Cry Wolf - Smith Wilbur - Страница 69

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into the driver's hatch. There was a flurry of sudden frantic movement

around the cars. The engines were cranked into reluctant life, surging

and missing and backfiring as the volatile fuel turned to vapour in the

heat and starved the engines.

The Ras was lifted into the turret of Gareth's car by half a dozen of

his men at arms, and installed behind the Vickers gun. Their job

accomplished, his men were leaving him and hurrying to mount their

ponies when the Ras let out a series of shrieks in Amharic and pointed

at the empty cave of his own mouth, devoid of teeth and big enough to

hibernate a bear.

There was a brief moment of consternation I until the senior and eldest

man at arms produced a large leather covered box from his saddle bag

and hurried with it to kneel humbly on the sponson of the car and

proffer the open box to the Ras. Mollified, the Ras reached into the

box and brought out a magnificent set of porcelain teeth, big and white

and sharp enough to fit in the mouth of a Derby winner, complete with

bright red gums.

With only a short struggle he forced the set into his mouth, and then

snapped them like a brook trout rising to the fly, before peeling back

his lips in a death's head grin.

His followers cooed and exclaimed with admiration, and Gregorius told

Jake proudly, "My grandfather only wears his teeth when he is fighting

or pleasuring a lady," and Jake spared a brief glance from the

advancing Italian army to admire the dazzling dental display.

"Makes him look younger, not a day over ninety, "he gave his opinion,

and revved the engine, carefully manoeuvring the car into a hull-down

position below the bank from where he could keep the Italians under

observation. Gareth brought the other car up alongside and grinned at

him from the open hatch. It was a wicked grin, and Jake realized that

the Englishman was looking forward to the coming clash with

anticipation.

It was no longer necessary to use binoculars. The Italian column was

less than two miles distant, moving swiftly on a course that was

carrying it parallel to the dry river-bed, beyond the curved horns of

the ambush into the open unprotected funnel of flat land between the

mountains.

Another fifteen minutes at this rate of advance and it would have

turned the Ethiopian flank and would be able to drive without

resistance to the mouth of the gorge and Jake knew better than to hope

to be able to reorganize the rabble of cavalry once their formations

were shattered. Instinctively he knew that they would fight like

giants as long as the tide carried them forward, but any retreat would

become a rout, and they would race for the hills like factory workers

at five o'clock. They were accustomed to fighting as individuals,

avoiding set piece battles, but snatching opportunity as it was

offered, swift as hawks, but giving instantly before any determined

thrust by an enemy.

"Come on!" he muttered to himself, pounding his fist against his thigh

impatiently, and with the first stirring of alarm. Unless the bait was

offered within the next few moments. Because they fought as

individuals, each man his own general, and because the art of ambush

and entrapment came as naturally to the Ethiopian as the feel of a

rifle in his hand, Jake need not have fretted.

Seeming to rise from the flat scorched earth under the wheels of the

leading Italian vehicles, a small galloping knot of horsemen flitted

across the heat-tortured earth, seeming to float above it like a flock

of dark birds. Their shapes wavering and indistinct, wrapped in pale

streamers of dust, they cut back obliquely across the Italian line of

march, running hard for the centre of the hidden Ethiopian line.

Almost instantly a single vehicle detached itself from the head of the

column and headed on a converging course with the flying horsemen.

Its speed was frightening, and it closed so swiftly that the squadron

of cavalry was forced to veer away, forced to edge out towards where

the two armoured cars were hidden.

Behind the single speeding vehicle the Italian column lost its rigid

shape. The front half of it swung away in a long untidy line abreast

in pursuit of the horsemen. These were all larger, heavier vehicles,

with high, canvas-covered cupolas, and their progress was ponderous and

so slow that they could not gain perceptibly on the galloping horses.

However, the smaller faster vehicle was gaining rapidly and Jake stood

higher to give himself a better view as he refocused the binoculars. He

recognized instantly the big open Rolls-Royce tourer that he had last

seen at the Wells of Chaldi. Its polished metalwork glittered in the

sunlight, its low rakish lines enhancing the impression of speed and

power, as the dust boiled out from behind its spinning rear wheels with

their huge flashing central bosses.

Even as he watched, the Rolls braked and skidded broadside, coming to a

halt in a furiously billowing cloud of dust. A figure tumbled from the

rear seat.

Jake watched the man brace himself over the sporting rifle and the

spurt of gunsmoke from the muzzle as he fired seven shots in quick

succession, the rifle kicking up abruptly at the recoil and the thud

thud of the discharge reaching Jake only seconds later.

The horsemen were drawing swiftly away from the Rolls, but neither the

changing range nor the dust and mirage affected the marksman. At each

shot a horse went down, sliding against the earth, legs kicking to the

sky or plunging and rolling, as it struggled to regain its legs,

falling back at last and lying still.

Then the rifleman leaped aboard the Rolls again, and the pursuit was

continued, gaining swiftly on the survivors, the heavy phalanx of

trucks and troop transports lumbering on behind it the whole mass of

horses, men and machines rolling steadily deeper into the

killing-ground that Gareth Swales had so carefully surveyed and laid

out for them.

"The bastard!" whispered Jake, as he watched the Rolls skid to a

standstill once more. The Italian was taking no chances of approaching

the horsemen closely. He was standing well off, out of effective range

of their ancient weapons, and he was picking them off one at a time, in

the leisurely fashion of a shot gunner at a grouse shoot in fact, the

whole bloody episode was being played out in the spirit of the hunt.

Even at the range of almost a thousand yards, Jake seemed able to sense

the blood passion of the Italian marksman, the man's burning urge to

kill merely for the sake of inflicting death, for the deep gut thrill

of it.

If they intervened now, cutting into the flank of the widespread and

disordered column, they might save the lives of many of the frantically

fleeing horsemen. But the Italian column was not yet fully enmeshed in

the trap that had been laid. Swiftly, Jake traversed the glasses

across the dust-swirling and heat-distorted plain and for the first

time he noticed that a dozen trucks of the Italian rear guard had not

joined the mad, tear arse helter-skelter stampede after the

Ethiopian horsemen. This small group had halted, seemingly under some

strict control, and now they had been left two miles behind the

roaring, dusty avalanche of heavy vehicles. Jake could spare no more

attention to this group, for now the slaughter was being continued, the

wildly flying horsemen being cut down by the crack rifleman from the

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