Harkaway's Sixth Column

by John Harris

  Charlton looked at his notebook. ‘George Matthew Tremayne Harkaway.’

  The general frowned. ‘There was a Tremayne in the Buffs,’ he said. ‘Made general. Probably his grandson or something. Might explain things a bit. They were damn good soldiers.’ His frown deepened. ‘I suppose we ought to make him official but if he doesn’t pull it off it would make us look a bit silly. Perhaps for the time being, until we see what he makes of it, we’d better keep him out of our reports.’

  Charlton cleared his throat. ‘I doubt if that will be possible, sir,’ he said. ‘Wye, of the Globe, and Russell, of APA, were there, too. It’ll be in every newspaper in England by tomorrow evening.’

  The general frowned at his cigarette. ‘The bloody press love oddities, don’t they?’ he murmured. ‘Oh, well, I suppose we’ll have to do something for him after all. Better make him a major. Temporary, of course. It’ll give him the authority to handle those natives of his.’

  Charlton frowned. ‘He didn’t seem to me,’ he said, ‘to need much in the way of authority, sir.’

  Ten

  The countryside was grim, red and blistering, and the strips of murram road were often the only colour in the baked landscape.

  Where the scrub died away, the surface was sand fine as face powder, and the sun beat down vertically, making mirages in the brown waste of rocks. Lava boulders as big as footballs that lay everywhere, like hundreds and thousands on a birthday cake, shook the lorries to pieces. As they swerved to avoid one, they invariably hit another so that they were all bone-weary with the shaking.

  Harkaway was pressing on hard with the wheeled transport, letting the rest – the camels and the mules carrying the water, the food, the ammunition and the petrol, the marching men, the women and the camp followers with their children – keep up as best they could, so that the column was strung out in a long winding coil, separated here and there like a broken string of beads.

  Guidotti wasn’t far away, they knew. They’d been following his tracks for some days now, driving in the ruts he’d made, so deep in the surface of the desert it was possible to put the wheels in them then sit back and let the lorry steer itself as if it were on lines. Long-shanked black men, wrapped in blankets and tending their flocks, told them the Italians were just ahead, sheltering in one of the whitewashed Beau Geste forts they had thrown up round their borders.

  As they drew closer, they kept coming across abandoned trucks, and the remains of the Italians’ camps – tins of food and Chianti bottles. They even found petrol cans hurriedly tossed aside, the petrol brown and dirty so that it had to be filtered through chamois cloths to avoid clogging the carburettors, but petrol nevertheless, and they knew the Italians were in a bad way, because they would never otherwise abandon the precious liquid that enabled them to keep moving.

  They were a long way now from the road that ran between Berbera and Harar, the ancient trade route where slaves, ivory, apes and peacocks had passed since the days of Solomon and Sheba. This was grim, hard country that allowed them to take no chances and nerves were beginning to run a little ragged.

  ‘This isn’t what we came for,’ Gooch said bitterly as they sat round a flickering fire.

  ‘You didn’t object,’ Harkaway said, harsh and unrelenting. ‘You could have backed out at Bidiyu. But you’ve been given the King’s commission now. You’re a full lieutenant, Goochy. “George, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas, King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India, et cetera, to our trusty and well beloved Harvey Gooch, we, reposing especial trust and confidence in your loyalty, courage and good conduct, do by these presents constitute and appoint you to be an officer…”’

  Gooch’s eyes lifted. ‘Is that what they say?’ he asked.

  ‘They not only say it. They write it down. They have it printed on parchment with a bloody great red seal in the corner. Temporary gentlemen have ’em framed – to prove to the neighbours they were once better than they seem.’

  Gooch looked suspiciously at Harkaway. ‘Where’ve you seen one?’

  Harkaway gestured airily. ‘Oh, I’ve seen ’em,’ he said.

  Gooch was silent for a while. ‘Will I get one?’ he asked.

  ‘Bound to. Eventually. It was confirmed in the radio message Paddy took down. It was quite clear. Harvey Gooch. Patrick Tully.’

  ‘And George Matthew Tremayne Harkaway. Is that your name?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Some bloody name.’

  ‘I could say the same about Harvey Gooch.’

  ‘And they made you a bloody major. Paddy and me are only lieutenants.’

  Harkaway’s face was close to Gooch’s. ‘Who’s running the show?’ he demanded. ‘Could you have done it, Lieutenant Harvey Gooch? Could Paddy?’

  Gooch shifted uneasily because he knew he couldn’t. ‘They’ll take it off us again,’ he growled. ‘When they find out who we really are.’

  ‘No, they won’t,’ Harkaway said. ‘Not now the newspaper boys have got hold of it. They wouldn’t dare.’

  If they were aware that Guidotti wasn’t far ahead, Guidotti was equally aware that they weren’t very far behind.

  He had hoped to escape undetected, but it hadn’t taken him long to realize there was a column following them north. He could only imagine it was the Sixth Column, because he guessed rightly that the British army would be less concerned with him than with reaching the Abyssinian capital. The fall of Addis Ababa could not be far away now. Keren in the north had held out for a month but that had gone at last and, almost at the same time, so had Asmara. With Berbera, Hargeisa and Bidiyu gone, too, and now Jijiga, Harar and Diredawa, Addis Ababa couldn’t hope to hold out for long. Then his troubles would increase, because as soon as the British had pushed Haile Selassie back on his shabby throne, they’d start seeking out all the lost units of the Italian East African army.

  For days as he had crossed the Abyssinian border, he’d been aware of the dust cloud on the horizon that meant they were being pursued, and he was glad to link up with the garrison of Fort San Rafaelo at Djuba. His men were at the end of their tether, but it looked very much as though they were going to have to fight there.

  There had been a fortification at Djuba, where a spider’s-web of camel tracks came together, since before Christ, because this was border country where slave traders, bandits and nomad families had fought pitched battles for centuries over the wells that pierced the limestone outcrop. King Theodore had built a fort there to guard his southern borders against the hated white men, but the British general, Napier, had destroyed it in 1868, only for the Italians to rebuild it in 1938.

  It was a whitewashed square structure now, with twenty-foot walls, except at the back where, because of the shortage of building material, a wall of logs and stones had been scaled down in the belief that the enemy would never get the chance of attacking the place from the rear. It had latticed windows, machicolations, firing slits on its parapet and a high tower at one corner. Inside the fort was a large parade ground with a well which supplied fresh if brackish liquid but unfortunately it was not fitted with a very good pump so that the business of obtaining water was long, hot and arduous. Large barrack rooms and offices were situated round the inside of the walls, their flat roofs forming the walk from which the parapet could be manned but, though attempts had been made by Major Pavicelli, its commander until the arrival of Guidotti, to make it like home, it still remained a bare empty box devoid of comfort, and full – especially at that moment – of nervous anxieties about attack.

  Despite its size, Guidotti was well aware that it wasn’t big enough for modern warfare. It was surrounded by a zariba of thorn bushes and a barbed wire entanglement, but the barbed wire, like everything else, was in short supply and the low wall at the back worried him. Some former commander had made himself a small garden there, near a group of thorny acacias, so he could sit in the shade in the evening, and a small door had bee
n let into the wall, which was reached by a passage alongside one of the large barrack rooms. Guidotti had had the door barricaded for safety but he recognized it as a danger point; and, in addition, because of the danger of their vehicles being spotted by aircraft and bombed, they had had to disperse them outside the log wall among the trees. Hard up against the walls on this side were sheds for the herd of cattle, sheep and goats which were kept to provide fresh meat.

  The approaches to the fort had been cleared to give a field of fire but the scrub had not been pushed back far enough and, beyond the clearing, could hide an army. In addition, just outside the wire was a khor, a sandy river bed edged with tough grass. When the rains came, it carried water but, at the moment, apart from a few large stagnant pools, it was dry, and as Guidotti well knew, could offer protection for anyone about to storm the fort.

  As he studied his position, Guidotti didn’t fancy his chances. He had had the wooden bridge across the khor hacked down but, while these ridiculous little fortresses were fine against tribesmen with ancient weapons, he well knew that the column coming up from the south was well armed, because it was largely armed with Italian guns.

  He stood on the ramparts studying the town and the flat-roofed bazaars where traders bowed on their prayer rugs and gave thanks to Allah that the Italians would soon be gone. Since his arrival he had spent his time putting up extra wire to keep out all the natives except the old women who did the washing and looked after the herd of cattle. There was an Italian arch in the little town bearing a date to show how long the area had been occupied and Guidotti reflected bitterly that it didn’t really add up to much.

  As the sun sank and the bright brassiness of the heavens faded to jade green and then to lemon yellow, the land outside the fort remained silent, changing with the colour of the sky from gold to salmon pink and then to purples and greys. There were Abyssinians and border Somalis near the waterhole, fine-looking nomads grazing their flocks on the scanty pasturage of the interior, and over the silent air came the faint tinkle of camel bells. Guidotti could see the shadowy shapes passing endlessly through the light cast by the fires, and their smell came to him, bitter and smoky, to pervade the whole interior of the fort.

  ‘Have you finished the wire?’ he asked Piccio.

  ‘Yes, Excellency. But there isn’t much.’

  ‘Weapons?’

  ‘Set up, sir.’

  ‘How about the troops?’

  Piccio shrugged. ‘They’re nervous. I’m not sure I’d depend on them. The Abyssinians will throw in their hand if they get a chance, and even the Eritreans are not what they were. If rations run short–’

  ‘Rations won’t run short!’ Guidotti gestured. ‘And those people out there are worse off than we are. Besides, we shan’t be here long. I propose to stay only until our people are rested, then move further north with Pavicelli towards the Duke of Aosta.’

  Piccio frowned. ‘We’d better hurry, I think, sir,’ he said. ‘Fortresses are always dangerous and sieges can become disasters.’

  Some time after midnight, on the orders of Piccio, Guidotti was roused by a nervous askari. Dressing hurriedly, he climbed with Piccio to the tower. It stood sixty feet above the ground and it was possible to see for miles.

  Piccio pointed. In the distance, a long line of pinpoint lights from fires was strung across the desert in a vast half circle. As Guidotti stared at them, Piccio touched his arm and gestured again. Guidotti stared in the direction of his pointing finger. In the north, too, were lights in another vast semi-circle and it was clear the two semi-circles were endeavouring to join up.

  ‘They’ve arrived,’ Piccio said.

  Guidotti didn’t have to ask who.

  Eleven

  The Sixth Column slipped into its place quietly and efficiently. On the right, the town of Djuba lay in a huddle of whitewashed mud buildings, the roads leading to it studded with embarrassed-looking eagles, laurels, and bundles of fasces. There was also an area of iron pickets and rusting barbed wire protecting from jackals and hyenas the neglected sun-baked graves of a dozen Italian soldiers who had fallen when the country had been taken over. Above them rose a headstone chiselled in Italian: ‘To the men of Cerutti’s column who died in the shadow of the Roman eagles at Djuba in combat with the barbarous foe.’

  Staring at the fort, Harkaway hardly saw them.

  ‘Got the bastard,’ he said with satisfaction.

  Gooch made a growling sound of disagreement. ‘If you ask me,’ he said heavily, ‘you’re expecting a lot outa those Boys of yours. The buggers might be able to fire rifles but they aren’t trained for attacking a fort.’

  ‘I’m not looking for trained soldiers,’ Harkaway said flatly. ‘What I want is untrained soldiers. The Boys are tough and silent and for the sort of fighting I want they’re just the job. They’ll carry spears, pangas and anything else that takes their fancy, so long as it’s sharp, shines and is likely to put the fear of God into the Italians. To make it better we’ll go in after dark.’

  Gooch remained unconvinced. ‘Night attacks always end in a bloody shambles,’ he said.

  ‘This one won’t. And once we’re inside, I’m going to let the Boys loose. Everything they can get’s theirs. That’ll make ’em go. They’ve behaved themselves well up to now and they’re itching to have a go in their own way. This time they’re going to. When the Eyeties see ’em coming up the stairs and round the corners they’ll think it’s Adowa all over again.’

  ‘What’s Adowa, for God’s sake, you toffee-nosed bastard?’

  ‘Adowa’s where their army was wiped off the face of the earth by the Abyssinians in 1896. We’ll let ’em know we’ve been joined by several thousand Abyssinians–’

  ‘A hundred’s nearer the mark.’

  ‘They don’t know that.’

  ‘Suppose the bastards get out of hand?’

  Harkaway smiled. ‘So much the better,’ he said. ‘The Eyeties’ bloody bandas were given carte blanche to rob and rape, and they’ll think it’s their turn and won’t wait to find out.’

  That night, with Piccio behind him, Guidotti stamped briskly round the ramparts of the fort, trying to look more confident than he felt. He was urging the need for constant alertness on the sergeant of the guard, when they heard a whistle. Almost at once there was a crash and a blinding flash just outside the fort that threw up a cloud of dust and stones.

  Guidotti looked at Piccio. ‘They’ve got artillery,’ he said.

  They realized at once that the missile had come from a mountain gun. The weapon was small and of ancient vintage but, firing vertically, was more suited to throw its shells into the fort than guns with a flat trajectory.

  Two more shells arrived almost at once, gouging out chunks of the mud-brick wall. As they struggled to fill the gaps with rubble they were expecting more shells, but surprisingly none came and they were just deciding that that was the end of the cannonade when another shell arrived, this time from the east side of the fort.

  ‘They have two batteries!’ Piccio gasped.

  Three more shells fell in quick succession, none of them doing much damage, then there was another long silence. They were still nervously peering to the east when three shells arrived from the north.

  ‘They have artillery all round us,’ Piccio said.

  As it happened – as Guidotti immediately suspected – Harkaway had sent a single small gun careering madly round the fort firing from different directions to cause confusion and alarm. As it returned, Sergeant Catchpole jumped from the lorry, grinning.

  ‘That’ll puzzle the bastards,’ he announced.

  The following day, Guidotti stared from the fort, his eyes narrow. There was little he could see, because the besiegers were well hidden in the hollows, the scrub and the dried river bed. But here and there he could see small columns of smoke from cooking fires and once they heard the high-pitched ululation of Somali singing. As dusk fell they waited for the bombardment to start up again but when it came it was
different. There was a distant pop and a few seconds later there was a flash in the courtyard and a tremendous nerve-shattering crash.

  ‘Mortar,’ Piccio gasped. ‘And one of ours, too, by the sound of it.’

  The mortars, smooth-bored and of low muzzle velocity, were not very accurate but they could lob their bombs over the walls without difficulty and, with the size of the courtyard, couldn’t miss.

  Running to the tower, Guidotti peered through one of the firing slits. ‘They can’t be that close,’ he said.

  ‘They could be,’ Piccio pointed out, ‘if they moved up during last night and lay low all day in the khor.’

  Guidotti glanced quickly at him. The idea of lying in the khor through the full heat of the day appalled him. On the other hand he knew the enemy comprised Somalis for the most part and they were well used to the heat. Piccio was trying to make out just where the mortar was concealed when they heard another pop and there was another crash in the courtyard behind them and the shouts of alarmed askaris.

  ‘We’ll send out a force to drive them away,’ Guidotti said, but Piccio turned worried eyes to him.

  ‘Excellency,’ he said, ‘if we send native troops, they’ll bolt. And we can’t afford to risk our Italian grenadiers.’

  There was sense in what he said and Guidotti withdrew the suggestion. As they ran down the stone steps to the courtyard, there was another crash. Metal fragments gouged plaster from the walls and Guidotti fell the last few steps to sprawl on his face with Piccio on top of him. As he scrambled to his feet, another bomb fell and he had to fling himself down once more. As he got to his feet again, there was a whistle which he recognized as a shell, and a chunk was knocked off the tower so that the flag he’d insisted should be kept flying day and night canted sharply to one side.