Boom! Splintering the door still holds, steel locks adamantine.
Inside: almost inaudible a click.
Steady eyed hands.
One steel shuttered front window. None at the rear.
Silence.
Outside a woman screams...thud of pelted stones...the bearded ones baying.
To beard a lion in his den.
But Bhairav is a tiger.
Burning bright.
Grenade lobbed, blood splatters - he pulls her indoor. Torn sari, bleeding bindi.
'Here!' she catches the pistol and aims, just as the door is battered open...
...Bang!
Debris and mangled bodies cover the tunnel.
In the forest of the night...
across the border, the two emerge safely.
December 1971.