She would have flung herself at him, sobbing with relief, but his voice
crackled again.
"Steady. We're not out yet," and she caught herself, lifted her chin
and smothered the next sob before it escaped.
"Good girl," he said, without taking his eyes from the face of the tall
Galla in the blue robe, and he kept on walking steadily towards him,
taking Vicky's arm as he drew level with her. She felt the strength of
his fingers through the thin stuff of her blouse, and it seemed to flow
into her, charging her depleted reserves, and the jelly weakness in her
legs firmed.
The Galla leader stood his ground as Gareth stepped up to him, and for
a space of time that was less than five seconds but seemed to Vicky
like a round of eternity, the two men locked gazes and wills. Blazing
blue eyes levelled with smouldering black then suddenly the Galla
broke, he glanced aside and shrugged, chuckled weakly, and turned away
to talk loudly with the man who stood beside him.
Unhurriedly, Gareth stepped through the gap the man had left and they
were at the car.
"Are you well enough to drive?" Gareth asked quietly, as he swung her
up on the sponson and she nodded.
"The engine's switched off," she blurted; they could not risk cranking
to start.
"She's on the slope," said Gareth, turning to face the crowding
Gallas and hold them off with his level gaze. "Roll her to a start."
As Vicky scrambled into the driver's hatch, Gareth placed a cheroot
between his lips, and struck a match with his thumb nail. The little
act distracted the hostile pack for an Instant, and they watched his
hands as he lit the cheroot and blew a long blue feather of smoke
towards them.
Behind him, the car began to roll, and Gareth swung himself aboard
easily with the cheroot clamped between his teeth and gave the horsemen
a mocking salute as the car gathered speed down the slope. Neither of
them spoke as they dropped swiftly downwards, two miles in silence.
Then, without taking her eyes off the track ahead, Vicky told
Gareth as he stood above and behind her in the turret, "You weren't
even afraid-2
"In a blue funk, old girl absolute blue funk."
"And I once called you a coward."
"Quite right too."
"How did you get there so fast?"
"I was up there looking for defensive positions against the jolly old
Eyeties. Saw your faithful bodyguard taking off and came to have a
look." The track ahead of Vicky dissolved in a mist of tears,
and she had to hit the brakes hard. Afterwards, she was not sure quite
how it happened but she found herself in Gareth's arms, pressing
herself to him with all of her strength and shaking violently with her
sobs.
"Oh God, Gareth, I don't know what I'll ever do to repay you for
this."
"I'm sure we will think of something," he murmured, holding her with a
practised embrace that was lulling and so wonderfully secure.
She felt then that she did not want ever to leave his arms and she
lifted her lips to his and with a mild amazement saw on his face, in
the usually mocking blue eyes, such an expression of tenderness as she
had never expected was possible.
His lips were another surprise, they were very warm and soft and tasted
of man and the bitter aromatic smoke of his cheroots; she had never
realized that he was so tall and his body so hard, or his hands so
strong. The last sob wracked her body, and then she sighed
voluptuously and shuddered softly with the strength of physical
awakening more intense than she had ever experienced in her entire
life.
For a moment, the journalist in her attempted to analyse the source of
this sudden passion, and she knew it as the product of the previous
night's sleepless horrors, of fatigue and of the day's terrors. Then
she no longer queried it, but let it spread through her whole body. The
encampment of the Ras's army at the foot of the Sardi
Gorge sprawled for four miles amongst the acacia forests, a vast
agglomeration of living things which murmured softly with life, like a
hive of honeybees at midday, and which had already cloaked itself in
blue woodsmoke and the myriad odours of human and animal ingestion and
excretion.
The camp site that Gareth and Jake had chosen was set apart from the
main body, in a denser, shadier patch of acacia, below a tall rocky
waterfall where the Sardi River fell the last steep pitch to the plain
and formed a dark restless pool in which Vicky could bathe away the
filth from her body and from her mind.
It was almost dark when she climbed back to the camp with her wet hair
bound in a towel, carrying her wash bag.
Gareth was seated upon a log beside the smouldering camp fire. He was
watching the steaks of a freshly butchered ox grilling on the coals,
and he made room for her on the log beside him and offer'd her
Scotch whisky and lukewarm water in a tin mug, which she accepted
gratefully and which tasted as good as anything she had ever drunk.
In silence they sat together, almost but not quite touching, and
watched the swift coming of the African night.
They were alone, and the faint voices from the main encampment below.
them seemed only to emphasize this aloneness.
