“Where do we go now?” inquired Susan.
“That,” I acknowledged, “is just the trouble. It’s somewhere over there.” I waved my arm toward the misty line of the Downs, to the south.
I had been trying hard to recall just what else Josella had said of the place, but I could remember no more than that the house stood on the north side of the hills, and I had the impression that it faced across the low, marshy country that separated them from Pulborough. Now that I had come so far, it seemed a pretty vague instruction: the Downs stretched away for miles to the east and to the west.
“Maybe the first thing to do is to see if we can find any smoke across there,” I suggested.
“It’s awfully difficult to see anything at all in the rain,” Susan said practically, and quite rightly.
Half an hour later the rain obligingly held off for a while. We left the truck and sat on a wall side by side. We studied the lower slopes of the hills carefully for some time, but neither Susan’s sharp eyes nor my field glasses could discover any trace of smoke or signs of activity. Then it started to rain again.
“I’m hungry,” said Susan.
Food was a matter of trifling interest to me just then. Now that I was so near, my anxiety to know whether my guess had been right overcame everything else. While Susan was still eating I took the truck a little way up the hill behind us to get a more extensive view. In between showers, and in a worsening light, we scanned the opposite hills again, without result. There was no life or movement in the whole valley, save for a few cattle and sheep and an occasional triffid lurching across the fields below.
An idea came to me, and I decided to go down to the village. I was reluctant to take Susan, for I knew the place would be unpleasant, but I could not leave her where she was. When we got there I found that the sights affected her less than they did me: children have a different convention of the fearful until they have been taught the proper things to be shocked at. The depression was all mine. Susan found more to interest than to disgust her. Any somberness was quite offset by her delight in a scarlet silk macintosh with which she equipped herself in spite of its being several sizes too large. My search, too, was rewarding. I returned to the truck laden with a head lamp like a minor searchlight, which we had found upon an illustrious-looking Rolls-Royce.
I rigged the thing up on a kind of pivot beside the cab window and made it ready to plug in. When that was ready there was nothing to do but wait for darkness and hope that the rain would let up.
By the time it was fully dark the raindrops had become a mere spatter. I switched on, and sent a magnificent beam piercing the night. Slowly I turned the lamp from side to side, keeping its ray leveled toward the hills, while I anxiously tried to watch the whole line of them simultaneously for an answering light. A dozen times or more I traversed it steadily, switching off for a few seconds at the end of each sweep while we sought the least flicker in the darkness. But each time the night over the hills remained pitchy black. Then the rain came on more heavily again. I set the beam full ahead and sat waiting, listening to the drumming of the drops on the roof of the cab while Susan fell asleep leaning against my arm. An hour passed before the drumming dwindled to a patter, and ceased. Susan woke up as I started the beam taking across again. I had completed the sixth travel when she called out:
“Look, Bill! There it is! There’s a light!”
She was pointing a few degrees left of our front. I switched off our lamp and followed the line of her finger. It was difficult to be sure. If it were not a trick of our eyes, it was something as dim as a distant glowworm. And even as we were looking at it the rain came down on us again in sheets. By the time I had my glasses in my hand there was no view at all.
I hesitated to move. It might be that the light, if it had been a light, would not be visible from lower ground. Once more I trained our light forward and settled down to wait with as much patience as I could manage. Almost another hour passed before the rain cleared again. The moment it did, I switched off our lamp.