The Doomsday Carrier

by Victor Canning

  The three men saw him at the moment he jumped from the truck. Without moving they watched him come along the track side.

  The head ganger, Bill Springer, a middle-aged man, stocky, hard-bodied and slow to show emotion of any kind, pushed the peak of his cap back, pulled at the end of his nose, and said, “You see what I see, Ron?”

  Ron Squires, a lean, equally phlegmatic type, who was rolling himself a cigarette, said, without interrupting the process, “Yes, I see what you see, Bill. Come off the train—riding without a ticket and now he’s walking up the track without a walking permit. Cheek.”

  The third ganger, Tom Burke, a young, long-haired and far from serious or sensible youth said, “That’s a chimpanzee. That’s that there Charlie. What do we do?”

  Bill with a wink at Ron said, “What do you suggest, Tom? Hoist him back aboard again?”

  “Better ask him first,” said Ron.

  “Hey,” said Tom, “if we caught him we could get our names in the papers.”

  “You’ll do that one day anyway without catching any chimpanzee,” said Ron.

  “Well, one thing’s for sure,” said Bill as the goods train began to move off, the couplings banging and rattling as it gathered speed, “Charlie’s not going back aboard.”

  Charlie meanwhile came slowly up the track towards the three men. He had no fear of them and from the low series of pant hoots he gave it could have been that he was glad to see them. When he reached the men he sat down on his haunches by Ron and, with his great lips pouting, his brown eyes shining, he watched with interest the completion of the rolling of the cigarette.

  Bill said, “Looks like he’s dying for a smoke.”

  “Chimps don’t smoke,” said Tom.

  “How do you know what they do when no one’s lookin’?”

  Charlie, attracted by the smell of tobacco, reached up a long arm towards the cigarette which Ron had finished rolling.

  Obligingly Ron gave it to Charlie who promptly crammed it into his mouth and began to chew it.

  “Old-fashioned sort,” said Bill. “Baccy chewer.” He turned and went into the hut and came out with a thick bread-and-cheese sandwich from his lunch pail. He handed it to Charlie, who hoo-hooed with pleasure and then stuffed the sandwich into his mouth with the cigarette. The three men watched him. The noise of the departing goods train died away into the distance.

  “Seems friendly enough,” said Ron, beginning to roll another cigarette for himself. “Could be cupboard love, though.”

  “What do we do with ’im?” asked Tom.

  “You could take him home for a pet,” said Bill. “Put some clothes on him and nobody would notice the difference between you. You’ve both got the same hair style even.”

  “Same look about the face, too,” said Ron.

  “Oh, very funny,” said Tom.

  “That’s what we aimed to be,” said Bill.

  “Poor little bugger,” said Ron. “Papers said he was off to some place for experiments on ’im. Can’t think why. They want some types to experiment on I could give ’em a list of chaps as long as my arm—and not one would ever be missed.”

  “We got to report ’im,” said Tom. “Hey, maybe there’s a reward!”

  “You’d sell your mother for the price of a beer,” said Bill. “Still we can’t have him hanging around here all day interfering with our work or getting cut up by some express train. So I tell you what, Tom. You walk down the line to the signal box and get them to phone the police.”

  “That’s over two miles away.”

  “Won’t take long if you trot. Meantime Ron and me will try and get Charlie into the hut and shut him up. Go on—get moving.”

  Grumbling, Tom began to move away down the line.

  Ron said, “Wonder what kind of experiment they aim to do on ’im?”

  “None of our business.”

  “That’s the trouble these days—there’s too much kickin’ around that ain’t none of our business. Like all this newclear fishing—blow the bloody world up one day.”

  “Nobody’d miss it. Come on, let’s try and get Charlie into the hut.”

  Bill went back into the hut and reappeared with another sandwich.

  Ron said, “You won’t have any grub left the rate you’re going.”

  “Don’t worry. It’s from Tom’s pail.”

  Bill went up to Charlie and held out the sandwich. When Charlie reached for it he stepped back towards the hut door. Charlie followed him but when Bill stepped inside Charlie halted on the threshold.

  “He knows what you’re up to,” said Ron.

  “Get behind him and give him a shove.”

  “No thanks. It said on T.V. he’s harmless unless interfered with. I’m not the interfering kind. Besides I’m on his side.”

  “So am I—but we got a duty to help the authorities.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since never—but I don’t want the poor little bleeder out there when the Cornish express comes slashin’ through. Just crowd him a bit from behind.”

  Reluctantly Ron moved up behind Charlie, who turned and, raising his head, drew back his great lips and gave a friendly grin, showing his strong teeth. Then he bent forward and somersaulted slowly past Ron and came to rest in a patch of ragwort at the side of the track path. He lay there contentedly chewing while with the fingers of both hands he slowly scratched his scalp.

  Coming out from the hut Bill said, “A chimp with a mind of his own.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, we tried.”

  “That’s right—but not too hard.”

  “Well, suppose he might as well have Tom’s sandwich to go with the other.” Bill walked over to Charlie and held out the sandwich. Charlie lifted a foot and took the sandwich from him. “Neat,” said Ron. “Not a man living could do that.”

  Bill walked back to the hut and sat down on the small bench outside it and began to fill a pipe. He said, “That express is due up in ten minutes. We’ll keep an eye on him until it’s gone past.”

  “And after that there’s another one due down in half an hour. Looks like we’ve got a tiring morning ahead chimp-sitting.” Ron went to the bench and sat down beside Bill and lit his cigarette.

  Charlie lay in the patch of weeds and slowly masticated his wad of sandwiches. The sun was warm on his body and he was feeling sleepy after his restless night. When he had finished eating he began to make low chattering noises to himself and then fell asleep. Above him flies and bees worked around the ragwort blooms and a robin that nested behind the railway hut came and foraged close to him for the sandwich crumbs which had fallen to the ground.

  “Sleepin’ like a babe,” said Ron. “Wonder what he thinks about it all? Half the bloody army after him.”

  “They don’t think,” said Bill. “Not like that.”

  “I don’t know. That’s too easy to say. Why I’ve had some dogs in my time that could think faster and better than. . . than, well, that stupid Tom for instance. I had a dog once—”

  “Not again, Ron.” Bill sighed. “It’s too good a morning for any of your dog stories.”

  “Well, all I know is I’ve had some dogs that I’ve liked and respected better than a lot of men I’ve known. And I’ll tell you something else, something I read a bit about in the paper yesterday about chimps.”

  “Yes? Well—if you’re going to tell it now you’ll have to shout your head off, ’cause here comes the express.”

  Ron looked at his watch. “Three minutes ahead of time.” He stood up and walked over to the sleeping Charlie and stood between him and the track. A few seconds later the express came roaring up the line and went past the group in a thundering, rattling surge of sound.

  In his light sleep Charlie heard it, woke and was suddenly full of alarm and fright at the noise and the sight of the long line of coaches speeding past. He gave a loud scream of fear, rolled to all fours and began to gallop away from the sight as fast as he could go, calling and waaing wi
de-mouthed as he had often done when in his earlier days in Africa he had offended some large male and had been chased after in a sudden display of rage from the adult. He went up the slope of the embankment, jumped the wire fence, crossed a small field where a man on a tractor was cutting the tall grass for hay and then burst his way through a hedge into a large piece of waste ground studded with young osiers which sloped down to a marshy bowl through which a sluggish stream ran to disappear into a tangle of old trees that fringed a series of shallow ponds.

  Behind him, as the noise of the express faded, Ron went back to Bill and sat on the bench with him and began to roll a cigarette. He said, “Poor little bleeder, he won’t stop running for a while. I quite took to him.”

  Bill said, “They’ll come and ask us about it. I kinda liked him too. Think we ought to give him a sporting chance when they ask which way he went?”

  Ron shook his head. “Can’t do that. Must tell the police which way he went.” He nodded across the railway lines to the opposite embankment to the one which Charlie had taken. “Just tell ’em the truth. Saw him with me own eyes. Took off that way. We couldn’t stop him. Agree?”

  “Of course. That’s the way he went, swear to it. Anyway, they’re goin’ to get him some time, but I don’t see—if he’s enjoying himself, nice weather and all—why we should be on their side against his. Good luck to him, I say.”

  Ron nodded.

  * * * *

  Rimster came out on to the terrace to join Jean in a drink before lunch.

  He said, “When I fetched your stuff this morning George was waiting in the flat. We had a chat. I calmed him down about your not being around. He’s a likeable man, I thought.”

  “That’s his great asset. Everyone likes George. That’s what he trades on. Has there been any news of Charlie this morning?”

  Knowing the subject of George had been dismissed, Rimster said, “Only the report of the two campers. That means he’s shifted north of Collingboume Wood. The helicopters and patrols have moved up there. How did you get on with Armstrong?”

  “We cleared up various things. I told him that I was going to resign as soon as I’m free of this place. He was nice enough not to make the point that if I didn’t I would be dismissed .., retired. The station are fitting up a special truck to put Charlie in when he’s caught.”

  “What happens to him when he is caught? Will they carry on with the project?”

  “Oh yes. They’ll have missed a lot of interim facts, but there’s plenty of valuable research data to be got after he reaches his infective stage at twenty-one days.”

  “How long after that does he stay a carrier?”

  “That’s one of the points to be checked. From our earlier work we reckoned about a month.”

  “Long enough—when a handful of men take Charlie’s place to do a real job if needed—to be effective. Nice thought. But how do you know that Charlie won’t always remain a carrier?”

  “Well, we’ve established that already on some of the lower primates, lemurs and capuchin monkeys. When I say we, I mean it’s been done at other stations. People who get plague, you know, don’t all die.”

  “And what happens to Charlie when Armstrong and his boffins have finished with him and he’s got a clear bill of health?”

  “When it’s absolutely certain he’s clear he’ll go to some zoo or wild-life park, here or abroad.”

  “Honourable retirement?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, if the press and so on work up enough publicity he’ll be a draw anywhere.”

  Through the open doors of the lounge behind them came an announcement over the tannoy.

  “Mr Rimster to the signals office please. Mr Rimster to the signals office.”

  Sitting there, waiting for him to return, Jean realized that, despite her dismissal of the subject, she would really have liked to know all that had passed between Rimster and George. Her feelings about George, she acknowledged, were slowly changing. From the first shock, which had led to Charlie’s escape and to the present situation, she had passed through anger into indifference, and now that she had made love with Rimster—partly an act, she knew, of redressing some emotional balance—she found herself able to think of George more easily in the way she had once done. Nice George, blunt, unexpected, full of life and large appetites, but with his own robust and rough kind of loyalty. When Charlie was eventually caught and she left Fadledean behind her she knew that she would be moving into the bleakness of making a new life and the prospect was unattractive. If she had any sense she would go back to George. Be practical, admit that she had evened the score, she told herself. That’s what human beings were like. Love and marriage had their rough and smooth sides—but happiness and a deep content were the true elements that held people together. Suddenly there was an ache in her for all this Charlie business to be finished. To get up now and be able to go back to George seemed the most sensible and desirable thing in the world for her. Too much pride was a stupidity. She should be glad that George was there wanting her still. Nobody, she guessed, waited for Rimster. There was no passing shadow like hers over him. He lived in shade and could never escape it. She remembered the thin twist of his mouth when speaking of Charlie he had said, ‘Honourable retirement’, and she knew that honour was something he had lost long ago. No matter under what authorized human mandate he had operated—as in fact she had been doing at Fadledean—there was a higher conscience in him and all people which had to be acknowledged. There was no escape from the sentence which in the end you passed on yourself.

  Rimster came back and said, smiling, “Our friend Charlie dropped off a goods train truck on the main Exeter line the other side of a place called Lavington this morning. Two gangers tried to hold him while another went to report. Tried to get him into their hut with the offer of food, but he wasn’t having any. He finally took off northwards towards Devizes. The army people are covering the area as fast as they can. He’s quite a travelling gent, isn’t he? And having the luck of the devil.”

  “Devil?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Depends on your attitude to theology. My old father used to say that God couldn’t get along without the Devil, and vice versa. Now and again I have an idea that they work together. Perhaps God has decided that this country deserves a plague, and the Devil, naturally, is going along with him.”

  “Is that what you would like?”

  “No. In my book plague is not selective enough. Still it could happen. I expected him to be put in the bag in a few days. He’s been out a week now.”

  “And he’s due for his second vomiting attack. It will be more severe than the first and he won’t be able to move around much. Somebody’s sure to find him.” Jean stood up. “Shall we go and have lunch?”

  “Why not?”

  * * * *

  Three miles north of the main railway line, Captain Stevens brought his helicopter round in a tight curve at the end of his allotted sector and began to make a new line back towards the village of Lavington. Since midday somebody had been gingering things up from the operations centre. The roads below were busy with police cars and army trucks and patrol lines of troops were combing through the area on a two-mile front northwards from the line. If Charlie were anywhere around down there he would be lucky not to be found.

  His observer said, “You think he really took a fancy to that girl in the tent?”

  “Dunno and don’t care. I’m bored with the whole bloody business. I came down here for an advanced training course. Not for this kind of lark. I’m beginning to think that if they just let the little chap alone he’d wander into some farm or village and would sit tight until the recovery truck turned up. But with troops bashing about below and us buzzing around above he’s probably scared stiff and keeping well under cover. Those railway gangers as near as a touch got him.”

  The observer was silent for a while, and then said, “I think there’s more to Charlie than meets the eye.”

 
“Marvellous. Of course there is. But you won’t know and I won’t know whatever happens. And what’s more we’re not expected to know or to ask questions.”

  “Other people are beginning to. You know, the press and all that. Fadledean’s a rum place.”

  “Maybe that’s what Charlie thought.”

  “You know, I’m on his side really. I don’t know but that if I spotted him down below somewhere I wouldn’t keep my trap shut. Why shouldn’t he have some fun and games?”

  “You do that and I’ll have your guts for garters. And not because I’m not on his side, but because I’m more on my side.”

  Coming to the end of their southward leg, Captain Stevens took the helicopter up above patrolling height and began to head back to base for refuelling.

  Five minutes later, moving south-east, the helicopter passed directly over Charlie.

  Charlie had followed the line of ponds southwards over marshy ground which was rank with high yellow flag growths and sedge and tangled with a sprawl of low willows and old decayed trees which had fallen from age and rot until he had come to the edge of a long, narrow lake at whose head, overhung by a large ash tree, was a boathouse with a narrow landing stage. Far down the lake a punt was anchored and a man sat in it fishing, his back to Charlie.

  Charlie sat now on the landing stage watching the distant man and enjoying the sunshine. Coots and moorhens foraged and fussed along the line of tall reeds fringing the lake. Dragonflies hunted for gnats. Swallows and martins dipped to the water, making rings which matched those of the rising fish. From the roof of the hut a wren suddenly filled the summer air with brief, sharp song.

  After a while Charlie stood up and went into the boathouse. Along one side ran a narrow shelf on which the punt fisherman had left a small wickerwork basket. Charlie lifted it down and sat holding it between his legs. The lid was closed and held by a small length of cane which ran through loops on its side. Boxes with lids were nothing new in Charlie’s life. He lifted the box and shook it and something moved inside. Hooing and grunting to himself he smelt the basket and recognized a familiar and exciting smell. Holding it between his legs again he tried to open the lid and when it refused to move he struck it sharply two or three times with his right hand. Then, seeing the holding piece of cane, he began to fiddle with it. Door handles he had long learned could be turned to open a door and he had once had a box with a spring clasp which had to be pressed to release the lid. In a very short while he had pulled the cane free from its loops and had the basket top open.