The Kraken Wakes

It was obvious that the Committee would not have dealt such a blow to recovering confidence in shipping without the gravest reasons. Nevertheless, the answering outburst of indignation from the shipping interests accused it of everything from sheer alarmism to a vested interest in air-lines. To follow such advice, they protested, would mean routing transatlantic liners into Iceland and Greenland waters, creeping coastwise down the Bay of Biscay and the West African coast, etc. Transpacific commerce would become impossible, and Australia and New Zealand, isolated. It showed a shocking and lamentable lack of a sense of responsibility that the Committee should be allowed to advise, in this way, and without full consultation with all interested parties, these panic-inspired measures which would, if heeded, bring the maritime commerce of the world virtually to a stop. Advice which could never be implemented should never have been given.

The Committee hedged slightly under the attack. It had not ordered, it said. It had simply suggested that wherever possible vessels should attempt to avoid crossing any extensive stretch of water where the depth was greater than two thousand fathoms and thus avoid exposing itself to danger unnecessarily.

This, retorted the shipowners, curtly, was virtually putting the same thing in different words; and their case, though not their cause, was upheld by the publication in almost every newspaper of sketch-maps showing hurried and somewhat varied impressions of the two-thousand fathom line.

Before the Committee was able to re-express itself in still different words the Italian liner, Sabina, and the German liner, Vorpommern, disappeared on the same day — the one in mid-Atlantic, the other in the South Atlantic — and reply became superfluous.

The news of the latest sinking was announced on the 8 a.m. news bulletin on a Saturday. The Sunday papers took full advantage of their opportunity. At least six of them slashed at official incompetence with almost eighteenth-century gusto, and set the pitch for the Dailies. The Times screwed down rebukes to make the juice run out. The Guardian's approach was similar in intention, but more like an advancing set of circular-saws in manner. The News-Chronicle's was not unlike, though with the teeth set slightly wider apart. The Express turned its hammer from the forging of imperial links to flailing those whose ineptitudes were now weakening them. The Mail denounced the failure to rule the seas as supreme treachery, and demanded the impeachment of the saboteurs, omissive and commissive. The Herald told the housewife that the price of food would rise. The Worker, after pointing out that in a properly ordered society such tragedies would have been impossible since luxury liners would not exist and therefore could not be sunk, rounded upon owners who drove seamen into danger in unprotected ships at inadequate wages.

On the Wednesday I rang up Phyllis.

It used to come upon her periodically when we had had a longer spell than usual in London that she could not stand the works of civilization any longer without a break for refreshment. If it happened that I were free, I was allowed along, too; if not, she withdrew to commune with nature on her own. As a rule, she returned spiritually refurbished in the course of a week or so. This time, however, the communion had already been going on for almost a fortnight, and there was still no sign of the postcard which customarily preceded her return by a short head, when it did not come on the following day.

The telephone down in Rose Cottage rang forlornly for some time. I was on the point of giving up when she answered it.

'Hullo, darling!' said her voice.

'I might have been the butcher, or the income-tax,' I reproved her.

'They'd have given up more quickly. Sorry I was so long answering. I was busy outside.'

'Digging the garden?' I asked, hopefully.

'No, as a matter of fact. I was bricklaying.'

'This line's not good. It sounded like bricklaying.'

'It was, darling.'

'Oh,' I said. 'Bricklaying.'

'It's very fascinating when you get into it. Did you know there are all kinds of bonds and things; Flemish Bond, and English Bond, and so on? And you have things called "headers" and other things called —'

'What is this, darling? A tool-shed, or something?'

'No. Just a wall, like Balbus and Mr Churchill. I read somewhere that in moments of stress Mr Churchill used to find that it gave him tranquillity, and I thought that anything that could tranquillize Mr Churchill was probably worth following up.'

'Well, I hope it has cured the stress.'

'Oh, it has. It's very soothing. I love the way when you put the brick down the mortar squudges out at the sides and you —'

'Darling, the minutes are ticking up. I rang you up to say that you are wanted here.'

'That's sweet of you, darling. But leaving a job half —'

'It's not me — I mean — it is me, but not only. The EBC wants a word with us.'

'What about?'

'I don't really know. They're being cagey, but insistent.'

'Oh. When do they want to see us?'

'Freddy suggested dinner on Friday. Can you manage that?'

There was a pause.

'Yes. I think I'll be able to finish. All right. I'll be on that train that gets into Paddington about six.'

'Good. I'll meet it. There is the other reason, too, Phyl.'

'It being?'

'The running sand, darling. The unturned coverlet. The tarnished thimble. The dull, unflavoured drops from life's clepsydra. The —'

'Mike, you've been rehearsing.'

'What else had I to do?'

'Couldn't you have taken Mildred out to dinner?'

'I tried that. And she does begin to grow on one as one sees more of her. It's surprising, really. All the same — '

'Mike, I happen to know that Mildred has been in Scotland for the last three weeks.'

'Oh, did you say Mildred? I thought —'

'Come off it, darling. See you Friday.'

'I shall hold my breath until then,' I assured her.

We were only twenty minutes late, but Freddy Whittier might have been desiccating for some hours from the urgency with which we were swept into the bar. He disappeared into the mob round the counter with a nicely-controlled violence and presently emerged with a selection of double and single sherries on a tray.

'Doubles first,' he said.

Soon his mind broadened out of the single track. He looked more himself, and noticed things. He even noticed Phyllis's hands; the abraded knuckles on the right, the large piece of plaster on the left. He frowned and seemed about to speak, but thought better of it. I observed him covertly examining my face and then my hands.

'My wife,' I explained, 'has been down in the country. The start of the bricklaying season, you know.'

He looked relieved rather than interested.

'Nothing wrong with the old team spirit?' he inquired with a casual air.

We shook our heads.

'Good,' he said, 'because I've got a job for you two.'

He went on to expound. It seemed that one of EBC's favourite sponsors had put a proposition to them. This sponsor had apparently been feeling for some time that a description, some photographs, and definite evidence of the nature of the Deeps creatures was well overdue.