Stephen Baxter - The Time Ships

In the midst of this cool, blue-soaked tranquillity, the Morlock came limping towards me along the beach. He had lost his crutch, and, it seemed to me, he could barely stay upright, let alone run. His hair was ragged and flying, and he had lost his face-mask; even as he ran I could see how he was forced to raise his hands to cover his huge, sensitive eyes.

And behind him, chasing -

It was perhaps ten feet in length, in general layout something like a crocodile; but its legs were long and supple, giving it a raised, horse-like gait, quite unlike the squat motion of the crocodiles of my time — this beast was evidently adapted to running and chasing. Its slit eyes were fixed on the Morlock, and when it opened its mouth I saw rows of saw-edge teeth.

This apparition was bare yards from Nebogipfel!

I screamed and ran at the little tableau, waving my arms, but even as I did so I knew it was all up for Nebogipfel. I grieved for the lost Morlock, but — I am ashamed to record it — my first thought was for myself, for with his death I should be left alone, here in the mindless Palaeocene…

And it was at that moment, with a startling clarity, that a rifle-shot rang out from the margin of the forest.

The first bullet missed the beast, I think; but it was enough to make that great head turn, and to slow the pumping of those mighty thighs.

The Morlock fell, now, and went sprawling in the sand; but he pushed himself up on his elbows and squirmed onwards, on his belly.

There was a second shot, and a third. The crocodile flinched as the bullets pounded into its body. It faced the forest with defiance, opened his saw-toothed mouth and emitted a roar which echoed like thunder from the trees. Then it set off on its long, determined legs towards the source of these unexpected stings.

A man — short, compact, wearing a drab uniform — emerged from the forest’s margin. He raised the rifle again, sighted along it at the crocodile, and held his nerve as the beast approached.

I reached Nebogipfel now and hauled him to his feet; he was shivering. We stood on the sand together, and waited for the drama to play itself out.

The crocodile could have been no more than ten yards away from the man when the rifle spoke again. The crocodile stumbled — I could see blood streaming from its mouth but it raised itself up with barely a sliver of its momentum lost. The rifle shouted, and bullet after bullet plunged into that immense carcass.

At last, less than ten feet from the man, the thing tumbled, its great jaws snapping at the air; and the man — as cool as you like! — stepped neatly aside to let it fall.

I found Nebogipfel’s mask for him, and the Morlock and I followed the trail of the crocodile up the slope of the beach. Its claws had scuffed up the sand, and the last few pace-marks were strewn with saliva, mucus and steaming blood. Close to, the crocodile-thing was even more intimidating than from a distance; the eyes and jaw were open and staring, and as the last echoes of life seeped from the monster the huge muscles of its rear legs twitched, and hoofed feet scuffed at the sand.

The Morlock studied the hot carcass. “ Pristichampus,” he said in his low gurgle.

Our savior stood with his foot on the twitching corpse of the beast. He was aged perhaps twenty-five: he was clean jawed and with a straightforward gaze. Despite his brush with death, he looked quite relaxed; he favored us with an engaging, gap-toothed grin. His uniform consisted of brown trousers, heavy boots, and a brown khaki jacket; a blue beret perched jauntily on his head. This visitor could have come from any Age, or any variant of History, I supposed; but it did not surprise me at all when this young man said, in straightforward, neutrally-accented English, “Damn ugly thing, isn’t it? Tough fellow, though — did you see I had to plug him in the mouth before he fell? And even then he kept on coming. Got to give him credit — he was game enough!”

Before his relaxed, Officer-class manners, I felt clumsy, rather oafish in my skins and beard. I extended my hand. “Sir, I think I owe you the life of my companion.”

He took the hand and shook it. “Think nothing of it.” His grin widened. “Mr. — , I presume,” he said, naming me. “Do you know, I’ve always wanted to say that!”

“And you are?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. The name’s Gibson. Wing Commander Guy Gibson. And I’m delighted to have found you.”

It transpired that Gibson was not alone. He shouldered his rifle, turned and made a beckoning gesture towards the shadows of the jungle.

Two soldiers emerged from that gloom. Sweat had soaked through the shirts of these laden fellows, and, as they stepped into the growing light of the day, they seemed altogether more suspicious of us, and generally uncomfortable, than had the Wing Commander. These two were Indians, I thought — sepoys, soldiers of the Empire — their eyes glittered black and fierce, and each had a turban and clipped beard. They wore khaki drill shirts and shorts; one of them carried a heavy mechanical gun at his back, and bore two heavy leather pouches, evidently holding ammunition for this weapon. Their heavy, silvery epaulets glittered in the Palaeocene sunlight; they scowled at the corpse of Pristichampus with undisguised ferocity.

Gibson told us that he and these two fellows had been involved in a scouting expedition; they had traveled perhaps a mile from a main base, camp, which was situated inland from the Sea. (It struck me as odd that Gibson did not introduce the two soldiers by name. This little incivility — brought on by an unspoken recognition, by Gibson, of differences of rank — seemed to me altogether absurd, there on that isolated beach in the Palaeocene, with only a handful of humans anywhere in the world!)

I thanked Gibson again for rescuing the Morlock, and invited him to join us for some breakfast at our shelter. “It’s just along the beach,” I said, pointing; and Gibson peaked his hand over his eyes to see.

“Well, that looks — ah — as if it’s going to be a jolly solid construction.”

“Solid? I should say so,” I replied, and began a long and rather rambling discourse on the details of our incomplete shelter, of which I felt inordinately proud, and of how we had survived in the Palaeocene.

Guy Gibson folded his hands behind his back and listened, with a set, polite expression on his face. The sepoys watched me, puzzled and suspicious, their hands never far from their weapons.

After some minutes of this, I became aware, rather belatedly, of Gibson’s detachment. I let my prattle slow to a halt.

Gibson glanced around brightly at the beach. “I think you’ve done remarkably well here. Remarkably. I should have thought that a few weeks of this Robinson Crusoe stuff would pretty much have driven me batty with loneliness. I mean, opening time at the pub won’t be for another fifty million years!”

I smiled at this joke — which I failed to follow — and I felt rather embarrassed at my exaggerated pride at such mean achievements, before this vision of dapper competence.

“But look here,” Gibson went on gently, “don’t you think you’d be better off coming back with us to the Expeditionary Force? We have traveled here to find you, after all. And we’ve some decent provisions there — and modern tools, and so forth.” He glanced at Nebogipfel, and added, a little more dubiously, “And the doc might be able to do something for this poor chap as well. Is there anything you need here? We can always come back later.”

Of course there was not — I had no need to return through those few hundred yards along the beach ever again! — but I knew that, with the arrival of Gibson and his people, my brief idyll was done. I looked into Gibson’s frank, practical face, and knew that I could never find the words to express such a sense of loss to him.