Detective Inspector James Taylor did not know what to think, he wanted to write this off as one sick hoax, and that the still missing child would be found, after all the itinerary of the school trip and the boy’s ID card could be aged by artificial means. The coin likewise. As for the photo, that could be the product of Photoshop plus artificial aging.
But then, how did he get them?
The elderly man in front of him at the British consulate somehow knew what he was thinking, “May I show you my air ticket that says I arrived here only this morning from Bern” the elderly man told James as he pulled out a used ticket from one of the European budget airlines.
“Just in case you were wondering, I was miles away when that coach arrived at that field a day or so ago” the elderly man went on, “You are the police, you have to ask and be sceptical, I accept that but I had nothing to do with this tragedy”
James narrowed his eyes at the old man, even if this were a hoax what would the old man have to gain?
Fame?
Notoriety?
Attention?
“Let me get this straight” James replied to the old man, “You claim your father, who fought on the German side in World War One, says that during the war, a coach load of children and their teacher were somehow transported from our time to his time for a few moments during a gas attack and one of those children was shot and remained back in the killing fields of Flanders”
“That is what he told us” the old man insisted, “It haunted him for the rest of his life, especially because the child who was shot dead by our side. I know it was war, but it was obvious they were not combatants. The man who shot him was killed the following day by a British bullet if that makes it easier”
“I don’t buy it” James insisted, “If say these children were somehow transported back and then forward in time, except for the boy you say was shot, and your father had these details”
At this James waved the itinerary in the air, “Why did he not arrange for this to be prevented, send a warning to the school”
The old man sighed and it seemed that James had struck a nerve, “He so wanted to, but he could not”
“Why?”
“My father was an avid reader of that author of yours, HG Wells” the old man continued, “He managed to get his copy of The Time machine translated in to German in 1898 three years after it’s original publication. From discussions about that book he realised the issues of paradoxes, such as what you call the
Grandfather Paradox”
James had heard of this paradox explained as
A time traveller goes back in time and kills his grandfather before his grandfather meets his grandmother. As a result, the time traveller is never born. But, if he was never born, then he is unable to travel through time and kill his grandfather, which means the traveller would then be born after all, and so on
It was good for giving one a headache.
The old man continued, “He was also warned not to by the man in the grey suit, along with the woman in the blue dress that you have also seen”
“Nice story” James replied, “but where did you really get these”
The old man shook his head and looked even sadder if that were more possible. “I am telling you the truth, my father had this experience during the Great War.” Then the man looked up at the detective inspector, with tears in his eyes, “That woman in the blue dress was right, nobody will believe me”
James thought he would try another track, especially given his glimpse of those two described individuals at Flanders and here in the town of Ypes, “So do these two people have names?”
“If they did they never said” the old man replied, “When my father passed away and that envelope passed to me they showed up at my door. I recognised them from my father’s description. It was as if they never aged at all. They demanded to know where that envelope was, but I refused to tell them. I thought they might take it by force, but instead they warned me to keep it safe and that there would be serious consequences if tried to tell anyone of its contents or what my father had told me, before today’s date. Yesterday she, the woman in blue showed up and told me it was time before vanishing before my eyes. Mr Police man, she had not aged one day”
A further chill went down James’ spine. Unless those people he had seen at Flanders were in cahoots with this old man, there was something not right about that couple he had seen.
How could they be at World War One, thirty five years previous and a few hours or minutes ago? It was impossible, it was absurd.
James thought for a moment, “If what you say was true, why did the children die so fast? Mustard gas did not kill that fast from what I read”
Again the old man shook his head, “The Kaiser was not satisfied with the mustard gas and had someone experiment with what they call a nerve gas, a forerunner of Sarin, except on its first use there was a change in the wind and it killed more German troops than allied troops. It was during that gas attack the children appeared on the battlefield.”
There was a knock on the door.
James turned away from looking at the old man and went to the door. It was the woman who James had met when he had entered the British Consulate. She was back from carrying his bags up stairs to the guest room. “I’ve put your bags in the room Detective Inspector, I will show you to it now”
“I just need to finish with…” James voice faded away as he turned back to where the old man had been seated.
He was nowhere to be seen, and there was no way he could have left the room. James was still holding the documents that the old man had given him.
“That was quick” the woman replied, “What did he want?”
“He just wanted to hand me some old papers” James answered
“Well I could have taken them if that was all” the woman said with a tone of being put out, “is it something I can deal with?” she added.
James shook his head, “It was just historical stuff, nothing much that would be of interest to the consulate staff” James lied, “I suspect he was from some old folks home nearby and has slipped passed the nurses”
“Do you want me to dispose of them?” the woman replied, “I do apologise, but he did ask for you by name”
James shook his head, “I have an interest in old documents, I will have a look through and then once we’ve sorted out this business with that school party matter we can try and track down which home he came from and return them”
“As you wish Detective Inspector” the woman replied
The woman then led James up the stairs to the room where he was to stay. “I will let you get settled before we arrange dinner. I’m afraid it won’t be much. The diplomatic service is not what it used to be on hospitality since they started applying the Daily Mail test to everything”
“We have the same problem in West Yorkshire” James reciprocated, “Although our chief constable tends to be more worried about the Yorkshire Post”
The woman left and James looked at his cases and at what wardrobe space there was. The expectation was that the following day, some of the parents of the dead children would be arriving, if they were not already. The Belgian policeman, Officer Francoise Janssens, whom James had met at Flanders field had a point, he would be busy talking with the relatives. Not a prospect he relished. He had had his fill of breaking bad news to wives, husbands or parents that a loved one had died, maybe that was why he was chosen.
The tragedy was on Belgian soil, so they had to take the lead. At least the theory of Officer Janssens that it had been old World War ordinance would be easier to sell than some fanciful story of children and their school teacher being transported back in time to World War one where they would be caught up in some German gas attack and then returned to the present.
This thought track got James looking at the documents in the old envelope again. This time he noticed another photograph in addition to the one of the missing child, apparently lying dead in a German trench.
It was of the old man, also lying dead in the German trench, from what he could make of the photo, he had also been shot.
Another chill went through James, if these documents were for real, something or someone was snatching people out of the present, to place them on a battle field where they would be shot by one side or another.
But that was just plain stupid, nobody would seriously listen to him if he spouted such nonsense.
For a moment James wished that these documents and the old man was just some sick hoax.
“I’m afraid it’s not” came a stern male voice from behind.
James spun round to see the man in the grey suit and grey hair looking at him. Behind him on the staircase was the woman in blue.
“Who are you” James said angrily, “and how did you get in here”
The woman walked up to be beside the man in grey, “Let’s just say we are in a similar line of work to you Detective Inspector Taylor, “We investigate and deal with dangerous situations and stop the bad guys”
“If you are working for another agency” James replied in a sceptical tone, “Then do you have any documentation to verify that, or at least a number I can ring”
“I’m afraid your limited communication devices could never reach those who send us in” the man in grey replied, “as for ID, we never need such trivial things, those we assist don’t usually demand it, and I doubt your superiors would have even heard of us or comprehend us”
“Are you the ones responsible for the deaths of those children?” James demanded
“No” the woman replied.
“Those deaths are just a symptom of something more serious” the man in grey interrupted, “something we have been tracking for a long time”
“Like one hundred years” James caught himself replying
“Yes”, the woman replied, “If you like. The thing we are investigating seems to have openings in this present and back then in what you call World War One. Whatever is doing it has an agenda, we need to find what it is and try and stop it”
“Before it does any more damage” the man in grey interjected.
“I suppose you have come to take these” James said angrily, waving the envelope and the documents
“If we had wanted them we could have taken them very easily” the man in grey said in a menacing tone, “we needed to make sure they did not see the light of day until after that’ school party had been to the battlefield and back to ensure causality was conserved”
“What?” James retorted, “You allowed those children to die”
“If you like, yes” the man in grey replied.
“Believe me, it was one of the hardest things we had to do Detective Inspector Taylor” the woman in blue replied
“Otherwise there would have been a paradox which would have been catastrophic to everyone on this planet.” The man in grey said in a matter of fact manner, “we had to allow this particular circle to complete uninterrupted once we knew about it. I’m afraid we had no choice,”
“There is always a choice” James growled angrily, “You could have allowed them to have.”
“Breathing apparatus so they could survive the gas. Is that what you were about to say?” the woman in blue interrupted, “The only problem with that was that the one survivor from the German lines that day, was the one who gathered those documents in your hand and he saw that they were unprotected. As for the child who got left behind, you saw the photograph, did you see any gas masks or bullet proof vest? In the photograph”
James slowly looked at the old photograph of the dead child. Through the old and grainy photograph, he could just make out he was just wearing the same school uniform as the children who had been taken to the morgue here in Ypres.
James look back up at the mysterious figures.
“Believe us” the man in grey went on, “If we could have stopped that we would have, but we could not risk creating a paradox which would have allowed something more dangerous to break in to this world. I mean your incomprehensible urge to celebrate one hundred years of one of the bloodiest conflicts in human history where ways of killing were developed on an industrial scale and exported all across this planet”
“Commemorate” James interrupted, “Not celebrate, we are commemorating the starting of World War One, and those children, by your own admission, you let die, were only there to learn about what went on”
“Very worthy I’m sure” the man in grey spat back, “Celebrate or commemorate, it does not matter, the collective psyche of you humans obsessing about that conflict has somehow weakened the very structures that keeps time from breaking through.”
“What do you mean by that” James said in confusion
The two figures looked at each other as if they were speaking to one another, but James heard nothing.
“Let me explain this” the woman in blue began, “I remember telling this to a teenager many years ago on one of our other cases.”
The woman thought for a moment, then muttered, “How did I put this” and then perked up, “oh yes” she added.
For a moment James thought he could see the eyes of the woman in blue shine as if they were illuminated.
“There is a corridor,” she began, “and that corridor is time. It surrounds all things and it passes through all things, you can’t see it – only sometimes and it’s dangerous. You cannot enter into time, but sometimes time can try to enter the present. Break in. Burst through and take things. Take people. The corridor is very strong; it has to be. But sometimes, in some places, it becomes weakened. Like fabric, worn fabric and when there is pressure put upon fabric… Time comes in…”
“Except in this case” the man in grey added, “It took several people, sent them back in time and then returned them, except for two, the child and the old man who just gave you that envelope”
“You knew even about that?” James asked with incredulity
“So did he” the man in grey replied, “Before he came here today, that man who handed you that envelope put his affairs in order. Like his father before him, he realised the danger of the Grandfather paradox”
“STEEL” the woman in blue interrupted, “Another incursion, it’s created another incursion”
“Where from?” the man in grey asked
“First of April 1916” the woman in blue replied. Then the woman in blue pointed at the television in guest room, “Detective Inspector, put that on, on a news channel”
“I don’t know what the setting are” James replied
“JUST SWITCH IT ON” the woman in blue insisted.
James found the controller near the television set and pointed it at it. The television burst into life, it seemed to be on BBC News 24. It was talking about some domestic political story.
Suddenly the female presenter apologised to the correspondent she was talking to because there was a fast breaking story.
“This is it Steel” the woman in blue told the man in grey.
The female presenter on the news channel started saying that word was coming in of what seems to be a major terrorist bombing outside the north east town of Middlesbrough, but that casualty figures were not yet known, and all they knew was that three bombs had detonated in and around the town.”
“Those weren’t terrorist bombs Steel” the woman in blue told the man in grey, “They were from the German Imperial Navy Zeppelin L11, but
that attack was on the first of April 1916.
To be continued – If I can!