Cry Wolf

by Wilbur Smith

  gunner ducked down into the turret, and the barrel elevated slightly

  until the Count found himself staring stupidly into its dark round

  aperture but Giuseppe had been watching also in the driving mirror,

  and now he spun the wheel and the Rolls flashed aside like a mackerel

  before the driving charge of the barracuda. The blast of shot from

  the

  Vickers tore down its left side lifting a storm of dirt and pebbles in

  spurting fountains high into the air.

  The armoured car swung heavily to follow the Rolls" manoeuvre, the

  leaping dust fountains swinging with it, closing in mercilessly.

  However, Giuseppe, faced with the prospect of death, hit the brakes so

  hard that the Count was catapulted forward, howling protests, to hang

  over the front seat, his ample black-clad buttocks pointing at the

  heavens and his glistening boots kicking wildly as he fought for

  balance.

  The sheet of bullets from the swinging Vickers passed mere inches ahead

  of the Rolls, and Giuseppe swung the wheel to hard opposite lock,

  released the brakes and trampled hard on the throttle. The Rolls

  kicked over hard, wheels spinning for purchase, then bounded ahead with

  such impetus that the Count was thrown backwards again, crashing into a

  sitting position on the rear leather seat, his helmet falling over his

  eyes.

  "I'll have you shot," he gasped, as he struggled weakly to adjust the

  helmet. Giuseppe was too busy to hear him. His duck and swerve had

  beaten the Ethiopian gunner, and the superior speed of the Rolls was

  carrying it swiftly out of harm's way. just a few more seconds then

  the ancient but splendidly toothed head of the gunner appeared once

  more in the turret, and the bows of the armoured car and the questing

  muzzle of the Vickers swung back. The gunner dropped back behind the

  gun and the roaring clatter of bullets sounded high above the bellow of

  straining engines.

  Once again, the dust storm of bullets tore up the earth, swinging

  rapidly towards the Rolls.

  Slightly ahead of the two vehicles, another growling, labouring

  troop-carrier loomed out of the dust on a parallel course with them,

  but travelling at only half the speed under its heavy load of terrified

  troopers.

  Giuseppe touched the wheel, swaying out slightly away from the stream

  of bullets, then he swung hard the opposite way and as the armoured car

  turned to follow him he ducked neatly behind the troop-carrier,

  screened by its high unstable bulk from the deadly machine gun. The

  Ethiopian kept firing.

  As the solid hose of fire tore through the canvas hood of the truck,

  ripping and shredding the men crowded shoulder to shoulder beneath it,

  the Rolls was pulling away swiftly in its lee. Suddenly,

  it was out of the dust clouds into the crystal desert air, with a vista

  of open land stretching away to the horizon a horizon which was the

  passionate destination of every man in the Rolls. The lumbering troop

  carriers were left behind, and the Rolls could make a clean run of it.

  The way the Count felt at that moment, they would only stop once he was

  safely into his defensive positions above the Wells of Chaldi.

  Then quite suddenly, he was aware of the guns on the open plain ahead

  of him. They were drawn up neatly in spaced-out triangular batteries,

  three vees of three guns each, with the gunners grouped about them and

  the long fit barrels covering the approaching mass of fleeing

  vehicles.

  There was a parade-ground feeling of calm and good order about them

  that made the Count blubber with relief after the nightmare from which

  he had just emerged.

  "Giuseppe, you have saved us," he sobbed. "I am going to give you a

  medal. "The threat of capital punishment made a few minutes earlier

  was forgotten. "Drive for the guns, my brave boy. You have done good

  work and you'll find me grateful." At that moment, emboldened by talk

  of safety, Gino lifted himself from the floorboards where he had been

  resting these last few minutes. He looked cautiously over the rear of

  the Rolls, and what he saw caused him to let out a single strangled cry

  and to drop once more into his original position on the floor.

  Behind them the Ethiopian armoured car had burst out of the dust clouds

  and was bounding determinedly after them.

  The Count took one look also, and immediately resumed his encouragement

  of Giuseppe, beating on his head with a fist like a judge's gavel.

  "Faster, Giuseppe!" he shrieked. "If he kills us, I'll have you

  shot." And the Rolls raced for the protection of the guns.

  ready now!" intoned Major Castelani gravely, trying by the tone of his

  voice to quiet their nerves.

  "Steady, my lads. Hold your fire. Hold your fire.

  "Remember your drill," he said. "Just remember your range drill,

  soldier." He paused a moment beside the nearest gun layer lifting his

  binoculars and sweeping the field ahead.

  The dust cloud was rolling rapidly towards them, but all the action was

  confused and indistinct.

  "You are loaded with high explosive?" the Major asked quietly, and the

  gun-layer gulped nervously and nodded.

  "Remember, the first shot is the only one you can aim with care.

  Make it count."

  "Sir." The man's voice was unsteady, and Castelani felt a stab of

  anger and contempt. They were all un blooded boys, unsteady and

  nervous. He had been forced to push them to their places and put the

  trails of the guns in their hands.

  He turned abruptly, and strode to the next battery.

  "Steady now, lads. Hold your fire until it counts." They turned

  strained, pale faces to him; one of the layers looked as though he

  would burst into tears at any moment.

  "The only thing you have to be afraid of is me! growled

  Castelani. "Let one of you open fire before I give the order and

  you'll-" A cry interrupted him, as one of the loaders stood up and

  pointed out on to the field.

  "Take that man's name," snapped Castelani, and turned with dignity,

  making a show of polishing the lens of his binoculars on his sleeve

  before raising them to his eyes.

  Colonel Count Aldo Belli was leading his men back so enthusiastically

  that he had outstripped them by half a mile, and every moment was

  widening the gap. He was driving directly at the centre of the

  artillery batteries, and he was standing tall in the back seat of the

  Rolls, with both arms waving and gesticulating as though he was being

  attacked by a swarm of bees.

  Even as Castelani watched, from out of the brown curtains of dust

  beyond the Rolls burst a machine that he recognized instantly, despite

  its new camouflage paint and the unfamiliar weapon in the turret. It

  did not need the gay pennant that flew above it to identify his

  enemy.

  "Very well, lads," he said quietly. "Here they come. High explosive,

  and wait for the order. Not a moment before." The speeding armoured

  car fired, a long tearing ripping burst. Much too long,

  Castelani thought with grim satisfaction. That gun would be

>   overheating, and they could expect a jam. An experienced gunner laid

  down short, spaced bursts of fire the enemy were green also,

  Castelani decided.

  "Steady, lads, "he snapped, watching his men stir restlessly at the

  sound of gunfire and exchange nervous glances.

  The car fired again, and he saw the fall of shot around the Rolls,

  kicking up swift jumping spurts of dust and earth another long ripping

  hail of fire. That ended abruptly and was not repeated.

  "Ha!" snorted Castelani, with satisfaction. "She has jammed." His

  wavering gunners would not have to receive fire. It was good. It

  would steel them, give them confidence to shoot, without being shot

  at.

  "Steady now. All steady. Not long to wait. Nice and steady now." His

  voice lost its jagged, emery-paper tone and became soothing and

  crooning like a mother at the cradle.

  "Wait for it, lads. Easy now." The Ras did not understand what had

  happened, why the gun remained silent, despite all the strength of both

  his hands on pistol grip and triggers. The long canvas belt of

  ammunition still drooped from the bins and fed into the breech of the

  Vickers but it no longer moved.

  The Ras swore at the gun, such an oath that, had he hurled it at

  another man, would have led immediately to a duel to the death, but the

  gun remained silent.

  Armed with his two-handed battle sword, the Ras climbed half out of the

  turret and brandished it about his head.

  It is doubtful if he would have realized what three batteries of modern

  100 men field guns would have looked like from the business end,

  or, if he had recognized them, whether they would have daunted his

  determined pursuit of the fleeing Rolls. As it was, his reason and

  vision were clouded with the red mists of battle rage. He did not see

  the waiting guns.

  Below him, Gareth Swales leaned forward in the driver's seat peering

  shortsightedly through the visor, which narrowed his field of vision

  and partially obscured it as though he was looking through the

  perforated bottom of a kitchen colander. His eyes were swimming from

  the cordite smoke, the engine fumes and the dust-motes so that he

  blinked rapidly as he concentrated all his efforts in following the

  speeding ethereal shape of the Rolls. He did not see the waiting

  guns.

  "Shoot, damn you," he shouted. "We are going to lose him." But above

  him the Vickers was silent, and from his seat low down in the hull, the

  slight fold of ground so carefully chosen by Major

  Castelani half-hid the batteries.

  He raced towards them, drawn on inexorably by the fleeting shape of the

  Rolls dancing elusively ahead of him.

  Good." Castelani allowed himself a bleak little smile as he watched

  the enemy vehicle come on steadily.

  Already it was within comfortable range for an experienced gunner, but

  he knew it must be half as close again before his own crews could make

  any certainty of their practice.

  The Rolls, however, was a mere two hundred metres in front of the guns,

  and coming on at a speed that could not have been less than sixty miles

  an hour. Three terrified and chalky faces were turned towards him in

  dreadful appeal and three voices were raised in loud cries for succour.

  The Major ignored them and swiftly turned his professional eye back to

  the enemy. He found it was still two thousand metres out across the

  plain but closing satisfactorily. He was on the point of uttering

  another reassurance to his edgy gunners, when the Rolls roared through

  the narrow gap in the centre of his batteries.

  The Count had at that moment temporarily found his feet and replaced

  his helmet on his head. Standing on the high platform of the

  Rolls, his voice, powered with adrenalin and shrill with terror,

  carried clearly to every gunner.

  "Open fire!" shrieked the Count. "Open fire immediately! or I

  will have you all shot!" and then, realizing that they should be

  encouraged to remain at their posts and cover his withdrawal, he

  reached frantically for inspiration and flung over his shoulder one

  rousing "Death before dishonour!" before the Rolls bore him away,

  still at sixty miles an hour, towards the long distant horizon.

  The Major lifted his voice in a great bugling bellow to countermand the

  order, but even his lungs were no match for the thunderous volley of

  nine field guns fired in as close to unison as they had never been in

  training. Each gunner took his Colonel at his literal word when he

  said "immediately" and such refinements as laying and aiming were

  forgotten in the dire urgency of firing as furiously and as fast as

  possible.

  In the circumstances, it was nothing short of a miracle that one

  high-explosive shell found a mark. This was a Fiat troop-carrier which

  emerged at that moment from the dust clouds a quarter of a mile behind

  the Ethiopian armoured car. The shell was fused to a thousandth of a

  second delay; it went in through the radiator, shattered the engine

  block, disintegrated the driver, then burst in the midst of the group

  of terrified infantrymen huddled under the canvas hood.

  The engine and front wheel of the truck kept going forward for a few

  seconds before beginning to roll and bounce over the irregular ground

  the rest of the truck and twenty men went straight upwards,

  fifty feet in the air like a troupe of maniacal acrobats.

  Only one other shell came close to hitting the enemy. It burst ten

  yards in front of the Hump, emptying in a towering pillar of flame and

  yellow earth, and gouging a deep round crater, four feet across,

  into which the speeding car plunged.

  The Ras, whose head was protruding from the turret, and whose mouth and

  eyes were wide open, had all three of these body apertures filled with

  flying sand from the explosion and his war whoops were cut off

  abruptly, as he choked for breath and tried frantically to wipe his

  streaming eyes.

  Gareth also had his vision abruptly closed by the pillar of flame and

  sand, and he drove blindly into the shell crater.

  The impact threw him out of his seat, and the steering wheel hit him in

  the chest, driving the wind out of his lungs before snapping off short

  at the floorboards.

  With another bound, the Hump bounced jauntily out of the shell crater

  with streamers of dust and shell smoke swirling about her. She was

  hanging over on one side with her springs snapped off by the jolt,

  and her front wheels locked firmly to one side, yet her engine still

  bellowed at full power and she went into a tight right-hand circle,

  around and around like a circus animal.

  Wheezing for breath, Gareth dragged himself back into the driver's

  seat, only to find that there was no longer a steering column and that

  the throttle had jammed at the fully open position. He sat there for

  long seconds, shaking his head to clear it, and struggling desperately

  for breath, for the hull was filled with dust and smoke.

  Another shell, bursting somewhere close beside the hull, roused him

  from the stupors
of shock, and he reached up, unlatched the driver's

  hatch and stuck his head out into the open air. At what seemed like

  point-blank range, three full batteries of Italian field guns were

  firing at him.

  "Oh my God!" he gasped painfully, as another volley of high explosive

  erupted around the rapidly circling car, the blast jarring his eyeballs

  and rattling his teeth in his head.

  "Let's go home!" he said and began to hoist himself out of the narrow

  hatch-way. His feet came clear of the steel flooring of the hull only

  just in time to save every bone below his knees in both legs from being

  shattered into small fragments.

  a thousand yards away across the plain Major Castelani was fighting for

  control against the panic that the Count had instilled in his gunners.

  They were loading and firing with such single-minded passion that all

  the other refinements of gunnery were completely forgotten. The layers

  were no longer making a pretence of seeking a target, but merely

  jerking the lanyard at the very moment the breech block clanged shut.

  Castelani's bellows made no impression on the half deafened and almost

  completely dazed gunners. The Count's last injunction to death had

  shattered their nerves completely and they were all of them beyond

  reason.

  Castelani dragged the nearest layer from his seat behind the gun

  shield, and prised open the man's death grip on the lanyard. Cursing

  bitterly at the quality of the men under his command, he pedalled the

  traverse and elevating handles of the gun with a smooth expert

  action.

  The thick barrel dropped and swung until the insect speck of the

  armoured car loomed suddenly large in the magnifying prism of the

  gunsight. It was tearing in a crazy circle, clearly out of control,

  and Castelani picked up the rhythm of its circle and hit the lanyard

  with a short hard jerk of the wrist. The barrel flew back, arrested at

  last by the hydraulic pistons of the shock absorber, and the

  fifteen-pound cone-shaped steel shell was hurled on an almost flat

  trajectory across the plain.

  It was aimed fractionally low. It passed inches below the tall

  shuttered bows of the car, between the two front wheels, and struck the

  earth directly below the driver's compartment.

  The released energy. of the blast was deflected by the earth's surface