Cry Wolf [047-011-4.8]
By: Wilbur Smith
Category: fiction action adventure
Synopsis:
"Run," he shouted. "Keep running." And he turned back to
face the crippled animal as it launched itself from the ledge into the
bed of the river. It was only then that Jake realized that he still
carried a full bottle of Scrubbs Ammonia in his hand. The lion came
bounding swiftly through the shallow stagnant pool towards him. Despite
the wounds, it followed with lithe and sinuous menace. it was so close
that he could see each stiff white whisker in the curled upper lip and
hear the rattle of air in its throat. He let it come on, for to turn
and run was suicide. At the last moment he reared back like a baseball
pitcher and hurled the bottle.
Jake Barton is an American engineer, Gareth Swalles (a stylish
Englishman with a nose for a quick deal. Both have always moved from
one escapade to another. Now, as Mussolini prepares to annihilate the
people of Ethiopia, the two adventurers come up against Vicky
Camberwell, the beautiful but fiery reporter bent on espousing their
cause. Striking a bargain with a beleaguered Ethiopian prince, the
trio dares to run gauntlet guns and a batch of run-down armoured cars
in a final, desperate gamble for freedom..
To Jake Barton, machinery was always feminine with all the female's
fascination, wiles and bitchery.
So when he first saw them standing in a row beneath the spreading dark
green foliage of the mango trees, they became for him the iron
ladies.
There were five of them, standing aloof from the other heaps of
worn-out and redundant equipment that His Majesty's Government was
offering for sale. Although it was June and the cooler season between
the monsoons, yet the heat on this cloudless morning in Dares Salaam
was mounting like a force-fed furnace and Jake went thankfully into the
shade of the mangoes to stand closer to the ladies and begin his
examination.
He glanced around the enclosed yard, and noticed that he seemed to be
the only one interested in the five vehicles.
The motley crowd of potential buyers was picking over the heaps of
broken shovels and Picks, the rows of battered wheelbarrows and the
other mounds of unidentifiable rubbish.
He turned his attention back to the ladies, as he slipped off the light
tropical moleskin jacket he wore and hung it on the branch of a mango
tree.
The ladies were aristocrats fallen on hard times, their hard but rakish
lines were dulled by the faded and scratched paintwork and the
cancerous blotches of rust that showed through. The foxy-faced fruit
bats that hung inverted in the mango branches above them had splattered
them with their dung, and oil and grease had oozed from their elderly
joints and caked with dust in unsightly black streaks and blobs.
Jake knew their lineage and their history and as he laid aside the
small carpet bag that held his tools, he reviewed it swiftly. Five
fine pieces of craftsmanship lying rotting away on the fever coast of
Tanganyika. The bodies and chassis had been built by Schreiner the
stately high cupola in which the open mounting for the Maxim machine
gun now glared like an empty eye-socket, the square sloping platform of
the engine housing, with its heavy armour plate and the neat rows of
rivets and the steel shutters that could be closed to protect the
radiator against incoming enemy fire.
They stood tall on the metal bossed wheels with their solid rubber
tyres, and Jake felt a sneaking regret that he would be the one to tear
their engines out of them and toss aside the worn-out but gallant old
bodies.
They did not deserve such cavalier treatment, these fighting iron
ladies who in their youth had chased the wily German commander von
Lettow-Vorbeck across the wide plains and over the fierce hills of
East
Africa. The thorns of the wilderness had deeply scarred the paintwork
of the five armoured cars and there were places where rifle fire had
glanced off their armour, leaving the distinctive dimple in the
steel.
Those were their grandest days, streaming into battle with their
cavalry pennants flying, dust billowing behind them, bounding and
crashing through the don gas and ant bear holes, their machine guns
blazing and the terrified German askaris scattering before them.
After that, the original engines had been replaced by the beautiful new
6 litre Bentleys, and they had begun the long decline of police patrol
work on the border, chasing the occasional cattle raider and slowly
being pounded by a succession of brutal drivers into the condition
which had at last brought them here to the Government sale yards in
this fiery May of the year of our Lord 1935. But Jake knew that even
the savage abuse to which they had been subjected could not have
destroyed the engines completely and that was what interested him.
He rolled up his sleeves like a surgeon about to begin his
examination.
"Ready or not, girls, "he muttered, "here comes old Jake." He was a
tall man with a big bony frame that was cramped in the confined area of
the armoured car's body, but he worked with a quiet concentration so
close to rapture that the discomfort went unnoticed. Jake's wide
friendly mouth was pursed in a whistle that went on endlessly, the
opening bars of "Tiger Rag" repeated over and over again, and his eyes
were screwed up against the gloom of the interior.
He worked swiftly, checking the throttle and ignition settings of the
controls, tracing out the fuel lines from the rear-mounted fuel tank,
finding the cocks under the driver's seat and grunting with
satisfaction. He scrambled out of the turret and dropped down the high
side of the vehicle, pausing to wipe away with his forearm the thin
trickle of sweat that broke from his thick curly black hair and ran
down his cheek, then he hurried forward and knocked the clamps open on
the side flaps of the armoured engine-cover.
"Oh sweet, sweet!" he whispered, as he saw the fine outlines of the
old Bentley engine block beneath the layer of thick dust and greasy
filth.
His hands with the big square palms and thick spatulate fingers went
out to touch it with what was almost a caress.
"The bastards have beaten you up, darling," he whispered.
"But we will have you singing again as lovely as ever, that's a
promise." He pulled the dipstick from the engine sump and took a drop
of oil between his fingers.
"Shit!" he grunted with disgust, as he felt the grittiness, and he
thrust the stick back into its slot. He pulled the plugs and, with the
promise of a shilling, had a loitering African swing the crank for him
while he felt the compression against the palm of his hand.
Swiftly he moved along the line of armoured cars, checking,
probing and testing, and when he reached the last of them he knew he
could have three of them running again for certain and four maybe.
One was shot beyond hope. There was a crack in the engine block
through which he could have ridden a horse, and the pistons had seized
so solid in their pots that not even the combined muscle upon the crank
handle of Jake and his helper could move them.
Two of them had the entire carburettor assemblies missing, but he could
cannibalize from the wreck. That left him short of one carburettor and
he felt only gloom at his chances of finding another in Dares Salaam.
Three, then, he could reckon on with certainty. At one hundred and ten
pounds apiece, that was 030. Less an estimated outlay of one hundred,
it gave him a clear profit of two hundred and thirty pounds for surely
he would not have to bid more than twenty pounds each for these
wrecks.
Jake felt a warm spreading glow of satisfaction as he tossed his
African helper the promised shilling. Two hundred and thirty pounds
was a great deal of money in these lean and hungry times.
A quick glance at the fob-watch he hauled from his back pocket showed
him there was still over two hours before the advertised time of the
commencement of the sale. He was impatient to begin work on those
Bentleys not only for the money. For Jake it would be a labour of
love.
The one in the centre of the line seemed the best bet for quick
results. He placed his carpet bag on the armoured wing of the mudguard
and selected a Yth-inch spanner.
Immediately he was totally absorbed.
After half an hour he pulled his head out of the engine, wiped his
hands on a handful of cotton waste and hurried around to the front of
the car.
The big muscles in his right arm bunched and rippled as he swung the
crank handle, spinning the heavy engine easily with a steady whirring
rhythm. After a minute of this, he released the handle and wiped off
his sweat with the cotton waste that left grease marks down his cheeks.
He was breathing quickly but lightly.
"I knew you for a temperamental bitch the moment I laid eyes on you,"
he muttered. "But you are going to do it my way, darling. You really
are." Once more his head and shoulders disappeared under the engine
cowling and there was the clink of the spanner against metal and the
monotonous repetition of "Tiger Rag" in a low off-key whistle for
another ten minutes, then again Jake went to the crank handle.
"You are going to do it my way, baby and what's more you're going to
like it." He spun the handle and the engine kicked viciously,
back-fired like a rifle shot, and the crank handle snapped out of
Jake's hand with enough force to have taken his thumb off if he had
been holding it with an opposed grip.
"Jesus," whispered Jake, "a real little hell catV He scrambled up into
the turret and reached down to the controls and reset the ignition.
At the next swing of the crank handle she bucked and fired, caught and
surged, then fell back into a steady beat, quivering slightly on her
rigid suspension, but come alive.
Jake stepped back, sweating, flushed, but with his dark green eyes
shining with delight.
"Oh you beauty, "he said. "You bloody little beauty."
"Bravo,"
said a voice behind him, and Jake started and turned quickly. He had
forgotten that he was not the only person left on earth, in his
complete absorption with the machine, and now he felt embarrassed, as
though he had been observed in some intimate and private bodily
function.
He glowered at the figure that was leaning elegantly against the hole
of the mango tree.
"Jolly good show," said the stranger, and the voice was sufficient to
stir the hair upon the nape of Jake's neck. It was one of those pricey
Limey accents.
The man was dressed in a cream suit of expensive tropical linen and
two-tone shoes of white and brown. On his head he wore a white straw
hat with a wide brim that cast a shadow over his face. But Jake could
see the man had a friendly smile and an easy engaging manner. He was
handsome in a conventional manner, with noble and regular features,
a face that had flustered many a female's emotions and that fitted well
with the voice. He would he a ranking government official probably, or
an officer in one of the regular regiments stationed in Dares Salaam.
Upper class establishment, even to the necktie with its narrow diagonal
stripes by which the British advertised at which seat of learning they
had obtained their education and their place in the social order.
"It didn't take you long to get her going." The man lolled gracefully
against the mango, his ankles crossed and one hand thrust into his coat
pocket. He smiled again, and this time Jake saw the mockery and
challenge in the eyes more clearly. He had judged him wrongly. This
was not one of those cardboard men. They were pirate eyes, mocking and
wolfish, dangerous as the glint of a knife in the shadows.
"I have no doubt the others are in as good a state of repair." It was
an enquiry, not a statement.
"Well, you're wrong, friend. "Jake felt a pang of dismay. It was
absurd that this fancy lad could have a real interest in the five
vehicles but if he did, then Jake had just given him a generous
demonstration of their value. "This is the only one that will run, and
even her guts are blown. Listen to her knock. Sounds like a mad
carpenter." He reached under the cowling and earthed the magneto.
In the sudden silence as the engine died, he said loudly, "Junk!"
and spat on the ground near the front wheel but not on it. He couldn't
bring himself to do that. Then he gathered his tools, flung his jacket
over his shoulder, hefted the carpet bag and, without another glance at
the Englishman, ambled off towards the gates of the works yard.
"You not bidding then, old chap?" The stranger had left his post at
the mango and fallen into step beside him.
"God, no." Jake tried to fill his voice with disdain. "Are you?"
"Now what would I do with five broken-down armoured cars?" The man
laughed silently, and then went on, "Yankee, are you? Texas, what?"
"You've been reading my mail." Engineer?" :1 try, I try."
"Buy you a drink?"
"Give me the money. instead. I've got a train to catch." The elegant
stranger laughed again, a light friendly laugh.
"God speed, then, old chap," he said, and Jake hurried out through the
gates into the dusty heat-dazed streets of noonday Dares Salaam and
walked away without a backward glance, trying to convey with his
determined stride and the set of his shoulders that his departure was
final.
Jake found a canteen around the first corner and within five minutes"
walk of the works yard, where he went into hiding. The Tusker beer he
ordered was blood warm, but he drank it while he worried. The
English, man gave him a very queasy feeling, his interest was too
bright to be mere curiosity. On the other hand, however, Jake might
have to go over the twenty pounds bid that he had calculated and he
took from the inside pocket of his jacket the worn pigskin wallet that
contained his entire worldly wealth and, prudently using the table top
as a screen, he counted the wad of notes.
Five hundred and seventeen pounds in Bank of England notes, three
hundred and twenty-seven dollars in United States currency, and four
hundred and ninety East African shillings was not a great fortune with
which to take on the likes of the elegant Limey. However, Jake drained
his warm beer, set his jaw and inspected his watch once more. It gave
him five minutes to noon.
Major Gareth Swales was mildly dismayed, but not at all surprised to
see the big American entering the works yard gates once more in a
manner which was obviously intended to be unobtrusive but reminded him