"What's on the wireless?" he said.
"About the birds," she said. "It's not only here, it's everywhere. In London, all over the country. Something has happened to the birds."
Together they went into the kitchen. He read the piece of paper lying on the table.
"Statement from the Home Office at eleven a.m. today. Reports from all over the country are coming in hourly about the vast quantity of birds flocking above towns, villages and outlying districts, causing obstruction and damage and even attacking individuals. It is thought that the Arctic air stream, at present covering the British Isles, is causing birds to migrate south in immense numbers, and that intense hunger may drive these birds to attack human beings. Householders are warned to see to their windows, doors and chimneys, and to take reasonable precautions for the safety of their children. A further statement will be issued later."
A kind of excitement seized Nat; he looked at his wife in triumph.
"There you are," he said, "let's hope they'll hear that at the farm. Mrs. Trigg will know it wasn't any story. It's true. All over the country. I've been telling myself all morning there's something wrong. And just now, down on the beach, I looked out to sea and there are gulls, thousands of them, tens of thousands, you couldn't put a pin between their heads, and they're all out there, riding on the sea, waiting."
"What are they waiting for, Nat?" she asked.
He stared at her, then looked down again at the piece of paper.
"I don't know," he said slowly. "It says here the birds are hungry."
He went over to the drawer where he kept his hammer and tools.
"What are you going to do, Nat?"
"See to the windows and the chimneys too, like they tell you."
"You think they would break in, with the windows shut? Those sparrows and robins and such? Why, how could they?"
He did not answer. He was not thinking of the robins and the sparrows. He was thinking of the gulls…
He went upstairs and worked there the rest of the morning, boarding the windows of the bedrooms, filling up the chimney bases. Good job it was his free day and he was not working at the farm. It reminded him of the old days, at the beginning of the war. He was not married then, and he had made all the blackout boards for his mother's house in Plymouth. Made the shelter too. Not that it had been of any use, when the moment came. He wondered if they would take these precautions up at the farm. He doubted it. Too easy going, Harry Trigg and his missus. Maybe they'd laugh at the whole thing. Go off to a dance or a whist drive.
"Dinner's ready." She called him, from the kitchen.
"All right. Coming down."
He was pleased with his handiwork. The frames fitted nicely over the little panes and at the base of the chimneys.
When dinner was over and his wife was washing up, Nat switched on the one o'clock news. The same announcement was repeated, the one which she had taken down during the morning, but the news bulletin enlarged upon it. "The flocks of birds have caused dislocation in all areas," read the announcer, "and in London the sky was so dense at ten o'clock this morning that it seemed as if the city was covered by a vast black cloud.
"The birds settled on roof-tops, on window ledges and on chimneys. The species included blackbird, thrush, the common house-sparrow, and, as might be expected in the metropolis, a vast quantity of pigeons and starlings, and that frequenter of the London river, the black-headed gull. The sight has been so unusual that trafic came to a standstill in many thoroughfares, work was abandoned in shops and offices, and the streets and pavements were crowded with people standing about to watch the birds."
Various incidents were recounted, the suspected reason of cold and hunger stated again, and warnings to householders repeated. The announcer's voice was smooth and suave. Nat had the impression that this man, in particular, treated the whole business as he would an elaborate joke. There would be others like him, hundreds of them, who did not know what it was to struggle in darkness with a flock of birds. There would be parties tonight in London, like the ones they gave on election nights. People standing about, shouting and laughing, getting drunk. "Come and watch the birds!"
Nat switched off the wireless. He got up and started work on the kitchen windows. His wife watched him, young Johnny at her heels.
"What, boards for down here too? " she said. "Why, I'll have to light up before three o'clock. I see no call for boards down here."
"Better be sure than sorry," answered Nat. "I'm not going to take any chances."
"What they ought to do," she said, "is to call the army out and shoot the birds. That would soon scare them off."
"Let them try," said Nat. "How'd they set about it?"
"They have the army to the docks," she answered, "when the dockers strike. The soldiers go down and unload the ships."
"Yes," said Nat, "and the population of London is eight million or more. Think of all the buildings, all the flats, and houses. Do you think they've enough soldiers to go round shooting birds from every roof?"
"I don't know. But something should be done. They ought to do something."
Nat thought to himself that "they" were no doubt considering the problem at that very moment, but whatever "they" decided to do in London and the big cities would not help the people here, three hundred miles away. Each householder must look after his own.
"How are we off for food?" he said.
"Now, Nat, whatever next?"
"Never mind. What have you got in the larder?"
"It's shopping day tomorrow, you know that. I don't keep uncooked food hanging about, it goes off. Butcher doesn't call till the day after. But I can bring back something when I go in tomorrow."
Nat did not want to scare her. He thought it possible that she might not go to town tomorrow. He looked in the larder for himself, and in the cupboard where she kept her tins. They would do, for a couple of days. Bread was low.
"What about the baker?"
"He comes tomorrow too."
He saw she had flour. If the baker did not call she had enough to bake one loaf.
"We'd be better off in old days," he said, "when the women baked twice a week, and had pilchards salted, and there was food for a family to last a siege, if need be."
"I've tried the children with tinned fish, they don't like it," she said.
Nat went on hammering the boards across the kitchen windows. Candles. They were low in candles too. That must be another thing she meant to buy tomorrow. Well, it could not be helped. They must go early to bed tonight. That was, if…
He got up and went out of the back door and stood in the garden, looking down towards the sea. There had been no sun all day, and now, at barely three o'clock, a kind of darkness had already come, the sky sullen, heavy, colourless like salt. He could hear the vicious sea drumming on the rocks. He walked down the path, half-way to the beach. And then he stopped. He could see the tide had turned. The rock that had shown in mid-morning was now covered, but it was not the sea that held his eyes. The gulls had risen. They were circling, hundreds of them, thousands of them, lifting their wings against the wind. It was the gulls that made the darkening of the sky. And they were silent. They made not a sound. They just went on soaring and circling, rising, falling, trying their strength against the wind.