The Time Ships (51 page)

I
tripped on the unevenness of the ground several times, and would have twisted my ankles, I think, if it were not for the stiffness of my soldier’s boots.

By the time I came upon the wood, it was full night.

I surveyed that expanse of dank, black forest. The futility of my quest came to me. I remembered how it had seemed to me that a great host of Morlocks had been gathered about me: how was I to find that malevolent handful which would bear away Weena?

I considered plunging into the forest – I remembered, roughly, the way I had gone the first time – and I might come upon my earlier self, with Weena. But the folly of that procedure struck me immediately. For one thing, I had got turned about in my struggles with the Morlocks, and had finished up stumbling about the forest more or less at random. And besides, I had no protection: in the dark enclosure of the forest I should be quite vulnerable. No doubt I should make a satisfying mess of some of them, before they brought me down – but bring me down they surely would; and in any event such a battle was not my intention.

So I retreated, through a quarter-mile or so, until I came upon a hillock which overlooked the wood.

The full darkness gathered about me, and the stars emerged in their glory. As I had done once before, I
distracted myself by seeking out signs of the old constellations, but the gradual proper motion of the stars had quite distorted the familiar picture. Still, though, that planet I had noticed earlier shone down on me, as steady as a true companion.

The last time I had studied this altered sky, I remembered, I had had Weena at my side, wrapped up in my jacket for warmth, as we had rested the night while making for the Palace of Green Porcelain. I recalled my feelings then: I had reflected on the littleness of earthly life, compared to the millennial migrations of the stars, and I had been taken, briefly, by an elegiac remoteness – by a view of the grandeur of time, above the level of my earthly troubles.

But now, it seemed to me, I was done with all that. I had had enough of perspective, of Infinities and Eternities; I felt impatient and taut. I was, and always had been, no more than a man, and now I was fully immersed once more in the gritty concerns of Humanity, and only my own projects filled my consciousness.

I dropped my eyes from the remote, unfathomable stars, and down to the woods before me. And now, even as I watched, a gentle, roseate glow began to spread across the south-western horizon. I got to my feet, and did a sort of dance step, such was my sudden elation. Here was confirmation that, after all my adventures, I had finished up on the right day, of all the possible days, here in this remote century! For that glow was a fire in the forest – a fire started, with careless abandon, by
myself
.

I struggled to remember what had come next on that fateful night – the precise sequence …

The fire I had started had been a quite new and wonderful thing to Weena, and she had wanted to play with its red sheets and flickers; I had been forced to restrain her from
throwing herself into that liquid light. Then I picked her up – she had struggled – and I had plunged on into that wood, with the light of my fire illuminating my path
.

Soon we had left the glow of those flames, and were proceeding in blackness, broken only by patches of deep blue sky beyond the trees’ stems. It had not been long, in all that oily darkness, before I had heard the pattering of narrow feet, the soft cooing of voices, all around me; I remembered a tug of my coat, and then at my sleeve
.

I had put Weena down so that I could find my matches, and there was a struggle about my knees, as those Morlocks, like persistent insects, had fallen on her poor body. I got a match lit – when its head flared I had seen a row of white Morlock faces, illuminated as if by a flash lamp, all turned up towards me with their red-grey eyes – and then, in a second, they had fled
.

I had determined to build a new fire and wait for the morning. I had lit camphor and cast it on the ground. I had dragged down dry branches from the trees above, and built a choking fire of green wood …

I raised myself, now, onto the tips of my toes, and cast about over the forest. You must imagine me in all that inky darkness, under a sky without a moon, and the only illumination coming from that spreading fire on the far side of the forest.

There
– I had it! – a thread of smoke that curled up into the air, forming a sort of narrow silhouette against the greater blaze behind it. That must be the site at which I had decided to make my stand. It was some distance from me – perhaps two miles to the east, and in the depths of the wood – and, without allowing myself further contemplation, I plunged into the forest.

For some distance I heard nothing but the cracking of twigs under my feet, and a remote, slumberous roar that must have been the voice of the greater fire. The darkness was broken only by the remote
glow of the fire, and by patches of deep blue sky overhead; and I could see the boles and roots about me only by silhouette, and I stumbled several times. Then I heard a pattering around me, as soft as rainfall, and I caught that queer, gurgling sound that is the voice of the Morlock. I felt a tug at my shirt-sleeve, a soft pull at my belt, fingers at my neck.

I swung my arms about. I connected with flesh and bone, and my assailants fell back; but I knew my reprieve should not be for long. And, sure enough, within a few seconds that pattering closed up around me again, and I was forced to push on through a sort of hail of touches, of cold pawing and bold, sharp nips, of huge red eyes all around me.

It was a return to my deepest nightmare, to that horrible dark I have dreaded all my life! – But I persisted, and they did not attack me – not outright, at any rate. Already I detected a certain agitation about them – the Morlocks ran about with increasing rapidity – as the glow of that remote blaze grew brighter.

And then, of a sudden, there was a new scent on the air: it was faint, nearly overpowered by the smoke …

It was camphor vapour
.

I could be only yards from the place the Morlocks had fallen on me and Weena as we slept – the place where I had fought, and Weena had been lost!

I came upon a great host of Morlocks – a density of them, just visible through the next line of trees. They swarmed over each other like maggots, eager to join the fray or the feast, in a mass such as I did not remember seeing before. I saw a man struggling to rise in their midst. He was obscured by a great weight of Morlocks, and they caught at his neck, hair and arms, and down he went. But then I saw an arm emerge from the mêlée holding an iron bar – it had
been torn from a machine in the Palace of Green Porcelain, I remembered – and he laid about the Morlocks with a vigour. They fell away from him, briefly, and soon he had backed himself up against a tree. His hair stuck out from all around his broad scalp, and he wore, on his feet, only torn and bloodstained socks. The Morlocks, frenetic, came at him again, and he swung his iron bar, and I heard the soft, pulpy crushing of Morlock faces.

For a moment I thought of falling in with him; but I knew it was unnecessary. He would survive, to stumble out of this forest – alone, grieving for Weena – and recover his Time Machine from the plotting of the wily Morlocks. I remained in the shadows of the trees, and I am convinced he did not see me …

But Weena was already gone from here
, I realized: by this point in the conflict, I had already lost her to the Morlocks!

I whirled about in desperation. Again I had allowed my concentration to lapse. Had I already failed? – had I lost her again?

By this time the panic among the Morlocks at the fire had taken a strong hold, and they fled in a stream away from the blaze, their hunched, hairy backs stained red. Then I saw a leash of Morlocks, four of them, stumbling through the trees, away from the direction of the fire. They were carrying something, I saw now: something still, pale, limp, with a hint of white and gold …

I roared, and I crashed forward through the undergrowth. The Morlocks’ four heads snapped about until their huge, red-grey eyes were fixed on me; and then, my fists raised, I fell on them.

It was not much of a fight. The Morlocks dropped their precious bundle; they faced me, but they were distracted all the time by the growing glow behind them. One little brute got his teeth locked into my
wrist, but I pounded at his face, feeling the grinding of bone, and in a few seconds he released me; and the four of them fled.

I bent and scooped up Weena from the ground – the poor mite was as light as a doll – and my heart could have broken at her condition. Her dress was torn and stained, her face and golden hair were smudged with soot and smoke, and I thought she had suffered a burn down one side of her cheek. I noticed, too, the small, pinprick imprints of Morlock teeth in the soft flesh of her neck and upper arms.

She was quite insensible, and I could not tell if she was breathing; I thought she might already be dead.

With Weena cradled in my arms, I ran through the forest.

In the smoky darkness, my vision was obscured; there was the fire which provided a yellow and red glow, but it turned the forest into a place of shadows, shifting and deceiving of the eye. Several times I blundered into trees, or tripped over some hummock; and I am afraid poor Weena got quite thrown about in the course of it.

We were in the midst of a stream of Morlocks, all fleeing the blaze with as much vigour as myself. Their hairy backs shone red in the flames, and their eyes were discs of palpable pain. They stumbled about the forest, clattering into trees and striking at each other with little fists; or else they crawled across the floor, moaning, seeking some illusory relief from the heat and light. When they collided with me, I punched and kicked at them to keep them off; but it was clear enough that, blinded as they were, they could offer me no threat, and after a time I found it was sufficient simply to push them away.

Now that I had grown used to the quiet dignity of
Nebogipfel, the bestial nature of these primal Morlocks, with their slack jaws, filthy and tangled hair, and hunched posture – some of them ran with their hands trailing on the ground – was distressing in the extreme.

We came on the edge of the forest abruptly. I stumbled out of the last line of trees, and found myself staggering across a meadow.

I hauled in great breaths of air, and turned to look back at the blazing wood. Smoke billowed up, forming a column which reached over the sky, obscuring the stars; and I saw, from the heart of the forest, huge flames – hundreds of feet tall – which stretched up like buildings. Morlocks continued to flee from the blaze, but in decreasing numbers; and those which emerged from the wood were dishevelled and wounded.

I turned, and walked on through long, wiry grass. At first the heat was strong on my back; but after perhaps a mile it had diminished, and the fire’s crimson glare faded to a mere glow. We saw no more Morlocks after that.

I crossed over a hill, and in the valley beyond I came to a place I had visited before. There were acacias here, and a number of sleeping-houses, and a statue – incomplete and broken – which had reminded me of a Faun. I walked down the slope of this valley, and, cradled in its crook, I found a little river I remembered. Its surface, turbulent and broken, reflected the star-light. I settled beside the bank and laid Weena carefully on the ground. The water was cold and fast-running. I tore a strip off my shirt and dabbed it in the water; with this I bathed Weena’s poor face, and trickled a little of the water into her mouth.

Thus, with Weena’s head cradled in my lap, I sat out the rest of that Dark Night.

In the morning I saw him emerge from the burnt forest in a pitiable state. His face was ghastly pale, and he had half-healed cuts on his face, a coat that was dusty and dirty, and a limp worse than a footsore tramp’s with only scorched grass bound up around his bloody feet. I felt a twinge of compassion – or perhaps of embarrassment – to see his wretchedness: had this really been
me
, I wondered? – had I presented such a spectacle to my friends, on my return, after that first adventure?

Again I had an impulse to offer help; but I knew that no assistance was necessary. My earlier self would sleep off his exhaustion through the brightness of the day, and then, as evening approached, he would return to the White Sphinx to retrieve his Time Machine.

Finally – after one last struggle against the Morlocks – he would be gone, in a whirl of attenuation.

So I stayed with Weena by the river, and nursed her while the sun climbed in the sky, and prayed that she might awaken.