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

the night, and now he had the comparative cool of the morning. By the

time it was Jake's turn on watch again, the sun would be frizzling, and

Priscilla's hull hot as a wood stove.

"Look out for Number One," he murmured, and took a leisurely sweep of

the land with the glasses. There was no way that an Italian patrol

could surprise them here. He had selected the stake-out with a

soldier's eye for ground, and he congratulated himself again, as he

slumped in relaxation against the turret and lit a cheroot.

"Now," he thought. "Just how do you take on a squadron of cavalry

tanks, without artillery, mine-fields or armour-piercing guns ?" and

he let his mind tease and worry the problem. A couple of hours later

he had decided that there were ways, but all of them depended on having

the tanks come in at the right place, from the right direction at the

right time. "Which, of course, is an animal of a completely different

breed," and that took a lot more thought. Another hour later he knew

there was only one way the Italian armoured squadron could be made to

co-operate in its own destruction. "The jolly old donkey and the

carrot trick again," he thought. "Now all we need is a carrot."

Instinctively he looked down at where Jake lay curled. Jake had not

moved once in all the hours, only the deep soft rumble of his breathing

showed he was still alive. Gareth felt a prickle of irritation that he

should be enjoying such undisturbed rest.

The heat was a heavy oppressive pall, pressing down upon the earth,

beating like a gong upon Gareth's head.

The sweat dried almost instantly upon his skin, leaving a rime of salt

crystals, and he screwed up his eyes as he swept the horizon with the

glasses.

The glare and the mirage had obscured the horizon, blotted out even the

nearest ridges behind a shifting throbbing curtain of hot air that

seemed thick as water, swirling and spiralling in wavering columns and

sluggish eddies.

Gareth blinked his eyes, and shook the drops of sweat from his

eyebrows. He glanced at his watch. It was still another hour until

Jake's shift, and he contemplated putting his watch forward. It was

distinctly uncomfortable up on the hull in the sun, and he glanced

again at the sleeping form in the shade.

Just then he caught a sound on the thick heated air, a soft quiver of

sound, like the hive murmur of bees. There was no way in which to tell

the direction of the sound, and Gareth crouched attentively,

straining for it. It faded and returned, faded and returned again, but

this time stronger and more definite. The configuration of the land

and the flawed and heat-faulted air were playing tricks on the ear.

Suddenly the volume of sound climbed swiftly, becoming a humming growl

that shook in the. heat.

Gareth swung the glasses to the east; it seemed to emanate from the

whole curve of the eastern horizon, like the animal growl of the

surf.

For an instant the glare and swirling mirage opened enough for him to

see a huge darkly distorted shape, a grotesque lumbering monster on

four stilt-like legs, seeming as tall as a double-storey building.

Then the mirage closed down again swiftly, leaving Gareth blinking with

doubt and alarm at what he had seen. But now the growl of sound beat

steadily in the air.

Jake," he called urgently, and was answered by a snort and a changed

volume of snore. Gareth broke off a branch from the layer of

camouflage and tossed it at the reclining figure. It caught Jake in

the back of the neck and he came angrily awake, one fist bunched and

ready to punch.

"What the hell-'he snarled.

"Come up here, "called Gareth.

"I can't see a damned thing," muttered Jake, standing high on the

turret and peering eastwards through his glasses. The sound was now a

deep drumming growl, but the wall of glare and mirage was close and

impenetrable.

"There!" shouted Gareth.

"Oh my God!" cried Jake.

The huge shape leaped out at them suddenly. Very close, very black and

tall, blown up by distortion and mirage to gargantuan proportions. Its

shape changed constantly, so at one moment it looked like a four-masted

ship under a full suit of black sails then it altered swiftly into a

towering black tadpole shape that wriggled and swam through the soupy

air.

"What the hell is it? "Gareth demanded.

"I don't know, but it's making a noise like a squadron of Italian tanks

and it's coming straight at us."

The Captain who commanded the Italian tank squadron was an angry,

disgruntled and horribly disillusioned man a man burdened by a soul

corroding grudge.

Like so many officers of the cavalry tradition, the anne blanche of the

army, he was a romantic, obsessed by the image of himself as a dashing,

reckless warrior. The dress uniform of his regiment still included

skin-tight breeches with a scarlet silk stripe down the outside of the

leg, soft black riding boots and silver spurs, a tightly fitting bum

freezer jacket encrusted with thick gold lace and heavy epaulets, a

short cloak worn carelessly over one shoulder and a tall black shako.

This was the picture he cherished of himself all Man and swagger.

Here he was in some devil-conceived, god-cursed desert, where day after

day he and his beloved fighting machines were sent out to find wild

animals and drive them in on a set point, where a mad megalomaniac

waited to shoot them down.

The damage it was doing his tanks, the grinding wear on tracks running

hard over rough terrain and through diamond-hard abrasive sand,

was as nothing compared to the damage his pride was suffering.

He had been reduced to nothing but a gamekeeper, a beater, a peasant

beater. The Captain spent much of each day at the very edge of tears,

the tears of deep humiliation.

Every evening he protested to the mad Count in the strongest possible

terms and the following day found him once more pursuing wild animals

over the desert.

So far the bag had consisted of a dozen lions and wild dogs, and many

scores of large antelope. By the time these were delivered to where

the Count waited, they were almost exhausted, lathered with sweat, and

with a froth of saliva drooling from their jaws, barely able to trot

after the long chase across the plains.

The condition of the game detracted not at all from the Count's

pleasure. Indeed, the Captain had been given specific orders to run

the game hard so that it came to the guns docile and winded. After his

alarming experience with the beisa oryx, the Count was not eager to

take foolhardy risks. An easy shot and a good photograph were his

yardsticks of the day's sport.

The greater the bag, the greater the pleasure and the Count had enjoyed

himself immensely since the arrival of the tanks. However, the wastes

of the Danakil desert could not support endless quantities of animal

life, and the bag had fallen off sharply in the last few days as the

herds were scattered and annihilated. The Count was displeased.

He told the Captain of tanks so forcibly, adding to the man's

discontent and sense of grudge.

The Captain of tanks found the old bull elephant standing alone,

like a tall granite monument, upon the open plain. He was enormous,

with tattered ears like the sails of an ancient schooner, and tiny

hating eyes in their webs of deep wrinkles. One of his tusks was