Fielding nodded, shrugged apologetically and said, “Yes, of course; and I’m sorry if once again my explanation should prove inadequate. But as you know we’ve been trekking north for some two months now, frequently covering as little as four or maybe five miles a night, often as not in the wrong direction when dreadful conditions—acidic lakes, ravines, defiles and other obstacles; such as suspect or impassable rubble-heaped villages—have caused us to make endless diversions.”
“That’s right,” Big Jon nodded grimly. “And this last week we’ve been running low not only on water but also fuel. I haven’t wanted to start searching for tainted stuff in all the dubious towns we’ve skirted, but I may have to. Without it we’ll be in serious trouble, stuck for good wherever we end up.”
Fielding nodded. “But if we can find more here, it may well be as clean as everything else seems to be! And on that subject just look here.” He took a tin mug from a satchel hanging under his arm, filled it with water from a rusty bucket on the well’s crumbling stone wall and said, “This is where I was testing the water.” Without more ado he drank the mug dry, smacked his lips loudly, then patted his satchel with its precious contents, the various tools of his trade. “So then, now you’ve seen for yourselves how much I trust my instruments!”
“You’re absolutely sure it’s okay?” The leader reached for Fielding’s mug.
“Absolutely, and oh so very sweet!”
A handful of clan folk had been watching from the shady interior of the shattered church. Now, cautiously at first, they came out into the open. But as Big Jon and those with him took turns to drink, the people began to call to others behind them and quickened their pace, coming almost at a run.
Moving away from the well toward the church with his group, Big Jon called out: “Everyone can drink! The water is good! You can fill your personal containers, too. Then I’ll need a driver for the bowser, and volunteers for a work party. Oh, and if you washerwomen can hear me: those cauldrons of yours have been dry for much too long, so it’s time you got some fires going! Also, I shall need a scav team—preferably sober! People, now’s our chance to seek out and top up on fuel; and as a bonus, I’m told there’s no need to fear the sunlight! How’s that for good news? So let’s waste no more time but get busy, eh?”
And as the place began to show increasing activity, finally the leader turned his attention to the head tech. “Ah yes, Andrew. And with regard to that last, I believe you were about to tell me something?”
The exasperated other sputtered like a boiling kettle, more animated than any of Big Jon’s group could ever remember seeing him. “I was trying to tell you something, yes! And I would—if only you’d stand still for a moment and listen!”
“Well, go on then!” said Big Jon, and stepped into the cool gloom of the church. The others followed after him, then paused inside to listen to Fielding’s explanation:
“I think—” he began hesitantly, “—think it might have to do with the ozone layer. Some seven or so miles high but extending much higher than that, there’s a layer of gasses so constituted as to reduce dangerous ultraviolet radiation. Upon a time, before the war, the layer was much thicker…that’s according to tech forebears in the Southern Refuge, who left something of a record as to how in the aftermath things in the outside world deteriorated. It was all part and parcel of the nuclear winter, which not only damaged the inner atmosphere—the air itself—but also the outer atmosphere, especially the ozone layer which for countless decades had already been suffering the contamination of Man’s far-flung and seriously toxic labours.
“Ah, but since then—with just a handful of men reduced to burrowing in the ground, and no surface industries to mention—the Earth’s atmosphere may have begun righting itself. For note what would seem to be happening: the deeper we venture into the northern latitudes, the less we suffer from solar radiation!”
Now Zach spoke up. “I believe you’re right,” he said. “Why, it would explain how the fly-by-nights took so long to die once our lads flushed ’em out! I was watching you see, and while the sunlight certainly burned ’em I thought it took almost twice as long to do so!” And turning to the leader. “Wouldn’t you agree, Jon? For in our time down South, we surely chased enough of the damned things into the sunlight!”
“Aye,” Big Jon nodded. “And by God, didn’t they go up quick as a flash? They most certainly did!” Breathing deep, he seemed to swell up large. And throwing his arms wide he cried: “I feel reprieved, restored, renewed! What with the water, and now this news about the ozone—the fact that we can go out unprotected in the sunlight, and perhaps even travel during daylight hours, though that will take some getting used to—why, maybe things are finally turning in our favour! Indeed I feel sure they are. A good thing, too, because there’s so very much to do…!”
But as he turned away and made to stride out again into the daylight, Garth quickly caught his arm and said: “Sir, Big Jon! Please don’t go off and forget about us!”
“Eh?” said the other, then grinned as he clasped both Garth and Layla to his barrel chest. And: “No, of course I won’t!” he said, releasing them. “And what better time to get married, eh? When for a moment—if only for a moment—the future begins to look so much more promising?” And once again he turned away, as if making to leave the place.
“Sir!” said Garth, anxious now. But:
Laughing out loud, Big Jon turned back. “Oh, very well!” he cried: “I declare you man and wife—there! So give the girl a kiss, lad. For after all she’s yours now, and it’s perfectly in order!”
At which Garth did as he was told, and that was that…
For three more days the clan stayed in the shattered town. Then on the fourth night the fly-by-nights found them, and they came in some strength. Where they came from—who could say?—some far quarter of the ruins, most likely. But for a fact the faithless night breezes had borne up and dispersed abroad the scents of humanity, such scents as were irresistible to fly-by-nights.
Meanwhile the water bowser had been filled and the well had refreshed itself. Moreover Ned Singer’s scav team, which included Garth Slattery, had found subterranean gasoline tanks, miraculous survivors of the bombing and all the years of aftermath. While the fuel was badly degraded and sludgy, and the radiation count fell barely within Andrew Fielding’s safety levels, still it was better than nothing; the clan filtered it carefully into their containers and the thirsty tanks of their vehicles. While the engines might sputter and fume, balking at impurities, they would nevertheless work however falteringly.
As for the fly-by-nights:
Big Jon had ordered teams of armed night-watchmen posted on the perimeters of the accommodations. An hour or so before dawn on the fourth night, Garth was a member of Ned Singer’s team of nine men stationed in the approaches to the car park at vantage points where external views were mainly unimpeded, with arcs of fire that overlapped where possible. Chosen by Singer, however, perhaps as chance would have it, Garth’s location just happened to be the loneliest…
The leader had designated the best, most trustworthy of the clan’s old scavenger teams to this task, and only the very best to the protection of the car park, which held by far the majority of sleeping clan folk. Ned Singer himself had no station as such but constantly prowled his team’s positions to ensure that they were keeping their wits about them…in other words that they were staying awake and watchful.
That was how things stood when for the third or fourth time Singer came silently upon Garth where he sat uncomfortably on a knee-high stack of bricks behind a low, broad barrier built of rubble, his keen eyes probing the debris-littered expanse that lay beyond, with the barrel of his rifle pointing through a gap in the barrier’s rim.