The diversion grew upon us as time went on. It was always spontaneous, for our work gave neither of us an opportunity for thinking out details; and each afternoon brought its fresh store of improvisations. Through it all, she was the dreamer of dreams; it was my part to throw her visions into a practically attainable form: and gradually, out of it all, there arose a fabric of phantasy which yet had its foundations in the solid earth.
It took form; we could walk its streets in reverie and pace its lawns. And gradually that land of Faerie came to be peopled with inhabitants, mere phantasms at first, but growing ever more real as we talked of them between ourselves. Half in jest and half in earnest we created them, and soon they twined themselves about our hearts. Children of our brain, they were; dearer than any earthly offspring, for from them we need fear no disappointments.
Fata Morgana we christened our City, after the mirage in the Straits of Messina; for it had that mixture of clear outline and unsubstantiality which seemed to fit the name.
So we planned the future together out of such stuff as dreams are made on. And behind us, grim and silent, sat Nordenholt, the real architect of the coming time.
*****
He never interrupted our talks; and I had no idea that he had even overheard them until one day he called me into his office. He seemed unusually grave.
“Sit down, Jack,” he said, and I started slightly to hear him use the name, since hitherto I had always been simply “Flint” to him. “I’ve got something serious to discuss with you; and it won’t keep much longer.”
He looked up at the great Nitrogen Curve above the mantelpiece and seemed to brood over the inclinations of the red and green lines upon it. They were closing upon one another now, though some distance still separated them.
“Did it ever occur to you that I can’t go on for ever?”
“Well, I suppose that none of us can go on for ever; but I don’t think I would worry too much over that, Nordenholt. Of course you’re doing thrice the work that I am; but I don’t see much sign of it affecting you yet.”
“Have a good look.”
He swung round to the light so that I could see his face clearly; and it dawned upon me that it was very different from the face I had seen first at the meeting in London. The old masterfulness was there, increased if anything; but the leanness was accentuated over the cheek-bones and there was a weary look in the eyes which was new to me. I had never noticed the change, even though I saw him daily—possibly because of that very fact. The alteration had been so gradual that it was only by comparing him with what I remembered that I could trace its full extent. “Satisfied, eh?”
“Well, there is a change, certainly; but I don’t think it amounts to much.”
“The inside is worse than the surface, I’m afraid. But don’t worry about that. I’ll last the distance, I believe. It’s what will happen after the finish that is perplexing me now.”
I muttered something which I meant to be encouraging.
“Well, have it your own way, if you like,” he replied; “but I know. I have enough energy to see me through this stage of the thing; but this is only a beginning. After it comes reconstruction; and I shall be exhausted by that time. I can carry on under this strain long enough to see safety in sight; but someone else must take up the burden then. I won’t risk doing it myself. I must have a fresh mind on the thing. So I have to cast about me now for my successor.”
It was a great shock to hear him speak in this tone. Somehow I had become so accustomed to look up to Nordenholt as a tower of strength that it was hard to realise that there might some day be a change of masters. And yet, like all his views, this was accurate. When we reached the other bank, he would have strained himself to the utmost and would have very few reserves left.
“I’ve been watching you, Jack,” he went on. “I’ve got fairly sharp ears; and your talks in the car interested me.” I was aghast at this; for I had believed that these dreams and plannings were things entirely between Miss Huntingtower and myself. They certainly were not meant for anyone else.
“At first,” he went on, “I thought it was only talk to pass the time; but by-and-by I saw how it attracted you both. After all, there are worse ways of passing an afternoon than in building castles in the air. But what I liked about your castles was that they had their roots in the earth. You have a knack of solid building, Jack, even in your dreams. It’s a rare gift, very rare. I felt more friendly to you when I followed all that.”
There was no patronage in his tone. As usual, he seemed to be stating what appeared to him an obvious conclusion.
“The upshot is,” he went on, “that I’m going to dismiss you from your present post and put you in charge of a new Department dealing with Reconstruction. There will be one condition—or rather two conditions—attached to it; but they aren’t hard ones. Will you take it?”
Of course I was taken completely aback. I had never dreamed of such a thing; and I hardly knew what to say. I stammered some sort of an acceptance as soon as I could find my voice.
“Very good. You cut loose from your present affairs from this moment. Anglesey will take over. You can give him all the pointers he asks for to-day; and after that he must fend for himself. I’ll have no two minds on that line of work.
“Now as to the new thing. It will make you my successor, of course; and I want to start with a word of warning. Unlimited power is bad for any man. You have only to look at the example of the Cæsars to see that: Caligula, Tiberius, Nero, you’ll find the whole sordid business in Suetonius. And I can tell you the same thing at first hand myself. I’ve got unlimited power here nowadays; and it isn’t doing me any good. I feel that I’m going downhill under it daily. You’ll probably see it yourself before long, although I’ve fought to keep it in check. So much for the warning.
“Now as to the conditions. I admired your dream-cities, Jack. I wish you could build them all in stone. But even if you were to do that, they would still have to be peopled; and I doubt if you will find the men and women whom you want for them among the present population. Mind you, I believe you have good material there; but it has a basis in the brute which none of your dream-people had. You don’t realise that factor; you couldn’t understand its strength unless you saw it actually before you: and my first condition is meant to let you see the frailty with which you will have to contend and which you will have to eliminate before you can see the visionary race pacing the gardens in your Fata Morgana. It’s all in full blast within five hundred miles of here. London is thronged with people just the same as those down there in the factories; and I want you to see what it amounts to when you take off the leash. So the first condition is that you go down to London and see it with your own eyes. I could prepare you for it from the reports I have; but I think it will be better if you see it for yourself and don’t trust to any other person. I’ll make all the arrangements; and you can leave in a couple of days.”
I am no enthusiast for digging into the baser side of human nature, and the prospect which he held out was not an inviting one to me. But I could see that he laid stress upon it, so I merely nodded my consent.
“Now the second condition. I daresay that you alone could plan a very good scheme of reconstruction; but it would be a pure male scheme. You can’t put yourself in any woman’s place and see things with her eyes, try as you will. But this Fata Morgana of yours, when it rises, has to be inhabited by both men and women; and you have to make it as fit for the women as for the men. That’s where you would collapse.”
“I suppose you’re right. I don’t know much about a woman’s point of view. I never had even a sister to enlighten me.”
“Quite so. I judged as much from some things. Well, my second condition is that you take over Elsa as a colleague. It was hearing the two of you talk that gave me the idea of using you, Jack; so it is only fair that she should have a share in the thing also.”
“But would Miss Huntingtower leave you?”
“I’ll try t
o persuade her. Anyway, leave it to me. But remember, Jack, not a word to her about London or the South. She knows nothing of that yet. I’ve kept her work confined entirely to Area affairs. I want to spare her as long as I can; for she’ll take it hard when it comes. She’ll take it very hard, I’m afraid. Until you’re back from London I shall say nothing to her about your being away, lest she asks where you have gone.”
I was still dazzled by the promotion he had promised me; and I thanked him for it, again and again. When I left him, my mind was still full of it all. I don’t know that I felt the responsibility at first; it was rather the chance of bringing things nearer to that dream-city which we had built upon the clouds that I felt most strongly. I had no doubt that I could lay the foundations securely; and upon them Elsa could build those fragile upper courses in which she delighted. It would be our own Fata Morgana, but reared by human hands.
So I dreamed. . . .
CHAPTER XII
NUIT BLANCHE
THE aeroplane which carried me southward alighted on the Hendon flying-ground when dusk was falling. As we crossed Hertfordshire I had seen in front of me, to the south-east, a great pall of cloud which seemed to hang above the city; and as the daylight faded, this curtain became lit up with a red glow like the sky above a blast-furnace.
When we landed, I found that all arrangements had already been made by Nordenholt; for after I had removed my flying kit, an untidy-looking, unshaven man made his appearance, who introduced himself as my guide for the night. He advised me to have a meal and try to snatch a little sleep before we started. We dined together in one of the buildings—for Nordenholt had spared the Hendon aerodrome in the general destruction of the exodus, though he had burned all the aeroplanes which were there at the time—and during the meal my guide gave me hints as to my behaviour while I was under his charge, so that I might not attract attention under the new conditions. Above all, he warned me not to show any surprise at anything I might see.
After I had dozed for a time, he reappeared and insisted on rubbing some burnt cork well into my skin under the eyes and on my cheeks, and also giving my hands and the rest of my face a lighter treatment with the same medium.
“You look far too well-fed and clean to pass muster here. There’s very little soap left now; and most of us don’t shave. Must make you look the part.”
He handed me two .45 Colt pistols and a couple of loaded spare magazines.
“Shove these extra cartridges into a handy pocket as well. The Colts are loaded and there’s an extra cartridge in the breech of each. That gives you eighteen shots without reloading; and sixteen more when you snick in the fresh magazines. You know how to do it? Pull down the safety catches. If you have to shoot, shoot at once; and shoot in any case of doubt. Don’t stop to argue.”
A motor-car was waiting for us with two men in the front seats. The glass of the wind-screen bore a small square of paper with a red cross printed on the white ground; and I saw that one of the side-light glasses had been painted a peculiar colour. My guide and I climbed into the back seats and the car moved off. When we passed out of the aerodrome I observed that the entrance was defended by machine-guns; and a large flag of some coloured bunting was flown on a short staff. As it waved in the air, I caught the letters “PLAGUE” on it.
“To keep off visitors,” said my guide. “By the way, my name’s Glendyne. Oh, by Jove, I’ve forgotten something important.”
He took out of the door-pocket a couple of armlets with the Red Cross on them and fastened one on my left arm, putting the other one on himself. I gathered that they formed part of his disguise.
It was night now. The sky was clear except for some clouds on the horizon and the full moon was up, so that we hardly needed the head-lights to see our way. Again I noticed the peculiar red glow which I had seen from the aeroplane; but now, being nearer, I saw flickerings in it. There were no artificial lights, either of gas or electricity, in the streets through which we passed. Very occasionally I saw human forms moving in the distance; but they were too far off for me to distinguish what sort of person was abroad. In the main, the figures which I espied were reclining on the ground, some singly, others in groups; and for a time I did not realise that these were corpses.
We soon diverged from the main road and drove through a series of by-streets in which I lost my sense of direction until at last I discovered that we were passing the old Cavalry Barracks in Albany Street.
“Halt!”
The car drew up suddenly and in the glare of our head-lights I saw a group of men carrying rifles and fixed bayonets; bandoliers were slung across their shoulders, but otherwise there was no sign of uniform.
“Where’s your permit? . . . Doctor’s car, is it? We’ve been taken in by that once before. Never again, thank you. Out with that permit if you have it, or it will be the worse for you.”
The armed group covered us with their rifles while Glendyne searched in his pocket. At last he produced a paper which the leader of the patrol examined.
“Oh, it’s you, Glendyne? Sorry to trouble you, but we can’t help it. A medical car came through the other night and played Old Harry with a patrol at Park Square; so we have to be careful, you see. I think it was some of Johansen’s little lot who had stolen a Red Cross car. Stephen got them with a bomb at Hanover Gate later in the evening and there wasn’t enough left to be sure who they were. Why they can’t leave this district alone beats me. They have most of London to frolic in; and yet they must come here where no one wants them. By the way, where are you going?”
“Leaving the car at Wood’s Garage. Going down to the Circus on foot after that, I think; probably via Euston, though.”
“All right. I’ll telephone down. Sanderson’s patrol is out there in Portland Place and he might shoot you by accident. I’ll get him to look out for you on your way back.”
“Thanks. Very good of you, I’m sure.”
Our car ran forward again to the foot of Albany Street where we turned in to a large public garage.
“What was that patrol?” I asked Glendyne.
“Local Vigilance Committee. Some districts have them. Trying to keep out the scum and looters.”
“But what about this being a medical car?”
“I am a medical. Was an asylum doctor before Nordenholt picked me out for this job. Medical cars can go anywhere even now; but we can do better on foot for the particular work you want to-night.”
He seemed to be a man of few words; but I had been struck by the empty state of the garage and wished to know where the usual multitude of cars had gone.
“Most owners took their machines away in the rush out of London. Any cars left were looted long ago. Have to leave a guard now on any car, otherwise we’d have the petrol stolen before we were back. You’ll see later.”
There were no lights burning in the Euston Road, either in the streets or at house-windows. Coming in the car, I had given little heed to the lack of passers-by; but here, in a district which swarmed with population in the old days, I could not help being struck by the change of atmosphere. All inhabitants seemed to have vanished, leaving not a trace. I asked Glendyne if this region was entirely deserted; but he explained to me that in all probability there were still a number of survivors.
“No one shows a light after dark in a house if they can help it,” he said. “It simply invites looters.”
The full moon stood well above the house-tops, lighting up the streets far ahead of us. Wheeled traffic seemed nonexistent; nor could I see a single human being. Just beyond the Tube Station, however, I observed what I took to be a bundle of clothes lying by the roadside. Closer inspection proved it to be a complete skeleton dressed in a shabby suit of serge. While I was puzzling over this, Glendyne, seeing my perplexity, gave me the explanation.
“Looking for the flesh, I suppose? Gone long ago. B. diazotans takes care of that, or we should have had a real Plague instead of a fake one, considering the number of deaths there have been. As soon as li
fe goes out all flesh is attacked by bacteria, but B. diazotans beats the putrefying bacteria in quick action. You’ll find no decaying corpses about. Quite a clean affair.”
Leaving the skeleton behind us, we continued our way. I suppose if I had been a novelist’s hero I should have examined the pockets of the man and discovered some document of priceless value in them. I must confess the idea of searching the clothes never occurred to me till long afterwards; and I doubt if there was anything useful in them anyway.
As we walked eastwards towards Euston I noticed that the red glow before us was shot now and again with a tongue of flame. We passed several isolated corpses, or rather skeletons, and suddenly I came upon a group of them which covered most of the roadway. I noticed that all the heads pointed in one direction and that the greater number of the dead had accumulated on the steps of a looted public-house. Noticing my astonishment, Glendyne condescended to explain.
“Crawled there at the last gasp looking for alcohol to brace them up for another day, I expect. See the attitudes? All making for the door. Hopeless, anyway. The stuff must have been looted long before they got near it. Curious how one finds them like that, all clustered together, either at the door of a pub or the porch of a church. A Martian would think that drink and religion were the only things which attracted humanity in the end.”
It was near Whitfield Street that I saw a relic of the exodus from London. Two cars had collided at high speed; for both of them were badly wrecked, and one had been driven right across the pavement and through a shop-front. To judge from the skeletons in the other, its passengers had been killed by the shock.
Leaving this scene of disaster, we walked eastward again. I glanced up each side-street as I passed, but there were no signs of living beings. In the stillness, our footsteps rang upon the pavements; but the noise attracted no one to our neighbourhood. It was not until we reached the corner of Tottenham Court Road that I was again reminded of my fellow-men. A sound of distant singing reached my ears: fifty or a hundred voices rising and falling in some simple air which had a strangely familiar ring, though I could not recall exactly what it reminded me of at the time. The singers were far off, however; for when we halted at the street-corner I could see no one in Tottenham Court Road; and we went on our way once more.
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