"Say the correct thing."
"He wants your a.s.surance that the female agent provocateur and the two white brigands in the Harari camp are delivered to him for justice as soon as they are captured."
"There is no reason against this?"
"Indeed, it will save us trouble and embarra.s.sment."
"What will he do with them they are responsible for the torture and ma.s.sacre of some of my brave lads?" The Count was recovering his confidence, and the sense of outrage returned to him.
"I have eye-witness accounts of the terrible atrocities committed on helpless prisoners of war.
The wanton shooting of bound prisoners justice must be done.
They must meet retribution." The agent grinned without mirth. "I a.s.sure you, my dear Count, that in the hands of Ras Kullah they will meet a fate far more terrible than you would imagine in your worst nightmares," and he turned back to the Ras and said in Amharic, "You have our word on it. They are yours to do with as you see fit." The Ras smiled, like a fat golden cat, and the tip of his tongue ran across his swollen purple lips, from one corner of his mouth to the other.
By this time, the Count had recovered his breath, and realized that contrary to all his expectations the Ras was friendly and that he was not in imminent danger of having his throat slit and his personal parts forcibly removed, the Count regained much of his aplomb.
"Tell the Ras that I want from him, in exchange, a full account of the enemy"s strength the number of men, guns and armoured vehicles that are guarding the approaches to the gorge. I want to know the enemy"s order of battle, the exact location of all his earthworks and strong points and particularly I want to be informed of the positions occupied by the Ras"s own Gallas at the present time. I want also the names and ranks of all foreigners serving with the enemy-" He went on ticking off the points one at a time on his fingers, and the Ras listened with growing awe. Here was a warrior, indeed.
We have to bait the trap, said Gareth Swales.
He and Jake Barton squatted side by side in the shade cast by the hull of Priscilla the Pig.
Gareth had a short length of twig in his right hand, and he had been using it to draw out his strategy for receiving the renewed thrust by the Italians.
"It"s no good sending hors.e.m.e.n. It worked once, it"s not going to work again." Jake said nothing, but frowned heavily at the complicated designs that Gareth had traced on the sandy earth.
"We have conditioned the tank commander. The next look he gets at an armoured car, and he"s going to be after it like-"
"Like a long dog after a b.i.t.c.h, "said Jake.
"Exactly," Gareth nodded. "I was just going to say that myself"
"You already did, "Jake reminded him.
"We"ll send out one car one is enough and hold another in reserve here." Gareth touched the sand map. "If anything goes wrong with the first car"
"Like a high-explosive sh.e.l.l between the b.u.t.tocks?" Jake asked.
"Precisely. If that happens the second car pops in like this and keeps them coming on."
"The way you tell it, it sounds great."
"Piece of cake, old son, nothing to it. Trust the celebrated Swales genius."
"Who takes the first car? "Jake asked.
"Spin you for it," Gareth suggested, and a silver Maria Theresa appeared as if by magic in his hand.
"Heads," said Jake.
"Oh, tough luck, old son. Heads it is." Jake"s hand was quick as a striking mamba. It snapped closed on Gareth"s wrist and held his hand in which the silver coin was cupped.
"I say," protested Gareth. "Surely you don"t believe that I might and then he shrugged resignedly.
"No offence," Jake a.s.sured him, turned Gareth"s hand towards him and examined the coin cupped in his palm.
"Lovely lady, Theresa," murmured Gareth. "Lovely high forehead, very sensual mouth bet she was a real goer, what?" Jake released his wrist, and stood up, dusting his breeches to cover his embarra.s.sment.
"Come on, Greg. We"d better get ready," he called across to where the young Harari was supervising the preparations taking place on the higher ground above where the cars were parked.
"Good luck, old son," Gareth called after them. "Keep your head well down." Jake Barton sat on the edge of Priscilla"s turret with his long legs dangling into the hatch, and he looked up at the mountains.
Only their lower slopes were visible, rising steeply into the vast towering ma.s.s of cloud that rose sheer into the sky.
The cloud ma.s.s bulged, swelling forward and spilling with the slow viscosity of treacle down the harsh ranges of rock. The mountains had disappeared, swallowed by the cloud monster, and the soft ma.s.s heaved like a belly digesting its prey.
For the first time since they had entered the Danakil, the sun was obscured. The cold came off the clouds in gusts, touching Jake with icy fingers of air, so that the gooseflesh pimpled his muscular forearms and he shivered briefly.
Gregorius sat beside him on the turret, looking up also at the silver and dark blue of the thunderheads.
"The big rains will begin now."
"Here?"
"No, not down here in the desert, but upon the mountains the rain will fall with great fury." For a few moments longer, Jake stared up at the pinnacles and glaring slopes of grandeur and menace, then he turned his back upon them and swept the rolling tree-dotted plains to the eastward. As yet, there was no) sign of the Italian advance that the scouts had reported, and he turned again and focused his binoculars on the lower slopes of the gorge at the point from which Gareth would signal the enemy"s movements to him. There was nothing to be seen but broken rock and the tumbled slopes of scree and rubble.
He dropped his scrutiny lower to where the last small dunes of red sand lapped like wavelets against the great rock reef of the mountains.
There were wrinkles in the surface of the plain, spa.r.s.ely covered with the pale seared desert gra.s.ses, but in their troughs thick coa.r.s.e bush had taken root. The bush was tall and dense enough to hide the hundreds of patiently waiting Harari under its cover.
Gareth had worked out the method of dealing with the Italian tanks, and it was he who had sent Gregorius up the gorge to the village of Sardi with a gang of a hundred men and fifty camels. Under Greg"s direction, they had torn up the rails from the shunting yard of the railway station, packed the heavy steel rails on to the camels and brought them down the perilous path to the desert floor.
Gareth had explained how the rails were to be used, split his force into gangs of twenty men each and exercised them with the rails until they were as efficient as he could hope for. All that was needed now was for Priscilla the Pig to lead the Italian tanks into the low dunes.
Without armour, Gareth estimated they could hold the Italians for a week at the mouth of the gorge. His order of battle placed the Harari on the left and centre, in good positions that interlocked with those of the Galla on the right flank. The Vickers guns had lanes of fire laid down that would make any infantry a.s.sault by the Italians suicidal without armoured cover.
They would have to blast their way into the gorge with artillery and aerial bombardment. It would take them a week at the least that is, if they could dissuade Ras Golam from attacking the Italians, a task which promised to be difficult, for the old Ras"s fighting blood was coursing through his ancient veins.
Once they forced the mouth of the gorge and drove the Ethiopian forces into its gut, they had another week"s hard pounding to reach the top and the town of Sardi provided once again that the Ras could be restrained in the role of defender.
Once the Italians broke out of the head of the gorge, the armoured cars could be flung in to hold them for a day or two more, but when they were expended, it was all over. It was an easy drive for the Italians through the rolling highlands on to the Dessie road, to close the jaws of the trap hopefully after the prey had fled.
Gareth had reported all this to Lij Mikhael, contacting him by telegraph at the Emperor"s headquarters on the sh.o.r.es of Lake Tona.
The Prince had telegraphed back the Emperor"s grat.i.tude and a.s.surances that within two weeks the destiny of Ethiopia would be decided.
"HOLD THE GORGE FOR TWO WEEKS AND YOUR DUTY WILL BE FULLY.
DISCHARGED STOP YOU WILL HAVE EARNED THE GRAt.i.tUDE OF THE EMPEROR AND.
ALL THE PEOPLES OF ETHIOPIA." A week here on the plains, but it all depended on this first encounter with the Italian armour. Gareth"s and Jake"s observations, backed up by those of the scouts, placed the total number of surviving Italian tanks at four. They must take them out at a single stroke, the whole defence of the gorge pivoted on this.
Jake found that he had been day-dreaming, his mind wandering over the problems they faced and the chances they must take. It took Gregorius"s hand on his shoulder to rouse him.
"Jake! The signal." Quickly he looked back at the slope of the mountains, and he did not need the binoculars. Gareth was signalling with a primitive heliograph he had contrived with the shaving-mirror from his toilet bag. The bright flashes of light p.r.i.c.ked Jake"s eyeb.a.l.l.s even at that range.
"They are coming in across the valley, line abreast. All four tanks, supported by motorized infantry." Jake read the signal, and jumped into the driver"s hatch while Gregorius slid down the side of the hull and ran to the crank handle.
"That"s my darling." Jake thanked Priscilla, as the engine spluttered busily into life, and then he called up to Gregorius as he climbed into the turret above him. "I"ll warn you every time I tUrn to engage."
"Yes, Jake." The boy"s eyes burned with the fire of his anger, and Jake grinned.
"As bad as his grand pappy He let in the clutch. They gathered speed swiftly and flew over the crest of the rise, and behind them rolled a long billow of dust, proclaiming their whereabouts to all the world.
The line of Italian tanks was coming straight in, a mile and a half out on their flank.
"Engaging now, "shouted Jake.
"Ready." Gregorius was crouched over the Vickers in the turret, straining it to the limit of its traverse, ready to fire at the very instant the gun could bear.
Jake put the wheel over hard, and Priscilla swung towards the distant dark beetle shapes of the Italian armour, sailing jauntily right into their teeth.
Above Jake the Vickers roared, and the spent cartridges spewed down into the hull, ringing and pinging against the steel sides, while the sudden acrid stink of burned cordite made Jake"s eyes sting and flood with tears.
Through blurred eyes he watched the electric white tracer arc out across the open ground, and fall about the leading tank. Even at that range, Jake made out the tiny spurting fountains of dust and dirt kicked up by the hose of bullets.
"Good lad," grunted Jake; it was accurate shooting from the bouncing, bounding car at extreme range. Of course, it could do no damage to the thick steel armour of the CV.3, but it would certainly startle and anger the crew, goad them into retaliation.
As he thought it, Jake saw the turret of the tank traverse around as the commander called the target. The stubby barrel of the Spandau foreshortened rapidly, and then disappeared. Jake was looking directly down the muzzle.
He counted slowly to three, it would take that long for the gunner to get on to him, then he yelled, "Disengaging!" and flung Priscilla hard over, so that she came up on two wheels, ungainly and awkward as she swung away from the enemy line. From the corner of his eye Jake saw the glow of the muzzle flash, and almost instantly afterwards heard the crack of pa.s.sing shot.
"Son of a gun that was close!" he muttered, and reached up to throw the hatch and visor open. There was no point in closing down, these Spandaus could penetrate any point of the car"s hull as though it were made of paper, and Jake would need a good and unlimited view during the next desperate minutes.
Running parallel to the Italian line, he looked across and saw that all four tanks were firing now, and they were bunching, each tank turning towards him as he raced across their front, losing their rigid pattern of advance in their eagerness to keep Priscilla under fire.
"Come along," muttered Jake. "Three b.a.l.l.s for a dollar, gentlemen, every throw a coconut!" It was too close to the truth to be funny, but he grinned nevertheless. "Jake Barton"s famous coconut shy." A sh.e.l.l burst close alongside, showering sand and gravel into the open hatch. They were ranging in on him now, it was time to confuse the range again.
He spat sand from his mouth and yelled, "Engaging!" Priscilla spun handily towards the Italian line, and went bounding in towards them with that prim rocking action, her ugly old silhouette grim and uncompromising as the visage of a Victorian matron.
They were close, horribly frighteningly close, so that Jake could hear the Vickers bullets hammering against the black carapace of the leading tank. Gregorius had picked out the formation leader by his command pennant, and was concentrating all his fire upon him.
"Good thinking," grunted Jake. "Get the b.a.s.t.a.r.d"s blood up." As he spoke, there was a thunderous clank close beside his head, as though a giant had swung a hammer against the steel hull, and the car reeled to the blow.
"We"ve taken a hit," Jake thought desperately, and his ears buzzed from the impact and there was the hot acrid stench of burned paint and hot metal in his nostrils. He swung the wheel over and Priscilla responded as handsomely as ever, turning sharply away from the Italian line.
Jake stood up in his compartment, sticking his head out into the open and he saw immediately how lucky they had been. The sh.e.l.l had struck one of the brackets he had welded on to the sponson to carry the arms crates. It had torn the bracket away, and dented the hull, leaving the metal glowing with the heat of the strike but the hull was intact, they had not been penetrated.
"Are you all right, Greg?" he yelled as he dropped back into his seat.
"They are following, Jake," the boy called down to him, ignoring the hit. "They are after us all of them."
"Home and mother here we come," Jake said, and turned directly away from them, once again changing the range and aim of the Italian gunners abruptly.
Shot burst close, driving the air in upon their eardrums, and making them both flinch involuntarily.
"We are pulling too far ahead, Jake," called Greg, and Jake glancing up saw that he had his hatch open and his head out.
"Lame bird," Jake decided reluctantly. If they outstripped the Italians too rapidly, there was a danger they would abandon the chase.
Another sh.e.l.l burst close alongside, covering them with a veil of pale dust, and Jake faked a hit, cutting back the throttle so that their seed bled off, and he swung Priscilla into an erratic broken pattern of flight, like a bird with a broken wing.
"They"re gaining on us now, "Greg reported gleefully.
"Don"t sound so d.a.m.ned happy about it," Jake muttered, but his voice was lost in the whine and crack of pa.s.sing shot.
"They"re still coming," howled Greg. "And they"re still shooting."
"I noticed." Jake peered ahead, still flinging the car mercilessly from side to side. The ridge of the first dune was half a mile ahead, but it seemed like an hour later that he felt the earth tilt up under him and they went slithering and skidding up the slip-face of the dune and crashed over the crest into safety.
Jake swung Nscilla into a broadside skid, like a skier performing a christy, bringing her to an abrupt halt in the lee of the dune and then he backed and manoeuvred up until he was in a hull-down position behind the sand, with only the turret exposed.
"That"s it, Jake," cried Greg delightedly, as he found his Vickers would bear again. He crouched over it, and fired short crisp bursts at the four black tanks that roared angrily towards them across the plain.
From the stationary position behind the dune, Gregorius made every burst of fire sweep the oncoming hulls, driving the Latin tempers of the crews into frenzy, like the sting of a tsetse fly on the belly of a bull buffalo.
"That"s about close enough," decided Jake, judging the charge of enemy armour finely. They were less than five hundred yards off now and already they were dropping sh.e.l.l close around the tiny target afforded by the car"s turret.
"Let"s get the h.e.l.l out of here." He swung Priscilla hard and she plunged down the side of the dune into the trough. As she crashed through the dense dark scrub, Jake caught a glimpse of the men lying in wait under the screen of vegetation. They were stripped to loin-Cloths, huddled down over the long steel rails, and two of them had to roll frantically aside to avoid being crushed beneath Priscilla"s tall, heavily bossed wheels.
The momentum of her charge down the side of the dune carried her up on the second dune with loose sand pouring out in a cloud from her spinning rear wheels. She reached the crest and went over it at speed, dropping with a gut swooping dive down the far side.
Jake cut the engine before she had come to rest, and he and Gregorius sprang out of the opened hatches and went panting back up the dune, labouring in the heavy loose footing, and panting as they reached the crest and looked down into the trough at almost the same instant as the four Italian tanks came over the crest opposite them.
Their racks boiling in the loose sand, they came crashing over the top of the dune, and roared down into the trough.
They tore into the thick bank of scrub, and immediately the bush was alive with naked black figures. They swarmed around the monstrous wallowing hulls like ants around the bodies of shiny black scarab beetles.
Twenty men to each steel rail, using it like a battering ram, they charged in from each side of every tank, thrusting the end of the rail into the sprocketed jockey wheels of the tracks.
The rail was caught up immediately, and with the screech of metal on metal was whipped out of the hands of the men who wielded it, hurling them effortlessly aside. To an engineer, the sound that the machines made as they tore themselves to pieces was like the anguish of living things, like that terrible death squeal of a horse.
The steel rails tore the jockey wheels out of them, and the tracks sprang out of their seating on the sprockets and whipped into the air, flogging themselves to death in a cloud of dust and torn vegetation.
It was over very swiftly, the four machines lay silent and stalled, crippled beyond hope of repair and around them lay the broken bodies of twenty or more of the Ethiopians who had been caught up by the flailing tracks as they broke loose. The bodies were torn and shredded, as though clawed and mauled by some monstrous predator.
Those who had survived the savage death of the tanks, hundreds of almost naked figures, swarmed over the stranded hulls, loolooing wildly and pounding on the steel turrets with their bare hands.