For my own part, I went through that period like an automaton. The suddenness of the catastrophe seemed, in some way, to have deadened my imagination; and I carried on my work mechanically without thinking of where it was all leading us. With this new holocaust looming over the Area, Elsa seemed further away than ever. If she had revolted at the story of the South, it seemed to me that this fresh sacrifice of lives in the Area itself would deepen her hatred for the men who planned it.
It seemed the very irony of Fate that Nordenholt should choose this juncture to tell me his views on her feelings.
“Elsa seems to be coming round a little at last, Jack,” he said to me one day, “I think her emotional side has worked itself out in the contemplation of the Famine; and her reason’s getting a chance again.”
“What makes you think that?” I asked. “I haven’t seen anything to make me hopeful about it.”
“You wouldn’t notice anything. You don’t know her well enough—Oh, don’t get vexed. Even if you are in love with her, you’ve only known her for a very short time, whereas I’ve studied her since she was a child. I know the symptoms. She’s coming round a little.”
“Much good that will do now! If you decimate the Area it will be worse than ever. I hate to think of my own affairs in the middle of this catastrophe; but I simply can’t help it. If your plan goes through, it’s the end of my romance.”
He played with the cord of his desk telephone for a moment before replying. I could see that he had some doubt as to whether he ought to speak or not. At last he made up his mind.
“If you’re brooding over things as much as all that, Jack, I suppose I must say something; but I’m very much afraid of raising false hopes. You wonder, probably, why I don’t go straight ahead and weed out the useless mouths now and be done with it? Well, the fact is I’m staking it all on the next couple of days. Henley-Davenport seems, by his way of it, to be just on the edge of something definite at last. If he pulls it off, then all’s well. If not. …”
“What do you mean?”
“If Henley-Davenport gets his results, we won’t need coal; because we shall have all the energy we require from his process. I’ve stretched things to the limit in the hope that he will give us the ace of trumps and not the two. If he succeeds, we don’t need to weed out the Area; we can go on as we are; and we shall be absolutely certain to pull through with every soul alive. But I shouldn’t have told you this, perhaps; it may be only a false hope and will just depress you more by the reaction. But you look so miserable that I thought I had better take the risk.”
“When do you expect to know definitely?”
“He promised me that within two days he would be able to tell me, one way or the other. Of course, even if he fails now, he may pull it off later; but I can only wait two days more before beginning the elimination of all the useless mouths in the Area. Everything is ready to put into operation in that direction. But I hope we may not need these plans. It’s just a chance, Jack; so don’t build too much on it.”
It was advice easy enough to give; but I found it very hard to follow. All that day my hopes were rising; things seemed brighter at last: and it was only now and again that I stopped to remind myself that the whole thing was a gamble with colossal stakes. Even Nordenholt himself was afraid to count too much upon Henley-Davenport, though I knew that he believed implicitly in his capacity. But even as I said this to myself I felt my spirits rising. After the certainty of disaster which had confronted us, even this hazard was a relief. For the first time in many weeks I began to build castles in the air once more. I was half-afraid to do so; but I could not help myself. And as the hours passed by bringing no news of success or failure, I think my nerves must have become more and more tense. A whole day went by without news of any kind.
The morning of the following day seemed interminable to me. I knew that within another twenty-four hours Nordenholt would have given up all hope of Henley-Davenport’s success and would be setting in motion the machinery which he had devised for reducing the population of the Area; and as hour after hour passed without bringing any news, I became more and more restless. I tried to work and to ease my mind by concentrating it upon details; but I soon found that this was useless. Strive as I might, I could not banish the thought of the tragedy which hung over us.
At 3:27 p.m.—I know the exact minute, because my watch was stopped then and I read the time from it afterwards—I was standing beside my desk, consulting some papers on a file. Suddenly I heard a high detonation, a sound so sharp that I can liken it to nothing familiar. The air seemed full of
