03 Liberation by Imogen Robertson (aka Imogen Kealey)

Author:Imogen Robertson (aka Imogen Kealey) [Robertson, Imogen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2020-04-28T00:00:00+00:00

33

She could have sworn she’d barely closed her eyes, having stumbled back to camp exhausted and triumphant, when Denden woke her.

“Nancy, there’s trouble! Come on!”

She struggled clumsily into her clothes and boots. Not that she was hungover—no, lacking sleep, sir, that’s all… something in her eye made the light look a bit too bright. It was quiet in the camp, too quiet. What the hell?

“Nancy!”

“Jesus, I’m coming!”

She stumbled out of the tent to see Denden was already deeper into the woodland in the direction of the hot spring, beckoning her on. She checked her side arm, then followed him. Perhaps Fournier had picked up a spy, and they wanted her help interrogating him. Or Denden thought it was time for the interrogation to stop… The thoughts chased themselves round her sodden head as she made her way down the path. She could hear men talking now, but although she couldn’t hear the words she could hear the tone. Relaxed, happy even. So what the…?

She turned into the clearing and saw the old bus they’d stolen last night.

“We left it at the bottom of the slope! How the hell did it get up here?”

Most of Fournier’s men were here along with Fournier himself, the Spanish brothers and Tardivat. They were all dirty as sin and looked extremely pleased with themselves.

“We pushed it up the hill, last night!” Jean-Clair said eagerly.

Fournier took a cigarette from his mouth. “Thought you could do with some privacy, Captain. We’ve fixed it up a bit for you.”

It was the first time he’d called her Captain without making her rank sound like an insult; first time he’d done so sober anyway.

“Thanks,” she said, meaning it.

They were waiting for her to go inside. She did and the men peered through the windows while she examined their work. Several rows of seats had been pulled out and the remaining ones rearranged to make a living space. Up front by the cab, a packing case table was surrounded with seats arranged in a U, like a meeting room. Against one side of the bus a couple more cases had been arranged on top of each other into shelves and one of the silly buggers had actually picked flowers, stuck them in an empty tin can and put it on top. Down the back of the bus, two more rows of seats had been shoved together to make a sort of cot. A nightdress, fashioned out of long panels of silk, was laid across it, along with a pair of folded blankets.

She picked up the nightdress, felt the sheerness of the fabric, and put it across her arm before she went outside again. The men looked up at her, eager as puppies.

“Bloody hell, guys. I love it!”

They cheered and started slapping each other on the back again.

“Right—breakfast now, I think,” Denden declared, rubbing his hands together. “Let the captain get settled in.”

Grinning and shoving each other like kids on the way home from school, most of the men started drifting back up to the main clearing.

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