“How do you mean—subject no object?’ I inquired.

“Well, I kind of supply the spoken word just like a printer supplies the printed word. He doesn’t have to believe everything he prints.”

I left that for the moment. “How’s it happen you’re not like the rest?” I asked. “You weren’t in hospital, were you?”

“Me? No. It just so happened that I was addressing a meeting that was protesting over police partiality in a little matter of a strike. We began about six o’clock and about half-past the police themselves arrived to break it up. I found a handy trap door and went down into the cellar. They came down, too, to have a look, but they didn’t find me where I bad gone to earth, in a pile of shavings. They went on tramping around up above for a bit, then it was quiet. But I stayed put. I wasn’t walking out into any nice little trap. It was quite comfortable there, so I went to sleep. In the morning, when I took a careful nose around, I found all this had happened.” He paused thoughtfully. “Well, that racket’s finished; it certainly doesn’t look as if there’s going to be much call for my particular gifts from now on,” he added.

I did not dispute it. We finished our meal. He slid himself off the counter.

“Come on. We’d better be shifting. ‘Tomorrow to fresh fields and pastures new’—if you’d care for a really hackneyed quotation this time.”

“It’s more than that, it’s inaccurate,” I said. “It’s ‘woods,’ not ‘fields.’”

He frowned.

“Well, damn me, mate, so it is,” he admitted.

I began to feel the lightening of spirit that Coker was already showing. The sight of the open country gave one hope of a son. It was true that the young green crops would never be harvested when they had ripened, nor the fruit from the trees gathered; that the countryside might never again look as trim and neat as it did that day, but for all that it would go on, after its own fashion. It was not, like the towns, sterile, stopped forever. It was a place one could work and tend, and still find a future. It made my existence of the previous week seem like that of a rat living on crumbs and ferreting in garbage heaps. As I looked out over the fields I felt my spirits expanding.

Places on our route, towns like Reading or Newbury, brought back the London mood for a while, but they were no more then dips in a graph of revival.

There is an inability to sustain the tragic mood, a phoenix quality of the mind. It may be helpful or harmful, it is just a part of the will to survive—yet, also, it has made it possible for us to engage in one weakening war after another. But it is a necessary part of our mechanism that we should be able to cry only for a time over even an ocean of spilt milk—the spectacular must soon become the commonplace if life is to be supportable. Under a wide blue sky where a few clouds sailed like celestial icebergs the cities became a less oppressive memory, and the sense of living freshened us again like a clean wind. It does not, perhaps, excuse, but it does at least explain why from time to time I was surprised to find myself singing as I drove.

At Hungerford we stopped for more food and fuel. The feeling of release continued to mount as we passed through miles of untouched country. It did not seem lonely yet, only sleeping and friendly. Even the sight of occasional little groups of triffids swaying across a field, or of others resting with their roots dug into the soil, held no hostility to spoil my mood. They were, once again, the simple objects of my professional interest.

Short of Devizes we pulled up once more to consult the map. A little farther on we turned down a side road to the right and drove into the village of Tynsham.

There was little likelihood of anyone missing the Manor. Beyond the few cottages which constituted the village of Tynsham the high wall of an estate ran beside the road. We followed it until we came to massive wrought-iron gates. Behind them stood a young woman on whose face the sober seriousness of responsibility had suppressed all human expression. She was equipped with a shotgun which she clasped in inappropriate places. I signaled to Coker to stop, and called to her as I drew up. Her mouth moved, but not a word penetrated the clatter of the engine. I switched off.

“This is Tynsham Manor?” I asked.

She was not giving that, or anything else, away. “Where are you from? And how many of you?” she countered.

I could have wished that she did not fiddle about with her gun in just the way she did. Briefly, and keeping an eye on her uneasy fingers, I explained who we were, why we came, roughly what we carried, and guaranteed that there were no more of us hidden in the trucks. I doubted whether she was taking it in. Her eyes were fixed on mine with a mournfully speculative expression more common in bloodhounds, but not reassuring even there. My words did little to disperse that random suspicion which makes the highly conscientious so wearing. As she emerged to glance into the backs of the trucks, and verify my statements, I hoped for her sake that she would not chance to encounter a party of whom her suspicions were justified. Admission that she was satisfied would have weakened her role of reliability, but she did eventually consent, still with reserve, to allow us in.

“Take the right fork,” she called up to me as I passed, and turned back at once to attend to the security of the gates. Beyond a short avenue of elms lay a park landscaped in the manner of the late eighteenth century, and dotted with trees which had had space to expand into full magnificence. The house, when it came into view, was not a stately home in the architectural sense, but there was a lot of it. It rambled over a considerable ground area and through a variety of building styles, as though none of its previous owners had been able to resist the temptation to leave his personal mark upon it. Each, while respecting the work of his forefathers, had apparently felt it incumbent upon him to express the spirit of his own age. A confident disregard of previous levels had resulted in a sturdy waywardness. It was inescapably a funny house, yet friendly and reliable-looking.

The right fork led us to a wide courtyard where several trucks stood already. Coach houses and stables extended around it, seemingly over several acres. Coker drew up alongside me, and we climbed down. There was no one in sight.

We made our way through the open rear door of the main building and down a long corridor. At the end of it was a kitchen of baronial capacity where the warmth and smell of cooking lingered. From beyond a door on the far side came a murmur of voices and a clatter of plates, but we had to negotiate a further dark passage and another door before we reached them.

The place we entered had, I imagine, been the servants’ hall in the days when staffs were large enough for the term to be no misnomer. It was spacious enough to hold a hundred or more at tables without crowding. The present occupants, seated on benches at two long trestles, I guessed to between fifty and sixty, and it was clear at a glance that they were blind. While they sat patiently a few sighted persons were very busy. Over at a side table three girls were industriously caning chickens. I went up to one of them.

“we’ve just come,” I said. “What do we do?”

She paused, still clutching her fork, and pushed back a lock of hair with the crook of her wrist.

“It’ll help if one of you takes charge of the veg and the other helps with the plates,” she said.

I took command of two large tubs of potato and cabbage. In the intervals of doling them out I looked over the occupants of the halls. Josella was not among them—nor could I see any of the more notable characters among the group that had put forward its proposals at the University Building— though I fancied I had seen the faces of some of the women before.