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

front towards the Count. The first offender in this respect had found

himself reduced from Captain to Lieutenant, and no longer invited to

the hunt, and the second was already back in Massawa writing out

requisition forms in the quartermaster's division.

Gino handed the Count from the Rolls, and helped him down the steps

into the sunken shelter. Giuseppe saluted and climbed back into the

Rolls, swung away and bumped back up the ridge and over the skyline.

The Count settled himself comfortably in the canvas chair. With a

sigh, he unbuttoned the front of his jacket, and accepted the damp face

cloth that Gino handed him.

While the Count wiped the film of sweat from his forehead with the cool

cloth, Gino opened a bottle of Lacrima Cristi from the ice bucket and

placed a tall frosted crystal glass of the wine on the folding table at

the Count's elbow. Next, he loaded the

Marmlicher with shiny new brass cartridges from a freshly opened

packet.

The Count tossed the cloth aside and leaned forward in his chair to

peer through the loophole in front of him, out across the shimmering

plain where the small dark desert scrub danced in the heat.

"I have a feeling we shall have extraordinary sport today, Gino."

I hope so indeed, my Count, said the little sergeant and stood to

attention behind his chair with the loaded Mannlicher held at the ready

across his chest.

ome on, darling," croaked Jake, sweat dripping from his chin on to his

shirt front as he stooped over the crank handle and spun it for the

hundredth time.

"Don't let us down now, sweetheart." Gareth scrambled up on to the

sponson of Priscilla and took a long despairing glance back over the

turret. He felt something freeze in his belly, and his breath

caught.

The elephant was a hundred paces away, coming directly down on top of

them at a loose shambling walk, the great black ears flapping sullenly

and the little piggy eyes alight with malevolence.

Right behind it, fanned out on each side, pressing closely on the great

beast's heels, came the full squadron of Italian tanks. The sun

glittered on the smoothly rounded frontal armour, and caught the bright

festival flutter of their cavalry pennants. From each hatch protruded

the black-helmeted head of the tank commander. Through the

binoculars

Gareth could make out the individual features of each commander, they

were that close.

Within minutes they would be overrun, and there was no chance that they

could escape detection. The elephant was leading the Italians directly

to the ravine, and their scanty camouflage of scrub branches would not

stand scrutiny at less than a hundred yards.

They could not even protect themselves, the Vickers machine gun was

pointed away from the approaching enemy, and the limited traverse of

the ball mounting was not sufficient to bring it to bear. Gareth was

engulfed suddenly by a black and burning rage for the stubborn piece of

machinery beneath his feet. He took a vicious heartfelt kick at the

steel turret.

"You treacherous bitch, he snarled, and at that moment the engine fired

and, without preliminary gulping and popping, roared angrily.

Jake bounded up the side of the hull, droplets of sweat flying from his

sodden hair, red-faced as he gasped at Gareth.

"You've got the gentle touch."

"With all women there is the psychological moment, old son, "Gareth

explained, grinning with relief as he scrambled into the turret and

Jake dropped behind the controls.

Jake gunned the motor, and Priscilla threw off her covering, of cut

thorn branches. Her wheels spun in the loose sand of the ravine,

blowing up a cloud of red dust, and she tore up the steep bank and

lunged out into the open directly under the startled outstretched trunk

of the elephant.

The old bull had by this stage suffered provocation sufficient to take

him to the edge of a blind, black rage. It needed only this new

buzzing frightfulness to launch him over the edge. The leisurely pace

that he had set up until now left his mountainous strength and

endurance untouched, and now he trumpeted, a ringing ear-splitting

challenge that rolled across the vast silences of the desert like the

trumpet of doom. His ears curled back against his skull and with his

trunk coiled against his chest, he crashed forward into a terrible

ground-shaking charge.

His speed over the broken ground was greater than that of

Priscilla the Pig, and he bore down upon her like a cliff of grey

granite huge, menacing and indestructible.

The Captain of tanks had been shepherding the old elephant along

gently. He did not want him to tax his strength. He wanted to deliver

to his commanding officer an animal in the peak of its anger and

destructive capabilities.

He was sitting up in his turret, chuckling and shaking his head with

anticipation and growing delight, for the hunter's lines were only a

mile or so ahead when suddenly, directly ahead of him, the ground

erupted and an armoUred car roared out in a cloud of red dust. It was

of a model that the Captain had seen only in illustrated books of

military history like an apparition out of the remote past.

It took him some seconds to believe what he was seeing, then with a

jarring impact on his already highly strung nerve ends, he recognized

the enemy colours that the ancient machine was flying.

"Advance!" he screamed. "Squadron, advance!" and he groped

instinctively at his side for his sword. "Engage the enemy." On each

side of him his tanks roared forward, and for want of a sword, the

Captain tore his helmet off and waved it over his head.

"Charge!" he screamed. "Forward into battle!" Now at last he was not

a mere game-beater. Now he was a warrior leading his men into action.

His excitement was So contagious and the dust thrown up by the car, the

elephant and the steel tracks so thick, that the first two tanks did

not even see the fifteen-foot-deep sheer-sided ravine.

Running side by side, they went into it at the top of their speed and

were destroyed effectively as though they had been demolished by a

100 kilo, aerial bomb, the riding wheels ripped away by the impact and

the heavy steel tracks flying loose and snaking viciously into the air

like living angry cobras. The revolving turrets were torn from their

seatings, neatly bisecting the men at the waist, who stood in the

hatches, as though with a gigantic pair of scissors.

Clinging to the rim of his own turret and peering backwards,

Gareth saw the two machines disappear into the earth, and the great

leaping towers of dust that rose high into the air to mark their

destruction.

"Two down" he shouted.

"But another four to go," Jake shouted back grimly, fighting

Priscilla over the rough earth. "And how about that jumbo?"

"How indeed!" The elephant, goaded on by the roar of engines and crash

of steel behind and by the buzzing bouncing car ahead of it, was making

incredible speed over the broken scrubby plain.

"He's right here with us," Gareth told Jake anxiously. So close was

the great beast that Gareth had to look up at it, and he saw the thick

grey. trunk uncoiling from its chest and reaching out to pluck him

from the turret.

"As fast as you like, old son, or you'll have him sitting on your