1894

6. On the Train

“Are you familiar with Windsor Town?” asked the major.

“Just the common knowledge,” I said. “The castle stands on a slight hill at the northeastern edge of the town. Legend has it that King Arthur conferred with his knights on that hill. Anyhow, when the Normans came, they built the tower on it as a fortress. The accessory buildings came later. A flag flies on the turret when the queen is in residence. No flag today, I suppose.” 1 paused, then added noncommitally, “I was once apprenticed to a draper there. I could see the castle from the shop roof, and sometimes the royals playing beyond the walls.”

He smiled faintly. “You didn’t like the draper business?”

“No.” I thought of Charles Dickens, and how he had been apprenticed to a maker of bootblacking, and how he had hated it. I knew just how he felt. My tone was so brusque as to seem tactless. I changed the subject. “Major,” I said, “I once made a conservative estimate of what it would cost to build the machine. As I’m sure you know, it has some unusual components and requires painstaking manufacture and assembly. For parts and labour I estimated at least & 100,000. The sapphire core alone would account for half of that. You can see why the machine would be beyond the means of myself or any other ordinary citizen.”

“Yes, I can see that.”

“So who is paying?”

“The queen.”

“Even for the sapphire?”

“She is providing that.”

I wasn’t exactly sure what he meant. “You mean, she already had a stone of the exact specifications?”

“Yes.”

I could see he wasn’t inclined to elaborate. And actually, it didn’t matter where the gem came from, so long as it would perform properly.

Major,” I said, “you realize this is all quite mad.”

He made no response.

I realized I had put him in an awkward position. Perhaps he didn’t really believe in the Project, but he was totally loyal to the queen. Well, it was easy for him. He was just following orders. He was risking nothing, neither life nor sanity.

I was remorseless. “If I succeed in prolonging the life of the prince, she will never get the benefit of any additional years with him. It will be a different world, with a different Queen Victoria and a different Prince Albert. It cannot possibly come out the way she wants.”

His mouth tightened. “Wells, I know that, you know that, Dr. Wright knows that. She does not know that. And which of us is willing to try to explain it to her?”

He had a point.

“So,” he said, “let’s just go ahead as if everything made sense. And indeed, my dear fellow, it could make sense, though not exactly in the way she hopes for.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve read about The Trent Affair?”

“Just what I was taught in school.”

“And I suppose they taught you that the Affair started the Great Intervention, also known as the War of Sixty-One, where we came in on the side of the Confederates and clinched the Secession in the American Civil War?”

“And got the Southern Colonies back,” I added.

“Just so,” said the major. “And while we were busy grabbing the American South, the French picked up Quebec and Mexico. A disaster, Wells. We did it for the Lancashire mills, for cotton. In the beginning, that was fine. But today it’s different. One third of the national income goes to the support of the Southern regime. We perpetuated slavery in the southern states. We are the shame of nations.”

I couldn’t see the connection between the Project and The Trent Affair, but I felt sure that the major was about to enlighten me.

He gave a short bitter laugh. “If the prince had lived, he could and would have prevented the War of the Intervention. In fact, if he had lived just a couple of weeks longer, he might have managed it.” He tugged at his mustache. “So you see, Wells, it’s either a mad fiasco, or else it’s a thing of great wonder, and the salvation of Britain. But you must understand Trent. There’s much more to the Affair than you’ll find in the history books.” He had to stop temporarily. The train had rolled into Windsor Station. We stepped down from the cars, into a waiting carriage, and were immediately on our way to the castle.

Inside the carriage the major resumed his exposition of The Trent Affair.