Nordenholt's Million

by J. J. Connington

  “Is that a promise, Elsa?” he asked gravely; and something in his tone made her glance at him. “Would you really stand by me no matter what happened? Don’t say yes, unless you really mean it.”

  She stood in front of him, eye to eye, for a moment without speaking.

  “I don’t understand,” she said at last. “You never doubted me before. It hurts. Of course I promise you. No matter what happens I won’t leave you. But you must promise never to send me away until I want to go.”

  “Very good, Elsa, I promise.”

  The strain seemed to relax in a moment. I don’t think they realised how strange it all seemed to me. They were living in their own world, and I was outside, I felt, rather bitterly. And of course, none of us was quite normal at that time.

  Miss Huntingtower came to me and held out her hand.

  “Thanks so much for coming, Mr. Flint. Somehow I feel as if I had known you for years instead of only a few hours. Now I’ll say good-night and leave you with Uncle Stanley.”

  “Wait a minute, Elsa,” said Nordenholt. “It seems to me that all three of us have been cooped up indoors too much lately. Our nerves are getting on edge. Don’t deny it, Flint, in your case. You haven’t a leg to stand on. I heard you differing from one of your clerks to-day. We’d all be the better for fresh air now and again. One afternoon a week, after this, we’ll take a car out into the country. I can do my thinking there just as well as anywhere else; and Mr. Flint can drive to keep his mind off business. That’s settled. I told you before that amusement of some sort has to come into our routine, Flint; so you must just make up your mind to it. I can’t replace you if you collapse; so I can’t allow you to go on like this. You don’t look half the man you were six weeks ago.”

  I required no pressing, partly because I knew that Nordenholt was right in what he said.

  CHAPTER X

  THE DEATH OF THE LEVIATHAN

  IN this narrative I must give some account of the happenings in the outer world; for, without this, the picture which I am attempting to draw would be distorted in its perspective. At this point, then, I shall begin to interleave the description of the Northern experiment with sketches of the state of affairs elsewhere; and later I shall return to the more connected form of my narrative.

  It may reasonably be asked how it comes about that I am able to give any account at all of occurrences in England immediately after the closing of the Nitrogen Area, since I have taken pains to show the complete severance of land-communications between the two sections of the country. I have already hinted that all connection between these regions was not abolished.

  Nordenholt feared an invasion of the Clyde Valley by some, at least, of the multitudes in the South as soon as they became famine-stricken. It was hardly to be expected that, with the knowledge of the food in the North which they had, they would remain quiescent when the pinch came; and it was essential to have warning of any hostile movements ere they actually gained strength enough to become dangerous. For this purpose, he had organised his Intelligence Department outside as well as within the Area.

  There was no difficulty in introducing his agents into any district. Night landings by parachute from aeroplanes, or even the daylight descents of an aeroplane on a misty day, were simple enough to arrange; and his spies could be picked up again at preconcerted times and places when their return was desired.

  In this way, there flowed into the Nitrogen Area a constant stream of information which enabled him to piece together a connected picture of the affairs outside our frontier.

  I have had access to the summaries of these documents; and it is upon this basis that I have built the next stage of my narrative. These reports, of course, were not published at the time.

  As to the rest of the world, I have had to depend upon the wireless messages which were received by the huge installation Nordenholt had set up; and also upon the various accounts which have been published in more recent times.

  *****

  I have already mentioned that the last stage of the exodus involved the destruction, as complete as was practicable, of roads, railways and telegraphic communications; and I have mentioned also the breaking-up of newspaper printing machinery. Following his usual course, Nordenholt had determined on utilising to the full the psychological factors in the problem; and it was upon the moral rather than on the mere physical effect of this disorganisation that he relied in his planning.

  The immediate effect upon the Southern population seems to have been all that he had hoped. On the morning after the last night of the exodus, England was still unperturbed. The absence of the usual newspapers was accepted without marked astonishment; for no one had any idea that it was more than a temporary interruption. Each city and town assumed simply that something had gone wrong in their particular area. No one seems to have imagined that anything but a local mishap had occurred. The failure of the telegraphs was also discounted to some extent.

  The local railway services continued to run without exciting comment by their intermittent character; for already Grogan’s operations had disorganised them to such an extent that ordinary time-tables were useless.

  The food-supply was still in full swing under the rationing system which Nordenholt had introduced; and no shortage had suggested itself to anyone, even among the staffs of the local control centres.

  Thus for at least a couple of days England remained almost normal, with the exception of the disorganisation of the communications between district and district. There was no panic. The population simply went along its old paths with the feeling that by the end of the week these temporary difficulties would be overcome and things would clear up.

  The next stage was marked by the increasing difficulty of communications. Owing to the withdrawal of Grogan and his staff, simultaneously with the disappearance of the greater part of the available locomotives into the Nitrogen Area, the train services fell more and more into disorganisation. Within a very short time, travel from one part of the country to another could only be accomplished by the aid of motors.

  The newspapers had been restarted; but they were no longer the organs to which people had been accustomed. Printed from presses usually employed for books, they could not be produced in anything approaching the old quantities; and the break-up of communications had shattered their organisation for the collection of information. They were mere fly-sheets, consisting of two or three leaves of quarto size at the largest and containing very little general news of any description. Not only were they printed in small numbers, but the difficulties of circulating the available copies were considerable; so that within a very short time the greater part of the population had to depend upon information passing orally from one to another.

  This was the state into which Nordenholt had planned to bring them. His agents, proceeding upon a carefully considered plan, formed centres for the spread of rumours which grew more and more incredible as they were magnified by repetition. Hostile invasions, the capture of London, the assassination of the Premier, anarchist plots, earthquakes which had interrupted the normal services of the country, all sorts of catastrophes were invoked to account for the breakdown of the system under which men had dwelt so long. But the period of rumours exhausted the belief of the people. Very soon no one paid any attention to the stories which, nevertheless, sped across the country in the form of idle gossip.

  Having thus manoeuvred the inhabitants of England into a state of total disbelief in rumour, Nordenholt made his next move. Hundreds of aeroplanes ranged over the country, firing guns to attract attention and then dropping showers of leaflets which were eagerly collected and read. In these messages from the sky, a complete account was given of the efforts which were being made in the North to save the situation. Short articles upon the Nitrogen Area and its vital importance to the food-supply were scattered broadcast; and by their clear language and definite figures of production they carried conviction to the minds of the readers. Here, at last, was reliable news.

&n
bsp; No hint, of course, was given in these aerial bulletins of the real purpose underlying the Nitrogen Area. Their whole tone was optimistic; for Nordenholt wished to make his final blow the heavier by raising hopes at first. Once his agents had assured him that the people believed implicitly in his aeroplane news-service, he struck hard.

  In my account of his explanation of his breaking-strain theory, I have indicated roughly the general lines upon which his attack was based. He had accomplished the breakdown of the social organism into its component parts by the interruption of communications throughout the land; but the final stage of the process was to be the isolation of each individual from his fellows as far as that was possible.

  Suddenly, the news leaflets became charged with a fresh type of intelligence. At first there was a single item describing the detection of two cases of a new form of disease in the Nitrogen Area. Then, in succeeding issues, the spread of the epidemic was chronicled without comment.

  PLAGUE SPREADING.

  TWENTY CASES TO-DAY.

  The next bulletins contained detailed accounts of the symptoms of the disease, laying stress upon the painful character of the ailment. It was said in some ways to resemble hydrophobia, though its course was more prolonged and the sufferings entailed by it were more severe.

  Then further accounts of the extension of the scourge were rained down from the sky:

  PLAGUE TOTAL: 10,000 CASES.

  NO RECOVERIES.

  Hitherto the news had confined the Plague to the Nitrogen Area; and people had not thought it would spread beyond these limits; but in the next stage of the propaganda this hope was taken from them. The messages to Southern England described how the disease had made its appearance in Newcastle and in Hull; those leaflets intended for the western districts also gave the same information. In the North of England, the intelligence took the form of accounts of the discovery of plague in London. In every case, care was taken that there was no direct communication between the “affected centre” and the spots where the news was dropped.

  The penultimate series of publications was in the form of lists of precautions to be taken to avoid the disease. It was described as contagious and not infectious; and people were advised to avoid mingling with their neighbours as far as possible. Complete isolation would ensure safety, since it had been established that the plague was not airborne. Horrible details of the sufferings of patients were also published.

  Finally, the last group of leaflets represented a steady crescendo.

  ENORMOUS SPREAD OF PLAGUE IN NITROGEN AREA.

  100,000 CASES.

  SPREAD OF PLAGUE THROUGH ENGLAND.

  ONLY A FEW DISTRICTS FREE.

  NITROGEN AREA DECIMATED.

  POPULATION DYING IN THE STREETS.

  DOOM IN THE CLYDE VALLEY.

  TOTAL FAILURE OF NITROGEN SCHEME.

  DEATH OF NORDENHOLT.

  The ultimate message was hurriedly printed with blotched type:

  THE NITROGEN AREA IS ALMOST UNINHABITED, THE REMAINDER OF THE POPULATION HAVING FLED IN PANIC. THE PLAGUE IS SPREADING BROADCAST OVER ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. ISOLATE YOURSELVES, OTHERWISE SAFETY IS IMPOSSIBLE.

  After this had been dropped from the air, the skies remained empty. No aeroplanes appeared.

  Thus, with a stunning suddenness, the population of the kingdom learned that their hopes were shattered. It is true that there were still channels of communication open here and there through which the news might have spread to contradict the stories from the sky. But Nordenholt had done his work with demonic certainty. By the very form of his attack he closed these few remaining routes along which the truth might have percolated. Strangers were forbidden to enter any district for fear that they might bring the Plague with them; and thus each community remained closed to the outer world. With the increase in the terror, even neighbouring villages ceased to have any connection with one another. The Leviathan was dead.

  *****

  With this closing of the avenues of communication, the problem of food-supply became acute. The rations remaining in each centre were distributed hurriedly and inefficiently among the population; and then the end was in sight.

  I have no wish to dwell upon that side of the story. I saw glimpses of it, as I shall tell in due course, but all I need do here is to indicate certain results which flowed naturally from the condition of things.

  When the coal- and food-shortage became acute, the population divided itself naturally into two classes. On the one hand were those who, moved either by timidity of new conditions or a fear of the Plague, fortified themselves in their dwellings and ceased to stir beyond their doors until the end overtook them; whilst, on the other, a second section of the population, driven either by despair or adventurousness, quitted the districts in which it knew there was no hope of survival and went forth into the unknown to seek better conditions.

  Thus in the ultimate stages of the debacle, the country resembled a group of armed camps through which wandered a floating population of many thousand souls, growing more and more desperate as they journeyed onward in search of an unattainable goal. In the movements of this migratory horde, two main streams could be perceived. Those who had set forth from the cities knew that no food remained in the large aggregations of population; and they therefore wandered ever outward from their starting-point; the country legions, knowing that the land was barren, fixed their eyes upon the great centres in the hope that there the stores of food would still be unexhausted. Both were doomed to disappointment, but despair drove them on from point to point.

  Of all the centres of attraction, London formed the greatest magnet to draw to itself these floating and isolated particles of humanity. Like fragments of flotsam in a whirlpool, they were attracted into its confines; and once within that labyrinth, they emerged no more. Lost in its unfamiliar mazes, they wandered here and there, unable to escape even if they had wished to do so; and no Ariadne waited on them with her clue. Perhaps I overrate the strangeness of the spectacle and lay more stress upon it than it deserves. It may be that in the depths of the country even weirder things were done. But London I saw with my own eyes in the last stages of its career; and I cannot shake myself free from the impression made upon me by that uncanny shadow show beneath the moon.

  *****

  Gradually but surely the tide of human existence ebbed in Britain outside the Nitrogen Area. Here and there in the central districts there might be isolated patches whereon some living creatures remained by accident with food sufficient to prolong their vitality for a little longer; but after a few months even these were obliterated and the last survivors of the race of men were to be found clinging to the coasts of the island where food was still to be procured from the sea. Some of them struggled through the Famine period under these conditions; but most of them perished eventually from starvation; for even in the marine areas conditions were changing and the old abundant harvest of sea-creatures had passed away. The herring and other edible fish were driven to new feeding-grounds. The supply brought in by the fishing-boats diminished steadily, until at last men ceased to go out upon the waters and gave up the struggle. The winter was an exceptionally bitter one—possibly the change in the surface conditions produced by B. diazotans affected the world-climate, though that is still a moot point—and the cold completed the work. Long before the spring came, Britain was a mere Raft of the Medusa lying upon the waters and peopled by a handful of survivors out of what had once been a mighty company.

  CHAPTER XI

  FATA MORGANA

  TO explain how I came to witness the spectacle of London in its extremity, I must go back to the evening at Nordenholt’s which I have already described. He persisted in his project of forcing us into the fresh air, often twice or thrice a week if the weather was favourable; and to tell the truth, I was nothing loath. Over a hundred hours of my week were spent in concentrated mental activity under conditions which removed me more and more from direct contact with human affairs as time went on; and I looked
forward with pleasure to these brief interludes during which I could take up once more the threads of my old life and its interests.

  Nordenholt himself contributed but little to the conversation on these excursions. Sometimes he brought with him one of his numerous experts and spent the time in technical discussions; but usually he occupied the back seat of the car alone, lost in his thoughts and plans, while I drove and Miss Huntingtower sat beside me.

  As our time was limited, and we wished to avoid the city as much as possible, our routes were mainly those to the west, by the Kilpatrick Hills or the Campsies. We never pushed farther afield, as Nordenholt had forbidden me to go outside the boundaries of the Nitrogen Area. I think he was afraid of what she might see by the roadside if we passed the frontier.

  Even during these few short afternoons, I came to know her better. Somehow I had got the impression that she was graver than her years justified; but I found that in this estimate I was mistaken. She was sobered by the responsibility of her work, but underneath this she seemed to have a natural craving for the enjoyment of life, and a capacity for making the best of things which was suited to my own mood. She was quite unaffected; I never found her posing in any way. Whether she chattered nonsense—and I believe both of us did that at times—or was discussing the future, she gave me the impression of being perfectly natural.

  We used to make all sorts of plans for the future of the world, once the danger was past; half-trivial, half-serious schemes which somehow took on an air of fairy-tale reality. “When I am Queen, I will set such and such a grievance right”; “In the first year of my Presidency, I will publish an edict forbidding so and so.” Between us, on these drives, we planned a fairy kingdom in the future, a new Garden of the Hesperides, a dream-built Thelema of sunlit walls and towers and pleasure-grounds wherein might dwell the coming generations of men. The future! Somehow that was always with us. Less and less did we go backward into the past. That world was over, never to return; but the years still to come gave us full scope for our fancies and to them we turned with eager eyes.