The World in Winter

by John Christopher

  The noise, and the erupting flurry of attacks, went on all night and all the next morning. There was no attempt to push the obstacles, of which there were now more than a score on the ice, far out; presumably because the attackers realized that to do so would be to invite being cut off by one of the Hovercraft. Their objective was plain: to keep the defenders on edge all day and night.

  Eating his dish of sweetened and fortified maize mush, Abonitu said:

  ‘We can’t go on with this.’

  Andrew said: ‘No. They can handle this in relays; we can’t.’ He looked at Abonitu. ‘Then what? Another move? Up river? Down?’

  ‘Anywhere inside the city they would follow us.’

  ‘Outside then.’ Abonitu was silent. ‘We can come back in after we have made contact with the supply ship.’

  ‘Yes,’ Abonitu said. ‘I suppose that would be sensible. We move out now, and come back with our helicopters and flame-throwers and napalm. And this time we attack, hunting them down like rats through their narrow streets. That is not what I wanted, Andrew.’

  ‘They give you no alternative, do they?’

  Abonitu raised his heavy eyes towards the spires of Whitehall Court.

  ‘What do they want?’ he said. ‘They are not savages – how can they be? A mind that one can respect is directing these harassments. If only one could make contact.’

  ‘They don’t appear to want contact.’

  ‘But would they refuse it, if we went to them?’

  ‘How?’

  ‘An envoy, under a flag of truce.’

  ‘Perhaps. Perhaps not. They have not offered anything like that to us.’

  ‘They may think it is up to us to make the overtures. This is their country.’

  ‘It would be simpler to pull out.’

  ‘And return with napalm? This is London, Andrew. I want to warm my frozen queen, not roast her.’

  ‘If you sent an envoy,’ Andrew said. ‘Zigguri? Do you think he could handle it?’

  ‘No. Not Zigguri. Not any of the others, either.’

  Andrew said slowly: ‘Do you think I would be any good?’

  ‘Only you would have a chance to persuade them, I think.’

  ‘Persuade them?’

  ‘That we mean no harm. That we want to help if we can. But I don’t ask this, Andrew, unless you want to do it. I know there are risks.’

  Andrew smiled. Fatigue lay on him with the distorting lightness of a fever.

  ‘There always are risks,’ he said. ‘But I should think a white flag is still recognized in these parts.’

  4

  It was a lonely walk across the ice, carrying the short length of metal tubing with a white rag tied to one end. There was no sign of response until he was almost under the wall of the Embankment. Then a rope ladder was tossed over the side. A North Country voice called:

  ‘Come on up, then.’

  There were half a dozen waiting on the other side. They looked at him with a combination of curiosity and dislike.

  ‘You’re white,’ the leader said. ‘Any other whites out there?’

  ‘No. No others.’

  A small ginger-haired man said: ‘Black bastards. I’d like to …’

  The man with the Northern accent was about fifty, stocky, grizzled, clean shaven where the rest had straggly beards. He spoke across the other’s words, cutting them to nothing.

  ‘They sent you here? What do you want?’

  ‘I’ve been sent to talk things over, with whoever’s in charge.’

  He stared at Andrew for a moment. ‘All right, mister. We’ll take you.’

  The ginger-haired man was sent to report what was happening to someone who was presumably a local commander. The others walked with Andrew along the Embankment in the direction of Charing Cross; the ground was humped and uneven with ice and frozen snow. They cut diagonally across the road in the direction of Northumberland Avenue. The trees had a different kind of winter bareness from that which he remembered – probably the cold had killed them – and some had been cut down. Trafalgar Square came into view at the end of a long vista, and the small party stopped.

  ‘Better be safe,’ the stocky man said. ‘Put a blindfold on him.’

  They tied a piece of cloth smelling of machine oil round his face and afterwards he walked with a man on each side, holding him by the upper arm. He tried to judge the direction they were taking. They went diagonally across Trafalgar Square; after that he was less sure, but they were heading roughly towards Piccadilly Circus. Twice greetings were exchanged, and there were shouted inquiries about Andrew. The North Country man gave brief uninformative replies.

  The man on Andrew’s right side said: ‘Steps here. Watch yourself.’

  There was a fairly short flight, followed by a longer one. The softness of carpeting was underfoot. The North Country man said:

  ‘Wait here. I’ll go in and see.’

  While he was away, Andrew said: ‘Anyone like a cigarette? I’ve got a packet in my inside pocket.’

  A voice said: ‘Christ! How long since I had a fag?’

  Andrew began to feel in his pocket. Another stronger voice said:

  ‘Keep your hands where they are. We don’t want anything from you.’

  Discipline was good, Andrew noted; but that much he had gathered already. He said indifferently:

  ‘Please yourselves.’

  A door opened and footsteps returned. The North Country voice said: ‘All right. Bring him along.’

  They went through a door, down more steps, along a corridor. Andrew was led through another door, and halted inside.

  ‘Take that rag off.’

  Familiarity plucked at him, hovering on the verge of recollection. Behind his head, fingers tugged at the knots in the cloth. The cloth came free, and Andrew blinked. There were only two paraffin lamps in the room, but even this modest light dazzled him. One of the lamps hung from what had been a small electric chandelier in the centre of the room; the other rested on a desk facing him. A man was sitting behind it. Sound and sight clicked into recognition, as he spoke again:

  ‘Andy! For God’s sake, what brings you here?’

  It was quite a small room, and windowless; it might have been the private office of a restaurant manager. There were useless strip lights round the wall, above an Attic-style frieze some three feet deep. The carpet was fitted, electric blue, and with a deep pile. David’s desk was a quality job also; heavy mahogany with a red leather top. David sat in a matching swivel chair. The room had a paraffin heater as well as the two lamps, and he was in his shirt sleeves. He nodded to the men who had brought Andrew in.

  ‘You can leave us alone.’ The door closed behind them. ‘Well, explain yourself, laddie.’

  ‘I’m part of the expedition,’ Andrew said. ‘They sent me to talk things over – to see if we couldn’t …’

  ‘They’re Nigerians, then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We thought Ghana – the squadron was supposed to have gone there.’

  ‘There was some kind of trouble. They moved on.’

  David nodded. ‘But I don’t understand what you are doing with them?’

  ‘We’re making a film record. I’m the camera-man. But things have been too hectic lately for camera work.’

  ‘You volunteered?’

  ‘When Madeleine came back … it was the only way to get here. Not that I expected to find her. But it seemed as sensible a thing to do as any other. It was Abonitu’s idea.’

  ‘Abonitu? The one who got you back into television?’

  ‘Yes?’ Andrew hesitated slightly. ‘He’s running the expedition now.’

  ‘Is he?’ David asked. ‘Is he?’

  ‘Madeleine – how is she?’

  David studied him for a moment. He said at last:

  ‘She’s well.’

  ‘Here, with you?’

  ‘Not far off. Our dark friends – they sent you to talk to us. About what?’

  ‘They want
to know why they’re being attacked – what they can do to stop it.’

  David smiled. His smile had the same quality of easiness, smoothing out the lines of strain in his face.

  ‘Nothing easier. They can clear out.’

  Andrew said: ‘Look, they mean no harm. It’s only an examining force – no more. They’re not planting flags or anything like that.’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘They want to help if they can.’

  ‘That’s the same canting phrase we took into Africa. You don’t believe it, Andy. And we object to being colonized.’

  ‘We? Who are we? A gang of street arabs, living in the ruins of a dead city.’ He pointed to the lamps. ‘How long will the supplies of paraffin last? I suppose you’re living on tinned foods still. What happens when they’re gone? Who’s going to repair the buildings as they crumble round you?’

  ‘You think we should welcome our dark-skinned liberators?’

  His first shock and confusion at finding David, at realizing that Madeleine, perhaps, was in reach, had passed off. In their place he was conscious of old resentments – particularly resentment at his having been responsible for Madeleine’s flight from Lagos. He knew this was unfair – that this, at least, David had done nothing to procure – but that only made his feeling more bitter. He said, with cold anger:

  ‘I thought you prided yourself on the practicality of your approach to life.’

  David nodded. ‘I do, Andy.’

  ‘And it’s practical to let yourself slide into savagery – into cannibalism eventually – as long as you’re waving a Union Jack?’

  ‘Well, no, not quite that. But one has to take chances at times.’

  ‘It depends on the odds and what you stand to gain.’

  David looked at him, his face screwed up. ‘Yes. I haven’t given much thought to this lately. One has to concentrate on the job in hand. But I thought quite a bit about it before the final crack-up. As you know, I could have flown south. I could have landed in the warm sun, on my beam ends.’

  ‘We would have helped you.’

  ‘I know that. I’ve never been much good at taking help from people, but I suppose I would have got used to it. I might have even got used to being part of a despised minority, though that would have been trickier. But I’d had security all my life, and suddenly I realized I didn’t want it. I wanted to survive, all right, but on my terms. And I thought there was a chance of doing that. Then, I was beginning to wield power, real power, for the first time. I didn’t want to give that up.’

  ‘Survive? As what – an urban Eskimo? And power over what?’

  ‘It was obvious things were going to be hard for a few years. After that – well, it would depend on what we’d done with the time. It still does. We’ve managed to keep some kind of organization together.’ He grinned. ‘We’re the biggest gang in these parts, and the strongest. We hold the old Pale, and a bit more besides.’ The grin emerged again. ‘My writ runs south to Brixton and north to St John’s Wood. We’re thinking of inviting the opposition to cricket at Lord’s next summer.’

  ‘And for Madeleine – is that sort of thing right for her?’

  David said slowly: ‘Madeleine came back of her own choice. I didn’t ask for it, nor want it. I – I’m very fond of her, but personal relationships are a luxury these days. There’s no time for them.’

  ‘What is there time for, then? Playing gangsters in the rubble of a frozen broken-down empire?’

  ‘Gangsters today. Government tomorrow.’

  ‘And food? And fuel?’

  ‘I don’t know. At the moment, as you’ve guessed, we’re largely living off stocks.’ His expression was grim briefly. ‘We fought to hold them. There was enough to share out, but we didn’t share. We condemned thousands to starvation, and killed them when they wouldn’t starve quietly. And we kept the food: enough to last our lot through the winter.’

  ‘The Fratellini Winter? You think the sun is going to start warming you again? I saw the latest figures in Lagos – radiation has stabilized, at the present level. England is out of the temperate zone for good.’

  David nodded. ‘We’re in a cold climate. But we don’t yet know how cold.’

  ‘Cold enough to prevent you growing crops or keeping cattle. Cold enough to keep your harbours ice-locked eight or nine months of the year. You may get a few fish, or kill the odd seal, but you’ll degenerate and die just the same. The Danes settled in Greenland in the twelfth century. It was warmer then. When the cold came back it killed them. I suppose each winter they thought the next summer would be better.’

  ‘We get a few fish,’ David agreed. ‘From the Thames – would you imagine that? We cut holes in the ice and fish through them. I don’t know what kind of fish they are, but they don’t taste bad. But that’s not what I’m talking about. Do you remember something you once told me: that precipitation is more important than temperature in producing ice caps? And I suppose one of the things that affects precipitation is global temperature. The weather’s improving, Andy, even if it’s still cold. Haven’t you noticed it? That blizzard we had the other day was the first break in over a month, and that died out fast.’

  ‘The country’s still ice bound.’

  ‘Though slightly less so. Even now, in winter, it melts a little each day. And as the days draw out …’

  ‘Providing the weather stays good.’

  ‘You know, I think it might. In the old days, the anticyclones that pounded eastwards across the Atlantic used to bring our rain. But they themselves were the results of all kind of factors, including temperatures. It’s quite reasonable that cooling the planet might break the pattern. Perhaps Spain and North Africa are getting our storms these days. Any signs of bad weather on your way north?’

  Andrew said reluctantly: ‘Yes, there were storms.’

  He grinned with a small boy’s pleasure. ‘There you are!’

  ‘There have been seasons like that before, with the anticyclones running north or south of their usual track. It’s a very little thing to build long term plans on.’

  ‘Not plans – hopes, day dreams, if you like. The only long term plan at the moment is survival. We’ve got seed, though – corn and potatoes. As soon as the ground thaws enough, we’ll start planting.’

  ‘In London?’

  ‘We’ll send colonizing parties out.’

  ‘You’ll have to send them out a long way. Wouldn’t a smaller city make a more useful centre?’

  ‘We’re staying in London for the same reason your dark friends came here. It’s easier to hold it than it would be to re-take it. And holding London means holding England.’

  Andrew said wearily: ‘The words don’t mean anything.’

  ‘Don’t they? Perhaps not to you, but I suspect they do to the darkies. If not – if this is just a fact-finding expedition – what are they fighting it out for? Why not move to quieter parts?’

  There was no point, he felt, in concealing the truth. He said:

  ‘I might as well tell you – there are reinforcements on the way. More men, more arms. They don’t want to use them unless they have to. They want to work things out peacefully.’

  David said slowly: ‘Thanks for that. It’s a help.’ His eyes fixed in a stare. ‘You could help us still more.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Kill those lights for us. Can you do it?’ He did not grasp the meaning at first, and showed his bewilderment. ‘They run off batteries, don’t they? You can cut the leads, or short them. Five minutes’ darkness is all we need.’

  Andrew gave himself time to think before he spoke. He settled in the end for practicality.

  ‘What happens to me?’

  ‘Lie low till it’s over. It won’t take long, I promise.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘We’ll look after you.’

  ‘Will you? Can you look after yourselves? You’ve told me personal relationships are a luxury now. Even if I accepted that, I can’t see what you
would have to offer that would be tempting. And Abonitu is my friend. A friend I can trust, and who trusts me. You may not understand it, David, but you’ll have to accept it.’

  ‘Will I?’ The smile on his face was one of confidence. ‘Are you so sure we haven’t anything to tempt you? Maddie?’

  ‘Madeleine came back to you.’ He felt a dryness in his throat. ‘She made her decision. All I could do was accept it.’

  ‘She came back because she felt guilty about me – she always did. You can’t argue women out of these things. Maddie was made for sacrificing herself; she couldn’t live with you out there while she knew I might be having a tough time here in England. But it was you she wanted, really.’

  ‘No.’ The ache in his mind was like the physical ache of resisting seduction. ‘That’s not true.’

  David watched him. The confidence, the assurance, was still there, and with it, something else – wistfulness, almost. ‘Anyway, you won’t go back without seeing her. Will you?’

  She was muffled up in a shapeless fur coat which she did not take off on entering the room. It was an impression without details; he did not really look at her until David left them. Then his eyes met hers, but he did not move towards her.

  She said: ‘I’m so glad, Andy. How can one say anything? I couldn’t believe it at first. This sort of thing doesn’t happen, does it?’

  ‘You look well,’ he said. ‘Not starving, at any rate.’

  She coloured slightly. ‘We’re rationed, of course, but there’s enough to live on.’

  He looked at her, thinking how incredible it was that she was alive, and that he had found her. There were so many things he wanted to say, but they were all banalities. It was Madeleine who spoke again.

  ‘I hated leaving you, Andy. Believe that.’

  ‘David’s explained things,’ he said. ‘I was safe, well provided for, while he was in danger. You can’t help having an over-developed maternal instinct, can you?’

  She looked away for a moment. ‘Andy …’