It was a short-lived relief. Three more planes descended towards us from the north, heading straight for our sanctuary. I could see their propellers spinning distinctly as they came low over our ditch, silhouetted against the green hills in the background. We crouched closer together. Passing overhead with a deafening roar we could hear the continuous sputtering of machine-gun bullets around us. I shut my eyes and prayed they had no bombs left, but reflected afterwards that they could not have dropped them without as great danger to themselves as to us.
We sat in silence and gradually realized that the raiders were retire ing. The local pom-poms had been silent, yet at the low altitude of 300 feet they could hardly have missed such perfect targets. We waited a long half-an-hour and then crept out of our sanctuary. The little dwarf was as terrified as ever. He kowtowed to us, gripping the money we had given him, and ran towards the village, his shabby straw hat futter-ing his farewell.
Rather shakily we walked along the road towards the hamlet. One of the French soldiers came up looking worried and pale asking if we had seen any of his "camarades." Hardly had we replied when a red-bobbed cap popped up from a near hiding place and hurried to meet him. My amah who had been hiding with some Chinese. found a small private house, where the owner gave us some really refreshing tea,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.