And he pulled her gently across the seat out of the Ford, and with one arm round her waist walked her into the centre of the laager.
What will counteract the stupefying influence of the drum, the hypnotic beat of it, he asked himself. Noise, our own noise.
“Joseph, M’pophu-” he shouted cheerfully picking out the two best singers ” amongst his men. “I regret the drumming is of a low standard, but the Baluba are monkeys with no understanding of music.
Let us show them how a Bambala can sing.” They stirred; he could feel the tension diminish.
“Come, Joseph-” He filled his lungs and shouted the opening chorus of one of the planting songs, purposely offkey, singing so badly that it must sting them.
Someone laughed, then Joseph’s voice hesitantly starting the chorus, gathering strength. M’pophu coming in with the bass to give a solid foundation to the vibrant, sweet-ringing tenor. Half-beat to the drum, hands clapped in the dark; around him Bruce could feel the rhythmic swinging of bodies begin.
Shermaine was no longer trembling; he squeezed her waist and felt her body cling to him.
Now we need light, thought Bruce. A night lamp for my children who fear the darkness and the drum.
With Shermaine beside him he crossed the laager.
“Sergeant Jacque.”
“Captain?”
“You can start sweeping with the searchlights.”
“Oui, Captain.” The answer was less subdued. There were two spare batteries for each light, Bruce knew. Eight hours” life in each, so they would last tonight and tomorrow night.
From each side of the laager the beams leapt out, solid white shafts through the darkness; they played along the edge of the jungle and reflected back, lighting the interior of the laager sufficiently to make out the features of each man. Bruce looked at their faces.
They’re all right now, he decided, the ghosts have gone away.
“Bravo, Bonaparte,” said Shermaine, and Bruce became aware of the grins on the faces of his men as they saw him embracing her. He was about to drop his arm, then stopped himself. The hell with it, he
decided, give them something else to think about. He led her back to the Ford.
“Tired?” he asked.
“A little,” she nodded.
“I’ll fold down the seat for you. A blanket over the windows will give you privacy.” “You’ll stay closep she asked quickly.
“I’ll be right outside.” He unbuckled the webbing belt that carried his pistol. “You’d better wear this from now on.” Even at its minimum adjustment the belt was too large for her and the pistol hung down almost to her knee.
“The Maid of Orleans.” Bruce revenged himself. She pulled a face at him and crawled into the back of the station wagon.
A long while later she called softly above the singing and the throb of the drum.
“Bruce.”
“Yes?”
“I wanted to make sure you were there. Good night.”
“Good night, Shermaine.” Bruce lay on a single blanket and sweated. The singing had long ago ceased but the drum went on and on, never faltering, throb-throb-throbbing out of the jungle. The searchlights swept regularly back and forth, at times lighting the laager clearly and at others leaving it in shadow. Bruce could hear around him the soft sounds of sleep, the sawing of breath, a muted cough, a gabbled sentence, the stirring of dreamers.
But Bruce could not sleep. He lay on his back with one hand under his head, smoking, staring up at the canvas.
The events of the preceding four days ran through his mind:
snatches of conversation, Andre dying. Boussier standing with his wife, the bursting of grenades, blood sticky on his hands, the smell of death, the violence and the horror.
He moved restlessly, flicked away his cigarette and covered his eyes with his hands as though to shut out the memories. But they went on flickering through his mind like the images of a gigantic movie projector, confused now, losing all meaning but retaining the horror.
He remembered the fly upon his arm, grinning at him, rubbing its legs together, gloating, repulsive. He rolled his head from side to
side on the blanket.
I’m going mad, he thought, I must stop this.
He sat up quickly hugging his knees to his chest and the memories faded. But now he was sad, and alone. So terribly alone, so lost, so without purpose.
He sat alone on the blanket and he felt himself shrinking, becoming small and frightened.
I’m going to cry, he thought, I can feel it there heavy in my throat. And like a hurt child crawling into its mother’s lap, Bruce
Curry groped his way over the tailboard of the station wagon to
Shermaine.
“Shermaine! he whispered, blindly, searching for her.
“Bruce, what is it?” She sat up quickly. She had not been sleeping either.
“Where are you?” There was panic in Bruce’s voice.
“Here I am - what’s the matter?” And he found her; clumsily he caught her to him.
“Hold me, Shermaine, please hold me.”
“Darling.” She was anxious.
“What is it? Tell me, my darling.”
“Just hold me, Shermaine. Don’t talk.” He clung to her, pressing his face into her neck. “I need you so much - oh, God! How I need you!”
“Bruce.” She understood, and her fingers were at the nape of his neck, stroking, soothing.
“My Bruce,” she said and held him. Instinctively her body began to rock, gentling him as though he were her child.
Slowly his body relaxed, and he sighed against her - a gusty broken sound.
“My Bruce, my Bruce.” She lifted the thin cotton vest that was all she wore and, instinctively in the ageless ritual of comfort, she gave him her breasts. Holding his mouth to them with both her arms clasped around his neck, her head bowed protectively over his, her hair falling forward and covering them both.
With the hard length of his body against hers, with the soft tugging at her bosom, and in the knowledge that she was giving strength to the man she loved, she realized she had never known happiness before
this moment. Then his body was no longer quiescent; she felt her own mood change, a new urgency.
“Oh yes, Bruce, yes!” Speaking up into his mouth, his hungry hunting mouth and he above her, no longer child, but full man again.
“So beautiful, so warm.” His voice was strangely husky, she shuddered with the intensity of her own need.
“Quickly, Bruce, oh, Bruce.” His cruel loving hands, seeking, finding.
“Oh, Bruce - quickly,” and she reached up for him with her hips.
“I’ll hurt you.”
“No, - yes, I want the pain.” She felt the resistance to him within her and cried out impatiently against it.
“Go through!” and then, “Ah! It burns.”
“I’ll stop.”
“No, No!”
“Darling. It’s too much.”
“Yes - I can’t - oh, Bruce. My heart -
you’ve touched my heart.” Her clenched fists drumming on his back. And in to press against the taut, reluctantly yielding springiness, away, then back, away, and back to touch the core of all existence, leave it, and come long gliding back to it, nuzzle it, feel it tilt, then come away, then back once more. Welling slowly upwards scalding, no longer to be contained, with pain almost - and gone, and gone, and gone.
“I’m falling. Oh, Bruce! Bruce! Bruce!” Into the gulf together - gone, all gone. Nothing left, no time, no space, no bottom to the gulf.
Nothing and everything. Complete.
Out in the jungle the drum kept beating.
Afterwards, long afterwards, she slept with her head on his arm and her face against his chest. And he unsleeping listened to her sleep. The sound of it was soft, so gentle breathing soft that you could not hear it unless you listened very carefully - or unless you loved her, he thought.