She nodded and broke away from him. He went to get his tomatoes but as it worked out she didn't have a chance to share in his feast. An eight year old boy dressed in a pair of shorts and flip-flops came running in, out of breath, to tell her Fathia wanted her up at the perimeter wire. She went right away.
The boy lead her through the open-air souk of the encampment, a close space of stalls lined with broken cinderblocks where the elderly sorted through cans looking for signs of botulism or corruption. Alma, one of the women from Ayaan's unit, was washing her face in a pan full of sandy water from the communal well as Sarah hurried by. She looked up and then looked away again as if to pretend she hadn't seen Sarah at all.
There was no time to figure out what that meant. Sarah hurried down a long 'street' lined on both sides with semi-permanent tent homes. At the far end she found Fathia under a moth-eaten awning, leaning over a map of the surrounding territory. Other soldiers lay on the ground nearby in the shade of the palisade wall, trying to get some rest.
The boy who had brought Sarah to the new commander crawled under the map table and dug his fingers into the loose dirt. His eyes were very moist'had he been crying?
'I'm in command now, of course. I have some work to do before I can take the girls out again, though. I've got to rebuild the unit with half the soldiers I used to have,' Fathia said, as if she wanted Sarah's input. Sarah knew she did not. 'That's alright, we'll be faster. Smarter. I can't see a use for you in that structure so I'm restricting you to camp duties,' Fathia said, rinsing her mouth out with non-potable water and spitting on the ground. 'I hope that will be acceptable.'
She shoved her hands in her pockets. 'Actually' Ayaan always felt I should be out in the field, that that was where my talent was really useful.' Sarah's stomach rumbled with a bad presentiment. If she couldn't go out with the soldiers, her usefulness to Fathia would be distinctly curtailed. In the Egyptian encampment one rule had always held: the most useful people ate first. Those who couldn't do anything valuable, those who were seen as dead weight, went hungry.
She looked again at the boy under the table. She could count his ribs, but his belly stuck out like a swollen gourd. Had he been crying? It could help with the pangs of hunger. She remembered how it helped. He would have earned a bite of jelly, maybe, for running Fathia's message. He probably begged for the chance.
Fathia clucked her tongue and Sarah looked back at the soldier hurriedly, embarrassed she had broken eye contact even for a moment. 'Hmm. Yes, Ayaan did say that. Of course,' Fathia said, 'Ayaan is no longer here to make those kind of decisions. I hope you won't have trouble accepting my orders. I know that obedience isn't your strength.'
The only thing worse than being dead weight was being insubordinate. 'No, ma'am, that'll be no problem. You're the boss.'
'I suppose I am,' Fathia said, looking up in mock surprise. 'Well, let's put your' talent to some real use. I need warm bodies to stand extra watch tonight. That mixed group of dead and living we saw could be here as early as midnight. Let's put those magic eyes to use.'
It meant staying up all night, mercilessly pinching her legs every time she started to nod off. It meant being up in the wind and the sand and spitting out dust for days afterward. She didn't complain. It meant she wouldn't be dead weight, at least not for that day.