My intention had been to look in on the Leebodys and one or two others, but by the time we got up to leave it was clear that, unless we were going to be back in London much later than we had intended, any further calls would have to be postponed until another visit.

I did not know how Bernard felt when we had made our farewells and were running down the drive – he had, in fact, talked very little since we had reached the village, and revealed scarcely anything of his own views – but, for my part, I had a pleasantly relaxing sensation of being on my way back to the normal world. Midwich values gave a feeling of having only a finger-tip touch with reality. One had a sense of being several stages in the rear. While I was back at the difficulties of reconciling myself to the Children's existence, and boggling at what I was told of them, the Zellabys had long ago left all that behind. For them, the improbable element had become submerged. They accepted the Children, and that, for good or ill, they were on their hands; their anxieties now were of a social nature over whether such a modus vivendi as had been contrived was going to collapse. The sense of uneasiness which I had caught from the tension in the Village Hall had been with me ever since.

Nor, I think, was Bernard unaffected by it. I had the impression that he drove with more than usual caution through the village and past the scene of the Pawle boy's accident. He began to increase his speed a little as we rounded the corner on to the Oppley Road, and then we caught sight of four figures approaching. Even at a distance they were unmistakably a quartet of the Children. On an impulse I said:

'Will you pull up, Bernard? I'd like the chance of a better look at them.'

He slowed again, and we came to a stop almost at the foot of Hickham Lane.

The Children came on towards us. There was a touch of institutionalism in their dress – the boys in blue cotton shirts and grey flannel trousers, the girls in short, pleated grey skirts and pale yellow shirts. So far I had only set eyes on the pair outside the Hall, and seen little of them but a glimpse of their faces, and then their backs.

As they approached I found the likeness between them even greater than I had expected. All four had the same browned complexions. The curious lucency of the skin that had been noticeable in them as babies had been greatly subdued by the sunburn, yet enough trace of it remained to attract one's notice. They shared the same dark-golden hair, straight, narrow noses, and rather small mouths. The way the eyes were set was perhaps more responsible than anything for a suggestion of 'foreigners', but it was an abstract foreignness, not calling to mind any particular race, or region. I could not see anything to distinguish one boy from the other; and, indeed, I doubted whether, had it not been for the cut of the hair, I could have told the boys' faces from the girls', with certainty.

Soon I was able to see the eyes themselves. I had forgotten how striking they were in the babies, and remembered them as yellow. But they were more than that: they had a quality of glowing gold. Strange indeed, but, if one could disregard the strangeness, with a singular beauty. They looked like living, semi-precious stones.

I went on watching, fascinated, as they drew level with us. They took no more notice of us than to give the car a brief, unembarrassed glance, and then turned into Hickham Lane.

At close quarters I found them disturbing in a way I could not quite account for, but it became less surprising to me that a number of the village homes had been unprotestingly willing for them to go and live at The Grange.

We watched them a few yards up the lane, then Bernard reached for the starter.

A sudden explosion close by made us both jump. I jerked my head round just in time to see one of the boys collapse, and fall face down on the road. The other three Children stood petrified...

Bernard opened the door, and started to get out. The standing boy turned, and looked at us. His golden eyes were hard, and bright. I felt as if a sudden gust of confusion and weakness were sweeping through me... Then the boy's eyes left ours, and his head turned further.

From behind the hedge opposite, came the sound of a second explosion, more muffled than the first – then, and further away, a scream...

Bernard got out of the car, and I shifted across to follow him. One of the girls knelt down beside the fallen boy. As she made to touch him he groaned, and writhed where he lay. The standing boy's face was anguished. He groaned, too, as if in agony himself. The two girls began to cry.

Then, eerily down the lane, out of the trees that hid The Grange, swept a moan like a magnified echo, and, mingled with it, a threnody of young voices, weeping...

Bernard stopped. I could feel my scalp prickling, and my hair beginning to rise...

The sound came again; and ululation of many voices blended in pain, with the higher note of crying piercing through... Then the sound of feet running down the lane...

Neither of us tried to go on. For myself, I was held for the moment by sheer fright.

We stood there watching while half a dozen boys, all disconcertingly alike, came running to the fallen one, and lifted him between them. Not until they had started to carry him away did I become aware of a quite different sound of sobbing coming from behind the hedge to the left of the lane.

I clambered up the bank, and looked through the hedge there. A few yards away a girl in a summer frock was kneeling on the grass. Her hands were clenched to her face, and her whole body was shaking with her sobs.

Bernard scrambled up beside me, and together we pushed our way through the hedge. Standing up in the field now, I could see a man lying prone at the girl's knees, with the butt of a gun protruding from beneath his body.

As we stepped closer, she heard us. Her sobs stopped momentarily as she looked up with an expression of terror. Then when she saw us it faded, and she went on weeping, helplessly.

Bernard walked closer to her, and lifted her up. I looked down at the body. It was a very nasty sight indeed. I bent over it and pulled the jacket up, trying to make it hide what was left of the head. Bernard led the girl away, half supporting her.

There was a sound of voices on the road. As we neared the hedge a couple of men there looked up and saw us.

'Was that you shootin'?' one of them asked.

We shook our heads.

'There's a dead man up here,' Bernard said.

The girl beside him shivered, and whimpered.

''Oo is it?' asked the same man.

The girl said hysterically:

'It's David. They've killed him. They killed Jim; now they've killed David, too,' and choked in a fresh burst of grief.

One of the men scrambled up the bank.

'Oh, it's you, Elsa, lass,' he exclaimed.

'I tried to stop him, Joe. I tried to stop him, but he wouldn't listen,' she said through her sobs. 'I knew they'd kill him, but he wouldn't listen...' She became incoherent, and clung to Bernard, shaking violently.

'We must get her away,' I said. 'Do you know where she lives?'

'Aye,' said the man, and decisively picked the girl up, as though she were a child. He scrambled down the bank, and carried her, crying and shivering, to the car. Bernard turned to the other man.

'Will you stand by and keep anyone off till the police come?'

'Aye – It'll be young David Pawle?' the man said, climbing the bank.

'She said David. A young man,' Bernard told him.

'That'll be him – the bastards.' The man pushed through the hedge. 'Better call the coppers at Trayne, guv'nor. They got a car there.' He glanced towards the body. 'Murderin' young bastards!' he said.