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Civil war broke out in our country. I was a soldier, even my sister Sonia was a soldier.
Maybe other members of the family too, but we had lost contact. We were untrained,
inexperienced militiamen, learning willy-nilly in the grip of guerilla warfare.

Our people had been shelling a nearby village, now night was falling and we could see the
glow of the burning village on the horizon. We rolled over the countryside in a kind of
landrover, a patrol of five people, among them my sister and I.

We were each equipped with a rifle or shotgun, we had to make due with what was ready at
hand. The country was desolate, it was winter, in places the land was bare but there was
also snow. There were very few people about but we felt the imminence of danger and were on
full alert.

In recent days we had been engaged in skirmishes with small groups of civil enemy
patrols similar to our own. Sometimes in our inexperience we studied the forward view for too
long a while, forgettting to guard the rear. I admonished the others, insisting that we must
always watch the land in all directions to prevent anyone approaching us in stealth, especially
now in the growing twilight.

And then we did see someone, apparently a woman, walking alone, but then we weren't sure it
was a woman, for she was wearing a long raincoat with the hood covering her head. Besides,
woman or man, there was no practical difference for us, since the enemy had as many women
soldiers as we did.

When we got a little closer we jumped out of the vehicle and dashed after her on foot, our
weapons in hand. She stopped an instant to stare at her pursuers, then she ran in flight. She
was not carrying a rifle, she didn't appear to be dangerous, but we couldn't take any chances.
She ran very well, with a long loping gate, and leapt over short fences like a deer, or an athlete,
thrusting her legs straight out before her as she cleared the barriers. She was tall and her legs were
long. I somehow found a way to admire the grace of her movement in spite of the incongruency of the situation.

But we outguessed her veering and cut her off. When I caught her she did not fight but instead stood
before me in defeat and burst into tears, bowing her head in fear and grief. I pulled down her hood,
she had long luxurious chestnut-coloured hair. She was so tall and graceful and pretty, and her shoulders shook as she cried.

I put my hand on her shoulder as though for comfort but I felt the hypocrisy of this act, for we ourselves
were the authors of her distress. We had terrified her, and she wasn't a soldier, she was just a young
woman walking in the field. I stood there before her, defeated.