However, he insisted on rising to greet the Minister of Science and Osborne when they arrived.
'Glad you made it,' he wheezed. 'Are things still bad?'
'A nightmare, sir,' said the Minister. 'All the low ground beyond Hammersmith is flooded; the roads are under water.'
He began coughing.
'It's no good for us, this business,' said the Prime Minister.
'We'll be the first to succumb. Which will solve many a political problem. We shall soon have the youngest cabinet in history, called The Survivors.'
The Minister of Science managed a polite laugh. 'One worrying matter, sir, is that London Airport is flooded out.
Gatwick's been unserviceable for some time, of course. And Civil Aviation isn't too happy about Hurn. I'd like your authority to get the R.A.F. to clear Lyneham for a priority landing. With at least two helicopters standing by for a run direct to us here. Hyde Park is still fairly clear despite the feeding centres and casualty stations.'
'This means you have more news, Bertie,' said the Prime Minister. 'I do wish you could restrain your sense of melodrama.'
'We've picked up a signal from Azaran sir,' Osborne interposed. 'Professor Neilson's on his way. He and Professor Dawnay have taken over from a Herr Kaufman, who we believe was involved in the security leak at Thorness.'
'Quite so, Osborne,' said the Prime Minister with an amused smile. That was an old wound now and, like Osborne's other wounds, it was healing over and being forgotten.
Osborne had more than redeemed himself since then.
'Thorness. But the anti-bacterium?'
'He's bringing all he can carry, sir. Not much because of the flight difficulties these days, but enough to distribute to about a thousand breeding centres.'
'Through the international organisation?'
'Yes, said the Minister of Science. 'I may say, Prime Minister, that the will to co-operate has been magnificent.
Japan suggested moving every oil tanker still afloat into mid-ocean, straddling marine currents like the Gulf Stream. The Soviet Union has completely cleared five state chemical plants. Fifty per cent of the United States oil refineries are now cleaned and waiting. Here the Royal Engineers expect to have every gasometer on the coast patched up and ready by Saturday; the dairy and petroleum firms have had all their road tankers commandeered and marshalled at the various centres we decided on.'
'Good,' wheezed the Prime Minister. 'Let's hope, dear boy, that it's happening in time for some of us. You will want to confer with Neilson, of course, when he gets here. Afterwards, send him round here. I shall want to discuss his plans.
Then a broadcast, the people deserve a few words of encouragement and hope.'
But it was not until the following night that the Prime Minister felt justified in telling the world that hope was returning. Throughout the previous twenty-four hours there had been frantic activity. The thousand activated test tubes Neilson brought seemed pathetically few when allocation began. A hundred of them were first distributed to British breeding centres. To save time the chemists concerned were briefed verbally by Neilson. Multi-language instructions were then prepared while Army Signals contacted all nations concerned to report details of samples and estimated time of arrival.
The R.A.F. and the United States Air Force handled transportation. A little slice of history was made as a U.S.
long-range reconnaissance jet dropped towards Moscow's military airfield with Russian fighters doing welcoming victory rolls around her.
In a gesture to the almost unknown man who had had the titular responsibility of saving the world thrust upon him the Prime Minister insisted that the broadcast should open with the statement by the President of Azaran.
The radio link was difficult and tenuous, but over most of the globe it held.
'For many centuries we of Azaran have been considered a backward people,' came the soft sing-song tones of the President. 'But now, if we can bring salvation to the rest of the world it will be our privilege and joy. Already over our own country the weather is improving, and the air once more satisfies our lungs. This, we pray and believe, will spread to all the stricken peoples of the earth.'
A resourceful radio station operator had dug up a recording of the Azarani national anthem. Its plaintive discord surged out and faded.
Then the Prime Minister made his historic broadcast, from London. 'Strains of a newly synthesised bacterium, which we have received from Azaran, can be the means of banishing the evil which has inflicted itself on mankind. With the help of the scientists, in whose hands our fate now lies, the governments of all nations are doing all they can. Already strains of the bacterium are being bred in the United Kingdom and pumped into the sea. First batches have arrived in the laboratories of our sister nations in the crusade against annihilation. More are coming from Azaran and will be distributed as fast as is humanly possible. With a concerted effort in every quarter of the globe we may hope the content of the sea will change, and we will breathe our native air again.'
The Prime Minister leaned back in his chair, exhausted.
Speaking had been a great effort and he rested while translations of his speech were broadcast in the five working languages of the United Nations. Then he called for his car.
He turned to the officials gathered around him and spoke in a voice which was hardly more than a whisper. 'I would like to see, gentlemen, if those promises I've made are reasonable.
They tell me there's a breeding plant down at the London docks.'
A police car escorted the Prime Minister's limousine through the darkened City past Tower Bridge. It nosed a way through piles of debris, detouring round many a barricaded street, until it pulled up on an old shabby wharf.
A sullen drizzle was falling, a respite from the interminable storms and gales. Two raincoated men were standing at the water's edge, watching a man in a police launch. They started when they recognised the bent elderly man beside them as the Prime Minister.
'We're testing for nitrogen content, sir,' one of the men explained. 'Anti-bacteria were pumped into this water six hours ago.'
'How's it doing?' asked the Prime Minister.
'Fine, sir. Come and look.'
In the headlight of the police launch the filthy river water looked black and sullen. But while they watched a bubble formed and burst. Nearby two more bubbles formed.
'It's happening right across the river, sir. Been noticeable for the last two and a half hours. It's the nitrogen being released as the new bacterium kills off the old one.'
Another car drew up on the wharf. Osborne, alerted by the Premier's P.A., had brought Neilson to the site. The Prime Minister greeted them quietly with a smile and a half-raised hand.
'The cure is not, I hope, as bad as the disease,' he enquired of the American.
Neilson shook his head. 'No sir. The anti-bacterium does not survive the conditions it creates; Professor Dawnay has tested this fact very thoroughly. It has only one enemy, one source of food, the bacteria emerging from Thorness. Once it has exhausted the supply of those it languishes and dies itself.'
'Just as an antibiotic destroys germs and then is itself destroyed,' put in Osborne.
'Except that in this case we think that the end will be more complete - '
The Prime Minister interrupted Neilson with another smile. 'I see you have it under control.'
He stood a little longer, watching the bubbles come and go. 'Thank God! Thank God!' he whispered as he returned to his car.
Conditions in Azaran were completely transformed within twenty-four hours of Neilson's arrival in Britain. Aircraft from a dozen nations flew in scientists and technicians to help Dawnay and to organise transportation and communications.