The Penal Colony (26 page)

“Letter for Mr Fitzmaurice,” Stamper said.
“And two for Mr Godwin.”

“Any for me?”

“Yes, Mr Routledge. Just the one.”

Routledge saw instantly that this was a
letter from his mother. The envelope was slim, unbulky, enclosing
only one or two sheets of paper. “Just this?”

“Just that.”

“Could you check?”

“It’s all in alphabetical order. Look.
Redfern. Sibley. Nothing else for you.”

Doing his best to conceal his bewilderment,
Routledge said, “That parcel for Mr Gunter. There’s something in it
for us.”

“I know. As soon as he’s had a chance to open
it I’ll be over.”

“Was there a parcel for Mr Ross?”

“Not today.”

“Right. Thanks.”

When he got back he found Fitzmaurice making
the tea. Even in this minor ritual Routledge felt himself excluded
from the life of the workshop. Fitzmaurice guarded the ceremony as
his own childish preserve: boiling the water, producing a tea-bag,
new or secondhand, according to the state of the workshop supply,
straining the milk if necessary to exclude coagulated cream, timing
the infusion, pouring the finished brew. Routledge, as if to
emphasize the temporary nature of his position, was always served
first. After the failure of a couple of uneasy attempts to sit at
or lean on the workbench during breaks, he now always retreated to
the safety of his desk.

The letter from his mother said nothing about
Louise, and contained only general news, some of it effaced by the
censor’s solid blocks of impenetrable black, all of it utterly
irrelevant. She still hadn’t understood. He would not be coming
back. In all but the strictly biological sense, her son had died.
Sert was merely an ante-room for the great black hole. She said she
hoped he was keeping well. Hard though it was, she said, not
knowing the first thing about it, she hoped he was coming to terms
with his fate. She hoped he was not bitter. She prayed for him
daily.

As he read, he framed the reply he wanted to
send but knew he never would. It angered him to think that still,
even now, he had to hold back, to spare her feelings. He had never
told her just what he thought of the value of prayer and all the
rest of the self-deluding mumbo jumbo with which otherwise rational
people tried to humanize the cosmos. Man had created God in his own
image, not the other way around. He had done it through sheer
terror, and who could blame him? Unfortunately he had made too good
a job. The god he had invented was just as cruel and careless as
man himself. Not a deity to whom one should seriously address a
prayer.

It was exactly then, perhaps, at that very
moment, that Routledge felt his first misgivings. Maybe there had
been an administrative hitch, he told himself. Yes, without doubt:
Louise’s letters were stuck at Dartmoor, or had been delivered to
some other Routledge on some other island. There could be no other
explanation. Next week, or the week after, the backlog would
come.

At the sound of the latch Routledge turned
his head. The door opened and Franks entered.

“Some tea, Father?” Godwin said, once Franks
had told everyone to resume his seat.

“Thank you, yes.”

Franks took off his spectacles, placed them
on the bench, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. For a moment he
seemed pained; his eyes appeared small and weak, making him look
vulnerable, but then, with a practised movement, the rimless lenses
were again set between him and the outside world. His V-necked
sweater, pale grey, was new, as were his corduroy trousers and a
pure white shirt. On his wrist Routledge glimpsed a flash of Rolex.
“I’ll get straight to the point,” he said, glancing at Routledge as
if to indicate that he could now be considered privy to any and all
secrets of the project. “I’ve just had word from Courtmacsherry.
It’s got to be next year or never. Mr Thaine is ready to proceed,
but says it’ll be tight.” He accepted the mug of tea from
Fitzmaurice. “I must tell him today. Yes or no.”

“This is too sudden. There’s still too much
to be done.”

For want of materials, Godwin had reluctantly
opted for magnetostrictive rather than piezoelectric transducers,
and had heavily modified four radio loudspeakers for the purpose.
The transmitting and receiving amplifiers had been built and
tested, the clock circuitry almost finished, the design of the
pulsing unit finalized. They were now wiring the gating unit.

“Yes or no, Mr Godwin.”

“You’re asking me to risk twelve lives,
including my own.”

“And mine. If we go.”

“But we can’t make the announcement and then
hold back.”

“True.”

“So we’ll be going whatever?”

“All else being equal. Next May. Provided we
have the sonar.”

“May?” Godwin said in alarm. “But the
temperature differential will be dangerously high.”

“High, but not unmanageable. Mr Thaine says
he can step up the flow-rate.”

Godwin let out a sigh, and then an oath, a
plea to the Almighty, his forehead in his hand.

“Yes or no.”

“All right. Yes. I’m mad, but let’s say it.
Yes.”

At ten past seven Routledge set out for the
metalwork shop, where he was due to report to Thaine to do some
stress calculations. The cloud had not lifted all day; the moaning
in the larches had intensified to an ominously rising howl. Dusk
was coming early, and on Thaine’s bench an oil lamp was already
burning. But the forge was cold and dead, and when Routledge
arrived he found only Chapman, drilling holes in a small steel
plate.

“He had to go over the Father’s,” Chapman
said. “That’s where you’ll find him.”

Talbot was again on duty at the veranda. As
always, he remained firmly seated at Routledge’s approach.

“I’ve come to see Mr Thaine. Mr Chapman said
he was here.”

“Not any more he ain’t. He left about half an
hour ago.”

“Do you know where he went?”

“Try the windmill. Or the carpentry
shop.”

“Did he say anything about leaving some
figures for me?”

“No.”

Routledge considered asking Talbot to find
out whether Stamper or Appleton, or Franks himself, might know; but
decided against it. He would check the places Talbot had suggested.
If that failed, he could with an easy conscience return to his
house and begin getting it in order, since his stint for Godwin
today was now over.

“Better take a waterproof,” Talbot called
after him. “Shipping forecast says we’re in for a big one.”

Routledge waved an acknowledgement without
looking round. If he had to go out to the windmill he would indeed
take his PVC jacket, but the carpentry shop was nearer. It stood on
the far side of the precinct, next to the woodyard. No lights were
showing: the place seemed deserted. The outer door was shut.
Nevertheless, Routledge opened it and looked inside.

The two benches made areas of paler gloom. On
one of them stood an unfinished frame, perhaps for a cabinet; the
other was clear. Work had not long ceased, for the smell of fresh
shavings and glue still hung in the air. The floor had been swept
and all the tools put away.

Routledge was about to leave when, above the
wind, he thought he heard a noise from the storeroom at the back.
Someone was in there. Puzzled at first, and then increasingly
disturbed, he listened more closely. Not just someone: two people.
Two males. There could be no mistaking that bestial rhythm. Every
night, in the cell at Exeter he had shared, he had been made to
listen and learn from a distance of no more than two metres.

No recognizable words were being uttered, but
from the timbre of one of the voices he suspected that its owner
was Ojukwo. Of course: Ojukwo worked in the carpentry shop. Where
else would he and Carter hold their assignations? After hours the
chances of detection were slight – slight enough to be disregarded
by men whose urges could no longer be denied.

The rhythm abruptly ceased.

Routledge heard a gasp, the exchange of
murmurs. Ojukwo and Carter, for sure. Surprisingly, it seemed, as
the Exeter argot would put it, Ojukwo and not Carter was the bitch.
In a minute or two they might emerge. He had to decide what to do.
The impulse to confront them could prove dangerous. They might kill
him rather than face ejection from the Village.

What they were doing to each other was not
only sordid and depraved but also, given the medical risks,
antisocial in the extreme. His first thought was to earn himself
credit with Franks by reporting them. Then he remembered that
Ojukwo had acted fairly towards him at all times: and so had
Carter. Ojukwo had been on Sert for five years, Carter for slightly
less. Was Routledge so sure of his own sexuality that he could not
find it in him to understand their desperation? Men varied in the
strength of their sexual drive. Some, like himself, could deal with
abstinence, for ever if need be. Others were not so fortunate. Once
temptation had summoned, once their desires had glimpsed the
possibility of escape, all will was lost, all normal considerations
were left behind. On the blind path downwards no shame or
humiliation was too great to risk. Thus had it been with those two
at Exeter.

However, the facts of the matter were clear.
They were breaking the rules of the Community. It was his duty to
report them. If thereby he gained credit with the hierarchy, that
would be no less than his due.

The noises from the storeroom indicated that
only a few moments of safety remained. He would leave at once,
defer reaching a decision on how to handle the situation; but at
any rate he wanted them to know they had been overheard. In this
wind, merely leaving the door open would not be enough. From the
nearer bench he silently took down the cabinet frame and used it to
wedge the door open at its furthest extent, and then, as the rain
began, hurried out of the workshop and across the precinct.

* * *

He found Thaine at the windmill. There had
been a mix-up. Stamper had forgotten to tell Talbot about the
calculations Thaine had left for Routledge to collect.

“They’re to do with the building moulds,”
Thaine said. He was crouching, working by torchlight, in the final
stages of some repair or adjustment to the rotor shaft. “We want to
know whether the axles will take the weight. After all, she’ll be
virtually full of water.” He glanced round, spanner in hand. “When
I give the word, climb up and stick that rod in the lock, will
you?”

“In there?”

“That’s it. All right. Now.”

With difficulty Routledge pushed the
pencil-thick steel pin into place, locking the rotor to the frame
and preventing it from turning. He saw that Thaine was now checking
and tightening the bolts of the framework itself. The precautions
were not coming a minute too soon. Heavy rain was already falling,
and the wind had strengthened even in the short time since
Routledge had left the Village. Darkness had taken the sky in the
east. To the west, over the sea, louring cloud still retained
traces of daylight. Routledge jumped down. “Mr Talbot said a storm
was coming.”

“The first of the autumn,” Thaine said.
“‘Force eight, veering northerly, increasing storm force ten or
violent storm force eleven, imminent.’ Force eleven is about a
hundred kilometres an hour. It could gust to twice as much, maybe
more. We don’t want to burn out the generator, or lose the mill
entirely.” Thaine, wiping his nose with the back of his hand,
finally stood up. “OK, Mr Routledge, that’ll do it,” he said. “By
the way, I meant to ask you. Do you know anything about
sailing?”

This was a question which, for reasons which
were obvious now, Appleton had not posed during the interviews.

“It depends what you mean. I did a bit of
dinghy sailing at school. On the local gravel pits. Never on the
sea. I remember capsizing a lot.”

“What did you sail?”

“Enterprises, mainly. 5-0-5s. That kind of
thing.”

Thaine made a meaningless sound. Routledge
took it to indicate that Thaine, as a representative of the
Council, already knew all there was to know about seamanship and
had asked merely on the off-chance, not expecting even the reply he
had received. Routledge wondered whether he would tell Thaine about
Ojukwo and Carter; and was almost on the point of deciding that he
should when Thaine said, “We’re starting on the hull tomorrow.
We’ll have lots of sums from now on. And measurements to be checked
on plans, on timber, and on the finished pieces. I’ve asked the
Father if I can use you a bit more. You’d be amenable to that,
would you?”

“Certainly. Anything I can do to help.”

“Thanks. It’s appreciated.” He gestured at
the hut. “Since you’re here, could you give me a hand with the
tarp?”

Wired to the framework and pegged into the
ground with iron stakes, the tarpaulin was used as an aerodynamic
foil to deflect the worst of the buffets. The wind had already
reached the point where the job was made awkward. Three men, not
two, were really needed. The rain was becoming heavier. Routledge
was glad of Talbot’s advice about the waterproof, but Thaine, in
his leather jacket and jeans, seemed indifferent to the wet.

As they fixed the first wire a tremendous
gust took them unawares and tried to wrest the tarpaulin away.
Thaine yelled with pain. The wire had snapped and gashed his hand.
He lost his grip.

The tarpaulin, flapping wildly and suddenly
filled with its own huge, mysterious, and autonomous power, was
like a broad blue monster unexpectedly come to life. It wanted to
head inland, across the scrub and over the potato fields. Routledge
was nothing, a trifle, an afterthought. It began pulling him along.
He lost his balance, fell, and found himself being dragged through
the prickles of the low gorse bushes which bordered the fields
here.

“Let go of it!” Thaine shouted. “Quick!”