Changing Yesterday

by Sean McMullen

  As the Ajax reached the Suez Canal, Barry knew that another crisis was looming. He was going to have to cope with another port. He had learned from his fellow crewmen that ports were really bad and dangerous places, where people checked your papers and locked you in jail if they were not in order, where beautiful women lured you into dark alleys where very bad men beat you up and robbed you, and worst of all, where the local people did not speak English. Actually that was not the very worst prospect of all, for he knew that telegrams travelled faster than ships, and that Liore might telegram ahead to Port Said and have him arrested.

  When the Ajax arrived in Port Said it was 4 am, and Barry was all ready to slip away and board another ship, just as he had in Colombo. The Ajax dropped anchor and awaited the coal tender, but what came out first was a steam launch with a dozen sailors carrying bolt action rifles. They came aboard, and Barry watched as an officer showed papers to the captain. The captain nodded, and Barry caught the words, ‘Search the entire ship, it’s like a gun with three barrels.’

  The next half hour saw Barry slipping back and forth through the bowels of the Ajax like a grubby shadow, clutching his bag and trying to stay out of sight. The invaders were alarmingly thorough and professional in their search.

  The coal tender won’t be allowed near this friggin’ ship till I’m caught, Barry decided, but it seemed like a good idea to lurk about near the coaling doors anyway. He arrived there to discover the doors open and the ramp attached to the ship already. The only oddity was that nobody was loading coal, but that was probably because they were all away being searched. The sky beyond the doors was clear and moonless, but a light from the coal tender was shining into the ship.

  Barry was silently rehearsing a story about being an inspector when someone carrying a sack pack walked through the doors and was illuminated as he stepped onto the ramp. Barry recognised the tall, gangly figure wearing a fez as Big Abdul, one of five Abduls among the stokers. A shot barked out. Big Abdul fell. Some men came running up from the coal tender.

  ‘Not him,’ said one quietly. ‘Barry Porter’s white and about eighteen inches shorter.’

  ‘Nothing in his bag but a fancy knife.’

  ‘Toss him.’

  Barry heard a splash. The men returned to the tender to wait for anyone else trying to escape.

  So much for callin’ meself Inspector of Coal Rodents an’ hopin’ they don’t speak English, thought Barry as he slipped away along the dark but familiar paths of the engine hall. Voices echoed all around him. Angry, harsh voices.

  ‘By all the saints, I’m Paddy O’Rourke!’ someone was shouting.

  ‘Then what’s this in your sea chest?’

  ‘It’s an old flintlock, and it’s not mine. I stole it.’

  Bad times if Paddy the Pincher is ’fessin to theft, thought Barry as he crawled beneath a huge pipe to circle the group. In the lamplight Barry could see Paddy being held by two of the armed sailors, while the others kept the rest of the crew back. The officer was pointing into Paddy’s sea chest. Its lock had been smashed off.

  ‘I say you’re Barry Porter,’ said the officer. ‘You’re coming with us.’

  ‘Barry Porter’s six inches shorter than him,’ called one of the stokers.

  ‘Yeah, leave ’im be!’ bawled another.

  ‘Pick up his trunk. We have what we came for,’ said the officer.

  Paddy the Pincher was a bit like Barry, because he had the look of someone harmless. He was thin, grubby, had a permanent cringe, and a very deferential manner. Unlike Barry, he had fifteen years of being a stoker behind him, as well as the experience of countless brawls in pubs, bars and taverns all around the world. Paddy raised his foot and brought it down hard on the foot of the man holding his left arm, snapping some metatarsal bones. He then wrenched his arm free and delivered a left hook to the face of the man on his right. He had just turned to flee into the crowd of watching stokers when the officer raised his Webley-Fosberry and fired three large calibre bullets into his back.

  There was instant bedlam as the armed sailors panicked and opened fire on the stokers. The stokers in turn flung lanterns back, and these smashed and splashed burning paraffin all about. Knives, bullets and lumps of coal flew in the light of the rapidly spreading fire, and Barry cowered as far into the shadows as he could as the sailors picked up Paddy’s sea chest and retreated for the coal doors. Barry scuttled in the opposite direction.

  Once on deck, Barry made for the side of the ship opposite the coal tender. Gunshots were barking out from that side, and he had the feeling that the sharks were also loitering there in search of easy meals. Looking out over the water to the west, Barry saw that the Suez Canal was not particularly wide. Even better, the canal divided Port Said, and there were plenty of buildings on the west bank, picked out by a scatter of streetlights. For Barry, who had spent his life vanishing down alleys, the poorly lit streets beckoned like the gates to paradise.

  Barry glanced about, found a length of rope and tied it to the bottom of the railing where nobody would notice it. Climbing over the railing, he groped about for his rope, grasped it, slung his bag over his shoulder by the strap and let go. Unfortunately, he had grasped the wrong piece of rope, and this one had not been tied to anything. Barry fell straight down the side of the ship to the water.

  Fortunately for Barry, the waves in the Suez Canal were little more than ripples. He could not swim, but as he had hoped, his bag kept him afloat. He located the lights of the west side of Port Said, then with his left arm clinging to his bag and his right arm paddling, he set out for the beckoning lights, trying not to think about sharks. The water was placid, the current minimal, and the distance should have taken only minutes to swim, so Barry had everything in his favour.

  An hour later, with the sun on the horizon, Barry finally crawled up the steps of a landing on the west side of the canal, still clutching his beloved bag. Fully clothed but dripping wet, he immediately drew a lot of attention from the local Egyptians. He staggered over to a man who was dressed in European clothes. While among the stokers he had learned the words ‘Seamen’s Mission’ and ‘Please’ in six languages, and he now repeated all six versions before he realised that the man spoke English.

  ‘Oi matey, I’m the victim of a lark by me shipmates, wot flung me in the water off me ship out of high spirits,’ Barry now explained.

  ‘Ah, so you wish to be directed to the police?’

  ‘No no no, nuffin’ like that, they’s good coves, jus’ larkin’ about with no criminal intent. I just want the Seamen’s Mission so’s I can get me circumstances sorted out, sorta.’

  ‘Ah, if you mean the house for distressed sailors that the Christian priestly men have established, it is not far. Come along, I shall take you there.’

  Unlike most other sailors, Barry did not arrive at the door of the Seamen’s Mission with a severe hangover and no money. His very first act upon being admitted was to donate ten shillings that he had won at cards to the mission before pouring out a story of how he was a little boy of fourteen from London who had gone to sea as a slagger to support his poor dear mother in her declining years.

  He was given a bath, and supplied with dry clothes from a pool of clothing. The clothes had been left at the mission by sailors who had departed without their bags because the police were watching the mission, because they had become drunk again and forgotten that they had ever been to the mission, or because they had died on the premises.

  After a breakfast of some sort of crumbly biscuit washed down by something that looked like milk, but had pieces of cucumber and mint floating in it, Barry attended his first prayer service in several years.

  Next he explained to a sympathetic Redemptorist priest that he needed to get aboard the next ship going to London, and that he was willing to work as a slagger. He had by now worked out that the crews of ships were given a lot less scrutiny than the passengers by port officials because they were so transitory. The fact that Barry’s papers wer
e supposedly still on his ship was no problem because it could all be sorted out in London.

  Port Said had few attractions for tourists, although a few passengers went ashore and bought trinkets just so that they could say that they had been to Egypt.

  For Barry, its main virtues were that the city did not move or sway, nobody knew who he was or that he was there at all, there were kindly people who believed his story, and nobody was trying to kill him.

  While obviously distressed about being marooned in a foreign city with no friends or papers, it was infinitely preferable to being shot at on the Ajax or being strangled by Liore.

  At lunchtime Barry was given a list of ships that would be sailing to London that afternoon, and there was a tick next to three ships that needed stokers or slaggers. As he sat eating in the mission’s refectory, he noted with great relief that the Millennium was marked as having already sailed.

  Barry my man, things is goin’ your way at last, he thought as he worked his way through a plate of rice and roast lamb shavings. Before long it’s gonna be Sir Barry, wot’s good mates with the king. Give yerself a pat on the back.

  He prodded at a pair of meatballs that looked suspiciously like parts of the lamb’s anatomy that were not at all to his taste. He decided to finish the rest of the rice instead.

  ‘Barry Porter, time to go sailing.’

  Barry gasped, and in the process breathed in a mixture of air and rice. During the choking fit that followed he turned to see a girl with one hand in a large cloth bag that hung from her shoulder.

  ‘I am Madeline Drake, special contract detective,’ she said quietly.

  ‘You’re a copper?’ wheezed the incredulous Barry.

  ‘I’m a detective. A special, secret detective. In my bag is a Webley Bulldog pointed at your heart.’

  ‘Ya can’t shoot me with all these sailors an’ priests around, like,’ said Barry hopefully. ‘You’ll get arrested. Even coppers can’t murder people.’

  ‘In my bag is also a cushion, which will muffle the shot and absorb the smoke. You will just fall down as if you have fainted, and I shall walk away with your bag.’

  ‘Oh. So wot ya gonna do? Hand me to the Gyppy coppers?’

  ‘I could do that.’

  ‘Oh well, jail is jail.’

  There was a soft pop. A hole appeared in the bag. Barry looked down at the table and saw another hole. Nobody else in the refectory noticed that a shot had been fired.

  ‘Now then, coming?’ asked Madeline.

  ‘Er, yeah, I reckon. Wotcha gonna do to me?’

  ‘That depends entirely upon you,’ said Madeline. ‘Stand up, pick up your bag, and come with me. We are going to a nice ship called the Andromeda that’s going to take us to London.’

  ‘But I ain’t got no tikky.’

  ‘You left your ticket behind when you abandoned ship in Colombo, Barry, I have it here. Come along.’

  Barry was not at all surprised to find Daniel waiting outside the mission.

  ‘It’s been a long chase, but the hunters have caught their rat,’ Madeline announced.

  Daniel took Barry’s bag from him at once.

  ‘I can explain,’ said Barry as they set off for the steam tenders’ landing.

  ‘We can all explain, Barry,’ said Daniel with an ominously hard edge to his voice. ‘The problem is that some true explanations will get you shot, while all false explanations are not even worth listening to.’

  ‘But I’m a poor little orphan, me old man got shot and I ain’t been thinkin’ clear.’

  ‘Please accept my condolences about your father, but that does not make you an orphan. Your mother is still alive.’

  ‘Danny boy, I thought we was mates.’

  ‘I’m afraid a lot of young men abandon their mates when they get involved with a girl,’ said Madeline.

  ‘Wot? This daft detective baggage is yer sweetheart?’

  ‘No, I am still faithful to Muriel,’ said Daniel.

  ‘Here is the tender,’ said Madeline, gesturing to a steam launch. ‘Are you coming quietly, or do you want another demonstration of my knitting bag?’

  ‘Bleedin’ hell, what sorta choice is that?’

  ‘And speaking of having no choices, hand over your pickwires,’ said Daniel.

  ‘Where’s that Liore baggage?’ asked Barry as he fished about in his pockets.

  ‘Liore is no longer able to hurt you, Barry, so come along.’

  The deputy purser was at the Andromeda’s gangway as they climbed aboard from the steam tender. Daniel announced that he had spotted Barry while he had been seeing the sights in Port Said, so he had taken hold of him and dragged him back to the ship.

  ‘Danny is very brave,’ added Madeline.

  Barry was presented to the master-at-arms, who added vandalism to the shipping line’s property and escaping from legal custody to the charges already against his name. He was put back in the first-class ‘brig’.

  The following day Barry was let out to take the air, but only on the condition that he be handcuffed to Daniel by the deputy purser.

  ‘Wot ya done with me bag?’ asked Barry peevishly as they walked through the corridors of the first-class cabin area.

  ‘It’s in my cabin,’ replied Daniel.

  ‘So wot now? Ain’t I supposed to be gettin’ the air on the prommy deck?’

  ‘We are going to my cabin, Barry. There you are going to open your bag.’

  Madeline was waiting in Daniel’s cabin. Barry’s bag was on the writing desk.

  ‘Open it,’ said Daniel.

  ‘Ain’t got the key,’ mumbled Barry.

  Madeline held up his pickwires.

  Barry took them and got to work, but pretended to have trouble with the lock. ‘There’s glue in it,’ he said sullenly.

  ‘It’s candle wax, Barry, poured there by you,’ said Madeline. ‘Half an hour over a candle will have it melted and poured out.’

  The padlock was still uncomfortably hot as Barry set about opening it, but the mechanism was as familiar as an old friend and it yielded quickly. He removed the padlock and clicked the latch on the bag.

  ‘I still reckon this friggin’ weapon orta go to the king,’ he began, then froze with his mouth open as he stared into the bag. ‘It’s gone!’ he finally managed to exclaim.

  Daniel and Madeline joined him. Within the bag were three lumps of coal, padded with some grimy cloth.

  ‘Good Cornish steaming coal, I’d say,’ said Daniel. ‘It would probably hurt if thrown hard enough, but it’s not in the same class as a PR-17.’

  ‘But – but me padlock were locked. Waxed, too.’

  ‘May I draw your attention to this seam here,’ said Madeline. ‘Very carefully slit open, then carefully repaired from the outside.’

  ‘That was me, the day after we left Adelaide,’ said Daniel.

  ‘Ya can’t sew like that from the outside, ya gotta have the bag open for doin’ inside seams.’

  ‘It’s called gimlet technique,’ said Daniel. ‘I read about it in a novel. Not hard, once you know how.’

  ‘Now see here,’ said Madeline, pointing to a similar repair on another seam. ‘Someone aboard the Ajax did the same as Daniel, but took the weapon and inserted some coal as ballast.’

  ‘That bleedin’ Paddy the Pincher!’ exclaimed Barry angrily. ‘Serves him right, gettin’ shot an’ all.’

  ‘Who shot him?’ asked Daniel.

  ‘Some sailors come on the Ajax when we stopped in Port Said. They searched the ship an’ shot anyone tryin’ to get off. Shot some coves who weren’t tryin’ to get off, neither. They were pointin’ in Paddy’s sea chest, but I didn’t see what were there. They shot him when he punched one of ’em. They kept sayin’ he was me, so I says Barry me boy, abandon ship.’

  ‘How did you get off ?’

  ‘I swum.’

  ‘You can’t swim.’

  ‘I sorta swum. Me bag floats, so I hung onta it an’ paddled.’

  ‘There’
s wax in the seams,’ said Madeline, holding a magnifying glass to the bag. ‘There is also dried salt on the leather. For once he might be telling the truth.’

  ‘So the weapon is on the Millennium now?’ asked Daniel. ‘Not some other ship?’

  ‘Dunno. The sailors wot searched the ship took Paddy’s sea chest. If it were in there, then they got it – but they can’t use it. Like they have to know that the bit of Liore’s hair gotta be pressed on that lock pad thing.’

  ‘Really?’ said Daniel, holding up his radiocomm.

  ‘Er, yeah.’

  ‘Are you absolutely sure?’ asked Madeline.

  ‘Yeah, course I’m sure.’

  ‘This radiocomm can tell me when that weapon is fired,’ said Daniel. ‘It was test-fired five times this morning, out at sea, over the horizon.’

  ‘Oh. Yeah, er, well, I might have forgotten to switch it off.’

  Madeline took three paces backwards and collapsed across the bed with her hands over her face.

  ‘Incompetent criminals, how I hate them,’ she said. ‘Nothing they do is logical.’

  Daniel held up the wrist to which he was handcuffed to Barry.

  ‘Were it not for this, I could think of no better place for you than over the side,’ he said coldly.

  Liore chose that very moment to walk in through the wall.

  Madeline and Daniel had been aware of Liore’s strange new condition since the night before, but Barry came perilously close to losing his bladder control. It was as if she had just lost substance, and was no longer entirely in their world. She looked solid enough, and could breathe air well enough to talk, but she could also pass through solid objects.

  ‘Danny boy, save me, I can explain,’ Barry shrieked, pulling Daniel off his chair by the handcuffs as he lurched for the door.

  ‘You stole my weapon, what else is there to explain?’ said Liore softly.

  ‘No I didn’t! I stole it from Luker the Lurker.’

  ‘Barry, my landlady saw you burgling my place,’ said Liore, the light from the porthole dimly visible through her body.

  ‘Oh! Er, yeah, but I were just a little wheel in a great big steam engine.’