Then again, he feared the Gallas. At the beginning of the Italian offensive they had taken no part in the fighting but had merely disappeared into the mountains, betraying completely the trust that the Harari leaders had placed in them. Now, however, that the Italians had won their first resounding victories, the Gallas had become active, gathering like vultures for the sc.r.a.ps that the lions left. His own retreat from Aradam had been hara.s.sed by his erstwhile allies. They hung on his flanks, hiding in the scrub Laid scree slopes along the Dessie road, awaiting each opportunity to fall upon a weak unprotected spot in the unwieldy slow-moving column. It was cla.s.sical shifta tactics, the age old art of ambush, of hit and run, a few throats slit and a dozen rifles stolen but it slowed the retreat slowed it drastically while close behind them followed the Italian horde, and across their rear lay the mouth of the Sardi Gorge.
Lij Mikhael roused himself and leaned forward in the seat to peer ahead through the windscreen. The wipers flogged sullenly from side to side, keeping two fans of clean gla.s.s in the mud-splattered screen, and Lij Mikhael made out the railway crossing ahead of them where it bisected the muddy rutted road.
He grunted with so tis faction and the driver pushed the Ford through the slowly moving ma.s.s of miserable humanity which clogged the road. It opened only reluctantly as the sedan b.u.t.ted its way through with the horn blaring angrily, and closed again behind it as it pa.s.sed.
They reached the railway level crossing and Lij Mikhael ordered the driver to pull off the road beside a group of his officers. He slipped out bareheaded and immediately the rain de wed on his bushy dark hair. The group of officers surrounded him, each eager to tell his own story, to recite the list of his own requirements, his own misgivings each with news of fresh disaster, new threats to their very existence.
They had no comfort for him, and Lij Mikhael listened with a great weight growing in his chest.
At last he gestured for silence. "Is the telephone line to Sardi still open? "he asked.
"The Gallas have not yet cut it. It does not follow the railway line but crosses the spur of Ambo Sacal. They must have overlooked it."
"Have me connected with the Sardi station I must speak to somebody there. I must know exactly what is happening in the gorge."
He left the group of officers beside the railway tracks and walked a short way along the Sardi spur.
Down there, a few short miles away, the close members of his family his father, his brothers, his daughter were risking their lives to buy him the time he needed. He wondered what price they had already paid, and suddenly, a mental picture of his daughter sprang into his mind Sara, young and lithe and laughing. Firmly he thrust the thought aside and he turned to look back at the endless file of bedraggled figures that shuffled along the Dessie road. They were in no condition to defend themselves, they were helpless as cattle "Until they could be regrouped, fed and re-armed in spirit.
No, if the Italians came now it would be the end.
"Excellency, the line to Sardi is open. Will you speak? Lij Mikhael turned back and went to where a field telephone had been hooked into the Sardi-Dessie telephone line. The copper wires dangled down from the telegraph poles overhead, and Lij Mikhael took the handset that the officer handed him and spoke quietly into the mouthpiece.
Beside the station master"s office in the railway yards of Sardi town stood the long cavernous warehouse used for the storage of grain and other goods. The roof and walls were clad with corrugated galvanized iron which had been daubed a dull rusty red with oxide paint.
The floor was of raw concrete, and tire cold mountain wind whistled in through the joints in the corrugated sheets.
At a hundred places, the roof leaked where the galvanizing had rusted away, and the rain dripped steadily forming icy puddles on the bare concrete floor.
There were almost six hundred wounded and dying men crowded into the shed. There was no bedding or blankets, and empty grain bags served the purpose. They lay in long lines on the hard concrete, and the cold came up through the thin jute bags, and the rain dripped down upon them from the high roof.
There was no sanitation, no bed pans, no running water, and most of the men were too weak to hobble out into the slush of the goods yard. The stench was a solid tangible thing that permeated the clothing and clung in a person"s hair long after he had left the shed.
There was no antiseptic, no medicine not even a bottle of Lysol or a packet of Aspro. The tiny store of medicines at the missionary hospital had long ago been exhausted. The German doctor worked on into each night with no anaesthetic and nothing to combat the secondary infection.
Already the stink of putrefying wounds was almost as strong as the other stench.
The most hideous injuries were the burns inflicted by the nitrogen mustard. All that could be done was to smear the scalded and blistered flesh with locomotive grease. They had found two drums of this in the loco shed.
Vicky Camberwell had slept for three hours two days ago.
Since then, she had worked without ceasing amongst the long pitiful lines of bodies. Her face was deadly pale in the gloom of the shed, and her eyes had receded into dark bruised craters. Her feet were swollen from standing so long, and her shoulders and her back ached with a dull unremitting agony. Her linen dress was stained with specks of dried blood, and other less savoury secretions and she worked on, in despair that there was so little they could do for the hundreds of casualties.
She could help them to drink the water they cried out for, clean those that lay in their own filth, hold a black pleading hand as the man died, and then pull the coa.r.s.e jute sacking up over his face and signal one of the over, worked male orderlies to carry him away and bring in another from where they were already piling up on the open stoep of the shed.
One of the orderlies stooped over her now, shaking her shoulder urgently, and it was some seconds before she could understand what he was saying. Then she pushed herself stiffly up off her knees, and stood for a moment holding the small of her back with both hands while the pain there eased, and the dark giddiness in her head abated. Then she followed the orderly out across the muddy fouled yard to the station office.
She lifted the telephone receiver to her ear and her voice was husky and slurred as she said her name.
"Miss Camberwell, this is Lij Mikhael here." His voice was scratchy and remote, and she could hardly catch the words, for the rain still rattled on the iron roof above her head. "I am at the Dessie crossroads."
"The train," she said, her voice firming. Lij Mikhael, where is the train you promised? We must have medicine antiseptic, anaesthetic don"t you understand? There are six hundred wounded men here. Their wounds are rotting, they are dying like animals." She recognized the rising hysteria in her voice, and she cut herself off.
"Miss Camberwell. The train I am sorry. I sent it to you.
With supplies. Medicines. Another doctor. It left Dessie yesterday morning, and pa.s.sed the crossroads here yesterday evening on its way down the gorge to Sardi-"
"Where is it, then?" demanded Vicky. "We must have it.
You don"t know what it"s like here."
"I"m sorry, Miss Camberwell.
The train will not reach you. It was derailed in the mountains fifteen miles north of Sardi. Ras Kullah"s men the Gallas were in ambush.
They had torn up the tracks, they have Fired everybody aboard and burned the coaches." There was a long silence between them, only the static hissed and buzzed across the wires.
"Miss Camberwell. Are you there?"
"Yes."
"Do you understand what I am saying?"
"Yes, I understand."
"There will be no train." "No." Ras Kullah has cut the road between here and Sardi."
"Yes."
"n.o.body can reach you and there is no escape from Sardi up the railway line.
Ras Kullah has five thousand men to hold it. His position in the mountains is impregnable. He can hold the road against an army."
"We are cut off," said Vicky thickly. "The Italians in front of us. The Gallas behind us." Again the silence between them, then Lij Mikhael asked, "Where are the Italians now, Miss Camberwell?"
"They are almost at the head of the gorge, where the last waterfall crosses the road-"
She paused and listened intently, removing the receiver from her ear.
Then she lifted it again. "You can hear the Italian guns. They are firing all the time now. So very close."
"Miss Camberwell, can you get a message to Major Swales?"
"Yes."
"Tell him I need another eighteen hours. If he can hold the Italians until noon tomorrow, then they cannot reach the crossroads before it is dark tomorrow night. It will give me another day and two nights. If he can hold until noon, he will have discharged with honour all his obligations to me, and you will all have earned the undying grat.i.tude of the Emperor and all the peoples of Ethiopia. You, Mr. Barton and Major Swales."
"Yes," said Vicky. Each word was an effort.
"Tell him that at noon tomorrow I shall have made the best arrangements I can for your evacuation from Sardi. Tell him to hold hard until noon, and then I will spare no effort to get all of you out of there."
"I will tell him."
"Tell him that at noon tomorrow he is to order all the remaining Ethiopian troops to disperse into the mountains, and I will speak to you again on this telephone to tell you what arrangements I have been able to make for your safety." Lij Mikhael, what about the wounded, the ones who cannot disperse into the hills?" The silence again, and then the Prince"s voice, quiet but heavy with grief.
"It would be best if they fell into the hands of the Italians rather than the Gallas."
"Yes,"she agreed quietly.
"There is one other thing, Miss Camberwell." The Prince hesitated, and then went on firmly, "Under no circ.u.mstances are you to surrender yourselves to the Italians. Even in the most extreme circ.u.mstances.
Anything-" he emphasized the word, "anything is preferable to that." ?
"I have learned from our agents that sentence of death has been pa.s.sed on you, Mr. Barton and Major Swales. You have been declared agents provocateurs and terrorists. You are to be handed over to Ras Kullah for execution of sentence. Anything would be better than that."
"I understand," said Vicky softly, and she shuddered as she thought of Ras Kullah"s thick pink lips, and the soft bloated hands.
"If everything else fails, I will send an-" his voice was cut off abruptly, and now there was no hiss of static across the wires, only the dead silence of lost contact.
For another minute Vicky tried to re-establish contact, but the handset was mute and the silence complete. She replaced it on its cradle, and closed her eyes tightly for a moment to steady herself. She had never felt so lonely and tired and afraid in her entire life.
Vicky paused as she crossed the yard to the warehouse, and she looked up at the sky. She had not realized how late it was. There were only a few hours of daylight left but the cloud seemed to be breaking up. The sombre grey roof was higher, just on the peaks, and there were light patches where the sun tried to penetrate the cloud.
She prayed quietly that it would not happen. Twice during these last desperate days, the cloud had lifted briefly, and each time the Italian bombers had come roaring at low level up the gorge. On both occasions, the terrible damage they had inflicted had forced Gareth to abandon his trenches and pull back to the next prepared position, and a flood of wounded and dying had engulfed them here at the hospital.
"Let it rain," she prayed. "Please G.o.d, let it rain and rain."
She bowed her head and hurried on into the shed, into the stench and the low hubbub of groans and wails. She saw that Sara was still a.s.sisting at the plain wooden table, inadequately screened by a tattered curtain of canvas, and lit by a pair of Petromax lamps.
The German doctor was removing a shattered limb, cutting below the knee while the young Harari warrior thrashed weakly under the weight of the four orderlies who held him down.
Vicky waited until they carried the patient away and she called to Sara. The two of them went out and stood breathing the sweet mountain air with relief as they leant close together under the overhanging roof of the veranda while Vicky repeated the conversation she had held with Lij Mikhael.
"Then we were cut off. The line just went dead."
"Yes," Sara nodded. "They have cut the wires. It is only a surprise that Ras Kullah did not do so before. The wires cross over the top of Ambo Sacal. Perhaps it has taken this long for them to reach it."
"Will you go down the gorge, Sara, and give the message to Major Swales? I would go down in Miss Wobbly, but there is almost no fuel in the tank, and I have promised Jake not to waste it. We will need every drop later--2 "It will be quicker on horseback anyway," Sara smiled, and I will be able to see Gregorius."
"No, it won"t take long," Vicky agreed.
"They are very close." Both of them paused to listen to the Italian guns. The thumping detonations of the high explosive reverberated against the mountains, close enough to make the ground tremble under their feet.
"Don"t you want me to give a message to Mr. Bartonr Sara demanded archly. "Shall I tell him that your body crave, "No," Vicky cut her short, her alarm obvious. "For goodness sake don"t go giving him one of your salacious inventions."
"What does "salacious" mean, Miss Camberwell?" Sara"s interest was aroused immediately.
"It means lecherous, l.u.s.tful."
"Salacious," Sara repeated, memorizing it. "It"s a fine word," and with gusto she tried it out.
"My body craves you with a great salacious yearning."
"Sara, if you tell Jake that I said that, I will murder you with my bare hands,"
Vicky warned her, laughing for the first time in many days, and her laughter was cut off in mid flight by the single ringing scream of terror, and the wild animal roar that followed it.
Suddenly the goods yard was filled with racing figures; they poured out of the thick stand of cedar trees that flanked the railway line, and they crossed the tracks in a few leaping bounds. There were hundreds of them and they poured into the warehouse and fell like a pack of wolves on the rows of helpless wounded.
"The Gallas," whispered Sara huskily, and for a moment they stood paralysed with horror, staring into the gloomy cavern of the shed.
Vicky saw the old German doctor run to meet the Galla wave, with his arms spread in a gesture of appeal, trying to prevent the slaughter. He took the thrust of a broadsword full in the centre of his chest, and a foot of the blade appeared magically from between his shoulder-blades.
She saw a Galla, armed with a magazine-loaded rifle, run down a line of wounded, pausing to fire a single shot at pointblank range into each head.
She saw another with a long dagger in his hand, not bothering even to slit the throat of the Harari wounded, before he jerked aside the covering of coa.r.s.e jute bags and his dagger swept in a single cutting stroke across the exposed lower belly.
She saw the shed filled with frenzied figures, their sword-arms rising and falling, their gunfire crashing into the supine bodies, and the screams of their victims ringing against the high roof, blending with the high excited laughter and the wild cries of the Galla.
Sara dragged Vicky away, pulling her back behind the sheltering wall of the shed. It broke the spell of horror which had mesmerized Vicky and she ran beside the girl on flying feet.
The car," she panted. "If we can reach the car." Miss Wobbly was parked beyond the station buildings under the lean-to of the loco shed where it was protected from the rain. Running side by side, Vicky and Sara turned the corner of the shed and ran almost into the arms of a dozen Gallas coming at a run in the opposite direction.
Vicky had a glimpse of their dark faces, shining with rain and sweat, of the open mouths and flashing wolf-like teeth, the mad staring eyes, and she smelt them, the hot excited animal smell of their sweat.
Then she was twisting away, like a hare jinking out of the track of a hound. A hand clutched at her shoulder, and she felt her blouse tear, then she was free and running, but she could hear the pounding of their feet close behind her, and the crazy loolooing of excitement as they chased.
Sara ran with her, drawing slightly ahead as they reached the corner of the station building. There was the flash and the crack of a rifle-shot out on their left, and the bullet slammed into the wall beside them. From the corner of her eye Vicky saw other running Gallas, racing in from the main road of the village, their long shammas flapping about them as they ran to head them off.
Sara was drawing away from her. The girl ran with the grace and speed of a gazelle, and Vicky could not keep pace with her. She rounded the corner of the station building ten paces ahead of Vicky, and stopped abruptly.
Under the lean-to shelter, the angular shape of Miss Wobbly was wreathed in furious petals of crimson flame, and the black oily smoke poured from her hatches. The Gallas had reached her first. She had clearly been one of their first targets, and dozens of them pranced around her as she burned and then scattered as the Vickers ammunition in the bins began exploding.
Sara had halted for only a second, but it was long enough for Vicky to reach her.
"The cedar forest," gasped Sara, a hand on Vicky"s arm as they changed direction.
The forest was two hundred yards away across the tracks, but it was dense and dark, covering the broken ground along the river. They raced out into the open, and immediately twenty other Gallas took up the chase, their voices raised in the pack clamour.
The open yard seemed to stretch to eternity as Vicky ran on ahead of the Gallas. The ground was slushy, so that she sank to the ankles with each step, and the clinging red mud sucked one of the shoes off her foot. So she ran on lopsidedly her feet sliding and her knees turning weak under her.
Sara raced on lightly ahead, leaping the steel railway track, and her feet flying lightly over the muddy ground.
The edge of the forest was fifty feet away.
Vicky felt a foot catch as she tried to jump the tracks and she went down sprawling in the mud. She dragged herself to her knees. On the edge of the forest Sara looked back, hesitating, her eyes huge and glistening white in her smooth dark face.
"Run," screamed Vicky. "Run. Tell Jake," and the girl was gone into the dark forest, with only a flicker of her pa.s.sing like a forest doe.