The Burning Shore

This shoulder a little lower. They were both electrically aware of each contact. Just turn your hips this way slightly. He placed his hands upon them and Michael's voice sounded as though he were choking as she pushed back with her buttocks against him, an untutored but devastating pressure.

Centaine's first shot drove her back against his chest, and he clasped her protectively while the pigeons headed untouched for the horizon.

You are looking at the muzzle of the gun, not the bird, Michael explained, still holding her. Look at the bird, and the gun will follow of its own At her next shot a fat pigeon tumbled out of the sky, amid shrieks of excitement from both women, but when A

The barn! cried Centaine, and led them scampering down the lane. The rain slashed the tree-tops and exploded in miniature shell bursts on their skin so that they gasped at its icy sting. Centaine reached the barn first, and her blouse was sticking to her skin, so that Michael could see the exact shape of her breasts. Strands of her dark hair were plastered against her forehead, and she shook the drops off her skirts and laughed at him, making no attempt to avoid his gaze.

The barn fronted on to the lane. It was built of squared attered yellow stone blocks and the thatched roof was t and worn as an old carpet. it was half-filled with bales of straw that rose in tiers to the roof ,This will set in, A

and while they plucked the pigeons Tell me about Africa, Centaine demanded. is it really so dark? It's the su

hate the I love the sun, Centaine shook her head cold and the wet. There could never be too much sun for me. He told her about the deserts where it never rained. Not as much in a year as it does here in a single day."I thought there were only black savages in Africa."No, he laughed. There are plenty of white savages too - and black gentlemen, and he told her about the tiny yellow pygmies of the Ituri forests, tall as a man's waist, and the giant Watusi who considered any man under two metres tall to be a pygmy, and those noble warriors of Zulu who called themselves children of heaven.

You talk as though you love them, she accused.

The Zulu? he asked, and then nodded. Yes, I suppose I do. Some of them, anyway. Mbejane- Mbejane? She did not pronounce the name right.

A Zulu, he has been with my Uncle Sean since they were lads together. He used the Zulu word Umfaan and had to translate for her.

Tell me about the animals. Centaine did not want him to stop talking. She could listen to his voice and his stories for ever. Tell me about the lions and the tigers. No tigers, he smiled at her, but plenty of lions. And Even A

Tell us about the elephants. And he told her about those sagacious beasts. He described how they moved with that slow somnambulistic gait, huge ears flapping to cool their blood, picking up dirt to dash it over their heads for a dust bath.

He told them about the intricate social structures of the elephant herds, how the old bulls avoided the uproar of breeding herds. Just like your father, said A

This last tale roused A

It has stopped raining, she a

Centaine still watched Michael with huge shining dark eyes.

One day I will go to Africa, she said softly, and he returned her gaze steadily and nodded. Yes, he said. One day. It was as though they had exchanged a vow. It was a thing between them, firm and understood. In that moment she became his woman and he her man.

Come, A

They dragged on leaden feet up the lane towards the chateau, side by side, not touching but so acutely aware of each other that they might as well have been locked in each other's arms.

Then the planes came out of the dusk, low and swift, the thunder of their engines rising to a crescendo as they passed overhead: In the lead was the green Sopwith. From this angle they could not see Andrew's head, but they could see daylight through the rents in the fabric of his wings, through the lines of bullet holes which the Spandaus had torn.

The five aircraft that followed Andrew had all been shot up as well. There were tears and neatly punched holes in their wings and fuselages.

It's been a hard day, Michael murmured, with his head thrown back. J Another Sopwith trailed the others, its engine popping and missing, vapour trailing back in a stream behind it, one wing skewed out of line where the struts had been shot through. Centaine, watching them, shuddered, and crept closer to Michael.

Some of them died out there today, she whispered, and he did not have to reply.

Tomorrow you will be with them again. Not tomorrow. Then the next day, or the next Once more it was not necessary to reply.

I Michel, oh Michel! There was physical agony in her i voice. I must see you alone. We might never, we might never have another chance. From now on we must live each precious minute of our lives as though it is the last. The shock of her words was like a blow to his body.

He could not speak, and her own voice dropped.

The barn, she whispered.

When? He found his voice, and it croaked in his own ears.

Tonight, before midnight, I will come as soon as I am able to. it will be cold. She looked directly into his face social conventions had been burned away in the furnace of war. You must bring a blanket She whirled then and ran to catch up with A

Michael washed at the pump outside the kitchen and changed back into his uniform. When he entered the kitchen again, the pigeon pie was rich and redolent of fresh truffles under its crumbly brown crust, and Centaine was filling and refilling her father's glass without a protest from him. She did the same for A