Madmen – and madwomen, even mad children – would be shot on the spot, as both safety and mercy demanded.
Reality, even grimmer than the reality of the earthquake, had come to New Dyfnant.
In the forest, Peter O'Malley was facing a reality of his own and dealing with it single-handed. His employers, the Forestry Commission, had presumably ceased to exist and the statistical side of Peter's work had become too academic to continue. But the animals remained and one thing Peter had to know, even if only because human life and health might be involved – their reaction to the Dust. Peter and Father Byrne had become part of Dan and Moira's camp, moving Peter's trailer into the laager the day after the earthquake. But the others had been quick to understand the importance of what Peter had to do and he was excused all camp duties to get on with it.
Day by day, he roamed the forest, watching carefully. Birds and insects seemed completely unaffected by the Dust; so far, so good. Fish too; the camp had eaten several trout before it occurred to them that the fish might have taken in Dust from the water surface, and the eating of fish was immediately banned. But no one developed any symptoms and after a few days it was considered safe to lift the ban. This was a relief because although they had built up quite a stock of tinned and other preservable food in the cave, winter was coming and all fresh food was precious. The longer the cave stocks could be made to last, the better.
Mammals were another matter; they were affected in varying degrees. The camp goats, Ginger Lad the cat and Peter's own two whippets – merely seemed listless and reluctant to eat for a few days; then they picked up and within a week were back to normal. (Meanwhile the goats' milk, too, had had to be banned.) Peter also kept as much of an eye as he could on New Dyfnant's livestock, asking the few village smallholders to keep him informed of any symptoms developed by cattle, sheep, pigs or horses. The villagers were glad to help him, because the nearest veterinary surgeon had been in Llanwddyn and nobody knew his fate. Mainly they had reacted like the goats, though two cows and a sheep had failed to recover and had died.
Of the wild animals, stoats, weasels and the few pine martens Peter knew of came through fairly well. They simply went into hiding while they felt ill and about eighty per cent of them re-emerged a few days later, apparently recovered. Badgers, for some reason, seemed totally immune and only one or two deer showed the temporary listlessness.
Two species, however, were badly hit. Squirrels, both grey and red, developed symptoms unlike any other species; about three-quarters of them were affected and they died slowly and painfully, becoming increasingly helpless, rather like rabbits with myxomatosis. (Rabbits themselves reacted like their enemies the stoats and weasels.)
The other victims – the foxes – were the only ones who were affected in the same way as humans, even to the time factor. Three days after the earthquake, Peter was attacked by an enraged vixen, who flew at him snarling in a forest fire-break. He had managed to dodge her first snapping onslaught and to shoot her before she could renew it. Within a week there were no sane foxes to be seen and Peter had issued an urgent warning to camp and village.
For many days, Peter was occupied hour after hour with a tragic but necessary slaughter of doomed squirrels and crazed foxes. He had been stockpiling ammunition ever since the Midsummer tremors had given him a foreboding of crisis, and was probably better supplied than anyone in New Dyfnant or the camp. But he knew his reserves were not limitless and he guarded them carefully, using traps and snares when he could, and even gassing fox-earths (a thing he hated doing). He hoped with all his animal-loving heart that a few immune foxes would survive somewhere to revive the species, but he dared not be anything less than ruthless with the affected ones and so far he had come across none unaffected.
He piled the corpses, both squirrel and fox, in a clearing not far from the camp, being reluctant to let them lie where he killed them because he had no way of knowing if their bodies might be infectious to living animals. Once a day he lit his crematorium bonfire. On the fourth day of the slaughter, Eileen came out of the trees just as he was lighting it.
He straightened up to speak to her but the expression on her face silenced him. After a second or two she turned and ran and he could hear her retching and sobbing as her footsteps died away.
Distressed, he waited for a chance to speak to her alone that evening by the camp-fire. She gave him a nervous half-smile, quickly extinguished, as though she wanted to make amends but he knew the barrier was there.
'It has to be done, you know,' he said, 'and there's no one but me to do it. Those foxes could be killers – and the poor bloody squirrels…'
‘I know.'
'Keep away from that clearing, eh? I won't burn 'em anywhere else.'
'It's not just that. I can hear every shot you fire. Oh, Peter…'
He laid a hand on her arm but she jerked it away. 'You see?' she went on 'I can't bear… Please, Peter – I know it's me and it's stupid and wrong and unfair to you – but I can't help it! Killing makes me physically sick. I try, but
She broke off and for a long time they both stared into the fire without speaking. He was still trying to find what he could possibly say when the others joined them, and the moment was gone.
That was the evening when the forest camp 'changed gear'. The phrase was Dan's and he introduced it in the usual camp-fire discussion of the next day's work.
'It's all very well sitting here and fixing duty shifts for washing-up and what have you,' he said, 'but I think it's time we changed gear. Time we started thinking about the future.'
'Haven't we?' Angie asked. 'I'd say we'd been pretty far-sighted, the way we've been laying in stores and thinking out what'll come in useful and so on.'
'Yes, Angie – but those days are over. We can't go on shopping sorties any more; if there is any trade, it'll be by barter and that won't be till things have settled down. We don't even know how they'll settle down. Let's face it, we don't know how many people'll be left alive. We don't know how widespread the Dust was or how many were caught by it or what'll happen to them. Can they survive, Eileen?'
'I don't see how,' Eileen answered. 'They can't look after themselves, they'll be fighting and killing each other, and the rest'll be killing them. Like they did in the village.' She said it in an expressionless, brittle voice.
'They had no choice, love. They were already attacking the kids.'
'One was.'
'I know how you feel but it's done – and what's going to happen in places where they aren't just three or four but hundreds – the majority, perhaps? The sane ones'll have to kill or be killed – the mad ones’ll give 'em no option.' He could feel Eileen withdrawing into her shell, so he slid away from the subject. 'Anyway, let's just say we don't know what the size of the population will be, what with the earthquake itself, the Dust and the tidal waves. The Government broadcasts tell us damn all – discounting the hourly repeats, they add up to a couple of hundred words a day. They're obviously battening down the hatches and letting us stew in our own juice till the worst is over. Then I suppose they'll come out and take charge.'
'If they still really exist,' Greg said. 'All right, they've still got a transmitter – though they've scrapped TV and that's a pointer in itself…'
'No, it isn't. There aren't enough battery sets to make it worth while with power gone. And they run off car batteries which most people can't recharge. But radios will go on for a long time yet. So Beehive sticks to radio.'