Sam gripped the coils of cable under an arm as he pulled the barn door shut behind him to keep out the never-ending snowfall.
Hammers still clattered down against nails or sheet metal.
Sam handed the cable to Zita. ‘How goes it?’ he asked.
‘Bizarrely,’ she said. ‘Carswell’s now got us sawing the glass ends off light bulbs.’
‘Light bulbs?’
‘They’re from the bus’s luggage shelves that you removed earlier.’
Sam shook his head, bewildered, his face too frozen to show anything other than a blank expression.
‘You know the ones? The little lights set above the passengers’ heads that they could switch on to read, do word searches or whatever.’
‘I know the ones, but hasn’t Carswell even hinted why?’
‘No. Like God, Mr Carswell prefers to move in a mysterious way. Anyway, must carry on. He’ll go ballistic if he thinks I’m standing here chatting to you.’ She threaded her arm through the spools of cable to carry them back to the workbenches, where a couple of women were carefully cutting through the light bulbs with fine saws. ‘Oh, and he goes ballistic anyway if we break a filament. Thanks for the cable; we’ll talk at the next tea break.’ Shooting him a dazzling smile despite her obvious exhaustion, she returned to work.
As Sam pulled off his overcoat and stamped the snow from his boots, the Reverend Thomas Hather walked across the barn floor towards him, still looking around in amazement. He could have been a kid who had somehow stumbled into Santa’s workshop.
Sooty marks still mottled his face from where he’d helped pull the wounded and the dying from the burning houses.
‘Lee told me something of Mr Carswell’s plan.’ Thomas’s eyes gleamed behind the spectacles. ‘But I had no idea it would involve anything like this. What has he done to your vehicles?’
‘We’re converting them.’
‘But to what?’
‘The bus is to be some kind of battleship on wheels. As for the rest?’ Sam shrugged. ‘Search me.’
‘And he thinks he can really defeat the barbarians with these machines?’
‘No, not defeat them. But, hopefully, inflict enough casualties among them to dissuade them from ever coming back here again.’
‘But I still don’t understand where those men came from. Those Bluebeards.’
‘It’s not exactly a case of where they come from, Thomas, but when.’
‘You mean to say they have travelled through time like yourselves?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good Lord.’
‘Only they’ve come from the past, not the future.’
‘But why? Why attack a law-abiding town? What harm have we ever done to them?’
‘None. These Bluebeards are nothing but bandits. What they’re looking for are easy pickings. So they travel through time looking for a vulnerable period to raid.’
‘But why now? Why this moment in 1865?’
‘We were just unlucky. And, like I said, we are vulnerable and comparatively wealthy. They probably wouldn’t bother raiding this place five thousand years ago when there’d be nothing more than a couple of daub-and-wattle huts here. And they wouldn’t have raided the town 1,700 years ago when there was a Roman legion garrisoned here.’
‘I see your point; the Roman troops would have given them a sound thrashing.’
‘Got it in one, Thomas.’
‘Now Mr Carswell’s summoned me here, and I gather that, during the term of this emergency, he is in charge.’
‘You gather right. And if you ask me he’s getting a kick out of being our lord and master.’
‘Getting a kick?’ Thomas gave an understanding smile. ‘Oh, I see, you mean he’s rather enjoying himself?’
‘And that’s putting it mildly.’
‘But why in heaven does Carswell need me? I’m a man of God, not a fighting man.’
‘Well, Thomas, old buddy. Speak of the devil. I think we’re just about to find out: here he comes.’
Carswell had been dishing out instructions. Jud nodded and began cutting letter box-like slots out of the doors that formed the walls of the container around the driver’s seat in the bus.
Now, briskly rolling one of his plans into a tube, Carswell tucked it under one arm like a sergeant-major’s swagger stick and strolled across to join Sam and Thomas.
‘Ah, Reverend Hather. We’ve never met before.’ He held out his hand, which Thomas shook. ‘My name is Carswell. You’re well acquainted with Mr Baker here, I see.’
‘To all intents and purposes, the Reverend Hather is our landlord,’ Sam explained. ‘The farm here is church property. We took—’
‘Excellent,’ Carswell said, with no interest in the explanation whatsoever. ‘Now, to business, and why I asked you to come here to see me.’
On the shelf the clock chimed three a.m.
‘Yes, I – I did wonder,’ Thomas said in his shy, stammering way (a mannerism that Jimmy Stewart would make famous one day). ‘Is there anything I can do?’
‘Yes, Reverend, there is.’ Carswell gripped Thomas by the elbow and moved him away from the people working on the vehicles, as if he wished to share a secret with him. Sam, determined not to be excluded, followed.
Carswell said, ‘The truth of the matter is, Reverend, I need your help. Rather, we need your help.’
‘Help?’ Thomas looked back at the frenzy of activity behind him as something resembling a ship’s mast was hoisted above the roof of the bus. ‘How can I help? This machinery is beyond my understanding.’
‘No, the technical side of this operation is my province. But I understand that there is a military barracks outside town. I need you to persuade the commanding officer there to supply me with men and arms.’
Sam’s thumb scars prickled as a mixture of surprise and shock hit him. ‘A barracks? Why the hell didn’t they help us when the town was attacked?’
Thomas pushed the glasses up the bridge of his nose with a trembling finger. ‘Ah, they are some way out of town on the York road. First, they wouldn’t have been aware of the trouble until several hours later. Secondly, as far as I know, the barracks is deserted, with all men on Christmas leave.’
‘That’s not entirely correct,’ Carswell said. ‘Most of the troops are on leave, true. However, there are still some 40 cavalrymen of the Queen’s Own Lancers on station and some 70 or so foot soldiers of the Yorkshire Light Infantry.’
‘Recent recruits still undergoing training, I understand, which means—’
‘Which means the makings of a fighting force. Therefore, Reverend, at first light you will visit the barracks, taking a delegation of senior townsfolk with you – a solicitor, a magistrate… I understand Mayor Woodhouse was killed in the attack last night, which is unfortunate. Nevertheless, if you can take enough people of high civic standing with you, you will be able to convince the commander we need his men to give our fighting force backbone.’
Thomas stammered. ‘Really, I – I don’t know, it’s quite a – a—’
‘Reverend Hather, our salvation here depends on you being persuasive enough.’
‘But—’
‘And you will also need to persuade the townspeople of Casterton to accept me as their leader for the duration of this emergency. I repeat, I am their only salvation.’
‘Their physical salvation, maybe, Mr Carswell. As for their spiritual salvation, that’s in another – and altogether mightier – pair of hands entirely.’
Sam recognised what the clergyman had seen. Carswell wasn’t only taking charge. He saw himself in a Messianic role as saviour of the town. The man’s egotism knew no bounds.