Carter chuckled.
* * * * *
It was a twenty-five mile sail to Rollins Island. The Jackson boys and
I loaded the boat with clothing mostly. Food was stored on the island.
I took along four pairs of oyster rakes, I didn't have the heart to
leave them behind. And Bill and Joy took a huge ball of linen twine,
ropes, corks, rings, all the makings for a drift net.
Unexpectedly, Carter showed up at the last minute by helicopter to see
us off. He jumped up on the wharf smiling.
"About those chickens," he said, "they're condemned stock of course.
Better take them along. And keep an eye on them. Want to know how they
make out in a new environment."
Then he took me aside and handed me a small book.
"Lot of information in this. Written by a small animal ecologist. Read
it. Read it carefully. Think about it. Read it again, and think some
more. Got that?"
I said, "Sure. I'll read it." I had the notion he was trying to get
something over without actually coming out with it flat, so I listened
carefully.
He paused for a while, wiping his glasses and pursing his lips.
"That island's not right for fulmars and gannets. Wrong environment.
Never have multiplied as they should. Whole thing should be
concentrated north. Plenty of cliff sites north. None here. Won't do.
Terns, yes. Fulmars and gannets, no. Trouble is, WFI is tenacious.
Stupidly so. It works, they say. I tell them it works badly. It's going
to take a lot to move them: total failure of a colony or two.
"You're intelligent, George. Put two and two together. Wish you luck."
He shook my hand quickly and jumped into the helicopter. Bill and Joy
had to call me twice before I could come out of a trance of bewildered
speculation. In a daze I helped the boys load our last piece of
equipment: a huge barrel of salt they had pilfered from the local Food
Plant.
* * * * *
The island is big, about five by fifteen miles, and it must have been
a fine piece of land. It still was, even though mucked everywhere with
white-to-greenish bird dung. There were steep hills on the mainland
side, marshes to seaward, and in the middle natural meadowland broken
by woods containing pine, and some beech and maple. We moored in a
small but fairly deep harbor at a wharf for loading foods. Our barracks
stood just off the wharf. In addition to all the necessities, there was
a two-way radio, marked "Use in emergency only", and a handbook with
information on approximate numbers of birds to be taken, locations
of nesting sites, and so on. Equipment, including snares and nets,
was stored in an equipment room. And there was a storeroom containing
packaged foods, no freezing or cooling necessary for preservation.
Behind the barracks stood a warehouse for storing processed birds, and
a shop with the processors themselves. Everything looked orderly and
efficient. A small plant supplied us with light and heat and power for
the machines.
We arrived in November. By December, the first sea birds began to
return to their nesting sites, a few at a time. Soon we were so busy
snagging them as they came to land that we had little time for anything
but work and sleep. Even so, Bill took the time to salt several dozens
of gannets and fulmars for future eating, and he was looking forward to
the eggs.
Spring and early summer soon rolled around, and we were collecting
young birds, the nestlings. So it went.
I can't say any of us liked the work. For one thing we all sickened
of the endless slaughter. For another, the stench and dirt were
overwhelming. The island should have been a fine place for living.
There were sheltered spots for houses, a small harbor, woodlots,
meadows for cattle and pigs, some bottom land for food crops, the sea
for fish--a fine location; but it was ruined by birds. It was a slimy,
stinking hell.
The birds flew everywhere in huge flocks, especially in the morning
when the gannets and fulmars came back from fishing at sea. Excrement
fell from the sky like a stinking sleet. We couldn't get away from the
smell or the smell away from us. It was in our clothing, hair, under
our fingernails. No watermen ever washed so often or so thoroughly as
we did, but the stink remained. We lost weight and appetite steadily,
for the packaged food tasted of excrement soon after it was opened, or
seemed to, which is just as bad.
However, by the end of June most of the birds had left, and we had our
helicopter inspection. The same man who was fascinated by the cold
remains of a couple of eggs in my kitchen was on this route, and we
cooked three or four of our chickens. His enormous appetite sharpened
ours, and we had a feast. He was almost tearfully grateful. By July,
the freighter had put in, loaded, and left. For the first time in many
months, we were unoccupied.
Bill and Joy immediately set about knitting a large drift net. They
were happily excited at the prospect of gilling large numbers of
government fish. As for me, I sat down to read a book on small animal
ecology.
I read that book through three times. I kept at it night and day, and
it was the hardest work I've ever done, because I wasn't reading just
to pass the time. There was a message in that book, I was sure of it, a
message from Carter, a man I liked and trusted.
By the time I began to get a glimmering of an idea as to what Carter's
message was, the boys had their net knitted and hung. I went back to
the book to find out what to do about this idea, and the boys sailed
out to drift the net. I waited for them in a sweat of impatience. They
came back at dawn the next day with a boat load of food fish. I met
them at the wharf.
"Bill," I said, "what are you going to do with that load of fish?"
Bill looked at the fish. He said with slow and tremendous satisfaction,
"I aim to eat them fish, George Henry."
"Bill," I said, "not even you can eat all those fish. I've got a
scheme. Save back some of the fish, sure. Let Joy smoke a few even. But
take the rest into Murdock tonight and sell them to Hornsby. He used to
buy my oysters. He'll buy your fish."
"What for?" Bill asked.
"Get some bootleg gin," I said.
"That makes sense. What else?"
"Rats," I said. "I want rats. Buy some traps or get Pete Younger to
make some. Not muskrats. Barn rats. As many as you can catch."
"Fish," Bill said. "Fish for rats. Boy, the birds has got you."
He gave in after a while, more to keep me good natured than for any
other reason, that and the gin. He came back with two dozen live,
healthy specimens, and watched with an open mouth as I let them loose.
* * * * *
The months passed, and I was worried. To drive the problem from my
head, I took the boat out and surveyed the shallow waters off the
island. I found something. I found a bed of oysters in broken rock,
a bed not marked on WFI charts, because you could see it hadn't been
worked for a long time. Later, I located clam beds on the marshy side
of the island. The damn place was a paradise, or might be, once those
birds were cut down, but I couldn't eliminate them by sheer slaughter
because of the WFI.
There didn't seem to be many rats around. December came and all the
filthy, stinking work with it, and still no rats. Once in a while, eggs
would be missing from occupied nests, and that was all. Gulls could
have gotten those. We toiled through stinking February, foul March,
odiferous April, and evil-smelling May. Still no rats.
I sent Bill back to the mainland for more; and by September, rats were
everywhere. Bill looked at me from his bunk one night and said, "I hope
you're satisfied."
I was more than that. I was terrified. They absolutely swarmed. It
was impossible to walk from the barracks to the boat at mid-day
without having to kick rats off the path. They consumed most of the
non-metallic gear in the boat, including the sail. So far, they hadn't
gnawed a way into our barracks store room, or we'd have literally
starved to death.
"Boys," I said, "just sit tight. Wait till December. These rats are the
best friends you ever had. They're going to make this island livable.
No more stink and stench."
"What," said Bill, "are you going to do with the rats when the birds
are gone?"
Joy merely moaned.
"We'll kill them."
"If they don't get us first," Bill said.
It was an awesome and bloody slaughter. The fulmars and gannets, most
of the gulls, some of the terns, were either wiped out or harried
off the island in a single season. And the island became a heaving,
moving, revolting mass of rats, and nothing but rats. They attacked us
on sight, from sheer hunger. Not a blade of grass grew anywhere on the
island, and rats are not grass eaters as an ordinary thing. There was
one hopeful sign. They were beginning to eat each other.
Day after day we were caged in our barracks. The constant squealing and
scratching under the barracks was bad enough. What made us desperate
was the fact that they had gnawed a way into the store room and most of
the packaged food was gone. We still had some smoked fish hung on the
rafters, and a few salted fulmars in the barrel, but that was all. It
was then that we remembered the two-way radio, marked "Use in emergency
only". Bill said, after weighing all the evidence coolly and carefully,
that this here, in his opinion, was an emergency.
I got WFI mainland and finally persuaded them to put me in touch
with Carter, Bird Stations Ecologist. I told him we were having a
little trouble with the genus Rattus, and would he, for God's sake,
do something about it, quick. I can still near him laughing. It was a
while before he could speak at all.
"Keep them at bay, general. I'll be over early tomorrow morning."
I don't believe any men have ever been so happy to see Carter as we
were.
"They'll balance," he said. "Starvation will do its work. I've brought
along a couple of pairs of barn owls. They'll help a lot. I see you
read that ecology book. Good job. Station virtually wiped out. I'm
sending supplies over in a week's time. Anybody wants to know, you're
supposed to be helping extend and restore the tern and gull colonies.
Wouldn't be a bad idea to try a few other animal experiments. Milder,
though. Smaller scale. Send canvas for a sail too."
He was gone before we could answer. The small freighter put in July
fifteenth. She had no cargo of processed birds to take back, of course.
The captain detailed a few men to unload our supplies, and we helped
them eagerly. There were six calves and heifers, two cows and a bull,
five pigs, one boar and two sows, several dozen hens and a rooster.
Best of all, there was a big case containing seeds: corn, barley, oats,
seed potatoes, melons, beets, kale, dozens of others. A plow and two
draught horses, mare and stallion. Several pounds of rat poison. A hand
forge and several tons of coke. Iron. A hundred pounds of linen twine
for nets, as well as ropes of all sizes. Canvas. Tools of all kinds. A
big medical kit.
* * * * *
In a year's time, we had prospered. No richer land, due to the bird
droppings, was ever farmed. And the sandier areas could be depended
upon for melons and other crops demanding a lighter, drier, and not
so rich soil. Not only that, but we were five, now, instead of three.
The Jackson boys had lured a couple of husky girls to the island in the
boat. The boys claimed the women fell in love with them. I think they
fell in love with the island.
This fast work on the part of the Jacksons seemed a little rash to me.
I was still not at all sure we'd be allowed to remain and enjoy the
work we had done. Several times, I was tempted to use the radio again,
but decided to wait. I'm glad now I did.
* * * * *
In August, a little more than a year after his last visit, Carter set
his helicopter down at the wharf again.
After lunch in the barracks of baked fish, fresh milk, potatoes, salad,
and melons, he pushed back his chair and said, "I suppose you've been
wondering."
"We'd like to know," I said.
He nodded. "The mainland's going to pieces. So is the whole world. It
isn't just food. We can still produce that. Remember what you said
about the bad roads, bad telephones? You put your finger on it. So
much manpower, machinery, energy, material is used up in getting food
and processing it and distributing it, there isn't enough for other
things. A tenth of the world's population and a quarter of its total
power resources go into processing plankton alone. We are literally
eating ourselves to death. Utilities and services are breaking down
rapidly. No new dwellings of any kind have been built for ten years
or more. Oil is short, cement, iron, steel, coal, plastics, wiring,
radios, telephones, everything is in short supply and getting shorter.
Transport is staggering to a halt."
He paused, took off his glasses, and twirled them by one side piece.
"Many of us saw it coming. A few decided to do something. We thought
there should be undisturbed nuclei, a few able people with ample food
supplies. You are one such center. There are others at various bird
stations along the coast. You'll be joined shortly by a few more
people, young men and women, among them a trained nurse, a doctor, a
skilled carpenter, so on."
Bill cleared his throat.
"What you said, I guess it was all around me, only I never seen it, not
to put together. Just one thing. The manager at the Food Plant, he used
to stop and kid me about all the fish I'd stole from the government in
my time. He was abraggin' about how WFI had newer and better ways of
gettin' things done, always newer and better every year. How come they
couldn't keep caught up?"
"Bill, those new techniques that manager talked about were old stuff a
hundred, two hundred years ago. The applications are new, some of them,
but the basic ideas are old.
"The World Food Institute drew off all the scientific, inventive brains
of the world, and put them to chasing food. No time for basic research,
basic development; just time for tinkering and retinkering old ideas.
Been no new basic idea for a couple of centuries. Too much need for
immediate, practical results. The well is dry, and it won't be filled
again with a reservoir of new, big ideas, not in our time. Been living
off the past; and the present has caught up with us."
* * * * *
Before Carter left the island to visit the other stations, I had a
chance to have a talk with him.
"Was that sociologist, Ranson, in on this?"
"No. We had to be careful. Still have to be. Just a few of us. That's
why the loss of the bird colonies here had to seem natural, or at least
a natural accident. And I had to keep clear of it. You can see that."
"Carter, what happens on the mainland when things break up?"
"Won't be pretty. Bad. Very bad."
"For example?"
"You read the ecology book. What happens when a species multiplies
beyond its ability to feed itself?"
* * * * *
A dozen new Rollins Islanders showed up a few at a time in Carter's
helicopter. We've been working and waiting a long time now, waiting for
Carter to come back. For over a year now, our boat has made no crossing
to the mainland. Last night, over twenty-five miles of sea in clear
weather, we saw the sky lit by a great fire.
I haven't forgotten those rats. I dream about them, tearing one another
with bloody fangs.