the lip of another wadi he stopped the Rolls and ordered Gino,
protesting volubly, to stand at attention and offer his shoulder as a
dead-rest for the Marmlicher.
The beisa had slowed now to an exhausted trot, but the range was six
hundred yards as the Count sighted across the intervening scrub and
through heat-dancing air that swirled like gelatinous liquid.
The rifle-fire cracked the desert silences and the antelope kept
trotting steadily away, while the Count shrieked abuse at it and
crammed a fresh load of brass cartridges into the magazine.
The animal was almost beyond effective range now, but the next bullet
fired with the rear sight at maximum elevation fell in a long arcing
trajectory and they heard the thump of the strike, long after the beisa
had collapsed abruptly and disappeared below the line of grey scrub.
When they had found another crossing and forced the
, Rolls through the deep ravine, scraping the rear fender and denting
one of the big silver wheel-hubs, they came up to the spot where the
antelope lay on its side. Leaving the rifle on the back seat in his
eagerness, the Count leapt out before the Rolls had stopped completely.
-Get one of me completing the coup de grace," he shouted at Gino,
as he unholstered the ivory-handled Beretta and ran to the downed
animal.
The soft bullet had shattered the spinal column a few inches forward of
the pelvis, paralysing the hindquarters, and the blood pumped gently
from the wound in a bright rivulet down the pale beige flank.
The Count posed dramatically, pointing the pistol at the magnificently
horned head with its elaborate face-mask of dark chocolate stripes.
Near by, Gino knelt in the soft earth focusing the camera.
At the critical moment, the antelope heaved itself up into a sitting
position and stared with swimming agonized eyes into the
Count's face. The beisa is one of the most aggressive antelopes in
Africa, capable of killing even a fully grown lion with its long rapier
horns. This old bull weighed 450 lb. and stood four feet high at the
shoulder while the horns rose another three feet above that.
The beisa snorted, and the Count forgot all about the levelled pistol
in his hand in his sudden desperate desire to reach the safety of the
Rolls.
Leading the beisa by six inches, he vaulted lightly into the back seat
and crouched on the floorboards, covering his head with both arms while
the beisa battered the sides of the Rolls, driving in one door and
ripping the paintwork with the deadly horns.
Gino was trying to disappear into the earth by sheer pressure, and he
was making a pitiful wailing sound. The driver had stalled the engine,
and he sat frozen in his seat and every time the beisa crashed into the
Rolls, he was thrown so violently forward that his forehead struck the
windshield, and he pleaded, "Shoot it, my Count. Please, my
Count, shoot the monster." The Count's posterior was pointed to the
sky. It was the only part of his anatomy that was visible above the
rear seat of the Rolls and he was shrieking for somebody to hand him
the rifle, but not raising his head to search for it.
The bullet that had severed the beisa's spine had angled forward and
pierced the lung as well. The violent exertions of the stricken animal
tore open a large artery and, with a pitiful bellow and a sudden double
spurt of blood through the nostrils, it collapsed.
In the long silence that followed, the Count's pale face rose slowly
above the level of the back door and he stared fearfully at the
carcass. Its stillness reassured him. Cautiously, he groped for the
Marinlicher, lifted it slowly and poured a stream of bullets into the
inert beisa. His hands were shaking so violently that some of the
shots missed the body and came perilously close to where Gino still
lay, producing a fresh outburst of wails and more mole-like efforts to
become subterranean.
Satisfied that the beisa was at last dead, the Count descended and
walked slowly towards a nearby clump of thorn scrub, but his gait was
bow-legged and stiff, for he had lightly soiled his magnificently
monogrammed silk underwear.
In the cool of the evening, the slightly crumpled Rolls returned to the
battalion bivouac. Draped over the bonnet and across the wide
mudguards lay the bleeding carcasses of the antelopes. The Count stood
to acknowledge the cheers of his troops, a veritable triumphant
Nimrod.
A radio message from General De Bono awaited him. It was not a
reprimand, the General would not go that far, but it pointed out that
although the General was grateful for the Count's efforts up to the
present time, and for his fine sentiments and loyal messages,
nevertheless the General would be very grateful if the Count could find
some way in which to speed up his advance.
The Count sent him a five-hundred-word reply ending, "Ours is the
Victory," and then went to feast on barbecued antelope livers and iced
chianti with his officers.
Leaving the sailing and handling of the HirondeUe to his
Mohammedan mate and his raggedy crew, Captain Papadopoulos had spent
