Deluge: A Novel of Global Warming

by S. Fowler Wright

  Claire fought for a moment in a frenzy of fear and loathing, as she felt the strength, and looked up at the brutal face of her captor, but she was too sane to continue when it was so plainly useless. Holding her at the length of a hairy arm, with a fistful of hair in his grip, he raised and shook her like a rat, while with his other hand he caught the only garment she wore, at the back of the neck, and ripped it off her. She cried out sharply at the indignity, whereat he brought a heavy hand down on her back and shook her once again. Then, satisfied that he had taught her quietness, he tucked her under his arm and carried her away, just as (the thought crossed her) she had carried the squealing pig on the previous day.

  She heard the giant chuckle to himself as he strode on, but at least she would not make the pig’s mistake and kick to no purpose, or to be repaid with further violence. She remembered how she had used her chance against Norwood in a like emergency. This was a more formidable danger, but the lesson held. She would wait her time and save her strength to take its advantage fully. But what chance would be here?

  They came, as the darkness fell, to an open glade in the oak-wood where a wood fire was burning. About a score of men and two women were seated or moving round it. The smell of roasting pork told that they also had found that pigs were running loose in the woodland. A cart stood in the shadow, and two horses were tethered.

  Heads were turned as the burly giant approached with his burden, and rough voices questioned. He answered nothing till he had entered the circle.

  “Here’s luck, boys,” he growled in a voice that was almost genial, as he threw Claire on the ground and put one heavy booted foot between her shoulders. “All in turn; but I’m first,” he said, and called to one of the women who came up with some lengths of rope. She was lean and slatternly, with a straggle of straight grey hair, and eyes that showed bloodshot in the firelight. She bound Claire’s ankles tightly, and then her hands behind her back. As she did this she muttered to herself with an evil satisfaction. “A pretty piece,” Claire heard, “but she’ll be dead before morning.” She hated the hag more fiercely even than the man whose foot was on her shoulders, though the rough nailed boots cut her to the flesh, and left a row of bleeding stripes along her back as he dragged it off when he saw that she was tied securely.

  Lying helplessly on her face, Claire’s range of vision was somewhat limited, but she could turn her head from side to side, and realising that they had done with her for the moment she began to consider her position.

  The woman who had tied her was now sitting on the ground at her right hand a few yards away, facing the fire. There were others beyond, but she could not see clearly. The fire was large and very hot, and they sat down at some distance from it, making a wide circle. There was the trunk of a tree at her left, and her captor sat beside her with his back leaning against it. Her head and shoulders were full in the firelight, and he could see at once should she make any effort to release her hands. She could see little of the other men. The one who had caught her was clearly the leader of the gang, and it seemed that they gave him space very liberally. The other woman had brought him food on a meat-dish, and a great pot of drink, and she supposed that they were all engaged on their meal, though she could not see them. It needed little foresight to tell that her time would come when the feast ended.

  She began to regret that she had not fought more strenuously while she had at least the free use of her limbs to aid her, and one man only, however formidable, from whom to escape. Now they would all be against her. Or would they? If she could raise strife among them she might yet find safety in the confusion. She supposed that they had been respectable, or, at least, law-abiding men but a few weeks ago. Surely all could not have degenerated so quickly to the brutal level of the one that had seized her. Yet what did she know of the results which come when the restraints of law are lifted, to enable her to judge this probability? The men she had met so far had given her little cause for confidence. There was Martin. But he had bolted when the test came, she thought bitterly. Was it possible that brutality and cowardice were the controlling forces which ruled when authority and order left the world? Yet there might be one decent man among them to whose protection she could appeal, and who would think some risk for such a prize to be worth taking.

  She looked up at the huge and brutal form beside her, and she knew that the hope was vain. She remembered the way in which he had grasped the heavy sledge halfway down the haft with his right hand, while his left had subdued her. Then something cold touched her between the ankles and she started sharply. The face on which she gazed looked down on her suspiciously. She took a kick in the ribs and an order to be quiet, with a curse for emphasis. She let her head fall, and her eyes were hidden.

  In the shadow, where her feet lay, she knew that a knife was slowly cutting through the cords. Then they were free, and for some moments nothing more happened. She wondered whether anything more would happen. She did not doubt that it was Martin who had so contrived to help her. Now she must choose her time. If she sprang up quickly she might disappear in the shadows, and it might not be easy to find her. But she was unsure how well she might be able to move with her hands tied behind her back, or how much she would be able to see at first as her eyes left the firelight. If she fled noisily they would find it easy to follow. Then she closed her eyes thinking that they would be more prepared for the darkness. But she must not be long. To delay might be to lose the chance which was offered.

  She looked up to see whether her captor’s eyes were upon her, and met them gazing down with a greedy anticipation. He was leaning back on the tree-trunk, his meal ended. The froth of liquor was on his mouth, and he licked the pork-grease from his hand as he regarded her. She thought fearfully that she had delayed too long. Any moment the monstrous filthy hand might reach down to grip her by arm or hair. Could she avoid him quickly enough if he should do so?

  He saw the fear in her eyes with a chuckle of anticipation. In imagination he felt her struggling beneath the violence of his hands and the weight of his body. Then he saw her gaze go past him with a startled wonder, which was veiled in an instant. He was not quick to perceive, nor used to fear, but a premonition of danger made him turn his head to the point above him that had caught her notice, but the next instant it sagged forward as though he slept. He remained in that position for a few moments, and then his body fell sideways; but it fell unnoticed amidst the pandemonium that surrounded it.

  CHAPTER XIX

  Martin Webster had the qualities and defects of his legal training and practice grafted on to a personality that must now prove itself under new conditions and adapt or perish. The quick agility by which he had avoided the blow of the descending sledge was some evidence of adaptability. The swiftness with which he perceived that he would not be followed, as the aggressor would be more interested in retaining the prey which he had already captured, and that the two objects were incompatible, is perhaps to be credited rather to his earlier practice, as may be the coolness with which he stopped, when the branches hid him, and doubled back to obtain possession of the sledge, even before he could tell whether its owner would cross the little stream to attempt its recovery

  To keep cool, and to score every possible point in the game—that had been his life’s learning. To take no needless chance, to move only when you must, or when you were sure, had become equally habitual.

  Many a man, having a companion seized by such violence, and having the aggressor’s weapon in his possession, would have attempted an immediate rescue. Some would have found the assault upon himself alone a sufficient provocation. Martin was of a cooler and more cautious kind. The fact that the man had attempted his murder would not have stirred him to take the slightest risk or exert effort for vengeance apart from any fear that the outrage might be dangerously repeated.

  He was capable of being moved by the impersonal consideration that the brute was unfit to live and might do evil to others, but such springs of conduct rise in the intellect, and ar
e not productive of blind or impulsive action.

  Claire was the acquaintance of a few hours only, but already he had resolved to possess her. Besides, he was of an instinctive loyalty, and he was not destitute of the primeval instinct which was revealing in such diverse ways the characters of those who had survived the deluge. If he were not constrained by any overpowering impulse to rush blindly to her rescue, neither did it cross his mind that he could abandon her to her captor.

  From the hazels that concealed him he watched the exhibition of brutality, and the monstrous strength which stripped and shook and beat her into passivity.

  Wrath came to him as he watched, and the wish to kill, but his self-control was unshaken. The dusk favoured him. As the giant strode on, too assured of his own strength to expect pursuit or to dread it, Martin followed him closely, the woman’s white body gleaming in the failing light, and making his task the easier. When they came to the camp-fire he was obliged to approach with an increased caution. He was not daunted by the fact that the man had found companions. His mind, trained to avoid the unproved assumption, knew that with numbers contention of different wills might operate to help, as probably as their unity might conspire to resist him.

  When he saw that the giant’s coming was received with quietness, and that he dominated his companions, he saw also that no immediate violence was intended. He wriggled up as silently as a rabbit moves, patience overcoming his lack of practice in such manoeuvres. He perceived that her feet were so deeply in shadow that no one sitting in the circle of light would be able to see them. The knife was keen and sharp, and his greatest care was to avoid cutting the flesh in the darkness, the ankles lying over one another, and being very tightly tied. It was done at last, and they were free and uninjured. To do that had been obvious. The next step was less easily decided. He felt that the decision could be made with leisure, for some time would be needed for the circulation to be fully restored to the bound feet, which might be vital to their escape. He considered, as she had done, the chance that she could leap up suddenly and escape in the darkness. He did not like it. The light fell on her hands, and he decided, though reluctantly, that he could not release them unnoticed while her captor was watching beside her. Then he weighed the thought, if he killed him, should he have time to loose her hands before the others would be upon him? Appearing the more audacious, reason told him that it would be the safer plan to attempt.

  He would not only have destroyed the nearest and most formidable of their enemies, but the one who would be most likely to call the word which would rouse the others to any swift and combined activity.

  He thought first of the knife, recognising that he must strike without mercy, and that there could be no time for a struggle. He knew that his opponent could break his back with one hand should he bungle the first stroke and be exposed to reprisal. Hesitating where to strike, he thought of the sledge hammer that lay beside him. Strangely, for one of his logical practice, he felt less compunction about destroying his antagonist through that means than by the knife, remembering that the attempt upon his own life had been by that method.

  He knew that every second would count when once he had struck the blow, and he laid his plans very carefully. He moved round the back of the tree, memorising the mossy roots so that he could return without stumbling. Then he raised the sledge in both hands and stepped out from the shadow. Claire saw him as he did so, and their eyes met for an instant. Almost, this glance undid them. The victim’s head turned as the blow descended. The hammer struck its object, but not with the full force which must have smashed it in, however hard it might be. It struck a glancing blow only. But it was enough. And the marvel was that it was all so swift and silent that it passed unnoticed.

  Had Martin anticipated such a possibility it is likely that they might both have escaped before any opposition had been aroused. As it was, he had returned round the back of the tree and was already cutting the rope that held her hands before his movements, which aimed at speed rather than secrecy, caught the notice of the hag that was seated nearest. Claire had risen at once when she realised the attempted rescue, and was standing sideways to the firelight so that he could see what he did, when the woman screamed and pointed.

  “Keep still,” he said sharply, as he heard it, and the next moment she was free. They might have escaped, even then, without conflict, had not a little red-haired man with a rat’s face, who was on the further side of the fire, thrown a short-legged stool with such force and accuracy that it brought Martin to the ground for a moment. In the meanwhile others were running round from both sides. Seeing that the nearest, who had come from beside the woman who still screamed and pointed, would be on him before he could rise, Martin caught up the stool by the leg and threw it at his feet. The man stumbled over it, and fell sideways into the fire. He lay thus, his face in the glowing heart of the wood, till one who was behind him caught him by the legs and pulled him clear. He screamed so horribly that the attention of everyone was distracted for a moment toward him. Action is swift at such a crisis. In the seconds during which the man had stumbled over the thrown stool, fallen, and been pulled free, Martin had passed the knife into Claire’s hand and caught up the sledge to face the group that were coming toward him from the other side of the fire. Claire had run three or four yards away, supposing Martin behind her. At the first scream she looked back. She saw Martin, the sledge in his two hands, ready to wield it against the group of men, and separated from them only by the body of their leader; but they were all looking sideways to where the burnt wretch writhed and screamed on the ground, as was Martin also. Only the woman, who had given the warning, the same who had bound her hands and feet so brutally, was unmoved by his torment. She had caught up a hatchet and was creeping furtively to strike at Martin from the back. There was no time for warning, and to have given it could only have diverted his attention further from the men that might rush him at any moment. There was no time for thought; there was scarcely time for action.

  With the knife in her still numbed hand, Claire ran forward. She was scarcely conscious of the force with which she struck at the side of the scraggy neck till she felt the weight of the wretched body pull on her hand; till it collapsed entirely and slid off the knife. It lay kicking and bleeding, but there were no screams here; the knife had done its work too well.

  Claire did not stop to see it. She caught at Martin’s hand, and together they disappeared into the darkness. They were twenty yards away when the pursuit began, and they might have outdistanced it easily had not Claire stumbled at that moment into a tangle of brambles, which brought her to her knees and tore her at every movement of her bare body in a hundred places. The emergency was too serious for such obstacles to control it. She struggled on into a clear space, when Martin, who had turned and followed, caught her arm and pulled her down beside him, for the pursuers were around them on every side, and he remembered how her white body showed in the darkness. But running from the light of the fire, and confused by their own noises, they neither saw nor heard that whom they sought were in their midst, and they had soon spread out in a loud and futile search for those that they had left behind them.

  Claire and Martin began to investigate their position very cautiously, for they were still so near to the camping-place that they could hear the voices, and sometimes the words, of those who had remained there, and those who had pursued them were beating the wood at no great distance. They found that they were close to the bole of a large tree, with a rough bark,—an oak, most probably—with a wall of brambles before them. They tried crawling round the trunk, but found the brambles on the further side were closer and higher, so that they could make no progress. They decided that it would be safer to remain where they were than to venture out until the search should be over.

  They could now see very dimly. The night was moonless and cloudy. A star showed occasionally, but was quickly hidden. Their sight of sky was limited by the oak branches above them. The night was very warm, and there was
no dew. The brambles formed a screen of impenetrable blackness around them.

  Lying side by side, the thoughts of each turned inevitably to the companion that fate had brought so strangely, and to so swift an intimacy. In Martin’s mind there was an exhilarating sense of victory and possession. He was elated by the success of his rescue. That he had won, he would hold. Claire was less sure of herself. She was grateful to her deliverer, but she was not one who gives lightly or decides on impulse. Now she had no mind to give, but she might be in the mood to be taken. Her most conscious thought was of her lack of covering and of how she might find some garment before the darkness left her.

  She was grateful that he made no movement to touch her.

  Then they heard the noise of men returning, three or four of them it seemed, disputing loudly, with foul oaths for argument.

  It was clear that they planned to beat the woods when the light came, and that Claire was their objective.

  They came nearer and nearer. At last one of the men stumbled against the outer edge of the patch of brambles into which Claire had fallen. She felt Martin’s arm draw her down lower and closer. Pulling himself free, the man’s foot caught, and he fell heavily. There was the loud report of a rifle. The flash lit them, and they lay still, wondering whether they had been observed. A voice cursed the fallen man for his folly. A groan answered. The men were grouping now within three yards of where they lay. A match spluttered. The groans continued. They understood that the man had shot himself as he fell. He was being roughly pulled to his feet and stumbling away between them. Possibly the injury was not very serious.