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By January 2477 there was an accumulation of a foot of snow in the valley, the
hydroelectric plant above the village was frozen up and the food supply situation was
verging on disastrous. | 'It's bad, sir' Muriel had wrung her hands desperately when Bluemud had shown up for his brief visit. 'We've maybe enough grain for three more weeks, then there'll be nothing 'till May. I don't know what we're going to do.' 'You haven't cut back enough, woman!' Bluemud had shouted at her. He had always felt an antipathy for this sallow woman and had never trusted her: she was too independent, too opinionated for him. 'Miss Elizabeth didn't leave instructions to cut back any more, sir. She said... ' 'Damn it! Can't any of you people think? Cut all the rations back to half at once!' Then Muriel had lost her self control. She burst into tears. 'I don't want none of my people starving, Mr. Bluemud. We've young children, nursing mothers, pregnant women - pregnant by your instructions, sir, if you don't mind my saying so. You said them children should be born.' 'Well, so I did. But I...' 'We're all weak as it is, sir. We have been since the summer.' 'I understand that. I... ' 'And if the women starve, who'll grow the food when the weather gets better?' 'Be quiet, woman. For God's sake let me think!' Bluemud had finally had to shout at Muriel to shut her up. However, upon reflection he agreed with what Muriel had said. Those who produced the food could not be allowed to grow too weak, and those infants represented the first of his precious second generation. Malnutrition dulls the brain even in the womb, they say. Besides, Elizabeth would never forgive him. He had dismissed Muriel and sent for O'Grady. 'Mike, I'm cutting the production quotas at once,' he had said tersely. ' You can reduce the hours the men work. I'll leave that up to you. But, I'm sorry, your food rations will be cut. We can only afford to give you a quarter of what you're getting now. It's not much but you'll have to manage. I'm going to be fair in this so you'll have to all be included. That is all the men, Foremen and Marshals as well. I've given Muriel my instructions. You'll have to make do until the spring.' Then Bluemud had left, expecting to find fewer men in the barracks upon his return. A couple of weeks later the miners were in dire straits. Confined to the barracks for eighteen hours a day - lacking incentive, advice and a place to dump the sewage they never had cleaned the dormitories up - they had to trudge through the snow and cold each day down to the mine where they produced insufficient coal to properly fire the barracks' boilers and generator (due to a miscalculation by Vincent). Food arrived on only one day in four. The men's only consolation was that their foremen's predicament was the same. Like O'Grady the foremen had been accustomed to living with their wives in their own cottages in the valley but, when they could not get food, the wives had all gone to live in the village and the foremen were reduced to eating at the barracks with the marshals and the miners. 'You'd think O'Grady'd get around Muriel to give HIM something,' said Willis one day, seated with Carl and Ursus at a table in the mess hall close to a window looking out onto the forest and the distant white hills. 'That woman's a tyrant,' said Ursus. 'The old hag got a direct order from Bluemud and that was good enough for her. They say O'Grady tried to see her and she drove him out.' 'He don't look well, do he?' said Willis. O'Grady was crossing the mess hall with Johnson. Hunger had affected him badly. His pot-belly had shrunk alarmingly and he hardly had strength enough to crush a fly. Sharing adversity, though, had made all the foremen more friendly and they made their way chatting with the miners. 'Can't see why he doesn't let us get out of here,' said Ursus. 'We don't do any good just sitting around.' 'He's a man like the rest of us.' Willis looked gloomily out of the window. 'Don't do nothing he ain't told. Does everything he is. That's what I would do if I was him. Anyways, its too cold outside. That walk nearly kills me these days.' O'Grady came up to them. 'Boys! Griffon! Willis! And it's young Carl! How are you all doing?' 'Hungry as usual, Mr. O'Grady. Ain't we all?' 'Aren't we all?' O'Grady leaned on the table beside Carl and stared out of the window. 'You hungry like the rest of us, Carl?' 'Yes.' 'Well,' he slapped him on the shoulder,' winter'll be soon over. Another month or two. I reckon we can last till then, don't you? Least you don't have to work so hard these days, eh boys? You boys got the best seat. That's a pretty view.' 'I'll bet them hills is just crawling with animals, Mr. O'Grady,' said Ursus. 'Deer, bear, all sorts. Just waiting to be killed and eaten.' 'Is that so?' O'Grady rubbed his chin thoughtfully and the pair of foremen looked longingly towards the hills as if they were giant iced fruit cakes just waiting to be eaten. 'Now, I'd give something for a bit of meat,' said Johnson. 'Don't suppose there's been any hunting done in these parts in a hundred years,' said Ursus. 'In our old lives now, we'd have been off long ago trying to find what food we could.' 'Is that so?' O'Grady nodded, consulting his watch. 'Nearly time for the second shift,' he said and the two foremen went off together. |
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