Part 9 (1/2)
Jake grinned up at Vicky as leaning over the rail, watching with interest
”Unless you want to be blinded with splendour, you'd better close your eyes” For a moment she did not understand, but then as he started to strip off his shi+rt and unbutton his pants, she turned ht line tied about his waist Jake plunged naked into the sea and struck out for the shore Vicky's curiosity got the better of her at this stage, and she glanced slyly overboard There was so so childlike and defenceless about a ht, as she considered Jake's bobbing white buttocks She ht, and then realized that Gareth Swales atching her with one ly raised eyebrow, as he paid out the coil of line that snaked after Jake She blushed pinkly under her tan and hurried away towere packed away into Miss Wobbly
Jake touched bottom and waded ashore to secure the line to one of the stone blocks, and already the first car was on on its wooden blocks, and, with the winch clattering, was being lifted over the side
With eachhis own task skilfully, one at a ti raft There its wheels were hastily lashed and it was hauled carefully towards the beach by the land line
As soon as the raft ran aground on the sloping yellow sand, Jake started the engine while Gregorius cla noisily and the raft swaying dangerously, it rolled over the footboards and up the slope to park well above the high-water side the schooner for its next load
Although they worked as swiftly as safety would allow, the hours sped away just as swiftly, and it was late afternoon when the last load of fuel dru on top of the precarious load,to the beach
Almost the instant it left the shi+p's side, the diesel thumped into life, the anchor chain rattled in over the bows and Papadopoulos gave the order to cast off the line of the raft
By the time Vicky ju steadily out between the horns of the bay, and spreading her wings of white canvas to the evening breeze The four of theo None of the slaver, with a crew of pirates, yet she had been their link with the outer world HirondeUe cleared the cliffs and caught the full drive of the wind, heeled eagerly and went aith her wake leaving a long oily slick across the surface long after she had disappeared into the Gulf
Jake broke the spell of silence and loneliness that held theht, my children Let's make camp” They had landed on the open beach between the ruined city and the headland, and now the evening eeping dust and grit across their exposed position
Jake selected a sheltered hollow under the lee of the ruins, and they moved the cars up and parked theer
The ancient buildings were choked with piled sand and thick with the spiny carowth that blocked the narrow streets While Jake and Gregorius checked the fuelling and lubrication of the vehicles, and Gareth scraped a fireplace against a shi+elding stone wall, Vicky wandered off to explore the ruins in the dusk
She did not go far A tangible sense ofsees that had been burned over a century before Ita narrow alleyway that opened at last into an open square
She knew instinctively that this had been the trading square of the slave city and she is
The pervading aura of their misery still persisted She wondered if she could capture it on paper, and ain, a consuain hundreds of thousands of hus would be forced to learn the saendered She must write that, she decided, she e and despair she felt now and convey it to the civilized peoples of the world
A s sound distracted her and she looked down, then drew back with a shudder froth purple scorpion, with its lobster claws and the high curved tail bearing a single-hooked fang that scuttled towards the toe of her boot She turned and hurried back along the alleyway
The chill of horror stayed with her, so that she crossed gratefully to the bright fire of thorn twigs that blazed under the ruined wall Gareth looked up as she knelt beside him and held out her hands to the blaze
”I was just co to look for you Better not wander off on your own”
”I can look after e to her voice which was becoly at her ”A bit too da in his pocket
”I found so the fireplace” He held out a broken circle of ht It was fashi+oned as a snake bangle, with a serpent's forged head and coiled body
Vicky felt her irritation evaporate ically ”Oh, Gary,” she lifted it in both hands, ”it's beautiful Is it gold?”
”I suspect it is” She slipped the heavy bangle over her wrist and ad it to catch the light
”Not one of the her face in the dancing firelight
”it belonged to a princess, as famous for her beauty and her cohtly
”So I thought how fitting that you should have it”
”Oh!” she gasped ”For me” And impulsively she leaned forward to kiss his cheek, and was startled when he turned his head quickly and her lips pressed full against his For a moment she tried to pull away and then it did not seenificent bracelet
In the light of the single hurricane lae-scale orius was tracing the route theythe map's many inaccuracies and oot into serious trouble, Jake” Jake looked up suddenly froures in the firelight coin to pound and the blood coet soorius protested ”First I want to show you where we have to cross the sand desert-” He pointed at theto himself alone Jake had left him to interrupt the action at the fireside
Vicky awoke in the first uncertain light of dawn to the realization that the wind had dropped It had whistled disht, so that nohen she pulled back her blanket, it was thickly powdered with golden grit and she could feel it stiff in her hair and crunchy between her teeth One of theblanket-wrapped bundles close together, so she was not sure which of thee of underwear, then slipped out of the ” laager, climbed the slope of the dune and ran down to the beach
The daas absolutely still, the surface of the bay as slow of the hidden sun touched it The silence was the complete silence of the desert, unbroken by bird or beast, wind or surf and the dismay she had felt the previous day evaporated
She stripped off her clothing and walked down the wet sand that the tide had sht and waded out into the pink waters, sticking in her belly against the sudden chill of it, and gasping with pleasure as she squatted suddenly neck deep and began to scrub her body of the night's grit and dirt
When she waded ashore, the sun was cresting the sweeping watery horizon of the Gulf The tone of light had altered drastically
Already the soft hues of daere giving way to the harsher brilliance of Africa to which she had beco her used underwear in the towel and co her wet hair as she climbed the dune
At the crest, she halted abruptly with the coain as she stared out into the west
As Gregorius had told the sun created a stage effect, foreshortening the hundredup into the sky the sheer ht stretch out her hand and touch it
It was dark purplish blue in the early light, but as Vicky watched in awe, it changed colour like soht sun colours and beginning at the same time to recede swiftly, until it was a pale wraith that dissolved into the first dancing heat es of the desert -day, and she felt the sultry puff of the rising wind
She roused herself and hurried down the dune into the laager
Jake looked up fro over the fire and grinned at her
”Five minutes for breakfast” He spooned a ht about night travel to avoid the heat but the chances of sreat” Vicky took the food and ate with high relish, pausing only to stare at Gareth Swales as he ca a spotless open-neck shi+rt and a baggy pair of plus-four trousers in an expensive thorn-proof tweed His brogues gleaolden hted laughter
”Jesus,”he laughed ”Anyone for golf?”
”I say, old son, ”Gareth ad an eye over Jake's faded moleskins, scuffed Chukka boots and plaid shi+rt with a tear in the sleeve ”Your breeding is showing just because we are in Africa, there is no need to go native, what?” Then he glanced at Gregorius and flashed that brilliant smile ”No offence, of course I orius swathed in his sham ma looked up from his breakfast and returned the smile ”East is east, and west is west,” he said
”Old Wordsworth certainly knew his stuff,” Gareth agreed, and dipped a spoon into the pan
The four vehicles, grotesquely burdened and strung out at intervals of two hundred yards to avoid each other's dust, crawled out of the coastal dunes into the vast littoral where the wind rustled endlessly but brought no relief fro the coluhtly southerly of that which he would have chosen without Gregorius's advice They aiorius warned were treacherous going