"Don't blame them, not really," he told the Ras, and then he looked across at the speeding armoured car. Priscilla the Pig was rapidly overhauling the cavalry.
"He saw us, - I know he did." There had "Him I do," he muttered.
been a moment when Priscilla the Pig had passed within a quarter of a mile of them, had in fact turned directly towards them for a few moments. "Do you know something, Rassey old fellow, I do believe we are being set up for a couple of Patsys." He glanced at the Ras, who lay beside him like an old hunting dog that has been worked too hard; his chest laboured like a blacksmith's bellows, and his breathing whistled shrilly in his throat.
"Better take those choppers out of your mouth, old chap or else you're going to swallow them. The fighting's over for the day. Take it nice and easy now. We've got a long walk home tonight." And Gareth Swales transferred all his attention back to the disappearing car.
"Big-hearted Jake Barton is leaving us here and going home to spoon up the honey. Who was the chap that David pulled the same trick on? Come on, Rassey, you are the Old Testament expert wasn't it Uriah the Hittite?" He shook his head sadly. Gareth was already ready to believe the worst. "I take it very much amiss, Rassey, I can tell you.
Probably have done exactly the same myself, mind you but I do take it amiss gaming from a fine upright citizen like Jake Barton." The Ras had not listened to a word of it. He was the only man in the two armies for whom the battle had not ended.
He was just having a short rest, as behave a warrior of his advanced years. Now, with a single bound, he was on his feet again, snatching up his sword and heading directly for the centre of the Italian batteries. Gareth was taken completely off balance, and the Ras had covered fifty yards of the necessary two thousand to the enemy positions before Gareth could overtake him.
It was unfortunate that one of the Italian gun-layers had his binoculars focused on the derelict hull of the Hump at that moment.
The belligerence of the Italian gunners was in inverse proportion to the number and proximity of the enemy and all of them were giddy with elation at the total and unexpected victory that had dropped into their laps.
The first shell dropped close beside the broken hull of the Hump, as Gareth caught up with the Ras. Gareth stooped and picked up a rounded stone, about the size of a cricket ball.
"Frightfully sorry, old chap," he panted, as he cupped the stone in his right hand. "But we really can't go on like this." He made allowance for the brittle old bone of the Ras's skull, and with the stone he tapped him carefully, almost tenderly, above the ear, on the polished black bald curve of the Ras's pate.
As the Ras dropped, Gareth caught him, one arm under his knees and the other around the shoulders, as though he was a sleeping child. The shells were falling heavily about him as Gareth ran back for cover, carrying the Ras's unconscious form across his chest.
Jake Barton heard the crumping explosion of the shells, and shouted up at Gregorius, "What are they shooting at now?" Gregorius climbed higher out of the turret and peered back. The crushed hull of the Hump would have been unnoticed at that range, just another speck like a clump of camel-thorn or an amorphous pile of black rock.
Indeed, both men had looked at it fifty times in the last few minutes without recognizing it, but the shell bursts, which began to leap about it in fleeting graceful ostrich feathers of dust and smoke, drew Gregorius's eye immediately.
"My grandfather!" he cried . anxiously. "They have been hit, Jake."
Jake swung the car and halted it, clambering out of the hatch, blowing dust from the lens of his binoculars and then focusing them. The picture of the destroyed car leaped into close-up and he recognized instantly the two distant figures, one in tailored tweeds, the other in flowing robes and swirling skirts; the two of them were locked together breast to breast and for an unbelieving moment Jake thought they were doing a Strauss waltz in the midst of an artillery barrage. Then he saw Gareth lift the Ras off the ground and stagger with him to the shelter of the overturned car.
"We must rescue them, Jake," Gregorius exclaimed passionately.
"They will be killed out there, if we do not." Perhaps it was the telepathic transfer of Gareth Swales's suspicions, but Jake experienced the sudden guilty prick of temptation. At that moment he knew he loved Vicky Camberwell, and there was an easy way to clear the field.
"Jake!" Gregorius called again, and suddenly Jake felt himself so sickened by his own treacherous thoughts that there was a hollow nauseous feeling in the centre of his gut, and he felt the swift flow of saliva from under his tongue.
"Let's go," he said, and dropped down into the driver's hatch. He swung Priscilla the Pig in a tight skidding turn and ran straight for the forest of shell-bursts.
They drew no fire, the Italians were concentrating on the stationary target and they seemed to be making better practice as they figured the range. It was a matter of seconds before the Hump took a direct hit, and Jake pressed the throttle flat to the floorboards, but Priscilla the Pig chose this moment to show her true nature. He felt her baulk, and the note of her engine changed momentarily, missing and stuttering, power falling off then suddenly she picked up again and roared onwards at full power.
"Good little darling. "Jake peered ahead through the visor, and swung slightly out to the left, to come in under cover of the Italians" own shell-bursts and the capsized hull of the Hump.
A shell burst directly ahead, and Jake weaved the big car expertly around the gaping smoking crater, pulled in sharply and spun around to a sliding halt, facing back the way he had come, ready for a quick pull-away. He was hard up under cover of the destroyed hull, partially screened from the Italians, and ten paces from where Gareth Swales was sitting holding the Ras's frail body on his lap.
"Gary!" yelled Jake, sticking his head out of the hatch, and Gareth looked up at him with a startled unbelieving expression. He had been so deafened by shell-bursts that he had not realized that Jake had come back for him. Jake had to shout again.
"Come on, damn you to hell," and this time Gareth moved with alacrity.
He picked up the Ras like a bundle of dirty laundry and ran with him to the car. A shell burst so close that it almost knocked him off his feet, and stones and clouds of earth splattered against the armoured steel.
However, Gareth kept his feet and handed up the Ras to the willing hands and loving care of his grandson.
"Is he all right?" Greg demanded anxiously.
"Hit by a stone, he'll be all right," Gareth grunted, and leaned for an instant against the side of the car, his breathing sobbing painfully in his throat, his hair and mustache thick with white dust, and the sweat cutting deep wet runners down his filth-caked cheeks.
He looked up at Jake. "I thought you weren't coming back," he croaked.
"It crossed my mind." Jake reached down and took his hand. He boosted him up the side of the car, and Gareth held his hand for a second longer than was necessary, squeezing slightly. owe you one, old son."
"I'll call on you, "Jake grinned.
"Any time. Any time at all." At that moment, Priscilla the Pig roared heroically, then abruptly backfired in opposition to the Italian shell-bursts.
Her engine spluttered, surged, farted despairingly, and then fell silent. "Oh, you son of a bitch!" said Jake with great and passionate feeling."
"Not now!"
"Reminds me of a girl I knew in Australia,-" Later, "Jake told him. "Get on the crank handle."
"My pleasure, old boy," and a near miss burst beside them and knocked him off his precarious perch on the sponson.
Gareth picked himself up and dusted his lapels fastidiously as he limped to the crank handle.