"While we are at it, we'll need a team of servants to do our laundry and cleaning and cooking."
"I haven't forgotten your colonial origins, Colonel," China answered slyly. "One of my men was an under chef at the President Hotel in Johannesburg. He understands European tastes."
Sean stood up. "We'll inspect our quarters now."
"One of my junior officers will escort you," General China suggested. "If there is anything further you need, please let him know. He has my personal orders to give you whatever he can to make you comfortable. As I have said before, you are honored guests." "He gives me the creeps," Claudia whispered as the subaltern ushered them out of the dugout. "I don't know when he frighten more, when he's being charming or menacing."
M!" It won't be for much longer." Sean put his arm around her shoulders and led her into the open air, but somehow the sunlight lacked warmth and despite his assurances to Claudia, the chill of General China's presence persisted.
The dugout to which the subaltern led them was in the bush above the riverbank, not more than three hundred yards from the general's HQ.
The entrance was screened with a piece of tattered camouflage net and the interior was freshly dug out of the hard red clay of the riverbank.
"It's so new that it probably hasn't yet acquired a permanent population of bedbugs and lice and other wild game," Sean remarked.
The clay walls were damp and cool, and there was ventilation through the spaces between the roof poles. The only furnishings were a table and two stools of mo pane poles against one wall, and opposite that a raised bedstead, also of mo pane poles, and a mattress of combed elephant grass covered with a sheet of faded canvas. There was, however, one extraordinary luxury, a mosquito net hung above the bed.
The subaltern who was escorting them summoned the domestic staff, and the three of them lined up in front of Sean and Claudia.
The two camp boys would take care of their laundry and cleaning under the supervision of the chef.
The chef was an elderly Shangane with a pleasant lined face and silver-frosted hair and beard. He reminded Claudia of a black Santa Claus. They both liked him immediately.
"My name is Joyful, sir."
"So you speak English, Joyful?"
"And Afrikaans and Portuguese and Shana and-"
"Enough already." Sean held up a hand to stop him. "Can you cook?"
"I'm the best damned cook in Mozambique."
"Joyful and modest." Claudia laughed.
Okay, Joyful, tonight we will have Chateaubriand," Sean tealsed him.
Joyful looked doleful "Sorry, sir, no filet steak."
"All right, Joyful@" Sean relented. "You just make us the best dinner you can.""
"I'll tell you when it's ready, sir and madam."
"Don't hurry," said Claudia. She lowered the netting across the doorway, summarily dismissing all of them.
They stood hand in hand and studied the bed thoughtfully.
Claudia broke the silence. "Are you thinking what I am thinking?"
"Before or after dinner?" Sean asked.
"Both," she replied, and led him by the hand.
They undressed each other with aching deliberation, drawing out the pleasure of truly discovering each other's bodies. Though they were already lovers he had only had one Rating glimpse of her, and she had never well ban naked. She studied him ynth big, solemn eyes, not smilin& taking her time until he was forced to ask, "Well, do I get the Monterro seal of approval.P"
"Oh, boy!" she breathed, still deadly sen ious and he lifted her onto the bed.
it was darkening outside the dugout when Joyful coughed politely beyond the screen doorway. "Dinner is ready, sir and madam."
They ate at the table of mo pane poles by the light of a paraffin lantern that Joyful had scavenged from somewhere.
"Oh, MY God!" Claudia cried when she saw what Joyful had provided for them. "I didn't realize how hungry I was."
It was a casserole of plump green pigeons and wild mushrooms, with side dishes of steamed yellow yams, cassava cakes, and banana fritters.
"General China sent this for you," Joyful explained, and set cans of South African beer on the crowded table.
"Joyful, you are a paragon." le at each They ate in dedicated silence, smiling across the tab other between mouthfuls. At last Claudia groaned softly.
"I think I can just waddle as far as the bed, but definitely no further.
"Suits me fine," he said, and reached across to take her hand.
The mosquito net was a tent over them, creating an intimate and secret temple for their loving. The light from the lantern was soft and golden. It washed subtle tones and shadings across the planes of her face and the rounds and hollows of her body. The texture of her skin fascinated him. It was so fine-pored as to seem glossed like warm wax. He stroked her shoulders and arms and belly, marveling at the feel of her.
She rasped her fingernails through his short crisp beard and her face into the springing curls that covered his chest.
pressed "You're as hairy and hard as a wild animal," she whispered. "And as dangerous. I should be terrified of you."
I "Aren't you? "A little, yes. That's what makes it such fun."
She was starved to the point where her ribs showed clearly through her pale skin. Her limbs were slender and childlike, and the marks of her suffering upon them threatened to break his heart.
Even her breasts seemed smaller, but it was as though their diminution had merely emphasized the sweet and tender shape. She watched him take the nipple of one between his bps, and she stroked the thick curls at the back of his neck.
"That feels so good," she whispered. "But there are two." And she took a handful of his hair to direct his mouth across to the other side.
Once while she sat astride him, he looked up at her, reached high to stroke the soft skin of her throat and shoulders, and said, "In this light, you look like a little girl."
"And me trying so hard to prove to you what a big girl I am," she pouted down at him, then leaned forward to kiss his mouth.
They slept so intricately entwined that their hearts beat against each other and their breath mingled and they woke to find that they had begun again while they still slept.
"He's so clever," she murmured drowsily. "Already he can find his way all on his own."
"Do you want to go back to sleep?"
"Do I, hell!"
Much later she asked him, "Do you think we could make this last forever?"
"We can try."
But at last the dawn sent orange-gold fingers of light through the slats above them, and Claudia cried softly. "No. I don't want it to end. I want to keep you inside me for ever and ever."
When Joyful brought their tea to their bedside, on the tray with the mugs was an invitation from General China to dine in the mess that evening.