cloak, trimmed at the collar with ratty fur.
“This fellow is clearly not medieval,” Atwood mumbled.
Beatrice was already kneeling, taking a closer look. “Elizabethan, I’d say.”
“Are you sure?”
There was a purple silk pouch hanging from the skeleton’s belt, embroidered with the letters J.C. She poked at it with her index finger then gently forced the dry purse strings open, tipping silver coins onto her palm. They were shillings and threepence. Atwood moved his beam closer. The rather masculine profile of Elizabeth I was on the obverse. Beatrice flipped the coin over, and above the coat of arms was crisply stamped: 1581.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” she whispered. “What do you suppose he’s doing here, Geoffrey?”
“I rather think that today’s going to produce more questions than answers,” he responded pensively. His eyes wandered to the stacks above the body. “Look! The nearest books are dated 1581! Surely, no coincidence. We’ll come back to our friend later with the camera gear but let’s finish our quest first.”
They carefully skirted the skeleton and carried on through the stacks until Atwood found what he was looking for.
Fortunately, the 1947 volumes were within arm’s reach, since they had no ladder.
He swept the cases with his beam and exclaimed, “I’ve found it! Here’s where 1947 starts.” He excitedly pulled down volumes until he triumphantly declared, “Today! January thirty-first!”
They sat together on the cold floor, squeezed between the racks, and let the heavy book straddle their laps so that one-half was resting on one of her thighs and one half on his. They scanned page after page of densely- packed names. Natus, Mors, Mors, Natus.
Atwood lost count of the number of pages turned, fifty, sixty, seventy.
Then he saw it, moments before she did: Reginald William Saunders Mors.
The diggers had made the Cunning Man in Fishbourne their local. They could walk to the inn from the excavation site, the beer cheap, and the landlord let them pay a penny per head to use the bathtub in the guest wing. The pub sign, a leering man crouching over a stream catching a trout with his bare hands, never failed to elicit a smile, but not this evening. The diggers sat alone at a long table in the smoky public bar, moodily avoiding the locals.
Reggie checked his timepiece and tried to make light of the matter. “This round’s on me if I can borrow a couple of quid. Pay you back tomorrow, Beatrice.”
She reached into her purse and tossed him a few bills. “Here you go, you big gorilla. You’ll be here to pay me back.”
He snatched the bank notes. “What do you think, Prof? Is it curtains for old Reg?”
“I’ll be the first to admit it, I’m foxed by all of this,” Atwood said, rapidly downing the remaining quarter pint of his beer. He was on his third, which was more than his usual, and his head was swimming. All of them were drinking at a clip and their words were getting slushy.
“Well, if this is my last night on earth, I’m going out with a gut full of best bitter,” Reggie said. “Same again for everyone?”
He gathered the empty pint mugs by their handles and carried them to the bar. When he was out of earshot Dennis leaned in and whispered to the group, “No one actually believes this rubbish, do they?”
Martin shook his head. “If it’s rubbish, how come the prof’s birth date was in one of the books?”
“Yeah, how come?” Timothy chimed in.
“There has to be a scientific explanation,” Beatrice said.
“Does there?” Atwood asked. “Why does everything have to fit into a neat scientific package?”
“Geoffrey!” she exclaimed. “Coming from you? Dr. Empiricism? When was the last time you went to church?”
“Can’t remember. Excavated quite a few old ones.” He had the dazed look of a newly minted drunk. “Where’s my beer gone?” He looked up and saw Reggie at the bar. “Oh, there he is. Good man. Survived Rommel. Hope he survives Vectis.”
Ernest was thoughtful. He wasn’t as tipsy as the rest. “We need to do some tests,” he said. “We need to look up more people we know or perhaps historical figures to verify their dates.”
“Just the approach,” Atwood said, hammering a beer mat with his hand. “Using the scientific method to prove that science is rubbish.”
“And if all the dates are right?” Dennis asked. “Then what?”
“Then we turn this over to scary little blokes who do scary little things in scary little offices in Whitehall,” Atwood replied.
“Ministry of Defense,” Ernest said quietly.
“Why them?” Beatrice asked.
“Who else?” Atwood asked. “The press? The Pope?” Reggie was waiting for the publican to pull the last of the pints. “We’re dying of thirst here!” Atwood called to him.
“Just coming, boss,” Reggie said.
Julian Barnes came through the door, his great coat open and flapping. No one was more surprised than the local men, who knew who he was but had never seen him in a pub, let alone this one. He had an unpleasant kind of bearing, a snotty blend of entitlement and pomposity. His hair was slicked back, his moustache perfectly carved. He was small and ferretlike.
One of the locals, a union man who despised his lot, said sarcastically, “The wing commander’s got us confused with the Conservative party offices. Down the road on the left, Squire!”
Barnes ignored him. “Tell me where I can find Reginald Saunders!” he boomed out in a round oratorical tone.
The archaeologists snapped their heads in attention.
Reggie was still at the bar, about to deliver the poured pints. He was a dart’s toss from the pompous little man. “Who wants to know?” he asked, straightening himself to his full, intimidating height.
“Are you Reginald Saunders?” Barnes demanded officiously.
“Who the hell are you, mate?”
“I repeat my question, are you Saunders?”
“Yeah, I’m Saunders. Have you got business with me?”
The small man swallowed hard. “I believe you know my wife.”
“I also know your motor, guv. Toss-up which I prefer.”
With that, the wing commander pulled a silver pistol from his pocket and shot Reggie through his forehead before anyone could say or do anything.
Following his audience with Winston Churchill, Geoffrey Atwood was driven back to Hampshire in a covered army transit lorry. Beside him on the wooden bench was an impassive young captain, who only spoke when spoken to. The destination was a wartime base where the army still maintained a large barracks and training ground, and where Atwood and his group had been detained.
At the onset of the journey Atwood had asked him, “Why can’t I be released here in London?”
“My instructions are to return you to Aldershot.”
“Why is that, if I may ask?”
“Those are my instructions.”
Atwood had been in the army long enough to know an immovable object when he saw one, so he saved his breath. He supposed solicitors were drawing up secrecy agreements and that all would be well.
As the van squeaked and bucked on its worn suspension, he tried to think pleasant thoughts about his wife and his children, who would be overjoyed at his return. He thought about a good meal, a hot bath, and resuming his reassuringly pedestrian academic duties. Vectis would by necessity disappear down a deep well, his notes and photographs confiscated, his memories expunged, practically speaking. He imagined he might have furtive chats with Beatrice over a glass of sherry in his rooms at the museum, but their heavy-handed confinement had achieved its desired effect: he was scared. Far more scared than ever during the war.
When he returned to the locked barracks, it was nighttime and his comrades surrounded him like photographers swarming a film star. A pale, dispirited lot, they had lost weight and were irritable, fed up, and ill with worry. Beatrice was housed separately from the men but was allowed to stay with them during the day in a common room where their minders brought them colorless army grub. Martin, Timothy, and Dennis played hand
