The door opens and Dr. Poole enters, followed by the Director of Food Production, an elderly, grey-bearded man wearing homespun trousers, the standard apron and a cutaway coat that must once have belonged to the English butler of some twentieth-century motion picture executive.
«A little messy, I’m afraid,» says the Director apologetically. «But I’ll have the bones cleared out this afternoon and tomorrow the charvessels can dust off the tables and wash the floors.»
«Quite,» says Dr. Poole, «quite.»
Dissolve to the same room a week later. The skeletons have been removed and thanks to the charvessels the floors, walls and furniture are almost clean. Dr. Poole has three distinguished visitors. Wearing his four horns and the brown, Anglo-Nubian habit of the Society of Moloch, the Arch-Vicar is seated beside the Chief, who is dressed in the much be-medalled uniform of a Rear-Admiral of the United States Navy, recently disinterred from Forest Lawn. At a respectful distance behind and to one side of the two Heads of Church and State sits the Director of Food Production, still disguised as a butler. Facing them, in the posture of a French Academician preparing to read his latest production to some choice and privileged audience, sits Dr. Poole.
«Shall I begin?» he asks.
The heads of Church and State exchange glances; then turn to Dr. Poole and simultaneously nod their assent. He opens his notebook and adjusts his spectacles.
«Notes on Soil Erosion and Plant Pathology in Southern California,» he reads aloud. «Followed by a Preliminary Report on the Agricultural Situation and a Plan of Remedial Action for the Future. By Alfred Poole D.Sc. Assistant Professor of Botany at the University of Auckland.»
As he reads, we dissolve to a slope among the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. Naked but for a cactus here and there, the stony ground lies dead and mangled in the sunshine. A network of ramifying gullies furrows the hillside. Some of them are still in the infancy of erosion, others have cut their way deep into the ground. The ruins of a substantial house, half of which has already been engulfed, stand precariously at the edge of one of these strangely fretted canyons. In the plain, at the foot of the hill, dead walnut trees emerge from the dried mud in which successive rains have buried them.
Over the shot we hear the sonorous drone of Dr. Poole’s voice.
«In true symbiosis,» he is saying, «there is a mutually beneficial relationship between two associated organisms. The distinguishing mark of parasitism, on the other hand, is that one organism lives at the expense of another. In the end this one-sided relationship proves fatal to both parties; for the death of the host cannot but result in the death of the parasite by which it has been killed. The relationship between modern man and the planet, of which, until so recently, he regarded himself as the master, has been that, not of symbiotic partners, but of tapeworm and infested dog, of fungus and blighted potato.»
Cut back to the Chief. Within its nest of curly black beard, the red-lipped mouth has opened into an enormous yawn. Over the shot Dr. Poole reads on.
«Ignoring the obvious fact that his devastation of natural resources would, in the long run, result in the ruin of his civilization and even in the extinction of his species, modern man continued, generation after generation, to exploit the earth in such a way that. . .»
«Couldn’t you make it a bit snappier?» asks the Chief.
Dr. Poole begins by looking offended. Then he remembers that he is a condemned captive on probation among savages, and forces a nervous smile.
«Perhaps it might be best,» he says, «if we passed without more ado to the section on Plant Pathology.»
«I don’t care,» says the Chief, «so long as you make it snappy.»
«Impatience,» pipes the Arch-Vicar sententiously, «is one of Belial’s favourite vices.»
Dr. Poole, meanwhile, has turned over three or four pages and is ready to start again.
«Given the existing state of the soil, yield per acre would be abnormally low, even if the principal food plants were completely healthy. But they are not healthy. After viewing crops in the field, after inspecting grains, fruits and tubers in storage, after examining botanical specimens under an almost undamaged pre-Thing microscope, I feel certain that there is only one explanation for the number and variety of plant diseases now rampant in the area — namely, deliberate infection of the crops by means of fungus bombs, bacteria-bearing aerosols and the release of many species of virus-carrying aphides and other insects. Otherwise how account for the prevalence and extreme virulence of Giberella Saubinettii and Puccinia graminis? Of Phytophthora infestans and Synchitrium endobioticum? Of all the mosaic diseases due to viruses? Of Bacillus amylovorus, Bacillus carotovorus, Pseudomonas citri, Pseudomonas tumefaciens, Bacterium. . .»
Cutting short his recitation almost before it has begun, the Arch-Vicar interrupts him.
«And you still maintain,» he says, «that these people weren’t possessed by Belial!» He shakes his head. «It’s incredible how prejudice can blind even the most intelligent, the most highly educated. . .»
«Yes, yes, we know all that,» says the Chief impatiently. «But now let’s cut all the cackle and get down to practical business. What can you do about all this?»
Dr. Poole clears his throat.
«The task,» he says impressively, «will be long-drawn and extremely arduous.»
«But I want more food now,» says the Chief imperiously. «I’ve got to have it this very year.»
Somewhat apprehensively Dr. Poole is forced to tell him that disease-resisting varieties of plants cannot be bred and tested in under ten or twelve years. And meanwhile there is the question of the land; the erosion is destroying the land, erosion must be checked at all costs. But the labour of terracing and draining and composting is enormous and must go on unremittingly, year after year. Even in the old days, when manpower and machinery were plentiful, people had failed to do what was necessary to preserve the fertility of the soil.
«It wasn’t because they couldn’t,» puts in the Arch-Vicar. «It was because they didn’t want to.
Between World War II and World War III they had all the time and all the equipment they needed. But they preferred to amuse themselves with power politics, and what were the consequences?» He counts off the answers on his thick fingers. «Worse malnutrition for more people. More political unrest. Resulting in more aggressive nationalism and imperialism. And finally the Thing. And why did they choose to destroy themselves? Because that was what Belial wanted them to do, because He had taken possession. . .»
The Chief holds up his hand.
«Please, please,» he protests. «This isn’t a course in Apologetics or Natural Diabology. We’re trying to do something.»
«And unfortunately the doing will take a long time,» says Dr. Poole.
«How long?»
«Well, in five years you might find yourself holding your own against erosion. In ten years there’d be a perceptible improvement. In twenty years, some of your land might be back to as much as seventy per cent of its original fertility. In fifty years. . .»
«In fifty years,» puts in the Arch-Vicar, «the deformity rate will be double what it is at present. And in a hundred years the triumph of Belial will be complete. But complete!» he repeats with a childlike giggle. He makes the sign of the horns and gets up from his chair. «But meanwhile I’m all for this gentleman doing everything he can.»
Dissolve to the Hollywood Cemetery. Trucking shot of the monuments, with which our earlier visit to the graveyard has already made us familiar.
Medium close shot of the statue of Hedda Boddy. The Camera drops from the figure to the pedestal and the inscription.
«. . . . affectionately known as Public Sweetheart Number One. ‘Hitch your wagon to a Star.’ «
Over the shot we hear the sound of a spade being thrust into the ground, then the rattle of sand and gravel as the earth is tossed aside.
The Camera pulls back, and we see Loola standing in a three-foot hole, wearily digging.
The sound of footsteps makes her look up. Flossie, the plump girl of the earlier sequence, enters the shot.
«Getting on all right?» she asks.
Loola nods without speaking and wipes her forehead with the back of her hand.
«When you hit the pay dirt,» the plump girl goes on, «come and report to us.»
«It’ll take at least an hour more,» says Loola gloomily.
«Well, keep at it, kid,» says Flossie in the maddeningly hearty tones of a person delivering a pep talk. «Put your back into it. Prove to them that a vessel can do as much as a man! If you work well,» she goes on encouragingly, «maybe the Superintendent will let you keep the Nylons. Look at the pair I got this morning!»
She pulls the coveted trophies from her pocket. Except for a greenish discoloration around the toes, the stockings are in perfect condition.
«Oh!» cries Loola in envious admiration.
«But we didn’t have any luck with the jewellery,» says Flossie, as she puts the stockings away again. «Just the wedding ring and a rotten little bracelet. Let’s hope this one won’t let us down.»
She pats the Parian stomach of Public Sweetheart Number One.
«Well, I must get back,» she continues. «We’re digging for the vessel who’s buried under that red stone cross — you know, the big one, near the north gate.»
Loola nods.
«I’ll be there as soon as I make a strike,» she says.
Whistling the tune of «When I survey the Wondrous Horns,» the plump girl walks out of the shot. Loola sighs, and resumes her digging.
Very softly,
