The steel rails tore the jockey wheels out of them, and the tracks sprang out of their seating on the sprockets and whipped into the air, flogging themselves to death in a cloud of dust and torn vegetation.
It was over very swiftly, the four machines lay silent and stalled, crippled beyond hope of repair and around them lay the broken bodies of twenty or more of the Ethiopians who had been caught up by the flailing tracks as they broke loose. The bodies were torn and shredded, as though clawed and mauled by some monstrous predator.
Those who had survived the savage death of the tanks, hundreds of almost naked figures, swarmed over the stranded hulls, loolooing wildly and pounding on the steel turrets with their bare hands.
The Italian gunners still inside the hulls fired their machine guns despairingly, but there was no power on their traversing gear and the turrets were frozen. The guns could not be aimed. They were blinded also for Jake had armed a dozen Ethiopians each with a bucket of engine oil and dirt mixed to a thick paste. This they had slapped in gooey handfuls over the drivers" and gunners" visors. The tank crews were helplessly imprisoned and the attackers pranced and howled like demented things. The din was such that Jake did not even hear the approach of the other car.
It stopped on the crest of the dune opposite where Jake stood.
The hatches were flung open, and Gareth Swales and Ras Golam leaped out of the hull.
The Ras had his sword with him, and he swung it around his head as he charged down the slope to join his men around the crippled tanks.
Across the valley that separated them, Gareth threw Jake a cavalier salute, but beneath the mockery, Jake sensed real respect.
Each of them ran down into the trough and they met where the gallon cans of gasoline were buried under a fine layer of sand and cut branches.
Gareth spared a second to punch Jake lightly on the shoulder.
"Hit the beggars for six, what? Good for you," and then they stooped to drag the cans out of the shallow hole, and with one in each hand staggered through the waist-deep scrub to the tank carcasses.
Jake passed a can up to Gregorius who was already perched on the turret of the nearest tank where his grandfather was trying to prise open the turret hatch with the blade of his broad-sword. His eyes flashed and rolled wildly in his wrinkled black head, and a high-pitched incoherent "Looloo" keened from the mouthful of flashing artificial teeth for the Ras was transported into the fighting mania of the berserker.
Gregorius hefted the gasoline can up on to the tank's sponson, and plunged his dagger through the thin metal of the lid. The clear liquid spurted and hissed from the rent, under pressure of its own volatile gases.
"Wet it down good!" shouted Jake, and Gregorius; grinned and splattered gasoline over the hull. The stink of it was sharp, as it evaporated from the hot metal in a shimmering haze.
Jake ran on to the next tank, unscrewing the cap of the can as he clambered up over the shattered jockey wheels.
Avoiding the stationary barrel of the forward machine gun, he stood tall on the top of the turret and splashed gasoline over the hull, until it shone wetly in the sunlight and little rivulets of the stuff found the joints and gaps in the plating and splattered into the interior.
"Get back," shouted Gareth. "Everybody back." He had doused the other steel carcasses and he stood now on the slope of the dune with an unlit cheroot in the corner of his mouth and a box of Swan Vestas in his left hand.
Jake jumped lightly down from the hull, laying a trail of gasoline from the can he carried as he backed up to where Gareth waited.
"Hurry. Everybody out of the way," Gareth called again.
Gregorius was laying a wet trail of gasoline back to Gareth.
"Somebody go get that old bastard out of the way" Gareth called with exasperation. A single figure pranced and howled and loolooed on the nearest tank, and Jake and Gregorius dropped the empty cans and raced back. Ducking under the swinging arc of the sword, Jake got an arm around the Ras's skinny, bony chest, swung him bodily off his feet and passed him down to his grandson. Between them they carried him away to safety, still how ling and struggling.
Gareth struck one of the Swan Vestas and casually lit the cheroot in his mouth. When it was drawing nicely, he cupped the match to let the game flare brightly.
"Here we go, chaps," he murmured. "Guy Fawkes, Guy.
Stick him in the eye. Hang him on a lamp post' he flicked the burning match on to the gasoline-sodden earth, and leave him there to die." For a moment nothing happened, and then with a thump that concussed the air against their eardrums, the gasoline ignited.
Instantly the belt of scrub turned to atoll roaring red inferno, and the flames boiled and swirled, leaped and drummed high into the desert air, engulfing the four stranded tanks in sheets of fire that obscured their menacing silhouettes.
The Ethiopians watched from the dunes, awed by the terrible pageant of destruction they had created. Only the Ras still danced and howled at the edge of the flames, the blade of his sword reflecting the red leaping flames.
The hatches of the nearest tank were thrown open, and out into the searing air leaped three figures, indistinct and shadowy through the flames. Beating wildly at their burning uniforms, the tank crew came staggering out on to the slope of the dune.
The Ras flew to meet them, the sword hissing and glinting as it swung.
The head of the tank commander seemed to leap from his fire-blackened shoulders, as the blade cut through. The head struck the ground behind him and rolled back down the dune like a ball, while the decapitated trunk dropped to its knees with a fine crimson spray from the neck pumping straight up into the air.
The Ras raced on towards the other survivors, and his men roared angrily and swarmed forward after him. Jake uttered a horrified oath and started forward to restrain them.
"Easy, old son." Gareth caught Jake's arm, and swung him away.
"This is no time for one of your boy scout acts." From below them rose the ugly blood roar of the destroyers, as they fell upon the survivors of the other tanks, and the Italians" screams cut like a whiplash across Jake's nerves.
"Let's leave them to it." Gareth drew Jake away. "Not our business, old boy. The beggars have got to take their own chances.
Rules of the game." Across the crest of the dune they leaned together against the steel hull of Priscilla. Jake was panting heavily from his exertions and his horror. Gareth found him a slightly crumpled cheroot in the inside pocket of his tweed jacket, and straightened it carefully before placing it between Jake's lips.
"Told you before, your sentimental but endearing ways will get us both into trouble. They'd have torn you to pieces also if you'd gone down there." He lit Jake's cheroot.
"Well, old boy-" he changed the subject diplomatically.
"That takes care of our biggest problem. No tanks no worries, that's an old Swales family motto," and he chuckled lightly. "We'll be able to hold them at the mouth of the gorge for another week now. No trouble at all." Abruptly the sunlight was obscured, and instantly the temperature dropped sharply. Both of them glanced up involuntarily at the sky, at the gloom and the sudden chill.
In the last hour, the masses of cloud had come slumping down from the mountains, blotting them out completely, and spreading out on to the fringes of the Danakil desert.
From this thick, dark mattress of swirling cloud, fine pale streamers of rain were already spiralling down towards the plain. Jake felt a droplet splatter against his forehead and he wiped it away with the back of his hand.
"I say, we're in for a drop or two," murmured Gareth, and as if in confirmation the deep mutter of thunder echoed down from the cloud-shrouded mountains, and lightning flared sulkily, trapped within the towering cloud masses and lighting them internally with a smouldering infernal glow.