'They'll catch it in the nets back there and burn it when the wind drops,' Ralph replied with a confidence which he scarcely felt. 'The thing that worries me is that the fires may die down—we can't get near to fuel them from the lee side here.'
But, as luck had it, the fires outlasted the wind.
'Men,' began the officer in charge, the next morning, 'it was a pretty near thing last night, and we have to thank providence that we successfully withstood it. But we can't afford to waste time. We've got to get to work at once. There may be another wind any time, and that mass of stuff choking the spikes must be cleared before it comes. I want every man who has experience of flame-throwers to step forward.'
Ralph, in company with many others, stepped out. He had no knowledge of flame-throwers, but it was the only way he could acquire an asbestos suit and get out into the danger area. For more than a week he had stifled his anxiety to know Dorothy's fate, and now he could bear it no longer.
As he struggled into the heavy covering which would not only insulate him from fire, but also withstand the deadly spores, he turned over his plan. Perhaps such a simple getaway was unworthy of the name of a plan. Roughly, it consisted in placing himself among the foremost of those who would be clearing the ground with their fire-sprays, and working gradually ahead until the thickly scattered balls should give him concealment from the rest of the party. All he had to do then was to walk off to the west.
The only risk, once he was away, was that one of the food-carrying planes might spot him. But the chance was remote, and it was unlikely that a lone straggler would be considered worthy of investigation.
The scheme worked as he had expected. No hue and cry was raised after him as he wormed away. In a very little while he stood alone at the threshold of the stricken district.
As far as he could see in three directions, the land was dotted with the yellow balls, poised ominously where the wind had left them, and seeming to wait for the next gale to pick them up and send them swirling onward to more victims. Surrounded by the evilly glittering skins, he shuddered for a moment before his determination reasserted itself.
He drew a deep breath through his mask, threw back his head and strode on, a lone, grey figure, the only moving object in a scene of desolation.
In the first village he found a motor-cycle with its tank half-full, and for six miles it shattered the silence of the moor as he drove it, zigzagging to avoid the growths which littered the road. Then came a sharp valley so choked with balls that he must leave the motor-cycle, throw away the heavy flamethrower and climb across the balls themselves.
On several occasions one burst beneath his weight and he dropped some feet in a flurry of spores which threatened to choke his breathing mask until he could wipe them away. Then, laboriously, he must pick himself up and struggle on, while streams of sweat soaked his clothing beneath the clumsy suit. Once he almost turned back to pick up the flame-thrower with the idea of burning his way through the mass, but he remembered that its cylinder was already half discharged. Desperately he battled, until at last his feet found the bracken and heather of the farther hill-side.
Afterwards, he could recall little of that journey. He became uncertain even of the number of days which passed as he tramped on and scrambled through one choked valley after another.
Only odd incidents startled him now and then out of a stupid weariness: the little town on the moor where men and women lay dead in the streets while the fungus preyed on them, and the windows of the houses were full of yellow balls which mercifully hid the rooms ... the voice of a madman chanting hymns in a barricaded hut; hymns which turned to cursing blasphemies as he heard Ralph's step outside ... the things which had been men, and which he was forced to move when thirst tortured him to find a drink in a dead inn....
But somehow, with dulled senses, he strove on through the nightmare while with every mile he covered, the fear of what he might find at his goal increased.
He felt that he was almost home when he crossed the River Tamar which separates Devon from Cornwall. The bridge was choked with the fungus. Upstream was wedged a solid mass of yellow, but below it the river raced, bearing an occasional serenely floating ball which would later meet its fate before the fire boats in Plymouth Sound.
At last, St. Brian. The balls were fewer here. The wind had carried most of them away. His own home. Farther on, Dorothy's home—blank, locked ... deserted?
He broke a window to enter, and wandered about the empty rooms. No trace of fungus inside the house. No trace, either, of Dorothy. Perhaps she was upstairs. He was weak and hungry. Every step of the climb was an effort.
At the door of her room he hesitated. Would she be there; the yellow balls growing from her, feeding upon her still body? He opened the door; anything was better now than uncertainty. No one on the bed—no one in the room at all. He began to laugh hysterically. Dorothy had fooled the balls. They hadn't got her. She was alive, he was sure now—alive in spite of those damned balls. He fell on the bed, half-laughing, half-crying.
Suddenly he stopped. A sound outside. Voices? Painfully he crawled across to look out of the window. A group of people was coming up the road. People he knew. They were wearing ordinary clothes, and among them was Dorothy—Dorothy!
He tore off his mask and tried to shout to them. Funny; his voice wouldn't work, somehow. Never mind. Dorothy had fooled the yellow balls. That was damned funny. He was laughing again as he sank to the floor.
'Yes, dear, I'm real,' said Dorothy, at the bedside.
'But—but how―?'
'When I got here I found that Daddy had gone. The only thing was for me to go, too. Several of us went down the river in a boat and rowed along nearly to Land's End. Right in the toe of Cornwall we were beyond the balls, and to windward of them. Then, when it was safe―'
'Safe?'
'Yes, dear. It's safe now. The balls are just like an ordinary fungus now—they don't attack living things any more. Then we came home and found you here.'
'But―'
'Not now. You mustn't talk any more, dear. You've been very ill, you know.'
Ralph acquiesced. He went to sleep peacefully, her hand in his and a smile on his face.
ENVOI
The Prince Khordah of Ghangistan regarded the nephew of Haramin, bent low before him. 'Your plan has failed,' he said. The nephew of Haramin nodded dumbly. 'But,' continued the Prince, 'it has cost that accursed country more than did ever our wars—and we have lost nothing. Tell me, why did it fail?'
'Your Highness, the stock did not breed true. After two or so generations it was no longer a parasite, but had reverted to a common, saprophytic fungus.'
'Which, however, it will take them many years to suppress?'
'Many years,' the other repeated hopefully.
The Prince Khordah spent a few moments in contemplation.
'We are not displeased,' he said at length. 'Doubtless the first arrow did not kill a lion. There are other means, nephew of Haramin?'
The bent figure heaved a sigh of relief.
'There are other means,' he agreed.