Doctor! Ha! He knows nothing about how a body works I had to try and
teach him, and that was no fun.'
'And your leg?' she asked.
'How is your leg?'
'It is nothing almost well.' Sara tried to dismiss the injury but
Vicky saw that she was drawn and haggard. The long,
rough ride down the gorge must have taxed her, and as Vicky led her
tenderly to a seat in the shade of the acacias, she favoured the
injured leg heavily.
'I heard there is going to be a battle. That's really why I came.
I heard the Italians are advancing-' She looked round her brightly,
seeming to thrust her pain and weariness aside. 'Where are Jake and
Gareth? Where is Gregorius? We must not miss the battle, Miss
Camberwell 'That's what I am working on.' Vicky's smile faded. 'They
have left us behind.'
'What!' Sara's bright look became bellicose and then outraged as Vicky
explained how they had been edged out.
'Men! You cannot trust them, 'fumed Sara. 'If they aren't trying to
tip you on your back, then it's something worse.
We aren't going to let them do it, are we?'
'No,' Vicky agreed.
'We are most certainly not.' With Sara beside her, it was impossible
to continue her work on the armoured car, for the girl made up for a
total ignorance of the mechanism by an unbounded curiosity and when
Vicky should have been inspecting the magneto, she found instead that
she was looking closely at the back of Sara's head which had been
interposed.
After she had forcibly elbowed her aside for the sixth time, she asked
with exasperation, 'Do you know how to fire a Vickers machine gun?'
'I
am a mountain girl,' boasted Sara. 'I was born with a gun in one hand
and a horse between my legs.'
'Or what have you?' murmured Vicky, and the girl grinned impishly.
'But have you ever fired a Vickers?'
'No,' admitted Sara reluctantly, and then brightened.
'But it won't take me long to find out how it works.'
'There!'
Vicky indicated the thick water-jacketed barrel that protruded from the
turret. 'Go ahead.' When Sara scrambled awkwardly on to the
sponson,
still favouring the leg, Vicky could return to her inspection. It was
another half hour before she exclaimed, 'He has taken the carbon rod
out of the distributor. Oh, the sneaky swine.' Sara's head popped out
of the turret. 'Gareth?'she asked.
'No,' answered Vicky. 'Jake.'
'I didn't expect it of him.' Sara climbed down beside Vicky to inspect
the damage.
'They're all the same.'
'Where has he hidden it?'
'Probably in his own pocket.'
