Текст книги "Eagle in the Sky"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

Соавторы: Wilbur Smith
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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.