The Burning Sky

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Not long after they reached the new HQ, halfway to Gondar, they heard the news and it was uniformly bad. On the main battlefront around Mek’ele, through the use of mustard gas, the Italians had completely unhinged Ethiopian resistance and the eighty-thousand-strong army of Ras Mulugeta. To call the act indiscriminate did not even begin to describe the damage inflicted. Discharged from special sprayers in the bomb bays of the Italian bombers, they flew in almost continuous formations that avoided the respite of temporary dispersal.

They had inundated the forces — which had concentrated, seeking to encircle them — inflicting terrible burns and causing a great number of warrior fatalities. Their actions, carried out over an ever-widening area as Mulugeta’s army fell back, also mutilated women and children and completely destroyed the livestock — sheep, goats and cattle, on which the survivors depended — while poisoning the very waters that irrigated their land and gave them a chance of life.

There was no news blackout on this; indeed, Emperor Haile Selassie sent out his own condemnation communique to the nations of the world, but the world, horrified as it might be, was not listening, or at least those that held the power and ability to act against Italy held their tongues. Lesser countries brought forward motions to condemn the use of gas to the floor of the League of Nations Chamber in Geneva, but if they got a resolution that was all it was: words.

Worse followed: a broken army trying to withdraw was at the mercy of a relentless pursuit, forced to abandon the best they had in equipment, and that was not much — a clutch of old tanks and artillery pieces, rifles, machine guns and ammunition — while being harried by every weapon in the Italian armoury. Gas-burnt bodies, unable to move, were mashed to pulp under tank tracks, groups seeking to make a stand were pulverised by field artillery or massed machine gun fire and conventional bombs, while any accumulation of warriors which even showed the ability to hold back the enemy advance was gassed into submission and further retreat.

‘I don’t know whether to tell the truth or lie, Cal.’

Sat at his typewriter, in a tent close to the newly set up casualty station, Tyler Alverson had lost his air of distance to what was happening; he was not a man given to tears, but he was close now and he was angry too, in that frustrating way of someone who would love to have the power of decision, but lacked even the ability to persuade. He was also in possession of information that had come to him only by accident.

The Ethiopians, while condemning the use of mustard gas, were, quite naturally, seeking to play down both the rout of their forces and the level of their casualties, but the international doctors with the divisions around Mek’ele, retreating ahead of the army they served, had thought it only fair to alert their as yet unburdened colleagues with some idea of what they would face in the event they sustained the same level of defeat: an overwhelming number of casualties, too many to even begin to treat.

‘If these figures are true, then that’s what you should send out,’ Jardine said. ‘It helps make the case.’

‘Six thousand dead, twelve thousand wounded, Ras Mulugeta killed, his army a rabble, and that does not even begin to mention the effect on the civilians.’

‘How do they live wiv this back home, guv?’ asked a dejected Vince. ‘I just don’t get it.’

‘What you’ve got to ask yourself, Vince,’ said Corrie Littleton from just outside the tent flap, ‘is how are we going to deal with it when it comes our way?’

‘Which it surely must,’ Jardine agreed.

‘What does Kassa say?’ she asked.

Cal Jardine responded with a wry smile. ‘Right now he’s not saying much to me.’

‘Me neither,’ Alverson said, ‘which is pretty mean, considering.’

‘Considering what, Tyler? He doesn’t owe us anything.’

The journalist looked at his fellow American, now sat down out of tiredness. ‘Honey, take a look in a mirror and you will see something of what he owes. You should have gone home with your mother.’

That had come as a relief to all: finally convinced she would never get to see the Ark of the Covenant, Ma Littleton had taken the train to Djibouti through Addis Ababa, the idea that her daughter should go with her, brushed aside. Corrie Littleton insisted she was needed and had not stopped working tirelessly at her self-appointed task.

‘Tyler’s right, you should rest,’ Jardine said.

‘That’s all I need, sympathy from Doc Savage, national hero.’

The reply came without rancour. ‘Well, if the war’s changed, you haven’t.’

‘That’s not fair, miss.’

‘I know, Vince,’ she replied in a weary voice. ‘Sorry, Jardine.’

‘Now I’m really at a loss. A bitch I can cope with.’

The slightest hint of a drone, the signal of approaching aircraft, magnified by their position in a deep, high-sided and narrow valley, killed her sarcastic response. Always a signal for danger, it had taken on an even more deadly meaning now. There was no time to find out if it was friend or foe, it was into the uncomfortable masks and the impermeable cloaks, which might not be protection enough, and that had Corrie Littleton running back to her casualty station where hers, despite numerous warnings, had been left.

It was a false alarm, it being a friendly plane flying over to drop written despatches, the best way to communicate between two armies in the rough mountain country they now occupied: quite apart from the unreliability of the sets, when someone like Haile Selassie Gugsa had gone over to the Italians, radio communication not in code was dangerous. Gas mask off and outside the tent Jardine watched the sudden increase in activity, messages being sent off to the varying commanders; whatever had come had warned of trouble. The man coming towards him only underlined that: Ras Kassa wanted to see him.

For all their lack of intelligence gathering, a lot of information on what Badoglio was up to came into the various Ethiopian headquarters, merely through the fact that, behind his lines lay a mass of fellow countrymen, while the front, regardless of Italian efforts, was too extended and porous to close. So they knew of the roads being built, of the increasing numbers of their enemies related to the falling numbers of defenders, of the stockpiles of artillery shells and the certainty of an upcoming Italian offensive. On the situation maps it was all there to be studied.

There were three armies left in the field after the destruction of the one facing Mek’ele: forty thousand men under Ras Kassa, another, some thirty thousand strong, under Ras Seyoum, and the same on the eastern flank. The first two were spread out through the kind of terrain in which Geoffrey Amherst had advised that they fight: fast-flowing rivers, deep ravines and thick forest, spreading west from the road to Gondar.

‘I have been given permission from the emperor to withdraw, Captain Jardine.’

‘If it were not for the gas, sir, I would advise against that, but-’

The older man smiled even as he interrupted. ‘That, I think, is the first time you have said it is even possible to make a stand.’

‘Maybe you can,’ Jardine replied, wanting to be positive. ‘The terrain is perfect for defence, and provided you don’t put large concentrations of men in the open, the gas ceases to be such a potent weapon. The Italians can’t sit still, Rome won’t let them, and so they have only the option of attack. In such country tanks will be near to useless, the field artillery difficult to move in the mountains, and with the deep forest cover their air force won’t know where you are. Not even they have enough bombs to drop them everywhere.’

‘And you would advise Ras Seyoum to do the same?’

‘Definitely.’

‘I have just received a despatch telling me that he intends to come out of the mountains and launch an attack northwards to throw back the Italians on Aksum.’

Cal Jardine tried not to shake his head, but he could not resist it. ‘Can you override him?’

‘Only the King of Kings can do that and he will not interfere.’

‘Yet you don’t agree with him — Ras Seyoum, I mean.’

‘I have yet to decide.’

‘You should withdraw immediately, sir. If Ras Seyoum is defeated, you will be attacked at once with the full enemy strength. With your left flank exposed not even the terrain can save you. Your fellow commander is not being foolish, he’s being stupid.’

‘But do you not recall telling me that, at Adowa, King Menelik was foolish, or was it stupid?’ Jardine knew what was coming. ‘But what you do not acknowledge is that the Italians did not expect him to attack for the very reasons he was advised against it, yet in doing that he won a surprise victory. Perhaps Ras Seyoum will achieve something similar.’

Their eyes locked, with Ras Kassa determined to look as if he meant what he said; the glacial stare more than hinted to Cal Jardine he was trying to convince himself of something he knew to be fundamentally untrue.

‘So you will wait?’

‘I must, and if he shows any sign of beating the Italian devils I will support him.’

‘I take it, by the bustle, the orders for that have already gone out.’

‘They have.’

Making his way back to the tent, Jardine was thinking about national myths and the dangers they presented. The Ethiopians had lived off the legend of Adowa for forty years, a whole generation had grown up convinced they were unbeatable, and they were close to right if you took the poison gas out of the mix, while the Italians, or at least the Fascists, prated on about being the new Roman Empire. They were both trapped in national self-deception; men had already died for it and more would follow. He spoke as he entered the tent, and abruptly.

‘Tyler, if anyone asks you for the use of your car, say no.’

Surprised as he was, he did not ask the obvious question, given that if the car was required, it would be for a humanitarian need again. ‘How, brother?’

‘Take out the distributor cap, tell them it’s not working; and before you say they will not believe you, ask yourself how many people there are around here who know what a distributor is.’

‘What has rattled your cage, tiger?’

‘Stupid generals!’

‘The car?’

‘Might be our only way out.’

What came to be called the Second Battle of Tembien — the title was, as is common, coined by the victors — was nothing short of an unmitigated disaster. Ras Seyoum debouched with his entire force onto the plains, an army with more bows and arrows than rifles, no artillery or armour and hardly any machine guns, relying on sheer weight of numbers and the brio of his assault to overwhelm the enemy. The Italians did not need poison gas to blunt that: they had everything they required in conventional arms.

The white-cloaked warriors ran into a hail of shellfire — fighters, bombers and artillery that cut their numbers in half within one hour. Stunned and static, surrounded by the dead and dying, their spirit waned and the retreat began. But now the terrain at their rear became as much of an enemy as the Italians, and any weapons they had possessed which might have given their enemies pause were on the battlefield with the corpses of their fellows.

The Italians streamed into the ravines and valleys in hot pursuit, because the obstacles that would have hampered them in the first instance now became bottlenecks for the Ethiopians. Seeking to get to and cross the Tekeze fords along a single road that canalised the flight, those trying to flee lost all cohesion. Artillery set alight the forested hillsides, for the gunners knew where to aim, and every raging river spewing white water from the surrounding mountains, which would once have taxed the invaders, was now a hazard the defeated could not cross. They became a milling, easy target, doubly so when unable to cross the fords, and forming a heaving, easily spotted mass, they were bombed into a bloody pulp.

Instead of advancing to aid Ras Seyoum, the army of Ras Kassa was forced into a hurried retreat, seeking and failing to avoid annihilation. Right behind the Dodge of Ras Kassa came Alverson’s Rolls-Royce, now carrying many of the personal followers of the commander, those that could hanging onto the running boards, avoiding the strafing fighters only by sheer luck, manoeuvring round bomb craters, staying ahead of gas attacks only because of those wheels. Behind them the army of Ras Kassa fell apart, dead, collapsed with massive burns to their body, or just dispersed to become useless.

Thousands survived the carnage that ensued, but no one knew how many: they were left only with the claims of the enemy. Those who got away did not join any other army, they went home, their fortitude broken like a dried reed. They had lived the myth and it had either killed them or their spirit. By the time they reached the headquarters of the reserve army, the only men Ras Kassa still commanded were his personal bodyguards.

Haile Selassie now took command, gathering all his forces for a final battle, forty years to the day since his predecessor won at Adowa, and he brought with him, to parade before the rest of his warriors, the six battalions of the Imperial Guard, men in smart green uniforms, proper boots, steel helmets, and each with a modern rifle that Cal Jardine suspected were those he had brought into the country, weapons that should have been at the front long ago.

So should the rest of what he had preserved: there was a mobile mortar section, truck-towed 75 mm field guns, twenty in number, the fast-firing, highly mobile French weapon that had been so effective in the Great War as well as an anti-aircraft unit with up-to-date Oerlikons to make sure the King of Kings was protected from the air.

‘Where the hell was this lot when we needed them, Vince?’

The bitterness of tone and the fact that it was loudly proclaimed — it had to be, given the cheering — made Tyler Alverson turn to look at Cal Jardine. His eyes were fixed on the tiny, bearded figure of the Emperor of Ethiopia, who, even in ceremonial garb, on a platform that raised him well above the ground, could not even begin to look impressive. Vince said he looked like a doorstop not a figurehead.

‘Sittin’ in their barracks, guv. Makes you wonder who we’ve been fighting for — not that ponce of an emperor?’

‘You a Bolshevik, Vince?’ Alverson asked.

‘Not bloody likely.’

‘Would these guys have made a difference, Cal?’

‘Might have done used wisely, Tyler, it’s too late to tell, but I can’t see them making much of one now.’

The American just nodded at that; no degree in maths was needed to work out that from the original forces Haile Selassie had fielded — guesses ranged from half- to three-quarters of a million men — he now only had a fraction left, while his enemies were near to their full original strength and had been reinforced. There would be a battle and maybe the Lion of Judah and some of his warriors believed in a miracle; Cal Jardine did not.

What followed did nothing to change that opinion: a week of parades, banquets and ceremonies, at a time when the advancing Italians were defensively vulnerable, threw away what little chance existed, which caused Alverson to opine that what Haile Selassie was doing was mere posturing for the hope of a future: in short, he was prepared to sacrifice anyone and everyone to maintain a tenuous claim to his throne.

By the time the attack was launched, Pietro Badoglio was ready and waiting, and the result was a foregone conclusion: the Ethiopians were routed — but it was what happened in the rear areas that occupied Jardine, Alverson and Vince. The Italian air force, not for the first time, deliberately bombed the field hospital, and one of the casualties was Corrie Littleton.

* * *

From their position observing the battle, the trio had seen the aircraft fly over and had heard the crunch of high explosives. It was only when the emperor admitted defeat and broke off the battle that they found out the extent of the damage to a hospital that had yet to start receiving casualties. It was only the needs of her bodily functions that saved Corrie Littleton.

The latrine tent for females had been set well apart from the main treatment tents, the top of which were marked with huge red crosses to tell flyers of their function. It was as if the Italians had used them as aiming points, for there were smashed bodies everywhere, orderlies of both sexes, and nothing left of beds, operating tables or medicines but wreckage around a series of deep craters.

Corrie had been found unconscious and suffering from injuries caused by blast and flying debris, with a broken arm and a gash in her back that had been covered with an antiseptic pad, then bandaged. By the time the trio got to her she was on a stretcher, while streaming past them were the broken elements of the last Ethiopian field army, and gone with them in the general panic and fear of a gas attack were what medical orderlies had survived, including the ones who had treated her.

‘You thinking what I’m thinking, Cal?’ Alverson asked, as Jardine bent over to examine her; he had seen enough battlefield wounds in his time to realise she was still very much alive but needed help.

‘There’s no doctors left, guv,’ called Vince as he approached from his inspection of the actual hospital tents; there had been two, both Ethiopians. ‘They took the full blast, poor sods.’

‘The whole thing is falling apart,’ the American added. ‘And that will include what medical services still exist.’

‘Then we have to get her to Addis, Tyler, it’s the only place with a properly equipped hospital.’

‘Cal. That’s where the Italians are going.’

‘Where else can we get help?’

‘British Somaliland sounds good to me, brother.’

Cal Jardine looked up and nodded, for he knew what Alverson was saying: it was all over bar the shouting. There was nothing left, at least in an organised sense, to stop the Italians now and they would not be kind to those who had aided their enemies. It was time to get out of the country.

‘We’d have to go through Addis anyway, it’s the only road. We’ll just have to hope Badoglio is as cautious as he has been up till now.’

‘They’re bound to bomb the Addis-to-Gondar road.’

‘I know, but unless you can find a plane, we have no choice. Vince, go back into that wreckage and see if you can find any morphine sulphate, bandages, anything we might need — you know what.’

They had to carry Corrie Littleton into the little dusty town of Maychew, which was a slow struggle. Alverson, on the advice of Cal Jardine, had parked the Rolls out of sight, which had been like a harbinger of the coming debacle, on the good grounds that if the army broke, there was no guarantee someone, regardless of the endemic honesty of the locals, would not steal his car.

The loading of their kit was hurried and, with the stretcher lashed across the rear and the three men crowded in the front, they joined the throng of people, warriors, soldiers of the Imperial Guard and fleeing civilians on the crowded road north. Even then they were pushed aside as, from behind them, came the motorised convoy of the emperor.

He, too, was in a Rolls-Royce, a beige coupe. They watched as the Lion of Judah, the King of Kings, the Emperor of Ethiopia, looking like a toy human being, drove by, his gaze unblinking and straight ahead, acknowledging no one to right or left, his face as impassive as it had been before he sent his vastly outnumbered troops into battle. Yet it was the face of a beaten man.

Just how beaten was not long in coming. Badoglio had finished the battle by gassing the survivors who had congregated around a lake, massacring thousands. The road to Addis Ababa was open.