must find a way round. Anna shook herself like a huge St Bernard dog, throwing off her doubts and momentary weakness.
Come. She led him back from the crest. We must find the way round. The convoy with the Ford leading turned inland, skirting the edge of the high dunes while the day wasted away and the sun fell down the sky and bled to death upon their soaring crests. That night as they camped below them, the dunes were black and remote, implacable and hostile against the moonlit silver of the sky.
There is no way round. Garry stared into the fire, unable to meet Anna's eyes. They go on for ever. In the morning we will go back towards the coast, she told him placidly, and rose to go to her sleeping place, leaving him aching with his want of her.
The next day they retraced their tracks, riding in their own tyre-prints, and it was evening again before they had returned to the point where the dunes met the ocean.
There is no way, Garry repeated hopelessly, for the surf ran right up under the sand mountains and even Anna sagged miserably, staring silently into the flames of their camp fire.
If we wait here, she whispered huskily, perhaps Centaine is making her way down towards us. Surely she knows that her only hope is to head southwards. If we cannot go to her, we must wait for her to come to us. We are running out of water, Garry told her, quietly. We can't How long can we last? Three days, no more. Four days, Anna implored, and there was such a desolation in her voice and her expression that Garry acted without thought. He reached for her with both arms. He felt a kind of delicious terror as she came to meet him, and they clung to each other, she in despair and he in a fearful frenzy of lust. For a few moments Garry worried that the men at the other fire would see them, then he no longer cared.
Come. She raised him to his feet and led him behind the canvas screen. His hands were shaking so that he could not unfasten the buttons of his shirt. Anna chuckled fondly. Here, she undressed him, my silly baby. The desert wind was cool on his back and flanks, but he was burning internally with fires of long-suppressed passion. He was no longer ashamed of his hairy belly that bulged out in a little pot, nor of his thighs that were thin as those of a stork and too long for the rest of his body.
He scrambled on top of her with frantic haste, desperate to bury himself in her, to lose himself in that great white softness, to hide there from the world that had been so cruel to him for so long.
Then suddenly it happened again, and he felt the heat and strength drain from his groin, he felt himself wilt and shrivel just as he had on that other dreadful night over thirty years before. And he lay on the white mattress of her belly, cradled between her thick, powerful thighs, and he wished to die of shame and futility. He waited for her taunting laughter and her scorn. He knew it would destroy him utterly this time. He could not escape, for her powerful arms were wrapped around him and her thighs held his hips in a fleshy vice.
Mevrou, he blurted. I am sorry, I'm no good, I've never been any good. She chuckled again, and it was a fond and compassionate sound.
There's my baby, she whispered huskily in his ear. Let me help you a little. And he felt her hand go down, pressing between their naked bellies.
Where's my puppy? she said, and he felt her fingers fold about him and he panicked. He began to struggle to be free, but she held him easily and he could not escape her fingers. They were rough as sandpaper from hard manual work, but cunning and insistent, tugging and plucking at him, and her voice was purring and happy.
There's a big boy, then. What a big boy. He couldn't struggle any more, but every nerve and muscle in his body was tensed to the point of pain, and her fingers kneaded and coaxed and her voice became deeper, almost drowsy, without urgency, calming him so he felt his body unclenching.
Ah! she gloated. What's happening to our big puppy, then?
Suddenly there was a stiffening resistance to her touch, and she chuckled again, and he felt the great thighs that held him fall slowly apart. Gently, gently, she cautioned him, for he was beginning to struggle again, bucking against her. Like that! Yes, there, that's it. She was guiding him, trying to control him, but he was desperate with haste.
Suddenly there was a hot gust of her body smell in his nostrils, rich and strong, the marvelous aroma of her own arousal, and he felt the new surge of strength into the core of his being. He was a hero, an eagle, the very hammer of the gods. He was strong as a bull, long as a sword, hard as granite.
Oh yes! she gasped. There, like that! and resistance to him was not to be brooked, he drove forward and broke through and went sliding into the depths of her and the exquisite heat which was far beyond any place he had been in his entire existence. With increasing urgency and violence, she rose and fell beneath him as though he were a ship in an ocean gale and she made little crooning sounds, and urged him on in a ragged throaty voice, until the sky crashed down upon him and he was crushed between it and the earth.
He came back slowly from far away, and she was holding him and caressing him and talking to him like a child again. There, my baby. It's all right. It's all right now. And he knew that it was so. It was all right now. He had never felt so safe and secure. He had never known such deep pervading peace. He pressed his face between her breasts, and smothered himself in her abundant motherly flesh and wanted to rest there forever.
She stroked the sparse silky hairs back from off his ears, looking down on him fondly, and the bald pink patch at the crown of his scalp gleamed in the firelight and made her breasts ache with the need to comfort him. All her pent-up love and concern for the missing girl found new directions, for she was born to give succour and loyalty and duty to others. She began to rock him, cradling him and crooning to him.
Then, in the dawn, Garry found that there had been another miracle. For when he crept out of the camp and went down to the head of the beach, he found the way was open for them. Under the influence of a waxing moon, the ocean was building up to full spring tides, and the waters had drawn back, leaving a wide strip of hard smooth wet sand below the dunes.
Garry rushed back to the bivouac and hauled his senior NCO out of his blankets.
Get your men looking alive, Corporal! he shouted. I want the Ford refuelled, loaded with rations including water-cans for four people for three days, and I want it ready to leave in fifteen minutes, is that clear? Well then, get on with it, man, don't stand there gaping at me! He turned and ran back to meet Anna as she emerged from behind the tarpaulin. Mevrou, the tide! We can get through.'I knew you would find a way, Mijnheer! Weill go in with the For, you and I and two men. We will drive hard until the tide turns, then push the Ford up above the high-water mark, and when it's out again we'll press on. Can you be ready to leave in ten minutes?
We have to take full advantage of the tide. He wheeled away from her. Come on, Corporal, get these men moving! And as he turned away, the Corporal rolled his eyes and grumbled just loudly enough for the others to hear him. What's come over our old sparrow, damned if all of a sudden he isn't acting like a turkey cock! They had two
