Looking around her Harriet could see that many women around here were bare-breasted and on the fifth day she appeared in the morning bare-breasted herself to Bernard's horror, but with no discernible adverse reaction fom the locals, be they men or women.  Even this shedding of her hated clothing was insufficient in extent and she began to  prepare herself for the time when even her shorts and panties would go the way of her other garments.  This last step would leave her in a  unique position. even out here only the very young children ere totally unclothed.   She wondered what the reaction might be and bode her time for a couple of weeks, by turns deciding to make the final move after screwing up her courage  and then drawing back at the last moment.

Her opportunity finally came when she was sent miles outside the village to dig a section of the drainage system all by herself.  A few hours went by and she took a break, being thirsty and hungry,  drinking from her bottle of water and eating a piece of bread.  Before resuming,  she removed her remaining garments and threw them from her as hard as she could into the,  for the lions to find - for all she knew or cared.  The remainder of the day was sheer bliss and she returned, dusty and sweating to the village, having excavated,  laid and covered in,   fifty yards of pipes - a stupendous effort on her part, even for her,  and not to be repeated for the rest of here time there.

The reaction was seeming  indifference from the men and towering rage from an apopleptic Bernard.  Harriet said if  a vote among the villagers went in favour, she would resume her clothed state, otherwise he, Bernard could and go and  fuck himself.   The vote went in favour of Harriet.  It was felt that she did more work than any man and had earned the right to indulge her unusual tastes.  Bernard accepted the situation and was forced privately to admit that the excellent progress they were making owed much to Harriet's tireless efforts. Perhaps she could be indulged her unseemly behaviour for the time being.

She mentioned this in her next letter, to Gwendoline hoping that it might cheer her up.  That young lady's letters so far had been brave efforts to sound happy, but there was always an unmistakable underlying sadness, which caused the ever more satisfied Harriet to feel rather guilty.  As Gwen's pregnancy took its course, her tone was to become much happier, but this was still in the furture.

Some weeks after her first day of nudity, by which time she was accepted in this state by all, including an increasingly friendly and appreciative Bernard , she was working some way out of the village digging out a pit for the village's refuse to be buried, when she was startled by a hand on her shoulder.

"Good morning, Lady Harriet - what a privilege to see this prodigious labourer in our vineyard  in all her awesome glory!"

She turned to look at the owner of this cultivated Public School accent and found herself staring into the eyes of a handsome tall youngish black man who looked extremely incongruous in a smart Western style suit, inside which he must have been sweltering.  It was a hot day - like a burning fiery furnace.

She wiped the sweat from her brow and climbed out of the pit she had been digging.

"Hi!  You have the advantage of me!  I don't think I've had the pleasure."

"Mboyo - Algernon Mboyo - call me Algy!"

"Oh!  The Director of the Rural Development Agency - and my boss!   Glad to meet you, Sir!   I'd get out of some of those clothes if I were you.  You look as if you might have a stroke at any minute!"

The gentleman roared with laughter and it was a very infectious sound.

"When you've lived in a place all your life except for a few years being educated in your sub-Arctic country, a bit of heat like this  is nothing!  Mind you, my dear - I take you point!"

With this he loosened his tie and removed his jacket, much to the relief of a concerned Harriet.  He then explained the nature of his visit.

"I have been getting excellent reports of you from your superiors in the agency and I thought that maybe all work and no play might be a bad thing even for such a tirelss worker as you.  I would like to show you a few of the sights in our humble capital city and introduce you to a few friends and colleagues.  I think it might be very useful indeed if we could talk over a few things in the more relaxed atmosphere of our metropolis!"

Harriet agreed to this, somewhat uncertainly and a few hours later,  showered, dressed and presentable for the first time in weeks she was being treated to dinner in the capital's best hotel by Mr Mboyo and a couple of his colleagues.  They seemed to see it as their duty to fill her in on many details of the country's political situation that she had previously not either interested in or aware of.

It seemed that large areas of the country, particularly in the North were no longer under the control of the central government, whose leadership were too complacent and fatalistic to do anything effective about it.

Algy and his friends seemed to have formed themselves into a kind of ginger group aimed at stiffening the resolve of the government - an amiable, mildly corrupt and largely ineffectual bunch - before the country fell totally into the hands of a very ruthless bunch of people indeed.

Harriet found the conversation fascinating and had to admit that the chance to relax in highly intelligent company was a welcome change after long weeks of work, with only Bernard, a man she had little in common with, to talk to.  In the months ahead she was to have many more such converstions with members of Algy's circle and was delighted when ,one by one,  they began to rise to high posts and replace the dead wood above them.  It really seemed to her that there might be some future now that such energetic and talented people were taking over.

It was also a revelation to her to be told of the quite horrible things these rebels were routinely in the habit of doing as a way of imposing themselves on the people. She had previously felt some sympathy with them, as a Champagne Socialist herself.   Algy introduced her over the remaining months of her stay to many unfortunates who had suffered terribly at rebel hands and any sympathy she might once have had for a Leftist uprising disappeared, to be replaced by total loathing and utter contempt.