The Giant Stumbles

by John Lymington

  “Surely you understand this is no time for pity. You can’t be sorry for people when we’re all in the same boat”

  She shivered very slightly. “I don’t feel quite so keen about death. It’s never struck me as a glorious opportunity.”

  “In this case it is,” he said. “I know the time that this is going to happen. It will be like a gigantic earth quake.”

  “They don’t have earthquakes here,” she said quickly

  “They will this time. The thing is this: I believe the only chance of getting away with it will be in the air.”

  She looked at him suspiciously.

  “You mean in a plane?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I’ve laid it on already.”

  “But people will be scrambling for them once they find out.”

  “They’re not going to find out,” he said.

  She looked at him, her eyes gradually freezing over so that the deep violet colour became a cold blue.

  “You petty little swine,” she said, and went to get up. He caught her arm and pulled her down again roughly. “Don’t be a fool, Laura,” he said. “Only a few can survive, I tell you. If everybody knows, not even a few will stand that chance. You want to live, don’t you?”

  She stood very still, facing away from him. He let her arm go.

  “How can you stop this other man telling?” she said. “I’ve—made arrangements with him.”

  “That bruise on your face doesn’t look very good,” she said contemptuously.

  “He’s in a state of nerves,” Rex said. “You can understand it, I suppose. It’s a burden for one man to carry.” “Are you sure it’s only one man?”

  “Darling, my offices can be sure of everything that’s happening in the world,” he said with a fierce pride. “We can be absolutely sure. Rhodes only got in touch with one man, in California. We’ve been on to him. He’s not doing anything. He sees no sense in making it known.” “He is a man who knows all about it?”

  “He agrees with it. But he also agrees with me that it will do no good to broadcast the facts.”

  “What sort of a man is he?”

  “A very much respected man.”

  “But Rhodes,” she said, still uncertain.

  “Some disturbance in the house has broken up the phone line,” Rex said. “He will have to go out to make any calls, and I’ve got men waiting to see that he doesn’t.” She swung round to him angrily.

  “This is acting like a—a gangster.”

  “It’s nothing of the sort. I want to live. There’s only the chance for a very few to survive. I’m going to be one, and you’re going to be with me. It’s as simple as that. Just the choice of whether you want to live, or die with everybody else. Let them know what’s going to happen and they’ll kill you, trample you in a panic. Surely you can see that?”

  “But to have men—watching—like spies ”

  “Well, which do you want? Life or death? Make up your mind.”

  She hedged, frightened again. “How can you be sure a thing like this is going to happen?”

  “Proof! There’s too much of it. Hour after hour something odd is coming in on the wires, nearly always in the places that he has named as the disturbance centres. We play it down. We make it seem just another little sensation that has a normal explanation. We’ve got to. We can’t let little things pile up. We separate them. Put one here, another pages later. We play one up on a false explanation, and shrink another. We put them in only because others might, and you want to get in first and squash it before anybody else can make anything big of it. We can handle it—provided we keep that man quiet. I’ve taken the precaution of putting out an unbalance story about him. That will take care of most editors. But it isn’t only editors. It’s other scientists, big public men, politicians. I’ve got to watch what he’ll try to do and stop him before he does it.”

  “But how can you?” she blazed out.

  “There’s a way,” he said. “I can persuade him, I think.”

  “You really believe that this is going to be the murder of millions of people and you can behave like—like a cheap thug!”

  “You haven’t done so badly, Laura,” he said, ironically. “You got me to lift you up. Better keep your hold on me now. It’s a good way to live—saving yourself from dying.”

  Quite suddenly, she started to cry. She was frightened of him because she did not understand enough to be frightened of The Big Thing.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I

  The man in the tree lowered his field glasses and looked down at the man standing by the shooting brake in the lane below.

  “It’s the boy,” the Top Man said. “He seems to be driving his mum.”

  “No sign of the man?”

  “Not since he went into the house.”

  They said nothing for a while and heard the Jaguar go by on the road fifty yards along the lane. The second man got to the roof of the brake and stared out towards the White house by the sea.

  “I wonder what this game is?” he said.

  “Just making sure he doesn’t get out of there,” the Top Man said. “Easy money, if you ask me.”

  “Yes, but why?”

  “I don’t know.’ Judging from the sound of it, he’s a bit cracked. Suppose they think he might do some damage.

  “Nobody seems to have come from the phone people.

  “Nobody’s noticed the line’s been cut. They will soon That’s when he’ll try to get out. Betcha.”

  “Yes. But why cut him off in there ? Why sort of cage him in?”

  “It’s money for us,” the Top Man said. “And it’s easy.”

  “Doesn’t seem to be anything in it.”

  II

  Richard Beverley was a restless man. He liked to be constantly busy with reports, galleys, typescripts, telephones and somebody to shout at. When Hal came into the house alone he was delighted.

  “Hallo, Hal darling! How nice! What’s this ? Social? Or do you want something ?”

  “I want something,” she said.

  He gave a mighty sigh. “Why can’t I be attractive, like other men?” He looked out of the open windows at the little white line of bathing huts on the beach.

  “Nigel’s found something terribly important,” she said. “I thought you were the best person to tell.”

  “Tell, sweetheart,” Beverley said. “If it’s news it’s the breath of my nostrils.”

  She made him listen for a full minute, while his eye? grew wide, then narrowed, then looked furtive. He began to walk up and down swiping at flies with a paperknife.

  “How can he be sure about this?” he said at last.

  “There are so many proofs now,” she said.

  “I believe you, Hal, dearest, and I believe in Nigel’s work. There’s been enough of it to believe in. But this is different. How can he be sure? Do you know that scientists today are less sure of anything than they have ever been? They don’t know what did happen let alone what’s going to. They can’t even find out how the Ice Ages happened, and that’s no time ago. In fact, the more they discover, the less they seem to know. They used to think the earth’s surface developed by fire and flood and volcanic eruption. Now they have some notion about the Earth’s crust shifting round like an orange peel. I tell you, Hal, they’re babes. They don’t know anything. They can’t agree on anything. But they’re wonderful guessers.”

  “This is the truth,” Hal said, her cheeks flushed with sudden anger.

  “Don’t doubt it, dearest,” Beverley said. “Don’t doubt it at all. But I couldn’t take the risk of shoving that out on the air, sweetness. There’d be panic. There’d be uproar. Battle, murder and sudden death. Absolute alarm, and then supposing there was a flaw in the argument? I’d be carpeted, thrown out. I’d be responsible for forty thousand suicides. Have you considered that, Hal? It’s unthinkable. No, no! I couldn’t do it. Nobody would dare do it!”

  “But if you know it’s going to happen?” she said.


  “How can you know?” he challenged.

  “There are so many proofs.”

  He marched up and down in a fury of explanation, waving the paperknife.

  “Suppose it’s true. Suppose we have only these few days to live. What could we do to make it any better? I don’t see that there would be any possible escape. From what you say the earth’s crust will momentarily disintegrate. What can be done to stop it? What can you do to escape it?”

  “Don’t you see, if people could be told someone might see a solution! That’s what Nigel believes. He thinks that somewhere someone may have a solution which might save some souls. That’s what counts, Richard. Saving some.”

  “Yes, but you’ll kill a lot of others in the meantime,” he protested. “Don’t you realize that, Hal? Suppose we put out an announcement like this. It would be the gravest message ever heard. It would have to be done in such a way that no doubt would exist in the normal mind that it was true. As a result—panic, alarm, suicide, perhaps social collapse. Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die. They’d be stealing everything they wanted. Theft, murder, rape, prayer—everything all mixed up. You couldn’t stop it. How many would just sit down and wait? This isn’t one man’s death you’re talking about It’s the death of a world, with no escape for anyone.

  He stopped suddenly and put his hand on her shoulder.

  “Would you do it, Hal?”

  She drew a deep breath.

  “If there was a chance of saving even only a few— yes.”

  He shook his head and threw the paperknife across the room.

  “I can’t do it,” he said. “No one can do it. It’s a nightmare responsibility.”

  “What about the Government?” she said quickly.

  “Would they dare?” he said. “I doubt it. They’re never very courageous in telling people the worst. Perhaps that’s because they’re always hoping for the best. I don’t know. But time and time again they’ve hidden or twisted the truth to make things look better and give themselves time to put them right. Not this Government. All governments do it. Can you really imagine any government standing up and saying, ‘Look, you’re all going to blow up next week. Be calm and say your prayers.’ Can you imagine it? Yet what else could they do, if they decided to do anything? What else?”

  “I don’t know, Richard. It just seems so wicked that nobody will do anything. That everybody’s frightened— not of this thing—but of themselves.”

  “What do you expect, Hal?” Beverley said. “You suddenly tell a man he must die in so many days. Do you think he is going to picture everybody else dying first? No, he thinks of himself, his wife, his children. To hell with the rest. That’s the first reaction. Then he realizes he is being selfish, so he tries to think of others. But what can he do for them? Nothing at all. They’re all going to die together, and as he realizes this, he thinks about himself again. It’s all he can do. Some could pray. Lots of People pray when they’re frightened. It’s about the only time they do pray. But in the end what’s inside them but a kind of quake that’s growing worse all the time? Nobody wants to die. Nothing in the world wants to die. All unreasoning creatures have that instinct to live, and man is not all that way ahead. That’s all there is to it, Hal. You want to tell them. Ask yourself this one question: Do they want to know?”

  Hal turned towards the door by which she had come in. He went to follow her, then stopped.

  III

  Nigel came down from The Bin about four. Leila was in the lounge, staring out from behind dark glasses. She looked round suddenly as he came in.

  “Can’t see anything wrong,” he said. “Worked it all out over again. There seems to be some sort of acceleration going on, but I can’t see why.”

  “That vibration of the ground ” She shifted uneasily in her chair. “That was the most frightening thing yet.”

  “It wasn’t an earth tremor—not the normal kind,” he said. “It was like the buzzing of a motor. A fairly high frequency. Odd. Can’t figure what it was.”

  “I had a queer sort of feeling the house was sliding sideways,” Leila said.

  He stared, and then started to laugh.

  “Maybe!” he said. “But it hasn’t moved.” He looked out to the brilliant sea sparkling in the sun. Harry was crouched on the barge deck, wrapt in something. John was playing pirates at the stern, shooting imaginary characters out of the water.

  She watched him for a moment, then:

  “Hal went to see Richard Beverley.”

  He started. “What—the B.B.C. man?” As she nodded he went on, “What the hell! Why didn’t she tell me?” “Why—what’s the matter?”

  “She shouldn’t have gone,” he said urgently. “What time did she go ?”

  “After lunch? Why? Isn’t that what you wanted to do?”

  “Not now,” he said, angrily. “It’s dangerous. She knows it is. Why didn’t she tell me ?”

  “Dangerous?” Leila got up and took off her glasses. “What do you mean?”

  He looked at her for a moment.

  “Rex threatened me,” he said, huskily. “Not me—but the children.”

  Her eyes froze. “He did?” That was all she said about Rex.

  “I haven’t been able to get it sorted out, he said angrily “I don’t know what to do. I can’t send them away. Not now. I couldn’t. We’ve got to stay with them … He made no bones about it. You know Rex. little better than a damned gangster. I suppose he always has been. I’ve never known him well enough.”

  “You have to be ruthless to get on, Ni,” Leila said. ‘You may not know it. You’re just famous and gifted all it once. Your days of competing are long over—that’s if you were ever conscious of fighting any rivals. I don’t think you were. You just worked. Went ahead on your own. You had the ability—the fantastic penetration. You worked in your laboratories and observatories, watching life and its development with microscopes and telescopes and radar and everything else—but you never saw life as it was going on all round you. The snarling, the sniping, the scratching, the tripping, the constant mob. and melee you’ve got to try and rise above. The rat race. You’d have met Rexes in plenty if you’d come out of your little scientific cupboard. Now you’ve met it all of a sudden, and you’re sickened. They wanted your genius when they could make money out of it, but now you might lose them money so they tread on you. It’s nothing new to be discredited and broken by someone you crossed; it just happens to be a novelty to you. What you must do is fight it.”

  “I can fight if I know how. I just don t understand what he might do.”

  “He’s begun by trying to make people believe that you’re in the throes of a mental breakdown,” she said. “That’s a usual opening. It means at the start that other editors will get wary. When you come up with your story, they’ll listen very politely and tell you they’re full up till November. You may not know the routine. You never get turned down in the ordinary way. They all clamoured for you. Now they’ll be stalling you. That’s the first thing. The next thing is to make sure you don’t really push this story beyond editors. Go for government officials, scientific bodies who might get the thing taken as it should be taken. And the only way to stop you wanting to do that is to threaten you. He knows you won’t stop for personal threats so he uses the one thing he knows will make you scared. That’s what he’s doing.”

  “But how can he know what I’m doing ?”

  He’s probably sent somebody to keep an eye on the house.”

  But there’s the phone….” Suddenly he remembered.

  I wonder if it’s gone again?” He went out and she waited, tapping a foot until he came back again and shook his head.

  “Rex knew it had gone last night,” she said. “He could make sure it stayed gone.”

  He sat down on the arm of a chair.

  I can’t believe that this—awful disaster could be used by people to suit their own ends. It must be that they don’t understand.”

  Of course they don�
�t understand, Ni. At heart they don’t believe they’ll die. It’s a very difficult thing to believe that you’ll die at three on Tuesday. I get the cold shivers down my spine, but whether I really go on to believe in total extermination I don’t know. The scale of the thing is out of human imagination. That’s the trouble …” She went to him as he sat there, took his head and pressed it against her breast. “Ni, Ni, there’s nothing you can do. Take the ordinary view. If it happens, it happens. Just live as you always do. You can’t be the world’s saviour.”

  The policeman appeared at the windows, trousers bunched up with cycling clips. He rapped on the window, md then saw Nigel.

  “Mr. Rhodes, I wonder if you’ve had a gentleman staying with you by the name of Benstead? A tall, thin gentleman, wearing a dark grey suit…”

  “Yes. I haven’t seen him today, though.”

  “He…” The constable cleared his throat. “He’s dead, I’m afraid. Put his head on the railway line. I wonder if you’d mind…”

  Nigel got up suddenly and went to the officer. Leila turned away to the cigarette box on the table.

  Benstead. Benstead had found freedom at last; the first of the New Seekers.

  She shivered very slightly.

  IV

  The policeman did not stay long. He seemed relieved to have found out where Benstead had come from. When he had gone, Nigel turned to Leila.

  “It’s no good blaming yourself, Ni,” she said huskily. “It’s the sort of thing that’s going to happen if people believe in you.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” he said in a whisper. “It hadn’t struck me till that policeman came, and then it was just as if I’d known it all along.”

  She stood very still, watching him.

  “I’m scared, Ni. I’m scared deep down like I’ve never known fear before. It’s ripped me right down to the shreds of what soul I’ve got. I’m dead damn’ scared like a kid in a panic. Ni! ” She threw herself into his arms and stayed there, quivering slightly.