Part 2

Day after day we were caged in our barracks. The constant squealing and scratching under the barracks was bad enough. What made us desperate was the fact that they had gnawed a way into the store room and most of the packaged food was gone. We still had some smoked fish hung on the rafters, and a few salted fulmars in the barrel, but that was all. It was then that we remembered the two-way radio, marked "Use in emergency only". Bill said, after weighing all the evidence coolly and carefully, that this here, in his opinion, was an emergency.

I got WFI mainland and finally persuaded them to put me in touch with Carter, Bird Stations Ecologist. I told him we were having a little trouble with the genus Rattus, and would he, for God's sake, do something about it, quick. I can still near him laughing. It was a while before he could speak at all.

"Keep them at bay, general. I'll be over early tomorrow morning."

I don't believe any men have ever been so happy to see Carter as we were.

"They'll balance," he said. "Starvation will do its work. I've brought along a couple of pairs of barn owls. They'll help a lot. I see you read that ecology book. Good job. Station virtually wiped out. I'm sending supplies over in a week's time. Anybody wants to know, you're supposed to be helping extend and restore the tern and gull colonies. Wouldn't be a bad idea to try a few other animal experiments. Milder, though. Smaller scale. Send canvas for a sail too."

He was gone before we could answer. The small freighter put in July fifteenth. She had no cargo of processed birds to take back, of course. The captain detailed a few men to unload our supplies, and we helped them eagerly. There were six calves and heifers, two cows and a bull, five pigs, one boar and two sows, several dozen hens and a rooster. Best of all, there was a big case containing seeds: corn, barley, oats, seed potatoes, melons, beets, kale, dozens of others. A plow and two draught horses, mare and stallion. Several pounds of rat poison. A hand forge and several tons of coke. Iron. A hundred pounds of linen twine for nets, as well as ropes of all sizes. Canvas. Tools of all kinds. A big medical kit.

* * * * *

In a year's time, we had prospered. No richer land, due to the bird droppings, was ever farmed. And the sandier areas could be depended upon for melons and other crops demanding a lighter, drier, and not so rich soil. Not only that, but we were five, now, instead of three. The Jackson boys had lured a couple of husky girls to the island in the boat. The boys claimed the women fell in love with them. I think they fell in love with the island.

This fast work on the part of the Jacksons seemed a little rash to me. I was still not at all sure we'd be allowed to remain and enjoy the work we had done. Several times, I was tempted to use the radio again, but decided to wait. I'm glad now I did.

* * * * *

In August, a little more than a year after his last visit, Carter set his helicopter down at the wharf again.

After lunch in the barracks of baked fish, fresh milk, potatoes, salad, and melons, he pushed back his chair and said, "I suppose you've been wondering."

"We'd like to know," I said.

He nodded. "The mainland's going to pieces. So is the whole world. It isn't just food. We can still produce that. Remember what you said about the bad roads, bad telephones? You put your finger on it. So much manpower, machinery, energy, material is used up in getting food and processing it and distributing it, there isn't enough for other things. A tenth of the world's population and a quarter of its total power resources go into processing plankton alone. We are literally eating ourselves to death. Utilities and services are breaking down rapidly. No new dwellings of any kind have been built for ten years or more. Oil is short, cement, iron, steel, coal, plastics, wiring, radios, telephones, everything is in short supply and getting shorter. Transport is staggering to a halt."

He paused, took off his glasses, and twirled them by one side piece.

"Many of us saw it coming. A few decided to do something. We thought there should be undisturbed nuclei, a few able people with ample food supplies. You are one such center. There are others at various bird stations along the coast. You'll be joined shortly by a few more people, young men and women, among them a trained nurse, a doctor, a skilled carpenter, so on."

Bill cleared his throat.

"What you said, I guess it was all around me, only I never seen it, not to put together. Just one thing. The manager at the Food Plant, he used to stop and kid me about all the fish I'd stole from the government in my time. He was abraggin' about how WFI had newer and better ways of gettin' things done, always newer and better every year. How come they couldn't keep caught up?"

"Bill, those new techniques that manager talked about were old stuff a hundred, two hundred years ago. The applications are new, some of them, but the basic ideas are old.

"The World Food Institute drew off all the scientific, inventive brains of the world, and put them to chasing food. No time for basic research, basic development; just time for tinkering and retinkering old ideas. Been no new basic idea for a couple of centuries. Too much need for immediate, practical results. The well is dry, and it won't be filled again with a reservoir of new, big ideas, not in our time. Been living off the past; and the present has caught up with us."

* * * * *

Before Carter left the island to visit the other stations, I had a chance to have a talk with him.

"Was that sociologist, Ranson, in on this?"

"No. We had to be careful. Still have to be. Just a few of us. That's why the loss of the bird colonies here had to seem natural, or at least a natural accident. And I had to keep clear of it. You can see that."

"Carter, what happens on the mainland when things break up?"

"Won't be pretty. Bad. Very bad."

"For example?"

"You read the ecology book. What happens when a species multiplies beyond its ability to feed itself?"

* * * * *

A dozen new Rollins Islanders showed up a few at a time in Carter's helicopter. We've been working and waiting a long time now, waiting for Carter to come back. For over a year now, our boat has made no crossing to the mainland. Last night, over twenty-five miles of sea in clear weather, we saw the sky lit by a great fire.

I haven't forgotten those rats. I dream about them, tearing one another with bloody fangs.

End of Project Gutenberg's Ecology on Rollins Island, by Varley Lang