The Wonderful Day Page 4

  But the man was dead.

  Lack had killed him. Lack of staff, of drugs, of equipment and time. Mostly lack of time, caused solely by the crowded waiting room, the sheer necessity of taking each in their turn, the time wasted on seeing patients who hadn’t a hope in hell of direct benefit—and because of that a man had died.

  A young man, a farmer, one who had grown up on the land and who, by his skill and experience, could have grown the food essential to the community. Dead so that others could receive the psychological benefit of telling their troubles to a doctor.

  John slowly peeled off the rubber gloves, patched now and worn, slipped off the mask, futile pandering to almost forgotten Gods of hygiene and, hanging his gown on a peg, turned towards the door.

  He didn’t want to meet the accusation in Collins’s eyes.

  * * * *

  Carl Hammond stood on the brow of a low hill and stared through field glasses at a thin line of cyclists moving slowly along an overgrown road. He was tall, with close-cropped dark hair, broad shouldered and thick-limbed. Arrogance rested on his heavy features and his mouth, thin and cruel, betrayed his driving ambition. There was nothing soft about Carl, nothing gentle. He was a realist and, during the past three years, had lived more than all his previous thirty. He lowered the glasses as the last of the cyclists vanished around a bend in the road.

  “Right, Janson. Send off the other column.”

  His sergeant, a short, stocky, scar-faced man, saluted, yelled harsh orders to a waiting knot of men, then turned back to Carl.

  “You expect trouble, sir?”

  “No. If our intelligence is correct they’ll be glad to see us, but I don’t believe in taking any chances.” Carl stared briefly through his binoculars. “This is about as far north as we can go, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir. The radiation is dangerous further on.”

  The sergeant hesitated. “Sir?”

  “What is it?”

  “May I tell the men that we’re returning to Base after this operation? They’re getting a little restless. We’ve been out a month now and they don’t like getting too close to the contaminated areas.”

  “I don’t blame them.” Carl slipped the field glasses into a leather case, closed it, and slung it behind him, then stood, his hand resting on the butt of the machine pistol at his side. “They’ve worked well and deserve a rest. You can tell them that we’ll be heading back as soon as we’ve swept this area.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  Carl smiled at the gratitude in the sergeant’s voice then frowned as he winced. “What’s the matter?”

  “It’s that wound on my leg, sir. It, doesn’t seem to be healing, and having to cycle everywhere we go isn’t helping it.”

  “Haven’t you been for treatment?”

  “I went once, sir, but the waiting room was full and I couldn’t wait.”

  “I’ll get you treatment when we get back,” promised Carl. “I can’t have my right-hand man incapacitated for the lack of a little attention. I....” He broke off as the harsh blast of a whistle echoed towards them. “They made contact!”

  Both men waited, each tense; then, as the sound was repeated in three short blasts, they relaxed.

  “Friendly. I thought that they would be.” Carl turned to where two cycles leaned against each other. “Come on, Janson, let’s see what we’ve found.”

  It was the biggest find to date: over sixty people, twenty of them women, together with stores of canned food and heaps of salvaged equipment. Their leader was a priest, an old man still managing to appear dignified in his soiled robes of rusty black, and his face beamed with excited gratitude as he ran up to Carl.

  “Heaven be praised for this day, my son. I had begun to think that we were alone.”

  Carl nodded, not answering the old man, his eyes busy as he mentally evaluated the assembled group. The women—good, there was always a need of women if for no other reason than to mother a new generation. The men? Some useful acquisitions, young and healthy, or they would be, once they were fattened up a little; good workers for the farms and the reclamation squads. The oldsters—not so good, but some of them might prove of service if only to chop wood and carry burdens.

  He frowned at the sight of a boy on crutches.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Jimmy?” The priest looked compassionately at the cripple. “One of the unfortunate victims of man’s inhumanity to man. He was caught in a fire, his legs were badly burned. I fear that he will never walk unaided again.”

  “I see.” Carl nodded, his eyes heavy with inner thoughts. “How is your general health?”

  “As well as can be expected. Some radiation burns—a few of the younger men took grave risks in gathering the few things we have—and most of us could do with more to eat, but thanks be to merciful God, we have not suffered from plague.”

  “Good.” Carl glanced towards the sinking sun. “With your permission, sir, we will stay here tonight. You can feed us?”

  “It will be a pleasure.”

  “Then it is settled. Janson!”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Billet the men. Set guards.”

  “Yes, sir.” The sergeant saluted and Carl turned to meet the priest’s puzzled stare.

  “There is no need for guards, my son. Aside from us this area is devoid of life.”

  “Are you certain of that?”

  “Only too certain. The hand of God fell heavily on the sinner and few were spared to sing His praises. I....”

  “Yes, but how can you be certain?”

  “We searched, my son, and at night lit great fires to attract any that might be n need of help and aid. Some answered the signal.” The priest bowed his head as if n silent prayer. “They were very few.”

  “No marauders? No looters? No roving bands?”

  “None, my son. God has been very good to us.”

  “I see. I can take it then that your band is the sum total of life in this area?”

  “That is so.”

  Carl sighed. He had half-expected the answer, but it still wasn’t nice to hear. If the priest was right—and there was no reason to doubt his word—then the entire active population in this area of England was less than five thousand men, women, and children.

  There were others, of course, there had to be, but the sprawling bands of the contaminated areas barred all contact other than by aircraft—and there were no operating aircraft. Bristol to the north, Plymouth to the south, Portsmouth to the east and, further east still, the bubbling pit of transmuted hell that had been London. Taunton had caught it, too, and Salisbury, bad enough to demolish the towns even if they no longer spread wind-borne radiation, but the damage had been done by the first fury of the streaming radioactive particles.

  Carl’s domain occupied a pitifully small part of England.

  * * * *

  Over a meal of greasy stew, redolent of wood-smoke and heavy with the taint of canned meat, Carl discussed future plans with the priest. He had learned the man’s name by now and, as they talked, his respect for the other’s intelligence mounted in direct ratio to his contempt for what he represented.

  Carl had never had any time for religion. He couldn’t understand the supreme self-submergence required by the orthodox faiths and, because he was above all things an individualist, he instinctively revolted against ascribing to the will of a deity the acts of men.

  Father Wendle wasn’t like that. He was a man with a supreme conviction in his God and daily gave prayerful thanks that he had been spared from what he firmly believed to be the punishment of God upon the sinful acts of men. Both men were intelligent, but neither could ever agree on a single point of view.

  Carl tasted the stew, rolled a piece of meat around his tongue, and looked sharply at the priest.

  “This meat is bad.”

  “Yes, but I made certain that is was wholly bad before using it. There is no danger of ptomaine.” Wendle smiled. “If there were we should all
have been dead long ago.”

  “Where did you learn that?” Carl stared with increased respect at the old man. “Most people would have chosen to eat meat that was on the turn rather than wait for the lethal bacteria to die and be rendered harmless. Not many people know that while it is safe to eat rotten flesh, it is suicide to eat meat that is only half bad.”

  “I had some training in my youth. It was an early ambition of mine to become a missionary, but God decided that I would serve Him better at home.”

  “You’ve had medical training?”

  “A little.”

  “A doctor, perhaps? We need doctors badly.”

  “No. I can bandage a wound and administer an injection. I know a little of first aid, the pressure points and so on, but nothing more.” Wendle smiled apologetically. “I could help, but I have no knowledge of my own.”

  “I see.” Carl hid his disappointment. “Did you find any drugs during your searches? Any medical equipment of any kind?”

  “A little. Some first aid kits, iodine, bandages and so on. I’m afraid, though, that most of the hospitals were destroyed and their equipment with them.”

  And that, of course, was the answer. Hospitals were almost always near the big cities—they had to be, in order to be efficient, and even the few cottage hospitals rarely contained anything more than emergency stores. The incredible intermeshing of transport, the ambulance services, the inevitable trend towards specialisation, all had contributed to the vulnerability of the medical services. The cities had gone up in radiant ash—and the hospitals with their essential stocks of drugs, their trained staffs, their libraries, their instilled knowledge and techniques, all had gone up with them.

  And there could be no replacements.

  Not when it took a titanic factory to produce penicillin. Not when it took skill and precision tools to manufacture hypodermic needles, forceps, scalpels, clamps, needles, trepans and the thousand and one essential instruments in daily use in modern operating theatres. The instruments could have been spared; almost anything can be turned into a scalpel if the rules of hygiene are observed, but there was no possible way of replacing the drugs and anaesthetics. Those were the products of industrial chemists who provided the doctors with a constant stream of what they needed. Medical training did not include procedure on how to manufacture ether from rubbish, chloroform from soil, sulpha drugs from rusty iron. And that was all they had to work with—dirt and rubbish and rust.

  It couldn’t be done.

  Carl sighed as he emptied his bowl and frowned at the assembled band he had discovered. He was pleased to see that his own men kept a little apart from the others. Already they had a sense of pride in that they were different from the spiritless men and women of the new community. Wendle noticed it, too.

  “Your men, if I may call them that, seem to be afflicted with pride.”

  “Afflicted?” Carl raised his eyebrows, then laughed. “Of course, I had forgotten; one of the seven deadly sins, wasn’t it?”

  “It is, my son, not was. Pride goeth before a fall, remember? The world was proud, and where is the world now? Dust and ashes beneath the heel of the Lord.”

  “My men have something to work for,” snapped Carl shortly. “They have a nation to rebuild, and no time to waste in doing it.”

  “A laudable work.” Wendle stared around at the assembled men and women, noticed that they had all finished their meal, and lifted his arms towards the darkening sky. “Let us give thanks!” he cried in a strong voice. “Let is give humble thanks to our Lord for his infinite mercy in giving us this day our daily bread....”

  Carl sat motionless during the long and semi-hysterical prayer. His men, he noticed, also sat, a little uncomfortable but following his lead. He was glad to see it. Wendle, he guessed, must be a little insane. Probably the hell he had passed through had warped his judgment so that he had lost his normal footing and turned into the thing orthodox religions had always regarded with detestation. Wendle had become a religious fanatic.

  Fanatic or not, his hold over his ‘flock’, as he called them, was immense. Carl stared at their rapt expressions and recognised the danger for what it was. He forced himself to smile as Wendle sat down again.

  “You pray often?”

  “Often.” Wendle drew a shuddering breath. “Only by constant prayer can we hope to keep the evil one at bay.”

  “Tell me.” Carl hunched a little nearer to the old man. “What provision have you made for farming? These huts,” he gestured towards the crude board and wattle cones forming the ‘village’, “they won’t last for ever. Have you a programme of construction?”

  “The Lord will provide.”

  “He has already done that,” said Carl drily. “You surely don’t expect Him to bake bricks and plant the crops as well, do you?”

  “We are but straws in the wind,” said the priest wildly, and from the glitter in his eyes Carl could tell that he was still in the grip of fanatical hysteria. “If we are worthy, He will provide. Did you not come to our aid? Who are we to question the immutable workings of the Lord?”

  “Please.” Carl tried to disguise his impatience. “I can respect your faith even if I cannot understand it, but you are talking like a fool. Religion has nothing to do with the necessity of rebuilding our nation. Sweat will do it, hard work and constant effort, but I have yet to see a house constructed by prayer alone, or crops planted as the result of words. What are you doing to restore he things we have lost?”

  “We have done what we could.” Wendle calmed himself as he looked at the younger man. “We have scoured the vicinity for stores and I have founded a school to teach the children. We have lived; more than that I cannot claim.”

  “Even to do that was an achievement,” admitted Carl. “This area is rotten with radiation and it’s a wonder that you managed to survive at all. You’ll find things different at Base.”

  “Base?”

  “The new Capital. We have a school, a hospital, a community centre. I’ve started a smithy and we can work iron. Our soil is free from poison and we are planting crops. We even have a few animals.” Carl smiled as he thought of his plans. “I tell you, Wendle, we’re on the road back! A generation, two at the most, and we’ll have the founding of a new nation!”

  “Zion!” Wendle glowed with reflected enthusiasm. “It was a miracle that you found us. You have a church?”

  “No,” said Carl deliberately. “We have no churches and no priest—and we don’t want either. We can do without superstition.”

  “Sin!” Wendle recoiled as though he had touched a glowing coal. “Infamous sin!”

  “Sin?” Carl shrugged. “What is ‘sin’? Only something that you people have decided to call by that name. I refuse to recognise your ‘sin’. To me there is only one crime, and that is for anyone to refuse to do their utmost to help rebuild England. I am merciless with such people. But must I forbid the new generation because we have no priest to mumble a blessing? Must we regard our children as being damned merely because they are born? Don’t be a fool, Wendle. We have no time now for the playing of games or the giving of lip-service to unworkable ideals.”

  “Absolution,” said the priest wildly. “I can give full absolution.”

  “You will give nothing—except all you own.” Grim amusement tugged at the corners of Carl’s too-thin mouth. “You have lost your power, Wendle. I cannot have a divided loyalty. Every thought, every action, every moment of time must go towards rebuilding the nation. We have no time for prayer, for rest, for the contemplation of the infinite. These people you call your flock will be absorbed into Base. All those that will be of some use, that is. You can help if you so decide, but you must swear that never, at any time, will you attempt to sway the hearts of men with your religion. Do you swear?”

  “I cannot! What you suggest is wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Man cannot live by bread alone. Those who grovel in the dirt will become stained with the mire. Man needs God as he has never needed anything else. W
ithout God we are as animals, with Him we are as Angels.”

  “Your faith has had more than two thousand years to work its magic.” Carl pointed towards the blue-lit horizon. “Is that the work of God? If it is, then we can do without your faith. The planet cannot stand a second such demonstration of Brotherly Love.”

  “You know better than that.” Wendle stared at Carl and now his eyes had lost all trace of their previous hysteria. “Did the Church invent the bomb? Did the priests and worshippers blast the cities into dust? It was not the Church that did this thing. Blame the men who had pride without faith. The men who, like yourself, put their trust in material things and who, swollen with arrogance, would not humble themselves or turn the other cheek. It is better that such men are dead.”

  “You evade the point,” snapped Carl. “Will you do is I say?”

  “I cannot. Men must have something to lift them above he beast.” Impulsively the priest gripped Carl’s arm.

  “Listen to me! Think of a new England, a land peopled with happy men and women, and smiling children. No cruelty, no arrogance, no pride, no lust for the trappings of power. A family of men and women, brothers and sisters in God. Forget your love of the material and, instead, seek for the far stronger things of the spirit. Do that, my son, and....”

  “No,” interrupted Carl impatiently. “We must be strong, not weak. To do as you say would be to invite chaos and anarchy. That is not the way to survive.”

  “Blessed are the meek,” reminded the priest, “for they shall inherit the Earth.”

  “Stop it!” Carl gripped the shoulder of the priest. “We will do things my way. My way, understand? You will remain behind, the cripple, too, and all the rest of these fools who are too weak to march and work. Janson!”

  “Sir?” The sergeant stepped forward, his eyes eager with the anticipation of action.

  “We’ve wasted enough time. Sort out the useful from the useless. Load the chosen with stores, all you can find—you know what to take. Eliminate anyone who attempts to hinder you. Move!” Carl stared into the horrified eyes of the priest.