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?"