The Hopkins Manuscript

CHAPTER TWO

The reader can well conceive the misery I suffered during those weeks of suspense before the fateful Meeting.

One morning, no longer able to bear the cruel uncertainty, I telephoned to Humphrey Tugwall, the Secretary of the Society, and asked him to tell me in the strictest confidence the nature of the meeting.

Tugwall replied curtly that the matter could not be discussed and cut me off with an abruptness that told its own story.

For the next ten days I was drenched in a gloom that nothing could dissipate. On the 7th October, my hen Broodie won the Egg-Laying Contest for two-year-olds at Little Bramble Poultry Fair, but the triumph was a hollow mockery. I received the diploma from the Hon Mrs McNaughton and accepted the Challenge Egg Cup with a smile that needed all my courage to produce. I expect those country bumpkins in the audience attributed my pale face and haggard eyes to the drawn-out anxiety inevitable to a poultry owner during an egg-laying contest. How little they suspected the truth! – How little they knew that upon the morrow, in the great City of London, I was to face a hundred men of science and receive my dreadful sentence – to be stripped of my small fortune as a disgraced officer is stripped of his sword.

The horrible part of it was that I had no idea – no conception of the sum that I should be forced to pay. Too late I realised that I might at least have compromised by limiting the extent of my guarantee. I had failed to do so, and a hundred tragic possibilities loomed like spectres before my sleepless eyes on that last night before the meeting.

Supposing the Committee had become involved in some hideous law-suit? Supposing, in the course of altering that building for the observatory, the roof had collapsed, killing men beneath and causing untold damage? The liability of the Committee was my liability: I visualised claims running into thousands and a sickening twist of my brain suddenly presented an even more terrible fate than financial ruin. If my whole fortune failed to meet the heavy claims I might be convicted of false pretences and imprisoned, for fifty honest witnesses could be brought forward to prove that I had guaranteed the Society’s losses without limit!

The loss of my fortune seemed now a little thing compared with this new, ghastly possibility. I think I was near to madness upon that awful night. I truly believe that I should have lost my reason had nature not stepped in to give me a few hours of restless stupor.

So dawned that Thursday: that fateful day of 8th October – the day that was to end everything of tranquillity and happiness that life had given me.

It was a lovely autumn morning, filled with a pale, crisp sunlight. Frost sparkled the meadows and rimed the hedgerows as I dragged my weary limbs down the hillside to feed my pullets. Now that the day of the meeting was upon me I felt a curious repose – a philosophy that gently dethroned my worldly troubles and prepared me to face my fate with dignity.

To retain my peace of mind I clipped the yew trees of my arbour, although within my heart I no longer thought of those sturdy trees as mine. At midday I returned to the house. I dressed myself with care in the blue suit which I kept for business occasions, ate a light lunch of sweetbreads and braised celery and walked to the station to catch the 2.14.

As the train ran through the familiar, sunlit countryside, I recalled many a happy journey to past meetings of the British Lunar Society and sadly reflected that this might be my last. If, as I now felt certain, the observatory scheme had failed, I knew that I could never again face those jeering men who would say: ‘I told you so.’ I recalled hot summer evenings with the Society’s windows wide to a twilit sky and the drowsy hum of traffic floating up to us – and evenings when the big fire blazed behind the President’s table and I had trudged home through the snow – happy evenings that would never come again.

I was too restless to make my usual visit to a cinema theatre when I arrived in London. I walked up Regent Street and along Oxford Street, blind to the happy, home-going crowds of London workers. Although the night was cold I sat for a while upon a seat in Hyde Park, hunched grimly in my greatcoat, counting the minutes that hung like lead.

Towards six o’clock I began to make my way towards our headquarters in Barbara Street. I had no desire to arrive too early and stand through an agony of suspense in the anteroom. I peered aimlessly into shop windows, timing myself to arrive at the doors at five minutes to six. I passed an old ragged man selling matches: I saw a little bunch of raw, shivering fingers protruding from a ragged mitten – and shuddered. In a little while, I, too, might be penniless and homeless.

But as I came within sight of our doorway I saw something that diverted my attention and stirred my anger. For who should be advancing from the opposite direction but Mr Winchelsea, a clever but mean little science master from a school at Hornsey who had been one of the most spiteful opponents of the observatory scheme, and who had been foremost in tormenting me with idiotic jokes about ‘my telescope’ at the past few meetings.

My first impulse was to turn upon my heel and pointedly walk away until he had gone in, but second thoughts urged me to show restraint and unconcern. I walked steadily forward and we entered almost together. In fact he waited for me and, to my great surprise, instead of giving me the malicious grin I had expected he nodded with a grave face, and said: ‘Good evening, Mr Hopkins. Keeping well?’

I was puzzled, but replied courteously and walked up the narrow steps beside him.

He said nothing until we had reached the floor beneath our lecture room, and then suddenly he turned his face towards me. Beneath the pale, unshaded lamp upon the landing I looked into the most haunted, piteous eyes that I have ever seen.

And when he spoke, his voice was high-pitched, almost hysterical.

‘It isn’t true, is it?’ he cried. ‘I mean – it’s only a silly mistake? – it must be – it’s impossible! I… I mean the greatest astronomers make absurd miscalculations, don’t they? DON’T THEY!…’

I was astounded. His last words came almost in a scream. Winchelsea, the one man above all others who should be gloating and chortling at the collapse of the telescope scheme, was actually trembling, and nearly hysterical with anxiety!

My first reaction gave me a gleam of respect for the man. It occurred to me that in his heart of hearts Winchelsea had longed for the success of the scheme as sincerely as I, and had only opposed it out of jealousy for my fighting speech.

But second thoughts made me sick with a new twist of horror. Supposing the scheme had collapsed more tragically than even I had anticipated? Supposing the Committee had by some means assessed my poor little fortune and realised that it was so far short of covering the loss that other Members must sacrifice their savings, too? I nearly fainted at the sight of Winchelsea’s thin, tragic face. He was a poor, struggling schoolmaster with a large family: every spare penny was needed for his children’s well-being. In that dark moment I saw myself not merely ruined financially, but ruined in character – the man whose reckless promise had dragged others to poverty and tragedy.

I saw myself, not merely the poor match-seller with the frozen, quivering fingers, but a convict in penal servitude with the ruin of my friends upon my conscience.

The reader may feel that I was taking an absurd, exaggerated view of my misfortune, but every normal, honest man will sympathise when he calls to mind how some trivial misfortune, such as a minor motoring offence, has preyed upon his mind until it has enlarged itself to tragedy.

I think it was the jovial voice of my old friend Dr Perceval, who had overtaken me on the stairs, that forced me to take a grip upon myself.

With a hearty clap upon my shoulder he cried out: ‘Hullo, old boy, how are the chickens?’

I stuttered a grateful reply, but I noticed that even the old doctor’s face was unusually grave and careworn as we ascended the last steps towards our lecture room.

My heart went out towards the old man as I walked beside him. Here at least was a stout friend who would stand by me and defend me. Here, too, was a man from whom I could at least secure some inkling of what lay in store for me…

I took him by the arm and drew him into the alcove at the head of the stairs.

‘Perceval,’ I said. ‘You’re on the Committee. Tell me the truth! Is it… is it very bad?’

The smile left his face and he answered with a curtness that I had never received from the genial old man before.

‘How did you know?’ he demanded.

I was angry. ‘I imagine I’ve a right to know,’ I snapped. He looked at me keenly and his eyes softened.

‘Of course you’ve a right. Every member has a right.’ He paused, then spoke with his eyes upon the moonlit window behind my head. ‘It is bad. The President will tell you everything – but it’s better to face it than stick our heads into the sand.’

This gave me very little comfort, and as I miserably followed the doctor into that big, familiar lecture room I felt at once a subtle difference from anything that I had known in that room before.

At other times you would have heard the high-spirited ring of conversation before you were halfway up the stairs – the jovial laughter and greetings of old friends. At other times not more than half the members, about fifty of us, would meet – but tonight I think every member was present, every one of the 109 of us, and although the room was filled there was something uncanny in its quietness.

Usually we entered freely, bringing our friends if we so desired. Tonight, for the first time in my experience, Humphrey Tugwall, our Secretary, stood beside the door and requested us to show our cards of membership. He scrutinised each of us and ticked our names upon a members’ list before we were permitted to enter.

Instead of the carefree ebb and flow around the room, members were gathered in groups together, talking almost in whispers.

The reader can well imagine what I suffered as the clock ticked off the minutes to the hour of six. I had never belonged to any group, or ‘clique’ of members and had always preferred to extend a general good-fellowship to all and sundry. Never in the past had I found myself in want of someone to talk to during this interval between my arrival and the hour of our meeting: but tonight I felt like a leper. I was utterly ignored: utterly alone.

I approached a group in which Walter Archer, whom I knew quite well, was standing. I mastered my feelings and with a smile called out a cheery: ‘Hullo, Archer! – how goes it?’ The man did not even reply – he seemed to look right through me – he did not even grant me a nod of recognition, and I saw that his head was twisted in an endeavour to hear what a doddering old professor was mumbling to a little ring of members.

I went from group to group with the same result: an impulse came to stride out into the night and leave them to their troubles, for they were putting me upon the rack – torturing me before my trial.

But I knew that I must face it like a man. I determined that I, who had the most to suffer and the most to lose, should appear the calmest of them all. I strolled to the window and nonchalantly lit a cigarette, but nobody seemed to notice this gesture of defiance.

The street beneath me was almost deserted in the oasis that lies between the departure of the day’s business and the arrival of the night’s pleasure. A full moon, silver and aloof, rode above the rooftops of Drury Lane. I looked at its silly face and hated it again as the cause of all my trouble and despair.

After an eternity – with unspeakable relief, I heard the clock strike six. I crushed out my cigarette and turned towards the room to witness the time-honoured little ceremony that preceded our meetings.

From the private office of the Secretary came three brisk knocks. This was a warning to members to be seated. After the space of a minute, during which members took their places, the door was thrown open and the Secretary appeared, calling out: ‘Gentlemen, the President!’

It was then the duty of members to rise and remain standing until the President had taken his place upon the platform. On nights when a visitor was speaking, the Secretary would also call out: ‘Gentlemen, give welcome to our guest!’, and all would applaud heartily until the visiting speaker, in company with the President, had mounted the platform and prepared himself to speak.

It was a simple, amusing little ceremony of which we were quite proud, and we never failed to carry it through with meticulous attention to detail. Upon this night there was of course no visitor. The President entered alone, followed according to custom by the Committee who took reserved places in the front row.

Even in the Secretary’s voice I caught the note of tension that had pervaded the whole room since I had entered it. By nature Humphrey Tugwall was a bluff, hearty man who played his part at meetings with gusto. But tonight he said: ‘Gentlemen, the President!’ in a thin and hollow voice from lips that were pale and strained.

I began to wonder how much longer my mind could bear this torture – whether I should ever leave this gaunt, ghastly room in possession of my sanity. I had come prepared for an unpleasant meeting. As the member most responsible for the telescope scheme going forward – and in consequence most to blame for its tragic collapse and failure – I was prepared for members to act shyly and self-consciously towards me.

But never in my worst nightmares had I expected to be treated in this dreadful way – as if I were dirt – as if I did not exist.

It seemed wrong that I should even sit amongst my fellow members. I should be in the dock: nay, rather in the condemned cell – for already I knew myself to be condemned. Except for Dr Perceval not a soul had even smiled at me that night.

I had found a place between two members whom I had never seen before. I am sturdy rather than tall, and as we stood there I could not see the President as he walked to the platform. I heard in the silence of those standing members a shuffling of footsteps, then, as the Committee took their places and became still, the solitary tread of one man, the President, as he mounted the steps of the platform.

I judged that he was now beside the reading-table, for there was complete silence for a moment, broken then by the subdued rustle of members seating themselves.

I sat there, cold and limp, completely resigned to my fate. Upon my right, oozing slightly over the edge of his seat, was a large fat man who breathed rhythmically and ponderously through one nostril only – for the intake of air was audible and under great pressure. He folded his fat, warty hands across his waistcoat and began slowly to rotate his thumbs.

I could now see the President quite clearly. He was arranging a sheaf of notes upon the table: he adjusted the green-shaded lamp and glanced around the room.

I had an immense admiration for Professor Hartley. He was not a handsome man upon conventional standards, but his rugged face was full of character and power. I used to think of him as rather like Oliver Cromwell. I should judge that he was in his early fifties, for his wiry, reddish hair was greying over the temples and the strong lines around his mouth were deepening with maturity of thought and responsibility. For the past five years he had held the Burnholm Chair of Astrology at London University and he had done much to popularise the study of the heavens through his brilliant broadcast lectures.

I think the only calmness in the room at that moment lay in the grey pools of Professor Hartley’s eyes. I caught one glimpse of the strained profiles around me – of the lines of rigid bodies sitting upright in their chairs.

The President glanced at us, and then over our heads. He bent forward and whispered to the Secretary who sat to his right, at the foot of the platform. The Secretary nodded, rose to his feet, and all eyes followed him as he went to the back of the room, to the door that led to the stairs.

Quietly he turned the key in the lock and pulled the green baize curtains carefully across the door to subdue any sound that might escape to the outside world.

There was something horrible – something irrevocable in the tiny grating of that key and the thin, metallic twitch of the curtain rings. Never before had I seen it done: not even at the memorable meeting when the telescope was first discussed. I felt trapped. I had no escape. I believe that I should have broken down and screamed if the President’s calm voice had not come to me through the silence.

I remember that quiet, level voice as if it were speaking to me now from the black stillness of ruined London beneath me.

‘Gentlemen,’ began the President. ‘The majority of you have guessed the purpose of this unusual meeting. I do not wish to dramatise what I have to say, but you must know that I speak tonight by the authority of the Prime Minister who binds one and all of us, upon our honour, to the most absolute secrecy. From the outset I must make it clear that not one detail of this evening’s business must be divulged either by word of mouth, the written page, or by inference. If any member present desires not to accept these conditions I would ask him to leave the meeting now, before anything further is said.’

The President paused: there was a deathly silence: not a muscle of those hundred bodies moved. For my own part I could not have moved had I desired to. My body was paralysed, my brain was numbed by the appalling revelation that the disaster of the telescope and our observatory had become so serious that it was receiving the attention of the Prime Minister himself.

‘Thank you,’ said Professor Hartley. ‘I am glad that every member of this Society is prepared to accept the responsibility that I am bound to place upon him.’

He paused, and glanced down at his notes.

‘Some of you,’ he proceeded, ‘by reasons of your professions, are more conversant than others with the facts, or – shall I say – the rumours that have been whispered in scientific circles during the past few months, but for the sake of all present here tonight I will relate these facts from the beginning.

‘You will remember the eclipse of the sun on the 24th August 1940 – just over five years ago. You will no doubt recall to mind the amusement aroused by the Press when it was announced that the moon was three seconds late in its arrival. There were some good-natured digs at the astronomers, who were told to go away and find out where their calculations had gone wrong.

‘For several months the observatories of all nations tested their instruments and checked their calculations. In that December, at an International Congress held in Berlin, these results were compared and proved unanimous. The calculations were correct. It was not the scientists, but the moon that was wrong. In August 1940 the moon was travelling three seconds behind its time.

‘The scientists were puzzled, but not unduly disturbed. It was agreed to delay public report until further observation could be made upon the eclipse of the 12th February this year.

‘This eclipse was best observable from Mount Wilson Observatory in California, and the foremost scientists of the world gathered in conference upon this anxiously-awaited occasion. Conditions were perfect and the finest equipment in the world was available.

‘The result, gentlemen – the result beyond all regions of doubt – was that the moon was twelve seconds late. Not only was it late, but the cause – which had been suspected but hitherto unconfirmed, was definitely established.

‘Some gigantic force had disturbed the moon from the path that it had pursued from the dawn of time: it had slowed up the moon’s progress through space and forced it upon a journey towards the earth.

‘At midnight on the 12th February this year the moon had drawn nearer to the earth by 3,583 miles.’

‘The Congress remained in session for five weeks and observation was made by all assembled scientists.

‘It was ascertained that the moon was returning to the earth at the steadily increasing speed of eight miles in every twenty-four hours. It was nearer by 128 miles on the 13th February – by 136 on the 14th – by 144 on the 15th.

‘The moon, as you are aware, was normally, at its maximum, 250,000 miles from the earth. Tonight, at midnight, it is 217,500 miles away; tomorrow night it will be 470 miles nearer and each night it is drawing closer at a speed increasing by eight miles per day.

‘The Congress at Mount Wilson Observatory broke up on the 15th March. It was decided unanimously to keep its proceedings a strict secret until the governments of the world had been consulted.

‘As a great deal of public curiosity had been excited, the Congress issued the report which you may still remember: a report that announced everything to be normal and that the moon was in its correct position. It was a deliberate lie – but a lie for the sake of humanity, as I think you will all agree.

‘When the results of the Congress were placed before the responsible governments of the world the decision of the statesmen in favour of secrecy was as unanimous as that of the scientists. A conference was held at Paris upon the 3rd May this year and a definite course of action agreed upon.

‘It was recognised by all that the publication of what could only mean the destruction of the world would lead to a condition of affairs too horrible to contemplate. The number of people in the world with the strength of character to accept the news with calmness and philosophy would be in the minority, and the last months of human existence would become a welter of anarchy, debauchery and famine. It was of vital importance to keep the truth a secret until the last possible moment and only then to publish the facts by means best calculated to allay panic.

‘An International Committee of Control was established. Each government held a secret conference at which the leading men of science, politics, church and press were told the truth and bound by oath to secrecy.

‘It is calculated that the change in the moon’s course will not be discernible to the human eye until February or March of the coming year.

‘When it becomes impossible to conceal what the public will obviously discover with its naked eyes, the newspapers will take action upon lines universally agreed upon. They will announce that the apparent increase in the size of the moon is due to a phenomenon – a refraction of light that gives an illusion of greater size.

‘It will then be for the church to play its part, for by no other means can the truth be told with more hope of arousing the courage and assuring the calmness necessary to save the world from agony.’

‘That, gentlemen, is all. I realise that those who are hearing these facts for the first time must feel as I did a week ago when I heard them from the President of the Royal Society. I wondered whether I were in a nightmare or whether I had lost my senses. I have tried to place the truth before you plainly – but I realise that words are incongruous – an absurd little jumble of sounds in the face of the facts which they have tried to explain.

‘It is recognised that the time has now come to bring all men of standing and knowledge in the scientific world within this “conspiracy of silence”. It is your duty not only to keep these facts secret to yourselves: if rumour gets abroad it is your duty to deny it. You are men whose word upon such matters will be believed and even if you are forced to lie, you will do so as part of your duty to preserve the peace and happiness of the world to the last possible moment.

‘When my own courage began to fail me upon first hearing the news, I regained it through the knowledge that I was a privileged man – one of an infinite few to be trusted as you are tonight.

‘I am afraid it sounds a little incongruous to revert after this to normal procedure, but the meeting is now open to questions, and I shall answer them to the best of my ability.’

The President was silent. He glanced for a moment, half questioningly, at the audience, then sipped from the glass of water beside him and took his seat in the big armchair behind the speaker’s table.

The reader can well imagine how my surprise at the President’s first words had gradually changed to unspeakable relief as he had proceeded. Slowly it dawned upon me that this meeting had nothing whatever to do with the telescope. The telescope was not even mentioned, so apparently everything was going on all right. There was every hope now that the Committee had surmounted its financial difficulties. Instead of being a ruined man I would be, after all my fears – the hero – the man whose fighting speech had turned the day! In my fevered imagination I had already given up my small fortune and all my personal property as lost by a reckless promise, and now in one glorious moment of relief it was all returned to me! – my beloved home on the Hampshire hills – my poultry – my careful investments – everything!

It can readily be understood how this torment of mind and sudden, unexpected relief had blurred for the moment the significance of what the President had been talking about. I could scarcely be expected to care what happened to the moon so long as my fortune was saved and my enterprise vindicated.

It was not until the President had taken his seat that I began to realise the significance of this new turn in affairs. If the moon returned to the earth, or disappeared into space, the telescope would be a pure waste of money. It was just the kind of thing that would happen, I bitterly reflected. How was I to have known that by the time the telescope was delivered by the makers there would be no moon to look at? It was scant consolation to tell myself that this was a pardonable miscalculation that even the biggest astronomer might make.

I was upon the point of rising to ask the President what the Committee was going to do about the telescope when my attention was attracted by something that was happening around me.

It was as if a monkey wrench had been thrown suddenly into the wheels of time. Time had stopped dead, and every one of those men around me sat as if embalmed for all eternity. There was not a sound. The fat man beside me had apparently ceased to breathe, for the whistling intake and exhalation through his effective nostril had died away. I stared at the pallid, rigid profiles around me, and it seemed as if death had already brushed its fingers across those stark cheekbones.

And in that icy silence the terrible meaning of it all crashed into my brain and sent it reeling for support.

Many a time, in moments of morbid reflection, I had pictured this mighty, uncontrollable earth of ours plunging through space like a great liner ploughing at full speed through the dense fog of an iceberg-ridden sea. Always I had shuddered away from the thought of a ghastly collision with some dead, roaming world and applied my mind to healthier things.

And now – if this were true – if this meeting and these words from the President were not the twisted ravings of a nightmare, the horror was in fact staring us in the face.

A mighty mass of dead, ice-cold rock – three thousand miles in thickness and two thousand million tons in weight – was plunging towards us through the night.

No one could stop it. Death was facing us, and something worse than death. For always I had believed that when I died, the unquenched vitality of my body would mingle with the reservoir of life-giving power that lay within our atmosphere – to be used again and again to give animation, intelligence and happiness to living creatures for ever. My body would die but my life would survive, and now the horror that was approaching us would blast the earth to fragments. It would not only destroy our flesh and bones but would swirl this glorious life-power into the blackness of eternity.

The lecture room, with its tawdry, glaring lights – the President resting in his chair – that audience of rigid bodies – all become unreal and hollow – a cheap tin toy that tapped against my brain and set my teeth on edge.

Out of the silence came a tiny voice: the distant, quivering voice of Humphrey Tugwall, our Secretary. He rose to his feet and I stared at him. I knew his face, but I could not remember his name – nor his purpose in life.

‘The President will answer any questions,’ said the voice.

And then, without warning, came the incident which I think restored to all of us the knowledge that we were facing reality. And indirectly it restored to us our courage and control.

A small, sharp-featured man with dead white face and mop of black, dusty hair, sprang up from the back of the room and began to shout in an almost incoherent voice. Out of the babble of cascading words I caught remnants of coherency:

‘It’s all this damn monkeying that’s done it,’ he yelled. ‘All this damn monkeying with wireless and television and radio and aircraft rays! – I said it would! – you can’t monkey with things eternal and get away with it! – all this bloody monkeying with…’

The President had risen. He had taken up the small ebony mallet that lay beside him: he tapped sharply upon the table and the hysterical little man collapsed with a strangled sigh. There was something symbolic and exalting in those three sharp knocks upon the table: the first skirmish of reasoning courage against panic and disruption: courage won and panic collapsed.

‘Questions were invited,’ said the President. ‘No good can be served by useless proclamations. I would ask Members not to speak too loudly: the walls are thin and a women’s welfare club is meeting next door.’

There were murmurs of approval – even a ripple of laughter – and with it the tension snapped.

It eased rather than snapped, for the action of one of our number in rising and making an exhibition of himself did us all a power of good. It had been another man and not ourselves who had shown himself the coward. The terror of that little black-haired man had made the rest of us brave.

There came the rustling of a hundred bodies relaxing in their chairs. Someone lit a cigarette: someone cleared his throat, and a soft whistling beside me showed that my neighbour’s unobstructed nostril was at work again.

And then, as if further to bring us back to sanity, came the clear, jovial voice of Dr Perceval. He stood up, jingled a few coins in his pocket, and spoke as if he were opening a discussion upon the Butterflies of England.

‘I am sure that I voice the feelings of all members of this society when I tell Professor Hartley how much we have admired his courage, and his ability in placing this matter before us so clearly and calmly.’ He raised his head and spoke directly to the President. ‘You have given us, sir, a fine example, and I hope we shall prove worthy of it.’

Professor Hartley inclined his head in acknowledgement: there were some subdued ‘Hear – hear’s!’ and a little applause that died away directly Dr Perceval spoke again.

‘I would like to ask the President a question. It may be a futile question, but I think it is one that lies in the minds of all of us.

‘To what extent can the President give us hope? What hope is there of the earth surviving? What hope is there of life surviving? I realise that hope under such conditions is not easy to discover – but even in the gravest peril there must be a loophole for it.’

The President rose from his chair.

‘Thank you, Dr Perceval,’ he said. ‘I expected that question, naturally. I did not refer to this in my speech because I felt it better to confine myself to fact and leave theory and conjecture to discussion.’

Without conscious intention Professor Hartley gave proof that this question was expected by drawing towards him some notes which he had not yet consulted. He glanced down at them and proceeded.

‘Science, as you may well guess, is divided upon the question whether the earth can survive this concussion, and if so, whether life in any form can survive. There are those that believe that the explosion and destruction of the earth is inevitable. This I might describe as the “official” view. The earth, as you know, is no more than a stout crust that encases a furnace of molten rock. It is generally believed that the impact of the moon will split the earth to such an extent and to such a depth that this subterranean furnace will explode and blow the cool outer crust of the earth into fragments. Or it may burst from the ruptures in the earth’s surface in the form of great ridges of volcano. Upon this theory the earth may become as it was in the beginning: a ball of fire that in the course of eternity will once again form a crust upon which life will begin afresh.

‘Another school of thought led by the great German scientist, Franz Mulhause, believes that the moon may strike the earth a glancing blow and ricochet, as it were, into space again – once more becoming a satellite of the earth or vanishing altogether into the limitless spaces of the universe. This view is based upon the theory that the moon is not being drawn back to the earth by magnetic power: that the moon, for reasons unknown, has been forced from its normal path and is not necessarily bound to strike the earth a fatal blow. This theory may sound fantastic, but we are facing fantastic problems.

‘If this “glancing blow” occurs, the chances of survival of life upon the earth are dependent upon the severity of the impact. If it is no more than a slight “graze” then we may reasonably hope that life, even some fragment of human life, might survive.

‘A development of this “grazing theory” is that the impact of the moon against the earth’s surface may force the earth itself out of the path that it has followed from the dawn of time. In this case it is obvious that one of two things must happen. We shall either travel towards the sun or away from it. If we travel towards the sun we shall no doubt be drawn into it and become part of the great furnace which we have enjoyed so frequently from a comfortable distance. If we travel away from it, then we shall suffer a period of darkness and cold until possibly we may join up with another of the many millions of suns in the universe, become its satellite, and life may start from the beginning once again.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Dr Perceval. The old man struck a match and the silence was broken by the gentle popping of his lips as he drew at his pipe.

A tall, stooping man, whose name I think was Wilkins (although I cannot be quite sure), rose from his seat near the door.

‘If the best happens, and the earth receives such a slight graze that its crust remains unbroken, can the President give us any indication of its effect upon the atmosphere – the tides of the sea, etc?’

‘We cannot predict that with the remotest hope of certainty,’ replied the President. ‘But we can assume that the shock would displace the earth but not its atmosphere. Crudely stated, the earth would be jolted out of the skin of air that loosely surrounds it – but that skin would return and settle evenly around the earth again. We should suffer tornado and flood upon two sides of the earth as it slides out of its atmosphere, and a temporary disappearance of air upon the other sides. But I repeat that everything would depend upon the nature of the impact.’

To my surprise I saw my stout neighbour rise to speak.

He had appeared so completely stagnant and devoid of intelligence that I had not believed him capable of understanding a word of what was going on. But when he spoke his features suddenly became alert and mobile, and his voice was deep and cultured.

‘Mr President,’ he said. ‘I agree – I am sure we all agree – upon the wisdom of keeping this matter within the knowledge of a selected few. But you spoke of a faint hope of survival.

‘Cannot something be done – even if only to increase this hope by a tiny fraction?

‘I am thinking of dugouts. It may seem ludicrous to suggest such a puny endeavour, but assuming this “graze” to be so slight as to permit the earth to survive, would it not be worth constructing very deep dugouts, reinforced with steel and concrete, supplied with oxygen and other necessities of life for several days while conditions upon the earth’s surface may possibly return to normal?’

When the President rose to reply there was a slight smile upon his face – the first smile that I had witnessed in the whole of that strange meeting.

‘I am glad to speak of something constructive and hopeful after so much gloom. I am glad to say that this suggestion has already been put into action with the greatest energy. The engineering corps of all armies are at work upon subterranean strongholds, built with the utmost strength and fitted with every possible protection against shock, flood and lack of air. The positions of these strongholds have been selected with scientific care and are being built in secret. The officers and men employed believe the dugouts to be against air raid and gas attack from foreign powers. The number of people to be protected in this way cannot be more than the smallest proportion of our population, and the selection will of course rest with the Government.’

A few other questions were put and answered, but I do not remember them as being of much importance. A fat man with a grating voice began a rambling speech to the effect that the Government must not be allowed to take political advantage of the dugouts by leaving all persons of socialist leanings outside. He went on to suggest that no person who believed in otter hunting should be allowed in the dugouts, but the President pulled him up sharply and asked if any further questions were desired.

Somebody wanted to know whether the approach of the moon had anything to do with the strange colour of the sunsets that we had recently observed, but the President was unable to give a definite reply. I began to notice an increasing restlessness in the audience, as if the strain of the meeting was bringing a reaction that cried for movement and freedom. The President announced that the Society would meet in two weeks’ time, instead of the normal month, and that he would then report anything further that had been imparted to him through official channels. It was just after seven when he closed the meeting and I think that the adjournment for coffee and cakes in the ante-room was the weirdest experience of my life.

I suppose we were all affected, far more deeply than we realised, by an intense, overpowering reaction. Or possibly it was the result of the President’s reply to the last question of the evening when he had stated that, upon present indications, the moon would strike the earth upon the evening of the 3rd May at about eight o’clock.

The 3rd of May! Seven months ahead! One and all of us, I think, experienced the exultant, irrational joy of a man condemned to die at dawn, who learns at the last hour that his execution has been postponed for seven months. In the course of those first calm, terrible words of Professor Hartley’s every one of us had felt the awful imminence of death, and in that last reply had come the sweet breath of postponement. The fact that this would only mean seven months of agonising suspense occurred to none of us in our utterly unbalanced condition of mind.

Whatever the reason, I only know that, as we rose and pushed back those hard wooden chairs and trooped into the refreshment-room, a low murmur began – a murmur that was pierced by a sudden laugh – a sudden babble and buoyancy of spirit that gave every appearance of intense well-being and happiness.

You would not have recognised those pale, drawn faces and haggard eyes of ten minutes ago. There came the familiar rattle of the shutter that ran up to reveal Mrs Ayling behind the big brass coffee urn in the recess that was called ‘The Bar’. True to tradition the Committee gathered around to pass out the coffee and plates of sandwiches and buttered scones. There was a great deal of laughter over the fact that there were not enough coffee-cups to go round – our economical Committee having failed to visualise the possibility of every member turning up at the same meeting!

A member shouted out: ‘What about a vote of censure upon the Committee!’, and there was such a shout of laughter that you would have thought the best joke of the century had been made!

I believe what really gave us this extraordinary feeling of bravado was the self-esteem that every one of us was conscious of. We were amongst the chosen few: we were members of a little band of intelligent men who alone amongst millions had been entrusted with this unearthly, awe-inspiring secret.

It may seem a little childish, but I think all of us began to show off deliberately before the unknowing Mrs Ayling as she kept twisting and untwisting the tap of the coffee urn. Here before us was the first member of that mighty, ignorant public that did not share, and must not share, our secret.

I observed one member, with an eye upon the old lady, talking loudly and elaborately about the chess tournament at Hastings – another held forth upon the coarse flavour of American tomatoes and another upon yesterday’s fog. I am sure that all our conversation was a lot further away from the moon than the moon, at that moment, was away from us.

For my own part I was conscious of an indescribable joy. The telescope scheme had not collapsed into financial chaos. It had not even been mentioned and my fortune and prestige were untouched. I found myself telling a complete stranger that the chicken in the sandwiches had come from my estate – my estate! – still mine! For no particular reason the man threw back his head and laughed with such abandon that he revealed his plate of false teeth in greater detail than he had probably ever done to any living person except his dentist. But now and then a little shaft of terror shot through the glow of my exultation – as a man drunk with champagne might feel for a second a drink-dulled abscess in his cheek. For a fleeting second I realised that my friend’s false teeth would look very much the same as the pupils of my eyes when they all revolved together as the dust of a destroyed world. There was something macabre about this babble – a dance of death. I shuddered, gulped some scalding coffee, swallowed a piece of buttered scone and laughed out loud although nobody had said anything to me. Nobody noticed. It seemed quite normal and I felt in no way embarrassed.

Finding myself beside Humphrey Tugwall, our Secretary, I took the opportunity of enquiring how the new telescope and observatory were getting on. He said: ‘Swimmingly! – swimmingly!’ and pushed through the crowd with an imbecile smile fixed on a top corner of the room.

Everybody squeezed about in the crowded space as if the friction of jostling shoulders struck new sparks of courage. Eight o’clock chimed but not a man gave sign of leaving. Generally by eight o’clock the refreshment-room was deserted, everyone having hurried away for home, but it seemed this evening as if none of us desired to break the queer spell of herd-like courage. None of us desired to be the first to go down those steep, narrow steps into a world made strange and lonely to us through the secret that we must not share with it.

The coffee urn was empty and Mrs Ayling, bewildered beyond doubt by the unusual demand, stood behind her bar, shaking her head as members squeezed up and presented their cups for more. But although there had been a fierce demand for coffee I noticed several plates of untouched, neglected cakes – principally of the puffy, ‘éclair’ type that need calmness and deliberation in their consumption.

And then at last came a sudden dropping away of the staccato sound of voices: it turned into a drone that reminded me of a gramophone record running down: it revealed with brutal clearness how artificial it all had been.

The reason for this sudden change was the appearance of the President from the committee-room in his hat, smartly-tied silk muffler and overcoat. He gave me a friendly smile as he passed me, and at the door he turned and waved a gay farewell.

‘Goodnight, gentlemen! – until Thursday week!’

There was a chorus of farewell that expressed the depth of our feeling for the calm, courteous man who had set us such a fine example. There was a moment of embarrassed silence: a few members attempted to revive the conversation and gaiety, but the falseness of it was too pitiful for words. We fell back to a cold bedrock of silence and began to gather up our hats and coats.

In the cloakroom I noticed a new and quite unusual regard for one another. Normally we would all jostle in, and if another hat were dislodged with ours we would not always feel obliged to pick it up. Tonight all kept saying: ‘After you. No – no! You first!’ Everybody helped each other to find umbrellas and complete strangers helped each other on with their coats. I liked this unconscious friendliness far more than the unhealthy heartiness of the coffee-and-cakes period. There was something genuine about it: a tiny signpost towards the nobility that springs from a common peril.

At the street door a member asked which way I was going, and when I said ‘to Waterloo’ he offered me a lift although his route lay north. I thanked him but declined, for now that it was over I wanted to be alone. Had I realised the desolate solitude I was to feel in those crowded London streets I should have accepted the offered lift to secure for a few moments longer the fellowship of one who shared the Secret.

I was bewildered by the blaze of traffic and the surge of people. It was just upon eight-thirty and the theatre rush was at its height. As I stood watching those hurrying, smartly-dressed people I could not resist a smile. How colossally important was this trivial little round of amusement to a world of unsuspecting, ignorant people: how different they would be if they knew what I knew!

A young man paused beside me with an attractive fair-haired girl upon his arm. As they stood waiting for the traffic to allow them to cross the road the young man glanced up at the clear black sky, then down at his companion with a smile.

‘Gorgeous night,’ he said. ‘Hunter’s Moon.’

Suddenly I had a horrible impulse to laugh: to take him by the arm and say: ‘Yes! – it is hunting the earth! – and the kill will be in the fields of eternity!’

It was upon the tip of my tongue to say it and only with an effort could I choke myself to silence. I, a tiny speck of humanity, had it in my power to evoke a world panic! I struggled with a devilish temptation to become at one stroke a figure famous in history as the man who told the world of its impending fate!

But my better feelings took possession of me: I remembered my solemn vow: I suffered the young man and his fair companion to pass on to their fool’s paradise and took the steep road down to Hungerford Bridge.

The bridge was almost deserted at this hour. The city workers had long since crossed and taken their trains for home. Halfway over I paused in an alcove above one of the buttresses and stood for a long while gazing at that lovely, moonlit panorama of London with the sullen river oiling its silent way to the sea.

The great sweep of lights upon the Embankment gave enchantment to the dark, ghostly buildings that loomed above the fringing trees: the sounds of traffic were lulled to a sleepy murmur and the foot taps of the little ant-like stream of people were muffled by the distance.

I looked up at the moon. Its stupid, placid face was cocked to one side in an expression of mild desire. There was no menace in it: no hint of the awful thing that was to happen in the spring of the coming year. The 3rd of May! – I pictured my meadow spangled with spring flowers – I saw them dancing in the wind – a great ear-splitting roar – and eternal darkness.

I gripped the parapet of the bridge, for my whole body was quivering. Seven months of waiting! – too ghastly for the human brain to bear! I looked down at the river – at the silver beam that sparkled and danced across it towards the setting moon. There was no one in sight: it would be an easy thing to slip over into that friendly river. I had paddled too often along its friendly stream – picnicked too often in its quiet backwaters to be afraid of it. I would go swirling up that moonlit path: I would challenge the moon by going up to meet it!

I would be hurting no one. Mrs Buller, my housekeeper, would wonder for a bit and tell the police, and my uncle at Notting Hill would inherit my little fortune. No one would grieve my loss, and I would save myself the aching terror of seven months of living death.

I had all but made up my mind: I was about to climb onto the parapet when by chance I turned my head and saw through the girders of the railway bridge the great floodlit face of Big Ben. Slowly it began to strike the hour of nine, and as its deep note floated down the river I saw the big shadow-haunted building beneath it – I saw the Members of the House of Commons – all sharers of the Secret – all calmly carrying on the business of State without a flicker of hesitation.

I was ashamed – then proud. Ashamed that I should think of leaving those others to bear the awful burden: proud that I was numbered amongst the select and trusted few. I pictured the Prime Minister of England, planning the great subterranean strongholds to salvage a drop or two of British blood to build the Empire again. The Prime Minister! – and me! We knew – while untold millions were ignorant!

With a surge of renewed pride I strode across the bridge and was just in time to catch the 9.18. I had felt no desire for my usual little dinner in Soho, and the 9.18 was, on the whole, a better train than the 9.52. It did not stop at Basingstoke, where frequently the 9.52 had a tedious delay to take off empty milkcans.

I was lucky to secure a compartment to myself, and settled down to read the latest number of the Poultry Times.

I was very pleased indeed to find an authoritative article recommending at last the tubular metal perches that I had advocated so persistently for the past seven years. It is my firm conviction that a hen’s laying capacity is undermined by long hours of sleep upon a cold perch.

By a simple device of a small, inexpensive boiler it is possible to keep a steady flow of warm water through these metal perches. This not only warms the feet of the fowl and prevents loss of vitality, but my experiments have proved that the fowl sleeps longer and more soundly – awakes refreshed and full of strength and lays, within ten to twenty minutes of rising, an egg of far greater quality than one generated under vitality-lowering conditions.

I advocated this in a long letter to the Mulcaster Wednesday Echo. The letter was published, but the only result was a ribald and indecent reply (which the Editor should never have published) suggesting that hot chicken perches would cause the eggs to hatch inside the hens, causing them unnecessary embarrassment and discomfort.

I never took the Echo again – and now here before me, in no less a paper than the Poultry Times, was my own idea, smugly presented under the pseudonym of ‘Ego’.

It only went to prove the unspeakable meanness and dishonesty into which a man can be led by professional jealousy.