The Secret People

by John Wyndham

  Nevertheless, the full implication did not come home for some minutes. When it did, it was in a flood of thanksgiving which completely swept away the earlier misery of her defeat. It had been worth it – worth all the agony. The victory was hers after all. Had she given in only half an hour earlier, Miguel would have won. He would have got through the caves unmolested, and now be floating down the subterranean river. No other tonic could have acted with the power of that realization – the sense of triumph flowed in like a surge of new strength.

  But it was not physical strength. Her muscles remained heavy and slack; it was an exertion to lift one arm. When she did raise it, she found that the hand was wrapped in a thick bundle of bandages. She tried the other hand, and found that it had been similarly treated. Feeling utterly helpless, she called out in a voice which surprised her by its weakness. There was a scraping on the roof; presently Mark swung himself in through the open door. He bent over her.

  ‘Better, darling?’

  She smiled up at him, and tilted her head farther back. He kissed her lips.

  ‘Ever so much. What’s happened?’

  ‘Never mind about that now. Just lie quiet. I’ll get you some food.’

  ‘I couldn’t eat it, but I’d like a drink.’

  ‘What sort? Tea?’

  ‘Tea? Did you say tea?’

  Mark laughed. ‘Yes, tea. We’re almost civilized again. You can have tea or cocoa, but there’s no brandy left.’

  ‘Tea,’ Margaret chose firmly. ‘You know,’ she added, ‘I never really thought I’d ever drink tea again.’

  ‘Soon you’ll be able to have all the tea in the world – we’re going to get out of this.’ Mark started up a small electric stove, and rummaged in a cupboard for the tea caddy as he talked. ‘Just as soon as the others come back we’re going to cast off and slide away down the river.’

  ‘The others?’ she said. ‘Who are they?’

  ‘There’s Smith, who is tough, but has brains as well. He’s American. There’s Ed, who is tougher and more American. And Gordon, who is English, in spite of his name. He’s an archaeologist. Just the three of ’em. There were more.’

  ‘I heard that there were over a hundred of you.’

  ‘Oh yes. What I meant was that our party was bigger. We had Zickle, the nigger, and Mahmud, who was some kind of Arab.’

  ‘What happened to them?’

  Mark hesitated.

  ‘You ought to rest, you know.’

  ‘Nonsense, Mark. I’ve been asleep for Heaven knows how long. I want to know what’s happened. I don’t understand it at all. You and the rest are supposed to be in the prison caves – not only in them, but besieged there – instead, you’re wandering about here. And all the way with Miguel I didn’t see a single pygmy. Tell me all about it while I drink the tea.’

  Mark gave an account of the pygmy attacks, and their defeat.

  ‘But didn’t they try to smoke you out? Miguel said something –’

  ‘Yes, that was their last move. They’d have brought it off, too, if the water hadn’t come in.’

  ‘Where from?’

  ‘From the tunnel our people had been making. They must have got through just in time.’

  ‘What happened to them?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘But weren’t they washed down?’

  ‘We didn’t see them. I expect they got jammed in there, poor devils.’

  ‘What happened when the water came into your cave?’

  ‘Luckily it couldn’t come at a great rate, the tunnel was too small for that, so we had plenty of time to get ready.’

  He went on to tell of the building of rafts from mushroom trunks. Margaret interrupted again:

  ‘But what had happened to the pygmies?’

  ‘Oh, they’d gone. One look at the water was enough for them – and we weren’t far behind them. It wasn’t very difficult to get along. The water really rose quite slowly – particularly when it had to flood the larger caves. What worried me most was that I couldn’t remember whether it was a gradual rise all the way to the prison cave’s entrance. If so, we should be all right, but if there was a dip, or more than one dip on the way, we’d probably get trapped. But I needn’t have worried, for there were no dips worth troubling about. The other worry was lest the pygmies might trap us. You know what they do when there’s a break – knock in the passage at a strategic point, and sacrifice all the part that’s beyond it. If they did that and we were on the wrong side of the fall, it would be all up.

  ‘Luckily they didn’t. We just kept on pushing the rafts ahead and making better time than the water. Once or twice we even had to wait until the water rose enough to float the front raft before we could get along. It was as simple as could be. We never got a glimpse of a pygmy or a “native” or anyone else the whole way. In fact, it was too good to last. The balloon went up when we reached the last big cave.

  ‘Of course you’ve never seen that particular cave. It’s one of the biggest in the whole place, I should think. At one end is the passage through which we came, and at the other is the only connection between that system and this. And it’s a narrow connection, too. Quite a small passage, and before you can get at it, you’ve got to reach a ledge a hundred feet up the bare wall. Well, I hadn’t thought a great deal on what we should do when we got there. I’d got a rough idea that we’d just sit on our rafts while the water rose and floated them up to the ledge, and I hadn’t reckoned at all with what else we might find.

  ‘We came in to discover one of the nastiest shemozzles I’ve ever seen in full swing. Every living soul in the prison caves had rushed there at the first alarm; the pygmies, the prisoners themselves and the “natives”, too, and the whole lot had arrived at just about the same time. On the ledge was a crowd of pygmies dangling ropes to haul their pals up, but everybody else wanted those ropes, too. Some of the prisoners were trying to climb up, and the little devils at the top were jerking to shake them off. The pygmies down below were hardly having a look in. Everybody else was dead sure that if anybody was going to be saved, it wouldn’t be pygmies, and the little chaps were coming in for a rough time. But those up on top were just as sure that they weren’t going to save prisoners while pygmies were left to drown. They succeeded in dislodging most of the climbers so that they fell on those below. If they couldn’t get rid of them that way, they just cut the ropes and let ’em drop. Everyone that dropped from fifty or sixty feet laid out four or five of the scrappers below. So far as I could see, not a single prisoner had reached the top yet, and it didn’t look as if any would.

  ‘Already the water was ankle-deep at the base of the wall, and everyone there was pretty nearly mad with fright. I don’t blame them – it’s not a nice lookout when you know the water’s going to rise and trap you. And swimming – which only a few of the prisoners and none of the pygmies knew – wouldn’t help them. Those who could swim might have a little longer to wait for the end, that was all. As it was, the whole lot had lost their heads, and were hitting out wildly in a blind panic. And in the middle of it all we came out of the passage, shoving our rafts.

  ‘It was a minute or two before anybody noticed us, but when they did – well, it beats description. They just forgot about their own scrapping, and came for us. We didn’t stand a chance. There were only a few of us, and hundreds of them, wild with fright. There were fists and stones and a few knives, and the women raked with hands like claws. They’d have had our eyes out in a couple of minutes. Smith yelled to us to get back. Most of us did, but a few stuck to their rafts and tried to defend them – I don’t know what happened to them. We saw them go down in the rush, and that was all.

  ‘Then, of course, another scrap started. There wasn’t a tenth the number of rafts necessary to carry them all, and they started in to settle who was going to be saved, and who was going to drown. It was a nastier fight than I ever want to see again. The water down our end of the cave was waist-deep now and the prime tactic of the day s
eemed to be to thrust an opponent under and stand on him or her while one clutched firmly to the raft with one hand and defended the position with the other. The screeching and shouting in most of the languages of Africa and Europe was ear-splitting. We stood back with Smith and watched.

  ‘What his plan was, I don’t know. I thought at the time that he intended to let the rest put one another out of action before he charged in to recover some, at least, of the rafts. Even two would be enough for our particular party, for a couple of mushroom trunks would support a considerable number provided that they were content to cling to the sides instead of climbing on top. Possibly that was his idea; anyhow, we stood and watched with our backs to the tunnel through which we had just come. I was beginning to wonder whether it wasn’t about time to take a hand when I got a nudge in the back. I looked round to find a big mushroom trunk which had drifted gently out of the tunnel on the rising stream.

  ‘We needn’t have made those rafts at all. The way we had come was simply full of floating logs and puff-balls. Whether they were the scattered remains of our rampart, or of fungi newly broken off by the water, I don’t know, but, wherever they came from, there were plenty of them. The fighting round the rafts stopped almost at once, and there was a rush at the flotsam. Soon, there was more than enough rubbish drifting in to support the lot of us.

  ‘Our small group got hold of three trunks, and by the time we had managed to get a couple of ropes round them and scramble on top, the water was up to our armpits.

  ‘Up the other end of the cave, the pygmies on the ledge were working furiously to save such of their pals as were still standing. Little white figures went swinging and bumping up the perpendicular face to the top. Then the ropes were untied, and thrown down for another load. They were working mighty quickly against time, but time looked like winning. Already, even at that shallower end, the water was waist-high on the pygmies, and there were still scores of them to be hauled up. Most of them were scared stiff or practically screaming with fright and hitting at the water as if they could push it away. Poor little devils – most of them had never seen more water than there is in a drinking bowl or a small stream, until the breaks started.

  ‘We began to paddle over with our hands, taking as much floating rubbish with us as we could. After all, you can’t sit by and watch even pygmies drown like that; you forget you’ve been fighting them an hour or two before.

  ‘Then it was just a matter of waiting while the water rose and gradually lifted the lot of us towards the ledge. The pygmies up above craned over and looked at us, and held long discussions. It was pretty clear what they were talking about. If they were to close the tunnel leading to the outer caves, they would not only seal the break, but finish with us as well: on the other hand, all the pygmies (and there were plenty of them) floating about with us would have to be sacrificed. They were faced with the nasty point of whether it was worth it. Eventually, they decided it was not. Not so much, I think, from humanitarianism as from a fatalistic sense of defeat. I don’t think they had much feeling of gratitude towards us for saving their pals – though that may be an injustice; but the idea that the pygmy world is doomed, and that they can do nothing to save it, has been growing of late, and, with it, the notion that whatever they do doesn’t matter a great deal.

  ‘Anyhow, whatever the reason, they waited until we were about halfway up, and began shouting down to those with us; then they went away. Mahmud explained that the suggestion was that we should all get out together, and that the pygmies with us should stay and close the passage behind them in order to confine the water to the prison system.

  ‘And, to cut it short, that’s what happened. We gave them a hand; the minute the tunnel was closed, they scampered off, and Mahmud with them. We’ve scarcely seen one of them since. I think they’ve gone north to the highest levels. Mahmud didn’t think much of the Sun Bird idea, and held that the safest course was to keep with them. The rest of the prisoners scattered in groups, looking for ways out. We stuck together, trying to find the old Sun Bird; it seemed the best bet.’

  ‘And when you’d found her?’ Margaret asked.

  ‘The others were going downstream to find a way out.’

  ‘Not you?’

  ‘There was still something in the caves that I wanted more than my liberty – I was going to look for it.’

  She smiled up at him.

  ‘Darling.’

  After the interlude, she said, with a frown:

  ‘But Miguel – what happened to him?’

  He gave Smith’s account of the fight. She shuddered.

  ‘Pool Miguel.’

  ‘What?’ Mark exclaimed, looking down at the bandages on her hands. ‘After that?’

  ‘He was weak. He almost cried as he did it. Perhaps in different circumstances …’

  Mark stared speechlessly.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ he managed at last.

  ‘Never mind, dear, I didn’t expect it. Tell me what’s happened to the others. Didn’t you say there were three of them?’

  ‘They’ve gone to cut up some mushrooms – there’s not much food aboard for five. They ought to be back soon.’

  Mounted upon the Sun Bird’s instrument board was an electric clock. With the discovery that it was still going, the passage of time became suddenly more important. The recent mental habits became superseded by the old outlook. The clock stood for change and progress, its moving hands were a constant reminder of time wasted, things to be done and, more uncomfortably, things that now never could be done. Margaret stared at it with fascination and dislike. There had been points in favour of the timeless existence once one got used to it. To see the hands sliding irrevocably over the numbers, brushing them into the past, depressed her. There was much to be said for a permanent today which had no finished, inflexible yesterdays …

  The hands had covered an hour before a hail called Mark from the cabin. She heard him shout an answering greeting, and felt the Sun Bird manoeuvred until her door was against the ramp. Mark came back with two tattered men, bearded like himself. Their large size crowded the little cabin.

  ‘Smith and Ed,’ he introduced. ‘Where’s Gordon?’

  ‘Comin’ along right behind us,’ said Smith.

  He inquired how Margaret was feeling now, and made uncomplimentary references to Miguel.

  ‘Say, I’m almost sorry Zickle got him. I’d have liked to show him where he got off, myself.’

  ‘It’ll soon be all right,’ she assured him. ‘It might have been worse.’ She thought with a shudder of the thin stone knife.

  Smith looked down at her and shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘That must be the Christian spirit they used to tell me about at school. By God, if a guy had done tricks like that to me –’ He left the sentence unfinished, and turned to Mark. ‘We’d best get the stuff aboard – no good wastin’ time.’

  The other two went outside and started to hand in slabs of mushroom head, which Smith stowed carefully in the stern.

  Gordon came down the slope just as they were finishing. He held one hand behind his back; the other was empty. Beside him stalked a rusty-looking cat.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ Mark demanded. ‘We were beginning to think you’d got yourself into trouble – and, anyhow, you were supposed to be fetching mushrooms. Where are they?’

  Gordon shook his head.

  ‘I forgot them,’ he admitted. ‘But look what I did get.’

  He brought the hand from behind his back and held out a shining globe, somewhat smaller than those which glowed in the cavern roof. The others came round him.

  ‘It took some time to get it off,’ he explained.

  The cat left his side, and prowled towards the door of the Sun Bird. It disappeared within.

  ‘But what’s the idea?’ Smith asked. ‘We’ve got electric light, and the batteries are not down yet, not by a long way.’

  Gordon regarded him pityingly.

  ‘You poor mutt,’ he said, slipp
ing for once into the alien tongue. ‘Don’t you see what we’ve got? Cold light, man. No waste by heat, no power supply necessary, depreciation scarcely noticeable. It’ll mean millions for all of us. Why, there’s nothing we couldn’t get for it, once we’ve analysed the stuff inside. Cold light; it’s been the dream of the world, like – like the universal solvent – and we’ve got it.’

  Smith grunted.

  ‘Maybe you’re right, but we ain’t out of this yet. Come on. Stow it aboard. We’ve got enough mushrooms, anyway.’

  They crammed into the little cabin. A gingery bundle of fur had curled itself up on Margaret’s lap.

  ‘Look,’ she said. ‘Bast’s come back. Where did you find her?’

  ‘Bast? Oh, that cat. I don’t know. It came sniffing around while I was getting the lamp. When I came back, it came too.’

  ‘I thought she was dead, poor thing.’

  ‘You can’t kill ’em,’ said Smith. ‘African cats are made that way. Now, stow that light some place, Gordon, and we’ll get goin’.’

  He climbed to the roof, while Ed stepped on to the ramp, and loosed the moorings.

  ‘OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  Ed gave a mighty heave, and scrambled aboard.

  The Sun Bird slid out upon the cavern lake. Towards the middle she swung a little in the gentle current. She turned, drifting slowly towards the black hole in the wall. The beam of the searchlight sprang ahead. The sides of the passage closed upon her. The blue-white lamps of the cavern fell behind.

  8

  ‘Light ahead.’ Smith’s voice came echoing back to the rest.

  Almost too good to be true. So many hours of climbing through natural tunnels, narrow clefts, booming caves and up all but impossible ‘chimneys’ had wearied them almost to hopelessness. Had it not been for the doggedness of the two Americans they would have given up long ago, and stayed to die in some corner of the labyrinth. It was chiefly Ed’s amazing strength which had brought them so far, for it was he who, by bracing back against one side, and hands and feet against the other, had managed to scale the perpendicular ‘chimneys’, and throw down a rope to the rest.