Land Beyond the Map

“You couldn’t see a thing. One minute we were driving in the sunshine, doing fifty along the white road. The next we were groping forward in a dense mist. It was still warm. The car still ran. Father dropped the speed to ten miles an hour, and we groped on. Then I started to cry.”

“You were frightened?”

“Yes. Well, scared, wondering what it was all about and what it would be like to fall off a map. When Adele said: ‘We’re not really going to fall off the end of the world, silly!’ it only made it worse. I cried all the harder. Eventually father decided to turn back. We retraced our course and came out into the sunshine again. When father checked the map, and mother, too, we found that the mist began at exactly the place where the map was torn.”

Polly Gould shivered and moved closer to the fire.

“Father laughed it off. He was a big man. Isambard Crane. Biggest engineer in all the west country. ‘Probably a local freak,’ he said. I didn’t know what he meant; but it sounded comforting. We went on again. We crept through the mist, hearing nothing apart from the rumble of the car. Then, after about ten minutes, the mist began to thin.”

Crane put the cup down. He guessed he’d break it if he went on with story holding it in his hand.

“The mist shredded away. We were out in the sunshine again. Father laughed and said that was that. We went on around a bend in the road and then — then—”

“Yes?”

“A confusion. A roaring from the engine as father turned the car around fast, tires spinning. A distant glimpse of turrets and towers, of fire and smoke and the thin keening of trumpets. I cannot bring that scene to mind though I have tried many and many a time. A silver globe from which spurted livid tongues of flame. A tall structure which I think of always as a tree, laminated, many branched, and yet so huge no tree exists on the same scale. A vibration in the air, a gossamer sheening of the atmosphere that set a rippling curtain, many folded, between us and the scene beyond.” Crane shook his head. “I have tried to recapture the feelings we all had, the inexplicable sense of dread, the heightened pulse-rate, the dread knowledge that this place was evil — and yet evil designed for one end, that of good — inexplicable as that sounds.”

“Inexplicable — and almost crazy.”

Crane smiled wryly at Polly. “Yes, Miss Gould. Crazy.”

“You ran through an industrial fog-belt into one of those god-awful industrial towns, all smoke and soot and flame; and the feeling of evil, of men’s lives being warped and crushed, is strong enough there to curl a philosopher’s beard.”

“So I have thought many times. That must be the answer. You travel through the Welsh valleys, some of the most beautiful scenery God put on this Earth — and then you stumble across the foulness of a mining town huddled under its reeking smoke — like a cess-pit at the bottom of a garden. To a child’s eyes a factory belching smoke and steam and flame as the Bessemers tilted would appear as a cacophonous mystery, a place of terror and fascination and repugnance. Oh, yes, Miss Gould, don’t think I haven’t thought about this.”

“I believe you have, Mr. Crane. I merely said that to test your reactions. At least you’re not completely dominated by terror-memories; you can still be logical. You forgive me? Good. Now, Allan—”

“Yes. Your cousin. He had this map—”

“What happened afterwards? To the map, I mean.”

“Father turned the car around fast. We went out of there and through the mist without slackening speed until we reached the sunshine once more. Then we backtracked and found a fork which took us a longer way around. We didn’t speak much of what we had seen.”

“All right. Frankly, Mr. Crane, I cannot see what this did to you. And your sister Adele’s reaction seems quite out of proportion. You ran into an industrial belt and saw the monstrous growth of factories with a child’s eyes. I had been hoping you would help me with my search for my cousin. It seems I was mistaken.”

“Just a minute. I’ve told you the story that is current. I haven’t added further details, details I have told no one. It seems also pretty plain why I want the map…. Adele haunts me and there must be a chance for her…. Well, I won’t elaborate on that. But right now I think it only fair for you to give me your side of the story.”

“That’s simple enough. Allan planned a long motoring holiday. He was on leave—”

“He stayed on as a regular? Yes, of course. I decided that soldiering and Cranes didn’t go hand in hand. I think I was right.”

“Maybe you were. He’d found a girl friend — Sharon something-or-other — and they were going to do the Grand Tour of Ireland.”

“Ireland!”

“Yes. You knew Allan had disappeared in Ireland?”

“Yes. Yes, of course. But I didn’t know he had the map. You mean — all this happened to me in Ireland?”

“If it happened, Mr. Crane.”

“What d’you mean — if? I may be crazy; but as surely as I sit here, I went through that mist and saw another world.”