Текст книги "Cry Wolf"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

Соавторы: Wilbur Smith
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enemy as soon as they advance beyond the caves of Chaldi. It will be

made by all the horsemen of both Harari and Galla, and led by two

armoured cars. The infantry, the Vickers guns and one armoured car

will be held in reserve here at the Sardi Gorge."

"What about the crews for the cars?" asked Jake.

"You and I, Jake, in one car, and in the other car Major

Swales will be the driver and my grandfather will be the gunner."

"I

can't believe it's happening to me," groaned Gareth.

"That old bastard is stark raving bloody mad. He's a menace to himself

and everyone within a fifty-mile range."

"Including the

Italians," agreed Jake.

"It's all very well for you to grin like that you won't be locked up in

a tin can with a maniac. Gregorius, tell him-"

"No, Major

Swales." Gregorius shook his head, and his expression was remote and

frosty. "My grandfather has given his orders. I will not translate

your objections though if you insist I will give him an exact

translation of what you have just said about him."

"My dear chap."

Gareth held up his hands in a gesture of capitulation. "I count it an

honour to be selected by your grandfather and my remarks were made in

fun, I assure you. No offence, old chap, no offence at all." And he

watched helplessly, as the Ras picked up the pack of playing cards and

began to deal the next hand.

"I just hope the jolly old Eyeties get a move on. I can't afford much

more of this." Major Luigi Castelani saluted from the entrance of the

tent.

"As you ordered, my Colonel." Count Aldo Belli nodded to him in the

full-length mirror a brief acknowledgement before he switched his

attention back to his own image.

"Gino," he snapped. "Is that a mark on the toecap of my left boot?"

and the little sergeant dropped to his knees at the Count's feet and

breathed heavily on the boot, dulling the glossy surface before

polishing it lovingly with his own sleeve. The Count glanced up and

saw that Castelani still lingered in the entrance. His expression was

so lugubrious and doom-laden that the Count felt his anger return.

"Your face is enough to sour the wine, Castelani."

"The Count knows my misgivings."

"Indeed," he thundered. "I have heard nothing but your whines since I

gave my orders to advance."

"May I point out once more that those orders are in direct-"

"You may not. 11 Duce,

Benito Mussolini himself, has placed a sacred trust upon me. I will

not fail that trust."

"My Colonel, the enemy-"

"Bah!" Scorn flashed from the dark, heavily fringed eyes.

"Bah, I say. Enemy, you say savages, I say. Soldiers, you say rabble,

say U "As my Colonel wishes, but the armoured vehicle-"

"No!

Castelani, no! It was not an armoured vehicle, but an ambulance."

The

Count had truly convinced himself of this. "I will not let this moment

of destiny slip through my fingers. I refuse to creep about like a

frightened old woman.

It is not in my nature, Castelani, I am a man of action of direct

action. It is in my nature to spring like a leopard at the jugular

vein of my enemy. The time of talking is over now, Castelani.

The time for action is upon us."

"As my Colonel wishes."

"It is not what I wish, Castelani. It is what the gods of war decree,

and what I as a warrior must obey." There did not seem a reply to this

and the

Major stood silently aside as the Count swept out of the tent, with

chin upheld, and with a firm, deliberate tread.

astelani's strike force had been ready since dawn.

Fifty of the heavy troop transporters made up a single column, and he

had spent most of the night deliberating on the order of march.

His final disposition was to leave a full company in the fortified

position above the Wells of Chaldi, under the command of one of the

Count's young captains. All other troops had been included in the

flying column which was to drive hard on the gorge, seize the

approaches and fight its way up to the highlands.

In the van, Castelani had placed five truckloads of riflemen, and

immediately behind them were the machinegun sections, which he knew he

could bring into action within minutes. Another twenty truck-loads of

infantry followed them ten in the extreme rear. Under his eye and

hand, he had placed his field artillery.

In the event of the column running into real trouble, he was relying on

the infantry to buy him the precious time needed to unlimber and range

his Howitzers. Under their protective muzzles, he was mildly confident

that he could extricate the column from any predicament into which the

Count's newfound courage and vaunting visions of glory might lead them

mildly, but not entirely, confident.

Beside each stationary truck the driver and crew were sprawling on the

sandy earth, bareheaded, tunics unbuttoned and cigarettes lit.

Castelani threw back his head, inflated his lungs and let out a bellow

that seemed to echo against the clear high desert sky.

"Fall in!" and the sprawling figures scrambled into frenzied activity,

grabbing weapons and adjusting uniforms as they formed ragged ranks

beside each truck.

"My children," said Aldo Belli, as he began to pace down the line.

"My brave boys," and he looked at them, not really seeing the

mis-buttoned tunics, the stubble on their chins, nor the hastily

pinched-out cigarettes behind the ears. His vision was misted with

sentiment, his imagination dressed them in burnished breastplates and

horsetail plumes.

"You are thirsty for blood?" the Colonel asked, and threw back his

head and laughed a reckless carefree laugh. "I will give you buckets

of it," he said. "Today you will drink your fill. The men within

earshot shuffled their feet and glanced uneasily at each other. There

was a definite preference for Chianti amongst them.

The Count stopped before a thin rifleman, still in his teens, with a

dark shaggy mop of hair hanging out from under his helmet.

"Bambino," said the Count, and the youth hung his head and grinned in

sickly embarrassment. "We will make a warrior out of you today,"

and he embraced the boy, then held him off at arm's length and studied

his face. "Italy gives of her finest, none are too young or too noble

to be spared sacrifice on the altar of war." The boy's ingratiating

grin changed swiftly to real alarm. -Sing, bambino, sing!" cried the

Count, and himself opened "La

Giovinezza" in his soaring baritone while the youth quavered

uncertainly below him. The Count marched on, singing, and reached the

head of the column as the song ended. He nodded to Castelani, too

breathless to speak, and the Major let out another bull bellow.

"Mount up!" The formations of black-shirted troopers broke up into

confused activity as they hurried to the cumbersome trucks and climbed

aboard.

The Rolls-Royce stood in pride of place at the head of the column,

Giuseppe sitting ready at the wheel with Gino beside him, his camera at

the ready.

The engine was purring, the wide back seat packed with the Count's

personal gear sports rifle, shotgun, travelling rugs, picnic hamper,

straw wine carrier, binoculars, and ceremonial cloak.

The Count mounted with dignity and settled himself on the padded

leather. He looked at Castelani.

"Remember, Major, the essence of my strategy is speed and surprise. The

lightning blow, swift and merciless, delivered by the steel hand at the

enemy's heart." Sitting beside the driver in the rear truck of the

column, eating the dust of the forty-nine trucks ahead,

and already beginning to sweat freely in the oven heat of the steel

cab, Major Castelani inspected his watch.

"Mother of God," he growled. "It's past eleven o'clock.

We will have to move fast if we At that moment, the driver swore and

braked heavily, and before the truck had come to a halt, Castelani had

leapt out on to the running board and climbed high on to the roof of

the cab.

"What is it?"he shouted to the driver ahead.

"I do not know, Major," the man shouted back.

Ahead of them the entire column had come to a halt, and Castelani

braced himself for the sound of firing certain that they had run into

an ambush. There was confused shouting of question and comment from

the drivers and crews of the stranded convoy, as they climbed down and

peered ahead.

Castelani focused his binoculars, and at that moment the sound of

gunfire carried clearly across the desert spaces, and the swift order

to deploy his field guns was on Castelani's lips as he found the

Rolls-Royce in the lens of his binoculars.

The big automobile was out on the left flank, racing through the

scrubby grass, and in the back seat the count was braced with a shotgun

levelled over the driver's head.

Even as Castelani watched, a flock of plump brown francolin burst from

the grass ahead of the speeding Rolls, rising steeply on quick wide

wings. Long blue streamers of gunsmoke flew from the muzzles of the

shotgun, and two of the birds exploded in puffs of soft brown feathers,

while the survivors of the flock scattered away, and the

Rolls came to a halt in a skidding cloud of dust.

Castelani watched Gino, the little Sergeant, jump from the Rolls and

run to pick up the dead birds and carry them to the Count.

Torco Dio!" thundered the Major, as he watched the Count pose for the

camera, still standing in the rear of the Rolls, holding the dangling

feathered brown bodies and smiling proudly into the lens.

There was a rising feeling of despondency and alarm in the Ras's army.

Since the middle of the morning, through a day of scalding heat and

unrelenting boredom, they had waited.

The scouts had reported the first forward movement of the Italian force

at ten o'clock that morning, and immediately the Ras's forces had moved

forward into their carefully prepared positions.

Gareth Swales had spent days selecting the best possible ground in

which to meet the first Italian thrust, and each contingent of the

wild

Ethiopian cavalry had been carefully drilled and properly cautioned as

to the sequence of ambush and the necessity of maintaining strict

discipline.

The chosen field was situated between the horns of the mountains,

in the mouth of the funnel formed by the debouchment of the Sardi

Gorge. It was obvious that this was the only approach route open to

the Italians, and it was nearly twelve miles wide.

The attackers must be led in close to the southern horn of the funnel,

where the Vickers machine guns had been sited on the rocky slopes, and

where a minor water course had chiselled its way down to the plain. The

water course was dry now, and it meandered out into the plain for five

miles before vanishing, but it was deep and wide enough to conceal the

large contingents of Harari and Galla horsemen.

This mass of cavalry had been waiting all day, squatting beside their

mounts in the sugar-white sand of the river bed.

The two separate factions had been diplomatically separated. The

Harari were placed at the head of the trap, nearest the rocky slope of

the mountain with the Vickers gunners hidden on their flank in strong

posts amongst the rocks.

The Galla, under the scar-faced Gerazmach in the blue sham ma were

grouped farther out on the open plain at a point where the dry water

course turned sharply and angled out towards the grassland.

Here in the bend, the banks were still steep enough to conceal fifteen

hundred mounted men. These, with almost three thousand of the

Ras's own cavalry, formed a formidable offensive army especially if

thrown in unexpectedly against and unbalanced enemy. The mood of the

Ethiopians, ever sanguinary, was aggravated by the many hours of

enforced inactivity, crouching without cover from the blinding sun on a

white sand bed which reflected its rays like a mirror. The horses were

already distressed by the heat and lack of water while the men were

murderous.

Gareth Swales had contrived a net, using the natural wide curve of the

water course, into which he hoped to lure the Italian column. Two

miles farther out in the plain, beyond where he now stood on the turret

of the Hump, a fold of ground concealed the small band of mounted men

who were to provide the bait. They had been waiting there since the

scouts had first reported the Italian movement early that morning.

Like everybody else they must by this time be restless, bored and

thoroughly uncomfortable. Gareth wondered that this huge amorphous

body of undisciplined, independent, spirited hills men had so long

maintained cohesion. He would not have been surprised if by this stage

half of them had lost interest and had set off homewards.

The only person who was occupied and seemed happy enough was Jake

Barton, and Gareth lowered his binoculars and regarded what he could

see of him with irritation. The front upper half of that gentleman was

completely hidden within the engine compartment of Priscilla the Pig,

and only his legs and backside protruded. The muffled strains of

"Tiger Rag" whistled endlessly added to Gareth's irritation.

"How are you coming along there?" he called, merely to stop the music,

and Jake's tousled head emerged, one cheek smeared with black oil.

think I've found it," he said cheerfully. "A lump of muck in the

carb," and he wiped his hands on the lump of cotton waste that

Gregorius handed him. "What are the Eyeties up to?"

"I think we've got a small problem, old son," Gareth murmured softly,

turning once more to resume his vigil, and his expression for once was

serious and concerned. "I must admit that I banked on the old Latin

dash and swagger to bring them charging down here without a backward

glance."

Jake came across from his car and clambered up beside J Gareth. The

two armoured cars were parked at the extreme end of the curved water

course, just before it lost its identity and vanished into the

limitless sea of grass and rolling sandy hills. Here the banks of the

river were only just enough to cover the hulls of the two cars, but

they left the turrets partially exposed. A light cover of cut Thorn

branches made them inconspicuous, while allowing them to act as

observation posts for the crews.

Gareth handed Jake his binoculars. "I think we've got ourselves a

really wily one here. This Italian commander isn't rushing. He's

coming on nice and slow, taking his time," Gareth shook his head

worriedly, "I don', like it at all."

"He's stopped again," Jake said,

watching the distant dust cloud that marked the position of the

advancing column.

The dust cloud shrivelled, and subsided.

"Oh my God!" groaned Gareth, and snatched the binoculars. "The

bastard is up to something, I'm sure of it. This is the seventh time

the column has halted and for no apparent reason at all. The scouts

can't work it out and nor can I. I've got a nasty hollow feeling that

we are up against some sort of military genius, a modern Napoleon, and

it's making me nervous as hell." Jake smiled and advised

philosophically, "What you really need is a soothing game of gin. The

Ras is waiting for you." As if on cue, the Ras looked up brightly and

expectantly from the ammunition box set in the small strip of shade

under the hull. He had laid out a pattern of playing cards on the lid

which he had been studying. His bodyguard were grouped behind him.

They also looked up expectantly.

"They've got me surrounded," groaned Gareth. "I'm not sure which one

is the most dangerous that old bastard down there, or that one out

there." He raised the binoculars again and swept the long horizon

below the mountains. There was no longer any sign of dust.

"What the hell is he up to?" In fact this seventh halt called by

Count Aldo Belli was to be the briefest of the day, and yet one of the

most unavoidable.

It was in fact an occasion of the utmost urgency, and while the

Count's portable commode was hastily unloaded from the truck carrying

his personal gear, he twisted and wriggled impatiently on the back seat

of the Rolls while Gino, the batman, tried to comfort him.

"It is the water from those wells, Excellency," he nodded sagely.

Once the commode had been set up, with a good view of the distant

mountains before it, a small canvas tent was raised around it to hide

the seat from the curious gaze of five hundred infantry men.

The job was completed, only just in time, and a respectful and

expectant hush fell over the entire column as the Count climbed

carefully down from the Rolls and then dashed like an Olympic athlete

for the small lonely canvas structure and disappeared. The silence and

expectation lasted for almost fifteen minutes and was shattered at last

by the Count's shouts from within the tent.

"Bring the doctor!" Five hundred men waited with all the genuine

suspense of a movie audience, speculation and rumour running wildly

down the column until it reached Major Castelani. Even he, convinced

as he was that he had seen it all, could not believe the cause of this

fresh delay, and he went forward to investigate.

He arrived at the tent to find the Count and his medical advisers

crowded around the commode and avidly discussing its contents. The

Count was pale, but proud, like a new mother whose infant is the centre

of attention. He looked up as Castelani appeared in the doorway, and

the Major recoiled slightly as, for a moment, it seemed the Count might

invite him to join in the examination.

He saluted hastily, taking another step backwards.

"Has your Excellency orders for me?"

"I am an ill man,

Castelani," and the Count struck a pose, drooping visibly, his head

lolling weakly. Then slowly he drew back his shoulders, and his chin

came up. A wan but brave smile tightened his lips. "But that is of no

account.

We advance, Castelani. Onwards! Tell the men I am well.

Hide the truth from them. If they know of my illness, they will

despair. They will panic." Castelani saluted again. "As you wish,

my

Colonel."

"Help me to the car, Castelani," he ordered, and reluctantly the Major

took his arm. The Count leaned heavily upon him as they crossed to the

Rolls, but he smiled gallantly at his men and waved to the nearest of

them.

"My poor brave boys," he muttered. "They must never know. I will not

fail them now." What the hell is happening out there?" fretted

Gareth Swales, glancing up anxiously at Jake on the turret of the car

above him.

"Nothing!" Jake assured him. "No sign of movement." don't like it,"

reiterated Gareth morosely, and his expression hardly altered as the

Ras let out one of his triumphant cries and began laying out his

cards.

"I don't like that either," he said again, and reached for his wallet

before the Ras reminded him. While the Ras shuffled and dealt the next

hand, he continued his conversation with Jake.

"What about Vicky? Nothing from that quarter either?"

"Not a peep, "Jake assured him.

"That's another thing I don't like. She took it too calmly.

I expected her to put in an appearance long ago despite my orders."

"She won't be coming," Jake assured him, raising the binoculars again

and sweeping the empty horizon.

"I wish I was that confident," muttered Gareth, picking up his cards.

"I've been expecting to see her car driving up at any minute.

It isn't like her to sit meekly in camp, while the action is going on

out here. She's a front-ranker, that one.

She likes to be right there when anything is happening."

"I know,"

Jake -agreed. "She had that mean look in her eye when she agreed to

stay at the gorge. So I just made sure she wasn't going to use Miss

Wobbly. I took the carbon rod out of the distributor." Gareth began

to grin. "That's the only good news I've had today. I had visions

of

Vicky Camberwell arriving in the middle of a fire fight."

"Poor bloody

Italians," observed Jake, and they both laughed.

"Sometimes you surprise me. Do you know that?" said Gareth, and he

drew a cheroot from his breast pocket and tossed it up to where Jake

stood. "Thanks for" looking after what is mine, "he said. "I

appreciate that." Jake bit the tip off the cigar, and gave him a

quizzical look as he flicked a match across the rough steel of the

turret and held the flame in his cupped hands to burn off the

sulphur.

"They are all mavericks until somebody puts a brand on them.

That's the law of the range, old buddy," he answered, and lit the

cigar.

Vicky Camberwell had selected five full-grown men from the Ras's camp

attendants, rewarded each one with a silver Maria Theresa dollar,

and worn each of them down to the fine edge of exhaustion. One after

the other, they had taken hold of Miss Wobbly's crank handle and turned

it like a squad of demented organ-grinders while Vicky shouted

encouragement and threats at them from the driver's hatch, her eyes

blazing and cheeks fiery with frustration.

After an hour of this she was convinced that sabotage had been employed

to keep her safely out of the way, and she began to check out Miss

Wobbly's internal organs. She was one of those unusual women who liked

to know how things-worked, and throughout her life had plagued a long

series Of mechanics, boyfriends and instructors with her questions. It

was not enough for her to switch on a machine and steer it. She had

made herself an excellent driver and pilot, and in the process she had

acquired a fair idea of the workings of the internal combustion

engine.

"All right, Mr. Barton let's find out what you've done," she muttered

grimly. "Let's start on the fuel system." She rolled up her sleeves

and tied a scarf firmly around her hair. Her five hefty helpers

watched with awe as she approached the engine compartment and lifted

the cowling, and then they crowded forward to get a good view and offer

their advice. She had to beat them back and shoo them away before she

could begin work, but then she was completely absorbed in her task, and

in half an hour had checked an tested the fuel system,

making sure that gasoline was travelling freely from the tank along the

lines to carburettor and cylinders, and that the pump was functioning

smoothly.

"Right, now let's check out the electrics, she muttered to herself, and

turned irritably as an insistent hand tugged at her belt,

breaking her concentration.

"Yes, what is it?" Her expression changed, lighting up happily as she

saw who it was.

"Sara!" She embraced the girl. "How on earth did you get here?"

"I escaped, Miss Camberwell. It was so boring in the hospital. I had

my father's men bring a horse for me and I climbed out of the window

and rode down the gorge."

"What about your friend the young doctor?"

Vicky demanded, still holding the girl and surprised by the strength of

her affection for her.

"Oh, him!" Sara's voice held a world of scorn and contempt. "He was

the most boring thing in the hospital.

Doctor! Ha! He knows nothing about how a body works I had to try and

teach him, and that was no fun."

"And your leg?" she asked.

"How is your leg?"

"It is nothing almost well." Sara tried to dismiss the injury but

Vicky saw that she was drawn and haggard. The long,

rough ride down the gorge must have taxed her, and as Vicky led her

tenderly to a seat in the shade of the acacias, she favoured the

injured leg heavily.

"I heard there is going to be a battle. That's really why I came.

I heard the Italians are advancing-" She looked round her brightly,

seeming to thrust her pain and weariness aside. "Where are Jake and

Gareth? Where is Gregorius? We must not miss the battle, Miss

Camberwell "That's what I am working on." Vicky's smile faded. "They

have left us behind."

"What!" Sara's bright look became bellicose and then outraged as Vicky

explained how they had been edged out.

"Men! You cannot trust them, "fumed Sara. "If they aren't trying to

tip you on your back, then it's something worse.

We aren't going to let them do it, are we?"

"No," Vicky agreed.

"We are most certainly not." With Sara beside her, it was impossible

to continue her work on the armoured car, for the girl made up for a

total ignorance of the mechanism by an unbounded curiosity and when

Vicky should have been inspecting the magneto, she found instead that

she was looking closely at the back of Sara's head which had been

interposed.

After she had forcibly elbowed her aside for the sixth time, she asked

with exasperation, "Do you know how to fire a Vickers machine gun?"

"I

am a mountain girl," boasted Sara. "I was born with a gun in one hand

and a horse between my legs."

"Or what have you?" murmured Vicky, and the girl grinned impishly.

"But have you ever fired a Vickers?"

"No," admitted Sara reluctantly, and then brightened.

"But it won't take me long to find out how it works."

"There!"

Vicky indicated the thick water-jacketed barrel that protruded from the

turret. "Go ahead." When Sara scrambled awkwardly on to the

sponson,

still favouring the leg, Vicky could return to her inspection. It was

another half hour before she exclaimed, "He has taken the carbon rod

out of the distributor. Oh, the sneaky swine." Sara's head popped out

of the turret. "Gareth?"she asked.

"No," answered Vicky. "Jake."

"I didn't expect it of him." Sara climbed down beside Vicky to inspect

the damage.

"They're all the same."

"Where has he hidden it?"

"Probably in his own pocket."

"What are we going to do?" Sara wrung her hands anxiously.

"We'll miss the battle!" Vicky thought a moment and then her

expression changed. "In my bag, in the tent, is an Ever-Ready

flashlight.

There is also a leather cosmetic case. Bring them both to me,

please." One of the flashlight dry-cell batteries, split open by the

curved blade of the dagger from Sara's belt, yielded a thick carbon rod

from its core, and Vicky shaped it carefully with the nail-file from

her cosmetic case, until it slipped neatly into the central shaft of

the distributor and the engine fired at the first swing of the crank.

"You are really very clever, Miss Camberwell, said Sara, with such

patent and solemn sincerity that Vicky was deeply touched. She smiled

up at the girl who stood above the driver's seat, her head and

shoulders in the turret and her knees braced against the back of the

driver's seat.

"Think you can work that gun yet?" she asked, and Sara nodded

uncertainly and placed her slim dark hands on the clumsy mahogany

pistol grips, standing on tiptoe to squint through the sights.

"Just take me to them, Miss Camberwell." Vicky let out the clutch and

swung the car in a tight lock out from under the acacia" trees and on

to the steep rocky track which led to the wide open grassland in the

funnel of the mountains.

am very angry with Jake," declared Sara, clutching wildly for support

as the car pounded and thumped over the rough track. "I did not expect

him to behave that way hiding the carbon rod. That is more like

Gareth. I am disappointed in him."

"You are?"

"Yes, I think we should punish him."

"How?"

"I think Gareth should be your lover," Sara stated firmly.

"I think that is how we will punish Jake." In between wrestling with

the heavy steering, and dancing her feet over the steel pedals of brake

and clutch, Vicky thought about what Sara had said. She thought also

of Jake's broad rangy shoulders, and thickly muscled arms she thought

about his mop of curly hair and that wide boyish grin that could change

so quickly to a heavy frown.

Suddenly she realized how very much she wanted to be with him, and how

she would miss him if he were gone.

"I must thank you for sorting out my affairs for me," she called to the

girl in the turret. "You have a knack."

"It's a pleasure, Miss

Camberwell," Sara called back. "It is just that I understand these

things." As the afternoon wore on, so thunderheads of cloud "Aformed

upon the mountains in the west. They soared into a sky of endless

sapphire blue, smoothly rounded masses of silver that rolled and

swirled with a ponderous majesty, swelling high and darkening to the

colour of ripening grapes and old bruises.

Yet over the plain the sky was open, clear and high, and the sun burned

down and heated the earth so that the air above it shimmered and

danced, distorting vision and distance. At one moment the mountains

were so close that it seemed they reached to the heavens and they must

topple upon the small group of men crouched in the shade of the two

concealed armoured cars; at the next they seemed remote and

miniaturized by distance.

The sun had heated the hulls of the cars so that the steel would

blister skin at a touch and the men who waited, all of them except

Jake Barton and Gareth Swales, crawled like survivors of a catastrophe

beneath the hulls, seeking relief from the unrelenting sun.

The heat was so intense that the gin rummy game had long been

abandoned, and the two white men panted like dogs, the sweat drying

instantly on their skins and crusting into a thin film of white salt

crystals.

Gregorius looked to the mountains, and the clouds upon them, and he

said softly, "Soon it will rain." He looked up to where Jake Barton

sat like a statue on the turret of Priscilla the Pig. Jake had swathed

his head and upper body in a white linen sham ma to protect it from the

sun and he held the binoculars in his lap. Every few minutes, he would

lift them to his eyes and make one slow sweep of the land ahead before

slumping motionless again.

Slowly the shadows crept out from the hulls of the cars, the sun turned

across its zenith and gradually lost its white glare, its rays toned

with yellows and reds. Once again, Jake lifted the binoculars and this

time paused midway in his automatic sweep of the horizon.

In the lens the familiar dun feather of the distant cloud once again

wavered softly at the line where pale earth and paler sky joined.

He watched it for five minutes, and it seemed that the dust cloud was

fading shrivelling, and that the shimmering pillars of heat-distorted

air were rising, screening his vision.

Jake lowered the glasses and a warm flood of sweat broke from his

hairline, trickled down his forehead into his eyes.

He swore softly it the sting of salt and wiped it away with the hem of

the linen sharnma. He blinked rapidly, and then lifted the glasses

again and felt his heart jump in his chest and the prickle of rising

hair on the nape of his neck.

The freakish Currents and whirlpools of heated air cleared suddenly,

and the dust cloud that minutes before had seemed remote as the far

shores of the ocean was now so close and crisply outlined against the