Cry Wolf - Smith Wilbur (книги онлайн без регистрации полностью .TXT) 📗

groaned.

"No! Oh, please God, no."

"What is it? "jake head popped out of the driver's hatch with alarm.

"They've done it again."

"Who ?" But Jake need not have asked.

The following car had swung off the direct track, and was now storming

up through the rain-blurred camel-Thorn trees, heading for the old

tented camp in the grove, and only incidentally running directly into

the area where the heavy fighting was still rattling and crackling in

the rain.

"Catch her," Gareth said. "Head her off." Jake swung off the track

and went zigzagging up through the grove with the rear wheels spinning

and spraying red mud and slush. But Miss Wobbly had a clear start and

a straight run up the secondary track directly into the enemy advance;

she disappeared amongst the trees and curtains of rain.

Jake brought the car bellowing out into the camp to find Miss

Wobbly parked in the open clearing. The tents had been flattened and

the whole area trodden and looted, cases of rations and clothing burst

open and soaked with rain; the muddy red canvas of the tents hung

flapping in the trees or lay half buried.

From the turret, Sara was firing the Vickers into the trees of the

grove, and answering fire whined and crackled around the car. Jake

glimpsed running Italian figures, and turned the car so that his own

gun would bear.

"Get into them, Greg," he yelled, and the boy crouched down behind the

gun and fired a long thunderous burst that tore shreds of bark off the

trees and dropped at least one of the running Italians. Jake lifted

himself out of the driver's hatch, and then froze and stared in

disbelief.

Victoria Camberwell was out of the armoured car, plodding around in the

soup of red mud, oblivious to the gunfire that whickered and crackled

about her.

"Vicky!" he cried in despair, and she stooped and snatched something

out of the mud with a cry of triumph. Now at last she turned and

scampered back to Miss Wobbly, crossing a few feet in front of

Jake.

"What the hell-" he protested.

"My typewriter and my toilet bag," she explained reasonably,

holding her muddy trophies aloft. "One has got my make-up in it, and

I

can't do my job without the other," and then she smiled like a wet

bedraggled puppy.

"We can go now, "she said.

The track up the gorge was crowded with men and "animals, toiling

wearily upwards in the icy rain.

The pack animals slipped and slithered in the loose footing.

Gareth's relief was intense when he saw the bulky shapes of the Vickers

strapped to the humpy backs of a dozen camels, and the cases of

ammunition riding high in the panniers. His men had done their work

and saved the guns.

"Go with them, Greg," he ordered. "See them safely up to the first

waterfall," and the boy jumped down to take command, while the two cars

ploughed on slowly through the sea of humanity.

"There's no fight left in them," said Jake, looking down into the

dispirited brown faces, running with rainwater and shivering in the

cold.

"They'll fight," answered Gareth, and he nudged the Ras.

"What do you say, Grandpa?" The Ras grinned a weary toothless grin,

but his wet clothing clung to the gaunt old frame like the rags of a

scarecrow, as Jake brought the car round the slippery, glassy hairpin

bend below the first waterfall.

"Pull in here," Gareth told him, and then scrambled down beside the

hull, drawing the Ras down with him.

"Thanks, old son." He looked up at Jake. "Take the cars up to

Sardi, and get rid of these-" He indicated the sorry cargo of

wounded.

"Try and find a suitable building for a hospital. Leave that to Vicky

it'll keep her out of mischief.

Either that or we'll have to tie her up--2 he grinned, and then was

serious. "Try and contact Lij Mikhael. Tell him the position here.

Tell him the Gallas have deserted and I'll be hard pressed to hold the

gorge another week. Tell him we need ammunition, guns,

medicine, blankets, food anything he can spare. Ask him to send a

train down to Sardi with supplies, and to take out the wounded." He

paused, and thought for a moment. "That's it, I think.

Do that and then come back, with all the food you can carry. I

think we left most of our supplies down there" he glanced down into the

misty depths of the gorge "and these fellows won't fight on an empty

stomach." Jake reversed the car and pulled back on to the track.

"Oh, and Jake, try and find a few cheroots. I lost my entire stock

down there. Can't fight without a whiff or two." He grinned and

waved. "Keep it warm, old son," he called, and turned away to begin

stopping the trudging column of refugees, pushing them off the track

towards the prepared trenches that had been dug into the rocky sides of

the gorge, overlooking the double sweep of the track below them.

"Come along, chaps," Gareth shouted cheerfully. "Who's for a touch of

old glory!" ROM GENERAL BADOGLIO, COMMANDER IN CHIEF OF THE

AFRICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE BEFORE AMBA ARA DAM TO COLONEL COUNT ALDO

BELLI, OFFICER COMMANDING THE DANAKIL COLUMN AT THE WELLS OF CHALDI.

THE MOMENT FOR WHICH WE HAVE PLANNED IS

NOW AT HAND STOP I CONFRONT THE MAIN BODY OF THE ENEMY, AND HAVE

HAD THEM UNDER CONTINUOUS BOMBARDMENT FOR FIVE DAYS. AT DAWN

TOMORROW

I SHALL ATTACK IN FORCE AND DRIVE THEM FROM THE HIGH GROUND BACK

ALONG

THE DE SSI ROAD. DO YOU NOW ADVANCE WITH ALL DESPATCH TO TAKE UP A

POSITION ASTRIDE THE DESSIE ROAD AND STEM THE TIDE OF THE ENEMY's

RETREAT, SO THAT WE MAY TAKE THEM ON BOTH TINES OF THE PITCHFORK.

"forty thousand men lay upon Ambo Aradam, cowering in their trenches

and caves. They were the heart and spine of the Ethiopian armies, and

the man who led them, Ras Muguletu, was the ablest and most experienced

of all the warlords. But he was powerless and uncertain in the face of

such strength and fury as now broke around him. He had not imagined it

could be so, and he lay with his men, quiescent and stoic. There was

no enemy to confront, nothing to strike out at, for the huge Caproni

bombers droned high overhead and the great guns that fired the shells

were miles below in the valley.

All they could do was pull their dusty shammas over their heads and

endure the bone-jarring, bowel-shaking detonations and breathe the

filthy fume-laden air.

Day after day the storm of explosive roared around them until they were

dazed and stupefied, deafened and uncaring, enduring, only enduring not

thinking, not feeling, not caring.

On the sixth night the drone of the big three-engined bombers passed

overhead, and Ras Muguletu's men, peering up fearfully, saw the

sinister shapes pass overhead, dark against the silver pricking of the

stars.

They waited for the bombs to tumble down upon them once more, but the

bombers circled above the flat-topped mountain for many minutes and

there were no bombs. Then the bombers turned away and the drone of the

engines died into the lightening dawn sky.

Only then did the soft insidious dew that they had sown come sifting

down out of the still night sky. Gently as the fall of snowflakes, it

settled upon the upturned brown faces, into the fearfully staring eyes,