Clemmie Read Online Free PDF

was a deeply primal rhythm, clasping and enclosing, a rocking strength that underscored release with a long sighing breath, half-articulated, a sweet moist warmth against his face with that prolonged exhalation. In love play she delighted in tantalizing absurdities, in a childlike frankness of experimentation—yet always at one certain point she would revert to the primal woman, and it would be the same for them, always a renewal, a pledge, an unspoken statement of faith.
    They never had a guest at the flat. It was their special and private world. As the weather improved, Craig managed to acquire two khaki and cumbersome G.I. bicycles. These could be stowed on a toy train and taken out to the country lanes when there was the rare coincidence of their days of freedom. But always, late in the afternoon, there would be a time when he would look into her eyes and both of them would be filled with a fevered impatience to return to the flat.
    As June came closer, the tempo of staff work increased. They both knew D-Day was imminent. The symphony was building to a prolonged climactic coda. But the very intensity of the affair with Maura made the preparations unreal. They never talked of what could come afterward. He tried to tell himself this was just an exceptionally fortunate interlude and, after it was over, they could both forget it. But whenever he thought of never seeing her again, a coldness came into his mind.
    On the fourteenth of June he received orders to go to France the next day. He was with Maura until three in the morning on the fifteenth. Their talk had a curious, electric emptiness about it. There were too many things unsaid. They agreed to say their final good-by the next day at eleven near her headquarters. He was to leave for the airport at noon.
    As he walked toward their corner where they had met before, when she could leave her work for a few moments, he heard an odd thrumming, wobbling sound as though some fast-flying aircraft was passing overhead with something wrong with the motors. After the sound faded he heard a distant, deep-throated, smashing explosion.
    He wondered if it was possible that the Germans could have rigged up some fantastic long-ranged gun to bombard London the way they had Paris in the first war.
    When he was a half block from the corner, he lookedfar ahead, trying to spot Maura. She was usually prompt, and he was several minutes late. There were quite a few pedestrians, not much vehicle traffic.
    And again he heard the sputtering, thrumming noise, much louder than before. He looked up. A curious thing with short stubby wings moved into view. The sky was clear for a moment and it was outlined against the blue. It trailed puffs of white vapor. It seemed to be traveling slowly. The thrumming sound of propulsion died and at once it nosed over and came down like a stone. He saw that it was coming directly at him. He heard harsh shouts of alarm, heard women scream. There was a shop beside him, below sidewalk level, with three wide, stone steps leading down to the front door. He hurled himself down, banging his bad leg painfully against one of the steps, and huddled at the bottom, cheek against dirty concrete. Seconds later the crescendo of explosion seemed to lift him off the earth and drop him back. There were long seconds of dazed deafness during which he heard nothing. Then sounds came back. A prolonged tinkling of falling glass. A rumble of masonry. Something that cried hoarsely in a deep bubbling voice, endlessly, “Naaaa Naaaaa Naaaaa.” Over and over, then it weakened and was silent. Cries and moanings mingled in atonal chorus, like an experimental choir.
    When he got up, slowly and unsteadily, he found that there had been a short piece of wrought-iron railing lying across his back. He had not felt it fall. As he got up, the clerks came out of the shop. Their faces were gray.
    “What was it?” a man demanded.
    Craig walked up to the sidewalk. The thing, which had seemed to be aimed