Jake spilled gasoline from one of the spare cans into a bucket of sand, then placed the bucket in the bottom of the ravine and put a match to it. They crouched over the primitive stove, warming themselves against the desert chill, while the coffee brewed. They were silent, thawing out slowly, each thinking his own thoughts.
"I think we've got a problem" said Jake at last, as he stared into the fire.
"With me that condition goes back as far as I can remember," Gareth agreed politely. "But apart from the fact that I am stuck in the middle of a horrible desert, with savages and bleeding hearts for company, with an army of Eyeties trying to kill me, broke except for a post-dated cheque of dubious value, not a bottle of the old Charlie within a hundred miles, and no immediate prospect of escape apart from that, I'm in very good shape."
"I was thinking of Vicky."
"Ah!
Vicky!"
"You know that I am in love with her."
"You surprise me."
Gareth grinned devilishly in the flickering firelight. "Is that why you have been mooning around with that soppy look on your face, bellowing like a bull moose in the mating season? Good Lord, I would never have guessed, old boy."
"I'm being serious, Gary."
"That, old son, is one of your problems. You take everything too seriously. I am prepared to offer odds of three to one that your mind is already set on the ivy-covered cottage, bulging with ghastly brats."
"That's the picture," Jake cut in sharply. "It's that serious, I'm afraid. How do we stand?" Gareth drew two cigars from his breast pocket, placed one between Jake's lips, lit a dry twig from the fire and held it for him.
The mocking grin dropped from his lips and his voice was suddenly thoughtful, but the expression in his eyes was hard to read in the uncertain firelight.
"Down in Cornwall, there's a place I know. A hundred and fifty acres.
Comfortable old farm house, of course. I'd have to do it up a bit, but the cattle sheds are in good nick.
Always did fancy myself as the country squire, bit of hunting and shooting in between tilling the earth and squirting the milk out of the cows. Might even run to three or four brats, at that. With fourteen thousand quid, and a whacking great mortgage bond, I could just about swing it." They were both silent then, as Jake poured the coffee and doused the fire, and squatted again facing Gareth.
"It's that serious," Gareth said at last.
"So there isn't going to be a truce? No gentlemen's agreement? "Jake murmured into his mug.
"Tooth and claw, I'm afraid," said Gareth. "May the best man win, and we'll name the first brat after you. That's a promise." They were silent again, each of them lost in his own thoughts, sipping at the mugs and sucking on their cheroots.
"One of us could get some sleep, "said Jake at last.
"Spin you for it." Gareth flipped a silver Maria Theresa dollar, and caught it neatly on his wrist.
"Heads,"said Jake.
"Tough luck, old son." Gareth pocketed the coin and flicked out the coffee grounds from his mug. Then he went to spread his blanket on the sandy ravine bottom, under Priscilla the Pig's chassis.
Jake shook him gently in the dawn, and cautioned him with a touch on the lips. Gareth came swiftly awake, blinking his eyes and smoothing back his hair with both hands, then rolling to his feet and following Jake quickly up the side of Priscilla's hull.
The dawn was a silent explosion of red and gold and brilliant apricot that fanned out across half the eastern sky, touched the high ground with fire but left the long grey blue shadows smeared across the low places. The crescent of the sinking moon low on the western horizon was white as a shark's tooth.
"Listen," said Jake, and Gareth turned his head slightly to catch the tremble of sound in the silence of the dawn.
"Hear it?" Gareth nodded, and lifted his binoculars. Slowly he swept the distant sun-touched ridges.
"There," said Jake sharply, and Gareth swung the glasses in the direction of Jake's arm.
Some miles off, a string of dark indefinite blobs were moving through one of the depressions in the gently undulating terrain. They looked like beads on a rosary; even in the magnifying lens of the glasses they were too far off and too dimly lit to afford details.
They watched them, following the almost sinuous line as it snaked across their front until the leading blob drew the line up the gentle slope of ground. As it reached the crest, it was struck with startling suddenness by the low golden sun. In the still cool air there was no distortion, and the dramatic side-lighting made every detail of its low profile clear and crisp.
"CV.3 cavalry tanks," said Gareth, without hesitation.
"Fifty-horse-power Alfa engines. Ten centimetres of frontal armour and a top speed of eighteen miles an hour." It was as though he were reading the specifications from a catalogue, and Jake remembered that these were part of his stock-in-trade. "There's a crew of three, driver, loader gunner and commander and it looks as though they are mounting the fifty-men. Spandau. They are accurate at a thousand yards and the rate of fire is fifteen rounds a minute." As he was speaking the leading tank dropped from sight over the reverse slope of the ridge, followed in quick succession by the five others and their engine noise droned away into silence.
Gareth lowered his glasses and grinned ruefully. "Well, we are a little out of our class. Those Spandaus are in fully revolving turrets. We are out-gunned all to hell."
"We are faster than they are," said Jake hotly, like a mother whose children had been scorned.
"And that, old son, is all we are, "grunted Gareth.
"How about a bite of breakfast? It's going to be a long hard day to sit out before it's dark enough to head for home." They ate tinned Irish stew, heated over the bucket, and smeared on thick spongy hunks of unleavened bread, washed down by tea, strong and sweet with condensed milk and lumpy brown sugar. The sun was well up before they finished.
Jake belched softly. "My turn to sleep," he said, and he curled up like a big brown dog in the shade under the hull.
Gareth tried to make himself comfortable against the turret and keep watch out across the open plain, where the mirage was already starting to quiver and fume in the rising heat. He congratulated himself comfortably on his choice of shift; he'd had a good few hours" sleep in the night, and now he had the comparative cool of the morning. By the time it was Jake's turn on watch again, the sun would be frizzling, and Priscilla's hull hot as a wood stove.
"Look out for Number One," he murmured, and took a leisurely sweep of the land with the glasses. There was no way that an Italian patrol could surprise them here. He had selected the stake-out with a soldier's eye for ground, and he congratulated himself again, as he slumped in relaxation against the turret and lit a cheroot.
"Now," he thought. "Just how do you take on a squadron of cavalry tanks, without artillery, mine-fields or armour-piercing guns ?" and he let his mind tease and worry the problem. A couple of hours later he had decided that there were ways, but all of them depended on having the tanks come in at the right place, from the right direction at the right time. "Which, of course, is an animal of a completely different breed," and that took a lot more thought. Another hour later he knew there was only one way the Italian armoured squadron could be made to co-operate in its own destruction. "The jolly old donkey and the carrot trick again," he thought. "Now all we need is a carrot."
Instinctively he looked down at where Jake lay curled. Jake had not moved once in all the hours, only the deep soft rumble of his breathing showed he was still alive. Gareth felt a prickle of irritation that he should be enjoying such undisturbed rest.