to” or “out of” this piece-of-paper world, he can never be aware of us.’
She sat back in her armchair. ‘That’s how, as natives of a three-dimensional universe, we can’t see or make sense of further spatial dimensions. But, just because we can’t see them, that doesn’t mean they’re not there.’
‘I see.’ She wondered if he did.
‘So, travelling in time,’ she continued, ‘for Fred, it would be like floating him off this piece of paper and dropping him down again in the other corner.’
‘That I imagine would be an unsettling experience for Fred,’ said Wainwright.
‘I’m not too keen on it when I do it,’ Maddy replied. ‘It feels like falling.’
They were quiet for a while. Outside of the archway, somewhere in the night around a campfire, some of the men roared with laughter.
‘If you are successful, and this Abraham Linford –’
‘Lincoln.’
‘Abraham Lincoln … is returned to his correct time, you say history will attempt to rewrite itself?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Tell me,’ said Devereau, ‘what will that be like for us? For me, James here … our men? What would we be aware of? Would we know it is happening?’
She nodded. ‘You’ll see it coming. It’s quite a thing to see.’
‘Would you describe what we’d see, Miss Carter?’ asked Wainwright.
‘Well –’ she looked at Becks who offered her no inspiration, just a calm passive gaze – ‘Well, it’s … it’s a wall of reality, like the front edge of a tidal wave. A wave that starts as a ripple and travels through days, months, years, decades … centuries, getting bigger and bigger. And when it finally arrives …’ She shook her head and closed her eyes. Goosebumps teased the skin on her forearms. ‘It’s like looking at … I don’t know … Like the crust of the earth has split and one edge is swallowing the other. It’s as big as a mountain range, but it’s all twisty and churning like liquid. And it comes fast, guys … really fast. You can’t outrun it.’
She opened her eyes.
Devereau looked pale. ‘It sounds truly terrifying.’
‘First time you see it –’ she shrugged – ‘I suppose it is.’
‘And when this wave reaches us, Miss Carter –’ Wainwright splayed his hands – ‘what then?’
‘You change. The world changes.’
‘Change? Would this be felt in any way? Would it hurt? Be unpleasant?’
‘No. You just cease to be and another version of you appears. Simple.’
The men exchanged a glance. Wainwright’s eyes narrowed. ‘It sounds to me as if … as if I will be destroyed by this wave, vaporized.’
Maddy bit her lip. He was actually quite right.
‘This wave would mean the end of me?’ said Wainwright. ‘The man I have become, a lifetime of memories sweet and bad. My family, back in Richmond, all gone? Destroyed?’
She wondered whether she should spin the truth a little, make it sound a little more acceptable, palatable, for the Southern colonel. Instead she decided to be honest with him. ‘Yes … it does sort of mean the end of you. But …’ she added quickly, ‘but also a new you.’
‘Another me?’ Wainwright frowned. ‘Another me? Surely that would merely be another man who just shares my name and my likeness?’ He looked at Devereau. ‘William, is this not us sacrificing our lives so that other men, who look just like us, can enjoy a better life?’
‘Perhaps.’ Devereau nodded slowly. ‘But, James … are we not dead men anyway?’
The Confederate colonel’s uneasy frown deepened.
‘Our mutiny will be a short-lived one,’ Devereau continued. ‘I’d hoped the flames of rebellion would have spread further, but … well … it appears now that we are in this alone. There we are – that’s the way it is.’ He sat forward, the armchair’s old springs creaking. ‘But, Colonel, I put this to you …’
‘What?’
‘If by dying on a battlefield or being destroyed by this wave, you could end this war, banish both the French and the British from our shores and unite our separate northern and southern states once and for all … and be able to achieve all of this in one instant. Is that not a good way to go?’
Wainwright studied his colleague for a long while. Eventually his frown gave way to a grin that spread beneath his moustache.
‘Putting it like that, Colonel Devereau …’ He raised his mug and clanked it against his friend’s. ‘To foolish men who wish to change history.’
CHAPTER 73
2001, New York
Sergeant Freeman squinted bleary-eyed at the hazy sky. Beyond the strip of Manhattan, beyond the broad and sedate Hudson River, was New