Gareth struck one of the Swan Vestas and casually lit the cheroot in
his mouth. When it was drawing nicely, he cupped the match to let the
game flare brightly.
"Here we go, chaps," he murmured. "Guy Fawkes, Guy.
Stick him in the eye. Hang him on a lamp post' he flicked the burning
match on to the gasoline-sodden earth, and leave him there to die." For
a moment nothing happened, and then with a thump that concussed the air
against their eardrums, the gasoline ignited.
Instantly the belt of scrub turned to atoll roaring red inferno, and
the flames boiled and swirled, leaped and drummed high into the desert
air, engulfing the four stranded tanks in sheets of fire that obscured
their menacing silhouettes.
The Ethiopians watched from the dunes, awed by the terrible pageant of
destruction they had created. Only the Ras still danced and howled at
the edge of the flames, the blade of his sword reflecting the red
leaping flames.
The hatches of the nearest tank were thrown open, and out into the
searing air leaped three figures, indistinct and shadowy through the
flames. Beating wildly at their burning uniforms, the tank crew came
staggering out on to the slope of the dune.
The Ras flew to meet them, the sword hissing and glinting as it swung.
The head of the tank commander seemed to leap from his fire-blackened
shoulders, as the blade cut through. The head struck the ground behind
him and rolled back down the dune like a ball, while the decapitated
trunk dropped to its knees with a fine crimson spray from the neck
pumping straight up into the air.
The Ras raced on towards the other survivors, and his men roared
angrily and swarmed forward after him. Jake uttered a horrified oath
and started forward to restrain them.
"Easy, old son." Gareth caught Jake's arm, and swung him away.
"This is no time for one of your boy scout acts." From below them rose
the ugly blood roar of the destroyers, as they fell upon the survivors
of the other tanks, and the Italians" screams cut like a whiplash
across Jake's nerves.
"Let's leave them to it." Gareth drew Jake away. "Not our business,
old boy. The beggars have got to take their own chances.
Rules of the game." Across the crest of the dune they leaned together
against the steel hull of Priscilla. Jake was panting heavily from his
exertions and his horror. Gareth found him a slightly crumpled cheroot
in the inside pocket of his tweed jacket, and straightened it carefully
before placing it between Jake's lips.
"Told you before, your sentimental but endearing ways will get us both
into trouble. They'd have torn you to pieces also if you'd gone down
there." He lit Jake's cheroot.
"Well, old boy-" he changed the subject diplomatically.
"That takes care of our biggest problem. No tanks no worries,
that's an old Swales family motto," and he chuckled lightly. "We'll be
able to hold them at the mouth of the gorge for another week now. No
trouble at all." Abruptly the sunlight was obscured, and instantly the
temperature dropped sharply. Both of them glanced up involuntarily at
the sky, at the gloom and the sudden chill.
In the last hour, the masses of cloud had come slumping down from the
mountains, blotting them out completely, and spreading out on to the
fringes of the Danakil desert.
From this thick, dark mattress of swirling cloud, fine pale streamers
of rain were already spiralling down towards the plain. Jake felt a
droplet splatter against his forehead and he wiped it away with the
back of his hand.
"I say, we're in for a drop or two," murmured Gareth, and as if in
confirmation the deep mutter of thunder echoed down from the
cloud-shrouded mountains, and lightning flared sulkily, trapped within
the towering cloud masses and lighting them internally with a
smouldering infernal glow.
"That's going to make things-" Gareth cut himself off, and both of them
cocked their heads.
"Hello, that's decidedly odd." Faintly on the brooding air,
carrying above the mutter of thunder, came the popping of musketry and
the sound of machine-gun fire, like the sound of tearing silk, made
indistinct and un warlike by distance and the muting banks of heavy
cloud.
"Deuced odd." Gareth repeated. "There should not be any firing from
there." It was in their rear, seeming to come from the very mouth of
the gorge itself.
"Come on," snapped Jake, picking his binoculars out of Priscilla's
hatch and scrambling through the loose red sand for the crest of the
tallest dune.
The cloud and misty streamers of rain obscured the mouth of the gorge,
but now the sound of gunfire was continuous.
"That's not just a skirmish," muttered Gareth.
"It's a full-scale fire fight," Jake agreed, peering through the
binoculars.
"What is it, Jake?" Gregorius came up the dune to where they stood. He
was followed by his grandfather but the old man moved slowly, exhausted
and stiff with age and the aftermath of burned-out passions.
"We don't know, Greg. "Jake did not lower the binoculars.
"I don't understand it." Gareth shook his head. "Any Italian probe
from the south would have run into our positions in the foothills, and
