The strange affair of Spring-heeled Jack

THE BATTLE OF OLD FOLD

n September 28, 1861, Spring Heeled Jack bounced onto the brown, dying lawn outside the veranda doors of Darkening Towers. They stood open and the lights were on in the ballroom. He stalked in.

"Henry! Henry, where are you?"

"Stay there, Oxford!" commanded a brash, ugly voice. It came from behind a French screen in the corner of the big, decrepit room.

"Who the hell are you?" demanded the time traveller.

"It's me, Edward-Henry Beresford."

"You sound different. Why are you hiding? Come out!"

Fire suddenly erupted from the control unit on his chest.

"The suit is almost dead!" he groaned, smothering it with his cloak. "Come out, damn you!"

"Listen to me, Oxford. This is important. I had a serious accident," gurgled the thick voice. "I broke my neck. They had to perform extreme surgery to preserve my life. Prepare yourself. I'm not the man I used to be."

An orangutan lumbered out from behind the screen. The top of its head was missing and had been replaced by a liquid-filled bell jar in which a brain floated.

Edward Oxford started to laugh. "You've got to be fucking kidding me!" he gasped.

"It's temporary, I hope," said the orangutan.

Oxford doubled over, his laughter rising in pitch, echoing around the large chamber.

"This world-is-fuck-fucking-insane!" he screamed.

"Calm down, Edward! It's strange for me, too. I was beginning to think I'd dreamed you up. I can hardly believe you're real after all this time."

The orangutan lurched toward the stilt-walker and reached out a hand to him.

Spring Heeled Jack staggered back. "Don't touch me, ape!" he cried.

"All right! All right! Just try to control yourself, man! I have the list of girls for you!"

Oxford looked at the primate. "Is it really you, Henry?"

"Yes."

"And you were successful?"

"In the main, yes."

"In the main? What do you mean, `in the main'?"

"One of the families moved to South Africa. I've lost track of them."

"Well, find them, you fool! She could be the one!"

"I'm doing all I can, Edward. In the meantime, I have the descriptions and locations of Angela Tew, Marian Steephill, Connie Fairweather, Lucy Harkness, and Alicia Pipkiss."

The ape shuffled across to the banqueting table-which Oxford saw had been moved from the dining room-and took from it a sheet of paper which he then handed to the time traveller.

"I'm sorry about the writing. It's difficult. I don't have proper thumbs."

Oxford looked at the names scrawled messily on the paper.

"They are all children of the original Battersea Brigade daughters," continued the orangutan. "One of them is your ancestor, of that I am certain. Be aware that your opportunity with the Pipkiss girl is limited. I know where she will be the night after tomorrow, but before and after that, her movements are unclear."

"Very well," replied Spring Heeled Jack. He read down the list. "Ah," he said. "She won't be far from here. The same cottage as before!"

"Yes."

"And the South African girl?"

"Sarah Shoemaker. I have sent agents to track her down," lied Beresford.

"Good. I'll not delay-I must act while the suit still functions. What is to become of you?"

"I hope to have a new body soon. Will you return?"

"Yes. If I'm successful and I restore my genealogical history, I'll come to say good-bye before returning to my time. If I'm unsuccessful, we'll know that the Shoemaker girl is the one and I'll need your help to find her. I must go now."

"Good-bye, Edward."

Oxford nodded and strode out into the grounds. He looked back over his shoulder and saw the orangutan silhouetted in the doorway. He started to laugh again. Ridiculous world. None of it was real. He jumped.

He was still laughing when he landed on Wix's Lane, between Battersea and Clapham, at seven in the evening on August 2, 1861. He immediately vaulted over a fence into an area of waste land which local residents used as a rubbish tip. A shout from the street told him that he'd been spotted. He hopped away over piles of rubbish.

Moments later, he arrived at the back of the houses on Taybridge Road. He identified the fifth one along and approached its high back wall. He was just tall enough to look over it.

A gas lamp was on in the kitchen and through the window he could see a woman washing dishes in a basin. Last time he'd seen her, she'd been just fourteen years old. Now Lizzie Fraser was thirty-eight. She looked careworn and exhausted, with a haunted expression around her eyes.

A young girl came into view: the daughter, Marian.

The mother said something.

Marian replied.

She moved away from the window.

The back door opened.

The girl stepped into the yard and walked over to a small chicken coop.

She bent over it.

Edward Oxford vaulted over the wall, landed behind her, pressed a hand over her mouth, wrapped an arm around her slim body, lifted her off her feet, and leaped back over the wall, clutching her tightly.

An agonised scream came from the kitchen.

Damn! The mother had seen him!

He whirled the young girl around and grabbed her by the upper arms, shook her, and growled: "You're Marian Steephill, yes? Answer me!"

She nodded, her face contorted with fear.

The screams from beyond the wall became hysterical.

Without further ado, Oxford grabbed Marian's dress and ripped it away. He clawed at the slip beneath until her skin was bared.

There was no birthmark.

He pushed her away and ran back into the rubbish tip, took three giant strides, soared into the air, and landed in Patcham Terrace at ten in the evening of September 6, 1861.

It was a warm night. The street was empty but he could hear a vehicle approaching. He pressed himself into the shadows as it passed: a motorised penny-farthing, leaving a cloud of steam behind it. He shook his head and chuckled. Impossible. There was no such thing!

Lucy Harkness, the daughter of Sarah Lovitt, lived at number 12 with her parents. It was Friday; her mother and father would be at the Tremors public house.

Oxford walked up to the door, which opened straight onto the pavement-there were no front gardens in this road-and knocked on it. He bent to bring his height down below the transom window.

"Who is it?" came a muffled girl's voice.

"Constable Dickson," said Oxford. "Lucy Harkness?"

"Yes."

"Has there been a break-in here?"

"No, not at all, sir."

"Would you allow me to check your back windows, miss? There's an intruder in the area."

"Wait a minute."

He heard a bolt being drawn back.

The door cracked open.

He threw his weight against it, knocking the girl backward onto the floor.

Slamming the door shut behind him and crouching so as to avoid the ceiling, he paced forward until he was next to the prone girl.

She was shaking so hard that her teeth were chattering.

He reached down and pulled apart the buttons of her blouse.

She didn't resist.

He pushed aside her underclothes.

No birthmark.

All of a sudden, her body arched upward and her eyes rolled into her head. She was having some sort of fit.

Oxford backed away nervously, fumbled with the door until it opened, stepped out, and jumped.

He thudded into the ground at five o'clock in the morning on Thursday September 19, 1861. He'd landed on a dark, misty pathway in Hoblingwell Wood near Mickleham village.

He ducked into the cover of the trees and waited.

A few minutes later he saw the light of an oil lamp approaching.

He stepped out.

"Who's that there?" demanded a girl's voice.

Suddenly she turned and started running.

He sprang after and caught her, yanked her around, and savagely rent her clothing, ripping it wildly until her naked skin was exposed. Bending her backward, he placed his face close to her chest. Blue light from his burning helmet reflected off her pale, unmarked skin.

He looked up into her face.

"Not you!"

Then he dropped her and jumped away-but landed in the same time, and in the same place.

"Shit!" he spat.

The leap from Battersea to his current location had drained the suit's power. Now he'd have to wait until dawn, when the sunlight would recharge it.

He paced along the path, out of the woods, across a road, and into a field. He sat beneath a gnarled oak, the mist curling around him, and waited. A feeling of drowsiness overtook him.

Is this what I've come to? he thought. A man who rips the dresses from teenage girls, like some sort of sexual pervert? God, I want to go home! I want to have supper with my wife! I want to put my hand on her belly and feel the child kick.

About thirty minutes later, he was roused by a shout.

He looked up.

A crowd of people were charging toward him, waving pitchforks and clubs.

He hauled himself upright and ran away.

His legs ached.

He was exhausted.

When was it he last slept? He couldn't remember. Probably years ago. Literally!

He stumbled on. The villagers followed.

Sometimes he outdistanced them and stopped to rest. Then they'd come back into view, yelling and brandishing their makeshift weapons like crazed animals.

If they caught him, they'd kill him, of that he was sure.

As dawn broke, Spring Heeled Jack, Edward John Oxford, the man from the distant future, sprang on his stilts from one field into the next, over hedgerows and across roads, over a golf course and into the shelter of some woods.

He pushed through the trees, leaned against one, and tried to regain his breath.

The sun was up but it was misty and the light too weak to recharge his batteries quickly.

Something irritated his ear-a distant vibration, the sound of a machine.

As it increased, he recognised it. It was the noise made by rotor blades.

Closer it came, until the tree at his back began to vibrate.

He looked up as it flew overhead and caught sight of a ludicrous flying contraption.

Edward Oxford didn't believe anything he saw anymore. The world was one giant fairy story, a crazed jumble of talking apes and horse-drawn carriages and accentuated manners and the stink of unprocessed sewage and, now, flying chairs which trailed steam.

The machine approached again, at such a low altitude that the trees thrashed beneath its downdraught.

"Oh, will you please piss off and leave me alone!" he yelled.

It passed above him. He crouched, leaped, shot up through the twigs and leaves, and caught hold of the side of the machine. It rocked and careened sideways.

The man at its controls turned and looked at him through a pair of goggles.

"I said piss off!" shouted Oxford.

He reached out and grabbed the man by the wrist.

The machine spiralled out of control and crashed into the trees.

Oxford was knocked from its side and fell spinning through the foliage. He thumped onto the ground and lay still, winded, his shoulder hurting.

He got to his knees. He could hear the whistle of steam off to his left. Pushing himself upright, he walked in the direction of the sound until the wrecked machine came into view.

A man was lying facedown beside it. He rolled over as Oxford stood above him with a stilt to either side.

The time traveller squatted.

"Who are you?" he asked. The man had a vaguely familiar face-dark, savage, powerful, but also scarred, battered, and bruised.

"You know damned well who I am!" exclaimed the man.

"I don't. I've never seen you before, though I must admit, I feel I should know you."

"Never seen me! You gave me this damned black eye! Or maybe that was your brother?"

Edward Oxford grinned. More nonsense! More of this world's idiocy!

"I don't have a brother," he said. "I don't even have parents!"

He threw back his head and laughed.

The man beneath him shifted uncomfortably.

Oxford looked down at his face.

So familiar. It was so familiar.

"Where have I seen you before?" he muttered. "Famous, are you?"

"Comparatively," answered the man, and started to wriggle out from between the stilts. Oxford reached down and clutched the front of his coat, stopping him from moving.

"Stay still," he barked.

He searched his memory and thought about the history of this period, the biographies he'd read and the old black and white photographs he'd seen.

The name came to him.

Fucking hell! he thought. You're Joking!

But it wasn't a joke. There was no doubt about it. He knew who this man was.

"Yes, I know you now," he muttered. "Sir Richard Francis Burton! One of the great Victorians!"

"What the hell is a Victorian?" snarled Burton.

Shouts reached them from the distance. There were people approaching -and, too, the far-off chopping of another flying machine.

"Listen, Burton," hissed Oxford. "I have no idea why you're here but you have to leave me alone to do what I have to do. I know it's not a good thing but I don't mean the girls any harm. If you or anyone else stops me, I can't get back and I won't be able to repair the damage. Everything will stay this way-and it's wrong! It's wrong! This is not the way things are meant to be! Do you understand?"

"Not in the slightest," replied Burton. "Let me up, damn it!"

Oxford let go of the man's coat and Burton pushed himself out from between the stilts and got to his feet.

"So what exactly is it you need to do?"

"Restore, Burton!" replied the time traveller. "Restore!"

"Restore what?"

"Myself. You. Everything! Do you honestly think the world should have talking orangutans in it? Isn't it obvious to you that something is desperately wrong?"

"Talking orang-?" began Burton.

"Captain Burton!" came a distant shout.

Oxford looked up through the trees as the second flying machine drew closer.

"The mist has cleared and the sun is high enough," he muttered to himself. "I should be able to recharge."

"Charge at what?" demanded Burton. "You're speaking in riddles, man!"

"Time to go," said Oxford. He laughed. "Time to go!"

Burton suddenly dived at him.

Oxford twisted out of the way and, as the famous Victorian crashed past him, he strode away.

"Sir Richard Francis Burton," he hissed to himself. "That's all I bloody well need!"

Ducking under branches, he moved from bole to bole until he emerged from the woods back onto the golf course. Off to the south, he saw a horde of policemen and villagers milling about. A police whistle blew and a roar went up from the crowd. They surged toward him.

Oxford bounded away and circled the course. He only had to remain in the sunlight for a couple of minutes; it would be enough.

In enormous hops, he ran around the perimeter while the mob surged back and forth trying to cut him off.

He passed the edge of the trees again and saw Burton standing there. The man ran out to intercept him. Oxford bounded over his head.

"Stay out of it, Burton!" he shouted.

He took six more strides and sprang high.

At the apex of his jump, he ordered the suit to flip him to the next destination and, at exactly the same moment, realised that the second flying machine was too close, almost touching him.

He landed in the Alsop field on the night of September 30, 1861, with fragments of the machine accompanying him. He hit the ground awkwardly, floundered, and fell. Bits of twisted metal thudded into the earth around him. One piece embedded itself in his right forearm. He screamed with pain and yanked it out. Blood splashed over the scales of his suit.

Spring Heeled Jack rolled to all fours and hauled himself upright. He held his arm and winced. He looked down the sloping field and forgot the pain.

It was all so familiar.

There were the lights of Old Ford; there was Bearbinder Lane; and there was the cottage where Jane Alsop lived, and where he would now find her daughter, Alicia Pipkiss.

He had no reason to think that she was the girl with the rainbow birthmark, but all of a sudden that's exactly what he did think.

He smiled.

Something came spinning through the air, hit his stilts, and wrapped itself around them.

He toppled sideways and fell onto his injured arm. Another scream was torn from his throat.

What the-?

He looked down and saw that he'd been enmeshed in bolas-throwing weapons consisting of a cord with weights at either end.

Men rushed out of the trees. A lot of men. They threw nets over him.

Colourful birds exploded into the air.

In Old Ford, Constable Krishnamurthy saw the flock of parakeets rising upward. They wheeled around then flew westward. Firing up his rotorchair, he ascended on a column of boiling vapour and steered the craft toward the field. Some distance behind him, by the ruined farmhouse, six more rotorchairs rose.

To the north, west, and south of the field, Burton, Trounce, and Honesty also saw the birds. They ordered their men forward.

Not far behind Trounce's team, Laurence Oliphant turned to the twentythree red-robed figures and snapped: "Go! Attack! Feast!"

They threw back their hoods and howled.

Men piled onto Spring Heeled Jack, holding his arms away from his chest. They hauled him upright. He struggled wildly and became entangled in netting. One punched him hard in the stomach. He doubled over and vomited.

"Sorry, old thing. Had to immobilise you, what!" said the aggressor.

"Blast it," said another. "We have company."

The Rakes, gathered around the time traveller, suddenly found themselves surrounded by men who were charging out from the very same trees they'd just vacated. The Libertine extremists formed a circle around their prisoner, faced outward, and drew their rapiers from their canes.

The advancing forces pulled goggles down from their foreheads to cover their eyes, reached into their jackets, and withdrew truncheons and pistols.

"I am Detective Inspector Trounce of Scotland Yard," roared a voice. "I command you, in the name of His Majesty King Albert, to lay down your weapons and give yourselves up!"

"Not likely!" came a reply.

The Rakes chuckled and brandished their swords.

Seven rotorchairs began to circle the field. Bright lamps blazed beneath them, suspended on ropes, illuminating the scene, sending long black shadows angling across it.

"We need reinforcements," Oxford heard one of his captors mutter.

"Don't worry. They're coming," answered another.

A parakeet landed on the threshold of the veranda doors at Darkening Towers.

"Message for Henry bog-breath Beresford!" it squawked into the ballroom.

Another fluttered down beside it: "Message for the limp-wristed Marquess of Waterford!"

And another: "Message for the highly hideous Henry Beresford!"

And more:

"Message for Henry bastard-of-bastards Beresford!"

"Message for Henry tweak-nibbler Beresford!"

"Message for the mange-ridden marquess!"

"Message for barmy flesh-puller Beresford!"

"Message for the Marquess of buttock-wobbling Waterford!"

"Bloody hell!" exclaimed Henry de La Poer Beresford, 3rd Marquess of Waterford, as a colourful tidal wave of parakeets swept into the room to insult him.

"Message begins," they chorused deafeningly. "He's arrived, you bollockgroper. Message ends."

The glass-headed orangutan blundered through them, waving its long arms, sending up a fluttering mass of colour. He lurched out into the grounds and bawled: "Get the steam up! Get the steam up! He's here! Spring Heeled Jack is here!"

The gigantic rotorship trembled as its crankshafts started turning, spinning the rotors. It vented steam from its exhausts. Men ran between it and the smaller vessel, which was landed nearby.

Beresford tumbled up the ramp, passing a man whose head was half brass: John Speke, who, with the key over his left ear slowly revolving, raced to the smaller craft.

The Mad Marquess entered the mighty Technologist ship and the ramp withdrew behind him.

The doors clanged shut.

With a powerful roar, the colossal platform lifted into the air.

Sir Richard Francis Burton, his eyes covered by leather-bound goggles, his cane thrust beneath his belt, plunged into the amassed Rakes and laid about him with his rapier. The blade clicked and clacked against those of his enemies, and, though he was vastly outnumbered, his skill was such that he disarmed or disabled man after man without sustaining even a scratch himself.

Beside and behind him, police constables pushed forward, swiping swordsticks aside with their truncheons, lashing out with fists and boots.

It occurred to the king's agent that the last time he'd been in a position such as this, it had ended in disaster.

"Not this time!" he grunted, leaning into the manchette and watching with satisfaction as his opponent flinched, cried out, dropped his sword, and clutched at his pierced wrist.

Soon, the crush of men became too tight for swordplay and his left fist became his primary weapon, smashing into jaws, noses, and foreheads. He grinned savagely, thankful to have at last reached the final reckoning with his enemies, glorying in the battle.

He laughed when he caught sight of Detective Inspector Honesty. The slightly built man appeared to be boxing under the Marquess of Queensberry rules, as had been demonstrated for the first time last June by the heavyweight pugilist Jem Mace, who'd won the Championship of England against Sam Hurst. Honesty's back was ramrod straight; he was dancing and dodging on his toes; his left fist was defending his chin, while his right was jabbing again and again into the face of his infuriated adversary. He appeared to be making no headway until, quite without warning, he swerved, stepped in, and whipped his left fist up in a devastating uppercut. His opponent's feet left the ground and the man flopped flat on his back, out for the count. "Bravo!" cheered Burton.

A pistol shot detonated somewhere behind him.

"No, man!" came Trounce's cry. "Take them alive!"

A terrible scream echoed across the field.

Something howled triumphantly.

"Werewolves!" yelled another voice.

More pistol shots sounded.

Something burst into flames.

A fist clouted the side of Burton's head. He reeled, recovered, and hit back, his knuckles crunching into his enemy's mouth, breaking teeth. The man went down and Burton stumbled over him, falling onto all fours.

"Burton! This is your doing!" hissed a voice.

He looked up, straight into the insane eyes of Spring Heeled Jack. With his captors distracted, the stilt-walker had managed to untangle himself from the bolas and netting and now crouched, ready to leap away.

"I told you not to interfere-but I'll stop you, Burton!" snarled the bizarre figure. "I'll stop you!"

Burton lunged at him and went sprawling as Edward Oxford launched himself high into the air. The king's agent rolled onto his back just in time to see the stilt-walker vanish. His view was suddenly blocked as a loup-garou came swooping down upon him. Reflexively, he swung his rapier up, catching the beast in the throat. Its heavy weight slid down the blade and thumped on top of him. Talons ripped down his upper right arm, slicing through the material and the skin beneath.

The creature went limp. Fierce heat began to emanate from it.

Burton quickly heaved it aside, stood up, and stepped back.

The werewolf exploded into flames.

Men were fighting all around him, the battle now spreading across the field.

Loups-garous slunk through the crowd, pouncing and tearing with their teeth and claws.

He saw, in the near distance, Laurence Oliphant easing a sword out of a man's stomach.

The air throbbed.

A huge flying platform slid over the tops of the trees, a wall of steam bubbling out beneath it, enveloping the battleground.

Doors opened in its sides and ropes were thrown out.

Men came sliding down into the swirling vapour.

The Technologists had arrived.

We're outnumbered! thought Burton.

Edward Oxford landed in Green Park on Sunday September 8, 1861. It was eleven thirty and the night was bitterly cold and misty.

He was near the trees at the top of the slope. Next to the path below, he could see a tall monument on the spot where Queen Victoria had been assassinated.

Ducking into the gloom of the trees, he stood and considered. Where would he find Sir Richard Francis Burton?

He couldn't recall where the man lived nor the location of the Royal Geographical Society. There was, however, the Cannibal Club above Bartoloni's Italian restaurant in Leicester Square. He remembered reading about that place and the eccentrics it attracted. He knew that Burton went there regularly.

Not long ago, the prospect of visiting Leicester Square without the protection of augmented reality would have filled him with dread. Now, though, he was so numbed by the preposterous environment in which he was trapped that he felt almost immune to it. An illusion. A dream. It was nothing more than that. He wasn't even sure why he had come here, and hardly cared. He clung to the only things that made sense to him, despite their patent absurdity: he had to get to the Pipkiss girl; there was only one night on which to do it; and the famous explorer Sir Richard Francis Burton had arranged an ambush to stop him.

Oxford didn't realise that opposing forces were battling over him. His broken mind latched on to just one thing: in order to have supper with his wife on February 15 in the year 2202, he had to stop Burton from interfering on September 30 in the year 1861.

Surely that wouldn't be too difficult?

He closed his eyes and swayed for a moment.

No! he thought. Don't let go! Get it done! Get it done now!

He jumped and landed five hours later in Panton Street behind Leicester Square. At that time of night it was empty but, afraid of being spotted, he immediately sprang up onto the roof of one of the buildings facing the street, and from there to a higher one. He leaped from building to building until he eventually found a chimney stack overlooking Bartoloni's, against which he could sit. Before settling, though, he jumped high and landed next to the stack the following night, just as Big Ben chimed midnight.

It was a long, cold wait and he didn't see Burton.

At three in the morning he gave up and moved ahead to the next night, September 10.

Again, nothing.

The next night the club members gathered, had a good time, and departed at two in the morning.

Burton wasn't among them.

Spring Heeled Jack tried the next evening, and the next, and kept going, waiting hour upon hour until exhaustion overwhelmed him and he slept, slumped against the chimney. He awoke at dawn, swore at himself, and moved through time again.

In the early hours of Tuesday the seventeenth, he finally caught sight of his man.

Sir Richard Francis Burton stumbled out of Bartoloni's at one o'clock in the morning.

He was quite plainly drunk.

As he staggered along, Spring Heeled Jack followed, hopping from rooftop to rooftop, his eyes fixed on the man below.

He trailed his quarry through the streets and alleys, and wondered whether the explorer had any destination in mind, for he appeared to be wandering aimlessly.

Oxford took a great leap over the canyon of Charing Cross Road, landed on a sloping roof, slid down it, got a grip, and sprang to the next building.

He kept moving across the city like a bizarre grasshopper.

Something big and white flapped overhead. It was an enormous swan, dragging a box kite behind it. A man looked down at him from the canvas carriage and yelled: "What the dickens is that?"

Spring Heeled Jack ignored him, dismissing the swan and its passenger as an illusion, for such things didn't exist in the Victorian Age, and followed his prey into a seedy section of the city until, eventually, Burton entered a long, lonely alley.

"This will do!" whispered the stilt-walker to himself.

He raced ahead, soared over warehouses, and, after waiting for another of those crazily designed penny-farthings to pass by, he dropped into the thoroughfare below.

A huge metal lobsterlike thing rounded a corner and clanked toward him. Multiple arms beneath it flashed this way and that, picking litter off the street. He watched it as it lurched by, amazed by the sight, and suddenly wondered if somehow he was on another planet. As it passed the mouth of the alleyway down which Burton was approaching, the contraption sounded a siren. The eerie ululation echoed into the distance and was then drowned by a terrific hiss as steam poured from the back of the mechanism and billowed across the cobbles.

Spring Heeled Jack lurched through the cloud and entered the alley.

He emerged from the steam and faced his enemy.

Sir Richard Francis Burton stopped and looked up at him, then stumbled backward and pressed himself against the side of the passage.

"Burton!" said the time traveller, stalking toward the famous Victorian. "Richard Francis bloody Burton!"

He jumped at the man and hit him, sending him spinning across to the opposite wall.

"I told you once to stay out of it!" he spat. "You didn't listen!"

He grabbed the explorer by the hair and glared into his face.

"I'll not tell you again! Leave me alone!"

"W-what?" gasped Burton.

"Just stay out of it! The affair is none of your damned business!"

"What affair?"

Oxford snarled, "Don't play the innocent! I don't want to kill you. But I swear to you, if you don't keep your nose out of it, I'll break your fucking neck!"

"I have no idea what you're talking about!" cried Burton.

"I'm talking about you organising forces against me! It's not what you're meant to be doing! Your destiny lies elsewhere. Do you understand?"

He slammed his forearm into Burton's face.

"I said, do you understand?"

"No!" the man gasped.

"Then I'll spell it out for you," growled Oxford. He yanked the explorer around, shoved him against the wall, and punched him three times in the mouth.

"Do what-you're supposed-to do!"

Burton raised a hand in weak protest.

"How can I possibly know what I'm supposed to do?" he mumbled. Blood oozed from his mouth.

Spring Heeled Jack jerked the explorer's head up and looked directly into his eyes.

"You are supposed to marry Isabel and be sent from one fucking miserable consulship to another. Your career is supposed to peak in three years when you debate the Nile question with Speke and the silly sod shoots himself dead. You are supposed to write books and die."

"What the hell are you babbling about?" Burton shouted. "The debate was cancelled. Speke shot himself yesterday-he's not dead!"

Edward John Oxford, the scientist and historian, froze. How could this be? He knew the facts. They couldn't be wrong. They were well documented. Speke's death was one of the great mysteries of the period. Biographers had endlessly debated it, wondering whether it was suicide or an accident! Slowly, he absorbed the things he'd seen, the strange machines and the weird animals.

"No!" he said softly. "No! I'm a historian! I know what happened. It was 1864 not 1861. I know-"

He stopped. What had he done? How could so much have changed?

"God damn it!" he groaned. "Why does it have to be so complicated? Maybe if I kill you? But if the death of just one person has already done all this-?"

Burton suddenly slipped out of his hands and shoved him hard. Oxford lost his balance, staggered away, and fell against the opposite wall.

They stood facing each other.

"Listen to me, you bastard!" said Oxford tightly. "For your own good, next time you see me, don't come near!"

"I don't know you!" answered Burton. "And, believe me, if I never see you again, I'll not regret it one iota!"

The time traveller was opening his mouth to reply when his control unit malfunctioned and sliced him through with an electric charge. He yelled in agony and almost collapsed from the pain of it.

He looked across at his adversary and suddenly saw him clearly, as if a curtain of fog had lifted. He marvelled at the brutal lines of the man's bloodied face.

"The irony is," he said, "that I'm running out of time. You're in my way, and you're making the situation much worse."

"What situation? Explain!" demanded the explorer.

A ripple of electric shocks ran through Oxford. He flinched. His muscles jerked. The suit sounded an alarm in the centre of his skull. It was dying.

"Marry the bitch, Burton," he groaned. "Settle down. Become consul in Fernando Po, Brazil, Damascus, and wherever the fuck else they send you. Write your damned books. But, above all, leave me alone! Do you understand? Leave nze the fuck alone!"

He crouched low then sprang into the air.

Perhaps his warning would be enough.

Perhaps Alicia Pipkiss would be undefended when he returned to the Alsop field.

Perhaps he could go home.

He landed in the thick of battle.