London Experience #318

It was late.  Well past midnight.  I had just finished up at the library and was walking home.  After a quiet if spine-tingling walk through Green Park I was just rounding the corner by Buckingham Palace when I heard it.  It was distinct and clear in the cold night air.  A woman's scream.  High pitched and filled with fear.  Followed quickly by the deep, resonant tones of a man screaming in anger.  In a language I certainly did not know.

It was difficult to see from distance, but I could easily make out two people scuffling ahead on the sidewalk opposite.  As I walked toward them I heard a loud "thud" as one person was thrown up against the ply-board wall of the construction barricade, followed by sobbing and soft words spoken as if in apology for some previous act.  The man continued screaming.

I hurried to cross the street as the man grabbed the woman by the upper arm and flung her across the sidewalk where she tripped and stumbled, almost falling into the street.  Before I reached the scene another man, obviously having just finished up at one the two pubs nearby, saw the incident and quickly put down the bottle he was carrying and walked in the middle of the melee, acting as a shield for the woman against her boyfriend attacker.  Once I got to the scene, the attacker calmed down immediately and turned to me.  "Hey, what's up?" he asked rather nonchalantly.  "I'm fine," I said with some caution in my voice.  "Things don't seem to be so okay here.  I think you need to step away from the woman."

At this moment a building security guard arrived and on his two-way radio requested that the police be called.  The attacker turned from me and started yelling, attempting to get to his prey through the human shield.  The woman ducked away and moved toward me while the two men had a slight scuffle, which resulted in the (now very apparent) drunk human shield on the ground.

"Do you have a way to get home?" I asked the woman as she and I started to walk away from the scene.  I heard her attacker screaming after us.

"Yes, I do," she said and held up a set of keys.  "But he has to come with me," she continued and motioned toward her attacker who had closed the gap between us very quickly.

"We're going," he said to the woman now behind me as I turned to face him.  His demeanor had changed completely.  He was now calm and collected.  The anger I witnessed just seconds before was nowhere to be seen.

Before he could move past me a police van arrived and the security guard waved them down.  The attacker turned and looked at me.  Like a light-switch the anger had returned and the rage in his eyes was evident and intimidating, even though I'm a good 6" taller and had him by at least 20 lbs of muscle.

The woman sat on the curb crying as the police attempted to take her statement.  The man was put in hand-cuffs and placed inside the police van, cursing the entire time.  The drunk human shield was now nowhere to be seen.