Gerald Seymour: Kingfisher

They are looking forward to congratulating you personally.' Just once she slipped a glance to him, without commitment, without dropping her reserve, then gazing again into the dour material of the seat-back in front of her.

Keep it going, Charlie, keep it moving around, gentle and natural. Make the two of them believe it's all over, that it's finished, out of their control. No negotiation, no concession, just that tbe game's gone, the whistle's blown. 'Taking the initiative', the boffins would call it, and holding it so that Isaac couldn't wrest it back. Silly little bugger, should have known his bible, rule one,

'Never let the bastards with the open faces and the empty hands on board.' Curtains after that, Isaac, old sunshine.

He moved forward two more rows. Closer to Isaac, closer than he had ever been, where he could see the confused and shadowed face with its sheen of sweat. Able to focus on the gun, understand its cooling system, its front needle sight, its age and peeled paint work. Shouldn't dwell on it, though, shouldn't show apprehension, like a policeman that edges along the windowsill towards the man determined on suicide, and who must talk calmly and be mundane, matter of fact. As he turned to the nursing mother the style of the gun was imprinted on his mind, the knowledge that a flick of the trigger, casual and involuntary or predetermined, and the magazine would be unloading in a cascade of shells hurtling through the trimmed airspace between him and the squat, tensed, curly-haired boy. He tapped the baby's head with his left hand, trying not to draw away from the stench of the unchanged clothes, attempting to weave the web of normality.

Just keep it going, Charlie, ever so slow, ever so gradual. In front of him the children, the school kids, still quiet, and waiting for you, Charlie. Had to get beyond them, had to impose himself between the boy with the gun and their soft flesh that would be ripped and carved by a single volley. Winked at a couple of the little brats. Eight or nine more rows, that would be enough, then he'd be a shield for the kids, then he could talk of who left the plane first, then he could believe that it was finished.

All the time moving, edging closer to the boy with the gun, soft voices, controlled smile, creeping nearer, insidious, and deep inside his heart pounding and his muscles taut and stretched, and his eyes on the gun. Don't lose sight of that gun, Charlie, don't take your bloody eyes off it.

Gendy Charlie spoke to Isaac, spanning the few feet of carpet with his words, making the contact. ' I've brought Colonel Benitz to see you, Isaac. He's from the Israeli Defence Force, and he's a fighter, he's like you. Listen to him, Isaac. Listen to what he tells you.'

It took Charlie time to realize that Benitz had begun to speak behind him. A different voice, and words that he could not understand, a language that was strange to him and incomprehensible.

Benitz turned back towards the open door and the cockpit entrance. Gazed down the length of the aisle towards the girl.

'Come here, Rebecca. Come close to us where you can hear what I say.' A cool, spring voice, an instruction in the Yiddish tongue, 'Come nearer, so that I do not shout.' Looking into her eyes, absorbing the creased lines of her tiredness, and her faltering step. The girl who wanted to come to Israel, who wanted to take her place amongst his people, bear her children there. 'Keep coming, Rebecca, keep coming, you have nothing to fear from me.'

He saw the way she looked at him, as if the flood-gates of her misery might now be broken down, saw the relief catch at the curls of her mouth that now, after all the hideousness and pain, she had finally found her friend. And they had told him on the telephone that these young ones would be sent back, would be returned to the land of oppression, and to cells, and to death and to the quicklime pits. He wondered as she came towards him where she had started, where she had begun the journey that had brought her here. In the arms of one of the boys? Or something more rare – had there been the driving inner commitment, the force that sharpened the men that he led, the men of the storm squad? And he would not know, would never know, because now there was no time.

When she reached him Benitz put his arm around her shoulder, draped loosely and carelessly, glanced once at the pistol held in her hand and mingled with the folds of her dress, worked his fingers into the muscle of her shoulder, the gesture of reassurance, and saw Isaac straighten as if his fear too was waning.

'We know what you sought, we know what you have accomplished.' Arie Benitz spoke with a simplicity, with the humility of the funeral oration at the graveside of a soldier of Squad 101. 'We know of it and we marvel, and are proud. We understand the depth of despair, the pain and the agony that will have been yours when the welcome was of guns and armed men and tanks. We understand why you felt driven to take the life of a man who now lies outside and dead. We understand.' Both of them were looking at him, both watching, and the gun barrel of Isaac lowered so that the muzzle aimed at the slight space between his feet. 'In many ways we can struggle against our opponents. The battle may be offensive, it may be passive. There are those that fight in the front line, those that are far to the rear. There are sudden victories that can be won, and there are those that are secret and quiet and without garlands.

There are times, too, when the victory must be purchased, times when great sacrifice is demanded. Those are the sad times, the times when our people weep upon the coffins.. The tank commanders who held the Golan at Yom Kippur, when the Syrians came, for them there could be no relief, no reinforcement, no supply. They were pitifully few and they fought till their shells were expended, and then they fought with their machine-guns, and when the magazines were empty then they threw their grenades. And they died by their broken tanks. They died because it was required of them. And there was no fear, no terror, no panic. They died because Israel needed their lives, needed them as currency to pay for the ultimate victory. They won us time, and when we returned we stood in awe and understood what these few had achieved for us, and we buried them in the military cemetery on a hill outside Jerusalem, and there are flowers there, and men come with their women and children to stand in silence beside the stones.'

Only Isaac and Rebecca understood his words, but the plane was hushed, as if all were sensitive to the moment.

'We do not share our fight We do not rely on allies. We stand by ourselves and expect favours from none. It is a hostile, friendless world,' Arie Benitz smiled, not from humour, but a deep sympathy, 'you have found that, you know it as I know it. When you were in the air over Hanover, that was when you would have known it, and when you woke to the dawn this morning and found the guns that circled you. It is a hard and savage place that you have come to.' His hand had slipped from the girl's shoulder, and his fingers played now with the sun-dried skin of her upper arm where it was bared beneath her sleeve, pulled gendy and squeezed it, and played patterns with his nails. Winning her, comforting her, and all the time edging down towards the limp-held pistol. "The British have told you that you will not fly on from here. If they say that I believe them, and I have no power to alter their decision. And if you surrender the British will send you back… back to Kiev, back to the courts..

He felt the girl stiffen at his side, and his hand now gripped her arm, tight, pinioning, pressing it against her body, denying her movement.

'What do you want of us?' The peace clearing from Isaac's face, the weariness returning. 'What is the message that you bring us?'