The smoke filled her nostrils, ha throat, and her hings, and the obscene odor of burning flesh, of charring fat, coated her tongue, and her gorge rose. She tried to contain it, but vomit shot up her throat and in a projectile stream splashed onto the earthen floor between her feet.
Behind her the screams dropped gradually in volume and became ghastly rattling groans. However, all the Russians were yenmg their protest and fury, and the din was confusing.
Another whiff of burned flesh and spilled feces made her retch again. Then she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and leaned her forehead against the sandbagged wall. She was trembring wildly, and wan and sweat streamed down her cheeks.
Slowly the uproar behind her subsided, and the only sounds in mechanic's groans and gurgles. They were the bunker were the weaker now but nonetheless harrowing. Claudia could tell without looking at him that the Russian was dying.
Miss Monterro." China's voice was level and calm. "Please get a grip on yourself. We still have work to do."
all" she blurted. "I hate you! Oh, God, how You are an animI hate you!"
"Your feelings are not of the slightest interest to me," China said. "Now you will tell the pilot that I await his full cooperation."
The flight engineer's groans distracted her. As she turned to face China, she saw they had released the stricken Man and allowed him to slump to the floor. China had made no effort to withdraw the metal rod from his body, and he was still transfixed. As he rolled weakly about on the earthen floor, he plucked ineffectually at the protruding end of the rod. The heated metal had adhered to his bowels as it cooled and was firmly rooted in his flesh. Every time he tugged at it, a trickle of liquid feces bubbled from the terrible wound.
"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.