The Death of Grass

SEVEN

Tadcaster was on edge, like a border town half-frightened, half-excited, at the prospect of invasion. They filled up their tanks, and the garage proprietor looked at the money they gave him as though wondering what value it had. They got a newspaper there, too. It was a copy of the Yorkshire Evening Press—it was stamped 3d and they were charged 6d, without even an undertone of apology. The news it gave was identical with that which they had heard on the radio; the dull solemnity of the official hand-out barely concealed a note of fear.

They left Tadcaster and pulled into a lane, just off the main road. They had filled their vacuum flasks in the town but had to rely on their original stores of food. Mary seemed to have recovered by now; she drank tea and had a little from the tin of meat they opened. But Ann would not eat or drink anything. She sat in a silence that was unfathomable—whether of pain, shame, or brooding bitter triumph, John could not tell. He tried to get her to talk at first, but Olivia, who had stayed with them, warned him off silently.

The Citroen and the Vauxhall had been drawn up side by side, occupying the entire width of the narrow lane, and they had their meal communally in the two cars. The radio jabbered softly—a recording of a talk on Moorish architecture. It was the sort of thing that almost parodied the vaunted British phlegm^{97}. Perhaps it had been put on with that in mind; but the situation, John thought, was not so easily to be played down.

When the voice stopped, abruptly, the immediate thought was that the set had broken down. Roger nodded to John, and he switched on the radio in his own car; but nothing happened.

“Their breakdown,” Roger said. “I feel still hungry. Think we dare risk another tin, Skipper^{98}?”

“We probably could,” John said, “but until we get clear of the West Riding, I’d rather we didn’t.”

“Fair enough,” Roger said. “I’ll move the buckle one notch to the right.”

The voice began suddenly and, with both radios now on, seemed very loud. The accent was quite unlike what might be expected on the B.B.C.—a lightly veneered Cockney. The voice was angry, and scared at the same time:

“This is the Citizens’ Emergency Committee in London. We have taken charge of the B.B.C. Stand by for an emergency announcement. Stand by. We will play an interval signal until the announcement is ready. Please stand by.”

“Aha!” Roger said. “Citizens’ Emergency Committee, is it? Who the bloody hell is wasting effort on revolutions at a time like this?”

From the other car, Olivia looked at him reproachfully. He said rather loudly:

“Don’t worry about the kids. It’s no longer a question of Eton^{99} or Borstal^{100}. They are going to be potato-grubbers however good their table manners.”

The promised interval signal was played; the chimes, altogether incongruous, of Bow Bells^{101}. Ann looked up, and John caught her eye; those jingling changes were something that went back through their lives to childhood—for a moment, they were childhood and innocence in a world of plenty.

He said, only loud enough for her to hear: “It won’t always be like this.”

She looked at him indifferently. “Won’t it?”

The new voice was more typical of a broadcasting announcer. But it still held an unprofessional urgency.

“This is London. We bring you the first bulletin of the Citizens’ Emergency Committee.

“The Citizens’ Emergency Committee has taken over the government of London and the Home Counties owing to the unparalleled treachery of the late Prime Minister, Raymond Welling. We have incontrovertible evidence that this man, whose duty it was to protect his fellow-citizens, has made far-reaching plans for their destruction.

“The facts are these:

“The country’s food position is desperate. No more grain, meat, foodstuffs of any kind, are being sent from overseas. We have nothing to eat but what we can grow out of our own soil, or fish from our own coasts. The reason for this is that the counter-virus which was bred to attack the Chung-Li grass virus has proved inadequate.

“On learning of this situation, Welling put forward a plan which was eventually approved by the Cabinet, all of whom must share responsibility for it. Welling himself became Prime Minister for the purpose of carrying it out. The plan was that British aeroplanes should drop atomic and hydrogen bombs on the country’s principal cities. It was calculated that if half the country’s population were murdered in this way, it might be possible to maintain a subsistence level for the rest.”

“By God!” Roger said. “That’s not the gaff they’re blowing^{102}—they’re blowing the top off Vesuvius^{103}.”

“The people of London,” the voice went on, “refuse to believe that Englishmen will carry out Welling’s scheme for mass-murder. We appeal to the Air Force, who in the past have defended this city against her enemies, not to dip their hands now into innocent blood. Such a crime would besmirch not only those who performed it, but their children’s children for a thousand years.

“It is known that Welling and the other members of this bestial Cabinet have gone to an Air Force base. We ask the Air Force to surrender them to face the justice of the people.

“All citizens are asked to keep calm and to remain at their posts. The restrictions imposed by Welling on travel outside city boundaries have now no legal or other validity, but citizens are urged not to attempt any panic flight out of London. The Emergency Committee is making arrangements for collecting potatoes, fish, and whatever other food is available and transporting it to London, where it will be fairly rationed out If the country only shows the Dunkirk spirit^{104}, we can pull through. Hardship must be expected, but we can pull through.”

There was a pause. The voice continued:

“Stand by for further emergency bulletins. Meanwhile we shall play you some gramophone records.”

Roger turned off his set. “Meanwhile,” he said, “we shall play you some gramophone records. I never believed that story of Nero^{105} and his fiddle until now.”

Millicent Pirrie said: “It was true, then—what you said.”

“At least,” Pirrie said, “the story has now received wide circulation. That’s much the same thing, isn’t it?”

“They’re mad!” Roger said. “Stark, raving, incurably mad. How Welling must be writhing.”

“I should think so,” Millicent said indignantly.

“At their inefficiency,” Roger explained. “What a way to carry on! At my guess, the Emergency Committee’s a triumvirate, and composed of a professional anarchist, a parson, and a left-wing female schoolteacher. It would take that kind of combination to show such an ignorance of elementary human behaviour.”

John said: “They’re trying to be honest about things.”

“That’s what I mean,” Roger said. “I know I speak from the exalted wisdom of an ex-Public Relations Officer, but you don’t have to have had much to do with humanity in the mass to know that honesty is never advisable and frequently disastrous.”

“It will be disastrous in this case,” Pirrie said.

“Too bloody true, it will. The country faces starvation—things are in such a state that the Prime Minister decided to wipe the cities out—the Air Force would never do such a thing, but all the same we appeal to them not to—and you can leave London but we’d rather you didn’t! There’s only one result news like that can have: nine million people on the move—anywhere, anyhow, but out.”

“But the Air Force wouldn’t do it,” Olivia said. “You know they wouldn’t.”

“No,” Roger said, “I don’t know. And I wasn’t prepared to risk it. On the whole, I’m inclined to think not. But it doesn’t matter now. I wasn’t willing to take a chance on human decency when it was a matter of hydrogen bombs and famine—do you seriously imagine anyone else is going to?”

Pirrie remarked thoughtfully: “That nine million you spoke of refers to London, of course. There are a few million urban dwellers in the West Riding as well, not to mention the northeastern industrial areas.”

“By God, yes!” Roger said. “This will set them on the move, too. Not quite as fast as London, but fast enough.” He looked at John. “Well, Skipper, do we drive all night?”

John said slowly: “It’s the safest thing to do. Once we get beyond Harrogate we should be all right.”

“There is the question of route,” Pirrie suggested. He spread out his own road-map and examined it, peering through the gold-rimmed spectacles which he used for close work. “Do we skirt Harrogate to the west and travel up the Nidd valley, or do we take the main road through Ripon? We are going through Wensleydale still?”

John said: “What do you think, Roger?”

“Theoretically, the byways are safer. All the same, I don’t like the look of that road over Masham Moor.” He looked out into the swiftly dusking sky. “Especially by night If we can get through on the main road, it would be a good deal easier.”

“Pirrie?” John asked.

Pirrie shrugged. “As you prefer.”

“We’ll try the main road then. We’ll go round Harrogate. There’s a road through Starbeck and Bilton. We’d better miss Ripon, too, to be on the safe side. I’ll take the lead now, and you can bring up the rear, Roger. Blast on your horn if you find yourself dropping behind for any reason.”

Roger grinned. “I’ll put a bullet through the back of Pirrie’s tin Lizzy as well.”

Pirrie smiled gently. “I shall endeavour not to set too hot a pace for you, Mr Buckley.”

The sky had remained cloudless, and as they drove to the north the stars appeared overhead. But the moon would not be up until after midnight; they drove through a landscape only briefly illuminated by the headlights of the cars. The roads were emptier than any they had met so far. The rumbling military convoys did not reappear; the earth, or tumultuous Leeds, had swallowed them up. Occasionally, in the distance, there were noises that might have been those of guns firing, but they were far away and indeterminate. John’s eye strayed to the left, half expecting to see the sky burst into atomic flame, but nothing happened. Leeds lay there—Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield, Dewsbury, Wakefield, and all the other manufacturing towns and cities of the north Midlands. It was unlikely that they lay in peace, but their agony, whatever it was, could not touch the little convoy speeding towards its refuge.

He was terribly tired, and had to rouse himself by an act of will. The women had been given the duty of keeping their husbands awake at the wheel, but Ann sat in a stiff immobility with her eyes staring into the night, saying nothing, and paying attention to nothing. He fished, one-handed, for the benzedrine pills Roger had given him, and managed to get a drink of water from a bottle to swill them down.

Occasionally, driving uphill, he looked back, to ensure that the lights of the other two cars were still following. Mary lay stretched out on the back seat, covered up with blankets and asleep. Even though brutality used towards the young, by reason of their defencelessness, provoked greater anger and greater pity, it was still true that they were resilient. Was the wind tempered to the shorn lamb? He grimaced. All the lambs were shorn now, and the wind was from the north-east, full of ice and black frost.

They skirted Harrogate and Ripon easily enough; their lights showed that they still had electricity supplies and gave them a comforting civilized look from a distance. Things might not be too bad there yet, either. He wondered: could it all be a bad dream, from which they would awaken to find the old world reborn, that everyday world which already had begun to wear the magic of the irretrievably lost? There will be legends, he thought, of broad avenues celestially lit, of the hurrying millions who lived together without plotting each other’s death, of railway trains and aeroplanes and motor-cars, of food in all its diversity. Most of all, perhaps, of policemen—custodians^{106}, without anger or malice, of a law that stretched to the ends of the earth.

He knew Masham as a small market town on the banks of the Ure. The road curved sharply just beyond the river, and he slowed down for the bend.

The block had been well sited—far enough round the bend to be invisible from the other side, but near enough to prevent a car getting up any speed again. The road was not wide enough to permit a turn. He had to brake to stop, and before he could put the car into reverse he found a rifle pointing in at his side window. A stocky man in tweeds was holding it. He said to John:

“All right, then. Come on out.”

John said: “What’s the idea?”

The man stepped back as Pirrie’s Ford swept round in its turn, but he kept the rifle steady on the Vauxhall. There were others, John saw, behind him. They covered the Ford and finally the Citroen when it, too, came to a halt in front of the block.

The man in tweeds said: “What’s this—a convoy? Any more of you?”

He had a jovial Yorkshire voice; the inflection did not seem at all threatening.

John pushed the door open. “We’re travelling west,” he said, “across the moors. My brother’s a farmer in Westmorland. We’re heading for his place.”

“Where are you heading from, mister?” another voice asked.

“ London.”

“You got out quick, did you?” The man laughed. “Not a very ’ealthy place just now, London, I don’t reckon.”

Roger and Pirrie had both alighted—John was relieved to see that they had left their arms in the cars. Roger pointed to the road-block.

“What’s the idea of the tank trap?” he asked. “Getting ready for an invasion?”

The man in tweeds said: “That’s clever.” His voice had a note of approval. “You’ve got it in one. When they come tearing up from the West Riding, the way you’ve done, they’re not going to find it so easy to pillage this little town.”

“I get your point,” Roger said.

There was something artificial about the situation. John was able to see more clearly now; there were more than a dozen men in the road, watching them.

He said: “We might as well get things straight. Do I take it you want us to back-track and find a road round the town? It’s a nuisance, but I see your point.”

Another of the men laughed. “Not yet you don’t, mister!”

John made no reply. For a moment he weighed the possibilities of their getting back into the cars and fighting it out But even if they were to succeed in getting back, the women and children would be in the line of fire. He waited.

It was fairly clear that the man in tweeds was the leader. One of the small Napoleons the new chaos would throw up; it was their bad luck that Masham had thrown him up so promptly. It had not been unreasonable to hope for another twelve hours’ grace.

“You see,” the man in tweeds said, “you’ve got to look at it from our point of view. If we didn’t protect ourselves, a place like this would be buried in the first rush. I’m telling you so you will understand we’re not doing anything that’s not sensible and necessary. You see, as well as being a target, you might say we’re a honeypot All the flies—trying to get away from the famine and the atom bombs—they’ll all be travelling along the main roads. We catch them, and then we live on them—that’s the idea.”

“Bit early for cannibalism,” Roger commented. “Or is it a habit to eat human flesh in these parts?”

The man in tweeds laughed. “Glad to see you’ve got a sense of humour. All’s not lost while we can find something to laugh at, eh? It’s not their flesh we want—not yet, anyway. But most of ’em will be carrying something, if it’s only half a bar of chocolate. You might say this is a toll-gate^{107} combined with a customs house^{108}. We inspect the luggage, and take what we want.”

John said sharply: “Do you let us through after that?”

“Well, not through, like. But round, anyway.” His eyes—small and intent in a square well-fleshed face—fastened on John’s. “You can see what it looks like from our point of view, can’t you?”

“I should say it looks like theft,” John said, “from any point of view.”

“Ay,” the man said, “maybe as it does. If you’ve travelled all the way up here from London with nought worse than theft to your names, you’ve been luckier than the next lot will be. All right, mister. Ask the women to bring the kids out We’ll do the searching. Come on, now. Soonest out, soonest ended.”

John glanced at the other two; he read anger in Roger’s face, but acquiescence. Pirrie looked his usual polite and blank self.

“O.K.,” John said. “Ann, you will have to wake Mary, I’m afraid. Bring her out for a moment.”

They huddled together while some of the men began ransacking the insides of the cars and the boots. They were not long in unearthing the weapons. A little man with a stubble of beard held up John’s automatic rifle with a cry.

The man in tweeds said: “Guns, eh? That’s a better haul than we expected for our first.”

John said: “There are revolvers as well. I hope you will leave us those.”

“Have some sense,” the man said. “We’re the ones who’ve got a town to defend.” He called to the searching men. “Stack all the arms over here.”

“Just what do you propose to take off us?” John asked.

“That’s easy enough. The guns, for a start. Apart from that, food, as I said. And petrol, of course.”

“Why petrol?”

“Because we may need it, if only for our internal lines of communication.” He grinned. “Sounds very military, doesn’t it? Bit like the old days, in some ways. But it’s on our own doorsteps now.”

John said: “We’ve got another eighty or ninety miles to do. The Ford can do forty to the gallon, the other two around thirty. All the tanks are pretty full. Will you leave us nine gallons between us?”

The man in tweeds said nothing. He grinned.

John looked at him. “We’ll ditch one of the big cars. Will you leave us six gallons?”

“Six gallons,” the man in tweeds said, “or one revolver—the sort of thing that might make the difference between our holding this town and seeing it go up in flames. Mister, we’re not leaving you anything that we can possibly make good use of.”

“One car,” John said, “and three gallons. So you don’t have three women and four children on your consciences.”

“Nay,” the man said, “it’s all very well talking about consciences, but we’ve got our own women and kids to think about.”

Roger and Pirrie were standing by him. Roger said:

“They’ll take your town, and they’ll burn it I hope you live just long enough to see it.”

The man stared at him. “You don’t want to start spoiling things, mister. We’ve been treating you fair enough, but we could turn nasty if we wanted to.”

Roger was on the verge of saying something else. John said:

“All right That’s enough, Rodge.” To the man in tweeds, he went on: “We’ll make you a present of the cars. Can we take our families through the town towards Wensley? And do you think we could have a couple of old perambulators you’ve finished with?”

“I’m glad to see you’re more polite than your friend, but it’s no—to both. No one’s coming into this town. We’ve got our roads to guard, and the men who aren’t guarding them have got work to do and sleep to get. We can’t spare anyone to watch you, and it’s damn certain we’re not letting you go through the town unwatched.”

John looked at Roger again, and checked him. Pirrie spoke:

“Perhaps you will tell us what we can do. And what we can take—blankets?”

“Ay, we’re well enough supplied with blankets.”

“And our maps?”

One of the searchers came up and reported to him:

“Reckon we’ve got everything worth having, Mr Spruce. Food and stuff. And the guns. Willie’s syphoning the petrol.”

“In that case,” Mr Spruce said, “you can go and help yourselves to what you want. I shouldn’t carry too much, if I were you. You won’t find the going so easy. If you follow the river round”—he pointed to the right—“it’s your best way for getting round the town.”

“Thank you,” Roger said. “You’re a great help.”

Mr Spruce regarded him with beady benevolence. “You’re lucky—getting here before the rush, like. We shan’t have time to gossip with ’em once they start coming in fast.”

You’ve got a great deal of confidence,” John said. “But it isn’t going to be as easy as you think it is.”

“I read somewhere once,” Mr Spruce said, “how the Saxons laughed and chatted together before the Battle of Hastings^{109}. That was when they’d just had one big battle and were getting ready for the next.”

“They lost that one,” John said. “The Normans won.”

“Maybe they did. But it was a couple of hundred years before they travelled easy in these parts. Good luck, mister.”

John looked at the cars, stripped already of food and weapons and with Willy, a youth lean and gangling and intent, completing the syphoning of the petrol.

“May you have the same luck,” he said.

John said: The important thing is to get away from here. After that we can decide the best plan to follow. As far as our things are concerned, I suggest we take three small cases for the present. Rucksacks would have been better, but we haven’t got them. I shouldn’t bother with blankets. Fortunately, it’s summer. If it’s chilly, we shall have to huddle together for warmth.”

“I shall take my blanket roll,” Pirrie said.

“I don’t advise it,” John told him.

Pirrie smiled, but made no reply.

The Masham men, having removed their booty, had faded back into the shadows that lined the road, and were watching them with impassive disinterest. The children, sleepy-eyed and unsteady, watched also as their elders sorted out what they needed from what had been left. John realized that he no longer counted Mary as one of the children; she was helping Ann.

They got away at last. Looking back, John saw that the Masham men were pulling the abandoned cars round to reinforce the barrier they had already set up. He wondered what would happen when the cars really began to pile up there—probably they would shove them into the river.

They toiled up rising ground, until they could look down, from a bare field, on the starlit roofs of the town lying between them and the moors. The night was very quiet. “We’ll rest here for a while,” John said. “We can consider our plans.”

Pirrie dropped the blanket roll; he had been carrying it, at first awkwardly under his arm and then more sensibly balanced on his shoulder.

“In that case, I can get rid of these blankets,” he said.

Roger said: “I wondered how long it would be before you realized you were carrying dead weight.”

Pirrie was busy undoing the string that tied the roll; it was arranged in a series of complicated knots. He said:

“Those people down there… excellent surface efficiency, but I suspect the minor details are going to trip them up. I rather think the man who went through my car wasn’t even carrying a knife. If he was, then his negligence is quite inexcusable.”

Roger asked curiously: “What have you got in there?”

Pirrie looked up. In the dim starlight, he appeared to be blinking. “When I was considerably younger,” he said, “I used to travel in the Middle East— Trans-Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia. I was looking for minerals—without much success, I must add. I learned the trick there of hiding a rifle in a blanket roll. The Arabs stole everything, but they preferred rifles.”

Pirrie completed his unravelling. From the middle of the blankets, he drew out his sporting rifle; the telescopic sight was still attached.

Roger laughed, loudly and suddenly. “Well, I’m damned! Things don’t look quite so bad after all. Good old Pirrie.”

Pirrie lifted out a small box in addition. “Only a couple of dozen rounds, unfortunately,” he said, “but it’s better than nothing.”

“I should say it is,” said Roger. “If we can’t find a farmhouse with a car and petrol, we don’t deserve to get away with it. A gun makes the difference.”

John said: “No. No more cars.”

There was a moment’s silence. Then Roger said:

“You’re not starting to develop scruples, are you, Johnny? Because if you are, then the best thing you can do with Pirrie’s rifle is shoot yourself. I didn’t like the way those bastards down there treated us, but I have to admit they had the right idea. It’s force that counts now. Anybody who doesn’t understand that has got as much chance as a rabbit in a cage full of ferrets.”

Only this morning, John thought, his reasons might have been based on scruples; and along with those scruples would have gone uncertainty and reluctance to impose his own decision on the others. Now he said sharply:

“We’re not taking another car, because cars are too dangerous now. We were lucky down there. They could easily have riddled us with bullets first and stripped the cars afterwards. They will have to do that eventually. If we try to make it to the valley by car, we’re asking for something like that to happen. In a car, you’re always in a potential ambush.”

“Reasonable,” Pirrie murmured. “Very reasonable.”

“Eighty odd miles,” Roger said. “On foot? You weren’t expecting to find horses, were you?”

John gazed at the weed-chequered ground on which they stood; it looked as though it might once have been pasture.

“No. We’re going to have to do it on foot. Probably it means three days, instead of a few hours. But if we do it slowly, it’s odds on our making it The other way, it’s odds against.”

Roger said: “I’m for getting hold of a car, and making a run for it There’s a chance we shan’t meet any trouble at all; there won’t be many towns will have organized as quickly as Masham did—there won’t be many that will have the sense to organize anyway. If we’re making a trek across country with the kids, we’re bound to have trouble.”

“That’s what we’re going to do, though,” John said.

Roger asked: “What do you think, Pirrie?”

“It doesn’t matter what he thinks,” John said. “I’ve told you what we’re going to do.”

Roger nodded at the silent watchful figure of Pirrie. “He’s got the gun,” he said.

John said: “That means he can take over running the show, if he has the inclination. But until he does, I make the decisions.” He glanced at Pirrie. “Well?”

“Admirably put,” Pirrie remarked. “Am I allowed to keep the rifle? I hardly think I am being particularly vain in pointing out that I happen to have the greatest degree of skill in its use. And I am not likely to develop ambitions towards leadership. You will have to take that on trust, of course.”

John said: “Of course you keep the rifle.”

Roger said: “So democracy’s out. That’s something I ought to have realized for myself. Where do we go from here?”

“Nowhere until the morning,” John said. “In the first place, we all need a night’s sleep; and in the second, there’s no sense in stumbling about in the dark in country we don’t know. Everybody stands an hour’s watch. I’ll take first; then you, Roger, Pirrie, Millicent, Olivia”—he hesitated—“and Ann. Six hours will be as much as we can afford. Then we shall go and look for breakfast.”

The air was warm, with hardly any breeze.

“Once again,” Roger said, “thank God it’s not winter.” He called to the three boys: “Come on, you lot You can snuggle round me and keep me cosy.”

The field lay just under the crest of a hill. John sat above the little group of reclining figures, and looked over them to the vista of moorland that stretched away westwards. The moon would soon be up; already its radiance had begun to reinforce the starlight.

The question of whether the weather held fair would make a lot of difference to them. How easy it would be, he thought, to pray—to sacrifice, even—to the moorland gods, in the hope of turning away their wrath. He glanced at where the three boys lay curled up between Roger and Olivia. They would come to it, perhaps, or their children.

And thinking that he felt a great weariness of spirit, as though out of the past his old self, his civilized self, challenged him to an accounting. When it sank below a certain level, was life itself worth the having any longer? They had lived in a world of morality whose lineage could be traced back nearly four thousand years. In a day, it had been swept from under them.

But were there some who still held on, still speaking the grammar of love while Babel^{110} rose all round them? If they did, he thought, they must die, and their children with them—as their predecessors had died, long ago, in the Roman arenas. For a moment, he thought that he would be glad to have the faith to die like that, but then he looked again at the little sleeping group whose head he now was, and knew their lives meant more to him than their deaths ever could.

He stood up, and walked quietly to where Ann lay with Mary in her arms. Mary was asleep, but in the growing moonlight he could see that Ann’s eyes were open.

He called softly to her: “Ann!”

She made no reply. She did not even look up. After a time he walked away again and took up his old position.

There were some who would choose to die well rather than to live. He was sure of that, and the assurance comforted him.