Текст книги "Cry Wolf"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

Соавторы: Wilbur Smith
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man's eyes, the Italian sentries peering over their parapets saw a wall

of humanity swarming out of the dark and broken ground, and heard the

rising hubbub of hundreds of excited voices.

When the drumming had begun, many of the black shirts were huddled

below the firing step of their trenches, swaddled in their greatcoats

and sleeping the exhausted sleep of men who had travelled all the

previous day, and worked all the night.

The non-commissioned officers kicked and pulled them to their feet, and

shoved them to their positions along the parapet. From here they

peered, befuddled with sleep, down into the valley.

With the exception of Luigi Castelani, not a single man in the Third

Battalion had ever faced an armed enemy, and now after an infinity of

nerve-tearing waiting, at last the experience was upon them in the dark

before the dawn when a man's vitality is at its lowest ebb.

Their bodies were chilled and their brains unclear. In the uncertain

light, the mob that poured into the valley was as numerous as the sands

of the desert, each figure as large as a giant and as ferocious as a

marauding lion.

It was in this moment that Colonel Aldo Belli, panting with exertion

and nervous strain, stepped out of the narrow communication trench on

to the firing platform of the forward line of emplacements. The

Sergeant in command of the trench recognized him instantly and let out

a cry of relief.

"my Colonel, thank God you have come." And forgetful of rank and

position he seized the Count's arm. Aldo Belli was so busy trying to

fight off the man's sweaty and importunate clutches that it was some

seconds before he actually glanced down into the darkened valley then

his bowels turned to jelly and his legs seemed to buckle under him.

"Merciful Mother of God," he wailed. "All is lost. They are upon us.

With clumsy fingers he unbuckled the flap of his holster and as he fell

to his knees he drew the pistol.

"Fire!" he screamed. "Open fire!" And crouching down well below the

level of the parapet, he emptied the Beretta straight upwards into the

dawn sky.

Manning the Italian parapets were over four hundred combatants; of

these over three hundred and fifty were riflemen, armed with

magazine-loaded bolt-action weapons, while another sixty men in teams

of five serviced the cunningly placed machine guns.

Every man of this force had endured grinding nervous strain, listening

to the war drums and now confronted by a sweeping mob of threatening

figures. They crouched like dark statues behind their weapons, fingers

curled stiffly around the triggers, and squinted over the open sights

of rifle and machine gun.

The Count's-shriek of command and the crackle of the pistol shots were

all that was necessary to snap the paralysing bonds of fear that held

them. The firing was started around Aldo Belli's position, by men

close enough to hear his command. A long line of muzzle flashes

bloomed and twinkled along the forward slope of the valley, and three

machine guns opened with them. The tearing sound of their long

traversing bursts drowned out the crackle of musketry and their tracer

flickered and flew in long white arcs out across the valley to bury

itself in the dark moving blot of humanity.

Taken in the flank, the mob broke and surged away towards the dark

silence of the far slope of the valley, away from the sheets of bright

white tracer and the red rows of rifle fire. Leaving their dead and

wounded scattered behind them, they spread like ispilled oil across the

valley floor.

The silent gunners on the far slope saw them coming, held their fire

for a few more confused panic-soured moments, and then, seeing

themselves threatened, they opened also. The delay had the effect of

allowing the survivors of the first volley to race deeply into the

fields of overlapping fire that Castelani had so cleverly planned.

Caught in the open ground, hemmed in by a murderous storm of fire, the

forward movement of the mob broke down, and they milled aimlessly, the

women shrieking and clutching at their children, the children darting

and doubling like a shoal of fish trapped in a tidal pool, some of the

warriors kneeling in the open and beginning at last to return fire.

The red flashes of the black powder were long and dull and smoky and

ineffectual against men in entrenched positions; they served only to

intensify the ferocity of the Italian attack.

Now the surge of uncontrolled, panic-stricken humanity slowed and

eventually ceased. The unarmed women who still survived gathered their

children and covered them with their robes, crouching down over them as

a mother hen does with her chicks, and the men crouched also, firing

blindly and wildly up the slopes of the valley at the muzzle flashes

that were fading now as the sun rose and the light strengthened.

Twelve machine guns, each firing almost seven hundred rounds a minute,

and three hundred and fifty rifles poured a sheet of bullets down into

the valley. Minute after minute the firing continued, and slowly the

light strengthened, unmercifully exposing the survivors in the valley

below.

The mood of the attackers changed. From panicky, nervously strung out

green militia, they were transformed.

The almost drunken elation of victorious attackers gripped them, they

were laughing triumphantly now as they served the guns. Their eyes

bright with the blood lust of the predator, the knowledge that they

could kill without retribution made them bold and cruel.

The miserable popping and flashing of ancient muskets in the valley

below them was so feeble, so lacking in menace, that not a man amongst

them was still afraid. Even Count Aldo Belli was now on his feet,

brandishing his pistol and shouting with a high, girlish hysteria.

"Death to the enemy! Fire! Keep firing!" and cautiously he lifted

his head another inch above the parapet. "Kill them! Ours is the

victory!" The valley floor, as the first rays of sunlight touched it,

was covered with thick swathes of the dead and maimed.

They lay scattered singly, piled in clumps like mounds of old clothing

in a flea market, thrown haphazardly on the coal pale sandy earth or

arranged in neat patterns like fish on the slab.

In the centre of the killing-ground, there was still life movement.

Here and there a figure might leap up and run with robes flapping, and

immediately the machine guns would follow it, quick stabbing spouts of

dust closing swiftly until they met and held on the running figure,

when it would collapse and roll on the sandy earth.

The warriors who still crouched over their ancient rifles, with their

dark faces lifted to the slopes, were now providing good practice for

the riflemen above them. The Italian officers" voices, high-pitched

and excited, called down fire upon them, and swiftly each of these

defiants was hit by carefully aimed fire and fell, some of them kicking

and twitching.

The firing had lasted almost twenty minutes now, and there were few

targets still on offer. The machine guns traversed expectantly, firing

short bursts into the heaped carcasses, shattering already mutilated

flesh, or tore clouds of dust and flying shale from the rounded lips of

the deep water holes, from the cover of which a sporadic fire still

popped and crackled.

"My Colonel. "Castelani touched Aldo Belli's arm to gain his

attention, and at last he turned wild-eyed and elated to his Major.

"Ha, Castelani, what a victory what a great victory, hey? They will

not doubt our valour now."

"Colonel, shall I order the cease fire?" and the Count seemed not to

hear him.

"They will know now what kind of soldier I am. This brilliant victory

will win for me a place in the halls-2

"Colonel! Colonel! We must cease fire now. This is a slaughter.

Order the cease fire." Aldo Belli stared at him, his face beginning to

flush with outrage.

"You crazy fool," he shouted. "The battle must be decisive, crushing!

We will not cease now not until the victory is ours." He was

stuttering wildly and his hand shook as he pointed down into the bloody

shambles of the valley.

"The enemy have taken cover in the water holes, they must be flushed

out and destroyed. Mortars, Castelani, bomb them out." Aldo Belli did

not want it to end. It was the most deeply satisfying experience of

his life. If this was war, he knew at last why the sages and the poets

had invested it with such In glory. This was man's work, and Aldo

Belli knew himself born to it.

"Do you question my orders?" he shrieked at Castelani.

"a) your duty, immediately."

"Immediately," Castelani repeated bitterly, and for a moment longer

stared stonily into the Count's eyes before he turned away.

The first mortar bomb climbed high into the clear desert dawn, before

arcing over and dropping vertically down into the valley. It burst on

the lip of the nearest well. It kicked up a brief column of dust and

smoke, and the shrapnel whinnied shrilly. The second bomb fell

squarely into the deep circular pit, bursting out of sight below ground

level.

Mud and smoke gushed upwards, and out of the water hole into the open

ground crawled and staggered three scarecrow figures with their

tattered and dirty robes fluttering like flags of truce.

Instantly the rifle fire and machine-gun fire burst over them, and the

earth around them whipped by the bullets seemed to liquefy into a

cascade of flying dust, into which they tumbled and at last lay

still.

Aldo Belli let out a hoot of excitement. It was so easy and so deeply

satisfying. "The other holes, Castelani!" he screamed. "Clean them

out! All of them!" Concentrating their fire on one hole at a time,

the mortars ranged in swiftly. Some of the holes were deserted, but at

most of them the slaughter was continued. A few survivors of the

shimmering bursts of shrapnel staggered out into the open to be cut

down swiftly by the waiting machine guns.

The Count was by now so emboldened that he climbed up on the parapet,

the better to view the field and watch the mortars fire on the

remaining holes, and to direct his machine gunners.

The hole nearest the wadis and broken ground at the head of the valley

was the next target, and the first bomb was over, crumping in a tall

jump of dust and pale flame.

Before the next bomb fell, a woman jumped up over the lip and tried to

reach the mouth of the wadi. Behind her she dragged a child of two or

three years, a naked toddler with fat little bow legs and a belly like

a brown ball. He could not keep up with the mother and lost his

footing, so she dragged him wailing along the sandy earth. Straddling

her hip and clutched with desperate strength to her breast was another

younger infant, also naked, also wailing and kicking frantically.

For several seconds, the running, heavily burdened woman drew no fire,

and then a burst from a machine gun fell about her and a bullet struck

and severed the arm by which she held the child. She staggered in a

circle, shrieking dementedly and waving the stump of the arm like the

spout of a garden hose. The next burst smashed through her chest, the

same bullets shattering the body of the infant on her hip, and she fell

and rolled like a rabbit hit by a shotgun.

The guns fell silent again and remained silent while the naked toddler

stood up uncertainly.

He began to wail again, standing solidly at last on the fat dimpled

legs, a string of blue beads around the tightly bulging belly and his

penis sticking out like a tiny brown finger.

From the mouth of the wadi emerged a running horse, a rawboned and

rangy white stallion galloping heavily over the sandy ground with a

frail boyish figure lying low along its neck, a black sham ma flying

out wildly behind. The rider drove the stallion on towards where the

child stood weeping, and had almost covered the open ground before the

gunners realized what was happening.

The first machine gun traversed on the galloping animal, but this

lead-off was stiff and the bullets kicked dust slightly high and

behind. Then the horse reached the child and the rider reined in

sharply, sending it rearing on its hind quarters, and the rider swung

down to make the pick-up.

At that moment, two other machine guns opened up on the stationary

target.

Jake Barton realized that there was only one way To prevent a

confrontation between the Italian force which had appeared so silently

and menacingly at the wells and the undisciplined mob of warriors and

camp followers of the Ras's entourage. there was no chance that he

could make himself heard in the hubbub of anxiously raised voices and

emotional outbursts of Amharic as the Ras tried to make his view heard

above the attempts of fifty of his chieftains and captains to do

exactly the same thing.

Jake needed an interpreter and he thrust his way towards Gregorius

Maryam, grabbed him firmly by the arm and dragged him out of the cave.

It needed considerable force, for Gregorius was as intent as everybody

else in having his views and suggestions aired.

Jake was surprised to find how light it was outside the caves, and that

the night had passed so swiftly. Dawn was only minutes away, and the

dry desert air was sweet and heady after the crowded cave with its

smoking fires.

In the light of the camp fires and the pale sky, he saw the mob

streaming away down the wadi towards the wells, as happily excited as

the crowds at a fairground.

"Stop them, Greg," he shouted. "Come on, we've got to stop them," and

the two of them ran forward.

"What is it, Jake?"

"We've got to stop them running into the Eyetie camp."

"Why?"

"If somebody starts shooting, there will be a massacre." BUt we are

not at war, Jake. They can't shoot."

"Don't bet on it, buddy boy," grunted Jake grimly, and his alarm was

contagious. Side by side, they caught up with the straggling rear of

the column and elbowed and kicked their way through it.

"Back, you bastards," roared Jake. "Get back, all of you, and made the

meaning clear with flying fists and feet.

With Gregorius beside him, Jake reached the narrow mouth of the wadi

where it debauched into the saucer shaped valley of the wells. Like

the wall of a dam the two of them linked arms and managed to hold the

flood of humanity there for a minute or so, but the pressure from those

straining forward from the rear threatened to sweep them away, while

the mood changed from high-spirited "curiosity to angry resentment at

this check upon their efforts to join the hundreds of their comrades

who had already passed out of the wadi and were streaming out across

the open valley.

At the moment when they were swept aside, the firing began out there

upon the slopes of the valley and instantly the mob froze and their

voices died away. There was no further forward movement, and Jake

turned and scrambled up the steep side of the wadi for a better view

out into the valley.

From there he watched the slaughter that turned the va ley into a

charnel house. He watched with a sick fascination that changed slowly,

as minute after minute the guns continued their clamour. He felt it

become anger and outrage that outweighed all else, so that he was

hardly aware of the slim cold hand that sought his, and he glanced down

only for an instant at Vicky's golden head at his shoulder, before

turning his entire concentration back to the dreadful tragedy being

played out before them.

Vaguely he was aware that Vicky was sobbing beside him, and that she

had gripped his hand so tightly that the nails were driven deep into

his palm. Yet even in his dreadful anger, Jake was studying the ground

and marking the Italian positions. On his other hand, Gregorius Maryam

was praying softly, his smooth young face turned to a muddy grey with

horror and the words of the prayer forced between tight lips like the

last breaths of a dying man.

"Oh God," whispered Vicky in a tight, choked voice, as the mortar

bombing began, dropping relentlessly into the depressions where the

survivors huddled for shelter. "Oh God, Jake, what can we do?" But he

did not answer and it went on and on. They were caught in the

nightmare of it, powerless in the grip of this horror watching the

mortars continue the hunt, until the woman with her two infants burst

out into the open not three hundred yards ahead of them.

"Oh God, oh please Jesus," whispered Vicky. "Please don't let it

happen. Please make it stop now." The guns hunted the woman and they

watched her die, and the child rise to its feet and stand lost and

bewildered beside the mother's corpse. The thud of galloping hooves

sounded in the wadi below them and Gregorius swung around and cried,

"Sara! No!" as the girl rode out, crouched low over the stallion's

neck. She rode bare-backed, a tiny dark figure on the big white

animal.

"Sara!" Gregorius cried again, and would have followed her, running

out alone into that deadly plain, but Jake grabbed his arm and held him

easily, though he struggled and cried out again in Amharic.

The girl rode on unscathed through the storm of fire, and Vicky's

breathing stopped as she watched. It was impossible that Sara could

reach the child and return. It was stupid, so stupid as to make her

anger leap even higher and yet there was something so moving about that

frail beautiful child riding out to her death, that it filled Vicky

with a sense of her own inadequacy, a sense of great humility for even

in this proud moment, she was aware that she was incapable of such

sacrifice.

She watched the stallion rear, and the girl lean out to gather the

small brown infant, saw the machine guns find their target at last, and

the stallion whinnied and went down in a tangle of flailing hooves,

pinning both the girl and the child, while the bullets continued to

spurt dust and slap loudly against the still kicking body of the

stallion.

Gregorius was still struggling and blab bering his horror, and Jake

turned and struck him an open-handed blow across the face.

"Stop that!" Jake snarled, his own anger and outrage making him

brutal. "Anybody who goes out there is going to get his arse shot

off." The blow seemed to steady Gregorius.

"We have got to get her, Jake. Please, Jake. Let me fetch her."

"We'll do it my way," snapped Jake. His face seemed carved from hard

brown stone, but his eyes were ferocious and his jaws clamped closed

with his anger. Roughly he shoved Gregorius ahead of him down into the

wadi, and he dragged Vicky after him. She tried to resist, leaning

back against his strength, her head turned towards the plain, and her

reluctant feet sliding in the loose earth.

"Jake, what are you doing?" she protested, but he ignored her.

"We'll mount the guns. It won't take long." He was planning through

his rage, as he dragged them back along the wadi to where the cars were

parked beyond the caves.

Vicky and Gregoflus were helpless in the ferocity of his grip, swept

along by his strength and his anger.

"Vicky, you will drive for me. I'll serve the gun," he told her.

"Greg, you drive for Gareth." Jake's breathing was shallow and fast

with his rage. "We can only man two cars, one we will use as a

diversion you and Gareth swing south along the back of the ridge and

that will keep them busy while Vicky and I pick up Sara and as many of

the others as we can find alive." The two of them listened to him, and

were swept forward with a fresh urgency. As they ran back along the

wadi, a final brief storm of machine-gun fire and exploding mortar bomb

preceded the deep aching silence which now fell over the desert.

The three of them turned the final bend in the course of the wadi and

came upon a scene of utter pandemonium.

The ravine was filled solidly with those who had escaped the Italian

fire struggling to load their possessions, their tents and bedding,

their chickens and children, on to the panicky bellowing camels and the

skittering braying mules and donkeys.

Already hundreds of riders were galloping away, climbing the sides of

the wadi or disappearing into the labyrinth of broken ground. New

widows wailed in the uproar and their grief was catching, the children

shrieked, and whimpered in sympathy, and over it all hung a blue miasma

of smoke from the cooking fires and dust from the trampling hooves and

milling feet.

The four cars stood in their solid orderly rank, aloof from the masses

of humanity, gleaming in their coats of white paint with the vivid red

crosses emblazoned upon their sides.

Jake pushed a way through for them, towering head and shoulders above

the throng, and when they reached the nearest car Jake grasped Vicky

about the waist and swung her easily up into the sponson. For a moment

his expression softened.

"You don't have to come," he said. "I guess I went a little mad then,

you don't have to drive Gareth and I will take one car." Her face was

deathly pale also, and there were deep bruised smears under her eyes

from a night without sleep and the horrors of the slaughter. Her tears

had dried, leaving dirty smears down her cheeks, but she shook her head

fiercely.

"I'm coming," she said. "I'll drive for you."

"Good girl," said Jake. "Help Gregorius top up. We will need full

fuel tanks. I'll get the Vickers." He turned away, shouting to

Gregorius. "We'll use Miss Wobbly and Tenastelin Vicky will help you

refuel." A detail from the Ras's personal bodyguard were already

bringing the wooden cases of weapons and munitions out of the storage

cave as Jake arrived. Each case was carried between four straining

troopers to where the camels knelt.

It was then lifted into the pannier on each side of the hump and

hastily lashed down.

"Hey, you lot." Jake came up with a group carrying a crated Vickers.

"Bring that along this way." They paused in understanding until Jake

made unmistakable signs, but at that moment a captain of the guard

hurried up to intervene. After one shouted exchange Jake realized that

the language barrier was insurmountable. The man was obstinate and

time was wasting.

"Sorry, friend," he apologized. "But I am in a bit of a hurry," and he

hit him a roundhouse clout that ended the argument conclusively and

sent the man flying backwards into the outstretched arms of two of his

men.

"Come along." Jake pushed the guards with the crate towards where the

cars stood. The thought of Sara lying out there in the valley was

driving him frantic. He imagined her bleeding slowly to death, her

bright young blood draining away into the sandy soil and he hustled the

two men forward through the press of animals and human beings.

As he came up, Gregorius was swinging the crank handle on Miss Wobbly

and the engine caught and ran smoothly as Vicky eased back the

ignition.

"Where is Gareth? "Jake shouted.

"Can't find him," answered Gregorius. "We'll have to go in one car,"

and then both of them swung round at the familiar bantering laugh.

Gareth Swales was leaning nonchalantly against the side of the car,

looking as unruffled and calm as ever, his hair neatly combed and the

tweed suit as immaculate as if it had just come from his tailor.

"say," smiled Gareth, crinkling his eyes against the drift of blue

smoke from the cheroot between his lips. "Big Jake Barton and his two

eager ducklings about to take on the entire Italian army." Vicky's

head appeared in the driver's hatch.

"We've been looking for you," she shouted furiously.

"Ah," quoth Gareth lightly. "We will now hear from the Girl Guides

Association."

"Sara is out there." Gregorius ran to Gareth. "We are going to fetch

her. You and I will take the one car, Vicky and Jake the other."

"Nobody is going anywhere." Gareth shook his head, and Gregorius

seized the lapels of his suit and shook them urgently. "Sara. You

don't understand she's out there! We have to fetch her." say, old

lad, would you mind unhanding me, "murmured Gareth and removed

Gregorius" hands from his lapel. "Yes.

We know about Sara, but–2 Vicky yelled from the driver's hatch.

"Leave, him, Gregorius. We don't need anyone who is afraid-" and

Gareth straightened up abruptly, his expression grim and his eyes

snapping.

"I have been called many things in my life, my dear young lady. Some

of them justified, but nobody has ever called me a coward."

"Well, there is always a first time, buster," shouted Vicky, her face

crimson with anger and streaked with dirt, her blonde hair ruffled and

hanging into her eyes and she pointed one quivering finger at Gareth,

"and for you this is that first time!" They stared at each other for a

moment longer before Lij Mikhael strode between them, his dark face set

but commanding.

"Major Swales is acting on my express orders, Miss Camberwell. I have

ordered that the cars and all my father's troops will fall back

immediately."

"Good God, man." Vicky transferred her anger from Gareth to the

Prince. "That's your daughter lying out there."

"Yes," said the Prince softly. "My daughter on the one hand my country

on the other.

There is no doubt which I must choose."

"You're not making sense, "Jake interposed roughly.

"I think I am." The Prince turned to him and Jake saw the dark torment

in the man's eyes. "I cannot make a hostile move, it's what the

Italians are seeking. An excuse to attack in full strength. We must

turn the other cheek now, and use this atrocity to win world

support."

"But Sara," Vicky interrupted. "We could pick her up in a minute."

"No." The Prince lifted his chin. "I cannot show the , enemy these

new weapons of ours. They must remain hidden until the time is right

to strike."

"Sara, cried Gregorius. "What of Sara?" "When these machines and the

new guns are safely on their way back to the Sardi Gorge, I shall ride

out myself to fetch her body," said the Prince with a simple dignity.

"But until then my duty must come first."

"One car," pleaded Gregorius. "For Sara's sake."

"No, I cannot use even one car," said the Prince.

"Well, I can," snapped Vicky and her tousled golden head disappeared

into the driver's hatch, the engine roared and Miss Wobbly shot forward

scattering men and animals before her, and swung in a tight sliding

right-hand turn towards the course of the wadi.

Unarmed and alone, Vicky Camberwell was going out to face the machine

guns and the mortars, and only one man amongst them acted swiftly

enough.

Jake shouldered the Prince aside and sprinted across the circle of the

car's turn, coming alongside a moment before it plunged into the narrow

ravine. He got a grip on one of the welded brackets abaft the engine

cowling, and although his shoulder joint was almost wrenched from its

socket, he swung himself up and fell belly down across the sponson.

Clinging grimly on to the leaping, jouncing vehicle, he dragged himself

forward until he could peer down the driver's hatch.

"Are you crazy?" he bellowed, and Vicky looked up and gave him a

fleeting but angelic grin.

"Yes. How about you?"A heavier impact came up through the chassis of

the car and momentarily drove Jake's breath from him so he could not

answer. Instead, he clawed his way up the side of the turret, almost

losing four fingers as the loose hatch cover slammed closed at another

leap of the car.

Using all his strength, Jake lifted it again, and secured the retaining

catch before he scrambled down into the cab.

He was only just in time, for at that moment Vicky drove the car at

full throttle out into the valley.

The sun was clear of the horizon now, smearing long dark shadows across

the golden sands. Dust and smoke from the mortar barrage still drifted

in a stately brown cloud over the ridge, and the bodies of the dead

were thrown at random across the bare plain. The women's dresses made

bright splashes of colour against the monochrome of the desert.

Jake swept a swift glance around the ridge that commanded the plain,

and saw that many of the Italian troopers had left their trenches. They

wandered in small groups around the edges of the slaughter ground, and

their movements were awed and timid green troops still not hardened to

the reality of open wounds and twisted corpses.

They froze in attitudes of surprise as the car burst out of the wadi,

and flew on usty wings towards the nearest waterhole. It took many

seconds for them to move, and then they turned and pelted for their

earthworks, tiny figures in dark uniforms with legs and arms pumping in

frantic haste.

"Turn broadside," yelled Jake. "Show them the crosses!" and Vicky

reacted swiftly, swinging the car into a tight lefthander that had her

up on two wheels, sliding broadside in the sand, displaying to the

Italians the huge scarlet crosses on the hull.

"Let me have your shirt," Jake yelled again. It was the only white

cloth they had with them. "I need a flag of truce!"

"It's all I have on," Vicky shrieked back. "I'm bare underneath."

"You want to be modest and dead?" howled Jake. "They'll start

shooting any moment now." And she steered with one hand as she

unbuttoned her shirt front and leaned forward in the seat to yank the

tails out of her skirt. She shrugged out of it and reached up into the

turret to hand him the bundled shirt. Each time they hit another bump,

Vicky's breasts bounced like rubber balls, a sight that distracted Jake

for a hundredth part of a second before chivalry and duty recalled him

and he stood high in the turret, arms stretched above his head,

streaming the white shirt like a flag, balancing with a sailor's legs

against the wild antics of the car.

To the hundreds of men who lined the parapet of the Italian trenches

Jake displayed two emotive symbols, the red cross and the white flag,

symbols so powerful that even men in the white-hot must of the blood

lust hesitated with their fingers still curled about the triggers of

the machine guns.

"It's working," shrieked Vicky, and swung the car on to its original

heading, almost throwing Jake from his precarious roost in the turret.

He dropped the shirt and clutched wildly at the coamings of the turret,

the shirt floating away like a white egret on the wing.

"There she is," Vicky cried again. The carcass of the white stallion

lay dead ahead, as she braked hard and then pulled the car to a

standstill beside it, interposing the armoured body of the car between

the pile of bodies and the watching Italians on the ridge.