“Come on,” he whispered urgently, “start climbing.”
Laying himself fiat he reached down, grasped her upstretched hand and began drawing her slowly upward as her foot found the first metal rung.
Suddenly the whole world seemed to break into flame; from everywhere, from above and beside them, massive lights converged, bursting upon them with savage accuracy.
Leamas was blinded, he turned his head away, wrenching wildly at Liz’s arm. Now she was swinging free; he thought she had slipped and he called frantically, still drawing her upwards. He could see nothing–only a mad confusion of color dancing in his eyes.
Then came the hysterical wail of sirens, orders frantically shouted. Half kneeling astride the wall he grasped both her arms in his, and began dragging her to him inch by inch, himself on the verge of falling.
Then they fired–single rounds, three or four, and he felt her shudder. Her thin arms slipped from his hands. He heard a voice in English from the Western side of the wall:
“Jump, Alec! Jump, man!”
Now everyone was shouting, English, French and German mixed; he heard Smiley’s voice from quite close:
“The girl, where’s the girl?”
Shielding his eyes he looked down at the foot of the wall and at last he managed to see her, lying still. For a moment he hesitated, then quite slowly he climbed back down the same rungs, until he was standing beside her. She was dead; her face was turned away, her black hair drawn across her cheek as if to protect her from the rain.
They seemed to hesitate before firing again; someone shouted an order, and still no one fired. Fmally they shot him, two or three shots. He stood glaring around him like a blinded bull in the arena. As he fell, Leamas saw a small car smashed between great lorries, and the children waving cheerfully through the window.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JOHN LE CARRE is the pseudonym of David Cornwell. Born in 1931, he attended the universities of Berne and Oxford, taught at Eton and later entered the British Foreign Service. He has been described in _The New York Times_ as belonging to the select company of such spy and detective story writers as Arthur Conan Doyle, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Ross Macdonald. His first two novels were _Call for the Dead_ (1961) and _A Murder of Quality_ (1962). His third novel, _The Spy Who Came in from the Cold_ (1963), was greeted with great enthusiasm and secured his worldwide reputation. Mr. le Carré is also the author of _The Naive and Sentimental Lover_, _The Looking Glass War_, _A Small Town in Germany_, _Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy_, _The Honourable Schoolboy_, _Smiley’s People_, _The Little Drummer Girl_, _A Perfect Spy_, and _The Russia House_.