‘Damn sight cheaper for people to buy from us than craftsmen with shops and rent in town,’ the French carpenter explained. He gave Joe the same anxious look the boy had, then pointed behind himself, to where five others were making an exquisite model of a battleship. Someone was painting its unicorn figurehead. ‘For the King,’ the carpenter said, with a touch of pride. ‘We’ll have six pounds for it. Six! We shall be able to set up nicely, once we’re out.’
Joe sank down on his knees to watch them work until his knee hurt and he noticed he was kneeling on strands of straw. He brushed them aside. Someone else picked them up and added them to a carefully arranged sheaf, and climbed away again.
Now that he wasn’t panicking or busy, he began to feel how cold and tired he really was, and how filthy, and how all the muscles down his back and stomach hurt. There wasn’t room to do anything but lean slowly forward to shift his weight. He wanted to look at his watch to see how much time there was left before Kite’s hour was up, but he wasn’t so tired that he couldn’t recognise what a silly idea it would be to take out a modern pocket watch in front of a whole room full of people who scraped half a living from the arrangement of scavenged straw.
Kite was going to leave him here. The Admiralty would want engines, ironclads, machine guns. Kite would be telling them now that it was all possible, and Joe would be here until he agreed to do exactly what they wanted. No; even after. There was every chance he was going to be here for years.
The corner of Madeline’s letter prodded his hip. Joe took it out slowly. At least he wasn’t at sea any more; at least he could read. He found his place. The Kingdoms had arrived at that half-abandoned mansion, and Herault had given them their orders.
*
Colonel Herault was true to his word. We were kept in perfect isolation for that first week. I wasn’t worried for myself. It’s easy for a woman to pretend to be an idiot. I had a couple of hysterical fits at the guards, I made my handwriting childish, and I wrote like I’d never really thought of much except nice china, and no one seemed to think that was incredible.
But I was worried about the others. In the desk of the Kingdom’s map table, Charles’s designs for the lighthouse were tucked away for anyone to find – the architectural plans, and the specifications for the engine and generator. I spent most of the week trying and failing to remember if he had signed his name to them. I doubt the name Stevenson means anything to you, but the Stevensons are, in my time, an empire of engineers, and Charles’s particular speciality was lighthouses.
Even if Charles had not put his name to the plans, Herault would know that one of us was an engineer. Even in those first days, the possible consequences of divulging modern science to somebody a hundred years early were chilling. Any moron could have seen that, even then, in that silent, disbelieving, panicky first week.
Our fears were only confirmed when, seven days later, at exactly noon, the soldiers came to take us to the beautiful observatory again. Herault was there. The day before, his men had collected the papers we had written, and now, on the chalk board along one wall, he had written out a neat timeline, stretching from 1797 to 1891. He had used a ruler, even though the line was ten feet long, which I think tells you a lot about him. He had noted the significant things he had learned from our accounts. He had also labelled them with our names. I remember something about those labels made me uneasy, even before he explained why they were there.
He looked pleased, and told us we had done well. It sounds cowardly, but I was relieved, even to the point of joy, that he wasn’t angry. One wants to imagine one would be staunchly impervious to feelings of one’s gaoler, but I’ll tell you now, that’s a fairy tale we tell to children to keep them brave. The feelings of one’s gaoler become more important than the feelings of God, given that he has a rather more immediate control over one’s fate than does the Almighty.
He motioned to the timeline.
An alarming amount was marked on. It was all in English. His English is immaculate.
Circa 1820, ascension of Queen Victoria
Circa 1830, first steam railways; method of mass transportation, run on coal combustion and hydraulics.
Circa 1850, advent of large ocean ‘liners’; ships with steam engines and capacity of 1000s.
Circa 1860, advent of the London Underground.
Circa 1870, invention of the ‘telegram’, a long-distance method of communication via wires.
Most of those bore Charles’s name. When I looked at him, he was staring at his shoes. He was plainly on the edge of weeping. I never liked him – men who have to show you all the time how much they know about everything are always tedious – but just then, I understood that it wasn’t a trait that he could help, any more than the length of his arms or the colour of his eyes. I tried to catch his eye, but he wouldn’t lift his head.
‘As you can see,’ Herault said, ‘much of this came from the excellent Monsieur Stevenson here. So, particular thanks are due.’ He shook Charles’s hand. Charles looked like he wanted to die. ‘Monsieur Stevenson will therefore be given a well-earned reward. He shall have full rations this week. The rest of you will subsist on one meal a day of barley bread and water.’
I suppose I ought to have seen that coming. But you must understand, my time and my world were different. Nobody could go around depriving prisoners of war basic rations – or, nobody except Lord Kitchener and that sadistic lunacy he perpetrated on the Transvaal. I had never expected physical consequences. Moronic as that sounds.
‘There is also the matter of …’ Herault took out the lighthouse plans. He held up the sheet with the engine specifications. ‘I believe one of you wrote this.’
‘It was Jem,’ Charles said quickly. ‘The man who escaped, he was an engineer.’
That’s the other curious thing about imprisonment. Tiny things take on extraordinary importance. Charles’s was a small lie, but it seemed heroic just then. Jem was no engineer; he sat in the House of Lords.
Herault smiled. ‘That’s unfortunate, because I was going to say that if any one of you can convince me that this document is of your making, then you’ll not only go back up to full rations, but you will be allowed certain freedoms about the house and grounds.’
29
Joe pushed one hand over his mouth. Obnoxious as the idea was, he had to wonder if he was Charles. Charles, who knew all the lighthouse specifications and who’d been trained as an engineer. Everyone had said Joe had learned too quickly, at de Méritens’ workshop. And then the lighthouse picture on the postcard would make even more sense, because of course Madeline would have thought that the lighthouse would jog Charles’s memory.
‘Joe.’
He heard it, but hadn’t heard his first name often enough in Kite’s voice to recognise it. He didn’t understand until one of the guards barked ‘Tournier’ right across the room. Everything in him lurched with hope. He stuffed the letter in his pocket, climbed back the way he had come, and found Kite waiting for him.
‘Lord Lawrence wants to meet you,’ he said.
Joe crept through, past the two guards, convinced they were going to stop him. Outside was only two yards more, but it was another world; the cobbled sloping road was empty and shining in the rain, and everything smelled of sweet stone. He hugged Kite with all that was left of his strength, so happy to see him that he was shocked with himself. Kite must have been shocked too, because he stiffened, but then he rested the heels of his hands on Joe’s back.