The Gale of the World (41 page)

Thump!

He was rising up from the morass, he was saved so that the truth should not be lost in death's dateless night. Only he could write it all, for he had seen Willie plain, as Willie saw Shelley
plain. He must carry Europe's dead in his arms through the blood-weeping night.

Thump!

He had got through! He had reached the Town-major's office in the Old Prison of Ypres!

And his heart beat again, a great tongueless bell in the ruins of the Cathedral beside the Cloth Hall; and he was carrying his sister, small and burned in the fire, in his arms.

*

Thus the release of obsessional pictures among others filling millions of cells of one brain, messages fired electrically in normal times but now stimulated abnormally by a bolt of lightning. The brain cells were fed by more than four miles of veins containing blood; each cell a unit of intelligence, a nerve and its unit
commander
linked to an appropriate series of muscles, each one
transmitting
instructions in order to comply with demands.

The brain an entire G.H.Q. whence messages were dispatched electrically, as over a telephone system, to demand action … a kaleidoscope of batteries firing on targets, co-ordinated by a Headquarters Staff ordering a ceaseless barrage of cross-fire and
cross-signal
; and sometimes to temporary destruction through
over-organisation
due to anxiety, to fear in all its sad forms.

And thus the release of living pictures out of Time past,
composed
of visual records which were of what once was called dead life; but which is not dead, only delayed in the slow corrosion of the body whence they would depart when the body was given up, to exist within the energy of the unseen world.

*

Phillip's eyes opened upon the visible world and he realised slowly that he was still alive; and dreadfully tired. He slept; and in a dream saw Melissa with his first wife Barley, insubstantial and diaphanous, moving among the phantoms of the past; and he wondered if the distance which seemed always to be between them, despite that they thought alike, was because the natural vital force in him had been burnt out by a dereliction of early life which had caused him to take an unnatural refuge in the Imagination.

And when his eyes opened again he lay there at rest, unfeeling wet and cold, and slowly his lost identity came back to him.

He was on The Chains; that was all.

Then supporting himself on an elbow, he saw Bodger lying beside him. All hair had been burned from face and body as the dog had been standing upon his fallen master, snout raised to
utter a howl for help: heard by the two young hounds now lying close to him on one side, and beside the hounds lay a stag. They know, he thought, they know; and the poet knew, too, when he wrote, ‘The lion shall lie down with the lamb'.

*

Phillip's habit of talking to himself in the cot, and to the tame robin, to deer seen on the horizon, to Bodger—now broke into lament. Getting to his feet shakily, he lifted the little bodged corpse and nursed it in his arms, crying out, “O Jesus God, this creature died for me!”

And memory brought back the scene on the Burrows by the estuary where he had walked with Laura earlier in the summer. And you, Bodger, were with us. Were you there, too, Willie, with your spaniel Billjohn? You died on your lonely pathway for the truth, you really did die, not make a mock of it as I have done. You, too, knew that every conquering war is lost until it gives back its revelation of truth. And you, Julian Warbeck, you were there. Are you dead as well? You said on that night of October,
nineteen
twenty three, when the spaniel was washed up with Willie on the sands of Crow Island, you said, We should give Maddison the honour and purity of fire. But it was only the spaniel the fishermen allowed us to burn. You thought it was the reward of ten shillings for a corpse they wanted, and so would not let Willie's body be taken from their boat. Surely it was pity for the dead boy, Julian, whose fame, like that of Keats, was writ in water? I liked you, arrogant Julian, when I saw your tears in the
firelight
as the swallows were flying over on their autumn migration. And you began to quote from your poet-god, Swinburne.

With that he fell face down in the water, hearing Julian's voice of grief crying,

And getting to his feet, he ambled on, holding the dead dog
to him as though a sleeping child were being carried; and coming to the Silver Eagle, a shimmer of blue, laid the body on the
nearside
bucket seat. Matches, where were any not reduced to watery pulp? He was feeling in the flapped pocket beside the gear-handle when there was a shriving flash; the motorcar became bleak, shorn of its shimmer. It fumed sulkily amidst a stench of burning rubber. A smoky yellow flame licked the far side of the box body. Then other flames arose crackling: the faggots were on fire above the petrol tank.

Remembering the petrol cans, Phillip hastened away. He stood distant by a score of yards, watching while flames rose higher and higher until, with sudden roar, the tank blew up, inducing a greater roar of expanding flames as the cans exploded and
burning
petrol spread to water plashes all around the motorcar.

*

Laura, encased above the waist in frozen rain, hands without feeling, saw below a hole in the cloud break, and a fire which might have been lit as a beacon. She put the stick forward and dived into the rift, which widened as she lost height. She thought of stress, and eased out of the dive, to continue in a declining spiral until she was at an estimated height of four thousand feet.

Drifting cumulus covered the green area. She put down the nose again, hoping to find land somewhere, while wondering if the Brig had already landed. Otherwise she had no feelings for him, or for herself. She wondered if you felt a like indifference when you were dying.

And then she saw flames through grey mist and put forward the stick and made directly for the beacon. She dived through heavy rain, but didn't care if the wings fell off. She levelled out too early and made a pancake landing in what she thought must be a shallow lake. The craft bumped and tipped. A wing tore off. She slewed to rest among what looked like crimson Chinese lanterns being tossed into the air, only to disappear and be succeeded by others curving up and floating around until they seemed to puff out; while those that fell quickly to the ground appeared to explode.

Phillip sloshed to the broken glider, seeing that one seat was empty; and Laura, helmet'd head forward, immobile as though dead.

He touched her cheek; it was cold. She was breathing. He lifted one arm, then another, with no resistance. He stood there, knowing not what to do, until an eye opened, tremulously. He
must get her to the fire, now a mass of bright oak flames about a gaunt chassis strangely rusted. He was putting his hands under her arms to heave her out when she murmured, “I—can't—find—my—legs.”

“They're numb with cold,” he replied, wondering what he should do if they were broken. If left there, she would die of exposure.

Having unfastened the belt he managed to lug her out of the cockpit. It took many attempts to heave the body over his left shoulder and then to rise; but he managed to get her more or less upright against the cockpit and then over his shoulder and stagger on towards the fire.

“I think—I—can—walk-now,” she said between pauses to rest. “Why—is—everything—so—blue?”

“Electrical discharges. Some are red—look—ahead—”

A hesitant dance, as of crimson flares without vitality, mere wraiths of a war which was beyond them, was hovering about the burning motorcar—bulbous and hesitant, they vanished a moment after taking to the air.

He slid her off his shoulder, and all she said was, “I'm so cold.”

“I'll soon get you warm by the fire, then we'll go down to the cot.”

Some time later, as they walked hand in hand to the northern edge of the plateau they saw the stag about a hundred yards away, walking as though run stiff: or had it been struck by lighting? The two hounds still accompanied the animal.

Now below them lay the slope to the common, white with water gushing down everywhere.

*

Six miles above the earth Falcon One—that gay and near-living companion of skyey days—was upside down. ‘Buster' managed to recover control, only to fall into a spin. After equalising the controls he was diving to regain flying speed when he moved
unknowing
into an updraught. The sudden shock cracked a
wing-root
. The wing was whirled away and up, while in expunging mist the pivotless craft was tossed about, to fall whirling at times like a sycamore seed, while the pilot saw below him the dark fuming trunk of the tornado.

In this fume the body of the Brig was spinning, frozen, all life departed. Then the third force flicked through the canopy of Falcon One to seek the steel-corset'd body of Hugh, twenty-third and last Baron Cloudesley of Lyonesse, in Cornwall.

The little runner of the West Lyn, where once Laura had sailed a paper boat, was a ten-foot-wide torrent leaping and foaming
downhill
with the speed of a trotting horse. When she stood beside Phillip just above the cot, she saw it to be an island, dividing the flood which was two feet up the walls. They were on what was now the bank of a river increasing its territory every minute.

They crossed the common, making for the farm at the beginning of the lane. He knocked on the door, which was opened by the farm-wife.

“This lady has crashed in her glider. Can you take her in, while I go on to Barbrook?”

“My husband has just come from there, sir. He said th’ water be all auver th’ road. The young leddy is welcome to stay wi’ us, if her be a mind to’t. Plaize to come in and set by th’ vire. If her’s sobbled wet, I could lend her my clothes—”

“Thank you, I must go on. Laura, will you accept this lady’s kind invitation to stay here and rest?”

“Aw, ’tes Mr. Madd’zn and Miss Laura! I didden recognize ’ee before! You look proper tired people, if you’ll excuse me zaying it, zur! Have ’ee th’ little old dog with ’ee?”

“He was struck by lightning.”

“Vancy that now! Was that your motorcar a’ vire on The Chains? Us zeed vlames up there, and wondered what had
happened
, didn’t us, mother?”

“That was struck, too.”

“My dear soul! And you was saved?” cried the farmer.

Laura said, “Thank you, but I think I’ll go with my friend. I feel better now.”

They trudged up the narrow sunken lane, holding hands. The flash-daze was still behind Phillip’s eyes, his head aching as he forced himself to push on, shoes squelching. Neither spoke; the evening was winter-dark though not yet seven o’clock.
Move
ment
alone would keep Laura from breaking down, he thought, as with young soldiers coming out of battle.

*

It was a grinding walk through falling rain and the gulley a-run with water. The storm had moved away over the sea. From afar came a continuing rumble as of an artillery barrage. This, thought Phillip, is the war of the elements—Fire conscripting air to force turbulence between itself and its enemy, Water! Water rising as vapour to quell insurrection! Friction between the two elements calling into being a third force, which struck blindly at any object in air or on earth, so to escape from tyranny!

Aunt Dora in that sunny September of 1916: telling him of the Eyrines, the Furies of ancient Greek legend, called the Eumenides, the Kindly Ones in the hope of changing malice into magnanimity —and thus leading to the destruction of Hellas.

Mavis in Ionian Cottage: Elizabeth damned up with despair, like the swirling water behind the bridge at Barbrook. Mavis the dreaming girl with the large brown eyes, her spirit religio-poetical, then withdrawn, dependent in adult life on a mother for sustenance spiritual and material … a ‘vulture’ to her petrofact father. Love and the loveless—himself both generous and mean—a bravado coward among better men who had found peace together on the cornfields of Picardy and the wet, the treeless, the grave-set plain of Flanders.

I was the coward; but my Doppelgänger had desperate courage. Sister Elizabeth had no outlet for her corroding despair. A pale withdrawn face among thousands of others hurrying on the stone paving-stones of London Bridge: hurrying, hurrying through roar of iron-shod hoofs and iron-hooped wheels upon the cobbles
spanning
Thames: desperate-hoping pale faces becoming withdrawn above duckboards winding among the linked water-craters of the Salient, cringing at droning roar of howitzer shells descending—both effects of the same cause.

“We’ll soon be there, Laura.”

Water-roar under trees more insistent. Small lights flashing below. They went down the steep narrow lane above swirling river. Side eddies washing in pulses over the lane.

“Hold my hand.”

They got through wading slowly, and came to an arched stone bridge beside a gaunt house with a monkey tree arising from a flooded front garden.

Small lights were flashing within one dimly-seen room. An old
woman was standing in water to her knees, outside an open door of the house.

“My dear soul, ’tes tumble. The poor lady wor’ all alone. ’Er were face down floating in her parlour, midears.”

“We’ve just come down from the moor! Water is running everywhere!”

“Aye, ’twas comin’ down like aught out of a sieve.”

“I must cross the river, to get to the caravan site on Green Meadow.”

“You bain’t goin’ vor cross thaccy bridge, midears? Thik watter be ravin’ over th’ wall like a local praicher!”

“My wife and children are camping down on the Green Meadow.”

“God help ’ee, midear.”

They stood beside the old woman. Water was moving in circular pulses before the bridge, revealing one drowned sheep after another, floating head down, in the eddy.

“’Tes a loss, midears, ’tes a loss!” mourned the woman.

Figures waded out of the house, carrying a corpse. The rescuers were firemen, by their peaked caps. A policeman flashed a light.

“You can’t get over the river!”, he shouted. “The bridge will go any moment!”

The top of the wall of the upper parapet was just visible. Taking Laura’s hand, Phillip pressed forward against water up to his waist.

“Come back, there! You’ll be drowned!” yelled the policeman, shining torch on Laura, while someone tried to grab her. She cried out, “He wants to join his friend Plato! So do I! Buona Notte!!” and waded after him, water surging breast-high.

Upstream, against the stone cutwaters, the torrent tore into branches of trees lodged there with the body of an inverted bullock. The legs were visible in motorcar lights; red adorned with stems of balsam plants, strays from some water-side garden.

By the light Phillip and Laura got across to higher ground and sat down. A curious thing happened. The motorcar headlights began to turn blue, then purple as the vehicle was dragged away into darkness.

Soon the darkness became stellar with tiny flashes of hand torches. A sergeant of police stood there, holding a bicycle of which only the handle-bars were visible. He had to shout to make himself heard. “You and the lady were lucky, sir. The bridge may go any moment now. You’re Captain Maddison, sir? Did you see
a fire on The Chains above your place?”

“I went there in my motorcar, and lightning struck it, constable.”

“Funny place to go for a car ride in a storm, sir.”

“It was a beacon to help the gliders,” Laura replied.

“Ah yes, there were gliders up from Porlock marshes.” He peered at Laura. “Weren’t you the lady secretary in one of them today? Speak up, miss, please!”

Laura yelled, “I went up with Brigadier Tarr! He baled out!”

“I’d like to ask you a few questions, sir. I suppose you know where he was due to land, or likely to land?”

Laura replied, “We were in turbulent overcast when he dropped!”

Phillip cried, “I’m sorry to interrupt, officer, but my wife and children are in a caravan on the Green Meadow!”

“This constable will take you down in his car. How did you hurt your eye, sir?”

The sergeant had heard about the cricket match in the Valley of Rocks.

“I—was—struck—by—lightning.”

He felt a return of the white and hollow porcelain illusion of himself looking out blankly through vertical, flickering bars. As they were getting into the little Morris Minor there was an
increased
roar followed by leaping white waves as the bridge broke and released the dammed-up waters.

Down the Glen went the leaping West Lyn, rolling boulders of all weights up to ten tons, uprooting and sweeping trees into the deepening gorge. Some beech trees of twelve feet and more in girth were splintered, the bark ground off the boles in transit among rocks tumbling down, hundreds of tons of stone in
overwhelming
movement. The flood swept over the Green Meadow; and roaring seawards, pushed to pieces the arched road-bridge at the head of the village; and conjoining with the heavier surges of the East Lyn, toppled over part of a hotel in a grind of boulders, trees, motorcars, bodies animal and human, doors and roofs and entire walls of cottages into the Severn Sea.

*

Globe-Mornington was sitting before the fire in the butler’s pantry, listening to the radio. Opposite him sat Corney, host of The Marksman Inn, in another arm-chair. A decanter of brandy stood on a Chippendale butler’s tray, together with unused glasses and a plate of sandwiches covered by a second plate.

Rain beat against the french-windows. Three candles burned on a shelf above the open hearth.

High-speed Morse on the short wave-band sounded, rapid and irritable, from the loud-speaker on a table against the wall.

“I suppose, Mr. Corney, some tramp-skipper sending a message to his wife, telling her to have steak and french fried potatoes ready for his supper when he reaches Tiger Bay?”

“With respect to you, Mr. Mornington, my knowledge of the Morse code, indicates that the Amphibious Warfare little lot at Fremington is sending a DUKW with crew on the road to Lynton.”

“Good weather for ducks, eh? Excuse my joke, but even Nero riddled while Rome was burnin’. Can I offer you a drink, from my personal cellar?”

“Not at the moment thank you, Mr. Mornington. Excuse me, but I hope your hot-water system ain’t about to blow up. I can ’ear it rumblin’ away through the wall behind me.”

“Perhaps it’s that fellow from M.I.5. you were telling me about, Mr. Corney. After all, you never know who is who nowadays, do you?”

“You appear to want to query my information, Mr. Mornington. I tell you that he was around my ’ouse this morning, making enquiries about your gliding gentlemen.”

“I’ll go and shut the flap of the stove. Do you feel like a cup of tea?”

“Ah, I can always make do with a cup of char!”

“‘Char’! What memories that Hindustani word brings back!”

Globe-Mornington’s memories were of a play in which he acted with George Arliss,
The
Green
Goddess.

The telephone rang.

Corney sat uneasily still until the other man returned, saying, “You’re right, Mr. Corney! It’s a fellow from the Special Branch at Scotland Yard, wanting a word with his Lordship. Private matter, he said. I told him his Lordship wasn’t back yet.”

“No peace for the wicked,” he exclaimed a moment later, when the telephone bell rang again. “That may be his Lordship! Sorry to keep having to leave you. The kettle’s on, that’s
something
positive, Mr. Corney, like Shakespeare’s little candle in a naughty world.”

He came back, saying, “It’s the sergeant of our local police, reporting Miss Laura and Captain Maddison on their way here.
The river burst its banks when Barbrook bridge gave way. Would you believe it? Doesn’t say much for local building does it? Still, it’s been coming down cats and dogs for five hours now. Anyway, those two are safe, that’s a relief. Patient you, Mr. Corney. I’ll make the tea now.”

The two men were sipping sweet strong tea laced with brandy when there came a banging on the front door.

“Welcome, Sir and Madam!” he said, leading them straight in. “Please to come into my parlour. Excuse this informality, but it’s the only decent fire in the house. Tea with brown sugar, laced by Courvoisier is highly recommended. You know Mr. Corney, I think. Do sit down, now, miss, the tea was made this very minute. Brandy for you? And for you, sir?” After serving, he knelt to remove Laura’s wet shoes.

She sat still, knees together, toes turned in, tears dripping down a vacant face.

“Eau-de-vie they call it, water of life. Tea too hot, miss? I’ll pour some away.” He jerked half the cup into the fire, topped it up with brandy. “That’s better. How about you, sir?”

Phillip was sitting with eyes shut in a smoke-blackened face, hands gripping wooden arms of chair, broken skin of heavy bruise on one cheekbone, head nearly overborne by pain.

“He’s shocked,” Laura said in a whisper. “He was struck by lightning, which killed his little dog.”

Mornington put finger to lips, and looked across at Corney.

“I’d like to run you both hot baths, miss.”

“I must go down to Lynmouth,” Phillip said hoarsely.

The telephone bell rang.

“Mrs. Bucentaur would like a word with you, sir. Let me give you an arm.” He helped Phillip to the hall, while saying in a low voice, “I gather Miss Miranda is missing. I fancy her mother wants to ask if you’ve seen her.”

Molly’s voice was controlled. “Miranda was gone before I could stop her. Did you come across her at Shepcot? No? Well then, should she have gone to find you up there, will the door be
unlocked
do you think?”

“The door is unlocked, M—Molly.”

By now the kitchen would be six feet under water. “Molly, a helicopter is on the way here, also a wheeled landing craft.”

“You don’t mean she may have wandered somewhere near the river? Mornington tells me it’s broken its banks. Are you there, Phillip? Hullo—hullo. Phillip!”

“They are—getting organised—walkie talkie sets—police
firemen
—on the the road—from Barbrook—to—Lynton.”

“Firemen—in all this rain?”

“To pump—out—houses.”

While Molly was saying how clever of them to think of that, Mr. Corney came into the room. His face was wan, desolate. He had seen his old master, Manfred, standing beside the hearth in Mr. Mornington’s room. He knew he had come to fetch Master Hugh—

Laura took the telephone receiver. “Molly” she said in a low voice, “Mornington has told me about Miranda. Capella will be with her. She will be a visible mark for any helicopter. So don’t worry. I’m sure she is all right. No, we couldn’t see very far when we came down. Phillip’s beacon saved my life. He drove up, after leaving the cricket match, to make a bonfire on The Chains. I saw the flames after the Brig bailed out to lighten the glider when our wings iced up. No; there’s no news of ‘Buster’ either, I’m afraid.”

“Keep your heart high, darling. Hugh is a very good pilot, and may have flown right out of the storm area. So he may yet have got the long-distance record after all!”