The Italian gunners still inside the hulls fired their machine guns despairingly, but there was no power on their traversing gear and the turrets were frozen. The guns could not be aimed. They were blinded also for Jake had armed a dozen Ethiopians each with a bucket of engine oil and dirt mixed to a thick paste. This they had slapped in gooey handfuls over the drivers" and gunners" visors. The tank crews were helplessly imprisoned and the attackers pranced and howled like demented things. The din was such that Jake did not even hear the approach of the other car.
It stopped on the crest of the dune opposite where Jake stood.
The hatches were flung open, and Gareth Swales and Ras Golam leaped out of the hull.
The Ras had his sword with him, and he swung it around his head as he charged down the slope to join his men around the crippled tanks.
Across the valley that separated them, Gareth threw Jake a cavalier salute, but beneath the mockery, Jake sensed real respect.
Each of them ran down into the trough and they met where the gallon cans of gasoline were buried under a fine layer of sand and cut branches.
Gareth spared a second to punch Jake lightly on the shoulder.
"Hit the beggars for six, what? Good for you," and then they stooped to drag the cans out of the shallow hole, and with one in each hand staggered through the waist-deep scrub to the tank carca.s.ses.
Jake pa.s.sed a can up to Gregorius who was already perched on the turret of the nearest tank where his grandfather was trying to prise open the turret hatch with the blade of his broad-sword. His eyes flashed and rolled wildly in his wrinkled black head, and a high-pitched incoherent "Looloo" keened from the mouthful of flashing artificial teeth for the Ras was transported into the fighting mania of the berserker.
Gregorius hefted the gasoline can up on to the tank"s sponson, and plunged his dagger through the thin metal of the lid. The clear liquid spurted and hissed from the rent, under pressure of its own volatile gases.
"Wet it down good!" shouted Jake, and Gregorius; grinned and splattered gasoline over the hull. The stink of it was sharp, as it evaporated from the hot metal in a shimmering haze.
Jake ran on to the next tank, uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the cap of the can as he clambered up over the shattered jockey wheels.
Avoiding the stationary barrel of the forward machine gun, he stood tall on the top of the turret and splashed gasoline over the hull, until it shone wetly in the sunlight and little rivulets of the stuff found the joints and gaps in the plating and splattered into the interior.
"Get back," shouted Gareth. "Everybody back." He had doused the other steel carca.s.ses and he stood now on the slope of the dune with an unlit cheroot in the corner of his mouth and a box of Swan Vestas in his left hand.
Jake jumped lightly down from the hull, laying a trail of gasoline from the can he carried as he backed up to where Gareth waited.
"Hurry. Everybody out of the way," Gareth called again.
Gregorius was laying a wet trail of gasoline back to Gareth.
"Somebody go get that old b.a.s.t.a.r.d out of the way" Gareth called with exasperation. A single figure pranced and howled and loolooed on the nearest tank, and Jake and Gregorius dropped the empty cans and raced back. Ducking under the swinging arc of the sword, Jake got an arm around the Ras"s skinny, bony chest, swung him bodily off his feet and pa.s.sed him down to his grandson. Between them they carried him away to safety, still how ling and struggling.
Gareth struck one of the Swan Vestas and casually lit the cheroot in his mouth. When it was drawing nicely, he cupped the match to let the game flare brightly.
"Here we go, chaps," he murmured. "Guy Fawkes, Guy.
Stick him in the eye. Hang him on a lamp post" he flicked the burning match on to the gasoline-sodden earth, and leave him there to die." For a moment nothing happened, and then with a thump that concussed the air against their eardrums, the gasoline ignited.
Instantly the belt of scrub turned to atoll roaring red inferno, and the flames boiled and swirled, leaped and drummed high into the desert air, engulfing the four stranded tanks in sheets of fire that obscured their menacing silhouettes.
The Ethiopians watched from the dunes, awed by the terrible pageant of destruction they had created. Only the Ras still danced and howled at the edge of the flames, the blade of his sword reflecting the red leaping flames.
The hatches of the nearest tank were thrown open, and out into the searing air leaped three figures, indistinct and shadowy through the flames. Beating wildly at their burning uniforms, the tank crew came staggering out on to the slope of the dune.
The Ras flew to meet them, the sword hissing and glinting as it swung. The head of the tank commander seemed to leap from his fire-blackened shoulders, as the blade cut through. The head struck the ground behind him and rolled back down the dune like a ball, while the decapitated trunk dropped to its knees with a fine crimson spray from the neck pumping straight up into the air.
The Ras raced on towards the other survivors, and his men roared angrily and swarmed forward after him. Jake uttered a horrified oath and started forward to restrain them.
"Easy, old son." Gareth caught Jake"s arm, and swung him away.
"This is no time for one of your boy scout acts." From below them rose the ugly blood roar of the destroyers, as they fell upon the survivors of the other tanks, and the Italians" screams cut like a whiplash across Jake"s nerves.
"Let"s leave them to it." Gareth drew Jake away. "Not our business, old boy. The beggars have got to take their own chances.
Rules of the game." Across the crest of the dune they leaned together against the steel hull of Priscilla. Jake was panting heavily from his exertions and his horror. Gareth found him a slightly crumpled cheroot in the inside pocket of his tweed jacket, and straightened it carefully before placing it between Jake"s lips.
"Told you before, your sentimental but endearing ways will get us both into trouble. They"d have torn you to pieces also if you"d gone down there." He lit Jake"s cheroot.
"Well, old boy-" he changed the subject diplomatically.
"That takes care of our biggest problem. No tanks no worries, that"s an old Swales family motto," and he chuckled lightly. "We"ll be able to hold them at the mouth of the gorge for another week now. No trouble at all." Abruptly the sunlight was obscured, and instantly the temperature dropped sharply. Both of them glanced up involuntarily at the sky, at the gloom and the sudden chill.
In the last hour, the ma.s.ses of cloud had come slumping down from the mountains, blotting them out completely, and spreading out on to the fringes of the Danakil desert.
From this thick, dark mattress of swirling cloud, fine pale streamers of rain were already spiralling down towards the plain. Jake felt a droplet splatter against his forehead and he wiped it away with the back of his hand.
"I say, we"re in for a drop or two," murmured Gareth, and as if in confirmation the deep mutter of thunder echoed down from the cloud-shrouded mountains, and lightning flared sulkily, trapped within the towering cloud ma.s.ses and lighting them internally with a smouldering infernal glow.
"That"s going to make things-" Gareth cut himself off, and both of them c.o.c.ked their heads.
"h.e.l.lo, that"s decidedly odd." Faintly on the brooding air, carrying above the mutter of thunder, came the popping of musketry and the sound of machine-gun fire, like the sound of tearing silk, made indistinct and un warlike by distance and the muting banks of heavy cloud.
"Deuced odd." Gareth repeated. "There should not be any firing from there." It was in their rear, seeming to come from the very mouth of the gorge itself.
"Come on," snapped Jake, picking his binoculars out of Priscilla"s hatch and scrambling through the loose red sand for the crest of the tallest dune.
The cloud and misty streamers of rain obscured the mouth of the gorge, but now the sound of gunfire was continuous.
"That"s not just a skirmish," muttered Gareth.
"It"s a full-scale fire fight," Jake agreed, peering through the binoculars.
"What is it, Jake?" Gregorius came up the dune to where they stood. He was followed by his grandfather but the old man moved slowly, exhausted and stiff with age and the aftermath of burned-out pa.s.sions.
"We don"t know, Greg. "Jake did not lower the binoculars.
"I don"t understand it." Gareth shook his head. "Any Italian probe from the south would have run into our positions in the foothills, and from the north it would have run into the Gallas. Ras Kullah is in a pretty strong spot there. We would have heard the fighting. They can"t have gone through there-"
"And we are here in the centre, "Jake added, "they didn"t come through here."
"It doesn"t make sense." At that moment, the Ras reached the crest. He paused wearily and removed the teeth from his mouth, wrapped them carefully in a kerchief and tucked them away in some secret recess of his sham ma The mouth collapsed into a dark empty pit, and immediately he looked his age again.
Quickly Gregorius explained this new phenomenon to the old man, and while he listened he ran the blade of his sword into the dune between his feet, scrubbing it clean of the clotted black blood in the dry friable sand. He spoke suddenly in his tremulou"s old man"s voice.
"My grandfather says that Ras Kullah is a piece of dried dung of a venereal hyena," Gregorius translated quickly.
"And he says my uncle, Lij Mikhael, was wrong to treat with him, and that you were wrong to trust him."
"Now what the h.e.l.l does that mean?" Jake demanded fretfully, and lifted the binoculars sweeping again towards the mouth of the Sardi Gorge away across the undulating golden plain then he exclaimed again. "d.a.m.n it to h.e.l.l, everything is blowing up. That crazy woman! She promised me, she swore on oath that she would keep out of it for once and now here she comes again!"
Emerging through the curtains of rain, indistinct under the dark rolling ma.s.s of cloud, throwing no dust column on the rain-dampened earth, the tiny sand-coloured shape of Miss Wobbly came bowling towards them with its distinctive stately gait. Even at this distance, Jake could make out the dark speck of Sara"s head in the hatch of the high, old-fashioned turret.
Jake started to run down the slip-face of the dune to meet the oncoming car.
"Jake!" Vicky screeched above the engine beat, before she came to a halt, her head thrust out of the driver"s hatch, her golden hair shaking in the wind and her eyes huge in the pale intense face.
"What the h.e.l.l are you doing? "Jake shouted back angrily.
"The Gallas," Vicky screeched. "They"ve gone! Every last man of them! Gone!" She braked hard and tumbled down to the ground so that Jake had to catch and steady her.
"What do you mean gone?" Gareth demanded, coming up at that moment and Sara answered him from Miss Wobbly"s turret with her dark eyes sparkling hotly.
"They went, like smoke, like the dirty hill bandits they are."
"The left flank-"Gareth exclaimed.
"n.o.body there. The Italians have come through without firing a shot. Hundreds and hundreds of them. They are at the gorge, they have overrun the camp."
"Jake, they would have cut off all our own Harari, it would have been a ma.s.sacre Sara gave the order, in her grandfather"s name, she ordered them to abandon the right flank."
"Oh, good Christ!"
"They are trying to fight their way back into the gorge now but the Italians are covering the mouth with machine guns. It"s terrible, Jake, oh the desert is thick with the dead."
"We"ve lost it all. Everything we gained, at a single throw, it"s all gone. This was a feint, the tanks were sent to draw us off. The main attack was through the left but how did they know the Gallas had deserted?"
"As my grandfather says, never trust either a snake or a Galla."
"Oh Jake, we must hurry." Vicky shook his arm. "They"ll cut us off."
"Right," snapped Gareth. "We"ll have to get back into the gorge and rally them on the first line of defence in the gorge itself otherwise they"ll run straight back to Addis Ababa." He swung around to Gregorius. "If we try and take these men, and he indicated the hundreds of halfnaked, unarmed Harad who were now straggling out of the dunes, "if we try to take them back through the mouth of the gorge, they"ll be shot to pieces by the Italian guns. Can they find their own way on foot up the mountain slopes?"
"They are mountain men, Gregorius answered simply.
"Good. Tell them to work their way back and a.s.semble at the first waterfall in the gorge. That"s the rallying point the first waterfall." He turned back to the others. "On the other hand, we"ll have to use the gorge the only way to save the cars. We"ll rush the mouth in a tight formation and pray that the Eyeties haven"t had a chance to bring up their artillery yet. Let"s go!" He grabbed Ras Golam by the shoulder and dragged him, at an awkward run, back towards where they had left their armoured car parked on the crest of the first dune.
"Get back in the car," Jake instructed Vicky. "Keep the engine running. We"ll bring up the two other cars. I want you in the centre of the line, then go like h.e.l.l. Don"t stop for anything until we are into the gorge. Do you hear me?" Vicky nodded grimly.
"Good girl he said, and would have turned away, but Vicky held his arm and pressed herself to him. She reached up and kissed him full on the lips, her mouth open and wet and soft and sweet.
"I love you, "she whispered huskily.
"Oh my darling, what a h.e.l.l of a time you picked to tell me."
"I.
only just found out," she explained, and he crushed her fiercely to his chest.
"Oh, that"s lovely," cried Sara from the turret above them.
"That"s beautiful." She clapped her hands delightedly.
"Until later," whispered Jake. "Now get out of here!" and he turned her away and pushed her towards the car. He turned himself and ran lightly back into the dunes, with his heart singing.
"Oh, Miss Camberwell, I am so pleased for you." Sara reached down to help Vicky up on to the hull. "I knew it was going to be Mr. Barton.
I picked him for you long ago, but I wanted you to find out for yourself."
"Sara, my dear. Please don"t say any more." Vicky hugged her briefly before dropping into the driver"s hatch. "Or the whole thing will turn upside down again." Ras Golam was so tired and drained that he could move only at a creaking walk up the dune, even though Gareth tried to prod him into a trot. He plodded on up the dune dragging the sword behind him.
Suddenly there was a sound in the sky above them, as though the heavens had been split by all the winds of h.e.l.l.
A rising, rattling shriek that pa.s.sed and then erupted in a towering column of sand and yellow swirling fumes against the side of the dune ahead of them, fifty paces below the car that was silhouetted upon the crest.
"Guns,"said Gareth unnecessarily. "Time to go, Grandpa," and he would have prodded the Ras again, but there was no need. The sound of gunfire had rejuvenated the Ras instantly; he leaped high in the air, uttering that dreadful screech of a challenge and hunting frantically for his teeth in the folds of his sham ma "Oh no, you don"t." Grimly, Gareth forestalled the next wild suicidal charge by grabbing the Ras and dragging him protestingly towards the car. The Ras had tasted blood now, and he wanted to go in on foot with the sword the way a real warrior fights and he was frantically searching the open horizons for the enemy, as Gareth towed him away backwards.
The next sh.e.l.l burst beyond the crest, out of sight in the trough.
"The first one under, and the second over," muttered Gareth, struggling to control the Ras"s wild lunges. "Where does the next one go?" They had almost reached the car when it came in, arcing across the wide lioncoloured plain, through the low grey cloud, howling and rattling the heavens; it plunged down at an acute angle, going in through the thin plating behind the turret of the car, and it burst against the steel floor of the cab.
The car burst like a paper bag. The entire turret was lifted from its seating and went high in the air in a flash of crimson flame and sooty smoke.
Gareth dragged the Ras down on to the sand and held him there while sc.r.a.ps of flying steel and other debris splattered around them.
It lasted only seconds and the Ras tried to rise again, but Gareth held him down while the shattered hull of the car brewed up into a fiery explosion of burning gasoline and the Vickers ammunition in the bins began popping and flying like fireworks.
It lasted a long time, and when at last the crackle of ammunition died away, Gareth lifted his head cautiously; immediately another belt caught and rattled away with white tracer flying and spluttering, forcing them flat again.
"Come on, Ra.s.sey," sighed Gareth at last. "Let"s see if we can beg a ride home." At that moment, the ugly, well beloved shape of Priscilla the Pig roared abruptly over the crest of the dune and slewed to a halt above them.
"G.o.d," Jake shouted from the driver"s hatch. "I thought you were in it when she blew. I came to pick up the pieces." Dragging the Ras, Gareth climbed up the side of the tall hull.
"This is becoming a habit," Gareth grunted. "That"s two I owe you.
"I"ll send you an account," Jake promised, and then ducked instinctively as the next sh.e.l.l came shrieking in to burst so close that dust and smoke blew into their faces.
"I get this strange feeling we should move on now," suggested Gareth mildly. "That is, if you have no other plans." Jake sent the car plunging steeply down the face of the dune, turning hard as he hit the firmer earth of the plain and setting a running course for where the mouth of the gorge was hidden by the smoky writhing curtains of cloud and rain.
Vicky Camberwell saw them coming and swung Miss Wobbly and gunned her on to a parallel course. Wheel to wheel, the two elderly machines bounded across the flat land, and the rain began to crackle against the steel hulls in minute white bursts that blurred their outlines as the next Italian sh.e.l.l burst fifty feet ahead of them, forcing them to swerve to avoid the fuming crater.
"Can you see where the battery is?" yelled Jake, and Gareth answered him, clinging to one of the welded brackets above the hatch, rain streaming down his face and soaking the front of his white shirt.
"They are in the ground that the Gallas deserted, they"ve probably taken over the trenches I dug with such loving care."
"Could we have a go at them? "Jake suggested.