them with his cane, shouted to them to clear off, swore at them. They took no notice at first; then formed a rough circle, rushed at him from several points simultaneously, in groups of three or four together. He pulled out his revolver, fired it over their heads. A mistake: he should have fired at them. They swarmed round him, trying to snatch the weapon. The police were a long time coming. There was a scuffle. In the course of it, either by accident or intention, the gun was dropped through a grating. Its owner was a man in the late fifties, tall, vigorous. But I could see him panting. They were young toughs with faces of a sinister blankness. They attacked cunningly, with bits of metal and broken glass, pieces of smashed furniture, whatever came to hand. He fended them off with his cane, keeping his back to a wall. Their numbers and their persistence were gradually wearing him down; his movements were getting slower. A stone was thrown. Then a shower of stones. One of them knocked his cap off. The sight of his hairless skull produced ribald shouting, and for a second he seemed disconcerted. They took advantage of this, closed in, set on him like a pack of wolves. Blood trickling down his face, back to the wall, he still managed to fight them off. Then I saw something flash: someone had used a knife. Others followed suit. He clutched his chest, blindly staggered forward. The moment he left the wall he was done for, they were on him from every side. They knocked him down, sprang on top of him, tore his coat off, beat his head on the frozen ground, stamped on him, kicked him, slashed his face with chains. Finally he lay still on the snow. He had had absolutely no chance. It was murder.
It was not my affair, but I could not see it and stand there doing nothing. They were society’s dregs, they would never have dared come near him in normal times, far less touch him. A little jeering fellow had draped himself in the fine overcoat and was dancing about, tripping over the trailing hem. I was disgusted, furious. In uncontrollable fury I charged at him. stripped off the coat, twisted his arms, punched and pummeled him, slung him across the pavement, heard a satisfactory crunch when his screaming face hit the wall. Turning, I confronted a man twice his size, half saw a boot flick out. Acute pain in my leg made me stumble: I recovered just in time to see his arm swing up in a practiced curve, and reacted as I had been trained. A textbook fall; flat on my back, one foot locking his ankle, I caught the glint of the falling knife, as my other leg bashed the trapped kneecap until it cracked. In a moment I would have the entire crew swarming all over me. I had no more chance than the officer against the lot of them with their knives; but I meant to do some damage before they finished me off. Suddenly there were shots, shouts, the sound of running feet: the police had arrived at last. I watched them chase the looters round a corner into another street; then limped over to the man on the ground.
He lay on his back, bleeding from many wounds. Not much past the prime of life, he had looked impressive, a tall, vital, imposing man, still desirable physically. Now his nose had been flattened, his mouth slit at the corners, one eye was half out of its socket, his whole face and head discoloured with blood and dirt, the shapes lost and distorted. Blood was everywhere. They had almost torn off his right arm. He did not move, I could not see his breathing. I knelt down, opened his tunic, his shirt, put my hand on his chest. The heart was not to be felt, and my hand came out sticky with blood. I wiped it on my handkerchief, then went for his coat, spread it over him, hiding the mess. I wanted to leave him some dignity. He was a stranger to whom I had never spoken; but he was my sort of man; we were not like that rabble. It was an outrage that they should have killed him. They must have cringed before him in his strength and power. This was how they treated him when they caught him alone, no longer young, and at a disadvantage. It was disgusting. I regretted not having inflicted more punishment on them.
I remembered the revolver, stooped over the grating. There was just room for my fingers between the bars, and I pulled it up, put it into my pocket, moved on. I was still limping badly, my leg was painful. Suddenly someone shouted, a shot zipped past. I stopped, waited until the police overtook me.
‘Who are you? What are you doing here? Why did you touch the body? It’s not allowed.’ Before I could answer, there was a rasping noise and a ground floor window burst open, dislodging masses of snow from the sill, a woman’s head stuck out just beside me. ‘This man’s brave. He deserves a medal. I saw what happened. He rushed in and tackled the lot of them singlehanded, although they had knives and he was unarmed. I saw everything from this window.’ A policeman wrote down her name and address in his notebook.
Their attitude became more friendly; but they insisted that I should go to the station and make a report. One of them took my arm. ‘It’s only in the next street. You look as if you could do with some first aid.’ I had to go in. It was unfortunate: I did not want to give an account of myself and my movements and motives. Besides, the revolver would make things awkward if it was noticed; they were bound to recognize the service pattern. When I took off my coat, I arranged it carefully so that the bulge did not show. They patched me up, strapped my leg with plaster. I had a wash, drank some strong coffee with rum in it. The chief interviewed me alone. He glanced at my papers, but gave the impression of being preoccupied with something else: it was not possible to ask if he had any precise information about the advancing ice. We exchanged cigarettes, discussed the food problem. He said rations were short, and distributed according to the value to the community of each individual’s work: ‘No work, no food.’ His face showed signs of strain while he was talking; the crisis must be nearer than I had supposed. Planning my questions deliberately, I asked about refugees. Gangs of starving fugitives from the ice were a problem in all the surviving countries. ‘If they’re able to work we let them stay. We need all the workers we can get.’ I said: ‘Doesn’t that create difficulties? How do you manage to house them all?’ ‘There are camps for the men. We put the women in hostels.’ I had been leading up to this point. Pretending to take a professional interest, I inquired: ‘Would I be allowed to look over one of these places?’ ‘Why not?’ His smile was tired. I could not tell whether he was exceptionally civilized or merely indifferent. Before I left he gave me an address. Things had turned out very much better than I had expected. I had got the information I wanted, and a good army revolver.
I went to look for her. It was snowing again, the wind was colder and stronger. The streets were deserted, there was nobody to direct me. I thought I had found the house, but saw no sign. Perhaps I was too late: through an unaccountable failure of impulse had waited too long. … I tried the street doors as I passed them; they were all locked.
The door of one house was unfastened. I entered without hesitation. Inside, the place was bare and shabby, had the look of an institution. The rooms were unheated. She sat wearing her grey overcoat, her legs wrapped in something that looked like a curtain. As soon as she saw me she threw this aside and sprang up. ‘You! I suppose he sent you—didn’t you get my message?’ ‘No one sent me. What message?’ ‘I left a message telling you not to follow me.’ I said I had not received it, but if I had it would have made no difference, I should have come just the same. Her big distrustful eyes gazed at me, indignant and frightened. ‘I don’t want anything to do with either of you.’ I ignored this. ‘You can’t stay here alone.’ ‘Why not? I’m getting on all right.’ I asked what she was doing. ‘Working.’ ‘How much do they pay you?’ ‘We get our food.’ ‘No money?’ ‘Sometimes people are given money when they’ve worked specially hard.’ Defensively she went on: ‘I’m too thin for the really hard jobs. They say I haven’t got enough stamina.’ I had been watching her: she looked half-starved, as if for some time she had not had enough to eat. Her thin wrists had always fascinated me; now I could scarcely take my eyes off them, emerging like sticks from the heavy sleeves. Instead of inquiring into the nature of the work she was doing, I asked her plans for the future. When she snapped: ‘Why should I tell you?’ I knew that she had no plans. I said I very much wished she would look on me as a friend. ‘Why? I’ve no reason to. Anyhow, I don’t need friends. I can manage alone.’ I told her I had come hoping to take her away with me to a place where life would be easier, somewhere in a better climate. I felt her beginning to weaken, waved my hand at the window covered in heavy frost, snow banked on the sill to half its whole height. ‘Haven’t you had enough of the cold?’ She could no longer hide her nervousness, her hands twisted together. I added: ‘Besides, you’re in the danger zone here.’ Her face was starting to have its bruised look, she was gradually losing control. ‘What danger?’ The pupils of her eyes dilated as I watched her. ‘The ice….’ I meant to say more, but the two words were sufficient. Her whole appearance indicated fear, she began to tremble.
I moved closer to her, touched her hand. She jerked it away. ‘Don’t do that!’ I held a fold of her coat, looked at her angry, frightened face of a child betrayed, the look of faint bruising around the eyes like a child that has cried a long time. ‘Leave me alone!’ She tried to drag the heavy material out of my hand. ‘Go away!’ I did not move. ‘Then I’ll go!’ She tore herself free, dashed to the door, threw her whole weight against it. It crashed open so violently that she lost her balance and fell. The bright hair spread on the floor, quicksilver, brilliant, stirring, alive, on the dark, dull, dead, dirty floor. I picked her up. She struggled, gasped: ‘Let me go! I hate you, I hate you!’ She had no strength at all. It was like holding a struggling kitten. I shut the door and turned the key in the lock.
I waited a few days although waiting was difficult. It was time to go. It was only a matter of hours before a disaster of the greatest magnitude. In spite of the secrecy which enveloped the subject, news must have leaked out. Agitated activity suddenly spread through the town. From my window I watched a young man running from house to house, delivering a message of terror. In an astonishingly short time, minutes only, the street was full of
