Free ELEPHANT MOON by John Sweeney Page B

began grinding his teeth. Soon, even he stopped and stared at the horrors unfolding below them.
    It was around three o’clock when the alarm was sounded. One of the girls had seen a tiny figure making her way down the last of the steps carved into the hillside, which led from the Masonic Hall to the heart of Mandalay. Most of the path was hidden from them, zigzagging down the far side of the hill, but the last stretch was in plain view of the wholeschool. Grace called out to her, as loud as her lungs would allow: ‘Miss Furroughs, Miss Furroughs come back!’
    Her shouting was lost in the cacophony of a city burning.
    The headmistress moved slowly, deliberately, taking one step at a time. She did not turn back. She paid no heed as the sky grew dark, a pre-natural sunset. Miss Furroughs was three hundred, maybe four hundred yards down the hill. All Grace had to do was to get to her feet and run down and stop her. She was a much fitter woman and she could well have caught up with her. But for some reason Grace found it impossible to move. She stared and stared, immobile, mouthing: ‘no, Miss, no,’ again and again. The old lady was still in view, now five hundred yards from the hall, her path less steep, beginning to level out on to the plain where the city lay when the saw-teeth of engines sounded high in the sky, bombers coming in low for a fresh attack. The children ran for the safety of the Hall’s basement, half buried into the side of the hill. Grace shooed them in, and looked back, once.  The last Grace saw of the headmistress was her white blouse and black skirt being swallowed up by the smoke.

Chapter Three
    Towards dusk, the air acrid from the still burning city, Molly spotted him first. ‘An Indian soldier, Miss, on a motor-bicycle. Asking for someone in charge.’
    An officer of some kind, face strikingly pale, tall, painfully slim, eyes of light green, a beaked nose. Hanging from his shoulder a leather satchel – a despatch rider? Taking Grace to one side he started to describe what he had witnessed: ‘A refined lady, middle aged, very correctly dressed, white blouse, dark skirt, short, with white hair. Miss…’
    ‘She’s…’ The urge to panic was animal and strong, but the quickest of glances told her that Emily and Ruby were staring at them. Grace tilted her face closer to his ear: ‘…dead. Isn’t she?’
    The officer nodded. ‘I am most terribly sorry, Miss.’
    ‘She meant to kill herself, didn’t she?’
    ‘I do not know. We saw her go out onto King’s Street, just after four, in the middle of a bombing raid, when the flames were at their strongest. And then she was killed. But it was Queen Elizabeth who said: “I would not open windows into men’s souls.” We don’t know what was in her soul. I am very sorry for your trouble, Miss.’
    He spoke Oxford English, exquisitely.
    ‘I would not open windows into men’s souls. Yes, that is right.’
    The most powerful emotion for Grace was one she was ashamed to admit to anyone, and certainly not to the young Indian officer. Relief that she no longer had to beg Miss Furroughs to make decisions, relief that, with the headmistress gone, they could press on to India as fast as possible, relief that she had a better chance of saving the children on her own. Had the old lady realised that she was slowing them down, that her indecision andhelplessness at the thought of leaving Burma was becoming a danger to the children? Was that why she had walked into fire?
    Eyes smarting, she pushed past the officer, out of the cellar. Below stood the burnt city, mile after mile of charred black, here and there wisps of smoke rising from still smouldering fires, and she wept in shame that she had done nothing to save her friend.
    The officer had come to her side.
    ‘I am sorry for your loss, Miss.’
    ‘Sir…’
    ‘Jemadar Ahmed Rehman, at your service.’
    Grace told him her name.
    ‘Miss Collins–’
    ‘Call me Grace, please.’
    ‘–Miss Grace,