Time and Time Again

21

‘I MEAN, FOR pity’s sake!’ McCluskey exclaimed in outraged frustration. She was standing as ever in her favourite place in front of the fire. Despite the improvement in the weather, the evenings were still chilly and her fat, red hands were massaging vigorously at her overheated buttocks beneath the long khaki tail of her greatcoat.

‘You could not make it up.’

It was the evening of Easter Sunday 2025. She and Stanton had spent the afternoon in Davies’s Incident Room at the History faculty going over the details of the Sarajevo assassination. Now they were back in the Master’s Lodge having just finished a cold supper and McCluskey was working herself up into a boozefuelled frenzy of frustration over the whole thing.

‘I still can scarcely credit it happened. If it wasn’t true nobody would believe it in a million years. Six assassins!’ she exclaimed, wiping a greasy hand across the bits of Cheddar that were stuck in her moustache. ‘Six armed men! And every one of them was at some point within five metres of the target yet not one of them managed to kill him. So far, so brilliant! The plot’s failed, finito. Done and dusted. Apis and his gang of psychos can bugger off back with their tails between their legs. They’ve spent months smuggling their gang of incompetent saddos into the country. Risked their whole underground railway to do it and all six of them have comprehensively screwed up.’

She splashed herself another glass of claret, depositing as much of the wine on the table as she managed to get into the glass, hacked another big lump of Cheddar from the cheese board, sandwiched it between two water biscuits and stuck it in her mouth beside her cigarette. ‘The Duke’s home and dry. He’s survived the day,’ she went on, spraying bits of cracker into the smoke-filled air in front of her face. ‘Then what happens? The military governor of Bosnia, the man responsible for the Archduke’s security, quite literally causes the assassination. What Apis and all his crazed, lunatic, craptaculously inept teenage zealots couldn’t achieve, the Duke’s own cop does for them. It’s just tonto!’

Stanton could only agree with her. The more he studied the time-line of the Sarajevo killing, the more incredible the coincidences and the incompetence became.

‘You’re right, prof. It wasn’t really Princip that killed the royal couple at all. It was General Oskar Potiorek.’

‘General Oskar Potiorek,’ McCluskey echoed with contempt. ‘A general. He wasn’t qualified to sweep the barrack-room floor. What a truly world-historical arsehole.’

Stanton reached into his file of briefing material and took out a photograph.

‘The man who really started the Great War.’

They both stared at the old picture. If Hollywood had been casting an arrogant, blinkered, pig-headed, supercilious Austrian general of the old school, they could not have done better than used the real thing. Bullet head, shaven on the sides to three inches above the ears, forensically clipped moustache, chest full of medals, head tilted very slightly back, he fixed the camera with a stare of cold contempt, the faintest sneer playing on his lips.

‘What’s he got to sneer about?’ McCluskey shouted, throwing her fag end into the fire and reaching unsteadily for more cheese and booze. ‘I mean, seriously, what has this truly Olympic-class idiot got to sneer about? The man who decided to change the route of the motorcade for security reasons but forgot to tell the royal driver. He makes sure all the other drivers know but not the one driving the Duke! That’s it! In a sentence. The reason the Black Hand got a seventh chance, which amazingly they didn’t screw up, and the Great War started. I mean blimey!’ McCluskey was actually pulling at her own hair in frustration. ‘Princip’s blown it. He knows he’s blown it. In fact, he’s given up assassinating for the day and wandered off for a sandwich. A sandwich! What is this? Laurel and Hardy? He mooches down to, where was it …?’

‘Schiller’s Delicatessen.’

‘That’s it. Schiller’s Delicatessen, sounds like Joe’s Caff. Basically he’s gone for the early-twentieth-century equivalent of a Big Mac and fries, no doubt wondering what he’s going to say to Apis, who we know is the sort of bloke who shoots kings thirty times, dices up the corpses with a sabre then throws them out of the window—’

‘Princip would never have met Apis, nor would he ever meet him,’ Stanton interrupted. ‘The Black Hand operated on a cellular model.’

‘Well, whatever. It doesn’t matter. The silly young bastard’s blown his chance of being a hero of the Serbian people and he’s gone off to take comfort in a cheese and pickle sarnie. Meanwhile, the Archduke’s driver realizes he’s lost the motorcade, because they know where they’re going and he doesn’t, and, in an effort to get back on track, chooses to turn into a street which, of all the flipping streets in Sarajevo, happens to be the one with Schiller’s Deli in it! I mean, can you credit it? Can you sodding credit it? This is the start of the Great War we’re talking about, and it comes down to a wrong turn and a cheese sandwich!’

For a moment McCluskey’s outrage exhausted her. She reached into the pocket of her greatcoat and pulled out a golf-ball-sized wodge of tobacco. She then spent a moment trying to wrestle it into a cigarette paper before realizing that she was too drunk to manage it. She opted instead for the easier option of grabbing her pipe, which she kept stuck in the visor of a medieval helmet, and stuffing the tobacco into that.

‘Don’t forget the dodgy gear change,’ Stanton reminded her.

He was enjoying her frustration; it reminded him of long past student afternoons. McCluskey had always been good value when properly outraged. They used to try to provoke her. On this occasion she needed no assistance.

‘Oh, don’t talk to me about the dodgy gear change. The bloody driver not only doesn’t know where he’s going, which I accept is not the silly arse’s fault, but he can’t handle a simple double declutch. History is holding its breath while yet another incompetent to add to the already crowded cast tries to put the royal car into reverse and stalls it. Stalls it! He is a professional chauffeur and he cannot reverse his car!’ Her face was bright red now and the veins were standing out on her neck and forehead. ‘At which point Princip walks out of the deli, lunch in hand, and finds himself one and a half metres from the very bloke he’s supposed to kill. I mean, it’s just unbelievable. The very man he and his hapless colleagues have spent all day trying to kill is sitting in front of him in a stalled motor in a confined street. What are the chances of that? It is just insane.’

Having been almost dancing with frustration on the carpet, McCluskey sank down into an armchair, exhausted. She took a swig of wine and a couple of big sucks on her pipe to restore herself but unfortunately managed to put the pipe back into her mouth upside down, thus depositing a great plug of burning tobacco into her lap. When she’d brushed that on to the rug and stamped on it she finally seemed calm.

‘Haven’t I always said history turns on individual folly and ineptitude!’ she said. ‘Come on, be honest, haven’t I always said it?’

‘Yes, you have, professor,’ Stanton said, reaching for a bit of chocolate. ‘History is made by people.’

‘And the majority of people are arseholes.’

‘Which is I suppose why the majority of history has been so disastrous.’

‘But not this time!’ McCluskey said, draining her glass and punching the air. ‘Not this time! This time there’s going to be another guy in town. And he won’t be an incompetent idiot. He’ll be a highly competent and highly trained British officer and he will save the world. Think of it, Hugh. You’re going to save the world!’ She reached for the decanter and took a chug direct from the flask. ‘Happy Easter!’