Timeslip Troopers

by Théo Varlet

  “Bonjour, Monsieur Renard.”

  “Bonjour, Dupuy. Your wireless apparatus is set up in the tower?”

  “In the observation-post, yes, Monsieur Renard. If you want to go up before it’s completely dark, I’ll join you in a minute.”

  The two officers went into the ancient and somber building. Going past the office, where a clerk was visible, hunched over an oil-lamp, they switched on their pocket torches in order to climb the rigid ladders linking the vaulted floors.

  “Do you know that radio man?” asked de Lanselles, alias Monocard.

  “Yes, that’s right, you’ve just arrived from the two-twenty,” said Renard. “You don’t know. I knew Dupuy as a boy; we used to indulge in rough-and-tumble together. He was the son of the concierge in my father’s workshop, at the Orange automobile factory. He became a mechanic, and then an electrician. In ’14, at 25, he had just gone into the distribution factory at Issy-les-Moulineaux as a workshop manager. If he sees out the war, he’ll go far.”

  The noise of a rapid climb shook the wooden rungs. Sergeant Dupuy arrived on the upper platform at the same time as the two officers.

  “Beautiful landscape,” murmured de Lanselles, parading his interested monocle around.

  In almost complete darkness, only the ribbon of the Seille was still shining faintly. All the rest, whether it was allied or enemy territory, extended in vague undulations toward the forts of Metz, punctuated in the distance by rare fires. To the north, the cannonade was rumbling, and flares were describing their luminous parabolas in the sky.

  “Not bad,” Renard conceded. “But you’ll have plenty of time to see it, in a fortnight. Come on, old chap.”

  Dupuy took his visitors into the corrugated iron shelter in which another radio operator, wearing earphones, was scribbling notes.

  “At present, it’s Lyon that’s sending…a real pleasure, receiving from Lyon; clear signals and not too fast. At midday, the Eiffel Tower. At three o’clock, Nauen, the big Boche transmitter...”

  After having spent a quarter of an hour being subjected to a short course in practical wireless telegraphy, and meekly applying their ears to the receivers in which and musical modulations, mysterious to them, were drumming amid the rapid crackling, the two officers went back down. It was freezing up there, and it was nearly six o’clock. The orderlies ought to have lit the fire and prepared the meal.

  As they went into the cellar, even though he was used to the cares of the unequaled Jasmin, Renard uttered a brief laugh of satisfaction—and de Lanselles, in spite of his idealism and disdain for the material, wiped the mist off his monocle and permitted himself an appreciative cluck of the tongue.

  The roaring stove, laden with pans, was spreading a gentle heat and a savory perfume of roasted fowl through the subterrain. The lamp, fitted with a pink paper hood, was illuminating the table on which, on a clear white tablecloth, a blue porcelain vase ornamented with holly and mistletoe separated the place-settings. The two orderlies, standing to attention to either side of the table, completed the welcoming scene.

  “Ha ha! You’re surpassed yourself, Jasmin, my friend,” said the lieutenant. “That vase…my word, he’s borrowed it from the curé! And what’s that sweet-smelling bird?”

  “A teal, Lieutenant. My colleague Saucisson’s been hunting. When we began cleaning up, we found two Lefaucheux, with cartridges. What wines would our lieutenants like served?”

  “With game, Pommard would seem suitable to me…or perhaps Mouton-d’Armailhac. What do you think, de Lanselles?”

  “Oh, I’ll leave it up to you, Renard; these material details are irrelevant to me.”

  “All right then, Pommard and Mouton. A little glass of dry Rhenish to start, and champagne to finish. But first, an aperitif.”

  They did honor to the teal, and even more to the Englishman’s bottles.

  The next morning, as soon as their officers had left the cellar, the orderlies set about the housework. The unpolished Saucisson saw no necessity to touch the pile of furniture that, in Jasmin’s words, “dishonored their masters’ apartment,” and would have preferred to undertake a methodical examination of the wine-racks, but a remark of Renard’s on the subject of the volumes destroyed by “that stupid drunkard Loubet” had served as a pretext for the shrewd Jasmin to interpret it a formal instruction to put the “glory-hole” in order and to set aside any books they might find therein. Arguing on the basis of that order, the ex-valet de chambre of the Duc de Pinchefalise, obtained the support of his robust colleague in the work of clearance.

  Velvet-covered chairs, armchairs, a carpet, curtains, a sideboard, even a piano—Monocard could play—gave the installation an unexpected comfort. Empty packing-cases, and whitewood tables and chairs were taken up to the ground floor as a supply of future firewood. A large trunk, whose lock scarcely put up any resistance, was full of civilian clothes: two checkered suits, ulsters, underwear, a black dinner-jacket with waistcoat and trousers.

  Saucisson took the dinner-jacket and immediately put it on—and when he had completed his costume with a “stove-pipe” hat, discovered in company with several sporting helmets, he refused to continue the operation before having taken a stroll around the village in his new splendor. He did not get far, though; Sergeant Cipriani—an ill-tempered little Corsican, and a stickler for discipline—encountered him in the kitchens and suggested, in rather sharp terms, that he turn around. To cap it all, Lieutenant Monocard came in during the conversation, and the amateur dandy had to go back to the cellar with his tail between his legs.

  He found Jasmin occupied in examining a black leather-bound notebook filled with lines written in a foreign language.

  “What’s that you’re reading? Is it Boche? Where did it come from?”

  “It was at the bottom of the trunk. I think it’s English. I’ll give it to my lieutenant. Who knows? Perhaps the document might assist the national defense.”

  A far more curious discovery was made that afternoon, however. The furniture having been remove, followed by three boxes of books—perhaps five hundred volumes; enough to fill the Henri II bookcase emptied by the captain twice over—they finally reached an instrument, or, rather, a machine, which was vaguely reminiscent at first glance of a van without wheels, bolted to an enormous cast-iron base. When they had exhausted the most absurd hypotheses regarding the strange device—Jasmin maintained that it was a mysterious instrument of espionage—the two orderlies attempted to get rid of it. Even though they combined their efforts, however—and Saucisson, among other professions, had been a wrestler and weight-lifter in Marseilles—the cast-iron base rendered any transportation impracticable.

  “Bah!” sighed Jasmin. “We’ll hide the not-very-decorative object under one of those Algerian curtains. First, though, I’ll show it to my lieutenant.”

  At a glance, Renard—an expert in material matters—saw that the apparatus had no serious relationship to an automobile. Only the dials providing indications in English could give that illusion to laymen. In addition to the absence of wheels and even of axles, no mechanical transmission departed from the housing that might have contained something akin to an engine.

  After the meal, Renard appealed to de Lanselles to study the singular device, but Monocard had a horror of anything resembling technology and declared himself incompetent. Duty was calling him, in any case; and after having rummaged for twenty minutes in the boxes of books, he left Renard plunged in his examination.

  What use could the Englishman have made of this unknown machine?

  Suddenly, the officer remembered the black leather-bound notebook, through which he had leafed distractedly in the early afternoon. Several inscriptions on the dials—PAST and FUTURE, among others—were to be found in the notes, where the formed chapter titles. Swiftly, he took it out of the bookcase, into which he had thrown it, and, summoning up his knowledge of English, he set about reading it attentively.

  There was no doubt about it: the notebook related to the ap
paratus. With a disconcerting laconism, the function of each control and the purpose of each dial were specified therein...

  After four pages, a suspicion of the truth dawned on the lieutenant...

  Was that book by Wells he had once read, which he suddenly remembered with a singular clarity, not merely a novel, then? The machine described therein was not a pure fiction; someone—an engineer—had really imagined, designed and constructed one...

  After ten minutes, in which incredulity gradually gave way to doubt, and then to persuasion, Renard, amazed and bewildered but impassioned by the discovery, was obliged to yield to the evidence. The owner of the cellar—the English engineer shot as a spy in ’14—was the constructor of the machine described by Wells, and the machine that was resting here in the cellar, perhaps intact and ready to function, was neither more nor less than the famous Time Machine!

  II. The Repair

  As the poilus of the tenth had said, Port-sur-Seille was peppered with fire, but only moderately; Adjutant Etcheverry and the sergeants of the eighth were given the job of not allowing the tradition to lapse. That morning, the day after their arrival, the redoubtable Sergeant Cipriani paraded his tempestuous zeal throughout the village. His first visit was to the barn in which, the day before, he had noticed a two-twenty millimeter shell, abandoned. Two men, left behind by their squadron, were sitting on the projectile, placidly playing cards.

  “What’s this? I gave orders to get rid of that shell! It might be primed—you don’t know one way or the other. You’re part of the company lodged here. Suppose some swine comes in one night and gives it a kick—would you like your entrails soaring through the air, eh? Don’t let me see that thing again. Get moving.”

  Then it was the dug-outs, not tidy enough for his taste, and a vengeful proclamation: “Inspection at two o’clock. Rifles taken apart, machine-guns too. Grenadiers, an exact count of grenades; the automatic pistols well greased, and their 25 cartridges. No one exempted, even the radio-operators—don’t forget to tell them…and try to be ready, you load of good-for-nothings!”

  The storekeeper, a little further on, was severely reprimanded. “You’re going to sort out the biscuits for me, one by one, and the tins of bully beef: all the blues together, all the reds, all the greens; and you’re going to count the bars of chocolate, the quarters of lard, the cans of cooking-oil and lamp-oil. Make me a list of all the provisions. Get it done inside two hours.”

  As he emerged on to the square sheltered by the tower and the building where the kitchens were, the sight of a seventy-five millimeter cannon with a missing wheel drew an irritated exclamation from him. “Where’s the crew? The crew I ordered to get rid of this old nail for me? All playing cards, eh? Hey you, the cook, what are you doing messing about with the breech of that cannon? What? They’re using it as a knife-cupboard? In God’s name, what if I were to have you court-martialed for damaging armaments? That 75’s still in good condition; it only needs a little work to get it back to work. And that truck over there? Those swine from the artillery haven’t come to pick it up? The shells are still in it? Seven 75 millimeter shells, no? And the tarpaulin’s still on top…oh, what a mess, what a mess! If we’re caught on the hop by the Boche, this won’t do at all! Oh, beg pardon, lieutenant—I didn’t see you!”

  Lieutenant Renard, seemingly preoccupied, had just come up to the sergeant and tapped him on the shoulder.

  “Yes, yes, that’s all right, Cipriani—but tell me, have you seen Sergeant Dupuy?”

  “He’s working with his crew on the bank of the Seille.”

  “Send someone to fetch him for me—tell him to come to my cellar, immediately.”

  In the first surge of enthusiasm that had followed the identification of the Machine, Renard had initially intended to tell Monocard everything as soon as the latter returned. After an hour of fruitless attempts to ensure that the apparatus was working—attempts hindered by the fear of an accident of an unknown nature, and all the more to be dreaded—he had concluded by admitting that he would never be able to grasp the precise operation of the device on his own. The notebook, a purely personal reminder kept by the English engineer, had too many abbreviations and technical terms. In order to decipher them, extensive preliminary knowledge was required, of mechanics and, above all, electricity.

  Renard was not very well up in the latter branch of science. Given that, what could he possibly do if Monocard, always skeptical and inclined to deny material progress, asked him to make the Machine work, or even quizzed him about its operation? The notebook would not convince Monocard, who only knew German, not English...

  No, before saying anything, it was necessary to obtain the discreet aid of a specialist, an electrician—little Dupuy, of course!—and check out the operation of the Machine with him. Then, when the operation was familiar, he could exhibit the object to Monocard and give him a demonstration. Until then, hush-hush!

  Renard had, therefore, kept silent when the sub-lieutenant returned at about midnight. But the following day, in the morning, as soon as he had an hour’s peace ahead of him, he set out in search of Dupuy.

  Sent by Cipriani, the radio operator came into the cellar, where the lieutenant, alone and with the black notebook in hand, was waiting for him impatiently.

  “You asked for me, Monsieur Renard? It is to make a repair?”

  “A repair? Perhaps. I don’t know yet. Let’s take things in order. Have you read Wells?”

  “Wells?” the other repeated, slightly astonished. “I certainly have read him. The Invisible Man, wandering naked through the streets of London…very amusing. He’s an ace, that Wells! He’s much better than Jules Verne.”

  “And The Time Machine? Do you know that one?”

  “Yes, yes, I know it…that one, at least, is scientific.”

  “Well, my little Dupuy, I won’t beat around the bush—I know you’re discreet. The Time Machine? It was in this cellar, under a pile of debris. I’ve found it. Look—there it is!”

  “No! You’re pulling my leg, Lieutenant! In Wells, the engineer left on it, and was never seen again.”

  “And he landed here? Or it’s another engineer and a different machine? Perhaps Wells’s man didn’t have a monopoly. Anyway, in brief, this is one of them. I had you come to see whether it’s in working order—and if necessary, to repair it.”

  The lieutenant set about translating a few of the pages of the notebook, aloud. Leaning over the apparatus, Dupuy followed the explanations, verifying as he went along the situation of the controls beneath the dials. After ten minutes, he was no longer in doubt.

  “Oh, but your engineer has improved it, Lieutenant! He’s done better than Wells’s man. This is a new model. In the book, there was talk of a little bicycle-saddle. Here, there are two bucket-seats. Oh, there’s some nice tricks here. FUTURE—the control for l’avenir, yes. PAST—that means passé, doesn’t it? And here’s the warning-light, and the indicator that lights up—like a wireless detector—to tell you that everything’s working.

  “SPACE—espace, you say, Monsieur Renard. Why, damn it, this machine can travel in space as well as into the future or the past! Look here, at these little dials to one side, with micrometer screws, magnifying glasses and verniers to read the divisions: that’s how one regulates displacement in space…a millimeter on the scale in equivalent to an actual horizontal kilometer…NORTH-SOUTH following the line of longitude and EAST-WEST latitude, obviously.

  “And this control is for altitude…it’s amazing! So, if I select on the map—there’s even a map!—let’s say Paris...I set all the controls…one, two, three controls...and with the setting for the past…before the war, eh? That was the best time...1912... There! All we have to do is get into the seats and start it up, and we’ll disembark—click!—in Montmartre in 1912.”

  “Be careful—no tricks. Don’t go so quickly. First, we need to be sure...”

  “Have no fear, Monsieur Renard: there’s a safety-catch. Ah! What’s this? This slide-rule
thing. What can that be? Look for PERIMETER INCLUDED in the notebook.”

  It turned out from the notebook—on a page full of terribly complicated formulae regarding the relativity of time and space, since rediscovered by Einstein—that the Machine was capable not only of traveling in an independent fashion but also, at will, of taking under its influence and transporting with it a peripheral zone of terrain whose diameter, determined by the “slide-rule,” could extend as far as 200 meters.”

  “What an ace! What an ace!” Dupuy repeated.

  “Take care, my lad, to keep that slide-rule at zero,” Renard instructed. “If we try an experiment, we mustn’t displace the trenches as well. That would kick up a fuss! And the Boche would take advantage of it!”

  But the experiment, all things considered, did not seem so easy to carry out. A more detailed examination convinced the electrician that, although the machine was intact in its essential parts, two things were still opposed to its functioning: firstly, the indispensable battery of accumulators had lost its charge; secondly, an aluminum component, fortunately described in the schematics in the notebook, had been corroded and rendered useless by an infiltration of acid coming from a cracked battery.

  “The battery’s no problem,” Dupuy declared. “I can get one from the wireless apparatus—but the aluminum lever’s more serious. I’ll have to make another, and I don’t have any aluminum to hand. Too bad—I’ll find some.”

  Dupuy was not a man to let himself be stopped by that difficulty. The desire to try out the machine had developed in him, as it had in the lieutenant, with a tyrannical violence that silenced all scruples. The company artist, who furnished the eighth with aluminum rings, with or without the collaboration of the man with the lice, kept a good half-kilo of the metal in reserve in a satchel. Dupuy would simply steal the satchel.