"Your duty is to command!"
"Plan! said the Count.
"Direct!" said Gino.
"I fear it is my destiny."
"Your God-given duty." Gino backed him up, and as the Count sank down once more upon the cot, he fell with renewed vigour upon the injured shoulder.
"Gino," said the Count at last. "When last did we speak of your wages?"
"Not for many months, my Count."
"Let us discuss it now," said Aldo Belli comfortably. "You are a jewel without price. Say, another hundred lire a month."
"The sum of one hundred and fifty had crossed MY mind, murmured Gino respectfully.
The Count's new military philosophy was received with unbounded enthusiasm by his officers, when he explained it to them that evening in the mess tent, over the liqueurs and cigars. The idea of leading from the rear seemed not only to be practical and sensible, but downright inspired. This enthusiasm lasted only until they learned that the new philosophy applied not to the entire officer cadre of the Third Battalion, but to the Colonel only. The rest of them were to be given every opportunity to make the supreme sacrifice for God, country and Benito Mussolini. At this stage the new philosophy lost much popular support.
In the end, only three persons stood to benefit from the rearrangement the Count, Gino and Major Luigi Castelani.
The Major was so overjoyed to learn that he now had what amounted to unfettered command of the battalion that for the first time in many years he took a bottle of grappa to his tent that evening, and sat shaking his head and chuckling fruitily into his glass.
The following morning's burning, blinding headache that only grappa can produce, combined with his new freedom, made the Major's grip on the battalion all the more ferocious. The new spirit spread like a fire in dry grass. Men cleaned their rifles, burnished their buttons and closed them to the neck, stubbed out their cigarettes and trembled a little while Castelani rampaged through the camp at Chaldi, dealing out duties, ferreting out the malingerers and stiffening spines with the swishing cane in his right hand.
The honour guard that fell in that afternoon to welcome the first aircraft to the newly constructed airfield were so beautifully turned out with polished leather and glittering metal, and their drill was so smartly performed, that even Count Aldo Belli noticed it, and commended them warmly.
The aircraft was a three-engined Caproni bomber. It came lumbering in from the northern skies, circled the long runway of raw earth, and then touched down and raised a long rolling storm of dust with the wash of its propellers.
The first personage to emerge from the doorway in the belly of the silver fuselage was the political agent from Asmara, Signor Antolino, looking more rumpled and seedy than ever in his creased, ill-fitting tropical linen suit. He raised his straw panama. in reply to the Count's flamboyant Fascist salute, and they embraced briefly, the man stood low on the social and political scale before the Count turned to the pilot.
"I wish to ride in your machine." The Count had lost interest in his tanks, in fact he found himself actively hating them and their Captain. In sober mood he had refrained from executing that officer, or even packing him off back to Asmara. He had contented himself with a full page of scathing comment in the man's service report, knowing that this would destroy his career. A complete and satisfying vengeance, but the Count was finished with tanks. Now he had an aircraft. So much more exciting and romantic.
"We will fly over the enemy positions," said the Count, at a respectable height." By which he meant out of rifle shot.
"Later," said the political agent, with such an air of authority that the Count drew himself up in a dignified manner, and gave the man a haughty stare before which he should have quailed.
"I carry personal and urgent orders from General Badogho's own lips," said the agent, completely unaffected by the stare.
The Count's stiffly dignified when altered immediately.
"A glass of wine, then," he said affably, and took the " man's arm leading him to the waiting Rolls.
The General stands now before Ambo Aradam. He has the main concentration of the enemy at bay upon the mountain, and under heavy artillery and aerial bombardment. At the right moment he will fall upon them and the outcome cannot be in doubt."
"Quite right," nodded the Count sagely; the prospect of fighting a hundred miles away to the north filled him with the reflected warmth of the glory of Italian arms.
"Within the next ten days, the broken armies of the Ethiopians will be attempting to withdraw along the road to Dessie and to link up with Baile Selassie at Lake Tona but the Sardi Gorge is like a dagger in their ribs. You know your duty." The Count nodded again, but warily.
This was much closer to home.
"I have come now to make the final contact with the Ethiopian Ras who will declare for us, the Emperor-designate of Ethiopia our secret ally.
It is necessary to coordinate our final plans, so that his defection will cause the greatest possible confusion amongst the ranks of the enemy, and his forces can be best deployed to support your assault up the gorge to Sardi and the Dessie road."
"Ah!" the Count made a sound which signified neither agreement nor dissent.
"My men, working in the mountains, have arranged a meeting with the Emperor-designate. At this meeting we will make the promised payment that secures the Ras's loyalty." The agent made a moue of distaste.
"These people!" and he sighed at the thought of a man who would sell his country for gold. Then he dismissed the thought with a J wave of his hand. "The meeting is fixed for tonight. I have brought one of my men with me who will act as a guide.
The place arranged is approximately eighty kilometres from here and we will move out at sundown which will give us ample time to reach the rendezvous before the appointed hour of midnight."
"Very well, the Count agreed. "I will place transport at your disposal." The agent held up a hand. "My dear Colonel, you will be the leader of the delegation to meet the Ras."
"Impossible." The Count would not so swiftly abandon his new philosophy. "I have my duties here to prepare for the offensive." Who knew what new horrors might lurk out in the midnight wastes of the Danakil?
"Your presence is essential to the success of the negotiations your uniform will impress the-" My shoulder, I am suffering from an injury which makes travel most inconvenient I shall send one of my officers.
A Captain of tanks, the uniform is truly splendid."
"No. "The agent shook his head.
"I have a Major a man of great presence."
"The General expressly instructed that you should lead the delegation.
If you doubt this, your radio operator could establish immediate contact with Asmara."
The Count sighed, opened his mouth, closed it again, and then regretfully abandoned his vow to remain within the perimeter of Chaldi camp for the duration of the campaign.
"Very well," he conceded. "We will leave at sundown." The Count was not about to plunge recklessly into danger again. The convoy which left Chaldi that evening in the fiery afterglow of the sunset was led by two CV.3 cavalry tanks, then followed four truck-loads of infantry, and behind them the remaining two tanks made up a formidable rear guard.
The Rolls was sandwiched neatly in the centre of this column. The political agent sat on the seat beside the Count, with his feet firmly on the heavy wooden case on the floorboards. The guide that the agent had produced from the fuselage of the Caproni was a thin, very dark Galla, with one opaque eyeball of blue jelly caused by tropical ophthalmia which gave him a particularly villainous cast of features.
He was dressed in a once-white sham ma that was now almost black with filth, and he smelled like a goat that had recently fought a polecat.