‘We might as well eat now,’ said Julie practically. ‘I think I can cut some bread if we rearrange ourselves a little. We might as well eat it before it becomes really stale.’
They breakfasted off bread and canned pressed meat, washing it down with soda-water. When they had finished Rawsthorne said, ‘What time is it? I can’t seem to get at my watch.’
‘Ten-fifteen,’ said Julie.
‘We can give Causton another three-quarters of an hour,’ said Rawsthorne. ‘But then we must go – I’m sorry, but there it is.’
‘That’s all right,’ said Julie quietly. ‘He did tell us to go at eleven.’
Occasionally they heard distant shouts and excited cries and sometimes the clatter of running boots. Eumenides said suddenly, ‘Your car … is in street?’
‘No,’ said Rawsthorne. ‘I left it at the back of the hotel.’ He paused. ‘Poor Wyatt’s car is in a mess; all the windows are broken and someone has taken the wheels; for the tyres, I suppose.’
They relapsed into cramped silence. Mrs Warmington hugged her bag and conducted an intermittent monologue which Julie ignored. She listened to the shells exploding and wondered what would happen if the hotel got a direct hit. She had no idea of the damage a shell could do apart from what she had seen at the movies and on TV and she had a shrewd idea that the movie version would be but a pale imitation of the real thing. Her mouth became dry and she knew she was very frightened.
The minutes dragged drearily by. Mrs Warmington squeaked sharply as a shell exploded near-by – the closest yet – and the windows of the foyer blew in and smashed. She started to get up, but Julie pulled her back. ‘Stay where you are,’ she cried. ‘It’s safer here.’
Mrs Warmington flopped back and somehow Julie felt better after that. She looked at Eumenides, his face pale in the dim light, and wondered what he was thinking. It was bad for him because, his English being what it was, he could not communicate easily. As she looked at him he pulled up his wrist to his eyes. ‘Quar’ to ‘leven,’ he announced. ‘I t’ink we better load car.’
Rawsthorne stirred. ‘Yes, that might be a good idea,’ he agreed. He began to push open the door. ‘Wait a minute – here’s Causton now.’
Julie sighed. ‘Thank God!’
Rawsthorne pushed the door wider and then stopped short. ‘No, it’s not,’ he whispered. ‘It’s a soldier – and there’s another behind him.’ Gently he drew the door closed again, leaving it open only a crack and watching with one eye.
The soldier was carrying a rifle slung over one shoulder but the man behind, also a soldier, had no weapon. They came into the foyer, carelessly kicking aside the cane chairs, and stood for a moment looking at the dusty opulence around them. One of them said something and pointed, and the other laughed, and they both moved out of sight.
‘They’ve gone into the bar,’ whispered Rawsthorne.
Faintly, he could hear the clinking of bottles and loud laughter, and once, a smash of glass. Then there was silence. He said softly, ‘We can’t come out while they’re there; they’d see us. We’ll have to wait.’
It was a long wait and Rawsthorne began to feel cramp in his leg. He could not hear anything at all and began to wonder if the soldiers had not departed from the rear of the hotel. At last he whispered, ‘What time is it?’
‘Twenty past eleven.’
‘This is nonsense,’ said Mrs Warmington loudly. ‘I can’t hear anything. They must have gone.’
‘Keep quiet!’ said Rawsthorne. There was a ragged edge to his voice. He paused for a long time, then said softly, ‘They might have gone. I’m going to have a look round.’
‘Be careful,’ whispered Julie.
He was about to push the door open again when he halted the movement and swore softly under his breath. One of the soldiers had come out of the bar and was strolling through the foyer, drinking from a bottle. He went to the door of the hotel and stood for a while staring into the street through the broken panes in the revolving door, then he suddenly shouted to someone outside and waved the bottle in the air.
Two more men came in from outside and there was a brief conference; the first soldier waved his arm towards the bar with largesse as though to say ‘be my guests’. One of the two shouted to someone else outside, and presently there were a dozen soldiers tramping through the foyer on their way to the bar. There was a babel of sound in hard, masculine voices.
‘Damn them!’ said Rawsthorne. ‘They’re starting a party.’
‘What can we do?’ asked Julie.
‘Nothing,’ said Rawsthorne briefly. He paused, then said, ‘I think these are deserters – I wouldn’t want them to see us, especially …’ His voice trailed away.
‘Especially the women,’ said Julie flatly, and felt Mrs Warmington begin to quiver.
They lay there in silence listening to the racket from the bar, the raucous shouts, the breaking glasses and the voices raised in song. ‘All law in the city must be breaking down,’ said Rawsthorne at last.
‘I want to get out of here,’ said Mrs Warmington suddenly and loudly.
‘Keep that woman quiet,’ Rawsthorne hissed.
‘I’m not staying here,’ she cried, and struggled to get up.
‘Hold it,’ whispered Julie furiously, pulling her down.
‘You can’t keep me here,’ screamed Mrs Warmington.
Julie did not know what Eumenides did, but suddenly Mrs Warmington collapsed on top of her, a warm, dead weight, flaccid and heavy. She heaved violently and pushed the woman off her. ‘Thanks, Eumenides,’ she whispered.
‘For God’s sake!’ breathed Rawsthorne, straining his ears to hear if there was any sudden and sinister change in the volume of noise coming from the bar. Nothing happened; the noise became even louder – the men were getting drunk. After a while Rawsthorne said softly, ‘What’s the matter with that woman? Is she mad?’
‘No,’ said Julie. ‘Just spoiled silly. She’s had her own way all her life and she can’t conceive of a situation in which getting her own way could cause her death. She can’t adapt.’ Her voice was pensive. ‘I guess I feel sorry for her more than anything else.’
‘Sorry or not, you’d better keep her quiet,’ said Rawsthorne. He peered through the crack. ‘God knows how long this lot is going to stay here – and they’re getting drunker.’
They lay there listening to the rowdy noise which was sometimes overlaid by the reverberation of the battle. Julie kept looking at her watch, wondering how long this was going to go on. Every five minutes she said to herself, they’ll leave in another five minutes – but they never did. Presently she heard a muffled sound from Rawsthorne. ‘What is it?’ she whispered.
He turned his head. ‘More of them coming in.’ He turned back to watch. There were seven of them this time, six troopers and what seemed to be an officer, and there was discipline in the way they moved into the foyer and looked about. The officer stared across into the bar and shouted something, but his voice was lost in the uproar, so he drew his revolver and fired a shot in the air. There came sudden silence in the hotel.
Mrs Warmington stirred weakly and a bubbling groan came from her lips. Julie clamped her hand across the woman’s mouth and squeezed tight. She heard an exasperated sigh from Rawsthorne and saw him move his head slightly as though he had taken one quick look back.
The officer shouted in a hectoring voice and one by one the deserters drifted out of the bar and into the foyer and stood muttering among themselves,