Maybe more so.
They had to wait hours past the end of the storm before the river was clear enough to risk rafting again.
That night they took turns once again standing watch.
They stayed on the river each night if no rapids threatened, trying to gain time, but dragged the raft onto the banks until dawn if the river was too rough to navigate in the dark. Tonight they’d come ashore rather than risk a treacherous stretch of white water visible just ahead in the fading twilight. That night, Margo spent a lot of time whimpering deep in her throat, glad the roar of white water drowned out the sound of her terror.
So call me Katherine Hepburn and marry me of to Humphrey Bogart ….
Margo would have settled for Malcolm Moore’s strong arms in a flash. She missed him desperately, particularly at night like this when the screams of hunting leopards and dying animals drifted on the wind like clouds of enveloping mosquitoes. Every time she heard another wild scream on the night air she wanted to grab her rifle, but tonight Margo was so tired she could scarcely pick up the M-1 carbine.
I’m sorry, Malcolm, she found herself thinking again and again, I was rotten and selfish and I didn’t mean it ….
Another drenching summer storm broke over them near midnight, jolting Margo from fitful sleep. Kynan stood watch, a ghostly figure in the flash and flare of African lightning. Koot van Beek, bedded down in his sleeping bag, stirred briefly then went back to sleep.
How could anyone sleep through this?
Lightning screamed through the clouds, slashed downward into trees and the river, dancing and splashing insanely across jagged, arc-lit boulders. Margo was too tired to flinch every time it struck, but fear jolted her with every bolt, nonetheless. Don’t let it strike us ….