Eden Altered- an Odyssey in Double Time: A Novel in Two Parts

By Edgar Erdman

The Book of Andrew takes a young boy named Andrew Engleman from the summer of 1938 through World War Two and the Cold War, including the hot intervals in Korea and Vietnam and the swift expansion of terrorist activity on a global scale that led to punitive incursions into the hotbeds of the Middle East by coalitions of Western powers under the leadership of the United States. It also provides the reader with a glimpse of what the world may be like a few decades hence.
The author hopes to promote greater understanding of the historical significance of the Korean War, which has been labeled "The Forgotten War". It was an undeclared war for which none of the belligerent parties, excepting North Korea, was fully prepared at the start. Close to 4.5 million human beings, less than half of whom were in military service, were killed, injured or reported missing during the 37 months and two days of its duration. North Korea, South Korea and China suffered the greatest number of casualties, both military and civilian. The total for the United States alone was 136,826 combatants.
The Korean War brought us perilously close to a third world war that almost certainly would have been nuclear. It was the first war in which American infantry units were fully integrated, blacks and whites serving harmoniously together. And it was the only real war to have been fought under the aegis and flag of the United Nations. It stands out as a chapter in the annals of warfare that contains many important lessons for us all. And in this book it is the constant backdrop against which the protagonist's experiences and thought processes are highlighted as they unfold before our eyes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Feb 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781481741699

Edgar Erdman

Edgar Randolph Erdman was born in 1929 in Beirut, Lebanon. His parents were American Presbyterian missionaries; administrators and educators. Edgar attended Blair Academy in New Jersey from 1940 to 1946. He enlisted in the Army after graduating and served in Japan during the Occupation at the end of World War Two. He attended Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, from 1948 to 1951. He was recalled to active duty in the fall of 1951 and sent to Korea, where he served with the 15th Regiment of the 3rd Infantry Division. He was wounded in action north of the 38th Parallel in November1952. In September 1953 he was given an honorable medical discharge. He attended the University of Richmond in Richmond, Virginia, from 1954 to 1955 and again from 1956 to 1957, earning BA and MA degrees in English Literature. Edgar’s career as a civilian employee of the Federal Government was split between the Defense Department’s National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (I&R), in which he served as a Foreign Service Reserve Officer (FSRO). While with the NSA he served at posts in East Africa and in the eastern Mediterranean region. While with the Department of State’s I&R he concentrated on Central America. He is a member of the American Legion, the Disabled American Veterans (DAV) and the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO). Edgar has over twenty years of experience in government at the Federal, State and Local levels, several years of experience in the private sector as a management consultant and nearly twenty years of experience in Museum Security. He resides just outside the City of Bloomington, Indiana. His wife, Nancy Heiser, passed away in 1991. He has one daughter, a son-in-law and three granddaughters.

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EDEN ALTERED

-AN ODYSSEY

IN DOUBLE TIME

A NOVEL IN TWO PARTS

EDGAR ERDMAN

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© 2014 by Edgar Erdman. 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.

Published by AuthorHouse 02/05/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4817-4170-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4817-4168-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4817-4169-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013906836

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

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Preamble

Prologue

BOOK OF ANDREW

Chapter I Salamis

Chapter II Collington Academy

Chapter III Japan

Chapter IV University

Chapter V Korea

Chapter VI Marjorie

Chapter VII John In Germany

Chapter VIII The Turtle

Chapter IX The Chorwon Valley

Chapter X Homeward Bound

Chapter XI The Hearing & Marjorie

Chapter XII Eritrea

Chapter XIII Cyprus—Salamis 2

Chapter XIV Washington & Environs

Chapter XV Capitol Hill & Politics

Chapter XVI After The Accident

TRANSITION (As Present Determines Future

BOOK OF ALISTAIR

Chapter I Council Meeting

Chapter II After The Meeting

Chapter III Nova Scotia

Chapter IV The Evangeline

Chapter V Graduation

Chapter VI Sylvia Farrington

Chapter VII Lebanon & The Outsider

Chapter VIII Salamis & The Symbol

Chapter IX Carleton’s Party

Chapter X Countermeasures

Chapter XI Clandestine Activities—1

Chapter XII Swat Team Preparations

Chapter XIII The Game In The Garden

Epilogue

About The Author

PREAMBLE

Eden Altered—An Odyssey In Double Time is primarily a tale of adventure stretching from midway through the second quarter of the 20th century into the 3rd quarter of the 21st century. It is presented in two parts that are separated by a gulf of years but have a common theme. The first part (The Book of Andrew) takes a boy named Andrew Engleman from the summer of 1938, when he was nine years old, on through World War Two and the Cold War, including the hot intervals in Korea and Vietnam and the swift expansion of terrorist activity on a global scale that led to punitive expeditions into the hotbeds of the Middle East by coalitions of Western powers under the leadership of the United States. Through Andrew’s eyes we observe some aspects of the truly profound social and political changes that will make our time memorable and through them, fictionally, we foresee a little of the thought-to-be unknowable future.

Among other things it is my intention in the first book to promote greater understanding of the historical significance of the Korean War, which is frequently labeled the Forgotten War, and how those experiences affected the decision-making processes that our political leaders underwent throughout the rest of the Cold War. It was the first undeclared major war to be fought by the United States following World War Two and it involved other world powers, some of them former allies and others former antagonists who seemed to have traded places with one another. It was a brutal and very bloody conflict for which none of the belligerent parties was fully prepared at the beginning. When the fighting had ceased, military casualties for China and North Korea were estimated to have totaled over 1.5 million and for South Korea alone nearly 1 million. Military casualties for the United States totaled 136,826. Allied UN forces suffered another 40,000 military casualties and there were nearly 2 million civilian deaths and injuries. All In all, close to 4.5 million human beings were killed, injured, listed as missing or considered part of the collateral damage inflicted on that small Asian peninsula which is about the size of the State of Minnesota here in America, during the 37 months and two days of its duration. It was the last war in which all three principal branches of the US military establishment—Army, Navy and Air Force—were fully engaged on land, at sea and in the air above the battlefields. Thus it stands out starkly in contrast to the essentially anti-guerilla warfare in which we have been and still are engaged in the Middle East and resembles much more closely the ways in which the First and Second World Wars were fought.

The Korean War brought us to the brink of a third world war that almost certainly would have been nuclear; much closer than has any other series of incidents, including the events surrounding the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the Missile Crisis, occurring since 1945. It was also the first war fought abroad by the United States wherein American infantry units were fully integrated; whites and blacks serving harmoniously together, thereby presaging full-scale integration at home. From the beginning of the war onward the ideal ratio, in accordance with General MacArthur’s wise and pragmatic dictum, was one-third Caucasian, one-third Afro-American and one-third KATUSA (Korean Augmentation to the United States Army). Many of these ROK (Republic of Korea) soldiers were students at or graduates of their nation’s military academies and proved to be first-class warriors. In addition, the war in Korea was the first real war—and the only one to date—to be fought under the aegis and the flag of the still-young United Nations Organization. Clearly, even though the war is still technically underway. It was the climactic ending of one tremendously significant era and the commencement of the tumultuous one we are now living through. It stands out as a chapter in the annals of warfare that contains important lessons for us all. And the descriptions of small parts of it in this book are intended to help in setting the stage for what follows.

The second and contiguous part of Eden Altered—An Odyssey In Double Time, subtitled The Book of Alistair, carries a descendant of Andrew named Alistair M’Kay through the last few months of the year 2075 and, in the Epilogue, a little further into 2076. It is (or perhaps will be) an extremely significant period in the continuing story of human evolution.

If this tale conveys a worthwhile message it is that human nature, having remained fundamentally unchanged through all preceding eras, is not likely to be radically altered by the widely perceived feasibility of becoming immortal and the possibility of realizing practically any other dream; that it must not be subjected to forceful manipulation and thereby rendered unreliable, for it is the current that carries mankind through the ordained process of evolution into godhood, their ultimate objective and manifest destiny. Though I did not intend it at the start, my story seems to have become an affirmation of the Ecumenist’s creed (i.e., the necessity of myth or faith as a means of conveying incomprehensible truth in comprehensible form) as well as being an affirmation of the efficacy of the technique of governance that becomes known as the Imperium Democratis.

By implication Alistair M’Kay, the protagonist of the second book, becomes the first ruler in human history to achieve predominance through what actually is divine right and command. What he learns from experience and those who guide and encourage him—principal among them being an ancestor of both Alistair and Andrew named Albert Engleman, who exists in spirit form Outside Earth—and then imparts to the world at large through his own words and deeds is essentially that many of the visionaries in our past (philosophers, saints and sinners) were indeed foresighted and thus prophetic, though rarely able to interpret their visions, even with the help of others, in ways that led to understanding and full acceptance within their communities or, beyond such boundaries, in a wider world. What Alistair learns and then teaches others is that we as a species have always known deep within us where the true path lies and where it will take us, though we have strayed from it over and over again and have always doubted our certainty even as it arises.

Finally, I must utter the mandatory warning to prospective readers. Doubtless, some of you will not like all of what you find on the following pages and may even take umbrage here and there. So please bear in mind that I consider my offering pure fiction. More accurately, perhaps, this work of prose might be considered largely fictionalized fact in the first book and factualized fiction or fantasy in the second. Verisimilitude (which is realism for some) is my guiding light. I have no desire to tarnish or enhance the reputations of those real persons (many of them notables) to whom I refer in each book. They have what are essentially minor roles in this tale, even though all of them may have been of great significance in their own times and places. I believe that I have treated them fairly in the historical sense. Likewise, no fictitious character portrayed in either book is or was actually a living human being or is intended to resemble closely any real person with whom I am acquainted or knew well in the past; all are composites of individuals I have known or imagined and none of them bears the name of a real person who, to my knowledge, acquired that name at birth or thereafter. As for real places and things, I admit to having modified some of them to the extent necessary to suit my purpose. I believe that they still are quite recognizable nonetheless.

It is my sincere hope that most of you who read what follows will enjoy the experience. It is one contemporary individual’s conception of life as it was in the past, is now and possibly will be in the near future.

PROLOGUE

Late one night in July 1911 Albert Seward Engleman succumbed to heart failure while lying abed in his suite on the second floor of Highpoint House, the summer retreat on the north shore of Long Island overlooking the Sound, construction of which had begun in 1897 but was not completed until 1907, when it became his permanent residence. He had been dreaming of the past that night. Before going to sleep, seeking distraction from concern about the malaise he had been experiencing for the past few days, he had leafed through a collection of aging memorabilia scattered along the back of his writing desk and on some bookshelves nearby. Finding his Civil War diary on one of the shelves, he had taken it to bed with him and read it through from beginning to end. It was memories thus revived that carried him off into that time and space wherein sleepers drift, the very border between life and death.

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Albert belonged to the fifth generation of American Englemans, a clan which at the time of his death, had spanned 179 years on this continent. His great-great-grandfather, Johannes, was born in Darmstadt, Bavaria, in 1682, the year in which William Penn became Governor of Pennsylvania and Robert Cavalier, Sieur de la Salle, claimed the Mississippi River delta country for Louis X1V of France, calling it Louisiana. Johannes died on the Engleman farm in what later became known as Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, in 1760, having sailed across the Atlantic 23 years earlier to join his oldest son, Justus, who had established the frontier homestead following his own arrival in 1732.

Albert’s great-grandfather, Andreas, was born on the Engleman farm in 1742, the year in which Governor Shirley of Massachusetts led a force of British and Colonial troops northward to besiege Louisbourg and Cape Breton Island during King George’s War with the French. Andreas joined the Continental Army in 1778. He was commissioned a Lieutenant in 1780. In 1782, having lost most of his left leg to a cannonball during the siege of Yorktown, he was invalided home; and in 1795, having stayed on the farm since returning from the War of Independence, he died and was buried there in the family plot.

Albert’s grandfather, Jacob, was born on the Engleman farm in 1763, the year in which the French and Indian War ended and France ceded Canada and the American middle west to Great Britain. In 1780, at the age of 17, he too joined the Continental Army and served briefly under his father’s command at Yorktown. Jacob returned to the farm in 1783, and died there in 1837.

Albert’s father, Issac, was born in 1793, nine years after the Treaty of Paris was ratified by the United States Congress. Albert Engleman was born in 1835, three months before Texas proclaimed its independence from Mexico and the Seminole War began in Florida, most of the Cherokee Nation—a people renowned for the rapidity with which they had become civilized under enlightened leadership—having already departed more-or-less peacefully on their westward-bound Trail of Tears. His first birthday was commemorated on the day the Alamo was taken by Mexican forces. His second birthday was celebrated in the year Princess Victoria became Queen of England, his third in the year a ship named The Great Western crossed the Atlantic under steam power alone, his seventh in the year ether was first used as an anesthetic and the Seminoles finally capitulated, his ninth in the year Samuel Morse—a renowned American portrait artist and inventor—sent the first encrypted message over a telegraph line.

Albert was ten years old when Texas was admitted to the Union as the 28th state. He was eleven when the Mexican War began and California was annexed. He was thirteen when James Marshall and Captain John Sutter struck gold while building a sawmill on a branch of the Sacramento River, the year in which the Second Republic was installed in France and Franz-Joseph became Emperor of Austria and Kossuth declared Hungary free and Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published the Communist Manifesto. He was seventeen and a student at the University of Pennsylvania when Louis Napoleon became Emperor of France. He was eighteen when Commodore Perry negotiated a treaty with Japan and Ambassador Gadsen a purchase of land from Mexico, the year in which the Crimean War began. He graduated from the University at the age of nineteen in 1854, the year in which the Republican Party was born at Ripon, Wisconsin.

In his twentieth year, the year of the Sepoy Rebellion and the acquisition of India by the British Crown, he toured Great Britain and the Continent. Upon reading certain accounts of the Dredd Scott decision, he found himself in full accord with a denunciation thereof by an articulate young lawyer-turned-politician named Abraham Lincoln, himself a largely home-schooled and self-taught frontiersman and 21-year-old Captain in the Illinois Militia, who had served during the brief Black Hawk War—a struggle that pushed the Fox and Sauk Indian tribes, fighting under the leadership of the chief of the Fox tribe, a young warrior named Black Hawk, across the Ohio river on which Lincoln himself had worked for at least a year as a deck hand on a river boat—and all the while was gratified by the amount of space devoted to American affairs in the European and, particularly, the British press. Albert voted for General John C. Fremont in the presidential election of 1858, despite his admiration for fellow Pennsylvanian James Buchanan and largely because of some speeches made on Fremont’s behalf by Abraham Lincoln, who came close in that year to being the Republican Party’s nominee for Vice President. In 1858, while working for the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, he read every description he could find of the laying of the Atlantic Cable, a feat that delighted his engineer’s heart. He also read newspaper reports of the Lincoln-Douglas debates and was even more impressed by the man from Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky.

In 1859, at the age of 24, Albert left the Pennsylvania Railroad Company and plunged himself and all the capital he could raise from family and friends into the production of petroleum from the Titusville field, which was opened that year by Edwin Drake and his Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company. Nevertheless, he took time to read Darwin’s newly published Origin of Species and immediately became a believer. With his brother, William, and two university classmates he formed a company and began drilling south and east of Titusville. Late in 1860, having voted for Lincoln, he turned the reins of his fledgling company over to brother William, being assured that he would continue to receive his share of the rapidly accumulating profits generated by their participation in the oil boom, and thenceforth devoted his business sense and equal portions of his investment capital to coal mining, the working of iron into steel and his first love, railroads. In 1861 he moved to New York City, where he found a comfortable apartment in the Borough of Brooklyn. The bombardment of Fort Sumter commenced early in the morning of April 12, 1862, and three days later President Lincoln called up the militia. In late July a battle took place along a stream called Bull Run at Manassas in Virginia, and Congress authorized an army of half a million men. Throughout the next 18 months the war grew in intensity and scope. Early in December of 1862 Albert Seward Engleman joined a regiment of New York State volunteers that was commanded by a West Point graduate. Albert was elected Captain of his company in accordance with standard procedure for irregular units of the U.S. Army. They spent the winter of 1862-63 in tents along Potomac Creek near Falmouth, Virginia. During this period Albert found time to visit Washington and view the sights. He thought the Capitol a grand building, noting in a letter to his father that the unfinished dome seems a fit emblem of our nation. He also went to the Navy Yard to see the Monitor, noting in that same letter that, being unable to get in, I went to the River, hired a boat, rowed up alongside the little wonder and stepped onto her deck, felt the insides of her turret, put my head into its portholes and went down into her cabin… verily a ‘cheese box’ on a raft, her main deck being only three feet out of water, but firm as an iron rock. Clearly, the young captain was not greatly concerned about mixing metaphors while scribbling with pencil on paper. Again during this period he managed to find and purchase with his own money a fine young gelding trained as a ‘war horse’, so that I may carry out such duties as are assigned in proper fashion and, of course, travel on private business more cheaply and with greater speed than might otherwise be possible during this terrible struggle.

In May 1863 the 2nd Division of the 5th Corps, to which Albert’s regiment belonged, began the Battle of Chancellorsville by skirmishing with its foes. It was Albert’s first experience of actual combat. They had started marching along the road from Chancellorsville to Fredericksburg at about 10 o’clock in the morning of May 1. Within half an hour they had come under heavy fire from Rebel positions in the woods nearby. The 2nd Division, commanded by Brigadier General Siccles of New York City—a truly courageous Tammany Hall politician with a sharp and witty mind and a hunger for fame and glory—had been sent forward, formed into lines of battle and then ordered to begin the skirmish. In the succeeding hour one of Albert’s men was killed by a musket ball through the head and six others were wounded more or less severely, three of them needing to be borne on stretchers, thereby removing six soldiers from the line of battle. The absent seventh was gone forever. So, in reality, Albert’s company had been deprived temporarily of a full squad of combatants. The 2nd Division fell back, giving way to the 1st Division; and throughout the rest of the day fighting was intense, though intermittent, most of it taking place in heavily wooded areas.

May 2 passed in relative quiet, though off in the distance a Rebel General named Jackson (nicknamed Stonewall), once a professor at The Citadel, a military academy of note in Charleston, South Carolina, and a renowned war leader whom Albert thought of as a devout and fine man in almost all respects, was severely wounded by his own men who mistook him for a foe. Jackson’s removal from command to the nearest field hospital, where his arm was amputated and he later contracted pneumonia, which led swiftly to his death, was considered a great loss to General Robert E. Lee personally, and then, as the news spread, to the Army of the Confederacy as a whole. The fighting began again in earnest late on Sunday afternoon, May 3. By dawn of May 4 Albert and his men were sure of victory, for word had come that Fredericksburg was taken. But there was no further advance. They lay all day in the woods behind breastworks and an abattis that had been thrown up hastily; and in the afternoon it began to rain. Orders to march were given and then countermanded. Finally, at two o’clock in the morning of May 6, they began the retreat to the United States Ford, where a military bridge over the swollen race of the ford itself stretched across the surging Rappahanock River.

The young officer’s diary contains the following entry for May 6, 1863: A strange, terrible day this has been. A grievous retreat. Came 18 miles through rain, mud, woods and all. About noon crossed the Rappahanock on pontoon bridge. Crossed just in time, for the enemy was not far off. Oh, how weary the march was! I footed all the way, my horse being with Division Trains. Such mud. God seems to have been against us. Must we always fail? Men have fought hard and suffered much. Many of our regiment killed, wounded, captured or missing. No sleep for the rest. I am completely worn out, sore and weary…

Early in June, as an element of newly promoted Major General Siccles’ Fifth Corps, Albert’s regiment began a forced march for Pennsylvania, reaching Gettysburg on July 1. They went into battle on the 2nd and 3rd. On the 4th Albert and a hastily formed unit of survivors from his company escorted several severely wounded field-grade officers from each of the 1st and 2nd divisions in mule-drawn ambulances to hospital in Baltimore. A few hours earlier 5th Corps commander General Siccles—who had lost his right leg to a cannon ball that disembowled his horse and had, according to witnesses, performed with great skill and valor throughout the battle—had preceded them in an earlier ambulance train, experiencing considerable pain but still smoking a cigar and cracking salty jokes. After a short leave, Albert rejoined his regiment and company near Antietam Creek. Later in the month, while on picket duty, he took a Rebel sniper’s minnie ball through the right shoulder. Bones were shattered and muscles torn. The force of the blow thrust him back and down to the ground; and the ensuing rush of pain throughout his body nearly caused him to faint on the spot. He was stretchered back to the field hospital by his orderly and a member of the 1st Platoon. Late in August he was invalided home, weak and still in pain so strong that it could be dulled only by widely spaced sips from a shared vial of laudanum elixir. They had given him morphine (injected) for the operation, but had sent none along in the train. He was heavy at heart because he had to leave his men and his regiment, but strong of spirit and confident at last that the Union forces would emerge victorious from the bloody struggle in which he had played so personal a part.

Once well enough—though he would always have a stiff right shoulder and some difficulty using the arm depending therefrom—he threw himself back into his investment business and made it prosper. Albert was deeply shocked by the assassination of President Lincoln, but was consoled somewhat by a growing certainty that the leader’s true greatness—his innate wisdom, compassion, humility and remarkable rhetorical skills, as well as his sure understanding of military affairs and leaders, and the at-times-overpowering determination he displayed—would be understood as subsumed by the singular accomplishment of ensuring that the Union would remain whole thenceforth and that never again could anyone be enslaved in the reunited United States under any law. Proud of his military service, Albert joined the Grand Army of the Republic as soon as it was formed and attended the first National encampment in Indianapolis, Indiana, traveling there by rail with half a dozen survivors of his regiment. He heartily approved of the purchase of Alaska in 1867, the 32nd year of his life, thinking it an excellent business deal. He was very interested in the process that led to Canada’s acceptance of dominion status and he took serious note of the execution of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, speculating in letters written to friends and members of his family during that period on the significance these events might have for the United States. Fascinated as he was by foreign affairs in general, Albert also paid heed to the beginning of the reforms that were to industrialize and modernize Japan following upon the abolition of the Shogunate and restoration of the Mikado. He was privately perturbed by the impeachment of President Johnson in 1868, but was not seriously affected by the attempt by unscrupulous manipulators to corner the gold market in New York City’s financial district on Black Friday, September 24, 1869. Indeed, his financial status was enhanced notably with the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in that year.

In 1870 France and Germany went to war over the Spanish succession issue, and Albert Engleman fell in love. At the age of 36 in 1871, the year of the Chicago fire and the meeting in Central Africa between Stanley, the reporter, and Doctor Livingston, the supposedly lost missionary, Albert married the lovely daughter of a well known abolitionist lawyer who, some years before, had served the Government of the United States—in the persons of President Monroe and his closest advisors—and the American Colonization Society as advisor and legal consultant to the newly established Free Colony of Liberia on the Cote d’Ivoire in West Africa; and had come to know Doctor Livingston later on. Ellen, daughter of John B. Hartley, became Albert Engleman’s wife in a private ceremony at her home exactly one month after the Treaty of Frankfurt ended the Franco-Prussian War. Ellen Hartley Engleman was nine years younger than her husband, having been born in 1844 in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. She had attended the Spingler Institute in new York City and, for several years thereafter, had taught school in San Antonio, Texas. The first American Hartley, a Gentleman of the County of Somerset in southern England and a ship-owning man of the sea, had reached Windsor, Connecticut, in the spring of 1630, where he resided for most of the rest of his life, though it is recorded that he sailed more than once on trading ventures between New England and the British Isles.

Albert applauded the Amnesty Act of 1872, suffered some tolerable losses during the bank failure of 1873, recouped them within 30 months and became involved in the presidential election of 1876, working diligently on behalf of Candidate Rutherford B. Hayes. In that year he also celebrated the birth of a son christened John and mourned the tragedy of the Little Big Horn and the death of General Custer. Once during the War he had encountered the famous cavalryman, then a brevetted colonel, and had admired him, though sensing that he might be a bit too reckless for his own good and the welfare of his men: a characteristic displayed during the Battle of Gettysburg that damaged his reputation at the time. Albert’s second son, Michael, was born in 1880, just a few days before James Garfield was elected President of the United States. Albert was deeply shocked by the senseless shooting of President Garfield on July 2 of the following year. He had met the man in sessions of the Council of the Grand Army and respected him as a fellow veteran and authentic Civil War hero, and he had worked hard for his election. He prayed for the grievously wounded President’s recovery—praying to a God whose existence he had come to question—right through to the end, which came on September 19.

A third son was born to Ellen and Albert Engleman just prior to the financial panic of May, 1884, whence the father emerged unscathed. The child was christened Charles, in honor of Charles Chinese Gordon, British Governor of the Anglo-Egyptian Colony of Sudan, who, having refused to surrender, was beheaded in public in Khartoum in accordance with the verdict uttered by Muhammed Ahmed, the victorious Mahdi (self-styled Defender and Cleanser of the Faith) in 1885. Later in the year of Chinese Gordon’s death the Englemans mourned the passing of Albert’s father, Issac, though the old man died easily enough and it was agreed that he had lived a happy, fruitful life. In 1886, at the age of 51 Albert took his sons skating on Long Island Sound just before the great blizzard and, in the month of his birthday in 1889, he took his entire family by sea to France and overland by rail to Paris to view the Universal Exhibition, where they were awed by the Eiffel Tower and he, in particular, was fascinated by the Benz automobile exhibited there

In 1894 at the age of 59 Albert traveled to Japan to observe the Japanese method of steel production and the design and operation of their railroads. He was in Japan when war with China broke out on July 25 and he followed its course as well as he could in English-language publications up through the Battle of the Yalu River in September, learning also of the strikes by railroad employees in Chicago that led to the imprisonment of Eugene V. Debs and the calling out of Federal troops by President Cleveland. He returned to the States early in 1895, the year in which Roentgen developed X-rays for application in medical diagnoses. In 1897 he began construction of the summer place on Long Island that he thought of as a retirement home for the distant future. Having taught himself—through intense research, including the pointed questioning of individuals whom he believed to have greater and more practical knowledge than he—enough about contemporary architecture and landscaping to enable him to take personal charge of the entire project, he did so. But, due to several unanticipated delays, the Highpoint House project was not completed until July of 1907, nearly ten years later. The first and lengthiest of these delays began on February 15, 1898, the day the Battleship Maine blew up in Havana Harbor.

At the age of 63 Albert Engleman and his son, John, sought out Teddy Roosevelt, whose acquaintance he had made while the latter was presiding over New York City’s Board of Police Commissioners, and asked to join the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment. He was politely refused, but John was eagerly accepted. Albert stayed home, perforce, and followed the course of the Spanish-American War in the newspapers and through correspondence with his son, relying on the latter to correct lurid and frequently fallacious accounts in the former. John transferred into the Regular Army upon returning from his stint with the Rough Riders in Cuba; and, in 1899, went off to the Philippines to help put down the Moro insurrection. During that final year of the 19th Century Albert read about and pondered the significance of events such as the opening of hostilities in South Africa and a door into China, where later an uprising called the Boxer Rebellion erupted. He greeted the dawn of a new century with considerable enthusiasm, believing more firmly than ever in America’s Manifest Destiny, and later he voted for McKinley and Roosevelt.

Albert was more profoundly affected by the assassination of President McKinley than he had been by Garfield’s meaningless death 20 years earlier or even the assassination of Abraham Lincoln some 16 years before that. For a while his just-renewed faith in the future of western civilization was badly shaken. He was thankful, nonetheless, that a man such as Theodore Roosevelt was there to take over the reins of government; and gradually his faith was restored. Reading of young Winston Churchill’s exploits—the lad was, after all, half-American, his mother being a New Yorker by birth—as a war correspondent during the Boer War and of the way order was being restored in the Philippines helped to bring him around, as did the news that on December 12 Marconi had sent a wireless signal across the Atlantic. Also, it was good to remember that Churchill, a graduate of the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, had fought as a cavalry officer in 1899 in the Battle of Omdurman, which resulted in the final defeat of the Mahdi. Charles Chinese Gordon’s cruel death had been avenged on that day.

Albert was 66 when the first automobile trip was made across country and Henry Ford organized the Ford Motor Company, in which he bought some stock. He celebrated his 67th birthday in 1902, the year the Panama Canal Treaty was signed and Orville Wright flew at Kitty Hawk. He gave his son, Charles, a Ford car as a present when the boy graduated from Princeton University in 1904 at the age of 20, a historian with a passion for archaeology. In that year, which was Albert’s 69th, his second son, Michael, who was studying at Columbia University, joined him in business and Japan went to war with Russia. Also in 1904, the New York City subway system was put into service and, of course, Albert made use of it. He was 70 when Czar Nicholas II of Russia crushed a revolt and then, as a peace-making gesture, set up a token parliament called the Duma, which he later dissolved. The investment banking firm of Engleman & Son suffered substantial losses in the financial panic of 1907; but these were as nothing compared to the loss of wife and mother, for Ellen Hartley Engleman died peacefully later in the year. Albert remained fully active, nevertheless, and managed fairly well to disguise his pain. He celebrated his 74th birthday in the year Perry reached the North Pole and Louis Bleriot flew across the English Channel, the year in which Soak the Rich taxation was introduced in Great Britain to finance social security measures. He worried openly about the spread of Bolshevist ideas. In 1910 he traveled extensively abroad by himself, visiting South Africa, North Africa and the Near East on what he described as constitutionals. These were journeys that stimulated and refreshed him physically, intellectually and spiritually. By the time he was back at Highpoint House his innate optimism regarding the future of mankind had been measurably strengthened.

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It was his daughter-in-law, Katherine, who responded immediately to the housekeeper’s frantic call on the morning of July 4, 1911. She was spending the summer in the guest cottage at the foot of the knoll upon which the main house stood, while her husband finished his tour of duty at a heat-struck cavalry post in the southwest. She immediately alerted the town police and summoned the family doctor. And she it was who discovered the Civil War journal lying open and face-down on the carpet between bed and night stand. When turned over by reverent hands, the yellowed pages of the little leather-bound book were seen to be covered with a penciled scrawl.

The first entry to meet the curious gaze of the finder was for July 1,1863, a Wednesday: Thought we would rest here today, at Union Mills, men being worn out and footsore; but no, on again… 18 miles to Hanover. Men marched well. Different from treading on Rebel soil. Hanover is a large, pleasant place. Pennsylvania, my native state! May God help her and make her unselfish, true and noble!

The second entry was for Thursday, July 2, 1863: Left Hanover about sunrise. Marched 12 miles to Gettysburg, where a battle is expected. A cavalry fight took place here yesterday. Along the way people greet us kindly. Only a cup of cold water! But how precious. None in Virginia! The trembling eyes of women as the boys march cheerily on! Formed line of battle in woods two miles west of Gettysburg, changing position again and again, till 4:30 when we went forward to battle raging in front, southwest of Gettysburg. Left my mount with Trains. Double quick over a plain under heavy fire of musketry. Lost several men.

The third entry was for Friday, July 3, 1863: Glorious day, ever memorable. God be thanked who gave us this victory! Greatest, hardest battle of the war. We—our regiment—held the key to the whole position on a ledge of rocks, shelled terribly. Losses not heavy for our regiment, though the Maine and Massachussetts regiments and the rest of the Division, Corps and Army lost dreadfully. Fighting was hand-to-hand at times… much courage displayed on both sides… could see the whole battle. What a sight! Rebs routed and thrown back. The day is ours! Hurray! Can’t smile…

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Death came to Albert Engleman just before midnight on July 3, 1911, as he dreamt that he was in the Union Army once more, crouched with his men on a granite ledge of Little Round Top at the far end of Cemetery Ridge, where it was impossible to dig in and the only available shelter from the storm of battle was provided by the largest rock to be found nearby and here and there some fallen timber. It came in a burst of incandescence like an exploding shell, but without sound and with only a little pain. There was a feeling of being cut suddenly adrift, followed by a transient awareness of great loss. Then came an intimation of the nearness of loved ones since departed. The incredible brightness faded quickly, as did the pain. He knew himself to be hovering above his own, familiar form lying peacefully on his bed at Highpoint and, oddly enough but somehow unsurprisingly, also above the smoking and fire-lit battlefield southeast of Gettysburg. The scenes were interleaved and yet equally distinct. Then he began to drift away from the light, faster and faster… out of control, disintegrating.

Not ready for this. Only 76, though ailing for the past few days. What had impelled him to seek escape in that diary from concern regarding the malaise he was experiencing? It was the first time he had looked at it in at least 20 years, and now that collection of youthful memories had done him in… Farm boy, collegian, industrialist, veteran, investor, lover, father… Old, dying… Not ready… So much yet to be done… The Allentown foundry, the mine, the railroads… The bank and son Michael, who would have to manage those operations alone, without him… So much… ! Dead and gone.

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He was in the vicinity of the star Vega when, at last, he began to coalesce. His long novitiate was over. The myriad particles of his spiritual extension that had been drifting cloudlike through the seeming darkness of seemingly empty interstellar space since the explosive disintegration that constituted corporeal death on Sol’s third planet, Earth, were finally coming together through cohesion. The magnetic forces of the universe continued their work. The bonding process had begun and would be speeded thenceforth by the healthful radiations of Vega.

Novice became Medium. Outsider Albert Engleman had progressed to the second stage of his afterlife. And he knew it! He had actually felt the transition! Prior to that instant he had been dimly aware, as might some rudimentary hive mind, of original identity and continued spiritual existence. But there had been no sense of space or time. Nor could he, as Novice, have focused his scattered energies in any truly self-motivated way. Now, however, he could; and now he did. He was mind once more, though disembodied and, if measured by all recollected standards, as yet immaterial. He could plan, and he did. But could he act out a plan?

Yes, Albert. You have the power. We will teach you to use it.

Who? These were not inborn ideas, though he first echoed and then accepted them without question or reservation. They were thoughts transmitted from beyond himself to himself, as though in a dream And these soundless voices came to him in chorus. Could he, perhaps, converse with them… ? And if so, with whom… ? Ah, yes! Relatives. Friends. And their friends… Ellen! Is it really you? Father! Mother! George! Agnes! James! You others… ! You are all here!

Yes. We have been awaiting you. We are Medium and still progressing. There is a final stage, Albert. We will attain to it, if we are determined. We all can become Superior.

How long should this take?

Only Superiors know the dimensions of the universe. We have but one concern in this changing state, and that is to become Superior. Join us. Add your growing strength to ours and share in what we have already gained. Together we can hasten the achievement of eternal bliss.

I want to be with you. I want to progress with you. But there is so much left undone or unfinished back there. I would like to return for a little while.

It is possible. But you will not find it satisfying.

Would I lose much by trying?

That would be for you to discover.

Would you stop me?

We could not, even though we might want to.

Am I free in this way, then?

Freer than ever before. But not so free as you may become.

As Superior?

Yes.

But I want to return, and need only to be certain that I will be able to find you here later on.

To go or not to go is for you to decide. As for returning to us, that you must do. This is now your place. Unaided you cannot remain elsewhere for long.

I will go. But how?

You have transcended the Time you knew, as have we and all others who exist out here. In order to return to your place of origin you must find a material object within that solar system and motivate it. That is how you are enabled to enter past Time and travel through it.

How is this accomplished?

You will learn. We will teach you. It is simply a matter of utilizing the powers you now have. You may, as we have indicated, select any suitable form of inanimate matter as a vehicle and return within it along your astrological time line, which extends forward through all Time from the instant of conception. But you will not be able to relive your life on Earth. You cannot replace yourself as you were at any previous point in Time.

Can we who are here communicate with sentient creatures on Earth or elsewhere in the Cosmos?

Yes.

How?

You will learn. The first steps are the same as those you will take on your return journey.

Is there God?

God is the Eternal Life Force. We are God in the same way that human faculties are the special attributes of mankind. But you and we are only spiritual extensions of the selves we used to be. Those who have become Superior may resume the corporeal status they once had, though not in exactly the same place or time. Contact of such intimacy would constitute replacement and might result in disintegration of the transformed being. Thus, these advanced ones may join with their own mortal descendants and the descendants of others who belong to their original place in Time, or they may venture further into the Past before returning to the Future. The superior being melds with God, the Eternal Life Force, and lives on through eternity, growing always in knowledge and the power it conveys.

It is as expected… no… as I hoped it would be.

You have decided?

Yes. I will go back to Earth, do what must be done, then return to my place here. Knowing that you will be here, my loved ones, I can wait to rejoin you. Teach me what I need to know.

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Outsider Albert Engleman, having passed through a warp into that segment of sidereal time which approximated the commencement of his novitiate, rested for a while in the vicinity of Sol’s third planet. The radiation of the star that had seemed to rise and set on each and every day of his life served to strengthen the spirit that had departed and was now returning. He pondered his next move. What material object should he choose? How large and massive must it be to survive the flaming passage through Earth’s atmosphere and reach the planet’s surface with enough of itself left intact? Asteroid or meteoroid? Which of the untold billions within range of his powers?

The answer appeared in the tail of a comet which, in the year 1911 of the Gregorian Calendar, came to be known as the Comet Schaumasse after its discoverer. Outsider Albert Engleman’s lodestone was a lump of cosmic material caught up by that comet as it passed through the asteroid belt within the Solar System. He seized the object in fierce excitement and endowed it with his special properties. The meteoroite shed its coating of ice as it entered Earth’s upper atmosphere. A tiny falling star seared the Mediterranean night and plunged into the cold, wintery sea off the northern coast of Cyprus.

For months the meteorite lay on the sandy bottom beneath the roiling waters and the spirit with which it had been imbued lay huddled therein, too weak to mobilize it as a vehicle or even depart from it. The Outsider had returned. But at what cost? The related Mediums had tried to persuade him, gently and quite indirectly, to wait until he had acquired better control of his powers before attempting to return. But he had not heeded them.

In February of 1912 a great storm broke over the eastern Mediterranean and whipped the sea into a frenzy. Beneath the coastal waters the bottom sands were stirred into new configurations. The remnant of that heavy lump of cosmic matter that had survived the blazing passage to the planet’s surface was washed that night into the maw of a much less ancient artifact lying half buried in the sand at the bottom of an eroded sea wall.

Lightning unseamed the dark clouds above the island and slashed through pouring rain into the turbulent waters at its edge. The meteorite fairly glowed in the swirling dark of its ceramic enclosure and the spirit of Andrew Engleman drank thirstily of the wild energy that had come to him like manna from heaven. But he did not get his fill, for the supply of charged particles was quickly dissipated.

Had he gained enough strength to mobilize the vehicle that had become his prison? He tried and failed. What of the artifact? Might that serve a useful purpose? He pervaded the fired clay and explored the object carefully. It was an amphora, seemingly whole and undamaged: an ordinary jar made to hold wine or oil, or any other substance that could be conveyed from place to place or simply stored somewhere. In doing so he learned all there was to know about its origins and contents, its maker and by whom it had been handled some 2,000 years before. But he failed to discover how he might use it to gain his freedom.

He returned to the meteorite and concentrated himself to the greatest density he could manage. He would leave now as a freed spirit to seek another vehicle. Perhaps he would visit a creature of the sea, air or land—even a human being—if his strength should last. He craved the companionship of intelligent life forms as he had never craved anything before. Without further hesitation he tore himself loose of his erstwhile prison. He was free again! At last! The meteorite remained inside the amphora at the base of the ancient sea wall, in a state like unto its former uninspired state; and yet, there was lasting change within. Indelible traces of occupancy existed in the altered molecular structure of the remnant and, to a lesser extent, in that of the encompassing jar as well. Throughout their times these inanimate objects would retain clear impressions of the transient soul who had come, stayed a while and gone. Among these stored memories were a few that involved the objects themselves, particularly the meteorite. And all would remain inviolate beneath the sea for yet a while, awaiting retrieval by those bearing genetic allegiance to the departed occupant

During the day after the storm there were various strange occurrences on the island, three of them long remembered. At mid-morning a seagull committed suicide by dashing headlong into the minaret of the mosque in Famagusta. Some while later one of the mouflon rams kept in captivity at the forest station near Paphos suddenly began to dance frenetically about on its hind legs, digging at its own back with the tines of its great horns. After several minutes of these wild antics the animal dropped to the ground in a faint. But within the hour it was up again, unharmed and seeming quite normal. On that same afternoon out on the Karpas Penninsula a Turkish shepherd, who had been dozing in a sheltered and sun-warmed spot while his flock grazed cautiously among the cold, wet grasses nearby, awoke in an equally cold sweat, convinced that he had been possessed momentarily by a fiend. At least that was the tale he told in the village that evening.

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Outsider Albert Engleman had failed utterly. He did not know how to use the powers that were left to him. He was still many months and thousands of miles from the time and place of his death, unable to find passage to that destination. He would have to retreat, allowing himself to drift outward, ever outward until he could find the time line whence he had strayed while attempting, without adequate skill, to guide his chosen vehicle. When he was beyond the warp once more, in the vicinity of Vega and the company of loved ones, he would set himself to gain the knowledge and abilities he must have before he could try again.

In September 1911, while Outsider Albert Engleman remained imprisoned at the bottom of Famagusta Bay, Italy went to war with Turkey, the Italians making the first use of aircraft for combat purposes and acquiring Libya. Early in November C.P. Rogers completed the first transcontinental airplane flight from New York City to Pasadena, California, taking a month and a half to make the trip and spending over 82 hours in the air. In mid-December Captain Roald Amundsen reached what he deemed to be the South Pole, by which time the Mexican Revolution was well into its second phase and in China the followers of Sun Yat Sen were finishing off the Manchu Dynasty. The Chinese Republic was formed on February 12, while a violent storm was brewing over the eastern Mediterranean; and on January 17 of that year, after a long and grueling journey, Captain Robert Scott had planted a flag at what he reckoned to be the true Pole, but was destined to perish, along with his four companions, on the return journey. In mid-April a White Star liner named Titanic collided with an iceberg off Newfoundland while on its maiden voyage from Southampton in Great Britain to New York in the United States. Over 1,500 people lost their lives in that disaster amid episodes of great heroism and gallantry, several of them having been friends or acquaintances of the Engleman family.

In the fall of 1912 the Balkan states of Montenegro, Bulgaria and Serbia joined Greece in a war with Turkey that resulted in driving the Ottoman Turks finally out of Europe. In February 1913 the U.S. Government acquired, through ratification of the 16th Amendment to the Constitution (enacted earlier by Congress) the power to levy and collect income taxes. On June 28, 1914, a Serbian terrorist named Gavrillo Princip assassinated Archduke Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne; and the great and little nations of the world began slipping and whirling into the vortex of war. The first Battle of the Marne was fought in September of that year, followed by the first Battle of Ypres (Wipers to the British soldiers who fought in it) during October and November. The British bombarded the forts of the Dardanelles, declared war on Turkey and annexed the Island of Cyprus. On May 7, 1915, a German submarine sank the Cunard Liner Lusitania, causing the deaths of 127 Americans; and Albert’s youngest son, Charles, married Dorothy Parkins of Saratoga Springs in up-state New York and brought her with him to Highpoint House.

Early in 1917, when Charles was nearing his 33rd birthday, the United States broke relations with Germany and Czar Nicholas II of Russia was forced by his army and navy to abdicate. With the help of his older brother, Lieutenant Colonel John Hartley Engleman, Charles sought and was granted a commission in the Army. The first elements of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) began arriving in France on June 26, 1917. In November of that year the Bolshevists overthrew the provisional government of Premier Kerensky and installed Lenin as President of the Council of Commissars of the Socialist Republic; and in December Captain Charles Engleman joined General Pershing’s staff.

Early in 1918 the new Russian government withdrew its forces from occupied territory, freeing thousands of German troops and thus permitting the Kaiser to open new fronts in France and Italy. Great battles were fought on the Somme in March, on the Aisne in May and June, and on the Marne again at Chateau Thierry and Belleau Woods. Colonel John Hartley Engleman, then commanding a regiment, was killed in the Saint Mihiel Salient on September 13, 1918. Charles fought at Meuse-Argonne in October, was promoted to major and, on November 3, was wounded by shell fragments in the left side. Six days later the Kaiser abdicated and on November 11 the Armistice was signed. Charles’ wounds healed rapidly and he was ready to return to his unit within the month. Later in that month he was awarded the Croix de Guerre to go with his Distinguished Service Cross (DSC).

The League of Nations came into being as part of the Treaty of Versailles—never to be fully accepted by the United States—on June 28, 1919. In the preceding month Lieutenant Commander Reed had hopped across the Atlantic in a Navy seaplane from Newfoundland to Plymouth in the United Kingdom via the Azores and Lisbon. Others followed in different aircraft and along different routes. There was a cross-country air race in October, the month in which Dorothy and Charles Engleman, residing then at Highpoint House, celebrated the birth of a son who was christened Charles, Junior. In 1920 women who were 21 years of age and citizens of the United States acquired the right to vote in all scheduled elections, as a result of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which was ratified by the states in that year. A year later President Harding signed a Peace Treaty with Germany and Austria. The Limitation of Armaments Conference convened in November 1921 and resulted in the outlawing of poison gas and agreement among the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan to curtail naval construction.

In October 1922 Benito Mussolini came to power in Italy. In January 1923 French and Belgian troops occupied the Rhur Valley in order to enforce reparations by Germany, the first moving picture with sound was shown at the Rivoli Theater in New York City, and in Munich General Ludendorf and Adolph Hitler led the Beer Hall Putsch. In 1925, the year in which John Scopes was found guilty of teaching Evolution, Charles Randolph Engleman moved his family to the Near Eastern country of Lebanon—which, by virtue of the Treaty of Versailles, had become, along with Syria, part of a French mandate entitled Greater Syria—and commenced an exchange fellowship in history at the American University in Beirut. In 1926 Doctor Robert Goddard sent off a rocket propelled by liquid fuel; and Germany was admitted to the League of Nations, a move fraught with danger in the minds of some and foreseen as such years earlier by President Wilson, who had presided over Princeton University when Charles Engleman was a student there, and became the reason why the United States did not become a signatory of the Treaty in 1919. In 1927 the U.S. Marines went to China, Charles Lindbergh flew the Spirit of St. Louis to Paris and Dorothy and Charles Engleman celebrated the birth of their second son, Frederick. In 1928 the first all-talking moving picture was shown in New York City, the Kellog-Briand Pact was signed by 62 nations and the dirigible Graf Zepplin flew round-trip between Friedrichshafen and Lakehurst in New Jersey.

In 1929, the year of the St. Valentine’s Day massacre, which helped to make Scar Face Al Capone even more famous than he already was, the revival of the Papal State as the State of Vatican City in Rome and the stock market crash, Dorothy and Charles Engleman celebrated the birth of a third son, christened Andrew. During the next nine years, while Professor Engleman’s career prospered and he became an accomplished amateur archaeologist, Adolph Hitler gained power in Germany and took his country out of the League of Nations, Japan set out to conquer China, the United States ended prohibition and dropped the gold standard, the British Crown passed from George V to Edward VIII and thence to George VI, German troops re-occupied the demilitarized Rhineland Zone, Italy invaded Ethiopia, the Spanish Civil War began in Morocco and spread to Spain, Hitler ordered the invasion of Austria, his homeland, and Wrong Way Corrigan flew from Brooklyn to Dublin.

BOOK OF ANDREW

CHAPTER I

SALAMIS

Charles Randolph Engleman stood on the low bluff in the partial shade of a wind-bent pine and breathed deeply of the fresh sea air. Before him were the sparkling blue waters of Famagusta Bay, known to the Byzantines as the Bay of Constantia and to the Romans and Greeks of even earlier times as the Bay of Salamis. Outward from the crescent shore to the limit of his sight all was rippling, sun-bright sea below a cloudless pale-blue sky. Behind him, almost hidden in the forest of scattered pines, acacia and eucalyptus trees, were the sandstone and marble remnants of Greco-Roman Salamis-Constantia. But it was the immediate foreview upon which his attention was fixed.

He could easily trace with his eyes the outline of the ancient inner harbor. The little river that had carved it had silted up long ago. But the remains of two artificial piers were plain to see in the clear green shoal water undulating over them inward to the shore. One long, irregular row of barnacled and weedy rocks stretched out from the beach on his left—the north side—and another stretched out on his right—the south side. A few huge foundation stones were all that remained of the original seawall that had run along a natural reef from the end of the northern pier to within a few meters of the southern one, leaving a narrow passage enabling vessels of moderate size to seek shelter within the tidy harbor and maneuver back out of it at will. Some portions of that barrier showed wetly