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.
"Then we will withdraw into the gorge demolishing the road as we go, and resisting at each strong place. We won't be able to use the cars again until we reach Sardi but there in the bowl of the mountains there is good open ground and room to manoeuvre. It is also the last point at which we can effectively block the Italian advance." They were silent again and the sound of an engine came up to them. They watched the armoured car reach the foot of the gorge and begin growling and nosing its way upwards, at the pace of a walking man, except where it had to back and lock hard to make one of the sleep hairpin bends in the road. The Lij roused himself and sighed with what seemed a deep weariness of the spirit.
"One thing I must mention to you, gentlemen. My father is a warrior in the old style. He does not know the meaning of fear, and he cannot imagine the effect of modern weapons especially the machine gun on massed foot soldiers. I trust you to restrain his exuberance." Jake remembered the bodies hanging like dirty laundry on the barbed wire of France, and felt the cold tickle run up his spine. Nobody spoke again until the car, still blazoned with its crimson crosses, drew up level with where they stood and they scrambled down the bank to meet it.