Cry Wolf Page 16

  Jake had them at work before it was fully light the next morning,

  clearing and levelling, shovelling and packing the dry hard-baked

  earth, until at last each bank had been shaped into a rough but

  passable ramp.

  Gareth was to take the first car through and he stood in the turret,

  somehow managing to look debonair and sartorially elegant,

  under the fine layer of red dust. He grinned at Jake and shouted

  dramatically, "Noli il legitimi carborundum," and disappeared into the

  steel interior The engine roared and he went bounding and sliding down

  the steep ramp of newly turned earth, bounced and jolted across the

  black rock bottom and flew at the far bank.

  When the wheels spun viciously in the loose red earth, blowing out a

  storm of grit and pebbles, Jake and Gregorius were ready to throw their

  weight against it and this was just sufficient to keep the vehicle

  moving. Slowly it ground its way up the almost vertical climb,

  the rear end kicking and yawing under the thrust of the spinning

  wheels, until at last it burst out over the top, and Gareth shut down

  the power and jumped out laughing.

  "Right, now we can tow the other cars up the bank," and he produced a

  celebratory cheroot.

  "What was that piece of dog Latin you recited just then Jake asked, as

  he accepted the cheroot.

  "Old family war cry," Gareth explained. "Shouted by the fighting

  Swales at Hastings, gin court and in the knocking shops of the

  world."

  aW hat does it mean?"

  "Nob Xegidmi carborundum?" Gareth grinned again as he lit the

  cheroots. "It means, "Don't let the bastards grind you down"." One at

  a time, they brought the other three cars down into the ravine, and

  hitched them up to the vehicle on the far bank. Then with

  Vicky driving, Gareth towing, and Jake and Gregorius shoving, they

  hauled them up on to the level, sunbaked soil of Ethiopia. It was late

  afternoon when at last they fell panting in the long shadow thrown by

  Miss Wobbly's chassis, to rest and smoke and drink steaming mugs of

  hastily brewed tea. Gregorius told them: "No more obstacles ahead of

  us now. It's open ground all the way to the Wells," and then he smiled

  at the three of them with white teeth in a smooth honey-coloured

  face.

  "Welcome to Ethiopia!"

  "Quite frankly, old -chap, I'd much prefer to be sitting at Harry's Bar

  in the rue Daunou," said Gareth soberly which is exactly what I will be

  doing not long after Toffee Sagud presses a purse of gold into my

  milk-white hand." Jake stood up suddenly and peered out into the

  dancing heat waves that still poured from the hot earth like swirling

  liquid. Then he ran quickly across to his own car and leapt up into

  the turret, emerging seconds later with his binoculars.

  The others stood up uneasily and watched him focus the glasses.

  "Rider," said Jake.

  "How many? "Gareth demanded.

  "Just the one. Coming this way fast. "Gareth moved across to fetch

  the Lee-Enfield and work a cartridge into the breech.

  They saw him now, galloping through the dizzy heat mirage, so that at

  one moment horse and rider seemed to float free of the earth, and then

  sink back and swell miraculously, growing to elephantine proportions in

  the heat-tortured air. Dust drifted behind the running horse and it

  was only at close range that the rider came into crisp focus.

  Gregorius let out a bellow like a rutting stag and raced out into the

  sunshine to meet the newcomer. In a brilliant display of horsemanship

  the rider reined in the big white stallion so abruptly that he plunged

  and reared, cutting at the air with his fore hooves

  With white robes billowing, he flung himself from the horse, and into

  Gregorius's widespread arms.

  The two figures joined together rapturously, the stranger suddenly

  seeming small and delicate in Gregorius's arms, and the cries of

  laughter and greeting high and birdlike.

  Then hand in hand, looking into each other's faces, they came back to

  the group that waited by the cars.

  "My God, it's another girl," said Gareth with amazement, setting the

  loaded rifle aside, and they all stared at the slim, dark-eyed child in

  her late teens with a skin like dusky silk and immense dark eyes

  fringed with long curling lashes.

  "May I introduce Sara Sagud?" asked Gregorius. "She is my cousin, my

  uncle's youngest daughter, and she is also without doubt the prettiest

  lady in Ethiopia."

  "I see what you mean," said Gareth. "Very decorative indeed." As

  Gregorius, introduced each of them to her by name, the girl smiled at

  them, and the long aristocratic face with the serenity of an Egyptian

  princess, the delicate features and chiselled nose of a Nefertiti,

  changed instantly to a sparkling childlike mischievousness.

  "I knew you must cross the Awash here, it is the only place and

  I came to meet you."

  "She speaks English also," Gregorius pointed out proudly.

  "My grandfather insists that all his children and his grand.

  children learn to speak English. He is a great lover of the

  English."

  "You speak it well," Vicky congratulated Sara, although in fact her

  English was heavily accented, and the girl turned to her,

  smiling anew.

  "The sisters at the convent of the Sacred Heart in Berbera taught me,"

  she explained, and she examined Vicky with frank and unabashed

  admiration. "You are very beautiful, Miss Camberwell, your hair is the

  colour of the winter grass in the highlands," and Vicky's usual

  composure was rocked.

  She blushed faintly and laughed, but Sara's attention had flicked away

  to the armoured cars.

  "Ah, they also are beautiful nobody has spoken of anything else,

  since they heard these were coming." She hoisted the skirts of her

  robe up over her tight-fitting embroidered breeches, and hopped agilely

  up on to the steel body of Miss Wobbly. "With these we shall throw

  the

  Italians back into the sea. Nothing can stand before the courage of

  our warriors and these fine war machines." She flung her arms wide in

  a dramatic gesture and then turned.

  to Jake and Gareth. "I am honoured to be the first of all my people to

  thank you."

  "Don't mention it, my dear girl," Gareth murmured, "our pleasure, I

  assure you." He refrained from asking if her father had remembered to

  bring the cash with him, but asked instead,

  "aAre your people waiting for us at the Wells?"

  "my grandfather has come with my father and all my uncles. His

  personal guard is with him, and many hundreds of others of the Harari,

  together with their women and animals."

  "My God," growled Jake "It sounds like a helluva reception committee."

  They camped that last night of the journey on the bank of the Awash

  under the spreading umbrella branches of a camel thorn tree, sitting

  late and talking in the ruddy flickering glow of the fire, secure

  within the square fort formed by the four hulking steel vehicles. At

  last the talk died away into a weary but friendly s
ilence, and Vicky

  stood up.

  "A short walk for me, and then bed." Sara stood with her. "I'll come

  with you." Her fascination with and admiration for Vicky was

  increasingly apparent, and she followed her out of the laager like a

  faithful puppy.

  Away from the camp, they squatted side by side in companionable fashion

  under a night sky splendid with star shot, and Sara told Vicky

  seriously, "They both desire you greatly Jake and Gareth." Vicky

  laughed awkwardly again, once more discomposed by the girl's direct

  manner.

  "Oh, come now."

  "Oh yes, when you come near them, they are like two dogs, all stiff and

  walking around each other as though they will sniff each other up the

  tail." Sara giggled, and Vicky had to smile with her.

  "Which one will you choose, Miss Camberwell?" Sara demanded.

  "Lardy, do I have to? "Vicky was still smiling.

  "Oh no," Sara reassured her. "You can make love with both of them. I

  would do so."

  "You would? "Vicky asked.

  "Yes, I would. What other way can you tell which one you like best?"

  "That's true." Vicky was becoming breathless with suppressed laughter,

  but fascinated by this bit of logic. The idea had a certain appeal,

  she admitted to herself.

  "I will make love with twenty men before I marry Gregorius. That way I

  will be sure I have missed nothing, and I will not regret it when

  I am old," declared the girl.

  "Why twenty, Sara?" Vicky tried to keep her voice as serious as the

  girl's. "Why not twenty-three or twenty-six?" Oh no," said Sara

  primly. "I would not want people to think me a loose woman," and Vicky

  could hold her laughter no longer.

  "But you-" Sara returned to the immediate problem.

  "Which of them will you try first?"

  "You pick for me," Vicky invited.

  "It is difficult," Sara admitted. "One is very strong and has much

  warmth in his heart, the other is very beautiful and will have much

  skill." She shook her head and sighed. "It is very difficult.

  No, I cannot choose for you. I can only wish you much joy." The

  conversation had disturbed Vicky more than she realized, and

  although-she was exhausted by the long hard driven day, she could not

  sleep, but lay restlessly under a single blanket on the hard sun-warmed

  earth, considering the wicked and barely thinkable thoughts that the

  girl had sown in her mind. So it was that she was still awake when

  Sara rose from beside her and, silently as a wraith, crossed the laager

  to where Gregorius lay. The girl had discarded the robe and wore only

  the skintight velvet breeches, encrusted with silver embroidery. Her

  body was slim and Polished as ebony in the light of the stars and the

  new moon. She had small high breasts and a narrow moulded waist. She

  stooped over Gregorius and instantly he rose, and hand in hand,

  carrying their blankets, the pair slipped out of the laager, leaving

  Vicky more disturbed than ever. She is of the desert. Once she lay

  and listened to the night sound thought she heard the soft cry of a

  human voice in the darkness, but it may have been only the plaintive

  yelp of a Jackal. The two young Ethiopians had not returned by the

  time Vicky at last fell asleep.

  The radio message that Count Aldo Belli received from General De

  Bono on the seventh day after leaving Asmara caused him much pain and

  outrage.

  "The man addresses me as an inferior," he protested to his officers. He

  shook the yellow sheet from the message pad angrily before reading in a

  choked voice, "I hereby directly order you"." He shook his head in

  mock disbelief "No "request", no "if you please", you notice." He

  crumpled the message sheet and hurled it against the canvas wall of the

  headquarters tent and began pacing in a magisterial manner back and

  forth, with one hand on the butt of his pistol and the other on the

  handle of his dagger.

  "It seems he does not understand my messages. It seems that I

  must explain my position in person He thought about this with

  burgeoning enthusiasm. The discomfort of the drive back to Asmara

  would be greatly reduced by the superb upholstery and suspension

  designed by Messrs Rolls and Royce and would be more than adequietely

  offset by the quasi-civilized amenities of the town. A marble bath,

  clean laundry, cool rooms with high ceilings and electric fans, the

  latest newspapers from Rome, the company of the dear and kind young

  hostesses at the casino all this was suddenly immensely attractive.

  Furthermore, it would be an opportunity to supervise the curing and

  packaging of the hunting trophies he had so far accumulated. He was

  anxious that the lion skins were correctly handled and the numerous

  bullet holes were properly patched. The further prospect of reminding

  the General of his background, upbringing and political expendability

  also had much appeal.

  "Gino," he bellowed abruptly, and the Sergeant dashed into the tent,

  automatically focusing his camera.

  "Not now! Not now!" The Count waved the camera aside testily.

  "We are going back to Asmara for conference with the General. Inform

  my driver accordingly." Twenty-four hours later, the Count returned

  from Asmara in a mood of bile and thunder. The interview with

  General

  De Bono had been one of the low points in the Count's entire life. He

  had not believed that the General was serious in his threat to remove

  him from his command and pack him off ignobly back to Rome until the

  General had actually begun dictating the order to his smirking aide

  de-camp, Captain Crespi.

  The threat still hung over the Count's handsome curly head. He had

  just twelve hours to reach and secure the Wells of Chaldi or a

  second-class cabin on the troopship GaribaLdi, sailing five days later

  from Massawa for Napoli, had been reserved for him by the General.

  Count Aldo Belli had sent a long and eloquent cable to Benito

  Mussolini, describing the General's atrocious behaviour, and had

  returned in high pique to his battalion completely unaware that the

  General had anticipated his cable, intercepted it and quietly

  suppressed it.

  Major Castelani did not take the order to advance seriously,

  expecting at any moment the counter-order to be given, so it was with a

  sense of disbelief and rising jubilation that he found himself actually

  aboard the leading truck, grinding the last dusty miles through rolling

  landscape towards the setting sun and the Wells of Chaldi.

  The heavy rainfall precipitated by the bulk of the Ethiopian massif was

  shed from the high ground by millions of cascades and runners,

  pouring down into the valleys and the lowlands. The greater bulk of

  this surface water found its devious way at last into the great

  drainage system of the Sud marshes and from there into the Nile

  River,

  flowing northwards into Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea.

  A smaller portion of the water found its way into blind rivers like the

  Awash, or simply streamed down and sank Without trace in the soft sandy

 
; soils of the savannah and desert.

  One set of exceptional geological circumstances that altered this

  general rule was the impervious sheet of schist that stretched out from

  the foot of the mountains and ran in a shallow saucer below the red

  earth of the plain. Runoff water from the highlands was contained and

  channelled by this layer, and formed a long narrow underground

  reservoir stretching out like a finger from the base of the Sardi

  Gorge, sixty miles into the dry hot savannah.

  Closer to the mountains, the water ran deep, hundreds of feet below the

  earth's surface, but farther out, the slope of the land combined with

  the raised lip of the schist layer forced the water up to within

  forty-five feet of the surface.

  Thousands of years ago the area had been the grazing grounds of large

  concentrations of wild elephant. These indefatigable borers for water

  had detected the presence of this subterranean lake. With tusk and

  hoof they had dug down and reached the surface of the water.

  Hunters had long since exterminated the elephant herds, but their wells

  had been kept open by other animals, wild ass, oryx, camel, and, of

  course, by man who had annihilated the elephant.

  Now the wells, a dozen or more in an area of two or three square miles,

  were deep excavations into the bloodred earth. The sides of the wells

  were tiered by narrow worn paths that wound down so steeply that

  sunlight seldom penetrated to the level of the water.

  The water itself was highly mineralized, so that it had a milky green

  appearance and a rank metallic taste, but nevertheless it had supported

  vast quantities of life over the centuries. And the vegetation in the

  area, with its developed root systems, drew sustenance from the deep

  water and grew more densely and greenly than anywhere else on the dry

  bleak savannah.

  Beyond the wells, in the direction of the mountains, was an area of

  confused broken ground, steep but shallow wadis and square hillocks so

  low as to be virtually only mounds of dense red laterite. Over the

  ages, the shepherds and hunters who frequented the wells had burrowed

  into the sides of ravine and hillock, so that they were now honeycombed

  with caves and tunnels.

  It was as though nature had declared a peace upon the wells. Here man

  and animal came together in wary truce that was seldom violated.