small carpet bag that held his tools, he reviewed it swiftly. Five
fine pieces of craftsmanship lying rotting away on the fever coast of
Tanganyika. The bodies and chassis had been built by Schreiner the
stately high cupola in which the open mounting for the Maxim machine
gun now glared like an empty eye-socket, the square sloping platform of
the engine housing, with its heavy armour plate and the neat rows of
rivets and the steel shutters that could be closed to protect the
radiator against incoming enemy fire.
They stood tall on the metal bossed wheels with their solid rubber
tyres, and Jake felt a sneaking regret that he would be the one to tear
their engines out of them and toss aside the worn-out but gallant old
bodies.
They did not deserve such cavalier treatment, these fighting iron
ladies who in their youth had chased the wily German commander von
Lettow-Vorbeck across the wide plains and over the fierce hills of
East
Africa. The thorns of the wilderness had deeply scarred the paintwork
of the five armoured cars and there were places where rifle fire had
glanced off their armour, leaving the distinctive dimple in the
steel.
Those were their grandest days, streaming into battle with their
cavalry pennants flying, dust billowing behind them, bounding and
crashing through the don gas and ant bear holes, their machine guns
blazing and the terrified German askaris scattering before them.
After that, the original engines had been replaced by the beautiful new
6 litre Bentleys, and they had begun the long decline of police patrol
work on the border, chasing the occasional cattle raider and slowly
being pounded by a succession of brutal drivers into the condition
which had at last brought them here to the Government sale yards in
this fiery May of the year of our Lord 1935. But Jake knew that even
the savage abuse to which they had been subjected could not have
destroyed the engines completely and that was what interested him.
He rolled up his sleeves like a surgeon about to begin his
examination.
'Ready or not, girls, 'he muttered, 'here comes old Jake.' He was a
tall man with a big bony frame that was cramped in the confined area of
the armoured car's body, but he worked with a quiet concentration so
close to rapture that the discomfort went unnoticed. Jake's wide
friendly mouth was pursed in a whistle that went on endlessly, the
opening bars of 'Tiger Rag' repeated over and over again, and his eyes
were screwed up against the gloom of the interior.
He worked swiftly, checking the throttle and ignition settings of the
controls, tracing out the fuel lines from the rear-mounted fuel tank,
finding the cocks under the driver's seat and grunting with
satisfaction. He scrambled out of the turret and dropped down the high
side of the vehicle, pausing to wipe away with his forearm the thin
trickle of sweat that broke from his thick curly black hair and ran
down his cheek, then he hurried forward and knocked the clamps open on
the side flaps of the armoured engine-cover.
'Oh sweet, sweet!' he whispered, as he saw the fine outlines of the
