Land Under England

by Joseph O'Neill

  During that quest in the darkness I had lived through that possession. But he had deserted himself. Now I also was leaving him—taking flight from him.

  When I came back to my mother, could I tell her that I had left him below—that she could put away the clothes she had been keeping ready for him?

  Then I remembered the eyes. There was no use dwelling on things like that.

  I began to hurry. Now I felt cold about it all—quite cold. The man I knew was dead, had been dead a long time—dislodged, flung into space. The thing that I was leaving had no association—it was merely a body I had known, worn now by a stranger.

  This man held himself differently from my father. My father had always walked with a slight forward droop of the neck, but this man held his head rigid and upright. There was no use going over all that again. My business was to get away, to escape, to get back to the upper earth.

  The cliff walls were falling away from me on the right, the light from the Wall almost gone. No light came from above either, but down below, to the left, there were dim scattered lights here and there. If I went down there, I could get to the great river, perhaps, by keeping to the north-west— not straight down. But, if I kept on upwards, as I was going, there might be a higher road along the mountain, where brutes would not be lurking. They would be more likely to be down below, where the food was.

  If only some light would begin from above, there might be a clear way. Perhaps I might even find a road going up the mountain, that would lead to some exit—the road by which the man I was leaving behind intended to come back to seize the upper earth, when his time came.

  It would certainly be strange to see these automatons up between the English hedges, hiding away from the light in the shadow of the bushes, as they crept along to the attack. But of course they would move by night—they would have to move by night. The day would be far too bright for them. They would be like owls.

  What would they make of the colours of the flowers, those eyes that never saw colour? They would not understand the beauty of the earth. To them it would be hateful—dreadful as the light is to bats or badgers, unnatural, a thing to be destroyed.

  A blackbird’s song rang in my ears, as clearly as if I were listening to it, and I could see the faces of the automatons when they heard it. I could see them clearly, and hear the cries of the newspaper boys in London:

  “Invasion of England from Below”—“Attack of Underground Robots”—“Fascists gone over to the Invaders.”

  I dragged my mind back. I must concentrate on my task, not let it wander. I should need all my will and mind, if I was to escape.

  The way beneath me was no longer a path. It was a series of rocks and clefts. I could see nothing. At any moment I might break a leg, fall down a cleft, if I didn’t take care.

  They had put a phosphorus ball in my hand and others in my knapsack, but their balls were so dim. They showed so little light. I must be careful. I couldn’t afford to let my mind drift.

  I remembered that they had put other lights into my bag besides the phosphorus balls— candles with big phosphorus heads. I wondered whether I should risk lighting one of these. It might draw the attention of creatures from afar, who would see it, though they couldn’t see the phosphorus ball. This was not like the inner lands round the Central Sea, where all brutes went in fear of the automatons—except far away up in the barren heights. Here I was back in the jungle. At any moment something might attack me. I decided not to light a candle—not yet, at least.

  I stopped. There was something coming. A stone had fallen behind me. I could hear it now— a slight movement, but clear. I was being trailed. The ball of phosphorus that I was carrying in my hand had drawn some lurking creature from its den, and it was coming after me.

  I put the phosphorus ball back in my pocket and stood listening intently. The thing had stopped. Not the slightest sound broke the stillness. Perhaps it was crouching for a spring. The sound had seemed too far away for that, unless the creature was an enormous one. It hadn’t sounded very big—a lithe movement, like a leopard or a hunter.

  I stood staring back. If I moved, it would follow me. In the darkness I couldn’t move without using the phosphorus ball—not over such ground. Yet, if I used the ball again, I should be visible to it. It could come at me in any way it liked, while remaining itself in the darkness.

  I must go forward. I could not remain there, standing. I must risk a light, but, if I were to use one now, it had better be a big candle. That would, at least, throw a bigger circle of light—clearer light too.

  There was not the slightest sound now.

  I felt in my knapsack for the candles, then remembered that they weren’t there. They were in the bag of serpent-skin they had hung over my left shoulder. I took one out. My mind was getting clear and concentrated now. The confusion that had been hanging over it, since I had met my father, was going.

  The creature behind was remaining perfectly still. Probably it could see me in the darkness, but there was no gleam of eyes. Perhaps it was only a snake that had slithered into a hole, after it had been disturbed by my passage.

  I began to breathe more freely. I stooped down and struck the head of the candle against the rock. It flashed, burst into flame.

  I lifted it. I was on the side of a rocky slope with clefts between the flags. Below, to the left, it was flatter, as if there had once been a road. I had wandered off the road in the darkness. I had been thinking of other things, instead of concentrating on my task.

  There was still no sound behind me. It was almost certainly a snake. What could a hunting creature be doing up in this rocky slope?

  I scrambled down the slope. Yes, that was the path again, or something that looked like a path, as if men had once come and gone a great deal over the rock. If I could follow it and keep my mind clear, it looked as if I might get to some exit. It must lead somewhere. But my mind was not yet clear, not as clear as I had thought. It was strange that it should be so clouded now, the first time that I was free and knew everything, with nothing to confuse me—everything settled, the upward road in front of me, and a sort of path to follow. Before, I had been going nowhere. Now, two or three days might bring me home, out to where there were days. If only I could keep my mind clear…. The confusion that was clinging to it was not coming from excitement. It couldn’t be.

  I was quite calm in other ways, much calmer than I had been before. Strange that I should be getting so confused in my mind.

  I stopped dead. That was certainly a sound behind me, like a man falling and recovering himself. There could be no doubt.

  I lifted the torch high over my head and stared back into the darkness. It must be a man. No beast would have fallen like that, or got up with that sound of a man recovering himself.

  A man! It could be only a man, and, if it was a man, it could be only one man.

  I stood tense. HE was following me!

  He had been pulled off me by the others. Now he was following me. If it was that man, he was coming to wring my knowledge out of me, without anyone to hold him back this time—trailing me, to spring on me in the darkness… .

  I stood waiting. I was an easy mark for an arrow, standing there with my flaming candle, but that would not suit him. It wasn’t my death he wanted—not till he had used me.

  I had no doubts now. The bleak, rocky slopes were alive with him. I felt the air pulsating with him. But he wasn’t coming on… . He was lurking, waiting. He would follow me until I dropped. Then he would be on top of me, with nobody to pull him off, until he got me or I died.

  I mustn’t fall. I must go on very slowly and steadily, and not fall or wear myself out. He might fall first, if his hatred didn’t make him stronger. He meant to get back to the sunlight. I was necessary to him for that. Not necessary in the way I had intended to be, but the other way.

  He could not come back to the earth, if he could not bring the others with him. Return would be meaningless to him, unless he brought Rome back to th
e sunlight. I was necessary to him for that. He could not afford to kill me. What he wanted was to tear my will out, seize me, then make his spring back to upper earth from my knowledge.

  He wasn’t like those others, willing to stay below, knowing nothing of their loss. He knew of it— of the robbery of their heritage by the barbarians. That was why he was disobeying them, breaking away from their intentions. He knew, better than they did, that I alone could enable them to get back.

  After his recovery from the fall he had made no sound. If he had, I should have heard it. But his hatred of me and his greed for me were betraying him. They were coming in waves to me.

  I turned and went forward. I had been so sure, a short time before, that I was free. After all my experience, I should have known that it couldn’t be true. No day could come out of that night. If he got me, he would absorb me this time. He knew that. He had broken something in me that had been standing upright until I saw him, using my father’s eyes to look at me with hatred. My will had held then, but now it would not hold. It had fallen apart, collapsed. If I fell now, he would get me.

  I went on slowly, cautiously. I could rush back at him, toss the candle up into the air and then shoot as he stood revealed. He would not be expecting that. Then he would never get up again to the world above.

  No. That wasn’t what I was thinking. My mind was getting confused again. Was he working on it, sending out waves of hypnotic suggestion to cloud and blindfold it?

  I cleared my mind with an effort. It was probable that he was working on it. I must keep it clear. There was no use thinking of shooting at him. I couldn’t get myself to do that. Not now. Later on, perhaps, I might have to do it, if he drove me to it. He would not attack me for the present. He would merely trail me, try to hypnotise me, wait for a fall to lame me, for fatigue to wear me down. I must hurry upwards, but carefully.

  The path was beginning to trend downwards to the left. Down there, dim sparse lights like fungus-gleams were showing. It was getting clear beyond the light of the candle.

  The magnetic rays were beginning above me.

  I looked back. He wasn’t visible yet, but he would soon be. Should I give him the choice of going back or being shot at? When the lights above were full, it might be safer to do that and force him to take his choice. Otherwise, if an accident happened to me, he would get me.

  The path was going down. I stood staring at it. I did not want to go down. It was dangerous to leave the path, but I felt that I couldn’t get myself to go downward again. It would be almost a physical impossibility. Besides, I didn’t know where the path led to. Already I had climbed a good distance upwards. I hadn’t noticed that I had got so high, I had been so occupied thinking; but now, with the light showing, I could see how high I had got. Down below, quite far below, I could see the lands I had left. We must have been climbing hard, he and I. We must be miles nearer home. I could not go down again.

  The landscape round me was now quite clear. Those lights that the path led towards—that was a wooded valley with fungus-trees. In front of me, the rock-slopes had trailing vegetation. They led upwards towards dark masses, with lights that must be woods of phosphorescent trees.

  I must be back in the forest-land that went high up, beyond the other great cliff, the first one down which I had come. If I kept on, I might come to that cliff.

  But where was the big river, the salt river that came from the sea on the earth and made the Central Sea below? It must be somewhere down there on the left, or perhaps under the mountains over which I was travelling. It had brought me through a tunnel under the mountains, and they had been wooded like these. But I could not make use of it now, as I did on my journey downwards.

  It was going in the wrong direction. No use going down towards it, even if I were sure that it was there. I should merely get into swamps infested by snakes. I must keep to the heights.

  I looked round. He was not visible.

  I turned my face to the mountain-slopes and went upwards.

  My mind swung back to him again. What should I do? I could not afford to go on with pretence any longer. I should have to face the situation sooner or later. Should I, or should I not, kill my father? No use going on with any self-deception about its not being my father. It was useful in the beginning, to put between me and that first shock—when he struck at me—cotton-wool-lint, to keep the wound from hurting too much. I couldn’t have stood it then, without that pretence that it was another man that hated me, struck me down. But it was no use now. I couldn’t get any more good out of it. It was too highly dangerous. I should have to make my choice soon between killing him or allowing him to seize me. The man was mad, but he was my father. The person who was following me had always been there, inside my father’s skin. He had always been there, making him different from himself at times, even in the old days—a double personality, not like my mother.

  What was that they had said below? That their fathers had thought that a bundle of intimacies was a personality—a heap of differences and little intimacies. That was the man I had known—the bundle of intimacies stuck round the surface. The other man had been inside all the time, hard and merciless and empty, except for one idea. Now they had stripped away the bundle of little charming ways that was the other, and the inner man was there alone, bare and merciless and empty. Not like my mother. When she had been stripped of all the outer things, that were often such a worry to us, she had been deep and full.

  My mind was wandering again; not confused perhaps, but wandering away from the work in hand. What I wanted to get clear was that it was my father who was there all the time, only now he was stripped bare. The man that was pursuing me was my father—not any other. I couldn’t offer him the choice between going back or being killed. I could not bluff him with that threat. I had known it myself all the time, while I was pretending that I could give him that choice. I had better give up such thoughts now. He would know it, and he was not pretending, not any longer. No little intimacies or weaknesses about him now. He was stripped to the bone, naked and empty, except for his one idea.

  He couldn’t kill me, any more than I could kill him, not only because he couldn’t get my knowledge if he killed me—there was that too—but he wouldn’t kill me in any case. What he wanted was to drag me down to where he was—to justify himself for his betrayal of everybody and everything. Because of that he wouldn’t let me get back, when he had robbed me of my knowledge. That was coming to me from him, coming clearly to me from behind. He was threatening me, bullying me, trying to frighten me into confusion, as I had thought of frightening him.

  The rock-slopes were gone, hidden away under the ground vegetation. I was working through undergrowth now, up a wooded slope. It would not be so easy to follow me, now that I had no light in my hand, but he would be able to do it. He would be sure, like a dog or a leopard.

  There was a steady drip from the trees. Queer! A drip from above!

  I turned my face up. Yes, a drizzle of rain! Rain! Where had I got to? I couldn’t have got out above—not yet—not for a long time yet, though I was very high up already. Yet it was rain—a drizzle.

  That was why there was so much vegetation up here on the heights … because it rained. But there couldn’t be rain without clouds.

  Then I knew. By the time the leakage through the earth reached this depth in its fall it had become a spray, a mist. But we were getting up.

  “We” were getting up. Yes, I had accepted him. He would remain with me until he got me. Then “we” would go back. I would go back obediently. He was sure of that… sure that he could get me, because he had always got me, from the time I was a small child… got me with his lovely little intimacies, that had withered so early … most of them long before “they” had taken the rest from him. He didn’t know how much he had changed, how much I had changed.

  What a fool I had been!

  The whole pattern of my life had been shaped by these little intimacies. My mother, who had cared for him and me, she h
ad been left outside … my own life, that had been left outside too.

  But they hadn’t absorbed him here below. If they had, he would not be here now, against their orders… . They couldn’t absorb him. It was he, always, who absorbed others … my mother… myself. It was not his fault. We had wanted to be absorbed by him … everybody wanted it. He would have invaded those men below, too, if they had had anything to give him, but they hadn’t. I had—now.

  He would preserve me, and bring me back, preserved. Not absorbed, but preserved, like something in spirits, something precious taken out of a living thing. He had always owned me, and I was necessary to him now.

  It was curious to think that he could always have done without me until now. If I had been drowned that day in the mill-race, he would have been sorry, but he would have gone on with his Roman Wall. He hadn’t needed me then, but now I was precious.

  Before, up on the Wall, I had carried things for him—only that—run messages. Intimacies were sometimes necessary to him also… .

  Could I let him take me back with him? Incredible. … I couldn’t do that… I might have to kill him in the end.

  It was well that I was making no more pretences about a son’s not being able to kill his father. I would kill him, if I had to do it.

  The light above was holding well, and the going was almost as good as on the bare rock. I was getting very high up. Behind me the valley seemed a great distance below, and the ridge I was standing on very high.

  Down in front of me was a small valley, then the higher ridge beyond. No hunting brutes either, except the man behind, though there had been moving shapes in the distance under the trees, like shadows….

  He wasn’t visible, but he would be somewhere behind me, amongst the trees. He would climb presently to the ridge I was standing on, when I had left it. If I climbed into a tree, below in the valley, he might pass on. He could hardly come up the tree after me without my noticing him, and I wanted to sleep.

  I wanted badly to sleep … not to eat, but to sleep. I must have been a long time climbing … a long row of dark times, in between the times that I had been thinking of him—