mounting the fifty-men. Spandau. They are accurate at a thousand
yards and the rate of fire is fifteen rounds a minute." As he was
speaking the leading tank dropped from sight over the reverse slope of
the ridge, followed in quick succession by the five others and their
engine noise droned away into silence.
Gareth lowered his glasses and grinned ruefully. "Well, we are a
little out of our class. Those Spandaus are in fully revolving
turrets. We are out-gunned all to hell."
"We are faster than they are," said Jake hotly, like a mother whose
children had been scorned.
"And that, old son, is all we are, "grunted Gareth.
"How about a bite of breakfast? It's going to be a long hard day to
sit out before it's dark enough to head for home." They ate tinned
Irish stew, heated over the bucket, and smeared on thick spongy hunks
of unleavened bread, washed down by tea, strong and sweet with
condensed milk and lumpy brown sugar. The sun was well up before they
finished.
Jake belched softly. "My turn to sleep," he said, and he curled up
like a big brown dog in the shade under the hull.
Gareth tried to make himself comfortable against the turret and keep
watch out across the open plain, where the mirage was already starting
to quiver and fume in the rising heat. He congratulated himself
comfortably on his choice of shift; he'd had a good few hours" sleep in
the night, and now he had the comparative cool of the morning. By the
time it was Jake's turn on watch again, the sun would be frizzling, and
Priscilla's hull hot as a wood stove.
"Look out for Number One," he murmured, and took a leisurely sweep of
the land with the glasses. There was no way that an Italian patrol
could surprise them here. He had selected the stake-out with a
soldier's eye for ground, and he congratulated himself again, as he
slumped in relaxation against the turret and lit a cheroot.
"Now," he thought. "Just how do you take on a squadron of cavalry
tanks, without artillery, mine-fields or armour-piercing guns ?" and
he let his mind tease and worry the problem. A couple of hours later
he had decided that there were ways, but all of them depended on having
the tanks come in at the right place, from the right direction at the
right time. "Which, of course, is an animal of a completely different
breed," and that took a lot more thought. Another hour later he knew
there was only one way the Italian armoured squadron could be made to
co-operate in its own destruction. "The jolly old donkey and the
carrot trick again," he thought. "Now all we need is a carrot."
Instinctively he looked down at where Jake lay curled. Jake had not
moved once in all the hours, only the deep soft rumble of his breathing
showed he was still alive. Gareth felt a prickle of irritation that he
should be enjoying such undisturbed rest.
The heat was a heavy oppressive pall, pressing down upon the earth,
beating like a gong upon Gareth's head.
The sweat dried almost instantly upon his skin, leaving a rime of salt
crystals, and he screwed up his eyes as he swept the horizon with the
glasses.
The glare and the mirage had obscured the horizon, blotted out even the
nearest ridges behind a shifting throbbing curtain of hot air that
seemed thick as water, swirling and spiralling in wavering columns and
sluggish eddies.
Gareth blinked his eyes, and shook the drops of sweat from his
eyebrows. He glanced at his watch. It was still another hour until
Jake's shift, and he contemplated putting his watch forward. It was
distinctly uncomfortable up on the hull in the sun, and he glanced
again at the sleeping form in the shade.
Just then he caught a sound on the thick heated air, a soft quiver of
sound, like the hive murmur of bees. There was no way in which to tell
the direction of the sound, and Gareth crouched attentively,
straining for it. It faded and returned, faded and returned again, but
this time stronger and more definite. The configuration of the land
and the flawed and heat-faulted air were playing tricks on the ear.
Suddenly the volume of sound climbed swiftly, becoming a humming growl
that shook in the. heat.
Gareth swung the glasses to the east; it seemed to emanate from the
whole curve of the eastern horizon, like the animal growl of the
surf.
For an instant the glare and swirling mirage opened enough for him to
see a huge darkly distorted shape, a grotesque lumbering monster on
four stilt-like legs, seeming as tall as a double-storey building.
Then the mirage closed down again swiftly, leaving Gareth blinking with
doubt and alarm at what he had seen. But now the growl of sound beat
steadily in the air.
Jake," he called urgently, and was answered by a snort and a changed
volume of snore. Gareth broke off a branch from the layer of
camouflage and tossed it at the reclining figure. It caught Jake in
the back of the neck and he came angrily awake, one fist bunched and
ready to punch.
"What the hell-'he snarled.
"Come up here, "called Gareth.
"I can't see a damned thing," muttered Jake, standing high on the
