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By Root 1070 0

miles wide, really: the rest is desert. What am I going to do? That chill, deep in my chest, every time I look at Wolff. The way he stares at Billy. The gleam in his eye. His restlessness: the way he looks out of the window, then around the carriage, then at Billy, then at me, then at Billy again, always with that gleam in his eye, the look of triumph. I should comfort Billy. I wish I knew more about boys, I had four sisters. What a poor step-mother I should be for Billy. I’d like to touch him, put my arm around him, give him a quick squeeze, or even a cuddle, but I’m not sure that’s what he wants, it might make him feel worse. Perhaps I could take his mind off things by playing a game. What a ridiculous idea. Perhaps not so ridiculous. Here is his school satchel. Here is an exercise book. He looks at me curiously. What game? Noughts and crosses. Four lines for the grid; my cross in the center. The way he looks at me as he takes the pencil, I do believe he’s going along with this crazy idea in order to comfort me! His nought in the corner. Wolff snatches the book, looks at it, shrugs, and gives it back. My cross, Billy’s nought; it will be a drawn game. I should let him win next time. I can play this game without thinking, more’s the pity. Wolff has a spare radio at Assyut. Perhaps I should stay with him, and try to prevent him using the radio. Some hope! I have to get Billy away, then contact Vandam and tell him where I am. I hope Vandam saw, the atlas. Perhaps the servant saw it, and called GHQ. Perhaps it will lie on the chair all day, unnoticed. Perhaps Vandam will not go home today. I have to get Billy away from Wolff, away from that knife. Billy makes a cross in the center of a new grid. I make a nought, then scribble hastily: We must escape—be ready. Billy makes another cross, and: OK. My nought. Billy’s cross and When? My nought and Next station. Billy’s third cross makes a line. He scores through the line of crosses, then smiles up at me jubilantly. He has won. The train slows down.

Vandam knew the train was still ahead of him. He had stopped at the station at Giza, close to the pyramids, to ask how long ago the train had passed through; then he had stopped and asked the same question at three subsequent stations. Now, after traveling for an hour, he had no need to stop and ask, for the road and the railway line ran parallel, on either side of a canal, and he would see the train when he caught up with it.

Each time he stopped he had taken a drink of water. With his uniform cap, his goggles and the scarf around his mouth and neck, he was protected from the worst of the dust; but the sun was terribly hot and he was continually thirsty. Eventually he realized he was running a slight fever. He thought he must have caught cold, last night, lying on the ground beside the river for hours. His breath was hot in his throat, and the muscles of his back ached.

He had to concentrate on the road. It was the only road which ran the length of Egypt, from Cairo to Aswan, and consequently much of it was paved; and in recent months the Army had done some repair work: but he still had to watch for bumps and potholes. Fortunately the road ran straight as an arrow, so he could see, far ahead, the hazards of cattle, wagons, camel trains and flocks of sheep. He drove very fast, except through the villages and towns, where at any moment people might wander out into the road: he would not kill a child to save a child, not even to save his own child.

So far he had passed only two cars—a ponderous Rolls-Royce and a battered Ford. The Rolls had been driven by a uniformed chauffeur, with an elderly English couple in the backseat; and the old Ford had contained at least a dozen Arabs. By now Vandam was fairly sure Wolff was traveling by train.

Suddenly he heard a distant hoot. Looking ahead and to his left he saw, at least a mile away, a rising plume of white smoke which was unmistakably that of a steam engine. Billy! he thought. Elene! He went faster.

Paradoxically, the engine smoke made him think of England, of gentle slopes, endless