His mustache was waxed into points, but stained yellow with tobacco, and he was of indefinite age over forty and under sixty with the dark malarial yellow tan of a man who has lived all his life in the tropics.
"For some time we have been concerned to design an appropriate form of government for the captured ah the liberated territories of Ethiopia."
"Come to the point," said the General abruptly.
"It has been decided to replace the present Emperor, Baile Selassie, with a man sympathetic to the Italian Empire, and acceptable to the people-" "Come on, man," Badoglic, cut in again. Verbal backing and filling were repugnant to him. He was a man of action rather than words.
"Arrangements have been completed after lengthy negotiation, and I might add the promise of several millions of lire, that at the politically opportune moment a powerful chieftain will declare for us, bringing all his warriors and his influence across to us. This man will in due course be declared Emperor of Ethiopia and will administer the territory under Italy."
"Yes, yes. I understand, "said the Count.
"The man governs part of the area which is the direct objective of your column. As soon as you have seized the Sardi Gorge and entered the town of Sardi itself, this Chief will join you with his men and, with appropriate international publicity, be declared King of Ethiopia."
"The man's name?" asked the Count, but the agent would not be hurried.
"It will be your duty to meet with this Chief, and to synchronize your efforts. You will also make the promised payment in gold coin."
"Yes."
"The man is an hereditary Ras by rank. He is presently commanding part of the army that opposes you at Sardi.
However, that will change-" said the agent, and produced a thick envelope from the briefcase beside his chair. It was sealed with the wax tablet and the embossed eagles of the Department of Colonial Affairs. "Here are your written orders. You will sign for them, please." He inspected the Count's signature suspiciously, then, at last satisfied, went on in the same dry disinterested voice.
"One other matter. We have identified one of the white mercenaries fighting with the Ethiopians those mentioned by you as being reported by the three of your men captured by the enemy and subsequently released." The agent paused and drew on his almost dead cigar, puffing up the tip to a bright healthy glow.
"The woman is a notorious agent provocateur, a Bolshevik with radical and revolutionary sympathies. She poses as a journalist, employed by an American newspaper whose sentiments have always been strongly anti-Empire. Already some of this woman's biased inflammatory, writings have reached the outside world. They have been a severe embarrassment to us at the Department-" He drew again on the cigar, and spoke again through the billowing cloud of smoke.
"If she is taken, and I hope that you will place priority on her capture, she is to be handed over immediately to the new Ethiopian Emperor-designate, you understand? You are not to be involved, but you will not interfere with the Ras's execution of the woman."
"I see." The Count was becoming bored. This political nitpicking was not the type of thing which would hold his attention. He wanted to show the young lady hostesses at the Casino the great cross which now hung around his neck and thumped on his chest each time he moved.
"As for the white man, the Englishman, the one responsible for the brutal shooting of an Italian prisoner of war in front of witnesses, he has been declared a murderer and a Political terrorist. When you capture him, he is to be shot out of hand. That order goes for all other foreigners serving under arms with the enemy troops. This type of thing must be put down sternly."
"You can rely on me," said the Count. "There will be no quarter for the terrorists."
General Pietro Badoglic, moved forward to Ambo Aradam, there were some minor brushes. while the Italian General deployed his men for the major stroke. At Abi Addi and Tembien he received advance warning of the fighting qualities of his enemy, barefoot and armed with spear and muzzle-loading gun. As he wrote himself, "They have fought with courage and determination.
Against our attacks, methodically carried out and covered by heavy machine-gun fire and artillery barrage, their troops have stood firm, and then engaged in furious hand-to-hand fighting; or they have moved boldly to counter-attack, regardless of the avalanche of fire that had immediately fallen upon them. Against the organized fire of our defending troops, their soldiers many of them armed only with Cold steel attacked again and again, pushing right up to our wire entanglements and trying to beat them down with their great swords."
Brave men, perhaps, but they were brushed aside by the huge Italian war machine. Then at last Badoglio could come at Ras Muguletu, the war minister of Ethiopia, with his entire army waiting like an old lion in the caves and precipitous heights of the natural mountain fortress of Ambo Aradam.
He loosed his full might against the old chieftain, the big three-engined Capronis roared in, wave after wave, to drop four hundred tons of bombs upon the mountain in five days of continuous raids, while his artillery hurled fifty thousand heavy shells, arcing them up from the valley into the ravines and deep gorges until the outline of the mountain was shrouded in the red mist of dust and cordite fumes.
Up to now, the time of waiting had passed pleasantly enough for Count Aldo Belli at the Wells of Chaldi. The addition to his forces had altered his entire way of life.
Together with the magnificent enamelled cross around his neck, they had added immeasurably to his prestige and correct sense of self-importance.
For the first few weeks he never tired of reviewing and manoeuvring his armoured forces. The six speedy machines, with their low rakish lines and Aided turrets, intrigued him. Their speed over the roughest ground, bouncing along on their spinning tracks, delighted him. They made wonderful shooting-brakes, for nothing held them up, and he conceived the master strategy of using them for game drives.
A squadron of light CV.3 tanks, in extended line abreast, could sweep a thirty-mile swathe of desert, driving all game before them, down to where the Count waited with the Mannlicher. It was the greatest sport of his hunting career.
The scope of this activity was such that even in the limitless spaces of the Danakil desert, it did not pass unnoticed.
Like their Ras, the Harari warriors were men of short patience.
Long inactivity bored them, and daily small groups of horsemen, followed by their wives and pack donkeys, drifted away from the big encampment at the foot of the gorge, and began the steep rocky ascent to the cooler equable weather of the highlands, and the comforts and business of home. Each of them assured the Ras before departure of a speedy return as soon as they were needed but nevertheless it irked the Ras to see his army dwindling and dribbling away while his enemy sat invulnerable and unchallenged upon the sacred soil of Ethiopia.
Tensions in the encampment were running with the strength and passion of the groundswell of the ocean, when storms are building out beyond the horizon.
Caught up in the suppressed violence, in the boiling pot of emotion, were both Gareth and Jake. Each of them had used the lull to set his own department in order.
Jake had gone out under cover of night behind a screen of Ethiopian scouts to the deserted battlefield, where he had stripped the carcass of the Hump. Working by the light of a hooded bull's-eye lantern, and assisted by Gregorius, he had taken the big Bentley engine to pieces, small enough for the donkey packs and lugged it all home to the encampment below the camel-thorn trees. Using the replacements, he had rebuilt the engine of Tenastefin ruined by the Ras in his first flush of enthusiasm. Then he had stripped, overhauled and reassembled the other two cars. The Ethiopian armoured forces were now a squadron of three, all of them in as fine fettle as they had been for the past twenty years.