Doctor Who_ Combat Rock - Mick Lewis [85]
‘Santi become his tenth wife and man in skirt will be killed and eaten in honour of our wedding ceremony.’
Chapter Thirteen
The jungle was waking.
Dawn. Ice cream-pink skies, symphony of awed nature, and Victoria woke with the stink of a soldier’s empty boots right next to her nose. She rolled over on the grass mat that was her bed and came face to face with Agus who was sitting up, watching her.
The shelter had been erected to provide room for all ten men in Agus’s squad. And Victoria. There were no niceties in the jungle, no room for modesty. She’d been forced to sleep right alongside the men, listening to their snores and smelling their smells. Agus had snored happily along with the rest of them, and Victoria had finally sunk into a worried dream-ragged sleep a mere hour or so before dawn.
The smell of freshly boiled coffee was the most important thing to her at that moment. She accepted the steaming mug that Agus held out for her. He smiled and handed her a plate of rice and vegetables that had been cooked while she still slept.
She shook her head, not sure she would be able to hold it down. Her whole body ached from the uncomfortable sleep she’d endured, and her feet were sore and blistered from the previous day’s hiking through the jungle. On top of that her eyes were crusted and dry, her throat prickly and uncomfortable, and she could smell the stale sweat on her own body. Her sense of propriety was even more compromised by the fact that Agus was watching her so closely, and was himself immaculately turned out, looking for all the world as if he’d just spent the night in a luxurious hotel.
‘You must eat.’ Agus told her. ‘We have more walking through jungle to do today.’
‘What’s the point?’ she protested, heart sinking at the thought of more heat, more insects, more walking.
‘What is the point in anything?’ he replied, smiling, smiling. ‘President Sabit wishes for us to find the OPG, and rescue your friends, of course. I have already told you. You are here as a public relations exercise, to see for yourself what the OPG are capable of, and to report it to your world.’
‘I can also report what I’ve seen in your prisons, Agus,’
she reminded him pointedly.
‘Yes, of course you can. But President Sabit seems to think you won’t want to.’ He finished his coffee and stood up, barking orders at his men to break camp. Victoria frowned at him. What did he mean? That didn’t sound very good at all.
Would Sabit resort to holding either the Doctor or Jamie hostage should they find them, just to make sure Victoria only said what they wanted her to say?
She brushed a hand distractedly through her hair, dislodging a bug that clung to her finger tenaciously before being shaken off to skitter off into a corner. She suppressed a sob. She really needed to see Jamie and the Doctor’s faces more than ever.
The squad was on the march again, with Agus and Victoria at the head. The path was a little wider than before and progress was easier, but soon the heat became as oppressive as ever as the morning wore on. The insects came out to play again, forming an incessant cloud around Victoria’s hair. Once their path led across a stream spanned by a tree trunk, and she was forced to teeter precariously across it, looking down into the fetid water beneath and not at all relishing the prospect of slipping and falling into it. She imagined all sorts of giant leeches and snake things and other even less savoury creatures lurking beneath the surface.
They were making their way across a jungle glade where the sun streamed blindingly down upon them, when Agus stopped. He held up a hand and his handsome features were serious. He turned to Victoria.
‘Wait,’ he said. ‘I hear something.’ He was drawing his Luger from its holster when the arrow hit him in the windpipe.
He stepped back a pace as if performing a solitary waltz, clutched at the shaft as the blood began to bubble, well, and then spurt. Then he was on his knees, gazing at Victoria with a mixture of surprise and apology