The Assassination of

Adolf Hitler

By

M.R. Dowsing

For Miki, with love

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Frances Barry for the cover design, and to Ian Platts for being the first reader

and providing lots of helpful feedback.

© 2012 Martin Dowsing

All rights reserved

Hitler has only got one ball

The other is in the Albert Hall

His mother, the bloody bugger

Pulled it off when he was small

- Unknown

I might be killed by a criminal, or by an idiot, at any time

- Adolf Hitler

1

On July 23, 2019, after returning home from a night out with friends and enjoying a late

snack of cheese on toast, I decided to assassinate Adolf Hitler. At the time, I was far too

preoccupied with the idea itself to concern myself about its origin. I suppose that if I had

thought about it at all, I would have said that the idea had popped into my head purely by

chance. However, looking back on it now from a clearer perspective, I can see that chance

had very little to do with it; indeed, considering the path of my life leading up to that fateful

day, it now seems to me almost inevitable both that the idea would occur to me and that I

would take steps to act upon it.

My name is Michael Lear. I was born in 1995 and brought up in a large village in the

Home Counties. My father was a dentist, my mother a nurse, and I an only child. Perhaps as a

result of this, I had always been something of a loner and found much of my companionship

in books. Every Friday after school I would visit the library at the top of the hill to borrow

some reading matter for the weekend and, over time, I eventually became something of a

favourite with the librarian there, a Miss Lowenstein. A grey-haired lady in her forties, Miss

Lowenstein was a divorcee who had reverted to her maiden name when her husband, a

teacher, had run off with the much younger classroom assistant. The resulting scandal caused

all of the adults in the village to be exceedingly pleasant to Miss Lowenstein, and reluctant to

enter into conversation with her about anything other than the weather. In my innocence as a

child I saw no need to feel awkward in her presence because of this. I suspect that other

children were much the same and that this was why she seemed happier when talking to us

young folk than to the adults, whose banal small-talk never flowed quite naturally enough to

hide the look of pity in their eyes.

Miss Lowenstein came to know my tastes rather well and began to recommend books to

me that she thought I would like. One Friday, when I was about eleven years old, she

suggested I should try a novel entitled Rogue Male. I took the book home with me and, to my

surprise, found that I had finished it by Sunday afternoon. Although I was an insatiable

bookworm at this point in my life, I was not a particularly fast reader, so for me to get

through a book quite so quickly was definitely unusual. The novel in question, written by an

author by the name of Geoffrey Household, was first published in 1939. It tells the story of an

Englishman, a big game hunter, who attempts to kill a European dictator. Although not

named as such in the book, the dictator is, clearly, Adolf Hitler. The hunter is discovered

before he can take his shot and finds himself pursued by Nazi agents. Exciting stuff for an

eleven year- old boy, and it‟s not difficult to see why it captured my imagination.

I returned the book on the following Friday, but then found myself borrowing it again a

few weeks later. It wasn‟t just the Boys‟ Own Adventure element of the story which excited

me, but something else… Even at that age, I was well aware of the consequences of the

National Socialist regime and, although also aware that the book was a work of fiction, I

could not help but wonder – what if the hero had not missed? Looking back, I believe that the

speculations generated in my mind by the reading of Rogue Male were what eventually led

me to major in German history at university...

As I entered my teens and gradually outgrew my boyhood, I began to become a little less

bookish and a little more interested in the outside world rather than simply in the world of

imagination inside my head. I became interested in girls, lost some of my shyness and

became more outgoing generally; I even started to enjoy sports. I had somehow grown up

slim, tall and fairly athletic almost in spite of myself – something I attribute mainly to the

good dietary habits instilled in me by my nutritionally-conscious parents. My grades also

were good; although I only scraped by in maths and science, I excelled at literature,

languages, geography and, of course, history. During this period, I had a couple of nice

girlfriends but, in both cases, I found that neither of them really shared my interests and these

relationships never developed into anything very serious. I was itching to leave home and see

more of life beyond the village, so when, at the age of eighteen, I was on my way to Oxford

University, I was about as excited as I had ever been – and not a little terrified…

Upon arriving at Oxford, I found myself rooming with a young man named Robert Ellis.

Rob wore glasses, had long, dark, greasy hair and a goatee and was studying science –

specifically in the area of quantum physics. I found my new room-mate to be curious and

enthusiastic about everything – including me – and we hit it off immediately; he was a great

talker who obviously needed an attentive audience, while I was quieter by nature but only too

happy to sit and listen. However, Rob‟s curious nature and generosity of character also

enabled him to listen to others properly without interrupting. We would regularly confide in

each other and often sit up into the early hours of the morning discussing all manner of

things; only when my friend got onto the topic of quantum mechanics or some other such

complicated area of scientific theory did I become hopelessly lost to the extent that he soon

gave up trying to talk about such things with me.

We also shared our rooms with one other student with the unlikely name of Ivan Fortune.

Ivan was socially awkward and rather strange, and unfortunately these traits were made more

prominent by his unusual physical appearance. Ivan was tall – about six foot three – and

gangly, with ginger hair. These disadvantages were, however, sometimes overcome, at least

in certain situations, for Ivan had a secret weapon; he was a superb pianist, able to play

classical, jazz or boogie-woogie with equal facility. Ivan, of course, was at Oxford to study

music – and he was surprisingly successful with women as long as there was a piano around.

So the three of us made an odd triangle of friends, but probably no more so than could be

found in any number of other living quarters shared by three students. We often went about

the town together, carousing and trying to pick up women, but Ivan somehow had the knack

of introducing a jarring note on our nights out, although admittedly it was rarely his fault. For

example, sometimes a drunken oaf would decide to mock our companion‟s ginger hair and

we‟d find ourselves in a fight; another time Ivan would find a piano in a bar and start playing,

causing an argument to break out over the choice of material. For these reasons, Rob and I

sometimes preferred to keep each other company without the presence of Ivan.

One night we hooked up with a couple of young women in a bar. I knew that Rob was

very keen on one of them, a pale, dark-haired art student named Stefanie; for some reason,

however, she seemed to prefer me to Rob, despite my efforts to portray my friend to her in a

glowing light. I think that Rob sometimes became a little too serious when there was a

woman around that he found attractive, and some members of the opposite sex also, unfairly I

thought, seemed to consider him something of a “nerd”. Anyway, I ended up having a

relationship with Stefanie; this lasted for a few months and, although I knew that he was

disappointed not to have made the conquest himself, my friend insisted that he did not object.

Rob had been a precocious child and I think that even some of the professors were in awe

of him although, from what he told me, they certainly tried their best not to show it and,

indeed, to “keep him in his place.” I was not at all surprised when Rob graduated with the

highest honours. Despite our closeness, after university, we both became busy with our

individual lives and somehow lost touch – but I did hear that he had begun a PhD, only to

abandon it when he was head-hunted by a large multinational company.

While at university, my father had been diagnosed with bowel cancer; by the time of

diagnosis, the disease was already quite advanced. He was very much the traditional stiff-

upper-lip kind of Englishman and, despite being a member of the medical profession himself,

was the sort of person who had to be practically dying before he would be willing to go to a

doctor for help. This time he was dying for real. My parents insisted that I finish my studies,

which I just about managed to do. Afterwards, I put the rest of my life on hold while I cared

for my father and helplessly watched him wasting away before my eyes. I tried to give my

distraught mother as much support as I could but, when he finally died, it was as if something

had snapped inside her and she was never the same again. A few months later, she took an

overdose; I rushed her to the hospital, but it was too late. The main emotion I felt was a sense

of relief – at least the suffering was over.

I wanted to get away from the family home, which now held too many painful memories

for me, so, once I had settled the affairs necessary for the disposal of my parents‟ meagre

estate, I moved to London. During my first months in the capital, I had some money from my

inheritance – not a fortune, by any means, but enough that I was not immediately concerned

with finding employment. Knowing few people in London at the time, the result was that I

had felt rather lonely and ended up seeking consolation in a bottle. This life soon became

tiresome, however, and I finally began to become worried about myself. After a couple of

half-hearted and unsuccessful attempts, I eventually managed to pull myself back together,

stop drinking excessively, and get a job.

2

I had been living in London for a year or so when I ran into Rob purely by accident while

walking along Charing Cross Road. He seemed to be as pleased to see me as I was to see him

and we stepped into a nearby café to catch up. At this time I was working as an assistant

curator at the Imperial War Museum. This position was not especially well paid but it was at

least something which I found both interesting and agreeably stress-free. Rob, on the other

hand, explained mysteriously that he was not at liberty to discuss his work at this point but

that he hoped to be able to tell me something about it soon. As we talked, it appeared to me

that my friend had changed – he somehow did not seem quite so engaged in our conversation

as he had used to be. I noticed a furrow in his brow that I did not remember having seen

before and he constantly fidgeted with a napkin to the extent that it began to irritate me. I

tried to dismiss my worries, telling myself that he was probably just a little tired and

overworked… The conversation turned to the subject of our mutual friend Ivan Fortune, who

was now scraping a living for himself as a jazz band leader and occasional session musician.

After half an hour we had to go our separate ways, both of us having engagements to attend

to, but not before we had exchanged contact details and given each other firm reassurances

that we would not lose touch again.

A couple of weeks later I received an invitation from Rob to join him for dinner at his

apartment in the Docklands area. He said that he would be doing the cooking and that it

would be just the two of us if I was agreeable, as he wanted us to have a chance to spend a

full evening in conversation together as we used to do back in our university days. I arrived

by taxi and was buzzed in to a beautiful, spacious and clearly expensive apartment. Rob

greeted me warmly, thrust a drink into my hand and told me to make myself at home while he

finished preparing the food. As we ate, Rob and I talked lightly of this and that but,

throughout the meal, I sensed that there was something else on his mind and began to wonder

whether he might have had some kind of ulterior motive in inviting me. Afterwards, it being a

warm evening, we adjourned to the balcony overlooking the Thames, sat down and enjoyed a

cigar while gazing at the lights of London reflected in the water. After a few moments‟

silence, Rob turned towards me, smiled and said, “I‟m sorry I haven‟t told you more about

my work.”

“More? You haven‟t told me anything!” I replied.

“Well, don‟t worry, because that‟s why I asked you over here tonight – but now I don‟t

know where to start…” said Rob, returning his gaze towards the river.

Now more intrigued than ever, I leaned forward and asked, “It‟s not anything dangerous, I

hope?”

“That depends on how you look at it.” Suddenly he turned towards me again. “What

would you say if I told you I‟d found a way to move objects through time?”

I looked at my friend, trying to read his face for clues as to whether he was serious or not;

baffled, I laughed and replied, “I‟d say either you‟re having a joke with me or you‟ve been

working too hard.”

“Yes, I suppose that‟s what anyone would say – it‟s true though, all the same,” he said

quietly. Rob then went on to tell me about how, after beginning his doctorate, he had been

approached by a man from a well-known company which specialised in cutting-edge

transport and communication technologies. This man had been given authorisation to offer

Rob a post involving research – a post with a very good salary and all of the research

facilities one could wish for. The company‟s senior scientist, a Professor Miles Spencer, had

apparently come across a paper that Rob had written while at university on the subject of

wormholes; Spencer had seen it when it had been published in a scientific journal. The

professor had been impressed enough to persuade his bosses that Rob could make invaluable

contributions to their work and that every effort should be made to hire him at the earliest

opportunity. Rob had been working at the company‟s research centre ever since, at a very

isolated location somewhere in Norfolk. Although he had been given living quarters there, he

had to come to London often enough for meetings and such that he had found it worthwhile

to have a living base in the capital as well – and was certainly being paid enough not to worry

about the cost. Professor Spencer, like Rob, had come to believe that moving objects through

time was not merely a theoretical possibility, but a practical one. A little over two years after

Rob had joined the company and begun collaborating with Spencer, they had apparently

achieved their goal. Rob explained to me as simply as he could that they had succeeded in

artificially creating a wormhole which could be expanded or contracted in a controlled way –

the extent of this expansion or contraction determining the length of the journey backwards or

forwards into time of an object passed into it.

I was still unsure whether or not my friend was having me on, but there was certainly

nothing apparent in his manner to suggest that he was.

“But you‟re talking about time travel, aren‟t you?” I interjected.

“Well, you could say that, but so far we‟ve only transported objects.”

“And what happens to these „objects‟?”

“They disappear from our time into another.”

“Okay… so how do you know they haven‟t just been destroyed?”

“For various reasons. For one thing, because we‟ve been able to transport some objects

just a few minutes into the future and simply wait for them to reappear.”

“Do these objects show any signs of change or damage?” I asked.

“None at all – not so far, anyway.”

In the course of this conversation I also learned that it was only possible to transport

things through time, not through space as well – so that, although they would be able to

transport their “objects” back into the past, or future, the objects themselves would remain in

Norfolk! Another interesting point was that they had successfully transported items into the

past and brought them back by means of attaching a transmitter with an automatic timer

which, when activated, would send a signal back through the wormhole to the present day,

enabling it to be retrieved. However, there were some limitations – apparently, the scope of

the wormhole was only about two hundred years either way. To increase the scope beyond

this would apparently mean expanding the wormhole to an extent where it could no longer be

practically contained. They were now at the stage where they would soon begin testing on

animals. Much to my surprise, Rob asked me if I would like to come along and take a look.

“But surely all this is top secret?” I asked.

“Well, not so much now as a matter of fact – the company‟s realised they won‟t be able to

keep this sort of thing secret for very long, so they‟re actually starting to relax security –

hence me telling you all this, although I must ask you to keep it to yourself for the time being.

They also feel that when it does come out, if they‟re shown to have been too hush-hush about

it, it‟s likely to scare the crap out of people. I think they want to make it clear that they don‟t

have any sinister intentions… and that there aren‟t any plans to send a human being through

time.”

After some further discussion, I eventually realised that it was getting late and, as I had to

work at the museum the following day, I stood up, saying, “Well, I certainly wasn‟t expecting

this when I came to dinner! Sure you‟re not having me on?”

Rob ignored the question, saying simply, “Come to the lab next week and see for yourself.

Can you get a day off?”

We arranged to meet on the following Tuesday and travel up to Norfolk together.

Over the next few days I found it hard to concentrate on my work, as I was unable to stop

myself from thinking about what Rob had told me. It seemed unbelievable but, the more I

thought about it, the easier it became to accept his story. I recalled all of the remarkable

advances in technology that had taken place over the last hundred years or so. After all,

within the space of one lifetime, man had gone from riding around in a cart attached to a

horse to landing on the moon! But still, moving through time was somehow harder to

accept…

3

When Tuesday finally arrived, Rob picked me up at home at seven o‟clock that morning, and

we drove up to Norfolk in his Volkswagen Beetle. It amused me to think that my friend, so

involved with the cutting edge of scientific technology, drove such an old, outdated machine

– but such apparent contradictions were not untypical of Rob.

“I thought you would have a flying car by now!” I joked.

Rob smiled and replied, “Actually, did you know that flying cars have been technically

feasible for years? There are all kinds of prototypes out there. No-one wants them though –

especially governments. Can you imagine the difficulties of policing traffic in the air? Then

there‟s the danger of accidents – if two of them collided over a town, god knows how much

damage they might do. And I‟m sure the governments of the world are also scared to death of

the possibility of anyone being able to nip over to another country whenever they felt like it –

and without any passport.”

“Are you saying you don‟t think the idea will ever take off?” I thought that was quite a

good one, but it seemed that Rob failed to notice. I supposed that my friend had his mind on

higher things than my attempts at humour…

It was rather a long drive and the research centre was five miles from the nearest village, at

which we stopped for breakfast. Rob explained that there were only self-catering facilities at

the centre and that he found the dining area there rather soulless. We sat down at a small café

and ordered, after which Rob told me in hushed tones that I would be meeting his mentor,

Professor Spencer and that today was to be the occasion of their first attempt to transport an

animal through time. Apparently, it had been decided that it would be a good idea to have a

couple of laymen present as observers, so the professor had invited his daughter along as well.

Something was still bothering me about the whole thing, so I decided to get it off my chest.

“I know what you‟ve said about there being no intention to try this on a human being at

the moment but, surely, isn‟t that where all this is heading? It seems to me that can be the

only logical conclusion.”

At this, Rob glanced at me – rather sheepishly I thought – and, toying with his coffee cup,

replied, “I suppose you may be right. But we‟re all a bit frightened of the idea ourselves to be

honest! There‟s no telling what the consequences could be. And I‟m not sure we‟d find

anyone willing to try it.”

“Someone‟ll be willing. Just think of all the astronauts and test pilots of the past and the

men who first sailed the oceans. It‟s amazing what people will risk for a little adventure or a

chance to go down in history.” Rob made no comment in response to this but looked very

thoughtful.

We paid our bill, returned to the car and drove the remaining few miles to the research

centre. On the way, Rob told me how Professor Spencer had come to begin the project in the

first place. It turned out that Spencer was a widower – he had lost his wife in a car accident

some six years previously. Spencer himself had been driving and was pulling out of a

junction when the left-hand side of his car was hit by a speeding van. His wife had been

sitting in the front passenger seat and was killed; Spencer lost consciousness and sustained

some injuries but survived. Although it was clear that the van had been travelling above the

speed limit and that the junction itself was a dangerous one – it was not the first accident that

had occurred at that particular spot – still Spencer felt that he was at least partly to blame. He

had told all this to Rob once they had been working together for a while and admitted that he

was sometimes guilty of one of the stereotypical attributes of his profession – that of absent-

mindedness. On the day of the crash his mind had been occupied with some equation or other

and he firmly believed that, had he been more alert that day, his wife would probably still be

alive; he had lived ever since with the memory of those fatal few seconds, and this had

eventually led him to become obsessed with the possibility of finding a way in which to

literally turn back the clock. According to Rob, the professor had always avoided any use of

the phrase “time travel”; a fact which I put down to simple common sense. He had also

apparently never expressed any desire to become a time traveller himself. However, I would

later become convinced that the fact that he was far too important to the project to be able to

risk attempting a journey back in time himself was something which must have caused him a

great deal of frustration…

The research centre was a very large building of a colour which was not quite silver, but more

a kind of metallic grey. As we turned a corner, it had suddenly come into view and, so out of

place did it look among the surrounding fields, the effect was almost like coming upon a ship

in a desert. However, it gave no clue as to its contents and most people who happened to

drive past would probably have just taken it for a warehouse in which some kind of mundane

goods were stored.

Rob had to show our passes at the gate, upon which a bored-looking guard raised the

barrier and let us through into the parking area. We pulled up, stepped out onto the hot tarmac

and walked over to the main entrance, where Rob had to speak to someone over an intercom

in order for us to be admitted into the building. When we stepped inside, we were greeted by

Professor Spencer and his daughter Maria. The Professor appeared to be in his late fifties or

early sixties and walked with the aid of a stick, which I assumed was a legacy of the accident

that Rob had told me about. He was a likeable man and he made me feel very welcome,

although there was something unusually intense in his manner. His daughter was apparently a

journalism student, whom I judged to be in her early twenties. She had dark, flashing eyes

and a winning smile that I immediately found attractive.

We were then shown in to the main research area, a vast space containing all kinds of

scientific equipment; what most of it may have been used for I could not even have begun to

hazard a guess at. As Maria and I gazed at all this in wonder, the two scientists, obviously

pleased with our reaction, looked on and chuckled delightedly. At this point I heard a strange

bleating noise and turned around to find a black goat looking up at me. The goat had a leash

around its neck and was tethered to a nearby pipe. Rob explained that the goat – rather

unimaginatively named “Billy” – was destined to become the world‟s first time traveller, at

which, to my amusement, he received a harsh look from Professor Spencer, who said, “I do

wish you wouldn‟t use that phrase!”

Maria and I were given a guided tour and saw many interesting things, perhaps the most

startling of which was a device which could be worn on the index finger, enabling the wearer

to write words or draw pictures in the air. The images then faded away after about a minute.

Another device under development was the “mountain-hopper”, a sort of cross between a

pogo stick and a jet pack which could be used for getting up mountains quickly and with a

minimum of effort; unfortunately, it was apparently not so successful on the return journey

and there had been a number of accidents. However, we saw nothing which seemed quite as

miraculous as the artificial wormhole we had been told about – although I noticed that there

were a couple of areas which were cordoned off, and assumed it was located in one of those.

At the end of the tour, Maria asked her father when we would get to see the wormhole, to

which the Professor replied with a smile that we had already walked past it twice. We turned

around, searching with our eyes in our bewilderment for anything that looked like the fabled

wormhole – but, of course, neither of us had the slightest idea of what it might look like. Rob

laughed and said, “Come on – I‟ll show you.” He then led us back to an area we had indeed

walked past on two occasions and paid very little attention to – the vast amount of it being

given up to a large circular space which had been cordoned off. Now, however, as we paid

closer attention, we saw that the space was surrounded by four banks of machinery, all of

which appeared identical; each one formed a quarter-circle. We were told that these all

contained a powerful electro-magnetic apparatus and that they provided the method by which

the wormhole could be expanded or contracted. Suspended from the ceiling directly above

the centre of the circle was a large lens from which a single, very thin beam of light radiated

directly downwards, culminating in a small pink dot in the exact centre of the circular floor

space.

“When are you going to switch it on?” I asked innocently, at which point the two

scientists looked at each other and laughed, leaving me feeling rather stupid.

“You must forgive us for laughing. From your point of view, of course, that‟s a very

reasonable question. It‟s just that it‟s not something we can switch on or off – it‟s just there,”

the professor explained.

“But where‟s the actual wormhole? I can‟t see anything…”

Rob then chipped in, saying, “You can‟t see wind either but just because you can‟t see it

doesn‟t mean it‟s not there. I suppose you were expecting a swirling vortex or something but

this is it, I‟m afraid. I suppose that, visually at least, it is a bit of a letdown! For safety reasons,

when we‟re not using it, we set it at full contraction – we wouldn‟t want Billy chewing

through his rope and stumbling through before we‟re ready. The beam of light you can see

shows the position and extent of contraction of the wormhole, but the beam itself is really just

a visual tool to help us avoid making mistakes. When we expand the wormhole, you‟ll see the

light beam become thicker.”

Professor Spencer took over and continued, saying, “When the wormhole is fully

contracted as it is now, anything placed into it would have to be very small and would only

be transported a few seconds into the past or future, depending on whether we have the

electro-magnetic field created by these machines set for positive or negative polarity. If the

wormhole is expanded to its greatest extent – about five metres in diameter – we calculate

that this would propel the object about two hundred years into the past or future. Of course, in

theory, it would be possible to increase the range but, the longer the range, the larger the area

of space must be – and that, of course, would mean that the four machines surrounding the

wormhole would also have to be bigger.

“Today we‟ll be making the experiment with our friend Billy. What we‟re going to do is

send him back into the past a few years and then retrieve him by means of an apparatus which

will be strapped to his back.” The Professor then looked at his watch and moved to what

appeared to be a bank of controls where he pressed a switch and threw a lever. The beam of

light in the centre of the circle expanded until it measured about one foot in diameter.

At this point, I was about to ask a question, when there was a sharp intake of breath from

Maria. She was looking at the circle of light on the floor, where a teapot had suddenly

appeared. Steam was rising from the spout. “Anyone for tea?” asked Professor Spencer

innocently, adding, “Just a small demonstration we arranged for you. While Rob was

showing you the mountain-hopper, I put the teapot into the wormhole and sent it a few

minutes into the future.”

The professor picked up the teapot, poured the contents into some cups on a nearby

trolley which also held some milk and sugar, and invited us to help ourselves. Unfortunately,

the tea was not very good as it had been brewing for too long.

That afternoon, Billy the goat was pushed into the wormhole with his legs tied and a device

strapped to his back. He vanished and then reappeared one minute later. We were told that he

had just spent that minute in the year 1919.

4

As Rob and I began the drive back to London, we were both quiet for some minutes until

finally, keeping his eyes on the road, my friend broke the silence and said to me, “You didn‟t

think much of it, did you?”

I sighed, and then told him, “Listen, until you send a human being into the past or future

and bring him back again, you‟ve got nothing but a second rate magic show! My god –

teapots materialising out of nowhere! And that goat may well have gone back to 1919 for all I

know, but all I saw was a goat vanish and then reappear again. That doesn‟t prove it travelled

through time and you know it!”

It was now Rob‟s turn to sigh and reply, “I know, I know! You‟re right, of course… It‟s

bothering me too. I feel like we‟ve made one of the greatest scientific discoveries in history –

sorry if it sounds like I‟m blowing my own trumpet – and no-one knows quite what to do

with it. It‟ll probably end up like the flying car… Anyway, let‟s forget about all this for a

while. Ivan‟s playing at the Tin Whistle tonight – how about we go and surprise him?”

I agreed and tried valiantly to change the subject.

“Spencer‟s daughter‟s rather attractive, don‟t you think?” I asked.

“She‟s taken,” my friend replied – a little quickly, I felt. “What I mean is, she‟s got a

boyfriend already so I wouldn‟t go getting any ideas in that direction if I were you.”

“I‟m not, it was just an observation. What‟s her boyfriend like?”

“I don‟t know, I haven‟t met him.”

It seemed as if another conversational topic had already been exhausted, so I put the radio

on and we listened to the news for a while.

We arrived at the Tin Whistle a little after eight-thirty, managed to get a table and ordered

some food. Although we had been given sandwiches at the research centre, that had been

some hours previously, so by this time we had quite an appetite. We chatted somewhat

desultorily as we waited for it to arrive, both of us still rather self-consciously trying to avoid

the subject of time travel. Finally, the food came and, after we had eaten a bit and had a

couple of drinks, we began to look forward to hearing our old friend play and laughed as we

reminisced about some of the difficult situations he had plunged us into back in our student

days.

Finally, the band made their appearance as, one by one, the saxophonist began to play, the

others joined in, and the unmistakeably gangly form of Ivan Fortune strolled onto the stage,

took his seat at the piano to enthusiastic applause, and commenced to launch into an up-

tempo jazz number. He certainly looked the part as well, dressed as he was in a sharp blue

suit and black shirt. The awkwardness of his student days was nowhere to be seen. He exuded

confidence and had become quite the showman, segueing effortlessly from one number to

another and holding himself back when the rest of the band took their solos. At one point he

noticed us and acknowledged our presence with a little wave, but then did not look our way

again for the rest of the performance.

After the show, Ivan walked over to our table to join us, shaking hands with a couple of

admirers on the way. We said the usual things that old friends say when they have not seen

each other for a long time but, at one point during a lull in the conversation, I found myself

blurting out, “Ivan, if you had the opportunity to travel through time but there was a

possibility that you may get stuck and unable to make it back to your own time, would you

still take it? Also, there‟s a possibility that you might get killed or set off a chain of

consequences impossible to foresee – would you risk it anyway?”

Ivan, understandably rather surprised at such a question coming out of nowhere,

considered for a moment and then replied, “Hell yes! I‟d go and see Ellington play – any risk

would be worth it!” Coming from Ivan, it was obvious that he was quite serious. “Why do

you ask?”

“Oh, no reason, really… just a little theoretical debate Rob and I were having earlier.”

I asked Ivan whether he had been working on a new record and he replied that, although

he was trying to, he had run into problems with his record company, who were not too keen

on his latest idea for an album project. Ivan came from quite a musical family and was half-

Jewish. He explained that he had recently begun to think about his roots a little and had

become quite enthusiastic about klezmer, a type of traditional Jewish music. He had found

himself exploring this when it emerged that, not only had his great-grandfather, a Polish Jew,

been a respected klezmorim, but that he had actually jointly composed a couple of the well-

known standards. This man had apparently managed to get his wife and two children to

England in 1938 but had made the mistake of remaining in Poland with the intention of

settling the rest of his affairs before joining them later. He ended up spending most of the

Second World War in a concentration camp, but somehow managed to survive the Holocaust.

Eventually, he had managed to rejoin his family in London after the war, only to die within

weeks of his arrival of a weak heart brought on by malnutrition. Ivan wished to honour this

man by making an album of klezmer music, but his record label had been trying to force him

to make a pop record beforehand – one that would feature several popular guest vocalists.

Ivan had no interest in doing this and thought they were showing a lack of imagination; he

currently had a lawyer going through his contract to see if there were some way in which he

could get out of it and sign to another label. Of course, I admired his uncompromising

attitude and wished him the very best of luck.

Later that night I arrived home tired but rather over-stimulated by the day‟s events. I made

myself some cheese on toast and then decided to do a little bedtime reading. Scanning my

bookshelves, my eyes suddenly stopped on reaching my old paperback copy of Rogue Male.

As I pulled it from the shelf it was as if I was already dimly aware of the idea in my head

before the thought had even had time to form clearly. In fact, it was as if the idea had been

crouching in my brain all my life, just waiting for the trigger which would enable it to stand

up and announce itself. My heart actually began to beat faster and I fell into a chair, clutching

the book in my hand.

I wanted to go back to a time before I had had the idea, because I knew that now I would

never be able to forget it and my life would no longer be able to continue on its safe and

steady course. My existence had suddenly been revealed to me as pointless if I did not do this

thing. I found myself looking back over my life and taking stock. I realised that I had never

really done any harm or any real good either, and that, although I had previously been content

with this state of affairs, if I ignored the idea and tried to continue life as normal, I would

never be content again. I did not do any reading that night. Sleep was out of the question, so I

went for a long walk in the moonlight, while half of me tried desperately not so much to

forget as to unthink the idea; meanwhile the other half , increasingly excited, thought, “How –

how to do it?”

The following morning, of course, everything appeared in a rather different light. The

sunlight poured through the windows, the birds began their song, and traffic became more

frequent along the street outside as people left their homes and made their way to work. All

of these signs of everyday life continuing as usual worked together to break the spell I had

been under during the hours of darkness, and the idea which had so gripped me did now

indeed appear absurd. After all, would such an idea not be likely to occur to anyone who had

just learned that time travel was now a genuine possibility? Somehow, however, I found

myself unable to entirely dismiss it from my mind. Telling myself that I was merely

indulging in a sort of intellectual game, I began to think about how I could possibly go about

achieving such an aim if I were able to travel back in time… and then, gradually, thoughts of

actually attempting to carry it out began to creep back into my mind. With an effort, I forced

myself to push aside all thoughts of practical considerations for a while and first deal with the

question of whether or not this was something that I should do.

My interest in German history had begun all those years ago when I first read Rogue

Male; eventually it had grown almost into an obsession. I think that the aspect of history

which had always fascinated me the most was the way in which major events could have their

origins in seemingly trivial incidents, and how a previously insignificant person could have

enormous influence simply by virtue of being the right type of person in the right place at the

right time. My interest led me to immerse myself in the past to the extent that I sometimes

had little awareness of what was happening in the world around me. I think that what drove

me was the desire to understand, but I never really felt as if I had found a wholly satisfactory

explanation. As I learned more and more about this part of history, mainly through the books

I read, I also became aware that such reading would, at times, have an unwelcome effect

upon me. Perhaps I was a little more sensitive or idealistic than most; or it may have been

that I had a touch more imagination and was better at empathising than others, but, whatever

the cause, the fact was that I would frequently find myself becoming genuinely angry about

events that had happened a long time ago – and frustrated with my inability to do anything

about them. Of course, it is also possible that many people feel this way, but it did seem to

me that I must have felt such things more intensely than others. The majority of people, I

suspect, are quite sensible in being too concerned with their daily lives to have their heads

buried in books about the past. But such was not the case for me. Fortunately, however, I had

enough self-awareness to realise that too much reading about certain subjects could be

unhealthy and lead to a very poor view of human nature which was hardly conducive to a

positive outlook on the world or on one‟s own life. At times, I would become aware that I

was in danger of sinking into a depression if I persisted too intensely with my studies, so I

would deliberately break off and attempt to concentrate on other matters for a few days, or

for as long as it took until I felt able to resume without any ill effects… but at some stage, the

past, in its insidious way, would always begin to worry me again.

I had never believed in the myth of the dispassionate historian. I always became

emotionally involved. Many historians are reluctant to use words such as “evil” and have

attempted to explain Hitler as an inevitable product of his times, but there are some things

which can never be fully explained. I even had some sympathy with those who believed that

he was the antichrist; I did not believe that this were literally so but, for all intents and

purposes, I felt, he may as well have been. As a moral eclipse fell over Nazi Germany, it not

only led to systematic gassings carried out by people who had convinced themselves that they

were simply obeying orders – it also led to many other more specific horrors too numerous to

mention… I thought of the editions of Mein Kampf bound in human skin and the chairs with

human feet. Human beings had made these things and I did not believe that it could be

possible for them to do this and yet think that what they were doing was reasonable. If such

activities are not truly the epitome of evil then – what is? Much of the evil was not even

hidden – Hitler had spoken in public many times of his intention to “get rid” of the Jews, and

the world had made a big mistake in thinking that this was not meant literally. The SS

proudly sported the “death‟s head” on their black caps; hard to believe they saw themselves

as the good guys while dressed in such a manner. And so much has been said about the

extermination of the Jews that the genocide of other minorities is frequently overlooked.

Huge numbers of gypsies and disabled people were also killed, along with around 2 million

Poles and 5 million Russian civilians. Countless atrocities were committed during the

German invasion of the USSR. Women and children locked in churches and burned alive…

Thoughts of this nature occupied my mind for some time until I finally asked myself – could

the removal of one individual from the equation save the world from having to go through

this nightmare? The conclusion I reached was that, if there were even a slight possibility that

it could, I should try to dismiss all thoughts of personal risk and attempt to find out for myself.

Perhaps, in a different way, I was also the right type of person in the right place at the right

time…

5

Over the next few days I found myself merely going through the motions at work as my mind

occupied itself with this new and frightening idea. At first, I was troubled by the thought that,

if I was successful, I might cause events to take a turn that could lead to something even

worse than the consequences of World War Two and the Holocaust. However, although I was

not so naïve as to hold Hitler entirely responsible for these events, I was convinced that

things could not have gone the same way without him. Certainly, Hitler did not invent anti-

Semitism, but it was hard to believe that this would have been allowed to go so far as to end

in systematic genocide were he not in power. And would any other German leader have been

arrogant enough to continually seize territories using the flimsiest of justifications and to

repeatedly break treaties and promises to the point of provoking the world into a war which

nobody wanted? I was convinced that the twentieth century would have been very different

without Hitler and, ultimately, I was unable to imagine anything more appalling than the

many millions of deaths resulting from the combined effects of the extermination camps and

the war, not to mention all the suffering that went with them. After much thought and

consideration of what seemed to me to be the possible alternative outcomes were Hitler to be

eliminated, I felt finally convinced that such an act could not make the world any worse for

mankind, and I was able to set my mind at rest on this particular point.

My next problem was what to tell Rob. Somehow, I was going to have to convince him to

send me back in time, but should I tell him what it was that I was planning to do? Could I

persuade him to let me try it? I finally decided not to reveal my plans to him as I thought it

likely that he, as a scientist, would consider such historical tampering – even for the best of

reasons – impossible to condone. Furthermore, if that were the case, by being honest with

him, I would probably never have an opportunity to get anywhere near the wormhole again.

On the other hand, I felt that my chances of persuading him to send me back in time as a

simple scientific experiment were not at all bad. I suspected that both Rob and Professor

Spencer were secretly excited about the possibility of sending a human being through the

wormhole and were, in fact, itching to do just that. The two scientists themselves were

presumably indispensable to the project and therefore irreplaceable, so it would probably be

out of the question for either of them to attempt it. They could not exactly advertise for

volunteers either, as such a move would be likely to set off a storm of publicity – which

would surely be followed by a deluge of crackpots offering their services. It was going to be

tricky enough for them as it was when the press got wind of their project. However, I felt that

I – who was not indispensable to anyone and was not even in a relationship – had a very good

chance of persuading Rob that sending a human through the wormhole was inevitable, and

that it might as well be me. I decided to try and do this as subtly as possible as I did not want

him to think I had become obsessed with the idea and scare him off. Rather, I thought to plant

the idea in his head and water it with a little suggestion – until, with luck, it would bloom into

what I hoped he would come to think of as his idea rather than mine. If I could pull this off,

when I came to propose that perhaps I should be the first time traveller, he would already be

thinking along these lines and even merely waiting for me to volunteer… This would also

give me time to work out exactly how I was going to kill Adolf Hitler.