They hadn't heard her car come up. The three men scrambled to their
feet.
"Good evening," Johnny McCord blurted.
"Hell ... o!" Derek breathed.
Pierre Marimbert was across the room, taking her in hand. "_Bonjour,
Mademoiselle. Que puis-je faire pour vous? Voulez-vous une biere bien
fraiche ou un apéritif? Il fait trés chaud dans le desert._" He led her
toward the table.
"Easy, easy there, Reuben," Derek grumbled. "The young lady speaks
English. Give a man a chance."
Johnny was placing a chair for her. "Paul Peterson, from Poste
Weygand, radioed that you were coming. You're a little late,
Mademoiselle Desage."
She was perhaps thirty, slim, long-legged, Parisian style. Even at
Bidon Cinq, half a world away from the Champs Elysées, she maintained
her chic.
She made a moue at Johnny, while taking the chair he held. "I had hoped
to surprise you, catch you off guard." She took in the sun-dried,
dour-faced American wood technologist appraisingly, then turned her
eyes in turn to Derek and Pierre.
"You three are out here all alone?" she said demurely.
"Desperately," Derek said.
Johnny McCord said, "Mademoiselle Hélène Desage, I am John McCord,
and these are my associates, Monsieur Pierre Marimbert and Mr. Derek
Mason. Gentlemen, Mademoiselle Desage is with _Paris Match_, the French
equivalent of _Life_, so I understand. In short, she is undoubtedly
here for a story. So ixnay on the ump-pays."
"I would love cold beer," Hélène Desage said to Pierre, and to Johnny
McCord, "These days a traveling reporter for _Paris Match_ must be
quite a linguist. My English, Spanish and Italian are excellent. My
German passable. And while I am not fluent in Pig-Latin, I can follow
it. What is this you are saying about the pumps?"
"Oh, Lord," Johnny said. "Perhaps I'll tell you in the morning. But for
now, would you like to clean up before supper? You must be exhausted
after that 260 kilometers from Poste Weygand."
Pierre said hurriedly, "I'll take Mademoiselle Desage over to one of
the guest bungalows."
"Zut!" she said. "The sand! It is even worse than between Reggan and
Poste Weygand. Do you realize that until I began coming across your new
forests I saw no life at all between these two posts?"
The three forestry experts bowed in unison, as though rehearsed.
"Mademoiselle," Derek, from the heart, "calling our transplant forests
is the kindest thing you could have said in these parts."
They all laughed and Pierre led her from the room.
Derek looked at Johnny McCord. "Wow, that was a slip mentioning the
pumps."
Johnny was looking through the door after her. "I suppose so," he
said sourly. "I'll have to radio the brass and find out the line
we're supposed to take with her. That's the biggest magazine in the
French-speaking world and you don't get a job on it without knowing the
journalistic ropes. That girl can probably smell a story as far as a
Tuareg can smell water."
"Well, then undoubtedly she's already sniffing. Because, between that
clan of Tuareg with its flocks and the pump saboteurs, we've got more
stories around here than I ever expected!"