The Pool of Fire (The Tripods) (18 page)

“Ah, so you are better, yes? You ’ave recover
le bon appètit,
and prepare to break-the-fast?”

I smiled. “I think I could manage something.”

“Good, good! So we ’ave the special break-the-fast for you. I ’ave cook ’im ready.”

He passed me a plate, and I took it. It contained slices of bacon. They were thick, the meat was fat apart from a couple of narrow bars of pink, and they looked as though they had not been fried but boiled in grease, which still adhered to them. I stared at it, while the cook watched me. Then the ship heaved one way, and my stomach heaved another, and I hurriedly put the plate down and staggered for the fresh air of the deck. As I went, I heard the cook’s merry laughter echoing along the companionway behind me.

•  •  •

By the next day, though, I felt perfectly well again. After my enforced privations, my appetite was enormous. And the food, in fact, was very good. (The greasy fat bacon, I learned, was an old ship’s cook trick; and this one was particularly fond of practical jokes.) Moreover, the weather improved. The seas were still high, but for the most part blue, mirroring skies empty apart from a handful of pelting clouds. The wind stayed fresh, but moved around to the southwest and was less sharp. It was not the best quarter from the point of view of making progress, and a good deal of tacking had to be done to get what advantage we could. Henry and I
offered our services, but we were turned down firmly. Our inexperienced hands and fumbling fingers would be more of a hindrance than a help.

So we were thrown back on contemplation of the sea and the sky, and on each other’s company. I had noticed a change in Henry on his return from the Americas, and this had been confirmed during our long ballooning summer. It was not just a physical change, though he was much taller and leaner. There had been a change in his character, too, I thought. He was more reserved, and I felt that might be because he had more in reserve, that he was surer of himself and of his aims in life—aims, that is, apart from the one we all shared, of overcoming and destroying the Masters. But we had lived a communal life up in the hills, with little opportunity for or inclination toward confidences. It was only now, in the long days of winter sunshine, with the sea stretching emptily to the four horizons, that he gave me some insight into what the aims might be.

On the rare occasions when I turned my mind to look beyond our primary objective, and thought of the world that could be when it was liberated from our oppressors, my vision was hazy and mostly, I am afraid, centered on pleasures. I envisaged a life of hunting, riding, fishing—all the things which I enjoyed made a hundred times more enjoyable by the knowledge that no Tripod would ever again stride across the skyline, that we were the masters of our own habitation and destiny, and that any cities that were built would be cities for men to dwell in.

Henry’s meditations had been different. He had been much affected by his journey across the ocean. He and his companions had landed far to the north of the City on the isthmus, in a land where, as I have said, the people spoke English, though with an unfamiliar accent. He was struck by the fact that there, thousands of miles across trackless seas, he could talk and be understood, whereas when he and I crossed a mere twenty miles of water to France we had found ourselves unable to communicate with those who lived there.

From this, he went on to think more deeply about those divisions of men which had existed before the Masters came, and which the Masters, themselves a single race of one language and nation, had never understood, even though they did not fail to take advantage of them. It seemed to him monstrous that such a state should exist, that men should go out to kill other men they did not know, simply because they lived in a foreign land. This, at any rate, was something that had ceased with the coming of the Masters.

“They brought peace,” I agreed, “but what a peace! The peace of herded cattle.”

“Yes,” Henry said. “That’s true. But does liberty have to mean slaughtering each other?”

“Men do not fight against each other any more. We all fight the common enemy—Frenchmen like Beanpole, Germans like Fritz, Americans like your friend Walt . . .”

“
Now
they fight together. But afterward, when we have destroyed the Masters—what will happen then?”

“We shall remain united, of course. We have learned our lesson.”

“Are you sure?”

“I am certain! It would be unthinkable for men to go to war with each other again.”

He was silent for a few moments. We were leaning against the starboard rail, and far off in the distance I thought I saw something flash, but realized it must be a trick of light. There could be nothing there.

Henry said, “Not unthinkable, Will. I think about it. It must not happen, but we may have to work hard to make sure it does not.”

I asked more questions, and he answered them. This, it seemed, was the aim he had set himself, of working for the maintenance of peace among the peoples of the free world. I was a little awed by it, but not entirely convinced. There had been war in the past, I knew, but that was because men had never had anything to unite them, as we now had in the struggle against the Masters. Having once gained this unity, it was impossible to imagine that we would ever give it up. Once this war was over . . .

He was saying something, but I interrupted him, grabbing his arm.

“There is something out there. I saw it before, but was not sure. A small flash. Could it be something to do with the Tripods? They can travel on the sea.”

“I should be surprised to find them in mid-ocean,” Henry said.

He was watching where I pointed. The wink of light
came again. He said, “Low down, too, for a Tripod! Not far above the surface of the water. It will be a flying fish, I should think.”

“A flying fish?”

“It doesn’t really fly. It leaps out of the water, when the dolphins are pursuing it, and glides over the surface, using its fin as a sail. Sometimes they land on board. I believe they’re quite good to eat.”

“You’ve seen them before?”

Henry shook his head. “No, but the sailors have told me of them, and of other things. Whales, which are as big as a house, and blow spouts of water up through the tops of their heads, and giant squids, and, in warmer waters, creatures that look like women and suckle their young at the breast. The seas are full of wonders.”

I could imagine him listening to their tales. He had become a good listener, attentive to what was being said, patient and thoughtful. That was another way in which he had changed from the brash boy I had known. I realized that if there were any need to keep men together after our victory, Henry was the sort of person who could help to do it. As things stood, Beanpole was becoming important among the scientists, Fritz was acknowledged as one of our best junior commanders, and even I (if only by luck) had had my moments of glory. Henry had been less successful, his one important enterprise a failure, though through no fault of his own. But it could be that in the world of the future, he would be more valuable than any of us. More even than Beanpole, because what good would it do to rebuild the
great-cities of the ancients only to knock them down again?

Though it was impossible that folly of that sort should happen again.

And, in any case, the Masters were not beaten yet. Not by a long way.

•  •  •

The last stage of our voyage took us through warmer seas. We were heading farther south than on Henry’s first voyage, our landfall being close to the secondary base that had been set up in the mountains, some hundred miles east of the City. (It is an odd thing that, although the two continents of the Americas lie north and south of each other, the narrow isthmus that joins them runs east-west.) The primary base, from which the flying machines had been launched, had been abandoned after the failure of the attack. We had steady winds behind us from the northeast, and I was told that these blew, almost without changing, throughout the year. Once we had come under their influence, they propelled us powerfully.

The sea was full of islands, of all shapes and sizes, some tiny and some so enormous that, if the sailors had not kept me better informed, I would have taken them for the continent itself. We sailed quite close to many, and there were tantalizing glimpses of lush green hills, golden sands, feathery fronds of trees waving in a breeze . . . Only the very big ones, it seemed, were inhabited. It would be wonderful to land and explore them. Perhaps, when this was all over . . . Henry could do his preaching for peace on his own, I decided. I
would not have been much use to him, anyway.

We landed at last, and went ashore to feel the unfamiliar solidity of firm ground under our feet. And to realize that we were back in the shadow of the enemy. This took place at dusk, and we unloaded and carted our gear that night, and the following day lay up in the cover of a forest. The work was difficult, and not helped by the fact that we had to endure several torrential downpours. It was rain unlike any I had encountered before, almost as though solid water were sheeting down out of the sky. It drenched to the skin within seconds.

In the morning, though, the sun beat hotly through the leaves of unfamiliar trees. I ventured out to bask and to dry my clothes in a clearing nearby. We had already climbed some way, and this shelf of land looked a long way east. I could see the coastline, with minute offshore islands. Something else, also. It was miles away but clear, pinpointed in the bright tropic light.

A Tripod.

•  •  •

It took us several days to get to our base, and another week to complete our preparations. After that, all we had to do was wait.

I had had to wait before, and thought I had learned patience. There had been the long months of training for the Games, the seemingly endless weeks of enforced idleness in the caves, the days by the river preparing for our invasion of the City. All these, I thought, had schooled me; but they had not. For this was waiting of an entirely different kind—waiting with
no fixed term and on a permanent alert. We were dependent not on any decisions of men, or even of the Masters, but on the vagaries of a greater force than either—Nature.

Our planning staff had consulted with those, recruited in our earlier expeditions, who had lived here all their lives, and knew the country and its weather. We had to have a wind which would carry our balloons over the City, a wind, that is, from the northeast. This was, in fact, the prevailing wind, which had brought us on the last leg of our voyage, and at this time of year constant. Unfortunately, it normally died out, over this very strip of land, into the equatorial calm which prevailed to the south and west. We must wait for a moment of greater wind strength if we were not to find ourselves becalmed, and even drifting away from our target.

So we had advance positions set up, as near as possible to the City, whose duty was to report back, by pigeon, when the wind was holding strongly enough in that direction. Until they did, we could do nothing but chafe at the delay.

And chafe we did. Ours had been the second to last party to arrive, but although many had waited longer, I found myself one of the least able to accept the situation. I flared up at the smallest provocation. When one of the others made a joking remark—that I was so full of hot air he doubted if I needed a balloon—I sailed into him, and we fought furiously until we were dragged apart. That evening, Fritz spoke to me.

We were in a tent which was leaking in several places. The rain of this land was not easily stopped by
canvas. It swished down relentlessly, as he remonstrated with me. I said I was sorry, but he was not impressed.

“You have been sorry before,” he told me, “but you keep on doing things without thinking—flying off the handle. We cannot afford dissension here. We must live together and work together.”

“I know,” I said. “I will do better.”

He stared at me. He was fond of me, I knew, as I of him. We had been together a long time, and shared hardships and dangers. Nevertheless, his expression was grim. He said, “As you know, I am in charge of the attack. Julius and I discussed many things before we left. He told me that if I was not sure of any man I must leave him out of the assault. He spoke of you, Will, in particular.”

He liked me, but duty came first, as it always would with Fritz. I pleaded with him for a last chance. In the end, shaking his head, he said he would—but it really was a last chance. If any trouble occurred in which I was concerned, he would not bother to find out who was responsible. Out I would go.

The following morning, in the course of our usual drill on the balloons, the one I had fought with tripped me—perhaps accidentally, perhaps not—and I went sprawling. Not only did my elbow hit a chunk of rock, but I landed in a patch of sticky mud. I closed my eyes, and lay there for at least five seconds before getting up again. With a smile on my face, and my teeth tightly gritted.

Two mornings later, through yet another downpour,
a bedraggled pigeon alighted on the perch in front of its box. A little scroll of paper was fastened to its leg.

•  •  •

We had twelve balloons altogether in our force, with one man to each so as to be able to carry the greatest possible weight of explosive. This was sealed inside metal containers, something like the grooved metal eggs we had found in the ruins of the great-city, but very much larger. It was not too easy a task to lift them over the edge of the basket. They were fitted with fuses, which would cause them to explode four seconds after the release was pulled.

This meant, Beanpole had explained to us, that we needed to make our drop from a height of just under a hundred and fifty feet. The calculation depended on something which had been discovered by a famous scientist of the ancients called Newton. He tried to explain it but it was beyond our comprehension—beyond mine, anyway. What it meant was that an object falling through the air traveled a distance in feet of sixteen, multiplied twice over by the number of seconds it had been falling. Thus in the first second it would fall sixteen feet (sixteen multiplied by one multiplied by one), in two seconds sixty-four feet, and in three a hundred and forty-four. The fourth second was the time allowed for getting the bomb, as he called it, into position and ready for the drop.