Текст книги "Eagle in the Sky"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

Соавторы: Wilbur Smith
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pitching and lurkin& shaking David ruthlessly about the cockpit, but she

was up on all three wheels, losing speed handily, her undercart taking

the strain.  However, she was still travelling at ninety miles an hour

when she went into the irrigation ditch.

it snapped her undercart off like pretzel sticks and she nosed in,

struck the far bank of concrete that sheered through metal like a

scythe, and sent the fuselage cartwheeling across the field with David

still strapped within it.  The wings broke away and the body slid on

across the soft earth to come to rest at last, right way up like a

stranded whale.

The whole of David's left side was numb, no feeling in his arm or lethe

straps had mauled him with their rude grasp, and he was stunned and

bewildered in the sudden engrossing silence.

For many seconds he sat still, unable to move or think.  Then he smelled

it, the pervasive reek of Avtur jet fuel from the ruptured tanks and

lines.  The smell of it galvanized him with the pilot's deadly fear of

fire.

With his right hand he grabbed the canopy release lever and heaved at

it.  He wasted ten precious seconds with it, for it was jammed solid.

Then he turned his attention to the steel canopy breaker in its niche

below the lever.  This was a tool specially designed for this type of

emergency.  He lifted it, lay back in his seat and attacked the Perspex

dome above his head.  The stink of jet fuel was overpowering, filling

the cockpit, and he could hear the little pinging and tinkling sound

made by white-hot metal.

His left arm hampered him, he had no feeling or use in it.  The straps

bound him tightly to his seat and he had to pause in his assault upon

the canopy to loosen them.

Then he began again.  He tore an opening in the Perspex, the size of a

hand, and as he worked to enlarge it, a ruptured fuel pressure line

somewhere in the shattered fuselage sprayed a jet of Avtur high in the

air.  It fell in a heavy drizzle upon the canopy like a garden

sprinkler, poured down the curved sides and dribbled through the hole

David was cutting.  It fell into his face, icy cold on his cheeks and

stinging his eyes, it drenched his shoulders and the front of his

pressure suit, and David began to pray.  For the first time ever in his

life the words took on meaning and he felt his terror receding.  Hear O

Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.  He prayed aloud, striking up

at the softly yielding Perspex and feeling the soft rain of death in his

face.  He tore at the opening with his hands, bringing away slabs of

transparent material, but ripping his gloves and leaving his blood

smearing the jagged edges of the opening.

Blessed be His name, whose glorious kingdom is for ever The opening was

large enough.  He hauled himself up in the seat, and found himself

caught by the oxygen and radio lines attached to his helmet.  He could

not reach them with his crippled left arm.  He stared down at the

offending limb, and saw the blood welling out of the torn sleeve of the

suit.  There was no pain but it was twisted at a comical angle from the

elbow.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart – he whispered, and

with his right hand he tore loose the chin strap and let his helmet drop

to the floorboards.  The Avtur soaked into the soft dark mop of his hair

and ran down his neck behind his ears, and he thought about the flames

of hell.

Painfully he dragged himself out through the opening in the canopy, and

now not even prayer could hold off the dark hordes of terror that

assaulted his soul. – For the anger of God will kindle against you

Laboriously he crawled across the slippery sleek metal of the wing root

and fell to the ground. He fell facedown and lay for a moment, exhausted

by fear and effort.

I, remember all the commands of God, He heard voices then as he lay with

his face against the dusty earth, and he lifted his head and saw the

women from the orchard running towards him across the open field.  The

voices were shrill but faint and the words were in Hebrew.  He knew that

he was home.

Steadying himself against the shattered body of the Mirage, he came to

his feet with the broken arm dangling at his side, and he tried to shout

to them.

Go back!  Beware!  but his voice was a throaty croak, and they ran on

towards him.  Their dresses and aprons were gay spots of colour against

the dry brown earth.

He pushed himself away from the aircraft and staggered to meet the

running women.

Go back!  he croaked in his own terrible distress, with the grip of his

G-suit strangling his movements and the evaporating fuel cold as ice in

his air and down his face.

Within the battered hull of the Mirage a puddle of Avtur had been heated

by the white-hot shell of the jet compressor.  its low volatility at

last was raised to flash point and a dying spark from the electronic

equipment was enough to ignite it.

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

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

streamers and pennants that engulfed all around them, and David

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

consume the very air.

He held his breath, if he had not, the flame would have scorched his

lungs.  He closed his eyes tightly against the agony and ran on blindly.

His body and his limbs were protected by the fireproof pressure suit and

boots and gloves, but his head was bare and soaked with jet fuel.

As he ran his head burned like a torch.  His hair frizzled off, in a

stinking puff of flame and the skin of his scalp and neck and face were

exposed.  The flames burnt his ears off and most of his nose, they

flayed off his skin in a blistering sheet and then they ate into the raw

flesh, they burnt away his lips and exposed his teeth and part of the

bone of his jaw.  They ate through his eyelids and stripped the living

meat from his cheeks.

David ran on through the burning air and smoke, and he did not believe

that such pain was possible.  It exceeded all his imaginings and swamped

all the senses of his body and mind, but he knew he must not scream.

The pain was a blackness and the vivid colours of flame in his tightly

closed eyes, it was a roaring in his ears like all the winds of the

world, and in his flesh it was the goads and whips and burning hooks of

hell itself.

But he knew he could not let this terrible fire enter his body and he

ran on without screaming.

The women from the orchard were brought up short by the sudden forest of

flame and black smoke that rose up in front of them, engulfing the

squashed-insect body of the aircraft, and closing around the running

figure of the pilot.

It was a solid impenetrable wall of heat and smoke that blotted out all

ahead of them, and forced them to draw back, awed and horrified, before

its raging hot breath.  They stood in a small group, panting and

wild-eyed.

Then abruptly a freak gust of wind opened the heavy oily curtains of

smoke, and out of them stumbled a dreadful thing with a scorched and

smoking body and a head of flame.

Blindly it came out of the smoke, one arm hanging and its feet dragging

and staggering in the soft earth.

They stared at this thing in horror, frozen in silence, and it came

towards them.

Then a strapping girl, with a strong brown body and a man of dark hair,

uttered a cry of compassion, and raced to meet him.

As she ran, she stripped off her heavy voluminous skirt of thick wool,

leaving her strong brown legs bare.

She reached David and she swirled the skirt over his head, smothering

the flames that still ate into his flesh.

The other women followed her, using their clothing to wrap him as he

fell and rolled on the earth.

Only then did David begin to scream, from that lipless mouth with the

exposed teeth.  It was a sound that none of them would ever forget.  As

he screamed the eyes were open, with the lashes and brow and most of the

lids burned away.  The eyes were dark indigo blue in the glistening mask

of wet scorched meat, and the little blood vessels, sealed by the heat,

popped open and dribbled and spurted.  As he screamed, the blood and

lymph bubbled from the nostril holes where his nose had been, and his

body writhed and heaved and convulsed as spasm after spasm of unbearable

agony hit him.

The women had to hold him down to control his struggles, and to prevent

him tearing with clawed fingers at the ruins of his face.

He was still screaming when the doctor from the kibbutz slashed open the

sleeve of his pressure suit with a scalpel and pressed the morphine

needle into the twitching jumping muscles of his arm.

The Brig saw the last bright radar image fade from the plot and heard

the young radar officer report formally, No further contact.  And a

great silence fell on the command bunker.

They were all watching him.  He stood hunched over the plot and his big

bony fists were clasped at his sides.

His face was stiff and expressionless, but his eyes were terrible.

It seemed that the frantic voices of his two pilots still echoed from

the speakers above his head, as they called to each other in the

extremes of mortal conflict.

They had all heard David's voice, hoarse with sorrow and fear.

Joel!  No, Joe!  Oh God, no!  and they knew what that meant.  They had

lost them both, and the Brig was still stunned by the sudden

incalculable turn that the sortie had taken.

At the moment he had lost control of his fighters he had known that

disaster was unavoidable, and now his son was dead.  He wanted to cry

out aloud, to protest against the futility of it.  He closed his eyes

tightly for a few seconds, and when he opened them, he was in control

again.

General alert, he snapped.  All squadrons to "Red" standby, he knew they

faced an international crisis.  I want air cover over the area they went

down.  They may have ejected.  Put up two Phantom flights and keep an

umbrella over them.  I want helicopters sent in immediately, with

paratrooper guards and medical teams – Command bunker moved swiftly into

general alert procedure.

Get me the Prime Minister, he said, he was going to have to do a lot of

explaining, and he spared a few vital seconds to damn David Morgan

roundly and bitterly.

The airforce doctor took one look at David's charred and scorched head

and he swore softly.  We'll be lucky to save this one.

Loosely he swathed the head in Vaseline bandages and they hurried with

David's blanket-wrapped body on the stretcher to the Bell 2o5 helicopter

waiting in the orchard.

The Bell touched down on the helipad at Hadassah Hospital and a medical

team was ready for him.  One hour and fifty-three minutes after the

Mirage hit the irrigation canal David had passed through the sterile

lock into the special burns unit on the third floor of the hospital,

into a quiet and secluded little world where everybody wore masks and

long green sterile robes and the only contact with the outside world was

through the double-glazed windows and even the air he breathed was

scrubbed and cleaned and filtered.

However, David was enfolded in the soft dark clouds of morphine and he

did not hear the quiet voices of the masked figures as they worked over

him.  It's third degree over the entire area – No attempt to clean it or

touch it, sister, not until it stabilizes.  I am going to spray with

Epigard, and we'll go to intramuscular Tetracycline four-hourly against

infection, It will be two weeks before we dare touch it.  'Very well,

doctor.  Oh, and sister, fifteen milligrams of morphine six hourly.  We

are going to have a lot of pain with this one.  Pain was infinity, an

endless ocean across which the wave-patterns marched relentlessly to

burst up the beaches of his soul.  There were times when the surf of

pain ran high and each burst of it threatened to shatter his reason.

Again there were times when it was low, almost gentle in its throbbing

rhythm and he drifted far out upon the ocean of pain to where the

morphine mists enfolded him.  Then the mists parted and a brazen sun

beat down upon his head, and he squirmed and writhed and cried out.  His

skull seemed to bloat and swell until it must burst, and the open

nerve-ends screamed for surcease.

Then suddenly there was the sharply beloved sting of the needle in his

flesh, and the mists closed about him once more.

I don't like the look of this at all.  Have we taken a culture, sister?

'Yes, doctor.  'What are we growing?  'I'm afraid it's strep.  'Yes.  I

thought so.  I think we'll change to Cloxacillin see if we get a better

response with that With the pain, David became aware of a smell.  It was

the smell of carrion and f 3ings ong dead, the smell of vermin in dirty

blankets, of vomit and excreta, and the odour of wet garbage festering

in dark alleys, and at last he came to know that the smell was the

rotting of his own flesh as the bacteria of Streptococcus infection

attacked the expose tissue.

They fought it with the drugs, but now the pain was underlined with the

fevers of infection and the terrible burning thirsts which no amount of

liquids could slake.

With the fever came the nightmares and the fantasies to plague and goad

him even further beyond the limits of his endurance.

Joe – he cried out in his agony, try for the sun, Joe.

Break left now, Go!  Go!  And then he was sobbing from the ruined and

broken mouth.  Oh, Joe!  Oh God, no!  Joe.  Until the night-sister could

no longer bear it and she came hurrying with the syringe, and his

screams turned into babbling and then into the low whimper and moan of

the drug sleep.  We'll start with the acriflavin dressings now, sister.

When they changed the dressings every forty-eight hours it was under

general anaesthetic for the entire head was of raw flesh, a bland

expressionless head, a head like a child's drawing, crude lines and

harsh colours, hairless, earless, streaked and mottled with yellow runs

and patches of soft pus and corruption.

We are getting a response from the Cloxacillin, it's looking a lot

healthier, sister.  The naked flesh of his eyelids had contracted,

pulling back like the glistening petals of a pink rose, exposing the

eyeballs to the air without respite.  They had filled the eyes sockets

with a yellow ointment to soothe and moisten them, to keep out the

loathsome infection that covered his head.  The ointment prevented

vision.

I think we'll go for an abdominal pedicel now.  Will you prep for

afternoon theatre, please, sister?  Now it was time for the knife, and

David was to learn that the pain and the knife lived together in

terrible sin.

They lifted a long flap of skin and flesh from his belly, leaving it

still attached at one end, and they rolled it into a fat sausage, then

they strapped his good arm, the one without the plaster cast, to his

side and they stitched the free end of the sausage to his forearm,

training it to draw its blood supply from there.  Then they brought him

back from theatre and left him trussed and helpless and blind with the

pedicel fastened to his arm, like a remora.  to the belly of a shark.

Well, we have saved both eyes, the voice was proud, fond almost, and

David looked up and saw them for the first time.  They were gathered

around his cot, a circle of craning heads, mouths and noses covered by

surgical masks, but his vision was still smeary with ointment and

distorted by the drip irrigation that had replaced it.  Now we will go

for the eyelids.  It was the knife again, the contracted and

bunchedelids split and re-shaped and stitched, the knife up ey and pain

and the familiar sickly taste and stink of anaesthetic that saturated

his body and seemed to exude from the very pores of his skin.

Beautiful, really lovely, we have cleaned up the infection nicely.  Now

we can begin.  The head was cleansed of its running rivers of pus, and

now it was glistening and wet, bald and bright red, the colour of a

cocktail cherry as granulation tissue formed.  There were two gnarled

and twisted flaps for ears, the double row of teeth startlingly white

and perfect where the lips had been eaten away, a long white blade of

exposed bone outlined the point of the jaw, the nose was a stump with

the nostrils like the double muzzles of a shotgun, and only the eyes

were still beautiful, dark indigo and flawlessly white between lids of

shocking crimson and neatly laid back stitches.

We'll begin at the back of the neck.  Will you prep for this afternoon's

theatre, please, sister?  It was a variation on the theme of the knife.

They planed sheets of live skin from his thighs and meshed them to allow

a wider spread, then they laid them over the exposed flesh, covering a

little at each session, and evaluating each attempt while David lay in

his cot and rode the long swells of pain.

That one is no good.  I'm afraid we will have to scrap it and try again.

While his thighs grew a new crop of skin, they planed fresh sheets from

his calves, so that each donor-site became a new source of pain.

Lovely!  An edge-to-edge take with that graft Slowly the cap of skin

extended -up across the nape of his neck and over his scalp.  The

meshing of the skin grafts gave them a patterned effect, regular as the

scales of a fish, and the new grafts were hard-looking and raised.  We

can move the pedicel up now.  'This afternoon's theatre, doctor?  'Yes,

please, sister.  David came to know that they operated every Thursday in

the burns unit.  He came to dread the Thursday morning rounds when the

consultant and his staff crowded around his cot and touched and prodded

and discussed the restructuring of his flesh with an impersonal candour

that chilled him.

They freed the fat sausage of flesh from his belly and it dangled from

his arm like some grotesque white leech, seeming to have a life of its

own, drawing blood and sustenance from its grip upon his forearm.

They lifted his arm and strapped it across his chest, and the raw end of

the pedicel they split and stitched to his jaw and to the stump of his

nose.

It's taken very nicely.  We will begin shaping it this afternoon.  We'll

have him at the head of the theatre list.

Will you see to that please, sister?  With the living flesh that they

had stolen from his belly they fashioned a crude lump of a nose, taut,

narrow lips and a new covering for his jawbone.

The oedema has settled.  This afternoon I will go for the bone-graft on

the jaw.

They opened his chest and split his fourth rib laterally, robbing it of

a long sliver of bone and they grafted this to the damaged jaw-bone,

then they spread the flesh of the pedicel over it and stitched it all

into place.

On Thursdays it was the knife and the stink of anaesthetic, and for the

days in between it was the ache and pain of abused and healing flesh.

They fined down the new nose, piercing it with nostrils, they finished

the reconstruction of his eyelids.

They laid the last grafts behind his ears, they cut a double zigzag

incision around the base of his jaw where the contracting scar tissue

was trying to draw his chin down on to his chest.  The new lips took

firm hold on the existing muscles and David gained control of them so he

could form his words again and speak clearly.

The last area of raw flesh was closed beneath the patchwork of skin

grafts, flesh grafts and stitches.  David was no longer a high-infection

risk and he was moved from a sterile environment.  Once again he saw

human faces, not merely eyes peering over white surgical masks.  The

faces were friendly, cheerful faces.  Men and women proud of their

achievement in saving him   from death and refreshing his ravaged head.

You'll be allowed visitors now, and I expect you'll welcome that, said

the consultant.  He was a distinguished-looking young surgeon who had

left a highly paid post at a Swiss Clinic to head this burns and plastic

surgery unit.

I don't think I will be having any visitors, David had lost contact with

the reality of the outside world during the nine months in the burns

unit.

Oh, yes, you will, the surgeon told him.  We've had regular inquiries on

your progress from a number of people.  Isn't that correct, sister?

"That's right, doctor.  You can let them know that he is allowed

visitors now.  The consultant and his group began to move on.

Doctor, David called him back.  I want a look at a mirror, and they were

all silent, immediately embarrassed.  This request of his had been

denied many times over the last months.

Damn it, David became angry.  You can't protect me from it for ever. The

consultant gestured for the others to leave and they filed out of the

ward, while he came back to David's bed.

All right, David, he agreed gently.  We'll find you a mirror, though we

don't have much use for them around here!  For the first time in the

many months he had known him, David glimpsed the depths of his

compassion, and he wondered at it.  That a man who lived constantly

amongst great pain and terrible disfigurement could still be moved by

it.

You must understand that how you are now is not how you will always be.

All I have been able to do, so far, is heal your exposed flesh and make

you functional again.  You are once more a viable human being.  You have

not experienced the loss of any of your faculties but I will not pretend

that you are beautiful.  However, there remains much that I can still do

to change that.

Your ears, for example, can be reconstructed with the material I have

reserved for that purpose, He indicated the stump of the pedicel that

still hung from David's forearm – There is much fine work stiH to be

done about the nose and mouth and eyes.  He paced slowly the length of

the ward and looked out into the sunlight for a moment before turning

back again and coming forward to face David.

But let me be truthful with you.  There are limitations to what I can

do.  The muscles of expression, those delicate little muscles around the

eyes and mouth have been destroyed.  I cannot replace those.  The hair

follicles of your lashes and brows and scalp have been burned away.

You will be able to wear a wig, but David turned to his bedside locker

and took from the drawer his wallet.  He opened it and drew out a

photograph.  it was the one which Hannah had taken so long ago of Debra

and David sitting at the rock-pool in the oasis of Em Gedi and smiling

at each other.  He handed it to the surgeon.

Is that what you looked like, David?  I never knew.  The regret showed

like a quick shadow in his eyes.  Can you make me look like that again?

The surgeon studied the photograph a moment longer, the young god's face

with the dark mop of hair and the clean pure lines of the profile.  No,

he said.  I could not even come close That's all I wanted to know. David

took the photograph back from him.

You say I'm functional now.  Let's leave it at that, shall we?  You

don't want further cosmetic surgery?

We can still do a lot Doctor, I've lived under the knife for nine

months.

I've had the taste of antibiotics and anaesthetic in my mouth, and the

stink of it in my nostrils for all that time.  Now all I want is a

little escape from pain, a little peace and the taste of clean air.

Very well, the surgeon agreed readily.  It is not important that we do

it now.  You could come back at any time in the future.  He walked to

the door of the ward.  Come on. Let's go find a mirror.  There was one

in the nurses room beyond the double doors at the end of the passage.

The room itself was empty and the mirror was set into the wall above the

wash basin.

The surgeon stood in the doorway and leaned against the jamb.  He lit a

cigarette and watched as David crossed towards the mirror and then

halted abruptly as he saw his own image.

He wore the blue hospital dressing-gown over his pyjamas.  He was tall

and finely proportioned.  His shoulders were wide, his hips narrow, and

he had the same lithe and beautiful man's body.

However, the head that topped it was something from a nightmare.

Involuntarily he gasped out aloud and the gash of a mouth parted in

sympathy.  It was a tight lipless mouth, like that of a cobra,

white-rimmed and harsh.

Drawn by the awful fascination of the horror, David drew closer to the

mirror.  The thick mane of his dark hair had concealed the peculiar

elongation of his skull.

He had never realized that it jutted out behind like that, for now the

hair was gone and the bald curve was covered with meshed skin, thickened

and raised.

The skin and flesh of his face was a patchwork, joined by seams of scar

tissue drawn tightly over his cheekbones, giving him a vaguely Asiatic

appearance, but the eyes were round and startled, with clumsy lids and

puffed dead-looking flesh beneath.

His nose was a shapeless blob, out of balance with his other coarsened

features and his ears were gnarled excrescences, seemingly fastened

haphazardly to the sides of his head.  The whole of it was bland and

bald and boiled-looking.

The gash of a mouth twisted briefly in a horrid rictus, and then

regained its frozen shape.  I can't smile, said David.

No, agreed the surgeon.  You will have no control of your expressions.

That was the truly horrifying aspect of it.  It was not the twisted and

tortured flesh, with the scarring and stitch marks still so evident, it

was the expressionlessness of this mask.  The frozen features seemed

long dead, incapable of human warmth or feeling.

Yeah!  But you should have seen the other guy!  David said softly, and

the surgeon chuckled without mirth.

We'll have those last few stitches behind your ears out tomorrow, I

shall remove what remains of the pedicel from your arm, and then you can

be discharged.

Come back to us when you are ready.  David ran his hand gingerly over

the bald patterned skull.

I'm going to save a fortune in haircuts and razor blades, he said, and

the surgeon turned quickly away and walked down the passage, leaving

David to get to know his new head.

The clothes that they had found for him were cheap and ill-fitting,

slacks and open-neck shirt, a light jacket and sandals, and he asked for

some head covering, anything to conceal the weird new shape of his

scalp.

One of the nurses found him a cloth cap, and then told him that a

visitor was waiting for him in the hospital superintendent's department.

He was a major from the military provost marshal's office, a lean

grey-haired min with cold grey eyes and a tight hard mouth.  He

introduced himself without offering to shake hands and then opened the

file on the desk in front of him.

I have been instructed by my office to ask for the formal resignation of

your commission in the Israeli Air Force, he started, and David stared

at him.  In the long pain-filled, fever-hot nights, the thought of

flying once more had seemed like a prospect of paradise.

I don't understand, he mumbled, and reached for a cigarette, breaking

the first match and then puffing quickly as the second flared.  You want

my resignation – and if I refuse?  Then we shall have no alternative

other than to convene a court martial and to try you for dereliction of

duty, and refusing in the face of the enemy to obey the lawful orders of

your superior officer.  I see, David nodded heavily, and drew on the

cigarette.  The smoke stung his eyes.  It doesn't seem I have any

choice.  I have prepared the necessary documents.  Please sign here, and

here, and I shall sign as witness.  David bowed over the papers and

signed.  The pen scratched loudly in the silent room.

Thank you.  The major gathered his papers, and placed them in his

briefcase.  He nodded at David and started for the door.

So now I am an outcast, said David softly, and the man stopped.  They

stared at each other for a moment, and then the major's expression

altered slightly, and the cold grey eyes became ferocious.

You are responsible for the destruction of two warplanes that are

irreplaceable and whose loss has caused us incalculable harm.  You are

responsible for the death of a brother officer, and for bringing your

country to the very brink of open war which would have cost many

thousands more of our young people's lives, and possibly our very

existence.  You have embarrassed our international friends, and given

strength to our enemies.  He paused and drew a deep breath.  The

recommendation of my office was that you should go to trial and that the

prosecution be instructed to ask for the death penalty.

It was only the personal intervention of the Prime Minister and of

Major-General Mordecai that saved you from that.  In my view, instead of

bemoaning your fate, you should consider yourself highly fortunate.  He

turned away and his footsteps cracked on the stone floor as he strode

from the room.

In the bleak impersonal lobby of the hospital, David was suddenly struck

by a reluctance to walk on out into the spring sunshine through the

glass swing doors.  He had heard that long-term prisoners felt this way

when the time came for their release.

Before he reached the doors he turned aside and went down to the

hospital synagogue.  In a corner of the quiet square hall he sat for a

long time.  The stained-glass windows, set high in the nave, filled the

air with shafts of coloured lights when the sun came through, and a

little of the peace and beauty of that place stayed with him and gave

him courage when at last he walked out into the square and boarded a bus

for Jerusalem.

He found a seat at the rear, and beside a window.  The bus pulled away

and ground slowly up the hill towards the city.

He became aware that he was being watched, and he lifted his head to

find that a woman with two young children had taken the seat in front of

him.  She was a poorly dressed, harassed-looking woman, prematurely aged

and she held the grubby young infant on her lap and fed it from the

plastic bottle.  However, the second child was an angelic little girl of

four or five years.  She had huge dark eyes and a head of thick curls.

She stood on the seat facing backwards, with one thumb thrust deeply

into her mouth.  She was watching David steadily over the back of the

seat, studying his face with that total absorption and candour of the

child.  David felt a sudden warmth of emotion for the child, a longing