Throughout that day I was with Nordenholt. I think that he felt the need of someone beside him, some audience which would force him to keep an outwardly unshaken front. But to me it was a nightmare. The débâcle in itself had broken my nerve, coming thus without warning; but Nordenholt’s prevision of the ultimate results which it would exercise seemed to take away the last ray of hope.
“It’s no use whining, Jack; we’ve just got to take it as well as we can. First of all, the coal output will cease entirely for a long time. Not a man will go into even the ‘safe’ pits after this until everything has been examined thoroughly; and that will take days and days. It’s no use blinking that side of it.”
“Why not force them in?” I asked. “Turn out the Defence Force and drive them to the pits. We must have coal.”
“No good. I know what they’re thinking now; and even if you shot half of them the rest wouldn’t go down. It’s no use thinking of it. I know.”
“Why didn’t the Intelligence Section get wind of it?”
“Don’t blame them; they couldn’t have done more than they did. Don’t you realise that if a man is prepared to sacrifice his life—and these fanatics who did the damage were the first victims themselves—there’s nothing that can stop him? The Intelligence people had nothing to go on. The whole of this thing was organised and carried through by a handful of men, some of whom were evidently employed in the pits themselves. It was so rapidly planned and executed that no secret service could have got at it in time. Remember, we’re making explosives on a big scale, so that thefts are easy.”
“And if you’re right, what is to happen?”
“Go on as long as we can; then see how we stand; and after that, if necessary, decimate the population of the Area so as to bring our numbers down to what we can feed in future. There’s nothing else for it.”
“I hope it won’t come to that, Nordenholt.”
“It’s no choice of mine; but if it’s forced on me, I’ll do it. I’m going to see this thing through, Jack, at any cost now. Millions have been swept out of existence already by the Famine; and I’m not going to stick at the loss of a few more hundred thousands so long as we pull through in the end.”