My bones will keep.
and as an accompaniment to it there was the shuffle of feet more or less in step.
From where I stood I could see them come in single file out of a side street into Shaftesbury Avenue and turn toward the Circus. The second man had his hands on the shoulders of the leader, the third on his, and so on, to the number of twenty-five or thirty. At the conclusion of that song somebody started “Beer, Beer, Glorious Beer!” pitching it in such a high key that it petered out in confusion.
They trudged steadily on until they reached the center of the Circus, then the leader raised his voice. It was a considerable voice, with parade-ground quality:
“Companee-ee-ee—HALT!”
Everybody else in the Circus was now struck motionless, all with their faces turned toward him, all trying to guess what was afoot. The leader raised his voice again, mimicking the manner of a professional guide:
“？’Ere we are, gents one an’ all. Piccabloodydilly Circus. The Center of the World. The ’Ub of the Universe. Where all the nobs had their wine, women, and song.”
He was not blind, far from it. His eyes were ranging round, taking stock as he spoke. His sight must have been saved by some such accident as mine, but he was pretty drunk, and so were the men behind him.
“An’ we’ll ’ave it too,” he added. “Next stop, the well-known Caffy Royal—an’ all drinks on the house.”
“Yus—but what abaht the women?” asked a voice, and there was a laugh.
“Oh, women. ’S’ that what you want?” said the leader.
He stepped forward and caught a girl by the arm. She screamed as he dragged her toward the man who had spoken, but he took no notice of that.
“There y’are, chum. An’ don’t say I don’t treat you right. It’s a peach, a smasher—if that makes any difference to you.”
“Hey, what about me?” said the next man.
“You, mate? Well, let’s see. Like ’em blond or dark?”
Considered later, I suppose I behaved like a fool. My head was still full of standards and conventions that had ceased to apply. It did not occur to me that if there was to be any survival, anyone adopted by this gang would stand a far better chance than she would on her own. Fired with a mixture of schoolboy heroics and noble sentiments, I waded in. He didn’t see me coming until I was quite close, and then I slogged for his jaw. Unfortunately he was a little quicker…
When I next took an interest in things I found myself lying in the road. The sound of the gang was diminishing into the distance, and the prophet of doom, restored to eloquence, was sending threatful bolts of damnation, hell-fire, and a brimstone Gehenna hurtling after them.
With a bit of sense knocked into me, I became thankful that the affair had not fallen out worse. Had the result been reversed, I could scarcely have escaped making myself responsible for the men he had been leading. After all, and whatever one might feel about his methods, he was the eyes of that party, and they’d be looking to him for food as well as for drink. And the women would go along too, on their own account as soon as they got hungry enough. And now I came to look around me, I felt doubtful whether any of the women hereabouts would seriously mind anyway. What with one thing and another, it looked as if I might have had a lucky escape from promotion to gang leadership.
Remembering that they had been headed for the Café Royal, I decided to revive myself and clear my head at the Regent Palace Hotel. Others appeared to have thought of that before me, but there were quite a lot of bottles they had not found.
I think it was while I was sitting there comfortably with a brandy in front of me and a cigarette in my hand that I at last began to admit that what I had seen was all real—and decisive. There would be no going back—ever. It was finis to all I had known…