“So Coker came through too,” I said. “After the shambles I saw at Tynsham, I’d an idea the plague might have got him.”

Later on, when we had had a meal and produced our best brandy, we got the story out of him.

When Michael Beadley and his party had gone on, leaving Tynsham to the mercies and principles of Miss Durrant, they had not made for Beaminster, nor anywhere near it. They had gone northeast, into Oxfordshire. Miss Durrant’s misdirection to us must have been deliberate, for Beaminster had never been mentioned.

They bad found there an estate which seemed at first to offer the group all it required, and no doubt they could have entrenched themselves there as we had entrenched ourselves at Shirning; but as the menace of the triffids increased, the disadvantages of the place became more obvious. In a year bath Michael and the Colonel were highly dissatisfied with the longer-term prospects there. A great deal of work had already been put into the place, but by the end of the second summer there was general agreement that it would be better to cut their losses. To build a community they had to think in terms of years—a considerable number of years. They also had to bear in mind that the longer they delayed, the more difficult any move would be. What they needed was a place where they would have room to expand and develop: an area with natural defenses, which, once it had been cleared of exit-lids, could economically be kept clear of them. Where they now were a high proportion of their labor was occupied with maintaining fences. And as their numbers increased, the length of fence line would have to be increased. Clearly, the best sell-maintaining defense line would be water. To that end they had held a discussion on the relative merits of various islands. It had been chiefly climate that had decided them in favor of the Isle of Wight, despite some misgivings over the area that would have to be cleared. Accordingly, in the following March they had packed up again and moved on.

“When we got there,” Ivan said, “the triffids seemed even thicker than where we’d left. Na sooner had we begun to set-tie ourselves into a big country house near Godshill than they started collecting along the walls in thousands. We let ‘em conic for a couple of weeks or so, then we went for ‘em with the flame throwers.

“After we’d wiped that lot out, we let them accumulate again, and then we blitzed ‘em once more—and so on. We could afford to do it properly there, because once we were clear of them we’d not need to use the throwers any more. There could only be a limited number on the island, and the more of them that came round us to be wiped out, the better we liked it.

“We bad to do it a dozen times before there was any appreciable effect. All round the walls we had a belt of charred stumps before they began to get shy. There were a devil of a lot more of them than we had expected.”

“There used to be at least half a dozen nurseries breeding high quality triffids on the island—not to mention the private and park ones,” I said.

“That doesn’t surprise me. There might have been a hundred nurseries by the look of it. Before all this began I’d have said there were only a few thousand of the things in the whole country, if anyone had asked me, but there must have been hundreds of thousands.”

“There were,” I said. “They’ll grow practically anywhere, and they were pretty profitable. There didn’t seem to be so many when they were penned up in farms and nurseries. All the same, judging from the amount round here, there must be whole tracts of country practically free of them now.”

“That’s so,” he agreed. “But go and live there, and they’ll start collecting in a few days. You can see that from the air. I’d have known there was someone here without Susan’s fire. They make a dark border round any inhabited place.

“Still, we managed to thin down the crowd round our walls after a bit. Maybe they got to find it unhealthy, or maybe they didn’t care a lot for walking about on the charred remains of their relatives—and, of course, there were fewer of them. So then we started going out to hunt them instead of just letting them come to us. It was our main job for months. Between us we covered every inch of the island—or thought we did. By the time we were through we reckoned we’d put paid to every one in the place, big and small. Even so, some managed to appear the next year, and the year alter that. Now we have an intensive search every spring, on account of seeds blowing over from the mainland, and settle with them right away.

“While that was going on, we were getting organized. There were some fifty or sixty of us to begin with. I took flips in the helicopter, and when I saw signs of a group anywhere, I’d go down and issue a general invitation to come along. Some did but a surprising number simply weren’t interested: they’d escaped from being governed, and in spite of all their troubles they didn’t want any more of it. There are some lots in South Wales that have started sorts of tribal communities and resent the idea of any organization except the minimum they’ve set up for themselves. You’ll find similar lots near the other coal fields too. Usually the leaders are the men who happened to be on the shift below ground, so that they never saw the green stars—though God knows how they ever got up the shafts again.

“Some of them so definitely don’t want to be interfered with that they shoot at the aircraft—there’s one lot like that at Brighton—”

“I know,” I said. “They warned me off too.”

“Recently there are more like that. There’s one at Maidstone, another at Guildford, and other places. They’re the real reason why we hadn’t spotted you hidden away here before.

The district didn’t seem too healthy when one got close to it. I don’t know what they think they’re doing—probably got some good food dumps and are scared of anyone else wanting some of it. Anyway, there’s no sense in taking risks, so I just let ‘em stew.

“Still, quite a lot did come along. In a year we’d gone up to three hundred or so—not all sighted, of course. “It wasn’t until about a month ago that I came across Coker and his lot—and one of the first things he asked, by the way, was whether you’d shown up. They had a bad time, particularly at first.

“A few days after he got back to Tynsham, a couple of women came along from London, and brought the plague with them. Coker quarantined them at the first symptoms, but it was too late. He decided on a quick move. Miss Durrant wouldn’t budge. She decided to stay and look after the sick, and follow later if she could. But she never did.

“They took the infection with them. There were three more hurried moves before they succeeded in shaking free of it. By then they had gone as far West as Devonshire. and they were all right for a bit there. But soon they began to find the same difficulties as we had—and you have. Coker stuck it out there for nearly three years, and then reasoned along much the same lines as we did. Only he didn’t think of an island. Instead he decided on a river boundary and a fence to cut off the toe of Cornwall. When they got there they spent the first months building their barrier, then they went for the triffids inside, much as we had on the island. They had more difficult country to work with, though, and they never did succeed in clearing them out completely. The fence was fairly successful to begin with, but they never could depend on it as we could trust to the sea, and too much of their man power had to be wasted on patrols.

“Coker thinks they might have made out all right once the children had grown old enough to work, but it would have been tough going all the time. When I did find them, they hadn’t much hesitation about coming along. They set about loading up their fishing boats right away, and they were all on the island in a couple of weeks. When Coker found you weren’t with us, he suggested you might still be somewhere in these parts.”