'There is no other way, Jake. Truly there isn't.' Jake thought about
it silently for a full minute and then he -sighed wearily.
'It's a long drive. Let's get going.' They drove without headlights,
not wanting to attract the attention of the Ethiopian scouts or the
Italians, but the moon was bright enough to light their way and define
the ravines and rougher ground with crisp black shadows,
although occasionally the wheels would crash painfully into one of the
deep round holes dug by the aardvarks, the nocturnal long-nosed beasts
which burrowed for the subterranean colonies of termites.
The three half-naked Italian survivors huddled down in the rear
compartment of the car, so exhausted by fear and the day's adventures
that they passed swiftly into sleep, a sleep so deep that neither the
noisy roar of the engine within the metal hull nor the bouncing over
rough ground could disturb them. They lay like dead men in an untidy
heap.
Vicky Camberwell climbed down out of the turret to escape the flow of
cool night air, and squeezed into the space beside the driver's seat.
For a while she spoke quietly with Jake, but soon her voice became
drowsy and finally dried up. Then slowly she toppled sideways against
him, and he smiled tenderly and eased her golden head down on to his
shoulder and held her like that, warm against him in the noisy hull, as
he drove on into the eastern night.
The Italian sentries were sweeping the perimeter of their camp at
regular intervals with a pair of powerful anti-aircraft searchlights,
probably in anticipation of a night attack by the Ethiopians, and the
glow of the beams burned up in a tall white cone of light into the
desert sky. Jake homed in upon it, gradually reducing his throttle
setting as he closed in. He knew that the engine beat would carry many
miles in the stillness, but that at lower revs it would be diffused and
impossible to pinpoint.
He guessed he was within two or three miles of the Italian camp when in
confirmation that the sentries had heard his approach, and that after
their recent experiences they were highly sensitive to the sound of a
Bentley engine, a star shell sailed upwards a thousand feet into the
sky and burst with a fierce blue-white light that lit the desert like a
stage for miles beneath it. Jake hit the brakes hard, and waited for
the shell to sink slowly to earth. He did not want movement to attract
attention. The light died away and left the night blacker than before,
but beside him the abrupt change of motion had woken Vicky and she sat
up groggily, pushing the hair out of her eyes and muttering sleepily.
'What is it?'
'We are here,' he said, and another star shell rose in a high arc and
burst in brilliance that paled the moon.
'There.' Jake pointed out the ridge above the Wells of Chaldi.
The dark shapes of the Italian vehicles were laagered in orderly
lines,
clearly silhouetted by the star shell. They hall let were two miles
ahead. Suddenly there was the distant ripping sound of a machine gun,
a sentry firing at shadows, and immediately after, a scattered
fusillade of rifle shots which petered out into a sheepish silence.
