and stuck out his head and shoulders, yipping shrilly with bloodlust,
frustration, anger and excitement.
At that moment, an open sky-blue and glistening black Rolls-Royce
tourer flashed across the front of the Hump. In the rear seat was an
Italian officer bedecked with the glittering insignia of rank instantly
Gareth Swales and the Ras were in perfect accord once again.
They had found a target eminently acceptable to both of them.
'I say, tally-ho!' cried Gareth, to be answered by a bloodcurdling
'How do you do!' like the crowing of an enraged rooster from the
turret above him.
Count Aldo Belli was in hysterics, for the driver seemed to have lost
all sense of direction; now more than just a little concussed, he had
turned at right angles across the line of flight of the Italian column.
This was as hazardous as running an ocean liner at full speed through a
field of icebergs for the rolling dust-clouds had reduced visibility to
less than fifty feet, and out of this brown fog the lumbering
troop-carriers appeared without warning, the drivers in no fit
condition to take evasive action, all looking back over their
shoulders.
Ahead of them, two more monstrous shapes appeared out of the dust;
one was an Italian truck and the other was one of the cumbersome
camel-backed vehicles with the Ethiopian colours splashed upon its hull
and a Vickers machine gun protruding from its turret.
Suddenly the armoured car swerved and crashed heavily into the side of
the truck, capsizing it instantly and then swerving back towards the
Rolls. It came so close, towering over them so threateningly, that it
entered even Giuseppe's limited field of vision.
The effect was miraculous. Giuseppe shot bolt upright in his seat and,
with the touch of an inspired Nuvolari, brought the Rolls round on two
wheels, cutting finely across the armoured bows just at the moment that
the hatch of the turret flew open and a wizened brown face, filled with
the largest, whitest and most flashing teeth the Count had ever seen,
popped out of the turret and emitted a war cry so shrill and
heart-chilling that the Count's bowels flopped over like a stranded
fish.
As the barrel of the Vickers swung on to the Rolls, the Ethiopian
gunner ducked down into the turret, and the barrel elevated slightly
until the Count found himself staring stupidly into its dark round
aperture but Giuseppe had been watching also in the driving mirror,
and now he spun the wheel and the Rolls flashed aside like a mackerel
before the driving charge of the barracuda. The blast of shot from
the
Vickers tore down its left side lifting a storm of dirt and pebbles in
spurting fountains high into the air.
The armoured car swung heavily to follow the Rolls' manoeuvre, the
leaping dust fountains swinging with it, closing in mercilessly.
However, Giuseppe, faced with the prospect of death, hit the brakes so
hard that the Count was catapulted forward, howling protests, to hang
over the front seat, his ample black-clad buttocks pointing at the
heavens and his glistening boots kicking wildly as he fought for
