underwater, he slipped an arm around her waist and hugged her. My God, how I have missed your cheek and sauce."
She pressed herself against him. 641 (WY VC111i2W after you were gone she whispered.
"Me too," he confessed. "Up to then, i thought I couldn't stand you. Then I realized I just couldn't do without you "I feel weak when you say that. Tell me you really mean it."
"Later." He hugged her. First lets just try and get out of here alive." He left her and paddled across to Job's Side Of the leafy cavern.
can you see the bank?"
job nodded. Looks like the raid is over. They are coming Out of the bunkers."
from under the concealing branches. He saw Sean peered out about on the near bank. "They'll be troops moving cautiously picking up the pieces for a while before they realiZe we've scarP end but keep an eye on them."
He paddled across to Dedan, who was watching the far bank.
"What do you see? "They are busy with themselves." Dedan pointed- A stretcher party was working along the bank, picking up the dead and the wounded, while work details had already begun repairing the damaged fortifications and replacing destroyed camouflage- Nobody looked out moss the' river
Them was other debris floating downstream with them, severed branches and damaged equipment, empty oil drums, enough to draw attention away from their flimsy refuge.
"If we can avoid discovery until nightfall, we should have floated down beyond the army. Just keep both eyes wide open, Dedan."
"Mambo, " he acknowledged, and concentrated his attention on the bank.
Sean swam quietly back to Claudia and hung on to the branch beside her.
She reached out for him, immediately.
"I don't like you to be away for even a moment," she whispered.
"Did you really mean what you saidr" He kissed her, and she kissed him back 80 fiercely her teeth bruised his lower lip. He enjoyed the mild pain She broke the embrace at last and immediately demanded "Did you mean chI can't do you," he answered. you can do better than that."
"You are the most magnificent woman I've ever known."
"That's not bad, but it's still not what I want to hear.
"I love you," he admitted.
"That's it, oh Sean, that's it. And I love you too." She kissed him again, and they were oblivious to all else, their mouths blending and their bodies clinging wetly together below the surface.
Sean did not know how long it was until Job disturbed them.
"We are going ashore," he called.
t The push of the current had forced the floating tree to the outside of the next river bend, and it was already dragging on the submerged sandbar. When Sean lowered his feet, he touched bottom.
"Walk it into deeper water," Sean ordered. Still concealed beneath its leafy bulk, they heaved and pushed it out until they felt it come free of the sandbar. The current picked it up again and drifted it into the next stretch of the river.
Sean was panting from the effort as he hung on to a branch above his head, only his head above the surface. Claudia paddled across to him and hung on to the same branch.
"Sean," she said. Her mood had changed. "I haven't been able to ask you, mostly because I don't want to hear the answer." She broke off and drew a deep breath. "My father?" she asked.
Sean was silent as he sought the words to tell her, but it was Claudia who spoke again.
"He didn't come back with you, did he?"
Sean shook his head, and his sodden locks dangled into his face.
"Did he find his elephant?" she asked softly.
"Yes," Sean answered simply.
"I'm glad," she said. "I wanted that to be my last gift to him."
Now she let go of the branch and slipped both her arms around Sean's neck, laying her cheek against his so she did not have to watch his face as she asked the next question.
"Is my father dead, Sean? I must hear you say it before I will believe it."
With his free arm he held her tightly and gathered himself to reply.
"Yes, my darling. Capo is dead, but he died a man's death-the kind he would have wanted-and Tukutela, his elephant, went with him. Do you want to hear the details?"
"No!" She shook her head, holding him tightly. "Not now, perhaps not ever. He is dead, and a part of me and my life dies with him."
He could find no word of comfort, and he held her as she began to weep for her father. She wept silently, clinging to him, the grief Hill r i er er shaking her. Her tears mingled with the droplets Of r v wat On her face, but he tasted their diluted salt on his lips as he kissed her again and his heart went out to her.
wide green river, the smoke and the So they floated down on the smell of battle drifting over them from the bombarded banks and the faint cries and groans of the wounded carrying to them across the water. Sean let her expend her silent grief, and slowly the sobs that rocked her abated. At last she whispered throatily, "I don't you to help me. You were know how I could have borne it without so much alike, the two of you. I think that's what attracted me to you in the first place." VP "I take that as a comp limen "It was meant as one. He gave me a taste for men of power and strength." within touching distance, was a Floating beside them, almost -striped camouflage battle corpse. Trapped air ballooned the tiger jacket and the body floated on its bark. The face was very young, perhaps His wounds were washed almost a boy of fifteen years discharge like smoke in the green bloodless, just a faint pinky water drifted from them, but it was enough. the bark of an Sean saw the gnarled saurian heads, scaled like ancient oak, coming swiftly down the current, following the taint of blood. Ripples spreading from the hideous snouts, long tails each other for the prize.
fanning--4wa big crocodiles, racing reared out of the One of the reptiles reached the corpse and , gaped wide, water; its jaws lined with uneven rows of yellow fangs then closed over the corpse's arm. The fangs met through dead flesh with a grinding sound that carried clearly to them, and Claudia gasped and turned her head away the d pull the body below the surface Before the crocodile could ts into the second reptile, even larger than the first, fitst=W jaws dead belly and began agruesome tug-of-war.
are not designed to shear clearly The fangs of the cmcodile on with locked jaws and used through meat and h9the, so they held twisting viciously in their t combed tails to spin in the water, a latbrerof white foam, rending the corpse between them, dismembering It so the onlookers could hear the sinews tear and the joints of shoulder and groin separate.
In fascinated horror, Claudia looked back. She gagged as one of reptiles rose high out of the water with an arm in its jaws the giant yellow scales of its and gulped at it convulsively. The creamy back to tear throat bulged as the limb slid down. Then it lunged another morsel from the body.
Tugging and fighting over the Pathetic human fragments, they war ked away from the floating tree. Sean, remembering the long tear in his back from the barbed wire, felt a lift of relief, for his own blood must be scenting the green waters.