Picking their way carefully through the broken glass they looked at the labels of the unbroken bottles, selected one of Cherry Brandy which was almost full, and had a couple of rounds of extremely welcome drinks. The liqueur warmed them up and they set about exploring the small hotel with renewed vigour.
It was getting dark now but they found some candles in the kitchen and, when several of them were lit, the place looked like some weird, fairy cavern as the light glinted on the icicles, the frozen floor and the snow which had drifted in through the windows, turning them to rainbow hues. There was a fair supply of food, all of which had gone bad before it had been frozen; but in a cupboard they found some tins of soup, sardines, vegetables and fruit as well as some bottles of coffee essence. Delighted with their find, which ensured them of several future meals, they hurried upstairs.
Each room had to be broken into as the doors had first swollen and then been frozen. In one room they came upon three more corpses; one, that of a woman, having been left by the receding waters dangling grotesquely from the top of a wardrobe. The sight of the poor drowned bodies made them feel slightly sick so they quickly left them and busied themselves choosing other rooms in which to sleep.
They were tired now after their long day and very cold. All of them were longing for a quick evening meal to warm them up and the joy of crawling between the sheets of comfortable beds immediately afterwards to sink into a long deep sleep.
But suddenly they realised that they were faced with a horrid problem. As with the sofa upon which Lavina had sat down in the house where they had had their midday meal, all the beds and bedding were frozen solid. How could they possibly unfreeze and dry them again so that they could be used that night?
27
LIFE MUST GO ON
For a few moments they dejectedly discussed various methods of setting to work. The sheets and blankets could not be pulled off the beds as they were frozen to the mattresses and to have endeavoured to hack them off would have torn them in pieces. The only solution seemed to be to thaw out each set of bedding at one operation and as no ordinary fire would give out enough heat for such a proceeding Gervaise said that they must light a super bonfire.
Through the broken window of the back bedroom in which they were talking they could see a smaller building only about a hundred yards away across the garden and, going downstairs, they walked over to it. The place was a fair-sized cottage, evidently much older than the inn as it was half-timbered and had no electric fittings.
‘Our luck is in,’ said Gervaise. ‘This place will suit us admirably, and as the people here used oil lamps there must be a drum of paraffin about somewhere.’
In the kitchen they found one two-thirds full, so returning with it to the living-room they smashed up the lighter furniture, piled the heavier pieces on top of it, sprinkled the whole heap with the paraffin and, touching the oil off with a match, ran out of the cottage.
For some moments Gervaise was anxious as to whether his plan would work. He feared that the snow in the room and the ice that saturated the furnishings would prevent the fire getting a good hold as they thawed and sputtered down into it. But, with an angry hissing, the flames licked at the beams which spanned the ceiling and the fire was soon eating through the floor boards of the room above.
The next job was to get the beds down into the garden. When one of them had been hacked free of the frozen floor it was found that owing to the weight of the ice with which it was laden it was much too heavy to carry downstairs, so the men of the party heaved it out of a window and others after it; then laboriously dragged them through the snow over to the cottage, from the sitting-room window of which big flames were now spurting.
It was a tiring, muscle-wrenching business and darkness had long fallen by the time they had got six beds set up on end in a row before the glowing pile of red-hot logs and bricks; but the fire also served to revitalise them with its heat after their long day in this new and terrible frozen world.
Margery, meanwhile, had thawed out some of the tinned food and boiled some snow on a small fire that Lavina had made in a brick surround on the concrete floor of a garage which adjoined the kitchen of the inn. They fed round the fire and having washed the meal down with some drinks from the bar they re-crossed the garden to see whether their beds had thawed.
The sheets and blankets had fallen away from the sodden mattresses and, now wringing with water, were lying in heaps on the wet ground. Having wrung them out as well as they could they hung them up on a wire fence which the melting snow had disclosed at the side of the cottage. While the men turned the mattresses and prevented the clothes from scorching, the girls made a tour of the hotel bedrooms and collected such items as they could find which might prove useful and brought these too down to be thawed at the roaring blaze.
It was past one in the morning before the mattresses were thoroughly dry and fit to sleep on without fear of chills or rheumatism. Carrying them back to the inn they laid them out on the billiards-tables of a big games-room next to the lounge. Still in their clothes they drew the blankets over them and fell asleep, utterly exhausted.
When they were awakened by the pale morning light it was snowing again with that same gentle persistence which had marked the previous five-day blizzard, and Gervaise said he thought it would be inadvisable to attempt to go farther until the fall had ceased. After breakfast, as it seemed that the snow might keep them there for another night, they set to work trying to make the place as habitable as possible.
The cottage across the garden was now a pile of blackened embers, smoking and hissing as the snow drifted down on to it. By turning up the crust of ash with their spades they were able to warm themselves at the red embers which still glowed underneath and to thaw several pairs of curtains for nailing up across the broken windows of the rooms they were occupying, to keep out the snow and wind. Hemmingway had wandered off on his own and when they got back they found that he had collected three buckets from the garage. He was busy knocking holes in them with a hammer and spike, as he said:
‘If we set these up on bricks we can turn them into braziers and thaw the rooms properly. There’s plenty of coke in the boiler house although one of us will have to hack it out with a pickaxe.’
Derek volunteered for the job and in half an hour they had the braziers going in the kitchen. Water dripped from the ceiling and sweated from the walls, temporarily making the place extremely uncomfortable, but Sam found a broom with which to sweep away the slush from the floor while Gervaise nailed the curtains across the windows. By midday they had at least made the room habitable.
It was now over two days since they had left their comfortable quarters in the Ark, and ever since it had been burnt out there had been so many vital things to do, if they were to keep the life in their bodies, that they had had no opportunity to clean themselves up at all. The men’s faces had an ugly stubble and the girls’ hair was limp and bedraggled. Even Lavina could not bear to look at herself in a glass any more. One hasty glance in the bar-room mirror when they had arrived at the inn had shocked her beyond belief. Her hair was straight and wispy and her cheeks sunken so that her high cheek-bones had an unusual prominence in her thin little face. Beneath her eyes there were black shadows and the tiny, blue veins in her eyelids were swollen, giving them the appearance of having been heavily mascaraed, but she had actually been much too weary to do anything about herself.
After the midday meal, being a little restored by warmth and food, they boiled some snow on the braziers and began to clean themselves; the men using the shaving gear, etc., of the dead hotel proprietor and the girls the toilet articles which they discovered in some of the bedrooms.
That evening they discussed their future plans. Gervaise pointed out that if they remained where they were the small stock of tinned food which they had found in the road-house would soon become exhausted. They would then have to forage for further supplies, a tin here and a tin there, in the houses in the neighbourhood. At the rate t
he snow was settling it looked as though they might be snowed up before long. If that occurred their forays for food would become more and more difficult as on each they would have to go farther afield. It was essential therefore that they should get to London with the least possible delay and find a new refuge, with abundant stocks of food, which they could use as a permanent headquarters.
Hemmingway agreed, and added that now they were on a main road, which had houses on both sides for most of the way, there was little chance of their losing their direction; so there was no reason why they should not move on the following day, even if it was snowing, providing that it was not blowing an absolute blizzard.
Sam put up the objection that wherever they halted next they would be faced with the same appalling conditions. That meant that they would only be able to do a short stage each morning and must devote every afternoon to the grim labour of preparing a refuge for the night. Surely it would be better, therefore, to wait for a fine day when they would have a reasonable chance of covering the ten or twelve miles to London, and work all night if need be, when they had arrived, to make themselves the beginnings of permanent quarters there.
The argument was settled for them by the weather, as next day dawned clear again. The snow clouds had discharged their cargo and the sun was brighter than they had yet seen it. Having had the best part of a day’s rest and an early night, they were able to set off a little after eight o’clock.
Although the sun was shining there were no signs of a permanent thaw. They estimated the general depth of the snow to be about six feet deep, but in places it had piled up in drifts that were as much as fifteen feet in height. The temperature was still far below zero and the previous day’s snow had frozen solid making a hard crust which, apart from occasional pitfalls, made fairly easy going.
In order to save themselves the labour of thawing out fresh bedding they took their blankets and sheets with them, tied round their bodies like bandoliers. Derek, Sam and Hemmingway each carried in addition one of the bucket-braziers, into which they had packed the remainder of the unused tinned foods from the inn, some bottles of drink, and various oddments such as the chopper, candles, razors, soap etc., which would come in useful.
As they advanced they came upon many hummocks in and alongside the roadway, which concealed abandoned cars and lorries. When they rested for a little at 9.15, on the slope of another great, snow-covered mound of rubble which blocked the highway, Sam, who knew the road well, was able to tell them that the debris had formed part of Whetstone.
Soon afterwards the road divided and they took the right-hand fork, reaching Finchley by half-past ten. After another rest they pressed on again, arriving just after midday at Golders Green, where they sat down to lunch off some of the cold food they had brought. There was no possibility of mistaking the point at which they had arrived as Sam, Hemmingway, Lavina and Derek were all able to identify the clock tower, near which they ate their lunch, and the long snow-covered roof of the station on the far side of the open square. Part of the station roof had fallen in, as had several of the houses, but most of the blocks were still standing. Further out of London the silence had not seemed unnatural, but here, while they sat eating their picnic lunch on a site that most of them had seen filled with the bustle of modern life, it seemed extraordinary and rather frightening.
By half-past twelve they were on their way again, passing between big banks of snow along the roadsides which partially obscured the low houses set back amid their gardens. As they trudged on the going became more difficult. The sunshine was melting the upper crust of snow, and walking in overcoats with blankets tied round them made warm work. Coming down the Finchley Road past the eastern portion of Hampstead the trek became more laborious still, as most of the way had been lined with big blocks of buildings and many of these had fallen in so that at times the road entirely disappeared.
To their right, as they went downhill, they could get a view of London between the piles of snow-covered ruins, but in spite of the sunshine it was difficult to get a clear impression of the great metropolis. Every roof and spire was snow-covered, which blurred the outlines, and, except for buildings in the foreground, the countless thousands of houses, innumerable big blocks and well-known landmarks all merged into an uneven carpet of white which stretched as far as the eye could see.
It was three o’clock before they reached the easily distinguishable road junctions at Swiss Cottage, after which the way proved better for a little while as they were once more passing through an area where the houses stood back from the road, but soon the way was again choked by debris where several large blocks of flats had been swept away. By the time they had got to St. John’s Wood Church, where they paused for another snack and a welcome go at the liqueurs, they were all very tired, and the two girls were thoroughly fagged out.
Their thickest clothes, in which they had left the Ark, were only English winter weight and much too light to protect them properly from the rigours of this frozen world. Each time they halted there seemed to creep up their limbs a deathly chill which they could check only by flailing their arms and stamping their feet. Their faces tingled and their eyes smarted from the snow-glare.
Sam suggested that they should shelter in Lord’s cricket pavilion for the night, but as there was still an hour or more to go before sunset Gervaise insisted that they should not lose the balance of the day’s good weather now when, by a last effort, they could cover the remaining two miles into Central London.
At four o’clock they started off once more. The sun had lost its power and all traces of the temporary thaw which had set in at midday had disappeared. The snow crust had frozen solid again but, owing to the partial thaw, it was now treacherously glassy, which made walking hazardous.
The half mile south from St. John’s Wood Church was not so bad, as for a good part of the way they had Regent’s Park on their left but when they entered the north end of Baker Street their real troubles began. The Abbey Road Building Society’s block still reared its tower to the sky, but great numbers of the shops and flats had been demolished by the flood. Instead of a broad thoroughfare Baker Street was an uneven mass of snow-covered debris from ten to thirty feet in height.
At half-past five they were still only half way along it, plodding and scrambling wearily from mound to mound of concealed bricks, beams and girders. Then, from the top of a high mound near the Telephone Exchange they sighted Selfridge’s in the distance and all agreed that, somehow, they must reach it, as there they would be certain of finding everything they could want, as well as shelter for the night.
Soon afterwards it began to snow again, blotting out both the sinking sun and also the Selfridge building, which caused them extreme anxiety as they might now lose their way among the unidentifiable piles of demolished houses and shops. The next hour was a nightmare. Darkness fell, which added further to their difficulties; their extremities ached with the cold, their legs were giving under them and they were no longer certain that they were moving in the right direction as they dragged themselves wearily through the falling snow from one heap of rubble to another.
A little before seven they stumbled into a level space that Sam and Hemmingway felt reasonably certain must be Portman Square. The girls were now almost fainting with fatigue but the men half-pulled, half-carried them for a further ten minutes up and down a fresh chaos of slopes and valleys until, to their unutterable relief, the great Selfridge building loomed up before them.
As soon as Sam was able to get his bearings he led the stumbling group back a little along Orchard Street to the annexe in which the Provision Department was situated. Its windows were shattered and snow was piled up eight feet deep on the pavement, half-filling the empty frames. They scrambled over it and down into the store. It was dark in there but they lit some of the precious candle-ends they had brought from Barnet and staggered forward.
The floor was slippery with ice and jagged with broken glass. Some of the counters must have floated about i
n the flood waters as they were piled up at all sorts of odd angles and, as at first the weary party could see no food, they thought that the place had been completely looted; but soon they discovered that most of the remaining stocks had been swept by the water to one side of the gloomy cavern that they were exploring and had been frozen into a solid mass against the wall.
A brief examination of this glassy bank revealed it to be composed entirely of fruit and vegetables, so they turned through an opening into the next department. The same scene of havoc was shown as far as the flickering light of the candles penetrated, but to their relief they found there a considerable quantity of groceries among which were many tins and bottles, lying in scattered heaps about the frozen floor.
‘The first thing to do is to get a fire going and warm ourselves,’ said Gervaise after an effort to stop his teeth from chattering.
Lavina was almost crying with the cold. The tips of her ears and of her nose were smarting and her fingers ached so much that she thought they were going to drop off. ‘Yes, for goodness’ sake, get one going quickly!’ she stuttered. ‘Even if you have to burn down the whole building.’
‘No need for that,’ Derek grunted. ‘Everything here’s so frozen up it’d take a week to melt it.’
As he spoke he produced the chopper which he had brought with him and started hacking pieces off one of the wooden showcases. Shaking with cold they worked until they had their three braziers going in a clear space near the middle of the department, then stood about them trying to restore some warmth to their chapped hands and half-frozen limbs.
‘We’ll have to make do as well as we can here to-night,’ said Gervaise. ‘It would take us hours to thaw out mattresses.’
‘The carpet section is only above the next entrance so we might get down some piles of rugs,’ Lavina suggested.
Taking the spades and a couple of candle-ends Sam and Hemmingway made their way along and up the ice-covered stone stairs. They found some woolly lamb-skin rugs and bashed at them till they fell apart, each a stiff, solid slab. As the rugs would have taken too long to thaw and dry they beat them. The ice among the springy wool was like spun glass and, once broken into powder, could be shaken out.
Sixty Days to Live Page 34
