Jake fired a single shot in the air, and Ras Kullah screamed a command.
The Gallas drew back fractionally and fell into a sullen silence.
"Vicky, can you hear me?" Jake called, as he shepherded the
Italian prisoners close in against the hull.
Her voice was muffled and remote from behind the steel plate as she
acknowledged.
"The rear doors," he told her urgently. "Get them open but not before
I tell you." He pushed the Italians around towards the rear of the
car, but it was slow work, for they were confused and stupid with
terror.
Now, "Jake shouted and knocked impatiently against the hull with the
pistol. The lock grated and the doors swung outwards, and came up
against the packed bodies outside.
"Goddamn it," growled Jake, an got his shoulder to one leaf of the
door. He shoved it open, knocking down two Of the closest Gallas and
in the same movement boosted one of the Italians through the opening
into the dark interior of the car. In a panicky scramble, the other
two followed him and Jake swung the door closed on them and put his
back flat against it, and heard the bolts shot closed on the inside,
facing the hating dark faces, and the surging press of their hundreds
of bodies. Voices were raised at the rear of the crowd and violence
was seconds away they had seen most of their prey escape, and it needed
little more to trigger the mob reflex.
Jake found he was panting as though he had run a long way, and his
heart pounded, so that he could feel it jump against his rib cage but
he held Ras Kullah, changing his grip from the pudgy upper arm to the
thick wiry bush of his hair, twining his fingers deeply into the
stiff,
dark halo at the back of his skull and twisting the head so that Ras
Kullah faced his men. With the other hand Jake thrust the pistol
deeply into the aperture of the man's ear hole
"Speak to them, sweet lips He made his voice vicious and menacing.
"Otherwise I'm going to push this piece right out through the other
ear." Ras Kullah understood the tone, if not the words, and he gabbled
out a few hysterical words Of Amharic; the front warriors drew back a
pace and Jake slid slowly along the hull, keeping his back to the steel
and Ras Kullah pinned helplessly by his hair to cover his front. The
crowd moved with them, keeping station with them, their faces glowering
in the moonlight, cruel and angry, balancing critically on the pinnacle
of violence. A voice rang out from the darkness, an authoritative
voice urging action, the crowd growled, and Ras Kullah whimpered in
Jake's grip.
The sound of Ras Kullah's terror warned Jake that they would be
frustrated no longer, the moment was upon them.
"Vicky, are you ready to start?" he called urgently, and her voice was
just audible.
"Ready to start." He felt the fixed crank handle catch him in the back
of the legs, and at that instant a woman's voice shrilled and echoed
through the grove of camel-thorn trees. In that heart-stopping
ululation of the blood trill, the invocation to violence that the heart
of the African warrior cannot resist, the sound struck the jostling
press of Gallas like a whip, stroke and their bodies convulsed and
their voices rose in an answering blood roar.
"Oh Jesus, here they come," thought Jake, and put all his strength into
the arm and shoulder that took Ras Kullah between the shoulder blades
and hurled him forward into the front rank of his own men. He crashed
into them, bringing down half a dozen of them in a sprawling tangle
over which the next rank tumbled and fell.
Jake turned swiftly and stooped to the crank handle. He had chosen
Miss Wobbly for this moment, knowing that she was the most gentle and
well-intentioned of all the cars.
He would have trembled to put the same trust in Priscilla and as it
was, even she coughed and hesitated at the first swing.
"Please, my darling, please, "Jake pleaded desperately, and at the next
swing of the handle she hacked, choked and fired then suddenly she was
running sweetly. Jake jumped for the sponson, just as a great
two-handed sword swung down at him from on high.
He heard the hiss of the blade, passing like the flight of a bat in the
darkness, and he ducked under it. The sword struck the steel hull of
the car and sprayed a fiery burst of sparks, and Jake rolled and fired
the Beretta as the Galla raised the sword to swing again.
He heard the bullet slog into flesh, a meaty thump, and the man
collapsed backwards, the sword spinning from his hand as he went down
but from every direction, robed figures were swarming up the hull of
the car, like safari ants over the carcass of a helpless scarab
beetle,
and the roar of voices was a storm surf of anger.
Drive, Vicky for God's sake, drive," he yelled and slammed the pistol
over the woolly head of a Galla as it rose beside him. The man fell
away and the engine bellowed, the car bounded forward with a jerk that
threw most of the Gallas from the hull, and Jake was himself thrown
half clear, snatching at one of the welded brackets as he went over and
saving himself from falling into the swarming pack of Gallas but the
