He went back to Clare. She was sitting just as he had left her, but her eyes were widely open.
He did not speak to her yet. He picked her out of the chair in one quick movement and carried her along to the cellar doorway and set her on her feet. He said then:
“Go down the steps. I will hold you. Be careful—it is dark!”
She went without a word—and he steered her over to the bed of canvas and made her lie down upon it. He knelt beside her and said:
“You must rest now. I am going to find food for us. Do you know where there is any store nearer than the town—any store which would be open now?”
His eyes were growing used to the darkness and he saw her move and sit up beside him, her hands clasped about her knees. But he could not see whether or not she looked at him as she spoke. She said, in the same dead voice:
“There’s a sort of cross-roads settlement about a mile and a half from here. Not on the road we came by, but the one out in front. Go straight through the trees and you’ll find it. Turn right—and keep on.”
He unbuckled the watch from his wrist. Its figures and hands glowed faintly in the darkness. He said:
“Take the watch. Go to sleep if you are able. But do not move away from down here at all. Unless it is three hours and I am not back. If that happens you go to the police. But that will not happen. I will be back before.”
She said: “I understand,” and quite suddenly relaxed. Quietly, gently, she lay down. She put her head upon the pillow he had made and stretched her body straight and a small sound, hall groan, half gasp, came from her lips.
Still on his knees he peered at her face. He thought that her eyes were closed but could not be sure. Her breathing was deep and regular. He felt about with his hands for his coat, which had still been over her arm when she came down the cellar steps. He found it and shook it out and spread it over her. She did not move.
“Clare!” he said softly. “Clare!” But she did not answer him. She was asleep.
He found the road. He walked along it, keeping to the cover of trees and hedgerows as much as he could, until he came to the cross-roads she had described. There were three petrol stations and a chemist’s and a car park. There were also three small shops—one selling hardware—and an Open-All-Around-The-Clock hamburger and coffee bar.
It was later than he had thought and the tradesmen earlier. All save one of the places were open for business. A long-distance bus had stopped here when he arrived, and three truck-loads of the new citizen soldiery. The hamlet was astir, and Otto quietly drifted in and was inconspicuous. He had the duffel bag with him, empty, and he bought as much as he dared without attracting attention. He did not buy nor even look at a newspaper. He distributed his purchases among the little shops and put everything into the bag and presently drifted away, just as everyone was gathering to watch the soldiers go.
He had seen no one whom he could even consider as a possible enemy. And he knew that, in the general commotion, nobody had taken particular note of him.
He should have been elated. But he was not. He was filled and possessed by uneasiness.
He made slow way back to the fir-wood and the house. He knew that he was not watched by any human eyes. He climbed in through the same window and wedged the shutter again and went very softly down into the cellar.
She lay exactly as he had left her. She was so still that he lit a match and peered at her by its light. She was lying on her side. She breathed easily and deeply and the lines of the mask had been smoothed from her face. She looked like a child.
He let the match flicker out and turned away. Noiselessly, in the corner farthest from where she lay, he unpacked his purchases. There were several tins and two loaves of bread and a small paraffin-stove and a bottle of fuel for it and a dozen candles. There were also two cheap towels and a toothbrush and a cake of soap and a special gift for Clare which was a small mirror in a fibre case.
He lit one of the candles and piled the things neatly and quietly. Apprehension gnawed at him and he knew that he must keep himself occupied. He thought of this hiding-place and made himself consider it strategically and realised with a sudden shock that in its present state it could turn from sanctuary into trap at the first sign of the enemy. If they were to stay in this house for their hiding—and it seemed a better place than he had dared hope to find—they must stay here, down in this clean underground place where they could live and use light without being seen or heard. But they must have another way out of it: there must be a bolt-hole.
He made one. The work took him four hours—but it was good work when he had done it. He took measurements inside and out—and he found at last a place in the outer corner of the cellar itself where the brickwork was loose. He pried out four bricks and saw light filtering greenly through the gap and knew his calculations had been right and went at his task. Of necessity he made, at one time and another, more than a little noise—but never once did the small, sleeping figure so much as stir.
He finished the work outside. There was now a gap three feet square in the bottom of the outer wall, in front of the house, at the tip of the longer arm of the L. A growing bush, covered thick with leaves and some red berry which he did not know, obscured the gap from direct frontal view, but it was a yawning attraction to sight from any other angle.
He set about disguising it—and did a job which would have satisfied the most meticulous Director of Camouflage. He used a fallen shutter, and a great dead log, and many armfuls of wild grass and leases.
And while he was collecting these things he found the well. It was at the back, in a little overgrown clearing among the firs. It had a winch, and no rotting rope but a thick-linked chain stretching weightily down into the blackness of the shaft. The chain was rust-covered, but the rust had not eaten far into the good metal. He did not dare use the winch—in his mind he could hear the tortured, penetrating screaming it would make—and he unwound the chain with gentle care and then pulled it carefully upwards until he saw a bucket dangling at its end and then lowered it again until the bucket struck water with a soft, hollow splash.
He pulled up the first bucketful and found it brackish and foul with the dirt of the pail itself. He scoured the metal with earth and discovered that, miraculously, it did not leak.
And, twenty minutes later, he was in the house again and carefully carrying down into the cellar a supply of water which was cool and clear and tasted, faintly and pleasantly, of the rich earth from which it came.
He set the bucket down without sound and lit a candle and looked at Clare. She still slept. She had not moved. He went back up the steps and fixed a piece of twine to the inner bolt of the door-flap and pulled it shut. He sat himself down by the orderly pile of their provisions and thought that he would smoke a cigarette.
But he did not. Even as he reached for the opened packet in the pocket of his sweater, a great lassitude of utter fatigue wrapped numbing arms about his limbs and body. He lay down upon the hard beaten earth and stretched himself straight and slept.
He was wakened by a sound. He did not know how long he had slept. He concentrated upon the sound. It came at regular and heartbreaking intervals. It was muffled and desolate. It was the sound of weeping.