“For posterity?”
After a moment of silence, Timberlane said, “All right, we both think we know where duty lies. But I don’t have to shoot all the poor old wrecks in the Churchill Hospital.”
Croucher crunched his peppermint. The eyes in his ugly face stared at the floor as he spoke. “Here’s a nodule of information for you to record. For the last ten years, the Churchill has been devoted to one line of research and one only. The doctors and staff there include some expert biochemists. Their project and endeavour is trying to prolong life. They are not just studying ger — what do you call it, geriatrics — they are looking for a drug, a hormone; I am no medical specialist, and I don’t differentiate one from the other, but they are looking for a way to enable people such as me and you to live to be two hundred or two thousand years old. Impossible boloney! Waste an organization chasing phantoms! I can’t let that hospital run to waste, I want to utilize it for more productive purposes.”
“The Government subsidized the hospital?”
“They did. The corrupt politicians of Westminster aspired to discover this elixir of life and immortality and perpetuate it for their own personal advantage. With that kind of nonsense we aren’t going to be bothered. Life’s too short.”
They stared at each other. “I will accept your offer,” said Timberlane, “though I cannot see how it will benefit you. I will record whatever you do at the Churchill. I would like documentary evidence that what you say about this longevity project is true.”
“Documents! You talk like one of those clever fool dons in the other room. I respect learning, but not pedantry, get that straight. Listen, I’m evacuating the whole bunch of crooks out of that hospital, them and their mad ideas; I don’t believe in the past — I believe in the future.”
To Timberlane it sounded only like an admission of madness. He said, “There is no future, remember? We killed it stone dead in the past.”
Croucher unwrapped another peppermint; his thick lips took it from the palm of his hand. “Come to me tomorrow and I will show you the future. The sterility was not entirely total, you know. There was, there still are, a minimal trickle of children being born in odd corners of the world — even in Britain. Most of them are defectives — monstrosities beyond your conception.”
“I know what you mean. Do you remember the Infantop Corps during the war years? It was the British equivalent of the American Project Childsweep. I was on that. I know all about monstrosities. My feeling is that it would be sane to kill most of them at birth.”
“A percentage of the local ones are not killed at birth, motherly love being such as it is.” Croucher turned to the guards who were whispering behind him, and irritably ordered them to be silent. He continued, “I’m rounding up all these creatures, whatever they look like. Some of them are minus limbs. Sometimes they are without intelligence and unspeakably stupid. Sometimes they are born inside out, and then they die by degrees — though we have got one boy who survives despite his whole digestive system — stomach, intestines, anus — being on the outside of his body in a sort of bag. It’s a supremely gruesome sight. Oh, we’ve got all sorts of miscellaneous half-human creatures. They will be incarcerated in the Churchill for supervision. They are the future.” When Timberlane did not speak, he added, “Admitted, a frightening future, but it may be the only one. We must labour under the assertion that when these creatures reach adulthood, they will breed normal infants. We shall keep them and make them breed. Assure yourself it’s better a world populated by freaks than a dead world.”
Croucher eyed Timberlane challengingly, as if expecting him to disagree with this proposition. Instead, Timberlane said, “I’ll come and see you in the morning. You will place no censorship on me?”
“You will have a guard with you to ensure security. Corporal Pitt that you met has been detailed for the task. I do not want your reports falling into hostile hands.”
“Is that all?”
“No. I have to consider your own hands as hostile hands. Till you prove them otherwise, your wife will live here in these barracks as a token of your goodwill. You will billet here too. You’ll find the comfort will be more considerable than your flat was. Your belongings are already undergoing transportation to here from the flat.”
“So you are just a dictator, like all the others before you!”
“Be careful — I cannot stomach a stubborn mind! You will soon learn otherwise of me — you’d better! I want you as my conscience. Get that point clarified in your brain with all just momentum. You have seen I have surrounded myself with the intelligentsia; unfortunately, they superficially do what I say — at least to my face. Such a creed revolts me to my skin! I don’t want that from you; I want you to do what you have been trained for. Damn it, why should I bother with you at all when there’s plenty else to worry about? You must do as I say.”
“If I am to be independent, I must retain my independence.”
“Don’t go all highbrow on me! You must do as I say. I ask you to sleep here tonight, and that’s an order.
Think this conversation over, talk with your wife. I saw immediately she was a fairly hirsute type. Remember, I offer you security, Timberlane.”
“In this insanitary fort?”
“You will be sent for in the morning. Guard, take this man away. Give him into Corporal Pitt’s keeping.”
As they came up in a business-like way to take Timberlane, Croucher coughed into a handkerchief, wiped his hand across his brown and said, “One concluding point, Timberlane. I hope friendship will originate between us, as far as that’s possible. But if you cogitate trying to escape, I had better inform you that from tomorrow new restrictive orders are in operation throughout the area in my jurisprudence. I will stamp out the spread of plague at all costs. Anybody caught trying to move from Oxford in future will be shot, no questions asked. Barriers will be erected round the city at dawn. All right, guard, remove him. And expedite me a secretary and a pot of tea immediately.”
Their quarters in the barracks consisted of one large room. It contained a wash basin, a gas ring, and two army beds with a supply of blankets. Their belongings arrived in fits and starts from a lorry downstairs. Other commandeered property arrived spasmodically, until they grew tired of the echo of army boots.
A senile guard sat on a chair in the doorway, fingering a light machine gun and staring at them with the stony curiosity of the bored.
Martha lay on one of the beds with a damp towel across her forehead. Timberlane had given her a full account of the talk with Croucher. They remained in silence, the man sitting on his bed, resting his head heavily on his elbow, sinking slowly into a sort of lethargy.
“Well, we’ve more or less got what we wanted,” Martha said. “We’re working for Croucher with a vengeance. Is he to be trusted?”
“I don’t think that’s a question you can ask. He can be trusted as far as circumstances allow. He had a way of not seeming to take in all that I was saying — as if his mind was working all the time on another problem. Perhaps I got a glimpse of that problem when he visualized a world populated by monsters. Perhaps he felt he must have someone to rule over, even if it was only a — a collection of abnormalities.”
His wife’s thoughts returned to a point they had reached earlier in the day. “Everyone is obsessed with the Accident, even if they do not show it immediately. We’re all sick with guilt. Perhaps that’s Croucher’s trouble, and he has to live with a vision of himself ruling over a twilight world of cripples and deformed creatures.”
“His grip on the present seems stronger than that would imply.”
“How strong is anyone’s grip on the present?”
“It’s a pretty fleeting grip, as the cholera reminds us, but—”
“Our society, our biosphere, has been sick for forty years now. How can the individual remain healthy in it? We may all be madder than we know.” Not liking the note in her voice, Timberlane went over and sat on the edge of her bed, saying strongly,
“Anyhow, our immediate concern is with Croucher. It will suit the DOUCH scheme if we co-operate with him, so that’s what we will do. But I still can’t see why, at a time like this, he should want to encumber himself with me.”
“I can think of a reason. He doesn’t want you. He’s after the truck. He probably thinks there is evidence in it he could use.”
He squeezed her hand. “It could be that. He might think that as we have come from London, I have recorded information he could use. Indeed I may have done. London is his best-organized enemy at present. I wonder how long they will leave the truck where it is now?”
