I got to the stockade and saw that it was an extremely crude affair—no savage would have owned to its manufacture—and easily scaled, so long as the timber did not collapse under me. Slowly I climbed to the top and got my first sight of the interior.
It was a scene of the utmost barbarity. Una Persson hung spreadeagled and suspended on a kind of trellis in the centre of the compound. In front of her, cross-legged, sat what must have been the best part of the ‘tribe’—many of them bearing the deformities marking them as recipients of various plague viruses. Behind the scaffold was a sort of dais made from a large oak refectory table, and on the table there had been placed a high-backed, ornately carved armchair of the sort which our Victorian ancestors regarded as the very epitome of ‘Gothic’ good taste. The velvet of the chair was much torn and stained and the woodwork had been covered with some sort of poorly applied gold lacquer. A number of fairly large fires blazed in a semi-circle behind the dais and oily smoke drifted across the scene, while the red flames leapt about like so many devils and were reflected in the sweating faces of the gathered inhabitants of the stockade. This was what I saw before I dropped to the other side of the fence and crept into the shadow of one of the ramshackle shelters clustered nearby.
A sort of hideous crooning now issued from the throats of the onlookers, and they swayed slowly from side to side, their eyes fixed on Una Persson’s half-naked body. Una Persson herself did not struggle, but remained perfectly still in her bonds, staring back at them with an expression of utter disgust and contempt. As I had admired it once before, again I admired her courage. Few of us, in her position, could have behaved so well.
Since she did not seem to be in any immediate danger, I waited to see what would next develop.
From a hut larger than the rest and set back behind the semicircle of fires, there now emerged a tall and corpulent figure dressed in full morning-dress, with a fine grey silk hat at a jaunty angle on his head, his right thumb stuck in the pocket of his waistcoat, a diamond pin in his cravat, looking for all the world like some music-hall performer of my own time. Slowly, with an air of insouciance, he ascended the dais and seated himself with great self-importance in his gold chair while the crowd ceased its humming and swaying for a moment to greet him with a monstrous shout whose words I could not catch.
His own voice was clear enough. It was reedy and yet brutal and, for all that it was the uneducated voice of a small shopkeeper, it carried authority.
“Loyal subjects of East Grinstead,” it began. “The man—or woman—who pulls their weight is welcome here as you well know. But East Grinstead has never taken kindly to foreigners, scroungers, Jews and loafers, as is also well known. East Grinstead knows how to deal with ’em. We have our traditions. Now this here interloper, this spy, was caught hanging round near East Grinstead obviously up to no good—and also, I might add, armed to the teeth. Well, draw your own conclusions, my subjects. There is not much doubt in my—our—mind that she is by way of being a definite foreign aviator, probably come back to see how we are getting on here after all them bombs she dropped on us did their damage. She has found a flourishing community—bloody but unbowed and ready for anything. Given half a chance, I shouldn’t be surprised if she was about to report back to her compatriots that East Grinstead wasn’t finished—not by a long shot finished—and we could have expected another lot of bombs. But,” and his voice dropped and became ruthless and sinister, plainly relishing Una’s pain, “she won’t be going back. And we’re going to teach her a lesson, aren’t we, about what foreign aviators and spies can expect if they try it on over East Grinstead and Major John!”
He continued in this vein and I listened in horror. Could this man once have served behind a counter in an ordinary suburban shop? Perhaps he had served me with an ounce of licorice or a packet of tea. And his ‘subjects’, who growled and giggled and trembled with blood-lust, were these once the decent, conservative folk of the Home Counties? Did it take so little time to strip them of all their apparent civilization? If ever I returned to my own world I would look on these people in a new light.
King John of East Grinstead had risen from his chair and someone had handed him a brand. The firelight turned his grey, unshaven face into the mask of a devil as he raised the brand above his head, his eyes glowing and his lips drawn back in a bestial grin.
“Now we’ll teach her!” he yelled. And his subjects rose up, arms extended, screaming to him to do what he was about to do.
The brand came down and began to extend towards Una Persson’s head. She could not see what was happening, but it was obvious that she guessed. She struggled once in the ropes, then her lips came firmly together and she closed her eyes as the brand moved closer towards her.
Scarcely thinking, I raised my carbine to my shoulder, took aim, and shot Major John, the King of East Grinstead, squarely between the eyes. His face was almost comic in its astonishment and then the great bulk fell forward off the dais and lay in a heap before its stunned subjects.
I moved quickly then, thankful for my army training.
While those hideously ravaged faces looked at me with expressions of horror, I ran to the trellis and with a few quick strokes of my knife cut Una Persson free.
Then, quite deliberately, I shot down three of the nearest men. One of them had been armed and I signed to Una Persson to pick up the rifle, which she did as quickly as she could, though she was plainly suffering a good deal of pain.
“This place is surrounded by men,” I told them. “All are crack shots. The first to threaten us with his weapon will die as swiftly as your leader. As you can see, we are merciless. If you remain within the stockade and allow us to go through the gate unhampered, no more of you will be harmed.”
A few of the people growled like animals, but were too nonplused and alarmed to do anything more. I could not resist a parting speech as we got to the gate.
“I might tell you that I am British,” I said. “As British as you are and from the same part of the world. And I am disgusted by what I see. This is no way for Britons to behave. Remember your old standards. Recall what they once meant to you. The fields remain and you have stock. Grow your food as you have always grown it. Breed the beasts. Build East Grinstead into a decent place again...”
Una Persson put a hand on my arm, whispering: “There is not much time. They’ll soon realize that you have no men. They are already beginning to look for them and not see them. Come, we’ll make for my machine.”
We backed out of the gate and closed it behind us. Then, bent low, we began to run. I followed Una Persson and she plainly had a good idea of where she was going. We ran through a wood and across several overgrown fields, into another wood, and here we paused, listening for sounds of pursuit, but there was none.
Panting, Una Persson pushed on until the forest thinned. Then she bent over a bush and without any apparent effort seemed to pull the whole thing up by the roots, revealing the faint gleam of metal. She operated a control, there was a buzz and a hatch swung upwards.
“Get in,” she said, “there’s just about room for both of us.”
I obeyed. I found myself in a cramped chamber, surrounded by a variety of unfamiliar instruments. Una Persson closed the hatch over her head and began turning dials and flicking switches until the whole machine was shaking and whining. She peered through a contraption which looked to me rather like a stereoscopic viewer, then pulled a large lever right back. The whining sound increased its pitch and the machine began to move—heading downwards into the very bowels of the earth.
“What sort of machine is this?” I enquired in my amazement.
“Haven’t you seen one before?” she said casually. “It’s an O’Bean Mark Five tunneler. It’s about the only way to move these days without being spotted. It’s slow. But it’s sure.” She smiled, pausing in her inspection of the controls to offer me her hand. “I haven’t thanked you. I don’t know who you are, sir, but I’m very grateful for what you did. My missio
n in this part of Britain is vital and now it has some chance of success.”
It had become extremely hot and I fancied that we were nearing the core of the planet!
“Not at all,” I replied. “Glad to be of service. My name’s Bastable. You’re Mrs. Persson, aren’t you?”
“Una Persson,” she said. “Were you sent to help me, then?”
“I happened to be passing, that was all.” I wished now that I hadn’t admitted to knowing her name—the explanation could prove embarrassing. I made a wild guess, remembering something of what I had been told about her when I flew with The Rover. “I recognized your photograph. You were an actress, weren’t you?”
She smiled, wiping the perspiration from her face with a large, white handkerchief. “Some would say that I still am.”
“What sort of depth are we at?” I asked, feeling quite faint now.
“Oh, no more than a hundred feet. The air system isn’t working properly and I don’t know enough about these metal moles to fix it. I don’t think we’re in any immediate danger, however.”
“How did you come to be in East Grinstead, Mrs. Persson?”
She did not hear me above the shaking of the machine and the weird whining of its engine. She made some sort of adjustment to our course as she cupped her hand to her ear and made me repeat the question.
She shrugged. “What I was looking for was nearby. There was some attempt to set up a secret centre of government towards the end. There were plans for an O’Bean machine which was never perfected. There is only one of its type—in Africa. The plans will clarify one or two problems which were troubling us.”
“In Africa! You have come from Africa?”
“Yes. Ah, here we are.” She pushed two levers forward and I felt the tunneling machine begin to tilt, rising towards the surface. “The ground must have been mainly clay. We’ve made good speed.”
She cut off the engines, took one last glance into the viewer, seemed satisfied, moved to the hatch, pressed a button. The hatch opened, letting in the refreshing night air.
“You’d better get out first,” she said.
I clambered thankfully from the machine, waiting for my vision to adjust itself. The ground all around me was flat and even. I could just make out the silhouette of what at first appeared to be buildings arranged in a circle which enclosed us. There was something decidedly familiar about the place. “Where are we?” I asked her.
“I think it used to be called The Oval,” she told me as she joined me on the grass. “Hurry up, Mr. Bastable. My airboat should be just over here.”
It was a ridiculous emotion to feel at the time, I know, but I could not help experiencing a tinge of genuine shock at our having desecrated one of the most famous cricket pitches in the world!
CHAPTER FIVE
The Start of a New Career
Una Persson’s Airboat was very different from the sort of aircraft I had become used to in the world of 1973. This was a flimsy affair consisting of an aluminium hull from which projected a sort of mast on which was mounted a large, three-bladed propeller. At the tail was a rudder, and on either side of the rudder were two small propellers. From the hull sprouted two broad, stubby fins which, like the small propellers, helped to stabilize and to steer the boat once it had taken to the air. We rose, swaying slightly, from the ground, while the boat’s motor gave out a barely heard purring. It was only now that I sought to enquire of our destination. We were flying at about a height of one thousand feet over the remains of Inner London. There was not a landmark left standing. The entire city had been flattened by the invader’s bombs. The legendary vengeance of Rome upon Carthage was as nothing compared to this. What had possessed one group of human beings to do such a thing to another? Was this, I wondered, how Hiroshima had looked after the Shan-tien had dropped her cargo of death? If so, I had much on my conscience. Or had I? I had begun to wonder if I moved from dream to dream. Was reality only what I made of it? Was there, after all, any such thing as ‘history’?
“Where are we headed for, Mrs. Persson?” I asked, as we left London behind.
“My first stop will have to be in Kerry, where I have a refueling base.”
“Ireland.” I remembered the first subaquatic vessel I had seen. “I had hoped...”
I realized, then, that I had already made up my mind to accept Korzeniowski’s offer. I had seen enough of my homeland and what its inhabitants had become. Korzeniowski’s statements about the sea being the only “clean” place to be were beginning to make sense to me.
“Yes?” She turned. “I would take you all the way with me, Mr. Bastable. I owe you that, really. But I have scarcely enough power to get myself back and another passenger would make a crucial difference. Secondly you would probably have no taste for the kind of life I would take you to. I could drop you somewhere less dangerous than Southern England. It is the best I can offer.”
“I was thinking of making for Scotland,” I said. “Would I stand a better chance of survival there?” I was reluctant to disclose my actual destination. Korzeniowski would not appreciate my revealing his secret station.
She frowned. “The coast of Lancashire is about the best I can suggest. Somewhere beyond Liverpool. If you avoid the large cities, such as Glasgow, you should be all right. The Highlands themselves sustained very little bombing and I doubt if the plagues reached there.”
And so it was that I bid farewell to Una Persson on a wild stretch of saltings beside the coast of Morecambe Bay near a village called Silverdale. It was dawn and the scenery around me made a welcome change from that I had so recently left. The air was full of the cries of sea-birds searching for their breakfast and a few sheep grazed on the salt-flats, taking a wary interest in me as they cropped the rich grass. In the distance was the sea, wide, flat and gleaming in the light of the rising sun. It was a comforting picture of rural tranquility and much more the England I had hoped to find when I had first landed at Dover. I waved goodbye to Mrs. Persson, watching her airboat rise rapidly into the sky and then swing away over the ocean, heading towards Ireland, then I shouldered my carbine and tramped towards the village.
The village was quite a large one, consisting mainly of those fine, stone houses one finds in such parts, but it was completely deserted. Either the inhabitants had fled under the threat of some supposed invasion, or else they had died of the plague and been buried by survivors who, in turn, had prudently gone away from the source of the disease. But there were no signs of any sort of disaster. Hoping to find food, maps and the like, I searched several houses, finding them completely in order. Much of the furniture had been neatly draped with dust-covers and all perishable food had been removed, but I was able to discover a good quantity of canned meats and bottled fruit and vegetables which, while heavy to carry, would sustain me for some time. I was also fortunate enough to find several good-quality maps of Northern England and Scotland. After resting for a day in Silverdale and granting myself the luxury of sleeping in a soft bed, I set off in the general direction of the Lake District.
I soon discovered that life was continuing at a fairly normal pace in these parts. The farming is largely sheep, and while the people who remained were forced to live in what was comparative poverty, the war had hardly altered their familiar pattern of existence. Instead of being regarded with fear and suspicion, as I had been in the Home Counties, I was welcomed, given food, and asked for any news I might have about the fate of the South. I was happy to tell all I knew, and to warn these friendly Northerners to beware of the insanity which had swept the counties around London. I was told that similar conditions existed near Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds, and I was advised to skirt Carlisle, if I could, for while the survivors of that city had not descended to the level of barbarism I had experienced in East Grinstead, they were still highly suspicious of those who seemed better off than themselves and there had been minor outbreaks of a variant of the disease known as Devil’s Mushroom, which had not improved their dispositi
on towards those who were not local to the area.
Heeding such warnings, proceeding with caution, taking advantage of what hospitality I was offered, I slowly made my way north, while the autumn weather—perhaps the finest I had ever known—lasted. I was desperate to get to the Islands before winter set in and the mountains became impassable. The Grampians, those stately monarchs of the Western Highlands, were reached, and at length I found myself crossing the great Rannoch Moor, heading in the general direction of Fort William, which lay under the shadow of Ben Nevis. The mountains shone like red Celtic gold in the clear sunshine of the early winter; there is no sight like it in the whole world and it is impossible to think of the British Isles as being in any way small, as they are in comparison with most other land areas, when you see the Grampians stretching in all directions, inhabited by nothing save the tawny Highland cattle, grouse and pheasant, their wild rivers full of trout and salmon. I ate like a king during that part of my journey—venison became a staple—and I was tempted to forget about my plan for joining Korzeniowski in the Outer Hebrides and to make my life here, taking over some abandoned croft, tending sheep, and letting the rest of the world go to perdition in any way it chose. But I knew that the winters could be harsh and I heard rumours that the old clans were beginning to re-form and that they were riding out on cattle-raids just as they had done in the days before the dreams of that drunken dandy Prince Charles Edward Stuart had brought the old Highland ways of life to a final and bitter end.
So I continued towards Skye, where I hoped I might find some sort of ferry still operating on the Kyle of Lochalsh. Sure enough, the inhabitants of Skye had not abandoned their crucial links with the mainland. Sailing boats plied a regular trade with the island and a haunch of venison bought me a passage on one of them just as the first snows of the winter started to drift from out of vast and steely skies.