“It sounds,” Jagger said, “as if we’re doing all this for WUSWIPP, now.”
“I know — I thought that, too. But it’s not the whole story. Get Fesse and we still may get the cure. Let him go, and we have no hope at all. At least we’re all together now, Jagger — that’s something. We can go all out for that bastard without being hamstrung by hostages.”
“Naughty,” Jagger said, with a glint in his eye. “You’ve double-crossed Weiler by the sound of it.”
I made a vulgar noise.
We stopped and rested as the light stole over Scotland — rested on the crest of a hill, by the roadside. There was absolute stillness, absolute silence. Not a movement anywhere except for the distant, slow-motion cropping of a flock of sheep miles away on a brownish-green slope. I never wanted to see another sheep in all my life. That great, grotesque, monstrous thing had really shaken me … I pondered on the weird properties of Fesse’s disease, its selectivity colourwise, its extraordinarily different effects as between humans and animals. God alone knew what secrets lay upon the moon, what other fearful things might yet be brought down to earth. As we sat there, looking out over the majesty of the hills and the glens, each occupied with our own thoughts, I heard, at last, a sound. It was distant and it was mechanical.
Jagger heard it too, and looked out, shading his eyes against a climbing sun. He said, “A tractor, I’d say.”
“Not another tractor.”
He looked at me sharply, as though puzzled at first. Then he nodded. “It won’t be history repeating itself, sailor. They wouldn’t send a tractor after us. But at least tractors do move, don’t they?”
“All right,” I said. I stood up; the others followed. We headed for the sound and after half an hour’s walk, stumbling along on feet that seemed more painful than ever after a rest, we saw the tractor lumbering along the bottom of a hill with a trailer tied to it, about a mile from the road. We went across country towards it, shouting and waving. After a minute or two the tractor turned for us. A man with iron-grey hair was driving it. He looked down in astonishment as he came up alongside us.
He stopped his vehicle and leaned thick hairy arms on the steering-wheel. He said, “What the hell.”
“We’d like a lift,” I said.
“A lift, would you? It looks to me like decent dress ye’re all needing.” Jane Airdrie’s gown had flopped open at the top; flushing, she pulled it tightly across her body. “What’s all this, anyway? A mass escape from the asylum, I shouldn’t wonder!”
“Far from it,” I said, though that tunnel set-up was as crazy a place as I’d come across, so he wasn’t all that far out. “I want to contact the police, and it’s desperately urgent. Where’s the nearest station?”
“There’s a man at Ballochterardnish.”
“Will you take us there?”
He scratched his head. “I don’t know I will. They have the sickness, in Ballochterardnish. They have it bad, it’s said.”
“We have to risk the sickness,” I told him. “If you get us there as quick as you can we may be able to help stop the spread.” I added, “I am Commander Shaw of Security and this is Mr Jagger of the Home Office in London. We have full authority to requisition your vehicle if necessary, but I’m sure it won’t be. Well?”
He blew out his cheeks, looked us over again, then shrugged. “It’ll not be necessary,” he said. “You can climb aboard. I’ll drop you on the outskirts. Will that do?”
“It’ll do fine,” I said. We climbed up; there was not much room but we fitted and were thankful. “And now,” I said, “flat out if you don’t mind.”
The Scot grinned. “You must be joking,” he said. “In this?”
*
That journey took a hell of a time and I found I was trembling with sheer impatience, but at least it was better than walking. If anything faster had come along either way, I would have transferred; but nothing did. I asked our driver, whose name was MacNairn, if the road was always as empty and he shook his head and said no, it wasn’t, not that it was ever really busy. The disease had taken its toll up here the last few days, having, as MacNairn insisted, come up from south of the border; and this desolation was the result.
“Folk are scared to come out o’ their houses,” he said in a hard voice. There was much anger in him, helpless anger; I understood too well how he felt. “Only those of us in the isolated farms are moving about much now. Please God it’ll pass soon. What are the doctors doing?”
I said quietly, “All they can, Mr MacNairn.”
He nodded. “Aye, I don’t really doubt they are that. No man can do more, other than to pray.” The tractor moved on and, at long last, we saw a cluster of buildings ahead in the fold of the hills. “Ballochterardnish,” MacNairn said. He drove us, as promised, to the outskirts, stopping a hundred yards from the first of the cottages. We said goodbye and thanked him, and he turned away, back to his hillside and his farm. Jagger looked after him as he went. “I’m damned sure,” Jagger said, “he’s going back faster than he came.”
We walked ahead into the village. The day was bright and sunny and fresh — even cold to us in those thin green gowns — but there was a terrible sense of desolation and the place had the feel of desertion. But it was not deserted, for as we passed along faces looked from windows, darted back, returned with additional faces. We were the objects of considerable interest and probably, I imagine, of fear. We might even look like moon-people or something. Farther along a window went up and a woman’s head was thrust out.
“Where are ye from?” she shouted in a shrill voice.
“North,” I said.
“Why are ye dressed like that? Is it some kind o’ protection from the sickness, or what?”
I called back, “No, it’s not that, missus! How are things here?”
“Bad. How are they farther north?”
“Not too bad,” I said. “They may get better — you mustn’t lose hope.”
“You have the voice of a gentleman,” she said, and I wondered what that had to do with anything. She banged the window shut before I could ask where the policeman lived. She remained pressed to the glass, watching us, and I saw that she was wearing a white nightdress of some thick material, and that her throat and collar-bone were red. We walked on, not speaking now, caught up in the gloom and fear that had pervaded Ballochterardnish like an evil visitation from hell. Then Jane saw the police sign and drew my attention to it.
“Thank God,” I said, and went fast for the door and pealed the bell as though I would never release the button.
*
An hour later we were heading south in a police car that the village constable had telephoned for from Lairg, to talk to the brass of the Sutherland police and some senior officers from the army’s Northern Command. I had already put through my call to Max — very much to my relief, I had found him at his office. I passed the whole story, in all its intricate detail, and I asked him how things were in London.
“Chaotic,” he said in a deadly tired voice. “All ground to a halt.”
“And Focal House itself?”
“Just about functioning, but I can’t say for how much longer.”
“You personally?”
There was a pause; then Max said, “In the clear so far. Touch wood.” That last remark shook me almost more than anything else could have done. Superstitions were anathema to Max normally; I shouldn’t think he’d ever touched wood in his life and he always made a point of walking slap under ladders.
“Orders?” I asked.
“Come south,” he said. “Pass on all details to the powers that be, and come south. I’m sorry to bring you here, but I need you.”
“Just as you say. I’ll come soonest possible. What about Jagger and Miss Airdrie?”
“They can decide for themselves.”
He had rung off after that. When I asked Jane and Jagger what they wanted to do, they both said they would come with me. Jagger wanted to be in touch with his sister in Pinner,
and Jane had relatives in Bournemouth, though her father and stepmother had gone to friends in the Isle of Wight after their return from the Canaries — Max had been able to tell me that. Both she and Jagger felt they had a duty, and who was I to tell them they were bloody fools and couldn’t possibly do any good but would only bring more worry to their families by going south. Scotland still wasn’t anything like as badly hit as the south of England. One of the staff officers told me a good deal about it when we met in Lairg. He had been in Aldershot recently and Hampshire didn’t bear thinking about. Some of the sufferers had pulled through but, as elsewhere, the recovery rate was low.
In Lairg I was given an outline of the measures that would be put in hand to dig Fesse out before he got away. All available troops and aircraft would be brought up into Scotland. The border with England would be sealed, and the remaining troops deployed right along the Scottish coasts, with air and armour support and police assistance. Ships of the Royal Navy would be on constant patrol around the coasts as well, chiefly concentrating their somewhat slender numbers on the western isles, in the Minches, and along the north coast from Duncansby Head to Cape Wrath. The thinking behind this strategy was that Fesse would be more likely to try the craggier north and west coasts for a hide-up and a get-out than the more populated eastern shores, even though the west would make it a longer trip for him to reach the Continent or Scandinavia. Also, he might conceivably try to make for Iceland as a stopover.
I asked the police chief and the general if they thought they would have any success and they both said they didn’t see a ghost of a chance.
With this happy note sounding in my ears like a knell I drove with Jane and Jagger to the Inverness airport at Dalcross, where they had put an RAF plane of Support Command on standby to fly us in to London. At Heathrow the thing hit us hard. I had heard on the radio whilst in the tunnel hide-out that London Airport was pretty well at a stand-still, but hearing is not the same as seeing and I’d been well used to seeing Heathrow at its busiest, the reception areas and the cafeterias and the spectators’ galleries all overflowing with humankind — all races of humankind speaking all the world’s languages. Far, far too many of them milling around; I had often cursed those crowds as I’d tried to shove a pathway through. But the place looked all wrong when empty. We were the only people there apart from an old man who met us and preceded us with a bunch of keys, and let us out to where there should have been taxis. The car from Focal House was the only vehicle there.
The car took us through deserted, dirty streets. There hadn’t been any dustmen through here just lately. It was terrible, unnerving. An occasional cat prowled, now and again a dog. The car alone broke the silence, except once when we had come into Brentford and some scavenging animal knocked off the lid of one of those overstuffed dustbins. Farther in there was more general dirt, and papers blew unchecked along the gutters. There were few people about; here and there a policeman or some patrolling troops, Guardsmen; a solitary bus trundled bravely, but it was empty but for its crew and one old woman in black sitting near the conductor’s platform. As we neared the City, there were more people around. Everything hadn’t quite stopped and a few shops were open and there were two more buses, one making for Liverpool Street.
Jagger, who had been looking out in glum silence, asked suddenly, “What about us, sailor? Jane and me?”
“Do you mean for transport?” I asked.
“Correct.”
“I’ll ask Max when we get there.” I’d thought I may as well take them right along with me. There could be something they could add to what I had to say. When we reached Focal House and pulled into the underground car park, and went up in the lift. I saw what Max had meant when he said the place was just about functioning. Just about was right. There was a very unnatural silence after we had passed initially through the security check and when I reached Max’s office suite he came out himself. No secretary. Max looked old and damned ill; his square frame was shaking. I looked him over critically but there was no visible evidence of the skin-loss.
He said, “Welcome back, Shaw. Welcome back to what’s left.”
I murmured something but he was already looking at Jane and Jagger. He asked, “Where do you two want to go?”
They told him. He said, “Go down and tell my driver. I don’t know if there are any trains out of Waterloo, young lady, and I can’t find out. The stations are not answering the phones now. But Phillips’ll drive you. God knows, there isn’t anything else for him to do now.” He didn’t seem to want to question either of them, so, looking a shade puzzled, they said goodbye and went off.
I turned to Max. “What did you want me for?” I asked.
“Come into my room and I’ll tell you.” I followed him in; he was shuffling like an old, old man and looked as if he should have been in carpet slippers. He told me abruptly to sit down.
I said, “Frankly, I’d rather have kept on Fesse’s trail.”
He nodded, but didn’t comment on that. What he did say was: “Tell me, Shaw. Think there’s any seawater on the moon?”
I stared at him. The world rocked a little. Fesse was mad — okay. But I hated to see signs of insanity in Max, who was a very good sort indeed. Perhaps I was cracking up myself, or hadn’t heard straight.
12
“SEAWATER,” I repeated in a flat tone. “On the moon. I gather not. Of course, there are seas, so-called. The Sea of Tranquillity …” I was damned tired; I could feel the non-functioning of my brain. I dare say Max felt the same way. “But they aren’t really seas.”
Max said, “It was thought that oceans and rivers were common up there, once. You remember the early reports — Apollo 8, I think it was. Long time ago. Photographs showed up possible beaches, and tracks that could have been made by water. And ice.”
“Ice?”
“Tracks made by ice movement, I mean. That theory’s been blown.” Max moved across to one of his big windows and looked down on London’s frightening silence, the silence of the grave that had come to the city. It was really uncanny; myself, I could hardly bear to look at it. I preferred to shut my mind to it while I could, and try to imagine that all was normal outside this room. The room’s familiarity was comforting if you could forget lor a while what was outside there. Max turned away from the scene, suddenly. He looked at me and there was an odd look in his eyes. He said, “I have a theory, Shaw. It’s so simple, yet no-one’s thought of it. I didn’t myself, until last night.” He stopped. He looked just about all in.
I said gently, “Go on.”
He roused himself. “All right. Well, I had to go down to Portsmouth yesterday. You remember Palfry. The vice-admiral from Washington?”
I nodded. The man I’d been going to see when Hartinger had followed me. “Yes,” I said, “I remember him. Well?”
“He wanted to see me. The matter seemed to be urgent, but he couldn’t get to London. He’d gone down with the disease — his wife got in touch via the Defence Ministry. Of course, I went down at once. Palfry was bad and he was wandering. Whatever it was he wanted to tell me … it didn’t emerge. He died while I was with him. It was pretty horrible, Shaw.”
I said, “I know. I’ve seen some, too.”
Max didn’t seem to be listening. He went on, “I’d felt the start of the thing — the itch — while I was on my way down. I meant to ask Palfry’s wife if I could wash as soon as I got to Rowlands Castle, but I didn’t, because she was in a bad way and said I must see her husband at once. While I was talking to him, it got worse … rather fast, as a matter of fact. After he died, I washed, but it was too late, it didn’t appear to be having any effect. D’you know, I’ve no recollection of leaving the house, but I drove into Portsmouth. I remember Lady Palfry had told me there was no medical help nearer than Portsmouth — all the local doctors had died — so I went there. She’d said Eastney Barracks — the Royal Marines’ barracks. There was a naval medical team still functioning. Well, when I got there the gates were shut and loc
ked. There was no sentry. I don’t know if I panicked — possibly I did. Anyway, I suppose I must have gone for a walk along the sea-wall. I remember seeing water lapping — it was high tide, I suppose. Right up to the wall. The next thing I knew I was struggling in that water. I must have reacted purely instinctively. I swam quite a long way, to where there was beach between the sea and the wall — towards the pier. I got out, walked back to where I’d left my car, and got in. I didn’t bother about being wet, I drove straight back to London. If there’d been any traffic on the A3, I don’t suppose I’d have made it.” He broke off, and stood quite still, staring down at me. “I had that damn skin-loss thing, sores and all, right the way up my arms when I went in the sea. Now look.”
He held out his arms and pulled back the sleeves of his jacket and shirt. There was some redness and a few small areas without skin, but the arms were clearly healing.
I whistled. “My God!” I said. “You really think there’s a connexion?”
“I don’t know. I came straight back here and I’ve been here all night. I think I’ve slept a good deal of the time. I’ve no excuse to offer for such inaction. I know it’s unforgiveable. I think I’ve been very slightly off my head. Things are clearing now.”
I said, “You sounded all right on the phone to Scotland.”
He nodded. “I’m glad I did. Maybe a man can still function automatically when he has to. It’s been so damn lonely here.”
“What about the medical section? Carson. Has he any ideas?”
“Carson’s dead, all the others have gone down with it. Just before you checked in, I managed to contact St Thomas’s. They’re sending a consultant over any minute. I doubt if he’ll be able to express an opinion, unless he’s a specialist in moon diseases.” He looked sour.
I said. “It’s worth a try. Anything’s worth a try now. There’ll be immense difficulties, of course, but they’ll be overcome if people believe they can be cured. What I don’t understand is why it hasn’t clicked before now.”
Hartinger's Mouse (Commander Shaw Book 12) Page 16