The Children of Men (27 page)

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 inspiration 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 couldn’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.”

She was already moving forward when Theo caught her by her sleeve. He said quietly: “Stay with Julian. Rolf and I will manage.”

Without looking at Rolf, he made for the road. At first he thought he was alone, but in a few moments Rolf had moved alongside him.

When they reached the dark shape huddled on its side as if asleep, Theo said: “You’re the stronger. You take the head.”

Together they turned the body over. Luke’s face had gone. Even in the distant ruddy light cast by the flaming car they could see that the whole head had been battered into a mess of blood, skin and cracked bones. The arms lay askew, the legs seemed to buckle as Theo braced himself to lift him. It was like trying to take hold of a broken marionette.

He was lighter than Theo had expected, although he could hear his and Rolf’s rasping breath as they crossed the shallow ditch between the road and the wall and eased the body over. When they joined the others Julian and Miriam turned without a word and walked ahead, as if part of a pre-arranged funeral procession. Miriam switched on the torch and they followed the tiny pool of light. The journey seemed endless but Theo judged that they could only have been walking for a minute when they came across a fallen tree.

He said: “We’ll lay him down here.”

Miriam had been careful not to shine the torch on Luke. Now she said to Julian: “Don’t look at him. You don’t need to look at him.”

Julian’s voice was calm. “I have to see. If I don’t see it will be worse. Give me the torch.”

Without another protest Miriam handed it over. Julian shone it slowly over Luke’s body then, kneeling at his head, tried to wipe the blood from his face with her skirt.

Miriam said gently: “It’s no use. There’s nothing there any more.”

Julian said: “He died to save me.”

“He died to save all of us.”

Theo was suddenly aware of a great weariness. He thought: We’ve got to bury him. We have to get him underground before we move on. But move on where and how? Somehow they must get hold of another car, food, water, blankets. But the greatest need now was water. He craved water, thirst driving out hunger. Julian was kneeling by Luke’s body, cradling his shattered head in her lap, her dark hair falling over his face. She made no sound.

Then Rolf bent down and took the torch from Julian’s hand. He shone it full on Miriam’s face. She blinked in the thin but intense beam, instinctively putting up her hand. His voice was low and harsh, and so distorted that it might have been forced through a diseased larynx. He said: “Whose child is she carrying?”

Miriam put down her hand and looked at him steadily but didn’t speak.

He repeated: “I asked you, whose child is she carrying?”

His voice was clearer now, but Theo could see that his whole body was shaking. Instinctively he moved closer to Julian.

Rolf turned on him. “Keep out of this! This is nothing to do with you. I’m asking Miriam.” Then he repeated more violently. “Nothing to do with you! Nothing!”

Julian’s voice came out of the darkness: “Why not ask me?”

For the first time since Luke had died he turned to her. The torchlight moved steadily and slowly from Miriam’s face to hers.