Wyndham, John (24 page)

I thought of Coker and his talk of the leader, the teacher,
and the doctor—and of all the work that would be needed to support us on our
few acres. Of how it would affect each of us if we had been imprisoned here. Of
the three blind ones, still feeling useless and frustrated as they grew older.
Of Susan, who should have the chance of a husband and babies. Of David, and
Mary’s little girl, and any other children there might be who would have to
become laborers as soon as they were strong enough. Of Josella and myself
having to work still harder as we became older, because there would be more to
feed and more work that must be done by hand....

Then there were the triffids patiently waiting. I could see
hundreds of them in a dark green hedge beyond the fence. There must be
research—some natural enemy, some poison, a debalancer of some kind, something
must be found to deal with them; there must be relief from other work for
that—and soon. Time was on the triffids’ side. They had only to go on waiting
while we used up our resources. First no more fuel, then no more wire to mend
the fences.... And they, or their descendants, would still be waiting there when
the wire rusted through.........

And yet Shirning had become our home. I sighed.

There was a light step on the grass. Josella came and sat
down beside me. I put an arm round her shoulders.

“What do they think about it?” I asked her.

“They ‘re badly upset, poor things. It must be hard for them
to understand how the triffids wait like that when they can’t see them. And
then they can find their way about here, you see. It must. be dreadful to have
to contemplate going to an entirely strange place when you’re blind. They only
know what we tell them. I don’t think they properly understand how impossible
it will become here. If it weren’t for the children, I believe they’d say ‘No,’
flatly. It’s their place, you see, all they have left. They feel that very much.”
She paused, then she added: “They think that—but, of course, it’s not really
their place at all; it’s ours, isn’t it? We’ve worked hard for it” She put her
hand on mine. “You’ve made it and kept it for us, Bill. What do you think?
Shall we stay a year or two longer?”

“No,” I said. “I worked because everything seemed to depend
on inc. Now it seems—rather futile.”

“Oh, darling, don’t! A knight-errant isn’t futile. You’ve
fought for all of us, and kept the dragons away.”

“It’s mostly the children,” I said. “Yes—the children,” she
agreed.

“And all the time, you know, I’ve been haunted by Coker

—the first generation, laborers; the next, savages I think
we had better admit defeat before it comes, and go now.”

She pressed my hand.

“Not defeat, am dear, just a—what’s the phrase?—a strategic
withdrawal. We withdraw to work and plan for the day when we can come back. One
day we will. You’ll show us how to wipe out every one of these foul triffids
and get our land back from them for us.”

“You’ve a lot of faith, darling.” “And why not?” ‘Well, at
least I’ll be fighting them. But first, we go—when?’ “DO you think we could let
them have the summer out here? It could be a sort of holiday for all of us—with
no preparations to make for the winter. We deserve a holiday, too.”

“I should think we could do that,” I agreed. We sat,
watching the valley dissolve in the dusk. Josella said:

“It’s queer, Bill. Now I can go, I don’t really want to.
Sometimes it’s seemed like prison—but now it seems like treachery to leave it.
You see, I—I’ve been happier here than ever in my life before, in spite of
everything.”

“As for me, my sweet, I wasn’t even alive before. But we’ll
have better times yet—I promise you.”

“It’s silly, but I shall cry when we do go. I shall cry
buckets. You mustn’t mind,” she said.

But, as things fell out, we were all of us much too busy to cry....

There was, as Josella bad implied, no need for hurry. While
we saw the summer out at Sliming, I could prospect a new borne for us on the island
and make several journeys there to transport the most useful part of the stores
and gear that we had collected. But, meanwhile, the woodpile had been
destroyed. We needed no more fuel than would keep the kitchen going for a few
weeks, but that we had to have, so the next morning Susan and I set off to
fetch coal.

The half-tack wasn’t suitable for that job, so we took a
four-wheel-drive tuck. Although the nearest rail coal depot was only ten miles
away, the roundabout route, due to the blockage of some roads and the bad
condition of others, meant that it took us nearly the whole day. There were no
major mishaps, but it was drawing on to evening when we returned.

As we turned the last corner of the lane, with the triffids
sla8hing at the truck as indefatigably as ever from the banks, we stared in
astonishment. Beyond our gate, parked in our yard, stood a monstrous-looking
vehicle. The sight so dumfounded us that we sat gaping at it for same moments
before Susan put on her helmet and gloves and climbed down to open the gate.

After I had driven in we went over together to look at the
vehicle. The chassis, we saw, was supported an metal tracks, which suggested a
military origin. The general effect was somewhere ‘between a cabin cruiser and
an amateur-built caravan. Susan and I looked at it, and then looked at one
another, with raised eyebrows. We went indoors to learn more about it.

In the living room we found, in addition to the household,
four men clad in gray-green ski suits. Two of them wore pistols holstered to
the right hip; the other two had parked their submachine guns on the floor
beside their chairs.

As we came in, Josella turned a completely expressionless
face toward us.

“Here is my husband. Bill, this is Mr. Torrence. He tells us
he is an official of some kind. He has proposals to make to us.” I had never
heard her voice colder.

For a second I failed to respond. The man she indicated did
not recognize me, but I recalled him, all right. Features that have faced you
along sights get sort of set in your mind. Besides, there was that distinctive
red hair. I remembered very well the way that efficient young man had turned
hack my party in Hampstead. I nodded to him. Looking at me, he said:

“I understand you are in charge here, Mr. Masen?”

“The place belongs to Mr. Brent,” I replied.

“I mean that you are the organizer of this group?’

“In the circumstances, yes,” I said.

“Good.” He had a now-we-are-going-to-get-someplace air. “I
am Commander, Southeast Region,” he added.

He spoke as if that should convey something important to me.
It did not. I said so.

“It means,” he amplified, “that I am the chief executive
officer of the Emergency Council for the Southeastern Region of Britain. As
such, it happens to be one of my duties to supervise the distribution and
allocation of personnel.”

“Indeed,” I said. “I have never heard of this—er——Council.”

“Possibly. We were equally ignorant of the existence of your
group here until we saw your fire yesterday.”

I waited for him to go on.

“When such a group is discovered,” he said, “it is my job to
investigate it, and assess it, and make the necessary adjustments. So you may
take it that I am here officially.”

“On behalf of an official Council? Or does it happen to be a
self-elected Council?”

‘There has to be law and order,” he said stiffly. Then, with
a change of tone, he went on:

‘This is a well-found place you have here, Mr. Masen.”

“Mr. Brent has,” I corrected.

“We will leave Mr. Brent out. He is here only because you
made it possible for him to stay here.”

I looked across at Dennis. His face was set.

“Nevertheless, it is his property,” I said.

“It was, I understand. But, the state of society which gave
sanction to his ownership no longer exists. Titles to property have therefore
ceased to be valid. Furthermore, Mr. Brent is not sighted, so that he cannot in
any case be considered competent to hold authority.”

“Indeed!” I said again.

I had had a distaste for this young man and his decisive
ways at our first meeting. Further acquaintance was doing nothing to mellow it.
He went on:

“This is a matter of survival. Sentiment cannot be allowed
to interfere with the necessary practical measures. Now, Mrs. Masen has told me
that you number eight altogether, Five adults, this girl, and two small children.
All of you are sighted, except these three.” He indicated Dennis, Mary, and
Joyce.

‘That is so,” I admitted.

“H’m. That’s quite disproportionate, you know. There’ll have
to be some changes here, I’m afraid. We have to be realistic in times like this.”

Josella’s eye caught mine. LI saw a warning in it. But in
any case, I had no intention of breaking out just then. I had seen the
redheaded man’s direct methods in action, and I wanted to know more of what I
was up against. Apparently he realized that I would.

“I’d better put you in the picture,” he said. “Briefly, it
is this. Regional H. Q. is at Brighton. London soon became too bad for us. But
in Brighton we were able to clear and quarantine a part of the town, and we
ran it. Brighton’s a big place. When the sickness had passed and we could get
around more, there were plenty of stores to begin with. More recently we have
been running in convoys from other places. But that’s folding up now. The roads
are getting too bad for trucks, and they are having to go too far. It had to
come, of course. We’d figured that we could last out there several years
longer—still, there it is. It’s possible we undertook to look after too many
from the start. Anyway, we are now having to disperse. The only way to keep going
will be to live off the land. To do that, we’ve got to break up into smaller
units. The standard unit has been fixed at one sighted person to ten blind,
plus any children.

“You have a good place here, fully capable of supporting two
units. We shall allocate to you seventeen blind persons, making twenty with the
three already here—again, of course, plus any children they may have.”

I stared at him in amazement.

“You’re seriously suggesting that twenty people and their
children can live off this land,” I said. “Why’ it’s utterly impossible. We’ve
been wondering whether we shall be able to support ourselves on it.”

He shook his head confidently.

“It is perfectly possible. And what I am offering you is the
command of the double unit we shall install here. Frankly, if you do not care
to take it, we shall put in someone else who will. We can’t afford waste in
these times.”

“But just look at the place,” I repeated. “It simply can’t
do it.”

“I assure you that it can, Mr. Masen. Of course you’ll have
to lower your standards a bit—we all shall, for the next few years, but when
the children grow up you’ll begin to have labor to expand with. For six or
seven years it’s going to mean personal hard work for you, I admit—that can’t
be helped. From then on, however, you’ll gradually be able to relax until you
are simply supervising. Surely that’s going to make a good return for just a
few years of the tougher going?

“Placed as you are now, what sort of future would you have?
Nothing but hard work until you died in your tracks— and your children would be
faced with working in the same way, just to keep going, not more than that.
Where are the future leaders and administrators to come from in that kind of
setup? Your way, you’d be worn out and still in harness in another twenty
years—and all your children would be yokels. Our way, you’ll be the head of a
clan that’s working for you, and you’ll have an inheritance to hand on to your
sons.”

Comprehension began to come to me. I said wonderingly:

“Am I to understand that you are offering me a kind of-feudal
seigneury?”

“Ah,” he said. “I see you do begin to understand. It is, of
course, the obvious and quite natural social and economic form for that state
of things we are having to face now.”

There was no doubt whatever that the man was putting this
forward as a perfectly serious plan. I evaded a comment on it by repeating
myself:

“But the place just can’t support that many.”

“For a few years, undoubtedly, you’ll have to feed them
mostly on mashed triffids—there won’t be any shortage of that raw material by
the look of it.”

“Cattle food!” I said.

“But sustaining—rich in the important vitamins, I’m told.
And beggars—particularly blind beggars—can’t be choosers.”

“You’re seriously suggesting that I should take on all these
people and keep them on cattle fodder?”

“Listen, Mr. Masen. If it were not for us, none of these
blind people would be alive at all now—nor would their children. It’s up to
them to do what we tell them, take what we give them, and be thankful for
whatever they get. If they like to refuse what we offer—well, that’s their own
funeral.”

I decided it would be unwise to say what I felt about such a
philosophy at the moment. I turned to another angle:

“I don’t see— Tell me, just where do you and your Council
stand in all this?”

“Supreme authority and legislative power is vested in the
Council. It will rule. It will also control the armed forces.”

“Aimed forces!” I repeated blankly.

“Certainly. The forces will be raised, as and when necessary,
by levies on what you called the seigneuries. In return, you will have the
right to call on the Council in cases of attack from outside or unrest
within.”

I was beginning to feel a bit winded.

“An army! Surely a small mobile squad of police—”

“I see you haven’t grasped the wider aspect of the
situation, Mr. Masen. This affliction we have had was not confined to these
islands, you know. It was world-wide. Everywhere there is the same sort of
chaos—that must be so, or we should have heard differently by now—and in every
country there are probably a few survivors. Now it stands to reason, doesn’t
it, that the first country to get on its feet again and put itself in order is
also going to be the country to have the chance of bringing order elsewhere? Do
you suggest that we should leave it for some other country to do this, and so
make itself the new dominant power in Europe—and possibly farther afield?
Obviously not. Clearly, it is our national duty
to
get ourselves back on
our feet as soon as possible and assume the dominant status, so that we can
prevent dangerous opposition from organizing against us. Therefore, the sooner
we can raise a force adequate to discourage any likely aggressors, the better.”

For some moments silence lay on the room. Then Dennis
laughed unnaturally:

“Great God almighty! We’ve lived through all this-—and now
the man proposes to start a wan”

Torrence said shortly:

“I don’t seem to have made myself clear. The word ‘war’ is
an unjustifiable exaggeration. It will be simply a matter of pacifying and
administering tribes that have reverted to primitive lawlessness.”

“Unless, of course, the same benevolent idea happens to have
occurred to them,” Dennis suggested.

I became aware that both Josella and Susan were looking at
me very hard. Josella pointed at Susan, and I perceived the reason.

“Let me get this straight,” I said. “You expect the three of
us who can see to be entirely responsible for twenty blind adults and an
unspecified number of children. It seems to me—”

“Blind people aren’t quite incapable. They can do a lot, including
caring for their own children in general and helping to prepare their own food.
Properly arranged, a great deal can be reduced to supervision and direction.
But it will be two of you, Mr. Masen—yourself and your wife—not three.”

I looked at Susan, sitting up very straight in her blue overalls,
with a red ribbon in her hair. There was an anxious appeal in her eyes as she
looked from me to Josella.

“Three,” I said.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Masen. The allocation is ten per unit. The
girl can come to H.Q. We can find useful work for her there until she is old
enough to take charge of a unit herself.”

“My wife and I regard Susan as our own daughter,” I told him
shortly.

“I repeat, I am sorry. But those are the regulations.”

I regarded him for some moments. He looked steadily back at
me. At last:

“We should, of course, require guarantees and undertakings
regarding her, if this bad to happen,” I said.

I was aware of several quickly drawn breaths. Torrence’s
manner relaxed slightly.

“Naturally we shall give you all practicable assurances,” he
said.

I nodded. “I must have time to think it all over. It’s quite
new to me, and rather startling. Some points come to my mind at once. Equipment
here is wearing out. It is difficult to find more that has not deteriorated. I
can see that before long I am going to need good strong working horses.”

“Horses are difficult. There’s very little stock at present.
You’ll probably have to use man-power teams for a time.”

“Then,” I said, “there’s accommodations. The outbuildings
are too small for our needs now—and I can’t put up even prefabricated quarters
single handed.”

“There we shall be able to help you, I think.”

We went on discussing details for twenty minutes or more. By
the end of it I had him showing something like affability; then I got rid of
him by sending him off on a tour of the place, with Susan as his sulky guide.

“Bill, what on earth—” Josella began as the door closed
behind him and his companions.

I told her what I knew of Torrence and his method of dealing
with trouble by shooting it early.

“That doesn’t surprise me at all,” remarked Dennis. “You
know, what is surprising me is that I’m suddenly feeling quite kindly toward
the triffids. Without their intervention, I suppose there would have been a
whole lot more of this kind of thing by now. If they are the one factor that
can stop serfdom coming back, then good luck to ‘em.”