Christopher, John - Tripods 1 - The White Mountains

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Tripods 1 -- The White Mountains -- John Christopher -- (1967)

1 -- Capping Day

Apart from the one in the church tower, there

were five clocks in the village that kept reasonable time. and my father owned

one of them. It

stood on the mantelpiece in the parlor, and every

night before he went to bed he took the key

from a vase and wound it up. Once a year the

dockman came from Winchester, on an old jogging packhorse, to clean and oil it

and put it

light Afterward he would drink camomile tea

with my mother and tell her the news of the city

and what he had heard in the villages through

which he had passed. My father, if he was not

busy nulling, would stalk out at this time with

some contemptuous remark about gossip; but

later, in the evening, I would hear my mother

passing the stories on to him. He did not show

much enthusiasm, but he listened to them.

My father's great treasure, though, was not

the dock. but the Watch. This, a miniature clock

with a dial less than an inch across and a circlet

permitting it to be worn on the wrist, was kept

in a locked drawer of his desk and only brought

out to be worn on ceremonial occasions, such as

Harvest Festival or a Capping. The clockman

was allowed to see to it only every third year,

and at such times my father stood by, watching

him as he worked. There was no other Watch in

the village, nor in any of the villages round

about The clockman said there were a number

in Winchester, but none as fine as this. I wondered if he said it to please my

father, who certainly showed pleasure in the hearing, but I believe it truly

was of very good workmanship.

The body of the Watch was of a steel much

superior to anything they could make at ttu

forge in Alton, and the works inside were ft

wonder of intricacy and skill. On the front were

printed "Anti-magnetique" and "Incabloc," which

we supposed to have been die name of the

craftsman who made it in olden times.

The clockman had visited us the week before,

and I had been permitted to look on for a time

while he cleaned and oiled the Watch. The sight

fascinated me, and after he had gone I found

my thoughts running continually on this treasure.

now locked away again in its drawer. I was, of

course, forbidden to touch my father's desk, and

the notion of opening a locked drawer in it

should have been unthinkable. Nonetheless, the

idea persisted. And after a day or two I admitted

to myself that it was only the fear of being

caught that prevented me.

On Saturday morning I found myself alone in

the house. My father was in the mill room, grinding, and the servants—even

Molly who normally

did not leave the house during the day—had

been brought in to help. My mother was out

visiting old Mrs. Ash, who was sick, and would

be gone an hour at least I had finished my

homework and there was nothing to stop my

going out into the bright May morning and finding Jack. But what completely

filled my mind

was the thought that I had this opportunity to

look at the Watch with small chance of detection.

The key, I had observed, was kept with the

other keys in a small box beside my father's bed.

There were four, and the third one opened the

drawer. I took out the Watch, and gazed at it

It was not going, but I knew one wound it and

set the hands by means of the small knob at one

side. If I were to wind it only a couple of turns,

it would run down quite soon—just in case my

father decided to look at it later in the day. I did

this, and listened to its quiet rhythmic ticking.

Then I set the hands by the clock. After that it

only remained for me to slip it on my wrist

Even notched to the first hole, the leather strap

was loose; but I was wearing the Watch,

Having achieved what I had thought was an

ultimate ambition, I found, as I think is often

the case, that there remained something more.

To wear it was a triumph, but to be seen wearing it ... I had told my cousin.

Jack Leeper,

that I would meet him that morning in the old

ruins at the end of the village. Jack, who was

nearly a year older than myself and due to bo

presented at the next Capping, was the person,

next to my parents, whom I most admired. To

take the Watch out of the house was to add

enormity to disobedience, but having already

gone so far. it was easier to contemplate it My

mind made up, I was determined to waste none of

the precious time I had. I opened the front door,

stuck the hand with the Watch deep into my

trouser pocket, and ran off down the street

The village lay at a crossroads, with the road

in which our house stood running alongside the

river (this giving power for the mill, of course)

and the second road crossing it at the ford.

Beside the ford stood a small wooden bridge for

foot travelers, and I pelted across, noticing that

the river was higher than usual from the spring

rains. My Aunt Lucy was approaching the bridge

as I left it at the far end. She called a greeting

to me, and I called back, having first taken care

to veer to the other side of the road. The baker's

shop was there, with trays of buns and cakes set

out, and it was reasonable that I should be

heading that way: I had a couple of pennies in

my pocket But I ran on past it, and did not

slacken to a walk until I had reached the point

where the houses thinned out and at last ended.

The ruins were a hundred yards farther on.

On one side of the road lay Spillers' meadow,

with cows grazing, but on my side Acre was a

thorn hedge, and a potato field beyond. I passed

a gap in the hedge, not looking in my concentration on what I was going to

show Jack, and

was startled a moment later by a shout from

behind me. I recognized the voice as Henry

Parker's.

Henry, like Jack, was a cousin of mine—my

name is Will Parker—but. unlike Jack, no friend.

(I had several cousins in Ac village; people did

not usually travel far to marry.) He was a

month younger than I, but taller and heavier,

and we had hated each other as long as I could

remember. When it came to fighting, as it very

often did, I was outmatched physically and had

to rely on agility and quickness if I were not going to be beaten over and

over again. From Jack

I had learned some skill in wrestling which, in

the past year, had enabled me to hold my own

more, and in our last encounter I had thrown

him heavily enough to wind him and leave him

gasping for breath. But for wrestling one needed

the use of both hands. I thrust my left hand

deeper into the pocket and. not answering his

call. ran on toward the ruins.

He was doser than I had thought, though, and

he pounded after me. yelling threats. I put a

spurt on, looked back to see how much of a

lead I had, and found myself slipping on a patch

of mud. (Cobbles were laid inside the village,

but out here the road was in its usual poor condition. aggravated by the

rains.) I fought desperately to keep my footing, but would not, until

it was too late, bring out my other hand to help

balance myself. As a result, I went slithering and

sprawling and finally fell. Before I could recover,

Henry was kneeling across me. holding the back

of my head with his hand and pushing my face

down into the mud.

This activity would normally have kept him

happy for some time. but he found something of

greater interest I had instinctively used both

hands to protect myself as I fell. and he saw the

Watch on my wrist. In a moment he had

wrenched it off, and stood up to examine it I

scrambled to my feet and made a grab, but he

held it easily above his head and out of my

reach.

I said. panting, "Give that backF

"Ifs not yours," he said. "It's your father's."

I was in agony in case the Watch had been

damaged, broken maybe, in my fall, but even

so I attempted to get my leg between his to drop

him. He parried and. stepping back, said. "Keep

your distanced—he braced himself, as though preparing to throw a stone—"or

I'11 see how far I

can fling it"

"If you do," I said, *youTl get a whipping for

ft."

There was a grin on his fleshy face. "So will

you. And your father lays on heavier than mine

does. I'll tell you what: I'll borrow it tor a

while. Maybe I'll let you have it back this afternoon. Or tomorrow."

"Someone will see you with it*

He grinned again. "Ill risk that"

I made a grab at him; I had decided that he

was bluffing about throwing it away. I almost

got him off balance, but not quite. We swayed

and struggled, and then crashed together and

rolled down into the ditch by the side of tile

road. There was some water in it, but we went

on fighting, even after a voice challenged us

from above. Jack-for it was he who had called

to us to get up—had to come down and pull us

apart by force. This was not difficult for him. He

was as big as Henry and tremendously strong

also. He dragged us back up to the road, got to

the root of the matter, took the Watch from

Henry, and dismissed him with a dip across the

back of the neck.

I said fearfully. Ts it au right?*

1 think so." He examined it and handed it to

me. "But you were a fool to bring it out"

"I wanted to show it to you."

"Not worth it," he said briefly. "Anyway, we'd

better see about getting it back. Ill lend a

hand."

Jack had always been around to lend a hand

as long as I could remember. It was strange. I

thought, as we walked toward the village, that

in just over a week's time I would be on my

own. The Capping would have taken place, and

Jack would be a boy no longer.

Jack stood guard while I put the Watch back

and returned the drawer key to the place where

I had found it I changed my wet and dirty

trousers and shirt, and we retraced our steps to

the ruins. No one knew wha^ these buildings had

once been, and I think one of the things that

attracted us was a sign, printed on a chipped and

rusted metal plate:

DANGER

6.600 VOLTS

We had no idea what Volts had been, but the

notion of danger, however far away and long

ago, was exciting. There was more lettering, but

for the most part the rust had destroyed it:

LECT CITY

We wondered if that was the city it had come

from.

Farther along was the den Jack had made.

One approached it through a crumbling arch;

inside it was dry, and there was a place to build

a Bre. Jack had made one before coming out to

look for me, and had skinned, cleaned, and

skewered a rabbit ready for us to grilL There

would be food in plenty at home—the midday

meal on a Saturday was always lavish—but tins

did not prevent my looking forward greedily to

roast rabbit with potatoes baked in the embers

of the 5re. Nor would it stop me doing justice to

the steak pie my mother had in the oven. Although on the small side, I had a

good appetite.

We watched and smelled the rabbit cooking in

companionable silence. We could get along very

well together without much conversation, though

normally I had a ready tongue. Too ready, perhaps—I knew that a lot of the

trouble with Henry

arose because I could not avoid trying to get a

rise out of him whenever possible.

Jack was not much of a talker under any circumstances, but, to my surprise,

after a time he

broke the silence. His talk was inconsequential

at first, chatter about events that had taken place

in the village, but I had the feeling that he was

trying to get around to something else, some

thing more Important. Then he stopped, stared

in silence for a second or two at the crisping

carcass, and said, "This place will be yours after

the Capping."

It was difficult to know what to say. I suppose

if I had thought about it at all, I would have

expected that he would pass the den on to me,

but I had not thought about it One did not think

much about things connected with the Cappings, and certainly did not talk

about them.

For Jack, of all people, to do so was surprising

but what he said next was more surprising stflL

"In a way," he said, "I almost hope it doesn't

work. I'm not sure I wouldn't rather be a

Vagrant"

I should say something about the Vagrants.

Every village generally had a few—at that time

there were four in ours, as far as I knew—but the

number was constantly changing as some moved

off and others took their place. They occasionally

did a little work, but whether they did or not,

the village supported them. They lived in the

Vagrant House, which in our case stood on the

comer where the two roads crossed and was

larger than all but a handful of houses (my

father's being one). It could easily have accommodated a dozen Vagrants, and

there had been

times when there had been almost that many

la / The WJiite Mountains

there. Food was supplied to them—it was not

luxurious, but adequate—and a servant looked

after the place. Other servants were sent to lend

a hand when the House filled up.

What was known, though not discussed, was

that the Vagrants were people for whom the

Capping had proved a failure. They had Caps,

as normal people did, but they were not working properly. If this were going

to happen, it

usually showed itself in the first day or two

following a Capping: the person who had been

Capped showed distress, which increased as the

days went by, turning at last into a fever of the

brain. In this state they were clearly in much

pain. Fortunately the crisis did not last long;

fortunately also, it happened only rarely. The

great majority of Cappings were entirely successful. I suppose only about one

in twenty

produced a Vagrant.

When he was well again, the Vagrant would

start his wanderings—he, or she, because it happened occasionally with girls,

although much

more rarely. Whether it was because Vagrants

saw themselves as being outside the community

of normal people, or because the fever had left

a permanent restlessness in them, I did not

know. But off they would go and wander

through the land, stopping a day here, as long

Capping Day / 23

as a month there, but always moving on. Their

minds, certainly, had been affected. None of

them could settle to a train of thought for long.

and many had visions and did strange things.

They were taken for granted and looked after,

but like the Cappings, not much talked about

Children generally viewed them with suspicion

and avoided them. They. for their part, mostly

seemed melancholy and did not talk much even

to each other. It was a great shock to hear Jack

say he half wished to be a Vagrant, and I did

not know how to answer him. But he did not

seem to need a response.

He said, *The Watch ... do you ever think

what it must have been like in the days when

things like that were made?"

I had. from time to time, but it was another

subject on which speculation was not encouraged, and Jack had never talked in

this way before. I said. "Before the Tripods?"

"Yes."

"Wen, we know it was the Black Age. There

were too many people and not enough food, so

that people starved and fought each other, and

there were all kinds of sicknesses, and ..."

"And things like the Watch were made—by

men, not the Tripods."

•We don't know that"

14 / The White Mountains

"Do you remember," he asked, "four years

ago, when I went to stay with my Aunt Matilda?"*

I remembered. She was his aunt. not mine,

even though we were cousins: she had married

a foreigner. Jack said, "She lives at Bishopstoke,

on the other side of Winchester. I went out one

day. walking, and I came to the sea. There were

the ruins of a city that must have been twenty

times as big as Winchester."

I knew of the ruined great-cities of the ancients. of course. But these too

were little talked

of, and then with disapproval and a shade of

dread. No one would dream of going near them.

It was disquieting even to think of looking at

one, as Jack had done.

I said. Those were the cities where aH the

murdering and sickness was."

"So we are told. But I saw something there,

It was the hulk of a ship. rusting away so that in

places you could see right through it And it was

bigger than the village. Much bigger."

I fell silent I was trying to imagine it. to see

ft ia my mind as he had seen it in reality. But

my mind could not accept it

Jack said, "And that was built by men. Before

the Tripods came."

Again I was at a loss for words. In the end I

said lamely, "People are happy now."

Capping Day { 25

Jack turned the rabbit on the spit After a

while he said. **Yes. I suppose you're rig)it"

The weather stayed fine until Capping Day.

From morning till night people worked in the

fields, cutting the grass for hay. There had been

so much rain earlier that it stood high and

luxuriant, a promise of good winter fodder. The

Day itself, of course, was a holiday. After breakfast we went to church, and

the parson preached

on the rights and duties of manhood, into which

Jack was to enter. Not of womanhood, because

there was no girl to be Capped. Jack. in fact,

stood alone, dressed in the white tunic which

was prescribed. I looked at him, wondering how

he was feeling, but whateverhis emotions were,

he did not show them.

Not even when, the service over. we stood out

in the street in front of the church, waiting for

the Tripod. The bells were ringing the Capping

Peal, but apart from that all was quiet No one

talked or wmspered or smiled. It was, we knew,

a great experience for everyone who had been

Capped; even the Vagrants came and stood in

the same rapt silence. But for us children Ac

time lagged desperately. And for Jack, apart

from everyone, in the middle of the street? I

felt for the first time a shiver of fear in the

i6 / The White Mountains

realization that at the next Capping I would be

standing there. I would not be alone, of course.

because Henry was to be presented with me.

There was not much consolation in that thought

At last we heard, above the clang or bells, the

deep staccato booming in the distance, and there

was a land of sigh from everyone. The booming

came nearer and then, suddenly, we could see it

over the roofs of the houses to the south: the

great hemisphere of gleaming metal rocking

through the air above the three articulate legs,

several times as high as the church. Its shadow

came before it and fell on us when it halted, two

of its less astride the river and the mill We

waited, and I was shivering in earnest now. unable to halt the tremors that

ran through my

body.

Sir Geoffrey, the Lord of our Manor, stepped

forward and made a small stiff bow in the direction of the Tripod; he was an

old man and

could not bend much nor easily. And so one of

the enormous burnished tentacles came down,

gently and precisely, and its tip curled about

Jack's waist, and it lifted him up, up, to where

a hole opened like a mouth in the hemisphere,

and swallowed him.

In the afternoon there were games, and people

Capping Day / 27

moved about the village, visiting, laughing, and

talking, and the young men and women who

were unmarried strolled together in the fields.

Then, in the evening, there was the Feast, with

tables set up in the street since the weather held

fair. and the smell of roast beef mixing with the

smells of beer and cider and lemonade, and all

kinds of cakes and puddings. Lamps were hung

outside the houses; in the dusk they would be lit

and glow like yellow blossoms along the street

But before the Feast started. Jack was brought

back to us.

There was the distant booming first, and the

quietness and waiting, and the tread of the

gigantic feet. shaking the earth. The Tripod

halted as before, and the mouth opened in the

side of the hemisphere, and then the tentacle

swept down and carefully set Jack by the place

which had been left for him at Sir Geoffrey's

right hand, I was a long way away, with the

children at the far end, but I could see him

clearly. He looked pale, but otherwise his face

did not seem any different The difference was in

his white shaved head, on which the darker

metal tracery of the Cap stood out like a spider's

web. His hair would soon grow again, over and

around the metal, and, with thick black hair

such as he had, in a few months the Cap would

z8 / The White Mountains

be almost unnoticeable. But it would be there

all the same, a part of him now till the day ho

died.

This, though, was the moment of rejoicing and

making merry. He was a man, and tomorrow

would do a man's work and get a man's pay.

They cut the choicest fillet of beef and brought

it to him. with a frothing tankard of ale, and Sir

Geom-ey toasted his health and fortune. I forgot

my earlier fears and envied him. and thought

how next year I would be there, a man myself.

I did not see Jack the next day, but the day

after that we met when. having finished my

homework, I was on my way to the den. He was

with four or five other men. coming back from

the fields. I called to him. and he smiled and,

after a moment's hesitation, let the others go on.

We stood facing each other, only a few yards

from the place where little more than a week

earlier .he had separated Henry and me. But

things were very different

I said. "How are you?"

It was not just a polite question. By now, if the

Capping were going to fail, he would be feeling

ttie pains and discomfort which would lead. In

due course, to his becoming a Vagrant He said,

Tm fine. Will"

Capping Day / ig

I hesitated, and blurted out, "What was it

like?"

He shook his head. "You know ifs not permitted to talk about that But I can

promise you

that you won't be hurt"

I said, "But why?"

"Why what?"

"Why should the Tripods take people away

and Cap them? What right have they?"

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Tripods1--TheWhiteMountains--JohnChristopher--(1967)1--CappingDayApartfromtheoneinthechurchtower,therewerefiveclocksinthevillagethatkeptreasonabletime.andmyfatherownedoneofthem.Itstoodonthemantelpieceintheparlor,andeverynightbeforehewenttobedhetookthekeyfromavaseandwounditup.Onceayearthedockmancamef...

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Christopher, John - Tripods 1 - The White Mountains

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