Hills End (25 page)

‘Perhaps you'd better tell me what's happened,' he said. ‘I know if I'd been here I wouldn't have been much help, but please tell me.'

‘You don't care. As long as you're all right, you don't care. Frances tells me you've been away for nearly three hours.'

‘Two and a half.'

‘You ran away like a little boy who couldn't have a lollipop.'

Adrian, suddenly, was treading on thin ice again, was getting nervous again, because Paul was being nasty again, but Frances said, in a very quiet and humble voice, ‘Adrian wasn't the only one, was he, Paul? Was he, Maisie? Was he, Gussie?'

So Frances told him what had happened, in a halting voice and then said with her first tone of accusation, ‘Are you sure you didn't know any of it? Are you sure you didn't hear?'

‘I was in the house,' said Adrian, ‘there's a thick fog, I'd shut the doors. I didn't hear because I was thinking.'

‘Thinking?' exploded Paul.

Adrian took his notebook from his pocket. ‘I wrote down what I was thinking. Shall I read it to you?'

‘You were
writing!
' Paul shook his head in disgust. ‘Who wants to hear anything you'd write? Not me, for one…You were writing while Butch was fighting a bull. I reckon I've heard the lot after that.'

Gussie had been quiet until then. ‘Read it, Adrian.'

Paul turned on his sister with anger. ‘Whose side are you on?'

‘There shouldn't be any sides.' It was hard for Gussie to be blunt with Paul. ‘We've got to stick together, haven't we?'

‘Adrian should have thought of that before he ran away. He hasn't even said he's sorry.'

‘You weren't here, Paul, when it happened. Adrian's sorry. We all know he's sorry.'

Paul blew his nose loudly and turned away, and mixed up with his genuine disgust was a feeling of injury. He had done all the work and Adrian had done all the dodging, but one wouldn't think so. One would almost think it was the other way round.

‘Are we all here?' said Adrian.

‘All except Harvey,' said Frances.

‘Harvey!' yelled Adrian, ‘you're wanted.'

They waited for the little chap and Adrian was searching his mind, almost frantically, for the words to begin with. How was he to start? Perhaps they were being kinder than he had expected, but it wouldn't take much to change the climate, because Paul was against him and Paul was the stronger.

Harvey came in with Buzz tucked firmly under his arm. ‘What's on? Somethin' to eat?'

They ignored him and Harvey pouted and sat on the floor and stroked his dog.

Adrian took a deep breath, because he hadn't found the words he wanted. He opened his notebook and his hands were trembling, but still he couldn't think of the words he wanted.

‘Well?' mocked Paul. ‘What are we waiting for? A fanfare?'

Adrian felt the magic of his moment slipping away, so plunged straight into it, reading from the book, without those words of introduction that he had been unable to find.

‘Harvey and Butch—light a big fire for a signal and burn on it all decaying food and rotting material.

‘Paul—trap or shoot the bull and any other dangerous animals. Find Mr Tobias. Bring Rickard's horse and cart.

‘Adrian—find Miss Godwin. Disconnect all electricity wires. Rig powerline for wireless. Start powerplant and signal for help. Miss Godwin's found, so I don't have to do the first part.

‘Frances—look after Miss Godwin. Move into the best house you can find with proper facilities for washing and heating and cooking and sleeping and ensure a safe water supply.

‘Gussie and Maisie—feed and count all tame animals, fowls and pet birds.

‘Everyone, except Adrian and Paul, when their other jobs are finished, will clean up the main street, salvage people's property and carry rubbish to signal fire.

‘Adrian and Paul—as soon as possible are to set out for Fiddler's Crossing with torches and food for two days.

‘Signals. Everyone will carry a whistle. In an emergency the signal is twelve short blasts, because everyone is bound to hear some of them. On the emergency signal everyone is to return at once to the shop. The ordinary recall signal for meals or new orders is six long blasts on the whistle.

‘Everyone is to sign at the bottom of the page and obey these orders.'

Adrian looked up nervously and they were staring at him, even Paul, and he didn't know whether they were going to laugh or sneer.

Gradually they looked to Paul; all heads seemed to turn in his direction, and Adrian was sickening with anxiety. If they were going to laugh he wished they would get on with it. If they were going to sneer why didn't they start?

Paul, in truth, was astonished, yet in a most unusual way immensely relieved. He was relieved because this was a plan that gave them something to do. It was the lead they all had wanted. And he was astonished because it had come from Adrian. And he was bewildered because it was so simple.

‘Yes,' he said. ‘Why not?'

Adrian's mouth fell open and slowly across his earnest young face spread a wide smile of real happiness.

‘Gee!' he said.

Paul had more to say. ‘I want to put it to the vote, the way they do at the town committee meeting. All in favour of Adrian's plan, raise their hands.'

All raised their hands, and Maisie suddenly shouted, ‘Three cheers for Adrian!'

They cheered him and Adrian blushed and Frances said, ‘The grown-ups were wrong. We'll live all right. Nothing can beat us now.'

‘Righto,' said Paul. ‘Put the book on the counter, Adrian. We'll all read our orders again and sign it.'

Slowly the fog went up, drifting, eddying, moving like a cloudy impurity suspended in a fluid, always rising as if seeking an invisible surface, until it seemed to be motionless overhead, until it lay above Hills End, six or seven hundred feet up, and rested against the mountain-sides. It still concealed the upper slopes from view, but it granted to the children of Hills End the mercy of visibility. They could see. They seemed to be working and living in an isolated bubble of clear air, safe, encompassed in every direction by forest or earth or impenetrable fog. There seemed to be something special about it, as though they truly were the last people left on earth and the earth was preparing to help them.

There were a number of things that had to be done before they could start their duties, but they were done promptly because they were anxious to begin. Each person seemed to have a real importance, and it was surprising how anxious they all were to prove themselves. Adrian had fitted each task so perfectly to the person or persons from whom it was demanded that it was obvious, particularly to Frances, that his idea was not half-baked. It was mature, almost as though a man were directing it.

Adrian even organized those things that had to be done first. The fat volume he had brought down from the house was called
The Home Doctor
and from its instructions he directed Frances to bind up Butch's feet and fit him with strong boots, then to clean and dress with germicidal ointment the deep scratch that a nail or a wood splinter had scored across his back. He confirmed that all they could do for Miss Godwin was to keep her warm, to allow her to sleep on, and to give her nourishing fluids if she recovered consciousness. The fact remained that she needed a doctor desperately.

Adrian ordered Maisie and Gussie and Harvey to return to the area of the schoolhouse and recover every portion of Miss Godwin's manuscript that they could possibly find. He told Paul how to clean the rifle and pull it through and how to reload it, and from one of his pockets produced the tools and the cartridges. He then collected Mr Matheson's toolbag from beneath the shop counter, checked its contents, and had set off downhill towards the engine shed into the flood, before they fully realized he had gone.

Paul, for a minute or two, found himself alone with Frances. There were not any words to fit the situation. All they had for each other was a smile of real confidence and real hope. He took up his rifle and walked firmly to the window, like a man.

‘Take care,' she called.

He grinned and legged through and strode away up the road, towards the hills.

 

It must have been after three o'clock before Paul came back into town, riding bareback on Rickard's horse, riding slowly because it was not the habit of the wise old horse to exert himself. At his heels, plodding just as leisurely, just as slowly, was Rickard's old red collie dog. Paul came back with his several tasks completed and before him he could see the devastated face of Hills End slowly changing.

In reality, it was little, because the strength of the children was limited and the task would have daunted a hundred men. From the vacant land adjoining the shop an immense column of dirty smoke billowed towards the fog line. He could hear voices and clatter. He could see along the street, at intervals of fifty or sixty yards amongst the still remaining spoil of the storm, small but orderly stacks of salvaged timber and roofing iron and neat little piles of broken plaster and cement sheet. He saw Gussie dragging a huge piece of wood from the wreckage of the hall with the tenacity of a terrier, and Butch, poor old Butch, with a wheelbarrow panting and struggling with a load of rubbish towards the main fire. He could hear the crack of an axe-blade from higher up, where many smaller fires added their smoke to the air.

Something compelled Paul to stop the horse before his friends saw him. For those few moments he seemed to be detached; he enjoyed the brief privilege of seeing himself and his friends as others might have seen them, and he could do nothing but thrill with a rueful pride. A few hours before he had been so dreadfully frightened. The future had looked so black and so full of despair. It still had its shadows, but it was different. Then, they had seemed so helpless, so overwhelmed by dangers and difficulties, so well on the way to fulfilling his father's prophecy that kids would go under if they had to look after themselves.

There was Maisie now, staggering towards the fire with a great armful of newspapers and magazines that had been ruined by water, that probably she had scraped out of ditches or untangled from shrubs or peeled from muddy paths; and there was Gussie dumping her piece of timber on a nearby stack and straightening it neatly; and from Campbell's house, on the hill behind the site of the hall, another column of smoke was rising from a chimney. There, it seemed, Frances must have found the facilities for washing and heating and cooking and sleeping and the safe water supply that Adrian had ordered.

Where was Adrian?

Paul glanced down to the flats and saw that during his absence the receding waters of the river had retreated beyond the mill. The engine shed, once standing in a courtyard of wood shavings, now looked like a miniature Noah's ark stranded in a lake of mud and half-sunken debris. Leaning against the big pole beside the engine shed was an extension ladder, and at the top of the pole, looped over the crossbeams, were many coils of wire that Adrian had salvaged from fallen powerlines, but neither of the engines in the shed was beating. In that respect, at least, Adrian seemed to have failed.

Suddenly a dog was barking. It was Maisie's boxer and it brought an immediate response from Rickard's collie and an excited yell from Gussie, ‘Paul's back!'

They raced towards him, Gussie, Maisie, and Butch, and Paul slid from the horse to the ground just in time to catch the bumble-footed Gussie as she tripped. He set her back on her feet and she was bright-eyed and flushed.

‘Oh, Paul,' she panted, ‘is everything all right?'

His smile wasn't a real smile. ‘The bull's out of the way, thanks to Butch, I guess.'

Butch whistled. ‘Was he dead? Did I kill him?'

‘Far from it. Very far from dead, but he'd gone home and I lured him into the milking yard.'

‘
Lured
him?' squealed Gussie.

Paul wrinkled his brow, perhaps in modesty, but perhaps in respect to the truth. ‘Well—if a fella runs helter-skelter and a bull roars down like an express train, I guess it's luring—in a sort of way. Anyhow, he's in the milking yard and the gate's barred. He won't get out in a hurry. But I guess he needs a vet, poor brute. I reckon I jumped ten feet clear in the air to get out of that yard.'

Gussie shivered and Maisie said, ‘Did you see any sign of Mr Tobias?'

‘I got the old horse,' Paul said, ‘and went looking for the cows. Found two of them with their calves. Must have been a mile downstream. Couldn't find the rest anywhere. I suppose they've gone bush or been drowned. Couldn't bring the cart. Didn't know how to get the horse into the shafts. Fancy living in the country all my life and still can't harness a horse. Golly, I got into a tangle! Where's Adrian?'

Gussie glanced at Maisie, and Butch said, ‘Gone.'

Paul's heart jumped in a peculiar way. ‘Not—he didn't
electrocute
himself?'

‘Of course not,' snorted Gussie. ‘Don't be silly. What on earth would make you think a thing like that? He's gone to the Crossing.'

‘By himself?'

Maisie nodded. ‘He had a good lunch and then he went. He's got plenty of food and a good torch and spare batteries. He said he had thought things over. That it was best for you to stay here and look after us.'

Paul wondered about that. He wasn't too sure. ‘I see,' he said. ‘But two days by himself—Adrian, of all people!'

‘He said he didn't want you to go after him.'

‘Did he?'

‘He couldn't fix up the powerplant, Paul. He says it'll take an engineer. He said both engines had run out of fuel and he couldn't understand why. How could both engines run out of fuel? That's what he said. He said perhaps you'd like to have a look at them.'

‘Me? Golly, I don't know anything about engines.'