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