the column with six motorcycle outriders brought back to ride as flank
guards.
It was another hour before the new arrangement could be put into effect
and once more the column headed south and west into the great empty
land with its distant smoky horizons and its vast vaulted blue dome of
the burning heavens.
Count Aldo Belli rode easier on the luxurious leather of the
Rolls, cheered by the knowledge that preceding him were three hundred
and forty-five fine rubbery sets of peasant testicles upon which the
barbarian could blunt his blade.
The column went into bivouac that evening fifty-three kilometres from
Asmara. Not even the Count could pretend that this was a forced march
for motorized infantry but the advantage was that a pair of
motorcyclists could send back with a despatch for General De Bono
reassuring him of the patriotism, the loyalty and the fighting ardour
of the Third Battalion and, of course, on their return the cyclists
could carry blocks of ice from the casino packed in salt and straw and
stowed in the sidecars.
The following morning, the Count had recovered much of his good cheer.
He rose early at nine " O clock and took a hearty alfresco breakfast
with his officers under the shade of a spread tarpaulin and then, from
the rear seat of the Rolls, he gave a clenched fist cavalry order to
advance.
Still in the centre of the column, pennants fluttering and battle
standard glittering, the Rolls glided forward and it looked, even to
the disillusioned Major, as if they might make good going of the day's
march.
The undulating grassland fell away almost imperceptibly beneath the
speeding wheels, and the blue loom of the mountains on their right hand
merged gradually with the lighter fiercer blue of the sky. The
transition to desert country was so gradual as to lull the unobservant
traveller.
The intervals between the flat-topped acacia trees became greater and
the trees themselves were more stunted, more twisted and spiky, as they
progressed, until at last they ceased and the bushes of spino
Cristi replaced them grey and low and viciously thor ned The earth was
parched and crumbled, dotted with clumps of camel grass and the horizon
was unbroken, enclosing them entirely. The land itself was so flat and
featureless that it gave the illusion of being saucer-shaped, as though
the rim of the land rose slightly to meet the sky.
Through this wilderness, the road was slashed like the claw mark of a
predator into the fleshy red soil. The tracks were so deeply rutted
that the middle hump constantly brushed the chassis of the
Rolls, and a mist of fine red dust stood in the heated air long after
the column had passed.
The Colonel was bored and uncomfortable. It was becoming increasingly
clear, even to the Count, that the wilderness harboured no hostile
horde, and his courage and impatience returned.
"Drive to the head of the column," he instructed Giuseppe, and the
Rolls pulled out and sped past the leading trucks, the Count bestowing
a cheery salute on Castelani as he left him glowering and muttering
behind him.
When Castelani caught up with him again, two hours later, the
Count was standing on the burnished bonnet of the Rolls staring through
his binoculars at the horizon and doing an excited little dance while
he urged Gino to make haste in unpacking the special Mantilicher 9.3
men sporting rifle from its leather case. The weapon was of seasoned
walnut, butt and stock, and the blued steel was inlaid with
twenty-four-carat gold hunting scenes of the chase boar and stag,
huntsmen on horseback and hounds in full cry. It was a masterpiece of
the gunsmith's art.
Without lowering the binoculars, he gave orders to Castelani to erect
the radio aerial and send a message of good cheer and enthusiasm to
General De Bono, to report the magnificent progress made by the
battalion to date and assure him that they would soon command all the
approaches to the Sardi Gorge. The Major should also put the column
into laager and set up the ice machine while the Colonel undertook a
reconnaissance patrol in the direction in which he was now staring so
intently.
The group of big dun-coloured animals he was watching were a mile off
and moving steadily away into the mirage-fevered distance, but their
gracefully straight horns showed dark and lo the against the distant
sky.
Gino had the loaded Mannlicher in the rear seat and the Count jumped
down into the passenger seat beside the driver. Standing holding the
windshield with one hand, he gave his officers the Fascist salute, and
the Rolls roared forward, left the road and careered away,
weaving amongst the thorn scrub and bounding over the rough ground in
pursuit of the distant herd.
The beisa oryx is a large and beautiful desert antelope.
There were eight of them in the herd and with their sharp eyesight they
were in flight before the Rolls had approached within three-quarters of
a mile.
They ran lightly over the rough ground, their pale beige hides blending
cunningly with the soft colours of the desert, but the long wicked
black horns rode proudly as any battle standard.
The Rolls gained steadily on the running herd, with the Count
hysterically urging his driver to greater speed, ignoring the thorn
branches that scored the flawless sides of the big blue machine as it
passed. Hunting was one of the Count's many pleasures. Boar and stag
were specially bred on his estates, but this was the first large game
he had encountered since his arrival in Africa. The herd was strung
out, two old bulls leading, plunging ahead with a light rocking-horse
gait, while the cows and two younger males trailed them.
The bouncing, roaring machine drew level with the last animal and ran
alongside at a range of twenty yards. The galloping oryx did not turn
its head but ran on doggedly after its stronger companions.
"Halt," shrieked the Count, and the driver stood on his brakes,
the car broadsiding to rest in a billowing cloud of dust. The Count
tumbled out of the open door and threw up the Mannlicher. The barrel
kicked up and the shots crashed out. The first was a touch high and it
threw a puff of dust off the earth far beyond the running animal the
second slapped into the pale fur in front of the shoulder and the young
oryx somersaulted over its broken neck and went down in a clumsy tangle
of limbs.
"Onwards!" shouted the Count, leaping aboard the Rolls as it roared
away once again. The herd was already far ahead but inexorably the
Rolls closed the gap and at last drew level. Again the ringing crack
of rifle-fire and the sliding, tumbling fall of a heavy pale body.
Like a paper chase, they left the wasteland littered with the pale
bodies until only one old bull ran on alone. And he was cunning,
swinging away westward into the broken ground for which he clearly
headed at the outset of the chase.
It was hours and many miles later when the Count lost all patience. On
the lip of another wadi he stopped the Rolls and ordered Gino,
protesting volubly, to stand at attention and offer his shoulder as a
dead-rest for the Marmlicher.
The beisa had slowed now to an exhausted trot, but the range was six
hundred yards as the Count sighted across the intervening scrub and
through heat-dancing air that swirled like gelatinous liquid.
The rifle-fire cracked the desert silences and the antelope kept
trotting steadily away, while the Count shrieked abuse at it and
crammed a fresh load of brass cartridges into the magazine.
The animal was almost beyond effective range now, but the next bullet
fired with the rear sight at maximum elevation fell in a long arcing
trajectory and they heard the thump of the strike, long after the beisa
had collapsed abruptly and disappeared below the line of grey scrub.
When they had found another crossing and forced the
, Rolls through the deep ravine, scraping the rear fender and denting
one of the big silver wheel-hubs, they came up to the spot where the
antelope lay on its side. Leaving the rifle on the back seat in his
eagerness, the Count leapt out before the Rolls had stopped completely.
-Get one of me completing the coup de grace," he shouted at Gino,
as he unholstered the ivory-handled Beretta and ran to the downed
animal.
The soft bullet had shattered the spinal column a few inches forward of
the pelvis, paralysing the hindquarters, and the blood pumped gently
from the wound in a bright rivulet down the pale beige flank.
The Count posed dramatically, pointing the pistol at the magnificently
horned head with its elaborate face-mask of dark chocolate stripes.
Near by, Gino knelt in the soft earth focusing the camera.
At the critical moment, the antelope heaved itself up into a sitting
position and stared with swimming agonized eyes into the
Count's face. The beisa is one of the most aggressive antelopes in
Africa, capable of killing even a fully grown lion with its long rapier
horns. This old bull weighed 450 lb. and stood four feet high at the
shoulder while the horns rose another three feet above that.
The beisa snorted, and the Count forgot all about the levelled pistol
in his hand in his sudden desperate desire to reach the safety of the
Rolls.
Leading the beisa by six inches, he vaulted lightly into the back seat
and crouched on the floorboards, covering his head with both arms while
the beisa battered the sides of the Rolls, driving in one door and
ripping the paintwork with the deadly horns.
Gino was trying to disappear into the earth by sheer pressure, and he
was making a pitiful wailing sound. The driver had stalled the engine,
and he sat frozen in his seat and every time the beisa crashed into the
Rolls, he was thrown so violently forward that his forehead struck the
windshield, and he pleaded, "Shoot it, my Count. Please, my
Count, shoot the monster." The Count's posterior was pointed to the
sky. It was the only part of his anatomy that was visible above the
rear seat of the Rolls and he was shrieking for somebody to hand him
the rifle, but not raising his head to search for it.
The bullet that had severed the beisa's spine had angled forward and
pierced the lung as well. The violent exertions of the stricken animal
tore open a large artery and, with a pitiful bellow and a sudden double
spurt of blood through the nostrils, it collapsed.
In the long silence that followed, the Count's pale face rose slowly
above the level of the back door and he stared fearfully at the
carcass. Its stillness reassured him. Cautiously, he groped for the
Marinlicher, lifted it slowly and poured a stream of bullets into the
inert beisa. His hands were shaking so violently that some of the
shots missed the body and came perilously close to where Gino still
lay, producing a fresh outburst of wails and more mole-like efforts to
become subterranean.
Satisfied that the beisa was at last dead, the Count descended and
walked slowly towards a nearby clump of thorn scrub, but his gait was
bow-legged and stiff, for he had lightly soiled his magnificently
monogrammed silk underwear.
In the cool of the evening, the slightly crumpled Rolls returned to the
battalion bivouac. Draped over the bonnet and across the wide
mudguards lay the bleeding carcasses of the antelopes. The Count stood
to acknowledge the cheers of his troops, a veritable triumphant
Nimrod.
A radio message from General De Bono awaited him. It was not a
reprimand, the General would not go that far, but it pointed out that
although the General was grateful for the Count's efforts up to the
present time, and for his fine sentiments and loyal messages,
nevertheless the General would be very grateful if the Count could find
some way in which to speed up his advance.
The Count sent him a five-hundred-word reply ending, "Ours is the
Victory," and then went to feast on barbecued antelope livers and iced
chianti with his officers.
Leaving the sailing and handling of the HirondeUe to his
Mohammedan mate and his raggedy crew, Captain Papadopoulos had spent
the preceding five days sitting at the table in his low-roofed poop
cabin playing two-handed gin rummy with Major Gareth Swales. Gareth
had suggested the diversion and it had occurred to the Captain by this
time that there was something unnatural in the consistent run of
winning cards which had distinguished Gareth's play.
The agreed fare for transporting the cars and the four passengers had
totalled two hundred and fifty of sterling.
The Captain's losses had just exceeded that figure, and Gareth smiled
winningly at Papadopoulos and smoothed the golden moustaches.
"What do you say we give it a break now, Papa old sport, go up on deck
and stretch the legs, what?" Having recovered the passage money,
Gareth had accomplished the task he had set himself, and he was now
anxious to return to the open deck where Vicky Camberwell and Jake were
becoming much too friendly for his peace of mind.
Every time Gareth had been forced by nature to make a brief journey to
the poop rail, he had seen the two of them together and they seemed to
be laughing a great deal, which was always a bad sign. Vicky was in
the forefront of any action,
passing tools to Jake and offering general encouragement, as he worked
at fine-tuning the cars and making last minute preparations for the
desert crossing or the two of them sat with Gregorius while amidst
great hilarity he gave them basic lessons in the Amharic language. He
wondered distractedly what else they were up to.
However, Gareth was a man sure of his priorities and his first concern
was to recover his money from Papadopoulos.
Having done so, he could now return to sheep-dogging Vicky
Camberwell.
"It's been a lot of fun, Papa." He half rose from the table,
folding the grimy wad of banknotes into his back pocket and gathering
the pile of coins with his free hand.
Captain Papadopoulos reached into the depths of the Arabic gown he wore
and produced a knife with an ornately carved handle and a viciously
curved blade. He balanced it lightly in the palm of his hand and his
single eye glittered coldly at Gareth.
"Deal!" he said, and Gareth smiled blandly and sank back into his
seat. He picked up the cards and cut them with a ripping sound and the
knife disappeared into Papadopoulos's gown once more as he watched the
shuffle intently.
"Actually, I do feel like a few more hands," Gareth murmured.
"Just getting warmed up, hey?" The slaver altered course as she
cleared the tip of the great horn of Africa and rounded Cape Guardafui.
Before her lay the long gut of the Gulf of Aden and a run of five