La maline (For those who prefer the original French)

Dans la salle à manger brune, que parfumait
Une odeur de vernis et de fruits, à mon aise 
Je ramassais un plat de je ne sais quel met 
Belge, et je m’épatais dans mon immense chaise.

En mangeant, j’écoutais l’horloge, — heureux et coi.
La cuisine s’ouvrit avec une bouffée
—Et la servante vint, je ne sais pas pourquoi, 
Fichu moitié défait, malinement coiffée

Et, tout en promenant son petit doigt tremblant
Sur sa joue, un velours de pêche rose et blanc, 
En faisant, de sa lèvre enfantine, une moue,

Elle arrangeait les plats, près de moi, pour m’aiser;
—Puis, comme ça, bien sûr, pour avoir un baiser, —
Tout bas: “Sens donc: j’ai pris une froid sur la joue ...
—Arthur Rimbaud 


The Sly Girl  (Wallace Fowlie Translation)

In the brown dining room, perfumed
With an odor of varnish and fruit, leisurely
I gathered up some Belgian dish
Or other, and spread out in my huge chair.

While I ate, I listened to the clock—happy and quiet.
The kitchen door opened with a gust
—And a servant girl came, I don’t know why,
Her neckerchief  loose , her hair coyly dressed

And as she passed her small trembling finger
Over her cheek, a pink and white peach velvet skin
And pouted with her childish mouth,

She arranged the plates, near me, to put me at ease;
—Then, just like that—to get a kiss, naturally—
Said softly: “Feel there: I’ve caught a cold on my cheek. . .”

THE CONCEPT:

A short film concept that expresses my view of “La Maline” as a representation of Rimbaud’s restraint.

For fun, I take us to Oxford to the rooms of none other than Evelyn Waugh (as an Oxford don), expressing his view of young Rimbaud as evidenced in the incident that occurred in that humble dining area, somewhere in Belgium…

Imagine a short film that encapsulates Arthur Rimbaud’s poem “La Maline” as a testament to the poet’s restraint. Set within the distinguished rooms of Evelyn Waugh at Oxford University, the film portrays Waugh, embodying the role of an Oxford don, delivering a compelling lecture to his students. He delves into Rimbaud’s youthful encounter in a modest Belgian dining room, interpreting it as a significant display of the poet’s self-control.

The narrative unfolds as Waugh vividly recounts the scene from “La Maline,” highlighting the subtle dynamics between the adolescent Rimbaud and the coquettish maid. Through Waugh’s articulate analysis, the film explores themes of temptation, innocence, and the moral fortitude required to resist impropriety. The setting of Waugh’s Oxford quarters, adorned with literary artifacts and steeped in academic ambiance, serves as a poignant backdrop that bridges the Victorian era of Rimbaud with Waugh’s early 20th-century milieu.

This cinematic piece not only offers a deep literary analysis but also pays homage to the intellectual traditions of Oxford. It underscores the timeless relevance of Rimbaud’s work and the enduring importance of ethical integrity, as illuminated through Waugh’s scholarly perspective…

FADE IN:

INT. OXFORD UNIVERSITY - DON’S STUDY - EVENING

A warmly lit room lined with towering bookshelves. A fire crackles in the hearth. EVELYN WAUGH, a distinguished man in his mid-40s with a sharp gaze and a hint of mischief, stands before a small group of STUDENTS seated attentively. He holds a well-worn copy of Rimbaud’s works.

WAUGH

(holding up the book)

Gentlemen, tonight we delve into Arthur Rimbaud’s “La Maline.” Let’s begin with the opening lines.

He reads from the book.

“Dans la salle à manger brune, que parfumait

Une odeur de vernis et de fruits…”

Ah yes—the brown dining room, Rimbaud says, and how vividly this scene begins, with that curious mixture of fruit and varnish hanging in the air. “Brown,” you see, not merely as a color but a whole atmosphere. A lacquered somberness. One thinks of middle-class provincial Belgium, a place that never quite escapes the smell of overripe pears and mahogany polish.

“à mon aise / Je ramassais un plat de je ne sais quel met Belge…”

“At my ease,” he says, “I helped myself to—what was it?—some Belgian dish I can’t quite name.” Here we have Rimbaud with that particular Gallic disdain for foreign cuisine. He’s lounging in an oversized chair—“immense,” he calls it—and very pleased with himself, though that smugness will not last.

“En mangeant, j’écoutais l’horloge,—heureux et coi.”

He eats. He listens to the ticking of the clock. He is happy, he says—and quiet. Now that, gentlemen, is important. He is still in repose. The world is orderly.

“La cuisine s’ouvrit avec une bouffée…”

But then! The kitchen opens. A puff of air, perhaps of steam. And with it—

“Et la servante vint, je ne sais pas pourquoi…”

“The maid entered—for no particular reason,” he claims. Oh, but of course she had a reason. This is not merely prose. This is theatre. And she knew her part. Observe:

“Fichu moitié défait, malinement coiffée…”

Her handkerchief—half undone. Her hair—carefully disordered. Not slovenly, mind you. No, no. Mischievously arranged. This is artifice. A child’s attempt at seduction, rehearsed in mirrors.

Now, I would ask you to pause here. Because this is where the popular notion of Rimbaud as the fevered libertine begins to dissolve—at least for me.

Rimbaud is amused, yes. But he is also squeamish. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t speak. He watches.

“Et, tout en promenant son petit doigt tremblant / Sur sa joue…”

She trails a little trembling finger down her cheek. A velvet of peach and milk—so he says. But again, note the distance. He’s observing her in the same way he might observe a bird with painted wings strutting through a parlour.

“En faisant, de sa lèvre enfantine, une moue…”

She pouts—a child’s pout. Again, he calls her lips enfantine. Childish. He is not titillated, gentlemen. He is trapped. And more than that—he is discomfited.

“Elle arrangeait les plats, près de moi, m’aiser…”

She fiddles with the dishes, hovering a little too close. He doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t touch her. He lets the scene play out, and he watches it with the eyes not of a predator—but of a poet with a sense of moral boundary.

Now this line:

“Puis, comme ça—bien sûr, pour avoir braiser,— / Tout bas: ‘Sens donc: j’ai pris une froid sur la joue…’”

“Then, just like that,” he says, “as if—of course—to have me look closer, she murmurs: ‘Feel this—I’ve caught a chill on my cheek…’”

This is not a seduction. It is mimicry. A performance drawn from some overheard gossip or play. And Rimbaud—contrary to his reputation—does not oblige. He does not touch her cheek. He ends the poem here. With her line. With her pretense of suffering. And in doing so, he gives us something more complex than mere appetite.

He gives us restraint. He gives us discomfort. And perhaps—just perhaps—a trace of pity.

Waugh leans back now, lips pursed, fingers steepled. A log shifts in the grate. Outside, Christ Church bells mark the hour—but he is not yet finished…

So. There you have it. A poem that many would lazily file under adolescent decadence. A scribble from the boy-genius drunk on sensation, dashing off verses between absinthe and bad company. But that reading, I submit, is not only vulgar—it is stupid.

This is not a libertine’s fantasy. It is a young man—still very much a boy himself—meeting the performance of femininity and feeling not desire, but squeamishness. Not temptation, but unease. He has stepped into the realm of theatre—domestic theatre, no less—and finds himself cornered by the world’s falsest force: a child pretending to be a woman.

What does he do?

Nothing.

He watches. He records. And most importantly—he refrains.

Now, if this were Baudelaire—or, God forbid, Verlaine—we might be reading about the lace falling from her shoulders, or the “pale ecstasy” of her skin. But this is Rimbaud. And say what you like about the hell he walked into later—at this moment, in this brown dining room, he showed a kind of moral fastidiousness that was almost English.

Yes, English.

One of your lot—not the poets, mind—but the public-school boys. Those solemn forms of restraint. That horror of appearing to enjoy oneself in the wrong company.

So remember that, gentlemen—and ladies, if any are still listening—when next you hear someone droning on about the debauched Rimbaud. Tell them to read La Maline again. Carefully. And to note that sometimes the clearest measure of a man’s character lies not in what he desires—but in what he refuses.

Now then—who’s for a drink?

—Duffy Whitmore

Epigraph

“The traveller’s virtue is exactness; the pilgrim’s, persistence. One must choose daily which to be.” — T. E. Lawrence, field notebook, 1908

Editor’s Note by Duffy Whitmore

In the summer of 1908, a nineteen-year-old Oxford undergraduate named T. E. Lawrence set out alone upon a second-hand bicycle and pedalled two thousand miles across France. His purpose was archaeological rather than athletic: to examine and sketch medieval castles for his thesis on Crusader influence in European fortifications. He began at Tours, drifted south through the Dordogne and Gascony, sketched Carcassonne in a state of rapture, and followed the Rhône northward again toward Avignon and the Loire. He travelled cheaply, slept seldom, and wrote home constantly—letters that read like blueprints for his later legend.

It was this enterprise—half scholarship, half pilgrimage—that Trevor Finch-Bligh and I elected to emulate some twenty years later, reasoning that, if Lawrence had found revelation on two wheels, we might at least find luncheon. What follows is an account of that modest retracing: two Englishmen, a Leica, and an excess of faith in the reliability of French tyres.

Chapter I — Bordeaux, Maps, and Self-Deception

(1928 — or thereabouts)

“I travel very slowly, for the country is too good to pass in haste, and every castle demands the courtesy of a sketch.” — T. E. Lawrence, letter to his mother, 1908

I have always maintained that a gentleman should arrive in a city by water if at all possible; it softens the aspect and obliges the skyline to put its best chimneys forward. Bordeaux, obliging as ever, received us with a glazed wink off the Garonne and a smell of wine barrels so frank that Trevor Finch-Bligh declared himself “virtually intoxicated by terroir” before luncheon.

We had come to cycle — which is to say, to move about slowly in the manner of serious men — with the stated purpose of retracing T. E. Lawrence’s youthful reconnaissance of medieval castles. Trevor, who takes the long view when the long view is romantic, called it “a knight-errant’s pilgrimage upon pneumatic tyres.” I, who take the long view when it has shade, settled for “a pleasant tour with occasional masonry.”

Our machines, purchased that morning from a shop whose proprietor addressed them as if they were horses, were equipped with bell, lamp, and a species of luggage contraption that made each bicycle resemble a particularly earnest beetle. A Leica hung from my shoulder in the manner of a moral obligation. Trevor strapped his sketchbook to his handlebars so that everyone might know there was genius about.

We established headquarters at a riverside inn with white cloths and a wine list that behaved like a staircase. The innkeeper produced maps with the entreating air of a conjurer who fears his rabbits have been oversubscribed. Trevor instantly spread them like battle plans and began tracing an elegant serpentine from Bordeaux to the hill-towns of Gascony, thence towards Carcassonne, thence to the high forts where, according to him, “the Middle Ages still keep a pied-à-terre.”

“You observe,” he said, tapping a bastion with the stem of his pipe, “that Lawrence passed within a mile of Roquetaillade on the third day. One imagines him pausing, gaze lifted, the whole chivalric enterprise crystallising in a single, sun-struck instant.”

“Mm,” I said, examining the dessert menu. “And one imagines him sleeping heartily thereafter.”

Trevor does not dislike my empiricism; he simply ignores it as one might ignore a polite waiter. He continued: “We shall carry only what is essential — a spare tube, a map, a shirt for civility, and the spirit of inquiry.”

“Add socks,” I said. “The spirit of inquiry notoriously blisters.”

We undertook a trial lap along the quay to discover whether our equipment intended to collaborate. Trevor’s bell rang with a tone of moral uplift; mine produced the discouraged clink of a curate’s teacup. Children cheered. An elderly gentleman, seeing our plus-fours, removed his hat, either in respect for tradition or in astonishment at its survival.

The air was that agreeable April compromise which suggests exercise without requiring it. Trevor pedalled with the uplifted chin favoured by equestrian statues. I kept a log of observable phenomena: (1) cobbles resist optimism; (2) the Garonne flows to sea; (3) wine-merchants at eleven in the morning look as if they have always just completed something significant.

Back at the inn, we took inventory. Trevor’s pack contained: a collapsible drafting ruler, a guide to Romanesque sculpture, three pencils aligned with military precision, and a tin of biscuits labelled Army Issue — Do Not Complain. Mine contained: socks, a small bottle of iodine, a notebook, and a phrase in French calculated to obtain breakfast in circumstances bordering on siege.

“To Lawrence,” Trevor said, raising a glass.

“To level gradients,” I replied, and we drank to both.

After luncheon Trevor insisted upon a ceremonial reading from his pocket Lawrence — the early letters in which the young scholar describes cycling towards castles as if toward a moral appointment. The passage did its work: even the cutlery felt suddenly medieval. We sat in the window, watching the river go past as though it were time itself and we had booked seats.

A boy arrived with a parcel tied in string — our last-minute acquisition from the bookseller: a hand-measured copy of an 1890s touring map annotated, the seller claimed, by a local antiquary who had once guided a certain English undergraduate of promise. Trevor stroked the margin as if it might purr. I peered at the handwriting and concluded that the antiquary had been either left-handed or chased.

We fixed our departure for the morning. Trevor proposed reveille at six; I counter-proposed seven with coffee, which he accepted on the grounds that a knight may break his fast without loss of face. The bicycles were stabled in the hall, where they leant against the umbrella stand like conspirators pretending innocence.

Evening brought that particular Bordeaux light which arranges itself upon façades as though attending a lecture. Trevor discoursed on machicolations and arrow slits; I photographed the wine glasses, which were perfectly designed for the retention of history. We consulted the weather, found it promising, and the bill, found it historical.

“I confess,” Trevor said at last, staring into the river, “that one feels a summons.”

“From Lawrence?”

“From architecture. He merely translates.”

“Then we shall translate also,” I said, “with frequent notes.”

He smiled in a way that accepted my heresy as useful ballast, and we parted for our rooms — he to dream of keeps and banners, I to lay out socks with the gravity such things deserve.

Thus armed — with scholarship in Trevor’s case and luggage in mine — we prepared to make the acquaintance of France at the exact speed at which she could forgive us.

Chapter II — The Historian of Bazas

“One learns more of fortresses by climbing their ditches on a bicycle than by reading of them in libraries.” — T. E. Lawrence, letter to his father, 1908

We left Bordeaux the next morning at the hour favoured by milkmen and moralists. The city still yawned itself awake as we rattled across the bridge, our tyres emitting a faint hymn of purpose. Trevor led with the confidence of a general whose map is upside down; I followed at a journalist’s pace, which is to say, far enough behind to preserve objectivity.

The road south unfurled with the self-satisfaction of a cat in the sun — vineyards, poplars, and the smell of yesterday’s bread. We stopped at intervals to admire the horizon and to give Trevor opportunities to declare it “Lawrencian.” My own interest lay chiefly in the discovery that every French café, however small, has a patron who appears to have been waiting there since the Restoration.

By noon we entered Bazas, a medieval town so picturesque that it had begun to suspect itself of forgery. Its cathedral dominated the square like a well-fed conscience. We tethered our bicycles to a cannon of the 1870 variety and took refuge in a café whose proprietor was engaged in an unequal struggle with a gramophone.

Trevor unfolded the map upon the table. “Here,” he said, “Lawrence paused to sketch the south portal — a masterpiece of Flamboyant Gothic. One can feel his excitement in the stone.”

“Possibly,” I said, “but I suspect he felt his excitement mostly in the saddle.”

While we debated the theological implications of chain lubrication, a man at the next table — portly, tweed waistcoat, spectacles tethered like livestock — leaned over.

“You are English gentlemen?” he asked in that tone the French reserve for the clinically eccentric.

Trevor beamed. “Travellers,” he said. “We follow the route of T. E. Lawrence. The castles of the south.”

The man introduced himself as Monsieur Arnaud, a local historian “of limited fame but unlimited accuracy.” He claimed to have corresponded with “a certain Oxford youth” who had indeed visited Bazas before the Great War, “to make drawings of the portal, very precise, very strange.”

“He spoke little,” Arnaud said, “but he asked many questions about the tower at Roquetaillade — whether there were writings upon the stones, symbols, marks of a secret brotherhood. I told him no, but he smiled as if the answer were yes.”

Trevor leaned forward, eyes alight. “Did he return? Did he write to you?”

Arnaud shrugged. “He sent one postcard. It said only, ‘One page missing.’ I thought perhaps he had torn a leaf from his notebook.”

Trevor and I exchanged the look of men who have just heard destiny mispronounced.

“One page missing,” Trevor repeated, as if testing a relic for authenticity. “Duffy, don’t you see? The unpublished fragment — a castle he found but never named!”

I did not see, but it seemed unkind to say so in front of the witness. Arnaud, encouraged, leaned closer.

“They say he saw something at Roquetaillade that changed his mind about fortresses. He stopped writing of walls and began writing of winds.” He tapped his temple. “Mystical, perhaps.”

Trevor was radiant. “Mystical and architectural — the only acceptable combination.”

I ordered another coffee to steady the empirical world.

When we left the café, Trevor was already marking a new line upon the map, a detour eastward into Gascony. “Roquetaillade,” he said, “the missing page. We must see it.”

“Must we?” I asked.

“Lawrence did not turn back, Duffy. Nor shall we.”

I reflected that Lawrence had also learned Arabic and joined a war, which suggested a certain bias toward inconvenience. But Trevor had that glint which renders argument merely decorative. He adjusted his goggles, looking absurdly gallant, and pedalled off toward the horizon.

I sighed, mounted my bicycle, and followed, the map flapping behind me like a surrender flag.

Chapter III — Roads, Revelations, and Reparations

“The Château Gaillard was so magnificent, and the post cards so abominable, that I stopped there an extra day and did nothing but photograph from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m.… I will certainly have to start a book.” — T. E. Lawrence, August 1907

By the second day of our detour, Gascony revealed herself as a land of undulations — each hill a polite but firm suggestion that the next would be worse. Trevor rode ahead, the wind tugging at his sketchbook like divine dictation, while I observed from a safe distance that every medieval castle had been designed by sadists who disapproved of gradients.

Our map, annotated by Monsieur Arnaud with what he called “minor inaccuracies,” was in fact a work of pure imagination. Half the roads existed only in the optimism of cartography; the rest led to farms guarded by dogs of such moral seriousness that we adopted circuitous routes out of respect for agriculture.

At Casteljaloux, a blacksmith repaired my rear tyre with the serenity of a priest hearing confession. “Too thin,” he said, slapping the tube. “Made for English weather.” He then produced a piece of rubber that looked like it had once served on an airship. It held admirably, though my bicycle acquired a slight bias to the left, which I chose to interpret politically.

Trevor, meanwhile, recorded each village in his notebook with an ecstasy bordering on the ecclesiastical. “Observe the window tracery!” he would cry, dismounting mid-traffic. “That cusp! That ogive!” The villagers, untroubled by the finer points of Gothic, regarded him as an ambulatory sermon. Children followed at a distance, convinced we were part of a travelling zoo.

One afternoon we took shelter from a shower in a wayside chapel dedicated to St. Gilles, patron of pilgrims, cyclists, and — if not yet, then soon — fools. The interior smelled of rain and candle grease. Trevor, studying a fragment of mural, announced that Lawrence had “stood here, contemplating the mystery of endurance.”

I contemplated the mystery of damp wool. “You think he left the missing page here?”

Trevor smiled, water dripping from his nose. “No, but he would have understood this weather as penance.”

We pressed on through drizzle into Agen, where the bridge over the Garonne shone like a length of pewter. A café offered shelter and omelettes of heroic girth. The proprietress, a woman of indeterminate age but formidable shoulders, eyed our mud-streaked attire with professional pity.

“You seek the château?” she asked. Trevor nodded. “Then you follow the wrong river. Roquetaillade lies east, beyond the vineyards of Sauternes. But beware the old road through Bernos — it climbs like a sermon and descends like a sin.”

She served us wine the colour of late repentance. Trevor, glowing from within, declared that Lawrence himself must have heard those very words, that we were “breathing the same cautions, riding the same risks.” I allowed that we were at least sharing the same wine.

That night we slept at an inn whose walls were decorated with photographs of oxen and local champions of pétanque. Trevor retired early to chart our new course. I lingered with the innkeeper, who explained in confidence that Roquetaillade was haunted — by what, he could not say, though he suspected taxation.

At dawn, the air smelled of wet stone and ambition. Trevor was already astride his bicycle, reading aloud from Seven Pillars about “the clean, holy hardness of physical labour.” I suggested he apply it to the act of pedalling. We set off toward Sauternes, the road rising in long, pious folds through vineyards glistening with dew.

Halfway up a particularly moral incline, Trevor halted, transfixed by the sight of a ruined watchtower on the ridge. “He saw this!” he cried. “Lawrence! The very contour of revelation!”

I was seeing revelation mainly in the form of breakfast. But I humoured him, and we climbed to the ruin, where Trevor discovered, scratched into the lintel, a faint “T”—or possibly a farmer’s attempt at “F.” He took a photograph for posterity and declared it “the first letter of truth.” I took a photograph of Trevor taking the photograph.

By evening we rolled into Langon, our legs mutinous, our spirits undiminished. Trevor spoke of Roquetaillade as if it were Avalon; I spoke of dinner as if it were hope. We found both waiting — the latter on a checkered tablecloth, the former glimmering faintly in the distance like a promise kept to a better generation.

Trevor leaned back, exhausted but radiant. “We’re on the threshold, Duffy.”

“Excellent,” I said. “Let’s knock politely, in case the threshold bites.”

He laughed, and for a moment the rivalry between dream and digestion dissolved. Outside, the bells of Langon tolled vespers, and I wondered whether Lawrence had ever heard them, or merely imagined that he had — a small but crucial distinction which, in our case, made all the difference between scholarship and adventure.

Chapter IV — The Missing Page

“I begin to understand how stone and wind conspire to teach endurance: the towers stand not proudly, but obstinately.” — T. E. Lawrence, letter to Vyvyan Richards, 1908

Morning broke with the clarity of a well-polished mirror and the menace of what it reflected. Trevor was already in his plus-fours, consulting the map as if preparing for a campaign; I was discovering that French coffee, taken at speed, functions equally as inspiration and punishment.

Roquetaillade lay eight miles east — a manageable stretch by bicycle, or a pilgrimage on foot should the bicycles continue their policy of indifference. The road climbed steadily through the vineyards, each bend offering a postcard of the last one. Trevor rode ahead in a posture of revelation, the wind making an icon of his hair.

At the crest of the final hill we saw it: the Château de Roquetaillade, rising out of the mist like an engraving of a dream someone had misfiled. Six towers, grey as thought, and a central keep so symmetrical it appeared to have been designed by geometry itself. Even I felt a certain admiration, though I disguised it as scepticism for Trevor’s sake.

“There it is,” he whispered, stopping his bicycle as one might stop at a shrine. Lawrence’s vision of endurance.”

“Indeed,” I said, “and endurance is the word.”

A gatehouse guard, unimpressed by pilgrims, informed us that the château was closed until two o’clock. Trevor produced a smile that has opened many doors but none that were locked. “We have come in the spirit of scholarship,” he explained.

The man shrugged. “Scholars wait like everyone else.”

We retired to a neighbouring field where the château’s towers loomed above us, apparently studying us for a change. Trevor unfolded his sketchbook; I unfolded a sandwich of uncertain lineage. By the time the gate reopened, both of us were fortified.

Inside, Roquetaillade smelled of age and benevolent neglect. The custodian, a woman of monastic calm, led us through chambers where bats hung like punctuation. Trevor walked with the reverence of a pilgrim entering footnotes.

“Do you see, Duffy? Lawrence must have been struck dumb here — the geometry, the light—”

“Possibly the bats,” I said.

We reached the spiral stair of the tower. Trevor asked if we might ascend; the custodian demurred, saying the upper rooms were unsafe. Trevor, whose sense of destiny outweighs his respect for signage, waited until her back was turned, then whispered, “Just a look. For Lawrence.”

Against my better nature and lower instincts, I followed. The stairs narrowed, corkscrewing toward a slit of light. Halfway up, the air thickened with dust and heroism. At the top, a single chamber — roof partly collapsed, walls scrawled with the efforts of centuries. Trevor advanced to the far wall, brushing away cobwebs like veils.

“There!” he cried, pointing to a faint inscription: three letters, shallowly carved:

T E L

It might have been Lawrence; it might have been local initials; it might, for all we knew, have stood for Très Évident Larceny. But Trevor was transported.

“He was here!” he breathed. “He left his mark — the missing page!”

Before I could dampen the mood with reason, thunder announced itself over the vineyards. A storm rolled in with the efficiency of divine punctuation. Wind pressed through the narrow slit; a loose shutter clattered like applause.

“We should descend,” I said. “History is crumbling in real time.”

But Trevor, determined to photograph the inscription, stepped onto a patch of flooring that had long since declared independence from architecture. There was a creak, a gasp, and a sudden, very medieval noise of splintering. Trevor vanished through a hole, leaving behind his camera and an echo of surprise.

I looked down: he had landed mercifully in a drift of hay or perhaps history. “All well?” I called.

“Entirely!” came the answer, muffled. “I have discovered a substructure!”

“You’ve discovered the ground floor,” I said, descending with as much dignity as a rescuer can muster in a thunderstorm.

By the time we emerged, rain was marching across the vineyards in serried ranks. The custodian stood under the gate arch, arms folded, looking precisely like authority personified. Trevor, dripping and euphoric, tried to explain that scholarship sometimes required unsanctioned enthusiasm.

She handed him his sodden notebook. “In France,” she said, “scholars also use doors.”

We rode back to Langon in silence, the road now a river and each pedal stroke a penance. Behind us, lightning framed Roquetaillade in brief, photographic flashes — our private apocalypse recorded in monochrome.

Trevor finally spoke: “Duffy, I think the initials were real.”

“I think the hole was,” I said.

He smiled, rain streaming off his nose. “It was worth it.”

“Every contusion,” I agreed.

Interlude — The Lady of the Canyon

“With reference to touring in France. There is no doubt that people would cheat you if possible. When we did not get an accurate statement of accounts we got huge bills (this only happened twice).” — T. E. Lawrence, letter to his mother, 1906

The road uncoiled downhill in a shimmer of heat. The storm had rinsed the sky to glass, and the limestone walls on either side of the gorge glowed like bleached parchment. Trevor rode ahead, humming a hymn that may have been Gregorian or merely hopeful. I followed, admiring the geometry of switchbacks and congratulating myself on our progress, when a small, unremarkable pebble altered the afternoon.

There was a sharp report — like a champagne cork fired by Providence — and my rear tyre expired with theatrical finality.

Trevor braked, turned, and coasted back, his shadow looping behind him. “Blowout?”

“Indeed,” I said, with a calm born of despair. “But not to worry. I’ve read extensively on the subject.”

I dismounted, removed my jacket, and began loosening the wheel. On ordinary occasions, I enjoy the illusion of mechanical mastery. On this one, the machine resisted like a mule with a union card. The rear chain assembly was a puzzle in blackened steel; the cable to the gears seemed to have taken holy orders and refused release.

“May I?” said Trevor, stooping.

“Thanks, but I can manage this on my own.”

He accepted that — and wisely. Within minutes my hands were a study in soot and blasphemy. Grease printed itself on my shirt cuffs, my cheek, and one especially theatrical streak across the bridge of my nose.

Trevor, whose faith in my competence had limits, glanced downhill and pointed. “That wall — do you see? Possibly twelfth century. A mill, perhaps, by the stream.”

“By all means,” I said, wrestling the rear axle. “Go commune with antiquity.”

He trotted off down the embankment, sketchbook in hand, leaving me to my contest with metallurgy. The air was still, cicadas holding their breath. I had just freed the wheel with a small cry of triumph when movement up the road caught my eye — a lone cyclist descending through the heatwaves, the sun behind it so that it appeared momentarily as a figure of fire and shadow.

It was a woman, riding with the self-possession of someone who knows she is being watched by the century. As she drew closer the mirage resolved into form — khaki slacks, wide-legged and cuffed, a narrow waist caught by a white shirt knotted above the belt. A ribbon bound her right trouser leg to spare it from the chain. She wore a small beret and a smile both continental and completely disarming.

“Bonjour!” she called as she drew to a halt beside me. “Can I be of assistance?”

“Well, actually, yes,” I managed. “I seem to have misplaced my, ah—”

“You mean your tire lever,” she said, producing one from her kit with the grace of a conjurer.

“That’s the term,” I said. “Quite slipped my mind.”

She knelt beside the bicycle, sleeves rolled just so, and proceeded to remove the tyre, patch the tube, and reseat the wheel with the serene precision of a surgeon at a matinée. Not a fleck of grease found her cuffs. When she tightened the chain and spun the wheel, it purred in gratitude.

“Voilà,” she said. “You may proceed to conquer France.”

“Not without your name,” I said.

“Monique.”

Of course it was. There are names that feel rehearsed by the landscape; hers was one of them. She mounted her bicycle — a sleek black Peugeot — and smiled. “Perhaps we ride together a little? It is better, no, to have witnesses to our success?”

Trevor reappeared, wiping dust from his knees, just in time to see her turn the pedals with unstudied grace. “Good heavens,” he murmured. “You’ve summoned Aphrodite on a touring cycle.”

“I did mention I was mechanical,” I said.

We rode three abreast for the rest of the afternoon, the canyon widening, the light turning honey-coloured. Conversation drifted between French and laughter. Monique knew the road to Uzès, the history of half its bridges, and where to find a decent claret that travelled well in a flask. She was, in short, the answer to a question I hadn’t known I’d been asking.

That evening, at an inn near the river, Trevor dined alone, claiming exhaustion and the need to “catalogue one’s impressions.” Monique and I took a bottle to the terrace and watched the last sun fall behind the poplars. What followed was not the sort of thing one records in a field notebook, but I recall thinking that even empiricism had its limits.

Morning revised the romance. Her side of the bed was empty. My wristwatch, wallet, notebook, and the annotated map of our route were gone. The sheets smelled faintly of lavender and irony.

I found Trevor downstairs, breakfasting with untroubled conscience. “She’s left you?” he asked mildly.

“With most of my worldly goods,” I said.

He poured coffee. “Lawrence would have admired her efficiency.”

Chapter V — The Weather Improves

“There is something knightly in this solitude — a sense that the road itself is a companion, impartial and severe.” — T. E. Lawrence, letter to his mother, 1908

Morning came as though apologising for the night. The storm had scrubbed the sky to a chastened blue, and the inn’s geraniums looked newly repentant. Trevor appeared at breakfast with a bandaged wrist and the moral certainty of a man whom history has merely jostled.

“The custodian,” he said, “wasn’t angry after all. She said she admired our devotion.”

“Ah,” I said, “devotion—the French word for trespass.”

He ignored the slander, as he always does when it concerns his better nature. “And the inscription, Duffy—those initials. Even if it was another hand, we’ve proved the legend could be true. That’s the point of inquiry: to give fact its chance.”

I buttered a croissant with scientific precision. “We’ve certainly given it every chance of escape.”

Trevor laughed and lifted his coffee in a toast. “To Lawrence, who left us something to find.”

“To the custodian,” I said, “who left us something to pay.”

We settled accounts with the innkeeper, who informed us that a group of German tourists had also gone to see Roquetaillade that morning but “would be using the proper entrance.” Trevor said he envied their innocence. I envied their sense of direction.

Outside, the air smelled of vines and wet earth—the sort of morning that makes you forgive civilisation for inventing breakfast. We wheeled our bicycles into the sunlight. The tyres steamed gently, as if remembering the previous day’s adventure.

Trevor examined the map, now a wrinkled palimpsest of good intentions. “Arles next,” he declared. “Lawrence turned east after this. We’ll follow his wheel tracks along the Rhône valley. Imagine—the castles of Provence, the Roman walls, the light that drove Van Gogh mad!”

“Excellent,” I said. “Perhaps we’ll find him on the return journey, painting the view of us leaving.”

Trevor looked up from the map, a glint of mischief in his eye. “If you’re writing up our journey, Duffy,” he said, “you might dedicate the chapter to the lady of the canyon.”

I pretended to consider it. “Yes. A footnote, perhaps — on the hazards of fieldwork.”

He smiled. “Romance is fieldwork, in your case.”

“Then I shall record it under ‘erosional features,’” I said, and we both laughed — which seemed the only civilised response to experience.

Trevor laughed, which was all the victory I required. We set off, the road glistening like a newly written sentence. The vineyards fell away, and the horizon opened to its usual conspiracy of promise.

After a few miles, we dismounted at a wayside café to take bearings. The proprietor recognised our mud-stained knickerbockers as a sign of either eccentricity or scholarship and brought two glasses of white wine without being asked. He studied our bicycles approvingly.

“Long road ahead, messieurs?”

“Not as long as the one behind,” I said.

Trevor raised his glass. “To the Middle Ages—still pedalling.”

I raised mine. “To the present—trying to keep up.”

The sun climbed; the wine declined. We mounted our bicycles and resumed the pilgrimage, our shadows riding slightly ahead as if to scout the next absurdity.

Duffy’s journal closes the entry there, with one final observation pencilled in the margin:

“The difference between a knight and a tourist is the rate of recovery.”

—Duffy Whitmore

Postscript — A Note on the Route

Map of Southern France, showing the route of T. E. Lawrence’s 1908 cycling expedition, as later retraced by Trevor Finch-Bligh and the present writer. Drawn from conjecture, hearsay, and the recollections of several waiters, this chart should not be relied upon for distances, gradients, or sobriety. The winding red line represents the general direction of enthusiasm rather than topographical fact.

End of Volume I — To Be Continued (eventually)

Part I — The Shepherdess of Time

(June, 1930 — or thereabouts)

It was Lord Thornton’s idea, of course. Known to us as “Ruffles,” he announced one morning that he required a first-class Border Collie — blue-ribbon pedigree, the sort of creature that could fetch the newspaper and then lecture on Plato if pressed. And he knew precisely where such paragons were bred: by his cousin, Sir Roger Scholefield, at Tyneholm Park, a thousand-acre estate through which the River Tyne ambles like a strip of tarnished silver.

Sir Roger’s hobby was raising Border Collies for the local shepherds — dogs of exquisite manners indoors yet ruthless efficiency out on the hills. To Lord Thornton, that combination of elegance and discipline sounded ideal. “Rather like Kamau,” he remarked.

Kamau, unruffled as ever, merely inclined his head.

Letters and Invitations

A letter went north.

Lord Thornton: “I hope you’ll accept a few friends as guests. It’s been ages since I’ve seen the lads. They’re both in the U.K. just now, so it’ll be a merry gathering.”

The reply came by telegram that evening:

Sir Roger: “The more the merrier. Keen to hear of these baffling slips in time you fellows keep encountering.”

The Lads

At that moment Trevor Finch-Bligh and I were engaged in a modest lecture series in Edinburgh — “Crinkles in Time: An Examination of Temporal Dislocations in the Ancient World.” Trevor delivered the photographic evidence; I supplied the anthropological embroidery. We used a magic-lantern projector hired from a firm in George Street, whose operator assured us it had once served to illuminate a Royal Geographical Society soirée.

Arrivals at Tyneholm Park

Lord Thornton and Kamau arrived first, Kamau at the wheel of a hired Rolls-Royce 20 hp limousine, its paintwork the colour of old port. Trevor and I followed an hour later in my uncle Sir Wilfred Whitmore’s Lagonda 2-litre tourer, top down, wind in our hair and the smell of heather thick enough to bottle.

Tyneholm Park appeared suddenly — long drive, cream-coloured gravel, the house a mellow grey pile with oriel windows and a conservatory spilling geraniums. Sir Roger greeted us on the steps, radiant.

“Ruffles! And these must be the celebrated explorers — come in, come in, I’ve chilled the claret!”

The Kennels

Barely had we taken refreshment on the verandah before Ruffles demanded a tour of the kennels.

The kennel yard lay behind a low stone barn built for training pups. A young collie bounded up — black and white, bright-eyed, every inch the heroine of a shepherd’s ballad.

“Her name’s Belle,” said Sir Roger proudly. “Already shows extraordinary promise. Shall we see her work?”

At his whistle Belle dropped into a crouch, circling three ewes in a half-acre paddock. A change of tone, a different pitch, and she slid left, right, forward — the very embodiment of intelligence in motion. When the sheep were neatly penned she trotted straight to Ruffles and leaned against his leg, gazing up adoringly.

“Looks like she’s chosen her master,” Sir Roger laughed. “But beware — genius commands a price.”

Ruffles stroked the dog’s head with the seriousness of a man sealing a treaty.

Dressing for Dinner

That evening Kamau laid out our dinner things with parade-ground precision. He himself wore a white jacket braided red and gold at the cuffs, double-breasted with brass buttons, dark trousers, and his Kikuyu silk turban. Ruffles begged him to sit and dine, but he declined as always, preferring his post beside the sideboard — “where the view of humanity is broadest,” he once explained.

Trevor burst into my room, tie askew and a book in hand. “Look what I found in the guest-room shelves — A History of Medieval Bridges of Scotland! There’s one here, Duffy, on this very estate — the Brig o’ Tyne, sixteenth century at least. I mean to see it at first light. Care to join me?”

“Not I,” I said, tightening my bow tie. “My ambition for the morning runs more to reading The Times in Sir Roger’s conservatory, over Eggs Benedict, oat toast, and Kamau’s incomparable Ethiopian brew.”

Trevor shook his head pityingly at my lack of enterprise and vanished down the corridor.

After-Dinner Diversions

After dinner we gathered in Sir Roger’s library for coffee, liqueur, and cigars. The air was thick with Havana smoke and the faint perfume of furniture polish. Trevor and I had prepared what Ruffles called “an illustrated entertainment on the mysteries of antiquity.” In truth, it was our lecture on the fabled Sator Squares — the Roman palindromes still being discovered on crumbling walls throughout southern France.

I began, as chronicler.

“Trevor discovered a Sator Square embedded on a venerable wall, half hidden beneath a tumble of bougainvillea,” I said. “The famous Roman palindrome — SATOR AREPO TENET OPERA ROTAS — five words that read the same forward, backward, up, or down. The code of early Christians, some claim; a cosmic crossword, others.”

Trevor beamed and interrupted. “A new find! We’ll dazzle them at the Royal Geographical Society, Duffy. No one has searched or studied Sators for years. It’ll become our specialty.”

“I had to calm him,” I told the company, “offering my whisky flask and recommending deep breathing. He insisted on documenting the thing properly — photographing it from every angle and sketching it in his travel-worn notebook, dimensions carefully noted.”

I let the slide click to the next image. “While he worked, I sat in the shade of an old foundation stone. Presently two ladies appeared, speaking excitedly about their new garden decorations — their new Sator Squares.”

I shifted to French. “‘Bonjour! Where did you find that historic treasure?’ I asked. ‘From the ceramic shop just around the corner,’ they replied.”

“Imagine my difficulty,” I said, “when I looked back to see Trevor, archaeologist’s brush poised above the R of ROTAS, staring in horror.”

Laughter rippled through the room. Even Kamau’s eyes glinted.

“I ambled down the street,” I continued, “and there, sure enough, was a delightful shop selling fine ceramics — specialising in Sator Squares by the dozen.”

Trevor took over with his usual conviction. “Regardless of any shopkeeper’s claims,” he said, “the specimen I found was of Roman manufacture. The fellow merely chose that wall for his sign because it looked respectable. The palindrome itself predates his business by fifteen centuries.”

Cigar smoke drifted through the projector’s beam, giving the photographs of the wall and the bougainvillea a fluttering, ghostly shimmer. Sir Roger leaned forward, the brandy in his glass untouched.

“What my dear friend neglects to mention,” Trevor said grandly, “is that while he was bargaining with the ceramicist, I continued my ascent and found another square in a nearby village — its provenance beyond question.”

“It’s true,” I admitted. “I omitted that heroic detail so I might toast his persistence later.”

I lifted my liqueur glass.

“To starlight on forgotten stones, to maps without edges, and to the splendid uncertainty of finding one’s way.”

The toast drew a murmur of approval. Only Sir Roger did not smile. He regarded us with that level, appraising gaze that can drain a room of warmth.

Sir Roger tapped the bowl of his pipe. “They were a rather disreputable lot, those carnies,” he said. “Travelling show-people with a weather-stained van and an accordion that never quite stayed in tune. They turned up uninvited at our summer fête — the sort of thing the committee pretends not to notice until it’s too late — and by tea-time had wedged themselves between the horticultural tent and the coconut shy.

“They put up a rather garish tent beside the cricket ground, hung with coloured bunting and a placard promising Marvels of Science and Mystery. Inside were the usual trifles — a two-headed duckling in a jar, a mirror that made one appear to hover, and a gentleman who claimed to read the future by examining the soles of one’s shoes. The local matrons queued for an hour to be told they had ‘walked far and would walk farther still.’ It was all splendid nonsense.

“At the same fête,” Sir Roger went on, “they had a tent for the local produce competition — cakes, jams, and so forth. A pair of the fellows got in after hours and rearranged all the labels. The vicar’s wife’s orange marmalade took first prize for Chutney, the blackcurrant jelly was re-entered as Patent Floor Polish, and a rather sorry fruitcake won a ribbon marked Best Exhibit — Any Variety of Root Vegetable.

“The judges, decent souls, did their best to preserve order, but by the time the truth was out the ladies’ committee had collapsed in tears and the band had struck up Rule, Britannia! to drown the noise. It was, I recall, the only moment of real animation that fête ever produced.”

He smiled faintly, tamping his pipe. “So you see, gentlemen, I’ve a small weakness for illusion — provided it declares itself a joke in the end.”

The room went still; only the crackle of the hearth answered him. Ruffles looked momentarily chastened.

Then Kamau stepped forward and replenished Roger’s glass. “In my country,” he said softly, “we say that the past enjoys being remembered — but not being laughed at. Tonight, I think, the past is smiling.”

Roger’s sternness dissolved into a nod. The laughter returned — quiet, civilised, grateful — and the evening, thus rescued, drifted on toward midnight.

Morning in the Conservatory

Morning sunlight poured through the conservatory glass, catching the ferns and the silver coffee pot alike. Kamau, now in his safari khakis and crimson fez, moved soundlessly between the tables.

Sir Roger, buttering toast, asked whether our photographic lecture had been well received in London.

“Mixed reviews,” I said. “Trevor means to redeem our reputation by capturing the Brig o’ Tyne — claims the bridge is haunted by something temporal.”

“Trevor still abed?” asked Ruffles.

“Already gone,” I said. “Off to inspect a medieval bridge — the Brig o’ Tyne.”

Sir Roger looked up. “Across that bridge lives my niece Megyn. Fine girl, Edinburgh Uni, runs her own smallholding. We’ll have her to dinner tonight. But the bridge itself is derelict. Attractive from a distance, yes, but unsafe to cross.”

Kamau was already half-risen. “I’ll bring the Rolls round.”

“I’ll join you,” I added. “Better two of us than one.”

The Herding Exhibition

After breakfast Sir Roger led Lord Thornton to the high pasture for a proper demonstration. From that vantage the River Tyne shone below like a coiled mirror, sheep dotted across the far meadows.

“At a soft command — ‘Fly, go by! Away to me, Belle!’ — the pair raced out in perfect arcs. With each whistle the flock edged nearer, calm as pilgrims.”

The Bridge

Meanwhile Trevor, armed with his Leica and his bridge monograph, had found the Brig o’ Tyne easily enough. The stone arch rose from the water like something dreamt by a mason-poet.

As he knelt to photograph the keystone, a voice drifted down.

“Hallo there.”

He looked up. A young woman stood on the parapet — long dark skirt, green waistcoat, fair hair catching the light. She held a shepherd’s crook with the casual grace of someone born to it.

“Visiting Uncle Roger?” she asked. “I’m Meg.”

He blinked. “Trevor Finch-Bligh. Guilty as charged.”

She smiled. “Admiring our old Brig, then?”

“Indeed. Sixteenth-century workmanship — astonishing.”

“Come to the cottage for tea,” she said simply. And he went.

They talked by the fire about stonework and ancestry until the shadows lengthened. “Are your people Scandinavian?” he asked. She laughed. “A touch of Viking, they say — though the sheep care little.”

When she walked him back to the bridge, he turned once to ask whether he might call again next day — but the parapet was empty. No Meg, no crook, only the echo of water under the arch.

Trevor stood very still. “Oh dear,” he murmured. “A Crinkle.”

Kamau on the Hill

The Rolls climbed through mist and heather. From the crest they saw the old stone arch honey-coloured in the morning light.

Trevor stood on the span, camera poised. “Kamau! Duffy! You won’t believe—”

Kamau sighed. “Too late. He’s met Meg.”

Trevor reached us, breathless. “I just had tea with a shepherdess from another century! Megyn! Golden-haired, radiant — I’m in love!”

Kamau regarded him levelly. “My advice, Mr Finch-Bligh, is to speak of bridges, not of centuries. Sir Roger was not impressed with your presentation last evening, and he’s protective of his niece. Lord Thornton and he have only just renewed friendship, and Lord Thornton is close to acquiring Belle — his blue-ribbon collie. You don’t want to queer that pitch.”

Trevor opened his mouth, still radiant with wonder.

“Gentlemen,” Kamau continued, “for the remainder of the day we remain in the empirical world. Whatever you have seen — or think you’ve seen — must keep till after dinner. Sir Roger has invited Miss Megyn to join us tonight.”

The Rolls purred down the hill, the bridge shrinking behind. Above its single arch a wisp of mist curled upward, twisting like smoke from a projector’s beam.

Part II — The Second Dinner Party

The dining-room shimmered with silver and candlelight. Sir Roger stood to receive his niece; Megyn entered on his arm with composed grace. Across the flowers Trevor met her glance, pressed a finger briefly to his lips, and the unspoken pact was sealed: strangers before witnesses.

Lord Thornton spoke of dog trials and weather; I murmured agreement and applied myself to the soup. Roger presided like a tolerant judge. Conversation meandered from collies to archaeology until Trevor, fatally honest, mentioned “the archaeology of the invisible.” Roger’s fork hovered; I diverted him toward the comparative stubbornness of rams and undergraduates, and calm was restored.

Midway through the soufflé a half-trained collie burst into the room like a small cyclone. Napkins flew; the puppy circled, ignored commands, and settled triumphantly at Megyn’s feet when she whispered “Sit.” Laughter followed, and Roger, robbed of irritation, surrendered a smile.

Coffee and brandy were served in the library, where Kamau awaited beside the lantern projector. “A small dessert of my own devising,” he announced. “Please be so good as to take it here.”

Trevor and Megyn contrived to slip through a side door onto the verandah for air. The night lay cool and moonlit; the Tyne gleamed beyond the trees. Their talk dwindled to silence; faces drew close. Then came Kamau’s discreet cough from the doorway.

“Pardon, sir, madam — dessert is being served in the library. I recommend sampling it while it’s warm.”

They returned like chastened children.

The lights were dimmed; the chairs arranged as for a performance. Kamau stood by the projector. “Before dessert,” he said, “a single slide. Consider it a curiosity.”

The beam struck the screen: the Brig o’ Tyne at dusk. In the foreground stood a woman in flawless medieval dress, her hair bound in a golden snood — unmistakably Megyn. A collective intake of breath; Roger half-rose, knuckles white on the chair arms. Trevor sat frozen. Megyn did not move.

Then the image trembled, flared, and vanished. Kamau drew the slide from the carrier; the glass was blank. “Light,” he murmured, “forgets what men remember.”

Roger’s voice came, cool and final. “If you will excuse me, ladies and gentlemen — it has been a long day.” He left the room.

That night the house sighed itself to sleep. Roger lay awake, staring at the ceiling, replaying the groundsman’s report of the morning — Megyn and the young man in her cottage. He had meant to challenge them, and then that impossible slide… “Trickery,” he whispered, “or something older than trickery?”

One A.M. — A Soft Knocking at the Door

The house slept under a long wind. Somewhere beyond the conservatory glass a branch dragged against the stonework with a sound like a penitent’s whisper.

Then—a knock. Soft, hesitant, but deliberate.

Trevor rose, barefoot on the carpet, and opened the door a cautious inch.

There stood Megyn, a candle trembling in its pewter holder, the light fluttering over her hair so that it seemed spun from the same flame. She was in her nightdress, barefoot, the hem brushing the floor, her expression somewhere between apology and conspiracy.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “The wind’s pushing the branches against my window. It sounds as though someone’s trying to get in.”

Trevor glanced down the corridor—no one. “Come in, quickly.”

He caught her forearm lightly, the way one might steady a dancer at the start of a reel, and drew her inside. The door closed with an almost civilised click.

For a moment neither spoke. The candlelight flickered over the brass bedstead, over the books scattered on the chair, over her face half-turned toward the fire.

“Well,” Trevor said at last, “I daresay we can outwit a few branches.”

Megyn gave a nervous laugh, then met his gaze—an instant too long for mere reassurance.

Outside, the wind muttered its complaint along the eaves, but inside, all was conspiratorial stillness.

Two A.M. — The Bleating

From the fields came a cry, thin and lost. Doors opened; candles flared. Roger, already wrestling with trousers under his nightshirt, hurried past my door. In the next room Megyn stirred.

“What is it, darling?” she murmured.

Trevor was already up. “Nothing. Go back to sleep.” He grabbed a lantern and ran.

Mist clung to the meadow; the Tyne murmured below. A ewe stood trapped, roots knotted round her leg, a lamb wailing beside her. Roger was in the mud, grappling with both. “Hold still, girl,” he grunted — and slipped.

“Hold on, sir!” Trevor splashed down, caught him under the arms, and heaved. The lamb broke free; both men slid towards deeper water.

“Rope,” said a calm voice.

Kamau appeared at the bank, coiled rope in hand. Three motions — and man, ewe, and lamb were on solid ground again.

Roger looked from Kamau to Trevor. “Well,” he said at last, very low, “it appears your Crinkles include miracles.”

“Hardly that, sir,” said Trevor, wiping his face and grinning like a boy. “Only a bridge between inconveniences.”

First Light

At first light the house told itself the story in improved versions. Towels were brought, and blankets, and a brandy whose sincerity could not be doubted. Lord Thornton congratulated everybody impartially, and Belle, hearing her name in the commotion, presented herself as if the whole affair had been arranged for her benefit. The puppy, who had no part in it whatsoever, accepted credit with his usual grace.

Sir Roger, dry and proper once more, held out his hand to Trevor. “Mr Finch-Bligh,” he said, “a man who pulls another out of the Tyne may be permitted an interest in bridges.” He hesitated, then added in a tone that might almost have been amusement, “Even bridges that misbehave.”

Kamau poured coffee into the silence that followed. “Bridges, sir, prefer to be crossed twice,” he observed. “Once in doubt, and once in understanding.”

Megyn looked over her cup at Trevor, and somewhere behind the formality I thought I heard the faintest bell struck on a day that had not yet begun.

Thus ended the Second Dinner Party at Tyneholm Park; and if the Brig o’ Tyne keeps its own counsel about what it saw, I, for one, will not insist upon cross-examination.

—Duffy Whitmore

The Spotter’s Shack

By Duffy Whitmore

Chapter I – Rosehip in the Moonlight

We made landfall at dusk, though landfall is rather too grand a term for our soft-nosed approach to a coral-wrapped crescent of tropical indolence. The Rosehip—Lord Thornton’s teak yacht, polished to a sullen gleam and as stubbornly British as a buttered crumpet—glided into the lee side of Eglantine Isle (so christened by Ruffles after a half-remembered poem and a wholly-remembered bottle of rosé) as if it had done so before, though charts marked the place with only a rude swirl and the note: Uninhabited. Possibly volcanic.

“She’s no volcano,” Ruffles declared, setting down his binoculars and flexing the sort of forearms that once hoisted gunsights in East Africa and now hoisted iced gin in East Mombasa. “She’s a good girl. A very good girl.”

Rory had taken to wearing only linen shorts, a pith helmet, and a necklace of dog tags of unknown origin. He was applying coconut oil to his knees with religious devotion.

“I feel a change coming,” he muttered.

“You’ve got heatstroke,” said Trevor, who was sunburned, shirtless, and thumbing through The Golden Bough as if it might contain instructions on how to converse with half-naked goddesses in Polynesian dialects.

Kamau stood barefoot at the prow, hands behind his back, perfectly balanced despite the swell. His fez—by now quite threadbare—clung to his head as if by spell. He alone looked ready to found a republic or win a naval commendation. I was just trying not to drop the silver tea service.

“Steady on,” I said, as we passed a reef that looked like it might resent intrusion.

Rosehip moored without fuss. Kamau supervised the anchor drop. I supervised the sherry.

The shore was low and lush—pandanus, breadfruit, and towering coconut palms, each bearing the weight of some indeterminate history. The boat hut on Eglantine’s Vahine Beach had been assembled in advance (a favour called in, a fee quietly paid), and now stood like a Croquet Pavilion that had absconded from Kent in a drunken haze and washed up here, complete with a flagpole and a half-hearted windsock.

There were five huts arranged in a crescent and a lavatory that bore the discreet stencilling: “Constructed by Her Majesty’s Engineers, 1928.” There was bamboo piping for the water, a whisky store behind a false bookcase labelled Naval Signalling: Volume III, and a hammock strung between two palms that Rory insisted had spoken to him. The man was in a delicate state.

We dined aboard the Rosehip that first night, more from habit than necessity. Ruffles insisted we not “go native” too quickly. I believe his exact phrase was: “Let the jungle peer in, if it must—but we shan’t be flinging open the shutters just yet.”

Kamau brought out the maps. Trevor brought out the rum. Rory brought out his ukelele and attempted a rendition of I’ll Be Seeing You, which somehow ended in a lament for an American stewardess he’d met once in Darwin.

I went ashore after supper, alone, as the moon was rising over the island and the palms whispered things they clearly hadn’t told the Admiralty. I found the lavatory rather better than expected, the beds adequate, and the view—of the sister island across the narrow channel—so lovely I nearly forgave the Empire for all its sins.

She rose out of the sea like a sleeping figure in a carved canoe: the larger island, roughly a mile off, and known to us only as Vahine Island, based on some half-buried reference in a captain’s log and Rory’s loose translation of a local legend. We believed it uninhabited—indeed, perhaps never inhabited at all. That, as we would later learn, was an error of some consequence.

I returned to the Rosehip to find Ruffles plotting out croquet lanes on a topographical map and Kamau setting out quinine pills beside our wineglasses.

“To health, and to temporary exile,” said Lord Thornton, raising his glass.

“To forgotten islands and remembered names,” I added, though I hadn’t any names in mind just then.

We drank, and I remember thinking that if anything did happen—if war, or ghosts, or Polynesian sorceresses decided to intervene—it would be, at the very least, amusing.

And so, by moonlight, we stepped ashore. We had no inkling of Captain Paterson, nor of camouflage nets, radios, or the “Able-Baker” codebooks that would soon determine whether we were spotters, fools, or mere shadows in the jungle.

But that was all to come.

Chapter II – Polynesian Proximities

It was the second morning, and we had not yet quarrelled—a suspicious start, in my experience. Even Rory, who had slept outdoors in what he called a “hammock bivouac” (complete with mosquito netting and a copy of Leaves of Grass tucked under his arm), appeared oddly serene.

Breakfast was taken beneath a breadfruit tree: eggs (tinned), marmalade (English), and a leathery local fruit we referred to as “island plums” until Kamau informed us, quite gently, that they were neither.

Trevor, who had been up early sketching vines and theorising about pre-Christian fire rituals, returned breathless and sun-dappled.

“I’ve found them,” he said.

“Found what?” I asked.

“The Vahines. Possibly pre-contact. Almost certainly matrilineal. They were bathing. At a waterfall. There were flowers in their hair and spears on the ground. One of them looked exactly like a bronze at the British Museum.”

“Are you certain they weren’t coconut gatherers?”

“No,” he said. “They shimmered.”

Ruffles looked up from his folding chair.

“You didn’t speak to them, I hope?”

Trevor was silent a moment. “I bowed.”

Kamau refilled the tea. “I believe the Royal Geographical Society discourages bowing to people you’ve just discovered, sir.”

Trevor produced a torn page from his sketchbook. It featured a semi-nude figure of improbable grace, balancing a basket on one hip and glancing backward over one shoulder in what can only be described as classical Polynesian contrapposto. There were flowers, yes. Also spears.

“She seemed to be leading the others. I think she’s the matriarch. Or the regent. Or a spirit.”

“You’re not drinking the palm wine again, are you?” I asked.

“Only ceremonially.”

We debated the nature of his encounter over elevenses. Ruffles maintained that the women were part of an Australian government experiment in female-led agriculture. Rory was convinced they were nuns. Kamau, as usual, withheld judgement until more evidence arrived, which it invariably did.

That afternoon, while inspecting the camp’s bamboo piping system (which had begun to gurgle ominously), I found Trevor packing a haversack with field notebooks, sketching pencils, and a large tin of biscuits.

“You’re going back,” I said.

“I must,” he replied. “It would be academically irresponsible not to.”

“You’re bringing an alarming amount of talcum powder for an academic.”

“Humidity,” he said. “And etiquette.”

I let him go, with a strict injunction to remain visible and not to attempt any ritual drumming, however “natural” it might feel. Rory, who had been tying seaweed into his hair, offered to accompany him. Trevor declined. “This is something I must get wrong on my own,” he said.

Trevor returned at dusk, barefoot, slightly scratched, and in a state of profound ecstasy.

“They sang,” he whispered, as Kamau administered iodine.

“Did they offer you food?” I asked.

“Only silence.”

“Did they ask you to leave?”

“No. They smiled. It was the smile of someone who already knows how the story ends.”

We retired to the deck of the Rosehip, where Ruffles, undisturbed by metaphysical revelations, was practising semaphore with two cocktail napkins. He waved them with great solemnity in the direction of the larger island.

“I believe that’s Vahine Island,” he said. “Though no one seems entirely sure.”

Rory stared out at it, now a silhouette against the moonrise.

“Vahine,” he said dreamily. “It means woman, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Kamau. “And, occasionally, trouble.”

Chapter III – Howya Goin’, We’re at War

It was midday when the Rosehip’s nautical stillness was disturbed—not by weather, which remained offensively perfect, but by the mechanical growl of two Australian naval cutters rounding the eastern promontory like bulldogs sniffing out a gin rickey.

Rory was in the hammock reading Hawaiian Mythology. Trevor was rinsing a roll of film in a coconut shell. Ruffles was inspecting a compass rose he’d redrawn in the sand using a stick and what I later realised was his toothbrush.

“I say,” he remarked, without looking up, “those are rather official-looking boats.”

I reached for the binoculars. Kamau was already at the shoreline.

“They’re flying the White Ensign,” he said, not unhappily.

Moments later, the boats grounded smartly on the beach and discharged a squad of grinning, sun-hatted Australians in navy khaki. They moved with the casual efficiency of men who had been instructed to treat all things as temporary—including orders, equipment, and war itself. They unloaded crates (marked RATIONS, RADIO EQUIPMENT, ANTI-MOSQUITO) with disconcerting cheer.

A tall man in a battered officer’s cap stepped forward and doffed it with a flourish.

“‘Owya goin’? Captain Paterson. Royal Australian Navy. Sorry to drop in, chaps, but I’m afraid we’re commandeering your island for the war effort.”

Ruffles blinked. “War? What the devil are you on about?”

Paterson smiled apologetically. “Bit of a kerfuffle on. The Japanese are making their way through the Solomons, and Sydney thinks this little patch of paradise might offer useful eyes and ears.”

“You mean to say you’re pressing us into service?”

“I’d rather say enlisting local knowledge. You’re now officially trained observers for the Royal Navy. Spotters, if you prefer.”

“We’ve only just unpacked,” said Trevor.

“You’ll be unpacking new things shortly. Charts. Binoculars. Field radios. The whole shebang.”

“And the Rosehip?” I asked, as the Chaps turned to gaze fondly at her varnished hull.

Paterson pursed his lips. “Couldn’t risk her being spotted from a plane. Rather distinctive. We’re draping her in camo netting and shifting her just inside the reef. She’ll be invisible by nightfall.”

Kamau nodded. “Much better than scuttling her.”

“I was told scuttling was an option,” Paterson admitted. “But seemed a shame. Lovely ship.”

“Indeed she is,” Ruffles growled.

The rest of the afternoon passed in an uncharacteristic flurry. The Australians demonstrated use of the Type 3 field radio. Kamau mastered it instantly. Rory nearly electrocuted himself. Trevor accidentally tuned into a Polynesian soap opera, which he insisted was “a remarkable oral history performance.”

Each of us was assigned a hut—discreetly concealed in the inner forest. The foliage had been artfully rearranged by the Australians, who seemed to possess a natural flair for tropical concealment.

Before the Aussies left, Paterson laid out the final condition.

“You’ll rotate shifts. Two men on Eglantine Isle. Two on the larger island—what was the name?”

“Vahine,” said Rory, dreamily.

Paterson raised an eyebrow. “Means ‘woman’ in Tahitian, doesn’t it?”

Kamau gave a quiet, knowing smile.

“There are women there,” said Trevor, not looking up from his Leica. “They shimmer.”

Paterson paused. “Well. All the more reason to rotate. Let’s not start any frontier marriages.”

The cutters departed with waves and good-natured catcalls. The island, now militarised in spirit if not in posture, fell quiet again.

That night, we dined in the Rosehip’s saloon. The oil lanterns cast their usual honeyed glow. Ruffles polished the Harrison chronometer with a cloth embroidered Hôtel de Crillon, 1929. Kamau served a slightly bruised mango atop a silver dish and offered whisky in glasses that clicked satisfyingly into place when returned to their shelves.

Outside, in the moonlit hush, our new duties waited.

Rory poured another drink and stared at the charts.

“I don’t know the Japanese word for flirtation,” he said, “but I intend to learn it.”

We drank to that. And to the Spotter’s Shack, wherever it might lead us.

Chapter IV – Hut Duty Rotation

The rotation system began the following morning with an imperial sense of order and ended by tea with two missing socks, a mild case of heatstroke, and a spirited debate over whether coconut milk was a suitable substitute for Earl Grey.

Kamau drew up the schedule. It was, naturally, flawless: two men stationed on Eglantine Isle, two on Vahine. Three days on duty, three days off. Spotter shacks had been installed in the islands’ interior highlands—shaded, camouflaged, and unpleasantly fragrant. Each was fitted with a field radio, a collapsible cot, silhouette charts for enemy aircraft and ships, a water drum, and a tin labelled Biscuits, Tactical.

Trevor Finch-Blythe and I drew the first shift on Vahine. Rory and Lord Thornton remained on Eglantine, though Ruffles insisted on referring to it as “Headquarters” and began writing daily memoranda to no one in particular.

Trevor’s Spotter’s Shack—elevated above a small ravine—had the charm of an abandoned henhouse and smelled like something lost in translation. We unpacked our kits, surveyed the charts, and tested the radio.

Trevor cranked the generator, donned the headset, and began his inaugural call to Naval Command, Sydney:

“This is Station Able-Tare-Fox transmitting from Grid Quadrant Niner-Zed-Niner, come in, over.”

A long squawk of static answered.

“Able-Tare-Fox to Base Command. Requesting confirmation of frequency. And—er—are there any enemy vessels in the vicinity? Over.”

More static. Then, faintly:

“Able-Fox-Baker this is Command. Negative on hostile movement. Repeat, negative. Please confirm bearing of reported foxbat over reefline. Over.”

Trevor blinked.

“I didn’t report a foxbat,” he whispered. “What’s a foxbat?”

“You probably mispronounced something,” I said, checking the chart. “Maybe they thought you said ‘Foxtrot Bat’?”

“I said Fox. For Fox. As in the Able-Baker phonetic code.”

“You said Tare-Fox. That’s Tango-Foxtrot in modern terms, which isn’t even alphabetically sequential.”

“This is precisely why I prefer semaphore.”

At twilight, we took shifts at the radio. I kept my reports brief:

“This is Station Able-Easy-How transmitting from elevation four-nine metres. Visibility fair. No enemy vessels or aircraft sighted. Over.”

And then:

“Correction: local seabird has landed on radio aerial. Repeat, not Japanese drone. Just a bird. Over.”

Sydney’s reply was crisp:

“Copy that, Able-Easy-How. Please advise next time before initiating an emergency signal. Bird classified as Non-Hostile.”

Trevor sulked. “They’re mocking us.”

Rory, meanwhile, attempted a supply request using the radio on Eglantine:

“Able-Roger-Roger-Yoke calling Base Command. Require re-supply of tinned peaches and—er—Beef Wellington, if possible. Over.”

A long pause. Then, drolly:

“Negative on Wellington. Sending Bully Beef and Poetry Anthology.”

Life in the shacks fell into a rhythm of semi-competence. We awoke with the sun, recorded vessel sightings (usually dugout canoes), swatted insects with a back issue of The Illustrated London News, and counted the days until it was someone else’s turn to be devoured by mosquitos.

Kamau, of course, became a paragon of spotting excellence. His logs were meticulous. His signal reports were praised by Sydney. He had taken to using the phonetic alphabet with the sort of musical precision one associates with professional cellists.

“Able-King-King to Base Command. Single-engine floatplane spotted, bearing One-Niner-Zed. Request confirmation. Over.”

Back at the Rosehip, Ruffles had taken to donning a naval dressing gown and referring to Kamau as “Commander,” which Kamau bore with the same expression he used for snakes and Anglican hymns.

Trevor’s mood brightened when he spotted the bathing vahines again—this time, from his perch with the Leica. He swore they waved.

“I’m beginning to believe,” he said, “that this island may be timeless.”

“I believe you need to wind your watch,” I replied.

Our first week ended with only one false alarm, three confirmed seabirds, and a misinterpreted reference to a “Zero bearing East” that turned out to be Kamau’s remark about the whisky supply.

Still, the codebooks were smudged with fingerprints, the radios functioned, and the Chaps—despite their various eccentricities—were operational.

Somewhere out there, the war carried on. But in the Spotter’s Shack, beneath the thatch and the camouflage netting, we had found a rhythm of our own.

Chapter V – The Crinkle Expands

Trevor Finch-Blythe—now officially designated “Able-Fox-Zed” by Naval Command—had taken to sketching spirals in the margins of his spotting log.

“These aren’t just doodles,” he insisted, flipping open the waterproof brass case that held his precious rolls of exposed Leica film. “They’re—well—emanations.”

“From what?” I asked.

He pointed vaguely toward the jungle.

“From time.”

The event occurred, or so he claimed, on the third evening of his second shift rotation. He’d gone inland for water and, as was his habit, wandered slightly beyond the prescribed patrol radius.

There, beneath a thicket of hibiscus, he claimed to have witnessed “a distortion of light, not unlike heat-ripple over tarmac, except it formed a helix and moved with uncanny deliberation.” A shaft of sunlight passed through the spiral like a stained-glass lance. And in its midst stood the matriarchal Vahine, whom Trevor had now named Tevarua—the name coming to him, he said, “fully formed, like a baptismal recollection.”

I asked if he’d managed a photograph.

“Only one,” he said. “The shutter jammed afterward. When I wound it back, the reel was hot.”

Back at the Rosehip, we took the incident with our usual diplomatic scepticism, which is to say: Rory applauded, Ruffles grunted, Kamau wrote something in his notebook, and I began preparing a statement for the Royal Geographical Society just in case any of it turned out to be true.

Kamau, for his part, observed a peculiar shift in the environment. “Birdsong patterns are changing,” he noted. “There is also a rhythmic thumping in the canopy at dawn—possibly drumming, possibly coconuts.”

I suggested he consider the possibility of ghostly Polynesian percussionists. He did not smile.

We decided to verify Trevor’s sighting. Kamau and I trekked to the site and found—oddly—a circle of smoothed earth in the middle of the jungle, about nine feet across, no tracks, no prints, just a single white blossom left precisely in the centre.

“I believe you’ve found the set for an avant-garde opera,” I told him.

Kamau crouched low. “Or a ceremony.”

Later that night, back in the shack, I saw something myself. A flicker of motion at the treeline. A pulse of faint blue light.

I reached for the field glasses and saw… nothing. Or rather, I saw what had always been there—palms, moonlight, the heavy hush of a windless sea—but all of it felt staged, arranged. Expected.

I radioed it in.

“Able-Easy-How to Command. No vessels. No aircraft. No unusual movement except a vague premonition of metaphysical drift. Please advise.”

To their credit, Sydney replied.

“Understood. Possibly heatstroke. Drink water. Refrain from abstract metaphysics in future comms.”

Fair enough.

Meanwhile, on Eglantine, Rory was attempting to fulfil his spotting duties while fending off the most charming incursion in the history of colonial field observation.

The Spotter’s Shack had been quiet most of the day—Ruffles had gone off to inspect the camouflaged netting with a brandy and field glasses, and Kamau was presumably hauling Finch-Blythe back from whatever century he’d wandered into. Rory, shirt half-buttoned, was at his post.

The Vahine entered without a sound, as if part of the hut’s woven walls had simply unfastened itself into life. She was barefoot, with a tiare blossom in her hair and a calm, amused expression. Rory, to his credit, did not faint. But he did lean backward rather suddenly, upsetting a folding stool.

“Ah,” he said, regaining balance. “You’ve come to—ah—deliver a message from the, er, council of elders?”

She said nothing. Instead, she drifted toward the wall where a laminated silhouette chart displayed the profiles of Japanese aircraft. She ran her finger slowly along the column.

First: Zeke — the Mitsubishi A6M Zero, that nimble little killer that had chewed through the Pacific like scissors through bunting.

Then: Val — the Aichi D3A dive bomber, remembered best by those who barely lived to describe it.

Finally: Betty — the Mitsubishi G4M, long-range bomber. The one that carried Admiral Yamamoto to his doom.

She paused there. Tilted her head. Said nothing.

At the time, we chalked it up to flirtation. But later, after the records were read and the reports decoded, I wondered if she hadn’t been trying to tell him something.

The radio crackled to life.

Rory scrambled for the headset, only to find the Vahine now inspecting the elevation contour map beneath his notebook.

“Able-Roger-Roger-Yoke, this is Base Command. Please confirm vessel sighting. Repeat, confirm sighting at coordinate Baker-Zed-Niner. Over.”

The Vahine picked up a pencil and drew a small smiley face in the ocean margin.

Rory pressed the transmitter:

“Base Command, sighting unconfirmed. Repeat: vessel possibly a canoe. Or large driftwood. Or spiritual metaphor. Standing by. Over.”

“Copy that, Able-Roger-Roger-Yoke. Standing by. Advise next report includes actual intel. Out.”

The Vahine leaned toward him. “You talk to the sky-men?”

“Only when they ask nicely.”

She took his hand, gently, and led him out of the shack, down a fern-shrouded path toward the interior. Rory, always ready to surrender to mystery, followed without hesitation—his headset still clutched in one hand, his dog tags swinging against his chest like a wind chime of poor decisions.

They reached a lagoon so pristine it might have been painted. Water shimmered in pink and jade. Tiny fish performed nervous choreography near the shallows. The Vahine slid into the water without sound, beckoned.

Rory hesitated for a beat, then stepped out of his shorts.

“God save the King,” he murmured—and waded in.

From that day forward, the Chaps silently agreed not to mention the Vahine’s visits. Rory was, quite clearly, in possession of a girlfriend. She was intelligent, flirtatious, and extraordinarily beautiful in the way only someone unbothered by history can be. And though the war raged beyond the reef, the only invasion we feared was that of romantic ruin. We didn’t speak of her out loud, lest we jinx it.

Trevor now believed the Crinkle had widened.

“I can feel it,” he said. “As if time has become pleated—like a linen napkin folded too many times.”

He’d begun sketching shell spirals with new intensity. He now referred to them as “maps of the temporal seam.”

Kamau logged the following:

Day Twelve. Subject Finch-Blythe continues to mistake cultural encounters for metaphysical phenomena. Recommend observing from a distance unless the spiral manifests physically. If it does, notify Command immediately—or Duffy, whichever is faster.

There would be no final declaration of truth—only the odd conviction that something had happened, was still happening, and would likely happen again.

Trevor, for his part, had begun composing his RGS address in the third person.

“Let them scoff,” he said. “They mocked Wallace before Darwin plagiarised him.”

“Are you Wallace in this metaphor?” I asked.

“Obviously.”

Chapter VI – The Maimiti Interlude

To say that Lord Thornton “found himself” on Vahine Island would be to overstate the matter. But it is certainly true that something found him.

Her name was actually, Maimiti.

She appeared one morning beside the freshwater spring as Ruffles was consulting a map under the obliging shade of a breadfruit tree. He was holding forth, aloud and to no one in particular, on the difficulties of defending two small islands with four misfits, one radio, and an increasingly symbolic yacht.

Moerani interrupted him by laughing—a low, unselfconscious sound that echoed off the volcanic slope and unsettled every British assumption Ruffles had brought with him.

She offered him water in a calabash and corrected his Tahitian pronunciation with such gentleness that he immediately handed her the map and said, “Perhaps you’d better navigate.”

Thereafter, Maimiti became a fixture of Ruffles’ daily routine.

She moved through the jungle with quiet authority, carried a small basket filled with limes, sea salt, and dried fish, and offered the kind of logistical insights one typically expects from Admiralty quartermasters. Her presence unsettled none of us—she simply belonged.

More curiously, she referred to the islands not as “Eglantine” and “Vahine,” but with older names, musical and difficult to spell. She said they had always been places of retreat and confusion, “where the boundaries were less strict.”

She called Ruffles Tupuna Iti—which, we later gathered, meant “Little Ancestor,” though none of us had the heart to mention it to him.

Kamau noted in his log:

Day Fourteen. Subject Thornton has ceased referring to Australia as “the blasted frontier” and now describes the Pacific as “a theatre for contemplative detachment.” Also drinks less gin.

Rory, with a philosopher’s restraint, simply said, “Well, he’s happy.”

Trevor compared the situation to Fletcher Christian and Maimiti.

“He’s going native,” he said.

“Hard to say who’s civilising whom,” I replied.

There were some logistical complications. Ruffles abruptly removed himself from the rotation schedule and formally requested reassignment to “Ambassadorial Oversight.”

He moved into a hut beside the spring and installed a nautical table (carried by two willing vahines), upon which he laid out the Admiralty’s regional charts and then promptly used them as a writing desk for his memoirs.

When I visited him, he was in shirtsleeves, polishing his fountain pen.

“This may be the only war in which I gain weight,” he said.

“Have you spoken to Sydney?”

“About what?”

“Your abandonment of duty.”

“I’m contributing,” he said. “Morale is important. Symbolic anchorage and all that.”

I did not press the matter.

Kamau said nothing. But his next entry read:

Subject Finch-Blythe now sees patterns in vapour trails. Subject Maher receives nightly visits from a Polynesian emissary. Subject Thornton has fused with the landscape. Subject Whitmore—(here, the page smudged mysteriously)—is less dismissive than usual.

The sea remained glassy and unreadable. The war crackled faintly over the radio. And for the first time in our adventure, I began to wonder whether we were spotters—or simply characters in someone else’s story.

Chapter VII – The Spiral and the Snare

There was something in the air.

Trevor claimed it was ionisation—“a disturbance in the magnetic resonance field caused by temporal discontinuity,” he said, with the breezy certainty of a man who had once read the glossary of a physics textbook.

Kamau said it was the wind shifting ahead of rain.

I thought it felt like the quiet you get in a theatre just before the curtain lifts—when you can hear the audience breathe but not the actors.

It began with the compass.

We were halfway through a supply run up the island’s interior ridge—Kamau ahead, I bringing up the rear—when I noticed my pocket compass behaving like a debutante: spinning, uncertain, and vaguely coquettish.

Kamau stopped short near the ravine.

“Look at the rock,” he said.

At first I saw nothing unusual. Just a flat outcrop veined with quartz and moss. But then I realised it was not part of the ridge at all. The striations ran the wrong direction, as if it had been turned—clockwise, like a lid. The lichen grew in a spiral. The ferns leaned toward it.

“This wasn’t here last week,” Kamau said.

“What is it?”

He squinted. “Something that arrived—or reemerged.”

We did not speak of it when we returned. Not to Trevor, who had taken to carving spirals into driftwood while humming madrigals. Not to Rory, who now wore a plumeria blossom tucked behind one ear and smiled absently whenever one mentioned the word interference.

But that night I took the long way back from the beach and passed the ravine again.

The rock was glowing.

Only faintly—like moonlight seen through water—but it was enough to make me stop.

I stood very still, heard nothing but the frogs and the rustling canopy, and then, unmistakably, a sound like… a slide projector clicking to the next image.

Then nothing.

The next morning, Trevor claimed he’d seen the Vahines again—this time, dancing at the crater rim.

“They moved in a circle,” he said. “Widdershins. The choreography of invocation.”

He showed me his notes.

The drawings had changed. No longer spirals, but interlocked Möbius loops. And always, somewhere in the corner, a figure half-drawn, eyes obscured.

“She’s appearing more clearly,” he said. “I think I’m remembering her in reverse.”

Kamau wrote that one down.

Meanwhile, Rory’s situation had settled into something rather sweet.

The Vahine—Moerani—visited him regularly now. We’d see her paddle across the strait in the dusky hours, tie up her outrigger, and disappear up the fern trail with a bundle of fruit and what looked very much like a blanket.

The rest of us said nothing. It became a matter of delicacy, of ritual, of… diplomacy.

In fact, it became what we referred to—over tea, in hushed tones, with a reverent pause—as the Gentleman’s Agreement.

We didn’t discuss Moerani’s visits. We didn’t ask Rory questions. We certainly didn’t raise the topic on the radio.

If anything, we feared our attention might jinx it.

And by “it” we meant everything: the weather, the war, the sense that—for once—something beautiful and wildly improbable had gone unspoiled.

One afternoon, as Rory gave a report to Command, she entered the shack mid-transmission.

“Able-Roger-Yoke to Base Command. One aircraft eastbound, altitude eight thousand—yes, that’s right, Zeke pattern. Confirmed visual—wait—yes, copy that, over.”

She picked up a shell from the shelf, tapped it against the radio, and smiled at him.

“Er, Base Command, disregard previous report. No aircraft. Just—atmospheric irregularity. Over.”

“Everything all right over there?” came the voice from Sydney.

“Yes, just a… butterfly, over.”

We never asked what happened next. But Rory returned the next day smelling faintly of gardenias and salt.

Kamau’s final log entry from that week was brief:

Subject Finch-Blythe appears lucid, if obliquely haunted. Subject Maher has entered a state of romantic stability heretofore unknown. Subject Whitmore observed an unexplained geological phenomenon and has yet to submit a formal explanation. Recommend postponing scepticism.

We had no proof. Only stories.

But when the time came to compile our notes for the Royal Geographical Society, we gave them everything: Trevor’s sketches, my notes on the stone spiral, Kamau’s log excerpts (heavily redacted), and a photograph taken by Rory—of Moerani, waist-deep in the lagoon, holding a Zero silhouette chart like a parasol.

We did not include the audio recording of her voice saying, “Betty,” though it does exist.

That, dear reader, remains under the Gentleman’s Agreement.

Chapter VIII – The Net

The Japanese landing was predicted not by charts or reconnaissance but by Kamau’s observation of three tropicbirds flying in formation away from the beach.

“They don’t usually do that,” he said, closing the radio log and reaching for his walking stick.

Trevor nodded sagely, as if this meant something more than ornithological unease.

Within the hour, our telescopes confirmed the presence of a rubber landing craft slipping in over the reef. Five men aboard. Armed. Intentional. They moved like actors in a rehearsal they hadn’t realised had been scheduled.

Kamau took command, as he often did in situations requiring grace under impending absurdity.

“We disable the craft,” he said. “Strand them. Then wait for the Australians to retrieve the package.”

“Do we shout anything dramatic before slashing the raft?” I asked.

“No.”

We set out just after moonrise—Kamau, Ruffles, and myself. Trevor remained behind, nominally to record the event in his field journal, though we later discovered he had instead painted a watercolour of the tide.

The beach was silent. Too silent, as Ruffles might have said if he’d been raised on cinema rather than Empire. The patrol had landed, their craft tethered, their flashlights darting through the undergrowth like guilty fireflies.

We advanced slowly, concealed in mangrove shadow.

Kamau raised his arm.

And then he lowered it—sharply.

From the escarpment above the cove, a low hum began. Harmonised. Intentional.

Then: the net.

It dropped from above like the final act of an opera—woven palm-fibre, meticulously knotted, and released by ropework of remarkable cunning. It unfurled mid-air, caught the Japanese patrol mid-step, and dropped them into confusion and immobility.

The result was not just effective—it was elegant.

Three of the patrol were tangled outright. One tried to fire his sidearm but only succeeded in shooting a coconut, which rained down on his own helmet with theatrical precision. The fifth attempted to flee but was tripped by Moerani herself, who emerged from the shadows with a grin that suggested she’d read Scoop and taken notes. She caught my eye, nodded slightly, and then returned to the line.

The Vahines emerged from the trees with unhurried precision. No war cries. No violence. Just firm resolve, spears held vertically as if in ceremonial protest.

Kamau leaned close.

“We were never meant to intervene. This was always their operation.”

Ruffles muttered, “Splendid technique.”

By dawn, the Australians had returned—alerted by our coded message:

Able-Easy-Net-Fox: Five guests for breakfast. Bring rope and diplomacy.

Captain Paterson disembarked with a flask and a grimace.

“Well I’ll be… caught by a bloody curtain call. Never seen anything like it.”

I said, “The women underplayed it beautifully.”

The prisoners were retrieved, with some effort. One was still wrapped in netting like a startled prawn. We helped none of them.

The Rosehip remained at anchor, still dressed in camouflage netting and still smelling faintly of port and naval soap. We burned the remaining signal charts, dismantled the Spotter Shacks, and recorded final coordinates into Kamau’s ledger.

When the Japanese command reviewed aerial images and intercepted reports, they chose not to retaliate. One colonel, according to an intercepted communique, advised his men to avoid the archipelago altogether.

“Too quiet. Too symmetrical. It’s a trap.”

He wasn’t wrong.

Later that night, over a final game of backgammon and a dwindling ration of quinine-and-gin, we reflected on the absurdity of our campaign.

No medals. No bloodshed. But five prisoners taken by a fishing net, two romances of dubious longevity, and one confirmed temporal Crinkle.

Ruffles stared at the ceiling of the Rosehip, brow furrowed.

“You know,” he said, “if I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t have believed a word of it.”

Trevor, painting a coconut in silhouette, replied, “That’s why we must show them. The RGS needs to know.”

“Show them what?” I asked. “The ghostly spiral in a puddle or Rory’s suntanned happiness?”

Kamau refilled the glasses.

“All of it,” he said. “Let them decide what matters.”

The war moved on. Patrols shifted, threats receded. The Rosehip remained hidden, her brass fittings dulled with salt and age, but her dining lanterns still glowed each evening—little beacons of what the Admiralty might call “civilised resilience.”

We remained—unspotted, uninvaded, but deeply entangled in our own narratives.

Chapter IX – Debrief at the Royal Geographical Society

It was a drizzly Tuesday in Kensington when we reported to the Royal Geographical Society. The carpet had the exact thickness of a bureaucratic pause, and the panel of reviewers wore identical expressions of thinly disguised incredulity.

“Please be brief,” said the Chair, an elderly man with a moustache like a topiary mistake. “The war has made eccentricity fashionable again, but one mustn’t lean.”

“We shall do our best not to incline,” I replied.

Rory went first.

He approached the lectern wearing a beige linen suit and the sort of tan usually reserved for traitors or polo instructors. He began with a modest overview of the region’s geomorphology and ended with a poetic aside about love beneath banyan trees, at which point the Chair cleared his throat like a thunderclap.

Trevor followed, nervously clutching a bound portfolio of sketches and field notes.

“These drawings,” he began, “were made under conditions of mild dehydration and temporal distortion.”

He held up an image of a Vahine, drawn in profile, surrounded by looping spirals and indistinct silhouettes.

“You’ll note the Möbius motif,” he said. “It suggests the Crinkle operates not just spatially but epiphanically.”

A murmur passed through the Fellows like a breeze riffling starched paper.

One leaned forward. “Is this woman… levitating?”

“No,” said Trevor. “She’s just dancing.”

Another asked, “Was she a hallucination?”

“That’s the question,” said Trevor, triumphantly. “I’m glad you’re paying attention.”

I presented next.

I limited myself to Kamau’s map sketches, a few photographs, and the official log we had redacted beyond meaning.

“In short,” I concluded, “the Japanese never formally occupied the islands due to decisive intervention by the indigenous population and the judicious use of nautical netting.”

“Fascinating,” said one grey-whiskered Fellow. “And what of your findings?”

“We found ourselves frequently outwitted by women in sarongs, mildly haunted by stone formations, and possibly immune to linear time.”

Someone scribbled that down.

Kamau, naturally, had refused to attend. His notes were read aloud in a detached voice by a clerk.

“Day Twenty. Subject Finch-Blythe continues to interpret metaphor as evidence. Subject Maher now fluent in Tahitian. Subject Thornton has achieved a state of contemplative domestication. Subject Whitmore still insists none of this is strange.”

“Day Twenty-One. Noted stone reoriented itself again during the night. Possible tide or Crinkle activity. I did not wake the others. No need to alarm them before tea.”

There was a silence.

“Is this—” the Chair paused—“meant to be taken seriously?”

“It depends,” I said. “On your definition of serious.”

Outside, the drizzle had become a mist. We walked to the pub down the street, jackets buttoned, shoulders slightly hunched.

“I think it went rather well,” Trevor said. “They didn’t laugh until the bit about the Möbius.”

“I wish Kamau had come,” Rory said. “He’d have made it all sound plausible.”

“Or unbelievable,” I said. “Which is just as good.”

We ordered gin. Lord Thornton toasted Maimiti without naming her. Rory toasted not talking about it. Trevor raised a glass to “time behaving badly.”

And I, as always, toasted the view from the spotter’s shack—which, for a brief window of time, had shown us a world far stranger and lovelier than we had any right to expect.

Fin

A Duffy Whitmore Adventure

Epistolary Prelude

12 May ’35

Somewhere on the bloody Congo

Dear Trev,

I trust this note finds you hale and in possession of all necessary faculties. Duffy’s last wire mentioned—rather too casually, I thought—that your Olivia may soon descend upon Happy Valley. Brace yourself. That valley hasn’t seen such a tempest since the gin shortage of ’29.

As for myself, I fear I may miss Ruffles’ safari, though not for lack of enthusiasm. I’ve gone and stranded myself in the Congo, of all places—on a photo assignment that’s become more Heart of Darkness than Picture Post. I’m drifting upriver in pursuit of a legend—Kurtz, or someone pretending to be—but I fear I’ve found someone far more dangerous.

Enclosed, you’ll find a portrait of yours truly, taken by one of my porters. I attempted a Burtonian jawline, with debatable success. There’s a mosquito bite on my temple which gives the impression of a thoughtful furrow, so I’ve decided to claim it as such.

I’m currently perched in a stilted hut with a ladder for access (or escape), surrounded by mosquito netting, the air thick as molasses, and the nights broken by the sort of noises that suggest Nature regrets being colonised.

But yesterday—good Lord, Trev—yesterday I saw her.

She emerged from the forest like an apparition—no, that’s too pale a word. A vision, wild and resplendent, draped in striped cloth, her neck heavy with charms that caught the light as she moved. There was brass at her knees, fire on her cheek, and something about her bearing—so upright, so sovereign—that made me think she came from a lineage of queens. She was the Congo itself, incarnate and unbothered by European notions of modesty or mortality.

I took twelve shots from the deck of the steamer as we passed—each one more unreal than the last. I must find her again.

I’m shooting black and white negatives—more practical, given the vagaries of development in Matadi—and I’m travelling with two Leicas now: one with a 50mm mounted, for portraiture, and one with a 35mm mounted, for the wider drama of it all. If the prints do her justice, I’ll enclose a few in my next letter. Ruffles may want to see them. In fact, I was thinking—do whisper this in his ear if the mood strikes him—that a proper expedition might be in order. A steamer of our own. Field tents. G&Ts at dusk. And the chance to document what no man has yet dared photograph without being speared.

You know what I’m thinking, don’t you? The Geographic Society. An evening lecture. Slides. Applause. A standing ovation, perhaps, followed by supper at the Savoy. I’ll need to be more Odysseus than Ulysses, clever but not craven. And should she appear again—I’d not have turned her away like that fellow in Conrad’s tale. I’d have offered her tea, taken the risk, and gone down with the ship, camera in hand.

Ever your devoted savage in the bush,

Rory

15 May ’35

Happy Valley

My dear Duffy,

All of us here in Happy Valley await word of your triumphs, introducing the Crinkle in Time to a public as dimly aware of its existence as they are of a decent sherry. One hopes your London audience can keep up. No doubt you are dazzling them—though I suspect the dons only tolerate your heresies because you wear a tie.

I trust you’ve found a spare hour to drift into the National Portrait Gallery and cast a glance at my modest offering:

“Lord Thornton Beside the Dancing Princesses Bas-Relief, Bombay, 1935”

Photographer: Trevor Finch-Bligh

Black-and-white, naturally. Colour would have been vulgar.

I received a letter—typewritten, no less—from Rory, presently meandering up some fetid tributary in the Congo. He is, it seems, in pursuit of a jungle goddess who appeared to him on a riverbank. Whether this vision was native, mythic, or medicinal in nature remains unclear. I enclose his account for your edification and to spare myself the burden of explanation; the whole thing is wonderfully Rory. He sounds smitten—again. I admit, I wouldn’t mind joining him: for the story, for the snaps, and possibly for the jungle goddess. There’s surely still a market for that sort of thing—though one must now label it “contemporary ethnographic portraiture” to avoid cancellation.

That said, the photograph enclosed with his letter—snapped by a porter and probably posed with Burtonian self-regard—betrays something else entirely. He looks stricken. As though the jungle heat has failed to sweat out the sting of Khush’s letters—the ones that greeted us like silent telegrams of doom the moment we stepped off the Eurycleia in Bombay. Not one of us said anything aloud, of course; we simply watched him read them with the grim expression of a man deciphering hieroglyphs that mean “abandon all hope.”

I did manage to unearth a photograph of Rory and Khush—perhaps the only one of them together. I took it on that little day trip we made, up the coast from Bombay. You may remember: the Homeric furniture, the sea like pewter, and Kamau’s unforgettable crab curry. She’s smiling, but it’s the kind of smile a clever woman offers a man she’s about to escape from. We now know she fled to Jaipur the next morning, which suggests the smile was rehearsed.

Think about joining me for a jaunt out to the Congo. Rory might benefit from a reminder of civilised company—and you might locate another Crinkle. There must be dozens, wedged in the vines and heat, just waiting for the right man to find them.

Yours in mischief and mildew,

Trevor

(Somewhere between civilisation and the great, green unknown)

Dear Trev,

You’ll forgive the stationery. The concierge—an exiled Walloon with a cleft palate and a flair for gin rations—offered me only this mourning-grade writing paper or an old shipping manifest from a rubber concern. I chose the less ominous of the two.

I’ve just arrived in Matadi, or as the French spell it: mildew. My boots, once polished to a West End gleam, are now the colour and consistency of boiled okra. The jungle exacts its toll with cruel and deliberate enthusiasm.

Enclosed you’ll find two photographs of what I initially believed to be the same jungle priestess. Both taken upriver under frightful conditions—humidity like a Turkish bath run by sadists and mosquitos with French names. One shot was developed in situ (a miracle involving a Boy Scout torch, powdered hypo, and a bedsheet) and the other, here in Matadi, in the converted bath of a fellow Brit named Fanshawe who claims to be mapping the Congo but is really compiling an annotated memoir of his lovers. He brews an excellent quinine cocktail and has a suitcase full of Ilford stock, so I forgive him his eccentricities.

Now—this is the most remarkable bit—I’m quite sure they are not the same woman. Look at the cheekbones in Plate A, the height-to-arm ratio in Plate B. Entirely different priestesses. This isn’t a singular goddess—it’s an order. A veritable convent of wild, elegant, poised and alarmingly capable priestesses.

I am now convinced I’ve stumbled upon a matriarchal cult or possibly the long-lost daughters of Isis, relocated and rebranded for the tropics. They wield spears with balletic grace and seem entirely uninterested in trousers or Christian values.

I leave tomorrow on a small steamer named Victoire (optimistically titled), hoping to retrace my path upriver and locate their encampment. I may not return. Or I may return with the key to a forgotten ethnographic epoch—and possibly a few phone numbers written in charcoal on bark.

Fanshawe insists I submit the prints to the Royal Geographical Society, who might just mistake me for a serious man of letters. Imagine! Rory Maher, FRGS. My mother always said I’d amount to nothing. If only she’d known it would be a tribe of savage, barefoot priestesses who gave me purpose.

I’ll write again—if I haven’t been turned into a fertility idol or eaten by one of Fanshawe’s ex-wives.

Yours in sweat and sepia,

Rory

3 June ’35

My dear Duffy,

Your most recent dispatch—posted, I see, from a Woolworth’s near Charing Cross—has just arrived, tied with string and trailing the scent of coal smoke and boiled ham. It came via steamer to Mombasa, was forwarded on the Lunatic Line, sat inexplicably in Kisumu for a week (no one can explain why), and finally reached Nairobi stuffed into the hunting boot of a Punjabi courier who swears he saw Lady Delamere wrestling a parrot at the post office. All quite routine.

But I write in earnest.

This morning, over an aggressively colonial breakfast (kippers and quinine, mostly), Lord Thornton and I read Rory’s latest letter—the one posted from Matadi, full of priestesses and darkroom improvisation and Fanshawe’s scandalous bathwater.

Duffy, I fear the man has gone completely barking.

Heatstroke, moon-madness, or the smouldering gaze of an ethnographically ambiguous priestess—take your pick—but the Rory we knew, the one who once argued with a museum guard over the erotic symbolism of a Cycladic fish hook, is now preparing to vanish upriver, into territory last charted by botanists with sketchbooks and very little follow-through.

We must act.

Lord Thornton agrees, reluctantly—it took two tumblers of Dubonnet to get him onboard—but agrees nonetheless: we must mount an expedition. I’ll secure passage from Mombasa by way of Léopoldville and from there press onward by steamer, lighter, and if need be, foot. I’ll bring the Leica (two, in fact), spare socks, a case of flash powder, and a khaki shirt with enough pockets to seduce a postmaster.

Not only do I intend to find Rory and retrieve him, but if his priestesses truly exist (and if they’ll consent to posing), I shall photograph them with all the delicacy and reverence of a Harrow man attending a debutante’s ball. This could be the portfolio of my career—or the end of it.

Chuck whatever lectures you’re giving on the Crinkle, or at least wrap up the ones in Bloomsbury. I may need your linguistic gifts and your abysmal sense of direction, both of which served us reasonably well in Smyrna.

Telegram to follow.

Yours ever,

Trevor

(Finch-Bligh, if you’re publishing this in your diary)

P.S. If Rory has been crowned tribal consort to a pagan matriarchy, I expect a formal invitation to the ceremony.

Prologue

London, June 1935 — The Central Library, Russell Square

It is raining in the dependable English way, the kind of drizzle that glances off bowler hats and slicks the brass doorknobs of Piccadilly. Here, in the central reading room, I sit beneath a row of green glass lamps, the sort that cast a gentle, collegiate light upon maps of dubious accuracy. Outside, the city sulks under a pewter sky. But inside—within these stone walls lined with encyclopaedias and dangerous ideas—I prepare for the jungle.

Before me lie several picture books of the Congo basin—most of them authored by Belgians with a troubling moustaches. I’ve been leafing through them with a scholar’s disinterest and a traveller’s rising dread. The illustrations include a number of stylised hippos, an enthusiastic rendering of a mangrove thicket, and a diagram—improbably cheerful—depicting the life cycle of the tsetse fly.

Why, you ask?

Because Rory has gone missing. Not vanished precisely—he continues to write, intermittently, with all the florid courage of a man who doesn’t yet know he’s in peril. But his letters suggest an encroaching madness: something about a “jungle goddess,” an “order of priestesses,” and “balletic spears.”

Add to that the involvement of a man named Fanshawe (an alleged cartographer and confirmed lothario), and it becomes clear: Rory needs rescuing. Or, at the very least, chaperoning.

Trevor has cabled me from Happy Valley with a plan involving Lord Thornton, a steamer of suspicious provenance, and a great many field tents. The telegram, now tucked neatly into the cover of my Baedeker’s, read simply:

Well then. Let the expedition commence.

Chapter I:

The Hotel Stanley, Matadi, Belgian Congo

It was precisely the sort of hotel one expects to find in Matadi: a faded colonial mirage with slow fans, quick gin, and bathwater the colour of weak tea. We rendezvoused in the upstairs parlour, where wicker chairs wheezed under the weight of expatriates and geckos hunted openly along the rafters. Outside, the jungle pressed in like a pick-pocket .

Trevor arrived first, looking tan and crisply starched, though one of his Leicas had already acquired a tropical mildew. He’d brought a stack of Rory’s letters, each one madder than the last. Kamau followed, carrying two crates of photographic equipment, a collapsible gramophone, and an expression that suggested he’d rather be anywhere else—including Jaipur, Smyrna, or the inside of a lion.

Lord Thornton descended last, dressed as if embarking on a pheasant shoot in Surrey.

Chapter II:

A Short Drive Through Hell (with Stops)

The lorry was British Army surplus, left behind by someone with poor taste in timing and poorer taste in maintenance. It arrived at the Hotel Stanley precisely two hours late, painted an indeterminate shade of colonial despair, and driven by a youth named Lucien who claimed to be half-Walloon, half-Cabindan, and wholly unfit for the job.

Trevor, ever optimistic, supervised the loading of the crates himself: photographic gear, canvas tents, tins of tongue, mosquito netting, a collapsible writing desk, several bottles of quinine-and-something, and Kamau’s private collection of books—which included Pliny the Elder and a banned French edition of The Decameron. Lord Thornton insisted on supervising the packing of the Dubonnet personally, muttering that “matters of morale mustn’t be left to porters or chance.”

Lucien, meanwhile, flirted shamelessly with the hotel’s proprietress, a Belgian widow of impossible sternness and impossible waistlines, whose cats outnumbered the guests three to one.

By the time we finally set off, it was nearly noon and already hotter than a missionary’s brow in a brothel.

We’d only gone a few miles beyond the outskirts of Matadi—where the jungle begins to reassert its authority—when we struck our first obstacle: a tree, freshly hacked down and left sprawled across the road like a barricade. Kamau knelt to inspect the clean axe-marks, then rose with a look that said, plainly enough: this was no act of God.

Lord Thornton grumbled, Trevor photographed it, and I sat on a stump writing a haiku about futility:

Jungle in revolt—
lorry sulks beside the road,
mosquitoes plot war.

Lucien swore, reversed, and took what he referred to as a “shortcut.”

It wasn’t.

Within ten minutes, we were axle-deep in what may once have been a road but was now a slough of red Congolese mud. A goat watched us from a distance with the gaze of an ancient judge. Trevor’s crates shifted violently; something shattered—possibly the gin, possibly a light meter.

Kamau calmly stepped out, rolled up his sleeves, and began to dig us out with a camp kettle. Lord Thornton attempted to direct the process from a shaded copse. I, meanwhile, helped by documenting the scene in case it became a formal inquiry.

It was nearly dusk when we reached the riverside dock.

The steamer loomed in silhouette, its upper deck lights aglow, reflecting on the black water like lanterns from a half-remembered dream. An old African man was seated at the dock with a fishing rod and a face like cracked leather. When we passed, he looked up and said, in English as fine as Eton’s: “That boat has waited a long time.”

No one asked what he meant. Some things are best left ambiguous.

Chapter III:

The Boat That Waited

It was not, as the official papers would later claim, an acquisition so much as a disentanglement—a gentleman’s rescue mission from the clutches of bad debt and worse company.

Two weeks prior, Lord Thornton—Ruffles to his friends, and “that blasted Englishman” to everyone else in the Léopoldville club—had entered a dim and unreliable bar known euphemistically as Le Théâtre des Possibles. Its clientele was a mixture of shipping agents, diamond runners, and colonial widows with flexible standards. The décor was mostly smoke and regret. A ceiling fan rotated above the table like a bored vulture.

Ruffles had arrived uninvited, which was his preferred method. He wore white linen, a faint scent of bay rum, and the air of a man with access to Swiss accounts and unspeakable anecdotes about ambassadors’ daughters.

He ordered a Dubonnet. The bartender, a former Portuguese opera singer named Marcellina, poured it with the sort of intimate precision that implied she had once been married to a French admiral and now considered the British aristocracy a spiritual upgrade.

At the back table: a game in progress. The dealer was a Danish ivory man with nicotine fingers and an eye that didn’t quite look where it should. The players included a Belgian colonial judge (recently suspended), a Brazilian arms trader pretending to be Dutch, and one Monsieur Delapierre—a creature of unknown origin and disputed nationality who claimed to be the rightful owner of a steamship moored, with some ambiguity, just downriver.

The ship’s name—Roi d’…elge—had long ago faded beneath layers of lichen and bureaucratic neglect. It had been a floating casino, a missionary transport, a private pleasure barge for a Zanzibari prince, and once, if rumour held, a quarantine vessel for yellow fever patients. Now it lay tied to a dock, waiting for someone foolish or brilliant enough to claim it.

Lord Thornton was both.

He sat, placed his cigarette case on the table as collateral, and joined the game.

No one remembers precisely what happened next—least of all Delapierre, who was two Negronis ahead of his own luck. But by morning, Ruffles was the proud owner of a steamer, a Flemish hunting dog and a half-written opera libretto about cashew smugglers. He accepted all three with his usual calm. The dog, he renamed Fitz. The opera, he abandoned in a drawer. But the boat—the boat he kept.

When the Chaps later asked how he’d secured it, Ruffles simply said:

“Always gamble with men who sweat through their collars. They always overplay their hand.”

He never mentioned that the boat’s deck was still faintly haunted by the sound of roulette wheels. Or that Marcellina had whispered, as he left the bar, “It will take you somewhere you do not expect to go.”

But that, of course, is what boats are for.

Here was the steamer Ruffles had won at the poker table—he referred to it as “an optimistically floatable vessel”–– tied at the riverside—Ruffles had supervised its provisioning with the brisk despair of a man who once lost his luggage and his valet on the same afternoon in Alexandria.

“She’ll do,” he muttered, as we approached the boat.

The exterior was, let us say, well-travelled: rust spots like liver stains, a name partly rubbed away—Roi…d…elge—and a gangplank that required a certain leap of faith.

But once aboard, the interior surprised us all. There was a proper bar with glassware, a walnut-paneled dining salon, and a faint scent of lavender that no one could explain.

I dropped my haversack in a cabin fitted with a mosquito net and a copy of Punch from 1926.

Trevor, inspecting the hull, said quietly, “I don’t suppose anyone’s bothered to look up what happened to the original Roi d’Belgique, have they?”

No one answered. Kamau lit a cigarette. Lord Thornton adjusted his cufflink.

“I say we don’t ask,” I said, and was immediately appointed morale officer.

Chapter IV:

The Ascent

The jungle, I am convinced, prefers not to be noticed. At first light, it recedes into fog with such theatrical subtlety that one might think it embarrassed to be caught so unkempt. But the river—she puts on a show. And it was through this rising curtain of grey that we began our ascent.

We had been drifting for hours by the time I rose, having found little success sleeping in a bunk clearly designed for a smaller, more optimistic man.

The Roi d’Élégance made her sluggish way upriver—half paddleboat, half gentlemen’s club—partially restored, eternally undermanned, and wholly unsuited for anything beyond an ornamental lake. Still, her polished brass fittings gave one a sense of ceremonial grandeur, even as the engine wheezed like a dowager in damp linen.

I emerged onto the quarterdeck expecting solitude and a pot of weak tea. Instead, I found Trevor Finch-Blythe standing at the stern, stock-still, clutching a mug of Kamau’s Abyssinian coffee —tilted just enough for it to spill, unnoticed, onto the deck. He looked paler than usual, which is saying something for a man who goes translucent in anything stronger than candlelight.

At the rail, and only barely visible through the low, churning fog, stood a figure. Human in outline, but distinctly other in presence. Barefoot, motionless. Adorned in ash, copper, and silence. He—or it—stared not at the boat, but at the river itself, as if attending to some conversation that had begun centuries earlier.

And then, he vanished.

Not theatrically.

Not with a flourish.

Simply… gone.

Trevor inhaled sharply. Kamau appeared beside him as if he had been standing there all along. He was, as ever, composed. “He is a sentinel,” Kamau said calmly. “A warning. I have understood the message. I will inform Bwana when he awakes.”

Trevor blinked. “You mean you understood it?”

Kamau sipped his coffee. “Correct.”

“And what was the message?”

Kamau gestured to the fog. “That we are being watched. Closely. That we are not the first, nor the last.”

Trevor looked as if he might require a chair, or a small church. Fortunately, Fitz—Lord Thornton’s imperturbable dog—ambled out and sat beside him, thudding to the deck with canine finality. He stared out into the mist, gave a single, aristocratic yawn, and leaned his warm weight against Trevor’s trouser leg. It helped.

By mid-morning, the fog had lifted, leaving behind only the lingering sense that something ancient had passed us by.

Kamau summoned the rest of us to the quarterdeck for what he dubbed, with professorial solemnity, The School of Jungle Etiquette.

“Gentlemen,” he began, pointer in one hand and coffee in the other, “what we know about these women is minimal. They may be priestesses—possibly of an shamanic class, if one subscribes to current research. Rory calls them goddesses, and surprisingly, he might be right.”

He paused here. Not for dramatic effect, but because Lord Thornton had arrived in a cloud of aftershave and Colonial Office scepticism, nursing a tall gin fizz and wearing the sort of Panama hat that would not survive a breeze.

Kamau continued.

“Simply put—as the Americans say—they’re drop-dead gorgeous. That’s where the trouble starts.”

“Not even a polite wave?” Trevor asked.

“Not even a cough,” said Kamau. “Do not address them. Do not offer them tea, money, cigarettes, or compliments on their necklaces. Under no circumstances allow them to come aboard.”

“They might know where Rory is,” Trevor countered.

“They know more than Rory’s whereabouts,” Kamau replied. “And would prefer to keep it that way.”

“What if she’s wearing an Eton tie?” I asked, sincerely.

“Then you definitely don’t speak to her,” Kamau said without hesitation.

Lord Thornton took a thoughtful sip of his gin. “I say, what if one of them hails us with information?”

“She won’t,” said Kamau. “If you hear her call your name, it is not her voice you’re hearing. It’s your own worst idea in disguise.”

On a section of cardboard displayed on Trevor’s French easel, Kamau had written, in bold block letters, a list of further rules:

• Do not pick up carved items left on the riverbank.

• Do not enter huts, no matter how artfully thatched.

• If offered a gourd to drink from, decline.

• If you hear drumming, it is not an invitation.

• If Lord Thornton insists on waving, pretend to not know him.

He laid his pointer down, closed his leather-bound manual of field observations and tucked it under one arm.

“Your homework for this afternoon: reread Circe’s instructions to Odysseus regarding the Sirens. That is what we are dealing with here.”

Trevor raised a hand. “Do you mean metaphorically?”

Kamau looked at him. “No.”

And with that, the day grew hotter, the insects louder, and the foliage thicker. But the boat pressed on, elegant in her decrepitude, trailing a pale wake through water that looked like polished jade. The jungle, in turn, observed us without expression.

Somewhere upriver, Rory waited.

Or perhaps he didn’t.

We had begun the ascent.

And the rules, it seemed, were shifting.

Chapter V:

The Siren on the Shore

Those who have not cruised upriver on the Roi d’Élégante cannot imagine the peculiar sense of suspended time she induces. For days the voyage resembled a particularly pleasant house party, albeit one adrift in the steaming wilderness. Trevor, wearing a pith helmet cocked at a rakish angle and a shirt he claimed once belonged to Max Beerbohm, spent his hours beneath the rear deck’s striped canopy, coaxing viridescent washes of riverside foliage in sap green and burnt umber. He painted with the dreamy absorption of a man already imagining his work on display at the Royal Academy—or, failing that, hung just above the cigar cabinet at The White Stag, where it might be admired between rubbers of bridge and slightly scandalous anecdotes.

Duffy, meanwhile, was rarely seen without a notebook and a pair of pince-nez that he had taken to wearing solely to lend gravitas. He claimed to be preparing an address for the Royal Geographical Society and some London-based women’s clubs, where the questions tended to be sharper, and far less deferential, than anything he’d encountered at the RGS.

Lord Thornton, the only one of the party to wake before sunrise, could be seen each morning performing deep knee-bends and one-armed pushups with heroic concentration on the forward deck. This display—accompanied by grunts and the distant aroma of Kamau’s beloved Abisynian roast—was not to be witnessed without a twinge of patriotic admiration.

Between calisthenics and a second breakfast, Ruffles continued polishing the sixth volume of his memoirs, tentatively titled, “Crisis at Cricklewood: A Memoir in Twelve Improvised Chapters.” Several pages were devoted to the incident at the Cheltenham Literary Festival, which he swore never to speak of aloud again.

Fitz, our adopted mascot onboard and de facto morale officer, spent most afternoons patrolling the perimeter of the boat in a state of quiet vigilance. On several occasions he paused near the galley, sniffed the air with philosophical doubt, and resumed his circuit, tail stiff with unresolved suspicions.

Kamau, meanwhile, had become something of a fixture in the wheelhouse, quietly apprenticing under the Roi d’Élégante’s Skipper—a leathery, taciturn fellow known only as Mudge, who had been engaged at the last minute in Léopoldville and claimed, with neither pride nor humour, to have “seen farther upriver than Conrad dared write.” Mudge had a peculiar fondness for clove cigarettes, which he rolled with a dexterity that suggested either a criminal past or clerical training.

It was under this illusion of safety—this mirage of a civilised cruise afloat in the savage interior–– when the spell was broken.

“Portside, ahead,” said Duffy, shielding his eyes. “Good Lord… what is she?”

Striding along the bank, precisely keeping pace with the slow-churning boat, was a figure of supernatural symmetry. She moved like a dancer, yet with the hauteur of a queen. Bronze skin gleamed. Her smile, dazzling. Her eyes, fixed on the boat, bore into the deck like searchlights.

Duffy’s feet began to move of their own accord. Beside him, Fitz, had been whining and pacing for some time. Now he sat bolt upright. Then, with eerie calm, lay down as if receiving a silent command.

Duffy was halfway to speech—some invocation of admiration, likely his undoing—when Kamau seized him from behind and clamped a hand over his mouth. With the ease of a rugby man, Kamau hauled him bodily through the galley doors where Lord Thornton was tapping his lip with a pencil, composing what appeared to be a romantic anecdote about his affair with the lovely pastry chef at the Savoy..

“What the devil are you doing, Kamau?”

“Saving your lives,” Kamau replied, breathless. “Trevor next—he’s halfway under already.”

Indeed, Trevor had drifted to the portside rail, watercolour brush dangling from one hand, his gaze vacant with adoration. Kamau leapt back into the corridor, grabbed the young man by the collar, and dragged him inside as if rescuing a fainting debutante.

“She’s working a spell,” Kamau said grimly, drawing the portside curtain. “A proper one. A Bantu Priestess, or worse. Possibly of the M’boko order. Gentlemen—eyes front.”

But too late.

There was a whistle—sharp and unnatural—and then, with the velocity of an Olympian javelin, a spear came hurtling from the jungle.

“DOWN!” cried Kamau.

With a collective yelp, the Chaps hit the floor as the spear buried itself deep in the deck with a resonant THWACK.

By the time they looked up, the enchantress was gone, her form melting into the forest like smoke.

Kamau sprinted upstairs, half-certain he would find the skipper ensnared by the siren’s spell, only to discover Mudge, back turned, pouring Cognac into his mug of coffee.

“Thought you’d gone overboard,” Mudge muttered. “Fancy a dram?”

That evening, Kamau poured stiff whiskeys for the shaken crew while they swapped florid accounts of how each had personally resisted the seduction (none mentioned Kamau’s heroics). Meanwhile, Kamau knelt over the embedded spear. A long the shaft, near the beeswax binding, were carvings—symbols almost like script.

“Duffy,” Kamau called. “You’ve been working through the dialects. What do you make of this?”

Duffy peered, swirling his whiskey and said, “Well, loosely… very loosely… ‘Our Man welcomes you to our village. Bees protect his invitation.’”

Kamau narrowed his eyes. “All that from four symbols?”

“Well,” said Duffy, “a certain interpretive liberty—”

But Kamau had noticed a glint within the beeswax. He carefully peeled it away, revealing a sheet of folded paper. Written on the stationery of the Hotel Stanley in flowing but desperate script:

“Bring more film! Tell Colleen, I regret… nothing.”

The boat chugged on.

Near sunset, Mudge’s voice echoed down the voice pipe—a polished brass relic of nautical engineering, twisted like a horn through the decks:

“This is the Captain speaking. There’s a Banyan tree ahead—magnificent one. Port bow. We’ll tie off and anchor here for the night.”

Kamau turned serious. “Gentlemen, tonight I must insist: stay in your quarters. Lord Thornton?”

Ruffles nodded, unusually grave and added, “We are not equipped to resist their enticements.”

Kamau said, “I’ve spoken to our Mechanic—Moses. He’s indifferent to beauty. That’s not opinion; it’s pathology. He’ll be patrolling on deck with a rifle from our armory.”

That night, in their cabins:

—Trevor read himself into drowsiness with a damp copy of a biography Louis Daguerre: “The Quiet Frenchman.”

—Duffy composed a letter to the British Archaeological Society in Cairo, explaining that, based on his observations of the landscape of the Congo, he’d like to present evidence of a lost civilisation concealed beneath the dense jungle canopy—one that rivalled dynastic Egypt. With adequate funding, he proposed to organise an investigative expedition.

(In retrospect, Duffy’s hypothesis proved oddly prescient. His “observations”—made with no more than a field notebook and a pair of opera glasses—anticipated, by decades, the eventual discovery of pre-colonial urban settlements in the Amazon and Congo basins using LiDAR. Naturally, he considered this validation, though he insisted the technology lacked “the human touch.”)

—Kamau, pacing in pajamas and his threadbare fez, memorised aloud the ingredients of a Chantilly cake recipe with whipped cream topping.

—Lord Thornton snored robustly, his journal tucked into the crook of his elbow like a bulldog pup.

Chapter VI:

From Banyan to Kingdom

Morning arrived soft and golden, with the river steaming gently and birds calling out like half-remembered dreams. The Chaps assembled in high spirits over a breakfast Kamau had dubbed “Continental with colonial inflections.” Lord Thornton declared it “a bit of the all right,” and proposed—over pawpaw and condensed milk—that they make the day’s first order of business the resumption of the Rory Affair.

At precisely 07:20 a.m., Kamau stepped ashore to untie the mooring line from the banyan root, which had served admirably as a natural quay. He was halfway through a sailor’s hitch when his eyes narrowed. There, carved into the smooth belly of the tree’s aerial root, were four familiar symbols—identical to those etched onto the spear that was now mounted, quite dramatically, above the galley mantle.

He stood, called out. “Duffy! Ashore. Now.”

Duffy appeared moments later, boots unlaced and spectacles fogged with breakfast tea. “What is it?”

Kamau pointed. “Same markings.”

“And here,” he added, pulling back a flap of beeswax, lodged in the crook of the root, “a second message.”

It was, once again, folded into a neat triangle of Hotel Stanley stationery, its edges soft with sweat and jungle air. Kamau unfolded it carefully. The writing was familiar: Rory’s fast, impudent script: “Bring a ration of whiskey. Mosquitoes worse than Tanganyika. If you’ve found this message, follow the path from the banyan to My Kingdom.
As Ever, R.”

Below it, in smaller letters, a postscript: “PS: Tell Trevor not to pack the champagne in the camera case again. It makes the negatives taste funny.”

Kamau and Duffy shared a glance. No doubt remained.

“Rory,” said Kamau, “is ahead of us.”

Chapter VII

The Rope and the Ruse

By 08:00 a.m., the expedition had been outfitted.

Lord Thornton insisted on a full load-out, which included:

• Mosquito netting (assorted sizes)

• Three tripods (one broken at the hinge)

• A collapsible canvas table

• Four field chairs (one of which Trevor deemed irreparably bourgeois)

• A brass-handled megaphone

• Seven tins of Queen Mary’s Blend

• A parasol for Trevor’s plein air painting sessions

• A satchel of monogrammed napkins, slightly yellowed but freshly pressed

Trevor protested none of this. “This is a rescue,” he said, hoisting his Leica. “Not hardship.”

Kamau, on the other hand, was more circumspect. He reviewed the party with the expression of a man watching amateurs prepare a doomed alpine ascent.

“Gentlemen,” he said, tapping the megaphone for emphasis, “the final approach will require discretion. Moses has offered to lead us to the village, but on one condition: we are to be blindfolded.”

A murmur passed down the line.

“A bit much, don’t you think?” Lord Thornton muttered.

“Standard practice for jungle matriarchies,” Kamau replied. “And I’m afraid it’s non-negotiable.”

So it was that, by mid-morning, The Chaps found themselves tethered in single file to a length of thick rope, blindfolds tied with varying degrees of tightness and protestation. Moses took the lead. The porters fell in at the rear, and Kamau stationed himself in the middle to preserve order.

The jungle closed in. The path narrowed. Footing was uneven, and branches slapped at sleeves and shins with unrepentant glee.

“Is this entirely necessary?” Lord Thornton called from somewhere in the middle.

“It is if you value your life,” Kamau answered. “Or your virtue.”

They trudged on, tangled in nettles and complaint.

Then, without warning, the rope went slack.

A cascade of confusion followed. Someone stumbled. Someone swore. The line collapsed like a folding chair.

“Kamau?” Trevor’s voice came from the right.

“Hold position!” Kamau barked. “No peeking, gentlemen! Your lives may depend on it!”

A beat. Then, softly:

“Moses? Moses, where the devil are you, man?”

There was no answer. Only the steady, shrill trill of cicadas and the broad, oily rustle of palm fronds in the heat.

Then a musical voice. Female. Close. Enticing.

A shuffle of feet on the path. A crate hitting the ground. Laughter.

A man’s voice, speaking M’boko. Then another.

Lord Thornton: “Bloody hell, she’s seducing the porters!”

Quiet fell, save the insect orchestra.

Kamau muttered, “Stay calm, boys—er, Bwana—let’s keep our heads.”

Trevor, dryly: “Splendid advice.”

Kamau untied his blindfold and draped it over his head like a mourning veil. He turned with care, groping his way along the rope.

“Excuse me... oh, terribly sorry... is that you, Duffy?”

He passed each man, shuffling backward through the disorder. At the end of the line, Kamau tripped over two abandoned crates.

He crouched.

“Make that two porters seduced.”

Duffy, from somewhere behind a thorn bush: “My God, they must be all around us.”

Kamau stood slowly. “Correct assumption. Blindfolds on, gentlemen. I’m retaking the lead. We’re returning to the Congo and our home—the Roi d’Élégante.”

Grumbles rose from the undergrowth. But the rope tugged forward, and one by one, the men rose and resumed the line, their dignity unspooling like so much mosquito netting.

At a bend in the path, Kamau called out: “Halt. Eyes forward. You may remove your blindfolds.”

They did. A pause. Sunlight broke through the canopy like a reprieve.

Lord Thornton cleared his throat. “This is a shameful episode for all of us. I propose we make a pact—another gentlemen’s agreement. If we manage to find our way back to civilization, we never speak of this again.”

Trevor: “Where the hell’s Moses?”

Duffy: “Gentlemen... we’ve obviously been betrayed.”

Lord Thornton, eyes widening: “My God. The boat! Fall in behind me. Double-time pace. We must get back to the boat.”

They broke into a haphazard jog, crashing through foliage, tripping over vines, wheezing and cursing and praying.

When they reached the great banyan tree where the Roi d’Élégante had been moored, they found only the hush of water, the echo of insects, and a long stretch of empty riverbank.

The boat was gone.

Chapter VIII:

Lost Along the River’s Edge

They stood in silence at the edge of the water, eyes sweeping the river like mourners scanning the pews for the dearly departed. The Roi d’Élégante had vanished.

“It’s inconceivable,” Lord Thornton whispered. “Boats don’t simply... vanish.”

“Tell that to the Mary Celeste,” Trevor muttered.

Duffy said nothing. He had crouched beside a mangled bit of rope, as if it might speak to him.

Kamau straightened, hands on hips. “We camp here tonight. No use marching blind into dusk. We’ll track along the river tomorrow.”

And so, they made camp under the great banyan tree. A sorry little bivouac, composed largely of failed intentions. The mosquito netting had been left behind. The megaphone was dented. Of the Queen Mary’s Blend, only one tin remained—and it had been punctured.

Bats emerged at twilight—great flapping silhouettes that darted above the firelight. Trevor, who had taken to lying flat on his back, muttered, “I’m being strafed.”

Lord Thornton was attempting to heat water in the lid of a field kettle. “It’s an intolerable racket. Those damned cicadas sound like buzz saws.”

“Could be worse,” Duffy offered. “We could be back in Brussels.”

Kamau had gone quiet, sitting cross-legged beside the fire, eyes reflecting flame and thought. “The boat was taken deliberately. No signs of struggle. No wreckage.”

Trevor rolled over. “By whom?”

Kamau shrugged. “Priestesses.”

Lord Thornton scoffed. “You mean to tell me that an order of jungle debutantes has outmaneuvered a crew of two and a steamer full of provisions?”

“Not debutantes,” Kamau said. “Commandos.”

Silence. The fire popped.

Duffy opened the punctured tin and tried to coax leaves into a tepid infusion. “One assumes they’ve taken Rory as well.”

“If they have,” said Kamau, “he’s either their king—or their captive.”

The next morning, they set off at first light, hugging the riverbank, hoping for tracks, for smoke, for something that looked like hope. The jungle was thick with green hostility. Their boots sank into soft earth. Trevor carried a chair leg as a walking stick. Lord Thornton, silent for the first time in recorded history, muttered only to himself.

By late afternoon, the river widened into a still, glassy expanse. Kamau raised his hand.

“Hold position. Do you see what I see?”

There, rounding a bend in the river, cloaked in mist and impossible grace, came the Roi d’Élégante.

She was gliding upriver like a returning queen.

At the helm—Rory.

On deck—eight priestesses. Each stunning. Each poised. Each manning a post with casual authority.

The Chaps froze. One or two ducked into the foliage.

“Is it... is it safe?” Trevor whispered.

Kamau nodded slowly. “For now. They’re under orders.”

“From whom?”

“Him.”

They emerged like chastened schoolboys.

The gangway was lowered with deliberate grace.

At its head stood a priestess in her traditional regalia—golden gauntlets coiled up her forearms like serpents in mid-embrace, layers of necklaces veiling her bare breasts, and rows of shimmering glass beads cascading from her collarbones. Her gold leggings gleamed up to the knee, catching the light like beaten shields, while her thick, obsidian hair was laced with feathers, charms, and talismans that whispered when she moved. She did not merely belong to the wilderness—she was the wilderness, distilled and adorned.

She smiled down at me with a poise that unstrung the bones from my knees, and extended a hand—half invitation, half incantation—welcoming me aboard. I gathered what remained of my composure and accepted her hand, trying not to look as if I’d just been hexed by a particularly glamorous tree spirit.

Back on board, the air smelled of lemongrass and order. The brass had been polished. The parasol replaced. Fitz had been bathed and wore a ribbon.

Rory, crisp in a linen shirt and barefoot at the wheel, grinned like a man who had not only been rescued, but redeemed.

“You boys look dreadful.”

Lord Thornton blinked. “You’re… in charge?”

Rory laughed. “They needed a skipper. I passed the audition.”

Kamau folded his arms. “And Moses? Mudge?”

Rory hesitated. “They were… relieved of duty. Nothing violent. Just… spirited away. I’m told they’ll re-emerge, slightly confused and fond of poetry.”

The Roi d’Élégante steamed on.

And not a word, not a single word, was said of the rope.

Chapter IX

The Ivory Lounge

Matadi, a week later.

The Stanley Hotel was the kind of place where the ceiling fans never worked, but the piano did. The wallpaper curled at the corners like old postage stamps, and the gin tasted faintly of mango soap. None of it mattered.

The Chaps were alive.

They occupied a low velvet banquette in the hotel’s Ivory Lounge, a room perfumed by age and something not unlike mothballs. The ceiling dripped with chandeliers of questionable wiring. An out-of-tune jazz trio played in the corner with great sincerity and no rhythm.

Lord Thornton sipped his drink and sighed. “Say what you will, but there’s something to be said for a weak gin and a strong ceiling.”

Trevor, now bathed, shaven, and re-collared, leaned back against the wall. “I feel I’ve shed not just mud, but a layer of Victorian guilt. I may never paint in England again.”

Kamau was engaged in picking the seeds from a segment of mango with surgical precision. Duffy was sketching on a cocktail napkin, capturing the lean curve of a bamboo fan.

There was a murmur at the door.

Rory entered.

He wore a tan linen suit and the relaxed expression of a man who’d found whatever it was he hadn’t been looking for. On his arm was one of the priestesses, discreetly dressed for hotel protocol, but somehow even more luminous in restraint.

Conversation halted.

Every head turned.

The pianist dropped a chord. The ceiling fan started, groaned, and gave up.

Lord Thornton stood. “Good lord. She’s breathtaking. And she’s his girlfriend.”

Rory gave a modest bow.

“We thought you’d gone native,” Trevor said, standing to shake his hand.

“Worse,” Rory replied. “I’ve gone monogamous.”

Laughter erupted. Drinks were poured.

Lord Thornton raised his glass, his voice rich with ceremony and gin:

“To our rescuer—and dare I say, the Tamer of Bantu Priestesses. May his compass always point toward danger, and his steamer never run aground.”

Glasses clinked.

The jazz trio launched into something vaguely recognisable. The ceiling fan wheezed to life.

And Duffy, always scribbling, noted quietly in the margin of his napkin:

Nothing civilised, nor savage, ever truly ends. It merely changes costume and takes the next boat downriver.

Fin

Chapter One: The Sounding of the Horn

It was shortly after luncheon—cold roast beef, curried mango, and a pale local beer that smelled faintly of bananas—when Lord Thornton, known to his intimates and long-suffering valet as “Ruffles,” declared the voyage must commence by horn.

We were gathered on the aft deck of Eurycleia, Ruffles’ newly refitted steam yacht, now perilously top-heavy with carved teak balustrades, an ornamental prow shaped like Odysseus mid-swoon, and a mahogany bar cart that had been bolted, for reasons architectural, to the floor of the bridge. The bar cart had not yet served a single drink, but it had been “very handsomely varnished,” and Ruffles considered it vital to the maritime spirit.

The horn in question had been purchased, allegedly, from a railway collector in Pretoria and was said to have once adorned a ceremonial locomotive that shuttled Boer dignitaries to state picnics. It sounded, when finally located and tested by Kamau, like a wounded elephant being slowly persuaded up a stairwell.

“It’s rather more… mournful than I’d hoped,” Ruffles murmured. “Still, there’s dignity in melancholy. Sound it again, Kamau. And let the cook know the soufflé can be postponed.”

Kamau, unflappable as ever in white linen, gave a barely perceptible nod. He pressed the ivory button mounted beside the bridge and once again Eurycleia gave forth a basso-profundo lament that startled a flock of ibises and sent Lady Nicholas fumbling for her traveling salts.

“I should have taken the overland route,” she said to no one, or possibly everyone. “These colonial vessels are never properly balanced. There’s a strange lean. I felt it last night in my ankles.”

“Madam,” Kamau intoned, “we have adjusted the ballast to accommodate your cabin’s collection of English soaps.”

“She brings twenty-three,” I whispered to Rory, “including one in a glass dome labeled For Nervous Skin.”

Rory Maher, resplendent in a linen suit borrowed from Ruffles and slightly too wide at the shoulders, grinned and pulled from his satchel a small velvet pouch. “A gift,” he said. “For Khush. Sandalwood hearts. Carved by a man in Fort Jesus. He said they’ll bring me luck.”

“You’ll need more than luck,” I said, but gently. Rory was in love again, and I had not the heart to remind him of the previous entanglement in Zanzibar, involving a betrothed violinist and three very cross uncles.

Trevor Finch-Bligh arrived last, wearing a pith helmet at a questionable angle and brandishing a damp brochure from the Bombay Antiquarian Society.

“Fascinating,” he announced. “The bas-reliefs are almost certainly older than previously dated. The temple has a cyclopean drainage system. Imagine—water still flows, after all this time.”

He said “cyclopean” as though we were meant to gasp, and I nearly did.

“Gentlemen,” said Ruffles, who had reappeared in a silk cravat and now gestured toward the shore. “We depart. For Bombay. To deliver my vision to Mr. Singh-Libani, furniture man of unimpeachable taste and great personal integrity.”

“Indeed, sir,” Kamau said quietly. “I have taken the liberty of forwarding the plans in advance. The prototype is expected within three days of our arrival.”

Lady Nicholas appeared, trailing mosquito netting like a bridal veil and sipping from a small crystal vial. “Port side,” she said. “As we travel east, I insist upon it. The air on the starboard makes my gums itch.”

Rory leaned toward me. “Does she know it’s the same air?”

“She knows,” I said. “She just doesn’t believe it.”

And so we cast off. Eurycleia, that reluctant Odyssean swan, groaned and shifted into motion, the horn giving one final sobbing farewell to Mombasa’s ochre shores.

I stood at the rail, notebook in hand, preparing my opening remarks for the Geographic Society Review, imagining already the footnotes I might add regarding ritual shamanic fermentation, or perhaps the peculiar mores of furniture diplomacy. The sun was gold. The sea was indigo. And somewhere ahead, between the spice markets and crumbling temples of Bombay, our respective destinies waited—eccentric, overgrown, and very likely late for dinner.

Chapter Two: The Laughing Men of Libani

Bombay rose from the sea like an overcooked pudding—crumbling at the edges, faintly spiced, and steaming gently under a lid of monsoon haze.

Our arrival at the wharf was greeted by a man in a white Nehru jacket holding a sign that read LORD THORNTON’S FURNITURE. Behind him, six porters attempted (with limited success) to wrangle Ruffles’s packing crates onto a creaking ox cart. Each crate bore the embossed label CALYPSO’S HIDEAWAY – GAZEBO COLLECTION: One Dining Chair (Baroque/Homeric) – Handle with Vision.

“Glorious,” Ruffles beamed, alighting from Eurycleia with the air of a man preparing to open Venice. “We are expected.”

Kamau cleared his throat softly. “The showroom is at Mr. Singh-Libani’s private compound, sir. His personal furniture atelier. I’ve arranged a rickshaw convoy.”

This was met with mixed results. Lady Nicholas refused the first two rickshaws on the grounds that they “smelled of effort” and instead consented to be drawn in a curtained palanquin by two men wearing gloves and expressions of spiritual fatigue.

I was placed with Trevor, who attempted to read aloud from the Guide to Indo-Aryan Motifs in Sacred Architecture as we bounced through the streets. Rory, mercifully, rode ahead, clutching his velvet pouch and rehearsing lines of a love poem that began “O Khush, thy cheeks are like ripe guava—”

“We may lose him in a market,” Trevor muttered. “Should we?”

The Singh-Libani compound was a whitewashed villa surrounded by mango trees and very polite dogs. Inside, the scent of wood polish and cardamom hung like an invitation to tea. Mr. Singh-Libani himself appeared, dressed in crisp cream and sandals of such alarming quality that Lady Nicholas mistook him for a maharajah.

“Lord Thornton,” he bowed, hands pressed together. “It is… my honour.”

Ruffles lit up like a debutante. “My dear Singh-Libani! I trust the plans arrived safely?”

“They did,” Singh-Libani said, with a composure that should have warned us. “The prototype has been completed. We are… most curious to hear your thoughts.”

He led us through a shaded courtyard into a long room filled with sunlight, plants, and five Egyptian men, each in a seersucker suit, who were gathered around an object draped in calico. They spoke rapidly in Arabic, punctuated by wheezing chuckles.

Singh-Libani gestured. “Behold.”

Kamau, for the first time in my memory, blinked.

The cloth was whisked away.

There it stood: the chair. Tall, arched, and baffling—its legs curled like a Corinthian goat, the back carved in high relief with the face of Calypso, who seemed to be winking. The armrests resembled Homeric scrolls mid-unfurl. It gave the overall impression of having been designed during a thunderstorm by an epileptic classicist.

There was a pause—long, profound, spiritual.

Then the Egyptian sourcing agents collapsed into helpless, wheezing laughter.

“By the gods,” one managed, wiping tears from his moustache. “It is—how do you say?—an epiphany! A philosophical chair!”

“Bwana must never grasp what their laughter truly means,” Kamau murmured to me, his gaze politely avoiding the spectacle before us.

Ruffles, who had been gazing reverently at the chair, turned. “What was that?”

“I said,” Kamau said gently, “they are overwhelmed by the spiritual force of your design.”

“Quite so,” Ruffles beamed. “One must risk ridicule to achieve the sublime. Calypso’s Hideaway will be the toast of the Indian Ocean.”

Singh-Libani, ever the gentleman, offered tea. Lady Nicholas declined, claiming her stomach had “gone sideways,” and requested bicarbonate.

Trevor wandered off to study a rosewood table, murmuring something about sacred geometry. Rory whispered that he’d found a quiet garden bench on the far side of the compound, and was preparing to write Khush’s name in verse.

“Should I compare her to a monsoon bloom?” he asked me.

“Compare her to something with more shade,” I advised. “Monsoon blooms rot.”

I was left alone in the prototype room for a moment. I sat, cautiously, on the chair. It creaked with unexpected grace. Somewhere in its absurdity was—something. Not comfort, exactly. But presence.

The Egyptians had left a note on the table. Kamau snatched it up before Ruffles could see. Later, he showed it to me:

“May the gods preserve us from this aesthetic terror. It will haunt our dreams.”

That night, on the veranda of our hotel, Ruffles sketched plans for a new chair, this one inspired by Circe. “More curves,” he murmured. “More sorcery. Less goat.”

Kamau brought him his drink and nodded sagely. “Yes, Bwana. Very good.”

And Bombay slept on.

Chapter Three: The Temple of Dancing Time

Trevor insisted we rise before dawn. He arrived at my door wearing a damp linen shirt and the expression of a man who has recently communed with a sacred termite mound.

“The light, Duffy,” he whispered hoarsely, “is unrepeatable at first blush.”

“Mine is quite repeatable,” I replied, still horizontal. “It blushes every morning at exactly six.”

But he was determined. Rory, freshly shaved and still dazed from the tragic discovery that “Khush” was attending a wedding in Jaipur and had left him a note (“Back in three weeks—don’t wait!”), had agreed to join the temple expedition as a sort of emotional distraction. Kamau—who had been up since four, ironing everyone’s socks for reasons never explained—packed water, a map, a parasol, two flasks of something called ‘tonic wine,’ and a faint warning.

“The temples,” he said, “are not known for shade. Please do not lick anything.”

It was a half-mile ride by cycle-rickshaw and a further walk along a broken causeway bordered by vines and the sounds of unseen birds making unplaceable clicks. The temple emerged slowly from the foliage—stone upon stone, a collapsed corridor, roots crawling like drunken serpents over bas-relief.

“Here we are,” Trevor whispered, reverent. “The Temple of the Dancing Princesses.”

The air was oddly cool inside. The carvings were unmistakable—twelve female figures in mid-step, arms outstretched, draped in silks that once must have been painted in vivid colour, now worn pale as bone. They were caught in a moment just short of motion.

“Look at them,” Trevor breathed. “Each one is slightly different. Their hands—see the angle? That suggests choreography. A story. Possibly an invocation.”

Rory, squinting: “They look like they’re doing yoga.”

Trevor didn’t blink. “They’re waiting.”

We stood for a while in silence. It was a rare moment: the heat held at bay by thick walls, the city sounds lost behind the trees, time folding inward like a paper fan.

And then, it happened.

Trevor reached for his camera.

There was a flicker.

Later, he would describe it as “a temporal shudder,” “a retinal loop,” and once, privately to me, “a metaphysical flirtation.” The sun pierced through the vines just so, and for a moment—just one—the dancers turned. Not fully, not like a film, but like a shadow thrown sideways, as if someone had whispered to them from beyond the wall.

One of them—Trevor swore this with a hand on his chest—smiled.

Rory, unhelpfully, said, “I think my lens just fogged.”

Trevor stumbled backward, nearly colliding with a monkey that had crept in to watch. “I… saw them. They moved. Duffy. Rory. They moved.”

“Alright,” I said gently. “Let’s go sit down.”

We returned to the hotel with Trevor unusually quiet and Rory clutching a flower he’d found wedged in a cracked altar (“It looks like the one Khush wore behind her ear”). Kamau met us at the entrance and sized up the situation immediately.

“Mr. Finch-Blythe,” he said evenly, “you’ve clearly suffered a hallucination in this, the hottest season in Bombay. It was undoubtedly the shimmering heatwaves that brought the dancers to life. Tomorrow morning at first light, when the air is cool and refreshing, we’ll cycle out again and view the stillness of the dancers, who, after all, are carved in stone.”

Trevor opened his mouth. Kamau continued, gently but firmly:

“Bwana would prefer you not speak with reporters about a new crinkle incident—Bwana needs to rest.”

He led Trevor indoors.

Rory and I lingered on the veranda. He was staring at the flower.

“Do you think,” he said slowly, “that things from one time can accidentally fall into another?”

“I think,” I replied, “you’re asking the wrong person.”

He nodded. “Good. I’ll ask the flower.”

⸻

Chapter Four: Khush in Bloom

Rory took to his notebook with the determined air of a man writing his own obituary in verse.

We were seated in the garden of our hotel, a dusty colonial relic called The Grand Bhowani, which had once hosted Sir Richard Burton on his way to Mecca, and now hosted a string of German backpackers convinced it was haunted. An enormous marabou stork loitered beside the fountain like a disapproving chaperone.

“I’ve written three stanzas,” Rory announced. “But I’m stuck on a rhyme for Khush.”

“Ambush?” I offered. “Or possibly hush?”

He scowled. “I’m trying to honour her.”

“Well then, not gush.”

Trevor, still dazed from his crinkle experience, was reading a medical manual on tropical hallucinations. He muttered something about “heatstroke-induced kinetic perception.” Kamau appeared at his side with lime water and a quiet nod.

“Mr. Maher,” Kamau said, with the tone of a man about to remove a ticking object from a child’s hands, “I understand you have arranged for a henna artist this afternoon?”

Rory beamed. “Yes! I’m having Khush written across my forearm. It’ll be bold—scripted like Sanskrit fire.”

Kamau was silent for a beat. Then he said, delicately, “You may wish to consider an alternative phrasing.”

“But it’s her name.”

“In a sense,” Kamau agreed. “However, in older usage—particularly in sacred temple contexts—the term Khush was reserved for women attached to devotional performances… in a certain capacity.”

Rory blinked.

“She was a dancer?”

Kamau coughed lightly. “A consecrated one. It is not a term used lightly in polite company. Were you to arrive at her family home with that on your arm, they might assume…”

“I’m a deviant?”

“They might assume you are enthusiastic.”

Rory dropped his pen. “What should I write, then?”

Kamau glanced upward. “Perhaps something like Anandita—‘joyful one’. Or Vasanti—‘of the spring’. Something symbolic. Poetic. Non-litigious.”

Rory sighed and crossed out a stanza. “Spring, then. Fine. She is like spring.”

“She left for a wedding in Jaipur,” I reminded him.

“Spring returns,” he muttered.

⸻

That afternoon we attended the Festival of Mango Blossoms at the Hanging Gardens. Ruffles insisted on wearing a white suit with a lapel carnation and was followed by a cluster of women from the Belgian Consulate, all of whom had heard of the chair and wanted to see the man mad enough to design it.

Lady Nicholas refused to attend unless a physician accompanied her. She claimed the local pollen triggered her “cosmic asthma,” an ailment no doctor on the subcontinent had yet identified.

At the festival, a local troupe of dancers performed a retelling of the Ramayana using shadow puppets and live peacocks. It was confusing, beautiful, and ended with a goat eating the central prop.

Trevor stood in the back, whispering comparisons to the temple reliefs. “It’s the same gestures,” he said. “See that—she’s summoning time.”

“I believe she’s indicating the goat,” Kamau murmured.

Rory, freshly inked with the word Vasanti, had taken to standing beneath a banyan tree and composing final lines aloud:

“O spring, O joy, O fragrant leaf—

Return to me, and end my grief…”

“That’s not awful,” I said.

“Thank you,” he said. “I borrowed it from a shampoo bottle.”

That night, Duffy—that is to say, I—sat on the veranda with my notes, attempting to make sense of the spiritual choreography of Bombay. I’d found a shaman listed in an ethnographic journal, out on the outskirts near Elephanta Island, who was reportedly open to visitors. Tomorrow, I would call.

Kamau passed by and paused. “A word of advice, sir.”

“Yes?”

“Do not go into any hut unless invited twice. And never drink anything thicker than tea.”

I looked up. “How do you know what I was going to do?”

Kamau gave the faintest smile. “Because you are going to do it anyway.”

Chapter Five: The Shaman’s Invitation

I had, it must be said, taken every reasonable precaution. I wore a cravat soaked in citronella, carried quinine tablets in a silver pillbox, and had carefully underlined the relevant entry in Ethnographic Reports: Coastal India, 1911–1931. It read:

“The shaman of Elephanta Island receives travellers on the third day of the waxing moon. Tea is customary. No gifts required unless prompted by the sacred goat.”

That was clear enough for me.

The ferry to Elephanta was late, listing slightly, and filled with crates of marigolds and one stern woman who sold coconut water in porcelain cups. I shared my bench with a young German linguist who claimed the shaman had once “reversed her inner river.”

By the time I arrived on the island, the sun had climbed to a theatrical height and my shirt clung to me like a wet accusation. A boy led me up a forested trail. At the top stood a thatched hut with coloured flags, an iron bell, and the faint smell of burnt sugar and something more… animal.

A man emerged from the shadows, wrapped in saffron cloth, face painted with white lines. He regarded me with the tranquil disinterest of someone who has seen rather too many Europeans asking spiritual questions with not nearly enough preparation.

I bowed. He nodded.

“I have come,” I said in slow English, “to learn of your practices.”

The shaman motioned me inside.

At this point, I must admit, my notes grow erratic.

It was Kamau who intervened.

Having anticipated my movements with eerie precision, he arrived at the hut a quarter-hour later, disguised in a loose cotton shirt and carrying a satchel of supplies from the hotel’s pantry, including a tin of chicory, a dried mango, and a collapsible camp kettle once owned by Lord Curzon.

Inside the hut, he found me seated cross-legged, blinking at a carved mask while the shaman rummaged in a corner for what I had just agreed to ingest—some sort of syrup being boiled over coals with three unidentifiable roots and what I feared might be a spider.

Kamau acted swiftly.

“I apologise for the intrusion,” he said in rapid Hindi, “but the gentleman is not to be trusted with his own digestion. Would you allow us a short… interpretive ritual instead?”

The shaman shrugged. Kamau offered the dried mango. A compromise was reached.

Outside, beneath a neem tree, Kamau arranged three stones in a triangle, burned a stick of hotel sandalwood, and instructed me to sit cross-legged and breathe “as though reciting a prayer to a ceiling fan.”

Then he began to chant—not in Sanskrit or any known tongue, but in what I later recognised as phonetic nonsense derived from the Eurycleia’s engine manual.

I fell into a kind of trance. The wind rustled the trees. A peacock cried. A monkey attempted to steal my shoe and was gently discouraged by a hotel parasol.

When it was over, Kamau poured us both tea.

“You have undergone the Ceremony of the Third Breath,” he informed me.

I blinked. “I felt something.”

“That was the chicory.”

I made notes with trembling fingers. Kamau thanked the shaman, bowed, and led me back down the trail before I could sign up for anything requiring leeches or nudity.

Back at the Bhowani, Ruffles was sketching a chandelier inspired by “Nausicaa’s longing,” Lady Nicholas was quarantining herself from humidity, and Rory had taken to sighing into his mango lassi.

Trevor, for his part, had begun to suspect that his camera contained a spirit.

And I, with a fresh notebook and a head full of warm symbolism, began drafting my article for the Geographic Society Review:

“I have tasted the Third Breath and seen the unseen. The mask gazed at me with ancestral memory. The tea left my molars vibrating. The essence of shamanic unity is not in the mind, but in the gut.”

Kamau read this over my shoulder and murmured, “Let us hope they publish it in the humour section.”

Chapter Six: Lady Nicholas Dines with Disaster

There was, from the beginning, an unspoken sense of doom about the whole affair.

Calypso’s Hideaway, Ruffles’s most recent obsession, was not yet a restaurant, nor even a building—it was a concept prototype, temporarily assembled on a quiet stretch of the Bombay shoreline. The real Calypso’s Hideaway was intended to be constructed as a folly on the landscaped grounds of The Meringue, Lord Thornton’s estate in the Wanjohi Valley of Kenya. There, amidst manicured lawns and formal gardens already dotted with whimsies—an obelisk to a forgotten spaniel, a Greco-Roman tea dome, a sunken amphitheatre for one—Calypso’s Hideaway would rise in full baroque glory: a Homeric grotto reimagined in sparkling shellwork and faux gemstones, its curved walls and vaulted ceiling designed to resemble the interior of an enchanted sea-cave, with dining furniture (also of Ruffles’s design) meant to evoke both classical form and tropical indulgence.

But here in Bombay, the prototype—part pop-up, part fever dream—was being trialled for proof of concept. Ruffles had invited a select group of travellers and pilgrims to sample the cuisine and the ambiance. It was, he said, “a controlled taste environment,” though nothing about it felt particularly controlled.

“I want oysters served from a clamshell en brochette,” he said at the planning meeting, which consisted entirely of himself and a bewildered Parsi chef named Daruwalla. “And sorbet from a sea sponge. I’ve had the bar staff trained in Ithacan toasts.”

“Ithacan is extinct, sir,” Kamau murmured.

“Then revive it,” Ruffles replied.

Trevor, still brooding over the metaphysical dancer incident, had declined the invitation. “My digestion can’t handle symbolic furniture,” he said. Rory came out of sheer loyalty, though he appeared increasingly drawn to the notion of returning to the temple for “one last look.” He had written a new verse beginning, “Thou art my banyan-blossomed fate…”

Lady Nicholas, of course, had accepted the luncheon invitation immediately and with conditions. She arrived precisely at one o’clock, dressed in cream muslin with a parasol the size of a small schooner, and announced to the waiter that she would be dining “against the wind.”

She took her place in the prototype chair with something approaching suspicion.

“I feel a slope,” she said. “Am I leaning?”

“No,” Ruffles beamed. “You’re reclining.”

“There’s a pressure on my left hip.”

“That’s the Ionic curve.”

“I don’t want an Ionic curve. I want a flat English seat and a cucumber sandwich.”

But the food had already begun. A starter of pickled jackfruit on a banana chip was served, followed by chilled curry soup in half a coconut. Then came the main course: spiced quail with Homeric stuffing, which no one could define.

Halfway through the quail, the chair betrayed her.

It was unclear whether the fault lay with the cushion, the damp air, or an unfortunate interaction between the Ionic curve and Lady Nicholas’s corsetry, but a leg gave way—not all at once, but with a slow, theatrical creak—followed by a sideways tilt, a gasp, and a frankly astonishing thump.

“My good leg!” she cried. “It’s gone numb!”

Ruffles leapt forward. Kamau was already there, applying smelling salts and extracting Lady Nicholas from the wreckage with the deftness of a man accustomed to spontaneous furniture collapse.

Daruwalla, ever the professional, continued pouring sea-sponge sorbet into clamshells.

“I warned you,” Lady Nicholas moaned. “There is something wrong with the curvature. It pulls one toward the eastern axis. And I felt a cat watching me.”

She was carried, with great ceremony, to the waiting motorcar and driven back to Chillum, where she immediately drafted a telegram to her solicitor in Surrey:

“FALLEN FROM GREEK CHAIR STOP SUSPECT MALICE OR DESIGN STOP INITIATING INQUEST INTO IONIC PROTOTYPES STOP”

Ruffles, despondent but defiant, ordered a whisky soda and set about sketching Circe’s Bistro Bench, which he insisted would be “far more grounded—pun intentional.”

Kamau removed the broken chair with a glance that said, very clearly: Never again.

The cats reappeared that evening and took up residence in the gazebo.

No one tried to stop them.

Chapter Seven: The Crinkle Revisited

Trevor insisted on returning at dawn. He’d barely spoken in three days, save to mutter about bas-reliefs, time distortions, and “an expression of longing beyond the reach of centuries.”

Kamau arranged the bicycles.

“I will accompany you this time,” he said simply.

Rory, whose romantic fervour had cooled to a manageable ache, came too—ostensibly to sketch the temple’s pillars, but truly, I suspect, to keep Trevor from climbing anything unstable or proposing to a statue.

I stayed behind, researching coastal folklore and failing to explain to the Geographic Society editor why my article now contained phrases like “ritual misdirection,” “engine chant,” and “symbolic chicory.”

The temple complex at that hour was golden and empty, with long fingers of sunlight reaching across the moss-covered flagstones. The air was cool and still. Cicadas had not yet begun their tirade.

The dancers were just as before—stone-silent, arms poised, lips nearly parted.

Trevor stood before them, breathing heavily. “This is the moment. The light’s identical.”

He raised his camera.

It happened again—but this time, they weren’t alone.

From a narrow corridor at the temple’s rear—a place none of them had noticed on the first visit—came the sound of footsteps. Not the careful tread of a tourist, nor the eager bounce of a local guide, but a purposeful, heavy rhythm. Sandals on stone. And then, a voice:

“You should not be here.”

Kamau turned sharply.

From the corridor stepped three men. They wore pale robes, sun-faded but ancient in cut, and each carried a long staff tipped with a crescent blade. Their faces were painted—white across the brow, red below the cheekbones. They were not smiling.

Trevor lowered the camera.

“Pilgrims?” he asked, hopefully.

“Guardians,” said Kamau, softly. “Temple guardians. This site may not be as abandoned as the Archaeological Survey suggested.”

The tallest of the men lifted his staff.

“You were warned,” he said. “No images. No questions. No witnesses.”

Rory stepped forward, hands up, his sketchbook tucked under one arm. “We didn’t mean offence. We’re just—well—travellers.”

“Go,” the man said, in the ancient tongue.

Trevor’s foot slipped as he stepped back. The camera hit the ground with a shattering crack.

Kamau moved then.

It was not a movement of panic, but of precision—his hand darted to the pouch on his hip, producing not a weapon but a handful of fine sand, which he flung into the air before the guardians could step forward. In the confusion—brief but effective—he turned to Trevor and Rory.

“Run.”

They didn’t hesitate.

They reached the bicycles winded and scraped. Kamau arrived last, his shirt torn at the shoulder, his eyes unreadable.

Only when they were cycling hard down the dusty path toward the edge of the jungle did he speak.

To no one in particular, he said:

“What’s this? I had not foreseen this threat, here, in the shadow of the Dancing Princesses…”

Trevor, still white-faced, managed: “Who were they?”

“I believe,” Kamau said, “they were meant to stay in stories. But someone remembered them. And that is enough.”

That night, back at the Bhowani, no one spoke of the temple.

Ruffles was busy commissioning a mosaic of Circe turning a waiter into a duck.

Lady Nicholas was dictating a note to her cousin about the “treacherous geometry of Grecian chairs.”

But at the edge of the garden, under a lamplit palm, Kamau sat alone, inspecting a strip of linen where a blade had nicked him.

In the distance, a peacock cried.

And in the corridor of a ruined temple, beneath a carved canopy of dancers who may or may not move when no one is looking, the guardians returned to stillness.

Chapter Eight: Starboard Home

Eurycleia let out a low, weary moan as we boarded—less a horn than a groan of reluctant awakening, like a dowager roused for morning calisthenics.

We were leaving Bombay.

Lady Nicholas arrived last, trailing a cedar-scented steamer trunk and a list of grievances that had grown by one new item: “sun-induced toothaches.” She inspected her quarters, frowned theatrically, and summoned Kamau with a brass handbell she claimed had once belonged to Lord Elgin.

“Kamau, this is not starboard,” she announced. “I booked a starboard cabin for the return journey.”

Kamau did not blink. “This is starboard, madam. We’ve simply changed direction.”

“Oh,” she said, after a pause. “Then I shall require a portside breakfast. Something… steadier.”

She retired with a bottle of tonic and two issues of Tatler, one of which had been accidentally scorched during the prototype luncheon.

Rory was alone, standing at the stern’s fantail, leaning on the railing as the Bombay skyline faded into a softened smear of memory. One by one, he dropped his poems—each a leaf of unreciprocated love—into the breeze. They fluttered briefly, then scattered like confused gulls on the trade winds.

The Eurycleia was bound for Mombasa once more, her bow cutting clean through a calm sea. A full moon rose, silver and ponderous, glinting across the water like a thousand overturned teaspoons.

Trevor and I were seated in the lounge, halfway through our second drinks, when Ruffles appeared in the doorway with a certain theatrical gravity.

“We’ve a small boat signalling distress,” he said. “I may require your assistance when we pull alongside.”

We followed him out to the starboard deck. The air was mild and still.

“See the vessel?” he asked, pointing into the dusk. “Five hundred yards ahead. North-northwest.”

Kamau, at the helm, was already studying it through Ruffles’s oversized military binoculars, inherited from an uncle who’d once mapped parts of Abyssinia in a cloud of cigar smoke and malaria.

“One hundred yards,” Kamau murmured. “Fifty…”

Suddenly, a black flag went up—jerky, unmistakable, and comically overdone.

“Pirates!” Kamau called out.

Ruffles did not hesitate. “They’ll come starboard. Prepare to defend. Heave the Calypso Lounge over the rail—first. Then the Odysseus Throne Chair. That’ll sink ’em!”

The pirates, emboldened, had thrown their boarding hooks. Two clanged against the deck rail. Ruffles barked orders like a mad admiral in an aesthetic war. The prototype furniture went overboard with a mix of violence and design critique.

Trevor, as the Throne Chair splashed down, observed, “I say—of what sort of wood was the Calypso Collection made?”

“Dense,” Ruffles replied, brushing sawdust from his cuffs. “Unforgiving. Just like Homer.”

In the moonlight, the pirate craft rocked, then rolled, then vanished beneath a froth of bubbles and vaguely perfumed foam. The hooks slackened. The crisis was, it seemed, over.

Straightening their jackets and dusting off their trousers, Ruffles gave his cuffs a firm tug.

“A gin and tonic wouldn’t go amiss.”

“Right-o,” I said. “Whisky soda for me.”

A short while later, the gentlemen had resumed their rightful station: sun-kissed and mildly intoxicated. All was as it had been.

The sea sparkled in the moonlight, just the hush of waves and the occasional slap of canvas against the mast. I stood on deck with Kamau, who had finally removed his jacket and leaned silently on the rail.

“Did we interfere with something?” I asked him. “At the temple complex?”

He didn’t answer straightaway. Then he said, very quietly:

“Sometimes you don’t break the thread. You just tug it loose.”

“What about the guardians?”

“They will go back to sleep. Until someone else forgets to be careful.”

We stood for a while longer, listening.

Far off, from the dark behind us, came one last echo—whether peacock, or memory, or something in between.

Finis (Or at least, for now…)

—Duffy Whitmore

* Trevor’s Kodachrome Revelation

One seldom expects to encounter a crisis of metaphysics between the fish course and the port, but such is the price of dining at The Meringue.

Lord Thornton—“Ruffles” to his friends, “Bwana” to his man Kamau—had invited us to his estate in the Wanjohi Valley for what he termed a “modest little supper.” As usual, the place was teeming with white-coated staff, all trained in that particular British style of quiet, unobtrusive omnipresence. I counted three separate footmen attending solely to the cheeses.

After dessert (a floating island of meringue served in a shallow lake of passionfruit cream, which Ruffles claimed was an old Thornton family recipe—I have my doubts), we retired to the library for a presentation from Trevor Finch-Bligh.

Now, Trevor had recently taken possession of a new Leica and a curious delusion: that it was capable of capturing moments not only from the present but—by some lens of spiritual eccentricity—the past. He called it his “Magic Leica,” and while we all humored him, the idea had grown wearisome after he claimed to have photographed Vasco da Gama on a Lisbon quayside and what may or may not have been a druid at Stonehenge.

This evening’s lecture promised to be no different.

Kamau had already arranged the projector—a sleek little German model—and one of those portable Silver Screens, recently shipped from Hollywood. Ruffles had purchased it after seeing The Thief of Bagdad three times in Nairobi and declaring that “Cinema is the new diplomacy.” Kamau had not commented.

We assembled in armchairs, the room thick with cigar smoke and clinking glasses. Ruffles, looking resplendent in a cream smoking jacket and patent slippers, took a seat beside me. Rory Thornton, Ruffles’ nephew and a recent convert to photography (his Leica hanging round his neck like a talisman), fidgeted with excitement.

Trevor cleared his throat in that theatrical way of his. “Gentlemen,” he began, as the first slides flickered to life, “what you are about to see may very well alter the course of cultural history.”

“God, not again,” I muttered.

The screen flashed images of Kyoto: temples shrouded in mist, cherry blossoms in bloom, a disturbingly erotic still life involving an octopus, and finally—The Shot.

A man, hunched and ragged, was descending a slope of moss-covered boulders toward a misty river. His robes were tattered but graceful; he carried a small bundle wrapped in indigo cloth. His head was shaved, save for a wispy topknot. He looked ancient, serene, mildly amused by something only he could see.

“Gentlemen,” Trevor whispered, “I present… Bashō.”

There was a brief silence, the kind that follows a dropped wineglass at a formal dinner. Ruffles leaned forward, eyes narrowed.

“Is this a reenactment?” he asked.

“No. I was alone.”

“A time slip?”

Trevor nodded gravely.

Rory gasped. “Trevor… this is extraordinary. Medieval Japan, revealed! How do you do it?”

“He doesn’t,” I said.

Ruffles stood, hands behind his back in that faux-military stance he adopts when funding an expedition. “We must go there. We must investigate.”

Trevor beamed. “I thought you’d say that.”

“I’ll fund the trip,” Ruffles declared. “Kamau will make the arrangements.”

Kamau, ever the sphinx, inclined his head. “Yes, Bwana.”

Later, as the others shuffled out toward the billiards room, Kamau lingered beside me. I was pouring a nightcap and lighting a cheroot.

“He’s serious, you know,” I said, nodding toward Ruffles’ retreating figure.

“Yes,” Kamau said softly. “Bwana is learning Japanese. He feels ready to speak to someone in Japan.”

I blinked. “You mean…?”

Kamau offered no answer, only a small, inscrutable smile.

* Arashiyama Arrival

There are few sensations more profoundly dispiriting than arriving in a foreign country after thirty-six hours aboard Imperial Airways. The seats were allegedly designed by a former jockey with a cruel streak, and the in-flight fare bore a striking resemblance to wartime rations, but it was all forgiven when the great green curve of Japan emerged through the haze.

Trevor, Rory, and I stumbled from the plane like spiritual pilgrims, blinking through the diesel mist, while Ruffles disembarked with the calm of a diplomat returning to a colony he’d once governed. Kamau followed silently behind, carrying a single black bag with everything he owned or required.

We reached Arashiyama at dusk, the hills soft with mist and the bamboo groves murmuring like a congregation of polite ghosts. Ruffles had rented a traditional house just beyond the grove. It had paper walls, a koi pond in the courtyard, and the constant, faint gossip of cuckoos from the woods.

“I say,” Rory murmured, peering at the tatami floor. “Is this real bamboo?”

Trevor, who had declared himself an expert on “all things Japanese” after three days with a phrasebook, replied, “Of course it’s real. Everything in Japan is real.”

To which I responded, “Except time, apparently.”

That evening, Kamau arranged dinner at a local restaurant said to serve the finest nabe in Kyoto. It was a low, wood-panelled place, lit like a jewel box.

As we stepped into the lobby, a young woman appeared and bowed so gracefully it was as if she’d choreographed it in a dream. She wore a midnight-blue kimono embroidered with pale cranes, her hair pinned with what appeared to be a single silver chopstick.

“Gentlemen,” whispered Rory, breathless, “she’s a goddess.”

Ruffles stepped forward with a sudden gravity, as if approaching a vision on a mountaintop. He took her hands, bowed low, and said something in Japanese.

She smiled. Her eyes held his in a moment that felt entirely outside of time.

It was then I heard myself whisper aloud, to no one in particular, “Coup de foudre.”

The two Door Supervisors, as we refer to them in London, moved towards us from the rear. They wore dark robes and sandals, with topknots that looked more than decorative. Each carried what I can only describe as a proper samurai sword, slung across the back with theatrical menace.

Trevor leaned in. “Ronin,” he said, eyes wide. “Leftovers from the Edo Period.”

The two Ronin / Door Supervisors, advanced on Ruffles—slow, measured, like crocodiles across a marble floor—but the waitress raised one delicate hand and said something soft and commanding. They halted. Then, in perfect unison, they bowed and stepped back.

Kamau, who had remained near the entrance, tilted his head ever so slightly. Watching. Weighing. Ready.

Dinner was taken seated on floor pillows around a bubbling pot of broth. Ruffles was unusually quiet, speaking only to ask, “What’s that?” or to repeat, “Say again?”

The waitress—her name, we learned, was Marina—served each course with the grace of a tea ceremony. Each time she returned to the table, she knelt before us.

The light from the paper lanterns softened the curve of her cheekbones and caught in the embroidery of her sleeves. There was a delightful tension between her and Ruffles—visible to everyone and acknowledged by none. Gentlemen, after all, are experts at looking the other way.

Later that night, as we strolled back beneath the swaying bamboo, Ruffles walked in silence. I caught Kamau glancing toward him, studying his stride with the eye of a doctor or perhaps a tailor. When we reached the house, Ruffles lingered on the bridge above the koi pond, staring at his reflection in the dark water.

“I think,” he said at last, “I may need to see more temples.”

Trevor, naturally, took this to mean the next day’s search for Bashō was on. Rory was already loading a new roll of Kodachrome into his Leica.

As for me—I suspected temples had very little to do with it.

* Trevor and the Time Slip

The following morning dawned cool and river-scented. Mist clung to the surface of the Arashiyama like silk on wet skin, and somewhere a bell was being rung in the temple district, deep and low, like a memory stirring in its sleep.

Trevor was already up and marching about the garden with a notebook, muttering phrases in his pidgin Japanese.

Rory Maher, resplendent in dinner jacket and polished patent shoes (he refused to dress down even for time travel), had his Leica swinging from his neck like a holy relic.

“I’ve reviewed the topography of the photograph,” Trevor declared, waving a map that appeared to be printed on waxed rice paper. “The boulders are just west of the footbridge. If we time it right, we’ll catch Bashō in the act of existing.”

“You talk about him like he’s a trout,” I said.

Kamau served us tea on the porch. Ruffles was nowhere to be seen.

“He’s staying behind,” Kamau explained, “to study vocabulary.”

Rory nodded solemnly. “He’s with Marina, isn’t he?”

Kamau did not respond. He simply poured the tea.

We set off along the river, three explorers in search of a seventeenth-century poet.

The town was beginning to stir: vendors slicing melons with small swords, monks sweeping temple steps, schoolchildren in pressed uniforms laughing into the wind.

“I’ve always suspected time isn’t strictly linear,” Trevor mused, as we descended a muddy slope. “More of a crumpled handkerchief. And we’re about to poke our noses into a fold.”

At the base of a tumble of mossy boulders, just as described, stood the figure.

A man—lean, elderly, with the air of someone who’d long ago ceased being surprised by anything—stood feeding ducks. His robe was threadbare but clean. His feet were bare. His topknot trembled in the breeze like a weather vane.

“Bashō,” Trevor whispered.

“Not necessarily,” I said. “Could be a local fellow with an unfortunate hairdresser.”

“I’ll flank him from the left,” Rory whispered, already crouching into what I believe he called a ‘pincer movement.’ “Military tactic—Napoleon used it.”

“He also lost to Wellington,” I muttered.

Trevor moved with comic delicacy, camera raised. I stayed back on the slope, somewhere between skeptical and enchanted.

The man turned to face us as we approached. He smiled. “You are looking for someone?” he asked, in excellent English.

Trevor nearly fainted. “Are you… Bashō?”

The man laughed. “No, no. My name is Haruki. I think Bashō is… how do you say… very old now?”

“But you look very old,” Rory blurted out. It was not taken as an insult.

Haruki (if that was his name) invited us up to his nearby cottage for tea. It was a weathered place, with sliding paper doors and a view of the hills that would make Wordsworth give up entirely. Inside, tacked to the wall above a writing desk, was a woodblock print of Bashō. The resemblance was uncanny. Too uncanny.

“We’ve found him,” Trevor said, awestruck. “We’ve only gone and done it.”

I examined the room. On a low credenza lay a stack of paper—calligraphy, written with a brush and pale ink.

“These look… unfinished,” I said, holding up a few pages. “They’re not copies, either. These are fresh.”

Rory was now visibly panicking. “I’ve read about this. In Chronicles of Other Realms, Vol. II. If we stay too long, we could be trapped in a Crinkle.”

“A Crinkle?” I asked.

“A Crinkle in Time,” Rory explained, frantically checking his watch. “Forty-five minutes max. After that—poof. We’re stuck here. I’d estimate this is… 1640? Give or take.”

I checked my pocket watch. “We’ve been here thirty-five.”

“Time to go,” Rory said, striding toward the door. “Say bye-bye. We’ve got the shot, as they say at Life Magazine.”

Trevor hesitated, bowing low to Haruki/Bashō and whispering, “Thank you. Your work has meant more than you’ll ever know.”

The man only smiled.

As we hurried down the path, back toward our rented villa, I looked over my shoulder. The poet was feeding a clowder of cats that had gathered in front of his cottage.

* A Quiet Intervention and Poems and Prawns

Back at the villa, Ruffles stood before the mirror in the main hall, reciting syllables into the fragrant air.

“Sumimasen… Marina-san… o-ai dekite… ureshii desu…”

His tone was reverent, like a schoolboy preparing for confession, and Kamau, standing just behind him, corrected the intonation with a subtle cough.

“You are improving, Bwana,” he said, gently adjusting Ruffles’ collar. “But perhaps do not attempt the conditional tense just yet.”

Ruffles nodded, adjusting his cravat. “Kamau, I intend to be fluent. Not merely conversational—fluent.”

“Yes, Bwana,” Kamau replied, handing him a small wrapped gift. “The hand-embroidered handkerchief. Cranes and pines. As requested.”

Marina had offered to serve as his personal guide for the day—an invitation Ruffles received with the solemnity of a diplomatic overture. As they departed together through the garden gate, she in a pale pink kimono and he in his Panama and cream linen, it struck me that whatever language they spoke, it had little to do with grammar.

While you’re touring the temples with your lovely guide, Miss Marina, I will, with your permission Bwana, take this opportunity to do a bit of shopping.”

Dinner that evening was a triumph.

Kamau had outdone himself, presenting a fusion meal that could have earned him a knighthood, had we still been in the habit of awarding those for culinary diplomacy. It began with sesame prawns in a miso reduction, followed by a slow-cooked oxtail stew with yuzu and fenugreek, and ended with a silken panna cotta of such precision that Rory claimed to have had a religious experience.

“I mean, honestly,” Rory said, licking a dollop from his spoon, “how does he do it?”

Kamau, silent as ever, bowed slightly and vanished toward the kitchen.

We dined on the rear terrace, overlooking the koi pond Ruffles had already begun sketching in his notebook for replication at The Meringue. The air smelled of pine and soy sauce, and the garden glowed with the delicate shimmer of stone lanterns nestled among the foliage.

Rory and Trevor were beside themselves with excitement.

“I calculated that we’ve probably taken at least twenty usable shots,” Trevor announced, sipping a plum wine that may or may not have been medicinal. “Some of them might even be cover material.”

“For Life?” I asked.

“For National Geographic,” he replied, a little too quickly. “Possibly Punch.”

Rory, still clutching his Leica like a sacred relic, nodded. “The calligraphy—Duffy, show them again.”

I held up the sheets we’d collected from Haruki’s cottage. Elegant, brush-drawn kanji danced across the paper like dragonflies. I’d taken the liberty of pressing them between pages of Trevor’s field guide to Shinto architecture, which he hadn’t yet noticed.

“These,” I said, with the solemnity of a man fully committing to a lie he half-believes, “are obviously unfinished poems. Possibly from Bashō’s own hand. We were probably standing in what was once his house.”

Trevor leaned back in his chair, arms folded across his chest like a professor awaiting applause. “We did it. Proof of a temporal anomaly. And a cultural coup.”

“Don’t say coup,” Rory muttered. “It makes it sound treasonous.”

Ruffles had said very little throughout the meal, save for his usual observations about sauce texture and how Japanese tea should never be steeped “angrily.” But at last, he cleared his throat and raised his glass.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I have good news.”

We turned to him at once, half-expecting an announcement about a medal or a marriage.

“This afternoon,” he continued, “I received a telegram. From Marina.”

He let the name hang in the air like a final course.

“She says she would like to visit. In Kenya.”

“Marina?” Trevor asked, blinking. “Our Marina?”

“There is only one,” Ruffles said, smiling faintly. “I replied at once. I said she must stay at The Meringue. I received her reply an hour later.”

He removed a slip of paper from his inner pocket and read aloud:

“DARLING THAT WOULD BE WONDERFUL”

Rory raised his glass. “To Marina!”

“To Bashō!” cried Trevor.

“To Kamau,” I said. But he was nowhere to be seen.

After dinner, we lingered on the terrace, the ice clinking in our glasses, the koi drifting just below the surface like polite secrets. The air buzzed with cicadas and half-sober speculation.

We imagined presenting our discovery to the Royal Geographical Society. We fantasized about a private viewing at the British Museum. We toyed with the idea of a serialized write-up in The Illustrated London News, possibly with an accompanying LP of ambient flute music recorded on-site.

No one mentioned the possibility that it was all a mirage. Or worse: a carefully orchestrated performance by unseen hands.

And Kamau—our cook, our guide, our quiet watcher—stood in the doorway for a moment before retiring, silhouetted by the kitchen light, his expression unreadable.

None of us noticed him slip away again, just before midnight.

* The Club and the Confession

Hong Kong, on the return journey to Nairobi, felt garish and electric after the hush of Japan. We arrived during the monsoon season and were promptly caught in a downpour so theatrical it might have been produced by Cecil B. DeMille.

Our first stop was, of course, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club—a colonial holdover perched above the sweating rooftops of Central, where they still served ice in silver buckets and the waiters wore white gloves with the weary dignity of men once employed by dukes.

Ruffles retained a membership there, a legacy of some forgotten diplomatic mission involving silk tariffs and a Portuguese consul’s niece.

He led us through the bar like an admiral returning to port.

We took the corner table—his table—and ordered whiskey sodas and something involving crab and toast.

Trevor and Rory were jubilant.

“I’ve already had a telegram from the Times of East Africa,” Trevor declared. “They want a quote for a front-page piece. Possibly a feature.”

“No comment,” said Ruffles, crisply. “That is our position.”

“Even for the Geographical Journal?” Rory asked.

“Especially for them,” Ruffles replied. “We shall release our findings when we are ready. Until then: no comment.”

Trevor nodded solemnly, clearly imagining how well this would play in print. Rory sipped his drink and whispered, “What if we’re summoned before a council? You know—Oxford dons in gowns, that sort of thing.”

“I’d wear my safari whites,” Ruffles said, without irony.

I said very little. I was still holding something of Kamau’s inside me—his silence, his skill, his invisible choreography of our entire little myth.

That night, I wrote two versions of my report for the Royal Society—one containing the whole truth, and one containing none of it. I sealed both in envelopes and left them in my suitcase.

I didn’t know, then, which one I would send.

• • •

Several weeks later, back in Nairobi, I spotted Ruffles’ Rolls parked outside the Indian grocery where one could acquire cardamom in bulk.

I stepped inside and there was Kamau, standing at the counter, comparing packets of jasmine rice.

“Mr. Whitmore,” he said, without surprise.

“Kamau,” I replied. “Shopping for Bwana?”

He nodded, then paused.

“There is something I must tell you,” he said quietly. “You must promise not to tell Bwana. It would embarrass him.”

I raised an eyebrow. “What on earth could possibly embarrass Ruffles?”

Kamau hesitated, then led me outside and told me the story—his story.

How he had gone to Marina’s house. How he had warned her. How he had quietly slipped up to Haruki’s cottage and tacked the Bashō woodblock to the wall. How he had hired a calligrapher, placed the poems, arranged the scene like a stage set.

And how, after dinner that evening, he had left through the kitchen’s side door and met the Ronin in the alley. How they had dealt with the men who had roughed up Ruffles and warned him to leave Japan. How those men would not be returning.

He told it all in the same even tone he used when describing stew or dusting shelves.

When he finished, I said nothing for a long moment.

“Why?” I finally asked.

Kamau looked at me, his expression unreadable. “Because Bwana believed,” he said. “And Trevor. And Rory. And perhaps you, a little. I wanted them to have what they came for.”

“And what did you get?”

He looked down the road where the Rolls waited in the sun. “I got what I always get. Quiet.”

I nodded. “Thank you, Kamau. I won’t tell them.”

He bowed slightly. “It would ruin the story.”

I watched him return to the shop, a small bag of rice in hand. A man vanishing into his role again.

And I realized he was right. The truth would ruin the story. Even if it made it more remarkable.

* No Comment

I found myself wandering the grounds of The Meringue, admiring the half-finished koi pond being excavated in the shape of Honshu. The gardener had mistaken the outline for a silhouette of a rhinoceros and was constructing as an island near Kyoto, that had never existed. Ruffles, naturally, was supervising in a panama hat and linen suit, sketchbook in hand, oblivious to the cartographical liberties being taken.

Kamau stood a few steps behind, silently redirecting shovels and correcting geography in the language of nods.

The Bashō Expedition had become legend already—at least in our circle. Trevor had given a lecture at the Nairobi Club titled “Temporal Slippages and the Poetics of Evidence”, which featured one of the Haruki photos projected dramatically onto a linen bedsheet. Rory, bless him, had started work on a novel—The Bamboo Hour—which I gather begins with a character based on himself discovering time travel in a packet of Fuji apples.

And Ruffles? Well, he said very little on the subject. When asked, he’d smile faintly and say, “No comment,” in a way that suggested a royal scandal or a discreet affair with a duchess. Which brings me to…

Of course, there were things none of us said.

It was never officially acknowledged, for instance, that Ruffles had not returned to our villa the night before the Ronin… incident. We all knew where he was—Marina’s small wooden house with its lacquered bowls and bamboo blinds, and her warm, inviting futon. He left at dawn, walking alone through the still-sleeping alleys of Arashiyama.

It was in one of those alleys—narrow, stone-lined, echoing with the faint sounds of morning rice being washed—that two men intercepted him. Plainclothes. Government, or a version of it.

They cornered him, said nothing at first, and then spoke in unnervingly crisp English.

“For your continued good health,” one said, “we advise you leave Japan. You have twenty-four hours. We’ll be watching.”

No one ever learned who they were.

Ruffles returned to the house a little after six. His collar was slightly torn. One cuff had blood—not much, just a dignified smear. Kamau received him as if nothing were out of place.

“Bwana,” he said calmly, taking his coat, “I’ve prepared tea and toast. You’ll find it on the terrace, overlooking the pond.”

Nothing more was said. And within the hour, the Ronin had been… engaged.

Kamau offered me a small smile and said, “Marina is due to arrive in one week. Her telegram arrived this morning.”

I nodded, unsure how to respond.

“She will stay in the guest pavilion,” Kamau added. “It overlooks the koi pond.”

There was a pause.

“She doesn’t know,” I said finally. “About the mugging. The men. The Ronin.”

“No,” Kamau said. “It would embarrass him.”

And so, we let the story stand.

Rory and Trevor kept their photographs. I submitted the second report—the more… tasteful one. Ruffles’ koi pond was completed, with Marina arriving just in time for the inaugural pouring of tea beside the stone lanterns. She wore a pale blue dress and carried a parasol with cranes stitched into the silk.

I never mentioned the futon. Nor did she.

As for the calligraphy? It remains in a drawer in Ruffles’ study, beneath a humidor and an unfinished monograph on Japanese tea houses. Sometimes, when he’s had a sherry too many, he’ll pull it out and examine the brushstrokes, murmuring about “crinkled pockets of time.”

But when the press comes calling—and they do, from time to time—Ruffles smiles, sips his tea, and says, “No comment.” Which is precisely the comment a gentleman makes when the truth is far too good to ruin.

— Duffy Whitmore

Prologue (from Duffy’s Travel Compendium)

Avlospilos, Third of June ‘36

Arrived at The Aphrodite to find the hotel disagreeably pleased with itself. The walls are a pale shade of envy, the staff all scented with basil, and the melon arrives with such frequency one suspects they grow them in the lobby. Trevor is with me, naturally. His hair has returned to its Edwardian sweep, and he’s acquired a new Leica, which he insists on speaking to in German.

There are rumours—barely whispers, really—of a ruined temple on Cythera. Not the postcard ruins. Real ones. Preposterous, of course. But Trevor has that look again—the one he wore just before we nearly got detained in Aleppo. I’ve written to Lord Thornton to say we’re merely “exploring the peninsula.” He will not believe me.

Trevor and I were presently luxuriating at The Aphrodite—a rather smug little hotel perched above the boat harbour at Avlospilos, not far from the tip of the Peloponnesian Peninsula. The establishment was tiled in turquoise, scented with thyme, and staffed entirely by young men in linen tunics who refused to make eye contact unless it was to express sorrow that the melon was not quite as chilled as it ought to be.

Chapter I:

Of Melon and Abyssinia

We were being plied that morning with a particularly aromatic pot of Ethiopian roast—Trevor insists on calling it “the real Abyssinian,” as though invoking Haile Selassie’s blessing with every cup. I was paging through a copy of Baedeker’s Southern Europe (1932), while Trevor muttered to himself about lens speeds and focal ranges and fiddled with the dials of his Leica as if preparing for a summit with the dead.

Our purpose—if one must be declared—was to investigate rumours of architectural remnants on Cythera: whispers of Doric columns and sacrificial altars lingering in a grove Baudelaire would have us believe had long since surrendered to scrub. I had recently unearthed an obscure essay suggesting otherwise, and with Trevor’s Leica in hand and the Aegean glinting like a sequined scarf, we’d resolved to see for ourselves.

We hired a sailboat that afternoon from a lithe and sun-browned British expatriate named Olivia Harrison, whose movements were as economical as her vowels. She wore canvas shorts and a sleeveless blouse knotted just above the waist, and carried herself with the air of someone who could reef a mainsail in a crosswind whilst reciting Browning. Trevor, predictably, was smitten by the time she stepped aboard. “Now she’s a bit of the alright,” he whispered, elbowing me with the subtlety of a goat.

The plan was simplicity itself: sail across to Cythera, make landfall near the supposed temple site, lunch among the ruins, photograph whatever had not yet collapsed, and return in time for sundowners. But as any student of Greek mythology or modern travel knows, no plan survives Poseidon.

Chapter II:

Poseidon Intervenes

No sooner had we cleared the headland than the docile tradewinds stiffened into a spiteful gust. Olivia snapped to command with unflustered grace, barking instructions with clipped precision. “All hands on deck!” she cried, and to our horror, the hands in question turned out to be ours.

Trevor, juggling ropes like a flustered magician, managed to lash something important to something else entirely. I was sent forward to assist with the jib, though I spent most of the effort clinging to the rail and quoting Euripides. The boat pitched and yawed like a sulking dolphin, and our elegant outing descended rapidly into nautical farce.

When at last we limped into a calm, sun-warmed cove, Olivia dropped anchor with a sigh of relief and declared the situation stable enough to break out the gin. We had, she said, been blown off course.

Cythera, that storied isle, was now somewhere behind us. Before us stood a smaller island entirely: Anti-Cythera. A speck on the map. Ignored by scholars, dismissed by tourists, and, at that moment, utterly perfect.

The cove was, by any measure, idyllic. The cliffs were low and terraced with scrub olive, the water shone with a turquoise clarity one suspects is added later in the postcards, and the beach—crescent-shaped and utterly deserted—invited poetic foolishness.

Olivia, ever competent, secured the boat for an overnight stay. Lanterns were hung fore and aft, casting a golden spill across the deck. The sea lapped obligingly. Trevor, still pink with embarrassment from his rope-handling, opened the drinks chest and poured three gins with the solemnity of a priest dispensing unction. Olivia accepted hers with a smirk.

Trevor was soon recounting our brush with ruin like a survivor of Salamis, and Olivia listened with one leg propped against the railing, smiling in that maddening, ambivalent way women do when they know full well you’re trying to impress them. I, meanwhile, turned my attention to the shore.

About a hundred yards up from the beach, half-hidden by tamarisk and shadow, stood what looked unmistakably like a small circular colonnade. Derelict, yes. Cracked and leaning, probably. But columns all the same. Five, perhaps six, arranged in a ring. No roof. No signage. No tourists. My heart did a little skip. Everyone, after all, goes to Cythera. No one spares a thought for its tiny, disreputable sister. Perhaps—just perhaps—we had found something undiscovered.

I excused myself on the pretext of needing a stroll and lowered the dinghy into the water. Trevor mumbled something about minding the tide. Olivia waved, then returned her attention to the stars—or to Trevor. It was difficult to say which.

Chapter III:

Anti-Cythera and the Adonis Misunderstanding

The moon lit the beach like theatre footlights, and my little dinghy bumped onto the sand with the sound of a dropped shoe. I stepped ashore, notebook in pocket, binoculars slung round my neck. The air was warm and sweet and still. The sort of night one imagines ends with either poetry or peril.

The columns were older than I had hoped but younger than I’d feared. Marble, or something pretending to be. Overgrown with ivy, certainly. But still noble, still upright. A modest temple, perhaps. Or a folly built by some forgotten Venetian.

As I approached the structure, I noticed something strange. Music. Faint, yes—but real. Not wind or sea or imagination. The high, fluttering sound of a lyre. And beneath it, drums. Steady. Ritualistic. They were coming from the far side of the ruin.

I stepped inside the colonnade, meaning only to peer through—and stopped short.

A group of figures—women, by the look of them—were emerging from the trees. All in white, all barefoot. Their garments diaphanous, their hair unbound, their arms laden with garlands and amphorae. They were speaking—but not in Greek, not in English either. Something ceremonial. Something theatrical.

One of them saw me.

She halted. The others did too. Then, slowly, they smiled.

I turned to leave—cautiously, politely—but two of them had already approached. They took my hands, gently, as if greeting a guest long expected.

“Adonis,” one of them whispered, bowing her head.

I would later swear I tried to explain. But no one seemed especially interested in my passport.

Chapter IV:

The Crinkle and the Compass

Back aboard the boat, Olivia glanced toward the shore and frowned.

“He’s been gone too long,” she said.

Trevor waved a hand. “Duffy’s always wandering off. He once spent three hours inside a disused minaret in Cairo photographing graffiti and stray cats. Said it was a metaphor for colonial decline.”

“This is different,” Olivia said. “He took no torch. And he’s not answering the signal whistle.”

That did it. Trevor, to his credit, retrieved his camera and a waterproof bag he’d recently purchased from a clever little company in York, of all places. “Right,” he said. “Let’s go get him.”

They swam ashore—Olivia cutting through the water like a fish, Trevor splashing valiantly beside her, one arm held aloft to protect the bag. Later, he would insist the scene reminded him of From Here to Eternity—though the film wouldn’t be made for another twenty years.

As they reached the beach, they were greeted not by silence, but by music. Real music. Torchlight flickered from beyond the ruin. The lyre sang. The drums pulsed. The air was thick with thyme and theatre.

They followed the path to a clearing, and there, in the centre of the ruined colonnade, stood Duffy—being worshipped, or restrained, or possibly both. Around him danced a dozen women in diaphanous white, torchlight catching on hair and hem, eyes closed in ecstasy or well-rehearsed imitation.

Trevor and Olivia froze.

“He’s been offered up,” Trevor whispered.

“I don’t see a knife,” said Olivia. “Let’s not panic.”

The leader raised her arms. The dancers paused. All eyes turned to Duffy, who looked profoundly uncertain.

Olivia stepped forward. “Excuse me!”

The high priestess turned with a hiss. Olivia did not flinch.

“Whatever ritual this is,” she said crisply, “he’s not your Adonis. He’s a travel writer with weak ankles and a fondness for fig jam.”

A pause.

Then the priestess dropped her register entirely. “Look, I don’t know who booked the cove for tonight, but we’ve had this full moon scheduled for weeks. We don’t usually get walk-ins.”

Trevor, ever the opportunist, opened the bag, unwrapped the Leica, and began shooting. He whispered something about slow exposures and heavenly blur.

Epilogue:

Cythera in the Mist

The Kodachrome, later developed at a tiny shop near the hotel—newly licensed by Kodak and very proud of it—produced slides that, imperfect as they were, hinted at something unclassifiable: a tangle of light and limbs, timeless and blurred by movement.

Weeks later, when Trevor showed the prints to Lord Thornton—our ever-gracious patron and amateur mystic—the reaction was instantaneous.

“Remarkable,” said Ruffles, leaning back in his wicker chair and blowing cigar smoke toward the ceiling fan. “You’ve captured the very crinkle itself. That fold in time. The moment when Now and Then trade hats and forget who’s who.”

One evening, on the terrace overlooking the Aegean, with Cythera rising out of the mist and looking entirely mythical, we took drinks at sunset. Olivia appeared carrying a mango in one hand and a tall glass of pink lemonade and vodka in the other.

“Ah, Captain Olivia, come join us,” said Trevor, rising and pulling out a chair.

“You’ll join us in Kenya, of course,” he said.

She looked up, surprised. “Will I?”

“There’s a safari,” Trevor said. “Lord Thornton’s organizing it. He’s bringing half of Sussex and a large gramophone. It’s entirely absurd. You’ll love it.”

Olivia smiled. “Only if I can bring my own compass.”

I, seated nearby with a restorative brandy and a sprig of parsley I’d mistaken for mint, raised my glass faintly.

“To Anti-Cythera,” I said.

“To getting blown off course,” Trevor added.

“To very nearly being sacrificed,” Olivia said, clinking glasses.

And with that, another chapter was sealed—its meaning, like most good travel, entirely debatable.

–– Duffy Whitmore

“Adventure is simply inconvenience rightly considered.” —G.K. Chesterton

Dramatis Personae

* Duffy Whitmore – Our narrator; English, observant, slightly faded around the edges, but in a flattering way.

* Trevor Finch-Bligh – Of ancient stock and uncertain usefulness. Knows a great deal about port and very little about anything else. Unfortunately Trevor couldn’t join us on this outing. He’s got a room in Wetzlar, Germany, across the street from Leica’s headquarters, to be close to his rangefinder while it’s undergoing repairs.

* Lord Thornton (“Ruffles”) – A peer of the realm and of the lounge car; good with languages, unbothered, unfussed, occasionally moustached.

* Rory Maher – From Dublin. Maher is pronounced Mar. Cool-headed, quick-witted, occasionally mistaken for someone who knows what he’s doing.

* Daphne, Rosalind & Marigold – English Roses in the wild; practical, unflappable, and, when necessary, armed.

* Kamau – Ruffles’ man in Nairobi. Possesses preternatural calm, logistical genius, and a fine hand with tartlets.

And so it begins…

The train shuddered to a halt somewhere between Eliphazi Junction and what the timetable optimistically called King Solomon’s Siding. Outside, the veld was a bleached, brittle expanse—a mixture of acacia, anthills, and infinite disinterest. We were told the engine had suffered “a complication of parts,” which we understood to mean something had exploded.

The lounge car, our sanctuary from the dry heat and the smell of boiled goat wafting from the dining carriage, was mercifully underpopulated. Ruffles had commandeered the banquette under the electric fan and was making a spirited attempt to cool his wrists with the condensation from his gin. Rory was engaged in a battle of wills with a wasp and losing. I was leafing through a railway magazine full of stories about tunnels, which seemed grotesquely optimistic under the circumstances.

“I say,” Ruffles began, tapping the heel of his boot against the ice bucket. “If this train is going nowhere—and all evidence suggests that it is—we might consider a small diversion.”

Rory looked up, his tie slightly askew. “You mean alight? Now?”

“No, no, don’t be literal, Mr Maher. I propose we go on safari. There’s no use in sitting here brooding. I’ve sent a message to Kamau to fetch the Rolls and requested he stay on to assist us in the bush—you know, changing tyres, serving tea, drinks after five. Iced gin. Hors d’oeuvres. That sort of thing.”

There was a silence, broken only by the fan’s wheeze.

“Kamau is in Nairobi,” I reminded him gently.

“Yes, but he has the keys to my Rolls. And, more importantly, a sense of duty. The message is on its way now with one of the dining porters. Promised him half a tin of pipe tobacco. Worked like a charm.”

Rory blinked. “And we’re just… going?”

“Well, we’ve packed nothing,” I said, “but then again, neither did the Imperial Yeomanry. And look how well that turned out.”

Kamau arrived at dawn the following day, as if summoned not by message but by meteorological inevitability. The train had not moved an inch, but a dust plume on the horizon announced his approach long before the silver of the Rolls-Royce came into view.

It was Ruffles’ safari Rolls—custom-bodied, of course—with elephant-hide upholstery and a rack of long rifles that had never been fired but looked awfully authoritative in silhouette. Kamau wore his usual expression of diplomatic amusement, and behind his sunglasses one imagined the slow blink of a man resigned to aristocratic absurdity.

We emerged from the lounge car in various stages of readiness. Rory had his monocle tucked into his shirt pocket (he said it was for navigating by sun angle), and Ruffles was in what he called his “light tropics kit”—immaculate whites and a cork helmet that had never seen a battle beyond the glare of hotel verandahs. I had a battered notebook and a fresh cravat.

Kamau stood beside the open boot of the Rolls, revealing a safari kit of comical perfection: canvas tents, mosquito netting, wicker lunch hampers, collapsible cocktail tables, a twin-burner stove, gramophone, cargo shorts folded just so, and a case marked “Gin: Urgent.”

“How does he manage it?” Rory whispered, as Kamau secured a lemon crate with a loop of sisal and nodded for us to climb in.

“We’re in his world now,” said Ruffles, sinking into the leather seat with a contented sigh. “Best to let him drive.”

Near dusk on the first day, with the bush turned gold and all sensible creatures retreating into thorny anonymity, we came upon an encampment nestled beside a dry riverbed. It was neat. Too neat. The guy ropes were taut, the canvas immaculate, the fire pit ringed with polished stones. And emerging from the largest tent, in pressed khaki and sun-faded safari hats, came three figures—each one an English Rose in full bloom, their cheeks sun-kissed and their manner unflustered, even at the sight of three unshaven men and a gleaming Rolls parked like a visiting diplomat.

There was something instantly formidable about them—not in a harsh way, but in that terrifyingly competent fashion unique to certain women who grew up with governesses, field hockey, and one rifle per child.

We introduced ourselves with the bashful theatricality of schoolboys at a village fête. Their names were Rosalind (tall, quiet, with eyes like conspiracy), Daphne (shorter, sharper, very possibly in command), and Marigold (a vision of effortless grace with a habit of refilling one’s glass before one noticed it empty).

“We weren’t expecting visitors,” said Daphne, raising an eyebrow.

“Neither were we,” said Rory, dusting his lapels. “We were expecting a train.”

Dinner was taken beneath a sky so clear it might have been laundered. Kamau, having unearthed a folding dining table from the rear of the Rolls, produced a meal so sophisticated it might have been served in the Palm Court of the Savoy—had the Savoy allowed wildebeest in the vicinity. Chilled avocado with lime, cold roast beef, something involving anchovies and artichokes, and a lemon tart so airy it might have been flown in from France.

“I say,” whispered Rory, as Kamau shaved ribbons of ice from a block wrapped in flannel. “How does he manage it?”

“I suspect magic,” I said, reaching for the Worcestershire.

Conversation flowed in elliptical orbits, brushed by laughter and smoke. Marigold had once studied botanical illustration in Florence. Rosalind claimed to have driven a mail truck in Tanganyika. Daphne, rather chillingly, referred to “a misadventure in Abyssinia” and then refused to elaborate. The gin sparkled, the moths fluttered, and the air grew soft with promise.

By ten o’clock, the table had been cleared, the fire stoked to a polite blaze, and Kamau had withdrawn to his corner to perform the gentle alchemy of camp washing-up—his silhouette haloed in embers and dignity.

That’s when the growl came.

It was not the polite complaint of a discontented jackal, nor the muttering of distant hyena politics. It was deep and dreadful, the kind of sound that reorders one’s relationship to nature and trousers simultaneously. It came again—closer this time—and was followed by the unmistakable rustle of heavy bodies in the undergrowth. The firelight flickered. The gin turned to water in our glasses.

Rory stood up and sat down again without instruction. Ruffles gripped the armrests of his chair with the pale-knuckled resolve of a man awaiting dental work. I was frozen somewhere between flight and narrative detachment.

The ladies, by contrast, did not move. They merely exchanged a look. Rosalind nodded. Marigold rose and moved calmly toward their customised Buick—an angular, sand-coloured thing that looked like it had opinions on fencing and jazz. From its front seat, she retrieved a device that looked like the love child of a bugle and a tuba, lacquered in pink and stamped with something in brass.

“What in God’s name is that?” I whispered.

“Our horn,” said Daphne, standing now.

She gave a low whistle. Marigold nodded once, and then—with all the poise of a duchess christening a destroyer—pressed the horn.

The sound it emitted was indescribable. Not a honk, not a blare, but something baroque and obscene—like a mating call between a ferry and a dying moose. It rolled out into the night like a tsunami of poor taste and instinctive terror.

The lions scattered. One could hear the confusion in the brush. The growling ceased.

“Learned that one in Tsavo,” said Rosalind, dusting her hands. “Lions can’t stand a mechanical E-flat.”

The next morning over strong coffee and something Kamau called Mandazi but Better, the ladies explained their invention. During a prior safari, they’d found themselves under threat from a similar pride. Lacking reinforcements and with only a dismal .303 between them, they’d resorted to the horn of their vehicle. The reaction was immediate: lions fled, guides fainted, and a rather good recipe for banana bread was lost in the shuffle.

After returning to Nairobi, they partnered with a Scottish engineer named MacDougal (retired from Klaxon), and the Horn of Africa was born: a handheld brass instrument, absurdly loud, tunable to dissonant registers, and available in six designer colours. Proceeds went to elephant conservation and the Anglican Mission School for Practical Girls.

“We’ve had marvellous success,” said Daphne, examining her nails. “Harrods stocked them for a time, but there were complaints from Knightsbridge.”

The train, miraculously repaired by someone who’d clearly studied with Saint Jude, collected us three days later. We reboarded with the weary dignity of veterans returning from a war in which we’d barely served.

That evening, as the train rolled past baobabs and the last pink light dissolved into the dust, we took our usual places in the lounge car. Ruffles ordered something restorative involving Dubonnet and a twist.

“Obviously,” he began, twisting the end of his moustache with solemn grace, “our behaviour was disgraceful and we shan’t mention it again. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” said Rory, who had joined us halfway through and still smelled faintly of lemon oil and gun polish.

“Of course,” I said. “It’s already forgotten.”

Ruffles went on. “Now, as to the other matter. We must assume the ladies will giggle and gossip about this episode, and that our names will be attached to it, possibly in print. The best strategy is to admit we were there, but tell a slightly different story.”

Rory stirred. “What version?”

“We all panicked, including our hosts, which of course is a lie, but only a tiny one. We say it was Kamau who had the presence of mind to honk that blasted horn.”

“Did he?” asked Rory. “I was staring at the blackness beyond the fire.”

“No,” I said. “He was washing up.”

“That’s true, Duffy, he was washing up,” said Ruffles, sipping. “But I have new information. Not an hour ago, when Kamau was about to depart for the journey back to Nairobi, he walked me back to the Rolls’ boot and flipped back a corner of the canvas cover to reveal, securely nestled in its place, a Horn of Africa.”

“Good heavens,” I said.

“It was enamelled in semigloss crimson, the colour of dried blood on a Kenyan dirt road—his favourite colour,” Ruffles continued. “Unbeknownst to me, Kamau had purchased the horn a year ago with petty cash from the kitchen jar and it has been aboard the Rolls all that time.”

“Bless him,” Rory said.

“While washing up he was waiting for us to take charge of the situation, which, of course, we didn’t, and just as he was about to get his horn from the boot and give it a good blast, Marigold marched over to their Buick and retrieved their horn, which, as it turns out, Kamau knew all about—he spotted it on the seat of the Buick, as he was going to and fro setting the table for dinner.”

“He was actually waiting for the ladies to use their horn first,” Rory exclaimed.

“Correct,” said Ruffles. “So, although it’s a fib, I propose we give Kamau the story. After all, he was prepared to blast the wilderness with E-flat, in the event everyone else failed in their duty—and he’s the only one of us who behaved like a man.”

–– Duffy Whitmore

Buy me a coffee?

The hotel was perched somewhere between metaphysics and geology—half-eagle’s nest, half ruin—overlooking the bleached puzzle of Fira Harbour. A German named Hans ran it, or possibly his wife, or possibly a system of levers; one could never be sure. The bath had a curious habit of draining into the kitchen, which we discovered only after Trevor attempted a hot soak and Hans reappeared three minutes later with a face like Euripides’ Medea.

We were convalescing, if such a word could be used to describe a week of gin and lemon tonics on the veranda. The cause of our condition had been a disheartening expedition across the western coast of Asia Minor, tripping over Hellenistic amphitheatres like potholes, Trevor photographing dusty stones with all the excitement of a child who’s found pornography in the attic. He called it “ruin fatigue.” I called it “academic indigestion.”

Trevor Finch-Bligh—photographer, historian, and part-time optimist—burst into this already agreeable tedium by proposing we hire a small sailboat to pursue a field of saffron allegedly visible from the sea, “just past Skaros Rock.” He had discovered its mention in his Baedeker’s guidebook, which he treated with the same reverence monks once reserved for illuminated gospels.

“You’ll love it,” he insisted, thumbing the page as though divine truth might be smudged into clarity. “Kodachrome! Imagine! Colour transparency! Golden crocus in Aureolin sunlight—it’s practically a Minoan fresco already!”

So, we descended like Homeric shades into the harbour. Trevor found a boat with a sail dyed the colour of oxidised marzipan. He declared it ‘ideal.’ It had neither name nor an anchor, but came with two oars and a Greek boy who refused to stop smoking. The boy declined to join us, muttering something about ghosts and disappeared shepherds. Trevor waved him off with a banknote and a speech about ‘the spirit of Thalassa.’

He took the tiller with the swagger of a Venetian doge, and I rowed us clear of the mackerel flotilla dozing in the harbour. Around Skaros Rock, the Aegean became theatrical. The cliffs rose like a broken colonnade, and I half-expected Eurydice to appear and demand the oars.

We found the field easily enough, a strange golden glow, sloping towards the sea. No path, no road, no industrious donkeys or excursionists with binoculars. The silence had a certain stagey quality. As we beached the craft, Trevor photographed the boat, the saffron, me, the sea, and a particularly photogenic boulder. The camera clicked with the devotion of a man placing bets on immortality.

Then we saw them.

Two women, emerging from the crocus as if conjured, not walked. They were bare-breasted, barefoot, and bewitched—or bewitching, depending on one’s degree of classical education. Their garments, if such a term is permissible, were rather more ceremonial than practical. I said as much.

“A tableaux vivant, surely,” I muttered, recalling that infamous afternoon in Versailles when two schoolmistresses mistook a pageant for a portal through time. “Minoan cosplay, perhaps?”

“Oi! Hello!” I shouted.

Trevor waved like a mariner greeting mermaids. “We come in peace!” he called. The words hung in the air like bad diplomatic policy.

He snapped a photo, then whispered, “I must get closer. Their eyes, Duffy, they are prehistoric!”

That’s when they ran. Fast. Up the hill, like hares escaping history itself. Their garments billowed, their movements stylized and urgent. Trevor swore and stumbled after them. I stayed where I was. It seemed safer.

Moments later, two figures appeared on the ridge—men this time, shirtless and glinting with menace. They wore loincloths, leather sandals, and, most importantly, carried spears. Very convincing spears.

“Oh dear,” I said.

“They’re going to kill us!” Trevor screamed, flinging his camera away in an act of panic.

We ran. I have no shame in admitting it. We stumbled down to the beach, half-tumbling, half-praying. Into the boat, into the surf, into salvation. One spear missed. Another embedded itself in the helmsman’s seat, which I had previously used to balance a thermos of gin.

By the grace of physics and raw cowardice, we made it back around Skaros Rock, sails snapping in the wind, our dignity dragging behind us like seaweed.

That evening, the Aphrodite Lounge offered whiskey and explanations. Trevor attempted both.

“We stumbled into a ritual! A trap! The women were bait!” he proclaimed to a barman polishing the same glass for ten minutes.

“Most likely, sir, you interrupted a documentary,” the man replied. “The museum often films such things. Minoan re-enactments. Very authentic.”

Dinner was served on the terrace with just enough pomp to make one suspicious of the chicken. The sun had set behind Thirasia like a Roman curtain drop, and the harbour below twinkled.

Trevor, hunched over his moussaka like a defeated archaeologist, and had not spoken for several minutes.

“I’ve decided,” he said at last. “First light. I’m going back for the camera.”

“I assumed as much,” I said, buttering a roll with the delicacy of a surgeon. “And I’ve arranged my morning accordingly. I’ll brunch here—Eggs Benedict, the hotel’s absurdly good Ethiopian coffee—and keep a pair of binoculars trained on Skaros Rock. If you make it back alive, I shall raise a toast. If not, I’ll raise two.”

Trevor groaned into his wine. “You think I’m mad.”

“Not at all,” I replied.

A waiter appeared with a dessert that looked like a Byzantine reliquary. Trevor pushed it aside.

“You know what the barman said,” he continued. “That it was just a film shoot. Some museum thing. Hired actors. That explains the spears. The loincloths. The… breasts.”

I nodded. “Entirely plausible. Very modern. Very Greek.”

He looked at me sideways. “You don’t believe it.”

I considered the night air, the stillness of the cliffs, the absurdity of every moment since we’d left the hotel that morning.

“No,” I said finally. “I don’t. But I don’t believe the other explanation either.”

“What other explanation?”

I leaned back and swirled the last of my wine. “That what we saw was not an historical re-enactment… but history itself. Not a performance, but a recurrence.”

Trevor frowned.

“At Versailles,” I went on, “those poor schoolmistresses wandered into a tableau vivant and mistook it for history. What if we’ve done the opposite? What if we stumbled—briefly—into the actual past and, like sensible modern men, assumed it was just a bit of dress-up?”

He stared at me, open-mouthed.

“Think about it,” I continued. “Everything had that odd sheen of unreality. No tourists, no road, no plastic chairs or modern rubbish. Even the air smelled ancient—like hot thyme and primitive rituals. It was as if we’d turned the page back by mistake and found ourselves in a chapter no one reads anymore.”

“You’re serious?”

“Only ever by accident.”

Trevor said nothing more that evening. He went to bed early, muttering about focal lengths and the price of fear. I stayed behind, watching the harbour lights flicker like distant thoughts, wondering—as one does after too much wine and just enough myth—whether time is really so well-behaved after all.

—Duffy Whitmore

Buy me a coffee?