hide with the blood dripping from her mouth. And her smell was the
sour-acid smell of my own sweat, and her taste was like rotten tomatoes
in the back of my throat.
I have looked for her beyond the reef in the deep water with the demand
valve of a scuba repeating my breathing with metallic hoarseness. And
she was there with rows of white teeth in the semicircle of her mouth, a
tall fin on her back, dressed this time in shagreen, and her touch was
cold as the ocean, and her taste was salt and the taint of dying things.
I have looked for her on the highway with my foot pressed to the
floorboards and she was there with her cold arm draped round my
shoulders, her voice the whine of rubber on tarmac and the throaty hum
of the motor.
With Colin Butler at the helm (a man who treated fear not as a lover,
but with tolerant contempt as though she were his little sister)
I went to find her in a small boat. She was dressed in green with plumes
of spray and she wore a necklace of sharp black rock. And her voice was
the roar of water breaking on water.
We met in darkness at the road bridge and her eyes glinted like
bayonets. But that was an enforced meeting not of my choosing, as
tonight will be.
I hate her, he thought, but she is a woman and I am a man.
Bruce lifted his arm and turned his wrist to catch the light of the
fires.
'Fifteen minutes to four, Ruffy. Let's go and take a look.'
'That's a good idea, boss.' Ruffy grinned with a show of white teeth in
the darkness.
Are you afraid, Ruffy?' he asked suddenly, wanting to know, for his own
heart beat like a war drum and there was no saliva in his mouth.
'Boss, some questions you don't ask a man.' Ruffy rose slowly into a
crouch. 'Let's go take a look around.' So they moved quickly together
into the town, along the street, hugging the hedges and the buildings,
trying to keep in shadow, their eyes moving everywhere, breathing quick
and shallow, nerves screwed up tight until they reached the hotel.
There were no lights in the windows and it seemed deserted until
Bruce made out the untidy mass of humanity strewn in sleep upon the
front verandah.
'How many there, Ruffy?'
'Dunno - perhaps ten, fifteen.' Ruffy breathed an answer.
'Rest of them will be inside.'
'Where are the women - be careful of them.'
'They're dead long ago, you can believe me.'
'All right then, let's get round the back.' Bruce took a deep breath and
then moved quickly across the twenty yards of open firelit street to the
corner of the hotel. He stopped in the shadow and felt Ruffy close
beside him.
'I want to take a look into the main lounge, my guess is that most of
them will be in there,' he whispered.
'There's only four bedrooms,' agreed Ruffy. 'Say the officers upstairs
and the rest in the lounge.' Now Bruce moved quickly round the corner
and stumbled over something soft. He felt it move against his foot.
