As it increased, he recognised it. It was the noise made by rotor blades.
Closer it came, until the tree at his back began to vibrate.
He looked up as it flew overhead and caught sight of a ludicrous flying contraption.
Edward Oxford didn't believe anything he saw anymore. The world was one giant fairy story, a crazed jumble of talking apes and horse-drawn carriages and accentuated manners and the stink of unprocessed sewage and, now, flying chairs which trailed steam.
The machine approached again, at such a low altitude that the trees thrashed beneath its downdraught.
'Oh, will you please piss off and leave me alone!' he yelled.
It passed above him. He crouched, leaped, shot up through the twigs and leaves, and caught hold of the side of the machine. It rocked and careened sideways.
The man at its controls turned and looked at him through a pair of goggles.
'I said piss off!' shouted Oxford.
He reached out and grabbed the man by the wrist.
The machine spiralled out of control and crashed into the trees.
Oxford was knocked from its side and fell spinning through the foliage. He thumped onto the ground and lay still, winded, his shoulder hurting.
He got to his knees. He could hear the whistle of steam off to his left. Pushing himself upright, he walked in the direction of the sound until the wrecked machine came into view.
A man was lying facedown beside it. He rolled over as Oxford stood above him with a stilt to either side.
The time traveller squatted.
'Who are you?' he asked. The man had a vaguely familiar face-dark, savage, powerful, but also scarred, battered, and bruised.
'You know damned well who I am!' exclaimed the man.
'I don't. I've never seen you before, though I must admit, I feel I should know you.'
'Never seen me! You gave me this damned black eye! Or maybe that was your brother?'
Edward Oxford grinned. More nonsense! More of this world's idiocy!
'I don't have a brother,' he said. 'I don't even have parents!'
He threw back his head and laughed.
The man beneath him shifted uncomfortably.
Oxford looked down at his face.
So familiar. It was so familiar.
'Where have I seen you before?' he muttered. 'Famous, are you?'
'Comparatively,' answered the man, and started to wriggle out from between the stilts. Oxford reached down and clutched the front of his coat, stopping him from moving.
'Stay still,' he barked.
He searched his memory and thought about the history of this period, the biographies he'd read and the old black and white photographs he'd seen.
The name came to him.
Fucking hell! he thought. You're Joking!
But it wasn't a joke. There was no doubt about it. He knew who this man was.
'Yes, I know you now,' he muttered. 'Sir Richard Francis Burton! One of the great Victorians!'
'What the hell is a Victorian?' snarled Burton.
Shouts reached them from the distance. There were people approaching -and, too, the far-off chopping of another flying machine.
'Listen, Burton,' hissed Oxford. 'I have no idea why you're here but you have to leave me alone to do what I have to do. I know it's not a good thing but I don't mean the girls any harm. If you or anyone else stops me, I can't get back and I won't be able to repair the damage. Everything will stay this way-and it's wrong! It's wrong! This is not the way things are meant to be! Do you understand?'
'Not in the slightest,' replied Burton. 'Let me up, damn it!'
Oxford let go of the man's coat and Burton pushed himself out from between the stilts and got to his feet.
'So what exactly is it you need to do?'
'Restore, Burton!' replied the time traveller. 'Restore!'
'Restore what?'
'Myself. You. Everything! Do you honestly think the world should have talking orangutans in it? Isn't it obvious to you that something is desperately wrong?'
'Talking orang-?' began Burton.
'Captain Burton!' came a distant shout.
Oxford looked up through the trees as the second flying machine drew closer.
'The mist has cleared and the sun is high enough,' he muttered to himself. 'I should be able to recharge.'
'Charge at what?' demanded Burton. 'You're speaking in riddles, man!'
'Time to go,' said Oxford. He laughed. 'Time to go!'
Burton suddenly dived at him.
Oxford twisted out of the way and, as the famous Victorian crashed past him, he strode away.
'Sir Richard Francis Burton,' he hissed to himself. 'That's all I bloody well need!'
Ducking under branches, he moved from bole to bole until he emerged from the woods back onto the golf course. Off to the south, he saw a horde of policemen and villagers milling about. A police whistle blew and a roar went up from the crowd. They surged toward him.
Oxford bounded away and circled the course. He only had to remain in the sunlight for a couple of minutes; it would be enough.
In enormous hops, he ran around the perimeter while the mob surged back and forth trying to cut him off.
He passed the edge of the trees again and saw Burton standing there. The man ran out to intercept him. Oxford bounded over his head.
'Stay out of it, Burton!' he shouted.
He took six more strides and sprang high.
At the apex of his jump, he ordered the suit to flip him to the next destination and, at exactly the same moment, realised that the second flying machine was too close, almost touching him.
He landed in the Alsop field on the night of September 30, 1861, with fragments of the machine accompanying him. He hit the ground awkwardly, floundered, and fell. Bits of twisted metal thudded into the earth around him. One piece embedded itself in his right forearm. He screamed with pain and yanked it out. Blood splashed over the scales of his suit.
Spring Heeled Jack rolled to all fours and hauled himself upright. He held his arm and winced. He looked down the sloping field and forgot the pain.
It was all so familiar.
There were the lights of Old Ford; there was Bearbinder Lane; and there was the cottage where Jane Alsop lived, and where he would now find her daughter, Alicia Pipkiss.
He had no reason to think that she was the girl with the rainbow birthmark, but all of a sudden that's exactly what he did think.
He smiled.
Something came spinning through the air, hit his stilts, and wrapped itself around them.
He toppled sideways and fell onto his injured arm. Another scream was torn from his throat.
What the-?
He looked down and saw that he'd been enmeshed in bolas-throwing weapons consisting of a cord with weights at either end.
Men rushed out of the trees. A lot of men. They threw nets over him.
Colourful birds exploded into the air.
In Old Ford, Constable Krishnamurthy saw the flock of parakeets rising upward. They wheeled around then
