Deluge: A Novel of Global Warming

by S. Fowler Wright

  He looked at her rather anxiously, but there was an expression of dogged determination about his mouth, which told her that he was prepared to fight for what he thought his rights, though he might not wish to do so.

  She said: “Even if you don’t ask, I must tell you. You have been good to me, and the babies, and I know we might have died but for you. I can see that we owe our safety to you all the time. I’m not ungrateful. I suppose it’s generous of you to say you’ll help me at all, if you feel as you say; but I don’t care for you in the way you mean. I don’t care for you in the least. It’s the truth, and it’s best said. If you’ll help me, I’ll thank you, and if you won’t I’ll set out alone.”

  “Oh no, you won’t,” he said, “I go on my terms, or not at all.”

  She flashed into sudden anger. “If you think you’ll get me that way, you’re just wrong. You never will. I’d kill myself sooner.”

  “No, you wouldn’t, he answered, her anger turning his own mood to a smiling geniality. “You’ll find we’ll get on well enough. You’ll be glad enough before long. Besides, you forget the babies.”

  Yes, for the moment, she had forgotten the babies. Her heart sank at the thought, for she knew that, at the worst, she must yield at last. She might put off her decision, she might escape in the night, but what fate would be hers in such a world as he had shown her? What fate would come to her children?

  He seemed to understand her thoughts, for he went on. “You think it’s hard now, but it isn’t really. If he’s dead, you must marry someone. That’s sense. That’s what women are made for—and men. You can’t stop at two babies. You’re too good for that. We’re learning to look at things straight, and to see clearly.”

  It was a strange wooing, without any familiarity or attempted tenderness. He had his own ideas of honour, and he would do nothing till they were agreed upon the death of the man who had once fought to save him; but he had made her feel that she was in his power, and that he would have his way in the end. She knew also that it might have been worse, and that there was some right in the claim he made. She showed how far she had weakened when she said: “Anyway, a month would be far too short a time to prove anything.”

  “No, it wouldn’t,” he answered. “You don’t understand how things are. If he’s alive, I’ll find him in less than that. But it’s that or nothing. I needn’t go at all.”

  “You won’t go alone,” she said, “I shall come with you.”

  “No, you won’t. You couldn’t. You won’t understand,” he said with a note of unusual exasperation. “You’re safe here, fairly safe, because this road leads nowhere now, because there’s twenty or more of us camping between you and the land side, because they know I’m not one to play tricks with, because they haven’t seen you since you were carried in, washed-out and dead-looking, because they don’t know you’re well again. But you won’t be very safe when I’m away, and you won’t be safe at all if I don’t come back, unless I promise you to someone I can trust before I go.”

  “If I don’t come,” she asked, “how shall I know that you have really searched?”

  “Because I say so, and because I needn’t do it, and because I’ve told you why,” he answered, and in the end she promised. What else, she thought bitterly, could she do? And yet she was not wholly unhappy. She believed that Martin lived. She believed that Tom would play fair. She believed he would find him. She had trusted so often to Martin, and he had never failed her yet. Surely he would come before it should be too late. And she had saved his children! She believed that she would meet him yet without reproach or sorrow.

  She lay awake that night for a long time, praying that he would come back before the month should be over, and meanwhile, in the warmth of the forest night, in the deep grass that grew between the oak and the brambles, Martin held a woman down beneath an arm that was tense with passion, and gave his answer to a voice that pleaded: “For always, and always?”

  CHAPTER XXV

  They were twenty-nine men, not forty, who met Tom Aldworth next morning. Some who had promised did not come, having good reasons or bad ones.

  Some of those who did, were unwilling that so many should set out together, not trusting those who would be left.

  In the end he set out with twenty-two others, of whom he was the actual though not an elected leader.

  His position was given tacitly in recognition of a proved and stubborn courage, and a mind that was always sure of its own purpose. They had found him ready and unflurried in moments of difficulty, with a straightforward habit of mind that sometimes made a muddled issue look simple. It had become a saying among them that “you were always sure of Tom.”

  They had learnt to recognise in him also a sense of equity which gave confidence, and the value of which was realised in the lawless chaos to which they had fallen.

  This chaos is sufficiently indicated by the smallness of the force which was now setting out. It is true that it was comparatively well-armed and equipped for its purpose, which its members had little doubt of their ability to fulfil. But their aim not being merely the defeat, but the extermination of Bellamy’s gang properly, required a decisive superiority in numbers, as well as in spirit and weapons, and it is less than creditable to the majority of those who had joined before in the common interest, to expel the more brutal elements of the community, that they should have been absent now. But there was not here a sufficiently urgent necessity or immediate danger to unite them in more than verbal indignation. They were agreed that vengeance must be executed, but most of them were content that the necessary exertion should be their neighbour’s portion. Even of those who had definitely promised their help nearly half were absent.

  But neither Tom nor his companions were greatly worried by these defections. The men who had assembled represented the best and boldest elements in the fortuitous community to which they belonged. They all had firearms, either being their own property or borrowed from neighbours for the purpose of this expedition. The gun-room of a country house, which had been occupied by a nobleman of the game-preserving order, and which had escaped the ravages of storm and fire sufficiently for its armament to be little damaged, had supplied the majority with the lethal weapons they carried. But it was somewhat surprising to observe how generally the survivors of this world catastrophe had been able to produce or discover arms with which to defend themselves or to assist their depredations.

  On the other hand, Bellamy and his followers, having been taken by surprise, had been disarmed before their expulsion, and even the four rifles which we have seen them to have possessed had been subsequently acquired, and their existence was not known, though it was obvious that they might have found some means to arm themselves afresh in the course of the nomadic plundering by which they lived.

  Only in the event of Cooper’s band obtruding themselves into the argument, which did not appear a probable contingency, was any serious fighting anticipated.

  A long chase, with a scattering of those they sought, was an issue of which they were more fearful, and to avoid this they were concerned to move with speed and secrecy, and to surprise their intended victims.

  It does not appear that there was any doubt among them as to the justice, as there was certainly none as to the expediency, of their intention. The men of Bellamy’s gang could not all be equally guilty, and some might be entirely innocent of the abduction and murder which they were avenging, but, to the mind of Tom Aldworth at least, the problem was only capable of one solution.

  The men who had been expelled with Bellamy had been of such character that they had looked to him as a natural leader; they advocated conditions of life which would have destroyed any possibility of a decent reconstruction of the civilisation which had been swept aside. The incident which had occurred was a natural consequence of such an outlook.

  The evil must be dug up from the root if they would not spend future years in abortive picking of its poisonous seed-pods.

  Looking at the position from
the outside, it must be recognised that a community in which men predominated so largely could not easily adjust itself without conflict.

  Nature, holding an impartial scale, would not fail to secure that the men most fitted to the new conditions should become the fathers of the next generation, although an individual life might fall to the dice of chance.

  It was the exceptional fate of these people to have to live through conditions the most opposite in human experience. Having abolished the name of slavery, they had evolved a severity of social discipline beside which the average circumstances of the world’s slaveries would be of a licentious freedom. Suddenly they were removed from these restrictions to a condition more chaotic than those which had prevailed among the savages of Central Africa before they had bent their necks beneath the foot of the European.

  The little force marched lightly, three packhorses in their rear being sufficient for their equipment.

  Before noon, following the London road, they had left twelve of its milestones behind them. They could have made more rapid progress, but they were controlled by the pace of scouts who were moving cautiously forward through the fields on either side, which were often too overgrown for easy passage even where the necessity for cover did not embarrass them.

  Their way was through the wooded beauties of Cannock Chase, which, washed by rain and fed on clean sea air, were recovering from the pollution which had degraded them. The highroad itself, showing a hardened and petrol-poisoned surface, still lay, a grey weal from the whiplash of civilisation, across the face of the land.

  It would have shown little change from what it had been three months before but for the piteous debris of the northward flight, which was still scattered upon it. These relics of disaster, together with the ruins of walls and buildings, the wrecks of trees, and poles, and wires, would have made vehicular progress slow, if not impossible, without a clearance, for which there was no inclination among those who had survived the event which caused them. Even the led horses often advanced with difficulty, and this was sometimes increased by their own nervousness, as when one of them stubbornly refused to pass the rusted wreck of a limousine, which appeared to have turned a somersault in the middle road after striking a hand-truck which it had overtaken and now lay with the clean-picked bones of a human arm projecting from beneath it.

  But for a party of men on foot the road still allowed a quicker and easier passage than the fields and woodlands could offer. It was also safer, for the cattle, which were becoming wilder with every week of their recovered freedom, were disposed to avoid it, lurking rather by the sides of pools or in wooded places.

  At the end of twelve miles they came to a point where the main road no longer supplied either a direct route to their objective or the cover which they felt that the remainder of their march required.

  Here it crossed the cutting along which ran the single line of rail with which we are already familiar, and it was by this route that it was resolved to continue the advance, in ignorance, of course, of the events which had drawn the gang they sought to occupy it a few miles further south.

  Students of military history know how wide is the gap between the theoretic and actual speeds at which even a small force in the lightest marching order can advance into a hostile territory.

  The track between the metals was good enough, though it was now grown with a variety of coarse weeds, obscuring the sleepers, against the edges of which the horses stumbled frequently, but before that stage was reached they had to be persuaded to the descent of a bank which was too precipitous for their liking, and after the load of the first had been overset, it had been decided that it was necessary to unpack them and carry their burdens to the foot of the bank, where they were reloaded. Being so lightened, the horses made no further trouble about the descent, but an hour of tiring work in an afternoon of oppressive heat had been necessary, and when three or four miles further advance had been made, the desire for a second halt (for they had rested for some time before leaving the road) became too general to be ignored in a force which knew no more discipline than is derived from a spirit of goodwill and the inspiration of a common purpose.

  It was Tom Aldworth’s proposal, the common sense of which had been easily approved by his companions, that they should endeavour to locate the camp they sought before the darkness came, but that they should not make any near approach until the night had fallen. Then they would surround it completely and attack it when the light returned.

  As they approached the climax of their enterprise, Tom was conscious of an uneasy fear lest they should be met in a manner too pacific for their own intentions. His disposition was far from implacable, and he realised that what may be planned in the heat of indignation or at the dictates of reason may be difficult to execute in cold blood at a later period.

  He would have been very honestly indignant had it been suggested that he desire that any of his companions should be killed or wounded, yet, so illogical are the instincts of humanity, he did almost articulately hope that those whom they pursued would offer violent resistance to the fate which he intended for them.

  But plans and fears alike were wasted. Possibly no action, probably no campaign in the world’s history, has conformed to the tactical or strategic anticipations of either leader. Even Sir John Moore was forced at Corunna to give reluctant battle; even King John (a very able strategist) lost his mobility in the Wash; even Nelson—and Tom Aldworth was none of these.

  Yet he showed more discretion than has distinguished some generals of international eminence, for when a faint haze of smoke was observed to be ascending about half a mile before them he halted at once, drew his little force into cover, and sent Jack Tolley forward, on the blind side of the hedge, to ascertain its meaning. He felt that his caution had been justified when the quiet of the late afternoon was disturbed by the thudding echo of rifle-shots a few moments later.

  The scout returned speedily. He had the virtue of reporting that which he saw with a literal accuracy, neither blurred by imagination nor confused by comment.

  He stated that there was a tunnel about half a mile ahead, at the entrance to which a dump of coal had burnt itself out, and that the embankment on either side had also been alight, with the fencing above it. At one place it was still smouldering. A dozen men and a woman, some of whom he recognised as having been driven out with Bellamy, were watching the entrance to the tunnel. Two of these had rifles, and shots from these were fired into the tunnel at irregular intervals. But Bellamy was not among them, nor was Smith, of whom they were particularly in search.

  These facts were capable of an explanation which was accepted too lightly. The gang might have quarrelled among themselves, and Bellamy, with those who still held with him, be besieged in the tunnel to which they had retreated.

  If they were engaged in destroying each other, there did not appear to be any urgent necessity to interfere. Certainly they did not wish to fight Bellamy’s battles.

  There appeared to be no reason why they should hurry their plans to such an extent as to disclose their presence before the darkness fell. They pitched camp in a wooded hollow near the line.

  Recognising that a tunnel has two exits, the scout was sent out to explore further. He discovered that Joe had enlisted the help of four of the gang, who were throwing up a barrier which was already becoming a serious obstacle to anyone who should seek to come out at the further end.

  Being men skilled in the handling of pick and shovel, they had made rapid progress, working two from either side and avoiding exposure to a direct line of fire by raising a mound before them as they advanced. They were cutting a trench of considerable depth across the entrance to the tunnel, and had removed a section of the rail as they did so. Joe had no intention of allowing Claire to escape in the night.

  He sat on the bank, in the pleasant coolness of the evening air, smoking placidly and watching the labours of those that he had induced, by whatever promises, to carry out his plans.

  As he d
id so he hummed his satisfaction at the increasing mortality which afflicted his companions. He had no doubt that Bellamy was dead. There had been the shots—and then the silence and that was hours ago now.

  “Bellamy lies on the cinder track;

  They die of something, and don’t come back.

  I don’t care what, and I don’t care who,

  For they’re far too many when girls are few.”

  He thought with much contentment of the dead, contorted body which he had seen in the tunnel. He thought he could contrive that there would soon be others. He flicked a gnat from his wrist before it had time to bite. He had a very sensitive skin....

  The scout’s report made it clear to Tom that the occupants of the tunnel were undergoing a siege of a determined character but gave no cause to alter the supposition that the gang had quarrelled among themselves. On his return, the scout had noticed that a cart was being brought into the field beside the line, and that the besiegers were evidently intending to camp there for the night.

  CHAPTER XXVI

  War is an art, not a science. Its practice has been compared to the strife of the chess board, but there is no similarity. To approach a true comparison we must imagine the game of two players whose sight should be so imperfect that they would only see clearly on their own side of the board; the portion from which their opponent’s pieces would advance to attack them being dimly visible or in absolute darkness.

  It is obvious that Martin and Claire might have left the further end of the tunnel without opposition after their defeat of Smith and Donovan, and again after the death of Bellamy, had they then been in a condition to do so. Even when Joe returned for the third time with his four assistants it is doubtful whether any one of them, having no firearms, would have stood his ground against a resolute sally. But they could not know this. They were afraid of the risk, and their fear was reasonable.