Out of Time: A story of archaeology... sort of

by David LaVigne

  As soon as he was out of sight and was certain no one had seen him go, Richter opened the pouch and emptied its contents. Amid a bunch of coins printed with images of a roman emperor there was a small metal disk with two rows of dials on the face.

  “Ah,” he said softly to himself. He started working the dials but just then there was a huge commotion and a series of giant explosions and a crowd of men started running north along the streets all around him.

  The British must have broken through, he thought to himself. Oh well, I have it now. He almost turned it on right then and there, but he thought of the commotion and the damage that would cause and decided he’d find somewhere discreet.

  Richter joined the running screaming men. A few of them recognized him and asked him for orders, but most were just running. He told them to find shelter and they all spread out and ran until they were at the waters edge and couldn’t run any further. They mostly converged in the same spot so he tried to organize as best a defense as he could.

  He gathered his forces into a two story building and started ordering them to find firing positions but few of them had any powder or shot and most didn’t even have weapons. The British line could already be seen marching towards them through the streets. He decided the best thing for his men would be to just surrender. He tucked the device into the crotch of his pants, where he figured they wouldn’t search, and ordered his men to lower their arms. When the British came close they saw him standing in the entryway of the building with a white shirt hanging off the tip of his musket, which he held out in front of him.

  “Why on earth would Hans steal your pouch?” Mary asked Campbell as he rowed them toward the shore.

  “There’s something in it he wants,” he said in small breaths through strokes of the oars. Rowing, it turned out, was very hard work. “So that I can’t go back and stop him from doing this.”

  “From doing what?!” she screamed. She grabbed one of the oars and ripped it from his hand. “Now tell me what the hell is going on or we’re not going anywhere.”

  He stared her down and reached out for the oar a few times, but she kept pulling it out of hi reach.

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he said. “And if you don’t give me back that oar or help me row we’re going to drift right into British hands.”

  “I don’t care. My father will pay for my return. It’s you who should be worried, so tell me what is going on.”

  “Ok,” he said, exasperated. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m from Boston, but not this Boston.”

  She gave him a blank look. “Go on.”

  “I came here from the future to stop Richter from changing the timeline so that World War Two never happens and the Nazi’s take over.”

  “Who are the Nazi’s, what is World War Two, and what does my fiancé have to do with anything. And why on earth would I believe that you’re from the future?”

  “World War Two is a giant war that involves all of Europe and the United States and Japan, the Nazi’s are evil and you’re fiancé is one of them. The United States defeats the Nazi’s in World War Two so he came back in time to make sure that the United States never comes into being, hence the battle we just took part in which I’m pretty sure he somehow caused because history books tell us that this battle never took place and since the British don’t fight at all like they’ve been fighting tonight, and now I’m kind of ranting and I’m running out of breath.”

  He paused to inhale.

  “Why would he go back to stop the United States from forming,” Mary asked, “it seems like that would change a lot more than just the war. Why wouldn’t he just go back a few years and give these Nazi’s better advice to make sure they win?”

  “I admit it does sound a little strange,” Campbell replied, thinking about it.

  “And about the why I should believe any of this part?” Mary asked.

  “Where do you think that Italian money from 1936 came from?”

  She stared at him for a few moments, examining his face. She wasn’t ready to believe this yet, but they were getting closer to the Redcoats and she was worried about that so she handed him back the oar. He set it back into the oarlock and started to row them toward shore again.

  “I met Hans when he moved here from Germany almost two years ago,” she said. “That’s a long time to spend building up to a plan when you have a time machine.”

  Well that doesn’t make much sense, Campbell thought to himself. He had found it rather strange that Richter would be here, in this time, himself but he just figured his plan was to stop the United States from forming. That just seemed like such an obvious answer that nothing else occurred to him.

  They reached the river bank and pulled the boat up onto the sand. When they had the boat secured on the sand they turned around to face a platoon of Redcoats pointing muskets in their faces.

  Richter and his men were taken into custody. The British were quick to find new uses for many of the buildings that were still standing and the courthouse was turned into a prison. The Redcoats ignored Richter’s pleas that an officer should be treated with more respect and he was thrown in with the rest of the captives.

  They had taken his guns and his sword but as he had figured they never checked inside the trousers so he still had the device with him when two British soldiers shoved him into the courtroom and locked the door behind him.

  There were a few dozen people already in the room. Most of them were colonial soldiers. They were lined against the walls in various states of sleep, boredom and pain. A few of them were wounded. One man walked up to him almost as soon as he walked through the door and punched him square in the jaw before he even realized what was happening.

  “Where is it?” Campbell said as he watched Richter fall to the floor.

  Richter hit the floor with a thump and smacked the back of his head on the door. He reached a hand up to feel his jaw and then muttered something in German.

  “Where?” Campbell persisted.

  “I can’t imagine what you’re talking about Doctor Campbell.”

  “You know full well what I’m talking about Hans. Where is it?”

  “If I give it to you then I have no way out,” Richter said.

  “You got yourself here.”

  “I can’t get back.”

  “Oh, I see. You got a time machine and thought you’d just waltz around through history without any idea of how it works and you got yourself stuck, is that it?”

  “And you, I’m sure, took your time figuring out all the precise ins and outs of your mechanism before turning on.”

  “Um,” uttered Campbell.

  “You mean this mad man was telling the truth?” Mary said. She had been listening to the conversation from her seat in the corner since Richter walked in.

  “Mary, my dear,” Richter said, standing up so that he could embrace her.

  Mary walked up to Richter and slapped him hard in the face. As soon as he stood up he was down again. She bent over to slap him again but Campbell pulled her back.

  “Nazi!” she yelled at him.

  “How do you know that word?” Richter asked.

  “He said it meant something evil,” She said, pointing at Campbell. Then she turned around and tried to calm herself down.

  “Alright, enough of this,” Campbell said. He noticed that everyone in the room was staring at them. “Just give me back my machine and we’ll figure this out.” He said calmly.

  Richter reached into his trousers, pulled the disk out of his crotch, and held it up to Campbell who stared at it with disgust for a moment. Campbell took the disk and wiped it with his shirt before examining it to make sure it was fully intact.

  “You were trying to go back to see if your plan was working?” Campbell asked. The year dial was turned to 1936.

  “I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about Doctor Campbell,” he replied.

  “I’m sure,” Campbell said. He walked back over to the co
rner where he and Mary had been sitting before. He tried to dodge the weird looks from all the people in the room who had been watching the conversation between the three crazy people. He sat down and held the device in his lap with both hands and leaned his head back against the wall.

  Mary tried to talk with Richter for a moment but she couldn’t find any words to say. She was trying desperately to make sense of this whole situation, but she couldn’t think. Hearing his voice quickly started bothering her and turned away. She walked over to Campbell and sat close by his side, somehow the stranger was more comfortable to be around than the liar at that moment.

  “Was battle all that you thought it would be?” he asked her.

  “No,” she answered. “I suspected it would be gruesome but I didn’t realize…” she trailed off for a moment. “I was terrified. I couldn’t move.”

  “But you did move,” he said. “If you hadn’t brought those women out we all would have died back there. They took courage from you.”

  “It wasn’t courage I had,” she said. “I just saw Josiah get shot and I was more afraid for him than for myself. Oh god, Josiah…”

  She started to weep. He tried to comfort her, tried to think of the right words to say, but nothing he could think of seemed right. He wrapped an arm around her and held her tight.

  The door opened suddenly and everyone in the room jumped. The prisoners all stared at the door with anticipation, and fear. Two British soldiers brought in a few plates of old bread and moldy cheese and set them on the floor by the door, then left. There was a loud click from the other side of the door as the soldiers locked it shut. They hadn’t said anything.

  They didn’t hear anything from the other side of the door after that. Within an hour most of the people in the room were starting to fall asleep. Mary was sitting in the corner with her head resting on Campbell’s shoulder. Richter stared at them.

  Over the past two years Richter had learned her world. He had gone to fancy balls and learned their speech and which fork is used for what. He thought he was stuck here, that he would never be able to return to his own time, so he might as well settle down. He couldn’t truthfully say that he’d fallen in love with her, but she was beautiful and he definitely cared for her.

  Now he was staring at her sleeping on the shoulder of that time traveler. He was jealous, yeah, but more than that he was angry. He didn’t understand. He just wanted to go home. His eyes focused on the disk clutched tightly in Campbell’s hands and an image of running over there, forcing it out of the American’s hands and jumping back to 1936 played out in his head. Just then Campbell lifted his head and looked straight into Richter’s eyes. Then he took a note from Richter’s playbook and stuffed the device into his trousers.

  The next morning the guards brought in a breakfast of moldy bread and beer, all the fresh water was stagnant, and set it on the floor by the door. They informed the prisoners that dispatches had been sent to General Washington to arrange their ransom. It would take at least a couple days to hear a response and it would be a week or more after that for any ransom money to actually make it to the city, if they decided to pay. The already low morale amongst the captives dropped even more. Somehow the room suddenly seemed darker.

  The next two weeks were excruciatingly uneventful. Twice a day the guards would bring in beer and some form of food, either old or rotten or moldy. They make a quick check to see if any of the prisoners had died, then the door would be locked again. That’s all the contact the captives had with anyone outside of the room. There was a bucket in one corner that was used as a toilet but it quickly began to overflow and most of them tried to just eat less in hopes of not having to use it. The smell was indescribably terrible.

  When Mary and Campbell were first brought into the courtroom-turned-jail cell Mary had immediately started checking every person in the room for her father or Elizabeth. They weren’t there, nor did anyone know whether they were alive or dead. Over the first couple of days some of the guards would pull people into another room for questioning, trying to find any hiding place in the town where rebels may still be concealed. It was then that she found out her father had been killed in the attack. She learned nothing of her friend.

  At the beginning of their captivity Mary had pressed Campbell for knowledge of the future, but he held out. The other captives had written off the strange argument that first day as a result of their delirium and he preferred to leave it at that. He steered the conversations elsewhere.

  Often they tried to pass the time with games. They were in a courtroom so there were plenty of paper and quills and inkwells. Some of the soldiers drew out chess pieces on small scraps of paper and created a board. Others tried to bide their time with exercise, doing pushups and sit ups and such, but the lack of nutritious food just tired them out and they grew weaker and gave up.

  The boredom of captivity created a sort of camaraderie among the prisoners. Those who didn’t know each other before the British occupation became fast friends. There was, of course, animosity as well. Tempers were short but reconciliations quick.

  For the first few days Richter and Campbell were at each others throats, on the rare occasions when they spoke. For the most part they kept a distance from each other. Richter tried to talk to Mary and she was civil to him, but she was largely unresponsive. He had lied to her for nearly two years. Everything she knew about him was a lie and she had trouble dealing with it.

  Richter was one of the first to join in the chess game. He taught some of the younger, less educated men how to play and it was a good way for them to occupy their time. Eventually Campbell joined in.

  “I’ll take white,” he said as he walked over to Richter, who was sitting at the chair they had turned into their chess board. Richter had just finished a game with one of the colonial soldiers and was resetting the pieces.

  “Then I take first move,” Richter said. He moved his leftmost pawn two spaces forward. Campbell mirrored him.

  “How long?” Campbell asked.

  “How long until what?” Richter replied, moving his rook up behind the pawn.

  “Till we hear about a ransom,” Campbell answered, moving the pawn in front of his king forward a space.

  “A week,” he said and slid the pawn in front of his right knight a space up. “Maybe a month, maybe never.”

  Campbell moved a knight in front of the pawn on his right side. Richter slid a rook halfway across the board. The game went on for an hour. They were taking their time, making a show of concentrating on the board while they talked quietly, keeping their voices low.

  The Redcoats always brought their food at the same times every day and there were always two of them. Campbell and Richter had both paid close attention every time, trying to see out the door when it opened. Richter knew the layout of the courthouse and by the time he had Campbell in checkmate they had hatched an escape plan.

  They each talked to two other prisoners at a time and they spoke softly, as the guards could be listening through the door. They would all strike at once, taking the guards when they brought in the evening meal. Then they would have two muskets and two bayonets, which would be enough to get them out of the courthouse because the fighting would be in close quarters. Once they were outside they would snatch up what arms they could and charge the river blockade and after that they should be able to grab up a couple fishing boats and head south to Colonial territory.

  It was a loose plan and probably doomed from the start, but all of the other captives were enthusiastic to attempt anything other than deal with their current situation for a second longer. At dinner the next evening, they decided.

  Six men, Richter and Campbell included, were standing next to the door, three on each side. When the door opened the three on the left grabbed the guard with the plate of food and the three on the right rushed into the hallway and took the second guard to the floor.

  A few elbows and fists and the men were unconscious and a few of the colonials were armed. They pas
sed out the weapons: two muskets, two bayonets, two small daggers and a pistol, to the first men into the hallway. They checked to make sure the muskets and the pistol were loaded and started down the hallway in a rush, the other twenty prisoners close behind.

  The door at the end of the hallway opened just as they were getting close and one of the unarmed soldiers sprinted past his comrades and tackled the Redcoat to the floor, forcing him back through the doorway. There were four others behind him and Campbell called for no one to shoot, they didn’t have enough ammunition to handle a firefight. He led the men armed with blades straight out of the door.

  The door led to a courtyard and there were Redcoats everywhere, but thankfully they had the element of surprise, since no one had expected for a moment that the captives might attempt an escape. They had five Redcoats dead, and a few more of the colonials newly armed, before any of the British soldiers fired a shot, but when those shots came they were devastating.

  Campbell’s leg was grazed by a musket ball. It was deep but not enough to stop him. Two more of the prisoners were hit and fell to the ground. Many of the others were grazed or had musket balls in their limbs. But they didn’t stop.

  Within another minute the escapees had made it to the edge of the courtyard and more than half of them had acquired weapons. They shot their muskets when they were close enough to be certain they wouldn’t miss, then they’d just drop the gun they were holding and pick up the one their victim had had without stopping, hoping that the new one was loaded.

  The group darted for an alley between two houses that led to the riverfront, with Campbell in the lead. When they rounded the corner into the alley a small group of Redcoats blocked their way, but they didn’t stop running. The escapees fired while the British were still caught off guard and almost all of their shots hit their mark, but somehow they all missed the officer.