My Troubles With Time (7 page)

When the last photograph was taken, we stood. I breathed a sigh of relief. The photo showing me with Trochu and his staff, would be the proof I needed that my time machine really worked.

“General.” I asked, “How long will it take for me to get a copy of the photograph?”

Trochu turned to the photographer, who was carefully packing the photographic plates, and inquired. After prolonged discussion which I could not follow, Trochu turned to me.

“The photographer will start work developing the picture as soon as he gets back to his studio,” he said. “However, he is uncertain that he has enough of the developing compounds. The siege, you know.”

My disappointment over a possible delay in securing the photograph must have shown on my face.

“Do not worry, Colonel,” he added reassuringly. The photographer understands that you must leave Paris as soon as possible and will do his best to meet your need. Meanwhile, Colonel De Grass will endeavor to make your time here interesting.”

De Grasse approached me as General Trochu and his officers returned to the building. “I understand you have some hours free,” he said. “Let me show you our defense lines.”

I could think of no feasible way of declining the colonel’s officer and accompanied him to the front of the headquarters, where our horses were tied up. I feared I was in for a most unpleasant experience. I was right.

The next few hours were excruciatingly painful. De Grasse had thoughtfully provided a stand for me to use in mounting my horse. However, our tour of the French defense works included the advance outposts. We were observed by the Germans and drew rifle fire. Several bullets whizzed by my ears. I silently implored De Grasse to cut short our visit, but he went on for what seemed hours before he concluded and we were able to gain shelter.

Remounting my horse was less dangerous but more embarrassing. No stand was available and no assistance was offered. After several futile attempts to mount my horse, I finally succeeded only to have my hat fall off into the mud.

De Grass ordered one of the nearby soldiers to retrieve it for me. He handed it to me, smirking. I thought of rebuking him, but decided it was better to ignore it and say nothing.

The hat was a soggy mess. I cleaned it as best I could and placed it back on my head. Clearly, it would be impossible to sell the hat back to the company from which I had purchased my uniform. It joined my missing sword as another unexpected expense associated with my trip back in time.

Darkness had fallen by the time De Grasse and I reached Trochu’s headquarters. We dismounted, I again using the stand thoughtfully provided by one of the sentries. We entered the building, washed, and joined General Trochu and his subordinates at the same table at which we had lunch.

The evening meal was already in progress. De Grasse seated himself at a vacant place and I stood there embarrassed, wondering what I should do. Looking up, Trochu beckoned me to his side and instructed one of the waiters to bring me a chair.

As I sat down on Trochu’s right and took the napkin the waiter handed me, the General smiled.

“I am happy to inform you, Colonel, that the photographer was able to come up with sufficient chemicals to develop two of his plates. He sent them over and you may choose whichever one you prefer. I am sorry that the remaining plates have already deteriorated and are now useless.”

I looked at the two photographs the General handed to me for my inspection and was impressed by their quality. I hadn’t realized that the photographic technology available in 1870 was capable of producing such fine photographs. They were almost of equal quality. I choose the one that most clearly showed my face as I needed it to serve as proof that I had actually traveled back in time to 1870.

“Thank you, General,” I said, returning the other photograph to Trochu. I hope that you would be kind enough to sign your name on the back of the photograph with the date. And if you could, I would be most grateful if you could add something about my being entertained at your headquarters, referring to me as ‘Professor Snodgrass.’”

The general stopped his writing and the back of the photograph and looked at me sharply. “Professor…? Not Colonel?”

Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to come up with a reasonable excuse. “Yes, sir,” I said. “I frequently am asked to lecture at the United States Military Academy. I was planning to give them the photograph to display. They refer to me as ‘professor’ rather than by my military rank.”

Trochu nodded and resumed his writing. When he finished he handed me the photo. His written note on the back had complied fully with my request. If that didn’t serve to convince people that I had been entertained by him in 1870 Paris, I thought, nothing would.

I thanked him again and carefully placed the signed photograph in the safest place I could think of, the inside pocket of my uniform jacket. I hoped that I could return to De Porte’s headquarters and my time machine as soon as we finished eating, but it was not to be.

The seemingly obligatory ceremonial toasts went on forever. When they were finally done, we stood and I bid goodbye to General Trochu and his subordinates. Colonel De Grass came up and I assumed he would escort me back. However, he explained that he was the duty officer that night and that another of Trochu’s staff, a Major St. Clair, would accompany me.

St. Clair, a tall, surly-looking officer, was uncommunicative during our ride back to De Porte’s headquarters. I was elated over my success in obtaining the photograph of my meeting with Trochu and felt uncharacteristically talkative. From St. Clair’s monosyllabic replies I gathered that he was resentful over his having to accompany me on the ride and stopped my efforts at conversation.

We reached our destination; I thanked St. Clair, and dismounted with less effort than on my previous attempts. The major rode off and I walked up to the door. The sleepy-looking sentry guarding the building recognized me and displayed no interest my activities.

I was about to enter the headquarters when the idea struck me. It was a dark, moon-less night. If I left immediately, the darkness would shield me from any possible German fire. As much as I would have preferred to thank De Porte for his courtesy in entertaining me, an immediate departure was the wisest course.

I turned to the sentry and told him I was going to my balloon. To my relief, he saluted, and said nothing. I strode off as quickly as I could, hoping he would not reconsider and attempt to stop me. I turned the corner, said a prayer that I had gotten that far safely, and set about to find the street housing the shed in which the time machine was secured.

Because of the darkness, I made several wrong turns before luck led me to the right street. I approached the shed and was about to open the door when someone grabbed me from behind. Startled, I turned to find a militiaman holding a rifle. As I faced him, he released his grasp of my shoulder and pointed a rifle directly at me.

How ironic, I thought, if I should be shot so close to achieving success in my mission. Fortunately, the unusual efficiency which had characterized my stay in Paris came to the fore again.

“How dare you!” I roared at him in French. “I could have you shot for striking an officer! I am Colonel Snodgrass, and you are guarding my balloon.”

For a moment he was silent and I wondered if I had gone too far. I recalled that after the fall of Napoleon III the new Republican Army was not characterized by a high degree of discipline. Possibly an appeal for his aid or a bribe would have been a better tactic to try.

Fortunately, he did not call my bluff. “I am sorry, sir,” he said apologetically. “You startled me. I thought you might be a German.”

“Come here,” I ordered him. “Help me move my balloon out of the shed.”

I opened the shed door and walked past him, trying to look more confident than I felt. To my relief, he put his rifle down and followed me. It was so dark in the shed that I had to feel my way to the time machine and then order the militiaman to join me.

The time machine was difficult to move, but with considerable effort the two of us finally managed to drag it out of the shed. I dismissed him with a curt thank you, turned my back and opened the door of the time machine, mentally wishing him to leave the scene.

I sat down, closed the door and turned the motor on. Through the window, I could see the militiaman staring at me in puzzlement. I tuned the throttle to full, but the motor still idled, with no surge of powers coming from the hydrogen-titanium batteries. I feared that the time machine was damaged beyond repair, that I was permanently trapped in 1870.

Suddenly, the motor speeded up. I looked at the gauges and felt a surge of relief. Although the batteries were not supplying the engine with the power they should have, the level was sufficient to permit me to take off and hopefully reach home.

Under normal power, the time machine could travel both geographically and through time simultaneously. In order not to place undue strain on the weakened batteries, I decided I would not attempt this.

To test the batteries, I put the machine into a slow ascent, rising gradually in the dark sky until I was some thousand feet above Paris. I then turned to the time controls and began a gradual return to the present. I traveled through the 1870s. The gauges showed the batteries were incurring no strain, so I increased my speed until I reached June 1914.

Gradually, lights appeared below me as electric illumination became more prevalent in Paris. I was tempted to continue traveling on to the present, but desisted. It was prudent to conserve power usage by limiting my altitude and I did not wish to run the risk of damage to the time machine by being only 1,000 feet over Paris, even for a few seconds, during World War I or World War II.

With no little trepidation, I stopped my movement forward in time and took one more look down at Paris. It was a full moon on that particular June night and the spires of Paris were bathed in a soft light. The scene below me was so beautiful that it was hard to believe in a few short months France and most of the rest of Europe would be plunged into the horrors of the First World War.

For a moment I thought of landing and trying to prevent the war. However, a few seconds of reflection convinced me that such an effort would be incredibly stupid. I would have almost no chance of being successful. Equally important, if by some miracle I managed to succeed, the changes that would I would find in the world I would return to could be incalculable compared to the world I had left.

Bidding farewell to 1914 Paris, I began traveling across France until I reached the Atlantic. I feared crossing that vast expanse of water with the weakened batteries, but there was no alternative. I delayed as long as possible, traveling across England and then Ireland.

With a heavy heart, I saw Ireland disappear behind me and began my journey across the open waters of the Atlantic. Fortunately, the weather was perfect and the moonlight somehow lulled my fears. Once, far in the distance, I thought I saw the lights of a trans-Atlantic steamer, but I decided it would be foolish to waste power to get a closer look.

Finally, as I began to think that my instruments had led me astray, I saw the coast of Newfoundland in the distance. Cheered by the sight of land, I turned southwest, generally following the coast of Canada. When I left Canada and flew over Maine, my confidence that I might actually return home safely steadily increased.

The lights of Boston heartened me still more. I banked the time machine sharply westward and began the last leg of my journey. It was fortunate, I thought, that I was teaching at Standish rather than at some institution out west. The gauges were indicating that my power was almost exhausted.

With a start, I remembered that I was still in l914. I stopped the machine’s geographic movement and began moving through time back to the present. My progress was measured in months and years rather than in decades due to the weakness of the batteries.

As I neared the present I thanked God that they were no weaker. My movement through the last decades seemed interminably slow, but finally the gauge indicated I had reached the present. The motor gave a final surge, then, with power exhausted, the time machine descended in a series of erratic circles until I managed, with great effort and even more good fortune, to set it down gently in the back yard of my house.

I unlatched the door and clumsily disembarked, suddenly drained of all energy. I felt like getting down and kissing the earth. Instead, more practically, I turned to the work of putting the machine back into my garage.

With the aid of the wheeled platform I had used to move it from my workshop in the garage out to the back yard, I carefully returned the time machine to my garage and locked the door on the outside.

I then entered my kitchen, doffed my uniform in favor of an old bathrobe, and made myself a cup of coffee. I relaxed, sipping my coffee and thought of how miraculous it was that I had returned safely. Suddenly, I recalled the photograph of me with General Trochu, the priceless proof that I had traveled in time. I hurriedly felt inside my uniform coat pocket and relaxed as I made certain it was still there.

I congratulated myself and thought of how my life would change once I was acknowledged as the inventor of the time machine. I would be rich and famous. Beautiful women would throw themselves at my feet. My behavior would be characterized by the confidence and savoir-faire that I had displayed increasingly during my stay in Paris.

My daydreams of glory were interrupted by a sharp pain in my leg. I looked down. Princess had bitten me on the ankle. Some things, I realized, had not changed.

T
he days following my return from my trip to the past were busy ones. Despite my fatigue, I labored until 2 a.m. on the day of my return, painstakingly checking again the paper Professor Bolton had given me to look at prior to the start of the Christmas vacation.

The following day, Monday, I had no office hours and no class to teach until 1 p.m. I decided to give myself the luxury of sleeping late and did not set the alarm clock. It was with considerable irritation, therefore, that I awakened to the incessant ringing of the telephone. I looked at the clock. It was the ungodly hour of 8 a.m.