It was an uneasy night.  Nothing more happened to disturb us, but very few of us got a full night's sleep; there was a great deal of coming and going to the mess tent, much quiet talking in the darkness, and a general air of restlessness.  The day had been packed with incidents, a total contrast to the normally slow, tedious routine, and nobody knew what the next day would bring except they could be sure that the routine was shattered.

Starduster had at last reached the valley where the tanks had been hit and was resting there.  Giles had no intention of moving it until we knew much more about what had happened in Kauchmaunliw, and Checnechaiel had taken him off at first light to look at the road.  I had chosen to stay behind.

Talk over breakfast was sporadic and I could sense the crew's tension.  Certainly I knew they'd been discussing their own safety and the chances of their coming through the conflict unscathed, with less than full confidence, and I suspected that Lonnie Byrd and Charlie Gilbert were pushing the shop floor real hard.  That could bear watching.  I began to put some words together in my mind, against the time when I'd have to give them reasoned arguments in favor of doing things my way.  They weren't like Checnechaiel's army lads, trained to obey without question.

Nick Spalding had gone with Giles to look at the road.  Duddy and three or four of the men were still playing with the tank, which they had cheerfully but firmly refused to turn over to the military until they'd tinkered with it for a while longer.  The others, including myself, were doing nothing much; everything looked remarkably peaceful and normal if one ignored the three tanks piled up in the gulley by the roadside.

When the interruption came it was heart-stopping.

There was a mighty rush of air and a pounding roar in our ears.  Men sprang to their feet like jack-in-the-boxes as five Shamari jets screamed overhead at low altitudes, hurtling up over the ridge beyond us.

"Christ!" A pulse hammered in my throat and my coffee spilled as I jerked to my feet.

"Shamari attack!" someone yelled and there was a dive for cover, mostly under the shelter of Starduster herself, which would have been suicidal if an attack had followed.  But no missiles or bombs fell. The formation vanished as it had appeared.  Men resurfaced, staring and chattering.  Soldiers grabbed belatedly for their assault rifles.

"Was it an attack?" Patrick Gue asked me.  Having driven up with me he'd been tacitly appointed the position of spokesman.

"No. They were going much too fast.  I'm not even sure they were aware of us."

"Where do you think they were off to?"

"God knows."  I felt as if we were on a desert island, with no news getting through.  "Are you sure you can't raise anything on the radio?  Any local station?"

"Sorry, Mr. Drake.  It's all static.  Everything's off the air, I think.  Mr. Giles said he'd call in on the half-hour, so I'll be listening in then.  Maybe he'll have some news for us."

There was a distant roar and our faces snapped skywards again.  One of the fighter planes was returning, but flying much higher, and as we watched it made a big sweeping circle of the sky and vanished in the direction of the rest of the formation.  For a moment it seemed to leave a thin echo behind, and then I stiffened as I recognized what I was hearing.

"Nick.  There's another plane.  A small one.  Can you see it?"

He too stared around the sky.

"No, but I can hear it." He raised his voice to a shout.  "Any of you see a light plane?"

Everyone stared upwards, and three or four of them scrambled up onto Starduster for a better vantage point.  It was Thad Hanchard who first shouted, "Yes, over there!" and pointed south.

A moment later I'd seen it too, a small speck of a plane flying low and coming towards us.  Longing for binoculars, I kept my eyes glued to the approaching plane and felt a jolt of recognition.  I'd never been a flier myself, and though I'd logged hundreds of hours in small company planes as well as in commercial liners I had never developed an eye for the various makes, but this one I definitely knew.

"It's the BA company plane!" I called out. "We've got visitors."

"Where can they land?" Wheeler asked me.

"Good question.  Kauchmaunliw's got a town strip somewhere but I don't know if it's going to be usable.  He can't land there, that's for sure."

But that was where I was wrong.

It wasn't an intentional landing, though.  As the plane came nearer, we recognized signs of trouble.  It was flying in a lopsided, ungainly fashion.  A thin trail of smoke came from it, and the full extent of the damage became visible.  Part of the undercarriage was missing, and the tailfin was buckled out of alignment.

"She's gonna crash!"

"Do you think the jets attacked her?"

I said, "No---too high, too fast.  That was a ground attack.  Damn it, she's not a fighter plane, not even armed!"

We watched in horror as it began a wobbly circle over the scrubland, slowly spiraling downwards.

"Bring up Starduster!" I shouted and sprinted for the hire car. 3 or 4 others flung themselves in beside me.   The car was ill-equipped for bouncing off the road into the brush, but with the Land Rover gone there wasn't much choice.  Starduster and some of the military stuff followed.  I concentrated on charting the course of the stricken plane and on avoiding the worst of the rocks and defiles in front of me.  The others clung on as they were tossed about, leaning out of the car windows in spite of the choking dust clouds to help keep track of the aircraft.

Soon it dipped to the horizon, then went below it at a sharp angle. I tried to force another fraction of speed out of the laboring car.  The plane reappeared briefly, and I wondered again if it had really touched down and bounced.  Then it was gone again and a surge of dust swirled up ahead.

My hands wrenched this way and that to keep the car from slewing sideways in the earth.  I brought it joltingly through a small screen of thorn bushes and rocked to a halt, and we looked downhill towards the misshapen hulk that had been airborne mere moments before.  We piled out and started running.  The danger of the fire was enormous.  Not only would the plane erupt but the bush was likely to catch fire, and we all knew it.  But there was no fire as yet, and the plane was miraculously upright.

As we got to the plane a figure was already beginning to struggle to free himself.  The plane was a six-seater, but there were only two men visible inside.  Our men clambered up onto the smashed wing and clawed at the pilot's door.  Starduster was lumbering towards us and Checnechaiel's troops were nearer still; I waved the oncoming vehicles to a halt.

"No further!  Stay back!  If she burns you'll all be caught.  No sparks---don't turn your ignition off," I shouted.  "Hanchard, you and Byrd start laying a water trail down towards her."

As one of the big hoses was pulled free and a spray of water shot out, the door was pulled open, and the two men inside were helped out.  I ran back to the car and brought it closer.  One of the plane's occupants seemed to be unhurt; two of our men were steadying him but he seemed to be walking quite strongly.  The second was lolling in unconsciousness, carried by Ron Needham and Charlie Jones.  As they came to my car I recognized both new arrivals.

The unconscious man was Artem Sirenko, our Ukranian pilot.  The other was Andy Hale.

Artem Sirenko was in a bad way.

He'd done a brilliant job of bringing his plane down in one piece, upright and more or less intact, but at a horrible cost to himself.  His left arm was broken, and he had contusions and cuts aplenty, especially about the face in spite of goggles and helmet.  But there was something more drastic and none of us was able to diagnose for sure.  He recovered consciousness of a sort in the car as we drove him and Artem Sirenko back to Starduster, moving as gently as possible.  But he was obviously in great pain and kept on blacking out.  We got him bedded down in Starduster's shade eventually, after letting Jenkins have a good look at him.  Jenkins had first aid training and was pretty useful for day-to-day rig operations, but he didn't know what was wrong with Sirenko, apart from being fairly sure that neither his neck nor his back was broken.

It was the most worrying feature so far of a very worrying situation.  

Hale was in good shape aside from one severe cut on his left shoulder and a selection of bruises, but nevertheless both Jenkins and I urged him to take things very easy.  He saw Sirenko bedded down, then sank into a grateful huddle in the shade with a cold beer to sustain him.

The men tended to crowd around.  They all knew Andy, naturally, and it was apparent that they thought a good deal of their boss. Their shock at his unorthodox arrival was swamped in their relief at his safety, and curiosity overrode all.

Presently I had to appeal to them to leave him for a while.

"You guys leave him alone.  He doesn't exactly want to give a press conference just this minute, you know," I said. I didn't want to speak too sharply; it would be unwise to trample on their good will.  But they took my point and most of them moved a little way off.

Hale said, "I'll have to thank everyone properly.  You all did a damn good job back there." His voice was a little bit shaky.

"None better than Artem," I said.  "There's plenty of time, Andy.  Time for questions later, too.  Just rest a bit first."

In fact, I was aching to know what had brought him up to us, what he knew and what the situation was that he'd left behind him.  Giles and Checnecaiel should hear it too, though, and one account from Hale would tax him quite sufficiently.  I went a little way off and saw Hale's head droop forward as he surrendered to the sleep of exhaustion.  I was anxious for Giles to rejoin us.  He seemed to have been gone forever, and I was eager to give him our latest piece of dramatic news.  But it wasn't until nearly noon that we saw Checnecaiel's escort returning, and I walked down the road to intercept them.

"Sam, there's a pack of trouble up ahead of us," said Giles.

"We haven't done too badly ourselves."

Giles eyes immediately flashed to Starduster.  "What do you mean?  Have you been having trouble?"

"Well, not exactly.  Look, I'm damned anxious to hear what you've got to tell, but I guess our news has priority.  We've got visitors."

"Who--the Shamari Republican Guard?"

Checnecaiel had gotten out of the car and already had his glasses unslung, scanning the road.  I knew he wouldn't see the plane from where we were standing, though.  I'd have preferred to discuss the latest developments with Giles alone, but Checnecaiel had to be told: he'd find out fast enough in any case.

"No.  We were overflown by some Shamari warplanes, but I don't think they were looking for us or had any business with us.  But a small plane came up a while ago.  It crashed---over there."  I waved my hand.  "It had been shot up; I think.  There were two men on board, and we got them both out, but one's badly hurt."

"Who the hell are they?"

"First the good news: One's your boss, Cliff.  And he's in pretty fair shape."

"Andy!" As with the men, astonishment and relief played over Giles's face, and then alarm.  "Who was with him---who's hurt?"

"Our pilot, Artem Serenko.  He made a damn good landing, probably saved both their necks, but he's in a bad way.   The plane?  Forget it."

It was sensational stuff, all right.   They were both suitably impressed and had more questions.  After a while I managed to get rid of Checnecaiel by suggesting that the guarding of the plane was likely not being done to his satisfaction.  He went away at once, to go and see for himself.  Giles would have gone along too but I restrained him.

"You can see the wreckage later."

"I want to see Andy and the pilot"

"One's sleeping and the other's damn near in a coma. You can't do anything for either of them just yet.  I'd rather you briefed me on what you found out down there."

Giles said, "The road's in good shape right up until the environs of Kauchmaunliw.  The town is in a hell of a mess. The damn Shamaris have strafed it and it's almost completely burned down.  The locals are in shock, I'd say, and they certainly won't be much use to us, and there's not enough of us to be much use to them.  It's a pretty ghastly situation.  You're right; it's a war."

Well, it was as close to an apology as I'd get from him.

"We didn't go right in because we got a lot of opposition. They felt ugly about anyone in uniform, even fellow Zarmarians, and Checnecaiel didn't have enough force with him to do much about it.  But we'll have to go back in eventually.  Look, did Andy say anything to you?"

"Not yet.  I didn't let him.  I want to hear his story as much as you do, but I thought he should rest up and wait for you to come back.  Where's Nick Spalding by the way?"

Giles made a despairing gesture.  "You'll never believe it, but the damn troop truck broke down on the way back.  String and cardboard army!  Nobody knew what to do about it except Nick, so he's still out there doing a repair job.  Should be along any moment, but Checnecaiel said he's sent some men back to give them support if they need it.  There's nobody on the road. They shouldn't have any trouble."  But I could see that he was worried at having been persuaded to leave Nick out in the middle of the bush with a broken down truck and a handful of green soldiers.  I didn't think much of the idea myself.

"He'll be OK," I said hopefully.  "You'd better get yourself something to eat---and drink."

"By God, yes.  I could do with a beer."  He thought for a moment and then said, "On second thoughts, no.  We'd better go easy on our supplies from now on.  I'll settle for a mug of gunfire."

We exchanged mirthless smiles.  The slang term for camp tea had suddenly become frighteningly appropriate.

Nick turned up two hours later, hot, sticky and desperate for sustenance.  Giles broke into the newly-rationed beer stores for him; we hadn't yet told the men about this particular form of hardship and Giles wasn't enjoying the prospect.  Hale had slept soundly, and we didn't want to wake him up.  Sirenko, on the other hand, seemed worse if anything.  He tossed and muttered, cried out once or twice, and had us all extremely worried.

"There must be doctors in Kauchmaunliw, but God knows how we'll find them, or whether they'll be able to help," Giles said fretfully.  He was concerned for Artem, but he was also disturbed by the increasing rate of entropy around us.  The rapid breakdown from order to disorder was something he seemed unable to come to terms with.

"What do you plan to do?" Spalding asked Giles.

"Go into this afternoon, with enough chaps of my own and of Checnecaiel's to make a reasonable show of solidarity.  We have to locate their officialdom, if any, and find out the precise facts.  And we're going to need food and water---they ran out of a hell of a lot out of Starduster---and medical help.  I'd like you both to come and I'll choose a few of the others."

We were interrupted by Harry Gue, coming up at the run.

"Patrick says will you come, Mr. Drake.  Mr. Hale's awake."

"I'll be right there."

The awning had been strung up at Starduster's side and beneath it Andy Hale was sitting up and seemed a lot brighter.  He reached up to pump Giles's hand with obvious pleasure.

"You're all OK, then?" he said.

"Yes, we're fine. Problems, but no accidents," said Giles.

"I had to come up here and see for myself how you were doing.  But I can't fly a plane and Artem..." He broke off for a moment, then went on.  "Well, he's quite a fellow.  They tell me he's in a bad way.  Can we get help for him?"

Briefly, Giles put him in the picture concerning the situation up ahead at Kauchmaunliw, or as much of it as we ourselves knew.  Hale looked grave as he recapped the events of the past two days.

Finally, he said, "So the batteries should have sufficient water to keep Starduster humming along, but we're not too good for drinkable water, food or doctors.  Well, you may not know it all, but you can probably guess that you're a damn sight better off here than if you'd stayed in Dunin.  At least you're alive."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"The Sharmaris have launched an offensive against Dunin.  A combined force of their tanks and paratroopers landed in the city limits, or so they've told me. The Zarmarian army dug in heavily and is fiercely resisting the attack in trenches and bunkers and with hand-to-hand combat in the streets. The train station's a shambles.  There's also looting, buildings burning, police helpless, citizens running amok in all directions.  Should make good headlines for the BBC News Hour."

"Terrific. No getting out for us beleaguered foreigners, I assume?"

"In theory, yes.  But the airport is under Shamari occupation and the commercial planes aren't coming in.  Ecnacshaiel's off somewhere trying to rally what's left of the army.  I heard that Muirairraiel's been executed by a Shamari firing squad and Denerhaiel's fled to Budapest--which figures.  He's a smart one, that lad.  But none of the news is certain."

Giles, Spalding and I stared at him as he reeled off the grim facts.

"It's a mess, and I don't quite know what we're going to do about it.  I had to get up here, though.  I guessed you'd not be getting regular news bulletins and might feel a bit lonely without me."

"Too true, Andy.  We all feel much better now," I said sardonically, and he grinned at me.  "Yes, well, it didn't seem too hard at first.  I asked Artem if he was game, and he couldn't wait to have a go at it.  And we'd have done all right, too, only...."

He paused for a moment.

"We'd seen the warplanes streaking about here and there, taking no notice of us.  And quite a lot of ground movement, tank troops, armored columns, and so on, but no real fighting once we were clear of Dunin."

"How'd you manage that, by the way?"

"Oh, real Boy's Own stuff.  It'll make a good story someday.  Anyway, we figured we'd catch up with you about Kauchmaunliw.  You're nice to schedule, Giles, by the way.  My congratulations."

Giles snorted.

"We reckoned to land there and cadge a lift back to you.  There hadn't been any sign of the insurrection, you see, so we thought it was quieter up here.  And then....it all happened at the same moment.  I saw you, saw the rig parked and we started to come in for a closer look.... there were some military tracks quite close, and I wasn't sure if it was your official escort or not.  And then there was this almighty slam and jerk and Artem said we'd been hit.  Christ, I....still can't believe it.  We hadn't seen any planes, and couldn't believe we were being attacked.  Artem was superb.  I think he was hit by a bit of metal because he was already bleeding when he decided he had to put us down.  It was a marvelous show, wasn't it, Sam?  You saw it happen, di didn't you?"

"Yes, it was great."

He lay back against the pillow.  "I can fill you in with lots of detail about what's going on back in Dunin, but I'm afraid I've come up here without a thought in my head about getting you all out," he said apologetically.  He was looking a little faded, I thought. I decided to let him rest, but perhaps in a more optimistic frame of mind.

"We've got a plan, haven't we, Cliff?

'You have?"

"Oh, yes," Giles said, playing along stoutly.  "Sam's idea, really, and it's a very good one.  We've every reason to believe it may work.  Look, I think you'd better rest up a bit.  We're not going anywhere for what's left of today, not with Starduster anyway.  And the more rest you have now the more use you'll be to us tomorrow."

Out of Hale's earshot, we stopped and took a simultaneous deep breath.

"Do you think what I think?" Giles asked.

"I do," I said grimly.  "What I'd like to know is whether our gallant captain's men are going to stick it out with us or desert, maybe even sell out to the Shamaris.  No one, not even Checnecaiel couldn't have known that Andy was coming, but both sides might have ordered their forces to stop anyone who tried to get to us.  Or it might just be Checnecaiel being over-protective, as he's inclined to be.  Or there are spies in his ranks and he doesn't know it."

"Or he's one himself."

"I'm not buying into that theory.  He'd have neutralized us quite easily long before now.

"Why don't you go and ask him?" Spalding asked.

"I don't think that'd be smart right now.  I think we need to string him along a little.  I suggest that we don't say anything about this to anybody and go ahead with the plan to inspect Kauchmaunliw a little more closely.  We need Checnecaiel for that, and as long as we keep on our toes, we may as well make the most use of him we can."

When we breasted the rise and looked down, my first thought was that the problem was not that of getting beyond Kauchmaunliw but into it.  Much of the town was still burning.

The middle core of Kauchmaunliw consisted of two short streets running north and south and two intersecting streets running east and west.  None of them was as wide or as well made as the great road on which we'd been traveling thus far.  This was the modern "downtown" area.  The biggest building was three stories tall or had been.  Now it and most of the others lay in rubble on the streets.

The rest of the town had been of the local architecture.  But brick walls tumble with ease and wooden rooftops burn well.  It looked as if a piece of hell had been moved into that valley. I don't know if the Soviets had ever imposed fire safety regulations, but if so, they hadn't worked.  Flames, driven by a wind which funneled up the valley, had jumped across the streets and there wasn't going to be much left when the fires finally died.  Checnecaiel said, "Our enemy has killed this place."  His voice sounded bitter.

I twisted in my seat.  I was driving with Checnecaiel because Giles and I had planned it that way.  Giles had packed the Land Rover and the car with his men so that there was no room for me.  The idea was that I should be at hand to keep an eye on Checnecaiel.

Where the road narrowed as it entered the town it was blocked by a slow moving line of ramshackle traffic, beat-up Soviet-era cars and pickup trucks, bullock carts and bicycles, all moving outwards, and slowed even more by one big limousine which had stalled right across the road.  Checnecaiel drove off the road and unhooked his microphone.  I got out and went towards the stalled car.  The hood was up and two men were poking about under the bonnet, one a Zarmarian and the other one of the Asiatic merchants who seemed to be monopolizing so much of the small retail business in the newly-independent republics of the former Soviet Union  In this case he was an Indian.

I tapped him on the shoulder.  "Get this car off the road.  Push it.'

He turned a sweaty face to me and grimaced uncomprehendingly.  I made gestures that they should shift the car and he shook his head irritably, spat out a short sentence that I didn't understand, and turned back to the car.  That was enough.  I leaned over his shoulder, grabbed a handful of wiring and pulled.  The only place that car could go now was off the road.

The Indian whirled furiously and grabbed my shoulder. I let him have a fist in the gut, and he sprawled to the ground.  He tried to scramble to his feet and clawed under his coat for some weapon, so I kicked him in the ribs, and he went down again just as Checnecaiel came up, unfastening the flap of his pistol holster.

"You have no right to attack our citizens, Mr. Drake," he said angrily.

I pointed to the ground.  A heavy Glock had spilled out of the Indian's jacket and lay near his inert hand.

"Some guys need a little persuading," I said mildly.  "Let's get this thing out of here."  The other man had vanished.

Checnecaiel's gun was a better persuader than my voice.  He grabbed four able-bodied men out of the milling throng and within three minutes the road was cleared.  As he reholstered his pistol he said, "Do you believe in direct action, Mr. Drake."

"Only when needed---but I'm getting too old for brawling."  The small display of good-fashioned American violence had done me a world of good.  I'd been needing to let off steam and it'd been the Indian merchant's bad luck to have been a handy target.

"It would be best if you did no more such things.  For the moment, please stay with your men.  Tell Mr. Giles that i will meet him in the main square soon."  He was off before I had a chance to respond.

I pushed through the crowds and found our Land Rover parked at the intersection of the 2 main roads.  Dozens of stressed-out, shell-shocked people milled about and smoldering debris lay everywhere. Our eyes watered with the sting of bitter smoke.  Broken glass crunched under our boots as we picked our way through the rubble.  The Zarmarians shrank away from us, weeping women pulling their bewildered children from our path.  It was horrible, hellish.

It became obvious pretty soon that there was nobody in charge; we saw no policemen, no soldiers apart from Checnecaiel's own troops, and no sign of a doctor, hospital, or even a Red Cross post.  Attempts to get sensible answers from passersby proved useless.  Presently, utterly disappointed, we decided to withdraw.

The stream of refugees thinned out as we left the town but there were still a lot of them, going God knows where.  But I was interested and pleased to see that on the outskirts Checnecaiel had set up the rudiments of a command post, and slowly his troops were starting to bring order out of the chaos, reuniting families and doing a little crude first aid of their own.  A makeshift camp was already taking shape and people were being bedded down, and some kind of food and drink was being circulated.  It made me feel more confident about Checnecaiel.

We left him to get on with it.  Our men were ready enough to give assistance, but we were not welcome and what little we had to offer wouldn't go nearly far enough.  Giles was anxious to keep our unit together; the crew were his responsibility, and he was still thinking in terms of the safety of the rig. We drove back to our campsite in the dusk feeling very depressed.

Giles went to give Spalding an edited version of what we'd found.  I settled down for a quiet cigarette while waiting for the meal that Patrick was readying for us, and into the silence Duddy and Floyd Truss settled down alongside me. Two cigarettes and one foul pipe glowed in the dark.

"A hell of a thing, this is," Floyd Truss said presently.  The Welsh lilt in his voice seemed more pronounced than in full daylight.  "Shouldn't we be back there helpin' out?"

"There's not much we can do," I said.  "And I don't think Captain Checnecaiel really wants us.  If he needs us, he knows where we are."

"We could spare 'em a bit of food, though."

Duddy snorted.

"There could be five thousand people out there, Floyd, and none of us is Jesus Christ.  Five French loaves and two lobster tails?" I asked.

Duddy said, "They get wind of our food stocks, and they'll mob us, as like as not. I'd be happier with a gun and my fist, personally."

"I don't know if you're right.  Zarmarians are peaceable folk, basically.  A gun might not be such a good idea.  People tend to get the wrong impression when armed aliens wander about taking part in a war that's not theirs."

"I'd still be happier with a gun in my cab," he said. "One of those Russian Kalashnikovs that both Zarmarian and Shamari soldiers carry, maybe.  Better still, an Uzi like Checnecaiel has in his car."

I glanced at him.  "You're observant."

"It pays.  I told you we're a defense contractor among other things."

"What jobs have you had before this one?"

He grinned.  "Nothing more taxing than smuggling rocket launcher and rifles to the Afghan resistance fighters----on muleback, no less.  Same thing in Nicaragua."

Floyd Truss laughed.  "I've never seen a war this close up before.  This is my idea of something to watch on the telly, not be caught in the middle of."

Spalding had said something similar.  I reflected that a lot of men of my age were comparative innocents, after all.

Duddy said, "Not this mess, maybe.  But there are worse lives."  In the twilight he seemed even bigger than he looked by day, a formidable figure.  He tamped down his pipe and went on, "I've seen sights like this before though, many times, in other countries.  It's all right for the soldiers but for the civilians it's very sad indeed.  But there's nothing you or I can do about it."

I had seen it before too.  I thought back to my young days, to Pusan and Inchon, to the wrecked towns and refugee-lined roads, the misery and the squalor.  I didn't want to see it ever again.

Duddy suddenly dug his elbow into my ribs.  

"There's someone out there.  I think it's a woman!"

He scrambled to his feet and ran into the gathering darkness.