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The War in the Air Epilogue · The H. G. Wells Library

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Speaker 1: Epilogue of War in the Air. This is the LibriVox recording.
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Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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Speaker 1: information or a volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. The epilogue.
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Speaker 1: It happened that one bright summer's morning, exactly thirty years
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Speaker 1: after the launching of the first German air fleet, an
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Speaker 1: old man took a small boy to look for a
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Speaker 1: missing hen through the ruins of bun Hill and out
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Speaker 1: towards the splintered pinnacles of the Crystal Palace. He was
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Speaker 1: not a very old man. He was, as a matter
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Speaker 1: of fact, still within a few weeks of sixty three.
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Speaker 1: But constance stooping over spades and forks, and the carrying
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Speaker 1: of roots and manure and exposures to the damps of
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Speaker 1: life in the open air without a change of clothing,
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Speaker 1: had bent him into the form of a sickle. Moreover,
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Speaker 1: he had lost most of his teeth, and that had
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Speaker 1: affected his digestion, and through that his skin and temper.
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Speaker 1: In face and expression, he was curiously like that old
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Speaker 1: Thomas Smallways, who had once been coachman to Sir Peter Bone.
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Speaker 1: And this was just as it should be, for he
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Speaker 1: was Tom Smallway's the Sun, who formerly kept the little
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Speaker 1: green grocer's shop under the straddle of the Mono rail
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Speaker 1: viaduct in the high street of bun Hill. But now
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Speaker 1: there were no green grocer's shops, and Tom was living
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Speaker 1: in one of the derelict villas hard by, that unoccupied
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Speaker 1: building site that had been and was still the scene
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Speaker 1: of his daily horticulture. He and his wife lived upstairs
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Speaker 1: and in the drawing and dining rooms, which at each
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Speaker 1: French windows opening onto the lawn, and all about the
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Speaker 1: ground floor. Generally, Jessica, who was now a lean and
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Speaker 1: lined and baldish but still very efficient and energetical woman,
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Speaker 1: kept her three cows and a multitude of gawky hens.
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Speaker 1: These too were part of a little community of stragglers
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Speaker 1: and returned fugitives, perhaps a hundred and fifty souls of
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Speaker 1: them altogether, that had settled down to the new conditions
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Speaker 1: of things after the panic and famine and pestilence that
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Speaker 1: followed in the wake of the war. They had come
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Speaker 1: back from strange refuges and hiding places and had squatted
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Speaker 1: down amongst the familiar houses and begun that hard struggle
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Speaker 1: against nature for food, which was now the chief interest
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Speaker 1: of their lives. They were, by sheer preoccupation with that
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Speaker 1: a peaceful people. More particularly after Wilkes, the house agent,
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Speaker 1: driven by some obsolete dream of acquisition, had been drowned
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Speaker 1: in the pool by their ruined gas works for making
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Speaker 1: inquiries into title and displaying a litigious turn of mind.
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Speaker 1: He had not been murdered, you understand, but the people
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Speaker 1: had carried an exemplary ducking ten minutes. So beyond its
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Speaker 1: healthy limits, this little community had returned from its original
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Speaker 1: habits of suburban parasitism to what no doubt had been
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Speaker 1: the normal life of humanity even nearly immemorial years. A
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Speaker 1: life of homely economics, in the most intimate contact with
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Speaker 1: cows and hands and patches of ground. A life that
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Speaker 1: breathes and exhales the scent of cows, and finds the
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Speaker 1: need for stimulants satisfied by the activity of the bacteria
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Speaker 1: and vermin it engenders. Such had been the life of
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Speaker 1: the European peasant from the dawn of history to the
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Speaker 1: beginning of the scientific era. So it was the large
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Speaker 1: majority of the people of Asia and Africa had always
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Speaker 1: been wont to live. For a time, it had seemed
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Speaker 1: that by virtue of machines and scientific civilization, Europe was
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Speaker 1: to be lifted out of this perpetual round of animal grudgery,
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Speaker 1: and that America was to evade it very largely from
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Speaker 1: the outset, and with a smash of the high and
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Speaker 1: dangerous and split under edifice of mechanical civilization that had
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Speaker 1: arisen so marvelously back to the land, that came the
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Speaker 1: common man back to the manure. The little communities, still
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Speaker 1: haunted by ten thousand memories of a greater state, gathered
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Speaker 1: and developed almost tacitly a customary law, and fell under
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Speaker 1: the guidance of a medicine man or a priest. The
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Speaker 1: world rediscovered religion and the need of something to hold
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Speaker 1: its communities together. At bun Hill, this function was entrusted
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Speaker 1: to an old Baptist minister. He taught a simple but
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Speaker 1: adequate faith. In his teaching, a good principle called the
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Speaker 1: word fought perpetually against a diabolical female influence called thus
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Speaker 1: scarlet woman, and an evil being called alcohol. This alcohol
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Speaker 1: had long since become a purely spiritualized conception, deprived of
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Speaker 1: any element of man material application. It had no relation
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Speaker 1: to the occasional finds of whiskey and wine in londoner
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Speaker 1: cellars that gave bun Hill its only holidays. He taught
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Speaker 1: this doctrine on Sundays and on weekdays. He was an
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Speaker 1: amiable and kindly old man, distinguished by his quaint disposition
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Speaker 1: to wash his hands and, if possible, his face daily,
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Speaker 1: and with a wonderful genius for cutting up pigs. He
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Speaker 1: held his Sunday services in the old church in the
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Speaker 1: Beckenham Road and then the countryside came out in a
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Speaker 1: curious reminiscence of the urban dress of Edwardian times. All
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Speaker 1: the men, without exception wore frock coats, top hats and
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Speaker 1: white shirts, though many had no boots. Tom was particularly
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Speaker 1: distinguished on these occasions because he wore a top hat
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Speaker 1: with gold lace about it, and the green coat and
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Speaker 1: trousers that he had found upon a skeleton in the
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Speaker 1: basement of the Urban and District Bank. The women, even
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Speaker 1: Jess Cayman jackets and immense hats, extravagantly trimmed with artificial
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Speaker 1: flowers and exotic birds feathers of which there were abundant
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Speaker 1: supplies in the shops to the north, and the children
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Speaker 1: there were not many children, because a large proportion of
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Speaker 1: the babies born in bun Hill died in a few
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Speaker 1: days time of inexplicable maladies, had similar clothes cut down
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Speaker 1: to accommodate them. Even Stringer's little grandson of four, or
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Speaker 1: a large top hat that was a Sunday costume of
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Speaker 1: the bun Hill district, a curious and interesting survival of
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Speaker 1: the genteel traditions of the scientific age. On a weekday,
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Speaker 1: the folk were dingily and curiously hung about with dirty
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Speaker 1: rags of housecloth and scarlet flannel, sacking, curtained serge, and
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Speaker 1: patches of old carpet, and went either barefoot or on
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Speaker 1: rude wooden sandals. These people, the reader must understand, were
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Speaker 1: an urban population sunken back to the state of a
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Speaker 1: barbaric peasantry, and so without any of the simple arts
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Speaker 1: of barbaric peasantry possess. In many ways, they were curiously
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Speaker 1: degenerate and incompetent. They had lost any idea of making textiles,
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Speaker 1: they could hardly make up clothes when they had material,
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Speaker 1: and they were forced to plunder the continually dwindling supplies
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Speaker 1: of the ruins about them for cover all the simple
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Speaker 1: arts they had ever known they had lost, and with
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Speaker 1: a breakdown of modern drainage, modern water supply, shopping and
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Speaker 1: the like, their civilized methods were useless. Their cooking was
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Speaker 1: worse than primitive. It was a feeble muddling with food
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Speaker 1: over wood fires and rusty drawing the fireplaces for the
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Speaker 1: kitcheners burnt too much. Among them all, no sense of baking,
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Speaker 1: or brewing or metal working was to be found. Their
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Speaker 1: employment of sacking and suchlike coarse material for workaday clothing,
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Speaker 1: and their habit of tying it on with string and
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Speaker 1: of thrusting wadding and strong side of it for warmth
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Speaker 1: gave these people an odd packed appearance. And as it
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Speaker 1: was a weekday when Tom took his little nephew for
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Speaker 1: the hands seeking excursion, so it was they were attired.
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Speaker 1: So you finally got the bunhill at last, Teddy, said
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Speaker 1: old Tom, beginning to talk and slackening his pace, as
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Speaker 1: soon as they were out of range of old Jessica,
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Speaker 1: you're the last of Bert's boys. For me to see
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Speaker 1: what I've seen, Young Bert, I've seen Sissy and Matt,
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Speaker 1: Tom was called after me, and Peter. A traveling people
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Speaker 1: bought you along, all right, eh? I marriage, said Teddy,
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Speaker 1: who was a dry little boy, didn't want to eat you.
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Speaker 1: On the way they was all right, said Teddy. And
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Speaker 1: on the way near let we saw a man riding
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Speaker 1: on a bicycle my words, said Tom. There ain't many
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Speaker 1: of those about nowadays. Was he going? Said he was
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Speaker 1: going to Dorking if the high road was good enough.
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Speaker 1: But I doubt if he got there. All about Berfett
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Speaker 1: it was flooded. We come over the hill, Uncle, what
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Speaker 1: they call a Roman road? That's all and safe. I
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Speaker 1: don't know it, said old Tom. But a bicycle, you're
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Speaker 1: sure it was a bicycle, had two wheels. It was
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Speaker 1: a bicycle, right enough. I remember a time, Teddy, when
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Speaker 1: there was bicycles, no end, when you could stand just here.
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Speaker 1: The road was as school as a board then. And
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Speaker 1: see twenty or thirty coming and going at the same time,
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Speaker 1: bicycles and Moulti bicycles, Molti cars, all sorts of whirly things. No,
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Speaker 1: said Teddy. I do hey keep on going by all day,
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Speaker 1: hundreds and hundreds. But where were they all going? Asked Teddy,
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Speaker 1: tearing after Brighton. You never seen Brighton, I expect is
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Speaker 1: down by the sea. Used to be a most amazing place,
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Speaker 1: and coming and going from London why they did, but
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Speaker 1: why Lord knows, why tad they did? And then you
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Speaker 1: see that great thing there, like a great big rusty
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Speaker 1: nail sticking up? Are you in all the houses? And
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Speaker 1: that one yonder and that? And how somethings fell in
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Speaker 1: between him? Among the houses they was parts of the monorail.
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Speaker 1: They went down to Brighton too, and all day and
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Speaker 1: night there was people going, great cars as big as
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Speaker 1: houses full of people. The little boy regarded that rusty
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Speaker 1: evidence across the narrow, muddy ditch of cowdroppings that had
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Speaker 1: once been a high street. He was clearly disposed to
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Speaker 1: be skeptical, and yet there the ruins were. He grappled
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Speaker 1: with ideas beyond the strength of his imagination. What would
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Speaker 1: they go for? He asked, all of them they had
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Speaker 1: to every day was on to go those days? Everything? Yeah,
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Speaker 1: but where did they come from? All around here, teddy,
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Speaker 1: there was people living in those houses, and up the
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Speaker 1: road more houses and more people. You'd hardly believe me, teddy,
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Speaker 1: but it's Bible truth. You can go on that way
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Speaker 1: forever and ever and keep on coming on houses, more
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Speaker 1: houses and more. There's no end. To them no end,
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Speaker 1: they get bigger and bigger. His voice dropped as though
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Speaker 1: he named strange names. It's London, he said, And it's
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Speaker 1: all empty now, and left alone all day. It's left alone.
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Speaker 1: You don't find hardly a man. You won't find nothing
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Speaker 1: but dogs and cats after the rats, until you get
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Speaker 1: round by Bromley and Beckenham. And then there you find
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Speaker 1: a Kentish man, hrting swine, nice rough lot. They are too.
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Speaker 1: I'll tell you that, so long as the sun is up,
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Speaker 1: it says still as a grave. All been about boy day,
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Speaker 1: orphan and orphan, he paused. And all those houses and
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Speaker 1: streets and ways used to be full of people, before
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Speaker 1: the war in the air and the famine and the
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Speaker 1: purple death. They used to be full of people teddy,
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Speaker 1: And then came a time when they was full of corpses,
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Speaker 1: when you couldn't go a mile that way, before the
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Speaker 1: stink of em drove you back. It was a purple
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Speaker 1: death that killed them, every one, the cats and the
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Speaker 1: dogs and ends and vermin caught it everything and every
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Speaker 1: one added. Just a few of us happened to live.
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Speaker 1: I pulled through, and your aunt, though it made her
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Speaker 1: lose her air, ah, you find a skeleton in the houses.
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Speaker 1: Now this way, we've been into all the houses and
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Speaker 1: took what we wanted and buried most of the people.
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Speaker 1: But up that way, in all wood way, there's houses
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Speaker 1: with a glass in the window still, and the furniture
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Speaker 1: not touched, all dusty and falling, the pieces, and the
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Speaker 1: bones of the people lying some in bed, some about
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Speaker 1: the house, just as the Purple Death left them. Five
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Speaker 1: and twenty years ago. I went into one, me and
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Speaker 1: Old Higgins last year, and there was a room with books. Teddy.
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Speaker 1: You know what I mean by books, Teddy. I see him.
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Speaker 1: I seen him with pictures, well, books all around Teddy,
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Speaker 1: hundreds of books beyond rhyme or reason, as the saying goes, green,
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Speaker 1: moldy and dry. I was for leaving them alone. I
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Speaker 1: was never much for reading. But Old Higgins he must
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Speaker 1: touch them. I believe I could read one of them. Now,
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Speaker 1: he says, not it. I says I could, He says, laughing,
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Speaker 1: and takes one out and opens it. I looked and
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Speaker 1: air Teddy was a colored picture. Oh so lovely it
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Speaker 1: with a picture of women and serpents in the garden.
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Speaker 1: I never see anything like it. This suits me said
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Speaker 1: Old Higgins to rights, and then kind of friendly. He
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Speaker 1: gave the book a pat. Old Tom smallways paused impressively,
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Speaker 1: and then said, Teddy, it all fell to dust, white dust.
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Speaker 1: He became still more impressive. Well, he didn't touch no
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Speaker 1: more than books that day, nor after that. For a
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Speaker 1: long time both were silent. Then Tom, playing with the
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Speaker 1: subject that attracted him with a fatal fascination, repeated all
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Speaker 1: day long day loy still as their grave. Teddy took
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Speaker 1: the point at last. Don't they lie at nights? He asked?
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Speaker 1: Old Tom shook his head. Nobody knows, boy, nobody knows.
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Speaker 1: But what could they do? Nobody knows, Nobody ain't seen
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Speaker 1: to tell, Not nobody, nobody. I hay tell tales, says
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Speaker 1: Old Tom. They tell tales, but there ain't no believe
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Speaker 1: in them. I get something about sundown and keeps in doors,
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Speaker 1: So I can't say nothing, can I? But there's them
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Speaker 1: that thinks some things, and them that thinks othershi good.
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Speaker 1: It's unlucky to take clothes off them unless they got
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Speaker 1: white bones. There's stories, the boy watched his uncle sharply.
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Speaker 1: What stories, he asked, Stories of moonlight nights and things
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Speaker 1: walking about, But I take no stock in them or
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Speaker 1: keeps in bed. If you listen to stories, Lord, you'll
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Speaker 1: get afraid of yourself. And I field. At midday the
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Speaker 1: little boy looked around and ceased his questions for a space.
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Speaker 1: They say there's an og man in Beckenham that was
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Speaker 1: lost in London. Three days and three nights he went
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Speaker 1: up after whiskey the cheapside, and lost his way among
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Speaker 1: the ruins, and wandered. Three days and free nights He
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Speaker 1: wandered about in the streets kept changing, so he couldn't
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Speaker 1: get on. If he hadn't remembered some words out of
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Speaker 1: his Bible, he might have been there now. All day
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Speaker 1: he went, and all night, and all day long it
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Speaker 1: was still. It was as still as deaf all day long,
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Speaker 1: until the sunset come and the twilight thickened. And then
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Speaker 1: it began to wrestle and whisper and go pit a pat,
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Speaker 1: with a sound like hurrying feet. He paused, yes, said
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Speaker 1: the little boy, breathlessly, go on, what then a sound?
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Speaker 1: Are carts and horses? There was, and a sound of
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Speaker 1: cabs and omnibusses, And then a lot of whistling, shrill whistles,
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Speaker 1: whistles that froze his marror, and directly the whistles began.
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Speaker 1: Things begun to show people in the streets, hurrying, people
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Speaker 1: in the houses and shops busying themselves, moti cars in
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Speaker 1: the streets are sort of moonlight in all the lamps
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Speaker 1: and windows. People, I say, Teddy, But there wasn't people.
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Speaker 1: It was the ghost of them that was overtook, the
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Speaker 1: ghost of them that used to crowd those streets. And
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Speaker 1: they went past him and threw him and never readed him.
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Speaker 1: Went by like fogs and vapors, Teddy. And sometimes they
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Speaker 1: was cheerful, and sometimes they was horrible, horrible beyond words.
17:53
Speaker 1: And once he came to a place called Piccadilly, Teddy,
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Speaker 1: and there was lights blazing like daylight, and ladies and
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Speaker 1: gentlemen and splendid clothes crowd in the pavement, and taxicabs
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Speaker 1: following along the road. And as he looked, they all
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Speaker 1: went evil, evil in the face, Teddy, And it seemed
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Speaker 1: to him suddenly they saw him, and the women began
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Speaker 1: to look at him and say things to him, horrible,
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Speaker 1: wicked things. One come very near him, Teddy, right up
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Speaker 1: to him and looked into his face close, and she
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Speaker 1: hadn't got a face to look with only a painted skull,
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Speaker 1: and then he see they was all painted skulls, And
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Speaker 1: one after another they crowded on him, saying horrible things,
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Speaker 1: and catching at him, and threatening and coaxing him, so
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Speaker 1: that his heart Neil left his body for fear. Yes,
18:46
Speaker 1: gasped Eddy in an unendurable pause. Then it was he
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Speaker 1: remembered the words of scripture and saved himself alive. The
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Speaker 1: Lord is my elper, he says, therefore I will fear nothing.
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Speaker 1: And straight away there had come a cock crowing, and
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Speaker 1: the street was empty from end to end. And after
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Speaker 1: that the Lord was good to him and guarded him home.
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Speaker 1: Teddy steered and caught at another question. But who was
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Speaker 1: the people? He asked, who lived in all these houses?
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Speaker 1: What was they? Gentlemen in business? People with money? Least
19:26
Speaker 1: of ways, we thought it was money till everything smashed up,
19:30
Speaker 1: and then seemingly it was just paper all sorts. While
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Speaker 1: there was hundreds of thousands of them, there was millions.
19:37
Speaker 1: I'll see that the street irregular, so you couldn't walk
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Speaker 1: among the pavements shopping time with women and people shopping.
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Speaker 1: But would they get their food and things bought them?
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Speaker 1: In shops like I used to air. I'll show you
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Speaker 1: the place, Teddy, if we go back. People nowadays haven't
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Speaker 1: no idea of a shop, no idea plate, gloves, windows.
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Speaker 1: It's all Greek to them. I've had as much as
20:03
Speaker 1: a ton and hour for potatoes to handle all at
20:06
Speaker 1: the same time. You'd open your eyes till they dropped
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Speaker 1: out to see just what I used to have in
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Speaker 1: my shop. Baskets are pears eaped up, marras, apples and pears,
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Speaker 1: delicious gripe nuts. His voice became luscious bananas, oranges? What's bananas,
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Speaker 1: asked the boy? And oranges fruits? They was sweet, joicy,
20:36
Speaker 1: delicious fruits. Foreign fruits. They bought them from Spain and
20:41
Speaker 1: New York and places and ships and things. They brought
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Speaker 1: them to me from all over the world, and I
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Speaker 1: sold them in my shop. I sold them, Teddy, me,
20:50
Speaker 1: what goes about now? With you dressed up in old
20:53
Speaker 1: sacks and looking for lost ends? People used to commit
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Speaker 1: the moist shop great beautiful ladies like you already dream
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Speaker 1: of now, dressed up to the nines, and say where,
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Speaker 1: mister smallways, what you go this morning? And I'd say
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Speaker 1: where I got some very nice Canadian apples, or perhaps
21:11
Speaker 1: I got custard marrors see and they'd buy them right off.
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Speaker 1: They'd say, send me some up, Lord, What a life.
21:19
Speaker 1: That was the business of it, the bustle, the small
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Speaker 1: things you saw, multi cars going by, carriages, people, organ grinders,
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Speaker 1: German bands, or is something going past auras? If it
21:34
Speaker 1: wasn't for those empty houses, I'd think it was all
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Speaker 1: a dream. But what killed all the people, Uncle, asked Teddy.
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Speaker 1: It was a mashup, said old Tom. Everything was going
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Speaker 1: right till they started that war. Everything was going like clockwork.
21:53
Speaker 1: Everybody was busy, and everybody was happy, and everybody got
21:57
Speaker 1: a good square meal every day. He met incredulous eyes everybody,
22:03
Speaker 1: he said firmly. If you couldn't get it anywhere else,
22:06
Speaker 1: you could get it in the workhouse, a nice ut
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Speaker 1: bowl of soup called skilly, and bread better than any
22:11
Speaker 1: one knows how to make now, regular white bread, government bread.
22:17
Speaker 1: Teddy marveled, but said nothing. It made him feel deep
22:21
Speaker 1: longings that he found it wisest to fight down. For
22:26
Speaker 1: a time, the old man resigned himself to the pleasures
22:29
Speaker 1: of gustitory reminiscence. His lips moved, pickled salmon, he whispered,
22:36
Speaker 1: and vinegar, Dutch cheese, beer, a piper tobaccer. But how
22:46
Speaker 1: did those people get killed, asked Teddy. Presently there was
22:50
Speaker 1: the war. The war was the beginning of it. The
22:54
Speaker 1: war banged and flummexed about, but it didn't really kill
22:57
Speaker 1: many people, but it upset things. They came and set
23:02
Speaker 1: fire to London and burnt and sank all the ships
23:05
Speaker 1: there used to be in the Thames. We're gonna see
23:08
Speaker 1: the smoke and stained for weeks. And they threw a
23:10
Speaker 1: bomb into the Crystal Palace and made a bust up
23:13
Speaker 1: and broke down the rail lines and things like that.
23:16
Speaker 1: But as for killing people, it was just accidental. If
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Speaker 1: they did, they killed each other more. There was a
23:23
Speaker 1: great fight all here about one day up in the air,
23:28
Speaker 1: great things bigger than fifty houses, bigger than the Crystal Palace,
23:33
Speaker 1: bigger bigger than anything, flying about up in the air
23:35
Speaker 1: and whacking at each other, and dead men falling off.
23:38
Speaker 1: It terrific. But it wasn't so much the people they
23:42
Speaker 1: killed as the businesses they stopped. There wasn't any business doing, Teddy.
23:47
Speaker 1: There wasn't any money about and nothing to buy. If
23:51
Speaker 1: you at it. But how did the people get killed?
23:55
Speaker 1: Said the little boy in the pause. I'm telling you,
23:58
Speaker 1: Teddy said the old man. Was there stopping a business
24:01
Speaker 1: that come next. Suddenly they didn't seem to be any money.
24:05
Speaker 1: There was checks, there was a bit of paper written
24:08
Speaker 1: on and they was just as good as money, just
24:11
Speaker 1: as good as they come from customers. You knew. Then
24:14
Speaker 1: all of a sudden they wasn't. I was left with
24:17
Speaker 1: three of them and two given change. Then he got
24:20
Speaker 1: about that five pound notes were no good, and then
24:23
Speaker 1: the silver sort of went off. Gold you couldn't get
24:26
Speaker 1: for love or anything. The banks in London had got it,
24:30
Speaker 1: and the banks was all mashed up. Everybody went bankrupt.
24:34
Speaker 1: Everybody was thrown out of work, everybody. He paused and
24:41
Speaker 1: scrutinized his hero. The small boy's intelligent face expressed hopeless perplexity.
24:50
Speaker 1: That's how it happened, said Tom. He sought for some
24:54
Speaker 1: means of expression. It was like stubborn a clock, he said.
24:59
Speaker 1: Things were quiet for a bit, deadly quiet, except for
25:02
Speaker 1: the airships fighting about in the sky, and then people
25:05
Speaker 1: begun to get excited. I remember my large customer, the
25:09
Speaker 1: very large customer ever I had. He was a mister
25:12
Speaker 1: Moses Gluckstein, a city gent and very pleasant and fond
25:16
Speaker 1: of sparrowgrass and chokes. And he cut in, there hadn't
25:21
Speaker 1: been no customers for days, and began to talk pretty fast,
25:25
Speaker 1: offering me for everything I had, anything, potatoes or anything.
25:29
Speaker 1: It's weight in gold. He said it was a little
25:31
Speaker 1: speculation he wanted to try. He said it was a
25:34
Speaker 1: sort of bet, really, and very likely he'd loses, but
25:38
Speaker 1: never mind that he wanted to try. He always had
25:40
Speaker 1: been a gambler, he said. He said, I only got
25:43
Speaker 1: to weigh it out, and he'd give me a check
25:45
Speaker 1: right away. That led to a bit of an argument,
25:49
Speaker 1: perfect respectful, it was, but an argument about whether a
25:52
Speaker 1: check was still good. And while he was explaining to
25:55
Speaker 1: come by a lot of these ear unemployed with a
25:58
Speaker 1: great banner. They had everyone to read. Everyone could read
26:02
Speaker 1: in those days. We want food, so we are four
26:05
Speaker 1: of them. Suddenly turns and comes into my shop. Got
26:08
Speaker 1: any food, says one? No, I says, not to sell.
26:12
Speaker 1: I wish I had, but if I had, I'm afraid
26:14
Speaker 1: I couldn't let you have it. This gent he's been
26:16
Speaker 1: offering me, mister Gluckstein, He tried to stop me, but
26:19
Speaker 1: it was too late. What's he been offering you? Says
26:22
Speaker 1: a great big chap with a hatchet. What's he been
26:25
Speaker 1: offering you? Oh? I had to tell boys. He said,
26:29
Speaker 1: here's another fiend and seer. And they took him out
26:33
Speaker 1: there and then and hung him on a lamp post
26:34
Speaker 1: down the street. He never lifted a finger to resist.
26:38
Speaker 1: After I told on him, he never said a word.
26:42
Speaker 1: Tom meditated, first base, first chap I ever seen hung?
26:46
Speaker 1: He said, how old was you? Asked Teddy? About thirty,
26:52
Speaker 1: said old Tom. What I saw free pig stealers hung
26:57
Speaker 1: before I was six, said Teddy. Overtook me because of
27:01
Speaker 1: my birthday being near, said I ought to be blooded. Well,
27:06
Speaker 1: you never saw no one killed by a MOLTI car anyhow,
27:09
Speaker 1: said the old Tom, after a moment of chagrin. And
27:12
Speaker 1: you never saw no dead men carried into a chemist's shop.
27:17
Speaker 1: Teddy's momentary triumph faded. No, he said, I haven't, No,
27:23
Speaker 1: I won't, no, won't. You'll never see the things I've seen.
27:26
Speaker 1: Never not have you lived to be a hundred. But
27:29
Speaker 1: as I was saying, that's how the famine and the
27:32
Speaker 1: roy and began, then there was strikes and socialism things
27:36
Speaker 1: I never did, oh with worse and worse. There was
27:40
Speaker 1: fighting and shooting down and burning and plundering. They broke
27:44
Speaker 1: up the banks up in London and got the gold,
27:48
Speaker 1: but they couldn't make food out of gold. How did
27:50
Speaker 1: we get on? Well, we kept quiet. We didn't interfere
27:54
Speaker 1: with no one, and no one didn't interfere with us.
27:57
Speaker 1: We had some old tatus about. Mostly we lived on rats.
28:02
Speaker 1: Ours was an old house full of rats, and the
28:05
Speaker 1: family never seen to bother them. Often we get a
28:08
Speaker 1: rat often that most of the people who lived hereabouts
28:11
Speaker 1: was too tender stomach for rats, didn't seem to fancy him.
28:15
Speaker 1: They'd been used to all sorts of falals, and they
28:19
Speaker 1: didn't take the honest feeding, not till it was too late.
28:24
Speaker 1: Died Raber. It was a family began to kill people
28:29
Speaker 1: even before the Purple Death come along. There was dying
28:32
Speaker 1: like flies at the end of summer. Oh, I remember
28:36
Speaker 1: it all. I was one of the first to have it.
28:40
Speaker 1: I was out seeing if I mightn't get old of
28:43
Speaker 1: a cat or something, And then I went round to
28:46
Speaker 1: my bit of ground to see whether I couldn't get
28:48
Speaker 1: up some young turnips. I'd forgot and I took something awful,
28:53
Speaker 1: you know, idea, the pain Teddy. It doubled me up
28:57
Speaker 1: pretty near. I just lay down by it the corner,
29:01
Speaker 1: and your aunt come along to look for me and
29:03
Speaker 1: drag me home like a sack. I'd never have got
29:07
Speaker 1: better if it hadn't been for your Aunt Tom. She
29:09
Speaker 1: says to me, you gotta get well, and I had
29:13
Speaker 1: to that. She's sickened. She's sickened, but there ain't much
29:16
Speaker 1: dying about your aunt, Lord, she says, as if I'd
29:20
Speaker 1: leave you to go muddling along alone, That's what she says.
29:24
Speaker 1: She's got a tongue as you're ant. But it took
29:26
Speaker 1: her air off and our stow I might She's never
29:30
Speaker 1: cared for the wig I got her off. The old
29:33
Speaker 1: lady that was in the vicarage garden, well this he
29:37
Speaker 1: had purple death. It just wiped people out. Teddy. You
29:41
Speaker 1: couldn't bury him, and it took the dogs and the
29:43
Speaker 1: cats too, and the rats and horses. At last, every
29:47
Speaker 1: house and garden was full of dead bodies. London Way.
29:50
Speaker 1: You couldn't go for the smell up there, and we
29:54
Speaker 1: had to move out of the high street and into
29:56
Speaker 1: the villa we got, and all the water runs short
30:00
Speaker 1: that way. The drains and underground tunnels took it. Lord
30:05
Speaker 1: knows where the Purple Death come from. Some say one thing,
30:08
Speaker 1: and some another. Some said it come from eating rats,
30:12
Speaker 1: and some from eating nothing. Some says the Asiatics brought
30:16
Speaker 1: it from some high place Tibet. I think where it
30:21
Speaker 1: never did nobody much arm. All I know is it
30:24
Speaker 1: come after the famine, and their famine came after the panic,
30:28
Speaker 1: and the Pennic came after the war. Teddy thought, what
30:35
Speaker 1: made the Purple death? He asked, Heaven, I told you,
30:40
Speaker 1: But why did they have a panic? They added, And
30:45
Speaker 1: why did they start the war? Well, they couldn't stop theirselves.
30:50
Speaker 1: Having them airships made him and out of the war. End.
30:55
Speaker 1: Lord knows if it's ended, boy, said old Tom. Lord
30:59
Speaker 1: knows if it's ended. There's been travelers through here. There
31:03
Speaker 1: was a chap only two summers ago. Say it's going
31:05
Speaker 1: on still. They say there's bands of people up north
31:09
Speaker 1: who keep on with it, and people in Germany and
31:11
Speaker 1: China and Mexico and places. He said, they still got
31:17
Speaker 1: flying machines and gas and things. We haven't seen nothing
31:20
Speaker 1: in the air now for seven years and nobody hasn't
31:23
Speaker 1: come nigh of us. Last we saw was a crumpled
31:26
Speaker 1: sort of airship going away over there. It was a
31:29
Speaker 1: little sized thing, and lopsided, as though it had something
31:32
Speaker 1: the matter with it. He pointed, and came to a
31:37
Speaker 1: stop at a gap in the fence, the vestiges of
31:40
Speaker 1: the old fence, from which, in the company of his neighbor,
31:43
Speaker 1: mister Stringer, the Milkman, he had once watched the South
31:46
Speaker 1: of England Aero Club Saturday afternoons. Since dim memories it
31:52
Speaker 1: may be of that particular afternoon returned to him. There
31:58
Speaker 1: down there, we're all that rush looked so red and
32:01
Speaker 1: bright as the gas works. What's gas? Asked the little boy. Oh,
32:08
Speaker 1: Harry saw or nothing that you put in balloons to
32:11
Speaker 1: make him go up, and then you used to burn
32:14
Speaker 1: it till the electricity come. Little boy tried vainly to
32:18
Speaker 1: imagine gas on the basis of these particulars. Then his
32:22
Speaker 1: thoughts reverted to a previous topic. But why didn't they
32:27
Speaker 1: end the war obstinacy? Everybody was getting hurt, But everybody
32:34
Speaker 1: was hurting, and everybody was a spirited and patriotic and
32:37
Speaker 1: so they smashed up things instead. They just went on smashing,
32:42
Speaker 1: and afterwards they just got desperate and savage. It ought
32:47
Speaker 1: to have ended, said the little boy. It didn't ought
32:52
Speaker 1: to have begun, said old Tom. The people was proud.
32:57
Speaker 1: People was lardy, darrish, uppish and proud. Too much meat
33:02
Speaker 1: and drink, they add, give in, not them, And after
33:07
Speaker 1: a bit nobody asked them to give in. Nobody asked them.
33:13
Speaker 1: He sucked his old gums thoughtfully, and his gaze strayed
33:17
Speaker 1: away across the valley to where the shattered glass of
33:20
Speaker 1: the Crystal Palace glittered in the sun. A dim, large
33:26
Speaker 1: sense of waste and irrevocable lost opportunities pervaded his mind.
33:32
Speaker 1: He repeated his ultimate judgment upon all these things, obstinately,
33:39
Speaker 1: slowly and conclusively, his final saying upon the matter. You're
33:47
Speaker 1: can say what you like. He said. It didn't ought
33:50
Speaker 1: ever to have begun. He said it simply somebody somewhere
33:58
Speaker 1: ought to have stopped something. For who or how or
34:03
Speaker 1: why were all beyond his ken End of War in
34:10
Speaker 1: the Air by H. G. Wells