Cry Wolf - Smith Wilbur - Страница 72
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aiming and firing his rifle back into the obscuring clouds and his
comrades, clinging to the roof about him, were frozen in attitudes of
trepidation and alarm.
At that moment, Castelani heard something which he recognized
instantly, his skin prickling at the distant ripping tearing sound.
The sound of a British Vickers machine gun.
His eye sought the direction, turning swiftly to the right flank of the
extended Italian column which seemed now to be rushing back towards him
in confused and completely disordered retreat.
He picked up the tall hump-backed shape instantly, standing high on the
open plain, coming in fast with the strange bounding motion of a
rocking horse, cutting boldly into the flank of the mass of
soft-skinned Italian transports.
"Unlimber the guns," shouted Castelani. "Prepare to receive enemy
armour." The Vickers machine guns in the turrets of the two armoured
cars had ball-type mountings. The barrels could be elevated or
depressed, but they could not traverse more than ten degrees to left or
right, this being the limit of the ball mountings" turn. The driver
had of necessity to act as gun-layer, swinging the entire vehicle to
Within the limited traverse aim of the gun, or at least bring it of the
mounting.
The Ras found this frustrating beyond all enduring. He would select a
target, and shout in perfectly clear and coherent Amharic to his
driver. Gareth Swales, not understanding a word of it, had already
selected another target and was doing his best to line up on it while
the Ras delivered a series of wild kicks at his kidneys to register his
royal right of refusing to engage it.
The consequence of this was that the Hump wove a crazy,
unpredictable course through the Italian column, spinning off at sudden
tangents as the two crew members shouted bitter recriminations at each
other, almost ignoring the sheets of rifle fire that thundered upon the
steel hull from point-blank range, like hail on a galvanized roof.
Priscilla the Pig, on the other hand, was doing deadly execution.
She had missed her first burst fired at the speeding Rolls, and it had
ducked away behind the screen of dust and bucking trucks. Now,
however, Jake and Gregoritis were working with all the precision and
mutual understanding that had developed between them.
"Left driver, left, left," called Gregorius, peering down the open
sights of the Vickers at the truck that roared and bounced along a
hundred yards ahead of them.
"All right, I'm on him," shouted Jake, as the vehicle appeared in the
narrow field of his visor. This was a perforated steel plate that
allowed only forward vision but once Jake had the truck centred, he
followed its violent efforts to dislodge him, closing in rapidly until
he was twenty yards behind it.
The back of the truck was packed with black-shirted infantry men. Some
of them were directing wild but rapid rifle fire at the pursuing car,
the bullets clanging and whining off the hull, but most of them clung
white-faced to the sides of the truck and stared back with stricken
eyes as the armoured death carrier bore down inexorably upon them.
"Shoot, Greg!" called Jake. Even through the cold anger that gripped
him, he was pleased that the boy had obeyed his orders and held his
fire until this moment. There would be no wastage now, at so short a
range every round ripped into the Italian truck, tearing through
canvas, flesh, bone and steel at the rate of seven hundred rounds a
minute.
The truck swerved violently and its front end collapsed; it went over
broadside, crashing over and over, flinging the men high in the air,
the way a spaniel throws off the droplets from its back as it leaps
from water to land.
"Driver, right," called Gregorius immediately. "Another truck,
right, a little more right that's it, you're on." And they roared in
pursuit of another panic-stricken load of Italians.
A hundred yards away on their flank the Hump scored its first success.
Gareth Swales was no longer able to accept the indignity of the Ras's
flying feet, and his frenzied and completely unintelligible commands.
He left the controls of the racing car to swing an angry punch at the
Ras.
"Cut that out, old chap," he snapped. "Play the game I'm on your side,
damn it." The car, no longer under control, jinked suddenly.
Almost side by side with them sped a Fiat truck, filled with
Italians, and the driver had not yet realized that there was another
enemy apart from the pursuing hordes of Ethiopian horsemen. His head
was twisted around over his shoulder at an impossible angle, and he
drove by instinct alone.
The two uncontrolled vehicles came together at an acute angle and at
the top of their combined speeds. Steel met steel in a storm of sparks
and they staggered away from the blow, both of them veering over
steeply. For a moment it" seemed that the Hump would go over; she
teetered at the extreme end of her centre of gravity and then came back
on to all four wheels with a crash that threw the men inside her
unmercifully against her steel sides, before racing on again with
Gareth wrestling at the wheel for control.
The Fiat truck was lighter and stood higher; the armoured car had
caught her neatly under the cab and she did not even waver, but flipped
over on her back, All four wheels still spinning as they "pointed at
the sky, and the cab and canvas-covered hood were torn away instantly,
the men beneath them smeared between steel and hard earth.
It was all too much for the Ras. He could no longer contain his
frustration at being enclosed in a hot metal box from which he could
see almost nothing, while all around hundreds of his hated enemies were
escaping with complete impunity. He flung open the hatch of the turret
and stuck out his head and shoulders, yipping shrilly with bloodlust,
frustration, anger and excitement.
At that moment, an open sky-blue and glistening black Rolls-Royce
tourer flashed across the front of the Hump. In the rear seat was an
Italian officer bedecked with the glittering insignia of rank instantly
Gareth Swales and the Ras were in perfect accord once again.
They had found a target eminently acceptable to both of them.
"I say, tally-ho!" cried Gareth, to be answered by a bloodcurdling
"How do you do!" like the crowing of an enraged rooster from the
turret above him.
Count Aldo Belli was in hysterics, for the driver seemed to have lost
all sense of direction; now more than just a little concussed, he had
turned at right angles across the line of flight of the Italian column.
This was as hazardous as running an ocean liner at full speed through a
field of icebergs for the rolling dust-clouds had reduced visibility to
less than fifty feet, and out of this brown fog the lumbering
troop-carriers appeared without warning, the drivers in no fit
condition to take evasive action, all looking back over their
shoulders.
Ahead of them, two more monstrous shapes appeared out of the dust;
one was an Italian truck and the other was one of the cumbersome
camel-backed vehicles with the Ethiopian colours splashed upon its hull
and a Vickers machine gun protruding from its turret.
Suddenly the armoured car swerved and crashed heavily into the side of
the truck, capsizing it instantly and then swerving back towards the
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