It was scarcely seven o’clock when Franklin woke up, and far from fully light outside. Wynwood was snoring contentedly in the other bed. Franklin turned over and tried to get back to sleep, but the dawn chorus of birds in the Palace grounds was even louder than Wynwood.
Make the most of it, a voice inside his head told him. He would probably only be in Africa for a few days.
By the time he had bathed, dressed and got himself downstairs, the new day had established itself. There was only a single uniformed guard beside the doors in the wide entrance hall. One of the benefits of a coup like this one, Franklin guessed, was that you knew where your enemies were. For a while, anyway.
The guard smiled at him but said nothing. Franklin walked out into the morning, and shielded his eyes against the sun piercing through the trees almost directly ahead of him. Where should he walk to? Did it really matter?
He strolled down the drive to the gates, where two Field Force men did bother to examine his authorization before offering friendly smiles. He asked them which way to the centre of town, was pointed in a vaguely southerly direction, and set off.
The hospital where Sibou worked already seemed open for business, and he thought of dropping in to see her as she had suggested, but on reflection decided that this probably was not the ideal time. He kept going, turning left onto Independence Drive and walking past a small building which claimed to house the National Museum and a medium-sized Christian church proclaiming itself a cathedral. Several people were on the street already, either just walking to work or busying themselves outside their premises on the other side of the street. It felt more normal than the day before, less like a ghost town.
For the first time that morning he let himself think about the man he had killed the night before. The man who was now rotting in the Atlantic surf. He had had no choice. None at all. Saying it, he felt like a character in a Western, but it really had been a case of ‘him or me’.
He found himself wondering if the man had a wife or children, and then stood there for a moment, unclenching his fists, telling himself that he was being stupid. This was the sort of thing that happened in wars and revolutions. The dead man had put his own life on the line the moment he picked up the Kalashnikov.
Franklin sighed, and became aware of the world around him again. Two boys, neither of whom could have been more than six years old, were staring at him.
‘Have you got a pen?’ one of them asked.
Franklin’s hand went automatically to his pocket, although he knew he did not have one. ‘Sorry, no,’ he said. ‘What did you want to write?’
The child who had asked looked up at him as if he was mad. ‘For school,’ he said. ‘A pen?’
Franklin held out his arms to indicate he had none.
‘Give me something,’ the other child asked.
The only thing Franklin had was money, and that only in notes that were worth a pound or more each. Why not, he thought. It was Her Majesty’s money; or Jawara’s – he was not sure which. He gave them both a note, and watched their faces go through a bewildering range of expressions, of which disbelief, contempt and joy seemed the most dominant.
They did not stop around for him to change his mind. He watched them hurry back across the street and into the grassy area beyond, both clutching their notes for dear life. For all he knew he had launched two children on a lifelong career as beggars. Or maybe he had given their families food for a week. Who knew? Maybe the doctor could tell him.
He retraced his steps, walking slowly to savour the strange sights and sounds, and purchased a bag of what looked like pastries from a roadside vendor. Back at the Palace he found that Caskey and Wynwood were no longer in their suite. The guard in the entrance hall pointed him towards a plain door underneath the palatial stairs, from which a narrower staircase led down to the staff quarters.
He was standing at the bottom, wondering which way to go, when the sound of Wynwood’s laugh provided him with the necessary directions. Three rooms down he found the Welshman and Major Caskey sitting on one side of a huge wooden table, talking with a large African woman in a gorgeous blue and white robe.
‘Coffee?’ she asked Franklin.
He nodded and produced his pastries.
‘I think he’ll do,’ Wynwood said to Caskey.
‘He brought the buns,’ Caskey admitted, ‘but it was us who found the coffee.’
‘True.’
‘The Morecambe and Wise of the SAS,’ Franklin said, sitting down. ‘I can hardly see the join,’ he added, staring at Wynwood’s hairline.
‘This hair has been in my family for generations,’ Wynwood said indignantly.
‘Who was the last owner to comb it?’ Caskey asked with interest.
Wynwood spluttered into his coffee.
‘You are supposed to drink it,’ the African woman told him sternly, as she placed a steaming cup in front of Franklin.
‘To business,’ Caskey said, once she had gone. ‘The first thing to say is that we don’t seem to have received our invitations to the Senegalese Embassy. I have a feeling this is one of those parties we’re going to have to crash.’ He smiled. ‘Fortunately, it may also be one of those where the host will be too embarrassed to throw us out once we’ve got our feet inside the front door. So I suggest we just turn up at the Embassy in …’ – he looked at his watch – ‘in an hour or so. Sound OK?’
‘We all like parties, boss,’ Wynwood said.
‘Right. The next question is deciding what we want from the Senegalese. I did some thinking last night, while we were coming back from our stroll, and it seems to me that one of our squadrons could wrap this all up in an hour or so.’
The other two tried not to eye him too warily. Both troopers knew that Caskey had a reputation for taking big risks. Usually with considerable success.
‘We don’t have a squadron with us, boss,’ Franklin observed.
‘No, so we’ll have to create one on the spot. Look, the route we took last night – it seems to me that there’s no reason why sixty men couldn’t arrive opposite that depot the same way we did. And if they kept going straight through the gates, then, provided we knew exactly where the hostages were, we could have them out of there while most of the bad guys were still wondering what woke them up.’
‘Where do we get sixty men, boss?’
‘We borrow them from the Senegalese.’
Wynwood and Franklin both looked doubtful. ‘They’re not …’ Wynwood started to say.
Caskey had anticipated the objection. ‘We’d have to give them a rush training course,’ he admitted, ‘but they are professional soldiers. A few hours’ instruction from ours truly, and …’ He shrugged. ‘We’re not dealing with a professional enemy here. Think about it.’
The other two did just that. Caskey was the one with the experience, and he was probably right. There was no doubt his plan went to the heart of the matter.
‘Will the Senegalese buy it?’ Wynwood wondered out loud.
‘Will Jawara?’ Franklin asked. ‘It’s his family that’s under the gun.’
‘Let’s ask them,’ Caskey suggested.
It turned out that a meeting was scheduled for ten a.m., though whether they would have received any notification of it before the afternoon remained a moot point. As it was, the SAS men’s arrival could have been taken as evidence of their possessing a thought-reading capability.
But if General N’Dor was surprised to see them he did not show it. He introduced the SAS men to his second in command, Colonel Aboubakar Ka. The younger man seemed happier to see the British soldiers, offering his hand to each of them with a wide smile. ‘I have heard much about your Regiment,’ he told Caskey.
Five minutes later Jawara’s Vice-President arrived, and the meeting got under way. Colonel Ka confirmed that there had been no substantial change in the overnight situation, and the General then asked Caskey for any thoughts he might have.
‘We have come up with a possible course of action,’ Caskey said. He recounted the story of their reconnaissance mission the previous night, notably omitting any mention of their unexpected encounters on the beach, and then went through the plan he had already outlined to Wynwood and Franklin.
General N’Dor’s face remained mask-like throughout, but Colonel Ka’s seemed torn between enthusiasm and something less sympathetic. The Vice-President showed no sign that he was even listening.
‘Let me understand this,’ N’Dor said in his awkward English, and then aimed several sentences in French at Ka, who replied in kind. ‘You wish to train sixty of my soldiers?’
Caskey was nodding, but Franklin saw what had happened, and jumped in. ‘We wish to give them special training for this special operation,’ he said.
The General looked at Ka, who again told him something in French. This seemed to mollify N’Dor somewhat.
Caskey had also caught on. ‘This is not a comment on your troops, General. If they were regular British soldiers we would still want to give them special instruction for an operation like this.’
‘Alors,’ N’Dor said. ‘Good.’ He looked at them for a moment, then at the table, then at Ka. ‘I think there is no problem with this,’ he said at last. ‘But you understand, the negotiations are Number One. If they fail, or if there is no progress for many days, then we will consider the action you suggest.’ He turned to the Vice-President. ‘This is acceptable?’ he asked.
‘The President does not want any action taken which will unnecessarily put the hostages at risk,’ he said, as if reciting a line he had learned off by heart.
It was what N’Dor wanted to hear, at least in so far as the three Englishmen were concerned. If anyone was going to take decisive action he wanted it to be his own men, led by his own officers.
He looked at his watch. ‘I shall be talking to the terrorist leader in ten minutes,’ he said. ‘He may have something new to offer.’
In the Field Force depot’s command room Jabang was receiving a report from Taal.
‘They made no attempt to advance during the night,’ Taal said. ‘And there is no sign of any this morning.’
Jabang’s eyes lit up. ‘Stalemate,’ he said contentedly. ‘So.’ He got up and started pacing to and fro across the bare wooden floor. ‘Do we try and force them back?’
‘Not unless you want to start killing the prisoners,’ Taal said.
‘Not unless I have to,’ Jabang muttered, as if to himself. ‘So what do I tell this General? And how do we know that Jawara will accept any deal the Senegalese make?’
Taal shrugged. ‘We get him to make a public announcement. And we’ve already agreed what to ask them for …’
‘No deadline?’ Jabang asked.
‘No.’
‘OK.’ He took a deep breath and picked up the phone. ‘Get me the number now,’ he told their man at the Bakau exchange.
It rang almost immediately – once, twice, three times. Jabang was beginning to think the idiot had got him a wrong number when someone at the other end answered, and the gruff tones of General N’Dor barked ‘yes!?’ in Wollof – ‘waaw!?’
’Jamanga fanaan, General,’ Jabang said.
‘Good morning,’ N’Dor echoed, with an equal lack of sincerity.
‘I would like to commend you on moving your troops back as we requested,’ Jabang said.
N’Dor said nothing.
‘Let me be completely honest with you, General,’ Jabang continued. ‘Our coup has failed. Not because the people of The Gambia wanted it to fail, but because the leader they do not want had already arranged to have a foreign army on hand to put him back in power. I …’
‘I am not interested in political speeches,’ N’Dor interrupted him.
‘Of course not,’ Jabang agreed sardonically. ‘What soldier can afford to be? The point I am making is that we are realists here, not starry-eyed idealists who wish to die in a blaze of glory. We accept that this time we have failed.’
‘We can agree on that much.’
Jabang ignored the sarcasm. ‘We would like transport for three hundred men,’ he said. ‘However many planes that requires. And of course free passage to the airport. If this is arranged then we will release all the hostages – with the exception of Lady Jawara and the wife of the Senegalese envoy – at the airport. Lady Jawara and Madame Diop will be released when we reach our destination.’
‘Which is?’
‘That has not yet been finalized. But the planes must carry enough fuel for a four-thousand-mile journey.’
Cuba rather than Libya, N’Dor thought. ‘Is that all?’ he asked.
‘That is all,’ Jabang agreed.
‘Then I will pass on your demands to my government, and to the government of The Gambia. I would guess they will have decided their reply by this time tomorrow.’
Jabang said nothing for a moment, wondering whether to challenge the length of time. No, he decided. ‘We shall be waiting,’ he said, but could not resist adding: ‘and the hostages too.’
There was a click at the other end as N’Dor hung up.
‘When?’ Taal wanted to know.
‘This time tomorrow. Do you think they will buy it, Junaidi? Surely the man wants his children alive more than he wants us dead?’
Taal shook his head. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I don’t know.’
Some six miles to the west N’Dor was recounting the conversation to Ka, the Vice-President and the three SAS men. Caskey had originally asked if he could listen in on the other line, so as to get some idea of what sort of man they were dealing with, but N’Dor had refused, ostensibly because there was no point in an Englishman listening in to a conversation in Wollof.
‘There were no new threats?’ Caskey asked.
‘They still threaten to kill the hostages,’ N’Dor said.
‘But there are no new deadlines?’
‘No.’
‘And no deadline for providing them with their planes?’
‘No.’
‘They are bluffing,’ Caskey said.
‘Why do you say so?’ Ka wanted to know.
‘If they had any intention of really killing the hostages then they would be tying themselves to deadlines, and killing one each time we failed to deliver. They are deliberately not putting themselves into a corner where they have to kill somebody. Because they don’t want to.’
‘You are not suggesting these are model citizens?’ Ka asked with a smile, translating his remark into French for the General.
‘Of course not. They may have just worked out that a dead hostage is no use to anyone, including them. As long as they don’t do anything too barbaric,’ he went on, ‘they are giving us the chance to say – well, they’re not so bad, why not let them go?’
‘You may be right,’ N’Dor interjected. ‘And if you are, then it seems less risky for the hostages to continue the negotiation, n’est-ce pas? If we follow your plan to attack the depot they may start killing in the panic.’
‘I think we could have the hostages safe before there was any chance of that,’ Caskey insisted.
‘Maybe,’ N’Dor said in a tone that implied the opposite. He stood up to indicate the meeting was over. ‘Colonel Ka will give you the men you need for this special training,’ he said. ‘Pour I‘éventualité. But I do not think we will need this operation.’
An hour later four lorries containing sixty-four Senegalese troops rolled up outside the Victoria Sports Ground, which Caskey had chosen as the only available piece of open ground in the immediate neighbourhood. While waiting for the Senegalese to arrive, however, he had become more aware of its primary disadvantage – openness to the public eye. Too many people seemed to be hanging around its edges wondering what the Englishmen were doing.
‘You’re a runner, Frankie,’ Caskey said as the Senegalese disembarked. ‘How about taking this lot for a run while Joss and I find somewhere more private for the training? We need some idea of how fit they are.’
‘OK, boss. A couple of miles enough?’
‘Perfect. Take them on a tour of sunny Banjul.’
Caskey gathered together the NCOs, explained what was happening, and handed them over to Franklin. He led them off at a jogging pace, down Leman Street towards the centre of the town. The streets still seemed half-deserted, but those Gambians who were up and about all stopped to stare at the sight of a man in civilian clothes leading sixty-four African soldiers down the middle of the road.
He took them down about three-quarters of a mile, cut through to the river, and led them back up Wellington Street. Several men were breathing pretty heavily, but it was a hot and humid morning. No one had collapsed with exhaustion or fallen far behind. They were fitter than Franklin had expected.
Back at the Sports Ground, Caskey had disappeared and Wynwood was busy loading two tins of paint, one red and one orange, into the cab of one of the lorries. ‘Let’s get them all aboard,’ he told Franklin. ‘It’s prison for them,’ he added with a straight face.
Caskey returned, and they set off in convoy for Banjul Prison, which he had managed to borrow from the authorities for their training ground. On the way he explained what he had in mind. ‘This has to be a belt-and-braces op,’ he began, ‘because that’s about all we’ve got. Guns and half a dozen stun grenades. We didn’t bring anything fancy with us, and there’s sod-all chance of finding anything around here. So … that’s the bad news. The good news is that the enemy is probably no better off. We’re not likely to be worrying about remote detonations or anything like that. It’ll just be in and at ’em.’ He paused for breath. ‘Now as you two youngsters probably know, the most likely way to get shot in these situations is by your own side. And that goes for the hostages too – they’re more likely to get shot by one of their rescuers than they are by the terrorists. So what we need to do with this lot is just concentrate on making them aware of what they should be shooting at and how. With the aid of those tins of paint we can turn one of the cell blocks here into a rough copy of the Killing House back home. No fancy mirrors of course, and no live targets either, but it should give them an idea. OK?’
‘Yes, boss,’ the other two said in unison. Both were secretly impressed.
They arrived at the prison, met and overcame the warden’s expected resistance to their plans – ‘but who will pay to have the cells redecorated?’ – temporarily transferred the two murderers to the female wing, and lined up the Senegalese for Caskey to explain the morning’s activities. He had to do this twice, since none of the Senegalese admitted to not understanding his French until after he had finished. The second time round one of the NCOs translated, although exactly how well no one was sure.
In the meantime Franklin and Wynwood had been busy painting figure outlines on cell walls in both red and orange, the idea being that the red ones represented the enemy, while the orange ones stood for the hostages. The Senegalese would be expected to fire bullets into the trunk of each rebel without injuring any of their captives. Since the two colours were not that dissimilar, particularly in light conditions which varied from cell to cell, it would not be an easy task.
The Senegalese seemed to enjoy it though, and by the afternoon had shown a substantial improvement. The morning’s training had decimated the hostages, but in the session after lunch – which arrived by Senegalese mess lorry, and which proved considerably less tasty than the meals-on-wheels Wynwood’s grandmother received – only two were killed.
Shortly after lunch the architectural plans Caskey had been waiting for arrived by motorcycle, and he used one cell wall and the remainder of the paint to copy out a large diagram of the Field Force depot layout. Through the afternoon groups of Senegalese were brought in to familiarize themselves with the basic layout, so that when more detailed information became available it would be easier to assimilate.
By five o’clock Caskey was well satisfied with the day’s work. He reckoned that these men were capable of doing the job that was required of them, and was pleased to find that both Wynwood and Franklin agreed with him. The problem, he already knew, would be persuading General N’Dor to let them try.
Night had almost fallen by the time Franklin had washed all the dust out of his body and hair. He stood at the palace window rubbing himself with a large towel, watching the last vestiges of the tropical sunset being consumed by the darkness. Having put on his last set of clean clothes, he looked around the bathroom for something to wash the others with, thinking that in a palace there should be someone to do the laundry for him. ‘And just who did you have in mind, boy?’ he could hear his mother say.
He smiled to himself and used the hand soap to wash out some underwear, socks and a T-shirt.
Caskey had gone off to fill in McGrath on the day’s events, and God only knew what the two of them would be getting up to. Franklin would not put it past them to invade Senegal, replace the Government, and have the new lot recall N’Dor, just so they could lead the charge on the Field Force depot.
And why not? Franklin asked himself.
As for Wynwood, he had gone off to the Atlantic Hotel to try and ring his wife. An exercise which would probably take up all of his evening and half the night.
Franklin rinsed out the washed clothes, hung them on the shower rail and went back to the window, wondering what to do. Who was he kidding? He had spoken to only two other people in The Gambia, and he had no desire to drop in on General N’Dor. Still, the thought of visiting the doctor made him unusually nervous.
She probably would not be there, he decided, as he walked out through the palace gates and across the road to the hospital entrance. But she was, and even flashed him a quick smile over the heads of the half-dozen or so patients waiting for her attention. He settled down in the reception area to wait – something for which the Army had trained him well.
After about fifteen minutes she suddenly appeared at his shoulder, and sat down beside him, smelling faintly of disinfectant. ‘I can’t talk for more than a moment,’ she said. ‘We seem to be having a busy evening, though …’
‘Can I help at all?’ he asked.
She gave him a doubtful glance.
‘We each have an area of expertise,’ he said. ‘Mine’s medicine. I mean, I’m not a doctor, or anything, but I can do basic tasks …’
‘I never turn down offers of help,’ she said. ‘If you’re sure …?
‘A soldier’s life is nine-tenths boredom,’ he said. ‘I’d be happy to.’
‘You can read vital signs?’
‘Yep.’
‘Then follow me.’
For the next two hours he took temperatures, read pulses and checked blood pressures on all the new arrivals, and when required helped with the application of dressings. Most of the patients had the sort of complaints that a GP might have dealt with in England, but there were also several real emergency cases, like a woman who had just bloodily miscarried and a man who seemed to have had a mild stroke. The only evidence of the political emergency still in progress came from a man with a three-day-old bullet wound that had become infected.
While he worked Franklin observed the way Sibou dealt with the patients, watched her rummage for drugs in an impossibly disorganized cupboard, and listened in on her end of conversations with other parts of the hospital. One of the latter would long stick in his mind: she was saying that yes, she knew there were no beds available, but that this new patient – the woman who had miscarried – had to have one, and that so-and-so, who was going to be released on the following day in any case, would just to have to spend the night in ‘the chair with arms’.
It was gone nine o’clock when the last patient had been dealt with, and the concertina door pulled shut.
‘What happens between now and morning?’ Franklin asked. ‘If there’s an emergency?’
‘You mean, if an ambulance brings someone in from one of the villages?’ she asked.
‘Yes … oh, I see what you mean.’
‘If someone rich cuts his finger off by accident then he takes a taxi to his private doctor. He’d never use this hospital anyway. And in a country with no ambulances and not many telephones someone poor who can manage to get himself to this hospital in the middle of the night either lives just round the corner or probably doesn’t need treatment that badly. There are people here who can deal with the exceptions, but it only happens about twice a year.’
‘Like the last few days.’
‘Fortunately we don’t have that many coups,’ she said, taking off her white coat and hanging it on the back of her office door. Underneath it she was wearing brightly tie-dyed African trousers and a dark-blue shirt.
‘I haven’t eaten,’ Franklin said. ‘Would you like …?’
‘I have my supper,’ she said, indicating a plastic box. But she did not feel like dispensing with his company, not for a while anyway. ‘I’ll share it with you,’ she said.
‘What, here?’
‘We can take it to the beach. It’s only a five-minute walk.’
It took even less. The moon had not yet risen, and the horizon between sea and sky was black meeting black. The only light came from the stars, with the Milky Way hanging directly above them like a dim but particularly beautiful fluorescent tube.
‘Do you often come out here?’ he asked, as they sat down side by side in the sand, facing in the direction of the dark sea.
‘In the daytime. I bring my lunch out here when I can. After dark it’s not so safe any more.’
‘Was it ever?’
‘Oh yes,’ she said, surprised that he should ask. She handed him something which was similar in size and consistency to a vegetable samosa. ‘This was an incredibly peaceful country until recently,’ she said. ‘There was hardly any crime at all.’
‘What changed it?’ Franklin asked between bites. Whatever it was, it tasted good.
‘Who knows? Most of the world seems to be going the same way. Maybe it’s just that more people are aware of what they haven’t got, and can see no good reason why other people have. I don’t know … Frankie is your name, isn’t it?’
‘That’s just a nickname. Worrell is my real name.’
‘Where do you come from, Worrell?’
‘Brixton. In south London.’
‘I know it. I was a medical student at Guy’s, near London Bridge.’ As she said it, she wondered what had made this man want to be a soldier. He seemed too gentle in some ways – in fact, if his work that evening was anything to go by, he would have made a fine doctor. She found herself wondering what his touch would be like, and scolded herself. This was just loneliness talking, a voice in her head said. Then let it talk, another replied.
He broke the silence. ‘I want to ask why you came back here,’ he said, ‘but I think I know the answer.’
‘You do?’ She flashed a challenging smile in the darkness.
‘You can do more good here.’
‘Maybe that’s part of it,’ she said. ‘Maybe a big part. I guess I’d like to think so. But it’s not everything. I am a Gambian, an African. This is my home. It may not be a very rich or rewarding home in some ways, but it still feels like one. And in any case we can’t all be born in London or Paris.’
‘I was born in Jamaica,’ Franklin said.
‘Do you want to go back there?’ she asked.
‘I left it when I was three. England is my home.’
‘You don’t sound very enthusiastic.’
‘You’ve lived there – you know what it’s like.’
‘You mean the racism? I guess I’ve forgotten. Or maybe I was lucky. Medical students live in a world of their own, and they come in all colours. What about the Army? You seem to get on all right with the others …’
‘I only just met them, but yes, the Army’s OK, most of the time. How long have you known Simon McGrath?’
‘A couple of months. He saved me from an attack. Do you know the story?’
‘No.’
‘I was in the hospital one evening, and this man came in with a knife. He came to steal drugs, but he was high on something and he made a spur-of-the-moment decision that he wanted me too.’ Her voice was almost playful, but Franklin could hear the tension beneath. ‘Well, he hit me a couple of times in the face, and started tearing off my clothes … there were patients watching, but he told them if they interfered he’d cut my throat. And he enjoyed the fact that they were watching. Simon came in at just the right moment, and simply took the knife away from the man. It was miraculous really. He just made it look so easy.’
‘What happened to the man?’
‘He was given five years in prison. But …’
‘Was he one of the men the rebels released?’
‘They released everyone, I think. Yes, he’s out there somewhere. And I can’t say it makes me feel very good,’ she added, grasping both arms around her knees and hugging herself.
He thought about putting an arm around her, but decided not to. ‘I’m not surprised,’ he murmured, and tried to think of another subject.
‘Shall we walk for a bit?’ she asked.
‘Yeah, why not.’
She led the way down to the water’s edge, and they walked along beside it in the direction of the Atlantic Hotel beach. The two boys from that morning came into his mind, and he told her the history of the entire encounter, right up to his over-generous donation. ‘I thought afterwards it was a bad thing to do, but …’
‘A pen is better,’ she said, but the look on her face seemed to say that he had done the right thing.
‘Do you have a boyfriend?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I …’
‘Could I kiss you?’ he asked suddenly, surprising even himself.
‘I don’t see why not,’ she said, and turned into his arms, laying both of hers across his shoulders and turning her face up to his. In the dim light her loveliness almost took his breath away, and as they kissed the absurd notion went through his mind that he had finally come home.
The kiss stretched out, feeding their mutual hunger for company, sex, love, each other. Franklin felt himself hardening, and for the first time since he was sixteen felt embarrassed by it. He tried to pull himself gently away, but she dropped her hands to his haunches and pulled him back.
And then they were kneeling in front of each other and removing their shirts, kissing some more, and finally sinking onto the sand and kicking their trousers away.