Cry Wolf

by Wilbur Smith

  Every man of this force had endured grinding nervous strain, listening

  to the war drums and now confronted by a sweeping mob of threatening

  figures. They crouched like dark statues behind their weapons, fingers

  curled stiffly around the triggers, and squinted over the open sights

  of rifle and machine gun.

  The Count's-shriek of command and the crackle of the pistol shots were

  all that was necessary to snap the paralysing bonds of fear that held

  them. The firing was started around Aldo Belli's position, by men

  close enough to hear his command. A long line of muzzle flashes

  bloomed and twinkled along the forward slope of the valley, and three

  machine guns opened with them. The tearing sound of their long

  traversing bursts drowned out the crackle of musketry and their tracer

  flickered and flew in long white arcs out across the valley to bury

  itself in the dark moving blot of humanity.

  Taken in the flank, the mob broke and surged away towards the dark

  silence of the far slope of the valley, away from the sheets of bright

  white tracer and the red rows of rifle fire. Leaving their dead and

  wounded scattered behind them, they spread like ispilled oil across the

  valley floor.

  The silent gunners on the far slope saw them coming, held their fire

  for a few more confused panic-soured moments, and then, seeing

  themselves threatened, they opened also. The delay had the effect of

  allowing the survivors of the first volley to race deeply into the

  fields of overlapping fire that Castelani had so cleverly planned.

  Caught in the open ground, hemmed in by a murderous storm of fire, the

  forward movement of the mob broke down, and they milled aimlessly, the

  women shrieking and clutching at their children, the children darting

  and doubling like a shoal of fish trapped in a tidal pool, some of the

  warriors kneeling in the open and beginning at last to return fire.

  The red flashes of the black powder were long and dull and smoky and

  ineffectual against men in entrenched positions; they served only to

  intensify the ferocity of the Italian attack.

  Now the surge of uncontrolled, panic-stricken humanity slowed and

  eventually ceased. The unarmed women who still survived gathered their

  children and covered them with their robes, crouching down over them as

  a mother hen does with her chicks, and the men crouched also, firing

  blindly and wildly up the slopes of the valley at the muzzle flashes

  that were fading now as the sun rose and the light strengthened.

  Twelve machine guns, each firing almost seven hundred rounds a minute,

  and three hundred and fifty rifles poured a sheet of bullets down into

  the valley. Minute after minute the firing continued, and slowly the

  light strengthened, unmercifully exposing the survivors in the valley

  below.

  The mood of the attackers changed. From panicky, nervously strung out

  green militia, they were transformed.

  The almost drunken elation of victorious attackers gripped them, they

  were laughing triumphantly now as they served the guns. Their eyes

  bright with the blood lust of the predator, the knowledge that they

  could kill without retribution made them bold and cruel.

  The miserable popping and flashing of ancient muskets in the valley

  below them was so feeble, so lacking in menace, that not a man amongst

  them was still afraid. Even Count Aldo Belli was now on his feet,

  brandishing his pistol and shouting with a high, girlish hysteria.

  "Death to the enemy! Fire! Keep firing!" and cautiously he lifted

  his head another inch above the parapet. "Kill them! Ours is the

  victory!" The valley floor, as the first rays of sunlight touched it,

  was covered with thick swathes of the dead and maimed.

  They lay scattered singly, piled in clumps like mounds of old clothing

  in a flea market, thrown haphazardly on the coal pale sandy earth or

  arranged in neat patterns like fish on the slab.

  In the centre of the killing-ground, there was still life movement.

  Here and there a figure might leap up and run with robes flapping, and

  immediately the machine guns would follow it, quick stabbing spouts of

  dust closing swiftly until they met and held on the running figure,

  when it would collapse and roll on the sandy earth.

  The warriors who still crouched over their ancient rifles, with their

  dark faces lifted to the slopes, were now providing good practice for

  the riflemen above them. The Italian officers" voices, high-pitched

  and excited, called down fire upon them, and swiftly each of these

  defiants was hit by carefully aimed fire and fell, some of them kicking

  and twitching.

  The firing had lasted almost twenty minutes now, and there were few

  targets still on offer. The machine guns traversed expectantly, firing

  short bursts into the heaped carcasses, shattering already mutilated

  flesh, or tore clouds of dust and flying shale from the rounded lips of

  the deep water holes, from the cover of which a sporadic fire still

  popped and crackled.

  "My Colonel. "Castelani touched Aldo Belli's arm to gain his

  attention, and at last he turned wild-eyed and elated to his Major.

  "Ha, Castelani, what a victory what a great victory, hey? They will

  not doubt our valour now."

  "Colonel, shall I order the cease fire?" and the Count seemed not to

  hear him.

  "They will know now what kind of soldier I am. This brilliant victory

  will win for me a place in the halls-2

  "Colonel! Colonel! We must cease fire now. This is a slaughter.

  Order the cease fire." Aldo Belli stared at him, his face beginning to

  flush with outrage.

  "You crazy fool," he shouted. "The battle must be decisive, crushing!

  We will not cease now not until the victory is ours." He was

  stuttering wildly and his hand shook as he pointed down into the bloody

  shambles of the valley.

  "The enemy have taken cover in the water holes, they must be flushed

  out and destroyed. Mortars, Castelani, bomb them out." Aldo Belli did

  not want it to end. It was the most deeply satisfying experience of

  his life. If this was war, he knew at last why the sages and the poets

  had invested it with such In glory. This was man's work, and Aldo

  Belli knew himself born to it.

  "Do you question my orders?" he shrieked at Castelani.

  "a) your duty, immediately."

  "Immediately," Castelani repeated bitterly, and for a moment longer

  stared stonily into the Count's eyes before he turned away.

  The first mortar bomb climbed high into the clear desert dawn, before

  arcing over and dropping vertically down into the valley. It burst on

  the lip of the nearest well. It kicked up a brief column of dust and

  smoke, and the shrapnel whinnied shrilly. The second bomb fell

  squarely into the deep circular pit, bursting out of sight below ground

  level.

  Mud and smoke gushed upwards, and out of the water hole into the open

  ground crawled and staggered three scarecrow figures with their

  tattered and dirty robes fluttering like flags of truce.

  Instantly the rifle fire and machine-gun fir
e burst over them, and the

  earth around them whipped by the bullets seemed to liquefy into a

  cascade of flying dust, into which they tumbled and at last lay

  still.

  Aldo Belli let out a hoot of excitement. It was so easy and so deeply

  satisfying. "The other holes, Castelani!" he screamed. "Clean them

  out! All of them!" Concentrating their fire on one hole at a time,

  the mortars ranged in swiftly. Some of the holes were deserted, but at

  most of them the slaughter was continued. A few survivors of the

  shimmering bursts of shrapnel staggered out into the open to be cut

  down swiftly by the waiting machine guns.

  The Count was by now so emboldened that he climbed up on the parapet,

  the better to view the field and watch the mortars fire on the

  remaining holes, and to direct his machine gunners.

  The hole nearest the wadis and broken ground at the head of the valley

  was the next target, and the first bomb was over, crumping in a tall

  jump of dust and pale flame.

  Before the next bomb fell, a woman jumped up over the lip and tried to

  reach the mouth of the wadi. Behind her she dragged a child of two or

  three years, a naked toddler with fat little bow legs and a belly like

  a brown ball. He could not keep up with the mother and lost his

  footing, so she dragged him wailing along the sandy earth. Straddling

  her hip and clutched with desperate strength to her breast was another

  younger infant, also naked, also wailing and kicking frantically.

  For several seconds, the running, heavily burdened woman drew no fire,

  and then a burst from a machine gun fell about her and a bullet struck

  and severed the arm by which she held the child. She staggered in a

  circle, shrieking dementedly and waving the stump of the arm like the

  spout of a garden hose. The next burst smashed through her chest, the

  same bullets shattering the body of the infant on her hip, and she fell

  and rolled like a rabbit hit by a shotgun.

  The guns fell silent again and remained silent while the naked toddler

  stood up uncertainly.

  He began to wail again, standing solidly at last on the fat dimpled

  legs, a string of blue beads around the tightly bulging belly and his

  penis sticking out like a tiny brown finger.

  From the mouth of the wadi emerged a running horse, a rawboned and

  rangy white stallion galloping heavily over the sandy ground with a

  frail boyish figure lying low along its neck, a black sham ma flying

  out wildly behind. The rider drove the stallion on towards where the

  child stood weeping, and had almost covered the open ground before the

  gunners realized what was happening.

  The first machine gun traversed on the galloping animal, but this

  lead-off was stiff and the bullets kicked dust slightly high and

  behind. Then the horse reached the child and the rider reined in

  sharply, sending it rearing on its hind quarters, and the rider swung

  down to make the pick-up.

  At that moment, two other machine guns opened up on the stationary

  target.

  Jake Barton realized that there was only one way To prevent a

  confrontation between the Italian force which had appeared so silently

  and menacingly at the wells and the undisciplined mob of warriors and

  camp followers of the Ras's entourage. there was no chance that he

  could make himself heard in the hubbub of anxiously raised voices and

  emotional outbursts of Amharic as the Ras tried to make his view heard

  above the attempts of fifty of his chieftains and captains to do

  exactly the same thing.

  Jake needed an interpreter and he thrust his way towards Gregorius

  Maryam, grabbed him firmly by the arm and dragged him out of the cave.

  It needed considerable force, for Gregorius was as intent as everybody

  else in having his views and suggestions aired.

  Jake was surprised to find how light it was outside the caves, and that

  the night had passed so swiftly. Dawn was only minutes away, and the

  dry desert air was sweet and heady after the crowded cave with its

  smoking fires.

  In the light of the camp fires and the pale sky, he saw the mob

  streaming away down the wadi towards the wells, as happily excited as

  the crowds at a fairground.

  "Stop them, Greg," he shouted. "Come on, we've got to stop them," and

  the two of them ran forward.

  "What is it, Jake?"

  "We've got to stop them running into the Eyetie camp."

  "Why?"

  "If somebody starts shooting, there will be a massacre." BUt we are

  not at war, Jake. They can't shoot."

  "Don't bet on it, buddy boy," grunted Jake grimly, and his alarm was

  contagious. Side by side, they caught up with the straggling rear of

  the column and elbowed and kicked their way through it.

  "Back, you bastards," roared Jake. "Get back, all of you, and made the

  meaning clear with flying fists and feet.

  With Gregorius beside him, Jake reached the narrow mouth of the wadi

  where it debauched into the saucer shaped valley of the wells. Like

  the wall of a dam the two of them linked arms and managed to hold the

  flood of humanity there for a minute or so, but the pressure from those

  straining forward from the rear threatened to sweep them away, while

  the mood changed from high-spirited "curiosity to angry resentment at

  this check upon their efforts to join the hundreds of their comrades

  who had already passed out of the wadi and were streaming out across

  the open valley.

  At the moment when they were swept aside, the firing began out there

  upon the slopes of the valley and instantly the mob froze and their

  voices died away. There was no further forward movement, and Jake

  turned and scrambled up the steep side of the wadi for a better view

  out into the valley.

  From there he watched the slaughter that turned the va ley into a

  charnel house. He watched with a sick fascination that changed slowly,

  as minute after minute the guns continued their clamour. He felt it

  become anger and outrage that outweighed all else, so that he was

  hardly aware of the slim cold hand that sought his, and he glanced down

  only for an instant at Vicky's golden head at his shoulder, before

  turning his entire concentration back to the dreadful tragedy being

  played out before them.

  Vaguely he was aware that Vicky was sobbing beside him, and that she

  had gripped his hand so tightly that the nails were driven deep into

  his palm. Yet even in his dreadful anger, Jake was studying the ground

  and marking the Italian positions. On his other hand, Gregorius Maryam

  was praying softly, his smooth young face turned to a muddy grey with

  horror and the words of the prayer forced between tight lips like the

  last breaths of a dying man.

  "Oh God," whispered Vicky in a tight, choked voice, as the mortar

  bombing began, dropping relentlessly into the depressions where the

  survivors huddled for shelter. "Oh God, Jake, what can we do?" But he

  did not answer and it went on and on. They were caught in the

  nightmare of it, powerless in the grip of this horror watching the

  mortars c
ontinue the hunt, until the woman with her two infants burst

  out into the open not three hundred yards ahead of them.

  "Oh God, oh please Jesus," whispered Vicky. "Please don't let it

  happen. Please make it stop now." The guns hunted the woman and they

  watched her die, and the child rise to its feet and stand lost and

  bewildered beside the mother's corpse. The thud of galloping hooves

  sounded in the wadi below them and Gregorius swung around and cried,

  "Sara! No!" as the girl rode out, crouched low over the stallion's

  neck. She rode bare-backed, a tiny dark figure on the big white

  animal.

  "Sara!" Gregorius cried again, and would have followed her, running

  out alone into that deadly plain, but Jake grabbed his arm and held him

  easily, though he struggled and cried out again in Amharic.

  The girl rode on unscathed through the storm of fire, and Vicky's

  breathing stopped as she watched. It was impossible that Sara could

  reach the child and return. It was stupid, so stupid as to make her

  anger leap even higher and yet there was something so moving about that

  frail beautiful child riding out to her death, that it filled Vicky

  with a sense of her own inadequacy, a sense of great humility for even

  in this proud moment, she was aware that she was incapable of such

  sacrifice.

  She watched the stallion rear, and the girl lean out to gather the

  small brown infant, saw the machine guns find their target at last, and

  the stallion whinnied and went down in a tangle of flailing hooves,

  pinning both the girl and the child, while the bullets continued to

  spurt dust and slap loudly against the still kicking body of the

  stallion.

  Gregorius was still struggling and blab bering his horror, and Jake

  turned and struck him an open-handed blow across the face.

  "Stop that!" Jake snarled, his own anger and outrage making him

  brutal. "Anybody who goes out there is going to get his arse shot

  off." The blow seemed to steady Gregorius.

  "We have got to get her, Jake. Please, Jake. Let me fetch her."

  "We'll do it my way," snapped Jake. His face seemed carved from hard

  brown stone, but his eyes were ferocious and his jaws clamped closed

  with his anger. Roughly he shoved Gregorius ahead of him down into the

  wadi, and he dragged Vicky after him. She tried to resist, leaning

  back against his strength, her head turned towards the plain, and her