Yusuf al-Azma

Black spots spread over his vision, and he fell into them. 5 New York Yusuf Mohammed was unimpressed by his fellow fighters. Although many of them were older than he, some by many years, they behaved like foolish children. He did not imagine that most would survive an encounter with the Americans when they came. Looking out across the river, craning to catch a glimpse of the great broken spires of Manhattan, Yusuf knew the Americans could not be far away now. He crouched in his fighting pit, chosen for him by one of the emir's very own lieutenants, and wondered where the other men of his saif might be. To judge from the yipping cries and gales of laughter that reached him between the volleys of rocket fire, they were still dancing and capering around the launchers. Yusuf shook his head in dismay. He was no more than fifteen, maybe sixteen years old. Nobody knew for sure. But he had been a soldier for nearly ten of those years, and he had seen unknowable numbers of men and women and of course children, such as he had once been, who had died because they did not take the business of war seriously ...»