Part 7 (2/2)
Sergeant Gino wished to cheer him He hated to see his Count in misery and so he attempted to rekindle the warlike spirit of yesterday
”Think on it, my Count We of the entire army of Italy will be the very first to confront the enemy The first to meet the blood-thirsty barbarian with his cruel heart and red hands” The Count thought on it as he was bidden He thought on it with great concentration and increasing nausea
Suddenly he became aware that of all the 360,000 men that comprised the expeditionary forces of Italy, he, Aldo Belli, was the very first, the veritable point of the spear aimed at Ethiopia He remembered suddenly the horror stories he had heard frohed all others the Ethiopians castrated their prisoners He felt the contents of that noble sac between his thighs retracting forcibly and a fresh sweat broke out upon his brow
Stop!” he shrieked at the driver ”Stop, this instant”
A bare two ed into confusion by the abrupt halt of the lead vehicle, and, answering the loud and urgent shouts of the co officer, the Major hurried forward to learn that the order of march had been altered The command car would take up station in the exact centre of the coluht back to ride as flank guards
It was another hour before the new arrangement could be put into effect and once reat empty land with its distant s heavens
Count Aldo Belli rode easier on the luxurious leather of the Rolls, cheered by the knowledge that preceding him were three hundred and forty-five fine rubbery sets of peasant testicles upon which the barbarian could blunt his blade
The colu fifty-three kilometres from Asmara Not even the Count could pretend that this was a forced e was that a pair of motorcyclists could send back with a despatch for General De Bono reassuring hi ardour of the Third Battalion and, of course, on their return the cyclists could carry blocks of ice from the casino packed in salt and straw and stowed in the sidecars
The following ood cheer He rose early at nine ” O clock and took a hearty alfresobeakfast with his officers under the shade of a spread tarpaulin and then, froave a clenched fist cavalry order to advance
Still in the centre of the colu, the Rolls glided forward and it looked, even to the disillusioned Major, as if theygrassland fell away al wheels, and the blue looradually with the lighter fiercer blue of the sky The transition to desert country was so gradual as to lull the unobservant traveller
The intervals between the flat-topped acacia trees becareater and the trees themselves were ressed, until at last they ceased and the bushes of spino Cristi replaced therey and low and viciously thor ned The earth was parched and crurass and the horizon was unbroken, enclosing them entirely The land itself was so flat and featureless that it gave the illusion of being saucer-shaped, as though the rih this wilderness, the road was slashed like the claw mark of a predator into the fleshy red soil The tracks were so deeply rutted that the middle hump constantly brushed the chassis of the Rolls, and aafter the column had passed
The Colonel was bored and uncoly clear, even to the Count, that the wilderness harboured no hostile horde, and his courage and impatience returned
”Drive to the head of the column,” he instructed Giuseppe, and the Rolls pulled out and sped past the leading trucks, the Count bestowing a cheery salute on Castelani as he left hi behind hiain, two hours later, the Count was standing on the burnished bonnet of the Rolls staring through his binoculars at the horizon and doing an excited little dance while he urged Gino tothe special Mantilicher 93rifle from its leather case The weapon was of seasoned walnut, butt and stock, and the blued steel was inlaid with twenty-four-carat gold hunting scenes of the chase boar and stag, huntsmen on horseback and hounds in full cry It was athe binoculars, he gave orders to Castelani to erect the radio aerial and send a ood cheer and enthusiasress made by the battalion to date and assure him that they would soon coe The Major should also put the coluer and set up the ice machine while the Colonel undertook a reconnaissance patrol in the direction in which he was now staring so intently
The group of big dun-coloured ani steadily away into the ht horns showed dark and lo the against the distant sky
Gino had the loaded Mannlicher in the rear seat and the Count juer seat beside the driver Standing holding the windshi+eld with one hand, he gave his officers the Fascist salute, and the Rolls roared forward, left the road and careered aeaving around in pursuit of the distant herd
The beisa oryx is a large and beautiful desert antelope
There were eight of theht before the Rolls had approached within three-quarters of a round, their pale beige hides blending cunningly with the soft colours of the desert, but the long wicked black horns rode proudly as any battle standard
The Rolls gained steadily on the running herd, with the Count hysterically urging his driver to greater speed, ignoring the thorn branches that scored the flawless sides of the big bluewas one of the Count'swere specially bred on his estates, but this was the first large game he had encountered since his arrival in Africa The herd was strung out, two old bulls leading, plunging ahead with a light rocking-horse gait, while the cows and two youngerside at a range of twenty yards The galloping oryx did not turn its head but ran on doggedly after its stronger companions
”Halt,” shrieked the Count, and the driver stood on his brakes, the car broadsiding to rest in a billowing cloud of dust The Count tumbled out of the open door and threw up the Mannlicher The barrel kicked up and the shots crashed out The first was a touch high and it threw a puff of dust off the earth far beyond the running animal the second slapped into the pale fur in front of the shoulder and the young oryx sole of li aboard the Rolls as it roared away once again The herd was already far ahead but inexorably the Rolls closed the gap and at last drew level Again the ringing crack of rifle-fire and the sliding, tu fall of a heavy pale body
Like a paper chase, they left the wasteland littered with the pale bodies until only one old bull ran on alone And he was cunning, swinging aard into the broken ground for which he clearly headed at the outset of the chase
It was hours and many miles later when the Count lost all patience On 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 ahile the Count shrieked abuse at it and craazine
The anie now, but the next bullet fired with the rear sight attrajectory and they heard the thu 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 ca the rifle on the back seat in his eagerness, the Count leapt out before the Rolls had stopped corace,” he shouted at Gino, as he unholstered the ivory-handled Beretta and ran to the downed animal
The soft bullet had shattered the spinal colu the hindquarters, and the blood puht rivulet down the pale beige flank
The Count posed dranificently horned head with its elaborate face-mask of dark chocolate stripes Near by, Gino knelt in the soft earth focusing the camera
At the criticalposition and stared with swionized eyes into the Count's face The beisa is one of theeven 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 ar in one door and ripping the paintith the deadly horns
Gino was trying to disappear into the earth by sheer pressure, and he was ine, 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 windshi+eld, 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 so 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 anie 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 hiroped for the Marinlicher, lifted it slowly and poured a strea so violently that some of the shots missed the body and ca 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 clued and stiff, for he had lightly soiled his ra, the slightly crumpled Rolls returned to the battalion bivouac Draped over the bonnet and across the widecarcasses of the antelopes The Count stood to acknowledge the cheers of his troops, a veritable triue from General De Bono awaited hio that far, but it pointed out that although the General was grateful for the Count's efforts up to the present ties, nevertheless the General would be very grateful if the Count could find some way in which to speed up his advance
The Count sent hi, ”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 Mohaedy crew, Captain Papadopoulos had spent the preceding five days sitting at the table in his low-roofed poop cabin playing two-handed gin ruested the diversion and it had occurred to the Captain by this ti unnatural in the consistent run of winning cards which had distinguished Gareth's play