Greybeard (4 page)

“Get your hooks out of our side! We’ve got wounded aboard.”

“Shut your gab, woman, and come ashore! Then you won’t get hurt,” Mole said, holding his sword at a more businesslike angle. With the major at his side, he stepped towards the boat.

Already some of the villagers had attempted to board without orders. Emboldened by the general lack of resistance and keen to get their share of the spoils, they dashed forward, led by two of the women. One of the oarsmen, a hoary old fellow with a sou’wester and a yellow beard, fell into a panic and brought his oar down onto the foremost boarder’s head. The woman went sprawling. A scuffle broke out immediately, despite bellowings from both parties to desist.

The cruiser rocked. The men holding the reindeer moved to protect themselves. Taking advantage of this distraction, the animal broke free of its captors. It clattered across the cabin roof, paused for a moment, and leaped overboard into the Thames. Swimming strongly, it headed downstream. A howl of dismay rose from the boat.

Two of the men who had been looking after the animal jumped in too, crying to the beast to come back. Then they were forced to look after themselves; one of them struggled to the bank, where there were hands to help him out. Down by the horns of the broken bridge the reindeer climbed ashore, its water-smooth coat heavy against its flanks. It stood on the far shore snorting and shaking its head from side to side, as if troubled by water in its ears. Then it turned and disappeared into a clump of willows.

The second man who jumped in was less successful. He could not reach either bank. The current caught him, sweeping him through the bridge, across its submerged remains, over the weir. His thin cry rose. An arm was flung up amid spray; then there was only the roar of green and white water.

This incident dampened the struggles at the boat, so that Mole and Trouter were able to question the crew. The two of them, standing by the cruiser’s rail, saw that Gypsy Joan had not been bluffing when she spoke of carrying wounded. Down in what was once the saloon were huddled nine men and women, some of them nonagenarians by their parched and sunken-eyed aspect. Their poor clothes were torn, their faces and hands bloody. One woman with half her face missing seemed on the point of death, while all maintained a stunned silence more terrible than screaming.

“What’s happened to them?” Mole asked uneasily.

“Stoats,” said Gypsy Joan. She and her companions were keen enough to tell their tale. The facts were simple enough. Her group was a small one, but they lived fairly well on a supply of fish from a flooded area next to Grafton Lock. They never kept guard, and had almost no defences. At sunset on the previous day they had been attacked by a pack — or, some said, several packs — of stoats. In their fright, the community had taken to their boats and come away as quickly as possible. They predicted that unless deflected by some chance, the stoats would soon sweep into Sparcot.

“Why should they do that?” Trouter asked.

“Because they’re hungry, man, why else?” Gypsy Joan said. “They’re multiplying like rabbits and sweeping the country looking for food. Eat anything, them devils will, fish or flesh or carrion. You lot would do well to move out of here.”

Mole looked around uneasily and said, “Don’t start spreading rumours here, woman. We can look after ourselves. We’re not a rabble, we’re properly organized. Get a move on. We’ll let you go through unharmed, seeing that you’ve got trouble on your hands. Get off our territory as fast as you can.”

Joan looked prepared to argue the toss, but two of her leaders, fearful, pulled at her arm and urged that they move at once.

“We’ve another boat coming on behind,” one of these men said. “It’s full of our older unwounded people. We’d be obliged if you’d let them through without holding them up.”

Mole and Trouter stepped back, waving their arms. The mention of stoats had turned them into anxious men.

“On your way!” they shouted, waving their arms, and to their own men. “Pull back the pole and let them get on their way.”

The pole came back. Joan and her crew pushed off from the bank, their ancient cruiser wobbling dangerously. But the contagion of their news had already been caught by those ashore. The word “stoats” passed rapidly from mouth to mouth, and people began to run back to their houses, or towards the village boathouse.

Unlike their enemies the rats, stoats had not declined in numbers. During the last decade they had greatly increased, both in numbers and daring. Earlier in the year, old Reggy Foster had been attacked by one in the pasture and had had his throat bitten out. The stoats had extended an old occasional habit of theirs and now often hunted in packs, as they did at Grafton. At such times they showed no fear of human beings.

Knowing this, the villagers began to trample about the bank, pushing each other and shouting incoherently.

Jim Mole drew a revolver and levelled it at one of the fleeing backs.

“You can’t do that!” Greybeard exclaimed, stepping forward with raised hand.

Mole brought the revolver down and pointed it at Greybeard.

“You can’t shoot your own people,” Greybeard said firmly.

“Can’t I?” Mole asked. His eyes were like blisters on his antique skin. Trouter said something, and Mole lifted his revolver again and fired it into the air. The villagers looked around in startlement; then most of them began running again. Mole laughed.

“Let ’em go,” he said. “They’ll only kill ’emselves.”

“Use reason with them,” Greybeard said, coming closer. “They’re frightened. Firing on them’s no use. Speak to them.”

“Reason! Get out of my way, Greybeard. They’re mad! They’ll die. We’re all going to die.”

“Are you going to let them go, Jim?” Trouter asked.

“You know the trouble with stoats as well as I do,” Mole said. “If they attack in force, we’ve not got enough ammunition to spare to shoot them. We haven’t got good enough bowmen to stop them with arrows. So the sensible thing is to get across the river in our boat and stay there till the little vermin have gone.”

“They can swim, you know,” Trouter said.

“I know they can swim. But why should they? They’re after food, not fighting. We’ll be safe on the other side of the river.” He was shivering. “Can you imagine what a stoat attack must be like? You saw those people in that boat. Do you want that to happen to you?”

He was pale now, and looking anxiously about him, as if fearing that the stoats might be arriving already.

“We can shut ourselves in the barns and houses if they come,” Greybeard said. “We can defend ourselves without deserting the village. We’re safer staying put.”

Mole turned at him savagely, baring his teeth in a gaping snarl. “How many stoat-proof buildings have we got? You know they’ll come after the cattle if they’re really hungry, and then they’ll be all over us at the same time. Who gives orders here anyhow? Not you, Greybeard! Come on, Trouter, what are you waiting for? Let’s get our boat brought out!”

Trouter looked momentarily disposed to argue. Instead, he turned and began shouting orders in his high-pitched voice. He and Mole brushed past Greybeard and ran towards the boathouse, calling, “Keep calm, you bloody cripples, and we’ll ferry you all across.”

The place took on the aspect of a well-stirred anthill. Greybeard noticed that Charley had vanished. The cruiser with the fugitives from Grafton was well down the river now and had negotiated the little weir safely. As Greybeard stood by the bridge and watched the chaos, Martha came up to him.

She was a dignified woman, of medium height, though she stooped a little as she clutched a blanket about her shoulders. Her face was slightly puddingy and pale, and wrinkled as if age had bound her skull tightly round the edges; yet because of her fine bone structure, she still retained something of the good looks of her youth, while the dark lashes that fringed her eyes still made them compelling.

She saw his faraway look.

“You can dream just as well at home,” she said.

He took her arm.

“I was wondering what lay at the end of the river. I’d give anything to see what life was like on the coast. Look at us here — we’re so undignified! We’re just a rabble.”

“Aren’t you afraid of the stoats, Algy?”

“Of course I’m afraid of the stoats.” Then he smiled back at her, a little wearily. “And I’m tired of being afraid. Cooped up in this village for eleven years, we’ve all caught Mole’s sickness.”

They turned back towards their house. For once, Sparcot was alive. They saw men small in the meadowland, with anxious gestures hurrying their few cows in to shelter. It was against just such emergencies, or in case of flood, that the barns had been built on stilts; when the cattle were driven into them and the doors shut, ramps could be removed, leaving the cattle safe above ground.

As they passed Annie Hunter’s house, the desiccated figure of Willy Tallridge slipped from the side door. He was still buttoning his jacket, and paid them no attention as he hurried towards the river as fast as his eighty-year-old legs would take him. Annie’s bright face, heavy with its usual complement of rouge and powder, appeared at her upper window. She waved a casual greeting to them.

“There’s a stoat warning out, Annie,” Greybeard called. “They are getting ready to ferry people across the river.”

“Thanks for the warning, darling, but I’ll lock myself in here.”

“You have to hand it to Annie, she’s game,” Greybeard said.

“Gamy too, I hear,” Martha said dryly. “Do you realize, Algy, that she’s about twenty years older than I? Poor old Annie, what a fate — to be the oldest professional!”

He was searching the tousled meadow, looking despite himself for brown squibs of life riding through the grass, but he smiled at Martha’s joke. Occasionally a remark of hers could bring back a whole world to him, the old world of brittle remarks made at parties where alcohol and nicotine had been ritualistically consumed. He loved her for the best of reasons, because she was herself.

“Funny thing,” he said. “You’re the only person left in Sparcot who still makes conversation for its own sake. Now go home like a good girl and pack a few essential belongings. Shut yourself in, and I’ll be along in ten minutes. I ought to help the men with the cattle.”

“Algy, I’m nervous. Do we have to pack just to go across the river? What’s happening?”

Suddenly his face was hard. “Do what I ask you, Martha. We aren’t going across the river; we’re going down it. We’re leaving Sparcot.”

Before she could say more, he walked away. She also turned, walking deliberately down the hollow-cheeked street, and in at her door, into the dark little house. She did it as a positive act. The trepidation that had filled her on hearing her husband’s words did not last; now, as she looked about her at walls from which the paper had peeled and at ceilings showing their dirty bare ribs, she whispered a wish that he might mean what he had said.

But leave Sparcot? The world had dwindled until for her it was only Sparcot...

As Greybeard went towards the stilted barn, a fight broke out farther down the street. Two groups of people carting belongings down to the river’s edge had collided; they had lapsed into the weak rages that were such a feature of life in the village. The result would be a broken bone, shock, confinement to bed, pneumonia, and another mound in the beggarly greedy graveyard under the fir trees, where the soil was sandy and yielded easily to the spade.

Greybeard had often acted as peacemaker in such disputes. Now he turned away, and made for the cattle. They were as valuable — it had to be faced — as the rabble. The cattle went protestingly up the ramp into the barn. George Swinton, a one-armed old heathen who had killed two men in the Westminster Marches of 2008, darted among them like a fury, hurting them all he could with voice and stick.

A noise like the falling of stricken timber stopped them. Two of the barn’s wooden legs split to ground level. One of the knot of men present called a word of warning. Before it was through his lips, the barn began to settle. Splinters of wood showed like teeth as joists gave. The barn toppled. It slid sideways, rocked, and collapsed in a shower of ruptured planks. Cattle stampeded from the wreckage, or lay beneath it.

“To hell with this! Let’s get ourselves in the boats,” George Swinton said, pushing past Greybeard. And none of the others cared more than he. Flinging aside their sticks, they jostled after him. Greybeard stood where he was as they rushed past: the human race, he thought, sinned against as well as sinning.

Stooping, he helped a heifer free herself from under a fallen beam. She cantered away to the grazing land. She would have to take her chance when and if the stoats came.

As he turned back towards his house, a shot — it sounded like Mole’s revolver — came from the direction of the stone bridge. It was echoed by another. Starlings clattered up from the rooftops and soared for safety in the trees across the river. Greybeard quickened his pace, doubled through the straggling plot that was the garden of his house, and peered around the corner of it.

By the bridge, a group of villagers was struggling. A low afternoon mist tinted the scene, and the towering trees behind dwarfed it, but through a gap in a collapsing garden wall Greybeard had a clear enough view of what was going on.

The second boat from Grafton floated down the river just as the Sparcot boat was launching itself across stream. It was laden with a motley collection of whiteheads, most of whom were now waving their arms with gestures that distance rendered puppetlike. The Sparcot boat was heavily overloaded with the more aggressive members of the community, who had insisted on being on the first ferry trip. Through incompetence and stupidity on both sides, the boats collided.