1984 - Planet eBook

had bells, had chimed ‘You owe me three farthings.’ Thenhe saw the girl standing at the base of the monument, readingor pretending to read a poster which ran spirally up thecolumn. It was not safe to go near her until some more peoplehad accumulated. There were telescreens all round thepediment. But at this moment there was a din of shoutingand a zoom of heavy vehicles from somewhere to the left.Suddenly everyone seemed to be running across the square.The girl nipped nimbly round the lions at the base of themonument and joined in the rush. Winston followed. As heran, he gathered from some shouted remarks that a convoyof Eurasian prisoners was passing.Already a dense mass of people was blocking the southside of the square. Winston, at normal times the kind ofperson who gravitates to the outer edge of any kind ofscrimmage, shoved, butted, squirmed his way forward intothe heart of the crowd. Soon he was within arm’s length ofthe girl, but the way was blocked by an enormous prole andan almost equally enormous woman, presumably his wife,who seemed to form an impenetrable wall of flesh. Winstonwriggled himself sideways, and with a violent lunge managedto drive his shoulder between them. For a moment itfelt as though his entrails were being ground to pulp betweenthe two muscular hips, then he had broken through,sweating a little. He was next to the girl. They were shoulderto shoulder, both staring fixedly in front of them.A long line of trucks, with wooden-faced guards armedwith sub-machine guns standing upright in each corner, waspassing slowly down the street. In the trucks little yellow