Tunnel in the Sky (28 page)

   
He was awakened again by the building shaking. He hurried out. “What's up?”

   
“That you, Rod? I didn't know anybody was inside. Give me a hand; we're going to burn it.” The voice was Baxter's; he was prying at a corner post and cutting rawhide strips that held it.

   
Rod put his spear where it would not be stepped on, resheathed Colonel Bowie, and started to help. The building was bamboo and leaves, with a mud-and-thatch roof; most of it would burn. “How's Carmen?”

   
“Okay. Normal progress. I can do more good here. Besides they don't want me.” Baxter brought the corner of the shed down with a crash, gathered a double armful of wreckage and hurried away. Rod picked up a load and followed him.

   
The reserve wood pile was gone; somebody was tearing the roof off the “city hall” and banging pieces on the ground to shake clay loose. The walls were sunbaked bricks, but the roof would burn. Rod came closer, saw that it was Cowper who was destroying this symbol of the sovereign community. He worked with the fury of anger. “Let me do that, Grant. Have you had any rest?”

   
“Huh? No.”

   
“Better get some. It's going to be a long night. What time is it?”

   
“I don't know. Midnight, maybe.” Fire blazed up and Cowper faced it, wiping his face with his hand. “Rod, take charge of the second watch and relieve Bill. Cliff got clawed and I sent him up.”

   
“Okay. Burn everything that will burn-right?”

   
“Everything but the roof of the Baxter house. But don't use it up too fast; it's got to last till morning.”

   
“Got it.” Rod hurried to the fire line, found Kennedy. Okay, Bill, I'll take over- Grant's orders. Get some sleep. Anything getting through?”

   
'Not much. And not far.” Kennedy's spear was dark with blood in the firelight. “I'm not going to sleep, Rod. Find yourself a spot and help out.”

   
Rod shook his head. “You're groggy. Beat it. Grant's orders.”

   
“No!”

   
“Well. . . look, take your gang and tear down the old maids' shack. That'll give you a change, at least.”

   
“Uh- all right.” Kennedy left, almost staggering. There was a lull in the onrush of animals; Rod could see none beyond the barricade. It gave him time to sort out his crew, send away those who had been on duty since sunset, send for stragglers. He delegated Doug Sanders and Mick Mahmud as firetenders, passed the word that no one else was to put fuel on the fires.

   
He returned from his inspection to find Bob Baxter, spear in hand, holding his place at the center of the line. Rod put a hand on his shoulder. “The medical officer doesn't need to fight. We aren't that bad off.”

   
Baxter shrugged. “I've got my kit, what there is left of it. This is where I use it.”

   
“Haven't you enough worries?”

   
Baxter grinned wanly. “Better than walking the floor. Rod, they're stirring again. Hadn't we better build up the fires?”

   
“Mmm . . . not if we're going to make it last. I don't think they can come through that.”

   
Baxter did not answer, as a joe came through at that instant. It ploughed through the smouldering fire and Baxter speared it. Rod cupped his hands and shouted, “Build up the fires! But go easy.

   
“Behind you, Rod!”

   
Rod jumped and whirled, got the little devil. “Where did that one come from? I didn't see it.”

   
Before Bob could answer Caroline came running out of darkness. “Bob! Bob Baxter! rve got to find Bob Baxter!”

   
“Over here!” Rod called.

   
Baxter was hardly able to speak. “Is she- is she?” His face screwed up in anguish.

   
“No, no!” yelled Caroline. “She's all right, she's fine. It's a girl!”

   
Baxter quietly fainted, his spear falling to the ground. Caroline grabbed him and kept him from falling into the fire. He opened his eyes and said, “Sorry. You scared me. You're sure Carmen is all right?”

   
“Right as rain. The baby, too. About three kilos. Here, give me that sticker- Carmen wants you.”

   
Baxter stumbled away and Caroline took his place. She grinned at Rod. “I feel swell! How's business, Roddie? Brisk? I feel like getting me eight or nine of these vermin.

   
Cowper came up a few minutes later. Caroline called out, “Grant, did you hear the good news?”

   
“Yes. I just came from there.” He ignored Caroline's presence at the guard line but said to Rod, “We're making a stretcher out of pieces of the flume and they're going to haul Carmen up. Then they'll throw the stretcher down and you can burn it.”

   
“Good.”

   
“Agnes is taking the baby up. Rod, what's the very most we can crowd into the cave?”

   
“Gee!” Rod glanced up at the shelf. “They must be spilling off the edge now.

   
“I'm afraid so. But we've just got to pack them in. I want to send up all married men and the youngest boys. The bachelors will hold on here.”

   
“I'm a bachelor!” Caroline interrupted. Cowper ignored her. “As soon as Carmen is safe we do it- we can't keep fires going much longer.” He turned away, headed up to the cave.

   
Caroline whistled softly. “Roddie, we're going to have fun.”

   
“Not my idea of fun. Hold the fort, Carol. I've got to line things up.” He moved down the line, telling each one to go or to stay.

   
Jimmy scowled at him. “I won't go, not as long as anybody stays. I couldn't look Jackie in the face.”

   
“You'll button your lip and do as Grant says- or I'll give you a mouthful of teeth. Hear me?”

   
“I hear you. I don't like it.”

   
“You don't have to like it, just do it. Seen Jackie? How is she?”

   
“I snuck up a while ago. She's all right, just queasy.
 
But the news about Carmen makes her feel so good she doesn't care.”

  
 
Rod used no age limit to determine who was expendable. With the elimination of married men, wounded, and all women he had little choice; he simply told those whom he considered too young or not too skilled that they were to leave when word was passed. It left him with half a dozen, plus himself, Cowper, and- possibly- Caroline. Trying to persuade Caroline was a task he had postponed.

   
He returned and found Cowper. “Carmen's gone up,” Cowper told him. “You can send the others up now.

   
“Then we can burn the roof of the Baxter house.”

   
“I tore it down while they were hoisting her.” Cowper looked around. “Carol! Get on up.

   
She set her feet. “I won't!”

   
Rod said softly, “Carol, you heard him. Go up- right now!”

   
She scowled, stuck out her lip, then said, “All right for you, Roddie Walker!”- turned and fled up the path.

   
Rod cupped his hands and shouted, “All right, everybody! All hands up but those I told to stay. Hurry!”

   
About half of those leaving had started up when Agnes called down, “Hey! Take it slow! Somebody will get pushed over the edge if you don't quit shoving.”

   
The queue stopped. Jimmy called out, “Everybody exhale. That'll do it.”

   
Somebody called back, “Throw Jimmy off. . . that will do it.” The line moved again, slowly. In ten minutes they accomplished the sardine-packing problem of fitting nearly seventy people into a space comfortable for not more than a dozen. It could not even be standing room since a man could stand erect only on the outer shelf. The girls were shoved inside, sitting or squatting, jammed so that they hardly had air to breathe. The men farthest out could stand but were in danger of stepping off the edge in the dark, or of being elbowed off.

   
Grant said, “Watch things, Rod, while I have a look.” He disappeared up the path, came back in a few minutes. “Crowded as the bottom of a sack,” he said. “Here's the plan. They can scrunch back farther if they have to. It will be uncomfortable for the wounded and Carmen may have to sit up- she's lying down- but it can be done. When the fires die out, we'll shoehorn the rest in. With spears poking out under the overhang at the top of the path we ought to be able to hold out until daylight. Check me?”

   
“Sounds as good as can be managed.”

   
“All right. When the time comes, you go up next to last, I go up last.”

   
“Unh . . . I'll match you.”

   
Cowper answered with surprising vulgarity and added, “I'm boss; I go last. We'll make the rounds and pile anything left on the fires, then gather them all here. You take the bank, I take the fence.”

   
It did not take long to put the remnants on the fires, then they gathered around the path and waited- Roy, Kenny, Doug, Dick, Charlie, Howard, and Rod and Grant. Another wave of senseless migration was rolling but the fires held it, bypassed it around by the water.

   
Rod grew stiff and shifted his spear to his left hand. The dying fires were only glowing coals in spots. He looked for signs of daylight in the east. Howard Goldstein said, “One broke through at the far end.”

   
“Hold it, Goldie,” Cowper said. “We won't bother it unless it comes here.” Rod shifted his spear back to his right hand.

   
The wall of fire was now broken in many places. Not only could joes get through, but worse, it was hard to see them, so little light did the embers give off. Cowper turned to Rod and said, “All right, everybody up. You tally them.” Then he shouted, “Bill! Agnes! Make room, I'm sending them up.”

   
Rod threw a glance at the fence, then turned. “Okay, Kenny first. Doug next, don't crowd. Goldie and then Dick. Who's left? Roy-” He turned, uneasily aware that something had changed.

   
Grant was no longer behind him. Rod spotted him bending over a dying fire. “Hey, Grant!”

   
“Be right with you.” Co'wper selected a stick from the embers, waved it into flame. He hopped over the coals, picked his way through sharpened stakes, reached the thornbush barrier, shoved his torch into it. The dry branches flared up. He moved slowly away, picking his way through the stake trap.

   
“I'll help you!” Rod shouted. “I'll fire the other end.” Cowper turned and light from the burning thorn showed his stern, bearded face. “Stay back. Get the others up. That's an order!”
               
f

   
The movement upward had stopped. Rod snarled, “Get on up, you lunkheads! Move!” He jabbed with the butt of his spear, then turned around.

   
Cowper had set the fire in a new place. He straightened up, about to move farther down, suddenly turned and jumped over the dying line of fire. He stopped and jabbed at something in the darkness . . . then screamed.

   
“Grant!” Rod jumped down, ran toward him. But Grant was down before he reached him, down with a joe worrying each leg and more coming. Rod thrnst at one, jerked his spear out, and jabbed at the other, trying not to stab Grant. He felt one grab his leg and wondered that it did not hurt.

   
Then it did hurt, terribly, and he realized that he was down and his spear was not in his hand. But his hand found his knife without asking; Colonel Bowie finished off the beast clamped to his ankle.

   
Everything seemed geared to nightmare slowness. Other figures were thrusting leisurely at shapes that hardly crawled. The thornbush, flaming high, gave him light to see and stab a dopy joe creeping toward him. He got it, rolled over and tried to get up.

   
He woke with daylight in his eyes, tried to move and discovered that his left leg hurt. He looked down and saw a compress of leaves wrapped with a neat hide bandage. He was in the cave and there were others lying parallel to him. He got to one elbow. “Say, what-”

   
“Sssh!” Sue Kennedy crawled over and knelt by him. “The baby is asleep.”

   
“Oh. . .”

   
“I'm on nurse duty. Want anything?”

   
“I guess not. Uh, what did they name her?”

   
“Hope. Hope Roberta Baxter. A pretty name. I'll tell Caroline you are awake.” She turned away.

   
Caroline came in, squatted and looked scornfully at his ankle. “That'll teach you to have a party and not invite me.