replaced the shattered windscreen and the broken lamp glass.
"I have here a message received an hour ago which I shall read to you,"
shouted the Count, and the parade stirred with interest. "The message
is personal to me from Benito Mussolini."
"II Duce. 11 Duce. "Duce,"roared the battalion in unison, like a
well-trained orchestra, and the Count lifted a hand to restrain them
and he began to read.
"My heart swells with pride when I contemplate the feat of arms
undertaken by the gallant sons of Italy, children of the Fascist
revolution, whom you command'-" the Count's voice choked a little.
When the speech ended, his men cheered him wildly, throwing their
helmets in the air. "The Count climbed down from the Rolls and went
amongst them, weeping, embracing a man here, kissing another there,
shaking hands left and right and then clasping his own hands above his
head like a successful prizefighter and crying "Ours is the victory,"
and "Death before dishonour," until his voice was hoarse and he was led
away to his tent by two of his officers.
However, a glass of grappa helped him recover his composure and he was
able to pour a warrior's scorn on the radio message from General De
Bono which accompanied the paean of praise from 11 Duce.
De Bono was alarmed and deeply chagrined to discover that the officer
he had judged to be an ineffectual blowhard had indeed turned out to be
a firebrand. In view of the Duce's personal message to the count, he
could not, without condemning himself to the political wilderness,
order the man back to headquarters and under his protective wing where
he could be restrained from any further flamboyant action.
The man had virtually established himself as an independent command.
Mussolini had chided De Bono with his failure to go on the offensive,
and had held up the good Count's action as an example of duty and
dedication. He had directly ordered De Bono to support the Count's
drive on the Sardi Gorge and to reinforce him as necessary.
De Bono's response had been to send the Count a long radiogram, urging
him to the utmost caution and pleading with him to advance only after
reconnaissance in depth and after having secured both flanks and
rear.
Had he delivered this advice forty-eight hours earlier, it would have
been most enthusiastically received by Aldo Belli. But now, since the
victory at the Wells of Chaldi and wou the Duce's congratulatory
message, the Count was a changed man. He had tasted the sweets of
battle honours and learned how easily they could be won. He knew now
that he was opposed by a tribe of primitive black men in long night,
dresses armed with museum weapons, who ran and fell with gratifying
expedition when his men opened fire.
"Gentlemen," he addressed his officers. "I have today received a code
green message from General De Bono. The armies of Italy are on the
march. At twelve hundred hours today," he glanced at his wrist-watch,
"in just twelve minutes" time, the forward elements of the army will
cross the Mareb River and begin the march on the savage capital of
Addis Ababa. We stand now at the leading edge of the sword of history.
The fields of glory are ripening on the mountains ahead of us and the
for one, intend that the Third Battalion shall be there when the
harvest is gathered in." His officers made polite, if uncommitted
sounds. They were beginning to be alarmed by this change in their
Colonel. It was to be hoped that this was rhetoric rather than real
intention.
"Our esteemed commander has urged me to exercise the utmost caution in
my advance on the Sardi Gorge," and they smiled and nodded vehemently,
but the Count scowled dramatically and his voice rang. "I will not sit
here quiescent, while glory passes me by." A shudder of unease ran
through the assembled officers, like the forest shaken by the first
winds of winter, and they joined in only halfheartedly when the Count
began to sing' La Giovinezza'.
Lij Mikhael had agreed that one of the cars might be used to carry Sara
up the gorge to the town of Sardi where a Catholic mission station was
run by an elderly German doctor. The bullet wound in the girl's leg
was not healing cleanly, and the heat and swelling of the flesh and the
watery yellow discharge from the wound were causing Vicky the greatest
concern.
Fuel for the cars had come down from Addis Ababa on the narrow gauge
railway as far as Sardi, and had then been packed down the steeper,
lower section of the gorge by mule and camel. It waited for them now
at the foot of the gorge where the Sardi River debauched through a
forest of acacia trees into a triangular valley, which in turn widened
to a mouth fifteen miles across before giving way to the open desert.
At the head of the valley, the river sank into the dry earth and began
its long subterranean journey to where it emerged at last in the
scattered water-holes at the Wells of Chaldi.
Lij Mikhael was going up to Sardi with Vicky's car for he had arranged
to meet the Ras of the Gallas there in an attempt to co-ordinate the
