Time Machine: Troopers, by Hal
Colebatch
(Acashic Publishing, 172 pages)
In its own way, American Spectator contributor Hal
Colebatch’s new novel,
Time Machine: Troopers, is as subversive a book as any
written in our time. What differentiates it from famous subversive
novels like Candide, On the Road, and Catch-22 is
that it’s subversive of the subversives, a counterrevolutionary
romance.
How many of us have enjoyed books by authors like H. G.
Wells, regretting even as we read the political and philosophical
obtuseness underlying them? Colebatch tackles that problem hands
on, revisiting the story and the characters in a more sensible and
realistic (in terms of human nature) manner than Wells would ever
have been able. The unnamed Time Traveler, in this book, says of
Wells (who appears as a character):
I felt that under his optimism there was always a core of
despair at the centre of his soul. As for the only way out he had
looked to, “to live as if it were not so,” as if mere petty
existence was all we would ever possess, I had thought
such a doctrine of “existentialism” (as I called it for want of a
better name) a mindlessly petty and bleak one. I am still prepared
to wager that should such a view come to be held by the leading
body of philosophers of any nation, that nation (though it be as
great in the field as France… is today) would not any longer be
able to control its affairs: an invader would sweep its defences
away.
The ending of Wells’ book, the Time Traveler here informs us,
was fictionalized. He did not, in fact, return straightaway to the
future, never to be seen again. In fact he lingered in London,
traumatized and depressed, contemplating the bleak vision of the
future he had been granted. And gradually a new conviction grew on
him — he had seen gratitude and courage in the Eloi woman Weena
who had befriended him. What were the odds that this particular
Eloi should be completely atypical of her people? Were the Eloi the
helpless victims of evolution, or simply a population that had
forgotten old lessons, lessons they could be taught anew?
In time he determines to return to the future world of
Eloi and Morlock, but this time he will go prepared. He will bring
with him tools and armaments, in order to help the Eloi care for
and defend themselves.
He will also, he decides, need a companion, someone to
watch his back. He considers a number of friends — Wells himself
and young Winston Churchill among them. But he settles on a more
suitable prospect, a recently returned general of the Boer War,
Robert S.S. Baden-Powell, hero of Mafeking.
Baden-Powell, at this point, is not yet the founder of the
Boy Scouts, but he already has some ideas along those
lines.
The future world will be saved by Scouting.
(Tell me the truth. Have you ever read a more audacious
concept for a novel?)
Through the adventures the Time Traveler and Baden-Powell
experience in revisiting the future, Colebatch ruthlessly mines
Wells’ own story for the inner contradictions that gainsay its
author’s world view. Colebatch understands that good storytelling
has its foundation in truth, and is ultimately incompatible with
canting ideology. Wherever a ripping yarn is found, there an
eternal verity is attempting to kick its way out.
The result is a whole lot of fun. This is the kind of
story that used to be written (especially for boys), a rousing tale
of courage and loyalty and hope. By writing in the voice of an
Edwardian, Colebatch is free to unashamedly celebrate those manly
and (dare I say?) English virtues that the world once admired and
emulated, not so terribly long ago. And perhaps might
again.
“We may be up against it, but remember, every Eloi,
however small and weak, can Do His Best! We are going to teach
Johnny Morlock a lesson he won’t forget in a hurry!” [says General
Baden-Powell on the eve of battle.]
It takes considerable skill to carry this sort of thing
off, I’ll grant, especially in a time like ours, but Hal Colebatch
of Australia is the man for the job. You’ll smile as you read
Time Machine: Troopers. You’ll want to give it to your son
or your nephew. But you’ll keep a copy for yourself.
