wings’ hit so much as a branch or even a mound of snow it would shear off, reducing the bus’s firepower.

Again Sam couldn’t decide if the bus resembled a pirate ship, with its guns mounted on what was after all the passenger deck, with the timber mast that served as the king post; or if it was more like one of the old wartime B-17 Flying Fortress bombers that bristled guns from every direction.

Sam wiped his forehead. Despite the cold he was sweating.

Between his vehicle and the bus was the ice-cream van. It still had its garish paintings. Surreally, the plastic ice-cream cones hadn’t been removed and sat at either side of the cannon that was lashed to the roof.

The heavy cannon of foundry-cast iron made the vehicle look top-heavy. Taking a sharp bend at anything more than a crawl would probably turn the van over.

Sam shot a glance at the ‘wings’ on his own car, the rocket tubes shining a dull yellow. They too flapped up and down over the tiniest of bumps. He could even hear the creak of the supporting cables over the roof of the car.

Jud looked at him. ‘You know, Sam, this reminds me of the day when I walked out onto a frozen lake in the middle of winter. There I was, slap in the middle. Ten years old and feeling bloody good about how clever I was. Then I heard all these little cracking sounds. Like hundreds of pencils being snapped in half all at once. I couldn’t see anything. The ice looked perfect. But all the time this snapping sound went on and on, and then… Yes, you guessed it. The ice just gave way under me.’

‘And that’s how you feel now?’

‘Yes, I’m standing on thin ice. I can hear it cracking. It’s just a question of when it gives way.’

‘Sir,’ one of the men barked from the back. ‘When are we going to get a shot at them bastards – sir!’

‘It won’t be long now, corporal,’ Sam said. ‘We’re going to fan out. Then we’re going to let them have it.’

‘Sir – then what?’

‘We turn one way, pause. You fire at the enemy. Then, as we turn round, the private takes his shot.’

‘Sir!’

Sam took the barked ‘Sir’ to be army-ese for ‘Okay, I understand.’

Jud groaned. ‘It all sounds more like choreography than military strategy.’

‘I know… We perform a damn Busby Berkeley number with the cars, while the soldiers fire their guns. Then we dash back to the amphitheatre to reload.’

‘Oh, well, here’s where we find out if Carswell’s plan works.’

With the Bluebeards about three hundred yards away, moving in a great amorphous mob, the vehicles fanned out so that they were travelling side by side. Still, the speed was low, no more than ten miles an hour. Beneath the snow the turf was as hard as concrete.

‘I’m remembering this right?’ Sam asked, his voice rising as tension gripped hard. ‘At a distance of two hundred yards Lee sounds the bus’s horn.’

‘And we fire.’

‘Then we stop, allowing the bus to move forward, turn to the left so it can deliver a broadside.’

‘You’ve got it, Sam.’

Right on cue came the sound of the horn.

A long, booming note, like the war cry of some warrior tribe of long ago.

The Bluebeards were still too far away for Sam to actually see individual faces, but the leading edge of the mob painted a thick black line from the river to the rock face.

‘Here goes.’ Jud pressed the strips of tin to close the contacts.

Sam stared in fascination at the rocket pods, imagining electricity spurting along the wire to the light-bulb igniters. In his mind’s eye he could see the filaments glow white-hot against the wads of gun cotton.

With a gush of smoke and a kind of zwish-sh sound the first rocket left the tube to flash like a shooting star into the faces of the mob in front.

‘One away,’ Jud shouted.

Seven left.

He keyed another strip of tin.

Zwish-sh…

The rocket sped from the tube, trailing smoke and sparks.

Six left.

Jud hit the next switch.

Nothing.

He tried again.

‘It’s a dud,’ Sam said quickly. ‘Go on to the next.’

Then, one after another in quick succession, Jud fired the rockets.

Five, four, three…

Rocket number three, no good. Another dud.

One more away in a flash of red.

Then there was only one rocket left. It left the tube with a whoosh.

Sam shot a glance to his right. Rockets were streaming one after another from the ‘wings’ of the bus.

He couldn’t tell if there were any duds. From the 16 rocket tubes there seemed to be a never-ending stream of blazing rockets.

To his left he heard the brittle thump of the cannon firing from the top of the ice-cream van.

Now he allowed the bus to pull forward and then turn so it could fire an artillery broadside at the still-advancing Bluebeards. Soon a cloud of blue smoke hung over the snow. And two hundred yards away more smoke billowed as the shells exploded in the midst of the Bluebeards.

Sam couldn’t tell what effect the rockets and artillery fire were having on the barbarian horde. But it must have been pretty devastating.

He pictured them reeling back in surprise – some in agony – as hot metal buzzed through the air slicing faces, arms, puncturing chests, stomachs. Blood would be steaming there in the snow.

Payback time.

The next part of Carswell’s plan went smoothly. The bus did a U-turn so that it presented its left flank to the Bluebeards. The two artillery guns poured a dozen or more shells into the barbarians’ advancing line.

Then, as the bus headed back to the amphitheatre to reload, the cars formed a line as if waiting in turn at a car wash. The troops sitting in the backs of the cars took it in turn to pepper the barbarians with well-aimed rifle fire.

Sam swung open the car door and stood on the bonnet, the engine idling beneath his feet.

From the line of cars spurts of smoke blasted as rifles discharged. The gunfire sounded like a crackling inferno.

Sam watched the slaughter. He could even see the red-hot bullets moving like sparks across the snow and into the crowd of Bluebeards.

By now, at little over a hundred yards, he could see individual figures, not just a mob. And the flying red sparks that were the bullets disappeared into individual bodies. Men pitched face-forward into the snow, limbs twitching.

And one bullet might strike down more than just one man. Sometimes it passed through body after body.

The slaughter was immense.

Carswell’s men were cheering from the cars.

But then, as the firing stopped and the smoke cleared, Sam’s blood ran cold. Because he saw that they had, in fact, been wasting their time.

In the borderlands William, Nicole and a dozen or so others levered open the doors of cages built from timber. Inside, women and children whimpered in terror.

‘It’s all right,’ Nicole whispered. ‘We’re here to help.’

‘Here to help us all get killed,’ came Bullwitt’s voice from the slot in the side of William’s jacket.

‘Hush, dear fellow.’

‘No, I won’t hush. This will get us all killed. You’ve just gone and cut open a couple of Bluebeards’ throats, we’re making off with their prisoners – they won’t rest until they’ve hunted us up hill and down dale.’

‘Bullwitt, shh.’

‘I hope your legs are stronger than your wits, William, because you’re going to need them to carry you and me both out of here and far away.’

‘Bullwitt, not now… ah, there.’ With a snap the door gave way. He pulled it open, helped by the boy whose upper torso and head grew out from the cow.

Nicole looked into the gloomy cage at the Bluebeards’ prisoners where they cowered beneath blankets.

‘Don’t worry,’ Nicole whispered. ‘We’re here to help you.’

‘Go away,’ hissed a middle-aged woman dressed in nothing but a long white petticoat. ‘If they hear you they’ll come back and punish us, too.’

‘They’ve gone out on a raid. We can get you away to safety.’

‘Nicole?’ came a tentative voice from the back. ‘Is that you?’

A figure came out from the shadows at the back of the cage. ‘Nicole. It’s me, Sue. Sue Burton.’

‘Sue, thank God. Are you all right?’

Sue’s voice dropped. ‘We’re alive.’

‘Come on,’ Nicole said, as calmly as she could. ‘We’re going to get you out of here!’

For a moment she thought she’d hear Bullwitt’s bitter nasal voice adding, ‘And we’re all going to get ourselves killed.’

But he’d seen what state the women were in. This time he stayed quiet.

‘We were right all along,’ Sam said as they drove back to the amphitheatre car park. ‘It’s not going to work.’

‘But we saw the carnage; Bluebeards were dropping like flies.’

‘Carswell’s plan’s failing, believe me.’

Jud said, ‘I thought I was the pessimist, Sam. But now I think we’re actually going to win this battle.’

‘Not a hope in hell. We killed and wounded only a couple of hundred at most.’

‘Only a couple of hundred?’

‘Only a couple of hundred,’ he repeated. ‘Jud, when I stood on the bonnet of the car I could see maybe three thousand of them still feeding through the time-gate. They’re like a plague of hyenas. Killing a few of their number won’t stop them.’

‘But if we reload and go back we can—’

‘What, Jud? Kill another two hundred? Another hundred?’

‘Yes.’

‘We’d have to repeat the operation another half a dozen times before we made a sizeable enough dent in their numbers. And I figure we’ve another two runs back there at the most before they reach the open ground. Then they’ll either attack us or go round us. If it’s the latter, they’ll fan out across the open countryside before regrouping in Casterton.’

‘But—’

‘No, Jud. No buts. Carswell’s plan won’t work.’

‘You mean we’ve had it?’

‘No… There might be a chance after all.’

Jud raised a questioning eyebrow.

‘Our only chance,’ Sam told him, ‘is if we tear up Carswell’s Operation Rolling Vengeance plan and start all over again.’

‘I hope you’ve got a heck of a good idea, Sam.’

‘I’ve got the idea. Whether it’s good, bad or indifferent…’ He shrugged.

Jud nodded forward through the window. ‘I’ve seen something that just might prove you right, Sam.’

Sam looked ahead.

There, lying in the snow, in front of the entrance to the amphitheatre car park, was one of the bus’s ‘wings’. Lee must have clipped one of the now-redundant visitors’ signs. The wing lay in a twisted mess of wooden spars, wire, and launching tubes.

Half a dozen people, including Zita and Ryan Keith, had reached the ruined wing and were even now dragging it back towards the bus as if, with some fabulous burst of energy (as well as an equally fabulous amount of good luck), they could repair the damage in the next four minutes.

Carswell was striding across the car park. Gripping his hat by the brim he flung it aside in frustration. Sam pulled up alongside the wreckage and climbed out.

‘Hell’s teeth! You clumsy idiots!’ Carswell barked. ‘The launcher’s ruined. Leave it… Leave it. Reload the other tubes and be ready to leave here in five minutes.’

‘Carswell—’

‘We must attack again while we have the advantage of surprise.’

‘Carswell,’ Sam began again. ‘It’s no good.’

‘Never mind, we’ll reload and press on with the attack.’ A look of triumph flashed over the man’s face. ‘Did you hear, we took out nearly three hundred men during the last attack?’

‘Carswell, it’s not enough. They’re going to break out of the pass.’

‘Don’t worry about that. We’ll hold them there.’

‘We won’t.’ Sam grabbed Carswell’s arm. The muscles were hard; they quivered as if an electric current crackled through them. ‘Carswell. There are thousands of men pouring along that pass. We can’t hold them.’

‘Of course we can.’ Carswell shrugged Sam’s hand away, then clapped his hands. ‘Everyone listen. Reload your vehicles. Then get ready to go back in again.’

‘No,’ Sam told him. ‘It’s not enough. Okay, if we were facing a thousand, perhaps it would be. But there are too many of them. We need a change in tactics.’

‘You mean you need a change in leadership,’ Carswell said with a sneer.

‘No, but if you saw the numbers of Bluebeards coming through the pass down there you’d understand.’

‘Well, Mr Baker, what do you suggest?’

‘I think he’s right, Carswell,’ Jud said cautiously, ‘We seemed to be hitting them hard, but they kept on coming. Seeing their own kind being killed doesn’t faze them.’

‘He’s right,’ Lee said, coming across the car park. ‘From the bus I could see them running forward over the bodies of their own people.’

‘So this is mutiny, then? I’m being deposed to make way for who? Mr Campbell here? No, I don’t think so. Not his style. I think the one person who hankers for the role of leader is none other than our American friend, Mr Baker, here.’

Sam shook his head. ‘Carswell. It’s not a question of taking over. But I’ve seen them. I’ve seen the numbers coming through down there. They aren’t just running towards us. They’re stampeding like a herd of cattle.’

Now Rolle came through the growing knot of people. ‘I’ve seen the number of Bluebeards, too. They are far more numerous than I anticipated.’

Carswell considered, then he said to Rolle, ‘Whatever happens now, the terms of our agreement remain the same?’

Rolle nodded. ‘Indeed they do, Mr Carswell.’

‘Very well, Mr Baker. The ball’s very much in your court. You’re in command now.’ He gave a tight smile. ‘So what do we do?’

Sam looked at the expectant faces around him. They were a mixture of the time travellers who’d made the journey back from 1999 and the men and women of Casterton who were now fighting for their very lives.

A flurry of snow came on a gust of cold air.

Perhaps this was Carswell’s revenge against him for daring to suggest a change in tactics. He’d handed him control of this tiny fighting force of three hundred or so. If he failed, then it would be all the fault of Sam Baker, the interfering know-it-all who didn’t know squat.

Now they waited expectantly for him to give the orders.

Thomas Hather watched intently. Jud gave a reassuring nod. Zita shot him a faint smile. Lee stood expectantly, and Sam sensed the man’s faith in him. Even Ryan Keith with his red-rimmed eyes and gunsmoke-blackened face waited, burning to exact whatever revenge he could against the men who had murdered his pregnant wife.

Just for a second Sam felt as if a tiny part of him was being whirled outside time. Once more he sat in the director’s chair at the studio. The seconds were ticking down to zero. Transmission time. Then the red light would glare on the panel in front of him.

But, by heaven, when that red light came on, you hit the transmission button – and you just went ahead and did it.

This situation demanded infinitely more guts to give orders and get the show on the road.

This is it, Sam, old buddy, he told himself. Showtime.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘We’re pulling out in…’ he checked his watch, ‘…four minutes.’

‘It will take at least eight to reload the rocket tubes,’ Carswell said, already slipping into the role of the intelligent objector who would subtly undermine Sam’s decisions.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Sam said. A buzz of adrenalin ran through his body; his fingers tingled. ‘We’ll go back into battle with only a few of the tubes loaded. Besides, the bus has already lost half its rocket launchers.’

‘You’re going back into battle with only a few rockets? They won’t do much damage to the enemy, will they?’

‘They won’t have to, Carswell.’

‘So you have a secret weapon up your sleeve? How remarkable.’

‘As a matter of fact, I have.’

‘And that is?’

Sam walked across to a parked car and patted the roof. ‘This,’ he said. ‘And all those.’ He nodded at the cars parked around the car park.

‘Cars?’ Now Carswell looked uncertain of himself.

‘Yes, cars. Forget tanks and jet fighters. This is the most devastating killing machine ever invented.’

‘You can’t be serious.’

‘Oh, but I am, Carswell. The car has killed more than 20 million people since it was invented. Twenty million. That’s more than the combined populations of Australia and New Zealand.’

‘My God, how do you suggest using them as weapons?’

‘Form a line, side by side, where the pass is narrowest. When the Bluebeards reach the bottleneck between the rock face and the river we drive straight forward into them. They’ll be hit by a sold wall of steel travelling at 40 miles an hour.’

Carswell rubbed his jaw, considering. ‘Well… I wish you Godspeed.’ With that he turned and walked smartly back to the visitors’ centre.

Well, if that’s the way he wants to play it… Sam turned to the rest of the people and told them what they needed to do.

After they had returned to the vehicles Sam checked his watch again. Two minutes and counting.

On impulse Sam went into the visitors’ centre.

Carswell had returned to his desk. In his waspish way he was briskly gathering papers and neatly slotting them into a briefcase.

‘Mr Baker. I thought you’d be directing your troops,’ Carswell said without looking up.

‘You’re going to sit out the battle here?’

‘I intend to leave, Mr Baker.’

‘You’re not interested in the outcome?’

‘I’ve fulfilled my obligations.’

‘Your contractual obligations? Those you entered into with Rolle?’

‘Yes. The poor man was so desperate to save all you innocents he offered me a… a handsome fee, for want of a better phrase, to come here and give you the means of saving your necks.’ He gave one of his cold smiles. ‘I think I’ve played my part to the letter, don’t you?’

‘The battle’s not over yet.’

‘No, but my role here is finished.’

‘What did Rolle offer you?’

‘Ah, that would be telling.’

‘It must be more than money?’

‘That’s very astute of you, Mr Baker.’

‘He’s taught you how to use the time-gates, hasn’t he?’

‘See, you are brighter than I thought. You constantly surprise me, Mr Baker.’

‘So you’re going home? Back to 1999?’

‘Now you’re disappointing me again. The ability to travel in time is an exploitable commodity. Like discovering gold at the bottom of one’s garden.’

‘You’re going to exploit time travel?’

‘Why not? Think of the potential.’

‘I can think of the potential disaster.’

‘Mr Baker, Rolle exploited time travel for humanitarian purposes. He took 20^th Century drugs back to his rabble in the 13^th Century with their disgusting diseases. I haven’t a humanitarian bone in my body, Mr Baker. I’m a businessman.’

‘So you’re running out on us?’

‘I thought I’d been sacked, deposed, compulsorily retired – call it what you will.’

‘We still need you, Carswell.’

‘No, you don’t.’

‘You know we do.’

‘Now, if you will excuse me, I’ve got to be moving on… or back as the case may be…’

‘Carswell.’ Sam caught him by the arm as he walked past. Again Sam felt the muscles taut as guitar strings beneath the sleeve of his jacket.

Carswell looked down at the hand on his arm, then back at Sam. His face was tight, holding back all that repressed rage. The look was clear enough: Take your damn hands off me.

‘Carswell, wait a moment. Months ago you told Jud and me a story. You told us that when you were a little kid your father used to get drunk every weekend, get into fights, come home in a mess and your mother covered up for him, telling you that it was his job to stop a huge serpent from eating up London. Is that right?’

‘There’s nothing wrong with your memory, unlike your manners.’ He glanced down at Sam’s hand gripping his forearm. ‘Now, if you will—’

‘And you were told that you’d inherit the duty of fighting the snake… that huge snake that used to come out of the River Thames every Friday night. Remember?’

Carswell’s eyes burned into Sam’s. ‘Mr Baker. Your own foe approaches. Don’t forget them, will you?’

‘Listen, Carswell. Remember when I told you I fought one of these Bluebeards? The man with the snakes growing from his head? Well, there are plenty more monsters like him on their way here. They’re going to destroy the town and everyone in it. Can’t you interpret what your mother told you as some kind of omen?’

‘That snake came out of my mother’s troubled brain, not the Thames. Now if—’

‘Carswell, humour me then. Pretend the serpent is sliding out of the river. Come kill it with me.’

The man pulled a gold watch from his waistcoat pocket and held it up in front of Sam’s face by the chain. ‘Tick-tick-tick, Mr Baker. Time’s running out.’

‘Carswell, please, we need you.’

‘Go launch your attack on the Bluebeards or it will be too late. Far too late.’

‘Carswell, we need you because you are a mean son of a bitch.’

‘Flatterer.’

‘You know what I mean. I need someone as ruthless as you to take charge of the bus… the fighting machine you created.’

‘What, Mr Baker? Me as captain of the good ship Thunder Child?’

‘Yes. What do you say?’

‘Tick-tick-tick… ding, ding, ding. Ooops, there goes your wake-up call. It’s time to smell the coffee, or rather the sweat and the bloodlust of your enemy. Now, you can almost taste it on your lips, can’t you, Mr Baker?’ Carswell smiled icily, his eyes never leaving Sam’s face.

Sam sighed. Without another glance at Carswell he left the visitors’ centre and ran across the car park to where the Range Rover sat, engine idling, with two infantrymen armed with rifles in the back seat. This time he assigned Jud to the bus.

Sam sounded the horn twice, then accelerated to the head of the vehicle column.

Ahead the cavalry and the foot soldiers had already set off for the pass, making as much speed as they could in the snow. Ahead lay the river, worming its way black as ink between the white banks. More flakes of snow spiralled from the sky.

As he pulled away from the car park Sam heard the sound of the bus horn.

He braked.

For some reason the bus had stopped. It sat there looking lopsided in the snow with just one ‘wing’ remaining.

Sam frowned. There could be no hold-ups now. They had to hit the Bluebeards at the narrowest part of the pass. Any other place would be too wide and the barbarians would flood past at either side of the 40-yard-wide battering ram of vehicles.

He looked back at the bus. There was no obvious reason for the hold-up. He could see Lee’s eyes behind the slot of the boxed-in driver’s compartment.

He looked back along the line of vehicles.

Then he saw Carswell walking briskly towards the front passenger door. He jumped lightly onto the first step. Then, holding onto the edge of the door with one hand, he leaned out and gave Sam a relaxed-looking salute.

Sam nodded to himself. Thunder Child now had her captain.

As Sam engaged the gear and pulled slowly away, big tyres crunching through the snow, he suddenly recalled where he’d seen the name Thunder Child before. Years earlier he’d read H G Wells’ The War of the Worlds. When the Martian fighting machines had been laying waste the countryside with their death rays, the human armies could do nothing to stop them. But humanity did claim one small victory. As a Martian fighting machine walked out into the sea, sinking ships, there was one warship, the ironclad HMS Thunder Child, that had steamed out of the smoke and wreckage to charge at the seemingly indestructible alien invader. Thunder Child rammed the fighting machine’s legs, toppling it into the sea and destroying it.

But Thunder Child’s brave charge had been a suicide mission. Sam, driving along the track to face his own destiny, hoped that Carswell’s choice of name for his ‘warship’ hadn’t been some kind of dark omen.

Sam looked up at the foreboding gathering of storm clouds. Then he switched on the wipers as the snow began to fall heavily once more.