by H. G. Wells
THE EPILOGUE
It happened that one bright summer's morning exactly thirty years afterthe launching of the first German air-fleet, an old man took a small boyto look for a missing hen through the ruins of Bun Hill and out towardsthe splintered pinnacles of the Crystal Palace. He was not a veryold man; he was, as a matter of fact, still within a few weeks ofsixty-three, but constant stooping over spades and forks and thecarrying of roots and manure, and exposure to the damps of life in theopen-air without a change of clothing, had bent him into the form of asickle. Moreover, he had lost most of his teeth and that had affectedhis digestion and through that his skin and temper. In face andexpression he was curiously like that old Thomas Smallways who had oncebeen coachman to Sir Peter Bone, and this was just as it should be,for he was Tom Smallways the son, who formerly kept the littlegreen-grocer's shop under the straddle of the mono-rail viaduct in theHigh Street of Bun Hill. But now there were no green-grocer's shops,and Tom was living in one of the derelict villas hard by that unoccupiedbuilding site that had been and was still the scene of his dailyhorticulture. He and his wife lived upstairs, and in the drawing anddining rooms, which had each French windows opening on the lawn, and allabout the ground floor generally, Jessica, who was now a lean and linedand baldish but still very efficient and energetic old woman, kepther three cows and a multitude of gawky hens. These two were part of alittle community of stragglers and returned fugitives, perhaps a hundredand fifty souls of them all together, that had settled down to the newconditions of things after the Panic and Famine and Pestilence thatfollowed in the wake of the War. They had come back from strange refugesand hiding-places and had squatted down among the familiar houses andbegun that hard struggle against nature for food which was now the chiefinterest of their lives. They were by sheer preoccupation with that apeaceful people, more particularly after Wilkes, the house agent, drivenby some obsolete dream of acquisition, had been drowned in the pool bythe ruined gas-works for making inquiries into title and displaying alitigious turn of mind. (He had not been murdered, you understand, butthe people had carried an exemplary ducking ten minutes or so beyond itshealthy limits.)
This little community had returned from its original habits of suburbanparasitism to what no doubt had been the normal life of humanity fornearly immemorial years, a life of homely economies in the most intimatecontact with cows and hens and patches of ground, a life that breathesand exhales the scent of cows and finds the need for stimulantssatisfied by the activity of the bacteria and vermin it engenders. Suchhad been the life of the European peasant from the dawn of history tothe beginning of the Scientific Era, so it was the large majority of thepeople of Asia and Africa had always been wont to live. For a time ithad seemed that, by virtue of machines, and scientific civilisation,Europe was to be lifted out of this perpetual round of animal drudgery,and that America was to evade it very largely from the outset. And withthe smash of the high and dangerous and splendid edifice of mechanicalcivilisation that had arisen so marvellously, back to the land came thecommon man, back to the manure.
The little communities, still haunted by ten thousand memories of agreater state, gathered and developed almost tacitly a customary lawand fell under the guidance of a medicine man or a priest. The worldrediscovered religion and the need of something to hold its communitiestogether. At Bun Hill this function was entrusted to an old Baptistminister. He taught a simple but adequate faith. In his teaching a goodprinciple called the Word fought perpetually against a diabolical femaleinfluence called the Scarlet Woman and an evil being called Alcohol.This Alcohol had long since become a purely spiritualised conceptiondeprived of any element of material application; it had no relation tothe occasional finds of whiskey and wine in Londoners' cellars that gaveBun Hill its only holidays. He taught this doctrine on Sundays, andon weekdays he was an amiable and kindly old man, distinguished by hisquaint disposition to wash his hands, and if possible his face, daily,and with a wonderful genius for cutting up pigs. He held his Sundayservices in the old church in the Beckenham Road, and then thecountryside came out in a curious reminiscence of the urban dress ofEdwardian times. All the men without exception wore frock coats, tophats, and white shirts, though many had no boots. Tom was particularlydistinguished on these occasions because he wore a top hat with goldlace about it and a green coat and trousers that he had found upon askeleton in the basement of the Urban and District Bank. The women, evenJessica, came in jackets and immense hats extravagantly trimmed withartificial flowers and exotic birds' feather's--of which there wereabundant supplies in the shops to the north--and the children (therewere not many children, because a large proportion of the babies born inBun Hill died in a few days' time of inexplicable maladies) had similarclothes cut down to accommodate them; even Stringer's little grandson offour wore a large top hat.
That was the Sunday costume of the Bun Hill district, a curious andinteresting survival of the genteel traditions of the Scientific Age. Ona weekday the folk were dingily and curiously hung about with dirty ragsof housecloth and scarlet flannel, sacking, curtain serge, and patchesof old carpet, and went either bare-footed or on rude wooden sandals.These people, the reader must understand, were an urban populationsunken back to the state of a barbaric peasantry, and so without any ofthe simple arts a barbaric peasantry would possess. In many ways theywere curiously degenerate and incompetent. They had lost any ideaof making textiles, they could hardly make up clothes when they hadmaterial, and they were forced to plunder the continually dwindlingsupplies of the ruins about them for cover.
All the simple arts they had ever known they had lost, and with thebreakdown of modern drainage, modern water supply, shopping, and thelike, their civilised methods were useless. Their cooking was worse thanprimitive. It was a feeble muddling with food over wood fires in rustydrawing-room fireplaces; for the kitcheners burnt too much. Among themall no sense of baking or brewing or metal-working was to be found.
Their employment of sacking and such-like coarse material for work-a-dayclothing, and their habit of tying it on with string and of thrustingwadding and straw inside it for warmth, gave these people an odd,"packed" appearance, and as it was a week-day when Tom took his littlenephew for the hen-seeking excursion, so it was they were attired.
"So you've really got to Bun Hill at last, Teddy," said old Tom,beginning to talk and slackening his pace so soon as they were out ofrange of old Jessica. "You're the last of Bert's boys for me to see.Wat I've seen, young Bert I've seen, Sissie and Matt, Tom what's calledafter me, and Peter. The traveller people brought you along all right,eh?"
"I managed," said Teddy, who was a dry little boy.
"Didn't want to eat you on the way?"
"They was all right," said Teddy, "and on the way near Leatherhead wesaw a man riding on a bicycle."
"My word!" said Tom, "there ain't many of those about nowadays. Wherewas he going?"
"Said 'e was going to Dorking if the High Road was good enough. But Idoubt if he got there. All about Burford it was flooded. We came overthe hill, uncle--what they call the Roman Road. That's high and safe."
"Don't know it," said old Tom. "But a bicycle! You're sure it was abicycle? Had two wheels?"
"It was a bicycle right enough."
"Why! I remember a time, Teddy, where there was bicycles no end, whenyou could stand just here--the road was as smooth as a board then--andsee twenty or thirty coming and going at the same time, bicycles andmoty-bicycles; moty cars, all sorts of whirly things."
"No!" said Teddy.
"I do. They'd keep on going by all day,--'undreds and 'undreds."
"But where was they all going?" asked Teddy.
"Tearin' off to Brighton--you never seen Brighton, I expect--it's downby the sea, used to be a moce 'mazing place--and coming and going fromLondon."
"Why?"
"They did."
"But why?"
"Lord knows why, Teddy. They did. Then you see that great thing therelike a great big rusty nail sticking up higher than a
ll the houses, andthat one yonder, and that, and how something's fell in between 'em amongthe houses. They was parts of the mono-rail. They went down to Brightontoo and all day and night there was people going, great cars as big as'ouses full of people."
The little boy regarded the rusty evidences acrosss the narrow muddyditch of cow-droppings that had once been a High Street. He was clearlydisposed to be sceptical, and yet there the ruins were! He grappled withideas beyond the strength of his imagination.
"What did they go for?" he asked, "all of 'em?"
"They 'AD to. Everything was on the go those days--everything."
"Yes, but where did they come from?"
"All round 'ere, Teddy, there was people living in those 'ouses, and upthe road more 'ouses and more people. You'd 'ardly believe me, Teddy,but it's Bible truth. You can go on that way for ever and ever, and keepon coming on 'ouses, more 'ouses, and more. There's no end to 'em. Noend. They get bigger and bigger." His voice dropped as though he namedstrange names.
"It's LONDON," he said.
"And it's all empty now and left alone. All day it's left alone. Youdon't find 'ardly a man, you won't find nothing but dogs and cats afterthe rats until you get round by Bromley and Beckenham, and there youfind the Kentish men herding swine. (Nice rough lot they are too!) Itell you that so long as the sun is up it's as still as the grave. Ibeen about by day--orfen and orfen." He paused.
"And all those 'ouses and streets and ways used to be full of peoplebefore the War in the Air and the Famine and the Purple Death. They usedto be full of people, Teddy, and then came a time when they was full ofcorpses, when you couldn't go a mile that way before the stink of 'emdrove you back. It was the Purple Death 'ad killed 'em every one. Thecats and dogs and 'ens and vermin caught it. Everything and every one'ad it. Jest a few of us 'appened to live. I pulled through, and youraunt, though it made 'er lose 'er 'air. Why, you find the skeletons inthe 'ouses now. This way we been into all the 'ouses and took what wewanted and buried moce of the people, but up that way, Norwood way,there's 'ouses with the glass in the windows still, and the furniturenot touched--all dusty and falling to pieces--and the bones of thepeople lying, some in bed, some about the 'ouse, jest as the PurpleDeath left 'em five-and-twenty years ago. I went into one--me and oldHiggins las' year--and there was a room with books, Teddy--you know whatI mean by books, Teddy?"
"I seen 'em. I seen 'em with pictures."
"Well, books all round, Teddy, 'undreds of books, beyond-rhyme orreason, as the saying goes, green-mouldy and dry. I was for leaven' 'emalone--I was never much for reading--but ole Higgins he must touch em.'I believe I could read one of 'em NOW,' 'e says.
"'Not it,' I says.
"'I could,' 'e says, laughing and takes one out and opens it.
"I looked, and there, Teddy, was a cullud picture, oh, so lovely! It wasa picture of women and serpents in a garden. I never see anything likeit.
"'This suits me,' said old Higgins, 'to rights.'
"And then kind of friendly he gave the book a pat--
Old Tom Smallways paused impressively.
"And then?" said Teddy.
"It all fell to dus'. White dus'!" He became still more impressive. "Wedidn't touch no more of them books that day. Not after that."
For a long time both were silent. Then Tom, playing with a subject thatattracted him with a fatal fascination, repeated, "All day long theylie--still as the grave."
Teddy took the point at last. "Don't they lie o' nights?" he asked.
Old Tom shook his head. "Nobody knows, boy, nobody knows."
"But what could they do?"
"Nobody knows. Nobody ain't seen to tell not nobody."
"Nobody?"
"They tell tales," said old Tom. "They tell tales, but there ain't nobelieving 'em. I gets 'ome about sundown, and keeps indoors, so I can'tsay nothing, can I? But there's them that thinks some things and them asthinks others. I've 'eard it's unlucky to take clo'es off of 'em unlessthey got white bones. There's stories--"
The boy watched his uncle sharply. "WOT stories?" he said.
"Stories of moonlight nights and things walking about. But I take nostock in 'em. I keeps in bed. If you listen to stories--Lord! You'll getafraid of yourself in a field at midday."
The little boy looked round and ceased his questions for a space.
"They say there's a 'og man in Beck'n'am what was lost in London threedays and three nights. 'E went up after whiskey to Cheapside, and lorst'is way among the ruins and wandered. Three days and three nights 'ewandered about and the streets kep' changing so's he couldn't get 'ome.If 'e 'adn't remembered some words out of the Bible 'e might 'ave beenthere now. All day 'e went and all night--and all day long it was still.It was as still as death all day long, until the sunset came and thetwilight thickened, and then it began to rustle and whisper and gopit-a-pat with a sound like 'urrying feet."
He paused.
"Yes," said the little boy breathlessly. "Go on. What then?"
"A sound of carts and 'orses there was, and a sound of cabs andomnibuses, and then a lot of whistling, shrill whistles, whistles thatfroze 'is marrer. And directly the whistles began things begun to show,people in the streets 'urrying, people in the 'ouses and shops busyingthemselves, moty cars in the streets, a sort of moonlight in all thelamps and winders. People, I say, Teddy, but they wasn't people. Theywas the ghosts of them that was overtook, the ghosts of them that usedto crowd those streets. And they went past 'im and through 'im and never'eeded 'im, went by like fogs and vapours, Teddy. And sometimes theywas cheerful and sometimes they was 'orrible, 'orrible beyond words. Andonce 'e come to a place called Piccadilly, Teddy, and there was lightsblazing like daylight and ladies and gentlemen in splendid clo'escrowding the pavement, and taxicabs follering along the road. And as 'elooked, they all went evil--evil in the face, Teddy. And it seemed to'im SUDDENLY THEY SAW 'IM, and the women began to look at 'im and saythings to 'im--'orrible--wicked things. One come very near 'im, Teddy,right up to 'im, and looked into 'is face--close. And she 'adn't got aface to look with, only a painted skull, and then 'e see; they wasall painted skulls. And one after another they crowded on 'im saying'orrible things, and catchin' at 'im and threatenin' and coaxing 'im, sothat 'is 'eart near left 'is body for fear."
"Yes," gasped Teddy in an unendurable pause.
"Then it was he remembered the words of Scripture and saved himselfalive. 'The Lord is my 'Elper, 'e says, 'therefore I will fear nothing,'and straightaway there came a cock-crowing and the street was emptyfrom end to end. And after that the Lord was good to 'im and guided 'im'ome."
Teddy stared and caught at another question. "But who was the people,"he asked, "who lived in all these 'ouses? What was they?"
"Gent'men in business, people with money--leastways we thought itwas money till everything smashed up, and then seemingly it was jes'paper--all sorts. Why, there was 'undreds of thousands of them. Therewas millions. I've seen that 'I Street there regular so's you couldn'twalk along the pavements, shoppin' time, with women and peopleshoppin'."
"But where'd they get their food and things?"
"Bort 'em in shops like I used to 'ave. I'll show you the place, Teddy,if we go back. People nowadays 'aven't no idee of a shop--no idee.Plate-glass winders--it's all Greek to them. Why, I've 'ad as much asa ton and a 'arf of petaties to 'andle all at one time. You'd open youreyes till they dropped out to see jes' what I used to 'ave in my shop.Baskets of pears 'eaped up, marrers, apples and pears, d'licious greatnuts." His voice became luscious--"Benanas, oranges."
"What's benanas?" asked the boy, "and oranges?"
"Fruits they was. Sweet, juicy, d'licious fruits. Foreign fruits. Theybrought 'em from Spain and N' York and places. In ships and things. Theybrought 'em to me from all over the world, and I sold 'em in my shop._I_ sold 'em, Teddy! me what goes about now with you, dressed up in oldsacks and looking for lost 'ens. People used to come into my shop,great beautiful ladies like you'd 'ardly dream of now, dressed up to thenines, and say, '
Well, Mr. Smallways, what you got 'smorning?' andI'd say, 'Well, I got some very nice C'nadian apples, 'or p'raps I gotcusted marrers. See? And they'd buy 'em. Right off they'd say, 'Send mesome up.' Lord! what a life that was. The business of it, the bussel,the smart things you saw, moty cars going by, kerridges, people,organ-grinders, German bands. Always something going past--always. If itwasn't for those empty 'ouses, I'd think it all a dream."
"But what killed all the people, uncle?" asked Teddy.
"It was a smash-up," said old Tom. "Everything was going right untilthey started that War. Everything was going like clock-work. Everybodywas busy and everybody was 'appy and everybody got a good square mealevery day."
He met incredulous eyes. "Everybody," he said firmly. "If you couldn'tget it anywhere else, you could get it in the workhuss, a nice 'ot bowlof soup called skilly, and bread better'n any one knows 'ow to make now,reg'lar WHITE bread, gov'ment bread."
Teddy marvelled, but said nothing. It made him feel deep longings thathe found it wisest to fight down.
For a time the old man resigned himself to the pleasures of gustatoryreminiscence. His lips moved. "Pickled Sammin!" he whispered, "an'vinegar.... Dutch cheese, BEER! A pipe of terbakker."
"But 'OW did the people get killed?" asked Teddy presently.
"There was the War. The War was the beginning of it. The War banged andflummocked about, but it didn't really KILL many people. But it upsetthings. They came and set fire to London and burnt and sank all theships there used to be in the Thames--we could see the smoke and steamfor weeks--and they threw a bomb into the Crystal Palace and made abust-up, and broke down the rail lines and things like that. But as forkillin' people, it was just accidental if they did. They killed eachother more. There was a great fight all hereabout one day, Teddy--up inthe air. Great things bigger than fifty 'ouses, bigger than the CrystalPalace--bigger, bigger than anything, flying about up in the air andwhacking at each other and dead men fallin' off 'em. T'riffic! But,it wasn't so much the people they killed as the business they stopped.There wasn't any business doin', Teddy, there wasn't any money about,and nothin' to buy if you 'ad it."
"But 'ow did the people get KILLED?" said the little boy in the pause.
"I'm tellin' you, Teddy," said the old man. "It was the stoppin' ofbusiness come next. Suddenly there didn't seem to be any money. Therewas cheques--they was a bit of paper written on, and they was jes' asgood as money--jes' as good if they come from customers you knew. Thenall of a sudden they wasn't. I was left with three of 'em and two I'dgiven' change. Then it got about that five-pun' notes were no good,and then the silver sort of went off. Gold you 'couldn't get for loveor--anything. The banks in London 'ad got it, and the banks was allsmashed up. Everybody went bankrup'. Everybody was thrown out of work.Everybody!"
He paused, and scrutinised his hearer. The small boy's intelligent faceexpressed hopeless perplexity.
"That's 'ow it 'appened," said old Tom. He sought for some means ofexpression. "It was like stoppin' a clock," he said. "Things were quietfor a bit, deadly quiet, except for the air-ships fighting about in thesky, and then people begun to get excited. I remember my lars' customer,the very lars' customer that ever I 'ad. He was a Mr. Moses Gluckstein,a city gent and very pleasant and fond of sparrowgrass and chokes, and'e cut in--there 'adn't been no customers for days--and began totalk very fast, offerin' me for anything I 'ad, anything, petaties oranything, its weight in gold. 'E said it was a little speculation 'ewanted to try. 'E said it was a sort of bet reely, and very likely'e'd lose; but never mind that, 'e wanted to try. 'E always 'ad been agambler, 'e said. 'E said I'd only got to weigh it out and 'e'd give me'is cheque right away. Well, that led to a bit of a argument, perfectrespectful it was, but a argument about whether a cheque was still good,and while 'e was explaining there come by a lot of these here unemployedwith a great banner they 'ad for every one to read--every one couldread those days--'We want Food.' Three or four of 'em suddenly turns andcomes into my shop.
"'Got any food?' says one.
"'No,' I says, 'not to sell. I wish I 'ad. But if I 'ad, I'm afraid Icouldn't let you have it. This gent, 'e's been offerin' me--'
"Mr. Gluckstein 'e tried to stop me, but it was too late.
"'What's 'e been offerin' you?' says a great big chap with a 'atchet;'what's 'e been offerin you?' I 'ad to tell.
"'Boys,' 'e said, ''ere's another feenancier!' and they took 'im outthere and then, and 'ung 'im on a lam'pose down the street. 'E neverlifted a finger to resist. After I tole on 'im 'e never said a word...."
Tom meditated for a space. "First chap I ever sin 'ung!" he said.
"Ow old was you?" asked Teddy.
"'Bout thirty," said old Tom.
"Why! I saw free pig-stealers 'ung before I was six," said Teddy."Father took me because of my birfday being near. Said I ought to beblooded...."
"Well, you never saw no-one killed by a moty car, any'ow," said old Tomafter a moment of chagrin. "And you never saw no dead men carried into achemis' shop."
Teddy's momentary triumph faded. "No," he said, "I 'aven't."
"Nor won't. Nor won't. You'll never see the things I've seen, never.Not if you live to be a 'undred... Well, as I was saying, that's how theFamine and Riotin' began. Then there was strikes and Socialism, thingsI never did 'old with, worse and worse. There was fightin' and shootin'down, and burnin' and plundering. They broke up the banks up in Londonand got the gold, but they couldn't make food out of gold. 'Ow did WEget on? Well, we kep' quiet. We didn't interfere with no-one and no-onedidn't interfere with us. We 'ad some old 'tatoes about, but mocely welived on rats. Ours was a old 'ouse, full of rats, and the famine neverseemed to bother 'em. Orfen we got a rat. Orfen. But moce of the peoplewho lived hereabouts was too tender stummicked for rats. Didn't seemto fancy 'em. They'd been used to all sorts of fallals, and they didn'ttake to 'onest feeding, not till it was too late. Died rather.
"It was the famine began to kill people. Even before the Purple Deathcame along they was dying like flies at the end of the summer. 'Ow Iremember it all! I was one of the first to 'ave it. I was out, seein' ifI mightn't get 'old of a cat or somethin', and then I went round to mybit of ground to see whether I couldn't get up some young turnipsI'd forgot, and I was took something awful. You've no idee the pain,Teddy--it doubled me up pretty near. I jes' lay down by 'at therecorner, and your aunt come along to look for me and dragged me 'ome likea sack.
"I'd never 'ave got better if it 'adn't been for your aunt. 'Tom,' shesays to me, 'you got to get well,' and I 'AD to. Then SHE sickened. Shesickened but there ain't much dyin' about your aunt. 'Lor!' she says,'as if I'd leave you to go muddlin' along alone!' That's what she says.She's got a tongue, 'as your aunt. But it took 'er 'air off--and arstthough I might, she's never cared for the wig I got 'er--orf the oldlady what was in the vicarage garden.
"Well, this 'ere Purple Death,--it jes' wiped people out, Teddy. Youcouldn't bury 'em. And it took the dogs and the cats too, and the ratsand 'orses. At last every house and garden was full of dead bodies.London way, you couldn't go for the smell of there, and we 'ad to moveout of the 'I street into that villa we got. And all the water run shortthat way. The drains and underground tunnels took it. Gor' knows wherethe Purple Death come from; some say one thing and some another. Somesaid it come from eatin' rats and some from eatin' nothin'. Some say theAsiatics brought it from some 'I place, Thibet, I think, where it neverdid nobody much 'arm. All I know is it come after the Famine. And theFamine come after the Penic and the Penic come after the War."
Teddy thought. "What made the Purple Death?" he asked.
"'Aven't I tole you!"
"But why did they 'ave a Penic?"
"They 'ad it."
"But why did they start the War?"
"They couldn't stop theirselves. 'Aving them airships made 'em."
"And 'ow did the War end?"
"Lord knows if it's ended, boy," said old Tom. "Lord knows if it'sended. There's been travellers through 'ere--there was a ch
ap only twosummers ago--say it's goin' on still. They say there's bands of peopleup north who keep on with it and people in Germany and China and 'Mericaand places. 'E said they still got flying-machines and gas and things.But we 'aven't seen nothin' in the air now for seven years, and nobody'asn't come nigh of us. Last we saw was a crumpled sort of airship goingaway--over there. It was a littleish-sized thing and lopsided, as thoughit 'ad something the matter with it."
He pointed, and came to a stop at a gap in the fence, the vestiges ofthe old fence from which, in the company of his neighbour Mr. Stringerthe milkman, he had once watched the South of England Aero Club'sSaturday afternoon ascents. Dim memories, it may be, of that particularafternoon returned to him.
"There, down there, where all that rus' looks so red and bright, that'sthe gas-works."
"What's gas?" asked the little boy.
"Oh, a hairy sort of nothin' what you put in balloons to make 'em go up.And you used to burn it till the 'lectricity come."
The little boy tried vainly to imagine gas on the basis of theseparticulars. Then his thoughts reverted to a previous topic.
"But why didn't they end the War?"
"Obstinacy. Everybody was getting 'urt, but everybody was 'urtin' andeverybody was 'igh-spirited and patriotic, and so they smeshed upthings instead. They jes' went on smeshin'. And afterwards they jes' gotdesp'rite and savige."
"It ought to 'ave ended," said the little boy.
"It didn't ought to 'ave begun," said old Tom, "But people was proud.People was la-dy-da-ish and uppish and proud. Too much meat and drinkthey 'ad. Give in--not them! And after a bit nobody arst 'em to give in.Nobody arst 'em...."
He sucked his old gums thoughtfully, and his gaze strayed away acrossthe valley to where the shattered glass of the Crystal Palaceglittered in the sun. A dim large sense of waste and irrevocable lostopportunities pervaded his mind. He repeated his ultimate judgmentupon all these things, obstinately, slowly, and conclusively, his finalsaying upon the matter.
"You can say what you like," he said. "It didn't ought ever to 'avebegun."
He said it simply--somebody somewhere ought to have stopped something,but who or how or why were all beyond his ken.