Will was staying in a dorm room at a youth hostel when the next word mission came through. It was the kind of place his family would have completely freaked out about in 1918, and he was loving it. Everyone seemed to get on with each other and, any time he was near the pool, German and Scandinavian female backpackers seemed to need him to rub sunscreen on their backs.

He kept promising the manager that he would find his ID to register properly, but Mursili was still working on that. Will could get an express copy of his birth certificate from London within days, but it’d take a credit card he didn’t have and it’d say 1903, which wouldn’t help his case.

He told the manager he’d been robbed once when he was sleeping in a park, and he’d lost everything. He didn’t say it had happened in the northern summer of 1836.

Music had come a long way since 1918, and was now played all night and loud. From the music videos in the bar in the hostel basement, it seemed that all black American people were now rich and highly desirable. He wanted to tell the backpackers how great this was – so much better than in the early 19th century and even the 20th – but he thought they wouldn’t get it. They hardly seemed to see colour at all. Everyone danced with everyone. If it was all like this, he totally loved the 21st century, even if he still missed home.