‘And you, gentlemen,’ the ras said, smiling as his eyes moved to include Vince, sitting slightly apart. ‘What are your plans?’
‘That depends of the health of Miss Littleton,’ Jardine replied, which got him a look from his companions, with Vince saying, much to the confusion of their host, ‘It Happened One War.’ No one, least of all an irritated Cal Jardine, bothered to enlighten him, and in any case, a servant entered to bend over and whisper in his ear.
‘Miss Littleton is doing well. The emperor’s own doctor has treated her wounds and given her a blood transfusion. Her wound will heal and he has set her arm properly. So, my question.’
‘I can do no more here, can I, Ras?’
‘No, Captain Jardine, but you, Mr Alverson, perhaps.’
‘No point, sir: whatever I see and want to report, the Italians will not let me send out.’
That induced a pained expression: up till now none of them had openly referred to the obvious. The Italians would be sitting soon where they were sitting now.
‘I could try to get you on the imperial train.’
Thankfully, there was enough doubt in his tone to make a refusal easy for Cal Jardine, and in this he was going to override anything the others might say: he had no notion to travel on a train he was sure would not get through.
‘I think we had already decided to make for Hargeisa by car, sir, but we will not do that unless Miss Littleton is well enough to travel.’
‘Unless …’ Alverson added before pausing; he did not need to say more. If the Italians, who had yet to advance, did so, they might have to get out and damned quick, even if it put her at risk.
‘It would be interesting to know when the doctor thinks Miss Littleton is up to such a journey.’
That was two weeks away, yet they were in no danger because the Italians did not move with anything like alacrity. On the radio, Vince listened, and translated for the others, as Marshal Badoglio announced what he called ‘The March of the Iron Will’, which got the soubriquet ‘bollocks’ from the Londoner, given there was nothing to stop what he called the ‘Piedmontese bastard’: there was no love lost between the various provinces of old Italy or the people who lived in them. Kassa had got them houses in a palace annexe and there they waited, played cards and talked in between visiting a recovering patient.
‘Strikes me, Cal, that we have been together quite a while and yet I know hardly anything about you.’
‘Let’s leave it that way, shall we?’
‘Your father, who was he? Your mother too … you don’t talk about them.’
‘Spanish flu.’
‘Sorry,’ Alverson replied; that epidemic in 1918 had killed millions.
‘So how come you speak French and German so well?’
‘My father was an international trader, Tyler. We spent several years in Marseilles and the next stop to make his money was Hamburg. It’s simple.’
‘And your military service?’
‘Is a closed book. Deal the cards.’
Looking at his hand, Alverson said, in a slightly sour tone, ‘If your old man was as good at business as you are at poker he must have left you a pile.’
Marshal Pietro Badoglio was furious, but he dared not show it even in front of his most trusted staff. He wanted to curse Il Duce, to say in public what he had always thought of him: that he was a posturing buffoon whose only gift was to appeal to the basest members of Italian society, while people like Badoglio merely tolerated the upstart swine. But that might get back: he could not trust anyone.
In his hand he had an answer to a request he had made to bomb the train he knew Haile Selassie was about to board. His troops were marching in triumph towards the Ethiopian capital, meeting little resistance, which made him the most potent soldier in Italy. True, Graziani had won in the south, but under his overall command. The fat-bellied swine Mussolini, who dared to wear a military uniform to which he was not entitled, had refused a reasonable request. How could he call himself a soldier?
The Imperial Palace showed signs of being stripped, everything of value now loaded on to the train wagons in a special siding. Corrie Littleton was well enough to traveclass="underline" though weak — she had to be helped to the car and aided to get into the rear seat — Badoglio was on the way and it was time to go. The Rolls was now very clean and highly polished, all marks of its travails removed: it had been under the attention of the emperor’s own mechanics and valets.
They had food, water, fuel and their weapons but there was no grand farewell, no sadness, no Ras Kassa Meghoum to see them off, only that staff captain who let them depart with a look of deep dislike. The road they travelled was no longer crowded now — the warriors of Ethiopia, at least those who had survived, had gone back to their fields to await the invaders, and their emperor, their King of Kings, their Lion of Judah, was on his way to Djibouti and exile, the ship waiting to take him through the Suez Canal the British cruiser HMS Enterprise.
From Aden they went their separate ways, Alverson accompanying Corrie Littleton back to the USA, Jardine and Vince to London, where the boxer found his gym completely refurbished, freshly painted, the window panes whole and new, while any worn equipment had been replaced and the number of youths using the place had doubled.
As the man who had looked after the place for him said, ‘You should go away more often, mate.’
Cal Jardine and Peter Lanchester were at the Army amp; Navy Club, taking luncheon again, talking over what had happened, the former of the opinion that what they had done had been a waste of time. The idea of putting brakes on Mussolini had come to nought, mainly, Jardine insisted, through the appalling and wasteful tactics of most of the Ethiopian commanders, with the caveat that there was no reason why they should alter those to suit the democracies who refused to aid them.
Lanchester was less sure: had they not garnered some goodwill in a spot where in the future it might prove important? ‘The Italians have got their empire and the Stresa Front’s as dead as a dodo too, old boy. Adolf Hitler came out in favour of the Italian invasion the moment they went in and Mussolini was grateful. Il Duce is now firmly in the German camp and Britain, France and the League have egg all over their faces. I can tell you, on the QT, that the purse strings have been much loosened and we are seriously going to rearm.’
‘So, Peter, the road to war just got a little smoother?’
‘’Fraid so. Port?’
Walking towards Piccadilly Circus, only half-listening to Peter Lanchester as he outlined the new fighters and bombers being planned, the new tanks and the expansion of the various services, it was impossible for Cal Jardine not to cast his mind back to Addis Ababa and the bomb damage he had seen there, while looking into the faces of the bustling crowds parading along the pavements, some vacuously, others with real purpose, the notion of mustard gas did not bear thinking about.
‘Did you hear what I asked, old boy?’
‘Sorry, Peter, miles away.’
‘I was asking if you are up for anything else we might need, Cal? Naturally, we all hope it does not come to war, but we must prepare and that might mean the odd little commission for a man of your talents.’
Over luncheon, asked the same thing, Jardine thought he might have refused. But out here, and with the thoughts he had just had, that had changed. What he could achieve on his own had to be limited, but from now on he must see himself as a cog in a larger wheel; in short, in a phrase so overworked in the Great War, he had to do his bit.
‘As soon as I have settled on somewhere to rent, Peter, I’ll send you my phone number.’