scissors from the medicine chest and Sara shrugged again with
resignation.
'They were very pretty before Jake tore them now it does not matter.'
And she showed no emotion as Vicky snipped carefully along the seam and
peeled them off her.
'Now you must rest.' Vicky wrapped her naked lower body in a woollen
sham ma and helped her settle comfortably on one of the thin coir
mattresses spread on the floor of the car.
'Stay with me,' Sara asked shyly, as Vicky picked up her portable
typewriter and would have climbed out of the rear doors.
'I must begin my despatch.'
'You can work here. I will be very quiet.'
'Promise?'
'I promise,' and Vicky opened the case and placed the typewriter in her
lap, sitting cross-legged. She wound a sheet of fresh paper into the
machine, and thought for a moment. Then her fingers flew at the keys.
Almost instantly, the anger and outrage returned to her and was
transferred smoothly into words and hammered out on the thin sheet of
yellow paper. Vicky's cheeks flamed with colour and she tossed her
head occasionally to keep the tendrils of fine blonde hair out of her
eyes.
Sara watched her, keeping very still and silent until Vicky paused to
wind a fresh sheet into the typewriter, then she broke the silence.
'I have been thinking, Miss Camberwell,'she said.
'You have?' Vicky did not look up.
'I think it should be Jake.'
'Jake?' Vicky glanced at her, baffled by this sudden shift in
thought.
'Yes,' Sara nodded with finality. 'We will take Jake as your first
lover.' She made it sound like a group project.
'Oh, we will will we?' The idea had already entered Vicky's head and
was almost firmly rooted, but she baulked instantly at Sara's bold
statement.
'He is so strong. Yes!' Sara went on. 'I think we will definitely
take Jake,' and with that statement she dashed as low as they had ever
been the chances of Jake Barton.
Vicky snorted derisively, and flew at the typewriter once again. She
was a lady who liked to make her own decisions.
The river of moving men and animals flowed wedge shaped across the
sparsely grassed and rolling landscape beneath the mountains. Over it
all hung a fine mist of dust, like sea fret on a windy day, and the
sunlight caught and flashed from the burnished surfaces of the bronze
war shields and the lifted lance-tips. Closer came the mass of riders
until the bright spots of the silk shammas of the officers and noblemen
showed clearly through the loom of the dust cloud.
Standing on the turret of Priscilla the Pig, Jake shaded the lens of
his binoculars with his helmet and tried to see beyond the dust clouds,
searching anxiously for any pursuit by the Italians. He felt
goose-flesh march up his arms and tickle the thick hair at the nape of
