Still in the centre of the column, pennants fluttering and battle

standard glittering, the Rolls glided forward and it looked, even to

the disillusioned Major, as if they might make good going of the day's

march.

The undulating grassland fell away almost imperceptibly beneath the

speeding wheels, and the blue loom of the mountains on their right hand

merged gradually with the lighter fiercer blue of the sky. The

transition to desert country was so gradual as to lull the unobservant

traveller.

The intervals between the flat-topped acacia trees became greater and

the trees themselves were more stunted, more twisted and spiky, as they

progressed, until at last they ceased and the bushes of spino

Cristi replaced them grey and low and viciously thor ned The earth was

parched and crumbled, dotted with clumps of camel grass and the horizon

was unbroken, enclosing them entirely. The land itself was so flat and

featureless that it gave the illusion of being saucer-shaped, as though

the rim of the land rose slightly to meet the sky.

Through this wilderness, the road was slashed like the claw mark of a

predator into the fleshy red soil. The tracks were so deeply rutted

that the middle hump constantly brushed the chassis of the

Rolls, and a mist of fine red dust stood in the heated air long after

the column had passed.

The Colonel was bored and uncomfortable. It was becoming increasingly

clear, even to the Count, that the wilderness harboured no hostile

horde, and his courage and impatience returned.

'Drive to the head of the column,' he instructed Giuseppe, and the

Rolls pulled out and sped past the leading trucks, the Count bestowing

a cheery salute on Castelani as he left him glowering and muttering

behind him.

When Castelani caught up with him again, two hours later, the

Count was standing on the burnished bonnet of the Rolls staring through

his binoculars at the horizon and doing an excited little dance while

he urged Gino to make haste in unpacking the special Mantilicher 9.3

men sporting rifle from its leather case. The weapon was of seasoned

walnut, butt and stock, and the blued steel was inlaid with

twenty-four-carat gold hunting scenes of the chase boar and stag,

huntsmen on horseback and hounds in full cry. It was a masterpiece of

the gunsmith's art.

Without lowering the binoculars, he gave orders to Castelani to erect

the radio aerial and send a message of good cheer and enthusiasm to

General De Bono, to report the magnificent progress made by the

battalion to date and assure him that they would soon command all the

approaches to the Sardi Gorge. The Major should also put the column

into laager and set up the ice machine while the Colonel undertook a

reconnaissance patrol in the direction in which he was now staring so

intently.

The group of big dun-coloured animals he was watching were a mile off

and moving steadily away into the mirage-fevered distance, but their

gracefully straight horns showed dark and lo the against the distant

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