A Trail Through Time (The Chronicles of St Mary's) by Jodi Taylor Read Free Book Online Page A

start, Clerk got his knots wrong and nearly cut himself in half. They left him, dangling and blaspheming about twelve feet up in the air, and Professor Rapson, caught up in the excitement, forgot about him.
    The other two idiots, gaining the safety of terra firma, immediately began worming their way through the snow in a doomed attempt to reach the lake. Undoubtedly their poor sense of direction was a factor, but what really brought the whole thing to a standstill was that, in their quest for historical accuracy, the silly asses hadn’t put their drawers on.
    After a great deal of wriggling through the snow on their bellies, they made the simultaneous discovery that they couldn’t feel their todgers. I didn’t even want to speculate on what they were doing to make that discovery and it was at this point that they fell into the stream, where they floundered helplessly and were eventually discovered by Evans and his team who had, unfortunately for them, stopped for a mug of tea and a bacon butty.
    Professor Rapson had, by this time, taken a wrong turn in the dark and was later discovered in the car park.
    Roberts and Markham were rushed to Sick Bay, suffering from the effects of encasing their unprotected private parts in snow and freezing water and, when I eventually got to them, they were sitting on a table, carefully immersing their affected members in pint beer glasses filled with warm water and being supervised by a near-hysterical Nurse Hunter.
    I shouted for a good twenty minutes, because if I hadn’t I’d have been laughing hysterically, too. And when I’d finished, Ian Guthrie had a go at them as well, and on this occasion, he was magnificent. They listened in a rare state of subdued obedience to his thundering denunciation of their intelligence, and their usefulness to the world in general and St Mary’s in particular. They stared at him like terrified rabbits and at one point I wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d both made involuntary contributions to the contents of their glasses.
    He finished by instructing Nurse Hunter for God’s sake to ensure the complete destruction of the unfortunate glasses because no one would ever want to drink from them again.
    ‘Out of respect?’ enquired Markham, unwisely.
    ‘Don’t get cocky,’ said Hunter.
    It was at that this precarious moment that they suddenly remembered the unfortunately still dangling Mr Clerk.
    I lost myself in these and other happy memories, smiling for a while at my own thoughts, Inevitably, however, the comfort they brought me was tempered by sadness. The sadness of knowing that those carefree days were gone. Lost for ever.
    After four hours, I was cold, stiff, hungry, thirsty, bored, and determined not to wake Leon. I was shifting my position for the umpteenth time, trying to ease the pain in my chest, when he stirred.
    ‘Max?’
    ‘Still here.’
    ‘Everything all right?’
    ‘Yes. Not a sign of them.’
    ‘Actually, I was enquiring after you. Did you get any rest?’
    ‘Of course not. You could snore for England. I would have slept better in the European Wind Tunnel. I think my ears started to bleed at some point. Do you want some tea?’
    I made us both a mug and joined him on the floor. He pulled his blankets over me. Heroically, I’d left the heating off.
    ‘How’s the chest?’
    ‘Absolutely fine,’ I said, uttering the traditional St Mary’s lie with the traditional St Mary’s panache.
    He sipped his tea and said, ‘I suggest we shower, have breakfast, and then push off. The water tanks will be more than full by now.’
    ‘Somewhere warm and sunny.’
    ‘Yes, we can recharge the cells as well. Do you have anywhere particular in mind?’
    I batted my eyelashes. ‘Actually …’
    He sighed. ‘Yes?’
    ‘Well, while your snores were rattling the ceiling, I was working out some coordinates. What do you say to Ancient Egypt? Eighteenth dynasty? Peaceful. Stable. Sunny. What do you think?’
    ‘And?’
    I put on my