We have ways of making you talk presents One Man's Window, an illustrated account of

10 weeks of war, multi April 13th to June 21st, 1942 by Dennis Barnum.

Chapter 6 The Mad House

Day after day, it goes on. We have now flown five of our best pilots and only one has

returned safely with his plane. Ken has been killed and other pilots are in hospital.

Without our CEO, I am very much aware of the responsibilities that go with the rank tabs

on my shoulders. I step down from the entrance to our Naxar Palace and, following a path

quietly beside the church, I emerge onto a wide expanse of grass. I walk in silence for

I am alone. I am festooned with equipment. Suspended from my shoulder by a long strap

is my small blue canvas bag containing my sketching and writing things, for I propose

to paint if I get the chance. Fastened upon it, my tin hat bangs awkwardly against my

left hip. My heavy service revolve as slung in its holster bruises my right. I am wearing

my round blue officers hat, a well-battered friendly old hat with a kink in front, by

which I always recognise it. It's peak extending ahead of me like a huge black eyelid, frames

the silent landscape into which I am walking. Stone walls glaring white in the sun, recede

over the shallow summit of the hill to my left. On my right any view is cut off by the

plain and angular outbuildings at the back of the church and by the high shadowed wall

that extends straight out across the grass. Following the wall I can now see hill-slope

dropping gently ahead of me towards Valetta. They are covered by a lacework of walls with

here and there strange square buildings rising from the corners of the fields. There is

a similar building on my own hilltop, just beyond some stunted olive trees, with my path

curving through a break in the wall towards it. I arrive at the foot of this tall rectangle

...