The Day of the Triffids

XI. —and Farther on

My next morning was desultory. I looked around, I lent a hand here and there, and asked a lot of questions.

It had been a wretched night. Until I lay down I had not fully realized the extent to which 21 had counted on finding Josella at Tynsham. Weary though I was after the day’s journey, I could not sleep; I lay awake in the darkness feeling stranded and planless. So confidently had I assumed that she find the Beadley patty would be there that there bad been no reason to consider any plan beyond joining them. It now came home to me for the first time that even if I did succeed in catching up with them I still might not find her. As she had left the Westminster district only a short time before I arrived there in search of her, she must in any case have been well behind the main party. Obviously the thing to do was to make detailed inquiries regarding everyone who had arrived at Tynsham during the previous two days.

For the present I must assume that she had come this way. It was my only lead. And that meant assuming also that she bad gone back to the university and had found the chalked address—whereas it was quite on the cards that she had not gone there at all, but, sickened by the whole thing, had taken the quickest route out of the reeking place that London had now become.

The thing I bad to fight hardest against admitting was that she might have caught the disease, whatever it was, that had dissolved both our groups. I would not consider the possibility of that until I had to.

In the sleepless clarity of the small hours I made one discovery—it was that my desire to join the i3eadley party was very secondary indeed to my wish to find Josella. If, when I did find them, she was not with them… Well, the next move would have to wait upon the moment, but it would not be resignation…

Finding Coker’s bed already empty when I awoke, I decided to devote my morning chiefly to inquiries. One of the troubles was that it did not seem to have occurred to anyone to find out the names of those who had considered Tynshan uninviting and had passed on. Josella’s name meant nothing to anyone save those few who recollected it with disapproval. My description of her raised no memories that would stand detailed examination. Certainly there had been no girl in a navy-blue ski suit—that I established—but then I could by no means be certain that she would still be dressed that way. My inquiries ended by making everyone very tired of me and increasing my frustration. There was a faint possibility that a girl who had come and gone a day before our arrival might have been she, but I could not feel it likely that Josella could have left so slight an impression on anyone’s mind—even allowing for prejudice…

Coker reappeared again at the midday meal. He had found most of the men to be plunged in gloom by a well-meant assurance from the vicar that there would be plenty of useful things for them to do, such as—er—basketmaking, and—er— weaving, and he had done his best to dispel it with more hopeful prospects. Encountering Miss Durrant, he had told her that unless it could somehow be contrived that the blind women should take some of the work off the shoulders of the sighted the whole thing would break dawn within ten days, and, also, that if the vicar’s prayer for more blind people to join them should happen to be granted, the whole place would became entirely unworkable. He was embarking upon further observations, including the necessity for starting immediately to build up food reserves and to start the construction of devices which would enable blind men to do useful work, when she cut him short. He could see that she was a great deal more worried than she would admit, but the determination which had led her to sever relations with the other party caused her to blaze back at him unthankfully. She ended by letting him know that on her information neither he nor his views were likely to harmonize with the community.

“The trouble about that woman is that she means to be boss,” he said.

“It’s constitutional—quite apart from the lofty principles.”

“Slanderous,” I said. “What you mean is that her principles are so impeccable that everything is her responsibility—and so it becomes her duty to guide others.”

“Much the same thing,” he said.

“But it sounds a lot better,” I pointed out.

He was thoughtful for a moment.

“She’s going to run this place into one hell of a mess unless she gets right down to the job of organizing it pretty quickly. Have you looked the outfit over?”

I shook my head. I told him how my morning had been spent.

“You don’t seem to have got much change for it. So what?” he said.

“I’m going on after the Michael Beadley crowd,” I told him.

“And if she’s not with them?”

“At present I’m just hoping she is. She must be. Where else would she be?”

He started to say something and stopped. Then he went on:

“I reckon I’ll come along with you. It’s likely that crowd won’t be any more glad to see me than this one, considering everything—but I can live that down. I’ve watched one lot fall to bits, and I can see this one’s going to do the same— more slowly and, maybe, more nastily. It’s queer, isn’t it? Decent intentions seem to be the most dangerous things around just now. It’s a damned shame, because this place could be managed, in spite of the proportion of blind. Everything it needs is lying about for the taking, and will be for a while yet. It’s only organizing that’s wanted.”

“And willingness to be organized,” I suggested.

“That too,” he agreed. “You know, the trouble is that in spite of all that’s happened this thing hasn’t got home to these people yet. They don’t want to turn to—that’d be making it too final. At the back of their minds they’re all hanging on, waiting for something or other.”

“True—but scarcely surprising,” I admitted. “It took plenty to convince us, and they’ve not seen what we have. And, some way, it does seem less final and less—less immediate out here in the country.”

“Well, they’ve got to start realizing it soon if they’re going to get through,” Coker said, looking round the hail again. “There’s no miracle corning to save them.”

“Give ‘em time. They’ll come to it, as we did. You’re always in such a hurry. Time’s no longer money, you know.”

“Money isn’t important any longer, but time is. They ought to be thinking about the harvest, rigging a mill to grind flour, seeing about winter feed for the stock.”

I shook my head.

“It’s not as urgent as all that, Coker. There must be huge stocks of flour in the towns, and, by the look of things, mighty few of us to use it. We can live on capital for a long while yet. Surely the immediate job is to teach the blind how to work before they really have to get down to it.”

“All the same, unless something is done, the sighted ones here are going to crack up. It only needs that to happen to one or two of them and the place’ll be a proper mess.”

I had to concede that.

Later in the afternoon I managed to find Miss Durrant. No one else seemed to know or care where Michael Beadley and his lot had gone, but I could not believe that they had not left behind some indications for those who might follow. Miss Durrant was not pleased. At first I thought she was going to refuse to tell me. It was not due solely to my implied preference for other company. The loss of even an uncongenial able-bodied man was serious in the circumstances. Nevertheless, she preferred not to show the weakness of asking me to stay.

In the end she said curtly:

“They were intending to make for somewhere near Beaminster in Dorset. I can tell you no more than that.”

I went back and told Coker. He looked around him. Then he shook his head, though with a touch of regret.

“Okay,” he said. “We’ll check out of this dump tomorrow.”

“Spoken like a pioneer,” I told him. “At least, more like a pioneer than an Englishman.”

Nine o’clock the next morning saw us already twelve miles or so on our road, and traveling as before in our two trucks.

There had been a question whether we should not take a handier vehicle and leave the trucks for the benefit of the Tynsham people, but I was reluctant to abandon mine. I had personally collected the contents, and knew what was in it. Apart from the cases of anti-triffid gear which Michael Beadley had so disapproved, I had given myself slightly wider scope on the last load, and there was a selection of things made with consideration of what might be difficult to find outside a large town: such things as a small lighting set, some pumps, cases of good tools. All these things would be available later for the taking, but there was going to be an interlude when it would be advisable to keep away from towns of any size. The Tynsham people had the means to fetch supplies was in London. A couple of loads would not make a great deal from towns where there was no sign yet of the disease that of difference to them either way, so in the end we Went as we had come.

The weather still held good. On the higher ground there was still little taint in the fresh air, though most villages bad become unpleasant. Rarely we saw a still figure lying in a field or by the roadside, but, just as in London, the main instinct seemed to have been to hide away in shelter of some kind. Most of the villages showed empty streets, and the countryside around them was as deserted as if the whole human race and most of its animals had been spirited away. Until we came to Steeple Honey.

From our road we had a view of the whole of Steeple Honey as we descended the hill. It clustered at the farther end of a stone bridge which arched across a small, sparkling river. It was a quiet little place centered round a sleepy-looking church, and stippled off at its edges with whitewashed cottages. It did not look as if anything had occurred in a century or more to disturb the quiet life under its thatched roofs. But, like other villages, it was now without stir or smoke. And then, as we were halfway down the hill, a movement caught my eye.

On the left, at the far end of the bridge, one house stood slightly aslant from the road so that it faced obliquely toward us. An inn sign hung from a bracket on its wall, and from the window immediately above that something white was being waved. As we came closer I could see the man who was leaning out and frantically flagging us with a towel. I judged that he must be blind, otherwise he would have come out into the road to intercept us. He was waving too vigorously for a sick man.

I signaled back to Coker and pulled up as we cleared the bridge. The man at the window dropped his towel. He shouted something which I could not hear above the noise of the engines and disappeared. We both switched off. It was so quiet that we could hear the clumping of the man’s feet on the wooden stairs inside the house. The door opened, and be stepped out, holding both hands before him. Like lightning something whipped Out of the hedge on his left and struck him. He gave a single high-pitched shout and dropped where he stood.

I picked up my shotgun and climbed out of the cab. I circled a little until I could make Out the triffid skulking in the shadows of a bush. Then I blew the top off it.

Coker was out of his truck, too, and standing close beside me. He looked at the man on the ground and then at the shorn triffid.

“It was—no, damn it, it can’t have been waiting for him?” he said. “It must have just happened. It couldn’t have known he’d come out of that door… I mean, it couldn’t— could it?”

“Or could it? It was a remarkably neat piece of work,” I said.

Coker turned uneasy eyes on me.

“Too damn neat. You don’t really believe

“There’s a kind of conspiracy not to believe things about triffids,” I said, and added: “There might be more around here.”

We looked the adjacent cover over carefully and drew blank.

“I could do with a drink,” suggested Coker.

But for the dust on the counter, the small bar of the inn looked normal. We poured a whisky each. Coker downed his in one. He turned a worried look on me.

“I didn’t like that. Not at all, I didn’t. You ought to know a lot more about these bloody things than most people, Bill. It wasn’t—I mean, it must just have happened to be there, mustn’t it?”

“I think—” I began. Then I stopped, listening to a staccato drumming outside. I walked over and opened the window. I let the already trimmed triffid have the other barrel too; this time just above the bole. The drumming stopped.

“The trouble about triffids,” I said as we poured another drink, “is chiefly the things we don’t know about them,” I told him one or two of Walter’s theories. He stared.

“You don’t seriously suggest that they’re ‘talking’ when they make that rattling noise?”

“I’ve never made up my mind,” I admitted. “I’ll go so far as to say I’m sure it’s a signal of some sort. But Walter considered it to be real ‘talk’—and he did know more about them than anyone else that I’ve ever met.”

I ejected the two spent cartridge cases and reloaded. “And he actually mentioned their advantage over a blind man?”

“A number of years ago, that was,” I pointed out.

“Still—it’s a funny coincidence.”

“Impulsive as ever,” I said. “Pretty nearly any stroke of fate can be made to look like a funny coincidence if you try hard enough and wait long enough.”

We drank up and turned to go. Coker glanced out of the window. Then be caught my arm and pointed. Two triffids had swayed round the corner and were making for the hedge which had been the hiding place of the first. I waited until they paused and then decapitated both of them. We left by the window which was out of range of any triffid cover, and looked about us carefully as we approached the trucks.

“Another coincidence? Or were they coming to see what had happened to their pal?” asked Coker.

With only two more stops, one for food and the other for fuel, we made good time, and ran into Beaminster about half-past four in the afternoon. We had come right into the center of the place without having seen a sign to suggest the presence of the Beadley party.

At first glimpse the town was as void of life as any other we had seen that day. The main shopping street when we entered it was bare and empty save for a couple of trucks drawn up on one side. I had led the way down it for perhaps twenty yards when a man stepped out from behind one of the trucks and leveled a rifle. He fired deliberately over my head and then lowered his aim.