carried out to the letter; checking the siting of the Brens and the
searchlights, making sure that the single small cooking fire was
screened from Baluba eyes, stopping to watch the refuelling of the
trucks and the running maintenance he had ordered. Men avoided catching
his eye and bent to their tasks with studied application.
There were no raised voices or sounds of laughter in the camp.
Again Bruce had decided against a night journey. The temptation itched
within him, but the exhaustion of those gendarmes who had not slept
since the previous morning and the danger of travelling in the dark he
could not ignore.
'We'll leave as soon as it's light tomorrow,' Bruce told Ruffy.
'Okay, boss,' Ruffy nodded, and then soothingly, 'you're tired.
Food's nearly ready, then you get some sleep.' Bruce glared at him,
opening his mouth to snarl a retort, and then closed it again. He turned
and strode out of the camp into the forest.
He found a fallen tree, sat down and lit a cigarette. It was dark now
and there were only a few stars among the rain clouds that blackened the
sky. He could hear the faint sounds from the camp but there were no
lights - the way he had ordered it.
The fact that his anger had no focal point inflamed it rather than
quenched it. It ranged restlessly until at last it found a target, -
himself. He recognized the brooding undirected depression that was
descending upon him. It was a thing he had not experienced for a long
time, nearly two years. Not since the wreck of his marriage and the loss
of his children. Not since he had stifled all emotion and trained
himself not to participate in the life around him.
But now his barrier was gone, there was no sheltered harbour from
the storm surf and he would have to ride it out.
The anger was gone now. At least anger had heat but this other thing was
cold; icy waves of it broke over him, and he was small and insignificant
in the grip of it.
His mind turned to his children and the loneliness howled round him like
a winter wind from the south. He closed his eyes and pressed his fingers
against the lids. Their faces formed in the eye of his mind.
Christine with pink fat legs under her frilly skirt, and the face of a
thoughtful cherub, below soft hair cropped like a page boy.
'I love you best of all,' she said with much seriousness, holding his
face with small hands only a little sticky with ice cream.
Simon, a miniature reproduction of Bruce even to the nose. Scabs on the
knees and dirt on the face. No demonstrations of affection from him, but
in its place something much better, a companionship far beyond his six
years.
Long discussions on everything from religion, 'Why didn't Jesus used to
shave?' to politics, 'When are you going to be prime minister, Dad?' And
the loneliness was a tangible thing now, like the coils of a reptile
squeezing his chest. Bruce ground out the cigarette beneath his heel and
tried to find refuge in his hatred for the woman who had been his wife.
The woman who had taken them from him.
But his hatred was a cold thing also, dead ash with a stale taste.
For he knew that the blame was not all hers. It was another of his
