“So you recall what Dar es Salaam used to be, at least?”
“I remember that it was once nothing more than a huddle of beehive huts.”
“Quite so. But that huddle was visited by a group of German surveyors a little over fifty years ago. No one knows why they came, or what occurred, but for some reason, fighting broke out between them and Al-Manat.”
“The pre-Islamic goddess of fate?”
“Is she, by gum! Not the same one, old chap. Al-Manat was the leader of a band of female guerrilla fighters. It's rumoured she was British but her true identity is shrouded in mystery. She's one of history's great enigmas. Anyway, the fighting escalated, Britain and Germany both sent more troops here, and Mzizima became the German East Africa Company's stronghold. The Schutztruppe—the Protection Force—formed there some forty years ago and rapidly expanded the settlement. It was renamed Dar es Salaam and the place has been thriving ever since. A situation our lads will reverse this weekend.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, my friend, that on Saturday, HMA Pegasus and HMA Astraea are going to bomb the city to smithereens.”
More explosions thumped outside. They were increasing in frequency. Everything shook. Baker glanced around nervously.
“Green peas,” his companion noted.
“You can tell just from the noise?”
“Yes. Straightforward impact strikes, like big cannonballs. The yellow variety explode when they hit and send poisonous shrapnel flying everywhere. They annihilated millions of our lads in Europe, but, fortunately, the plants don't thrive in Africa.”
Baker's fingers were gripping the edge of the table. The other man noticed, and reassured him: “We'll be all right. They take an age to get the range. Plus, of course, we're noncombatants, which means we're permitted to shelter in here, unlike the enlisted men. We'll be safe unless one of the blighters lands right on top of us, and the chances of that happening are very slim indeed.”
He got the kettle going and they sat wordlessly, listening to the barrage until the water boiled, then he spooned tea leaves into a metal pot and grumbled, “Rations are low.”
Baker noticed that his companion kept glancing back at him. He felt an inexplicable urge to duck out of the light, but there was no refuge from it. He looked on helplessly as the other man's face suddenly displayed a range of emotions in sequence: curiosity, perplexity, realisation, incredulity, shock.
The smaller man remained silent until the tea had brewed, then filled two tin mugs, added milk and sugar, handed one to Baker, sat down, blew the steam from his drink, and, raising his voice above the sound of pounding shells, asked: “I say, old chap, when did you last shave?”
Baker sighed. He murmured, “I wish I had a cigar,” put a hand into his pocket, and pulled out the poppy. He stared at it and said, absently, “What?”
“Your most recent shave. When was it?”
“I don't know. Maybe three days ago? Why do you ask?”
“Because, my dear fellow, that stubble entirely ruins your disguise. Once bearded or moustachioed, your features become instantly recognisable. They are every bit as forceful as reported, every bit as ruthless and masterful! By golly, those sullen eyes! That iron jaw! The savage scar on your cheek!”
Baker snapped, “What the devil are you blathering about?”
“I'm talking of the completely impossible and utterly incredible—but also of the perfectly obvious and indisputable!” The journalist grinned. He had to shout now—the barrage was battering violently at their ears. “Come come! I'll brook no denial, sir! I'm no fool. It's out of the question that you could be anyone else, even though it makes no sense at all that you are who you are.”
Baker glowered at him.
The other shouted, “Perhaps you'd care to explain? I assure you, I'm unusually open-minded, and I can keep a secret, if you want to impose that as a condition. My editor would never believe me anyway.”
There was a detonation just outside. The room jerked. The tea slopped. Baker started, recovered himself, and said loudly, “I really don't know what you're talking about.”
“Then allow me to make it clear. Frank Baker is most assuredly not your name.”
“Isn't it?”
“Ha-ha! So you admit that you may not be who you say you are?”
“The name occurred to me when I was asked, but I'm by no means certain that it's correct.”
Baker flinched as another impact rocked the room.
“Fair enough,” the journalist shouted. “Well then, let us make proper introductions. I was presented to you as Mr. Wells. Drop it. No need for such formality. My name is Herbert. Herbert George. War Correspondent for the Tabora Times. Most people call me Bertie, so please feel free to do the same. And, believe me, I am both astonished and very happy to meet you.” He held out his hand and it was duly clasped and shaken. “Really, don't worry about the shelling, we are much safer in here than it feels. The Hun artillery is trying for the support trenches rather than the front line. They'll gain more by destroying our supplies than by knocking off a few of the Askaris.”
Baker gave a curt nod. His mouth worked silently for a moment. He kept glancing at the poppy in his hand, then he cleared his throat and said, “You know me, then? My actual name?”
“Yes, I know you,” Wells replied. “I've read the biographies. I've seen the photographs. I know all about you. You are Sir Richard Francis Burton, the famous explorer and scholar. I cannot be mistaken.” He took a sip of his tea. “It makes no sense, though.”
“Why not?”
“Because, my dear fellow, you appear to be in your mid-forties, this is 1914, and I happen to know that you died of old age in 1890!”
Baker—Burton—shook his head. “Then I can't be who you think I am,” he said, “for I'm neither old nor dead.”
At which point, with a terrible blast, the world came to an end.
The world came to an end for Thomas Bendyshe on New Year's Day, 1863. He was dressed as the Grim Reaper when he died. A committed and outspoken atheist, his final words were: “Oh God! Oh, sweet Jesus! Please, Mary mother of God, save me!”
His fellow members of the Cannibal Club later blamed this uncharacteristic outburst on the fact that strychnine poisoning is an extremely painful way to go.
They were gathered at Fryston—Richard Monckton Milnes's Yorkshire manor house—for a combined New Year and farewell fancy dress party. The farewell wasn't intended for Bendyshe—his demise was utterly unforeseen—but for Sir Richard Francis Burton and his expedition, which was leaving en route for Africa later in the week.
Fryston, which dated from the Elizabethan Age, lacked a ballroom but behind its stone-mullioned windows there were many spacious oak-panelled chambers, warmed by inglenook fireplaces, and these were filled with costumed guests. They included the Pre-Raphaelite artists, leading Technologists, authors and poets and actors, government ministers, Scotland Yard officials, and members of the Royal Geographical Society. A number of high-ranking officers from His Majesty's Airship Orpheus were in attendance, and among the female notables were Miss Isabella Mayson, Sister Sadhvi Raghavendra, Mrs. Iris Angell, and the famous Eugenicist—now Geneticist—Nurse Florence Nightingale, making for a very well-attended soiree, such as Monckton Milnes was famous for.
In the smoking room, Bendyshe, in a black hooded cloak and a skull mask, spent the minutes leading up to his death happily pranking the Greek god Apollo. The diminutive flame-haired Olympian, actually the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne, dressed in a toga, with a laurel wreath upon his head and the gold-tipped arrow of Eros pushed through his waistband, was standing near a bay window with the Persian King Shahryār, Oliver Cromwell, Harlequin, and a cavalier; otherwise Sir Richard Francis Burton, the Secretary for War Sir George Cornewall Lewis, Monckton Milnes, and the Technologist captain of the Orpheus, Nathaniel Lawless.