Roger said: ‘So am I.’ He lay back on the dry, stony ground, and rested his head on his hands. ‘Pirrie isn’t, though.’
Pirrie was explaining something to Jane, pointing out over the flat lands to the south.
‘She won’t knife him now,’ Roger added. ‘Another Sabine woman come home to roost. I wonder what the little Pirries will be like?’
‘Millicent didn’t have any children.’
‘Conceivably Pirrie’s fault, but more probably Millicent’s. She was the kind of woman who would take care not to be burdened with kids. They would spoil her chances.’
‘Millicent seems a long time ago,’ John said.
‘The relativity of time. How long since I found you up in your crane? It seems something like six months.’
The moors had been more or less deserted, but when they descended to cross the lower land north of Kendal, they witnessed the signs, by now familiar, of the predatory animal that man had become: houses burning, an occasional cry in the distance that might be either of distress or savage exultance, the sights and sounds of murder. And another of their senses was touched – here and there their nostrils were pricked by the sour-sweet smell of flesh in corruption.
But their own course was not interrupted, and soon they began to climb again, up the bare bleak bones of the moors towards their refuge. Skylarks and meadow pipits could be heard in the empty arching sky, and for a time a wheatear ran along ahead of them, a few paces in front. Once they sighted a deer, about three hundred yards off. Pirrie dropped to the ground to take careful aim on it, but it darted away behind a shoulder of the moor before he could fire. Even from that distance it looked emaciated. John wondered on what diet it had been surviving. Mosses, possibly, and similar small plants.
It was about five o’clock when they came to the waters of the Lepe. It tumbled with the same swift urgency of peace that it had always had; here its course lay between rocky banks so that not even the absence of grass detracted from the evocation of its familiarity.
Ann stood beside John. She looked more calm and happier than she had done since they left London.
‘Home,’ she said, ‘at last.’
‘About two miles,’ John said. ‘But we’ll see the gateway in less than a mile. I know the river for several miles farther down. And a bit farther up you can get into the middle of the river, on stepping-stones. Dave and I used to fish from there.’
‘Are there fish in the Lepe? I didn’t know.’
He shook his head. ‘We never caught any inside the valley. I don’t think they travel so far up. But down here there are trout.’ He smiled. ‘We’ll send expeditions out and net them. We must have some variety in our diet.’
She smiled back. ‘Yes. Darling, I think I can really believe it now – that everything’s going to be all right – that we’re going to be happy and human again.’
‘Of course. I never doubted it.’
‘Dave’s stockade,’ John said. ‘It looks nice and solid.’
They were in sight of the entrance to Blind Gill. The road squeezed in towards the river and the high timber fence ran from the water’s edge across the road to the steeply rising hillside. That part which covered the road looked as though it might open to form a gate.
Pirrie had come forward to walk with John; he too surveyed the fence with respect.
‘An excellent piece of work. Once we are on the other…’
It was the crude anger of machine-gun fire that broke into his words. For a moment, John stood there, shocked. He called, more in bewilderment than anything else: ‘Dave!’
There was a second burst of fire, and this time he ran to get Davey and Mary. He shouted to the others: ‘Get into the ditch!’ He saw that Ann was pulling Davey and Spooks down with her, and that Mary was already crouching in the ditch beside the road. He ran for it himself, and lay down beside them.
Mary said: ‘What’s happening, Daddy?’
‘Where is it firing from?’ Ann asked.
He pointed towards the fence. ‘From there. Did everyone get clear? Who’s that on the road? Pirrie!’
Pirrie’s small body lay stretched across the camber of the road. There was blood underneath him.
Ann caught hold of John as he began to rise. ‘No! You mustn’t. Stay where you are. Think of the children – me.’
‘I’ll get him away,’ he said. ‘They won’t fire while I’m getting him away.’
Ann held on to him. She was crying; she called to Mary, and Mary also grasped his coat. While he was trying to pull himself free, he saw that someone else had got up from the ditch and was running towards where Pirrie lay. It was a woman.
John stopped struggling, and said in amazement: ‘Jane!’
Jane put her hands under Pirrie’s shoulders and lifted him easily. She did not look at the fence where the gun was mounted She got one of his arms over her own shoulder and half dragged, half carried him to the ditch. She eased him down beside John and sat down herself, taking his head in her lap.
Ann asked: ‘Is he – dead?’
Blood was pouring from the side of his head. John wiped it away. The wound, he could see at once, was only superficial. A bullet had grazed his skull, with enough force to knock him over. There was an abrasion on the other side of his head, where he had probably hit the ground. It was very likely the fall which had knocked him unconscious.
John said: ‘He’ll live.’ Jane looked up; she was crying. ‘Pass the word along to Olivia that we want the bandage,’ John added. ‘And a wad of lint.’
Ann stared from Pirrie to the fence barring the road. ‘But why should they fire at us? What’s happened?’
‘A mistake.’ John stared at the fence. ‘A mistake – we’ll sort it out easily enough.’
11
Ann tried to stop him when she saw him tying a large white handkerchief on the end of a stick.
‘You can’t do that! They’ll shoot you.’
John shook his head. ‘No, they won’t.’
‘They fired on all of us, without provocation. They’ll fire at you, too.’
‘Without provocation? A whole gang of us marching up the road, and with arms? It was as much my mistake as theirs. I should have realized how their minds would work.’
‘Their minds? David’s!’
‘No. Probably not. He can hardly be manning the fence all the time. God knows who it is. Anyway, it’s a different thing with one man, unarmed, under a flag of truce. There’s no reason why they should fire.’
‘But they might!’
‘They won’t.’
But he had an odd feeling as he walked along the middle of the road towards the fence, his white flag held above his head. It was not exactly fear. It seemed to him that it was nearer to exhilaration – the sense of fatigue allied to excitement that he had sometimes known in fevers. He began to measure his paces, counting soundlessly: one, two, three, four, five… In front of him, he saw that the barrel of the machine-gun poked through a hole in the fence a good ten feet above the ground; not far from the top. David must have built a platform on the other side.
He stopped, seven or eight feet from the fence, and looked up. From somewhere near the gun muzzle, a voice said:
‘Well, what are you after?’
John said: ‘I’d like to have a word with David Custance.’
‘Would you, now? He’s busy. And the answer’s no, anyway.’
‘He’s my brother.’
There was a moment’s silence. Then the voice said:
‘His brother’s in London. Who do you say you are?’
‘I’m John Custance. We got away from London. It’s taken us some time to travel up here. Can I see him?’
‘Wait a minute.’ There was a low murmur of voices; John could not quite catch what was said. ‘All right. You can wait there. We’re sending up to the farm for him.’
John walked a few paces, and stared into the Lepe. From beyond the fence he heard a car engine start up and then fade away along the r
oad up the valley. It sounded like David’s utility. He wondered how much petrol they would have in store inside Blind Gill. Probably not much. It didn’t matter. The sooner people got used to a world deprived of the internal combustion engine as well as the old-fashioned beasts of burden, the better.
He called up to the man behind the fence: ‘The people with me – can they come out of the ditch? Without being shot at?’
‘They can stay where they are.’
‘But there’s no point in it. What’s the objection to their being on the road?’
‘The ditch is good enough.’
John thought of arguing, and then decided against it. Anyone on the other side of the fence was someone they would have to live with; if this fellow wanted to exercise his brief authority, it was best to put up with it. His own disquiet had been allayed by the promptness with which it had been agreed to send for David. That at least removed the fear that he might have lost control of the valley.
He said: ‘I’ll walk along and tell my lot what’s happening.’
The voice was indifferent. ‘Please yourself. But keep them off the road.’
Pirrie was sitting up and taking notice now. He listened to what John had to tell them, but made no comment. Roger said:
‘You think it’s going to be all right, then?’
‘I don’t see why not. The bloke behind the machine gun may be a bit trigger-happy, but that won’t bother us once we’re behind him.’
‘He don’t seem very anxious to let us get behind him,’ Alf Parsons said.
‘Carrying out orders. Hello!’
There was the sound of an engine approaching. It halted behind the barrier.
‘That will be David!’ John got to his feet again. ‘Ann, you could come along and have a word with him, too.’
‘Isn’t it a risk?’ Roger asked.
‘Hardly. David’s there now.’
Ann said: ‘Davey would like to come, too. I should think – and Mary.’
‘Of course.’
Pirrie said: ‘No.’ He spoke softly, but with finality. John looked at him.
‘Why? What’s wrong?’
‘I think they would be safer here,’ Pirrie said. He paused. ‘I don’t think you should all go along there together.’
It took several seconds for John to grasp the implication; he only did so then because the remark came from Pirrie and so could be founded only on an utterly cynical realism.
‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘that tells me something about how you would act in my place, doesn’t it?’
Pirrie smiled. Ann said: ‘What’s the matter?’
John heard David’s voice calling him in the distance: ‘John!’
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Never mind, Ann. You stay here. It won’t take me long to fix things with David.’
He had half expected the gate in the fence to open as he approached, but he realized that caution – possibly excessive, but on the whole justified – might prevent this until John’s status, and the status of the troop that accompanied him, had been settled. He stood under the fence, still blind to whatever was happening on the other side of it, and said:
‘Dave! That you?’
He heard David’s voice: ‘Yes, of course – open it. How the devil is he going to get in if you don’t?’
He saw the muzzle of the gun waggle as the gate beneath it opened slightly. No chances were being taken. He squeezed through the gap, and saw David waiting for him. They took each other’s hands. The gate closed behind him.
‘How did you make it?’ David asked. ‘Where’s Davey – and Ann and Mary?’
‘Back there. Hiding in a ditch. Your machine-gunner damn near killed us all.’
David stared at him. ‘I can’t believe it! I told the people at the gate to look out for you, but I never believed you would get here. The news of the ban on travel… and then the rioting and rumours of bombing… I’d given you up.’
‘It’s a long story,’ John said. ‘It can wait. Can I bring my lot in first?’
‘Your lot? You mean… ? They told me there was a mob on the road.’
John nodded. ‘A mob. Thirty-four of them, ten being children. We’ve all been on the road for some time. I brought them here.’
He was looking at David’s face. He had seen the expression only once before that he could remember: when, after their grandfather’s death, they had heard that the whole estate was being left to David. It showed guilt and embarrassment.
David said: ‘It’s bit difficult, Johnny.’
‘In what way?’
‘We’re crowded out already. When things began getting bad, the locals began to come in. The Rivers from Stonebeck, and so on. It was their boy who got hold of the machine-gun – from an army unit near Windermere. Three or four of the men came with him. It’s spread thin. We’ll manage all right, but there’s no margin for accidents – a potato failure, or anything like that.’
‘My thirty-four will spread it thinner,’ John said. ‘But they’ll work for their keep. I’ll answer for that.’
‘That’s not the point,’ David said. ‘The land will only support so many. We’re over the mark now.’
A brief silence followed. The Lepe rushed past on their right. The man tending a fire on which a pot was simmering and the two men up on the platform were both out of earshot. Nevertheless, John found himself lowering his voice. He said:
‘What do you suggest? That we turn back towards London?’
David grasped his arm. ‘Good God, no! Don’t be a fool. I’m trying to tell you – I can make room for you and Ann and the children; but not for the others.’
‘Dave,’ he said, ‘you’ve got to make room for them. You can do, and you must.’
David shook his head. ‘I would if I could. Don’t you understand – those people aren’t the first we’ve had to turn away. There have been others. Some of them were relations of people already here. We’ve had to be hard. I’ve always told them that you and your family must come in if you got here. But thirty-four… ! It’s impossible. Even if I agreed, the others would never let me.’
‘It’s your land.’
‘No one holds land except by consent. They are in the majority. Johnny – I know you don’t like the idea of abandoning the people you’ve been travelling with. But you will have to. There’s no alternative.’
‘There’s always an alternative.’
‘None. Bring them here – Ann and the children – you can make some excuse for that. The others… they’ve got arms, haven’t they? They’ll manage all right.’
‘You’ve not been out there.’
Their eyes met again. David said: ‘I know you won’t like doing it, but you must. You can’t put the safety of those others before Ann and the children.’
John laughed. The two men on the platform looked down at them.
‘Pirrie!’ he said. ‘He must be psychic.’
‘Pirrie?’
‘One of my lot. I don’t think we should have got through without him. I was going to bring Ann and the children with me when I came to meet you. He put a stop to it. He made them stay behind. I saw that he was protecting himself and the others against a double-cross, and I was righteously indignant. Now… if I did have them here, inside the fence, I wonder what I would have done?’
David said: ‘This is serious. Can’t you fool him somehow?’
‘Fool him? Not Pirrie.’ John looked away, up the long vista of Blind Gill, snug beneath its protecting hills. He said slowly: ‘If you turn those others down, you’re turning us down – you’re turning Davey down.’
‘This man, Pirrie… I might persuade them to let one other in with you. Can he be bribed?’
‘Undoubtedly. But the idea will have entered the heads of the others by now – particularly since I shall have to tell them they can’t just walk in as they had been hoping. There isn’t a hope of my getting the children in here without them all coming.’
‘There must be some way.’
&
nbsp; ‘That’s what I said to you, isn’t it? We aren’t free agents any longer, though.’ He stared at his brother. ‘In a way, we’re enemies.’
‘No. We’ll find a way round this. Perhaps… if you were to go back, and then I got our people to run a sortie against you, under machine-gun cover… you could have passed the word to Ann and the children to lie still until we had chased them away.’
John smiled ironically. ‘Even if I were prepared to do it, it wouldn’t work. Mine have been blooded. That ditch makes a fair cover. The machine-gun isn’t going to scare them.’
‘Then… I don’t know. But there must be something.’
John looked up the valley again. The fields were well cropped, mostly with potatoes.
‘Ann will be wondering,’ he said, ‘not to mention the others. I shall have to get back. What’s it to be, Dave?’
He had come already to his own decision, and the agony of his brother’s uncertainty could not touch that grimness. Dave said at last, forcing the words out:
‘I’ll talk to them. Come back in an hour. I’ll see what they say about letting the others in. Or perhaps we’ll think of something in that time. Try to think of something, Johnny!’
John nodded. ‘I’ll try. So long, Dave.’
David looked at him miserably: ‘Give my love to them all – to Davey.’
John said: ‘Yes. Of course I will.’
The two men came down from the platform and unbarred the gate again. John squeezed through. He did not look at David as he went.
They were waiting for him as he dropped into the ditch. He saw from their faces that they expected only bad news; any news was bad that was not signalled by the gate to the valley thrown open, and an immediate beckoning in.
‘How’d it go, Mr Custance?’ Noah Blennitt asked.
‘Not well.’ He told them, baldly, but passing quickly over the invitation to his own family to come in. When he had finished, Roger said:
‘I can see their point of view. He can make room for you and Ann and the children?’
‘He can’t do anything. The others had agreed about that, and apparently they’re willing to stick by it.’
The Death of Grass Page 20
