The Burning Sky

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

‘Well, I can sure as hell say this Spanish lady saw something I have missed.’

Corrie Littleton said that with feeling, to a rested, washed and breakfasted escapee, who had endured a long and wearying three-day walk south and was now enjoying a cup of excellent coffee in the lounge of the Gondar hotel.

‘Then thank the Lord you have not been looking,’ Jardine replied.

‘I am looking now, buster, and I am still mystified.’

‘Put it down to charm, luv,’ Vince Castellano proposed. ‘Must have been love at first sight. Italians call it the “thunderbolt”.’

The dismissive sound the American girl made riled Jardine, while he was aware that she was not alone in her reaction. Vince had been delighted to see him and had appreciated how close a call it had been, but when Jardine explained how he had got away, who was responsible and why, the bland look of obscured disbelief was too obvious to miss.

Tyler Alverson had only opined with a doubt-filled aside that stranger things had happened in his life, while Ma Littleton, the only one not still present in the hotel — she had gone back to her previous archaeological digs — had been of the view that this Spanish lady was no better than she ought to be.

‘I just hope she is not in trouble for it.’

Alverson’s slow drawl was filled with irony. ‘Now, in a movie, Cal, you would strap on your weapons, put your hat firmly on your head, set your square jaw and, ignoring the pleas of your friends to show some sense, head out on your trusty steed to rescue her, backed by swelling music …’

‘Not swelling enough to fill that head, Tyler,’ Corrie Littleton cracked.

‘What are you still doing here?’

‘And what business, Jardine, is that of yours?’

‘You’re annoying me.’

‘Then leave.’

‘He would if he knew where to go, honey.’

‘Nothing stopping us now, guv,’ said Vince, backing Alverson up.

‘I thought you wanted to report on the war, Tyler?’

‘I do, Cal, but I guess I kinda think I dropped you in enough shit for one fight.’

‘You shouldn’t swear in front of ladies, Mr Alverson,’ complained Vince.

‘He didn’t,’ Jardine said, glaring at Corrie Littleton, seeing her tongue again.

The commotion outside distracted them all at the same time, the sound of a number of noisy vehicles arriving at once surprising them all equally. They got to their feet as Ras Kassa Meghoum, with several junior military officers on his heels, strode into the hotel lounge, his eyes fixed firmly on one man.

‘Captain Jardine, I was told you were here.’

‘Can I say I am surprised to see you, sir?’

‘My being here is not something I expected either, Captain,’ Kassa replied, nodding in turn to the others, ‘but my emperor has been betrayed and I have come to shore up an event that should never have happened. Haile Selassie Gugsa, the Lion of Judah’s own son-in-law, has deserted to the Italians, which has left a gaping hole in our front lines, the size of which we are uncertain.’

‘How important is this Gugsa feller?’ Alverson asked, which made the ras look at him hard, in a way that indicated he was disinclined to answer. ‘You can tell me, sir, or I can find out another way, given, even if it is a secret now, it won’t be that for long.’

‘It is not something I would want the world to know, Mr Alverson.’

‘Then I suggest you figure out a way to shoot every journalist the Italians have with them, and I am reliably told they brought along near two hundred. The Rome papers will spread this story fast and use it to make out the whole of Ethiopia is falling apart.’

‘Which it is not!’

‘That was my next question, and if that is true, it is a story you have to get out and damn quick. How have the Italians reacted?’

‘They are still in Aksum, as far as I am aware, making preparations to move on to Mek’ele.’

‘He should have done that days ago,’ Jardine said. ‘Stopping in Aksum was madness.’

‘For De Bono read De Bonehead.’

‘I was told you acquired a car, Mr Alverson.’

‘I did.’

‘Then perhaps you will use it to follow Captain Jardine and I while I go forward to assess the damage.’

‘I’ll get my kit,’ Jardine said, before looking towards a curious-cum-concerned Vince. ‘You don’t have to come.’

‘What? Leave you, guv, the trouble you get yourself into?’

‘Can I come?’ Corrie Littleton asked.

‘Why?’ Jardine demanded.

‘To annoy you, that’s why.’

‘Really.’

‘Beats sitting on my butt round here.’

‘If you’re sure you want to, honey,’ Alverson drawled, ‘there’s room in the Rolls.’

‘Tyler, it could be dangerous.’

‘Good,’ Corrie Littleton spat back at Jardine. ‘Do I get a gun, Ras?’

‘Why would you want a gun, Miss Littleton?’

‘There’s a Spanish broad up north very short on brains who needs to be put out of her misery.’ Seeing the confusion on the older man’s face, she added, ‘I’ll explain later.’

* * *

They went in convoy, on a road now free of any traffic, apart from a few supply columns that were rapidly shifted by a blaring klaxon, the ras in front in a Dodge with Alverson behind, he followed by several of the limited number of trucks in the Ethiopian army. They were carrying the escort, those same Shewan warriors that had accompanied them from the coast, and all armed with a portion of the weapons they had helped bring in. Jardine had asked Vince to go in the open-topped Rolls and keep his eyes peeled for aircraft, while he used the time to quiz Ras Kassa about what he thought would happen now.

‘For the moment our problem is nothing is happening in the way we anticipated, and that is due to De Bono, for he will not advance except at the pace of a snail. Information is coming in from those in Italy who are sympathetic that Mussolini is losing patience with him and he may be replaced.’

‘Would it not be better to hope he remained?’

‘No, Captain Jardine, it would not. We must fight these devils, and the longer our forces stay in the field, the greater the strain on our resources and morale. We need our people to see that it is possible to take on the Italians, and soon. Then we need them back on their land growing food.’

What the older man was not saying, and Jardine could understand why, was that the defection of the emperor’s own son-in-law was a blow that might have repercussions: Gugsa would not be the only Ethiopian aristocrat with flaky loyalty, while some tribes like the Galla, according to what he had learnt, were outright in opposition, openly supporting the Italians.

The double sound of the klaxon behind indicated to Jardine that Vince had spotted a plane, which led him to suggest that they pull off the road and get out of the vehicles. He had been wondering where the Italian air force was, because if he had been in command of the Regia Aeronautica this road would have been shut to traffic in daylight, and it was not.

The Ethiopians did have some anti-aircraft capability but not enough to trouble an Italian air force said to run to nearly a thousand planes. Perhaps they wanted their enemies before them in the mass and had no desire to stop them — foolish to his mind because he had seen what aircraft could do to a marching army, and it was devastating.

‘It may be friendly, Captain. I asked for reconnaissance so I could be kept informed.’

So it proved, with a biplane landing on the road before them. Jardine suspected before he knew that it would be de Billancourt and he was disappointed to be proved right, though the information the Frenchman brought was positive. Most of Gugsa’s men had stayed loyal and the front seemed secure, which left Alverson with a dilemma: it was a scoop and he wanted that story out before it got back to Addis and became general knowledge, a point he put to a pensive Ras Kassa while Corrie Littleton allowed her hand to be drooled over once more, that was until the Frenchman was called over to the ras.

‘Take Mr Alverson to the headquarters of Ras Seyoum and ask, from me, that he be given access to the telegraph line through to the Sudan. Just this once, Mr Alverson, we will do this, for it is important, but it is not something which will happen again, I fear.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ Alverson replied, before addressing de Billancourt. ‘No dogfights, pal, I get airsick.’

‘It’s goin’ to be just you an’ me in the Rolls, miss.’

‘You can’t win them all, Vince,’ Jardine said in a voice larded with deep sympathy.

None of them had ever known how powerful Ras Kassa Meghoum was, but you did not have to be at the main tactical HQ of the Ethiopian army behind Mek’ele to realise he was a man who had the ear and the trust of the emperor. He was not deferred to in an obsequious way, but the attention paid to his words by the field commanders showed they took what he said seriously. After a conference lasting several hours, from which the people he had fetched along were excluded, he emerged and took Jardine aside.

‘I have been asked to take over the remainder of Gugsa’s forces and a whole sector of the army, which will be reinforced and brought up to its previous strength. I would consider it an honour if you would agree to become an advisor to my command.’

‘You know what my advice would be, as I have told you many times: don’t fight, withdraw and harry the enemy.’

‘That was strategic advice, which I cannot take, nor would I want to, and besides, the decision resides with my emperor. But we must have a battle soon and I expect the forces I command to be part of that. I would value your tactical advice in such a situation.’

‘Do you intend to hold your present positions?’

‘We do, and De Bono must come towards us and take a risk, eventually.’

‘Might be an idea to goad him by launching some raids.’

‘That is what you would suggest?’

‘He must have disgruntled inferiors, sir, officers eager to engage with you. All the pressure will not just be coming from Rome, and it is a bad idea to leave him to choose his own time to do whatever he wishes. You said your men were good night fighters, and a few slit throats …’

‘These men I brought with me are the ones you were training and I know they respect you.’

‘You want me to lead them?’

‘I am to be in command of forty thousand warriors. It is not something I could do, much as my spirit wishes it.’

‘Where are we based?’

‘I think it is time, Captain Jardine, that I let you see a map of where the emperor’s forces are.’

Accustomed to European quality maps it was sobering to see the paucity of detail on the Ethiopian equivalents, but the main thrust of their approach was obvious. Their forces were in three divisions arced behind Mek’ele, covering the two routes to Addis: the one they had come by, via Gondar and the side of Lake Tana, the second more easterly route passing through Lalibela. One flank was protected by the Simien mountains and the eastern one by the waterless Danakil Depression. If those two features canalised the Italian advance it was still a broad front to defend.

By pulling back from the kind of flat terrain that favoured a mechanised army into more broken country they had blunted the enemy hopes. De Bono, if he wanted to make progress, would have to beat them in the hills and valleys that confined his armour, but which allowed for the lateral movement of foot-bound spearmen. They could not avoid facing tanks, but the Ethiopians could limit their exposure while making life difficult for the Italian artillery. That still left the air force as a problem, and there was no doubt they would suffer from aerial bombing.

Jardine’s problem was one of command — there was no way he was going to go forward with completely untrained troops — quite apart from, for him, his lack of language; he needed an interpreter, not necessarily at the point of contact with the enemy, but at all points in between, and especially when it came to outlining his intentions. Such training would not be speedy, weeks would be required, and these were points he put to Ras Kassa and they were accepted.

‘But let us hope the Italians do not grant you the time.’

‘I also need to do some air reconnaissance to look for opportunities. And since, if we do raid the Italian lines, it will be at night, can we get them to wear black shammas instead of white?’

In the end it was the two rulers who decided the next phase, Mussolini by removing De Bono just after he had occupied Mek’ele, promoting him to Maresciallo d’Italia to soothe his pride, and replacing him with the reputedly more aggressive Marshal Pietro Badoglio. He certainly seemed more active, using his air force, with many more reconnaissance flights and bombing raids on the supply routes, forcing the Ethiopians off the roads, yet that exposed one of the values of a peasant army: they could operate cross-country.

Likewise Haile Selassie, given a new and untried enemy commander, set his mind on attacking the Italians as quickly as an offensive could be mounted, rank folly to Cal Jardine, but it was unmistakeable the enthusiasm such a notion — not to mention his imperial presence — engendered in the forces under his command, and even he had to accept that in war, with nothing being certain, it might just work.

Not that Haile Selassie was personally impressive, excepting he had the power of his monarchical office. He was a small, rather insignificant man, bearded, and he arrived on his various visits to his troops on a donkey, with even his truncated height leaving his feet perilously close to the ground. If, to Western eyes, it appeared absurd, it did not do so to his subjects, and Tyler Alverson, who had now established himself as a sort of special correspondent, was given permission to report on his arrival and even allowed to send out photographs, scooping the whole tribe of journalists still stuck in Addis Ababa.

Jardine and Vince, having spent weeks in training groups of warriors, were encouraged to speed up their instruction, which meant trying to get some order and tactical nous into what was the usual form of warfare in this part of the world, based on brio and sheer weight of numbers. Proper weapons were so limited they had to be shared — if you left out spears, which every warrior carried and seemed to favour — and communication was slow, since everything had to be translated by a young man called Shalwe, a one-time teacher who knew a fair amount of English.

Any success they had, and that was partial, came by the picking out of those few who showed some appreciation of the need for battlefield control and forming them into cadres in charge of manageable platoons of thirty men, then companies of ninety to a hundred, though care needed to be exercised not to upset tribal superiors in a very hierarchical society.

So, when it came to battalion level, the leaders were aristocrats, one named Yoannis, the other Aswaf, of the level of fitawrari, which equated to commander of the vanguard — fitting, given they were assigned a special attacking role at the forefront of Ras Kassa’s loosely coordinated divisions, while it was made plain to Jardine he was an advisor, not a commander.

He was at least privileged to be allowed access to the Ethiopian plan of attack, through the good offices of Ras Kassa, which was certainly ambitious: nothing less than an attempt to separate the various corps, then crush the Italian ground forces and invade Eritrea with the aim of evicting them from that territory. But there was little sense in being an advisor and not giving advice. Thanks to a notion of his, readily agreed to, Yoannis and Aswaf would be right at the spearhead of that attack, and they would have the men who had overseen their training alongside them.

‘So let me into the loop, Cal,’ Alverson demanded. ‘I promise to keep the plans under my hat till it’s clear to spill.’

‘You have to wait, Tyler, until the offensive is under way.’

‘You think it’s a secret, you think our Italian friends don’t know what’s coming?’

‘They know there’s an offensive coming but they don’t know the details.’

‘You hope, brother. My guess is that this place leaks plenty, and this new guy is a hotter proposition than De Bonehead.’

‘Where’s Goody Two Shoes?’ Jardine asked, to change the subject.

‘Who dat?’

‘It’s a very old children’s story, but in this case it’s Corrie Littleton.’

‘You have a real down on her, Cal, don’t you?’

‘I think you’ve got that the wrong way round.’

‘She’s a feisty dame, for sure, but she’s not a bad person, though I will grant that her mother is a pain in the ass.’

‘So where is she?’

‘Right now she’s helping to set up a field hospital with a Spanish doctor and driving Ras Kassa mad asking for supplies and equipment. That French pilot guy is doing his best to get stuff into her.’

‘I bet he is.’

‘Jealous?’

‘In your dreams.’

‘If you two cats would stop spitting at each other you might find you could get along.’

‘That is what I need to do, Tyler — we move out at dawn, so get your head down.’

‘I’ll be there.’

‘Tyler, I know you’ve been around some, and in a few hairy places, but this is going to be real bloody. We’re attacking prepared positions, sandbagged lines, trenches with machine guns, artillery that is already ranged — and that leaves out planes which will be strafing us all day long.’

‘Cal, you’re not suggesting I should stay at home?’

‘No, just be careful. I just had a vision of you ending up in Corrie Littleton’s field hospital, that’s all.’

‘Hell, I’ll be right alongside Ras Kassa.’

‘Tyler, that old bastard is set on sticking a spear into an Italian arse and twisting it. Being next to him once his blood is up could be the most dangerous place on the battlefield, bar none.’

‘Boy, that would be some photograph, Cal.’

All along the Ethiopian front lines, in a chilled pre-dawn, a mass of movement was under way, close to two hundred thousand men pressing forward like pale white ghosts in three separate armies. Any observer looking into their eyes would not have seen fear, for it was not present. They might have seen excitement and anticipation; they would most certainly have heard the soft sound of prayers from deeply religious warriors. As the first hint of light touched the eastern sky the Italian artillery opened fire, dropping shells in front of their lines, for they did indeed know what was coming. Soon there would be bombers and fighters overhead.

With Vince Castellano at his side, Cal Jardine had moved out in the hours of darkness. They were just behind Yoannis and Aswaf, the leaders of the men they had trained, moving towards their chosen objective, the Dembeguina Pass: a narrow, heavily defended defile that was a critical part of the Italian defences.

The aim was to get behind the Italians holding the head of the pass and, acting in conjunction with the local assault, drive a wedge into the Italian positions which, exploited, could threaten the whole security of their line, which would draw in more troops to hold it and thus create weaknesses elsewhere that the rest of the army could take advantage of.

Jardine was troubled: Pietro Badoglio had tempted the army of Haile Selassie into the kind of battle that should have been fought in reverse. He knew from bitter experience the cost of attacking prepared positions, yet he could also feel that excitement, like his blood was coursing through his veins at a faster pace, which half-pleased him and half-appalled him: was it right that a man, any man, should seemingly so love war that he actively sought it out?