by Wilbur Smith
miniaturized by distance.
The sun had heated the hulls of the cars so that the steel would
blister skin at a touch and the men who waited, all of them except
Jake Barton and Gareth Swales, crawled like survivors of a catastrophe
beneath the hulls, seeking relief from the unrelenting sun.
The heat was so intense that the gin rummy game had long been
abandoned, and the two white men panted like dogs, the sweat drying
instantly on their skins and crusting into a thin film of white salt
crystals.
Gregorius looked to the mountains, and the clouds upon them, and he
said softly, "Soon it will rain." He looked up to where Jake Barton
sat like a statue on the turret of Priscilla the Pig. Jake had swathed
his head and upper body in a white linen sham ma to protect it from the
sun and he held the binoculars in his lap. Every few minutes, he would
lift them to his eyes and make one slow sweep of the land ahead before
slumping motionless again.
Slowly the shadows crept out from the hulls of the cars, the sun turned
across its zenith and gradually lost its white glare, its rays toned
with yellows and reds. Once again, Jake lifted the binoculars and this
time paused midway in his automatic sweep of the horizon.
In the lens the familiar dun feather of the distant cloud once again
wavered softly at the line where pale earth and paler sky joined.
He watched it for five minutes, and it seemed that the dust cloud was
fading shrivelling, and that the shimmering pillars of heat-distorted
air were rising, screening his vision.
Jake lowered the glasses and a warm flood of sweat broke from his
hairline, trickled down his forehead into his eyes.
He swore softly it the sting of salt and wiped it away with the hem of
the linen sharnma. He blinked rapidly, and then lifted the glasses
again and felt his heart jump in his chest and the prickle of rising
hair on the nape of his neck.
The freakish Currents and whirlpools of heated air cleared suddenly,
and the dust cloud that minutes before had seemed remote as the far
shores of the ocean was now so close and crisply outlined against the
pale blue white sky that it filled the lens. Then his heart jumped
again below the rolling spreading cloud he could make out the dark
insect shapes of many swiftly moving vehicles. Suddenly the viscosity
of the air changed again, and the shapes of the approaching column
altered becoming monstrous, looming through the mist of duSt. closer,
every second closer and more menacing.
Jake shouted, and Gareth was beside him in an instant.
"Are you crazy?" he gasped. "They'll overrun us in a minute."
"Get started," Jake snapped. "Get the engines started," and slid down
into the driver's hatch. There was a flurry of sudden frantic movement
around the cars. The engines were cranked into reluctant life, surging
and missing and backfiring as the volatile fuel turned to vapour in the
heat and starved the engines.
The Ras was lifted into the turret of Gareth's car by half a dozen of
his men at arms, and installed behind the Vickers gun. Their job
accomplished, his men were leaving him and hurrying to mount their
ponies when the Ras let out a series of shrieks in Amharic and pointed
at the empty cave of his own mouth, devoid of teeth and big enough to
hibernate a bear.
There was a brief moment of consternation I until the senior and eldest
man at arms produced a large leather covered box from his saddle bag
and hurried with it to kneel humbly on the sponson of the car and
proffer the open box to the Ras. Mollified, the Ras reached into the
box and brought out a magnificent set of porcelain teeth, big and white
and sharp enough to fit in the mouth of a Derby winner, complete with
bright red gums.
With only a short struggle he forced the set into his mouth, and then
snapped them like a brook trout rising to the fly, before peeling back
his lips in a death's head grin.
His followers cooed and exclaimed with admiration, and Gregorius told
Jake proudly, "My grandfather only wears his teeth when he is fighting
or pleasuring a lady," and Jake spared a brief glance from the
advancing Italian army to admire the dazzling dental display.
"Makes him look younger, not a day over ninety, "he gave his opinion,
and revved the engine, carefully manoeuvring the car into a hull-down
position below the bank from where he could keep the Italians under
observation. Gareth brought the other car up alongside and grinned at
him from the open hatch. It was a wicked grin, and Jake realized that
the Englishman was looking forward to the coming clash with
anticipation.
It was no longer necessary to use binoculars. The Italian column was
less than two miles distant, moving swiftly on a course that was
carrying it parallel to the dry river-bed, beyond the curved horns of
the ambush into the open unprotected funnel of flat land between the
mountains.
Another fifteen minutes at this rate of advance and it would have
turned the Ethiopian flank and would be able to drive without
resistance to the mouth of the gorge and Jake knew better than to hope
to be able to reorganize the rabble of cavalry once their formations
were shattered. Instinctively he knew that they would fight like
giants as long as the tide carried them forward, but any retreat would
become a rout, and they would race for the hills like factory workers
at five o'clock. They were accustomed to fighting as individuals,
avoiding set piece battles, but snatching opportunity as it was
offered, swift as hawks, but giving instantly before any determined
thrust by an enemy.
"Come on!" he muttered to himself, pounding his fist against his thigh
impatiently, and with the first stirring of alarm. Unless the bait was
offered within the next few moments. Because they fought as
individuals, each man his own general, and because the art of ambush
and entrapment came as naturally to the Ethiopian as the feel of a
rifle in his hand, Jake need not have fretted.
Seeming to rise from the flat scorched earth under the wheels of the
leading Italian vehicles, a small galloping knot of horsemen flitted
across the heat-tortured earth, seeming to float above it like a flock
of dark birds. Their shapes wavering and indistinct, wrapped in pale
streamers of dust, they cut back obliquely across the Italian line of
march, running hard for the centre of the hidden Ethiopian line.
Almost instantly a single vehicle detached itself from the head of the
column and headed on a converging course with the flying horsemen.
Its speed was frightening, and it closed so swiftly that the squadron
of cavalry was forced to veer away, forced to edge out towards where
the two armoured cars were hidden.
Behind the single speeding vehicle the Italian column lost its rigid
shape. The front half of it swung away in a long untidy line abreast
in pursuit of the horsemen. These were all larger, heavier vehicles,
with high, canvas-covered cupolas, a
nd their progress was ponderous and
so slow that they could not gain perceptibly on the galloping horses.
However, the smaller faster vehicle was gaining rapidly and Jake stood
higher to give himself a better view as he refocused the binoculars. He
recognized instantly the big open Rolls-Royce tourer that he had last
seen at the Wells of Chaldi. Its polished metalwork glittered in the
sunlight, its low rakish lines enhancing the impression of speed and
power, as the dust boiled out from behind its spinning rear wheels with
their huge flashing central bosses.
Even as he watched, the Rolls braked and skidded broadside, coming to a
halt in a furiously billowing cloud of dust. A figure tumbled from the
rear seat.
Jake watched the man brace himself over the sporting rifle and the
spurt of gunsmoke from the muzzle as he fired seven shots in quick
succession, the rifle kicking up abruptly at the recoil and the thud
thud of the discharge reaching Jake only seconds later.
The horsemen were drawing swiftly away from the Rolls, but neither the
changing range nor the dust and mirage affected the marksman. At each
shot a horse went down, sliding against the earth, legs kicking to the
sky or plunging and rolling, as it struggled to regain its legs,
falling back at last and lying still.
Then the rifleman leaped aboard the Rolls again, and the pursuit was
continued, gaining swiftly on the survivors, the heavy phalanx of
trucks and troop transports lumbering on behind it the whole mass of
horses, men and machines rolling steadily deeper into the
killing-ground that Gareth Swales had so carefully surveyed and laid
out for them.
"The bastard!" whispered Jake, as he watched the Rolls skid to a
standstill once more. The Italian was taking no chances of approaching
the horsemen closely. He was standing well off, out of effective range
of their ancient weapons, and he was picking them off one at a time, in
the leisurely fashion of a shot gunner at a grouse shoot in fact, the
whole bloody episode was being played out in the spirit of the hunt.
Even at the range of almost a thousand yards, Jake seemed able to sense
the blood passion of the Italian marksman, the man's burning urge to
kill merely for the sake of inflicting death, for the deep gut thrill
of it.
If they intervened now, cutting into the flank of the widespread and
disordered column, they might save the lives of many of the frantically
fleeing horsemen. But the Italian column was not yet fully enmeshed in
the trap that had been laid. Swiftly, Jake traversed the glasses
across the dust-swirling and heat-distorted plain and for the first
time he noticed that a dozen trucks of the Italian rear guard had not
joined the mad, tear arse helter-skelter stampede after the
Ethiopian horsemen. This small group had halted, seemingly under some
strict control, and now they had been left two miles behind the
roaring, dusty avalanche of heavy vehicles. Jake could spare no more
attention to this group, for now the slaughter was being continued, the
wildly flying horsemen being cut down by the crack rifleman from the
Rolls.
The temptation to intervene now overwhelmed Jake. He knew it was not
the correct tactical moment, but he thought, "The hell with it, I'm not
a general, and those poor bastards out there need help." He shoved his
right foot down hard on the throttle and the engine bellowed, but
before he could pull forward and run at the bank, he was forestalled
by
Gareth Swales. He had been watching Jake, and the play of emotion over
his face was plain to read. At the moment he revved the engine, Gareth
swung the front end of the Hump across his bows, blocking him
effectively.
"I say, old chap, don't be an idiot," Gareth called across the narrow
space. "Calm the savage breast, you'll spoil the whole show."
"Those poor, Jake shouted back angrily.
"They've got to take their chances. "Gareth cut him short.
"I told you once before your sentimental old-fashioned ideas would get
us both into trouble." At this stage the argument was drowned by the
Ras. He was standing tall in the turret above Gareth. He had armed
himself with the broad, two-handed war sword, and now the excitement
became too much for him to bear longer in silence. He let out a series
of shrill ululating war cries, and swung the sword in a great hissing
circle around his head both the silver blade and his brilliant set of
teeth catching the sun and flashing like semaphores.
He punctuated his shrill war cries with wild kicks at his driver,
urging him in heated Amharic to have at the enemy, and Gareth ducked
and twisted out of the way of his flying feet.
"A bunch of maniacs!" protested Gareth as he dodged.
"I've got myself mixed up with a bunch of maniacs!"
"Major
Swales!" shouted Gregorius, unable to stay out of the argument a
moment longer. "My grandfather orders you to advance!"
"You tell your grandfather to-" but Gareth's reply was cut short as a
foot caught him in the ribs.
"Advance!" shouted Gregorius.
"Come on, for chrissake," yelled Jake.
"Yaahooo!" hooted the Ras, and swung around in the turret to wave on
his men at arms. They needed no further invitation. In a loose mob,
they spurred their ponies past the stymied cars and, brandishing their
rifles above their heads, robes streaming in the wind like battle
ensigns, they lunged up the steep bank into the open and galloped
furiously on to the flank of the scattered Italian column.
"Oh my God," sighed Gareth. "Every man a bloody general-"
"Look!"
shouted Jake, pointing back down the course of the dry river-bed, and
they all fell abruptly silent at the spectacle.
It seemed as though the very earth had opened, disgorgeing rank upon
rank of wildly galloping horsemen. Where a moment before the sweep of
land below the mountains had been empty and silent, now it swarmed with
men and horses, hundreds upon hundreds of them, dashing headlong upon
the lumbering Italian column.
The dust hung over it all, rolling forward like the fog off a winter
sea, shrouding the sun, so that horses and machines were dark infernal
shapes below the sombre clouds, and the ruddy sun glinted dully on the
steel of rifle and sword.
"That does it," Gareth agreed bitterly, and reversed his car to clear
Jake's front, before swinging away, engine roaring and the wheels
spinning for purchase in the steep loose earth of the river-bank.
Jake turned wide of the other car and took the bank at an angle to
lessen the gradient, and the two cumbersome machines burst out into the
plain, wheel to wheel.
Before them was the open flank of massed soft-skinned vehicles, as
tempting a target as they had ever been offered in their long and
warlike careers. The two iron ladies swept forward together,
and it seemed to Jake that there was a new tone to the deep engine note
as though they sensed that once again they were fulfilling the true
/>
reason for their existence. Jake glanced quickly at the Hump as she
sailed along beside him. Her angular steelwork, with its flat abrupt
surfaces from which rose the tall turret, still gave her the ugly
old-maidish silhouette, but there was a new majesty in the way she
plunged forward her bright Ethiopian colours fluttered gaily as a
cavalry pennant and the high thin, rimmed wheels spurned the sandy
earth like the hooves of a thoroughbred. Beneath him, Priscilla drove
forward as gamely, and Jake felt a warm flood of affection for his two
old ladies.
"Have at them, girls!" he shouted aloud, and Gareth Swales, head
protruding from the driver's hatch of the Hump, turned towards him.
There was a freshly lit cheroot clamped in the corner of his mouth,
seeming to have sprouted there miraculously of its own accord, and
Gareth grinned around it.
"Nob Xegitind carbomndum!" Jake caught the words faintly above the
roar of wind and motor, then turned his full attention back to
controlling the racing machine, and bringing her as swiftly as possible
into the gaping breach in the Italian line.
Abruptly the pattern of movement ahead of him changed. The exultantly
pursuing Italian warriors had realized belatedly that the roles had
been neatly switched.
The Count picked up the horseman in the sight, and led off just a
touch, a hair's breadth, for the Marmlicher was a high-velocity rifle
and the range was not more than a hundred metres.
He saw the hit clearly, the man lurched in the saddle and sprawled
forward over the horse's neck, but he did not fall. The rifle dropped
from his hands and cartwheeled across the earth, but the man clung
desperately to the horse's mane while quick crimson spread across the
shoulder of his dirty white robe.
The Count fired again, aiming for the junction of the horse's neck and
shoulder, and saw the jarring impact spin the animal off its feet,
so that it fell heavily upon its wounded rider, crushing the air from
his lungs in a short high wail.
The Count laughed, wild with excitement. "How many, Gino? How many is
that?"
"Eight, my Colonel."
"Keep counting. Keep counting," he urged, as he swung the rifle,
seeking the next target, peering eagerly over the open vee sight. Then
suddenly he froze, the rifle barrel wavering and sinking to point at
his glossy toe caps His lower jaw unhinged and slowly sank, as if in