“A feller told me,” said Fuselli to Bill Grey, “that he'd talked to a girl like that who'd been to Turkey an' Egypt I bet that girl's seen some life.”
The woman jumped to her feet suddenly screaming with rage. The man with the red hair moved away sheepishly. Then he lifted his large dirty hands in the air.
“Kamarad,” he said.
Nobody laughed. The room was silent except for feet scraping occasionally on the floor.
She put her hat on and took a little box from the chain bag in her lap and began powdering her face, making faces into the mirror she held in the palm of her hand.
The men stared at her.
“Guess she thinks she's the Queen of the May,” said one man, getting to his feet. He leaned across the table and spat into the fireplace. “I'm going back to barracks.” He turned to the woman and shouted in a voice full of hatred, “Bon swar.”
The woman was putting the powder puff away in her jet bag. She did not look up; the door closed sharply.
“Come along,” said the woman, suddenly, tossing her head back. “Come along one at a time; who go with me first?”
Nobody spoke. The men stared at her silently. There was no sound except that of feet scraping occasionally on the floor.