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Most of the budgetary resources had been diverted to developing unusual advancements. The British regiments used new breech-loading rifles, supposedly far superior to the traditional muzzle-loading guns that armies had used for centuries. British riflemen could fire more rapidly, though with more frequent muzzle explosions and misfires.

Explosive landmines -- another innovation for the Crimean War -- were planted beneath the ground and detonated with each Russian foray. The terror of these mines worsened when the allies could not remember precisely where they had been planted. Killing indiscriminately, the explosions took as great a toll on allied troops as they did against the enemy.

Correspondents from European newspapers made use of hastily laid telegraph lines, reporting daily events with unprecedented speed to readers of their periodicals. Never before had the public experienced a distant war as it actually happened. Armed with new camera equipment, intrepid photographers set up tripods and used bottles of chemicals, glass plates, and cumbersome light boxes to record visual images of the events. Photographs provided a starker realism than battlefield sketches, causing quite a sensation back in the civilized areas of Britain and France.

Nemo, though, was more concerned with setting up siege walls and defensive apparatus. He used pulleys and wooden crossbeams and adapted good old medieval technology to help in the war effort.

He already longed to go home to Caroline.

One morning, after the dawn fog had lifted over the battered siege ground, Nemo completed the intricate scaffolding for an observation tower atop a grassy hill. From this vantage, he saw a group of Turkish troops riding past for the regular exchange of soldiers. French troops moved into the front positions where Sardinians had camped, while British infantry moved to the fields that had held Turks. Though the number of fighters didn’t change, the constant rotation of army encampments created a confusing hive of activity that accomplished no purpose. Was it part of a plot calculated to confuse the Russians inside the fortress, or just military incompetence caused by conflicting commands?

Unlike the battered and poorly supplied Europeans, these oncoming Turkish warriors looked dashing in fine uniforms of bright silk. Though their weapons were more primitive than breech-loading rifles and long-range cannons, their eyes held a hard glint, and their stance was determined. Most of the Turkish soldiers Nemo had seen were dedicated fighters, vigorous to protect the Crimea.

But these men were harder, both pompous and dangerous. The horsemen paused to stare at Nemo’s crude construction. Wearing loose outfits, sashes, and turbans, they sat astride sleek brown horses, surveying the quiet battlefield . . . and at the same time somehow assessing him. Nemo stared back.

The broad-shouldered man at their lead had a long face, a neatly trimmed beard that etched out a silhouette of his pointed chin, and long eyebrows that curled like insect antennae. A green silk turban covered his head, adorned with an emerald the size of a walnut. He rode proudly on the largest stallion, which pranced about as if charged with energy.

Nemo could tell from the man’s embroidered clothing and stiff bearing that he was an important man, a caliph or military leader in charge of Turkish troops. When the caliph rode up to the scaffolding, Nemo stopped what he was doing, set aside his blueprint sketches, and waited.

The caliph’s stallion snorted and shifted on its hooves. The man’s eyes flashed with black fire, as if his head could not contain the ambitious thoughts in his mind. A long scar shaped like a lightning bolt marred the tan skin of his left cheek. He stared at Nemo in silence for a long moment, and the engineer wondered if the caliph could speak English. In his time on the Crimea, Nemo had spent enough time in Turkish camps to pick up a few words of the language.

The caliph nodded at the jury-rigged siege tower and said in accented but