Close Behind Him

  CLOSE BEHIND HIM

  from THE BEST OF JOHN WYNDHAM

  John Wyndham

  SPHERE BOOKS

  Published 1973

  ISBN 0 7221 9369 6

  Copyright© The Executors of the Estate of the late John Wyndham 1973

  INTRODUCTION

  AT a very tender age my latent passion for all forms of fantasy stories, having been sparked by the Brothers Grimm and the more unusual offerings in the children's comics and later the boy's adven­ture papers, was encouraged in the early 1930s by the occasional exciting find on the shelves of the public library with Burroughs and Thorne Smith varying the staple diet of Wells and Verne.

  But the decisive factor in establishing that exhila­rating ‘sense of wonder’ in my youthful imagi­nation was the discovery about that time of back numbers of American science fiction magazines to be bought quite cheaply in stores like Wool­worths. The happy chain of economic circum­stances by which American newstand returns, some­times sadly with the magic cover removed or mutilated, ballasted cargo ships returning to English ports and the colonies, must have been the mainspring of many an enthusiastic hobby devoted to reading, discussing, perhaps collecting and even writing, science fiction – or ‘scientifiction’ as Hugo Gerns­back coined the tag in his early Amazing Stories magazine.

  Gernsback was a great believer in reader partici­pation; in 1936 I became a teenage member of the Science Fiction League sponsored by his Wonder Stories. Earlier he had run a compe­tition in its fore­runner Air Wonder Stories to find a suitable banner slogan, offering the prize of ‘One Hundred Dollars in Gold’ with true yankee bragga­dacio. Discovering the result some years later in, I think, the September 1930 issue of Wonder Stories seized upon from the bargain-bin of a chain store, was akin to finding a message in a bottle cast adrift by some distant Robinson Crusoe, and I well remember the surge of jingo­istic pride (an educa­tional trait well-nurtured in pre-war Britain) in noting that the winner was an English­man, John Beynon Harris.

  I had not the slightest antici­pation then that I would later meet, and acknow­ledge as a good friend and mentor, this contest winner who, as John Wyndham, was to become one of the greatest English story-tellers in the idiom. The fact that he never actually got paid in gold was a disappoint­ment, he once told me, that must have accounted for the element of philo­so­phical dubiety in some of his work. Certainly his winning slogan ‘Future Flying Fiction’, al­though too late to save the maga­zine from foundering on the rock of eco­nomic depression (it had already been amalga­mated with its stable­mate Science Wonder Stories to become just plain, if that is the right word, Wonder Stories), presaged the firm stamp of credi­bility combined with imagi­native flair that charac­terized JBH's writings.

  John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris (the abundance of fore­names conve­niently supplied his various aliases) emerged in the 1950s as an important contem­porary influence on specu­lative fiction, parti­cularly in the explo­ration of the theme of realistic global catas­trophe, with books such as The Day of the Triffids and The Kraken Wakes, and enjoyed a popularity, which continued after his sad death in 1969, comparable to that of his illus­trious pre­decessor as master of the scientific romance, H. G. Wells.

  However, he was to serve his writing apprentice­ship in those same pulp maga­zines of the thirties, competing success­fully with their native American contributors, and it is the purpose of this present collection to high­light the chrono­logical develop­ment of his short stories from those early beginnings to the later urbane and polished style of John Wyndham.

  ‘The Lost Machine’ was his second published story, appea­ring in Amazing Stories, and was possibly the proto­type of the sentient robot later developed by such writers as Isaac Asimov. He used a variety of plots during this early American period parti­cu­larly favour­ing time travel, and the best of these was undoubtedly ‘The Man From Beyond’ in which the poign­ancy of a man's reali­za­tion, caged in a zoo on Venus, that far from being aban­doned by his fellow-explorers, he is the victim of a far stranger fate, is remark­ably out­lined for its time. Some themes had dealt with war, such as ‘The Trojan Beam’, and he had strong views to express on its futility. Soon his own induc­tion into the Army in 1940 produced a period of crea­tive inactivity corres­ponding to World War II. He had, however, previously established him­self in England as a promi­nent science fiction writer with serials in major period­icals, subse­quently reprinted in hard covers, and he even had a detec­tive novel published. He had been well repre­sented too – ‘Perfect Crea­ture’ is an amu­sing example – in the various maga­zines stemming from fan activity, despite the vicissi­tudes of their pre- and imme­diate post-war publish­ing insec­urity.

  But after the war and into the fifties the level of science fiction writing in general had increased consi­derably, and John rose to the challenge by selling success­fully to the American market again. In England his polished style proved popular and a predi­lection for the para­doxes of time travel as a source of private amuse­ment was perfectly exem­plified in ‘Pawley's Peepholes’, in which the gawp­ing tourists from the future are routed by vulgar tactics. This story was later success­fully adapted for radio and broad­cast by the B.B.C.

  About this time his first post-war novel burst upon an unsus­pecting world, and by utili­zing a couple of unori­ginal ideas with his Gernsback-trained atten­tion to logically based expla­natory detail and realis­tic back­ground, together with his now strongly deve­loped narra­tive style, ‘The Day of the Triffids’ became one of the classics of modern specu­lative fiction, survi­ving even a mediocre movie treat­ment. It was the fore­runner of a series of equally impressive and enjoyable novels inclu­ding ‘The Chrysalids’ and ‘The Mid­wich Cuckoos’ which was success­fully filmed as ‘Village of the Damned’. (A sequel ‘Children of the Damned’ was markedly inferior, and John was care­ful to dis­claim any responsi­bility for the writing.)

  I was soon to begin an enjoy­able asso­ciation with John Wyndham that had its origins in the early days of the New Worlds maga­zine-publish­ing venture, and was later to result in much kindly and essen­tial assis­tance enabling me to become a specia­list dealer in the genre. This was at the Fantasy Book Centre in Blooms­bury, an area of suitably asso­ciated literary acti­vities where John lived for many years, and which provi­ded many pleasu­rable meet­ings at a renowned local coffee establish­ment, Cawardine's, where we were often joined by such person­alities as John Carnell, John Chris­topher and Arthur C. Clarke.

  In between the novels two collec­tions of his now widely pub­lished short stories were issued as ‘The Seeds of Time’ and ‘Consider Her Ways’; others are re­printed here for the first time. He was never too grand to refuse mater­ial for our own New Worlds and in 1958 wrote a series of four novel­ettes about the Troon family's contri­bution to space explo­ration – a kind of Forsyte saga of the solar system later collected under the title ‘The Outward Urge’. His ficti­tious colla­borator ‘Lucas Parkes’ was a subtle ploy in the book version to explain Wyndham's appa­rent devia­tion into solid science-based fiction. The last story in this collection ‘The Empti­ness of Space’ was written as a kind of post­script to that series, especially for the 100th anni­versary issue of New Worlds.

  John Wyndham's last novel was Chocky, published in 1968. It was an expan­sion of a short story follow­ing a theme similar to The Chrysalids and The Midwich Cuckoos. It was a theme pecu­liarly appro­priate for him in his advancing matu­rity. When, with charac­teristic reti­cence and modesty, he announced to a few of his friends that he was marry­ing his beloved Grace and moving to the country­side, we all felt that this was a well-deserved retire­ment for them both.

&nb
sp; But ironically time – always a fasci­nating subject for specu­lation by him – was running out for this typical English gentle­man. Amiable, eru­dite, astrin­gently humo­rous on occasion, he was, in the same way that the gentle Boris Karloff portrayed his film monsters, able to depict the night­mares of humanity with fright­ening realism, made the more deadly by his masterly preci­sion of detail. To his great gift for story-telling he brought a lively intellect and a fertile imagi­nation.

  I am glad to be numbered among the many, many thou­sands of his readers whose ‘sense of wonder’ has been satis­facto­rily indulged by a writer whose gift to posterity is the compul­sive reada­bility of his stories of which this present volume is an essen­tial part.

  — LESLIE FLOOD

  CLOSE BEHIND HIM (1953)

  “You didn't ought to of croaked him,” Smudger said resentfully. “What in hell did you want to do a fool thing like that for?”

  Spotty turned to look at the house, a black spectre against the night sky. He shuddered.

  “It was him or me,” he muttered. “I wouldn't of done it if he didn't come for me — and I wouldn't even then, not if he'd come ordinary...”

  “What do you mean ordinary?”

  “Like anybody else. But he was queer ... He wasn't — well, I guess he was crazy — dangerous crazy...”

  “All he needed was a tap to keep him quiet,” Smudger persisted. “There wasn't no call to bash his loaf in.”

  “You didn't see him. I tell you, he didn't act human.” Spotty shuddered again at the recollection, and bent down to rub the calf of his right leg tenderly.

  The man had come into the room while Spotty was sifting rapidly through the contents of a desk. He'd made no sound. It had been just a feeling, a natural alert­ness, that had brought Spotty round to see him standing there. In that very first glimpse Spotty had felt there was some­thing queer about him. The expression on his face — his attitude — they were wrong. In his biscuit-coloured pyjamas, he should have looked just an ordinary citizen awakened from sleep, too anxious to have delayed with dressing-gown and slippers. But some way he didn't. An ordinary citizen would have shown nervous­ness, at least wari­ness; he would most likely have picked up some­thing to use as a weapon. This man stood crouching, arms a little raised, as though he were about to spring.

  Moreover, any citizen whose lips curled back as this man's did to show his tongue licking hungrily between his teeth, should have been considered suffi­ciently unordinary to be locked away safely. In the course of his profes­sion Spotty had developed reliable nerves, but the look of this man rocked them. Nobody should be pleased by the discovery of a burglar at large in his house. Yet, there could be no doubt that this victim was looking at Spotty with satis­faction. An unpleasant gloating kind of satis­faction, like that which might appear on a fox's face at the sight of a plump chicken. Spotty hadn't liked the look of him at all, so he had pulled out the convenient piece of pipe that he carried for emergencies.

  Far from showing alarm, the man took a step closer. He poised, sprung on his toes like a wrestler.

  “You keep off me, mate,” said Spotty, holding up his nine inches of lead pipe as a warning.

  Either the man did not hear — or the words held no interest for him. His long, bony face snarled. He shifted a little closer. Spotty backed against the edge of the desk. “I don't want no trouble. You just keep off me,” he said again.

  The man crouched a little lower. Spotty watched him through narrowed eyes. An extra tensing of the man's muscles gave him a frac­tional warning before the attack.

  The man came without feinting or rushing: he simply sprang, like an animal.

  In mid-leap he encountered Spotty's boot suddenly erected like a stanchion in his way. It took him in the middle and felled him. He sprawled on the floor doubled up, with one arm hugging his belly. The other hand threat­ened, with fingers bent into hooks. His head turned in jerks, his jaws with their curiously sharp teeth were apart, like a dog's about to snap.

  Spotty knew just as well as Smudger that what was required was a quiet­ening tap. He had been about to deliver it with profes­sional skill and quality when the man by an extra­ordinary wriggle, had succeeded in fastening his teeth into Spotty's leg. It was unexpected, excru­ciating enough to ruin Spotty's aim and make the blow ineffec­tual. So he had to hit it again: harder this time. Too hard. And even then he had more or less had to pry the man's teeth out of his leg...

  But it was not so much his aching leg — nor even the fact that he had killed the man — that was the chief cause of Spotty's concern. It was the kind of man he had killed:

  “Like an animal he was,” he said, and the recollection made him sweat. “Like a bloody wild animal. And the way he looked! His eyes! Christ, they wasn't human.”

  That aspect of the affair held little interest for Smudger. He'd not seen the man until he was already dead and looking like any other corpse. His present concern was that a mere matter of burglary had been abruptly trans­ferred to the murder cate­gory — a class of work he had always kept clear of until now.

  The job had looked easy enough. There shouldn't have been any trouble. A man living alone in a large house — a pretty queer customer with a pretty queer temper. On Fridays, Sundays and some­times on Wednes­days, there were meetings at which about twenty people came to the house and did not leave until the small hours of the follow­ing morning. All this infor­mation was according to Smudger's sister, who learned it third hand from the woman who cleaned the house. The woman was darkly specu­lative, but unspecific, about what went on at these gatherings. But from Smudger's point of view the important thing was that on other nights the man was alone in the house.

  He seemed to be a dealer of some kind. People brought odd curios to the house to sell to him. Smudger had been greatly interested to hear that they were paid for — and paid for well — in cash. That was a solid, practical con­sider­ation. Beside it, the vaguely ill repu­tation of the place, the queer-ness of its fur­nish­ings, and the rumours of strange goings-on at the gatherings, were unim­portant. The only thing worthy of attention were the facts that the man lived alone and had items of value in his possession.

  Smudger had thought of it as a one-man job at first, and with a little more infor­mation he might have tackled it on his own. He had discovered that there was a tele­phone, but no dog. He was fairly sure of the room in which the money must be kept, but unfortu­nately his sister's source of infor­ma­tion had its limit­ations. He did not know whether there were burglar alarms or similar pre­cautions, and he was too uncertain of the cleaning woman to attempt to get into the house by a sub­terfuge for a pre­limi­nary investi­gation. So he had taken Spotty in with him on a fifty-fifty basis.

  The reluctance with which he had taken that step had now become an active regret — not only because Spotty had been foolish enough to kill the man, but because the way things had been he could easily have made a hundred per cent haul on his own — and not be fool enough to kill the man had he been detected.

  The attaché case which he carried was now well-filled with bundles of notes, along with an assort­ment of precious-looking objects in gold and silver, probably eminently trace­able, but useful if melted down. It was irri­tating to think that the whole load, instead of merely half of it, might have been his.

  The two men stood quietly in the bushes for some minutes and listened. Satisfied, they pushed through a hole in the hedge, then moved cautiously down the length of the neigh­bouring field in its shadow.

  Spotty's chief sensation was relief at being out of the house. He hadn't liked the place from the moment they had entered. For one thing, the furnish­ings weren't like those he was used to. Unpleasant idols or carved figures of some kind stood about unexpected places, looming suddenly out of the dark­ness into his flash­light's beam with hideous expres­sions on their faces. There were pictures and pieces of tapestry that were macabre and shocking to a simple burglar. Spotty was not parti­cularl
y sensitive, but these seemed to him highly unsuit­able to have about the home.

  The same quality extended to more practical objects. The legs of a large oak table had been carved into mythical mis­cege­nates of repul­sive appear­ance. The two bowls which stood upon the table were either genuine or extremely good represen­tations of polished human skulls. Spotty could not imagine why, in one room, anybody should want to mount a crucifix on the wall upside down and place on a shelf beneath it a row of sconces holding nine black candles — then Sank the whole with two pictures of an indecency so revolting it almost took his breath away. All these things had some­how combined to rattle his usual hard-headed­ness.

  But even though he was out of the place now, he didn't feel quite free of its influence. He decided he wouldn't feel properly him­self again until they were in the car and several miles away.

  After working around two fields they came to the dusty white lane off which they had parked the car. They prospected care­fully. By now the sky had cleared of clouds and the moon­light showed the road empty in both directions. Spotty scrambled through the hedge, across the ditch, and stood on the road in a quiet­ness broken only by Smudger's progress through the hedge. Then he started to walk towards the car.

  He had gone about a dozen paces when Smudger's voice stopped him: “Hey, Spotty. What've you got on your feet?”

  Spotty stopped and looked down. There was nothing remark­able about his feet; his boots looked just as they had always looked.

  “What—?'he began.

  “No! Behind you!”

  Spotty looked back. From the point where he had stepped on to the road to another some five feet behind where he now stood was a series of foot­prints, dark in the white dust. He lifted his foot and exa­mined the sole of his boot; the dust was clinging to it. He turned his eyes back to the foot­marks once more. They looked black, and seemed to glisten.