Froomb!

by John Lymington

  She pulled him into the darkness of the church. The old man shoved the heavy doors to, grunting on the stones, until they shut. Then he pushed the rusty bolts and swung a bar across. They heard him making some unintelligible plea in the darkness.

  “It was like this before,” Petra said, her voice trembling. “They took my mother. She was burned. I saw it. It was night, like this. They came very suddenly. Nobody expected it. They tortured women first. The poor devils said any name, any name to get relief. It isn’t done to find the guilty, it’s done to frighten, to stamp out rebellion by fear. But they can’t do it.”

  One of the women was whispering some kind of prayer; to which God John did not know. Any God who was deaf; and they all were.

  “It’s all done to seem like accident—as if the crowd gets out Of control and the authorities can’t stop them.” Petra’s voice was a hiss.

  “But why do it at all?” John said, a grim despair racking him. “This should have been all forgotten centuries ago. Why has it come back?”

  He felt bony fingers touch his face, locating him as if

  the old man were blind.

  “You don’t understand, my son. Once people came to church, but then they all went. They believed in the comfort of material things. It led them into disaster, death and decay. Then there was nothing to believe. Everything they had believed before seemed to be illusion. That was hopelessness. Science had taken away God and given them pills, taken away their spirit and made the bodies slaves to artificiality. It brought rot, decay, death without hope. But you cannot kill man. There is always something that wants to go on, always the few who will believe enough to drive a way through stupidity and hatred. These children believe the present ways are wrong. I have grown too old to judge them. But they have fought for a belief, a political one,

  198

  a crude one, some will say a wicked one. But when real belief has become a dust bowl, any faith must be good.”

  He began to chant a psalm and walked slowly away down the aisle toward the altar, a faint glow in the dimness. His madness was firm at last.

  The louder the shouting of the crowd became, and the nearer it seemed to get, the louder, more stupidly triumphant grew his song of praise.

  The others looked toward him. John Brunt felt himself drawing apart spiritually, as if he began to drift in the shadows of the old place, pulling back, away from them seeing them all, even Helen, as smaller people almost lost in the vastness of the floor.

  Hoskins was not surprised to hear Marshall’s voice. He had been expecting some rush movement in this affair, for he recognized a political intrigue in which he, for the moment, took a part but no risk.

  “You want me to get a warrant now?” he said.

  “Yes, now. You have evidence enough to act.”

  “Well, yes, though it could be argued around. But why this time in the morning? Is he there at the flat?”

  “Yes. The Prime Minister will be there, too.”

  It all came to Hoskins in one blinding, brilliant flash. Quite suddenly he saw immense possibilities, and his wrist began to twitch in anticipation. The sunlit waters of the stream sparkled with rainbow colors in his mind’s eye, and he cast into it, just above the pool, where the flies patrolled under the trees and there seemed always that smell of wood- smoke from the village. And he could be there in a knee-deep paradise forever more, comfortable, respected, rich with memories of the great.

  “It’s as you say, sir,” he said, throwing the bedclothes off. Marshall said nothing. His decisions were always beset by apprehensions.

  199

  4

  Wayling came to the flat at three forty-five. Ann gave him tea. Packard watched him, and recognized the tightness of his uneasy mouth and the quick nervous act of stirring tea, though he had taken no sugar.

  “You cheated me,” Wayling said suddenly. “You killed that man after I asked you not to!”

  “No,” Packard said. “When you asked me not to, it was already done.”

  Wayling stirred faster.

  “Why didn’t you tell me then?”

  “If I had it would have made you an accessory.”

  “You know they have found out? Certain members of the Cabinet?”

  “Yes. They’ve found out. Hoskins has been here more than once.” Packard sat down on a vast settee, laying his arms along the back, his legs sprawling wide, spread-eagled to embrace the world. His big head cocked as he watched Wayling and he smiled quizzically. “They know Brunt is missing. They believe he is dead. So he is, for the time being.”

  Wayling put the cup down, nothing drunk.

  “Do you really believe you can bring him back to life?” he said.

  ‘There wouldn’t have been much point to it otherwise, would there?” Packard shouted. “For God’s sake man, do you think I’d kill a man like Brunt for the fun of it?” “No.” Wayling stared down at the scientist. “If you can do it, you must do it now, David. There is no other time for you—or me. I couldn’t deny I knew about it.”

  “I don’t see why you shouldn’t. It’s accepted politics to deny the truth. Who could prove you knew?”

  “I may have made notes, dropped remarks that would mean nothing until now. You know how easily these things build up.” His face was straining hard so that the wrinkles quivered round his mouth. “And there is Ann. You can’t pretend that she isn’t an accessory.”

  200

  “She knows nothing about it.”

  “Oh don’t be a fool! They will not have any difficulty—” “They will have the greatest difficulty,” Packard said and got up. “Ann Gill wasn’t here when I did the job, and she has only walked in at the door now. I have proof from many people that I had no idea where she was. I tried to find her. I rang a dozen people. Besides, do you think I’d carry out that kind of experiment with her about, likely to walk in?” “No, but you’d tell any old lie to get her off,” Wayling said. “Let’s not beat about. You’ve got to bring Brunt back now!” “No. Being too hasty would ruin the experiment. I’ve worked this out to the finest detail. Every known case of revival has been carefully taken into account. I calculate—” “I don’t care what you’ve calculated! Do it now. I must know now if you can do it!”

  “If I do we may never learn the truth!”

  “If you succeed, you can do it again and learn it then. At present we can’t afford to play around with personal enmities—”

  He swung round as Ann came in at the door.

  “I’m sorry, but there is a police message,” she said.

  “Oh Christ!” Wayling hissed like a deflating balloon. “What?” Packard asked.

  “It seemed you rang them about a man you met on the

  Embankment yesterday evening,” Ann said. “The message is that he was found drowned an hour ago, drifting downriver, they estimate dead three hours. He was the fifteenth yesterday.”

  Packard laughed angrily.

  “Thanks, Ann.”

  Wayling pounced on him as Ann closed the door.

  “And that’ll be you if you don’t do as I say!”

  “I didn’t think he’d do it,” Packard said, shaking his head. “I thought the shock would make him think it over again.” “What’s she doing here?” Wayling said. “Taking calls, I mean?”

  “She paid me a special visit to show me the morning paper,” Packard said. “A scurrilous piece about me—” “Which paper?” Packard told him. “That’s Rugeley’s! You know he’s tied up in the Flightend business! Why has he done that? If he had waited—”

  “You could have told him you’d about-faced and pushed me in the manure,” Packard said, booming with anger. “I

  201

  wonder you didn’t expect my resignation when you walked in here. If you must know, that’s been on my mind ever since you did walk in.”

  “To the devil with Flightend!” Wayling said. “It’s a minor affair. What you’re doing could hang you and
bring down the bloody government. With the economy in the state it’s in—”

  “Let it fall then,” Packard said. “If it’s let the economy get in such a state.”

  “Outside pressures—"

  “Just tell me this. Do you intend to do what you said on the phone last night—about Flightend?”

  “We must!”

  ‘Then I’ll resign and fight you from outside. /’// become an outside pressure, Dicky!”

  “If you don’t find yourself hanging!”

  “If John Brunt doesn’t come back, do you think I would mind? I would die for this experiment. He did no less.” Both men turned as the door opened again. Parker Moll came in, looking from one to the other, Ann behind him. “I had to come, Dave.”

  “Good. You can speak in front of the Prime Minister.” Packard grinned. Wayling turned away, his face white, angry, afraid.

  “He’ll know, anyway,” Parker said. “This thing will snowball. I’ve had a scurrilous phone call. About you, about all of us. Using human bodies for experiment, live ones. Some early bird saw a paper, it seems. I saw your light on up here, so—”

  “Nice of you to come, Park.”

  “How in heck did anyone get hold of a story like that?” “It’s true, Park. Not about you, but about me.”

  Parker looked at the scientist, then nodded.

  “Okay, Dave. I know there’s a reason.”

  “There’ll be more of these calls,” Ann said. “There’ll be a flood of them. The fact that one came so early, roundabout, to Park, points to the owner of the paper putting them up to it. He can put them up to anything. You can expect a demonstration on the steps down there. He’s going to make something of it, David, you can see that if you’d trouble to read the paper instead of sitting on it.”

  “He would. She’s right,” Wayling said, his jaw working like a trap. “You know Rugeley. He’ll throw in anything

  202

  dirty. Even you can’t stand up against the sort of publicity be can organize. Don’t be pigheaded, David! If you succeed now, your triumph is the same as if you left it another twelve hours!”

  “But all the records show that twenty-four hours—”

  “You’d sink us all for twelve hours you can’t even prove the necessity for!” Wayling said.

  Packard looked from him to Parker, from Parker to Ann. They were all of one mind. He knew them too well not to read their faces.

  He turned his back.

  “It would be cowardice,” he said.

  Suddenly Jie thought of the television screens in the direct line room, and the purple^of night creeping over the Eastern mountains, and the lights olSthe sites blinking out in the dark. The sun going down, perhaps for the last time.

  “I can’t concentrate,” he said, passing a hand across his forehead.

  “There’s no need,” Wayling said. “There must be a button to press. Press it! End this doubt now. If you succeed, everything will be cleared up. It will clear itself with the pressing of the button, David. Do it now!”

  “What if he comes back,” Packard said savagely, “but with nothing! Suppose he has gone ahead of us somewhere, suppose he could see what will happen to us, and suppose he comes back without ever having penetrated the mystery— just for the sake of a few hours! Don’t you realize how much could hang on this decision? It could affect the whole future of mankind, and you want me to rush in, to deny what I believe, for the sake of saving your own skin and mine. That’s the bloody truth of the matter, Dicky.”

  Ann turned away. Parker looked toward her as if agreeing with her. Wayling stood there, his jaw working in his white face, saying nothing.

  -5

  The shouting and yelling was muffled by the thickness of the church walls, but the dancing yellow flames of stick

  203

  torches flared and writhed behind the stained glass windows, sometimes glaring through in a bright star where the glass had been knocked out a long time ago.

  At the end of the church the old clergyman yelled his psalm as if trying to drown out the noise of the crowd, or to stop himself from hearing the awful sound.

  There was a crash above the heads of the little group near the door. A long panel of stained glass bulged inward, but its leaden network held against the impact of a heavy stone.

  Petra came close to John.

  “Get her out of this,” she said urgently. “Hide her in the tower. She’s nothing to do with it.” /

  There was the same hardness in her, the same unyielding wish to master. If she had any pity it was not for herself.

  It seemed that the others had agreed, for they turned away to look outward to the windows. He saw Margaret’s lips moving and the streaks of tears on her cheeks.

  There was a strange light shifting through the great shadowy hall, a mixture of wild colors as the flares caught and flashed in the stained glass windows. Faces became suddenly red, then flicked to green. He saw them praying, lips moving, eyes staring at death.

  There was a savage battering at the great doors, someone striking it with a heavy stick.

  “Come out!” A shrill voice shouted authoritatively. “Come out or it will be burned down!”

  He saw Petra’s face in a sudden movement of colored light across the nave.

  “Better that than taken out and burned there,” she said. “Better that. I saw my mother!”

  The door jarred suddenly, then again. They were trying to break it in, but John saw the stout iron bar stretched across the bolted wood. It did not shift under the blows.

  Petra shoved him suddenly.

  “Get her out of here!” she cried again. “They won’t know! There’s a chance.”

  He had Helen held close to him. As the heavy blows shook the doors, she trembled, but that was all.

  In the shifting, changing light he saw an old ladder lying beside the end wall, where the rotted bell ropes still trailed like dead worms. He left the girl and went to it. He heaved it from the wall. It felt curiously soft. As he turned it to

  204

  swing it into the vertical it struck a stone column and shattered. He let the rest face against a pew back.

  The shouting was violent, pulsing with the battering on the door. It grew angrier when the smashing stopped. It was a confused, roaring sea of sound, insane, terrifying.

  There was a sudden flash and spurt of flame at the bottom join of the old doors. The licking fire came through the gap, doubtfully, then more brightly, then angrily, flaring. He saw the shiny faces of the women staring at it, eyes bright in the flickering light as the flame began creeping up the join between the doors.

  The shouting became sustained for a minute or more, screams Ailing in when others stopped for breath. In it he could hear shrieked words, always the same: “The witches! The witches!’ ’

  John Brunt shouted with fury at the insanity of it, at the artificial, brutal tempest of a mob justifying itself, pleasing a mastery they hated and feared. There were political witches out there too, probably shrieking louder than any to escape suspicion.

  He held Helen by the arm, his heart pounding.

  “What are you going to do?” she said, shouting above the din.

  The burning door began to hiss as the flames ate up to its top. There was a crash near the altar, repeated twice. A stained glass window began to bulge inward, was smashed in further, then finally ripped out of the frame so that it swung down like a twisted flap. There was a sudden burst of sound from outside as the window fell. A spear of flame came whirling in at the opening, laying a trail of oily smoke and sparks. It crashed to the seat of the front pew, rolled along, sparking and smoking as if it would go out, then fell off to the floor in a shower of red sparks and whirling smoke. It thudded under the seat, half died, and then the yellow flame burst upward, throwing a great wide beam of firelight across the floor. The old man knelt at the altar, and did not look round as the whole of his faded gilt and marble began to g
low in flickering fire colors.

  “Put it out!” John shouted, starting toward it.

  Petra caught his arm and threw him against a pew end.

  “Leave it!” she said. “You can’t fight this! Get the girl out of here somehow.”

  He stood quite still, hearing the sea of overwhelming

  205

  sound, the sound of pain and suffering, of torture and burning death. The sweat was on him, sweat bursting from the wish to live, to escape, to run away. Bassington had been right. It had been his nature to do that all the time. To escape, to run away, to flee from pain and memory. The weakness, the coward’s streak, like iron in a wilting soul. The will to escape, to break through, to use every strength, every sense, every art to get away. The coward streak.

  “Get yourself out, then!” Jo shouted. “We might stand a chance if you go. They want you. The old man said so. Get out and let’s chance it!”

  He backed a pace along the aisle. He did not look at Helen. The roaring in his ears was like a knell. It was the breaking moment and he was terrified. The noise screamed in his head.

  “I know a way!” he cried desperately. “I know a way up there! I’ll show you!”

  His shouting was thin as a whisper against the howling and shouting outside. He saw Petra smile horribly.

  “Get her out if you can,” she said. “Don’t think these are just a mob being led by those bastards. I remember my mother. A lot of them reveled in it. It roused them. Try and get the girl out. She had nothing to do with it—”

  Another torch came in and crashed behind the heels of the kneeling man. Still he did not move. The front pew was alight, its rotten wood crumbling quickly in the heat. The old man screamed out his prayer, broke off, gasped breath as if it tortured him right through and then screamed again, unbeaten.

  Suddenly John’s emotions burst.

  “Packard!” he shouted, his voice almost lost in the howling and crashing of destruction. “Packard! for God’s sake! It must be time! Packard!”

  He felt Helen’s hands gripping his arm. He turned and saw her face upturned to his in the flickering, multicolored fire.

  “No!” he panted, grabbing her hands. “Don’t do it yet!” He pulled her along between the pews. “You remember the way, Helen. You remember! Out on the roof, you remember. But you mustn’t fall off now! You stay there when we get up in the tower. I can come back. They can’t kill me. I know that now. No man can kill me again—not here. I have to go back, you see—”