THINGS TO COME A Film Treatment By H. G. Wells PART I Before the Second World War This is a brief display of contemporary humanity. The opening effect is one of walking and hurrying crowds. Across this appears and fades the legend "Whither Mankind?" A rapid succession of flashes evoke the multitudinousness, the hurry and confused inadequate efficiency of our world. Crowds and cities appear and dissolve into kindred scenes in other places; there are momentary flashes of crowded cities, Paris, Tokio, Milan, Valparaiso, Timbuctoo, Moscow. One of the following special scenes. Either:-- Crowds crossing Brooklyn Bridge and a great traffic and activity in the river below. The Tower Bridge open to let a steamer through, the pool full of shipping, the cranes on the wharves active. Port of Bremen similarly active. Or traffic and crowds by the Eiffel Tower. Any one of these scenes will suffice. It should correspond with the one chosen for the end of Part VII, q.v. After such scenes of City activity the screen reminds us of such contrasted activities as: small cultivations and then sweeping across it large scale harvesting; a peasant cart joggling along a road and then crowded trains and platforms. A peasant's cradle rocks and dissolves into the methodical work of a modern child welfare clinic. A wheelwright melts into a great motor car factory. The mint is seen printing paper money. Close up of machines turning out paper money and bank clerks handling bunches of it faster and faster. A Wall Street or Bourse panic scene follows. All these are flashes of the briefest possible sort. They are intended to recall to the audience outstanding aspects of the contemporary world by shots of familiar and typical scenes and activities. I believe it would be far better for a competent editor and cutter to piece together this part of the film from pre-existing material. The more bustling and familiar it is the better. As the flashes follow each other faster and faster, the words WHITHER MANKIND? across the scene fade in again for a moment and then fade out as we pass into the second part, in which the localised and personal story opens. PART II The Shadow of War upon Everytown Everytown is every town. That is to say, it is the average great town of our times. It is backed by a very characteristic skyline of hills which recurs throughout the film to remind us that we are following the fate of one typical population group, and it has a central "place," a big Market Spare with big hotels, public buildings, cinemas, kiosks, statuary, tramways, etc. First, there is a general view of Everytown from a crest above it. In the foreground we see workers going down the hill into the town, and down the hill we see the whole of Everytown, suburbs and Central Square together; it is a clear Christmas Eve. Then we come to the Central Square in Everytown. It has features recalling Trafalgar Square or a big-town Market Square or a French Grand Place. There is a confluence of trams and buses. The Christmas traffic is active. On one of the chief buildings the moving light sign of a newspaper flashes the latest news. "Europe is arming...." The camera moves up from the traffic of the Square to this light sign: "Alarming speech by Air Minister--" Big shop window full of Christmas toys. Children and mothers admiring. An autobus stops and people get out of it. On the autobus one sees the usual newspaper posters with a glaring headline about the dangerous international situation. "Straits dispute. Acute situation." The entrance of a tube station. The usual traffic. A newsvendor stands at the entrance. His placard reads: "Another 10,000 aeroplanes." But he shouts, "All the winners." In an autobus a young girl opens her paper and glances through the first page, which is full of headlines talking about the war danger. She has only a cursory glance for that stuff; she turns the page and plunges with passionate interest into the fashion article. During all these scenes, Christmas shoppers and people with packages pass to and fro. It is a peaceful and fairly happy Christmas shopping crowd. Nobody appears to be affected imaginatively by the war danger. The voice has called "Wolf" too often. Only the camera calls the attention of the audience to the brooding threat. At this point the essential story of the film begins. A glimpse is given of a scientific laboratory in which young Harding, a student of two-and-twenty, is working intently. It is a small, reasonably well-equipped, municipal school laboratory looking out on the Central Square. It is a biological, not a chemical laboratory. Two microscopes are visible and plenty of laboratory glass, taps, etc., but not too many bottles and no retorts. (This laboratory has to appear in a ruinous state later, sans glass or breakables.) Through the open window comes the bellowing of the newsvendor. "War crisis!" Harding listens for a moment: "Damn this war nonsense." He closes the window to shut out the sound. He looks at his watch and sets himself to put things away. At first he is wearing a neat laboratory overalls. This he takes off. A suburban residential road with little traffic and many pleasant detached homes is seen, and Harding walking along it. He approaches a house through a garden gate. PART III John Cabal's--Christmas Eve A rather dark study is seen in which John Cabal is musing over a newspaper. The furniture of the room indicates his connection with flying. There is the blade of a propeller over the mantel shelf and a model on the mantel shelf. On the table are some engineering drawings partly covered by the newspaper. Cabal's arm, with wrist-watch, is resting on the evening paper. He has a habit of drumming with his fingers which is shown here and again later. The camera comes up to the hand and paper. The headlines show: "EVENING NEWSLETTER. London. December 24th, 1940. 1d." Streamer headline: "STRAITS DISPUTE. ACUTE SITUATION." Column headlines: "ALARMING SPEECH BY AIR MINISTER. ANOTHER 10,000 AEROPLANES NOW." (This newspaper should be practically a facsimile of the London Evening Standard. It should show the customary insets beside the title of the weather forecast and the lighting-up time. It is the Final Night Edition and it also announces Closing City Prices.) Cabal pondering. He looks towards the door. Harding comes in. He approaches Cabal. Harding sees the paper and the headlines. CABAL: "Hullo, young Harding! You're early." HARDING: "I had finished up. It was too late to begin anything fresh. Why are the newsboys shouting so loud? What is all this fuss in the papers to-night, Mr. Cabal?" CABAL: "Wars and rumours of wars again." HARDING: "Crying wolf?" CABAL: "Some day the wolf will come. These fools are capable of anything." HARDING: "What becomes of medical research in that case?" CABAL: "It will have to stop." HARDING: "That will mess me up. It's pretty nearly all I care for. That and Majorie Home, of course." CABAL: "Mess you up! Of course it will mess you up. Mess up your work. Mess up your marriage. Mess everything up. My God, if war gets loose again...." Cabal and Harding turn towards the door as Passworthy walks in. PASSWORTHY: "Hullo Cabal! Christmas again!" (Sings.) "'While shepherds watched their flocks by night, All seated on the ground....'" Cabal nods at the paper. Passworthy takes it up and throws it down with disdain. PASSWORTHY: "What's the matter with you fellows? Oh, this little upset across the water doesn't mean war. Threatened men live long. Threatened wars don't occur. Another speech by him. Nothing in it, I tell you. Just to buck people up over the air estimates. Don't meet war half-way. Look at the cheerful side of things. You're all right. Business improving, jolly wife, pretty house." CABAL: "All's right with the world, eh? All's right with the world. Passworthy, you ought to be called Pippa Passworthy...." PASSWORTHY: "You've been smoking too much, Cabal. You--you aren't eupeptic..." (Walks round and sings) "No-el! No-el! No-el!..." In Cabal's living room. Christmas tree with freshly lit candles burning and presents being taken off and distributed. A children's party in progress. Each child is rosy in his own way. Horrie Passworthy is donning a child's soldier's "panoply." Timothy Cabal is laying out a toy railway system. He is completely absorbed in his work, neither hearing nor seeing anything, working with the intensity of the born builder. A smaller girl and a very small boy enter the picture. They have been attracted by the work and the worker. They stare admiringly. In another corner of the room Horrie, now in full uniform, beats his drum. HORRIE: "Fall in! Fall in!" Three boys fall in behind him. "Quick march!" They march off to the drum taps. Timothy finishing his layout. He surveys it with a last glance before starting the engine. Horrie enters the picture with his followers. The camera shows only the marching feet of Horrie's followers. Railway system spread out. Horrie's foot kicks aside some part of the system. TIMOTHY (nervously): "Don't!" The marching feet pass by. Timothy has but one thought, to save his gadgets. He succeeds. He lays out his railway again. To a little boy: "You work the signals." The little boy sits down happily. To the little girl: "You--you look on." The little girl sits down and plays her part; she admires. Timothy starts his train. The train moves. Timothy is earnestly observing it. The two children are delighted. Drum going. Horrie and his followers return and halt. Horrie stops and thinks. HORRIE: "Make an accident!" TIMOTHY looks up for a second: "No." Busy with railway. HORRIE: "Make an earthquake!" TIMOTHY: "No." HORRIE: "Let's have a war." TIMOTHY: "No." Horrie goes off reluctantly. The toy railway. Train going. One of the carriages collapses. It turns over. It has been hit by a wooden pellet. We see four guns being worked by Horrie and his friends. They are delighted. Timothy realises that the whole layout is being bombarded to pieces. He tries to protect the railway with his hands. Protesting desperately: "Don't--stop!" His hand is hit by a projectile. The little girl protests with Timothy. Horrie directs the firing of the guns. More projectiles hit Timothy. Timothy jumps to his feet and goes to attack Horrie. Horrie rises quickly, Timothy hits him. Horrie disengages himself from Timothy, kicks over the engine and disarranges the rails. Timothy claws hold of him, and they begin a tussle which ends on the ground. Uproar in the room. By the middle door Mrs. Cabal enters and hurries towards the fighters. By the door from Cabal's study enter Passworthy, followed by Cabal and Harding. Horrie and Timothy fighting. Mrs. Cabal comes up and tries to pull the boys apart. MRS. CABAL: "Timothy, Timothy, what's the matter?" PASSWORTHY grabs Horrie: "Here, young man, what have you been doing?" HORRIE: "I only made a little war on him, daddy--and he didn't play fair." PASSWORTHY: "Soldiers are to protect us--not to smash up things." HORRIE: "But daddy, a war must smash up things." PASSWORTHY: "You go on sentry duty, see--soldiers are to prevent war, not provoke it." Horrie obeys reluctantly. Children resuming their activities. Timothy with railway. Horrie doing sentry goes, rather sulkily. Cabal, Passworthy, Harding, Mrs. Cabal and grandfather are on a raised dais at the end of the room. PASSWORTHY: "They're forgetting their troubles already. Queer things kids are! Flare up in a moment--and then it's all over." GRANDFATHER: "Nice toys they have nowadays, nice toys. The toys we had were simpler. Ever so much simpler. Noah's Arks and wooden soldiers. Nothing so complex as these. I wonder perhaps if sometimes they don't find these new toys a bit too much for them." PASSWORTHY: "Now that's an idea!" GRANDFATHER: "Aye. Just an idea." MRS. CABAL: "It teaches them to use their hands." GRANDFATHER: "Well, I suppose their grandchildren will have still more wonderful things. Progress--and progress--I'd like to see--the wonders they'll see." CABAL: "Don't be too sure of progress." PASSWORTHY: "You--incurable pessimist." GRANDFATHER: "Well, what's going to stop progress nowadays?" CABAL: "War!" PASSWORTHY: "Well, firstly, there isn't going to be a war, and secondly, war doesn't stop progress. It stimulates progress." CABAL, ironically: "Yes, war's a highly stimulating thing. But you can overdo a stimulant. The next dose may be a fatal one. An overdose." PASSWORTHY, hesitating: "Well, after all, don't we exaggerate about the horrors of war? Aren't we overdoing that song? The last war wasn't as bad as they make out. One didn't worry. Something great seemed to have got hold of you." CABAL: "Something still greater may get hold of you next time. You're talking through your hat, Passworthy. If we do not end war--war will end us. Everybody says that, millions of people believe it, and nobody does anything. I do nothing--" PASSWORTHY: "Well, what can you do?" CABAL: "Yes, what can we do?" PASSWORTHY: "Carry on. Carry on, and trust to the common sense of mankind." Christmas tree with the candles burnt half-way down. Christmas tree with candles being extinguished by a maid. Time has passed. PART IV War Breaks over Everytown The suburban road outside John Cabal's house. Various clocks --one after another--are heard striking midnight. Cabal's house. Door opens. Cabal, Mrs. Cabal, Harding and Passworthy come out. Christmas bells are heard. PASSWORTHY: "Peace on earth, Goodwill to all men. It is going to be a real old-fashioned Christmas this year. Fresh and a little snow, a nip in the air." A faint thud is heard. Everybody silent for a moment. MRS. CABAL: "What was that? It sounded like a gun." PASSWORTHY: "No guns about here. Merry Christmas, Cabal-- good luck to us for another twelvemonth. The last wasn't so bad. Here's to another year of recovery." Long shot of road. Suddenly searchlights appear in the sky silhouetting the hill crest. The group at the door observe the searchlights and turn questioningly towards one another. MRS. CABAL: "But what are searchlights doing now?" PASSWORTHY: " Anti-aircraft manoeuvres, I expect." CABAL: "Manoeuvres! At Christmas? No!" Three thuds rather louder mingled with the pealing bells. HARDING: "Listen: Guns again." The bells cease abruptly. The sound of distant guns becomes quite distinct. The group--mute suspense. Heavy concussion heard. After this the noise subsides as though the trouble was drifting away from Everytown. Nobody speaks. From the study the telephone rings. Cabal turns and hurries back into the house, the others go a few steps after him and listen anxiously. CABAL, heard off: "What, to-night--three o'clock at the Hilltown hangar? I'll be there." Cabal comes out again to the listening group. "Mobilisation!" MRS. CABAL: "Oh--oh God!" PASSWORTHY: "Perhaps it's only a precautionary mobilisation." Cabal turns and goes into the house. The others follow. Cabal's study. They will hear if the radio has anything to say. Cabal turns on radio. RADIO: "The unknown aircraft passed over Seabeach and dropped bombs within a few hundred yards of the waterworks. They then turned seaward again. By this time they had been picked up by the searchlights of the battleship Dinosaur and before they could mount out of range she had opened upon them with her anti-aircraft guns. Unfortunately without result." PASSWORTHY: "That's--that's alarming certainly." HARDING: "Of course everyone has said 'This time there will be no declaration of war.'" MRS. CABAL: "Listen!" The RADIO resumes, crackling: "We do not yet know the nationality of these aircraft, though of course there can be little doubt of their place of origin. But before all things it is necessary for the country to keep calm. No doubt the losses suffered by the fleet are serious." PASSWORTHY, interrupting radio: "What's that? Losses of the fleet?" MRS. CABAL, impatiently: "Listen! Listen!" RADIO: "And it is imperative that the whole nation should at once stand to arms. Orders for a general mobilisation have been issued and the precautionary civilian organisation against gas will at once be put into operation. Ah-- instructions have come to hand. We shall cut off for five minutes and then read you the general instructions. Please call in any friends. Call in everyone you can." Radio ceases. CABAL, bitterly: "You've got your stimulant, Passworthy. Something great has got you. War has come." They all look at each other. PASSWORTHY, to Harding: "I suppose we shall find our marching orders at home. Nothing to do now but get on with it." MRS. CABAL: "War! God help us all." Passworthy and Harding on their way home. Passworthy garrulous. Harding darkly silent. PASSWORTHY: "My God! If they have attacked without a declaration of war--then it's vengeance. No quarter, it's vengeance. Punishment--punishment--condign--or an end to civilisation for ever. It's just possible it's some mistake. I cling to that. But if not--then War to the Knife. It's not a war. It's a fight against dangerous vermin. A vermin hunt without pause or pity. (Flatly) Good-night." Harding has had nothing to say. He nods good-night, stands watching Passworthy for a moment and then rouses himself with a start to go his way. The Central Square of Everytown. Large anti-aircraft on truck comes into Square. Searchlights being mounted on a roof. Electric signs going out. Special service men in badges herding people to shelter. Belated straggler running across the Square. Searchlights break out. Anti-aircraft gun being loaded by the light of a carefully shaded lamp. Faces of the gunners seen closely. All this is to be very quick and furtive. As lights go down the lighting changes to silhouette effects and the sounds diminish until at the end there is absolute silence. Cabal and his wife in the children's nursery. Cabal is buttoning on his airman's uniform. He looks at the sleeping children. He turns his head, tormented by the thought of their future. MRS. CABAL: "My dear, my dear, are you sorry we--had these children?" CABAL thinks long. "No. Life must carry on. Why should we surrender life to the brutes and fools?" MRS. CABAL: "I loved you. I wanted to serve you and make life happy for you. But think of the things that may happen to them. Were we selfish?" CABAL draws her to him: "You weren't afraid to bear them--. We were children yesterday. We are anxious, but we are not afraid. Really." Mrs. Cabal nods acknowledgment, but cannot talk because she would cry. Timothy's bed, with Cabal and his wife standing beside it. CABAL: "Courage, my dear." Whispering to himself: "And may that little heart have courage." A series of flashes recall the flashes of the second part. Everytown is seen in a belated wintry dawn. Suburban road. Men come from the houses carrying parcels or suitcases and go off towards the station. A young wife saying good-bye to her husband, who is waiting for a tram. Bus stop. Men get on the bus with their packages. A sort of forced cheerfulness. Eyebrows raised and a forced smile with the corners of the mouth turned down. No march music here. None of the elation of 1914. The shuffle, tramp, tramp of the doomed householders. Passworthy with Horrie in the front garden of his house. Horrie in his uniform of yesterday. Passworthy going out. He puts on an armlet. HORRIE, pointing to the armlet: "Are you an officer, daddy?" PASSWORTHY: "We've got to do our bit, sonny. We've got to do our bit." HORRIE: "I'm an officer too, daddy." PASSWORTHY: "That's the spirit, old son. Nothing else for it now. Carry on, sir. Carry on." The two salute each other in brave burlesque. He lifts his son and kisses him. He goes. Horrie by himself. He taps his drum. First thoughtfully, and then with more confidence. He beats the drum, begins to hum and marches. Works himself up. Hums louder--sings wordlessly. The beating of his drum passes into marching music which carries on through the next flashes. Faintly, behind little Horrie appear the shadows of marching troops, keeping step with him and his drumming. They intensify as he fades. Effect of marching armies. PART V The Second World War The marching troops become phantom-like and vanish. A peaceful countryside, winter. The same country scene has appeared in Part I, but now everywhere there are signs of war preparation. In the foreground a smooth-flowing river, or lake, that reflects the scene,--suddenly the mirror is broken as enormous amphibian tanks crawl up out of the water. A gigantic howitzer suddenly rears itself up from a peaceful field. Scene from the air. Roadways choked with war material moving up to the front. Closer detail shots of this same scene. Long lines of tanks and caterpillar lorries. Long lines of steel-helmeted men. Lorries full of men. Lorries full of shells. Great dumps of shells. A fantasia of war material in motion. Chemical factory. Piles of cases being loaded. The manufacture of gas bombs. The workers all wear gas masks of ghoulish type. The guns go off. A repetition of some of the foregoing shots --but now the men and guns are no longer moving into action, but are in action. Guns being fired, tanks advance firing, battleships firing a broadside, gas hissing out of cylinders. A gun crew round a gun, passing shells up to the gun. Beneath an aeroplane a crew fixing bombs. Squadron after squadron of aeroplanes take to the sky. Everytown is seen with hostile aeroplanes in the sky. An explosion in the foreground fills the scene. As the smoke clears it reveals the suburban road in Everytown in which Passworthy lives, and something small and dark is seen far down the footpath. We pass up the road and before the shattered garden fence we see little Horrie in his panoply, sprawling dead. (This is the first dead body we see on the screen.) A long silent pause. Bombs are heard receding in distance. Scenes of Everytown being bombed. Sirens, whistles and hooters. Panic working up in Square. Quick flashes of military working anti-aircraft guns. Again to crowded Square, terrified faces looking up. Increased panic. Aeroplanes overhead. Anti-aircraft firing rather helplessly. A tramcar runs down the street, it lurches and falls sideways across the street. The facade of a gigantic general store falls into the street. The merchandise is scattered and on fire. Window dummies and wounded civilians lie on the pavement. Bomb bursting in crowded Square. Cinema crashing in ruins. A bomb bursts a gas main, a jet of flame, the fire spreads. Officials distributing gas masks, the crowd in a panic. Fight for masks. Official swept off his feet. Long shot of aeroplanes, they distribute gas like a smoke screen. The cloud slowly descends on the town. The gas cloud descends, the guns continue to fire in the darkness. Long shot of the gas cloud descending on and darkening the Square. People in offices and flats trapped by the gas pouring into the windows. Long shot of the Square, now very misty and dark. No civilians are moving about, but there are a few scattered dead. PART VI The Two Airmen Enemy airman, a boy of 19, is in the air, distributing gas. Close up of him in his cockpit. He finishes his supply and banks to turn about. He looks up into the sky and discovers he is being attacked. He is plainly apprehensive. John Cabal in his aeroplane. He is heading for the enemy airman. Air fight. It is a one-sided fight between a bomber and a swift fighter. Enemy airman crashes. Cabal nose-dives, but straightens out. Enemy airman crashing. Houses, etc., in the background under the cloud of gas he has spread. (N.B.--This is no part of Everytown, and the familiar skyline, etc., are to play no part in this scene.) Cabal landing with difficulty. He looks towards enemy aeroplane and then hurries towards it. Fire breaks out in the wrecked machine as Cabal approaches it. Cabal arrives at enemy aeroplane. Enemy airman staggers out as the flames spread. He is beating out the fire in his smouldering clothing. He staggers and falls. The rest of the scene goes to a flickering light because of the burning aeroplane. Gusts of black smoke across picture. Cabal helps the enemy airman, who is evidently very badly injured. He is as yet too stunned to be in anguish but he knows he is done for. Cabal settles him fairly comfortably on the ground. CABAL: "Is that better? My God--but you are smashed up, my boy." Cabal tries to make him comfortable. He desists and stares at the enemy airman with a sort of blank amazement. "Why should we two be murdering each other? How did we come to this?" The gas is drifting nearer to them. The enemy airman points to it. "Go, my friend! This is my gas, and it is a bad gas. Thank you." CABAL: "But how did we come to this? Why did we let them set us killing each other?" The enemy airman says nothing, but his expression assents. Cabal and the airman take their gas masks. Cabal helps the enemy airman with his mask and adjusts it. There is some difficulty due to the airman's broken arm, Cabal desists and has to try again. ENEMY AIRMAN: "Funny if I'm choked by my own poison." CABAL: "That's all right." Cabal puts the mask on and then puts his own on. Enemy airman hears a cry and looks up. Cabal follows his look, and he sees a little girl running before the gas. She is already choking and presses a handkerchief to her mouth. The girl, very distressed, runs towards them and hesitates, not knowing which way to go. She is heedless of the two men. Enemy airman stares, then tears off his mask and holds it out to Cabal. "Here--put it on her." Cabal hesitates, looks from one to the other. ENEMY AIRMAN: "I've given it to others--why shouldn't I have a whiff myself?" Cabal puts the mask on the girl, who resists, frightened, and then understands and submits. CABAL: "Come on, kiddy, this is no place for you. You make tracks that way. I'll show you." Cabal goes off with the girl and then returns into picture to see if the enemy airman has a pistol. He realises that he has not, hesitates, and gives his own pistol to him. "You may want this." ENEMY AIRMAN: "Good fellow--but I'll take my dose." The enemy airman is left dying in the flickering light of his burning aeroplane. The gas is very near now. The wisps drift towards him. He looks after Cabal and the girl. "I dropped the stuff on her. Maybe I've killed her father and mother. Maybe I've killed all her family. And then I give up my mask to save her. That's funny. Oh! That's really funny. Ha, ha, ha. That--that's a Joke!" The gas drifts by him and he starts to cough. He remembers Cabal's words. "What fools we airmen have been! We've let them make us fight for them like dogs. Smashed trying to kill her--and then I gave her my mask! Oh God! It's funny. Ha, ha, ha." His laugh changes to a cough of distress, as the gas envelops and hides him. The cough grows fainter and fainter, and vapour blots out the scene. "I'll take it all--take it all. I deserve it." He is heard again coughing and panting. Then comes a sharp cry, then a groan of sudden unendurable suffering. A pistol shot is heard. Silence. The screen is filled with the drifting vapour. PART VII The Unending War A succession of newspaper headings marks the prolongation of the war. The first newspaper has the same type of heading as the newspaper in Cabal's study before the Children's Party. Open with a close shot on date of paper. EVENING NEWSLETTER The weather forecast and the lighting-up time are no longer there. Date is May 20th, 1941. Price threepence. In place of "Closing City Prices" is "Prohibition of Speculation," but the paper still claims to be FINAL NIGHT EDITION. Headline across two columns: THE END IN SIGHT. Headline across two columns: THE RATIONING SCANDAL. Subhead underneath the first heading: BENEFITS OF BLAKE'S AIR OFFENSIVE. Text: "The immense efforts and sacrifices of the air force during the great counteroffensive of last month are bearing fruit." Camera close up to the date again and the close up to the date is repeated in the case of each of the newspapers which follow. A very roughly printed newspaper with blurs and discolorations wipes across and replaces its predecessor. The newspaper marks a great deterioration in social efficiency. It is printed from worn-out type and the lower lines fall away. THE WEEKLY PATRIOT No. 1. New Series. February 2nd, 1952. Price One Pound Sterling. DRAWING TO THE END "It is necessary to press on with the war with the utmost determination. Only by doing so can we hope..." A third paper wipes across this again: THE WEEKLY PATRIOT No. 754. March, 1955. Price One Pound Sterling. THE UTMOST RESOLUTION. NO SURRENDER. A desolate heath. Something burning far away. A sheet of decaying newspaper is fluttering in the wind. It catches on a thorn and as the wind tears at it the audience has time to read the ill-printed sheet of coarse paper: BRITONS BULLETIN September 21st, 1966. Price Four Pounds Sterling. "Hold on. Victory is coming. The enemy is near the breaking point..." The wind tears the scrap of paper to pieces. Here follows some still and desolate scene to suggest and symbolise our contemporary civilisation shattered to its foundations. The exact scene to be chosen could best be left to the imagination and invention and facilities of the model maker. It might even be different in the American, Continental or British version of the film. One of the following scenes will give all the effects needed: The Tower Bridge of London in ruins. No signs of human life. Sea gulls and crows. The Thames, partly blocked with debris, has overflowed its damaged banks. The Eiffel Tower, prostrate. The same desolation and ruin. Brooklyn Bridge destroyed. The tangle of cables in the water. Shipping sunk in the harbour. New York, ruined, in the background. A sunken liner at the bottom of the sea. A pleasure sea front, Palm Beach or the Lido, Blackpool or Coney Island, in complete and final ruin. A few wild dogs wander through the desolation. Oxford University in ruins and the Bodleian Library scattered amidst the wreckage. PART VIII The Wandering Sickness The Central Square in Everytown. It is in ruins. A few ragged street vendors and a primitive market in a corner of the Square. A gigantic shell-hole is in the middle of the Square. A group of people stand about a board on the wall. This is a notice-board like the old Album on which news was written in the Roman Forum. As the world relapses old methods reappear. Close shot of this group reading a smudgy cyclostyled notice on the board. It reads: NATIONAL BULLETIN August 1968. WARNING! A NEW OUTRAGE! ENEMY SPREADING DISEASE BY AEROPLANE "Our enemies, defeated on land and sea and in the air, have nevertheless retained a few aeroplanes which are difficult to locate and destroy. These they are using to spread disease, a new fever of mind and body...." Close up to emphasise date. A man in a worn and patched uniform comes out of the Town Hall with a paper in his hand and turns towards the wall. A few people are attracted by his activity. He pastes up a new cyclostyled inscription. The inscription, which runs a little askew, reads: "The enemy are spreading the Wandering Sickness by aeroplane. Avoid sites where bombs have fallen. Do not drink stagnant water." A woman comes out of a house. She is ragged and tired, a pail in her hand. She goes to the gigantic shell-hole in the middle of the Square. The woman descends with her pail. She wants some of the water. A man comes into the picture. MAN: "Didn't you read the warning?" The WOMAN answers with a tired mute "No." MAN, indicating the water: "Wandering Sickness." The woman is struck by instant fear. Then she hesitates. "I have to go half an hour away for spring water." The man shrugs his shoulders and goes. The woman is still hesitating. The hospital under the laboratory. A dim dark place. The sick are unattended. One of them--a man in a dirty shirt and trousers--barefooted and haggard--rises, looks about him wildly and darts out. The Square, outside the Hospital. The sick man wandering. He stares blankly in front of him. He seeks he knows not what. People in the Square see him and scatter. The woman in the shell-hole discovers the wandering sick man is approaching her. She screams and scrambles away. A group of men and women run away from the sick man. A sentry with a rifle. A group of men and women enter the picture. MAN to sentry: "Don't you see?" WOMAN: "He is carrying infection." The sentry does not like his job, but he lifts his rifle. He fires. The wandering man collapses, writhes and lies still. The SENTRY shouts: "Don't go near him. Leave him there!" Dr. Harding's laboratory. Harding is at his work-bench, assisted by his daughter, Mary. He is struggling desperately to work out the problem of immunity to the Wandering Sickness which is destroying mankind. He is now a man of fifty; he is overworked, jaded, aged. He is working in a partly wrecked laboratory with insufficient supplies. This laboratory has already been shown in the opening part. (The rooms downstairs have been improvised as a hospital, to which early cases of the pestilence are brought.) Harding's clothing is ragged and patched (no white overalls). His apparatus is more like an old alchemist's, it is makeshift and very inefficient. No power is laid on. There is no running water, though there is still a useless tap and a sink. But the brass microscopes are as before. They are difficult things to break. Bottles, crucibles, and such-like hardy stuff has survived, but very little fine glass. No Florence flasks, for example. Some old cans have been utilised. Several of the windows are cracked and have been mended with gummed paper. Harding mutters as he works. Mary is a girl of 18, dressed in a patched nurse's uniform, with a Red Cross armlet. "Father," she says, "why don't you sleep a little?" HARDING: "How can I sleep when my work may be the saving of countless lives?--countless lives!" A shot is heard without. Harding goes to the window, followed by Mary. Camera shooting from Harding's standpoint, showing the dead man with the Wandering Sickness, lying in his blood; Square deserted. A man walks across the scene, elaborately avoids the dead man, and puts a rag over his mouth to protect himself from infection. Harding and Mary. HARDING says: "And so our sanitation goes back to the cordon and killing! This is how they dealt with pestilence in the Dark Ages." He makes a gesture of desperate impotence, shrugging his shoulders and throwing up his hands, and then turns back to his work-bench. The room of Richard Gordon, a former air mechanic. It is like all the rooms of this period, shabby, with improvised or worn-out furniture. There is no proper table-ware, only a sort of tramp's outfit of gallipots and tins. Richard's sister Janet is at a wood stove cooking a meal. Her movements are slow and spiritless. Richard Gordon, seated in front of an old table, is obviously waiting for the meal. He is deep in thought. Instead of serving the meal Janet turns from the stove, walks a few steps and then stares into space. Richard, roused from his thoughts, looks at her with growing terror and rises hurriedly. "What is it, Janet? Your heart?" He takes her pulse. Deeply impressed: "I'll put you to bed, sister." Janet sullenly silent. She shakes her head. Richard very tenderly tries to induce her to go to bed. Return to Harding's laboratory. Harding at his microscope. Mary near him. HARDING examines some preparation, and, without looking back, says: "Iodine, please." Mary takes a step towards him. A glass or container in her hand. She looks at it and tilts it to ascertain its contents. She is unable to speak because she knows the portent of her answer. HARDING: "Mary!--iodine, please." MARY: "There is no more, father. There is just one drop." HARDING turns back as if stabbed. "No more iodine?" Mary replies with a shake of her head. Harding almost collapses and sits down. "My God!" He buries his head in his hands. His voice almost a sob: "What is the good of trying to save a mad world from its punishment?" MARY: "Oh father, if you could only sleep for a time." HARDING: "How can I sleep? See how they wander out to die." He rises and looks at his daughter, deeply moved: "And to think that I brought you into this world." MARY: "Even now I am glad to be alive, father." Harding pats her shoulder, a quick affectionate gesture. Then he walks up and down in deep mental distress. "This is the last torment of this endless warfare. To know what life could do and be--and to be helpless." He takes the slip from under the microscope eyepiece and dashes it to the floor in impotent rage. He sits down in utter despair. Mary makes a futile movement to console him. A step on the staircase outside. They both look towards the door. MARY: "Richard!" Gordon enters. Harding stares at him, fearing his news. GORDON: "My sister..." HARDING: "How--do you--know?" GORDON: "Her heart beats fast. She feels faint. And--and-- she won't answer." Harding says nothing. GORDON: "What can I do for her?" Harding pained, silent and beaten. GORDON: "I thought--something--might be known." Harding does not move. MARY cries: "Oh Janet!--and you, poor dear--" She approaches Gordon and Gordon makes a movement as if to warn her that he too may be infected. She does not care. "Richard," she whispers, close to his face. Harding rises and goes without a word. It is the doctor's instinct to try and help where everything seems hopeless. Gordon's living room. Janet turns to and fro on her bed. Enter Harding, followed by Richard and Mary. Harding approaches the bed. He pulls back the sheets, listens to Janet's breathing. Then he replaces the sheets and shakes his head. He rises from the bed. Gordon asks a mute question. HARDING: "No doubt of it. And it need not be. Oh, to think of it! There is just one point still obscure. But I cannot even get iodine now--not even iodine! There is no more trade, nothing to be got. The war goes on. This pestilence goes on-- unchallenged--worse than the wars that released it." GORDON: "Is there nothing to make her comfortable?" HARDING: "Nothing. There is nothing to make anyone comfortable any more. War is the art of spreading wretchedness and misery. I remember when I was still a medical student, talking to a man named Cabal, about preventing war. And about the researches I would make and the ills I would cure. My God!" Harding turns to the door and goes out. The ruined and desolate Square as before. Harding crosses it, returning despairfully to his laboratory. Gordon's living room. Mary and Gordon sitting. Atmosphere of hopelessness. Both stare towards the bed. Janet rises. Her face is now ghastly white and her eyes are glassy. She comes towards the two and towards the audience. Mary and Gordon stare at her, horror-stricken, as she passes them. Her face advances to a close-up. She leaves the room. After a second's hesitation, Gordon rises and hurries after his sister. Mary takes a few steps and then sits down. The Square. Janet wandering. Gordon reaches her and tries to take her arm, but she shakes him off. They go towards the crowd about the notice-board in front of the Town Hall. The crowd disperses, panic-stricken. Janet and Gordon walking towards the sentry. The sentry lifts his rifle. Gordon protects Janet with his body. To sentry: "No! Don't shoot; I will take her out of the town." Sentry hesitates. Janet wanders off the picture. Gordon hesitates between the sentry and her and then follows her. Sentry turns after them, still irresolute. Janet and Gordon wander through the ruins of Everytown. She goes on ahead feverishly, aimlessly. He follows her. We are thus given a tour through Everytown in the uttermost phase of collapse. A dead city. Rats flee before them-- starving dogs. They pass across a deserted railway station. Public gardens in extreme neglect. Smashed notice-boards. Fountains destroyed--railings broken down. Suburban road with villas empty and ruinous. In the gardens are bramble-thickets and nettle-beds. Janet and Gordon pass the former house of Passworthy, recognisable by the shattered fence. Gradually the two figures, following each other, recede, and what follows is seen across wide desolate spaces at an increasing distance. Janet drops and lies still. Gordon kneels down beside her. At first he cannot believe she is dead. He picks her up in his arms and carries her off. He is seen far away carrying her into a mortuary. Hooded figures come out to take her from him--all very far away. Mary waiting in Gordon's room. It is now twilight and we see her face very sad and still and pale. She looks towards the door when at last Gordon comes staggering in. He is the picture of misery "Oh Mary, dear Mary," he cries. Mary holds out her arms to him. He clings to her like a child. Three dates on the screen. 1968 1969 1970 PART IX Everytown under a Patriot Chief The Square of Every town in 1970. It has a little recovered from the extreme tragic desolation of the Pestilence stage. Clumsy efforts to repair ruined buildings have been made. No shops have been reopened and half the houses are unoccupied, but the shell-hole in the centre has been filled up. There is a sort of market going on with patched and ragged people haggling for vegetables and bits of meat. Few people have boots. Most people are wearing footwear of bast and rags or sabots of wood. Few hats are worn and those old. The women are bare-headed or have shawls over their heads. The vehicles are not rude and primitive, but old broken-down stuff. One or two boxed things with old carriage wheels or motor car wheels --which people push. Few or no horses. A cow or a goat being milked. There is a peasant with a motor car (small runabout without tires) with a lot of carrots and turnips in it, drawn by a horse. Several stalls are fairly full of second-hand stuff--clothing, furniture and household goods. It is like a small Caledonian Market. There is an old-clothes and miscellaneous stall with jewellery and worn-out finery. This is kept by an obsequious individual who might be an Oriental bazaar dealer. He rubs his hands and inspects another stall and watches the passers-by. No new stuff anywhere, because industrial life is at a standstill. The camera moves round to give a general view of the Square, coming to rest outside of the Town Hall. A big rosette flag hangs over the portico of the Town Hall. This rosette is the symbol of the ruling Boss and his government. A small group watching a rosetted guard writing with charcoal on the wall: At the top he has drawn and smeared a rough rosette. NATIONAL BULLETIN Mayday A.D. 1970 THE PESTILENCE HAS CEASED. Thanks to the determined action of our chief in shooting all wanderers. There have been no cases for two months. The Pestilence has been conquered. THE CHIEF IS PREPARING TO RESUME HOSTILITIES AGAINST THE HILL PEOPLE WITH THE UTMOST VIGOUR. Soon we shall have Victory and Peace. All is well--God save the Chief. God save our Land. (Rosette) Inside an aeroplane hangar. Gordon, three years older, and in a different, rather less dishevelled costume, is working on an aeroplane engine on the bench. Behind him is the dismantled aeroplane. Two assistants with him. He examines the high tension wires. GORDON: "This rubber is perished. Have we any more insulated wire?" FIRST ASSISTANT: "We've got no rubbered wire at all, sir." GORDON: "Any rubber--tape?" SECOND ASSISTANT: "Not a scrap of rubber in the place. We used the last on the other motor." GORDON slowly rises, defeated: "Oh, what's the use-- there's no petrol anyway. I don't believe there's three gallons of petrol left in this accursed ruin of a town. What's the good of setting me at a job like this? Nothing will ever fly again. Flying is over. Everything is over. Civilisation is dead." The Market. Camera swung round to the stall of gew-gaws and old dresses. Roxana sailing down upon the trader. Roxana is a consciously beautiful young woman of eight-and-twenty. Her face is made up rather skilfully. In contrast to the dirty and dispirited people in the Square, she and her two attendant women seem brilliantly bright and prosperous. Her costume is best described as a collection of finery. It has been got together from the wardrobes and presses that are still to be found in the abandoned houses. It consists chiefly of an afternoon dress of circa 1935. Wadsky's stall is stocked with such findings. ROXANA, advancing: "Where is Wadsky? I want to speak to Wadsky." Wadsky, who has been lurking behind his stall as she advances, pulls himself together and comes out to meet her. ROXANA: "You had a piece of flowered stuff, a whole length, seven yards, and you did not tell me of it. You kept it back from me, and you gave it to that woman of yours. And she's got a new dress--a new dress." Wadsky disputes with his arms and shoulders while she speaks and when she pauses he says: "Ooh Lady, I showed you that piece." ROXANA: "Don't outface me, Wadsky. You have done that too often. You kept it from me!" WADSKY: "Lady! You said: 'I don't want stuff like that.'" ROXANA: "Why! I had been asking for weeks for that very thing for the summer--light flowered cotton stuff." WADSKY: "Oh, but Lady!" ROXANA: "How dared you? One would think I was of no importance in Everytown." ROXANA turns to her first attendant. "Don't you remember? --I said I wanted light stuff with flowers." Attendant remembers dutifully. ROXANA appeals to her further. "What is the good of a Lover--what is the good of a powerful lover, if one is to be treated like this?" ROXANA to Wadsky, who is bowing, very disgruntled. "I'll tell the Chief. I've warned you before. Everything first to me." Swing away from her to another part of the Market Square. A little excited knot has formed round a ragged man. MAN: "I saw it with my own eyes." Crowd laughs. WOMAN: "First you drink and then you see things." MAN: "First I heard the noise, then I looked up and there it was--far away up in the sky--over the hills." Gordon is seen coming through the Square towards them. He hears the last remarks of the man. "What did you see?" MAN: "An aeroplane--flying away there over the hills. Just about dawn it was." The crowd jeers at him. Gordon looks at the man, sums him up, shrugs his shoulders, and goes on his way. Mary is buying vegetables from the peasant with the horse- drawn car. She is dressed in a rough simple costume of brownish stuff. But it suits her style. Gordon appears and they greet one another with the casualness of married people. While Mary selects food, GORDON looks at the car with professional affection. "It's a Morris, isn't it?" PEASANT: "Yes--a good pre-pestilence machine. I oil it and turn it over at times." GORDON: "You think it might go fast some day? Still?" PEASANT: "Say! I'm not one of those petrol hoarders. But all the same that engine turns over still. Why, I remember when I was a boy--when it was new--we thought nothing of going a hundred miles in it--a whole hundred miles. Less than three hours I've done it in. But all that sort of thing has gone--gone for ever! Eh?" He looks with a sort of sceptical cunning inquiry at Gordon. Gordon and Mary finish their purchases and go towards the laboratory. MARY: "You are late to-day. Did you get any thing done?" GORDON: "Nothing. The machines are rotten. There's no petrol. It's mockery for the Boss to set me at it. We'll never get one of them up. Flying has become a dream for Bosses and such--like drunken men. There was a drunken man over there, by the by, swearing he saw an aeroplane this morning." MARY: "Richard!" GORDON: "What is it?" MARY: "You won't think me mad?" GORDON: "Eh?" MARY: "I heard an aeroplane this morning." GORDON: "When?" MARY: "At dawn. I thought it was a dream. But if someone else--" GORDON: "Nonsense. I tell you flying is finished. We shall never get in the air again. Never." Fifes and drums are heard. They turn abruptly, with a certain uneasiness of bearing. The Boss with his retinue. They are a semi-military brigand crew with little that is uniform about them except the prevalent rosette badges. They march through the Square. The Boss is a big swaggering fellow with a hat cocked on one side bearing a rosette in front of it. His frogged tunic might have belonged to a guards' bandsman. He has a sword, a dirk and two pistols. Neat riding breeches and boots. A scarf tied across his breast bears the rosette symbol. His manners might be described as the decaying civilities of a London taxi-cab driver. His underlings have compiled quasi-military costumes similar to his own. He recognises Gordon, glances at Mary, betrays a momentary appreciation, decides to show off at her and halts. Gordon makes a half-hearted salute. BOSS: "Anything to report, Gordon?" GORDON: "Nothing very hopeful, Chief." BOSS: "We must have those planes--somehow." GORDON: "I'll do what I can, but you can't fly without petrol." BOSS: "I'll get petrol for you, trust me. You see to the engines. I know you haven't got stuff--but surely you can get round that. For example, transfer parts. Have you tried that? Use bits of one to mend the other. Be resourceful. Give me only ten in working order. Give me only five. I don't want them all. I'll see to it you get your reward. Then we can end this war of ours--for good. This your wife, Gordon? You've kept her hidden. Salutation, lady! You must use your influence with our Master Mechanic, lady. The combatant State needs his work." MARY doesn't like the situation. "I'm sure my husband does his best for you, Chief." BOSS: "His best! That isn't enough, lady. The combatant State demands miracles." MARY pauses and then speaks rather stupidly: "It isn't everyone, Chief, who can work miracles--as you do." BOSS, most elated: "I am sure you could work miracles, lady, if you chose." The voice of Roxana heard off "Rudolf!" The manner of the Boss becomes slightly deflated. He turns towards Roxana who approaches rustling with indignation, followed by her three ladies in waiting. Gordon and Mary are ignored forthwith. Behind, in a state of nervous apprehension, hovers Wadsky. ROXANA: "Here they are at their old tricks! Wadsky has been keeping things back from me! Is that with your permission?" WADSKY: "But she was shown it. She said she didn't want it." BOSS: "If Wadsky has been at his old tricks again he must answer for them." Roxana turns triumphantly towards Wadsky. BOSS: "It isn't only Wadsky who keeps things back. What do you think of our Master Mechanic here--who won't give me planes to finish up that little war of ours with the Hill People?" Roxana surveys Gordon with her arms akimbo, and then considers Mary and the Boss more deliberately. She rather likes the look of Gordon. She perceives that the Boss has been showing off at Mary and she wants to take him down a little. She speaks with a faint shrewish mockery to the Boss. "Can't you make him? I thought you could make everybody do everything." GORDON: "Some things can't be done, Madam. You can't fly without petrol. You can't mend machines without tools or material. We've gone back too far. Flying is a lost skill in Everytown." ROXANA: "And are you really as stupid as that?" GORDON: "I'm as helpless as that." ROXANA to the Boss: "And now Chief--what are you going to do about it?" BOSS, becoming the strong man: "He's going to put those machines in order and I'm going to find him--coal--stuff to make his oil." The throbbing of an aeroplane very far away becomes faintly audible. Close up of Gordon's face. GORDON: "It's a lost skill. It is a dream of the past." His face changes as the beating of the aeroplane dawns on his consciousness. He is puzzled. Then his face changes. He looks up in the sky. He points silently. The whole group is shown. All are staring upward. Wadsky and the market people, the general crowd in the background, are all becoming aware of the aeroplane. The aeroplane is seen circling in the sky. This has to be the first novel aeroplane seen in the film. It is to be a small new 1970 type. Its wings curve back like a swallow's. It must not be big and impressive like the gas bomber which presently arrives, but it must be "different." People run out of houses. Everybody staring skywards. Running, shouting--the excitement grows. Gordon, deeply moved. He addresses Mary. "There it is--you were right--a plane once more! He's shutting off--he's coming down." The eye of the crowd follows the plane and indicates it is circling down to a descent. The BOSS is the first to become active. "What's all this? Have they got aeroplanes before us? And you tell me we can't fly any more! While we have been--fumbling, they have been active. Here, some of you, find out who this is and what it means! You (to one of his guards), you go, and you (to another). There was only one man in it. Hold him." The Boss is a centre of activity. BOSS: "Send for Simon Burton. Get me Simon." A sly-looking individual, the right-hand man of the Boss, appears from the direction of the Town Hall and hurries up to his chief. The camera shows Gordon and Mary standing a little aloof, perplexed, full of strange hope, at this wonderful break in the routines of Everytown. Then it returns to Roxana. She watches the Boss and his proceedings with the sceptical criticism of a woman who knows a man too well. Then her mind returns to Mary and she looks for her and discovers Gordon also. She comes across to them. ROXANA to Gordon: "What do you know about it? Do you know anything of this? Who is that man in the air?" GORDON speaks half to himself and half to Roxana and Mary. "It was something new. It was a new machine. Somewhere they can still make new machines. I didn't dream it was still possible." ROXANA: "But who is the man? How does he dare come here?" Close up of her face as she surveys Everytown and realises that after all it is not the whole world. Her eyes return to the Boss who is still rather uncertain how to meet this new occasion. BOSS: "Fetch him to the Town Hall. Guard his machine and bring him to me there." The camera returns to Gordon and Mary. GORDON: "Come along, Mary. I must see that machine." A field close to the town. People running. The aeroplane glides overhead and lands just out of sight over the brow of a slight hill. A few ragged men, women and children run up so as to stand out against the sky and look. They hesitate and keep their distance. A child starts forward but his mother stops him-- they stare, and they begin to move uneasily right and left from the centre of the ridge as something unseen approaches. The two guards sent by the Boss appear and hesitate. We are looking towards the aeroplane across a hollow so that with quite dramatic suddenness John Cabal, the airman, the father of the children in the opening part, rises above the crest and comes towards us. He is now grey-haired with a lined face. He is dressed in shiny black and he wears a sort of circular shield over head and body that makes him over seven feet high. It is like a round helmet enclosing body as well as head. It is a 1970 gas mask. The vizor in front swings down, so that his head and shoulders seen from in front are suggestive of a Buddha against a circular halo. The black mask behind his head and shoulders is ribbed like a scallop shell. He stands out against the sky, a tall portent. He walk through the watchers who follow him--one guard goes over the crest towards the machine, the other guard approaches him. This second guard and Cabal go towards the town. This second guard is an oafish unshaven creature, greatly puzzled by life at all times and excessively puzzled now. A group of curious men and women follow them. CABAL: "Who's in control of this part of the country?" GUARD: "The chief. What we call the Boss." CABAL: "Good. I want to see him!" GUARD: "He sent me to arrest you." CABAL: "Well--you can't. But I'll come and see him." GUARD: "Well, you're under arrest--whether you admit it or not. This country is at war." The crowd and particularly various children come closer to Cabal. CABAL: "I remember this place well. I lived oh--somewhere down there." (Points.) "For years. Ever heard of man called Passworthy? Any of you? No! Harding?" Two children speak together. "Doctor Harding!" CABAL: "Yes, is he still here?" OLD WOMAN: "He's a good man. He's our only doctor here. Oh, he's a good man." CHILDREN: "Look, here he is, sir!" Harding, Gordon and Mary seen approaching. Crowd in background. Cabal and Harding scrutinise each other. CABAL: "Heavens! Is that Harding?" HARDING, perplexed: "I seem to remember something-- something about you." CABAL: "But you were a young man!" HARDING cries out: "You are John Cabal! I used to come to your house! Here! Endless years ago. Before the wars began. And you are flying! You are grey but you look--young still!" CABAL: "How are things in this place? Who's in control?" HARDING looks discreetly at crowd: "We've got a chief here --a war lord. The usual thing." CABAL takes Harding by the arm: "H'm. I've come to look up your war lord. Where can we go to talk?" Harding gesticulates to indicate where he lives. Cabal makes to go with him. GUARD: "Here! You're under arrest, you know. You've got to come to the chief." CABAL: "All in good time. This gentleman first." GUARD: "You can't do that. You've got to come with me. Orders are orders. The Boss first." Cabal lifts his eyebrows and goes off with Harding. GUARD following with gestures of amazement and protest. "Here. Here. Here," he says. Then come Gordon and Mary and the rabble. The rabble is astonished at Cabal's cavalier treatment of the guard. In the laboratory. Remains of a meal. The meal has been a squalid one. Cans--only a knife or so and a broken fork. No cloth, cracked bowls. Mary, Gordon, Cabal and Harding in conversation. Cabal has removed his great body gas-mask and swings it beside him. The guard opens the door and looks in. CABAL: "You keep out. I shall be all right here." The guard seems about to speak and then catches Cabal's eye and shuts the door again. CABAL: "And so you came back here after the war?" HARDING: "And became a sort of medieval leech. A doctor without medicines or instruments. I do what I can in this broken--down world. Good heavens! Do you remember how I used to blow about the research I was going to do?" CABAL comes and sits down: "Don't I remember? You had some good ideas. But look here--tell me things. How are things here? Are there any mechanics left? Any capable technical workers?" HARDING: "This is the very man." Gordon comes forward and CABAL scrutinises him. "What are you?" GORDON: "Ex-air-mechanic, sir. Jack of all trades now. The last engineer in Evervtown." CABAL: "Pilot?" GORDON: "Yes, sir." (Salutes.) "Not so very skilful. I wish I was a better mechanic." The GUARD opens the door again and peeps in. "My orders," he begins. CABAL: "Never mind your orders. Shut--that--door." The guard obeys. CABAL: "Tell me about this Boss you have here. What sort of man has got hold of this part of the world?" The Boss's headquarters in the Town Hall. He has staged things for the reception of the strange airman. He sits at a vast desk. A few guards, secretaries and yes-men around him. Simon Burton sits at a side table. Roxana watches proceedings --comes and stands close beside the Boss at his right hand. Whispers to him. She displays the excitement of a woman before a bull fight. A lively contest is going to happen and she has an impression that the strange visitant may prove an interesting novelty. Things have been dull in Everytown lately. The atmosphere is strained. The scene is set and the principal actor does not enter. The Boss is impatient to see Cabal and Cabal does not come. Messengers are sent and return. BOSS: "Where is this man? Why isn't he brought here?" Everyone looks uneasy. The Boss turns to Burton. BURTON: "He has gone off with Doctor Harding." The BOSS rises. "He has to be brought here. I must deal with him." ROXANA lays a hand on his arm. "But you can't go to him. That's impossible. He must come to you." The Boss hesitates and sits restless under her dominance. "Send another man for him. Send three men. With clubs. He must be brought here at once." Burton hurries out to give the order. The laboratory. The group talking. CABAL: "So that's the sort of man your Boss is. Not an unusual type. Everywhere, you see, we find these little semi- military upstarts robbing, fighting. That is what endless warfare has worked out to--brigandage. What else could happen? And we, who are all that is left of the old engineers and mechanics, are turning our hands to savage the world. We have the air-ways, what is left of them, we have the sea. We have ideas in common; the freemasonry of efficiency--the brotherhood of science. We are the natural trustees of civilisation when everything else has failed." GORDON: "Oh, I have been waiting for this. I am yours to command." CABAL: "Not mine. Not mine. No more bosses. Civilisation's to command. Give yourself to World Communications." A knock at the door. They turn. The oafish guard comes into the room. Three others who have been sent for him by the Boss are behind. One of them says: "Tell him he's got to come. If he won't come on his feet, we'll carry him." The FIRST GUARD: "Lord knows what will happen to me, sir, if you do not come." Cabal shrugs his shoulders, rises, reflects, hands his great gas mask to Gordon and stalks out, the guards following respectfully. The gas mask is not in evidence in the next scene. The Town Hall. The Boss at his great desk. Roxana very alert behind him. Simon Burton at his own table. As the guard and Cabal approach, the Boss draws himself up in his chair, and attempts a lordly pose. Cabal's bearing is easy and familiar. The Boss is sturdy and ornate. Cabal tall, lean, black and dry. CABAL: "Well, what do you want to talk to me about?" BOSS: "Who are you? Don't you know this country is at war?" CABAL: "Dear, dear! Still at it. We must clean that up." BOSS: "What do you mean? We must clean that up? War is war. Who are you, I say?" CABAL pauses before he replies. "The law," he says. He improves it: "Law and sanity." Roxana watches him. Then looks to the Boss. BOSS, a little late: "I am the law here." CABAL: "I said law and sanity." BOSS: "Where do you come from? What are you?" CABAL: "Pax Mundi. Wings over the World." BOSS: "Well, you know, you can't come into a country at war in this fashion." CABAL: "I'm here. Do you mind if I sit down?" He sits down and leans across the table looking intelligently and familiarly into the face of the Boss. "Well?" he says. BOSS: "And now for the fourth time who are you?" CABAL: "I tell you Wings--Wings over the World." BOSS: "That's nothing. What Government are you under?" CABAL: "Common sense. Call us Airmen if you like. We just run ourselves." BOSS: "You'll run into trouble if you land here in war time. What's the game?" CABAL: "Order and trade--" BOSS: "Trade, eh? Can you do anything in munitions?" CABAL: "Not our line of business." BOSS: "Petrol--spare parts? We've got planes--we've got planes--we've got boys who've trained a bit on the ground. But we've got no fuel. It hampers us. We might do a deal." CABAL reflects and looks at his toes: "We might." BOSS: "I know where I can get some fuel. Later. I've got my plans. But if you could manage a temporary accommodation-- we'd do business." CABAL: "Airmen help no one to make war." BOSS, impatiently: "End war, I said. End war. We want to make a victorious peace." CABAL: "I seem to have heard that phrase before. When I was a young man. But it made no end to war." BOSS: "Now look here, Mr. Aviator. Let's be clear how things are. Come down to actuality. The way you swagger there, you don't seem to understand you are under arrest. You and your machine." Mutual mute interrogation. CABAL: "You'll get other machines looking for me--if I happen to be delayed." BOSS: "We'll deal with them later. You can start a trading agency here if you like. I've no objection. And the first thing we shall want will be to have our own aeroplanes in the air again." He looks for confirmation to Bunon, who nods approval and then to Roxana. But Roxana is staring at Cabal to hear his next words. CABAL: "Yes. An excellent ambition. But our new order has an objection to private aeroplanes." ROXANA, softly for Boss to hear: "The impudence!" BOSS half glances at her with a faint anxiety. She has sometimes the habit of taking the word in discussions. "I am not talking of private aeroplanes. The aeroplanes we have here are the public aeroplanes of our combatant state. This is a free and sovereign State. At war. I don't know anything about any new order. I am the chief here, and I am not going to take any orders--old or new, from you." CABAL leans back in his chair and reflects. He says, with a faint gleam of amusement: "I suppose I have walked into trouble." BOSS: "You may take that as right." Simon Burton is about to say something, and then thinks better of it. ROXANA is more outspoken: "Where do you come from?" CABAL smiles and addresses himself deliberately to her: "I flew from our headquarters at Basra yesterday. I spent the night at an old aerodrome at Marseilles. We are gradually restoring order and trade all over the Mediterranean. We have some hundreds of aeroplanes and we are making more, fast. We have factories at work again. I'm just scouting a bit to see how things are here." BOSS: "And you've found out. We've got order here, the old order, and we don't want anybody else restoring it, thank you. This is an independent combatant State." CABAL: "We've got to talk about that." BOSS: "We won't discuss it." CABAL: "We don't approve of these independent combatant States." BOSS: "You don't approve!" CABAL: "We mean to stop them." BOSS: "That's--war." CABAL: "As you will. My people know I'm prospecting. When they find I don't come back they'll send a force to look for me." BOSS, grimly: "Perhaps they won't find you." CABAL shrugs his shoulders. "They'll find you." BOSS: "They'll find me ready. Well, I think we know now where we stand. You four guards take this man, and if he gives any trouble, club him. Club him. You hear that, Mr. Wings over your Wits? See to it, Burton. Have him taken to the detention room downstairs." He stands up as if dismissing the assembly. The camera goes to a smaller apartment behind the large room of the previous scene. It is the Boss's retiring room. Roxana enters first and turns to the Boss who is following her. ROXANA, exasperatingly critical: "Now was that wise." BOSS, irritated at once: "Wise!" ROXANA: "Yes, wise; was it wise to quarrel with him at once?" BOSS: "Quarrel with him! Confound him, he began to quarrel with me!--'We must clean that up!'--Clean that up! My war!" ROXANA: "But--but there's things behind him." BOSS: "Things behind him! Some sort of air bus driver. Standing up to me--like an equal." ROXANA: "So you lost your temper and bullied him." BOSS: "I didn't bully. I just took the fellow in hand." ROXANA: "No, Rudolf. You bully. And you bully too soon." BOSS: "I don't seem able to please you to-day." ROXANA: "Well, if you must go from one tactless thing to another. Weakening your authority. Sacrificing dignity." BOSS: "Here! What's the matter with you?" ROXANA: "Oh, I saw! There's your head mechanic--an essential man for your work--and you can't keep your eyes off his wife! Don't I know you? But never mind that. I've learnt to overlook that sort of thing. What I ask again--whether you bully me or not--is, whether it was wise to take this man in this way?" BOSS: "How else could he be taken? How else?" ROXANA: "Well, look at it! This is the first real aviator that has come our way for years. Think of what that means, my dear! You want aeroplanes, don't you? You want your aeroplanes put in order? Well--I've always doubted if that young man Gordon was up to the job. He's good-looking in a weak sort of way--but is he really skilful and scientific? He --fumbles. He just goes about with this girl of his--whom you think so good looking. A really clever man would have had some of those machines up long ago. I'm sure of it." BOSS: "So along comes this stranger who is going to clean me up. And you propose I shall hand over my aeroplanes to him, lock, stock and barrel." ROXANA: "Why talk nonsense? You could have persuaded him-- under supervision." BOSS: "Supervision. The sort of oafs I have here to supervise him. He'd be too much for them." ROXANA: "If he's going to be too much for you, hang him and hide his machine before the others get after you. But if he isn't going to be too much for you--" BOSS: "He's not going to be too much for me." ROXANA: "Very well. The hand of iron in the glove of velvet. Where is the benefit in ambushing him and locking him up?" BOSS: "I don't agree with you. I don't agree with you. Oh, I don't agree with you. Now listen. Listen to me. You don't understand. Now is our time. You think I'm a fool. But let me tell you one or two things I've had in mind. If you watched my mind a little more and my movements a little less it might be better for you." Simon Burton joins them unobtrusively and listens deferentially. BOSS: "This--this stranger--hasn't taken me by surprise. I knew this thing was coming." Close up of incredulous faces of Roxana and Simon Burton. BOSS: "Yes, I knew this was coming. I felt they'd got ahead with their air force down there. I felt there was this conspiracy of air bus drivers brewing somewhere in the world. Very well. Now's the time. We've got this fellow bottled up for a week or so. They may not begin to miss him for days. I've got everything fixed now for an attack straight away up the Floss Valley to the old coal and shale pits--where there's oil too! And then--up we buzz. Wings over the Hill- State. Everybody has laughed at my air force that never even crawls on the ground. But they won't laugh then." ROXANA: "My dear, that's all right. But it doesn't explain why you treat that new man as an enemy. I don't believe Gordon is a good mechanic. But evidently he is." BOSS: "Don't harp on that! You always think you know better than I do--about everything." ROXANA slowly: "I'm going to talk to this man myself." BOSS: "If that sort of thing is what you are after--!" ROXANA: "Oh, you don't understand." BOSS: "Don't understand! You spare neither youth nor age. You leave that man to me. You leave that fellow alone." Scene changes to a small bare room like the waiting-room of a police station. It is poorly lit by a barred window. Cabal sits on a wooden chair with his arms on a bare table and contemplates the situation. CABAL: "I've tumbled into a hole. It's the old old story of the overconfident wise man and the truculent rough.... It may be weeks before I'm reported as missing. They'll think my radio has broken down. Meanwhile Mr. Boss here does as he likes.... "Escape?" He contemplates the room. Stands up and stares at the window bars. "They'll have my machine guarded...." Sits down again, laughs bitterly at himself and drums with his fingers on the table exactly as he did in Part III of the film. Then he jumps up impatiently. Goes to the window. Close up of his face in the dim light. "I suppose everyone must do something hopelessly foolish at times. I've walked into it. I--the planner of a new world.... "Just at this time with everything ready.... "If this mad war dog here bites me--and I die--I wonder who will carry on.... "No man is indispensable...." He tries the firmness of the bars in the window. Fade out upon his hands holding the bars. Scene outside the Town Hall. A small troop of mounted men with a flag leaving for the war. Two led horses are brought up and the Boss and Roxana appear and mount. The whole body rides off. A small not very enthusiastic crowd watches their departure. There is a feeble cheer as the detachment goes off. Fight on a hill overlooking coal pits. The Boss directs operations. With him are his irregular troop leaders. They gallop off. The coal pits. The Boss's cavalry attack some rough trenches. The defenders are overwhelmed and seen running away. One or two flashes of the little battle. The Boss's men are plainly victorious, the enemy routed. The Central Square. A troop of mounted men ride into the Square. Following comes the Boss and Roxana triumphant. Flags decorate the side streets. The crowd shows a new enthusiasm. People cheer as the Boss and Roxana pull up outside the Town Hall. Close up of a group of lookers-on. One man is explaining to another: MAN: "We have captured the coal pits, and the old oil retorts, and we have got oil at last." Close up of a lean, excited patriotic youngster wearing a rosette badge. "Now we'll bomb the hills to hell." In the Town Hall. A day later. The Boss still flushed with triumph. Most of his usual entourage is present, but Roxana is not there at first. Eight or nine officers of the little army are present. Gordon is seen under arrest near the Boss's desk. The Boss walks up and down and orates: BOSS: "Victory approaches. Your sacrifices have not been in vain. Our long struggle with the Hill Men has come to its climax. Our victory at the old coal pits has brought a new supply of oil within reach. Once more we can hope to take to the air and look invaders in the face. We have nearly forty aeroplanes, as big a force, I venture to say, as any in the world now. This oil we have got can be adapted to our engines. That is quite a simple business. Nothing remains to be done but a conclusive bombing of the hills. Then for a time we shall have a rich and rewarding peace, the peace of the strong man armed who keepeth his house. And now at this supreme crisis you, Gordon, our master engineer, must needs refuse to help us. Where are my planes?" GORDON: "The job is more difficult than you think. Half your machines are hopelessly old. You haven't got twenty sound ones. To be exact, nineteen. You'll never get the others off the ground. The thing cannot be done as you imagine it. I want assistance." BOSS: "What assistance?" GORDON: "Your prisoner." BOSS turns to him. "You want that fellow in black--Wings over the World? You want him released?" GORDON: "He knows his business. I don't enough. Make him my--technical adviser." BOSS: "I don't trust you technical fellows." GORDON: "Then you won't get an aeroplane up." BOSS: "I want those planes." Gordon shrugs his shoulders. The Boss meditates, walking to and fro. BOSS: "And if you get him?" GORDON: "Then I want Doctor Harding out too." BOSS: "They're--old associates." GORDON: "I can't help that. If anybody in Everytown can adapt that crude oil for our aeroplanes it is Harding. If not, it can't be done." BOSS: "We've had a bit of an argument with Harding." GORDON: "He's the only man who can do this work for you." BOSS: "Bring in Harding." Enter Roxana with a certain quiet dignity while the assembly awaits Harding. The Boss glances at her as if he would rather she had not come. She stands regarding the scene critically. Harding is brought in. He is dishevelled, and his hands are tied. He looks as if he had been manhandled. BOSS: "Untie his hands." The guard releases Harding. The BOSS pauses and looks at Harding. "Well?" HARDING: "Well, what?" BOSS: "The salute." HARDING: "Damn the salute." The guard steps forward to strike Harding, but Roxana intervenes. ROXANA: "No." BOSS: "Never mind the salute now. We'll talk about that afterwards. Now let us see where we are. You, Gordon, are to direct the reconstruction of our air forces. The prisoner Cabal is to be put at your disposal. Everywhere he goes he is to be under guard and observation. No relaxing on that. And neither he nor you must go within fifty yards of his plane. Mind that! You, Harding, are to help Gordon with this fuel problem and to put your knowledge of poison gas at our disposal." HARDING: "I tell you, I will do nothing with poison gas." BOSS: "You've got the knowledge--if I have to wring it out of you. The Combatant State is your father and your mother, your only protector, the totality of your interests. No discipline can be stern enough for the man who denies that by word or deed." HARDING: "Nonsense. We have our duty to civilisation. You and your like are heading back to eternal barbarism." The entourage is dumbfounded. Burton starts forward. "But this is pure treason." HARDING: "In the name of civilisation, I protest against being dragged from my work. Confound your silly wars! Your war material and all the rest of it! All my life has been interrupted and wasted and spoilt by war. I will stand it no more." BURTON: "This is Treason--Treason." Guards rush upon Harding, seize him and twist his arms. Harding snarls with pain. Roxana comes forward. ROXANA: "No. Stop that." The guards stop. Harding is sullen and silent. The Boss comes very close to him. BOSS: "We have need of your services." HARDING: "Well, what do you want?" BOSS: "You are conscripted. You are under my orders now and under no others in the world. I am the master here! I am the State. I want fuel--and gas." HARDING: "Neither fuel nor gas." BOSS: "You refuse?" HARDING: "Absolutely." BOSS: "I do not want to be forced to extremities." Roxana is whispering to the Boss, with her eyes on Gordon. Gordon comes fully into the picture. He has a scheme of his own. He looks hard at Roxana as though he was silently trying to will her aid. The confidence in his manner, the faint streak of impudence in his nature, increases. GORDON: "Sir--may I have a word? I understand you want all of these out-of-date crocks of yours which you call your air force, to fly again--and fly well?" BOSS: "They shall." GORDON: "With the help of that man--Cabal--you have in the cells here, and with the help of Doctor Harding here--you may even get a dozen of your planes in the air again." HARDING: "You are a traitor to civilisation. I won't touch it." GORDON ignores him: "If you will give me Cabal and--if you will leave me free to talk with the Doctor, I promise you will see your air force--a third of it at any rate--in the sky again." BOSS: "You talk as though you were driving a bargain with me." GORDON: "I am sorry, Chief. It is not I who make these conditions. It is in the nature of things. You cannot have technical services, you cannot have scientific help unless you treat the men who give it you--properly." ROXANA to the Boss, but quite loud: "That's what I have said all along! You are bullying too much, my dear. There is a limit to bullying. Why! you can't make a dog hunt by beating it." BOSS: "I want those aeroplanes." GORDON: "Well." BOSS: "And I mean to be master here." ROXANA: "Then you have to be reasonable, my dear, and that's all about it." Close up of the Boss wondering where Mastery ends and Reasonableness begins. Gordon and Cabal at work upon that aeroplane engine which was puzzling Gordon at the opening of this part. The two men quite understand each other. Cabal works and Gordon learns from him. The four guards watch and poke their noses about and listen conscientiously but perplexedly. They glance at one another. They are much too oafish to control the conversation. CABAL between his teeth: "If only they'd let us go back to my own plane. There's a radio there." GORDON: "Hopeless.... Won't even trust me." CABAL: "We'll have to make a job of this." GORDON: "I could send men for your reserve petrol. They'll give me that. For this." CABAL: "Good." Then louder as if explaining the machine. "One of the most difficult bits in this is what is called the get-a-way--it's a sort of cut-out. But I have some ideas." GORDON: "We'll manage it I think. Now that Dr. Harding understands his part of the job...." They nod reassuringly to each other and then glance at the stupid faces of their guards. It's safe. Evening. Cabal is sitting in his cell lit by the light of two candles. He looks bored and despondent. He turns round at a knocking at his door. "Come in. Don't stand on ceremony." The door is opened deferentially by a guard. Roxana appears, rather specially dressed. Cabal has not expected anything of this sort. He is a man of experience with women although he has none of the Boss's devouring enterprise. He stands up. She walks in, carrying herself with a certain consciousness of her effect. He bows and remains silent. ROXANA: "I wanted to look at you." CABAL stiffly: "At your service, Madam." ROXANA: "You are the most interesting thing that has happened in Everytown for years." CABAL: "You honour me." ROXANA: "You come from--outside. I had begun to forget there was anything outside. I want to hear about it." CABAL: "May I offer you my only chair?" Roxana sits down and arranges herself. Then she takes a look at Cabal to gauge her effect. Cabal stands or leans against the table in the subsequent conversation. He looks at her only very occasionally, but they are scrutinising glances. ROXANA: "You know--I am not a stupid woman." CABAL: "I am sure." ROXANA: "This life here--is limited. War--rich plunder. Shining prizes. Of a sort. War always going on and never ending. Flags. Marching. I adore the Chief. I've always adored him since he took control in the Pestilence Days when everyone else lost heart. He rules. He is firm. Everyone-- every woman finds him strong and attractive. I can't complain. I have everything that is to be had here. But--" CABAL looks at her for a moment. What is she up to? He makes a faint encouraging noise: "M'm." ROXANA: "This is a small limited world we live in here. You bring in the breath of something greater. When I saw you swooping down out of the sky--when I saw you march into the Town Hall--I felt this man lives in a greater world. And you spoke of the Mediterranean and the East, and your camps and factories. I've read about the Mediterranean and Greece and Egypt and India. I can read--a lot of those old books. I'm not like most of the younger people. I learnt a lot before education stopped and the schools closed down. I want to see that world away there. Sunshine, palms, snowy mountains, blue seas." CABAL: "If I had my way--you might fly to all that in a couple of days." ROXANA becomes pensive and looks down: "If you were free.... And if I was free." CABAL'S expression reveals a flash of curiosity about her: "What is she up to?" ROXANA: "I don't think any man has ever understood any woman since the beginning of things. You don't understand our imaginations. How wild our imaginations can be." Cabal decides he will not interrupt her. ROXANA: "I wish I were a man." She stands up abruptly. "Oh if I were a man!... Does any man realise what the life of a woman is? How trivial we have to be. We have to please. We are obliged to please. If we attempt to take a serious share in life, are we welcomed? And all the while--. Men are so selfsatisfied, so blind, so limited.... I see things happening here--! Injustice. Cruelty. There are things I would do for the poor--things I would do to make things better. I am not allowed. I have to pretend to be eaten up by my dresses, my jewels, my vanities. I make myself beautiful often with an aching heart.... But I'm talking about myself. Tell me about yourself--about that greater world you live in. Are you a Boss? You have the manner of one who commands. You are sure of yourself. You make me afraid of you. Of the people you come from. Of what you are. Before you came I felt safe here. I felt--things were going on as they have been going on.... Always.... No hope of change.... Now--it's all different. What are you people trying to do to us? What do you mean to do to this Boss of mine?" CABAL: "Well, the immediate question seems to be what does he mean to do to me?" ROXANA: "Something foolish and violent--unless I prevent it." CABAL: "That is how I see things." ROXANA: "If he kills you--?" CABAL: "We shall come here and clean things up just the same." ROXANA: "But if you are killed--how can you say we?" CABAL: "Oh, we go on. That's just how it is, we are taking hold of things. In science and government--in the long run-- no man is indispensable. The human thing goes on. We--for ever." ROXANA: "I see. And our Combatant State here?" CABAL: "Has to vanish into the shadows. After the tyrannosaurus and the sabre-toothed tiger." Roxana stands looking at him. He leans against the table and smiles at her. ROXANA: "You are a new sort of man to me." CABAL: "No. A new sort of training. The old Adam fundamentally." She goes off at a tangent again. "I suppose at the bottom of her heart every woman despises a man she can manage. And all women despise men who run after women...." CABAL: "You're not by any chance thinking of the Chief? Where is he to-night?" ROXANA: "Drinking and boasting. And after that, he hopes to betray me without my finding out. Vain hopes, I'm afraid. We needn't think about him. If I said I still love him, it is as one loves a dirty troublesome child. I love him and he doesn't matter. What I am thinking about is you. And this new world of yours--oh, it's your world--that I can feel advancing on us." Pause. CABAL: "Well?" ROXANA: "Have men of your sort no use for women?" CABAL: "Madam, I'm a widower and a grandfather. I see these things with a philosophical detachment. And I don't quite know what you mean by use." ROXANA: "A man is a man till he's dead. Don't you still want the help of a woman? Have you no use for that closeness of devotion you can never get from any man? Don't you see I have been working for you already? See what I have done for you! I have saved Harding from ill-treatment. I got you half released so as to work with Gordon. I may be able at last to release you altogether. Why do you despise me?" CABAL: "I don't despise you in the least. I think you are the most civilised being I have met yet in Everytown." ROXANA: "More than your friends?" CABAL: "Oh, much more." ROXANA is pleased. She presses on to her next step. "Why don't you confide in me? There's Gordon, there's his wife Mary and her father Harding, and you are all--together, in some way. Something carries you all along. Do you think I don't know you are planning things and doing things? Why cannot I--help you? I know this place, these people. I am a sort of Queen here. Am I nothing at all to you?" Cabal looks at her now intently. Is she trying to find out about his plans of escape in order to betray him to the Boss? Or is she proposing to betray the Boss to him? Or is she in a state of mixed intrigue, ready to do either and mainly interested in getting some love-making going? He says: "And could you really restore me to my aeroplane? Hasn't that been put out of action?" ROXANA: "No. He wants to use it and doesn't know how to. No one has touched it. There it is. With six guards night and day. Even I could not get at that just now." Cabal who has been leaning against the table stands up and confronts her. She faces up to him. CABAL: "What are you really proposing to me?" ROXANA: "Nothing. I came to see you. I was interested in you." CABAL: "Well?" ROXANA: "And now I find you more interesting than ever. A woman loves to help. She loves to give. I could give so much --now. And if I gave--?" CABAL speaking like a representative: "The Air League would not forget it." ROXANA: "The Air League will not forget! Air League! Who cares for the Air League? Would you forget it?" CABAL: "Why should I in particular--" ROXANA: "Are you stupid, man? Or are you insulting me? I tell you I find you the most interesting man in the world, a great eagle out of the air. And you stare at me with that ugly face of yours and pretend not to understand! Have you never met a woman before? Ugly you are and grey. It doesn't matter." Her manner changes. She comes close up to him and holds out her hands as if disposed to clutch his arms. "Oh why should I go on fencing with you? Don't you see--don't you understand? I'm for you--if you want me. I'm yours. You big strong thing, all steel and dignity. Now--now will you let me help you?" They both become aware of a movement outside. She recoils quickly. The door is flung open without ceremony and the Boss appears in the doorway. He is wearing his conception of ceremonial uniform. In a rough way he has a certain splendour. He stands posed for a moment. BOSS: "So this is where you are!" ROXANA: "I said I should talk to him and I have." BOSS: "I told you to leave him alone." ROXANA: "Yes, and sat up there drinking and looking as wonderful and powerful as you could. Rudolf the Victorious! I know--you sent twice to ask Gordon and his wife to come! So that she should see you in your glory. And here am I trying to find out for you what this black invader means. Do you think I wanted to come and talk to him"--she turns to Cabal-- "this grey cold man? While you are swaggering here, more aeroplanes are getting ready away there at Basra." BOSS: "Basra?" ROXANA: "His headquarters. Have you never heard of Basra?" BOSS: "These are matters for men to talk about." CABAL: "Your lady has been putting me through a severe cross-examination. But the gist is--that away there in Basra the aeroplanes are rising night and day like comets about a hornets' nest. What happens to me here, is a small affair. They'll get you. The new world of the united airmen will get you. Why, listen! You can almost hear them coming now." The imagination of the BOSS is caught for a moment and then it recovers. "Not a bit of it!" ROXANA: "What he says is the truth." BOSS: "What he says is bluff." ROXANA: "Make peace with the airmen and let him go." BOSS: "That means surrender of our sovereign independence." ROXANA: "But others will be coming. More machines and more." BOSS: "And he is here--hostage for their good behaviour. Come, my lady. An end to this little--diplomatic excursion of yours." He holds the door open for her. Roxana bridles. Is about to speak and goes out. At the door she turns and fires a paning shot at the Boss. "You have the subtlety of a--" She searches for a suitable epithet and then jumps at the word she needs. "Bullfrog." When she has gone out of the room the Boss turns and comes towards Cabal. BOSS: "I don't know what she has been saying to you. Perhaps I don't care. Not as much as she thinks. There's no following her chopping and changing. I've had about enough of it. But I'm not a fool. There's no making peace between you and me. None at all. It's your world or mine. It's going to be mine--or I die fighting. After all this threatening-- swarms of hornets and so on--you are a hostage. Understand. No one comes near you. Your friend Gordon will have to manage without you. And don't be so sure you'll win. So just go on sitting here and thinking about it, Mr. Wings over the World." The following day, bright daylight, shining into the laboratory of Dr. Harding. Mary leans against the workbench and Roxana is talking to her. ROXANA: "It is not only that I want to protect you from the insults of the Chief. Oh! I know him. But I want to talk to you about this man Cabal and his Airmen's world they talk about. What is this new world that is coming? Is it a new world really? Or only the old world dressed up in a new way? Do you understand Cabal? Is he flesh and blood?" MARY: "He's a great man. My father knew him years ago. My husband worships him." ROXANA: "He's so cold--so preoccupied. And so-- interesting. Do men like that ever make love?" MARY: "A different sort of love, perhaps." ROXANA: "Love on ice. If this new world--all airships and science and order--comes about, what will happen to us women?" MARY: "We shall work like the men." ROXANA: "You mean that? Are you--flesh and blood?" MARY: "As much as my husband and father." ROXANA with infinite contempt: "Men! Sometimes--when I think of lean grim Cabal--I believe this world of yours must come. And then I think--it can't come. It can't. It's a dream. It will seem to come but it won't come. It's just a new lot of men at the top. There will be wars still. Struggles still." MARY: "No, it will be civilisation. It will be peace. This nightmare of a world we live in--that is the dream, that is what will pass away." ROXANA: "No. No. This is reality." MARY, staring in front of her: "Do you really think that war and struggle--mere chance gleams of happiness--general misery--all this squalid divided world about us, do you think it must go on for ever?" ROXANA: "You want an impossible world. Nice in a way-- perhaps--but impossible. You are asking too much from men and women. They won't bother to bring it about. You are asking them to want unnatural things. What do we want? We women. Knowledge, civilisation, the good of mankind? Nonsense! Oh, nonsense. We want satisfaction. We want glory. I want the glory of being loved--the glory of being wanted--desired, splendidly desired--and the glory of feeling and looking splendid. Do you want anything different? No. But you haven't learnt to look facts in the face yet. I know men. Every man wants the same thing--glory! Glory in some form. The glory of being loved--don't I know it? The glory they love most of all. The glory of bossing things here--the glory of war and victory. This brave new world of yours will never come. This wonderful world of reason! It wouldn't be worth having if it does come. It would be dull and safe and--oh, dreary! No lovers--no warriors--no dangers--no adventure." MARY: "No adventure! No glory in helping to make the world over--anew! It is you who are dreaming." ROXANA: "Helping men! Why should we work and toil for men? Let them work and toil for us." MARY: "But we can work with them!" ROXANA: "And what will they have to work for, then?" MARY: "Greater things." ROXANA: "There's no flavour in those greater things. No flavour. No flavour at all. These airmen--they will conquer the world. And then we shall conquer them--lean and stern and sober though they are." MARY: "If I thought that was all we could do--" ROXANA: "It is all we can do. Haven't you learnt anything from marriage with Richard?" Mary looks at her, detesting her. But she finds herself at a loss for an argument. The noise of an aeroplane is heard growing rapidly louder. They turn to the window and look out. They become excited. They crane up at an aeroplane circling overhead. It makes a great old-fashioned roar. ROXANA: "Look! It's your Richard, he's flying at last." The aeroplane, flying. In the aeroplane is Gordon at the controls. He is satisfied. Behind him sits a rosetted guard. Gordon turning the machine round. Then a long shot of Everytown far below. The machine flies on. The guard stirs. He protests inaudibly because of the roar of the engine. Gordon disregards him. Guard taps Gordon's shoulder, signs for him to return and presently, finding no response but a cheerful smile, points his pistol. Mutual scrutiny. Guard weakly menacing. Gordon points over the side of the cockpit. He smiles suddenly, having taken the measure of his man, and puts his fingers to his nose. The aeroplane jerks sharply upwards, and the guard, no longer pointing his pistol, but gripping tight, is manifestly scared. Aeroplane looping the loop--then the falling leaf trick. Guard's ordeal through all this motion. He drops the pistol and grips the side. Pistol falling. Hitting the ground and exploding. The aeroplane seen flying away over the hills. "And so I got away," says Gordon's voice. As the voice is heard the last scene dissolves into the next. A conference room at Basra, rather like an ultra-modern board room. It is bleakly and rationally furnished. Telephones have been restored to the world. Through a large open window one sees the great and growing aerodrome of Basra with a number of aeroplanes coming and going. Far off there is a group of smoking factory chimneys. It is a sudden contrast to the general ruinousness that has prevailed throughout this film since the war sequence. A dozen young and middle-aged men sit at the table indifferent to these familiar activities outside, and Gordon stands talking--too excited to sit. GORDON: "And so I got away. That is where you will find Cabal. The Boss of Every town is a violent Tough--he may do anything. There is no time to lose." A MIDDLE-AGED MAN: "Certainly, there is no time to lose. Half squadron A is ready now. You ready to go with them, Mr.--?" GORDON: "Gordon, sir." The middle-aged man begins to dial a telephone. A YOUNG MAN: "This gives us a chance of trying this new anaesthetic, the Gas of Peace... I wish I could go..." Wipe off to next scene. The Boss's bedroom. It is a large untidy room furnished with the best loot of the district. The Boss is in déshabillé, and has just got out of bed. He is still heavy with sleep. With him is Burton and by the door stands a messenger. BURTON: "At last we have definite news." BOSS: "What is it?" An attendant brings in a tray of breakfast, and sets it on the table. BURTON: "Gordon didn't fall into the sea. He got away. A fishing boat saw him making the French coast. Perhaps he reached his pals." BOSS, disagreeably: "Well?" BURTON: "He'll be coming back. He'll be bringing the others with him." Attendant leaves. The BOSS is waking up slowly and is very peevish: "Curse this Air League. Curse all airmen and gas men and machine men! Why didn't we leave their machines and chemicals alone? I might have known. Why did I tamper with flying?" BURTON: "Well, we needed aeroplanes--against the Hill State. Somebody else would have started in again with aeroplanes and gas and bombs if we hadn't. These people would have come interfering anyhow." BOSS: "Why was all this science ever allowed? Why was it ever let begin?" He turns listlessly to his breakfast. He begins again: "Science!--it's the enemy of everything that is natural in life. I dreamt of those chaps in the night. Great ugly inhuman chaps in black. Half like machines. Bombing and bombing." BURTON: "I guess they'll come bombing, all right." BOSS: "Then we'll fight 'em. Since Gordon got away I've had one or two of the air boys to see me. Those boys have guts. They can do something still." He walks up and down devouring a piece of bread. "We'll fight 'em. We'll fight 'em. We've got hostages.... I'm glad now we haven't shot them anyhow. I wonder if that fellow Harding.... Of course! He can tell us what to do about this gas. If we have to wring his arm off and knock half his teeth down his throat to make him do it. Get him--get him." Burton at door shouting for men and giving orders. The BOSS is gathering courage and takes his food with greater gusto: "They have to come to earth some time. What is this World Communications? A handful of men like ourselves. They're not magic." A row of old and worn-out aeroplanes in front of a battered hangar. A number of very young inexperienced-looking pilots stand before them. The Boss is inspecting them. Roxana is beside him. The BOSS begins his speech: "To you I entrust these good, these tried and tested machines. You are not mechanics--you are warriors. You have been taught not to think, but to do-- and--if need be, die. I salute you--I, your leader." The boy pilots go off rather reluctantly to their machines and start them up. It is an almost "Heath Robinson" scene of our contemporary (1935) machines in the last stage of decay and patch-up. A very long shot of a new type of air bomber flying with a sort of remorselessness--in contrast with the hops and misbehaviour of the Boss's machines. It is Gordon returning. Two other big bombers follow, low down in the sky. This machine has a distinctive throb of its own which should mingle with the menace of the music. Closer shots of parts of this great bomber. Aviators (three men and two women) stand about looking down on the world. One is Gordon. Gordon is anxious. A large cavernous space arched over by the girder of a fallen building. It looks out upon suburban ruins and a distant hillside. The Boss is with Burton and Roxana and his staff. The Boss studies the familiar skyline through binoculars. Guards bring in Mary and Harding. The Boss turns to them. BOSS: "What do you know about these Air League people? Have they gas? What sort of gas?" HARDING: "I know nothing of gas." BOSS: "Here, where are the masks?" Two boys appear with a job lot of masks--caricatures of existing types. BOSS: "Tell us about these masks, anyhow." Harding examines a mask and tears it and throws it down. "Rotten! No use at all." BOSS: "What gas have they got?" HARDING: "Gas war isn't my business." BOSS: "Well, they can't gas us when you are here anyhow." BURTON, in dismay: "Here they are. Listen. They're coming already!" The strange recognisable throb of Gordon's aeroplane is heard and the music that accompanies it, gradually getting louder. The BOSS rushes forward and looks up with his binoculars: "Clumsy great things! Our boys will have them down in five minutes. They're too clumsy. What!--only six of us up. Where are the rest of our fellows?" Sudden consternation of the group at something unseen. A machine falls in flames and crashes in the distance. BOSS: "Go on--up at him." A loud report. Far off another aeroplane crashes in flames. ROXANA: "Poor boy--it's got him." BOSS: "They're both coming down. Cowards!" ROXANA: "But they can't use gas--how can they use gas?-- when we have the hostages." The BOSS turns and looks at the hostages. "Ah! the hostages! I'm not done yet. Lead them out--there. Tie 'em up. Out there in the open. Where they can be seen." Guards take Mary and Harding out to the open and tie them up to two posts. Closer shot of Mary and Harding being tied to the posts. They look at one another with steady eyes. Then they look up at the sky. The BOSS comes over to them, brandishing his pistol. He shouts up to the sky: "Come down, or I shoot them. Are you bombing your own hostages? Come down or I shoot." He remembers Cabal. "Where's the other fellow? He's the Prize Hostage. He's the best of all. They'll know him. Four of you--go and fetch him...." A deep soft thud and a bomb explodes some distance off. The sound the bomb makes is not a sharp explosive report; it is more like the whoof of a puff of steam. A SOLDIER cries out: "Is it gas?" The BOSS waves his pistol at Mary and Harding. "You anyhow, shall die before I do." Roxana stands near him. Another bomb thuds nearer. The Boss points his pistol at Harding with an expression of desperate resolution, but Roxana knocks it up as he fires. BOSS: "You turn against me?" ROXANA: "Don't you see--he's beaten you. Look!" Soldiers in the distance are seen staggering and falling. The gas this time is transparent, and is available only as a sort of shimmering heat haze. The foreground now is still perfectly clear, but the middle distance is flickering. ROXANA rushes to Mary and clings to her: "Mary--I never did you any harm. I saved your father. I saved you. Couldn't you call up to your man--to stop this..." Crescendo of whoofs close at hand. Whoof. Whoof. WHOOF. The gas increases and creeps nearer and nearer. The picture concentrates on the face of the Boss. The Boss looks with amazement at his men gradually succumbing to the gas. He starts and pulls himself together. BOSS: "Shoot them--what are you all doing--why don't you move. I won't have it like this. What's happening? Everything is going swimmy! Everything is swimming." He wipes his hand across his eyes as if he can no longer see or think distinctly. He wipes his mouth and rubs his eyes. His face is suddenly distorted in a last violent effort to resist the gas. The flicker of the gas is now all over the screen. The flickering becomes violent so that it is as if one saw the face of the Boss through disturbed water. BOSS: "Shoot, I say! Shoot. Shoot. We've never shot enough yet. We never shot enough. We spared them. These intellectuals! These contrivers! These experts! Now they've got us. Our world or theirs. What did a few hundreds of them matter? We've been weak--weak. Kill them like vermin! Kill all of them!... Why should I be beaten like this? Weakness! Weakness! Weakness is fatal.... Shoot!" The flickering broadens out to a swirling dissolve of outwardly moving circles. The dark figure of Cabal appears through the swirl. He is wearing his great mask again and there is no sign of collapse about him. CABAL: "Your sentries seem to have gone to sleep. So I came out.... All the town is going to sleep.... You made us do it." Abruptly the picture becomes clear again. The Boss sprawls headlong as it does so. As he becomes insensible you are no longer supposed to see things with his eyes. He falls exactly at the moment when the swirling ends. The tall black figure of Cabal now stands up in the foreground. All the rest are lying insensible before him.... Pause. CABAL: "And now for the World of the Airmen and a new start for mankind." The camera pauses at the side of Cabal so that only the side of his head and shoulders and arm frame the picture. You do not get Cabal all in the picture again. You see the profile of his mask and his black arm and hand. Mary is in a sitting position at the foot of the post to which she was tied and Roxana is grouped very gracefully across her feet. The Boss sprawls on his face in the foreground with his clenched fist outstretched. Harding droops from his post. Burton a little further off lies on a heap of rubble and beyond are soldiers and attendants. CABAL comes nearer to the group. "You might be more comfortable, Harding," he says, and releases the ropes, lowering the inanimate Harding into a sitting position. "So." Then he turns to the two women. "Well, my dears, you must sleep for a time. There's nothing more to be done." He stands looking at them. Close up of the two women's faces in repose. Mary is quietly peaceful. Roxana even when she is insensible contrives to be attractive. Cabal's voice is heard. CABAL: "Mary. And Madame Roxana! Queer contrast. Madame Roxana. A pretty thing and a very pretty thing and what's to be done with this very pretty thing? The eternal adventuress. A common pretty woman who doesn't work. A lady! She has pluck. Charm. Brains enough for infinite mischief. And a sort of energy. She'll play her pretty eyes at men to the end of hertime. Now the Bosses go the way of the money grubbers, I suppose it will be our turn. Wherever power is, she will follow. And let me confess to you, young woman, now that you can't hear me or take any advantage of me, that considering my high responsibilities and my dignified years, I find you a lot more interesting and disturbing than I ought to do. Men are men, you said, to the end of their days. You get at us. I wish we could keep you under gas always. There is much to be said for the harem idea. Must you still be up to your tricks in our new world?" The view of the camera widens to take in all the slumbering bodies. CABAL: "The new world, with the old stuff. Our job is only beginning." Dawn breaking over Everytown. Dawn sky. Vista of a side street. Sleeping figures lie scattered about. Gordon and a knot of companions, several young airmen and two women, also in black leather, come through the ruins. They are no longer masked. One of them tears down a rosette flag in passing. FIRST YOUNG AIRMAN: "They'll sleep for another day." SECOND AIRMAN: "Well, we've given 'em a whiff of civilisation at last." FIRST AIRMAN: "Nothing like putting children to sleep when they are naughty." On the outskirts of the town, wondering country people in their coarse canvas clothes and sabots are seen coming down the hillside against the familiar skyline. People coming into the Square which is littered with sleepers. Some of the sleepers are beginning to stir. A bunch of the new airmen in their black costumes, but not masked or helmeted, appear and walk across the scene. People staring at the airmen, the backs of the unkempt heads very big in silhouette in the foreground of the picture. It is decadent barbarism watching the return of civilisation. Return to the council room, the board room, at the aerodrome at Basra. Much greater activity is now seen through the window. Big lorries are running about. People go to and fro. Aeroplanes of novel type are going up in groups of seven, squadron after squadron. The table is now covered with maps and a group of secretaries stand ready to give any help. Costumes, very slightly "futuristic," severe, and mostly mechanics' or air costume. The same council is present, but in addition Cabal is now a dominant figure beside the Chairman. CABAL leaning over a map: "This is how I conceive our plan of operations. Settle, organise, advance. This zone, then that. At last wings over the whole world and the new world begins. More and more it will become a round-up of brigands...." The Airmen's War. Many aeroplanes of strange and novel shape rising into the air. They fill the sky. A brief air fight between three old normal fighting aeroplanes and one of the new aeroplanes. Over a ruinous landscape, brigands with flags and old military uniforms in flight as the new aeroplanes overhead bomb them. The bombs explode and gas overcomes the brigands. Sky writing by the new planes: SURRENDER. Brigands crawl from hiding places and surrender, hands over their heads. Brigands run out from the houses of another town as the aeroplanes approach. They surrender. The sky dotted with the new aeroplanes. Hundreds of men drop from the sky with parachutes. The brigands stand waiting. A line of prisoners marching. They carry regimental flags. They are the last ragged vestige of the regular armies of the old order. It is the end of organised war at last. A group of the new airmen watch their march-past. Overhead the new aeroplanes are hovering. PART X Reconstruction The object of this Part is to bridge, as rapidly and vigorously as possible, the transition from the year 1970 to the year 2054. An age of enormous mechanical and industrial energy has to be suggested by a few moments of picture and music. The music should begin with a monstrous clangour and come down to a smoother and smoother rhythm as efficiency prevails over stress. The shots dissolve rapidly on to one another, and are bridged with enigmatic and eccentric mechanical movements. The small figures of men move among the monstrosities of mechanism, more and more dwarfed by their accumulating intensity. An explosive blast fills the screen. The smoke clears, and the work of the engineers of this new age looms upon us. First, there is a great clearance of old material and a preparation for new structures. Gigantic cranes swing across the screen. Old ruined steel frameworks are torn down. Shots are given of the clearing up of old buildings and ruins. Then come shots suggesting experiment, design and the making of new materials. A huge power station and machine details are shown. Digging machines are seen making a gigantic excavation. Conveyer belts carry away the debris. Stress is laid on the work of excavation because the Everytown of the year 2054 will be dug into the hills. It will not be a skyscraper city. A chemical factory with a dark liquid bubbling in giant retorts, works swiftly and smoothly. Masked workers go to and fro. The liquid is poured out into a moulding machine that is making walls for new buildings. The metal scaffolding of the new town is being made and great slabs of wall from the moulding machine are placed in position. The lines of the new subterranean city of Everytown begin to appear, bold and colossal. Swirling river rapids are seen giving place to a deep controlled flow of water as a symbol of material civilisation gaining control of nature. A fantasia of powerful rotating and swinging forms carried on a broad stream of music concludes this Part. Flash the date A.D. 2054. A loud querulous voice breaks across the concluding phase of this "Transition" music. "I don't like these mechanical triumphs." The voice is the voice of Theotocopulos, the rebel artist of the new era. His face becomes visible, very big on the screen. He speaks with force and bitterness: "I do not like this machinery. I do not like> this machinery. All these wheels going round. Everything going so fast and slick. No." The camera recedes from him until he is seen to be sitting at the foot of a great mass of marble. He is wearing the white overalls of a sculptor and carries a mallet and a chisel. A second Sculptor, a bearded man, comes into the picture. "Well, what can we do about it?" Theotocopulos, as if he reveals the most obscure secret, "Talk." The bearded man shrugs his shoulders and grimaces humorously as if towards a third interlocutor in the auditorium. THEOTOCOPULOS explodes: "Talk. Radio is everywhere. This modern world is full of voices. I am going to talk all this machinery down." THE BEARDED MAN: "But will they let you?" THEOTOCOPULOS imperiously: "They'll let me. I shall call my talks, Art and Life. That sounds harmless enough. And I will go for this Brave New World of theirs--tooth and claw." Flash back to date. A.D. 2054. PART XI The Little Girl Learns about the New World A large space, rather than a room, partaking of the nature of a conservatory and large drawing-room. There are neither pillars nor right-angle joins. The roof curves gently over the space. Beautiful plants and a fountain in a basin. Through the plants one catches a glimpse of the City Ways. An old gentleman of a hundred and ten years or thereabouts, but good looking and well-preserved, sits in an arm-chair. A pretty little girl (8-9) lies on a couch and looks at a piece of apparatus on which pictures appear. It has a simple control knob. Some strange pet animal, perhaps a capuchin monkey, is playing with a ball on the rug. A doll in an exaggerated costume of the period lies on a seat. GIRL: "I like these History Lessons." The apparatus is showing Lower New York from above--an aeroplane travelo