The Doomsday Men

by J. B. Priestley

  It was not easy to put together their short and disjointed remarks, obviously those of men who understood one another and had plenty of time on their hands. You had to do, at some speed, a jigsaw puzzle with plenty of pieces missing. But Jimmy was no fool, and he knew he had to think quickly. What he gathered was that they were waiting for the arrival of a truck that had been delayed, and that this truck would take Kaydick and the bleached young man, whose name was Joseph, up to a place called Lost Lake, where, Jimmy shrewdly surmised, Father John was staying. They were to take with them the package on the table, which was clearly something very important, eagerly awaited at Lost Lake. What they intended to do with him, Jimmy did not discover, and he had an idea that they did not know yet themselves. Jimmy realised now, of course, that they were worried about him simply because they could not understand how he had so nearly succeeded in deceiving them, and wondered where an outsider had learned at least one or two of their secrets.

  Then he heard Kaydick say, “We had better go down and telephone again,” and there was a movement in the room. “You have your revolver, Joseph,” Kaydick continued, in his own grim fashion. “Keep an eye on that man in there. He may be waking soon. And I leave this package in your charge too, Joseph. We shan’t be long.” And then he heard the two of them going out.

  Jimmy thought quickly. This was his only chance. Joseph still imagined he was asleep and might possibly be off his guard. Even merely to look in, he would have to open the door, and once the door was open, anything might happen. Jimmy stared thoughtfully at that door, which was about three feet from the corner. He could stand behind it, and take a chance at surprising Joseph if he came well into the room. But that was unlikely. His best plan was to stand at the side on which the door opened, for there would be just a moment when Joseph would have to stare into the dim interior to see what was happening there. So Jimmy pushed his back against the wall, wedging himself between the door and the corner, and waited, wanting to breathe hard and not daring to, hearing almost with despair what seemed the loud thumping of his heart. And there he seemed to wait a long, long time, so that it seemed impossible that Kaydick and the other man would not return, to wreck his whole plan.

  Just when it appeared hopeless, and he felt he could not stand there, all aching, another moment, he heard the key turn in the lock, and braced himself for instant action, bringing the shoulder farther away from the door, his right shoulder, round a little, and clenching his fist. Slowly, with agonising slowness it seemed, the door opened, and then Joseph’s face looked in through the opening. Jimmy allowed it the fraction of a second to come in a little farther, and then, throwing his whole two hundred pounds of righteous indignation behind the upward swing of his arm, he gave it the most tremendous uppercut seen in this world since Jack Johnson left the ring. Joseph vanished, but Jimmy was in the other room in time to see him give a final quiver as he reached the floor. Jimmy hastily glanced round for his coat, but could not see it. No time to lose. They evidently considered that package on the table to be very important, so he would take that, just to make things harder for them. There was a key inside the outer door, so he took that too and locked the hut from outside, just to make things harder still. And now what? Where had Kaydick and the other man gone to? And where on earth was this place? He gave a hasty glance all round him.

  Blinking a little in the bright sunlight, he saw that he was in the middle of the desert, but only about five hundred yards away from a junction of roads, where there were several buildings, probably a filling-station and a café and some auto-camp huts. He had no idea where it was, but guessed it to be somewhere between Barstow and the mountains. The road below reminded him of the one that went eastwards out of Barstow. The wooden building, little more than a hut, near which he was still standing, trying to get his bearings, was about fifty yards back from the side road, running behind the cluster of buildings at the junction. There was a rough track, just passable for cars, leading from this hut to the side-road; but the car that must have brought him here, last night, was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps Kaydick and the other man had gone along to the junction in it, though he had not heard it go. Or they may have left it down there, for some reason or other. Meanwhile, standing here, he was asking for trouble.

  The only possible thing to do was to make for the junction, once he knew that Kaydick and the other men had left it, and trust to luck that he could get a lift from there. And this dodging of Kaydick was going to be tricky. You couldn’t just cut and run anywhere across this desert stuff. Once away from the roads, you were lost and done for. The only course open to him at the moment was to get somewhere between the hut and the junction, somewhere from which he could see both of them, so that he would know when it would be possible to dodge along to the junction. He would have to think later what he could do when he arrived there. So instead of descending to the road, along which Kaydick was sure to come, he made roughly in the direction of the junction, across broken desert ground with a few dusty shrubs in it, keeping more or less parallel to the road. When he had gone about two or three hundred yards, still clinging to the package, which was fairly bulky but not heavy, he came to a clump of rock on a hillock, behind which he could see but not be seen, and there he stayed, breathless, excited, and now very warm. The sun was high, and it glared down on the shimmering empty scene. Jimmy had no watch, for he had kept it in his coat, and now the coat was gone, with all his money except what might be left in his trousers pockets. What had he left? He looked at it. A nickel and four cents. So there he was, with coat, pocket-book, cheque-book, watch, all gone, facing the desert and a good old stretch of road to anywhere with his shirt and pants and nine cents. And now he had time to feel hungry and thirsty and very grubby. And he had no hat, and the sun seemed to be stronger every moment. And if he did dodge Kaydick, and slip down into the junction, what then? Well, they couldn’t take him again down there, with other people all around? But couldn’t they? They had managed, with some Dr. Johnson hocus-pocus, to get him out of that hotel at Barstow all right, hadn’t they? Now that he no longer felt the exhilaration of uppercutting Joseph and of his escape, he saw that his prospects were not at all bright. All that was bright, blast it, was the sun, dazzling and burning and boring into him.

  Two figures coming along the road? Yes, Kaydick and the other fellow. They had been along to the junction then. And they were not looking his way—why should they? He dropped behind the hillock, and stooping as he went, he began working his way towards the junction. The package was a nuisance, but he decided to keep it as long as he could, because he was curious now to know what it contained. Awkward, though, if Kaydick caught him at the junction, and accused him of stealing it. True, they had kidnapped him, but Jimmy, still making his way painfully behind rocks and over rocks and trying to dodge a lot of hellish prickly stuff, had an unpleasant idea that they would find it easier to accuse him of stealing—for there was the package and it certainly wasn’t addressed to him—than he would find it to maintain that he had just been kidnapped. Trouble about this whole business was, he reflected, between curses at the cactus and sharp stones, that the truth about it, whatever that might be, was so fantastic that any nice little lie that Kaydick and Company brought out would obviously be believed. And so far, these hymn-singing brethren had beaten him—to say nothing of poor dead Phil—all along the line. Well, he could but try. And then, he remembered with a mixture of pleasure and self-reproach, there were the two young fellows, Darbyshire the Englishman, and the scientific chap, Booker or Tooker or Hooker, trying to puzzle it out, back there in Barstow, and also probably trying to puzzle out what had become of their new friend, Mr. James Edlin.

  He had lost sight of Kaydick now, and there was no difficulty at all in cutting behind the buildings for the main road, then turning down to the filling-station and café there. He learned at once where he was, at Baker, with Barstow sixty miles away down that empty main road. Well, it might have been
worse. But now what? Business at Baker this morning was not brisk. Not a car in sight. At any moment one might come along, going to Barstow, and he could tell some yarn to get a lift, but how long could he afford to wait? The grim and resourceful Kaydick and his boys might be back at any moment too. What would happen, Jimmy asked himself hastily, if he set off as hard as he could along that Barstow road? He might get a lift sooner or later. On the other hand, he might wear himself out, hatless, coatless, hot and hungry, and at the end of ten miles or so, with nobody and nothing else in sight, find Brother Kaydick and friends bearing down on him in their car. And a hell of a lot of fight there would be in him then!

  He knew there were many more important things to worry about, as he stood there, a tousled absurd figure in a crumpled pink shirt clutching a large package, but for the life of him he could not help dismissing them to wonder if he could buy a good drink of coffee for nine cents. It would be just his luck if coffee were ten cents. The place, of course, was decorated with all manner of tantalising notices, imploring him to step inside and be cool, to try a nice long drink, to devour ham and eggs and other delicacies, to consider himself Welcome at Baker. Enough to drive a man mad! He turned away, to see that he was being regarded curiously by a man even plumper than he was but looking far more comfortable.

  “I’ll toss you for a nickel,” said Jimmy desperately.

  “Sure!” the stranger chuckled, and then as Jimmy tossed his coin, sending a prayer after it, the plump jolly damnable fellow called “Heads.” And so it was.

  “If I’d been as lucky with everything else as I’ve been at tossing,” said the stranger, pocketing Jimmy’s miserable last nickel and then jingling a pocketful of them carelessly, “I’d sure be going places right now.”

  So that was that. Jimmy walked away, but found that even when he was well clear of the buildings, he could not see the hut he had left. He discovered from the signpost that the side-road near the hut went on to Shoshone and Death Valley Junction; and now he spent the next minute or two anxiously and alternatively looking along one road or the other, hoping that a car would arrive on the road from Las Vegas to Barstow to give him a lift, and trusting that he would not see Kaydick and the others coming down the side-road. Meanwhile, the morning was wearing late, the sun was rising higher still, and the very sight of the shimmering desert made him feel more and more uncomfortable. What a place! And what a fine figure he cut in it too, with his sweaty and dusty pink shirt, his aching feet, his aching head, his aching heart, and his four cents! So there he stood, looking first one way and then the other; and nothing, one of the blankest hot nothings he ever remembered, nothing happened. In fact, it didn’t look as if anything would ever happen again in Baker.

  That, of course, was the signal for life to get busy. On the road from Las Vegas there appeared one, two, three, four buses. On the other road there appeared two hurrying figures, and Jimmy knew at once they were Kaydick and the other fellow. Desperate men too, for not only had their comrade been knocked out but their precious package had been stolen. Promptly dodging out of sight, Jimmy asked himself hurriedly what was to be done about this package. If possible at all, he meant to keep it, but if Kaydick arrived before those buses or (horrible thought) if the buses didn’t stop, this package was better out of the way. Not far from where he stood there was a depression by the side of the road, and he put the package down there, as if it were waiting to be taken away by bus. Then he hurried to the far side of the filling-station, watched round the corner there, saw Kaydick and the other fellow come hurrying up on the other side, then dodged round the back among the auto-camp huts. This was not an ideal place for hide-and-seek, but it would have to do. Kaydick would probably waste a minute or two, asking if anybody had seen him, and now the buses would be here at any moment, that is, if they were going to stop at Baker. If they didn’t stop, his chances were not good. He might be able to dive into an empty auto-camp hut, and then again he might not. He worked farther round the back, taking all the cover he could, until finally he was near the side-road again, where Kaydick and the other man had just passed. Here were the buses, and—glory, glory!—they were stopping. Then a miracle happened.

  In one instant, it seemed, Baker was transformed. From an empty place, asleep in an empty desert, it immediately changed into the corner of a roaring carnival town, for from those buses, swarming out like ants, yelling for Budweiser and ice-cream sodas, banging one another on the back, each man making the noise and seeming to take the space of ten, there descended a host of lively fellows all wearing red, tasselled, conical hats, that Turkish hat known as the fez. It looked as if Baker had been suddenly flung into a revolution in Stamboul. The red hats stormed the place. A crimson tide swept into the café. “Attaboy!” they thundered, charging towards the beer. Not all went in. There was a strong side-current in the direction of the men’s wash-room. And there were red hats bobbing up and down all over the junction. Blessing this miraculous invasion, Jimmy saw that his one chance now was to clap a fez on his head, and to do it at once. Risking discovery, though the risk at the moment was not great for even if Kaydick or the other man caught sight of him, they could hardly do anything in the press of this roaring mob, Jimmy hurried along and joined the fourth wave that was trying to storm the café, and jammed himself in amongst them, happily mingling his sweat with theirs. Once inside, he enjoyed the felicity of catching sight of Kaydick, a tall fellow and unmistakable with his squint, completely hemmed in near the counter, where he must have been making enquiries. For an instant, he imagined that Kaydick must have seen him too, among the faces pressing in at the back, but he did not look long enough to make sure. What he had to do now was to obtain a fez. He pushed his way through at the side, until he found himself near a table crowded with thirsty invaders who had already given their order and, now relaxed, ready for beer, kidding one another, mopping their brows, had piled their red hats on the table. Just as he was wondering if he could safely snatch a hat from the nearest pile, he saw one on the floor, dived like a swallow for it, pushed towards the entrance again, and came out triumphantly wearing, towards one ear, for it was too small for him, a glorious, idiotic, crimson fez. And there, among the group just outside the door, he almost ran into the other man, who at the first sight of Jimmy opened his eyes and his mouth. But, Jimmy, making the most of his fez, bustled past him at once, feeling sure that the man would not have time to make up his mind. Jimmy did not intend to give him time. He threaded his way hastily through the remainder of his fellow fez-wearers, picked up the package, climbed into the nearest bus, the second of the four, and hurried to the far corner of the back seat, where he made himself as small as possible and pretended, with the fez as far over his face as the miserable little thing would go, to be asleep. “And now, for the love of Pete, boys,” he cried to himself, “let’s go.”

  How long he was there before they did go, he could not have told, but it seemed horribly long to him in that corner. He did not dare look about him, but every instant he expected to hear an unpleasant voice asking him what he thought he was doing there. He hoped he looked like a man trying to sleep off the effect of wearing a Turkish hat during a long wild night in Las Vegas, where he knew these fellows had been the night before; but he never felt less sleepy in his life. His right shoulder was taut, expecting to feel a heavy hand laid on it. “Come on, boys,” he kept on imploring them silently, “come on. Don’t stay in this hole all day.” And never did he hear a cry so welcome as that of “All Ab-ooo-ard!” or feel so delighted to find a vehicle suddenly invaded with hot heavy bodies and shouts and perspiration and dusty shoes and the smell of beer. Yes, yes, they were off—and good-bye, Baker! He sat up, and looked out. Was that Kaydick over there, looking angrily about him? It was. Good-bye, good-bye, Brother Kaydick!

  They were all hot, in that bus, but the hottest was Jimmy, who now began to fan himself with his fez. His neighbour, a small round man, who looked like a warm pink egg,
if an egg could be made to wear rimless eye-glasses and a Turkish hat, and who wore a little label announcing that he was J. F. Hofelstanger, Los Angeles, now glanced curiously at him several times. Jimmy knew only too well that J. F. Hofelstanger had something to glance at. The boys had seen Boulder Dam and had had a fine night out at Las Vegas, that “wide open” Nevada town of gambling saloons, and so they were not looking their sprucest this morning, but Jimmy knew they were fashion plates compared to him, with his ruined pink shirt, his tousled hair, his filthy unshaven face. Thank God he was on his way, at fifty-five miles an hour, back to that hotel at Barstow.

  “Well, brother,” said Mr. Hofelstanger, “I’d say, by the look of you this morning, you’d had one big night in Las Vegas.”

  With an effort, Jimmy winked. “You’re right at that, brother. That was one night I won’t forget in a hurry.”

  “You didn’t lose your coat, did you?”

  “Sure! Lost everything.” Jimmy spoke expansively—one of the boys.

  “Say!” cried little Mr. Hofelstanger, not unimpressed, “you hit it pretty hard, didn’t you?”

  “I hit that town high, wide, and handsome,” cried Jimmy. “And d’you know what I have left, brother? Four cents—just four cents.”

  Mr. Hofelstanger pursed up his chubby little lips and whistled. Then he looked down at Jimmy’s knees, between which he was clutching the large upended package. Now he pointed to it. “You managed to get something out of it.”