"I think that"s rather Mr. Barton"s department," she said.
"Jake," said Jake.
"Vicky," said Vicky.
This whole business was turning out very well indeed. A good story to chase, a worthy cause to support, another daring escapade to add to the blooming l.u.s.tre of her reputation. She knew none of her colleagues had dared the League"s sanctions and violated international frontiers with a gang of gun-runners to file a story.
As a bonus, there were two attractive males for company, It all looked very good indeed, just as long as she kept it all on a manageable basis, and did not let her emotions get into an uproar once more.
They followed the path down through the mahogany forest, and she smiled secretly to herself as she watched Gareth and Jake jockeying for position beside her. However, when they reached the clearing, Gareth stopped abruptly.
"What now? "he demanded.
"The paint job is Greg"s idea," explained Jake. "Make people think twice before they start shooting at us." The four vehicles were now painted a glistening snowy white, and the turrets were emblazoned with a flaming scarlet cross.
"if the French or the Italians try to stop us, we are a unit of armoured ambulances of the International Red Cross.
You, Greg and I are doctors, and Vicky is a nursing sister."
"My G.o.d, you have been busy." Vicky was impressed.
"Also the white paint will be cooler in the desert," Greg explained seriously. "They call it the "Great Burn" with good reason."
"The carrying racks I designed," said Jake. "Each vehicle will be able to carry two forty-gallon drums of gasoline and one of water at the rear of the turret. The crates of arms and ammunition we will distribute between the four of them and rope them down here across the sponsons, - I have welded cleats here to take the ropes."
"The crates will be a dead giveaway," objected Gareth.
"They are all marked-"
"We"ll plane off the marking and re-label them as medical supplies, "Jake told him, then took Vicky"s arm. "I"ve chosen this one for you. She"s the most docile and friendly of the four."
"Do they have characters of their own?" Vicky teased him, and laughed at the seriousness of his reply.
"They are just like women. My iron ladies," he slapped the nearest machine. "This one is an absolute darling except that her rear suspension is slightly out of alignment, so she waggles her bottom a bit at speed. It"s nothing serious, however, but it"s why her name is Miss Wobbly. She"s yours.
You"ll grow to love her. "Jake walked on and kicked the tyre of the next car. "This one is the b.i.t.c.h of the party. She tried to break my wrist the very first time I ever cranked her. She is known as Priscilla the Pig. I"m the only one who can handle her. She doesn"t love me, but she respects me." He moved on. "Greg has chosen this one and called her Tenastelin which means "G.o.d is with us" - I hope he is right, but I doubt it. Greg is a bit funny about that sort of thing.
He tells me he was going to be a priest once." He winked at the youngster. "Gareth, this one is yours she has a brand new carburettor. I think it is only fair you should enjoy her, since you are the one who risked all to obtain it."
"Oh?" Vicky"s eyes lit with interest, the news-hound in her aroused. "What happened?"
"It"s a long story," Jake grinned, "but it involved a long and dangerous ride on a camel. "Gareth choked on a lungful of cheroot smoke and coughed, but Jake went on remorselessly, "She shall therefore be known in future as Henrietta the Hump the Hump for short."
"How very cute," said Vicky.
After midnight the four vehicles moved in column through the dark and sleeping streets of the old town. The steel shutters were closed down over the headlights so that only a narrow strip of light was thrown forwards and downwards. The engines were idling as they moved at walking speed under the trees whose spread branches hung over the road and hid the stars.
The cars were heavily loaded. the burden that each of them carried were drums and crate st coils of rope and netting, trenching tools and camping equipment.
Gareth Swales led the column, freshly shaven and dressed in grey flannel Oxford bags and a white jersey with the I Zingari cricket colours adorning the neck and cuffs. He was mildly concerned that the proprietor of the Royal Hotel might become aware of his imminent departure, for there was a bill for three weeks" board outstanding and a formidable pile of unpaid chit ties signed with the Swales flourish for champagne supplied. Gareth would definitely feel happier out at sea.
Gregorius Maryam followed him closely. His hereditary t.i.tle was Gerazinach, "Commander of the Left Wing", and his warrior blood coursed through his veins mingling with the deeply religious Old Testament teachings of the Coptic Christian Church, so that his eyes shone with an almost mystic fanaticism and his heart soared with a young man"s fierce patriotism, for he was still young enough and inexperienced enough to look on the dirty b.l.o.o.d.y business of war as something glamorous and manly.
Behind him came Vicky Camberwell, driving Miss Wobbly with competence and precision. Jake was delighted with her ability to judge the engine beat, and to mesh the ancient gears with a light touch on clutch and stick. She too was excited by the prospect of adventure, and new experience. That afternoon she had filed her preliminary report , despatching five thousand words by the new airmail service that would deposit them on her editor"s desk in New York within ten days.
She had explained the background, the clear intent of Benito Mussolini to annex the sovereign territories of Ethiopia, the world"s indifference, the arms embargo. "Do not delude yourselves" she had written, "into the belief that I am crying wolf. The wolf of Rome is already hunting.
What is about to happen in the mountains of northern Africa will shame the civilized world." And then she had gone on to expose the intention of the great nations to prevent her reaching the embattled empire and reporting its plight. She had ended the despatch, "Your correspondent has rejected this restriction placed upon her movements and her integrity. Tonight I have joined a group of intrepid men who are risking their lives to defy the embargo, and to carry through the closed territories a quant.i.ty of arms and supplies desperately needed by the beleaguered nation. By the time you read this, we shall have failed and have died upon the desert coast of Africa, which the natives fearfully call the "Great Burn" or we shall have succeeded. We shall have landed by night from a small coasting vessel and trekked through hundreds of miles of savage and hostile territory to a meeting with an Ethiopian prince. I hope that in my next despatch, I shall be able to describe our journey to you, but if the G.o.ds of chance decree otherwise at least we shall have tried." Vicky was very pleased with the first article. In her usual flamboyant style, she particularly liked the "trekking" bit which gave a touch of local colour. It had everything: drama, mystery, the little guy taking on the big.
She knew that the completed series would be a giant and she was excited and aglow with antic.i.p.ation.
Behind her Jake Barton followed. He listened with half his attention to the engine beat of the Pig. For no apparent reason, except perhaps a premonition of what awaited her, the car had that night refused to start. Jake had cranked her until his arm was cramped and aching. He had blown through the fuel system, checked the plugs, magneto and every other moving part that could possibly be at fault.
Then, after another hour of tinkering, she had started and run sweetly, without giving the slightest hint of what had prevented her doing so earlier.
With the other half of his attention, he was mentally in the mountains checking out his preparations knowing that this was his last chance to fill any gaps in his list. It was one h.e.l.l of a long trail from Month to the Wells of Chaldi and not many service stations on the road. The pontoon raft of drums had been stowed aboard the HirondeUe that afternoon, and each car carried its own means of sustenance and survival a load which taxed their ancient suspensions and body work Thus Jake"s conscious mind was fully occupied, but below that level was a gut memory that tightened his nerves and charged his blood with adrenaline There had been another night like this, moving in column in the darkness, with the throttled-back engine beat drumming softly in his ears but then there had been the glow of star sh.e.l.l in the sky ahead, the distant juddering of a Maxim firing at a gap in the wire and the smell of death and mud in his nostrils. Unlike Gregorius Maryam in the car ahead, Jake Barton knew about war and all its glories.
apadopoulos was waiting for them on the wharf, carrying a hurricane lamp and dressed in an ankle, length greatcoat that gave him the air of a down-at, heel gnome. He signalled the column forward, waving the lamp, and his ragged crew swarmed off the deck of the Hirondelle on to the stone wharf.
It was clear that they were accustomed to loading unusual cargo in the middle of the night. As each car was driven forward, it was stripped of its burden of drums and crates.
These were stowed separately in cargo nets. Then they thrust st.u.r.dy wooden pallets under the cha.s.sis of the car and fixed the heavy hemp lines. At a signal from Papadopoulos, the men at the winches started the donkey engines and the lines ran through the blocks on the booms of the derricks.
The bulky cars rose slowly and then swung inboard.
The whole operation was carried out swiftly, with no raised voices or unnecessary noise. Only a muttered command, the grunt of straining men, the muted clatter of the donkey engines and then the thump of the cars settling on the deck.
"These fellows know their business." Gareth watched approvingly, then turned to Jake. "I"ll go down to the.
harbour master and clear the bills of lading. We"ll be ready to sail in an hour or so." He sauntered away and disappeared into the shadows.
"Let"s inspect the accommodation," Jake suggested, and took Vicky"s arm. "It looks like a regular Cunarder." They climbed the gangplank to the deck and only then did they get the first whiff of the slave stench. By the time Gareth returned from his nefarious negotiations with bills of lading showing a consignment of four ambulances and medical supplies to the International Red Cross a.s.sociation at Alexandria, the others had made a brief examination of the single tiny odoriferous cabin which Papadopoulos had put at their disposal and decided to leave it to the c.o.c.kroaches and bed bugs which were already in residence.
"It"s only a few days" sailing. I think I prefer the open deck.
If it rains, we can take shelter in the cars." Jake spoke for all of them as they stood in a group at the rail, watching the lights of Dares Salaam glide away into the night, while the diesel engine of the schooner thumped under their feet and the sweet cool sea breeze washed over the deck, cleansing their nostrils and mouths of the slave stench.
Vicky was awakened by the brilliance of the starlight shining into her face and she opened her eyes and stared up at a sky that blazed with the splendours Of the universe, as fields and seas of pearly light swirled across the heavens.
Quietly she slipped out of her blankets and went to the ship"s rail. The sea was l.u.s.trous glittering sable; each wave seemed to be carved from some solid and precious metal, bejewelled by the reflections of the starlight and through it the ship"s wake glowed with phosph.o.r.escence like a trail of green fire.
The sea wind was the touch of lovers" hands against her skin and in her hair, the great mainsail whispered above her head, and there was an almost physical ache in her chest at the beauty of this night.
When Gareth came up silently behind her and slipped his arms about her waist, she did not even turn her head, but lay back against him.
She did not want to argue and tease. As she herself had written, she might soon be dead and the night was too beautiful to let it pa.s.s.
Neither of them spoke, but Vicky sighed and shuddered voluptuously as she felt his hands, smooth and skilful, slide up under the light cotton blouse. His touch, like the wind, was softly caressing.
Through their thin clothing she could feel the warmth and resilience of his flesh pressed against her, feel his chest surge and subside to the urgency of his breathing.
She turned slowly within the circle of his arms and lifted her face to his as he stooped, meeting his body with a forward thrust of her hips. The taste of his mouth and the musky male smell of his body hastened her own arousal.
It took all her determination to tear her lips loose from his, and to draw away from his embrace. She crossed quickly to where her blankets lay and picked them up with hands that shook.
She spread them again between the dark supine forms of Jake and Gregorius, and only when she rolled herself into their coa.r.s.e folds and lay upon her back trying to control her ragged breathing was she aware that Jake Barton was awake.
His eyes were closed and his breathing was deep and even, but she knew with complete certainty that he was awake.
eneral Emilio De Bono stood at the window of his office and looked across the squalid roofs of the town of Asmara towards the great brooding ma.s.sif of the Ethiopian highlands. It looked like the backbone of a dragon, he thought, and suppressed a shudder.
The General was seventy years of age, so he recalled vividly the last Italian army that had ventured into that mountain fastness. The name Adowa was a dark blot on the history of Italian arms, and after forty years, that terrible b.l.o.o.d.y defeat of a modern European army was still unavenged.
Now destiny had chosen him as the avenger and Emilio De Bono was not certain that the role suited him. It would be much more to his liking if wars could be fought without anybody getting hurt. The General would go to great lengths to avoid inflicting pain or even discomfort. Orders that might be distasteful. to the recipient were avoided. Operations that might place anybody in jeopardy were frowned upon severely by the commanding General and his officers had learned not to suggest such extravagances.
The General was at heart a diplomat and a politician not a warrior. He liked to see smiling faces, so he smiled a great deal himself. He resembled a sprightly, wizened little goat, with the pointed white beard that gave him the nickname of "Little Beard". And he addressed his officers as "Caro", and his men as "Bambino". He just wanted to be loved. So he smiled and smiled.
However, the General was not smiling now. This morning he had received from Rome another one of those importunate coded telegrams signed Benito Mussolini. The wording had been even more peremptory than usual. "The King of Italy wishes, and I, Benito Mussolini, Minister of the armed forces, order that-" Suddenly he struck himself a blow on his medal-bedecked chest which startled Captain Crespi, his aide-decamp.
"They do not understand," cried De Bono bitterly. "It is all very beautiful to sit in Rome and urge haste. To cry "Strike!" But they do not see the picture as we do, who stand here looking across the Mareb River at the swarming mult.i.tudes of the enemy." The Captain came to the General"s side and he also stared out of the window. The building that housed the expeditionary army headquarters in Asmara was double storied and the General"s office on the top floor commanded a sweeping view to the foot of the mountains. The Captain observed wryly that the swarming mult.i.tudes were not readily apparent. The land was a vast emptiness slumbering in the brilliant sunlight. Air reconnaissance in depth had descried no concentrations of Ethiopian troops, and reliable intelligence reported that the Emperor Baile Sela.s.sie had ordered that none of his rudimentary military units approach the border as close as fifty kilometres, to avoid giving the Italians an excuse to march.
"They do not understand that I must consolidate my position here in Eritrea. That I must have a firm base and supply train," cried De Bono pitifully. For over a year he had been consolidating his position and a.s.sembling his supplies.
The crude little harbour of Ma.s.sawa, which once had lazily served the needs of an occasional tramp steamer or one of the little j.a.panese salt-traders, had been reconstructed completely. Magnificent stone piers ran out into the sea, great wharves bustled with steam cranes, and busy locomotives shuttled the incredible array of warlike stores that poured ash.o.r.e by the thousands of tons a day for month after month. The Suez Ca.n.a.l remained open to the transports of the Italian adventure, and a constant stream of them poured southwards, unaffected by the embargo that the League of Nations had declared on the importation of military materials into Eastern Africa.
Up to the present time, over three million tons of stores had been landed, and this did not include the five thousand vehicles of war troop transports, armoured cars, tanks and aircraft that had come ash.o.r.e. To distribute this vast a.s.sembly of vehicles and stores, a road system had been constructed fanning into the interior, a system so magnificent as to recall that of the Caesars of ancient Rome.
General De Bono smote his chest again, startling his aide. "They urge me to untimely endeavour. They do not seem to realize that my "
force is insufficient." The force which the General lamented was the greatest and most powerful army ever a.s.sembled on the African continent. He commanded three hundred and sixty thousand men, armed with the most sophisticated tools of destruction the world had yet devised from the Cap.r.o.ni CA.133 three-engined monoplane which could carry two tons of high explosive and poison gas a range of nine hundred miles, to the most modern armoured cars and heavily armoured CV.3 tanks with their 50 men. guns, and supporting units of heavy artillery.
This great a.s.sembly was encamped about Asmara and upon the cliffs overlooking the Mareb River. It was made up of distinct elements, the green-clad regular army formations with their wide-brimmed tropical helmets, the black shirt r Fascist militia with their high boots and cross-straps, their deaths head and thunderbolt badges and their glittering daggers, the regular colonial units of black Somalis and Eritreans in their tall ta.s.selled red fezes and baggy shirts, their gaily coloured regimental sashes and put teed legs above bare feet. Lastly, the irregular volunteers or ban da who were a. group of desert bandits and cut-throat cattle thieves attracted by the possibility of war in the way that the taint of blood gathers sharks.
De Bono knew but did not ponder the fact that nearly seventy years previously, the British General Napier had marched on Magdala with less than fifty thousand men, meeting and defeating the entire Ethiopian army on the way, storming the mountain fortress and releasing the British prisoners held there, before retiring in good order.
Such heroics were outside the realms of the General"s imagination.
"Caro."
"The General placed an arm about the gold, braided shoulders of his aide. "We must compose a reply to the Duce. He must be made to realize my difficulties." He patted the shoulder affectionately and his face lightened once more into its habitual expression as he began composing.
"My dear and respected leader, please be a.s.sured of my loyalty to you and to the glorious fatherland of Italy." The Captain hastened to take up a message pad and scribble industriously. "Be a.s.sured also that I never cease to toil by night and by day towards--" It took almost two hours of creative effort before the General was satisfied with his flowery and rambling refusal to carry out his orders.
"Now," he ceased his pacing and smiled tenderly at the Captain, "although we are not yet ready for an advance in force, it will serve to placate Il Duce if we initiate the opening phases of the southern offensive."
The General"s plans for the invasion, when it was finally put in hand, had been laid with as ponderous regard to detail as his earlier preparations. Historical necessity dictated that the main attack should be centred on Adowa.
Already a marble monument, brought from Italy and engraved with the words "The dead of Adowa avenged with the date left open, lay amongst the huge mountains of his stores.
ndary flanking attack However, the plan called for a secc, farther south through one of the very few gateways to the central highlands, This was the Sardi Gorge. A narrow opening that was riven up from the desert floor, splitting like an axe-stroke the precipitous mountain ranges, and forming a pa.s.s through which an army might reach the plateau that reared seven thousand feet above the desert.
The first phase of this plan entailed the seizure of the approaches to the Sardi Gorge and particularly important 1: in this dry and scalded desert would be the water supplies of the attacking army.
The General crossed the floor to the large-scale map, of Eastern Africa which covered one wall, and he picked up the ivory pointer to touch an isolated spot in the emptiness below the mountains.
"The Wells of Chaldi, he read the name aloud. "Whom shall we send?" The Captain looked up from his pad, and observed how the spot was surrounded by the forbidding yellow of the desert.
He had been in Africa long enough to know what that meant, and there was only one person who he would wish were there.
"Belli," he said.
"Ah," said the General. "Count Aldo Belli the fire eater "The clown, "said the Captain.
"Come, caro," the General admonished his aide mildly.
"You are too harsh. The Count is a distinguished diplomat, he was for three years amba.s.sador to the court of St. James in London. His family is old and n.o.ble and very very rich."
"He is a blow-hard,"
said the Captain stubbornly, and the General sighed.
"He is a personal friend of Benito Mussolini. II Duce is a constant guest at his castle. He has great political power-"
"He would be well out of harm"s way at this desolate spot," said the Captain, and the General sighed again.
"Perhaps you are correct, caro. Send for the good Count if you please." Captain Crespi stood on the steps of the headquarters building, beneath the portico with its imitation marble columns and the clumsily painted fresco depicting a heroic band of heavily muscled Italians defeating heathens, ploughing the earth, harvesting the corn, and generally building an empire.
The Captain watched sourly as the huge Rolls-Royce open tourer b.u.mped down the dusty, pot-holed main street.
Its headlights glared like monstrously startled eyes, and its burnished sky-blue paintwork was dulled by a light flouring of pale dust. The purchase price of this vehicle would have consumed five years of his service pay, which accounted for much of the Captain"s sourness.
Count Aldo Belli, as one of the nation"s great landowners and amongst the five most wealthy men in Italy, did not rely on the army for his transportation. The Rolls had been adapted and designed to his personal specifications by the makers.
As it slid to a graceful halt beneath the portico, the k Captain noticed the Count"s personal arms blazoned on the front door. - a rampant golden wolf supporting a shield with a quartered device of scarlet and silver. The legend unfurled beneath it read, "Courage arms me." As the car stopped, a small wiry sun-blackened little man in the uniform of a black shirt sergeant leaped from the seat be-side the driver and dropped on one knee in the roadway with a bulky camera at the ready to capture the moment when the figure in the wide rear seat of the Rolls should descend.
Count Aldo Belli adjusted his black beret carefully, sucked in his belly and rose to his feet as the driver scurried around to hold open the door. The Count smiled. It was a smile of flashing white teeth and powerful charisma. His eyes were dark and romantic with the sweeping lashes of a lady of fashion, his skin was lightly tanned to a golden olive and the l.u.s.trous curls of his hair that escaped from under the black beret shone in the sunlight. Although he was almost thirty-five years of age, not a single grey strand adulterated that splendid mane.
From his commanding position his height was exaggerated, so he seemed to tower G.o.d-like above the men who scampered about him. The highly polished cross-straps glittered across his chest as did the silver deaths head cap badges. The short regimental dagger on his hip set with small diamonds and seed pearls was to the Count"s own design, and the ivory-handled revolver had been hand-made for him by Beretta; the holster was belted in tightly to subdue a waistline that was showing signs of rebellion.
The Count paused and glanced down at the little sergeant.
"Yes, Gino?"he asked.
"Good, my Count. just a little up with the chin." The Count"s chin caused them both much concern. At certain angles, it showed an alarming tendency to duplicate itself like the ripples on a pond. The Count threw up his chin sternly, rather like 11 Duce, and the gesture ironed out the jowls below.
"Bellissimo," cried Gino, and tripped the shutter. The Count stepped down from the Rolls, enjoying the way the soft sparkling leather of his high boots gave like the bellows of a concertina above his instep as he moved, and he hooked the thumb of his gloved left hand into the belt above his dagger as he flung his right arm up and outwards in the Fascist salute.
"The General awaits you, Colonel,"Crespi greeted him.