Cry Wolf - Smith Wilbur - Страница 23

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the column with six motorcycle outriders brought back to ride as flank

guards.

It was another hour before the new arrangement could be put into effect

and once more the column headed south and west into the great empty

land with its distant smoky horizons and its vast vaulted blue dome of

the burning heavens.

Count Aldo Belli rode easier on the luxurious leather of the

Rolls, cheered by the knowledge that preceding him were three hundred

and forty-five fine rubbery sets of peasant testicles upon which the

barbarian could blunt his blade.

The column went into bivouac that evening fifty-three kilometres from

Asmara. Not even the Count could pretend that this was a forced march

for motorized infantry but the advantage was that a pair of

motorcyclists could send back with a despatch for General De Bono

reassuring him of the patriotism, the loyalty and the fighting ardour

of the Third Battalion and, of course, on their return the cyclists

could carry blocks of ice from the casino packed in salt and straw and

stowed in the sidecars.

The following morning, the Count had recovered much of his good cheer.

He rose early at nine " O clock and took a hearty alfresco breakfast

with his officers under the shade of a spread tarpaulin and then, from

the rear seat of the Rolls, he gave a clenched fist cavalry order to

advance.

Still in the centre of the column, pennants fluttering and battle

standard glittering, the Rolls glided forward and it looked, even to

the disillusioned Major, as if they might make good going of the day's

march.

The undulating grassland fell away almost imperceptibly beneath the

speeding wheels, and the blue loom of the mountains on their right hand

merged gradually with the lighter fiercer blue of the sky. The

transition to desert country was so gradual as to lull the unobservant

traveller.

The intervals between the flat-topped acacia trees became greater and

the trees themselves were more stunted, more twisted and spiky, as they

progressed, until at last they ceased and the bushes of spino

Cristi replaced them grey and low and viciously thor ned The earth was

parched and crumbled, dotted with clumps of camel grass and the horizon

was unbroken, enclosing them entirely. The land itself was so flat and

featureless that it gave the illusion of being saucer-shaped, as though

the rim of the land rose slightly to meet the sky.

Through this wilderness, the road was slashed like the claw mark of a

predator into the fleshy red soil. The tracks were so deeply rutted

that the middle hump constantly brushed the chassis of the

Rolls, and a mist of fine red dust stood in the heated air long after

the column had passed.

The Colonel was bored and uncomfortable. It was becoming increasingly

clear, even to the Count, that the wilderness harboured no hostile

horde, and his courage and impatience returned.

"Drive to the head of the column," he instructed Giuseppe, and the

Rolls pulled out and sped past the leading trucks, the Count bestowing

a cheery salute on Castelani as he left him glowering and muttering

behind him.

When Castelani caught up with him again, two hours later, the

Count was standing on the burnished bonnet of the Rolls staring through

his binoculars at the horizon and doing an excited little dance while

he urged Gino to make haste in unpacking the special Mantilicher 9.3

men sporting rifle from its leather case. The weapon was of seasoned

walnut, butt and stock, and the blued steel was inlaid with

twenty-four-carat gold hunting scenes of the chase boar and stag,

huntsmen on horseback and hounds in full cry. It was a masterpiece of

the gunsmith's art.

Without lowering the binoculars, he gave orders to Castelani to erect

the radio aerial and send a message of good cheer and enthusiasm to

General De Bono, to report the magnificent progress made by the

battalion to date and assure him that they would soon command all the

approaches to the Sardi Gorge. The Major should also put the column

into laager and set up the ice machine while the Colonel undertook a

reconnaissance patrol in the direction in which he was now staring so

intently.

The group of big dun-coloured animals he was watching were a mile off

and moving steadily away into the mirage-fevered distance, but their

gracefully straight horns showed dark and lo the against the distant

sky.

Gino had the loaded Mannlicher in the rear seat and the Count jumped

down into the passenger seat beside the driver. Standing holding the

windshield with one hand, he gave his officers the Fascist salute, and

the Rolls roared forward, left the road and careered away,

weaving amongst the thorn scrub and bounding over the rough ground in

pursuit of the distant herd.

The beisa oryx is a large and beautiful desert antelope.

There were eight of them in the herd and with their sharp eyesight they

were in flight before the Rolls had approached within three-quarters of

a mile.

They ran lightly over the rough ground, their pale beige hides blending

cunningly with the soft colours of the desert, but the long wicked

black horns rode proudly as any battle standard.

The Rolls gained steadily on the running herd, with the Count

hysterically urging his driver to greater speed, ignoring the thorn

branches that scored the flawless sides of the big blue machine as it

passed. Hunting was one of the Count's many pleasures. Boar and stag

were specially bred on his estates, but this was the first large game

he had encountered since his arrival in Africa. The herd was strung

out, two old bulls leading, plunging ahead with a light rocking-horse

gait, while the cows and two younger males trailed them.

The bouncing, roaring machine drew level with the last animal and ran

alongside at a range of twenty yards. The galloping oryx did not turn

its head but ran on doggedly after its stronger companions.

"Halt," shrieked the Count, and the driver stood on his brakes,

the car broadsiding to rest in a billowing cloud of dust. The Count

tumbled out of the open door and threw up the Mannlicher. The barrel

kicked up and the shots crashed out. The first was a touch high and it

threw a puff of dust off the earth far beyond the running animal the

second slapped into the pale fur in front of the shoulder and the young

oryx somersaulted over its broken neck and went down in a clumsy tangle

of limbs.

"Onwards!" shouted the Count, leaping aboard the Rolls as it roared

away once again. The herd was already far ahead but inexorably the

Rolls closed the gap and at last drew level. Again the ringing crack

of rifle-fire and the sliding, tumbling fall of a heavy pale body.

Like a paper chase, they left the wasteland littered with the pale

bodies until only one old bull ran on alone. And he was cunning,

swinging away westward into the broken ground for which he clearly

headed at the outset of the chase.

It was hours and many miles later when the Count lost all patience. On

the lip of another wadi he stopped the Rolls and ordered Gino,

protesting volubly, to stand at attention and offer his shoulder as a

dead-rest for the Marmlicher.

The beisa had slowed now to an exhausted trot, but the range was six

hundred yards as the Count sighted across the intervening scrub and

through heat-dancing air that swirled like gelatinous liquid.

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