Chapter  16

 

Now We Are Nine

 

 

During the next few years, such visits home as we managed were brief and hurried, spent entirely in dashing from one lot of relatives to another, with interludes to improve business contacts. I never went anywhere near Midwich, nor indeed thought much about it. But, in the eighth summer after we had left, I managed a six-week spell, and at the end of the first week I ran into Bernard Wescott one day, in Piccadilly.

    We went to the In and Out for a drink. In the course of a chat I asked him about Midwich. I think I expected to hear that the whole thing had fizzled out, for on the few occasions I had recalled the place lately, it and its inhabitants had the improbability of a tale once realistic, but now thoroughly unconvincing. I was more than half-ready to hear that the Children no longer trailed clouds of anything unconventional, that, as so often with suspected genius, expectations had never flowered, and that, for all their beginnings and indications, they had become an ordinary gang of village children, with only their looks to distinguish them.

    Bernard considered for a moment, then he said:

    'As it happens, I have to go down there tomorrow. Would you care to come for the run, renew old acquaintance, and so on?'

    Janet had gone north to stay with an old school friend for a week leaving me on my own, with nothing particular to do.

    'So you do still keep an eye on the place? Yes, I'd like to come and have a few words with them. Zellaby's still alive and well?'

    'Oh, yes. He's that rather dry-stick type that seems set to go on for ever, unchanged.'

    'The last time I saw him — apart from our farewell — he was off on a weird tack about composite personality,' I recalled. 'An old spellbinder. He manages to make the most exotic conceptions sound feasible while he's talking. Something about Adam and Eve, I remember.'

    'You won't find much difference,' Bernard told me, but did not pursue that line. Instead, he went on: 'My own business there is a bit morbid I'm afraid — an inquest, but that needn't interfere with you.'

    'One of the Children?' I asked.

    'No,' he shook his head. 'A motor accident to a local boy called Pawle.'

    'Pawle,' I repeated. 'Oh, yes, I remember. They've a farm a bit outside, nearer to Oppley.'

    'That's it. Dacre Farm. Tragic business.'

    It seemed intrusive to ask what interest he could have in the inquest, so I let him switch the conversation to my Canadian experiences.

    The next morning, with a fine summer's day already well begun, we set off soon after breakfast. In the car he apparently felt at liberty to talk more freely than he had at the club.

    'You'll find a few changes in Midwich,' he warned me. 'Your old cottage is now occupied by a couple called Welton — he etches, and his wife throws pots. I can't remember who is in Crimm's place at the moment — there's been quite a succession of people since the Freemans. But what's going to surprise you most is The Grange. The board outside has been repainted; it now reads: "Midwich Grange — Special School — Ministry of Education." '

    'Oh? The Children?' I asked.

    'Exactly.' He nodded. 'Zellaby's "exotic conception" was a lot less exotic than it seemed. In fact, it was a bull — to the great discomfiture of the Freemans. It showed them up so thoroughly that they had to clear out to hide their faces.'

    'You mean his Adam and Eve stuff?' I said incredulously.

    'Not that exactly. I meant the two mental groups. It was soon proved that there was this rapport — everything supported that — and it continued. At just over two years old one of the boys learnt to read simple words —'

    'At two!' I exclaimed.

    'Quite the equivalent of any other child's four,' he reminded me. 'And the next day it was found that any of the boys could read them. From then on, the progress was amazing. It was weeks later before one of the girls learnt to read, but when she did, all the rest of them could, too. Later on, one boy learnt to ride a bicycle; right away any of them could do it competently, first shot. Mrs Brinkman taught her girl to swim; all the rest of the girls were immediately able to swim; but the boys could not until one of them got the trick of it, then the rest could. Oh, from the moment Zellaby pointed it out, there was no doubt about it. The thing there has been — and still is — a whole series of rows about, on all levels, is his deduction that each group represents an individual. Not many people will wear that one. A form of thought transmission, possibly; a high degree of mutual sensitivity, perhaps; a number of units with a form of communication not yet clearly understood, feasible; but a single unit informing physically independent parts, no. There's precious little support for that.'

    I was not greatly surprised to hear it, but he was going on:

    'Anyway, the arguments are chiefly academic. The point is that, however it happens, they do have this rapport within the groups. Well, sending them to any ordinary school was obviously out of the question — there'd be tales about them all over the place in a few days if they'd just turned up at Oppley or Stouch schools. So that brought in the Ministry of Education, as well as the Ministry of Health, with the result that The Grange was opened up as a kind of school-cum-welfare-centre-cum-social-observatory for them.

    'That has worked better than we expected. Even when you were here it was pretty obvious they were going to be a problem later on. They have a different sense of community — their pattern is not, and cannot by their nature, be the same as ours. Their ties to one another are far more important to them than any feeling for ordinary homes. Some of the homes resented them pretty much, too — they can't really become one of the family, they're too different; they were little good as company for the true children of the family, and the difficulties looked like growing. Somebody at The Grange had the idea of starting dormitories there for them. There was no pressure, no persuasion — they could just move in if they wanted to, and a dozen or more did, quite soon. Then others gradually joined them. It was rather as if they were beginning to learn that they could not have a great deal in common with the rest of the village, and so gravitated naturally towards a group of their own kind.'

    'An odd arrangement. What did the village people think of it?' I asked.

    'There was disapproval from some, of course — more from convention than conviction, really. A lot of them were relieved to lose a responsibility that had rather scared them, though they didn't feel it proper to admit it. A few were genuinely fond of them, still are, and have found it distressing. But in general they have just accepted. Nobody really tried to stop any of them shifting to The Grange, of course — it wouldn't have been any use. Where the mothers feel affectionately for them the Children keep on good terms, and are in and out of the houses as they like. Some others of the Children have made a complete break.'

    'It sounds the queerest set-up I ever heard of,' I said.

    Bernard smiled.

    'Well, if you'll throw your mind back you'll recall that it had a somewhat queer beginning,' he reminded me.

    'What do they do at The Grange?' I asked.

    'Primarily it is a school, as it says. They have teaching and welfare staff, as well as social psychologists, and so on. They also have quite eminent teachers visiting and giving short courses in various subjects. At first they used to hold classes like an ordinary school, until it occurred to somebody that that wasn't necessary. So now any lesson is attended by one boy and one girl, and all the rest know what those two have been taught. And it doesn't have to be one lesson at a time, either. Teach six couples different subjects simultaneously, and they somehow sort it out so that it works the same way.'

    'But, good heavens, they must be mopping up knowledge like blotting-paper, at that rate.'

    'They are indeed. It seems to give some of the teachers a touch of jitters.'

    'And yet you still manage to keep their existence quiet?'

    'On the popular level, yes. There is still an understanding with the Press — and, anyway, the story hasn't nearly the possibilities now that it would have had in the early stages, from their point of view. As for the surrounding district, that has involved a certain amount of undercover work. The local reputation of Midwich was never very high — an ingenuous neighbourhood is perhaps the kindest way of putting it. Well, with a little helping-on, we've got it still lower. It is now regarded by the neighbouring villages, so Zellaby assures me, as a kind of mental home without bars. Everybody there, it is known, was affected by the Dayout; particularly the Children, who are spoken of as "daytouched" — an almost exact synonym of "moonstruck" — and are retarded to such an extent that a humane government has found it necessary to provide a special school for them. Oh, yes, we've got it pretty well established as a local deficiency area. It is in the same class of toleration as a dotty relative. There is occasional gossip; but it is accepted as an unfortunate affliction, and not a matter to be advertised to the outside world. Even protestations occasionally made by some of the Midwich people are not taken seriously, for, after all, the whole village had the same experience, so that all must be, in greater or lesser degree, "daytouched".'

    'It must,' I said, 'have involved quite a deal of engineering and maintenance. What I never understood, and still don't understand, is why you were, and apparently are, so concerned to keep the matter quiet. Security at the time of the Dayout is understandable — something made an unauthorized landing; that was a Service concern. But now . . .? All this trouble to keep the Children hidden away still. This queer arrangement at The Grange. A special school like that couldn't be run for a few pounds a year.'

    'You don't think that the Welfare State should show so much concern for its responsibilities?' he suggested.

    'Come off it, Bernard,' I told him.

    But he did not. Though he went on talking of the Children, and the state of affairs in Midwich, he continued to avoid any answer to the question I had raised.

    We lunched early at Trayne, and ran into Midwich a little after two. I found the place looking utterly unchanged. It might have been a week that had passed instead of eight years since I last saw it. Already there was quite a crowd waiting on the Green, outside the Hall where the inquest was to be held.

    'It looks,' Bernard said as he parked the car, 'it looks as if you had better postpone your calls until later. Practically the whole place seems to be here.'

    'Will it take long, do you think?' I inquired.

    'Should be purely formal — I hope. Probably all over in half an hour.'

    'Are you giving evidence?' I asked, wondering why, if it were to be so formal, he should bother to come all the way from London for it.

    'No. Just keeping an eye on things,' he said.

    I decided that he had been right about postponing my calls, and followed him into the hall. As the place filled up, and I watched familiar figures trooping in and finding seats, there could be no doubt that almost every mobile person in the place had chosen to attend. I did not quite understand why. Young Jim Pawle, the casualty, would be known to them all, of course, but that did not seem quite to account for it, and certainly did not account for the feeling of tension which inescapably pervaded the hall. I could not, after a few minutes, believe that the proceedings were going to be as formal as Bernard had predicted. I had a sense of waiting for an outburst of some kind from someone in the crowd.

    But none came. The proceedings were formal, and brief, too. It was all over inside half an hour.

    I noticed Zellaby slip out quickly as the meeting closed. We found him standing by the steps outside watching us emerge. He greeted me as if we had last met a couple of days ago, and then said:

    'How do you come into this? I thought you were in India.'

    'Canada,' I said. 'It's accidental.' And explained that Bernard had brought me down.

    Zellaby turned to look at Bernard.

    'Satisfied?' he asked.

    Bernard shrugged slightly. 'What else?' he asked.

    At that moment a boy and a girl passed us, and walked up the road among the dispersing crowd. I had only time for a glimpse of their faces, and stared after them in astonishment.

    'Surely, they can't be — ?' I began.

    'They are,' Zellaby said. 'Didn't you see their eyes?'

    'But it's preposterous! Why, they're only nine years old!'

    'By the calendar,' Zellaby agreed.

    I gazed after them as they strode along.

    'But it's — it's unbelievable!'

    'The unbelievable is, as you will recall, rather more prone to realization in Midwich than in some other places,' Zellaby observed. 'The improbable we can now assimilate at once; the incredible takes a little longer, but we have learnt to achieve it. Didn't the Colonel warn you?'

    'In a way,' I admitted. 'But those two! They look fully sixteen or seventeen.'

    'Physically, I am assured, they are.'

    I kept my eyes on them, still unwilling to accept it.

    'If you are in no hurry, come up to the house and have tea,' Zellaby suggested.

    Bernard, after a glance at me, offered the use of his car.

    'All right,' said Zellaby,'but take it carefully, after what you've just heard.'

    'I'm not a dangerous driver,' said Bernard.

    'Nor was young Pawle — he was a good driver, too,' replied Zellaby.

    A little way up the drive we came in sight of Kyle Manor at rest in the afternoon sun. I said:

    'The first time I saw it it was looking just like this. I remember thinking that when I got a little closer I should hear it purring, and that's been the way I've seen it ever since.'

    Zellaby nodded.

    'When I saw it first it seemed to me a good place to end one's days in tranquillity — but now the tranquillity is, I think, questionable.'

    I let that go. We ran past the front of the house, and parked round the side by the stables. Zellaby led the way to the veranda, and waved us to cushioned cane chairs.

    'Angela's out at the moment, but she promised to be back for tea,' he said.

    He leant back, gazing across the lawn for some moments. The nine years since the Midwich Dayout had treated him not unkindly. The fine silver hair was still as thick, and still as lucent in the August sunshine. The wrinkles about his eyes were just a little more numerous, perhaps; the face very slightly thinner, the lines on it faintly deeper, but if his lanky figure had become any sparser, it could not have been by a matter of more than four or five pounds.

    Presently he turned to Bernard.

    'So you're satisfied. You think it will end there?'

    'I hope so. Nothing could be undone. The wise course was to accept the verdict, and they did,' Bernard told him.

    'H'm,' said Zellaby. He turned to me. 'What, as a detached observer, did you think of our little charade this afternoon?'

    'I don't — oh, the inquest, you mean. There seemed to be a bit of an atmosphere, but the proceedings appeared to me to be in good enough order. The boy was driving carelessly. He hit a pedestrian. Then, very foolishly, he got the wind up, and tried to make a getaway. He was accelerating too fast to take the corner by the church, and as a result he piled up against the wall. Are you suggesting that "accidental death" doesn't cover it — one might call it misadventure, but it comes to the same thing.'

    'There was misadventure all right,' Zellaby said, 'but it scarcely comes to the same thing, and it occurred slightly before the fact. Let me tell you what happened — I've only been able to give the Colonel a brief account yet . . .'

 

*

 

Zellaby had been returning, by way of the Oppley road, from his usual afternoon stroll. As he neared the turn to Hickham Lane four of the Children emerged from it, and turned towards the village, walking strung out in a line ahead of him.

    They were three of the boys, and a girl. Zellaby studied them with an interest that had never lessened. The boys were so closely alike that he could not have identified them if he had tried, but he did not try; for some time he had regarded it as a waste of effort. Most of the village — except for a few of the women who seemed genuinely to be seldom in doubt — shared his inability to distinguish between them, and the Children were accustomed to it.

    As always, he marvelled that they could have crammed so much development into so short a time. That alone set them right apart as a different species — it was not simply a matter of maturing early; it was development at almost twice normal speed. Perhaps they were a little light in structure compared with normal children of the same apparent age and height, but it was lightness of type, without the least suggestion of weediness, or overgrowth.

    As always, too, he found himself wishing he could know them better, and learn more of them. It was not for lack of trying that he had made so little headway. He had tried, patiently and persistently, ever since they were small. They accepted him as much as they accepted anyone, and he, for his part, probably understood them quite as well as, if not better than, any of their mentors at The Grange. Superficially they were friendly with him — which they were not with many — they were willing to talk with him, and to listen, to be amused, and to learn; but it never went further than the superficial, and he had a feeling that it never would. Always, quite close under the surface, there was a barrier. What he saw and heard from them was their adaptation to their circumstances; their true selves and real nature lay beneath the barrier. Such understanding as passed between himself and them was curiously partial and impersonal; it lacked the dimension of feeling and sympathy. Their real lives seemed to be lived in a world of their own, as shut off from the main current as those of any Amazonian tribe with its utterly different standards and ethics. They were interested, they learnt, but one had the feeling that they were simply collecting knowledge — somewhat, perhaps, as a juggler acquires a useful skill which, however he may excel with it, has no influence whatever upon him, as a person. Zellaby wondered if anyone would get closer to them. The people up at The Grange were an unforthcoming lot, but, from what he had been able to discover, even the most assiduous had been held back by the same barrier.

    Watching the Children walking ahead, talking between themselves, he suddenly found himself thinking of Ferrelyn. She did not come home as much as he could have wished, nowadays; the sight of the Children still disturbed her, so he did not try to persuade her; he made the best he could of the knowledge that she was happy at home with her own two boys.

    It was odd to think that if Ferrelyn's Dayout boy had survived he would probably be no more able now to distinguish him from those walking ahead, than he was to distinguish them from one another — rather humiliating, too, for it seemed to bracket one with Miss Ogle, only she got round the difficulty by taking it for granted that any of the boys she chanced to meet was her son — and, curiously, none of them ever disillusioned her.

    Presently, the quartet in front rounded a corner and passed out of his sight. He had just reached the corner himself when a car overtook him, and he had, therefore, a clear view of all that followed.

    The car, a small, open two-seater, was not travelling fast, but it happened that just round the corner, and shielded from sight by it, the Children had stopped. They appeared, still strung out across the road, to be debating which way they should go.

    The car's driver did his best. He pulled hard over to the right in an attempt to avoid them, and all but succeeded. Another two inches, and he would have missed them entirely. But he could not make the extra inches. The tip of his left wing caught the outermost boy on the hip, and flung him across the road against the fence of a cottage garden.

    There was a moment of tableau which remained quite static in Zellaby's mind. The boy against the fence, the three other Children frozen where they stood, the young man in the car in the act of straightening his wheels again, still braking.

    Whether the car actually came to a stop Zellaby could never be sure; if it did it was for the barest instant, then the engine roared.

    The car sprang forward. The driver changed up, and put his foot down again, keeping straight ahead. He made no attempt whatever to take the corner to the left. The car was still accelerating when it hit the churchyard wall. It smashed to smithereens, and hurled the driver headlong against the wall.

    People shouted, and the few who were near started running towards the wreckage. Zellaby did not move. He stood half-stunned as he watched the yellow flames leap out, and the black smoke start upwards. Then, with a stiff-seeming movement, he turned to look at the Children. They, too, were staring at the wreck, a similar tense expression on each face. He had only a glimpse of it before it passed off, and the three of them turned to the boy who lay by the fence, groaning.

    Zellaby became aware that he was trembling. He walked on a few yards, unsteadily, until he reached a seat by the edge of the Green. There he sat down and leant back, pale in the face, feeling ill.

    The rest of this incident reached me not from Zellaby himself, but from Mrs Williams, of The Scythe and Stone, somewhat later on:

    'I heard the car go tearing by, then a loud bang, and I looked out of the window and saw people running,' she said. 'Then I noticed Mr Zellaby go to the bench on the Green, walking very unsteadily. He sat down, and leaned back, but then his head fell forward, like he might be passing out. So I ran across the road to him, and when I got to him I found he was passed out, very near. Not quite, though. He managed to say something about "pills" and "pocket" in a sort of funny whisper. I found them in his pocket. It said two, on the bottle, but he was looking that bad I gave him four.

    'Nobody else was taking any notice. They'd all gone up where the accident was. Well, the pills did him good, and after about five minutes I helped him into the house, and let him lay on the couch in the bar-parlour. He said he'd be all right there, just resting a bit, so I went to ask about the car.

    'When I came back, his face wasn't so grey any more, but he was still lying like he was tired right out.

    ' "Sorry to be a nuisance, Mrs Williams. Rather a shock," he said.

    ' "I'd better get the doctor to you, Mr Zellaby," I said. But he shook his head.

    ' "No. Don't do that. I'll be all right in a few minutes," he told me.

    ' "I think you'd better see him," I said. "Fair put the wind up me, you did."

    ' "I'm sorry about that," he said. And then after a bit of a pause he went on: "Mrs Williams, I'm sure you can keep a secret?"

    ' "As well as the next, I reckon," I told him.

    ' "Well, I'd be very grateful if you'd not mention this — lapse of mine to anyone."

    ' "I don't know," I said. "To my way of thinking you ought to see the doctor."

    'He shook his head at that.

    ' "I've seen a number of doctors, Mrs Williams, expensive and important ones. But one just can't help growing old, you see, and as one does, the machinery begins to wear out, that's all."

    ' "Oh, Mr Zellaby, sir —" I began.

    ' "Don't distress yourself, Mrs Williams. I'm still quite tough in a lot of ways, so it may not come for some little time yet. But, in the meantime, I think it is rather important that one should not trouble the people one loves any more than can be helped, don't you think? It is an unkindness to cause them useless distress, I'm sure you'll agree?"

    ' "Well, yes, sir, if you're sure that there's nothing — ?"

    ' "I am. Quite sure. I am already in your debt, Mrs Williams, but you will have done me no service unless I can rely on you not to mention it. Can I?"

    ' "Very well. If that's the way you want it, Mr Zellaby," I told him.

    ' "Thank you, Mrs Williams. Thank you very much," he said.

    'Then, after a bit, I asked him:

    ' "You saw it all happen, then, sir? Enough to give anyone a shock, it must've been."

    ' "Yes," he said. "I saw it — but I didn't see who it was in the car."

    ' "Young Jim Pawle," I told him, "from Dacre Farm."

    'He shook his head.

    ' "I remember him — nice lad."

    ' "Yes, sir. A good boy, Jim. Not one of the wild ones. Can't think how he'd come to be driving mad in the village. Not like him at all."

    'Then there was quite a pause till he said in a funny sort of voice:

    ' "Before that, he hit one of the Children — one of the boys. Not badly, I think, but he knocked him across the road."

    ' "One of the Children —" I said. Then I suddenly saw what he was meaning. "Oh no, sir! My God, they couldn't've —" but then I stopped again, because of the way he was looking at me.

    ' "Other people saw it, too," he told me. "Healthier — or, possibly less shockable people — Perhaps I myself should have found it less upsetting if, at some previous stage of my quite long life, I had already had the experience of witnessing deliberate murder . . ." '

 

*

 

The account that Zellaby himself gave us, however, ended at the point where he had sat shakily down on the bench. When he finished, I looked from him to Bernard. There was no lead at all in Bernard's expression, so I said:

    'You're suggesting that the Children did it — that they made him drive into that wall?'

    'I'm not suggesting,' said Zellaby with a regretful shake of his head, 'I'm stating. They did it, just as surely as they made their mothers bring them back here.'

    'But the witnesses — the ones who gave evidence . . .?'

    'They're perfectly well aware of what happened. They only had to say what they actually saw.'

    'But if they know it's as you claim — ?'

    'Well, what then? What would you have said if you had known, and happened to be called as a witness? In an affair such as this there has to be a verdict acceptable to authority — acceptable, that means, to our well-known figment, the reasonable man. Suppose that they had somehow managed to get a verdict that the boy was willed to kill himself — do you imagine that would stand? Of course it wouldn't. There'd have to be a second inquest, called to bring in a "reasonable" verdict, which would be the verdict we now have, so why should the witnesses run the risk of being thought unreliable, or superstitious, for nothing?

    'If you want evidence that they would be, take a look at your own attitude now. You know that I have some little reputation through my books, and you know me personally, but how much is that worth against the thought-habits of the "reasonable man"? So little that when I tell you what actually occurred, your immediate reaction is to try to find ways in which what appeared to me to have occurred could not in actual fact have done so. You really ought to have more sense, my dear fellow. After all you were here when those Children forced their mothers to come back.'

    'That wasn't quite on a level with what you are telling me now,' I objected.

    'No? Would you care to explain the essential difference between being forced into the distasteful, and being forced into the fatal? Come, come, my dear fellow, since you've been away you have lost touch with improbability. You've been blunted by rationality. Here, the unorthodox is to be found on one's doorstep almost every morning.'

    I took an opportunity to lead away from the topic of the inquest.

    'To an extent which has caused Willers to abandon his championship of hysteria?' I asked.

    'He abandoned that some little time before he died,' Zellaby replied.

    I was taken aback. I had meant to ask Bernard about the doctor, but the intention had been mislaid in our talk.

    'I'd no idea he was dead. He wasn't much over fifty, was he? How did it happen?'

    'He took an overdose of some barbiturate drug.'

    'He — you don't mean — ? But Willers wasn't that sort . . .'

    'I agree,' said Zellaby. 'The official verdict was that "the balance of his mind was disturbed". A kindly meant phrase, no doubt, but not explanatory. Indeed, one can think of minds so steady that disturbance would be a positive benefit. The truth is, of course, that nobody had the least idea why he did it. Certainly not poor Mrs Willers. But it had to suffice.' He paused, and then added: 'It was not until I realized what the verdict on young Pawle would have to be that I began to wonder about that on Willers.'

    'Surely you don't really think that?' I said.

    'I don't know. You yourself said Willers was not that sort. Now it has suddenly been revealed that we live much more precariously here than we had thought. That is a shock.

    'One has, you see, to realize that, though it was the Pawle boy who came round the corner at that fatal moment, it might as easily have been Angela, or anyone else . . . It suddenly becomes clear that she, or I, or any of us, may accidentally do something to harm or anger the Children at any moment . . . There's no blame attached to that poor boy. He tried his very best to avoid hitting any of them, but he couldn't — And in a flare of anger and revenge they killed him for it.

    'So one is faced with a decision. For myself — well, this is by far the most interesting thing that has ever come my way. I want very much to see how it goes. But Angela is still quite a young woman, and Michael is still dependent on her, too . . . We have sent him away already. I am wondering whether I should try to persuade her to go, too. I don't want to do it until I must, but I can't quite decide whether the moment has arrived.

    'These last few years have been like living on the slopes of an active volcano. Reason tells one that a force is building up inside, and that sooner or later there must be an eruption. But time passes, with no more than an occasional tremor, so that one begins to tell oneself that the eruption which appeared inevitable may, perhaps, not come after all. One becomes uncertain. I ask myself — is this business of the Pawle boy just a bigger tremor, or is it the first sign of the eruption? — and I do not know.

    'One was more acutely aware of the presence of danger years ago, and made plans which came to seem unnecessary; now one is abruptly reminded of it, but is this where it changes to an active danger which justifies the breaking up of my home, or is it still only potential?'

    He was obviously, and very genuinely, worried, nor was there any trace of scepticism in Bernard's manner. I felt impelled to say, apologetically:

    'I suppose I have let the whole business of the Dayout fade in my mind — it needs a bit of adjustment when one's brought up against it once more. That's the subconscious for you — trying to pass off the uncomfortable by telling me that the peculiarities would diminish as the Children grew older.'

    'We all tried to think that,' said Zellaby. 'We used to show one another evidence that it was happening — but it wasn't.'

    'But you're still no nearer to knowing how it is done — the compulsion, I mean?'

    'No. It seems just to amount to asking how any personality dominates another. We all know individuals who seem to dominate any assembly they attend; it would appear that the Children have this quality greatly developed by cooperation, and can direct it as they wish. But that tells us nothing about how it is done.'

 

*

 

Angela Zellaby, looking very little changed since I had last seen her, emerged from the house on to the veranda a few minutes later. She was so clearly preoccupied that her attention was only brought to bear on us with a visible effort, and after a brief lobbing back and forth of civilities it showed signs of wavering again. A touch of awkwardness was relieved by the arrival of the tea tray. Zellaby bestirred himself to prevent the situation congealing.

    'Richard and the Colonel were at the inquest, too,' he said. 'It was the expected verdict, of course. I suppose you've heard?'

    Angela nodded. 'Yes, I was at Dacre Farm, with Mrs Pawle. Mr Pawle brought the news. The poor woman's quite beside herself. She adored Jim. It was difficult to keep her from going to the inquest herself. She wanted to go there and denounce the Children — make a public accusation. Mr Leebody and I managed between us to persuade her not to, and that she'd only get herself and her family into a lot of trouble, and do no good to anybody. So we stayed to keep her company while it was on.'

    'The other Pawle boy, David, was there,' Zellaby told her. 'He looked as if he were on the point of coming out with it more than once, but his father stopped him.'

    'Now I'm wondering whether it wouldn't have been better if someone had, after all,' Angela said. 'It ought to come out. It will have to some time. It isn't just a matter of a dog, or a bull, any more.'

    'A dog and a bull. I've not heard of them,' I put in.

    'The dog bit one of them on the hand; a minute or two later it dashed in front of a tractor, and was killed. The bull chased a party of them; then it suddenly turned aside, charged through two fences, and got itself drowned in the mill pond,' Zellaby explained, with unusual economy.

    'But this,' said Angela, 'is murder.'

    'Oh, I don't say they meant it that way. Very likely they were frightened and angry, and it was their way of hitting out blindly when one of them was hurt. But it was murder, all the same. The whole village knows it, and now everybody can see that they are going to get away with it. We simply can't afford to let it rest there. They don't even show any sign of compunction. None at all. That's what frightens me most. They just did it, and that's that. And now, after this afternoon, they know that, as far as they are concerned, murder carries no penalty. What is going to happen to anyone who seriously opposes them later on?'

    Zellaby sipped his tea thoughtfully.

    'You know, my dear, while it's proper for us to be concerned, the responsibility for a remedy isn't ours. If it ever was, and that is highly questionable, the authorities took it away from us a long time ago. Here's the Colonel representing some of them — for heaven knows what reason. And The Grange staff cannot be ignorant of what all the village knows. They will have made their report, so, in spite of the verdict, the authorities are aware of the true state of affairs — though just what they will be able to do about it, within the law and hampered by "the reasonable man", I'm bothered if I know. We must wait and see how they move.

    'Above all, my dear, I do implore you most seriously not to do anything that will bring you into conflict with the Children.'

    'I shan't, dear,' Angela shook her head. 'I've a cowardly respect for them.'

    'The dove is not a coward to fear the hawk; it is simply wise,' said Zellaby, and proceeded to steer the conversation on to more general lines.

 

*

 

My intention had been to look in on the Leebodys and one or two others, but by the time we got up to leave it was clear that, unless we were going to be back in London much later than we had intended, any further calls would have to be postponed until another visit.

    I did not know how Bernard felt when we had made our farewells and were running down the drive — he had, in fact, talked very little since we had reached the village, and revealed scarcely anything of his own views — but, for my part, I had a pleasantly relaxing sensation of being on my way back to the normal world. Midwich values gave a feeling of having only a finger-tip touch with reality. One had a sense of being several stages in the rear. While I was back at the difficulties of reconciling myself to the Children's existence, and boggling at what I was told of them, the Zellabys had long ago left all that behind. For them, the improbable element had become submerged. They accepted the Children, and that, for good or ill, they were on their hands; their anxieties now were of a social nature over whether such a modus vivendi as had been contrived was going to collapse. The sense of uneasiness which I had caught from the tension in the Village Hall had been with me ever since.

    Nor, I think, was Bernard unaffected by it. I had the impression that he drove with more than usual caution through the village and past the scene of the Pawle boy's accident. He began to increase his speed a little as we rounded the corner on to the Oppley Road, and then we caught sight of four figures approaching. Even at a distance they were unmistakably a quartet of the Children. On an impulse I said:

    'Will you pull up, Bernard? I'd like the chance of a better look at them.'

    He slowed again, and we came to a stop almost at the foot of Hickham Lane.

    The Children came on towards us. There was a touch of institutionalism in their dress — the boys in blue cotton shirts and grey flannel trousers, the girls in short, pleated grey skirts and pale yellow shirts. So far I had only set eyes on the pair outside the Hall, and seen little of them but a glimpse of their faces, and then their backs.

    As they approached I found the likeness between them even greater than I had expected. All four had the same browned complexions. The curious lucency of the skin that had been noticeable in them as babies had been greatly subdued by the sunburn, yet enough trace of it remained to attract one's notice. They shared the same dark-golden hair, straight, narrow noses, and rather small mouths. The way the eyes were set was perhaps more responsible than anything for a suggestion of 'foreigners', but it was an abstract foreignness, not calling to mind any particular race, or region. I could not see anything to distinguish one boy from the other; and, indeed, I doubted whether, had it not been for the cut of the hair, I could have told the boys' faces from the girls', with certainty.

    Soon I was able to see the eyes themselves. I had forgotten how striking they were in the babies, and remembered them as yellow. But they were more than that: they had a quality of glowing gold. Strange indeed, but, if one could disregard the strangeness, with a singular beauty. They looked like living, semi-precious stones.

    I went on watching, fascinated, as they drew level with us. They took no more notice of us than to give the car a brief, unembarrassed glance, and then turned into Hickham Lane.

    At close quarters I found them disturbing in a way I could not quite account for, but it became less surprising to me that a number of the village homes had been unprotestingly willing for them to go and live at The Grange.

    We watched them a few yards up the lane, then Bernard reached for the starter.

    A sudden explosion close by made us both jump. I jerked my head round just in time to see one of the boys collapse, and fall face down on the road. The other three Children stood petrified . . .

    Bernard opened the door, and started to get out. The standing boy turned, and looked at us. His golden eyes were hard, and bright. I felt as if a sudden gust of confusion and weakness were sweeping through me . . . Then the boy's eyes left ours, and his head turned further.

    From behind the hedge opposite, came the sound of a second explosion, more muffled than the first — then, and further away, a scream . . .

    Bernard got out of the car, and I shifted across to follow him. One of the girls knelt down beside the fallen boy. As she made to touch him he groaned, and writhed where he lay. The standing boy's face was anguished. He groaned, too, as if in agony himself. The two girls began to cry.

    Then, eerily down the lane, out of the trees that hid The Grange, swept a moan like a magnified echo, and, mingled with it, a threnody of young voices, weeping . . .

    Bernard stopped. I could feel my scalp prickling, and my hair beginning to rise . . .

    The sound came again; and ululation of many voices blended in pain, with the higher note of crying piercing through . . . Then the sound of feet running down the lane . . .

    Neither of us tried to go on. For myself, I was held for the moment by sheer fright.

    We stood there watching while half a dozen boys, all disconcertingly alike, came running to the fallen one, and lifted him between them. Not until they had started to carry him away did I become aware of a quite different sound of sobbing coming from behind the hedge to the left of the lane.

    I clambered up the bank, and looked through the hedge there. A few yards away a girl in a summer frock was kneeling on the grass. Her hands were clenched to her face, and her whole body was shaking with her sobs.

    Bernard scrambled up beside me, and together we pushed our way through the hedge. Standing up in the field now, I could see a man lying prone at the girl's knees, with the butt of a gun protruding from beneath his body.

    As we stepped closer, she heard us. Her sobs stopped momentarily as she looked up with an expression of terror. Then when she saw us it faded, and she went on weeping, helplessly.

    Bernard walked closer to her, and lifted her up. I looked down at the body. It was a very nasty sight indeed. I bent over it and pulled the jacket up, trying to make it hide what was left of the head. Bernard led the girl away, half supporting her.

    There was a sound of voices on the road. As we neared the hedge a couple of men there looked up and saw us.

    'Was that you shootin'?' one of them asked.

    We shook our heads.

    'There's a dead man up here,' Bernard said.

    The girl beside him shivered, and whimpered.

    ''Oo is it?' asked the same man.

    The girl said hysterically:

    'It's David. They've killed him. They killed Jim; now they've killed David, too,' and choked in a fresh burst of grief.

    One of the men scrambled up the bank.

    'Oh, it's you, Elsa, lass,' he exclaimed.

    'I tried to stop him, Joe. I tried to stop him, but he wouldn't listen,' she said through her sobs. 'I knew they'd kill him, but he wouldn't listen . . .' She became incoherent, and clung to Bernard, shaking violently.

    'We must get her away,' I said. 'Do you know where she lives?'

    'Aye,' said the man, and decisively picked the girl up, as though she were a child. He scrambled down the bank, and carried her, crying and shivering, to the car. Bernard turned to the other man.

    'Will you stand by and keep anyone off till the police come?'

    'Aye — It'll be young David Pawle?' the man said, climbing the bank.

    'She said David. A young man,' Bernard told him.

    'That'll be him — the bastards.' The man pushed through the hedge. 'Better call the coppers at Trayne, guv'nor. They got a car there.' He glanced towards the body. 'Murderin' young bastards!' he said.

 

*

 

They dropped me off at Kyle Manor, and I used Zellaby's phone to call the police. When I put the receiver down I found him at my elbow with a glass in his hand.

    'You look as if you could do with it,' he said.

    'I could,' I agreed. 'very unexpected. Very messy.'

    'Just how did it occur?' he inquired.

    I gave him an account of our rather narrow angle on the affair. Twenty minutes later Bernard returned, able to tell more of it.

    'The Pawle brothers were apparently very much attached,' he began. Zellaby nodded agreement. 'Well, it seems that the younger one, David, found the inquest the last straw, and decided that if nobody else was going to see justice done over his brother, he'd do it himself.

    'This girl Elsa — his girl — called at Dacre Farm just as he was leaving. When she saw him carrying the gun she guessed what was happening, and tried to stop him. He wouldn't listen, and to get rid of her he locked her in a shed, and then went off.

    'It took her a bit of time to break out, but she judged he would be making for The Grange, and followed across the fields. When she got to the field she thought she'd made a mistake because she didn't see him at first. Possibly he was lying down to take cover. Anyway, she doesn't seem to have spotted him until after the first shot. When she did, he was standing up, with the gun still pointed into the lane. Then while she was running towards him he reversed the gun, and put his thumb on the trigger . . .'

    Zellaby remained silently thoughtful for some moments, then he said:

    'It'll be a clear enough case from the police view. David considers the Children to be responsible for his brother's death, kills one of them in revenge and then, to escape the penalty, commits suicide. Obviously unbalanced. What else could a "reasonable man" think?'

    'I may have been a bit sceptical before,' I admitted, 'but I'm not now. The way that boy looked at us! I believe that for a moment he thought one of us had done it — fired that shot, I mean — just for an instant, until he saw it was impossible. The sensation was indescribable, but it was frightening for the moment it lasted. Did you feel that, too?' I added, to Bernard.

    He nodded. 'A queer, weak, and watery feeling,' he agreed. 'very bleak.'

    'It was just —' I broke off, suddenly remembering. 'My God, I was so taken up with other business I forgot to tell the police anything about the wounded boy. Ought we to call an ambulance for The Grange?'

    Zellaby shook his head.

    'They've got a doctor of their own on the staff there,' he told us.

    He reflected in silence for fully a minute, then he sighed, and shook his head. 'I don't much like this development, Colonel. I don't like it at all. Am I mistaken, do you think, in seeing here the very pattern of the way a blood feud starts . . .?'