The Children of Men

  The light is failing now and I can hardly see the page. In another hour we shall begin the journey. The car, shining under Rolf’s ministrations, is packed and ready. Just as I feel confident that this will be the last entry in my diary, so I know that we shall face dangers and horrors at present unimaginable to me. I have never been superstitious, but this belief cannot be argued or reasoned away. Believing it, I am still at peace. And I am glad we have had this respite, these happy innocent hours stolen, it seems, out of inexorable time. During the afternoon, while rummaging in the back of the car, Miriam found a second torch, little larger than a pencil, wedged down the side of a seat. It would hardly have been adequate to replace the one which failed, but I am grateful we didn’t know it was there. We needed this day.

  27

  The dashboard clock showed five minutes to three, later than Theo had expected. The road, narrow and deserted, opened palely before them, then slid under the wheels like a strip of torn and soiled linen. The surface was deteriorating and from time to time the car jolted violently as they struck a pot-hole. It was impossible to drive fast on such a road; he dared not risk a second puncture. The night was dark but not totally black; the half-moon reeled between the scudding clouds, the stars were high pin-pricks of half-formed constellations, the Milky Way was a smudge of light. The car, handling easily, seemed to be a moving refuge, warmed by their breath, smelling faintly of familiar, unfrightening things which in his bemused state he tried to identify: petrol, human bodies, Jasper’s old dog, long since dead, even the faint aroma of peppermint. Rolf was beside him, silent but tense, staring ahead. In the back seat Julian sat squashed between Miriam and Luke. It was the least comfortable seat but the one she had wanted; perhaps being buttressed by the two bodies gave her an illusion of added safety. Her eyes were closed, her head rested on Miriam’s shoulder. Then, as he watched in the mirror, it jerked, slipped and lolled forward. Gently Miriam raised it to a more comfortable position. Luke, too, looked asleep, his head thrown back, his mouth a little open.

  The road curved and twisted but its surface became smoother. Theo was lulled into confidence by the hours of trouble-free motoring. Perhaps, after all, the journey need not be disastrous. Gascoigne would have talked, but he hadn’t known about the child. In Xan’s eyes the Five Fishes were surely a small and contemptible band of amateurs. He might not even bother to have them hunted down. For the first time since the journey began there rose in him a spring of hope.

  He saw the fallen trunk only just in time and braked violently a moment before the car bonnet scraped its jutting branches. Rolf jerked awake and swore. Theo switched off the engine. There was a moment of silence in which two thoughts, following so quickly they were almost instantaneous, shook him into full consciousness. The first was relief; the trunk didn’t look heavy despite its bush of autumn leaves. He and the other two men could probably drag it clear without much trouble. The second realization was horror. It couldn’t have fallen so inconveniently; there had been no recent strong winds. This was a deliberate obstruction.

  And in that second the Omegas were upon them. Horribly, they came at first unheard, in total silence. At each car window the painted faces stared in, lit by the flames of torches. Miriam gave a short involuntary scream. Rolf yelled “Back! Reverse!” and tried to seize the wheel and gear-stick. Their hands locked. Theo thrust him aside and slammed the gears into reverse. The engine roared into life, the car shot back. They crashed to a stop with a violence which threw him forward. The Omegas must have moved quickly and silently, imprisoning them with a second obstruction. And now the faces were at the windows again. He stared into two expressionless eyes, gleaming, white-rimmed, in a mask of blue, red and yellow swirls. Above the painted forehead the hair was dragged back into a top-knot. In one hand the Omega held a flaming torch, in the other a club, like a policeman’s truncheon, decorated with thin pigtails of hair. Theo remembered with horror being told that when the Painted Faces killed they cut off the hair of the victim and braided it into a trophy, a rumour he had only half believed, part of the folklore of terror. Now he gazed in fascinated horror at the dangling plait and wondered whether it had come from the head of a man or a woman.

  No one in the car spoke. The silence, which had seemed to last for minutes, could have been held for seconds only. And then the ritual dance began. With a great whoop the figures slowly pranced round the car, beating their truncheons on the sides and the roof, a rhythmic drumbeat to the high chanting voices. They were wearing shorts only but their bodies were unpainted. The naked chests looked white as milk in the flame of the torches, the rib-cages delicately vulnerable. The jerking legs, the ornate heads, the patterned faces slit by wide, yodelling mouths, made it possible to see them as a gang of overgrown children playing their disruptive but essentially innocent games.

  Was it possible, Theo wondered, to talk to them, to reason with them, establish at least a recognition of common humanity? He wasted no time on the thought. He remembered once meeting one of their victims and a snatch of their conversation came into his mind. “They’re said to kill the single sacrificial victim, but on this occasion, thank God, they were satisfied with the car.” He had added: “Just don’t meddle with them. Abandon your vehicle and get away.” For him, escape hadn’t been easy; for them, encumbered with a pregnant woman, it seemed impossible. But there was one fact which might divert them from murder, if they were capable of rational thought and believed it: Julian’s pregnancy. The evidence was now sufficient even for an Omega. But he had no need to ask himself what Julian’s reaction to that would be; they hadn’t fled from Xan and the Council to fall into the power of the Painted Faces. He looked back at Julian. She was sitting with her head bowed. Presumably she was praying. He wished her good luck with her god. Miriam’s eyes were wide and terrified. It was impossible to see Luke’s face, but from his seat Rolf poured out a stream of obscenities.

  The dance continued, the whirling bodies moving ever faster, the chanting louder. It was difficult to see how many there were but he judged there couldn’t be fewer than a dozen. They were making no move to open the car doors but the locks, he knew, provided no real safety. There were enough of them to overturn the car. There were torches to set it alight. It was only a matter of time before they were forced out.

  Theo’s thoughts were racing. What chance was there of a successful flight, at least for Julian and Rolf? Through the kaleidoscope of prancing bodies he studied the terrain. To the left was a low crumbling stone wall, in parts, he judged, no more than three feet high. Beyond it he could see a dark fringe of trees. He had the gun, the single bullet, but he knew that even to show the gun could be fatal. He could kill only one; the rest would fall on them in a fury of retaliation. It would be a massacre. It was useless to think of physical force, outnumbered as they were. The darkness was their only hope. If Julian and Rolf could reach the fringe of trees there was at least a chance of concealment. To keep running, crashing dangerously and noisily through the undergrowth of an unfamiliar wood, would only invite pursuit, but it might be possible to hide. Success would depend on whether the Omegas bothered to pursue. There was a chance, if only a small one, that they would content themselves with the car and their remaining three victims.

  He thought: They mustn’t see that we’re talking, mustn’t know that we’re scheming to get away. There was no fear that their words would be overheard; the whoops and cries which made the night hideous almost drowned his voice. It was necessary to speak loudly and clearly if Luke, Miriam and Julian in the back were to hear, but he was careful not to turn his head.

  He said: “They’ll make us get out in the end. We’ll have to plan exactly what we’re going to do. It’s up to you, Rolf. When they pull us out, get Julian over that wall, then run for the trees and hide. Choose your moment. The rest of us will try to cover for you.”

  Rolf said: “How? How do you mean cover? How can you cover for us?”

  “By talking. By taking their attention.” Then insp
iration came to him. “By joining the dance.”

  Rolf’s voice was high, close to hysteria. “Dance with those fuckers? What sort of a gig d’you think this is? They don’t talk. These fuckers don’t talk and they don’t dance with their victims. They burn, they kill.”

  “Never more than one victim. We have to see that it isn’t Julian or you.”

  “They’ll come after us. Julian can’t run.”

  “I doubt whether they’ll bother with three other possible victims and the car to burn. We’ve got to choose the right moment. Get Julian over that wall if you have to drag her. Then make for the trees. Understand?”

  “It’s crazy.”

  “If you can think of another plan, let’s have it.”

  After a moment’s thought, Rolf said: “We could show Julian to them. Tell them she’s pregnant, let them see for themselves. Tell them I’m the father. We could make a pact with them. At least that would keep us alive. We’ll talk to them now, before they try to drag us from the car.”

  From the back seat Julian spoke for the first time. She said clearly: “No.”

  After that single word no one spoke for a moment. Then Theo said again: “They’ll make us get out in the end. Either that, or they’ll fire the car. That’s why we have to plan now exactly what we’re going to do. If we join the dance—if they don’t kill us then—we may distract their attention for long enough to give you and Julian a chance.”

  Rolf’s voice was close to hysteria. “I’m not moving. They’ll have to drag me out.”

  “That’s what they will do.”

  Luke spoke for the first time. He said: “If we don’t provoke them perhaps they’ll get tired and go away.”

  Theo said: “They won’t go away. They always burn the car. It’s a choice for us of being outside or in when they do.”

  There was a crash. The windscreen shivered into a maze of cracks but didn’t break. Then one of the Omegas swung his club at the front window. The glass smashed, falling over Rolf’s lap. The night air rushed into the car with the chill of death. Rolf gasped and jerked back as the Omega thrust in his lighted torch and held it blazing against his face.

  The Omega laughed, then said in a voice that was ingratiating, educated, almost enticing: “Come out, come out, come out, whoever you are.”

  There were two more crashes and the rear windows went. Miriam gave a cry as a torch scorched her face. There was a smell of singeing hair. Theo had only time to say, “Remember. The dance. Then make for the wall,” before the five of them tumbled from the car and were seized and dragged clear.

  They were at once surrounded. The Omegas, holding their torches high in their left hands, their clubs in their right, stood for a second regarding them, and then began again their ritual dance with their captives in the centre. But this time their movements were at first slower, more ceremonial, the chanting deeper, no longer a celebration but a dirge. At once Theo joined in, raising his arms, twisting his body, mixing his voice with theirs. One by one the other four slipped into place in the ring. They were separated. That was bad. He wanted Rolf and Julian close so that he could give them the signal to move. But the first part of the plan and the most dangerous had worked. He had feared that, with his first move, they would have struck him down, had braced himself for the one annihilating blow that would have put an end to responsibility, an end to life. It hadn’t come.

  And now, as if in obedience to secret orders, the Omegas began to stamp in unison, faster and faster, then broke out again into their whirling dance. The Omega in front of him twisted, then began to prance backwards with light delicate steps, like a cat, whirling his club above his head. He grinned into Theo’s face, their noses almost touching. Theo could smell him, a musty smell which was not unpleasant, could see the intricate whirls and curves of the paint, blue, red and black, outlining cheekbones, sweeping above the line of the brow, covering every inch of the face in a pattern which was at once barbaric and sophisticated. For a second he had a memory of the painted South Sea Islanders with their top-knots in the Pitt Rivers Museum, of Julian and himself standing together in that quiet emptiness.

  The Omega’s eyes, black pools among the blaze of colour, held his. He dared not shift his glance to look for Julian or Rolf. Round and round they danced, faster and faster. When would Rolf and Julian make their move? Even as he gazed into the Omega’s eyes his mind was willing them to make a dash for it, now, before their captors tired of this spurious comradeship. And then the Omega twisted away from him to dance forward and he was able to turn his head. Rolf, with Julian beside him, was at the far side of the ring, Rolf jigging in a clumsy parody of a dance, holding his arms stiffly aloft, Julian clasping her cloak with her left hand, her right hand free, her cloaked body swaying in time to the clamour of the dancers.

  And then there was a moment of horror. The Omega prancing behind her put out his left hand and caught her plaited hair. He gave it a tug and the plait came apart. She paused for a second, then began dancing again, the hair swirling about her face. They were coming up now to the grass verge and to the lowest part of the wall. He could see it clearly in the torchlight, the fallen stones on the grass, the black shape of the trees beyond. He wanted to cry aloud: “Now. Make it now. Go! Go!” And at that moment Rolf acted. He grabbed Julian’s hand and together they dashed for the wall. Rolf jumped it first, then half-swung, half-dragged Julian across. Some of the dancers, absorbed, ecstatic, went on with their high wailing, but the Omega closest to them was swift. He dropped his torch and, with a wild cry, dashed after them and seized the end of Julian’s cloak as it brushed across the wall.

  And then Luke sprang forward. Seizing the Omega he tried ineffectually to drag him back, crying out: “No, no. Take me! Take me!”

  The Omega let go of the cloak and, with a cry of fury, turned on Luke. For a second Theo saw Julian hesitate, stretching out an arm, but Rolf jerked her away and the two fleeing figures were lost among the shadows of the trees. It was over in seconds, leaving Theo with a confused picture of Julian’s outstretched arm and beseeching eyes, of Rolf hauling her away, of the Omega’s torch flaming among the grasses.

  And now the Omegas had their self-selected victim. A terrible silence fell as they closed around him, ignoring Theo and Miriam. At the first crack of wood on bone, Theo heard a single scream but he couldn’t tell whether it came from Miriam or Luke. And then Luke was down, and his murderers fell upon him like beasts round their prey, jostling for a place, raining their blows in a frenzy. The dance was over, the ceremony of death ended, the killing had begun. They killed in silence, a terrible silence in which it seemed to Theo that he could hear the crack and splinter of every single bone, could feel his ears bursting with the gushing of Luke’s blood. He seized Miriam and dragged her to the wall.

  She gasped: “No. We can’t, we can’t! We can’t leave him.”

  “We must. We can’t help him now. Julian needs you.”

  The Omegas made no move to follow. When Theo and Miriam gained the outskirts of the wood they paused and looked back. And now the killing looked less like a frenzy of blood-lust than a calculated murder. Five or six of the Omegas were holding their torches aloft in a circle within which, silently now, the dark shapes of the half-naked bodies, arms wielding their clubs, rose and fell in a ritual ballet of death. Even from this distance it seemed to Theo that the air was splintered with the smashing of Luke’s bones. But he knew that he could hear nothing, nothing but the rasp of Miriam’s breathing and the thudding of his own heart. He was aware that Rolf and Julian had come up quietly behind them. Together they watched in silence as the Omegas, their work completed, broke again into a whoop of triumph and rushed to the captured car. In the torchlight Theo could make out the shape of a wide gate to the field bordering the road. Two of the Omegas held it open and the car lurched over the grass verge and through the gate, driven by one of the gang, the rest pushing it from behind. They must, Theo knew, have their own vehicle, probably a small van, although he co
uldn’t remember seeing it. But he had a moment’s ridiculous hope that they might temporarily abandon it in the excitement of firing the car, that there might be a chance, however small, that he could get to it, might even find that they had left the keys in the ignition. The thought, he knew, had never been rational. Even as it entered his mind he saw that a small black van was being driven up the road and through the gate into the field.

  They didn’t go far, Theo judged no more than fifty yards. Then the whooping and the wild dancing began again. There was an explosion as the Renault burst into flames. And with it went Miriam’s medical supplies, their food, their water, their blankets. With it went all their hope.

  He heard Julian’s voice: “We can get Luke now. Now, while they’re occupied.”

  Rolf said: “Better leave it. If they find he’s gone it will only remind them that we’re still here. We’ll get him later.”

  Julian tugged gently at Theo’s sleeve. “Please get him. There may be a chance that he’s still alive.”

  Miriam spoke out of the darkness: “He won’t be alive, but I’m not leaving him there. Dead or alive, we’re together.”