his concerned underlings into the RollsRoyce and to lie wan and palely
resigned upon the soft leather seat.
"Drive on, Giuseppe," he murmured, like an aristocrat giving the order
to the driver of the tumbril.
On the long hot dusty drive into Asmara, the Count lay without interest
in his surroundings, without even attempting to marshal his defence
against the charges he knew he must soon face. He was resigned, abject
his only solace was the considerable damage he would do this upstart,
ill bred peasant, once he returned to Rome, as he was certain he was
about to. He knew that he could ruin the man politically and it gave
him a jot of sour pleasure.
Giuseppe, the driver, knowing his man as he did, made the first stop
outside the casino in Asmara's main street.
Here, at least, Count Aldo Belli was treated as a hero, and he perked
up visibly as the young hostesses rushed out on to the sidewalk to
welcome him.
Some hours later, freshly shaven, his uniform sponged and pressed,
his hair pomaded, and buoyed UP on a fragrant cloud of expensive eau de
cologne, the Count was ready to face his tormentor. He kissed the
girls, tossed back a last glass of cognac, laughed that gay reckless
laugh, snapped his fingers once to show what he thought of the peasant
who now ran this army, clenched his buttocks tightly together to
control his fear and marched out of the casino into the sunlight and
across the street into the military headquarters.
His appointment to meet General Badoglio was for four o'clock and the
town hall clock struck the hour as he marched resolutely down the long
gloomy corridor, following a young aide-de-camp. They reached the end
of the corridor and the aide-de-camp threw open the big double mahogany
doors and stood aside for the Count to enter.
His knees felt like boiled macaroni, his stomach gurgled and seethed,
the palms of his hands were hot and moist, and tears were not far
behind his quivering eyelids as he stepped forward into the huge room
with its lofty moulded ceiling.
He saw that it was filled with officers from both the army and the
airforce. His disgrace was to be made public, then, and he quailed.
Seeming to shrivel, his shoulders slumping, his chest caving and the
big handsome head drooping, the Count stood in the doorway. He could
not bear to look at them, and miserably he studied his gleaming toe
caps
Suddenly, he was assailed by a strange, a completely alien sound and he
looked up startled, ready to defend himself against physical attack.
The roomful of officers were applauding, beaming and grinning,
slapping palm to palm and the Count gaped at them, then glanced quickly
over his shoulder to be certain there was no one standing behind him,
and that this completely unexpected welcome was being directed at
him.
When he looked back he found a stocky, broad, shouldered figure in the
uniform of a general advancing upon him. His face was hard and
unforgiving, with a fierce grey mustache over the grim trap of his
mouth and glittering eyes in deep dark sockets.
If the Count had been in command of his legs and his voice, he might
have run screaming from the room, but before he could move the
General seized him in a grip of iron, and the mustache raking his
cheeks was as rank and rough as the foliage of the trees of the Danakil
desert.
"Colonel, I am always honoured to embrace a brave man," growled the
General, hugging him close, his breath smelling pleasantly of garlic
and sesame seed, an aroma that blended in an interesting fashion with
the fragrant clouds of the Count's perfume. The Count's legs could no
longer stand the strain, they almost collapsed under him. He had to
grab wildly at the General to prevent himself falling. This threw both
of them off balance, and they reeled across the ceramic floor, locked
in each other's arms, in a kind of elephantine waltz,
while the General struggled to free himself.
He succeeded at last, and backed away warily from the Count,
straightening his medals and reassembling his dignity while one of his
officers began to read out a citation from a scroll of parchment and
the applause faded into an attentive silence.
scattered wits together. The first half of the citation was lost to
him in his dreamlike state of shock, but then suddenly the words began
to reach him. His chin came up as he recognized some of his own
composition, little verbal gems from his combat reports "Counting only
duty dear, scorning all but honour" that was his own stuff, by the
Virgin and Peter.
He listened now, with all his attention, and they were talking about
him. They were talking of Aldo Belli. His caved chest filled out, the
high colour flooded back into his cheeks, the turmoil of his rebellious
bowels was stilled, and fire flashed in his eye once more.
By God, the General had realized that every phrase, every word,
every comma and exclamation. mark of his report was the literal truth
and the aide-de-camp was handing the General a leather-covered jewel
box, and the General was advancing on him again albeit with a certain
caution and then he was looping the watered silk ribbon over his head
so that the big enamelled, white cross with its centre star of emerald
green and sparkling diamantine, dangled down the front of the Count's
tunic. The order of Irish St. Maurice and St. Lazarus (military
division) of the third class.
Keeping well out of his clutches, the General pecked each of the
Count's flushed cheeks and then took a hasty step backwards to join in
the applause while the Count stood there puffed with pride, feeling
that his heart might burst.
You will have that support now," the General assured him, scowling
heavily to hear how his predecessor had grudged the Count sufficient
force to win his objectives. "I pledge it to you." They were seated
now, just the three of them General Badoglio, his political agent and
the Count in the smaller private study adjoining the large formal
office. Night had fallen outside the shuttered windows and the single
lamp was hooded to throw light down on the map spread on the table
top,
and leave the faces of the three men in shadow.
Cognac glowed in the leaded crystal glasses and the big ship's decanter
on its silver tray, and the blue smoke from the cigars spiralled up
slow and heavy as treacle in the lamplight.
"will need armour," said the Count without hesitation.
The thought of thick steel plate had always attracted him strongly.
"will give you a squadron of the light CV.3s," said the General,
and made a note on the pad at his elbow.
"And I will need air support."
"Can your engineers build a landing-strip for you at the Wells?" The
General touched the map to illustrate the question.
"The land is flat and open. It will present no difficulty," said the
Count eagerly. Planes and tanks and guns
, he was being given them all.
He was a real commander at last.
"Radio to me when the strip is ready for use. I will send in a flight
of Capronis. In the meantime, I will have the transport section convoy
in the fuel and armaments I shall consult the staff at airforce, but I
think the 100-kilo bombs will be most effective. High explosive, and
fragmentation."
"Yes, yes," agreed the Count eagerly.
"And nitrogen mustard will you have use for the gas?"
"Yes, oh yes, indeed, said the Count. It was not in his nature to
refuse bounty, he would take anything he was offered.
"Good." The General made another note, laid aside his pencil, and then
looked up at the Count. He glowered so ferociously that the Count was
startled and he felt the first nervous stir in his belly again. He
found the General terrifying, like living on the slopes of a
temperamental Vesuvius.
"The iron fist, Belli," he said, and the Count realized with relief
that the scowl was directed not at him, but at the enemy.
Immediately the Count assumed an expression every bit as bellicose and
menacing. He curled his lip and he spoke, just below a snarl.
"Put the blade at the enemy's throat, and drive it home."
"Without mercy, said the General.
"To the death," agreed the Count. He was on his home ground now,
and only just hitting his stride; a hundred bloodthirsty slogans sprang
to mind but, recognizing his master, the General changed the
snowballing conversation adroitly.
"You are wondering why I have put such importance on your objectives.
You are wondering why I have given you such powerful forces, and why I
have set such store on you forcing the passage of the
Sardi Gorge and the road to the highlands." The Count was wondering no
such thing, right now he was busy coming a phrase about wading through
blood, and he accepted the change of theme reluctantly, and arranged
his features in a politely enquiring frame.
The General waved his cigar expansively at the political agent who sat
opposite him.
"Signor Antolino." He made the gesture and the agent sat forward
obediently so that the lamplight caught his face.
"Gentlemen." He cleared his throat, and looked from one to the other
with mild brown eyes behind steel-framed spectacles. He was a thin,
almost skeletal figure, in a rumpled white linen suit. The wings of
his shirt collar were off-centre of his prominent Adam's apple and the
knot of the knitted silk tie had slid down and hung at the level of the
first button. His head was almost bald, but he had grown the remaining
hairs long and greased them down over the shiny freckled plover-egg
scalp.
His mustache was waxed into points, but stained yellow with tobacco,
and he was of indefinite age over forty and under sixty with the dark
malarial yellow tan of a man who has lived all his life in the
tropics.
"For some time we have been concerned to design an appropriate form of
government for the captured ah the liberated territories of
Ethiopia."
"Come to the point," said the General abruptly.
"It has been decided to replace the present Emperor, Baile
Selassie, with a man sympathetic to the Italian Empire, and acceptable
to the people-"
"Come on, man," Badoglic, cut in again. Verbal backing and filling
were repugnant to him. He was a man of action rather than words.
"Arrangements have been completed after lengthy negotiation, and I
might add the promise of several millions of lire,
that at the politically opportune moment a powerful chieftain will
declare for us, bringing all his warriors and his influence across to
us. This man will in due course be declared Emperor of Ethiopia and
will administer the territory under Italy."
"Yes, yes. I
understand, "said the Count.
"The man governs part of the area which is the direct objective of your
column. As soon as you have seized the Sardi Gorge and entered the
town of Sardi itself, this Chief will join you with his men and,
with appropriate international publicity, be declared King of
Ethiopia."
"The man's name?" asked the Count, but the agent would not be
hurried.
"It will be your duty to meet with this Chief, and to synchronize your
efforts. You will also make the promised payment in gold coin."
"Yes."
"The man is an hereditary Ras by rank. He is presently commanding part
of the army that opposes you at Sardi.
However, that will change-" said the agent, and produced a thick
envelope from the briefcase beside his chair. It was sealed with the
wax tablet and the embossed eagles of the Department of Colonial
Affairs. "Here are your written orders. You will sign for them,
please." He inspected the Count's signature suspiciously, then, at
last satisfied, went on in the same dry disinterested voice.
"One other matter. We have identified one of the white mercenaries
fighting with the Ethiopians those mentioned by you as being reported
by the three of your men captured by the enemy and subsequently
released." The agent paused and drew on his almost dead cigar, puffing
up the tip to a bright healthy glow.
"The woman is a notorious agent provocateur, a Bolshevik with radical
and revolutionary sympathies. She poses as a journalist,
employed by an American newspaper whose sentiments have always been
strongly anti-Empire. Already some of this woman's biased
inflammatory, writings have reached the outside world. They have been
a severe embarrassment to us at the Department-" He drew again on the
cigar, and spoke again through the billowing cloud of smoke.
"If she is taken, and I hope that you will place priority on her
capture, she is to be handed over immediately to the new Ethiopian
Emperor-designate, you understand? You are not to be involved, but you
will not interfere with the Ras's execution of the woman."
"I see." The
Count was becoming bored. This political nitpicking was not the type
of thing which would hold his attention. He wanted to show the young
lady hostesses at the Casino the great cross which now hung around his
neck and thumped on his chest each time he moved.
"As for the white man, the Englishman, the one responsible for the
brutal shooting of an Italian prisoner of war in front of witnesses, he
has been declared a murderer and a Political terrorist. When you
capture him, he is to be shot out of hand. That order goes for all
other foreigners serving under arms with the enemy troops. This type
of thing must be put down sternly."
"You can rely on me," said the Count. "There will be no quarter for
the terrorists."
General Pietro Badoglic, moved forward to Ambo Aradam, there were some
minor brushes. while the Italian General deployed his men for the
major stroke. At Abi Addi and Tembien he received advance warning of
the fighting qualities of his enemy, barefoot and armed with spear and
muzzle-loading gun. As he wrote himself, "They have fought with
courage and determination.
Against our attacks, methodically carried out and covered by heavy
machine-gun fire and artillery barrage, their troops have stood firm,
and then engaged in furious hand-to-hand fighting; or they have moved
boldly to counter-attack, regardless of the avalanche of fire that had
immediately fallen upon them. Against the organized fire of our
defending troops, their soldiers many of them armed only with Cold
steel attacked again and again, pushing right up to our wire
entanglements and trying to beat them down with their great swords."
Brave men, perhaps, but they were brushed aside by the huge Italian war
machine. Then at last Badoglio could come at Ras Muguletu, the war
minister of Ethiopia, with his entire army waiting like an old lion in
the caves and precipitous heights of the natural mountain fortress of
Ambo Aradam.
He loosed his full might against the old chieftain, the big
three-engined Capronis roared in, wave after wave, to drop four hundred
tons of bombs upon the mountain in five days of continuous raids, while
his artillery hurled fifty thousand heavy shells, arcing them up from
the valley into the ravines and deep gorges until the outline of the
mountain was shrouded in the red mist of dust and cordite fumes.
Up to now, the time of waiting had passed pleasantly enough for
Count Aldo Belli at the Wells of Chaldi. The addition to his forces
had altered his entire way of life.
Together with the magnificent enamelled cross around his neck,
they had added immeasurably to his prestige and correct sense of
self-importance.
For the first few weeks he never tired of reviewing and manoeuvring his
armoured forces. The six speedy machines, with their low rakish lines
and Aided turrets, intrigued him. Their speed over the roughest
ground, bouncing along on their spinning tracks, delighted him. They
made wonderful shooting-brakes, for nothing held them up,
and he conceived the master strategy of using them for game drives.
A squadron of light CV.3 tanks, in extended line abreast, could sweep a
thirty-mile swathe of desert, driving all game before them,
down to where the Count waited with the Mannlicher. It was the
greatest sport of his hunting career.
The scope of this activity was such that even in the limitless spaces
of the Danakil desert, it did not pass unnoticed.
Like their Ras, the Harari warriors were men of short patience.