Time of the Temptress

by Violet Winspear

  "God, no!"

  [76-77] "We might come across some coconut palms, and if the nuts are green we'll have ourselves something to drink, but in the meantime I'm preserving what we have left in the water bottle."

  "I bet you wish I was a boy," she said, licking the last remnant of juice from her lips. "Then you wouldn't concern yourself quite so much, would you?"

  "Who says I'm concerned about you?" he jeered.

  Eve flushed slightly and evaded his eyes, which could look so mocking when he liked. "I don't think you're quite as hard-boiled as you make out."

  "Don't kid yourself, lady. In my kind of army you have to be tough in order to survive, and I'd be tough on whoever I had with me--even a creamy-skinned little vixen from the manor."

  "Is that sarcasm meant to pepper me up?" she asked, and beneath her shirt her creamy skin felt as if a flame had swept over it.

  "What do you reckon?"

  She dared to look at him, but his face was imperturbable and her vision was too sweat-blurred to take an accurate reading. "I shouldn't imagine that anyone has ever got into your mind and found out what you're really thinking," she said. "I bet you're an awfully good poker player, aren't you?"

  "You wouldn't lose your bet," he drawled. "Shall we make tracks, ndito?"

  "Ready when you are, bwana."

  "Attagirl!"

  CHAPTER FIVE

  It was well into the afternoon when they reached the deserted village, a settlement of huts within a broken-down sapling fence, where the foliage was much trampled, as if a number of people had passed this way.

  Eve was cautioned to remain among the trees while the Major, shotgun at the ready, went into the compound and made a search of the huts, most of them having been destroyed by fire so that only the palmwood supports remained.

  It was at a bend of the clearing that one of the huts stood in dilapidated isolation, with its dark mud-constructed walls and roof thatching still intact. When Wade returned to where Eve was waiting he briskly informed her that the village was quite benighted, as if everyone had fled away from a sudden attack, which had probably taken place at least a month ago.

  "One of the huts is in fair condition, so we're going to rest there," he said, shooting his cuff and taking a look at his watch. "We've walked far enough and it will soon grow dark."

  "We're lost, aren't we?" she said carefully. She didn't want to sound as if she were blaming him, not when most of the fault weighed on her conscience. "It's all right, I'm not going to have hysterics, but I would prefer to be told the truth."

  "Hopelessly lost," he confessed. "These jungle trails are all so much alike without a map or a compass, and we probably branched off unaware some miles back. [78-79] It's a good thing the village is deserted--you can't always be sure if the people are rebel sympathisers, and it would appear from the state of this settlement that the people were burned out and chased off into the bush."

  "They weren't killed?" she asked, looking about her and seeing the thickening of the shadows, and hearing the rising crescendo of bird calls and the thrashing sound of monkeys moving high in the trees. A parakeet squawked and her nerves crawled.

  Wade shook his head. "They may have been driven off by mercenaries, but there's no sign of any kind of slaughter. They may have even burned the huts themselves and gone off in search of a safer location. Anyway, we'll take a chance and sleep beneath a roof tonight. Come along, Eve, let's try and make ourselves comfortable."

  "C'est la vie," she smiled shakily, and followed him across the compound on sore and aching feet. How she would have loved to plunge her poor feet into a bowl of water into which a handful of seaweedy salts had been scattered, but instead she had to stand on them in the doorway of a smelly hut while Wade directed his torch around the curving walls. She had to force herself not to cry out when something scuttled across the floor and a heavy army boot crushed the thing to atoms.

  "I-I think I'd prefer to sleep in the open," she said. "This place isn't exactly cosy, is it?"

  "The trouble is, Eve, I think it's going to rain. I felt a few spots as we crossed the compound and when it rains out here it means business and we'd be soaked to the skin in a matter of minutes. Better to rest here for the night."

  "So long as we can have some light." Eve shivered and [79-80] peered into the dark corners of the hut, her nostrils tensing at the smell of smoke, dried mud and rotting leaves that pervaded the place. Wade had dumped his knapsack on the floor and was investigating various objects which had been left behind in the evacuation of the village . . . some abandoned spears with lethal-looking tips, a gourd which emitted a liquid sound when shaken, a wicker fishing-basket with a keen, glinting look in his eyes.

  "It could be that we aren't far from a running stream," he remarked. "If so, Eve, we may get ourselves some fish for breakfast."

  "That will be nice," she smiled at the prospect of running water rather than the food. She watched as he took the stopper out of the gourd and put the open top to his nostrils, taking a deep sniff at the contents.

  "Honey-beer--intoxicating as the very devil!"

  "Are you going to drink it?" she asked.

  "Not on your life, lady. I don't fancy a day-long hangover. A long cool Lion beer is more my mark."

  "Thank goodness for that!" The prospect of camping in this mud hut was bad enough, but Eve had momentarily quailed at the image of a drunken soldier sharing it with her.

  He shot her a quizzical look. "Getting drunk isn't one of my vices," he reassured her. "I like to gamble now and again, and love nothing better than a keen day at the races, but I've never seen much sense in getting a thick head, and a beery pot-belly."

  She smiled and ran her eyes down the lean length of him--formidable, and packed with the strength and will to survive against very long odds. They were lost [80-81] in the jungle, but for tonight he'd make the most of this ramshackle dwelling of thatch and hardened mud, its roof woven from big leaves matted over bamboo lathes. Wade's aura certainly wasn't tranquil, but to Eve's eyes he was a bulwark between her and all those hazards that took on a nightmare quality as the darkness crept over the surrounding jungle. He was so sure and capable, and she took hope from the very look of him, especially when he emptied the gourd of beer into the tall shaggy grass outside the hut and remarked that if they were lucky enough to be close to a stream, the gourd could be used for water.

  "Nothing ever throws you off balance, does it, Major?"

  "You think not?" His eyes quizzed her in the deepening dusk light. "Just as well to go on thinking it, lady. I wouldn't want to disillusion you."

  "It isn't fair to harbour too many illusions about people," she said.

  "A wise remark which you probably culled from a Shaw play, for he was quite a cynical old guy in his way."

  "It isn't cynicism, it's sense." Eve tilted her chin. "I can't imagine that you harbour any illusions about--women."

  "You'd be surprised, honey."

  Her skin warmed at the way he almost purred that word. It would have been wiser to discontinue the conversation, but she couldn't fight the curiosity which he aroused in her . . . in that side of him that wasn't all soldier.

  "Even you, Major?"

  "Even I, so try not to shatter my illusions."

  [81-82] "They must be very fragile?"

  "Spun-glass." He had unstrapped his knapsack and taken from it the waterproof pouch in which he kept his matches and candles. He lit one and held it so the shadows played over his face, giving him a rather devilish look. "I wonder if in normal circumstances we'd talk like this, eh? Right now you'd probably be getting ready for a date at the Ritz Grill or the White House restaurant, slipping your slim legs into sheer hose, worried about what to wear instead of looking like a weary, worn doll I've pushed to the very edge of exhaustion. Yet you stand up to me, don't you, lady? You back-answer me, instead of scratching my eyes out for getting you lost in this neck of the woods. Where did you learn to be so gritty?"

  "I-I went to a good fin
ishing school," she said, being flippant because it didn't do to let anything he said get too embedded in her emotions.

  "It could have been Sandhurst from the way you're taking all this," he quipped. "They'd have presented you with a jewelled Sword of Honour. I think you get it from your father, eh?"

  She nodded. "I very much hope so--as your son probably gets his drive from you."

  "Aren't we being nice to each other?" he mocked. "D'you reckon this was the local courting hut?"

  "I-I hope not." She backed away from him, and immediately he broke into a gruff laugh.

  "Ease up, little one. I'm just damn glad that you aren't a dumb bunny, for amusing as they are, it would be hell right now to be stuck with a gal like that."

  "I thought men liked the dumb and compliant type of female?"

  [82-83] "It's a myth, Eve. Men like common sense, especially in a tight spot. That's how Mr. Churchill won his war--the women held on and didn't panic, even when the roof caved in and they went on knitting socks under the kitchen table. Quite a people, the Cockneys."

  "They're your people, aren't they?" she said.

  "On my mother's side. She worked a vegetable barrow on the sunny side of the Chapel Street market in Islington. Tall, vital brunette, with plenty of nerve and lots of friendly chat. Went and married a nogood Irishman with too much charm, who ran out on her and left her with me to bring up. She did okay, until she caught a bad chill one winter day and never recovered from it. I was nine years old and placed in a State home, which is not to be confused with a stately one, and needless to say when the time came I took to the army like a stray duck taking to a millpond. It's all I've ever known--for a good long time, anyway."

  "What about--I mean, there's your wife." It dismayed Eve that she always seemed to trip over her tongue whenever she mentioned his wife.

  "Sure, but married quarters aren't bad," he drawled. "Soldiers move around a lot, especially ambitious ones who want stripes, and then crowns on the shoulder."

  "Did she never mind your way of life?" Eve asked tentatively.

  "Mind?" There was a crystal hardness to his voice. "When a woman marries a serving man she had to accept his way of life--it's as simple as that."

  It sounded uncompromising and far from tender, and Eve say the adamant set to his jaw as he went across the hut and affixed the candle to one of the fire stones, so that the flame was out of the draught of the doorway.

  [83-84] "Let's get ourselves settled," he said curtly. "I'd better get some water boiled for our tea before the rain comes down. You lay out the blanket and take a look at those few cans of food we've got left. I believe one of them has pork and ham in it, and we might as well make a fuss of ourselves--I meant to have got you to Tanga, damn careless fool that I am!"

  "No, you can't take all the blame, Wade." Eve caught at his arm before she could prevent herself and there in the flickering shadows cast by the candle they looked at each other . . . she could feel the tension biting into him, and a dark groove had fixed itself between his eyebrows. "I disobeyed an order of yours, Major, and that's why we're in this predicament. I bet I'd be in the glasshouse if this were our barracks."

  He smiled briefly. "Female discipline bears no relation to the masculine sort. I can't expect you to think and react like a recruit being trained for the regiment--you're far too female for that."

  "All the same, I bet you'd like to give me a good hard shake."

  "Sure," he agreed, "until your milk teeth rattle. But what a good thing for you I've had a kid of my own and know how mettlesome the young can be--you'd like him, Eve. He's a good-looking young pup--takes after my mother for his looks."

  "Oh, I'd have said--" She broke off almost shudderingly, seeing beneath the dark stubble, the sun-lined skin, the erosion of his own youth, a face that made her heart give a jolt. She felt as if she had just saved herself on the edge of a precipice, and she moved back carefully away from the precipitous edge and bent over his knapsack, taking a deep breath of recovery as she took [84-85] out the army blanket and began to unwind it.

  Eve was glad when he went outside and began to gather wood for a fire. Oh Lord, how easy for someone inexperienced to suddenly feel the potent, overpowering charm of a man so much older, who had seen and done things she could only guess at. He had killed, made love, known what it was like to have a child of his own placed in his arms. Eve saw the need to fight against the attraction he had for her, but how was she going to manage it, thrown together as they had been, in the primitive heart of the African jungle?

  She flattened the blanket out carefully on the floor she wished she could have swept and scrubbed. There were webs up there in the bamboo lathes of the ceiling, and she knew there were things crawling about in the dark corners of the hut. With resolution, she shut her mind to them and set about laying out biscuits on the plates and opening the tin of pork and ham. It smelled good and she felt her stomach react hungrily, but until Wade brought in the tea she left the meat in the tin and fitted the lid back on, just in case a fly or a crawly came to investigate that delicious aroma.

  She went ahead to the knapsack, for in her exploration she had come upon Wade's shaving-mirror and was curious to see how she looked after a day of scrambling about in the jungle. A scarecrow, that was the only word that adequately described her appearance. Dark red hair tangled, a scratch on her forehead where a branch had whipped at her, eyes enormous and filled with a hundred uncertain questions. As for her clothes--they were just about fit for the rag-bag! Oh well, it couldn't be helped, but she had to make her hair a bit tidier before sitting down to supper.

  [85-86] Untying her plaid bundle, she found the comb, a good tortoiseshell one, thank goodness, and began to tug it vigorously through the sweat-knotted tangles . . . the days of luxury shampoos in a Bond Street salon seemed a thousand moons ago. There she had sat, an idle, smartly clad, bored young debuntante, glancing through a magazine and swinging a well-shod foot . . . undreaming that one dusky night she would find herself sharing a primitive mud hut with a black-haired mercenary twenty years her senior, who wouldn't hesitate to put a bullet through her head if they were fallen upon by bloodthirsty rebels.

  Eve stared into her bundle and her fingers closed on the expensive crystal atomiser she had been unable to resist, through Wade had told her not to lumber herself with anything that wasn't necessary. But then Major O'Mara most definitely wasn't a woman!

  With a tiny smile she squeezed the atomiser and felt the perfume cool and fragant against her skin . . . mmmm, that was lovely, irresistible, a breath of civilization in the midst of the untamed. Feeling a little tidier, she went outside the hut to see how Wade was coping. The kettle was bubbling away on the homemade hob, but Wade was nowhere in sight and Eve felt a clutch of alarm, her own hand pressing itself to her throat.

  What an idiot she was! No one would carry Wade off without one hell of a struggle, so he had probably gone scouting for more wood, and was checking to see that it was safe to camp here for the night. The rain was coming down a little harder now, hitting against the hot fire stones and making them sizzle. The rain was welcome against Eve's skin, and way up there [86-87] in the density of the sky she could see unbelievable groupings of stars. When the rain increased they would be blotted out, but for the moment she could enjoy their beauty . . . she tensed as she caught the sound of someone moving in the bush that crowded to the back of the hut.

  "Wade?"

  No deep voice answered her, and Eve felt a prickling of her scalp, a sensation of fear like cold bony fingers creeping down her spine. She also smelled an aroma that blotted out the Tabu perfume she had sprayed on herself . . . it was a powerful smell of an alley where cats had freely roamed. It wafted towards Eve and she felt herself gagging, she prepared to flee into the hut . . .

  "Don't make a single move!"

  Wade's voice was so soft it was almost a whisper, but there was a command in it which she instantly obeyed, freezing into stillness as his tall figure advanced across the compo
und, with the Breda in a firing position.

  Then the rustling sound came again and the next instant that strong ammoniac smell was gone, and Wade was between Eve and whatever lurked in the bush.

  "A female leopard on the hunt," he said quietly. "I'm glad you had the nerve to stand perfectly still. Those creatures react very swiftly, and mostly out of fear of the unknown. Your scent was probably as acute to that cat as hers was to you."

  "Thanks," Eve said shakily. "I hope I don't smell like a back alley where all the cats have been prowling."

  He laughed in his brief way and lowered the Breda. Then he suddenly leaned close to her and sniffed at her hair. "That isn't cat--smells more like the perfume counter at Woolsworths."

  [87-88] "It covers up some of the sweat," she said defensively.

  "Putting on perfume in the jungle!" he jeered. "Is it for my benefit?"

  "No, it isn't! My morale needed a boost."

  "What's it called? Seduction?"

  "No!" She moved sharply away from his taunting tallness, and went to pass him, only to be blocked by his suddenly flung out arm.

  "Scents usually have names, don't they? Put me wise."

  "It's called Tabu, if you must know. Now let's have supper."

  "Tabu, as in don't touch or the gods will send down thunder?"

  "It's raining harder and we're both getting wet--and I'm hungry."

  "Don't try anything on with me, Eve, for this is no garden of Eden we're alone in." He grated the words. "We're both made of human stuff, but we've got to keep this strictly on a rescue operations level so that there'll be no regrets on your side or mine when, and if, you make it home to the boy-friend. Understand me?"

  "I--I wasn't even thinking about you when I applied the perfume." She was shocked by what he had said, and then she felt her temper flare and she had to say things that would hurt him if possible, the way he had hurt her, turning something innocent into the act of a wanton. "As you've pointed out, Major O'Mara, you're old enough to be my father, and I'd want my head tested if I started throwing myself at you! Sweaty, unshaven, with the brutal tongue of a trooper! [88-89] I should hope I was a bit more fastidious, thank you!"