I arrived at King's College on a brisk September morning. The air was sharp with the tang of coal smoke and the distant clatter of horse-drawn carriages occasionally broken with the hum of a motor car. London was transitioning, much like myself. Dressed in a wool overcoat that my mother had insisted she make for me and my well-worn leather satchel slung over my shoulder, I looked every bit the determined scholar. Inside that satchel were a few essentials: a notebook, a slide rule, and a copy of The Principles of Mechanics by Heinrich Hertz, filled with several bookmarks, noting places I wanted to return to.
The more I tried to plan out ideas to 'invent,' the more I realised I would need at least a working knowledge of quite a few fields. And also, why was someone supposed to listen to a random guy? Hopefully a degree from King's College would help.
The college's Gothic facade loomed ahead, an imposing testament to tradition and academia. As I entered through the grand wooden doors, I was greeted by a cacophony of voices and footsteps echoing off the polished stone floors. Students milled about, some engaged in spirited debates, others poring over textbooks in the corners of the expansive atrium.
I felt a pang of self-consciousness as I took in my fellow students. Many were younger than me, both physically and mentally, fresh-faced lads barely out of their teens. None of them had been old enough to join up during the war.
The first task was to register for my courses. After asking around, I joined a queue that snaked through a dimly lit corridor, the walls adorned with portraits of dour-looking professors. When my turn came, I found myself facing a stern clerk who, after verifying my credentials, handed me a timetable and a campus map. The clerk's eyes lingered momentarily on the scar that ran across my left hand, the only visible wound I had from the war. I offered no explanation, pretending not to notice, and the clerk asked no questions.
My first lecture took place in a cavernous hall with high arched windows that let in streams of pale autumn sunlight. The professor, a bespectacled man with a mop of unruly white hair, introduced the class to the fundamentals of thermodynamics. My pen flew across the page as I jotted down notes, my mind alight with questions and connections. It was a thrill to engage with material because I wanted to rather than because it was expected of me.
I eventually found the building off campus that was the dormitory I would be staying at. I had paid more for it since I didn't feel like living in a place of mould or anything.
The lady who ran it was a stout woman with thick grey hair whom my instincts told me to not draw the ire of. Once I was shown to the room I would be in, I saw there were three other beds.
My roommates were William, a boisterous young man with a penchant for bad jokes; Carl, a kid who rarely spoke to any of us; and Kabir, an Indian student whose calm demeanour belied a fiery intellect.
Kabir was also studying engineering, so we both decided to exchange notes. One day after studying, the conversation turned quickly to our backgrounds and ambitions. When it came to me, I spoke briefly of my wartime service and how I wanted to change the world after seeing all the darkness in it. All the stuff an innocent but jaded man would say. My new friend listened intently, and by the end of the meal, I felt a tentative camaraderie forming.
The days that followed were a whirlwind of lectures, study sessions, and late nights in the library. I discovered a profound satisfaction in the precision of engineering. the way equations could describe the exact pressure of a vacuum or the rotational torque needed to make something move. But the challenges were many, and I often found myself doubting whether I had bitten off more than I could chew. After all, I wasn't just studying engineering but multiple other sciences like physics and biology. I even browsed through some chemistry stuff just so I didn't end up mentioning anything that was yet to be discovered. No. I shall not fail.
One evening, I was in the library, where a haze of pipe smoke hung in the air. My fingers tapped against the aged oak table as I scoured through a book trying to find the table for the heat transfer to steel from high-speed friction, which I had glossed over a few days earlier. I felt a tap on my shoulder as one of the few girls in the class tapped my shoulder.
I turned to look at them. Evie was it. No Eva. No, there was definitely another E in there somewhere. Evelyn, that was it. Her caramel brown hair was cut into a curly bob, and her nose had me distracted for a moment before she said, "Evening, Henry, what brings you here at this hour?"
"Eh, I couldn't fall asleep. You?" I said going back to leafing through books. I thought I was done with this kind of thing with the whole perfect memory and whatnot.
She let out the start of a laugh, which she stopped upon the glare of several of the library's inhabitants.
After a few seconds she said, "I have another thirty pages to read for tomorrow, and my roommates get rather upset when I keep the light on."
"Want to see something interesting?" I asked, pulling out a piece of paper.
She took a seat next to me and whispered, "Sure."
"A circular tube made of hexagons has no curvature at all." I said writing out the math for a minute before drawing a rough sketch.
She spent a few seconds looking at it as I saw her doing the math in her head as her lips moved. She then tilted her head again, trying to figure it out. "How?"
"It's not that actually. It is a weird quirk of physics. It's not that the object has no curvature; it's that the equation we're taught is to find the average curvature, and both this and a flat plane have an equal amount of negative curvature as positive. It's why one can't simply look at the math."
"Huh," she said, finally understanding it. "What are you working on?" she asked, peeking at the random annotated sketches and calculations that my notebook was covered in. I started to explain to her how piston-based combustion engines were inefficient since the force of the individual explosions didn't exert force on the shaft at a ninety-degree angle for the majority of the motion.
I then proceeded to explain my ideas for a more efficient engine that not only had more torque but was far simpler in design. Evelyn simply sat there listening until I got to a point I was currently stuck on.
"You're thinking about it too much," she whispered as she gestured for me to hand her the book.
A few weeks later I was in the common room with Kabir and Evelyn.
"I haven't always lived in England," Kabir began, his voice low but resonant. I paused for a moment. The words hung in the air, and the room seemed to grow louder as I focused on his words and realised he probably wasn't. His accent and me being used to non-white people being commonplace meant it hadn't actually dawned on me that he wasn't British.
He looked hesitant as if he didn't want to say what he was about to but needed to: "My father is the Pasha of Hyderabad."
Henry raised an eyebrow, intrigued. "A pasha's son? I had no idea. What brought you here then?"
Kabir's dark eyes flickered with a mixture of pride and melancholy. "My father is a powerful man, and with power comes expectation. I was trained from a young age to take on responsibilities befitting my station, even if it is as his third son. But my interests always lay elsewhere. I've been fascinated by machines since I was a boy. The hum of a steam engine, the precision of a clock. To me, they all seem like those stories of miracles made real."
I smiled and said. "I understand that. There's something thrilling about unlocking the secrets of how things work."
Kabir nodded. "My father, however, did not share that view. He saw engineering as a craft for artisans, not the path for a man of my standing. When I insisted on studying it, our arguments became... heated. Anyway, despite my father's protests, I refused to go to Eton, and he reluctantly allowed it after his attempts to stop me proved fruitless."
I leaned back in his chair, absorbing Kabir's words. "And here you are. That must have taken courage."
Kabir offered a modest shrug. "Courage, perhaps. More so, stubbornness. Either way, the weight of my father's expectations still follows me, even across oceans. Every lecture, every assignment. I feel as though I'm being tested not just by my professors but by him."
The room was silent for a moment, the gravity of Kabir's story settling over them. Then Evelyn broke the quiet with a soft but firm voice. "You're not alone in feeling the weight of expectations." She glanced at me for a long second as I read my book, then back at Kabir. "For a woman like me, even being here is a statement. I've always wanted to prove that we can excel in fields dominated by men. But sometimes, it feels like I'm fighting too many battles at once."
I turned to her, my expression earnest. "You've already proven enough, Evelyn. You're one of the sharpest minds in our lectures, and you don't back down from anyone until they yield or you learn that no matter what, they will not change their mind. That kind of determination is… inspiring, but your ability to pick your battles is more so."
A faint blush crept across Evelyn's cheeks, but she held my gaze. "Thank you, Henry. That means a lot coming from you."
Kabir smiled at the exchange but chose to steer the conversation back to lighter territory. "It seems we all carry our own burdens, don't we? Perhaps that's why we've found each other in this place."
Later that evening, after Kabir had departed to review his notes, I and Evelyn lingered in the common room. The fire had burnt down to embers, and the quiet was punctuated only by the ticking of the large grandfather clock in the corner.
"Can I ask you something, Evelyn?" I said, breaking the comfortable silence.
She looked up from the book she had absentmindedly reopened. "Of course."
"What do you want from all of this? From your studies, your ambitions… what's your ultimate goal?" I asked
Evelyn seemed to consider my question carefully. "For my whole life it has felt like things have been decided for me." She hesitated, her voice softening, "I want to live a life that's truly mine. Not one dictated by others."
Henry nodded, moved by her candor. "That's admirable. And you will. You're already carving that path."
"What about you?" Evelyn asked, her gaze searching his. "What do you want, Henry?"
He sighed, leaning forward and clasping his hands. "To build. You know I was hurt in the war." I gestured to my covered prosthetic, which she seemed to stare through as her gaze drifted to my leg. "I sat in that hospital for months, thinking… I realised that this world is full of so many wonderful and horrifying things at the same time, and it always has been. And if I want a chance to change it, to contribute something meaningful, to never let another person feel that, and… I paused, meeting her eyes. "To find connections that make the effort worthwhile."
Evelyn smiled gently, and in that moment, an unspoken understanding passed between us, I think. We were two individuals, shaped by different lives but bound by understanding and mutual respect. As we sat together, the promise of our burgeoning friendship and perhaps something more, it felt as solid and enduring as the ancient walls of King's College itself. At least that's what was going through her head at the time. I was humming 'My milkshakes bring all the boys to the yard' in my head.