The Day of the Triffids(29)

I went into her room and looked along the scratch I had drawn on the sill. It did, as she said, point directly at the tower. And I noticed something more. The tower was flying two flags at the same mast. One might have been left hoisted by chance, but two must be a deliberate signal: the daytime equivalent of the light. We decided over breakfast that we would postpone our planned program and make an investigation of the tower our first job for the day.

We left the apartment about half an hour later. As I had hoped, the station wagon, by standing out in the middle of the street, had escaped the attentions of prowlers and was intact. Without delaying further, we dropped the suitcases that Josella had acquired into the back among the triffid gear, and started off.

Few people were about. Presumably weariness and the chill in the air had made them aware that night had fallen, and not many had yet emerged from whatever sleeping places they had found. Those who were to be seen were keeping more to the gutters and less to the walls than they had on the previous day. Most of them were now holding sticks or bits of broken wood with which they tapped their way along the curb. It made for easier going than by the house fronts with their entrances and projections, and the tapping had decreased the frequency of collisions.

We threaded our way with little difficulty, and after a time turned into Store Street to see the University Tower at the end of it rising straight before us.

“Steady,” said Josella as we turned into the empty road. “I think there’s something going on at the gates.” We parked the car and climbed into an adjoining garden whence we could prospect discreetly.

Whatever was going on was right at the front. We managed to find a slightly higher mound which gave us a view of the gates across the heads of the crowd. On this side a man in a cap was talking volubly through the bars. He did not appear to be making a lot of headway, for the part taken in the conversation by the man on the other side of the gates consisted almost entirely of negative headshakes.

“What is it?” Josella asked in a whisper.

I helped her up beside me. The talkative man turned so that we had a glimpse of his profile. He was, I judged, about thirty, with a straight, narrow nose and rather bony features. What showed of his hair was dark, but it was the intensity of his manner that was more noticeable than his appearance.

As the colloquy through the gates continued to get nowhere, his voice became louder and more emphatic—though without visible effect on the other. There could be no doubt that the man beyond the gates was able to see; he was doing so watchfully, through horn-rimmed glasses. A few yards behind him stood a little knot of three more men about whom there was equally little doubt. They, too, were regarding the crowd and its spokesman with careful attention. The man on our side grew more heated. His voice rose as if he were talking as much for the benefit of the crowd as for those behind the railings.

“Now listen to me,” he said angrily. “These people here have got just as much bloody right to live as you have, haven’t they? It’s not their fault they’re blind, is it? It’s nobody’s fault—but it’s going to be your fault if they starve, and you know it.”

His voice was a curious mixture of the rough and the educated, so that it was hard to place him—as though neither style seemed quite natural to him, somehow.

“I’ve been showing them where to get food. I’ve been doing what I can for them, but, Christ, there’s only one of me, and there’s thousands of them. You could be showing ’em where to get food, too—but are you?—hell! What are you doing about it? Damn all, that’s what. Just look after your own lousy skins. I’ve met your kind before. It’s ‘Damn you, Jack, I’m all right’—that’s your motto.”

He spat with contempt and raised a long, oratorical arm.

“Out there,” he said, waving his hand toward London at large, “out there there are thousands of poor devils only wanting someone to show them how to get the food that’s there for the taking. And you could do it. All you’ve got to do is show them. But do you? Do you, you buggers? No, what you do is shut yourselves in here and let them bloody well starve when each one of you could keep hundreds alive by doing no more than coming out and showing the poor sods where to get the grub. God almighty, aren’t you people human?”

The man’s voice was violent. He had a case to put, and he was putting it passionately. I felt Josella’s hand unconsciously clutching my arm, and I put my hand over hers. The man on the far side of the gate said something that was inaudible where we stood.

“How long?” shouted the man on our side. “How in hell would I know how long the food’s going to last? What I do know is that if bastards like you don’t muck in and help, there ain’t going to be many left alive by the time they come to clear this bloody mess up.” He stood glaring for a moment. “Fact of it is, you’re scared—scared to show ’em where the food is. And why? Because the more these poor devils get to eat, the less there’s going to be for your lot. That’s the way of it, isn’t it? That’s the truth—if you had the guts to admit it.”

Again we failed to hear the answer of the other man; but, whatever it was, it did nothing to mollify the speaker. He stared back grimly through the gates for a moment. Then he said:

“All right—if that’s the way you want it!”

He made a lightning snatch between the bars and caught the other’s arm. In one swift movement he dragged it through and twisted it. He grabbed the hand of a blind man standing beside him and clamped it on the arm.