Book 9

  Time Travel Adventures of The 1800 Club: Book 9

  Robert P. McAuley

  Published By

  Robert P. McAuley on Smashwords

  Copyright 2014 by Robert P. McAuley

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which has been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

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  The Premise

  The Time Travel Adventures Of The 1800 Club is a 21 st Century haven for people seeking to escape New York City’s frantic pace. Dressed in clothes their ancestors might have worn during the 1800s, members enjoy foods of the period and read periodicals featuring news of a particular date in 1865. However, the 1800 Club also has an astounding secret . . . Time Travel. Members travel back in time nudging famous persons and key events just enough to ensure history unfolds, as it should. Guardians-of-the-past, living in the future, send robotic probes back through the ages, discovered that, at critical time-junctures, pivotal figures stray from vital tasks and actions. These Time Watchers of the past can’t go back and fix the glitch in the timeline because the atmosphere they breathe has been cleaned up over the years and the air of the past is almost un-breathable for them. Then an 1800 Club member from the 2000s are sent back to guarantee that events get back on track. The 1800 Club’s members aid Lincoln, Roosevelt, Bat Masterson, Mark Twain and many others. Without subtle interventions by these unknown agents, the famous might have been only footnotes, rather than giants of history.

  Dear reader, I once read a time travel book where the main character went back over one hundred years in the past to retrieve an object from a house. He entered the house, picked up the object and brought it back to his time. To me it was upsetting that he took us back in time and never once said anything about the house! Never described anything! He might as well have just gone back to a park where things never change. That is why I try to bring the reader along with me as I travel through time. RPM

  A Peek Into Chapter One

  World War 2 is going against the British and Hitler develops the ultimate weapon: An Atomic Bomb. Where is Winston Churchill? There is a bonus for the reader with this story.

  A Peek Into Chapter Two

  One of the 1800 Club members is threatened as his great grandfather dies in the American Wild West.

  The Winston Churchill Mission

  DATELINE: FEBRUARY 5, 2069 PLACE: TIME WATCHERS CONFERENCE ROOM, NEW YORK CITY

  The large room held a conference table and five chairs, four of which were pushed in while a member on duty was using the fifth. Alexis Shuntly covered the morning shift and as she was early to bed and early to rise, she enjoyed her shift. The job of the Time Watcher on duty was to review the holograms delivered to them by drones that steadily slipped off to the past and electronically viewed and recorded what had transpired on certain dates in the past. The members selected the dates that were to be checked, as they were dates that were crucial to the history books. Too many times a hologram showed something not happening when it should, or happening when it should not and that’s when the Time Watcher’s Group vote on whether to send someone back to fix it or not.

  Alexis Shuntly took a sip of her tea as she looked at the latest hologram brought back from the time period she was assigned today. She giggled to herself as she realized the tea she was sipping was named ‘English Morning’ and the hologram, which played out on top of the large mahogany table she sat at, showed the British House of Parliament in session. Peering through her thick glasses she checked the date on the bottom right hand corner of the visual and it read: May 23, 1944. The scene, retrieved by a five-inch transparent, orb-shaped drone, which had settled on top of a painting of the King of England, showed that Parliament was in session.

  A tall, almost gray haired man sporting a small mustache stood dejectedly as all of the members of the group shouted at him. One man stepped out in a small aisle between the rows of facing seats and held up his hand for quiet. Whether it was because he was built like a weightlifter or because of his piercing eyes, they quieted down. Turning to the dejected man he said,

  “With all due respect, Prime Minister Chamberlain, you gather us here this day to tell us that, after years of fighting, we should surrender? Tell us, sir, what brings you to this momentous decision?”

  Chamberlain shook his head and mumbled in a low voice that prompted shouts of, ‘Speak up, sir!’ He slowly removed a handkerchief from his breast pocket, wiped his forehead and took out a wrinkled sheet of paper from his inside pocket before addressing the politicians again.

  “T-This paper is what brings me to this conclusion,” he said loudly as he waved the sheet of creased paper in the air.

  “Would the Prime Minister be so kind as to share the information on that sheet of paper?” the big man standing in the aisle asked condescending to the laughs of more than a few of his colleagues.

  The thin man resettled the glasses sitting on the edge of his longish nose and looked at the paper he held. “This note is from the King of Sweden, Gustaf the Fifth. It reads: My dear Prime Minister Chamberlain. It is with deep regret that I send you this note. Less than two weeks ago I was invited to Berlin for lunch with Adolph Hitler and a group of his scientists. As I must look out for the safety of my country, I felt it my duty to honor this request from my much stronger neighbor and attended. After a briefing over lunch, I was escorted to an aircraft that carried me to an unknown destination. The aircraft was filled with very excited scientists and top military personnel and after a three-hour flight, escorted by no fewer than thirty fighters we landed. We must have flown north as my two assistants and I was supplied with heavy overcoats . . . and we needed them.” Chamberlain once again wiped his forehead before going on.

  “After a light dinner we went to a large concrete bunker and were handed dark goggles. The scientist in charge (no names were ever given. For security reasons I imagine,) told me that I was one of the few outsiders to see this wonderful breakthrough in science: the splitting of the atom. He pointed to a large clock on the wall and said that in twenty minutes the atom splitting would take place and the goggles must be worn to ward off the intense light from the explosion. When the time came there was a ten second countdown and then a blinding light followed by a blast that shook the bunker which brought the Germans’ to their feet and congratulations were expressed all around. Our little group was ignored as the Germans spoke excitedly amongst themselves of now possessing the war-winning weapon. There was even a map on the wall showing the bomb’s blast area should it be dropped on London. Another showed the blast area of an explosion on Moscow in Russia. My dear Prime Minister, the German Government has given me the task of letting you in on their
latest military development with the hope of your great nation doing the prudent thing and laying down your arms. They give you five days to concur. Although I am but a figurehead, they chose me to deliver this message knowing that you had visited my palace many times before the war and that would lend some credence to this message. My messenger also brings you two reels of film showing all that took place that night. I’m sure your scientists will authenticate them. Believe me, my friend what I have witnessed is hell on earth compared to being under the Nazi yolk.

  Sincerely, your friend, King Gustaf V of Sweden.”

  Alexis spilled tea on her blue and white polka dot dress as she quickly reached for the button that would bring in the young man sitting outside of the conference room. The door opened and a tall, slim dark haired young man entered. He had a notebook in his hand.

  “Miss Shuntly, you buzzed?”

  Alexis held her head with one hand as she still looked at the hologram. “Y-Yes, Ted. Would you be so kind as to summon the group for an emergency meeting?”

  “Immediately, Miss Shuntly,” he said as he left the room closing the dark mahogany door behind him. She sat back down running her fingers through her jet-black hair while still staring at the now still hologram.

  “Where is Winston Churchill?” she mumbled to herself.

  Thirty minutes later the other four members of the History Tracking Group sat at the same table and were briefed by Alexis.

  “As you all know,” she said addressing them, “in our history Winston Churchill took over as Prime Minister on May 10, 1940, but according to this new glitch, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain never left office after declaring war on Germany. I checked on a few of the war operations done under him and they were all failures.” She ticked off on her thin fingers as she spoke the battles names: “North Africa, lost. Dunkirk lost. The invasion of Italy lost.” She shook her head and went on slowly. “It is 1944 and there are no plans in place for the Invasion of France on June 6, 1944.”

  “But, why is Chamberlain running the war and not Churchill?”

  The group turned to see Jerry Sullivan cleaning his glasses with his tie as he pondered the question on all of their minds

  Alexis shrugged her shoulders, “That’s what we need to find out, Sully.”

  John Hyder stood and with his hands deep into his jacket pockets added, “Churchill was the one figure who brought Great Britain through that terrible war and if he’s missing, well, there’s no telling what could have happened.”

  Joseph Sergi raised his hand and before being recognized, stood, pushed back his long black hair and said, “Are the Americans in it?”

  Alexis shook her head and said in a low voice, “No. Chamberlain said no after he learned that we, the American government, wanted bases in Great Britain after the war as part of the payment for us sending them war supplies.”

  “So,” said, Maryellen Muldey running her fingers through her short gray hair, “he declined our help . . . but what happened after the Japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor? Did we not join the European Campaign then?”

  Alexis fixed her thick glasses as her green eyes peered at the laptop screen. “Mmmm, no. My computer, which ran the hologram, is still working on the all of the probabilities. Let’s give it another few minutes. Meanwhile, what we do know is that the Germans were working on the Atomic Bomb in 1943 and in a British operation known as Operation Gunnerside, the British Special Operations Group placed four Norwegians trained by them into the site to successfully destroy their heavy water production facility.”

  “Ahhh,” interrupted Jerry Sullivan still wiping his glasses, “Can you explain to the uninitiated what ‘heavy-water’ is?”

  Alexis grinned and said in the tone of a schoolteacher, right down to wagging her finger at him, “Mister Sullivan, you are supposed to be up to date on all aspects of history. Now listen up and you won’t have to write it one hundred times for homework.” She kept her grin as she explained to a faux cowering Sullivan, “Heavy water, or deuterium oxide, can be used to produce nuclear weapons. The Norwegians destroyed the plant that was producing it and they later sank a ferry that was transporting the heavy water that the Germans had.”

  She glanced back at her laptop and said as she adjusted her glasses, “Okay gang, I have an update on my computer. First of all the Americans would only fight the Japanese after being attacked. And it seems that Chamberlain was the sort of fellow that thought using covert operations was not cricket! He turned down any operation that smacked of secret operations and stuck with the standard military operations.”

  Joseph Sergi nodded and added, “Well we know where that will get you.”

  “Nowhere fast,” answered, Maryellen Muldey seconding his thought. “Whereas Churchill was in the secret ops corner right from the start.”

  “Well,” said Alexis, “It’s pretty obvious what happened here. Chamberlain stuck to the standard war games and the Germans outfoxed him. They worked unimpeded on their atomic program and then sent a message to Chamberlain through one of his closest friends saying: hands up, or we drop the big one.”

  The scraping of a chair got everyone’s attention as John Hyder stood. “We must find out what happened to Winston Churchill.”

  Alexis nodded and looked around the table. “All in favor?”

  The ayes were unanimous and she asked, “Ideas on where and when to send back a probe?”

  Jerry Sullivan stood and said with a grin, “Teacher, may I make a suggestion?” A grinning Alexis nodded and he went on. “I know for a fact that he was aboard the British Battleship, HMS Dreadnought during his time in office as First Lord of the admiralty on February 16 through February 18, 1915.”

  “How do you know that, Jerry?”

  “Because a year back I ran a hologram while testing a new Albatross drone and it showed Churchill disembarking from the Dreadnought on April 20, 1915 at the British naval base at Scapa Flow.”

  The small group clapped and Jerry took it as it was meant and bowed deeply before sitting. “The time was early evening.”

  “Well,” quipped Alexis as she pressed the buzzer on her table, “that’s certainly as good a place to start as any other. Thank you, Jerry.”

  The door opened and Ted entered holding his usual notepad, “Miss, Shuntly, you buzzed?”

  “I did, Ted. The group would like you to send back a probe to this time and location. We’re looking for Winston Churchill.”

  He glanced at the note and said, “Certainly. I should be back in one hour.”

  “Fine and thanks, Ted.” She turned to the group as the young man left the room, “I suggest we take a break and return in an hour.”

  The sound of chairs being pushed back was their answer as the group headed to the building’s snack shop.

  DATELINE: FEBRUARY 18, 1915 PLACE: SCAPA FLOW, THE ORKNEY ISLANDS, SCOTLAND

  A graceful white Albatross with long wings that seemed to have been dipped in black paint on their tips, glided over the dark, cold waters of Scapa Flow and gently settled on the tall mast of an English destroyer as it took on coal. To the occasional sailor that took notice of the seabird, the Albatross was just preening its feathers when, in fact, it was a mechanical drone that was scanning the dock area for its target: HMS Dreadnought.

  The Albatross dutifully sent back an electronic hologram every minute as it sat for one hour before spreading its wings and catching a breeze, lifted off and away from the naval base.

  DATELINE: FEBRUARY 6, 2069 PLACE: THE TIME WATCHERS GROUP, NEW YORK CITY

  The Time Watchers Group lined up at the wheeled breakfast cart helping themselves to scrambled eggs, toast, bacon coffee or tea. Alexis sat in front of her open laptop munching on a slice of buttered toast as the rest of the group settled down.

  “Nothing yet?” asked Jerry Sullivan as he stirred his cup of tea.

  Alex shook her head as she scanned the laptop. “Jerry, I don’t know what to say. I mean, you’re right: our records tell us that Churchill got o
ff the HMS Dreadnought at Scapa Flow on that date yet the drone shows no ship at all.” She shrugged her shoulders as she squinted at the latest hologram and went on, “Except for the group of British destroyers tied up next to some coalers and the sailors loading coal, the dock is still.” She wiped her mouth as Ted entered and deposited another hologram next to the others he had brought in during the night. Alexis looked at him and said, “Ted, I’m sorry that you had to stay up with us all night.”

  “No problem, Miss Shuntly,” he answered, adding, “I took the liberty of sending the Albatross drone out on a search pattern for the ship. Maybe it was delayed.”

  She nodded, “That was good thinking, Ted. When do you expect to get a hologram back from it?”

  “Now that it is out of sight of land, I sped up its flight time and should get a batch of holograms covering about six hundred miles in about an hour.”

  “Fine,” she said, “Maybe I’ll be able to enjoy a cup of tea.”

  Forty-five minutes later Ted entered the room and placed a batch of hologram cubes on the conference table. He singled one out and said, “I think you should look at this one first, Miss Shuntly. It’s the latest.” He left the room as she placed the silver cube in the hologram player.

  The scene, according to the flight telemetry that appeared on the bottom right hand side of the visual, showed that the drone was at an altitude of 1,500 feet. It was just after midnight and the moon illuminated the huge battleship below as it cut through the cold, dark waters sixty-three miles outside of Scapa Flow. The large warship left a curving white, frothy wake for miles and the black smoke that belched from its two stacks told the whole story: she was at full speed and in attack mode.

  Alexis shifted to infrared and immediately the scene went to an eerie green as the beam from the drone pierced the darkness and showed the heat signature of the ship. Suddenly another heat signature appeared: HMS Dreadnought’s prey. Alexis adjusted the lens and a long, slim shape that slid through the waters in front of the Dreadnought became recognizable as a German submarine.