‘We’ve got three, to look after six adults and four children. Even that isn’t enough. That’s why we’re waiting here – to find others who’ve got guns and who will join up with us. I’m sorry, but we can’t take passengers.’
‘We wouldn’t be passengers! I can turn my hand to most things. I can shoot, if you can come by another gun. I was a sharpshooter in the Fusiliers.’
‘If you were by yourself, we might have you. As it is, with four women and two more children… we can’t afford to take on extra handicaps.’
The rain had stopped, but the sky remained grey and formless, and it was rather cold. The younger man, who had still not spoken, shivered and pulled his dirty raincoat more tightly round him.
The other man said desperately: ‘We’ve got food. In the pram – half a side of bacon.’
‘We have enough. We killed to get it, and we can kill again.’
The mother said: ‘Don’t turn us down. Think of the children. You wouldn’t turn us down with the children.’
‘I’m thinking of my own children,’ John said. ‘If I were able to think of any others, there would be millions I could think of. If I were you, I should get moving. If you’re going to find your quiet place, you want to find it before the mob does.’
They looked at him, understanding what he said but unwilling to believe that he could be refusing them.
Ann said, close beside him: ‘We could take them, couldn’t we? The children…’ He looked at her. ‘Yes – I haven’t forgotten what I said – about Spooks. I was wrong.’
‘No,’ John said. ‘You were right. There’s no place for pity now.’
With horror, she said: ‘Don’t say that.’
He gestured towards the smoke, rising in the valley. ‘Pity always was a luxury. It’s all right if the tragedy’s a comfortable distance away – if you can watch it from a seat in the cinema. It’s different when you find it on your doorstep – on every doorstep.’
Olivia had also come over from the wall. Jane, who had made little response to Olivia, following her morning of walking with Pirrie, also left the wall, but went and stood near Pirrie. He glanced at her, but said nothing.
Olivia said: ‘I can’t see that it would hurt to let them tag along. And they might be some help.’
‘They let the boy come on the road in plimsolls,’ John said, ‘in this weather. You should have understood by now, Olivia, that it’s not only the weakest but the least efficient as well who are going to go to the wall. They couldn’t help us; they could hinder.’
The boy’s mother said: ‘I told him to put his boots on. We didn’t see that he hadn’t until we were a couple of miles from the village. And then we daren’t go back.’
John said wearily: ‘I know. I’m simply saying that there’s no scope for forgetting to notice things any more. If you didn’t notice the boy’s feet, you might not notice something more important. And every one of us might die as a result. I don’t feel like taking the chance. I don’t feel like taking any chances.’
Olivia said: ‘Roger…’
Roger shook his head. ‘Things have changed in the last three days. When Johnny and I tossed that coin for leadership, I didn’t take it seriously. But he’s the boss now, isn’t he? He’s willing to take it all on his conscience, and that lets the rest of us out. He’s probably right, anyway.’
The newcomers had been following the interchange with fascination. Now the older man, seeing in Roger’s acquiescence the failure of their hopes, turned away, shaking his head. The mother of the children was not so easily shaken off.
‘We can follow you,’ she said. ‘We can stay here till you move and then follow you. You can’t stop us doing that.’
John said: ‘You’d better go now. It won’t do any good talking.’
‘No, we’ll stay! You can’t make us go.’
Pirrie intervened, for the first time: ‘We cannot make you go; but we can make you stay here after we’ve gone.’ He touched his rifle. ‘I think you would be wiser to go now.’
The woman said, but lacking conviction: ‘You wouldn’t do it.’
Ann said bitterly: ‘He would. We depend on him. You’d better go.’
The woman looked into both their faces; then she turned and called to her children: ‘Bessie! Wilf!’
They detached themselves from the others with reluctance. It was like any occasion on which children meet and then, at the whim of their parents, must break away again, their friendship only tentatively begun. Ann watched them come.
She said to John: ‘Please…’
He shook his head. ‘I have to do what’s best for us. There are millions of others – these are only the ones we see.’
‘Charity is for those we see.’
‘I told you – charity, pity… they come from a steady income and money to spare. We’re all bankrupt now.’
Pirrie said: ‘Custance! Up the road, there.’
Between Baugh Fell and Rise Hill, the road ran straight for about three-quarters of a mile. There were figures on it, coming down towards them.
This was a large party – seven or eight men, with women and some children. They walked with confidence along the crown of the road, and even at that distance they were accompanied by what looked like the glint of guns.
John said with satisfaction: ‘That’s what we want.’
Roger said: ‘If they’ll talk. They may be the kind that shoot first. We could get over behind the wall before we try opening the conversation.’
‘If we did, it might give them reason to shoot first.’
‘The women and children, then.’
‘Same thing. Their own are out in the open.’
The older man of the other party said: ‘Can we stay with you till these have gone past, then?’
John was on the verge of refusing when Pirrie caught his eye. He nodded his head very slightly. John caught the point: a temporary augmentation, if only in numbers and not in strength, might be a bargaining point.
He said indifferently: ‘If you like.’
They watched the new group approach. After a time the children, Bessie and Wilf, drifted away and back to where the others were still playing on the wall.
Most of the men seemed to be carrying guns. John could eventually make out a couple of army pattern .300 rifles, a Winchester .202, and the inevitable shot-guns. With increasing assurance, he thought: this is it. This was enough to get them through any kind of chaos to Blind Gill. There only remained the problem of winning them over.
He had hoped they would halt a short distance away, but they had neither suspicion nor doubts of their own ability to meet any challenge, and they came on. Their leader was a burly man, with a heavy red face. He wore a leather belt, with a revolver stuck in it. As he came abreast of where John’s party stood by the side of the road, he glanced at them indifferently. It was another good sign that he did not covet their guns; or not enough, at least, even to contemplate fighting for them.
John called to him: ‘Just a minute.’
He stopped and looked at John with a deliberation of movement that was impressive. His accent, when he spoke was thickly Yorkshire.
‘You wanted summat?’
‘My name’s John Custance. We’re heading for a place I know, up in the hills. My brother’s got land there – in a valley that’s blocked at one end and only a few feet wide at the other. Once in there, you can keep an army out. Are you interested?’
He considered for a moment. ‘What are you telling us for?’
John pointed down towards the valley. ‘Things are nasty down there. Too nasty for a small party like ours. We’re looking for recruits.’
The man grinned. ‘Happen we’re not looking for a change. We’re doin’ all right.’
‘You’re doing all right now,’ John said, ‘while there are potatoes in the ground, and meat to be looted from farmhouses. But it won’t be too long before the meat’s used up, and there won’t be any to follow it. You won’t find potatoes in the
fields next year, either.’
‘We’ll look after that when the time comes.’
‘I can tell you how. By cannibalism. Are you looking forward to it?’
The leader himself was still contemptuously hostile, but there was some response, John thought, in the ranks behind him. He could not have had long to weld his band together; there would be cross-currents, perhaps counter-currents.
The man said: ‘Maybe we’ll have the taste for it by then. I don’t think as I could fancy you at the moment.’
‘It’s up to you,’ John said. He looked past him to where the women and children were; there were five women, and four children, their ages varying between five and fifteen. ‘Those who can’t find a piece of land which they can hold are going to end up by being savages – if they survive at all. That may suit you. It doesn’t suit us.’
‘I’ll tell you what doesn’t suit me, mister – a lot of talk. I never had no time for gabbers.’
‘You won’t need to talk at all in a few years,’ John said. ‘You’ll be back to grunts and sign language. I’m talking because I’ve got something to tell you, and if you’ve got any sense you will see it’s to your advantage to listen.’
‘Our advantage, eh? It wouldn’t be yours you’re thinking about?’
‘I’d be a fool if it wasn’t. But you stand to get more out of it. We want temporary help so that we can get to my brother’s place. We’re offering you a place where you can live in something like peace, and rear your children to be something better than wild animals.’
The man glanced round at his followers, as though sensing an effect that John’s words were having on them. He said:
‘Still talk. You think we’re going to take you on, and find ourselves on a wild-goose chase up in the hills?’
‘Have you got a better place to go to? Have you got anywhere to go to, for that matter? What harm can it possibly do you to come along with us and find out?’
He stared at John, still hostile but baffled. At last, he turned to his followers.
‘What do you reckon of it?’ he said to them.
Before anyone spoke, he must have read the answer in their expressions.
‘Wouldn’t do any harm to go and have a look,’ a dark, thick-set man said. There was a murmur of agreement. The red-faced man turned back to John.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘You can show us the way to this valley of your brother’s. We’ll see what we think of it when we get there. Whereabouts is it, anyway?’
Unprepared to reveal the location of Blind Gill, or even to name it, John was getting ready an evasive answer, when Pirrie intervened. He said coolly:
‘That’s Mr Custance’s business, not yours. He’s in charge here. Do as he tells you, and you will be all right.’
John heard a gasp of dismay from Ann. He himself found it hard to see a justification for Pirrie’s insolence, both of manner and content; it could only re-confirm the leader of the other group in his hostility. He thought of saying something to take the edge off the remark, but was stopped both by the realization that he wouldn’t be likely to mend the situation, and by the trust he had come to have in Pirrie’s judgement. Pirrie, undoubtedly, knew what he was doing.
‘It’s like that, is it?’ the man said. ‘We’re to do as Custance tells us? You can think again about that. I do the ordering for my lot, and, if you join up with us, the same goes for you.’
‘You’re a big man,’ Pirrie observed speculatively, ‘but what the situation needs is brains. And there, I imagine, you fall short.’
The red-faced man spoke with incongruous softness:
‘I don’t take anything from little bastards just because they’re little. There aren’t any policemen round the corner now. I make my own regulations; and one of them is that people round me keep their tongues civil.’
Finishing he tapped the revolver in his belt, to emphasize his words. As he did so, Pirrie raised his rifle. The man, in earnest now, began to pull the revolver out. But the muzzle was still inside his belt when Pirrie fired. From that short range, the bullet lifted him and crashed him backwards on the road. Pirrie stood in silence, his rifle at the ready.
Some of the women screamed. John’s eyes were on the men opposing him. He had restrained his impulse to raise his own shot-gun, and was glad to see that Roger also had not moved. Some of the other men made tentative movements towards their guns, but the incident had occurred too quickly for them, and too surprisingly. One of them half lifted a rifle; unconcernedly, Pirrie moved to cover him, and he set it down again.
John said: ‘It’s a pity about that.’ He glanced at Pirrie. ‘But he should have known better than to try threatening someone with a gun if he wasn’t sure he could fire first. Well, the offer’s still open. Anyone who wants to join us and head for the valley is welcome.’
One of the women had knelt down by the side of the fallen man. She looked up.
‘He’s dead.’
John nodded slightly. He looked at the others.
‘Have you made up your minds yet?’
The thick-set man, who had spoken before, said:
‘I reckon it were his own look-out. I’ll come along, all right. My name’s Parsons – Alf Parsons.’
Slowly, with an air almost ritualistic, Pirrie lowered his rifle. He went across to the body, and pulled the revolver out of the belt. He took it by the muzzle, and handed it to John. Then he turned back to address the others:
‘My name is Pirrie, and this is Buckley, on my right. As I said, Mr Custance is in charge here. Those who wish to join up with our little party should come along and shake hands with Mr Custance, and identify themselves. All right?’
Alf Parsons was the first to comply, but the others lined up behind him. Here, more than ever, ritual was being laid down. It might come, in time, to a bending of the knee, but this formal hand-shake was as clear a sign as that would have been of the rendering of fealty.
For himself, John saw, it signified a new role, of enhanced power. The leadership of his own small party, accidental at first, into which he had grown, was of a different order from this acceptance of loyalty from another man’s followers. The pattern of feudal chieftain was forming, and he was surprised by the degree of his own acquiescence – and even pleasure – in it. They shook hands with him, and introduced themselves in their turn. Joe Harris… Jess Awkright… Bill Riggs… Andy Anderson… Will Secombe… Martin Foster.
The woman did not shake hands. Their men pointed them out to him. Awkright said: ‘My wife, Alice.’ Riggs said: ‘That’s my wife, Sylvie.’ Foster, a thin-faced greying man, pointed: ‘My wife Hilda, and my daughter, Hildegard.’
Alf Parsons said: ‘The other’s Joe Ashton’s wife, Emily. I reckon she’ll be all right when she’s got over the shock. He never did treat her right.’
All the men of Joe Ashton’s party had shaken hands. The elderly man of the first party stood at John’s elbow.
He said: ‘Have you changed your mind, Mr Custance? Can we stay with your lot?’
John could see now how the feudal leader, his strength an over-plus, might have given his aid to the weak, as an act of simple vanity. After enthronement, the tones of the suppliant beggar were doubly sweet. It was a funny thing.
‘You can stay,’ he said. ‘Here.’ He tossed him the shot-gun which he had been holding. ‘We’ve come by a gun after all.’
When Pirrie killed Joe Ashton, the children down by the wall had frozen into the immobility of watchfulness which had come to replace ordinary childish fear. But they had soon begun playing again. Now the new set of children drifted down towards them, and, after the briefest of introductions, joined in the playing.
‘My name’s Noah Blennitt, Mr Custance,’ the elderly man said, ‘and that’s my son Arthur. Then there’s my wife Iris, and her sister Nelly, my young daughter Barbara, and my married daughter Katie. Her husband was on the railway; he was down in the south when the trains stopped. We’re all very much beholden to you, Mr Custance.
We’ll serve you well, every one of us.’
The woman he had referred to as Katie looked at John, anxiously and placatingly.
‘Wouldn’t it be a good idea for us all to have some tea? We’ve got a big can and plenty of tea and some dried milk, and there’s water in the brook just along.’
‘It would be a good idea,’ John said, ‘if there were two dry sticks within twenty miles.’
She looked at him, shy triumph rising above the anxiety and the desire to please.
‘That’s all right, Mr Custance. We’ve got a primus stove in the pram as well.’
‘Then go ahead. We’ll have afternoon tea before we move off.’ He glanced at the body of Joe Ashton. ‘But somebody had better clear that away first.’
Two of Joe Ashton’s erstwhile followers hastened to do his bidding.
10
Pirrie walked with John for a time when they set out again; Jane, at a gesture from Pirrie, walked a demure ten paces in the rear. John had taken, as Joe Ashton had done, the head of the column, which now ran to the impressive number of thirty-four – a dozen men, a dozen women, and ten children. John had appointed four men to accompany him at the head of the column and five to go with Roger at the rear. In the case of Pirrie, he had made specific his roving commission. He could travel as he chose.
As they went down the road into the valley, separated somewhat from the other men, John said to him:
‘It turned out very well. But it was taking a bit of a chance.’
Pirrie shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. It would have been taking a chance not to have killed him – and a rather long one. Even if he could have been persuaded to let you run things, he could not have been trusted.’
John glanced at him. ‘Was it essential that I should run things? After all, the only important thing is getting to Blind Gill.’
‘That is the most important thing, it is true, but I don’t think we should ignore the question of what happens after we get there.’
‘After we get there?’
Pirrie smiled. ‘Your little valley may be peaceful and secluded, but it will have defences to man, even if relatively minor ones. It will be under siege, in other words. So there must be something like martial law, and someone to dispense it.’
The Death of Grass Page 17