"Perhaps I could help?" said yet another voice. Froc looked along the table.
"Ah, Brigadier Stoffer. Yes?"
"This is all rather damn silly, general - " ;Yep."
"And we won't get hurt?"
Tonker sighed. "The dusty flour will explode. That's simple. The blast coming this way will hit the barrels full of water which'll probably last just long enough to see it rebound. The worst that should happen to us is that we get wet. That's what Tilda thinks. Would you argue? And in the other direction, there's only the door."
"How does she work this out?"
"She doesn't. She just sees how it should go." Tonker handed Polly the end of a rope. "This goes over the beam and down to the dish lid. Can you hold it, lieutenant? But don't pull it until we say. I really mean that. C'mon, Polly."
In the space between the barrels and the door, Lofty was lighting a candle. She did it slowly, as if it was a sacrament or some ancient ceremony every part of which held enormous and complex meaning.
She lit a match, and held it carefully until the flame caught. She waved it back and forth on the base of the candle, which she thrust firmly onto the flagstones so that the hot wax stuck it into position. Then she applied the match to the candlewick.
Polly and Tonker watched her kneel there, staring at the dancing flame
"Okay," said Tonker. "I'm just going to pick her up, and you just carefully lower the lid over the candle, right? C'mon, Tilda."
She raised the girl carefully to her feet, whispering to her all the time, and then nodded to Polly, who lowered the lid with a carefulness that amounted to reverence.
Lofty walked as though asleep.
Tonker stopped by the leg of the heavy kitchen table, to which she'd attached the other end of the rope holding the flour bags.
"Okay so far," she said. "Now, when I pull the knot we each grab an arm and we run, Polly, understand? We run. Ready? Got her?" She hauled on the rope. "Run!"
The flour sacks dropped, streaming white dust as they fell, and exploded in front of the door. Flour rose like a fog.
They raced for the storeroom and fell in a heap past the barrel as Tonker screamed, "Okay, lieutenant!"
Blouse pulled the rope that raised the lid and let the candle flame reach -
The word was not whoomph. The experience was whoomph. It had a quality that overwhelmed every sense. It shook the world like a sheet, painted it white and then, surprisingly, filled it with the smell of toast. And then it was over, in a second, leaving nothing but distant screams and the rumble of collapsing masonry.
Polly uncurled, and looked up into Blouse's face.
"I think we grab things and run now, sir," she said. "And screaming would help."
"I think I can manage the screaming," muttered Shufti. "This is not a very nurturing experience."
Blouse gripped his ladle.
"I hope this isn't going to be our famous last stand," he said.
"In fact, sir," said Polly, "I think it's going to be our first. Permission to yell in a bloodcurdling way, sir?"
"Permission granted, Perks!"
The floor was awash with water and bits - quite small bits - of barrel. Half the chimney had collapsed into the fireplace and the soot was blazing fiercely. Polly wondered if, down in the valley, it'd look like a signal...
The door was gone. So was a lot of wall around it. Beyond -
Smoke and dust filled the air. In it, men lay groaning, or picked their way aimlessly across the rubble. When the squad arrived, they did not simply fail to put up a fight, they failed to understand. Or hear.
The women lowered their weapons. Polly spotted the sergeant, who was sitting and hitting the side of his head with the flat of his hand.