Cry Wolf

by Wilbur Smith

  and

  Jake moved smoothly, swinging his weight across and swivelling a

  quarter of a turn. It was so swift that the Galla could not avoid the

  blow; even if he had seen it, he was hemmed in and constrained by the

  press of his comrades" bodies.

  Jake hit him with a forearm chop, and the barrel of the pistol caught

  him in the mouth, snapping off his front teeth cleanly from the upper

  gum, and the shock of the blow was transferred directly through the

  frontal sinuses to the brain.

  The man dropped without a sound and was immediately hidden from view by

  the men who stumbled over him as they followed. But they did not press

  so hard now, and Jake switched the pistol back to Ras

  Kullah's head. The entire incident was over before Kullah could cry

  out or squirm in the punishing grip that had bruised and twisted his

  upper arm.

  Jake shifted his grip again, forcing the man farther off balance,

  and hustled him on more urgently. Ahead of them, through the trees, he

  could make out the ugly humped shapes of the cars, silver grey in the

  moonlight and silhouetted by the dying ash heaps of the camp fires.

  "Vicky, we'll use Miss Wobbly. I'm not taking a chance on

  Priscilla starting first kick," he grated. "Use the driver's hatch.

  Don't worry about anything else but getting behind that wheel."

  "What about the prisoners?"

  "Do what you're told, don't argue, damn it." They were within twenty

  feet of the car now, and he told her, "Now, go, fast as you can." She

  darted away, reaching the high side of Miss Wobbly before any of the

  Gallas could intervene and she went up it with a single agile bound.

  "Close down," Jake shouted after her, and felt a quick lift of relief

  as the hatch clanged shut. The ( gal las growled like the wolf-pack

  denied its prey and they swarmed forward, pressing hard and surrounding

  the car.

  Jake fired a single shot in the air, and Ras Kullah screamed a command.

  The Gallas drew back fractionally and fell into a sullen silence.

  "Vicky, can you hear me?" Jake called, as he shepherded the

  Italian prisoners close in against the hull.

  Her voice was muffled and remote from behind the steel plate as she

  acknowledged.

  "The rear doors," he told her urgently. "Get them open but not before

  I tell you." He pushed the Italians around towards the rear of the

  car, but it was slow work, for they were confused and stupid with

  terror.

  Now, "Jake shouted and knocked impatiently against the hull with the

  pistol. The lock grated and the doors swung outwards, and came up

  against the packed bodies outside.

  "Goddamn it," growled Jake, an got his shoulder to one leaf of the

  door. He shoved it open, knocking down two Of the closest Gallas and

  in the same movement boosted one of the Italians through the opening

  into the dark interior of the car. In a panicky scramble, the other

  two followed him and Jake swung the door closed on them and put his

  back flat against it, and heard the bolts shot closed on the inside,

  facing the hating dark faces, and the surging press of their hundreds

  of bodies. Voices were raised at the rear of the crowd and violence

  was seconds away they had seen most of their prey escape, and it needed

  little more to trigger the mob reflex.

  Jake found he was panting as though he had run a long way, and his

  heart pounded, so that he could feel it jump against his rib cage but

  he held Ras Kullah, changing his grip from the pudgy upper arm to the

  thick wiry bush of his hair, twining his fingers deeply into the

  stiff,

  dark halo at the back of his skull and twisting the head so that Ras

  Kullah faced his men. With the other hand Jake thrust the pistol

  deeply into the aperture of the man's ear hole

  "Speak to them, sweet lips He made his voice vicious and menacing.

  "Otherwise I'm going to push this piece right out through the other

  ear." Ras Kullah understood the tone, if not the words, and he gabbled

  out a few hysterical words Of Amharic; the front warriors drew back a

  pace and Jake slid slowly along the hull, keeping his back to the steel

  and Ras Kullah pinned helplessly by his hair to cover his front. The

  crowd moved with them, keeping station with them, their faces glowering

  in the moonlight, cruel and angry, balancing critically on the pinnacle

  of violence. A voice rang out from the darkness, an authoritative

  voice urging action, the crowd growled, and Ras Kullah whimpered in

  Jake's grip.

  The sound of Ras Kullah's terror warned Jake that they would be

  frustrated no longer, the moment was upon them.

  "Vicky, are you ready to start?" he called urgently, and her voice was

  just audible.

  "Ready to start." He felt the fixed crank handle catch him in the back

  of the legs, and at that instant a woman's voice shrilled and echoed

  through the grove of camel-thorn trees. In that heart-stopping

  ululation of the blood trill, the invocation to violence that the heart

  of the African warrior cannot resist, the sound struck the jostling

  press of Gallas like a whip, stroke and their bodies convulsed and

  their voices rose in an answering blood roar.

  "Oh Jesus, here they come," thought Jake, and put all his strength into

  the arm and shoulder that took Ras Kullah between the shoulder blades

  and hurled him forward into the front rank of his own men. He crashed

  into them, bringing down half a dozen of them in a sprawling tangle

  over which the next rank tumbled and fell.

  Jake turned swiftly and stooped to the crank handle. He had chosen

  Miss Wobbly for this moment, knowing that she was the most gentle and

  well-intentioned of all the cars.

  He would have trembled to put the same trust in Priscilla and as it

  was, even she coughed and hesitated at the first swing.

  "Please, my darling, please, "Jake pleaded desperately, and at the next

  swing of the handle she hacked, choked and fired then suddenly she was

  running sweetly. Jake jumped for the sponson, just as a great

  two-handed sword swung down at him from on high.

  He heard the hiss of the blade, passing like the flight of a bat in the

  darkness, and he ducked under it. The sword struck the steel hull of

  the car and sprayed a fiery burst of sparks, and Jake rolled and fired

  the Beretta as the Galla raised the sword to swing again.

  He heard the bullet slog into flesh, a meaty thump, and the man

  collapsed backwards, the sword spinning from his hand as he went down

  but from every direction, robed figures were swarming up the hull of

  the car, like safari ants over the carcass of a helpless scarab

  beetle,

  and the roar of voices was a storm surf of anger.

  Drive, Vicky for God's sake, drive," he yelled and slammed the pistol

  over the woolly head of a Galla as it rose beside him. The man fell

  away and the engine bellowed, the car bounded forward with a jerk that

  threw most of the Gallas from the hull, and Jake was himself thrown

  half clear, snatching at one of the welded brackets as he went over and

  saving himself from
falling into the swarming pack of Gallas but the

  pistol dropped out of his hand as he clung grimly to his precarious

  hold.

  Miss Wobbly, under Vicky's thrusting foot, roared into the thick wall

  of men ahead of her and few of them had a chance to avoid her charge.

  Their bodies went down before her, thudding against the frontal plate

  of the car, their blood roar changing swiftly to yells and shrieks of

  consternation as they scattered away into the darkness and the car

  burst free of the press and tore on down the slope.

  Jake draiwed himself back on board and steadied himself against the

  turret, as he rose to his knees. Beside him a Galla clung like a tick

  to the back of an ox, wailing in terror while his sham ma swirled over

  his head in the stream of racing air. Jake put one foot against the

  man's raised buttocks and thrust hard. The man shot head first over

  the side of the speeding car, and hit the earth with a crunch that was

  audible even above the roaring engine.

  Jake crawled back along the heaving, violently rocking hull and with

  fist and foot he threw over side one at a time her deck cargo of

  terrified Gallas. Vicky took the car down the slope under full

  throttle, weaving wildly through the trees of the grove and at last out

  on to the open moonlit plain.

  Here at last, by pounding with his fist on the driver's hatch,

  Jake managed to arrest Vicky's wild drive, and she braked the car to a

  cautious halt.

  She came out through the hatch and embraced him with both arms wound

  tightly around his neck. Jake made no attempt to avoid the circle of

  her arms, and a silence settled over them disturbed only by their

  breathing. They had both almost forgotten about their prisoners in the

  pleasure of the moment, but were reminded by the scuffling and

  muttering in the depths of the car. Slowly they drew apart, and

  Vicky's eyes were soft and lustrous in the moonlight.

  "The poor things," she whispered. "You saved them from that-" and

  words failed her as she remembered the one they had been too late to

  save.

  Yes, "Jake agreed. "But what the hell do we do with them now!"

  "We could take them up to the Harari Camp the Ras would treat them

  fairly."

  "Don't bet money on it." Jake shook his head. "They are all

  Ethiopians and their rules of the game are different from ours. I

  wouldn't like to take a chance on it."

  "Oh Jake, I'm sure he wouldn't allow them to be-, "Anyway," Jake

  interrupted, "if we handed them over to the Hararil Ras Kullah would be

  there the next minute demanding them back for his fun and if they

  didn't agree, we'd all be in the middle of a tribal war. No, it won't

  do."

  "We'll have to turn them loose, "said Vicky at last.

  "They'd never make it back to the Wells of Chaldi." Jake looked to the

  east, across the brooding midnight plain. "The ground out there is

  crawling with Ethiopian scouts. They would have their throats slit

  before they'd gone a mile."

  "We'll have to take them," said Vicky,

  and Jake looked sharply at her.

  "Take them?"

  "In the car drive out to the Wells of Chaldi."

  "The

  Eyeties would love that," he grunted. "Have you forgotten those

  flaming great cannons of theirs?"

  "Under a flag of truce," said Vicky.

  "There is no other way, Jake. Truly there isn't." Jake thought about

  it silently for a full minute and then he -sighed wearily.

  "It's a long drive. Let's get going." They drove without headlights,

  not wanting to attract the attention of the Ethiopian scouts or the

  Italians, but the moon was bright enough to light their way and define

  the ravines and rougher ground with crisp black shadows,

  although occasionally the wheels would crash painfully into one of the

  deep round holes dug by the aardvarks, the nocturnal long-nosed beasts

  which burrowed for the subterranean colonies of termites.

  The three half-naked Italian survivors huddled down in the rear

  compartment of the car, so exhausted by fear and the day's adventures

  that they passed swiftly into sleep, a sleep so deep that neither the

  noisy roar of the engine within the metal hull nor the bouncing over

  rough ground could disturb them. They lay like dead men in an untidy

  heap.

  Vicky Camberwell climbed down out of the turret to escape the flow of

  cool night air, and squeezed into the space beside the driver's seat.

  For a while she spoke quietly with Jake, but soon her voice became

  drowsy and finally dried up. Then slowly she toppled sideways against

  him, and he smiled tenderly and eased her golden head down on to his

  shoulder and held her like that, warm against him in the noisy hull, as

  he drove on into the eastern night.

  The Italian sentries were sweeping the perimeter of their camp at

  regular intervals with a pair of powerful anti-aircraft searchlights,

  probably in anticipation of a night attack by the Ethiopians, and the

  glow of the beams burned up in a tall white cone of light into the

  desert sky. Jake homed in upon it, gradually reducing his throttle

  setting as he closed in. He knew that the engine beat would carry many

  miles in the stillness, but that at lower revs it would be diffused and

  impossible to pinpoint.

  He guessed he was within two or three miles of the Italian camp when in

  confirmation that the sentries had heard his approach, and that after

  their recent experiences they were highly sensitive to the sound of a

  Bentley engine, a star shell sailed upwards a thousand feet into the

  sky and burst with a fierce blue-white light that lit the desert like a

  stage for miles beneath it. Jake hit the brakes hard, and waited for

  the shell to sink slowly to earth. He did not want movement to attract

  attention. The light died away and left the night blacker than before,

  but beside him the abrupt change of motion had woken Vicky and she sat

  up groggily, pushing the hair out of her eyes and muttering sleepily.

  "What is it?"

  "We are here," he said, and another star shell rose in a high arc and

  burst in brilliance that paled the moon.

  "There." Jake pointed out the ridge above the Wells of Chaldi.

  The dark shapes of the Italian vehicles were laagered in orderly

  lines,

  clearly silhouetted by the star shell. They hall let were two miles

  ahead. Suddenly there was the distant ripping sound of a machine gun,

  a sentry firing at shadows, and immediately after, a scattered

  fusillade of rifle shots which petered out into a sheepish silence.

  "It seems that everybody is awake, and jumpy as hell," Jake remarked

  drily. "This is about as close as we can go." He crawled out of the

  driver's seat and went back to where the prisoners were still piled

  upon each other like a litter of sleeping puppies. One of them was

  snoring like an asthmatic lion, and Jake had to put his boot amongst

  them to stir them back to consciousness. They came awake slowly and

  resentfully, and Jake swung open the rear doors and pushed them out

  into the darkness. They stood dejectedly
, clasping their naked trunks

  against the chill of the night and peering about them fearfully to

  discover what new unpleasantness awaited them. At that instant another

  star shell burst almost overhead, and they exclaimed and blinked

  owlishly without immediate comprehension as Jake made shooing gestures,

  trying to drive them like a flock of chickens towards the ridge.

  Finally Jake grabbed one of them by the scruff of the neck,

  pointed his face at the ridge and gave him a shove that sent him

  tottering the first few paces. Suddenly the man recognized his own

  camp and the lines of big Fiat trucks in the light of the star shell.

  He let out a heartfelt cry of relief and broke into a shambling run.

  The other two stared for a moment in disbelief and then set out after

  him at the top of their speed. When they had gone twenty yards,

  one of them turned back and came to Jake, seized his hand and pumped it

  vigorously, a huge smile splitting his face; then he turned to Vicky

  and covered both her hands with wet noisy kisses. The man was

  weeping,

  tears streaming down his cheeks.

  "That's enough of that," growled Jake. "On your way, friend," and he

  turned the Italian and once more pointed him at the horizon and helped

  him on his way.

  The unaffected joy of the released Italians was contagious. Jake and

  Vicky drove back in a high good mood, laughing together secretly in the

  dark and noisy hull of the car. They had covered half of the forty

  miles back to the Sardi Gorge, and behind them the lights of the

  Italian camp were a mere suggestion of lesser darkness low on the

  eastern horizon, but still their mood was light and joyous and at some

  fresh sally of Jake's Vicky leaned across to kiss him on the soft pulse

  of his throat beneath his ear.

  As if of her own accord, Miss Wobbly's speed bled away and she rocked

  to a gentle standstill in the centre of a wide open area of soft sandy

  soil and low dark scrub.

  Jake earthed the magneto, and the engine note died away into silence.

  He turned in the seat and took Vicky fully in his arms,

  crushing her to him with sudden strength that made her gasp aloud.

  "Jake!" she protested, half in pain, but his lips covered hers,

  and her protests were forgotten at the taste of his mouth.

  His jaw and cheeks were rough with new beard, the same strong wiry

  growth of dark hair which curled out of his shirt front, and the man