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

"You already did, "Jake reminded him.

"We'll send out one car one is enough and hold another in reserve

here." Gareth touched the sand map. "If anything goes wrong with the

first car"

"Like a high-explosive shell between the buttocks?" Jake asked.

"Precisely. If that happens the second car pops in like this and keeps

them coming on."

"The way you tell it, it sounds great."

"Piece of cake, old son, nothing to it. Trust the celebrated Swales

genius."

"Who takes the first car? "Jake asked.

"Spin you for it," Gareth suggested, and a silver Maria Theresa

appeared as if by magic in his hand.

"Heads," said Jake.

"Oh, tough luck, old son. Heads it is." Jake's hand was quick as a

striking mamba. It snapped closed on Gareth's wrist and held his hand

in which the silver coin was cupped.

"I say," protested Gareth. "Surely you don't believe that I might and

then he shrugged resignedly.

"No offence," Jake assured him, turned Gareth's hand towards him and

examined the coin cupped in his palm.

"Lovely lady, Theresa," murmured Gareth. "Lovely high forehead,

very sensual mouth bet she was a real goer, what?" Jake released his

wrist, and stood up, dusting his breeches to cover his embarrassment.

"Come on, Greg. We'd better get ready," he called across to where the

young Harari was supervising the preparations taking place on the

higher ground above where the cars were parked.

"Good luck, old son," Gareth called after them. "Keep your head well

down." Jake Barton sat on the edge of Priscilla's turret with his long

legs dangling into the hatch, and he looked up at the mountains.

Only their lower slopes were visible, rising steeply into the vast

towering mass of cloud that rose sheer into the sky.

The cloud mass bulged, swelling forward and spilling with the slow

viscosity of treacle down the harsh ranges of rock. The mountains had

disappeared, swallowed by the cloud monster, and the soft mass heaved

like a belly digesting its prey.

For the first time since they had entered the Danakil, the sun was

obscured. The cold came off the clouds in gusts, touching Jake with

icy fingers of air, so that the gooseflesh pimpled his muscular

forearms and he shivered briefly.

Gregorius sat beside him on the turret, looking up also at the silver

and dark blue of the thunderheads.

"The big rains will begin now."

"Here?"

"No, not down here in the desert, but upon the mountains the rain will

fall with great fury." For a few moments longer, Jake stared up at the

pinnacles and glaring slopes of grandeur and menace, then he turned his

back upon them and swept the rolling tree-dotted plains to the

eastward. As yet, there was no) sign of the Italian advance that the

scouts had reported, and he turned again and focused his binoculars on

the lower slopes of the gorge at the point from which Gareth would

signal the enemy's movements to him. There was nothing to be seen but

broken rock and the tumbled slopes of scree and rubble.

He dropped his scrutiny lower to where the last small dunes of red sand

lapped like wavelets against the great rock reef of the mountains.

There were wrinkles in the surface of the plain, sparsely covered with

the pale seared desert grasses, but in their troughs thick coarse bush

had taken root. The bush was tall and dense enough to hide the

hundreds of patiently waiting Harari under its cover.

Gareth had worked out the method of dealing with the Italian tanks, and

it was he who had sent Gregorius up the gorge to the village of Sardi

with a gang of a hundred men and fifty camels. Under Greg's

direction,

they had torn up the rails from the shunting yard of the railway

station, packed the heavy steel rails on to the camels and brought them

down the perilous path to the desert floor.

Gareth had explained how the rails were to be used, split his force

into gangs of twenty men each and exercised them with the rails until

they were as efficient as he could hope for. All that was needed now

was for Priscilla the Pig to lead the Italian tanks into the low

dunes.

Without armour, Gareth estimated they could hold the Italians for a

week at the mouth of the gorge. His order of battle placed the

Harari on the left and centre, in good positions that interlocked with

those of the Galla on the right flank. The Vickers guns had lanes of

fire laid down that would make any infantry assault by the Italians

suicidal without armoured cover.

They would have to blast their way into the gorge with artillery and

aerial bombardment. It would take them a week at the least that is, if

they could dissuade Ras Golam from attacking the Italians, a task which

promised to be difficult, for the old Ras's fighting blood was coursing

through his ancient veins.

Once they forced the mouth of the gorge and drove the Ethiopian forces

into its gut, they had another week's hard pounding to reach the top

and the town of Sardi provided once again that the Ras could be

restrained in the role of defender.

Once the Italians broke out of the head of the gorge, the armoured cars

could be flung in to hold them for a day or two more, but when they

were expended, it was all over. It was an easy drive for the

Italians through the rolling highlands on to the Dessie road, to close

the jaws of the trap hopefully after the prey had fled.

Gareth had reported all this to Lij Mikhael, contacting him by

telegraph at the Emperor's headquarters on the shores of Lake Tona.

The Prince had telegraphed back the Emperor's gratitude and assurances

that within two weeks the destiny of Ethiopia would be decided.

"HOLD THE GORGE FOR TWO WEEKS AND YOUR DUTY WILL BE FULLY

DISCHARGED STOP YOU WILL HAVE EARNED THE GRATITUDE OF THE EMPEROR AND

ALL THE PEOPLES OF ETHIOPIA." A week here on the plains, but it all

depended on this first encounter with the Italian armour. Gareth's

and

Jake's observations, backed up by those of the scouts, placed the total

number of surviving Italian tanks at four. They must take them out at

a single stroke, the whole defence of the gorge pivoted on this.

Jake found that he had been day-dreaming, his mind wandering over the

problems they faced and the chances they must take. It took

Gregorius's hand on his shoulder to rouse him.

"Jake! The signal." Quickly he looked back at the slope of the

mountains, and he did not need the binoculars. Gareth was signalling

with a primitive heliograph he had contrived with the shaving-mirror

from his toilet bag. The bright flashes of light pricked Jake's

eyeballs even at that range.

"They are coming in across the valley, line abreast. All four tanks,

supported by motorized infantry." Jake read the signal, and jumped

into the driver's hatch while Gregorius slid down the side of the hull

and ran to the crank handle.

"That's my darling." Jake thanked Priscilla, as the engine spluttered

busily into life, and then he called up to Gregorius as he climbed into

the turret above him. "I'll warn you every time I tUrn to engage."

"Yes, Jake." The boy's eyes burned with the fire of his anger,

and Jake grinned.

"As bad as his grand pappy He let in the clutch. They gathered speed