State of Siege by Eric Ambler Page B

go in.” He levelled the gun at me, but without very much conviction. He was a stupid man, and the fact that I had helped the sentry had evidently confused him. I decided to take advantage of the fact.
    “It is still permitted to go to the bathhouse?” I asked.
    He hesitated, then nodded.
    I went into the bedroom and told Rosalie that she could go and wash the dust off. She was still shaken,but the prospect of a bath made her feel better. As she went along the terrace, I saw that the bow-legged officer was posting a new sentry. The dust had made me intolerably thirsty. While the officer was still there, I asked again for a bottle of drinking-water and some fruit. He seemed to take no notice; but a few minutes later, while I was trying to clear up the mess in the room, the sentry appeared at the window and put a bottle of water on the floor and a bowl of fruit beside it.
    I thanked him. He grinned, shrugged, made a gesture of cutting someone’s throat, and, with another grin, pointed to me. I grinned back and he went through the pantomime again. Then, he explained it in words. “Man’s throat cut, man cannot eat, food fall out.” A comedian, this one. I smiled until my jaw ached.
    Rosalie, when she returned, was impressed. The fact that they had remembered my request meant, she said, that they were ashamed of their earlier behaviour, which meant in turn that they did not hate us too much. I did not tell her that I had asked again in order to get the fruit and water; nor did I tell her about the new sentry’s little joke.
    We ate half the fruit and drank a third of the water. I was still filthy from the plaster dust. When the rest of the fruit and water had been put away to keep cool, I got permission from the sentry to go along to thebathhouse and clean up. There, I found that the water supply was no longer working. It did not matter at that moment. The Dutch ewer was full and there was a further supply in the storage cistern on the roof, but I could hear that there was no more water coming in.
    As I walked back along the terrace, I was surprised to see Rosalie at the window talking to the sentry. When he heard me coming, he smiled and moved away.
    Rosalie’s eyes were gleaming with excitement.
    “Why did you not tell me that you helped the man who was wounded?” she began, as I went back into the room.
    “It didn’t seem important.”
    “It has made a very good impression. That man is his friend. He told me he would bring us more fruit later.”
    “You mean they’ve decided not to kill us after all?”
    “Oh no, but now they do not hate us so much.”
    “That’s something, I suppose.”
    “He told me that there are machine guns being mounted on both sides of the roof in case there is another air attack, also that the Nasjah army is advancing from the direction of Meja.”
    “How does he know that—I mean about the army?”
    “He heard one of the officers on the telephone. It is curious,” she went on thoughtfully; “before, that man would not have looked at us except to think how itwould feel to kill us. Now, because you bandage his friend, it is different. He speaks to us and brings us fruit.”
    “That’s because of the bombing, and because we were all covered in dust just as he was. He’s not used to air attack. He was frightened, and now because he isn’t dead he feels generous and friendly and wants to talk. It’s nothing to do with my bandaging his friend. It always happens. Besides,” I added, “you’re a woman. That would make a difference, too.”
    She thought for a moment or two and then nodded. “Yes, I understand. It was the way I felt when the men with the
parangs
did not kill us last night. I wanted you to take me to bed at once. If it had not been for the guns beginning to fire and making me frightened in another way …”
    I kissed her, and she smiled. “Was it like that in the war?” she said. “When you had been very frightened of being killed or wounded and were not,