The Journal of Dr. Colwyn Rhys-Myers

Entry: 03 May 1919, Part I

I had been writing some time, and concentrating enough on what I was writing to avoid thinking about the choppiness of the open waves, and their effect on my stomach, when I heard Shelagh and her voice once again sneak up behind me.

“A writer as a well as a doctor, eh?”

“No, well, not exactly. My journal. I suppose I fancy myself a bit of a memoirist.”

“Ah, ‘The life well-lived is the life worth recording,’ and all that,” Shelagh replied. “Not for me, though. I’m too busy just living.” She stared into the distance for a moment. “I do like to read now and again, though. Like Jerome.”

“A friend of yours?”

“No, the writer.”

“Ah. What’s his last name?” I asked.

“Jerome.”

“No, his last name.”

“Jerome,” she replied.

“But, wait…”

“Have you never heard of Jerome K. Jerome? And you the educated one.”

“I didn’t mean to question your intellect. But, now you have me at a loss,” I said.

“Aye, the fault is mine. When you spend your life at sea, your skills of conversation become as rusty as a cargo-winch.” She sat down on a crate next to my makeshift chair. “I was born in a little village in the far north of Scotland: John o’Groats. My ‘da I always knew wanted a son; but, I was all he had. My mum died when I was a wee one. My ‘da would read me adventure stories, take me out fishing w’him, and soon it was as if he had a son. I didn’t mind. I suppose I didn’t know any better. When he passed on, I took over the boat.

“But, all those adventure stories stuck in my head, and John o’Groats was such a small place. Before I knew it, I was sailing out farther and farther, and never quite coming back all the way home. Eventually, I worked my way down to the Channel, and across to the Continent.”

“’Foot loose and fancy-free,’ as the phrase would have it,” I replied. “So, how does Mr. Jerome fit in to this? I’ve never read him.”

“A passenger left a book of his on-board one trip: Three Men and A Boat. Very twee, very British, about three toffs on a trip down the Thames. Not the sort of thing I would ever have picked up myself. If my ‘da had ever seen me reading a book about upper-class twits, he’d have slapped me silly. But, it was there, and I read it. T’were funny, and it made me realize something. Everyone wants life to be an adventure. No one wants restrictions and responsibilities forced on them by someone else. Not even the well-off. So, how lucky am I, a poor, little fisherman’s daughter from the far north, to live the life I want the way I do?”

“Well-spoken. Perhaps I can write down your life after I finish writing down mine?” I asked.

Shelagh laughed, “Some of it wouldn’t be acceptable in an old penny-dreadful!” Modesty bade me assent with a wordless smile and nod only. “Besides,” she continued, “I’ll bet yours is more than interesting enough. Not every physician carries around a glowing stick.” She pointed to my personal, quite temporary addition to her cargo. “Oh, yes, don’t think I didn’t notice that bag of yours there. That be part of your story?”

“Very much so.”

“Care to tell me?”

I thought for a moment. It wasn’t the easiest story to begin. I decided to play to her literary interests. “I have been beyond the reaches of the most intrepid explorer and back, and lived – so far – to tell the tale.”

“Africa? India? The Far East?”

“Further even then that: beyond your most fervent and hallucinatory imagination.”

A cold breeze cut across the deck as if to add atmosphere to my tale. Its effect, however, was just the opposite; it brought Shelagh back quickly to the here-and-now. “Ach, I forgot the reason I came out here to fetch you. There’s a gale brewing, and it’s going to be a fierce one.” I looked west toward the open Atlantic in the distance, and saw the last rays of the setting sun being swallowed prematurely by a roiling mass of black clouds. “You’d best be getting below.”

“You need any help?” I asked. “I’m not much of a sailor, but…” I suddenly realized I hadn’t seen any other crew. “Are you, um, ‘it’ here?”

“You mean crew? I only take crew on when I need them. No more than a half-dozen men. I thought I wouldn’t need them this trip. This old tub sails itself. We’ll be alright. You just stay safe below, and keep an eye on Martin. You’re welcome to my cabin.”

Just then, voice boomed out from the helm. “Shelagh, we got trouble!” The voice was definitely not Martin’s, and a bearded, red head appeared in the forward port-hole. “I thought you just said you had no crew?”

“Rufus?” Shelagh replied. “He’s not crew; he’s practically part of the engine-room. What’s the trouble?” she called back.

“Main drive-shaft’s loose, and I think we’re losing steam-pressure; but, I don’t dare shut her down long or we’ll founder out here when that gale catches us!”

“Do what you can with your new assistant!” She turned to me. “You wanted to help, doctor? Now, you’re a boiler mechanic.”

We hurried into the ship. “Doctor, follow me below!” Rufus called.

“Be right there.” I made a quick diversion to Shelagh’s cabin. Martin was still fast asleep. I put my bag containing the zhu as securely under the bunk as I could, and made my way back to the engine-room.

By the time I joined Rufus, the wind had already picked up, and the ship was beginning to roll with the waves. Rufus shoved a wrench in my hand as soon as I was through the hatch. “You know anything about engines?”

“A bit,” I lied. The truth was something I didn’t think he needed to hear just then.

“We’ll be adjusting plates, valves, and shafts the rest of the way. Whenever we can do it with the engine shut down, we will; but, we’ll have to do some of it while she’s still fired up. And we won’t be able to give her time to cool down when she is shut down. Put on these gloves,” he handed me a pair of thick, padded work-gloves, “and be as careful as you can. You’re a doctor, right?”

“By trade, yes.”

“Good! You’ll be treating our burns later. You’re looking a might green,” he said, and I was already feeling worse than I suspected I looked.

“I’m not much for rough weather,” I replied.

“Well, heave while you work; just try not to heave on any moving parts.”

By the time Rufus had finished with his admonitions, the ship was pitching fiercely. For the next four hours (I learned just how long only later – I had quite lost any sense of the passage of time down below, and as only recently I had been untold miles away in a far corner of the universe, in a different time and space, this was saying rather a lot), we worked constantly adjusting, bracing, and refitting engine parts to keep the ship running and, by extension, afloat. I know through what we passed only by the fact that we survived. I know I was deafened temporarily by the pounding of the engines below, and the howling of the storm above. I have no idea what it took, how it taxed Shelagh’s prowess as a helmsman (I should write ‘helmswoman’), to keep us on course; but, get us through she did, such that by the storm’s passing, we were alive, in one piece, and in sight of the English coast. This first sight of the coast was not something I saw with my own eyes. After our work was done, I collapsed in a heap in the corner of the engine-room, and lay there insensible until Rufus woke me up to let me know we were nearing the entrance to Southampton harbour.

“Doctor, rise and shine,” he said.

“Grmblfzz,” I replied. (I have no idea if this is actually the noise I made; but, it is very close to the only thing I felt I could express.)

“You did a man’s work, sir. Go up-top and get some fresh air.”

I crawled up top-side. I was begrimed such as I had not been since my days in the trenches. I smelled foully, looked no doubt worse, would have killed for a thimbleful of hot tea, and knew that the journey was nowhere near complete. I went to the helm. Shelagh’s manner was as bright as it had been the previous night; but, her eyes betrayed what she had endured to get us through alive.

“You alright?” I asked.

She smiled gamely. “Been better. Been worse. But what a tale this will make for your journal, eh?”

“You’ll be its star, I assure you.”

“Be sure to give Rufus and yourself fair mention,” she replied.

As we passed through the brick wall that separated Southampton’s harbour from the sea like a castle battlement, we heard a whistle behind us. Martin, bright-eyed and chipper, strolled in. “What a fantastic night’s rest! You’re rum was a most marvelous tonic, my dear. And what a sunrise I see brewing out there! Ah, I see we’re almost in port.” Only then did he notice our condition. “My, my, rough night for the pair of you. You should have slept a bit. Did I miss anything?”

He had slept through the storm. I looked him squarely in the eye.

“I hate you,” I said.

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We docked at a relatively-quiet spot on the far end of the wharf, even quieter given that we were arriving just as dawn was breaking, when almost every other vessel was either moored securely, with its crew on-shore, or loaded, boarded, and ready to leave with the tide. Martin left ahead of me, rather guiltily, to find our next contact for the rushed journey to Llandanwg, while I went below and gathered our belongings.

I sat down on Shelagh's bunk and pulled my haversack out from underneath. The zhu was still safely inside, the stick still equally safely threaded through the carrying straps. The radiated warmth of the sack's contents warmed me quite agreeably, fighting off the chill of the early morning. As I sat there briefly lost in thought, Shelagh came in.

"So, that's the mysterious, powerful item: the Stick of Legends," she said.

"Actually, no, this is, well, a by-product of sorts...I think. It is, as I said, a very long story."

"I guess I won't be getting to hear it, will I?"

"Perhaps we'll have another chance," I replied.

"If you hang around Martin long enough, we will. And I'll arrange for better weather next time." She looked at the bag furtively, almost as a child would study a forbidden cookie jar, melting the hardship of our night's crossing from her face, and asked me quietly, "Do you suppose I could see it, just for a moment?"

Though I hesitated in answering only because my fatigue had left me thinking, and reacting, much like an inebriate, I must have given Shelagh cause to think I suspected her of being rather less than forthcoming in her desires. She shrank away, childlike again, this time in disappointment. "Only curious," she said. “No, please, I didn’t mean to…of course you may see it,” I replied. I unwound the stick from the straps, opened the sack, and Shelagh’s eyes widened. I could hardly say I had become accustomed to carrying around an object as foreign to our world and our experience as the zhu; but, perhaps I conveyed an air of familiarity with it that no one else could be said to possess. The glow of the zhu emanated from the bag quite unlike any light even Edison and his fellow geniuses had invented, and the warmth from it was as comforting as any from a well-tended hearth.

“It’s…I don’t know what to say. It’s like it draws you in to it,” Shelagh said. She put her hand out and touched it tentatively. “Ooh, my! It’d make a fine bed-warmer, and I could certainly use one in this bunk.”

I laughed. “A far more agreeable use for it than what others have been trying, I assure you. But, it needs to go home.” Shelagh looked at me as if my senses were rapidly fleeing their accustomed confines. “I know that doesn’t make much sense. This stone, it’s almost as if it’s aware somehow.”

“And that’s why people are willing to kill for it.” It wasn’t a question: she simply stated a fact.

Rufus stuck his head in the door. “Martin’s back, and I’ve got to head in to town and scare up some boiler parts.”

“And I should clean up on-deck,” Shelagh replied. “Up top, then: all of us.”

I re-packed my sack, and followed the two of them top-side. “Our chauffeur awaits at the entrance to the wharf,” Martin said from the pier. He walked up the plank to Shelagh and took her hands. “We owe you a great debt, one I will be happy to repay.”

“And repay it you will,” Shelagh laughed, “but take your time. Do what needs be done first. You always know where to find me. And don’t fret about sleeping through the storm. The rest did you good. You look almost alive today.”

“You’re too kind,” Martin replied. Shelagh turned to me. “You watch over him, and yourself. And bring me back a good yarn when ye can,” she said.

“I will. May the wind always be at your back.”

“And the law stranded in port,” she replied. She kissed me on the cheek, and then pushed me gently down the plank. With that she returned to her business, and we returned to ours.

“She kissed you, Renate kissed you: you’re becoming quite the ladies’ man,” Martin said as we walked away. “I might have to tell Rosemary she should find another intended.”

“You know how fickle we fighting men are.”

Martin laughed, “I will ruin your staid Englishness yet.”

We walked the length of the wharf to a road running off the main entrance. Parked there in the shadows was a nondescript Austin, with an equally nondescript, older gentleman leaning against the front fender, smoking a cigar.

“Our chariot, and our chauffeur.” Martin introduced us. “Colwyn, my discreet friend Louis: my discreet friend Louis, Colwyn.”

“How the Hell are ya, doc? Hop in, and hold tight. I’ll have you in the heart of your Welsh countryside before you can spit!”

I whispered to Martin, “Colourful chap. American?”

“Worse,” Louis replied. “Canadian. Winnepeg. 48th Highlanders. Came for the War, stayed for the weather,” he bellowed. I was really going to have to learn to lower my voice more effectively.

“Now,” Martin said, as we settled in, and the Austin roared to life, “It is your turn to rest. You look as if you need it as much as did I.”

In truth, I did. Still spent from being pressed into service the night of the storm, I fell asleep not minutes after we were underway, and I did not awake until we were on the outskirts of Swansea. We stopped there to get petrol, food, and directions. Though I knew the way from Swansea to Llandanwg, the quick and precipitous rise in motor travel since the War meant that perhaps there was a faster route with which I was not familiar. Mere minutes spent searching for even the possibility of a short-cut were worth it; for I must admit, now that I was awake and rested enough, my sense of urgency was close to taking me over.

By a stroke of luck, we were soon joined on the roadside by a man who was by all appearances a serious motorist. He was resting to let his Stutz-Bearcat cool down, and we seized the opportunity to make full use of his knowledge of the area. The route he was able to draw for Louis was sure to cut time off our journey. We thanked him, and made off once again.

In less than two hours, we had worked our way through the countryside, and were approaching Llandanwg. In between helping Louis navigate along the unfamiliar roads, I had time to explain to Martin the nature of the zhu, if not the rest of the tale.

“So, the instability we have seen, this is its natural state?” he asked.

“Out of its native environment, it would seem so. It’s not meant to leave its home-world. Without some connection, however tenuous, to that world, it quite literally runs amok. But what has happened to its home-world has affected the zhu as well as its being taken from it.”

“So we truly cannot tell what, if anything, good or bad, will happen to me when you try and return it.”

“I don’t think so,” I replied. “But, I’m as certain as I am of anything Claire is the key. She exists in both worlds.”

I had yet to explain this part of the tale to Martin, and this revelation caught him understandably by surprise. “Fantastic! How?”

“I don’t know; but, if it can make you a near-immortal, transport me across space and time, do everything else we’ve seen it do, why not split a living being?”

“Dr. Myers,” Louis said, “I can see a village up ahead. Llandanwg?”

I looked across the landscape. Nestled snugly by the coast was my home, a village that had raised me, protected me, and given me the seclusion and tranquility so necessary after the War. I had been away less than two months; yet now, I was a traveler the likes of which no village, no province, no nation had ever seen. I felt a curious sense of longing, a wish for forgetfulness. For a moment, I wished I could walk down her main road, back to my old home, with its clinic in front, and lodgings in back, and return to who I had been. But everything I now was had begun here with one horrendous accident, and I had to use all my new knowledge, as incomplete and unsure as it was, to put right what little I could. The universe had come to her, and now, I was here to send the universe back.