Chapter  18

 

 Interview With a Child

 

 

The Chief Constable of Winshire looked in at Kyle Manor the next morning, just at the right time for a glass of Madeira and a biscuit.

    'Sorry to trouble you over this affair, Zellaby. Ghastly business — perfectly horrible. Can't make any sense of it. Nobody in your village quite on target, seems to me. Thought you might be able to put up a picture a fellow can understand.'

    Angela leant forward.

    'What are the real figures, Sir John? We've heard nothing officially yet.'

    'Bad, I'm afraid.' He shook his head. 'One woman and three men dead. Eight men and five women in hospital. Two of the men and one woman in a pretty bad way. Several men who aren't in hospital look as if they ought to be. Regular riot by all accounts — everybody fighting everybody else. But why? That's what I can't get at. No sense out of anybody.' He turned back to Zellaby. 'Seeing that you called the police, and told them there was going to be trouble, it'd help us to know what put you on to it.'

    'Well,' Zellaby began cautiously, 'it's a curious situation —'

    His wife cut him short by breaking in:

    'It was Mrs Brant, the blacksmith's wife,' she said, and went on to describe the vicar's departure. 'I'm sure Mr Leebody will be able to tell you more than we can. He was there, you see; we weren't.'

    'He was there all right, and got home somehow, but now he's in Trayne hospital,' said the Chief Constable.

    'Oh, poor Mr Leebody. Is he badly hurt?'

    'I'm afraid I don't know. The doctor there tells me he's not to be disturbed for a bit. Now.' He turned back to Zellaby once more, 'you told my people that a crowd was marching on The Grange with the intention of setting fire to it. What was your source of information?'

    Zellaby looked surprised.

    'Why, Mrs Brant. My wife just told you.'

    'Is that all! You didn't go out to see for yourself what was going on?'

    'Er — no,' Zellaby admitted.

    'You mean that, on the unsupported word of a woman in a semi-hysterical condition, you called out the police, in force, and told them that ambulances would be needed?'

    'I insisted on it,' Angela told him, with a touch of chill. 'And I was perfectly right. They were needed.'

    'But simply on this woman's word —'

    'I've known Mrs Brant for years. She's a sensible woman.'

    Bernard put in:

    'If Mrs Zellaby had not advised us against going to see for ourselves, I'm quite sure we should now be either in hospital, or worse.'

    The Chief Constable looked at us.

    'I've had an exhausting night,' he said, at last. 'Perhaps I haven't got this straight. What you seem to be saying is that this Mrs Brant came here and told you that the villagers — perfectly ordinary English men and women, and good Winshire stock, were intending to march on a school full of children, their own children, too, and —'

    'Not quite, Sir John. The men were going to march, and perhaps some of the women, but I think most of the women would be against it,' Angela objected.

    'Very well. These men, then, ordinary, decent, country chaps, were going to set fire to a school full of children. You didn't question it. You accepted an incredible thing like that at once. You did not try to check up, or see for yourselves what was happening. You just called in the police — because Mrs Brant is a sensible woman?'

    'Yes,' Angela said icily.

    'Sir John,' Zellaby said, with equal coolness. 'I realize you have been busy all night, and I appreciate your official position, but I think that if this interview is to continue, it must be upon different lines.'

    The Chief Constable went a little pink. His gaze dropped. Presently he massaged his forehead vigorously with a large fist. He apologized, first to Angela, and then to Zellaby. Almost pathetically he said:

    'But there's nothing to get hold of. I've been asking questions for hours, and I can't make head or tail of anything. There's no sign that these people were trying to bum The Grange: they never touched it. They were simply fighting one another, men, and a few women, too — but they were doing it in The Grange grounds. Why? It wasn't just the women trying to stop the men — or, it seems, some of the men trying to stop the rest. No, it appears they all went up from the pub to The Grange together, with nobody trying to stop anybody, except the parson, whom they wouldn't listen to, and a few women who backed him up. And what was it all about? Something, apparently, to do with the children at the school — but what sort of a reason is that for a riot like this? It just doesn't make sense, any of it.' He shook his head, and ruminated a moment. 'I remember my predecessor, old Bodger, saying there was something deuced funny about Midwich. And, by God, he was right. But what is it?'

    'It seems to me that the best we can do is to refer you to Colonel Westcott,' suggested Zellaby, indicating Bernard. With a slightly malicious touch, he added: 'His Department, for a reason which has continued to elude me for nine years, preserves a continuing interest in Midwich, so that he probably knows more about us than we do ourselves.'

    Sir John turned his attention to Bernard.

    'And what is your Department, sir?' he inquired.

    At Bernard's reply his eyes bulged slightly. He looked like a man wishing to be given strength.

    'Did you say Military Intelligence?' he inquired flatly.

    'Yes, sir,' said Bernard.

    The Chief Constable shook his head. 'I give up.' He looked back at Zellaby, with the expression of one only two or three straws from the end. 'And now Military Intelligence,' he muttered.

 

*

 

About the same time that the Chief Constable had arrived at Kyle Manor, one of the Children — a boy — came walking unhurriedly down the drive of The Grange. The two policemen who were chatting at the gate broke off their conversation. One of them turned and strolled to meet the boy.

    'And where'll you be off to, son?' he inquired amiably enough.

    The boy looked at the policeman without expression, though the curious golden eyes were alert.

    'Into the village,' he said.

    'Better if you didn't,' advised the policeman. 'They're not feeling too friendly there about your lot — not after last night, they're not.'

    But the boy neither answered, nor checked his walk. He simply kept on. The policeman turned and walked back towards the gate. His colleague looked at him curiously.

    'Lumme,' he said. 'Didn't make much of a job of that, did you? Thought the idea was to persuade 'em to keep out of harm's way.'

    The first policeman looked after the boy, going on down the lane, with a puzzled expression. He shook his head.

    'Funny, that,' he said uneasily. 'I don't get it. If there's another, you have a try, Bert.'

    A minute or two later one of the girls appeared. She, too, was walking in a casually confident way.

    'Right,' said the second policeman. 'Just a bit of advice — fatherly-like, see?'

    He began to stroll towards the girl.

    After perhaps four steps he turned round, and came back again. The two policemen standing side by side watched her walk past them, and into the lane. She never even glanced at them.

    'What the hell — ?' asked the second policeman, in a baffled voice.

    'Bit off, isn't it?' said the other. 'You go to do something, and then you do something else instead. I don't reckon I like it much. Hey!' he called after the girl. 'Hey! you, missie!'

    The girl did not look back. He started in pursuit, covered half a dozen yards, and then stopped dead. The girl passed out of sight, round the corner of the lane. The policeman relaxed, turned round, and came back. He was breathing rather fast, and had an uneasy look on his face.

    'I definitely don't like it,' he said unhappily. 'There's something kind of funny about this place . . .'

 

*

 

The bus from Oppley, on its way to Trayne via Stouch, stopped in Midwich, opposite Mrs Welt's shop. The ten or a dozen women waiting for it allowed the two off-loading passengers to descend, and then moved forward in a ragged queue. Miss Latterly, at its head, took hold of the rail, and made to step aboard. Nothing further happened. Both her feet appeared to be glued to the ground.

    'Hurry along there, please!' said the conductor.

    Miss Latterly tried again; with no better success. She looked up helplessly at the conductor.

    'Just you stand aside, and let 'em get on, mum. I'll give you a hand in a minute,' he advised her.

    Miss Latterly, looking bewildered, took his advice. Mrs Dorry moved up to take her place, and grasped the rail. She, too, failed to get any further. The conductor reached down to take her arm and pull her up, but her foot would not lift to the step. She moved beside Miss Latterly, and they both watched the next in turn make an equally fruitless attempt to get aboard.

    'What's this? Some kind of joke?' inquired the conductor. Then he saw the expression on the faces of the three. 'Sorry, ladies. No offence. But what's the trouble?'

    It was Miss Latterly who, turning her attention from the fourth woman's ineffective approach to the bus, noticed one of the Children. He was sitting casually on the mounting-block opposite The Scythe and Stone, with his face turned towards them, and one leg idly swinging. She detached herself from the group by the bus, and walked towards him. She studied him carefully as she approached. Even so, it was with a touch of uncertainty she said:

    'You're not Joseph, are you?'

    The boy shook his head. She went on:

    'I want to go to Trayne to see Miss Foresham, Joseph's mother. She was hurt last night. She's in the hospital there.'

    The boy kept on looking at her. He shook his head very slightly. Tears of anger came into Miss Latterly's eyes.

    'Haven't you done enough harm? You're monsters. All we want to do is to go and see our friends who've been hurt — hurt because of what you did.'

    The boy said nothing. Miss Latterly took an impulsive half-step towards him, and then checked herself.

    'Don't you understand? Haven't you any human feelings?' she said, in a shaking voice.

    Behind her, the conductor, half-puzzled, half-jocular was saying:

    'Come along now, ladies. Make up your minds. The old bus don't bite, you know. Can't wait 'ere all day.'

    The group of women stood irresolute, some of them looking frightened. Mrs Dorry made one more attempt to board the bus. It was no use. Two of the women turned to glare angrily at the boy who looked back at them unmoved.

    Miss Latterly turned helplessly, and began to walk away. The conductor's temper shortened.

    'Well, if you're not coming, we're off. Got our times to keep, you know.'

    None of the group made any move. He hit the bell decisively, and the bus moved on. The conductor gazed at them as they dwindled forlornly behind, and shook his head. As he ambled forward to exchange comments with the driver he muttered to himself the local adage:

    'In Oppley they're smart, and in Stouch they're smarmy, but Midwich folk are just plain barmy.'

 

*

 

Polly Rushton, her uncle's invaluable right hand in the parish ever since she had fled across the unmended breach between the two families, was driving Mrs Leebody into Trayne to see the vicar. His injuries in the fracas, the hospital had telephoned reassuringly, were uncomfortable, but not serious, only a fracture of the left radius, a broken right clavicle, and a number of contusions, but he was in need of rest and quiet. He would be glad of a visit in order to make some arrangements to cover his absence.

    Two hundred yards out of Midwich, however, Polly braked abruptly, and started to turn the car about.

    'What have we forgotten?' inquired Mrs Leebody, in surprise.

    'Nothing,' Polly told her. 'I just can't go on, that's all.'

    'Can't?' repeated Mrs Leebody.

    'Can't,' said Polly.

    'Well, really,' said Mrs Leebody. 'I should have thought that at a time like this . . .'

    'Aunt Dora, I said "can't", not "won't".'

    'I don't understand what you're talking about,' said Mrs Leebody.

    'All right,' said Polly. She drove on a few yards, and turned the car again so that it faced away from the village once more. 'Now change places, and you try,' she told her.

    Unwillingly Mrs Leebody took the driving seat. She didn't care for driving, but accepted the challenge. They moved forward again, and at precisely the spot where Polly had braked, Mrs Leebody braked. There came the sound of a horn behind them, and a tradesman's van with a Trayne address on it squeezed by. They watched it vanish round the comer ahead. Mrs Leebody attempted to reach the accelerator-pedal, but her foot stopped short of it. She tried again. Her foot still could not get to it.

    Polly looked round and saw one of the Children sitting half-hidden in the hedge, watching them. She looked harder at the girl, making sure which one it was.

    'Judy,' Polly said, with sudden misgiving. 'Is it you doing this?'

    The girl's nod was barely perceptible.

    'But you mustn't,' Polly protested. 'We want to go to Trayne to see Uncle Hubert. He was hurt. He's in hospital.'

    'You can't go,' the girl told her, with a faintly apologetic inflection.

    'But, Judy. He has to arrange lots of things with me for the time he'll have to be away.'

    The girl simply shook her head, slowly. Polly felt her temper rising. She drew breath to speak again, but Mrs Leebody cut-in, nervously:

    'Don't annoy her, Polly. Wasn't last night enough of a lesson for all of us?'

    Her advice went home. Polly said no more. She sat glaring at the Child in the hedge, with a muddle of frustrated emotion that brought tears of resentment to her eyes.

    Mrs Leebody succeeded in finding reverse, and moved the lever into it. She tentatively put her right foot forward and found that it now reached the accelerator without any difficulty. They backed a few yards, and changed seats again. Polly drove them back to the Vicarage, in silence.

 

*

 

At Kyle Manor we were still having difficulty with the Chief Constable.

    'But,' he protested, from under corrugated brows, 'our information supports your original statement that the villagers were marching on The Grange to bum the place.'

    'So they were,' agreed Zellaby.

    'But you also say, and Colonel Westcott agrees, that the children at The Grange were the real culprits — they provoked it.'

    'That's true,' Bernard agreed. 'But I'm afraid there's nothing we can do about that.'

    'No evidence, you mean? Well, finding evidence is our job.'

    'I don't mean no evidence. I mean no imputability under the law.'

    'Look,' said the Chief Constable, with conscientious patience. 'Four people have been killed — I repeat killed; thirteen are in hospital; a number more have been badly knocked about. It is not the sort of thing we can just say "what a pity" about, and leave it at that. We have to bring the whole thing into the open, decide where responsibility lies, and draw up charges. You must see that.'

    'These are very unusual Children —' Bernard began.

    'I know. I know. Lot of wrong-side-of-the-blanket stuff in these parts. Old Bodger told me about that when I took over. Not quite firing on all cylinders, either — special school for them, and so on.'

    Bernard repressed a sigh.

    'Sir John, it's not that they are backward. The special school was opened because they are different. They are morally responsible for last night's trouble, but that isn't the same as being legally responsible. There's nothing you can charge them with.'

    'Minors can be charged — or somebody responsible for them can. You're not going to tell me that a gang of nine-year-old children can somehow — though I'm blest if I can see how — promote a riot in which people get killed, and then just get away with it scot free! It's fantastic!'

    'But I've pointed out several times that these Children are different. Their years have no relevance — except in so far as they are children, which may mean that they are crueller in their acts than in their intentions. The law cannot touch them — and my Department doesn't want them publicized.'

    'Ridiculous,' retorted the Chief Constable. 'I've heard of those fancy schools. Children mustn't be what-do-you-call it? — frustrated. Self-expression, co-education, wholemeal bread, and all the rest of it. Damned nonsense! More frustrated by being different about things than they would be if they were normal. But if some Departments think that because a school of that kind happens to be a government-run institution the children there are in a different position as regards the law, and can be — er — uninhibited as they like — well, they'll soon learn differently.'

    Zellaby and Bernard exchanged hopeless glances. Bernard decided to try once more.

    'These Children, Sir John, have strong willpower — quite remarkably strong — strong enough, when they exert it, to be considered a form of duress. Now, the law has not, so far, encountered this particular form of duress; consequently, having no knowledge of it, it cannot recognize it. Since, therefore, the form of duress has no legal existence, the Children cannot in law be said to be capable of exerting it. Therefore, in the eyes of the law, the crimes attributed by popular opinion to its exercise must (a) never have taken place at all, or (b) be attributable to other persons, or means. There cannot, within the knowledge of the law, be any connexion between the Children and the crimes.'

    'Except that they did 'em, or so you all tell me,' said Sir John.

    'As far as the law is concerned they've done nothing at all. And, what is more, if you could find a formula to charge them under you'd not get anywhere. They would bring this duress to bear on your officers. You can neither arrest them, nor hold them, if you try to.'

    'We can leave those finer points to the lawyer fellows — that's their job. All we need is enough evidence to justify a warrant,' the Chief Constable assured him.

    Zellaby gazed with innocent thoughtfulness at a corner of the ceiling. Bernard had the withdrawn air of a man who might be counting ten, not too quickly. I found myself troubled by a slight cough.

    'This schoolmaster fellow at The Grange — what's his name — Torrance?' the Chief Constable went on. 'Director of the place. He must hold the official responsibility for these children, if anyone does. Saw the chap last night. Struck me as evasive. Everybody round here's evasive, of course.' He studiedly met no eye. 'But he definitely wasn't helpful.'

    'Dr Torrance is an eminent psychiatrist, rather than a schoolmaster,' Bernard explained. 'I think he may be in considerable doubt as to his right course in the matter until he can take advice.'

    'Psychiatrist?' repeated Sir John, suspiciously. 'I thought you said this is not a place for backward children?'

    'It isn't,' Bernard repeated, patiently.

    'Don't see what he has to be doubtful about. Nothing doubtful about the truth, is there? That's all you've got to tell when the police make inquiries: if you don't, you're in for trouble — and so you ought to be.'

    'It's not quite as simple as that,' Bernard responded. 'He may not have felt himself at liberty to disclose some aspects of his work. I think that if you will let me come along with you and see him again he might be more willing to talk — and much better able to explain the situation than I am.'

    He got to his feet as he finished. The rest of us rose, too. The Chief Constable's leave-taking was gruff. There was a barely perceptible flicker to Bernard's right eye as he said au revoir to the rest of us, and escorted him out of the room.

    Zellaby collapsed into an easy chair, and sighed deeply. He searched absent-mindedly for his cigarette case.

    'I've not met Dr Torrance,' I said, 'but I already feel quite sorry for him.'

    'Unnecessary,' said Zellaby. 'Colonel Westcott's discretion has been irritating, but passive. Torrance's has always had an aggressive quality. If he has now got to make the situation lucid enough for Sir John, it's simply poetic justice.

    'But what interests me more at the moment is your Colonel Westcott's attitude. The barrier there is down quite a bit. If he could have got as far as a mutually understandable vocabulary with Sir John, I do believe he might have told us all something. I wonder why? This seems to me just the kind of situation that he has been trying so hard to avoid all along. The Midwich bag is now very nearly too small for the cat. Why, then, doesn't he appear more concerned?' He lapsed into a reverie, tattooing gently on the chair-arm.

    Presently Angela reappeared. Zellaby became aware of her from the far-off. It took him a moment or two to re-establish himself in the here and now, and observe her expression.

    'What's the matter, my dear?' he inquired, and added in recollection: 'I thought you were bound for Trayne hospital, with a cornucopia.'

    'I started,' she said. 'Now I've come back. It seems that we're not allowed to leave the village.'

    Zellaby sat up.

    'That's absurd. The old fool can't put the whole place under arrest. As a JP —' he began indignantly.

    'It's not Sir John. It's the Children. They're picketing all the roads, and won't let us out.'

    'Are they indeed!' exclaimed Zellaby. 'That's extremely interesting. I wonder if —'

    'Interesting be damned,' said his wife. 'It's very unpleasant, and quite outrageous. It's also rather alarming,' she added, 'because one can't see just what's behind it.'

    Zellaby inquired how it was being done. She explained, concluding:

    'And it's only us, you see — people who live in the village, I mean. They're letting other people come and go as they like.'

    'But no violence?' asked Zellaby, with a touch of anxiety.

    'No. You simply have to stop. Several people have appealed to the police, and they've looked into it. Hopeless, of course. The Children didn't stop them, or bother them, so naturally they can't understand what the fuss is about. The only result is that those who had merely heard that Midwich is half-witted are now sure of it.'

    'They must have some reason for it — the Children, I mean,' said Zellaby.

    Angela eyed him resentfully.

    'I daresay, and possibly it will be of great sociological interest, but that isn't the point at the moment. What I want to know is what is to be done about it?'

    'My dear,' said Zellaby soothingly. 'One appreciates your feelings, but we've known for some time now that if it should suit the Children to interfere with us we have no way of stopping them. Well, now, for some reason that I confess I do not perceive, it evidently does suit them.'

    'But, Gordon, there are these people seriously hurt, in Trayne hospital. Their relatives want to visit them.'

    'My dear, I don't see that there is anything you can do but find one of them, and put it to him on humane grounds. They might consider that, but it really depends on what their reason for doing it is, don't you think?'

    Angela regarded her husband with a frown of dissatisfaction. She started to reply, thought better of it, and took herself off with an air of reproof. Zellaby shook his head as the door closed.

    'Man's arrogance is boastful,' he observed, 'woman's is something in the fibre. We do occasionally contemplate the once lordly dinosaurs, and wonder when, and how, our little day will reach its end. But not she. Her eternity is an article of her faith. Great wars and disasters can ebb and flow, races rise and fall, empires wither with suffering and death, but these are superficialities: she, woman, is perpetual, essential; she will go on for ever. She doesn't believe in the dinosaurs: she doesn't really believe the world ever existed until she was upon it. Men may build and destroy and play with all their toys; they are uncomfortable nuisances, ephemeral conveniences, mere scamperers-about, while woman, in mystical umbilical connexion with the great tree of life itself, knows that she is indispensable. One wonders whether the female dinosaur in her day was blessed with the same comfortable certainty.'

    He paused, in such obvious need of prompting that I said: 'And the relevance to the present?'

    'Is that while man finds the thought of his supersession abominable, she simply finds it unthinkable. And since she cannot think it, she must regard the hypothesis as frivolous.'

    It seemed to be my service again.

    'If you are implying that we see something which Mrs Zellaby fails to see, I'm afraid I —'

    'But, my dear fellow, if one is not blinded by a sense of indispensability, one must take it that we, like the other lords of creation before us, will one day be replaced. There are two ways in which it can happen: either through ourselves, by our self-destruction, or by the incursion of some species which we lack the equipment to subdue. Well, here we are now, face to face with a superior will and mind. And what are we able to bring against it?'

    'That,' I told him, 'sounds defeatist. If, as I assume, you do mean it quite seriously, isn't it rather a large conclusion from rather a small instance?'

    'Very much what my wife said to me when the instance was considerably smaller, and younger,' Zellaby admitted. 'She also went on to scout the proposition that such a remarkable thing could happen here, in a prosaic English village. In vain did I try to convince her that it would be no less remarkable wherever it should happen. She felt that it was decidedly a thing that would be less remarkable in more exotic places a — Balinese village, perhaps, or a Mexican pueblo; that it was essentially one of those sorts of things that happens to other people. Unfortunately, however, the instance has developed here — and with melancholy logic.'

    'It isn't the locality that troubles me,' I said. 'It's your assumptions. More particularly, your taking it for granted that the Children can do what they like, and there's no way of stopping them.'

    'It would be foolish to be quite so didactic as that. It may be possible, but it will not be easy. Physically we are poor weak creatures compared with many animals, but we overcome them because we have better brains. The only thing that can beat us is something with a still better brain. That has scarcely seemed a threat: for one thing, its occurrence appeared to be improbable, and, for another, it seemed even more improbable that we should allow it to survive to become a menace.

    'Yet here it is' — another little gimmick out of Pandora's infinite evolutionary box: the contesserate mind — two mosaics, one of thirty, the other of twenty-eight, tiles. What can we, with our separate brains only in clumsily fumbling touch with one another, expect to do against thirty brains working almost as one?'

    I protested that, even so, the Children could scarcely have accumulated enough knowledge in a mere nine years to oppose successfully the whole mass of human knowledge, but Zellaby shook his head.

    'The government has for reasons of its own provided them with some excellent teachers, so that the sum of their knowledge should be considerable — indeed, I know it is, for I lecture to them myself sometimes, you know — that has importance, but it is not the source of the threat. One is not unaware that Francis Bacon wrote: nam et ipsa scientia potestas est — knowledge itself is power — and one must regret that so eminent a scholar should, at times, talk through his hat. The encyclopedia is crammed full of knowledge, and can do nothing with it; we all know of people who have amazing memories for facts, with no ability to use them; a computing-engine can roll out knowledge by the ream in multiplicate; but none of this knowledge is of the least use until it is informed by understanding. Knowledge is simply a kind of fuel; it needs the motor of understanding to convert it into power.

    'Now, what frightens me is the thought of the power producible by an understanding working on even a small quantity of knowledge-fuel when it has an extraction-efficiency thirty times that of our own. What it may produce when the Children are mature I cannot begin to imagine.'

    I frowned. As always, I was a little unsure of Zellaby.

    'You are quite seriously maintaining that we have no means of preventing this group of fifty-eight Children from taking what course they choose?' I insisted.

    'I am.' He nodded. 'What do you suggest we could do? You know what happened to that crowd last night; they intended to attack the Children — instead, they were induced to fight one another. Send police, and they would do the same. Send soldiers against them, and they would be induced to shoot one another.'

    'Possibly,' I conceded. 'But there must be other ways of tackling them. From what you've told me, nobody knows nearly enough about them. They appear to have detached themselves emotionally from their host-mothers quite early — if, indeed, they ever had the emotions we normally expect. Most of them chose to adopt progressive segregation as soon as it was offered. As a result the village knows extremely little of them. In quite a short time most people seem scarcely to have thought of them as individuals. They found them difficult to tell apart, got into the habit of regarding them collectively so that they have tended to become two-dimensional figures with only a limited kind of reality.'

    Zellaby looked appreciative of the point.

    'You're perfectly right, my dear fellow. There is a lack of normal contacts and sympathies. But that is not entirely our shortcoming. I have myself kept as close to them as I can, but I am still at a distance. In spite of all my efforts I still find them, as you excellently put it, two-dimensional. And it is strongly my impression that the people at The Grange have done no better.'

    "Then the question remains,' I said, 'how do we get more data?'

    We contemplated that for a while until Zellaby emerged from his reverie to say:

    'Has it occurred to you to wonder what your own status here is, my dear fellow? If you were thinking of leaving today it might be as well to find out whether the Children regard you as one of us, or not?'

    That was an aspect that had not occurred to me, and I found it a little startling. I decided to find out.

    Bernard had, it appeared, gone off in the Chief Constable's car, so I borrowed his for the test.

    I found the answer a little way along the Oppley road. A very odd sensation. My hand and foot were guided to bring the car to a halt by no volition of my own. One of the girl Children was sitting by the roadside, nibbling at a stalk of grass, and looking at me without expression. I tried to put the gear in again. My hand wouldn't do it. Nor could I bring my foot on the clutch pedal. I looked at the girl, and told her that I did not live in Midwich, and wanted to get home. She simply shook her head. I tried the gear lever again, and found that the only way I could move it was into reverse.

    'H'm,' said Zellaby, on my return. 'So you are an honorary villager, are you? I rather thought you might be. Just remind me to tell Angela to let the cook know, there's a good fellow.'

 

*

 

At the same time that Zellaby and I were talking at Kyle Manor, more talk, similar in matter but different in manner, was going on at The Grange. Dr Torrance, feeling some sanction in the presence of Colonel Westcott, had endeavoured to answer the Chief Constable's questions more explicitly than before. A stage had been reached, however, when lack of coordination between the parties could no longer be disguised, and a noticeably off-beat query caused the doctor to say, a little forlornly:

    'I am afraid I cannot have made the situation quite clear to you, Sir John.'

    The Chief Constable grunted impatiently.

    'Everybody keeps on telling me that, and I'm not denying it; nobody round here seems to be capable of making anything clear. Everybody keeps on telling me, too — and without producing a scrap of evidence that I can understand — that these infernal children are in some way responsible for last night's affair — even you, who I am given to understand are in charge of them. I agree that I do not understand a situation in which young children are allowed to get so thoroughly out of hand that they can cause a breach of the peace amounting to a riot. I don't see why I should be expected to understand it. It is as a Constable that I wish to see one of the ringleaders, and find out what he has to say about it.'

    'But, Sir John, I have already explained to you that there are no ringleaders . . .'

    'I know — I know. I heard you. Everyone is equal here, and all that all very well perhaps in theory, but you know as well as I do that in every group there are fellers that stand out, and that those are the chaps you've got to get hold of. Manage them, and you can manage the rest.' He paused expectantly.

    Dr Torrance exchanged a helpless look with Colonel Westcott. Bernard gave a slight shrug, and the faintest of nods. Dr Torrance's look of unhappiness increased. He said uneasily:

    'Very well, Sir John, since you make it virtually a police order I have no alternative, but I must ask you to watch your words carefully. The Children are very — er — sensitive.'

    His choice of the final word was unfortunate. In his own vocabulary it had a somewhat technical meaning; in the Chief Constable's it was a word used by doting mothers about spoilt sons, and did nothing to make him feel more sympathetically disposed towards the Children. He made a vowelless sound of disapproval as Dr Torrance got up and left the room. Bernard half opened his mouth to reinforce the Doctor's warning, and then decided that it would only increase the Chief Constable's irritation, thus doing more harm than good. The cussedness of commonsense, Bernard reflected, was that, invaluable as it might be in the right soils, it could turn into a pestiferous kind of bind-weed in others. So the two waited in silence until the Doctor presently returned, bringing one of the boy-Children with him.

    'This is Eric,' he said, by way of introduction. To the boy he added, 'Sir John Tenby wishes to ask you some questions. It is his duty as Chief Constable, you see, to make a report on the trouble last night.'

    The boy nodded, and turned to look at Sir John. Dr Torrance resumed his seat at his desk, and watched the two of them intently, and uneasily.

    The boy's regard was steady, careful, but quite neutral; it gave no trace of feeling. Sir John met it with equal steadiness. A healthy-looking boy, he thought. A bit thin — well, not exactly thin in the sense of being scraggy, slight would be a better word. It was difficult to make much of a judgement from the features; the face was good-looking, though without weakness which often accompanies male good looks; on the other hand, it did not show strength — the mouth, indeed, was a little small, though not petulant. There was not a lot to be learnt from the face as a whole. The eyes, however, were even more remarkable than he had been led to expect. He had been told of the curious golden colour of the irises, but no one had succeeded in conveying to him their striking lambency, their strange effect of being softly lit from within. For a moment it disquieted him, then he took himself in hand; reminded himself that he had some kind of freak to deal with; a boy only nine years old, yet looking every bit of sixteen, brought up, moreover, on some of these fiddle-faddling theories of self-expression, non-inhibition, and so on. He decided to treat the boy as if he were the age he looked, and constrained himself into that man-to-boy attitude that is represented by its practitioners as man-to-man.

    'Serious business last night,' he observed. 'Our job to clear it up and find out what really happened — who was responsible for the trouble, and so forth. People keep on telling me that you and the others here were — now, what do you say to that?'

    'No,' said the boy promptly.

    The Chief Constable nodded. One would scarcely expect an immediate admission, in any case.

    'What happened, exactly?' he asked.

    'The village people came here to burn The Grange down,' said the boy.

    'You're sure of that?'

    'It was what they said, and there was no other reason to bring them here at that time,' said the boy.

    'All right, we'll not go into the whys and wherefores just now. Let's take it from there. You say some of them came intending to burn the place. Then I suppose others came to stop them doing it, and the fighting started?'

    'Yes,' agreed the boy, but less definitely.

    'Then, in point of fact, you and your friends had nothing to do with it. You were just spectators?'

    'No,' said the boy. 'We had to defend ourselves. It was necessary, or they would have burnt the house.'

    'You mean you called out to some of them to stop the rest, something like that?'

    'No,' the boy told him patiently. 'We made them fight one another. We could simply have sent them away, but if we had they would very likely have come back some other time. Now they will not, they understand it is better for them to leave us alone.'

    The Chief Constable paused, a little nonplussed.

    'You say you "made" them fight one another. How did you do that?'

    'It is too difficult to explain. I don't think you could understand,' said the boy, judicially.

    Sir John pinked a little.

    'Nevertheless, I'd like to hear,' he said, with an air of generous restraint that was wasted.

    'It wouldn't be any use,' the boy told him. He spoke simply, and without innuendo, as one stating a fact.

    The Chief Constable's face became a deeper pink. Dr Torrance put in hurriedly:

    'This is an extremely abstruse matter, Sir John, and one which all of us here have been trying to understand, with very little headway, for some years now. One can really get little nearer to it than to say that the Children "willed" the people in the crowd to attack one another.'

    Sir John looked at him and then at the boy. He muttered, but held himself in check. Presently, after two or three deep breaths, he spoke to the boy again, but now with his tone a little ruffled.

    'However it was done — and we'll have to go into that later — you are admitting that you were responsible for what happened?'

    'We are responsible for defending ourselves,' the boy said.

    'To the extent of four lives and thirteen serious injuries — when you could, you say, have simply sent them away.'

    'They wanted to kill us,' the boy told him, indifferently.

    The Chief Constable looked lengthily at him.

    'I don't understand how you can have done it, but I take your word for it that you did, for the present; also your word that it was unnecessary.'

    'They would have come again. It would have been necessary then,' replied the boy.

    'You can't be sure of that. Your whole attitude is monstrous. Don't you feel the least compunction for these unfortunate people?'

    'No,' the boy told him. 'Why should we? Yesterday afternoon one of them shot one of us. Now we must protect ourselves.'

    'But not by private vengeance. The law is for your protection, and for everyone's —'

    'The law did not protect Wilfred from being shot; it would not have protected us last night. The law punishes the criminal after he has been successful: it is no use to us, we intend to stay alive.'

    'But you don't mind being responsible — so you tell me — for the deaths of other people.'

    'Do we have to go round in circles?' asked the boy. 'I have answered your questions because we thought it better that you should understand the situation. As you apparently have not grasped it, I will put it more plainly. It is that if there is any attempt to interfere with us or molest us, by anybody, we shall defend ourselves. We have shown that we can, and we hope that that will be warning enough to prevent further trouble.'

    Sir John stared at the boy speechlessly while his knuckles whitened and his face empurpled. He half rose from his chair as if he meant to attack the boy, and then sank back, thinking better of it. Some seconds passed before he could trust himself to speak. Presently, in a half-choked voice he addressed the boy who was watching him with a kind of critically detached interest.

    'You damned young blackguard! You insufferable little prig! How dare you speak to me like that! Do you understand that I represent the police force of this county? If you don't, it's time you learnt it, and I'll see that you do, b'God. Talking to your elders like that, you swollen-headed little upstart! So you're not to be "molested"; you'll defend yourselves, will you! Where do you think you are? You've got a lot to learn, m'lad, a whole —'

    He broke off suddenly, and sat staring at the boy.

    Dr Torrance leant forward over his desk.

    'Eric —' he began in protest, but made no move to interfere.

    Bernard Westcott remained carefully still in his chair, watching.

    The Chief Constable's mouth went slack, his jaws fell a little, his eyes widened, and seemed to go on widening. His hair rose slightly. Sweat burst out on his forehead, at his temples, and came trickling down his face. Inarticulate gobblings came from his mouth. Tears ran down the sides of his nose. He began to tremble, but seemed unable to move. Then, after long rigid seconds, he did move. He lifted hands that fluttered, and fumbled them to his face. Behind them, he gave queer thin screams. He slid out of the chair to his knees on the floor, and fell forward. He lay there grovelling, and trembling, making high whinnying sounds as he clawed at the carpet, trying to dig himself into it. Suddenly he vomited.

    The boy looked up. To Dr Torrance he said, as if answering a question:

    'He is not hurt. He wanted to frighten us, so we have shown him what it means to be frightened. He'll understand better now. He will be all right when his glands are in balance again.'

    Then he turned away and went out of the room, leaving the two men looking at one another.

    Bernard pulled out a handkerchief, and dabbed at the sweat that stood in drops on his own forehead. Dr Torrance sat motionless, his face a sickly grey. They turned to look at the Chief Constable. Sir John was lying slackly now, seemingly unconscious, drawing long, greedy breaths, shaken occasionally by a violent tremor.

    'My God!' exclaimed Bernard. He looked at Torrance again. 'And you have been here three years!'

    'There's never been anything remotely like this,' the Doctor said. 'We've suspected many possibilities, but there's never been any enmity — and, after this, thank God for that!'

    'Yes, you could well do worse than that,' Bernard told him. He looked at Sir John again.

    'This chap ought to be got away before he pulls round. We'd be better out of the way, too — it's the sort of situation where a man can't forgive witnesses. Send in a couple of his men to collect him. Tell them he's had an attack of some kind.'

    Five minutes later they stood on the steps and watched the Chief Constable driven off, still only semi-conscious.

    ' "All right when his glands are in balance"!' murmured Bernard. 'They seem better at physiology than at psychology. They've broken that man, for the rest of his life.'