Текст книги "Cry Wolf"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

Соавторы: Wilbur Smith
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forcing them flat again.

"Come on, Rassey," sighed Gareth at last. "Let's see if we can beg a

ride home." At that moment, the ugly, well beloved shape of

Priscilla the Pig roared abruptly over the crest of the dune and slewed

to a halt above them.

"God," Jake shouted from the driver's hatch. "I thought you were in it

when she blew. I came to pick up the pieces." Dragging the Ras,

Gareth climbed up the side of the tall hull.

"This is becoming a habit," Gareth grunted. "That's two I owe you.

"I'll send you an account," Jake promised, and then ducked

instinctively as the next shell came shrieking in to burst so close

that dust and smoke blew into their faces.

"I get this strange feeling we should move on now," suggested

Gareth mildly. "That is, if you have no other plans." Jake sent the

car plunging steeply down the face of the dune, turning hard as he hit

the firmer earth of the plain and setting a running course for where

the mouth of the gorge was hidden by the smoky writhing curtains of

cloud and rain.

Vicky Camberwell saw them coming and swung Miss Wobbly and gunned her

on to a parallel course. Wheel to wheel, the two elderly machines

bounded across the flat land, and the rain began to crackle against the

steel hulls in minute white bursts that blurred their outlines as the

next Italian shell burst fifty feet ahead of them,

forcing them to swerve to avoid the fuming crater.

"Can you see where the battery is?" yelled Jake, and Gareth answered

him, clinging to one of the welded brackets above the hatch,

rain streaming down his face and soaking the front of his white

shirt.

"They are in the ground that the Gallas deserted, they've probably

taken over the trenches I dug with such loving care."

"Could we have a go at them? "Jake suggested.

"No we can't, old son. I sited those positions myself.

They're tight. You just keep going for the gorge. Our only hope is to

get into the second line of positions that I have prepared at the first

waterfall." Then he shook his head sorrowfully, screwing up his eyes

against the stinging raindrops. "You and this crazy old bastard,"

he turned his head to the Ras beside him, "you'll be the death of me,

you two will The Ras grinned happily at him, convinced that they were

charging into a battle again, and deliriously happy at the prospect.

"How do you do?" he cackled, and punched Gareth's shoulder

gleefully.

"Could be better, old boy," Gareth assured him. "Could be a lot

better," and they both ducked as the next shell came howling low over

their heads.

"Those fellows are improving Gareth observed mildly.

"God knows they've had plenty of practice recently, "Jake shouted,

and Gareth rolled his eyes upwards to the heavy bruised cloud banks.

"Let there be rain," he intoned, and instantly the thunder cracked and

the clouds lit internally with a brilliant electric burst of light.

The splattering drops increased their tempo, and the air turned milky

with slanting drumming lances of rain.

"Amazing, Major Swales. I would not have believed it," said

Gregorius Maryam from the turret above Gareth's head, and his voice was

hushed with awe.

"Nothing to it, my lad," Gareth disclaimed. "Just a direct line to the

top." Rain filled the air in a white teeming fog, so that Jake had to

screw up his eyes against the driving needles, and his black curls

clung in a sodden mass to his scalp.

Rain wiped out the mountains and the rocky portals of the gorge,

so that Jake steered by instinct alone. It roared against the racing

steel hull, and closed down visibility to a circle of twenty yards.

The Italian shellfire stopped abruptly, as the gunners were

unsighted.

Rain pounded every inch of exposed skin, striking with a force that

stung painfully, snapping against their faces with a jarring impact

that made the teeth ache in their jaws, and sent them crouching for

what little cover there was on the exposed hull.

"Good Lord, how long does this go on for?" protested Gareth, and he

spat the sodden butt of his cheroot over the side.

"Four months," shouted Gregorius. "It rains for four months now."

"Or until you tell it to stop." Jake grinned wryly, and glanced across

at the other machine.

Sara waved reassuringly from the turret of Miss Wobbly, her face

screwed up against the driving raindrops and the thick mane of hair

plastered to her shoulders and face. Icy rain had soaked the silken

sharnma she wore and it clung transparently to her body, and her fat

little breasts showed through as though they were naked, bouncing to

each exaggerated movement of the car.

Suddenly the mist of rain ahead of them was filled with hurrying

figures, all of them clad in the long sodden sharnmas of the Harari;

carrying their weapons, they were running and staggering forward

through the rain towards the mouth of the gorge.

Gregorius shouted encouragement to them as they sped past, and then

translated quickly.

"I have told them we will hold the enemy at the first waterfall they

are to spread the word." And he turned back to shout again when

suddenly with a startled oath Jake braked and swung the car violently

to avoid a pile of human bodies strewn in their path.

"This is where the Italian machine-gunners caught them," Sara yelled

across the gap, and as if in confirmation there came the tearing

ripping sound of the machine guns off in the rain mist.

Jake threaded the car past the piles of bodies and then looked around

to make sure Vicky was following.

"Now what the hell!" He realized they were alone. "That woman.

That crazy woman," and he braked, slammed Priscilla into reverse and

roared back into the fog until the dark shape of Miss Wobbly loomed up

again.

"No," said Gareth. "I can't bear it." Vicky and Sara were out of the

parked car, hurrying amongst the piles of bodies, stooping over a

wounded warrior and between them dragging him upright and thrusting him

through the open rear doors of the cab. Others, less gravely

wounded,

were limping and crawling towards the machine, and dragging themselves

aboard.

"Come on, Vicky, "Jake yelled.

"We can't leave them here, she yelled back.

"We've got to get to the waterfall," he tried to explain.

"We've got to stop the retreat." But he might not have spoken, for the

two women turned back to their task.

"Vicky!" Jake shouted again.

"If you help it won't take so long, "she called obstinately, and

Jake shrugged helplessly before climbing down out of the hatch.

Both cars were crammed with dreadfully wounded and dying Harari,

and the hulls were thick with those who still had strength to hold

on,

before Vicky was satisfied.

"We've lost fifteen minutes. "Gareth glanced at his pocket watch in

the rain that still poured down with unabated fury.

"And that could be enough to get us all killed, and lose us the

gorge."

"It was worth it," Vicky told him stubbornly, and ran to her car. Again

the heavily burdened machines ground on towards the mountain pass, and

now they had to ignore the pitiful appeals of the wounded they passed.

They lay in huddles of rags soaked with rain and diluted pink blood, or

they crawled painfully and doggedly on towards the mountain, lifting

brown, agonized faces and pleading, clawlike hands,

hands as the two machines roared past in the mist.

Once a freak gap in the rain opened visibility to a mile around them,

and a pale shaft of watery sunlight slanted down to strike the cars

like a stage light, glistening on the wet steel hulls.

Immediately the Italian machine guns opened on them from a range of a

mere two hundred yards, and the bullets cut into the clinging mass of

humanity, knocking a dozen of them shrieking from their perch before

the rain closed in again, hiding them in its soft white protective

bosom.

They ran into the main camp below the gorge, and found that it was

plunged into terrible confusion. It had been heavily shelled and

machine-gunned, and then the rain had turned it all into a deep muddy

soup of broken flattened tents, and scattered equipment.

Dead horses and human corpses were half buried in the mud, here and

there a terrified dog or a lost child scurried through the rain.

Spasmodic fighting was still taking place in the rocky ground around

the camp, and they caught glimpses of Italian uniforms on the slopes

and muzzle-flashes in the gloom.

Every few seconds a shell would howl in through the rain and cloud and

burst with sullen fury somewhere out of sight.

"Head for the gorge," shouted Gareth. "Don't stop here," and Jake took

the path that skirted the grove of camel thorns the direct path that

passed below and out of sight of the fighting on the slopes,

crossed the Sardi River and plunged into the gaping maw of the gorge.

"My men are holding them," Gregorius shouted proudly.

"They are holding the gorge. We must go to their aid."

"Our place is at the first waterfall. "Gareth raised his voice for the

first time.

"They can't hold here not when the Eyetie brings up his guns. We've

got to get set at the first waterfall to have a chance." He looked

back to where the other car should have been following them, and he

groaned.

"No! Oh, please God, no."

"What is it? "jake head popped out of the driver's hatch with alarm.

"They've done it again."

"Who ?" But Jake need not have asked.

The following car had swung off the direct track, and was now storming

up through the rain-blurred camel-Thorn trees, heading for the old

tented camp in the grove, and only incidentally running directly into

the area where the heavy fighting was still rattling and crackling in

the rain.

"Catch her," Gareth said. "Head her off." Jake swung off the track

and went zigzagging up through the grove with the rear wheels spinning

and spraying red mud and slush. But Miss Wobbly had a clear start and

a straight run up the secondary track directly into the enemy advance;

she disappeared amongst the trees and curtains of rain.

Jake brought the car bellowing out into the camp to find Miss

Wobbly parked in the open clearing. The tents had been flattened and

the whole area trodden and looted, cases of rations and clothing burst

open and soaked with rain; the muddy red canvas of the tents hung

flapping in the trees or lay half buried.

From the turret, Sara was firing the Vickers into the trees of the

grove, and answering fire whined and crackled around the car. Jake

glimpsed running Italian figures, and turned the car so that his own

gun would bear.

"Get into them, Greg," he yelled, and the boy crouched down behind the

gun and fired a long thunderous burst that tore shreds of bark off the

trees and dropped at least one of the running Italians. Jake lifted

himself out of the driver's hatch, and then froze and stared in

disbelief.

Victoria Camberwell was out of the armoured car, plodding around in the

soup of red mud, oblivious to the gunfire that whickered and crackled

about her.

"Vicky!" he cried in despair, and she stooped and snatched something

out of the mud with a cry of triumph. Now at last she turned and

scampered back to Miss Wobbly, crossing a few feet in front of

Jake.

"What the hell-" he protested.

"My typewriter and my toilet bag," she explained reasonably,

holding her muddy trophies aloft. "One has got my make-up in it, and

I

can't do my job without the other," and then she smiled like a wet

bedraggled puppy.

"We can go now, "she said.

The track up the gorge was crowded with men and "animals, toiling

wearily upwards in the icy rain.

The pack animals slipped and slithered in the loose footing.

Gareth's relief was intense when he saw the bulky shapes of the Vickers

strapped to the humpy backs of a dozen camels, and the cases of

ammunition riding high in the panniers. His men had done their work

and saved the guns.

"Go with them, Greg," he ordered. "See them safely up to the first

waterfall," and the boy jumped down to take command, while the two cars

ploughed on slowly through the sea of humanity.

"There's no fight left in them," said Jake, looking down into the

dispirited brown faces, running with rainwater and shivering in the

cold.

"They'll fight," answered Gareth, and he nudged the Ras.

"What do you say, Grandpa?" The Ras grinned a weary toothless grin,

but his wet clothing clung to the gaunt old frame like the rags of a

scarecrow, as Jake brought the car round the slippery, glassy hairpin

bend below the first waterfall.

"Pull in here," Gareth told him, and then scrambled down beside the

hull, drawing the Ras down with him.

"Thanks, old son." He looked up at Jake. "Take the cars up to

Sardi, and get rid of these-" He indicated the sorry cargo of

wounded.

"Try and find a suitable building for a hospital. Leave that to Vicky

it'll keep her out of mischief.

Either that or we'll have to tie her up–2 he grinned, and then was

serious. "Try and contact Lij Mikhael. Tell him the position here.

Tell him the Gallas have deserted and I'll be hard pressed to hold the

gorge another week. Tell him we need ammunition, guns,

medicine, blankets, food anything he can spare. Ask him to send a

train down to Sardi with supplies, and to take out the wounded." He

paused, and thought for a moment. "That's it, I think.

Do that and then come back, with all the food you can carry. I

think we left most of our supplies down there" he glanced down into the

misty depths of the gorge "and these fellows won't fight on an empty

stomach." Jake reversed the car and pulled back on to the track.

"Oh, and Jake, try and find a few cheroots. I lost my entire stock

down there. Can't fight without a whiff or two." He grinned and

waved. "Keep it warm, old son," he called, and turned away to begin

stopping the trudging column of refugees, pushing them off the track

towards the prepared trenches that had been dug into the rocky sides of

the gorge, overlooking the double sweep of the track below them.

"Come along, chaps," Gareth shouted cheerfully. "Who's for a touch of

old glory!" ROM GENERAL BADOGLIO, COMMANDER IN CHIEF OF THE

AFRICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE BEFORE AMBA ARA DAM TO COLONEL COUNT ALDO

BELLI, OFFICER COMMANDING THE DANAKIL COLUMN AT THE WELLS OF CHALDI.

THE MOMENT FOR WHICH WE HAVE PLANNED IS

NOW AT HAND STOP I CONFRONT THE MAIN BODY OF THE ENEMY, AND HAVE

HAD THEM UNDER CONTINUOUS BOMBARDMENT FOR FIVE DAYS. AT DAWN

TOMORROW

I SHALL ATTACK IN FORCE AND DRIVE THEM FROM THE HIGH GROUND BACK

ALONG

THE DE SSI ROAD. DO YOU NOW ADVANCE WITH ALL DESPATCH TO TAKE UP A

POSITION ASTRIDE THE DESSIE ROAD AND STEM THE TIDE OF THE ENEMY's

RETREAT, SO THAT WE MAY TAKE THEM ON BOTH TINES OF THE PITCHFORK.

"forty thousand men lay upon Ambo Aradam, cowering in their trenches

and caves. They were the heart and spine of the Ethiopian armies, and

the man who led them, Ras Muguletu, was the ablest and most experienced

of all the warlords. But he was powerless and uncertain in the face of

such strength and fury as now broke around him. He had not imagined it

could be so, and he lay with his men, quiescent and stoic. There was

no enemy to confront, nothing to strike out at, for the huge Caproni

bombers droned high overhead and the great guns that fired the shells

were miles below in the valley.

All they could do was pull their dusty shammas over their heads and

endure the bone-jarring, bowel-shaking detonations and breathe the

filthy fume-laden air.

Day after day the storm of explosive roared around them until they were

dazed and stupefied, deafened and uncaring, enduring, only enduring not

thinking, not feeling, not caring.

On the sixth night the drone of the big three-engined bombers passed

overhead, and Ras Muguletu's men, peering up fearfully, saw the

sinister shapes pass overhead, dark against the silver pricking of the

stars.

They waited for the bombs to tumble down upon them once more, but the

bombers circled above the flat-topped mountain for many minutes and

there were no bombs. Then the bombers turned away and the drone of the

engines died into the lightening dawn sky.

Only then did the soft insidious dew that they had sown come sifting

down out of the still night sky. Gently as the fall of snowflakes, it

settled upon the upturned brown faces, into the fearfully staring eyes,

on to the bare hands that held the ancient firearms at the ready.

It burned into the exposed skin, blistering and eating into the living

flesh like some terrible canker; it burned the eyes in their sockets,

turning them into cherry-red, glistening orbs from which the yellow

mucus poured thickly. The pain it inflicted combined both the seating

of concentrated acid and the fierce heat of live coals.

In the dawn, while thousands of Ras Muguletu's men whimpered and cried

out in their consuming agony, and their comrades, bemused and

bewildered, tried unavailingly to render aid, in that dreadful

moment,

the first wave of Italian infantry came up over the lip of the

mountain, and they were into the Ethiopian trenches before the

defenders realized what had happened. The Italian bayonets blurred

redly in the first rays of the morning sun.

The cloud lay upon the highlands, blotting out the peaks, and the rain

fell in a constant deluge. It had rained without ceasing for the two

days and three nights since the disaster of Aruba Aradarn. The rain

had saved them, it had saved the thirty thousand survivors of the

battle from being overtaken by the same fate as had befallen the ten

thousand casualties they had left on the mountain.

High above the cloud, the Italian bombers circled hungrily; Lij

Mikhael could hear them clearly, although the thick blanket of cloud

muted the sound of the powerful triple engines. They waited for a

break in the cloud, to come swooping down upon the retreat. What a

target they would enjoy if that happened! The Dessie road was choked

for a dozen miles with the slow unwieldy column of the retreat, the

ragged files of trudging figures, bowed in the rain, their heads

covered with their shammas, their bare feet sliding and slipping in the

mud. Hungry, cold and dispirited, they toiled onwards, carrying

weapons that grew heavier with every painful step still they kept on.

The rain had hampered the Italian pursuit. Their big troop-carriers

were bogged down helplessly in the treacherous mud, and each engorged

mountain stream, each ravine raged with the muddy brown rain waters.

They had to be bridged by the Italian engineers before the transports

could be manhandled across, and the pursuit continued.

The Italian General Badoglio had been denied a crushing victory and

thirty thousand Ethiopian troops had escaped him at Aradam.

It was Lij Mikhael's special charge, placed upon him -personally by the

King of Kings, Baile Selassie, to bring out those thirty thousand men.

To extricate them from Badogho's talons, and regroup them with the

southern army under the Emperor's personal command upon the shores of

Lake Tona. Another thirty-six hours and the task would be

accomplished.

He sat on the rear seat of the mud-spattered Ford sedan, huddled into

the thick coarse folds of his greatcoat, and although it was worn and

lulling in the sedan interior, and although he was exhausted to the

point at which his hands and feet felt completely numb and his eyes as

though they were filled with sand, yet no thought of sleep entered his

mind. There was too much to plan, too many eventualities to meet, too

many details to ponder and he was afraid. A terrible black fear

pervaded his whole being.

The ease with which the Italian victory had been won at Araoam filled

him with fear for the future. It seemed as though nothing could stand

against the force of Italian arms against the big guns, and the bombs

and the nitrogen Mustard. He feared that another terrible defeat

awaited them on the shores of Lake Tona.

He feared also for the safety of the thirty thousand in his charge. He

knew that the Danakil column of the Italian expeditionary force had

fought its way into the Sardi Gorge and must by now have almost reached

the town of Sardi itself. He knew that Ras Golam's small force had

been heavily defeated on the plains and had suffered doleful losses in

the subsequent defence of the gorge. He feared that they might be

swept aside at any moment now and that the Italian column would come

roaring like a lion across his rear cutting off his retreat to Dessie.

He must have time, a little more time, a mere thirty-six hours more.

Then again, he feared the Gallas. At the beginning of the Italian

offensive they had taken no part in the fighting but had merely

disappeared into the mountains, betraying completely the trust that

the

Harari leaders had placed in them. Now, however, that the Italians had

won their first resounding victories, the Gallas had become active,

gathering like vultures for the scraps that the lions left. His own

retreat from Aradam had been harassed by his erstwhile allies. They

hung on his flanks, hiding in the scrub Laid scree slopes along the

Dessie road, awaiting each opportunity to fall upon a weak unprotected

spot in the unwieldy slow-moving column. It was classical shifta

tactics, the age old art of ambush, of hit and run, a few throats slit

and a dozen rifles stolen but it slowed the retreat slowed it

drastically while close behind them followed the Italian horde, and

across their rear lay the mouth of the Sardi Gorge.

Lij Mikhael roused himself and leaned forward in the seat to peer ahead

through the windscreen. The wipers flogged sullenly from side to side,

keeping two fans of clean glass in the mud-splattered screen, and

Lij Mikhael made out the railway crossing ahead of them where it

bisected the muddy rutted road.

He grunted with so tis faction and the driver pushed the Ford through

the slowly moving mass of miserable humanity which clogged the road. It

opened only reluctantly as the sedan butted its way through with the

horn blaring angrily, and closed again behind it as it passed.

They reached the railway level crossing and Lij Mikhael ordered the

driver to pull off the road beside a group of his officers. He slipped

out bareheaded and immediately the rain de wed on his bushy dark hair.

The group of officers surrounded him, each eager to tell his own story,

to recite the list of his own requirements, his own misgivings each

with news of fresh disaster, new threats to their very existence.

They had no comfort for him, and Lij Mikhael listened with a great

weight growing in his chest.

At last he gestured for silence. "Is the telephone line to Sardi still

open? "he asked.

"The Gallas have not yet cut it. It does not follow the railway line

but crosses the spur of Ambo Sacal. They must have overlooked it."

"Have me connected with the Sardi station I must speak to somebody

there. I must know exactly what is happening in the gorge."

He left the group of officers beside the railway tracks and walked a

short way along the Sardi spur.

Down there, a few short miles away, the close members of his family his

father, his brothers, his daughter were risking their lives to buy him

the time he needed. He wondered what price they had already paid, and

suddenly, a mental picture of his daughter sprang into his mind Sara,

young and lithe and laughing. Firmly he thrust the thought aside and

he turned to look back at the endless file of bedraggled figures that

shuffled along the Dessie road. They were in no condition to defend

themselves, they were helpless as cattle "Until they could be

regrouped, fed and re-armed in spirit.

No, if the Italians came now it would be the end.

"Excellency, the line to Sardi is open. Will you speak? Lij

Mikhael turned back and went to where a field telephone had been hooked

into the Sardi-Dessie telephone line. The copper wires dangled down

from the telegraph poles overhead, and Lij Mikhael took the handset

that the officer handed him and spoke quietly into the mouthpiece.

Beside the station master's office in the railway yards of Sardi town

stood the long cavernous warehouse used for the storage of grain and

other goods. The roof and walls were clad with corrugated galvanized

iron which had been daubed a dull rusty red with oxide paint.

The floor was of raw concrete, and tire cold mountain wind whistled in

through the joints in the corrugated sheets.

At a hundred places, the roof leaked where the galvanizing had rusted

away, and the rain dripped steadily forming icy puddles on the bare

concrete floor.

There were almost six hundred wounded and dying men crowded into the

shed. There was no bedding or blankets, and empty grain bags served

the purpose. They lay in long lines on the hard concrete, and the cold

came up through the thin jute bags, and the rain dripped down upon them

from the high roof.

There was no sanitation, no bed pans, no running water, and most of the

men were too weak to hobble out into the slush of the goods yard. The

stench was a solid tangible thing that permeated the clothing and clung

in a person's hair long after he had left the shed.

There was no antiseptic, no medicine not even a bottle of Lysol or a

packet of Aspro. The tiny store of medicines at the missionary

hospital had long ago been exhausted. The German doctor worked on into

each night with no anaesthetic and nothing to combat the secondary

infection.

Already the stink of putrefying wounds was almost as strong as the

other stench.

The most hideous injuries were the burns inflicted by the nitrogen

mustard. All that could be done was to smear the scalded and blistered

flesh with locomotive grease. They had found two drums of this in the

loco shed.

Vicky Camberwell had slept for three hours two days ago.

Since then, she had worked without ceasing amongst the long pitiful

lines of bodies. Her face was deadly pale in the gloom of the shed,

and her eyes had receded into dark bruised craters. Her feet were

swollen from standing so long, and her shoulders and her back ached

with a dull unremitting agony. Her linen dress was stained with specks

of dried blood, and other less savoury secretions and she worked on, in

despair that there was so little they could do for the hundreds of

casualties.

She could help them to drink the water they cried out for, clean those

that lay in their own filth, hold a black pleading hand as the man

died, and then pull the coarse jute sacking up over his face and signal

one of the over, worked male orderlies to carry him away and bring in

another from where they were already piling up on the open stoep of the

shed.

One of the orderlies stooped over her now, shaking her shoulder

urgently, and it was some seconds before she could understand what he

was saying. Then she pushed herself stiffly up off her knees, and

stood for a moment holding the small of her back with both hands while

the pain there eased, and the dark giddiness in her head abated. Then

she followed the orderly out across the muddy fouled yard to the

station office.

She lifted the telephone receiver to her ear and her voice was husky

and slurred as she said her name.

"Miss Camberwell, this is Lij Mikhael here." His voice was scratchy

and remote, and she could hardly catch the words, for the rain still

rattled on the iron roof above her head. "I am at the Dessie

crossroads."

"The train," she said, her voice firming. Lij Mikhael,

where is the train you promised? We must have medicine antiseptic,

anaesthetic don't you understand? There are six hundred wounded men

here. Their wounds are rotting, they are dying like animals." She

recognized the rising hysteria in her voice, and she cut herself off.

"Miss Camberwell. The train I am sorry. I sent it to you.

With supplies. Medicines. Another doctor. It left Dessie yesterday

morning, and passed the crossroads here yesterday evening on its way

down the gorge to Sardi-"

"Where is it, then?" demanded Vicky. "We must have it.

You don't know what it's like here."

"I'm sorry, Miss Camberwell.

The train will not reach you. It was derailed in the mountains fifteen

miles north of Sardi. Ras Kullah's men the Gallas were in ambush.

They had torn up the tracks, they have Fired everybody aboard and

burned the coaches." There was a long silence between them, only the

static hissed and buzzed across the wires.

"Miss Camberwell. Are you there?"

"Yes."

"Do you understand what

I am saying?"

"Yes, I understand."

"There will be no train." "No." Ras

Kullah has cut the road between here and Sardi."

"Yes."

"Nobody can reach you and there is no escape from Sardi up the railway

line.

Ras Kullah has five thousand men to hold it. His position in the

mountains is impregnable. He can hold the road against an army."

"We are cut off," said Vicky thickly. "The Italians in front of us.

The

Gallas behind us." Again the silence between them, then Lij Mikhael

asked, "Where are the Italians now, Miss Camberwell?"

"They are almost at the head of the gorge, where the last waterfall

crosses the road-"

She paused and listened intently, removing the receiver from her ear.

Then she lifted it again. "You can hear the Italian guns. They are

firing all the time now. So very close."

"Miss Camberwell, can you get a message to Major Swales?"

"Yes."

"Tell him I need another eighteen hours. If he can hold the Italians

until noon tomorrow, then they cannot reach the crossroads before it is

dark tomorrow night. It will give me another day and two nights. If

he can hold until noon, he will have discharged with honour all his

obligations to me, and you will all have earned the undying gratitude

of the Emperor and all the peoples of Ethiopia. You, Mr. Barton and

Major Swales."

"Yes," said

Vicky. Each word was an effort.

"Tell him that at noon tomorrow I shall have made the best arrangements

I can for your evacuation from Sardi. Tell him to hold hard until

noon, and then I will spare no effort to get all of you out of

there."

"I will tell him."

"Tell him that at noon tomorrow he is to order all the remaining

Ethiopian troops to disperse into the mountains, and I will speak to

you again on this telephone to tell you what arrangements I have been

able to make for your safety." Lij

Mikhael, what about the wounded, the ones who cannot disperse into the

hills?" The silence again, and then the Prince's voice, quiet but

heavy with grief.