After 6 o'clock the lounge would begin to fill. One of the stewards behind the bar switched on the phonograph and turned up the recessed lighting, masking the thin cream-and-chartreuse paint on the fresh concrete, and so the transformation of a recreation bunker 150 feet below USAF Brandon Hall into a Mayfair cocktail lounge would be acceptably complete.
Donald Maitland never ceased to wonder at the effectiveness of the illusion. Here at least was a small oasis of illusion. Beyond the lounge, with its chromium bar and red leather, its tinsel and plastic lighting, were service sections as bleak as anything in the Seigfried Line, but as the uniformed officers and their wives and the senior civilians began to make their way in there was little hint of the 350 mph gales at present ravaging the world.
His five days at Brandon Hall he had largely spent in the recreation lounge. Fortunately his injuries at Knightsbridge were comparatively minor, and half an hour from now, at 6:30 P.M., he would officially report for duty again.
He watched Charles Avery carry their drinks over to the table, and stirred himself pleasantly. Americans were expert at providing the civilized amenities of life with a minimum of apparent effort or pomp, and in his five days at Brandon Hall he had begun to forget Susan's tragic death and its implied judgment on himself.
"Up to three-fifty," Avery remarked somberly, trying to straighten the creases in his black battledress jacket with its surgeon's insignia. "There's damn little left up there now. How do you feel?"
Maitland shrugged, listening to the low rhythm of a foxtrot be had last heard years earlier when he had taken Susan out to the Milroy. "O.K. I wouldn't exactly say I was eager to get back into action, but I'm ready enough. It's been pleasant down here. These five clays have given me my first real chance in years to see myself calmly. Pity I've got to leave."
Avery nodded. "Frankly, I wouldn't bother. There's little you'll be able to do to help. The Americans are still sending out a few vehicles, but in general everything's closing down. Contact between separate units seem pretty limited and outside news is coming through very slowly."
"How's London holding out?"
Avery shook his head, peered into his glass. " London? It doesn't exist. No more than New York, or Tokyo or Moscow. The TV monitor tower at Hammersmith just shows a sea of rubble. There's not a single building standing."
"It's amazing casualties are so light."
"I don't know whether they are. My guess is that half a million people in London have been killed. As far as Tokyo or Bombay are concerned it's anybody's guess. At least fifty per cent, I should think. There's a simple physical limit to how long an individual can stand up to a 350-mile-an-hour air stream. Thank God for the Underground system."
Maitland echoed this. After his rescue at Knightsbridge he had been astounded by the efficient organization that existed below street level, a sub-world of dark labyrinthine tunnels and shafts crowded with countless thousands of almost motionless beings, huddled together on the unlit platforms with their drab bundles of possessions, waiting patiently for the wind to subside, like the denizens of some vast gallery of the dead waiting for their resurrection.
Where the others were Maitland could only guess. A fortunate aspect of the overcrowding of most major cities and metropolitan complexes around the world was that expansion had forced construction to take place not only upward and outward, but downward as well. Thousands of inverted buildings hung from street level- car parks, underground cinemas, sub-basements and sub-sub-basements-which now provided tolerable shelter, sealed off from the ravaging wind by the collapsing structures above. Millions more must be clinging to life in these readymade bunkers, sandwiched in narrow angles between concrete ledges, their ears deafened by the roar above, completely out of contact with everyone else.
What would happen when their supplies of food began to run out?
"Six-fifteen, Donald," Avery cut in. He finished his drink and sat forward, ready to leave. "I'm working at Casualty Intake from now on. The Americans are shipping most of their top brass over to their bases in Greenland -the wind's about fifty miles an hour lower than here. Rumor has it that they're converting some big underground ICBM shelters inside the Arctic Circle, and with luck a few useful Nato personnel may be invited along to do the rough work. From now on I'm going to keep my eyes open for some amenable twostar general with a sprained ankle to whom I can make myself indispensable as back-scratcher and houseboy. I advise you to do the same."
Maitland turned and looked curiously at Avery, was surprised to see that the surgeon was perfectly serious. "I admire your shrewdness," he said quietly. "But I hope we can look after ourselves if we have to."
"Well, we can't," Avery scoffed. "Let's face it, we haven't really done so for a long time. I know it sounds despicable, but adaptability is the only real biological qualification for survival. At the moment a pretty grim form of natural selection is taking place, and frankly I want to be selected. Sneer at me if you wish-I willingly concede you that posthumous right." He paused for a moment, waiting for Maitland to reply, but the latter sat staring bleakly into his glass, and Avery asked: "By the way, heard anything of Andrew Symington?"
"As far as I know be's still with Marshall 's intelligence unit over at Whitehall. Dora's just had her baby; I mean to look in on her before I leave."
As they made their way out of the lounge, they passed a tall American submarine commander who had come in with a slim blonde-haired girl in a brown uniform with Press tabs on its sleeves. Her face and neck were covered with minute abrasions, the typical wind-exposure scars, but she seemed so relaxed, following the American closely with unforced intimacy, that he realized these two, who had obviously come through a period of prolonged exposure together, were the first people he had seen who had managed to preserve their own private world intact.
As be took his seat in the briefing room in the Personnel Reallocation Unit he wondered how far his own character had benefited by the ordeals he had been through, how much it had gained. merit, as the Buddhists would say. Could he really claim any moral superiority over Avery, for example? Despite his near death at knightsbridge he had so far had little choice in determining his own fate. Events had driven him forward at their own pace. How would be behave when he was given a choice?
Maitland was assigned to one of the big Titan supertractors ferrying VIP's and embassy personnel down to the submarine base at Portsmouth. Many of the passengers would be suffering from major injuries sustained before their rescue, and required careful supervision.
Listening to the briefing, Maitland had the impression, as Avery bad suggested, that the Americans were withdrawing in considerable numbers, taking with them even severe surgical cases. When the last convoy had set sail for Greenland, would Brandon Hall have outlived its usefulness? The nearest British base was at Biggin Hill, and if the wins continued to rise for the next week or so it would be difficult to reach. Besides, what sort of welcome would they receive if they did go there?
The captain confirmed his doubts.
"How far is there any effective contact between the bases around London?" Maitland asked as the meeting broke up. "I feel we're all pulling the lids down over our respective holes and sealing them tight."
The captain nodded somberly. "That's just about it. God knows what's going to happen when they decide to close this place. It's cozy down here now, but we're on board a sinking ship. There's only about one week's supply of generator fuel left in the storage tanks, and when that's gone it's going to get damned chilly. And when the pumps stop we'll have to climb into our diving suits. The caissons below the foundations have shifted and water's pouring in from underground wells. At present we're pumping it out at the rate of about a thousand gallons an hour."