Cry Wolf

by Wilbur Smith

  began to bind up the leg with a linen bandage from the medicine chest.

  "We'll have to get these breeches off you." Vicky inspected the

  bloodstained and tattered velvet dubiously. "They are so tight, it's a

  wonder you haven't given yourself gangrene."

  "They must be worn so," Sara explained. "It was decreed by my

  great-grandfather, Ras Abullahi."

  "Good Lord." Vicky was intrigued. What on earth for?"

  "The ladies in those days were very naughty," Sara explained primly.

  "And my great-grandfather was a good man. He thought to make the

  breeches difficult to remove." Vicky laughed delightedly.

  "Do you think it helps? "she demanded, still laughing.

  "Oh no, Sara shook her head seriously. "It makes it very hard." She

  spoke with the air of an expert, and then thought for a moment. They

  come down quickly enough it's when you want to get them up again in a

  hurry that can be very difficult."

  "Well, the only way we are going to get you out of these now is to cut

  you loose." Vicky was still smiling, as she took a large pair of

  scissors from the medicine chest and Sara shrugged again with

  resignation.

  "They were very pretty before Jake tore them now it does not matter."

  And she showed no emotion as Vicky snipped carefully along the seam and

  peeled them off her.

  "Now you must rest." Vicky wrapped her naked lower body in a woollen

  sham ma and helped her settle comfortably on one of the thin coir

  mattresses spread on the floor of the car.

  "Stay with me," Sara asked shyly, as Vicky picked up her portable

  typewriter and would have climbed out of the rear doors.

  "I must begin my despatch."

  "You can work here. I will be very quiet."

  "Promise?"

  "I promise," and Vicky opened the case and placed the typewriter in her

  lap, sitting cross-legged. She wound a sheet of fresh paper into the

  machine, and thought for a moment. Then her fingers flew at the keys.

  Almost instantly, the anger and outrage returned to her and was

  transferred smoothly into words and hammered out on the thin sheet of

  yellow paper. Vicky's cheeks flamed with colour and she tossed her

  head occasionally to keep the tendrils of fine blonde hair out of her

  eyes.

  Sara watched her, keeping very still and silent until Vicky paused to

  wind a fresh sheet into the typewriter, then she broke the silence.

  "I have been thinking, Miss Camberwell,"she said.

  "You have?" Vicky did not look up.

  "I think it should be Jake."

  "Jake?" Vicky glanced at her, baffled by this sudden shift in

  thought.

  "Yes," Sara nodded with finality. "We will take Jake as your first

  lover." She made it sound like a group project.

  "Oh, we will will we?" The idea had already entered Vicky's head and

  was almost firmly rooted, but she baulked instantly at Sara's bold

  statement.

  "He is so strong. Yes!" Sara went on. "I think we will definitely

  take Jake," and with that statement she dashed as low as they had ever

  been the chances of Jake Barton.

  Vicky snorted derisively, and flew at the typewriter once again. She

  was a lady who liked to make her own decisions.

  The river of moving men and animals flowed wedge shaped across the

  sparsely grassed and rolling landscape beneath the mountains. Over it

  all hung a fine mist of dust, like sea fret on a windy day, and the

  sunlight caught and flashed from the burnished surfaces of the bronze

  war shields and the lifted lance-tips. Closer came the mass of riders

  until the bright spots of the silk shammas of the officers and noblemen

  showed clearly through the loom of the dust cloud.

  Standing on the turret of Priscilla the Pig, Jake shaded the lens of

  his binoculars with his helmet and tried to see beyond the dust clouds,

  searching anxiously for any pursuit by the Italians. He felt

  goose-flesh march up his arms and tickle the thick hair at the nape of

  his neck as he imagined this sprawling rabble caught in a crossfire of

  modern machine guns, and he fretted for the arrival of their own

  weapons which were lost somewhere amongst that ragged army.

  He felt a touch on his shoulder and turned quickly to find Lij Mikhael

  beside him.

  "Thank you, Mr. Barton,"said the Prince quietly, and Jake shrugged and

  turned back to his scrutiny of the distant plains.

  "It was not the correct thing but I thank you all the same." How is

  she?"

  "I have just left her with Miss Camberwell. She is resting and I think

  she will be well." They were silent a while longer, before Jake spoke

  again.

  "I'm worried, Prince. We are wide open. If the Italians chase now it

  will be bloody murder. Where are the guns?

  We must have the guns." Lij Mikhael pointed out on to the left rear

  flank of the approaching host.

  "There," and Jake noticed for the first time the ungainly shapes of the

  pack camels, almost obscured by dust and distances, but standing taller

  than the shaggy little Harari ponies that surrounded them, and

  lumbering stolidly onwards towards where the cars waited. "They will

  be here in half an hour." Jake nodded with relief. He began planning

  how he would arm the cars immediately, so that they could be deployed

  to counter another Italian attack but the Prince interrupted his

  thoughts.

  "Mr. Barton, how long have you known Major Swales?" Jake lowered the

  glasses and grinned.

  "Sometimes I think too long," and regretted it, as he noticed the

  Prince's immediate anxiety.

  "No. I didn't mean that. It was a bad joke. I haven't known him

  long."

  "We checked his record very carefully before " he hesitated.

  "Before tricking him into taking on this commission," Jake suggested,

  and the Prince smiled faintly and nodded.

  "Precisely," he agreed. "All the evidence suggests that he is an

  unscrupulous man, but a skilled soldier with a proven record of

  achievement in training raw recruits. He is an expert weapons

  instructor, with a full knowledge of the mechanism and exploitation of

  modern weapons." The Prince paused.

  "Just don't get into a card game with him."

  "I will take your advice, Mr. Barton." The Prince smiled fleetingly,

  and then was serious again. "Miss Camberwell called him a coward. That

  is not so. He was acting under my direct orders, as a soldier

  should."

  "Point taken," grinned Jake. "But then I'm not a soldier, only a

  grease monkey." But the Prince brushed the disclaimer aside.

  "He is probably a better man than he thinks he is," said Jake, and the

  Prince nodded.

  "His combat record in France is impressive. The Military Cross and

  three times mentioned in despatches."

  "Yeah, you have me convinced," murmured Jake. "Is that what you

  wanted?"

  "No," admitted the Prince reluctantly. "I had hoped that you might

  convince me," and they both laughed.

  "And did you check my record also? "Jake asked.

  "No," admitted the Prince. "The first time I ever heard of you was in

  Dares Salaam. Yo
u and your strange machines were a bonus a surprise

  packet." The Prince paused again, and then spoke so softly that Jake

  barely caught the words, "and perhaps the best end of the bargain.

  "Then he lifted his chin and looked steadily into Jake's eyes."

  The anger is still with you," he said. "

  "I can see how strong it is." With surprise, Jake realized that the

  Prince was correct.

  The anger was in him. No longer the leaping flames that had kindled at

  the first shock of the atrocity. Those had burned down into a thick

  glowing bed in the pit of his guts, but the memory of men and women

  caught by the guns and the mortars would sustain that glow for a long

  time ahead.

  "I think now you are committed to us," the Lij went on softly, and Jake

  was amazed at the man's perception. He had not yet recognized that

  commitment himself; for the first time since he had landed in Africa,

  he was motivated by something outside himself. He knew that he would

  stay now, and that he would fight with the Lij and these people as long

  as they needed him. In an intuitive flash he realized that if these

  simple people were enslaved, then all of mankind including Jake Barton

  were themselves deprived of a measure of freedom. A line, almost

  forgotten, imperfectly learned long ago and not then understood

  surfaced in his memory.

  "No man is an island," - " he said, and the Lij nodded and continued

  the quotation.

  "entire of itself. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am

  involved in mankind"." The Lifs dark eyes glowed. "Yes, Mr. Barton,

  John Donne. I think that in you I have been lucky. You are fire, and

  Gareth Swales is ice. It will work for me. Already there is a bond

  between you."

  "A bond?" and Jake laughed, a brief harsh bark of laughter, but then

  stopped and thought about the Prince's words. The man had even greater

  perception than Jake had at first realized. He had a knack of turning

  over unrecognized truths.

  "Yes. A bond," said the Lij. "Fire and ice. You will see." They

  were silent for a while, standing high on the steel turret of the car,

  bare-headed in the sun, each man thinking his own thoughts.

  Then the Lij roused himself and turned to point into the west.

  "There is the heart of Ethiopia,"he said. "The mountains." They both

  lifted their heads to the soaring peaks, and the great flat-topped

  Ambas that characterized the Ethiopian highlands.

  Each table land was divided from the next by sheer walls of riven rock,

  blue with distance and remote as the clouds into which they seemed to

  rise, and by the deep dark gorges that looked to split the earth like

  the axe-stroke of a giant, plunging thousands upon thousands of feet to

  the swiftly raging torrents in their depths.

  "The mountains protect us. For a hundred miles on each side no enemy

  may pass. "The Prince swept his arms wide to encompass the curving

  blue wall of rock that faded both north and south into the smoky

  distances where they merged with the paler bright blue of the sky.

  "But there is the Sardi Gorge. "Jake saw it cleave the wall of

  mountains, a deep funnel driving into the rock perhaps fifteen miles

  across at its widest point, but then narrowing swiftly and climbing

  steeply towards the distant heights.

  "The Sardi Gorge," the Prince repeated. "A lance pointed into the

  exposed flank of the Lion of Judah." He shook his head and his

  expression was troubled and once again that haunted, hunted look was in

  his eyes. "The Emperor, Negusa Nagast, Baile Selassie, has gathered

  his armies in the north.

  One hundred and fifty thousand men to meet the main thrust of the

  Italians which must come from the north, out of Eritrea and through

  Adowa. The Emperor's flanks are secured by the mountains except here

  at the gorge. This is the only place at which a modern mechanized army

  might win its way to the high ground. The road up the gorge is steep

  and rough, but the Italians are engineering masters.

  Their road making wizardry dates back to the Caesars. If they force

  the mouth of the gorge, they could have fifty thousand men on the

  highlands inside of a week." He punched his fist upward towards the

  far blue peaks. "They would be across the Emperor's rear, between him

  and his capital at Addis Ababa, with the road to the city wide open to

  them. It would be the end for us and the Italians know it. Their

  presence here at the Wells of Chaldi proves it.

  What we encountered there today was the advance guard of the enemy

  attack which will come through the gorge."

  Yes, "Jake agreed. "it seems that is so."

  "The Emperor has charged me with the defence of the Sardi Gorge, said

  the Prince quietly. "But at the same time he has ordained that the

  great bulk of my fighting men must join his army which is now gathering

  on the shores of Lake Tona, two hundred miles away in the west. We

  will be short of men, so short that without your cars and the new

  machine guns you have brought to me, the task would be impossible."

  "It isn't going to be a push-over, even with these beaten-up old

  ladies."

  "I know that, Mr. Barton, and I am doing everything in my power to

  improve the betting in our favour. I am even treating with a

  traditional enemy of the Harari to form a common front against the

  enemy. I am trying to put aside old feuds, and convince the Ras of the

  Gallas to join us in the defence of the Gorge. The man is a robber and

  a degenerate, and his men are all shifta, mountain bandits, but they

  fight well and every lance now arms us against the common enemy." Jake

  was conscious of the faith that the Prince was placing in him; he was

  being treated like a trusted commander and his newly realized sense of

  involvement was strengthened.

  "An untrustworthy friend is the worst kind of enemy."

  "I don't recognize that quotation?" the Prince enquired.

  "Jake Barton, mechanic. "Jake grinned at him. "Looks like we've got

  ourselves a job of work. What I want you to do is pick out some of

  your really bright lads. Ones that I can teach to drive a car or men

  that Gareth can use as gunners."

  "Yes. I have already discussed that with Major Swales.

  He made the same suggestion. I will hand-pick my best for you."

  "Young ones, "said Jake. "Who will learn quickly." The Ras sat

  crouched like an ancient vulture in the strip of shade thrown by

  Gareth's car, the Hump; his eyes were narrowed like those of a sniper

  and he mumbled to himself. drooling a little with excitement.

  When Gregorius reached out and tried to view the fan of cards that the

  Ras held secretively to his bosom, his hand was slapped away angrily,

  and a storm of Amharic burst about him. Gregorius was justly put out

  of countenance by this, for he was, after all, his grandfather's

  interpreter. He complained to Gareth, who squatted opposite the Ras

  holding his own cards carefully against the front of his tweed

  jacket.

  "He does not want me to help him any more," protested Gregorius. "He

  says he understands the game now."
<
br />   "Tell him he is a natural." Gareth squinted around the smoke that

  spiralled upwards from the cheroot in the corner of his mouth. "Tell

  him he could go straight into the salon priva at Monte Carlo." The Ras

  grinned and nodded happily at the compliment, and then scowled with

  concentration as he waited for Gareth to discard.

  "Anyone for the ladies?" Gareth asked innocently as he laid the queen

  of hearts face up on the inverted ammunition box that stood between

  them, and the Ras squawked with delight and snatched it up. Then he

  hammered on the box like an auctioneer and began laying out his hand.

  "Skunked, by God!" Gareth's face crumpled in a convincing display of

  utter dismay and the Ras nodded and twinkled and drooled.

  "How do you do?" he asked triumphantly, and Gareth judged that the

  Christmas turkey was now sufficiently fattened and ready for

  plucking.

  "Ask your venerable grandfather if he would like a little interest on

  the next game. I suggest a Maria Theresa a point?" and Gareth held up

  one of the big silver coins between thumb and forefinger to illustrate

  the suggestion.

  The Ras's response was positive and gratifying. He summoned one of his

  bodyguard, who drew a huge purse of lion skin from out of his

  voluminous sham ma and opened it.

  "Hallelujah!" breathed Gareth, as he saw the sparkle of golden

  sovereigns in the recesses of the purse. "Your deal, old sport!" The

  controlled dignity of the Count's bearing was modelled aristocratically

  on that of the Duce himself. It was that of the aristocrat, of the man

  born to command. His dark eyes flashed with scorn, and his voice rang

  with a deep beauty that sent shivers up his own spine.

  "A peasant, reared in the gutters of the street. I am amazed that such

  a person can have reached a rank such as Major. A person like

  yourself-" and his right arm shot Out with the accusing finger straight

  as a pistol barrel, you are a nobody, an upstart. I blame myself that

  I was soft-hearted enough to place you in a position of trust. Yes, I

  blame myself. That is the reason I have until this time overlooked

  your impudence, your importunity. But this time you have over reached

  yourself, Castelani. This time you have refused to obey a direct

  command from your own Colonel in the face of the enemy. This I cannot

  ignore!" The Count paused, and a shadow of regret passed fleetingly

  behind his eyes. "I am a compassionate man, Castelani but I am also a