Pat had dashed to the helicopter and told me he needed to get it airborne, or I’d have to explain to the general why it was a puddle of molten metal and plastic. From my vantage through the helicopter windscreen, the paramedics in fluorescent yellow jackets worked with burn victims, and officers tried to save their friends before the fire department arrived. The emergency beacons were soon cold stars to the glaring sun of the flames engulfing half the granary. Even clear of it, the pleasant nutty smell of burning grain mingled with the stench of burnt rat and burnt bodies. The reek clung to my memory. The same in the sands as it smelled here. I had escaped once again. I had become the shade of death that I reviled in the general, and I quaked with post-battle tremors. The flight, already over two hours long, stretched into silence, broken only by Pat’s uncomfortable coughs. Once at the hospital, I waited for Pat to leave the roof before striding to the edge of the building.
