Deluge: A Novel of Global Warming

by S. Fowler Wright

  Claire, watching curiously, observed a new Martin in the man who addressed them from the same stool which had been flung backwards and forwards two nights ago with such tragic consequences.

  The voice, modulated easily to the necessities of the occasion, was coolly dominant, as he explained the conditions which the men had individually accepted already. Jack Tolley stood beside him with a notebook which had been rescued, somewhat soiled, from the tunnel-floor, where it had been carelessly flung by one of the seekers of booty who had scorned its utility. Now it contained the name of each man on a separate page, with a sum of twenty pounds to his credit, as remuneration for his share in the expedition.

  Against that credit he could bid as high as he would for any article that he wanted. When it should be exhausted he must bid no more until those who had balances still to their credit had also completed their expenditure. If all or any of them should have credits still left when the spoils were distributed, they should remain for benefit on the next occasion of such a distribution.

  Martin told them plainly, though without protest, that most of the goods before them had been found and stored for his own use but as they had come to his rescue (however unintentionally), and as he hoped to be one of them in the future—the news of Helen’s existence among them had compelled him to this decision, at least until he had found her—he was willing for them to be distributed. There were a few articles only that he wished to retain for himself or Claire, of which he read a list, and they were removed without protest.

  The auction went smoothly. It was of no moment to anyone but the buyers that prices should be high, and Martin made no effort to raise them. They were erratic in comparison to the original value of the articles, as was natural. He sold the horse and cart on condition that they should not be claimed until they had been used on the return journey for the general benefit of the expedition—a very popular solution, which reduced their value to a very moderate figure, even in the eyes of the original claimant.

  When it was over, there was a sense of orderly solution, which was gratifying to men who had recently seen so much of the evils of anarchy.

  The succeeding hours were spent in the separate packing of the goods of the party, and in allocating their means of transit. Even with the help of the captured cart, they would march heavily. When this had been done, it was evident, even to Martin’s concealed impatience, that no move could be made before morning.

  Toward evening there was thunder, with a storm to southward. They missed the worst of this, but the rain reached them for a few minutes, and drenched them quickly.

  It was as warm as ever when the storm had passed, but a fire must be lit for the drying of soaked garments. Round this fire they sat, at a respectful distance, but in the conventional circle which is older than history. To sit round a fire—to place a bed against a wall—these are primal instincts which operate without reason, or, at times, against it.

  Martin joined the circle, in the absence of Claire, who had wandered apart. She did not want to talk further. She felt that, till Helen had been told, there was no more to be said.

  Martin found that the conversation fell as he approached the circle. He was welcomed well enough, but a silence followed. He sat down by Jack Tolley, who began at once to tell him of the disordered life of the community from which they came. Then he stopped abruptly and jumped up. “I’d better speak to them,” he said, and followed a little group who were withdrawing from the further side of the fire, arguing as they went.

  Jack came back in a few minutes. The men did not return with him. He spoke to another man, who rose and went after them. He sat down by Martin again, and continued the interrupted conversation.

  Then Tom Aldworth, who had not previously joined the circle, came behind them. He called Jack, who rose at once, and went with him.

  Martin realised that there was a subject of interest which he was not asked to share. He was not greatly concerned, for his thoughts were on more personal matters. He was glad to be quiet.

  A man sat near him, smoking a short and dirty pipe. He did not speak, but he gazed at Martin with a silent fascination, so that finally he was constrained to observe him. He had the red skin of the beer drinker, the hirsute ornaments of a goat, and the brown eyes of a spaniel.

  “What’s the trouble?” Martin asked idly. He recognised the man as one who had bid an unexpected and needless pound for a marble statuette which had been found incongruously among the lumber of Bellamy’s camp. No one else wanted to be burdened with it. He might have had it for sixpence. He was the man they called Monty.

  Now he said: “Trouble is they doesn’t know they’ve made their minds up, and Tom’s only just tellin’ them. They’ll know now.” He continued to gaze at Martin with his dog-like eyes. “We wants a good killer,” he added, with a wistful satisfaction in his voice, as one who watched the opening of an unexpected heaven. Martin felt that he was the subject of this unexpected description.

  “Do you mean that I am ‘a good killer’?” he asked, with some curiosity.

  “Best we’ve met, you bet. And the gal. Fine gal ’er be.” He spoke in the tone of one who pays reluctant tribute. He added: “But gals ain’t no good. Rotten bad they be.” He spoke with the conviction of an experience of which he would not risk repetition. Here was one to whom the paucity of women would bring no grief. Martin wondered what had led him to volunteer for such an expedition—to risk his life to avenge a dead woman who did not concern him. Actually, it was the hero-worship which was more necessary to his happiness than any feminine ministrations. Once it had been Jack ’Obbs and Andy Wilson. Lately it had been Tom Aldworth. Today it was Martin Webster. Behind the bleared eyes, and the beer-reddened skin, there was the soul of a romantic. Perhaps a cleaner, healthier life might yet do something for this man whose father had been a drunken sot, and whose grandfather had been among the foremost statesmen of his day.

  Martin thought with some surprise, some amusement, and some hesitation of the character which appeared to be attributed to him. He had been less conscious of successful killing than of the perpetual danger of getting killed. He felt the idea that he was of a sanguinary disposition, or of exceptional ability in the use of arms, to be absurd. Yet his reason told him that the dead bodies which had been strewn in camp and tunnel must have appeared rather numerous. They did not know how naturally it had all happened. He wondered whimsically whether they were considering him for the office of champion to the community. He was not a man of his hands. He had had enough of single combats to satisfy him till his life ended.

  Tom came back, and Jack Tolley. There were others behind them.

  Tom said with a new formality: “Mr. Webster, they’ve all asked me to speak to you. We want you to boss this show.”

  Martin realised that this was a serious proposition; at least, in its intention. He rose, and faced them.

  “Will you tell me just what you mean?” he said quietly.

  “We mean just what we say,” Tom answered. “You can say what you want done, and we’ll see you get it. We want someone who can say what’s needed, and get the whole thing straight. We want law,” he added, “but not like the old days. We didn’t like them, and we don’t like what we’ve got now. We want law—but not lawyers.”

  Martin said: “But I’m a lawyer myself.”

  Tom answered quickly: “Then you know what we mean when we say that we don’t want any more. We want laws we can understand; and not too many. We want things done. We want to be told what needs doing most. If we quarrel, we want someone to whom we can go to decide it. We don’t want to tell one man, who tells another, who takes it to another, where we all lie our best, and then find that the one who decides has never understood it properly, and that the one who loses has to pay them all five. But that’s by the way. You know what law used to be, and you can’t think that we want that again. But we think you’re straight, and you’re the best man we have, and we’ll do what you say, if you’ll get on with the job.”<
br />
  Jack Tolley interposed before Martin could answer. But “interposed” is misleading. He did not break in hurriedly, nor did he risk the second’s delay which might have enabled Martin to commence his reply. He picked his moment with the neat accuracy with which he would have balanced a column.

  “There’s one thing about which we should like to be sure, which we should like you to promise. We don’t want the law altered about the women. Some of us didn’t like it at first, but it’s working now, and we don’t want it changed.”

  He was thinking of Madge, bequeathed to him by the dying Ellis. Knowing the wish of the man that she had first chosen, and faced by the necessity of making a second choice promptly, he did not doubt that he would have her. It was true that he spoke for others besides himself, but it was he who had suggested that they should make this condition.

  Martin saw his risk clearly. Here were a score of men, half of them from one mining community, who would naturally hold together, asking him to accept the control of a fortuitous population of some hundreds, for the majority of whom they had no right to speak. They professed the wish to give him a free hand, and in the same breath, their two spokesmen stipulated, the one that he should be sparing in the laws that he made, and that they should be administered simply, the other that a very crude marriage law which they had instituted should be continued to perpetuity.

  It was immaterial to consider whether their ideas were good or bad. It was the evidence that he would be in the hands of a demagogy unless he were firm at the commencement, which was important.

  “I am sorry to refuse you,” he said, “but I cannot accept your offer.”

  Tom looked disconcerted. He would not have been surprised had Martin discussed conditions, but he had not expected so blank a refusal.

  He answered with equal directness: “Will you tell us why?”

  “Yes,” Martin said readily, “I will tell you. It is because you ask more than you think, and offer less.

  “You offer what is not yours to give. How can a score of men speak for hundreds of others, who do not know me?

  “You offer me a free hand, and qualify it before you have finished speaking.

  “You say that you think I could steer your ship to safety. You may be right or wrong. You are probably wrong. But if I could, it would be as captain. It would not be as chairman of a committee.

  “I have not asked for such a position. I do not ask it now. I will tell you just what it means. It means that you would profit by my successes, and that I should pay for my failures. It means that I should wake while you sleep. It means that my anxieties would never cease: that my work would never end. You are asking for my whole life, which is the price of such precedence.

  “If I were to accept such an offer, if I were to take the risk of accepting it from you, who are not a tithe of those for whom you profess to speak, or whom you propose that we should coerce to the same end, it must be on my own terms, which are that you make none. None whatever.

  “If I alter your marriage laws, they must be altered. If I tax you to half that you have, you must pay me without question. If I tell you to hang your best friend you must fetch the rope with a good will.

  “I may do none of these things, but it is a risk you take. You must either trust, or not trust me. I will be captain, or nothing. I will not consult the boatswain as to the sails I carry.

  “I will have no committees. No voting. No wasted hours of talk. No follies of compromise.

  “The time may come for these things, and if it should, I will tell you. But that time must be of my choice, and not yours.

  “If you do not like these terms, you can refuse them. You may be wiser to do so.

  “If you like them, I will have them written down, and they shall be signed by every man here. But it must be those terms or none.”

  He paused for their answer. He scarcely expected assent, though he had learnt to rely upon the influence of his voice and personality, but he knew that it was the one chance, if chance there were, of success in such an enterprise.

  Tom spoke impulsively. “I’ll sign that.” There was a chorus of supporting voices, among which Monty’s was audible.

  Jack asked coolly: “What about those who don’t?”

  “We shall turn them out,” Martin answered; he knew that audacity only could carry this thing through successfully. “Those who won’t sign must go elsewhere. They may be glad to come back. But we must have a community that is not divided. We will give the choice to each in turn, and they must sign, or go.”

  “Are you speaking only of those here, or of everyone who is left alive?” Jack asked again.

  “I mean those here first, and then everyone,” Martin answered.

  “And the women?” said Jack.

  “Yes, and the women.” He had not, in fact, thought of them till the question was put, but he did not hesitate in his answer.

  He waited for the next question. It was evident that Jack was not one to be hurried. The pause had given men time to think, and he judged that the result would depend now upon Jack’s decision, of which there was no indication. But he asked no more questions. He said: “I will sign. I think it’s a good way.”

  Martin looked round and saw nothing but assent and eagerness. He noticed Claire standing at the back of the group. He said: “Boys, I’ll tell you why I’ve asked this. We’ve got a chance, if the land holds firm beneath us, such as comes once in a million years. A chance to start afresh—and to start free. I shall want the help of all of you. But it must be one man only who chooses the way we go—or we shall go nowhere. A few steps this way, a few steps that, and we are back where we were. I may not always lead you the best way, but I shall not walk in a circle. We know the best things of the life behind us, and we know the worst, and it will be our own fault if we don’t make something better than has been.”

  He said no more. He knew the use of words, and he knew their limits. He told Jack Tolley to write out the declaration for the men to sign. It was drawn in simple but emphatic words, an undertaking without embroidery or appeal to unseen powers. Martin had not practised for seven years in English law courts without learning that a man who will bear false witness or betray his fellows is not deterred by the blasphemy of an oath.

  It was written in the notebook which had been used to record the items of the auction. One by one the men signed it, on the tailboard of the captured cart. There was no man who refused or hesitated. At the end Claire came forward. “I thought women were to sign also?” she asked Jack, who was superintending the ceremony. He held out the pencil.

  Having it in her hand, she hesitated for a moment, and then wrote firmly.

  Later Martin went down the list with Jack, learning the names and some biographical particulars of his first subjects.

  At the end he found the signature Claire Webster. Was it a declaration of war with Helen? He did not think that. Was it at least a sign that...but it was waste of effort to speculate. In a few hours he would know.

  BOOK V: THREE

  CHAPTER XXXIV

  Martha Barnes cleaned her pre-deluge doorstep. It was the only part of her original tenement which was still available for such ministrations. Martha was a widow. She was the sister-in-law of Navvy Barnes, of whose end we know, though we have lacked time to survey the previous details of an ill-spent life. Martha occupied the end house in the mining village. She was a small, scraggy, white-faced, sharp-featured woman with a shrill and bitter tongue. She had four children, of whom the eldest boy was old enough to be down the mine when the storm broke.

  Of the three others, one had been killed by a falling wall, but she had rescued two at the cost of some burns which still disfigured her face and arms.

  Having her son in the mine, it had not occurred to her to join the rush to the north, which had crowded the highroad which ran through the length of the village and had stampeded most of her neighbours.

  When Davy appeared, she had lost no time before instructing him to commence
the rebuilding of their ruined home.

  He was a moon-faced youth, showing more resemblance to a burly alcoholic father than to the mother that bore him. To that mother he had learned to yield an unquestioning obedience, and he had set to work very promptly to the erection of an edifice of baulks and pit-props, undeterred by the fact that the remaining inhabitants of the ruined village had deserted it in favour of the scattered houses of the countryside or for the wrecks of the pleasanter village of Cowley Thorn, about two miles away.

  Now there was shelter again for the Barnes household. There was dry storage for the various articles which his mother’s foresight directed Davy to collect. There was a tethered cow on the rough grass beyond the slag-heap, and there were two young pigs snoring in well-fed contentment in a sty which had been erected among the ruins of the deserted village. And the front doorstep, on which none of the departed inhabitants had ever dared to place a polluting foot, was as clean as ever.

  This wooden hut, in which Martha defied the fate that had swept a score of nations to oblivion—and which may be taken as symbolising the spirit, at once hopeless and indomitable, in which our sentient life faces the blind forces of the inanimate which may destroy it at any moment—contained another inhabitant. When Sir John Debenham left the ruins of his country house in the neighbourhood of Fenny Compton, he had been breathing heavily as he took the steering-wheel of the limousine in his podgy and unaccustomed hands. His chauffeur, having incurred a broken arm in the endeavour to save some of his master’s possessions, he left to his fate, but his wife and daughter cowered (with a pet lapdog) in the upholstery behind him. It was only a week before that Sir John had been warned to avoid excitement, and had paid a fee of five guineas for this somewhat obvious wisdom. His plethoric disposition was ill adapted for the excitements and dangers of the chaotic flight in which he was involved, as he cut perilously into the congestion of the Warwick road. He survived several accidents. He escaped others by such miraculous chances that his frightened wife gained confidence that Providence had risen to the occasion, and was acting as might be anticipated where people of their importance were jeopardised among the ruck of inferior humanity. But his breathing did not improve as the day lengthened, and as they ran down the slope of the road toward the ruins of the village beside which Martha was giving some attention to her own bums, and more to her rescued children, it was the head of a dead man which lolled over a steering-wheel from which the hands had fallen.