Hills End Page 19

  In the midst of the yapping dogs he moved towards the shop, still excited, but nervous, still blushing whenever he thought of the miserable spectacle he had made of himself before his friends. That had been early in the morning, about seven o’clock, but now it was well after nine and the fog had lost its density. Perhaps the warmth of the invisible sun was managing to penetrate deeper into the great cloud bank. Perhaps the clouds were lifting. Perhaps soon the fog would begin to swirl up out of the valley and vanish into nothing, mysteriously, as it sometimes did.

  How wonderful it would be to see the sun again!

  Yes, the fog was going up, because he could see the timber mill and the river of mud that was the Magnus, still high above its banks, but less violent, less far-reaching than it had been. He could see the power shed, still standing in the midst of destruction. Its floor was of concrete eight inches thick, and its walls and roof were of iron, bolted together. It was strong enough to survive almost anything.

  And there was the shop, visible now, at a hundred and fifty yards. Deserted it seemed to be. The sound of the dogs had brought no one out. Perhaps they were not there!

  Could it be that he was alone? Could it be that they had fled or journeyed out towards the bridge at Fiddler’s Crossing? No, they would have gone to search for Miss Godwin! Or perhaps Paul had not returned. His thoughts and emotions were possessed by one doubt after another, and he realized he had caught himself at his old game. He was allowing his imagination to run away. He was frightening himself simply by thinking of things that might not have happened. His plan would never work if fear were permitted to tangle him up again.

  He moved off, went a few more yards, then saw a movement at the shop window. He could have sworn it was the barrel of a rifle. That really startled him until he heard Paul calling, ‘Come on! I thought you might have been the bull.’

  Adrian hurried on with all the speed he could produce, short of breaking into a run. He had forgotten the bull, not entirely, but certainly as a threat to himself. The dogs accompanied him joyfully and he became aware of them again. With six dogs to protect him, no bull could hurt him, so he slackened his pace to a carefree amble and arrived at the shop window feeling pretty sure of himself.

  Three heads were there to greet him—Paul, Maisie and Harvey. Harvey, certain that he had recognized Buzz’s bark, was overjoyed and leapt to the ground and romped with his dog. Maisie, too, had heard her family’s boxer, and hugged the bedraggled thoroughbred to her, and for an instant thought again of the twenty-five guineas he had cost, but if he had cost a hundred pence or a hundred pounds it wouldn’t have made any difference.

  Maisie, then, glanced towards Adrian. ‘Thanks for finding him,’ she said. ‘I—I just didn’t guess that you’d gone looking for the dogs. I’ve thought some awful things about you. I’m sorry…’

  Adrian knew he had gone pale and he saw Maisie’s words as yet another test of his honesty. Maisie didn’t mean them that way, but Adrian knew if he dared let them pass unanswered his self-respect would be gone again.

  ‘I didn’t find the dogs,’ he said. ‘They found me.’

  Perhaps Maisie didn’t hear him, or if she did she was kind enough to ignore it. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I’m so glad you’ve brought him back.’

  ‘Where have you been?’ said Paul.

  ‘Home.’

  Adrian climbed over the sill and dropped inside. ‘Did you get Miss Godwin?’

  Paul nodded coolly. ‘Didn’t think you cared, but we got her. And we got a lot more. We’ve had trouble one way and another. I hope you were comfortable at home?’

  Adrian started trembling. They were going to abuse him. Before long they’d be laughing and jeering. He took a deep breath.

  ‘How is Miss Godwin?’

  ‘Why don’t you take a look for yourself?’

  Adrian brushed past Paul and saw Gussie and Frances regarding him from the distance, without expression, and saw Butch with his usual, generous, cheerful smile.

  ‘Hi, Butch,’ he said.

  ‘Hi, Adrian.’

  Adrian’s nostrils started twitching to a nasty odour. The smell in the gloomy shop was most unusual, like a doctor’s surgery, like something burnt and smouldering, like something bad. There had been trouble, all right, as Paul had said.

  ‘Adrian has been home,’ Paul said loudly, ‘to have a rest. To get away from it all. Lucky Adrian.’

  It was an awkward silence, and Adrian didn’t quite know what to do with it. He felt, deep inside, that it wasn’t right that he should break that silence, because he’d be bound to try to defend himself. The trouble was he didn’t know whether the others agreed with Paul or disagreed with him. He didn’t know whether they were sympathetic or hostile. Then he saw Miss Godwin, lying like a dead person, wrapped up in blankets, with a kerosene radiator beaming its heat onto her, and he forgot his own problem and walked to her quietly and looked down into her white face.

  Her eyes were closed, but she was breathing.

  Adrian grunted to himself, heavily, and felt like a Judas, and saw then, beyond Miss Godwin, dozens and dozens of pieces of paper on the floor, wrinkled and torn, that had been peeled, like the skins of an onion, from a screwed-up lump of paper pulp. Instantly, he knew what it was.

  Adrian was always a sensitive person; it was his nature. He could feel things. And he could feel something at this moment. It was like a black cloud pressing down upon everyone. He had the strangest feeling that they had given up, that they were all beaten. Just what had happened he didn’t know. Yes, and there had been something in Maisie’s manner—Maisie, of all his friends usually the most matter-of-fact—that hadn’t been healthy, an unusual tremor in her voice, a nervousness about her, as though she had been trying to fight down a desire to scream.

  Adrian sighed and caught a glimpse of the charred wall, of Frances, of Gussie, of Butch smiling no longer, and heard the footsteps behind him that were Paul’s.

  Adrian closed his hand tightly on the notebook in his pocket, placed on the counter the fat volume he had carried beneath his arm, and turned to face Paul again. ‘Leaving me out of it, what’s wrong?’

  Paul wasn’t as full of nastiness as Adrian had thought. His lip trembled. ‘Everything.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘You were telling us yesterday—golly, was it only yesterday?—you were telling us that you heard my dad and your dad talking…’ Paul looked very young. ‘They said if we were left on our own to fend for ourselves we’d die. Honest, when I thought about it afterwards I reckoned they were silly. Of course we wouldn’t die…’ Paul paused again, perhaps frightened, perhaps embarrassed, perhaps doubting the wisdom of what he was about to say. He looked at his feet. ‘We’ve only been alone two days and—and—’

  ‘And look at us now?’ suggested Adrian.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘But it’s the third day, really, isn’t it?’

  Paul shrugged. ‘What’s the difference? We can’t take it. We can’t survive. Every single one of us, one after the other…Surviving is so much more than just finding something to eat. We haven’t even got a leader. There’s not one of us strong enough…That’s why we’re not captains at school. We’re all right while someone else is telling us what to do. We’re just not getting anywhere. We’re all arguing and squabbling and being nasty.’

  Paul started shaking and finally burst out with his greatest woe, ‘And what are we going to do with Miss Godwin?’ He couldn’t stop his tears then and it was a long, long time since he had cried with anyone watching. ‘Even she wasn’t strong enough,’ he choked. ‘Even Miss Godwin. She tried to destroy her book.’

  How odd it was! Adrian could see that Paul wasn’t the only one. Paul, perhaps, had been up all night and was exhausted, but the others were not exhausted? Yet they were just as low in spirits. Adrian had to be fair, he had been like it himself, but he wasn’t now. He could feel himself growing stronger; he could feel his hand closing even more tightly about his notebook
; he could almost feel himself turning into a man like his father.

  ‘Perhaps you’d better tell me what’s happened,’ he said. ‘I know if I’d been here I wouldn’t have been much help, but please tell me.’

  ‘You don’t care. As long as you’re all right, you don’t care. Frances tells me you’ve been away for nearly three hours.’

  ‘Two and a half.’

  ‘You ran away like a little boy who couldn’t have a lollipop.’

  Adrian, suddenly, was treading on thin ice again, was getting nervous again, because Paul was being nasty again, but Frances said, in a very quiet and humble voice, ‘Adrian wasn’t the only one, was he, Paul? Was he, Maisie? Was he, Gussie?’

  So Frances told him what had happened, in a halting voice and then said with her first tone of accusation, ‘Are you sure you didn’t know any of it? Are you sure you didn’t hear?’

  ‘I was in the house,’ said Adrian, ‘there’s a thick fog, I’d shut the doors. I didn’t hear because I was thinking.’

  ‘Thinking?’ exploded Paul.

  Adrian took his notebook from his pocket. ‘I wrote down what I was thinking. Shall I read it to you?’

  ‘You were writing!’ Paul shook his head in disgust. ‘Who wants to hear anything you’d write? Not me, for one…You were writing while Butch was fighting a bull. I reckon I’ve heard the lot after that.’

  Gussie had been quiet until then. ‘Read it, Adrian.’

  Paul turned on his sister with anger. ‘Whose side are you on?’

  ‘There shouldn’t be any sides.’ It was hard for Gussie to be blunt with Paul. ‘We’ve got to stick together, haven’t we?’

  ‘Adrian should have thought of that before he ran away. He hasn’t even said he’s sorry.’

  ‘You weren’t here, Paul, when it happened. Adrian’s sorry. We all know he’s sorry.’

  Paul blew his nose loudly and turned away, and mixed up with his genuine disgust was a feeling of injury. He had done all the work and Adrian had done all the dodging, but one wouldn’t think so. One would almost think it was the other way round.

  ‘Are we all here?’ said Adrian.

  ‘All except Harvey,’ said Frances.

  ‘Harvey!’ yelled Adrian, ‘you’re wanted.’

  They waited for the little chap and Adrian was searching his mind, almost frantically, for the words to begin with. How was he to start? Perhaps they were being kinder than he had expected, but it wouldn’t take much to change the climate, because Paul was against him and Paul was the stronger.

  Harvey came in with Buzz tucked firmly under his arm. ‘What’s on? Somethin’ to eat?’

  They ignored him and Harvey pouted and sat on the floor and stroked his dog.

  Adrian took a deep breath, because he hadn’t found the words he wanted. He opened his notebook and his hands were trembling, but still he couldn’t think of the words he wanted.

  ‘Well?’ mocked Paul. ‘What are we waiting for? A fanfare?’

  Adrian felt the magic of his moment slipping away, so plunged straight into it, reading from the book, without those words of introduction that he had been unable to find.

  ‘Harvey and Butch—light a big fire for a signal and burn on it all decaying food and rotting material.

  ‘Paul—trap or shoot the bull and any other dangerous animals. Find Mr Tobias. Bring Rickard’s horse and cart.

  ‘Adrian—find Miss Godwin. Disconnect all electricity wires. Rig powerline for wireless. Start powerplant and signal for help. Miss Godwin’s found, so I don’t have to do the first part.

  ‘Frances—look after Miss Godwin. Move into the best house you can find with proper facilities for washing and heating and cooking and sleeping and ensure a safe water supply.

  ‘Gussie and Maisie—feed and count all tame animals, fowls and pet birds.

  ‘Everyone, except Adrian and Paul, when their other jobs are finished, will clean up the main street, salvage people’s property and carry rubbish to signal fire.

  ‘Adrian and Paul—as soon as possible are to set out for Fiddler’s Crossing with torches and food for two days.

  ‘Signals. Everyone will carry a whistle. In an emergency the signal is twelve short blasts, because everyone is bound to hear some of them. On the emergency signal everyone is to return at once to the shop. The ordinary recall signal for meals or new orders is six long blasts on the whistle.

  ‘Everyone is to sign at the bottom of the page and obey these orders.’

  Adrian looked up nervously and they were staring at him, even Paul, and he didn’t know whether they were going to laugh or sneer.

  Gradually they looked to Paul; all heads seemed to turn in his direction, and Adrian was sickening with anxiety. If they were going to laugh he wished they would get on with it. If they were going to sneer why didn’t they start?

  Paul, in truth, was astonished, yet in a most unusual way immensely relieved. He was relieved because this was a plan that gave them something to do. It was the lead they all had wanted. And he was astonished because it had come from Adrian. And he was bewildered because it was so simple.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Why not?’

  Adrian’s mouth fell open and slowly across his earnest young face spread a wide smile of real happiness.

  ‘Gee!’ he said.

  Paul had more to say. ‘I want to put it to the vote, the way they do at the town committee meeting. All in favour of Adrian’s plan, raise their hands.’

  All raised their hands, and Maisie suddenly shouted, ‘Three cheers for Adrian!’

  They cheered him and Adrian blushed and Frances said, ‘The grown-ups were wrong. We’ll live all right. Nothing can beat us now.’

  ‘Righto,’ said Paul. ‘Put the book on the counter, Adrian. We’ll all read our orders again and sign it.’

  15

  The Valiant Children

  Slowly the fog went up, drifting, eddying, moving like a cloudy impurity suspended in a fluid, always rising as if seeking an invisible surface, until it seemed to be motionless overhead, until it lay above Hills End, six or seven hundred feet up, and rested against the mountain-sides. It still concealed the upper slopes from view, but it granted to the children of Hills End the mercy of visibility. They could see. They seemed to be working and living in an isolated bubble of clear air, safe, encompassed in every direction by forest or earth or impenetrable fog. There seemed to be something special about it, as though they truly were the last people left on earth and the earth was preparing to help them.

  There were a number of things that had to be done before they could start their duties, but they were done promptly because they were anxious to begin. Each person seemed to have a real importance, and it was surprising how anxious they all were to prove themselves. Adrian had fitted each task so perfectly to the person or persons from whom it was demanded that it was obvious, particularly to Frances, that his idea was not half-baked. It was mature, almost as though a man were directing it.

  Adrian even organized those things that had to be done first. The fat volume he had brought down from the house was called The Home Doctor and from its instructions he directed Frances to bind up Butch’s feet and fit him with strong boots, then to clean and dress with germicidal ointment the deep scratch that a nail or a wood splinter had scored across his back. He confirmed that all they could do for Miss Godwin was to keep her warm, to allow her to sleep on, and to give her nourishing fluids if she recovered consciousness. The fact remained that she needed a doctor desperately.

  Adrian ordered Maisie and Gussie and Harvey to return to the area of the schoolhouse and recover every portion of Miss Godwin’s manuscript that they could possibly find. He told Paul how to clean the rifle and pull it through and how to reload it, and from one of his pockets produced the tools and the cartridges. He then collected Mr Matheson’s toolbag from beneath the shop counter, checked its contents, and had set off downhill towards the engine shed into the flood, before they fully realized he had gone.

/>   Paul, for a minute or two, found himself alone with Frances. There were not any words to fit the situation. All they had for each other was a smile of real confidence and real hope. He took up his rifle and walked firmly to the window, like a man.

  ‘Take care,’ she called.

  He grinned and legged through and strode away up the road, towards the hills.

  It must have been after three o’clock before Paul came back into town, riding bareback on Rickard’s horse, riding slowly because it was not the habit of the wise old horse to exert himself. At his heels, plodding just as leisurely, just as slowly, was Rickard’s old red collie dog. Paul came back with his several tasks completed and before him he could see the devastated face of Hills End slowly changing.

  In reality, it was little, because the strength of the children was limited and the task would have daunted a hundred men. From the vacant land adjoining the shop an immense column of dirty smoke billowed towards the fog line. He could hear voices and clatter. He could see along the street, at intervals of fifty or sixty yards amongst the still remaining spoil of the storm, small but orderly stacks of salvaged timber and roofing iron and neat little piles of broken plaster and cement sheet. He saw Gussie dragging a huge piece of wood from the wreckage of the hall with the tenacity of a terrier, and Butch, poor old Butch, with a wheelbarrow panting and struggling with a load of rubbish towards the main fire. He could hear the crack of an axe-blade from higher up, where many smaller fires added their smoke to the air.

  Something compelled Paul to stop the horse before his friends saw him. For those few moments he seemed to be detached; he enjoyed the brief privilege of seeing himself and his friends as others might have seen them, and he could do nothing but thrill with a rueful pride. A few hours before he had been so dreadfully frightened. The future had looked so black and so full of despair. It still had its shadows, but it was different. Then, they had seemed so helpless, so overwhelmed by dangers and difficulties, so well on the way to fulfilling his father’s prophecy that kids would go under if they had to look after themselves.