"No--"
"Come off it," he said derisively. "I have a son not much younger than you, and if I haven't a stomach that's gone to pot, then you can put it down to the hard graft of being a soldier. Oh, sure, I'm called a mercenary, but most of us are hard-bitten characters from the regular army who, for some reason or other, find ourselves fighting in the jungle or the desert. It isn't just the cash, but when you've been a soldier for most of your life, it comes easier to answer a call to action than to sign on at the foundry or the factory. Three years ago I was in Belfast, in charge of a bomb disposal squad. Four of us got blown about one night, and when I came out of hospital they discharged me from the army. I tried to settle down to civvies, but it [52-53] didn't work. And now I'm here in the jungle with you, lady. Funny old life, isn't it?"
She nodded, and wondered how his wife had taken it when he had put away his civvy suit and put on a uniform once again. She supposed it was like a drug, the danger he had lived with all these years. Even the domestic comforts had not been strong enough to hold him.
"You actually enjoy all this, don't you?" she said.
Wade shrugged his shoulders and came over to inspect how efficiently Eve had swathed herself in the netting. He shook his head at her. "You look like a kid dressed up in mother's net curtains," he said. "Come here, I want this stuff over your hair, neck, face and arms, otherwise you'll wake up in the morning with bites and welts all over you, not to mention a dose of incipient malaria."
Eve stood there and allowed herself to be covered up until she did indeed resemble a Persian bride. She gave a throaty little laugh, and tried to ignore his hand as it smoothed the netting down over her body.
"What's so funny?" he asked. "Or are you naturally ticklish?"
"I feel like a novice about to take vows," she said, for it seemed wiser not to refer to a bridal image.
"Vows of chastity?" he drawled. "You're not the type."
"Oh, how come you're so sure?" she asked. "You've only known me a day, yet you presume to judge my character as if we're old--friends."
"It is a safer word, isn't it?" he jeered, adjusting the netting so that her neck was well covered. "Any [53-54] guy who called himself your friend would be a poor stick."
"Thanks!"
"I'm paying you a compliment, you half-child." He gazed down at her, making her aware of his lean height and the total self-assurance of a man who had been to dangerous places and faced all kinds of hazards. "I have reverence for nuns and I admire their courage and dedication, but be thankful you aren't driven by their needs. Your sort will be far more--enjoyable."
With James? The unwelcome thought flashed through her mind even as her eyes measured this man's shoulders and her skin tingled from his touch.
"There, I think you're sufficiently mummified for the night. I haven't wrapped the netting too tightly about your neck, have I? The neck is a particularly vulnerable and tasty part of the anatomy so far as gnats and s'quitoes are concerned." He let go of her and started to search his pockets for something. He brought out a length of string and proceeded to cut it in two with his knife. "Now we'll tie up the cuffs of your trousers in case a snake decides to warm himself inside them."
"Do you have to be so--so precise?" she begged.
"Snakes aren't stupid, you know. They like to warm themselves against soft young skin, so if you feel something snuggling up to you--"
"I'm to presume it's a snake?"
"What else could it be?" Eve knew as he haunched down and tied the flapping cuffs of her pants that his mouth was quirked at one side in a wicked little smile. Oh, he'd look after her to the very best of his ability, and he'd get her to Tanga if he could, but he wasn't [54-55] going to deny himself the pleasure of teasing and tantalising her. She was a new sort of experience for him, and she didn't believe for one moment that he regarded her from a paternal angle. His remarks were a little too risqué for that, and somehow he didn't strike her as the type of man to be all that fatherly, even with his own son.
"There, that should keep you fairly secure from the snakes and other pests," he said.
"Do you include yourself in that list?" she asked.
"Almighty curious about my amorous inclinations, aren't you, lady?" He lifted an eyebrow and gave her a look that was just on the edge of being derisive. "It's partly your age, and partly the situation that we're in, so you thank your stars I realise it and don't take your pert remarks for a come-on."
Eve bit her lip and wondered if there was something about this tough mercenary that appealed to instincts deep within her, stirred into life by the dense tropical night and the untamed forces of the jungle. He was so much a part of those forces, with a danger to him that was intensified by their primitive surroundings.
The uniform he wore, and the alert discipline of his mind and body, were indicative of what he was trained to do . . . to overcome a silent enemy and kill in several savage ways if he had to. It was awful for Eve to contemplate, but at the same time it was exciting.
And because of that sense of excitement she was suddenly very wary of him . . . and of herself.
"Ready for bed?" he asked. "I want to make an early start and try to get to Tanga some time tomorrow."
She nodded and tried not to notice that her feelings [55-56] went a little bleak . . . at Tanga they would part and go their separate ways. She to board a plane for England, while he would rejoin his unit in some other part of this rebel-torn country. And back in England her guardian would reinforce his argument that she marry James and settle down to a cosy, unexciting and predictable life. It wouldn't matter to anyone that she didn't love James. He was from a good family and he was a kind, undemanding young man. As her guardian had said, she ought to regard herself as a very lucky young woman.
Lucky? Eve shut her mind to all that, and glanced down at the army blanket which her present guardian was smoothing out beside the low-burning fire in its nest of stones, wafting into the air the acrid tang of woodsmoke.
Ever afterwards when she smelled leaves burning in a wood somewhere, she would think of her flight through the jungle with a mercenary Major, who placed his knapsack for a pillow and indicated that she settle down for the night.
"Near the fire," he said, "so you'll keep warm."
When she hesitated, he raised an eyebrow and silently watched her until she took the place he indicated. He settled the netting around her and wrapped her lower body in the plaid robe. "Comfortable?" he asked.
"Yes--thank you."
"Right." He stood a long moment looking about him, tensed in every nerve for any sound that might not be made by a natural denizen of the jungle. She heard a sliding movement and saw something steely glint in the firelight . . . it was the broad lethal blade of the [56-57] panga which he drew from its leather sheath and placed at his side when he settled down at her side. His shotgun was actually on the blanket between them . . . like the ancient sword of knightly honour, she thought drowsily, there to defend her as if she were his lady fair.
She felt him stretch out and rest his head on the knapsack beside her own head. The white scarf he had twisted loosely about his neck and face and Eve had to bite on her knuckles to suppress a sudden nervous giggle.
"Go to sleep," he ordered, "and give that vivid imagination of yours a rest for the night."
"I-I was just thinking how odd we must look, Major."
"There's no one to see us except the monkeys," he rejoined, "and they won't tell on us. I hope that young man of yours won't think the worse of you for having to bed down for the night with a rough and ready soldier. Is he the tolerant type?"
Eve suspected that James would be shocked to his marrow to learn of her night in the jungle with a tough mercenary, some of whom had the reputation of being less than honourable when it came to women. He would be bound to suspect the worst, but she didn't mind. She had never wanted to marry him . . . now she could feel herself actively recoiling from the idea of belonging to him. He'd probably find it difficult coping with
being lost on Hampstead Heath.
"Well, don't worry." This time the Major had not been able to read her thoughts, maybe because he was lying on his back instead of looking into her eyes. "By the time you get back to good old Blighty, this will [57-58] seem like a dream you had and you can invent a story he'll swallow without being awkward. Goodnight, ndito."
"Goodnight, bwana."
Eve heard him laugh softly to himself, for in the Masai language he had called her his girl, and she had called him her boss.
CHAPTER FOUR
Eve woke suddenly and lay absorbing the strangeness of it all. The fire had died, for no longer did those tendrils of acrid smoke drift upwards. She turned her head very carefully and dragged the mosquito netting away from her face . . . the Major lay deeply asleep, his black hair tousled, his chin and jaws dark with his beard. Eve had a feeling he had kept awake most of the night, but now as dawn crept into the sky he allowed himself the luxury of an hour's sleep.
She didn't intend to wake him, and with extreme care she rose to her feet and disentangled herself from the rest of the net, bundling it and setting it to one side. Then she turned to the small pile of articles she had confiscated from that circular suitcase which the pilot had obligingly left behind. A bar of soap, a sponge and a towel were gathered up, and with a final glance at that sleeping figure to make sure he wasn't foxing her, Eve made for the tree-shadowed path that led in the direction of the creek.
If there was one thing she just had to have it was a plunge into water and a good lathering of soap to help make her feel fresh and human again.
This was like playing truant, as if she were a schoolgirl again, and Eve smiled to herself and reckoned that if she were quick she could be bathed and dressed and back at their camp site before the Major awoke and [59-60] could alarm her with reasons why she shouldn't bathe in the creek.
She breathed the cool morning air and felt the spell of a slumbrous quiet that would last until the sun began to spread its flame across the treetops. She heard rustlings and the occasional bird call, and gazed in wonder at the yards of moss hanging down from the forks of trees, along with ribbons of fern. Several enormous webs glinted with the thick dew that had made their recent occupants retreat into the underbrush. Eve firmly closed he mind to anything unpleasant, and a few minutes later had emerged on to the banks of the creek. A mist lay over the peat-coloured water, and there was a cluster of blue lotus at the edge where she stood, their petals closed into a big bud, waiting for the sun to open them on the big green leaves.
Eve hung her towel on a lower branch of a massive, mottled tree whose roots stretched out into the water, swiftly removed her clothes and hung them with equal care on another of the branches. Then, nude as Phryne, with soap and sponge clutched in her hands, she ran out gleefully into the water and gave herself up to the bliss of bathing and splashing about, lost to everything but the need to feel clean and fresh.
Above the treetops the rising sun had become a ball of flame, and a flock of green birds rose in unison against the red-gold sky. The mud banks, however, had begun to give off a rank smell which Eve ignored, and from the jungle came the chattering and scolding of monkeys in the high crowns of the trees as they swung back and forth on the long chains of creepers thick as an arm.
She'd enjoy a few more minutes in the water, which [60-61] despite its leaf-dyed colour had made her feel tingling clean, then she would have to dress and return to the camp site. Suddenly she felt the nerves knot in her stomach as she spotted a movement beyond the bank where she had left her clothes . . . a figure swung out from among the trees and with long hairy arms grabbed at her belongings and carried them off.
Clad only in the wet sheen of her white skin and auburn hair, Eve realised with dismay that one of the more daring monkeys had decided to find out if her garments were edible . . . oh, lord, now she was in a naked predicament, with only a bar of soap and a sponge to keep her covered . . . unless like that other Eve she got hold of a large leaf to cover herself!
With every passing second the jungle was coming noisily awake, and Eve realised that Wade O'Mara would be waking up as well, and he'd be furious when he found she had slipped away from his side to come and enjoy a forbidden bathe in the creek.
Furious he was . . . she could see that the instant he strode from among the trees on to the mud bank. "You damn little idiot," he yelled across the water. "You'll come out of there without delay, or I'll come in and drag you out!"
When she didn't move, his voice cracked like a whip. "You crazy little fool, Eve! Can't you see this creek mud is crawling with crabs now that the sun is up?"
It was . . . the rotted vegetation was moving and shifting as if alive and Eve felt her stomach turn over.
"I-I can't come out," she half-choked. "I have nothing on!"
"For heaven's sake! I've seen unclad females before [61-62] today, and I'm old enough to be your father! Come on out before the mud crabs make a meal of you!"
"M-my clothes," she whimpered. "A monkey took them--"
"That figures," he said grimly, and as she watched he unbuttoned his khaki shirt and removed it, revealing a torso the colour of copper. He waded out into the water, holding open the shirt so she could dive into it.
"Come on, you little jackass!" he ordered.
Eve had no option but to obey him, and with her skin aflame with mortification she dashed towards him, flinging up water as he gathered her into the shirt and swung her up into his arms, so her bare white legs were out of reach of that mass of scurrying black crabs, clicking and snapping round his booted feet. He strode back with her to their camp site, along the pathway droning with flies. Eve's fingers clenched a warm coppery shoulder and never had she felt so helpless and vulnerable, all but bare in the steely arms of this angry man.
"You damn little jackass!" he said again.
"You're always so complimentary," she mumbled.
"You deserve a good hiding where it would sting . . . so you were going to emerge from the creek like Aphrodite of the foam, eh, glowingly clean and a real sweet meal for the crabs and the gnats?"
"I-I didn't expect a darned monkey to run off with my things," she said. "Whatever will I do?"
"You'll trek through the jungle wrapped in a blanket," he replied, "if I fail to find your shirt and trousers. Hasty little female, aren't you? I told you last night to stay away from the creek, but you had to wash yourself and smell like a lily. As if I care!"
[62-63] "Well, I care," she rejoined. "I'm not one of your soldiers."
"No," he drawled, and she could feel him looking down at her, and again she felt an acute helplessness in his arms, with the dark hair curling down to his wrists, embedding the thick leather strap of his watch. There was such assurance to his strength, a careless male power, a saddle-tanning to his skin that seemed to make him impervious to what would bite her.
"We're quite the knight and the rescued maiden, aren't we?" he jeered. "Lady, you just don't go bathing in a jungle creek as if you were taking a dip in the family pool, and from now on you'll do nothing except on my say-so. Do you hear me?"
"Your voice would carry across a parade ground," she retorted. "I bet the men under your command just love you!"
"Love?" He gave an abrupt laugh that startled a pair of sunbirds from their path. "In this inhuman race to survive, honey, that commodity is now in very short supply. Human beings have become like the bird-eating spiders in this jungle."
"Ugh!" Eve shuddered in his whipcord arms, lashed around her as he ducked beneath a curtain of ragged mosses and they entered the clearing where they had spent the night. "Of course, one occasionally sees a white canary flying in the face of danger."
"The Beauty and the Beast syndrome," she murmured.
"Exactly." He set her down on the khaki blanket. "It's a fact of life."
Eve pushed a damp strand of hair from her forehead and allowed herself a brief look at him. Did he understand that in her hunger to be clean the creek [63-64] had taken on t
he look of a laguna in the dawn mist, hiding the things that slept in the mud? His eyes flicked the auburn dampness of her hair and fell to the tremulous redness of her mouth.
"I know darn well I can't treat you like a raw recruit," he said, "but I'm afraid you're going to have to smarm yourself in gnat repellent from your ears to your heels, so you'd better start now while I make a fire and cook us up some coffee and sausages."
"Sausages?" she exclaimed, and became aware of another sort of hunger.
"I found a tin of them at the airfield bungalow, so we'll eat a good breakfast before setting off for Tanga."
"What about my clothes, Major?" Eve bit her lip as the grey eyes scanned her slim figure in the khaki shirt that came to her thighs. His mouth quirked into that one-sided smile. "At the moment you look cute in my shirt, lady, but I'd dread to imagine what you'd look like after several hours of slogging through jungle bamboo and flying bitchos. We'll have our breakfast, then I'll make a search for your things--dammit, Eve, we'll lose about an hour of our trek because of your female irresponsibility!"
"I-I'm sorry, Major."
"That's all very well. You women hasten in where angels fear to fly, and then get all dewy-eyed with regret. You do realise that we're on the run from a pack of two-legged animals who would have a glorious time passing you around like candy?"
"You said--you promised--" She glanced significantly at his gun.
"Sure, but you'll recall, you little jackass, that I was taking a snooze when you sneaked off and took a bath in the creek. What would you have done had it not [64-65] been a monkey who grabbed your clothes?"
"Screamed," she said, with a shudder.
"Hoping I'd hear you, no doubt, with a jungle full of animals waking up for their breakfast. Well, come on, get yourself well anointed with insect repellent--and do put on that robe before I start getting ideas!"
"At this time of the morning, Major?" But she turned away instantly in search of the plaid robe, feeling the heat come into her skin. As she grabbed the robe and put it on she heard that short growl of a laugh issue from Wade O'Mara's throat.
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