spoke in good English.
“You have been overdoing things, I suspect, Miss Ramage!”
She blinked. It was the nice major, Hippolyte Obou, who had been educated at the Sorbonne and was reputedly no older than her own age of twenty-four. He was extremely handsome, if one discounted the tribal scars striping his cheeks, and had always appeared to maintain a detached view of the war.
Which was more than could be said for General Kaika ...
But she wasn’t here to take sides or criticize. She was here to pick up pieces and patch them together. And although there had been moments when it seemed the job was impossible, everyone had been fed today, food was left over for tomorrow, and another consignment was promised immediately after the new year.
A different world.
“You will come to my office for a pick-you-up,” the major said; he didn’t make it a question. “Then I will ride you back to your accommodation in my jeep.”
“There’s no need to—”
But he brushed her words aside, taking her arm again, this time with a touch of gallantry. “Ah, it is little to do for someone who has brought such a Christmas present! This way, please.”
“The office,” a mere hut of planks and clay, had been one of the many headquarters of the invaders’ district commander. Fighting had continued at Noshri a week after the official armistice. Right across one wall was stitched the line of holes left by a salvo of fifty-caliber machine-gun slugs. Opposite, the corresponding line of marks had two gaps in it where the slugs had been stopped before they crossed the little room. Lucy tried not to look in that direction, because she had had to tend the obstacles.
It was terribly hot, even this long after sunset. The air was saturated with moisture. She had thought about going half-naked like the local girls, and come close to that climax. Her formal nurse’s uniform had vanished within days of her arrival. Her neat new aprons had been ripped into emergency bandages, then her dresses, her caps, and even the legs of her jeans one desperate day. For weeks now she had gone about in what was left of them, threads dangling above her knees, and shirts lacking so many buttons she had to knot the tails in front. At least, though, they were regularly washed by the girl Maua—not local, some sort of camp-follower—acting as her personal maid. Never having had a servant in her life, she had at first rebelled at being given one, and still was not reconciled to the idea; however, others of the UN team had pointed out that the girl was unskilled and by taking routine tasks off her could free Lucy to make maximum use of her own training.
And all this because a sea had died which she had never seen ...
At one of the two rickety tables which, apart from chairs, constituted the entire furniture of the office, a tall thin sergeant was adding up figures on a printed form. Major Obou rapped an order at him, and from a battered olive-green ammunition case he dug out a bottle of good French brandy and a tin cup. Handing Lucy two fingers of the liquor, the major raised the bottle to his broad lips.
“Here’s how!” he said. “And do sit down!”
She complied. The drink was too strong for her; after half a mouthful she set the cup on her knees and held it with both hands to stop herself trembling from fatigue. She thought of asking for water to dilute it, but decided it wouldn’t be fair to involve the sergeant in that much trouble. Drinkable water was hard to find in Noshri. Rain, caught in buckets and tanks, was safe if you added a purifying tablet, but the rivers were sour with defoliants from the campaign of last summer and the invaders had filled most of the wells with carrion as they retreated.
“That should put—if you forgive the remark—a little color in your cheeks,” encouraged Major Obou. She forced a smile in reply, and wondered for the latest of many times what she should make of this handsome dark man who took such pains to
“You have been overdoing things, I suspect, Miss Ramage!”
She blinked. It was the nice major, Hippolyte Obou, who had been educated at the Sorbonne and was reputedly no older than her own age of twenty-four. He was extremely handsome, if one discounted the tribal scars striping his cheeks, and had always appeared to maintain a detached view of the war.
Which was more than could be said for General Kaika ...
But she wasn’t here to take sides or criticize. She was here to pick up pieces and patch them together. And although there had been moments when it seemed the job was impossible, everyone had been fed today, food was left over for tomorrow, and another consignment was promised immediately after the new year.
A different world.
“You will come to my office for a pick-you-up,” the major said; he didn’t make it a question. “Then I will ride you back to your accommodation in my jeep.”
“There’s no need to—”
But he brushed her words aside, taking her arm again, this time with a touch of gallantry. “Ah, it is little to do for someone who has brought such a Christmas present! This way, please.”
“The office,” a mere hut of planks and clay, had been one of the many headquarters of the invaders’ district commander. Fighting had continued at Noshri a week after the official armistice. Right across one wall was stitched the line of holes left by a salvo of fifty-caliber machine-gun slugs. Opposite, the corresponding line of marks had two gaps in it where the slugs had been stopped before they crossed the little room. Lucy tried not to look in that direction, because she had had to tend the obstacles.
It was terribly hot, even this long after sunset. The air was saturated with moisture. She had thought about going half-naked like the local girls, and come close to that climax. Her formal nurse’s uniform had vanished within days of her arrival. Her neat new aprons had been ripped into emergency bandages, then her dresses, her caps, and even the legs of her jeans one desperate day. For weeks now she had gone about in what was left of them, threads dangling above her knees, and shirts lacking so many buttons she had to knot the tails in front. At least, though, they were regularly washed by the girl Maua—not local, some sort of camp-follower—acting as her personal maid. Never having had a servant in her life, she had at first rebelled at being given one, and still was not reconciled to the idea; however, others of the UN team had pointed out that the girl was unskilled and by taking routine tasks off her could free Lucy to make maximum use of her own training.
And all this because a sea had died which she had never seen ...
At one of the two rickety tables which, apart from chairs, constituted the entire furniture of the office, a tall thin sergeant was adding up figures on a printed form. Major Obou rapped an order at him, and from a battered olive-green ammunition case he dug out a bottle of good French brandy and a tin cup. Handing Lucy two fingers of the liquor, the major raised the bottle to his broad lips.
“Here’s how!” he said. “And do sit down!”
She complied. The drink was too strong for her; after half a mouthful she set the cup on her knees and held it with both hands to stop herself trembling from fatigue. She thought of asking for water to dilute it, but decided it wouldn’t be fair to involve the sergeant in that much trouble. Drinkable water was hard to find in Noshri. Rain, caught in buckets and tanks, was safe if you added a purifying tablet, but the rivers were sour with defoliants from the campaign of last summer and the invaders had filled most of the wells with carrion as they retreated.
“That should put—if you forgive the remark—a little color in your cheeks,” encouraged Major Obou. She forced a smile in reply, and wondered for the latest of many times what she should make of this handsome dark man who took such pains to
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