THE CHINA MAIL, DECEMBER 29, 1939
Potted-Best-seller Serial: First day
THE HOPKINS MANUSCRIPT
By R. C. SHERRIFF Author Of "Journey's End"
A story telling how the moon hit the earth- written by one of the last Englishmen left alive.
FOREWORD
(From the Imperial Research
Press, Addis Ababa)
THE Royal Society of Abyssinia dis- covered "The Hopkins Manuscript" two years ago in the ruins of Notting
Hill.
an
It is the only personal day-by-day record yet discovered that gives us the intimate feelings of Englishman during the days of the Cataclysm.
Our ignorance concerning the his- tory of England is tantalising, but it should be remembered that for a hun- dred years after the collapse of the "Western Civilisation" the peoples of
the
East destroyed everything that existed in their own countries to re- mind them of the days when they live
ed in servitude to the "white man."
Every printed book, every vestige of art surviving from Western Europe, out and was systematically hunted destroyed. The damp climate of Eng- land completed this work of destruc- tion in the seven hundred years that followed.
# match ful nation as the glow of might dispel the darkness from the desert of Sahara. Yet it is all that we have.
The Manuscript
I am writing by the light of a piece of string which I have pushed through a fragment of bacon fat and arranged in an egg-cup. I shall write by night, partly because I can no longer sleep through these ghastly, moonless chasms and partly because by day I must search for food, and the days are short.
It is hard to believe that this is Not-
ting Hill, and the inky, silent void beneath me is London. There was a time when I could see a million lights from this window. There was a time when the roar of the traffic would come up to this window like a lulling sea beneath a dying storm.
Earlier this evening I saw a
few fitful little yellow lights beneath me- flickering and disappearing as people in their ruined houses tinkered with their gimcrack home-made lamps and gave them up in despair. Only a few still try to fight these horrible black nights with their feeble home-made The majority have turned
lanterns.
into savages.
"I was in Trafalgar-square. The moon was a great shining ball whose centre seemed nearer to us than its rim. . . . It was no long- er set firmly in the sky!"
meadow of five acres - paradise for poultry.
a veritable
small observatory in the summerhouse of his garden.
I soon became well acquainted with A man I met yesterday in Kensing- ton Gardens as I was drawing my buc- my neighbour, Dr. Perceval, who en- ket of water told me that there were gaged my interest in a hobby which a remarkable only 700 people alive in London now, was destined to play and every one of us can own a street- part in my life, and without which I ful of houses if we want them.
should never have gained the know- The mainland of Western, Europe,
An old lady who used to live oppo- ledge and authority to write this story. Dr. Perceval was a keen amateur once inhabited by the French, Ger- site me at No. 10, Notting Hill-crescent
constructed a mans, Italians, and Spanish, has long has gone to live in the National Gal- astronomer, and had since been colonised, and every vestige lery. She heard that It was empty, of its past civilisation swept away. and wanted to gratify her love of art But the damp British climate has and lust for possession during the last not attracted the peoples of the East days that remain to her. for nearly a thousand years, since its I went to tea with her to-day. She last wretched inhabitants starved to lives upon the pigeons that fall dead death amid the ruins of their once from the Nelson Column in Trafalgar
The society's headquarters were at Square. She cooks them over a fire The English recorded their lives and which she keeps blazing with Dutch 70, Barbara-street, Covent Garden, achievements upon paper SO flimsy masterpieces upon the stone floor of and consisted of the whole top floor. that every vestige has perished in the the entrance hall. She dislikes Dutch My story really begins upon a sum- Can it fire perpetual dampness of the island, and masterpieces and enjoys the
as mer evening seven years ago.
only be seven years? It seems an their inscriptions upon metal and stone much as she does the pigeons. are of the poorest quality.
But there is no time for anecdote, eternity, but careful calculation proves I must write my story, plainly and it to be true. simply, while I have the strength and sufficient light to see by.
noble cities.
1
An extremely rusted iron tablet was found twelve miles south-west of Lon- don. Its inscription has been deci- phered by Dr. Shangul, of Aduwa Uni- versity, as "KEEP OFF THE GRASS," and it is now lodged in the Royal Col- lection at Addis Ababa.
The rectangular column of stone in- scribed "PECKHAM 3 MILES" can be seen in
of the Imperial Museum Afghanistan.
Within a few months I became, through the doctor's influence, an As- sociate Member of the British Lunar Society-a learned body devoted on- tirely to the study of the moon.
*
»
**
sun
-
Now there are no evenings-no tw!- light in a land from which the The idea of writing my story has plunges in one ghastly, blood-red tor- given me quite a lot of happiness. I rent. It is burning yellow day-then alone, of all these hopeless people, suddenly black, utter night. shall die with the knowledge that I leave something behind that may one day be found and valued as highly as . I remember upon that summer even-. our village the Rosetta Stone or the priceless ing I saw Mr. Barlow, manuscript of Egypt.
postman, about to enter my gate, and When it is finished I shall screw it we stood for a few moments chatting tightly in my vacuum flask and con- in the mellow light of the sunset. The only other inscription found in ceal it behind the bricks of my fire- "Lovely evening, Mr. Hopkins," said England raised great hopes, but it place.
Barlow. "Lovely sunset-but rusty proved to be the greatest disappoint-
again." ment of all. The tablet, which com-
"Rusty again." It was the first time memorates the opening of a swimming I am a bachelor, aged fifty-three. I had heard expressed in words the bath in North London, records in de- My name is Edgar Hopkins, and I was strangeness which I had felt towards tail the names of the borough council, educated at Winchester and Jesus Col- eventide on several occasions in the the architect and the sanitary engine- lege, Cambridge. Upon taking my past few weeks. er, and omits the name of the ruling degree of Bachelor of Arts I accepted "I never seed that rusty colour in- monarch and Prime Minister.
the position of Assistant Arithmetic all my life afore," added Barlow.
*
"The Hopkins Manuscript" was dis- Master to Portsea Grammar School, a I nodded in silent agreement, but covered by an expedition of the Royal post which I held, I think, with dis- could not dismiss the phenomenon so Society of Abyssinia. While cutting tinction for twenty-three years until easily as Barlow did, as a mere treak brushwood for the fires lit by the ex- the death of my father at last provid- of nature. There was no difference in pedition every night to protect them- ed me with a small but sufficient leg. the actual appearance of the sun, nor selves against the packs of wild dogs acy upon which to retire.
in the shape of the little clouds that that roam the island, a young scientist My retirement afforded me the surrounded it as it sank gently behind discovered a much decayed wall of red opportunity of gratifying my interest the trees. But, as it passed, it left a brick that collapsed under pressure, in poultry breeding. In the summer great sombre tarnish in the sky that. revealing in a recess a small vacuum of 1940'I purchased a small but charm- oppressed and disturbed me: flask.
ing estate upon the outskirts of the Lately for a little while the pheno......... *The
manuscript within it had village of Beadle in Hampshire. It menon had risappeared, and the sun survived where millions of books, ex was known as Beech Knoll and con- had set once more in its old, friendly posed to the climate, had perished, sisted of a nice little house upon the gowns of gold and crimson. Now here And so "The Hopkins Manuscript" summit of a small hill 580 feet above it was "rusty again," as old Barlow so comes to us a thin, lonely cry of an- sea level (a fact to which I owe my aptly put it. guish from the gathering darkness of life). The ter gardens, rich in It disappeared dying England. It raises the shadows old hollies
sloped pl
and closed my gate.
I paused at my arbour and sat down. to read my mail-the letter that ended my days of peace; happy days that have never since returned, and never will again.
** *
I have that letter in my pocket-book. to-day, worn and battered by the dreadful misfortunes that I and my personal belongings have suffered. I copy it down in Its entirety:-
THE BRITISH LUNAR SOCIETY,
76, Barbara-street. Secretary:
Humphrey
H. Tugwall. September 18, 1945.
Sir,
W.C.1.
I am instructed by the president and committee to summon you to a special meeting of the British Lunar Society to be held at the society's headquar- ters on the 8th October at 6 p.m.
As the subject of this meeting is of the most highly confidential nature, no guests will be permitted, and members are requested to keep both this notice at the and the matters announced meeting most secret and confidential.
Yours faithfully, Humphrey H. Tugwall. On that fateful 8th of October-the day that was to end everything of life tranquillity and happiness that
the evening had given me I took train for London, and made my way towards the Lunar Society's head- quarters in Barbara-street. But as I entered the big, familiar lecture-room. I felt at once a subtle difference from anything that I had known in that room before.
That night I think every member was present, every one of the 109 of us, and
was filled there although the room was something uncanny in its quiet-
ness.
The president entered alone, glanced' at us, then bent forward and whisper- ed to the secretary, who sat to his right, at the foot of the platform. The secretary, nodded, rose to his feet, and all eyes followed him as he went to the back of the room, to the door that
led to the stairs.
Quietly he turned the key in the lock and pulled the green balze cur- tains carefully across the door to sub- due any sound that might escape to the outside world. ---“Gentlemen," began the president: in his quiet, level voice. "Some of you have guessed the purpose of this unusual meeting. I do not wish to dramatike what I have to say, but you must know that I speak to-night_by-- the authority of the Prime Minister, who binds one and all of us, upon our honour, to the most absolute secrecy."
*
He paused, and glanced down at his: Alting Continue