The Giant Stumbles

by John Lymington

  As they ran off, Hal went back into the house, but did not find Nigel. She went through to the lawn where a few of Harry’s animals lazed about in the sun. She looked up to the windows of The Bin and saw him there, standing doing nothing, just looking out towards the sea.

  She ran across the grass. Constance, the spaniel, got up and ran after her. The goat pulled restlessly at its chain and from the hutches round about there came the sounds of animals disturbed, hoping that humans meant food.

  She went into the east wing and up to the door of The Bin. As she entered the square, bright room, he turned.

  “Nigel, there are two men. Waiting in the lane. I went to take the children out in the car, but they wouldn’t let me go by! ”

  He could see she was overwrought and he took her ir his arms, but she stayed only a few seconds, some distaste rising in her, then she turned away.

  “Don’t worry too much,” he said. “We should have expected it. I’ve been thinking, Hal. The children are in danger, but there’s a way—without telling them. Make it a sort of game. Put them on Elly. Take their things. Pretend it’s a great voyage or something. You know how to do it. We’ll pull up the drawbridge at the end of the jetty and chain it. Then no one can get to Elly except by swimming. There aren’t any boats for miles. If we keep he sides free of ropes hanging nobody could get aboard. And it’s easy to watch for swimmers near the barge, see what I mean?”

  She nodded quickly.

  “Yes. It’s brilliant, Ni. But the men will see …”

  “Not if we do it tonight,” he said. “We can do everything without its being spotted. We can fill the water tanks with the hose. Get everything in; camp beds, food - you know. Whether it’s needed or not. Make it absolutely like some real voyage. You see, we shall want Joe to be there with them.”

  “Are we going to tell Joe ?

  “About these men? Yes.”

  “What about the reason?”

  He looked away from her. “I’ve been wondering,” he said. “Trying to make up my mind. It doesn’t seem fair to spoil the last few days… You know what I mean.”

  “What are you saying, Nigel?

  He glanced back at her. “I mean, what’s the sense of telling the boy that his life is useless? That it’s all been for nothing. That the glorious start of his life isn’t going to lead to anything at all? What’s the sense.?”

  “Is this what you think about - everyone else, too?”

  He sighed and sat on the edge of his desk. For a while he stared, folding his arms across his chest.

  “Don’t know, Hal, dear. Everybody is so impersonal I don’t know them. I know Joe, and all his hopes and fears and wishes and ambitions. He’s ours, Hal. He’s a part of us. It’s different. I’m afraid I’m only a very ordinary man. I think of—feelings, I suppose, when should think of senses.”

  “But when we start to prepare….”

  “Prepare, Hal?” he broke in. “My dear girl, there is nothing we can prepare. There is nothing whatever that we or anybody else can do. Absolutely nothing.”

  “But only yesterday you said there might be.”

  “In the first confusion of finding out, I had a stupid hope, I suppose. I haven’t now. As the time goes on and he evidence gathers, I know in my heart there is nothing it all to be done.”

  She put her hands on his shoulders and looked into his eyes.

  “You mustn’t think like that, Ni, darling,” she said. “You mustn’t!”

  “How else can I think?”

  “You’ve got to go on hoping—fighting. You’ve got to go on trying—even if it fails in the end you must go on trying, Ni. That’s you. That’s what you’ve got to do. For some reason you were chosen from all these millions to know about this thing. That alone was a miracle…”

  “It was stumbling on evidence that hit me on the nose like treading on a rake,” he said. “There’s no miracle there.”

  “I believe there is,” she said. “I believe with all my heart that it was a miracle, and that’s why you’ve got to go on trying till the very end. If you manage to do something—even to save one life out of the hundreds of millions—it will have been worth while, Nigel. You’ve got to look at it like that.”

  He took her hands from his shoulders and squeezed her fingers.

  “The trouble is, Hal, you’re a very great woman and I’m a very small man.”

  III

  He got out of an expensive car a long way from the house. For a while he stood on the cliff-top breathing in the air from the sea, hands in his pockets, his fine light suit falling with the lines of the most expensive tailor. He took off his panama hat and fanned his face with it, and then turned and walked down the path to the beach. Once on the deserted sands he threw stones at the sea for a while, then turned and walked towards the house. He stopped halfway and lit a small cigar while his eyes watched the black bulk of the barge beside the spider line of the far-off jetty!

  As he came near the house Nigel went out across the veranda, heading for the jetty. The stranger quickened his pace to cut Nigel’s course.

  “Mr. Rhodes, is it?” said the stranger, with a sharp Cockney accent.

  Nigel stopped and turned to face the questioner. “Yes?”

  “My name’s Mannel,” the stranger said, holding out his hand. “I’ve bought your barge. Maybe the wife told you. Did fix to tow it off next week some time, but reckon I could use the tow before. Hard to fix these things, you know. One thing gets messed up and then all of a sudden everything else kicks off and there you are with a different date and got to hurry.” He smiled. “Still, I don’t suppose it matters much to you? Doesn’t make much odds, does it ? You don’t use it, your wife said.”

  Nigel stared. Through the turmoil of the day he had forgotten the sale. He had never given another thought to what Hal had told him. Even she, in the uproar of emotion following the hold-up, had not thought of ii again a little while ago when they had made their plans for the children.

  “She told you, eh, old man?”

  ‘Yes,” Nigel said quickly, and took the stranger’s arm “Come in and have a drink. I want to talk this over.”

  “Okay, old man,” Mannel laughed. “I’d like the drink, though I reckon all the talking’s been done, eh?”

  Nigel did not reply. The shock of the man’s coming out of the blue jagged his nerves and he feared that he would not be able to find a way out of this.

  “You’ve got a tug coming?” he said as they crossed the veranda.

  “Yep. Should be down tomorrow night.”

  They came into the room. Nigel poured drinks and talked of the weather, trying hard to think of what to say to this man, as if he were an enemy. When he handed him a drink he said, “As a matter of fact, Mr. Mannel we’ve changed our minds. We don’t want to sell.” Mannel looked at his cigar regretfully.

  “As a matter of fact, old man, it’s a bit too late for that I mean. Your wife got the cheque and I’ve got the recippy. Can’t go any further than that, can you?”

  “My wife will give you the cheque back, Mr. Mannel You know, sometimes these things happen. A kind of mistake.”

  Mannel looked very sharp and calm.

  “I want this boat, Mr. Rhodes,” he said.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Mannel. You can’t have it.”

  “You don’t seem to get the idea, old man.” Mannel came closer. “It’s mine. I bought it. I’m coming to get tomorrow. That’s why I dropped in.”

  “I think you are being specially dense,” said Nigel heatedly. “I’ve told you it was a mistake. The boat was not for sale. My wife will return the cheque.”

  “I don’t want the cheque. I want the boat.” Mr. Mannel was used to having his way.

  “I’ve told you there has been a mistake. There’s no more to be said.” He went to the door and opened it.

  “There’s a lot more to be said,” Mannel corrected. ‘Just this. The boat’s mine. I’m taking it. Get that in your head.”

  Nigel ignore
d him and went out to find Hal. She was getting the children’s things together in their rooms while they had supper.

  “The man’s come for Elly” Nigel said.

  “No!”

  “He has. And he seems pretty determined, too. There’s a tug coming down tomorrow.”

  “Heavens! But he can’t—now.”

  “He’s not going to, but I don’t quite know how. Where’s the cheque?”

  “It’s—oh, dear. What did I do with it?”

  She ran out into her bedroom with Nigel following. She rummaged in drawers, among letters and clothes— anywhere it might have been carelessly put.

  “I suppose legally the thing’s his,” Nigel said.

  “Is it?” She was alarmed.

  “I suppose so. I don’t know. But if we refuse to take the money and offer to pay for the tug…” His face was lined and worried, but suddenly he looked at her and it cleared. He began to laugh quietly.

  “What’s the matter, Ni ?”

  “It just struck me—here we are, worrying about a thing like this. It just isn’t in proportion.”

  “It’s the only proportion I can understand,” she said. “Ah! Thank goodness. Here it is.”

  She gave him the little folded slip. He kissed her and went back to Mannel.

  The man was standing staring into a comer of the room, his plump face yellow, his eyes popping.

  “What the hell’s this ?” he demanded. “Look ! Look at that!”

  He had dropped his cigar on the polished floor surround.

  “What?” Nigel said.

  “That cable—that wire to the television! My God! it’s moving!”

  Nigel looked round. The flex from the skirting plug looped up to the back of the set, and at first glance it seemed normal. But as he watched he saw the flex slowly writhing like a snake.

  Nigel looked from the cable to the startled man.

  Mannel started forward suddenly as if disbelieving what he saw. He went to touch the wire to prove his own vanity.

  “Don’t touch it!” Nigel said.

  The man stopped and looked round at him.

  “It’s some bloody trick!” he said, uneasily.

  “I’m afraid it isn’t,” Nigel said, and sat on the arm of the chair. “You look like a successful man.”

  “I made a job of things,” Mannel said. “I started with fruit on a barrow, selling in the streets. Now I got fifteen shops doing the work for me. Fifty people on the payroll. Yeh. That’s success, I reckon. But ”

  “So you’re a practical man.”

  “I’m right down to earth, old man, and I don’t care who knows that. I had to watch out for myself when I was a kid and I’m still doing it now. And I don’t like tricks of that kind, old man. Not a bit.”

  “It’s no trick,” Nigel said. “Things like that are happening here. That wire’s alive.”

  “It’s alive all right.”

  “You’re a practical man, as I say,” Nigel said. “What would you say if I told you the world will end in a few days’ time?”

  Mannel laughed and mopped his face with a handkerchief.

  “I’d say you were daft,” he said. “There’ve been crackpots saying that kind of thing since I was a kid.”

  “Yes, I suppose there have,” Nigel said, and his eye narrowed as he watched the man.

  “It’s stopped!” said Mannel. “Thank Gawd for that. It was beginning to make my hair curl.”

  Nigel got up, the cheque in his hand.

  “Look, Mr. Mannel,” he said, evenly. “There has been a mistake, but it wasn’t your fault. Now, you’re a sporting. man, I can see that. Take your cheque back. I’ll wager you the boat.”

  Surprised into taking it, Mannel held the paper slip between his fingers.

  “Wager it? Bet with it?” he said.

  “Yes,” Nigel said. “Leave it where it is for now, and I’ll bet you that the world comes to an end on Tuesday next during the afternoon. If it doesn’t, the boat’s yours.’

  “The world will… ” Mannel bawled with laughter throwing his head back, and then suddenly he realized it might be rude to do that. “I couldn’t do it.”

  “I’m serious,” Nigel said. “If you are still here on Wednesday, you can have the boat for nothing.”

  Mannel watched him with all the suspicion of a terrier.

  “Brr!” he exploded suddenly. “You’re giving me the creeps! No, I couldn’t take a bet like that.” He turned away, uneasy. “It wouldn’t be—square.”

  “It would,” Nigel said. “And, after all, I’m pledging the boat. You stand to lose nothing. Well?”

  Mannel laughed uncomfortably. “I hardly like to,” he said. “I don’t quite understand this. I get a boat for nothing if I wait till Wednesday. Is that it?”

  ‘‘Yes,” Nigel said. “Yes, that’s it.”

  “Well, I’d be a fool if I didn’t take that,” Mannel said at last. “But all the same it ….. I dunno. I get a queer sort of feeling about it.”

  “Have another drink,” Nigel said.

  “Sure, sure,” said Mannel. “Mind if I squatto?” He sat down, and in a moment Nigel brought him another drink. “Do you know ” He shrugged his body as he sat in the chair. “I feel like things are crawling over me gave. End of the world. Blimey. Well, here’s to it. If it don’t, I get a boat free gratis. If it do, what do I care about boats? Here’s mud, chum.”

  He drank. Nigel sat watching, glancing sometimes at the wall clock. Outside, the evening was gathering in the east, its shadow creeping across the sea.

  “Well, I dunno,” Mannel said, shifting uneasily in his chair. “Where ja get this crazy idea?”

  “I’m a scientific writer,” Nigel explained. “There is evidence that it’s going to happen.”

  Mannel laughed with faint contempt.

  “I can’t swaller that,” he said. “Not that I like talking about these things. Gives me sort of creeps up me back-bone. I’m a practical chap, see. I like facts I can bite on.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you some facts, Mr. Mannel,” Nigel aid, and felt a sudden pleasure in striking fear through . fellow being. “Listen to me.”

  Mannel listened. Twice he held out his glass for more drink, and a few times he put in sharp, barked questions, which only made him more uneasy when he had the answers. At the end he said:

  “Well, I dunno. What’s it all mean?”

  He stared round him, all his confidence and complacency fading away fast.

  “Something funny about this place, you know,” he said, looking round him. “I don’t know what I’m doing sitting here listening to tarradiddles like that. Of course there’s no sense in it. You scientists—you’re always beggating about with one thing or another and getting it all wrong. Look at the doctors: one week something’s good for you, next week it’s poison. You ought to be in m business. Oranges. Eat ’em up. Give you energy, vitality every bloody ‘ity’. Next week, don’t bother with ’em Nothing in ’em. Week after that, ‘new orange diet, build up sex appeal’, or some sludge like that. It’s all a racket They don’t know what they’re talking about. That’s all One week the scientists say atoms ruin the weather. Next week it makes no difference.”

  “What do you think?” Nigel cut in.

  Mannel started, almost as if he had been surprised while talking to himself.

  “Me?” He scratched his head noisily. “Dunno reelly. I reckon I do think they make some difference to the weather. F’r’instance, I don’t remember weather getting so bad as it has these last few years. Just don’t get nc summer. Rain, floods, typhoons, torpedoes. Everything’! gone twice life-size—everything bad, that is. Don’t see nc long, fine spells of double heat, nor anything like that No. Just double up on the old rough stuff. Yes, I reckon there might be something in them atoms.”

  “But you don’t believe what I tell you ?” Nigel said.

  “Well—that’s a bit far-fetched, isn’t it?” He laughed unhappily and shifted in his seat. “Not the sa
me thing, quite.”

  “In an hour and ninety seconds from now there will be a terrific storm,” said Nigel quietly. “Watch the sky.”

  Mannel jerked his head round and stared out at the peaceful blue of the evening. Then he snorted with a brief laugh.

  “No clouds,” he said. “Not a whisper of one.”

  “I know,” said Nigel. “Just time it and watch.” Mannel consulted his two hundred guinea watch, then got up and went suspiciously out on to the veranda. He had the feeling then that something frightening was going to happen, but he did not think it would come from the sky. He thought that Nigel was mad, and the idea was giving him the creeps.

  IV

  Amanda caught her breath.

  “It’s like a cave,” she said. “Except it smells all woody.”

  “We’re going to go round the world one day….” Joe said, and then stopped as he remembered the sale. ‘That is, we were going to, but Dad couldn’t get the engines.”

  The lights glowed yellowly from the old car batteries, which, with the water tanks, was as far as the equipping of the expedition had ever got.

  “You could turn it into a kind of a night club,” she said, and then snatched his hand and turned him to face her. “Oh, come on, Joey! What’s the matter?” She pressed herself against him and wriggled slightly.

  He kissed her awkwardly. She began to lead him. His response was clumsy, half afraid.

  “What’s the matter? What are you frightened of?” she said, impatiently. “Look! Do this ”

  The first crash of the thunder sounded faraway through the heavy timbers of the old hulk, and Amanda looked quickly upwards, scared by the suddenness of it. The boards under their feet began to creak and strain, m ing uneasily as the seas rose. The wooden walls cruncl and groaned against the jetty, and there came a qu tearing sound as waves washed along her length, rush on towards the beach. Rain hissed like ripping silk on deck above them, yet still they seemed to be secure h strange wooden room that kept out rain and noise a sea.