His appointment to meet General Badoglio was for four o'clock and the town hall clock struck the hour as he marched resolutely down the long gloomy corridor, following a young aide-de-camp. They reached the end of the corridor and the aide-de-camp threw open the big double mahogany doors and stood aside for the Count to enter.
His knees felt like boiled macaroni, his stomach gurgled and seethed, the palms of his hands were hot and moist, and tears were not far behind his quivering eyelids as he stepped forward into the huge room with its lofty moulded ceiling.
He saw that it was filled with officers from both the army and the airforce. His disgrace was to be made public, then, and he quailed.
Seeming to shrivel, his shoulders slumping, his chest caving and the big handsome head drooping, the Count stood in the doorway. He could not bear to look at them, and miserably he studied his gleaming toe caps Suddenly, he was assailed by a strange, a completely alien sound and he looked up startled, ready to defend himself against physical attack.
The roomful of officers were applauding, beaming and grinning, slapping palm to palm and the Count gaped at them, then glanced quickly over his shoulder to be certain there was no one standing behind him, and that this completely unexpected welcome was being directed at him.
When he looked back he found a stocky, broad, shouldered figure in the uniform of a general advancing upon him. His face was hard and unforgiving, with a fierce grey mustache over the grim trap of his mouth and glittering eyes in deep dark sockets.
If the Count had been in command of his legs and his voice, he might have run screaming from the room, but before he could move the General seized him in a grip of iron, and the mustache raking his cheeks was as rank and rough as the foliage of the trees of the Danakil desert.
"Colonel, I am always honoured to embrace a brave man," growled the General, hugging him close, his breath smelling pleasantly of garlic and sesame seed, an aroma that blended in an interesting fashion with the fragrant clouds of the Count's perfume. The Count's legs could no longer stand the strain, they almost collapsed under him. He had to grab wildly at the General to prevent himself falling. This threw both of them off balance, and they reeled across the ceramic floor, locked in each other's arms, in a kind of elephantine waltz, while the General struggled to free himself.
He succeeded at last, and backed away warily from the Count, straightening his medals and reassembling his dignity while one of his officers began to read out a citation from a scroll of parchment and the applause faded into an attentive silence.
The citation was long and wordy, and it gave the Count time to pull his scattered wits together. The first half of the citation was lost to him in his dreamlike state of shock, but then suddenly the words began to reach him. His chin came up as he recognized some of his own composition, little verbal gems from his combat reports "Counting only duty dear, scorning all but honour" that was his own stuff, by the Virgin and Peter.
He listened now, with all his attention, and they were talking about him. They were talking of Aldo Belli. His caved chest filled out, the high colour flooded back into his cheeks, the turmoil of his rebellious bowels was stilled, and fire flashed in his eye once more.
By God, the General had realized that every phrase, every word, every comma and exclamation. mark of his report was the literal truth and the aide-de-camp was handing the General a leather-covered jewel box, and the General was advancing on him again albeit with a certain caution and then he was looping the watered silk ribbon over his head so that the big enamelled, white cross with its centre star of emerald green and sparkling diamantine, dangled down the front of the Count's tunic. The order of Irish St. Maurice and St. Lazarus (military division) of the third class.
Keeping well out of his clutches, the General pecked each of the Count's flushed cheeks and then took a hasty step backwards to join in the applause while the Count stood there puffed with pride, feeling that his heart might burst.
You will have that support now," the General assured him, scowling heavily to hear how his predecessor had grudged the Count sufficient force to win his objectives. "I pledge it to you." They were seated now, just the three of them General Badoglio, his political agent and the Count in the smaller private study adjoining the large formal office. Night had fallen outside the shuttered windows and the single lamp was hooded to throw light down on the map spread on the table top, and leave the faces of the three men in shadow.
Cognac glowed in the leaded crystal glasses and the big ship's decanter on its silver tray, and the blue smoke from the cigars spiralled up slow and heavy as treacle in the lamplight.
"will need armour," said the Count without hesitation.
The thought of thick steel plate had always attracted him strongly.
"will give you a squadron of the light CV.3s," said the General, and made a note on the pad at his elbow.
"And I will need air support."
"Can your engineers build a landing-strip for you at the Wells?" The General touched the map to illustrate the question.
"The land is flat and open. It will present no difficulty," said the Count eagerly. Planes and tanks and guns, he was being given them all.
He was a real commander at last.
"Radio to me when the strip is ready for use. I will send in a flight of Capronis. In the meantime, I will have the transport section convoy in the fuel and armaments I shall consult the staff at airforce, but I think the 100-kilo bombs will be most effective. High explosive, and fragmentation."
"Yes, yes," agreed the Count eagerly.
"And nitrogen mustard will you have use for the gas?"
"Yes, oh yes, indeed, said the Count. It was not in his nature to refuse bounty, he would take anything he was offered.
"Good." The General made another note, laid aside his pencil, and then looked up at the Count. He glowered so ferociously that the Count was startled and he felt the first nervous stir in his belly again. He found the General terrifying, like living on the slopes of a temperamental Vesuvius.
"The iron fist, Belli," he said, and the Count realized with relief that the scowl was directed not at him, but at the enemy.
Immediately the Count assumed an expression every bit as bellicose and menacing. He curled his lip and he spoke, just below a snarl.
"Put the blade at the enemy's throat, and drive it home."
"Without mercy, said the General.
"To the death," agreed the Count. He was on his home ground now, and only just hitting his stride; a hundred bloodthirsty slogans sprang to mind but, recognizing his master, the General changed the snowballing conversation adroitly.
"You are wondering why I have put such importance on your objectives.
You are wondering why I have given you such powerful forces, and why I have set such store on you forcing the passage of the Sardi Gorge and the road to the highlands." The Count was wondering no such thing, right now he was busy coming a phrase about wading through blood, and he accepted the change of theme reluctantly, and arranged his features in a politely enquiring frame.
The General waved his cigar expansively at the political agent who sat opposite him.
"Signor Antolino." He made the gesture and the agent sat forward obediently so that the lamplight caught his face.
"Gentlemen." He cleared his throat, and looked from one to the other with mild brown eyes behind steel-framed spectacles. He was a thin, almost skeletal figure, in a rumpled white linen suit. The wings of his shirt collar were off-centre of his prominent Adam's apple and the knot of the knitted silk tie had slid down and hung at the level of the first button. His head was almost bald, but he had grown the remaining hairs long and greased them down over the shiny freckled plover-egg scalp.