He passed a moment of rumination, recalling another quip, this time by Alexander Pope: ‘Tis with our judgment as our watches. None go just alike, yet each believes his own.’ The professor measured time by his own watch, and it had a distinctive Western meter. Its ticking was echoed in the sound of telegraphs thrumming in the wires that were strung across the desert on stark, weathered shards of long dead trees. Its first intrusive sound reverberated in the chugging and grinding of metal wheels on rails of steel, and the choking billow of black smoke and steam from the locomotives they carried. It would continue on, ticking louder and louder in the ears of the men who wore these Arabic robes in earnest, until it threatened to drown out their voices altogether, and the sound of the evening call to prayer was replaced by the yammering yodel of an auctioneer.
I should be the one praying, he thought. What on earth am I doing here? I’ve been bounced from the Fifth Extinction to the First World War on a mission to save the Eastern Seaboard from utter destruction. It will be light soon and I have to slink off and try to find Paul’s little Pushpoint somewhere, to unravel all the long steeped plans hatched by the grandchildren of men like Hassan and Hakeem. I should be quaking in my tight leather boots here, but I feel absolutely fearless—as if nothing I do, or fail to do, will matter in the slightest.
He shook his head, writing off these dark thoughts to his weariness and the general disorientation he must be struggling with after two time shifts. Perhaps it was a kind of post-temporal shift anxiety that was setting in, he mused. Perhaps he was just a nihilist at heart.
The men finished their prayers and settled in under their damp robes to try and get some sleep. Nordhausen stood up to stretch, if only to see what kind of reaction he would get. He wandered off a bit and emptied his bladder, so as to set a template for his planned movements later. He came back and tried to sleep, but as the skies began to lighten to an early dawn he rose quietly and wandered away again, pausing to relieve himself, as before, in case one of the Arabs had taken notice. He hoped they would simply nod off again while he stretched with apparent indifference. Then he slunk away, picking a path that he hoped would bring him to the Hejaz Rail.
The first few minutes were somewhat anxious. Would they discover his ploy and come after him? He tried to move as carefully as he could, avoiding rough ground where his boots might crunch on the flinty rock. On occasion he ventured up onto a flat shelf of stone, moving quietly so as to mask his trail. He doubted if he could really elude experienced Arab trackers in their own back yard for long. If these men wanted to find him again, they probably would. He had only to work his mischief before he was discovered.
That thought plagued him as ever. What was he to do? The dull glint of the morning on a dark streak across the lighter drifts of sand ahead told him he had reached the rail line. He found a large rock to hide behind and studied the ground for a moment. Oddly, the sun was rising behind him, so he had actually come out of the east, and not the west as he first thought. Kelly botched his numbers again—no wonder he couldn’t find Paul! He focused his thoughts on the narrative he had crammed into his head before they started the mission.
Lawrence and his men were here the previous night. He worked himself closer, trying to get a good view of the ground above him. The ridge was a saddle shaped formation, with higher ground forming two distinctive humps. He knew that there would soon be lookouts posted at a water cairn on the south hump, and more men watching from a cluster of ruins on the northern hill. Lawrence was in the center, where a watercourse ran down from the cleavage of the hills towards the rail line. It would dig out a shallow culvert, and his charge would be laid under a wooden tie on the arch of a low rail support.
A distant thrum broke the morning stillness and he looked to see a short train hustling along at full speed to the south. The first train! It was the one that had taken all the Arabs by surprise that morning. They were scrambling to hide themselves, and he now knew exactly where Lawrence was. If his narrative was accurate, he would be huddling under the arch below the rail line. Once the first train gets clear he’ll finish burying the wires and spend a good deal of time going over the ground to hide any traces of the ambush. Then he would work his way up the watercourse, as far as his wire would allow, to a low bush. It was a dangerously exposed position and Nordhausen passed a moment of admiration that Lawrence would risk himself, setting off the detonation not more than fifty yards from the rail line. His Arab raiders were hiding in the hills above, waiting to attack when the train derailed.
This was the time to move, he thought. Lawrence posted lookouts in response to the surprise and disappointment of missing of the first train. They won’t be watching from the high ground yet, and the dismal weather might provide enough cover to mask my approach.
He started forward, running over the narrative again and again in his mind. Lawrence would bury his wires and then they would all huddle under their cloaks for long dull hours while they waited for the second train. It was probably somewhere north of Amman by now, and heading this way. He moved with as much stealth as he could, mind racing and feet aching with every step. He was soon quite winded and light headed, and he paused to catch his breath. A dizzy nausea seemed to wash over him, or perhaps it was only the nagging early morning hunger he was prone to.
After some time he had gained a good position, very close to the watercourse between the two hills. He rested, tired and sweaty in spite of the cold. He was not used to this kind of physical exertion. The elements and the fatigue and stress of these last hours were wearing on him heavily. He squinted at the ground ahead, suddenly elated to see a scraggly bush, just where Lawrence said it would be! He knew that the wires would end there. It was a single known point where this errant thread of history would poke near the surface and be exposed enough for him to find it. Then what would he do? The only thing he could think of was to work back a bit on the line and make a subtle cut in the wire.
Even as he considered this the motion of a man in Arabic robes caught his attention. He was making his way up from the rail line with a quick gait. He was a short fellow, yet his movements were studied and sure. As Nordhausen watched, it seemed to him that he could almost see an amber glow radiating from the man and surrounding him with an aura of purpose. He knew at once who this was. He gaped in awe, all thought of caution abandoning him, as he watched the man go straight to the low bush and fuss about at the base of the plant for a time. Then the figure stood up, surveying the ground around him with an almost regal regard. Nordhausen froze when it seemed that the man was looking right at him, sensing the presence of something out of place in the landscape. Time passed in utter stillness, then a drift of cold, gray mist shrouded the man from his view and, when it cleared, he saw that the stranger was making his way slowly up the side of the hill along the narrowing path of the watercourse.