Part 26 (1/2)
”Let's get them into the car first” And theytheures jostled Jake roughly, trying hi his weight across and swivelling a quarter of a turn It was so swift that the Galla could not avoid the blow; even if he had seen it, he was hemmed in and constrained by the press of his comrades” bodies
Jake hit hiht hi off his front teeth cleanly frouh the frontal sinuses to the brain
The man dropped without a sound and was immediately hidden from view by the men who stumbled over him as they followed But they did not press so hard now, and Jake switched the pistol back to Ras Kullah's head The entire incident was over before Kullah could cry out or squirrip that had bruised and twisted his upper ar the ently Ahead of thely huht and silhouetted by the dying ash heaps of the ca a chance on Priscilla starting first kick,” he grated ”Use the driver's hatch
Don't worry about anything else but getting behind that wheel”
”What about the prisoners?”
”Do what you're told, don't argue, damn it” They ithin twenty feet of the car now, and he told her, ”Now, go, fast as you can” She darted away, reaching the high side of Miss Wobbly before any of the Gallas could intervene and she went up it with a single agile bound
”Close down,” Jake shouted after her, and felt a quick lift of relief as the hatch clanged shut The ( gal las growled like the wolf-pack denied its prey and they swar the car
Jake fired a single shot in the air, and Ras Kullah screamed a command The Gallas drew back fractionally and fell into a sullen silence
”Vicky, can you hear me?” Jake called, as he shepherded the Italian prisoners close in against the hull
Her voice was muffled and reed
”The rear doors,” he told her urgently ”Get them open but not before I tell you” He pushed the Italians around towards the rear of the car, but it was sloork, for they were confused and stupid with terror
Now, ”Jake shouted and knocked irated and the doors swung outwards, and caainst the packed bodies outside
”Goddaot his shoulder to one leaf of the door He shoved it open, knocking doo Of the closest Gallas and in the sa into the dark interior of the car In a panicky scra the door closed on theainst it, and heard the bolts shot closed on the inside, facing the hating dark faces, and the surging press of their hundreds of bodies Voices were raised at the rear of the crowd and violence was seconds away they had seen er the h he had run a long way, and his heart pounded, so that he could feel it jurip froy upper arers deeply into the stiff, dark halo at the back of his skull and twisting the head so that Ras Kullah faced his men With the other hand Jake thrust the pistol deeply into the aperture of the man's ear hole ”Speak to the ”Otherwise I'h the other ear” Ras Kullah understood the tone, if not the words, and he gabbled out a few hysterical words Of Amharic; the front warriors drew back a pace and Jake slid slowly along the hull, keeping his back to the steel and Ras Kullah pinned helplessly by his hair to cover his front The crowd lowering in thecritically on the pinnacle of violence A voice rang out fro action, the crowd growled, and Ras Kullah whirip
The sound of Ras Kullah's terror warned Jake that they would be frustrated no longer, the moment was upon theently, and her voice was just audible
”Ready to start” He felt the fixed crank handle catch his, and at that instant a worove of ca ululation of the blood trill, the invocation to violence that the heart of the African warrior cannot resist, the sound struck the jostling press of Gallas like a whip, stroke and their bodies convulsed and their voices rose in an answering blood roar
”Oh Jesus, here they coth into the arm and shoulder that took Ras Kullah between the shoulder blades and hurled him forward into the front rank of his owndown half a dozen of thele over which the next rank tumbled and fell
Jake turned swiftly and stooped to the crank handle He had chosen Miss Wobbly for this entle and well-intentioned of all the cars
He would have trembled to put the sahed and hesitated at the first swing
”Please, , please, ”Jake pleaded desperately, and at the next swing of the handle she hacked, choked and fired then suddenly she was running sweetly Jake ju down at hih
He heard the hiss of the blade, passing like the flight of a bat in the darkness, and he ducked under it The sword struck the steel hull of the car and sprayed a fiery burst of sparks, and Jake rolled and fired the Beretta as the Galla raised the sword to swing again
He heard the bullet slog into flesh, a meaty thu froures were swar up the hull of the car, like safari ants over the carcass of a helpless scarab beetle, and the roar of voices was a storer
Drive, Vicky for God's sake, drive,” he yelled and slammed the pistol over the woolly head of a Galla as it rose beside hiine bellowed, the car bounded forith a jerk that threw most of the Gallas from the hull, and Jake was hi at one of the welded brackets as he went over and saving hi pack of Gallas but the pistol dropped out of his hand as he clung grimly to his precarious hold
Miss Wobbly, under Vicky's thrusting foot, roared into the thick wall of men ahead of her and few of thee Their bodies went down before her, thudding against the frontal plate of the car, their blood roar changing swiftly to yells and shrieks of consternation as they scattered away into the darkness and the car burst free of the press and tore on down the slope
Jake draiwed hiainst the turret, as he rose to his knees Beside hi in terror while his sha air Jake put one foot against the man's raised buttocks and thrust hard Thecar, and hit the earth with a crunch that was audible even above the roaring engine
Jake crawled back along the heaving, violently rocking hull and with fist and foot he threw over side one at a tio of terrified Gallas Vicky took the car down the slope under full throttle, weaving wildly through the trees of the grove and at last out on to the openwith his fist on the driver's hatch, Jake ed to arrest Vicky's wild drive, and she braked the car to a cautious halt
She cah the hatch and ehtly around his neck Jake made no attempt to avoid the circle of her arms, and a silence settled over theotten about their prisoners in the pleasure of thein the depths of the car Slowly they drew apart, and Vicky's eyes were soft and lustrous in the s,” she whispered ”You saved them from that-” and words failed her as she remembered the one they had been too late to save
Yes, ”Jake agreed ”But what the hell do we do with them now!”
”We could take them up to the Harari Camp the Ras would treat them fairly”
”Don't bet money on it” Jake shook his head ”They are all Ethiopians and their rules of the game are different from ours I wouldn't like to take a chance on it”
”Oh Jake, I'm sure he wouldn't allow them to be-, ”Anyway,” Jake interrupted, ”if we handed them over to the Hararil Ras Kullah would be there the next ree, we'd all be in the middle of a tribal war No, it won't do”
”We'll have to turn them loose, ”said Vicky at last
”They'd never make it back to the Wells of Chaldi” Jake looked to the east, across the broodingwith Ethiopian scouts They would have their throats slit before they'd gone a mile”
”We'll have to take them,” said Vicky, and Jake looked sharply at her
”Take them?”
”In the car drive out to the Wells of Chaldi”
”The Eyeties would love that,” he grunted ”Have you forgotten those fla of truce,” said Vicky
”There is no other way, Jake Truly there isn't” Jake thought about it silently for a fulldrive Let's get going” They drove without headlights, not wanting to attract the attention of the Ethiopian scouts or the Italians, but the ht their way and define the ravines and rougher ground with crisp black shadows, although occasionally the wheels would crash painfully into one of the deep round holes dug by the aardvarks, the nocturnal long-nosed beasts which burrowed for the subterranean colonies of termites
The three half-naked Italian survivors huddled down in the rear compartment of the car, so exhausted by fear and the day's adventures that they passed swiftly into sleep, a sleep so deep that neither the noisy roar of the engine within the round could disturb them They lay like dead men in an untidy heap
Vicky Camberwell cliht air, and squeezed into the space beside the driver's seat For a while she spoke quietly with Jake, but soon her voice became drowsy and finally dried up Then slowly she toppled sideways against hiolden head down on to his shoulder and held her like that, warainst hiht
The Italian sentries were sweeping the periular intervals with a pair of powerful anti-aircraft searchlights, probably in anticipation of a night attack by the Ethiopians, and the glow of the beaht into the desert sky Jake ho as he closed in He knew that the engine beat would carry many miles in the stillness, but that at lower revs it would be diffused and iuessed he ithin two or three miles of the Italian camp when in confirmation that the sentries had heard his approach, and that after their recent experiences they were highly sensitive to the sound of a Bentley engine, a star shell sailed upwards a thousand feet into the sky and burst with a fierce blue-white light that lit the desert like a stage for miles beneath it Jake hit the brakes hard, and waited for the shell to sink slowly to earth He did not want ht died away and left the night blacker than before, but beside hiroggily, pushi+ng the hair out of her eyes andsleepily
”What is it?”