Shute, Nevil by What Happened to the Corbetts Read Free Book Online

and all lights were subdued by curtains, but the mere fact of the light being there at all gave promise for the future.
    He visited the chemist, and got his morphia. As he was leaving the shop he ran into a young man whom he knew slightly, who worked in the office of the Town Clerk at the Civic Centre. He talked to him for a few minutes about the state of the city.
    ‘The electricity is pretty straightforward,’ said the young man. ‘It’s on now over a good part of the town. The telephone should be all right tomorrow-we got a line to London restored this afternoon. Gas-Lord knows when we’ll get the gas again. Sewers-well, they work in some parts. But it’s the water that’s the real difficulty now. There’s no water to speak of in any part of the city, and what there is just bubbles up out of the pavements and runs away to waste.’
    He paused. ‘Good class houses have storage tanks, of course-the sort of house that you live in. But some of the poorer parts are in a terrible way for water, really they are. In Chapel and in Northam, down behind the docks, they’ve been scooping up the water from the gutters where it came up out of the road, and drinking that. If this goes on we’ll have to start carting water in from the country.’
    ‘It’s not only Southampton,’ he said. ‘It’s the same all-over. Every city in the country seems to be the same for water. We’re all in the same jam.’
    He swayed a little as he stood, and caught at the chemist’s door. He laughed shortly. ‘I’m about done in, I don’t mind telling you. I’m one of the Air Raid Wardens -I was up all last night. And after that, a day like this in the office … I hope to God that they don’t come again tonight.’
    Corbett went back through the dark, unlighted streets to his house. Joan had a hot meal ready for him; they sat down together. ‘I’d never have believed the town would rally round so well, and get the mess cleared up so quick,’ he said. ‘But everyone’s tired out. If they should come again tonight-it’ll be just too bad.’
    Over their heads the sky seemed full of aeroplanes, passing and re-passing in the night.
    After his supper, Corbett went out to the garden, and dug for another hour at his trench. He was so tired at the end that he could hardly lift the pick; he got down to a depth of about five feet below the surface. Finally he could do no more. He went and got the car and drove it over the flower-beds into the garden, crossing the lawn till it straddled above the trench. Then he went back to the house, utterly exhausted.
    Joan met him in the hall. She had collected in baskets all that they were likely to need during the night: the gasmasks, first-aid kit, food, and whisky. These she had put ready in the hall. Corbett went over to them. ‘God!’ he said. ‘Fancy having to do this sort of thing!’
    They stared at each other in wonder. ‘It’s all happened in so short a time,’ said the girl. ‘Like being in a different world.’
    He nodded. ‘Well, there’s nothing more that we can do. Now we’ve just got to wait for it.’
    She laid her hand upon his arm. ‘You must go to bed and get some sleep, she said. ‘I’m going to sleep upstairs with the children. Get some sleep, anyway, before anything happens. I’ve put a bottle in your bed.’
    He kissed her. ‘You’ll come and wake me if you should hear anything?’
    ‘Of course I will.’
    ‘I wouldn’t take off too many clothes, if I were you,’ he said. ‘Be so that you can get out in a hurry, if we have to.’
    He went upstairs and lay down in his underclothes. Over the house the aircraft droned in the dark night; there seemed to be great numbers of them in the air. ‘They’re on the spot all right tonight,’ he muttered to himself. Then he rolled over on his side, and sank into a heavy dreamless sleep.
    When next he stirred and opened his eyes, the day was bright.
    He blinked, leaned up on one elbow, and looked at his watch. It was