Even as we watched, another tentacle snaked out of the handling-machine to withdraw a silvery ingot from the receiving device.
But this eerie industry was only the centrepiece. Around the central drama of the clay and the ingots and the green smoke, lines of people supported the operation. Shuffling they were, in bland prison-like uniforms and soft shoes, men, women and children. They brought dirt to the handling-machine, and took ingots away, and performed other such menial tasks, all under the supervision of armed guards.
Philip, Cook and Eden did not mention the people. They enthused about the gadgetry, what they saw of it as the car crawled past. ‘It is manufacturing aluminium, of course,’ Philip said expansively. ‘That superb material, strong and lightweight as no other metal… We only began manufacturing on an industrial scale, with the Hall process, a dozen years before the Martians came. And we needed a plant with the power of a Niagara Falls, and an input of aluminium-rich bauxite, to achieve such results. But the metal is abundant in the earth’s crust. The Martians could produce aluminium from ordinary English clay!
‘I was keen that you should see this, Julie. You are family, after all. And this is how I have made my, our fortune… And I’ve Walter to thank for it; he showed me an early draft of that book of his about the War, and while everybody else oohed and aahed about the fighting and so on, I picked up a few clues about what was likely to be the real legacy of the Martians for us– I mean their manufacturing capabilities – and got my counters on the game board ahead of the crowd… Some, of course, dream of the military application of the Martian technologies—’
Cook snickered. ‘As the Russians are finding out right now.’
‘And others, like cousin Walter, dream of commerce between the worlds. But I tell you now that this humble gadget, the Martian aluminium-smelter, will do more to transform the fortunes of this country than any of that.’
I considered what I had seen. ‘But these fences – the guns – the people working here. Who are they? Criminals?’
‘You know there are a lot of French refugees in England now. Belgians too. Some of them cause trouble: attacks on German business interests, and so forth. And we do have our own home-grown saboteurs—’
‘Saboteurs? What, even the children? Is this a concentration camp, Philip?’
He had the grace to look embarrassed. He said only, ‘This isn’t South Africa.’ He drove us smoothly away.
And Bert Cook laughed. ‘I bet Keir Hardie and Ramsay MacDonald are in that camp somewhere, fighting for the top bunk like true socialists!’
A little further north we passed the burned-out ruins of Wimbledon, to our right. Here the road had been raised onto a kind of viaduct, for the land was flooded extensively – as I was to learn, a result of the choking of the Thames by the Martians’ red weed. Thirteen years after the vanquishing of the Martians, this damage had yet to be corrected.
A hangar-like building stood bold not far from Wimbledon itself, surrounded by levees and embankments. This was the site of another of the ’07 cylinders, the sixth to fall. And here I saw work parties, toiling knee-high in the shallower water at drainage ditches – or, in one place, working in what might have been a paddy field. All of these were watched over by armed police. The low sun glittered on the water. It was almost a beautiful sight, save for the black blemishes of the toiling human figures.
Albert Cook said quietly, ‘I was ’ereabouts, on Putney Hill. Defying the Martians. Apparently the ’ouse I was in has got a plaque on the side now, saying so.’
After that we spoke little until we approached London itself.
7
IN LONDON
Philip brought the Bentley to an extensive car park outside Waterloo Station. The station itself had been rebuilt as a sprawling pile fronted by an edifice of concrete and marble – it reminded me of nothing so much as the Brandenburg Gate writ large.
We were to stay two nights in London; we made arrangements to meet the day after next, for our excursion back to Surrey to meet Frank and Carolyne. Philip, he reminded me, had to bring me to the London police headquarters, relocated to the Barbican, to prove I was no anarchist. Eden and Cook left for the hotel Philip had arranged for us at the Elephant and Castle – and to which our luggage, save for my rucksack, had been directed.
And, with some time before my appointment, Philip and I decided to walk.
As we left the car park I found myself staring up at a tremendous poster of Brigadier-General Brian Marvin himself, arms folded, his gaze fixed sternly on mine:
Philip joined me. ‘Doesn’t get any better-looking with age, does he?’
‘I’m surprised nobody’s improved it. Given him a better moustache, for example.’
Philip laughed. ‘Oh, nobody would dare…’
I mused on the oddities of humanity – of Philip Parris in particular. He was self-evidently a good man, competent, and a support to his friends. He had enough intelligence and detachment to see the corruption of the regime under which he now lived – even its absurdity. And yet he had not turned a hair when faced with the aluminium-factory camp in the Corridor. We are all complex, I suppose, and none of us consistent.
We walked through the train station itself, an echoing hall, half of which was fenced off by wooden panels. Within was the usual chaos of porters and passengers and portmanteaus, with wreaths of steam everywhere, and the shriek of whistles. But I was puzzled by the half-complete aspect. ‘Why all the rebuilding? I don’t remember any Martian War damage here.’
‘Ah, this is another of Marvin’s grandiose dreams. Better communications, that was the promise: more road and rail links, the better to move the guns and men around if the Martians had another go – and he’s done that, to some extent. But he does have a weakness for the grandiose design. Vast naval canals joining Clyde to Forth to Grangemouth: warships sailing down Loch Lomond! That’s the plan; so far, there’s barely a scratch in the Scottish turf. And then there’s the tunnel under the Channel. They actually started one in Gladstone’s day, you know. Again, barely a scratch – and nor has work begun on the big rail links to the London termini that will be necessary. But we’ve got the station! The frontage, anyhow.’
I smiled. ‘It’s just as Walter said of Bert Cook. All dreams and no action.’
Philip winked. ‘He’d be a good fit in Marvin’s cabinet then, along with old warhorses like Churchill, and all those tycoons from the railways and the coal mines…’
There was a W.H. Smith’s near the exit from the station, and I glanced over its stock with professional curiosity. In contrast to the vibrant American press, here on offer there were only what looked like dreary official government rags, and a couple of pro-Marvin tub-thumpers like the Daily Mail. The Mail itself had been the first to resume publication after the Martian War, and had never let its readers forget it: ‘Even The Martians Could Not Silence Us!’ I wondered if there was an underground press.
We crossed Waterloo Bridge, itself heavily repaired after the damage of the War. At this time of day the smoke pall hung as heavy over London as it ever did, and from here, suspended over the eternal river, I could see Westminster, where the palace, wrecked by the Heat-Ray, was gone – even the Clock Tower demolished – to be replaced by a looming fortress of concrete and glass.