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This was a thorny problem but he did not intend to let it spoil his stroll. This promenade, he considered, had something of the atmosphere of a seaside resort in Normandy … Deauville, say, or Cabourg. Here, on one rounded elbow of the island, the town hall and municipal offices presided in peaceful dignity over a stretch of open ground giving on to the ruined earthworks of Fort Cornwallis. In Deauville, of course, there would have been a bracing smell of the sea and the Tricolour would have been galloping on a flag-staff; here there was a flag-staff, certainly, but the Union Jack hung limp from it in the humid heat. No, it was not bracing here, far from it, but by half closing your eyes and very vigorously exercising your imagination you might, for a moment or two, think yourself in a tropical Balbec on your way to meet some darkskinned little Albertine.

George Town, he was thinking, as he followed the elbow of the coast road where it turned sharply to head back south-west along Weld Quay towards the ferry, though not the most exciting place in the world, was certainly one of the most peaceful, even with the war so close. Yes, it even seemed peaceful this morning when Weld Quay was thronged with Chinese and Indians, come to watch the Japanese bombers attacking Butterworth across the water as they had on the previous day. Undoubtedly there had not been such excitement in Penang, apart from some race riots between Chinese and Indians, in the hundred years since the government of the Straits Settlements had passed to Singapore … But Dupigny hardly had time to finish this thought: the next moment he looked out to sea, looked again, hesitated, then began to run.

It is unusual to see someone running in the tropics; now and then Europeans, in defiance of the heat, may be seen playing football, cricket or some other sport, but not running the way Dupigny was (as if his life depended upon it, as perhaps it did). People turned to stare at him as he raced back the way he had come towards the ruined walls and grassy banks of Fort Cornwallis. At first he shouted at them, but they paid no attention to him; he decided immediately it was useless, a waste of breath, so he ran on in silence, passing a Chinese ARP warden who realized immediately why he was running and started shouting wildly at a little group of Indians nearby, trying to marshal them in one direction or another. Although he tried to point in the direction of what was approaching from the mainland as he ran, it made no difference: one or two of the strollers even grinned at each other at the sight of a middleaged European running for all he was worth in the steaming midday heat. Now Dupigny paid no attention to them, hardly even saw them. He ran and ran and, wiry though he was, the sweat poured off his face and neck.

Here and there the crowds were so dense that there was hardly room to move, but Dupigny shoved people rudely aside in his determination to get where he was going, too breathless to apologize, though again he tried to point across the water. One or two of those he shoved aside shouted angrily after him; nobody cares to be barged into the gutter while taking a stroll. An elderly English gentleman shook a walking-stick after him: this was the sort of ill-mannered fellow one found coming out East in recent years: not enough breeding to wrap in a postage stamp! But still Dupigny ran and ran for his life. There was an expression of fierce concentration on his face as he ran, looking neither right nor left, head down, elbows working. The sole of one of his shoes, which he had been obliged by poverty to wear ever since leaving Saigon and which he had been nursing anxiously for some weeks, now detached itself and began to flap ridiculously. But he did not even stop to attend to this, merely kicked the shoe off as he was running because already, above the thudding of his own pulse in his ears, he could hear the drone of the approaching bombers.

As he drew near the