Ice - Anna Kavan [46]
The frozen harbour was a grey-white expanse, dotted with black abandoned hulks, embedded immovably in the ice. Banks of solid ice edged the narrow channel of blackish water, fringed with grinning icicle-teeth. I jumped ashore, snow blew out in great fans, the launch disappeared from sight. There were no goodbyes.
TEN
It could have been any town, in any country. I recognized nothing. Snow covered all landmarks with the same white padding. Buildings were changed into anonymous white cliffs.
A confused disturbance, shouts, the noise of wood splintering and glass breaking came from one of the streets where looting was going on. A crowd had broken into the shops. They had no leader, no fixed objective. They were just a disorderly mob surging about in search of excitement and booty, frightened, hungry, hysterical, violent. They kept fighting among themselves, picking up anything that could be used as a weapon, snatching each other's spoils, taking possession of all they could lay hands on, even the most useless objects, then dropping them and running after some other plunder. What they could not take away they destroyed. They had a senseless mania for destruction, for tearing to shreds, smashing to smithereens, trampling underfoot.
A senior army officer appeared in the street and blew a whistle to summon the police. Striding towards the looters, he shouted orders in a fierce military voice, blew repeated blasts on the whistle. His face was dark with rage, framed by the astrakan collar of his fine overcoat. The main mass of the crowd fled at the sight of him. But some, bolder than the rest, stayed skulking among the wreckage. Furious, he strode towards them, threatened them with his cane, shouted to them to clear off, swore at them. They took no notice at first; then formed a rough circle, rushed at him from several points simultaneously, in groups of three or four together. He pulled out his revolver, fired it over their heads. A mistake: he should have fired at them. They swarmed round him, trying to snatch the weapon. The police were a long time coming. There was a scuffle. In the course of it, either by accident or intention, the gun was dropped through a grating. Its owner was a man in the late fifties, tall, vigorous. But I could see him panting. They were young toughs with faces of a sinister blankness. They attacked cunningly, with bits of metal and broken glass, pieces of smashed furniture, whatever came to hand. He fended them off with his cane, keeping his back to a wall. Their numbers and their persistence were gradually wearing him down; his movements were getting slower. A stone was thrown. Then a shower of stones. One of them knocked his cap off. The sight of his hairless skull produced ribald shouting, and for a second he seemed disconcerted. They took advantage of this, closed in, set on him like a pack of wolves. Blood trickling down his face, back to the wall, he still managed to fight them off. Then I saw something flash: someone had used a knife. Others followed suit. He clutched his chest, blindly staggered forward. The moment he left the wall he was done for, they were on him from every side. They knocked him down, sprang on top of him, tore his coat off, beat his head on the frozen ground, stamped on him, kicked him, slashed his face with chains. Finally he lay still on the snow. He had had absolutely no chance. It was murder.
It was not my affair, but I could not see it and stand there doing nothing. They were society's dregs, they would never have dared come near him in normal times, far less touch him. A little jeering fellow had draped himself in the fine overcoat and was dancing about, tripping over the trailing hem. I was disgusted, furious. In uncontrollable fury I charged at him. stripped off the coat, twisted his arms, punched and pummeled him, slung him across the pavement, heard a satisfactory crunch when his screaming face hit the wall. Turning, I confronted a man twice his size, half saw a boot flick out. Acute pain