He stuck it out. So did she. He was like a boy in his torn jersey and worn jeans. A very young man indeed was this brigand, the young chieftain. He looked tired, he looked anxious; he looked as if he needed to put his head on someone's shoulder and be told, There, there! He looked as if he needed a good feed and to have his sleep out for once. Is there any need to describe what happened? Emily smiled at last, drily, and for herself — for he could not see why she smiled, and she would not be disloyal to him in sharing it with me; she roused herself in response to the appeal which he had no idea he was making, the real one, for he went on logically explaining and exhorting. In a short time they were discussing the problems of their household like two young parents. Then off she went with him, and for some days I did not see her, and only by fits and starts did I come to understand the nature of this new problem, and what was so difficult about these particular 'kids'. Not only from Emily, did I learn: when I joined the people on the pavement everybody was talking about them; they were everyone's problem.
A new one. In understanding why this was, we householders had to come to terms with how far we had travelled from that state when we swapped tales and rumours about 'those people out there', about the migrating tribes and gangs. Once, and only a short time ago, to watch — and fearfully — a mob go past our windows was the limit of our descent into anarchy. Once, a few months ago, we had seen these gangs as altogether outside any kind of order. Now we wondered if and when we should join them. But above all the point was that when studied, when understood, their packs and tribes had structure, like those of primitive man or of animals, where in fact a strict order prevails. A short time with people living this sort of life, and one grasped the rules — all unwritten, of course, but one knew what to expect.
And this was precisely where these new children were different. No one knew what to expect. Before, the numerous children without parents attached themselves willingly to families or to other clans or tribes. They were wild and difficult, problematical, heartbreaking; they were not like the children of a stable society: but they could be handled inside the terms of what was known and understood.
Not so this new gang of 'kids'. Gangs, rather: soon we learned that there were others; it was not only in our district that such packs of very young children defined all attempts at assimilation. For they were very young. The oldest were nine, ten. They seemed never to have had parents, never to have known the softening of the family. Some had been born in the underground and abandoned. How had they survived? No one knew. But this was what these children knew how to do. They stole what they needed to live on, which was very little indeed. They wore clothes — just enough. They were… no, they were not like animals who have been licked and purred over, and, like people, have found their way to good behaviour by watching exemplars. They were not a pack either, but an assortment of individuals together only for the sake of the protection in numbers. They had no loyalty to each other, or, if so, a fitful and unpredictable loyalty. They would be hunting in a group one hour, and murdering one of their number the next. They ganged up on each other according to the impulse of the moment. There were no friendships among them, only minute-by-minute alliances, and they seemed to have no memory of what had happened even minutes before. There were thirty or forty in the pack in our neighbourhood, and for the first time I saw people showing the uncontrolled reactions of real panic. They were going to call the police, the army; they would have the children smoked out of the Underground…
A woman from the building I lived in had gone out with some food to see 'if anything could be done for them', and had met a couple on a foray. She had offered them food, which they had eaten then and there, tearing it and snapping and snarling at each other. She had waited, wanting to talk, to offer help, more food, even perhaps homes. They finished the food and went off, without looking at her. She had sat down: it was in an old warehouse near the Underground entrance, where grass and shrubs were growing up through the floor, a place both sheltered and open, so that she could run for it if she had to. And she did have to… as she sat there, she saw that all around her were the children, creeping closer. They had bows and arrows. She, unable to believe, as she put it, 'that they really were past hope' had talked quietly to them, of what she could offer, of what they risked living as they did. She understood, and with real terror, that they did not understand her. No, it was not that they did not understand speech, for they were communicating with each other in words that were recognisable, if only just — they were words, and not grunts and barks and screams. She sat on, knowing that an impulse would be enough to lift a bow up and send an arrow her way. She talked for as long as she could make herself. It was like, she said, talking into a vacuum — it was the most uncanny experience of her life. 'When I looked at them, they were only kids, that was what I couldn't get into my thick head, they were just children… but they are wicked. In the end I got up and left. And the thing that was worst of all was when one of them came running after me and tugged at my skirt. I couldn't believe it. I knew he would have stuck a knife into me as easily. He had his finger in his mouth, and he was pulling at my skirt. He was grinning. It was just an impulse, do you see? He didn't know what he was doing. The next minute there was a yell and they were all after me. I ran, I can tell you, and I only escaped by nipping into that old Park Hotel at the corner and I shook them off by barricading myself into a room on the fourth floor until dark.'
These were the children Gerald had decided must be rescued by his household. Where would they all fit in? Well, somewhere, and if they didn't, there was that other big house just across the road, and perhaps Emily and he could run the two houses between them?
There was much resistance to the idea. From everybody. Emily too. But Gerald wore them down: he always did, because after all it was he who maintained them, got food and supplies — he who took responsibility. If he said it could be done, then perhaps… and they were just 'little kids', he was right about that. 'Just little kids, how can we let them rot out there?'
I believe that the others in the house comforted themselves with 'they won't come anyway'. They were wrong. Gerald could make people believe in him. He went down the Underground, heavily armed and showing it. Yes, he was terrified… they crept from holes and corners and tunnels, they seemed able to see without much light whereas he was half-blinded by the flare of the torch. He was alone down there, and he was an enemy, since everybody was, offering them something they did not even know the words for. But he was able to make them follow him. He walked back from the Underground like a Pied Piper, and the twenty or so children who followed him ran and shouted all over the house, flinging open doors and slamming them, putting their fists through the precious polythene in the windows. Smelling food being cooked, they stood crowded together waiting for it to come their way. They saw people sitting down, children their own ages with the adults, a sight that was astonishing to them. They were subdued, it seemed; or at least their reflexes were temporarily put out. Or perhaps they were curious? They would not sit down at table — they never had, they would not sit down on the floor in an orderly way to be served, but they did stand snatching at food which was passed to them on trays, and bolted it down, their bright hard eyes watching everything, trying to understand. When there was not enough food to fill their aroused expectations, they ran shrieking and jeering through the house, destroying everything.