Almost entirely due to his single-handed efforts, the battalion was
drawn up in marching order an hour before dawn. Six hundred and ninety
men with their motorized transports strung out down the main street of
Asmara. The lorries were crammed with silent men huddling in their
greatcoats against the mild morning chill. The motorcycle outriders
were sitting astride their machines flanking the newly polished but
passenger-less Rolls-Royce command car, with its gay pennants and its
driver sitting lugubriously at the wheel. A charged sense of
apprehension and uncertainty gripped the entire assembly of warriors.
There had been wild rumours flying about the battalion for the last
twelve hours they had been selected for some desperate and dangerous
mission. The previous evening the mess sergeant had actually witnessed
the Colonel Count Aldo Belli weeping with emotion as he toasted his
junior officers with the fighting slogan of the regiment,
"Death before dishonour," which might sound fine on a bellyful of
chianti, but left a hollow feeling at five in the morning on top of a
breakfast of black bread and weak coffee.
The Third Battalion was in a collectively sombre mood as the sun came
up in a blaze of hot scarlet, forcing them almost immediately to
discard the greatcoats. The sun climbed into a sky of burning blue and
the men waited as patiently as oxen in the traces. Someone once
observed that war is ninety-nine per cent boredom and one per cent
unmitigated terror. The Third Battalion was learning the ninety-nine
per cent.
Major Luigi Castelani sent yet another messenger to the Colonel's
quarters a little before noon, and this time received a reply that
the
Count was now actually out of bed and had almost completed his toilet.
He would join the battalion shortly. The Major swore with the practice
of an old campaigner and set off with his rolling swagger down the
column to quell the mutinous mutterings from the half mile-long column
of canvas-covered lorries sweltering in the midday sun.
The Count came like the rising sun itself, glowing and glorious,
flanked by two captains and preceded by a trooper carrying the battle
standard which the Count had personally designed. It was based on the
eagles of a Roman legion, complete with shrieking birds of prey and
dangling silken tassels.
The Count floated on a cloud of bonhomie and expensive eau de cologne.
Gino got a few good shots of him embracing his junior officers, and
slapping the backs of the senior NCOs. At the common soldiers he
smiled like a father and spurred their spleens with a few apt homilies
on duty and sacrifice as he strode down the column.
"What a fine body of warriors," he told the Major. "I am moved to
song." Luigi Castelani winced. The Colonel was frequently moved to
song. He had taken lessons with the most famous teachers in Italy and
as a younger man he had seriously considered a career in opera.
Now he halted and spread his arms, threw back his head and let the song
flow in a deep ringing baritone. Dutifully, his officers joined in the
stirring chorus of "La Giovinezza', the Fascist marching song.
The Colonel moved slowly back along the patient column in the sunlight,
pausing to strike a pose as he went for a high note, lifting his right
hand with the tip of the second finger lightly touching the thumb,
while the other hand grasped the beiewelled dagger at his waist.
The song ended and the Colonel cried, "Enough! It is time to march
where are the maps?" and one of his subalterns hurried forward with
the map case.
"Colonel, sir," Luigi Castelani intervened tactfully. "The road is
well sign-posted, and I have two native guides-" The Count ignored him
and watched while the maps were spread on the glistening bonnet of the
Rolls.
"Ah!" He studied the maps learnedly, then looked up at his two
captains. "One of you on each side of me," he instructed. "Major Vita
you here! A stern expression, if you please, and do not look at the
camera." He pointed with a lordly gesture at Johannesburg four
thousand miles to the south and held the pose long enough for Gino to
record it. Next, he climbed into the rear seat of the Rolls and,
standing, he pointed imperatively ahead along the road to the Danakil
desert.
Mistakenly, Luigi Castelani took this as a command to advance. He let
out a series of bull-like bellows and the battalion was galvanized into
frantic action. Like one man, they scrambled into the covered lorries
and took their seats on the long benches, each in full matching order
with a hundred rounds of ammunition in his bandolier and a rifle
between his knees.
However, by the time 690 men were embarked, the Colonel had once more
descended from the Rolls. It was an unfortunate chance that dictated
that the Rolls should be parked directly in front of the casino.
The casino was a government-licensed institution under whose auspices
young ladies were brought out from Italy on six-month contracts to
cater to the carnal needs of tens of thousands of lusty young men in a
woman less environment.
