Rain was falling outside. As it was Sunday, he had been allowed to sleep late, until seven. The time before lunch had been spent on various domestic chores; this afternoon Routledge was due at Godwin’s to do some extra calculations. Each weekday he had risen at four-thirty, worked for most of the morning on the construction of his house, eaten lunch, reported to Godwin’s at one and worked there until nine, when he had been left with the strength only to stumble into bed and fall asleep. He felt deeply fatigued, but the fatigue was not unwelcome: it helped him to forget.
He had not wanted to expend the mental effort needed for chess, but the alternative, the possible loss of King’s company, had seemed worse.
“Do you want to put your bishop back where it was?” King said.
“No. I’ve moved it now.”
“Then it’s mate in four. You’re in Zugzwang.”
“What’s that?”
“Any move you make lands you in hot water.”
“That, at least, I can see.” Routledge considered for a moment longer. “I resign,” he said.
“There’s one chess story, doubtless apocryphal, from the Middle Ages. Nothing was said during the whole game. Suddenly one of the players leapt up, grabbed the board, and brought it down endways on his opponent’s head. That’s the sort of game it is.” King was setting up the pieces once more. “Another?”
“I don’t think my nerves can stand it.” Routledge glanced at the alarm clock: the time was nearly one. “Besides, I ought to get over to Mr Godwin’s.”
King closed the lid on his chess set, snapping the catch, and in that instant Routledge realized how much he liked the older man. During the past week his opinion of King had been rising steadily.
At the start of their first chess game, Routledge – who, although he had not played since his schooldays, had always thought himself a formidable opponent – had assumed automatically that he would win. He had viewed with complacency King’s quiet development of his pieces, feeling his first twinge of alarm only when he saw he had blundered straight into an elegant and silken trap. It appeared that King had judged him nicely, using his own confidence as a weapon. And so it proved in real life. Routledge now regretted and felt ashamed of his first estimate. Little escaped King’s notice. Half a dozen words were all it took for him to understand a complex idea that another man might never have seen. If Routledge wanted to keep any secrets, he knew he would have to be careful what he said. King had noted Routledge’s initial opinion, and not taken offence. He mixed easily and freely with the other villagers, was popular without currying favour and, above all, showed respect for his social and mental inferiors.
This attitude was in marked contrast with the one Routledge had brought with him to Sert. Routledge had begun to see it; he had already, under King’s influence, begun trying to modify his behaviour. And yet, except for King, he had not met anyone remotely sympathetic. With those like himself, on the lower rungs, he had nothing in common. Franks fascinated him, but his fascination was tinged with fear. Appleton and the rest of the upper echelon were simply unpleasant, and that included Godwin, whose subtly sarcastic manner was second only to his conceit as a polluter of the atmosphere in the workshop. Fitzmaurice did not help. He had made it plain that he resented Routledge’s presence and regarded his contribution as unnecessary.
“Hullo,” he said, as Routledge opened the door.
“Mr Godwin not here?”
“As you can see. He left your work on the table.”
Fitzmaurice insisted on saying “the table” rather than “your desk”, which is what it had now become. Routledge sat down.
Suddenly he decided he had had enough. It was time to snatch up the board and bring it down on Fitzmaurice’s head. “Have you decided what sort of transducers to use?” he said.
Fitzmaurice was clearly startled. “Come again?”
“For the sonar.”
“What sonar?”
“The sonar I’m helping you design. That one.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Even if Mr Appleton hadn’t given the game away, I would have guessed by now.”
“We’re talking at cross purposes, Mr Routledge.”
“Mr Appleton asked me what I knew about piezoelectric devices, about electronics, acoustics. We’re stuck on an island. How do you get off islands? By boat. Just what sort of idiot do you take me for?”
“I don’t take you for any sort of idiot, Mr Routledge.” Fitzmaurice got up from the bench. “I’ve got one or two things to attend to,” he said, moving towards the door. “I’ll see you later.”
“Tell Mr Godwin he’s not using me properly. I can do better than this. Understand?”
Routledge had stepped far beyond the bounds of safety. This was a gamble, a calculated risk. If he was ever to get anywhere in the Community, he had to start now, and the man to start with was Fitzmaurice.
No rebuke was forthcoming. Fitzmaurice donned his oilskin and opened the door. “As I say, I’ll see you later.”
∗ ∗ ∗
When he saw Godwin’s face, Routledge wondered whether he had indeed gone too far. Godwin took off his raincoat and hung it by the door, removed his wellington boots, and, slowly, deliberately, pulled on the old tennis shoes he used in the workshop.
He had arrived without Fitzmaurice, who, Routledge supposed, was even at this moment conveying to Franks the news that their secret had been rumbled. Routledge thought of Myers, and Talbot, and regretted having spoken. Godwin might be followed to the workshop by an armed deputation, and Routledge might well end his afternoon at the bottom of the cliffs.
“Sit down, please,” Godwin said.
He went to the bench and sat down himself, his back to the window, so that Routledge had difficulty in making out his features.
“Mr Fitzmaurice tells me you believe we’re not using you properly. What do you mean by that?”
“It means … I feel I could contribute more.”
“To what?”
“To the work here.”
“Isn’t that for me to judge?”
“Yes, Mr Godwin. Of course. Only …”
“Only what?”
Routledge swallowed. Who were these people, anyway? He looked up, directly at Godwin’s face. “I think I know what you’re building. If I’m right, I believe I could be of greater service to you. If I’m wrong, then I am being presumptuous and I apologize.”
“I think you are being presumptuous in either event.”
“A matter of opinion.”
Godwin expelled his breath and glanced out of the window before speaking again. “Tell me what you think we’re building.”
“Ultimately, a boat. At the moment, a sonar. If the sonar can be made to work, you’ll start on the boat.”
“And where is this ‘boat’ going to go?”
“Away from Sert.”
“And its destination?”
“Devon or Cornwall. Some deserted cove.”
“Aren’t you forgetting about the Magic Circle?”
“The sonar isn’t all you’re working on.”
“Is that so?”
“You’ve found some way to beat the system.”
“Have I, now?”
“I don’t ask for a place on the boat, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m not blackmailing anyone.”
“Big of you.”
“No. I just don’t want to get chucked over the cliffs.”
Godwin expelled another breath, more heavily this time. “Mr Routledge,” he said, after a moment. “You have a great deal to learn about the Community. No one is going to chuck you over the cliffs. You are one of us. Any man in the Village would defend you with his life. Not because he likes the colour of your eyes, but because he would expect you to do the same for him.” Against the window, Godwin’s silhouette was bathed in bluish light. “I can now do one of two things. I can remove you from the project with an admonition to say nothing about what you believe you have discovere
d, or I can let you in on the full details of the plan. Either way, if you reveal anything, no matter how slight, to anyone in the Village, anyone, you’ll be across that border hedge so fast your feet won’t touch the ground. Get the picture?”
Routledge nodded.
“You’re good at sums, I’ll grant you that.” Godwin half turned and absently leafed through some papers on his bench. “You’ve already proved your worth.” He picked up a pencil and began turning it end over end against the papers, pushing it through the fingers of his right hand. After several turns he let the pencil drop. “All right. Tell me what you know about sonar.”
“Not much, specifically. The basic idea. But I know the physics.”
“Then let me tell you what’s going on here. You’re right, the Father wants to build a boat. It will carry twelve men: Mr Appleton, Mr Thaine, me, and the Father himself. When and if he decides to go ahead with it, he will announce a lottery for the eight remaining places. Like Mr Fitzmaurice, you will have to take your chances, assuming by then you still want to go. You’re also right in thinking that without a sonar the boat would never get away from the island. Why that is, and how we hope to evade the Magic Circle, I shall not yet tell you. All you need to know about, for now, is the sonar. As you may have gathered, there are lots of problems, most of which are caused by a shortage of components. We’re tackling it on three fronts. We’ve already made a simple system using parabolic reflectors. The transmitting reflector contains a modified radio loudspeaker fed with a high frequency blip from a loop tape. The receiver is simply a pair of microphones, each in its own reflector, connected to a stereo amplifier and headphones. From the nature of the feedback the operator deduces the profile of the bottom. It works, but the image is much too crude for safety. The second approach uses the remote control circuitry from Mr Appleton’s flatscreen. This allows better imaging, but the range is restricted, and as water turbidity increases the image dies. Inshore it wouldn’t be good enough. Does all this mean anything to you?”
“Yes. I understand.”
“The final option is a full-blown rig with single or double switched piezoelectric or electrostrictive transducers. We haven’t got very far with it. Without a computer, we still can’t establish the optimum beamwidth, pulse frequency or wavelength, or even the best type and configuration of transducer. In the end we may have to settle for magnetostrictive rather than piezoelectric or electrostrictive transducers, but at the moment a twin-array piezoelectric system seems the most promising. The trouble with the final option is the number of variables to consider. Each model takes about a fortnight to calculate out. Change one variable and the whole model must be worked through again. That’s where you come in.”
“I see.”
“Now the cat’s out of the bag you might as well look at the original papers.” From below the bench Godwin produced a thick folder. “If you can find any way to save time on the mathematics, I suppose my confidence in you will be justified.” He shook his head, as if reproving himself for his own trusting credulity. “I’ll put the kettle on. When Mr Fitzmaurice gets back, we’ll have a cup of tea.”
9
By the middle of September the structure of Routledge’s house was complete. On the morning of the twenty-third, before starting at Godwin’s, he was able to move in.
Since the end of August the weather had been deteriorating daily. North had entered the wind: the sea, grey and desolate, was becoming rougher than ever, at high tide this morning driving towers of spume across the rocks in Vanston Cove. At night the beam of the southern lightship turned to its slow and lonely beat, sweeping the miles to the island coast and out to the empty seas beyond. Between Vanston Cove and America lay nothing but that expanse of waves, the same each day, the same horizon. Notwithstanding all its changes in hue and aspect, in light and shade, in agitation and direction, the sea always remained the same, encircling, debarring, a manifestation of the mainland’s implacable, merciless indifference to his fate. After ten weeks on the island, Routledge no longer liked even to look at it.
He was trying to turn his vision inwards. Best of all he liked fog. Except for the dismal sound of the lightship’s horn, he could almost imagine then that he was on part of some continent, that to east or north lay vast tracts of terrain across which, if he only chose, he could journey on foot for ever.
Luckily the plot Appleton had given him was on the landward side of the bungalow, a couple of hundred metres from King’s house and looking out over as yet unpopulated ground.
Moving in would have been a daunting task to accomplish on his own, but in this as in the preceding weeks of work he was helped by King and by Ojukwu, who had made much of the framework, the door, the two shutters, and Routledge’s bed, chair, and table.
Many others in the Village had contributed to the job: at least twenty men had been involved in one way or another. King had been the most generous of himself and his time, ensuring that Routledge kept to the schedule for completion that Appleton had laid down.
The bulk of the work, though, Routledge had had to do himself. First he had cleared the gorse by machete and dug up the roots, then used pick and shovel to level the soil and prepare for the foundations. The smaller twigs and branches had been taken by donkey-cart to the compost heaps over a kilometre away; the roots and the bigger branches had had to go to the woodyard. With the donkey-cart he had brought lumps of stone from the cliffs, and turf from Bag Head. Under the guidance of a man named Phelps he had learned how to choose and place the stones and how to cram the interstices with clay. Contrary to Routledge’s first impression, the resulting walls were hard packed and extremely strong, forming a solid base for the timber framework of the roof, which was covered with overlapping plates of rock and then a layer of turf.
The interior comprised one room, five metres by six, with two windows and a fireplace. Four pillars helped to support the ceiling. In most features the accommodation resembled King’s, and indeed it was King himself who had suggested the design, which, with minor variations, had been adopted for many of the single-occupancy houses in the Village.
The structure contravened nearly every code of building practice Routledge knew, but it would give him shelter and had been made as economically as possible with the materials available. For the load-bearing beams and roof members he had been given seasoned fir, but most of the timber had arrived on Sert with the tide. In August Daniels had rescued over a ton of first-quality Swedish marine ply, in various thicknesses, and some of this had been incorporated into the shutters and door, and into the table that Routledge and Ojukwu were now bringing down from the carpentry shop, while King and Carter, carrying some shelves and the final bundle of Routledge’s possessions, came behind.
There was a chill in the air. Spots of rain were one by one darkening the surface of the tabletop.
“Better be quick with that table,” Carter said. “You don’t want to spoil the French polish.”
“I got your French polish, Mr Carter,” Ojukwu said.
Carter laughed. He was twenty-six, a white man, dark-haired and sallow. With two others, he shared Ojukwu’s house. He seemed unusually close to Ojukwu; just recently Routledge had begun to wonder about them. So far in the Village he had detected no signs of homosexuality, but, notwithstanding the rules and the punishment it incurred, he was certain it must exist, if only in a sublimated form.
The house smelled of earth and of freshly sawn wood. Mounting the threshold, Routledge acknowledged in full the feeling of achievement that had been growing within him during the past weeks. Despite the crudeness of the design, the house had taken all his skill and strength to bring to completion. The interior was as yet lacking in comfort and personality, but, given time, he knew he could make it habitable. And though he did not admit it to himself, in a curious way he was looking forward to living here, to being free at last of King’s interference with the full development of his sense of grievance and self-pity.
“Where d’you want the tab
le?” Ojukwu said.
“By the window, please.”
King and Carter began placing shelves on brackets.
“Really, leave that,” Routledge said. “You’ve done enough. I’d like to offer you all something to eat, but I’ve got to be at Mr Godwin’s in ten minutes. This evening. Could you come then? I’ve been saving a few things specially. My wife’s sent me a fruit-cake.”
“We couldn’t eat your cake,” Ojukwu said. “Wouldn’t be fair.”
“No, honestly. I’ve been saving it till now. I want to you to have it.”
“Sort of a house-warming?” Carter said.
“Exactly. I’d like to invite everyone who helped, but there won’t be enough for that. See if you can get Mr Phelps and Mr Johnson to come too.”
“What time?” King said.
“Nine thirty. If that’s not too late.”
∗ ∗ ∗
As he sat working that afternoon, Routledge listened out for the distant drone of engines which sometimes, when the pilot came or went a certain way, announced the arrival of the helicopter.
When first he had seen the drop zone, Routledge had thought the spacing of the stone circle ridiculously extravagant, the caution of the crew exaggerated beyond reason. Later, he had learned from King that they kept a machine gun in the cabin and were equipped with riot gas. Now he saw why. The helicopter had formed a focus for his dreams: with many of the villagers it had become an obsession. What it was like for those outside he could not imagine. Those crewmen were gods, descending briefly from Olympus to the nether world. On Olympus they could indulge in delights that, to the convicts, had become unthinkable. And not just the company of women: never again would Routledge be able to walk through the park, ride a bicycle, see a traffic signal change from amber to green. One of the hardest parts of his sentence was to realize just how many mundane activities he would never be able to sample again; and worse, to realize how many opportunities for pleasure he had allowed to pass him by.
The Penal Colony Page 18