leaving her strong brown legs bare.
She reached David and she swirled the skirt over his head, smothering
the flames that still ate into his flesh.
The other women followed her, using their clothing to wrap him as he
fell and rolled on the earth.
Only then did David begin to scream, from that lipless mouth with the
exposed teeth. It was a sound that none of them would ever forget. As
he screamed the eyes were open, with the lashes and brow and most of the
lids burned away. The eyes were dark indigo blue in the glistening mask
of wet scorched meat, and the little blood vessels, sealed by the heat,
popped open and dribbled and spurted. As he screamed, the blood and
lymph bubbled from the nostril holes where his nose had been, and his
body writhed and heaved and convulsed as spasm after spasm of unbearable
agony hit him.
The women had to hold him down to control his struggles, and to prevent
him tearing with clawed fingers at the ruins of his face.
He was still screaming when the doctor from the kibbutz slashed open the
sleeve of his pressure suit with a scalpel and pressed the morphine
needle into the twitching jumping muscles of his arm.
The Brig saw the last bright radar image fade from the plot and heard
the young radar officer report formally, No further contact. And a
great silence fell on the command bunker.
They were all watching him. He stood hunched over the plot and his big
bony fists were clasped at his sides.
His face was stiff and expressionless, but his eyes were terrible.
It seemed that the frantic voices of his two pilots still echoed from
the speakers above his head, as they called to each other in the
extremes of mortal conflict.
They had all heard David's voice, hoarse with sorrow and fear.
Joel! No, Joe! Oh God, no! and they knew what that meant. They had
lost them both, and the Brig was still stunned by the sudden
incalculable turn that the sortie had taken.
At the moment he had lost control of his fighters he had known that
disaster was unavoidable, and now his son was dead. He wanted to cry
out aloud, to protest against the futility of it. He closed his eyes
tightly for a few seconds, and when he opened them, he was in control
again.
General alert, he snapped. All squadrons to 'Red' standby, he knew they
faced an international crisis. I want air cover over the area they went
down. They may have ejected. Put up two Phantom flights and keep an
umbrella over them. I want helicopters sent in immediately, with
paratrooper guards and medical teams - Command bunker moved swiftly into
general alert procedure.
Get me the Prime Minister, he said, he was going to have to do a lot of
explaining, and he spared a few vital seconds to damn David Morgan
roundly and bitterly.
The airforce doctor took one look at David's charred and scorched head
and he swore softly. We'll be lucky to save this one.
Loosely he swathed the head in Vaseline bandages and they hurried with
David's blanket-wrapped body on the stretcher to the Bell 2o5 helicopter
