The Death of Grass

by John Christopher

  ‘Very good results,’ Roger said ironically. ‘Did you know they’ve uncovered three further phases, beyond 5? Personally, I can see only one hope – holding out till the virus dies on its own account, of old age. They do sometimes. Whether there will be a blade of grass left to re-start things with at that stage is another thing again.’

  Olivia bent down, looking at the lawn on which their chairs rested.

  ‘It’s hard to believe,’ she said, ‘isn’t it – that it really does kill all the grass where it gets a foothold?’

  Roger plucked a blade of grass, and held it between his finger and thumb.

  ‘I’ve been accused of having no imagination,’ he said. ‘That’s not true, anyway. I can visualize the starving Indians, all right. But I can also visualize this land brown and bare, stripped and desert, and children here chewing the bark off trees.’

  For a while they all sat silent; a silence of speech, but accompanied by distant birdsong and the excited happy cries of the children.

  John said: ‘We’d better be getting back. I’ve got the car to go over. I’ve been putting it off too long as it is.’ He called out for Mary and David. ‘It may never happen, Rodge, you know.’

  Roger said: ‘I’m as slack as the rest of you. I should be getting into training by learning unarmed combat, and the best way to slice the human body into its constituent joints for roasting. As it is, I just sit around.’

  On their way home, Ann said suddenly:

  ‘It’s a beastly attitude to take up. Beastly!’

  John nodded his head, warningly, towards the children.

  Ann said: ‘Yes, all right. But it’s horrible.’

  ‘He talks a lot,’ John said. ‘It doesn’t mean anything, really.’

  ‘I think it does.’

  ‘Olivia was right, you know. There isn’t anything we can do individually. Just wait and see, and hope for the best.’

  ‘Hope for the best? Don’t tell me you’ve started taking notice of his gloomy prophecies!’

  Not answering immediately, John looked at the scattering autumn leaves and the neat suburban grass. The car travelled past a place where, for a space of ten or fifteen yards, the grass had been uprooted, leaving bare earth: another minor battlefield in the campaign against Phase 5.

  ‘No, I don’t think so, really. It couldn’t happen, could it?’

  As autumn settled into winter, the news from the East steadily worsened. First India, then Burma and Indo-China relapsed into famine and barbarism. Japan and the eastern states of the Soviet Union went shortly afterwards, and Pakistan erupted into a desperate wave of Western conquest which, composed though it was of starving and unarmed vagabonds, reached into Turkey before it was halted.

  Those countries which were still relatively unaffected by the Chung-Li virus, stared at the scene with a barely credulous horror. The official news accentuated the size of this ocean of famine, in which any succour could be no more than a drop, but avoided the question of whether food could in fact be spared to help the victims. And those who agitated in favour of sending supplies were a minority, and a minority increasingly unpopular as the extent of the disaster penetrated more clearly, and its spread to the Western world was more clearly envisaged.

  It was not until near Christmas that grain ships sailed for the East again. This followed the heartening news from the southern hemisphere that in Australia and New Zealand a vigilant system of inspection and destruction was keeping the virus under control. The summer being a particularly brilliant one, there were prospects of a harvest only a little below average.

  With this news came a new wave of optimism. The disaster in the East, it was explained, had been due as much as anything to the kind of failure in thoroughness that might be expected of Asiatics. It might not be possible to keep the virus out of the fields altogether, but the Australians and New Zealanders had shown that it could be held in check there. With a similar vigilance, the West might survive indefinitely on no worse than short commons. Meanwhile, the laboratory fight against the virus was still on. Every day was one day nearer the moment of triumph over the invisible enemy. It was in this atmosphere of sober optimism that the Custances made their customary trip northwards, to spend Christmas in Blind Gill.

  On their first morning, John walked out with his brother on the rounds of the farm.

  They encountered the first bare patch less than a hundred yards from the farmhouse. It was about ten feet across; the black frozen soil stared nakedly at the winter sky.

  John went over it curiously, and David followed him.

  ‘Have you had much of it up here?’ John asked.

  ‘Perhaps a dozen like this.’

  The grass around the verges of the gash, although frost-crackled, was clearly sound enough.

  ‘It looks as though you’re holding it all right.’

  David shook his head. ‘Doesn’t mean anything. There’s a fair degree of evidence that the virus only spreads in the growing season, but nobody knows whether that means it can remain latent in the plant in the non-growing season, or not. God knows what spring will bring. A good three-quarters of my own little plague spots were end-of-season ones.’

  ‘Then you aren’t impressed by the official optimism?’

  David jerked his stick towards the bare earth. ‘I’m impressed by that.’

  ‘They’ll beat it. They’re bound to.’

  ‘There was an Order-in-Council,’ David said, ‘stating that all land previously cropped with grain should be turned over to potatoes.’

  John nodded. ‘I heard of it.’

  ‘It’s just been cancelled. On the News last night.’

  ‘They must be confident things are going to be all right.’

  David said grimly: ‘They can be as confident as they like. Next spring I’m planting potatoes and beet.’

  ‘No wheat, barley?’

  ‘Not an acre.’

  John said thoughtfully: ‘If the virus is beaten by then, grain’s going to fetch a high price.’

  ‘Do you think a few other people haven’t thought of that? Why do you think the Order’s been rescinded?’

  ‘It isn’t easy, is it?’ John asked. ‘If they prohibit grain crops and the virus is beaten, this country will have to buy all its grain overseas, and at fancy prices.’

  ‘It’s a pretty gamble,’ David said, ‘– the life of the country against higher taxes.’

  ‘The odds must be very good.’

  David shook his head. ‘They’re not good enough for me. I’ll stick to potatoes.’

  David returned to the subject on the afternoon of Christmas Day. Mary and young David had gone out into the frosty air to work off the effects of a massive Christmas dinner. The three adults, preferring a more placid mode of digestion, lay back in armchairs, half-heartedly listening to a Haydn symphony on gramophone records.

  ‘How did your monstrosity go, John?’ David asked. ‘Did you get it finished on time?’

  John nodded. ‘I almost retched when I contemplated it in all its hideousness. But I think the one we’re on now will be able to give it a few points for really thoroughgoing ugliness.’

  ‘Do you have to do it?’

  ‘We must take our commissions where they lie. Even an architect has to accommodate himself to the whims of the man with the money to spend, and I’m only an engineer.’

  ‘You’re not tied, though, are you – personally tied?’

  ‘Only to the need for money.’

  ‘If you wanted to take a sabbatical year, you could?’

  ‘Of course. There’s just the odd problem of keeping the family out of the gutter.’

  ‘I’d like you to come up here for a year.’

  John sat up, startled. ‘What?’

  ‘You would be doing me a favour. You needn’t worry about the financial side of things. There’s only three things a farmer can do with his ill-gotten gains – buy fresh land, spend them on riotous living, or hoard them. I’ve never wanted to have land outsi
de the valley, and I’m a poor spender.’

  John said slowly: ‘Is this because of the virus?’

  ‘It may be silly,’ David said, ‘but I don’t like the look of things. And I’ve seen those pictures of what happened in the East.’

  John looked across at Ann. She said:

  ‘That was the East, though, wasn’t it? Even if things were to get short – this country’s more disciplined. We’ve been used to rationing and shortages. And at present there’s no sign of any real trouble. It’s asking rather a lot for John to throw things in and all of us to come and sponge on you for a year – just because things might go wrong.’

  ‘Here we are,’ David said, ‘sitting round the fire, at peace and with full bellies. I know it’s hard to imagine a future in which we shan’t be able to go on doing that. But I’m worried.’

  ‘There’s never been a disease yet,’ John said, ‘either of plant or animal, that hasn’t run itself out, leaving the species still alive and kicking. Look at the Black Death.’

  David shook his head. ‘Guess-work. We don’t know. What killed the great reptiles? Ice-ages? Competition? It could have been a virus. And what happened to all the plants that have left fossil remains but no descendants? It’s dangerous to argue from the fact that we haven’t come across such a virus in our short period of observation. A man could live a long life without seeing a comet visible to the naked eye. It doesn’t mean there aren’t any comets.’

  John said, with an air of finality: ‘It’s very good of you, Dave, but I couldn’t, you know. I may not care for its results, but I like my work well enough. How would you like to spend a year in Highgate, sitting on your behind?’

  ‘I’d make a farmer out of you in a month.’

  ‘Out of Davey, maybe.’

  The clock that ticked somnolently on the wall had rested there, spring cleanings apart, for a hundred and fifty years. The notion of the virus winning, Ann thought, was even more unlikely here than it had seemed in London.

  She said: ‘After all, I suppose we could come up here if things were to get bad. But there’s no sign of them doing so at present.’

  ‘I’ve been brooding about it, I expect,’ David said. ‘There was something Grandfather Beverley said to me, the first time we came to the valley – that when he had been outside, and came back through the gap, he always felt that he could shut the door behind him.’

  ‘It is a bit like that,’ Ann said.

  ‘If things do turn out badly,’ David went on, ‘there aren’t going to be many safe refuges in England. But this can be one of them.’

  ‘Hence the potatoes and beet,’ John observed.

  David said: ‘And more.’ He looked at them. ‘Did you see that stack of timber by the road, just this side of the gap?’

  ‘New buildings?’

  David stood up and walked across to look out of the window on the wintry landscape. Still looking out, he said:

  ‘No. Not buildings. A stockade.’

  Ann and John looked at each other. Ann repeated:

  ‘A stockade?’

  David swung round. ‘A fence, if you like. There’s going to be a gate on this valley – a gate that can be held by a few against a mob.’

  ‘Are you serious?’ John asked him.

  He watched this elder brother who had always been so much less adventurous, less imaginative, than himself. His manner now was as stolid and unexcited as ever; he hardly seemed concerned about the implications of what he had just said.

  ‘Quite serious,’ David said.

  Ann protested: ‘But if things turn out all right, after all…’

  ‘The countryside,’ David said, ‘is always happy to have something to laugh at. Custance’s Folly. I’m taking a chance on looking a fool. I’ve got an uneasiness in my bones, and I’m concerned with quietening it. Being a laughing-stock doesn’t count beside that.’

  His quiet earnestness impressed them; they were conscious – Ann particularly – of an impulse to do as he had urged them: to join him here in the valley and fasten the gate on the jostling uncertain world outside. But the impulse could only be brief; there was all the business of life to remember. Ann said involuntarily:

  ‘The children’s schools…’

  David had followed the line of her thought; he showed neither surprise nor satisfaction. He said:

  ‘There’s the school at Lepeton. A year of that wouldn’t hurt them.’

  She looked helplessly at her husband. John said:

  ‘There are all sorts of things…’ The conviction communicated from David had already faded; the sort of thing he was imagining could not possibly happen. ‘After all, if things should get worse, we shall have plenty of warning. We could come up right away, if it looked grim.’

  ‘Don’t leave it too late,’ David said.

  Ann gave a little shiver, and shook herself. ‘In a year’s time, all this will seem strange.’

  ‘Yes,’ David said, ‘it may be it will.’

  4

  The lull which seemed to have fallen on the world continued through the winter. In the Western countries, schemes for rationing foods were drawn up, and in some cases applied. Cakes disappeared in England, but bread was still available to all. The Press continued to oscillate between optimism and pessimism, but with less violent swings. The important question, most frequently canvassed, was the length of time that could be expected to ensue before, with the destruction of the virus, life might return to normal.

  It was significant, John thought, that no one spoke yet of the reclamation of the lifeless lands of Asia. He mentioned this to Roger Buckley over luncheon, one day in late February. They were in Roger’s club, the Treasury.

  Roger said: ‘No, we try not to think of them too much, don’t we? It’s as though we had managed to chop off the rest of the world, and left just Europe, Africa, Australasia, and the Americas. I saw some pictures of Central China last week. Even up to a few months ago, they would have been in the Press. But they haven’t been published, and they’re not going to be published.’

  ‘What were they like?’

  ‘They were in colour. Tasteful compositions in browns and greys and yellows. All that bare earth and clay. Do you know – in its way, it was more frightening than the famine pictures used to be?’

  The waiter padded up and gave them their lagers in slow and patient ritual. When he had gone, John queried:

  ‘Frightening?’

  ‘They frightened me. I hadn’t understood properly before quite what a clean sweep the virus makes of a place. Automatically, you think of it as leaving some grass growing, if only a few tufts here and there. But it doesn’t leave anything. It’s only the grasses that have gone, of course, but it’s surprising to realize what a large amount of territory is covered with grasses of one kind or another.’

  ‘Any rumours of an answer to it?’

  Roger waggled his head in an indeterminate gesture. ‘Let’s put it this way: the rumours in official circles are as vague as the ones in the Press, but they do have a note of confidence.’

  John said: ‘My brother is barricading himself in. Did I tell you?’

  Roger leaned forward, curiously. ‘The farmer? How do you mean – barricading himself in?’

  ‘I’ve told you about his place – Blind Gill – surrounded by hills with just one narrow gap leading out. He’s having a fence put up to seal the gap.’

  ‘Go on. I’m interested.’

  ‘That’s all there is to it, really. He’s uneasy about what’s going to happen in the next growing season – I’ve never known him so uneasy. At any rate, he’s given up all his wheat acreage to plant root crops. He even wanted us all to come and spend a year up there.’

  ‘Until the crisis is over? He is worried.’

  ‘And yet,’ John said, ‘I’ve been thinking about it off and on since then… Dave’s always been more level-headed than I, and when you get down to it, a countryman’s premonitions are not to be taken lightly in this kind of busines
s. In London, we don’t know anything except what’s spooned out to us.’

  Roger looked at him, and smiled. ‘Something in what you say, Johnny, but you must remember that I’m on the spooning side. Tell me – if I get you the inside warning of the crack-up in plenty of time, do you think you could make room for our little trio in your brother’s bolt-hole?’

  John said tensely: ‘Do you think it’s going to come to a crack-up?’

  ‘So far, there’s not a sign of it. Those who should be in the know are radiating the same kind of optimism that you find in the papers. But I like the sound of Blind Gill, as an insurance policy. I’ll keep my ear to the pipeline. As soon as there’s a little warning tinkle at the other end, we both take indefinite leave, and our families, and head for the north? How does it strike you? Would your brother have us?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ John thought about the idea. ‘How much warning do you think you would get?’

  ‘Enough. I’ll keep you informed. In a case like this, you can rest assured I shall err on the side of caution. I don’t relish the idea of being caught in the London area in the middle of a famine.’

  A trolley was pushed past them, laden with assorted cheeses. The air was instilled with the drowsy somnolence of midday in the dining-room of a London club. The murmur of voices was an easy and untroubled one.

  John waved an arm. ‘It’s difficult to imagine anything denting this.’

  Roger surveyed the scene in turn, his eyes mild but acute.

  ‘Quite undentable, I agree. After all, as the Press has told us sufficiently often, we’re not Asiatics. It’s going to be interesting, watching us being British and stiff-lipped, while the storm-clouds gather. Undentable. But what happens when we crack?’

  Their waiter came with their chops. He was a garrulous little man, with less hauteur than most of the others here.

  ‘No,’ Roger said, ‘interesting – but not interesting enough to make me want to stop and see it.’

  Spring was late in coming; a period of dry, cold, cloudy weather lasted through March and into April. When, in the second week of April, it was succeeded by a warm, moist spell, it was a shock to see that the Chung-Li virus had lost none of its vigour. As the grass grew, in fields or gardens or highways, its blades were splotched with darker green – green that spread and turned into rotting brown. There was no escaping the evidence of these new inroads.