‘Personally, I’m quite convinced that the submergence of Atlantis is an historic fact,’ Gervaise declared. ‘Anyone who has an extensive knowledge of ancient religions can hardly fail to see that. It was the destruction of Atlantis which gave rise to the Biblical account of the Flood and similar stories which are to be found in the literature of all ancient peoples living on both sides of the Atlantic. But, of course, the flood was local, and by far the greater portion of the human race survived.’
‘I still can’t believe it’ll happen,’ Derek said suddenly. ‘I’m sorry, Oliver, but the whole thing’s too fantastic.’
Hemmingway drew slowly on his cigarette and looked across at him. ‘I felt that way, too, when I was first told of this business but, knowing as I do how the national leaders of practically every country in the world are reacting, I can’t escape the conviction that something pretty frightful is coming to us. It’s that which decided me to have this talk with you all to-day. I wish I’d done it sooner, but I wasn’t quite convinced before. Now I am, I want to know what our chances are. The big question is, will the whole earth go to pieces or have we only to face a major catastrophe in which there’s a chance for some of us to survive?’
‘That none of us can tell until the 24th of June,’ Oliver said quietly.
‘Then there is a hope that some people may manage to see the party through?’
‘Certainly. Although I consider it a very slender one.’
‘Still, in that case, it’s surely up to us to use every ingenuity we have to provide ourselves with the best possible chance of survival?’
‘Yes, that’s only reasonable. But such a huge tidal wave as we may expect would sweep everything before it; so I don’t think there’s much that any of us could do with any real hope of saving ourselves.’
‘I’m pretty hot on mountaineering,’ Roy grinned. ‘If I can raise the cash to get across the Channel, I shall go and sit on top of Mont Blanc.’
‘No,’ said Gervaise decisively. ‘If there’s going to be a second Deluge, our best hope is to build another Ark.’
8
RUMOURS AND A REFUGE
‘An Ark,’ Roy repeated with a grin. ‘Uncle Gervaise would make a splendid Noah but he has no sons and only one son-in-law. If Derek and I play Ham and Japheth, may we each bring along a girl-friend?’
Derek smiled. ‘I’ll leave that to you and Hemmingway; but I’m pretty good with animals so I’ll superintend the “they marched in two by two” business.’
‘Shut up, you idiots!’ frowned Margery. ‘Can’t you see this is serious?’
The other three ignored their flippancy and Oliver inquired: ‘What sort of Ark had you in mind, Gervaise?’
‘The best thing, I suppose, would be to charter a medium-sized, well-built sailing ship. We should then be independent of coal or oil; which it might be impossible to obtain after our first supply had run out if we chartered a steamer. Unfortunately though, I’m in no position to do so myself, because I lack the money.’
‘Sam’s got plenty. So have I, for that matter,’ Hemmingway said quickly, ‘and it’s my job to do anything I think Sam would wish while he’s away. I feel now that we should not delay another hour in taking what steps we can to survive if possible, and Sam will naturally want his wife’s people to be in on anything we may decide to do. As he’s absent, it’s up to us to make some sort of plan, and I’ll be responsible for finance, whatever the amount may be.’
‘Wouldn’t it be better either to buy or build a life-boat?’ Margery suggested. ‘In a rough sea it would keep afloat longer than any larger craft and be much easier to manage. Besides, you could man a life-boat yourselves, whereas, if we charter a ship, we’d have to take on a crew and in the kind of upheaval that seems likely a crew might give us all sorts of trouble.’ Hemmingway looked at her with fresh interest. ‘That’s certainly a very sound idea, Miss Stapleton.’
‘Margery, please,’ she smiled. ‘It’s rather pointless to be formal with each other if we’re going to sink or swim together.’
‘Sure, Margery then, and I’m all for a life-boat. We’d get one of the very latest type, too, like they’re making now in the States. It’s not an ordinary boat at all, but a huge round ball with a platform circling its outside, just as the rings encircle the planet Saturn. In a very rough sea the ball can roll to practically any angle but, since it’s water-tight once the doors are closed, it can be swamped; and it can’t be sunk except through a collision or being flung on the rocks. Meanwhile, the spherical chamber inside is kept level, however much the outer sphere rocks, by means of a system of gyroscopes.’
‘That’s right,’ Roy added. ‘I saw it on the movies in a news film when I was in Singapore.’
‘It sounds the very thing, but is there time to import one?’ Gervaise objected. ‘To-day is the 3rd of June, so we have only just over three weeks left to work in.’
Hemmingway stubbed out his cigarette. ‘It’s too late to ship one over but, if we hustle, I reckon we could build one.’
Oliver looked dubious. ‘I don’t see how, in such a limited time. Such a device must contain many scientific mechanisms, some of which are certain to be patents. Even if you could get permission, presumably there’s no model in Britain from which you could have them copied. I doubt, too, if you could get the parts manufactured here.’
‘Plans can be sent by radio, these days,’ Margery said quietly.
‘Exactly!’ Hemmingway threw her another appreciative glance. ‘That’s what I had in mind. Once I get the cables working I’ll soon trace the company that’s making these things in the U.S.A., and, whatever it may cost, I’ll buy the British rights in their patents. As to manufacture, Sam’s factories will rush through the parts, if I say they’ve got to. The next point is, where’ll we build it?’
‘Somewhere in Wales,’ Derek suggested, ‘on the highest hilltop the workmen can get the parts up to.’
‘No.’ Gervaise shook his grey head. ‘If we did that, a great wave might roll it over and smash it before it could get properly afloat. It would be much better to construct it on a lakeside and launch it so that it is actually floating when the time of the emergency arrives.’
‘Then why not build it on the lake here?’ Margery put in.
‘Why not?’ Hemmingway agreed. ‘This place is within easy reach of London for when we have to get out; but it’s so shut away that we’re unlikely to be interfered with by crowds of terrified people. It’s an ideal spot from every point of view.’
‘What about the chappies you’ll have to send down to build it?’ Roy asked. ‘When they know what it’s for, won’t they want to come, too?’
‘We ought to take them with us if we can,’ Gervaise said at once.
Hemmingway’s broad forehead wrinkled. ‘I’d like to, but there won’t be room. It wouldn’t hold more than eight or ten people if we’re to take the stores we’d have to carry to keep ourselves going for any length of time. Goodness knows, I’d like to take every man, woman and child in Britain if we could, but I’m afraid the engineers who construct this thing will have to take their chance with the rest when the time comes. To prevent trouble later we’d better not let them know what we’re up to. After all, it won’t look like any kind of boat, so our best plan would be to say it’s some sort of scientific experiment in which Mr. Oliver Stapleton is interested. He’d better come down here to stay, and pretend to superintend things.’
Oliver frowned. ‘It’s asking a lot of me to leave Greenwich just now. Naturally, I’m intensely interested in all that is taking place at the Observatory.’
‘When will the comet become visible to the naked eye?’ Derek inquired.
‘Not for ten days or more yet. You see, it is approaching along a track which passes within three degrees of the sun so, until the last phase, the sun’s glare will make it invisible in daylight except to those using special instruments. At night you should be able to observe it, if the weather is good, from about the 18th, first
as a tiny pin-point of light and later as a fiery ball; but, even then, it will only be visible very low in the heavens for a short time, as it passes under the horizon eleven-and-a-half minutes after sunset. My only regret is that so many of us wish to observe the comet at Greenwich each evening now that we have to take our turn and I get much less time at any of the telescopes than I could wish.’
‘I’m afraid we couldn’t get a telescope anything like the size of those at Greenwich,’ Hemmingway smiled, ‘but I’m game to buy you the biggest that can be procured in London; so that you could install it down here and have it all to yourself. How would that be?’
‘A very generous offer, I’m sure.’
‘Not at all. But we need your presence here to give colour to the building of the Ark. If a big telescope is being erected at the same time, that will help a lot in persuading the mechanics the Ark is only some new invention to do with your astronomical research.’
‘In that case I’m quite agreeable. As it happens, one of my colleagues died only about ten days ago and he had a very fine telescope in his private observatory. It would take some moving, of course, but if we could buy it off his widow I could get it set up in a steel scaffolding, which would serve for temporary purposes, in the course of two or three days.’
‘Good. That’s the drill, then. Get in touch with the lady at once. See her this evening if possible and make it a cash transaction. I’ll supply the funds and men to start dismantling it first thing to-morrow.’
‘How long do you think such a flood would last?’ Gervaise inquired, looking across at Oliver.
The astronomer shrugged his sloping shoulders. ‘Who can say? If the comet is as big as I fear, there will be no flood but total disruption. If it’s a smaller body the Rockies and the Andes should protect us from any great tidal wave it may create in the Pacific. Short of annihilation our danger will be from a wave created by sympathetic eruptions in the central Atlantic. Unless the earth bursts, one can hardly visualise a local disturbance of sufficient magnitude to send out a wave which would wash right over the mountain chains of Britain. It’s more likely that although high land would be swept by the first onrush only valleys and low-lying land would be flooded for any length of time. But, even that, would mean the submergence of practically every city and town in the country; and weeks, if not months, before the waters finally drained away.’
‘Say we took enough provisions to last us two months then?’
‘Yes, that should certainly suffice. In such a local flood we should probably be washed up somewhere within a few days. But our trouble then would be to reach an area which had not been flooded at all. You see, the wave would wash right over all but the highest ground destroying everything in its path.’
‘You mean that we might find ourselves marooned on an island for several weeks,’ said Hemmingway, ‘and, maybe, one where we’d have to rely on such stores as we brought with us?’
‘Exactly.’
‘How about if the comet caused a permanent rise in the ocean level? Britain would be converted into an archipelago, wouldn’t it?’
‘That is certainly a possibility.’
‘Then we might find ourselves stuck on our particular island for good?’
‘Yes, that too might quite well happen.’
‘We’d look a pretty lot of fools if we escaped the flood and died of starvation in a stretch of isolated fields two months later, wouldn’t we?’
‘We could eke out our supplies with roots and fish,’ Gervaise interjected.
‘Maybe,’ agreed Hemmingway. ‘In fact, we’ll have to chance being able to do that as the storage space of the Ark will be limited. But it seems to me we ought to ensure ourselves against such an emergency by preparing to meet it properly. As far as space permits we ought to take all the things we’d be most likely to need if we were deliberately going off to found a new settlement.’
‘Books,’ said Gervaise.
‘Seeds and roots to ensure ourselves future crops,’ said Margery.
‘Scientific instruments,’ said Oliver.
‘Engineer’s stores,’ said Derek. ‘I was at an Engineering College till my father died, so I could give you particulars of the most useful things in that line.’
‘Fine,’ said Hemmingway. ‘Let’s make some lists, shall we?’ Upon which they spent the next hour jotting down all the less bulky items they could think of which might prove invaluable to them if chanced to be stranded.
When they had done it was agreed that they should divide the labour of ordering the goods and have all accounts rendered to Hemmingway. He then smiled round at the others and said:
‘I’d best be going now. It’s still only a little after midday in New York, so I’ll get busy with my cabling the moment I’m back in London and with any luck we’ll have the plans of the new life-boat coming through by radio some time to-night. Whoever the firm is that makes these things, they’ll know Sam’s good for the money, whatever price they ask.’
Soon afterwards Oliver and Hemmingway returned to London but the following morning the centuries-old peace of Stapleton Court was shattered; and fate had decreed that it should never again be resumed.
A party of surveyors, sent by Hemmingway, arrived with instructions to prospect the lake-shore for the best site in which to lay down a slipway on which the spherical Ark could be built; and later in the day he telephoned to say that, although it had cost Sam a small fortune, he had secured plans of the Ark from the States.
Gangs of workmen then put in an appearance with lorryloads of rubble, sand, bags of cement and dredging apparatus. On the 5th a huge truck arrived bearing Oliver’s new telescope packed in sacking, and other lorries loaded with the tubular steel scaffolding which was to form its temporary support.
Soon the lawn running down to the lake was hardly recognisable. Wooden hutments, dumps of material and deep ruts cut in its grass by the wheels of the heavy lorries all disfigured it; while the roar of concrete-mixers, the din of hammering and the shouts of the workmen shattered the stillness of the tree-girt park. Even at night the pandemonium never ceased as the men laboured on under the glare of great arc-lamps, but the work progressed with amazing rapidity.
By June 7th a great concrete platform, the size of a tennis court, had been constructed at one end of the lake and Oliver’s telescope had been erected on the higher ground near the house, so that he could now observe the comet again, without interruption, at every favourable opportunity.
Derek, convinced now by the sight of these activities, more than by all the arguments he had heard, that the approaching danger was a real one, had abandoned his own affairs to play the part of Oliver’s assistant in superintending the work; a rôle for which he was much better fitted than the older man owing to his early training as an engineer. His easy manner enabled him to collaborate with the professionals without giving offence and, while he interfered as little as possible, his presence was valuable in that he was able to fend off awkward questions about the true purpose of the constructions on which they were engaged. Margery suggested that she should clear out a bedroom for him and from the 8th he took up his permanent residence at Stapleton Court.
Gervaise continued to be responsible for Fink-Drummond and Roy assisted him as before. The prisoner appeared resigned to his captivity but was curious about the din which now drifted without cessation round to his side of the house. Gervaise refused to satisfy his curiosity but Roy, who on further acquaintance found the ex-Cabinet Minister an extremely interesting person, had formed the habit of sitting with him sometimes and, under pledge of secrecy, saw no harm in giving him particulars of the projected Ark.
Hemmingway now motored down from London every evening to see how the work progressed. He reported that the casting of the curved steel sheeting for the outside of the Ark, its floor and struts, had presented no difficulties, but he was having trouble with some of the smaller parts of its mechanism as similar objects had never before been manufactured in Britain.
Each night Hemmingway brought the latest news from London. The gradual decline in the markets was accelerating to a steady fall as the small investor, who still knew nothing of the comet, was now suspicious of this slow but definite depreciation in share values, when international relations were infinitely better than they had been for many years.
Yet, underneath the surface, the foreign Governments were by no means so fully agreed as they had been the previous week. Many of them felt that they were no longer justified in concealing the approaching danger from their people, and the heads of religious bodies, who were in the know, were urging them to disclose the facts.
Moreover, where knowledge of the comet had previously been confined to a few score astronomers, national leaders, their advisers and financiers, it had gradually leaked out, so that most well-informed people all over the world now knew a comet was approaching and that there was some risk of its endangering the earth. It was clear, therefore, that the secret could not be kept from the general public much longer, as constantly spreading rumours would do more harm than a plain official statement.
By June 12th it had been decided to adopt half-measures and that the papers should carry the story of the comet without implying that there was any chance of its hitting the earth. Certain sections of the Press were in favour of telling the whole story and appealing to the public to face the danger bravely; but in the world-wide emergency that had arisen they loyally accepted the request of their Governments and the first official news of the comet appeared only as small paragraphs in the evening papers of that date.
The following day many special articles appeared, but mainly upon comets in general and accounts of historic comets which had caused great excitement in their time but swept harmlessly on their way into space.
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