Just after they crossed the border into East Pakistan, there were several loud explosions close at hand. Puffs of smoke appeared in front of and behind both wings. The plane spun crazily on its back and whirled through the sky erratically. Regina bounced around the cabin, a pinball at the mercy of a tilt-crazy pilot.
The stewardess reappeared. “Nothing to worry about,” she said, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Just a little turbulence.” She buried her face in her hands as a mountain peak scrambled to get out of the way of the right wing.
“Turbulence!” Regina exclaimed. “Those are ack-ack bursts out there! Somebody’s shooting at us!”
“Calm yourself.” The stewardess checked her ’chute and moved towards the emergency exit door. “Would you like some coffee, tea, or milk?” she inquired.
“How about a stiff scotch?” Regina suggested.
“Sorry. The pilot just killed the bottle.”
“Then how about a parachute for me?”
“Now don’t get panicky . . .”
Regina looked out the window. The left wing was in flames.
“That doesn’t answer my question,” she said, teeth chattering.
“It’s not airline policy to provide parachutes for the passengers. It makes them apprehensive.”
“Then how come you’re wearing one? That makes me a helluva lot more apprehensive!”
“It’s part of my uniform.” The stewardess shrugged. “I’ll flip you for it,” Regina offered.
The stewardess shook her head. “Fasten your seat belt,” she said formally. “We’ll be landing in five min- utes.”
“I don’t have a seat belt!” Regina wailed.
“And no smoking, please,” the stewardess added.
“This is no time to worry about emphysema!”
“The pilot informs me that due to conditions beyond his control this will be a rough landing. So don’t be alarmed if we seem to bounce a little when we touch down.”
A few moments later the nose of the plane touched earth. The propellor dug a hole and the plane flipped over on its back, crumpling the tail section. The right wing burst into flames.
Regina beat the stewardess to the emergency door. She jumped from the flaming plane and ran across the field. Behind her there was the roar of an explosion and pieces of metal flew through the air.
When she finally got to her feet, the stewardess was being carried past her on a stretcher, her sari caked with blood. “I hope you had a pleasant trip.” She smiled her ghastly smile at Regina and fainted.
Regina wandered into the terminal and fished her baggage claim check from her handbag. C’est la guerre! She tore it in half and threw it into a trash basket. Her luggage had obviously perished with the plane. She still had her passport and her traveler’s checks, but the only clothes she had left were those she was wearing.
Hot pants! And a loose-knit see-through sweater sans bra! Plus thongs strapped halfway to her knee. The outfit was all the rage in New York. But in Dacca they’d never seen anything like it before.
As Regina emerged from the terminal and walked towards the hack line, a departing cab and an incoming cab collided head-on. The drivers, seeming not to notice the mishap, continued staring at the redhead in the short-shorts.
The drivers of two parked cabs jumped out of their vehicles to vie for her patronage. They danced around her bowing and chattering in Pakistani. They took turns trying to shepherd her into their taxis. .
“Does either of you speak English?” Regina wanted to know.
The shorter of the two shoved the other aside and stepped up to Regina proudly. His bare, brown bantam chest puffed up over the loincloth he was wearing. He re-arranged his turban and gave Regina a broad, gold-toothed smile. “I speak both English and American, Mem’sahib!” he declared proudly. He opened the door to his cab -- a 1938 DeSoto— with a flourish.
Partly to avoid the outraged protests of the other driver, Regina got into the taxi quickly. The driver jumped into the front and pulled away with even more haste. His competitor chased them for half a block or so, stabbing at the rear tires with a long kris.
When they’d outdistanced him and the excitement was over, Regina spoke. “I’m looking for—-” she started to say.
“—Sahib Kincaid.” The driver finished the sentence for her.
“That’s right! But how did you know?”
“Deductive reasoning. I majored in Logic at Cambridge,” the driver explained. “Your accent says that you are an American. Your garb testifies that you are completely alien to our culture. Had you come to visit a local citizen, you would surely have been forewarned as to the customary apparel. Americans do not think of such things. Ergo, you have come here to see an American. There are currently twenty-two Americans left in Dacca. Twenty-one of them are back at the airport, frantically trying to secure passage out of the country. The twenty-second is Sahib Tex Kincaid.”
“Suppose I’d been looking for one of the Americans back at the terminal?” Regina asked.
“Then I would have driven you back to the terminal.”
“But we started from the terminal.”
“I never let my PhD in Logic interfere with business,” the driver told her haughtily. “I would have taken you from the terminal to the terminal. A fare is a fare.”
“I guess cab drivers are the same the world over,” Regina sighed.
“Listen, lady, ya t’ink its easy pushin’ a hack in all kindsa traffic day in an’ day out, all kinda weather? Listenin’ to da people complain about da meter an’ den stiflin’ da poor hackie? Ya get ulcers from da Sunday drivers, an’ piles from da constant bouncin’, an’ snotty remarks from da passengers, an’ den on da way home chances are ya get mugged! Ya t’ink dat’s a bedda roses? Da hack bureau breathin’ down ya neck an’ da fuzz waitin’ for da chance to catch ya ridin’ da flag, an’ den da passenger t’rows some doorman a quarter an’ da poor hackie a dime! Da public don’t know what da poor hackie goes troo! Appreciation? Fa’get it! Da hackie is da fa’gotten man!”
“I’ll be damned!” Regina exclaimed.
“I told you I speak American as well as English,” the driver told her smugly.
“Well, anyway, you’re right. I am looking for Tex Kincaid.”
“Your beauty would have told me that in any case. Sahib Kincaid is the only man in Dacca at the present time who could possibly afford such beauty.”
“Do you know where I can find him?” Regina ignored the leer coming her way from the rear-view mirror.
“Yes. If it’s not too late.”
“Too late?”
“For Sahib Kincaid, I mean. He is at the Dacca General Hospital.”
“Is he ill?”
“He is due to undergo an operation.”
“An operation? Is it dangerous?”
“If it succeeds it is,” the driver replied cryptically. “But with you to inspire him, perhaps he will change his mind.”
Regina asked more questions, but received no further clarification. Finally she relapsed into silence. The cab entered the outskirts of the city. It turned a corner. All hell broke loose!
An army tank rumbled towards them, filling the street from crumbling sidewalk to crumbling sidewalk. The cab driver jerked his gears into reverse and started backing up to get out of the path of the tank. Too late! A bazooka team and several machineguns had sprung up behind them.
The bazooka lobbed shells at the tank. The shells fell short and exploded all around the taxi. The tank returned the fire, its missiles whistling past the trapped cab. The machinegun started to chatter. The window behind Regina shattered. She flung herself to the floor.
Molotov cocktails were being thrown, seemingly at random, from the rooftops lining the street. Two obsolete fighter planes dived low and strafed the buildings. On their second approach they came in lower and strafed the taxi as well. Snipers appeared in the windows of the buildings and fired at everything in sight. “See what I mean? It ain’t no picnic pushin’ a hack dese days!” the driver told Regina.