Get a Load of This

     The distant noise was rapidly swelling into a tremendous uproar as the crowd outside approached. The cellar shook with the noise of rifle-fire as the soldiers poured volley after volley into the crowd. More yells and screams followed, then suddenly someone screamed like a frightened child, and a tremendous explosion brought plaster and dust down on top of the two crouching in the cellar.

     Myra was thrown off the box she was sitting on on to the floor.

     “Some guy threw a bomb,” Quentin gasped, helping her to her feet. “Are you all right?”

     She brushed her dress with her hands. “Yes... Will they do that again? Is it safe here?”

     “Sure, these cellars can take a lot of that. I wonder how the General liked that little packet.” He went over to the door and peered up the staircase. Plaster lay in great pieces all the way up the stairs, and the air was thick with dust. Shooting began again, but this time the volleys were very ragged. “I guess these guys won't hold out much longer. I think that bomb killed a lot of them.”

     Two soldiers suddenly came running down the stairs, their scared faces coated with white dust, and their eyes filled with terror. Quentin fired at them. He hit one, who pitched forward, rolling down the rest of the stairs. The other soldier gave a yell and bolted upstairs again.

     Myra flopped on the floor, putting her hands over her ears. The noise of the surging crowd and the tramping of feet overhead told them that the natives had entered the hotel. “They're in now,” Quentin said. “We've got to keep out of sight. They'll go for us if they see us. Once they have finished Fuentes they'll probably clear off, then we can beat it when it gets quieter.”

     The uproar continued upstairs. Shots, yells and tramping of feet. Suddenly a full-throated roar went up, followed immediately by a high scream of terror.

     “They've got him,” Quentin said, running to the doorway and leaning over the barrels, trying to see up the stairs.

     Myra crouched lower on the floor, shutting out the snarling roar of the crowd as it surged forward. Then, above the noise, she heard Quentin shout, “Look out... look out!” She saw him trying to get away from the door, his hands shielding his face. She could see his eyes, very large and frightened. Then a blinding flash came just outside the door and she became enveloped in dust and bricks. She was quite conscious of what was happening around her. She saw Quentin's body lifted as if by a giant's hand and tossed across the cellar. She went to him on her hands and knees. When she got close, she stopped, her hand going to her mouth. The bomb had made him like some horrible nightmare of torn blood and flesh. She scrambled to her feet and ran away from him. The force of the explosion numbed her mind. She couldn't think. She just wanted to get away from that poor, mutilated body. She found herself crawling up the broken staircase. The woodwork creaked under her weight, but she kept on until she reached the top. The hall was in a complete shambles. Soldiers lay about the floor in big crimson pools.

     She wandered into the lounge. One of the bombs had exploded in there. Furniture was scattered and broken. Glass from mirrors and windows lay on the floor. Plaster and dust covered everything with a coat of white. Opposite her, pinned by bayonets to the door, was the General. His head hung on his chest, and the front of his white uniform was blotched with blood. She put her hands to her face and ran blindly out of the room.

     At that moment a small party of natives, bent on loot, came in from the garden. They closed in on her like a hungry pack of wolves, their hands seeking and their eyes maddened with lust for her. She was more aware of the overpowering reek of their bodies as they struggled round her than her own terror. She was conscious of thinking: “So he was wrong. I knew he was wrong. This couldn't have been planned. God wouldn't let this happen to me if He could stop it.”

     One huge native managed to pull her away from the others and he tossed her across his back, threatening the others with the General's revolver. He began edging away towards the stairs.

     She said to herself: “He is only going to do what Lacey did. Only this time it will be more sincere. He won't pretend that he is a beautiful man, and I shan't pretend that Havana is the place of love.” She watched the floor move swiftly under big, black, naked feet. Dangling over his shoulder, almost upside down, she had a unique view of the hotel lounge. She found that she was laughing, because it was all rather funny. The group of natives huddled together, their eyes hungry and disappointed. All wanting her, but because this big one had the gun, they just had to stand back and do without.