She was dreaming and talking in her sleep.
He held her gently and she settled down. again. He had started to drift
off himself when she spoke again, this time quite clearly. 'I am sorry,
Nicky. Don't hate me for it.
I couldn't let you-' her words slurred and he could make no sense of the
rest of it.
He was fully awake now, her words aggravating his doubts and misgivings.
During the rest of that night he slept only intermittently, and his rest
was troubled by dreams as distressing as hers must have been to hern the
pre-dawn darkness he shook Royan gently.
She moaned and came awake slowly and reluctantly.
They bolted down a few mouthfuls of the cold rations that remained from
the previous night. Then, as dawn lit the gorge just enough for them to
see the surface of the river and the obstacles ahead, they pushed off
from their moorings and the yellow boats strung out down the current.
The battle against the river began all over again.
The cloud cover was still low and unbroken, and the rain squalls swept
over them at intervals. They kept going all that morning, and slowly the
mood of the river began to ameliorate. The current was not so swift and
treacherous, and the banks not so high and rugged.
It was midafternoon and the clouds were still closed in solidly overhead
as they entered a stretch where the river threaded itself through a
series of bluffs and headlands, and they came upon another set of
rapids. Perhaps Nicholas was more expert in his technique by now, for
they swept through them without mishap, and it seemed to him that each
stretch of white water was progressively less severe than the last.
'I think we are through the worst of it now,' he told Royan as she sat
on the deck below him. 'The gradient and the fall of the river are
definitely more gentle now. I think it is flattening out as we approach
the plains of the Sudan.'
'How much further to Roseires?' she asked.
'I don't know, but the border can't be too far ahead now.'
Nicholas and Mek were keeping the flotilla closed up in line astern, so
that orders could be shouted across the gaps between them and all the
boats kept under their command.
Nicholas steered for the deeper water on the outside of the next wide
bend, and as he came through it he saw that the stretch of river ahead
seemed open and altogether free of rapids or shoals. He relaxed and
smiled at Royan.
'How about lunch at the Dorchester grill next Sunday?
Best roast beef trolley in London.'
He thought he saw a shadow pass across her eyes before she smiled
brightly and replied, 'Sounds good to me., 'And afterwards we can go
back home and curl up in front of the telly and watch Match of the Day,
or play our 01' little match.'
'You are rude,' she laughed, 'but it does sound tempting.'
He was about to stoop over her, and kiss her for the pleasure of
watching her blush again, when he saw the dance of tiny white fountains
spurting up ftorn the surface of the river ahead of their bows, coming
swiftly towards, them. Then, moments later, he heard the crackle of
