Cry Wolf Read online

  Cry Wolf

  Wilbur Smith

  Cry Wolf [047-011-4.8]

  By: Wilbur Smith

  Category: fiction action adventure

  Synopsis:

  "Run," he shouted. "Keep running." And he turned back to

  face the crippled animal as it launched itself from the ledge into the

  bed of the river. It was only then that Jake realized that he still

  carried a full bottle of Scrubbs Ammonia in his hand. The lion came

  bounding swiftly through the shallow stagnant pool towards him. Despite

  the wounds, it followed with lithe and sinuous menace. it was so close

  that he could see each stiff white whisker in the curled upper lip and

  hear the rattle of air in its throat. He let it come on, for to turn

  and run was suicide. At the last moment he reared back like a baseball

  pitcher and hurled the bottle.

  Jake Barton is an American engineer, Gareth Swalles (a stylish

  Englishman with a nose for a quick deal. Both have always moved from

  one escapade to another. Now, as Mussolini prepares to annihilate the

  people of Ethiopia, the two adventurers come up against Vicky

  Camberwell, the beautiful but fiery reporter bent on espousing their

  cause. Striking a bargain with a beleaguered Ethiopian prince, the

  trio dares to run gauntlet guns and a batch of run-down armoured cars

  in a final, desperate gamble for freedom..

  To Jake Barton, machinery was always feminine with all the female's

  fascination, wiles and bitchery.

  So when he first saw them standing in a row beneath the spreading dark

  green foliage of the mango trees, they became for him the iron

  ladies.

  There were five of them, standing aloof from the other heaps of

  worn-out and redundant equipment that His Majesty's Government was

  offering for sale. Although it was June and the cooler season between

  the monsoons, yet the heat on this cloudless morning in Dares Salaam

  was mounting like a force-fed furnace and Jake went thankfully into the

  shade of the mangoes to stand closer to the ladies and begin his

  examination.

  He glanced around the enclosed yard, and noticed that he seemed to be

  the only one interested in the five vehicles.

  The motley crowd of potential buyers was picking over the heaps of

  broken shovels and Picks, the rows of battered wheelbarrows and the

  other mounds of unidentifiable rubbish.

  He turned his attention back to the ladies, as he slipped off the light

  tropical moleskin jacket he wore and hung it on the branch of a mango

  tree.

  The ladies were aristocrats fallen on hard times, their hard but rakish

  lines were dulled by the faded and scratched paintwork and the

  cancerous blotches of rust that showed through. The foxy-faced fruit

  bats that hung inverted in the mango branches above them had splattered

  them with their dung, and oil and grease had oozed from their elderly

  joints and caked with dust in unsightly black streaks and blobs.

  Jake knew their lineage and their history and as he laid aside the

  small carpet bag that held his tools, he reviewed it swiftly. Five

  fine pieces of craftsmanship lying rotting away on the fever coast of

  Tanganyika. The bodies and chassis had been built by Schreiner the

  stately high cupola in which the open mounting for the Maxim machine

  gun now glared like an empty eye-socket, the square sloping platform of

  the engine housing, with its heavy armour plate and the neat rows of

  rivets and the steel shutters that could be closed to protect the

  radiator against incoming enemy fire.

  They stood tall on the metal bossed wheels with their solid rubber

  tyres, and Jake felt a sneaking regret that he would be the one to tear

  their engines out of them and toss aside the worn-out but gallant old

  bodies.

  They did not deserve such cavalier treatment, these fighting iron

  ladies who in their youth had chased the wily German commander von

  Lettow-Vorbeck across the wide plains and over the fierce hills of

  East

  Africa. The thorns of the wilderness had deeply scarred the paintwork

  of the five armoured cars and there were places where rifle fire had

  glanced off their armour, leaving the distinctive dimple in the

  steel.

  Those were their grandest days, streaming into battle with their

  cavalry pennants flying, dust billowing behind them, bounding and

  crashing through the don gas and ant bear holes, their machine guns

  blazing and the terrified German askaris scattering before them.

  After that, the original engines had been replaced by the beautiful new

  6 litre Bentleys, and they had begun the long decline of police patrol

  work on the border, chasing the occasional cattle raider and slowly

  being pounded by a succession of brutal drivers into the condition

  which had at last brought them here to the Government sale yards in

  this fiery May of the year of our Lord 1935. But Jake knew that even

  the savage abuse to which they had been subjected could not have

  destroyed the engines completely and that was what interested him.

  He rolled up his sleeves like a surgeon about to begin his

  examination.

  "Ready or not, girls, "he muttered, "here comes old Jake." He was a

  tall man with a big bony frame that was cramped in the confined area of

  the armoured car's body, but he worked with a quiet concentration so

  close to rapture that the discomfort went unnoticed. Jake's wide

  friendly mouth was pursed in a whistle that went on endlessly, the

  opening bars of "Tiger Rag" repeated over and over again, and his eyes

  were screwed up against the gloom of the interior.

  He worked swiftly, checking the throttle and ignition settings of the

  controls, tracing out the fuel lines from the rear-mounted fuel tank,

  finding the cocks under the driver's seat and grunting with

  satisfaction. He scrambled out of the turret and dropped down the high

  side of the vehicle, pausing to wipe away with his forearm the thin

  trickle of sweat that broke from his thick curly black hair and ran

  down his cheek, then he hurried forward and knocked the clamps open on

  the side flaps of the armoured engine-cover.

  "Oh sweet, sweet!" he whispered, as he saw the fine outlines of the

  old Bentley engine block beneath the layer of thick dust and greasy

  filth.

  His hands with the big square palms and thick spatulate fingers went

  out to touch it with what was almost a caress.

  "The bastards have beaten you up, darling," he whispered.

  "But we will have you singing again as lovely as ever, that's a

  promise." He pulled the dipstick from the engine sump and took a drop

  of oil between his fingers.

  "Shit!" he grunted with disgust, as he felt the grittiness, and he

  thrust the stick back into its slot. He pulled the plugs and, with the

  promise of a shilling, had a loitering African swing the crank for him

  while he felt the compression against the palm of his hand. />
  Swiftly he moved along the line of armoured cars, checking,

  probing and testing, and when he reached the last of them he knew he

  could have three of them running again for certain and four maybe.

  One was shot beyond hope. There was a crack in the engine block

  through which he could have ridden a horse, and the pistons had seized

  so solid in their pots that not even the combined muscle upon the crank

  handle of Jake and his helper could move them.

  Two of them had the entire carburettor assemblies missing, but he could

  cannibalize from the wreck. That left him short of one carburettor and

  he felt only gloom at his chances of finding another in Dares Salaam.

  Three, then, he could reckon on with certainty. At one hundred and ten

  pounds apiece, that was 030. Less an estimated outlay of one hundred,

  it gave him a clear profit of two hundred and thirty pounds for surely

  he would not have to bid more than twenty pounds each for these

  wrecks.

  Jake felt a warm spreading glow of satisfaction as he tossed his

  African helper the promised shilling. Two hundred and thirty pounds

  was a great deal of money in these lean and hungry times.

  A quick glance at the fob-watch he hauled from his back pocket showed

  him there was still over two hours before the advertised time of the

  commencement of the sale. He was impatient to begin work on those

  Bentleys not only for the money. For Jake it would be a labour of

  love.

  The one in the centre of the line seemed the best bet for quick

  results. He placed his carpet bag on the armoured wing of the mudguard

  and selected a Yth-inch spanner.

  Immediately he was totally absorbed.

  After half an hour he pulled his head out of the engine, wiped his

  hands on a handful of cotton waste and hurried around to the front of

  the car.

  The big muscles in his right arm bunched and rippled as he swung the

  crank handle, spinning the heavy engine easily with a steady whirring

  rhythm. After a minute of this, he released the handle and wiped off

  his sweat with the cotton waste that left grease marks down his cheeks.

  He was breathing quickly but lightly.

  "I knew you for a temperamental bitch the moment I laid eyes on you,"

  he muttered. "But you are going to do it my way, darling. You really

  are." Once more his head and shoulders disappeared under the engine

  cowling and there was the clink of the spanner against metal and the

  monotonous repetition of "Tiger Rag" in a low off-key whistle for

  another ten minutes, then again Jake went to the crank handle.

  "You are going to do it my way, baby and what's more you're going to

  like it." He spun the handle and the engine kicked viciously,

  back-fired like a rifle shot, and the crank handle snapped out of

  Jake's hand with enough force to have taken his thumb off if he had

  been holding it with an opposed grip.

  "Jesus," whispered Jake, "a real little hell catV He scrambled up into

  the turret and reached down to the controls and reset the ignition.

  At the next swing of the crank handle she bucked and fired, caught and

  surged, then fell back into a steady beat, quivering slightly on her

  rigid suspension, but come alive.

  Jake stepped back, sweating, flushed, but with his dark green eyes

  shining with delight.

  "Oh you beauty, "he said. "You bloody little beauty."

  "Bravo,"

  said a voice behind him, and Jake started and turned quickly. He had

  forgotten that he was not the only person left on earth, in his

  complete absorption with the machine, and now he felt embarrassed, as

  though he had been observed in some intimate and private bodily

  function.

  He glowered at the figure that was leaning elegantly against the hole

  of the mango tree.

  "Jolly good show," said the stranger, and the voice was sufficient to

  stir the hair upon the nape of Jake's neck. It was one of those pricey

  Limey accents.

  The man was dressed in a cream suit of expensive tropical linen and

  two-tone shoes of white and brown. On his head he wore a white straw

  hat with a wide brim that cast a shadow over his face. But Jake could

  see the man had a friendly smile and an easy engaging manner. He was

  handsome in a conventional manner, with noble and regular features,

  a face that had flustered many a female's emotions and that fitted well

  with the voice. He would he a ranking government official probably, or

  an officer in one of the regular regiments stationed in Dares Salaam.

  Upper class establishment, even to the necktie with its narrow diagonal

  stripes by which the British advertised at which seat of learning they

  had obtained their education and their place in the social order.

  "It didn't take you long to get her going." The man lolled gracefully

  against the mango, his ankles crossed and one hand thrust into his coat

  pocket. He smiled again, and this time Jake saw the mockery and

  challenge in the eyes more clearly. He had judged him wrongly. This

  was not one of those cardboard men. They were pirate eyes, mocking and

  wolfish, dangerous as the glint of a knife in the shadows.

  "I have no doubt the others are in as good a state of repair." It was

  an enquiry, not a statement.

  "Well, you're wrong, friend. "Jake felt a pang of dismay. It was

  absurd that this fancy lad could have a real interest in the five

  vehicles but if he did, then Jake had just given him a generous

  demonstration of their value. "This is the only one that will run, and

  even her guts are blown. Listen to her knock. Sounds like a mad

  carpenter." He reached under the cowling and earthed the magneto.

  In the sudden silence as the engine died, he said loudly, "Junk!"

  and spat on the ground near the front wheel but not on it. He couldn't

  bring himself to do that. Then he gathered his tools, flung his jacket

  over his shoulder, hefted the carpet bag and, without another glance at

  the Englishman, ambled off towards the gates of the works yard.

  "You not bidding then, old chap?" The stranger had left his post at

  the mango and fallen into step beside him.

  "God, no." Jake tried to fill his voice with disdain. "Are you?"

  "Now what would I do with five broken-down armoured cars?" The man

  laughed silently, and then went on, "Yankee, are you? Texas, what?"

  "You've been reading my mail." Engineer?" :1 try, I try."

  "Buy you a drink?"

  "Give me the money. instead. I've got a train to catch." The elegant

  stranger laughed again, a light friendly laugh.

  "God speed, then, old chap," he said, and Jake hurried out through the

  gates into the dusty heat-dazed streets of noonday Dares Salaam and

  walked away without a backward glance, trying to convey with his

  determined stride and the set of his shoulders that his departure was

  final.

  Jake found a canteen around the first corner and within five minutes"

  walk of the works yard, where he went into hiding. The Tusker beer he

  ordered was blood warm, but he drank it while he worried. The

  English, man gave him a very queasy feeling, his interest was too

&
nbsp; bright to be mere curiosity. On the other hand, however, Jake might

  have to go over the twenty pounds bid that he had calculated and he

  took from the inside pocket of his jacket the worn pigskin wallet that

  contained his entire worldly wealth and, prudently using the table top

  as a screen, he counted the wad of notes.

  Five hundred and seventeen pounds in Bank of England notes, three

  hundred and twenty-seven dollars in United States currency, and four

  hundred and ninety East African shillings was not a great fortune with

  which to take on the likes of the elegant Limey. However, Jake drained

  his warm beer, set his jaw and inspected his watch once more. It gave

  him five minutes to noon.

  Major Gareth Swales was mildly dismayed, but not at all surprised to

  see the big American entering the works yard gates once more in a

  manner which was obviously intended to be unobtrusive but reminded him

  of Jack Dempsey sidling furtively into an old ladies" tea party.

  Gareth Swales sat in the shade of the mangoes upon an upturned

  wheelbarrow, over which he had spread a silk handkerchief to protect

  the pristine linen of his suit. He had set aside his straw hat, and

  his hair was meticulously trimmed and combed, shining softly in that

  rare colour between golden blond and red, and there was just a sparkle

  of silver in the wings at his temples. His mustache was the same

  colour and carefully moulded to the curve of his upper lip. His face

  was deeply tanned by the tropical sun to a dark chestnut brown, so that

  the contrasting blue of his eyes was startlingly pale and

  penetrating,

  as he watched Jake Barton cross the yard to join the gathering of

  buyers under the mango trees. He sighed with resignation and returned

  his attention to the folded envelope on which he was making his

  financial calculations.

  He really was finely drawn out, the previous eighteen months had been

  very unkind to him. The cargo that had been seized in the Liao

  River by the Japanese gunboat when he was only hours away from

  delivering it to the Chinese commander at Mukden and receiving payment

  for it had wiped away the accumulated capital of ten years. It had

  taken all his ingenuity and a deal of financial agility to assemble the

  package that was stored at this moment in No.

  4 warehouse down at the main docks of Dares Salaam port.