Dennis Wheatley - Sixty Days to Live

Hemmingway stubbed out his cigarette. 'It's too late to ship one over but, if we hustle, I reckon we could build one.'

Oliver looked dubious. 'I don't see how, in such a limited time. Such a device must contain many scientific mechanisms, some of which are certain to be patents. Even if you could get permission, presumably there's no model in Britain from which you could have them copied. I doubt, too, if you could get the parts manufactured here.'

'Plans can be sent by radio, these days,' Margery said quietly.

'Exactly!' Hemmingway threw her another appreciative glance. 'That's what I had in mind. Once I get the cables working I'll soon trace the company that's making these things in the U.S.A., and, whatever it may cost, I'll buy the British rights in their patents. As to manufacture, Sam's factories will rush through the parts, if I say they've got to. The next point is, where'U we build it?'

'Somewhere in Wales,' Derek suggested, 'on the highest hilltop the workmen can get the parts up to.'

'No.' Gervaise shook his grey head. 'If we did that a great wave might roll it over and smash it before it could get properly afloat. It would be much better to construct it on a lakeside and launch it so that it is actually floating when the time of the emergency arrives.'

'Then why not build it on the lake here?' Margery put in.

'Why not?' Hemmingway agreed. 'This place is within easy reach of London for when we have to get out; but it's so shut away that we're unlikely to be interfered with by crowds of terrified people. It's an ideal spot from every point of view.'

'What about the chappies you'll have to send down to build it?' Roy asked. 'When they know what it's for, won't they want to come, too?'

'We ought to take them with us if we can,' Gervaise said at once.

Hemmingway's broad forehead wrinkled. 'I'd like to, but there won't be room. It wouldn't hold more than eight or ten people if we're to take the stores we'd have to carry to keep ourselves going for any length of time. Goodness knows, I'd like to take every man, woman and child in Britain if we could, but I'm afraid the engineers who construct this thing will have to take their chance with the rest when the time comes. To prevent trouble later we'd better not let them know what we're up to. After all, it won't look like any kind of boat, so our best plan would be to say it's some sort of scientific experiment in which Mr. Oliver Stapleton is interested. He'd better come down here to stay, and pretend to superintend things.'

Oliver frowned. 'It's asking a lot of me to leave Greenwich just now. Naturally, I'm intensely interested in all that is taking place at the Observatory.'

'When will the comet become visible to the naked eye?' Derek inquired.

'Not for ten days or more yet. You see, it is approaching along a track which passes within three degrees of the sun so, until the last phase, the sun's glare will make it invisible in daylight except to those using special instruments. At night you should be able to observe it, if the weather is good, from about the 18th, first as a tiny pin-point of light and later as a fiery ball; but, even then, it will only be visible very low in the heavens for a short time, as it passes under the horizon eleven-and-a-half minutes after sunset. My only regret is that so many of us wish to observe the comet at Greenwich each evening now that we have to take our turn and I get much less time at any of the telescopes than I could wish.'

'I'm afraid we couldn't get a telescope anything like the size of those at Greenwich,' Hemmingway smiled, 'but I'm game to buy you the biggest that can be procured in London; so that you could install it down here and have it all to yourself. How would that be?'

'A very generous offer, I'm sure.'

'Not at all. But we need your presence here to give colour to the building of the Ark. If a big telescope is being erected at the same time, that will help a lot in persuading the mechanics the Ark is only some new invention to do with your astronomical research.'

'In that case I'm quite agreeable. As it happens, one of my colleagues died only about ten days ago and he had a very fine telescope in his private observatory. It would take some moving, of course, but if we could buy it off his widow I could get it set up in a steel scaffolding, which would serve for temporary purposes, in the course of two or three days.'

'Good. That's the drill, then. Get in touch with the lady at once. See her this evening if possible and make it a cash transaction. I'll supply the funds and men to start dismantling it first thing tomorrow.'

'How long do you think such a flood would last?' Gervaise inquired, looking across at Oliver.

The astronomer shrugged his sloping shoulders. 'Who can say? If the comet is as big as I fear, there will be no flood but total disruption. If it's a smaller body the Rockies and the Andes should protect us from any great tidal wave it may create in the Pacific. Short of annihilation our danger will be from a wave created by sympathetic eruptions in the central Atlantic. Unless the earth bursts, one can hardly visualise a local disturbance of sufficient magnitude to send out a wave which would wash right over the mountain chains of Britain. It's more likely that although high land would be swept by the first onrush only valleys and low-lying land would be flooded for any length of time. But, even that, would mean the submergence of practically every city and town in the country; and weeks, if not months, before the waters finally drained away.'

'Say we took enough provisions to last us two months then?'

'Yes, that should certainly suffice. In such a local flood we should probably be washed up somewhere within a few days. But our trouble then would be to reach an area which had not been flooded at all. You see, the wave would wash right over all but the highest ground destroying everything in its path.'

'You mean that we might find ourselves marooned on an island for several weeks,' said Hemmingway, 'and, maybe, one where we'd have to rely on such stores as we brought with us?'

'Exactly.'

'How about if the comet caused a permanent rise in the ocean level? Britain would be converted into an archipelago, wouldn't it?'

'That is certainly a possibility.'

'Then we might find ourselves stuck on our particular island for good?'

'Yes, that too might quite well happen.'

'We'd look a pretty lot of fools if we escaped the flood and died of starvation in a stretch of isolated fields two months later, wouldn't we?'

'We could eke out our supplies with roots and fish,' Gervaise interjected.

'Maybe,' agreed Hemmingway. 'In fact, we'll have to chance being able to do that as the storage space of the Ark will be limited. But it seems to me we ought to ensure ourselves against such an emergency by preparing to meet it properly. As far as space permits we ought to take all the things we'd be most likely to need if we were deliberately going off to found a new settlement.'

'Books,' said Gervaise.

'Seeds and roots to ensure ourselves future crops,' said Margery.

'Scientific instruments,' said Oliver.

'Engineer's stores,' said Derek. 'I was at an Engineering College till my father died, so I could give you particulars of the most useful things in that line.'

'Fine,' said Hemmingway. 'Let's make some lists, shall we?' Upon which they spent the next hour jotting down all the less bulky items they could think of which might prove invaluable to them if chanced to be stranded.

When they had done it was agreed that they should divide the labour of ordering the goods and have all accounts rendered to Hemmingway. He then smiled round at the others and said:

'I'd best be going now. It's still only a little after midday in New York, so I'll get busy with my cabling the moment I'm back in London and with any luck we'll have the plans of the new life-boat coming through by radio some time tonight. Whoever the firm is that makes these things, they'll know Sam's good for the money, whatever price they ask.'