Cry Wolf - Smith Wilbur - Страница 74

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did not need the gay pennant that flew above it to identify his

enemy.

"Very well, lads," he said quietly. "Here they come. High explosive,

and wait for the order. Not a moment before." The speeding armoured

car fired, a long tearing ripping burst. Much too long,

Castelani thought with grim satisfaction. That gun would be

overheating, and they could expect a jam. An experienced gunner laid

down short, spaced bursts of fire the enemy were green also,

Castelani decided.

"Steady, lads, "he snapped, watching his men stir restlessly at the

sound of gunfire and exchange nervous glances.

The car fired again, and he saw the fall of shot around the Rolls,

kicking up swift jumping spurts of dust and earth another long ripping

hail of fire. That ended abruptly and was not repeated.

"Ha!" snorted Castelani, with satisfaction. "She has jammed." His

wavering gunners would not have to receive fire. It was good. It

would steel them, give them confidence to shoot, without being shot

at.

"Steady now. All steady. Not long to wait. Nice and steady now." His

voice lost its jagged, emery-paper tone and became soothing and

crooning like a mother at the cradle.

"Wait for it, lads. Easy now." The Ras did not understand what had

happened, why the gun remained silent, despite all the strength of both

his hands on pistol grip and triggers. The long canvas belt of

ammunition still drooped from the bins and fed into the breech of the

Vickers but it no longer moved.

The Ras swore at the gun, such an oath that, had he hurled it at

another man, would have led immediately to a duel to the death, but the

gun remained silent.

Armed with his two-handed battle sword, the Ras climbed half out of the

turret and brandished it about his head.

It is doubtful if he would have realized what three batteries of modern

100 men field guns would have looked like from the business end,

or, if he had recognized them, whether they would have daunted his

determined pursuit of the fleeing Rolls. As it was, his reason and

vision were clouded with the red mists of battle rage. He did not see

the waiting guns.

Below him, Gareth Swales leaned forward in the driver's seat peering

shortsightedly through the visor, which narrowed his field of vision

and partially obscured it as though he was looking through the

perforated bottom of a kitchen colander. His eyes were swimming from

the cordite smoke, the engine fumes and the dust-motes so that he

blinked rapidly as he concentrated all his efforts in following the

speeding ethereal shape of the Rolls. He did not see the waiting

guns.

"Shoot, damn you," he shouted. "We are going to lose him." But above

him the Vickers was silent, and from his seat low down in the hull, the

slight fold of ground so carefully chosen by Major

Castelani half-hid the batteries.

He raced towards them, drawn on inexorably by the fleeting shape of the

Rolls dancing elusively ahead of him.

Good." Castelani allowed himself a bleak little smile as he watched

the enemy vehicle come on steadily.

Already it was within comfortable range for an experienced gunner, but

he knew it must be half as close again before his own crews could make

any certainty of their practice.

The Rolls, however, was a mere two hundred metres in front of the guns,

and coming on at a speed that could not have been less than sixty miles

an hour. Three terrified and chalky faces were turned towards him in

dreadful appeal and three voices were raised in loud cries for succour.

The Major ignored them and swiftly turned his professional eye back to

the enemy. He found it was still two thousand metres out across the

plain but closing satisfactorily. He was on the point of uttering

another reassurance to his edgy gunners, when the Rolls roared through

the narrow gap in the centre of his batteries.

The Count had at that moment temporarily found his feet and replaced

his helmet on his head. Standing on the high platform of the

Rolls, his voice, powered with adrenalin and shrill with terror,

carried clearly to every gunner.

"Open fire!" shrieked the Count. "Open fire immediately! or I

will have you all shot!" and then, realizing that they should be

encouraged to remain at their posts and cover his withdrawal, he

reached frantically for inspiration and flung over his shoulder one

rousing "Death before dishonour!" before the Rolls bore him away,

still at sixty miles an hour, towards the long distant horizon.

The Major lifted his voice in a great bugling bellow to countermand the

order, but even his lungs were no match for the thunderous volley of

nine field guns fired in as close to unison as they had never been in

training. Each gunner took his Colonel at his literal word when he

said "immediately" and such refinements as laying and aiming were

forgotten in the dire urgency of firing as furiously and as fast as

possible.

In the circumstances, it was nothing short of a miracle that one

high-explosive shell found a mark. This was a Fiat troop-carrier which

emerged at that moment from the dust clouds a quarter of a mile behind

the Ethiopian armoured car. The shell was fused to a thousandth of a

second delay; it went in through the radiator, shattered the engine

block, disintegrated the driver, then burst in the midst of the group

of terrified infantrymen huddled under the canvas hood.

The engine and front wheel of the truck kept going forward for a few

seconds before beginning to roll and bounce over the irregular ground

the rest of the truck and twenty men went straight upwards,

fifty feet in the air like a troupe of maniacal acrobats.

Only one other shell came close to hitting the enemy. It burst ten

yards in front of the Hump, emptying in a towering pillar of flame and

yellow earth, and gouging a deep round crater, four feet across,

into which the speeding car plunged.

The Ras, whose head was protruding from the turret, and whose mouth and

eyes were wide open, had all three of these body apertures filled with

flying sand from the explosion and his war whoops were cut off

abruptly, as he choked for breath and tried frantically to wipe his

streaming eyes.

Gareth also had his vision abruptly closed by the pillar of flame and

sand, and he drove blindly into the shell crater.

The impact threw him out of his seat, and the steering wheel hit him in

the chest, driving the wind out of his lungs before snapping off short

at the floorboards.

With another bound, the Hump bounced jauntily out of the shell crater

with streamers of dust and shell smoke swirling about her. She was

hanging over on one side with her springs snapped off by the jolt,

and her front wheels locked firmly to one side, yet her engine still

bellowed at full power and she went into a tight right-hand circle,

around and around like a circus animal.

Wheezing for breath, Gareth dragged himself back into the driver's

seat, only to find that there was no longer a steering column and that

the throttle had jammed at the fully open position. He sat there for

long seconds, shaking his head to clear it, and struggling desperately

for breath, for the hull was filled with dust and smoke.

Another shell, bursting somewhere close beside the hull, roused him

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