This solid phalanx of vehicles, advancing almost wheel to wheel over
the rough ground, at a speed which would have horrified the
manufacturers, was suddenly faced with the urgent necessity of
reversing its headlong career without any loss of speed.
The drivers of the two leading trucks whose need was most critical
solved the problem by spinning_ the wheels to hard lock, one left and
the other right, and they came together radiator to radiator at a
combined speed in excess of sixty miles per hour. In a roaring cloud
of steam, splintering glass and rending metal, their cargoes of black
shirted infantry men were scattered like wheat upon the earth, or
impaled on various metal projections of the vehicle bodies. The
trucks, inextricably locked into each other, settled slowly on their
shattered suspensions, and no sooner had the dust begun to drift away
than there was a belly baking thump as the contents of their shattered
fuel tanks ignited in a tall volcanic spout of flame and black smoke.
The other vehicles managed to reverse their courses without serious
collision and streamed away into their own dust-clouds, pursued by a
horde of galloping, gibbering cavalry.
Count Aldo Belli could not bring himself to glance back over his
shoulder, certain that he would find a razor-edged sword swishing
inches from his cringing rear, and he leaned over his driver, spurring
him to greater speed by beating on his unprotected head and shoulders
with a fist clenched like a hammer.
'Faster!' shouted the Count, his fine baritone rising to an uncertain
contralto. 'Faster, you idiot or I will have you shod' and he hit the
driver again behind one ear, experiencing a small spark of relief as
the Rolls overtook the rear vehicles in the disordered herd of fleeing
trucks.
Now at last he judged it safe to look back, and his relief was more
intense when he realized that the Rolls was easily capable of out
-running a mounted man. He experienced a warm flood of returning
courage.
'My rifle, Gino,' he shouted. 'Give me my rifle.' But the
Sergeant was trying to focus his camera on the pursuing horde, and
the
Count hit him a blow over the top of his head.
'Idiot. This is war,' he bellowed. 'And I am a warrior give me my
rifle!' Giuseppe, the driver, hearing him, reluctantly decided that he
was expected to slow the Rolls to give the Count an opportunity to
follow his warlike intentions but, at the first diminution of speed,
he received another lusty crack on the centre of his pate and the
Count's voice went shrill again.
'Idiot,' he screeched. 'Do you want to get us killed?
Faster, man, faster!' and with unbounded relief the driver pushed his
foot flat on the throttle and the Rolls leapt forward again.
Gino was down on his hands and knees at the Count's feet, and now he
came up with the Mannlicher in his hands and handed it to the Count.
'It's loaded, my Count.'
'Brave boy!' The Count braced himself with the rifle held at his hip,
and looked about for something to shoot at.
