The Eternal War

CHAPTER 89

2001, New York



Captain McManus walked slowly down the curved trench, stepping as best he could on dirt and not on the limbs, torsos, faces of dead men. These chaps, even mutineers, deserved better.

He held the white flag above him, a handkerchief tied to the tip of a bayonet. In his other hand he carried a lantern to be sure that the men huddled inside the bunker at the end of this long, curved trench could clearly see his approach.

The bunker was little more than a mound of piled dirt and sandbags over a framework of wooden beams, something clearly erected in haste by these men. It stood in the looming shadow of an enormous bridge support, alongside something else, another hump, like an eskimo’s igloo but made of tumble-down bricks instead of blocks of ice.

Why here? Why a last stand right out here in this godforsaken wasteland? It would have made far more sense setting up a defensive position in among the ruins of the factory buildings on the far side. Fighting passage by passage, room by room, his men would have taken a heavy toll reclaiming the ruins from them.

Instead they chose this open ground? It made no sense.

He stepped past a thick cluster of bodies, many of them British. He stopped for a moment to study the body in the middle.

A woman.

He shook his head. Through his field glasses he had seen her earlier. The young woman had held the entire regiment at bay for the best part of five minutes. Handling an Armitage & Burton Gatling gun on her own. Firing from her hip, no less. Firing until the thing had eventually overheated and jammed. Then fighting with her bare hands until, finally, she too had gone down.

Good God.

He wanted to crouch down and get a closer look at her. That could wait. A matter to resolve first.

‘I’m approaching under a white flag!’ he called out. ‘You chaps in the bunker, can you see it?’

‘Stop right where you are!’ a voice replied. ‘We can hear you well enough from there!’

McManus nodded, planted the bayonet in the dirt beside him. Placed the lantern beside it. ‘Right, then. I’m sure you know why I’m here. Shall we call it a day, gentlemen?’

Devereau turned to Wainwright. He was slumped on the dirt floor between two other wounded men, clutching his side. A shot had winged him as he’d tried to provide some covering fire for Becks. One side of his grey tunic was black with blood.

‘They’re asking for terms, James.’

Wainwright laughed wearily. ‘Tell him we’re not in the mood to take prisoners.’

Devereau grinned. He was about to turn round and repeat that for the British officer’s benefit, but caught sight of the silhouette of Maddy, crouching in the entrance to the archway. The faint glow of light coming from the row of computer monitors spilled across the concrete floor, littered with the wounded and dying.

She glanced to her left at the British officer, thirty, forty feet along the trench, then quickly scooted across the gap between her archway and the low duck-down entrance to the fort. She hunched to scramble inside and joined Devereau, looking out through the firing slit at the British officer and his white flag.

‘You should surrender,’ she whispered. ‘It’s done!’

He looked at her. ‘Your machine? It has returned this Lincoln to his correct time?’

‘Yes!’

‘There’s really no need for any more bloodshed tonight!’ called out the British officer.

‘And when will this reality change?’ whispered Devereau.

Maddy shook her head. ‘Soon … I can’t say exactly when. But soon.’

‘Do you have wounded men in there?’ said the officer. ‘I can assure you, your wounded will be taken care of! Your enlisted men, junior officers, NCOs … all will be treated humanely as prisoners of war. You have my word!’

‘For God’s sake, what are you waiting for?’ asked Maddy.

Wainwright moaned softly. ‘William … we should let our boys go.’

Devereau cupped his hands round his mouth. ‘Will the Confederate men be treated the same as the Northerners?’

A pause. ‘I offer you my guarantee … none of the enlisted men – no junior officer – will face a court martial. They will all be treated as prisoners of war!’

Devereau turned round to Wainwright. ‘You hear that?’

Wainwright nodded. Smiled. ‘Then it seems just you and I will face the firing squad.’

‘That’s better than we’d expected.’ He nodded, accepting that gratefully.

‘But …’ She looked at both men, from one to the other. ‘But that’ll take days … weeks? Right? A hearing? A court martial? That stuff takes time to organize. Look, the new reality is coming, I promise you. It could come at any time – now. In five minutes, five hours …’

The soldiers in the small machine-gun nest looked on in confusion at the exchange.

‘Or, perhaps, never?’ Devereau shrugged. ‘That is a possibility, isn’t it?’

She shook her head. ‘No … I promise you, this will all change!’

‘Come along, gentlemen!’ called the officer. ‘I’ll offer these terms one last time!’

‘Surrender!’ she pleaded. ‘Please … just do it. Surrender! It’s OK now, things will be fixed, I promise you!’

‘Let me ask you something, Miss Carter.’

‘What?’

‘If I had died in this fight, would this new reality still create a new me?’

‘Yes, of course!’

Devereau glanced at Wainwright; both men shared a smile, a silent agreement. He turned back to the firing slit, cupping his hands again.

‘All right. You have it. My men are coming out. We are surrendering!’