Hi fellow TDMers. Apologies for the hiatus. I figured I'd better tell you what happened next.
Chapter 6:
After filling up with fuel at a petrol station a mile or so down the road, which only cost ten shillings (approx 50 pence in modern money) we decided to head for the Busy Bee cafe.
As we pulled up several of the young rockers flocked around us. As with the night before they began scrutinising the TDM excitedly.
Tina went to check on her bike and I went inside and ordered a couple of teas.
There was an old radio sitting on the counter. It was an old wooden thing with dials and a mesh grille on the front, like something my Nan would have had in her sitting room. What was it that the caller had said, something about being able to connect with my phone through the VHF wavelength I think. I reached over, turned it round so I could see the back and read the label. It was a VHF radio! That was interesting. I wonder?
I turned it on and fiddled with the dial. I couldn’t tune in anything much, a few classical music stations here and there and the news. As I sat there listening to it I heard something else. Then my heart skipped a beat. It was my phone’s ring-tone! They were calling me again. I pulled the phone out of my pocket and as before, there was no number showing. I pressed the red circle and held the phone to my ear. My throat felt dry
“Hello!” I croaked
“Mr Todd, make sure you …. device stays charged and fu…ctioning and you must be near a radio that’s turned on or w… can’t reach you.”
I was confused. “Why a radio?” I asked.
Amidst the fluctuating background interference the mysterious caller managed to explain that my smartphone could pick up VHF frequencies if it was near enough to a functioning and turned on radio. I couldn’t be totally sure that was the totality of what he said but I got the general gist of it. The interference was blocking out some of his words.
A radio! - VHF (that stood for Very High Frequency) How the hell that could possibly work I had no idea but to be honest I didn’t care. Whoever it was that was talking to me knew I was here and by some miracle they knew how to contact me. Maybe they could help me get back to the real world - my world!
“Who are you?” I demanded to know.
The reply was spattered with background noise and interference that was getting worse:
“My ..ame is ..obbs. Maj…. …obbs. You must …et to the MoD station near Hendo………………………….”
The dialogue ended in a buzzing whine of electrical interference. My phone hadn’t died like the last time. It had simply cut off while the caller was mid sentence. Goddammit!
What was that he’d said his name was? Maj Obbs. What the hell kind of name was that? The signal was really bad so I’d probably missed part of it. He’d said something that sounded like I must get to the MoD station near Hend.. then it cut off.
Hend…. - Hend…. - Hendon! That must be it. There was an old MoD station near Hendon. I remembered now. It had been used heavily during the war but had closed down back in the eighties though if I recall it had been recommissioned by the military again around 2018, though not much was known about why that was or what it was being used for.
There was something else too; I recalled the local rag, the Hendon Observer, had printed an article about it. Something about locals reporting strange noises coming from there and frequent electrical blackouts occurring in the areas surrounding it. There had even been reports of missing persons that had only started happening after the place had been recommissioned. The paper had touted it as London’s ‘very own Bermuda Triangle.’ I never really gave it any thought at the time. But now, now I started to put two and two together. What if that place had something to do with what had happened to me? It was a long shot but it somehow made sense.
The two cups of tea were almost cold when Tina rocked up. I told her to get ready. We were going for a ride.
I set off towards the old MoD station near Hendon. I had no idea if this was the right place to go but I didn’t exactly have much else to go on and we weren’t anywhere near a switched on radio.
Ten minutes later we were outside the barbed wired gates of the MoD station near Hendon. There was one armed guard in a sentry box inside the gate who came out and confronted us.
I didn’t know what to say or do. What if this wasn’t the correct destination?
The guard was eyeing up the TDM, obviously slightly confused.
“I’m here to see Mr Obbs’” I said.
The guard furrowed his eyebrows. He was obviously thinking about something. “You mean Major Hobbs?” he replied.
I nodded. Sounded close enough though I didn’t really know.
The guard went back to his hut and spoke on the phone.
It was a tense minute or so that we waited there, not knowing what was going to happen next, then in the distance I saw two vehicles heading our way at a fair lick. The lead vehicle, a Land Rover, skidded to a halt and a man in Officers army uniform and sporting a wide moustache jumped out, immediately followed by two armed squaddies. He motioned to the sentry who immediately saluted and opened the gates.
“Major Hobbs,” he announced, holding out his hand to me, which I shook. “And you must be the chap I was talking to earlier. Interesting machine you have there,” he remarked, eyeing up the TDM with more than a little curiosity. Then he spoke to Tina. “And you are, Miss?”
“Tina,” she replied.
The man looked pensively at Tina, then at me. “I wasn’t expecting two of you. Very well, would you follow me please,” he said. It wasn’t really a request. More a polite command. Then he jumped back into the Land Rover and we followed it along the driveway with the other vehicle immediately behind us. A strange convoy heading towards a mysterious building.
As we rode, Tina leaned forward and asked “Where we going Tod. Who are these people?”
All I could think of as a response was that they were the people I was supposed to meet.
I was directed to park the TDM in a hangar which I did and the two of us were then ushered into this Major Dobb’s office. Tina asked if she could use the bathroom and was escorted away by a female army officer.
Alone with Dobbs in his office he got right to the point. “Well young man, I expect you’re wondering what you’re doing here!” he said.
“It had crossed my mind, yes,” I replied.
“Alright. I’ll get right down to the point,” Dobbs began. “You have been an unwitting guinea pig in a time travel episode.”
It sounded completely bonkers but somehow it was a relief to hear someone actually say it. This definitely wasn’t a bad dream after all. It was the real deal.
“And before you ask,” he continued, “we’re going to attempt to send you back to where you came from.”
“Really - How?” I asked, now very animated.
“By replicating your exact movements just prior to you ending up here in 1954 and reverse engineering the experiment that made it occur,” he said.
“Time travel machine,” I answered blankly.
“Correct,” Dobbs said. “An honest to goodness time travel machine. Quite something, don’t you think? We’ve been experimenting with it for some time and now it appears it works, as evidenced by the fact that here you are!”
I was trying to figure out in my mind how this was all going to work but Dobbs pre-empted that.
“In case you wondered, we are in touch with our counterparts from the future. Fortunately this device is still a well kept secret in your time. We intend to keep it that way. Which brings me to the question of that young lady you brought here with you. Does she know anything about this?” he asked, his tone hardening as he spoke.
I hesitated for a moment. There was no point lying. These people weren’t fools. They’d find out soon enough. I explained how I’d met Tina and that she’d given me succour when I really needed it. I admitted I had actually told her I was from the future but that she didn’t believe me and thought I was using it as a chat up line. Major Dobbs suppressed a chuckle and seemed to relax a little.
“Women are strange creatures,” he said. They only hear what they want to hear. It is a rather implausible explanation anyway. And no disrespect young man, not a very good chat up line either! Very good. In that case, we’ll keep it that way. We’ll send her home and if we don’t make anything more of it she will most likely never be any the wiser. You on the other hand will be required to sign the official secrets act upon your return and be bound over to never speak of this matter to anyone - ever. If you do, I’m afraid you’ll be in for some severe trouble. Is that quite clear?”
I nodded.
Dobbs then got up and motioned towards the door. “I’d like you to say goodbye to your young lady friend now. We need to get you back home too,” Dobbs said.
We found Tina in another room where she’d been kept occupied by the lady officer who’d shown her to the bathroom. They were both looking at some pictures in a book and smiling and laughing.
“Tod, look, they’ve got pictures of my Dad in here,” she announced excitedly. “Never seen em before.” She pointed out a few pictures of men standing in front of some desert tanks. “That’s ‘im there she said, pointing to one of the men. “I don’t have any pictures of him except an old grainy one of when he married Mum!” She was obviously really happy to see them.
Major Hobbs said she could have them which pleased her no end. He then looked across at me and I knew it was time to say goodbye.
I took Tina outside. “I have to go now Tina,” I said. “Major Hobbs will have someone drive you home.”
“Where you going?” she asked.
“I’ve done what I came to do. Time for me to go home too,” I replied.
“Will I ever see you again?” she asked.
“Maybe,” I said. “It’s a small world these days.” Then I gave her the key fob to my bike. It had a nice black and gold enamelled Yamaha logo on it, the three tuning forks. We had one last hug then I waved goodbye as she was driven off by the woman officer in an army car.
I watched as the car disappeared through the entrance gates then looked round to find Dobbs standing just behind me. “Well, I suppose you want to see what all the fuss is about then,” he said, and beckoned me back into the building. We walked down some steps and into a large warehouse like area in the centre of which was a large machine that looked something like a cross between a tank and a spaceship.
“We’ve had a fair bit of argy-bargy with the Americans over this contraption,” he began. “They were none too happy that we managed to capture it just after the war ended and ship it back to Blighty before they got their hands on it. Once they did find out about it they began kicking up an almighty fuss with our Government and wanted unlimited access to the technology. So far they haven’t been successful. The truth is we were and still are indebted to them for their help during the war but they really were a greedy bunch of sods, whisking away the top German Scientists back to America with their ‘project paperclip.’ Many of those Scientists were War criminals and were never brought to justice for the atrocities they committed. We protested of course but you know how it is, the one with the biggest stick gets the lions share of the meal.”
I was fascinated. Not just by the fact that a time travel device existed, but from where it emanated. Then a thought crossed my mind.
“So, those characters pretending to be cops; who were they exactly?” I asked. Based on what Dobbs had already told me I kind of had an inkling now, but nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to hear.
“Nothing to do with us, old boy. We believe they were Nazi’s,” he replied.
To be continued ............................
Edited by toddyboy, 12 March 2020 - 11:03 am.