The pilot put out a hand and leaned against the door to rest his ankle.
"I have killed some," he said quietly.
"How many?"
"As many as I could, old woman. We cannot count the number of men."
"Kill them all," she said softly. "Go and kill every man and every woman and baby. Do you hear me, Inglesus? You must kill them all." The little brown ball of paper became smaller and more screwed up. "The first one I see I shall kill." She paused. "And then, Inglesus, and then later, his family will hear that he is dead."
The pilot did not say anything. She looked up at him and her voice was different. "What is it you want, Inglesus?"
He said, "About the Germanoi, I am sorry. But there is not much we can do."
"No," she answered, "there is nothing. And you?"
"I am looking for Joannis. I wish to use his boat."
"Joannis," she said quietly, "he is not here. He is out."
Suddenly she pushed back the bench, got to her feet and went out of the room. "Come," she said. He followed her down the passage towards the front door. She looked even smaller when she was standing than when she was sitting down and she walked quickly down the passage towards the door and opened it. She stepped out into the sunshine and for the first time he saw how very old she was.
She had no lips. Her mouth was just wrinkled skin like the rest of her face and she screwed up her eyes at the sun and looked up the road.
"There he is," she said. "That's him." She pointed at the old man who was sitting beside the drinking trough.
The pilot looked at the man. Then he turned to speak to the old woman, but she had disappeared into the house.
They Shall Not Grow Old
THE two of us sat outside the hangar on wooden boxes.
It was noon. The sun was high and the heat of the sun was like a close fire. It was hotter than hell out there by the hangar. We could feel the hot air touching the inside of our lungs when we breathed and we found it better if we almost closed our lips and breathed in quickly; it was cooler that way. The sun was upon our shoulders and upon our backs, and all the time the sweat seeped out from our skin, trickled down our necks, over our chests and down our stomachs. It collected just where our belts were tight around the tops of our trousers and it filtered under the tightness of our belts where the wet was very uncomfortable and made prickly heat on the skin.
Our two Hurricanes were standing a few yards away, each with that patient, smug look which fighter planes have when the engine is not turning, and beyond them the thin black strip of the runway sloped down towards the beaches and towards the sea. The black surface of the runway and the white grassy sand on the sides of the runway shimmered and shimmered in the sun. The heat haze hung like a vapour over the aerodrome.
The Stag looked at his watch.
"He ought to be back," he said.
The two of us were on readiness, sitting there for orders to take off. The Stag moved his feet on the hot ground.
"He ought to be back," he said.
It was two and a half hours since Fin had gone and he certainly should have come back by now. I looked up into the sky and listened. There was the noise of airmen talking beside the petrol wagon and there was the faint pounding of the sea upon the beaches; but there was no sign of an aeroplane. We sat a little while longer without speaking.
"It looks as though he's had it," I said.
"Yep," said the Stag. "It looks like it."
The Stag got up and put his hands into the pockets of his khaki shorts. I got up too. We stood looking northwards into the clear sky, and we shifted our feet on the ground because of the softness of the tar and because of the heat.
"What was the name of that girl?" said the Stag without turning his head.
"Nikki," I answered.
The Stag sat down again on his wooden box, still with his hands in his pockets and he looked down at the ground between his feet. The Stag was the oldest pilot in the squadron; he was twentyseven. He had a mass of coarse ginger hair which he never brushed. His face was pale, even after all this time in the sun, and covered with freckles. His mouth was wide and tight closed. He was not tall but his shoulders under his khaki shirt were broad and thick like those of a wrestler. He was a quiet person.
"He'll probably be all right," he said, looking up. "And anyway, I'd like to meet the Vichy Frenchman who can get Fin."
We were in Palestine fighting the Vichy French in Syria. We were at Haifa, and three hours before the Stag, Fin and I had gone on readiness. Fin had flown off in response to an urgent call from the Navy, who had phoned up and said that there were two French destroyers moving out of Beyrouth harbour. Please go at once and see where they are going, said the Navy. Just fly up the coast and have a look and come back quickly and tell us where they are going.
So Fin had flown off in his Hurricane. The time had gone by and he had not returned. We knew that there was no longer much hope. If he hadn't been shot down, he would have run out of petrol some time ago.
I looked down and I saw his blue RAF cap which was lying on the ground where he had thrown it as he ran to his aircraft, and I saw the oil stains on top of the cap and the shabby bent peak. It was difficult now to believe that he had gone. He had been in Egypt, in Libya and in Greece. On the aerodrome and in the mess we had had him with us all of the time. He was gay and tall and full of laughter, this Fin, with black hair and a long straight nose which he used to stroke up and down with the tip of his finger. He had a way of listening to you while you were telling a story, leaning back in his chair with his face to the ceiling but with his eyes looking down on the ground, and it was only last night at supper that he had suddenly said, "You know, I wouldn't mind marrying Nikki. I think she's a good girl."
The Stag was sitting opposite him at the time, eating baked beans.
"You mean just occasionally," he said.
Nikki was in a cabaret in Haifa.
"No," said Fin. "Cabaret girls make fine wives. They are never unfaithful. There is no novelty for them in being unfaithful; that would be like going back to the old job."
The Stag had looked up from his beans. "Don't be such a bloody fool," he said. "You wouldn't really marry Nikki."
"Nikki," said Fin with great seriousness, "comes of a fine family. She is a good girl. She never uses a pillow when she sleeps. Do you know why she never uses a pillow when she sleeps?"
"No.
The others at the table were listening now. Everyone was listening to Fin talking about Nikki.
"Well, when she was very young she was engaged to be married to an officer in the French Navy. She loved him greatly. Then one day when they were sunbathing together on the beach he happened to mention to her that he never used a pillow when he slept. It was just one of those little things which people say to each other for the sake of conversation. But Nikki never forgot it. From that time onwards she began to practise sleeping without a pillow. One day the French officer was run over by a truck and killed; but although to her it was very uncomfortable, she still went on sleeping without a pillow to preserve the memory of her lover."
Fin took a mouthful of beans and chewed them slowly. "It is a sad story," he said. "It shows that she is a good girl. I think I would like to marry her."
That was what Fin had said last night at supper. Now he was gone and I wondered what little thing Nikki would do in his memory.
The sun was hot on my back and I turned instinctively in order to take the heat upon the other side of my body. As I turned, I saw Carmel and the town of Haifa. I saw the steep pale-green slope of the mountain as it dropped down towards the sea, and below it I saw the town and the bright colours of the houses shining in the sun. The houses with their white-washed walls covered the sides of Carmel and the red roofs of the houses were like a rash on the face of the mountain.