“Jeff, there are boats putting out.”
She was right; he could see half a dozen water beetles, just outside the mole, scratches on the surface of the blue-glass sea.
“OK, Sal, I’ll see what I can do. When you’ve finished that you might see if you can do something about the outlet hose — this thing here. I haven’t got enough spare to change it, but if you cut a piece out of one of the sou-westers in the cabin — there ought to be scissors in the galley drawer — you could bind that round and round with insulating tape — here — as tight as you can. Several layers, and then it shouldn’t do more than drip. I don’t know how long I’ll be.”
He hadn’t put his jersey back on, so the robe lay next to his skin. The gold threads were full of the warmth of the sun. All round the Channel basked, like a sleeping animal, and on its skin the beetles moved towards them, murderous. They were larger now. He sat on the roof of the cabin with his chin on his knees, judging his time.
Now.
A squall, from the southwest. Airs gathered over the Atlantic, moving steadily eastward under the massaging of the high stratospheric gales, in their turn moved by the turning world, dangling behind it like streamers. The march of airs flawed and splintered on meeting the land mass of Europe, some sucked back in whirlpools, some shoved on in random eddies, funneled by invisible pressures. One here, now, crumpling the water, a fist of wind, tight, hard, cold, smashing northeast, hurling a puny fleet of beetles about in a pother of waters and broken oars and cries that carried for miles, then on, inland across the unyielding oaks of the New Forest, to shiver into eddies and die out among the Downs.
When he came to, Sally was making a neat finish to the outlet hose. She had bandaged it over and over, like the broken leg of a doll. She smelt of petrol and looked sad.
“I hope there wasn’t anyone we know,” she said. “You broke two of the boats, and the other four picked a lot of people out of the water and they all went home.”
‘‘Fine.”
“Look, Jeff, I found this in the cupboard where you got the tape from. I didn’t know you had another one.”
“That’s an ammeter. You use it for measuring electric currents. What do you mean, another one?” “Oh, but ... oh Jeff, it was your talisman — the thing they took away when they hit you on the head. They thought you couldn’t make weather without it. You wore the other one on a gold chain round your neck, and you hit me once when I touched it. You’re much nicer, now, since they tried to drown you, you know.”
“I’m sorry, Sal.”
Funny, he thought. Perhaps if you have powers that seem magical you are a bit frightened of them, and so you have to pretend to yourself that the magic isn’t in you but in something that belongs to you, a talisman. He still felt like that — superstitious, so to speak — about the gold robe. It would be interesting to try and make weather, something easy like a frosty night, without even that. Not now, though. He took the robe off and lay on the deck planks to detach the outer end of the hose and fit the new piece. The cylinder block was cool enough to touch now.
“Tell me about the Changes, Sal.”
“I really don’t know very much. They happened when I was a little girl. Everyone suddenly started hating machines and engines. No, not everyone. A lot of people went away, over the sea. They just started feeling miserable in England, I think. There are whole towns, quite empty, or that’s what they say. And after that anyone who used a machine, or even anyone who just seemed to like machines, they called a witch. And I think everyone started to become more and more old-fashioned, too. Really, that’s all I know. I’m terribly hungry; aren’t you?” “Yes, I am. Famished. Go and see if there’s any gas in the butane cylinders. I saw some tins in the larder. You could rustle up some grub while I finish this lot off.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to show me how.”
The butane hissed happily, but most of the matches in the larder were duds. Geoffrey worked almost through a whole box before he got a light, and then he panicked and dropped the match. The second box was better, and he got the cooker going. There was fresh water in the tank, quite sweet, which was another sign of how carefully he’d been servicing Quern in his forgotten-dream world. He had to show Sally how to put a saucepan on and how to open a tin. Then he went back to his engine. It took him about half an hour to fit the hose and clear the carburetor jet, and when he turned the crank it moved quite easily. He must have stopped the engine just in time, before the heat could do any real damage. It started at once when he switched the petrol on and swung it again; it sounded fine now. He turned Quern s head south. France seemed the best bet. He thought about all the people who had left England — there must have been thousands, millions of them, unable to live in a world without machines. How’d they got out? How many had died? Where had they gone?
He locked the wheel, after five minutes’ pointless guessing, and went in to see what sort of a mess Sally had made of supper. It was beef stew and butter beans, and it was delicious. They ate it out in the cockpit, with the engine churning smoothly and the first stars showing.
“Is France the right place to go, Sal? We could turn round and land somewhere else on the English coast, where they don't know us.”
“We couldn’t land in this. They’d kill us at once. France is where all the others went, Uncle Jacob said. When he found out about me drawing pictures he wanted us all to go there, but you wouldn’t. You liked being one of the richest men in Weymouth too much.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Anyway, we’re going to France now.”
“OK. I’ll go and see what charts we’ve got. I wonder if we’ve got enough fuel to go all the way to Morlaix.”
There was a message in the middle of the big^ Channel chart, written in Uncle Jacob’s backward-sloping hand on a folded piece of tissue paper. It said:
Good luck, laddie. I should have taken you and Sal south long ago, before you got hooked on this weather thing. Now I don’t think I shall last long. I’m going to try and wean these fools of burghers from their cottage industries by building them a water-driven power loom. Can’t be much harm in that, but you never know* This anti-machine thing seems a bit erratic in its effects — it’s pretty well worn off me now, but it seems just as strong as ever with most of the honest citizens of Weymouth. I can’t be the only one. It’s not sense. But everyone’s too afraid even to drop a hint to his neighbor (me too) . We’ll just have to see what happens.
One thing I’d like to do is go nosing about up on the Welsh borders, Radnor way. There’s talk about that being where the whole thing is coming from.
You’ll find a spot of cash in Cap’n Morgan’s hidey-hole.
Geoffrey went and looked in the secret drawer under his old bunk. If you felt under the mattress there was a little hook which you pulled, and that undid the catch and you could push the panel in. Uncle Jacob had made it for him to keep his spare Crunchie Bars in, but now all it held was a soft leather purse containing thirty gold sovereigns. In a fit of rage he thought of the men he’d spilt into the roaring sea with his squall, and hoped that some of the people who had stoned Uncle Jacob had been among them. Then he thought about that last trip to Brittany, in the summer holidays when he was ten, ,and decided to go to Morlaix if they possibly could. He did some sums and realized it would be a close thing: but he needn’t make up his mind until they •were on their last can of petrol.