When he saw the Machine, his eyes opened wide, and he stumbled. I held him tight. I had a pretty good idea what he was thinking: that thing is too big to come in through the study door. How did it get in here? Is this for real?
He asked in a rasping whisper, “Perhaps the queen gave you a note for me?”
“No, sire.”
“Nothing to prove this was her idea?”
I sighed. “Not exactly. But at least I’ve got the typhoid vaccine… for whatever that proves.”
“Vaccine?”
“Dr. Wright—Sir Almroth Wright—prepared it. If the injection is given in time, it will provide immunity to the disease. Rather like a smallpox vaccine, I’m told.”
He was frowning. “Not even a glove, a ring, a fan…? Most unlike her.”
So that was what was bothering him. “Sire, a moment please.” I bent down into the internals of the Machine, loosened the contacts that held the sapphire brooch, and extracted it with infinite care. I held it up. “Sire, do you recognize this?”
He stared in amazement, then took it with his free hand. “The Juggernaut!” he whispered.
“The… what?”
“Juggernaut, Wells. It wrecked the financial system of my little duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha for a decade. This is the brooch I gave Victoria to wear at our wedding. How did you come by it?”
“We needed it for the piezoelectric unit in the Machine. She gave it. I have to return it when this is over.”
“Yes, of course. All right, Wells, I believe you. I believe everything.” He handed the stone back, and I reclamped it into the core box. He did not raise the question of whether there were now two Juggernauts, this one, and a second in the Windsor strongbox. I would not have known how to answer!
“Wells,” he said, “am I to understand that you risked your life to save mine?”
That was certainly one way to look at it. I shrugged. “Sire, the risk is difficult to assess. Permit me to say, simply, that I was glad to come, and I hope that with my coming your life will be prolonged.”
“Well said. Thank you. Now what?” he asked.
“Three things, sire. First, let’s get you back to bed. Second, I recommend that I administer the vaccine, followed by a cold sponge bath. We need to get your fever down.”
“Yes. I’m very tired, Wells. Let’s get on with it.”
I got him back to bed. A few minutes later I had drawn the required three cc of vaccine from the vial into the hypo, pushed the plunger up to get rid of the air bubble, and thrust the needle into the royal rump. It bothered me that the prince didn’t wince.
I brought a basin of water over to the night stand, found a clean towel by the commode rack, pulled his nightgown up around his armpits, and began to sponge him down, front and back. By the time I had finished not even his mother had ever seen more of Albert than I. Was I really doing him any good? Just then, of course, it was impossible to tell. But I had an uneasy feeling that he had already contracted the disease and that I was too late with the vaccine. I would have to wait for history to give its final judgment. As I pulled down his nightdress he murmured, ‘You said three things, Wells. What’s number three?”
“A ship, sire, the Trent—”
There was a knock on the door. I jerked around guiltily. A little man stood there, age about fifty, with short white hair, razor-sharp nose, gimlet black eyes. I knew him from the major’s description.
“Come in, Dr. Clark,” I said coolly.
10. The Last Memo
The resident physician stared at me, then at the prince, who seemed to be half-dozing, then back at me. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
“The name is Wells, doctor, H. G. Wells, of London.” I was trying to think up a plausible story that might explain why I was here, when the prince woke up, saw the newcomer, and quickly grasped my predicament.
“James,” said the prince quietly, “Would you mind waiting outside for a moment? I’ll ring for you.”
“But milord, you’re to have no visitors…Who…? Why…?”
“If you please, James.”
One of the prerequisites of royalty is, they don’t have to explain anything.
The doctor gave me one last hard look then bowed and left the room.
“Wells,” said the prince, “it’s hard for me to stay awake. We’ll have to make it short. The Trent…?
“Yes, sire. Know then, that twenty-seven days hence, on November 27, the Royal Mail Packet Trent, under Captain Moir, will dock at London. Captain Moir will make his report direct to Lord Russell, and he will say that a warship of the Federal American navy stopped the Trent and forcibly removed two civilian passengers, a Mr. Mason and a Mr. Slidell. Russell declares for war. The prime minister wavers, but finally agrees. They draft an ultimatum to be delivered to the American ambassador in London. They run it by the queen. She wants very much to have your advice, but you are in a near coma.” I paused. “Do you follow me, sire?”
“I’m ahead of you, Wells. It’s cotton, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sire.”
“And so we come in on the side of the Confederacy?”
“Yes, sire. The navy broke the blockade and assured their independence.”
He was silent for a while. “And slavery? In your 1894 does slavery yet persist in the American South?”
I hesitated. “Yes, sire.” This must be especially bad news for the onetime president of the Anti-slavery Society.
“And I did—do—nothing?”
I, too, was having trouble with the tenses. My future was equally my past. “You were totally out of it, sire. You died December first, the day Russell declared war. We call it the War of Intervention—as every schoolboy knows.”
“Sad, sad,” he muttered. He lay there silently for a time, then looked up at me. “You’ll have to leave in a few minutes, Wells, else Dr. Clark will make a scene. But you can come back, can’t you?”
“Yes, sire. I’ll be looking in on you from time to time.” I walked in to the study and closed the door quietly. I was determined to give him more cold baths in the coming days, episodes that would take only a few minutes of Machine time, but would spread out over several weeks on the prince’s calendar. Even if the typhoid vaccine didn’t work, bringing his fever down ought to give him a few extra days of life.
The next several calendar days were oddities. For me they went by in spurts of a few minutes each. While dodging visits of the queen and Dr. Clark, I did indeed manage to give the prince intermittent sponge baths. Whether this amateurish treatment helped him, or whether it was Dr. Wright’s vaccine, or both (or neither!) probably no one will ever know for sure. At least I don’t believe they hurt. Something was definitely prolonging his life.
On the morning of November 27 the prince was definitely worse than our first encounter. On the other hand he was far from lying in a coma. Already, history as I knew it was changing. And both of us were waiting for news of the Trent.
During the afternoon of November 28 the explosive news reached Windsor Train Station by telegraph, and so on to the castle by fast rider. The queen herself brought the despatch to the prince’s bedside.
I put my ear to a crack at the study door.
The queen was distraught. “Oh Bertie, those awful people. What shall we do?”
“What does Russell say?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.
I could hardly hear him.
The queen said, “He’s preparing an ultimatum to give the American ambassador.”