The Children of Men by P. D. James Page A

strength to knock twice before he fell unconscious. I managed to drag him in and to revive him. I gave him some soup and brandy and after an hour he could talk. He wanted to talk so I let him, cradling him in my arms.”
    Theo asked: “What sort of state was he in?”
    It was Rolf who replied: “Filthy, stinking, bloody and desperately thin. He’d walked from the Cumbrian coast.”
    Miriam went on: “I washed him and bandaged his feet and managed to get him to bed. He was terrified to sleep alone, so I lay down beside him fully dressed. I couldn’t sleep. It was then he began talking. He talked for over an hour. I didn’t speak. I just held him and listened. Then, at last, he was silent and I knew he was asleep. I lay there, holding him, listening to his breathing, his muttering. Sometimes he gave a groan and then he would suddenly shriek and sit up, but I managed to soothe him as if he were a baby and he would sleep again. I lay besidehim and wept silently for the things he’d told me. Oh, but I was angry too. I burned with anger like a hot coal in my breast.
    “The island is a living hell. Those who went there human are nearly all dead and the rest are devils. There’s starvation. I know they have seeds, grain, machinery, but these are mostly town offenders not used to growing things, not used to working with their hands. All the stored food has been eaten now, gardens and fields stripped. Now, when people die, some get eaten too. I swear it. It has happened. The island is run by a gang of the strongest convicts. They enjoy cruelty and on Man they can beat and torture and torment and there’s no one to stop them and no one to see. Those who are gentle, who care, who ought not to be there, don’t last long. Some of the women are the worst. Henry told me things I can’t repeat and I shall never forget.
    “And then next morning they came for him. They didn’t burst in, they didn’t make very much noise. They just surrounded the cottage quietly and knocked at the door.”
    Theo asked: “Who were they?”
    “Six Grenadiers and six men from the State Security Police. One beaten exhausted man and they sent twelve to take him. The SSP were the worst. I think they were Omegas. They didn’t say anything to me at first, they just went upstairs and dragged him down. When he saw them he gave a shriek. I’ll never forget that shriek. Never, never … Then they turned on me, but an officer, he was one of the Grenadiers, told them to leave me alone. He said, “ ‘She’s his sister, naturally he came here. She had no choice but to help him.’ ”
    Julian said: “We thought afterwards that he must have had a sister himself, someone he knew would never let him down, would always be there.”
    Rolf said impatiently: “Or else he thought he could show a little humanity and get paid for it by Miriam one way or the other.”
    Miriam shook her head. “No, it wasn’t like that. He was trying to be kind. I asked him what would happen to Henry. He didn’t reply, but one of the SSP said, ‘What do you expect? But you’ll get his ashes.’ It was the captain of the SSP who told me that they could have picked him up when he landed but that they followed him all the way from Cumbria to Oxford. Partly to see where he’d go, I suppose, partly because they wanted to wait until he felt safe before they arrested him.”
    Rolf said with bitter anger: “It was that refinement of cruelty which gave them an extra kick.”
    “A week later the package arrived. It was heavy, like two pounds of sugar, and the same shape, done up in brown paper with a typed label. Inside was this plastic bag filled with white grit. It looked like garden fertilizer, nothing to do with Henry. There was just a typed note, no signature. ‘Killed while attempting to escape.’ Nothing else. I dug a hole in the garden. I remember that it was raining and when I poured the white grit into the hole it was as if the whole garden was crying. But I didn’t