Chapter 6

When I awoke, it was daylight. Or at least, the lighting wasn’t dim. I had a vague recollection of a dreadful dream, but the only thing I could remember was the dreadfulness of it.

My memory of reality, when it came to me, was much clearer, and quite as bad.

It’s not so much what I know about reality that’s bad, as what I imagine. My own weird environment seems secure enough, if a bit spartan. But what’s happening outside?

I’m ready for breakfast. I wonder if the next lot of turnstiles are unlocked yet?

I realized that I was jumping to the conclusion that my new world consisted of three or four halls, divided by turnstiles and serving hatches.

Where the first hall had had two sets of five toilets, this hall had two sets of five showers in addition. There were queues for all of them.

No-one else seemed to be ready for breakfast.

I walked across to the exit passages. I noticed that most people were lying in their sleeping bags, some asleep, many talking quietly to their neighbours. Very few couples had zipped their bags together, but many of those still asleep were snuggled together in their separate bags. In the ‘daylight’, and with nearly everybody lying down, the hall didn’t seem so huge; but there seemed to be an awful lot of people.

‘Your watch needs mending, old chap. What time do you think it is? Or don’t you understand English?’

‘I am English. It’s eight fifteen. What are you talking about?’

‘Didn’t you hear the announcement last night? We move on between nine and ten thirty.’

‘I must’ve been asleep. I was wondering if anyone was ever going to tell us anything. What did they say?’

‘Not a lot really. Just that there are four sectors, and that food is issued each time as we move from one sector to another. We move between nine and ten thirty, between two and three thirty, and between seven and eight thirty. If you didn’t hear the announcement, or at least hear about it, how did you know to come through?’

‘There had to be somewhere to get food, and there was nowhere else to go.’

But that chap who went through just before me didn’t seem to have heard. And there wasn’t a queue. And I was one of the first through. I reckon they opened the turnstiles, and I was through, before the announcement.

But I didn’t say anything about that.

‘They didn’t say anything about why we’re here?’

‘That’s pretty obvious, surely? I’m Will, by the way. What’s your name?’

‘Pete. What were you doing here? You weren’t on our plane, were you?’

‘I’m here for the Swedish Timber Conference. I’m a sales rep for a builder’s merchant in Manchester. Don’t you know about it? There’s about a hundred and fifty of us here, from all over Europe. What plane’s this you were on, anyway?’

‘We were flying from Glasgow to Helsinki, and had to do an emergency landing not far from here.’

‘So you know more about what’s happening up there than the rest of us. We were just woken from our beauty sleep and hustled in here without a whisper about why. Not that it isn’t obvious.’

‘No, no. Our emergency landing had nothing to do with the war. Just something wrong with the plane. They brought us here by coach, to stay the night. They were going to get us another plane for this morning.’

But neither of us wanted to chatter much. We lapsed into a contemplative silence. I sat down with my back against my bag. Visions of Burnfield, devastated, came into my mind. Scenes from ‘After the Storm’. Kissing Cathie in the disused tunnel.

The day before yesterday.

Will I ever see Cathie again? Or Mike, or Jill, or June?

At least no-one’s likely to zap Burnfield, or bomb it directly. But are there any shelters there? Is there room for everyone? Who will find their way into them, and who won’t?

What will the world be like when we come out?

When will we come out?

Queues had formed by the exit passages. Will had gone. I looked at my watch. It was nine thirty.

I looked around. The hall was noticeably emptier.

I joined a queue. I was about fifteenth or so, and it took less than five minutes to reach the turnstile. A paper carrier appeared in the serving hatch, and I took it and went on.

The next hall was different.

To the left, it looked similar. To the right, instead of a continuing expanse of flat polished metal wall to a corner some twenty or thirty yards away, the corner was just past the last of the four passageways. The next wall curved away from me. There was a crowd gathered at the foot of it, so I couldn’t see the wall below a level of about six feet. Above that level it looked just the same polished metal as everywhere else. I wondered what had attracted the crowd. I couldn’t get close enough to see at first. I walked the entire length of it, and discovered that it was just a quarter circle, concentric with the outer concrete wall, cutting off a small portion of an otherwise identical hall.

Whatever is so interesting at the foot of that wall, can wait.

I investigated my paper carrier instead. It contained a waxed paper carton of water, a smaller one of milk, a plastic bowl, a snap-top plastic tub of sugar, a similar one of marmalade, and several cellophane packets containing salami, rolls, margarine, cornflakes and tissues.

By the time I’d finished my breakfast, the hall was considerably more crowded. The foot of the wall was still obscured by the crowd, so I decided to tour the rest of the hall.

I’m sure it’s just like the other two, though.

There was a queue at the toilets, and this corner had no showers.

There was only one other difference: there was no steel-doored entrance in the concrete wall.

That set me thinking again. There was an entrance into Hall Two. So presumably when we came into Hall One, another group of people came into Hall Two, and now they’re in Hall Four. There could be three groups moving round like that. In fact, I bet there are. So this is only one third of us!

There was a queue at the second set of toilets as well, and no showers there either. I joined it. I rather wanted to change into my towels, but by the time I reached the head of the queue, many people had joined the queue behind me, and I felt obliged to be as quick as possible.

I had the feeling that queues for the toilets were going to be a permanent feature of life.

We’re going to have to change our clothes in the main hall. Any idea of privacy is going to go by the board before long.

How long are we going to be here?

I suppose that depends rather on the course of events on the surface. Why doesn’t anyone give us any news?

Back into the hall. From the toilet corner I couldn’t see whether the convex wall was yet accessible, so I walked over to it. The crush was beginning to lessen.

I looked back to the entrance passages. No-one was coming out of them. I watched for a few seconds, and still no-one came. I looked at my watch. It was still only ten fifteen, but we all seemed to have come through.

Gradually I worked my way to the wall.

I couldn’t really understand why people were taking so long studying it.

Every few yards along the wall, there was a small hatch, with a ramp at the back of it leading up into darkness. Below the hatch, a rectangle of the wall was marked off by a narrow crack in just the same way as the toilet doors. I pushed at it on every edge, but it didn’t open. There was nothing else to see.

There was no indication whatsoever as to what it was all for.

By lunchtime I was bored out of my mind. I hadn’t felt like talking to anyone, and no-one had approached me, either. I hadn’t felt like investigating any of the mysteries of the shelter: I felt there’d be plenty of time, and anyway, I couldn’t think how.

I didn’t even have a pen and paper to record my thoughts and impressions. I kept thinking about Burnfield, and my life there. How little I’d thought I had there, and how much I missed it.

Two o’clock. A substantial proportion of the people were in the queues at the exit passages. I’d been there some while, and wasn’t far from the front.

Funny how we form one queue for five lavatories, all down the wall, yet we form four separate queues for these passages, straight out across the hall. I wonder what the psychology of that is?

Another paper carrier. Hall Four was just like Halls One and Two, except that the steel entrance doors were now in the furthest corner. Like Hall Two, this one had showers.

It was interesting to see the hall well lit but with few people, a combination I’d not seen before, giving a much clearer impression of the place. Still utter blackness above the lights, apart from a few feet of gloomy wall.

There was a book in my paper carrier, in addition to lunch: ‘The Orion Crusade’, by Anthony Wissall. Flicking through it, I got the impression it was fifth rate SF. But I expect I’ll read it sooner or later. There’s nothing else to do.

A realization suddenly struck me: It’s in English! How did they know?

They didn’t. It was pure chance. Just as I was finishing my lunch, the Blunts appeared.

‘Hello, Pete! How are you doing? What was your consolation prize?’

It took me a moment to realize what he meant.

‘Hello, Harry. Hello, Irene. Hello terrors. Oh, some SF or other. Not an author I’ve ever heard of. What did you get?’

‘In English? You’re the lucky one! We got two books, one in German, and one in Finnish. We wouldn’t have known, but a Finn swapped the Finnish one for an English one for us, and told us that the other was German. Ken got a jigsaw puzzle, Graham got a pack of cards, and Leon got a teddy-bear. He’s furious, and trying desperately to find someone to swap with.’

So it allows for size, does it? I suppose it has to. I wonder how? I suppose the food and water probably depend on your size, too.

Obviously the clothes did! They may be the sort where size isn’t critical, but imagine Leon in the ones I got!

But the psychology of random presents seems right: it encourages us to mix, in search of swaps.

That afternoon I read ‘The Orion Crusades’ from cover to cover. It wasn’t exactly profound, but it was absorbing enough to stave off the boredom.

I suppose there’ll be a few like this doing the rounds. I wonder if Harry’s got rid of his German one yet?

By the time I’d finished, the hall was half empty. I joined a queue, and was soon back in Hall One, with a bag of supper. Supper was rather more generous than the other meals had been, and I put half of it away in my insulated plastic box, for an early breakfast.

Harry appeared. He had managed to get rid of his German novel. He was very pleased with himself: he’d acquired a travelling chess set.

I decided that the best way to avoid having to suffer his running commentary was to put him off playing chess with me altogether. I studied every move very carefully, without regard for the clock, and made absolutely sure of trouncing him.

Two hours and three victories later, I decided it was bed time. I was one of the first to do so, although a few people were lying in their sleeping bags reading.

Harry’ll think I’m the sort of dreadful bore who takes chess much too seriously, can’t bear to lose, and doesn’t care about his opponent getting bored.

But then, I don’t care if he does think that. The idea was to put him off playing chess with me.

But I hope he doesn’t spread me a reputation.

I woke in the middle of the night with a desperate need to go to the lavatory. I got up and packed all my things away. It wasn’t so much that I was afraid anyone would take anything, as that I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to find my little pile again, among so many similar piles. Especially in the gloom. When I’d gone to sleep the lights had been bright; now they were dimmer than I’d ever seen them. In each of the lavatory corners, one was a little brighter. With almost everyone asleep on the floor, I could see the walls all the way round.

There was a queue for the toilets.

Four in the morning. We’ve been in here just over twenty-four hours, I think. Twenty-four hours ago we were in this same hall. In another twenty-four hours we’ll be asleep in Hall Four. Round and round and round. What a life! For how long, I wonder? Three weeks? Six months? Years? Why don’t they tell us?

Perhaps they think we’re better off not knowing.

Perhaps they don’t know themselves.

How long will the food last?

The queue for the toilets wasn’t very long, fortunately.

Finding myself a place among the bodies, I noticed that they were clustered in an interesting way: family groups – presumably – all snuggled right up to each other, separated from the next family group by a space just wide enough to walk down. A few individuals with a narrow space all round. I’ll be one of those. The whole assembly forming a super-group of ten or twenty families, with wide expanses of floor separating the super-groups.

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