Wyndham, John (20 page)

It was. And bright enough now to banish any doubts, though
the glasses showed me no details.

I switched on again, and gave the V sign in Morse—it is the
only Morse I know except 5 0 S, so it had to do. While we watched the other
light it blinked and then began a series of slow, deliberate longs and shorts
which unfortunately meant nothing to me. I gave a couple more Vs for good
measure, drew the approximate line of the far light on our map, and switched on
the driving lights.

“Is that the lady?” asked Susan.

“It’s got to be,” I said. “It’s
got
to be.”

That was a poorish trip. To cross the low marshland it was
necessary to take a road a little to the west of us and then work back to the
east along the foot of the hills. Before we had gone more than a mile something
cut off the sight of the light from us altogether, and to add to the difficulty
of finding our way in the dark lanes, the rain began again in earnest. With no
one to care for the drainage sluices, some fields were already flooded, and the
water was over the road in places.

I had to drive with a tedious care when all my urge was to
put my foot flat down.

Once we reached the farther side of the valley we were free
of floodwater, but we made little better speed, for the lanes were full of
primitive wanderings and improbable turns. I had to give the wheel all my
attention while the child peered up at the hills beside us, watching for the
reappearance of the light. We reached the point where the line on my map intersected
with what appeared to be our present road without seeing a sign of it. I tried
the next uphill turning.

It took about half an hour to get back to the road again
from the chalk pit into which it led us.

We ran on farther along the lower road. Then Susan caught a
glimmer between the branches to our right. The next turning was luckier. It
took us back at a slant up the side of the hill until we were able to see a
small, brilliantly lit square of window half a mile or more along the slope.

Even then, and with the map to help, it was not easy to find
the lane that led to it. We lurched along, still climbing in low gear, but each
time we caught sight of the window again it was a little closer. The lane had
not been designed for ponderous trucks. In the narrower parts we had to push
our way along it between bushes and brambles which scrabbled along the sides as
though they tried to pull us back.

But at last there was a lantern waving in the road ahead. It
moved on, swinging to show us the turn through a gate.

Then it was set stationary on the ground. I drove to within
a yard or two of it and stopped.

As I opened the door a flashlight shone suddenly into my
eyes. I had a glimpse of a figure behind it in a raincoat shining with
wetness.

A slight break marred the intended calm of the voice that
spoke.

“Hullo, Bill. You’ve been a long time.”

I jumped down.

“Oh, Bill. I can’t----Oh, my dear, I’ve been hoping so
much.... Oh, Bill...“ said Josella.

I had forgotten all about Susan until a voice came from
above.

“You
are
getting wet, you silly. Why don’t you kiss
her indoors?” it asked.

The sense with which I arrived at Shirning Farm—the one that
told me that most of my troubles were now over—is interesting only in showing
how wide of the mark a sense can be. The sweeping of Josella into my arms went
off pretty well, but its corollary of carrying her away forthwith .to join the
others at Tynsham did not, for several reasons.

Ever since her possible location had occurred to me I had
pictured her—in, I must admit, a rather cinematic way—as battling bravely
against all the forces of nature, et cetera, et cetera. In a fashion, I suppose
she was, but the setup was a lot dilierent from my imaginings. My simple plan
of saying:

“Jump aboard. We’re off to join Coker and his little gang,”
had to go by the board. One might have known that things would not turn out so
simply—on the other hand, it is surprising how often the better thing is
disguised as the worse.

Not that I didn’t from the start prefer Shirning to the
thought of Tynsham—yet to join a larger group was obviously a sounder move. But
Shirning was charming. The word “f arm” had become a courtesy title for the
place. It had been a farm until some twenty-five years before, and it still
looked like a farm, but in reality it had changed into a country house. Sussex
and the neighboring counties were well dotted with such houses and cottages
which tired Londoners had found adaptable to their needs. Internally the
building bad been modernized and reconstructed to a point where it was
doubtful whether its previous tenants would be able to recognize a single
room. Outside it had become spick. The yards and sheds had a suburban rather
than a rural tidiness and had for years known no form of animal life rougher
than a few riding horses and ponies. The farmyard showed no utilitarian sights
and gave forth no rustic smells; it had been laid over with close green turf
like a bowling green. The fields across which the windows of the house gazed
from beneath weathered red tiles had long been worked by the occupiers of other
and more earthy farmhouses. But the sheds and barns remained in good condition.

With its own well and its own power plant, the place had
plenty to recommend it—but as I looked it over I understood Coker’s wisdom in
speaking of co—operative effort. I knew nothing of farming, but I could feel
that if we had intended to stay there it would take a lot of work to feed six
of us.

The other three had been there already when Josella had
arrived. There were Dennis and Mary Brent, and Joyce Taylor. Dennis was the
owner of the house. Joyce had been there on an indefinite visit, at first to
keep Mary company and then to keep the house running when Mary’s expected baby
should be born.

On the night of the green flashes—of the comet you would say
If you were one who still believes in that comet—there had been two other
guests, Joan and Ted Danton, spending a week’s holiday there. All five of them
had gone Out into the garden to watch the display. In the morning all five
awoke to a world that was perpetually dark. First they had tried to telephone;
when they found that impossible they waited hopefully for the arrival of the
daily help. She, too, failing them, Ted had volunteered to try to find Out what
had happened. Dennis would have accompanied him but for his wife’s almost
hysterical state. Ted, therefore, had set out alone. He did not come back. At
some time late in the day, and without saying a word to anyone, Joan had
slipped off, presumably to try to find her husband. She, too, disappeared
completely.

Dennis had kept track of time by touching the hands of the
clock. By late afternoon it was impossible to sit any longer doing nothing. He
wanted to try to get down to the village. Both the women bad objected to that.
Because of Mary’s state he had yielded, and Joyce determined to try. She went
to the door and began to feel her way with a stick outstretched before her.
She was barely over the threshold when something fell with a swish across her
left hand, burning like a hot wire. She jumped back with a cry and collapsed in
the hall, where Dennis had found her. Luckily she was conscious, and able to
moan of the pain in her hand. Dennis, feeling the raised weal, had guessed it
for what it was. In spite of their blindness, ho and Mary had somehow contrived
to apply hot fomentations, she heating the kettle while he put on a tourniquet
and did his best to suck out the poison. After that they had had to carry her
up to bed, where she stayed for several days while the effect of the poison
wore off.

Meanwhile Dennis had made tests, first at the front and then
at the back of the house. With the door slightly open, he cautiously thrust out
a broom at head level. Each time there was the whistle of a sting, and he felt
the broom handle tremble slightly in his grip. At one of the garden windows
the same thing happened; the others seemed to be clear. He would have tried to
leave by one of them but for Mary’s distress. She was sure that if there were
triffids close round the house there must be others about, and would not let
him take the risk.

Luckily they had food enough to last them some time, though
it was difficult to prepare it. Also, Joyce, in spite of a high temperature,
appeared to be holding her own against the triffid poison, so that the
situation was less urgent than it might have been. Most of the next day Dennis
devoted to contriving a kind of helmet for himself. He had wire net only of
large mesh, so that he had to construct it of several layers overlapped and
tied together. It took him some time, but, equipped with this and a pair of
heavy gauntlet gloves, he was able to start Out for the village late in the
day. A triffid had struck at him before he was three paces away from the house.
He groped for it until he found it, and twisted its stem for it, A minute or
two later another sting thudded across his helmet He could not find that
triffid to grapple with it, though it made half a dozen slashes before it gave
up. He found his way to the tool shed, and thence across to the lane,
encumbered now with three large balls of gardening twine which he payed out as
he went, to guide him back.

Several times in the lane more stings whipped at him. It
took an immensely long time for him to cover the mile or so to the village, and
before he reached it his supply of twine had given out. And all the way, he
walked and stumbled through a silence so complete that it frightened him. From
time to time he would stop and call, but no one answered. More than once he was
afraid that he had lost his way, but when his feet discovered a better-laid
road surface he knew where he was and was able to confirm it by locating a
signpost. He groped his way farther on.

After a seemingly vast distance he had become, aware that
his footsteps were sounding differently: their fall had a faint echo. Making to
one side, he found a footpath and then a wall. A little farther along he
discovered a postbox let into the brickwork, and knew that he must be actually
in the village at last. He called out once more. A voice, a woman’s voice,
called back, but it was some distance ahead, and the words were indistinguishable.
He called again, and began to move toward it. Its reply was suddenly cut off by
a scream. After that there was silence again. Only then, and still half incredulously,
did he realize the village was in no better plight than his own household. He
sat down on the grassed verge of the path to think out what he should do.

By the feeling in the air he guessed that night had come. He
must have been away fully four hours—and there was nothing to do but go back.
All the same, there was no reason why he should go back empty-handed. ... With
his stick he rapped his way along the wall until it rang on one of the
tin-plate advertisements which adorned the village shop. Three times in the
last fifty or sixty yards stings had slapped on his helmet. Another struck as
he opened the gate, and he tipped over a body lying on the path. A man’s body,
quite cold.

He had the impression that there had been others in the shop
before him. Nevertheless, he found a sizable piece of bacon. He dropped it,
along with packets of butter or margarine, biscuits and sugar, into a sack and
added an assortment of cans which came from a shelf that, to the best of his
recollection, was devoted to food—the sardine cans, at any rate, were
unmistakable. Then he sought for, and found, a dozen or more balls of string,
shouldered his sack, and set off for home.

He had missed his way once, and it had been hard to keep
down panic while he retraced his steps and reorientated himself. But at last
he knew that he was again in the familiar lane. By groping right across it he
managed to locate the twine of his outward journey and join it to the string.
From there the rest of the journey back had been comparatively easy.

Twice more in the week that followed he had made the journey
to the village shop again, and each time the triffids round the house and on
the way had seemed more numerous. There had been nothing for the isolated trio
to do but wait in hope. And then, like a miracle, Josella had arrived.

It was clear at once, then, that the notion of an immediate
move to Tynsham was out. For one thing, Joyce Taylor was still in an
extremely weak state—when I looked at her I was surprised that she was alive at
all. Dennis’s promptness had saved her life, but their inability to give her
the proper restoratives or even suitable food during the following week had
slowed down her recovery. It would be folly to try to move her a long distance
in a truck for a week or two yet. And then, too, Mary’s confinement was close
enough to make the journey inadvisable for her, so that the only course seemed
to be for us all to remain where we were until these crises should have passed.
Once more it became my task to scrounge and forage. This time I had to
work on a more elaborate scale, to include not merely food, but gas for the
lighting system, hens that were laying, to cows that had recently calved (and
still survived, though their ribs were sticking out), medical necessities for
Mary, and a surprising list of sundries. The area was more beset with triffids
than any other I had yet seen. Almost every morning revealed one or two new
ones lurking close to the house, and the first task of the day was to shoot the
tops off them, until I had constructed a netting fence to keep them out of the
garden. Even then they would come right up and loiter suggestively against it
until something was done about them.
I opened some of the cases of gear and taught young Susan how to use a
triffid gun. She quite rapidly became an expert at disarming the things, as she
continued to call them. It became her department to work daily vengeance on
them. From Josella I learned what had happened to her after the fire alarm at
the University Building.
She had been shipped off with her party much as I with mine, but her manner
of dealing with the two women to whom she was attached had been summary. She
had issued a fiat ultimatum: either she became free of all restraints, in which
case she would help them as far as she was able; or, if they continued to coerce
her, there would likely come a time when they would find themselves drinking
prussic acid or eating cyanide of potassium, on her recommendation. They could
take their choice. They had chosen sensibly. There was little difference in
what we had to tell one another about the days that followed. When her group
had in the end dissolved, she had reasoned much as I had. She took a car
and went up to Hampstead to look for me. She had not encountered any survivors
from my group, or run across that led I by the quick-triggered, redheaded man.
She had kept on there until almost sunset and then decided to make for the
University Building. Not knowing what to expect, she had cautiously stopped
the car a couple of streets away and approached on foot. When she was still
some distance from the gates she heard a shot. Wondering what that might
indicate, she had taken cover in the garden that had sheltered us before. From
there she had observed Coker also making a circumspect advance. Without knowing
that I had fired at the triffid in the square, and that the sound of the shot
was the cause of Coker’s caution, she suspected some kind of trap. Determined
not to fall into one a second time, she had returned to the car. She had no
idea where the rest had gone—if they had gone at all. The only place of refuge
she could think of that would be known to anyone at all was the one she had
mentioned almost casually to me. She had decided to make for it, in the hope
that I, if I were still in existence, would remember and try to find it.

“I curled up and slept in the back of the car once I was
clear of London,” she said. “It was still quite early when I got here the next
morning. The sound of the car brought Dennis to an upstairs window, warning me
to look out for triffids. Then I saw that there were half a dozen or more of
them close around the house, for all the world as if they were waiting for someone
to come out of it. Dennis and I shouted back and forth. The triffids stirred,
and one of them began to move toward me, so I nipped back into the car for
safety. When it kept on coming, I started up the car and ran it down. But
there were still the others, and I had no kind of weapon but my knife. It was
Dennis who solved that difficulty.

“‘If you have a can of gas to spare, throw some of it their
way, and follow it up with a bit of burning rag,’ he suggested. That ought to
shift ‘em.’

“It did. Since then I’ve been using a garden syringe. The
wonder is that I’ve not set the place on fire.”

With the aid of a cookbook Josella had managed to produce
meals of a kind, and had set about putting the place more or less to rights.
Working, learning, and improvising bad kept her too busy to worry about a
future which lay beyond the next few weeks. She had seen no one else at all
during those days, but, certain that there must be others somewhere, she had
scanned the whale valley for signs of smoke by day or lights by night.