her.
"Yes, I'm here." His own voice was scratchy with the shock of
realization.
"Oh, there you are."
"What the hell are you doing out of the camp?" he demanded furiously as
anger replaced his shock.
"I'm sorry, Bruce, I came to see if you were all right. You were gone
such a long time."
"Well, get back to the camp, and don't try any more tricks like that."
There was a long silence, and then she spoke softly, unable to keep the
hurt out of her tone.
"I brought you something to eat. I thought you'd be hungry. I'm sorry if
I did wrong." She came to him, stooped and placed something on the
ground in front of him. Then she turned and was gone.
"Shermaine." He wanted her back, but the only reply was the fading
rustle of the grass and then silence. He was alone again.
He picked up the plate of food.
You fool, he thought. You stupid, ignorant, thoughtless fool.
You'll lose her, and you'll have deserved it. You deserve everything
you've had, and more.
You never learn, do you, Curry? You never learn that there is a penalty
for selfishness and for thoughtlessness.
He looked down at the plate in his hands. Bully beef and sliced onion,
bread and cheese.
Yes, I have learned, he answered himself with sudden determination.
I will not spoil this, this thing that is between this girl and me.
That was the last time; now I am a man I will put away childish things,
like temper and selfpity.
He ate the food, suddenly aware of his hunger. He ate quickly, wolfing
it. Then he stood up and walked back to the camp.
A sentry challenged him on the perimeter and Bruce answered with
alacrity. At night his gendarmes were very quick on the trigger; the
challenge was an unusual courtesy.
"It is unwise to go alone into the forest in the darkness," the sentry
reprimanded him.
"Why?" Bruce felt his mood changing. The depression evaporated.
"It is unwise," repeated the man vaguely.
"The spirits?" Bruce teased him delicately.
"An aunt of my sister's husband disappeared not a short throw of a spear
from my hut. There was no trace, no shout, nothing. I was there. It is
not a matter for doubt," said the man with dignity.
"A lion perhaps?" Bruce prodded him.
"If you say so, then it is so. I know what I know. But I say only that
there is no wisdom in defying the custom of the land."
Suddenly touched by the man's concern for him, Bruce dropped a hand on
to his shoulder and gripped it in the old (expression of affection.
"I will remember. I did it without thinking. He walked into the camp.
The incident had confirmed something he had vaguely suspected, but in
which previously he had felt no interest. The men liked him. A
hundred similar indications of this fact he had only half noted, not
caring one way or the other. But now it gave him intense pleasure, fully
compensating for the loneliness he had just experienced.
He walked past the little group of men round the cooking fire to where
the Ford stood at the head of the convoy.
Peering through the side window he could make out Shermaine's
blanket-wrapped form on the back seat. He tapped on the glass and she
sat up and rolled down the window.
"Yes?" she asked coolly.
"Thank you for the food."
"It is nothing." The slightest hint of warmth in her voice.
"Shermaine, sometimes I say things I do not mean. You startled me. I
nearly shot you."
"It was my fault. I should not have followed you."
"I was rude he persisted.
"Yes." She laughed now. That husky little chuckle. "You were
rude but with good reason. We shall forget it." She placed her hand on
his arm. "You must rest, you haven't slept for two days."
"Will you ride in the Ford with me tomorrow to show that I am forgiven?"
"of course," she nodded.
"Good night, Shermaine."
"Good night, Bruce," No, Bruce decided as he spread his blankets beside
the fire, I am not alone. Not any more.
What about breakfast, boss?"
"They can eat on the road. Give them a tin of bully each - we've wasted
enough time on this trip." The sky was paling and pinking above the
forest. It was light enough to read the dial of his wristwatch. Twenty
minutes to five.
"Get them moving, Ruffy. If we make Msapa Junction before dark we can
drive through the night. Home for breakfast tomorrow."
"Now you're talking, boss." Ruffy clapped his helmet on to his head and
went off to rouse the men who lay in the road beside the trucks.
Shermaine was asleep. Bruce leaned into the window of the Ford and
studied her face. A wisp of hair lay over her mouth, rising and falling
with her breathing. It tickled her nose and in her sleep it twitched
like a rabbit.
Bruce felt an almost unbearable pang of tenderness towards her.
With one finger he lifted the hair off her face.
Then he smiled at himself If you can feel like this before breakfast,
then you've got it in a bad way, he told himself.
Do you know something, he retorted. I like the feeling.
"Hey, you lazy wench!" He pulled the lobe of her ear.
"Time to wake up." It was almost half past five before the convoy got
under way. It had taken that long to bully and cajole the sleep out of
sixty men and get them into the lorries. This morning Bruce did not find
the delay unbearable. He had managed to find time for four hours" sleep
during the night. Four hours was not nearly enough to make up for the
previous two days.
Now he felt light-headed, a certain unreal quality of gaiety overlaying
his exhaustion, a carnival spirit. There was no longer the same urgency,
for the road to Elisabethville was clear and not too long. Home for
breakfast tomorrow!
"We'll be at the bridge in a little under an hour." He glanced
sideways at Shermaine.
"You've left a guard on it?"
"Ten men," answered Bruce. "We'll pick them up almost without stopping,
and then the next stop, room 201, Grand Hotel Leopold II, Avenue du
Kasai." He grinned in anticipation.
"A bath so deep it will slop over on to the floor, so hot it will take
five minutes to get into it. Clean clothes. A steak that thick, with
French salad and a bottle of Liebfraumilch."
"For breakfast!" protested
Shermaine.
"For breakfast," Bruce agreed happily. He was silent for a while,
savouring the idea. The road ahead of him was tiger-striped with the
shadows of the trees thrown by the low sun. The air that blew in through
the missing windscreen was cool and clean-smelling. He felt good. The
responsibility of command lay lightly on his shoulders this
morning; a pretty girl beside him, a golden morning, the horror of the
last few days half-forgotten, - they might have been going on a picnic.
"What are you thinking?" he asked suddenly. She was very quiet beside
him.
"I was wondering about the future," she answered softly.
"There is no one I know in Elisabethville, and I do not wish to stay
there." "Will you return to Brussels?" he asked. The question was
without significance, for Bruce Curry had very definite plans for the