State of Siege by Eric Ambler

behaviour of the men on the terrace had not suggested that they were expecting such a welcome reinforcement. The low altitude and steady course of the planes might simply mean that their pilots knew that there were no ground defences for them to worry about, and that they had time to make their bombing runs carefully. If there were going to be any bombing, of course; if this were not just a threatening gesture.
    A moment or two later, I knew that it was not. The sound of the engines which had almost died away was beginning to get louder again, and the bow-legged officer hastily retreated into the living room.
    After Sanusi’s broadcast, I suppose it was inevitable that the Government would make some attempt to put the radio station out of action; but when it came, the attempt was still a very unpleasant shock. In war it is relatively easy to be philosophical about being bombed or shelled indiscriminately; but when you become, or the building you are in becomes, a selected target for enemy fire, things are different. It is not just that the degree of danger has changed; quite often it hasn’t; but that the affair is no longer impersonal. From being a man like yourself, dutifully scattering high explosive where it seems likely to inflict the most casualties, the enemy has suddenly become a vindictive maniac intent on your personal destruction. You become resentful,and begin, most sensibly, to think of ways of killing him first. There is nothing more enraging than to have to stay where you are, a passive, stationary, impotent target, and let him take pot shots at you. That is what it was like at the top of the radio building.
    They came in one after the other in line-ahead, and just high enough to avoid bomb blast from the ground. As I heard the first one beginning his run, I realised that there were big glass window panes two feet from our faces, and dragged a rug from the floor over our heads. At the same moment, someone down in the square opened up with a machine gun.
    The sound of the plane became suddenly louder and there was a series of slithering noises as the bombs started to fall. Then, the explosions came. He must have let go everything he had, for the floor bucked and trembled for close on ten seconds. There was a pandemonium of falling plaster and breaking glass and then, as a sort of finale, a torrent of earth and stones poured down on to the terrace.
    One of the bombs had fallen into the garden of the Ministry of Public Health next door, and the earth and stones were merely the falling débris of that explosion; but, of course, it sounded as if the building were collapsing. Rosalie cried out and there was a yell from the terrace. I flung back the rug and saw that the sentry was still at his post outside the window, crouching againstthe balustrade under the bamboo sun roof, which had collapsed. He had been hit by the roof when it fell, and was gingerly rubbing his shoulder. The curtains had been sucked out by the blast and were now caught up on the open window frame, but the glass was still intact and so was the ceiling. The blast damage was probably on the lower floors. Then I heard the second plane on its way, and dived under the rug again.
    The first stick of bombs had straddled the Air House, and it was just as well that the pilot in question had no more bombs. He was too accurate. Next time, he might have scored a direct hit. The second stick was wide and ploughed along a street running parallel to our side of the square. It made a lot of noise and a few more windows went in the rear of the building; but, as far as we were concerned, that was all. It was the third plane that did the most damage to the sixth floor. Most of its bombs fell in the square, but one of them hit the portico of the Ministry of Public Health. We did not know that until later, however; at the time, it seemed like a direct hit on our own building. It was not a big bomb, but it exploded on a level with the second floor and most of the