Читать книгу Deluge - S. Fowler Wright - Страница 9

CHAPTER III

The first day he saw no man. His search for food was so far fortunate that he came upon the little heap of articles which he had thrown aside on the previous night, when he had first tried to outrun the water, that he might go to the rescue of his family. Among these were the broken remains of the eggs that he had been carrying, from which he was able to recover a sufficient part of their contents to provide the meal he was needing.

Beyond that he got little. He searched in deserted gardens. He ate lettuce and radishes. He made a slow and meagre meal of green peas that had scarcely begun to form in the pods. He ate half-grown gooseberries, green and hard. He searched in charred ruins for food which was not there.

In the evening he came upon an isolated tool-shed in a large garden. Built in a very sheltered corner, it was still standing. There he lay down and slept.

That day he remembered clearly, but he had little recollection of those that followed.

He must have been ill for days. The shock to mind and body the unusual exertions, the effects of wet and exposure, and of unsuitable food, had their natural consequences.

Had he been unsound in any vital organ he would have had little chance of recovery. As it was, he probably owed his life to the fact that the shed had been used by a gardener who had left a pot half full of cold tea.

This, being desperate with thirst, and after an interval of illness, of which he could not guess the duration, he found, and drank. In a cupboard he found a lump of mouldy bread, which he chewed as he lay.

After this he had a time of healthful sleep, and then staggered uncertainly into a sunlit world.

He had little strength, but the instinct for life was strong and his constitution uninjured.

Of the succeeding days his memory was blurred and dream-like.

Though he had little strength, he had much patience. He lay for many hours over a burrow, till he had caught a rabbit in his bare hands. He cooked it, somehow, for there had been matches in the shed, and he made a fire of wood without difficulty.

He followed a strayed hen, it seemed for days, till he had found the place where she was laying.

He dug up potatoes, still unripe and small, but which he could cook till his matches ended. He learned to eat raw beans.

Strength came again, and with it the desire to adventure further.

He searched among ruined houses, but was several days before he had any means of making another fire.

His greatest find at this time was a sack of sharps in a farm outbuilding, and a smaller quantity of bran. When he had secured a further supply of matches he made this meal into a kind of thick soup, and it was delicious to his altered palate.

He came on a woman who had sustained life, with an amazing vitality, crawling upon the ground, and dragging after her a broken leg.

He stayed beside her, doubtless prolonging her life, and almost certainly increasing her misery, after the tradition in which he had been educated. He could not save her life, for which an amputation would have been the only hope, and that was beyond his skill or resources.

She died unconquered, as she had lived, being too great for circumstances. She died with a faith serene and untroubled. Having fought hard for life, she accepted death confidently. “Though He slay me yet will I trust Him,” she quoted, when the fever slackened.

She lay unconscious for two days before he was sufficiently sure that she was dead to bury her from the flies.

After that, he came on an open drain in a deserted highway, at which a navvy was blindly excavating. The man begged his assistance for the useless labour. He was plainly mad, and when Martin declined to help him he made a murderous attack, from which Martin escaped with difficulty.

He wondered how the man lived.

He avoided that stretch of road for the following days, until he came on the man again, then in a condition of raving insanity. He mistook Martin for his Creator, and cursed him in words unfit for reproduction.

In the end Martin was compelled to kill him with his own pick.

At this time Martin did not go far from the shore which overlooked the place of the ruins of his own home. When his physical needs were satisfied, he would sit for many hours gazing over the water. His body recovered strength. His health became more vigorous than it had ever been, but his mind lacked incentive to do more than provide for his immediate necessities.

His reason told him that the whole earth could not be under water. He expected continually to see the smoke of some approaching steamer.

But the seas remained empty.