During the winter we gradually adjusted to our new life. Although the nearest house was more than ten miles away down the mountain, and the tunnel entrance commanded a good view of the approaches, we took care to leave no traces and to avoid creating recognizable paths in going out and returning. Yone instructed us in this, and kept a close watch to make sure no one slipped up.
He also instructed us in the use of the skis we took from the hotel ski school. Despite having looked forward to it, I found skiing very difficult to begin with—the sense of losing contact with the earth bothered me—and had plenty of falls. I spent ten days immobilized with a strained thigh muscle. Andy took to it much more quickly, and Rudi, of course, was an experienced skier: I watched him skim down the slopes below the tunnel mouth with admiring frustration. But I slowly got the hang of things, and then found it more exhilarating than anything I’d known.
At the outset we ventured out primarily for recreation—confinement in the tunnel was oppressive—but with the coming of spring we launched more purposeful expeditions. With snow and ice surrounding us all year long, water was never going to be a problem, but Pa decided we should aim at conserving food supplies.
I said, “But there’s enough in the hotel to last years!”
Martha asked, “How many years?”
I saw her drawn face in the lamplight and realized fully for the first time that this was no temporary resting place—that she at least expected to end her days here. The Swigram did die, before spring came, not from any particular sickness, perhaps just from missing the Swigramp. We wrapped her body in a blanket and lowered it into a crevasse in the glacier, covering it with snow. We could not mark the grave, but her body would lie there forever unchanged in the perpetual frost. A different end from the Swigramp, whose body had burned to ash in the flames that destroyed the home they’d shared, but bodies didn’t matter, really. They had both died free.
So we started expeditions to get food. We aimed at isolated houses, traveling long distances to find suitable targets. In some cases we were able to raid larders or take hens or eggs while the owners slept. But there were times when people wakened and had to be intimidated by the sight of Yone’s shotgun. Fortunately so far we’ve not had to use it.
It’s theft, of course—we have no money to leave if we wanted to—but the people we steal from are Capped, and we are as much at war with them as their Tripod masters. On the third expedition we found an un-Capped girl in the house, and stole her, too. She was dubious at first, but eventually agreed to come with us. Her name is Hanna. She’s a few months younger than I am, and has yellow hair that’s beginning to darken. Her eyebrows are dark already, her eyes deep brown. She speaks English in a husky voice and with a German accent, but it doesn’t irritate me the way Ilse’s once did.
I find myself getting on with Ilse better all the time. It’s difficult to remember how much she used to madden me in England. (I was going to write at home, but remembered that this is the only home we now have, or are likely to have.) She took over the cooking from the Swigram and although not as good yet, is improving. And of course, the Swigram didn’t have to cook with limited supplies on a primitive oil stove stuck in a tunnel.
On one expedition we found a man living alone, and Pa tried the experiment of removing his Cap. We had to overpower him, and he cried pitifully afterwards. But when we left he followed, and Pa let him join us. His name is Karl, and he’s in his middle twenties. Although physically strong, he can only do simple things, under instruction. At times you find him crying, for no apparent reason. We don’t know whether his mind has always been slow, or if it happened because we removed the Cap. But it’s something we agreed we would not do again.
And in fact we couldn’t if we wanted to. In late summer a Tripod came to the valley, and stationed itself close by a village called Karaman. From a vantage point we watched what followed. All day long a procession of Capped came to stand by the Tripod’s foot. A tentacle lifted them one by one into the belly of the machine, and after some minutes deposited them back on the ground. Through field glasses we could see that in place of the black of the helmets, their heads gleamed silver when they were put down.
It was Andy’s guess that this could signify the replacement of the original Caps with something more permanent, and he was proved right when, on our next trip, we found a man and woman, both silver-headed. The horrifying thing was that the silver part was a metal mesh, which seemed welded into the living flesh. From now on, the Cap, once imposed, was there for life, and eventually would crown a skeleton.
That was when Pa decided to adopt a deliberate policy of recruiting young people who were likely to be Capped within the year. We take none by force, though that would be justifiable with such an alternative. For our own security we can’t afford to harbor doubters. And so far, of five given the chance, only one, a boy called Hans, has chosen to accept. It is obviously not easy to leave parents, and the comforts of home, to join an unknown band of marauders, but it’s depressing that so few are willing.
It seems to me that boys are more ready to take the risk than girls. Two of the four who refused were boys, and both seemed to hesitate, whereas the girls were quite definite about it.
I said something of the sort to Angela, and had my head snapped off. She was as willing to take a risk as any boy, she said, and it was unfair Pa still refused to let her go on the scouting trips. For that matter, what about Hanna, who’d been the first to join us? In fact, she pointed out, the score was equal between boys and girls as far as recruits went.
“Hanna’s different,” I said.
“Oh yes, isn’t she?” she said scornfully. “Because you fancy her. Well, you’re not likely to impress her talking that way.”
I ended the conversation by walking off to my private patch of tunnel, thinking there were times when Angela really was insufferable. She was growing up, of course—she’d had her eighth birthday just before we left England, and her ninth was not far off. I had to admit she was bright, though—a bit brighter, if I were honest, than I’d been at her age. And though her pertness sometimes drove me mad, I reflected, as I cooled down, that in general I found her, too, easier to get on with these days. I made up my mind to organize a trip to the hotel to find a birthday present. I remembered seeing a mirror in one of the rooms which she might like.
• • •
Autumn brought snow again, and an end to the days of lying out in the sunshine that burned so fiercely through the thin air. Once more we took to skis and darted across the white untrodden slopes. And one day, above Karaman, we watched a Tripod pass beneath us. This time it did not stop by the village but crawled on, disappearing round high ground to the east. Just over a week later we saw it again, and Pa looked at his watch.
“The same time, within minutes. I wonder if it’s a routine patrol?”
Over subsequent weeks, we studied the Tripod. It was a patrol, and one carried out with monotonous regularity. Every fourth day the Tripod passed below our aerie shortly before eleven in the morning, treading a path that varied as little as the time.
On the fifth occasion we saw it, Pa said, “I wonder what the object is? I suppose, just keeping a general watch over things.”
He wiped away tears with the back of his glove; there was a biting northeast wind, and his eyes were inclined to water.
Andy said, “The way it thumps along, it could set off an avalanche.”
That was something Yone had recently warned us about. The mountain slopes were packed with snow, and an incautious movement could trigger off disaster. He had been a survivor of an avalanche as a young man—he was dug out of a cabin after days of being buried—and he’d described the horror of it: thousands of tons of snow and rock hurtling down with the speed of an express train and the noise of ten.
Pa said, “Pity it doesn’t.”
Something occurred to me. “I wonder . . .”
Pa wiped more tears away. “What?”
“We know it arrives h
ere at the same time, every fourth day.” I looked down the slopes immediately beneath us, heavy with new snow. “What would happen if someone fired a shotgun into that, just as the Tripod was passing underneath?”
• • •
Yone, who suffered from rheumatism which sometimes crippled him for days, had not been with us that morning. He closed his eyes, listening to what Pa said.
“It is possible. But not easy to say when avalanche is—ripe, is it? And not easy to guess path it takes.”
“But worth trying?”
Yone paused before replying. “We take care no one finds us, make no tracks. But if we try, and it not work, perhaps they will come look for us.”
It was something to consider. The Tripods themselves, unwieldy as they were, could not invade our mountain fastness, but they had silver-headed slaves at their disposal in virtually endless numbers. If in failing we showed our hand, they could use them to track us down. And once they did, though we might defend the tunnel entrance for a time, our fate was certain.
For days we argued the question. Martha and Ilse were vehemently against the idea, Yone more calmly opposed. Most of the younger ones were for it, with varying enthusiasm. Angela demanded to be one of the party carrying out the attack. For my part, I thought what Yone had said made sense. I could imagine what it would be like being trapped and besieged in the tunnel. Our present life was not too bad, and you could say we were making progress. With the spring we could start recruiting again. The sensible thing was not to take a risk that might destroy us.
But being sensible wasn’t enough. The hatred I felt for the Tripods and what they had done to us was too great. Nor could I abide the thought of huddling here forever like moles, while our enemy stomped arrogantly through the valley. I wanted to attack!
Next morning Pa called us together in that part of the cave which was our general meeting place. Oil lamps hung from hooks which Yone had screwed into the rocky ceiling, and an oil stove provided smelly warmth.
He had with him a battery-powered radio we’d found at the hotel, powerful and with six shortwave bands. At the beginning it had been possible to pick up occasional faint voices on it, sometimes too faint for the language to be distinguished. But the voices had died, one by one. It was months since anyone had bothered to listen.
He said, “I stayed up last night, searching the air waves. Nothing but Tripod buzz.”
He was referring to the radio sounds we assumed came from the Tripods, an oscillating noise that didn’t seem to have any coherent pattern.
“That doesn’t mean there aren’t free men out there. There may be groups without transmitters, or afraid to use them for fear of being traced. But we have to act as though we’re on our own, now and for the foreseeable future. We must act, that is, as though we’re the last hope of the human race.”
He stopped and wiped his brow; I saw he was sweating, though it was not all that warm. I looked from his face to Martha’s, Ilse’s, Yone’s. Yone was the only one who seemed unchanged, but he’d always looked ancient. All the rest showed new signs of strain and tiredness. It was easier, I realized, for people of my age to adjust to confinement and hardships, and the lack of comforts, than for old people like them.
“What this means,” Pa went on, “is that everything we do is critical. Our first aim has to be self-preservation, but self-preservation isn’t enough. Aiming just at that, we could slip into a routine of caution and playing safe which would progressively weaken us, and eventually destroy us as totally as the Tripods have destroyed our cities. So our second aim must be to fight the Tripods—without much hope for the immediate future, but as a means of keeping hope alive.
“That’s why we go out to recruit the young—why we’ve brought in Hanna and Hans and, God willing, will find more.” He wiped his face again. “And that’s why I think we must attack this Tripod, even if it means risking our own destruction. My personal instinct is to leave well alone, play safe. Martha and Ilse and Yone feel the same way. But we’re old and overcautious. The young are for attack, and the young are right.”
Ilse said, “No! Martin, you must listen. . . .”
Pa looked at her with a grim face. “I lead this group. I never saw myself as a leader, but there it is; in a situation like this, someone has to. And a leader has to command confidence, and consent. I hope I will always get your consent to things I propose, but if ever I don’t you will need to choose someone else.”
A silence followed. Everyone knew there was no one who could take his place. Eventually, when he was too old, someone would, but that was a long time in the future. Maybe Andy, I thought, looking at him across the cave. I looked at Hanna, with the lamplight shining on her hair. Or maybe me. A lot of things had changed, not just in the world outside but in me, to make that believable.
“The day after tomorrow,” Pa said. “That’s when the Tripod’s due again.”
• • •
The party consisted of Pa, Andy, and myself. Yone had given us a further warning. Our aim was to start an avalanche below us, but there were slopes above which were also overcharged with snow. The shock might start another, higher up, that could overwhelm us. Setting out, Pa said if we didn’t come back the others were to take orders from Martha. He kissed Use, holding her a long time.
She came to me then, and said, “Take care, Lowree.”
She was looking at me, and there was a tear on her cheek. She made no move towards me, but I went forward, and kissed her, too. “I will.”
We moved into position on a clear morning, with sunlight sparkling from the peaks and the surface of the lake below. Then came the waiting—only for an hour, but seeming much longer. At one point, on a slope to the west of us, a minor shift of snow looked as though it might be the start of a natural avalanche, but as we held our breaths the slide checked, and all was still again.
Pa looked at his watch for the hundredth time. At that moment, following the same path round a spur of rock as it had on previous occasions, the Tripod came in view, three or four hundred meters below us and more than twice that to the west. Now Pa faced the crucial problem of judging the moment to fire Yone’s shotgun.
Rising to his feet, he pointed it at the snow slope. The Tripod was coming on in its awkward skittering motion, a metal spider that had lost all but three of its legs. From up here it looked small, unthreatening.
How deceptive that was! Across the valley to the north we looked at a wasteland of white peaks, but beyond them lay what had been great cities. And the simple reality of this metal beast, stalking unchallenged through a remote alpine valley, was the measure of our humiliation. I thought back to the early days, and Wild Bill talking about Close Encounters of the Absurd Kind. Whatever bizarre creatures had launched the Tripods, no one had taken them seriously until it was too late.
No, not too late. I wouldn’t accept that. As long as even a handful of men and women survived free, hope lived. And Pa was right: we must risk everything to fight them, for without fighting, everything was lost.
I saw his finger crook in the trigger guard. It was too early! The Tripod was a hundred meters short of the point the avalanche would hit. I wanted to cry out, tell him to hold fire. . . . Then the shotgun went off, its thunder shattering the still cold air.
. . . And nothing happened. The snow remained even, undisturbed. Below, the Tripod continued on its twisting way. Pa fired the second barrel, and thunder reverberated again. I heard Andy whisper, “Move! For God’s sake, move!” Then slowly, very slowly, the surface rippled, and the snow started to slide.
It gathered speed only gradually, moving at a child’s walking pace to begin with. That was when I felt sure that, instead of firing too soon, Pa had left it too late. The Tripod came steadily on, varying neither pace nor path. It would be past by the time the wave of snow arrived. I felt like weeping with anger and despair.
“Go on! Go on!”
That was Pa. I heard myself echoing him—“Go, go!”—as though urging the mountain, t
he planet which had borne us, to come to our aid. We were all three crying out, shouting for help to the empty sky.
And the avalanche was gathering force, spreading, foaming up out of itself, tossing huge boulders into the air as though they were specks of gravel. It looked as though the whole face of the mountain was on the move. The sound, as Yone had said, was titanic, a thousand giants bellowing wrath. Faster and faster it drove, then suddenly seemed to leap and charge forward like a living thing . . . and sweep over the Tripod, burying it. When the avalanche finally came to a halt, an unbroken expanse of snow lay beneath us.
At the beginning of summer I sat outside the cave with Andy and Rudi. We are a united company—we have to be, the way we live—but I get on better with them than with Hans, or Dieter, the boy we recruited just before Christmas. I like Hanna better still, but that’s a different story; not really to do with sitting and idly talking.
We were talking about the Tripods and the avalanche. For weeks after, we waited in apprehension, expecting reprisal or at least response. There was none. We kept constant patrols, but nothing happened, and no new Tripod came.
Then, with the melting of the snow, a patrol—unfortunately I was not on it—witnessed a strange sight. Two Tripods crawled along the valley and approached the spot where the hemisphere of the wrecked one was just beginning to be visible. They probed around it with their tentacles for several minutes, then went back the way they had come. As they disappeared, the wreck erupted in a fount of flame.
I had been arguing that the two must have come in response to some kind of radio beacon. Andy shook his head and said, “Doesn’t make sense. Why wait all that time? They must have known something was wrong when it didn’t return to base.”