massif of the highlands, so that it seemed she might stretch out her
hand and touch it.
It was dark purplish blue in the early light, but as Vicky watched in
awe, it changed colour like some gargantuan chameleon, becoming gilded
with bright sun colours and beginning at the same time to recede
swiftly, until it was a pale wraith that dissolved into the first
dancing heat mirages of the desert -day, and she felt the sultry puff
of the rising wind.
She roused herself and hurried down the dune into the laager.
Jake looked up from the pan of beans and bacon that was spluttering
over the fire and grinned at her.
"Five minutes for breakfast." He spooned a mess of food into her
pannikin and offered it to her. "I thought about night travel to avoid
the heat but the chances of smashing up the cars on rough going was too
great." Vicky took the food and ate with high relish, pausing only to
stare at Gareth Swales as he came to the fire freshly shaven and
perfectly groomed, wearing a spotless open-neck shirt and a baggy pair
of plus-four trousers in an expensive thorn-proof tweed. His brogues
gleamed with polish, and he smoothed his golden moustaches and raised
an eyebrow when Jake exploded with delighted laughter.
"Jesus,"he laughed. "Anyone for golf?"
"I say, old son, "Gareth admonished him, amiably running an eye over
Jake's faded moleskins,
scuffed Chukka boots and plaid shirt with a tear in the sleeve. "Your
breeding is showing. just because we are in Africa, there is no need
to go native, what?" Then he glanced at Gregorius and flashed that
brilliant smile. "No offence, of course. I must say you look jolly
dashing in that get-up." Gregorius swathed in his sham ma looked up
from his breakfast and returned the smile. "East is east, and west is
west," he said.
"Old Wordsworth certainly knew his stuff," Gareth agreed, and dipped a
spoon into the pan.
The four vehicles, grotesquely burdened and strung out at intervals of
two hundred yards to avoid each other's dust, crawled out of the
coastal dunes into the vast littoral where the wind rustled endlessly
but brought no relief from the steadily rising heat.
Jake was pointing the column on a compass-bearing slightly southerly of
that which he would have chosen without Gregorius's advice. They aimed
to pass below the sprawling salt pans which
Gregorius warned were treacherous going.
For the first two hours, the fluffy yellow earth offered no serious
obstacle to their passage, except that the narrow solid tyres cut in
deeply and created a wearying drag that kept the speed down below ten
miles an hour and the old engines grinding in the lower gears.
Then the earth firmed, but was strewn with black stone that had been
rounded and polished by the grit-laden wind and varied in size from
acorns to ostrich eggs. Their speed dropped away a little more as the
cars bounced and jolted over this murderous surface, and the black rock
threw the heat back at them, so they rode with all hatches and
engine-louvres wide open. Though all of them, including Vicky, had
stripped to their underwear, still they ran with sweat that dried
almost immediately it oozed from their pores. The exposed metal of the
cars, although it was painted white, would blister the hand that
touched it, and the engine heat and stench of hot oil and fuel in the
driver's compartments was swiftly becoming unbearable as the sun
climbed to its zenith.
An hour before noon, Priscilla the Pig blew the safety valve on her
radiator and sent a shrieking plume of steam high into the air.
Jake earthed the magneto and stopped her immediately. He climbed,
half-naked and shiny with sweat, from the turret and shaded his eyes to
peer out across the wavering heat-distorted plain. There was no
horizon in this haze and visibility was uncertain after a few hundred
yards.
Even the other vehicles lumbering far behind him seemed monstrous and
unreal.
He waited for the others to come up before calling, "Switch off.
We can't go on in this. the engine oil will be thin as water, and
we'll ruin all the bearings if we try.
We'll wait for it to cool a little." Thankfully, they climbed from the
cars and crawled into the shade of the chassis where they lay panting
like dogs. Jake went down the line with a five-gallon tin of
blood-warm. water and gave them each as much as they could drink
before collapsing on the blanket beside Vicky.
"It's too hot to walk back to my own car," he explained, and she took
it with good grace, merely nodding and closing one more button of her
half-open blouse.
Jake wet his handkerchief from the water can and offered it to her.
Gratefully, she wiped her neck and face and sighed with pleasure.
"It's too hot to sleep," she murmured. "Entertain me, Jake."
"Well now!" he grinned, and she laughed.
"I said it's too hot. Let's talk."
"About "About you. Tell me about you what part of Texas are you
from?"
"All of it. Wherever my pa could find work."
"What did he do?
"Wrangled cattle, and rode rodeo."
"Sounds fun." Jake shrugged.
"I preferred machines to horses."
"Then?"
