Cry Wolf Part 21

"Oh my G.o.d!" groaned Gareth, and s.n.a.t.c.hed the binoculars. "The b.a.s.t.a.r.d is up to something, I'm sure of it. This is the seventh time the column has halted and for no apparent reason at all. The scouts can't work it out and nor can I. I've got a nasty hollow feeling that we are up against some sort of military genius, a modern Napoleon, and it's making me nervous as h.e.l.l." Jake smiled and advised philosophically, "What you really need is a soothing game of gin. The Ras is waiting for you." As if on cue, the Ras looked up brightly and expectantly from the ammunition box set in the small strip of shade under the hull. He had laid out a pattern of playing cards on the lid which he had been studying. His bodyguard were grouped behind him.

They also looked up expectantly.

"They've got me surrounded," groaned Gareth. "I'm not sure which one is the most dangerous that old b.a.s.t.a.r.d down there, or that one out there." He raised the binoculars again and swept the long horizon below the mountains. There was no longer any sign of dust.

"What the h.e.l.l is he up to?" In fact this seventh halt called by Count Aldo Belli was to be the briefest of the day, and yet one of the most unavoidable.

It was in fact an occasion of the utmost urgency, and while the Count's portable commode was hastily unloaded from the truck carrying his personal gear, he twisted and wriggled impatiently on the back seat of the Rolls while Gino, the batman, tried to comfort him.

"It is the water from those wells, Excellency," he nodded sagely.

Once the commode had been set up, with a good view of the distant mountains before it, a small canvas tent was raised around it to hide the seat from the curious gaze of five hundred infantry men.

The job was completed, only just in time, and a respectful and expectant hush fell over the entire column as the Count climbed carefully down from the Rolls and then dashed like an Olympic athlete for the small lonely canvas structure and disappeared. The silence and expectation lasted for almost fifteen minutes and was shattered at last by the Count's shouts from within the tent.

"Bring the doctor!" Five hundred men waited with all the genuine suspense of a movie audience, speculation and rumour running wildly down the column until it reached Major Castelani. Even he, convinced as he was that he had seen it all, could not believe the cause of this fresh delay, and he went forward to investigate.

He arrived at the tent to find the Count and his medical advisers crowded around the commode and avidly discussing its contents. The Count was pale, but proud, like a new mother whose infant is the centre of attention. He looked up as Castelani appeared in the doorway, and the Major recoiled slightly as, for a moment, it seemed the Count might invite him to join in the examination.

He saluted hastily, taking another step backwards.

"Has your Excellency orders for me?"

"I am an ill man, Castelani," and the Count struck a pose, drooping visibly, his head lolling weakly. Then slowly he drew back his shoulders, and his chin came up. A wan but brave smile tightened his lips. "But that is of no account.

We advance, Castelani. Onwards! Tell the men I am well.

Hide the truth from them. If they know of my illness, they will despair. They will panic." Castelani saluted again. "As you wish, my Colonel."

"Help me to the car, Castelani," he ordered, and reluctantly the Major took his arm. The Count leaned heavily upon him as they crossed to the Rolls, but he smiled gallantly at his men and waved to the nearest of them.

"My poor brave boys," he muttered. "They must never know. I will not fail them now." What the h.e.l.l is happening out there?" fretted Gareth Swales, glancing up anxiously at Jake on the turret of the car above him.

"Nothing!" Jake a.s.sured him. "No sign of movement." don't like it," reiterated Gareth morosely, and his expression hardly altered as the Ras let out one of his triumphant cries and began laying out his cards.

"I don't like that either," he said again, and reached for his wallet before the Ras reminded him. While the Ras shuffled and dealt the next hand, he continued his conversation with Jake.

"What about Vicky? Nothing from that quarter either?"

"Not a peep, "Jake a.s.sured him.

"That's another thing I don't like. She took it too calmly.

I expected her to put in an appearance long ago despite my orders."

"She won't be coming," Jake a.s.sured him, raising the binoculars again and sweeping the empty horizon.

"I wish I was that confident," muttered Gareth, picking up his cards. "I've been expecting to see her car driving up at any minute.

It isn't like her to sit meekly in camp, while the action is going on out here. She's a front-ranker, that one.

She likes to be right there when anything is happening."

"I know,"

Jake -agreed. "She had that mean look in her eye when she agreed to stay at the gorge. So I just made sure she wasn't going to use Miss Wobbly. I took the carbon rod out of the distributor." Gareth began to grin. "That's the only good news I've had today. I had visions of Vicky Camberwell arriving in the middle of a fire fight."

"Poor b.l.o.o.d.y Italians," observed Jake, and they both laughed.

"Sometimes you surprise me. Do you know that?" said Gareth, and he drew a cheroot from his breast pocket and tossed it up to where Jake stood. "Thanks for" looking after what is mine, "he said. "I appreciate that." Jake bit the tip off the cigar, and gave him a quizzical look as he flicked a match across the rough steel of the turret and held the flame in his cupped hands to burn off the sulphur.

"They are all mavericks until somebody puts a brand on them.

That's the law of the range, old buddy," he answered, and lit the cigar.

Vicky Camberwell had selected five full-grown men from the Ras's camp attendants, rewarded each one with a silver Maria Theresa dollar, and worn each of them down to the fine edge of exhaustion. One after the other, they had taken hold of Miss Wobbly's crank handle and turned it like a squad of demented organ-grinders while Vicky shouted encouragement and threats at them from the driver's hatch, her eyes blazing and cheeks fiery with frustration.

After an hour of this she was convinced that sabotage had been employed to keep her safely out of the way, and she began to check out Miss Wobbly's internal organs. She was one of those unusual women who liked to know how things-worked, and throughout her life had plagued a long series Of mechanics, boyfriends and instructors with her questions. It was not enough for her to switch on a machine and steer it. She had made herself an excellent driver and pilot, and in the process she had acquired a fair idea of the workings of the internal combustion engine.

"All right, Mr. Barton let's find out what you've done," she muttered grimly. "Let's start on the fuel system." She rolled up her sleeves and tied a scarf firmly around her hair. Her five hefty helpers watched with awe as she approached the engine compartment and lifted the cowling, and then they crowded forward to get a good view and offer their advice. She had to beat them back and shoo them away before she could begin work, but then she was completely absorbed in her task, and in half an hour had checked an tested the fuel system, making sure that gasoline was travelling freely from the tank along the lines to carburettor and cylinders, and that the pump was functioning smoothly.

"Right, now let's check out the electrics, she muttered to herself, and turned irritably as an insistent hand tugged at her belt, breaking her concentration.

"Yes, what is it?" Her expression changed, lighting up happily as she saw who it was.

"Sara!" She embraced the girl. "How on earth did you get here?"

"I escaped, Miss Camberwell. It was so boring in the hospital. I had my father's men bring a horse for me and I climbed out of the window and rode down the gorge."

"What about your friend the young doctor?"

Vicky demanded, still holding the girl and surprised by the strength of her affection for her.

"Oh, him!" Sara's voice held a world of scorn and contempt. "He was the most boring thing in the hospital.

Doctor! Ha! He knows nothing about how a body works I had to try and teach him, and that was no fun."

"And your leg?" she asked.

"How is your leg?"

"It is nothing almost well." Sara tried to dismiss the injury but Vicky saw that she was drawn and haggard. The long, rough ride down the gorge must have taxed her, and as Vicky led her tenderly to a seat in the shade of the acacias, she favoured the injured leg heavily.

"I heard there is going to be a battle. That's really why I came.

I heard the Italians are advancing-" She looked round her brightly, seeming to thrust her pain and weariness aside. "Where are Jake and Gareth? Where is Gregorius? We must not miss the battle, Miss Camberwell "That's what I am working on." Vicky's smile faded. "They have left us behind."

"What!" Sara's bright look became bellicose and then outraged as Vicky explained how they had been edged out.

"Men! You cannot trust them, "fumed Sara. "If they aren't trying to tip you on your back, then it's something worse.

We aren't going to let them do it, are we?"

"No," Vicky agreed.

"We are most certainly not." With Sara beside her, it was impossible to continue her work on the armoured car, for the girl made up for a total ignorance of the mechanism by an unbounded curiosity and when Vicky should have been inspecting the magneto, she found instead that she was looking closely at the back of Sara's head which had been interposed.

After she had forcibly elbowed her aside for the sixth time, she asked with exasperation, "Do you know how to fire a Vickers machine gun?"

"I.

am a mountain girl," boasted Sara. "I was born with a gun in one hand and a horse between my legs."

"Or what have you?" murmured Vicky, and the girl grinned impishly.

"But have you ever fired a Vickers?"

"No," admitted Sara reluctantly, and then brightened.

"But it won't take me long to find out how it works."

"There!"

Vicky indicated the thick water-jacketed barrel that protruded from the turret. "Go ahead." When Sara scrambled awkwardly on to the sponson, still favouring the leg, Vicky could return to her inspection. It was another half hour before she exclaimed, "He has taken the carbon rod out of the distributor. Oh, the sneaky swine." Sara's head popped out of the turret. "Gareth?"she asked.

"No," answered Vicky. "Jake."

"I didn't expect it of him." Sara climbed down beside Vicky to inspect the damage.

"They're all the same."

"Where has he hidden it?"

"Probably in his own pocket."

"What are we going to do?" Sara wrung her hands anxiously.

"We'll miss the battle!" Vicky thought a moment and then her expression changed. "In my bag, in the tent, is an Ever-Ready flashlight.

There is also a leather cosmetic case. Bring them both to me, please." One of the flashlight dry-cell batteries, split open by the curved blade of the dagger from Sara's belt, yielded a thick carbon rod from its core, and Vicky shaped it carefully with the nail-file from her cosmetic case, until it slipped neatly into the central shaft of the distributor and the engine fired at the first swing of the crank.

"You are really very clever, Miss Camberwell, said Sara, with such patent and solemn sincerity that Vicky was deeply touched. She smiled up at the girl who stood above the driver's seat, her head and shoulders in the turret and her knees braced against the back of the driver's seat.

"Think you can work that gun yet?" she asked, and Sara nodded uncertainly and placed her slim dark hands on the clumsy mahogany pistol grips, standing on tiptoe to squint through the sights.

"Just take me to them, Miss Camberwell." Vicky let out the clutch and swung the car in a tight lock out from under the acacia" trees and on to the steep rocky track which led to the wide open gra.s.sland in the funnel of the mountains.

am very angry with Jake," declared Sara, clutching wildly for support as the car pounded and thumped over the rough track. "I did not expect him to behave that way hiding the carbon rod. That is more like Gareth. I am disappointed in him."

"You are?"

"Yes, I think we should punish him."

"How?"

"I think Gareth should be your lover," Sara stated firmly.

"I think that is how we will punish Jake." In between wrestling with the heavy steering, and dancing her feet over the steel pedals of brake and clutch, Vicky thought about what Sara had said. She thought also of Jake's broad rangy shoulders, and thickly muscled arms she thought about his mop of curly hair and that wide boyish grin that could change so quickly to a heavy frown.

Suddenly she realized how very much she wanted to be with him, and how she would miss him if he were gone.

"I must thank you for sorting out my affairs for me," she called to the girl in the turret. "You have a knack."

"It's a pleasure, Miss Camberwell," Sara called back. "It is just that I understand these things." As the afternoon wore on, so thunderheads of cloud "Aformed upon the mountains in the west. They soared into a sky of endless sapphire blue, smoothly rounded ma.s.ses of silver that rolled and swirled with a ponderous majesty, swelling high and darkening to the colour of ripening grapes and old bruises.

Yet over the plain the sky was open, clear and high, and the sun burned down and heated the earth so that the air above it shimmered and danced, distorting vision and distance. At one moment the mountains were so close that it seemed they reached to the heavens and they must topple upon the small group of men crouched in the shade of the two concealed armoured cars; at the next they seemed remote and miniaturized by distance.

The sun had heated the hulls of the cars so that the steel would blister skin at a touch and the men who waited, all of them except Jake Barton and Gareth Swales, crawled like survivors of a catastrophe beneath the hulls, seeking relief from the unrelenting sun.

The heat was so intense that the gin rummy game had long been abandoned, and the two white men panted like dogs, the sweat drying instantly on their skins and crusting into a thin film of white salt crystals.

Gregorius looked to the mountains, and the clouds upon them, and he said softly, "Soon it will rain." He looked up to where Jake Barton sat like a statue on the turret of Priscilla the Pig. Jake had swathed his head and upper body in a white linen sham ma to protect it from the sun and he held the binoculars in his lap. Every few minutes, he would lift them to his eyes and make one slow sweep of the land ahead before slumping motionless again.

Slowly the shadows crept out from the hulls of the cars, the sun turned across its zenith and gradually lost its white glare, its rays toned with yellows and reds. Once again, Jake lifted the binoculars and this time paused midway in his automatic sweep of the horizon.

In the lens the familiar dun feather of the distant cloud once again wavered softly at the line where pale earth and paler sky joined.

He watched it for five minutes, and it seemed that the dust cloud was fading shrivelling, and that the shimmering pillars of heat-distorted air were rising, screening his vision.

Jake lowered the gla.s.ses and a warm flood of sweat broke from his hairline, trickled down his forehead into his eyes.

He swore softly it the sting of salt and wiped it away with the hem of the linen sharnma. He blinked rapidly, and then lifted the gla.s.ses again and felt his heart jump in his chest and the p.r.i.c.kle of rising hair on the nape of his neck.

The freakish Currents and whirlpools of heated air cleared suddenly, and the dust cloud that minutes before had seemed remote as the far sh.o.r.es of the ocean was now so close and crisply outlined against the pale blue white sky that it filled the lens. Then his heart jumped again below the rolling spreading cloud he could make out the dark insect shapes of many swiftly moving vehicles. Suddenly the viscosity of the air changed again, and the shapes of the approaching column altered becoming monstrous, looming through the mist of duSt. closer, every second closer and more menacing.

Jake shouted, and Gareth was beside him in an instant.

"Are you crazy?" he gasped. "They'll overrun us in a minute."

"Get started," Jake snapped. "Get the engines started," and slid down into the driver's hatch. There was a flurry of sudden frantic movement around the cars. The engines were cranked into reluctant life, surging and missing and backfiring as the volatile fuel turned to vapour in the heat and starved the engines.

The Ras was lifted into the turret of Gareth's car by half a dozen of his men at arms, and installed behind the Vickers gun. Their job accomplished, his men were leaving him and hurrying to mount their ponies when the Ras let out a series of shrieks in Amharic and pointed at the empty cave of his own mouth, devoid of teeth and big enough to hibernate a bear.

There was a brief moment of consternation I until the senior and eldest man at arms produced a large leather covered box from his saddle bag and hurried with it to kneel humbly on the sponson of the car and proffer the open box to the Ras. Mollified, the Ras reached into the box and brought out a magnificent set of porcelain teeth, big and white and sharp enough to fit in the mouth of a Derby winner, complete with bright red gums.

With only a short struggle he forced the set into his mouth, and then snapped them like a brook trout rising to the fly, before peeling back his lips in a death's head grin.

His followers cooed and exclaimed with admiration, and Gregorius told Jake proudly, "My grandfather only wears his teeth when he is fighting or pleasuring a lady," and Jake spared a brief glance from the advancing Italian army to admire the dazzling dental display.