The Secret People

by John Wyndham

  The tall peaks of the Tell Atlas rose before them and Mark sent the Sun Bird soaring higher still. The speed increased as the resistance of the thin atmosphere outside grew less. He glanced at another instrument for assurance that the air supply was maintaining correct pressure within.

  The mighty range of mountains now looked like a badly crumpled cloth far below. Before long the broad Plateau of the Shotts slid into view, the lakes upon it glittering like pieces of broken mirror casually dropped among the mountains. Beyond, on the starboard bow, sprawled the final spurs of the great Atlas range, the Saharan Atlas, the walls of the desert; where they ended stood the ancient town of Biskra, still guarding, as it had for untold centuries, the pass to the north. Mark changed his course a few points east. And then, as they cleared a range of lesser mountains, came their first view of the latest wonder of the world, the New Sea.

  The idea of the New Sea was not in itself new. Back in the nineteenth century the great De Lesseps – previous to his entanglements over the projected Suez Canal – had started his countrymen toying with the New Sea scheme much in the same way as the English played with the idea of a Channel Tunnel. Then, after being for almost a century a matter of merely academic interest it had, in 1955, suddenly become practical politics. The French, in fact, decided to flood a part of the Sahara Desert.

  That the undertaking was within the range of possibility had long been admitted by many experts, but until France had discovered Italy’s willingness to enter into partnership, the financial obstacles had proved insurmountable. Through mutual assistance and for their mutual benefit the two nations had gone to work upon the most ambitious engineering scheme yet projected.

  Nature has chosen to frown upon many parts of the world, but in few places has she glowered more fiercely than in North Africa, and it would seem likely that the centre of her disapproval in that region was Tripolitania. There would be difficulty in finding an equal-sized piece of land with a better claim to the title of world’s worst colony. There was little more than a strip of fertile coast closely backed by the most hopeless of deserts, but for all that the Italians, for reasons of pride and prestige, had clung to it with a magnificent obstinacy. And now the French scheme offered them the opportunity of turning a liability into an asset.

  France could foresee in the creation of this inland sea several advantages for herself. First, she hoped that southern Tunis and a part of Algeria would benefit. The New Sea was to be begun by merging the Tunisian lakes – or ‘Shotts’ – which were already below sea level. It was argued that the land about it would rapidly become fertile. Trees would grow, clouds would follow, bringing rain; the rain would induce still more vegetation, and so on until the erstwhile desert sands should bloom. Moreover, Tripolitania, lying on one shore of the sea, would also benefit, thus she would be enabled to support colonists from Italy and so lessen the dangerous condition of overpopulation on the other side of the Alps. Italy, once satisfied that there was no catch in the plan, became equally enthusiastic. If her barren property should become fertile, at least in part, colonial expansion would give her a chance to build up a yet larger population. The great day when the might of the Roman Empire should be revived would be brought a step nearer.

  The conferences between the two nations were remarkable both for their rapidity in making decisions and for their lack of discord. Early in 1956, the work was put in hand, and the enterprise was pushed forward with such determination and success that in March 1962, water began to gush from the first of the great pipes into the sandy waste.

  Now, in September 1964, the lakes, large and small, were already merged. Seen from the air, one great shining sheet of water stretched out of view to the east and to the south. Here, in the north-west corner, the sea would not extend a great deal farther. Already it was lapping at the lower slopes of the foothills, and though its level would rise, its advance would be small. The new coast was dotted with patches of high ground still above the flood level, temporary islands soon to be submerged. Over the lower parts the water had already risen until only bunches of green palm heads broke the surface, looking like beds of reeds.

  Mark put the Sun Bird into a dive and they crossed the water’s edge close to an Arab village of white, flat-roofed houses. It had stood upon a slight knoll, but already the water was creeping in through the doors of the highest dwellings, while the lower could be seen, still standing, beneath the surface. They would not last long, he reflected. Built as they were, for the most part, of baked mud, they would soon revert, crumbling and sliming away to leave no sign save a few stones. There was something desolate and unhappy about this village, condemned after centuries of sunny existence to a watery dissolution. A faint sense of depression touched the two in the plane.

  ‘It makes everything seem so impermanent,’ Margaret thought aloud. ‘It’s like destroying a piece of history. I know it’s silly and sentimental to feel like that, but I do. For hundreds of years people have lived and fought here – camel caravans have plodded across these sands; and now they’ll never do it again.’ She paused, and then added: ‘It’s the irrevocability of it, I suppose. There’s always something sad – and rather frightening – when one thinks of things as irrevocable.’

  Mark caught her mood and agreed with it.

  ‘Yes. There will be new towns of flat, white houses by the new shores. They’ll look the same, perhaps, but they won’t be the same. The air of changelessness will have gone for good – you can’t inject history. It’s a funny thing that we always see the past through rose-coloured glasses, unless we really set out to get at the truth … I mean, that village was undoubtedly squalid, life was hard in it and probably cruel, yet one regrets its passing. A queer streak of conservatism we’ve all got.’

  He drove the plane still lower, passing over a grove of palms which bore their dates though the trunks were now awash. Children had climbed the trees to gather the last harvest they would yield, dropping the fruit down into crude boats moored below. They looked up and waved to the plane as it passed.

  The two flew on for some minutes without speaking. The New Sea stretched beneath them to the horizon now in every direction, save the north. Mark pointed to the mountains which held it back.

  ‘One day they’ll build a pleasure city on those slopes, and all Europe will come here to bask in the sun and swim in the sea. I shall be there. And you?’

  She considered, smiling slightly.

  ‘It may be a long time to wait. Suppose I get old and ugly before they’ve built their city?’

  ‘My dear, don’t be blasphemous. There are still some impossibilities even in this world. Older you must certainly get, but ugly … Margaret, if you should live to be a hundred, it couldn’t happen …’

  At its eastern end the sea ran back in a narrow arm towards the source. Before long the Sun Bird came within sight of the twelve vast pipes which fed it. For two and a half years now they had been at their work of pouring foaming, man-made cataracts into the desert. Day and night the stupendous pumps, twenty miles away in Qabés, had sucked up their millions of gallons to send them churning and swirling along the pipes. But huge as the conduits were, it remained unbelievable that they alone could be the instruments for submerging all these square miles of land, that it was only water passed by them which was lapping ever higher and farther across the sands. The loss by evaporation alone, Mark considered, must be immense in this region. There was no day during which the sun did not broil down with full intensity to draw up its tons of moisture. From the beginning there had been sceptics who had looked on the plan as a fantasy, and he felt bound to admit that had he seen this place before the start of operations, he would have been one of them. The immensity of the task was stupefying; yet it was succeeding in a way which caused the engineering triumphs of Panama and Suez to dwindle into insignificance. Whether the ultimate results would justify its sponsors remained yet to be seen.

  They passed over the gushing outlets, following the twelve-fold pipeline across h
igher country, and it was a matter of only a few minutes before Qabés came into view. Both of them were somewhat prepared for the sight by the photographs which had appeared in every illustrated paper, but the scale of operations took them by surprise. It had been necessary not only to build enormous housings for the pumps and gear, but to alter the town itself. It was no longer an Arab town which lay beside the Gulf of Qabés. Smoke, noise and fuss reeked up to insult the African sky from a city which might have been transported bodily from one of the less pleasant industrial districts of Europe. If ever a place deserved to be called a blot on the fair face of nature, it was the transformed town of Qabés.

  But one had to admit that a job was being done, and done well; it was to be hoped that the end would justify all this filth and furore which was the means. Head-cloth had been ousted by cloth cap, tractors and cars had supplanted camel and donkey, the blue sea was polluted with waste oil, the palms bore sooty dates among sooty fronds. And yet the pumps were a triumph, a glory of power.

  Mark had a hankering to inspect them. One day, he decided, he would come over here and examine the works at his leisure. For the present … He looked inquiringly at Margaret. She pulled a face of distaste. He knew that she was seeing nothing beyond the dirt and destruction. She did not catch the feeling of strength and triumph over nature which lay behind it all.

  ‘All right, we’ll leave it now,’ he said. ‘We can go back again over the New Sea if you like – or we might keep round by the Mediterranean coast and have a look at Rome’s old sparring partner, Carthage.’

  Margaret shook her head at the alternative.

  ‘The New Sea, I think. This place has shocked me, and one shock is enough for the day. If they’ve treated Carthage anything like they’ve treated Qabés, then delenda est Carthago indeed.’

  Mark circled the plane and set off back over the pipelines. He held the same course until the sea was reached, when he altered a few points to the south of their outward journey. They drew clear of the old borders of the Shott el Jerid and found the newly inundated land where numerous islets varying in nature and extent from a few square yards of sand to well-planted groves of trees still survived. They descended until they were scudding a bare hundred feet above the water, able to look down on the strange sight of palms masquerading as marine growths.

  ‘There’s another village,’ Margaret pointed out. ‘But this one’s breaking up: all the roofs have gone already, and some of the walls. I’m glad. It would be too eerie to think of fish making their homes where people once lived, swimming along the streets, and in and out of the windows and doors …’

  Mark laughed. The notion struck him as delightfully absurd. He had started to reply when a sudden tremendous explosion cut him short.

  The Sun Bird careered wildly, flinging both of them out of their seats. For a moment she seemed to stand on her tail; then, slipping and twisting, she plunged towards the water …

  2

  Mark opened his eyes and shut them again quickly. The glare of a brilliant shaft of sunshine through the window felt like a white-hot wire in his head. The pulsing aches inside it magnified themselves a hundred times. After a short pause he wriggled slightly into the shadow and reopened his eyes more cautiously. This time he was successful in keeping them open. Shots of pain tore through his head, but, with the help of agonized facial contortions, it was possible to bear them. For an idle minute he lay regarding the roof of the Sun Bird uncomprehendingly until the memory of events jumped back at him. He shrugged to a sitting position and held his head in his hands. When the throbbing had eased a little, he ventured to look round. The Sun Bird was on an even keel; a slight rise and fall told him that she was afloat.

  ‘Margaret!’ he called suddenly.

  She lay crumpled beside him. The red curls spreading tangled on the floor hid her face. But there was an abandon about her whole pose which acted on him like a physical shock. He turned her over gently to find her face almost as white as the suit she wore. Its only colour was a little streak of blood trickling down her cheek from close by the right eye.

  ‘Margaret!’ he said again.

  But she was breathing still. Her breast rose gently and evenly as though she slept: the pulse was regular, if not very strong. ‘Only a knockout, thank God,’ he thought. He struggled to his feet and, with the help of the seat cushions, arranged her more comfortably. Then he crossed to the window and looked out.

  A nice sort of mess they were in. Something pretty final must have happened to the bunch of rocket tubes at the tail – and that meant the end of their motive power. There was no patching up to be done with rockets; either the system worked, or it was useless. It was lucky that there had been no pre-ignition – that would have meant nothing to show but a few scattered bits at the bottom of the New Sea. The Sun Bird’s hull had of necessity been airtight for stratosphere travel, and it still appeared to be at least watertight – anyhow, there was no sign of leakage yet. Almost certainly one of the mixing chambers for the gases had burst, either through overcharging or on account of a flaw in the casting, and the explosion had carried away the whole group of exhaust tubes, together with both sets of rudders.

  They were floating high, with the entrance well clear of the water. He unfastened the door and pushed it open with the intention of climbing out on the wing to survey the damage. But nothing of either wing remained, save a few twisted rods projecting a foot or more from the plane’s smooth side. Both must have been torn clean away by the force with which they had met the water. By means of considerable scrambling and with a series of efforts which made the pulses in his brain throb and hammer, he managed to use the fragmentary wing supports as a means of scaling the curved side. At last, perched on the roof, he was able fully to realize the predicament.

  The stripped fuselage was rolling gently as it drifted aimlessly upon the rippled surface, no more, now, than a helpless metal hulk looking like a huge, elongated metal eggshell. The sun was already well down in the sky, and with its decline a slight breeze had risen from the north. A number of islands and palm clumps were within sight. Mark silently thanked God that they had fallen clear of them. Directly to the south a palm grove of several acres still survived. It was a bare mile and a half away and the wind was urging him slowly towards it.

  He prayed that the direction would not change. He would feel far safer with his feet on dry land, for though the hull appeared sound enough, only a careful examination could make certain. For all he could now tell there might be a gush of water from a weakened spot at any moment.

  By leaning cautiously over the side he was able to see through the window that the girl had not moved. His hesitation whether he should go down and attempt to revive her was settled by a sudden freshening of the breeze. It was not impossible that they might pass right by the island while he was busy, and though sandy hummocks broke the surface in plenty, no other islet in sight was of such reassuring size and height. To add to his uncertainty the wind veered a few points west and it became a nice point whether they would not miss the island by a good margin. He watched the narrowing space anxiously.

  At a quarter of a mile it became certain that they would clear the most easterly spit by at least fifty yards. Mark decided to take a chance. It should be possible if he swam strongly to tow the wreck sufficiently to one side. He dropped overboard to find that the water came no higher than his armpits, for the islands were the remnants not of sudden hills, but of gradual undulations.

  Towing the Sun Bird ashore proved a longer business than he had anticipated; a man three-quarters submerged has but little weight to give him purchase, and the task was made the harder by the fact that the Mediterranean water is salter and therefore more buoyant than that of the oceans. But the work grew progressively easier as the ground shelved until at last there came the welcome sound of the metal bottom grating on the sand. A few minutes later he had carried Margaret ashore and laid her in the shade of a tree.

  A damp rag cooled her face and wiped away t
he trickle of blood. Her eyelids opened at last unsteadily, as though unwillingly, and the hazel eyes looked up into his. The arched brows straightened into hard lines and came together with deep creases between. Mark, with a sympathetic memory of his own blinding headache, offered a flask of brandy.

  ‘Take some of this; it’ll do you good.’

  She drank without protest and closed her eyes once more. After a few minutes she looked at him again.

  ‘I feel a bit better now. Let me sit up.’

  ‘Certainly not. You lie here a bit longer. You’ve had a nasty bump.’

  ‘What happened?’ she asked.

  Mark explained as far as he was able.

  ‘If I hadn’t been such a fool as to forget about the safety belts, we should have been all right,’ he added. ‘As it is, I don’t see why we haven’t bust our skulls – I deserve to have done.’

  ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. We shall have to stay here for the night, anyhow. It’ll be dark in half an hour. Tomorrow we’ll see what can be managed. It depends mostly on the condition of the Sun Bird – poor old bus, that’s a bit of a misnomer now: she’ll certainly never fly again.’ He looked regretfully at the silver hull gleaming in the last rays of the sun. ‘There’s a little tinned food and a small tank of water inside, so we needn’t starve.’ He looked back at her face a little anxiously. ‘How are you feeling now?’

  ‘Heaps better. Let me sit up.’

  He was still uncertain how his news of the situation was being received.

  ‘I’m damned sorry about all this –’ he began.

  She stopped him. ‘My dear, you couldn’t help it – and even if you could, I’m scarcely in a position to walk home.’

  She was silent for some moments and he saw with surprise the beginning of a smile. He had been prepared for blame, reproaches, irritation, even calm acceptance of the situation – for anything, in fact, except a smile.