فصل 5

Five: The City of the Ancients

We tramped through the night, covering ten or twelve miles before, with the summer dawn edging over the horizon, we broke off, to rest and eat. While we rested, Beanpole told us the reason for the men rushing out from the tavern to catch us the previous night: some of the local boys had been damaging the boats on the hard, and the sailors thought we were the culprits. A stroke of bad luck, though it had turned out well. He told us something about himself also. His parents had died when he was a baby; and his uncle and aunt owned the tavern. They seemed to have looked after him all right, but in a distant way, with not much affection or, at any rate, not much shown. I got the impression that they may even have been a little scared of him. This is not as silly as it sounds because there was one thing that stood out about him: he had quite a tremendous brain.

His speaking English, for instance: he had found an old book, giving instructions in the language, and taught himself. And the contraption on his face. His eyesight was poor, and he had worked it out that, since mariners’ telescopes helped sailors to see at a distance, a glass in front of each eye might enable him to see more clearly. He had messed about with lenses until he found some that did. There were other things he had tried, with less success, but you could see how they might have worked. He had noticed that hot air rises, and had filled a pig’s bladder with steam from a kettle and seen it go up to the ceiling. So he had tried making a big balloon out of oilskin and fixing it to a platform with a brazier under the opening, hoping it would rise into the sky; but nothing happened. Another idea that had not worked out had been for putting springs on the ends of stilts—he had broken a leg the previous year trying that one out.

Lately he had been more and more uneasy about the prospect of being Capped, rightly guessing that it would put an end to his inventing things. I realized that it was not just Jack, and myself, and Henry, who had doubts about Capping. Probably everyone, or almost everyone, felt like that, but because adults were all on the side of the Tripods dared not say so. Beanpole said his balloon idea had come from this: a thought of himself drifting through the sky to strange lands, perhaps somewhere finding one where there were no Tripods. He had been interested in us because he had guessed we came from north of the sea, and there were stories that the Tripods were fewer there.

We came to a crossroads not long after restarting our journey, and I was once more made aware of our luck in finding him. I would have taken the road south, but he chose west.

“Because of the …” What he said sounded like “Shmand-Fair.” “I do not know your name for it.”

“What is it?” Henry asked.

“It is too hard to explain, I think. You will see.”

The Shmand-Fair started inside a town, but we skirted it and reached a small hill, topped with ruins, on the southern edge. Looking down we could see a track, on which were two parallel straight lines, gleaming in the sunshine, which ran from the town and disappeared in the far distance. The town end had an open space, where half a dozen objects looking like great boxes on wheels were linked together. As we watched, a dozen horses were harnessed in pairs and yoked to the nearest of the boxes. A man was mounted on the lead pair, and another on the second pair from the box. At a signal, the horses strained forward and the boxes began to move, slowly and then faster. When they were going quite fast, the eight horses in front broke free, and galloped obliquely away. The remaining four continued pulling the boxes on and past our vantage point. There were five boxes altogether. The two in front had openings in their sides, and we could see people sitting in them; the rest were closed.

Beanpole explained that twelve horses were needed to start the wheels rolling along the lines, but once they were moving four were enough. The Shmand-Fair took goods and people south for a long way—more than a hundred miles, it was said. It would save us a lot of walking. I agreed, but asked how we were going to get aboard, since the horses had been going at full tilt when it passed us. He had an answer for that, too. Although the ground on which the lines were laid looked level, there were parts with slopes up or down. On the down slopes, the horseman could brake the wheels of the boxes. In the case of up gradients, the horses had to pull against the drag, which sometimes reduced them almost to walking pace before they reached the top.

We followed the now empty lines away from the town. They were of iron, their tops polished to brightness by the wheels, and were fastened on massive planks, whose surface showed in places through a covering of earth. It was a clever means of travel, but Beanpole was not satisfied with it.

“Steam,” he said, musing. “It rises. Also, it pushes. You have seen the lid pushed up from the saucepan? If one made a lot of steam—like a very big kettle—and pushed the carriages from behind? But, no. That is impossible.” We laughed, agreeing. Henry said,“It would be like lifting yourself by pulling on the laces of your shoes.”

Beanpole shook his head. “There is a way, I am sure.”

• • •

Finding the best place for getting on the Shmand-Fair proved easier than I had expected. The gradient was scarcely noticeable, but the crest of the rise was marked by a wooden post, with arms on either side pointing down. There were bushes nearby, which provided cover. We had a wait of half an hour before the next one came in sight, but that was going the wrong way. (I wondered about there being only the one set of tracks, and found later that there were places where the tracks were doubled, so that two could pass.) Eventually, the right one appeared; we saw the horses drop from gallop to canter, and at last to a straining, heaving walk. When the carriages with people had passed, we darted out, and swung aboard the one at the end. Beanpole led the way, clambering up the side and on to the flat top. No sooner had Henry and I followed suit than the Shmand-Fair ground to a halt.

I thought perhaps our extra weight had stopped it, but Beanpole shook his head. He whispered back:

“They have reached the top. The horses rest, and are given water. Then they go on.”

And after a five-minute break, they did, quickly gathering speed. There was a bar along the top to hold, and the motion was not unpleasant—better than traveling in a carriage on an ordinary road where one hit boulders and potholes all the time. Henry and I looked out at the landscape, as it flashed past. Beanpole stared at the sky. I suspected he was still pondering his idea of using steam instead of horses. It was a pity, I thought, that with so many ideas in his head he could not learn to tell the difference between sensible and ridiculous ones.

From time to time there were halts in villages, and people got on and off and goods were loaded and unloaded. We lay flat, and kept silent, hoping no one would come up on top. Once a large millstone was unloaded, with a lot of panting and cursing, from directly beneath us, and I recalled what difficulty my father had found in getting a new millstone up to Wherton. There was a raised bank, not far from the village, which ran straight for miles, and it occurred to me that Shmand-Fair could be built along that. Or perhaps had been built, long ago, before the Tripods? The thought, like so many others recently, was startling.

Twice we saw Tripods in the distance. It struck me that, being more numerous in this country, they must do a great deal of damage to crops. Not only crops, Beanpole said. Animals were often killed by the great metal feet; and people, too, if they were not quick enough to get out of the way. This, like everything else, was taken for granted. But no longer by us; having started asking questions, each doubt set loose a score of others.

Toward evening, during a halt to refresh the horses, we saw a town in the distance. It looked bigger than the town from which the Shmand-Fair had started, and Beanpole thought it might be the place where it ended. It seemed a good opportunity to take our leave, and we did so when the horses began to move again to the cries of the horseman. We slipped off as the Shmand-Fair gathered speed, and watched the carriages roll away. We had been traveling almost continuously southeast, a distance of anything from fifty to a hundred miles. Less than a hundred, though, or we ought to have seen what was shown as a landmark on the map: the ruins of one of the great-cities of the ancients. The thing to do, we agreed, was head south.

We traveled on while the light held. It was warm still, but clouds had come up. We looked for shelter before darkness halted us, but could find nothing, and settled at last for a dry ditch. Fortunately, it did not rain during the night. In the morning, clouds still threatened, but no more than that, and we had a snack of bread and cheese and continued on our way. We went up a rise, beside a wood, which would offer cover if there were a risk of being seen. Henry reached the top first, and stood there, stock still and staring ahead. I quickened my step, anxious to see what he was gazing at. When I reached him, I, too, stopped in wonder.

It was the ruins of the great-city which lay ahead of us, a mile or two distant. I had never seen anything remotely like it before. It stretched for miles, rising in hills and valleys. The forest had invaded it—there was the tossing green of trees everywhere—but everywhere also were the gray and white and yellow bones of buildings. The trees followed lines among them, like veins in some monstrous creature.

We stood in silence, until Beanpole murmured, “My people built that.”

Henry said, “How many lived there, do you think? Thousands? Hundreds of thousands? A million?”

I said, “We shall have to go a long way around. I can see no end.”

“Around?” Beanpole asked. “But why? Why not through?”

I remembered Jack, and his story of the huge ship in the harbor of the great-city south of Winchester. It had not occurred to either of us that he might have done more than gaze from a distance; no one ever approached the great-cities. But that was the way of thinking that came from the Tripods, and the Caps. Beanpole’s suggestion was frightening, and then exciting. Henry said, in a low voice, “Do you think we could get through?” “We can try,” Beanpole said. “If it is too difficult, we can return.”

The nature of the veins became clear as we approached. The trees followed the old streets, sprouting out of the black stone of which they had been built, and thrusting their tops up above the canyons formed by the buildings on either side. We walked in their dark cool shade, at first in silence. I did not know about the others, but I needed all the courage I could summon up. Birds sang above our heads, emphasizing the quietness and gloom of the depths through which we made our way. Only gradually did we start taking an interest in our surroundings, and talking—at the beginning in whispers and then more naturally.

There were strange things to be seen. Signs of death, of course—the white gleam of bone that had once borne flesh. We had expected that. But one of the first skeletons we saw was slumped inside a rusted oblong, humped in the middle, which rested on metal wheels, rimmed with a hard black substance. There were other similar contraptions, and Beanpole stopped by one and peered inside. He said, “Places for men to sit. And wheels. So, a carriage of some nature.” Henry said, “It can’t be. There’s nowhere to harness the horse. Unless the shafts rusted away.”

“No,” Beanpole said. “They are all the same. Look.”

I said, “Perhaps they were huts, for people to rest in when they were tired of walking.”

“With wheels?” Beanpole asked. “No. They were carriages without horses. I am sure.”

“Pushed by one of your big kettles, maybe!” Henry said.

Beanpole stared at it. He said, quite seriously, “Perhaps you are right.”

Some of the buildings had fallen down, from age and weathering, and in places many—whole rows sometimes—had been flattened, crushed, it seemed, by a hammer from the sky. But a great number were more or less intact, and eventually we ventured inside one. It had been a shop, plainly, but of enormous size. There were tins everywhere, some still piled on shelves, but most of them scattered on the floor. I picked one up. It had paper around it, with a faded picture of plums. Other tins had pictures, too—fruit, vegetables, bowls of soup. They had held food. It was reasonable enough: with so many people living together, and no land to till, food would have had to be brought to them in containers, just as my mother bottled things in summer for winter use. The tins had rusted, in some places right through, showing a dried-up indistinguishable mess inside.

There were thousands of shops, and we looked in many of them. Their contents amazed us. Great bolts of mildewed cloth, still showing weird colors and patterns; row on row of crumbling cardboard boxes, full of rotting leather shoes; musical instruments, a few familiar but most incredibly weird; figures of women, made from a strange hard substance, clothed in the tattered remnants of dresses. And a place full of bottles, which Beanpole told us was wine. He broke the top off one, and we tasted it but pulled faces at the sourness: it had gone bad long ago. We picked up some things and took them with us: a knife, a small axe with an edge that was rusted but could be sharpened, a kind of flask made of translucent blue material, very light in weight, which would carry water better than the flasks Henry and I had got from Captain Curtis, candles … things like that.

But the shop that filled me with awe was quite small. It was tucked away between two much bigger ones, and as well as the usual broken glass it had a barrier of warped and rusted metal in front of it. When I looked in, it was like Aladdin’s cave. There were gold rings, set with diamonds and other stones, brooches, necklaces, bangles. And perhaps a score of Watches!

I picked one out. It was gold, too, and had a heavy gold bracelet, which expanded when I put my fingers inside and stretched them; so that it would be made large enough to go over your hand and would then lie snug on your wrist. Or on a thicker wrist than mine. It was loose when I put it on, so I pushed it higher up my arm. It would not go, of course, but it was a Watch. The other two were exploring on the other side of the street. I thought of calling them, and then decided against it.

It was not just that I did not want them to have a Watch like mine, though that was part of it. There was also the memory of my struggle with Henry over my father’s Watch, when Jack had helped me to get it off him. And this, I think, was sparked by something less definite, a feeling of discontent. My dislike for Henry had been thrust into the background by the difficulties and dangers which we encountered together and shared. When Beanpole joined us, I had talked to him more, and he had responded: Henry, to some extent, had been left out of things. I had realized this and, I am afraid, been complacent about it.

Today, though, particularly since we had come into the great-city, I had become aware of a change. It was nothing clearcut; just that Henry talked more to Beanpole, that Beanpole directed more of his own remarks to Henry—that there had been a shift, in fact, from it being a matter of Beanpole and myself, with Henry a little bit out of things, to a situation in which I was, to some extent, the excluded one. So it had happened that I had found this shop, with the jewels and the Watches, having left them discussing a strange machine they had found which had four rows of small white buttons with letters on, in front. I looked at the Watch again. No, I was not going to call them.

Eventually, we more or less gave up looking in the shops. In part, this was because our curiosity was sated, but more because we had been several hours in the city. with no sign of approaching the other side. The reverse, in fact. At one point, where devastation had left a great mound of rubble, we climbed up through the bushes and grass that covered it and found ourselves looking down on the waving green and crumbling stone. It stretched about us, seemingly endless, like a sea ribbed with reefs of rock. But for the compass we would have been lost, for the day had clouded and there was no sun to give us direction. As it was, we knew we were still heading south, and the day was less than half-run, but we felt the need to push on faster than we had been doing so far.

We came to wider streets, flanked by bigger buildings, that ran broad and straight for immense distances. We stopped to eat where several of these met; there was a place where the trees had not found a purchase, and we sat chewing our meat and the hard biscuits Captain Curtis had given us—our bread was all gone—on a mossy stone. Afterward, we rested, but Beanpole got up after a while and wandered off. Henry followed him. I lay flat, looking up at the gray sky, and did not answer at first when they called me. But Beanpole called again, and sounded excited. They seemed to have found something interesting.

It was a large hole, surrounded on three sides by rusted rails with steps leading down into the darkness. At the top, opposite the entrance, there was a metal plate which said METRO.

Beanpole said, “The steps—they are so wide that ten people can go side by side. Where do they lead?”

I said, “Does it matter? If we aren’t resting, we’d better be getting on.”

“If I could see …” Beanpole said. “Why was such a thing built, so great a tunnel?”

“Who cares?” I shrugged. “You wouldn’t see anything down there.”

“We’ve got candles,” Henry said.

I said angrily, “We haven’t got time. We don’t want to have to spend a night here.”

They ignored me. Henry said to Beanpole, “We could go a bit of the way down, and see what there is.” Beanpole nodded.

I said, “It’s stupid!”

Henry said, “You don’t need to come, if you don’t want to. You can stay here and rest.”

He said it indifferently, already rummaging in his pack for the candles. They would have to be lit, and I was the only one with a tinderbox. But they were determined, I realized, and I might as well give in with as good a grace as I could manage. I said: “I’ll come with you. I still think it’s pointless, though.”

The stairs descended first into a cavern, which we explored as well as the meager light of the candles permitted. Being less subject to the elements, things had deteriorated less here than in the world above. There were queer machines, showing patches of rust but otherwise undamaged, and a kind of hut with glass in the windows, intact.

And there were tunnels leading off the cavern; some, like the one by which we had entered, with stairs going up, others leading still farther down. Beanpole was all for exploring one of these, and got his way for want of opposition. The steps went a very long way, and at the bottom there was another small tunnel going to the right. Whatever slight interest I had had was gone by now—all I wanted was to get back up into the daylight. But I was not going to suggest this. I had an idea, from the increasing lack of enthusiasm in his replies to Beanpole’s comments, that Henry was no more keen than I was on going farther—perhaps less. I reckoned I could leave it to him to call a halt before Beanpole went too far.

Beanpole led the way along the small tunnel, which twisted and ended in a gate of heavy iron bars. It creaked as he pushed it open. We followed him through, and stared at what we could now see.

It was yet another tunnel, but far bigger than the others. We stood on level stone and the tunnel curved up over our heads and went on, beyond the limits of our light. What amazed us, though, was the thing that stood there. I thought at first it was a house, a long low narrow house of glass and metal, and wondered who would have chosen to live here, deep in the earth. Then I saw that it stood in a wide ditch running alongside our level, that there were wheels under it, and that the wheels rested on long metal bars. It was a kind of Shmand-Fair.

But to travel where? Could this tunnel run for a hundred miles, as the track of the Shmand-Fair had done—but underground? To a buried city, perhaps, whose wonders were even greater than those of the city above us? And how? We walked along, and found that carriage was joined to long carriage: four, five, six, we counted, and a little way past the last carriage was the mouth of a smaller tunnel, and the empty lines ran into it and were lost.

The last carriage ended with windows looking ahead. Inside, there was a seat, levers, instruments. I said, “No place to attach the horses. And who would have horses pulling underground?” Henry said, “They must have used your steam-kettle.”

Beanpole was staring greedily at the strange instruments.

“Or a thing more wonderful,” he said.

On the way back, we looked inside the carriages; parts of their sides were open, so that one could step into them. There were seats, but a clutter of other things, as well, including heaps of tins of food, such as we had found in the shops, but unrusted—the air down here was cool and dry, as it must be all the time. Other things we could not understand—a rack full of wooden things ending in iron cylinders, for instance. They had small half-hoops of iron on one side with a little iron finger inside. The finger moved when you pressed it; but nothing happened.

“So they carried goods,” Beanpole said. “And people, since there are seats.”

Henry said, “What are these?”

It was a wooden box, full of what looked like large metal eggs—as big as goose eggs. He picked one out, and showed it to Beanpole. It was made of iron, its surface grooved into squares, and there was a ring at one end. Henry pulled it, and it came away.

Beanpole said, “Can I look?”

Henry handed the egg to him, but clumsily. It fell before Beanpole could grasp it, dropped to the floor, and rolled. It went over the edge of the floor and dropped into the ditch beneath. Henry was going after it, but Beanpole caught his arm.

“Leave it. There are others.”

He was bending down toward the box when it happened. There was a tremendous bang under our feet, and the great steel carriage shuddered with the violence of it. I had to clutch an upright pillar to prevent myself being thrown to the ground. Echoes of the bang reverberated along the tunnel, like diminishing hammer blows. Henry said shakily, “What was that?” But he did not really need telling. Beanpole had dropped his candle, and it had gone out. He put it to Henry’s, to relight it. I said: “If it had not rolled down below the carriage …”

There was no need to fill in details. Beanpole said,

“Like fireworks, but more powerful. What would the ancients use such things for?”

He picked up another egg. Henry said,

“I shouldn’t mess about with them.”

I agreed, though I said nothing. Beanpole handed Henry his candle, so that he could look at the egg more carefully.

Henry said, “If it goes off …”

“They did not go off before,” Beanpole said. “They were brought here. I do not think touching will do anything. The ring …” He put his finger into it. “You pulled it out, and it fell, and then, a little later …” Before I properly understood what he was doing, he wrenched the ring from the egg. We both cried out, but he ignored us, walked to the opening, and threw the egg under the carriage.

This time, together with the explosion, there was a shattering of glass, and a gust of air blew out my candle. I said angrily, “That was a stupid thing to do!” “The floor protects us,” Beanpole said. “It is not much risk, I think.”

“We could have been cut by flying glass.”

“I do not think so.”

The point was, as I ought to have realized earlier, Beanpole was only sensible as long as his curiosity was not deeply aroused; when something interested him, he had no thought for hazards. Henry said, “I wouldn’t do it again, all the same.” He obviously shared my feelings about the experiment. Beanpole said, “It is not necessary. We know how it works. I counted seven after the ring came out.” It was nice to feel I was part of the majority again, even though the other part was Henry. I said, “All right—so you know how it works. What good does that do?” Beanpole did not reply. He had found himself a pack in one of the shops—the leather was green and moldy but cleaned up fairly well—and he was now taking eggs from the box and putting them inside. I said: “You’re not taking those with you, are you?”

He nodded. “They will be useful, perhaps.”

“For what?”

“I do not know. But something.”

I said flatly, “You can’t. It’s not safe for us, either.”

“There is no danger unless the ring is pulled.”

He had put four in his pack. I looked toward Henry, to back me up. But he said, “I suppose they might come in handy.” He picked one up, and hefted it in his hand. “They’re heavy. I think I’ll take a couple, though.” I did not know whether he was saying this because he really meant it, or to spite me. It did not make much difference, I thought bitterly. I was back in the minority.

We made our way up through the tunnels, and I was very glad to see the sky, even though it was a still darker gray, with clouds lower and more menacing. Not long afterward, our way was barred by a river, running clear and swift between high banks. There had been many great bridges spanning it, but those we could see had been partly or altogether destroyed; the one directly before us was marked only by half a dozen piles of rubble with the water boiling around them. With nothing to choose between the alternatives, we followed the river to the east.

Four bridges proved hopeless, and then the river forked. It seemed to me that this meant that, if we continued toward the east, we should have to find bridges intact over both branches, doubling the difficulty; and that our best course was to go back and try in the opposite direction. But Henry was opposed to turning back, and Beanpole supported him. There was nothing I could do but tag along resentfully.

My resentment was not diminished by the fact that the very next bridge was intact enough to cross, though the parapet had completely gone at one side, and in the middle the bridge itself had a hole bitten out of the edge which we had to skirt warily. On the far side there were relatively few trees, and the buildings were massive. Then we came to an open space and saw at the end of it a building which, even in ruins, had a magnificence that compelled the eye.

There had been twin towers in front, but one of these had been sliced down the side. On them, and on the whole facade, were carvings in stone, and from roofs and angles stone figures of monstrous animals probed the quiet air. It was a cathedral, I guessed, and it looked bigger even than the great cathedral in Winchester, which I had always believed was the biggest building in the world. The huge wooden door stood open, tilted on its hinges and rotting. Part of the roof of the nave had fallen in, and one could see up past the pillars and buttresses to the sky. We did not go inside: I think none of us wanted to disturb its crumbling silence.

The next thing we discovered was that we had not, in fact, crossed to the opposite bank of the river, but were on an island. The waters which had divided to the west came together again in the east. We had to trail back across the bridge. I was not sorry to see Henry discomfited, but I was too tired to think it worth the extra effort.

It was at this time that Beanpole said to me, “What is it on your arm?”

The Watch had slipped down, without my noticing it, to my wrist. I had to show it to them. Henry looked at it with envy, though he said nothing. Beanpole showed a more dispassionate interest. He said, “I have seen clocks, of course, but not one of these. How is it made to go?” “You turn the button on the side,” I said. “But I did not bother to do that, since it must be so old.”

“But it is going.”

Disbelievingly, I looked myself. Above the hour and minute hands, a third, more slender pointer was going around, sweeping the dial. I held the Watch to my ear: it was ticking. I noticed a word on the face: Automatique. It seemed like magic, but could not be. It was another wonder of the ancients.

We all stared at it. Beanpole said, “These trees—some are a hundred years old, I think. And yet it works. What craftsmen they were.” We got across the river at last, half a mile farther up. There was no sign of the city coming to an end; its vastness, which had first awed, and then aroused wonder and curiosity, was now exhausting. We passed many large buildings, including one larger than the cathedral—a side had fallen in and one could see that it was a shop, or a series of shops, right up to the roof—but none of us felt like bothering to investigate them. We saw other tunnels, too, with METRO on them. Beanpole decided they were most likely places where people had got on and off the underground Shmand-Fair, and I imagine he was right.

We slogged on. The day was declining, and we were all weary. By the time we had our evening meal—a limited one, because food was beginning to run short and there was no way here of getting more—it was plain that we would have to spend the night in the city. I do not think any of us was keen on going into one of the buildings to sleep, but a distant howling changed our minds for us. If there were a pack of wild dogs near, it would be safer to get off the streets. They did not usually attack people unless they were hungry; but we had no means of knowing the state of their stomachs.

We picked a substantial-looking edifice and went up to the first floor, stamping warily on the stairs to see if they were likely to collapse. Nothing happened, except that dust rose, choking us. We found a room with glass still in its windows. The curtains and the upholstery of the furniture were faded and eaten in holes by moths, but it was still comfortable. I found a big earthenware jar, with a heavy lid, and roses painted on it. When I took the lid off it was full of withered rose petals, their perfume a ghost of summers long ago. There was a piano, larger and differently shaped from any I had seen, and a frame on it with a picture, in black and white, of a lady. I wondered if it was she who had lived here. She was very beautiful, though her hair was different from the way women wear their hair today, with wide dark eyes and a gently smiling mouth. In the night I awoke, and there was the scent still in the air, and moonlight from the window fell across the top of the piano, and I almost thought I could glimpse her there, her slender white fingers moving across the keys—that I could hear phantom music.

It was nonsense, of course, and when I fell asleep again I did not dream of her but of being back in the village, in the den with Jack, in the time when I had not learned to worry over Caps and the Tripods, and when I had thought never to travel farther from Wherton than Winchester; and that no more than once a year.

The moonlight was misleading; in the morning, not only were the clouds back, chasing each other in an endless pursuit of monotonous gray, but a dreary deluge of rain was sheeting down out of the sky. Even though we were anxious to get clear of the city, we did not feel like tackling these conditions. All that was left by way of food was a hunk of cheese, a piece of dried beef, and some of the ship’s biscuits. We divided the cheese. There was enough for one more modest meal; after that we would have to go hungry.

Henry found a chess set, and he played a couple of games with Beanpole, who won easily. I then challenged him, and was also beaten. Finally I played against Henry. I expected to beat him, because I thought I had done better against Beanpole, but I lost in about twenty moves. I felt fed up, by this and the weather and being still hungry, and refused his offer to play again. I went and stood by one of the windows, and was glad to note that the sky was clearing, the gray turning in patches into a luminous yellow. Within a quarter of an hour, the rain had stopped and we could go on.

The avenues through which we traveled were gloomy at first, the surface puddled with water or, where trees had split it, of sodden earth, the general wetness continually augmented by drips from the branches above. It was like walking through rain in slow motion, and just as dampening; it was not long before we were all thoroughly soaked. Later, brightness filtered down as the cloud lifted, and the birds seemed to make a second wakening and filled the air with their chatter and song. Drops still fell, but more rarely, and in bare patches where the trees had not got a footing, the sun laid strokes of heat across us. Beanpole and Henry talked more, and more cheerfully. My own spirits did not revive as thoroughly. I felt tired, and a bit shivery, and my mind seemed thick and dull. I hoped I was not getting a cold.

We ate the last of the food in a place where the trees were dense in front of us, without any buildings. The reason lay in the slabs of stone, some upright but more leaning or fallen, which stretched away into the darkness of the wood. The words carved on the nearest one were: CI-GÎT

MARIANNE LOUISE VAUDRICOURT

13 ANS

DÉCÉDÉE FEVRIER 15 1966

The first two words, Beanpole explained, meant “Here Lies,” “ans” was years and “décédée” was died. She had died, at my own age, and been buried here at a time when the city was still throbbing with life. One day at the end of winter. So many people. The wood stretched out, laced with the stones of the dead, across an area in which my village could have been set down several times over.

It was late afternoon when we came at last to the southern edge of the city. The transformation was sudden. We pushed for about a hundred yards through a stretch where the trees were thick, the buildings few and completely in ruins, and emerged into a cornfield, waving green spears in the slanting sunlight. It was a relief to be in the open again, and in cultivated land. With that came awareness that we needed to resume habits of caution: there was a horse plowing several fields away, and in the distance two Tripods stalked the horizon.

Clouds came up again as we traveled south. We found a field of early potatoes, but could find no wood dry enough to start a fire to cook them. Henry and Beanpole ate them raw, but I could not. I had little appetite, anyway, and my head was aching. At night we slept in a ruin well away from any other houses. The roof had fallen at one end, but was still supported at the other; it was wavy, and made of a gray material that looked like stone but was much lighter. I spent the night in a series of heavy sleeps, from which I was wakened by nightmarish dreams, and in the morning I felt more tired than I had been the night before. I suppose I must have looked funny, because Henry asked me if I were feeling ill. I snapped something back at him, and he shrugged and turned his attention to other things. Beanpole said nothing, I think because he noticed nothing. He was much less interested in people than in ideas.

It was a weary day for me. I felt worse as the hours went by. I was determined not to show this, though. At the beginning I had not wanted sympathy from the others because I resented the fact that they appeared to be getting on with each other better than I was with either. After I had rebuffed Henry, my resentment was because neither he nor Beanpole took the matter any farther. I am afraid I got some satisfaction out of feeling ill and carrying on without admitting it. It was a childish way to behave.

At any rate, my lack of appetite did not make much impression because we were all on short commons. I was not bothering anyway, but Henry and Beanpole found nothing. We had reached the wide river, flowing southeast, which the map told us we should follow, and Henry spent half an hour at one place trying, without success, to tickle trout up from under the bank. While he did so, I lay gazing stupefied at the cloudy sky, grateful for the rest.

Toward evening, after endless fields of young wheat and rye, we came in sight of an orchard. There were rows of cherry, plum, and apple. The apples would be small and unripe still, but even from a distance we could see golden and purple plums and cherries black or red-and-white against the green of leaves. The trouble was that the farmhouse was right by the orchard and would have a good view of anyone moving among the long straight ranks of trees. Later, of course, with the onset of darkness, it would be different.

Henry and Beanpole disagreed as to what we should do. Henry wanted to stay, where there was an assurance of some kind of food at least, and wait for the chance to get at it; Beanpole was for pressing on, hoping to find something else, or something better, in the couple of hours’ light that remained. I got no pleasure, this time, out of their opposition—I was feeling too heavy and ill to bother. I supported Henry, but only because I was desperate for the rest. Beanpole gave in, as always with a good grace, and we settled down to let the time pass.

When they tried to rouse me to go with them, I paid no heed, being too sunk in lethargy and general wretchedness, and eventually they left me and went off on their own. I had no idea how much later it was that they came back, but I was aware of them trying to rouse me again, offering me fruit and also cheese, which Beanpole had managed to steal from the dairy which abutted on the farmhouse. I could not eat anything—could not be bothered to try—and for the first time they appreciated that I was ill, and not merely sulking. They whispered together, and then they half-lifted, half-dragged me to my feet and hauled me away, supporting me between them.

I learned later that there was an old shed at the far end of the orchard which did not seem to be in use, and they thought it best to get me there: rain was threatening again and it did rain during the night. I was aware only of stumbling and being pulled along, and at last being allowed to collapse on an earth floor. There were more sweating sleeps after that, and more dreams, from one of which I emerged shouting.

The next thing I realized with any precision was that a dog was growling nearby. Shortly afterward, the door of the shed was flung open, and a shaft of hot sunlight fell on my face, and I saw the dark outline of a gaitered man against the light. It was followed by more confusion, by loud voices in a strange tongue. I tried to struggle to my feet, but fell back.

And the next thing after that, I was lying in cool sheets, in a soft bed, and a grave, dark-eyed girl, in a blue, turban-like cap, was bending over me. I looked past her, in wonder, at my surroundings: a high white ceiling, worked in arabesque, walls of dark-paneled wood, hangings of thick crimson velvet around the bed. I had never known such luxury.