Cry Wolf

by Wilbur Smith

  both of you we'd never make it over the mountains," and they saw what

  torture the words caused her.

  Another bullet clanged against steel. "We can take only one more."

  "Spin you for it." Gareth had the silver Maria Theresa on his thumb

  and he grinned at Jake.

  "Heads," said Jake and it spun silver in the sunlight and Gareth caught

  it in the palm of his good hand and glanced at Jake..

  "It had to come your turn at last." Gareth's grin lifted the corners

  of his mouth. "Well done, old son. off you go." But Jake caught the

  wrist, and twisted it. He glanced at the coin.

  "Tails," he snapped. "I always knew you were a cheat, you bastard,"

  and he turned away towards Vicky. "I'll cover the take-off,

  Vicky, I'll keep Priscilla between you and the Eyeties as long as I

  can." Behind him, Gareth stooped and picked up a stone the size of a

  gull's egg out of the grass.

  "Sorry, old son," he drawled. "But I owe you two already," and

  tenderly he tapped Jake above the right ear with the stone held in the

  cup of his hand, and then dropped the stone and caught him under the

  armpits as his legs sagged and he began to collapse.

  He put his knee under Jake's backside and with a heave boosted him

  headfirst and unconscious through the cabin door. Then he put his foot

  on Jake's protruding posterior and thrust him farther into the cramped

  cabin until he could slam and lock the door.

  Rifle-fire pounded and crashed against the screening hull of

  Priscilla. Gareth reached into his inside pocket and pulled out the

  pigskin wallet. He dropped it through the side window into Vicky's lap

  as she sat at the controls.

  "Tell Jake if I'm not there on the first to cash the Lijs cheque and

  buy You a bottle of Charlie from me, and when you drink it,

  remember I really did love you,-" Before she could reply he had turned

  and darted back to the armoured car and scrambled up into the driver's

  hatch.

  Like a team in harness, the car and the little blue aircraft ran side

  by side down the open field and the Italian fire drummed against the

  steel hull of the car.

  Then slowly the heavily laden aircraft drew ahead of the speeding car,

  but by then they were beyond effective rifle range, and as Vicky felt

  the Puss Moth come alive and the wheels bumped clear of the rough turf,

  she glanced quickly backwards.

  Gareth stood in the driver's hatch, and she saw his lips Move as he

  shouted after her, and he lifted his bandaged arm in a gesture of

  farewell.

  She did not hear the words, but she read them upon his lips.

  "Noli il legitimi carborundum," and saw the flash of that devilish

  buccaneer smile, before the aircraft lifted away from the earth and she

  must turn all her attention back to it.

  are th halted Priscilla at the edge of the field and he stood in the

  hatch, shielding his eyes with his good 3hand, and watched the little

  blue aircraft climb laboriously into the thin mountain air.

  Again it caught the sun and flashed as it turned unsteadily towards the

  gap in the mountains where the pass led up into the highlands.

  His whole attention was fixed on the dwindling speck of blue, so that

  he did not see the three CV.3 tanks crawl out of the main street of the

  village five hundred yards away.

  He was still staring upwards as the tanks stopped, rocking gently on

  their suspensions, and the turrets with the long Spandaus traversed

  around towards him.

  He did not hear the crash of cannon for the shell struck long before

  the sound carried to him. There was only the earth stopping impact and

  the burst of shell that hurled him from the hatch.

  He lay on the earth beside the shattered hull, and he felt downwards

  with his good hand, for there was something wrong with his stomach. He

  groped down, and there was nothing where his stomach should have been,

  just a gaping hole into which his hand sunk, as though into the soft

  warm flesh of a rotten fruit.

  He tried to withdraw his hand, but it would not move.

  There was no longer muscular control, and it grew darker.

  He tried to open his eyes and then realized that they were wide open,

  staring up at the bright sky. The darkness was in his head, and the

  cold was in his whole body.

  In the darkness and the icy cold, he heard a voice say in Italian,

  "E marta he is dead." And he thought with mild surprise, "Yes, I am.

  This time, I am," and he tried to grin, but his lips would not move and

  he went on staring up at the sky with pale blue eyes.

  He is dead," repeated Gino.

  "Are you certain?" Count Aldo Belli demanded from the turret of the

  tank.

  "Si, I am certain." Warily the Count climbed down the hull.

  "You are right," he agreed, studying the man. "He is truly dead. "Then

  he straightened up and puffed out his chest.

  "Gino," he commanded. "Get a picture of me with the cadaver of the

  English bandit." And Gino backed away, staring into the viewfinder of

  the big black camera.

  "Chin up a little, my Colonel," he instructed.

  Vicky Camberwell brought the Puss Moth out over the final crest of the

  pass, with a mere two hundred feet to spare, for the small overladen

  aircraft was fast approaching its ceiling.

  Ahead of her, the highlands stretched away to Addis Ababa in the south.

  Below her passed the thin raw muddy bisecting lines of the

  Dessie road. She saw the road was deserted. The army of Ethiopia had

  passed. The fish had slipped through the net but the thought gave her

  no pleasure.

  She turned in her seat and looked back, down the long gloomy corridor

  of the Sardi Gorge. From the cliffs on each side of the gorge, the

  rain waters still fell in silver white waterfalls and muddy cataracts

  so that it seemed that even the mountains wept.

  She straightened up in her seat, and lifting her hand to her face she

  found without surprise that her own cheek was wet and slick with

  tears.

  FB2 document info

  Document ID: 0333d4fd-a2e7-48ac-8fc5-5763af42be40

  Document version: 1

  Document creation date: 8.4.2012

  Created using: calibre 0.8.10 software

  Document authors :

  Wilbur Smith

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