by John Harris
He was stooping over a metal box with a lock through the hasp. Using the spike of his jack-knife, he broke it easily enough and as he opened the lid, his face split in a smile.
‘By God, Goochy,’ he said. ‘Money!’
‘Whose money?’ Gooch’s head was over the tailboard immediately, his expression eager.
‘It was theirs,’ Harkaway said. ‘Now it’s ours.’ He picked up one of the coins and studied it. ‘Maria Theresa dollars.’
‘Any good to us?’
‘You bet your sweet life they are. They use ’em to pay Africans and Chinese who can’t be bothered with pound notes. Useful to bribe tribes to come over on to your side. The Boys’ll consider themselves well rewarded if we give them a sack of maize apiece and one of these.’
One by one, Grobelaar and Danny were swinging lorries off the road to the scrub-covered surface of the flatter land. Eventually they had five vehicles lined up alongside their own on the stony soil facing south.
Harkaway had chosen them carefully and the petrol lorry was among them. They had thrown into them everything they possibly could from the vehicles they were having to leave behind.
‘Hurry,’ Harkaway kept saying. ‘For God’s sake, hurry! We want to be out of sight before they start looking.’
Quickly, Grobelaar backed the other vehicles close together, then he punctured the petrol tanks with a spike so that the petrol flooded into the road beneath them. Shoving the prisoners out of range, Harkaway pulled the pin of the Japanese grenade he had pocketed and tossed it into the pool of petrol. It exploded with a crack that shattered the senses and immediately there was a roar and a blast of air that sent him sprawling.
Danny ran to him but he pushed her aside, grinning at the burning vehicles.
‘What a lovely sight,’ he said.
The news reached Hargeisa and Bidiyu at roughly the same time, soon after midday. When Di Sanctis appeared, Guidotti and Piccio were studying the map of North Africa and comparing it with the latest news they had received. In the Western Desert, a long line of prisoners was heading eastwards. Bardia was captured now and Tobruk was likely to fall at any time.
Piccio’s concern was chiefly with the broken pride of the Italian armies. Guidotti’s was more realistically concerned with what it meant to him. There were reports that British forces were building up in the Sudan close to the Eritrean border near Kassala and he knew what that meant. The British were intending to take full advantage of the Italian preoccupation with North Africa to win back some of their losses and, as he well knew, defeat in the desert meant they could expect no help from Rome.
‘What is it, Di Sanctis,’ Guidotti asked. ‘More trouble along the Strada del Duce?’
‘Yes, Excellency. General Forsci’s convoy’s been ambushed.’
Guidotti jerked upright, the Western Desert forgotten. His question had been light-hearted because, despite the blowing up of the Wirir Gorge and the bomb that had destroyed the Duce’s victory column, he hadn’t really been expecting trouble. He forced himself not to lose his calm, clenching his fists and straightening his back as he held on to his emotions.
‘Forsci’s convoy,’ he said, ‘has already safely passed through the danger area. All the trucks arrived here. I saw them myself.’
‘Yes, Excellency, they followed the usual routine and left five of them here, to rejoin the convoy on its way back in two days’ time. The rest were going on to Hargeisa and Berbera. They were ambushed on the other side of Bidiyu, halfway to Hargeisa. Five men were killed and the rest disarmed.’
Guidotti fought against the desire to raise his voice. ‘The rest?’ he asked stiffly. ‘How many are the rest, Di Sanctis?’
‘Twenty-seven, Excellency. The news has just come in. We’ve lost the lot.’
‘Twelve trucks?’
‘Thirteen, Excellency. General Forsci included a lorry-load of petrol without informing us.’
‘Who was responsible?’
‘It seems they were Somalis, sir. Led by four white men and – a white woman, sir.’
‘A white woman?’
‘Yes, Excellency. They took the boots, arms and uniforms of our men and made off with five lorries, one of them the petrol lorry. The rest they set on fire. Troops from Hargeisa are on their way there now. The survivors came in just before midday.’
Guidotti looked at Piccio.
‘That’s not all, sir,’ Di Sanctis said. ‘This has just arrived.’
Guidotti took the paper nervously, wondering what it contained. He read it carefully.
‘Bura has been occupied by the British,’ he said.
‘That’s in Kenya,’ Piccio pointed out.
‘Indeed it is,’ Guidotti agreed. ‘But up to yesterday it was occupied by our troops. The next move will be across the frontier at Moyale into Africa Orientale. With the British on the march opposite Kassala, it begins to look as if their campaign has started. Within a few weeks’ time an ambush on the Strada Del Duce might well appear a trivial matter.’
It took Harkaway’s column a fortnight to make their way to Gumra.
They were all stupid with tiredness but, not knowing that the Italians were occupied with other emergencies, were congratulating themselves on getting clean away. Staying in Gumra for several days, they eventually began to head back to Eil Dif, travelling by night and assuming that any searches the Italians might make would be over by this time.
Everybody in Eil Dif turned out to greet them – Harari as well as Habr Odessi – and both chiefs, to say nothing of Yussuf, beaming all over his face, his milky eyes blinking with pleasure, were dressed to kill.
The young men leapt from the lorries and, flourishing their weapons, immediately started doing the fuqera. The old men slapped their thighs and the women started their sing-song wailing while the young men spun and contorted, throwing up the dust in clouds as they whacked their broad flat feet on the dry earth. When they’d finished, and while they were still elated and panting, Harkaway started handing out the bags of maize, sharing them carefully between the two tribes.
‘Do you want none, effendi?’ Yussuf asked.
‘It’s all yours,’ Harkaway said magnanimously, knowing what Tully and Gooch would have said if he’d offered them mealie pap for lunch.
‘Line up the Boys,’ he said, and as the young men who had taken part in the fight waited, he went along the line and put into the hand of each startled warrior one Maria Theresa dollar. They stared at them, delighted, then started yelling.
Danny’s eyes were on him all the time. His head was up, the sun on his red hair so that he looked like a reincarnation of one of the Elizabethan sea dogs, bold, brave, dubious perhaps, but wholly admirable. As he caught her eyes on him she hurriedly dropped her gaze.
‘Tell them,’ he ordered Yussuf, ‘that such bounty is only possible if we are lucky enough to capture money. It will buy a great deal. Many goats. Perhaps a wife. But this can’t be so every time. Nevertheless, there will be other things. Rifles. Clothes. Blankets. Food. Next time there may not be silver but there will always be treasure of some kind.’
As Yussuf began to talk, Harkaway turned his head to Danny. ‘Not bad pay for very little fighting. Did any of them pull a trigger?’
‘Not one.’ She eyed him admiringly. ‘You’re a born leader, George. Why is it you’re only a corporal?’
Harkaway’s face shut down at once. ‘Because that’s the way I want it,’ he said.
With both the Habr Odessi and the Harari delighted with the outcome of the raid and more than willing to do anything for them, they decided to stay at the old house in the ruined area of Eil Dif.
Tully set up his radio, stringing his aerial along the veranda, and almost immediately they were electrified by the news he picked up. Tobruk was on the point of falling and the Italians had evacuated Kassala in the Sudan and were now being pushed from the areas of Kenya they had occupied back into their own territory. The war was coming to them!
Excitedly, Danny d
ug out the old atlas with which she’d taught her African pupils and, as they stared at it, Harkaway’s comment was much the same as General Guidotti’s.
‘If they’re on the move,’ he said, ‘what we’ve just done will begin to look like a vicarage tea party.’
Tully was grinning all over his face as he shut down the set. ‘We’re in good company,’ he observed. ‘There are South Africans, Rhodesians, British, East Africans, West Africans, Indians and Free French.’
Harkaway’s voice was cold. ‘They won’t any of them do any better than here in Somaliland,’ he said.
Part Two
The Sixth Column
One
The name stuck. From then on they were the Free British, and Tully’s sense of humour persuaded him to have a Union Jack made. The stripes were cock-eyed and of unequal lengths and widths and in the middle of it the Somali women Yussuf had instructed had placed a crescent and a scimitar.
‘They’ll be calling us the Ethiopian Fifth Column soon,’ Tully gloated.
‘Not the Fifth,’ Harkaway said. ‘The Sixth. One better.’
From then on they also referred to themselves as the Sixth Column, and when the news came that the Australians had taken Tobruk with twenty-five thousand prisoners and fifty tanks they were cock-a-hoop.
‘They’ll be so busy watching their rear,’ Harkaway said in his cool calculating way, ‘they won’t have time to worry about us.’
The following week, they learned that British troops had entered Italian Somaliland.
‘Bardia! Tobruk! And now Derna! Porca miseria! What a mess!’
Guidotti’s face was bleak as he studied the map of northern Africa. The red arrows they had been marking on it seemed to stretch for miles into Italian territory.
Piccio placed a sheet of paper on the table. ‘There is more, General,’ he said. ‘The British have appeared at Beda Fomm!’
‘Beda Fomm?’ Guidotti’s finger moved along the map. ‘But that’s beyond Benghazi! They can’t be there!’
Piccio shrugged. ‘Not only are they there, Excellency, they ran into one of our columns and took five thousand prisoners. They crossed the desert and got in front of them as they retreated.’
Guidotti picked up the sheet of paper and read it carefully. ‘Bergonzoli,’ he said slowly, ‘has surrendered with a hundred and thirty thousand prisoners, three hundred and eighty tanks and eight hundred and forty-five guns.’ He drew a deep breath. ‘It seems that the badly armed British who had so few guns and tanks now have considerably more.’
Piccio cleared his throat. ‘The BBC, sir, announces that they never at any time exceeded two divisions and lost only five hundred killed, one thousand four hundred wounded and fifty-five missing. They sounded very pleased with themselves.’
‘They have every right to,’ Guidotti said bitterly.
‘They have also–’ Piccio seemed almost to be enjoying the list of disasters ‘–crossed the border between the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and Abyssinia and are advancing on Keren, while the South Africans have crossed the Kenyan border into Jubaland and Italian Somaliland. Africa Orientale is besieged on every side.’
‘In the name of God, man,’ Guidotti snapped, ‘allow me to think! This is clearly going to start the Ethiopian patriots moving. Thank God we have no such patriots in Somaliland–’
‘We have now,’ Piccio pointed out. ‘This lot who destroyed General Forsci’s convoy.’
Guidotti waved his hand. ‘It may be nothing more than a group of English soldiers who were left behind when we came through from Jijiga to Berbera.’
‘They have weapons, Excellency,’ Piccio reminded him. ‘It’s reported there were rifles in the hands of every Somali. There were also machine-guns, at least one of them a Bren. I might point out also that they now have two more machine guns – General Forsci’s – and several more rifles – Italian rifles.’
Within the day, Guidotti had driven to Jijiga to confer with General Forsci who was still enraged at the loss of his convoy. ‘Leave it to me,’ Forsci said. ‘They were seen at Gumra. I can draw on southern Abyssinia for troops and I shall consider it my own special task. They will be scattered like chaff.’
Guidotti eyed his superior officer coldly. He had no great liking for General Forsci. He was an ardent supporter of the fascist movement and Guidotti had long suspected that he had got his job through sycophancy rather than for his skill as a soldier.
‘There’s a suspicion,’ he pointed out quietly, ‘that Gumra isn’t their headquarters, but that they’re based somewhere in the Gura-Eil Dif area.’
‘Very well!’ Forsci was quite certain of his tactics. ‘I shall send a column to Gumra and if there’s no sign there of them, we shall look around the Gura-Eil Dif area. I shall harry them. I shall learn where they are and give them no rest. Commandante di Brigata Ruffo di Peri can handle it. He has had great experience with this sort of thing against the patriots in Abyssinia. He has a mind full of ideas.’
Guidotti sincerely hoped he had because his own was full only of unhappiness. There was a mood in Bidiyu of general uneasiness after the defeats in Greece and Libya. Too many things seemed to be going wrong and he was conscious of a growing suspicion that the Duce had badly miscalculated by throwing his hand in with Hitler.
At Eil Dif the victory was turning into a tribal occasion with roast lambs and dancing, and Harkaway allowed Abduruman, Daoud and Yussuf a bottle of whisky from their store. He also produced one between the rest of them and carefully hid the rest on the excuse that they had to keep it for emergencies.
Wearing an Italian officer’s greatcoat, Gooch nodded solemnly. ‘It’s an antiseptic,’ he agreed. ‘If anybody gets hurt, we might need it to sterilise a wound. I’ve seen ’em do it in cowboy films.’
The decision didn’t please Tully. The exhilaration of their success had worked him up to a state of excitement that was difficult to keep in check. He could see Danny opposite him in the flames from the fire. With her hair cut short, she looked no more than a girl, and as she leaned back to reach for her Bible, which she always made a point of reading before going to sleep, he could see the curve of her breast against her shirt.
Harkaway’s mind was also busy and he was no fool. On their own, they couldn’t do much, however well they trained their tribesmen. A pitched battle, which in effect was what he was beginning to contemplate, was different from the mere planting of explosives. For that, they had to wait until the Allies began seriously to worry the Italians. Deep in thought, he lay quietly in his blankets in the dark. He was never sure how much they could trust the Habr Odessi and the Harari. It was impossible to stop them if they decided to bolt with the rifles, but he’d promoted Abdillahi to sergeant and two other promising youngsters to corporal, even going to the point of marking stripes on their tobes in the hope that their pride in themselves and the influence they had on the others would hold the rest from desertion. It went to Abdillahi’s head a little. He had long since fallen for Harkaway’s arrogant leadership – what the Abyssinians called being a Tillik Sau – and, ignoring Yussuf and even Chief Abduruman, had appointed himself his personal bodyguard. ‘I go everywhere with my master,’ Danny had heard him saying. ‘He is a great man. He does not play football with ordinary people when he is in England. He plays only with King George and the President of the United States.’
But Abdillahi was only one of them and the Somalis were noted for their independence. ‘Somalis no good,’ Harkaway had once been told by a sturdy Berbera policeman. ‘Each man too much his own sultan.’ They also suffered from inconstancy, vanity, excitability, greed and fits of the sulks. A mere word could change their devotion, and loyalty was always a chancy business. And if they stayed loyal, if they fought as he hoped they’d fight, even if they won, what if the Italians retaliated? Had he bitten off more than he could chew? Had they only been flexing their muscles to get Gooch an Italian overcoat for the cold nights? Wouldn’t they be wiser to head south, swathed in blankets and daubed with b
lacking, and make for Italian Somaliland? The Italians had been there ever since the last war and there was a relaxed atmosphere in Mogadiscio, as he knew because, before the war when others had gone to Aden or Mombasa, he had gone there for leave. It wasn’t much of a place with its Arab buildings, twisting lanes, crazy balconies and crumbling ruins, but he remembered it as having the secure feeling of being long settled. With luck, they could lose themselves in the back streets there until they could make their way to Kismayu and slip across the border into Kenya.
As he struggled with his thoughts, he heard the scrape of a foot on the sandy floor, a quick yelp of anger, then Grobelaar’s voice, harsh and abrupt in Afrikaans.
‘Wie gaan?’
Grobelaar rarely spoke Afrikaans except when he was angry or excited and, reaching for the torch, Harkaway flicked the switch. In its light, his shadow huge against the wall of the cave, he saw Tully standing in the corner by the entrance to the room where Danny slept. There was no door and Harkaway could see her sitting up in her blankets, her shirt open, the cleft between her breasts visible, her eyes wide, her face angry and afraid. Grobelaar was in the opposite corner, a rifle in his hand, the muzzle pointed at Tully. Harkaway’s first thought was that Grobelaar and Tully were quarrelling over the woman and he reacted angrily.
‘What the hell’s going on?’
‘He was after Danny,’ Grobelaar said.
‘Christ–’ Tully was a little drunk ‘–she’s only a bloody woman.’
‘And this is only a rifle, man,’ Grobelaar said quietly. ‘Go back to your blankets. Voetsek! Look slippy, Mak gou! Ek is haastig!’
Harkaway scrambled to his feet and, as he swung the heavy torch, Tully staggered back.
‘You stupid bloody fool,’ Harkaway snapped. ‘Have you been at the whisky?’
‘I gave him mine, too,’ Danny admitted.