The Secret People

Wonderingly, Mark transferred his gaze to the next. A slighter man, this, with hair thinning, though such as did grow had been lopped in the same crude fashion. His beard, like the others, was matted, and his hands equally grimy, but his clothing was different. The tatters of his suit would never be recognised by its London maker, but they were tatters of good quality. The third man was an Arab, wearing a burnous which had the appearance of having served its owner throughout an arduous campaign. It reminded Mark vaguely of certain battle-torn Hags he had seen hung in churches.

He finished the mash, in which he detected traces of the same coarse spirit which had been given him before, and pushed the bowl away. He felt greatly improved. In a pocket he found a packet of cigarettes which he handed round. The three men looked at him as if he had performed a miracle. They lit up with a care which was almost reverent.

'Now perhaps you'll tell me where she is?' he asked.

'Was she with you?' inquired the big man.

'Of course she was. Do you mean you've not seen her?' He looked questioningly at them in turn. They shook their heads.

'But she was with me when I was knocked out. I've got to find her.'

He began to struggle to his feet. The tall man caught his arm and pushed him back.

'No. You keep sitting awhile. There's a whole lot you got to learn yet. And one of 'em is that it ain't no sort of good being in a hurry in these parts.'

'But-'

'I tell you, you can't do a thing. Anyway, you're still sick, and got to lay up for a bit. Take it from'me, if your girl's safe now, she'll stay safe.'

'You mean that?'

'Sure I mean it.'

Mark believed him. The man spoke firmly, as though he had no doubt. Moreover, in his present state of weakness, he could be of assistance to no one. He dropped back on his cushions and contemplated the three.

'Well, for God's sake tell me something about this place. I've been living in a kind of nightmare. I don't know how long I've been here, or even where I really am.'

'Well, you're the latest arrival, I can tell you that, though you've been sick a goodish time. You're a tailor's dummy to the rest of us in this dump. How d'you get here? Tell us your yarn first.'

Mark told his story in considerable detail. The first part seemed to hold more interest for his listeners than did the account of the fungus forest, and the tall man quelled the very evident desires of the European to make frequent interruptions. He was silent for a time after Mark's account of the fight.

'So that's what it's all about,' he said thoughtfully. 'No wonder the poor devils are getting all het up. It'll mean the end of them.'

'And of us too,' said the other.

The Arab merely nodded.

'But what are you doing here?' Mark asked impatiently. 'You're American, aren't you? Why the French uniform?'

'Say, we've forgotten the introductions. I'm John Smith, leastways that's my name in the Legion. This is Charles Gordon, of London, England, and this, Mahmud el Jiz-zah, of some God-forsaken hole in the desert. Gordon is an arch—, arch—, anyway, he digs for things which aren't no manner of good to anybody. And Mahmud, well I don't know what he does, but he was educated in some swell place in England, Oxford College.'

'Balliol,' murmured the Arab, deprecatingly.

'But what are you all doing here?'

'Just living here.'

'But why?'

'Because we darn well can't do nothing else. D'you think we're here for fun?'

Mark looked at their beards, and the rags which flapped about them.

'How long have you been here?'

'What's the date?'

Mark considered. Probably several days had elapsed during his unconsciousness, but he could remember the date of the Sun Bird's crash.

'It was the sixteenth of September when we fell in.'

'The year, man.'

He stared. 'Why, 1964, of course.'

'That makes six years for me.'

'Seven for me,' said Gordon.

'Five,' admitted the Arab.

Mark's eyes opened wide. He looked from face to face for a sign that this was a leg pull.

'Seven years!' He stared at Gordon. 'You can't mean it. Seven years—here, in these caves?'

The other nodded and smiled a little grimly. 'Oh yes, I mean it, all right.'

'But—but I don't understand. There must be ways out.'

'There are ways out—must be any amount of them. The trouble is that we can't get at them.'

'Why not? You found your ways in.'

'So did you, but it doesn't help, does it?'

'But you didn't all come in down waterfalls.'

'No. The real trouble is these little grey guys. They've got us penned up like we was cattle. And haven't they just got the drop on us. Say, it'd be easier to crash out of hell than out of this joint.'

'But you don't mean you're here for good?'

'You've said it, buddy. You too.'

'But-'

Mark was aware again of the feeling that this was all part of a nightmare, growing worse at every turn. Imprisoned in these caves for the rest of one's life! It was fantastic, it couldn't be true. He turned to Gordon who was staring at the picture of the Arab village. There was something in his expression more disturbing than an hour of the American's conversation.

'It is quite true,' the Arab's voice assured him calmly.

'It can't be true. There must be a way out.'

'If anyone had ever got out, this place would no longer be secure. That it is secret means that no one ever has got out.'

Gordon interrupted. 'No, that's not so. I believe in my theory that-'

'Oh, damn your theories,' Smith cut in. 'Even if they're right, what the hell's the good of them to us? Cut 'em out.'

He turned back to Mark. 'The sooner you get a hold on the idea that you and me and all of us are in the cooler for keeps, the easier it's gonna be for you.'

Mark's convalescence was a long business. When it irked him, and he grumbled at the waste of time, Gordon did his best to be reassuring.

'For one thing, the phrase "waste of time" has no meaning in here,' he said. 'And, for another, you're damned lucky to be convalescent at all. Candidly, you were in such a mess when you came in that we never thought you'd make it. Then you didn't help things by getting out of here the minute you came round—it gave you a nasty relapse. Just lie there quietly, and don't fret about things. It won't do you any good to get what Smith calls "all het up".'

Mark did his best to obey, and during the time which followed, he came to know the three men well. His first hazy impressions had to be revised. Smith, for instance, was not altogether the pessimist he had appeared. So far from losing all hopes of escaping from the caves, as he had suggested, he was full of hopes. His insistence on its impossibility was seldom a genuine belief; far more often it was a defence, a kind of counter-suggestion set up to check his hopes from rising too high. Once, in a moment of unusual confidence, he admitted:

'If I didn't think we were going to get clear of this place sometime, I guess I'd have bumped myself off before now; but if I let myself get too worked up. I'll probably have to bump myself off one day through sheer disappointment. Most of the time I expect the worst; it's so good when it doesn't happen.'

A simple theory, Smith's, of not tempting the gods. It had points in common with the practice of carrying an umbrella to persuade the sun to shine, or travelling with two spare wheels in order to avoid a puncture. Beneath his attempts to bluff fate, he was more hopeful than the others.

Gordon had reached a mental stage verging upon acceptance of the inevitable. Only a firm belief in some of his theories—of which, Mark was to discover, he had many—had prevented him from long ago relinquishing all idea of return. Even so, he was not likely to sink into the despair which Smith feared. He had a power of dissociating himself from his surroundings and losing himself in the purely conjectural, without which he would indeed have been forlorn. He was not without moods of deep dejection, but even a chance word would often break their spell. A light of sudden excitement would flicker in his eyes, the thin face would come to life as though a mask had been cast off, and in a few moments he would be holding forth violently; passionately advocating theories which were sometimes sound common sense, and at others the extreme of fantasy. For the most part his words seemed to flow around Smith without causing a ripple of appreciation; though occasionally the big man would grasp a practical suggestion out of the flood of words, and haul it ashore with satisfaction.