The smile was as slow as the nod. ‘Then I think your suggestion a good one.’
‘Then select ten of your men — we do not have time to work with them all.’
‘Ah, the jealousies that will cause.’
Jardine grinned: that would happen with any group of young warriors. ‘We’ll do ten a day, tell them.’
‘You know, Vince,’ Jardine said, as he leant over what should be a box of rifles with a jemmy in his hand, ‘I have just had a notion it might have been us who were diddled. These boxes might be full of nothing but stones.’
‘Not to worry, guv, everyone keeps telling me this here fight we’re heading for is between David and Goliath, so that might be no bad thing.’
‘Did you bring a catapult?’
‘I knew I’d forgotten something.’
The act of opening a box got everyone’s attention and a crowd had gathered by the time Jardine had wrenched it open to reveal the top layer of Karabiner 98s, heavily greased on the metal parts, the whole layered by oiled paper, with another tier underneath. The first task was to get them cleaned, prior to opening a box of M88 ammunition.
Jardine set up a rough target on a tree trunk and personally tested each weapon, filling the oasis with the sound of single gunshots, adjusting the sights as he went. He then handed the rifles over to the selected warriors and had them aim and fire in dumb show before allowing them one bullet each, with he and Vince supervising the way they held and aimed them to contain the recoiclass="underline" broken shoulders were not a good idea.
He knew that Ras Kassa was dying to get his hands on one of them, but his dignity and quite possibly his rank forbade him to ask. Jardine was teasing him, for amongst the cases was a much better weapon for a man who ranked as a high aristocrat; if no one else could read the case markings he could, and the second box he opened contained, according to the lettering, M35 sub-machine guns.
These were weapons he had heard of but never seen, the very latest kit issued to the German army, but a gun is a gun — this one the successor to several previous versions — and once you have learnt how to take apart and reassemble one, you pretty much know how to do them all.
Equally well-greased on the metal parts, the first one he prepared and assembled himself, a task that he had not undertaken since Palestine days. Vince did not have to be asked: he just got on with opening a box of 9 mm bullets and slotting them into a magazine. Jardine set it to single shot to adjust the sights, then fired off a burst that removed several branches of a palm tree. Happy it was working properly, he reloaded it with a second magazine and presented it to a beaming Ras Kassa.
‘A weapon that befits your rank, sir.’
‘Does that come under the heading of sweet talk?’ Corrie Littleton asked, in a voice sugary but false, as the ras went to test his weapon.
‘Always be nice to the natives, something you Americans never quite got hold of.’
‘Like you Limeys did?’ Alverson demanded. ‘Remind me to a have a word with Mahatma Ghandi.’
‘Spare us the pieties, buster,’ Corrie Littleton said, ‘when do I get a weapon?’
‘Can you use one?’
‘Try me.’
Jardine nodded and fetched a rifle, checked the bolt to make sure the chamber was clear and handed it over. He knew immediately that this was a woman who had handled guns: she made sure the muzzle was pointed safely up in the air, then worked the bolt before asking, ‘Do I get a stripper clip?’ There was a moment then when Jardine had to make sense of that; not long, for he realised she meant a speed loader.
‘Maybe, when we find out if we have any and where they are; right now stick to a single shot.’
Corrie Littleton, having loaded the weapon, stepped up and took aim, screwing the stock into the crook of her shoulder, with a slight twist on her left leading hand, the twin acts that seated the weapon properly and allowed her to cope with the recoil. All around the men had stopped and were watching her, feet planted for balance, leaning very slightly forward. Squinting along the barrel her pull on the trigger was controlled and she put her shot about six inches from the middle of the target.
‘Damn, I’m out of practice.’
‘That should stop anyone creeping into your tent, honey,’ Alverson said.
‘Who would want to?’ Jardine replied, which got him a good sight of her tongue. ‘I have to get some more weapons ready, but it’s time to load up.’
Such a thing was easier said than done, camels being awkward beasts, much given to biting even the men they knew well. They were not in the least willing to cooperate as their double panniers were lashed onto their backs, before being tied together in lines of ten, which would be fronted by a lead male and rider.
Moving between them, wary of being kicked or bitten, which many of them tried to do, Cal Jardine carried two flat pieces of wood, taken from the one now broken-up wooden crate. Beside each loaded camel he stopped, then cracked the two pieces of wood close to their ears. If they jumped away, he walked on; for those that seemed indifferent, he had a word with the drover who would lead them.
‘What are you up to, guv?’
‘I wondered if we might rustle up a couple of zamburaks, Vince.’
‘As long as you don’t want me to work one of them! I don’t want to mount a camel, never mind one with a machine gun on its hump.’
‘We probably won’t have time. For now we have to get moving, so get your head and mouth covered.’
The need for that was obvious once they emerged from the shade of the oasis trees: a great cloud of dust kicked up by the camels’ hooves. That was picked up and blown about by a wind that came off the now-invisible Indian Ocean. Ras Kassa, sitting on a donkey, his feet near to touching the ground, led the two Americans, likewise mounted, to the front of the line where they were able to stay ahead of the beasts of burden, while their warrior escort lined up on both sides.
Wrapped in the kind of desert gear they had not worn since Iraq, a turban round both head and mouth and square kitbags on their backs, Jardine and Vince walked ahead of the whole caravan, M36s slung over their shoulders and their eyes scanning the landscape for possible threats. The sun beat down, which meant frequent trips to the female camel bearing the water skins, though care was taken: this was not the worst they would face, and the habit of conservation of liquid was a good one to employ.
The men leading the camel strings seemed to be asleep, gently rocking on the backs of their animals, and it was only if you got close you could hear them singing softly to themselves, dirges that probably went back to ancient times. Jardine was thinking that his fellow Britons would see this, a camel caravan, as romantic; he knew better — it was stinking because they stank, and even with a covered mouth he was spitting dust and cursing the annoying cloud of flies around his head. He also ruminated on another hazard, the sheer danger of the landscape itself, this being a place where a scratch from a thorn bush could give you fatal blood poisoning, as could the bite from any number of insects.
‘You used to the outdoors?’ he asked Corrie Littleton, as she left off a conversation she was having with Vince and came trotting alongside him — he asked her not to get in front and obscure his view.
‘Some, but not desert. Where I come from it’s woods, big cats and bears.’
‘And snakes?’ That got a nod. ‘Well, the desert is full of them too, and they are just as hard to spot. You are going to want to relieve yourself and that is not something you will do in full view.’
‘You’re damn right.’
‘Then be careful if you seek cover. That’s where the biters are, scorpions, too, and if there is shade, those reptiles I mentioned.’