Cry Wolf Part 7

"I came the moment I received the summons." The Captain made a move. He knew the summons had been delivered at ten o'clock that morning and it was now almost three in the afternoon. The Count's primping had taken most of the day, and now he glowed from bathing and shaving and ma.s.saging and smelled like a rose garden in full bloom.

"Clown," thought the Captain again. It had taken Crespi ten years of unswerving service and dedication to reach his rank, while this man had opened his purse, invited Mussolini for a week of hunting and carousal to his estates at the foot of the Apennines, and had in return been given the colonelcy of a full battalion. The man had never fired a shot at anything larger than a boar, and until six months ago had commanded nothing more formidable than a squad of accountants, a troop of gardeners or a platoon of strumpets to his bed.

"Clown," thought the Captain bitterly, bowing over the hand and grinning ingratiatingly. "Have your photograph taken swatting flies in the Danakil desert, or sniffing camel dung beside the Wells of Chaldi,"

he thought, and backed away through the wide doors into the relative cool of the administrative building. "This way, Colonel, if you would be so kind." A General De Bono lowered the binoculars through which with brooding disquiet he had been studying the Ethiopian ma.s.sif, and almost with relief turned to greet the Colonel.

"Caro," smiled the General, extending both hands as he crossed the uncarpeted hand-painted tiles. "My dear Count, it is so good of you to come." The Count drew himself up at the threshold and flung the Fascist salute at the advancing General, stopping him in confusion.

"In the services of my country and my king, I would count no sacrifice too dear." Aldo Belli was stirred by his own words. He must remember them. They could be used again.

"Yes, of course," De Bono agreed hurriedly. "I'm sure we all feel that way."

"General De Bono, you have only to command me."

"Thank you, caro mio. But a gla.s.s of Madeira and a biscuit first?" suggested the General. A little sweetmeat to take away the taste of the medicine.

The General felt very bad about sending anyone down into the Danakil country it was hot here in Asmara, G.o.d alone knew what it would be like down there, and the General felt a pang of dismay that he had allowed Crespi to select anyone with such political influence as the Count. He would not further insult the good Count by too hurriedly coming to the business in hand.

"I hoped that you might have had an opportunity to hear the new production of La Traviata before leaving Rome?"

"Indeed, General. I was fortunate enough to be included in the Duce's party for the opening night." The Count relaxed a little, smiling that flas.h.i.+ng smile.

The General sighed as he poured the wine. "Ha! The civilized life, so far a cry from this land of thorns and savages .

It was late afternoon before the General had steeled himself to approach the painful subject of the interview and, smiling apologetically, he gave his orders.

"The Wells of Chaldi," repeated the Count, and immediately a change came over him. He leapt to his feet, knocking over the Madeira gla.s.s, and strode majestically back and forth, his heels cracking on the tiles, belly sucked in and n.o.ble chin on high.

"Death before dishonour," cried Aldo Belli, the Madeira warming his ardour.

"I hope not, caro," murmured the General. "All I want you to do is take up a guard position on an untenanted water-hole." But the Count seemed not to hear him. His eyes were dark and glowing.

"I am greatly indebted to you for this opportunity to distinguish my command. You can count on me to the death." The Count stopped short as a fresh thought occurred to him. "You will support my advance with armour and aircraft? "he asked anxiously.

"I don't really think that will be necessary, caro." The General spoke mildly. All this talk of death and honour troubled him, but he did not want to give offence. "I don't think you will meet any resistance."

"But if I do?" the Count demanded with mounting agitation, so that the General went to stroke his arm placatingly.

"You have a radio, caro. Call on me for any a.s.sistance you need The Count thought about that for a moment and clearly found it acceptable. Once more the patriotic fervour returned to the glowing eyes.

"Ours is the victory," he cried, and the General echoed him vigorously.

"I hope so, caro. Indeed I hope so." Suddenly the Count swirled and strode to the door. He flung it open and called.

"Gino!" The little black-s.h.i.+rted sergeant hurried into the room, frantically adjusting the huge camera that hung about his neck.

"The General does not mind?" asked Aldo Belli leading him to the window. "The light is better here." The slanting rays of the dying sun poured in to light the two men theatrically as the Count seized De Bono's hand.

"Closer together, please. Back a trifle, General, you are covering the Count. That's excellent. Chin up a little, my Count.

Ha! Bello!" cried Gino, and recorded faithfully the startled expression above the General's little white goatee.

The senior major of the Blacks.h.i.+rt "Africa" Battalion was a hard professional soldier of thirty years" experience, a veteran of Vittorio Veneto and Caporetto, where he had been commissioned in the field.

He was a fighting man and he reacted with disgust to his posting from his prestigious regiment in the regular army to this rabble of political militia. He had protested at length and with all the power at his command, but the order came from on high, from divisional headquarters itself. The divisional General was a friend of Count Aldo Belli, and He also knew the Count intimately and owed favours decided that he needed a real soldier to guide and counsel him. Major Castelani was probably one of the most real soldiers in the entire army of Italy. Once he realized that his posting was inevitable, he had resigned himself and settled to his new duties whipping and bullying his new command into order.

He was a big man with a close-cropped skull of grey bristle, and a hound-dog, heavily lined face burned and eroded by the weathering of a dozen campaigns. He walked with the rolling gait of a sailor or a horseman, though he was neither, and his voice could carry a mile into a moderate wind.

Almost entirely due to his single-handed efforts, the battalion was drawn up in marching order an hour before dawn. Six hundred and ninety men with their motorized transports strung out down the main street of Asmara. The lorries were crammed with silent men huddling in their greatcoats against the mild morning chill. The motorcycle outriders were sitting astride their machines flanking the newly polished but pa.s.senger-less Rolls-Royce command car, with its gay pennants and its driver sitting lugubriously at the wheel. A charged sense of apprehension and uncertainty gripped the entire a.s.sembly of warriors.

There had been wild rumours flying about the battalion for the last twelve hours they had been selected for some desperate and dangerous mission. The previous evening the mess sergeant had actually witnessed the Colonel Count Aldo Belli weeping with emotion as he toasted his junior officers with the fighting slogan of the regiment, "Death before dishonour," which might sound fine on a bellyful of chianti, but left a hollow feeling at five in the morning on top of a breakfast of black bread and weak coffee.

The Third Battalion was in a collectively sombre mood as the sun came up in a blaze of hot scarlet, forcing them almost immediately to discard the greatcoats. The sun climbed into a sky of burning blue and the men waited as patiently as oxen in the traces. Someone once observed that war is ninety-nine per cent boredom and one per cent unmitigated terror. The Third Battalion was learning the ninety-nine per cent.

Major Luigi Castelani sent yet another messenger to the Colonel's quarters a little before noon, and this time received a reply that the Count was now actually out of bed and had almost completed his toilet. He would join the battalion shortly. The Major swore with the practice of an old campaigner and set off with his rolling swagger down the column to quell the mutinous mutterings from the half mile-long column of canvas-covered lorries sweltering in the midday sun.

The Count came like the rising sun itself, glowing and glorious, flanked by two captains and preceded by a trooper carrying the battle standard which the Count had personally designed. It was based on the eagles of a Roman legion, complete with shrieking birds of prey and dangling silken ta.s.sels.

The Count floated on a cloud of bonhomie and expensive eau de cologne. Gino got a few good shots of him embracing his junior officers, and slapping the backs of the senior NCOs. At the common soldiers he smiled like a father and spurred their spleens with a few apt homilies on duty and sacrifice as he strode down the column.

"What a fine body of warriors," he told the Major. "I am moved to song." Luigi Castelani winced. The Colonel was frequently moved to song. He had taken lessons with the most famous teachers in Italy and as a younger man he had seriously considered a career in opera.

Now he halted and spread his arms, threw back his head and let the song flow in a deep ringing baritone. Dutifully, his officers joined in the stirring chorus of "La Giovinezza', the Fascist marching song.

The Colonel moved slowly back along the patient column in the sunlight, pausing to strike a pose as he went for a high note, lifting his right hand with the tip of the second finger lightly touching the thumb, while the other hand grasped the beiewelled dagger at his waist.

The song ended and the Colonel cried, "Enough! It is time to march where are the maps?" and one of his subalterns hurried forward with the map case.

"Colonel, sir," Luigi Castelani intervened tactfully. "The road is well sign-posted, and I have two native guides-" The Count ignored him and watched while the maps were spread on the glistening bonnet of the Rolls.

"Ah!" He studied the maps learnedly, then looked up at his two captains. "One of you on each side of me," he instructed. "Major Vita you here! A stern expression, if you please, and do not look at the camera." He pointed with a lordly gesture at Johannesburg four thousand miles to the south and held the pose long enough for Gino to record it. Next, he climbed into the rear seat of the Rolls and, standing, he pointed imperatively ahead along the road to the Danakil desert.

Mistakenly, Luigi Castelani took this as a command to advance. He let out a series of bull-like bellows and the battalion was galvanized into frantic action. Like one man, they scrambled into the covered lorries and took their seats on the long benches, each in full matching order with a hundred rounds of ammunition in his bandolier and a rifle between his knees.

However, by the time 690 men were embarked, the Colonel had once more descended from the Rolls. It was an unfortunate chance that dictated that the Rolls should be parked directly in front of the casino.

The casino was a government-licensed inst.i.tution under whose auspices young ladies were brought out from Italy on six-month contracts to cater to the carnal needs of tens of thousands of l.u.s.ty young men in a woman less environment.

Very few of these ladies had the stamina to sign a renewal of the contract and none of them found it necessary.

Possessed of a substantial dowry, they returned home to find a husband.

The casino had a silver roof of galvanized corrugated iron Hill and its eaves and balconies were decorated with intricate cast-iron work. The windows of the girls" rooms opened on to the street.

The young hostesses, who usually rose in the mid afternoon, had been prematurely awakened by the bellowing of orders and the clash of weapons. They had traipsed out on to the long second-floor veranda, clad in brightly coloured but flimsy nightwear, and now entered into the spirit of the occasion, giggling and blowing kisses to the officers. One of them had a bottle of iced Lacrima Cristi, which she knew from experience was the Colonel's favourite beverage, and she beckoned with the cold de wed bottle.

The Colonel realized suddenly that the singing and excitement had made him thirsty and peckish.

"A cup for the stirrup, as the English say," he suggested jocularly, and slapped one of the captains on the shoulder.

Most of his staff followed him with alacrity into the casino.

A little after five o'clock, one of the junior subalterns emerged, slightly inebriated, from the casino with a message from the Colonel to the Major.

"At dawn tomorrow, we advance without fail." The battalion rumbled out of Asmara the following morning at ten o'clock. The Colonel was feeling liverish and disgruntled. The previous night's excitement had got out of hand, he had sung until his throat was hoa.r.s.e and had drunk great quant.i.ties of Lacrima Cristi, before going upstairs with two of the young hostesses.

Gino knelt on the seat of the Rolls beside him, holding an umbrella over his head, and the driver tried to avoid potholes and irregularities in the road. But the Count was pale and his brow sparkled with the sweat of nausea.

Sergeant Gino wished to cheer him. He hated to see his Count in misery and so he attempted to rekindle the warlike spirit of yesterday.

"Think on it, my Count. We of the entire army of Italy will be the very first to confront the enemy. The first to meet the blood-thirsty barbarian with his cruel heart and red hands." The Count thought on it as he was bidden. He thought on it with great concentration and increasing nausea.

Suddenly he became aware that of all the 360,000 men that comprised the expeditionary forces of Italy, he, Aldo Belli, was the very first, the veritable point of the spear aimed at Ethiopia. He remembered suddenly the horror stories he had heard from the disaster of Adowa. One of the atrocity stories outweighed all others the Ethiopians castrated their prisoners. He felt the contents of that n.o.ble sac between his thighs retracting forcibly and a fresh sweat broke out upon his brow.

Stop!" he shrieked at the driver. "Stop, this instant."

A bare two miles from the centre of the town, the column was plunged into confusion by the abrupt halt of the lead vehicle, and, answering the loud and urgent shouts of the commanding officer, the Major hurried forward to learn that the order of march had been altered. The command car would take up station in the exact centre of the column with six motorcycle outriders brought back to ride as flank guards.

It was another hour before the new arrangement could be put into effect and once more the column headed south and west into the great empty land with its distant smoky horizons and its vast vaulted blue dome of the burning heavens.

Count Aldo Belli rode easier on the luxurious leather of the Rolls, cheered by the knowledge that preceding him were three hundred and forty-five fine rubbery sets of peasant t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es upon which the barbarian could blunt his blade.

The column went into bivouac that evening fifty-three kilometres from Asmara. Not even the Count could pretend that this was a forced march for motorized infantry but the advantage was that a pair of motorcyclists could send back with a despatch for General De Bono rea.s.suring him of the patriotism, the loyalty and the fighting ardour of the Third Battalion and, of course, on their return the cyclists could carry blocks of ice from the casino packed in salt and straw and stowed in the sidecars.

The following morning, the Count had recovered much of his good cheer. He rose early at nine " O clock and took a hearty alfres...o...b..eakfast with his officers under the shade of a spread tarpaulin and then, from the rear seat of the Rolls, he gave a clenched fist cavalry order to advance.

Still in the centre of the column, pennants fluttering and battle standard glittering, the Rolls glided forward and it looked, even to the disillusioned Major, as if they might make good going of the day's march.

The undulating gra.s.sland fell away almost imperceptibly beneath the speeding wheels, and the blue loom of the mountains on their right hand merged gradually with the lighter fiercer blue of the sky. The transition to desert country was so gradual as to lull the un.o.bservant traveller.

The intervals between the flat-topped acacia trees became greater and the trees themselves were more stunted, more twisted and spiky, as they progressed, until at last they ceased and the bushes of spino Cristi replaced them grey and low and viciously thor ned The earth was parched and crumbled, dotted with clumps of camel gra.s.s and the horizon was unbroken, enclosing them entirely. The land itself was so flat and featureless that it gave the illusion of being saucer-shaped, as though the rim of the land rose slightly to meet the sky.

Through this wilderness, the road was slashed like the claw mark of a predator into the fleshy red soil. The tracks were so deeply rutted that the middle hump constantly brushed the cha.s.sis of the Rolls, and a mist of fine red dust stood in the heated air long after the column had pa.s.sed.

The Colonel was bored and uncomfortable. It was becoming increasingly clear, even to the Count, that the wilderness harboured no hostile horde, and his courage and impatience returned.

"Drive to the head of the column," he instructed Giuseppe, and the Rolls pulled out and sped past the leading trucks, the Count bestowing a cheery salute on Castelani as he left him glowering and muttering behind him.

When Castelani caught up with him again, two hours later, the Count was standing on the burnished bonnet of the Rolls staring through his binoculars at the horizon and doing an excited little dance while he urged Gino to make haste in unpacking the special Mantilicher 9.3 men sporting rifle from its leather case. The weapon was of seasoned walnut, b.u.t.t and stock, and the blued steel was inlaid with twenty-four-carat gold hunting scenes of the chase boar and stag, huntsmen on horseback and hounds in full cry. It was a masterpiece of the gunsmith's art.

Without lowering the binoculars, he gave orders to Castelani to erect the radio aerial and send a message of good cheer and enthusiasm to General De Bono, to report the magnificent progress made by the battalion to date and a.s.sure him that they would soon command all the approaches to the Sardi Gorge. The Major should also put the column into laager and set up the ice machine while the Colonel undertook a reconnaissance patrol in the direction in which he was now staring so intently.

The group of big dun-coloured animals he was watching were a mile off and moving steadily away into the mirage-fevered distance, but their gracefully straight horns showed dark and lo the against the distant sky.

Gino had the loaded Mannlicher in the rear seat and the Count jumped down into the pa.s.senger seat beside the driver. Standing holding the winds.h.i.+eld with one hand, he gave his officers the Fascist salute, and the Rolls roared forward, left the road and careered away, weaving amongst the thorn scrub and bounding over the rough ground in pursuit of the distant herd.

The beisa oryx is a large and beautiful desert antelope.

There were eight of them in the herd and with their sharp eyesight they were in flight before the Rolls had approached within three-quarters of a mile.

They ran lightly over the rough ground, their pale beige hides blending cunningly with the soft colours of the desert, but the long wicked black horns rode proudly as any battle standard.

The Rolls gained steadily on the running herd, with the Count hysterically urging his driver to greater speed, ignoring the thorn branches that scored the flawless sides of the big blue machine as it pa.s.sed. Hunting was one of the Count's many pleasures. Boar and stag were specially bred on his estates, but this was the first large game he had encountered since his arrival in Africa. The herd was strung out, two old bulls leading, plunging ahead with a light rocking-horse gait, while the cows and two younger males trailed them.

The bouncing, roaring machine drew level with the last animal and ran alongside at a range of twenty yards. The galloping oryx did not turn its head but ran on doggedly after its stronger companions.

"Halt," shrieked the Count, and the driver stood on his brakes, the car broadsiding to rest in a billowing cloud of dust. The Count tumbled out of the open door and threw up the Mannlicher. The barrel kicked up and the shots crashed out. The first was a touch high and it threw a puff of dust off the earth far beyond the running animal the second slapped into the pale fur in front of the shoulder and the young oryx somersaulted over its broken neck and went down in a clumsy tangle of limbs.

"Onwards!" shouted the Count, leaping aboard the Rolls as it roared away once again. The herd was already far ahead but inexorably the Rolls closed the gap and at last drew level. Again the ringing crack of rifle-fire and the sliding, tumbling fall of a heavy pale body.

Like a paper chase, they left the wasteland littered with the pale bodies until only one old bull ran on alone. And he was cunning, swinging away westward into the broken ground for which he clearly headed at the outset of the chase.

It was hours and many miles later when the Count lost all patience. On the lip of another wadi he stopped the Rolls and ordered Gino, protesting volubly, to stand at attention and offer his shoulder as a dead-rest for the Marmlicher.

The beisa had slowed now to an exhausted trot, but the range was six hundred yards as the Count sighted across the intervening scrub and through heat-dancing air that swirled like gelatinous liquid.

The rifle-fire cracked the desert silences and the antelope kept trotting steadily away, while the Count shrieked abuse at it and crammed a fresh load of bra.s.s cartridges into the magazine.

The animal was almost beyond effective range now, but the next bullet fired with the rear sight at maximum elevation fell in a long arcing trajectory and they heard the thump of the strike, long after the beisa had collapsed abruptly and disappeared below the line of grey scrub.

When they had found another crossing and forced the , Rolls through the deep ravine, sc.r.a.ping the rear fender and denting one of the big silver wheel-hubs, they came up to the spot where the antelope lay on its side. Leaving the rifle on the back seat in his eagerness, the Count leapt out before the Rolls had stopped completely. -Get one of me completing the coup de grace," he shouted at Gino, as he unholstered the ivory-handled Beretta and ran to the downed animal.

The soft bullet had shattered the spinal column a few inches forward of the pelvis, paralysing the hindquarters, and the blood pumped gently from the wound in a bright rivulet down the pale beige flank.

The Count posed dramatically, pointing the pistol at the magnificently horned head with its elaborate face-mask of dark chocolate stripes. Near by, Gino knelt in the soft earth focusing the camera.

At the critical moment, the antelope heaved itself up into a sitting position and stared with swimming agonized eyes into the Count's face. The beisa is one of the most aggressive antelopes in Africa, capable of killing even a fully grown lion with its long rapier horns. This old bull weighed 450 lb. and stood four feet high at the shoulder while the horns rose another three feet above that.

The beisa snorted, and the Count forgot all about the levelled pistol in his hand in his sudden desperate desire to reach the safety of the Rolls.

Leading the beisa by six inches, he vaulted lightly into the back seat and crouched on the floorboards, covering his head with both arms while the beisa battered the sides of the Rolls, driving in one door and ripping the paintwork with the deadly horns.

Gino was trying to disappear into the earth by sheer pressure, and he was making a pitiful wailing sound. The driver had stalled the engine, and he sat frozen in his seat and every time the beisa crashed into the Rolls, he was thrown so violently forward that his forehead struck the winds.h.i.+eld, and he pleaded, "Shoot it, my Count. Please, my Count, shoot the monster." The Count's posterior was pointed to the sky. It was the only part of his anatomy that was visible above the rear seat of the Rolls and he was shrieking for somebody to hand him the rifle, but not raising his head to search for it.

The bullet that had severed the beisa's spine had angled forward and pierced the lung as well. The violent exertions of the stricken animal tore open a large artery and, with a pitiful bellow and a sudden double spurt of blood through the nostrils, it collapsed.

In the long silence that followed, the Count's pale face rose slowly above the level of the back door and he stared fearfully at the carca.s.s. Its stillness rea.s.sured him. Cautiously, he groped for the Marinlicher, lifted it slowly and poured a stream of bullets into the inert beisa. His hands were shaking so violently that some of the shots missed the body and came perilously close to where Gino still lay, producing a fresh outburst of wails and more mole-like efforts to become subterranean.

Satisfied that the beisa was at last dead, the Count descended and walked slowly towards a nearby clump of thorn scrub, but his gait was bow-legged and stiff, for he had lightly soiled his magnificently monogrammed silk underwear.

In the cool of the evening, the slightly crumpled Rolls returned to the battalion bivouac. Draped over the bonnet and across the wide mudguards lay the bleeding carca.s.ses of the antelopes. The Count stood to acknowledge the cheers of his troops, a veritable triumphant Nimrod.

A radio message from General De Bono awaited him. It was not a reprimand, the General would not go that far, but it pointed out that although the General was grateful for the Count's efforts up to the present time, and for his fine sentiments and loyal messages, nevertheless the General would be very grateful if the Count could find some way in which to speed up his advance.

The Count sent him a five-hundred-word reply ending, "Ours is the Victory," and then went to feast on barbecued antelope livers and iced chianti with his officers.

Leaving the sailing and handling of the HirondeUe to his Mohammedan mate and his raggedy crew, Captain Papadopoulos had spent the preceding five days sitting at the table in his low-roofed p.o.o.p cabin playing two-handed gin rummy with Major Gareth Swales. Gareth had suggested the diversion and it had occurred to the Captain by this time that there was something unnatural in the consistent run of winning cards which had distinguished Gareth's play.