Time Travel Omnibus, page 115
As on all other occasions, Brown arose to the emergency in a superb manner; he seemed, in truth, to have foreseen all possible needs and to have provided for them. For this grave danger, he produced a small but powerful metal bomb and, giving order to the escort to follow him, he ran swiftly ahead. Unmindful of the shower of spears that greeted him, he hurled the bomb at the barricade, which promptly vanished before the giant blast. Through this gap we ran for our lives, pursued by the howling mob. The sight of us in flight evidently served to weaken their fear of our divine attributes, in spite of our recent display of them.
The officer formed a rear guard, seeking to hold the mob back. This they did, but at a terrible loss of lives to his men. So hotly did the battle rage that we were forced to drop most of the exhibits we had so proudly accumulated. I did, however, hold to my camera and a roll of parchments with one hand as I emptied my automatic with the other.
Thus we came to the shelter but, even at its very entrance, it appeared that we should be overcome. Nothing but our finely-tempered suits of woven wire saved us from instant death. Indeed, one burly native overthrew Brown with his spear, and might have slain him had it not been for the help of the officer, who came to the rescue in the nick of time but was himself badly wounded in the conflict. Brown sprang quickly to his feet and, between us, we bore the injured officer through the door of the shelter, slamming the door itself fairly in the face of several of our eager foeman. These men were thrown into a state of bewilderment when they rushed after us to meet a solid object completely invisible to them, as we ourselves had suddenly become.
Still we wasted no time in speculation as to the results. Brown ran panting to the controls and reversed the switch. Instantly the sounds of turmoil, on the outside of the shelter, died away in a confused murmur. We were launched a thousand years into space in the twinkle of an eye.
And so began the forward flight along the path of time, back to the land of reality. But then came the amazing thing. I looked around for the native, and behold, he was gone! Gone, also, were the things I had taken from Atlantis! I pondered deeply over the whole strange situation. In spite of the testimony of my material senses, I could not shake off the feeling of illusion, of the utter impossibility of our present adventure. Yet, this strange feeling might be caused by the very newness of the conditions, in which I found myself—after all. I felt in sympathy with the countryman who, viewing for the first time a tall giraffe, said to his wife, “By gum, Martha, there ain’t no such animal.” Laughing at this thought, I propounded the enigma to Brown.
“There is still a certain amount of ‘die-hardness’ in your mental composition,” he explained: “Still a shadow of the dead past that, like Banquo’s ghost, springs up to spoil the feast. Here you have participated in a series of marvels without equal in the achievements of science; in very person you have seen them. Yet you doubt, you quibble, you question!
“Once I was only sick and tired of this stubborn spirit; now I am beginning to have some compassion. It only personifies the conservative attitude of the world, an attitude that refuses to recognize truth until there is no way of squirming away from it. But, because you are my friend, I will make one more effort to bring you to the light.
“It is difficult for me to put the problem in language that will convey my exact meaning. Compare it, if you please, to memory. Upon the tablets of the mind are engraved each object seen, every sound that is heard, aye, even the smallest thought that occupies our waking moments. There is good reason to believe that these mental impressions are never erased, although our power to summon them again to active expression fades away as we recede further from the date of the occurrence. So, on a larger scale, upon the scroll of time itself, is minutely inscribed each detail of life down to the most insignificent fraction. In truth are these passing events preserved forever, though generations of men see them no more—indeed, have even no record of them at all.
“Still another illustration occurs to me. Suppose that you were instantly transported, say, about sixty light-years distant from the earth, and were able to visualize the images that the reflected light brought to you. What would you see? Not the present events of the planet, to be sure. No, you would witness the life enacted upon the earth sixty years ago. You might even be so fortunate as to see, as some giant moving picture, one of those great battles of history. To you it would have all the dramatic effects of actual reality. As a matter of fact, the living actors have passed away, for the most part, years ago. In like manner, as you receded further and further away from the earth, so would you push back time even to the beginning of the world.
“After some such fashion as this, have we been spectators of the life upon that ancient continent of Atlantis—with the vital difference, though, that we have approached thereto within the fourth dimension and have thus been able to introduce ourselves as actors, rather than as mere spectators, into the events of that remote period. But we have been unable to bring back with us material evidence of our exploits, rather memory pictures only. For as we know these things of the past are decayed or dead; they cannot be revived.
“So much for our past experiences. Within this charmed circle there are wonders to explore that will make our present venture seem poor by comparison. Many of these exploits I hope to soon accomplish. When I do, then that incredulous race of deluded mortals will surely sit up and take notice. Oh, it is going to be sweet music to my ears to listen to their foolish excuses! How they will twist and squirm as they seek vainly to justify their stubborn course!”
Brown, at these prophetic words, seemed fairly to expand. Some inward light of mastery gave him a sort of glow as though he visioned a far-off transcendental land and reflected a measure of its glory.
Indeed, as I stood then against the outer door, I was filled to overflowing with admiration at his eloquence. I meant to voice this sentiment, but—alas!
I found myself, at that very moment, prone upon the floor of my office, with my assistant bending in astonishment over me. Of Mr. Brown, the wonderful shelter and the house next door to mine there is no visible trace! Yet I still have on my finger a blue mark that will not disappear, and a half-empty fire extinguisher hangs upon the wall.
THE END
MR. STRENBERRY’S TALE
J.B. Priestley
“AND THANK YOU, SAID THE LANDLADY, WITH THE MECHANICAL CHEERFULNESS of her kind. She pushed across the counter one shilling and four coppers, which all contrived to get wet on the journey. “Yes, it’s quiet enough. Sort of weather to bring them in too, though it’s a bit early yet for our lot. Who’s in the Private Bar?” She craned her fat little neck, peered across the other side, and then returned, looking very confidential. “Only one. But he’s one of our reg’lars. A bit toe reg’lar, if you ask me, Mr. Strenberry is.”
I put down my glass, and glanced out, through the open door. All I could see was a piece of wet road. The rain was falling now with that precision which suggests it will go on for ever. It was darker too. “And who is Mr. Strenberry?” I enquired, merely for want of something better to do. It did not matter to me who Mr. Strenberry was.
The landlady leaned forward a little. “He’s the schoolmaster from down the road,” she replied, in a delighted whisper. “Been here—oh, lemme see—it must be four years, might be five. Came from London here. Yes, that’s where he came from, London. Sydenham, near the Crystal Palace, that’s his home. I know because he’s told me so himself, and I’ve a sister that’s lived near there these twenty years.”
I said nothing. There did not seem to be anything to say. The fact that the local schoolmaster came from Sydenham left me as uninterested as it found me. So I merely nodded, took another sip, and filled a pipe.
The landlady glanced at me with a faint reproach in her silly prominent eyes. “And he’s queer is Mr. Strenberry,” she added, with something like defiance. “Oh yes, he’s queer enough. Clever, y’know—in a sort of way, book-learning and all that, if you follow my meanin’—but, well—he’s queer.”
“In what way is he queer?” It was the least I could do.
She put her hand up to her mouth. “His wife left him. That’s about two years ago. Took their little boy with her too. Gone to stay with relations, it was given out, but we all knew. She left him all right. Just walked out one fine morning and the little boy with her. Nice little boy, too, he was. He lives alone now, Mr. Strenberry. And a nice mess, too, I’ll be bound. Just look at his clothes. He won’t be schoolmastering here much longer neither. He’s been given a few warnings, that I do know. And you can’t blame ‘em, can you?”
I replied, with the melancholy resignation that was expected of me, that I could not blame them. Clearly, Mr. Strenberry, with his nice mess, his clothes, his general queerness, would not do.
The landlady shook her head and tightened her lips. “It’s the same old trouble now. Taking too much. I don’t say getting drunk—because, as far as I can see, he doesn’t—but still, taking too much, too reg’lar with it. A lot o’ people, temperancers and that sort,” she went on, bitterly, “think we want to push it down customers’ throats. All lies. I never knew anybody that kept a decent house that didn’t want people to go steady with it. I’ve dropped a few hints to Mr. Strenberry, but he takes no notice. And what can you do? If he’s quiet, behaves himself, and wants it, he’s got to have it, hasn’t he? We can’t stop him. However, I don’t want to say too much. And anyhow it isn’t just what he takes that makes him queer. It’s the way he goes on, and what he says—when he feels like saying anything, and that’s not often.”
“You mean, he talks queerly?” I said, casually. Perhaps a man of ideas, Mr. Strenberry.
“He might go a week, he might go a fortnight, and not a word—except ‘Good evening’ or ‘Thank you,’ for he’s always the gentleman in here, I must say—will you get out of him. Some of the lively ones try to draw him out a bit, pull his leg as you might say—but not a word. Then, all of a sudden, he’ll let himself go, talk your head off.
And you never heard such stuff. I don’t say I’ve heard much of it myself because I haven’t the time to listen to it and I can’t be bothered with it, but some of the other customers have told me. If you ask me, it’s a bit of a shame, the way they go on, because it’s getting to be a case of——” And here she tapped her forehead significantly. “Mind you, it may have been his queerness that started all his troubles, his wife leaving him and all that. There’s several that knows him better than I do will tell you that. Brought it all on himself, they say. But it does seem a pity, doesn’t it?”
She looked at me mournfully for about a second and a half, then became brisk and cheerful again. “He’s in there now,” she added, and bustled away to the other side of the bar, where two carters were demanding half-pints.
I went to the outer door and stood there a moment, watching the persistent rain. It looked as if I should not be able to make a move for at least half an hour. So I ordered another drink and asked the landlady to serve it in the Private Bar, where Mr. Strenberry was hiding his queerness. Then I followed her and took a seat near the window, only a few feet away from Mr. Strenberry.
He was sitting there behind a nearly empty glass, with an unlighted stump of cigarette drooping from a comer of his mouth. Everything about him was drooping. He was a tall, slack, straggling sort of fellow; his thin greying hair fell forward in front; his nose was long, with something pendulous about its reddened tip; his moustache drooped wearily; and even his chin fell away, as if in despair. His eye had that boiled look common to all persevering topers.
“Miserable day,” I told him.
“It is,” he said. “Rotten day.” He had a high-pitched but slightly husky voice, and I imagined that its characteristic tone would probably be querulous.
There was silence then, or at least nothing but the sound of the rain outside and the murmur of voices from the bar. I stared at the Highlanders and the hunting men who, from various parts of the room, invited you to try somebody’s whisky and somebody else’s port.
“Got a match?” said Mr. Strenberry, after fumbling in his pockets.
I handed him my matchbox and took the opportunity of moving a little nearer. It was obvious that that stump of cigarette would not last him more than half a minute, so I offered him my cigarette case too.
“Very quiet in here,” I remarked.
“For once,” he replied, a kind of weak sneer lighting up his face. “Lucky for us too. There are more fools in this town than in most, and they all come in here. Lot of loud-mouthed idiots. I won’t talk to ‘em, won’t waste my breath on ‘em. They think there’s something wrong with me here. They would.” He carefully drained his glass, set it down, then pushed it away.
I hastened to finish my glass of bitter. Then I made a pretence of examining the weather. “Looks as if I shall have to keep under cover for another quarter of an hour or so,” I said carelessly. “I’m going to have another drink. Won’t you join me?”
After a little vague humming and spluttering, he said he would, and thanked me. He asked for a double whisky and a small soda.
“And so you find the people here very stupid?” I said, after we had taken toll of our fresh supply of drink. “They often are in these small towns.”
“All idiots,” he muttered. “Not a man with an educated mind amongst them. But then—education! It’s a farce, that’s all it is, a farce. I come in here—I must go somewhere, you know—and I sit in a corner and say nothing. I know what they’re beginning to think. Oh, I’ve seen them—nudging, you know, giving each other the wink. I don’t care. One time I would have cared. Now I don’t. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters, really.”
I objected mildly to this pessimism.
“I know,” he went on, looking at me sombrely. “You needn’t tell me. I can see you’re an intelligent man, so it’s different. But you can’t argue with me, and I’ll tell you why. You see, you don’t know what I know. Oh, I don’t care if they do think I’m queer. I am queer. And so would you be if you’d seen what I’ve seen. They wouldn’t because they wouldn’t have the sense . . .” His voice trailed away. He shrugged his thin sloping shoulders. His face took on a certain obstinate look that you often see on the faces of weak men. Evidently he thought he had said too much.
I was curious now. “I don’t see what you mean,” I began. “No doubt you’ve had unpleasant experiences, but then most of us have at some time or other.” I looked at him expectantly.
“I don’t mean that,” he said, raising his voice and adding a touch of scorn. “This is different. You wouldn’t understand, unless I told you it all. Even then you mightn’t. It’s difficult. Oh, what’s the use!” He finished his whisky in one quick gulp.
“Well, I wish you’d tell me.”
Doubtfully, mournfully, he examined my face, then he stared about the room, pulling his straggling and drooping moustache. “Could I have another cigarette?” he asked, finally. When he had lit it, he blew out a cloud of smoke, then looked at me again.
“I’ve seen something nobody else has seen,” said Mr. Strenberry. “I’ve seen the end of it all, all this,” he waved a hand and gave a bitter little laugh, “building houses, factories, education, public health, churches, drinking in pubs, getting children, walking in fields, everything, every mortal blessed thing. That’s what I’ve seen, a glimpse anyhow. Finish! Finish! The End!”
“It sounds like doomsday,” I told him.
“And that’s what it was,” cried Mr. Strenberry, his face lighting up strangely. “Anyhow, that’s what it amounted to. I can’t think about anything else. And you couldn’t either, if you’d been there. I’ve gone back to it, thought about it, thought round and round it, oh, thousands of times! Do you know Opperton Heath? You do? Well, that’s where it happened, nearly three years ago. That’s all, three years ago. I’d gone up there for a walk and to have a look at the birds. I used to be very interested in birds—my God, I’ve dropped that now—and there are one or two rare kinds up on the Heath there. You know what it’s like—lonely. I hadn’t met a soul all afternoon. That’s the worst of it. If there’d only been somebody else there——”
He broke off, took up his smouldering cigarette, put it down again and stared in front of him. I kept quiet, afraid that a chance word might suddenly shut him up altogether.
“It was a warm afternoon,” he said, beginning again as abruptly as he had stopped, “and I was lying on the grass, smoking. I remember I was wondering whether to hurry back and get home in time for tea or to stay where I was and not bother about tea. And I wish to God I’d decided to go back, before it happened. But I didn’t. There I was, warm, a bit drowsy, just looking at the Heath. Not a soul in sight. Very quiet. If I could write poetry, I’d write a poem about the Heath as I saw it then, before the thing happened. It’s all I would write too. The last five minutes there.” He broke off again, and I believe there were tears in his eyes. He looked a figure of maudlin self-pity, but nevertheless it may have been the lost peace and beauty of the world that conjured up those tears. I did not know then. I do not know now.
“Then I saw something,” said Mr. Strenberry. “It was a sort of disturbance in the air, not fifty yards from where I was. I didn’t take much notice at first, because you get that flickering on a warm day up there. But this went on. I can’t describe it properly, not to make you see it. But in a minute or two, you couldn’t help noticing it. Like a thin revolving column of air. A waterspout made of air, if you see what I mean? And there was something dark, something solid, in the centre of it. I thought it must have something to do with a meteor. I got up and went closer, cautiously, you know, taking no chances. It didn’t seem to be affecting anything else. There was no wind or anything. Everything was as quiet as it was before. But this column of air was more definite now, though I can’t exactly explain how it came to look so definite. But you knew it was there all right, like seeing one piece of glass against another piece. Only there was movement in this, and faster than the fastest piece of machinery you ever set eyes on. And that dark thing in the centre was solider every second. I went closer still. And then the movement inside the column—like a glassy sort of pillar it was, though that doesn’t quite give you the idea—stopped, though there was still a flickering and whirling on the outside. I could see that dark thing plainly now. It was a man—a sort of man.”
