Cry Wolf - Smith Wilbur - Страница 70

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Rolls.

The temptation to intervene now overwhelmed Jake. He knew it was not

the correct tactical moment, but he thought, "The hell with it, I'm not

a general, and those poor bastards out there need help." He shoved his

right foot down hard on the throttle and the engine bellowed, but

before he could pull forward and run at the bank, he was forestalled

by

Gareth Swales. He had been watching Jake, and the play of emotion over

his face was plain to read. At the moment he revved the engine, Gareth

swung the front end of the Hump across his bows, blocking him

effectively.

"I say, old chap, don't be an idiot," Gareth called across the narrow

space. "Calm the savage breast, you'll spoil the whole show."

"Those poor, Jake shouted back angrily.

"They've got to take their chances. "Gareth cut him short.

"I told you once before your sentimental old-fashioned ideas would get

us both into trouble." At this stage the argument was drowned by the

Ras. He was standing tall in the turret above Gareth. He had armed

himself with the broad, two-handed war sword, and now the excitement

became too much for him to bear longer in silence. He let out a series

of shrill ululating war cries, and swung the sword in a great hissing

circle around his head both the silver blade and his brilliant set of

teeth catching the sun and flashing like semaphores.

He punctuated his shrill war cries with wild kicks at his driver,

urging him in heated Amharic to have at the enemy, and Gareth ducked

and twisted out of the way of his flying feet.

"A bunch of maniacs!" protested Gareth as he dodged.

"I've got myself mixed up with a bunch of maniacs!"

"Major

Swales!" shouted Gregorius, unable to stay out of the argument a

moment longer. "My grandfather orders you to advance!"

"You tell your grandfather to-" but Gareth's reply was cut short as a

foot caught him in the ribs.

"Advance!" shouted Gregorius.

"Come on, for chrissake," yelled Jake.

"Yaahooo!" hooted the Ras, and swung around in the turret to wave on

his men at arms. They needed no further invitation. In a loose mob,

they spurred their ponies past the stymied cars and, brandishing their

rifles above their heads, robes streaming in the wind like battle

ensigns, they lunged up the steep bank into the open and galloped

furiously on to the flank of the scattered Italian column.

"Oh my God," sighed Gareth. "Every man a bloody general-"

"Look!"

shouted Jake, pointing back down the course of the dry river-bed, and

they all fell abruptly silent at the spectacle.

It seemed as though the very earth had opened, disgorgeing rank upon

rank of wildly galloping horsemen. \Where a moment before the sweep of

land below the mountains had been empty and silent, now it swarmed with

men and horses, hundreds upon hundreds of them, dashing headlong upon

the lumbering Italian column.

The dust hung over it all, rolling forward like the fog off a winter

sea, shrouding the sun, so that horses and machines were dark infernal

shapes below the sombre clouds, and the ruddy sun glinted dully on the

steel of rifle and sword.

"That does it," Gareth agreed bitterly, and reversed his car to clear

Jake's front, before swinging away, engine roaring and the wheels

spinning for purchase in the steep loose earth of the river-bank.

Jake turned wide of the other car and took the bank at an angle to

lessen the gradient, and the two cumbersome machines burst out into the

plain, wheel to wheel.

Before them was the open flank of massed soft-skinned vehicles, as

tempting a target as they had ever been offered in their long and

warlike careers. The two iron ladies swept forward together,

and it seemed to Jake that there was a new tone to the deep engine note

as though they sensed that once again they were fulfilling the true

reason for their existence. Jake glanced quickly at the Hump as she

sailed along beside him. Her angular steelwork, with its flat abrupt

surfaces from which rose the tall turret, still gave her the ugly

old-maidish silhouette, but there was a new majesty in the way she

plunged forward her bright Ethiopian colours fluttered gaily as a

cavalry pennant and the high thin, rimmed wheels spurned the sandy

earth like the hooves of a thoroughbred. Beneath him, Priscilla drove

forward as gamely, and Jake felt a warm flood of affection for his two

old ladies.

"Have at them, girls!" he shouted aloud, and Gareth Swales, head

protruding from the driver's hatch of the Hump, turned towards him.

There was a freshly lit cheroot clamped in the corner of his mouth,

seeming to have sprouted there miraculously of its own accord, and

Gareth grinned around it.

"Nob Xegitind carbomndum!" Jake caught the words faintly above the

roar of wind and motor, then turned his full attention back to

controlling the racing machine, and bringing her as swiftly as possible

into the gaping breach in the Italian line.

Abruptly the pattern of movement ahead of him changed. The exultantly

pursuing Italian warriors had realized belatedly that the roles had

been neatly switched.

The Count picked up the horseman in the sight, and led off just a

touch, a hair's breadth, for the Marmlicher was a high-velocity rifle

and the range was not more than a hundred metres.

He saw the hit clearly, the man lurched in the saddle and sprawled

forward over the horse's neck, but he did not fall. The rifle dropped

from his hands and cartwheeled across the earth, but the man clung

desperately to the horse's mane while quick crimson spread across the

shoulder of his dirty white robe.

The Count fired again, aiming for the junction of the horse's neck and

shoulder, and saw the jarring impact spin the animal off its feet,

so that it fell heavily upon its wounded rider, crushing the air from

his lungs in a short high wail.

The Count laughed, wild with excitement. "How many, Gino? How many is

that?"

"Eight, my Colonel."

"Keep counting. Keep counting," he urged, as he swung the rifle,

seeking the next target, peering eagerly over the open vee sight. Then

suddenly he froze, the rifle barrel wavering and sinking to point at

his glossy toe caps His lower jaw unhinged and slowly sank, as if in

sympathy with the rifle barrel. His recent affliction, forgotten in

the excitement of the chase, returned suddenly with a force that turned

his bowels to water and his legs to rubber.

"Merciful Mary!" he whispered.

The entire horizon was moving, an Unbroken line from one edge of his

vision to the other. It took him many seconds to assimilate what he

was seeing, to realize that instead of fifteen horsemen, there were

suddenly thousands upon thousands, and that rather than running before

him they were now moving towards him at a velocity which he would not

have believed possible. As he stared, he saw rank upon rank of the

enemy seemingly rising from the very earth ahead of him, and rushing

towards him through a curtain of fine pale dust. He saw the lowering

sun glint red as blood upon the naked blades, and the drumming of

galloping hooves sounded like the thunder of a giant waterfall. Yet

faintly through the thunder, he heard the blood-freezing war shrieks of

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