Texas prairies," and he reached out to stub his cheroot against the"
side of the turret, an action which he knew would annoy Jake
intensely.
Jake grunted and stood up. "I'm going to buy you an ashtray for your
next birthday." His voice was brittle. It did not matter that his
beloved cars might be shot at by rifle, machine gun and now by cannon
that they had been scarred by flying gravel and harsh thorn. The
deliberate crushing of burning tobacco against the fighting steel
annoyed him, as he knew it was meant to.
"Sorry, old son." Gareth grinned easily. "Slipped my mind.
Won't happen again." Jake swung up the side of the car and dropped
into the driver's seat. Keeping the engine noise down to a low murmur,
a sound as sweet and melodious in his ears as a Bach concerto,
he let Priscilla move away across the moon gilded plain.
When Jake and Gareth were alone like this, out on a reconnaissance or
working together in the gorge, the dagger of rivalry was sheathed and
their relationship was relaxed and comforting, spiced only by the mild
needling and jostling for position. It was only in Vicky
Camberwell's physical presence that the knife came out.
Jake thought about it now, thought about the three of them as he did a
great deal each day. He knew that, after that magical night when he
and Vicky had known each other on the hard desert earth, she was his
woman. It was too wonderful an experience to have shared with another
human being for it not to have marked and changed both of them
profoundly.
Yet in the weeks since then there had been little opportunity for
reaffirmation a single stolen afternoon by a tall mist-smoking
waterfall in the gorge, a narrow ledge of black rock, cool with shadow
and green with soft beds of moss, and screened from prying eyes by the
overhang of the precipice. The moss had been as soft as a feather bed,
and afterwards they swam naked together in the swirling cauldron of the
pool, and her body had been slim and pale and lovely through the dark
water.
Then again, he had watched her with Gareth Swales the way she laughed,
or leaned close to him to listen to a whispered comment, and the
mock-modest shock at his outrageous sallies, the laughter in her eyes
and on her lips.
Once she touched his arm, a thoughtless gesture while in conversation
with Gareth, a gesture so intimate and possessive that
Jake had felt the black jealous anger fill his head.
There was no cause for it, Jake knew that. He could not believe she
was fool enough or so naive as to walk into the obvious web that
Gareth was weaving she was Jake's woman. What they had done together,
their loving was so wonderful, so completely once in a lifetime, that
it was not possible she could turn aside to anyone else.
Yet between Vicky and Gareth there was the laughter and the shared
jokes. Sometimes he had seen them together, standing on a rock
-promontory above the camp or walking in the grove of camel-thorn
trees, leaning towards each other as they talked. Once or twice they
had both been absent from the camp at the same time for as long as a
complete morning. But it meant nothing, he knew that.
Sure, she liked Gareth Swales. He could understand that.
He liked Gareth also more than liked, he realized. It was,
rather, a deep comradely feeling of affection. You could not but be
drawn by his fine looks, his mocking sense of the ridiculous, and the
deep certainty that below that polished exterior and the overplayed
role of the foppish rogue was a different, a real person.
"Yeah. "Jake sardonically grinned in the darkness, steering the car
south and east around the sky glow that marked the Italian
fortifications at the Wells. "I love the guy. I don't trust him,
but
I love him just as long as he keeps the hell away from my woman."
Gareth stooped out of the turret at that moment and tapped his
shoulder.
"There is a ravine ahead and to the left. It should do," he said,
and Jake swung towards it and halted again.
"It's deep enough, "he gave his opinion.
"And we should be able to see across to the ridge and cover all the
ground to the east once the sun comes up." Gareth pointed to the glow
of the Italian searchlights and then swept his arm widely across the
open desert beyond.
"That looks like where they hold their fun and games every day.
We should get a grandstand view from here. We'd better get under cover
now." They intended to spend the whole of that day observing the
activity of the Italian squadron, pulling out again under cover of
darkness, so Jake reversed Priscilla gingerly down the steep slope of
the ravine, backing and filling carefully, until she was in a hull-down
position below the bank with just the top of her turret exposed but
facing back towards the west with her front wheels at a point in the
bank which she could climb handily, if a quick start and a fast escape
were necessary.
He switched off the engine, and the two of them armed themselves with
machetes and wandered about in the open, hacking down the small wiry
desert brush and then piling it over the exposed turret, until from a
