by Wilbur Smith
soldier.
I cannot, in deference to this honoured uniform that I wear, overlook
your conduct. You know the penalty for what you have done, for
disobeying your superior officer in the face of the enemy." He paused
again, the chin coming up and dark fires burning in his eyes. "The
penalty, Castelani, is death.
And so it must be. You will be an example to my men. This evening, as
the sun is about to set, you will be led before the assembled battalion
and stripped of your badges of rank, of the beloved insignia of this
proud command, and then you will meet your just deserts before the
rifles of the firing squad It was a longish speech, but the Count was
a trained baritone and he ended it dramatically with arms spread wide.
He held the pose after he had finished and watched himself with
gratification in the full-length mirror before which he stood. He was
alone in his tent, but he felt as though he faced a wildly applauding
audience. Abruptly he turned from the mirror, strode to the entrance
of the tent and threw back the flap.
The sentries sprang to attention and the Count barked, "Have Major
Castelani summoned here immediately."
"Immediately, my Colonel," snapped the sentry, and the Count let the
flap drop back into place.
Castelani came within ten minutes and saluted smartly from the entrance
of the tent.
"You sent for me, my Colonel?"
"My dear Castelani." The Count rose from his desk; the strong white
teeth contrasted against the dark olive-gold tan, as he smiled with all
his charm and went to take the Major's arm. "A glass of wine, my dear
fellow?" Aldo Belli was enough of a realist to see that without
Castelani's professional eye and arm guiding the battalion, it would
collapse like an unsuccessful souffle, or more probably like a
dynamited cliff upon his head. Passing sentence of death on the man
had relieved the COUnt's feelings, and now he could feel quite
favourably disposed towards him.
"Be seated," he said, indicating the camp chair opposite his desk.
"There are cigars in the humidor." He beamed fondly, like a father at
his eldest son. "I would like you to read through this report and to
place your signature in the space I have marked." Castelani took the
sheaf of papers and began to read, frowning like a bulldog and with his
lips forming the words silently. After a few minutes, he looked
startled and glanced up at Aldo Belli.
"my Colonel, I doubt if it was forty thousand savages that attacked
us."
"A matter of opinion, Castelani. It was dark. No one will ever know
for certain how many there were." The Count waved the objection aside
with a genial smile. "It is merely an informed estimate read on. You
will find I have good things to say of your conduct." And the Major
read on and blanched.
"Colonel, the enemy casualties were 126 dead, not 12,600."
"Ah, a slip of the pen, Major, I will correct that before sending it to
headquarters."
"Sir, you make no mention of the enemy possessing an armoured vehicle."
And the Count frowned for the first time since the beginning of the
meeting.
"Armoured vehicle, Castelani, surely you mean an ambulance?" The
encounter with the strange machine was best forgotten, he had decided.
It reflected no credit on anybody particularly none upon himself It
would merely add a jarring note to the splendours of his report.
"It would be quite in the normal course of things for the enemy to have
some sort of medical service not worth mentioning. Read on! Read on!
Caro mio, you will find that I have recommended you for a decoration."
eneral De Bono had summoned his staff to a lunchtime conference to
appraise the readiness of the expeditionary force to commence its
invasion of the Ethiopian highlands. These conferences were a weekly
affair, and the General's staff had not taken long to understand that
in exchange for a really superb luncheon, for the reputation of the
General's chef was international, they were expected to provide the
General with good reasons which he might relay to the Duce for delaying
the start of the offensive. The staff had fully entered into the
spirit of the game, and some of their offerings had been inspired.
However, even their fertile imaginations were now beginning to plough
barren land. The Inspector General of the Medical Corps had
tentatively diagnosed a straightforward case of gonorrhoca contracted
by an infantry man as "suspected smallpox" and had written a very good
scare story warning of a possible epidemic but the General was not
certain whether it could be used or not. They needed aj something
better than that. They were discussing this now over the cigars and
liqueurs, when the door of the dining room was thrown open and Captain
Crespi hurried to the head of the table. His face was flushed, and his
eyes wild, his manner so agitated that an electric silence fell over
the roomful of very senior and slightly inebriated officers.
Crespi handed a message to the General, and he was so disturbed that
what was intended as a whisper came out as a strangled cry of
outrage.
"The clown!" he panted. "The clown has done it!" The General,
alarmed by this enigmatic statement, snatched the message and his eyes
flew across the sheet before he handed it to the officer beside him and
covered his face with both hands.
"The idiot!" he wailed, while the message passed swiftly from hand to
hand, and a hubbub of raised voices followed it.
"At least, your Excellency, it is a great victory," called an infantry
commander, and suddenly the entire mood of the assembly changed.
"My planes are ready, General. We await the word to follow up this
masterly strategy of yours," cried the Commander of the Regia
Aeronautica, leaping to his feet and the General uncovered his eyes and
looked confused.
"Congratulations, my General," called an artilleryman, and struggled
unsteadily upright, spilling port down the front of his jacket. "A
mighty victory."
"Oh dear!" murmured De Bono. "Oh dear!" "An unprovoked attack by a
horde of savages" - Crespi had retrieved the message and read the
memorable words of Count Aldo Belli aloud "firmly resisted by the
courage of the flower of Italian manhood." "Oh dear!" said De Bono a
little louder, and covered his eyes again.
"Almost fifteen thousand of the enemy dead!" shouted a voice.
"An army of sixty thousand routed by a handful of Fascist sons. It is
a sign for the future."
"Forward to the ultimate victory."
"We march! We march!" And the General looked up again. "Yes," he
agreed miserably. "I suppose we shall have to now." The Third
Battalion of the black shirt "Africa" regiment was paraded in full
review order on the sandy plain above the Wells of Chaldi. The ground
was neatly demarcated by the meticulous rows of pale canvas tents and
neat lines of white stones. In twenty-four hours, under the goading of
Major Castelani, the camp had taken on an ai
r of permanence. If they
gave him a day or two more, there would be roads and buildings also.
Count Aldo Belli stood in the back of the Rolls, which, despite the
loving attentions of Giuseppe the driver, was showing signs of wear and
attrition. However, Giuseppe had parked it with the damaged side away
from the parade and he had burnished the good side with a mixture of
beeswax and methylated spirits until it shone in the sunlight, and had
replaced the shattered windscreen and the broken lamp glass.
"I have here a message received an hour ago which I shall read to you,"
shouted the Count, and the parade stirred with interest. "The message
is personal to me from Benito Mussolini."
"II Duce. 11 Duce. "Duce,"roared the battalion in unison, like a
well-trained orchestra, and the Count lifted a hand to restrain them
and he began to read.
"My heart swells with pride when I contemplate the feat of arms
undertaken by the gallant sons of Italy, children of the Fascist
revolution, whom you command'-" the Count's voice choked a little.
When the speech ended, his men cheered him wildly, throwing their
helmets in the air. "The Count climbed down from the Rolls and went
amongst them, weeping, embracing a man here, kissing another there,
shaking hands left and right and then clasping his own hands above his
head like a successful prizefighter and crying "Ours is the victory,"
and "Death before dishonour," until his voice was hoarse and he was led
away to his tent by two of his officers.
However, a glass of grappa helped him recover his composure and he was
able to pour a warrior's scorn on the radio message from General De
Bono which accompanied the paean of praise from 11 Duce.
De Bono was alarmed and deeply chagrined to discover that the officer
he had judged to be an ineffectual blowhard had indeed turned out to be
a firebrand. In view of the Duce's personal message to the count, he
could not, without condemning himself to the political wilderness,
order the man back to headquarters and under his protective wing where
he could be restrained from any further flamboyant action.
The man had virtually established himself as an independent command.
Mussolini had chided De Bono with his failure to go on the offensive,
and had held up the good Count's action as an example of duty and
dedication. He had directly ordered De Bono to support the Count's
drive on the Sardi Gorge and to reinforce him as necessary.
De Bono's response had been to send the Count a long radiogram, urging
him to the utmost caution and pleading with him to advance only after
reconnaissance in depth and after having secured both flanks and
rear.
Had he delivered this advice forty-eight hours earlier, it would have
been most enthusiastically received by Aldo Belli. But now, since the
victory at the Wells of Chaldi and wou the Duce's congratulatory
message, the Count was a changed man. He had tasted the sweets of
battle honours and learned how easily they could be won. He knew now
that he was opposed by a tribe of primitive black men in long night,
dresses armed with museum weapons, who ran and fell with gratifying
expedition when his men opened fire.
"Gentlemen," he addressed his officers. "I have today received a code
green message from General De Bono. The armies of Italy are on the
march. At twelve hundred hours today," he glanced at his wrist-watch,
"in just twelve minutes" time, the forward elements of the army will
cross the Mareb River and begin the march on the savage capital of
Addis Ababa. We stand now at the leading edge of the sword of history.
The fields of glory are ripening on the mountains ahead of us and the
for one, intend that the Third Battalion shall be there when the
harvest is gathered in." His officers made polite, if uncommitted
sounds. They were beginning to be alarmed by this change in their
Colonel. It was to be hoped that this was rhetoric rather than real
intention.
"Our esteemed commander has urged me to exercise the utmost caution in
my advance on the Sardi Gorge," and they smiled and nodded vehemently,
but the Count scowled dramatically and his voice rang. "I will not sit
here quiescent, while glory passes me by." A shudder of unease ran
through the assembled officers, like the forest shaken by the first
winds of winter, and they joined in only halfheartedly when the Count
began to sing' La Giovinezza'.
Lij Mikhael had agreed that one of the cars might be used to carry Sara
up the gorge to the town of Sardi where a Catholic mission station was
run by an elderly German doctor. The bullet wound in the girl's leg
was not healing cleanly, and the heat and swelling of the flesh and the
watery yellow discharge from the wound were causing Vicky the greatest
concern.
Fuel for the cars had come down from Addis Ababa on the narrow gauge
railway as far as Sardi, and had then been packed down the steeper,
lower section of the gorge by mule and camel. It waited for them now
at the foot of the gorge where the Sardi River debauched through a
forest of acacia trees into a triangular valley, which in turn widened
to a mouth fifteen miles across before giving way to the open desert.
At the head of the valley, the river sank into the dry earth and began
its long subterranean journey to where it emerged at last in the
scattered water-holes at the Wells of Chaldi.
Lij Mikhael was going up to Sardi with Vicky's car for he had arranged
to meet the Ras of the Gallas there in an attempt to co-ordinate the
efforts of the two tribes against the Italian aggressors, and then an
aircraft was being sent down to Sardi from Addis to fly him to an
urgent war conference with the Emperor at Lake Tona.
Before he left, he spoke privately with Jake and Gareth, walking with
them a short way along the rugged road that climbed steeply up the
gorge following the rocky water course Of the Sardi River.
Now they stood together, staring up the track to where it turned into
the first sleep bend and the river came crashing down beside it in a
tall white-plumed waterfall that drifted mist across the surface of the
track and induced a growth of dark green moss upon the boulders.
"It's as rough as a crocodile's back here," said Jake. "Will Vicky get
the car up?"
"I have had a thousand men at work upon it ever since I knew you were
bringing these vehicles," the Lij told him.
"It is rough, yes, but I think it will be passable."
"I should jolly well hope so," Gareth murmured. "It's the only way out
of this lovely little trap into which we have backed ourselves. Once
the Eyeties close the entrance to the valley-" and he turned and swept
a hand across the vista of plain and mountain that lay spread below
them, and then he smiled at the Prince.
"Just the three of us here now, Toffee old boy. Let's hear from you.
What exactly do you want from us? What are the objectives you have set
for us? Are we expected to defeat the whole bloody army of Italy
before you pay us out?"
"No, Major Swales." The Prince shook his head. "I thought I had made
myself clear. We are here to cover the rear and flank of the Emperor's
army. We must expect that eventually the Italians will force their way
up this gorge and reach the plateau and the road to Dessie and Addis we
can't stop them, but we must delay them at least until the main
engagements in the north are decided. If the Emperor succeeds, the
Italians will withdraw here. If he fails, then our task is over."
"How long until the Emperor fights?"
"Who can tell?" And Jake shook his head, while Gareth took the stub of
his cigar from his mouth and inspected the tip ruefully.
"I'm beginning to think we are being underpaid," he said.
But the Prince seemed not to hear and he went on speaking quietly but
with a f( -)rce that commanded their attention.
"We will use the cars here on the open ground in front of the gorge to
the best possible effect, and my father's troops will support you." He
paused, and they all looked down at the sprawling encampment of the
Ras's army, amongst the acacia trees. Stragglers were still drifting
in across the plain from the rout at the wells, lines of camels and
knots of goo NEW 40it horsemen surrounded by amorphous formations of
foot soldiers. "If the Gallas join us, they can provide another five
thousand fighting men that will bring our strength to twelve thousand
or thereabouts. I have had my scouts study the Italian encampment, and
they report an effective strength of under a thousand. Even with their
armaments, we should hold them here for many days "Unless they are
reinforced, which they will be, or bring up armour, which they will do,
"said Gareth.
"Then we will withdraw into the gorge demolishing the road as we go,
and resisting at each strong place. We won't be able to use the cars
again until we reach Sardi but there in the bowl of the mountains there
is good open ground and room to manoeuvre. It is also the last point
at which we can effectively block the Italian advance." They were
silent again and the sound of an engine came up to them. They watched
the armoured car reach the foot of the gorge and begin growling and
nosing its way upwards, at the pace of a walking man, except where it
had to back and lock hard to make one of the sleep hairpin bends in the
road. The Lij roused himself and sighed with what seemed a deep