The civilians seemed even more demoralized then the soldiery They ran about hither

and thither, apparently at random

One man whom Causton observed changed the direction of this running six times in as
many minutes, passing and
repassing Causton until he was lost in the crowd He came upon a young girl in a red
dress standing in the middle of the
street, her hands clapped to her ears and her prettiness distorted as she screamed
endlessly He heard her screams for quite
a long time as he fought his way through that agony of terror
He finally decided he had better get into a side street away from the press, so he
made his way to the pavement and turned
the first corner he came to It was not so crowded and he could make better tune, a
point he noted for when the time came
to drive out the car Presently he came upon a young soldier sitting on an orange
boy, his rifle beside him and one sleeve
of his tunic flapping loose Causton stopped and said, "Have you got a broken arm?"
The young man looked up uncomprehendingly, his face grey with fatigue Causton
tapped his own arm "Le bras" he said,
then made a swift motion as though breaking a stick across his knee "Broken?"
The soldier nodded dulty
"I'll fix it," said Causton and squatted down to help the soldier take off his time
He kicked the orange box to pieces to
make splints and then bound up the arm "You'll be okay now," he said, and deported
But he left bearing the man's tunic
and rifle--he now had his props
The tunic was a tight fit so he were it unbuttoned, the trousers did not match and
he had no cap, but he did not think
that mattered--all that mattered was that he looked approximately like a soldier
and so had a proprietary interest in the
war He lifted the rifle and worked the action to find the magazine empty and smiled
thoughtfully That did not matter,
either, he had never shot anyone in his life and did not intend starting now
Gradually, by a circuitions route which he carefully marked on the map, he made his
way to the eastern edge of the city
by the coast road He was relieved to see that here the crowds were less and the
people seemed to be somewhat calmer Along
the road he saw a thin trickle of people moving out, a trickle that later in the
day would turn to a flood The sooner he
could get Rawsthorne started in the car, the better it would be for everyone
concerned, so he turned back, looking at his
watch It was later than he thought--nearly ten o'clock
Now he found he was moving against the stream and progress was more difficult and
would become even more sa as he
approached the disturbed city centre He looked ahead and saw the blozen of smoke in
the sky spreading over the central
area--the city was beginning to burn But not for long, he thought grimly Not if
Wyatt is right
He pressed on into the bedlam that was St Pierre, pushing against the bodies that
pressed against him and ruthlessly using
the butt of his rifle to clear his way Once he met a soldier fighting his way clear
and they came face to face Causton
reversed his rifle and manipulated the bolt with a sharp click, thinking, what do I
do if he dosen't take the hint? The
soldier nervously eyed the rifle muzzle pointing at his belly, half-heartedly made
an attempt to lift his own gun but
thought better of it, and retreated, slipping away into the crowd Causton grinned
mirthlessly and went on his way
He was not far from the Imperiale when the press of the crowd became so much that
he could not move Christ! he thought,
we're sitting ducks for a shell-burst He tried to make his way back, but found that
as difficult as going forward--
something was evidently holding up the crowd, something immovable
He found out what it was when he struggled for enough back, almost to the corner of
the street A military unit had
debouched from the side street and formed a line across the main thoroughfare, guns
pointing at the crowd Men were being
hauled out of the crowd and lined up in a clear space, and Causton took one good
look and tried to duck back But he was
too late An arm shot out and grabbed him, pulling him bodily out of the crowd and
thrusting him to join the others
Serrurier was busy rounding up his dissolving army
He looked at the group of men which he had joined They were all soldiers and all
unwounded, looking at the ground with
hangdog expressions Causton hunched his shoulders, drooped his head and mingled
unobtrusively with them, getting as
far away from the front as possible After a while an officer came and made a speech
at them Causton couldn't understand
a word of it, but he got the general drift of the argument They were deserters,
quitter under fire, who deserved to be shot,
if not at down, then a damn sight sooner Their only hope of staying alive was to go
and face the guns of Favel for the
greater glory of San Fernandez and President Serrurier
To make his point the officer walked along the front row of men and arbitrarily
selected six They were marched across to
the front of a house--poor, bewidered, uncomprehending sheep--and suddenly a
machine-gun opened up and the little
group staggered and fell apart under the hail of bullets The officer calmly walked
across and put a bullet into the brainof
one screaming wretch, then turned and gave a sharp order
The deserters were galvanized into action Under the screams of bellowing non-coms
they formed into rough order and
marched away down the side dead bodies Pour encourager Les autres, he thought
Causton had been conscripted into Serrurier's army
IV
Dawson was astonished at himself
He had lived his entire life as a civilized member of North American community and,
as a result, he had never come
to terms with himself on what he would do if he got into real trouble like most
modern civilized men, he had never met
trouble of his sort, he was cosseted and protected by the community and paid his
taxes like a man, so that this protection
should endure and others stand between him and primitive realities such as death by
bullet or torture
Although his image was that of a free- wheeling, ail-American he-man and although
he was in danger of believing his
own press-clippings, he was aware in the dim recess of his being that this image
was fraudulent, and from time to time
he had wondered vaguely what kind of a man he really was He had banished these
thoughts as soon as as they were
consciously formulated because he had an uneasy feeling that he was really a weak
man after all, and the thought
disturbed him deeply The public image he had formed was the man he wanted to be and
he could not bear the thought
that perhaps he was nothing like that And he had no way of proving it one way or
the other--he had never been put to
the test
Wyatt's hardly conceated contempt had stung and he felt something approaching shame
at his attempt at his to steel the car--that
was not the way a man should behave So that when his testing-time came something
deep inside him made him square
his shoulders and briskly tell Sons-Inspector Roseau to go to hell and make it
samn' fast, buddy
So it was that now, lying in bed with all hell breaking loose around him, he felt
astonished at himself He had stood up to
such physical pain as he had never believed possible and he felt proud that his
last conscious act'in Roseau's office had
been to look across at the implacable face before him and mumble, "I still say it--
go to hell, you son of a bitch I"