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.
Jake, the old Ras and Gregorius had taken out two of the armoured cars and a camel patrol on a reconnaissance back towards the Wells of Chaldi. In the same exercise, Jake was to train the new gunners in the use of the Vickers machine guns. Gareth, as the military expert, had been left to survey the gorge and to judge the ground for defence in the event of a forced retreat up the gorge under Italian pressure.
He had been doing this when he had come across Vicky and the Galla horsemen.
Sitting now beside the fire, under a sky that was suddenly very black and half obscured by the mountains that towered over them, Vicky was aware of a feeling of complete acceptance, an Arabic kismet of the spirit, as though fate had arranged this moment and the effort of avoiding it was too great.
They were alone, and that was how it was meant to be.
The deep physical arousal and feeling of utter commitment that she had experienced earlier, on their escape from the threatening horde of Gallas, still lingered still filled her body and her conscious mind with an ethereal glow.
She ate a little of the grilled meat, hardly tasting it, not looking at the man beside her, but staring dreamily at the brilliant diamond-white sparkle of the stars above the dark peaks, yet fully and electrically aware of him of the nearness of him, so close that although they were still not touching she could feel the warmth emanating from his body upon her arm like the caress of a desert wind.
She could almost feel his eyes as he watched her quietly. His gaze was so compelling that at last she could no longer pretend not to be aware of it, and she turned her head and met his eyes steadily.
The ruddy glow of the coals enhanced the clean regular lanes of his face, and gilded the red gold of his hair. In that moment, she believed he was the most beautiful human being she had ever seen and it required an effort to tear her eyes away from him.
As she stood up and walked away she felt her heart hammering within her chest, like a wild -animal trying to escape its cage, and she heard the roar of blood in her own ears.
The interior of her tent was lit softly by the firelight through the canvas, and she did not light the lamp, but undressed slowly in the semi-darkness and dropped her clothing carelessly across the folding chair beside the entrance. Then she lay down upon the narrow cot, and the woollen blanket was rough against the naked skin of her buttocks and back. Each breath was an effort now, and she lay rigidly with her hands clenched at her sides almost afraid, almost exultant, her head propped on the single pillow and staring down at her body, aware of it as never before. Watching, with a sense of wonder, how each breath changed the shape of her heavily rounded breasts and how the nipples firmed slowly and thrust out, darkening perceptibly until they were so tight and hard that they pained her exquisitely.
She heard the crunch of his footsteps approach the tent, and her breathing jammed, and she thought with a small shock that she might suffocate and die. Then the flap of the tent swung open, and he stooped through and stood tall, letting the flap fall closed behind him.
Instinctively she covered herself, one arm folding across her chest and the other hand spreading protective fingers over the mound of fine fluff at the base of her belly.
He stood silently, outlined against the fire glow on the canvas, and she began to breathe again, quick and shallow.
It seemed that he stood there for ever, silent and watchful, and she felt the skin of her arms and thighs prickle with goose-flesh at the slow steady scrutiny. Then he unbuttoned his shirt and let it slide to the earth. The fire glow flickered on his finely muscled arms, they rippled with a red gold sheen, like wet marble, as he moved.
He came at last to her bed and stood over her, and she wondered that the body of a man could be so slim and supple, with such lovely line and balance then she remembered how she had once stood before the statue of Michelangelo's David with just the same depth of awe.
She lifted the hands that covered her own body, reached up like a supplicant, and drew him down upon herself.
She woke once during the night, and the fire had died away outside the tent, but a bright white moon had sailed up over the mountains and it glowed now with a silvery light through the canvas above them, striking down directly upon them.
The strange white light divested Gareth's sleeping face of all colour.
It was pale now, like that of a statue or of a corpse and Vicky experienced a sudden revulsion of feeling. There was a small dull weight at the back of her mind. When she examined it closely, she found that it was guilt and she experienced a mild anger at a society that had burdened her with that guilt. That she could not enjoy a man, that her body could not be used as nature had intended without this backlash of emotion.
She raised herself on one elbow, careful not to disturb the man beside her, and she studied his face pondering this new sense of guilt, and exploring her feelings for him.
Slowly she realized that the two were bound inextricably together.
There was no real depth to her feelings for Gareth Swales, she had been carried along on a treacherous tide of fatigue and reaction from fear and horror. The guilt she had experienced was a consequence of this lack of substance, and she felt suddenly confused and sad.
She lay back beside the long fine length of his body, but now she had moved slightly, so that they no longer touched.
She knew that after love, all animals are sad, but she thought that there was more to her feelings than that.
Suddenly, without really knowing why, she thought of Jake Barton and the depth and cold of her sadness deepened. It was long before she slept again, but then she slept late and the morning sunlight was striking through the canvas and outside there was the sound of engines and many voices.
She sat up hurriedly, still half asleep, clutching the rough blanket to her breast, confused and owl-eyed, to discover that she was alone upon the cot and all that remained of the night was the indentation and warmth of Gareth's body upon the blanket beside her, and the swollen aching feeling deep within her where he had been.
Then Vicky threw on her clothes hurriedly and, still tying her hair, went out into the sunlight, she was just in time to witness the arrival of a sorry procession.
In the lead was Jake's car, Priscilla the Pig. No longer glossy white and blazoned with the insignia of the International Red Cross, it was painted instead a sandy tan colour with patches of darker camouflage in an earthy brown to break up the outline of the big angular hull and turret.
The thick barrel of -a Vickers machine gun protruded belligerently from the mounting.
Above the turret fluttered the tri coloured green, yellow and red pennant of Ethiopia and below that the dark blue field and golden lion of the Ras's household standard and everything was covered with a thick coating of fine red dust.