Wyndham, John (25 page)

“The whole thing’s clearly preposterous,” I said. “It
doesn’t have a chance. How could Josella and I look after a crowd like that and
keep the triffids out? But,” I added, “we’re scarcely in a position to give a
fiat ‘No’ to a proposition put up by four armed men.”

“Then you’re not—”

“Darling,” I said, “do you really see me in the position of
a seigneur, driving my serfs and villeins before me with a whip—even if the
triffids haven’t overrun me first?”

“But you said

“Listen,” I said. “It’s getting dark. Too late for them to
leave now. They’ll have to stay the night. I imagine that tomorrow the idea
will be to take Susan away with them—she’d make quite a good hostage for our
behavior, you see. And they might leave one or two of their men to keep an eye
on us
.
Well, I don’t think we’re taking that, are we?”

“No, but—”

“Well, I hope I’ve convinced him now that I’m coming round
to his idea. Tonight we’ll have the sort of supper that might be taken to imply
accord. Make it a good one. Everybody’s to eat plenty. Give the kids plenty
too. Lay on our best drinks. See that Torrence and his chaps have plenty of
that. but the rest of us go very easy. Toward the end of the meal I shall
disappear for a bit. You keep the party going, to cover up. Play rowdy records
at them, or something. And everybody help to whoop it up. Another thing—nobody
is to mention Michael Beadley and his lot. Torrence must know about the Isle of
Wight setup, but he doesn’t think we do. Now, what I’ll be wanting is a sack of
sugar.”

“Sugar?” said Josella blankly.

“No? Well, a big can of honey, then. I should think that
would do as well.”

Everyone behaved very creditably at supper. The party not
only thawed, it actually began to warm up. Josella brought out some of her own
potent mead to supplement the more orthodox drinks, and it went down well. The
visitors were in a state of happily comfortable relaxation when I made my unobtrusive
exit.

I caught up a bundle of blankets and clothes and a parcel of
food that I had laid ready, and hurried with them across the yard to the shed
where we kept the half-track. With a hose from the tanker which held our main
gas supply I filled the half-track’s tanks to overflowing. Then I turned my
attention to Torrence’s strange vehicle. By the light of a hand-dynamo torch I
managed to locate the filler cap and poured a quart or more of honey into the
tank.

The rest of the large can of honey I disposed of into the
tanker itself.

I could hear the party singing and, seemingly, still going
well. After I had added some anti-triffids gear and miscellaneous
afterthoughts to the stuff already in the half-track, I went back and joined
the party until it finally broke up in an atmosphere which even a close
observer might have mistaken for almost maudlin good will.

We gave them two hours to get well asleep.

The moon had risen, and the yard was bathed in white light.
I had forgotten to oil the shed doors, and gave them a curse for every creak.
The rest came in procession toward me. The Brents and Joyce were familiar
enough with the place not to need a guiding hand. Behind them followed Josella
and Susan, carrying the children. David’s sleepy voice rose once, and was
stopped quickly by Josella’s hand over his mouth. She got into the front, still
holding him. I saw the others into the back, and closed it.

Then I climbed into the driving seat, kissed Josella, and
took a deep breath.

Across the yard, the triffids were clustering closer to the
gate, as they always did when they had been undisturbed for some hours.

By the grace of heaven the half-track’s engine started at
once. I slammed into low gear, swerved to avoid Torrence’s vehicle, and drove straight
at the gate. The heavy fender took it with a crash. We plunged forward in a
festoon of wire netting and broken timbers, knocking down a dozen triffids
while the rest slashed furiously at us as we passed. Then we were on our way.

Where a turn in the climbing track let us look down on
Shirning, we paused, and cut the engine. Lights were on behind some of the
windows, and as we watched, those on the vehicle blazed out, floodlighting the
house. A starter began to grind.

I had a twinge of uneasiness as the engine fired, though I
knew we had several times the speed of that lumbering contraption. The machine
began to jerk round on its tracks to face the gate.

Before it completed the turn, the engine sputtered, and
stopped.

The starter began to whirr again. It went on whirring, irritably,
and without result.

The triffids had discovered that the gate was down. By a
blend of moonlight and reflected headlights we could see their dark, slender
forms already swaying in ungainly procession into the yard while others came
lurching down the banks of the lane to follow them....

I looked at Josella.

She was not crying at all. She looked from me down to David,
asleep in her arms.

“I’ve all I really need,” she said, “and someday you’re going
to bring us back to the rest, Bill.”

“Wifely confidence is a very nice trait, darling, but— No,
damn it, no buts—I am going to bring you back,” I said.

I got Out to clear the debris from the front of the
half-track and wipe the poison from the windshield so that I should be able to
see to drive, on and away across the tops of the bills, toward the southwest.

And there my personal story joins up with the rest. You will
find it in Elspeth Cary’s excellent history of the colony.

Our hopes all Center here, it seems unlikely now that
anything will come of Torrence’s neo-feudal plan, though a number of his
seigneuries do still exist, with their inhabitants leading, so we hear, a life
of squalid wretchedness behind their stockades. But there are not so many of
them as there were. Every now and then Ivan reports that another has been
overrun, and that the triffids which surrounded it have dispersed to join other
sieges.

So we must think of the task ahead as ours alone. We believe
now that we can see our way, but there is still a lot of work and research to
be done before the day when we, or our children, or their children, will cross
the narrow straits on a great crusade to drive the triffids back and back with
ceaseless destruction until we have wiped out the last one of them from the face
of the land that they have usurped.

v2.0 wg

-conversion to standard HTML format

-added chapter links

-removed mid-word hyphens