his swollen purple lips, from one corner of his mouth to the other.
By this time, the Count had recovered his breath, and realized that
contrary to all his expectations the Ras was friendly and that he was
not in imminent danger of having his throat slit and his personal parts
forcibly removed, the Count regained much of his aplomb.
"Tell the Ras that I want from him, in exchange, a full account of the
enemy's strength the number of men, guns and armoured vehicles that are
guarding the approaches to the gorge. I want to know the enemy's order
of battle, the exact location of all his earthworks and strong points
and particularly I want to be informed of the positions occupied by the
Ras's own Gallas at the present time. I want also the names and ranks
of all foreigners serving with the enemy-" He went on ticking off the
points one at a time on his fingers, and the Ras listened with growing
awe. Here was a warrior, indeed.
We have to bait the trap, said Gareth Swales.
He and Jake Barton squatted side by side in the shade cast by the hull
of Priscilla the Pig.
Gareth had a short length of twig in his right hand, and he had been
using it to draw out his strategy for receiving the renewed thrust by
the Italians.
"It's no good sending horsemen. It worked once, it's not going to work
again." Jake said nothing, but frowned heavily at the complicated
designs that Gareth had traced on the sandy earth.
"We have conditioned the tank commander. The next look he gets at an
armoured car, and he's going to be after it like-"
"Like a long dog after a bitch, "said Jake.
"Exactly," Gareth nodded. "I was just going to say that myself"
"You already did, "Jake reminded him.
"We'll send out one car one is enough and hold another in reserve
here." Gareth touched the sand map. "If anything goes wrong with the
first car"
"Like a high-explosive shell between the buttocks?" Jake asked.
"Precisely. If that happens the second car pops in like this and keeps
them coming on."
"The way you tell it, it sounds great."
"Piece of cake, old son, nothing to it. Trust the celebrated Swales
genius."
"Who takes the first car? "Jake asked.
"Spin you for it," Gareth suggested, and a silver Maria Theresa
appeared as if by magic in his hand.
"Heads," said Jake.
"Oh, tough luck, old son. Heads it is." Jake's hand was quick as a
striking mamba. It snapped closed on Gareth's wrist and held his hand
in which the silver coin was cupped.
"I say," protested Gareth. "Surely you don't believe that I might and
then he shrugged resignedly.
"No offence," Jake assured him, turned Gareth's hand towards him and
examined the coin cupped in his palm.
"Lovely lady, Theresa," murmured Gareth. "Lovely high forehead,
very sensual mouth bet she was a real goer, what?" Jake released his
wrist, and stood up, dusting his breeches to cover his embarrassment.
"Come on, Greg. We'd better get ready," he called across to where the
young Harari was supervising the preparations taking place on the
higher ground above where the cars were parked.
"Good luck, old son," Gareth called after them. "Keep your head well
down." Jake Barton sat on the edge of Priscilla's turret with his long
legs dangling into the hatch, and he looked up at the mountains.
Only their lower slopes were visible, rising steeply into the vast
towering mass of cloud that rose sheer into the sky.
The cloud mass bulged, swelling forward and spilling with the slow
viscosity of treacle down the harsh ranges of rock. The mountains had
disappeared, swallowed by the cloud monster, and the soft mass heaved
like a belly digesting its prey.
For the first time since they had entered the Danakil, the sun was
obscured. The cold came off the clouds in gusts, touching Jake with
icy fingers of air, so that the gooseflesh pimpled his muscular
forearms and he shivered briefly.
Gregorius sat beside him on the turret, looking up also at the silver
and dark blue of the thunderheads.
"The big rains will begin now."
"Here?"
"No, not down here in the desert, but upon the mountains the rain will
fall with great fury." For a few moments longer, Jake stared up at the
pinnacles and glaring slopes of grandeur and menace, then he turned his
back upon them and swept the rolling tree-dotted plains to the
eastward. As yet, there was no) sign of the Italian advance that the
scouts had reported, and he turned again and focused his binoculars on
the lower slopes of the gorge at the point from which Gareth would
signal the enemy's movements to him. There was nothing to be seen but
broken rock and the tumbled slopes of scree and rubble.
He dropped his scrutiny lower to where the last small dunes of red sand
lapped like wavelets against the great rock reef of the mountains.
There were wrinkles in the surface of the plain, sparsely covered with
the pale seared desert grasses, but in their troughs thick coarse bush
had taken root. The bush was tall and dense enough to hide the
hundreds of patiently waiting Harari under its cover.
Gareth had worked out the method of dealing with the Italian tanks, and
it was he who had sent Gregorius up the gorge to the village of Sardi
with a gang of a hundred men and fifty camels. Under Greg's
direction,
they had torn up the rails from the shunting yard of the railway
station, packed the heavy steel rails on to the camels and brought them
down the perilous path to the desert floor.
Gareth had explained how the rails were to be used, split his force
into gangs of twenty men each and exercised them with the rails until
they were as efficient as he could hope for. All that was needed now
was for Priscilla the Pig to lead the Italian tanks into the low
dunes.
Without armour, Gareth estimated they could hold the Italians for a
week at the mouth of the gorge. His order of battle placed the
Harari on the left and centre, in good positions that interlocked with
those of the Galla on the right flank. The Vickers guns had lanes of
fire laid down that would make any infantry assault by the Italians
suicidal without armoured cover.
They would have to blast their way into the gorge with artillery and
aerial bombardment. It would take them a week at the least that is, if
they could dissuade Ras Golam from attacking the Italians, a task which
promised to be difficult, for the old Ras's fighting blood was coursing
through his ancient veins.
Once they forced the mouth of the gorge and drove the Ethiopian forces
into its gut, they had another week's hard pounding to reach the top
and the town of Sardi provided once again that the Ras could be
restrained in the role of defender.
Once the Italians broke out of the head of the gorge, the armoured cars
could be flung in to hold them for a day or two more, but when they
were expended, it was all over. It was an easy drive for the
Itali
ans through the rolling highlands on to the Dessie road, to close
the jaws of the trap hopefully after the prey had fled.
Gareth had reported all this to Lij Mikhael, contacting him by
telegraph at the Emperor's headquarters on the shores of Lake Tona.
The Prince had telegraphed back the Emperor's gratitude and assurances
that within two weeks the destiny of Ethiopia would be decided.
"HOLD THE GORGE FOR TWO WEEKS AND YOUR DUTY WILL BE FULLY
DISCHARGED STOP YOU WILL HAVE EARNED THE GRATITUDE OF THE EMPEROR AND
ALL THE PEOPLES OF ETHIOPIA." A week here on the plains, but it all
depended on this first encounter with the Italian armour. Gareth's
and
Jake's observations, backed up by those of the scouts, placed the total
number of surviving Italian tanks at four. They must take them out at
a single stroke, the whole defence of the gorge pivoted on this.
Jake found that he had been day-dreaming, his mind wandering over the
problems they faced and the chances they must take. It took
Gregorius's hand on his shoulder to rouse him.
"Jake! The signal." Quickly he looked back at the slope of the
mountains, and he did not need the binoculars. Gareth was signalling
with a primitive heliograph he had contrived with the shaving-mirror
from his toilet bag. The bright flashes of light pricked Jake's
eyeballs even at that range.
"They are coming in across the valley, line abreast. All four tanks,
supported by motorized infantry." Jake read the signal, and jumped
into the driver's hatch while Gregorius slid down the side of the hull
and ran to the crank handle.
"That's my darling." Jake thanked Priscilla, as the engine spluttered
busily into life, and then he called up to Gregorius as he climbed into
the turret above him. "I'll warn you every time I tUrn to engage."
"Yes, Jake." The boy's eyes burned with the fire of his anger,
and Jake grinned.
"As bad as his grand pappy He let in the clutch. They gathered speed
swiftly and flew over the crest of the rise, and behind them rolled a
long billow of dust, proclaiming their whereabouts to all the world.
The line of Italian tanks was coming straight in, a mile and a half out
on their flank.
"Engaging now, "shouted Jake.
"Ready." Gregorius was crouched over the Vickers in the turret,
straining it to the limit of its traverse, ready to fire at the very
instant the gun could bear.
Jake put the wheel over hard, and Priscilla swung towards the distant
dark beetle shapes of the Italian armour, sailing jauntily right into
their teeth.
Above Jake the Vickers roared, and the spent cartridges spewed down
into the hull, ringing and pinging against the steel sides, while the
sudden acrid stink of burned cordite made Jake's eyes sting and flood
with tears.
Through blurred eyes he watched the electric white tracer arc out
across the open ground, and fall about the leading tank. Even at that
range, Jake made out the tiny spurting fountains of dust and dirt
kicked up by the hose of bullets.
"Good lad," grunted Jake; it was accurate shooting from the bouncing,
bounding car at extreme range. Of course, it could do no damage to the
thick steel armour of the CV.3, but it would certainly startle and
anger the crew, goad them into retaliation.
As he thought it, Jake saw the turret of the tank traverse around as
the commander called the target. The stubby barrel of the Spandau
foreshortened rapidly, and then disappeared. Jake was looking directly
down the muzzle.
He counted slowly to three, it would take that long for the gunner to
get on to him, then he yelled, "Disengaging!" and flung Priscilla hard
over, so that she came up on two wheels, ungainly and awkward as she
swung away from the enemy line. From the corner of his eye Jake saw
the glow of the muzzle flash, and almost instantly afterwards heard the
crack of passing shot.
"Son of a gun that was close!" he muttered, and reached up to throw
the hatch and visor open. There was no point in closing down,
these Spandaus could penetrate any point of the car's hull as though it
were made of paper, and Jake would need a good and unlimited view
during the next desperate minutes.
Running parallel to the Italian line, he looked across and saw that all
four tanks were firing now, and they were bunching, each tank turning
towards him as he raced across their front, losing their rigid pattern
of advance in their eagerness to keep Priscilla under fire.
"Come along," muttered Jake. "Three balls for a dollar,
gentlemen, every throw a coconut!" It was too close to the truth to be
funny, but he grinned nevertheless. "Jake Barton's famous coconut
shy." A shell burst close alongside, showering sand and gravel into
the open hatch. They were ranging in on him now, it was time to
confuse the range again.
He spat sand from his mouth and yelled, "Engaging!" Priscilla spun
handily towards the Italian line, and went bounding in towards them
with that prim rocking action, her ugly old silhouette grim and
uncompromising as the visage of a Victorian matron.
They were close, horribly frighteningly close, so that Jake could hear
the Vickers bullets hammering against the black carapace of the leading
tank. Gregorius had picked out the formation leader by his command
pennant, and was concentrating all his fire upon him.
"Good thinking," grunted Jake. "Get the bastard's blood up." As he
giant had swung a hammer against the steel hull, and the car reeled to
the blow.
"We've taken a hit," Jake thought desperately, and his ears buzzed from
the impact and there was the hot acrid stench of burned paint and hot
metal in his nostrils. He swung the wheel over and Priscilla responded
as handsomely as ever, turning sharply away from the Italian line.
Jake stood up in his compartment, sticking his head out into the open
and he saw immediately how lucky they had been. The shell had struck
one of the brackets he had welded on to the sponson to carry the arms
crates. It had torn the bracket away, and dented the hull,
leaving the metal glowing with the heat of the strike but the hull was
intact, they had not been penetrated.
"Are you all right, Greg?" he yelled as he dropped back into his
seat.
"They are following, Jake," the boy called down to him, ignoring the
hit. "They are after us all of them."
"Home and mother here we come," Jake said, and turned directly away
from them, once again changing the range and aim of the Italian gunners
abruptly.
Shot burst close, driving the air in upon their eardrums, and making
them both flinch involuntarily.
"We are pulling too far ahead, Jake," called Greg, and Jake glancing up
saw that he had his hatch open and his head out.
"Lame bird," Jake decided reluctantly. If they outstripped the
Italians too rapidly, there was a danger they would abandon the
chase.
Another shell burst close alongside, covering them with a veil of pale
dust, and Jake faked a hit, cutting back the throttle so that their
seed bled off, and he swung Priscilla into an erratic broken pattern of
flight, like a bird with a broken wing.
"They're gaining on us now, "Greg reported gleefully.
"Don't sound so damned happy about it," Jake muttered, but his voice
was lost in the whine and crack of passing shot.
"They're still coming," howled Greg. "And they're still shooting."
"I noticed." Jake peered ahead, still flinging the car mercilessly
from side to side. The ridge of the first dune was half a mile ahead,
but it seemed like an hour later that he felt the earth tilt up under
him and they went slithering and skidding up the slip-face of the dune
and crashed over the crest into safety.
Jake swung Nscilla into a broadside skid, like a skier performing a
christy, bringing her to an abrupt halt in the lee of the dune and then
he backed and manoeuvred up until he was in a hull-down position behind
the sand, with only the turret exposed.
"That's it, Jake," cried Greg delightedly, as he found his Vickers
would bear again. He crouched over it, and fired short crisp bursts at
the four black tanks that roared angrily towards them across the
plain.
From the stationary position behind the dune, Gregorius made every
burst of fire sweep the oncoming hulls, driving the Latin tempers of
the crews into frenzy, like the sting of a tsetse fly on the belly of a
bull buffalo.
"That's about close enough," decided Jake, judging the charge of enemy
armour finely. They were less than five hundred yards off now and
already they were dropping shell close around the tiny target afforded
by the car's turret.
"Let's get the hell out of here." He swung Priscilla hard and she
plunged down the side of the dune into the trough. As she crashed
through the dense dark scrub, Jake caught a glimpse of the men lying in
wait under the screen of vegetation. They were stripped to
loin-Cloths, huddled down over the long steel rails, and two of them
had to roll frantically aside to avoid being crushed beneath
Priscilla's tall, heavily bossed wheels.
The momentum of her charge down the side of the dune carried her up on
the second dune with loose sand pouring out in a cloud from her
spinning rear wheels. She reached the crest and went over it at