Sixty Days to Live (39 page)

‘Of course we mustn’t rush things,’ she agreed. ‘I’m perfectly content to wait. Your love will give me the strength and courage to do that.’

Sam knew that he would have to do some pretty hectic thinking and had just decided that he would take refuge at once in one of the storerooms so as to be by himself when he suddenly recalled the state in which he had found Margery ten minutes earlier. Turning at the door, he said:

‘By Jove! I’d entirely forgotten to ask what happened to you. I thought Finkie must have escaped and attacked you; but it seems you’d only fainted. Whatever caused you to do that?’

Margery’s mouth dropped open and her eyes almost popped with excitement. ‘Of course, I haven’t told you,’ she cried, grabbing him by the arm. ‘When I came in here to make breakfast I looked out of the port-hole and I saw land, Sam. Land!’

‘Good God!’ In two strides Sam was across the kitchen staring eagerly out of the port; and there, no more than five miles distant, was that for which they had watched in vain through so many dreary weeks.

‘The sight of land after all this time came as such a shock to me that I fainted,’ Margery murmured.

‘Yes, yes,’ Sam breathed, gazing enraptured at the low, green shore. ‘But come on! We must tell the others.’

Running from the kitchen with excited shouts they broke the news to the rest of the party. The land was not visible from the port-holes of the living-room so they crowded about those in the cabins on the other side of the Ark; all of them wildly thrilled by this new hope of release from their prison and a real chance, at last, that they might live out their lives to their allotted span instead of slowly starving to death on the empty ocean.

They had naturally anticipated that when they did sight land it would be the top of a mountain chain; some snowy peaks and a jagged, rocky shore; but this was totally different. Before them in the distance spread a low, greenish landscape of trees and meadows splashed here and there with white patches which they knew must be half-melted snow.

Gervaise and Hemmingway had dashed into the men’s cabin and, after a moment, Gervaise remarked:

‘It’s surprising that we didn’t see it when we were dressing.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Hemmingway replied. ‘It’s quite a long time now since we used to look out hopefully each morning. Anyhow, we’d better not waste any time in getting the engines going, otherwise a storm might get up and blow us away from it again.’

‘You’re right,’ Gervaise agreed, and leaving the cabin he called to Derek, who, as their Engineer, hurried below at once.

They were by now so used to the silence of the Ark and its gentle rolling, that it was a queer sensation to hear the pulse of its engines and feel it chugging slowly forward in a given direction. Fortunately the weather was calm, so, in spite of its unwieldy shape, its big drop-keel and rudder kept it from revolving, and although its pace was less than that of a rowing-boat it made steady progress towards the shore. While it was slowly forging ahead Sam and Hemmingway got up from the stores the parts of a collapsible canvas boat, which they unpacked and assembled. An hour and a half after the engines had been got going the Ark jolted slightly as its keel cut into earth, and came to rest in shallow water about fifty yards from land.

Opening the door, they went out on to the platform to survey this domain that the gods had decreed for them. On closer inspection it was by no means so attractive. A great number of its trees had been uprooted and broken branches dangled from the others giving them a pathetic, woebegone appearance. In some places the grass was mired by great patches of mud or
snow, a dead horse lay on the foreshore, and for as far as they could see, the land was sprinkled with the debris of the flood.

It was bitterly cold upon the platform after the warmth of the Ark, so, having seen Sam and Hemmingway launch their canvas boat and set off in it to row ashore for a brief exploration, the others hurried inside again.

By lunch time the explorers were back to report that they had been unable to penetrate inland more than a few hundred yards in any direction. The whole earth was so sodden that they had got bogged wherever they went. They had seen a small, square, grey stone house in the distance and come across some drowned cattle but had discovered no indication as to what country they might be in.

‘We may be in northern Norway, Iceland or Greenland,’ said Gervaise sadly, ‘but it’s impossible to say which.’

‘I’m quite sure it’s not Norway,’ Hemmingway volunteered. ‘This is low meadow-country, not unlike England, and if we were in Norway we should certainly be able to see mountains in the distance.’

‘True,’ Gervaise agreed. ‘For the same reason I doubt if we are in Greenland, unless we’ve landed somewhere on the high table-land of its interior. I should think Iceland is the most probable; but, of course, we may have drifted very much farther than we thought, either west to Canada or east into Northern Russia.’

‘But the country doesn’t look like that,’ Lavina objected. ‘It’s too green and friendly.’

Gervaise smiled. ‘It’s a big mistake to imagine that countries bordering on the Arctic are always lands of snow, dearest. The most beautiful wild flowers in the world grow in the meadows of Siberia and it’s greener there during the short Arctic summers than it is in England. Now that it’s August their winter is approaching and soon they will be buried deep in snow; but we’re seeing one of them just before the long Arctic night sets in.’

‘It is neither Canada nor Russia,’ Hemmingway said decisively, ‘otherwise the trees would be mostly larch and pine. Besides, the country is too much cut up into small fields. I should say the betting is a hundred to one on our having fetched up in Iceland.’

‘Anyhow, there’s one comfort,’ Sam added. ‘The flood is definitely subsiding. This is typical low, wooded country so we
can’t be very far above sea-level and everything is so drenched that it’s quite obvious that the whole of this area was still under water not more than two or three days ago. There are no snow patches within five hundred yards of the shore either, which indicates that the water must have gone down that much since the early hours of the morning.’

That Sam was right about the flood subsiding was evidenced an hour later. Unnoticed by them the waters had seeped away from under the landing-platform, but they realised it only when the Ark gave a sudden lurch, flinging everything off the table and most of them to the floor. Its keel, stuck deep in the mud, had kept them upright since the sphere had grounded, but with the lessening support of the waters it had given way. They were floating again now, with the deck at a sharp angle.

Picking themselves up, Derek and Gervaise scrambled down to the engine-room, and operating the levers, drew in the keel and rudder; upon which the Ark righted itself, bobbing gently.

‘We’d best tow her in as far as possible,’ Hemmingway suggested. ‘Then, as we lost our anchors, we’ll throw out some kedges made of weighty objects we’ve got among the stores.’

Having fixed a tow-rope, Sam and Hemmingway got into the collapsible boat again and laboured manfully for half an hour to bring the sphere nearer to land. They got it to within ten feet of the shore-line, where it grounded again, but kedge-anchors were found to be unnecessary as the water was going down with the quickness of an outgoing tide.

When Hemmingway and Sam came aboard again their hands were blue with cold and they were both shivering. By four o’clock it had started to snow, blotting out most of the landscape, and the big white flakes continued to fall softly and persistently until darkness hid them from view.

The joy of finding land again was marred for Sam by his domestic contretemps. The scene in which he had participated early that morning had never since been absent from his mind. Margery seemed normal, and even cheerful, while Lavina gave no indication that anything unusual had occurred. But Sam was so nervy that he could not sit still happily for five minutes together. In an agony of suspense he waited for bedtime, wondering if Lavina would give him her usual good-night kiss.

His torture was prolonged by the fact that they stayed up much
later than usual as Gervaise had brought up some bottles of wine and spirits to celebrate their having survived the flood, and for a couple of hours after dinner they speculated uselessly but garrulously as to what the future might hold in store for them.

At last Lavina said, ‘Well, it’s been an exciting day but I’m going to bed,’ and stood up.

The others followed her example and Sam watched on tenterhooks to see what she would do. She kissed her father, smiled round at the others and, apparently forgetting him, went towards her cabin.

‘Lavina,’ he called after her, with a tremor in his voice, ‘if you don’t mind, I’d like a word with you before you turn in.’

‘Right you are,’ she answered, without turning her head. ‘I’ll come back again in my dressing-gown.’

It was Lavina’s habit to take a long time preparing herself for bed. Sam had never quite discovered why it was necessary for her to sit so long in front of her mirror after she had brushed her hair, but she never spent less than three-quarters of an hour tinkering with her face. To-night she deliberately took nearly double that time, then strolled out of her cabin with a cigarette dangling from her newly carmined lips. The others had all retired so husband and wife had the living-room to themselves.

‘Well?’ said Lavina, sitting down in an armchair and crossing her well-formed legs.

Now that the moment had come, Sam’s nervousness had disappeared. He went into action just as he would have done if faced with any other tricky situation.

‘About this morning,’ he began. ‘You saw me kissing Margery. First of all, I’d like to assure you that there’s been nothing else between us. We haven’t been having any private sessions below deck of the kind you and I used to have during our first weeks in the Ark, or anything of that sort.’

Lavina smiled. ‘Knowing Margery, I didn’t suppose for one moment that you had. She’s in love with you, of course; has been for a long time. Any woman could see that. But Margery’s the sort who would demand marriage before she went to bed, and I can hardly see her playing slap-and-tickle with you among the packing-cases. Are you in love with her?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then you’re not in love with me any longer?’

‘I wouldn’t exactly say that.’

‘Hell! You can’t have it both ways.’

‘I didn’t say I could, but it’s quite possible to be in love with two people at the same time.’

‘It all depends on what you call love.’

‘I mean that I love you both in different ways.’

‘What you mean, Sam, is that you don’t
love
me any longer but you still desire me; whereas you do love Margery—for her worthiness, and all that. But you’ve no particular desire to sleep with her.’

‘On the contrary. I think one thing goes with the other; anyhow, for a man like myself. And most people would consider Margery darned good-looking if you didn’t happen to be about.

‘Yes, she’s only twenty-six, and decidedly attractive in a saintly sort of way. I suppose what’s got you down is that you’ve been a casual bad-hat all your life but never before run into a good-looking woman who goes about clad in woollens and a halo. But that’s beside the point. What I imagine you’re trying to tell me is that if we were living in a normal way you’d ask me to divorce you so that you could marry her?’

‘Oh, God!’ Sam groaned. ‘This is simply frightful. We’ve only been married ourselves just under three months.’

‘I know. But having been cooped up for so long in this thing, where we haven’t been out of each other’s sight except when asleep, has made all the difference, and that has come practically on top of our five weeks’ honeymoon when we hardly saw a soul. We’ve spent more hours together since our marriage than most married people do in a couple of years. Besides, life in the Ark is so totally unlike the sort of life we’d be living if the comet had never appeared. This sort of existence has brought out all my very worst points. I’m lazy, thoughtless, unpractical, and very easily get bored; whereas Margery, being the perfect
hausfrau
, has had a marvellous opportunity to do her stuff. Naturally, by comparison, she appears as a shining example of what a good woman should be. I’m not a good woman, Sam, and I’ve never pretended to be, but I would never willingly have let you down.’

Sam knew that every word she spoke was true, and he marvelled at the cold logic with which she summed up the situation. ‘It’s my fault entirely,’ he admitted unhappily. ‘You’ve got qualities that Margery hasn’t, but you’ve had little chance to
show them in the last few weeks; whereas she’s had all the opportunities she could possibly wish for to show hers. That doesn’t excuse me, I know, but it is a fact; and I’m desperately worried as to what to do about the future. You see, I want to be fair to both of you, but I don’t see how it’s possible.’

Lavina smiled a little bitterly. ‘As far as I can see, the future isn’t going to be very different from the past few weeks. The whole world has been drowned; so there’s no prospect of our getting anywhere, and very little of our meeting any other people. We’ll have to pig it in some collection of ruins, I suppose, and I shall be no more use to anybody than I am now. But Margery could run a derelict cottage for you perfectly, cook your meals, clean your house, put your slippers by the fire to warm, and all the rest of it; while you cultivated a bit of land with some of the seeds and things we’ve got. Besides, she could give you children, and you’d like children—wouldn’t you, Sam?’

‘Yes,’ he nodded.

‘Well, I’m not playing. I might have, if I could have had a Harley Street gynaecologist to look after me and all the usual comforts; but I’m damned if I’m going to have a baby like a peasant girl in a cow-shed, and work myself to death bringing the brat up.’

‘No. I shouldn’t ask you to. You weren’t made for that sort of thing; nor, for that matter, to slave in any workaday world. You were born to be served, and to reward men for their service only with your beauty. Where you’re unfortunate is that, our civilisation having gone down the drain, it looks as if we’ll have to live out the rest of our lives in primitive conditions; and in primitive societies there is not much call for idle women however decorative they may be. But what do you suggest?’