Will Thomas - To Kingdom Come

I boarded the Great Western express, and by the time I found my seat, Barker had slipped off. I sat, let out a sigh, and suddenly wished I’d brought one of my books to study. I spied a bookstall among the other shops in the station and jumped out, knowing I had but a moment or two. The stall specialized in mystery thrillers and women’s publications. I’d been hoping for something more classical. Just when I was about to give up and jump back on the train empty-handed, I spied a book on old Irish legends. I handed over a few shillings and hopped on the footboard just as the final command to board was shouted out. I settled in my seat and began to read.

Since childhood, my brain had been steeped in the old Welsh legends, of Prince Pwyll and the underworld of Annwn, not to mention Arthur and his Round Table. The book in my hand was full of tales new to me, featuring the Irish heroes, Cu Chulainn and Finn MacCool, as they faced giants and Grendel-like monsters in the misty land of old Hibernia, and all this just a short boat journey from Pwyll’s kingdom. Times were certainly exciting in those ancient days, though they were not exactly a stroll through Hyde Park now, considering where I was headed at the moment.

I received the first sign that I was nearing my destination half an hour later when we passed a brigade of soldiers in their scarlet tunics and chalky helmets, marching in full kit. I was accustomed to seeing the Horse Guards rattling through Whitehall on their chargers, gold helmets gleaming, but the lads marching on this road in the drowsy June sun would soon be fighting the Mahdi’s fanatical hordes in the blistering heat of North Africa.

Ought I to join them? The thought of going for a soldier had never really occurred to me before. I’m certain that several of the lads I’d gone to school with were even now in the Sudan, and some had already given their lives while I’d been at university, wrestling with nothing more dangerous than Paradise Lost. Now I was employed by Barker. Were the words on the placards at the station correct? Was it my duty to go and fight for my country? As I sat in the railway carriage, I realized that I was already a soldier, a mercenary one, newly hired by Her Majesty’s government to safeguard the English way of life, and the Irish were a good deal closer than the Mahdi’s Muslims in the Sudan that the papers were thundering about. Suddenly, I missed my Milton.

The train stopped at Aldershot, and I was able to cadge a ride to the barracks aboard the supply vehicle, once I supplied an abbreviated version of my purpose in coming. We followed the canal and soon found ourselves riding down a wide thoroughfare, a parade ground in which a dozen men could walk abreast. Off in the distance, I saw a long line of buildings, clusters of huts and barracks which collectively were known as North Camp. I began to wonder if we’d actually sent anyone to the Sudan at all. The whole English army appeared to be here. As I stepped out into a beehive of activity, I felt as if I were the only man in civilian dress within one hundred miles.

Everyone but me appeared to be moving with a purpose. My attempts at stopping someone to ask for directions were rebuffed several times. I thought I might spend the day searching in vain for the address Barker had given me on a slip of paper, when I finally found a chaplain who was willing to show me the way. It was a good thing, too. My next plan would have been to announce in a loud voice that I was a Russian spy, there to steal the plans to the Northern Frontier.

I was led to an outbuilding set far back from the others, whose doors and windows were open. As I stepped inside, and my eyes adjusted to the relative gloom, a voice spoke up.

“You are late!” the fellow protested grumpily, but I had passed a clock tower on the parade road, and had noted the time.

“No, actually, I’m still a quarter hour early.”

The speaker, a squat, slovenly-looking fellow in a white lab coat, consulted his timepiece, held it to his ear, and shrugged.

“No matter. I am van Rhyn.”

So, I thought to myself, this is the fellow Barker is to impersonate. They didn’t look much alike. Johannes van Rhyn was a much shorter, rounder fellow, for one thing. His thick, graying hair was in wiry strands combed back severely behind his ears, and his short beard looked as if it were made of steel wool. His face, like my employer’s, was dominated by a pair of black spectacles, but van Rhyn’s had brownish glass pieces covering the sides. They are commonly worn by the blind, but he appeared to see perfectly. He had a ferocious nose which curled over his mustache, and his tie and linen were stained and in need of pressing.

“You are Llewelyn?”

“Yes, sir. Thomas Llewelyn.”

“As you say. Bombs, sir. You are here to learn bombs.”

The word came out bompss in van Rhyn’s German accent.

“Yes, sir.”

“Good! Now, a bomb by definition is a device exploded by means of a fuse or by impact or otherwise. By a chemical process, energy is released very quickly, often with devastating results. Bombs are often made of common materials one can pick up anywhere. Look at this here. What is this?”

“It is a bottle of whiskey, sir.”

“ Ja. Now you see, I take a strip of cotton and insert it in the bottle, and push it in tightly with a bit of cork. Now we have a bomb. It is inert, of course, and could sit on a shelf for years, completely harmless. But, if I light the cotton from this Bunsen burner, like so, we begin the reaction that results in a chemical change.”

He handed me the bottle with a look of mild interest, as if I were one of his experiments. The cotton hanging out next to the cork was already emitting a large flame. I knew enough from my chemistry classes in school to say what would happen next. If I didn’t get rid of it immediately, the cotton would burn past the cork, ignite the liquid inside, and the entire bottle would explode. A glance about the room told me I was surrounded on all sides by beakers and bottles of various compounds and chemicals. Even if we did survive the initial blast, the explosion might ignite the chemicals around us and kill us for certain. I did the only sane thing: I turned and tossed the bottle out of the door. There was a sudden loud report, and the walls and windows outside were showered with fragments of glass.

“Lesson one,” van Rhyn said. “After you set a bomb, get rid of it. Very good reflexes, by the way.”

“My word!” I said. “You nearly got us killed!”

“There is little chance of that,” van Rhyn assured me. “The urge for self-preservation takes over, you see. It is a powerful force.”

“I’m glad of that,” I said, my heart still racing.

“Come. Look here. Each of these materials can be turned into an infernal device. Here is ammonia, isopropyl alcohol, glycerin soap, common manure. A trained bomb maker would find an average home a treasure trove of materials. A few ingredients from a local chemist are also helpful. In these bottles are sulfur, magnesium, and sulfuric acid. Of course, we need not start from scratch every time. Here are primers, timers, fuses, blasting caps, a plunger. This cylinder is an artillery shell.”

“I must say, it seems strange to see a notorious bomber with his own explosives hut, in the middle of an army base,” I said.

“ Ja, well, there was a time when I would have blown myself to bits before working for a government agency, but since then, I have learned to listen to the demands of the stomach. That, perhaps, and the fact that I have been deported from most of the countries in Europe. I have no desire to leave this one. Luckily for me, Britannia is a sentimental old girl, and she has hugged many a socialist, nihilist, and anarchist to her bosom while her sisters have shown us the door.”