carved from the horn of a kudu bull and bound with copper wire, the
blade was slightly curved and viciously pointed, twice the span of a
man's hand in length. He shouted to attract the woman's attention,
then sent the weapon skidding across the floor towards her and she
pounced upon it with another gleeful shriek and pranced before the
cringing youth, brandishing the knife while the watchers shouted
encouragement to her.
The captive began to twist and struggle, watching the knife with the
fixed concentration of despair and terror, but the two tall guards held
him easily, chuckling like a pair of gaunt ogres, watching the knife
also.
The old woman let out one more high-pitched shriek, and leapt at him
the long skinny black arm lunged out, the point of the blade aimed at
his heart. The woman's strength was too frail to drive it home, and
the point struck bone and glanced aside, skidding around the ribcage,
opening a long shallow cut that exposed the white bone in its depths
for the instant before blood flooded out between the lips of the wound.
A howl of delight went up from the assembled Gallas, and they goaded on
the avenger with mocking cries and yips like those of a pack of excited
jackals.
Again and again the old woman struck, and the youth kicked and
struggled, his guards roaring with laughter and the blood from the
shallow wounds flying and sparkling in the lamplight, splattering the
old woman's knife arm and speckling her angry screeching face. Her
frustration made her blows more wild and feeble.
Unable to penetrate his chest, she turned her attack upon his face. One
blow split his nose and upper lip, and the next slashed across his eye,
turning the socket instantly into a dark blood-glutted hole. The
guards let him fall to the floor.
The old woman leapt upon his chest and, clinging to him like a huge,
grotesque vampire bat, she began to saw determinedly at the youth's
throat until at last the carotid artery erupted, dousing her robes and
puddling the floor on which they rolled together while the Galla
watchers roared their approbation.
Only then could Vicky move; she leapt to her feet and pushed her way
through the throng that jammed the doorway and ran out into the cool
night. She realized that her blouse was damp with the sweat of nausea
and she leaned against the stem of a cosa flora tree, trying to fight
it, unavailingly; then she doubled over and retched tearingly, choking
up her horror.
The horror stayed with her for many hours, denying her the sleep her
body craved. She lay alone in the small room that Lij Mikhael had
ordered for her, and listened to the drums beating and the shouts of
laughter and bursts of singing from the Galla encampment amongst the
cosa flora trees.
When she slept at last, it was not for long, and then she awoke to a
soft tickling movement on her skin and the first fiery itch across her
belly.
Disgusted by the loathsome touch she threw aside the single blanket and
lit the candle. Across the flat smooth plain of her belly, the bites
of vermin were strung like a girdle of angry red beads and she
shuddered, her whole body crawling with the thought of it.
She spent what remained of the night huddled uncomfortably on the floor
of the armoured car. The mountain cold struck through the steel of
Miss Wobbly's hull, and Vicky shivered into the dawn, scratching
morosely at the hot lumps across her stomach. Then she filled the
growling ache of her empty stomach with a tin of cold corned beef from
the emergency rations in the locker under the driver's seat, before
driving up the slope of the western pass to the German mission station
where she experienced the first lift of spirits since the horrors of
the night.
Sara had responded almost miraculously to the treatment she was
receiving, and although she was still weak and a little shaky, the
fever had abated, and she was once more able to give Vicky the benefit
of her vast wisdom and worldly experience.
Vicky sat beside the narrow iron bedstead in the overcrowded ward,
while other patients coughed and groaned around her, and held Sara's
thin dry hand from which the flesh seemed to have wasted overnight and
poured out to her the horrors still pent up inside her.
"Ras Kullah," Sara made a moue of disgust. "He is a degenerate man,
that one. Did he have his milk cows with him?" Vicky was for a moment
at a loss, until she remembered the two madonnas. "His men scour the
mountains to keep him supplied with pretty young mothers in full milk
ugh!" She shuddered theatrically, and Vicky felt her unsettled stomach
quail. "That and his hemp pipe and the sight of blood. He is an
animal. His people are animals they have been our enemies since the
time of Solomon, and it shames me now that we must have them to fight
beside us." Then she changed the subject in her usual mercurial
fashion.
"Will you go down the pass again today?"
"Yes," Vicky said, and Sara sighed.
"The doctor says that I cannot go with you not for many days still."
"I will fetch you, as soon as you are ready."
"No. No," she protested. "It is shorter and easier on horseback. I
will come immediately but until then carry My love to Gregorius. Tell
him my heart beats with great fury for him, and he walks through my
thoughts eternally."
"I will tell him," agreed Vicky, delighted at the sentiment and the
choice of words. At that moment a tall young man in a white jacket,
with the face of a brown pharaoh and huge dark eyes, came to record
Sara's temperature, stooping solicitously over her and murmuring softly
in Amharic as he felt for her pulse with delicate finely shaped
hands.
Sara was transformed instantly into a languid wanton, with smouldering
eyes and pouting lips, but when the orderly left, she was instantly
herself again, giggling delightedly as she drew Vicky's head down to
whisper in her ear.
"Is he not as beautiful as the dawn? He studies to be a doctor, and
goes soon to the University at Berlin. He has fallen in love with me
since last night and as soon as my leg is less painful I shall take him
as a lover." And when she saw Vicky's startled glance, she went on
hurriedly, "But just for a short time, of course. Only until I am well
enough to ride back to Gregorius." When Lij Mikhael came, riding with
his wild horsemen.
They waited outside in the sun while the Prince came into the ward to
take farewell of his daughter. His sombre mood lightened momentarily
as he embraced Sara, and he saw how well she was recovered. Then he
told the two women, "Yesterday at noon, the Italian army under General
De Bono crossed the Mareb River in force and has begun to march on A
owa and Ambo Aradam. The wolf is into the sheepfold. There has
already been fighting and the Italian aeroplanes are bombing our towns.
We are now at war."
"It is no surprise," said Sara. "The only surprise is that.
they to
ok so long."
"Miss Camberwell, you must return as swiftly as you can to my father at
the foot of the gorge, and warn him that he must be ready to meet an
enemy attack." He drew out a gold pocket watch and glanced at it.
"Within the next few minutes, an aircraft will be landing here to take
me to the Emperor. I would be obliged, Miss Camberwell, if you would
accompany me to the-landing field." Vicky nodded, and the Lij went on.
"Ras Kullah's men are assembled there. He has agreed to send fifteen
hundred horsemen to join my father, and they will follow you-" He got
no further, for Sara intervened hotly.
"Miss Camberwell must not be left alone with those hyenas of Kullah's.
They would eat their own mothers." The Lij smiled and held up a hand.
"My own bodyguard will ride with Miss Camberwell, under my strict
charge to protect her at all times."
"I do not like it," pouted Sara, and groped for Vicky's hand.
"I will be all right, Sara." She stooped and kissed the girl, who
clung to her for an instant.
will come soon," whispered Sara, "Do nothing until I am with you.
Perhaps it should be Gareth after all," and Vicky chuckled.
"You're getting me confused."
"Yes," agreed Sara. "That's why I
should be there to advise you." Mikhael and Vicky stood side by side
on the hull of Miss Wobbly and shaded the sun from their eyes as they
watched the aircraft come in between the peaks.
As a pilot Vicky could appreciate the difficulty of the approach,
down into the bowl of Sardi, where treacherous down-draughts fell along
the cliffs, creating whirlpools of turbulence. The sun had already
dispelled the chill of the night making the high mountain air even
thinner and more treacherous.
Vicky recognized the aircraft type immediately, for she had trained for
her own pilot's licence on a similar model.
It was a Puss Moth, a small sky-blue high-winged monoplane,
powered by the versatile De Havilland four-cylinder aero engine. It
would carry a pilot and two passengers in a tricycle arrangement of
seating, the pilot up front in an enclosed cabin under the broad sweep
of the wings. Seeing the familiar aircraft reminded her, with a
fleeting but bitter pang, of those golden untroubled days before
October 1929, before that black Friday of evil reputation. Those
idyllic days when she had been the only daughter of a rich man, spoilt
and pampered, plied with such toys as motor cars and speed boats and
aircraft.
All that had been swept away in a single day. Everything had gone,
even that adoring godlike figure that had been her father dead by his
own hand. She felt the chill of it still, the sense of terrible loss,
and she turned her thoughts aside and concentrated on the approaching
aircraft.
The pilot came in down the western pass under the cliffs, then turned
steeply and side-slipped in towards the only piece of open ground in
the valley that was free of rocks and oles- It was used as a stockyard,
gymkhana ground or polo field as the need arose and at the moment the
ankle-deep grass was providing grazing for fifty goats.
Ras Kullah's horsemen drove the goats from the field at a gallop,
and then as the Puss Moth touched down, they wheeled and tore down the
field at its wing-tips, firing their rifles into the air and vying with
each other to perform feats of horsemanship.
The pilot taxied to where the car stood and opened the side window. He
was a burly young white man, with a suntanned face and curly hair. He
shouted above the engine rumble in an indeterminate colonial accent
Australian, New Zealand or South African, "Are you
Lij Mikhael?" The Prince shook hands briefly with Vicky before jumping
down. With his sham ma fluttering wildly in the slipstream from the
propeller, he hurried to the aircraft and climbed into the tiny
cabin.
The pilot was watching Vicky with a lively interest through the side
window and when she caught his eye he pursed his lips and made a circle
with thumb and forefinger in the universal sign of approval.
His grin was so frank and boyishly open that Vicky had to grin back.
"Room for one more!" he shouted, and she laughed and shouted back,
"Next time, perhaps."
"it will be a pleasure, lady," and he gunned the motor and swung away
lining up on the short rough-surfaced runway.
Vicky watched the Puss Moth climb laboriously up towards the mountain
crests. As the busy buzzing of its engine faded, a feeling of terrible
aloneness fell over her and she glanced around apprehensively at the
hordes of swarthy horsemen who surrounded the armoured car. Suddenly
she realized that not one of all these men could speak her language,
and that now there was a small cold cramp of fear at the base of her
belly to go with the aloneness.
Almost desperately, she longed for some contact with the world which
she knew, rather than these savage horsemen in this land of wild
mountains. For an instant she thought of checking the telegraph office
for a reply to her despatch, but dismissed the idea immediately. There
was no chance that her editor would yet have received, let alone
replied to her communication. Now she looked around her and identified
the knot of men and horses that comprised Lij Mikhael's bodyguard, but
they seemed very little different from the greater mass of Gallas.
hatch of the car and engaged the low gear.
She bumped over the rough ground and found the track that led down
along the river towards the tall grey stone portals of the gorge. She
was aware of the long untidy column Of Mounted men that followed her
closely, but her t mind leapt ahead to her arrival at the foot of the
gorge, to her reunion with Jake and Gareth. Suddenly those two were
the most important persons in her whole existence and she longed for
them, both or either of them, with a strength that showed in the white
knuckles of her hands as she gripped the steering-wheel.
The descent of the gorge was a more terrifying experience than the
ascent. The steeper stretches fell away before Vicky with the
gut-swooping feel of a ski-run, and once the heavy cumbersome car was
committed to it, its own weight took charge and it went down bucking
and skidding. Even with the brakes locking all four wheels, it kept
plunging downwards, with very little steering control transmitted to
the front wheels.
A little after noon, Vicky had come more than halfway down the gorge,
and she remembered that this final pitch was the truly terrifying part,
where the track clung to the precipice high above the roaring river in
its rocky bed. Her arms and back were painfully cramped with the
effort of fighting the kicking wheel, and-sweat had drenched the hair
at her temples and stung her eyes. She wiped it away with her forearm,
and went at the slope, braking hard the moment that the car began
rolling down the thirty-degree incline.
With rock and loose earth kicking and spewing out f
rom under the big
wheels, they descended in a heavy lumbering rush, and halfway down
Vicky realized that she had no control and that the vehicle was
gradually slewing sideways and swinging its tail out towards the edge
of the cliff.
She felt the first lurch as one rear wheel dropped slightly,
riding out over the hundred-foot drop, and instinctively she knew that
in this instant of its headlong career, the car was critically hanging
at the extreme edge of its balance. In a hundredth of a second, it
would go beyond the point of recovery, and she made without conscious
thought a last instinctive grasp at survival. She jumped her foot from
the brake pedal, swung the wheel into the line of skid and thrust her
other foot down hard on the throttle. One wheel hung over the cliff,
the other caught with a vicious jerk as the engine roared at full
power, and the huge steel hull jumped like a startled gazelle, and
hurled itself away from the cliff edge, struck the far bank of earth
and rocky scree and was flung back, miraculously, into its original
line of track.
At the bottom of the pitch, the slope eased. Vicky fought the car to a
standstill there and dragged herself out of the driver's hatch.
She found that she was shaking uncontrollably, and that she had to get
to a private place off the track, for in reaction she was close to
vomiting and her control of her other bodily functions was shaken by
that terrible sliding, bucking ride.
She had left the column of horsemen far behind, and could only faintly
hear their voices and the clatter of hooves on the rocky track as she
scrambled and clawed her way up the side of the gorge to a thicket of
dwarf cedar trees, where she could be alone.
There was a spring of clear sweet water amongst the cedars and when her
body had purged itself and she had it under control again, she knelt
beside the rocky pool and bathed her face and neck. Using the surface
of the shining water as a mirror, she combed her hair and rearranged
her clothing.
The reaction to extreme fear had left her feeling lightheaded and
slightly apart from reality. She picked her way out of the cedar
thicket, and down to where the car stood upon the track. The Galla
horsemen had arrived and they and their mounts crowded the entire
area,
back up the track for half a mile, and in a solid mob about the