followed its violent efforts to dislodge him, closing in rapidly until
he was twenty yards behind it.
The back of the truck was packed with black-shirted infantry men. Some
of them were directing wild but rapid rifle fire at the pursuing car,
the bullets clanging and whining off the hull, but most of them clung
white-faced to the sides of the truck and stared back with stricken
eyes as the armoured death carrier bore down inexorably upon them.
'Shoot, Greg!' called Jake. Even through the cold anger that gripped
him, he was pleased that the boy had obeyed his orders and held his
fire until this moment. There would be no wastage now, at so short a
range every round ripped into the Italian truck, tearing through
canvas, flesh, bone and steel at the rate of seven hundred rounds a
minute.
The truck swerved violently and its front end collapsed; it went over
broadside, crashing over and over, flinging the men high in the air,
the way a spaniel throws off the droplets from its back as it leaps
from water to land.
'Driver, right,' called Gregorius immediately. 'Another truck,
right, a little more right that's it, you're on.' And they roared in
pursuit of another panic-stricken load of Italians.
A hundred yards away on their flank the Hump scored its first success.
Gareth Swales was no longer able to accept the indignity of the Ras's
flying feet, and his frenzied and completely unintelligible commands.
He left the controls of the racing car to swing an angry punch at the
Ras.
'Cut that out, old chap,' he snapped. 'Play the game I'm on your side,
damn it.' The car, no longer under control, jinked suddenly.
Almost side by side with them sped a Fiat truck, filled with
Italians, and the driver had not yet realized that there was another
enemy apart from the pursuing hordes of Ethiopian horsemen. His head
was twisted around over his shoulder at an impossible angle, and he
drove by instinct alone.
The two uncontrolled vehicles came together at an acute angle and at
the top of their combined speeds. Steel met steel in a storm of sparks
and they staggered away from the blow, both of them veering over
steeply. For a moment it' seemed that the Hump would go over; she
teetered at the extreme end of her centre of gravity and then came back
on to all four wheels with a crash that threw the men inside her
unmercifully against her steel sides, before racing on again with
Gareth wrestling at the wheel for control.
The Fiat truck was lighter and stood higher; the armoured car had
caught her neatly under the cab and she did not even waver, but flipped
over on her back, All four wheels still spinning as they 'pointed at
the sky, and the cab and canvas-covered hood were torn away instantly,
the men beneath them smeared between steel and hard earth.
It was all too much for the Ras. He could no longer contain his
frustration at being enclosed in a hot metal box from which he could
see almost nothing, while all around hundreds of his hated enemies were
escaping with complete impunity. He flung open the hatch of the turret
