led her over to the bed, dragged a sheet of plaster off it and made her sit down. My ears were still painful, but the drums in them were beginning to function again. I could hear coughs and hoarse shouts coming from the next room. Through the cloud of dust, I saw that the windows had shattered and that the curtains were hanging in ribbons. I started to cough again, and, at the same moment, I heard the planes returning. Then, one of them opened up with his cannons and roared overhead.
I don’t think Rosalie even heard it; in any case, she was too dazed to respond to the sound. I did nothing. I guessed that, finding their target still standing, they were trying to shoot up the radio masts. However, they had no ammunition that would penetrate the reinforced concrete roof over our heads; and, with most of the ceiling down and the windows gone, there was nothing more they could do to us.
They made six runs in all and, from what I heard, only managed to hit the roof twice. They were not very good at their jobs. Then, at last, having circled a couple of times to inspect the results of their work, they flew off.
The plaster had begun to settle now. I gave Rosalie a towel to wipe her face with, and then I went to the window.
The first thing I saw, lying on the terrace amid the broken glass, was the sentry’s machine pistol. I peered through the tattered curtains looking for its owner.
He was sitting on the concrete with his head lolling between his knees, and blood pouring from a deep gash in his neck. I called to him sharply. He raised his head slightly and then sagged over on to his side.
I dragged a sheet off my bed, rummaged in my suitcase until I found a razor blade, and went out to him.
Something had hit him on the head, almost knocking him out; there was blood coming from just above his right ear. Probably, he had been flung against the balustrade by the blast. The cut in his neck, however, had been done when the windows flew to pieces. A piece of the glass was still sticking in the wound. Something had to be done about that. I cut through the hem of the sheet with the razor blade and then tore the material into strips. With one strip I made a pad. Then, as gently as I could, I eased the glass out of the wound. It bled a little more profusely, but not much more so. I clapped the pad over it, and then began to bandage it into place. He did not utter a sound. He scarcely moved. Once, when I pulled the glass out, he opened his eyes and looked at me, but he was no longer really interested in what was happening to him.
Feet crunched on the broken glass behind me, and I looked round.
The bow-legged officer was picking his way across the terrace towards me. He was covered from head to foot in plaster dust and there was blood trickling down his forehead.
“It is ordered you stay in,” he said.
I went on with the bandaging. He went to the living room and called for two men. They came running out, and he told them to look after the sentry. They stood over me while I finished tying the bandage, but made no attempt to stop me.
When I stood up, they hauled him to his feet and helped him away. The officer picked up the gun.
“He has a head wound,” I said. “He should have medical attention.”
“You go in.” He levelled the gun at me, but without very much conviction. He was a stupid man, and the fact that I had helped the sentry had evidently confused him. I decided to take advantage of the fact.
“It is still permitted to go to the bathhouse?” I asked.
He hesitated, then nodded.
I went into the bedroom and told Rosalie that she could go and wash the dust off. She was still shaken, but the prospect of a bath made her feel better. As she went along the terrace, I saw that the bow-legged officer was posting a new sentry. The dust had made me intolerably thirsty. While the officer was still there, I asked again for a bottle of drinking-water and some fruit. He seemed to take no notice; but a few minutes later, while I was trying to clear up the mess in the room, the sentry appeared at the window and put a bottle of water on the floor and a bowl of fruit beside it.
I thanked him. He grinned, shrugged, made a gesture of cutting someone’s throat, and, with another grin, pointed to me. I grinned back and he went through the pantomime again. Then, he explained it in words. “Man’s throat cut, man cannot eat, food fall out.” A comedian, this one. I smiled until my jaw ached.
Rosalie, when she returned, was impressed. The fact that they had remembered my request meant, she said, that they were ashamed of their earlier behaviour, which meant in turn that they did not hate us too much. I did not tell her that I had asked again in order to get the fruit and water; nor did I tell her about the new sentry’s little joke.
We ate half the fruit and drank a third of the water. I was still filthy from the plaster dust. When the rest of the fruit and water had been put away to keep cool, I got permission from the sentry to go along to the bathhouse and clean up. There, I found that the water supply was no longer working. It did not matter at that moment. The Dutch ewer was full and there was a further supply in the storage cistern on the roof, but I could hear that there was no more water coming in.
As I walked back along the terrace, I was surprised to see Rosalie at the window talking to the sentry. When he heard me coming, he smiled and moved away.
Rosalie’s eyes were gleaming with excitement.
“Why did you not tell me that you helped the man who was wounded?” she began, as I went back into the room.
“It didn’t seem important.”
“It has made a very good impression. That man is his friend. He told me he would bring us more fruit later.”
“You mean they’ve decided not to kill us after all?”
“Oh no, but now they do not hate us so much.”
“That’s something, I suppose.”
“He told me that there are machine guns being mounted on both sides of the roof in case there is another air attack, also that the Nasjah army is advancing from the direction of Meja.”
“How does he know that-I mean about the army?”
“He heard one of the officers on the telephone. It is curious,” she went on thoughtfully; “before, that man would not have looked at us except to think how it would feel to kill us. Now, because you bandage his friend, it is different. He speaks to us and brings us fruit.”
“That’s because of the bombing, and because we were all covered in dust just as he was. He’s not used to air attack. He was frightened, and now because he isn’t dead he feels generous and friendly and wants to talk. It’s nothing to do with my bandaging his friend. It always happens. Besides,” I added, “you’re a woman. That would make a difference, too.”
She thought for a moment or two and then nodded. “Yes, I understand. It was the way I felt when the men with the parangs did not kill us last night. I wanted you to take me to bed at once. If it had not been for the guns beginning to fire and making me frightened in another way…”
I kissed her, and she smiled. “Was it like that in the war?” she said. “When you had been very frightened of being killed or wounded and were not, did you always want a woman afterwards?”
“Well, there wasn’t much to be frightened of building airfields, and when we were in the desert there weren’t any women to have.”
“But you would want one?” she persisted.
“Oh yes. There was nothing to stop you wanting.”
“Now you are making a joke of it. I think it is very good that people should feel that way.”
“There’s a simple biological explanation.”
“Is it biology that I am here with you?”
“Well, not exactly.”
“No. It is because it is good for a man and a woman to have pleasure together. If they are sympathetic, that is…”
“And if they aren’t being threatened by men with parangs, and bombed, and peered at by sentries.”
She looked startled, but did not turn her head. “He is watching us now?”
“With great interest.”
Without once letting her eyes stray in his direction, she walked over to the window and looked up at the torn
