The Derring-Do Club and the Year of the Chrononauts

by David Wake

  “Mary– Jane get the iodine!” Georgina shouted.

  “But Miss, it’s–”

  “Ma’am!!!”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  Jane bobbed and rushed away, her feet cracking glass in the hallway: “And sweep the hallway.”

  “You were amazing,” Charlotte said.

  “Were you really going to take them on with an umbrella?”

  Charlotte smiled: “I was going to make a last stand. I’ve been practising.”

  “Better with a point three oh three.”

  Charlotte laughed: “Yes, absolutely.”

  “Lottie, you’re wearing trousers.”

  “They’re practical.”

  “It’s rampant bloomerism.”

  “No one can see.”

  “Everyone saw,” said Georgina. “Change at once.”

  The maid came back with the medicine box and then dithered.

  Charlotte took the iodine off the flapping Jane: “This’ll sting,” she said to her sister.

  Georgina gritted her teeth as Charlotte dabbed here and there.

  “Brush, pan… hallway,” said Georgina. “And get Jane.”

  “I am Jane.”

  “Then… get the other one.”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” said Jane with another bob.

  “You should raise your legs to stop the bleeding,” said Charlotte.

  Georgina did so, looking quite ridiculous lying on the kitchen floor with her legs stuck up in the air.

  “Matters are becoming serious with the Chronological business,” Georgina said.

  Charlotte nodded.

  “It’s not just Uncle Jeremiah, Mister Boothroyd and now Earnestine disappearing, but the whole world seems to be going mad.”

  “What can we do?”

  There was a clatter from the hallway.

  “Fix the windows,” said Georgina, “and carry on.”

  Chapter XIII

  Miss Deering-Dolittle

  Earnestine awoke to the bustle of Mrs Androlucia. She felt awful, groggy, as if this future did not agree with her. Mrs Androlucia’s friendly smile did not help at all.

  “You feeling a little rough, my dear?”

  “Yes.”

  “Temporal Ague, it’ll pass, don’t you worry.”

  “I feel…”

  “Headache? Tired?”

  “That’s it.”

  “It’s something to do with the process.”

  Once Earnestine had washed and dressed, she was taken along a group of passages she’d not seen before, up and down stairs, until she arrived at a nurse’s station. A woman filled in forms, checked her heartbeat and looked into her ears.

  “Nurse, what’s this for?” Earnestine asked.

  “Doctor,” the woman replied without looking up. “I’m a Doctor.”

  “Oh, a woman Doctor.”

  “Yes, why, what’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing, just…”

  “You olden days people… honestly.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Earnestine said, “but what is this all for?”

  “Temporal ague and poisoning check.”

  “Oh!”

  “Hmm…”

  The Doctor, her starched uniform as stern as her expression, stuck a wooden spatula in Earnestine’s mouth and peered down.

  “What’s your date of birth?”

  “Ah… uh. Eh… ah.”

  “How old?”

  Why did Doctors and Dentists always ask questions, when they knew full well that one couldn’t answer them: “Twe – nee… ah… nee.”

  “Biologically twenty, good, and what’s your Chronostatic Displacement?”

  “Ma… wah?”

  “Never mind, you’ll live.”

  With that over, Earnestine was taken back, up and down stairs, and finally returned to the Conveyor Chamber where she’d first arrived. She was positioned on the mat between two Peelers. Mrs Frasier arrived and stood by the technician.

  “Are you coming?” Earnestine asked Mrs Frasier.

  “Back to that misogynistic smog ridden era? Not likely.”

  The technician glanced at the controls and gripped the jewelled lever: “Eight fifty nine…”

  Again, everyone checked their pocket watches. Earnestine, ready for this, did the same: it was 11:45 for her. She still hadn’t adjusted it and there was no point now.

  “Scrutiniser Jones,” Mrs Frasier said.

  “Ma’am,” said the big man to Earnestine’s right. With their black frock coats, top hats and strange white glasses, they all looked the same, except for this shaven bear of a man.

  “Take good care of her,” Mrs Frasier said. “Earnestine. When you get back there to those days seventy five years ago, tell them what it’s like here, tell them of good work we’re doing here, but, above all, tell them the truth.”

  “I will,” Earnestine replied.

  “If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,” Mrs Frasier said, quoting Kipling. “And risk it all on one turn of pitch–and–toss.”

  The light built, that strange noise grew in volume, and Mrs Frasier, and her gold toothed smile, began fading from view.

  Earnestine steeled herself, closed her eyes tightly and that awful sensation built in her stomach and legs, but this time somehow in reverse. She felt dizzy, flailed out with her arms as if she were losing balance and she was caught by the two Peelers travelling with her.

  Finally, the sensation stopped with a jerk and she was back in her own time: still daylight. The galvanic lights had become gas taps and the paintwork was no longer peeling and old, but fresh and new.

  “When is it?” she asked.

  “Oh nine hundred,” said the new technician, but not in reply. He was still carrying out his checks before unscrewing the control lever.

  “Good conveyance,” said Scrutiniser Jones. “Always nice to arrive at the same time of day.”

  Earnestine’s own watch said 11:46. She ought to change it and realised that this awkwardness must exist for those travelling east or west on, say, the Orient Express or by Zeppelin.

  Scrutiniser Jones stepped off the platform: “Did we arrive on the right day?”

  “Depends when you were aiming for?” the technician said. “It’s the morning of Friday the seventeenth.”

  “Excellent, spot on.”

  Earnestine fumbled for her watch: she was nine and one quarter hours… behind, because for her it was Wednesday–

  “What did you say!?”

  “Friday the seventee–”

  “But I’ve lost two days!”

  “That’s Chronological Conveyance for you,” the technician replied. He waved the lever he’d removed and the light shone through it, casting speckles across the ceiling.

  She was closer to her birthday, she realised. Did that count or would she have to wait two more days for her cake and candles?

  The Peelers escorted Earnestine outside to a waiting carriage. Caruthers was smoking a cigarette and his impatient strides had taken him some way down the street, so he had to trot back.

  “Everything all right?” he asked the Peelers.

  “She’s been, she’s back,” said Scrutiniser Jones. “Straight on with her.”

  Caruthers nodded.

  They clambered into the carriage and it clattered away. Caruthers drew the blinds and handed Earnestine a hip flask. She unscrewed the top and took a swig, feeling the metal thread with her lips and then the stinging liquid hit her palette. She snorted, swallowed and took another, much slower draught. The warmth spread down her insides burning her stomach.

  “It’s an acquired taste, sorry,” he said, smoothing his chevron moustache in thought.

  Earnestine had another experiment at acquiring it, and a fourth.

  “Steady on,” said Caruthers.

  The carriage went through Lambeth heading for Westminster Bridge.

  “Did you manage, you know?” said Caruthers.

  Earnestine hefted the miniature camera
out of her bag and gave it to him.

  “Excellent.”

  “Mrs Frasier knew.”

  “She has a tendency of knowing.”

  “She let me… or rather she took the pictures.”

  “I’ll get them developed,” said Caruthers.

  The carriage turned and took them across the river and then pulled up outside the Houses of Parliament.

  As she disembarked from the cab, Earnestine noticed the number of soldiers dressed in military khaki and armed with rifles. They stood at ease in pairs here at the set down point, by the door, further along towards Westminster Bridge and around the corner towards Whitehall.

  “There are a lot of soldiers,” she said.

  “Things are changing.”

  “So quickly?”

  “You’ve been away a long time,” said Caruthers. “Five days.”

  “Seventy five years,” Earnestine said.

  Caruthers, tight lipped, brought her straight through the security details and along the plush corridors of power. They stopped by an entrance to the second chamber.

  “The House of Lords,” said Caruthers, putting his finger to his lips, although Earnestine could not imagine actually speaking in such an august building.

  He opened the door and they slipped inside.

  The chamber was like a high church or cathedral, but with wooden panelling around the lower part of the walls and gothic stained glass windows stretching up towards the elaborate ceiling. The rows of benches on either side were upholstered in red leather and the far end was a statement of gold decoration, dominated by a magnificent throne. Every space, even the balcony that went around the walls, was crowded with men. They all wore fine clothes, some in wigs and gowns and others in religious regalia, and they generated such brouhaha as they all tried to shout at once.

  A clerk stepped in to stop them: one eye looked at Earnestine, the other at Caruthers, and then disconcertingly it swivelled of its own accord to gaze over Earnestine’s shoulder.

  Captain Caruthers gave his card to the man and pointed. They had a whispered conversation, mouth to cupped ear, and then the man with the lazy eye threaded his way through the gathering.

  The speaker called for order – “Order, order!” and eventually a quiet settled: “Lord Farthing!”

  Earnestine recognized the surprisingly young man when he stood, dressed smartly in white tie and tails, and waved his order sheet in front of him like a baton.

  “Gentlemen, my Lords, a little more time please.”

  There was a general bellowing of disapproval.

  Some wag’s sharp voice carried: “You have plenty of time with time travel.”

  The clerk reached Lord Farthing and handed him the card. Lord Farthing checked it and then noticed the clerk’s pointing finger. He looked across, his gaze locked with Earnestine’s. For a moment the noise faded.

  Lord Farthing threw his arms wide: “You have asked – rightly – for proof.”

  “Aye, aye,” came a chorus of responses.

  “And here she is.”

  He gestured like a compère introducing an act at the theatre and, like the parting of the Red Sea, people stood aside to create a clear passage between the Peer and Earnestine. Even Captain Caruthers stepped to one side leaving her standing alone.

  A dreadful hush.

  Earnestine’s mouth went dry.

  Lord Farthing flexed his finger – come, come.

  Earnestine walked into the centre of the high–ceilinged chamber until the ranks of seats on either side, and the general press of standing room only, surrounded her.

  “This is Miss Deering–Dolittle,” said Lord Farthing, his voice seemed to float far away. “She was selected as a trustworthy person, an innocent, someone untouched by Conspiracy or Committee. Come, Child, tell us!”

  “My Lords–”

  Her voice was an awful squeak like Charlotte’s violin practise. A glass of water was thrust into her hand and she took a grateful drink, washing away the taste of Caruthers’ brandy.

  “What day is it?”

  After some confusion, a Bishop answered: “Friday.”

  “My watch…” she weighed it in her hand, “On Monday I went away for a day and a half, and I find I have been deposited here on Friday – five days later.”

  There was a wave of murmured comments.

  The Speaker of the House intervened: “Order!”

  “I have been to the future, transported from a room to the same room, but seventy five years hence. I saw this very building in which I now stand from a distance and the sky was full of flying machines. I saw wonders I could not comprehend, devices and mechanisms beyond our understanding as a steam engine is worshipped by natives in our own far flung colonies and people… and misery and hardship in a world devastated by war.”

  She paused; it was all too much as if the enormity of it was only now beginning to manifest itself.

  She was prompted: “Go on”, “Tell us”, “Quiet”, “Let her speak.”

  “There was a Great War, a World War that touched every land in the Empire with armies on every continent, navies on every sea, air machines in every sky and it involved every nation. It nearly destroyed everything. Millions – that’s millions – killed on the battlefields, bombs from the air, civilians – women and children – massacred. There were unstoppable land behemoths churning the mud across Europe, men tunnelling like animals to kill each other underground, metal tubes like undersea dreadnoughts plying the very oceans hunting merchant shipping like monstrous sharks. A whole generation of young men cut down like… like… a crop.”

  No–one spoke now, not a whisper, as expressions betrayed every man’s inner struggle to comprehend this horror. Earnestine wanted to say more, to explain over and over until they understood, but she held her tongue.

  The question was finally asked: “But, Miss, do you believe it?”

  “How could I not when I saw it with my own eyes.”

  Captain Caruthers came up and took her elbow, guiding her away.

  “Lord Farthing,” said a voice behind her, “you ask us to surrender our hard won powers to this… committee.”

  “My Lords, My Lords, please,” Lord Farthing commanded, his clear voice cutting through the hubbub. “We are not discussing the demise of this House, far from it. Just as we defer to the lower house upon occasion, we now defer to a higher chamber. This Chronological Committee was formed by the Crown and Government of the Empire for a particular task. We are simply following our own orders, though before we have made them.”

  Another Lord jumped to his feet: “Lord Farthing, my Lord.”

  “I give ground,” said Lord Farthing.

  “My Lord, what you say is all very well, but there is a long standing legal precedent. Laws cannot be applied retroactively.”

  “But the… excuse me.” Lord Farthing consulted his notes. “The Law of Retroactive Application as pertaining to Chronological Police Act of 1962 does make it so.”

  “But it does not apply.”

  “It does not apply yet!”

  Lord Farthing’s turn of phrase struck Earnestine as belonging to Mrs Frasier.

  “Gentlemen, Gentlemen,” Lord Farthing continued, “their desperate times – such desperate times – led them to desperate measures. They want to save the world. Our world. And who would not want that? Who stands here for destruction? Who stands for Death? Who stands for War? I most certainly do not. Do you? Or you? You Sir, do you?”

  The man picked out, and his neighbours, shook and then bowed their heads.

  “Of course not. And their desperate times will be our desperate times unless we act now in our own time. We are simply endorsing a decision that will be made. I ask you to vote for the motion, stand up for law and order and save our very future!”

  A shout rang from the back: “This is a fait accompli!”

  “No, Sir, it is not: it will be a fate avoided.”

  As the Members of the House of Lords filed out to ‘vot
e with their feet’ through one door for ‘aye’ and another for ‘nay’, a small group gathered in a committee room: Captain Caruthers, Earnestine and a few others.

  The room, although gloriously decorated, seemed Spartan in comparison to the great chamber of the Lords. Earnestine felt desperately tired as she waited. How could it take so long to count… but there had been hundreds of men packed into the cathedral–like space.

  A clerk arrived with a note for Caruthers. He seemed shifty, his eyes looking in different directions as if he were permanently suspicious of everything and everybody.

  “Major Dan,” the Captain said by way of explanation. He didn’t show it to Earnestine, but instead scrunched it up into his pocket.

  “It’s on a knife edge, it could go either way,” said Lord Farthing as he entered. “Miss Deering–Dolittle, you performed splendidly.”

  “Thank you, my Lord.”

  “Ah, yes… yes, Mrs Frasier was right, you are a fine young lady. Weren’t you something to do with defeating that Austro–Hungarian business?”

  “She was, my Lord,” said Caruthers.

  “Nasty, nasty, that was a terrible business, but it wasn’t the end of the world, was it?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Whereas this is.”

  The clerk with the lazy eye came in, bowed and handed Lord Farthing a slip of paper.

  “Our future,” said Lord Farthing. “One wonders whether it is right to know, but nonetheless we must look. We have been shown the future in the hope of avoiding it and with this we might.”

  He opened the folded page.

  His face revealed nothing, his eyes merely showing that he read it, read it again and finally checked a third time, then he whooped and jumped off the ground.

  “We have it, by Jove, we have it! The Laws of the Future take precedence over the laws of the past from this moment on. I did not believe we could pull it off, but we did. You did, my dear. You tipped the balance of the scales. We would have got there, don’t you doubt it, but this makes things so much easier, all above board and by the book.”

  “Good news, my Lord,” said Earnestine.

  “Yes, now we can begin the arrests in earnest.”