In the back room I looked round panting. There were seven of us there.
‘Hold it,’ I said again. ‘We’re all right in here.’
I went back to the door. The rear part of the shop was out of the triffids’ range—as long as they stayed outside. I was able to reach the trap-door in safety, and raise it. The two men who had fallen down there since I left re-emerged. One nursed a broken arm; the other was merely bruised, and cursing.
Behind the back room lay a small yard, and across that a door in an eight-foot brick wall. I had grown cautious. Instead of going straight to the door I climbed on the roof of an outhouse to prospect. The door, I could see, gave into a narrow alley running the full length of the block. It was empty. But beyond the wall on the far side which seemed to terminate the gar
