The mist drifted over the mountaintops in a thin tide that hid the dawn in a curtain of pearly iridescence, then poured sluggishly, like steam, through the valleys and crannies of the countryside. The light was a long time coming. Bonfires were built by the villagers at each end of the improvised airfield across the river, and for long minutes after the dawn, their ruddy, leaping light was stronger than that of the feeble sun. Durell and the others waited near the fires at the southern end of the field. They had been up for an hour, with only a thin soup and a cup of tea for breakfast, provided by several village women who appeared in silence, unsmiling, to serve them the food. Afterward, they trudged, shivering, through the predawn darkness of the streets and across the ruins of the bridge to the rough field. The dawn air was wet and penetrating. The sound of the river was a steady, unrelenting roar against the twisted abutments of the bridge.
