"Speak to the pilot," China commanded.
Claudia dragged her eyes from the dying man and addressed the pilot. "Please do what he wants."
"I cannot, my duty!" the pilot cried.
"The devil with your duty!" Claudia shouted back furiously.
"You and all your men will end up like this!" She gestured to the floor without looking down again. "That's what will happen to you!" She turned to the other Russians, who were shaken and appalled, pale with horror and terror.
"Look at him!" she screamed in English. "Is that what you want?"
They did not understand the words, but her meaning was clear to all of them. They turned their faces toward the pilot.
The pilot resisted their entreaties for a minute. Then, at a word from China, the Renamo officers seized another one of the ground crew and threw him screaming and kicking facedown across the bench.
The Russian pilot threw up both hands in a gesture of resignation.
"Tell him to stop," he said wearily to Claudia. "We will do as he orders."
"Thank you, Miss Monterro." China smiled at her charmingly.
"You are now free to rejoin Colonel Courtney."
"How will you communicate with the pilot?" she asked uncertainly.
"Already he understands me." China transferred the benevolence of his smile to the Russian. "I assure you that he will learn to speak my language with the utmost fluency in a very short time indeed." He turned back to Claudia. "Please convey my respects to Colonel Courtney and ask him to join me at his earliest convenience. I would like to take my leave of him, to thank him and wish him lion voyage." He gave her a mocking bow. "So Godspeed, Miss Monterro. I hope you will remember all of us, your friends in Africa, with affection."
Claudia could find no words to reply. She turned to the door of the bunker, and her legs were shaky and rubbery beneath her. In a daze of horror she stumbled down the hill. The sights around her, which at another time might have sickened and appalled her, she hardly noticed.
At the foot of the hill, she paused and tried to get a grip on herself. She breathed dci$ly, trying to quell the intermittent sobs that still caught her.usawares, and she combed her hair back from her face with her flingers and retied the strip of cloth she was using as a headband. With the tail of her shirt she wiped the tears and sweat from her face, shocked at the grimy smear they left on the cloth.
"I must look like hell," she whispered, clenching her hands to hide her broken fingernails. But she braced her shoulders and lifted her chin. "Sean mustn't see me like this," she told herself fiercely.
"Pull yourself together, woman."
Sean looked up as she hurried to where he was still working over Job's blanket-wrapped body. "What happened?" he demanded.
"What kept you?"
"General China is here. He made me go with him."
"What did he want? What happened?"
"Nothing, not important. I'll tell you about it later. How is Job?"
"I've got a full liter of plasma into him," Sean replied. He had suspended the drip set from a branch above them. "His pulse is better.
Job is as tough as an old buffalo bull. Help me dress the wound.
"Is he consciousT"
"He comes and goes," Sean warned her.
Beneath the field dressing was such a terrible injury that neither of them could bring themselves to discuss it, especially as Job might be able to hear and understand them.
Sean smothered the entire area with iodine paste, then bound it up again with pressure pads and clean white bandages from the medical pack. The blood and iodine soaked through the white even as he worked.
Between them they had to roll Job on to his side to pass the bandages over his back. Claudia held the half-severed arm in place, bending the elbow across his chest, and Sean strapped it securely.
By the time they finished, Job's entire upper body was swathed in a cocoon of expertly applied bandage from which only his left arm protruded.
"His pulse is going again." Sean looked up from his wrist. "I'm going to give him another liter of plasma."
There was a scattered outbreak of machine-gun and mortar fire from the forest beyond the hill laager, and Claudia looked up apprehensively. "What's that?"
"Frelimo counterattack." Sean was still busy with the drip set.
"But China has three companies in there, and Frelimo are going to be less than enthusiastic now that they have lost their air support. China's lads should be able to hold them off with no trouble."
"Sean, where did China come from? I tho "Yes, Sean cut in. "I also thought he was back on the river. The crafty bastard was right on our heels, ready to rush in and grab the spoils." He finished adjusting the plasma flow in the drip set and squatted down beside Claudia, studying her face.
"AB right," he said. "Tell me what happened."
"Nothing." She smiled brightly.
"Don't bullshit me, beautiful," Sean said gently, and put an arm around her. Despite herself she choked on a sob.
"China," she whispered. "Right on top of what happened to Job. He made me translate for the Russian pilot. Oh, God, I hate him. He's an animal. He made me watch-" She broke off.
"Rough stuff?" Sean asked, and she nodded.
"He killed one of the Russians, in the foulest possible way." "He's a lovely lad, our China, but try and put it out of your mind. We've got enough troubles of our own. Let the Russkies worry about theirs."
"He forced the Russian pilot to agree to fly the helicopter. Sean stood up, lifting her to her feet beside him. Don think of China and the Russian anymore. All we have to worry about is getting out of here." He broke off as he saw Sergeant Alphonso and a half-dozen of his Shanganes trotting down the hill toward them. All of them were laden with loot.
"Nkosi!" Alphonso's broad, handsome face was wreathed in a beatific grin. "What a fight, what a victory!"
"You fought like an impi of lions," Sean agreed. "The battle is won, but now you must help us to get away to the border. Captain Job is badly hurt."
Alphonso's smile faded; despite their natural tribal emnity, both men had developed a grudging respect for each other. "How bad?"
He came to stand beside Sean and looked down at Job.
"There was a fiberglass stretcher in the first aid post," Claudia said.
"We can carry Job on that."
"It is two days" march to the border," Alphonso murmured dubiously. "Through Frelimo territory."
"Frelimo are running like dogs with a hot coal under their tails."