As to the question of ammunition-supply, which had puzzled Hinkinson so much during his experiences in the outer zones, it became simple when once he was inside the trench-lines. There appears to have been a regular traffic by aeroplane between the food-area and the outer world, munitions being imported by air in exchange for food which the aircraft took back on their return trips.
Readers can now picture for themselves the state of the world after the Famine had done its worst. The great cities which marked the culmination of civilisation had all shared the fate of London; and most of the towns had gone the same road. All the vast and complex machinery which mankind had so laboriously gathered together in these teeming areas had been destroyed by fire.
Here and there—in Scotland, in Japan, and in a couple of American centres—Nitrogen Areas were in full activity; and the traditions of pre-Famine times were being kept alive, though with profound modifications; but outside the boundaries of these regions the only human beings left in the world were a mere handful, scattered up and down the globe and existing hazardously upon chance discoveries of foodstuffs here and there. The Eskimo had a better prospect of survival than most of these relics of civilisation.
But the trifling changes involved in the downfall of humanity were overshadowed by the effects of B. diazotans upon the face of the earth. All that had once been arable land became a desert strewn with the bones of men. The vast virgin forests of America, Northern Europe and tropical Africa became mere heaps of rotting vegetation: pestilential swamps into which no man could penetrate and survive. Apart from these regions, the land-surface was sandy, except where boulder-clay deposits kept it together. Water ebbed away in these thirsty deserts; and with its disappearance the climate changed over vast areas of the world.
Those who went out in the early aeroplane exploring expeditions across these stricken and barren lands came to understand, as they had never done before, the meaning of the abomination of desolation.
XV
Document B. 53. X. 15
I think I have made it clear that when I took over the Reconstruction at Nordenholt’s request I did so in a disinterested spirit, by which I mean that no personal aims of my own were concerned. I began the work solely in the hope that my plans would ensure the welfare of some millions of people, hardly any of whom I knew as individuals. It is true that I put my whole heart into the task and that I strove with all my might to bring its conclusion within the scope of possibility. I could do no less, in view of the immense responsibility which I had undertaken. Possibly my narrative has minimised the labour which the effort involved; if so, I cannot help it.
Even my early stages of collaboration with Elsa Huntingtower failed to alter this attitude of my mind. I still saw the problem as one in which great masses of people were involved; and although I appreciated the fact that these masses were composed of individuals each with his or her separate destiny to work out for good or ill, yet it never occurred to me to regard myself as one of them.
I think that the vision of Fata Morgana, growing ever clearer in my mental vision, forced my thoughts into a fresh channel. In my mind’s eye I saw that happy city, thronged with its joyous people; and gradually I began to picture myself treading those lawns and wandering amid its gardens. Alone? No, I wanted some kindred spirit, someone who could share the victory with me; and Elsa Huntingtower was the only one who had part and lot in it. She and I had built its dreaming spires together by our common labour; and it was with her that I would stray in fancy through its courts. Of all humanity, we two alone had rightful seizin in its soil.
It was late before I recognised where all this was leading me; but when at last I awakened, it drove me with tenfold force. I wanted no dim future through which I might rove as a shadow among shadows; they had served their turn in the scheme of things and brought me face to face with reality. If Paradise lay before me, Eve must be there, else it would be a mockery: if I had to face failure, I needed a comforter. I wanted Elsa.
I mistrust all novelists’ descriptions of the psychology of a man in love. To me, that passion seems an integration of selfishness and selflessness each developed to its highest pitch and so intimately mingled that one cannot tell where the dividing line between them lies. Luckily, analysis of this kind is beyond the scope of my narrative. The affairs of Elsa Huntingtower and me, so far as they concerned ourselves alone, have no place upon my canvas; but since in their reactions they impinged upon a greater engine, I cannot pass them over in silence without omitting a factor which must have had its influence upon events.
I suppose, from what I see around me, that the average man falls in love by degrees. He seems to be subjected to two forces which alternately act upon him in opposite directions, so that his advance to his goal is intermittent and sometimes slow. In my case, there was nothing of this wavering. Somehow, as soon
