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There was no answer

"Evan, perhaps they are at their prayers"

"Perhaps"

I started forward Plum ’s hand stopped me "It would not do to interrupt them, Evan"

"Well, I’ll just see what-"

"Perhaps we should wait until "

"What’s the"I don’t know I don’t think we should go in there"

"Why not?"

"I told you I don’t know"

"That’s ridiculous," I said I called out again in Fleers and took my hand back I trotted on to the doorway of the nearest and ss out as I went

There was a buzzing sound, the droning of flies The door was ajar I gave it a gentle shove and it swung open The buzzing got louder I looked down and saw the flies swarirl was a few yards away on the right And past her, scattered here and there around the room, were the others

Chapter 7

Plu intermittently to vomit She would throw back her head and shriek and wail, eyes rolling, nails digging into pal down face, and then the screams would break abruptly off and she would toss her head forward like a robin bobbin’ along, and then she would throw up Followed byto calm her down, and when that proved iet while I took a look around the place and surveyed the dae, which was total When I took a head count, and I wish I did not mean that as literally as I do, I came up with a tally of thirty-four dead, twenty-five women and nineto look upon, however inoffensive and antiseptic the form it takes But these men and women had been torn apart It was not always possible to tell what belonged to who before In war movies soldiers die neatly of invisible wounds, but when I was in Korea death was apt to be roup of felloho had been playing cards when a shell landed a their bodies for shipian priests and nuns and nurses, they had been made a hash of

Yet this was different A shell, a boe – these are essentially impersonal affairs, and if they make death a messy business they do so with no special e in the three buildings was the work not of a single explosive charge but of uncountable bloith knife and ax and e had a very personal stamp upon it All of the bodies had been decapitated, and s had been hacked off as well The women had been separated from their breasts In similar fashion, the ans of which they had been deprived were nowhere to be found Sheena see, for reasons I did not care to consider

I didn’t get sick I felt the way I do when I drink tooand jittery I paced fro to coain, and I looked at flesh and blood over and over again until it lost its impact Then I found Plum and took hold of her She was still hysterical I held her chin in one hand and slapped her face with the other She clutched ht hold of herself

"Coet the hell out of here, that’s all Back the e came, I suppose"

"But-"

"At least we know the route We’ll try not to fall in the lion pit or get eaten by the flies I don’t kno long it’ll take, but the sooner we get going, the sooner we’ll be there"

"Where? Griggstown?"

"For a starter"

"But ill be arrested there"

"Not if we don’t announce ourselves We’ll get out of the country, don’t worry You can go to London or come to America or whatever you want"

"But what about your friends, Evan?"

"My friends?"

"Sam Bowman and Knanda Ndoro"

I started to tell her that they weren’t ave it up as irrelevant "They’re dead," I said

"You have found their bodies?"

I shook ive them much chance The stories they tell about this Sheena are pure understatereen again, so I hurried on "If Bowman and the Retriever met up with the White Goddess you could bury what’s left of thee did little for Pluainst Sheena, then we’ve got even less chance of finding the which haystack to look in for the needle I would say that either they’re out of the country, in which case we can forget about finding theot them, in which case they’ve joined their ancestors But in either case-"

"We should leave this place"

"You’re on the right track now"