Max said, “I don’t know either, but it could be the simple fact that hardly anyone has been swimming since this thing began. I think that’s a fair proposition. You must bear in mind, the doctors have put the fear of God into the whole population — and it’s been a kind of leprosy reaction. Once they got it, they kept away. They didn’t strip and go for a swim.”
“No,” I said, “I suppose not.” I looked at him hard. “Do you really believe, yourself, that this is it? Or is it some kind of coincidence?”
Max lifted his arms and let them drop to his sides, helplessly. He moved to his desk and sat down, slumping like a sack of flour. I’d never seen him like this before. He said wearily, “I don’t know. I just don’t know. But it’s logical in a sense — to a non-medical mind, anyway. Our seawater is one thing we do know they haven’t got, up there in the moon. So far as we know — or so far as I know, anyway — that’s the one thing that might be inimical to moon-borne organisms … apart from air — atmosphere — and ordinary water … and they don’t seem to have done the trick, do they? I dare say there are other things — I’ve been thinking and thinking, trying to come up with something … for instance, cosmic rays could be making the thing grow, couldn’t they? If they are, then a form of protection might be to find a really deep mine somewhere. I believe I’m right in saying that cosmic rays from the more distant star clusters can’t penetrate the earth’s surface for more than around eighty or ninety feet. I don’t know about the nearer ones. In any case, we can’t expect to bury fifty million people. We could shift them to the coasts, though.”
His eyes were bright, feverish. “I think I’ve come close to the truth, Shaw.”
I said, “I hope so, by God I hope so!” I remembered what Fesse had said about nature providing handy cures on earth, the nettle-and-dock-leaf theory, and the possibility of the same thing being true of the moon. Here, if Max was right, was an earth cure inaccessible to the moon. Quite a wide divergence in the two concepts. “I don’t want to pour cold water, but one case is hardly enough to go on. We’ll need further trials.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “I know. That’s why I want you here, old chap. To help me organize it. It’ll be a huge operation. I’m almost on my own now. Cockburn-Hawkes has gone down with it. I can’t do the whole thing by myself. You’ll have to consider yourself attached to HQ … what’s left of it.”
I hated to say it, but I had to. I said, “You know, this isn’t our job at all. It’s for the hospitals and the police. We have to get hold of Fesse and extract his information from him.”
“It’s possible he doesn’t know any more than us, and there are plenty of men out looking for him. Meanwhile, the hospitals have their hands full looking after the sick. They’re stretched to the limit and beyond. The Health Ministry’s no more function-worthy than we are. The police have their work cut out as it is. Of course, they’ll all take part in the business of population movement, but I’m the one to organize it and I want your help. Leave Fesse. This thing’s too big for revenge motives, Shaw.”
Of course he was right there, and I had to admit revenge was very much in my mind. I’d wanted to be there when they brought Fesse in; I’d wanted that very much indeed. But there were overriding considerations now. So I said, “I’ll do whatever you want, that goes without saying. We may as well rope in Jagger and Miss Airdrie as well. I don’t know if I told you this, but Weiler said I had an immunity to the disease. Not just enough to avoid death, but a total immunity, since Fesse had given me a full go. The same applies to Jagger and the girl. So we ought to be pretty useful.”
Soon after this the consultant turned up from St Thomas’s and listened with great interest to what Max had to say. He didn’t commit himself too far but he seemed to think there was a prima facie case for taking Max seriously and he promised immediate tests. He confirmed what Fesse had told me in regard to the colour-resistance. Scarcely any reactions had been noted in the coloured population, and none at all in the really dark ones, the West Africans and West Indians. Indeed he said, throughout the country the hospital service was only functioning at all through the coloured doctors and nurses. Very few of the white staffs had escaped completely, although, as in the lay population, there was a wide divergence in the severity of the attacks.
I fancied that consultant looked fairly hopeful when he went back to the hospital. I left Max on his own after he had gone, and took the staff car out to Pinner and found Jagger at his sister’s home. So far Beth was all right. The little boy, it seemed, was pulling through and Jagger was immensely relieved. They were overjoyed when I told them Max’s theory and Jagger volunteered, without being asked, to do all he could to assist in the huge organizational task of shifting the town and country dwellers seaward if the theory stood up to the medical tests. After that I drove fast down to Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight to talk to Jane Airdrie; I’d managed to get a phone call through to the number she had given me in Bournemouth, and I was told she had gone across to the island to see her father and step-mother. She, too, volunteered her services and said she was ready to go. So I took her in charge and we drove back into London again. When we reached Focal House Max was still waiting for word from St Thomas’s, and looking a really whacked man by now. I felt it wouldn’t be long before I would have to insist he turned it in and left me to cope. Anyway, while we waited for that telephone to ring, we started planning for what we all hoped would come about. Jane’s idea was to let the people know on the radio and TV that the sea was the answer, and then let them get there just as fast as they could.
I said, “That’s no good, Jane. There’d be a riot.”
“And there’s no public transport — or almost none.”
“There will be, when the word spreads. We’ll get all the volunteers we need if this cure works as fast as it did with Max. The good old British public always rallies round at a time like this, when they see there’s something they can usefully do. And don’t forget, a hell of a lot of people live near the sea in any case. A lot of them are going to be fit to run the transport services. It’ll be like the General Strike way back in 1926 … but with what a difference! We mustn’t jump the gun, though.”
Max agreed with me, and even went a step farther. “It might be better,” he said, “to hold all word until we’re ready to cope.”
“If we do that,” I said, “we’re going to let a lot of people die who needn’t. We can’t get this thing on the road at all without a lot of help from the public.”
We were arguing this point when the telephone rang on Max’s desk. It gave us all a start; Max’s face, white enough already, went almost transparent so that I could see the blue of the blood vessels beneath the skin. He reached out for the receiver.
“Focal House,” he said. “Yes, speaking.”
He listened; I heard the indistinct rattle of a voice. Max said, “Yes. Thank you. Right, I will.”
He put down the phone, his hand shaking badly. He looked down at his desk for some moments, then lifted his head. He said levelly, “It seems to have worked. They’ve tried it out in a number of seaside towns. They want us to go ahead.”
*
Jane Airdrie was the girl to liaise with the airlines and their transport services. They had plenty of vehicles between them and though this would be a drop in the ocean it would be a valuable one. Jagger’s job was to push the Home Office into activity and to work with the police throughout the country, and liaise with all other Government departments, and with British Rail, in getting the transport to the places where it would be needed. I was to play my own part by co-ordinating Service transport, Navy, Army and Air Force, for the succour of the civilian population. I drove round to the Defence Ministry and started prodding — not that I needed to do much of that, I admit. Everyone wanted to help now. It was a wonderfully heartening resurgence of the British spirit, of their inbred ability to cope with an emergency and to win through. Disease per se was one thing, and no-one could be blamed for sinking under the weigh
t of this especially filthy one. But the moment the way was pointed, our men and women brought out their best. I was proud of them. We could hold our heads up before any foreigners. The war spirit was back again and I believe the ordinary people were happy to be sloughing off the despondent years and fighting back at something that had threatened to bring Britain down for good and all.
The general plan was a compromise between Jane’s ideas and Max’s: for the moment no announcement would be made by the BBC or by such newspapers as were still managing to publish. Time was needed to set up the movement control, but just as soon as this had been done the public would be told, and told exactly what to do. Police, and such disciplined bodies of men as the private security outfits, the Corps of Commissionaires, Government uniformed staff from places like Hampton Court, and Ministry of Works men, would enforce the orders. These men were pretty thin on the ground by now, but we couldn’t help that. We had to improvise and hope for the best. We were in fact ready to go by the following morning, and as soon as Max had the reports in he contacted Downing Street.
The first public announcement was made by the BBC on all home radio services at 0930 hours. Deserted as London was, you could almost feel the response, hear it like the rustle of summer leaves in the breeze over St James’s Park. The streets began to come alive as clerks came out from the ministries into Whitehall. A ragged cheer broke the awful silence that had gone on so long. I was in the Defence Ministry as that first broadcast of hope was made, looking down from a window and watching some of the HQ transport move out towards Westminster Bridge to start the evacuation from St Thomas’s. It was quite a moment. I was still looking down when the telephone rang behind me. A girl clerk answered it.
“For you, sir,” she said. “Northern Command. The GOC.”
I took the phone. A voice asked, “Commander Shaw?”
“Speaking.”
“I think we have a line on Fesse. We’re following a fresh spread of the disease.”
13
THIS was the first I had heard of Fesse since I had talked to Weiler in that house by the loch-side. I had been told already that the house had been located and searched without result. It had been found deserted, with Weiler gone as completely as Fesse himself; traces of blood had been found in the grounds but no bodies, so I assumed my second shot that night had merely winged Weiler. The tunnel had been opened up with explosive charges at the westward entry chamber. The incarcerated orderlies had been found and taken into custody but they hadn’t had much to offer and certainly no leads to Fesse. Frogmen had penetrated the tunnel but hadn’t brought out anything helpful. I asked, “Where is he, General?”
“We’ve narrowed the area of search to the vicinity of Kyle of Lochalsh. We’re reasonably confident he hasn’t been taken off by sea — we’ve had constant air cover all around. I —”
“Has there been any sign of the vessel Weiler told me about?”
“None,” the General said. There was a pause. “What exactly did he say about that?”
“Just that he had one sculling around, waiting.”
“Yes. But did he call it a ship, or what?”
I said, “Just a vessel.”
“It could have been a submarine.”
I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of that; maybe I’d had too much on my mind just lately. If I hadn’t, somebody else ought to have done. I said, “Yes, it could.”
“Don’t worry,” the General said. “We have had that in mind. I only mention it because if it was a sub, it’s harder to spot.”
“You’re dead right there! What are the leads to Fesse, General?”
“No precise leads. Only what I told you — we’re following a fresh spread of the disease. I thought you’d like to know.”
“Thanks,” I said, and he rang off.
I called Focal House and reported to Max, who sounded fresher after most of a night’s sleep — I’d insisted he had that. He grunted at me. “I suppose you want to go north again, Shaw,” he said.
“Please.” I just couldn’t keep away. I felt we might really have this thing licked, but no-one could be sure, and I didn’t like the sound of the fresh spread. I still couldn’t get Jagger’s niece, or Morag in Balnachan, out of my mind however hard I tried. We couldn’t let Fesse get away. “I’ll stay around till the sea-lift’s under way, then I’d like permission to go.”
“Permission granted,” Max said, “as of now. You’ve been a big help. I can take it from here.”
Once again I said, “Thanks,” and I really meant it. Max said he would fix me air transport and then ring me back. He said I must do it alone this time. He had a need of Jagger still and presumed I wouldn’t want to involve Jane Airdrie any further. I said no, I wouldn’t.
I was airborne two hours later.
*
Once again I used Dalcross and was taken from there by chopper across to a temporary command HQ in a radio vehicle near the Falls of Glomach, north of the Glenaffric Forest. There were other vehicles around, including a kind of caravan outside which the General, whose name was Daintree, was sitting drinking coffee. He offered me a cup, which I accepted. A staff officer, dressed like the GOC in a khaki jersey, poured it.
“Success to the hunt,” Daintree said. “Damnable thing, but I gather things are looking up.” A transistor radio was switched on, and I listened to some of the details. Road convoys were leaving London continuously for all points on the coasts within a fifty-mile radius, the vehicles returning for more as soon as their loads were dumped. Brighton and Southend and Clacton must be having a field day. Trains were running again and were leaving the termini with the coaches sagging against the axles, practically. The same kind of thing was going on from all the inland areas and road tankers were filling up with salt water along the coasts and rushing their loads to the inland towns and villages so that the sick could be treated on the spot where necessary. The organization appeared to be working, but so far there were no more medical reports as such and it remained to be seen if the thing could really be beaten into the ground — or into the sea.
When the broadcast ended I asked, “Now, what about Fesse, General?”
Daintree pursed his lips. “We’re not sure about this, you know. It’s conjecture really, but it’s the best lead we have. The only one, in fact.” He tapped an ordnance map that lay on a low table beside his camp stool. “The disease is advancing in a fairly straight line. At first it didn’t seem to have got a real grip on these parts, you see. There were just isolated outbreaks and the population is strewn out enough to make the spread very much slower than it might have been — besides which, of course, the people kept away from any assemblies. They stayed in their cottages and farms and didn’t go out at all if possible.”
“I saw some of that in a village called Ballochterardnish.”
“Yes, indeed.” Daintree drank some more coffee, then blew his nose. “Well, there’s been a change. Outbreaks have occurred in Dosmuckeran — Scardroy on Loch Beannacharain — Balnacra — Achintee — and other places pointing the way to Kyle of Lochalsh. The last was reported from Sallachy on Loch Long. That’s not far from here, west-nor’-westerly.”
“But no signs of Fesse himself, I gather?”
“None.” Daintree screwed his eyes up thoughtfully. “It’s odd. Damned if I know the answer! These aren’t the areas where a stranger can get lost in the crowd. He’d stand out like a bishop entering a brothel. That’s what you’d think. Evidently Fesse doesn’t, though. If it is Fesse. I told you, there’s no guarantee.”
I asked, “Have you checked on movements locally — along that line, I mean? The local inhabitants going from place to place — that sort of thing?”
“Yes. We’ve been very thorough, as a matter of fact. There’s been no movement — or none that anyone will admit to. I believe what they say. They’re too damn scared to move about and I don’t blame ’em! I wouldn’t myself, damned if I would. That points to Fesse.”
“It could.” I wasn’t
really convinced, though. “Suppose it is Fesse. Why would he be heading into an area like Kyle of Lochalsh? It’s a sort of peninsula — he’d see it as a trap, surely?”
“Depends on his state of mind. Your man, whatsis-name —”
“Weiler?”
“Yes, Weiler. Didn’t you say he told you Fesse was mad?”
“Not exactly, and not necessarily in that sense anyhow. He had a fixation about his filthy moon germs, but …” I blew out a long breath. “Well, I agree it could be Fesse. But I doubt if he has the disease himself, somehow. By this time, he’d hardly be capable of movement.”
“Perhaps he’s not,” Daintree said. “If we don’t get any reports beyond Sallachy, we’ll quarter the area again. We may find him dead.”
I nodded. “There’s another possibility, General. He may be spreading the thing deliberately. We know he’s taken material from the tunnel — he took all his samples for use on the Continent.”
“Yes.” Daintree rubbed his chin thoughtfully, looking around his command set-up and the country beyond. It was a clear, fresh day, not the day for death but for life and health and vigour. “This is his farewell to Britain, d’you think?”
“It could be. Fesse’s revenge.”
Daintree was looking at me now. “Do you want him alive?” he asked.
I said, “If possible. He has to be made to talk.”
“Why?”
“Why?” I stared at him. “What d’you mean, General?”
“Do we really want his secrets, Shaw? I take it we don’t mean ever to use this filthy disease for our own purposes?”
“I shouldn’t think we would, no. But don’t forget Porton Down. They’ll be interested, at least.”
Daintree nodded, his face darkening. He said, “I have a four-letter word which, used in the imperative sense, is descriptive of what Porton Down can do to itself. Look here, Shaw. Almost every man in this command detail has seen the effects of Fesse’s actions. Some of them have lost friends and relatives. My signals sergeant watched his wife die three days ago. He took compassionate leave when she went down with the sickness and he has just reported back — because he wants to see Fesse die. He has a brother-in-law, also a sergeant, serving with a battalion on active search for Fesse. That battalion is naturally armed. I don’t think I need go on?”
Hartinger's Mouse (Commander Shaw Book 12) Page 17
