by Jodi Taylor
I looked at Leon, who nodded. All this sounded good.
The door opened and Dr Bairstow reappeared with a slightly apprehensive-looking Matthew. I nodded at Leon, who stepped forwards.
‘Matthew, this is a friend of St Mary’s – Professor Penrose. He will be your new tutor.’
Eddie was on his feet again and shaking hands. ‘Matthew, my boy, I’m very pleased to meet you. Dr Bairstow has told me a great deal about you. How is the work on your dirigible progressing?’
Matthew shrugged. He’s not always good with talking and he’s definitely not good at talking to people he doesn’t know. Eddie didn’t seem to notice, which surprised me. He wasn’t usually so insensitive.
Reseating himself, he said, ‘I’m to be your new teacher. Dr Bairstow has set aside a room for us to use as your classroom. At the moment it’s full of horrible, boring stuff like whiteboards and world maps and periodic tables, but we’ll soon put a stop to that. The good news is that we’re quite close to R&D, which means there’ll be all sorts of exciting things happening around us.’
Matthew’s face had no expression. Eddie still didn’t seem to notice.
‘There will be the normal subjects, of course,’ he continued. ‘Maths, English, geography, and so on. Sadly, we have to do those or we’ll be in trouble, but I thought we could embark on some sort of long-term project. Something that will tie them all together.’
He sat forwards in his chair, radiating excitement. ‘Now, Dr Bairstow has been telling me that your Mr Markham has been pressing for a personal assistant. Someone to deal with paperwork, office routine, simple tasks, that sort of thing.’
Matthew knew all about this. The whole building had been on the receiving end of Markham’s ceaseless campaign for administrative assistance. Rumour had it he’d been attempting to bribe various members of the Admin Department to defect, all of whom had accepted the bribes with enthusiasm and then refused to move.
Slowly, Matthew nodded.
Eddie lowered his voice. ‘Well, I’ve had a brilliant idea. Together, Matthew, you and I will build him one.’
Leon found his voice first. ‘You’re going to build Markham a woman?’
The professor regarded him severely. ‘I don’t think we should automatically assume every personal assistant is a woman, do you? Not a good example to set.’
Having successfully thrown Leon off balance, he turned to Matthew. ‘What I’m thinking, Matthew, is that this will be a multi-disciplinary project. Firstly, we will need to question Mr Markham regarding his exact requirements.’
‘Um . . .’ said Leon, who had a pretty good idea of the form Markham’s exact requirements would take.
Matthew, who would happily spend hours in Security with Uncle Markham, nodded again.
Eddie rattled on regardless. A good move. He was making Matthew work to keep up. ‘For instance, do you think Mr Markham would want his assistant to be able to fly?’
Well, I think we all knew the answer to that one. I certainly did.
‘Will he want it to make tea? To be able to speak – to answer the phone, for example, relay simple messages, that sort of thing? Would it need arms or appendages of some kind for handling paperwork? Will he want a static unit or one that could move around? How will it get up the stairs? Or go outside? We need to know all this and much more. Then, having gathered this information, Matthew, you and I will need to sit down and pull it all together. How are your writing skills?’
Matthew nodded.
The professor cupped a hand around his ear. ‘Sorry, you’ll have to speak up a little. Can’t always hear that well these days.’
There was a short pause and then Matthew said, ‘I can write. Not very fast.’
‘Not important. You’ll soon get faster.’ Eddie began to pace around the office, enveloping us all in clouds of enthusiasm. Even I felt the urge to seize a screwdriver. I couldn’t imagine how Leon was managing to rein himself in.
The professor clasped his hands behind his back, under his jacket, striding up and down, vibrating with energy. ‘From there, we’ll start drawing up plans. I’m hoping the Technical Section will be able to help us there, Leon. We’ll build it in R&D, of course. Professor Rapson will be very excited to assist, I think. And we’ll need to involve Dr Dowson, too. He can help with our research. No point in reinventing the wheel, eh, Matthew?’
Matthew shook his head, remembered and said, ‘No.’
‘And then, after we’ve built it, there will be field-testing, of course. You’ll need to be able to keep accurate records for that. You’ll have to know how to build a data stack, of course, and we’ll need spreadsheets to record our successes, failures, rethinking, redesigning and so on. We’ll have to problem-solve, talk to people, listen to their answers, manage our time – and lots more.’
Oh my God, Eddie was right. This was brilliant. He’ll be acquiring new skills without even being aware of it.
He turned to me. ‘He’d have to continue with his usual academic subjects, of course, but he’ll soon see the value of those subjects once he’s putting them to practical use. What do you think?’
Leon stood up and shook his hand. ‘An excellent plan.’
I smiled. ‘Brilliant, professor. I really think it will work.’
‘This is a great relief,’ said Dr Bairstow. ‘I do not wish to alarm anyone, but Mrs Partridge advises me she has spent some considerable time in a heated argument with the council this morning. It would seem they were expressing grave concern over a request, originating from this unit, to hire a small aircraft for the purpose of skywriting. Followed by a similar conversation with the CAA and then another with the local airport authority. I should say that at the time she appeared to be quite considerably incensed and I would not recommend anyone approaching her today for anything less than a major emergency.’ He turned to me. ‘I was wondering, Dr Maxwell, if you could shed any light on this mystery?’
He was wasting his time. I had my innocent expression and blanket denial all ready. ‘Skywriting, sir? How strange. Nothing to do with me.’
8
So there we were – problems sorted. Life resumed. The occasional shouting match in the History Department. The occasional explosion from R&D. Everything normal.
Matthew settled well. With the proviso that if he and Eddie were anywhere near the lake then he was to wear a life jacket, or if they were anywhere near machinery then he was to wear a hard hat, I left them to get on with it. Matthew would race off after a bolted breakfast. I’d catch an occasional glimpse of him through the open classroom door, writing at a table or staring at something on the whiteboard, and in the afternoons, I’d see him trotting around the building – wearing a Roundhead helmet because he’d taken a shine to it and wouldn’t take it off – and clutching a clipboard while he and Eddie interviewed people. His vocabulary improved. He looked busy and happy. And incredibly dirty. I would send him out in the morning, neat and clean, and you wouldn’t believe the state of him when he came back in the evening.
Eddie would wink whenever he saw me and gradually, I settled down as well. Tension I hadn’t known I’d been carrying slowly dropped away. The weather improved. Everything got better.
I spent most of my time pulling together material for the Crete assignment, putting in long hours in the Library, assisted by Dr Dowson, which had the added bonus of taking his mind off whatever was noisily going on in R&D above his head.
Speaking of R&D . . . Professor Rapson collared me one morning as I was walking past.
‘Max, I’ve been giving some thought to protective headgear.’
I was polite because I hadn’t the faintest idea what he was talking about. The accepted procedure is to acquire information without, in any way, admitting ignorance. ‘Sounds interesting. Tell me more, professor?’
‘Crete, Max,’ he said, patiently. ‘Volcanic eruptions, rocks ra
ining down on unprotected heads. All that sort of thing.’
‘Oh. Yes. Well, I appreciate the thought, professor, but the plan is to evacuate long before things get really dodgy.’
‘Yes, I’m sure, but it strikes me that by donning suitable headgear, we could extend our operating time by ten or fifteen minutes, and you know as well as I that fifteen minutes can make all the difference when salvaging valuable items in exciting circumstances.’
I stopped. On one hand, he had a point. On the other hand, this was Professor Rapson and we could end up encased in full armour. On the other hand – yes, I know, but only pedants are counting – it would keep him out of mischief for a day or two.
‘Excellent idea, professor. Go for it. See what you can come up with.’
He beamed. ‘I know we could all just don hard hats at the appropriate moment, but I was wondering if I couldn’t come up with something fairly contemporary-looking.’
‘What did you have in mind?’
‘The design is not a problem and I have one or two ideas regarding specially strengthened leather, but I’m having a problem testing it. It’s too dangerous to use a real person. Even Mr Bashford is reluctant to have rocks hurled at him. So we’ve had a brilliant idea. Instead of firing the rocks at the subject, we simulate the impact by firing the victim instead – I mean, the subject – and measure the impact on both.’
I didn’t like the sound of this. ‘I’m really not sure how that would help.’
‘Well, not the actual victim – I mean, the subject – obviously. We simulate the victim.’
‘How?’
‘Chickens.’
A terrible fear gripped me.
‘Not . . . ?’
‘No, of course not Angus.’
‘Not . . . ?’
‘No, of course not. No live chickens at all, Max. All safely dead.’
‘You won’t be . . . ?’
‘No, of course not. They’ll be dead when we get them. Trust me, Max, no chickens will be harmed during the course of these simulations.’
I had another nasty thought. One that involved local chicken farmers. ‘From where are you getting these chickens?’
‘Mrs Mack, of course. I’ve placed an order for two dozen. I do assure you, Max, everything is legal and above board.’
I dismissed images of him leading a team of camouflage-clad R&D personnel on midnight chicken raids. ‘So how exactly is this going to work, then?’
‘Oh, this is so exciting, Max. We’ve built a rapid chicken-firing gun.’
Oh God. ‘A . . . ?’
‘A rapid chicken-firing gun. To fire the chickens in quick succession. Firing rocks is a little irresponsible, I think everyone will agree, and so – and this is the brilliant part, Max – we’re giving the rocks a miss completely and doing it the other way around. We’ll fire the chickens instead. And, when we’ve finished our simulations, we’ll also have a useful rocket gun.’
My head was beginning to spin. ‘Professor, to what use could we possibly put a rocket gun?’
‘Guy Fawkes. To launch our fireworks on Bonfire Night.’
I’d worry about that nearer November. Time to pin him down re more imminent events.
‘So you’ll be firing chickens – already dead chickens?’
‘Yes.’
‘And where does the leather come in?’
‘We encase the chickens in my special leather and fire them.’
‘The chickens?’
‘Yes.’
‘How?’
‘With my rapid chicken-firing gun, of course.’
‘No,’ I said, gritting my teeth. ‘How will you encase the chickens.’
‘Oh, that’s easy. We’re going to pop them into little leather bags.’
‘Leather bags?’
‘Yes, Mrs Enderby is kindly knocking some up for us as we speak.’
‘At what, exactly?’
‘What?’
I began to lose the will to live. ‘At what will you be firing leather-encased chickens?’
‘A large area of blank wall. We will have leather-protected flesh impacting simulated rocks. Same thing as on Crete, but there it will be real rocks impacting leather-protected flesh. The other way around. Do you see? Quite brilliant, I thought. I have very high hopes the leather will survive the onslaught. And if it does, then we can adapt it into the appropriate headgear for historians on Crete.’
I needed to get this absolutely clear. ‘But no humans are involved?’
‘No.’
‘At all.’
‘Only in an observer’s capacity. This afternoon. I hope you’ll be there, Max.’
Just for once, the god of historians was on my side. ‘I’m so sorry, professor, I have a meeting with Dr Dowson in the Library. But do please send me a copy of your report.’
‘Of course.’
‘So where is all this taking place?’ I said, looking round his cluttered kingdom. I had fears for the windows. And the walls. And the ceiling . . .
‘Oh, outside, obviously.’
‘Where?’
‘I thought on the South Lawn.’
I shook my head. ‘Too public, professor. I don’t want the world watching us shooting chickens around the landscape. Not after that business with the sheep’s heads last year.’
‘Good point, Max. We’ll do it down by the lake.’
‘Away from the lake, please, professor. I don’t want you alarming or endangering our swans who will, in revenge, alarm and endanger us.’
‘Another good point, Max.’
‘And if you’re anywhere near the building, then put up some screens to protect the windows.’
He beamed again. ‘Already ahead of you on that one; we’ve borrowed a couple of screens from the local cricket club.’
I took a moment to think. Had I missed anything? Venue, personnel, safety precautions, swans, Angus. No, I couldn’t think of anything else. ‘Well, all right then, professor. Good luck.’
‘Thank you, Max. It’s going to be great.’
An hour later, I was in the Library with Dr Dowson.
We’d had to switch on the lights because the professor had been as good as his word and the borrowed cricket screens were not only making a good job of protecting the windows but also obscuring the light.
Dr Dowson and I were discussing all things Crete. I was head down, concentrating hard as we went through all the material and making copious notes on my scratchpad.
My first thought was that a bomb had gone off.
The window to my left shattered into a million fragments and a second later, a massive impact to the opposite wall brought down two rather nice engravings of the Bodleian, took out the entire Egyptian Middle Kingdom section and gouged a six-inch crater in the wall. Giant spider cracks radiated outwards. Huge pieces of plaster dropped to the floor.
Before I could take it all in, it happened again. Only it was the Renaissance Costume in Northern Europe section that suffered this time. Books exploded off the shelves and fluttered to the floor. One of the bookcases sagged badly, bringing its neighbours down with it.
And then, faster than it takes to describe, it happened again. Another massive impact in the wall – taking out one of the light fittings this time. The room grew suddenly darker.
We were under some sort of military bombardment. The Time Police were here. It was the only explanation.
I rolled under the table, colliding with Dr Dowson who, having better reactions than me, was already there. The air was full of plaster dust and slowly drifting pieces of paper.
Where was Matthew?
I wriggled around. He and Professor Penrose were crouched behind two armchairs at the far end of the room by the fireplace. Well out of the bombardment area.
The alarms went off. I could h
ear people shouting, inside and out.
Another missile whizzed through the gap where the windows used to be, whistled across the room, through the open door and into the Great Hall beyond. There was the sound of an enormous crash, shattering crockery and a great deal of screaming.
In the distance, I could hear Mrs Mack arming the kitchen staff. I wasn’t going quietly either. I looked for something with which to defend myself and struggled out from under the table.
Outside I could hear people shrieking, ‘Shut it down. Shut it down. For God’s sake, shut it down.’
Behind me, coughing and waving his arms, came Dr Dowson.
I felt so sorry for him. He was staring around at what had once been his beloved Library. The entire far wall was badly damaged. Shelves had been demolished or hung sadly from their fixings. The books were everywhere. Anything made of glass was in a million pieces all over the floor. Just for the purposes of comparison, I was there when the Christians set fire to the Library at Alexandria and I swear it wasn’t anything like as bad as this.
The bombardment appeared to have ceased, so I set off for the Great Hall. The missile had brought down a couple of trestle tables and scattered files to the four corners of the room but fortunately failed to injure anyone.
‘What the hell?’ shouted Sykes, who appeared to have been taking shelter behind David Sands.
He grinned at me. ‘I’ve missed this, Max. This sort of thing hardly ever happens to me outside St Mary’s.’
‘Anyone hurt?’ I said.
Everyone looked down at themselves, then at each other, then round the room. ‘No. No one.’
Mrs Mack stood in the kitchen doorway, battle ladle tucked in her tabard and clutching a rapid-fire crossbow I was pretty sure Markham didn’t know she had. ‘Are we under attack?’
I shook my head. ‘Unknown.’
She nodded to me. ‘I’ve got this, Max. You check outside.’