Текст книги "Eagle in the Sky"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

Соавторы: Wilbur Smith
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accumulated sufficient for this outrage.  A suitcase with a timing

device had been left under a table and the two terrorists had walked out

and got clean away.  A week later they were on Damascus television,

gloating over their success.

Now, however, there was no reason nor explanation for this sudden burst

of violence.  It was as undirected, and yet as dreadfully effective as

some natural cataclysm.  Chilling in its insensate enormity, so that

they, the living, worked in a kind of terrified frenzy, to save the

injured and to carry from the shambles the broken bodies of the dead.

They laid them upon the lawns beneath the red-bud trees and covered them

with sheets brought hurriedly from the nearest hostel.  The long white

bundles in a neat row upon the green grass was a memory David knew he

would have for ever.

The ambulances came, with their sirens pulsing and rooflights flashing,

to carry away death's harvest and the police cordoned off the site of

the blast before David and Debra left and walked slowly down to where

the Mercedes was parked in the lot.  Both of them were filthy with dust

and blood, and wearied with the sights and sounds of pain and

mutilation.  They drove in silence to Malik Street and showered off the

smell and the dirt.

Debra soaked Davies uniform in cold water to remove the blood.  Then she

made coffee for them and they drank it, sitting side by side in the

brass bed.

So much that was good and strong died there tonight, Debra said.

Death is not the worst of it.  Death is natural, it's the logical

conclusion to all things.  it was the torn and broken flesh that still

lived which appalled me.  Death has a sort of dignity, but the maimed

are obscene.  She looked at him with almost fear in her eyes.  That's

cruel, David.  In Africa there is a beautiful and fierce animal called

the sable antelope.  They run together in herds of up to a hundred, but

when one of them is hurt, wounded by a hunter or mauled by a lion, the

lead bulls turn upon him and drive him from the herd.  I remember my

father telling me about that, he would say that if you want to be a

winner then you must avoid the company of the losers for their despair

is contagious.  God, David, that's a terribly hard way to look at life.

'Perhaps, David agreed, but then, you see, life is hard.  When they made

love, there was for the first time a quality of desperation in it, for

it was the eve of parting and they had been reminded of their mortality.

In the morning David went to join his squadron and Debra locked the

house on Malik Street.

Each day for seventeen days David flew two, and sometimes three,

sorties.  In the evenings, if they were not flying night interceptions,

there were lectures and training films, and after that not much desire

for anything but a quick meal and then sleep.

The Colonel, le Dauphin, had flown one sortie with David.  He was a

small man with a relaxed manner and quick, shrewd eyes.  He had made his

judgement quickly.

After that first day, David and Joe flew together, and David moved his

gear into the locker across from Joe in the underground quarters that

the crews on standby used.

In those seventeen days the last links in an iron friendship were

forged.  David's flare and dash balanced perfectly with Joe's rock-solid

dependability.

David would always be the star while Joe seemed destined to be the

accompanist, the straight guy who was a perfect foil, the wingman

without personal ambition for glory whose talent was to put his number

one into the position for the strike.

Quickly they developed into a truly formidable team, so perfectly in

accord that communication in the air was almost extra-sensory, similar

to the instantaneous reaction of the bird flock or the shoal of fish.

Joe sitting out there behind him was for David like a million dollars in

insurance.  His tail was secure and he could concentrate on the special

task that his superior eyesight and lightning reactions were so suited

to.  David was the gunfighter, in a service where the gunfighter was

supreme.

The I.  A.  F.  had been the first to appreciate the shortcomings of

the-air-to-air missile, and relied heavily on the classic type of air

combat.  A missile could be induced to run stupid.  It was possible to

make its computer think in a set pattern and then sucker it with a break

in the pattern.  For every three hundred missile launches in air-to-air

combat, a single strike could be expected.

However, if you had a gunfighter coming up into your six o'clock

position with his finger on the trigger of twin 30-mm.  cannons, capable

of pouring twelve thousand shells a minute into you, then your chances

were considerably lighter than three hundred to one.

Joe also had his own special talent.  The forward scanning radar of the

Mirage was a complicated and sophisticated body of electronics, that

required firstly a high degree of manual dexterity.  The mechanism was

operated entirely by the left hand, and the fingers of that hand had to

move like those of a concert pianist.  However, more important was the

feel for the instrument, a lover's touch to draw the optimum results

from it.  Joe had the feel, David did not.

They flew training interceptions, day and night, against high-flying and

low-altitude practice targets.

They flew low-level training strikes, and at other times they went out

high over the Mediterranean and engaged each other in plane-to-plane

dogfights.

However, Desert Flower steered them tactfully away from any actual or

potential combat situation.  They were watching David.

At the end of the period, David's service dossier passed over

Major-General Mordecai's desk.  Personnel was the Brig's special

responsibility and although each officer's dossier was reviewed by him

regularly, he had asked particularly to see David's.

The dossier was still slim, compared to the bulky tomes of some of the

old salts and the Brig flicked quickly over his own initial

recommendation and the documents of David's acting commission.  Then he

stopped to read the later reports and results.  He grinned wolfishly as

he saw the gunnery report.  He could pick them out of a crowd, he

thought with satisfaction.

At last he came to le Dauphin's personal appraisal: Morgan is a pilot of

exceptional ability.  Recommended that acting rank be confirmed and that

he be placed on fully operational basis forthwith.  The Brig picked up

the red pen that was his own special prerogative and scrawled J agree at

the foot of the report.

That took care of Morgan, the pilot.  He could now consider Morgan, the

man.  His expression became bleak and severe.  Debra's sudden desire to

leave home almost immediately David arrived in Jerusalem had been too

much of a coincidence for a man who was trained to search for underlying

motives and meanings.

It had taken him two days and a few phone calls to learn that Debra was

merely using the hostel room at the University as an accommodation

address, and that her real domestic arrangements were more comfortable.

The Brig did not approve, very definitely not.  Yet he knew that it was

beyond his jurisdiction.  He learned that his daughter had inherited his

own iron will.  Confrontations between them were cataclysmic events,

that shook the family to its foundations and seldom ended in

satisfactory results.

Although he spent much of his time with young people, still he found the

new values hard to live with – let alone accept.  He remembered the

physical agony of his long and chaste engagement to Ruth with pride,

like a veteran reviewing an old campaign.

Well, at the least she has the sense not to flout it, not to bring shame

on us all.  She has spared her mother that.  The Brig closed the dossier

firmly.

Le Dauphin called David into his office and told him of his change in

status.  He would go on regular green standby, which meant four nights a

week on base.

David would not have to undergo his paratrooper training in unarmed

combat and weapons.  A downed pilot in Arab territory had a much better

chance of survival if he was proficient in this type of fighting.

David went straight from le Dauphin's office to the telephone in the

crew-room.  He caught Debra before she left the Lauterman Building for

lunch.

Warm the bed, wench, he told her, I'll be home tomorrow night.

He and Joe drove up to Jerusalem in the Mercedes, and he wasn't

listening to Joe's low rumbling voice until a thumb like an oar prodded

his ribs.

Sorry, Joe, I was thinking.

Well, stop it.  Your thoughts are misting up the windows.  What did you

say?

J was talking about the wedding, Hannah and me.  David realized it was

only a month away now, and he expected the excitement amongst the women

was heavy as static on a summer's day before the rain.  Debra's letters

had been filled with news of the arrangements.

I would be happy if you will stand up with me, and be my witness.  You

fly as wingman for a change, and I'll take on the target.

David realized that he was being honoured by the request and he accepted

with proper solemnity.  Secretly he was amused.  Like most young

Israelis David had spoken to, both Debra and Joe claimed not to be

religious.  He had learned that this was a pose.  All of them were very

conscious of their religious heritage, and well versed in the history

and practice of Judaism.

They followed all the laws of living that were not oppressive, and which

accorded with a modern and busy existence.

To them religious meant dressing in the black robes and wide-brimmed

hats of the ultra orthodox Mea Shea rim, or in following a routine for

daily living that was crippling in its restrictions.

The wedding would be a traditional affair, complete with all the

ceremony and the rich symbolism, complicated only by the security

precautions which would have to be most rigorously enforced.

The ceremony was to take place in the Brig's garden, for Hannah was an

orphan.  Also the secluded garden and fortress-like walls about it, were

easier to protect.

Amongst the guests would be many prominent figures in the government and

the military.

At the last count we have five generals and eighteen colonels on the

list, Joe told him, to which add most of the cabinet, even Golda has

promised to try and be there.  So you see, it's going to make a nice

juicy target for our friends in Black September.  Joe scowled and lit

two cigarettes, passing one to David.  If it wasn't for Hannah, you know

how women feel about weddings, I would just as soon go down to a

registry office.  You are fooling nobody, David grinned.  You are

looking forward to it.  Sure, Joe's scowl cleared.  It's going to be

good to have our own place, like you and Debs.  I wish Hannah had been

sensible.  A year of pretending, he shook his head.  Thank God it's

nearly over.

He dropped Joe in the lane outside the Brig's house in Em Karem.

I won't bother to invite you in, Joe said.  I guess you've got plans.

Good guess, David smiled.  Will we see you and Hannah?  Come to dinner

tomorrow night.

Joe shook his head again.  I'm taking Hannah down to Ashkelon to visit

her parents graves.  It's traditional before a wedding.  Perhaps we'll

see you Saturday Right then, I'll try and make it.  Debra will want to

see you.  aloin, Joe.  Shalom, shalom, said Joe and David pulled away,

flicking the gears in a racing change as he put the Mercedes at the

hill.  Suddenly he was in a hurry.

The terrace door stood open in welcome, and she was waiting for him.

Debra was vibrant and tense with expectation, sitting in one of the new

leather chairs with her legs curled under her.  Her hair was freshly

washed and shimmering like a starling's wing.  She was dressed in a

billowing kaftan of light silk and subtle honey colours that picked out

the gold in her eyes.

She came out of the chair in a swirl of silk, and ran barefooted across

the rugs to meet him.

David!  David!  she cried and he caught her up and spun on his heels,

laughing with her.

Afterwards she led him proudly about the rooms and showed him the

changes and additions that had turned it into a real home during his

absence.  David had convinced her that cost was not fundamental and they

had chosen the designs for the furniture together.  These had been made

and delivered by Debra's tame Arab and she had arranged them as they had

planned it.  It was all in soft leather and dark wood, lustrous copper

and brass, set off by the bright rugs.  However, there was one article

he had never seen before, a large oil painting on canvas, and Debra had

hung it unframed on the freshly painted white wall facing the terrace.

It was the only decoration upon the wall, and any other would have been

insignificant beside it.

It was a harsh dominant landscape, a desert scene which captured the

soul of the wilderness; the colours; were hot and fierce and seemed to

pour through the room like the rays of the desert sun itself.

Debra held his hand and watched David's face anxiously for a reaction as

he studied it.  Wow!  He said at last.  You like it?  She was relieved.

It's terrific.  Where did you get it?  'A gift from the artist.

She's an old friend.  'She?  That's right.  We are driving up to

Tiberias tomorrow to have lunch with her.  I've told her all about you,

and she wants to meet you.  'What's she like?  She's one of our leading

artists, and her name is Ella`Kadesh, but apart from that I can't begin

to describe her.

All I can do is promise you an entertaining day.  Debra had prepared a

special dish of lamb and olives and they ate it on the terrace under the

olive tree.  Again the talk turned to Joe's wedding, and in the midst of

it David asked abruptly, What made you decide to come with me, without

marrying?  She replied after a moment.  I I discovered that I loved you,

and I knew that you were too impatient to play the waiting game.  I knew

that if I didn't, I might lose you again.  Until recently, I didn't

realize what a big decision it was, he mused, and she sipped her wine

without replying.  Let's get married, Debs, he broke the silence.  Yes,

she nodded.

That's a splendid idea.  'Soon, he said.  Soon as possible.  Not before

Hannah.  I don't want to steal her day from her.

Right, David agreed, but immediately afterwards.  Morgan, you have got

yourself a date, she told him.

it was a three-hour drive to Tiberias so they rose as soon as the sun

came through the shutters and tigerstriped the wall above the brass bed.

To save time, they shared one bath, sitting facing each other,

waist-deep in suds.

Ella is the rudest person you'll ever meet, Debra warned him.  She

looked like a little girl this morning with her hair piled on top of her

head and secured with a pink ribbon.  The greater the impression you

make on her, the ruder she will be, and you are expected to retaliate in

kind.  So please, David, don't lose your temper.

David scooped up a dab of suds with a finger and smeared it on the tip

of her nose.

I promise, he said.

They drove down to Jericho, and then turned north along the valley of

the Jordan, following the high barbedwire fence of the border with its

warning notice boards for the minefields, and the regular motorized

patrols grinding deliberately along the winding road.

It was hot in the valley and they drove with the windows open and Debra

pulled her skirt high around her waist to cool her long brown legs.

Better not do that if you want to be in time for lunch, David warned

her, and she smoothed them down hurriedly.

Nothing is safe with you around, she protested.

They came at last out of the barren land into the fertile basin of the

Kibbutzim below Galilee, and again the smell of orange blossom was so

strong on the warm air that it was difficult to breathe.

At last they saw the waters of the lake flashing amongst the date palms

and Debra touched his arm.

Slow down, Davey.  Ella's place is a few miles this side of Tiberias.

That's the turnoff, up ahead.

It was a track that led down to the lake shore and it ended against a

wall of ancient stone blocks.  Five other cars were parked there

already.

Ella's having one of her lunch parties, Debra remarked and led him to a

gate in the wall.  Beyond was a small ruined castle.  The tumbled walls

formed weird shapes and the stone was black with age; over them grew

flamboyant creepers of bougainvillaea and the tall palms clattered their

fronds in the light breeze that came off the lake.  Other exotic

flowering shrubs grew upon the green lawns.

Part of the ruins had been restored and renovated into a picturesque and

unusual lakeside home, with a wide patio and a stone jetty against which

a motor-boat was moored.  Across the green waters of the lake rose the

dark smooth whale-back of the Golan Heights.

It was a crusader fortress, Debra explained.  One of the guard posts for

traffic across the lake and part of the series leading up to the great

castle on the Horns of Hittern that the Moslems destroyed when they

drove the crusaders out of the Holy Land.  Ella's grandfather purchased

it during the Allenby administration, but it was a ruin until she did it

up after the war of independence.

The care with which the alterations had been made so as not to spoil the

romantic beauty of the site was a tribute to Ella Kadesh's artistic

vision, which was completely at odds with the woman herself.

She was enormous; not simply fat or tall, but big.  Her hands and her

feet were huge, her fingers clustered with rings and semi-precious

stones and her toenails through the open sandals were painted a glaring

crimson, as if to flaunt their size.  She stood as tall as David but the

tent-like dress that billowed about her was covered with great explosive

designs that enhanced her bulk until she seemed to make up two of him.

She wore a wig of tiered curls, flaming red in colour and dangling gold

earrings.

It seemed she must have applied her eye make-up with a spade, and her

rouge with a spray gun.  She removed the thin black cheroot from her

mouth and kissed Debra before she turned to study David.  Her voice was

gravelly, hoarse with cheroot smoke and brandy.

I had not expected you to be so beautiful she said, and Debra quailed at

the expression in David's eyes.  I do not like beauty.  It is so often

deceptive, or inconsequential.  It usually hides something deadly, like

the glittering beauty of the cobra, or like the pretty wrapper of a

candy bar, it contains cloying sweetness and a soft centre.  She shook

the stiffly lacquered curls of her wig, and fixed David with her shrewd

little eyes.  No, I prefer ugliness to beauty.

David smiled at her with all his charms upon display.  Yes, he agreed,

having met you, and seen some of your work, I can understand that.

She let out a cackle of raucous laughter, and clapped the cheroot back

in her mouth.  Well now, at the very least we are not dealing with a

chocolate soldier.  She placed a huge masculine arm about David's

shoulders and led him to meet the company.

They were a mixed dozen, all intellectuals, artists, writers, teachers,

journalists, and David was content to sit beside Debra in the mild

sunshine and enjoy the beer and the amusing conversation.  However, Ella

would not let him relax for long and when they sat down to the

gargantuan alfresco meal of cold fish and poultry, she attacked him

again.

Your martial airs and affectations, your pomp and finery.  A plague on

it I say, a pox on your patriotism, and courage, on your fearlessness

and your orders of chivalry.  It is all sham and pretence, an excuse for

you to stink up the earth with piles of carrion.

I wonder if you will feel the same when a platoon of Syrian infantry

break in here to rape you, David challenged her.

My boy, I find it so difficult to get laid these days that I should pray

for such a heaven-sent opportunity.  She let out a mighty hoot of

laughter and her wig slipped forward at an abandoned angle.  Nothing was

safe from her, and she pushed the wig back into place and streamed

straight into the attack again.

Your male bombast, your selfish arrogance.  To you this woman– and she

indicated Debra with a turkey leg, to you she is merely a receptacle for

your seething careless sperm.  It matters not to you that she is a

promise for the future, that within her are the seeds of a great writing

talent.  No, to you she is a rubbing block, a convenient means to a

Debra interrupted her.  That definitely is enough, I will not allow a

public debate on my bedroom, and Ella turned towards her with the battle

lust lighting her eyes.

Your gift is not yours to use as you wish.  You hold it in trust for all

mankind, and you have a duty to them.

That duty is to exercise your gift, to allow it to grow and blossom and

give forth fruit.  She used the turkey leg like a judge's gavel, banging

the edge of her plate with it, to silence Debra's protests.

Have you written a word since you took young Mars to your heart?  What

of the novel we discussed on this very terrace a year ago?  Have your

animal passions swamped all else?  Has the screeching of your ovaries

Stop it, Ella!  Debra was angry now, her cheeks flushed and her brown

eyes snapping.

Yes!  Yes!  Ella tossed the bone aside and sucked her fingers noisily.

Ashamed you should be, angry with yourself – Damn you, Debra flared at

her.

Damn me if you will, but you are damned yourself if you do not write!

Write, woman, write!  She sat back and the wicker chair protested at the

movement of her vast body.  All right, now we will all go for a swim.

David had not seen me in a bikini yet, much he will care for that skinny

little wench when he does!  They drove back to Jerusalem in the night,

flushed with the sun, and although the Mercedes seats had not been

designed for lovers, Debra managed to sit close up against him.

She's right, you know, David broke a long contented silence.  You must

write, Debs.  'Oh, I will, she answered lightly.

When?  he persisted, and to distract him she snuggled a little closer.

One of these days, she whispered as she made her dark head comfortable

on his shoulder.  One of these days, he mimicked her.  Don't bug me,

Morgan.  She was already half-asleep.

Stop being evasive.  He stroked her hair with his free hand.  And don't

go to sleep while I'm talking to you.

David, my darling, we have a lifetime, and more, she murmured.  You have

made me immortal.  You and I shall live for a thousand years, and there

will be time for everything.  Perhaps the dark gods heard her boast, and

they chuckled sardonically and nudged each other.

On Saturday Joe and Hannah came to the house on Malik Street, and after

lunch they decided on a tourist excursion for David and the four of them

climbed Mount Zion across the valley.  They entered the labyrinth of

corridors that led to David's tomb, covered with splendid embroidered

cloth and silver crowns and Torah covers.  From there it was a few steps

to the room of Christ's last supper in the same building, so closely

interwoven were the traditions of Judaism and Christianity in this

citadel.

Afterwards they entered the old city through the Zion gate and followed

the wall around to the centre of Judaism, the tall cliff of massive

stone blocks, bevelled in the fashion of Herodian times, which was all

that remained of the fabulous second temple of Herod, destroyed two

thousand years before by the Romans.

They were searched at the gate and then joined the stream of worshippers

flocking down towards the wall.

At the barrier they stood for a long time in silence.

David felt again the stirring of a deep race memory, a hollow feeling of

the soul which longed to be filled.

The men prayed facing the wall, many of them in the long black coats of

the Orthodox Jew with the ringlets dangling against their cheeks as they

rocked and swayed in religious ecstasy.  Within the enclosure of the

right hand side, the women seemed more reserved in their devotions.

Joe spoke at last, a little embarrassed and in a gruff tone.  I think

I'll just go say a shma.  Yes, Hannah agreed.  Are you coming with me,

Debra?

A moment.  Debra turned to David, and took something from her handbag.

I made it for you for the wedding, she said.  But wear it now.  It was a

yamulka, an embroidered prayer cap of black satin.

Go with Joe, she said.  He will show you what to do.  The girls moved

off to the women's enclosure and David placed the cap upon his head and

followed Joe down to the wall.

A shamash came to them, an old man with a long silver beard, and he

helped David bind upon his right arm a tiny leather box containing a

portion of the Torah.

So you shall lay these words upon your heart and your soul, and you

shall bind them upon your right arm Then he spread a tollit across

David's shoulders, a tasselled shawl of woven wool, and he led him to

the wall, and he began to repeat after the shamash: Hear, 0 Israel, the

Lord our God, the Lord is one His voice grew surer as he remembered the

words from long ago, and he looked up at the wall of massive stone

blocks that towered high above him.  Thousands of previous worshippers

had written down their prayers on scraps of paper and wedged them into

the joints between the blocks, and around him rose the plaintive voices

of spoken prayer.  It seemed to David that in his imagination a golden

beam of prayer rose from this holy place towards the heavens.

Afterwards they left the enclosure and climbed the stairs into the

Jewish quarter, and the good feeling remained with David, glowing warmly

in his belly.

That evening they sat together on the terrace drinking Goldstar beer and

splitting sunflower seeds for the nutty kernels, and naturally the talk

turned to God and religion.

Joe said, I'm an Israeli and then a Jew.  First my country, and a long

way behind that comes my religion.  But David remembered the expression

on his face as he prayed against the wailing wall.

The talk lasted until late, and David glimpsed the vast body of his

religious heritage.

I would like to learn a little more about it all, he admitted, and Debra

said nothing but when she packed for him to go on base that night she

placed a copy of Herman Wouk's This is my God on top of his clean

uniforms.

He read it and when next he returned to Malik Street, he asked for more.

She picked them for him, English works at first but then Hebrew, as his

grip upon the language became stronger.  They were not religious works

only, but histories and historical novels that excited his interest in

this ancient centre of civilization which for three thousand years had

been a crossroads and a battleground.

He read anything and everything that she put into his case, from

josephus Flavius to Leon Uris.

This led to a desire to see and inspect the ground.  It became so that

much of the time that they were free together was spent in these

explorations.  They began with the hill-top fortress of Herod at Masada

where the zealots had killed each other rather than submit to Rome, and

from there they moved off the tourist beat to the lesser-known

historical sites.

In those long sunlit days they might eat their basket lunch sitting on

the ruins of a Roman aqueduct and watching a falcon working the thermals

that rose off the floor of the desert, after they had searched the bed

of a dry wadi for coins and arrowheads brought down by the last rains.

Around them rose the tall cliffs of orange and golden stone, and the

light was so clean and stark that it seemed they could see for ever, and

the silence so vast that they were the only living things in the world.

They were the happiest days that David had ever known, and they gave

point and meaning to the weary hours of squadron standby, and when the

day had ended there was always the house on Malik Street with its warmth

and laughter and love.

Joe and David arranged leave of absence from the base for the wedding.

It was a time of quiet, and le Dauphin let them go without protest, for

he would be a guest.

They drove up to Jerusalem the day before and were immediately

conscripted to assist with the arrangements.  David laboured mightily as

a taxi-driver and trucker.  The Mercedes transported everything from

flowers to musical instruments and distant relatives.

The Brig's garden was decorated with palm leaves and coloured bunting.

In the centre stood the huppah, a canopy worked with religious symbols

in blue and gold, the Star of David and the grapes and ears of wheat,

the pomegranates and all the other symbols of fertility.

Beneath it, the marriage ceremony would take place.

Trestle tables covered with gay cloths and set with bowls of flowers and

dishes of fruit were arranged beneath the olive trees.  There were

places for three hundred guests, an open space for the dancing, a raised

timber stand hung with flags for the band.

The catering was contracted out to a professional firm and the menu had

been carefully decided upon by the chef and the women.  It would have

two high points an enormous stuffed tuna, again a symbol of fertility,

and a lamb dish in the bedouin style served upon enormous copper

salvers.

on the Sunday of the wedding, David drove Debra to the home of the chief

surgeon of Hadassah Hospital.

Hannah was one of his theatre sisters and he had insisted that she use

his home to prepare for the wedding.  Debra was to assist her, and David

left them and drove on to Em Karem.  The lane leading to the house was

cordoned off and thick with secret service men and paratroopers.

While he watched Joe dressing, losing and finding the ring, and sweating

with nerves, David lay on Joe's bed and gave him bad advice.  They could

hear the guests gathering in the garden below, and David stood up and

went to the window.  He watched an airforce colonel being carefully

scrutinized and searched at the gates, but taking it all in good part.

They are being pretty thorough, David remarked.

Hannah has asked to have as few as possible of the guards in the garden.

So they are being damned careful about who they let in.  Joe had at last

completed dressing and already he was beginning to sweat through the

armpits of his uniform.  How do I look?  he asked anxiously.  God, you