Free Unknown by Unknown

necessity to peer further and closer to the ground. She wondered how long he would swim.
    She stayed there until she felt that to stay there any longer would invite a comment. She straightened slowly and turned round.
    He was out and dressed up to his waist. He had very big, very brown shoulders, she saw. He had draped his towel over the jeep bonnet to dry, and now he strolled across to her.
    ‘What school did you go to, Brown?’ he asked.
    For an hysterical moment Georgina wondered what would happen if she answered: ‘St Hilda’s.’
    ‘I ... well, mostly I had correspondence lessons,’ she evaded.
    ‘I gathered so.’ His tone was dry. ‘Like the nickel you were pretending to look for, there are signs.’
    ‘Signs of what, sir?’
    Forget it,’ he said brusquely. ‘I mean forget it now. But later on I think we’ll have to do something about you, Brown.’
    ‘Something, sir? ? Uneasiness gripped her.
    ‘Did you bring your magnet with you?’ He ignored her question. Then look for some outcrops and see if you can feel a pull. Watch for the light brown silica, it’s a possible trap.’
    ‘I know all that.’ Georgina said it indignantly.
    ‘Well, the way you were behaving while I took my swim would have fooled me,’ he said acidly, ‘you had the magnet the wrong way round. Anyway, we’ll forget it all now and eat instead—that dip made me hungry. Get a fire going.’
    ‘Yes, sir.’ This at least was something she could do, and after she had gathered tinder and lit it, added some telling chunks of wood and had the satisfaction of seeing a good fire catch on, she said happily, happy that she had succeeded at least with this: ‘I should have thought you would have been a flask man, Mr Roper, I shouldn’t have thought you would waste your time on a fire.’
    ‘Wasted?’ he said, and he inhaled a deep breath. Georgina did, too, and took in that unforgettable tang of smouldering bark, redolent wood and herby twigs.
    He tossed her a bag of flour. ‘Can you make a damper?’
    ‘Of course.’
    He watched her do it. ‘Actually,’ he told her, ‘you should use ash for rising, but you seem to know what you’re about. In fact, Brown, you have quite the light touch, the kind of touch you mostly see in female cooks.’ He grinned, and Georgina supposed she had better grin back. She hoped the grin did not look as sickly as she felt, but the damper was a success.
    They separated after lunch, both with their magnets and their markers.
    Georgina found an intrusive and was examining it with absorption when she heard him shout.
    ‘Over here, Brown, I have a little job for you.’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    It was some time before Georgina met Roper. In the emptiness of the desert the voice seemed to lose direction, and he had to call twice. She wondered what he wanted; he had not sounded excited, as a find would make you excited.
    She reached him at last. Perhaps he had noticed some semi-precious stuff like topaz or jasper, of no great value but of interest, and he wanted to show her.
    But the mighty Roper did not want to show anything like that.
    ‘Look,’ he said, and Georgina looked. Her stomach heaved.
    There was a waterhole with a carcase half in it, half out. ‘The poor beast,’ said Roper, ‘must have got bogged there in the mud following the Wet.’
    ‘Y-yes,’ gulped Georgina.
    ‘It’s a hazard,’ Roper said. ‘What water will still remain in the hole when the Dry finally comes will be badly polluted. A human life could be lost.’
    Something more was coming; Georgina sensed it, and did not like what she sensed.
    ‘But no one,’ she said faintly, ‘would drink such water.’
    ‘Ah,’ he came back, and with it he shot out an accusing finger, ‘I expected that. But we don’t do things that way, Brown, not at Roper’s. You may have at Windmill Junction, I don’t know.’
    ‘At Windmill there were no beasts—I mean no bogged beasts,’ she defended.
    ‘Then good for you, for as you see there are