Cry Wolf

by Wilbur Smith

  gorge another week. Tell him we need ammunition, guns,

  medicine, blankets, food anything he can spare. Ask him to send a

  train down to Sardi with supplies, and to take out the wounded." He

  paused, and thought for a moment. "That's it, I think.

  Do that and then come back, with all the food you can carry. I

  think we left most of our supplies down there" he glanced down into the

  misty depths of the gorge "and these fellows won't fight on an empty

  stomach." Jake reversed the car and pulled back on to the track.

  "Oh, and Jake, try and find a few cheroots. I lost my entire stock

  down there. Can't fight without a whiff or two." He grinned and

  waved. "Keep it warm, old son," he called, and turned away to begin

  stopping the trudging column of refugees, pushing them off the track

  towards the prepared trenches that had been dug into the rocky sides of

  the gorge, overlooking the double sweep of the track below them.

  "Come along, chaps," Gareth shouted cheerfully. "Who's for a touch of

  old glory!" ROM GENERAL BADOGLIO, COMMANDER IN CHIEF OF THE

  AFRICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE BEFORE AMBA ARA DAM TO COLONEL COUNT ALDO

  BELLI, OFFICER COMMANDING THE DANAKIL COLUMN AT THE WELLS OF CHALDI.

  THE MOMENT FOR WHICH WE HAVE PLANNED IS

  NOW AT HAND STOP I CONFRONT THE MAIN BODY OF THE ENEMY, AND HAVE

  HAD THEM UNDER CONTINUOUS BOMBARDMENT FOR FIVE DAYS. AT DAWN

  TOMORROW

  I SHALL ATTACK IN FORCE AND DRIVE THEM FROM THE HIGH GROUND BACK

  ALONG

  THE DE SSI ROAD. DO YOU NOW ADVANCE WITH ALL DESPATCH TO TAKE UP A

  POSITION ASTRIDE THE DESSIE ROAD AND STEM THE TIDE OF THE ENEMY's

  RETREAT, SO THAT WE MAY TAKE THEM ON BOTH TINES OF THE PITCHFORK.

  "forty thousand men lay upon Ambo Aradam, cowering in their trenches

  and caves. They were the heart and spine of the Ethiopian armies, and

  the man who led them, Ras Muguletu, was the ablest and most experienced

  of all the warlords. But he was powerless and uncertain in the face of

  such strength and fury as now broke around him. He had not imagined it

  could be so, and he lay with his men, quiescent and stoic. There was

  no enemy to confront, nothing to strike out at, for the huge Caproni

  bombers droned high overhead and the great guns that fired the shells

  were miles below in the valley.

  All they could do was pull their dusty shammas over their heads and

  endure the bone-jarring, bowel-shaking detonations and breathe the

  filthy fume-laden air.

  Day after day the storm of explosive roared around them until they were

  dazed and stupefied, deafened and uncaring, enduring, only enduring not

  thinking, not feeling, not caring.

  On the sixth night the drone of the big three-engined bombers passed

  overhead, and Ras Muguletu's men, peering up fearfully, saw the

  sinister shapes pass overhead, dark against the silver pricking of the

  stars.

  They waited for the bombs to tumble down upon them once more, but the

  bombers circled above the flat-topped mountain for many minutes and

  there were no bombs. Then the bombers turned away and the drone of the

  engines died into the lightening dawn sky.

  Only then did the soft insidious dew that they had sown come sifting

  down out of the still night sky. Gently as the fall of snowflakes, it

  settled upon the upturned brown faces, into the fearfully staring eyes,

  on to the bare hands that held the ancient firearms at the ready.

  It burned into the exposed skin, blistering and eating into the living

  flesh like some terrible canker; it burned the eyes in their sockets,

  turning them into cherry-red, glistening orbs from which the yellow

  mucus poured thickly. The pain it inflicted combined both the seating

  of concentrated acid and the fierce heat of live coals.

  In the dawn, while thousands of Ras Muguletu's men whimpered and cried

  out in their consuming agony, and their comrades, bemused and

  bewildered, tried unavailingly to render aid, in that dreadful

  moment,

  the first wave of Italian infantry came up over the lip of the

  mountain, and they were into the Ethiopian trenches before the

  defenders realized what had happened. The Italian bayonets blurred

  redly in the first rays of the morning sun.

  The cloud lay upon the highlands, blotting out the peaks, and the rain

  fell in a constant deluge. It had rained without ceasing for the two

  days and three nights since the disaster of Aruba Aradarn. The rain

  had saved them, it had saved the thirty thousand survivors of the

  battle from being overtaken by the same fate as had befallen the ten

  thousand casualties they had left on the mountain.

  High above the cloud, the Italian bombers circled hungrily; Lij

  Mikhael could hear them clearly, although the thick blanket of cloud

  muted the sound of the powerful triple engines. They waited for a

  break in the cloud, to come swooping down upon the retreat. What a

  target they would enjoy if that happened! The Dessie road was choked

  for a dozen miles with the slow unwieldy column of the retreat, the

  ragged files of trudging figures, bowed in the rain, their heads

  covered with their shammas, their bare feet sliding and slipping in the

  mud. Hungry, cold and dispirited, they toiled onwards, carrying

  weapons that grew heavier with every painful step still they kept on.

  The rain had hampered the Italian pursuit. Their big troop-carriers

  were bogged down helplessly in the treacherous mud, and each engorged

  mountain stream, each ravine raged with the muddy brown rain waters.

  They had to be bridged by the Italian engineers before the transports

  could be manhandled across, and the pursuit continued.

  The Italian General Badoglio had been denied a crushing victory and

  thirty thousand Ethiopian troops had escaped him at Aradam.

  It was Lij Mikhael's special charge, placed upon him -personally by the

  King of Kings, Baile Selassie, to bring out those thirty thousand men.

  To extricate them from Badogho's talons, and regroup them with the

  southern army under the Emperor's personal command upon the shores of

  Lake Tona. Another thirty-six hours and the task would be

  accomplished.

  He sat on the rear seat of the mud-spattered Ford sedan, huddled into

  the thick coarse folds of his greatcoat, and although it was worn and

  lulling in the sedan interior, and although he was exhausted to the

  point at which his hands and feet felt completely numb and his eyes as

  though they were filled with sand, yet no thought of sleep entered his

  mind. There was too much to plan, too many eventualities to meet, too

  many details to ponder and he was afraid. A terrible black fear

  pervaded his whole being.

  The ease with which the Italian victory had been won at Araoam filled

  him with fear for the future. It seemed as though nothing could stand

  against the force of Italian arms against the big guns, and the bombs

  and the nitrogen Mustard. He feared that another terrible defeat

  awaited them on the shores of Lake Tona.

  He feared also for the safety of the thirty thousand in his charge. He

  knew that the Danakil column of the
Italian expeditionary force had

  fought its way into the Sardi Gorge and must by now have almost reached

  the town of Sardi itself. He knew that Ras Golam's small force had

  been heavily defeated on the plains and had suffered doleful losses in

  the subsequent defence of the gorge. He feared that they might be

  swept aside at any moment now and that the Italian column would come

  roaring like a lion across his rear cutting off his retreat to Dessie.

  He must have time, a little more time, a mere thirty-six hours more.

  Then again, he feared the Gallas. At the beginning of the Italian

  offensive they had taken no part in the fighting but had merely

  disappeared into the mountains, betraying completely the trust that

  the

  Harari leaders had placed in them. Now, however, that the Italians had

  won their first resounding victories, the Gallas had become active,

  gathering like vultures for the scraps that the lions left. His own

  retreat from Aradam had been harassed by his erstwhile allies. They

  hung on his flanks, hiding in the scrub Laid scree slopes along the

  Dessie road, awaiting each opportunity to fall upon a weak unprotected

  spot in the unwieldy slow-moving column. It was classical shifta

  tactics, the age old art of ambush, of hit and run, a few throats slit

  and a dozen rifles stolen but it slowed the retreat slowed it

  drastically while close behind them followed the Italian horde, and

  across their rear lay the mouth of the Sardi Gorge.

  Lij Mikhael roused himself and leaned forward in the seat to peer ahead

  through the windscreen. The wipers flogged sullenly from side to side,

  keeping two fans of clean glass in the mud-splattered screen, and

  Lij Mikhael made out the railway crossing ahead of them where it

  bisected the muddy rutted road.

  He grunted with so tis faction and the driver pushed the Ford through

  the slowly moving mass of miserable humanity which clogged the road. It

  opened only reluctantly as the sedan butted its way through with the

  horn blaring angrily, and closed again behind it as it passed.

  They reached the railway level crossing and Lij Mikhael ordered the

  driver to pull off the road beside a group of his officers. He slipped

  out bareheaded and immediately the rain de wed on his bushy dark hair.

  The group of officers surrounded him, each eager to tell his own story,

  to recite the list of his own requirements, his own misgivings each

  with news of fresh disaster, new threats to their very existence.

  They had no comfort for him, and Lij Mikhael listened with a great

  weight growing in his chest.

  At last he gestured for silence. "Is the telephone line to Sardi still

  open? "he asked.

  "The Gallas have not yet cut it. It does not follow the railway line

  but crosses the spur of Ambo Sacal. They must have overlooked it."

  "Have me connected with the Sardi station I must speak to somebody

  there. I must know exactly what is happening in the gorge."

  He left the group of officers beside the railway tracks and walked a

  short way along the Sardi spur.

  Down there, a few short miles away, the close members of his family his

  father, his brothers, his daughter were risking their lives to buy him

  the time he needed. He wondered what price they had already paid, and

  suddenly, a mental picture of his daughter sprang into his mind Sara,

  young and lithe and laughing. Firmly he thrust the thought aside and

  he turned to look back at the endless file of bedraggled figures that

  shuffled along the Dessie road. They were in no condition to defend

  themselves, they were helpless as cattle "Until they could be

  regrouped, fed and re-armed in spirit.

  No, if the Italians came now it would be the end.

  "Excellency, the line to Sardi is open. Will you speak? Lij

  Mikhael turned back and went to where a field telephone had been hooked

  into the Sardi-Dessie telephone line. The copper wires dangled down

  from the telegraph poles overhead, and Lij Mikhael took the handset

  that the officer handed him and spoke quietly into the mouthpiece.

  Beside the station master's office in the railway yards of Sardi town

  stood the long cavernous warehouse used for the storage of grain and

  other goods. The roof and walls were clad with corrugated galvanized

  iron which had been daubed a dull rusty red with oxide paint.

  The floor was of raw concrete, and tire cold mountain wind whistled in

  through the joints in the corrugated sheets.

  At a hundred places, the roof leaked where the galvanizing had rusted

  away, and the rain dripped steadily forming icy puddles on the bare

  concrete floor.

  There were almost six hundred wounded and dying men crowded into the

  shed. There was no bedding or blankets, and empty grain bags served

  the purpose. They lay in long lines on the hard concrete, and the cold

  came up through the thin jute bags, and the rain dripped down upon them

  from the high roof.

  There was no sanitation, no bed pans, no running water, and most of the

  men were too weak to hobble out into the slush of the goods yard. The

  stench was a solid tangible thing that permeated the clothing and clung

  in a person's hair long after he had left the shed.

  There was no antiseptic, no medicine not even a bottle of Lysol or a

  packet of Aspro. The tiny store of medicines at the missionary

  hospital had long ago been exhausted. The German doctor worked on into

  each night with no anaesthetic and nothing to combat the secondary

  infection.

  Already the stink of putrefying wounds was almost as strong as the

  other stench.

  The most hideous injuries were the burns inflicted by the nitrogen

  mustard. All that could be done was to smear the scalded and blistered

  flesh with locomotive grease. They had found two drums of this in the

  loco shed.

  Vicky Camberwell had slept for three hours two days ago.

  Since then, she had worked without ceasing amongst the long pitiful

  lines of bodies. Her face was deadly pale in the gloom of the shed,

  and her eyes had receded into dark bruised craters. Her feet were

  swollen from standing so long, and her shoulders and her back ached

  with a dull unremitting agony. Her linen dress was stained with specks

  of dried blood, and other less savoury secretions and she worked on, in

  despair that there was so little they could do for the hundreds of

  casualties.

  She could help them to drink the water they cried out for, clean those

  that lay in their own filth, hold a black pleading hand as the man

  died, and then pull the coarse jute sacking up over his face and signal

  one of the over, worked male orderlies to carry him away and bring in

  another from where they were already piling up on the open stoep of the

  shed.

  One of the orderlies stooped over her now, shaking her shoulder

  urgently, and it was some seconds before she could understand what he

  was saying. Then she pushed herself stiffly up off her knees, and

  stood for a moment holding the small of her back with both hands while

  the pain there eased, and the dark giddiness in her he
ad abated. Then

  she followed the orderly out across the muddy fouled yard to the

  station office.

  She lifted the telephone receiver to her ear and her voice was husky

  and slurred as she said her name.

  "Miss Camberwell, this is Lij Mikhael here." His voice was scratchy

  and remote, and she could hardly catch the words, for the rain still

  rattled on the iron roof above her head. "I am at the Dessie

  crossroads."

  "The train," she said, her voice firming. Lij Mikhael,

  where is the train you promised? We must have medicine antiseptic,

  anaesthetic don't you understand? There are six hundred wounded men

  here. Their wounds are rotting, they are dying like animals." She

  recognized the rising hysteria in her voice, and she cut herself off.

  "Miss Camberwell. The train I am sorry. I sent it to you.

  With supplies. Medicines. Another doctor. It left Dessie yesterday

  morning, and passed the crossroads here yesterday evening on its way

  down the gorge to Sardi-"

  "Where is it, then?" demanded Vicky. "We must have it.

  You don't know what it's like here."

  "I'm sorry, Miss Camberwell.

  The train will not reach you. It was derailed in the mountains fifteen

  miles north of Sardi. Ras Kullah's men the Gallas were in ambush.

  They had torn up the tracks, they have Fired everybody aboard and

  burned the coaches." There was a long silence between them, only the

  static hissed and buzzed across the wires.

  "Miss Camberwell. Are you there?"

  "Yes."

  "Do you understand what

  I am saying?"

  "Yes, I understand."

  "There will be no train." "No." Ras

  Kullah has cut the road between here and Sardi."

  "Yes."

  "Nobody can reach you and there is no escape from Sardi up the railway

  line.

  Ras Kullah has five thousand men to hold it. His position in the

  mountains is impregnable. He can hold the road against an army."

  "We are cut off," said Vicky thickly. "The Italians in front of us.

  The

  Gallas behind us." Again the silence between them, then Lij Mikhael

  asked, "Where are the Italians now, Miss Camberwell?"

  "They are almost at the head of the gorge, where the last waterfall

  crosses the road-"

  She paused and listened intently, removing the receiver from her ear.

  Then she lifted it again. "You can hear the Italian guns. They are