in across the plain from the rout at the wells, lines of camels and
knots of goo NEW 40it horsemen surrounded by amorphous formations of
foot soldiers. 'If the Gallas join us, they can provide another five
thousand fighting men that will bring our strength to twelve thousand
or thereabouts. I have had my scouts study the Italian encampment, and
they report an effective strength of under a thousand. Even with their
armaments, we should hold them here for many days 'Unless they are
reinforced, which they will be, or bring up armour, which they will do,
'said Gareth.
'Then we will withdraw into the gorge demolishing the road as we go,
and resisting at each strong place. We won't be able to use the cars
again until we reach Sardi but there in the bowl of the mountains there
is good open ground and room to manoeuvre. It is also the last point
at which we can effectively block the Italian advance.' They were
silent again and the sound of an engine came up to them. They watched
the armoured car reach the foot of the gorge and begin growling and
nosing its way upwards, at the pace of a walking man, except where it
had to back and lock hard to make one of the sleep hairpin bends in the
road. The Lij roused himself and sighed with what seemed a deep
weariness of the spirit.
'One thing I must mention to you, gentlemen. My father is a warrior in
the old style. He does not know the meaning of fear, and he cannot
imagine the effect of modern weapons especially the machine gun on
massed foot soldiers. I trust you to restrain his exuberance.' Jake
remembered the bodies hanging like dirty laundry on the barbed wire of
France, and felt the cold tickle run up his spine. Nobody spoke again
until the car, still blazoned with its crimson crosses, drew up level
with where they stood and they scrambled down the bank to meet it.
Vicky's head appeared in the hatch. She must have found an opportunity
to bathe, for her hair was newly washed and shiny and caught behind her
head in a silk ribbon. The sun had bleached her hair to a whiter gold,
but the peachy velvet of her complexion had been gilded by that same
sun to a darker honey colour. Immediately Jake and Gareth moved
forward, neither trusting the other to be alone with her for an
instant.
But she was brusque, and concerned only with the injured girl who was
laid out on the floor of the cab on a hastily improvised bed of
blankets and skins. Her leave-taking was off-hand and distracted while
the Lij climbed in through the rear doors, and she pulled away again up
the steep track followed by a squadron of the Prince's bodyguard
looking like a gang of cut-throats on their shaggy mountain ponies,
festooned with bandoliers of ammunition and hung with rifles and
swords. They clattered away after the car, and Jake watched them out
of sight. He felt a sense of deep unease that the girl should be up
there in the mountains beyond any help that he could give her. He was
staring after the car.
'Put your mind back in your pants,' Gareth advised him cynically.
'You're gain' to need it for the Eyeties, now.' from the foot of the
gorge to the lip of the bowl of land in which stood the town of Sardi
