by Jodi Taylor
I said to Matthew, ‘Stay outside in the corridor,’ and ignored his ‘aww’ of disappointment because I’m a mother and it’s my duty to frustrate and disappoint my offspring at every opportunity.
Markham lay on the floor, half under a desk. He was curled in a tight ball shouting, ‘Jesus. Shit. Bollocks. Bugger. Aaagghhhh.’
‘Would you like a cup of tea, master?’
Matthew was trying to push past me. ‘Wait here,’ I said. ‘I’ll need someone to show Dr Stone where to come.’
Not that he’d need directions. ‘It’s easy being a doctor here,’ he’d once said to me. ‘You just follow the screaming.’
Matthew nodded importantly and stepped back to crane over the banisters.
‘Ice,’ I said, urgently. ‘We need ice.’
‘Already on it,’ said Lingoss, appearing with a bag of giant ice. Or do I mean a giant bag of ice? Anyway, she was clutching a massive plastic bag full of ice that was nearly as big as she was. I mean the bag, not the ice itself. I think I’ll just shut up about the ice.
‘Quick,’ I said.
We dragged Markham out from under the desk where he’d presumably taken refuge to escape the attentions of his future assistant. I couldn’t help but feel this was not an auspicious start to their relationship.
‘Bloody hell. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit . . .’
‘Stop being such a baby,’ said Peterson who, with a typical senior manager’s ability to nose out someone else’s catastrophe, had appeared in the doorway.
‘Aaaaggggh,’ cried Markham, obviously feeling such a stupid remark didn’t warrant a coherent response.
We unfurled him, which took some doing because he was tightly curled up on himself. ‘Like a giant woodlouse,’ remarked Peterson, obviously determined not to contribute anything constructive. Nothing new there then.
We prised Markham apart and Mr Swanson threw a towel over him. I don’t know why. He was making far too much noise to be dead. Although this was Markham so you never know. Lingoss carefully and strategically laid the bag of ice where she thought its cooling properties would be most beneficial.
‘Aaaggghhh,’ he yelled, ungratefully.
‘Would you like a cup of tea, master?’
Someone else began to lay piles of blankets over him and tightly tucked him in. I don’t know why they did that. With just his red face sticking out of the top and his boots out of the bottom, he looked like an enormous hot dog bun.
In the meantime, Markham’s proto-assistant – well on its way to its first formal warning, as far as I could see – was still orbiting the room drenching everything in its path.
‘Would you like a cup of tea, master?’
‘How much water is in there?’ shouted someone, dodging another steaming shower.
‘Enough for a day’s tea requirements for the Security Section,’ panted Professor Penrose, still wrestling with the controls.
‘So about enough to fill a medium-sized reservoir then?’
‘About that, yes.’
‘Shit. Bollocks. Bugger,’ moaned Markham, still enbunned.
Apparently now determined to crush him to death, his assistant raced across the room towards him.
Everyone – possibly including me and certainly including Peterson – screamed at the top of their voices.
‘Would you like a cup of tea, master?’
‘I can’t think what’s gone wrong,’ cried Professor Penrose, a phrase not infrequently uttered in R&D. Glasses askew, he stabbed at random controls apparently without any effect whatsoever. The thing continued to career towards its future employer, knocking glassware off the tables and drenching everything in sight in its single-minded determination to provide Markham with a hot beverage.
Miss Lingoss strode across the room and yanked a plug from the wall.
‘Would you liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii . . . ?’
Silence.
Everyone sighed with relief.
Obviously, now that it was all over, the medical profession turned up. Dr Stone first, and behind him, plodding laboriously up the stairs, Nurse Hunter, who probably had a vested interest in Markham’s injuries, although whether she would regard them as good or bad was anyone’s guess. I distinctly remembered, in the last heavy month of pregnancy, telling Leon he was never ever coming within a six-foot radius of me ever again. He had complacently replied that he’d have to stand much further back than that.
Dr Stone stood in the doorway, ostensibly surveying the scene prior to taking swift and effective action. He’d once confided in me that this was the secret to successful doctoring.
‘Always take the time to have a good look first, Max. If you’re really lucky the patient recovers spontaneously and you can take the credit. If you’re extra lucky, the patient dies and you solemnly shake your head and say there was nothing that could be done. If the luck’s not running your way and the patient does neither, then you have to mentally turn to page ninety-six in the Big Boys’ Book of Doctoring and think of something quickly.’
It would seem that the Big Boys’ Book of Doctoring was not required today. Dr Stone knelt beside Markham and began to pull the blankets away. ‘What’s happened here? I understand someone has been scalded?’
Half a dozen voices tried to explain.
‘Shut up, all of you. Miss Lingoss?’
‘He’s been scalded,’ she said. ‘In an unfortunate place.’
‘What, you mean over by the window?’
‘No, I mean in the . . . groin area.’
Hunter had by now arrived and was surveying her prone beloved with a marked lack of sympathy.
Dr Stone continued. ‘You mean he’s scalded his willy.’
‘Well, not him as such. His new assistant did it, but the willy bit was right.’
He nodded and turned back to the suspiciously silent Markham, peeling back blanket after blanket after blanket. Like an archaeologist unwrapping a mummy.
‘What the hell’s all this?’
‘Ice,’ she said. ‘You put ice on burns and scalds.’
‘Yes – you apply ice to the affected area – not the entire body. You lunatics – you’ve practically stopped his heart.’
And indeed, Markham did look rather pale. And he’d fallen silent. Never a good sign with him.
‘Is he dead?’ said someone, anxiously. Being dead is an awful lot of paperwork.
‘Of course not. But no thanks to you lot.’
There was mass shuffling.
Markham opened his eyes and smiled weakly at Hunter, who slapped his arm. ‘You’re an idiot.’
Professor Penrose appeared, still very much agitated. ‘I told you, Mr Markham – it’s the milk that’s the problem. If you’d consent to add the milk manually, the problem would be solved.’
I nodded. Milk – juice of the devil. No wonder.
Markham gritted his teeth. ‘Absolutely not. I am a Section Head. We do not add our own milk. That’s what designated staff are for.’
‘Right, let’s have a look at the damage,’ said Dr Stone, before any designated staff could take their revenge.
He pulled out a pair of scissors. Markham modestly clutched at his blankets.
‘You lot,’ said Hunter. ‘Out.’
We shuffled towards the door. Peterson, unable to resist adding insult to injury, leaned over Markham.
‘You poor old thing. Would you like a cup of tea?’
Well, obviously there was no briefing after that. It’s not easy getting the History Department to concentrate at the best of times. Even Crete couldn’t compete with a scalded willy.
I let them go and they all scampered off to make inappropriate get-well-soon cards.
I half expected a summons from Dr Bairstow, who would certainly want to know what all the noise had been about, but it never came. Half of me was reli
eved. The other half was slightly irked. I was supposed to be ignoring him. Not the other way around.
We left it for a couple of hours, just to give things time to settle down, and then Peterson and I set off to Sick Bay. To visit the sick, obviously, and deliver a large number of unkind but really funny cards to our stricken hero.
Markham was in bed, a little pale, and some parts of him were lightly bandaged – as were, I assumed, other parts that fortunately I couldn’t see.
‘What ho,’ he said, quite cheerfully I thought, considering how his day had been so far.
‘You look like something that pursues screaming young ladies through graveyards at midnight,’ said Peterson.
I snorted. ‘He doesn’t need bandages for that.’
‘I don’t do that sort of thing any longer,’ he said, with more dignity than might be expected from a man with a bandaged willy. ‘I’m a ha—’ He stopped.
Peterson pounced. ‘A ha . . . ? A ha . . . what?’ He leaned over the recumbent Markham in a threatening manner.
‘Dunno,’ said Markham vaguely, picking at his bedcovers in a manner made famous in those 19th-century romances where the heroine dies of consumption. ‘I think you should go away now. I am quite grievously wounded, you know.’
Peterson wasn’t going to let it go. ‘A ha . . . come on – you can do it.’
Markham grinned. ‘Do you mean “a handsome young man who usually has to beat off women with a stick”?’
There was a snort from Hunter, entering the room with a tray of instruments and a suspicious stare.
‘Damn and blast,’ said Peterson as we found ourselves once more on the other side of the door. ‘I nearly had him there, Max. One day. One day . . .’
We set off for my office and a nice cup of man-made tea.
‘I have to say, Max, your History Department is the most fun I’ve had in years. A fact that will be reflected in your personal appraisal later this year.’
That brought me up short.
‘You’re doing my appraisal?’
‘I am indeed.’
‘Just mine?’
‘No, all the admin and housekeeping staff, as well.’
‘And me. Why me?’
Because Dr Bairstow didn’t want to do it, was the obvious answer. I strode off in a bit of a huff.
29
Attempt number two at the Crete briefing.
We assembled again in the Great Hall. Time was getting on so I had everyone in this time.
The History Department sat at the front, along with Kalinda, everyone clutching a mug of the amber nectar to see themselves through the rigours of the morning.
Mrs Enderby was present with most of her department. I could already see them eyeing up my historians and deciding who would wear what. It’s always worth keeping on the right side of Wardrobe. Ask Markham, who once had to work his way through an entire assignment clothed from head to foot in pink. Sorry – rose.
The Security Section sat off to one side, pretending they knew how to operate their scratchpads. Markham, now bandage-free, was in a minor sulk because no one would ask him how his todger was faring, in case he took it into his head to show them.
Leon and his crew were next to them, clutching their crayons.
Mrs Mack – in charge of feeding us throughout the assignment and arguably the most important person in the room – sat with Mrs Enderby.
Dr Dowson and Professor Rapson were again as far apart as geographically possible. The professor was firmly sandwiched between Mikey on one side and Miss Lingoss on the other, and Dr Stone, clutching a large mug of cocoa, sat at the back with his medical team. Hunter wasn’t there.
I’d had a brief conversation with Markham a couple of days ago when I’d commented on the extraordinary length of her pregnancy.
‘Well, not really,’ he’d said. ‘You’re the one who shot off to live in 1399 for twelve months. It was only a few weeks for us here. The same for the six months you were off with the Time Police. This pregnancy’s nine months, just like everyone else’s. Which reminds me – how long will we be in Crete?’
‘We’ll be on site for anything up to three months, but it’ll only be a week to ten days here. We’re still working on the precise dates. How long does Hunter have to go?’
‘Just over a fortnight.’
‘You should be fine, but get someone to send you a message on the shuttle if you need to go back early.’
‘You’d be all right with that?’
‘Of course. Clear it with Dr Bairstow, of course.’
He looked at me. ‘You don’t want to talk to him yourself?’
‘No need,’ I said, airily. ‘If he asks, just tell him I don’t have any issues.’
We’d left it at that.
I made sure I had everything ready and then, having discovered years ago that polite throat-clearing was a complete waste of time, banged on the table for their attention.
‘Good morning, everyone. Thank you for coming. The purpose of this briefing today is to give ourselves a broad outline of the mission ahead of us, draft up a schedule and allocate specific responsibilities. Our objective is Bronze Age Crete – situated at the eastern end of the Med and known as the Big Island.
‘Just a note about names – we have no idea what the Cretan population called themselves then, but they’re known today as Minoans, after Minos, the name of their king. The name was bestowed by Sir Arthur Evans, who excavated Crete in the early 1900s. It’s almost certainly not accurate, but we’ll go with it for convenience.’
I brought up a map of the Eastern Med. ‘Crete is the centre of the Minoan trading empire, stretching from Sicily to Egypt and from Anatolia to North Africa. The Minoans are powerful and prosperous. Their ships command the seas. They have no natural enemies. No one can touch them. However – seventy miles to the north lies the volcanic island of Thera.’
I brought up more images. ‘Thera, as an important Minoan trading post, is also doing very nicely, thank you very much, and would probably continue to do so for some time, except that it’s an active volcano and about to erupt. The massive explosion will very nearly destroy their island, devastate Crete itself and cause widespread damage across that end of the Mediterranean. It’s reckoned the Theran eruption was the largest in the ancient world, greater even than that of Krakatoa in the modern one. Sicily, Egypt, Anatolia, Greece, North Africa – they’ll all suffer the after-effects of this eruption. Even countries as far away as Britain and Ireland will show stunted plant growth as the ash cloud blocks out the sun and lowers temperatures.
‘Crete itself doesn’t actually suffer a great deal from the eruption – there’s nothing like the ashfalls of Pompeii, for example, because the wind carries most of it in the opposite direction. The majority of the damage is caused when the volcano collapses in on itself, causing massive tidal waves to devastate the area. This is a big event, people. China suffers a strange yellow fog and widespread crop failure. The Greeks may even have incorporated the explosion into the Titanomachy legend. Egypt is beset with torrential rainfall. There have even been attempts to link these events to the Biblical Exodus.’
There was silence.
‘Is no one going to say the “A” word?’ said Bashford, chattily.
‘Not in my hearing,’ I said, darkly.
‘Oh, come on, Max. The similarities. The circular island with concentric rings . . . It’s got to be the basis of the legend of Atla . . .’
People clapped their hands over their ears. ‘La la la la la.’
He grinned. ‘Just saying.’
I changed the subject for his own safety. ‘Given the extent of the destruction, and if we can safely do so, part of our mission will be to rescue a few small items, as well.’
‘A few?’ said Kal, suspiciously.
‘I’m so sorry, I should have said: rescue e
nough items to satisfy the rapacious demands of our overlords at Thirsk.’
‘Better,’ she said. ‘Continue.’
I brought up another map showing the extent of the tsunamis.
‘The principal Cretan city, Knossos, is situated on the northern side of the island, unfortunately facing directly towards Thera. The whole northern coastline will take a real bashing.’ I brought up more images of the excavated Knossos. ‘The enormous structure you can see at the centre is the palace, excavated by Sir Arthur Evans. He called it a palace due to its size, but it was almost certainly a multi-purpose complex – palace, administrative offices, treasury, storerooms, distribution centre and so on. With over fifteen hundred rooms, it was the grandest building in Europe at this time. Even Athens is just a small town – barely more than a village.
‘The Minoans were excellent builders. Their houses are usually built of stone . . .’ I flicked to pictures of the excavated town of Akrotiri, ‘. . . on the lower storeys, anyway, and have upper floors. The palace itself is some four or five storeys high. Almost unheard of in those times. They are a cultured and sophisticated people – their buildings are beautifully decorated. They even have indoor flushing toilets. Any questions so far?’
All I could see was the tops of people’s heads as they bashed away at their scratchpads.
‘OK – that’s the background. On to the assignment itself. The first part is, as usual, for the Pathfinders. Mr Atherton will take a team – I understand Miss Prentiss has volunteered to accompany him – and Mr Irving from Security will keep them both out of trouble. They’ll undertake a series of jumps to identify the best landing places and also to Thera itself to ascertain, as accurately as possible, the date of the eruption.’
I brought up a map showing the relative positions of the two islands and then artists’ impressions of pre-eruption Thera.
‘Akrotiri will be completely buried in the eruption. Please make sure you and your team are not similarly obliterated, Mr Atherton.’