The captain had ‘staff’ written all over him; he reminded Cal Jardine of the kind of nattily dressed sods who had come up from Brigade HQ in 1918 to purse their lips at the lack of progress, before returning from the dirty trenches to some comfortable chateau to eat and drink of the best France had to offer. This captain was handsome, smooth, his uniform pressed and creased in all the right places, and that was allied to an air of superiority that might have hinted at high birth in a force led by aristocratic commanders; he also, fortunately, spoke good French.
When he saw who had written and signed the pass Jardine produced, his arrogance evaporated. He became positively fawning and also very forthcoming about the Italian positions, according to what intelligence he possessed, so powerful was Ras Kassa Meghoum’s name. De Bono was advancing with caution, and some of his equipment, as well as the less professional Arditi units, were causing concern in what was harsh terrain, so he had halted to consolidate; they could not be expected in Aksum for several days.
He was also not an idiot: he had been educated at the French School in Addis, hence his facility with the language, and he had learnt more than that. Before he issued written instructions to the guard posts on the road south to let Jardine and his companions pass, he also demanded, and got, the request to proceed in writing, so that he could not be held responsible for any unfortunate outcomes. Emerging to meet Vince, Jardine was smiling.
‘Don’t go thinking these chaps are all primitive, Vince. The bloke I’ve just been with is as sharp as a tack. Now let’s find Alverson, because he will most definitely want to come too.’
That proved quite a task and involved a search of the city and lots of sign language as they sought to describe an American in a pale-linen suit and a big straw hat, quite possibly chomping on a cigar. They were in receipt of many pointed directions, which either by omission or commission led nowhere. Eventually they found him by the walls of the dome-turreted castle of Fasiledes, deep in conversation with a disreputable-looking fellow who reminded Jardine of the treacherous Xasan of Zeila. Seeing them approach, Alverson waved to them to stay back and wait. It was Vince who spotted and pointed out that money was being exchanged.
‘What is he up to, guv?’
‘Maybe he’ll tell us,’ Jardine replied, as Alverson detached himself and came to join them.
‘Now, that is one creepy bastard.’
‘So why are you doing business with him?’
‘To get my story out, Jardine, that’s why. No point in getting the low-down if I can’t tell the world. That sonofabitch is my way out with the news, and boy, did it take time to find him.’
Mutual explanations were exchanged as they made their way back to the hotel. It seemed Alverson’s sonofabitch was either a smuggler or maybe even a slaver. Whatever, he had a route over the Sudanese border by which the American could send out his reports to be telegraphed back to the US, thus avoiding the local censors.
‘All those lushes in Addis will get is what the Ethiopians want to tell them. My aim is to get the truth out and be ahead of the game.’ Then he smiled and rubbed his finger and thumb together. ‘No matter where you go in the world, gentlemen, there are people who will do what you want for a little grease, or in his case, Austrian thalers.’
‘You trust him? He looked like a real crook to me.’
‘I’m no patsy, brother. I have paid him some upfront money, but he only gets the real dough by return when he has sent in my copy. And as for him being a crook, don’t tell me you’ve never done a deal with a guy like that.’
‘It’s possible.’
‘Definite, more like,’ Vince hooted.
Cal Jardine smiled. ‘You ever been to Hamburg, Alverson?’
‘Nope.’
‘Maybe I’ll tell you a story sometime, a good one. Now let’s stock up on some supplies, a full tank of juice, and get going before Corrie Littleton blows a gasket.’
At checkpoint after checkpoint on the rough road their papers were examined and, passed through each time, they drove on into the gathering gloom, until the great headlamps of the Rolls were all they had to light up a road still thronged with fighters; moving in the dark, this close to an enemy with air power, was sensible.
They dropped in numbers, until eventually the road was deserted, so they knew they must be passing through the front lines of the Ethiopian army; somewhere out in the darkness on either side were thousands upon thousands of silent warriors, and ahead of them, in the distance, a potent and well-equipped enemy.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Entering a place like Aksum in darkness was not a good idea, regardless of what Jardine had been told about the slow Italian advance. They spent the last hours of darkness near a military checkpoint, and it was only when daylight came that they saw they had stopped beside the ruins of what looked to have been an extensive palace. Interested as Corrie Littleton was — it was likely to be the one-time palace of the Queen of Sheba — ruins could wait; Jardine had his field glasses out, looking over the fertile fields and low hills of the plateau for signs of the Italians, and he was just about to pronounce it safe when they heard the drone of an aircraft overhead.
‘Everyone away from the car,’ he yelled. ‘Now!’
He was cursing himself as he ran: the checkpoint was heavily camouflaged and such an obvious vehicle as the silver Rolls-Royce should have been hidden from view under one of the roadside trees; he was losing his touch and that was underlined when the aircraft, a biplane, banked and came in low to have a look, showing on its tail the green, yellow and red colours of the Ethiopian air force. Having made one pass, it executed a tight turn to have another.
‘Jesus Christ, a Potez 25,’ Alverson pronounced. ‘How many of those fellas have we seen, Jardine?’
He had a point: the Potez 25 was one of those two-seater biplanes, highly manoeuvrable and infinitely adaptable, that tended to appear in a lot of conflict locations; Jardine had seen them in their homeland of France, in Paraguay, and Alverson admitted he had come across them in China. The Potez 25 was a real workhorse used for everything: light bombing, as a nippy fighter, as well as a good reconnaissance plane, though, a product of the twenties, it was sadly out of date now.
The aircraft was coming in very low and it was only the dying note of the engine that indicated it was going to land. The party on the ground watched as the wings swayed slightly, the Potez losing airspeed till its wheels touched down on the surface of the road, billowing dust mixing with a trace of smoke as the brakes were applied, the engine dropping down to a steady throb as it taxied close to them, then no more than the whisper of a dying propeller as the power was switched off.
The pilot clambered out onto the wing, then jumped to the ground, whipping off his leather flying helmet as he walked towards them to reveal a mass of blond curls over an absurdly handsome face, graced with a wide smile. His eyes, which turned out to be green close to, flicked over the quartet but settled immediately on Corrie Littleton, and there was no doubting the nature of the look he was giving her, or that those eyes had time to take in her left hand in order to know what to say.
‘Bonjour, mademoiselle.’
The pilot effectively cut the three men out of the exchange, then added to their exclusion by taking Corrie’s hand and lifting it to his lips, without, Jardine noticed, much in the way of resistance.
‘Hi,’ she replied feebly, while his lips were still connected to her flesh. ‘Nice to meet you.’
‘Ah, you are American,’ he cried, with that seductive and delicious accent the French were able to give to the English language.
‘I sure am,’ Corrie said, her own voice, for all it had that habitual crack, carrying no hint of reproach at his obvious gallantry; her stance of militant womanhood seemed to have been put in abeyance. ‘Corrine Littleton is the name.’