Prose

Ryno cocks the Heckler and Koch 417 rifle and he notices the South African moving around the small bush with the AK-47 in his hands, as they from both sides approach the place where they had seen the woman.
 
The sound of the gun’s lock is loud in his ears, but its clear that she does not hear it, as there is no alarm.   Ryno moves like a spectre from bush to bush, until he reaches the spot where he had seen her.  When he peeps through the bushes, he does not notice her.

Carefully he sneaks nearer and when he notices the South African, he indicates to him to wait and both of them sit down in the soft grass.

Ryno carefully puts his rifle down besides him and his knife appears in his hand as if by magic.   The South African is thought struck and Ryno’s movement is so suddenly, when he gets on his haunches that he almost catches him offside.

He hears a twig braking when somebody near to them steps on it and for the first time he is also aware of the position of the girl.

He shakes his head violently when he becomes aware of the knife in Ryno’s hand, but Ryno signals him to stay motionless.   It’s like a mamba striking when Ryno gets to his feet, grabs the woman from behind, with his left hand closing over her mouth before he draws her against him.

His right hand with the knife is against her throat and he feels her stiffen from shock and he is astonished that she does not struggle to get away.   “Listen carefully,” he whispers in Portuguese.   “When I remove my hand from your mouth, you will not scream.   I want to talk to you.  Nod twice if you understand me.”

He feels her nodding and for the first time he realises that her skin is wet.   When he let’s her go she turns around and he realises that she is not only wet, but naked and he sees the flames blazing dangerously in her dark brown eyes.

She has got beautiful eyes and he notices that her almost classical lovely face is framed with curly black hair that feels like silk.

Her breasts are both light and full and the suppleness of her stomach and slender legs causes him for a moment to stare at her, as if he is not expecting her so stripped.   He notices that the hairs are rising on her white skin, but it is of getting cold and there is no sign of fear in her eyes.

The camouflage paint on his face and arms has started running and at places there are white skin appearing and he looks to her like a three-year-old boy that has found a tin of polish.

It feels to her if his icy-blue eyes are looking right through her and suddenly there’s an empty feeling on her stomach and she feels her legs almost loosing balance beneath her.

He has got a high forehead and strong chin and when he smiles, his face is sudden full of innocence and it feels as something deep in her stirs.

”Are you going to stare at me like this forever,” she asks in Afrikaans and she catches him by surprise.  “No.   I am sorry.  You must be doctor Ramos,” he stutters in his own language.  “You probably want to dress, doctor?”

When he turns his back on her to dress Ryno notices the South African walking back to where they had left their equipment and a soft towel hits him between his shoulder blades.

”Come on.  Make you handy,” she orders when he turns about and looks questioning at her, he notices that her nipples are hard from the cold.

She walks with her clothes in her hands up to him and he realizes, that she is not shy of being naked and he experiences a strange kind of attraction to her while she is standing in front of him.

”Help me get dry.  Or are you now getting shy while you know how I look undressed,” she wants to know with a strange light in her eyes and a shy smile curls round the edges of her mouth.

Her hair is dry and he first uses the towel on her back and arms and legs.   For long moments he admires the suppleness of her breasts and pulls her into his arms.

He feels her cool skin against him and it feels to her as if his whole body is burning, when she touches him and she realises that he is sweating unnaturally.

”Is it a habit of yours to peep on women swimming nakedly, or is this a exception,” she asks suddenly prudishly and his fingers braids through her black hair.  It is when she gets worried about the heat of his body that she pushes him away from her.

His face is unnaturally pale and he looks extremely tired.   He stands and rocks on his feet, like a boxer that has been knocked out on his feet and when he falls down unconscious, it is so suddenly that it catches her by surprise.

She bows over him and feels his pulse and finds that it’s quick and shallow.   “Woman, what the hell have you done to him,” the other South African wants to know from where he stands with the AK-47 threatening in his hands.
 
“Do not be stupid. This man is burning out.   He is deadly ill.  God, can you really think that I would have done something to him and that after I had cared for your wounds?”

Suddenly he recognizes her.  “Sorry doctor.   I did not know that it was you,” he says while he turns his back to her to get dressed.


”Come.  We have got to get him to the hospital,” she orders when the South African throws Ryno over his shoulder but she stops in her tracks.

”I cannot take the risk of the personnel noticing you,” and now both of them are worried.   “There is some more empty rooms on the top floor, but he will need constant attention.”

”Are there any soldiers at the hospital,” the South African asks even more worried.   She shakes her head.   “No.  A helicopter came to fetch them this afternoon.   There was a big bush fire at Cassinga and they took them all away from here.”

At the garden around the villa they both wait, while Maria quickly scouts the area.   Maria notices nobody and they move quickly up to the villa.

Both the South African and Maria are anxious when they carry Ryno along the porch, before they reach the outer door of Maria’s bedroom.

Maria opens the door and it’s pitch black in the room and clumsily they knock against a chair, before they reach the bed.   She quickly draws the curtains before she switches on the light.

The South African is astonished when the light blinds him suddenly, but he hears the roaring of a power generator somewhere in the distance and helps her to undress Ryno.

”What kind of symptoms did he have while you were coming here,” she asks the South African while she is examining Ryno.   It is clear that he is in a coma and a frown is on her face between her brown eyes.

The South African draws his shoulders up.   “I do not know,” he remarks and tries to think back before his face lights up.   “He said that he has got the one or other type of flue and he was really sweating.”

She shakes her head.  “It is certainly not flue.”   “What is the matter with him,” the South African wants to know very worried.  “I think that he has malaria,” she answers while she opens a doctor’s case that is on the desk in one of the corners of the room and she draws some blood from him.

There is something in the way that Maria looks at Ryno while she removes the camouflage paint with alcoholic swabs that makes the other South African unreasonably jealous.

”Then Cinderella meets her prince,” he remarks mockingly while she uses the swabs to wipe off Ryno’s whole body and suddenly she blushes red from her throat to her face while she feels his eyes burning on her.

”I doubt if he has Malaria.  I have seen him drinking his Aralen tablets and it was clear from the package that he had used some of the tablets before.”

At that moment she notices a red nodule that is surrounded by white on Ryno’s arm and her fingers go quickly to the lymphatic glands on the side of his neck and she feels that they are swollen unnaturally.

”I will be back just now.   I am just going to examine the blood sample in my doctor’s room,” she remarks and reads some mistrust in the South African’s eyes.

”While you are away, you can just as well go and contact Mahambo and his soldiers.  You are one of them?”

There eyes meet for a long moment en she gives a long sigh.   “You think that you know everything.   No.  I am not one of them and I am not going to hand you over to them.   If I do not find out what is wrong with him, I will not be able to help him.   I have got to treat him before it is too late.  Do you want him to die?  You will just have to trust me,” she says and walks out of the room and closes the door behind her.

The South African prays for Ryno and waits impatiently for Maria to return.  “What is wrong with him,” the South African wants to know when she opens the door.


“He has got acute trypanosomiasis,” she answers and breaks open an ampoule with an antiphrastic drug before she draws it into a syringe and injects it to Ryno.

”What is trypanosomiasis,” the South African wants to know frowning.  “Sleeping sickness,” she answers and the South African looks away to the door.

”Is his condition fatal,” the South African wants to know worried while he walks up and down in the room like cornered lion.   “I do not know.  Not if I can help him.”

Maria is however much more worried about Ryno’s condition than it appears.  As the illness had develop so quickly that Ryno is in a coma, his chances of survival might be slim.

”Go and fetch your equipment but be careful,’ she orders to get the South African out of the room.  The South African has however hardly left, when she fiddles with a hidden panel on the one wall that she opens carefully, to expose a frequency hopping two-way radio system.