Yes, "Jake agreed. "But what the hell do we do with them now!"
"We could take them up to the Harari Camp the Ras would treat them fairly."
"Don't bet money on it." Jake shook his head. "They are all Ethiopians and their rules of the game are different from ours. I wouldn't like to take a chance on it."
"Oh Jake, I'm sure he wouldn't allow them to be-, "Anyway," Jake interrupted, "if we handed them over to the Hararil Ras Kullah would be there the next minute demanding them back for his fun and if they didn't agree, we'd all be in the middle of a tribal war. No, it won't do."
"We'll have to turn them loose, "said Vicky at last.
"They'd never make it back to the Wells of Chaldi." Jake looked to the east, across the brooding midnight plain. "The ground out there is crawling with Ethiopian scouts. They would have their throats slit before they'd gone a mile."
"We'll have to take them," said Vicky, and Jake looked sharply at her.
"Take them?"
"In the car drive out to the Wells of Chaldi."
"The Eyeties would love that," he grunted. "Have you forgotten those flaming great cannons of theirs?"
"Under a flag of truce," said Vicky.
"There is no other way, Jake. Truly there isn't." Jake thought about it silently for a full minute and then he -sighed wearily.
"It's a long drive. Let's get going." They drove without headlights, not wanting to attract the attention of the Ethiopian scouts or the Italians, but the moon was bright enough to light their way and define the ravines and rougher ground with crisp black shadows, although occasionally the wheels would crash painfully into one of the deep round holes dug by the aardvarks, the nocturnal long-nosed beasts which burrowed for the subterranean colonies of termites.
The three half-naked Italian survivors huddled down in the rear compartment of the car, so exhausted by fear and the day's adventures that they passed swiftly into sleep, a sleep so deep that neither the noisy roar of the engine within the metal hull nor the bouncing over rough ground could disturb them. They lay like dead men in an untidy heap.
Vicky Camberwell climbed down out of the turret to escape the flow of cool night air, and squeezed into the space beside the driver's seat.
For a while she spoke quietly with Jake, but soon her voice became drowsy and finally dried up. Then slowly she toppled sideways against him, and he smiled tenderly and eased her golden head down on to his shoulder and held her like that, warm against him in the noisy hull, as he drove on into the eastern night.
The Italian sentries were sweeping the perimeter of their camp at regular intervals with a pair of powerful anti-aircraft searchlights, probably in anticipation of a night attack by the Ethiopians, and the glow of the beams burned up in a tall white cone of light into the desert sky. Jake homed in upon it, gradually reducing his throttle setting as he closed in. He knew that the engine beat would carry many miles in the stillness, but that at lower revs it would be diffused and impossible to pinpoint.
He guessed he was within two or three miles of the Italian camp when in confirmation that the sentries had heard his approach, and that after their recent experiences they were highly sensitive to the sound of a Bentley engine, a star shell sailed upwards a thousand feet into the sky and burst with a fierce blue-white light that lit the desert like a stage for miles beneath it. Jake hit the brakes hard, and waited for the shell to sink slowly to earth. He did not want movement to attract attention. The light died away and left the night blacker than before, but beside him the abrupt change of motion had woken Vicky and she sat up groggily, pushing the hair out of her eyes and muttering sleepily.
"What is it?"
"We are here," he said, and another star shell rose in a high arc and burst in brilliance that paled the moon.
"There." Jake pointed out the ridge above the Wells of Chaldi.
The dark shapes of the Italian vehicles were laagered in orderly lines, clearly silhouetted by the star shell. They hall let were two miles ahead. Suddenly there was the distant ripping sound of a machine gun, a sentry firing at shadows, and immediately after, a scattered fusillade of rifle shots which petered out into a sheepish silence.
"It seems that everybody is awake, and jumpy as hell," Jake remarked drily. "This is about as close as we can go." He crawled out of the driver's seat and went back to where the prisoners were still piled upon each other like a litter of sleeping puppies. One of them was snoring like an asthmatic lion, and Jake had to put his boot amongst them to stir them back to consciousness. They came awake slowly and resentfully, and Jake swung open the rear doors and pushed them out into the darkness. They stood dejectedly, clasping their naked trunks against the chill of the night and peering about them fearfully to discover what new unpleasantness awaited them. At that instant another star shell burst almost overhead, and they exclaimed and blinked owlishly without immediate comprehension as Jake made shooing gestures, trying to drive them like a flock of chickens towards the ridge.
Finally Jake grabbed one of them by the scruff of the neck, pointed his face at the ridge and gave him a shove that sent him tottering the first few paces. Suddenly the man recognized his own camp and the lines of big Fiat trucks in the light of the star shell.
He let out a heartfelt cry of relief and broke into a shambling run.
The other two stared for a moment in disbelief and then set out after him at the top of their speed. When they had gone twenty yards, one of them turned back and came to Jake, seized his hand and pumped it vigorously, a huge smile splitting his face; then he turned to Vicky and covered both her hands with wet noisy kisses. The man was weeping, tears streaming down his cheeks.
"That's enough of that," growled Jake. "On your way, friend," and he turned the Italian and once more pointed him at the horizon and helped him on his way.
The unaffected joy of the released Italians was contagious. Jake and Vicky drove back in a high good mood, laughing together secretly in the dark and noisy hull of the car. They had covered half of the forty miles back to the Sardi Gorge, and behind them the lights of the Italian camp were a mere suggestion of lesser darkness low on the eastern horizon, but still their mood was light and joyous and at some fresh sally of Jake's Vicky leaned across to kiss him on the soft pulse of his throat beneath his ear.
As if of her own accord, Miss Wobbly's speed bled away and she rocked to a gentle standstill in the centre of a wide open area of soft sandy soil and low dark scrub.
Jake earthed the magneto, and the engine note died away into silence.
He turned in the seat and took Vicky fully in his arms, crushing her to him with sudden strength that made her gasp aloud.
"Jake!" she protested, half in pain, but his lips covered hers, and her protests were forgotten at the taste of his mouth.
His jaw and cheeks were rough with new beard, the same strong wiry growth of dark hair which curled out of his shirt front, and the man smell of him was like the taste of his mouth. She felt the softness of her own body crave the hardness of his and she pressed herself to him, finding pleasure in the pain of contact, in the bruising pressure of his mouth against her lips.
She knew she was arousing emotions that soon would be beyond either of their control, and the knowledge made her reckless and bold.
The thought occurred to her that she had it in her power to drive him demented with passion, and the idea aroused her further, and immediately she wanted to exercise that power.
She heard his breathing roaring in her ears, then realized that it was not his it was her own, and each gust of it seemed to swell her chest until it must burst.
It was so cramped in the cockpit of the car, and their movements were becoming wild and unrestrained. Vicky felt restricted and itching with constraint. She had never known this wildness before, and for a fleeting instant she remembered the skilful, gentle minuet of formal movements which had been her loving with Gareth Swales, and she compared it to this stormy meeting of passions; then the thought was borne away on the flood, on the need to be free of confinement.