Greener Than You Think Part 47

_October 2_: Wrote on my book for nearly twelve solid hours. The postal service has been stopped.

_October 3_: Hearing the royal family had made no plans for departure, the London office ventured to offer them accommodations on one of our s.h.i.+ps. I had always heard the House of Windsor was meticulous in its politeness, but I cannot characterize their rejection of our wellmeant aid as anything but rude.

_October 4_: Mrs H asks, Are we to live solely on concentrates now the shops are shut? My query as to whether this seemed objectionable to her was evaded.

_October 5_: Gra.s.s in Inverness and Perths.h.i.+re.

_October 6_: F announces she is ready for another test. Under present conditions, the journey to Scotland being out of the question, we decided to use the _Sisyphus_ again and the French coast. Leaving tomorrow.

_October 11_: This constant series of frustrations is beyond endurance.

In spite of F's noncommittal pessimism antic.i.p.ating success only after the Gra.s.s has covered England, I feel she is merely making some sort of propitiatory gesture when she looks on the darkest side of the picture that way. As for myself I'm convinced the Gra.s.s will be stopped in a week or so. But in the meantime F's work advances by the inch, only to be set back again and again.

We repeated the previous test with just enough added success to give our failure the quality of supreme exasperation. This time there was no question but what the growth sprayed actually withered within twentyfour hours. But it was not wiped out and not long afterward it was overrun and covered up by a new and vigorous ma.s.s. Such a victory early in the fight would have meant something; now it is too late for such piecemeal destruction. We must have a counteragent which communicates its lethal effect to a larger area of the Gra.s.s than is actually touched by it--or at very least makes the affected spot untenable for future growth.

What help is it for F to rub her hands smugly and say, "We're on the right track, all right"? Weve been on the right track for months, but the train doesnt get anywhere.

_October 12_: Columbus Day.

_October 13_: Gra.s.s in Fife and Stirling. BBC urges calm.

_October 14_: Rumor has it work abandoned at Stonehenge. It was a futile gesture anyway. I'm sure F will perfect the counteragent anyday.

_October 15_: Mrs H announced she has completed her selection of fifty young women, adding, "I hope they will prove satisfactory, sir." For a horrible moment I wondered if she thought I was arranging for a harem.

_October 16_: Decided, purely as a matter of convenience and not from panic, such as is beginning to affect even the traditionally stolid British, to move aboard the _Sisyphus_. Gra.s.s on the outskirts of Edinburgh.

_October 17_: In a burst of energy last night I brought my history down to the Gra.s.s in Europe.

Disconcerting hitch. Most of the _Sisyphus'_ crew, including the captain, want to take their wives along. I find it difficult to believe them all uxoriously wed--at any rate this is not a pleasure excursion.

Agreed the captain should take his and told him to effect some compromise on the others. The capacity of the _Sisyphus_ is not elastic.

_October 18_: Gra.s.s almost to the Tweed. PM on the wireless with the a.s.surance a counteragent will be perfected within the week. F furious; wanted to know if I couldnt control my politicians better. I answered meekly--really, her anger was ludicrous--that I was an American citizen, not part of the British electorate, and therefore had no influence over the prime minister of Great Britain. Seriously, however, perhaps the premature announcement will spur her on.

The erratic phone service finally stopped altogether.

_October 19_: Riots and looting--unEnglish manifestations carried out in a very English way. Hysterical orators called for the destruction of all foreign refugees from the Gra.s.s, or at very least their exclusion from the benefits of the lootings. In every case the mob answered them in almost identical language: "Fair play," "Share and share alike," "Yer nyme Itler, maybe?" "Come orf it, sonny, oo er yew? Gord Orlmighty's furriner, aint E?" Having heckled the speakers, they proceeded cheerfully to clean out all stocks of available goods--the refugees getting their just shares. There must be a peculiar salubrity about the English air. Otherwise Britons could not act so differently at home and abroad.

Thankful indeed all Consolidated Pemmican stores safely loaded.

_October 20_: As antic.i.p.ated, the Gra.s.s crossed the Tweed into Northumberland, but quite unexpectedly England has also been invaded from another quarter. Norfolk has the Gra.s.s from Yarmouth to Cromer. F, the PM, and myself hanged in effigy. Shall not tarry much longer.

_October 21_: Durham and Suffolk. Consulted the captain about a set of auxiliary sails for the _Sisyphus_. Moving aboard tonight.

_October 22_: Heard indirectly that the Tharios had managed to charter a seagoing tug on shares with friends. This takes a great load off my mind.

Postponed moving to the s.h.i.+p in order to superintend packing of personal possessions, including the ma.n.u.script of my history. F says it is still not impossible to perfect compound before the Gra.s.s reaches London.

_October 23_: On board the _Sisyphus_. What has become of the stolid heroism of the English people? On the way down to the s.h.i.+p, I ran into a crowd no better behaved than the adherents of the Republic One and Indivisible. I mention the episode lightly, but it was no laughing matter. I was lucky to escape with my life.

Nervous and upset with the strain. I shall not return to The Ivies till the Gra.s.s begins its retreat. Too restless to continue my book. Paced the deck a long time.

_October 24_: The fifty girls arrived, and a more maddening cargo I can't imagine. I gave orders to keep them forward, but their shrill presence nevertheless penetrates aft.

I hear all electricity has been cut off. Gra.s.s in Yorks.h.i.+re.

_October 25_: F came aboard with the other scientists and immediately wanted to know why we didnt set sail. I asked her if her work could be carried on any more easily at sea. She shrugged her shoulders. I pointed out that only rats leave a sinking s.h.i.+p and England was far from overcome. She favored me with one of her fixed stares.

"You are dithery, Weener. Your epigrams have lost their jaunty air of discovery and your face is almost green."

"You would not expect me to remain unaffected by the events around us, Miss Francis."

"Wouldnt I?" she retorted incomprehensibly and went below to her cabin-laboratory.

The Gra.s.s is reported in Ess.e.x and Hertfords.h.i.+re. I understand there are at least two other s.h.i.+ps equipped for research and manned by English scientists. It would serve F right if they perfected a counteragent first.

October 26: Have ordered our accompanying s.h.i.+ps to lie offsh.o.r.e, lest they be boarded by fearcrazed refugees, for the Gra.s.s is now in the vicinity of London and England is in a horrible state.

October 27: BBC transmitting from Penzance. Faint.

_101._ _November 3_: On board the _Sisyphus_ off Scilly. The last days of England have pa.s.sed. Heightening the horror, the BBC in its final moments forwent its policy of soothing its listeners and urging calmness upon them. Instead, it organized an amazing news service, using thousands of pigeons carrying messages from eyewitnesses to the station at Penzance to give a minutebyminute account of the end. Dispa.s.sionately and detachedly, as though this were some ordinary disaster, announcer after announcer went on the air and read reports; heartpiercing, anticlimactic, tragic, trivial, n.o.ble and thoroughly English reports....

The people vented their futile rage and terror in ma.s.s pyromania.

Building after building, city after city was burned to the ground. But, according to the BBC, the murderous frenzy of the Continent was not duplicated. Inanimate things suffered; priceless art objects were kicked around in the streets, but houses were carefully emptied of inhabitants before being put to the torch.

These were the spectacular happenings; the emphatic events. Behind them, and in the majority, were quieter, duller transactions. Churches and chapels filled with people sitting quiet in pews, meditating; gatherings in the country, where the partic.i.p.ants looked at the sun, earth and sky; vast meetings in Hyde Park proclaiming the indissoluble brotherhood of man, even in the face of extinction.

We heard the Queen and her consort remained in Buckingham Palace to the last, but this may be only romantic rumor. At all events, England is gone now, after weathering a millennium of unsuccessful invasions. From where I sit peacefully, bringing my history uptodate and jotting these notes in my diary, I can see, faintly with the naked eye or quite distinctly through a telescope, that emerald gem set in a silver sea.

The great cities are covered; the barren moors, the lovely lakes, the gentle streams, the forbidding crags are all mantled in one gra.s.sy sward. England is gone, and with it the world. What few men of forethought who have taken to s.h.i.+ps, what odd survivors there may be in arctic wastes or on lofty Andean or Himalayan peaks, together with the complement of the _Sisyphus_ and its accompanying escort are all that survive of humanity. It is an awesome thought.

_Later_: Reading this over it seems almost as though I had been untrue to my fundamental philosophy. The world has gone, vanished; but perhaps it is for the best, afterall. We shall start again in a few days with a clean slate, picking up from where we left off--for we have books and tools and men of learning and intelligence--to start a new and better world the moment the Gra.s.s retreats. I am heartened by the thought.

Below, Miss Francis and her coworkers are striving for the solution.

After the last experiment there can be no question as to the outcome. An hour ago I would have written that it was deplorable this outcome couldnt be achieved before the latest victory of the Gra.s.s. Now I begin to believe it may be a lucky delay.

_November 4_: What meaning have dates now? We shall have to have a new calendar--Before the Gra.s.s and After the Gra.s.s.

_November 5_: Moved by some incomprehensible morbidity I had a stainless steel chest, complete with floats, made before embarkation in order to place the ma.n.u.script and diary in it should the impossible happen. I have it now on the deck beside me as a reminder never to give way to a weak despair. F promises me it is a matter of days if not hours till we can return to our native element.

_November 8_: Another test. Almost completely successful. F certain the next one will do it. My emotions are exhausted.

_November 9_: I have completed my history of the Gra.s.s down to the commencement of this diary. I shall take a wellearned rest from my literary labors for a few days. F announces a new test--"the final one, Weener, the final one"--for tomorrow.

_November 10_: Experiment with the now perfected compound has been put off one more day. F is completely calm and confident of the outcome. She is below now, making lastminute preparations. For the first time she has infected me with her cert.i.tude--although I never doubted ultimate success--and I feel tomorrow will actually see the beginning of the end for the Gra.s.s which started so long ago on Mrs d.i.n.kman's lawn. How far I and the world have come since then!

Would I go back to that day if I had the power? It seems an absurd question, but there is no doubt we who have survived have gained spiritual stature. Of course I do not mean anything mystical or supernatural by this observation--we have acquired heightened sensitivity and new perceptions. Brother Paul, ridiculous mountebank, was yet correct in this--the Gra.s.s chastised us rightly. Whatever sins mankind committed have been wiped out and expiated.

_Later_: We are out of sight of land; nothing but sea and sky, no green anywhere. On the eve of liberation all sorts of absurd and irrelevant thoughts jump about in my mind. The strange lady ... Joe's symphony, burned by his mother. Whatever happened to William Rufus Le ffacase after he eschewed his profession for superst.i.tion? And Mrs d.i.n.kman? For some annoying reason I am beset with the thought of Mrs d.i.n.kman.