_October 25_: F came aboard with the other scientists and immediately
wanted to know why we didnt set sail. I asked her if her work could be
carried on any more easily at sea. She shrugged her shoulders. I pointed
out that only rats leave a sinking ship and England was far from
overcome. She favored me with one of her fixed stares.
"You are dithery, Weener. Your epigrams have lost their jaunty air of
discovery and your face is almost green."
"You would not expect me to remain unaffected by the events around us,
Miss Francis."
"Wouldnt I?" she retorted incomprehensibly and went below to her
cabin-laboratory.
The Grass is reported in Essex and Hertfordshire. I understand there are
at least two other ships equipped for research and manned by English
scientists. It would serve F right if they perfected a counteragent
first.
October 26: Have ordered our accompanying ships to lie offshore, lest
they be boarded by fearcrazed refugees, for the Grass is now in the
vicinity of London and England is in a horrible state.
October 27: BBC transmitting from Penzance. Faint.
_101._ _November 3_: On board the _Sisyphus_ off Scilly. The last days
of England have passed. Heightening the horror, the BBC in its final
moments forwent its policy of soothing its listeners and urging calmness
upon them. Instead, it organized an amazing news service, using
thousands of pigeons carrying messages from eyewitnesses to the station
at Penzance to give a minutebyminute account of the end. Dispassionately
and detachedly, as though this were some ordinary disaster, announcer
after announcer went on the air and read reports; heartpiercing,
anticlimactic, tragic, trivial, noble and thoroughly English reports....
The people vented their futile rage and terror in mass pyromania.
Building after building, city after city was burned to the ground. But,
according to the BBC, the murderous frenzy of the Continent was not
duplicated. Inanimate things suffered; priceless art objects were kicked
around in the streets, but houses were carefully emptied of inhabitants
before being put to the torch.
These were the spectacular happenings; the emphatic events. Behind them,
and in the majority, were quieter, duller transactions. Churches and
chapels filled with people sitting quiet in pews, meditating; gatherings
in the country, where the participants looked at the sun, earth and sky;
vast meetings in Hyde Park proclaiming the indissoluble brotherhood of
man, even in the face of extinction.
We heard the Queen and her consort remained in Buckingham Palace to the
last, but this may be only romantic rumor. At all events, England is
gone now, after weathering a millennium of unsuccessful invasions. From
where I sit peacefully, bringing my history uptodate and jotting these
notes in my diary, I can see, faintly with the naked eye or quite
distinctly through a telescope, that emerald gem set in a silver sea.
The great cities are covered; the barren moors, the lovely lakes, the
gentle streams, the forbidding crags are all mantled in one grassy
sward. England is gone, and with it the world. What few men of
forethought who have taken to ships, what odd survivors there may be in
arctic wastes or on lofty Andean or Himalayan peaks, together with the
complement of the _Sisyphus_ and its accompanying escort are all that
survive of humanity. It is an awesome thought.
_Later_: Reading this over it seems almost as though I had been untrue
to my fundamental philosophy. The world has gone, vanished; but perhaps
it is for the best, afterall. We shall start again in a few days with a
clean slate, picking up from where we left off--for we have books and
tools and men of learning and intelligence--to start a new and better
world the moment the Grass retreats. I am heartened by the thought.
Below, Miss Francis and her coworkers are striving for the solution.
After the last experiment there can be no question as to the outcome. An
hour ago I would have written that it was deplorable this outcome
couldnt be achieved before the latest victory of the Grass. Now I begin
to believe it may be a lucky delay.
_November 4_: What meaning have dates now? We shall have to have a new
calendar--Before the Grass and After the Grass.
_November 5_: Moved by some incomprehensible morbidity I had a stainless
steel chest, complete with floats, made before embarkation in order to
place the manuscript and diary in it should the impossible happen. I
have it now on the deck beside me as a reminder never to give way to a
weak despair. F promises me it is a matter of days if not hours till we
can return to our native element.
_November 8_: Another test. Almost completely successful. F certain the
next one will do it. My emotions are exhausted.
_November 9_: I have completed my history of the Grass down to the
commencement of this diary. I shall take a wellearned rest from my
literary labors for a few days. F announces a new test--"the final one,
Weener, the final one"--for tomorrow.
_November 10_: Experiment with the now perfected compound has been put
off one more day. F is completely calm and confident of the outcome. She
is below now, making lastminute preparations. For the first time she has
infected me with her certitude--although I never doubted ultimate
success--and I feel tomorrow will actually see the beginning of the end
for the Grass which started so long ago on Mrs Dinkman's lawn. How far I
and the world have come since then!
Would I go back to that day if I had the power? It seems an absurd
question, but there is no doubt we who have survived have gained
spiritual stature. Of course I do not mean anything mystical or
supernatural by this observation--we have acquired heightened
sensitivity and new perceptions. Brother Paul, ridiculous mountebank,
was yet correct in this--the Grass chastised us rightly. Whatever sins
mankind committed have been wiped out and expiated.
_Later_: We are out of sight of land; nothing but sea and sky, no green
anywhere. On the eve of liberation all sorts of absurd and irrelevant
thoughts jump about in my mind. The strange lady ... Joe's symphony,
burned by his mother. Whatever happened to William Rufus Le ffaçasé
after he eschewed his profession for superstition? And Mrs Dinkman? For
some annoying reason I am beset with the thought of Mrs Dinkman.
I can see her pincenez illadjusted on her nose. I can hear her
highpitched complaining voice bargaining with me over the cost of
inoculating her lawn. The ugly stuff of her tasteless dress is before my
eyes. It is so real to me I swear I can see the poor, irregular lines of
the weaving.
_Still later_: I have sat here in a dull lethargy, undoubtedly induced
by my overwrought state, quite understandable in the light of what is to
happen in a few hours, my eyes on the seams of the deck, reviewing all
the things I have written in my book, preparing myself, a way, for the
glorious and triumphant finish. But I am beset by delusions. A moment
ago it was the figure of Mrs Dinkman and now--
And now, by all the horror that has overcome mankind, it is a waving,
creeping, insatiable runner of the Grass.
_Again_: I have made no attempt to pinch off the green stolon. It must
be three inches long by now and the slim end is waving in the wind,
seeking for a suitable spot to assure its hold doubly. I touched it with
my hand, but I could not bring myself to harm it.
I managed to drag my eyes away from the plant and go below to see Miss
Francis. I stood outside the cabin for a long time, listening to the
noise and laughter, coupled with a note of triumph I had never heard
before and which I'm sure indicates indubitable success. There can be no
question of that.
There can be no question of that.
The stolon has pressed itself into another seam.
The blades are very green. They have opened themselves to the sun and
are sucking strength for the new shoots. I have put my manuscript into
the casket which floats, leaving it open for this diary if it should be
necessary. But of course such a contingency is absurd.
Absolutely absurd.
The Grass has found another seam in the deck.