by John Wyndham
“I’m hungry,” said Susan.
Food was a matter of trifling interest to me just then. Now that I was so near, my anxiety to know whether my guess had been right overcame everything else. While Susan was still eating I took the truck a little way up the hill behind us to get a more extensive view. In between showers, and in a worsening light, we scanned the opposite hills again, without result. There was no life or movement in the whole valley, save for a few cattle and sheep and an occasional triffid lurching across the fields below.
An idea came to me, and I decided to go down to the village. I was reluctant to take Susan, for I knew the place would be unpleasant, but I could not leave her where she was. When we got there I found that the sights affected her less than they did me: children have a different convention of the fearful until they have been taught the proper things to be shocked at. The depression was all mine. Susan found more to interest than to disgust her. Any somberness was quite offset by her delight in a scarlet silk macintosh with which she equipped herself in spite of its being several sizes too large. My search, too, was rewarding. I returned to the truck laden with a head lamp like a minor searchlight, which we had found upon an illustrious-looking Rolls-Royce.
I rigged the thing up on a kind of pivot beside the cab window and made it ready to plug in. When that was ready there was nothing to do but wait for darkness and hope that the rain would let up.
By the time it was fully dark the raindrops had become a mere spatter. I switched on, and sent a magnificent beam piercing the night. Slowly I turned the lamp from side to side, keeping its ray leveled toward the hills, while I anxiously tried to watch the whole line of them simultaneously for an answering light. A dozen times or more I traversed it steadily, switching off for a few seconds at the end of each sweep while we sought the least flicker in the darkness. But each time the night over the hills remained pitchy black. Then the rain came on more heavily again. I set the beam full ahead and sat waiting, listening to the drumming of the drops on the roof of the cab while Susan fell asleep leaning against my arm. An hour passed before the drumming dwindled to a patter, and ceased. Susan woke up as I started the beam taking across again. I had completed the sixth travel when she called out:
“Look, Bill! There it is! There’s a light!”
She was pointing a few degrees left of our front. I switched off our lamp and followed the line of her finger. It was difficult to be sure. If it were not a trick of our eyes, it was something as dim as a distant glowworm. And even as we were looking at it the rain came down on us again in sheets. By the time I had my glasses in my hand there was no view at all.
I hesitated to move. It might be that the light, if it had been a light, would not be visible from lower ground. Once more I trained our light forward and settled down to wait with as much patience as I could manage. Almost another hour passed before the rain cleared again. The moment it did, I switched off our lamp.
“It is!” Susan cried excitedly. “Look! Look!”
It was. And bright enough now to banish any doubts, though the glasses showed me no details.
I switched on again, and gave the V sign in Morse—it is the only Morse I know except SOS, so it had to do. While we watched the other light it blinked and then began a series of slow, deliberate longs and shorts which unfortunately meant nothing to me. I gave a couple more Vs for good measure, drew the approximate line of the far light on our map, and switched on the driving lights.
“Is that the lady?” asked Susan.
“It’s got to be,” I said. “It’s got to be.”
That was a poorish trip. To cross the low marshland it was necessary to take a road a little to the west of us and then work back to the east along the foot of the hills. Before we had gone more than a mile something cut off the sight of the light from us altogether, and to add to the difficulty of finding our way in the dark lanes, the rain began again in earnest. With no one to care for the drainage sluices, some fields were already flooded, and the water was over the road in places.
I had to drive with a tedious care when all my urge was to put my foot flat down.
Once we reached the farther side of the valley we were free of floodwater, but we made little better speed, for the lanes were full of primitive wanderings and improbable turns. I had to give the wheel all my attention while the child peered up at the hills beside us, watching for the reappearance of the light. We reached the point where the line on my map intersected with what appeared to be our present road without seeing a sign of it. I tried the next uphill turning.
It took about half an hour to get back to the road again from the chalk pit into which it led us.
We ran on farther along the lower road. Then Susan caught a glimmer between the branches to our right. The next turning was luckier. It took us back at a slant up the side of the hill until we were able to see a small, brilliantly lit square of window half a mile or more along the slope.
Even then, and with the map to help, it was not easy to find the lane that led to it. We lurched along, still climbing in low gear, but each time we caught sight of the window again it was a little closer. The lane had not been designed for ponderous trucks. In the narrower parts we had to push our way along it between bushes and brambles which scrabbled along the sides as though they tried to pull us back.
But at last there was a lantern waving in the road ahead. It moved on, swinging to show us the turn through a gate. Then it was set stationary on the ground. I drove to within a yard or two of it and stopped.
As I opened the door a flashlight shone suddenly into my eyes. I had a glimpse of a figure behind it in a raincoat shining with wetness.
A slight break marred the intended calm of the voice that spoke.
“Hullo, Bill. You’ve been a long time.”
I jumped down.
“Oh, Bill. I can’t—Oh, my dear, I’ve been hoping so much…. Oh, Bill…” said Josella.
I had forgotten all about Susan until a voice came from above.
“You are getting wet, you silly. Why don’t you kiss her indoors?” it asked.
SHIRNING
The sense with which I arrived at Shirning Farm—the one that told me that most of my troubles were now over—is interesting only in showing how wide of the mark a sense can be. The sweeping of Josella into my arms went off pretty well, but its corollary of carrying her away forthwith to join the others at Tynsham did not, for several reasons.
Ever since her possible location had occurred to me I had pictured her—in, I must admit, a rather cinematic way—as battling bravely against all the forces of nature, et cetera, et cetera. In a fashion, I suppose she was, but the setup was a lot different from my imaginings. My simple plan of saying: “Jump aboard. We’re off to join Coker and his little gang,” had to go by the board. One might have known that things would not turn out so simply—on the other hand, it is surprising how often the better thing is disguised as the worse….
Not that I didn’t from the start prefer Shirning to the thought of Tynsham—yet to join a larger group was obviously a sounder move. But Shirning was charming. The word “farm” had become a courtesy title for the place. It had been a farm until some twenty-five years before, and it still looked like a farm, but in reality it had changed into a country house. Sussex and the neighboring counties were well dotted with such houses and cottages which tired Londoners had found adaptable to their needs. Internally the building had been modernized and reconstructed to a point where it was doubtful whether its previous tenants would be able to recognize a single room. Outside it had become spick. The yards and sheds had a suburban rather than a rural tidiness and had for years known no form of animal life rougher than a few riding horses and ponies. The farmyard showed no utilitarian sights and gave forth no rustic smells; it had been laid over with close green turf like a bowling green. The fields across which the windows of the house gazed from beneath weathered red tiles had long been worked by the occupiers of other and more earthy farmhouses. But
the sheds and barns remained in good condition.
With its own well and its own power plant, the place had plenty to recommend it—but as I looked it over I understood Coker’s wisdom in speaking of co-operative effort. I knew nothing of farming, but I could feel that if we had intended to stay there it would take a lot of work to feed six of us.
The other three had been there already when Josella had arrived. There were Dennis and Mary Brent, and Joyce Taylor. Dennis was the owner of the house. Joyce had been there on an indefinite visit, at first to keep Mary company and then to keep the house running when Mary’s expected baby should be born.
On the night of the green flashes—of the comet you would say if you were one who still believes in that comet—there had been two other guests, Joan and Ted Danton, spending a week’s holiday there. All five of them had gone out into the garden to watch the display. In the morning all five awoke to a world that was perpetually dark. First they had tried to telephone; when they found that impossible they waited hopefully for the arrival of the daily help. She, too, failing them, Ted had volunteered to try to find out what had happened. Dennis would have accompanied him but for his wife’s almost hysterical state. Ted, therefore, had set out alone. He did not come back. At some time late in the day, and without saying a word to anyone, Joan had slipped off, presumably to try to find her husband. She, too, disappeared completely.
Dennis had kept track of time by touching the hands of the clock. By late afternoon it was impossible to sit any longer doing nothing. He wanted to try to get down to the village. Both the women had objected to that. Because of Mary’s state he had yielded, and Joyce determined to try. She went to the door and began to feel her way with a stick outstretched before her. She was barely over the threshold when something fell with a swish across her left hand, burning like a hot wire. She jumped back with a cry and collapsed in the hall, where Dennis had found her. Luckily she was conscious, and able to moan of the pain in her hand. Dennis, feeling the raised weal, had guessed it for what it was. In spite of their blindness, he and Mary had somehow contrived to apply hot fomentations, she heating the kettle while he put on a tourniquet and did his best to suck out the poison. After that they had had to carry her up to bed, where she stayed for several days while the effect of the poison wore off.
Meanwhile Dennis had made tests, first at the front and then at the back of the house. With the door slightly open, he cautiously thrust out a broom at head level. Each time there was the whistle of a sting, and he felt the broom handle tremble slightly in his grip. At one of the garden windows the same thing happened; the others seemed to be clear. He would have tried to leave by one of them but for Mary’s distress. She was sure that if there were triffids close round the house there must be others about, and would not let him take the risk.
Luckily they had food enough to last them some time, though it was difficult to prepare it. Also, Joyce, in spite of a high temperature, appeared to be holding her own against the triffid poison, so that the situation was less urgent than it might have been. Most of the next day Dennis devoted to contriving a kind of helmet for himself. He had wire net only of large mesh, so that he had to construct it of several layers overlapped and tied together. It took him some time, but, equipped with this and a pair of heavy gauntlet gloves, he was able to start out for the village late in the day. A triffid had struck at him before he was three paces away from the house. He groped for it until he found it, and twisted its stem for it. A minute or two later another sting thudded across his helmet. He could not find that triffid to grapple with it, though it made half a dozen slashes before it gave up. He found his way to the tool shed, and thence across to the lane, encumbered now with three large balls of gardening twine which he payed out as he went, to guide him back.
Several times in the lane more stings whipped at him. It took an immensely long time for him to cover the mile or so to the village, and before he reached it his supply of twine had given out. And all the way, he walked and stumbled through a silence so complete that it frightened him. From time to time he would stop and call, but no one answered. More than once he was afraid that he had lost his way, but when his feet discovered a better-laid road surface he knew where he was and was able to confirm it by locating a signpost. He groped his way farther on.
After a seemingly vast distance he had become aware that his footsteps were sounding differently: their fall had a faint echo. Making to one side, he found a footpath and then a wall. A little farther along he discovered a postbox let into the brickwork, and knew that he must be actually in the village at last. He called out once more. A voice, a woman’s voice, called back, but it was some distance ahead, and the words were indistinguishable. He called again, and began to move toward it. Its reply was suddenly cut off by a scream. After that there was silence again. Only then, and still half incredulously, did he realize the village was in no better plight than his own household. He sat down on the grassed verge of the path to think out what he should do.
By the feeling in the air he guessed that night had come. He must have been away fully four hours—and there was nothing to do but go back. All the same, there was no reason why he should go back empty-handed…. With his stick he rapped his way along the wall until it rang on one of the tin-plate advertisements which adorned the village shop. Three times in the last fifty or sixty yards stings had slapped on his helmet. Another struck as he opened the gate, and he tripped over a body lying on the path. A man’s body, quite cold.
He had the impression that there had been others in the shop before him. Nevertheless, he found a sizable piece of bacon. He dropped it, along with packets of butter or margarine, biscuits and sugar, into a sack and added an assortment of cans which came from a shelf that, to the best of his recollection, was devoted to food—the sardine cans, at any rate, were unmistakable. Then he sought for, and found, a dozen or more balls of string, shouldered his sack, and set off for home.
He had missed his way once, and it had been hard to keep down panic while he retraced his steps and reorientated himself. But at last he knew that he was again in the familiar lane. By groping right across it he managed to locate the twine of his outward journey and join it to the string. From there the rest of the journey back had been comparatively easy.
Twice more in the week that followed he had made the journey to the village shop again, and each time the triffids round the house and on the way had seemed more numerous. There had been nothing for the isolated trio to do but wait in hope. And then, like a miracle, Josella had arrived.
It was clear at once, then, that the notion of an immediate move to Tynsham was out. For one thing, Joyce Taylor was still in an extremely weak state—when I looked at her I was surprised that she was alive at all. Dennis’s promptness had saved her life, but their inability to give her the proper restoratives or even suitable food during the following week had slowed down her recovery. It would be folly to try to move her a long distance in a truck for a week or two yet. And then, too, Mary’s confinement was close enough to make the journey inadvisable for her, so that the only course seemed to be for us all to remain where we were until these crises should have passed.
Once more it became my task to scrounge and forage. This time I had to work on a more elaborate scale, to include not merely food, but gas for the lighting system, hens that were laying, to cows that had recently calved (and still survived, though their ribs were sticking out), medical necessities for Mary, and a surprising list of sundries.
The area was more beset with triffids than any other I had yet seen. Almost every morning revealed one or two new ones lurking close to the house, and the first task of the day was to shoot the tops off them, until I had constructed a netting fence to keep them out of the garden. Even then they would come right up and loiter suggestively against it until something was done about them.
I opened some of the cases of gear and taught young Susan how to use a triffid gun. She quite rapidly became an expert at disarming the thing
s, as she continued to call them. It became her department to work daily vengeance on them.
From Josella I learned what had happened to her after the fire alarm at the University Building.
She had been shipped off with her party much as I with mine, but her manner of dealing with the two women to whom she was attached had been summary. She had issued a fiat ultimatum: either she became free of all restraints, in which case she would help them as far as she was able; or, if they continued to coerce her, there would likely come a time when they would find themselves drinking prussic acid or eating cyanide of potassium, on her recommendation. They could take their choice. They had chosen sensibly.
There was little difference in what we had to tell one another about the days that followed. When her group had in the end dissolved, she had reasoned much as I had. She took a car and went up to Hampstead to look for me. She had not encountered any survivors from my group, or run across that led by the quick-triggered, redheaded man. She had kept on there until almost sunset and then decided to make for the University Building. Not knowing what to expect, she had cautiously stopped the car a couple of streets away and approached on foot. When she was still some distance from the gates she heard a shot. Wondering what that might indicate, she had taken cover in the garden that had sheltered us before. From there she had observed Coker also making a circumspect advance. Without knowing that I had fired at the triffid in the square, and that the sound of the shot was the cause of Coker’s caution, she suspected some kind of trap. Determined not to fall into one a second time, she had returned to the car. She had no idea where the rest had gone—if they had gone at all. The only place of refuge she could think of that would be known to anyone at all was the one she had mentioned almost casually to me. She had decided to make for it, in the hope that I, if I were still in existence, would remember and try to find it.
“I curled up and slept in the back of the car once I was clear of London,” she said. “It was still quite early when I got here the next morning. The sound of the car brought Dennis to an upstairs window, warning me to look out for triffids. Then I saw that there were half a dozen or more of them close around the house, for all the world as if they were waiting for someone to come out of it. Dennis and I shouted back and forth. The triffids stirred, and one of them began to move toward me, so I nipped back into the car for safety. When it kept on coming, I started up the car and ran it down. But there were still the others, and I had no kind of weapon but my knife. It was Dennis who solved that difficulty.