Land Under England

by Joseph O'Neill

  I soon discovered, however, that these advantages were counterbalanced by the serious disadvantage that the going was extremely difficult. There were bits of rock and firm land here and there, but generally the land was a slough, and, as it got softer and more treacherous, I was constantly forced to retrace my steps and to follow a new line, where the rocks and tufts of firm land were near enough to allow me to spring from one to the other.

  After some time, however, of this effort, I was brought to a complete stop. The waters of the sea were near, and had flooded the swampy lands so heavily that all footing ceased. It was neither swamp nor sea, but a mire of shaking ground that gave beneath the feet and sucked them under.

  I spent no time in regrets. I never wasted any time now in regrets or repinings. I was inured to defeats, and took them as the normal ending to effort, all the more calmly as I had made up my mind fully not to accept defeat.

  I turned back, and retraced my steps with difficulty to the outer edge of the swamp. Twice I went under to the knees, once almost to the hips. It seemed to me on that occasion that I could not pull myself out of the slime that was sucking me under, and, undoubtedly, if I had been in my normal mind and got fussed and nervy, I should not have been able to do so. But I was as cool as if I were engaged in digging in my own garden, and, in some way, by efforts that must have been almost superhuman, I drew myself out of that hungry slime and, after resting on a tussock and cleaning myself as well as I could, continued my journey.

  When I came to the outer edge of the swamp, I sprang ashore and found myself standing on a water-snake that had the misfortune to be lying just where I alighted. It heaved and wriggled under my feet, nearly knocking me over, but I recovered and held it down long enough to enable me to draw my knife and cut its head off. I then sat down on the bank of the firm land and made a meal off the raw flesh and blood. This is the first meal that I can remember definitely over a long period of the later part of my journey in the barren lands.

  When I had finished, I began a detour, round the edge of the swamp, towards the shores of the lake.

  There was one thing for me to do now—to get a boat. To do this, I should have to get near a settlement—not so near that I should be seen, but near enough to watch for a chance to take a boat with oars.

  How long I took to get round the swamp I do not know.

  I slept once during the journey, and had two meals of edible fungi and seaweed, along with the remains of the snake I had killed near the cliff.

  When I came near the sea, I realised that I must be nearing a settlement, for in the distance there was a luminous glow in the darkness, as well as the lights on the sea.

  I had been carrying a phosphorus ball in my hand, as a torch, and I put this back in my knapsack and began to go slowly and watchfully.

  It was unlikely that any of these people could see me before I saw them, since I was moving in darkness, whereas they were unlikely to be without lights, especially whenever they came off their phosphorescent paths, but I could never tell what might happen, and I knew that, if I were discovered in their neighbourhood, I should not be allowed to stay there. I should be provided with food and driven back to the barren lands.

  There was one thing that I had never discovered—whether, when they drove me out of their settlements, they watched me to see that I did not hang round their neighbourhood. It was very probable that they did so, however, and this made it imperative that they should not discover me now. If they once got suspicious of my movements, they would take steps to ensure that I should follow the course mapped out for me by their Masters.

  On the other hand, it was necessary that I should be able to stay near them unseen, in order to seize a boat at the first opportunity. The worst of it was that they worked as a communal mass. If they had been individual men living apart, their homes and their boats would be strung out along the lake, and it would be much easier to get hold of one, but here their boats were kept together in the harbours and their habit of working during the whole twenty-four hours, in alternating shifts of eight hours for each third of the community, gave no off-periods in which a boat could be taken during a common sleeping-time, such as night affords on earth.

  However, I had no choice but to wait and watch, and it troubled me little. Time meant nothing to me. I felt no impatience when I was baulked or held up. I had ceased to have surface nerves. The trouble was gone too deep for that.

  So I lurked in the darkness, watching, waiting. I saw boats come in, go out, and come in again. I had nothing to eat except the fungi, that I could gather in the darkness behind the town, and some trailing plants that I had found refreshing and stimulating when I was thirsty. No snakes dared to stay so near a settlement, but I didn’t trouble about this. With one side of my mind I waited and watched like a timeless, inhuman thing. With the other, I busied myself wandering along the Roman Wall, talking to the farmers and their wives, getting meals in “out-by” farms, watching the sunset over the Solway Firth. None of their automatons could have been so completely intent on his work or so completely detached from it, and from all others around him, as I was. I had come by a different road to be like them.

  Suddenly the chance that I had been waiting for came, and I was on to it like a wolf leaping on a stag after a long watch.

  One of their people had, for some reason or other, not done the usual thing, but had run his boat up on the shore near me and passed into the settlement, leaving the oars in the boat. Even then I didn’t rush or fuss. I made sure that he was out of sight of the boat before I ran to it. But, when I got to it, I made no delay. It was a light boat, like a wooden canoe with two oars, and I had it down on the water in a flash, had taken off the balls of phosphorescence that lit up its bow and its stern, thrown them into the boat, and begun to row, like a man possessed—as indeed I was— out towards the centre of the sea. Luckily there were no boats in sight, and I was able to put on all speed.

  Then I saw that the current was carrying me past the settlement. The lights of the harbour were looming up behind me, and at any moment I might be discovered.

  There was nothing to do but get past the harbour as quickly as I could. I let the boat go with the current instead of struggling against it.

  My luck held. After all my failures I did not expect it to hold, but it did. Presently the lights of the town were left behind and I was in darkness, except for the flashing of the water. It was the first success I had had since I began my wanderings in the darkness.

  When I had passed the harbour lights, I began to row against the current again, so as to try to get across at a tangent. It was not too strong here near the shore, but it exercised a steady pressure, and I wondered how far I was being swept down to the southward, away from the cliffs. I didn’t want to go far from the cliffs. I had a feeling that the only exit possible to me would be through or around them.

  However, I did not exhaust myself with drastic efforts. Here again I made no fuss. I pulled quietly, accustoming myself gradually to an exercise that had become unusual. I had always been fond of rowing, and had been in good training for it when I came down below. That was a long time ago—so long that I could not try to think back on it—but the personality that lived in the upper world now coincided with the personality that lived below. They were both performing the same act, and, strange to say, this accidental fusion seems to have been the thing that put an end finally to the division of my personality. Suddenly I was a complete person again, no less intent on my purpose, but no longer a creature with two selves. I had a strange sense of having awakened, a sudden happiness of regaining something profound that I had lost. I kept opening my eyes wide, as if the world of darkness had vanished and I was back again completely in myself, a human being struggling with abnormal circumstances but equal to them; not dismembered or maimed under their impact.

  I felt a conviction that the tide had turned. I wanted to sing, to shout, to laugh. I had not sung or laughed or shouted for years—no, not for years, I felt; not for
many years. But I didn’t sing or shout. I was still cool and cautious. I laughed to myself—chuckling happily—crowing, rather, like a baby. I felt reborn, renewed, at the beginning of happiness.

  I looked round me in the boat. The phosphorescent balls lit it up, and I could see a fishing-line in the bottom of it and two baskets at the stern. I stopped rowing and pulled the baskets over to me. One of them contained some sort of worms, obviously for bait. The other was full of food—cooked fish, a hunk of a reddish bread they made from flour got from some sort of dried roots, a little bowl of stewed fungi, and a seaweed skin of liquor.

  It was while I was looking at them that I heard the sound of distant oars. I lifted my head and listened intently. There could be no doubt about it. There was the sound of the movement of many oars, coming from a long way behind me. The sound was curiously dull, as if the oars were partly muffled, but my hearing had grown abnormally acute during my wanderings in the darkness, and it came to me quite clearly. There were a great number of oars in action somewhere behind me, in the direction of the settlement from which I had taken the boat.

  I looked intently towards the sound. There were no lights to be seen, and their boats always carried lights. Yet a great number of men were rowing out there, behind me, in the darkness, and the sound was coming nearer, a line of sound that seemed to stretch out from south to north, as if a line of boats were following me.

  It might be some sort of fleet carrying cargo from the western side to the eastern, but it might also be a fleet of pursuers. The people in the settlement might have seen my boat when it crossed the lights of the town in front of the harbour, and, when the man who had left the boat on the shore had discovered his loss, they might have sent a flotilla of boats in pursuit of me.

  The fact that the boats carried no lights made the second explanation seem more likely. A fleet on its ordinary business would certainly have carried lights. These boats had shipped their balls of phosphorescence, just as I myself had done, because they wanted to remain invisible. It was for the same reason that they had muffled their oars, or partly done so. They were pursuing something, and did not want to warn the quarry.

  I had little doubt now that I was the person they were following. As I sat there listening to them, I thought the situation out calmly. If I began to row again, I should merely advertise my presence to them and I could not escape, as their speed would be much greater than that of a single oarsman.

  On the other hand, if I let myself drift, the current would carry me southward, and they might perhaps pass to the northward of me, without noticing me. The darkness was profound, and, unless the glimmer of the phosphorescent balls in the bottom of my boat drew up some light over me, there would be no sign of my presence.

  I drew the basket of food towards me and arranged it so that I could get everything easily.

  Then I took off the garment that had once been my sports coat and put it over the balls.

  I listened again.

  It seemed to me that the line of sound behind was now somewhat more to the northward. The rush of the central current was beginning to sweep me out of their path.

  I groped for the food and began to eat it. I could do nothing to help myself, and I realised that I was hungry. It was a long time ago, I thought, since I had consciously remembered that I was hungry. I had eaten when I needed food—otherwise I should not have continued to live—but I had performed the act automatically, as very low forms of life probably perform their animal functions. Certainly I had no remembrance of eating for a long time before the meal that I had made from the raw flesh of the serpent I had killed in the swamp at the foot of the great cliff. Even then, I had not consciously felt hunger.

  Now I was hungry, as I used to be when I needed food before the darkness had seized me. Strange to say, the joy that came to me from this return of that old familiar experience gave me a feeling that, in spite of this pursuit that was coming after me, my luck had turned.

  I lifted the skin of liquor and took a deep draught. The feeling of the warm, thick liquid was delightful. I put it to my head again. Then, as I tilted it up, I saw the glimmer of light in the dome above me. The sky-lights were beginning. Unless the thing was a momentary flicker, there would soon be a light over the waters. If the light grew, I should be visible, if the boats were near enough.

  I watched the glimmer intently. It seemed to be flickering out. Then another sprang out beyond it. The first light brightened again. The two lights seemed to rush together, and a crown of crimson light glowed in the space where they had been.

  I looked to the northward. The sea was now visible, but only dimly. Even the near distance was still shrouded in a sort of mist of darkness. I listened. I could no longer hear any sound. The rowing had stopped. For a moment I thought that the boats had passed my course and were now so far away that I could no longer hear their oars.

  Then I thought that this was unlikely. They had come too near me to have got out of range of hearing so soon. No. They had stopped rowing. They must have suspected that I was near them and they were listening for the sound of my oars.

  I looked up. The crown of light had turned a brilliant rose-colour and was beginning to send streamers out on all sides.

  Northward the sea was becoming clearly visible, and, in the dimness, I could see dark objects low down on the water. I thought that I could count eight distinct and separate smudges of darkness close together, on the line where the light melted into darkness.

  There was no doubt of it. They were getting clearer, emerging as distinct objects, as the sea got brighter. They were lying quiet, looking, listening, as I was looking and listening.

  My luck had turned again. Unless their sight was worse than mine, they would soon discover me, and all my experience of them showed that their eyes were not weaker, but much stronger, than ours for seeing in the dark.

  I took up the fish and a chunk of the bread and began to eat them. As I did so, the sound of oars came to me again. I looked towards the boats. Yes, they were now spreading out in a line from east to west. The reason that they had seemed to me to be in a clump when I first saw them was that their line had been facing east, so that I only saw the boats that were straggling behind or in front of it. Now that they had swung their line in my direction, I saw that there were a dozen boats, and that they were making for me in a fan formation.

  I went on with my meal. The dice had fallen against me. What was going to happen was fairly clear. I should be flung back once again on to the barren lands and the darkness. I should almost certainly die there. The vigilance of this people was too great—so great that I should never be able to escape across the sea to the other shore. Even if I had been able to do so, it was highly unlikely that I should have been able to discover a way out, but I felt certain now that, whatever exit existed, it was on that other side to which they would not let me cross.

  It may seem strange, but I think that I have hardly ever enjoyed a meal as much as the fish and seaweed bread that I ate while I thought these things. It was partly, perhaps, because it had been so long since I had eaten a civilised meal, but I think that the sweetness of the food that day rose even more from the thought that before long I should probably be dead.

  The boats had come very near now, and I saw that there were a dozen of them—large boats with six or eight oars apiece.

  As they came up, those on the wings moved ahead of the others, so that in a few minutes I was surrounded.

  I had finished my meal. I put the skin of liquor to my head and took a final draught. Then I sat still and waited.

  One of the central boats was now alongside of me, and I could see a commander sitting in the stern. The others were automatons. The commander made a sign for me to step into his boat. I got up and did so. Then one of the men took my place in the small boat and pushed her off. The men in our vessel swung her head round and rowed to the northward.

  So ended my attempt to escape across their Central Sea.

  I had been put in
the seat facing the commander, but he paid no attention to me, staring past me with the vacuous, concentrated stare of a hawk or an eagle. I made no attempt to get into touch with him. I thought that I knew what was going to happen to me. My tension had completely ceased, and with it, for the moment, all hope and fear and expectation had become dormant.

  After my long wandering I was at least momentarily at rest. It was the first time that I had been allowed to remain in the company of human beings, and, for all their isolation and lack of contact, the feeling that they were round me had a soothing effect—that and the knowledge that, for the present, all decision and initiative had been taken out of my hands.

  I must have fallen into a sort of dose, for it was with a start of surprise that I saw the shores of an island rise up on our left hand. I sat up and looked round me. The lights above were shining clearly on the sea in front of us and on a great cliff than ran across our path.

  They had not brought me back to the settlement from which I had taken the boat. They were bringing me to the great cliff. At once I was all on the alert.

  We were passing the headland of an island on our left. I looked behind me. There were no other boats in sight. We were alone on the waters. Then our boat passed the headland, and I saw the lights of a big ship lying off the island.

  Immediately I recognised the scene. The island was the one on which I had first landed. The ship was the guardship that watched the entrance of the sea. I was back again where I had begun when I first entered that land.

  Our boat turned and made for the ship. In a few minutes I was climbing up the hanging ladder, as I had done on that other “day” or “night” an eternity before. I felt as if I were repeating step by step an experience that I had gone through in a former life—a very distant one. The actions were indeed all the same, and carried out in the same order, except that this time I was not brought before the commander. I was taken to the bathroom, given a meal at the common table within the guard-room, and, after the meal, brought to a little cabin with a couch in it, like the one in which I had slept before.