The Ethiopian cavalry had fallen well behind at this stage, and the
Rolls had overtaken most of the troop-carriers they were between the
Count and the enemy. The Count was considering ordering Giuseppe to
work his way out on to the flank, and thus give him an open field of
fire weighing the pleasure of shooting down the black riders at a
respectable range against any possible physical danger to himself and
he turned on his precarious perch in the back seat to look out in that
direction.
He stared incredulously at what he saw. Two great humpbacked shapes
were sailing in across the open grassland. They looked like two
deformed camels, coming on swiftly with a curious loping progress that
was at once comical and yet dreadfully menacing.
The Count stared at them uncomprehendingly, until with a sudden jolt of
shock and a new warm flood of adrenalin into his bloodstream,
he realized that the two strange vehicles were moving fast enough and
at such an angle as to cut off his retreat.
'Giuseppe!' he shrieked, and hit the driver with the butt of the
Marmlicher. It was not a heavy blow, it was meant merely to attract
his attention, but Giuseppe had already taken much punishment and was
by now lightly concussed.
He clung to the wheel with white knuckles and roared on directly into
the path of the new enemy.
'Giuseppe!' shrieked the Count again, as he suddenly recognized the
gaily coloured flashes on the turret of the nearest machine, and at the
same instant saw the thick stubby cylindrical shape that protruded
ahead of it. It was fluted vertically and at the far end a short pipe
like muzzle thrust out of the heavy water-jacket.
'Oh, merciful Mother of God!' he howled as the machine altered course
slightly and the muzzle of the Vickers machine gun pointed directly at
him.
'You fool!' he shrieked at Giuseppe, hitting him again.
'Turn! You idiot, turn!' Suddenly through the tears of pain, the
singing in his ears, and the blinding terror that gripped him, Giuseppe
saw the huge camel-like shape looming up ahead of him and he spun the
wheel again just as the muzzle of the Vickers erupted in a fluttering
pillar of bright flame and the air all around them was torn by the hiss
and crack of a thousand bull whips.
Castelani stood on the cab of his truck, and peered disapprovingly
through his binoculars into the distant clouds of rolling dust where
confused movement and shadowy indistinguishable shapes flitted without
seeming purpose or pattern.
It had required all of his presence and authority to restrain the ten
trucks which carried the artillery men and towed their field pieces, to
keep them under his personal command and to prevent them joining in the
wildly enthusiastic rush after the small contingent of
Ethiopian horsemen.
Castelani was about to give the order to mount up and cautiously follow
the Count's charge into history and glory, when he raised the
binoculars again and it seemed that the pattern of dust-obscured
