فصل 4

Four

The Hermit of the Islandimages

I had been expecting to be snatched up by a tentacle. The Tripod’s action, of smashing the raft instead, astonished as well as frightened me. I went deep under and took a mouthful of river water before I fully realized what was happening. When I surfaced, I looked up and saw that the Tripod, silent again, was rocking away on its previous course to the south. It seemed that what it had done had been aimless, on a par with the waltzing around the Orion when we were crossing the Channel from England. Like a vicious boy it had noticed something strange, swatted it out of pointless malice, and gone its way.

But survival was a more pressing concern than speculation on the motives of the Tripods. The raft had disintegrated into its component planks, one of which bobbed on the water near me. A couple of strokes took me to it, and I hung on and looked for Beanpole. I could see nothing but the river, graying with the approach of evening, and wondered if the tip of the tentacle might have struck him as it came down. Then I heard his voice and, turning my head to look back, saw him swimming in my direction. He took the other end of the plank and we trod water, gasping.

I said, “Shall we strike out for the shore?”

He had a fit of coughing; then said:

“Not yet, I think. Look ahead. The river bends. If we hang on we may be taken nearer in.”

The plank in any case was a support which I was not eager to relinquish. The current seemed faster, and certainly more turbulent. There were hills on either side, the river forcing itself between them. We were coming to the angle where it turned, fairly sharply, to the west. As we did so, I saw the green bank on our right divide, and had a glimpse of more water.

“The river . . .” I said. “It must fork there.”

“Yes,” Beanpole said. “Will, I think we must swim for it now.”

I had learned to swim in the rivers around my village of Wherton, and once or twice, illicitly, in the lake up at the estate. Beanpole, though, had grown up in a seaside town. He pulled away from me with powerful strokes, realized I was falling behind, and called out, “Are you all right?” I called back doggedly, “All right,” and concentrated on swimming. The current was very strong. The shore at which I was aiming slid quickly past. Then I saw something which dismayed me. Ahead the shore became a spit, with beyond it a wider reach of water. It was not a true fork in the river, but an island. If I missed landing on it there was the wider passage before me. Already tired, I would find myself in midstream with a much longer haul ahead. I altered course, and swam almost directly against the current. I heard Beanpole call again, but could not spare the energy to look for him or to reply. I struggled on, my arms becoming more and more leaden, the water colder and fiercer and more implacable. I no longer looked where I was heading, concerned only with forcing my arms through the water. Then something hit my head and I went under, dazed. I remembered nothing after that until I was aware of someone dragging me, and of firm ground under my feet.

It was Beanpole who pulled me up on to a grassy bank. When I had recovered enough to take in my surroundings, I saw by how small a margin we had made it. We were within a few yards of the northernmost limit of the island. It lay in the center of the river’s bend, and just ahead the river did broaden considerably. I discovered my head was hurting, and put my hand up to my forehead.

“A plank hit you,” Beanpole said. “From the raft, I think. How do you feel, Will?”

“A bit dizzy,” I said. Something else returned. “And hungry. Across there—isn’t it . . . ?”

“Yes,” he said, “a village.”

Despite the deepening dusk, it was possible to see houses on the east bank; some had lights in their windows. By this time I would have been prepared to take a chance on having dirty water thrown over me or being chased by large dogs—even on being questioned as to what I was doing here. But not on trusting myself to the river again; I could think more clearly but physically I was as weak as though I had spent a month in bed.

“We will get across in the morning,” Beanpole said.

“Yes.” I nodded wearily. “In the morning.”

“The trees are thicker farther back. More shelter, if it rains.”

I nodded again, and moved my leaden legs forward. For a few steps only, and then stopped. Someone was standing by the edge of the trees, watching us. When he realized we had seen him, he came toward us. In the dim light I could see that he was a man in his middle years, tall and lean, dressed in rough-looking dark trousers and shirt, his hair long and his face bearded. I saw something else, too. Although his hair hung down behind his neck, it receded at the forehead. It was dark hair, beginning to turn gray. And where the silver band of the Cap should have been there was only flesh, toughened and browned by long years of exposure.

He spoke in German, in a harsh dialect. He had been looking out and had seen us struggling in the water, had watched Beanpole haul me in to shore. His manner was odd, I thought—part grudging and part welcoming. I had the feeling that he would have been quite happy to see us drift on past, and would not have spared more than a moment’s thought for our chances of escaping drowning. But now that we were here . . .

He said, “You’ll want to dry yourselves out. You’d better come with me.”

All sorts of questions were in my mind, apart from the really crucial one of why he was not Capped. But it seemed best to do as he said, and let enlightenment wait. I looked at Beanpole and he nodded. The man led the way, up to what I saw was a well-trodden path. It wound between the trees for several minutes before coming out into a clearing. In front of us there was a wooden hut, with an oil lamp burning in the window, smoke blowing from its chimney. He unlatched the door and went inside, we following.

A log fire was burning in a stone fireplace. There was a large woolen rug in front of it—red with a design of black and yellow animals—and sitting on the rug there were three cats. Two of them were tabbies, marked with white patches, the third an oddly patterned black-and-white with a white face and a funny black moustache under the nose. The man moved them with his foot, not roughly, merely forcing them to yield place. He went to a cupboard, and produced two lengths of coarse toweling.

“Get your wet things off,” he said. “Warm yourselves in front of the fire. I’ve got a couple of shirts and trousers you can put on while your own are drying.” He stared at us. “Are you hungry?” We looked at each other. Beanpole said, “Very hungry, sir. If you . . .”

“Don’t call me sir. I’m Hans. Bread and cold ham. I don’t usually cook at night.”

“Just bread will do,” I said.

“Aye,” he said. “You look starved. Get yourselves dry, then.”

The trousers and shirt were too big, of course, particularly in my case. I had to roll the bottoms up and he gave me a belt to put around the middle. I was lost inside the shirt. While we were changing, he had been putting things on a scrubbed wooden table under the window: a couple of knives, plates, a dish of yellow butter, a large flat loaf of brown bread and a ham, partly cut, which showed firm pink meat surrounded by clear white fat, baked brown on the outside. I sliced at it, while Beanpole cut bread. I saw Hans watching me, and was a little ashamed of the thickness of the slices I was cutting. But he nodded, approvingly. He brought over a couple of mugs, plonked them by our plates, and returned with a big earthenware jar from which he poured us dark drafts of beer. We set to. I warned myself to eat slowly, but it was no good. The ham was sweet and good, the bread nutty and coarse textured, the butter of a finer quality than I had tasted since leaving home. The beer with which I washed it down was strong and sweet. My jaws ached with chewing, but my belly still clamored for nourishment.

Hans said, “You were hungry, all right.” I looked guiltily at my plate. “Never mind. Eat on. I like to see someone enjoying his victuals.” I came to a halt at last—Beanpole had finished much earlier. I was feeling full, in fact overfull, and happy. The room was snug, with the glow of lamplight and the flicker of firelight and the three cats, back in their original positions, purring away in the hearth. I presumed that now we would be asked questions—where we had come from, the reason for our being in the river. But this did not happen. Our host sat in a wooden rocking chair which looked as though he might have made it himself, and smoked a pipe. He did not seem to find the silence awkward or constraining. In the end, it was Beanpole who said: “Could you tell us how it is that you are not Capped?”

Hans took his pipe from his mouth. “I’ve never bothered.”

“Not bothered!”

It came out slowly, through prodding from both of us. His father had brought him to this island as a young boy, after his mother died. The pair of them had lived together here, growing their own vegetables, keeping chickens and a few pigs, making things to sell in the village across the river. Then his father had died, in turn, and he had stayed on. No one from the village troubled about him; he was not counted as part of their life. This had happened in the spring of the year in which he would have been Capped, and during that summer he had not moved from the island, concerned with doing on his own all the things in which previously he had assisted his father. (He had buried his father, he told us, not far from the hut, and over slow months next winter carved a stone with his name to put over his grave.) Since then he had gone across to the village perhaps twice a year. He had a boat in which he rowed there and back.

At first I was incredulous, thinking of the trouble all we who had fled to the White Mountains had taken to avoid being Capped, while this man had just stayed where he was, not worrying. Surely there could not be flaws like this in the Tripods’ mastery of the earth? But the more I thought about it, the less surprising it seemed. He was one man, living like a hermit. The domination of the Tripods depended on the serfdom of men as such, and to that end it was enough that Capping should be accepted as a natural and inevitable thing where a handful of men, two or three even, were gathered together. One man did not matter, as long as he stayed quiet and caused no trouble. And the moment he did cause trouble, of course, he would be dealt with, either by the Tripods or their human servants.

Beanpole, once he had established all this, quizzed him about the Tripods. Did he see much of them? What did he feel about them? I saw where the line of questioning was heading, and was content to leave it to him. He did not seem surprised at or suspicious of the conversation, and this in itself showed how small his contact with the wider world must have been. Local customs varied in different countries, but in every one the subject of Tripods and Caps was covered by a taboo. No one, Capped as we appeared to be, would have spoken like this.

But if unsuspicious, he was also indifferent. He saw the Tripods from time to time, yes. He believed they damaged crops on the mainland; it was hard to see how they could avoid it, great massive things like they were. But none of them, he was glad to say, had ever planted its heavy foot on this island. As for Caps, well, people wore them, and they didn’t seem to do a lot of harm and didn’t seem to do any particular good. He believed it was something to do with the Tripods, since the boys who went for Capping were taken up by the Tripods. Did they prevent people wanting to fight against the Tripods? Beanpole asked daringly.

Hans looked at him over his pipe. He said shrewdly:

“Well, you’d know more about that than I do, would you not? But it wouldn’t make a lot of sense wanting to fight against the Tripods, would it? You would have to be pretty strong in the arm to throw a stone high enough to hit that part at the top, and what good would it do you if you did? For that matter, what’s the point in it? It’s not as though they do much harm. A bit of damage now and then to crops and cattle—to men, maybe, if they don’t get out of the way fast enough. But lightning can kill you with less chance of dodging, and hailstones can ruin crops.” Beanpole said, “We were on a raft further up the river. The raft was smashed by a Tripod. That’s how we came to be washed up here.” Hans nodded. “Bad luck comes to everyone. Some sickness got among my hens two years back. Wiped out all but three of them.” “We’re very grateful to you,” Beanpole said, “for giving us food and shelter.”

Hans stared from his face to the fire, and back.

“As to that, I get along without seeing people well enough, but now you’re here . . . There’s some wood that needs cutting, up at the top end. I’ve had rheumatics in my shoulder, and it’s not got done. You can get on with that tomorrow, and it will pay for the food you eat, and your lodging. Later, maybe, I’ll row you across to the village.” Beanpole started to say something; then stopped and merely nodded. There was silence again, Hans staring into the fire. I said, “But if you found people who were fighting against the Tripods—wouldn’t you help them? After all, you are a free man.” He looked at me for some moments before replying.

“That’s strange talk,” he said. “I don’t have a lot to do with people, but it sounds strange talk to me. You don’t come from these parts, lad.” It was part accusation, part question. I said, “But if there were men who were not slaves of the Tripods. Surely you would want to do what you could . . .” I found my voice trailing off under the steady regard of the bearded man.

“Strange talk,” he repeated. “I mind my own business. I always have, and I always will. Are you one of those they call Vagrants, maybe? But they travel around by themselves, not in couples. I don’t have trouble with anyone, because I keep out of it. You seem to want to start trouble. If that’s the way you think . . .” Beanpole cut in on him. He said, with a quick look of warning at me, “You mustn’t pay any attention to him, Hans. He’s feeling queer. When he was in the water, he was hit on the head by one of the planks from the raft. You can see the bruise on his forehead.” Hans got up from his feet, and came toward me. He peered at my head for a long time. Then he said, “Aye. He’s maybe addled his wits a bit. It won’t hinder him from swinging an axe in the morning. But you’ll both benefit from a good night’s sleep. I rise early, so I don’t stay up late.” He brought blankets from the hut’s other room, in which he slept. Then with a gruff goodnight he left us, taking the lamp with him. Beanpole and I settled ourselves down on the floor, on either side of the fire. I was feeling vaguely uncomfortable from the supper which, following the previous days’ privation, was not proving easy to digest. I expected to have a restless night. But tiredness was stronger than queasiness.

I looked at the glow of the fire, the three cats still sentinel in front of it; and my next sight was of sunlight on cold ashes, the cats gone, and Hans, whose heavy tread had wakened me, calling to us to get up.

• • •

The breakfast he prepared for us was enormous. Great slices of grilled gammon with as many eggs as we wanted (I ate three), and hot, golden-brown potato cakes. With it we drank more of the beer he had given us the previous night.

“Eat well,” Hans said. “The more you eat, the better you’ll work.”

He took us with him to the north of the island. There was a field of about an acre, under potatoes, and he explained that he wanted to extend it by cutting down and rooting out the trees in the adjoining copse. He had started this task, but the rheumatism in his shoulder had first hindered and then entirely prevented him. He provided us with axe, spade, and mattock, watched us while we set to, and left us.

It was hard work. The standing trees were green and supple, and the roots of those already cut down were tangled and hard to dig out. Beanpole suggested that if we worked hard he might regard a morning’s work as sufficient return for hospitality and take us across the river in the afternoon. But although we sweated at the job, the going proved slow. When Hans came for us, toward midday, he looked critically at our results.

“I thought you would have done better than that. Still, you’ve made a start. You’d better come now for your dinner.” He had roasted a couple of chickens, and he served these with a heap of buttered potatoes and a sour-tasting cabbage. He gave us wine with it, because beer, he said, was likely, in the middle of the day, to make us sluggish. Afterward there were sweet blueberries, doused with cream. Then he said, “You can rest now for half an hour, and digest your food, while I get things cleared up. Then you get back to the field. Leave that big oak till tomorrow. I want to make sure she falls the right way.” He left us lying in the sun. I said to Beanpole, “Tomorrow? So much for him offering to take us across the river this afternoon.” Beanpole said slowly, “Tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that. He is determined to keep us here until the wood is cleared.” “But that would take a week, at least, probably two!”

Beanpole said, “Yes. And we’re already behind time for competing in the Games.”

“We shall not manage that, anyway, on foot. We should have to find the material for another raft, and build it. And even then I doubt if we could do it. We need a boat.” I stopped as the idea struck home, surprised that it had not occurred to me before. We had seen Hans’s boat on our way up to the field. It was tied in a small inlet on the east of the island, a sturdy-looking six-footer, with a pair of oars. Beanpole, from the look he gave me, was thinking along the same lines.

I said, “If we managed to slip away this evening . . . I suppose it would be a rotten trick, but . . .” “The boat must mean a great deal to him,” Beanpole said. “He depends on it to get to and from the village. I think probably he built it himself, or his father did, and it would take him a long time to build another, particularly with the pains in his shoulder. But we know from what he said last night that he would never help us, although he is not Capped. He would keep us here, working for him, even if he knew what our mission was. I think getting into the City is more important, Will, than this lonely old man and his boat.” “So, this evening . . .”

“This evening loses us half a day, and there may not be another time when we know ourselves to be unwatched.” He rose to his feet. “I think now is better.” We walked in as innocent a manner as possible toward the shelter of the trees. As we approached them, I glanced back and saw the open door of the hut, but no sign of Hans. We went more quickly after that, running in the direction of the inlet and the boat. It rocked as Beanpole climbed aboard and unshipped the oars, while I saw to the rope that secured it to the branch of a tree. It was tied in a complicated knot, over which I struggled with, at first, little effect.

Beanpole said, “Hurry, Will.”

“If I had a knife . . .”

“I think I hear someone.”

I heard, too—running feet and now a voice, calling harshly. I wrenched desperately at the knot, and it came free. Then I scrambled into the boat, which tilted dangerously under us. As Beanpole pushed off from the bank, the figure of Hans burst through from the trees, shouting curses. We were ten feet clear by the time he reached the water’s edge. He did not stop but plunged in after us. The fast-flowing water came up to his knees, his thighs, but he waded on, still cursing. When it reached his waist, he even succeeded in grasping at the blade of one of the oars, but Beanpole pulled it from him. The current took us, and we moved out toward midstream.

He fell silent then, and his expression changed. I had borne his earlier raving and anger easily enough, but this was different. I can still feel sick when I remember the terrible despair in his face.

We went downriver swiftly enough after that. We took it in turns at the oars, started early and carried on until late each day. Food was a problem, but we managed, although we were, after the first day, hungry all the time. We passed barges, traveling upstream and down, and kept clear of them—a course increasingly easy as the great river broadened on its way to the sea. The river itself was a source of much interest, rolling through varied scenery, woods, pastures, vineyards, and wheat fields and the silent somber heaps, mounded up on either side, of the ruined cities of the ancients. We saw Tripods many times, and once heard the wild warbling of their hunting call, but that was far in the distance. None approached us closely. There were rivers that ran in to join the mother river, castles of great antiquity lifted high on spurs of cliff, and in one place a huge tawny mass of tree-decked rock, taller than a Tripod, set in midstream.

And so finally we came to where the Games were held. There were many barges tied up there, the Erlkönig among them.