1984. Джордж Оруэлл

up the column. Suddenly everyone seemed to be running across the square. The girl joined in the rush. Winston followed. As he ran, he gathered from some shouted remarks that a convoy of Eurasian prisoners was passing.

      Already a dense mass of people was blocking the south side of the square. Winston squirmed his way forward into the heart of the crowd. Soon he was within arm’s length of the girl. He wriggled himself sideways, and with a violent lunge managed to break through the crowd. He was next to the girl. They were shoulder to shoulder, both staring fixedly in front of them.

      A long line of trucks, with wooden-faced guards armed with sub-machine guns standing upright in each corner, was passing slowly down the street. In the trucks little yellow men in shabby greenish uniforms were sitting, jammed close together. Their sad, Mongolian faces gazed out over the sides of the trucks. Winston knew they were there but he saw them only intermittently. The girl’s shoulder, and her arm right down to the elbow, were pressed against his. Her cheek was almost near enough for him to feel its warmth. She had immediately taken charge of the situation, just as she had done in the canteen. She began speaking in the same expressionless voice as before, with lips barely moving.

      “Can you hear me?”

      “Yes.”

      “Can you get Sunday afternoon off?”

      “Yes.”

      “Then listen carefully. You’ll have to remember this. Go to Paddington Station—”

      She outlined the route that he was to follow. A half-hour railway journey; turn left outside the station; two kilometres along the road; a gate with the top bar missing; a path across a field; a grass-grown lane; a track between bushes; a dead tree with moss on it. It was as though she had a map inside her head. “Can you remember all that?” she murmured finally.

      “Yes.”

      “You turn left, then right, then left again. And the gate’s got no top bar.”

      “Yes. What time?”

      “About fifteen. You may have to wait. I’ll get there by another way. Are you sure you remember everything?”