130 | John W. Warner IV matted hair out of her dirtier face that had swipes of crusty blood and turret grease caked with fine powdered Sahara. His hands shook as he cleaned. No! What? With dry eyes, she squinted in the angled sunlight, pulling at his brownish-blond briar patch beard, feeling his sore-laden cracked skin, her mind in disarray but flooding with irregular and unfamiliar delight at having met Peter once again, a specter from years past. He looked seventy-five years old if a day. Oldhubby? Peter., packing Younghusband? Captain Younghusband? Of the famed LDRG? Shitting hell in a dry well… He mashed her closer than was possible and she back. Gods, its a g-goddam desert miracle, youre.. .youre a state, just l-look at you! he breathed with great sudden emotion, tearing up, losing composure and pitching down his scarfed hat with a smack. His lungs heaved in and out, shaking her, no more the calm, cool commander his men had known for a year and a half of constant combat, death, thirst, and scalding-sun deprivation. On a whim and a heartbeat hed lost it, completely and utterly overwhelmed by the days events like a lost child finally reuniting with his parents in another lifeboat after a sinking had nearly taken their lives. In a cracked voice, shaking, he bellowed for all to hear: Of all the.. .people in this d-damn war…oh please, n-n-no… Bea could manage no better, emotions at hair trigger. She bawled her eyes out while he squeezed the life out of her, the tears cleansing. Gwafa smiled. Shocked and outgunned, Captain Whitehead tactfully eased off. Family reunion in the desert, chaps… He re-holstered his pistol and perched on a jutting ribbed tire. Shattering. Securing their guns, the men laughed a little, relieved beyond measure. Sometimes it just happened during the insanity of it all, lost brothers, family, or close friends reunited in the oddest and remotest of places, a chance tropical meeting of star- crossed and mismatched loved ones in a scorched-earth war zone so far from peaceful home and hearth that it seemed a miracle indeed, or so read a torn, sun-bleached, Tommy-handled magazine article or newspaper or book. But in person… At sunset, Bea and Gwafa sat with Peter near Takutas grave drinking hot powdered tea with a dash of standard-issue rum as the wind finally died down to a