Читать книгу Ordeal - Nevil Shute Norway - Страница 3

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Towards dawn Peter Corbett got up from the garage floor and, treading softly, moved into the driving seat of the car. Presently he fell into a doze, his head bowed forward on his arms, upon the steering wheel.

He woke an hour later, dazed and stiff. A grey light filled the little wooden building; it was early March. The rain drummed steadily upon the roof and dripped and pattered from the eaves with little liquid noises, as it had done all through the night. He stirred, and looked around him.

Behind him, in the rear seat of the car, lay Joan, his wife, sleeping uneasily. She was dressed oddly in an overcoat, pyjama trousers, and many woolly clothes; her short fair hair had fallen across her face in disarray. On the seat beside her was the basket cot with little Joan; so far as could be seen, the baby was asleep.

He moved, and looked out of the window of the car. Beside the car Sophie, their nurse, was lying on a Li-Lo on the oil-stained floor, covered with an eiderdown, sleeping with her mouth open and snoring a little. Beyond her there was another little bed, carefully screened between the garden roller and a box of silver sand for bulbs. From that the bright eyes of Phyllis, his six-year-old daughter, looked up into his own; beside her lay John, his three-year son, asleep.

Moving very quietly, he got out of the driving seat and stood erect beside the car; he had a headache, and was feeling very ill. From her bed upon the floor Phyllis whispered, "Daddy. May I get up?"

"Not yet," he said mechanically. "It's not time to get up yet. Go to sleep again."

"Weren't they loud bangs, Daddy?"

"Very loud," he said. He moved over to the garage window and looked out. Everything seemed much the same, but he could not see beyond the garden.

"Daddy, were the bangs loud enough to be heard in London?"

"Not in London." He was feeling sick; his mouth was coated and dry.

"Would the bangs have been heard in Portsmouth, Daddy?"

"No. I don't know."

"Anyway, they'd have been heard all over Southampton, wouldn't they, Daddy?"

"That's right," he said patiently. So much, indeed, was evident. "But now try to go to sleep again and don't talk any more, or you'll wake Mummy and John. There won't be any more bangs now."

He stepped carefully across the Li-Lo to the corner, and stooped over the little bed. He pulled the rug across her. "It's not time to get up yet. Are you warm enough?"

"Yes, thank you, Daddy. Isn't it fun, sleeping in the garage?"

"Great fun," he said soberly. "Now go to sleep again."

He moved quietly down the garage past the car, opened the door, and went out into the garden. His raincoat had half dried upon him in the night. He had no hat; the rain beat on his face and ruffled hair, and this refreshed him.

He lived in a semi-detached house, a large house in a good suburban road. It had a well-kept garden stretching out behind to the back road; the wooden garage was at the end remote from the house. He lived comfortably in a fairly modest style; he was the junior partner of Johnson, Bellinger, and Corbett, solicitors, in Southampton. He ran a medium-sized car which he had bought second-hand, and a nine-ton cutter yacht which he had bought sixteenth-hand; these, with his three children, absorbed the whole of his income. He was thirty-four years old, a pleasant, ordinary young man of rather a studious turn.

He stood for a few moments in the garden in the rain, looking around. His house looked much the same as usual, so did the houses on each side of it. There was a window broken in a house a few doors down the road; otherwise he could see nothing wrong. He moved up the garden, opened the garden door, and went into his dining room.

A sudden draught of cold air blew into his face, fluttering the papers on a table where the telephone was standing.

He frowned. There was a window open somewhere in the house. Someone had left it open in the confusion of the night—and on a rainy night like that! It was too bad.

He passed through the hall into the drawing room in the front of the house. In fact, the windows were all open, but they had not been left open by the maids. The glass in every pane was cracked and shattered. Most of it had fallen inwards from the frames, and was lying on the floor. The rain streamed in through the great apertures, trickling down the furniture and making little pools upon the carpet. The settee and Joan's easy chair were drenched and sodden. Before the window the chintz curtains blew about, sopping and forlorn.

His lips narrowed to a line. "Christ," he said very quietly.

There was nothing to be done, and if there was, he was feeling too ill to do it. He turned from the ruined room, and went upstairs. A short inspection of his house showed him the extent of the damage; it was practically all confined to glass, and damage from the rain. In the front of the house every pane of glass was shattered on the first and second floors; a few windows at the top remained intact. The back of the house was quite undamaged; the windows were intact and the rooms dry.

A clanging bell brought him to the nursery window in time to see a white ambulance go past the house at a considerable speed. He heard the brakes go on with violence as it passed him; it seemed to draw up down the road out of his sight. There was a commotion down there, noises of people and sounds that he could not place.

He turned from the window, went downstairs to the bathroom, opened the medicine cupboard on the wall, and took a couple of aspirins to ease his headache. Then he went down to the front door, opened it, and looked out.

The rain blew down the street in desolate great gusts; low over his head the grey clouds hurried past. Something peculiar about the houses opposite attracted his attention; he stared for a moment while a dulled, tired brain picked up the threads. And then it came to him. Practically every window within sight was shattered like his own, and the rooms stood open to the rain.

He walked to the front gate, bareheaded in his raincoat, and looked down the road. A hundred yards away the ambulance was halted with a little crowd of people round it; they were putting a stretcher into it with care. It seemed to him that there were ruins there, as if the garden wall had fallen down onto the pavement. He knew what must have happened and it interested him; he went out of the gate and started down the road.

The ambulance moved off as he drew near. He knew the house, of course. He did not know their name. He knew them as an elderly couple who drove a very old Sunbeam car, with a married daughter who stayed with them with her children intermittently. As he came up the little crowd turned to disperse, and Corbett saw for the first time the results of a bomb.

It had fallen in the front garden. There was a shallow crater there, three or four feet deep. Bursting before it had had time to penetrate far into the ground, the force of the explosion had gone sideways. The garden wall of that house and the next was nowhere to be seen; it was obliterated, lying in heaps of mould and shards of broken brick and mortar scattered in the road. The front wall of the house had collapsed and had fallen in a great heap into the front garden, blocking the door and exposing dining room and bedrooms to the air with all their furniture in place, much like an open doll's house. A portion of the roof had slipped and now hung perilously, swaying and teetering in the wind; from time to time a slate crashed to the ground.

His next-door neighbour was there, Mr. Littlejohn, a builder of houses out at Sholing. Corbett knew his neighbour fairly well over the garden wall, and liked his comfortable manner. But now the broad rubicund face was drawn and tired and very serious.

Corbett asked, a little foolishly, "Is anybody hurt?"

The builder turned to him. "The maid. It's her they've just taken away. But I don't know if it was the explosion, or whether she had a fall getting down from her room. That's her room, the one at the top with the washstand. Doesn't look as if it had been touched now, does it—barring the wall, of course."

"Where was she?"

"Lying out in the garden here, all messed up."

Corbett blinked. It seemed incredible. "What happened to the old people?" he enquired.

"They're all right—but for the shock, of course. The blast must have been terrific in the house. See what it's done to all our windows. But they sleep at the back, so I suppose they were all right."

"Are they in there now?"

Mr. Littlejohn shook his head. "Mrs. Wooding's got them in her house—her that lives at Number 56. They'll be all right."

He turned away. "I tried to telephone the hospital, but my line's out of order. Is yours working?"

"I haven't tried it," said Corbett. "It was all right last night."

"I bet it's not now."

They turned, and walked together up the road towards their houses. "Well," said the builder heavily, "I got enough of this in the last war to last my lifetime. I didn't never want to see it again."

"I was too young," said Corbett. "I've never seen anything like this before."

"Let's hope you'll never see it again." They walked on for a few paces in silence.

"I didn't know what to do," said Corbett. "Where did you go?"

The builder laughed shortly. "Soon as I realized what it was I got my missus out of bed and we went down to the cellar. And then I thought, maybe there'd be a sort of slanting hit—like that one—and the house would fall on top of us. So then we went upstairs again, and sat on the stairs outside our bedroom, because that way we got a room and two walls between us and the outside—see? But there—whatever you do may be wrong."

"I know," said Corbett. "We went out to the garage."

"To the garage?"

"I was afraid of the house coming down. But if the garage walls blew down on us—well, it's all light wooden stuff, and besides, the car would keep it off you. So we lay on the floor beside the car."

The builder nodded slowly. "That's all right. But when all's said and done, there's nothing to beat a trench. A seven-foot trench so that your head gets right beneath the ground, but not so deep you may get buried in it. That's what you want to get—a trench dug in the garden."

They paused for a moment by the builder's gate. "What's it all about, anyway?" asked Corbett dully. "Are we at war?"

The other shook his head. "I dunno."

"Who do you think it is we're fighting?"

"Blowed if I know. One or other of 'em, I suppose."

Corbett went back into his house; before going out to rouse his family he poured himself out a whiskey and soda. He stood for a few minutes in his dining room drinking this, a weary and dishevelled figure in his sodden raincoat. Before him on the table was a copy of the Evening News of the night before, wide open at the centre page. His eye fell on the cartoon. It represented the Prime Minister, very jocular, dangling a carrot before two donkeys separated from him by a wire fence. One of the donkeys had the head of Hitler, and the other, Mussolini.

Corbett remembered how they had laughed over it at dinner time. It did not seem so very funny now.

He stared at the paper. He had bought it from the boy on the corner, on his way back from the office, as he always did. He had had an interesting day, and not too tiring. He had got home about half past six and had been to see the children in their beds before they went to sleep, and played with them a little. Then he had gone down with Joan, and before dinner they had planned a new position for the sweet pea hedge, taking it off the wall and putting it between the garage and the lilac tree. She had showed him that the magnolia was coming out; they had talked about the errors of omission of the gardener, who came once a week. Then he had read the paper for a little; he remembered having heard during the day that all leave had been cancelled for the Fleet over at Portsmouth, because of the tension on the Continent. But there was always tension on the Continent, and leave had been cancelled many times before. There didn't seem to be anything particularly alarming in the paper.

So they had gone in to dinner and talked about their holiday, wondering if it would be nice to take the car to Scotland this year, for a change. And after dinner there had been a concert of chamber music on the radio; they had listened to that until the news came on at nine o'clock when they switched off, having read the evening paper. Then they had played a game of cards together and had gone to bed a little after ten, to lie reading in their twin beds till half past eleven. It was about that time that Murder in Miniature had slipped from his hand, and he had rolled over and put out his light.

The first bomb fell soon after that, before midnight.

The concussions were considerable—they must have been, because he could remember nothing from the time that he put out his light and settled down to sleep till he was standing at the window with Joan, his arm around her shoulders, peering out into the rainy night. The bursts, distant as they were, were rocking the house and setting things tinkling in the room.

"Peter, what can it be?" she had asked. "They wouldn't be firing guns for practice at this time of night, would they?"

He had shaken his head. "Not on a night like this. There's nothing for them to see."

And suddenly she had cried, "Oh, Peter! Look!"

He had looked, and he had seen a sheet of yellow flame perhaps a quarter of a mile away, outlining the roof tops in silhouette. With that there came a shattering concussion, and another, and another, nearer every time.

"Oh, Peter," she had cried. "It hurts my ears!"

He had hurried her from the window; they crouched down on the floor beside the wardrobe at the far side of the room. "Keep your hands pressed tight over your ears," he had said. "I think this must be an air raid."

That salvo passed; as soon as it was over she had insisted upon going upstairs to quiet the children and the nurse.

There was a lull, but the concussions continued intermittently in other parts of the city. He had to do some quick thinking then. Like most Englishmen of that time, he had read something about Air Raid Precautions in the newspapers. He knew, vaguely, that he had been advised to make a gas-proof room, and he knew with certainty that he had done nothing about it. There had been something about buckets of sand for incendiary bombs, and something about oilskin suits for mustard gas. And there had been a great deal about gas masks—in the newspapers, at any rate.

Quickly his mind passed in review the relative safety of the top room of the house, the cellar, and the garage. He did not think of staying on the stairs, as Littlejohn had done. It was more by instinct than by reasoning that he decided on the garage, and hurried to the nursery to tell his wife.

The children had been terrified at the concussions, screaming at the top of their voices. In the turmoil he had given his orders to the women in a firm, decisive manner, and had gone to carry rugs and bedding down the garden to the garage. A fresh salvo fell near at hand and set him cowering by the kitchen stove; in the middle of this all the lights in the street and the house went out. He heard, somewhere near at hand, the crash and rumble of falling masonry and the wailing of a siren on some ambulance or police car.

That salvo passed. In the lull that followed he went groping around in the pitch darkness, and got Joan and the nurse with the three children and all their bedding out of the nursery and down the garden in the rainy night to the garage. There he had made a bed for the two older children on the floor, protected by the garden roller and the box of silver sand. Then he lay down upon the floor himself with the two women and the baby in the basket cot. He had brought a bottle of whiskey from the house; he opened it and gave Joan and the nurse a drink. It made them feel a little better.

They had lain there all night on the damp, oily floor. The raid had gone on continuously till after three o'clock, the explosions sometimes distant, sometimes very near at hand. The children had been crying for much of the time; the nurse had cried softly to herself most of the night.

It was over now. Corbett put his empty glass down on the table and stretched himself erect in the morning light; he was feeling more himself. It had been bad while it lasted. Now he must get the family indoors again and start cleaning up the mess, try to do something about the windows. After that, he must go down as soon as possible to see if everything was all right at the office. If he had time, it would be nice to find out if the country was at war and, if so, who the war was with.

He went first to the kitchen, to put on the kettle for a pot of tea before he brought them from the garage. The hot water boiler was alight, and the water was hot. That was a good first step; things weren't so bad, after all. He raked the boiler out and filled it up with coke. Then he filled the electric kettle at the hot water tap and switched it on to boil while he went out to fetch them from the garage.

The indicator showed that no current was flowing to the kettle.

He jerked the main switch once or twice without result; his lips set to a thin line. This was very bad. He did the whole of his cooking on an electric range; there was no gas in the house. He tried a light switch and a base plug; then he went to the front door and tried the bell. He looked at the main fuse in the box, which was intact. Very soon he had proved that there was no electricity supply at all.

He went into the dining room and tried the telephone, to ring up the supply company. Like Littlejohn, he found the line was dead.

He searched around the kitchen but could not find an ordinary kettle in the house, though there were three electric ones. He filled a saucepan with hot water, took off the cooking disc from the hot water boiler, and put the saucepan on; it would boil slowly there. He stood then for a minute thinking hard; there was the breakfast to be cooked. Finally he shrugged his shoulders; there were only two alternatives for cooking, the dining room or drawing room fire. The drawing room was uninhabitable with no windows; he went into the dining room, laid the fire with paper, wood and coal, and lit it.

Then he went out to fetch his family indoors.

A quarter of an hour later they were all in the dining room, the children dressing by the fire, Joan beginning to consider breakfast. She had made a quick trip through the shattered rooms with him, and had retired to wash her face in warm water. She came down to find him wrestling with the fire, which had gone out and filled the room with smoke.

Sophie, their nurse, went straight up to her room and came down half an hour later, glum and silent.

He was half way through lighting the fire for the second time when the front door was pushed open, and Mr. Littlejohn came in. "Thought I'd just come in to see if you were quite all right," he said. "I did ring, but the bell's out of order."

Corbett stood up, wiping his coal-stained hands. "That's very nice of you," he said. "The bell works off the main. I've got no current in the house at all."

"Neither have I," said the builder, "nor gas either. Is your telephone working?"

Corbett shook his head. "That's off, too. I tried to ring them up about the electricity. We do all our cooking on electricity. That's why I'm mucking about with this fire."

The other nodded. "It's the same with us. Got any water?"

The solicitor looked startled. "Oh, yes. It's running at the tap all right."

"Ah, but is it coming into the tank from the main, up at the top? That's what you want to watch."

"I don't know. I never thought about that."

The builder smiled. "First thing I thought about, the water. But then, I been in the trade, you see—all my life. Let me go up and have a look at the cistern, and I'll soon tell you."

"Is yours off?"

"Ay."

They went up to the attic; Corbett watched anxiously as Mr. Littlejohn depressed the ball valve. "Not a drop," he said cheerfully. "Just the same as mine. Dry as a bone—see?"

He got down from the cistern. "That's what I came in about, really and truly," he said. "I wanted to be sure you knew about it, and not go lighting up the hot water boiler, or having a hot bath, or anything of that. I been in the trade, and I know what to look for—see? So I thought I'd just pop in and see if things were all right. Hope you don't mind."

"It's awfully good of you," said Corbett. "As a matter of fact, the boiler's going now. I keep it on all night. I'd better let it go out, hadn't I?"

"It's all right so long as you don't draw off any more hot water—or not very much. I wouldn't make it up again—let it go out natural."

They went downstairs, looking at bedrooms and the drawing room as they went. "These windows are just terrible, of course," said Corbett. "I'll have to try and do something about them. I wish this bloody rain would stop."

The builder nodded. "I'm going down to my place, soon as I've had a bite to eat," he said, "to get a couple of my chaps up with some matchboarding, put over them temporary till I get some glass cut. Do yours the same if you like—while they're here."

Corbett thanked him.

"Well, I'll be going along," said Mr. Littlejohn. He paused by the door. "One other thing," he said. "You haven't had no trouble with the drains?"

"Not that I know of. I haven't looked."

They went to look. The downstairs water-closet pan was about half full of a black liquid that undulated and changed level as they watched.

"That's bad," said Mr. Littlejohn, regarding it, fascinated. "That's very bad, that is."

"Isn't yours like that?" asked Corbett.

"It may be, now. It wasn't when I looked a quarter of an hour ago."

"What ought I to do about it?"

The builder scratched his head. "Don't see that you can do anything about it, really and truly," he observed. "It's flooding does that—pressure and flooding in the sewers, that didn't ought to be there at all. But there—I suppose it's all you can expect."

He turned to Corbett. "I wouldn't let any of them use this place," he said. "Not for an hour or two, till I find out how things are. You've got another one upstairs, haven't you?"

They satisfied themselves that that one was all right.

Corbett walked with him to the door; the builder made him step outside into the rain. "Just between you and me, Mr. Corbett," he said. "There's no sense in alarming people—ladies, and that. But what I mean is—the electricity and gas, they're just an inconvenience, if you take my meaning. A bit of coal in the grate, and a good resourceful woman like my missus or Mrs. Corbett, and you're right as rain. But the water—that's different. You want to watch the water and not let them go wasting it, or flushing closets with it, or anything of that—not till we know where we are. You've got fifty gallons more or less in your cold cistern and another thirty in the hot water tank, and that's plenty to be going on with. But it's not enough for all the house to have a bath, or let run to waste. Not till we know how things are. I mean, when it's going to start running in again."

Corbett nodded. "That's true. Thanks very much for the tip." The builder said, "I just took a walk. You been down Salisbury Road yet?"

"Not this morning."

"There's a house down there—it's terrible, Mr. Corbett. Really and truly. I never seen anything like it—not even in the war—not from one shell, that is. Still, what I meant to say was this. Two of them fell in the road, one at the far end and another one a little bit this way. Well, the one at the far end, the water main's bust for sure. There's a regular fountain coming up, properly flooding the place. And it's not running away, neither—like it should. That looks as if the surface drains is crushed."

There was a momentary silence.

"You see, Mr. Corbett, a lot of people, they forget about the water. It don't give no trouble in the ordinary way, and you don't think. But once the mains is cracked, they take a power of a lot of getting right again. Water ain't like electricity, where you can string a bit of wire along on poles to the house and everything's all right. Water's water, and it takes a long time to get the mains in order once they're cracked.

"And where one of them bombs has fallen," he said soberly, "it'll all be cracked. Water and gas and sewers—all mixed up together."

Corbett went back into his house and told Joan about the water. She wrinkled her brows. "We'll have to get it put right before tonight," she objected. "There's the children's baths. Phyllis and John could go without, perhaps, but baby must have hers."

"I should think you might take a little in a basin for baby. The other two will have to go dirty." He went on to tell her about the drains. "I'll see if it's possible to do anything about the water today," he said. "But in the meantime, we'll just have to go slow on what we've got."

"I suppose so," she said wonderingly. "Seems funny, doesn't it? Here, come and eat your breakfast." She leant over the smoking fire, and transferred a couple of rather smutty eggs from the frying pan to a luke-warm plate.

He asked, "Where's Annie?" They had a daily maid who came in before breakfast.

"She hasn't turned up yet. I hope her rabbit dies."

She busied herself about the grate; he sat down with the children to the meal. Phyllis asked him, "Daddy. Are we going to sleep in the garage again tonight?"

He was startled. The possibility had not occurred to him before. "I don't think so," he said. "Not unless the bangs start coming again."

His answer was digested in silence for a minute. Then, "Daddy, if the bangs come again, may I take Teddy to bed with me in the garage?"

"May I take Horsey, Daddy?" asked his son.

"Why—yes," he said patiently. Joan came to his rescue.

"Get on and eat your breakfasts," she said. "You've not eaten anything. If you don't eat your breakfasts up, Daddy won't let anybody sleep in the garage tonight."

That finished them for the rest of the meal. Corbett got up from the table, lit a cigarette. He said, "I must get down to the office right away. I want to see how things are there. If anything's happened to our files and records—there'll be awful trouble."

"You can't go down without having a shave," said Joan. "Make yourself tidy, dear. This water will be hot in a minute."

He stared at her in wonder. "I must be off my head," he said at last. "Fancy thinking of going down to work without having shaved...." He rubbed a hand over the stubble on his chin.

She pressed his arm. "Don't worry. I expect everything will be all right down there."

Twenty minutes later, spruce and neat in his business suit, bowler hat, and dark overcoat, and carrying a neatly furled umbrella on his arm, he came to her again.

"I'm off now," he said. "I can't ring you up because the phone's out of order—I'll try and get that put right. I'll be back to lunch if I possibly can, but don't worry if I'm not."

She stood for a moment in thought. "Candles," she said at last. "We'll have to have some candles if the electricity isn't going to be on tonight. The milk hasn't come yet, either. We take three and a half pints. If it doesn't come I'll have to go and get it, but I don't want to leave the house."

He nodded. "Candles and milk."

She turned to him. "I tell you what would be a god-send, if you could get it. A Primus stove—like we have on the boat. And a kettle to go on it—and paraffin and meths, of course."

"I'll do what I can. I'd better take the car."

She reached up and kissed him. "There's sure to be an awful lot of other things," she said. "Come back for lunch, if you can."

He went down the garden to the garage, got the car, and drove towards his office in Cumberland Place. He was appalled at what he saw. In Westwood Road he passed a house that had suffered a direct hit; above the first floor there was very little left of it. He went on, sober and a little sick, and stopped once more to inspect a crater in the road where there had been a motor car. After that he did not stop again.

He had to make two detours to avoid roads that were blocked with bomb holes.

The streets were full of people. Most of them seemed to be looking around, viewing the damage before they went on to their work. There was a sort of stunned bewilderment apparent in the crowd, and mingled with it the exhilaration of the novelty, a certain thrill and pleasure in the break of the routine. There was excitement, interest, in the streets. People were standing at street corners chatting eagerly to strangers; at other points there seemed to be the apathy of tragedy. Corbett wanted to buy a paper but could see no posters; the newsagents shops that he passed were closed. A great many shop windows were smashed; in one or two places gangs of men were working nailing boards across.

He reached his office about ten o'clock, and parked outside it. Duncan, the managing clerk, slid from his desk as Corbett came in.

"Morning, Duncan. Mr. Bellinger in yet?"

"Not yet, Mr. Corbett." The old man hesitated. "Wasn't it a terrible night, sir?"

Corbett nodded. "Pretty bad. Everything all right at home, I hope?"

"Yes, sir. We were spared."

"Spared? So was I. We've got that to be thankful for."

"Oh, yes, sir. We have indeed."

"Has the Times come?"

"No, sir. None of the papers have come this morning, nor the post either."

"Have we had any windows broken here?"

"No, sir. Everything seems to be quite all right. I think we've been very fortunate."

"I should say we have."

He moved over to the telephone switchboard and tried the various lines; it was all dead. He went through into his office.

With no post, no paper, and no telephone, there was only routine work to do; he could not settle down to that. He idled for ten minutes at his desk, waiting for something to happen. Then he noticed Andrews' car parked outside his office next door. Andrews was a chartered accountant, and a member of the same club.

He went out, and into the next office. Andrews, lean and saturnine, was idling as he had been.

"Morning," said Corbett. "Have a good night?"

"Not so bad," said Mr. Andrews. "Bit of coal in the bed, but nothing to signify."

"Do you know if we're at war?"

Mr. Andrews said, "We are now."

"Who are we fighting?"

Mr. Andrews told him in a few short sentences.

"How did you get to know all this?" asked Corbett.

"It's on the radio. They're broadcasting news almost continuously."

"My set's passed out with the electricity."

"So is mine. But I've got a set in the car, and that's functioning all right. The King's broadcasting at three o'clock, and the Prime Minister at 2.30."

"If we get any current I must listen in to that."

"If we had some ham," said Mr. Andrews, "we could have some ham and eggs if we had some eggs."

"Do you know, has any other town been bombed?"

The accountant leaned forward. "Has any town not been bombed! They've all had it, from what I can make out—just like us. Portsmouth, Brighton, Bristol, Guildford, Bournemouth, Oxford, Birmingham, Coventry, Plymouth—oh, and a lot more. Practically every town in the Midlands and the South of England."

"My God!" said Corbett.

Mr. Andrews leaned back in his chair. "The real cream of the joke," he said, "the part that'll tickle you to death, is that there's no news that any of the bombers were shot down, or interfered with in any way. That's a bad one."

"Of course," said Corbett.

"I suppose it came as a complete surprise."

"Evidently."

There was a little silence. Corbett frowned. "I don't understand how it was done. I didn't see any airplanes, or hear any engines. Did you?"

"No, I can't say I did. I saw a few searchlights, but they didn't seem to be much good. The clouds were too low."

The solicitor got up restlessly, and walked over to the window. "My God," he said, "we're in a bloody mess."

He stood staring out of the window over the little park on the other side of the road. There were craters in it like great excavations. Through the trees he could see the buildings of the Civic Centre; part of it seemed to have come down.

Without turning from the window he said, "Did you count the bombs?"

Andrews shook his head. "I had other things to think about, old boy."

"I wonder how many there were? There's been a frightful lot of damage done."

The accountant picked up a pencil and held it poised above his blotting pad. "On the average," he said, "how many explosions did you hear a minute?"

"Lord knows. Sometimes they came quick, and then there'd be a bit of a gap. I heard about fifteen come down one minute."

"But on the average?"

Corbett thought carefully. "More than four. Perhaps five or six. But you really can't say."

The accountant flung his pencil down unused. "There are a hundred and eighty minutes in three hours. That means the best part of a thousand bombs."

Corbett nodded. "I dare say there were that number. But what sort of a force of bombers would that mean?"

"I've no idea."

Corbett turned back into the room. "There must have been a lot of people killed," he said heavily. "Have you heard anything about the casualties yet?"

Mr. Andrews shook his head. "They didn't say anything about that side of it upon the radio. There were three people killed in Wilton Road, just by me. Family called Winchell. Did you know them?"

Corbett shook his head.

"Father, mother, and one child," said Mr. Andrews succinctly. "The other kid got off scot free."

There was a little silence.

"I can't stay here," said Corbett restlessly. "I'm going out. I've got to buy a Primus stove."

He went out into the streets. In the half hour since he had come into the centre of the town there had been a marked change for the better. The idle, gossiping crowds had vanished from the corners, and now the streets were full of busy, energetic people going about their business. The craters in the streets where bombs had fallen were full of men working upon the various mains and conduits, shattered and uncovered by the explosion. In half a dozen places the overhead wires of the trams were down and trailing in the road; he saw several repair gangs working upon those. A great many of the windows of the larger shops were shattered irretrievably; in most of them the assistants were engaged in putting up some sort of barrier or protection to the shop front. There was a tendency to chalk up such notices as BUSINESS AS USUAL.

Southampton was itself again, busy and enterprising.

He went into an ironmonger's where he was known, to buy a Primus stove. "I'm sorry, Mr. Corbett," said the man, "but I'm right out. Haven't got a Primus in the place. Regular run on Primuses there's been this morning, what with the gas being off and all. I'm sorry."

"Do you know where I could get one?"

The man suggested one or two other places. "Would you like me to save you a gallon of paraffin, Mr. Corbett?"

"Is that short?"

"There's been a great run on it this morning. We shall be out very soon."

He bought a can, had it filled with paraffin, and took it with him to the office. Then he went out again.

He got a Primus stove with difficulty at a ship chandler's down by the docks. After trying half a dozen stores, he got some very large candles irreverently at an ecclesiastical supplier's. Fresh milk was unobtainable; it seemed that very little milk had come in to Southampton that morning. He got a few tins of condensed milk at a grocer's shop.

Towards noon he was in the High Street, walking back towards his office. Quite suddenly beneath his feet he felt a subterranean rumble, and a hundred yards away a manhole cover shot up into the air from the middle of the road, followed by a vivid sheet of yellow flame. The heavy cover fell with a resounding clang upon the road, doing no damage. There was a sudden rush of people from the street; one or two women screamed.

There was an expectant pause.

Nothing more happened, and presently the people ventured out into the street again. A little crowd collected. A harassed-looking policeman with a grey drawn face and dirty streaks around his eyes appeared from somewhere and stood by the open manhole.

"Move along there," he said mechanically. "Don't get crowding round—there's nothing to see. Keep moving on. Come on there—keep moving. Bit o' gas in the sewer. Nothing to worry about now. Move along, please."

Corbett went over to the hole; the man recognized him as a police court acquaintance, and saluted. "Not so good, this," said Corbett.

"I didn't see it happen, sir," said the constable. "I was around the corner, in Fishbourne Street. But there have been one or two of these this morning."

"Did you say it was gas in the sewer?"

"Town gas from the mains, they say, sir." He said wearily, "It'll take a while to get things properly fixed up, after a night like what we've had."

Near the Civic Centre Corbett bought a newspaper still wet from the press, and read about the war.

The war news was quite short, and made up from the news broadcasts suitably filled out by the local editor. There was an account of similar raids which had taken place in other towns, which did not interest him very much. It left him cold to hear in messages sent out from London that London had been more heavily bombed than any other town. On another page there were full details of the emergency programme of broadcasting, of academic interest only in a town where the electric wires were dead. He reflected for a minute. There was a battery set in his old yacht at Hamble, if he could get to that. But probably the batteries would be run down. He had not used it since the previous summer.

The back page of the paper was given over to a stirring patriotic appeal. It seemed that there were a number of ways in which he could enlist to serve his country. All of them involved leaving Joan and his three children to get along as best they could. His brows wrinkled in a frown; he wanted to think over that. It wasn't a thing to be rushed into. If there was going to be another air raid, somebody would have to be at hand to help Joan with the children. Especially if this talk of gas meant anything....

Back at the office his secretary, Miss Mortimer, was waiting for him with her hat and coat on. She got up as he came in.

"Please, Mr. Corbett," she said, "could I have the day off?"

He nodded. "That's all right," he said. "We shan't be doing any work today. I'm going home myself."

She sighed with relief. "Thank you so much, Mr. Corbett. It's my daddy and mummy, you see. They live all alone, and they're so old now. I can't get to know what's happened to them, or if they want any help, unless I go there myself. I'll be back as soon as ever I can."

"That's all right," he said again. "Where do they live?"

"Just outside Poole, Mr. Corbett—between Poole and Bournemouth. I'm not sure how the trains are going, but if it comes to the worst I could get over on my bicycle. It's only about thirty miles."

She paused. "Of course, I went through the Air Raid Precautions course, and I'm supposed to be working at a First Aid post. But I can't think of anything else but how Daddy and Mummy are getting on. I do think the old people ought to come first, don't you, Mr. Corbett?"

"That's your own problem," he said. "I can't help you there."

She considered for a minute, and said doubtfully, "I might be able to get somebody to take my place before I go."

She left him, and he turned to the old clerk. "We'll pack up for the day," he said. "Lock up the office, and get along home and look after your family."

"Thank you, sir. But there's only my wife and myself. The children are all out in the world."

Corbett nodded. "So much the better for you."

"I'm sure, sir." The old man hesitated. "Did you hear where we could get our gas masks, sir, by any chance?"

The solicitor shook his head. "I haven't heard a word about that yet."

He went out to the car, laden with his purchases. The rain had stopped and the clouds had lifted a little; over his head a couple of airplanes made reassuring noises, crossing, turning, and recrossing the city. He watched them for a minute.

"Making a photographic survey of the damage," he said, half to himself. "That's not a bad idea, for a start." He had guessed right.

Outside his office he ran into Andrews, crossing to his car. Andrews said, "Been down to the Docks this morning?"

Corbett shook his head.

"I've got a job going on down there. You never saw such a picnic."

"There's been a lot of damage?"

"Not a great deal, really. One of the small Cunard boats—I don't know which—she's foundered in the Ocean dock. They were saying that there was another one at Millbrook—a Greek tramp. One or two of the sheds have got it pretty bad. But the trouble is, they're all trying to get away to sea together, on this tide. Evans told me there are thirty-eight ships docking out this morning—most of them just moving down to anchor in the Solent and Southampton Water. The masters won't listen to reason, and they're not giving a damn for anyone or anything. They're getting their ships out of it before tonight."

Corbett nodded slowly. "They think there's another raid coming tonight?"

"Everybody seems to think that." He paused. "I tell you, I've never seen anything like it. This wind isn't helping, either. They've had two collisions in the fairway—one quite bad. There aren't enough tugs to go round. There's a Dutch ship beached at Cracknore Hard with her stern right out in the channel—I never saw such a pickle."

They stood in silence for a moment.

"Heard anything about gas masks?" asked Corbett.

"Yes. I asked about that at the Civic Centre. They reckon they'll be here tonight."

They separated, and Corbett got into his car to drive home. As he went, he noted with surprise the progress that was being made in the rehabilitation of the city. Trams were running again northwards from the Civic Centre. In London Road there had been three great craters, half filled with water. Two of these had already been roughly filled with gravel brought by heavy lorries; in the third a strong gang of men were working on the repair of a sewer. Practically every manhole in the pavements and the roads was up, and occupied by a man working. Clearly it would not be many days before the services would be working again, in that district at any rate.

He drove on into the suburban roads, and there the situation was not quite so good. Most of the houses gaped with broken windows; in the streets the bomb holes were still streaming water to the gutters.

"There won't be any water in the town, at this rate," he muttered.

He stopped the car before his garden gate and went into the house, carrying his purchases. Joan met him in the doorway.

"Peter," she said. "Sophie's gone."

"Gone?"

"She lives at Romsey. She was awfully glum after breakfast, and then she said she wanted to go home. I tried to get her to stay out her week, but she wouldn't. She just went and got her things on, and walked out."

"Did she take her clothes and stuff with her?"

"No. She said she'd send for them, or she'd come and get them. She was in such a state of nerves she didn't know what she was doing."

"Has Annie come?"

She shook her head. "She hasn't turned up today. We've got nobody at all."

He laid his hand upon her arm. "Never mind. Annie may be in tomorrow. But if she isn't, we'll get along all right till things get settled down. There's nothing doing in the office, so I'll be able to give you a hand in the house for a bit."

He mused for a moment. "That's the evacuation of the city, of course," he said thoughtfully. "Sophie's one of them. I saw a lot of people going out along the London Road. But I don't know that we've really come to that."

He thought uneasily of the shipping, of the tramps and liners barging against each other and colliding in their endeavours to get clear of the city before night.

"Oh, and Peter," said his wife. "The water closet in the downstairs lavatory has been misbehaving. It sort of overflowed, I think. It's beastly."

He went with her to look; they stopped outside the door. The floor of the little room was covered in black, liquid slime, with an offensive smell. The pan was full of undulating sludge.

Joan said, "Someone ought to come and put that right for us, shouldn't they? I mean, it ought not to do that."

He agreed that it ought not. "But whether they'll be able to spare anyone to come and look at it, for the next day or two—that's another matter."

In this trouble, he went round to see Mr. Littlejohn. He found him with two joiners putting the finishing touches to the matchboarding of his drawing room and first-floor windows, turning the rooms into dark caverns. "Made a nice job of this," said Mr. Littlejohn. "They'll be starting on yours after dinner."

"It's awfully good of you," said Corbett, and consulted him about the closet.

"Mine did the same," said the builder wearily. "Terrible mess it made—all over the place. Unhealthy, too—not what one ought to have about in the house at all. I put down a lot of Sanitas. But see, I'll show you what to do." He took Corbett and showed him how he had taken up an iron manhole cover in the front garden. "Now if it happens again, it just comes up and flows over in the garden here and soaks into the ground, and don't hurt nobody."

He thought for a moment. "Leastways," he said, "it's better than having it in the house with you."

Again Corbett told his story of the episode in the High Street, to an enthralled audience. "Of course," said Mr. Littlejohn when he had finished, "that explains everything, when you get them sort of goings on. Blew the cover right up in the air, did it? Well, I never!"

They talked happily about the drains for a time. And then, "You thought what you're going to do if they come back again tonight?" asked the builder.

Corbett rubbed his chin in perplexity. "I did think about a trench," he said. "I don't know how long it would take me to dig."

"Cor," said the builder, "that wouldn't take no time, not just a little bit of a thing, like what you'd need. There's only you and the missus, and the children. You'd want to get about five feet down and big enough to take a couple of chairs, just so that your heads was below the surface, sitting down. It wouldn't take more than three hours, or four hours at the most, digging a little bit of a hole like that."

"Of course," said Corbett, "the other thing would be to get out into the country for the night."

"I been thinking of that," said Mr. Littlejohn slowly. "But—I don't know. After all, they wouldn't come two nights running, hardly—not to the same place."

Corbett said, "I shouldn't think so. At the same time, I'd sleep happier tonight if I'd got a trench to go to."

"That's right," said Mr. Littlejohn. "Tell you what. I'll slip along to my place after dinner, and fetch back a couple o' picks."