into his arms.
Gareth stooped and gathered Vicky's torn clothing out of the mud and
bundled it under his injured armpit.
'Shall we move on now, old son?' he asked Jake genially.
'I think the fun is over,' and between them they lifted Vicky up the
side of the hull.
The drums brought Count Aldo Belli out of a troubled dream-plagued
sleep and he sat bolt upright from his hard couch on the floorboards of
the hull, with his eyes wide and staring, and -fumbled frantically for
his pistol.
'Gino!' he shouted. 'Gino!' and there was no reply. Only that
terrible rhythm in the night, pounding against his head so that he
thought it might drive him mad. He tried to close his ears, pressing
the palms of his hands to them, but the sound came through, like a
gigantic pulse, the heartbeat of this cruel and savage land.
He could bear it no longer, and he crawled up inside the hull until he
reached the rear hatch of the tank, and thrust his head out.
'Gino!' He was answered instantly. The little sergeant's head popped
up from where he had been cowering in his blankets on the rocky ground
between the steel tracks. The Count could hear his teeth clattering in
his skull like typewriter keys.
'Send the driver to fetch Major Castelani, immediately.'
'Immediately.' Gino's head disappeared, and a few moments later
appeared again so abruptly that the Count let out a startled cry and
pointed the loaded pistol between his eyes.
'Excellency,'squawked Gino.
'Idiot,' snarled the Count, his voice husky with terror. 'I could have
killed you, don't you realize I have the reactions of a leopard?'
'Excellency, may I enter the machine?'.
Aldo Belli thought about the request for a moment, and then enjoyed a
perverse pleasure in refusing.
'Make me a cup of coffee,' he ordered, but when it came he found that
the incessant cacophony of drums that filled his head had worked on his
nerves to the point where he could not hold the mug steady, and the rim
rattled against his teeth.
'Goat's urine!' snapped the Count, hoping that Gino had not noticed
the unsteady hand. 'You are trying to poison me,' he accused and
tossed the steaming liquid over the side, and at that moment the stocky
figure of the Major loomed out of the darkness of the gorge.
'The men are standing to, Colonel he growled. 'In another fifteen
minutes it will be light enough-'
'Good. Good.' The Count cut him short. 'I have decided that I should
return immediately to headquarters. General Badoglio will expect
me-'
'Excellent Colonel,'
the Major interrupted in his turn. 'I have received intelligence that
large bands of the enemy have infiltrated our lines, and are operating
in the rear areas.
There is a good chance you might be able to bring them to account.'
Castelani, by this time, knew his man intimately.
