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looked at the wall clock. That would be the refugees from the illegal ship, Door of Hope .
    “ Door of Hope, Gates of Zion, Promised Land, Star of David ,” Caldwell said with a snicker. “I will say one thing. They do give those blockade runners colorful names.”
    Sutherland’s brow furrowed. He tried to study out his next move on the board, but the sirens would not leave his ears. He stared at the ivory chessmen, but he was visualizing the convoy of lorries packed with agonized faces, machine guns, armored cars. “If you don’t mind, Caldwell, I think I’ll turn in.”
    “Anything wrong, sir?”
    “No. Good night.” The brigadier walked from the room quickly and closed the door of his bedroom and loosened his smoking jacket. The sirens seemed to screech unbearably loudly. He slammed the window shut to drown the noise but still he could hear it.
    Bruce Sutherland stood before the mirror and wondered what was going wrong with him. Sutherland from Sutherland Heights. Another distinguished career in a line of distinguished careers that went on, the same as England itself.
    But these past weeks on Cyprus something was happening. Something tearing him to pieces. He stood there before the mirror and looked into his own watery eyes and wondered where it had all begun.
    Sutherland: Good fellow to have on your team, said the yearbook at Eton. Right sort of chap, that Sutherland. Proper family, proper schooling, proper career.
    The army? Good choice, Bruce old man. We Sutherlands have served in the army for centuries....
    Proper marriage. Neddie Ashton. The daughter of Colonel Ashton was a clever catch. Fine stock, Neddie Ashton. Fine hostess, that woman. She always has the ear of the right person. She’ll be a big help to your career. Splendid match! The Ashtons and the Sutherlands.
    Where the failure, Sutherland wondered? Neddie had given him two lovely children. Albert was a real Sutherland. A captain in his father’s old regiment already, and Martha had made herself a splendid marriage.
    Bruce Sutherland opened the closet and put on his pajamas. He touched the roll of fat about his waist. Not too bad for a man of fifty-five. He still had plenty of punch left.
    Sutherland had come up fast in the World War II by comparison to the slow tedious advancements in the peacetime service. There had been India, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the Middle East. But it took a war to show what he was made of. He proved to be an exceptional infantry commander. V-E Day found him a brigadier.
    He put on his bedroom slippers and sank slowly into a deep chair and dimmed the lamp and he was filled with remembering.
    Neddie had always been a good wife. She was a good mother, a tremendous hostess, and a woman cut out for colonial service in the army. He had been very fortunate. When had the break come between them? Yes, he remembered. It was in Singapore so many years ago.
    He was a major when he met Marina, the olive-skinned Eurasian woman. Marina—born and made for love. Each man has a Marina hidden deep in his inner thoughts, but he had his in the flesh and she was real. Laughter and fire and tears and passion. Being with Marina was like being in a bubbling volcano ready to erupt. He was insane for her—he desired her wildly, madly. He threw jealous tantrums before her only to half sob, begging forgiveness. Marina ... Marina ... Marina ... the black eyes and the raven hair. She could torment him. She could delight him. She could spiral him to heights he never knew existed on this earth. Those precious, magnificent moments of their trysts ...
    His hands had clutched her hair and pulled her head back and he had looked at her deep red sensuous lips ... “I love you, you bitch ... I love you.”
    “I love you, Bruce,” Marina had whispered.
    ... Bruce Sutherland remembered the stunned hurt look on Neddie’s face as she confronted him with evidence of his affair.
    “I won’t say this hasn’t hurt me deeply,” Neddie said, too proud for