Priscilla's hull hot as a wood stove.
"Look out for Number One," he murmured, and took a leisurely sweep of
the land with the glasses. There was no way that an Italian patrol
could surprise them here. He had selected the stake-out with a
soldier's eye for ground, and he congratulated himself again, as he
slumped in relaxation against the turret and lit a cheroot.
"Now," he thought. "Just how do you take on a squadron of cavalry
tanks, without artillery, mine-fields or armour-piercing guns ?" and
he let his mind tease and worry the problem. A couple of hours later
he had decided that there were ways, but all of them depended on having
the tanks come in at the right place, from the right direction at the
right time. "Which, of course, is an animal of a completely different
breed," and that took a lot more thought. Another hour later he knew
there was only one way the Italian armoured squadron could be made to
co-operate in its own destruction. "The jolly old donkey and the
carrot trick again," he thought. "Now all we need is a carrot."
Instinctively he looked down at where Jake lay curled. Jake had not
moved once in all the hours, only the deep soft rumble of his breathing
showed he was still alive. Gareth felt a prickle of irritation that he
should be enjoying such undisturbed rest.
The heat was a heavy oppressive pall, pressing down upon the earth,
beating like a gong upon Gareth's head.
The sweat dried almost instantly upon his skin, leaving a rime of salt
crystals, and he screwed up his eyes as he swept the horizon with the
glasses.
The glare and the mirage had obscured the horizon, blotted out even the
nearest ridges behind a shifting throbbing curtain of hot air that
seemed thick as water, swirling and spiralling in wavering columns and
sluggish eddies.
Gareth blinked his eyes, and shook the drops of sweat from his
eyebrows. He glanced at his watch. It was still another hour until
Jake's shift, and he contemplated putting his watch forward. It was
distinctly uncomfortable up on the hull in the sun, and he glanced
again at the sleeping form in the shade.
Just then he caught a sound on the thick heated air, a soft quiver of
sound, like the hive murmur of bees. There was no way in which to tell
the direction of the sound, and Gareth crouched attentively,
straining for it. It faded and returned, faded and returned again, but
this time stronger and more definite. The configuration of the land
and the flawed and heat-faulted air were playing tricks on the ear.
Suddenly the volume of sound climbed swiftly, becoming a humming growl
that shook in the. heat.
Gareth swung the glasses to the east; it seemed to emanate from the
whole curve of the eastern horizon, like the animal growl of the
surf.
For an instant the glare and swirling mirage opened enough for him to
see a huge darkly distorted shape, a grotesque lumbering monster on
four stilt-like legs, seeming as tall as a double-storey building.
Then the mirage closed down again swiftly, leaving Gareth blinking with
doubt and alarm at what he had seen. But now the growl of sound beat
steadily in the air.
Jake," he called urgently, and was answered by a snort and a changed
volume of snore. Gareth broke off a branch from the layer of
camouflage and tossed it at the reclining figure. It caught Jake in
the back of the neck and he came angrily awake, one fist bunched and
ready to punch.
"What the hell-'he snarled.
"Come up here, "called Gareth.
"I can't see a damned thing," muttered Jake, standing high on the
turret and peering eastwards through his glasses. The sound was now a
deep drumming growl, but the wall of glare and mirage was close and
impenetrable.
"There!" shouted Gareth.
"Oh my God!" cried Jake.
The huge shape leaped out at them suddenly. Very close, very black and
tall, blown up by distortion and mirage to gargantuan proportions. Its
shape changed constantly, so at one moment it looked like a four-masted
ship under a full suit of black sails then it altered swiftly into a
towering black tadpole shape that wriggled and swam through the soupy
air.
"What the hell is it? "Gareth demanded.
"I don't know, but it's making a noise like a squadron of Italian tanks
and it's coming straight at us."
The Captain who commanded the Italian tank squadron was an angry,
disgruntled and horribly disillusioned man a man burdened by a soul
corroding grudge.
Like so many officers of the cavalry tradition, the anne blanche of the
army, he was a romantic, obsessed by the image of himself as a dashing,
reckless warrior. The dress uniform of his regiment still included
skin-tight breeches with a scarlet silk stripe down the outside of the
leg, soft black riding boots and silver spurs, a tightly fitting bum
freezer jacket encrusted with thick gold lace and heavy epaulets, a
short cloak worn carelessly over one shoulder and a tall black shako.
This was the picture he cherished of himself all Man and swagger.
Here he was in some devil-conceived, god-cursed desert, where day after
day he and his beloved fighting machines were sent out to find wild
animals and drive them in on a set point, where a mad megalomaniac
waited to shoot them down.
The damage it was doing his tanks, the grinding wear on tracks running
hard over rough terrain and through diamond-hard abrasive sand,
was as nothing compared to the damage his pride was suffering.
He had been reduced to nothing but a gamekeeper, a beater, a peasant
beater. The Captain spent much of each day at the very edge of tears,
the tears of deep humiliation.
Every evening he protested to the mad Count in the strongest possible
terms and the following day found him once more pursuing wild animals
over the desert.
So far the bag had consisted of a dozen lions and wild dogs, and many
scores of large antelope. By the time these were delivered to where
the Count waited, they were almost exhausted, lathered with sweat, and
with a froth of saliva drooling from their jaws, barely able to trot
after the long chase across the plains.
The condition of the game detracted not at all from the Count's
pleasure. Indeed, the Captain had been given specific orders to run
the game hard so that it came to the guns docile and winded. After his
alarming experience with the beisa oryx, the Count was not eager to
take foolhardy risks. An easy shot and a good photograph were his
yardsticks of the day's sport.
The greater the bag, the greater the pleasure and the Count had enjoyed
himself immensely since the arrival of the tanks. However, the wastes
of the Danakil desert could not support endless quantities of animal
life, and the bag had fallen off sharply in the last few days as the
herds were scattered and annihilated. The Count was displeased.
He told the Captain of tanks so forcibly, adding to the man's
discontent and sense of grudge.
The Captain of tanks found the old bull elephant standing alone,
like a tall granite monument, upon the open plain. He was enormous,
with tattered ears like the sails of an ancient schooner, and tiny
hating eyes in their webs of deep wrinkles. One of his tusks was
broken off near the lip, but the other was thick and long and yellow,
worn to a blunt-rounded tip at the end of its curve.
The Captain stopped his tank a quarter of a mile from where the
elephant stood, and examined him through his binoculars while he got
over the shock of his size then the Captain began to smile, a wicked
twist of the mouth under his handsome mustache, and his dark eyes
sparkled.
"So, my dear Colonel, you want game, much game," he whispered.
"You will have it. I assure you." He approached the elephant
carefully from the east, crawling the tank in gingerly towards the
animal, and the old bull turned and watched them come. His ears were
spread wide and his long trunk sucked and coiled into his mouth as he
tested the air, breathing it onto the olfactory glands in his top lip
as he groped for the scent of this strange creature.
He was a bad-tempered old bull, who had been harried and hunted for
thousands of miles across the African continent, and beneath his
scarred and creased old hide were the spear-heads, the pot legs fired
from mule-loading guns, and the jacketed slugs from modern rifled
firearms. All he wanted now in his great age was to be left alone he
wanted neither the demanding company of the breeding cows, the
importunate noisy play of the calves, nor the single-minded pursuit of
the men who hunted him. He had come into the desert, to the burning
days and coarse vegetation to find that solitude, and now he was moving
slowly down to the Wells of Chaldi, water which he had last tasted as a
young breeding bull twenty-five years before.
He watched the buzzing growling things creeping in towards him,
and he tasted their rank oily smell, and he did not like it. He shook
his head, flapping his ears like the crash of canvas taking the wind on
a new tack, and he squealed a warning.
The growling humming things crept closer and he rolled his trunk up
against his chest, he cocked his ears half back and curled the tips but
the tank Captain did not recognize the danger signals and he kept on
coming.
Then the elephant charged, fast and massive, the fall of his huge pads
thumping against the earth like the beat of a bass drum, and he was so
fast, so quick off the mark that he almost caught the tank. If he had
he would have flicked it over on its back without having to exert all
his mountainous strength. But the driver was as quick as he,
and he swung away right under the outstretched trunk, and held his best
speed for half a mile before the bull gave up the pursuit.
"My Captain, I could shoot it with the Spandau," urged the gunner
anxiously. He had not enjoyed the chase.
"No! No!" The Captain was delighted.
"He is a very angry, dangerous and ferocious animal," the gunner
pointed out.
"SO" the Captain laughed happily, rubbing his hands together with glee.
"He is my very special gift to the Count." After the fifth approach by
the tanks, the old bull grew bored with the unrewarding effort of
chasing after them.
With his belly rumbling protestingly, his stubby tail twitching
irritably, and the musk from the glands behind his eyes weeping in a
long, wet smear down his dusty cheeks, he allowed himself to be
shepherded towards the west by the following line of cavalry tanks but
he was still a very angry elephant.
You're not going to believe this," said Gareth Swales softly. "I'm not
even sure I believe it myself. But it's an elephant, and it's leading
a full squadron of Eyetie tanks straight to us."
"I don't believe it," said Jake. "I can see it happening but I don't
believe it. They must have trained it like a bloodhound. Is that
possible, or am I going crazy?"
"Both," said Gareth. "May I suggest we get ready to move.
They are getting frightfully close, old son." Jake jumped down to the
crank handle, while Gareth dropped into the driver's hatch and swiftly
adjusted the ignition and throttle setting.
"All set," he said, glancing anxiously over his shoulder.
The great elephant was less than a thousand yards away.
Coming on steadily, in that long driving stride, a pace between a walk
and a trot that an elephant can keep up for thirty miles without check
or rest.
"You might hurry it up, at that," he added, and Jake spun the crank.
Priscilla made no response, not even a cough to encourage Jake as he
wound the crank frantically.
After a full minute, Jake staggered back gasping, and doubled over with
hands on his knees as he sucked for air.
"This bloody infernal machine-" Gareth began, but Jake straightened up
with genuine alarm.
"Don't start swearing at her, or she'll never start," he cautioned
Gareth, and he stooped to the crank handle again. "Come along now, my
darling," he whispered, and threw his weight on the crank.
Gareth took another quick glance over his shoulder. The bizarre
procession was closer, much closer. He leaned out of the driver's
hatch and patted Priscilla's engine-cowling tenderly.
"There's my love," he crooned. "Come along, my beauty." The
screens, double canvas to protect them from the cruel sun. The mess
servants served iced drinks and light refreshments, and a random breeze
that flapped the canvas occasionally was sufficient to keep the
temperature bearable.
The Count was in an expansive mood, host to half a dozen of his
officers, all of them dressed in casual hunting clothes, armed with a
selection of sporting rifles and the occasional service rifle.
"I think we can rely on better sport today. I believe that our beaters
will be trying harder, after my gentle admonitions." He smiled and
winked, and his officers laughed dutifully. "Indeed, I am hoping-"
"My Count. My Count." Gino rushed breathlessly into the tent like a
frenzied gnome. "They are coming. We have seen them from the
ridge."
"Ah!" said the Count with deep satisfaction. "Shall we go down and
see what our gallant Captain of tanks has for us this time?" And he
drained the glass of white Wine in his hand, while Gino rushed over to
help him to his feet, and then backed away in front of him, leading him
to where Giuseppe was hastily removing the dust covers from the
Rolls.
The small procession, headed by the Count's Rolls, Royce, wound down
the slope of the low ridge to where the blinds had been sited in a line
across the width of the shallow valley. The blinds had been built by
the battalion engineers, dug into the red earth so as not to stand too
high above the low desert scrub. They were neatly thatched,
covered against the sun, with loopholes from which to fire upon the
driven game. There were comfortable
camp chairs for those long waits
between drives, a small but well-stocked bar, ice in insulated
buckets,
a separate screened latrine in fact all the comforts to make the day's
sport more enjoyable.
The Count's blind was in the centre of the line. It was the largest
and most luxuriously appointed, situated so that the great majority of
driven game would bunch upon this point. His junior officers had
earlier learned the folly of exceeding the Colonel's"
personal bag or of firing at any animal which was swinging across their
front towards the Count. The first offender in this respect had found
himself reduced from Captain to Lieutenant, and no longer invited to
the hunt, and the second was already back in Massawa writing out
requisition forms in the quartermaster's division.
Gino handed the Count from the Rolls, and helped him down the steps
into the sunken shelter. Giuseppe saluted and climbed back into the
Rolls, swung away and bumped back up the ridge and over the skyline.
The Count settled himself comfortably in the canvas chair. With a
sigh, he unbuttoned the front of his jacket, and accepted the damp face
cloth that Gino handed him.
While the Count wiped the film of sweat from his forehead with the cool
cloth, Gino opened a bottle of Lacrima Cristi from the ice bucket and
placed a tall frosted crystal glass of the wine on the folding table at
the Count's elbow. Next, he loaded the
Marmlicher with shiny new brass cartridges from a freshly opened
packet.
The Count tossed the cloth aside and leaned forward in his chair to
peer through the loophole in front of him, out across the shimmering
plain where the small dark desert scrub danced in the heat.
"I have a feeling we shall have extraordinary sport today, Gino."
I hope so indeed, my Count, said the little sergeant and stood to
attention behind his chair with the loaded Mannlicher held at the ready
across his chest.
ome on, darling," croaked Jake, sweat dripping from his chin on to his
shirt front as he stooped over the crank handle and spun it for the
hundredth time.
"Don't let us down now, sweetheart." Gareth scrambled up on to the
sponson of Priscilla and took a long despairing glance back over the
turret. He felt something freeze in his belly, and his breath
caught.