bottles refilled. After he had drunk he lapsed back into coma, and they waited out the heat of the day in the thorn patch.
Sean and Claudia lay in each other's arms, for she had become so accustomed to falling asleep in his embrace. She realized that Sean was near the end of his tether. She had never imagined he could be so finely stretched, that even his strength, which she had come to believe was inexhaustible, had a limit upon it.
When she woke a little after noon, he lay like a dead man beside her and she studied his face lovingly, almost greedily. His beard was full and beginning to curl, and she picked out two curly silver hairs in the dense bush. His features were punt, all trace of fat and superfluous flesh burnedlaway, and there were lines and weathered creases in his skin that she had never noticed before. She studied them as though 6 LIFE history were chiseled into them like cuneiform writing on a tablet she could read. 'God, but I love him,' she thought, amazed at the depth of her own feelings. His skin was burned to the color of dark mahogany by the sun, yet it retained a luster like that of fine leather, well used but polished with care over the years, 'like Papa's polo boots.' She smiled at the simile, but it was somehow apt. She had watched her father in his dressing room lovingly applying dubbin to the leather with his fingers and polishing it to a dull glow with his own bare palm.
'Boots!' she whispered. 'That's a good name for you,' she told Sean as he slept, and she remembered how her father's boots had flexed and wrinkled at the ankle, almost as supple as silk as he stepped up into the stirrup. 'Wrinkled just like you, my old boot.'
She smiled and kissed the lines in his forehead softly so as not to wake him.
She realized then to just what an extent the memory of her father had been absorbed in this man who lay for once like a child in her arms. The two men seemed to have merged in one body, and she could concentrate all her love in a single place. Gently she moved Sean's sleeping head until it nestled against her shoulder, and she burrowed her fingers into the dense springing curls at the back of his head and rocked him gently.
Up to this moment, he had succeeded in evoking the full spectrum of her emotions, from anger to sensual passion---everything except tenderness. Now, however, it was complete. 'My baby,' she whispered as tenderly as a mother. For once she truly felt he belonged to her completely.
A soft groan shattered her fragile mood. She raised her head and glanced across at where Job lay beneath the thorn bush nearby, but he relapsed into silence once again.
She thought about the two of them, Job and Sean and their special masculine relationship in which she knew she could never share. She should have been jealous, but instead in some strange way it made her feel more secure. If Sean could be so constant and self-sacrificing in his love for another man, she hoped that she could expect the same constancy from him in their own different but even more intense relationship.
Job groaned again and began to thrash about restlessly. She sighed and then gently disentangled herself from Sean's sleeping form, stood up, and crossed to where Job lay.
A cloud of metallic green flies buzzed around the blood-soaked bandage that covered his shoulder. They settled on the soiled dressing and tasted it with their long proboscises, then rubbed their front legs together with delight. Claudia saw that they had laid their rice-grain eggs in thick rafts on the bloody cloth, and with an exclamation of disgust she fanned them away and scraped the loathsome white eggs from the folds of the bandage.
Job opened his eyes and looked up at her. She realized he was fully conscious once again, and she smiled encouragingly at him.
'Would you like another drink?'
'No.' His voice was so low she had to lean closer to him. 'You have to make him do it,' he said.
'Who? Sean?' she asked.
Job nodded. 'He can't go on like this. He's killing himself.
Without him none of you will survive. You must make him leave me here.' She had begun to shake her head before he stopped speaking' No she said firmly. 'He would never do it, and I wouldn't let him, even if he wanted to. We're in this together, pardner.' She touched his arm. 'Now, how about that drink?' He subsided, too weak to argue further. Like Sean, Job seemed to have deteriorated alarmingly in the last few hours. She sat beside him, fanning the flies away with an i1ala palm frond while the sun slid slowly down the western sky.
In the cool of the afternoon Sean stiffed and sat up, instantly wide awake, taking in his surroundings with a quick glance. The sleep had revived and fortified him.
'How is be?' he asked.
When she shook her head, he came to squat beside her. 'We'll have to get him up again pretty soon.'
'Give him a few more minutes,' she pleaded. Then she went on, 'Do you know what I've been thinking about while I've been sitting here?'
'Tell me,' he invited, and put his arm around her shoulders.
'I've been thinking about that water hole out there. I've been fantasizing about pouring water over myself, washing my clothes, getting rid of this stink.'
'Have you heard about NapoleonT' he asked.
'Napoleon?' She looked puzzled. 'What does he have to do with bathing?'
'Whenever he returned from a campaign, he would send a galloper ahead of him to Josephine with the message 'Je rent re the te have pas. 'I'm coming home, don't bathe.' You see, he liked his ladies the way he liked his cheese, full bodied. He would have loved you the way you are now!'
'You're disgusting.'. She punched his shoulder, and Job groaned.
'Hey, there.' Sea; turned his attention to him. 'What's going down, monT'
'I'll take you up on your offer now,'. Job whispered.
'Morphine?' Sean asked.
Job nodded. 'Just a little shot, okay?'
'You've got it,' Sean agreed, and reached for the medical pack.
After the injection Job lay with his eyes closed, and they watched the taut fines of pain around his mouth slowly relax.
']setter?' Sean asked. Job smiled softly without opening his eyes. 'We'll give you a few minutes more,' Sean told him, 'while we make the radio sched. with Banana Tree.'
Sean stood up and went across to where Alphonso was already rigging the radio aerial.
this is Banana Tree.' The response to Alphonso's first call was so strong and clear that Sean started.
Alphonso adjusted the gain and then thumbed the microphone and gave another fictitious position report, as though he were still on the return march to the river area.
There was a pause, filled only by the drone and crackle of static.
Then another voice came equally clear and loud. 'Let me speak to Colonel Courtney!' The intonation was unmistakable, and Alphonso looked up at Sean.
'General China,' he whispered. He offered Sean the microphone but Sean pushed it aside and frowned with concentration as he waited for the next transmission.
In the silence that followed, Claudia left Job's side and crossed quickly to Sean. She squatted beside him and he placed his arm around her protectively; both of them stared at the radio.
'The deserters,' she said softly. 'China knows.'
'Listen!' Sean cautioned. They waited.
Very well. ' China's voice again. 'I can understand that you do not wish to reply. However, I will presume that you are listening, Colonel.'
All their attention was on the radio, and Job opened his eyes. He had heard every word China spoke quite clearly, and he rolled his head.
Alphonso had left his pack and webbing piled on his blanket not ten paces from where Job lay. The butt of the Tokarev pistol protruded from the side pocket of the pack.
'You have yet to disappoint me, Colonel.' China's voice was mellow and affable. 'It would have been too simple and totally unsatisfying if you had merely blundered into the arms of the reception committee I had arranged for you at the Zimbabwean border.'
Job eased himself up on his good elbow. There was no pain, merely a sensation of weakness and drowsiness. The morphine was working. It was difficult to think clearly. He focused all his attention on the pistol, and he wondered if Alphonso had chambered a round. He began to move toward it, extending his legs, digging in his heels, then lifting his buttocks clear, and jackknifing his legs.
He made no sound, and all the others were concentrating on the voice from the radio.
'So the game is still on, Colonel-or should we rather call it the hunt? You are a great hunter, a great white hunter. You glory in the pursuit of wild animals. You call it sport, and you pride yourself on what you term 'fair chase.' Job was halfway across the clearing. There was still no Pam, and he moved a little quicker. At any moment one of them might turn Ins way and see him.
'I have never understood your white man's passion for this pursuit. To me it always seemed so pointless. My people have always believed that if you want meat, you should kill it as efficiently and with as little effort as possible.'
Job reached the pile of equipment on Alphonso's blanket and stretched out to touch the hilt of the pistol.
