Читать книгу Looking for Aphrodite - David Price Williams - Страница 27

incidentally, whenever there was a high wind, which there was every three or four days or so, would fill up with sand blown in from around the Trireme Harbour. It got into every nook and cranny and made sleeping very uncomfortable if you had not swept and shaken everything out before you collapsed into bed.

Anyway this particular night there was a vocal protest from Harriet. One of these little scorpions had got into her sleeping bag some time during the previous day and finding that it couldn’t get out, had stung Harriet on the thigh.

“Oh my God,” screamed one of her tent mates, “Oh my God what are we going to do. Oh you poor thing!”

Others joined in and a full-scale, high-decibel chorus of “Oh my God” developed from the interior of the tent which, of course, woke everyone else up as well.

“No! No! Please don’t worry,” Harriet remonstrated, “Don’t let anyone worry. I’m perfectly alright.”

“Oh my God,” shrieked the girls from the next tent. “Oh Harriet are you OK?”

“Yes, yes! Please don’t concern yourselves. I am fine, really!”

“We should do something. Why can’t we do something? Someone do something. It’s just awful! Truly awful!”

A collective wailing, wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth developed among the troops, except for Harriet herself who lapsed into a stalwart silence the more the brouhaha grew. In the end everyone else except Harriet was genuinely distressed by this untoward turn of events until slowly the commotion subsided and we all went back to sleep.

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