'Very well, Captain.' Bruce stood up and glanced at his watch. 'Seven
o'clock, as near as dammit. I will leave you and see to the guard on the
causeway. Please make sure that your people are ready to entrain before
dawn tomorrow morning.'
'Of course.' Bruce looked at Shermaine and she stood up quickly.
Bruce held the door open for her and was just about to follow her when a
thought struck him.
'That mission station - St. Augustine's, is it? I suppose it's deserted
now?'
'No, it's not.' Boussier looked a little shamefaced.
'Father Ignatius is still there, and of course the patients at the
hospital.'
'Thanks for telling me.' Bruce was bitter.
'I'm sorry, Captain. It slipped my mind, there are so many things to
think of.'
'Do you know the road out to the mission?' he snapped at
Shermaine. She should have told him.
'Yes, Bruce.'
'Well, perhaps you'd be good enough to direct me.'
'Of course.' She also looked guilty.
Bruce slammed the door of Boussier's office and strode off towards the
hotel with Shermaine trotting to keep pace with him. You can't rely on
anyone, he thought, not anybody!
And then he saw Ruffy coming up from the station, looking like a big
bear in the dusk. With a few exceptions, Bruce corrected himself
'Sergeant Major.'
'Hello, boss.'
'This General Moses is closer to us than we reckoned.
He's reported two hundred kilometres north of here on the Senwati road.'
Ruffy whistled through his teeth. 'Are you going to take off now, Boss?'
'No, I want a machine-gun post on this end of the causeway.
If they come we can hold them there long enough to get away. I want you
to take command.'
'I'll see to it now.'
'I'm going out to the mission - there's a white priest there. Lieutenant
Haig is in command while I'm away.'
'Okay, boss.'
'I'm sorry, Bruce. I should have told you.' Shermaine sat small and
repentant at her end of the Ranchero.
'Don't worry about it,' said Bruce, not meaning it.
'We have tried to make Father Ignatius come in to town.
Martin has spoken to him many times, but he refuses to move.'
Bruce did not answer. He took the car down on to the causeway, driving
carefully. There were shreds of mist lifting out of the swamp and
drifting across the concrete ramp.
Small insects, bright as tracer in the headlights, zoomed in to squash
against the windscreen. The froggy chorus from the swamp honked
and clinked and boomed deafeningly.
'I have apologized,' she murmured.
