Deluge: A Novel of Global Warming

by S. Fowler Wright

  One man lingered. He put an investigating boot into the dark tangle of briars and brambles. He called out that there was cover for half a score. His companions, concerned to get the wounded man moving, were not impressed. He fired into the bushes. The hidden pair made no motion as the report sounded, and the bullet passed over them. The man stood listening for a moment, and then they heard his heavy feet receding.

  As the tension ended Claire became conscious of the arm that held her. She endeavoured to move apart, but Martin had no will to loose her. Rather, he drew her closer.

  “Please,” she said, as she endeavoured to release his arm. She tried to speak lightly, but there was a nervous note in her voice that betrayed agitation.

  “You are mine, now,” he whispered in reply, “I will never loose you.”

  A sudden anger seized her. She struggled fiercely, pulling her right arm free from his hold. “Loose me now,” she said, “or you will be sorry in a moment.”

  He knew that she had the knife, and he challenged her boldly.

  “You can kill me, if you will; but while I live I will never loose you.

  There was a moment’s silence.

  “You know I cannot,” she said at last, “but I can cut your arm till you move it.”

  He laughed at that, forgetting those in the camp that might hear him. “If you cut one arm, I shall use the other,” he answered. “It is only death that will part us. While we live you are mine.”

  “For always?” she said doubtfully, but with a new tone in her voice that was in itself surrender.

  “For always, and always,” he answered, and he heard the knife drop from her hand.

  “It is all so strange,” she said in a low tone, as though she thought aloud, “...and so different...I don’t know....” But he did not heed her, and she sighed and gave her lips to his kisses.

  CHAPTER XX

  There was a faint moonlight when they resolved to leave their shelter. The camp had been still for some hours, and they could not tell whether any watch were kept, but there could be nothing gained by waiting. The knowledge that there were at least one or two rifles in the possession of the gang, against which their own weapons would be of little avail, made it imperative that they should be far away before the darkness lifted.

  Martin cut very quietly through the prickly screen which surrounded them, and then carried Claire across it so that she escaped with no more than one last embrace from an overhanging briar, which tore her flesh as he bore her forward and it strove to hold her. She did not dare to call aloud to delay him, and before he knew, it was left behind them. He had been glad to hold her in the joy of the sudden intimacy which had taken them, but he was short of breath when he released her in a clear aisle of the wood, for she was little less than his own height and of such a figure as weighs more heavily than its appearance indicates.

  Martin’s plan of action was already clearly outlined in his mind and he told her briefly as they hurried through the shadows of the woodland path.

  “We cannot stay in the tunnel. They know the direction from which we came, and when they search in the morning they will be certain to find it. They would close both openings, and we should be caught like netted rabbits. If they did not ferret us, we should have to come out, or starve, sooner or later. But if we go back quickly we can load the things we most need on to the trolley and escape upon it. I have an idea that if we set fire to the hut and the dump of coal beside it they will be drawn to the blaze and we can escape at the further end of the tunnel in a greater security.”

  She said: “Yes, we must go back first. I must have the clothes. And then we can’t escape too far, or too quickly. But shall we stop for the water?”

  It was a good thought, he agreed, and need delay them but little. At least, it took them only slightly aside from their shortest way, but after they had found and filled the buckets, which were still where they left them, they found their progress was slower, and much of the water was spilt as they hurried on. Still, they did not propose to stay in the tunnel, and it might be of little importance.

  The dawn was growing as they neared their destination, and as the sky cleared and a light breeze moved over the meadows, the air became chillier than it had been in the summer night, as it sometimes will as the day opens, and it was not only the outraged convention of a lifetime, but a more physical discomfort which caused Claire to dive so quickly into the hut where the sack of clothing lay, the moment that she could put down the bucket, which she had been obliged to handle carefully as she descended the steep embankment.

  She might have stood for the goddess of summer, as Martin saw her disappear through the door of the hut, round-limbed and tall, and with the effect which results from fineness of line rather than actual slenderness. She had one of those perfectly proportioned bodies which come unmarred through the ordeal of motherhood, and it gleamed all the more whitely for the scars and bruises which showed on back and shoulders from the brutalities of the earlier night and the red weals of the bramble scratches. Martin looked at her with admiration, and with a sense of possession, and a fierce fighting instinct to hold her with his life if need be, such as was not commonly experienced in the more tepid atmosphere of his earlier world; for what was there to rouse it?

  He was moving coal so that there should be no remaining gap between it and the hut when she came out. He meant the blaze to be a good and a lasting one.

  She had found stockings, and shoes that were not unsightly, and a nondescript dress of some thin material, and she looked not unlike an exceptionally attractive housemaid if the subtler indications of head and hands were left unheeded.

  “By Jove!” Martin exclaimed as he saw her, “what a shame!” and only partly pleased her.

  “It won’t fit so badly,” she said, “when I’ve had time to alter it, and there are other things which will be useful. What can I do to help? We can take this, can’t we?”

  She hauled out the sack of clothing, somewhat lessened in bulk, and lifted it into the trolley.

  Martin assented, of course. He proposed that they should have a good meal first, and then load and go.

  He did not think that haste was urgent. If their pursuers should awake so early they would have their own hunger to think of first; when they started searching they would probably take some time before they found the tunnel. Even if they did so, to escape should not be difficult. The trolley would make better speed than anyone could do by running through the fields overhead.

  Claire was of the same mind; she was very hungry, and well content to leave his judgement unquestioned.

  They ate freely, talking gaily the while, and looking forward to exploring the deserted country together. Both of them looked younger than yesterday. Life was theirs for the moment, and they exulted in its possession.

  Loading up took a long while. Martin had accumulated a large quantity of things, many of which he was unwilling to leave. The capacity of the trolley was limited. Among many things it was hard to say what could be replaced in the future. There were hesitations and changes. Things had been hastily moved on the previous day, and some that were most important could not easily be found. The morning was well advanced when they were ready. But they had little anxiety. The plan was good, and they did not fear that both ends of the tunnel would be approached at the same time. They were elate and confident.

  The plan was good; but Joe Harker spoilt it.

  Joe was the ex-jockey that they had seen on the previous night and dismissed from their minds so easily. That was a mistake. Had Martin seen him three months earlier he might have judged differently. It is difficult to associate obesity with the cunning knave or the dangerous villain. But his gluttony was incidental only, his cunning was as fundamental as the greed which had now broken out in a released direction. Three months ago he had been on the point of retiring from his profession. He was rich, and he was tired of the abstemiousness that it required. He had run a bookmaking business through the relative of a lady friend, and
if anything had been suspected it had not been proved; he had ridden crookedly more than once or twice, enough to fill his own pockets and those of his friends, but not often enough to bring him under the notice of the stewards. He had celebrated his resolution not to ride again with a drunken orgy at a roadside hostel. He had sunk down unnoticed on the floor of a marquee in the hotel grounds, where the storm had found but did not rouse him. The tent was flattened by the wind, and a falling pole struck him to a deeper unconsciousness. Better men around him died or fled northward to a certain destruction, leaving him to crawl out dazed and suffocated from the heavy folds of the tent, to find a changed world that was already settling itself to a recovered serenity.

  The gang had accepted his company, though he was not of their kind, for he was soft and plausible in his manner, had a gross and merry wit which they could understand, with an endless store of shameless tales and reminiscences which he could relate without fear of consequence now that the world he knew had ceased to be; and beyond this, he had proved a capacity for finding food and drink which approached the miraculous. He was of a restless alertness, active in his own way when sober, and his eyes missed nothing.

  He liked to forage alone, and to win a cheap popularity by leading others to the things he found if they should be too much for his own requirements. It was this habit which had led him to the cutting in Martin’s absence on the previous day, and an insobriety which was more assumed than real had not prevented him from seeing them as they had watched him in a fancied hiding.

  His cunning mind was turning over how best he could use his knowledge to his own advantage, when his plans had collapsed at the appearance of Claire and her captor.

  He had not joined the pursuit, for he was a man of peace—not from lack of courage, for his nerve was iron, but because he despised the taking of a needless risk, and the crudity of violent methods repelled him.

  In the half-deserted camp he had surveyed the body of their fallen leader with an appearance of solicitude. He had been forward in suggesting that others should lift it into a position of greater comfort. Nothing more was attempted. There was no one of any surgical experience among them. If he had any knowledge of the treatment of wounds, he did not see that anything would be gained by disclosing it.

  It was after the chase had returned, and the sleeping camp was silent, that he had walked over to look at the sprawling bulk of the felled body. Certainly it was not dead. It was breathing heavily. It might be dying. A broken skull was at least a probability. There was, in fact, nothing worse than a pulped ear and a fractured cheekbone. The lucky turn of the neck and the brute strength of the huge head had saved their owner from any heavier damage.

  Joe, listening to the laboured breathing, and gazing at the bruised and bloodstained face, decided that he was of no account for the moment, even if he were not settled forever.

  He was glad of that, for the gross-natured giant was the only man there that he really feared. He could manage Donovan and the rest, even Rat-face; but this man had black and violent humours, which would change in a moment, and no one could understand their cause or avoid their consequences.

  He walked away and lay down under the wagon. Everyone slept on the bare ground while the weather was warm and dry. There was no forethought among them. They wandered at random, wasting and plundering. So far, drink and food had been abundant. The complicated controls of civilisation were lifted from them. The slave-labour, which had been the price at which they had been allowed to eat and breed, was no longer compulsory. They wandered blindly in an ecstasy of indolent self-indulgence broken by bouts of violence. Only Joe had sufficient prescience to lie where he would be protected from a sudden storm.

  He lay awake, scheming how he could make most use of his knowledge. Perhaps the two would fly, now that they had been discovered, and the hut could be his, with all its stores. But there were difficulties. He was of a nature that could not endure solitude. He must be with those of his own kind on whatever terms. Then it was certain that the search would recommence in the morning, and that the tunnel would be examined. There would be little care for the injuries that their companions had suffered, but they would hunt for the woman. It was the lack of women which marred the paradise of their new life, and which had led to the tragedy of a few days ago. If the men had been less drunk, and the fool had not fought so fiercely, it need not have happened. It had been stupidity to cause her death—sheer waste, which he always hated.

  No, he would not like to live in the hut alone, and there would be the fear that they might come back. He had seen too much of their fighting ways to meet them alone. He meant to have the woman, but he meant that others should do the fighting. But why should there be any quarrel, if they found him there when they returned? He could ingratiate himself with them. After that, there were many ways by which a man could die, and the girl would be his. His fertile mind leapt forward to plan the murder. A tale of a treasure hidden in one of the open shafts around them, or of a cry that he heard coming from it. A push behind for the man that leant forward to listen.

  But the flaw in all this planning remained that the search would be certain to find the tunnel. He did not think they would catch the girl. She would escape at the further end. He had seen how quickly the trolley could be poled along the rails. He had no mind to stay there alone on the chance that they would return after they knew that their hiding-place was discovered, and that their goods had been spoiled and scattered. His mind turned to a better plan. They must be caught as they emerged from the further end of the tunnel, and the man killed and the woman captured. But he could not do it alone. He thought it probable that they had no firearms, or they would have used them already. Two men should be enough to settle the matter without his help, and not too many with whom to share the woman afterwards. There might be quarrelling then, but he could trust himself to contrive that it should be with each other rather than with him. Smith and Donovan were the ones he needed. They had two of the four rifles that the camp contained, and they disliked each other already. So he planned.

  It was when the faint moonlight assisted the light of the dying fire that he moved cautiously round the camp and roused the two men whose help he needed.

  Before dawn they had made their bargain, swearing such oaths as he supposed would bind them. He was to lead them to where they could shoot the man and capture the woman, and the three of them were to make off together, sharing her between them.

  It was not long after Martin and Claire had left their perilous hiding that the three men crept silently from the sleeping camp.

  They passed the body of their wounded leader and the dead hag that still lay beside him. her head in a pool of curdled blood. The man who had fallen in the fire was still enough now, lying face downward. Someone had mercifully kicked him on the head till he ceased screaming, and he had not moved since then.

  The man who had injured himself with his own gun was also sleeping at last, a swathe of bloody bandages covering a hand from which a finger was missing.

  There was evidence enough that they were seeking those who could defend themselves with some ability, but the argument of magazine rifles is one that is not easily answered, and Joe, having no rifle of his own, or ability to use it, felt quite comfortable as to the safety of the rearward position which he intended to occupy in the campaign he was organising.

  He led his party straight to the embankment that overlooked the further end of the tunnel. He calculated that their intended victims would be certain to emerge there sooner or later, whether in voluntary flight or through having been dislodged from the end they occupied. Even though they remained undiscovered by his late companions and had no intention of fleeing, he had learnt that they made expeditions in that direction, and it could only be a question of time before they would fall into the trap which awaited them.

  The plan was simple, as great strategy usually is, and would have had an excellent prospect of success, even had not Martin and Claire been working strenuous
ly to support it, not only with their essential presence, but with a selection of all that would be most useful to Claire’s captors, and supplying the speediest means of removing themselves when they had seized her.

  However, they knew nothing of the reception which Fate was preparing, and when they had at last set fire to the hut, and to the dump of coal beside it, to such good purpose that a great column of smoke was rising straightly in the still air, they set out very gaily.

  They had planned to wait for a time, till the smoke should have had time to draw any searchers to the end of the tunnel which they were leaving, but the heat became so great, and the smoke (some of which the direction of the draught through the tunnel inclined inward) was so discomforting, that they started almost immediately, poling themselves along at a leisurely pace, and reserving their strength for the speed which they intended to raise when they should be in the greater danger of the open country.

  The faint light of the lantern illuminated the hanging body of the unhappy pig as they passed it, but Martin did not appear to notice, and Claire silently suppressed a feeling of annoyance, which she knew to be unreasonable. She was not sure that she had not been a fool, but in any case its natural destiny had been frustrated by larger issues.

  It would take more than that to vex her mood of this morning. She wondered whether Eve may not have felt a like elation when she left the narrow confines of Eden for the adventure of the larger world.

  Jestingly, she propounded this problem.

  The words raised a question in Martin’s mind which he had not previously considered, but, after a moment’s silence, he responded to her mood, and answered with a similar flippancy.

  “I’m afraid that you’re one of those numerous people who have never read the Book of Genesis. If you ever do, you’ll find that Adam was turned out alone, presumably for not keeping his wife under control. Probably, being a woman, she wormed her way under the palings to join him. It is presumed that she did this, because the next verse tells us of the birth of Cain.”