Then there were the triffids patiently waiting. I could see hundreds of them in a dark green hedge beyond the fence. There must be research—some natural enemy, some poison, a debalancer of some kind, something must be found to deal with them; there must be relief from other work for that—and soon. Time was on the triffids’ side. They had only to go on waiting while we used up our resources. First no more fuel, then no more wire to mend the fences… And they, or their descendants, would still be waiting there when the wire rusted through…
And yet Shirning had become our home. I sighed.
There was a light step on the grass. Josella came and sat down beside me. I put an arm round her shoulders.
“What do they think about it?” I asked her.
“They’re badly upset, poor things. It must be hard for them to understand how the triffids wait like that when they can’t see them. And then they can find their way about here, you see. It must be dreadful to have to contemplate going to an entirely strange place when you’re blind. They only know what we tell them. I don’t think they properly understand how impossible it will become here. If it weren’t for the children, I believe they’d say ‘No,’ flatly. It’s their place, you see, all they have left. They feel that very much.” She paused, then she added: “They think that—but, of course, it’s not really their place at all; it’s ours, isn’t it? We’ve worked hard for it.” She put her hand on mine. “You’ve made it and kept it for us, Bill. What do you think? Shall we stay a year or two longer?”
“No,” I said. “I worked because everything seemed to depend on me. Now it seems—rather futile.”
“Oh, darling, don’t! A knight-errant isn’t futile. You’ve fought for all of us, and kept the dragons away.”
“It’s mostly the children,” I said.
“Yes—the children,” she agreed.
“And all the time, you know, I’ve been haunted by Coker—the first generation, laborers; the next, savages…I think we had better admit defeat before it comes, and go now.”
She pressed my hand.
“Not defeat, Bill dear, just a—what’s the phrase?—a strategic withdrawal. We withdraw to work and plan for the day when we can come back. One day we will. You’ll show us how to wipe out every one of these foul triffids and get our land back from them for us.”
“You’ve a lot of faith, darling.”
“And why not?”
“Well, at least I’ll be fighting them. But, first, we go—when?”
“Do you think we could let them have the summer out here? It could be a sort of holiday for all of us—with no preparations to make for the winter. We deserve a holiday, too.”
“I should think we could do that,” I agreed.
We sat, watching the valley dissolve in the dusk. Josella said:
“It’s queer, Bill. Now I can go, I don’t really want to. Sometimes it’s seemed like prison—but now it seems like treachery to leave it. You see, I—I’ve been happier here than ever in my life before, in spite of everything.”
“As for me, my sweet, I wasn’t even alive before. But we’ll have better times yet—I promise you.”
“It’s silly, but I shall cry when we do go. I shall cry buckets. You mustn’t mind,” she said.
But, as things fell out, we were all of us much too busy to cry…
STRATEGIC WITHDRAWAL
There was, as Josella had implied, no need for hurry. While we saw the summer out at Shirning, I could prospect a new home for us on the island and make several journeys there to transport the most useful part of the stores and gear that we had collected. But, meanwhile, the woodpile had been destroyed. We needed no more fuel than would keep the kitchen going for a few weeks, but that we had to have, so the next morning Susan and I set off to fetch coal.