was a long red clay landing-strip, and she made out the thatched roofs of a large settlement in the bend of the river beyond it.
The Candid touched down and taxied to the far end of the strip. As the pilot shut down the engines, a convoy of 34e trucks trundled out to surround it. She saw many armed men in camouflage and combat fatigues.
'Wait,' the pilot told her. 'Men come fetch.
Two officers entered the flight-deck. One was a major. They were both swarthy and wore moustaches. They were dressed in camouflage with no insignia apart from their badges or rank.
South Americans, she thought. Or Mexicans. And this was confirmed when the major addressed her in Spanish.
'Welcome, sehora. You will please come with us.' 'My suitcase.' She indicated her luggage with all the hauteur she could muster, and the major snapped an order at his junior. The lieutenant carried her baggage down the ramp and loaded it into a waiting truck.
They drove her in silence for twenty minutes, passing the barbed-wire stockade beyond which stood the thatched buildings she had first seen from the air. There were armed guards at the gate. They followed a single track, and she caught glimpses of the river through the trees. The track became progressively softer and sandier, and she guessed that they were headed towards the river mouth and the sea.
They reached another smaller stockade. The gate was guarded, but they were allowed to pass straight through. The huts were thatched, but seemed smaller and neater than the others she had seen. There were nine of them along the edge of the beach.
As she stepped down from the truck she looked around her. It was a pretty spot, and reminded her of one of the brochures for a Club Mdditerrande holiday - sea, sand, palms and thatched huts.
The major escorted her politely into the largest hut, and as soon as Isabella saw the two uniformed females who were waiting to meet her she felt her flesh crawl. She remembered the degrading deep body-search that had been inflicted on her on the previous occasion.
Her fears were without substance. The two young women were almost apologetic as they searched her suitcase and handbag. They patted her down, but did not force her to undress for a body-search.
There was minor consternation when they discovered her camera. It was a small 'Swinger' type Kodak. They discussed it with obvious alarm, and Isabella resigned herself to losing it.
'It is of no value,' she told them in Spanish. 'You may take it if you wish.' In the end, one of the women took the camera and the two spare rolls of film and disappeared with them through the door at the back of the room.
Ramsey was watching through the peep-hole in the wall as the two women signallers conducted the search. He had ordered them to behave with circumspection and not to give unnecessary offence, so he nodded with approval when one of them came through and handed him the camera and film.
He examined them quickly but thoroughly. He exposed a single frame to ensure that the trigger mechanism functioned and that the film wound on properly. Then he nodded and handed the camera back to the woman.
Isabella was surprised and obviously pleased when it was returned to her.
Through the peep-hole, Ramsey studied her expression with interest. She had grown her hair longer, and her features had matured and become stronger.
She was even more poised and self-possessed than she had been when last he had seen her in Spain. She carried authority and success well, and he reminded himself of her considerable achievements and the high place that she had carved for herself in a few short years.
She had obviously kept herself in top physical condition. She was slim and fit-looking. Her legs and arms under the short cotton blouse and Bermuda shorts were tanned and shapely. Her muscle tone was as taut as that of a professional athlete. He considered her objectively and he thought that she was probably one of the three or four physically most attractive women of the hundreds he had known. He was highly pleased with her. She was in large measure responsible for his own career success.
The two women finished the search and repacked and closed Isabella's suitcase. One of them picked it up and asked Isabella to follow her. She took her to the end of the compound to a gate in the screen fence made of dried palm- fronds. Isabella found herself in a small enclosure that contained only two huts.
The woman led her to the nearest of these and ushered her into a single large living-room, with a mosquito-netted bed in a side-alcove. She deposited the suitcase on the bed and left Isabella alone.
Isabella explored quickly. There was a shower-room and earth toilet at the rear. All very bucolic but more than adequate for her needs. It reminded her of one of Sean's hunting camps in the Chizora concession.
She began unpacking her suitcase. There were hangingspace and shelves behind a curtain, but before she could finish the chore a sound carried to her through the open window overlooking the beach.
It was a sound that pierced her soul, the high joyous shout of a child that she would have recognized wherever or whenever she heard it.
She rushed to the window.
Nicholas was on the beach. He wore only bathing-trunks, and at first glance she saw that he had grown inches since their last meeting in Spain.
He had a puppy with him, a black and white spotted mongrel with a thin muzzle and a long whippy tail. Nicholas was holding a stick out of reach as he raced along the water's edge, and the puppy gambolled and leapt beside him trying to reach the stick. Nicholas was shrieking with laughter, and the puppy yapped hysterically.
Nicholas hurled the stick out into the sea and shouted, 'Fetch!' And the puppy plunged in gamely and swam out to the floating stick. It picked it up in its jaws and turned back.
'Good boy! Come on!' Nicholas encouraged him, and as the puppy came ashore it shook a gale of waterdrops over him. Nicholas howled with protest, and seized one end of the stick. Boy and dog began a laughing growling tug-ofwar.
Isabella found her vision misting over, and she had to blink rapidly to clear her eyes. She left the hut and went down softly to the high-water mark. Nicholas was so absorbed with his pet that she was able to sit still and observe him for almost ten minutes before he noticed her.
Immediately his manner altered. He pushed the puppy away. 'Down!' he commanded sternly, and it obeyed. 'Sid' he said. 'Stay!' He left it at the water's edge and came to Isabella.
'Good day, Mamma.' He held out his hand solemnly. 'How goes it with you today?' 'Did you know I was coming?' 'Yes. I am to be good and kind to you,' he replied frankly. 'But I will not be allowed to go to school while you are here.' 'Do you like school, Nicholas?' 'Yes, Mamma, very much. I can read now. And we are learning in English,' he replied in that language.
'Your English is very good, Nicky. Luckily I have brought you some English books.' She tried to make up for denied pleasure. 'I think you will like them.' 'Thank you.' She felt rejected, an interloper in his compact little world.
'What is your puppy's name?' 'July Twenty-Six.' 'That is an odd name for a puppy. Why do you call him that?' He looked astonished at her ignorance. 'July Twentysix. It is the date of the beginning of the revolution. Everybody knows that.' 'Of course. How foolish of me.' He took pity on her. 'I call him just plain Twenty-Six.' He whistled the puppy, and it came bounding up the beach. 'Sid' he ordered. 'Shake hands.' The puppy offered her its paw.
'Twenty-Six is very clever. You have trained him well.' 'Yes,' he agreed calmly. 'He is the cleverest dog in the world.' 'My baby,' she lamented silently, 'what are they doing to you? What tricks are they playing on your susceptible young mind that you call your puppy after some violent political event?' She did not know what revolution Nicholas was referring to, but the anguish must have twisted her features, for he asked: 'Are you all right, Mamma?' 'Oh, yes.' 'I will take you to meet Adra,'he invited. As they walked back through the palms she casually tried to take his hand, but he firmly and politely disengaged her fingers.
'I still have the soccer ball you gave me,' he mollified her. She knew she would have to win his confidence and liking all over again, and the knowledge made her eyes sting once more.
'I must take it very easily,' she cautioned herself. 'I mustn't press him too hard.' She was totally unprepared for the shock of first seeing Nicholas in his combat fatigues. With the cap cocked over one eye and his thumbs hooked in his belt, he swaggered like a legionnaire and strutted for her approval.
She covered up her distress and made suitable noises of admiration.
She had brought with her a selection of books that she hoped might appeal to a boy of Nicholas's age. By a fortunate chance one of these was the African classic lock of the Bushveld, a story of a man and his dog.
The illustrations intrigued Nicholas immediately, and he professed to see in Jock a resemblance to his own Twenty-six. They discussed this at great length, and then Nicholas wanted to read the text. It was a simple story, but beautifully written. He read aloud. Despite herself she was impressed by his ability, although once or twice he appealed to her for help with a difficult word or the name of an African animal with which he was unfamiliar.
By the time that Adra came to fetch him to bed, they had made up most of the lost time and ground, and
