The Night of the Triffids Page 19

  'My God… that's monstrous. If… if I'd had any idea what would happen to Christina I'd never have brought her to New York; I would…' I fell silent for a while, seething at Torrence's ruthless inhumanity. And knowing only too well now why the ship that had rescued me had been ordered to New York with all speed. 'By heaven,' I murmured at length. 'I wish I could do something to make this right for Christina. Poor kid… she raised herself from the age of six. Even though she's immune to triffid poison she's already gone through hell. Now she's going to go through worse.' A foul taste flooded my mouth. 'If I could only get my hands around Torrence's neck.'

  Sam regarded me with his bright blue eyes. 'We may not be able to get Torrence. But we are trying to do something.'

  'Oh?'

  'We know that Christina's been taken to hospital. There's a lead in time to Operation Avalanche of around four weeks while the first tranche of host mothers are prepared, so that gives us a fair interval before they operate on Christina.' He nodded out of the canteen window in the direction of the empty submarine bay. 'We've dispatched a snatch squad to bring her back here. All being well, she should be here safe and sound within the week.'

  'You believe you can do it?'

  'We're going to try, David. We're going to try our hardest.'

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  REVENANT

  'ONE radio message. Just one. Surely you can give me that?'

  I was up against a brick wall.

  Sam Dymes shook his head, genuinely regretful.

  'But,' I argued, 'I need to send a message back to my people on the Isle of Wight. You can see why?'

  'Of course.'

  'Then let me warn them that Torrence is still alive. And that, what's more, he's planning to send an invasion force.'

  We were standing on the banks of the river as this discussion took place, while a sun that was nearer purple than red slipped down beyond the horizon.

  'The weather conditions will be perfect for short-wave transmission,' I insisted.

  'Sorry. I really am. But no can do.' Sam spoke in his relaxed Southern accent despite my bluster. 'David. Torrence has ships out looking for us. If he picks up our broadcast and gets a fix then he's going to come storming up that river, spitting fire and fury like nothing you've ever seen before.'

  I ran my hand through my hair. Frustrating, damned frustrating, yet Sam had a point. In the secrecy of their location lay the heart of the Foresters' survival. During the three days I'd been here I'd heard ample tales of Torrence's banditry and slaughter.

  I sighed. 'You see my concerns? I could be sitting here in the sun while Torrence's invasion force rips into my people back home.'

  'David, listen to me. That won't happen yet.'

  'How can you be so sure?'

  'Because he's going to divert his manpower into Operation Avalanche. He's going to need all the medics he has to work in the hospitals on the mass fertilization programme. He'll also require the services of his ships' crews, too. After all, egg cells won't fertilize themselves, will they?'

  I sighed again. 'Point taken.'

  'In any event, from what you say the Isle of Wight has quite a formidable force of aircraft. Torrence can't risk losing his ships on the off chance your people won't fight back. No, he'd planned on using you as the Trojan horse to bring ashore a team of saboteurs and commandos in civilian clothes. It doesn't take a lot of figuring to see that they would seize airfields, then hold them until Torrence's warships brought in reinforcements. You follow?'

  'I follow.'

  'Ready for that cold beer yet?'

  And that, as they say, was that.

  Nevertheless, my time at the base wasn't unpleasant. The amiable, gangling Sam Dymes was a good companion with his idiosyncratic way of speaking, liberally peppered with uhms, ahms and long thoughtful mmmmms. I found myself believing that he couldn't be responsible for the shooting of Gabriel Deeds back in New York. Moreover, I believed him when he explained to me that Torrence's prosperous community was built on the sweating backs of slave labour. Slaves felled the trees that provided wood alcohol for motor fuel. Slaves worked the coal mines until they died of lung disease or sheer exhaustion, never seeing the light of day from one month to the next. Female slaves were shackled in baby factories where they were forced into pregnancy year after year. It seemed, moreover, that slaves were selected by colour and their inability to see - or if they'd voiced any criticism of the Torrence regime. Most slaves were confined to the north of Manhattan Island in the districts formerly known as Harlem and Washington Heights, now known as the bland-sounding 'Industrial Zone 1'. This ghetto lay beyond the high wall I'd seen with Kerris and that she'd referred to as the 102nd Street Parallel. True, some men and women of colour worked in other parts of Manhattan, but they understood that they had been granted a special privilege and all, but all, knew that the slightest misdemeanour would mean swift and savage punishment.

  Torrence and his cronies weren't so dim that they failed to understand that among the people of different skin colours and the Blind there were many exceptionally talented men and women. Those who were a real asset to the community would be exploited accordingly. However, there was a price to pay. In return for elevation in both career and social standing these individuals had to forfeit their sex. Whether this was a symbolic surrendering of power to Torrence or whether it made for a more pliant servant class no one was quite sure. Nevertheless, Torrence viewed a eunuch workforce as eminently useful.

  During my days at the base I helped out with general chores, such as patrolling the anti-triffid fences, chopping firewood or peeling mountains of potatoes. And during the warm, balmy evenings I talked and joked with these people over a beer or two. Yet I found myself dwelling endlessly on Kerris Baedekker. I would ask myself a thousand times a day what she was doing at that very moment. Did she wonder what had become of me? Was she friend or foe now? If I could somehow spirit her away from Manhattan Island, would she go freely? Would she accept that her father was no better than a robber baron, a brutal tyrant who should be driven from power?

  I didn't know. I just didn't know.

  Then at night, as I closed my eyes, I saw her in my mind's eye - and sometimes she would come to me in my dreams.

  The next day, the seventh after my arrival, was a fateful one.

  ***

  Dawn crept redly from the rocky bluff across the river. Birds called in the trees. From the hen-coop came a cockcrow.

  Triffids greeted the daylight with a rattling of sticks against their boles. Here comes the sun, I imagined them saying. Here comes the sun… Perhaps they were still jittery after that period of near-supernatural darkness when, maybe, they had foreseen their own extinction. Now they applauded the rising sun with a crescendo rapping that swelled quickly to an ungodly roar.

  I listened to the botanical ovation as I shaved. Beside the sink a mug of coffee steamed. The bathroom was an easy-come, easy-go affair consisting of a row of sinks beneath a corrugated-iron roof. As there were no walls I could see the triffids shaking down their dark green leaves for the start of another day. Which for them would consist of standing pressed tight to the fence in their thousands. On their part this must have been an act of blind faith. That one day, like the walls of Jericho, the barriers would come tumbling down. A little way off was the shower block, which for decency's sake did boast walls that met the roof and from which I could hear the splash of water, accompanied by a deep male voice singing surprisingly melodiously.

  I'd scraped away about half my stubble (with a merciful lack of razor nicks to my chin) when I realized that people were hurrying past the alfresco bathroom, all going in the same direction. The volume of their voices rose to shouting level - whether from alarm or excitement I couldn't tell.

  Grabbing a towel, I wiped away what was left of the soap on my face. Then, with my curiosity straining like an eager dog at its leash, I joined the stream of people hurrying towards the river. I looked around, searching for the focus of this exc
itement. Then I saw it. Gliding round the bend in the river came the dark, sleek form of the submarine that I'd noticed earlier had left its moorings.

  From the rising shouts I realized that all wasn't well. Even now I could make out that the submarine was listing to one side and the conning tower itself had a frayed appearance. The call went up for medics.

  Limping in like some wounded leviathan, the submarine swung out in an arc across the river. Then, once it had aligned itself with the timber jetty, it came slowly forward.

  Now, in that reddish light of dawn, the damage was all too visible. Shell holes pocked the conning tower: the uppermost part of it had been reduced to shreds of metal. The periscope and radar housing had been blasted to nothing. But the sub's hull seemed to have escaped the worst of the damage. People surged forward as a weary crew clambered out of the hatches onto the deck, then onto the jetty itself to be greeted with hugs.

  The way the crew members hung their heads didn't suggest just weariness alone.

  Confirmation came quickly. 'They'd moved Christina from the hospital,' Sam told me later. 'I'm sorry, David. You must be bitterly disappointed.' He turned back to watch the wounded being stretchered from the sub. 'We lost some good people, too. Only half the commando squad made it back. Then the sub took a pasting from shore batteries before it could submerge. If it hadn't been able to hide in a fog bank offshore it wouldn't be here at all.'

  'What now?'

  'Now?' Sam Dymes looked worried. 'Plan B.'

  'What's Plan B?'

  'You know something, David? I haven't a clue.'

  With that he moved off to offer a few words of comfort to the injured men and women as they were loaded into ambulances.

  ***

  Within a couple of hours of the submarine's arrival calm had returned to the camp. The sub's captain and Sam Dymes began a damage assessment of the vessel. Meanwhile, the more seriously injured of the crew and commandos were airlifted by flying boat to the large settlements to the south where hospital facilities would be better.

  I returned to chopping more firewood. Here I wasn't far from the triffid fence. The plants beyond were silent. Unmoving. I sensed that they were watching events unfolding within the camp with an air of cool detachment. The downbeat mood of the base affected me and I found my thoughts about those bloody plants taking a morbid turn.

  Triffids were evolving. They moved. They heard. They killed. They were carnivorous. They were beginning to develop sight, of a kind. Many scientists also credited them with intelligence. How long before they leapfrogged over humble humanity to add yet more abilities to their repertoire? The power to read our minds? The ability to simply will objects to move? I had a feeling we only had to wait long enough. Then we'd experience first-hand what new and diabolical tricks these things could play.

  And so I worked on my pile of logs, chopping them down to manageable pieces for the cooking fires and water-heaters. Meanwhile, the sun climbed higher. However, it had lost some of its recently restored lustre. Today it refused to grow any brighter than a blood orange as it hung there in the sky; while all around the horizon a gory-hued mist settled.

  ***

  Early afternoon, and with enough firewood cut for the day I sluiced my top half down with water from a bucket, then headed off towards the canteen for lunch. Now workmen swarmed across the sub's chewed-up superstructure. Already I could see the blue-white flash of an acetylene welding torch as the difficult job of repairs got under way.

  At the entrance of the canteen I walked past a figure, one so familiar it didn't seem out of place.

  'Hey, mister, know any place where a guy can get a game of table tennis round here?'

  I stared. 'Gabriel?'

  'I was beginning to think you didn't recognize me any more, David.'

  'Yes. Of course… but, good grief! I thought you were dead.'

  'An Oscar-winning performance, wasn't it?' Gabriel Deeds beamed broadly, holding out one of his huge muscular hands. I shook it, wincing at the formidable grip.

  'Say. So you two fellers know each other.' Sam was sitting at a table, a hefty portion of apple pie in front of him. His smile, weary but warm, spoke volumes.

  I flexed my tingling fingers. 'OK, Gabe. I guess you're not here by chance?'

  Sam Dymes paused in mid-chew. 'You're not wrong.' He pointed with the spoon. 'David. Meet our man in New York. Now I'm going to finish off this incredibly delicious pie while Gabriel tells you some news you've been waiting to hear… Say, Irene… Irene? You don't have any of that fine apple pie left, do you?'

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  REVERSAL

  OVER lunch Gabriel told me what had happened, beginning with my abduction from New York more than a week ago.

  'I set it all up,' he confessed. 'I knew that General Fielding, the guy you now know is Torrence, planned to return you to the Isle of Wight with a diplomatic envoy. Or what you'd be told was a diplomatic envoy.'

  'But really I'd be giving safe passage to an invasion force. Yes, Sam filled me in on that scam.'

  Gabriel continued, 'So it seemed clear to me I either had to get you away from New York - or kill you with my bare hands.'

  I glanced at those massive hands, then back at those soulful brown eyes that were now strikingly grave. He wasn't joking about the second option, I realized.

  'Believe me, David. I went down on bended knees to beg them to spring you from New York.' He sipped his coffee. 'However, you do realize that our motives in bringing you here and so sparing your island an invasion weren't entirely noble or selfless?'

  I nodded. 'If Torrence seizes the Isle of Wight he also gets the Masen-Coker Processor.'

  'Which then gives him high-octane fuel for his aircraft to bomb the stuffing out of the Foresters. Along with any other settlement that is reluctant to accept his - for want of a better word - protection.'

  'And Kerris?'

  'She's safe,' Gabriel assured me. 'I made sure she was in the back of the taxi before the snatch squad came close.'

  'How is she?'

  'Distraught that you've gone. But bearing up well, considering.'

  'She doesn't know that you're a…'

  '… a spy? No, she knows nothing about my other role in life. Unfortunately, she doesn't know whether you're alive or dead. Naturally, I had to exercise extreme discretion.'

  'Don't you trust her?'

  Gabriel looked pained at my outburst. 'I'm sorry, David. She is Torrence's daughter, after all. I can't take that risk. We have more operatives working in New York. If our cover should be compromised, then-'

  'Yes, yes, I get the picture,' I said. 'But tell me this, Gabriel: did Kerris know about Torrence's intention to invade the Isle of Wight?'

  He looked at me levelly. 'I'm convinced that she did not know. Like you, she was going to be a pawn in Torrence's plan.'

  I sighed with relief. This separation, unpleasant enough as it was, would have become downright bitter if I thought she'd duped me.

  As we ate, Gabriel told us about the recent mission to rescue Christina. Although there was little to say that we didn't know by now. Mainly, we knew that just moments before the snatch squad tore into the hospital, brandishing submachine guns, Christina had been whisked away to a secret location.

  'Bad luck,' Sam said with feeling. 'Dashed bad luck.'

  'In the words of the old blues song,' Gabriel commented, 'if it hadn't been for bad luck, real bad luck, we wouldn't have had any luck at all. After I drove the snatch squad back to the Hudson River who should I see but Rory Masterfield staring right at me. I knew he'd recognized me, that my cover was blown. I had no option but to get the hell out of there. So I jumped onto the sub with our guys. That should have been that. Submerge, then slip out down the Hudson and away. But a shore battery caught us with a searchlight. We were sitting ducks. However, the first bit of good luck we had that night was that the big guns on the islands didn't have our range. The shells came down half a mile away. We weren't so lucky with a couple of ho
witzers on the TriBeCa battery. They were good, I'll give them that. They drilled so many holes through the conning tower that there's more air than metal there now. Then they rounded that off by carving up the periscope and radar pod. That and a few too many punctures in the hull meant we couldn't submerge. All we could do was run hell for leather for the open sea. By sheer chance we dove straight into that fog bank where we gave the gunboats the slip.' He shook his head. 'Believe me, I don't want a repeat of that trip, thank you very much.'

  The last word of Gabriel's sentence still hung on the humid air when it came. A sound that wasn't a sound. It was more a concrete-hard invisible wave that struck the canteen, sweeping plates from the tables, then the diners from their chairs. Windows shattered one after another. A boom echoed back like thunder from the bluff across the river. Immediately, I heard shouting. A siren sounded its rising wail.