Doyle thanked him, asked to be remembered to the company, and turned east on London Wall Street. Just as he was crossing Coleman Street—only a block, he realized, from Keats’ birthplace—he heard a sharp whistle from the north side of the street.
It was the high-low-low first three notes of Yesterday.
And it was answered, from the opposite side of Coleman Street, by the up and down the scale next nine notes.
This time there was no doubt. He was not the only twentieth century man in 1810. His heart pounding, he sprinted across the street and then paused on the north pavement, looking wildly around. Many people were staring at him, and he looked earnestly into each amused or disapproving face, hoping to recognize somehow a fellow anachronism; but they all seemed to be indigenous citizens.
He’d taken a couple of uncertain steps up Coleman Street before noticing the coach at the opposite curb. Its side window was open and Doyle could dimly see a passenger within. In the instant before his feet were yanked off the pavement he saw the flash of a gun in the carriage, but what he heard was the detonation of the pistol under his shirt as the bullet shattered the flashpan and hammer and ignited the powder; he’d been turning quickly, and the muzzle was next to his jaw instead of under it when the gun went off, and the red-hot ball only plowed up the side of his face and ripped his right ear off, instead of exploding his head.
He lay crumpled, unaware of the rattle as the carriage moved off. He vaguely realized that there had been an explosion, and that he was hurt, and that there was blood all over him. His chest hurt terribly, but when his numb hands had brushed aside the powder-burned tatters of his shirt and knocked the smoking, splintered gun off to the side, there seemed to be no lethal injury—just a lot of burns and scratches. His ears were ringing, the right worse than the left; in fact, that whole side of his head was as dead as though he’d been given a shot of Novocain. He fumbled at it with his hand and felt hot, free-flowing blood, and ripped flesh, but no ear. What in God’s name had happened?
He had rolled over and was trying to get to his feet when several people came over and sympathetically but roughly dragged him upright. Doyle was dazedly aware of what they were saying:
“Are ye going to live, mate?”
“How can you ask, look, he’s shot right through the head.”
“The man in that carriage shot him.”
“Nonsense, I saw it all—his chest exploded. He was carrying a bomb. He’s one of the French spies from Leicester Square.”
“Why, look,” exclaimed one. “There’s a wrecked pistol tied around his neck.”
He tilted Doyle’s face up toward his own. “Why in hell were you carrying a pistol that way?”
Doyle wanted to get away from there. “I… just bought it,” he mumbled. “Thought it would be a good way to carry it home. Uh… I guess it went off accidentally.”
“The man’s an idiot,” pronounced Doyle’s questioner. To Doyle he added, “It can’t have been any good anyway. You see it flew to bits after being fired only once. Here, now, come with me and we’ll get you to a doctor who’ll patch up your head.”
“No!” Doyle couldn’t recall whether antiseptics were in general use in 1810, and though he knew he wasn’t thinking clearly, he also knew he didn’t want to pick up some damned infection from unwashed fingers and stitching thread. “Just… get me some brandy please. Strong brandy. Or whiskey—anything with a lot of alcohol in it.”
“I knew it!” piped up one old man who couldn’t really see what was going on. “It’s a dodge. He likely lost his ear years ago, and goes ‘round pretendin’ to have blowed it off over and over again all over London, just so’s gullibles will stand him to a drink.”
“Naw,” contradicted someone else. “Look, there’s part of his ear over there. Whoops! Look out! He’s gettin’ sick!”
Doyle was indeed. A few moments later he gathered the strength to push through the decreasingly solicitous crowd. Unaware of the wondering stares turned on him from all sides, he shed his coat, ripped off the remains of his shirt, tied it tightly around his head to staunch the blood that was pattering on the pavement and sliming his hands, replaced his coat, and then, dizzy from shock and loss of blood, he reeled away to find a grog shop; for though he was certain of very little at the moment, he took comfort in the knowledge that the purchase of the gun, which still swung from his neck, had left him with enough cash for two brandies: one to soak his bandage with and one to pour, rapidly, down his throat.
Two days later he heard the Beatles tune again. When he’d gotten back to Kusiak’s on Sunday afternoon, pushed open the front door and lurched into the entry hall, the old innkeeper had looked up from some bookwork with an expression of alarm that had quickly turned to a tight-lipped anger. He’d cut through Doyle’s incoherent explanations with a curt order that Doyle be put to bed in a spare room and watched over “until his soul pops away through the ceiling or his damn feet can take him out the back door.” He had put a knuckle under Doyle’s chin and tilted the pale face up. “I don’t care which way, Doyle, but you leave here as damn soon as possible—you understanding me, hah?”
Doyle had drawn himself up to his full height and framed a dignified reply—which he could never recall afterward—and then abruptly his eyes rolled up out of sight and he toppled backward like an axed tree; the floor boomed like a drum when he struck it with the whole length of his body, and his fingernails, scrabbling, for a moment on the polished boards, sounded like castanets. Kusiak, with some relief, pronounced him dead and ordered him taken out back to await the summoning of a constable, but when a couple of the kitchen boys had dragged the limp body as far as the back door, Doyle sat up, looked around urgently, said, “Flight 801 to London—you’re supposed to be holding a ticket for me. It’s paid for—by Darrow of DIRE. What’s the problem?” and then passed out again.
Kusiak wearily cursed Doyle, and the absent Jacky, and then ordered the boys to take the delirious and unwelcome guest to the smallest possible vacant room, and check in on him from time to time until he had the grace to die.
For two days Doyle languished on a narrow bed in a windowless and peculiarly shaped room under the main stairs, nourished by Kusiak’s excellent fish chowder and dark beer, and sleeping most of the time; on Tuesday evening he stood up and walked out into the hall, where he was seen by the aproned Kusiak, who said that if he was recovered enough to leave the room he was damn well healthy enough to leave the inn altogether.
When Doyle had put on his coat and taken a few wobbly steps down the street, he heard something clatter on the pavement behind him. He turned around and saw that Kusiak had thrown his destroyed pistol out after him. He went back and picked it up, for it might bring a few pennies at one of the ubiquitous junk shops, and as things stood right now the acquisition of three pennies would double his fortune.
It certainly is ruined, he thought as he picked it up. The hammer and flashpan were gone, the stock was splintered, and the twisted corpse of the bullet that had crashed into it was visible, wedged deeply into the wood. Doyle shuddered, remembering that the ball would have drilled straight through his chest if this gun had not been in the way.
He peered at the bullet more closely—it had the flat base of a slug fired from a shell—it wasn’t a ball.
Well, that confirms it, he thought nervously. Bullets like this don’t come into use until 1850 or so. There are other twentieth century men here—I mean now—and for some reason they’re hostile. I wonder what the hell they’ve got against me.