Гарри Гаррисон - Rebel in Time

They never had. Since the war had begun they had stood up to everything thrown at them. Stood up to enemy gunfire and bayonets, dysentery and disease, the contempt of their own officers, the derision of the white soldiers. They had endured.

Troy finished the beans, scraping up every last drop and morsel. Then he licked his spoon off and put it back into his pocket. Everything was in order. The wounded had been sent to the rear, what food that he could find had been distributed. All of his men had full canteens, and he would make sure that they filled them again in the morning. He had done everything that he could for them. Now he looked to his own equipment.

He opened his patch kit and Lily smiled up at him from the battered photograph. He smiled back, still possessed of the warm memory of her love. After taking out a scrap of cloth he carefully replaced the photograph and sealed the case.

He was running the cleaning rod through his rifle when the messenger found him.

'Captain wants to see you back in the shebang tent, sergeant.'

'On my way,' Troy said, turning to the corporal sitting across the fire from him. 'Finish this for me, will you, Hank?'

'That is gonna cost you five dollars.'

'Good. I'll pay you soon as the war is over.'

Hank was a good man — they were all good men. Troy had asked only because he knew that the corporal would have done the job anyway the moment his back was turned. They were a unit, a family, the best men he had ever served with. They were indeed brothers. He straightened his tunic, buttoned the top buttons, brushed some of the worst of the dust from the Sergeant-major's stripes on his sleeve, then turned and walked back towards the tent in the hollow.

He always thought of the shebangs, the tents and buildings of the US Sanitary Commission, as a combination Red Cross and PX. They helped nurse the wounded, handled pension and pay problems, even supplied some of the personal items like soap and needles that made a soldier's life in the Army bearable. If Troy thought that it was a disgrace that the government had nothing at all to do with the organization, that it was financed by contributions and fund raising benefits called Sanitary Fairs, he did not mention it. The shebangs were there; his men needed them.

The captain returned his salute when Troy entered the tent. He had been talking to two civilians, a grey-haired man and an elderly woman, and they all looked up when the sergeant came in.

'Sergeant Harmon, these are the representatives of the Sanitary Commission in Boston,' the captain said. 'They have raised a good sum of money, specifically for this regiment, and we are all greatly indebted to them. They will be leaving soon, but they would like to speak to some of the men before they go.'

'If you please, I am a little weary,' the woman said. She was white-haired, in her eighties at least, and had good reason to be tired after the day in a wagon. 'If you gentlemen will excuse me, I'll remain seated right here until we have to leave. If you will permit the sergeant to remain with me, I'm sure he can answer any questions that I might have.'

'Of course, mam,' the captain said. 'Remain here, sergeant, we won't be long.' He held the tent flap aside to let the other man out ahead of him.

'Please be seated, Sergeant Harmon,' the woman said. 'We have some important things to discuss and very little time to do it in.'

'Yes, mam,' Troy said, pulling up one of the camp chairs. The shorter this conversation the better. There was much to be done by morning.

'Do you remember me, Troy?' the woman asked, her words breaking through his thoughts. He looked at her closely for the first time.

'Sorry, mam.' Yes, you do look familiar. But I'm sorry, I just don't remember where from.'

'From Washington,' she said, smiling. 'I'm a little older but it's still me. Roxanne Delcourt.'

The words stunned him; he clutched to the sides of the chair as though suddenly dizzy. Dr Roxanne Delcourt! A visitor from another time, another age. The urgencies of battle had driven all memories of Washington from his brain. He was now so adapted to this world that he really had forgotten he had not been born in this age, but had travelled here from the future.

'Roxanne! I'll be damned, but it is you!'

'It is. Perhaps not the youngster you knew, I'm almost eighty-five now. But with the new drugs…'

'But you're not eighty-five, I remember that much, you must be closer to fifty-five. I don't understand. And what are you doing here? How did you find me?'

The questions tumbled out as long-forgotten memories returned. A distant world where he had once lived. Washington, DC, the laboratory off the Beltway, the machine that had sent him here. He hadn't thought about them in a very long time. The pressures of war, of staying alive and keeping his men alive, these had driven everything else from his mind. Memory came rushing back now.

'But what are you doing here now?' he asked. 'Your presence here, it can be no accident. And… your age, forgive me, it is hard to take in all at once.'

She nodded agreement. 'I'm sorry to be so abrupt. But it was the only way. My time is so limited. Let me tell you what happened after you left. We found the report that you prepared for us, thank you for that. We started digging for it the very next morning. When we cracked open the ancient box and saw the yellowed paper, the faded ink, I can't begin to tell you the impression that it made on all of us. I think it was then that we knew we had to do something to help you. We really began working in earnest, all of us. Admiral Colonne, he's retired now, but still strong, he helped. He sends his best wishes. And Bob Kleiman made me promise to say hello from him when I saw you. He was the one who was supposed to be here, not me.' A shadow crossed her face. 'Dead, cancer, over ten years ago. Or can we talk about time like that, subjective time?'

Her face was suddenly drawn, all of the years of her life in the lines scribed upon it.

'Roxanne,' Troy said softly. 'Thank you for coming. For caring that much about me.'

She blinked and sat up straighter, returning his smile. 'Someone had to, didn't they? The research went ahead after you left. Absolutely top secret. But everyone in government was so afraid of the possibilities that our hands were almost completely tied. They just didn't know what to do with us. Particularly with all the research restrictions that came in after the One-day War. After they discovered what McCulloch had done they actually stopped all experimenting for ten years. But eventually the programme continued. We worked for almost thirty years on improving the machine. It sounds so strange when I say it like that. Thirty years of my time have elapsed, while — what? — it has been five years for you. But it took us all of those years of work to develop the means to both travel backwards in time and then return.'

Troy's first confusion was over and he was beginning to understand what Roxanne and the team had accomplished. And why she had travelled back in time to this year, to seek him out.

'Do you mean.?'

'I do.' Her voice was so quiet that he could barely hear it. 'I've come to take you home, Troy. It's possible. It's no longer a one-way trip.'

Troy was on his feet, pacing the length of the tent and back, unable to stay still. It was impossible, it couldn't be happening. But it was. Could it be true? He spun to face her.

'Return to when ?' he asked. 'To the time I left from — or soon after that?' She shook her head sadly.

'No, that is impossible. Or if it is possible — we just don't dare experiment to find out. Despite all of our work we still know so little about the real nature of time. I told you, it took us over thirty years to perfect the machine, and you never returned during that time. Therefore you didn't, you couldn't. But we'll go back together. Things aren't too bad in twenty-fifteen. Though there have been changes.'