Chapter 7

A week after she started work, Harry started bit by by bit to shed items of clothing. She was nervous about it to begin with. Her shoes and socks were the first to go and this liberation was sufficient to boost her spirits for the first day afterwards. Next was her shirt.

Looking around her Harriet could see that many women around here were bare-breasted and on the fifth day she appeared in the morning bare-breasted herself to Bernard's horror, but with no discernible adverse reaction fom the locals, be they men or women. Even this shedding of her hated clothing was insufficient in extent and she began to prepare herself for the time when even her shorts and panties would go the way of her other garments. This last step would leave her in a unique position, even out here where only the very young children went totally unclothed. She wondered what the reaction might be and bode her time for a couple of weeks, by turns deciding to make the final move after screwing up her courage and then drawing back at the last moment.

Her opportunity finally came when she was sent miles outside the village to dig a section of the drainage system all by herself. A few hours went by and she took a break, being thirsty and hungry, drinking from her bottle of water and eating a piece of bread. Before resuming, she removed her remaining garments and threw them from her as hard as she could into the bush, for the lions to find - for all she knew or cared. The remainder of the day was sheer bliss and she returned, dusty and sweating to the village, having excavated, laid and covered in, fifty yards of pipes - a stupendous effort on her part, even for her, and not to be repeated for the rest of her time there.

The reaction was seeming indifference from the men and towering rage from an apopleptic Bernard. Harriet said if a vote among the villagers went in favour, she would resume her clothed state, otherwise he, Bernard could and go and fuck himself. The vote went in favour of Harriet. It was felt that she did more work than any man and had earned the right to indulge her unusual tastes. Bernard accepted the situation and was forced privately to admit that the excellent progress they were making owed much to Harriet's tireless efforts. Perhaps she could be indulged her unseemly behaviour for the time being.

She mentioned this in her next letter, to Gwendoline hoping that it might cheer her up. That young lady's letters so far had been brave efforts to sound happy, but there was always an unmistakable underlying sadness, which caused the ever more satisfied Harriet to feel rather guilty. As Gwen's pregnancy took its course, her tone was to become much happier, but this was still in the furture.

Some weeks after her first day of nudity, by which time she was accepted in this state by all, including an increasingly friendly and appreciative Bernard, she was working some way out of the village digging out a pit for the village's refuse to be buried, when she was startled by a hand on her shoulder.

"Good morning, Lady Harriet - what a privilege to see this prodigious labourer in our vineyard in all her awesome glory!"

She turned to look at the owner of this cultivated Public School accent and found herself staring into the eyes of a handsome tall youngish black man who looked extremely incongruous in a smart Western style suit, inside which he must have been sweltering. It was a hot day - like a burning fiery furnace.

She wiped the sweat from her brow and climbed out of the pit she had been digging.

"Hi! You have the advantage of me! I don't think I've had the pleasure."

"Mboyo - Algernon Mboyo - call me Algy!"

"Oh! The Director of the Rural Development Agency - and my boss! Glad to meet you, Sir! I'd get out of some of those clothes if I were you. You look as if you might have a stroke at any minute!"

The gentleman roared with laughter and it was a very infectious sound.

"When you've lived in a place all your life except for a few years being educated in your sub-Arctic country, a bit of heat like this is nothing! Mind you, my dear - I take you point!"

With this he loosened his tie and removed his jacket, much to the relief of a concerned Harriet. He then explained the nature of his visit.

"I have been getting excellent reports of you from your superiors in the agency and I thought that maybe all work and no play might be a bad thing even for such a tirelss worker as you. I would like to show you a few of the sights in our humble capital city and introduce you to a few friends and colleagues. I think it might be very useful indeed if we could talk over a few things in the more relaxed atmosphere of our metropolis!"

Harriet agreed to this, somewhat uncertainly and a few hours later, showered, dressed and presentable for the first time in weeks she was being treated to dinner in the capital's best hotel by Mr Mboyo and a couple of his colleagues. They seemed to see it as their duty to fill her in on many details of the country's political situation that she had previously not either interested in or aware of.

It seemed that large areas of the country, particularly in the North were no longer under the control of the central government, whose leadership were too complacent and fatalistic to do anything effective about it.

Algy and his friends seemed to have formed themselves into a kind of ginger group aimed at stiffening the resolve of the government - an amiable, mildly corrupt and largely ineffectual bunch - before the country fell totally into the hands of a very ruthless bunch of people indeed.

Harriet found the conversation fascinating and had to admit that the chance to relax in highly intelligent company was a welcome change after long weeks of work, with only Bernard, a man she had little in common with, to talk to. In the months ahead she was to have many more such converstions with members of Algy's circle and was delighted when, one by one, they began to rise to high posts and replace the dead wood above them. It really seemed to her that there might be some future now that such energetic and talented people were taking over.

It was also a revelation to her to be told of the quite horrible things these rebels were routinely in the habit of doing as a way of imposing themselves on the people. She had previously felt some sympathy with them, as a Champagne Socialist herself. Algy introduced her over the remaining months of her stay to many unfortunates who had suffered terribly at rebel hands and any sympathy she might once have had for a Leftist uprising disappeared, to be replaced by total loathing and utter contempt.

For the rest of her period of voluntary overseas service Harriet spent her weekdays working nude under the hot sun, becoming ever stronger and looking ever more formidable, and the weekends in air-conditioned luxury, being caught up in a whirl of social activity.

The infrastructure she had had so much part in installing had transformed the life of one small corner of the world and this made her very happy indeed. She formed many friendships with the people of the village, despite the language problems.

Bernard came to the end of his contract after seven months of her stay and she found herself in turn occupying his little office, not that she spent anything like as much time in it as he had done. She was keen to the end on spending as many hours as possible at work - real work, that is! Even so, more and more of her time was taken up with the administrative chores that she loathed and which were the last thing she had had in mind when volunteering for this project.

Algy several times suggested that they might take their friendship further than the occasional chaste kiss, but Harriet resisted the by no means unwelcome advances of this very handsome and delightful man, and with resignation and good grace, he soon realised he was fighting a lost cause. Harry had no wish to prolong her time here or form any lasting commitments and, in any event, she remembered a man she had slept with once, over a year ago, and that memory made other men seem very inferior by comparison, however much more estimable and respectable they might be.

The news in early Spring, that Gwendoline had given birth to an eight pound baby boy, called James after his father, was even more of an incentive to return. Gwen had sent a picture of him - numerous pictures - in fact, more arrived with every post! - and Harry could not wait to hold this dear little creature in her arms - to say nothing of what she wanted to do with his mother when she had HER in her arms!

As she had told herself all those months ago - a year is soon over. After a round of affectionate and hectic farewells, her cases were packed and she was ready to leave on next day's afternoon flight. She booked herself into the capital's most luxurious hotel - its only luxurious hotel, to be honest! - for her last night in Africa. On an impulse, she decided to fill in her last day by taking a local bus up to the Wallace Falls for one final bit of sight-seeing.

Harriet had arranged a farewell dinner with Algy and some of his friends and associates for her last evening. She phoned Algy to tell him that she would call for him at eight. He, an increasingly important figure, had been at a meeting relating to the security situation, and so she left a message with his secretary. When Algy came back to the office a couple of hours later, Harriet was already on the bus and well on her way to the Falls.

Harriet leant back in her seat and relaxed, looking at the wonderful panorama as the rackety old bus climbed ever higher into the mountains and turn after turn in the road displayed to her gaze more and more wonderful vistas. She could see eagles circling overhead and the air became cooler and clearer as the altitude increased.

Finally, the falls were reached and the passengers disembarked. Some wandered off to their homes and those who were tourists like her walked up to see the falls, that majestic miracle of nature. Harry decided that she had seen enough of the Wallace Falls from a distance and elected to have a swim in a mountain lake, beside which the bus was parked. She watched the other passengers disappear into the distance and, shedding all her clothes, plunged into the lake's limpid waters, glorying in her first taste of really cold water for over a year. Knowing she would have plenty of time before the others returned and the bus was due to leave, she swam to the very end of this magical stretch of water and lay for a while on her back, looking up at the wonderful blue sky and thinking happily that soon it would be the gentler blue of an English sky that her eyes would be resting upon. How she longed to be home again! And also - bliss!- she would once again be gazing into the clear blue of her darling Gwendoline's mischievous laughing eyes!

Meanwhile, Algy had just returned to his office after a long and urgent meeting. He looked at Harriet's message and his heart turned to ice. He phoned her room, getting no reply, and a messenger was immediately despatched to her hotel with a "Most Urgent" message. It read "On no account - Repeat NO ACCOUNT go on this trip! That area is no longer secure and any Europeans there would be in grave danger. PLEASE, my dear Harry, DON'T GO!" But he knew his warning had been sent too late, and that the stable doors were being locked long after the horse had bolted. He sat down behind his desk, buried his face in his hands, and wept. He felt certain he would never see his young friend again.

Harriet swam back to the shore and saw that the bus was surrounded by a group of armed men who were pointing their guns at her and motioning her to come out of the lake. Realising that she would be an easy target, she obeyed and climbed out of the water, seeing with horror, that the other passengers had all been killed and their bodies piled inside the bus.

She reached down to pick up her clothes, but these were seized from her hands and thrown into the bus. They set light to the vehicle and pushed in down the steep ravine into the river below. Charred fragments, including a page from her passport, were later to be found in the wreckage. The absence of a body was attributed to its having been thrown out of the bus and washed downstream and lost - as had happened to several other passengers.

As she stood before this group of armed thugs, she realised, all too well that, she was in the hands of the rebel movement, of whose enormities she had been told so much in the last few months. She was sure her last hour had come - a hail of bullets awaited as the men raised their weapons and prepared to fire.

They lowered their guns in response to a command from one who appeared to be their leader. This ill-favoured gentleman, an obese creature, who looked rather incongruous in such a gathering of lean and mean desperadoes, waddled down to the water's edge and placed his hands on Harriet's quivering body, assessing her physical strength as had Bernard James nearly one year ago. His appraisal did not turn her on as had Bernard's - this foul-smelling lump of lard made her flesh creep.

She was forced to go down on one knee, and the chuckling leader straddled her shoulders. He gave an unintelligible command and the surrounding gang indicated that Harriet should stand up. With this weight on her shoulders, it was not easy, but she struggled to her feet and the gangleader was sitting on her shoulders, laughing wheezily. The other gang members laughed at her herculean efforts to raise their leader, but fell silent when she finally succeeded - they saw that she was a strong girl and could perhaps be useful.