The Last Gentleman

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  The LAST Gentleman

  By Rory Magill

  Illustrated by TED SPEICHER

  [Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from IF Worlds of ScienceFiction January 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidencethat the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

  [Sidenote: _No one knew, no one cared. For a great lethargy wasovercoming the people and their only salvation was--_]

  The explosion brought Jim Peters upright in bed. He sat there, leaningback on the heels of his hands, blinking stupidly at the wall. Hisvision cleared and he looked down at Myra, just stirring beside him.Myra opened her eyes.

  Jim said, "Did you feel that?"

  Myra yawned. "I thought I was dreaming. It was an explosion orsomething, wasn't it?"

  Jim's lips set grimly. After ten years of cold war, there was only oneappropriate observation, and he made it. "I guess maybe this is it."

  As by common agreement, they got out of bed and pulled on their robes.They went downstairs and out into the warm summer night. Other peoplehad come out of their homes also. Shadowy figures moved and collected inthe darkness.

  "Sounded right on top of us."

  "I was looking out the window. Didn't see no flash."

  "Must have been further away than it seemed."

  This last was spoken hopefully, and reflected the mood of all thepeople. Maybe it wasn't the bomb after all.

  Oddly, no one had thought to consult a radio. The thought struck them asa group and they broke into single and double units again--hurrying backinto the houses. Lights began coming on here and there.

  Jim Peters took Myra's hand, unconsciously, as they hurried up the porchsteps. "Hugh would know," Jim said. "I kind of wish Hugh was here."

  Myra laughed lightly--a calculated laugh, meant to disguise the gravityof this terrible thing. "That's not very patriotic, Jim. If that was thebomb, Hugh will be kept busy making other bombs to send back to them."

  "But he'd know. I'll bet he could tell just by the sound of it." Jimsmiled quietly in the darkness--proudly. It wasn't everybody who had agenius for a brother. A nuclear scientist didn't happen in every family.Hugh was somebody to be proud of.

  They turned on the radio and sat huddled in front of it. The tubeswarmed with maddening slowness. Then there came the deliberatelyimpersonal voice of the announcer:

  "--on the strength of reports now in, it appears the enemy bungledbadly. Instead of crippling the nation, they succeeded only in alertingit. The bombs--at this time there appear to have been five of themdropped--formed a straight north-south line across western UnitedStates. One detonated close to the Idaho-Utah line. The other four wereplaced at almost equi-distant points to the south--the fifth bomb,according to first reports, exploding in a Mexican desert. We have beeninformed that Calas, Utah, a town of nine hundred persons, has beencompletely annihilated. For further reports, keep tuned to thisstation."

  _The fifth "one" exploded in the Mexican desert._]

  A dance band cut in. Jim got up from his chair. "They certainly didbungle," he said. "Imagine wasting four atom bombs like that."

  Myra got up also. "Would you like some coffee?"

  "That'd be a good idea. I don't feel like going back to bed. I want tolisten for more reports."

  But there were no more reports. An hour passed. Another and another. Jimspun the dials and got either silence or the cheerful blatherings ofsome inane disc jockey who prattled on as though nothing had happened.

  Finally Jim snapped the set off. "Censorship," he said. "Now we're goingto see what it's really like."

  In the morning they gathered again in groups--the villagers in thislittle community of five hundred, and discussed the shape of things tocome, as they visualized them.

  "It'll take a little time to get into action," old Sam Bennett said."Even expecting it, and with how fast things move these days--it'll taketime."

  "If they invade us--come down from the north--you think the governmentwill let us know they're coming?"

  "You can't tell. Censorship is a funny thing. In the last war, we knewmore about what was going on in Europe than the people that livedthere."

  At that moment, old Mrs. Kendal fainted dead away and had to be carriedhome. Three men carried her and Tom Edwards was one of them. "Kind ofheavy, ain't she?" Tom said. "I never thought Mary weighed much morethan a hundred."

  That night the village shook. In his home, Jim staggered against thewall. Myra fell to the floor. There were two tremors--the second worsethan the first. Then things steadied away, and he helped Myra to herfeet.

  "But there wasn't any noise," Myra whispered. The whisper was loud inthe silence.

  "That was an earthquake," Jim said. "Nothing to worry about. Might beone of the bomb's after effects."

  The quake did no great damage in the village, but it possiblycontributed to old Mrs. Kendal's death. She passed on an hour later."Poor old lady," a neighbor told Myra. "She was plain weary. That waswhat she said just before she closed her eyes. 'Hazel' she said, 'I'mjust plumb tuckered.'"

  The neighbor wiped her face with her apron and turned toward home."Think I'll lie down for a spell. I'm tuckered myself. Can't take thingslike I used to."

  * * * * *

  Now it was a week after the earthquake--two weeks after the falling ofthe bombs, and the town went on living. But it was strange, verystrange. Art Cordell voiced the general opinion when he said, "You know,we waited a long time for the thing to happen--we kind of visualized,maybe, how it'd be. But I didn't figure it'd be anything like this."

  "Maybe there isn't any war," Jim said. "Washington hasn't said so."

  "Censorship."

  "But isn't that carrying censorship a little too far? The people oughtto be told whether or not they're at war."

  But the people didn't seem to care. A deadening lethargy had settledover them. A lethargy they felt and questioned in their own minds, butdidn't talk about, much. Talking itself seemed to have become an effort.

  This continued weariness--this dragging of one foot after another--wasevidently the result of radiation from the bombs. What other place couldit come from? The radiation got blamed for just about everythinguntoward that happened. It caused Jenkin's apples to fall before theywere half-ripe. Something about it bent the young wheat to the groundwhere it mildewed and rotted.

  Some even blamed the radiation for the premature birth of Jane Elman'sbaby, even though such things had happened before even gun powder wasinvented.

  But it certainly was a strange war. Nothing came over the radio at all.Nobody seemed to care, really. Probably because they were just plain tootired. Jim Peters dragged himself to and from work in sort of a daze.Myra got her housework done, but it was a greater effort every day. Allshe could think of was the times she could drop on the lounge for arest. She didn't care much whether a war was going on or not.

  People had quit waiting for them to come down from the north. They knewthat the places where the bombs had fallen were guarded like Fort Knox.Nobody got in or out.

  Jim remembered the flash, the color, the rumors, the excitement of WorldWar Two. The grim resolution of the people to buckle down and win it.Depots jammed. Kids going off to join.

  But nobody went to join this war. That was funny. Somehow Jim hadn'tthought of that before. None of the kids was being called up. Did theyhave enough men? Washington didn't say. Washington didn't say anything.

  And the people didn't seem to care. That was the strange thing, when youcould get your tired mind to focus on it.

  The people didn't ca
re. They were too busily occupied with the grimbusiness of putting one foot in front of the other.

  Jim got home one evening to find Myra staring dully at a small handfulof ground meat. "That's a pound," she said.

  Jim frowned. "What do you mean? That little bit?"

  Myra nodded. "I asked for a pound of hamburger and Art put that much onthe scale. In fact not even that much. It said a pound. I saw it. Butthere was such a little bit that he felt guilty and put some more on."

  Jim turned away. "I'm not hungry anyhow," he said.

  * * * * *

  At ten that night, after they were in bed, a