by Jason Ayres
He looked her up and down. “So where do you hail from, miss? Are you from one of the colonies?”
“No, I’m English just like you,” replied Rebecca. “I was born right here in Oxford. A lot has changed since your time.”
Alfie shivered and sneezed. He wasn’t wearing a coat. “So how far in the future is this? It’s bloody cold, I know that.”
“It’s January 1992,” replied Josh. “Can you tell me the exact date you’ve travelled from?”
“Goodness me, 1992! That’s the far future!” exclaimed Alfie. “I’ve come from 1918. May 12th to be precise.”
He looked around him, wistfully. “I guess that explains where Daisy went, then.”
“Who’s Daisy?” asked Rebecca.
“Daisy’s my sister. I’m back on a few days’ leave from the front. I guess she must be wondering where I went.”
“For the past seventy-four years, to be precise,” said Rebecca.
“Look, Alfie, there’s no easy way to break this to you,” said Josh, “but I’m afraid we’re not going to be able to send you back, at least not anytime soon. I’m afraid you’re stuck here in 1992 for the foreseeable future.”
He had been expecting a negative response, but Alfie’s reply was anything but.
“That’s a relief!” exclaimed Alfie. “Because I don’t want to go back – it’s horrible!”
“What about all those brave Tommies we’re always hearing about?” asked Josh.
“I’ve had to be incredibly brave,” replied Alfie, annoyed at Josh’s attitude. “People back home have no idea how horrific it is in the trenches. I’m twenty years old and I’ve been out there for three years and I’m amazed I’ve survived as long as I have, to be honest. Nearly all my mates I signed up with are dead. Those of us that are left don’t even know what we’re fighting for anymore. If you’re telling me I’m stuck in the future and the war is over, then that’s all fine and dandy by me! The war is over, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” replied Rebecca.
“You’re right, I’m sorry. It must have been incredibly traumatic,” said Josh. “You did very well to survive so long. I see you’re a captain so you must have impressed your superiors to reach that rank by the age of twenty,” said Josh.
“By attrition more than merit,” said Alfie. “My last captain was blown to bits by a shell right in front of me. Please, you must tell me, did we win? Because I’d hate to think that we went through all of this for nothing.”
“Yes, you won, quite soon after you left, in fact,” replied Josh.
“Well, that’s something. So what’s 1992 like? I’ve always wanted to see the future. Is the world a better place now?”
“In some ways,” said Rebecca. “But not in others.”
“I guess I have a lot to learn,” replied Alfie. “I wonder if Daisy’s still alive. I bet she’ll be surprised to see me.”
“I can’t believe how easily you are accepting all this,” said Josh.
“I can’t deny the evidence of my own eyes,” replied Alfie, looking around. “Come on, why don’t you show me around the Oxford of the future?” With that, he began walking up towards town.
“Before we do that we need to get you somewhere safe.”
“I thought you said the war was over,” said Alfie.
“It is,” said Rebecca. “But when we get out of the park you’ll see that the world has changed beyond recognition. You can’t just go back to where you were living before and you won’t have any useable money in this time. Now we’ve arranged a place for you to stay while you get sorted, so why don’t you come back there with us now? There will be plenty of time for sightseeing later.”
“Right you are, miss,” said Alfie. “Lead on. I’ll be glad to get in the warm; I’ve got a vile cold.” To emphasise this, he sneezed again and reached into his pocket for a handkerchief.
“We’ll have to get you some Lemsip,” said Rebecca. “Medicine’s moved on a bit since your time.”
“Can you cure colds now, then?” asked Alfie.
“Not exactly,” said Rebecca. “But we can buy things to make it feel better. And there are lots of other diseases from your time that have been more or less eradicated.”
“Sounds like I’ve got a lot to learn,” said Alfie, promptly sneezing again. “Guess we’d better go and get some of this Lemsip you mention.”
“You know, I think you’re going to manage just fine in 1992,” said Josh. “And I speak as someone who has plenty of experience of this sort of thing.”
They walked through town towards Jonty’s place, watching Alfie as he marvelled at every futuristic innovation from traffic lights to phone boxes. He was very impressed by Boots, too, where they picked up his Lemsip and bought him some Lockets to keep him going.
Jonty wasn’t best pleased at having Alfie dumped upon him, but since Rebecca had pretty much blackmailed him into it, he had no choice but to accept. Once they had left him there, they headed back towards town.
“That went pretty well, I thought,” said Rebecca.
“He seemed to accept things much more easily than I thought,” replied Josh. “I wonder if his sister is still alive. Maybe we can help him find her.”
“How long should we leave him with Jonty?” asked Rebecca. “I wasn’t sure if they would get on. You know what Jonty’s like, I was worried he would remind Alfie of the upper-class officers sending him and his mates to pointless deaths in the war.”
“I think, at the moment, Alfie’s just relieved to be out of the trenches. We’ll go back in a couple of days and see how they are getting on.”
“By then we’ll be thinking about who’s going to come out next,” replied Rebecca.
“True and they are going to be from way further back in time,” said Josh. “It’s going to get more difficult every time now. Alfie may have read H.G. Wells but once we start getting people from hundreds of years ago they aren’t going to have a clue what’s going on.”
“How many more do you think there are likely to be?” asked Rebecca.
“Hopefully not that many,” said Josh. “Oxford hasn’t been here forever. Before medieval times there can’t have been many people around.”
“Let’s hope that’s the case,” replied Rebecca.
“We’ll just have to see what Monday brings,” said Josh.
He hadn’t shared all his concerns with her, but he feared that things might not merely be difficult in the days ahead, but downright dangerous.
There really was no way of knowing who or what might be coming to them from the past.
Chapter Nineteen
Monday 3rd February 1992
All four of the team were free for the next pick-up on Monday morning, so it was concerning for Peter when Rebecca, quite uncharacteristically, didn’t show up.
The plan for the day was as before: to collect whoever came through the time bubble, take them to Jonty’s and then decide how best to integrate both this latest arrival and Alfie into twentieth-century society. This was assuming that the new arrival would understand what was going on and play ball, and there was no guarantee of that.
Peter’s meal on Saturday night had gone better than expected. Gran seemed to warm to Rebecca and his fears that she would make some outdated racist gaffe proved unfounded. The two had hit it off pretty well, having a couple of light-hearted jokes between them at Peter’s expense, and Gran had nothing but good things to say about Rebecca after she had gone home.
She was working on Sunday and he had hoped to see her in the evening, but when he phoned her, she seemed a little off with him. She said she was tired, that she had a cold, and she wanted to have a bath and an early night and would see him in the morning.
This was all entirely reasonable but Peter felt that nervousness and worry that many people in new relationships feel. Had it all been too good to be true? Was she really just tired or was she having second thoughts about him?
Perhaps she had overslept. He would give her a call later after
they had dealt with whoever came through the time bubble.
The lady who did come through was dressed in the outfit of a serving maid, dressed in a white pleated cotton gown, with a white frilly cap. She was young, with a shapely figure, accentuated by the corset she was wearing. As she looked around in awe at her surroundings, they quickly approached her, keen to put her mind at ease.
A few questions quickly established that her name was Mary and she was from the year 1782. Unlike Alfie she had no real concept of time travel and was bewildered and confused by what had happened, insisting all the while that she could not go with them because she needed to get back to her master.
Eventually they managed to convince her to come along with them to Jonty’s place, a walk that she spent quite spellbound at her surroundings. While there were still a few recognisable landmarks, everything else was completely changed. Last time she had walked up Cornmarket Street it had been little more than a dirt road, filled with horses and carts.
Jonty took a long time to answer the door, eventually doing so looking like he had the first time Peter and Josh had visited him, in a state of semi-undress that suggested he had slept in.
“We’ve got another recruit for you,” said Josh.
“Is this my new master?” asked Mary.
“If you like, love,” said Jonty, who was rather taken with the attractive young serving maid. “When is this one from?” he added.
“1782,” replied Peter. “She’s a bit disorientated as you can imagine.”
Josh turned to Mary and said, “Listen, Mary, this man’s going to look after you for a while until we figure out what to do about all of this.”
“It will be my duty to serve him,” said Mary.
“Sounds good to me,” remarked Jonty, to the annoyance of Christina.
“Mary, things have changed a lot since your time,” she said. “No one is subservient to anyone anymore. We are all equal so don’t let this man tell you what to do.”
Eager to steer the conversation away from a discussion on women’s rights, Josh asked Jonty to let them all in so they could discuss what to do next. Jonty agreed and ushered them through to the drawing room.
“Where’s Alfie?” asked Josh.
“I didn’t see much of him yesterday,” said Jonty. “I think he had a bit of a hangover, plus he’s got a shocking cough. All that time in the trenches can’t have done him any good.”
“And are you two getting along OK?” asked Josh.
“Famously,” replied Jonty. “I’ve been introducing him to the delights of Daddy’s wine cellar. Funny thing is, the chap’s spent the last three years in France and hasn’t even tried a drop of the old vino. Shocking state of affairs, don’t you think?”
Jonty had already irritated Christina and now Peter found himself becoming irked by Jonty’s attitude.
“Yes, well, I doubt that there were many cheese and wine evenings going on at the Western Front,” he said. “Though I imagine your ancestors were probably enjoying plenty in some château twenty miles behind the lines.”
“I’m sure they were,” said Jonty, completely missing Peter’s sarcasm. “We Barrington-Smythes have always had a good nose for a decent claret.”
“Well, could you go up and see where he is, please?” asked Josh, eager to get on. “We’ve got stuff to sort out and we’re one short as it is. Peter, did Rebecca say anything to you about the ideas she was working on?”
“Not really,” he replied. “I know she said she was going to see if she could get some false documentation for these people to give them an identity in the present day. Apparently there’s a forger they’ve busted a couple of times who does passports and things. She was going to speak to him, I believe, and try and cut some sort of deal.”
“That’s a good start,” replied Josh.
While they talked, Jonty left the room to try and raise Alfie. Meanwhile, Christina was preoccupied with watching Mary who was wandering around the room looking at all the mysterious things.
“This is a very strange mirror,” she remarked, kneeling down and trying to look into the grey screen she had found.
“That’s a television,” replied Christina. “Look, let me show you how it works.”
She grabbed the remote and flicked on the TV and the familiar figures of Geoffrey and Bungle from Rainbow burst into view.
Mary watched, intrigued, before asking, “How do they squeeze into a box that small?”
It was clear that a lot of explaining was going to be needed before Mary could function in twentieth-century society. But before Christina could begin to explain the finer workings of the cathode ray tube, Jonty came back in, a concerned look on his face.
“Guys, you’d better come upstairs. There’s something seriously wrong with Alfie.”
“What do you mean?” asked Peter.
“Just come up and see. He’s really sick,” replied Jonty.
As Jonty spoke, Josh noticed that he was sweating profusely and looked pretty pale.
“You look a bit green around the gills yourself,” replied Josh.
“It’s just a hangover,” insisted Jonty. “I was drinking with Alfie on Saturday night and out with a couple of the boys from the Bullingdon Club last night. George and I just overdid it a bit on the champers, that’s all. Now look, I really think you need to come and look at Alfie.”
Josh, Peter and Jonty went up the impressive central staircase that dominated the front hallway.
“This way,” said Jonty, leading them to the right along a richly decorated landing, with red drapes and portraits on the wall of notable past Barrington-Smythes. The plush, velvet carpet felt incredibly soft underneath Peter’s feet, a sharp contrast to the cold marble white floor of the hallway.
The house seemed much bigger inside than it looked from the street and they passed three or four doors and took a couple of turns before they reached Alfie’s room. As soon as they entered, Peter and Josh could see Jonty hadn’t been exaggerating.
The curtains were drawn, but there was a small gap letting enough light in for them to see the state Alfie was in. As they entered the room, he let out a series of hacking coughs, beads of perspiration glistening on his forehead as his teeth chattered and he shivered profusely.
“Help me!” he pleaded, trying to sit up and then lapsing back down onto the sweat drenched bed, as he pulled the quilt tightly around him.
“Alfie!” exclaimed Peter, seriously alarmed, but he didn’t reply, seemingly having lapsed into unconsciousness.
“This doesn’t look good,” said Josh. “He’s really sick.” He leant down to examine him more closely.
“What do you think’s wrong with him?” asked Peter. “Could it be something to do with the time travel? I don’t know exactly how these things work but maybe he has no immunity to modern bugs? I’ve heard of similar things happening when our early explorers made contact with people in the new world.”
“I’m no doctor, but I guess that’s a possibility,” said Josh. “Look at his face. He’s all covered in these weird dark spots. And he’s got an awful deathly pallor about him.”
Peter looked closer, but instantly recoiled as Alfie began coughing again, leaving a frothy, bloody substance on his lips. His face was also starting to turn blue.
“Oh my God, he’s coughing up blood. Jonty, go and call an ambulance.”
Jonty’s usual swagger had disappeared, having seen how serious the situation was, and instantly turned on his heel and ran back along the corridor towards the phone in his parents’ bedroom.
“We should wait outside,” said Peter. “Whatever he has, it could be contagious.”
“We can’t just leave him alone like that. Look at the state of him!”
“Don’t get too close, then.”
Alfie’s condition was worsening by the minute. Fortunately the ambulance arrived very quickly.
“Through here,” said Jonty, ushering two young paramedics into the room.
It was clear from the
concerned looks on the faces of the ambulance crew that things weren’t looking good. After a few brief checks, they soon had Alfie stretchered up and being carried down the stairs.
The leader of the paramedic team was concerned enough to insist that everyone present who had come into contact with Alfie needed to come down to the hospital to get checked out. Whatever was wrong with him, they were clearly taking it very seriously.
Jonty drove Josh and Peter up to the hospital in Jonty’s sporty blue Jaguar XJS. Christina and Mary, who hadn’t had any contact with Alfie, stayed behind. The feeling among the team was that a trip to a busy, modern hospital might be a bit much for Mary on her first day in 1992 and Christina was happy to stay behind to babysit her.
The Jaguar had been left behind by the ambulance, despite Jonty speeding along the Marston Ferry Road in his best attempt to keep up.
“It’s a good job Rebecca’s not with us,” Josh had remarked. “She might give you a speeding ticket.”
“I just want to get there quickly,” said Jonty, coughing as he did so. He felt lousy and all he could think about was the state Alfie had been in but not out of concern for the World War I veteran. He was more worried about himself. If what Alfie had was infectious it was odds on he would have caught it, especially with his worsening cough.
When they got to the hospital, they made their way to A&E, which was crowded and noisy.
“Oh gosh, look at this,” said Jonty in disgust. “I’ve heard about these places. We’ll probably be stuck here for hours. What if we’ve caught what Alfie’s got?”
“What do you mean by these places?” asked Peter.
“NHS hospitals. We always go private,” said Jonty. Daddy’s got friends in Harley Street.
“Of course he does,” replied Peter.
“Well, we need to talk to someone now,” replied Jonty, marching up to the desk.
Surprisingly, when Jonty explained who he was to the harassed-looking woman on the desk, she directed the three of them along a corridor to a separate waiting area and after just a couple of minutes, a smartly dressed doctor appeared. He was in his late-thirties and groomed immaculately in a suit and waistcoat.