A Viking Voyage: Book Two of the Chronicles of Adam Black the Teenage Time Traveller

By Raff Stuart

A Viking Voyage Introduction

In this the second book in the chronicles of Adam Black, Adam is with his mates in the Army Cadets down in Northumberland when he is chased by a gang of local boys and in escaping from them finds himself transported back to the age of the Vikings. He is carried off on a great adventure with battles, attacks by pirates, storms, wolves and shipwrecks all being part of the fun. As in the previous adventure he makes a good many friends including a girlfriend and is given a dire warning from a monk from the 41st Century.

Other Books in the series:

Book 1 A Roman Odyssey

Book 3 A Nazi Nightmare

Book 4 A Voyage to Victory

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: May 22, 2009
• ISBN: 9781496995254

Raff Stuart

The Author, Raff Stuart, grew up in the same time as Adam and many of the things that happened to Adam impacted on him as well. He spent 31 years in the Army joining at the age of fifteen and leaving as a senior Major to take up a career in the commercial and public sectors as a CEO and management consultant. He is married with two grown up children and lives in Aberdeen.

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© 2009 Raff Stuart. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 5/18/2009

ISBN: 978-1-4389-7409-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-9525-4 (eBook)

Contents

Dedication

Chapter 1     A Gateway To The Past August 1959

Chapter 2     Our First Home

Chapter 3     We Are Sailing!

Chapter 4     Another Raid!

Chapter 5     Forward To The Forth!

Chapter 6     A Return To Home Waters

Chapter 7     On The Way North

Chapter 8     Piracy At Montrose

Chapter 9     The Baltic Beckons!

Chapter 10   A New Beginning

Chapter 11   The Master Returns

Chapter 12   Bergen And Onwards

Chapter 13   Shipwrecked

Chapter 14   A Long Walk South!

Chapter 15   Meeting The Locals

Chapter 16   The Wolves Attack

Chapter 17   A Slave No Longed

Chapter 18   The Fleet Assembl.es!

Chapter 19   The Shetland Islands And Onwards!

Chapter 20   The Attack On Applecross

Chapter 21   Shipwrecked Again!

Chapter 22   A Meeting With A Fellow Traveller!

Chapter 23   Over The Hills And Far Away!

Chapter 24   On The Way Back To The Future!

Dedication

This book and the ones that will follow it are dedicated to everyone that have helped me in terms of advice and support, particular members of my family; Pamela my wife, my daughter and son, Alison and Jamie, and not forgetting their partners Fliss and Gerrard.

Chapter 1

A Gateway to the Past

August 1959

Where do ye think yer gannen? Wha are ye? Go on ye! A way back to where ye cam from! came the welcome greeting from the gang. Somehow Adam got the feeling that the natives where not friendly. Had they been evenly matched it would not have been a problem but there were twice as many as them. They stood their ground that was until Angie laughed and then they charged them. Flight or fight? They scattered and Adam cut down an alleyway with two of them hot on his heels. It was at that point that he dived through the gateway towards the churchyard and suddenly he was under attack from a different foe. They say that curiosity killed the cat. Well it didn’t kill Adam but it did have a jolly good try the last time he passed through a portal. Would it succeed this time?

All Adam did was pass through an old gateway! But then he felt the unforgettable surge like a force field that he had always felt when nearing the portal by Carpow. It was at that moment that his troubles really began.

It never failed to amaze Adam just how different the time zones were. How the same place looked so different but then you are talking about a difference of many hundreds of years. Not that Adam had much time to think about it. He had been running at the point at which he passed through the portal and the force of passing from one time to another threw him on to his knees and as Adam slowly raised his head he found that he was assaulted on all sides by the noise of battle.

Adam had left Carpow in the middle of a battle and now found himself in the middle of another. He turned to throw himself back through the portal but already someone was blocking his way. He was a huge giant of a man and Adam’s eyes were immediately drawn to his face and headgear. He had long blond hair hanging down to his shoulders, a bushy beard and moustache and his head was encased in a large helmet with a metal nosepiece and goggles protecting his eyes. He was certainly no Celt or Roman and warning bells were clanging in Adam’s mind He’s a Viking and he’s going to kill me!

By this time Adam’s eyes had left his face and were focussed on the huge axe that the Viking held in both hands. I am going to die! Adam thought.

Adam’s sudden appearance had momentarily stopped the man in his tracks. Well Adam had just materialised right in front of him. Adam’s flee or fight mechanism had now kicked in and he sprang sideways away from the gateway turning his head as he did so to glance behind him for an escape route but there was none only a melee of fighting, jostling and screaming men feet from him. Adam was still in a half crouch with his hands on either side on him ready to help propel him in a new direction. The fingers of his left hand touched something that was not the soil and a quick glance downwards told him it was a crude wooden club about three foot long. With his right hand he scooped up a handful of soil and threw it into the face of the giant looming over him. At the same time Adam swung the club in front of him and gripping it in both hands brought it down on the Viking’s foot.

The Viking screamed out in rage his axe flailing over his head. Adam took this chance to dive past him heading back into the gateway. However, at the same time as Adam moved the Viking stumbled sideways Adam’s body collided off with his head hitting the gate’s stonework.

Adam didn’t suppose that he had been unconscious for long but by the time his vision cleared Adam found that his hands were bound in front of him and he was lying face up on the grass a little way from the gateway. The giant was prodding him none to gently with the toe of his boot and bellowing at him in some foreign tongue.

Adam was still not fully in charge of his senses and shouted back in English that he should leave him alone but of course that had little effect other than for him to kick Adam harder. In desperation Adam used the only other language he knew, Latin, and in that language Adam pleaded with him. Even the Romans treated me better than this! Please stop kicking me! To Adam’s surprise he did and in that same language he answered him. So the little devil can speak Latin can he?

He knelt beside Adam and pulling his head up by his hair, looked into his eyes and said. Who are you and where did you spring from? That stumped Adam for he could hardly say Whitley Bay in 1959 could he? Instead he mumbled, I am a sailor from a far country and I was shipwrecked quite close to here. Or at least that’s what Adam hoped he had said for his Latin had slipped a bit over the past couple of months since he had last used it in general conversation.

Why did you say Romans? The Romans are no more? said the Viking. That’s the problem with the portal you don’t know what year you are going to fall into Adam thought. He could only imagine if the Vikings were here in the North East of England it must be after the Romans left and the Saxons arrived so between the fifth and eighth century AD but then his knowledge of that period of history was a bit ropey. Adam improvised They were soldiers who thought they were like the old Roman Army based in Syria. Remembering his long evenings with the Legionnaires in Carpow and Bertha listening to their tales.

I was in Byzantium! the Viking added conversationally and cuffed Adam in the ear before dragging him to his feet. Adam’s head ached and he felt woozy. Adam stumbled and his vision blurred. He held Adam upright by the scruff of his neck until he was steadier on his feet before pushing him towards the other prisoners who looked in a sorrier state than Adam was in but then Adam supposed that their injuries were not self-inflicted like his. As a parting comment the giant shouted out We will see how good you are at pulling an oar!

Being a galley slave was not his idea of fun so Adam retorted quickly before he moved away. I can read and write Latin and I am good with numbers. The Viking stopped in mid-stride and looking back he said A scribe eh! Well perhaps we might be able to find a better use for you. He then shouted a command at the group of equally ferocious Vikings surrounding them and they were roughly pushed down the track leading down through the dunes towards the beach.

Adam could already see the masts of a couple of boats but then he supposed that he really should call them longships. His fellow prisoners were totally cowed like him and with their heads down they stumbled down into the surf before being pushed and pulled into one or other of the two longships pulled a little way up the shore. The group Adam was with were forced to sit down on the deck with their backs to the hull up at the front or prow of the ship close to where the rowers would normally be seated. Once more Adam was a slave!

His fellow slaves were now muttering and giving him sideways glances but who could wonder when they had seen him chatting with the enemy. Not only that but Adam had appeared from nowhere during their battle for survival.

Then one of the older villagers spoke directly at him in what Adam took to be the regional Celtic dialect but even the few words he had learned from Dondi and his family on the farm up North was of little use to him here so perhaps they were Saxons. When Adam didn’t answer him there were even more mutterings and it looked as if he was going to get beaten up by them? In desperation Adam asked in Latin Please does anyone here speak Latin?

Thankfully one of them answered him quickly. You are a stranger in strange clothes and have come from nowhere. Who are you? My name is Adam and my home is far far away. I was a slave of the Romans but was freed. Adam replied. Who are you? Adam asked him. I helped the priest and was learning Latin to read the good book. My name is Eoin (Owen) and I came from the West. He responded. Adam held out his bound hands and he took them in his. This did not please the village elder and he launched himself at Adam his hands clutching for Adam’s throat. Fortunately the guards intervened and Adam was separated from them. Adam could see Eoin explaining what he had said. Adam put his palms together as if in prayer and looking at the elder bowed his head. This act seemed to pacify him and the muttering and glaring subsided.

Shortly afterwards the villagers were totally distracted by the noises coming from the village just above them. The drunken singing and cries of the women of the village brought back the horror of Dondi’s tribe’s village and what the northern Celts had been doing there. The same thing was now happening to the villagers’ wives and daughters and there was nothing they could do about it. One of the villagers cried out and made to rise but was clubbed down for his pains. The rest huddled closer together and some of them sobbed softly in pain and frustration. Dusk had now fallen and it must have been at least nine o’clock but it was going to be a long night. Adam’s head was throbbing so he closed his eyes and lay back against the ship’s hull longing for sleep to claim him but of course it didn’t. Instead he found himself revisiting all that occurred to bring him to this place and time.

Chapter 2

our First Home

Adam’s diary entries tailed off after his failed attempt to return to Carpow with the clearance of the tree and crater. Well he didn’t really have much time for himself at that point as his mum’s stay in the rehabilitation unit in the outskirts of Perth ended and they found themselves in their first home of their own since his father’s death ten years before. Of course they had nothing to their names but two large suitcases full of clothes and a few books so they needed everything. They may not have had anything of material value but his mother was blessed with many good friends and it was they that stood by them.

Uncle Hugh and Auntie Jessie together with other members of their families in Fife emptied their spare rooms of furniture, crockery, pots and pans and all they would need for the house. Uncle Hugh borrowed a cattle float from one of his friends and soon the bare shell of the place that was to be their home was transformed. Members of Adam’s mum’s church in Errol also helped with the necessities like a two ring camping stove for the home as it had no electricity or hot water.

It was the bottom floor of a two-story house on the bank of the river Tay opposite Newburgh and together with a farm and farmhouse was known as Port Allen. Once the stone pier had had hoards of barges ferrying potatoes and other crops to Newburgh, Dundee and beyond. Now it was a backwater not even worth putting electricity into at this time.

A farm worker and his old mother lived above them but they rarely saw or heard them. Their home consisted of a lounge that was also both his Mum’s bedroom and their dining room and a kitchen with a huge black leaded fireplace where previous tenants would have cooked their meals over the open fire or in the oven beside it. His bed lay behind a curtain in that room. Beyond the kitchen lay the utility room that a housed a huge copper basin with a fireplace underneath it. They would fill the basin or boiler with water, light the fire and when boiling add the clothes and stir with a large wooden spade like object. Who needed a washing machine?

There were a further two doors leading out of the utility room, the back door to the garden and the door to the toilet. The only lighting they had was from two paraffin Tilley pressure lamps, which they had to keep pumping to keep the light up. And this is in 1959! Actually Adam really liked the place. It was theirs and it was in a great location for Adam could fish off the pier for flounders and eels, roam the fields and woods for mushrooms and berries. It was only a mile from the farm they were living in before his mum’s accident so Adam was still was able to meet up with his mates and it was only about ten minutes on his bike to the top of the road where he could catch the bus to Perth for school.

School was chugging along as normal although Adam was finding the mid and end of term’s tests a bit of a struggle. If he was honest half the term his mind was back in Roman Time thinking about all that had gone on. He missed the excitement. One of the things Adam really enjoyed was his time with the cadets. They were a great bunch of guys and they always had a good laugh especially on the training weekends at Cultybraggen or on the ranges. The high point was the one or two weeks they spent training each summer. This year they were going to be in the North East of England at a Territorial Army Drill Hall in Whitley Bay on the Northumberland coast only a few miles from Newcastle.

Adam hadn’t thought that he would be able to go with his Mum being hardly able to walk and them having no money. Ok he still had a little cash from the Roman items he had sold to the museum but it was his Mum that insisted that he go and of course Adam had got some money from their friends for his birthday in April with this trip in mind.

Following their bus trip down to Northumberland the Perth Academy’s cadets soon sorted themselves out in the hall. Of course they were not alone, as platoons of cadets from various parts of the country had also turned up. It was late on Saturday afternoon before they were all on parade with the senior permanent staff member giving them a briefing on what was to happen during the week. He also covered a few points on the delights of Whitley Bay namely the beach and the Spanish City warning them of the danger of swimming on their own and the likely reaction of the local lads to this sudden influx of teenagers. There were a good many Teddy boys about the place with their slicked back long hair and sideburns, drainpipe trousers and long jackets in bright colours. They were always causing trouble in places like Glasgow and Manchester but they were rarely seen in Perth.

Apparently the cadets were to be allowed out until 9 pm on that Saturday night and also after the church service on the Sunday. The military training at the Otterburn Training Area would start early on Monday. Needless to say they were all really excited at the thought of all the stalls and rides in the Spanish City. It was like a mini Blackpool. After a hurried meal they quickly changed out of their uniforms into civvies and headed off down the road towards the front. Spanish City was everything they had hoped it would be and Adam’s carefully husbanded cash was soon being spent on candyfloss and the dodgems. Thankfully their captain was holding a good proportion of their spending money for them so there would still be plenty for next weekend.

Then things got more interesting as the four of them