She bad seen no smoke, and in all the miles within her view there had not been a gleam of light until the evening I came.

In a way, the worst affected of the original trio was Dennis.

Joyce was still weak and in a semi-invalid state. Mary held herself withdrawn and seemed capable of finding endless mental occupation and compensation in the Contemplation of prospective motherhood. But Dennis was like an animal in a trap. He did not curse in the futile way I had beard so many others do; he resented it with a vicious bitterness, as if it had forced him into a cage where he did not intend to stay. Already, before I arrived, he had prevailed upon Josella to find the Braille system in the encyclopedia and make an indented copy of the alphabet for him to learn. He spent dogged hours each day making notes in it and attempting to read them back. Most of the rest of the time he fretted over his own uselessness, though he scarcely mentioned it. He would keep on trying to do this or that with a grim persistence that was painful to watch, and it required all my self-control to stop me offering him help—one experience of the bitterness which unasked help could arouse in him was quite enough. I began to be astonished at the things he was painfully teaching himself to do, though still the most impressive to me was his construction of an efficient mesh helmet on only the second day of his blindness.

It took him out of himself to accompany me on some of my foraging expeditions, and it pleased him that he could be useful in helping to move the heavier cases. He was anxious for books in Braille, but those, we decided, would have to wait until there was less risk of contamination in towns large enough to be likely sources.

The days began to pass quickly, certainly for the three of us who could see. Josella was kept busy mostly in the house, and Susan was learning to help her. There were plenty of jobs, too, waiting to be done by me. Joyce recovered sufficiently to make a shaky first appearance, and then began to pick up more rapidly. Soon after that Mary’s pains began.

That was a bad night for everyone. Worst, perhaps, for Dennis in knowing that everything depended on the care of two willing but inexperienced girls. His self-control aroused my helpless admiration.

In the early hours of the morning Josella came down to us, looking very tired:

“It’s a girl. They’re both all right,” she said, and led Dennis up.

She returned a few moments later and took the drink I had ready for her.

“It was quite simple, thank heaven,” she said. “Poor Mary was horribly afraid it might be blind too, but of course it’s not.

Now she’s crying quite dreadfully because she can’t see it.” We drank.

“It’s queer,” I said, “the way things go on, I mean. Like a seed—it looks all shriveled and finished, you’d think it was dead, but it isn’t. And now a new life starting, coming into all this…”

Josella put her face in her hands.

“Oh God! Bill. Does it have to go on being like this? On— and on—and on?”

And she, too, collapsed in tears.

Three weeks later I went over to Tynsham to see Coker and make arrangements for our move. I took an ordinary car, in order to do the double journey in a day. When I got back Josella met me in the hall. She gave one look at my face.

“What’s the matter?” she said.

“Just that we shan’t be going there after all,” I told her. “Tynsham is finished.”

She stared back at me.

“What happened?”

“I’m not sure. It looks as if the plague got there.”

I described the state of affairs briefly. It had not needed much investigation. The gates were open when I arrived, and the sight of triffids loose in the park half warned me what to expect. The smell when I got out of the car confirmed it. I made myself go into the house. By the look of it, it had been deserted two weeks or more before. I put my head into two of the rooms. They were enough for me. I called, and my voice ran right away through the hollowness of the house.

I went no farther.

There had been a notice of some kind pinned to the front door, but only one blank corner remained. I spent a long time searching for the rest of the sheet that must have blown away. I did not find it. The yard at the back was empty of trucks, and most of the stores had gone with them, but where to I could not tell.

There was nothing to be done but get into my car again and come back.

“And so—what?” asked Josella when I had finished.

“And so, my dear, we stay here. We learn how to support ourselves. And we go on supporting ourselves—unless help comes. There may be an organization somewhere…”

Josella shook her head.

“I think we’d better forget all about help. Millions and millions of people have been waiting and hoping for help that hasn’t come.”

“There’ll be something,” I said. ‘There must be thousands of little groups like this dotted all over Europe—all over the world. Some of them will get together. They’ll begin to rebuild.”

“In how long?” said Josella. “Generations? Perhaps not until after our time. No—the world’s gone, and we’re left We must make our own lives. Well have to plan them as though help will never come—” She paused. There was an odd blank look on her face that I had never seen before, It puckered.

“Darling…” I said.

“Oh, Bill, Bill, I wasn’t meant for this kind of life, If you

weren’t here I’d—”

“Hush, my sweet,” I said gently. “Hush.” I stroked her hair.

A few moments later she recovered herself.

“I’m sorry, Bill. Self-pity… revolting. Never again.”

She patted her eyes with her handkerchief and sniffed a

little.

“So I’m to be a farmer’s wife. Anyway, I like being married

to you, Bill—even if it isn’t a very proper, authentic kind of

marriage.”

Suddenly she gave the smiling chuckle that I had not heard

for some time.

“What is it?”

“I was only thinking how much I used to dread my wed-

ding.”

‘That was very maidenly and proper of you—if a little unexpected,” I told her.

“Well, it wasn’t exactly that. It was my publishers, and the

newspapers, and the film people. What fun they would have

had with it. There’d have been a new edition of my silly book

—probably a new release of the film—and pictures in all the

papers. I don’t think you’d have liked that much.”

“I can think of another thing I’d not have liked much,” I told her. “Do you remember—that night in the moonlight you made a condition?”

She looked at me.

“Well, maybe some things haven’t turned out so badly,” she said, smiling.

XV. World Narrowing

From then on I kept a journal. It is a mixture of diary, stock list, and commonplace book. In it there are notes of the places to which my expeditions took me, particulars of the supplies collected, estimates of quantities available, observations on the states of the premises, with memos on which should be cleared first to avoid deterioration. Foodstuffs, fuel, and seed were constant objects of search, but by no means the only ones. There are entries detailing loads of clothing, tools, household linen, harness, kitchenware, loads of stakes, and wire, wire, and more wire, also hooks.

I can see there that within a week of my return from Tynsham I had started on the work of erecting a wire fence to keep the triffids out. Already we had barriers to hold them away from the garden and the immediate neighborhood of the house. Now I began a more ambitious plan of making some hundred acres or so free from them. It involved a stout wire fence which took advantage of the natural features and standing barriers, and, inside it, a lighter fence to prevent either the stock or ourselves from coming inadvertently within sting range of the main fence. It was a heavy, tedious job which took me a number of months to complete.