Part 34 (1/2)
Then again, he feared the Gallas At the beginning of the Italian offensive they had taken no part in the fighting but hadcompletely the trust that the Harari leaders had placed in them Noever, that the Italians had won their first resounding victories, the Gallas had beco like vultures for the scraps that the lions left His own retreat from Arada on his flanks, hiding in the scrub Laid scree slopes along the Dessie road, awaiting each opportunity to fall upon a weak unprotected spot in the unwieldy slow-e old art of ambush, of hit and run, a few throats slit and a dozen rifles stolen but it slowed the retreat slowed it drastically while close behind them followed the Italian horde, and across their rear lay the e
Lij Mikhael roused hih the windscreen The wipers flogged sullenly frolass in the mud-splattered screen, and Lij Mikhaelahead of therunted with so tis faction and the driver pushed the Ford through the slowly ed the road It opened only reluctantly as the sedan butted its way through with the horn blaring angrily, and closed again behind it as it passed
They reached the railway level crossing and Lij Mikhael ordered the driver to pull off the road beside a group of his officers He slipped out bareheaded and iroup of officers surrounded hier to tell his own story, to recite the list of his own requires each with news of fresh disaster, new threats to their very existence
They had no corowing in his chest
At last he gestured for silence ”Is the telephone line to Sardi still open? ”he asked
”The Gallas have not yet cut it It does not follow the railway line but crosses the spur of Ambo Sacal They must have overlooked it”
”Have me connected with the Sardi station I must speak to soorge”
He left the group of officers beside the railway tracks and walked a short way along the Sardi spur
Down there, a few short miles away, the close hter were risking their lives to buy him the time he needed He wondered what price they had already paid, and suddenly, ainto hisFirht aside and he turned to look back at the endless file of bedraggled figures that shuffled along the Dessie road They were in no condition to defend therouped, fed and re-armed in spirit
No, if the Italians came noould be the end
”Excellency, the line to Sardi is open Will you speak? Lij Mikhael turned back and went to where a field telephone had been hooked into the Sardi-Dessie telephone line The copper wires dangled down froraph poles overhead, and Lij Mikhael took the handset that the officer handed him and spoke quietly into the mouthpiece
Beside the station master's office in the railway yards of Sardi town stood the long cavernous warehouse used for the storage of grain and other goods The roof and walls were clad with corrugated galvanized iron which had been daubed a dull rusty red with oxide paint
The floor was of raw concrete, and tire cold ated sheets
At a hundred places, the roof leaked where the galvanizing had rusted away, and the rain dripped steadily for icy puddles on the bare concrete floor
There were alor blankets, and e lines on the hard concrete, and the cold cas, and the rain dripped down upon theh roof
There was no sanitation, no bed pans, no running water, and most of the oods yard The stench was a solid tangible thing that per after he had left the shed
There was no antiseptic, no medicine not even a bottle of Lysol or a packet of Aspro The tiny store of o been exhausted The Gerht with no anaesthetic and nothing to combat the secondary infection
Already the stink of putrefying wounds was al as the other stench
The en mustard All that could be done was to srease They had found two drums of this in the loco shed
Vicky Cao
Since then, she had worked without ceasing a pitiful lines of bodies Her face was deadly pale in the gloom of the shed, and her eyes had receded into dark bruised craters Her feet were swollen fro, and her shoulders and her back ached with a dull unreony Her linen dress was stained with specks of dried blood, and other less savoury secretions and she worked on, in despair that there was so little they could do for the hundreds of casualties
She could help them to drink the water they cried out for, clean those that lay in their own filth, hold a black pleading hand as theup over his face and signal one of the over, workedin another fro up on the open stoep of the shed
One of the orderlies stooped over her now, shaking her shoulder urgently, and it was so Then she pushed herself stiffly up off her knees, and stood for athe small of her back with both hands while the pain there eased, and the dark giddiness in her head abated Then she followed the orderly out across the muddy fouled yard to the station office
She lifted the telephone receiver to her ear and her voice was husky and slurred as she said her name
”Miss Camberwell, this is Lij Mikhael here” His voice was scratchy and remote, and she could hardly catch the words, for the rain still rattled on the iron roof above her head ”I am at the Dessie crossroads”
”The train,” she said, her voice fir Lij Mikhael, where is the train you promised? We must have medicine antiseptic, anaesthetic don't you understand? There are six hundred woundedlike ani hysteria in her voice, and she cut herself off
”Miss Camberwell The train I am sorry I sent it to you
With supplies Medicines Another doctor It left Dessie yesterdayon its way down the gorge to Sardi-”
”Where is it, then?” demanded Vicky ”We must have it
You don't knohat it's like here”
”I'm sorry, Miss Camberwell
The train will not reach you It was derailed in the mountains fifteen miles north of Sardi Ras Kullah's men the Gallas were in ambush
They had torn up the tracks, they have Fired everybody aboard and burned the coaches” There was a long silence between them, only the static hissed and buzzed across the wires
”Miss Camberwell Are you there?”
”Yes”
”Do you understand what I a?”
”Yes, I understand”
”There will be no train” ”No” Ras Kullah has cut the road between here and Sardi”
”Yes”
”nobody can reach you and there is no escape from Sardi up the railway line
Ras Kullah has five thousand nable He can hold the road against an army”
”We are cut off,” said Vicky thickly ”The Italians in front of us The Gallas behind us” Again the silence between them, then Lij Mikhael asked, ”Where are the Italians now, Miss Cae, where the last waterfall crosses the road-”
She paused and listened intently, reain ”You can hear the Italian guns They are firing all the tiet a e to Major Swales?”