The Dark of the Sun - Smith Wilbur - Страница 49

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the darkness and the drum.

With Shermaine beside him he crossed the laager.

"Sergeant Jacque."

"Captain?"

"You can start sweeping with the searchlights."

"Oui, Captain." The answer was less subdued. There were two spare

batteries for each light, Bruce knew. Eight hours" life in each, so they

would last tonight and tomorrow night.

From each side of the laager the beams leapt out, solid white shafts

through the darkness; they played along the edge of the jungle and

reflected back, lighting the interior of the laager sufficiently to make

out the features of each man. Bruce looked at their faces.

They're all right now, he decided, the ghosts have gone away.

"Bravo, Bonaparte," said Shermaine, and Bruce became aware of the grins

on the faces of his men as they saw him embracing her. He was about to

drop his arm, then stopped himself. The hell with it, he

decided, give them something else to think about. He led her back to the

Ford.

"Tired?" he asked.

"A little," she nodded.

"I'll fold down the seat for you. A blanket over the windows will give

you privacy." "You'll stay closep she asked quickly.

"I'll be right outside." He unbuckled the webbing belt that carried his

pistol. "You'd better wear this from now on." Even at its minimum

adjustment the belt was too large for her and the pistol hung down

almost to her knee.

"The Maid of Orleans." Bruce revenged himself. She pulled a face at him

and crawled into the back of the station wagon.

A long while later she called softly above the singing and the throb of

the drum.

"Bruce."

"Yes?"

"I wanted to make sure you were there. Good night."

"Good night, Shermaine." Bruce lay on a single blanket and sweated. The

singing had long ago ceased but the drum went on and on, never

faltering, throb-throb-throbbing out of the jungle. The searchlights

swept regularly back and forth, at times lighting the laager clearly and

at others leaving it in shadow. Bruce could hear around him the soft

sounds of sleep, the sawing of breath, a muted cough, a gabbled

sentence, the stirring of dreamers.

But Bruce could not sleep. He lay on his back with one hand under his

head, smoking, staring up at the canvas.

The events of the preceding four days ran through his mind:

snatches of conversation, Andre dying. Boussier standing with his wife,

the bursting of grenades, blood sticky on his hands, the smell of death,

the violence and the horror.

He moved restlessly, flicked away his cigarette and covered his eyes

with his hands as though to shut out the memories. But they went on

flickering through his mind like the images of a gigantic movie

projector, confused now, losing all meaning but retaining the horror.

He remembered the fly upon his arm, grinning at him, rubbing its legs

together, gloating, repulsive. He rolled his head from side to

side on the blanket.

I'm going mad, he thought, I must stop this.

He sat up quickly hugging his knees to his chest and the memories faded.

But now he was sad, and alone. So terribly alone, so lost, so without

purpose.

He sat alone on the blanket and he felt himself shrinking, becoming

small and frightened.

I'm going to cry, he thought, I can feel it there heavy in my throat.

And like a hurt child crawling into its mother's lap, Bruce

Curry groped his way over the tailboard of the station wagon to

Shermaine.

"Shermaine! he whispered, blindly, searching for her.

"Bruce, what is it?" She sat up quickly. She had not been sleeping

either.

"Where are you?" There was panic in Bruce's voice.

"Here I am - what's the matter?" And he found her; clumsily he caught

her to him.

"Hold me, Shermaine, please hold me."

"Darling." She was anxious.

"What is it? Tell me, my darling."

"Just hold me, Shermaine. Don't talk." He clung to her, pressing his

face into her neck. "I need you so much - oh, God! How I need you!"

"Bruce." She understood, and her fingers were at the nape of his neck,

stroking, soothing.

"My Bruce," she said and held him. Instinctively her body began to rock,

gentling him as though he were her child.

Slowly his body relaxed, and he sighed against her - a gusty broken

sound.

"My Bruce, my Bruce." She lifted the thin cotton vest that was all she

wore and, instinctively in the ageless ritual of comfort, she gave him

her breasts. Holding his mouth to them with both her arms clasped around

his neck, her head bowed protectively over his, her hair falling forward

and covering them both.

With the hard length of his body against hers, with the soft tugging at

her bosom, and in the knowledge that she was giving strength to the man

she loved, she realized she had never known happiness before

this moment. Then his body was no longer quiescent; she felt her own

mood change, a new urgency.

"Oh yes, Bruce, yes!" Speaking up into his mouth, his hungry hunting

mouth and he above her, no longer child, but full man again.

"So beautiful, so warm." His voice was strangely husky, she shuddered

with the intensity of her own need.

"Quickly, Bruce, oh, Bruce." His cruel loving hands, seeking, finding.

"Oh, Bruce - quickly," and she reached up for him with her hips.

"I'll hurt you."

"No, - yes, I want the pain." She felt the resistance to him within her

and cried out impatiently against it.

"Go through!" and then, "Ah! It burns."

"I'll stop."

"No, No!"

"Darling. It's too much."

"Yes - I can't - oh, Bruce. My heart -

you've touched my heart." Her clenched fists drumming on his back. And

in to press against the taut, reluctantly yielding springiness, away,

then back, away, and back to touch the core of all existence, leave it,

and come long gliding back to it, nuzzle it, feel it tilt, then come

away, then back once more. Welling slowly upwards scalding, no longer to

be contained, with pain almost - and gone, and gone, and gone.

"I'm falling. Oh, Bruce! Bruce! Bruce!" Into the gulf together - gone,

all gone. Nothing left, no time, no space, no bottom to the gulf.

Nothing and everything. Complete.

Out in the jungle the drum kept beating.

Afterwards, long afterwards, she slept with her head on his arm and her

face against his chest. And he unsleeping listened to her sleep. The

sound of it was soft, so gentle breathing soft that you could not hear

it unless you listened very carefully - or unless you loved her, he

thought.

Yes. I think I love this woman - but I must be certain.

In fairness to her and to myself I must be entirely certain, for I

cannot live through another time like the last, and because I love her

I don't want her to take the terrible wounding of a bad marriage.

Better, much better to leave it now, unless it has the strength to

endure.

Bruce rolled his head slowly until his face was in her hair, and the

girl nuzzled his chest in her sleep.

But it is so hard to tell, he thought. It is so hard to tell at the

beginning. It is so easy to confuse pity or loneliness with love, but I

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