The remark got Tyler Alverson a glare, one that softened when she looked back at Jardine.
‘I know where she is, right in the path of Mussolini’s soldiers and on the road to Addis.’
Jardine had read up on places like Gondar and Aksum, both at one time home to Ethiopian royalty going back to antiquity. In Gondar each succeeding king or queen seemed to feel the need to build a place or fortress of their own, so there were multiple buildings of real historical interest, not to mention a source of national pride, and that might be a place the present ruler would be determined to fight for. It was almost as if Corrie Littleton read his mind.
‘Haile Selassie will try to defend Aksum and Gondar for sure, and I have heard enough about those Blackshirt bastards to know they will not respect the old royal palaces. They’ll blow them to hell if they need to and kill anyone who gets in their way. If you had ever met my mother you would know she will try to stop them with her bare hands.’
‘Now I know where you get it from.’
‘I’m desperate, Mr Jardine, really desperate.’
‘I don’t know what’s the matter with me,’ he sighed, ‘and you would not credit the number of people who tell me I’ve got a stone instead of a heart.’
She ran at him then and jumped into his arms, bestowing a smacking kiss on his cheek. Jardine was shocked; Tyler Alverson was laughing.
There is nothing worse than waiting, except waiting with other people who are, like you, keeping a secret. Everything you say, every gesture you make, seems to allude to that which you are trying to hide. Conversations are started and broken off, and all the while there was the worry for Jardine, who had settled in his own mind on the additions to his party, that Lieutenant Grace would return in his boat or Peydon would reappear from the desert, either of which would put the mockers on everything.
Grace was sailing the Red Sea, unaware of the nature of one ship he was passing, flying a red duster. His own white ensign pennant seemed to be of excessive interest to a couple of folk on the deck, one of whom waved, an act that was responded to by a rating, earning the sailor a reprimand and a reminder that he was not on holiday. He had spoken to several of the traders who plied this sea route and used Massawa as their home harbour; there was still no sign of an Italian advance. That rendered him crestfallen: he would really have nothing to report.
Out in the wilderness, on the Abyssinian border with Italian Somaliland, Archie Peydon was in his element. He was a Boy Scout turned soldier, unsuited to the routine of the task he now had, on a detached duty training native troops and camels in a backwater where nothing was ever going to happen, with an occasional visit from his CO, a Royal Marine of all bloody things, to tell him he was all wrong in the way he went about his duties.
The man craved action, prayed for a war, even one of the so-called police actions would do, just to relieve his boredom. Heaven knew that Britannia, with her commitments, had a bit of a conflict going on somewhere all the time.
Lying in scrub, with squatting camels and his askaris in the wadi behind him, he watched the Italians through his binoculars as they went about their duties in a desultory fashion. Nothing had changed since his last excursion to this spot, one no enemy would ever have got near to if he had been in command: there would have been an outpost on this spot for certain. It would have been no use pointing out to Peydon that the men he was watching were not his enemies: anyone not of the same nationality as he, Jocks, Taffs and Paddies excluded, was, in his mind, a foe.
It would be depressing to go back to this Jardine fellow and tell him the situation was unaltered. In his mind he had carried a vision of racing his camel force back into Berbera with exciting news, the kind of act that might get a mention to enhance his hitherto dull career. But it was not to be and so he slid back down the slope and signalled to his men to get themselves back on board their grunting beasts.
‘Mr Jardine.’ The knocking on the door was insistent and it was Mason’s voice, which had him out of his bed and dragging the chair from under the door handle, put there to avoid a repeat visit from the man’s wife, then opening it a crack. ‘I have received a radio message from a Mr Lanchester, saying the ship is in Aden.’
‘How long will our caravan take to get to Zeila?’
‘Dire Dawa is near the Ethiopian border, which is about one hundred and fifty miles of travel, as they need to move from oasis to oasis. That would normally take about ten days, but given what you are bringing, I would say they would push hard to do it in eight as long as they are not stopped and questioned.’
He and Mason had already discussed the risk of interception, which came down to the small chance of them encountering patrolling units of the Somali Camel Corps, who would wonder at a caravan coming out of Ethiopia by a little-used route carrying nothing. The main body of the corps was based in Hargeisa, which they would skirt round, and there were small units like Peydon’s at certain strategic points, as well as a reserve. But with the Italian build-up, Mason’s opinion was that the force would need to stay concentrated, while to call up reserves would cost money the governor did not have to spare.
Jardine’s next requirement was to get to Aden and aboard the Tarvita, and have it sail to the anchorage off Zeila, which would require some subterfuge. Also, he needed a local with knowledge of the coastline, because the only available Admiralty charts would be on board Grace’s patrol boat, not that it would have been wise to ask for them. The men who had transported him before, as well as their dhow, were pressed into service. The crossing also depended on a favourable wind and that was not forthcoming.
They sailed slowly back up the coastline, with Jardine going ashore at Zeila to ensure all the arrangements were in place. He also had to hand over to Xasan a second instalment of the agreed payment so he could actually gather the required men and boats. Then it was a journey in open sea straight across a wide part of the gulf to Aden, beating up tack on tack into a contrary wind, this to avoid the chance of being intercepted by the French, finally turning north close the Yemeni shore.
Two frustrating days passed before they sighted the high mountains that enclosed the huge natural harbour of Aden, the feature that made it so important, and several hours before they could get alongside the Tarvita, which was anchored well off Steamer Point, rocking on a swell which made a nightmare out of climbing the rope ladder dropped over the side.
‘You make a bloody awful pirate, Cal,’ said Lanchester as he finally made the deck. ‘No Blackbeard you, what? Perhaps we should have winched you aboard.’
‘A hello would be nice, Peter. Had any trouble?’
‘Have you ever tried to read Proust, old boy?’ A confused Jardine shook his head. ‘Thought not, or you wouldn’t ask.’
‘Vince, what is he talking about?’
‘Beats me, guv.’
‘Had a customs chappie aboard,’ Lanchester added, ‘but it’s the same old story: they’re not terribly interested if you are on your way to another port, and you have no idea how much confusion can be caused by him trying to understand the captain’s Turkish form of English.’
‘Do we need permission to get under way?’
‘Dues are paid but we should tell the harbour master, it seems.’
‘Well we are not going to. Tonight we will get the captain to darken the ship and head straight out to sea and we need to keep the dhow I came in within sight.’
‘Not me, old boy,’ Lanchester said, ‘this is where I bail out.’
‘Where’s your sense of adventure?’
‘All used up, Cal.’ Lanchester dropped his flippant tone. ‘Listen, old chap, if you do get the goods into the right hands, get out right away. That was the job, to deliver, and once the weapons are handed over, your involvement is finished.’