The Burning Shore - Smith Wilbur - Страница 75

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Where's my puppy? she said, and he felt her fingers fold about him and he panicked. He began to struggle to be free, but she held him easily and he could not escape her fingers. They were rough as sandpaper from hard manual work, but cunning and insistent, tugging and plucking at him, and her voice was purring and happy.

There's a big boy, then. What a big boy. He couldn't struggle any more, but every nerve and muscle in his body was tensed to the point of pain, and her fingers kneaded and coaxed and her voice became deeper, almost drowsy, without urgency, calming him so he felt his body unclenching.

Ah! she gloated. What's happening to our big puppy, then?

Suddenly there was a stiffening resistance to her touch, and she chuckled again, and he felt the great thighs that held him fall slowly apart. Gently, gently, she cautioned him, for he was beginning to struggle again, bucking against her. Like that! Yes, there, that's it. She was guiding him, trying to control him, but he was desperate with haste.

Suddenly there was a hot gust of her body smell in his nostrils, rich and strong, the marvelous aroma of her own arousal, and he felt the new surge of strength into the core of his being. He was a hero, an eagle, the very hammer of the gods. He was strong as a bull, long as a sword, hard as granite.

Oh yes! she gasped. There, like that! and resistance to him was not to be brooked, he drove forward and broke through and went sliding into the depths of her and the exquisite heat which was far beyond any place he had been in his entire existence. With increasing urgency and violence, she rose and fell beneath him as though he were a ship in an ocean gale and she made little crooning sounds, and urged him on in a ragged throaty voice, until the sky crashed down upon him and he was crushed between it and the earth.

He came back slowly from far away, and she was holding him and caressing him and talking to him like a child again. There, my baby. It's all right. It's all right now. And he knew that it was so. It was all right now. He had never felt so safe and secure. He had never known such deep pervading peace. He pressed his face between her breasts, and smothered himself in her abundant motherly flesh and wanted to rest there forever.

She stroked the sparse silky hairs back from off his ears, looking down on him fondly, and the bald pink patch at the crown of his scalp gleamed in the firelight and made her breasts ache with the need to comfort him. All her pent-up love and concern for the missing girl found new directions, for she was born to give succour and loyalty and duty to others. She began to rock him, cradling him and crooning to him.

Then, in the dawn, Garry found that there had been another miracle. For when he crept out of the camp and went down to the head of the beach, he found the way was open for them. Under the influence of a waxing moon, the ocean was building up to full spring tides, and the waters had drawn back, leaving a wide strip of hard smooth wet sand below the dunes.

Garry rushed back to the bivouac and hauled his senior NCO out of his blankets.

Get your men looking alive, Corporal! he shouted. I want the Ford refuelled, loaded with rations including water-cans for four people for three days, and I want it ready to leave in fifteen minutes, is that clear? Well then, get on with it, man, don't stand there gaping at me! He turned and ran back to meet Anna as she emerged from behind the tarpaulin. Mevrou, the tide! We can get through."I knew you would find a way, Mijnheer! Weill go in with the For, you and I and two men. We will drive hard until the tide turns, then push the Ford up above the high-water mark, and when it's out again we'll press on. Can you be ready to leave in ten minutes?

We have to take full advantage of the tide. He wheeled away from her. Come on, Corporal, get these men moving! And as he turned away, the Corporal rolled his eyes and grumbled just loudly enough for the others to hear him. What's come over our old sparrow, damned if all of a sudden he isn't acting like a turkey cock! They had two hours of hard driving, pushing the Ford to her top speed of forty miles an hour when the sand was firm and hard. When it turned soft, the three passengers, including Anna, leaped over the side and kept her rolling, throwing their full combined weight behind her, and then, as the sand firmed again, they scrambled on board, and hooting with excitement, sped northwards again.

At last the tide came surging back at them, and Garry picked out a gap in the dunes into which they backed the Ford, manhandling her through the dry, floury sand until she was well above the high-water mark.

They built a fire of driftwood, brewed coffee, and ate a picnic meal, and then settled down to wait for the next low tide to open the beach for them. The three men stretched out in the shade of the vehicle, but Anna left them and began picking her way along the high-water mark, pausing every once in a while to shade her eyes against the glare of sea and sand and peer restlessly into the north again.

Propped on one elbow, Garry watched her with such overwhelming affection and gratitude, that he found difficulty in breathing.

In the autumn of my life she has given me the youth that I never knew. She has brought me the love that passed me by, he thought, and when she reached the corner of the next sandy bay and disappeared behind the guardian dune, he could not bear to let her out of his sight.

He sprang up and hurried after her. As he reached the corner, he saw her a quarter of a mile ahead. She was stooped over something at the head of the beach, but now she straightened and saw him, and waved both hands over her head, shouting at him. The boom of the surf drowned out her voice, but her excitement and agitation was so obvious that he began to run.

Mijnheer, she ran to meet him, I have found, She could not finish, but seized his arm and dragged him after her.

Look! She fell on her knees next to the object. It was almost completely buried in the beach sand, and already the incoming tide was washing and swirling around it.

It's part of a boad Garry dropped beside her, and together they attacked the sand with their bare hands, frantic to expose the fragment of white-painted woodwork.

Clinker-built, Garry grunted. Looks like part of an Admiralty-type lifeboat. The next wave rushed up the beach and wetted them to the waist, but as it drew back it washed away the sand that they had loosened and exposed the name that was painted in black letters on the shattered hull.

Protea C- The rest o it was missing, the timers were raw and splintered where they had broken up in the hammering surf.

The Protea Castle, whispered Anna, and wiped the sand away from the lettering with her sodden skirts.

Proof! She turned her face to Garry, and tears were running freely down her red cheeks. Proof Mijnheer, it's proof that my darling has reached the shore and is safe. Even Garry, who was as eager as a bridegroom to please her, who wanted desperately to believe that he would have a grandson to replace Michael, even he gawked at her.

It's proof that she is alive, you do believe that now, don't you, Mijnheer? Mevrou, Garry fluttered his hands in an agony of embarrassment, there is an excellent chance, I do agree."She is alive.

I know it. How can you doubt it? Unless you believe- Her red face folded into a ferocious scowl, and Garry capitulated nervously.

I do, oh yes! I certainly believe it! No question she's alive, absolutely no question. Having carried the field, Anna faced the incoming tide, F and turned the full force of her displeasure upon the ocean. How long must we wait here, Mijnheer? Well, Mevrou, the tide flows for six hours and then ebbs for six, he explained apologetically. It will be another three hours before we can go on.

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