Cry Wolf

Jake broke the spell of silence and loneliness that held them.

"All right, my children. Let's make camp." They had landed on the open beach between the ruined city and the headland, and now the evening wind was sweeping dust and grit across their exposed position.

Jake selected a sheltered hollow under the lee of the ruins, and they moved the cars up and parked them in the protective hollow square of the laager.

The ancient buildings were choked with piled sand and thick with the spiny camel-thorn growth that blocked the narrow streets. While Jake and Gregorius checked the fuelling and lubrication of the vehicles, and Gareth scraped a fireplace against a shielding stone wall, Vicky wandered off to explore the ruins in the dusk.

She did not go far. A tangible sense of menace and human suffering seemed to emanate from the rubble of buildings that had been burned over a century before. It made her skin crawl, but she picked her way cautiously along a narrow alleyway that opened at last into an open square.

She knew instinctively that this had been the trading square of the slave city and she imagined the long chained lines of human beings.

The pervading aura of their misery still persisted. She wondered if she could capture it on paper, and make her readers see that it had not changed. Once again, a consuming greed was to place a nation in chains, once again hundreds of thousands of human beings would be forced to learn the same misery that this city had engendered. She must write that, she decided, she must capture the sense of outrage and despair she felt now and convey it to the civilized peoples of the world.

A small scuffling sound distracted her and she looked down, then drew back with a shudder from the finger-length purple scorpion, with its lobster claws and the high curved tail bearing a single-hooked fang that scuttled towards the toe of her boot. She turned and hurried back along the alleyway.

The chill of horror stayed with her, so that she crossed gratefully to the bright fire of thorn twigs that blazed under the ruined wall.

Gareth looked up as she knelt beside him and held out her hands to the blaze.

"I was just coming to look for you. Better not wander off on your own."

"I can look after myself," she told him quickly, with an edge to her voice which was becoming familiar.

"I agree." He smiled placatingly at her. "A bit too damned well I sometimes think, "and he dug in his pocket.

"I found something in the sand as I was digging the fireplace." He held out a broken circle of metal which gleamed yellow in the firelight. It was fashioned as a snake bangle, with a serpent's forged head and coiled body.

Vicky felt her irritation evaporate magically. "Oh, Gary," she lifted it in both hands, "it's beautiful. Is it gold?"

"I suspect it is." She slipped the heavy bangle over her wrist and admired it with a glowing expression, twisting it to catch the light.

"Not one of them can resist a gift," Gareth thought comfortably, watching her face in the dancing firelight.

"it belonged to a princess, who was famous for her beauty and her compassion to besotted suitors," said Gareth lightly.

"So I thought how fitting that you should have it."

"Oh!" she gasped. "For me." And impulsively she leaned forward to kiss his cheek, and was startled when he turned his head quickly and her lips pressed full against his. For a moment she tried to pull away and then it did not seem worth the effort. After all, it was a truly magnificent bracelet.

In the light of the single hurricane lamp, Jake and Gregorius were studying the large-scale map spread on the engine bonnet of Priscilla the Pig. Gregorius was tracing the route they must take to the shed of the Awash River and lamenting the map's many inaccuracies and omissions.

"If you had tried to follow this, you'd have got into serious trouble, Jake." Jake looked up suddenly from the map, and thirty paces away he saw the two figures in the firelight come together and stay that way.

He felt his pulse begin to pound and the blood come up his neck, scalding hot.

"Let's get some coffee, "he grunted.

"In a minute," Gregorius protested. "First I want to show you where we have to cross the sand desert-" He pointed at the map, tracing a route and not realizing that he was talking to himself alone. Jake had left him to interrupt the action at the fireside.

Vicky awoke in the first uncertain light of dawn to the realization that the wind had dropped. It had whistled dismally all night, so that now when she pulled back her blanket, it was thickly powdered with golden grit and she could feel it stiff in her hair and crunchy between her teeth. One of the men was snoring loudly, but they were three long blanket-wrapped bundles close together, so she was not sure which of them it was. She fetched her toilet bag, towel and a change of underwear, then slipped out of the " laager, climbed the slope of the dune and ran down to the beach.

The dawn was absolutely still, the surface of the bay as smooth as a sheet of pink satin as the glow of the hidden sun touched it. The silence was the complete silence of the desert, unbroken by bird or beast, wind or surf and the dismay she had felt the previous day evaporated.

She stripped off her clothing and walked down the wet sand that the tide had smoothed during the night and waded out into the pink waters, sticking in her belly against the sudden chill of it, and gasping with pleasure as she squatted suddenly neck deep and began to scrub her body of the night's grit and dirt.

When she waded ashore, the sun was cresting the sweeping watery horizon of the Gulf. The tone of light had altered drastically.

Already the soft hues of dawn were giving way to the harsher brilliance of Africa to which she had become accustomed.

She dressed quickly, bundling her used underwear in the towel and combing her wet hair as she climbed the dune.

At the crest, she halted abruptly with the comb still caught in the tangle of her hair and she gasped again as she stared out into the west.

As Gregorius had told them, the still cool air and the peculiar light of the rising sun created a stage effect, foreshortening the hundred miles of flat featureless desert and throwing up into the sky the sheer massif of the highlands, so that it seemed she might stretch out her hand and touch it.

It was dark purplish blue in the early light, but as Vicky watched in awe, it changed colour like some gargantuan chameleon, becoming gilded with bright sun colours and beginning at the same time to recede swiftly, until it was a pale wraith that dissolved into the first dancing heat mirages of the desert -day, and she felt the sultry puff of the rising wind.

She roused herself and hurried down the dune into the laager.

Jake looked up from the pan of beans and bacon that was spluttering over the fire and grinned at her.

"Five minutes for breakfast." He spooned a mess of food into her pannikin and offered it to her. "I thought about night travel to avoid the heat but the chances of smashing up the cars on rough going was too great." Vicky took the food and ate with high relish, pausing only to stare at Gareth Swales as he came to the fire freshly shaven and perfectly groomed, wearing a spotless open-neck shirt and a baggy pair of plus-four trousers in an expensive thorn-proof tweed. His brogues gleamed with polish, and he smoothed his golden moustaches and raised an eyebrow when Jake exploded with delighted laughter.

"Jesus,"he laughed. "Anyone for golf?"

"I say, old son, "Gareth admonished him, amiably running an eye over Jake's faded moleskins, scuffed Chukka boots and plaid shirt with a tear in the sleeve. "Your breeding is showing. just because we are in Africa, there is no need to go native, what?" Then he glanced at Gregorius and flashed that brilliant smile. "No offence, of course. I must say you look jolly dashing in that get-up." Gregorius swathed in his sham ma looked up from his breakfast and returned the smile. "East is east, and west is west," he said.

"Old Wordsworth certainly knew his stuff," Gareth agreed, and dipped a spoon into the pan.

The four vehicles, grotesquely burdened and strung out at intervals of two hundred yards to avoid each other's dust, crawled out of the coastal dunes into the vast littoral where the wind rustled endlessly but brought no relief from the steadily rising heat.

Jake was pointing the column on a compass-bearing slightly southerly of that which he would have chosen without Gregorius's advice. They aimed to pass below the sprawling salt pans which Gregorius warned were treacherous going.

For the first two hours, the fluffy yellow earth offered no serious obstacle to their passage, except that the narrow solid tyres cut in deeply and created a wearying drag that kept the speed down below ten miles an hour and the old engines grinding in the lower gears.

Then the earth firmed, but was strewn with black stone that had been rounded and polished by the grit-laden wind and varied in size from acorns to ostrich eggs. Their speed dropped away a little more as the cars bounced and jolted over this murderous surface, and the black rock threw the heat back at them, so they rode with all hatches and engine-louvres wide open. Though all of them, including Vicky, had stripped to their underwear, still they ran with sweat that dried almost immediately it oozed from their pores. The exposed metal of the cars, although it was painted white, would blister the hand that touched it, and the engine heat and stench of hot oil and fuel in the driver's compartments was swiftly becoming unbearable as the sun climbed to its zenith.

An hour before noon, Priscilla the Pig blew the safety valve on her radiator and sent a shrieking plume of steam high into the air.

Jake earthed the magneto and stopped her immediately. He climbed, half-naked and shiny with sweat, from the turret and shaded his eyes to peer out across the wavering heat-distorted plain. There was no horizon in this haze and visibility was uncertain after a few hundred yards.

Even the other vehicles lumbering far behind him seemed monstrous and unreal.

He waited for the others to come up before calling, "Switch off.

We can't go on in this. the engine oil will be thin as water, and we'll ruin all the bearings if we try.

We'll wait for it to cool a little." Thankfully, they climbed from the cars and crawled into the shade of the chassis where they lay panting like dogs. Jake went down the line with a five-gallon tin of blood-warm. water and gave them each as much as they could drink before collapsing on the blanket beside Vicky.

"It's too hot to walk back to my own car," he explained, and she took it with good grace, merely nodding and closing one more button of her half-open blouse.

Jake wet his handkerchief from the water can and offered it to her.

Gratefully, she wiped her neck and face and sighed with pleasure.

"It's too hot to sleep," she murmured. "Entertain me, Jake."

"Well now!" he grinned, and she laughed.

"I said it's too hot. Let's talk."

"About "About you. Tell me about you what part of Texas are you from?"

"All of it. Wherever my pa could find work."

"What did he do?

"Wrangled cattle, and rode rodeo."

"Sounds fun." Jake shrugged.

"I preferred machines to horses."

"Then?"

"There was this war, and they needed mechanics to drive tanks."

"Afterwards? Why didn't you go home?"

"Pa was dead a steer fell on him, and it wasn't worth the journey to go collect his old saddle and blanket." They were silent for a while, just lying and riding the solid waves of heat that came off the earth.

"Tell me about your dream, Jake," she said at last.

"My dream?"

"Everybody has a dream." He smiled ruefully.. "I've got a dream-" he hesitated, "there is this idea of mine. It's an engine, the Barton engine.

It's all there." He tapped his forehead. "All I need is the money to build it. For ten years, I've tried to get it together.

Nearly had it a couple of times."

"After this trip, you will have it," she suggested.

"Perhaps." He shook his head. "I've been too sure too many times to make any bets, though."

"Tell me about the engine," she said and he talked quietly but eagerly for ten minutes.

It was a new design, a lightweight, economical design. "It would drive anything, water pump, saw mill, motorcycle, that sort of thing."

He was intent, happy, she saw. "I'd only need a small workshop to begin with, some place back west I've thought about Fort Worth-" he stopped himself, and glanced at her. "Sorry, I was running on a bit."

"No," she said quickly. "I enjoyed listening. I hope it works out for you, Jake." He nodded. "Thanks. And they rode the heat for a few more minutes in companionable silence.

"What's your dream?" he asked at last, and she laughed lightly.

"No, tell me,"he insisted.

"There is this book. It's a novel I have thought about it for years. I have written it in my head a hundred times all I have to do is find the time and the place to write it on paper--2 she broke off, and then laughed again. "And then, of course, it sounds corny but I think about kids and a home. I have been travelling too long."

"I know what you mean." Jake nodded. "That's a good dream you've got, "he said thoughtfully. "Better than mine." Gareth Swales heard the murmur of their voices and raised himself on one elbow. For a while he thought seriously about crossing the dozen yards of sunbaked black stones to where they lay but the effort required was just too much and he fell back. A fist-sized rock jarred his kidneys and he cursed quietly.

It was five o'clock before Jake judged they could start the engines again. They refuelled from the cans strapped on the sponsons, and once more they set off in column at an agonized walking pace over the rough surface, each jolt shaking driver and vehicle cruelly.

Two hours later, the plain of black boulders ended abruptly, and beyond it stretched an area of low red sand hills. Thankfully Jake increased speed and the column sped towards a sunset that was inflamed by the dust-laden sky until it filled half the heavens with great swirls of purple and pink and flaming scar lets The desert wind dropped and the air was still and heavy with memory of the day's heat.

Each vehicle drew a long dark shadow behind it and threw up a fat rolling sausage of red dust into the air above it.

The night fell with the tropical suddenness that is alarming to those who have known only the gentle dusks of the northern continents.

Jake calculated that they had covered less than twenty miles in a day of travel and he was reluctant to call a halt, now that they had hit this level going and were bowling along with engine temperatures dropping in the cool of night and the drivers" tempers cooling in sympathy. Jake took a bearing off Orion's belt as the easiest constellation, then he switched on the headlights and looked back to see that the others had followed his example. The lights threw a brilliant path a hundred yards ahead of Jake's car, giving him plenty of time to avoid the odd thick clump of thorn scrub, and occasionally trapping a large grey desert hare, dazzling it so that its eyes blazed diamond bright before it turned and loped, long-legged, ahead of the car, seemingly unable to break out of the path of light, dodging and doubling with its long floppy ears laid along its back, until at the last instant it ducked out from under the wheels and dived into the darkness.

He was just deciding to call a halt for food and drink, with a possible further march later that night, when the sand hills dropped away gradually and in the headlights he saw ahead of him a glistening white expanse of perfectly level sand, as smooth and as inviting as the Brooklands motor-racing circuit.

Jake changed up into high gear for the first time that day, and the car plunged forward eagerly for a hundred yards before the thick hard crust of the salt pan collapsed and the heavy chassis fell through, belly deep, floundering instantly so that Jake was thrown violently forward at the abrupt halt, striking his shoulder and forehead painfully on the steel visor.

The engine shrieked in the frenzy of high revolutions and lifting valves before Jake recovered himself, then slammed the throttle closed.

He dragged himself from the turret to signal a halt to the following vehicles, and then mournfully clambered down to inspect the heavily bogged vehicle. Gareth walked out across the snowy surface of the pan, and stood beside him surveying the damage silently.

"Let him make one crack " Jake thought through the mists of his anger and frustration. He felt his hands curling into big bony hammers.

"Cheroot?" Gareth offered him the case, and Jake felt his anger deflate slightly.

"Good place to camp tonight," Gareth went on. "We'll see about hauling her out in the morning." He clapped Jake's shoulder. "Come on, I'll buy you a warm beer."

"I was waiting for you to say something, anything but that and I would have swung on you. "Jake shook his head grinning with surprise at Gareth's perception.

"You think I didn't know that, old son?" Gareth grinned back at him.

Vicky woke in the hours immediately after midnight when human vitality is at its lowest, and the night was utterly silent except for the gentle sound of one of the men snoring. She recognized the sound from the previous evening, and wondered which of them it was.

something like that could influence a girl's decision, she thought, imagine sleeping every night of your life in a saw mill.

It was not that which had woken her, however. Perhaps it was the cold.

The temperature had plunged in that phenomenal temperature range of the desert, and she drew her blankets tighter over her shoulder and settled to sleep ,again when the sound came again and she shot upright into a rigid sitting position.

It was a long-drawn rolling, rattling sound, quite unlike anything she had ever heard before. The sound rose to a pitch which clawed her nerves, and then ended in a series of deep gut-shaking grunts. It was so fierce and menacing a sound that she felt the slow ice of terror spreading through her body. She wanted to shout to the others, to wake them, but she was afraid to draw attention to herself and she sat frozen and wide-eyed in the next silence waiting for it to happen again.

"It's all right, Miss Camberwell." Vicky started at the quiet voice.

"It's miles away. Nothing to worry about." And she looked round to see the young Ethiopian, still wrapped in his blankets watching her.

"My God, Greg what on earth is it?"

"A lion, Miss Camberwell," Gregorius . explained, obviously surprised that she did not recognize such a commonplace sound.

"A lion? That is a lion roaring?" She had not expected it to sound anything like that.

"My people say that even a brave man is frightened three times by a lion and the first time is when he hears it roar."

"I believe it," she whispered. "I truly do." And she picked up her blankets and went to where Jake and Gareth slept on, undisturbed. She lay down carefully between them, and felt a little easier that the lion had now a wider choice, but still she did not sleep, Count Aldo Belli had retired to his tent with the sincerest and firmest resolve that in the morning he would press forward to the Wells of Chaldi. The General's pleas had touched him. Nothing would check him now, he decided, as he composed himself to sleep.

He woke in the utter dark of the dog hours to find that the Chianti he had drunk at dinner was now exerting internal pressure.

Where a lesser man might have slipped without ceremony from his bed to deal with this problem, the Count did things in greater style.

He lay back on his pillows and let out a single loud bellow, and immediately there was the frantic activity in the night, and within minutes Gino had arrived with a bull's-eye lantern, hastily dressed in a camel-hair gown, and tousle-haired and owl-eyed with sleep. He was followed by the Count's personal valet and his galloper, all in the same state of freshly awoken bewilderment.

The Count stated his physical needs, and the dedicated group gathered around his bed solicitously. Gino helped him up as though he were an invalid, the valet held a dressing gown of quilted blue Chinese silk, embroidered with ferocious scarlet dragons, and then knelt to place a calf-skin slipper on each of the Count's feet, while his aide hastened to kick the Count's personal guard awake and fall them in outside the tent.

The Count emerged from the tent and a small procession, well armed and lighted, filed down to the latrine which had been dug exclusively for the Count's personal use. Gino entered first and checked the small thatched edifice for snakes, scorpions and brigands. Only when he emerged and declared it safe did the Count enter. His escort stood to attention and listened respectfully to the copious outpouring taking place within until they were interrupted by the sky shaking earth-rattling, heart-stopping roar of a male lion.

The Count shot from the latrine, his face a startled glistening white in the lantern light.

"Sweet and merciful Mother of God!" he cried. "What in the name of Peter and all the saints is that?" Nobody could answer him, in fact nobody showed any interest in the question whatever, and the Count had to move swiftly to catch up with his armed escort which had already started back towards the bivouac in a sprightly fashion.

Once within the security of his own brightly lit tent, and surrounded by his hastily assembled staff, the Count's pulse rate returned to normal, and one of his officers suggested that the native Eritrean guides be sent for and questioned on the terrible night sounds that had plunged the entire battalion into consternation.

"Lion?" said the Count, and then again, "Lion!" Instantly the formless terrors of the night evaporated, for by this time the first light of dawn was gleaming in the east, and the Count's breast swelled with the fierce instincts of the huntsman.

"It appears, my Colonel, that the beasts will be feeding on the antelope carcasses that you left lying out on the desert," the interpreter explained. "The smell of blood has attracted them."

aGi no snapped the Count. "Fetch the Mannlicher and have the driver bring the Rolls-Royce to my tent immediately." My Colonel," protested Major Luigi Castelani. "The battalion, by your own orders, is to march at dawn."

"I Countermanded!" snapped the Colonel. Already he imagined the magnificent trophy skin spread before his Louis XIV desk in the library of his castle. He would have it prepared with wide open jaws, flashing white fangs and fierce yellow glass eyes. The picture of open jaws and fangs suddenly reminded him with considerable force of his nerve racking brush with the beisa oryx. "Major," he ordered, "I want twenty men to accompany me, a truck to transport them, full battle order, and one hundred rounds of ammunition each." The Count was not about to take any more silly chances.

The lion was a fully mature male, six years of age, and, like most of the desert strain of leo panthers, he was much larger than the forest lions. He stood well over three feet high at the shoulder, and he weighed in excess of four hundred pounds. The late sun enhanced the sleek reddish ochre of his skin and transformed his mane into a glowing halo of gold. The mane was dense and long, framing the broad flattened head, reaching far back beyond the shoulder, and hanging so low under his chest and belly as almost to sweep the earth.

He walked stiffly, head held very low and swinging heavily from side to side with each laborious step. His breathing came with a low explosive grunt at each exhalation, and occasionally he stopped and swung his head to snap irritably at the buzzing blue cloud of flies that swarmed about the wound in his flank. Then he would lick at the small dark hole from which pale watery blood oozed steadily.

The long pink tongue curled out and, rough as shagreen, rasped against the supple hide. The constant licking had away the hair around the wound, giving it a pale worn shaven appearance.

The 9.3 Marmlicher bullet had caught him at the instant he had begun to turn away to run. It had angled in from two inches behind the last rib, striking with a force of nine tons that had bowled the lion down, rolling him in a cloud of pale dust. The copper-jacketed bullet was tipped with soft expanding lead, and it mushroomed as it raked the belly cavity, lacerating the bowels and tearing four large abdominal veins. The slug had passed close enough to the kidneys to bruise both of them severely, so now, when the lion stopped, arched his back and crouched to pass a spattering of bloodstained urine, he groaned like the roll of drums at an execution. Then, finally, the bullet had struck the arch of the pelvic girdle and lodged there against the bone.

After the first massive shock of impact, the lion had rolled to his feet and flattened into a dead streaking run, jinking away below the level of the coarse scrub. Although a dozen more bullets had thrown up soft jumping spurts of dust around him, one so close as to throw grit into his eyes, not another touched him.

There had been seven lions in the pride. Another older, heavier, darker-maned male, two younger daintier breeding females, one with her lithe-wasted body thickened with the heavy bearing of young in her womb, and three immature animals still dappled with their cub spots and boisterous as kittens.

The younger male was the only one to survive that long shattering roll of rifle fire, and now as he moved on he felt the thick jelly-like weight of congealing blood sloshing back and forth across his belly cavity at each step. There was a heavy lethargy slowing his movements, but thirst drove him onwards. Thirst was a scalding agony that consumed his whole body, and the lower pools of the Awash River were a dozen miles ahead.

In the dawn Priscilla the Pig was heavily bogged down on her belly with all four wheels helpless in the porridge of pale salt mire below the crust of the pan.

Jake stripped to the waist and swung the long two handed axe relentlessly, while the others gathered the piles of thorny scrub he mowed down, and, cursing at the pricks and scratches, carried them out across the snowy surface of the pan.

Jake worked with a self punishing fury, angry with his lack of attention which had bogged the car and was going to cost them a day at the least. It was no valid excuse that exhaustion and heat had clouded his judgement that he had not recognized the treacherous smooth white surface of the pan for Gregorius had warned him specifically of this hazard. He worked with the axe from an hour before sunrise until the heat had climbed with the sun and a small mountain of cut branches stood beside the car.

Then Gareth helped him build a firm foundation of flat stones and thicker branches under the engine compartment of the car. They had to lie on their sides and grovel in the dust to get the big screw jack set up on the base and they slowly lifted the front of the car, turning the handle between them.

As the front wheels rose an inch at a time, Vicky and Gregorius packed the wiry scrub branches under them. It was slow and laborious work which had to be repeated at the rear of the car.

it was past noon before Priscilla the Pig stood forlornly balanced on four piles of compacted branches but her belly was clear of the surface "What do we do now?" Gareth asked. "Drive her back?"

"One spin of the wheels will kick that trash out and she'll bog down again," Jake grunted, and wiped his sweat glistening chest on the bundled shirt in his hand. He looked at Gareth and felt a flare of irritation that after five hours" work in the sun, after grovelling on his belly in the dust, and heaving on the jack handle, the man had barely raised a/ sweat, his clothes were unmarked and final provocation his hair was still neatly combed.

Working under Jake's direction, they cut and laid a corduroy of branches back to the hard ground at the edge of the pan. This would distribute the weight of the vehicle and prevent it breaking through the crust again.

Then Vicky manoeuvred and reversed Miss Wobbly down to the edge of the pan and lined her up with the causeway of branches. The men joined three coils of the thick manila line and carried it out to the stranded vehicle, unrolling it behind them as they went, until at last the two cars were joined by that fragile thread.

Gareth climbed in and took the wheel of Priscilla while Jake and Gregorius, armed with two of the thickest branches, stood ready to lever the wheels.

"You any good at praying, Gary? "Jake shouted.

"Not my strong suit, old son."

"Well, stiffen the old upper lip then. "Jake mimicked him, and then let out a bellow at Vicky who acknowledged with a wave before her golden head disappeared into the driver's hatch of Miss Wobbly. The engine beat accelerated and the line came up taut as Miss Wobbly rolled forward up the incline above the pan.

"Keep the wheels straight," shouted Jake, and he and Gregorius threw their weight on the branches, giving just that ounce of leverage sufficient to transfer part of the vehicle's weight on to the corduroyed pathway.

Slowly, ponderously, the cumbersome vehicle rolled back across the pan, until she reached the hard ground and the four of them shouted with relief and triumph.

Jake retrieved two celebratory bottles of Tusker beer from his secret hoard, but the liquid was so warm that half of it exploded in a fizzing gush from the mouth of each bottle as it was opened, and there was only a mouthful for each of them.

"Can we reach the lower Awash by nightfall?" Jake demanded, and Gregorius looked up and judged the angle of the sun before replying.

"If we don't waste any more time," he said.

Still on a compass heading, and giving the salt-white pans a wide berth, the column ground on steadily into the west.

In the mid afternoon they reached the sand desert, with its towering whale-backed dunes throwing lovely lyrical shadows in the hollows between. The colour of the sand varied from dark purple to the softest pinks and talcum white, and was so fine and soft that the wind blew long smoke-like plumes from the crest of each dune.

Under Gregorius's direction they turned northwards, and within half an hour they had found the long narrow ridge of ironstone that bisected the sand desert and formed a narrow causeway through the shifting dunes. They crept following its winding course slowly across this rocky bridge, for twelve miles, while the dunes rose on each side of them.

Vicky thought that this was much like the passage of the Red Sea by the fleeing Israelites. Even the dunes seemed like frozen waves that might at each moment come crashing down to swamp them and she despaired that she could ever adequately describe the wild and disordered beauty of this multicoloured sea of sand.

They emerged at last and with startling suddenness into the dry flat grasslands of the Ethiopian lowlands. The desert proper was at last behind them and although this was a harsh and and savannah, there was, at least, the occasional thorn tree and an almost unbroken carpet of se red grass the grass was so amongst the low thorny scrub.

Altho fine and dry that all colour had been bleached from it by the sun, it shone silver and stiff as though coated with hoar frost.

Most cheering of all was the distant but discernible blue outline of the far mountains. Now they hovered at the edge of their awareness, a far beacon calling them onward.

Over the short crisp grass, the four vehicles roared forward joyously, bumping through an occasional ant-bear hole and flattening the clumps of low them that stood in their way as they plunged ahead.

In the last glimmering of the day, just when Jake had decided to halt the day's march, the flat land ahead of them opened miraculously and they looked down into the steep boulder-strewn gorge of the Awash River fifty feet below them. They climbed out of the parked vehicles and gathered stiffly in a small group on the lip of the ravine, "There is Ethiopia, two hundred yards away. It's two years since last I stood upon the soil of my own country," said Gregorius, his big dark eyes catching the last of the light.

He stopped himself and explained. "The river rises in the high country near Addis Ababa and comes down one of the gorges into the lowland. A short distance downstream from here it ends in a shallow swamp. There its waters sink away into the desert sand and disappear.

Here we are standing on French territory still, ahead of us is Ethiopia, there far to the north is Italian Eritrea."

"How far is it to the Wells of Chaldi?"Gareth interrupted.

That for him was the end of the rainbow and the pot of gold.

Gregorius shrugged. "Another forty miles, perhaps."

"How do we get across this lot?" Jake muttered, staring down into the dim depths of the ravine where the shallow pools still glowed dull silver.

"Upstream there is an old camel route to J ibuti," Gregorius told him.

"We might have to dig out the banks a little, but I think we'll be able to cross."

"I hope you are right," Gareth told him. "It's a long way home, if we have to go back." The view of water that she had glimpsed in the depths of the ravine haunted Vicky Camberwell during the night. She dreamed of foaming mountain streams and spilling waterfalls, of moss-covered boulders, swaying green ferns about a deep cold pool, and she awoke, restless and tired, with sweat plastering her hair to her neck and forehead. There was just the first promise of dawn in the sky.

She thought that she was the only one awake and she crept into the vehicle and fetched her towel and toilet bag, but as she jumped down to the ground she heard the clink of spanner on steel and she saw Jake stooped over the engine compartment of his car.

She tried to sneak away before he saw her, but he straightened suddenly.

"Where are you going?" he demanded. "As if I didn't know. Listen, Vicky, I don't like you wandering around out of camp on your own."

"Jake Barton, I feel so filthy I can smell myself. Nothing and nobody is going to stop me getting down to the river." Jake hesitated. "I'd better come down with you."

"This isn't the Folies Berg&e, my dear," she laughed, and he had learned enough not to argue with this lady. He watched her hurry to the lip of the ravine and disappear down the steep slope with vague misgivings, for which he could find no real substance.

The earth and loose stone rolled easily underfoot, and Vicky restrained her impatience and picked her way carefully towards the water, until she reached a narrow game trail that tipped down at a more comfortable angle, and she followed it with relief. Her footsteps, falling silently on to the soft earth, followed faithfully the string of round five- toed pad marks, larger than a saucer, which had been plugged deeply by the heavy weight of the animal that had made them. Vicky did not look down, however, and if she had, it was doubtful if she would have recognized what she was seeing. The faintly reflected light of the pools drew her like a beacon.

When she reached the bottom of the ravine, she found that the river was so shrunken that it was no longer flowing.

The pools were shallow, stagnant and still warm from the previous day's sun. The storm waters of the awash had cut down through the softer upper layers of earth until they exposed the sheet of hard black ironstone that formed the floor of the ravine.

Vicky stripped off her sweat-damp clothing and stepped down into one of the shallow pools, sighing with the pleasurable feel of water on her skin. She sat waist-deep and scooped handfuls of water over her face and breasts, washing away the dust and salt-sticky sweat of the desert.

Then she waded to the edge of the pool and selected a bottle of shampoo from her bag. The water was so soft that she swiftly worked up a thick coating of white suds that covered her head and ran down her neck on to her bare shoulders.

She rinsed the soap off and bound the towel around her wet head like a turban, before kneeling in the shallow pool and soaping her entire body, delighting at the slipperiness of the suds and their fragrance.

By the time she was finished, the light had strengthened and she knew that the others would be up and chafing to resume the march.

She stepped out on to the flat black rock that surrounded the pool and stood for a moment to feel the first gentle movement of the morning breeze against her naked skin, and suddenly she had a strong sensation that she was being watched. She, turned swiftly, half crouching, her hands flying instinctively to cover her bosom and her groin.

The eyes that watched her were of a savage golden colour, and the pupils were glistening black slits. The stare was steady and unblinking.

The huge reddish-gold beast crouched on a level ledge of rock, halfway up the far bank of the ravine. It lay with its forepaws drawn up under its chin, and there was a sense of deadly stillness about it that was chilling, although Vicky did not readily recognize what she was seeing.

Then very slowly the dark ruff of the mane came erect, swelling out around the head and exaggerating its already impressive bulk. Then the tail twitched and began to slash back and forth with the steady beat of a metronome.

Suddenly Vicky knew what it was. She heard again in her imagination the echoes of that terrible sound in the night and she screamed.

Jake had just completed the adjustments he was making to the ignition of his car and closed the engine cowling. He picked up the fluted bottle of Scrubbs Cloudy Ammonia to dissolve the grease from his hands.

At that instant he heard the scream and he began to run without a conscious thought.

The scream was so high and shrill, an expression of mortal terror, that Jake's heart raced in sympathy and when the scream came again, if anything shriller still, he leaped the bank and went sliding and running down the steep slope of the ravine.

It was only seconds from when he heard the first scream until he came skidding and sliding down on to the rocky floor of the ravine beside the pool.

He saw the naked girl crouching at the edge of the pool, both hands pressed to her mouth. Her body was pale and slim, with the small tight round buttocks of a lad and long graceful legs.

"Vicky," he shouted. "What is it?" And she turned quickly to him, her breasts swinging heavily at the movement, round and white with large pink nipples standing out tightly with cold and shock. Even in the extremity of the moment, he could not help but glance down at the smooth velvety plain of her belly and the fluffy dusky triangle at its base. Then she was running towards him on those long coltish legs, and her face was deadly white, and the speckled green eyes huge and swimming with rampant terror.

"Jake," she cried. "Oh God, Jake," and then he saw movement beyond her, halfway up the bank of the water course.

The wound had stiffened during the night, almost paralysing the lion's hindquarters, and the torn entrails were leaking poison and infection into the belly cavity. It had slowed the animal so drastically that the natural reflexive anger which the sight of a human form had roused was not strong enough to precipitate the charge.

However, the sound of the human voice immediately invoked memories of the hunters who had inflicted this terrible aching agony "and the anger flared higher.

Then suddenly there was another of the hated two-legged figures, more noise and movement, all of this enough to counter the stiffness and paralysing lethargy. The lion rose slightly out of his crouch and he growled.

Jake ran four paces to meet Vicky and she tried to throw her arms about his neck for protection, but he avoided the embrace and grasped her upper arm with his left hand, his fingers digging so deeply into her flesh that the pain steadied her. Using the impetus of her run, he swung her on towards the path that climbed the slope.

"Run," he shouted. "Keep running." And he turned back to face the crippled animal as it launched itself from the ledge into the bed of the river.

It was only then that Jake realized that he still carried a full bottle of Scrubbs Ammonia in his hand. The lion came bounding swiftly through the shallow stagnant pool towards him. Despite the wounds, it followed with lithe and sinuous menace. it was so close that he could see each stiff white whisker in the curled upper lip and hear the rattle of air in its throat. He let it come on, for to turn and run was suicide.

At the last moment he reared back like a baseball pitcher and hurled the bottle. It was an instinctive action, using the only weapon however puny that was at hand.

The bottle flew straight at the lion's head, catching it in the direct centre of its broad forehead as it lunged smoothly upwards towards the ledge where Jake stood.

The bottle exploded in a burst of sparkling glass splinters and a creamy gush of the pungent liquid. It filled both the lion's eyes, blinding it instantly, and the stench of concenits open mouth and flaring nostrils killed trated ammonia in its sense of smell and shocked its whole system so violently that it missed its footing and fell, roaring with the agony of scalded eyeballs and burning throat, into the shallow water where it rolled helplessly on its back.

Jake ran forward, seizing the few seconds of advantage he had gained.

He stooped to pick up a water-worn ironstone boulder the shape and size of a football, and swung it up above his head with both hands.

As he poised himself on the ledge above the pool, the lion recovered its balance and came up at him blindly. Jake swung the boulder down from on high and, like a cannon ball, it smashed into the back of the animal's neck, where the sodden mane covered the juncture of skull and vertebrae, crushing both so that the dreadfully mutilated beast collapsed and rolled on to its side, half in the water and half on the black rock ledge.

For long seconds Jake stood over it, panting with exertion and reaction, then he leaned forward and touched with his fingertip the long pale lashes that fringed the lion's open staring golden eye.

Already the sheen of the eyeball was clouded by the corrosive liquid.

At Jake's touch there was no blinking reflex, and he knew that the animal was dead.

He turned to find that Vicky had not obeyed his instruction to run. She stood frozen where he had left her, naked and vulnerable, so that he felt his heart shift within him and he went to her quickly.

With a sob she flew into his arms and clung to him with startling strength. Jake knew that the embrace was the consequence of terror not affection, but as his own heart-beat slowed and the tingle of the adrenalin in his blood receded, he thought that he had achieved a solid advantage. If you save a girl's life, she just has to take you seriously, he reasoned, and grinned to himself still a little unsteadily. All his senses were enhanced by the high point of recent danger. He could smell the perfumed soap and the stink of ammonia. He could feel with excruciating clarity the slim hard length of the girl's body pressed to his and the smooth warmth of her skin under his hands.

"Oh Jake!" she whispered brokenly, and with sudden aching certainty he knew that in this moment she was his to take, to possess right here on the black rock bank of the Awash, beside the warm carcass of the lion.

The knowledge was certain and his hands moved on her body, receiving instant confirmation her body was quick and responsive, and her face turned up to his. Her lips trembled and he could feel her breath upon his mouth.

"What the hell is going on down there?" Gareth's voice rang across the murky depths of the gorge. He stood at the top of the bank high above them. He had one of the Lee Enfield bolt-action rifles under his arm and seemed on the point of coming down to them.

Jake turned Vicky, shielding her with his own big body and slipping off his moleskin jacket to cover her nakedness.

The jacket reached halfway down her thighs and folded voluminously around under her armpits. She was still shivering like a kitten in a snowstorm, and her breathing was broken and thick.

"Don't worry about it," Jake called up at Gareth. "You weren't in time to help, and you aren't needed now." He groped in his hip pocket and Produced a large, slightly grubby handkerchief, which Vicky accepted with a tearful, quivering smile.

"Blow your nose," said Jake. "and get your pants on, before the whole gang arrives to give you a hand." regorius was so impressed that he was speechless for several minutes. In Ethiopia there is no act of ivalour so highly esteemed as the single-handed hunting and killing of a full-grown adult lion, The warrior who accomplishes this feat wears the mane thereafter as a badge of his courage and earns the respect of all. The man who shoots his lion is respected, and the man who kil with a spear is venerated. - Gregorius had never heard of one killed with a single rock and a bottle of ammonia.

Gregorius skinned out the carcass with his own hands.

Before he had finished, the black pinioned vultures were sailing in wide circles overhead. He left the naked pink carcass lying in the river bed, and carried the wet skin up to the bivouac where Jake was fretting to continue the trek towards the Wells. He was irreverent in his disdain of the trophy, and Greg tried to explain it to him.

"You will gain great prestige amongst my people, Jake.

Wherever you go, people will point you out to each other."

"Fine Greg. That's just fine. Now will you kindly haul arse.

"I will have a war bonnet made for you out of the mane, Greg insisted, as he strapped the bundle of wet skin to the sponson of Jake's car.

"With the hair combed out, it will look very grand."

"It could only be an improvement on his present hair style," Gareth observed drily. "I agree it's been a beautiful honeymoon, and Jake is a splendid lad but like he said, let's move on, before I am violently ill." As they moved towards their respective cars, Gregorius fell in beside Jake and quietly showed him the mushroomed copper-jacketed bullet he had removed from its niche in the pelvic bone of the carcass.

Jake paused to examine it closely, turning it in the palm of his hand.

"Nine millimeter, or nine point three," he said. "It's a sporting calibre not military."

"I doubt if there is a single rifle in Ethiopia that would fire this bullet," said Greg seriously. "It's a foreigner's rifle."

"No need to blow the bugle yet," said Jake, and flicked the bullet back to him. "But we'll bear it in mind." Gregorius almost turned away, then said shyly, "Jake, even if the lion was already wounded it's still the bravest thing I ever heard of. I have often hunted for them, but never killed one yet." Jake was touched by the boy's admiration. He laughed roughly and slapped his shoulder.

"I'll leave the next one for you," he promised.

They followed the windings of the River Awash through the savannah grassland, moving in towards the mountains so that with each hour travelled the peaks stood higher and clearer into the sky. The ridges of rock and the deep-forested gorges came into hazy focus, like a wall across the sky.

Suddenly they intersected the old caravan road, hitting it at a point where the steep banks of the Awash flattened a little. The ford of the river had been deeply worn over the ages by the passage of laden beasts of burden and the men who drove them, so that the many footpaths down each bank were deep trenches in the red earth, that jinked to avoid any large boulder or ridge of rock.

The three men worked in the brilliant sunlight and swung shovel and mattock in a fine mist of red dust that powdered their hair and bodies.

They filled in the uneven ground and deeply worn trenches, levering the boulders free and letting them roll and bounce down into the river bed, and slept that night the deathlike sleep of utter exhaustion that ignored the ache of abused muscle and burst blisters.

Jake had them at work before it was fully light the next morning, clearing and levelling, shovelling and packing the dry hard-baked earth, until at last each bank had been shaped into a rough but passable ramp.

Gareth was to take the first car through and he stood in the turret, somehow managing to look debonair and sartorially elegant, under the fine layer of red dust. He grinned at Jake and shouted dramatically, "Noli il legitimi carborundum," and disappeared into the steel interior The engine roared and he went bounding and sliding down the steep ramp of newly turned earth, bounced and jolted across the black rock bottom and flew at the far bank.

When the wheels spun viciously in the loose red earth, blowing out a storm of grit and pebbles, Jake and Gregorius were ready to throw their weight against it and this was just sufficient to keep the vehicle moving. Slowly it ground its way up the almost vertical climb, the rear end kicking and yawing under the thrust of the spinning wheels, until at last it burst out over the top, and Gareth shut down the power and jumped out laughing.

"Right, now we can tow the other cars up the bank," and he produced a celebratory cheroot.

"What was that piece of dog Latin you recited just then Jake asked, as he accepted the cheroot.

"Old family war cry," Gareth explained. "Shouted by the fighting Swales at Hastings, gin court and in the knocking shops of the world."

aW hat does it mean?"

"Nob Xegidmi carborundum?" Gareth grinned again as he lit the cheroots. "It means, "Don't let the bastards grind you down"." One at a time, they brought the other three cars down into the ravine, and hitched them up to the vehicle on the far bank. Then with Vicky driving, Gareth towing, and Jake and Gregorius shoving, they hauled them up on to the level, sunbaked soil of Ethiopia. It was late afternoon when at last they fell panting in the long shadow thrown by Miss Wobbly's chassis, to rest and smoke and drink steaming mugs of hastily brewed tea. Gregorius told them: "No more obstacles ahead of us now. It's open ground all the way to the Wells," and then he smiled at the three of them with white teeth in a smooth honey-coloured face.

"Welcome to Ethiopia!"

"Quite frankly, old -chap, I'd much prefer to be sitting at Harry's Bar in the rue Daunou," said Gareth soberly which is exactly what I will be doing not long after Toffee Sagud presses a purse of gold into my milk-white hand." Jake stood up suddenly and peered out into the dancing heat waves that still poured from the hot earth like swirling liquid. Then he ran quickly across to his own car and leapt up into the turret, emerging seconds later with his binoculars.

The others stood up uneasily and watched him focus the glasses.

"Rider," said Jake.

"How many? "Gareth demanded.

"Just the one. Coming this way fast. "Gareth moved across to fetch the Lee-Enfield and work a cartridge into the breech.

They saw him now, galloping through the dizzy heat mirage, so that at one moment horse and rider seemed to float free of the earth, and then sink back and swell miraculously, growing to elephantine proportions in the heat-tortured air. Dust drifted behind the running horse and it was only at close range that the rider came into crisp focus.

Gregorius let out a bellow like a rutting stag and raced out into the sunshine to meet the newcomer. In a brilliant display of horsemanship the rider reined in the big white stallion so abruptly that he plunged and reared, cutting at the air with his fore hooves With white robes billowing, he flung himself from the horse, and into Gregorius's widespread arms.

The two figures joined together rapturously, the stranger suddenly seeming small and delicate in Gregorius's arms, and the cries of laughter and greeting high and birdlike.

Then hand in hand, looking into each other's faces, they came back to the group that waited by the cars.

"My God, it's another girl," said Gareth with amazement, setting the loaded rifle aside, and they all stared at the slim, dark-eyed child in her late teens with a skin like dusky silk and immense dark eyes fringed with long curling lashes.

"May I introduce Sara Sagud?" asked Gregorius. "She is my cousin, my uncle's youngest daughter, and she is also without doubt the prettiest lady in Ethiopia."

"I see what you mean," said Gareth. "Very decorative indeed." As Gregorius, introduced each of them to her by name, the girl smiled at them, and the long aristocratic face with the serenity of an Egyptian princess, the delicate features and chiselled nose of a Nefertiti, changed instantly to a sparkling childlike mischievousness.

"I knew you must cross the Awash here, it is the only place and I came to meet you."

"She speaks English also," Gregorius pointed out proudly.

"My grandfather insists that all his children and his grand.children learn to speak English. He is a great lover of the English."

"You speak it well," Vicky congratulated Sara, although in fact her English was heavily accented, and the girl turned to her, smiling anew.

"The sisters at the convent of the Sacred Heart in Berbera taught me," she explained, and she examined Vicky with frank and unabashed admiration. "You are very beautiful, Miss Camberwell, your hair is the colour of the winter grass in the highlands," and Vicky's usual composure was rocked.

She blushed faintly and laughed, but Sara's attention had flicked away to the armoured cars.

"Ah, they also are beautiful nobody has spoken of anything else, since they heard these were coming." She hoisted the skirts of her robe up over her tight-fitting embroidered breeches, and hopped agilely up on to the steel body of Miss Wobbly. "With these we shall throw the Italians back into the sea. Nothing can stand before the courage of our warriors and these fine war machines." She flung her arms wide in a dramatic gesture and then turned. to Jake and Gareth. "I am honoured to be the first of all my people to thank you."

"Don't mention it, my dear girl," Gareth murmured, "our pleasure, I assure you." He refrained from asking if her father had remembered to bring the cash with him, but asked instead, "aAre your people waiting for us at the Wells?"

"my grandfather has come with my father and all my uncles. His personal guard is with him, and many hundreds of others of the Harari, together with their women and animals."

"My God," growled Jake "It sounds like a helluva reception committee."

They camped that last night of the journey on the bank of the Awash under the spreading umbrella branches of a camel thorn tree, sitting late and talking in the ruddy flickering glow of the fire, secure within the square fort formed by the four hulking steel vehicles. At last the talk died away into a weary but friendly silence, and Vicky stood up.

"A short walk for me, and then bed." Sara stood with her. "I'll come with you." Her fascination with and admiration for Vicky was increasingly apparent, and she followed her out of the laager like a faithful puppy.

Away from the camp, they squatted side by side in companionable fashion under a night sky splendid with star shot, and Sara told Vicky seriously, "They both desire you greatly Jake and Gareth." Vicky laughed awkwardly again, once more discomposed by the girl's direct manner.

"Oh, come now."

"Oh yes, when you come near them, they are like two dogs, all stiff and walking around each other as though they will sniff each other up the tail." Sara giggled, and Vicky had to smile with her.

"Which one will you choose, Miss Camberwell?" Sara demanded.

"Lardy, do I have to? "Vicky was still smiling.

"Oh no," Sara reassured her. "You can make love with both of them. I would do so."

"You would? "Vicky asked.

"Yes, I would. What other way can you tell which one you like best?"

"That's true." Vicky was becoming breathless with suppressed laughter, but fascinated by this bit of logic. The idea had a certain appeal, she admitted to herself.

"I will make love with twenty men before I marry Gregorius. That way I will be sure I have missed nothing, and I will not regret it when I am old," declared the girl.

"Why twenty, Sara?" Vicky tried to keep her voice as serious as the girl's. "Why not twenty-three or twenty-six?" Oh no," said Sara primly. "I would not want people to think me a loose woman," and Vicky could hold her laughter no longer.

"But you-" Sara returned to the immediate problem.

"Which of them will you try first?"

"You pick for me," Vicky invited.

"It is difficult," Sara admitted. "One is very strong and has much warmth in his heart, the other is very beautiful and will have much skill." She shook her head and sighed. "It is very difficult.

No, I cannot choose for you. I can only wish you much joy." The conversation had disturbed Vicky more than she realized, and although-she was exhausted by the long hard driven day, she could not sleep, but lay restlessly under a single blanket on the hard sun-warmed earth, considering the wicked and barely thinkable thoughts that the girl had sown in her mind. So it was that she was still awake when Sara rose from beside her and, silently as a wraith, crossed the laager to where Gregorius lay. The girl had discarded the robe and wore only the skintight velvet breeches, encrusted with silver embroidery. Her body was slim and Polished as ebony in the light of the stars and the new moon. She had small high breasts and a narrow moulded waist. She stooped over Gregorius and instantly he rose, and hand in hand, carrying their blankets, the pair slipped out of the laager, leaving Vicky more disturbed than ever. She is of the desert. Once she lay and listened to the night sound thought she heard the soft cry of a human voice in the darkness, but it may have been only the plaintive yelp of a Jackal. The two young Ethiopians had not returned by the time Vicky at last fell asleep.

The radio message that Count Aldo Belli received from General De Bono on the seventh day after leaving Asmara caused him much pain and outrage.

"The man addresses me as an inferior," he protested to his officers. He shook the yellow sheet from the message pad angrily before reading in a choked voice, "I hereby directly order you"." He shook his head in mock disbelief "No "request", no "if you please", you notice." He crumpled the message sheet and hurled it against the canvas wall of the headquarters tent and began pacing in a magisterial manner back and forth, with one hand on the butt of his pistol and the other on the handle of his dagger.

"It seems he does not understand my messages. It seems that I must explain my position in person He thought about this with burgeoning enthusiasm. The discomfort of the drive back to Asmara would be greatly reduced by the superb upholstery and suspension designed by Messrs Rolls and Royce and would be more than adequietely offset by the quasi-civilized amenities of the town. A marble bath, clean laundry, cool rooms with high ceilings and electric fans, the latest newspapers from Rome, the company of the dear and kind young hostesses at the casino all this was suddenly immensely attractive.

Furthermore, it would be an opportunity to supervise the curing and packaging of the hunting trophies he had so far accumulated. He was anxious that the lion skins were correctly handled and the numerous bullet holes were properly patched. The further prospect of reminding the General of his background, upbringing and political expendability also had much appeal.

"Gino," he bellowed abruptly, and the Sergeant dashed into the tent, automatically focusing his camera.

"Not now! Not now!" The Count waved the camera aside testily.

"We are going back to Asmara for conference with the General. Inform my driver accordingly." Twenty-four hours later, the Count returned from Asmara in a mood of bile and thunder. The interview with General De Bono had been one of the low points in the Count's entire life. He had not believed that the General was serious in his threat to remove him from his command and pack him off ignobly back to Rome until the General had actually begun dictating the order to his smirking aide de-camp, Captain Crespi.

The threat still hung over the Count's handsome curly head. He had just twelve hours to reach and secure the Wells of Chaldi or a second-class cabin on the troopship GaribaLdi, sailing five days later from Massawa for Napoli, had been reserved for him by the General.

Count Aldo Belli had sent a long and eloquent cable to Benito Mussolini, describing the General's atrocious behaviour, and had returned in high pique to his battalion completely unaware that the General had anticipated his cable, intercepted it and quietly suppressed it.

Major Castelani did not take the order to advance seriously, expecting at any moment the counter-order to be given, so it was with a sense of disbelief and rising jubilation that he found himself actually aboard the leading truck, grinding the last dusty miles through rolling landscape towards the setting sun and the Wells of Chaldi.

The heavy rainfall precipitated by the bulk of the Ethiopian massif was shed from the high ground by millions of cascades and runners, pouring down into the valleys and the lowlands. The greater bulk of this surface water found its devious way at last into the great drainage system of the Sud marshes and from there into the Nile River, flowing northwards into Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea.

A smaller portion of the water found its way into blind rivers like the Awash, or simply streamed down and sank Without trace in the soft sandy soils of the savannah and desert.

One set of exceptional geological circumstances that altered this general rule was the impervious sheet of schist that stretched out from the foot of the mountains and ran in a shallow saucer below the red earth of the plain. Runoff water from the highlands was contained and channelled by this layer, and formed a long narrow underground reservoir stretching out like a finger from the base of the Sardi Gorge, sixty miles into the dry hot savannah.

Closer to the mountains, the water ran deep, hundreds of feet below the earth's surface, but farther out, the slope of the land combined with the raised lip of the schist layer forced the water up to within forty-five feet of the surface.

Thousands of years ago the area had been the grazing grounds of large concentrations of wild elephant. These indefatigable borers for water had detected the presence of this subterranean lake. With tusk and hoof they had dug down and reached the surface of the water.

Hunters had long since exterminated the elephant herds, but their wells had been kept open by other animals, wild ass, oryx, camel, and, of course, by man who had annihilated the elephant.

Now the wells, a dozen or more in an area of two or three square miles, were deep excavations into the bloodred earth. The sides of the wells were tiered by narrow worn paths that wound down so steeply that sunlight seldom penetrated to the level of the water.

The water itself was highly mineralized, so that it had a milky green appearance and a rank metallic taste, but nevertheless it had supported vast quantities of life over the centuries. And the vegetation in the area, with its developed root systems, drew sustenance from the deep water and grew more densely and greenly than anywhere else on the dry bleak savannah.

Beyond the wells, in the direction of the mountains, was an area of confused broken ground, steep but shallow wadis and square hillocks so low as to be virtually only mounds of dense red laterite. Over the ages, the shepherds and hunters who frequented the wells had burrowed into the sides of ravine and hillock, so that they were now honeycombed with caves and tunnels.

It was as though nature had declared a peace upon the wells. Here man and animal came together in wary truce that was seldom violated.

Amongst the grey-green thorn trees and dense scrub goat and camel grazed in company with gazelle and gerenuk, oryx and greater kudu.

n In the hush of noo', the column of four armoured cars came in from the east, and the hum of their engines carried at distance to the multitude that awaited their arrival.

Jake led, as usual, followed by Vicky, then came Gregoritis with Sara riding in the turret of his car and the white stallion trailing them on a long lead rein. In the rear rode Gareth. Suddenly Sara shrieked at such a high pitch that her voice carried over the engine noise and she pointed ahead to the low valley filled with green scrub and taller denser trees. Jake halted the column and climbed up into the turret.

Through his binoculars he studied the open forest, and then. started as he discerned a horde of moving figures coming headlong on wings of fine pale dust.

"My God," he muttered aloud. "there must be hundreds of them," and he felt a stab of uneasiness. They looked anything but friendly.

At that moment, he was distracted by the sound of galloping hooves close by, and Sara came dashing past him.

She was mounted bareback on the white stallion, her robes streaming and fluttering in the sun-bright wind. She was shouting with almost hysterical excitement as she galloped to meet the oncoming riders and her behaviour reassured Jake a little. He signalled the column forward once again.

The first ranks came swiftly in dust clouds, on running camels and galloping shaggy horses. Fierce, dark-faced men in billowing robes of dirty white, and a motley of other colours. Urging forward their mounts with wild cries, brandishing the small round bronze and iron studded and bossed war shields, they came racing towards the column.

As they approached, they split into two wings and tore headlong past the startled drivers in a solid wall of moving men and animals.

Most of the men were bearded, and here and there some warrior wore proudly a great fluffy headdress of lion mane proclaiming his valour to the world. The manes rippled and waved on the wind as the riders drove by, urging on their mounts with the high "Looloo" ululations so characteristic of the Ethiopians.

The weapons they carried amazed Gareth, who as a professional dealer recognized twenty different types and makes, each one of them a collector's piece from the long muzzle-loading Tower muskets with the fancy hammers over percuss ion caps, through a range of Martini Henry carbines, which fired a heavy lead bullet in a cloud of black powder smoke, to a wide selection of Mousers; and Schneiders, Lee-Metfords, and obsolete models from half the arms-manufacturers of the world.

As the riders swept by, they fired these weapons into the air, long spurts of black powder against the evening sky, and the crackle of musketry blended with the fierce ululations of welcome.

After the first wave of riders came another of those on mules and donkeys moving more slowly but making as much noise and immediately after them came a swarming mob of running, howling foot soldiers, mingled with whom were women and shrieking children, and dozens of yelping dogs, scrawny yellow curs with long whippy tails and ridges of standing hair running down their skeletal backbones.

As the first rank of riders turned, still loolooing and firing into the air, to complete the encirclement of the armoured column, they ran headlong into the following rabble and the entire congregation became a struggling mob of men and animals.

Jake saw a mother with a child under her arm go down under the hooves of a running camel, the child flying from her grip and rolling in the sandy earth. Then he was past, forging ahead through a narrow path in the sea of humanity.

Sara was keeping the path open, leading them in, riding just ahead of Jake's car, laying about her viciously with a long quirt of hippo hide to hold back the mob, while around her wheeled the wildly excited riders still firing their pieces into the air, and dozens of runners pressed in closely, trying to climb aboard the moving cars.

Gradually the press of bodies and animals built up, until at last, following Sara, they moved slowly through the open forest that surrounded the wells into one of the shallow but steeply sided wadis in the broken ground beyond.

Here any further forward movement became impossible.

The wadi was choked solidly with humanity, even the steep earthen sides and the ledges above were crowded so closely that unfortunates, pushed by those behind, could no longer keep their Position and came tumbling down the sheer sides on to the heads of those in the wadi below. The cries of protest were lost in the general hubbub.

From each of the turrets, the heads of the four drivers appeared timidly, like gophers peering out of their holes.

They made helpless signs and expressions at each other, unable to communicate in the uproar.

Sara leaped from the back of the stallion on to the sponson of Jake's car and began raining blows and kicks on those who were still attempting to climb aboard the vehicle. She was enjoying herself immensely, Jake realized, as he noticed the battle lust in her eyes and heard the crack of her whip and the yelps of her victims. He thought of trying to restrain her and then discarded the idea as being highly dangerous. Instead, he looked about distractedly for some other means to subdue the boisterous welcome and noticed for the first time the entrances to numerous caves in the sides of the wadi.

From a number of these dark openings now poured a body of men, wearing a semblance of uniform jodhpurs and baggy khaki tunics, their chests crossed with bandoliers of ammunition, put teed calves and bare feet, high turbans bound around their heads and Mauser rifles swinging heartily, the butts used as clubs. They were every bit as enthusiastic as Sara, but considerably more successful in their attempts to quieten the crowd.

"My grandfather's guards," Sara explained to Jake, still panting and grinning happily from her recent exertions. "I am sorry, Jake, but sometimes my people get excited."

"Yeah," said Jake. "So I noticed."

With gun butts rising and falling the guards cleared a space around the four laden vehicles, and the noise dropped in volume until it was equivalent to a medium-sized avalanche. The four drivers climbed warily down and came together in a defensive group in the small stretch of open ground before the caves. Vicky Camberwell placed herself strategically between Jake and Gareth and behind the lanky robed figure of Gregorius and she felt even more secure when Sara slipped up beside her and took her hand.

"Please do not worry," she whispered. "We are all your friends."

"You could have fooled me, honey." Vicky smiled back at her, and squeezed the slim brown hand. At that moment a procession emerged from the caves, headed by four coal-black priests of the Coptic Christian Church in their gaudy robes, chanting in Amharic, swinging incense and carrying ornate, if crudely wrought bronze crosses.

Immediately after the priests followed a figure so tall and thin as to appear a caricature of the human shape. A long flowing sham ma of yellow and red stripes hung loosely on the gaunt frame. There was the suggestion of legs as long and as thin as those of an ostrich beneath the skirts of the robe as he strode forward, and the man's dark head was completely bald of hair no beard or eyebrows just a round glistening pate.

His eyes were completely enclosed in a web of deep wrinkles and fleshy folds of old dried-out skin. The mouth was utterly toothless, so that the jaw seemed to be collapsible, folding the face in half like the bellows of a concertina.

He gave an impression of vast age that was offset immediately by the youthful spring in his step and the twinkle in the black birdlike eyes, and yet Gareth realized that he could not be less than eighty years old.

Gregorius hurried forward and knelt briefly for the old man's blessing, while Sara whispered to the group.

"This is my grandfather, Ras Golam" she explained. "He speaks no English, but he is a great nobleman and a mighty warrior the bravest in all Ethiopia." The Ras ran a lively eye over the group and selected Gareth Swales, resplendent in Thorn-proof tweeds. He leapt forward and, before Gareth could avoid it, enfolded him in an embrace that was redolent of powerful native tobacco, woodsmoke, and other heady odours.

"How do you do?" shouted the Ras, his only words of English.

"My grandfather is a great lover of the English," explained Gregorius, as Gareth struggled in the Ras's embrace. "That is why all his sons and grandsons are sent to England."

"He has a decoration which even makes him an English milord," Sara told them proudly, and pointed to her grandfather's chest where nestled a star of gaudy enamel and shiny paste chips.

Noticing the gesture, the Ras released Gareth and invited them to admire the decoration, and, on his other breast, a rosette of tricolour silk in the centre of which was a framed miniature of the old Queen Victoria herself.

"Tremendous, old boy absolutely tremendous" Gareth agreed, as he re-adjusted the lapels of his jacket and smoothed back his hair.

"When he was a young man, my grandfather did a great service to the Queen and that is why he is now an English milord," Sara explained, and then she broke off to listen to her grandfather, and to translate. "My grandfather welcomes you to Ethiopia, and says that he is proud to embrace such a distinguished English gentleman. He has heard from my father of your fame s a warrior, that you bear the great Queen's medal for courage-" "Actually, it was Georgie Five's gong," Gareth demurred modestly.

At that moment, the dignified figure of Lij Mikhael Sagud stepped from the entrance of the cave behind the Ras.

"My father recognizes only one English monarch, my dear Swales," he explained quietly. "It is useless to try and convince him that she has passed away." He shook hands with all three of them, with a quick word of welcome for Jake and Vicky before turning back to listen to the Ras again.

"My father asks if you have brought your medal he wishes you to wear it when you and he ride into battle side by side against the enemy," and Gareth's expression changed.

"Now hold on there, old fellow," he protested. Gareth had no intention of riding into another battle in his life, but the moment had passed and the Ras was shouting orders to his guard.

In response, they clambered aboard the armoured cars, and began unloading the wooden cases of weapons and ammunition which they stacked in the clearing before the caves, beating back the eager crowds that pressed forward.

Now the priests came forward to bless the cars and weapons of war, and Sara took the opportunity to pull Vicky away and lead her unobtrusively to one of the caves.

"My servants will bring you water to bathe," she whispered. "You must look beautiful for the feast. Perhaps we will decide which one it will be tonight." As night fell, so "the entire following of Ras Golarri gathered in the main wadi, those ranking highest or with most push managing to find seating in the large central cave while the others filled the valley with row upon row of seated and robed figures.

The whole scene was lit by leaping bonfires.

The fires reflected against the night sky with a faint orange glow which Major Luigi Castelani noticed at a distance of twenty kilometres from the Wells.

He halted the column and climbed up on the roof of the leading truck to study this phenomenon, uncertain at first if the light of the fires was some freak afterglow of the sunset, but soon realizing that this was not the case.

He jumped down and snapped at the driver, "Wait for me," before striding rapidly back along the long column of tall canvas-covered trucks to where the command car stood at the centre.

"My Colonel." Castelani saluted the sulking figure of the Count who slumped on the rear seat of the Rolls with one hand thrust into the front of his unbuttoned tunic, much like the defeated Napoleon returning from Moscow. Aldo Belli had not yet recovered from the shock to his pride and self-esteem inflicted by the General. He had temporarily withdrawn from the vulgar world, and he did not even look up as Castelani made his report.

"Do what you think correct in the circumstances," he muttered without interest. "Only make certain we have control of the Wells before dawn," and the Count turned his head away, wondering if Mussolini had yet received his cable.

What Castelani thought correct in the circumstances was to darken the column immediately and put his entire battalion in a state of instant readiness. No lights were to be shown in any circumstances, and a rigorous silence was imposed. The column now advanced at little more than a walking speed, with each driver personally warned that engine noise was not to exceed idling volume. All the men had been alerted and rode now in silence with loaded weapons and tense nerves.

When at last the Eritrean guides pointed out to Castelani the shallow forested valley below them, there was sufficient light from the sliver of silver moon overhead for Castelani to survey the ground with the eye of an old professional.

Within ten minutes, he had planned his dispositions, decided where to hold his motor pool and main bivouac, where to site his machine guns, place his mortars and lay his rifle trenches. The Colonel grunted his agreement without even looking up, and quietly the Major gave the orders which would put into effect his plans and keep the battalion working all night.

"And the first man who drops a shovel or sneezes I will strangle with his own guts," he warned, as he glanced apprehensively at the faint glow that emanated from amongst the low dark hills beyond the Wells.

In the main cave, the air was so thick and warm and moist that it lay upon the company like a wet woollen blanket. In the uneven light of the fires it was impossible to see from one end to the other of the cavernous room, with its rough earthen wall and columns. The restless body of guests and servants flitted through the smoky gloom like wraiths. Every once in a while there would be the terrified bellows of an ox from the wadi outside. the main entrance of the cave. The bellows would cease abruptly as the blackman swung his long two-handled sword and the carcass fell with a thud that seemed to reverberate through the cavern. A vast shout of approval greeted the fall of the beast, and a dozen eager assistants flayed the hide, hacked the flesh into bloody strips and piled them on to huge platters of baked clay.

The servants staggered into the cave, bearing the laden platters of steaming, quivering meat. The guests fell upon it, men and women alike, snatching up the bleeding flesh, taking an end between their teeth, pulling it tight with one hand and hacking free a bite-sized piece with a knife grasped in the other. The flashing blade passed a mere fraction from the end of the diner's nose and warm blood trickled unheeded down the chin, as the lump was swallowed with a single convulsive heave of the throat.

Each mouthful was washed down into the belly with a swig of the fiery Ethiopian tej - a brew made from wild honey, a liquid the colour of golden amber, with the impact of a charging buffalo bull.

Gareth Swales sat between the old Ras and Lij Mikhael in the place of honour, while Jake and Vicky were a dozen places farther away amongst the lesser notables. In deference to the appetite and tastes of foreigners, they were offered, in place of raw beef, an endless succession of bubbling pots containing the fiery casseroles of beef, lamb, chicken and game that are known under the inclusive title of wat.

These highly spiced, peppery but delicious concoctions were spooned out on to thin sheets of unleavened bread and rolled into a cigar shape before eating.

Lij Mikhael warned his guests against the tea and instead offered Bollinger champagne, wrapped in wet sacking to lower its temperature.

There was also pinch bottle Haig, London Dry Gin, and a vast array of liqueurs Grand Marnier, yellow and green Chartreuse, Dam Benedictine, and the rest. These incongruous beverages in the desert reminded the guests that their host was wealthy beyond the normal concept of wealth, the lord of vast estates and, under the Emperor, the master of many thousands of human beings.

The Ras sat at the head of the feast, with a war bonnet of lion's mane covering his bald pate. It made a startling, but rather moth-eaten wig for it was forty years since the Ras had slain the lion, and the ravages of time were apparent.

Now the Ras cackled with laughter as he rolled a sheet of the unleavened bread, filled with steaming wat, into the shape and size of a Havana cigar and thrust it, dripping juice, into Gareth Swales's unprepared mouth.

You must swallow it without using your hands," Lij Mikhael explained hastily. "It is a game my father enjoys." Gareth's eyes bulged, his face turned crimson with lack of air and the bite of chilli sauce.

Gulping and gasping and chewing manfully, he struggled to ingest the huge offering.

The Ras hooted merrily, drooling a little saliva from the toothless mouth, his entire face a network of moving wrinkles as he encouraged Gareth with cries of "How do you do? How do you do?" At last with his dignity in shreds, red-faced, sweating and panting laboriously, the roll of bread disappeared down Gareth's straining throat. The Ras folded him once more in that brotherly embrace, and Lij Mikhael poured another goblet full of Bollinger for him.

However, Gareth, who did not enjoy being the butt of anyone's joke, freed himself from the Ras, pushed the glass" aside and waved one of the servants to him. From the reeking bloody platter he selected a strip of raw beef almost as thick as his wrist and as long as his forearm. Without warning, he thrust one end of it into the Ras's gaping toothless mouth.

"Suck on that, you old bastard," he shouted, and the Ras stared at him with startled rheumy bloodshot eyes. Then, although he was unable to smile because of the long red strip that hung from his lips like some huge swollen tongue, the Ras's eyes turned to slits in a mask of happy wrinkles.

His jaw seemed to unhinge like a python swallowing a goat.

He gulped and an inch of the meat shot into his M(Uthl he gulped again and another inch disappeared. Gareth stared at him as gulp succeeded gulp and swiftly the morsel dwindled in size. Within seconds the Ras's mouth was empty, and he snatched up a bowl of tej and drank half a pint of the heady liquor, wiped blood and tej from his chin with the skirt of his sham ma belched like an air-locked geyser, then with a falsetto cackle-of merriment hit Gareth a resounding crack between the shoulder blades. In the Ras's view, they were now comrades of the soul both English aristocrats, renowned warriors, and each had eaten from the other's hand.

Gregorius Maryam had anticipated exactly what his grandfather's reaction to his white guests would be. He knew that Gareth's nationality and undoubted aristocratic background would overshadow all else in the Ras's estimation.

However, the young prince's feelings for Jake Barton had become close to adulation and he did not intend that his hero should be ignored. He chose the one subject which he knew would engage his grandfather's full attention. He slipped unnoticed from the din of the overcrowded cave, and when he returned, he carried Jake's stiff crackling lion skin that had by now completely dried out in the hot, dry desert wind.

Although he held it high above his head, the tail brushed the ground on one side and the nose on the other. The Ras, one arm still around Gareth's shoulder, looked up with interest and fired a string of questions at his grandson, as the boy spread the huge tawny skin before him.

The replies made the old man so excited that he leaped to his feet and grabbed his grandson by one arm, shaking him agitatedly as he demanded details and Gregorius replied with as much animation, his eyes shining as he mimed the charge of the lion, and the act of hurling the bottle and the crushing of its skull.

Comparative silence had fallen over the smoky, dimlit cavern, and hundreds of guests craned forward to hear the details of the hunt. In that silence, the Ras walked down to where Jake sat. Stepping, without looking, into various bowls of food and kicking over a jug of tea, he reached the big curly-headed American and lifted him to his feet.

"How do you do?" he asked, with great emotion, tears of admiration in his eyes for the man who could kill a lion with his bare hands.

Forty years before, the Ras had broken four broad-bladed spears before he had put a blade in the heart of his own lion.

"Never better, friend," Jake grunted, clumsy with embarrassment, and the Ras embraced him fiercely before leading him back to the head of the board.

Irritably the Ras kicked one of his younger sons in the ribs, forcing him to vacate the seat on his right hand where he now placed Jake.

Jake looked across at Vicky and rolled his eyes helplessly as the Ras began to ladle steaming wat on to a huge white round of bread and roll it into a torpedo that would have daunted a battle cruiser. Jake took a deep breath and opened his mouth wide, as the Ras lifted the dainty morsel the way an executioner lifts his sword.

"How do you do?" he said, and with another hoot of glee thrust it in to the her.

The Colonel and all the officers of the Third Battalion were exhausted from long hours of forced march and, by the time they reached the Wells of Chaldi, were anxious only to see their tents erected and their cots made up after that they were quite content that the Major be left to use his own initiative.

Castelani sited his twelve machine guns in the sides of the valley where they commanded a full arc of fire, and below them he placed his rifle trenches. The men sank the earthworks swiftly and with little noise in the loose sandy soil, and they buttressed their trenches and machine-gun nests with sandbags.

The mortar company he held well back, protected by both rifle trenches and machine-gun nests, from where they could drop their mortar bombs across the whole area of the wells with complete impunity.

While his men worked, Castelani personally paced out distances in front of his de fences and supervised the placing of the painted metal markers, so that his gunners would be able to fire over accurately ranged sights. Then he hurried back to chivvy along the ammunition parties who staggered up in the darkness, slipping in the sandy soil and cursing softly, but with feeling, under the burden of the heavy wooden cases.

All that night he was tireless, and any man who laid down his shovel for a few minutes of rest took the risk of being pounced upon by that looming figure, the stentorian voice restrained to a husky but ferocious whisper, and the rolling swagger tense with suppressed outrage.

At last, the squat machine guns with their thick water jacketed barrels were lowered down into the new excavaWm and set up on their tripods.

Only after Castelani had checked the traverse of each and sighted down through the high sliding rear-sight into the moonlit valley was he satisfied. The men flung themselves down to rest and the Major allowed the kitchen parties to come up with canteens of hot soup and bags of hard black bread.

Gareth Swales felt bloated with food and slightly bleary with the large quantities of lukewarm champagne which Lij Mikhael had pressed upon him.

On one side, the Ras and Jake had established a rapport that overcame the language barrier. The Ras had convinced himself that as Americans spoke English they were English, and that Jake as a lion-killer was clearly a member of the upper stratum of society in short a kind of honorary aristocrat. Every time the Ras drained another pint of tej, Jake became more socially acceptable and the Ras had drained many pints of tej by this stage.

The atmosphere was indeed so jovial and aflame with bonhomie and camaraderie that Gareth felt emboldened to ask, on behalf of the partnership, the question that had been burning his tongue for the last many hours.

"Toffee, (old lad, have you got the money ready for us?" The Prince seemed not to have heard, but refilled Gareth's glass with champagne, and leaned across to translate one of Jake's remarks for his father, and Gareth had to take his arm firmly.

"If it's all right by you, we'll take our wages and trouble you no more. Ride off into the sunset with violins playing, and all that rot."

"I'm glad you raised the point." Toffee nodded thoughtfully, looking anything but glad. "There are some things we have to discuss."

"Listen, Toffee old son, there is absolutely nothing to discuss. All the discussing was done long ago."

"Now, don't upset yourself, my dear fellow." It was, however, in Gareth's nature to become very agitated when someone who owed him money wanted to discuss things.

The usual subject of discussion was how to avoid making payment, and Gareth was about to protest volubly and loudly when the Ras chose that moment to rise to his feet and make a speech.

This caused a certain amount of consternation, for the Ras's legs had been turned by large quantities of tej to the consistency of rubber, and it required the efforts of two of his guardsmen to get him to his feet and keep him there.

However, once up, he spoke with clarity and force while Lij Mikhael translated for the benefit of the white guests.

At first, the Ras seemed to wander. He spoke of the first rays of the sun touching the peaks of the mountains, and the feel of the desert wind in a man's face at noon, he reminded them of the sound of the birth cry of a man's firstborn child and the smell of the earth turning under the plough. Gradually an attentive silence fell upon his unruly audience, for the old man had still a power and force that demanded complete respect.

As he went on, so a greater dignity invested him; he shrugged off the supporting hands of his guard and seemed to grow in stature. His voice lost the querulous tremor of age and took on a more compelling ring.

Jake did not need the Prince's translation to know that he was speaking of mans pride, and the rights of a free man. The duty of a man to defend that freedom with life itself, to preserve it for his sons and their children.

"And now there comes a powerful enemy to challenge our rights as free men. An enemy so powerful, armed with such terrible weapons, that even the hearts of the warriors of Tigre and Shoo shrivelled in their breasts like diseased fruit." The old Ras was panting now, and a scanty sweat trickled from under the tall lion headdress and ran down the wrinkled black cheeks.

"But now, my children, powerful friends have come to stand beside us.

They have brought to us weapons as powerful as those of our enemies. No longer must we fear." Jake realized suddenly what pathetic store the Ras had placed in the worn and obsolete war materials they had brought him. He talked now of meeting the mighty armies of Italy on even terms.

Abruptly, Jake felt a choking sense of guilt. He knew that a week after he left, the four armoured cars would be piles of junk. There was no man in all the Ras's following who could keep their elderly and temperamental engines running.

Even if they were brought into action before the engines expired, they would present a threat only to unsupported infantry. The moment they engaged with Italian armour they would be instantly and hopelessly out-classed. Even the light Italian CV.3 tanks would be immune to the fire of the Vickers guns that the cars mounted, while in return the thin steel of the cars would offer no protection from the 50 men. armour-piercing shell that the enemy fired. There would be no one to explain all this to the Ras and teach him how to achieve the best from the puny weapons he commanded.

Jake visualized the first and probably the last battle that Ras Golam would fight. Scorning manoeuvre and strategy, he would certainly throw in all his force armoured cars, Vickers machine guns, obsolete rifles and swords in a single frontal attack. This was the way he had fought all his battles and the way he would fight the last.

Jake Barton felt his heart go out to the gallant ancient, who stood now shouting a challenge to a modern military power, prepared to defend to the death what was his and Jake felt a curious sense of recklessness.

It was a reaction that he knew well and usually it led him into positions of acute discomfort and danger.

"Forget it," he told himself firmly. "It's their war. Take the money and run. "Then suddenly he looked across the dimly lit cave to where Vicky Camberwell sat. She listened to the old Ras with misty eyes, and her expression was enchanted as she leaned her golden head close to the dark curly head of Sara Sagud, not wanting to miss a word of the translation.

Now she saw Jake watching her, and she smiled and nodded vehemently almost as though she had read his doubts.

"Leave Vicky also?" Jake wondered. "Leave them all and run with the gold?" He knew that nothing would induce Vicky to leave with them.

For her the story was here, her involvement was complete, and she would stay to the end the inevitable end.

The smart thing was to go, the dumb thin to stay and fight another man's war that was already lost before it had begun; the dumb thing was to stake twenty thousand dollars which was his share of the profits, and all his future plans, the Barton engine, and the factory to build it, against the remote chance of winning a lady who promised to be a lifetime of trouble once she was won.

never was a dab hand at doing the smart thing," Jake thought ruefully, and smiled back at Vicky.

The Ras was suddenly silent, panting with the force of his feelings and the effort of voicing them. His listeners were mesmerized also, staring at the thin-robed figure with its wild lion wig.

The Ras made a commanding gesture and one of his guards handed him the broad two-handed sword, its blade long and naked. The Ras leaned his weight upon it and commanded again, and they carried in the war drums.

The Ras's ceremonial drums, passed down to him by his father and his father before him, drums that had beaten at Magdala against Napier, at Adowa against the Italians and at a hundred other battles.

They were as tall as a man's shoulder, elaborately carved of hardwood and covered with rawhide, and the drummers took up their stance with the barrels of their drums held between their knees.

The drum with the deepest bass tone set the rhythm and the lesser drums joined in with the variations and counterpoints, a chorus that arred a man's gut and loosened his brain in his skull.

The old Ras listened to it with his head bowed over the sword, until the rhythm took a hold on him and his shoulders began to jerk and his head came up. With a leap like a white bird taking flight, he landed in the open space before the drummers. The great sword whirled high above his head, and he began to dance.

Gareth took Mikhael Sagud by the sleeve and lifted his voice in competition with the drums, and resumed at the point where he had been interrupted.

"Toffee, you were telling me about the money." Jake heard him and leaned across to catch the Prince's reply, but the Prince was silent, watching his father leap and twirl in the intricate and acrobatic dance.

"We have delivered the goods, old chap. And a deal is a deal."

"fifteen thousand sovereigns," said the Prince thoughtfully.

"That's the exact figure, "Gareth agreed.

"A dangerous sum of money," murmured the PPrince.

"Men have been killed for much less." And they made no reply.

"I think of your safety, of course," the Prince went on.

"Your safety, and my country's chances of survival. Without an engineer to maintain the cars, and a soldier to teach my men to use the new weapons we will have wasted fifteen thousand sovereigns."

"I feel very badly for you," Gareth assured him. "I'll eat my heart out for you while I am having dinner at the Cafe Royal, I really will but truly, Toffee, you should have thought of this long ago."

"Oh, I did my dear Swales I assure you I gave it much thought." And the Prince turned to smile at Gareth. "I thought that no one would be foolish enough to take on his person fifteen thousand gold sovereigns in the middle of Ethiopia and then try and get out of the country without the Ras's personal approval and protection." They stared at him.

"Can you imagine the delight of the shifta, the mountain bandits, when they learned that such a rich prize was moving unprotected through their territory?"

"They would know, of course?" murmured Jake.

"I fear that they might be informed." The Prince turned to him.

"And if we tried to go back the way we came?"

"Through the desert on foot?" the Prince smiled.

"We might use a little of the gold to buy camels," Jake suggested.

"I fancy you might find camels hard to come by, and somebody might inform the Italians and the French of your movements to say nothing of the Danakil tribesmen who would slit the throats of their own mothers for a single gold sovereign." They watched the Ras send the great sword humming six inches over the heads of the bass drummers, and then turn a grotesque flapping pirouette.

"God!" said Gareth. "I took you at your word, Toffee. I mean word of honour, and old school-" "My dear Swales, these are not the playing fields of Eton, I'm afraid."

"Still, I never thought you'd welsh."

"Oh, dear me, I am not welshing. You can have your money now this very hour."

"All right, Prince," Jake interrupted. "Tell us what more you want from us. Tell us, is there any way we get out of here with a safe conduct, and our money?" The Prince smiled warmly at Jake, leaning to pat his arm.

"Always the pragmatist. No time wasted in tearing the hair or beating the breast, Mr. Barton."

"Shoot," said Jake.

"My father and I would be very grateful if you would work for us for a six-month contract."

"Why six months? "demanded Gareth.

"By then all will be lost, or won."

"Go on, "Jake invited.

"For six months you will exercise your skills for us and teach us how best to defend ourselves against a modern army. Service, maintain and command the armoured cars."

"In return? "Jake asked.

"A princely salary for the six months, a safe conduct out of Ethiopia, and your money guaranteed by a London bank at the end of that time."

"What is fair wages for putting one's head on the butcher's block?

"Gareth asked bitterly.

"Double another seven thousand pounds each, "said the Prince without hesitation, and the men on each side of him relaxed slightly and exchanged glances.

"Each?" asked Gareth.

"Each,"agreed Lij Mikhael.

"I only wish I had my lawyer here to draw up the contract," said Gareth.

, "Not necessary," Mikhael laughed, and shook his head and drew two envelopes from his robes. He handed one to each of them.

"Bank-guaranteed cheques. Lloyds of London. Irrev(.)cable, I assure you but post-dated six months ahead. Valid on the first of February next year." The two white men examined the documents curiously.

Carefully Jake checked the date on the bank draft 1st February, 1936 and then read the figure fourteen thousand pounds sterling only and he grinned.

"The exact amount the precise date." He shook his head admiringly.

"You had it all figured out. Man, you were thinking weeks ahead of us."

"Good God, Toffee," Gareth intoned mournfully. "I must say I am appalled. Utterly appalled."

"Does that mean you refuse, Major Swales?" Gareth glanced at Jake, and a flash of agreement passed between them. Gareth sighed theatrically. "Well, I must say that I did have an appointment in Madrid. They've got themselves this little war they are working on, but-" and here he studied the bank draft again, "but one war is very much like another. Furthermore, you have given me some fairly powerful reasons why I should stay on." Gareth withdrew the wallet from his inside pocket and folded the draft into it. "However, that doesn't alter the fact that I am utterly appalled by the way this whole business has been conducted."

"And you, Mr.

Barton?" Lij Mikhael asked.

"As my partner has just remarked fourteen thousand pounds isn't exactly peanuts. Yes, I accept." The Prince nodded, and then his expression changed, became bleak and savage.

"I must urge you most cogently not to attempt to leave Ethiopia before the expiry of our agreement justice is crude but effective under my father's administration." At that moment the gentleman under discussion lifted the sword high above his head and then drove the point deep into the earth between his feet. He left it there, the blade shivering and gleaming in the firelight, and staggered wheezing and cackling to his place between Jake and Gareth.

He flung a skinny old arm around each of them and greeted them with a hug and an affectionate cry of "How do you do?" and Gareth cocked a speculative eye at him.

"How would you like to learn to play gin rummy, old son?" he asked kindly. Six months was a lot of time to while away and there might yet be further profit in the situation, he thought.

The sound of the drums woke Count Aldo Belli from a deep, untroubled sleep. He lay and listened to them for a while, to the deep monotonous rhythm like the pulse of the earth itself, and the effect was lulling and hypnotic. Then suddenly the Count came fully awake and the adrenalin poured hotly into his bloodstream. A month before leaving Rome he had attended a screening of the latest Hollywood release, Trader Horn, an African epic of wild animals and bloodthirsty tribesmen. The sound of tribal drums had been skilfully used on the sound track to heighten the sense of menace and suspense, and the Count now realized that out there in the night the same terrible drums were beating.

He came out of his bed in a single bound with a roar that woke those in the camp who were still asleep. When Gino rushed into the tent, he found his master standing stark-naked and wild-eyed in the centre of his tent with the ivory-handled Beretta in one hand and the jewelled dagger clutched in the other.

The instant the drums began beating, Luigi Castelani hurried back to the bivouac, for he knew exactly what " reaction to expect from the colonel. He arrived to find that the Count was fully uniformed, had selected a bodyguard of fifty men and was on the point of embarking in the waiting Rolls. The engine was running and the driver was as eager to leave as his august passenger.

The Count was not at all pleased to see the bulky figure of his Major come hurrying out of the darkness with that unmistakable swaggering gait. He had hoped to get clear before Castelani could intervene, and now he immediately went on the offensive.

"Major, I am returning to Asmara to report in person to the General," shouted Aldo Belli, and tried to reach the Rolls, but the Major was too nimble for him and interposed his bulk and saluted.

"My Colonel, the de fences of the wells are now complete," he reported.

"The area is secure."

"I shall report that we are being attacked in overwhelming force," cried the Count, and tried to duck around Castelani's right side, but the Major anticipated the move and jumped sideways to keep belly to belly.

"The men are dug in, and in good spirits."

"You have my permission to withdraw in good order under the enemy's bloodthirsty assault." The Count attempted to lull the man with the prospect of escape, and then lunged to the left to reach the Rolls but the Major was swift as a mamba, and again they faced each other. The entire (officer corps of the Third Battalion, hastily dressed and alarmed by the drums in the night, had assembled to watch this exhibition of agility as the Count and Castelani jumped backwards and forwards like a pair of game cocks sparring at each other. Their sentiments were heavily on the side of their Colonel, and they would have enjoyed nothing more than the spectacle of the retreating Rolls.

They would then have been free to follow in haste.

"I do not believe the enemy is present in any force." Castelani's voice was raised to a level where the Count's protests were completely drowned. "However, it is essential that the Colonel takes command in person. If there is to be a confrontation, it will involve a value judgement." The Major pressed forward a step at a time, until his chest was an inch from the Colonel's and their noses almost touched.

"We are not formally at war. Your presence is essential to reinforce our position." The Colonel was pressed to the point where he had no choice but to fall back a pace, and the watching Officers sighed sadly.

It was an act of capitulation. The contest of wills was over and although the Count continued to protest weakly, the Major worked him away from the Rolls the way a good sheep dog handles its flock.

"It will be dawn in an hour," said Castelani, "and as soon as it is light, we shall be in a position to evaluate the situation." At that moment the drum fell silent. Up the valley in the caves, the Ras had at last finished his dance of defiance, and to the Count the silence was cheering. He threw one last wistful look at the Rolls, and then let his gaze wander to the fifty heavily armed men of his bodyguard and took a little more heart.

He squared his shoulders and drew himself erect, throwing back his head.

"Major," he snapped. "The battalion will stand firm." He turned to his watching officers, all of whom tried to fade into insignificance and avoid his eyes. "Major Vita, take command of this detachment and move forward to clear the ground. The rest of you fall in around me."

The Colonel gave the Major and his fifty stalwarts a respectable lead, so that they might draw any hostile fire, and then, surrounded by a protective screen of his reluctant juniors and prodded forward by Luigi Castelani, he moved cautiously along the dusty path that wound down the slope of the valley to where' the battalion's forward elements had been so expertly entrenched.

Phe most junior of Ras Golam's multitudinous grooms was fifteen years of age. The previous day one of the Ras's favourite mares in his care had snapped her halter rope while he was taking her down to the water.

She had galloped out into the desert, and the boy had followed her for the whole of that day and half of the night, until the capricious creature had allowed him to come up with her and grasp the trailing end of the rope.

Exhausted by the long chase and chilled by the cold night wind, the boy had huddled down on her neck and allowed the mare to pick her own way back to the water holes. He was half asleep, clinging by instinct alone to the mare's mane, when a short while before dawn she wandered into the perimeter of the Italian base.

A nervous sentry had challenged loudly, and the startled animal had plunged into a full run through the outskirts of the camp. Now, fully awake, the boy had clung to the galloping horse, and seen the lines of parked trucks and military tents looming out of the darkness.

He had seen the stacked rifles, and recognize the shape of the helmet of another sentry who had challenged again as they passed through the outer lines.

Peering back under his own arm he had seen the flash of the rifle shot and heard the crack of the bullet pass his bowed head, and he urged the horse on with heels and knees.

By the time the groom reached the deep wadi, the Ras's following was at last succumbing to the effects of a full night's festivities.

Many of them had drifted away to find a place to sleep, others had merely huddled down in their robes and slept where they had eaten.

Only the hardened few still ate and drank, argued and sang, or sat in tejnumbed silence about the fires watching the womenfolk begin to prepare the morning meal.

The boy flung himself off the mare at the entrance to the caves, ducked under the arms of the sentries who would have restrained him and ran into the crowded, smoky and dimly lit interior. He was gabbling with fright and importance, the words tumbling over each other and making no sense until Lij Mikhael caught him by the upper arms and shook him to restore his senses.

Then the story he told made sense, and rang with urgent conviction.

Those within earshot shouted it to those further back, and within seconds the story, distorted and garbled, had flashed through the gathering and was running wildly through the whole encampment.

The sleepers awakened, every man armed and every woman and child curious and voluble. They streamed out of the caves and from the rough tents and shelters in the narrow ravines. Without command, moving like a shoal of fish without a leader but with as ingle purpose, laughing sceptic ally or shouting speculation and comment and query, brandishing shields and ancient firearms, the women clutching their infants, and the older children dancing around them or darting ahead, the shapeless mob streamed out of the broken ground and down into the saucer-shaped valley of the wells.

In the caves, Lij Mikhael was still explaining the boy's story to the foreigners, and arguing the details and implications with them and his father. It was Jake Barton who realized the danger.

"If the Italians have sent in a unit to grab the wells, then it's a calculated act of war. They'll be looking for trouble, Prince.

You'd best forbid any of your men to go down there, until we have sized up Xhe situation properly." It was too late, far too late. In the first faint glimmer of dawn, when the light plays weird tricks on a man's eyes, the Italian sentries peering over their parapets saw a wall of humanity swarming out of the dark and broken ground, and heard the rising hubbub of hundreds of excited voices.

When the drumming had begun, many of the black shirts were huddled below the firing step of their trenches, swaddled in their greatcoats and sleeping the exhausted sleep of men who had travelled all the previous day, and worked all the night.

The non-commissioned officers kicked and pulled them to their feet, and shoved them to their positions along the parapet. From here they peered, befuddled with sleep, down into the valley.

With the exception of Luigi Castelani, not a single man in the Third Battalion had ever faced an armed enemy, and now after an infinity of nerve-tearing waiting, at last the experience was upon them in the dark before the dawn when a man's vitality is at its lowest ebb.

Their bodies were chilled and their brains unclear. In the uncertain light, the mob that poured into the valley was as numerous as the sands of the desert, each figure as large as a giant and as ferocious as a marauding lion.

It was in this moment that Colonel Aldo Belli, panting with exertion and nervous strain, stepped out of the narrow communication trench on to the firing platform of the forward line of emplacements. The Sergeant in command of the trench recognized him instantly and let out a cry of relief.

"my Colonel, thank God you have come." And forgetful of rank and position he seized the Count's arm. Aldo Belli was so busy trying to fight off the man's sweaty and importunate clutches that it was some seconds before he actually glanced down into the darkened valley then his bowels turned to jelly and his legs seemed to buckle under him.

"Merciful Mother of God," he wailed. "All is lost. They are upon us.

With clumsy fingers he unbuckled the flap of his holster and as he fell to his knees he drew the pistol.

"Fire!" he screamed. "Open fire!" And crouching down well below the level of the parapet, he emptied the Beretta straight upwards into the dawn sky.

Manning the Italian parapets were over four hundred combatants; of these over three hundred and fifty were riflemen, armed with magazine-loaded bolt-action weapons, while another sixty men in teams of five serviced the cunningly placed machine guns.

Every man of this force had endured grinding nervous strain, listening to the war drums and now confronted by a sweeping mob of threatening figures. They crouched like dark statues behind their weapons, fingers curled stiffly around the triggers, and squinted over the open sights of rifle and machine gun.

The Count's-shriek of command and the crackle of the pistol shots were all that was necessary to snap the paralysing bonds of fear that held them. The firing was started around Aldo Belli's position, by men close enough to hear his command. A long line of muzzle flashes bloomed and twinkled along the forward slope of the valley, and three machine guns opened with them. The tearing sound of their long traversing bursts drowned out the crackle of musketry and their tracer flickered and flew in long white arcs out across the valley to bury itself in the dark moving blot of humanity.

Taken in the flank, the mob broke and surged away towards the dark silence of the far slope of the valley, away from the sheets of bright white tracer and the red rows of rifle fire. Leaving their dead and wounded scattered behind them, they spread like ispilled oil across the valley floor.

The silent gunners on the far slope saw them coming, held their fire for a few more confused panic-soured moments, and then, seeing themselves threatened, they opened also. The delay had the effect of allowing the survivors of the first volley to race deeply into the fields of overlapping fire that Castelani had so cleverly planned.

Caught in the open ground, hemmed in by a murderous storm of fire, the forward movement of the mob broke down, and they milled aimlessly, the women shrieking and clutching at their children, the children darting and doubling like a shoal of fish trapped in a tidal pool, some of the warriors kneeling in the open and beginning at last to return fire.

The red flashes of the black powder were long and dull and smoky and ineffectual against men in entrenched positions; they served only to intensify the ferocity of the Italian attack.

Now the surge of uncontrolled, panic-stricken humanity slowed and eventually ceased. The unarmed women who still survived gathered their children and covered them with their robes, crouching down over them as a mother hen does with her chicks, and the men crouched also, firing blindly and wildly up the slopes of the valley at the muzzle flashes that were fading now as the sun rose and the light strengthened.

Twelve machine guns, each firing almost seven hundred rounds a minute, and three hundred and fifty rifles poured a sheet of bullets down into the valley. Minute after minute the firing continued, and slowly the light strengthened, unmercifully exposing the survivors in the valley below.

The mood of the attackers changed. From panicky, nervously strung out green militia, they were transformed.

The almost drunken elation of victorious attackers gripped them, they were laughing triumphantly now as they served the guns. Their eyes bright with the blood lust of the predator, the knowledge that they could kill without retribution made them bold and cruel.

The miserable popping and flashing of ancient muskets in the valley below them was so feeble, so lacking in menace, that not a man amongst them was still afraid. Even Count Aldo Belli was now on his feet, brandishing his pistol and shouting with a high, girlish hysteria.

"Death to the enemy! Fire! Keep firing!" and cautiously he lifted his head another inch above the parapet. "Kill them! Ours is the victory!" The valley floor, as the first rays of sunlight touched it, was covered with thick swathes of the dead and maimed.

They lay scattered singly, piled in clumps like mounds of old clothing in a flea market, thrown haphazardly on the coal pale sandy earth or arranged in neat patterns like fish on the slab.

In the centre of the killing-ground, there was still life movement.

Here and there a figure might leap up and run with robes flapping, and immediately the machine guns would follow it, quick stabbing spouts of dust closing swiftly until they met and held on the running figure, when it would collapse and roll on the sandy earth.

The warriors who still crouched over their ancient rifles, with their dark faces lifted to the slopes, were now providing good practice for the riflemen above them. The Italian officers" voices, high-pitched and excited, called down fire upon them, and swiftly each of these defiants was hit by carefully aimed fire and fell, some of them kicking and twitching.

The firing had lasted almost twenty minutes now, and there were few targets still on offer. The machine guns traversed expectantly, firing short bursts into the heaped carcasses, shattering already mutilated flesh, or tore clouds of dust and flying shale from the rounded lips of the deep water holes, from the cover of which a sporadic fire still popped and crackled.

"My Colonel. "Castelani touched Aldo Belli's arm to gain his attention, and at last he turned wild-eyed and elated to his Major.

"Ha, Castelani, what a victory what a great victory, hey? They will not doubt our valour now."

"Colonel, shall I order the cease fire?" and the Count seemed not to hear him.

"They will know now what kind of soldier I am. This brilliant victory will win for me a place in the halls-2 "Colonel! Colonel! We must cease fire now. This is a slaughter.

Order the cease fire." Aldo Belli stared at him, his face beginning to flush with outrage.

"You crazy fool," he shouted. "The battle must be decisive, crushing!

We will not cease now not until the victory is ours." He was stuttering wildly and his hand shook as he pointed down into the bloody shambles of the valley.

"The enemy have taken cover in the water holes, they must be flushed out and destroyed. Mortars, Castelani, bomb them out." Aldo Belli did not want it to end. It was the most deeply satisfying experience of his life. If this was war, he knew at last why the sages and the poets had invested it with such In glory. This was man's work, and Aldo Belli knew himself born to it.

"Do you question my orders?" he shrieked at Castelani.

"a) your duty, immediately."

"Immediately," Castelani repeated bitterly, and for a moment longer stared stonily into the Count's eyes before he turned away.

The first mortar bomb climbed high into the clear desert dawn, before arcing over and dropping vertically down into the valley. It burst on the lip of the nearest well. It kicked up a brief column of dust and smoke, and the shrapnel whinnied shrilly. The second bomb fell squarely into the deep circular pit, bursting out of sight below ground level.

Mud and smoke gushed upwards, and out of the water hole into the open ground crawled and staggered three scarecrow figures with their tattered and dirty robes fluttering like flags of truce.

Instantly the rifle fire and machine-gun fire burst over them, and the earth around them whipped by the bullets seemed to liquefy into a cascade of flying dust, into which they tumbled and at last lay still.

Aldo Belli let out a hoot of excitement. It was so easy and so deeply satisfying. "The other holes, Castelani!" he screamed. "Clean them out! All of them!" Concentrating their fire on one hole at a time, the mortars ranged in swiftly. Some of the holes were deserted, but at most of them the slaughter was continued. A few survivors of the shimmering bursts of shrapnel staggered out into the open to be cut down swiftly by the waiting machine guns.

The Count was by now so emboldened that he climbed up on the parapet, the better to view the field and watch the mortars fire on the remaining holes, and to direct his machine gunners.

The hole nearest the wadis and broken ground at the head of the valley was the next target, and the first bomb was over, crumping in a tall jump of dust and pale flame.

Before the next bomb fell, a woman jumped up over the lip and tried to reach the mouth of the wadi. Behind her she dragged a child of two or three years, a naked toddler with fat little bow legs and a belly like a brown ball. He could not keep up with the mother and lost his footing, so she dragged him wailing along the sandy earth. Straddling her hip and clutched with desperate strength to her breast was another younger infant, also naked, also wailing and kicking frantically.

For several seconds, the running, heavily burdened woman drew no fire, and then a burst from a machine gun fell about her and a bullet struck and severed the arm by which she held the child. She staggered in a circle, shrieking dementedly and waving the stump of the arm like the spout of a garden hose. The next burst smashed through her chest, the same bullets shattering the body of the infant on her hip, and she fell and rolled like a rabbit hit by a shotgun.

The guns fell silent again and remained silent while the naked toddler stood up uncertainly.

He began to wail again, standing solidly at last on the fat dimpled legs, a string of blue beads around the tightly bulging belly and his penis sticking out like a tiny brown finger.

From the mouth of the wadi emerged a running horse, a rawboned and rangy white stallion galloping heavily over the sandy ground with a frail boyish figure lying low along its neck, a black sham ma flying out wildly behind. The rider drove the stallion on towards where the child stood weeping, and had almost covered the open ground before the gunners realized what was happening.

The first machine gun traversed on the galloping animal, but this lead-off was stiff and the bullets kicked dust slightly high and behind. Then the horse reached the child and the rider reined in sharply, sending it rearing on its hind quarters, and the rider swung down to make the pick-up.

At that moment, two other machine guns opened up on the stationary target.

Jake Barton realized that there was only one way To prevent a confrontation between the Italian force which had appeared so silently and menacingly at the wells and the undisciplined mob of warriors and camp followers of the Ras's entourage. there was no chance that he could make himself heard in the hubbub of anxiously raised voices and emotional outbursts of Amharic as the Ras tried to make his view heard above the attempts of fifty of his chieftains and captains to do exactly the same thing.

Jake needed an interpreter and he thrust his way towards Gregorius Maryam, grabbed him firmly by the arm and dragged him out of the cave.

It needed considerable force, for Gregorius was as intent as everybody else in having his views and suggestions aired.

Jake was surprised to find how light it was outside the caves, and that the night had passed so swiftly. Dawn was only minutes away, and the dry desert air was sweet and heady after the crowded cave with its smoking fires.

In the light of the camp fires and the pale sky, he saw the mob streaming away down the wadi towards the wells, as happily excited as the crowds at a fairground.

"Stop them, Greg," he shouted. "Come on, we've got to stop them," and the two of them ran forward.

"What is it, Jake?"

"We've got to stop them running into the Eyetie camp."

"Why?"

"If somebody starts shooting, there will be a massacre." BUt we are not at war, Jake. They can't shoot."

"Don't bet on it, buddy boy," grunted Jake grimly, and his alarm was contagious. Side by side, they caught up with the straggling rear of the column and elbowed and kicked their way through it.

"Back, you bastards," roared Jake. "Get back, all of you, and made the meaning clear with flying fists and feet.

With Gregorius beside him, Jake reached the narrow mouth of the wadi where it debauched into the saucer shaped valley of the wells. Like the wall of a dam the two of them linked arms and managed to hold the flood of humanity there for a minute or so, but the pressure from those straining forward from the rear threatened to sweep them away, while the mood changed from high-spirited "curiosity to angry resentment at this check upon their efforts to join the hundreds of their comrades who had already passed out of the wadi and were streaming out across the open valley.

At the moment when they were swept aside, the firing began out there upon the slopes of the valley and instantly the mob froze and their voices died away. There was no further forward movement, and Jake turned and scrambled up the steep side of the wadi for a better view out into the valley.

From there he watched the slaughter that turned the va ley into a charnel house. He watched with a sick fascination that changed slowly, as minute after minute the guns continued their clamour. He felt it become anger and outrage that outweighed all else, so that he was hardly aware of the slim cold hand that sought his, and he glanced down only for an instant at Vicky's golden head at his shoulder, before turning his entire concentration back to the dreadful tragedy being played out before them.

Vaguely he was aware that Vicky was sobbing beside him, and that she had gripped his hand so tightly that the nails were driven deep into his palm. Yet even in his dreadful anger, Jake was studying the ground and marking the Italian positions. On his other hand, Gregorius Maryam was praying softly, his smooth young face turned to a muddy grey with horror and the words of the prayer forced between tight lips like the last breaths of a dying man.

"Oh God," whispered Vicky in a tight, choked voice, as the mortar bombing began, dropping relentlessly into the depressions where the survivors huddled for shelter. "Oh God, Jake, what can we do?" But he did not answer and it went on and on. They were caught in the nightmare of it, powerless in the grip of this horror watching the mortars continue the hunt, until the woman with her two infants burst out into the open not three hundred yards ahead of them.

"Oh God, oh please Jesus," whispered Vicky. "Please don't let it happen. Please make it stop now." The guns hunted the woman and they watched her die, and the child rise to its feet and stand lost and bewildered beside the mother's corpse. The thud of galloping hooves sounded in the wadi below them and Gregorius swung around and cried, "Sara! No!" as the girl rode out, crouched low over the stallion's neck. She rode bare-backed, a tiny dark figure on the big white animal.

"Sara!" Gregorius cried again, and would have followed her, running out alone into that deadly plain, but Jake grabbed his arm and held him easily, though he struggled and cried out again in Amharic.

The girl rode on unscathed through the storm of fire, and Vicky's breathing stopped as she watched. It was impossible that Sara could reach the child and return. It was stupid, so stupid as to make her anger leap even higher and yet there was something so moving about that frail beautiful child riding out to her death, that it filled Vicky with a sense of her own inadequacy, a sense of great humility for even in this proud moment, she was aware that she was incapable of such sacrifice.

She watched the stallion rear, and the girl lean out to gather the small brown infant, saw the machine guns find their target at last, and the stallion whinnied and went down in a tangle of flailing hooves, pinning both the girl and the child, while the bullets continued to spurt dust and slap loudly against the still kicking body of the stallion.

Gregorius was still struggling and blab bering his horror, and Jake turned and struck him an open-handed blow across the face.

"Stop that!" Jake snarled, his own anger and outrage making him brutal. "Anybody who goes out there is going to get his arse shot off." The blow seemed to steady Gregorius.

"We have got to get her, Jake. Please, Jake. Let me fetch her."

"We'll do it my way," snapped Jake. His face seemed carved from hard brown stone, but his eyes were ferocious and his jaws clamped closed with his anger. Roughly he shoved Gregorius ahead of him down into the wadi, and he dragged Vicky after him. She tried to resist, leaning back against his strength, her head turned towards the plain, and her reluctant feet sliding in the loose earth.

"Jake, what are you doing?" she protested, but he ignored her.

"We'll mount the guns. It won't take long." He was planning through his rage, as he dragged them back along the wadi to where the cars were parked beyond the caves.

Vicky and Gregoflus were helpless in the ferocity of his grip, swept along by his strength and his anger.

"Vicky, you will drive for me. I'll serve the gun," he told her.

"Greg, you drive for Gareth." Jake's breathing was shallow and fast with his rage. "We can only man two cars, one we will use as a diversion you and Gareth swing south along the back of the ridge and that will keep them busy while Vicky and I pick up Sara and as many of the others as we can find alive." The two of them listened to him, and were swept forward with a fresh urgency. As they ran back along the wadi, a final brief storm of machine-gun fire and exploding mortar bomb preceded the deep aching silence which now fell over the desert.

The three of them turned the final bend in the course of the wadi and came upon a scene of utter pandemonium.

The ravine was filled solidly with those who had escaped the Italian fire struggling to load their possessions, their tents and bedding, their chickens and children, on to the panicky bellowing camels and the skittering braying mules and donkeys.

Already hundreds of riders were galloping away, climbing the sides of the wadi or disappearing into the labyrinth of broken ground. New widows wailed in the uproar and their grief was catching, the children shrieked, and whimpered in sympathy, and over it all hung a blue miasma of smoke from the cooking fires and dust from the trampling hooves and milling feet.

The four cars stood in their solid orderly rank, aloof from the masses of humanity, gleaming in their coats of white paint with the vivid red crosses emblazoned upon their sides.

Jake pushed a way through for them, towering head and shoulders above the throng, and when they reached the nearest car Jake grasped Vicky about the waist and swung her easily up into the sponson. For a moment his expression softened.

"You don't have to come," he said. "I guess I went a little mad then, you don't have to drive Gareth and I will take one car." Her face was deathly pale also, and there were deep bruised smears under her eyes from a night without sleep and the horrors of the slaughter. Her tears had dried, leaving dirty smears down her cheeks, but she shook her head fiercely.

"I'm coming," she said. "I'll drive for you."

"Good girl," said Jake. "Help Gregorius top up. We will need full fuel tanks. I'll get the Vickers." He turned away, shouting to Gregorius. "We'll use Miss Wobbly and Tenastelin Vicky will help you refuel." A detail from the Ras's personal bodyguard were already bringing the wooden cases of weapons and munitions out of the storage cave as Jake arrived. Each case was carried between four straining troopers to where the camels knelt.

It was then lifted into the pannier on each side of the hump and hastily lashed down.

"Hey, you lot." Jake came up with a group carrying a crated Vickers.

"Bring that along this way." They paused in understanding until Jake made unmistakable signs, but at that moment a captain of the guard hurried up to intervene. After one shouted exchange Jake realized that the language barrier was insurmountable. The man was obstinate and time was wasting.

"Sorry, friend," he apologized. "But I am in a bit of a hurry," and he hit him a roundhouse clout that ended the argument conclusively and sent the man flying backwards into the outstretched arms of two of his men.

"Come along." Jake pushed the guards with the crate towards where the cars stood. The thought of Sara lying out there in the valley was driving him frantic. He imagined her bleeding slowly to death, her bright young blood draining away into the sandy soil and he hustled the two men forward through the press of animals and human beings.

As he came up, Gregorius was swinging the crank handle on Miss Wobbly and the engine caught and ran smoothly as Vicky eased back the ignition.

"Where is Gareth? "Jake shouted.

"Can't find him," answered Gregorius. "We'll have to go in one car," and then both of them swung round at the familiar bantering laugh.

Gareth Swales was leaning nonchalantly against the side of the car, looking as unruffled and calm as ever, his hair neatly combed and the tweed suit as immaculate as if it had just come from his tailor.

"say," smiled Gareth, crinkling his eyes against the drift of blue smoke from the cheroot between his lips. "Big Jake Barton and his two eager ducklings about to take on the entire Italian army." Vicky's head appeared in the driver's hatch.

"We've been looking for you," she shouted furiously.

"Ah," quoth Gareth lightly. "We will now hear from the Girl Guides Association."

"Sara is out there." Gregorius ran to Gareth. "We are going to fetch her. You and I will take the one car, Vicky and Jake the other."

"Nobody is going anywhere." Gareth shook his head, and Gregorius seized the lapels of his suit and shook them urgently. "Sara. You don't understand she's out there! We have to fetch her." say, old lad, would you mind unhanding me, "murmured Gareth and removed Gregorius" hands from his lapel. "Yes.

We know about Sara, but--2 Vicky yelled from the driver's hatch.

"Leave, him, Gregorius. We don't need anyone who is afraid-" and Gareth straightened up abruptly, his expression grim and his eyes snapping.

"I have been called many things in my life, my dear young lady. Some of them justified, but nobody has ever called me a coward."

"Well, there is always a first time, buster," shouted Vicky, her face crimson with anger and streaked with dirt, her blonde hair ruffled and hanging into her eyes and she pointed one quivering finger at Gareth, "and for you this is that first time!" They stared at each other for a moment longer before Lij Mikhael strode between them, his dark face set but commanding.

"Major Swales is acting on my express orders, Miss Camberwell. I have ordered that the cars and all my father's troops will fall back immediately."

"Good God, man." Vicky transferred her anger from Gareth to the Prince. "That's your daughter lying out there."

"Yes," said the Prince softly. "My daughter on the one hand my country on the other.

There is no doubt which I must choose."

"You're not making sense, "Jake interposed roughly.

"I think I am." The Prince turned to him and Jake saw the dark torment in the man's eyes. "I cannot make a hostile move, it's what the Italians are seeking. An excuse to attack in full strength. We must turn the other cheek now, and use this atrocity to win world support."

"But Sara," Vicky interrupted. "We could pick her up in a minute."

"No." The Prince lifted his chin. "I cannot show the , enemy these new weapons of ours. They must remain hidden until the time is right to strike."

"Sara, cried Gregorius. "What of Sara?" "When these machines and the new guns are safely on their way back to the Sardi Gorge, I shall ride out myself to fetch her body," said the Prince with a simple dignity.

"But until then my duty must come first."

"One car," pleaded Gregorius. "For Sara's sake."

"No, I cannot use even one car," said the Prince.

"Well, I can," snapped Vicky and her tousled golden head disappeared into the driver's hatch, the engine roared and Miss Wobbly shot forward scattering men and animals before her, and swung in a tight sliding right-hand turn towards the course of the wadi.

Unarmed and alone, Vicky Camberwell was going out to face the machine guns and the mortars, and only one man amongst them acted swiftly enough.

Jake shouldered the Prince aside and sprinted across the circle of the car's turn, coming alongside a moment before it plunged into the narrow ravine. He got a grip on one of the welded brackets abaft the engine cowling, and although his shoulder joint was almost wrenched from its socket, he swung himself up and fell belly down across the sponson.

Clinging grimly on to the leaping, jouncing vehicle, he dragged himself forward until he could peer down the driver's hatch.

"Are you crazy?" he bellowed, and Vicky looked up and gave him a fleeting but angelic grin.

"Yes. How about you?"A heavier impact came up through the chassis of the car and momentarily drove Jake's breath from him so he could not answer. Instead, he clawed his way up the side of the turret, almost losing four fingers as the loose hatch cover slammed closed at another leap of the car.

Using all his strength, Jake lifted it again, and secured the retaining catch before he scrambled down into the cab.

He was only just in time, for at that moment Vicky drove the car at full throttle out into the valley.

The sun was clear of the horizon now, smearing long dark shadows across the golden sands. Dust and smoke from the mortar barrage still drifted in a stately brown cloud over the ridge, and the bodies of the dead were thrown at random across the bare plain. The women's dresses made bright splashes of colour against the monochrome of the desert.

Jake swept a swift glance around the ridge that commanded the plain, and saw that many of the Italian troopers had left their trenches. They wandered in small groups around the edges of the slaughter ground, and their movements were awed and timid green troops still not hardened to the reality of open wounds and twisted corpses.

They froze in attitudes of surprise as the car burst out of the wadi, and flew on usty wings towards the nearest waterhole. It took many seconds for them to move, and then they turned and pelted for their earthworks, tiny figures in dark uniforms with legs and arms pumping in frantic haste.

"Turn broadside," yelled Jake. "Show them the crosses!" and Vicky reacted swiftly, swinging the car into a tight lefthander that had her up on two wheels, sliding broadside in the sand, displaying to the Italians the huge scarlet crosses on the hull.

"Let me have your shirt," Jake yelled again. It was the only white cloth they had with them. "I need a flag of truce!"

"It's all I have on," Vicky shrieked back. "I'm bare underneath."

"You want to be modest and dead?" howled Jake. "They'll start shooting any moment now." And she steered with one hand as she unbuttoned her shirt front and leaned forward in the seat to yank the tails out of her skirt. She shrugged out of it and reached up into the turret to hand him the bundled shirt. Each time they hit another bump, Vicky's breasts bounced like rubber balls, a sight that distracted Jake for a hundredth part of a second before chivalry and duty recalled him and he stood high in the turret, arms stretched above his head, streaming the white shirt like a flag, balancing with a sailor's legs against the wild antics of the car.

To the hundreds of men who lined the parapet of the Italian trenches Jake displayed two emotive symbols, the red cross and the white flag, symbols so powerful that even men in the white-hot must of the blood lust hesitated with their fingers still curled about the triggers of the machine guns.

"It's working," shrieked Vicky, and swung the car on to its original heading, almost throwing Jake from his precarious roost in the turret.

He dropped the shirt and clutched wildly at the coamings of the turret, the shirt floating away like a white egret on the wing.

"There she is," Vicky cried again. The carcass of the white stallion lay dead ahead, as she braked hard and then pulled the car to a standstill beside it, interposing the armoured body of the car between the pile of bodies and the watching Italians on the ridge.

Jake dropped down into the cab and crawled back to open the rear double doors of the car, knocking open the locking handles as he called over his shoulder.

"Keep your hatch battened and don't, for chrissakes, show your head."

"I'll help you," Vicky stated boldly.

"The hell you will," snapped Jake, tearing his eyes off her magnificent chest. "You'll stay where you are and keep the engine running." The doors flew open and Jake tumbled headfirst out on to the sandy earth.

Spitting grit from his mouth, he crawled swiftly to the carcass of the white horse. Close up, the hide was shaggy and flea-bitten, dappled with faint patches of chestnut. On this pale background the bullet holes were like dark red mouths where already the metallic blue flies clustered delightedly.

The stallion lay heavily across Sara's lower body, pinning her face down to the earth.

The naked boy child had been hit by one of the hooves as the horse fell. The side of the tiny bald skull had been crushed, a deep indentation above the temple into which a baseball would have fitted neatly. There was no chance that he still lived and Jake transferred his attention to the girl.

"Sara," he called, and she lifted herself on her elbows, looking back at him from huge terrified dark eyes. Her face was smeared with dust, the skin shaved from one cheek where she had slid against the ground, exposing the pale pink meat from which lymph leaked in clear liquid beads.

"Are you hit? "Jake reached her.

"I don't know," she whispered huskily, and he saw that the satin of her breeches was soaked with dark blood. He placed both feet against the carcass of the horse and tried to roll it off her legs, but the dead weight of the animal was enormous. He would have to stand, taking his chances with the guns.

Jake came to his feet and felt the cold fingers of fear brush lightly along his spine as he turned his back to the nearest Italian trenches and stooped to the horse.

Crouching with his weight balanced evenly on the balls of both feet, he took the tail and the lower hind leg of the animal; lifting and turning with all his strength, he began to roll the carcass off Sara's legs and pelvis. She cried out in pain, such a sharp high-pitched shriek that he had to stop.

She was praying incoherently in Amharic, weeping slow fat tears of agony that cut tunnels through the pale dust on her cheeks.

Jake panted, "Once more I'm sorry," and he braced himself. At that moment Vicky yelled from the car.

"Jake, they are coming! Hurry, oh God, please hurry!" Jake swung around and ran to the car, peering over the high engine compartment.

With a long plume of pale dust boiling out from behind it, a large open vehicle crowded with armed men was dropping swiftly down towards them from the ridge.

"My God," grunted Jake, screwing up his eyes against the low blinding rays of the morning sun. "It can't be!" But even at that range in the dust and bad light, there was no mistaking the gracious and dignified lines of a Rolls-Royce.

Jake was seized by a feeling of unreality that amid all this horror appear something of such beauty.

"Hurry, Jake." Vicky's voice spurred him on, and he ran back to the dead horse, seized its hind legs and began wrestling it on to its back with the girl's agonized cries as an accompaniment.

Grunting and straining, Jake lifted the horse by main strength until it was balanced critically along its spine with the legs pointed loosely at the morning sky, and now he could hear the approaching engine-beat of the Rolls and the faint but excited voices of its occupants. He denied the temptation to look around again and, instead, let the carcass flop heavily over on to its other flank, freeing the frail body of the child-woman beneath it.

Still panting with his efforts, Jake dropped on one knee beside her.

She was hit in the upper leg, he saw at once, the entry wound was six inches above the knee, and when he felt swiftly for a bone-break, there was another quick flood of dark crimson blood that poured warmly over his fingers and drenched the slick satin of her breeches afresh. Jake found the exit wound in the inside of her thigh, but knew by feel and instinct that it had missed the bone. Still, she was losing blood heavily and he inserted a forefinger into the tear in her breeches and ripped the cloth cleanly to the ankle; he pulled it up exposing her long slim leg to the crutch. The wound was deep and blue in the darkly lustrous flesh, and Jake tore the flapping trouser-leg free and wound a turn of it around the thigh above the wound.

Using both arms and the strength of his shoulders he drew the crude tourniquet so tight that the flow of blood was instantly stemmed and he tied the ends of the bandage with two swift turns, and then looked up just as the RollsRoyce skidded to a violent halt across the front of the armoured car.

There seemed to be a state of utter confusion amongst the occupants of the Rolls, and again Jake felt a sense of unreality. In the front seat, the driver gripped the steering wheel in one hand and a rifle in the other with white knuckles and fingers that shook like those of a man in fever.

His ashen face was shining with the sweat either of some terrible fever or some equally terrible terror. On the seat beside him crouched a small wiry figure with a rifle slung over one shoulder and with a brown wizened monkey face partly obscured by a square black Leica camera with an enormous bellows lens. In the back seat of the Rolls was a large powerfully built man, with a granite face and the level controlled manner of a man of action. A dangerous man, Jake recognized instantly, and he saw that he was a major.

He held a rifle in one hand and with the other was trying to help to his feet a smaller, more handsome man in a splendid uniform of elegantly tailored black gabardine adorned with silver badges and insignia.

On this officer's head, a brimless black helmet with a silver skull and crossbones rode at a jaunty angle, like a pirate in a Christmas pantomime, but the face below it was fixed in the same pale emotion as that of the driver. It became clear to Jake that the last thing this gallant wanted was to be helped to his feet. He was curled up in the corner of the seat in such a way as to offer the smallest possible target, and he slapped petulantly at the Major's helping hand.

Protesting shrilly and brandishing an expensively plated and engraved pistol, it was clear that his presence in the Rolls was by no means voluntary.

Jake stooped over the body of the girl and slipped one arm under her shoulders and the other beneath her knees, careful not to inflict further hurt. Jake stood up with her in his arms while she clung to him like a child.

This action caused the big stern-faced Major to turn all his attention on Jake, to level his rifle at him and call a peremptory order in Italian. It was clearly an order to stand where he was, and, looking into the muzzle of the rifle and into the pale expressionless eyes, Jake knew that the man would shoot without hesitation if he were not immediately obeyed. There was a deadliness, a quiet aura of menace about him that chilled Jake as he stood with the slim warm body in his arms, and he collected his senses and his words.

"I am American,"he said firmly. "American doctor. "There was no recognition in the Major's expression, but he turned his head and glanced at the officer who stirred receptively, half-rose in his seat, then thought better of it. He sank back again, speaking carefully around the bulk of his Major.

"You are my prisoner," he cried, his voice unsteady, but his English clear and unaccented. "I place you in protective custody." "You are contravening the Geneva Convention." Jake tried to make his tone indignant, as he sidled towards the invitingly open rear doors of the car.

"I must inspect your credentials." The officer was recovering rapidly from his recent indisposition. Fresh colour flooded the classically handsome face, new interest flashed in the dark gazelle eyes, and the smooth baritone voice gained strength and a fine ringing timbre.

% Colonel Count Aldo Belli, command you to account to me." His gaze switched to the huge steel body of the car.

"This is an armoured vehicle of war. You fly false colours, sir." As the Count spoke, he realized for the first time that neither the big curly-headed American nor the big oldfashioned vehicle which towered over them was armed. He could clearly see the empty gun-mounting in the turret and his courage came flooding back. Now at last he leaped to his feet, throwing out his chest, one hand on his hip, the other aiming the pistol at Jake.

"You are my prisoner" he declaimed once more, then from the corner of his mouth he growled at the front seat, "Gino, quickly. A shot of me capturing the American."

"At once, Excellency. "Gino was focusing the camera.

"I protest," shouted Jake, and sidled another few paces towards the inviting rear doors of the car.

"Stay where you are," snapped the Count and glanced at Gino. "All right? "he asked.

"get the American to move a little to the right," Gino replied, still peering into the view-finder.

"A little to the right!" commanded the Count in English, gesturing with the pistol, and Jake obeyed, for it brought him closer to his goal, but he was still shouting his protests.

"In the name of humanity and the International Red Cross-" "I shall radio Geneva today," the Count shouted back, "to enquire of your credentials."

"Smile a little, Excellency," said Gino.

The Count burst into a radiant smile and half-turned towards the camera.

"Then I shall have you shod' he he promised, still smiling.

"If you let this girl die," yelled Jake, "it will be the act of a barbarian." The smile vanished instantly and the Count scowled darkly.

"And your actions, sir, are those of a spy. Enough talk surrender yourself" He lifted the pistol threateningly and aimed at the centre of Jake's chest. Jake felt a chill of despair, as he saw the big Major reinforce the order by sliding the safety catch of his rifle to the fire" position and pointing it at Jake's belly.

At this critical moment, the driver's hatch of the armoured car flew open with a clang -that startled them all and Vicky Camberwell rose to view, her blonde hair awry and her cheeks burning with anger.

"I am an accredited member of the American Press Association," she yelled as loudly as any of them. "And I assure you that this outrage will be reported to the world in every detail. I warn you that-" There was much more in this vein, and Vicky's anger was such that she could not remain still, she jumped up and down and flung her arms about in wild gesticulations for the moment completely oblivious of the fact that she was bared to the waist.

Her audience in the Rolls was under no such illusion.

Every man of them was a member of a nation whose favourite pastime was the adoration and pursuit of beautiful women, and every one of them considered himself to be the national champion.

As Vicky's bounty wobbled and swung and bounced with agitation, the four Italians gaped half in disbelief and half in delight. The raised weapons sank and were forgotten. The Major attempted to rise to his feet in a gesture of chivalry, but was thrust firmly backwards by the Count. The driver's foot slipped off the clutch and the Rolls bucked violently and the engine stalled. Gino uttered an oath of approval, raised the camera, found the film was expended, swore again and opened the camera without taking his eyes off Vicky, dropped it from clumsy hands, and abandoned it, grinning beatifically at this blonde vision.

The Count began to raise his helmet, remembered he was now a warrior and with his other hand threw out a Fascist salute, found he was still gripping the pistol and did not have enough hands, so he held his helmet and the pistol to his chest with one hand.

"Madam," he said, dark eyes flashing, his voice taking on a romantic ring. "My dear lady-" At that moment, the Major tried again to rise and the Count shoved him back into the seat once more while Vicky continued her tirade with no diminution in fervour.

Jake was completely forgotten by the Italians. He took four running steps and dived through the rear doors into the steel cab of the car.

He rolled over and dropped Sara into the space for the ammunition bins behind the driver's seat, and in a continuation of the same movement he kicked the doors closed and turned the locking handle.

"Drive!" he shouted at Vicky, although only her backside was visible as she stood on the driver's seat. "Come on!" and hauled her downwards so that she sat with a thud on the hard leather seat, still shouting abuse at the enemy. "Drive!" Jake shouted louder still. "Get us out of here!" The shocked dismay of the four Italians, as Vicky disappeared abruptly from view like an inverted jack-in-abox, lasted for many seconds and held them paralysed by disappointment.

Then the armoured car's engine roared and it bounded forward, straight at them; swinging broadside at the last moment, it hit the Rolls only a glancing blow, crumpling the front mudguard and shattering the glass headlamp, before it tore off in its own dust storm towards the broken ground beyond the wells.

Castelani was the first to act; he leaped to the ground and raced to reach the crank handle, shouting at the driver to start the engine. It fired at the first kick and the Major sprang on to the running board.

"Chase them," he shouted in the driver's ear, brandishing his rifle, and once again the driver sprang the clutch and the Rolls leapt forward with such violence that the Count was tumbled backwards onto the soft leather seat, his helmet sliding forward over his eyes, his polished boots kicking to the skies and his trigger finger tightening involuntarily. The Beretta fired with a vicious crack and the bullet flew an inch past Gino's ear, so that he fell to the floorboards on top of his camera, and whimpered with fright.

"Faster!" shouted the Major in the driver's ear. "Head them off, force them to turn!" and his voice was louder and more authoritative.

He wanted a clean shot at the few vulnerable points in the car's armour the driver's visor or the open gun-mounting.

"Stop!" screeched the Count. "I'll have you shot for this." Side by side, the two vehicles pitched and lurched together like a team in harness, not ten feet separating them.

Within the armoured car, Vicky's vision through the visor was limited to a narrow arc ahead, and she concentrated on that as she shouted, "Where are they?" Jake picked himself out of the corner where he and Sara had been thrown, and crawled towards the command turret.

In the Rolls alongside, Castelani braced himself and raised the rifle.

Even at that close range, five of his shots struck the thick steel hull with ringing sledgehammer blows and went whining away across the desert spaces. Only one bullet entered the narrow breech of the gun-mounting.

Trapped within the hull, it ricocheted amongst the three of them like an angry living thing, splattering them with stinging slivers of lead, and bringing death within inches before it ploughed into the back of the driver's seat.

Jake popped his head out of the turret and discovered the Rolls running hard beside them, the burly Major frantically reloading his empty rifle, and the other passengers bouncing around helplessly.

"Driver!" shouted Jake. "Hard right!" and felt a quick flush of pride and affection as Vicky responded instantly. She swung the great armoured hull so suddenly that the other driver had no time to respond, the two vehicles came together with a shower of bright white sparks and a thunderous grinding crash.

"Save us, Mother of God!" shrieked the Count. "We are killed." The Rolls reeled under the impact, shearing off and losing ground, her paintwork deeply scatted and her whole side dented and torn. Castelani had leaped nimbly into the back seat at the last possible moment, avoiding having his legs crushed by the collision, and now he had reloaded the rifle.

Closer," he shouted at the driver. "Give me another shot at her!" But the Count had at last recovered his balance and pushed his helmet on to the back of his head.

"Stop, you fool." His voice was clear and urgent. "You'll kill us all," and the driver braked with patent relief, smiling for the first time that day.

"Keep going, you idiot," said Castelani sternly, and placed the muzzle of the rifle to the driver's ear hole His smile switched off, and his foot fell heavily on the pedal again.

Stop!" said the Count, as he dragged himself up again, adjusted his helmet with one hand and placed the muzzle of the Beretta pistol in the driver's vacant ear hole "I, your Colonel, command you."

"Keep going," growled Castelani. And the driver closed his eyes tightly, not daring to move his head, and roared straight at the ramparts of red earth that guarded the wadi.

In the moment before the Rolls ploughed headlong into a wall of sunbaked earth, the driver's dilemma was resolved for him. Gregorius, for lack of another ally, had appealed to his grandfather's warrior instincts, and despite the vast quantities of tej that he had drunk, that ancient had responded nobly, gathering his bodyguard about him and outstripping them in the race down the wadi. Only Gregorius himself kept pace with the tall, gangling figure as he ran down to the plain.

The two of them came out side by side, and found the Rolls and the white-painted armoured car bearing down on them at point-blank range in a storm of dust. It was a sight to daunt the bravest heart, and Gregorius dived for the shelter of the red earth ramparts. But the Ras had killed his lion, and did not flinch.

He flung up the trusty old Martini Henry rifle. The explosion of black powder sounded like a cannon shot, a vast cloud of blue smoke blossomed and a long red flame shot from the barrel.

The windscreen of the Rolls exploded in a silver burst of flying glass splinters, one of which nicked the Count's chin.

"Holy Mary, I'm killed," cried the Count, and the driver needed nothing further to tip his allegiance. He swung the Rolls into a tight, roaring U-turn and not all of Castelani's threats could deter him. It was enough. He could take no more. He was going home.

"My God," breathed Jake, as he watched the battered Rolls swinging tightly away, and then gathering speed as it accelerated back towards the ridge, the arms and weapons of its occupants still waving wildly, and their voices raised in loud hysterical argument that faded with distance.

The Ras's cannon boomed again, speeding them on their way, and Vicky slowed the car as they came up to him. Jake reached down and helped the ancient gentleman aboard.

His eyes were bloodshot and he smelled like an abandoned brewery, but his wizened old face was crinkled into a wicked grin of satisfaction.

"How do you do?" he asked, with evident relish.

"Not bad, sir, "Jake assured him. "Not bad at all." little before noon, the formation of armoured cars parked in the open grassland twenty miles beyond the wells. A halt had been called here to allow the straggling mass of refugees that had escaped the slaughter at Chaldi to come up with them, and this was the first opportunity that Vicky had to work on Sara's leg. It had stiffened in the last hour, and the blood had clotted into a thick dark scab. Though Sara made no protest, she had paled to a muddy colour and was sweating in tiny beads across her forehead and upper lip as Vicky cleaned the wound and poured half a bottle of peroxide into it. Vicky sought to distract her as she worked by bringing up the subject of the dead they had left scattered about the water, holes under the Italian guns.

Sara shrugged philosophically. "Hundreds die every day of sickness and hunger and from the fighting in the hills.

They die without purpose or reason. These others have died for a purpose. They have died to tell the world about us--" and she broke off and gasped as the disinfectant boiled in the wound.

"I am sorry," said Vicky quickly.

"it is nothing, "she said, and they were quiet for a while, then Sara asked, "You will write it, won't you, Miss Camberwell?"

"Sure," Vicky nodded grimly. "I'll write it good. Where can I find a telegraph office?"

"There is one at Sardi," Sara told her. "At the railway office."

"What I write will burn out their lines for them, "promised Vicky, and began to bind up the leg with a linen bandage from the medicine chest.

"We'll have to get these breeches off you." Vicky inspected the bloodstained and tattered velvet dubiously. "They are so tight, it's a wonder you haven't given yourself gangrene."

"They must be worn so," Sara explained. "It was decreed by my great-grandfather, Ras Abullahi."

"Good Lord." Vicky was intrigued. What on earth for?"

"The ladies in those days were very naughty," Sara explained primly.

"And my great-grandfather was a good man. He thought to make the breeches difficult to remove." Vicky laughed delightedly.

"Do you think it helps? "she demanded, still laughing.

"Oh no, Sara shook her head seriously. "It makes it very hard." She spoke with the air of an expert, and then thought for a moment. They come down quickly enough it's when you want to get them up again in a hurry that can be very difficult."

"Well, the only way we are going to get you out of these now is to cut you loose." Vicky was still smiling, as she took a large pair of scissors from the medicine chest and Sara shrugged again with resignation.

"They were very pretty before Jake tore them now it does not matter."

And she showed no emotion as Vicky snipped carefully along the seam and peeled them off her.

"Now you must rest." Vicky wrapped her naked lower body in a woollen sham ma and helped her settle comfortably on one of the thin coir mattresses spread on the floor of the car.

"Stay with me," Sara asked shyly, as Vicky picked up her portable typewriter and would have climbed out of the rear doors.

"I must begin my despatch."

"You can work here. I will be very quiet."

"Promise?"

"I promise," and Vicky opened the case and placed the typewriter in her lap, sitting cross-legged. She wound a sheet of fresh paper into the machine, and thought for a moment. Then her fingers flew at the keys.

Almost instantly, the anger and outrage returned to her and was transferred smoothly into words and hammered out on the thin sheet of yellow paper. Vicky's cheeks flamed with colour and she tossed her head occasionally to keep the tendrils of fine blonde hair out of her eyes.

Sara watched her, keeping very still and silent until Vicky paused to wind a fresh sheet into the typewriter, then she broke the silence.

"I have been thinking, Miss Camberwell,"she said.

"You have?" Vicky did not look up.

"I think it should be Jake."

"Jake?" Vicky glanced at her, baffled by this sudden shift in thought.

"Yes," Sara nodded with finality. "We will take Jake as your first lover." She made it sound like a group project.

"Oh, we will will we?" The idea had already entered Vicky's head and was almost firmly rooted, but she baulked instantly at Sara's bold statement.

"He is so strong. Yes!" Sara went on. "I think we will definitely take Jake," and with that statement she dashed as low as they had ever been the chances of Jake Barton.

Vicky snorted derisively, and flew at the typewriter once again. She was a lady who liked to make her own decisions.

The river of moving men and animals flowed wedge shaped across the sparsely grassed and rolling landscape beneath the mountains. Over it all hung a fine mist of dust, like sea fret on a windy day, and the sunlight caught and flashed from the burnished surfaces of the bronze war shields and the lifted lance-tips. Closer came the mass of riders until the bright spots of the silk shammas of the officers and noblemen showed clearly through the loom of the dust cloud.

Standing on the turret of Priscilla the Pig, Jake shaded the lens of his binoculars with his helmet and tried to see beyond the dust clouds, searching anxiously for any pursuit by the Italians. He felt goose-flesh march up his arms and tickle the thick hair at the nape of his neck as he imagined this sprawling rabble caught in a crossfire of modern machine guns, and he fretted for the arrival of their own weapons which were lost somewhere amongst that ragged army.

He felt a touch on his shoulder and turned quickly to find Lij Mikhael beside him.

"Thank you, Mr. Barton,"said the Prince quietly, and Jake shrugged and turned back to his scrutiny of the distant plains.

"It was not the correct thing but I thank you all the same." How is she?"

"I have just left her with Miss Camberwell. She is resting and I think she will be well." They were silent a while longer, before Jake spoke again.

"I'm worried, Prince. We are wide open. If the Italians chase now it will be bloody murder. Where are the guns?

We must have the guns." Lij Mikhael pointed out on to the left rear flank of the approaching host.

"There," and Jake noticed for the first time the ungainly shapes of the pack camels, almost obscured by dust and distances, but standing taller than the shaggy little Harari ponies that surrounded them, and lumbering stolidly onwards towards where the cars waited. "They will be here in half an hour." Jake nodded with relief. He began planning how he would arm the cars immediately, so that they could be deployed to counter another Italian attack but the Prince interrupted his thoughts.

"Mr. Barton, how long have you known Major Swales?" Jake lowered the glasses and grinned.

"Sometimes I think too long," and regretted it, as he noticed the Prince's immediate anxiety.

"No. I didn't mean that. It was a bad joke. I haven't known him long."

"We checked his record very carefully before " he hesitated.

"Before tricking him into taking on this commission," Jake suggested, and the Prince smiled faintly and nodded.

"Precisely," he agreed. "All the evidence suggests that he is an unscrupulous man, but a skilled soldier with a proven record of achievement in training raw recruits. He is an expert weapons instructor, with a full knowledge of the mechanism and exploitation of modern weapons." The Prince paused.

"Just don't get into a card game with him."

"I will take your advice, Mr. Barton." The Prince smiled fleetingly, and then was serious again. "Miss Camberwell called him a coward. That is not so. He was acting under my direct orders, as a soldier should."

"Point taken," grinned Jake. "But then I'm not a soldier, only a grease monkey." But the Prince brushed the disclaimer aside.

"He is probably a better man than he thinks he is," said Jake, and the Prince nodded.

"His combat record in France is impressive. The Military Cross and three times mentioned in despatches."

"Yeah, you have me convinced," murmured Jake. "Is that what you wanted?"

"No," admitted the Prince reluctantly. "I had hoped that you might convince me," and they both laughed.

"And did you check my record also? "Jake asked.

"No," admitted the Prince. "The first time I ever heard of you was in Dares Salaam. You and your strange machines were a bonus a surprise packet." The Prince paused again, and then spoke so softly that Jake barely caught the words, "and perhaps the best end of the bargain.

"Then he lifted his chin and looked steadily into Jake's eyes."

The anger is still with you," he said. "

"I can see how strong it is." With surprise, Jake realized that the Prince was correct.

The anger was in him. No longer the leaping flames that had kindled at the first shock of the atrocity. Those had burned down into a thick glowing bed in the pit of his guts, but the memory of men and women caught by the guns and the mortars would sustain that glow for a long time ahead.

"I think now you are committed to us," the Lij went on softly, and Jake was amazed at the man's perception. He had not yet recognized that commitment himself; for the first time since he had landed in Africa, he was motivated by something outside himself. He knew that he would stay now, and that he would fight with the Lij and these people as long as they needed him. In an intuitive flash he realized that if these simple people were enslaved, then all of mankind including Jake Barton were themselves deprived of a measure of freedom. A line, almost forgotten, imperfectly learned long ago and not then understood surfaced in his memory.

"No man is an island," - " he said, and the Lij nodded and continued the quotation. "entire of itself. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind"." The Lifs dark eyes glowed. "Yes, Mr. Barton, John Donne. I think that in you I have been lucky. You are fire, and Gareth Swales is ice. It will work for me. Already there is a bond between you."

"A bond?" and Jake laughed, a brief harsh bark of laughter, but then stopped and thought about the Prince's words. The man had even greater perception than Jake had at first realized. He had a knack of turning over unrecognized truths.

"Yes. A bond," said the Lij. "Fire and ice. You will see." They were silent for a while, standing high on the steel turret of the car, bare-headed in the sun, each man thinking his own thoughts.

Then the Lij roused himself and turned to point into the west.

"There is the heart of Ethiopia,"he said. "The mountains." They both lifted their heads to the soaring peaks, and the great flat-topped Ambas that characterized the Ethiopian highlands.

Each table land was divided from the next by sheer walls of riven rock, blue with distance and remote as the clouds into which they seemed to rise, and by the deep dark gorges that looked to split the earth like the axe-stroke of a giant, plunging thousands upon thousands of feet to the swiftly raging torrents in their depths.

"The mountains protect us. For a hundred miles on each side no enemy may pass. "The Prince swept his arms wide to encompass the curving blue wall of rock that faded both north and south into the smoky distances where they merged with the paler bright blue of the sky.

"But there is the Sardi Gorge. "Jake saw it cleave the wall of mountains, a deep funnel driving into the rock perhaps fifteen miles across at its widest point, but then narrowing swiftly and climbing steeply towards the distant heights.

"The Sardi Gorge," the Prince repeated. "A lance pointed into the exposed flank of the Lion of Judah." He shook his head and his expression was troubled and once again that haunted, hunted look was in his eyes. "The Emperor, Negusa Nagast, Baile Selassie, has gathered his armies in the north.

One hundred and fifty thousand men to meet the main thrust of the Italians which must come from the north, out of Eritrea and through Adowa. The Emperor's flanks are secured by the mountains except here at the gorge. This is the only place at which a modern mechanized army might win its way to the high ground. The road up the gorge is steep and rough, but the Italians are engineering masters.

Their road making wizardry dates back to the Caesars. If they force the mouth of the gorge, they could have fifty thousand men on the highlands inside of a week." He punched his fist upward towards the far blue peaks. "They would be across the Emperor's rear, between him and his capital at Addis Ababa, with the road to the city wide open to them. It would be the end for us and the Italians know it. Their presence here at the Wells of Chaldi proves it.

What we encountered there today was the advance guard of the enemy attack which will come through the gorge."

Yes, "Jake agreed. "it seems that is so."

"The Emperor has charged me with the defence of the Sardi Gorge, said the Prince quietly. "But at the same time he has ordained that the great bulk of my fighting men must join his army which is now gathering on the shores of Lake Tona, two hundred miles away in the west. We will be short of men, so short that without your cars and the new machine guns you have brought to me, the task would be impossible."

"It isn't going to be a push-over, even with these beaten-up old ladies."

"I know that, Mr. Barton, and I am doing everything in my power to improve the betting in our favour. I am even treating with a traditional enemy of the Harari to form a common front against the enemy. I am trying to put aside old feuds, and convince the Ras of the Gallas to join us in the defence of the Gorge. The man is a robber and a degenerate, and his men are all shifta, mountain bandits, but they fight well and every lance now arms us against the common enemy." Jake was conscious of the faith that the Prince was placing in him; he was being treated like a trusted commander and his newly realized sense of involvement was strengthened.

"An untrustworthy friend is the worst kind of enemy."

"I don't recognize that quotation?" the Prince enquired.

"Jake Barton, mechanic. "Jake grinned at him. "Looks like we've got ourselves a job of work. What I want you to do is pick out some of your really bright lads. Ones that I can teach to drive a car or men that Gareth can use as gunners."

"Yes. I have already discussed that with Major Swales.

He made the same suggestion. I will hand-pick my best for you."

"Young ones, "said Jake. "Who will learn quickly." The Ras sat crouched like an ancient vulture in the strip of shade thrown by Gareth's car, the Hump; his eyes were narrowed like those of a sniper and he mumbled to himself. drooling a little with excitement.

When Gregorius reached out and tried to view the fan of cards that the Ras held secretively to his bosom, his hand was slapped away angrily, and a storm of Amharic burst about him. Gregorius was justly put out of countenance by this, for he was, after all, his grandfather's interpreter. He complained to Gareth, who squatted opposite the Ras holding his own cards carefully against the front of his tweed jacket.

"He does not want me to help him any more," protested Gregorius. "He says he understands the game now."

"Tell him he is a natural." Gareth squinted around the smoke that spiralled upwards from the cheroot in the corner of his mouth. "Tell him he could go straight into the salon priva at Monte Carlo." The Ras grinned and nodded happily at the compliment, and then scowled with concentration as he waited for Gareth to discard.

"Anyone for the ladies?" Gareth asked innocently as he laid the queen of hearts face up on the inverted ammunition box that stood between them, and the Ras squawked with delight and snatched it up. Then he hammered on the box like an auctioneer and began laying out his hand.

"Skunked, by God!" Gareth's face crumpled in a convincing display of utter dismay and the Ras nodded and twinkled and drooled.

"How do you do?" he asked triumphantly, and Gareth judged that the Christmas turkey was now sufficiently fattened and ready for plucking.

"Ask your venerable grandfather if he would like a little interest on the next game. I suggest a Maria Theresa a point?" and Gareth held up one of the big silver coins between thumb and forefinger to illustrate the suggestion.

The Ras's response was positive and gratifying. He summoned one of his bodyguard, who drew a huge purse of lion skin from out of his voluminous sham ma and opened it.

"Hallelujah!" breathed Gareth, as he saw the sparkle of golden sovereigns in the recesses of the purse. "Your deal, old sport!" The controlled dignity of the Count's bearing was modelled aristocratically on that of the Duce himself. It was that of the aristocrat, of the man born to command. His dark eyes flashed with scorn, and his voice rang with a deep beauty that sent shivers up his own spine.

"A peasant, reared in the gutters of the street. I am amazed that such a person can have reached a rank such as Major. A person like yourself-" and his right arm shot Out with the accusing finger straight as a pistol barrel, you are a nobody, an upstart. I blame myself that I was soft-hearted enough to place you in a position of trust. Yes, I blame myself. That is the reason I have until this time overlooked your impudence, your importunity. But this time you have over reached yourself, Castelani. This time you have refused to obey a direct command from your own Colonel in the face of the enemy. This I cannot ignore!" The Count paused, and a shadow of regret passed fleetingly behind his eyes. "I am a compassionate man, Castelani but I am also a soldier.

I cannot, in deference to this honoured uniform that I wear, overlook your conduct. You know the penalty for what you have done, for disobeying your superior officer in the face of the enemy." He paused again, the chin coming up and dark fires burning in his eyes. "The penalty, Castelani, is death.

And so it must be. You will be an example to my men. This evening, as the sun is about to set, you will be led before the assembled battalion and stripped of your badges of rank, of the beloved insignia of this proud command, and then you will meet your just deserts before the rifles of the firing squad It was a longish speech, but the Count was a trained baritone and he ended it dramatically with arms spread wide.

He held the pose after he had finished and watched himself with gratification in the full-length mirror before which he stood. He was alone in his tent, but he felt as though he faced a wildly applauding audience. Abruptly he turned from the mirror, strode to the entrance of the tent and threw back the flap.

The sentries sprang to attention and the Count barked, "Have Major Castelani summoned here immediately."

"Immediately, my Colonel," snapped the sentry, and the Count let the flap drop back into place.

Castelani came within ten minutes and saluted smartly from the entrance of the tent.

"You sent for me, my Colonel?"

"My dear Castelani." The Count rose from his desk; the strong white teeth contrasted against the dark olive-gold tan, as he smiled with all his charm and went to take the Major's arm. "A glass of wine, my dear fellow?" Aldo Belli was enough of a realist to see that without Castelani's professional eye and arm guiding the battalion, it would collapse like an unsuccessful souffle, or more probably like a dynamited cliff upon his head. Passing sentence of death on the man had relieved the COUnt's feelings, and now he could feel quite favourably disposed towards him.

"Be seated," he said, indicating the camp chair opposite his desk.

"There are cigars in the humidor." He beamed fondly, like a father at his eldest son. "I would like you to read through this report and to place your signature in the space I have marked." Castelani took the sheaf of papers and began to read, frowning like a bulldog and with his lips forming the words silently. After a few minutes, he looked startled and glanced up at Aldo Belli.

"my Colonel, I doubt if it was forty thousand savages that attacked us."

"A matter of opinion, Castelani. It was dark. No one will ever know for certain how many there were." The Count waved the objection aside with a genial smile. "It is merely an informed estimate read on. You will find I have good things to say of your conduct." And the Major read on and blanched.

"Colonel, the enemy casualties were 126 dead, not 12,600."

"Ah, a slip of the pen, Major, I will correct that before sending it to headquarters."

"Sir, you make no mention of the enemy possessing an armoured vehicle."

And the Count frowned for the first time since the beginning of the meeting.

"Armoured vehicle, Castelani, surely you mean an ambulance?" The encounter with the strange machine was best forgotten, he had decided.

It reflected no credit on anybody particularly none upon himself It would merely add a jarring note to the splendours of his report.

"It would be quite in the normal course of things for the enemy to have some sort of medical service not worth mentioning. Read on! Read on!

Caro mio, you will find that I have recommended you for a decoration."

eneral De Bono had summoned his staff to a lunchtime conference to appraise the readiness of the expeditionary force to commence its invasion of the Ethiopian highlands. These conferences were a weekly affair, and the General's staff had not taken long to understand that in exchange for a really superb luncheon, for the reputation of the General's chef was international, they were expected to provide the General with good reasons which he might relay to the Duce for delaying the start of the offensive. The staff had fully entered into the spirit of the game, and some of their offerings had been inspired.

However, even their fertile imaginations were now beginning to plough barren land. The Inspector General of the Medical Corps had tentatively diagnosed a straightforward case of gonorrhoca contracted by an infantry man as "suspected smallpox" and had written a very good scare story warning of a possible epidemic but the General was not certain whether it could be used or not. They needed aj something better than that. They were discussing this now over the cigars and liqueurs, when the door of the dining room was thrown open and Captain Crespi hurried to the head of the table. His face was flushed, and his eyes wild, his manner so agitated that an electric silence fell over the roomful of very senior and slightly inebriated officers.

Crespi handed a message to the General, and he was so disturbed that what was intended as a whisper came out as a strangled cry of outrage.

"The clown!" he panted. "The clown has done it!" The General, alarmed by this enigmatic statement, snatched the message and his eyes flew across the sheet before he handed it to the officer beside him and covered his face with both hands.

"The idiot!" he wailed, while the message passed swiftly from hand to hand, and a hubbub of raised voices followed it.

"At least, your Excellency, it is a great victory," called an infantry commander, and suddenly the entire mood of the assembly changed.

"My planes are ready, General. We await the word to follow up this masterly strategy of yours," cried the Commander of the Regia Aeronautica, leaping to his feet and the General uncovered his eyes and looked confused.

"Congratulations, my General," called an artilleryman, and struggled unsteadily upright, spilling port down the front of his jacket. "A mighty victory."

"Oh dear!" murmured De Bono. "Oh dear!" "An unprovoked attack by a horde of savages" - Crespi had retrieved the message and read the memorable words of Count Aldo Belli aloud "firmly resisted by the courage of the flower of Italian manhood." "Oh dear!" said De Bono a little louder, and covered his eyes again.

"Almost fifteen thousand of the enemy dead!" shouted a voice.

"An army of sixty thousand routed by a handful of Fascist sons. It is a sign for the future."

"Forward to the ultimate victory."

"We march! We march!" And the General looked up again. "Yes," he agreed miserably. "I suppose we shall have to now." The Third Battalion of the black shirt "Africa" regiment was paraded in full review order on the sandy plain above the Wells of Chaldi. The ground was neatly demarcated by the meticulous rows of pale canvas tents and neat lines of white stones. In twenty-four hours, under the goading of Major Castelani, the camp had taken on an air of permanence. If they gave him a day or two more, there would be roads and buildings also.

Count Aldo Belli stood in the back of the Rolls, which, despite the loving attentions of Giuseppe the driver, was showing signs of wear and attrition. However, Giuseppe had parked it with the damaged side away from the parade and he had burnished the good side with a mixture of beeswax and methylated spirits until it shone in the sunlight, and had replaced the shattered windscreen and the broken lamp glass.

"I have here a message received an hour ago which I shall read to you," shouted the Count, and the parade stirred with interest. "The message is personal to me from Benito Mussolini."

"II Duce. 11 Duce. "Duce,"roared the battalion in unison, like a well-trained orchestra, and the Count lifted a hand to restrain them and he began to read.

"My heart swells with pride when I contemplate the feat of arms undertaken by the gallant sons of Italy, children of the Fascist revolution, whom you command'-" the Count's voice choked a little.

When the speech ended, his men cheered him wildly, throwing their helmets in the air. "The Count climbed down from the Rolls and went amongst them, weeping, embracing a man here, kissing another there, shaking hands left and right and then clasping his own hands above his head like a successful prizefighter and crying "Ours is the victory," and "Death before dishonour," until his voice was hoarse and he was led away to his tent by two of his officers.

However, a glass of grappa helped him recover his composure and he was able to pour a warrior's scorn on the radio message from General De Bono which accompanied the paean of praise from 11 Duce.

De Bono was alarmed and deeply chagrined to discover that the officer he had judged to be an ineffectual blowhard had indeed turned out to be a firebrand. In view of the Duce's personal message to the count, he could not, without condemning himself to the political wilderness, order the man back to headquarters and under his protective wing where he could be restrained from any further flamboyant action.

The man had virtually established himself as an independent command.

Mussolini had chided De Bono with his failure to go on the offensive, and had held up the good Count's action as an example of duty and dedication. He had directly ordered De Bono to support the Count's drive on the Sardi Gorge and to reinforce him as necessary.

De Bono's response had been to send the Count a long radiogram, urging him to the utmost caution and pleading with him to advance only after reconnaissance in depth and after having secured both flanks and rear.

Had he delivered this advice forty-eight hours earlier, it would have been most enthusiastically received by Aldo Belli. But now, since the victory at the Wells of Chaldi and wou the Duce's congratulatory message, the Count was a changed man. He had tasted the sweets of battle honours and learned how easily they could be won. He knew now that he was opposed by a tribe of primitive black men in long night, dresses armed with museum weapons, who ran and fell with gratifying expedition when his men opened fire.

"Gentlemen," he addressed his officers. "I have today received a code green message from General De Bono. The armies of Italy are on the march. At twelve hundred hours today," he glanced at his wrist-watch, "in just twelve minutes" time, the forward elements of the army will cross the Mareb River and begin the march on the savage capital of Addis Ababa. We stand now at the leading edge of the sword of history.

The fields of glory are ripening on the mountains ahead of us and the for one, intend that the Third Battalion shall be there when the harvest is gathered in." His officers made polite, if uncommitted sounds. They were beginning to be alarmed by this change in their Colonel. It was to be hoped that this was rhetoric rather than real intention.

"Our esteemed commander has urged me to exercise the utmost caution in my advance on the Sardi Gorge," and they smiled and nodded vehemently, but the Count scowled dramatically and his voice rang. "I will not sit here quiescent, while glory passes me by." A shudder of unease ran through the assembled officers, like the forest shaken by the first winds of winter, and they joined in only halfheartedly when the Count began to sing' La Giovinezza'.

Lij Mikhael had agreed that one of the cars might be used to carry Sara up the gorge to the town of Sardi where a Catholic mission station was run by an elderly German doctor. The bullet wound in the girl's leg was not healing cleanly, and the heat and swelling of the flesh and the watery yellow discharge from the wound were causing Vicky the greatest concern.

Fuel for the cars had come down from Addis Ababa on the narrow gauge railway as far as Sardi, and had then been packed down the steeper, lower section of the gorge by mule and camel. It waited for them now at the foot of the gorge where the Sardi River debauched through a forest of acacia trees into a triangular valley, which in turn widened to a mouth fifteen miles across before giving way to the open desert.

At the head of the valley, the river sank into the dry earth and began its long subterranean journey to where it emerged at last in the scattered water-holes at the Wells of Chaldi.

Lij Mikhael was going up to Sardi with Vicky's car for he had arranged to meet the Ras of the Gallas there in an attempt to co-ordinate the efforts of the two tribes against the Italian aggressors, and then an aircraft was being sent down to Sardi from Addis to fly him to an urgent war conference with the Emperor at Lake Tona.

Before he left, he spoke privately with Jake and Gareth, walking with them a short way along the rugged road that climbed steeply up the gorge following the rocky water course Of the Sardi River.

Now they stood together, staring up the track to where it turned into the first sleep bend and the river came crashing down beside it in a tall white-plumed waterfall that drifted mist across the surface of the track and induced a growth of dark green moss upon the boulders.

"It's as rough as a crocodile's back here," said Jake. "Will Vicky get the car up?"

"I have had a thousand men at work upon it ever since I knew you were bringing these vehicles," the Lij told him.

"It is rough, yes, but I think it will be passable."

"I should jolly well hope so," Gareth murmured. "It's the only way out of this lovely little trap into which we have backed ourselves. Once the Eyeties close the entrance to the valley-" and he turned and swept a hand across the vista of plain and mountain that lay spread below them, and then he smiled at the Prince.

"Just the three of us here now, Toffee old boy. Let's hear from you.

What exactly do you want from us? What are the objectives you have set for us? Are we expected to defeat the whole bloody army of Italy before you pay us out?"

"No, Major Swales." The Prince shook his head. "I thought I had made myself clear. We are here to cover the rear and flank of the Emperor's army. We must expect that eventually the Italians will force their way up this gorge and reach the plateau and the road to Dessie and Addis we can't stop them, but we must delay them at least until the main engagements in the north are decided. If the Emperor succeeds, the Italians will withdraw here. If he fails, then our task is over."

"How long until the Emperor fights?"

"Who can tell?" And Jake shook his head, while Gareth took the stub of his cigar from his mouth and inspected the tip ruefully.

"I'm beginning to think we are being underpaid," he said.

But the Prince seemed not to hear and he went on speaking quietly but with a f( -)rce that commanded their attention.

"We will use the cars here on the open ground in front of the gorge to the best possible effect, and my father's troops will support you." He paused, and they all looked down at the sprawling encampment of the Ras's army, amongst the acacia trees. Stragglers were still drifting in across the plain from the rout at the wells, lines of camels and knots of goo NEW 40it horsemen surrounded by amorphous formations of foot soldiers. "If the Gallas join us, they can provide another five thousand fighting men that will bring our strength to twelve thousand or thereabouts. I have had my scouts study the Italian encampment, and they report an effective strength of under a thousand. Even with their armaments, we should hold them here for many days "Unless they are reinforced, which they will be, or bring up armour, which they will do, "said Gareth.