Doom of London
Doom of LondonThe Four Days' NightThe Dust of DeathThe Four White DaysThe Invisible ForceThe River of DeathA Bubble BurstCopyright
Doom of London
Fred M. White
The Four Days' Night
I
THE weather forecast for London and the Channel was "light
airs, fine generally, milder." Further down the fascinating column
Hackness read that "the conditions over Europe generally favoured a
continuance of the large anti-cyclonic area, the barometer steadily
rising over Western Europe, sea smooth, readings being unusually
high for this time of the year." Martin Hackness, B.Sc., London,
thoughtfully read all this and more. The study of the
meteorological reports was part of his religion almost. In the
laboratory at the back of his sitting-room were all kinds of
weird-looking instruments for measuring sunshine and wind pressure,
the weight of atmosphere and the like. Hackness trusted before long
to be able to foretell a London fog with absolute accuracy, which,
when you come to think of it, would be an exceedingly useful
matter. In his queer way Hackness described himself as a fog
specialist. He hoped some day to prove himself a fog-disperser,
which is another word for a great public benefactor.
The chance he was waiting for seemed to have come at last. November
had set in, mild and dull and heavy. Already there had been one or
two of the dense fogs under which London periodically groans and
does nothing to avert. Hackness was clear-sighted enough to see a
danger here that might some day prove a hideous national disaster.
So far as he could ascertain from his observations and readings,
London was in for another dense fog within the next four-and-twenty
hours.
Unless he was greatly mistaken, the next fog was going to be a
particularly thick one. He could see the yellow mists gathering in
Gower Street, as he sat at his breakfast.
The door flew open and a man rushed in without even an apology. He
was a little man, with sharp, clean-shaven features, an
interrogative nose and assertive pince-nez. He was not unlike
Hackness, minus his calm ruminative manner. He fluttered a paper in
his hand like a banner.
"It's come, Hackness," he cried. "It was bound to come sometime.
It's all here in a late edition of the Telegraph. We must go and
see it."
He flung himself into an armchair.
"Do you remember," he said, "the day in the winter of 1898, the day
that petroleum ship exploded? You and I were playing golf together
on the Westgate links."
Hackness nodded eagerly.
"I shall never forget it, Eldred," he said, "though I have
forgotten the name of the ship. She was a big iron boat, and she
caught fire about daybreak. Of her captain and her crew not one
fragment was ever found."
"It was perfectly still and the effect of that immense volume of
dense black smoke was marvellous. Do you recollect the scene at
sunset? It was like looking at half-a-dozen Alpine ranges piled one
on the top of the other. The spectacle was not only grand, it was
appalling, awful. Do you happen to recollect what you said at the
time?"
There was something in Eldred's manner that roused Hackness.
"Perfectly well," he cried. "I pictured that awful canopy of sooty,
fatty matter suddenly shut down over a great city by a fog. A fog
would have beaten it down and spread it. We tried to imagine what
might happen if that ship had been in the Thames, say at
Greenwich."
"Didn't you prophesy a big fog for to-day?"
"Certainly I did. And a recent examination of my instruments merely
confirms my opinion. Why do you ask?"
"Because early this morning a fire broke out in the great petroleum
storage tanks, down the river. Millions of gallons of oil are bound
to burn themselves out—nothing short of a miracle can quench the
fire, which will probably rage all through to-day and to-morrow.
The fire-brigades are absolutely powerless—in the first place the
heat is too awful to allow them to approach; in the second, water
would only make things worse. It's one of the biggest blazes ever
known. Pray Heaven, your fog doesn't settle down on the top of the
smoke."
Hackness turned away from his unfinished breakfast and struggled
into an overcoat. There was a peril here that London little dreamt
of. Out in the yellow streets newsboys were yelling of the
conflagration down the Thames. People were talking of the disaster
in a calm frame of mind between the discussion of closer personal
matters.
"There's always the chance of a breeze springing up," Hackness
muttered. "If it does, well and good, if not—but come along. We'll
train it from Charing Cross."
A little way down the river the mist curtain lifted. A round
magnified sun looked down upon a dun earth. Towards the South-east
a great black column rose high in the sky. The column appeared to
be absolutely motionless; it broadened from an inky base like a
grotesque mushroom.
"Fancy trying to breathe that," Eldred muttered. "Just think of the
poison there. I wonder what that dense mass would weigh in tons.
And it's been going on for five hours now. There's enough there to
suffocate all London."
Hackness made no reply. On the whole he was wishing himself well
out of it. That pillar of smoke would rise for many more hours yet.
At the same time here was his great opportunity. There were certain
experiments that he desired to make and for which all things were
ready.
They reached the scene of the catastrophe. Within a radius of five
hundred yards the heat was intense. Nobody seemed to know the cause
of the disaster beyond the general opinion that the oil gases had
ignited.
And nothing could be done. No engine could approach near enough to
do any good. Those mighty tanks and barrels filled with petroleum
would have to burn themselves out.
The sheets of flame roared and sobbed. Above the flames rose the
column of thick black smoke, with just the suspicion of a slight
stagger to the westward. The inky vapour spread overhead like a
pall. If Hackness's fog came now it meant a terrible disaster for
London.
Further out in the country, where the sun was actually shining,
people watched that great cloud with fearsome admiration. From a
few miles beyond the radius it looked as if all the ranges of the
world had been piled atop of London. The fog was gradually
spreading along the South of the Thames, and away as far as Barnet
to the North.
There was something in the stillness and the gloom that London did
not associate with ordinary fogs.
Hackness turned away at length, conscious of his sketchy breakfast
and the fact that he had been watching this thrilling spectacle for
two hours.
"Have you thought of a way out?" Eldred asked. "What are you going
to do?"
"Lunch," Hackness said curtly. "After that I propose to see to my
arrangements in Regent's Park. I've got Grimfern's aeroplane there,
and a pretty theory about high explosives. The difficulty is to get
the authorities to consent to the experiments. The police have
absolutely forbidden experiments with high explosives, fired in the
air above London. But perhaps I shall frighten them into it this
time. Nothing would please me better than to see a breeze spring
up, and yet on the other hand—"
"Then you are free to-night?" Eldred asked.
"No, I'm not. Oh, there will be plenty of time. I'm going with Sir
Edgar Grimfern, and his daughter to see Irving, that is if it is
possible for anyone to see Irving to-night. I've got the chance of
a lifetime at hand, but I wish that it was well over, Eldred my
boy. If you come round about midnight—"
"I'll be sure to," Eldred said eagerly. "I'm going to be in this
thing. And I want to know all about that explosive idea."
II
MARTIN HACKNESS dressed with less than his usual care that
evening. He even forgot that Miss Cynthia Grimfern had a strong
prejudice in favour of black evening ties, and, usually, he paid a
great deal of deference to her opinions. But he was thinking of
other matters now. There was no sign of anything abnormal as
Hackness drove along in the direction of Clarence Terrace. The
night was more than typically yellow for the time of year, but
there was no kind of trouble with the traffic, though down the
river the fairway lay under a dense bank of cloud.
Hackness sniffed the air eagerly. He detected or thought he
detected a certain acrid suggestion in the atmosphere. As the cab
approached Trafalgar Square Hackness could hear shouts and voices
raised high in protestation. Suddenly his cab seemed to be plunged
into a wall of darkness.
It was so swift and unexpected that it came with the force of a
blow. The horse appeared to have trotted into a bank of dense
blackness. The wall had shut down so swiftly, blotting out a
section of London, that Hackness could only gaze at it with mouth
wide open.
Hackness hopped out of his cab hurriedly. So sheer and stark was
the black wall that the horse was out of sight. Mechanically the
driver reigned back. The horse came back to the cab with the
dazzling swiftness of a conjuring trick. A thin stream of breeze
wandered from the direction of Whitehall. It was this air finding
its way up the funnel formed by the sheet that cut off the fog to a
razor edge.
"Been teetotal for eighteen years," the cabman muttered, "so that's
all right. And what do you please to make of it, sir?"
Hackness muttered something incoherent. As he stood there, the
black wall lifted like a stage curtain, and he found himself under
the lee of an omnibus. In a dazed kind of way he patted the
cabhorse on the flank. He looked at his hand. It was greasy and
oily and grimy as if he had been in the engine-room of a big
liner.
"Get on as fast as you can," he cried. "It was fog, just a little
present from the burning petroleum. Anyway, it's gone now."
True, the black curtain had lifted, but the atmosphere reeked with
the odour of burning oil. The lamps and shop windows were splashed
and mottled with something that might have passed for black snow.
Traffic had been brought to a standstill for the moment, eager
knots of pedestrians were discussing the situation with alarm and
agitation, a man in evening dress was busily engaged in a vain
attempt to remove sundry black patches from his shirt front.
Sir Edgar Grimfern was glad to see his young friend. Had Grimfern
been comparatively poor, and less addicted to big game shooting, he
would doubtless have proved a great scientific light. Anything with
a dash of adventure fascinated him. He was enthusiastic on flying
machines and aeroplanes generally. There were big workshops at the
back of 119, Clarence Terrace, where Hackness put in a good deal of
his spare time. Those two were going to startle the world
presently.
Hackness shook hands thoughtfully with Cynthia Grimfern. There was
a slight frown on her pretty intellectual face as she noted his
tie.
"There's a large smut on it," she remarked, "and it serves you
right."
Hackness explained. He had a flattering audience. He told of the
strange happening in Trafalgar Square and the majestic scene on the
river. He gave a graphic account of the theory that he had built
upon it. There was an animated discussion all through dinner.
"The moral of which is that we are going to be plunged into
Cimmerian darkness," Cynthia said, "that is, if the fog comes down.
If you think you are going to frighten me out of my evening's
entertainment you are mistaken."
All the same it had grown much darker and thicker as the trio drove
off in the direction of the Lyceum Theatre. There were patches of
dark acrid fog here and there like ropes of smoke into which
figures passed and disappeared only to come out on the other side
choking and coughing. So local were these swathes of fog that in a
wide thoroughfare it was possible to partially avoid them. Festoons
of vapour hung from one lampost to another, the air was filled with
a fatty sickening odour.
"How nasty," Cynthia exclaimed. "Mr. Hackness, please close that
window. I am almost sorry that we started. What's that?"
There was a shuffling movement under the seat of the carriage, the
quick bark of a dog; Cynthia's little fox terrier had stolen into
the brougham. It was a favourite trick of his, the girl
explained.
"He'll go back again," she said. "Kim knows that he has done
wrong."
That Kim was forgotten and discovered later on coiled up under the
stall of his mistress was a mere detail. Hackness was too
preoccupied to feel any uneasiness. He was only conscious that the
electric lights were growing dim and yellow, and that a brown haze
was coming between the auditorium and the stage. When the curtain
fell on the third act it was hardly possible to see across the
theatre. Two or three large heavy blots of some greasy matter fell
on to the white shoulders of a lady in the stalls to be hastily
wiped away by her companion. They left a long greasy smear
behind.
"I can hardly breathe," Cynthia gasped. "I wish I had stopped at
home. Surely those electric lights are going out."
But the lights were merely being wrapped in a filament that every
moment grew more and more dense. As the curtain went up again there
was just the suspicion of a draught from the back of the stage, and
the whole of it was smothered in a small brown cloud that left
absolutely nothing to the view. It was impossible now to make out a
single word of the programme, even when it was held close to the
eyes.
"Hackness was right," Grimfern growled. "We had far better have
stayed at home."
Hackness said nothing. He had no pride in the accuracy of his
forecast. Perhaps he was the only man in London who knew what the
full force of this catastrophe meant. It grew so dark now that he
could see no more than the mere faint suggestion of his fair
companion, something was falling out of the gloom like black ragged
snow. As the pall lifted just for an instant he could see the
dainty dresses of the women absolutely smothered with the thick
oily smuts. The reek of petroleum was stifling.
There was a frightened scream from behind, and a yell out of the
ebony wall to the effect that somebody had fainted. Someone was
speaking from the stage with a view to stay what might prove to be
a dangerous panic. Another sombre wave filled the theatre and then
it grew absolutely black, so black that a match held a foot or so
from the nose could not be seen. One of the plagues of Egypt with
all its horrors had fallen upon London.
"Let us try and make our way out," Hackness suggested. "Go
quietly."
Others seemed to be moved by the same idea. It was too black and
dark for anything like a rush, so that a dangerous panic was out of
the question. Slowly but surely the fashionable audience reached
the vestibule, the hall, and the steps.
Nothing to be seen, no glimmer of anything, no sound of traffic.
The destroying angel might have passed over London and blotted out
all human life. The magnitude of the disaster had frightened
London's millions as it fell.
III
A CITY of the blind! Six millions of people suddenly deprived
of sight! The disaster sounds impossible—a nightmare, the wild
vapourings of a diseased imagination—and yet why not? Given a
favourable atmospheric condition, something colossal in the way of
a fire, and there it is. And there, somewhere folded away in the
book of Nature, is the simple remedy.
Such thoughts as these flashed through Hackness's mind as he stood
under the portico of the Lyceum Theatre, quite helpless and inert
for the moment.
But the darkness was thicker and blacker than anything he had ever
imagined. It was absolutely the darkness that could be felt.
Hackness could hear the faint scratching of matches all around him,
but there was no glimmer of light anywhere. And the atmosphere was
thick, stifling, greasy. Yet it was not quite as stifling as
perfervid imagination suggested. The very darkness suggested
suffocation. Still, there was air, a sultry light breeze that set
the murk in motion, and mercifully brought from some purer area the
oxygen that made life possible. There was always air, thank God, to
the end of the Four Days' Night.
Nobody spoke for a time. Not a sound of any kind could be heard. It
was odd to think that a few miles away the country might be
sleeping under the clear stars. It was terrible to think that
hundreds of thousands of people must be standing lost in the
streets and yet near to home.
A little way off a dog whined, a child in a sweet refined voice
cried that she was lost. An anxious mother called in reply. The
little one had been forgotten in the first flood of that awful
darkness. By sheer good luck Hackness was enabled to locate the
child. He could feel that her wraps were rich and costly, though
the same fatty slime was upon them. He caught the child up in his
arms and yelled that he had got her. The mother was close by, yet
full five minutes elapsed before Hackness blundered upon her.
Something was whining and fawning about his feet.
He called upon Grimfern, and the latter answered in his ear.
Cynthia was crying pitifully and helplessly. Some women there were
past that.
"For Heaven's sake tell us what we are to do," Grimfern gasped. "I
flatter myself that I know London well, but I couldn't find my way
home in this."
Something was licking Hackness's hand. It was the dog Kim. There
was just a chance here. He tore his handkerchief in strips and
knotted it together. One end he fastened to the little dog's
collar.
"It's Kim," he explained. "Tell the dog 'home.' There's just a
chance that he may lead you home. We're very wonderful creatures,
but one sensible dog is worth a million of us to-night. Try
it."
"And where are you going?" Cynthia asked. She spoke high, for a
babel of voices had broken out. "What will become of you?"
"Oh, I am all right," Hackness said with an affected cheerfulness.
"You see, I was fairly sure that this would happen sooner or later.
So I pigeon-holed a way of dealing with the difficulty. Scotland
Yard listened, but thought me a bore all the same. This is the
situation where I come in."
Grimfern touched the dog and urged him forward.
Kim gave a little bark and a whine. His muscular little body
strained at the leash.
"It's all right," Grimfern cried. "Kim understands. That queer
little pill-box of a brain of his is worth the finest intellect in
England to-night."
Cynthia whispered a faint good-night, and Hackness was alone. As he
stood there in the blackness the sense of suffocation was
overwhelming. He essayed to smoke a cigarette, but he hadn't the
remotest idea whether the thing was alight or not. It had no taste
or flavour.
But it was idle to stand there. He must fight his way along to
Scotland Yard to persuade the authorities to listen to his ideas.
There was not the slightest danger of belated traffic, no sane man
would have driven a horse in such dense night. Hackness blundered
along without the faintest idea to which point of the compass he
was facing.
If he could only get his bearings he felt that he should be all
right. He found his way into the Strand at length; he fumbled up
against someone and asked where he was. A hoarse voice responded
that the owner fancied it was somewhere in Piccadilly.
There were scores of people in the streets standing about talking
desperately, absolute strangers clinging to one another for sheer
craving for company to keep the frayed senses together. The most
fastidious clubman there would have chummed with the toughest
Hooligan rather than have his own thoughts for company.
Hackness pushed his way along. If he got out of his bearings he
adopted the simple experiment of knocking at the first door he came
to and asking where he was. His reception was not invariably
enthusiastic, but it was no time for nice distinctions. And a
deadly fear bore everybody down.
At last he came to Scotland Yard, as the clocks proclaimed that it
was half-past one. Ghostly official voices told Hackness the way to
Inspector Williamson's office, stern officials grasped him by the
arm and piloted him up flights of stairs. He blundered over a chair
and sat down. Out of the black cavern of space Inspector Williamson
spoke.
"I am thankful you have come. You are just the man I most wanted to
see. I want my memory refreshed over that scheme of yours," he
said. "I didn't pay very much attention to it at the time."
"Of course you didn't. Did you ever know an original prophet who
wasn't laughed at? Still, I don't mind confessing that I hardly
anticipated anything quite so awful as this. The very density of it
makes some parts of my scheme impossible. We shall have to shut our
teeth and endure it. Nothing really practical can be done so long
as this fog lasts."
"But, man alive, how long will it last?"
"Perhaps an hour or perhaps a week. Do you grasp what an awful
calamity faces us?"
Williamson had no reply. So long as the fog lasted, London was in a
state of siege, and, not only this, but every house in it was a
fort, each depending upon itself for supplies. No bread could be
baked, no meal could be carried round, no milk or vegetables
delivered so long as the fog remained. Given a day or two of this
and thousands of families would be on the verge of starvation. It
was not a pretty picture that Hackness drew, but Williamson was
bound to agree with every word of it.
These two men sat in the darkness till what should hare been the
dawn, whilst scores of subordinates were setting some sort of
machinery in motion to preserve order.
Hackness stumbled home to his rooms about nine o'clock in the
morning, without having succeeded in persuading the officials to
grant him permission to experiment. Mechanically he felt for his
watch to see the time. The watch was gone. Hackness smiled grimly.
The predatory classes had not been quite blind to the advantages of
the situation.
There was no breakfast for Hackness for the simple reason that it
had been found impossible to light the kitchen fire. But there was
a loaf of bread, some cheese, and a knife. Hackness fumbled for his
bottled beer and a glass. There were many worse breakfasts in
London that morning.
He woke presently, conscious that a clock was striking nine. After
some elaborate thought and the asking of a question or two from
another inmate of the house, Hackness found to his horror that he
had slept the clock round nearly twice. It was nine o'clock in the
morning, twenty-three hours since he had fallen asleep! And, so far
as Hackness could judge, there were no signs of the fog's
abatement.
He changed his clothes and washed the greasy slime off him so far
as cold water and soap would allow. There were plenty of people in
the streets, hunting for food for the most part; there were tales
of people found dead in the gutters. Progression was slow but the
utter absence of traffic rendered it safe and possible. Men spoke
with bated breath, the weight of the great calamity upon
them.
News that came from a few miles outside the radius spoke of clear
skies and bright sunshine. There was a great deal of sickness, and
the doctors had more than they could manage, especially with the
young and the delicate.
And the calamity looked like getting worse. Six million people were
breathing what oxygen there was. Hackness returned to his chambers
to find Eldred awaiting him.
"This can't go on, you know," the latter said tersely.
"Of course it can't," Hackness replied. "All the air is getting
exhausted. Come with me down to Scotland Yard and help to try and
persuade Williamson to test my experiment."
"What! Do you mean to say he is still obstinate?"
"Well, perhaps he feels different to-day. Come along."
Williamson was in a chastened frame of mind. He had no optimistic
words when Hackness suggested that nothing less than a violent
meteorological disturbance would clear the deadly peril of the fog
away. It was time for drastic remedies, and if they failed things
would be no worse than before.
"But can you manage it?" Williamson asked.
"I fancy so," Hackness replied. "It's a risk, of course, but
everything has been ready for a long time. We could start after
tomorrow midnight, or any time for that matter."
