Eagle in the Sky

EAGLE IN THE SKY [047-066-4.9]

BY WILBUR SMITH

Synopsis:

With a dull but awful roar, the Mirage bloomed with dark crimson flame

and sooty black smoke, the wind ripped flames outwards in great

streamers and pennants that engulfed all around them, and David

staggered onwards in the midst of the roaring furnace that seemed to

consume the very air.

Drawn to the sky as though to his natural element, young David Morgan

spurns the boardroom future mapped out for him by his family for the

life of a jet pilot. Then he meets Debra the beautiful Israeli writer

for whom he will fight, in another country's war, at the controls of his

Mirage. Yet the breathless action which brings them together is also

the very tragedy that will threaten to tear them apart.

The novels of Wilbur Smith

The Courtney Novels:

When the Lion Feeds

The Sound of Thunder

A Sparrow Falls

The Burning Shore

Power of the Sword

Rage

A Time to Die

The Ballantyne novels:

A Falcon Flies

Men of Men

The Angels Weep

The Leopard Hunts in Darkness

Also:

The Dark of the Sun

Shout at the Devil

Gold Mine

The Diamond Hunters

The Sunbird

Eagle in the Sky

The Eye of the Tiger

Cry Wolf

Hungry as the Sea

Wild Justice

Golden Fox

Elephant Song

Eagle in The Sky

Wilbur Smith was born in Central Africa in 1933. He was educated at

Michael-house and Rhodes University.

He became a full-time writer in 1964 after the successful publication of

When the Lion Feeds, and has since written twenty-three novels,

meticulously researched on his numerous expeditions worldwide.

He normally travels from November to February, often spending a month

skiing in Switzerland, and visiting Australia and New Zealand for sea

fishing. During his summer break, he visits environments as diverse as

Alaska and the dwindling wilderness of the African interior. He has an

abiding concern for the peoples and wildlife of his native continent, an

interest strongly reflected in his novels.

He is married to Danielle, to whom his last nineteen books have been

dedicated.

WILBUR SMITH A Mandarin Paperback

EAGLE IN THE SKY

First published in Great Britain x974 by William Heinemann Ltd

This edition published 11992 by Mandarin Paperbacks an imprint of Reed

International Books Limited Michelin House, 8i Fulham, Road, London SW3

6RB and Auckland, Melbourne, Singapore and Toronto Reprinted 1993

(twice), 1994 (twice), 1995 (three times), i996 (three times)

Copyright C Wilbur Smith 1974

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British

Library

ISBN 0 7493 o622 X

Photo-type-set by Intype, London

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Cox &Wyman Ltd, Reading, Berkshire

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of

trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated

without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover

other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition

including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Acknowledgements

While writing this story I had valuable help from a number of people.

Major Dick Lord and Lieutenant Peter Cooke gave me advice on the

technique and technicalities of modern fighter combat. Dr. Robin

Sandell and Dr. David Davies provided me with the medical details. A

brother angler, the Rev. Bob Redrup, helped with the choice of the

title. To them all I am

sincerely grateful.

While in Israel many of the citizens of that state gave help and

hospitality in generous measure. It grieves me

that I may not mention their names.

As always my faithful research assistant gave comfort,

encouragement and criticism when it was most needed.

This book is dedicated to her son, my stepson, Dieter Schmidt.

Three things are too wonderful for me, four I do not understand, The way

of an eagle in the sky, The way of a serpent on a rock, The way of a

ship on the high seas,

And the way of a man with a maiden.

Proverbs, 30, -8-2o

There was snow on the mountains of the Hottentots, Holland and the wind

came off it, whimpering like a lost animal. The instructor stood in the

doorway of his tiny office and hunched down into his flight jacket,

thrusting his fists deeply into the fleece-lined pockets. He watched the

black chauffeur-driven Cadillac coming down between the cavernous

iron-clad hangars, and he frowned sourly. For the trappings of wealth.

Barney Venter had a deeply aching gut-envy.

The Cadillac swung in and parked in a visitors slot against the hangar

wall, and a boy sprang from the rear door with boyish enthusiasm, spoke

briefly with the coloured chauffeur, then hurried towards Barney.

He moved with a lightness that was strange for an adolescent. There was

no stumbling over feet too big for his body, and he carried himself

tall. Barney's envy curdled as he watched the young princeling

approach.

He hated these pampered darlings, and it was his particular fate that he

must spend so much of his working day in their company. Only the very

rich could afford to instruct their children in the mysteries of flight.

He was reduced to this by the gradual running down of his body, the

natural attrition of time. Two years previously, at the age of

forty-five, he had failed the strict medical on which his position of

senior airline captain depended, and now he was going down the other

side of the hill, probably to end as a typical fly-burn, steering tired

and beaten-up heaps on unscheduled and shady routes for unlicensed and

unprincipled charter companies.

The knowledge made him growl at the child who stood before him. Master

Morgan, I presume?

Yes, Sir, but you may call me David. The boy offered his hand and

instinctively Barney took it, immediately wishing he had not. The hand

was slim and dry, but with a hard grip of bone and sinew.

Thank you, David. Barney was heavy on irony. And you may continue to

call me "Sir".

He knew the boy was fourteen years old, but he stood almost level with

Barney's five-foot-seven. David smiled at him and Barney was struck

almost as by a physical force by the boy's beauty. It seemed as though

each detail of his features had been wrought with infinite care by a

supreme artist. The total effect was almost unreal, theatrical. It

seemed indecent that hair should curl and glow so darkly, that skin

should be so satiny and delicately tinted, or that eyes possess such

depth and fire.

Barney became aware that he was staring at the boy, that he was falling

under the spell that the child seemed so readily to weave, and he turned

away abruptly.

Come on. He led the way through his office with its fly-blown nude

calendars and handwritten notices carrying terse admonitions against

asking for credit, or making right-hand circuits.

What do you know about flying? he asked the boy as they passed through

the cool gloom of the hangar where gaudily coloured aircraft stood in

long rows, and out again through the wide doors into the bright mild

winter sunshine.

Nothing, Sir. The admission was refreshing, and Barney felt his mood

sweeten slightly.

But you want to learn?

Oh, yes Sir! The reply was emphatic and Barney glanced at him. The

boy's eyes were so dark as to be almost black, only in the sunlight did

they turn deep indigo blue.

All right then, let's begin. The aircraft was waiting on the concrete

apron.

This is a Cessna 150 high-wing monoplane. Barney began the walk-around

check with David following attentively, but when he started a brief

explanation of the control surfaces and the principle of lift and

wingloading, he became aware that the boy knew more than he had owned up

to. His replies to Barney's rhetorical questions were precise and

accurate.

You've been reading, Barney accused.

Yes, Sir, David admitted, grinning. His teeth were of peculiar

whiteness and symmetry and the smile was irresistible. Despite himself,

Barney realized he was beginning to like the boy.

Right, jump in. Strapped into the cramped cockpit shoulder to Shoulder,

Barney explained the controls and instruments, then led into the

starting procedure.Master switch on. He flipped the red button.

Right , turn that key, same as in a car.

David leaned forward and obeyed. The prop spun and the engine fired and

kicked, surged, then settled into a satisfying healthy growl. They

taxied down the apron with David quickly developing his touch on the

rudders, and paused for the final checks and radio procedure before

swinging wide on to the runway.

Right, pick an object at the end of the runway. Aim for it and open the

throttle gently.

Around them the machine became urgent, and it buzzed busily towards the

far-off fence markers.

Ease back on the wheel.

And they were airborne, climbing swiftly away from the earth.

Gently, said Barney. Don't freeze on to the controls.

Treat her like, he broke off. He had been about to liken the aircraft

to a woman, but realized the unsuitability of the simile. Treat her

like a horse. Ride her light Instantly he felt David's death-grip on

the wheel relax, the touch repeated through his own controls.

That's it, David. He glanced sideways at the boy, and felt a flare of

disappointment. He had felt deep down in his being that this one might

be bird, one of the very rare ones like himself whose natural element

was the blue. Yet here in the first few moments of flight the child was

wearing an expression of frozen terror. His lips and nostrils were

trimmed with marble white and there were shadows in the dark blue eyes

like the shape of sharks moving beneath the surface of a summer sea.

Left wing up, he snapped, disappointed, trying to shock him out of it.

The wing came up and held rock steady, with no trace of over-correction.

Level her out. His own hands were off the controls as the nose sank to

find the horizon.

Throttle back. The boy's right hand went unerringly to the throttle.

once more Barney glanced at him. His expression had not altered, and

then with a sudden revelation Barney recognized it not as fear, but as

ecstasy.

He is bird. The thought gave him a vast satisfaction, and while they

flew on through the basic instruction in trim and attitude, Barney's

mind went back thirty years to a battered old yellow Tiger Moth and

another child in his first raptures of flight.

They skirted the harsh blue mountains, wearing their mantles of

sun-blazing snow, and rode the tail of the wild winds that came down off

them.

Wind is like the sea, David. It breaks and swirls around high ground.

Watch for it. David nodded as he listened to his first fragments of

flying lore, but his eyes were fixed ahead savouring each instant of the

experience.

They turned north over the bleak bare land, the earth naked pink and

smoky brown, stripped by the harvest of its robes of golden wheat.

Wheel and rudder together, David, Barney told him.Let's try a steep turn

now. Down went the wing and boldly the nose swept around holding its

attitude to the horizon.

Ahead of them the sea broke in long lines of cream on the white beaches.

The Atlantic was cold green and ruffled by the wind, flecked with

dancing white.

South again, following the coastline where small figures on the white

sand paused to look up at them from under shading hands, south towards

the great flat mountain that marked the limit of the land, its shape

unfamiliar from this approach.

The shipping lay thick in the bay and the winter sunlight flashed from

the windows of the white buildings huddling below the steep wooded sides

of the mountain.

Another turn, confident and sure, Barney sitting with his hands in his

lap and his feet off the rudder bars, and they ran in over the Tygerberg

towards the airfield.

Okay, said Barney. I've got her. And he took them in for the

touch-down and taxied back to the concrete apron beside the hangars. He

pulled the mixture control fully lean and let the engine starve and die.

They sat silent for a moment, neither of them moving or speaking, both

of them unwinding but still aware that something important and

significant had happened and that they had shared it.

Okay? Barney asked at last.

Yes, sir, David nodded, and they unstrapped and climbed down on to the

concrete stiffly. Without speaking they walked side by side through the

hangar and office. At the door they paused.

Next Wednesday? Barney asked.

Yes, sir. David left him and started towards the waiting Cadillac, but

after a dozen steps he stopped, hesitated, then turned back.

That was the most beautiful thing that has ever happened to me, he said

shyly. Thank you, sir. And he hurried away leaving Barney staring

after him.

The Cadillac pulled off, gathering speed, and disappeared round a bend

amongst the trees beyond the last buildings. Barney chuckled, shook his

head ruefully and turned back into his office. He dropped into the

ancient swivel chair and crossed his ankles on the desk. He fished a

crumpled cigarette from the pack, straightened and lit it.

Beautiful? he grunted, grinning. Crap! He flicked the match at the

waste bin and missed it.

The telephone woke Mitzi Morgan and she crept out from under her pillows

groping blindly for it.

"Lo.

Mitzi?

Hi, Dad, are you coming up? She came half-awake at her father's voice,

remembering that this was the day he would fly up to join the family at

their holiday home.

Sorry, baby. Something has broken here. I won't be up until next week.

Oh, Dad! Mitzi expressed her disappointment.

Where's Davey? her father went on quickly to forestall any

recriminations.

You want him to call you back?

No, I'll hold on. Call him, please, baby.

Mitzi stumbled out of bed to the mirror, and with her fingers tried to

comb some order into her hair. It was off-blonde and wiry, and fuzzed

up tight at the first touch of sun or salt or wind. The freckles were

even more humiliating she decided, looking at herself disapprovingly.

You look like a Pekinese, she spoke aloud, a fat little Pekinese, with

freckles, and gave up the effort of trying to change it. David had seen

her like this a zillion times.

She pulled a silk gown over her nudity and went out into the passage,

past the door to her parents suite where her mother slept alone, and

into the living area of the house.

The house was stacked in a series of open planes and galleries, glass

and steel and white pine, climbing out of the dunes along the beach,

part of sea and sky, only glass separating it from the elements, and now

the dawn filled it with a strange glowing light and made a feature of

the massive headland of the Robberg that thrust out into the sea across

the bay.

The playroom was scattered with the litter of last night's party, twenty

house guests and as many others from the big holiday homes along the

dunes had left their mark, spied beer, choked ashtrays and records

thrown carelessly from their covers.

Mitzi picked her way through the debris and climbed the circular

staircase to the guest rooms. She checked David's door, found it open,

and went in. The bed was untouched, but his denims and sweat shirt were

thrown across the chair and his shoes had been kicked off carelessly.

Mitzi grinned, and went through on to the balcony. it hung high above

the beach, level with the gulls which were already dawn-winging for the

scraps that the sea had thrown up during the night.

Quickly Mitzi hoisted the gown up around her waist, climbed up onto the

rail of the balcony and stepped over the drop to the rail of the next

balcony in line. She jumped down, drew the curtains aside and went into

Marion's bedroom.

Marion was her best friend. Secretly she knew that this happy state of

affairs existed chiefly because she, Mitzi, provided a foil for Marion's

petite little body and wide-eyed doll-like beauty, and was a source of

neverending gifts and parties, free holidays and other good things.

She looked so pretty now in sleep, her hair golden and soft as it fanned

out across David's chest. Mitzi transferred all her attention to her

cousin, and felt that sliding sensation in her breast and the funny warm

liquid sensation at the base of her belly as she looked at him. He was

seventeen years old now, but already he had the body of a grown man.

He was her most favourite person in all the world, she thought. He's so

beautiful, so tall and straight and beautiful, and his eyes can break

your heart.

The couple on the bed had thrown aside their covering in the warmth of

the night, and there was hair on David's chest now, thick and dark and

curly, there was muscle in arm and leg, and breadth across the

shoulders.

David, she called softly, and touched his shoulder.Wake up. His eyes

opened, and he was awake instantly, his gaze focused and aware.

mitz? What is it?Get your pants on, warrior. My papa's on the

line."God. David sat up, dropping Marion's head on to the pillow. What

time is it? Late, Mitzi told him. You should set the alarm when you go

visiting. Marion mumbled a protest and groped for the sheets as David

jumped from the bed.

Where's the phone? In my room, but you can take it on the extension in

yours. She followed him across the balcony railing, and curled up on

David's bed while he picked up the receiver and with the extension cord

trailing behind him began pacing the thick carpet restlessly.

Uncle Paul? David spoke. How are you? Mitzi groped in the pocket of

her gown and found a Gauloise. She lit it with her gold Dunhill, but at

the third puff David turned aside from his pacing, grinned at her, took

the cigarette from between her lips and drew deeply upon it.

Mitzi pulled a face at him to disguise the turmoil that his nakedness

stirred within her, and selected another cigarette for herself.

He'd die if he knew what I was thinking, she told herself, and derived a

little comfort from the thought.

David finished his conversation and cradled the receiver before turning

to her.

He's not coming. I know.

But he is sending Barney up in the Lear to fetch me.

Big pow-wow.

It figures, Mitzi nodded, then began a convincing imitation of her

father. We have to start thinking about your future now, my boy. We

have to train you to meet the responsibilities with which destiny has

entrusted you.

David chuckled and rummaged for his running shorts in the drawer of his

bureau.I suppose I'll have to tell him now."Yes, Mitzi agreed. You sure

will have to do that.David pulled up his shorts and turned for the

door.Pray for me, doll.

You'll need more than prayer, warrior, said Mitzi comfortably.

The tide had swept the beach smooth and firm, and no other feet had

marked it this early. David ran smoothly, long strides leaving damp

footsteps in a chain behind him.

The sun came up casting a soft pink sheen on the sea, and touching the

Outeniqua mountains with flame, but David ran unseeing. His thoughts

were on the impending interview with his guardian.

It was a time of crisis in his life, high school completed and many

roads open. He knew the one he had chosen would draw violent

opposition, and he used these last few hours of solitude to gather and

strengthen his resolve.

A conclave of gulls, gathered about the body of a stranded fish, rose in

cloud as he ran towards them, their wings catching the low sun as they

hovered then dropped again when he passed.

He saw the Lear coming before he heard it. It was low against the dawn,

rising and dropping over the towering bulk of the Robberg. Then

swiftly, coming in on a muted shriek, it streaked low along the beach

towards him.

David stopped, breathing lightly even after the long run, and raised

both arms above his head in salute. He saw Barney's head through the

Perspex canopy turned towards him, the flash of his teeth as he grinned

and the hand raised, returning his salute as he went by.

The Lear turned out to sea, one wingtip almost touching the wave crests,

and it came back at him. David stood on the exposed beach and steeled

himself as the long sleek nose dropped lower and lower, aimed like a

javelin at him.

Like some fearsome predatory bird it swooped at him and at the last

possible instant David's nerve broke and he flung himself on to the wet

sand. The jet blast lashed him as the Lear rose and turned inland for

the airfield.

Son of a bitch, muttered David as he stood up brushing damp sand from

his bare chest, and imagined Barney's amused chuckle.

I taught him good, thought Barney, sprawled in the copilot's seat of the

Lear as he watched David ride the delicate line of altitude where skill

gave way to chance.

Barney had put on weight since he had been eating Morgan bread, and his

paunch peeked shyly over his belt. The beginning of jowls bracketed the

wide downturned mouth that gave him the air of a disgruntled toad, and

the cap of hair that covered his skull was sparser and speckled with

salt.

Watching David fly, he felt the small warmth of his affection for him

that his sour expression belied. Three years he had been chief pilot of

the Morgan group and he knew well to whose intervention he owed the

post.

It was security he had now, and prestige. He flew great men in the most

luxuriously fitted machines, and when the time came for him to go out to

pasture he knew the grazing would be lush. The Morgan group looked

after its own.

This knowledge sat comfortably on his stomach as he watched his protege

handle the jet.

Extended low flying like this required enormous concentration, and

Barney watched in vain for any relaxation of it in his pupil.

The long golden beaches of Africa streamed steadily beneath them,

punctuated by rock promontories and tiny resorts and fishing villages.

Delicately the Lear followed the contours of the coastline, for they had

spurned the direct route for the exhilaration of this flight.

Ahead of them stretched another strip of beach but as they howled low

along it they saw that this one was occupied.

A pair of tiny feminine figures left the frothy surf and ran

panic-stricken to where towels and discarded bikinis lay above the

high-water mark. White buttocks contrasted sharply with a coffee-brown

tan, and they laughed delightedly.

Nice change for you to see them running away, David, Barney grinned as

they left the tiny figures far behind and bore onwards into the south.

From Cape Agulhas they turned inland, climbing steeply over the mountain

ranges, then David eased back on the throttles and they sank down beyond

the crests towards the city, nestling under its mountain.

As they walked side by side towards the hangar, Barney looked up at

David who now topped him by six inches.

Don't let him stampede you, boy, he warned. You've made your decision.

See you stick to it. David took his British racing green M.G. over De

Wool Drive, and from the lower slopes of the mountain looked down to

where the Morgan building stood four-square amongst the other tall

monuments to power and wealth.

David enjoyed its appearance, clean and functional like an aircraft's

wing, but he knew that the soaring freedom of its lines was deceptive.

It was a prison and fortress.

He swung off the freeway at an interchange and rode down to the

foreshore, glancing up at the towering bulk of the Morgan building again

before entering the ramp that led to the underground garages beneath it.

When he entered the executive apartments on the top floor, he passed

along the row of desks where the secretaries, hand-picked for their

looks as well as their skill with a typewriter, sat in a long row. Their

lovely faces opened into smiles like a garden of exotic blooms as David

greeted each of them. Within the Morgan building he was treated with

the respect due the heir apparent.

Martha Goodrich, in her own office that guarded the inner sanctum,

looked up from her typewriter, severe and businesslike.

Good morning, Mister David. Your uncle is waiting and I do think you

could have worn a suit You're looking good, Martha. You've lost weight

and I like your hair like that. It worked, as it always did.

Her expression softened.

Don't you try buttering me up, she warned him primly. I'm not one of

your floozies. Paul Morgan was at the picture window looking down over

the city spread below him like a map, but he turned quickly to greet

David.

Hello, Uncle Paul. I'm sorry I didn't have time to change. I thought

it best to come directly That's fine, David. Paul Moron flicked his

eyes over David's floral shirt open to the navel, the wide tooled

leather belt, white slacks and open sandals. On him they looked good,

Paul admitted reluctantly. The boy wore even the most outlandish modern

clothes with a furious grace.

It's good to see you. Paul smoothed the lapels of his own dark

conservatively-cut suit and looked up at his nephew. Come in. Sit

down, there, the chair by the fireplace. As always, he found that David

standing emphasized his own lack of stature. Paul was short and heavily

built in the shoulders, thick muscular neck and square thrusting head.

Like his daughter, his hair was coarse and wiry and his features

squashed and puglike.

All the Morgans were built that way. It was the proper course of

things, and Davids exotic appearance was out side the natural order. It

was from his mother's side, of course. All that dark hair and flashing

eyes, and the temperament that went with it.

Well, David. First off, I want to congratulate you on your final

results. I was most gratified, Paul Morgan told him gravely, and he

could have added - I was also mightily relieved. David Morgan's

scholastic career had been a tempestuous affair. Pinnacles of

achievement followed immediately by depths of disgrace from which only

the Morgan name and wealth had rescued him.

There had been the business with the games master's young wife. Paul

never did find out the truth of the matter, but had thought it

sufficient to smooth it over by donating a new organ to the school

chapel and arranging a teaching scholarship for the games master to a

foreign university. Immediately thereafter David had won the coveted

Wessels prize for mathematics, and all was forgiven, until he decided to

test his house-master's new sports car, without that gentleman's

knowledge, and took it into a tight bend at ninety miles an hour. The

car was unequal to the test, and David picked himself up out of the

wreckage and limped away with a nasty scratch on his calf. It had taken

all Paul Morgan's weight to have the house-master agree not to cancel

David's appointment as head of house. His prejudices had finally been

overcome by the replacement of his wrecked car with a more expensive

model, and the Morgan group had made a grant to rebuild the ablution

block of East House.

The boy was wild, Paul knew it well, but he knew also that he could tame

him. Once he had done that he would have forged a razor-edged tool. He

possessed all the attributes that Paul Morgan wanted in his successor.

The verve and confidence, the bright quick mind and adventurous spirit,

but above all he possessed the aggressive attitude, the urge to compete

that Paul defined as the killer instinct.

Thank you, Uncle Paul, David accepted his uncle's congratulations

warily. They were silent, each assessing the other. They had never

been easy in the other's company, they were too different in many ways,

and yet in others too much alike. Always it seemed that their interests

were in conflict.

Paul Morgan moved across to the picture windows, so that the daylight

back-lit him it was an old trick of his to put the other person at a

disadvantage.

Not that we expected less of you, of course, he laughed, and David

smiled to acknowledge the fact that his uncle had come close to levity.

And now we must consider your future. David was silent.

The choice open to you is wide, said Paul Morgan, and then went on

swiftly to narrow it. Though I do feel business science and law at an

American University is what it should be. With this obvious goal in

mind I have used my influence to have you enrolled in my old college,

Uncle Paul, I want to fly, said David softly, and Paul Morgan paused.

His expression changed fractionally.

We are making a career decision, my boy, not expressing preferences for

different types of recreation."No, sir. I mean I want to fly, as a way

of life."Your life is here, within the Morgan group. It is not

something in which you have freedom of action I don't agree with you,

sir.

Paul Morgan left the window and crossed to the fire place. He selected

a cigar from the humidor on the mantel, and while he prepared it he

spoke softly, without looking at David.

Your father was a romantic, David. He got it out of his system by

charging around the desert in a tank. It seems you have inherited this

romanticism from him. He made it sound like some disgusting disease. He

came back to where David sat. Tell me what you propose. 'I have

enlisted in the air force, sir. 'You've done it? You've signed? 'Yes,

sir. 'How long? 'Five years. Short service commission. Five years -

Paul Morgan whispered, well, David, I don't know what to say. You know

that you are the last of the Morgans. I have no son. It will be sad to

see this vast enterprise without one of us at the helm. I wonder what

your father would have thought of this 'That's hitting low, Uncle Paul.

I don't think so, David. I think you are the one who is cheating. Your

trust fund is a huge block of Morgan shares, and other assets given to

you, on the unstated understanding that you assume your duties and

responsibilities, if only he would bawl me out, thought David fiercely,

knowing that he was being stampeded as Barney had warned him. If only

he would order me to do it so I could tell him to shove it. But he knew

he was being manipulated by a man skilled in the art, a man whose whole

life was the manipulation of men and money, in whose hands a

seventeen-year-old boy was as soft as dough.

You see, David, you are born to it. Anything else is cowardice, self

indulgence, the Morgan group reached out its tentacles, like some

grotesque flesh-eating plant, to suck him in and digest him, - we can

have your enlistment papers annulled. It will be the matter of a single

phone call - Uncle Paul, David almost shouted, trying to shut out the

all-pervasive flow of words. My father. He did it.

He joined the army. Yes, David. But it was different at that time.

One of us had to go. He was the younger, and, of course, there were

other personal considerations. Your mother, he let the rest of it hang

for a moment then went on, and when it was over he came back and took

his rightful place here. We miss him now, David. No one else has been

able to fill the gap he left. I have always hoped that you might be the

one But I don't want to. David shook his head. I don't want to spend

my life in here. He gestured at the mammoth structure of glass and

concrete that surrounded them. I don't want to spend each day poring

over piles of paper It's not like that, David. It's exciting,

challenging, endlessly variable Uncle Paul. David raised his voice

again. What do you call a man who fills his belly with rich food, and

then goes on eating? Come now, David The first edge of irritation

showed in Paul Morgan's voice, and he brushed the question aside

impatiently. What do you call him? David insisted.

I expect that you would call him a glutton Paul Morgan answered.

And what do you call a man with many millions who spends his life trying

to make more? Paul Morgan froze into stillness. He stared at his ward

for long seconds before he spoke. You become insolent, he said at last.

No, sir. I did not mean it so. You are not the glutton - but I would

be. Paul Morgan turned away and went to his desk. He sat in the

high-backed leather chair and lit the cigar at last. They were silent

again for a long time until at last Paul Morgan sighed.

You'll have to get it out of your system, the way your father did. But

how I grudge you five wasted years. 'Not wasted, Uncle Paul. I will

come out with a Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautical engineering.

'I suppose we'll just have to be thankful for little things like that.

David went and stood beside his chair.

Thank you. This is very important to me. Five years, David. After

that I want you, then he smiled slightly to signal a witticism, at least

they will make you cut your hair.

Four miles above the warm flesh-coloured earth, David Morgan rode the

high heavens like a young god. The sun visor of his helmet was closed,

masking with its dark cyclops eye the rapt, almost mystic expression

with which he flew. Five years had not dulled the edge of his appetite

for the sensation of power and isolation that flight in a Mirage

interceptor awoke in him.

The unfiltered sunlight blazed ferociously upon the metal of his craft,

clothing him in splendour, while far below the very clouds were

insignificant against the earth, scattered and flying like a sheep flock

before the wolf of the wind.

Today's flight was tempered by a melancholy, a sense of impending loss.

The morrow was the last day of his enlistment. At noon his commission

expired and if Paul Morgan prevailed he would become Mister David, new

boy at Morgan Group.

He thrust the thought aside, and concentrated on the enjoyment of these

last precious minutes; but too soon the spell was broken.

Zulu Striker One, this is Range Control. Report your position. Range

Control, this is Zulu Striker One holding up range fifty miles.

Striker One, the range is clear. Your target-markers are figures eight

and twelve. Commence your run. The horizon revolved abruptly across

the nose of the Mirage, as the wings came over and he went down under

power, falling from the heights, a controlled plunge, purposeful and

precise as the stoop of a falcon.

David's right hand moved swiftly across the weapon selector panel,

locking in the rocket circuit.

The earth flattened out ahead, immense and featureless, speckled with

low bush that bluffed past his wingtips as he let the Mirage sink lower.

At this height the awareness of speed was breathtaking, and as the first

marker came up ahead it seemed at the same instant to flash away below

the silvery nose.

Five, six, seven, the black numerals on their glaring white grounds

flickered by.

A touch of left rudder and stick, both adjustments made without

conscious effort, and ahead was the circular layout of the rocket range,

the concentric rings shrinking in size around the central mound, the

coke of flight jargon, which was the bull's-eye of the target.

David brought the deadly machine in fast and low, his mach meter

recording a speed that was barely subsonic. He was running off the

direct line of track, judging his moment with frowning concentration.

When it came he pulled the Mirage's nose in to the pitch up and went

over on to the target with his gloved right finer curled about the

trigger lever.

The shrieking silver machine achieved her correct slightly nose-down

attitude for rocket launch at the precise instant of time that the white

blob of coke was centred in the diamond patterns of the reflector sight.

It was an evolution executed with subtle mastery of man diverse skills,

and David pressed against the y spring-loaded resistance of the trigger.

There was no change in the feel of the aircraft, and the hiss of the

rocket launch was almost lost beneath the howl of the great jet, but

from beneath his wings the brief smoke lines reached out ahead towards

the target, and in certainty of a fair strike David pushed his throttle

to the gate and waited for the rumbling ignition of his afterburners,

giving him power for the climb out of range of enemy flak.

What a way to go, he grinned to himself as he lay on his back with the

Mirage's nose pointed into the bright blue, and gravity pressing him

into the padding of his seat.

Hello, Striker One. This is Range Control. That was right on the nose.

Give the man a coke. Nice shooting.

Sorry to lose you, Davey. The break in hallowed range discipline

touched David. He was going to miss them all of them. He pressed the

transmit button on the maulded head of his joystick, and spoke into the

microphone of his helmet, From Striker One, thanks and farewell, David

said. Over and out. His ground crew were waiting for him also.

He shook hands with each of them, the awkward handshakes and rough jokes

masking the genuine affection that the years had built between them.

Then he left them and went down the vast metal-skinned cavern, redolent

with the smell of grease and oil along which the gleaming rows of

needle-nosed interceptors stood, even in repose their forward lines

giving them speed and thrust.

David paused to pat the cold metal of one of them, and the orderly found

him there peering up at the emblem of the Flying Cobra upon the towering

tail plane.

C. O. 's compliments, sir, and will you report to him right away.

Colonel Rastus Naude was a dried-out stick of a man, with a wizened

monkey face, who wore his uniform and medal ribbons with a casually

distracted air.

He had flown Hurricanes in the Battle of Britain, Mustangs in Italy,

Spitfires and Messerschmitt log's in Palestine and Sabres in Korea, and

he was too old for his present command, but nobody could muster the

courage to tell him that, especially as he could out-fly and out-gun

most of the young bucks on the squadron.

So we are getting rid of you at last, Morgan, he greeted David. Not

until after the mess party, sir. Ja, Rastus nodded. You've given me

enough hardship these last five years. You owe me a bucket of whisky.

He gestured to the hard-backed chair beside his desk. Sit down, David.

It was the first time he had used David's given name, and David placed

his flying helmet on the corner of the desk and lowered himself into the

chair, clumsy in the constricting grip of his G-suit.

Rastus took his time filling his pipe with the evil black Magaliesberg

shag and he studied the young man opposite him intently. He recognized

the same qualities in him that Paul Morgan had prized, the aggressive

and competitive drive that gave him a unique value as an interceptor

pilot.

He lit the pipe at last, puffing thick rank clouds of blue smoke as he

slid a sheath of documents across the desk to David.

Read and sign, he said. That's an order. David glanced rapidly through

the papers, then he looked up and grinned.

You don't give in easily, sir, he admitted.

One document was a renewal of his short service contract for an

additional five years, the other was a warrant of promotion, from

captain to major.

We have spent a great deal of time and money in making you what you are.

You have been given an exceptional talent, and we have developed it

until now you are, I'll not mince words, one hell of a pilot I'm sorry,

sir, David told him sincerely.

Damn it, said Rastus angrily. Why the hell did you have to be born a

Morgan. All that money, they'll clip your wings, and chain you to a

desk. It's not the money. David denied it swiftly. He felt his own

anger stir at the accusation.

Rastus nodded cynically. Ja! he said. I hate the stuff also. He

picked up the documents David had rejected, and grunted. Not enough to

tempt you, hey?

Colonel, it's hard to explain. I just feel that there is more to do,

something important that I have to find out about, and it's not here. I

have to go look for it. Rastus nodded heavily. All right then, he

said. I had a good try. Now you can take your long-suffering

commanding officer down to the mess and spend some of the Morgan

millions on filling him up with whisky He stood up and clapped his

uniform cap at a rakish angle over his cropped grey head. You and I

will get drunk together this night, for both of us are losing something&

I perhaps more than you.

It seemed that David had inherited his love of beautiful and powerful

machines from his father. Clive Morgan had driven himself, his wife,

and his brand new Ferrari sports car into the side of a moving goods

train at an unlit level crossing. The traffic police estimated that the

Ferrari was travelling at one hundred and fifty miles an hour at the

moment of impact.

Clive Morgan's provision for his eleven-year-old son was detailed and

elaborate. The child became a ward of his uncle Paul Morgan, and his

inheritance was arranged in a series of trust funds.

On his majority he was given access to the first of the funds which

provided an income equivalent to that of, say, a highly successful

surgeon. On that day the old green M. G. had given way to a

powder-blue Maserati, in true Morgan tradition.

On his twenty-third birthday, control of the sheep ranches in the

Karroo, the cattle ranch in South West Africa and Jabulani, the

sprawling game ranch in the Sabi-Sand block, passed to him, their

management handled smoothly by his trustees.

On his twenty-fifth birthday the number two fund interest would divert

to him, in addition to a large block of negotiable paper and title in

two massive urban holdings, office and supermarket complexes, and a

highrise housing project.

At age thirty the next fund opened for him, as large as the previous two

combined, and transfer to him for the first of five blocks of Morgan

stock would begin.

From then onwards, every five years until age fifty further funds

opened, further blocks of Morgan stock would be transferred. It was a

numbing procession of wealth that stretched ahead of him, daunting in

its sheer magnitude; like a display of too much rich food, it seemed to

depress appetite.

David drove fast southwards, with the Michelin metallics hissing

savagely on the tarmac, and he thought about all that wealth, the great

golden cage, the insatiable maw of Morgan Group yawning open to swallow

him so that, like the cell of a jelly fish, he would become a part of

the whole, a prisoner of his own abundance.

The prospect appalled him, adding a hollow sensation in his belly to the

pulse of pain that beat steadily behind his eyes, testimony to the

foolhardiness of trying, to drink level with Colonel Rastus Naude.

He pushed the Maserati harder, seeking the twin opiates of power and

speed, finding comfort and escape in the rhythms and precision of

driving very fast, and the hours flew past as swiftly as the miles so it

was still daylight when he let himself into Mitzi's apartment on the

cliffs that overlooked Clifton beach and the clear green Atlantic.

Mitzi's apartment was chaos, that much had not changed. She kept open

house for a string of transitory guests who drank her liquor, ate her

food and vied with each other as to who could create the most

spectacular shambles.

In the first bedroom that David tried there was a strange girl with dark

hair curled on the bed in boys pyjamas, sucking her thumb in sleep.

With the second room he was luckier, and he found it deserted, although

the bed was unmade and someone had left breakfast dishes smeared with

congealed egg upon the side table.

David slung his bag on the bed and fished out his bathing costume. He

changed quickly and went out by the side stairs that spiralled down to

the beach and began to run, a trot at first, and then suddenly he

sprinted away, racing blindly as though from some terrible monster that

pursued him. At the end of Fourth beach where the rocks began, he

plunged into the icy surf and swam out to the edge of the kelp at

Bakoven point, driving overarm through the water and the cold lanced him

to the bone, so that when he came out he was blue and shuddering. But

the hunted feeling was gone and he warmed a little as he jogged back to

Mitzi's apartment.

He had to remove the forest of pantihose and feminine underwear that

festooned the bathroom before he could draw himself a bath. He filled

it to the overflow, and as he settled into it the front door burst open

and Mitzi came in like the north wind.

Where are you, warrior? She was banging the doors. I saw your car in

the garage, so I know you're hereV In here, doll, he called, and she

stood in the doorway and they grinned at each other. She had put on

weight again, he saw, straining the seam of her skirt, and her bosom was

bulky and amorphous under the scarlet sweater. She had finally given up

her struggle with myopia and the metal-framed spectacles sat on the end

of her little nose, while her hair fuzzed out at unexpected angles.

You're beautiful, she cried, coming to kiss him and getting soap down

her sweater as she hugged him.

Drink or coffee? she asked, and David winced at the thought of alcohol.

Coffee will be great, doll She brought it to him in a mug, then perched

on the toilet seat.

Tell all! she commanded and while they chatted the pretty dark-haired

girl wandered in, still in her pyjamas and bug-eyed from sleep.

This is my coz, David. Isn't he beautiful? Mitzi introduced them.

And this is Liz. The girl sat on the dirty linen basket in the corner

and fixed David with such an awed and penetrating gaze that Mitzi warned

her, Cool it, darling. Even from here I can hear your ovaries bouncing

around like ping-pong balls. But she was such a silent, ethereal little

thing that they soon forgot her and talked as if they were alone. It

was Mitzi who said suddenly, without preliminaries, Papa is waiting for

you, licking his lips like an ivyleague ogre. I ate with them Saturday

night, he must have brought your name up one zillion times. It's going

to be strange to have you sitting up there on Top Floor, in a charcoal

suit, being bright at Monday morning conference - David stood up

suddenly in the bath, cascading suds and steaming water, and began

soaping his crotch vigorously . They watched him with interest, the

dark-haired girl's eyes widening until they seemed to fill her face.

David sat down again, slopping water over the edge.

I'm not going! he said, and there was a long heavy silence.

What you mean, you're not going? Mitzi asked timorously.

Just that, said David. I'm not going to Morgan Group. 'But you have

toVWhy? asked David.

Well, I mean it's decided, you promised Daddy that when you finished

with the airforce. No, David said, I made no promise. He just took it.

When you said a moment ago, being bright at Monday morning conference, I

knew I couldn't do it. I guess I've known all along. What you going to

do, then? Mitzi had recovered from the first shock, and her plump

cheeks were tinged pink with excitement.

I don't know. I just know I am not going to be a caretaker for other

men's achievements. Morgan Group isn't me. It's something that Gramps,

and Dad and Uncle Paul made. It's too big and cold - Mitzi was flushed,

bright-eyed, nodding her agreement, enchanted by this prospect of

rebellion and open defiance.

David was warming to it also. I'll find my own road to go. There's

more to it. There has to be something more than this. Yes, Mitzi

nodded so that she almost shook her spectacles from her nose. You're

not like them. You would shrivel and die up there on executive suite.

I've got to find it, Mitzi. It's got to be out there somewhere. David

came out of the bath, his body glowing dull red-brown from the scalding

water and steam rising from him in light tendrils. He pulled on a Terry

robe as he talked and the two girls followed him through to the bedroom

and sat side by side on the edge of the bed, eagerly nodding their

encouragement as David Morgan made his formal declaration of

independence. Mitzi spoiled it, however.

What are you going to tell Daddy? she asked. The question halted

David's flow of rhetoric, and he scratched the hair on his chest as he

considered it. The girls waited attentively.

He's not going to let you get away again, Mitzi warned. Not without a

stand-up, knock-down, drag-emout fight. In this moment of crisis

David's courage deserted him. I've told him once, I don't have to tell

him again. 'You just going to cut and run? Mitzi asked.

I'm not running, David replied with frosty dignity as he picked up the

pigskin folder which held his thick sheaf of credit cards from the

bedside table. I am merely reserving the right to determine my own

future. He crossed to the telephone and began dialling. Who are you

calling? 'The airline. 'Where are you heading? 'The same place as

their first flight out. I'll cover for you, declared Mitzi loyally,

you're doing the right thing, warrior. You bet I am, David agreed. My

way and screw the rest of them.

Do you have time for that? Mitzi giggled, and the dark-haired girl

spoke for the first time in a husky intense voice without once taking

her eyes off David. I don't know about the rest of them, but may I be

first, please? With the telephone receiver to his ear David glanced at

her, and realized with only mild surprise that she was in deadly

earnest.

David came out into the impersonal concrete and glass arrivals hall of

Schipol Airport, and he paused to gloat on his escape and to revel at

this sense of anonymity in the uncaring crowd. There was a touch at his

elbow, and he turned to find a tall, smiling Dutchman quizzing him

through rimless spectacles.

Mr. David Morgan, I think? and David gaped at him.

I am Frederick van Gent of Holland and Indonesian Stevedoring. We have

the honour to act on behalf of Morgan Shipping Lines in Holland. It is

a great pleasure to make your acquaintance. God, no! David whispered

wearily.

Please? No. I'm sorry. It's nice to meet you. David shook the hand

with resignation.

I have two urgent telex messages for you, Mr. Morgan. Van Gent produced

them with a flourish. I I have driven out from Amsterdam especially to

deliver same. The first was from Mitzi who had sworn to cover for him.

Abject apologies your whereabouts extracted with rack and thumbscrew

stop be brave as a lion stop be -ferocious as an eagle Love Mitzi.

David said, Traitorous bitch! and opened the second envelope.

Your doubts understood, your action condoned stop confident your good

sense will lead you eventually on to path of duty stop your place here

always open affectionately Paul Morgan.

David said, Crafty old bastard, and stuffed both messages into his

pocket.

Is there a reply? Van Gent asked.

Thank you, no. It was good of you to take this trouble.

No trouble, Mr. Morgan Can I help you in any way?

Is there anything you require?

Nothing, but thanks again. They shook hands and Van Gent bowed and left

him. David went to the Avis counter and the girl smiled brightly at

him.

Good evening, sir.

David slipped his Avis card across the desk. I want something with a

little jump to it, please.

Let me see, we have a Mustang Mach 1? 1 She was pure blonde with a

cream and pink unlined face.

That will do admirably, David assured her, and as she began filling the

form in, she asked, Your first visit to Amsterdam, sir?

They tell me it's the city with the most action in Europe, is that

right?

If you know where to go, she murmured.

You should show me? David asked and she looked up at him with

calculating eyes behind a neutral expression, made a decision and

resumed her writings.

Please sign here, sir. Your account will be charged, then she dropped

her voice. If you have any queries on this contract, you can contact me

at this number, after hours. My name is Gilda.

Gilda shared a walk-up over the outer canal with three other girls who

showed no surprise, and made no objection when David carried his single

Samsonite case up the steep staircase. However, the action that Gilda

provided was in a series of discotheques and coffee bars where lost

little people gathered to talk revolution and guru babble. In two days

David discovered that pot tasted terrible and made him nauseous, and

that Gilda's mind was as bland and unmarked as her exterior. He felt

the stirrings of uneasiness when he studied the others that had been

drawn to this city by the news that it was wide open, with the most

understanding police force in the world. In them he saw symptoms of his

own restlessness, and he recognized them as fellow seekers.

Then the damp chill of the lowlands seemed to rise up out of the canals

like the spirits of the dead on doomsday, and when you have been born

under the sun of Africa the wintry effusions of the north are a pale

substitute.

Gilda showed no visible emotion when she said goodbye, and with the

heaters blasting hot air into the cab of the Mustang David sent it

booming southwards. On the outskirts of Namur there was a girl standing

beside the road. in the cold her legs were bare and brown, protruding

sweetly from the short faded blue denim pants she wore. She tilted her

golden head and cocked a thumb.

David hit the stick down, and braked with the rubber squealing protest.

He reversed back to where she stood.

She had flat-planed slavic features and her hair was white blonde and

hung in a thick plait down her back.

He guessed her age at nineteen.

You speak English? he asked through the window.

The cold was making her nipples stand out like marbles through the thin

fabric of her shirt.

No, she said. But I speak American, will that do? 'Right on! David

opened the passenger door, and she threw her pack and rolled sleeping

bag into the back seat.

I'm Philly, she said.

David. You in show biz? God, no, what makes you ask?

The car, the face, the clothes. The car is hired, the clothes are

stolen and I'm wearing a mask. Funny man, she said and curled up on the

seat like a kitten and went to sleep.

He stopped in a village where the forests of the Ardennes begin and

bought a long roll of crisp bread, a slab of smoked wild boar meat and a

bottle of Wet Chandon.

When he got back to the car Philly was awake. You hungry? he asked.

Sure. She stretched and yawned.

He found a loggers, track going off into the forest and they followed it

to a clearing where a long golden shaft of sunlight penetrated the green

cathedral gloom.

Philly climbed out and looked around her. Keen, Davey, keen! she said.

David poured the champagne into paper cups and sliced the meat with a

penknife while Philly broke the bread into hunks. They sat side by side

on a fallen log and ate.

It's so quiet and peaceful, not at all like a killing ground. This is

where the Germans made their last big effort, did you know that?

Philly's mouth was full of bread and meat which didn't stop her reply. I

saw the movie, Henry Fonda, Robert Ryan, it was a complete crock. All

that death and ugliness, we should do something beautiful in this place,

David said dreamily, and she swallowed the bread, took a sip of the

wine, before she stood up languidly and went to the Mustang. She

fetched her sleeping bag and spread it on the soft bed of leaf mould.

Some things are for talking about, others are for doing, she told him.

For a while in Paris it looked as though it might be significant, as

though they might have something for each other of importance. They

found a room with a shower in a clean and pleasant little pension near

the Gore St Lazare, and they walked through the streets all that day,

from Concorde to Etoile, then across to the Eiffel Tower and back to

Notre Dame. They ate supper at a sidewalk cafe on the Boule Mich, but

half-way through the meal they reached an emotional dead end.

Suddenly they ran out of conversation, they sensed it at the same time,

each aware that they were strangers in all but the flesh and the

knowledge chilled them both.

Still they stayed together that night, even going through the mechanical

and empty motions of love, but in the morning, when David came out of

the shower, she sat up in the bed and said, You are splitting. It was a

statement and not a question, and it needed no reply.

Are you all right for bread? he asked, and she shook her head. He

peeled off a pair of thousand-franc notes and put them on the side

table.

I'll pay the bill downstairs. He picked up his bag. Stay loose, he

said.

Paris was spoiled for him now, so he took the road south again towards

the sun for the sky was filled with swollen black cloud and it rained

before he passed the turn-off to Fontainebleau. It rained as he

believed was only possible in the tropics, a solid deluge that flooded

the concrete of the highway and blurred his windscreen so that the

flogging of the wipers could not clear it swiftly enough for safe

vision.

David was alone and discomforted by his inability to sustain

communication with another human being.

Although the other traffic had moderated its pace in the rain, he drove

fast, feeling the drift and skate of his tyres on the slick surface.

This time the calming effect of speed was ineffective and when he ran

out of the rain south of Beaune it seemed that the wolf pack of

loneliness ran close behind him.

However, the first outpouring of sunshine lightened his mood, and then

far over the stone walls and rigid green lines of the vineyards he saw a

wind-sock floating like a soft white sausage from its pole. He found

the exit from the highway half a mile farther on, and the sign Club

Aeronautique de Provence. He followed it to a neat little airfield set

among the vineyards, and one of the aircraft on the hard-stand was a

Marchetti Acrobatic type F26o. David climbed out of the Mustang and

stared at it like a drunkard contemplating his first whisky of the day.

The Frenchman in the club office looked like an unsuccessful undertaker,

and even when David showed him his logbook and sheafs of licences, he

resisted the temptation of hiring him the Marchetti. David could take

his pick from the others, but the Marchetti was not for hire. David

added a 500-franc note to the pile of documents, and it disappeared

miraculously into the Frenchman's pocket. Still he would not let David

take the Marchetti solo, and he insisted on joining him in the

instructor's seat.

David executed a slow and stately four-point roll before they had

crossed the boundary fence. It was an act of defiance, and he made the

stops crisp and exaggerated. The Frenchman cried Sacr6 blue! with

great feeling and froze in his seat, but he had the good sense not to

interfere with the controls. David completed the manoeuvre and then

immediately rolled in the opposite direction with the wing-tip a mere

fifty feet above the tips of the vines. The Frenchman relaxed visibly,

recognizing the masterly touch, and when David landed an hour later he

grinned mournfully at him.

Formidable! he said, and shared his lunch with David, garlic polony,

bread and a bottle of rank red wine. The good feeling of flight and the

aroma of garlic lasted David all the way to Madrid.

Just as though it had been arranged long before, as though his frantic

flight across half of Europe was a pre-knowledge that something of

importance awaited him in Madrid.

He reached the city in the evening, hurrying the last day's journey to

be in time for the first running of the bulls that season. He had read

Hemingway and Conrad and much of the other romantic literature of the

bullring. He wondered if there might not be something for him in this

way of life. It read so well in the books the beauty, glamour and

excitement, the courage and trial and the final moment of truth. He

wanted to evaluate it, to see it here in the great Plaza Des Torros, and

then, if it still intrigued him, go on to the festival at Pamplona later

in the season.

David checked in at the Gran Via with its elegance faded to mere

comfort, and the porter arranged tickets for the following day. He was

tired from the long drive and he went to bed early, waking refreshed and

eager for the day. He found his way out to the ring and parked the

Mustang amongst the tourist buses that already crowded the parking lot

so early in the season.

The exterior of the ring was a surprise, sinister as the temple of some

pagan and barbaric religion, unrelieved by the fluted tiers of balconies

and encrustations of ceramic tiles, but the interior was as he knew it

would be from film and photograph. The sanded ring smooth and clean,

the flags against the cloud-flecked sky, the orchestra pouring out its

jerky, rousing refrain, and the excitement.

The excitement amongst the crowd was more intense than he had known at

prize fights or football internationals, they hummed and swarmed, rank

uponrank of white eager faces and the music goaded them on.

David was sitting amongst a group of young Australians who wore souvenir

sombreros and passed goat-skins of bad wine about, the girls squealing

and chattering like sparrows. One of them picked on David, leaning

forward to tug his shoulder and offer him the wine-skin. She was pretty

enough in a kittenish way and her eyes made it clear that the offer was

for more than cheap wine, but he refused both invitations brusquely and

went to fetch a can of beer from one of the vendors. His chilly

experience with the girl in Paris was still too fresh. When he returned

to his seat the Aussie girl eyed the beer he carried reproachfully and

then turned brightly and smiling to her companions.

The late arrivals were finding their seats now and the excitement was

escalating sharply. Two of them climbed the stairs of the aisle towards

where David sat.

A striking young couple in their early twenties, but what first drew

David's attention was the good feeling of companionship and love that

glowed around them, like an aura setting them apart.

They climbed arm in arm, passed where David sat, and took seats a row

behind and across the aisle. The girl was tall with long legs clad in

short black boots and dark pants over which she wore an apple-green

suede jacket that was not expensive but of good cut and taste.

In the sun her hair glittered like coal newly cut from the face and it

hung to her shoulders in a sleek soft fall.

Her face was broad and sun-browned, not beautiful for her mouth was too

big and her eyes too widely spaced, but those eyes were the colour of

wild honey, dark brown and flecked with gold. Like her, her companion

was tall and straight, dark and strong-looking. He guided her to her

seat with a brown muscled arm and David felt a sharp stab of anger and

envy for him.

Big cocky son of a gun, he thought. They leaned their heads together

and spoke secretly, and David looked away, his own loneliness

accentuated by their closeness.

The parade of the toreadors began, and they came out with the sunlight

glittering on the sequins and embroidery of their suits, as though they

were the scales of some flamboyant reptile. The orchestra blared, and

the keys to the bull pens were thrown down on to the sand. The

toreadors capes were spread on the barrera below their favourites and

they retired from the ring.

In the pause that followed David glanced at the couple again. He was

startled to find that they were both watching him and the girl was

discussing him. She was leaning on her companion's shoulder, her lips

almost touching his ear as she spoke and David felt his stomach clench

under the impact of those honey golden eyes. For an instant they stared

at each other and then the girl jerked away guiltily and dropped her

gaze, but her companion held David's eyes openly, smiling easily, and it

was David who looked away.

Below them in the ring the bull came out at full charge, head high, and

hooves skidding in the sand.

He was beautiful and black and glossy, muscle in the neck and shoulder

bunching as he swung his head from side to side and the crowd roared as

he spun and burst into a gallop, pursuing an elusive flutter of pink

across the ring. They took him on a circuit, passing him smoothly from

cape to cape, letting him show off his bulk and high-stepping style, and

the perfect sickle of his horns with their creamy points, before they

brought in the horse.

The trumpets ushered in the horse, and they were a mockery, a brave

greeting from the wretched nag, with scrawny neck and starting coat, one

rheumy old eye blinkered so he could not see the fearsome creature he

was going to meet.

Clownish in his padding, seeming too frail to carry the big armoured man

on his back, they led him out and placed him in the path of the bull,

and here any semblance of beauty ended.

The bull went into him head down, sending the gawky animal reeling

against the barrera and the man leaned over the broad black back and

ripped and tore into the hump with the lance, worrying the flesh,

working in the steel with all his weight until the blood poured out in a

slick tide, black as crude oil, and dripped from the bull's legs into

the sand.

Raging at the agony of the steel the bull hooked and butted at the

protective pads that covered the horse's flanks. They came up as

readily as a theatre curtain and the bull was into the scrawny roan

body, hacking with the terrible horns, and the horse screamed as its

belly split open and the purple and pink entrails spilled out and

dangled into the sand.

David was dry-mouthed with horror as around him the crowd blood-roared,

and the horse went down in a welter of equipment and its own guts.

They drew the bull away and flogged the fallen horse, twisting its tail

and prodding its testicles, forcing it to rise at last and stand

quivering and forlorn. Then beating it to make it move again they led

it from the ring stumbling over its own entrails.

Then they went to work on the bull, slowly, torturously, reducing it

from a magnificent beast to a blundering hunk of sweating and bleeding

flesh, splattered with the creamy froth blown from its agonized lungs.

David wanted to scream at them to stop it, but sick to the stomach,

frozen by guilt for his own part in this obscene ritual, he sat through

it in silence until the bull stood in the centre of the ring, the sand

about him ploughed and riven by his dreadful struggles. He stood with

his head down, muzzle almost touching the sand and the blood and froth

dripped from his nostrils and gaping mouth. The hoarse sawing of his

breathing carried to David even above the crazed roaring of the crowd.

The bull's legs shuddered and he passed a dribble of loose liquid yellow

dung that fouled his back legs. It seemed to David that this was the

final humiliation, and he found he was whispering aloud.

No! No! Stop it! Please, stop it! Then the man in the glittering suit

and ballet shoes came to end it, and the point of the sword struck bone

and the blade arced then spun away in the sunlight, and the bull heaved

and threw thick droplets of blood, before he stood again.

They picked up the sword from the sand and gave it to the man and he

sighted over the quiescent, dying beast and again the thrust was

deflected by bone and David found that at last he had power in his

voice, and he screamed:Stop it! You filthy bastards. Twelve times the

man in the centre tried with the sword, and each time the sword flicked

out of his hand, and then at last the bull fell of its own accord, weak

from the slow loss of much blood and with its heart broken by the

torture and the striving. It tried to rise, lunging weakly, but the

strength was not there and they killed it where it lay, with a dagger in

the back of the neck, and they dragged it out with a team of mules its

legs waggling ridiculously in the air and its blood leaving a long brown

smudge across the sand.

Stunned with the monstrous cruelty of it, David turned slowly to look at

the girl. Her companion was leaning over her solicitously, whispering

to her, trying to comfort her.

She was shaking her head slowly, in a gesture of incomprehension, and

her honey-coloured eyes were blinded with weeping. Her lips were apart,

quivering with grief, and her cheeks were awash, shiny with her tears.

Her companion helped her to her feet, and gently took her down the

steps, leading her away blindly like a new widow from her husband's

grave.

Around him the crowd was laughing and exhilarated, high on the blood and

the pain, and David felt himself rejected, cut off from them. His heart

went out to the weeping girl, she of all of them was the only one who

seemed real to him. He had seen enough also, and he knew he would never

get to Pamplona. He stood up and followed the girl out of the ring, he

wanted to speak to her, to tell her that he shared her desolation, but

when he reached the parking lot they were already climbing into a

battered old Citroen CV. loo, and although he broke into a run, the car

pulled away, blowing blue smoke and clattering like a lawn-mower, and

turned into the traffic heading east.

David watched it go with a sense of loss that effectively washed away

the good feeling of the last few days, but he saw the old Citroen again

two days later, when he had abandoned all idea of the Pamplona Festival

and headed south. The Citroen looked even sicker than before, under a

layer of pale dust and with the canvas showing on a rear tyre. The

suspension seemed to have sagged on the one side, giving it a rakishly

drunken aspect.

It was parked at a filling station on the outskirts of Zaragoza on the

road to Barcelona, and David pulled off the road and parked beyond the

gasoline pumps. An attendant in greasy overalls was filling the tank of

the Citroen under the supervision of the muscular young man from the

bullring. David looked quickly for the girl - but she was not in the

car. Then he saw her.

She was in a cantina across the street, haggling with the elderly woman

behind the counter. Her back was turned towards him, but David

recognized the mass of dark hair now piled on top of her head. He

crossed the road quickly and went into the shop behind her. He was not

certain what he was going to do, acting only on impulse.

The girl wore a short floral dress which left her back and shoulders

bare, and her feet were thrust into open sandals. But in concession to

the ice in the air she wore a shawl over her shoulders. Close to, her

skin had a plastic smoothness and elasticity, as though it had been

lightly oiled and polished, and down the back of her naked neck the hair

was fine and soft, growing in a whorl in the nape.

David moved closer to her as she completed her purchase of dried figs

and counted her change. He smelt her, a light summery perfume that

seemed to come from her hair. He resisted the temptation to press his

face into the dense pile of it.

She turned smiling and saw him standing close behind her. She

recognized him instantly, his was not a face a girl would readily

forget. She was startled. The smile flickered out on her face and she

stood very still looking at him, her expression completely neutral, but

her lips slightly parted and her eyes soft and glowing golden.

This peculiar stillness of hers was a quality he would come to know so

well in the time ahead. I saw you in Madrid, he said, at the bulls.

Yes, she nodded, her voice neither welcoming nor forbidding.

You were crying So were you. I Her voice was low and clear, her

enunciation flawless, too perfect not to be foreign.

No, David denied it.

You were cryin& she insisted softly. You were crying inside. And he

inclined his head in agreement.

Suddenly she proffered the paper bag of figs.

Try one, she said and smiled. It was a warm friendly smile. He took

one of the fruits and bit into the sweet flesh as she moved towards the

door, somehow conveying an invitation for him to join her. He walked

with her and they looked across the street at the Citroen. The

attendant had finished filling the tank, and the girl's companion was

waiting for her, leaning against the bonnet of the weary old car. He

was lighting a cigarette, but he looked up and saw them. He evidently

recognized David also, and he straightened up quickly and flicked away

the burning match.

There was a soft whooshing sound and the heavy thump of concussion in

the air, as fire flashed low across the concrete from a puddle of

spilled gasoline. In an instant the flames had closed over the rear of

the Citroen, and were drumming hungrily at the coachwork.

David left the girl and sprinted across the road.

Get it away from the pumps, you idiot, he shouted, and the driver

started out of frozen shock.

It was happy fifth of November, a spectacular pyrotechnic display, but

David got the handbrake off and the gearbox into neutral, and he and the

driver pushed it into an open parking area alongside the filling station

while a crowd materialized, seeming to appear out of the very earth, to

scream hysterical encouragement and suggestions while keeping at a

discreet distance.

They even managed to rescue the baggage from the rear seat before the

flames engulfed it entirely, and belatedly the petrol attendant arrived

with an enormous scarlet fire extinguisher. To the delighted applause

of the crowd, he drenched the pathetic little vehicle in a great cloud

of foam, and the excitement was over. The crowd drifted away, still

laughing and chattering and congratulating the amateur firefighter on

his virtuoso performance with the extinguisher, while the three of them

regarded the scorched and blackened shell of the Citroen ruefully.

I suppose it was a kindness really, the poor old thing was very tired,

the girl said at last. It was like shooting a horse with a broken leg.

Are you insured? David asked, and the girl's companion laughed.

You're joking, who would insure that? I only paid a hundred U. S.

dollars for her. They assembled the small pile of rescued possessions,

and the girl spoke quickly to her companion in foreign, slightly

guttural language which touched a deep chord in David's memory. He

understood what she was saying, so it was no surprise when she looked at

him.

We've got to meet somebody in Barcelona this evening. It's important.

Let's go, said David.

They piled the luggage into the Mustang and the girl's companion folded

up his long legs and piled into the back seat. His name was Joseph, but

David was advised by the girl to call him Joe. She was Debra, and

surnames didn't seem important at that stage. She sat in the seat

beside David, with her knees pressed together primly and her hands in

her lap. With one sweeping glance, she assessed the Mustang and its

contents. David watched her check the expensive luggage, the Nikon

camera and Zeiss binoculars in the glove compartment and the cashmere

jacket thrown over the seat. Then she glanced sideways at him, seeming

to notice for the first time the raw silk shirt with the slim gold

Piaget under the cuff.

Blessed are the poor, she murmured, but still it must be pleasant to be

rich.

David enjoyed that. He wanted her to be impressed, he wanted her to

make a few comparisons between himself and the big muscular buck in the

back seat.

Let's go to Barcelona, he laughed.

David drove quietly through the outskirts of the town, and Debra looked

over her shoulder at Joe.

Are you comfortable? she asked in the guttural language she had used

before.

If he's not, he can run behind, David told her in the same language, and

she gawked at him a moment in surprise before she let out a small

exclamation of pleasure. Hey! You speak Hebrew! Not very well, David

admitted. I've forgotten most of it, I and he had a vivid picture of

himself as a ten-year-old, wrestling unhappily with a strange and

mysterious language with back-to-front writing, an alphabet that was

squiggly tadpoles and in which most sounds were made in the back of the

throat, like gargling.

Are you Jewish? she asked, turning in the seat to confront him. She

was no longer smiling; the question was clearly of significance to her.

David shook his head. No, he laughed at the notion. I'm a

half-convinced non-practising monotheist, raised and reared in the

Protestant Christian tradition_a__ Then why did you learn Hebrew? My

mother wanted it, David explained, and felt again the stab of an old

guilt. She was killed when I was still a kid. I just let it drop. It

didn't seem important after she had gone. Your mother, Debra insisted,

leaning towards him, she was Jewish? Yeah. Sure, David agreed. But my

father was a Protestant. There was all sorts of hell when Dad married

her. Everyone was against it, but they went ahead and did it anyway.

Debra turned in the seat to Joe. Did you hear that he's one of us. 'Oh,

come on! David protested, still laughing.

Mazaltov, said Joe. Come and see us in Jerusalem some time. 'You're

Israeli? David asked, with new interest.

Sabras, both of us, said Debra, with a note of pride and deep

satisfaction. We are only on holiday here. 'it must be an interesting

country, David hazarded.

Like Joe just said, why don't you come and find out some time, she

suggested off handedly. You have the right of return Then she changed

the subject. Is this the fastest this machine will go? We have to be

in Barcelona by seven.

There was a relaxed feeling between them now, as though some invisible

barrier had been lowered, as though she had made some weighty judgement.

They were out of the city and ahead the open road wound down into the

valley of the Ebro towards the sea.

Kindly extinguish cigarettes and fasten your seat belts, David said, and

let the Mustang go.

She sat very still beside him with her hands folded in her lap and she

stared ahead when the bends leapt at them, and the straights streamed in

a soft blue blur beneath the body of the Mustang. There was a small

rapturous smile on her mouth and the golden lights danced in her eyes,

and David was moved to know that speed affected her the way it did him.

He forgot everything else but the girl in the seat beside him and the

need to keep the mighty roaring machine on the ribbon of tarmac.

Once when they went twisting down into a dry dusty valley in a series of

tight curves and David snaked the Mustang down into it with his hands

darting from wheel to gear leaver, and his feet dancing heel and toe on

the foot pedals, she laughed aloud with the thrill of it.

They bought cheese and bread and a bottle of white wine at a village

cantina and ate lunch sitting on the parapet of a stone bridge while the

water swirled below them, milky with snow melt from the mountains.

David's thigh touched Debra's, as they sat side by side. He could feel

the warmth and resilience of her flesh through the stuff of their

clothing and she made no move to pull away. Her cheeks were flushed a

little brighter than seemed natural, even in the chill little wind that

nagged at them.

David was puzzled by Joe's attitude. He seemed to be completely

oblivious of David's bird dogging his girl, and he was deriving a

childlike pleasure out of tossing pebbles at the trout in the waters

below them. Suddenly David wished he would put up a better resistance,

it would make his conquest a lot more enjoyable, for conquest was what

David had decided on.

He leaned across Debra for another chunk of the white, tangy cheese and

he let his arm brush lightly against the tantalizing double bulge of her

bosom. Joe seemed not to notice.

Come on, you big ape, David thought scornfully. Fight for it. Don't

just sit there. He wanted to test himself against this buck. He was

big, and strong, and David could tell from the way he moved and held

himself that he was well coordinated and self-assured. His face was

chunky and half ugly, but he knew that some women liked them that way,

and he was not fooled by Joe's slow and lazy grin, the eyes were quick

and sharp.

You want to drive, Joe? he asked suddenly, and the slow grin spread

like a puddle of spilled oil on Joe's face - but the eyes glittered with

anticipation.

Don't mind if I do, said Joe, and David regretted the gesture as he

found himself hunched in the narrow back seat. For the first five

minutes Joe drove sedately, touching the brakes to test for grab and

pull, flicking through the gears to feel the travel and bite of the

stick, taking a burst of power through a bend to establish stability and

detect any tendency for the tail to break out.

Don't be scared of her, David told him, and Joe grunted with a little

frown of concentration creasing his broad forehead. Then he nodded to

himself and his hands settled firmly, taking a fresh grip, and Debra

whooped as he changed down to get the revs peaking.

He slid the car through the first bend and David's right foot stabbed

instinctively at a non-existent brake pedal and he felt his breathing

jam in his throat.

When Joe parked them in the lot outside the airport at Barcelona and

switched off the engine, all of them were silent for a few seconds and

then David said softly, Son of a gun!

Then they were all laughing. David felt a tinge of regret that he was

going to have to take the girl away from him, for he was beginning to

like him, despite himself, beginning to enjoy the slow deliberation of

his speech and movements that was so clearly a put on and finding

pleasure in the big slow smile that took so long to reach its full

bloom. David had to harden his resolve.

They were an hour early for the plane they were meeting and they found a

table in the restaurant overlooking the runways. David ordered an

earthenware jug of Sangria, and Debra sat next to Joe and put her hand

on his arm while she chatted, a gesture that tempered David's new-found

liking for him.

A private flight landed as the waiter brought the Sangria, and Joe

looked up.

One of the new executive Gulfstreams. They tell me she is a little

beauty. And he went on to list the aircraft's specifications in

technical language that Debra seemed to follow intelligently.

You know anything about aircraft? David challenged him. Some, admitted

Joe, but Debra took the question.

Joe is in the airforce, she said proudly, and David stared at them.

So is Debs, 'Joe laughed, and David switched his attention to her.

She's a lieutenant in signals. . 'Only the reserve, Debra demurred,

but Joe is a flier.

A fighter pilot. A flier, David repeated stupidly. He should have

known from Joe's clear and steady gaze that was the peculiar mark of the

fighter pilot. He should have known by the way he handled the Mustang

If he was an Israeli flier, then he would have flown a formidable number

of operations. Hell, every time they took off, they were operational.

He felt a vast tide of respect rising within him.

What squadron are you on, Phantoms? Phantoms! Joe curled his lip.

That isn't flying.

That's operating a computer. No, we really fly. You ever heard of a

Mirage? David blinked, and then nodded. Yeah, said David, I've heard

of them. 'Well, I fly a Mirage. David began to laugh, shaking his

head.

What's wrong? Joe demanded, his smile fading. What's funny about that?

I do too, said David. I fly a Mirage. It was no use trying to get hot

against this buck, he decided. I've got over a thousand hours on

Mirages. And it as Joe's turn to stare, then suddenly they were both

talking at once - Debra's head turning quickly from one to the other.

David ordered another jug of Sangria, but Joe would not let him pay. He

repeated for the fiftieth time, Well, that beats all, and punched

David's shoulder. How about that, Debs? Half-way through the second

jug, David interrupted the talk which had been exclusively on aviation.

Who are we meeting, anyway? We've driven across half of Spain and I

don't even know who the guy is. 'This guy is a girl, Joe laughed, and

Debra filled in.

Hannah, and she grinned at Joe, his fiancee. She is a nursing sister at

Hadassah Hospital, and she could only get away for a week. 'Your

fiancee? David whispered.

They are getting married in June. Debra turned to Joe. It's taken him

two years to make up his mind.

Joe chuckled with embarrassment, and Debra squeezed his arm.

Your fiancee? asked David again.

Why do you keep saying that? Debra demanded.

David pointed at Joe, and then at Debra.

What, he started, I mean, who, what the hell? Debra realized suddenly

and gasped. She covered her mouth with both hands, her eyes sparkling.

You mean - you thought -? Oh, no, she giggled. She pointed at Joe and

then at herself. Is that what you thought? David nodded.

He is my brother, Debra hooted. Joe is my brother, you idiot! Joseph

Israel Mordecai and Debra Ruth Mordecai, brother and sister Hannah was a

rangy girl with bright copper hair and freckles like gold sovereigns.

She was only an inch or two shorter than Joe but he lifted her as she

came through the customs gate, swung her off her feet and then engulfed

her in an enormous embrace.

It seemed completely natural that the four of them should stay together.

By a miracle of packing they got all their luggage and themselves into

the Mustang with Hannah perched on Joe's lap in the rear.

We've got a week, said Debra. A whole week! What are we going to do

with it?

They agreed that Torremolinos was out. It was far south, and since

Michener had written The Drifters, it had become a hangout for all the

bums and freaks.

I was talking to someone on the plane. There is a place called Colera

up the coast. Near the border. They reached it in the middle of the

next morning and it was still so early in the season that they had no

trouble finding pleasant rooms at a small hotel off the winding main

street. The girls shared, but David insisted on a room of his own. He

had certain plans for Debra that made privacy desirable.

Debra's bikini was blue and brief, hardly sufficient to restrain a bosom

that was more exuberant than David had guessed. Her skin was satiny and

tanned to a deep mahogany, although a strip of startling white peeped

over the back of her costume when she stooped to pick up her towel. She

was long in the waist, and leg, and a strong swimmer, pacing David

steadily through the cool blue water when they set out for a rocky islet

half a mile off shore.

They had the tiny island to themselves and they found a pitch of flat

smooth rock out of the wind and full in the sun. They lay side by side

with their fingers entwined and the salt water had sleeked Debra's hair

to her shoulders, like the coat of an otter.

They lay in the sun and they talked away the afternoon. There was so

much they had to learn about each other.

Her father had been one of the youngest colonels in the American

Airforce during World War II, but afterwards he had gone on to Israel.

He had been there ever since, and was now a Major-General. They lived

in a house in an old part of Jerusalem which was five hundred years old,

but was a lot of fun.

She was a senior lecturer in English at the Hebrew University in

Jerusalem and, this shyly as though. it were a rather special secret,

she wanted to write. A small volume of her poetry had already been

published.

That impressed David, and he came up on one elbow and looked at her with

new respect, and a twinge of envy, for someone who saw the way ahead

clearly.

She lay with her eyes closed against the sun, and droplets of water

sparkling like gems on her thick dark eyelashes. She wasn't beautiful,

he decided carefully, but very handsome and very, very sexy. He was

going to have her, of course. There was no doubt in David's mind about

this, but there seemed little urgency in it now. He was enjoying

listening to her talk, she had a quaint way of expressing herself, once

she was in full flight, and her accent was strangely neutral, although

there were faint echoes of her American background now he knew to look

for them. She told him that the poetry was merely a beginning. She was

going to write a novel about being young and living in Israel. She had

the outline worked out, and it seemed like a pretty interesting story to

David. Then she started to talk about her land and the people who lived

in it. David felt something move within him as he listened, a

nostalgia, a deep race memory. Again his envy stirred. She was so

certain of where she was from and where she was going - she knew where

she belonged, and what her destiny was, and this made her strong. Beside

her he felt suddenly insignificant and without purpose.

sunlight and looked up at him.

h? He shook his head but did not answer her smile, and she became

solemn also.

She studied his face carefully, with minute attention.

The sun had dried his hair and fluffed it out, and it was soft and fine

and very dark. The bone of his cheek and jaw was sculptured and finely

balanced, the eyes very clear and slightly Asiatic in cast, the lips

full and firm, and the nose delicately fluted with wide nostrils and a

straight graceful line.

She reached up and touched his cheek.

You are very beautiful, David. You are the most beautiful human being I

have ever seen. He did not move, and she ran the finger down his neck

on to his chest, twirling it slowly in the dark body hair.

Slowly he leaned forward and placed his mouth over hers. Her lips were

warm and soft and tasted of sea salt.

Her arms came up around the back of his head and folded around him. They

kissed until he reached behind her and unfastened the clasp of her

costume between the smooth brown shoulder blades. She stiffened

immediately and tried to pull away from him.

David held her gently but firmly, murmuring little soothing noises as he

kissed her again. Slowly she relaxed and he went on gentling her until

her hands went to the back of his neck again, and she sighed and

shuddered.

His hands were skilled and expert, masterful enough to prevent

rebellion, not rough enough to panic her. He pushed up the thin

material of her costume top and was surprised and enchanted with the

firm rubbery weight of her breasts and the big dusky rose-brown nipples

which were pebble hard to his touch.

It was shocking, completely foreign to his experience, for David was not

accustomed to check or denial, but Debra placed her hands on his

shoulders and shoved him with such force that he lost his balance and

slid down the rock, grazing his elbow and ending in a heap at the

water's edge.

He scrambled angrily to his feet as Debra came up with a fluid explosive

movement, fastening her costume as she did so. A single bound of her

long brown legs carried her to the edge of the rocks and she dived

outwards, hitting the water flat and surfacing to call back at him.

I'll race you to the beach David would not accept the challenge and

followed her at his own dignified pace. When he emerged unsmilingly

from the low surf, she studied his face a moment and then grinned.

When you sulk you look about ten years old, she told him, which was no

great exercise of tact and David stalked back to his room.

He was still being extremely dignified and aloof that evening when they

discovered a discotheque named2ooi A. D. run by a couple of English

boys down on the sea-front. They crowded round a table at which there

were already two B. E. A. hostesses and a couple of raggedy-looking

beards. The music was loud enough and the rhythm hard enough to jar the

spine and loosen the bowels and when the two hostesses gazed at David

with almost religious awe Debra forsook her attitude of cool amusement

and suggested to David that they dance.

Mollified by this little feminine by-play, David dropped his

impersonation of the Ice King.

They moved well together, sharing the gut rhythms of the harsh music,

executing the primeval movements that reeked of Africa with a grace that

drew the attention of the other dancers.

When the music changed Debra came to him and lay her body against his.

David felt some force flowing from her that seemed to charge every nerve

of his body, and he knew that no relationship he had with this woman

would ever run calmly. It was too deeply felt for that, too volatile

and triggered for momentary explosion.

When the record ended they left Joe and Hannah huddled over a carafe of

red wine and they went out into the silent street and down to the beach.

There was a moon in the sky that lit the dark cliffs crowding in above

the beach, and reflected off the sea in multiple yellow images. The low

surf hissed and coughed on the pebble beach and they took off their

shoes and walked along it, letting the water wash around their ankles.

In an angle of the cliff, they found a hidden place amongst the rocks

and they stopped to kiss again, and David mistakenly took her new soft

mood as an invitation to continue from where he had left off that

afternoon.

Debra pulled away again, but this time with determination and said

angrily, Damn you! Don't you ever learn? I don't want to do that. Do

we have to go through this every time we are alone?

, 'What's the matter? David was immediately stung by her tone, and

furious with this fresh check. This is the twentieth century, darling.

The simpering virgin is out of style this season, hadn't you heard? ,

And spoilt little boys should grow up before they come out on their own,

she flashed back at him.

Thanks! he snarled. I don't have to stay around taking insults from

any professional virgin. Well, why don't you move out then? she

challenged him.

Hey, that's a great idea! He turned his back on her and walked away up

the beach. She had not expected that, and she started to run after him,

but her pride checked her. She stopped and leaned against the rock.

He shouldn't have rushed me, she thought miserably.

I want him, I want him very much, but he will be the first since Dudu.

If he will just give me time it will be all right, but he mustn't rush

me. If he could only go at my speed, help me to do it right.

It is funny, she thought, how little I remember about Dudu now. It's

only three years, but his memory is fading so swiftly, I wonder if I

really did love him. Even his face is hazy in my mind, while I know

every detail of David's, every plane and line of it.

Perhaps I should go after him and tell him about Dudu, and ask him to be

patient and to help me a little.

Perhaps I should do that, she thought, but she did not and slowly she

walked up the beach, through the silent town to the hotel.

Hannah's bed across the room was empty. She would be with Joe, lying

with him, loving with him, I should be with David also, she thought.

Dudu was dead, and I'm alive, and I want David and I should be with him

but she undressed slowly and climbed into the bed and lay without

sleeping.

David stood in the doorway of 2001 A. D. and peered through the

weirdly flashing lights and the smog, the warm palpable emanation from a

hundred straining bodies. The B. E. A. hostesses were still at the

table, but Joe and Hannah had gone.

David made his way through the dancers. The one hostess was tall and

blonde, with high English colour and china-doll eyes. She looked up and

saw David, glanced around for Debra, made sure she was missing before

she smiled.

They danced one cut of the record without touching each other and then

David leaned close to her and placed both hands on her hips. She

strained towards him with her lips parting.

Have you got a room? he asked, and she nodded, running the tip of her

tongue lewdly around her lips.

Let's go, said David.

It was light when David got back to his own room.

He shaved and packed his ha& surprised at the strength of his residual

anger. He lugged his bag down to the proprietor's office and paid his

bill with his Diners Club card.

Debra came out of the breakfast room with Joe and Hannah. They were all

dressed for the beach with Terry robes over their bathing gear, and they

were gay and laughing, until they saw David.

Hey! Joe challenged him. Where are you going?

I've had enough of Spain, David told them. I'm taking some good advice,

and I'm moving -out, and he felt a flare of savage triumph as he saw the

quick shadow of pain in Debra's eyes. Both Joe and Hannah glanced at

her, and quickly she controlled the quiver of her lips.

She smiled then, a little too brightly and stepped forward, holding out

her hand.

Thank you for all your help, David. I'm sorry you have to go. It was

fun. Then her voice dropped slightly and there was a tiny quiver in it.

I hope you find what you are looking for. Good luck. She turned

quickly and hurried away to her room.

Hannah's expression was steely, and she gave David a curt nod before

following Debra. So long, Joe. 'I'll carry your bag.

Don't bother, David tried to stop him.

No trouble. Joe took it out of his hand and carried it out to the

Mustang. He dumped it on the rear seat.

I'll ride up to the top of the hills with you and walk back. He climbed

into the passenger seat and settled comfortably. I need the exercise.

David drove swiftly, and they were silent as Joe deliberately lit a

cigarette and flicked the match out the window.

I don't know what went wrong, Davey, but I can guess.

David didn't reply, he concentrated on the road.

She's had a bad time. These last few days she has been different.

Happy, I guess, and I thought it was going to work out.

Still David was silent, not giving him any help. Why didn't the big

bonehead mind his own business.

She's a pretty special sort of person, Davey, not because she's my

sister. She really is, and I think you should know about her, just so

you don't think too badly about her. They had reached the top of the

hills above the town and the bay. David pulled on to the verge but kept

the engine running. He looked down on the brilliant blue of the sea,

where it met the cliffs and the pine-covered headlands.

She was going to be married, said Joe softly. He was a nice guy, older

than she was, they worked together at the University. He was a tank

driver in the reserve and he took a hit in the Sinai and burned with his

tank David turned and looked at him, his expression softening a little.

She took it badly Joe went on doggedly. These last few days were the

first time I've seen her truly happy and relaxed. He shrugged and

grinned like a big St. Bernard dog. Sorry to give you the family

history, Davey. just thought it might help. He held out a huge brown

hand. Come and see us. It's your country also, you know. I'd like to

show it to you.

David took the hand. I might do that, he said. Shalom. Shalom, Joe.

Good luck. Joe climbed out of the car and when David pulled away he

watched him standing on the side of the road with his hands on his hips.

He waved and the first bend in the road hid him.

There was a school for aspiring Formula I racing drivers on a neglected

concrete circuit near Ostia, on the road from Rome. The course lasted

three weeks and cost $500 U. S.

David stayed at the Excelsior in the Via Veneto, and commuted each day

to the track. He completed the full course, but after the first week

knew it was not what he wanted. The physical limitation of the track

was constricting after flying the high heavens, and even the crackling

snarling power of a Tyrell Ford could not match the thrust from the

engine of a jet interceptor.

Although he lacked the dedication and motivation of others in his class

his natural talent for speed and his coordination brought him out high

in the finishing order and he had an offer to drive on the works team of

a new and struggling company that was building and fielding a production

team of Formula racing machines. Of course, the salary was starvation,

and it was a measure of his desperation that he came close to signing a

contract for the season, but at the last moment he changed his mind and

went on.

In Athens he spent a week hanging around the yacht basins of Piraeus and

Glyfada. He was investigating the prospects of buying a motor yacht and

running it out on charter to the islands. The prospect of sun and sea

and pretty girls seemed appealing and the craft themselves were

beautiful in their snowy paint and varnished teakwork. In one week he

learned that charter work was merely running a sea-going boarding house

for a bunch of bored, sunburned and seasick tourists.

On the seventh day the American Sixth Fleet dropped anchor in the bay of

Athens. David sat at a table of one of the beach-front cafes and drank

ouzo in the sun, while he studied the anchored aircraft carriers through

his binoculars. On the great flat tops the rows of Crusaders and

Phantoms were grouped with their wings folded.

Watching them he felt a consuming hunger, a need that was almost

spiritual. He had searched the earth, it seemed, and there was nothing

for him upon its face.

He laid the binoculars aside, and he looked up into the sky. The clouds

were high, a brilliant silver against the blue.

He picked up the glass of milky ouzo that the sun had warmed and rolled

its sweet liquorice taste about his tongue.

East, west, home is best.

He spoke aloud, and had a mental image of Paul Morgan sitting in his

high office of glass and steel. Like a patient fisherman he tended his

lines laid across the world. Right now the one to Athens was beginning

to twitch. He could imagine the quiet satisfaction as he began to reel

it in, drawing David struggling feebly back to the centre. What the

hell, I could still fly Impalas as a reserve officer, he thought, and

there was always the Lear, if he could get it away from Barney.

David drained the glass and stood up abruptly, feeling the fading glow

of his defiance. He flagged a cab and was driven back to his room at

the Grande Bretagne on Syndagma Square.

His defiance was dying so swiftly that one of his companions for dinner

that night was John Dinopoulos, Morgan Group's agent for Greece, a slim

elegant sophisticate with an unlined sun-tanned face, silver wings in

his hair and an elegantly casual way of dressing.

John had selected for David's table companion the female star of a

number of Italian spaghetti westerns. A young lady of ample bosom and

dark flashing eye whose breathing and bosom had become so agitated when

John introduced David as a diamond millionaire from Africa.

Diamonds were the most glamorous, although not the most significant of

Morgan Group's interests.

They sat upon the terrace of Dionysius, for the evening was mild. The

restaurant was carved into the living rock of the hill-top of

Lycabettus, under the church of St. Paul.

Down the zigzag path from the church, the Easter procession of

worshippers unwound in a flickering stream of candle flames through the

pine forest below them, and the singing carried sweetly on the still

night air. On its far hill-top the stately columns of the Acropolis

were flood-lit so that they glowed as creamily as ancient ivory, and

beyond that again on the midnight waters of the bay the American fleet

wore gay garlands of fairy lights.

The glory that was Greece murmured the star of Italian westerns, as

though she voiced the wisdom of the ages, and placed one heavily

jewelled hand on David's thigh while with the other she raised a glass

of red Samos wine to him and cast him a look under thick eyelashes that

was fraught with significance.

Her restraint was impressive, and it was only after they had eaten the

main course of savoury meats wrapped in vine leaves and swimming in

creamy lemon sauce that she suggested that David might like to finance

her next movie.

Let's find some place where we can talk about it she murmured, and what

better place than her suite?

John Dinopoulos waved them away with a grin and a knowing wink, a

gesture that annoyed David for it made him see the whole episode for the

emptiness that it was.

The star's suite was pretentious, with thick white carpets and bulky

black leather furniture. David poured himself a drink while she went to

change into clothing more suitable for a discussion of high finance.

David tasted the drink, realized that he did not want it and left it on

the bar counter.

The star came out of the bedroom in a bedrobe of white satin which was

cut back from arm and bosom, and was so sheer that her flesh gleamed

with a pearly pink sheen through the material. Her hair was loose, a

great wild mane of swirling curls, and suddenly David was sick of the

whole business.

I'm sorry, he said. John was joking, I'm not a millionaire, and I

really prefer boys.

He heard his untouched glass shatter against the door of the suite as he

closed it behind him.

Back at his own hotel he ordered coffee from room service, and then on

an impulse he picked up the telephone again and placed a Cape Town call.

It came through with surprising speed, and the girl's voice on the other

end was thickened with sleep. Mitzi, he laughed. How's the girl?

'Where are you, warrior? Are you home? 'I'm in Athens, doll. 'Athens,

God! How's the action? 'It's a drag. Yeah! I bet, she scoffed. The

Greek girls are never going to be the same again. 'How are you, Mitzi?

I'm in love, Davey.

I mean really in love, it's far out.

We are going to be married. Isn't that just something else? David felt

a spur of anger, jealous of the happiness in her voice. That's great,

doll. Do I know him? Cecil Lawley, you know him. He's one of Daddy's

accountants. David recalled a large, pale-faced, bespectacled man with

a serious manner.

Congratulations, said David. He felt very much alone again. Far from

home, and aware that life there flowed on without his presence.

You want to talk to him? Mitzi asked. I'll wake him up There was a

murmur and mutter on the other end, then Cecil came on.

Nice work, David told him, and it really was. Mitzi's share of Morgan

Group would be considerably larger than David's. Cecil had drilled

himself an oil well in a most unconventional manner.

Thanks, Davey. Cecil's embarrassment at being caught tending his oil

well carried clearly over five thousand miles of telephone cable.

Listen, lover. You do anything to hurt that girl, I'll personally tear

out your liver and stuff it down your throat, okay?

Okay, said Cecil, and his alarm was brittle in his tone. I'll put you

back to Mitzi.

She prattled on for another fifty dollars worth before hanging up. David

lay on the bed with his hands behind his head and thought about his

dumpy soft-hearted cousin and her new happiness. Then quite suddenly he

made the decision which had been lurking at the edge of his

consciousness all these weeks since leaving Spain.

He picked up the phone again and asked for the porter's desk.

I'm sorry to trouble you at this time in the morning, he said, but I

should like to get on a flight to Israel as soon as possible, will you

please arrange that.

The sky was filled with a soft golden haze that came off the desert. The

gigantic T. W. A. 747 came down through it, and David had a glimpse

of dark green citrus orchards before the solid jolt of the touch-down.

Lad was like any other airport in the world but beyond its doors was a

land like no other he had ever known. The crowd who fought him for a

seat in one of the big black sheruts, communal taxis plastered with

stickers and hung with gewgaws, made even the Italians seem shining

towers of restrained good manners.

Once aboard, however, it was as though they were on a family outing, and

he a member of that family. on one side of him a paratrooper in beret

and blouse with his winged insignia on the breast and an Uzzi

submachine-gun slung about his neck offered him a cigarette, on the

other a big strapping lass also in khaki uniform and with the dark

gazelle eyes of an Israeli, which became even darker and more soulful

when she looked at David, which was often, shared a sandwich of unleaven

bread and balls of fried chick-peas, the ubiquitous pita and falafel,

with him and practised her English upon him.

All the occupants of the front seat turned around to join the

conversation, and this included the driver who nevertheless did not

allow his speed to diminish in the slightest and who punctuated his

remarks with fierce blasts of his horn and cries of outrage at

pedestrians and other drivers.

The perfume of orange blossom lay as heavily as sea mist upon the

coastal lowlands, and always afterwards it would be for David the smell

of Israel.

Then they climbed into the Judaean hills, and David felt a sense of

nostalgia as they followed the winding highway through pine forests and

across the pale shining slopes where the white stone gleamed like bone

in the sunlight and the silver olive trees twisted their trunks in

graceful agony upon the terraces which were the monuments to six

thousand years of man's patient labour.

It was so familiar and yet subtly different from those fair and

well-beloved hills of the southern cape he called home. There were

flowers he did not recognize, crimson blooms like spilled blood, and

bursts of sunshine-yellow blossoms upon the slopes, then suddenly a pang

that was like a physical pain as he glimpsed the bright flight of

chocolate and white wings amongst the trees, and he recognized the

crested head of an African hoopoe, a bird which was a symbol of home.

He felt a sense of excitement building within him, unformed and

undirected as yet but growing, as he drew closer to the woman he had

come to see, and to something else of which he was as yet uncertain.

There was, at last, a sense of belonging. He felt in sympathy with the

young persons who crowded close to him in the cab.

See, cried the girl, touching his arm and pointing to the wreckage of

war still strewn along the roadside, the burned-out carapaces of trucks

and armoured vehicles, preserved as a memorial to the men who died on

the road to Jerusalem. There was fighting here. David turned in the

seat to study her face, and he saw again the strength and certainty that

he had so admired in Debra. These were a people who lived each day to

its limit, and only at its close did they consider the next.

Will there be more fighting? he asked.

Yes, she answered him without hesitation.

Why?

Because, if it is good, you must fight for it, and she made a wide

gesture that seemed to embrace the land and all its people, and this is

ours, and it is good, she said.

Right on, doll, David agreed with her, and they grinned at each other.

So they came to Jerusalem with its tall, severe apartment blocks of

custard-yellow stone, standing like monuments upon the hills, grouped

about the massive walled citadel that was its heart.

T. W. A. had reserved a room at the Intercontinental Hotel for David

while on board the inward flight. From his window he looked across the

garden of Gethsemane at the old city, at its turrets and spires and the

blazing golden Dome of the Rock, centre of Christianity and Judaism,

holy place of the Moslems, battleground of two A thousand years, ancient

land reborn, and David felt a sense of awe. For the first time in his

life, he recognized and examined that portion of himself that was

Jewish, and he thought it was right that he should have come to this

city.

Perhaps, he said aloud, it's just possible that this is where it's all

at.

It was early evening when David paid off the cab in the car park of the

University and submitted to a perfunctory search by a guard at the main

gate. Here body search was a routine that would soon become so familiar

as to pass unnoticed. He was surprised to find the campus almost

deserted, until he remembered it was Friday and that the whole tempo was

slowing for the Sabbath.

The red-bud trees were in full bloom around the main plaza and the

ornamental pool, as David crossed to the admin block and asked for her

at the inquiries desk where the porter was on the point of leaving his

post.

Miss Mordecai, the porter checked his list. Yes.

English Department. On the second floor of the Lauterman building. He

pointed out through the glass doors. Third building on your right. Go

right on in. Debra was in a students tutorial, and while he waited for

her, he found a seat on the terrace in the warmth of the sun. It was as

well, for suddenly he felt a breath of uncertainty cooling his spine.

For the first time since leaving Athens, he wondered if he had much

cause to expect a hearty welcome from Debra Mordecai. Even at this

remove in time, David had difficulty in judging his own behaviour

towards her. Self-criticism was an art which David had never seriously

practised; with a face and fortune such as his, it was seldom necessary.

In this time of waiting he found it novel and uncomfortable to admit

that it was just possible that his behaviour may have been, as Debra had

told him, that of a spoiled child.

He was still exploring this thought, when a burst of voices and the

clatter of heels upon the flags distracted him and a group of students

came out on to the terrace, hugging their books to their chests, and

most of the girls glanced at him with quick speculative attention as

they passed.

There was a pause then before Debra came. She carried books under her

arm and a sling bag over one shoulder, and her hair was pulled back

severely at the nape of her neck; she wore no make-up, but her skirt was

brightly coloured in big summery whorls of orange.

Her legs were bare and her feet were thrust into leather sandals. She

was in deep conversation with the two students who flanked her, and she

did not see David until he stood up from the parapet. Then she froze

into that special stillness he had first noticed in the cantina at

Zaragoza.

David was surprised to find how awkward he felt, as though his feet and

hands had grown a dozen sizes. He grinned and made a shrugging,

self-deprecatory gesture.

Hello, Debs. His voice sounded gruff in his own ears, and Debra stirred

and made a panicky attempt to brush back the wisps of hair at her

temples, but the books hampered her.

David, She started towards him, a pace before she hesitated and stopped,

glancing at her students. Then sensed her confusion and melted, and she

swung back at him.

David, she repeated, and then her expression crumbled into utter

desolation. Oh God, and I haven't even a shred of lipstick on. David

laughed with relief and went towards her, spreading his arms, and she

flew at him and it was all confusion with books and sling bag muddled,

and Debra making breathless exclamations of frustration before she could

divest herself of them. Then at last they embraced.

David, she murmured with both arms wound tightly around his neck. You

beast, what on earth took you so long? I had almost given you up. Debra

had a motor scooter which she drove with such murderous abandon that she

frightened even the Jerusalem taxi-drivers who crossed her path, men

with a reputation for steel nerves and disregard for danger.

Perched on the pillion David clung to her waist and remonstrated with

her gently as she overtook a solid line of traffic and then cut smartly

across a stream coming in the opposite direction with her exhaust

popping merrily. I'm happy, she explained over her shoulder. Fine!

Then let's live to enjoy it. "Joe will be surprised to see you. Jr we

ever get there. 'What's happened to your nerve? 'I've just this minute

lost it. She went down the twisting road into the valley of Em Karem,

as though she was driving a Mirage, and called a travelogue back to him

as she went.

That's the Monastery of Mary's Well where she met the mother of John the

Baptist, according to the Christian tradition in which you are a

professed expert. Hold the history, pleaded David.

There's a bus around that bend.

The village was timeless amongst the olive trees, dug into the slope

with its churches and monasteries and high-walled gardens, an oasis of

the picturesque, while the skyline above it was cluttered with the

high-rise apartments of modern Jerusalem.

From the main street Debra scooted into the mouth of a narrow lane,

where high walls of time-worn stone rose on each hand, and braked to a

halt outside a forbidding iron gate.

Home, she said, and wheeled the scooter into the gatehouse and locked it

away before letting them in through a side gate hidden in a corner of

the wall.

They came out into a large garden court enclosed by the high rough

plastered walls which were lime-washed to glaring white. There were

olive trees growing in the court with thick twisted trunks. Vines

climbed the walls and spread their boughs overhead; already there were

bunches of green grapes forming upon them.

The Brig is a crazy keen amateur archaeologist, Debra indicated the

Roman and Greek statues that stood amongst the olive trees, the exhibits

of pottery arnphorae arranged around the walls, and the ancient mosaic

tiles which paved the pathway to the house, It's strictly against the

law, of course, but he spends all his spare time digging around in the

old sites. The kitchen was cavernous with an enormous open fireplace in

which a modern electric stove looked out of place, but the copper pots

were burnished until they glowed and the tiled floor was polished and

sweet smelling.

Debra's mother was a tall slim woman with a quiet manner, who looked

like Debra's older sister. The family resemblance was striking and, as

she greeted them, David thought with pleasure that this was how Debra

would look at the same age. Debra introduced them and announced that

David was a guest for dinner, a fact of which he had been unaware until

that moment.

Please, he protested quickly, I don't want to intrude. He knew that

Friday was a special night in the Jewish home.

You don't intrude. We will be honoured, she brushed aside his protest.

This house is home for most of the boys on Joe's squadron, we enjoy it.

Debra fetched David a Goldstar beer and they were sitting on the terrace

together when her father arrived.

He came in through the wicket gate, stooping his tall frame under the

stone lintel and taking off his uniform cap as he entered the garden.

He wore uniform casually cut, and open at the throat with cloth insignia

or rank and wings at the breast pocket. He was slightly

round-shouldered, probably from cramming his lanky body into the cramped

cockpits of fighter aircraft, and his head was brown and bald with a

monk's fringe of hair and a fierce spiky mustache through which a gold

tooth gleamed richly. His nose was big and hooked, the nose of a

biblical warrior, and his eyes were dark and snapping with the same

golden lights as Debra's. He was a man of such presence that he

commanded David's instant respect. He stood to shake the General's hand

and called him sir completely naturally.

The Brig subjected David to a rapid, raking scrutiny and reserved his

judgement, showing neither pleasure nor disdain.

Later David would learn that the nickname The Brig was a shortened

version of The Brigand, a name the British had given him before 1948

when he was smuggling warplanes and arms into Palestine for the Haganah.

Everyone, even his children called him that and only his wife used his

given name, Joshua.

David is sharing the Sabbath meal with us tonight, Debra explained to

him.

You are welcome, said the Brig, and turned to embrace his women with

love and laughter, for he had seen neither of them since the previous

Sabbath, his duties keeping him at air bases and control rooms scattered

widely across the land.

When Joe arrived, he was also in uniform, the casual open-necked khaki

of summer, and when he saw David he dropped his slow manner and hurried

to him, laughin& and enfolded him in a bear hug, speaking over his

shoulder to Debra.

Was I right?

Joe said you would come, Debra explained.

It looks like I was the only one who didn't know, David protested.

There were fifteen at dinner, and the candlelight gleamed on the

polished wood of the huge refectory table and the silver Sabbeth

goblets. The Brig said a short prayer, the satin and gold embroidered

yamulka looking slightly out of place on his wicked bald head, then he

filled the wine goblets with his own hand murmuring a greeting to each

of his guests. Hannah was with Joe, her copper hair glowing handsomely

in the candlelight, and she greeted David with reserve. There were two

of the Brig's brothers with their wives and children and grandchildren,

and the talk was loud and confusing as the children vied with their

elders for a hearing and the language changed at random from Hebrew to

English.

The food was exotic and spicy, although the wine was too sweet for

David's taste. He was content to sit quietly beside Debra and enjoy the

sense of belonging to this happy group. He was startled then when one

of Debra's cousins leaned across her to speak to him.

This must be very confusing for you, your first day in such an unusual

country as Israel, and not understanding Hebrew, you not being Jewish

The words were not meant unkindly, but all conversation stopped abruptly

and the Brig looked up, frowning swiftly, quick to sense an unkindness

to guest at his board.

David was aware of Debra staring at him intently, as if to will words

from him, and suddenly he thought how three denials finalized any issue,

in the New Testament, in Mohammedan law, and perhaps in that of Moses as

well. He did not want to be excluded from this household, from these

people. He didn't want to be alone again. It was good here.

He smiled at the cousin and shook his head. It's strange, yes, but not

as bad as you would think. I understand Hebrew, though I don't speak it

very well.

You see, I am Jewish, also.

Beside him Debra gave a soft gasp of pleasure and exchanged quick

glances with Joe.

Jewish? the Brig demanded. You don't look it, and David explained, and

when he was through the Brig nodded. It seemed that his manner had

thawed a little.

Not only that, but he is a flier also, Debra boasted, and the Brig's

mustache twitched like a living thing so that he had to soothe it with

his napkin while he reappraised David carefully.

What experience? he demanded brusquely.

Twelve hundred hours, sir, almost a thousand on jets. Jets? Mirages.

Mirages! The Brig's gold tooth gleamed secretly.

What squadron? Cobra Squadron.

Rastus Naude's bunch? The Brig stared at David as

he asked.

Do you know Rastus? David was startled.

We flew in the first Spitfires from Czechoslovakia together, back in 48.

We used to call him Butch Ben Yak, Son of a Gentile, in those days. How

is he, he must be getting on now? He was no spring chicken even then.

He's as spry as ever, sir, David answered tactfully.

Well, if Rastus taught You to fly, you might be half good, the Brig

conceded.

As a general rule the Israeli Airforce would not use foreign pilots, but

here was a Jew with all the marks of a first-class fighter pilot. The

Brig had noticed the marvelous man and thrust which that other

consummate judge of young men, Paul Morgan, had recognized also and

valued so highly. Unless he had read the signs wrongly, something he

seldom did, then here was a rare one. Once more he appraised the young

man in the candlelight and noticed that clear and steady gaze that

seemed to seek a distant horizon. It was the eye of the gunfighter, and

all his pilots were gunfighters.

To train an interceptor pilot took many years and nearly a million

dollars. Time and money were matters of survival in his country's time

of trial, and rules could be bent.

He picked up the wine bottle and carefully refilled David's goblet. I

will place a telephone call to Rastus Naude, he decided silently, and

find out a bit more about this youngster.

Debra watched her father as he began to question David searchingly on

his reasons, or lack of them, for coming to Israel, and on his future

plans.

She knew precisely how the Brig's mind was working, for she had

anticipated it. Her reasons for inviting David to dinner and for

exposing him to the Brig were devious and calculated.

She switched her attention back to David, feeling the tense warm

sensation in the pit of her stomach and the electric prickle of the skin

upon her forearms as she looked at him.

Yes, you big cocky stallion, she thought comfortably, you aren't going

to find it so easy to escape again. This time I'm playing for keeps,

and I've got the Brig on to you also. She lifted her goblet to him,

smiling sweetly at him over the rim, You're going to get exactly what

you are after, but. in trumps and with bells on, she threatened

silently, and aloud she said, Lechaim! To life! and David echoed the

toast.

This time I'm not going to be put off so easily, he promised himself

firmly as he watched the candlelight explode in tiny golden sparks in

her eyes. I'm going to have you, my raven-haired beauty, no matter how

long it takes or what it Costs.

The telephone beside his bed woke David in the dawn, and the Brig's

voice was crisp and alert, as though he had already completed a day's

work.

If you have no urgent plans for today, I'm taking you to see something,

he said.

Of course, sir. David was taken off balance.

I will fetch you from your hotel in forty-five minutes, that will give

you time for breakfast. Please wait for me in the lobby. The Brig

drove a small nondescript compact with civilian plates, and he drove it

fast and efficiently. David was impressed with his reaction time and

coordination - after all the Brig must be well into his fifties, and

David allowed himself to contemplate such immense age with awe.

They took the main highway west towards Tel Aviv, and the Brig broke a

long silence.

I spoke with your old C. O. last night. He was surprised to hear

where you were. He tells me that you were offered promotion to staff

rank before you left -'It was a bribe, said David, and the Brig nodded

and began to talk. David listened to him quietly while he watched with

pleasure the quickly changing landscape as they came down out of the

hills and turned southwards through the low rolling plains towards

Beersheba and the desert.

I am taking you to an airforce base, and I might add that I am flouting

all sorts of security regulations to do so. Rastus assured me that you

can fly, and I want to see if he was telling me the truth David looked

at him quickly.

We are going to fly? 'and he felt a deep and pleasurable excitement

when the Brig nodded.

We are at war here, so you will be flying a combat sortie, and breaking

just about every regulation in the book. But you'll find we don't go by

the book very much. He went on quietly, explaining his own particular

view of Israel, its struggle and its chances of success, and David

remembered odd phrases he used. - We are building a nation, and the

blood we have been forced to mix into the foundations has strengthened

them - - We don't want to make this merely a sanctuary for all the

beaten-up Jews of the world. We want the strong bright Jews also -,

There are three million of us, and one hundred and fifty million

enemies, sworn to our total annihilation -'- if they lose a battle, they

lose a few miles of desert, if we lose one we cease to exist - - We'll

have to give them one more beating. They won't accept the others. They

believe their ammunition was faulty in 1948, after Suez the lines were

restored so they lost nothing, and in 67 they think they were cheated.

We'll have to beat them one more time before they'll leave us alone, He

talked as to a friend or an ally and David was warmed by his trust, and

enlivened by the prospect of flying again.

A plantation of eucalyptus trees grew as a heavy screen alongside the

road, and the Brig slowed to a gate in the barbed wire fence and a sign

that proclaimed in both languages: Chaim Weissmann Agricultural

Experimental Centre. They turned on to the side road through the

plantation, and there was a secondary fence and a guard post amongst the

trees.

A guard at the gate checked the Brig's papers briefly, they clearly knew

him well. Then they drove on, emerging from the plantation into neatly

laid-out blocks of different cereal crops. David recognized oats,

barley, wheat and maize, all of it flourishing in the warm spring

sunshine. The roads between each field were surveyed long and straight

and paved with concrete that had been tinted to the colour of the

surrounding earth.

There was something unnatural in these smooth twomile long fairways

bisecting each other at right angles, and to David they were familiar.

The Brig saw his interest and nodded. Yes, he said, runways. We are

digging in, not to be taken by the same tactics we used in 67. David

pondered it while they drove rapidly towards a giant concrete grain silo

that stood tall in the distance.

In the fields, scarlet tractors were at work, and overhead irrigation

equipment threw graceful glittering ostrich feathers of spray into the

air.

They reached the concrete silo and the Brig drove the compact through

the wide doors of the barn-like building that abutted it. David was

startled to see the lines of buses and automobiles parked in neat lines

along the length of the barn. There was transport here for many

hundreds of men, and yet he had noticed less than a score of

tractor-drivers.

There were guards here again, in paratrooper uniform, and when the Brig

led David to the rounded bulk of the silo, he realized suddenly that it

was a dummy. A massive bomb-proof structure of solid concrete, housing

all the sophisticated communications and radar equipment of a modern

fighter base. It was combined control tower and plot for four full

squadrons of Mirage fighters, the Brig explained briefly as they entered

an elevator and sank below the earth.

They emerged into a reception area where again the Brig's papers were

examined, and a paratrooper major was called to pass David through, a

duty he performed reluctantly and at the Brig's insistence. Then the

Brig led David along a carpeted and air-conditioned underground tunnel

to the pilot's dressing-room. It was tiled and spotless, with showers

and toilets and lockers like a country club changing-room.

The Brig had ordered clothing for David, guessing his size and doing so

accurately. The orderly corporal had no trouble fitting him out in

overalls, boots, G-suit, gloves and helmet.

The Brig dressed from his own locker and both of them went through into

the ready room, moving stiffly in the constricting grip of the G-suits

and carrying their helmets under their arms.

The duty pilots looked up from chess games and magazines as they

entered, recognized the general and stood to greet him, but the

atmosphere was easy and informal.

The Brig made a small witticism and they all laughed and relaxed, while

he led David through into the briefing-room.

Swiftly, but without overlooking a detail, he outlined the patrol that

they would fly, and checked David out on radio procedure, aircraft

identification, and other parochial details.

All clear? he asked at last, and when David nodded, he went on,

Remember what I told you, we are at war.

Anything we find that doesn't belong to us we hit it, hard! All right?

Yes, sir.

It's been nice and quiet the last few weeks, but yesterday we had a

little trouble down near Em Yahav, a bit of nastiness with one of our

border patrols. So things are a little sensitive at the moment. He

picked up his helmet and map case then turned to face David, leaning

close to him and fixing him with those fierce brown and golden eyes.

It will be clear up there today, and when we get to forty thousand, you

will be able to see it all, every inch of it from Rosh Hanikra to Suez,

from Mount Herman to Eilat, and you will see how small it is and how

vulnerable to the enemies that surround us. You said you were looking

for something worthwhile, I want you to decide whether guarding the fate

of three million people might not be a worthwhile job for a man.

They rode on a small electric personnel carrier down one of the long

underground passages, and they entered the concrete bunker dispersed at

one point of a great star whose centre was the concrete silo, and they

climbed down from the cart.

The Mirages stood in a row, six of them, sleek and needle-nosed,

crouching like leashed and impatient animals, so well remembered in

outline, but vaguely unfamiliar in their desert brown and drab green

camouflage with the blue Star of David insignia on the fuselage.

The Brig signed for two machines, grinning as he wrote Butch Ben Yak

under David's numeral.

As good a name as any to fly under, he grunted. This is the land of the

pseudonym and alias. David settled into the tiny cockpit with a sense

of homecoming. In here it was all completely familiar and his hands

moved over the massed array of switches, instruments and controls like

those of a lover as he began his pre-flight check.

In the confined space of the bunkers the jet thunder assaulted the

eardrums, their din only made bearable by the perforated steel baffles

set into the rear of the structure.

The Brig looked across at David, his head enclosed in the garishly

painted helmet, and gave him the high sign.

David returned -it and reached up to pull the Perspex canopy closed.

Ahead of them, the steel blast doors rolled swiftly upwards, and the

ready lamps above them switched from red to green.

There was no taxiing to take-off areas; no needless ground exposure.

Wing-tip to wing-tip they came up the ramp out of the bunker into the

sunlight. Ahead of them stretched one of the long brown runways, and

David pushed open his throttle to the gate, and then ignited his

afterburners, feeling the thrust of the mighty jet through the

cushioning of his seat. Down between the fields of green corn they

tore, and then up, with the swooping sensation in the guts and the

rapier nose of the Mirage pointed at the sapphire of the sky that arched

unbroken and unsullied above them, and once again David experienced the

euphoria of jet-powered flight.

They levelled out at a little under forty thousand feet avoiding even

altitudes or orderly flight patterns, and David placed his machine under

the Brig's tail and eased back on the throttles to cruising power, his

hands delighting in the familiar rituals of flight while his helmeted

head revolved restlessly in the search routine, sweeping every quarter

of the sky about him, weaving the Mirage to clear the blind spot behind

his own tail.

The air had an unreal quality of purity, a crystalline clarity that made

even the most distant mountain ranges stand out in crisp silhouette,

hardly shaded with the blue of distance. In the north the Mediterranean

blazed like a pool of molten silver in the sunlight, while the sea of

Galilee was soft cool green, and farther south the Dead Sea was darker,

forbidding in its sunken bed of tortured desert.

They flew north over the ridge of Carmel and the flecked white buildings

of Haifa with its orange gold beaches on which the sea broke in soft

ripples of creamy lacework. Then they turned together easing back on

the power and sinking slowly to patrol altitude at twenty thousand feet

as they passed the peak of Mount Herman where the last snows still

lingered in the gullies and upon the high places, streaking the great

rounded mountain like an old man's pate.

The softly dreaming greens and pastels delighted David who was

accustomed to the sepia monochromes of Africa. The villages clung to

the hill-tops, their white walls shining like diadems above the terraced

slopes and the darker areas of cultivated land.

They turned south again, booming down the valley of the Jordan, over the

Sea of Galilee with its tranquil green waters enclosed by the thickets

of date palm and the neatly tended fields of the Kibbutzim, losing

altitude as the land forsook its gentle aspect and the hills were riven

and tortured, rent by the wadis as though by the claws of a dreadful

predator.

On the left hand rose the mountains of Edam, hostile and implacable, and

beneath them Jericho was a green oasis in the wilderness. Ahead lay the

shimmering surface of the Dead Sea. The Brig dropped down, and they

thundered so low across the salt-thickened water that the jet blast

ruffled the surface behind them.

The Brig's voice chuckled in David's earphones. That's the lowest you

are ever going to fly, twelve hundred feet below sea level. They were

climbing again as they crossed the mineral works at the southern end of

the sea, and faced the blasted and mountainous deserts of the south.

Hello, Cactus One, this is Desert Flower, again the radio silence was

broken, but this time David recognized the call sign of command net.

They were being called directly from the Operations Centre of Airforce

Command, situated in some secret underground bunker at a location that

David would never learn. On the command plot their position was being

accurately relayed by the radar repeaters.

Hello, Desert Flower, the Brig acked, and immediately the exchange

became as informal as two old friends chatting, which was precisely what

it was.

Brig this is Motti. We've just had a ground support request in your

area, he gave the coordinates quickly, a motorized patrol of border

police is under sneak lowlevel attack by an unidentified aircraft. See

to it, will youz, Beseder, Motti, okay. The Brig switched to flight

frequency. Cactus Two, I'm going to interception power, conform to me,

he told David, and they turned together on to the new heading.

No point in trying a radar scan, the Brig grumbled aloud. He'll be down

in the ground clutter. We'll not pick the swine off amongst those

mountains. just keep your eyes open. 'Beseder. David had already

picked up the word. The favourite Hebrew word in a land where very

little was really okay.

David spotted it first, a slim black column of smoke beginning to rise

like a pencil line drawn slowly against the windless and dazzling cobalt

blue of the horizon.

Ground smoke, he said into his helmet microphone. Eleven o'clock low.

The Brig squinted ahead silently, searching for it and then saw it on

the extreme limit of his vision range. He grunted, Rastus had been

right in one thing at least. The youngster had eyes like a hawk.

Going to attack speed now, he said, and David acked and lit his

afterburners. The upholstery of his seat smacked into his back under

the mighty increase in thrust and David felt the drastic alteration in

trim as the Mirage went shooting through the sonic barrier.

Near the base of the smoke column, something flashed briefly against the

drab brown earth, and David narrowed his eyes and made out the tiny

shape, flitting swiftly as a sunbird, its camouflage blending naturally

into the backdrop of desert, -so it was ethereal as a shadow.

Bandit turning to port of the smoke, he called the sighting.

I have him, said the Brig, and switched to command net.

Hello, Desert Flower, I'm on an intruder. Call strike, please. The

decision to engage must be made at command level, and the answering

voice was laconic, and flat.

Brig, this is Motti. Hit him? While they spoke they were rushing down

so swiftly that the details of the little drama being played out below

sprang into comprehension.

Along a dusty border track three patrol vehicles of the border police

were halted. They were camouflaged half tracks, tiny as children's toys

in the vastness of the desert.

One of the half tracks was burning. The smoke was greasy black and rose

straight into the air, the beacon that had drawn them. Lying

spreadeagled in the road was a human body, flung down carelessly in

death, and the sight of it stirred in David a deeply bitter feeling of

resentment such as he had last felt in the bullring at Madrid.

The other vehicles were pulled off the track at abandoned angles, and

David could see their crews crouching amongst the scrub and rock. Some

of them were firing with small arms at their attacker who was circling

for his next run down upon them.

David had never seen the type before, but knew it instantly from the

recognition charts that he had studied so often. It was a Russian MIG

17 of the Syrian airforce.

The high tail plane was unmistakable. The dappled brown desert

camouflage was brightened by the red, white and black rounders with

their starred green centres on the fuselage and the stubby swept wings.

The MIG completed its turn, settling swiftly down and levelling off for

its next strafing run upon the parked vehicles. The pilot's attention

was concentrated on the helpless men cowering amongst the rocks and he

was unaware of the terrible vengeance bearing down upon him on high.

The Brig lined up for his pass, turning slightly to bring himself down

on the Syrian's tail, attacking in classic style from behind and above,

while David dropped back to weave across his rear, covering him and

backing up to press in a supporting attack if the first failed.

The Syrian opened fire again and the cannon bursts twinkled like fairy

lights amongst the men and trucks.

Another truck exploded in a dragon's breath of smoke and flame.

You bastard, David whispered as he levelled out behind the Brig and saw

the havoc that was being wrought amongst his people. It was the first

time he had thought of them as that, his people, and he felt the cold

anger of the shepherd whose flock is under attack.

A line of poetry popped up in his mind The Assyrian came down like a

wolf on the fold, and his hands went purposefully to the chore of

locking in his cannon sselectors and flicking the trigger forward out of

its recess in the moulded grip of the joystick. The soft green glow lit

his gunsight as it came alive and he squinted through it.

The Brig was pressing his attack in to close range, rapidly overhauling

the slower clumsy-looking MIG, and at that moment he knew he would open

fire David saw the Syrian's wing-shape alter. At the fatal instant he

had become aware of his predicament, and he had done what was best in

the circumstances. He had pulled on full flap and while his speed fell

sharply he dropped one wing in a slide towards the earth a hundred feet

below.

The Brig was committed and he loosed his salvo of cannon fire at the

instant that the Syrian dropped, ducking under it like a boxer avoiding

a heavy punch. David saw the blaze of shot pass high, rending the air

above the sand-coloured air-craft. Then the Brig was through, missing

with every shell, spiralling up and around in a great flashing circle,

raging internally at his failure.

At the instant that David recognized the MIG's manoeuvre he reacted with

a rapidity that was purely reflexive. He closed down his power, and hit

his air brakes to punch a little to the speed off the Mirage.

The MIG turned steeply away to port, standing on one wing-tip that

seemed to be pegged into the bleak desert earth. David released his air

brakes, to give his wings lift for the next evolution, and then he

dropped his own wing-tip and went sweeping round to follow the Syrian's

desperate twists with the Mirage hovering on the edge of the stall.

The Syrian was turning inside him, slower and more manoeuverable; David

could not bring his sights to bear, his right forefinger was curled

around the trigger but always the dark shape of the MIG was out of

centre in the illuminated circle of the sight as the aiming pipper

dipped and rose to the pull of gravity.

Ahead of the two circling aircraft rose a steep and forbidding line of

cliffs, . rent by deep defiles and gullies.

The 1VUG made no attempt to climb above them, but selected a narrow pass

through the hills and went into it like a ferret into its run, a

desperate attempt to shake off the pursuit.

The Mirage was not designed for this type of flying, and David felt the

urge to hit his afterburners and ride up over the jagged fangs of rock,

but to do so was to let the MIG escape, and his anger was still strong

upon him.

He followed the Syrian into the rock pass, and the walls of stone on

either hand seemed to brush his wingtips, the gully turned sharply to

starboard and David dropped his wing and followed its course. Back upon

itself the rock turned, and David swung the needle nose from maximum

rate turn starboard to port, and the stall warning device winked amber

and red at him as he abused the Mirage's delicate flying capabilities.

Ahead of him the MIG clawed its way through the tunnel of rock. The

pilot looked back over his shoulder and he saw the IIirage following

him, creeping slowly up on him, and he turned back to his controls and

forced his machine lower still, hugging the rugged walls of stone.

The air in the hills was hot and turbulent, and the Mirage bucked and

fought against restraint wanting to be free and high, while ahead of it

the Syrian drifted tantalizingly off-centre in David's gunsight.

Now the valley turned again and narrowed, before climbing and ending

abruptly against a solid dark purple wall of smooth rock.

The Syrian was trapped, he levelled out and climbed steeply upwards, his

flight path dictated by the rocks on each side and ahead.

David pushed his throttle to the gate and lit his afterburners, and the

mighty engine rumbled, thrusting him powerfully forward, up under the

Syrian's stern.

The eternal micro-seconds of mortal combat dragged by, as the Syrian

floated lazily into the circle of the gunsight, expanding to fill it as

the Mirage's nose seemed to touch the other's tail plane and David felt

the buffeting of the Syrian's slip-stream.

He pressed the cannon trigger and the Mirage lurched as she hurled her

deadly load into the other machine in a clattering double stream of

cannon fire and an eruption of incendiary shells.

The Syrian disintegrated, evaporating in a gush of silvery smoke,

rent through with bright white lightning, and the ejecting pilot's body

was blown clear of the fuselage. For an instant it was outlined ahead

of David's screen, cruciform in shape with arms and legs thrown wide,

the helmet still on the head, and the clothing ballooning in the rush of

air. Then it flickered past the Mirage's canopy as David climbed

swiftly up out of the valley and into the open sky.

The soldiers were moving about amongst their vehicles, tending their

wounded and covering their dead, but they all looked up as David flew

back low along the road. He passed so close that he could see their

faces clearly. They were sunbrowned, some with beards or moustaches,

strong young faces, their mouths open as they cheered him, waving their

thanks.

My people, he thought. He was still high on the adrenalin that had

poured into his blood, and he felt a fierce elation. He grinned

wolfishly at the men below him and lifted one gloved hand in salute

before climbing up to where the Brig was circling, waiting for him.

The artificial lights of the bunker were dim after the brilliance of the

sun. An engineer helped David from the cockpit as his mates swarmed

over the Mirage to refuel and rearm it. This was one of the vital

skills of this tiny airforce, the ability to ready a warplane for combat

in a fraction of the time usually required for the task. Thus in

emergency the machine could return to the battle long before its

adversary.

Moving stiffly from the confines of the cockpit, David crossed to where

the Brig was already in conversation with the flight controller.

He stood with the gaudy helmet tucked under one arm as he stripped off

his gloves, but as David came up he turned to him and his wintry smile

exposed the gold tooth in its nest of fur.

Lightly he punched David's arm Ken! Yes! said Major-General Joshua

Mordecai. You'll do.

David was late to fetch Debra for dinner that evening, but she had

already learned the reason from her father.

They went to the Select behind David's Tower, inside the Jaffa Gate of

the old city. Its unpretentious interior, decorated with patterns of

rope upon the walls, did not fully prepare David for the excellent meal

that the Arab proprietor served with the minimum of delay, mousakha

chicken, with nuts and spices on a bed of kouskous.

They ate almost in silence, Debra quickly recognizing and respecting

David's mood. He was in the grip of postcombat tristesse, the adrenalin

hangover of stress and excitement, but slowly the good food in his belly

and the heavy Carmel wine relaxed him, until over the thimblesized cups

of Turkish coffee, black and powerfully reeking of cardamon seed, Debra

ask, What happened today, David? He sipped the coffee before replying.

I killed a man. She set down her cup and studied his face solemnly, and

he began to speak, telling her the detail of it, the chase and the kill,

until he ended lamely, I felt only satisfaction at the time. A sense of

achievement. I knew I had done what was right. 'And now? she prompted

him.

Now I am sad, he shrugged. I am saddened that I had to do it. My

father, who has always been a soldier, says that only those who do the

actual fighting can truly know what it is to hate war. David nodded.

Yes, I understand that now. I love to fly, but I hate to destroy. They

were silent again, both of them considering their own personal vision of

war, both of them trying to find words to express it.

And yet it is necessary, Debra broke the silence. We must fight, there

is no other way. There is no other way, with the sea at our backs and

the Arabs at our throats. You speak like an Israeli, Debra challenged

him softly.

I made a decision today, or rather I was press-ganged by your father. He

has given me three weeks to brush up my Hebrew, and complete the

immigration formalities. 'And then? Debra leaned towards him.

A comnission in the airforce. That was the only point I scored on, I

had just enough strength to hold out for the equivalent rank I would

have had back home.

He haggled like a secondhand clothes dealer, but I had him, and he knew

it. So he gave in at last. Acting major, with confirmation of rank at

the end of twelve months. 'That's wonderful, Davey, you'll be one of

the youngest majors in the service.

Yeah, David agreed, and after I've paid my taxes I'll have a salary a

little less than a bus-driver back home. 'Never mind, Debra smiled for

the first time. I'll help you with your Hebrew. I was going to talk to

you about that, he answered her smile. Come on, let's get out of here.

I'm restless tonight, and I want to walk. They strolled through the

Christian quarter. The open stalls on each side were loaded with garish

and exotic clothes, and leather work and jewellery, and the smells of

spices and food and drains and stale humanity was almost solid in the

narrow lanes where the arches met overhead.

Debra drew him into one of the antique stores in the Via Doloroso, and

the proprietor came to them, almost wriggling with pleasure.

Ah, Miss Mordecai, and how is your dearly esteemed father? Then he

rushed into the back room to brew more coffee for them.

He's one of the half-honest ones, and he lives in mortal fear of the

Brig. Debra selected an antique solid gold Star of David on a slim

golden neck chain, and though he had never before worn personal

jewellery, David bowed his head and let her place it about his neck. The

golden star lay against the coarse dark curls of his chest.

That's the only decoration you'll ever get, we don't usually give

medals, she told him laughingly. But welcome to Israel anyway. It's

beautiful, David was touched and embarrassed by the gift, thank you. And

he buttoned his shirt over it and then reached awkwardly to kiss her,

but she drew away and warned him.

Not in here. He's a Moslem, and he'd be very offended. All right, said

David. Let's go and find some place where we won't hurt anybody's

sensibilities. They went out through the Lion Gate in the great wall

and found a stone bench in a quiet place amongst the olive trees of the

Moslem cemetery. There was a half moon in the sky, silver and

mysterious, and the night was warm and waiting, seemingly as expectant

as a new bride.

You can't stay on at the Intercontinental, Debra told him, and they both

looked up at its arched and lighted silhouette across the valley. Why

not? Well, first of all it's too expensive. On your salary you just

can't afford it. You don't really expect me to live on my salary? David

protested, but Debra ignored him and went on.

And what is more important, you aren't a tourist any more. So you can't

live like one. 'What do you suggest? 'We could find you an apartment.

Who would do the housework, and the laundry, and the cooking? he

protested vehemently. I haven't had much practice at that sort of

thing. I would, said Debra, and he froze for an instant and then turned

slowly on the seat to look at her. What did you say? I said, I would,

she repeated firmly, and then her voice quavered. That's if you want me

to. He was silent for a long moment.

See here, Debs. Are you talking about living together?

I mean, playing house-house on a full-time basis, the whole bit? 'That's

precisely what I am talking about. But - He could think of nothing

further to say. The idea was novel, breath-taking, and alive with

enchanting possibilities. All David's previous experiences with the

opposite sex had been profuse rather than deep, and he found himself on

the frontiers of unexplored territory. Well? Debra asked at last.

Do you want to get married? his voice cracked on the word, and he

cleared his throat.

I'm not sure that you are the finest marriage material in the market, my

darling David. You are as beautiful as the dawn, and fun to be with,

but you are also selfish, immature and spoiled stupid Thank you kindly

Well, there is no point in me mincing words now, David, not when I am

about to throw all caution aside and become your mistress. Wow! 'he

exclaimed, with all the frost thawing from his voice. When you say it

straight out like that, it almost blows my mind. Me too, Debra

confessed. But one condition is that we wait until we have our own

special place, you may recall that I'm not so high on public beaches or

rocky islands. I'll never forget, David agreed. Does this mean that

you don't want to marry me? He found his mortal terror of matrimony

fading under this slur on his potential marriage worth.

I didn't say that either, Debra demurred. But let's make that decision

when both of us are ready for it. 'Right on, doll, said David, with an

almost idiot grin of happiness spreading over his face.

And now, MajorMo an, youmaykissme, 'shesaid.

. rg But do try and help me remember the conditions. A long while

later, they drew a little apart to breathe and a sudden thought made

David frown with worry.

My God, he exclaimed, what will the Brig say! He won't be joining us,

she told him, and they both laughed together, excited by their own

wickedness. Seriously, what will you tell your parents? I'll lie to

them graciously, and they'll pretend to believe me. Let me worry about

that. Beseder, he agreed readily.

You are learning, she applauded. Let's just try that kiss again, but

this in time in Hebrew, please. 'I love you, he said in that language.

Good boy, she murmured. You are going to make a prize pupil. There was

one more doubt to be set at rest, and Debra voiced it at the iron gate

to the garden, when at last he took her home.

Do you know what the Bris, the Covenant, is? 'Sure, he grinned, and

made scissors out of his first and second finger. It seemed in the

uncertain light that she blushed, and her voice was only just audible.

Well, what about you?

That, David told her severely, is a highly personal question, the answer

to which little girls should find out for themselves, and his expression

became lascivious, the hard way.

All knowledge is precious as gold, she said in a small voice, and be

sure that I will seek the answer diligently.

David discovered that the acquisition of an apartment in Jerusalem was a

task much like the quest for the Holy Grail. Although the high-rise

blocks were being thrown up with almost reckless energy, the demand for

accommodation far outweighed the supply The father of one of Debra's

students was an estate agent and the poor man took their problem to his

heart; the waiting-list for the new blocks was endless, but an

occasional apartment in one of the older buildings fell vacant, and he

used all his influence for them.

At unexpected moments of the day, Debra would send out an urgent signal,

and David would fetch her in a taxi at the University and they would

hell across town, urging on the driver, to inspect the latest offering.

The last of these reminded David of a movie set from Lawrence of Arabia

complete with a dispirited palm tree out front, a spectacular display of

bright laundry hanging from every balcony and window, and all the sounds

and smells of an Arab camel market and a nursery-school playground at

recess rising from the courtyard.

There were two rooms and an alleged bathroom. The roses and wreathes of

the wallpaper had faded, except in patches where hangings had protected

their original pristine virulent colouring.

David pushed open the door of the bathroom and, without entering,

inspected the raggedy linoleum floorcovering and the stained and chipped

bath tub; then pushing the door further he discovered the toilet bowl

festering quietly in the gloom with its seat set at a rakish angle like

the halo of a drunken angel.

You and Joe could work on it, Debra suggested uncertainly. It's not

really that bad. David shuddered, and closed the door as though it were

the lid of a coffin.

You're joking, of course, he said, and Debra's determinedly bright smile

cracked and her lip quivered. Oh, David, we are never going to find a

place! 'And I can't wait much longer. 'Nor can I, admitted Debra.

Right. David rubbed his hands together briskly. It's time to send in

the first team.

He was not sure what form the presence of Morgan Group would take in

Jerusalem, but he found it listed in the business directory under Morgan

Industrial Financeand the Managing Director was a large mournful-looking

gentleman named Aaron Cohen who had a suite of offices in the Leumi Bank

building opposite the main post office. He was overcome with emotion to

discover that one of the Morgan family had been ten days in Jerusalem

without his knowledge.

David told him what he wanted, and in twenty hours he had it signed and

paid for. Paul Morgan picked his executives with care, and Cohen was an

example of this attention. The price David must pay for this service

was that Paul Morgan would have a full report of David's transaction,

present whereabouts and future plans on his desk the next morning, but

it was worth it.

Above the Hinnom canyon, facing Mount Zion with its impressive array of

spires, the Montefiore quarter was being rebuilt as an integrated whole

by some entrepreneur. All of it was clad in the lovely golden Jerusalem

stone, and the designs of the houses were traditional and ageless.

However, the interiors were lavishly modernized with tall cool rooms,

mosaic -tiled bathrooms, and ceilings arched like those of a crusader

church. Most of them had their own walled and private terraces. The

one that Aaron Cohen procured for David was the pick of those that

fronted Malik Street. The price was astronomical. That was the first

question that Debra asked, once she had recovered her voice. She stood

stunned upon the terrace beneath the single olive tree. The stone of

the terrace had been cut and polished until it resembled old ivory, and

she ran her fingers lightly over the carved front door. Her voice was

hushed and her expression bemused.

David! David! How much is this going to cost?

That's not important. What is important is whether you like it. It's

too beautiful. It's too much, David. We can't afford this. It's paid

for already Paid for? She stared at him. How much, David? 'If I said

half a million Israeli pounds or a million, what difference would it

make? It's only money. She clapped her hands over her ears. No! she

cried. Don't tell me! I'd feel so guilty I wouldn't be able to live in

it. Oh, so! You are actually consenting to live in it. 'Try me, she

said with emphasis. You just try me, lover? They stood in the central

room that opened on to the terrace, and although it was light and airy

enough for the savage heat of summer that was coming, it smelled now of

new paint and varnished woodwork.

What are we going to do about furniture? David asked.

Furniture? Debra repeated. I hadn't thought that far ahead. For what

I have in mind, we'll need at least one kingsize bed.

Sex-maniac, she said, and kissed him.

No modern furniture looked at home under the domed roof, or upon the

stone-flagged floors. So they began to furnish from the bazaars and

antique shops.

Debra solved the main problem with the discovery in a junk yard of an

enormous brass bedstead from which they scraped the accumulated dirt;

they polished it until it glowed, fitted it with a new inner-spring

mattress, and covered it with a cream-coloured lace bedspread from

Debra's bottom drawer.

They purchased kelim and woven woollen rugs by the bale from the Arab

dealers in the old city, and scattered them thickly upon the stone

floors, with leather cushions to sit upon and a low olive-wood table,

inlaid with ebony and mother of pearl, to eat off. The rest of the

furniture would come when they could find it for sale, or, failing that,

have it custom-made by an Arab cabinet-maker that Debra knew of. Both

the bed and the table were enormously heavy, and they needed muscle to

move them, so they called for Joe. He and Hannah arrived in his tiny

Japanese compact, and after they had recovered from the impact of the

Morgan palace they fell to work enthusiastically with David supervising.

Joe grunted and heaved, while Hannah disappeared with Debra into the

modern American kitchen to exclaim with envy and admiration over the

washing-machine, dryer, dish-washer and all the other appliances that

went with the house. She helped to cook the first meal.

David had laid in a case of Goldstar beer, and after their labours they

all gathered about the olive-wood table to warm the house and wet the

roof.

David had expected Joe to be a little reserved, after all it was his

baby sister who was being set up in a fancy house; but Joe was as

natural as ever and enjoyed the beer and the company so well that Hannah

had to intervene at last. It's late, she said firmly.

Late? asked Joe. It's only nine o'clock. 'On a night like tonight,

that's late. 'What do you mean? Joe looked puzzled. Joseph Mordecai,

diplomat extraordinary, Hannah said with heavy sarcasm, and suddenly

Joe's expression changed as he glanced from Debra to David guiltily,

swallowed his beer in a single gulp, and hoisted Hannah to her feet by

one arm.

Come on, he said. What are we sitting here for? David left the terrace

lights burning, and they shone through the slats of the shuttered

windows, so the room was softly lit, and the sounds from the outside

world were so muted by distance and stone walls as to be a mere murmur

that drifted from afar, and seemed rather to accentuate their aloneness

than to spoil it.

The brass of the bedstead gleamed softly in the gloom, and the ivory

lacework of the bedspread smelled of lavender and moth balls.

He lay upon the bed and watched her undress slowly, conscious of his

eyes upon her and shy now as she had never been before.

Her body was slim and with a flowing line of waist and leg, young and

tender-looking, with a child's awkward grace, and yet with a womanly

thrust of hip and bosom.

She came to sit upon the'edge of the bed, and he marvelled once again at

the lustre and plabticity of her skin, at the subtlety of colouring

where the sun had darkened it from soft cream to burned honey, and at

the contrast of her dusky rose-tipped breasts and the dark thick bush of

curls at the base of her softly curving stomach.

She leaned over him, still shyly, and touched his cheek with one finger,

running down his throat on to his chest where the gold star lay upon the

hard muscle. You are beautiful, she whispered, and she saw it was true.

For he was tall and straight with muscled shoulders and lean flanks and

belly. The planes of his face were pure and perfect, perhaps its only

fault lying in its very perfection. It was almost unreal, as though she

were lying with some angel or god from out of mythology.

She twisted her legs up on to the bed, stretching out beside him upon

the lace cover, and they lay on their sides facing each other, not

touching but so close that she could feel the warmth of his belly upon

her own like a soft desert wind, and his breath stirred the dark soft

hair upon her cheek.

She sighed then, with happiness and contentment, like a traveller

reaching the end of a long lonely journey.

I love you, she said for the first time, and reaching out she took his

head, her fingers twining in the thick springing hair at the nape of his

neck, and drew it tenderly to her breast.

Long afterwards the chill of night oozed into the room, and they came

half-awake and crept together beneath the covers.

As they began drifting back into sleep she murmured sleepily, I'm so

glad that surgery won't be necessary, after all, and he chuckled softly.

Wasn't it better finding out for yourself? Much better, lover. Much,

much better, she admitted.

Debra spent one entire evening explaining to David that a

high-performance sports car was not a necessity for travel between his

base and the house on Malik Street, for she knew her man's tastes by

then. She pointed out that this was a country of young pioneers, and

that extravagance and ostentation were out of place. David agreed

vehemently, secure in the knowledge that Aaron Cohen and his minions

were scouring the country for him.

Debra suggested a Japanese compact similar to joe's, and David told her

that he would certainly give that his serious consideration.

Aaron Cohen's henchman tracked down a Mercedes Benz 3 5 0 SL belonging

to the German Charg6 d'Affaires inTel Aviv. This gentleman was

returning to Berlin and wished to dispose of his auto, for a suitable

consideration in negotiable cash. A single phone call was sufficient to

arrange payment through the Credit Suisse in Zurich.

It was golden bronze in colour, with a little under twenty thousand

kilometres on the clock, and it had clearly been maintained with the

loving care of an enthusiast.

Debra, returning on her motor scooter from the University, found this

glorious machine parked at the top end of Malik Street, where a heavy

chain denied access by all motor-driven vehicles to the village.

She took one look at it, and knew beyond all reasonable doubt who it

belonged to She was really quite angry when she stormed on to the

terrace, but she pretended to be angrier than that. David Morgan, you

really are absolutely impossible. 'You catch on fast, David agreed

amiably; he was sunbathing on the terrace. "How much did you pay for

it?"

"Ask me another question, doll. That one is becoming monotonous." "You

are really," Debra paused and searched frantically for a word of

sufficient force. She found it and delivered it with relish.

"Decadent!"

"You don't know the meaning of the word," David told her gently as he

rose from the cushions in the sun and drifted lazily in her direction.

Though she had been his lover for only a mere three days she recognized

the look in his eye and she began backing away.

I will teach you the meaning, he said. I am about to give you a

practical demonstration of decadence in such a sensitive spot that you

are likely to remember it for a long time. She ducked behind the olive

tree as he lunged, and her books spilled across the terrace. Leave me!

Hands off, you beast.

He feinted right, and caught her as she fell for it. He picked her up

easily across his chest.

David Morgan, I warn you, I shall scream if you don't put me down this

instant. Let's hear it. Go ahead! and she did, but in a ladylike

fashion so as not to alarm the neighbours.

Joe, on the other hand, was delighted with the 350.

The four of them took it on a trial run down the twisting road through

the Wilderness of Judaea to the shores of the Dead Sea. The road

challenged the car's suspension and David's driving skill, and they

whooped with excitement through the bends. Even Debra was able to

overcome her initial disapproval, and finally admitted it was beautiful,

but still decadent.

They swam in the cool green waters of the oasis of Em Gedi where they

formed a deep rock pool before overflowing and running down into the

thick saline water of the sea itself.

Hannah had brought her camera and she photographed Debra and David

sitting together on the rocks beside the pool.

They were in their bathing costumes, Debra's brief bikini showing off

her fine young body as she half-turned to laugh into David's face. He

smiled back at her, his face in profile and the dark sweep of his hair

falling on to his forehead. The desert light picked out the pure

features and the boldly stated facets of his beauty.

Hannah had a print of the photograph made for each of them, and later

those squares of glossy photographic paper were all they had left of it,

all that remained of the joy and the laughter of those days, like a

lovely flower taken from the growing tree of life and pressed and dried,

flattened and desiccated, deprived of its colour and perfume.

But the future threw no shadow over their happiness on that bright day,

and with Joe driving this time they ran back for Jerusalem. Debra

insisted that they stop for a group of tank corp boys hitch-hiking home

on leave, and although David protested it was impossible, they squeezed

three of them into the small cab. It was Debra's sop to her feelings of

guilt, and she sat in the back seat with her arms around David's neck

and they all sang the song that was that year a favourite with the young

people of Israel, Let there be peace.

In the last few days while David waited to enter the airforce, he loafed

shamelessly, frittering the time away in small chores like having his

uniforms tailored. He resisted Debra's suggestion that if regulation

issue were good enough for her father, a general officer, then they

might be good enough for David. Aaron Cohen supplied him with an

introduction to his own tailor. Aaron was beginning to develop a fine

respect for David's style.

Debra had arranged membership for David at the University Athletic Club,

and he worked out in the first class modern gym every day, and finished

with twenty lengths of the Olympic-size swimming pool to keep himself in

shape.

However, at other times, David merely lay sunbathing on the terrace, or

fiddled with electrical plugs or other small tasks Debra had asked him

to see to about the house.

As he moved through the cool and pleasant rooms, he would find an item

belonging to Debra, a book or a brooch perhaps, and he would pick it up

and fondle it briefly. Once a robe of hers thrown carelessly across the

foot of the bed and redolent of her particular perfume gave him a

physical pang as it reminded him sharply of her, and he held the

silkiness to his face and breathed the scent of her, and grudged the

hours until her return.

However, it was amongst her books that he discovered more about her than

years of study would have revealed.

She had crates of these piled in the unfurnished second bedroom which

they were using as a temporary storeroom until they could find shelves

and cupboards. One afternoon David began digging around in the crates.

It was a literary mixed grill, Gibbon and Vidal, Shakespeare and Mailer,

So1zhenitsyn and Mary Stewart, amongst other strange bedfellows. There

was fiction and biography, history and poetry, Hebrew and English,

softbacks and leather-bound editions, and a thin greenjacketed volume

which he almost discarded before the author's name caught his attention.

It was by D. Mordecai and with a feeling of discovery he turned to the

flyleaf. This year, in Jerusalem, a collection of poems, by Debra

Mordecai.

He carried the book through to the bedroom, remembering to kick off his

shoes before lying on the lace cover she was very strict about that, and

he turned to the first page.

There were five poems. The first was the title piece, the

two-thousand-year promise of Jewry Next year in Jerusalem had become

reality. It was a patriotic tribute to her land and even David, whose

taste in writing ran to Maclean and Robbins, recognized that it had a

superior quality. There were lines of startling beauty, evocative

phrasing and penetrative glimpses. It was good, really good, and David

felt a strange proprietary pride, and a sense of awe. He had not

guessed at these depths within her, these hidden areas of the mind.

When he came to the last poem, he found it was the shortest of the five,

and it was a love poem, or rather it was a poem to someone dearly loved

who was gone and suddenly David was aware of the difference between that

which was good and that which was magic.

He found himself shivering to the music of her words, felt the hair on

his forearms standing erect with the haunting beauty of it, and then at

last he felt himself choking on the sadness of it, the devastation of

total loss, and the words swam is his eyes flooded, and he had to blink

rapidly as the last terrible cry of the poem pierced him to the heart.

He lowered the book on to his chest, remembering what Joe had told him

about the soldier who had died in the desert. A movement attracted his

attention and he made a guilty effort to hide the book as he sat up. it

was such a private thing, this poetry, that he felt like a thief.

Debra stood in the doorway of the bedroom watching him, leaning against

the jamb with her hands clasped in front of her, studying him quietly.

He sat up on the bed and weighed the book in his hands. It's lovely, he

said at last, his voice was gruff with the emotions that her words had

evoked.

I'm glad you like it, she said, and he realized that she was shy.

Why did you not show it to me before? 'I was afraid you might not like

it. You must have loved him very much? he asked softly.

Yes, I did, I she said, but now I love you.

Then, finally, his posting came through and the Brig's hand was evident

in it all, though Joe admitted that he had used his own family

connections to influence the orders.

He was ordered to report to Mirage squadron Lancewhich was a crack

interceptor outfit based at the same hidden airfield from which he had

first flown. Joe Morde. was on the same squadron, and when he called

at Malik Street to tell David the news, he showed no resentment that

David would out-rank him, but instead he was confident that they would

be able to fly together as a regulor team. He spent the evening

briefing David on squadron personnel, from'Le Dauphin'the commanding

officer, a French immigrant, down to the lowest mechanic. In the weeks

ahead David would find Joe's advice and help invaluable, as he settled

into his niche amongst this tightly-knit team of fliers.

The following day the tailor. delivered his uniforms, and he wore one

to surprise Debra when she backed in through the kitchen door, laden

with books and groceries, using her bottom as a door buffer, her hair

down behind and her dark glasses pushed up on top of her head.

She dropped her load by the sink, and circled him with her hands on her

hips, her head cocked at a critical angle.

I should like you to wear that, and come to pick me up at the University

tomorrow afternoon, please, she said at last.

(why? J Because there are a few little bitches that lurk around the

Lauterman Building. Some of them are my students and some are

colleagues. I want them to get a good look at you, and eat their tiny

hearts out.

He laughed. So you aren't ashamed of me, " Morgan, you are too

beautiful for one person, you should have been born twins It was their

last day together, so he indulged her whimsy and wore his uniform to

fetch her at the English Literature Department, and he was surprised to

find how the dress affected the strangers he passed on the street the

girls smiled at him, the old ladies called shalom, even the guard at the

University gates waved him through with a grin and a joke. To them all

he was a guardian angel, one of those that had swept death from the very

sky above them.

Debra hurried to meet and kiss him, and then walked beside him, her hand

tucked proudly and possessively into the crook of his elbow. She took

him to eat an early dinner at the staff dining-room in the rounded glass

Belgium building.

While they ate, a casual question of his revealed the subterfuge she had

used to protect her reputation.

I'll probably not get off the base for the first few weeks but I'll

write to you at Malik Street - No, she said quickly, I won't be staying

there. It would be too lonely without you in that huge bed. 'Where

then? At your parents home? That would be a dead give-away. Every

time you arrive back in town, I leave home! No, they think I am staying

at the hostel here at the University. I told them I wanted to be closer

to the department You've got a room here? He stared at her.

Of course, Davey. I have to be a little discreet. I couldn't tell my

relatives, friends and employers to contact me care of Major David

Morgan. This may be the twentieth century, and modern Israel, but I am

still a Jewess, with a tradition of chastity and modesty behind me. For

the first time David began to appreciate the magnitude of Debra's

decision to come to him. He had taken it lightly compared to her. I'm

going to miss you, he said. And I you, she replied. Let's go home.

Yes, she agreed, laying aside her knife and fork. . I can eat any old

time. However, as they left Belgium House she exclaimed with

exasperation: Damn, I have to have these books back by today. Can we go

by the library? I'm sorry, Davey it won't take a minute. So they

climbed again to the main terrace and passed the brightly-lit

plate-glass windows of the Students Union Restaurant, and went on