John Christopher - The Death of Grass

“We wouldn’t be passengers! I can turn my hand to most things. I can shoot, if you can come by another gun. I was a sharpshooter in the Fusiliers {129} 129 Fusiliers: infantry regiment .”

“If you were by yourself, we might have you. As it is, with four women and two more children… we can’t afford to take on extra handicaps.”

The rain had stopped, but the sky remained grey and formless, and it was rather cold. The younger man, who had still not spoken, shivered and pulled his dirty raincoat more tightly round him.

The other man said desperately: “We’ve got food. In the pram—half a side of bacon.”

“We have enough. We killed to get it, and we can kill again.” The mother said: “Don’t turn us down. Think of the children. You wouldn’t turn us down with the children.”

“I’m thinking of my own children,” John said. “If I were able to think of any others, there would be millions I could think of. If I were you, I should get moving. If you’re going to find your quiet place, you want to find it before the mob does.”

They looked at him, understanding what he said but unwilling to believe that he could be refusing them.

Ann said, close beside him: “We could take them, couldn’t we? The children…’ He looked at her. “Yes—I haven’t forgotten what I said—about Spooks. I was wrong.”

“No,” John said. “You were right There’s no place for pity now.”

With horror, she said: “Don’t say that.”

He gestured towards the smoke, rising in the valley. “Pity always was a luxury. It’s all right if the tragedy’s a comfortable distance away—if you can watch it from a seat in the cinema. It’s different when you find it on your doorstep—on every doorstep.”

Olivia had also come over from the wall. Jane, who had made little response to Olivia, following her morning of walking with Pirrie, also left the wall, but went and stood near Pirrie. He glanced at her, but said nothing.

Olivia said: “I can’t see that it would hurt to let them tag along. And they might be some help.”

“They let the boy come on the road in plimsolls,” John said, “in this weather. You should have understood by now, Olivia, that it’s not only the weakest but the least efficient as well who are going to go to the wall {130} 130 going to the wall: being killed . They couldn’t help us; they could hinder.”

The boy’s mother said: “I told him to put his boots on. We didn’t see that he hadn’t until we were a couple of miles from the village. And then we daren’t go back.”

John said wearily: “I know. I’m simply saying that there’s no scope for forgetting to notice things any more. If you didn’t notice the boy’s feet, you might not notice something more important. And every one of us might die as a result. I don’t feel like taking the chance. I don’t feel like taking any chances.”

Olivia said: “Roger…”

Roger shook his head. “Things have changed in the last three days. When Johnny and I tossed that coin for leadership, I didn’t take it seriously. But he’s the boss now, isn’t he? He’s willing to take it all on his conscience, and that lets the rest of us out. He’s probably right, anyway.”

The newcomers had been following the interchange with fascination. Now the older man, seeing in Roger’s acquiescence the failure of their hopes, turned away, shaking his head. The mother of the children was not so easily shaken off.

“We can follow you,” she said. “We can stay here till you move and then follow you. You can’t stop us doing that.”

John said: You’d better go now. It won’t do any good talking.”

“No, we’ll stay! You can’t make us go.”

Pirrie intervened, for the first time: “We cannot make you go; but we can make you stay here after we’ve gone.” He touched his rifle. “I think you would be wiser to go now.”

The woman said, but lacking conviction: “You wouldn’t do it.”

Ann said bitterly: “He would. We depend on him. You’d better go.”

The woman looked into both their faces; then she turned and called to her children: “Bessie! Wilf!”

They detached themselves from the others with reluctance. It was like any occasion on which children meet and then, at the whim of their parents, must break away again, their friendship only tentatively begun. Ann watched them come.

She said to John: “Please…”

He shook his head. “I have to do what’s best for us. There are millions of others—these are only the ones we see.”

“Charity is for those we see.”

“I told you—charity, pity… they come from a steady income and money to spare. We’re all bankrupt now.”

Pirrie said: “Custance! Up the road, there.”

Between Baugh Fell and Rise Hill, the road ran straight for about three-quarters of a mile. There were figures on it, coming down towards them.

This was a large party—seven or eight men, with women and some children. They walked with confidence along the crown of the road, and even at that distance they were accompanied by what looked like the glint of guns.

John said with satisfaction: “That’s what we want.”

Roger said: “If they’ll talk. They may be the kind that shoot first. We could get over behind the wall before we try opening the conversation.”

“If we did, it might give them reason to shoot first.”

“The women and children, then.”

“Same thing. Their own are out in the open.”

The older man of the other party said: “Can we stay with you till these have gone past, then?”

John was on the verge of refusing when Pirrie caught his eye. He nodded his head very slightly. John caught the point: a temporary augmentation, if only in numbers and not in strength, might be a bargaining point.

He said indifferently: “If you like.”

They watched the new group approach. After a time the children, Bessie and Wilf, drifted away and back to where the others were still playing on the wall.

Most of the men seemed to be carrying guns. John could eventually make out a couple of army pattern .300 rifles, a Winchester .202, and the inevitable shot-guns. With increasing assurance, he thought: this is it. This was enough to get them through any kind of chaos to Blind Gill. There only remained the problem of winning them over.

He had hoped they would halt a short distance away, but they had neither suspicion nor doubts of their own ability to meet any challenge, and they came on. Their leader was a burly man, with a heavy red face. He wore a leather belt, with a revolver stuck in it. As he came abreast of where John’s party stood by the side of the road, he glanced at them indifferently. It was another good sign that he did not covet their guns; or not enough, at least, even to contemplate fighting for them.

John called to him: “Just a minute.”

He stopped and looked at John with a deliberation of movement that was impressive. His accent, when he spoke was thickly Yorkshire.

“You wanted summat {131} 131 summat: something (dialect) ?”

“My name’s John Custance. We’re heading for a place I know, up in the hills. My brother’s got land there—in a valley that’s blocked at one end and only a few feet wide at the other. Once in there, you can keep an army out. Are you interested?”

He considered for a moment. “What are you telling us for?”

John pointed down towards the valley. “Things are nasty down there. Too nasty for a small party like ours. We’re looking for recruits.”

The man grinned. “Happen {132} 132 happen: perhaps (dialect) we’re not looking for a change. We’re doin’ all right.”

“You’re doing all right now,” John said, “While there are potatoes in the ground, and meat to be looted from farmhouses. But it won’t be too long before the meat’s used up, and there won’t be any to follow it. You won’t find potatoes in the fields next year, either.”