Cry Wolf Page 9

  blouse. His touch, like the wind, was softly caressing.

  Through their thin clothing she could feel the warmth and resilience of

  his flesh pressed against her, feel his chest surge and subside to the

  urgency of his breathing.

  She turned slowly within the circle of his arms and lifted her face to

  his as he stooped, meeting his body with a forward thrust of her hips.

  The taste of his mouth and the musky male smell of his body hastened

  her own arousal.

  It took all her determination to tear her lips loose from his, and to

  draw away from his embrace. She crossed quickly to where her blankets

  lay and picked them up with hands that shook.

  She spread them again between the dark supine forms of Jake and

  Gregorius, and only when she rolled herself into their coarse folds and

  lay upon her back trying to control her ragged breathing was she aware

  that Jake Barton was awake.

  His eyes were closed and his breathing was deep and even, but she knew

  with complete certainty that he was awake.

  eneral Emilio De Bono stood at the window of his office and looked

  across the squalid roofs of the town of Asmara towards the great

  brooding massif of the Ethiopian highlands. It looked like the

  backbone of a dragon, he thought, and suppressed a shudder.

  The General was seventy years of age, so he recalled vividly the last

  Italian army that had ventured into that mountain fastness. The name

  Adowa was a dark blot on the history of Italian arms, and after forty

  years, that terrible bloody defeat of a modern European army was still

  unavenged.

  Now destiny had chosen him as the avenger and Emilio De Bono was not

  certain that the role suited him. It would be much more to his liking

  if wars could be fought without anybody getting hurt. The

  General would go to great lengths to avoid inflicting pain or even

  discomfort. Orders that might be distasteful. to the recipient were

  avoided. Operations that might place anybody in jeopardy were frowned

  upon severely by the commanding General and his officers had learned

  not to suggest such extravagances.

  The General was at heart a diplomat and a politician not a warrior. He

  liked to see smiling faces, so he smiled a great deal himself. He

  resembled a sprightly, wizened little goat, with the pointed white

  beard that gave him the nickname of "Little Beard'. And he addressed

  his officers as

  "Caro', and his men as "Bambino'. He just wanted to be loved. So he

  smiled and smiled.

  However, the General was not smiling now. This morning he had received

  from Rome another one of those importunate coded telegrams signed

  Benito Mussolini. The wording had been even more peremptory than

  usual. "The King of Italy wishes, and I, Benito Mussolini,

  Minister of the armed forces, order that-" Suddenly he struck himself a

  blow on his medal-bedecked chest which startled Captain Crespi, his

  aide-decamp.

  "They do not understand," cried De Bono bitterly. "It is all very

  beautiful to sit in Rome and urge haste. To cry "Strike!" But they do

  not see the picture as we do, who stand here looking across the Mareb

  River at the swarming multitudes of the enemy." The Captain came to

  the

  General's side and he also stared out of the window. The building that

  housed the expeditionary army headquarters in Asmara was double

  storied

  and the General's office on the top floor commanded a sweeping view to

  the foot of the mountains. The Captain observed wryly that the

  swarming multitudes were not readily apparent. The land was a vast

  emptiness slumbering in the brilliant sunlight. Air reconnaissance in

  depth had descried no concentrations of Ethiopian troops, and reliable

  intelligence reported that the Emperor Baile Selassie had ordered that

  none of his rudimentary military units approach the border as close as

  fifty kilometres, to avoid giving the Italians an excuse to march.

  "They do not understand that I must consolidate my position here in

  Eritrea. That I must have a firm base and supply train," cried De

  Bono pitifully. For over a year he had been consolidating his position

  and assembling his supplies.

  The crude little harbour of Massawa, which once had lazily served the

  needs of an occasional tramp steamer or one of the little Japanese

  salt-traders, had been reconstructed completely. Magnificent stone

  piers ran out into the sea, great wharves bustled with steam cranes,

  and busy locomotives shuttled the incredible array of warlike stores

  that poured ashore by the thousands of tons a day for month after

  month. The Suez Canal remained open to the transports of the Italian

  adventure, and a constant stream of them poured southwards, unaffected

  by the embargo that the League of Nations had declared on the

  importation of military materials into Eastern Africa.

  Up to the present time, over three million tons of stores had been

  landed, and this did not include the five thousand vehicles of war

  troop transports, armoured cars, tanks and aircraft that had come

  ashore. To distribute this vast assembly of vehicles and stores, a

  road system had been constructed fanning into the interior, a system so

  magnificent as to recall that of the Caesars of ancient Rome.

  General De Bono smote his chest again, startling his aide. "They urge

  me to untimely endeavour. They do not seem to realize that my "

  force is insufficient." The force which the General lamented was the

  greatest and most powerful army ever assembled on the African

  continent. He commanded three hundred and sixty thousand men, armed

  with the most sophisticated tools of destruction the world had yet

  devised from the Caproni CA.133 three-engined monoplane which could

  carry two tons of high explosive and poison gas a range of nine hundred

  miles, to the most modern armoured cars and heavily armoured CV.3 tanks

  with their 50 men. guns, and supporting units of heavy artillery.

  This great assembly was encamped about Asmara and upon the cliffs

  overlooking the Mareb River. It was made up of distinct elements, the

  green-clad regular army formations with their wide-brimmed tropical

  helmets, the black shirt r Fascist militia with their high boots and

  cross-straps, their deaths head and thunderbolt badges and their

  glittering daggers, the regular colonial units of black Somalis and

  Eritreans in their tall tasselled red fezes and baggy shirts, their

  gaily coloured regimental sashes and put teed legs above bare feet.

  Lastly, the irregular volunteers or ban da who were a. group of desert

  bandits and cut-throat cattle thieves attracted by the possibility of

  war in the way that the taint of blood gathers sharks.

  De Bono knew but did not ponder the fact that nearly seventy years

  previously, the British General Napier had marched on Magdala with less

  than fifty thousand men, meeting and defeating the entire Ethiopian

  army on the way, storming the mountain fortress and releasing the

  British prisoners held there, before retiring in good order.

  Such heroics were outside the realms o
f the General's imagination.

  "Caro."

  "The General placed an arm about the gold, braided shoulders of his

  aide. "We must compose a reply to the Duce. He must be made to

  realize my difficulties." He patted the shoulder affectionately and

  his face lightened once more into its habitual expression as he began

  composing.

  "My dear and respected leader, please be assured of my loyalty to you

  and to the glorious fatherland of Italy." The Captain hastened to take

  up a message pad and scribble industriously. "Be assured also that I

  never cease to toil by night and by day towards--" It took almost two

  hours of creative effort before the General was satisfied with his

  flowery and rambling refusal to carry out his orders.

  "Now," he ceased his pacing and smiled tenderly at the Captain,

  "although we are not yet ready for an advance in force, it will serve

  to placate Il Duce if we initiate the opening phases of the southern

  offensive."

  The General's plans for the invasion, when it was finally put in hand,

  had been laid with as ponderous regard to detail as his earlier

  preparations. Historical necessity dictated that the main attack

  should be centred on Adowa.

  Already a marble monument, brought from Italy and engraved with the

  words "The dead of Adowa avenged with the date left open, lay amongst

  the huge mountains of his stores.

  ndary flanking attack However, the plan called for a secc, farther

  south through one of the very few gateways to the central highlands,

  This was the Sardi Gorge. A narrow opening that was riven up from the

  desert floor, splitting like an axe-stroke the precipitous mountain

  ranges, and forming a pass through which an army might reach the

  plateau that reared seven thousand feet above the desert.

  The first phase of this plan entailed the seizure of the approaches to

  the Sardi Gorge and particularly important 1: in this dry and scalded

  desert would be the water supplies of the attacking army.

  The General crossed the floor to the large-scale map, of Eastern

  Africa which covered one wall, and he picked up the ivory pointer to

  touch an isolated spot in the emptiness below the mountains.

  "The Wells of Chaldi, he read the name aloud. "Whom shall we send?"

  The Captain looked up from his pad, and observed how the spot was

  surrounded by the forbidding yellow of the desert.

  He had been in Africa long enough to know what that meant, and there

  was only one person who he would wish were there.

  "Belli," he said.

  "Ah," said the General. "Count Aldo Belli the fire eater

  "The clown, "said the Captain.

  "Come, caro," the General admonished his aide mildly.

  "You are too harsh. The Count is a distinguished diplomat, he was for

  three years ambassador to the court of St. James in London. His

  family is old and noble and very very rich."

  "He is a blow-hard,"

  said the Captain stubbornly, and the General sighed.

  "He is a personal friend of Benito Mussolini. II Duce is a constant

  guest at his castle. He has great political power-"

  "He would be well out of harm's way at this desolate spot," said the

  Captain, and the General sighed again.

  "Perhaps you are correct, caro. Send for the good Count if you

  please." Captain Crespi stood on the steps of the headquarters

  building,

  beneath the portico with its imitation marble columns and the clumsily

  painted fresco depicting a heroic band of heavily muscled Italians

  defeating heathens, ploughing the earth, harvesting the corn, and

  generally building an empire.

  The Captain watched sourly as the huge Rolls-Royce open tourer bumped

  down the dusty, pot-holed main street.

  Its headlights glared like monstrously startled eyes, and its burnished

  sky-blue paintwork was dulled by a light flouring of pale dust. The

  purchase price of this vehicle would have consumed five years of his

  service pay, which accounted for much of the Captain's sourness.

  Count Aldo Belli, as one of the nation's great landowners and amongst

  the five most wealthy men in Italy, did not rely on the army for his

  transportation. The Rolls had been adapted and designed to his

  personal specifications by the makers.

  As it slid to a graceful halt beneath the portico, the k Captain

  noticed the Count's personal arms blazoned on the front door. - a

  rampant golden wolf supporting a shield with a quartered device of

  scarlet and silver. The legend unfurled beneath it read, "Courage arms

  me." As the car stopped, a small wiry sun-blackened little man in the

  uniform of a black shirt sergeant leaped from the seat be-side the

  driver and dropped on one knee in the roadway with a bulky camera at

  the ready to capture the moment when the figure in the wide rear seat

  of the Rolls should descend.

  Count Aldo Belli adjusted his black beret carefully, sucked in his

  belly and rose to his feet as the driver scurried around to hold open

  the door. The Count smiled. It was a smile of flashing white teeth

  and powerful charisma. His eyes were dark and romantic with the

  sweeping lashes of a lady of fashion, his skin was lightly tanned to a

  golden olive and the lustrous curls of his hair that escaped from under

  the black beret shone in the sunlight. Although he was almost

  thirty-five years of age, not a single grey strand adulterated that

  splendid mane.

  From his commanding position his height was exaggerated, so he seemed

  to tower god-like above the men who scampered about him. The highly

  polished cross-straps glittered across his chest as did the silver

  deaths head cap badges. The short regimental dagger on his hip set

  with small diamonds and seed pearls was to the Count's own design,

  and the ivory-handled revolver had been hand-made for him by Beretta;

  the holster was belted in tightly to subdue a waistline that was

  showing signs of rebellion.

  The Count paused and glanced down at the little sergeant.

  "Yes, Gino?"he asked.

  "Good, my Count. just a little up with the chin." The Count's chin

  caused them both much concern. At certain angles, it showed an

  alarming tendency to duplicate itself like the ripples on a pond. The

  Count threw up his chin sternly, rather like 11 Duce, and the gesture

  ironed out the jowls below.

  "Bellissimo," cried Gino, and tripped the shutter. The Count stepped

  down from the Rolls, enjoying the way the soft sparkling leather of his

  high boots gave like the bellows of a concertina above his instep as he

  moved, and he hooked the thumb of his gloved left hand into the belt

  above his dagger as he flung his right arm up and outwards in the

  Fascist salute.

  "The General awaits you, Colonel,"Crespi greeted him.

  "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

  massaging and smelled like a rose garden in ful
l 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 massif, 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 glass 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, God 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