1984 - Planet eBook

out from every fold of his body what seemed an inexhaustiblesupply of acrid-smelling sweat.A new poster had suddenly appeared all over London. Ithad no caption, and represented simply the monstrous figureof a Eurasian soldier, three or four metres high, stridingforward with expressionless Mongolian face and enormousboots, a submachine gun pointed from his hip. Fromwhatever angle you looked at the poster, the muzzle of thegun, magnified by the foreshortening, seemed to be pointedstraight at you. The thing had been plastered on everyblank space on every wall, even outnumbering the portraitsof Big Brother. The proles, normally apathetic aboutthe war, were being lashed into one of their periodical frenziesof patriotism. As though to harmonize with the generalmood, the rocket bombs had been killing larger numbersof people than usual. One fell on a crowded film theatre inStepney, burying several hundred victims among the ruins.The whole population of the neighbourhood turned out fora long, trailing funeral which went on for hours and was ineffect an indignation meeting. Another bomb fell on a pieceof waste ground which was used as a playground and severaldozen children were blown to pieces. There were furtherangry demonstrations, Goldstein was burned in effigy, hundredsof copies of the poster of the Eurasian soldier weretorn down and added to the flames, and a number of shopswere looted in the turmoil; then a rumour flew round thatspies were directing the rocket bombs by means of wirelesswaves, and an old couple who were suspected of being offoreign extraction had their house set on fire and perished