“Yes,” said the major. “Perhaps we should have explained that earlier.
Mr. Wilshire?”
“Built to your exact specifications, Mr. Wells,” said the engineer. “Indeed at this very moment it is sitting in a room in Windsor Castle, ready to go.”
My heart skipped a couple of beats. I was at a temporary loss for words. Finally I managed a feeble question. “So, Major, you are going?”
“No. There was a change of plans, Wells. The doctor has raised a serious objection to me. Doctor?”
“Yes. Actually, the problem that suggested the change of plans arose at Buckingham Palace, not at Windsor. It turns out that a lad, they call him ‘Boy Cotton,’ had been discovered under a sofa. He had been hiding in the royal suite for three days, rather like a human rat, eating leftover food, and generally keeping out of sight. Your Majesty may recall—?”
“I do indeed,” murmured the queen. “A notorious incident. The Mudlark, the Times called him. He and I talked a bit before they took him away. Harmless, really, but it made everybody nervous.” She sighed. “They doubled the guards. A month later though, another boy was found.”
The doctor resumed. “The point is, Mr. Wells, and with all respect, a small man such as yourself would have a better chance than a big man, such as the major.”
“Makes sense,” I said curtly. “Less chance of getting shot.”
The queen spoke. “Mr. Wells, we would not dream of persuading you against your will. Actually, when we decided against using Major Banning, we reverted to an earlier possibility, a quite diminutive person, and one very familiar with the Windsor routine of the time.”
I caught a vision of that regal bottom in the saddle of the machine, and the Empress of India riding off into the unknown. It was unreal. I stammered, “Not you, Majesty!”
“Yes, Mr. Wells, I. This meeting is adjourned.” She turned to her equerry. “Major Banning, you and I will proceed immediately to Windsor.” She signalled her Hindu servant, and he took a step forward.
“No! Wait!” I jumped up. I had been thinking. And it was a crazy mix of thoughts. I couldn’t analyze it all just then. Was I chivalrously risking my life for my queen? Never! As far as the monarchy was concerned there wasn’t a chivalrous bone in my body. What was it, then? I was thinking, my machine. My invention. Mine, mine, mine. For better or worse, I was entitled to the first ride. Nobody else. Not even the queen!
“Majesty,” I said calmly, “I will go. I insist. I know the machine better than anyone. My stature may indeed facilitate concealment, if that should become necessary. Of all present, I stand the best chance of saving the prince and coming back alive.”
She sat there a moment, just looking at me. Then she smiled, and she bowed, not deeply, but graciously and sincerely, thereby demolishing the myth that the queen bowed to no one, not even to the Archbishop of Canterbury. “Let it be so. Major, will you and Mr. Wells kindly take the carriage to Windsor forthwith?”
5. To Paddington
Major Banning picked up Dr. Wright’s vaccine box from the table and put it in a small black satchel. Then he and I made our respectful farewells, and he led me down a flight of stairs to a side port, where a carriage waited. The door, I noted, carried the royal crest and the letters “VR.” The driver whipped up the horses, and we set off at a great clip.
Windsor Town lay a little over twenty miles across the river and to the west, and it was well known that the fastest way to get there was to take the Great Western from Paddington Station, which lay a brisk half hour drive down High Holborn and Oxford Street. And here came a surprise. We didn’t angle around the Marble Arch into Edgeware Road. We cut through Hyde Park. In fact, a gatekeeper opened the bars as soon as he saw the carriage approaching. It had all been prearranged, of course. Ordinary people would be arrested if they had tried the same shortcut* but she could get away with it without asking anybody. I sensed the power of that remarkable woman, and I was simultaneously annoyed and exhilarated.
In a way I was just as happy not to pass by the Arch. It marked the spot where in other days regicides and other high miscreants were publicly hanged. If I fouled up on the Project and the prince died at my hands, would I be hanged as a regicide? I shivered.
Major Banning looked over at me. “Cold?”
“Nervous,” I said.
“Understandable.” He peered out his window. “We’re coming in to the station.”
I looked at my watch. “When’s the next train?”
“We have a special. Steam’s up, and it’s waiting.”
Of course. And all other trains—mail, goods, express, local—would have to puff idly on lay-byes while her majesty’s special made the wild dash to Windsor Town.
In a way, all this rush and bustle was quite silly. Whether we reached Windsor today, yesterday, or tomorrow, it wouldn’t have the slightest effect on the pending scenario. The critical moment, for better or worse, had already occurred long ago.
The workmen at Paddington Station claim, with justifiable pride, that their station is the grimiest in London, hence in the world. Glass skylights over the tracks are cleaned periodically, but without much effect. A few days of chuffing locomotives suffice to undo the cleanups. The smoke even obliterates the words “Paddington” painted in large black letters on pilasters in the trackside walls. It is well to know where you are without reference to the printed word.
So it was another surprise to find the queen’s special train in a newly scrubbed and white-washed shed, shut off from the curious by iron gates and armed guards. We were hardly aboard when the guards pulled the gates open and the train began to jerk forward.
We found our seats, the major set his bag down, let out a long windy sigh, and pulled out a cigar. But then he frowned and put it away again.
I looked at him questioningly.
He shrugged. “I keep forgetting. She can’t stand tobacco. She can even smell the traces on the fabrics and woodwork.”
6. On the Train
“Are you familiar with Windsor Town?” asked the major.
“Just the common knowledge,” I said. “The castle stands on a slight hill at the northeastern edge of the town. Legend has it that King Arthur conferred with his knights on that hill. Anyhow, when the Normans came, they built the tower on it as a fortress. The accessory buildings came later. A flag flies on the turret when the queen is in residence. No flag today, I suppose.” 1 paused, then added noncommitally, “I was once apprenticed to a draper there. I could see the castle from the shop roof, and sometimes the royals playing beyond the walls.”
He smiled faintly. “You didn’t like the draper business?”
“No.” I thought of Charles Dickens, and how he had been apprenticed to a maker of bootblacking, and how he had hated it. I knew just how he felt. My tone was so brusque as to seem tactless. I changed the subject. “Major,” I said, “I once made a conservative estimate of what it would cost to build the machine. As I’m sure you know, it has some unusual components and requires painstaking manufacture and assembly. For parts and labour I estimated at least & 100,000. The sapphire core alone would account for half of that. You can see why the machine would be beyond the means of myself or any other ordinary citizen.”
“Yes, I can see that.”
“So who is paying?”
“The queen.”
“Even for the sapphire?”
“She is providing that.”
I wasn’t exactly sure what he meant. “You mean, she already had a stone of the exact specifications?”
“Yes.”
I could see he wasn’t inclined to elaborate. And actually, it didn’t matter where the gem came from, so long as it would perform properly.
Major,” I said, “you realize this is all quite mad.”
He made no response.
I realized I had put him in an awkward position. Perhaps he didn’t really believe in the Project, but he was totally loyal to the queen. Well, it was easy for him. He was just following orders. He was risking nothing, neither life nor sanity.
I was remorseless. “If I succeed in prolonging the life of the prince, she will never get the benefit of any additional years with him. It will be a different world, with a different Queen Victoria and a different Prince Albert. It cannot possibly come out the way she wants.”
His mouth tightened. “Wells, I know that, you know that, Dr. Wright knows that. She does not know that. And which of us is willing to try to explain it to her?”
He had a point.
“So,” he said, “let’s just go ahead as if everything made sense. And indeed, my dear fellow, it could make sense, though not exactly in the way she hopes for.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve read about The Trent Affair?”
“Just what I was taught in school.”
“And I suppose they taught you that the Affair started the Great Intervention, also known as the War of Sixty-One, where we came in on the side of the Confederates and clinched the Secession in the American Civil War?”
“And got the Southern Colonies back,” I added.
“Just so,” said the major. “And while we were busy grabbing the American South, the French picked up Quebec and Mexico. A disaster, Wells. We did it for the Lancashire mills, for cotton. In the beginning, that was fine. But today it’s different. One third of the national income goes to the support of the Southern regime. We perpetuated slavery in the southern states. We are the shame of nations.”
I couldn’t see the connection between the Project and The Trent Affair, but I felt sure that the major was about to enlighten me.
He gave a short bitter laugh. “If the prince had lived, he could and would have prevented the War of the Intervention. In fact, if he had lived just a couple of weeks longer, he might have managed it.” He tugged at his mustache. “So you see, Wells, it’s either a mad fiasco, or else it’s a thing of great wonder, and the salvation of Britain. But you must understand Trent. There’s much more to the Affair than you’ll find in the history books.” He had to stop temporarily. The train had rolled into Windsor Station. We stepped down from the cars, into a waiting carriage, and were immediately on our way to the castle.
Inside the carriage the major resumed his exposition of The Trent Affair.