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tummy upset seemed to have passed off, which was something to be
thankful for.
* * *
When she woke in the morning, the fire was still burning and James
was sitting near it on the box containing the recording gear. His arms
were folded, his chin sunk into his chest. He was asleep.
He roused the instant she touched his shoulder, and his first and
almost immediate action was to spring up and go and look at her
brother.
'You've been up all night,' she said, shocked, when he came back to
the fire.
James ran a hand over the stubble on his chin. His eyes were
bloodshot with fatigue.' Yes, I thought I'd better keep an eye on him.
If there had been any subdural damage, it would almost certainly
have shown by now. But his pulse and respirations haven't fallen, and
he's sleeping quite normally.'
'Oh, what a relief! But you must be exhausted. Why don't you go to
bed for a couple of hours?'
He shook his head. 'We'll have to make as early a start as possible. It's
going to be a tough day.'
When he had gone to the stream to clean up, Andrea dressed and
combed her tousled hair. It felt lank and sticky, but there wasn't time
to wash it. She collected her towel, soap and toothbrush, woke Guy,
and took the water can to the stream.
James was rinsing his razor when she joined him. He was stripped to
the waist, his discarded shirt already washed and wrung out.
Watching him for a moment before he noticed her, Andrea suddenly
realized how she would have felt if it had been he, instead of Peter,
who had been injured with none of them knowing what to do for
him.
When Peter woke up, he seemed to be completely recovered. And,
after testing his sprained ankle, he announced that he was perfectly
capable of walking on it and had no intention of allowing them to
carry him.
Fortunately the going was mostly downhill that morning, and every
half hour James called a halt for five minutes. He anticipated that they
would reach the river about midday, and then another hour or so
would bring them to a Temiar encampment.
During the morning, Andrea was walking along thinking how
much she would like a tall glass of fresh iced lime juice when she
was suddenly attacked by a strange giddiness. It lasted only a moment
or two, and none of the others noticed her stumble and sway. But it
left her with the peculiar sensation that she was moving about an inch
above the ground; a sensation which very much alarmed her because
she had experienced it once before when it had been the forerunner of
a bad bout of food poisoning.
The river, when they reached it, was a broad slow- running, surge of
muddy brown water. James consulted his map and compass, and said
he thought they would have to cross it immediately as if he was
judging their position correctly the river was presently joined by
another tributary which would make it too deep to ford.
'You three wait here. I'd better go over first and see how deep it is at
this point,' he said.
They watched him wade cautiously across, the water coming up to
the top of his legs. That meant it would be nearly at waist level on
Andrea. She hoped she would not get another dizzy spell halfway
across.
James came back and made two more crossings with their baggage.
Then he returned for the third time.
'You give Fleming a hand, Ramsey, and I'll see Andrea over.' He
snapped open his clasp-knife and bent to impale a leech which was
humping blindly up the side of his boot.
'Ugh ... to think doctors used to put those things on people!' Andrea
said, with an involuntary shudder.
'I thought you didn't mind them?' he said, looking up. ' You were very
casual about the one you had on your arm the day we came through
the swamp.'
Andrea shrugged. ' Well, if they're on you, they're on you but I can't
say I like them.'
His glance travelled over her, and she guessed he was thinking how
different she looked from the girl he had first met in Singapore. No
doubt it gave him a good deal of satisfaction to see her like this her
hair dull, her shirt and slacks crumpled, even her lipstick forgotten
today.
'Is the jungle beginning to get you down?'
Was there a note of derision in his voice?
'Not particularly, but I think we could all do with a change of diet.'
She turned to clamber down from the river bank. The other two were
already out in midstream.
'No, wait!' James moved past her, stepped down into the water and
held out his hand.
She thought he was only going to help her from the bank, and was
quite unprepared for being caught round the waist and lifted into his
arms.
'What are you doing? Put me down!' she exclaimed.
'We still have some way to go. There's no point in your getting wet
unnecessarily,' he said coolly. ' Don't worry, I won't drop you.'
Once before he had held her in his arms that afternoon at the Sungei
Musang swimming pool. Even then, when she had known him for
only a few days, the contact had upset her. Now the effect of his
nearness was paralysing. He shifted his hold on her slightly. ' It would
help if you put your arms round my neck.'
His voice was expressionless, but as she did as he suggested, Andrea
was almost certain that the glance he slanted at her had a gleam of
derision in it.
She had known he was strong, but for a man who had not slept for
thirty hours, he carried her as effortlessly as if she were no heavier
than his pack. Nevertheless it took him several minutes to cross to the
far bank; and those minutes were the longest Andrea had ever
experienced.
'Thank you,' she said stiffly, as he set her on her feet where the others
were waiting.
James removed his arm from her waist and used an overhanging
branch to swing himself easily up out of the water. Without
acknowledging her thanks, he shouldered his pack and led them on
their way.
* * *
In the early hours of the following morning, Andrea woke up
shivering with cold and feeling sick again. She knew then that her
previous bouts of sickness, and yesterday's giddy spells, could no
longer be dismissed as the unpleasant but not serious results of an
indigestible diet and general fatigue. She was now definitely ill. By
sunrise, an hour or so later, instead of feeling cold, she was burning.
When she climbed out of her hammock, the ground seemed to tilt
under her feet and she thought she was going to pass out.
I shall have to tell James, she thought miserably. And then: No ... I
can't be ill now . . . not in the jungle.
By the time she had managed to dress herself, she felt a little better.
But she knew that her temperature must be well above normal and, as
there was no way of disguising her flushed cheeks and unnaturally
bright eyes, it seemed certain that James would detect that something
was wrong.
However, as it turned out, James had other matters to preoccupy him
that morning. Among the group of Temiar with whom they had spent
the night, there was an old woman with an infected leg ulcer and a
number of sick children who needed treatment.
It was mid-morning when they set out again, accompanied by three
wiry young Temiar who had agreed "to act as bearers for the
remainder of the journey.
For Andrea, those last thirty-six hours in the jungle were an incessant
conflict between body and will. Having no idea what was wrong with
her and terrified that it might be something serious, possibly
fatal she somehow managed to hide her condition from the others.
Her one thought was that she had to stick it out until they were back at
the Sungei Musang; that, no matter what it cost, she was going to
leave the jungle on her own two feet.
They arrived at the Baxters' bungalow in the later afternoon, and both
Doctor Baxter and his daughter were sitting on the verandah as the
taxi, picked up on the outskirts of the town, entered the gateway.
'Just in time for a meal! Did you ha ve a good trip? I expect you could
all do with a stiff drink,' Doctor Baxter said genially, as he came
down the steps to greet them.
Andrea was the last to climb out of the taxi. She stood for a moment,
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