“Right here,” Finch said, and that couldn’t be right either. I had white flannels and a waistcoat, but no hat. And Victorians always wore hats, didn’t they? Top hats and those hard round affairs, what were they called? It began with an “N.”
The seraphim was leaning over me, which meant I must have sat down again. She stood me up to try on blazers.
“Put your arm in this one,” she said, thrusting a maroon-striped one at me. “No, your right arm.”
“The sleeves are too short,” I said, looking at my bare wrists.
“What’s your name?”
“My name?” I said, wondering what that had to do with the sleeves being too short.
“Your name!” she said, yanking off the maroon-striped blazer and shoving a red one at me.
“Ned Henry,” I said. The sleeves of this one came down over my hands.
“Good,” she said, stripping it off and handing me a dark-blue-and-white one. “At least I won’t have to come up with a contemp name for you.” She tugged on the sleeves. “That’ll have to do. And don’t go diving into the Thames. I haven’t time to do any more costumes.” She clapped a straw boater on my head.
“The hat was here. You were right, Mr. Dunworthy,” I said, but he wasn’t there. Finch wasn’t either, and the seraphim was back at the console, banging away at the keys.
“I can’t believe Badri isn’t back yet,” she said. “Leaving me with this lot. Set the coordinates. Come up with a costume. And meanwhile, I’ve got an historian waiting three-quarters of an hour to come through. Well, your priority jump can jolly well wait for unmarried girls were constantly accompanied by chaperones, usually an older maiden aunt or cousin, and were never allowed to be alone with a man until after their engagement, Ned, pay attention.”
“I am,” I said. “Unmarried girls were always accompanied by chaperones.”
“I told you I didn’t think this was a good idea,” Finch, who was there, too, said.
“There’s nobody else to send,” Mr. Dunworthy said. “Ned, listen carefully. Here’s what I want you to do. You’ll come through on June the seventh, 1888, at ten A.M. The river is to the left of the dessert fork, which is used for gateaux and puddings. For such desserts as Muchings End, the dessert knife is used with the…”
Knife. Nice. Naiads. That was what they were called. Hylas and the Naiads. He went to fill his water jug, and they pulled him into the water with them, down and down, their hair and their wet sleeves twining about him.
“As soon as it’s returned, you can do whatever you like. The rest of the two weeks is yours. You can spend it boating on the river or to the right of the dessert plate, with the blade pointing inward.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “Have you got that?”
“What?” I said, but Mr. Dunworthy wasn’t listening. He was looking at the net. There was a loud hum that threatened to drown out the ack-ack guns, and the veils on the net began to lower.
“What’s that?” Mr. Dunworthy said to the seraphim.
“The rendezvous,” she said, pounding keys. “I couldn’t very well leave him there forever. I’ll do your drop as soon as I bring him through.”
“Good,” Mr. Dunworthy said. He clapped me on the shoulder. “I’m counting on you, Ned,” he said through the hum.
The veils touched the floor, draping gently. The hum rose in pitch till it sounded like the All-Clear, the air shimmered with condensation, and Carruthers appeared inside the net. He began fighting with the veils to get out.
“Stand still and wait till the veils have raised,” the seraphim ordered, pounding keys. The veils rose a foot and a half and stopped.
“Wait?” Carruthers said, ducking under them. “Wait? I’ve been waiting for two bloody hours!” He flailed at the fabric of the veils. “Where the bloody hell were you?”
He worked himself free and limped toward the console. He was covered in mud. He had lost one of his boots, and the front of his non-AFS uniform had a long, flapping tear in the back of one leg. “Why the hell didn’t you come get me as soon as you got the fix and saw where I’d landed?”
“I was interrupted,” she said, glaring at Mr. Dunworthy. She crossed her arms militantly. “Where’s your boot?”
“In the mouth of a bloody great mastiff! I was lucky to get away with my foot!”
“That was an authentic AFS Wellington,” she said. “And what have you done to your uniform?”
“What have I done to my uniform?” he said. “I’ve just spent two hours running for my life. I landed in that same damnable marrows field. Only I must have come through later than last time because the farmer’s wife was ready for me. With dogs. She’d recruited a whole bloody pack of them to aid in the war effort. She must have borrowed them from all over Warwickshire.”
He caught sight of me. “What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded, limping over. “You’re supposed to be in Infirmary.”
“I’m going to 1888,” I said.
“I told that nurse she wasn’t to tell Lady Schrapnell you were back,” he said disgustedly. “Why’s she sending you to the Nineteenth Century? Is this about the great-grandmother?”
“Great-great-great-great,” I said. “No. The doctor prescribed two weeks’ uninterrupted bed rest, and Mr. Dunworthy’s sending me there for it.”
“He can’t,” Carruthers said. “You can’t. You’ve got to go back to Coventry and look for the bishop’s bird stump.”
“I was looking for it,” I said, “and you pulled me out. Remember?”
“I had to. You were a raving lunatic. Going on about dogs, man’s noblest ally in war and peace, his truest friend through thick and thin. Pah! Look at that!” He held up the long strip of torn coverall. “Man’s truest friend did that!” He showed me his stockinged foot. “Man’s noblest ally nearly took my foot off! How soon can you be ready to go?”
“The nurse said no drops for two weeks. Why did you send me to Infirmary if you wanted me to go back?”
“I thought they’d give you an injection or a pill or something,” he said, “not forbid you to do drops. Now how are we supposed to find the bishop’s bird stump?”
“You didn’t find it after I left?”
“I can’t even find the cathedral. I’ve been trying all afternoon, and the marrows field was the closest I got. The bloody slippage—”
“Slippage?” Mr. Dunworthy said alertly. He came over to where we were standing. “Has there been more slippage than usual?”
“I told you,” I said, “the marrows field.”
“What marrows field?”
“The one halfway to Birmingham. With the dogs.”
“I’m having trouble getting back to Coventry Cathedral on the fifteenth, sir,” Carruthers explained. “I’ve tried four times today, and the closest I can get is the eighth of December. Ned’s got the closest of anyone so far, which is why I need him to go back and finish searching the rubble for the bishop’s bird stump.”
Mr. Dunworthy looked puzzled. “Wouldn’t it be simpler to look for the bishop’s bird stump before the raid, on the fourteenth?”
“That’s what we’ve been trying to do for the past two weeks,” Carruthers said. “Lady Schrapnell wanted to know if it was in the cathedral at the time of the raid, so we arranged a jump to the cathedral at a quarter till eight, just before the start of the raid. But we can’t get near the place. Either the date’s off, or if we do come through at the target time, we’re sixty miles away in the middle of a marrows field.” He indicated his muddy uniform.
“We?” Mr. Dunworthy said, frowning. “How many historians have tried?”