Harkaway's Sixth Column (22 page)

‘What happened?’

He looked up. ‘What happened?’

‘Something happened, didn’t it?’ she said gently. ‘In the past. What was it?’

He looked up and smiled back at her, but made no effort to enlighten her.

‘Won’t you tell me? It sometimes helps to tell people your troubles.’

‘It’s not a trouble,’ he said.

She told him of her own background and how she felt her life had been wasted.

‘I don’t now, though,’ she admitted. ‘I feel I’ve been part of something at last. Largely thanks to you.’

He touched her hand and kissed her again. Their faces close together, lit by the flames from the dying fire, he raised his other hand to touch her cheek.

‘Has anybody ever told you you’re beautiful?’ he said.

‘No,’ she said frankly. ‘And nobody ever will. Because I’m not, and from now on, at my age, I’ll grow progressively less so.’

‘Why did you become a missionary?’

‘Because I couldn’t think of anything else.’

‘Not because of a profound belief in religion?’

‘No. I was just at a loss.’

‘Why didn’t you ever marry?’

‘Nobody ever asked me.’

‘Have you ever been in love?’

‘No,’ she said. But she didn’t add that for some time now she had been entertaining a few hopes. ‘Will it be tomorrow?’ she asked.

‘Probably.’

‘I hope you pull it off, George. I hope everything turns out right for you. I hope - ‘ she paused ‘ - I hope you achieve your ambition.’

He didn’t answer. She caught his eyes on her and returned his gaze without blinking.

‘George - !’

She stopped dead, the unspoken words dying in her throat, and slowly he pushed their belongings aside and reached out to her.

For a long time she clung to him, a great warmth flooding over her as she leaned against him, content merely to feel his hands on her, responding eagerly when he kissed her, his fingers in the short cropped hair that made her look like a youth, both of them sinking in the darkness of the passion that overwhelmed them.

After a while, she sat up, shivering as the fire died, holding on to him, touching his features with her fingertips, unable to take her eyes off him, crying occasionally, quietly and ashamedly, as she hadn’t cried for years. Her life had taught her not to cry and the sufferings of the black people with whom she’d worked, their sicknesses, their dead babies, their festering illnesses, had toughened her.

‘George,’ she said. ‘What’s happening to me? I’ve not done this since I was a child.’

He pulled her closer, stroking her forehead with the back of his hand.

‘Wind up?’ he suggested.

‘No, it isn’t wind up.’ She stirred, faintly scared, nevertheless. Chiefly for herself because she had a feeling that she had no need to fear for Harkaway.

‘There’s nothing to be afraid of,’ he said.

‘I’m not so sure.’

On her face there was the look of woman throughout the whole of the world’s history, loathing conflict, wanting only love and roots deep in the earth, a look to which there was no reply.

‘You and I,’ she said slowly, ‘just happened to fall on the wrong side of life.’

‘Not anymore,’ he said. ‘When this lot’s over it’ll be all right. We’ll make it all right. Unless, of course, you’re too tied up with your religion.’

She suddenly realized how little her religion really meant to her. She shook her head.

He said nothing, not pushing the idea any further, but it set her thoughts racing along lines she’d not considered for years, wondering if she had enough of her woman’s skill left to give him the roots he so obviously needed.

Forgetting her discomfort and the increasing cold, she occupied herself with thoughts she’d never dwelt on before. In her heart of hearts she didn’t really believe in them, and, looking round at him, she realized he had moved away from her, restless as ever, to the edge of the rocky ledge and was staring down into the darkness. The moon had risen and they could see the road below like a silver ribbon.

‘I hope to Christ none of those silly sods in the post there decides to go for a walk,’ he said, his thoughts clearly no longer on her. ‘I don’t want them setting off the mines before the lorries come.’

In Bidiyu General Guidotti was aware of the unpleasant sensation of his world falling apart about his ears. Kismayu was in the hands of the enemy now and in Mogadiscio they were already preparing to surrender the town. It had been Italian a long time and there would be Italian families there, hitherto secure in a colonial way of life. But the colonial way of life in Libya had fallen to pieces already and they would now be expecting it to fall to pieces in East Africa. There would be frightened faces at upper windows and an attempt on the part of the police and the officials to remain calm before the silent Somalis, while the askaris in their scarlet fezzes would be rigid on the steps of the fascist headquarters, though Guidotti had no confidence that they could be trusted in defeat.

In Bidiyu they were already disillusioned. Food was no longer coming through from Jijiga and he was already aware that the askaris were watching him askance, wondering, despite their Italian badges and braid, when it would be safe to disappear. They were already short of petrol and with thousands of gallons in Mogadiscio about to fall into the hands of the enemy, he could see the whole Italian army and air force in the Horn of Africa running to a standstill.

He sighed. As it seemed to have come to a standstill in Libya, he thought. And even Greece. When the Duce had decided to invade Greece from Albania the previous October, he had expected a walk-over victory but the Greeks had proved tougher than expected, and not only had they repelled Italian attacks, they had managed, while the Italian navy was still reeling from Taranto, even to advance into Italian territory in Albania. The bombast and boasting had come to nothing. Instead of being a conqueror like Hitler, the Duce had turned out to be nothing more than a jackal whining at his master’s heels.

Tears started to Guidotti’s eyes. That very morning he’d heard that a British army had gone into Greece and he could envisage yet more defeats. And sooner or later, he knew, he would have to leave Bidiyu. Troops were already pouring through from Hargeisa and the coast. A convoy had arrived only that morning, consisting of every kind of vehicle Guidotti could possibly imagine - light tanks, trucks towing guns, petrol bowsers, ambulances, armoured cars, scout cars, staff cars, roaring in one after the other, shaking the town with their noise, setting everything vibrating under the sound of their engines.

General Barracca appeared during the afternoon, worried and anxious-faced.

‘It seems to be up to you, Ettore,’ he said. ‘We are withdrawing through you. Like a sock pulled inside out. You will withdraw through Forsci at Jijiga when the order comes.’

If
the order comes, Guidotti thought. If Forsci weren’t too busy in other directions. If the road weren’t cut.

‘If things go wrong,’ Barracca went on, ‘you will head north towards Djibuti and try to join the Commander-in-Chief, the Duke of Aosta. He’s planning to concentrate near Amba Alagi if Keren falls. It’ll be your duty to try to reach him.’ Barracca finished his drink and lit a cigarette. ‘I think Africa Orientale is finished. I think the Duce’s pipe-dreams are finished also. Soon they’ll be finished in Greece.’ He paused. ‘Perhaps when we boil it all down, the Duce is finished also.’

Guidotti offered him another brandy then Barracca took a quarter of an hour off to visit the garrison church to light a candle and offer up a prayer to keep him safe to go home to his family. Finally he shook hands with Guidotti, climbed into his car and drove away.

Barracca’s first lorry ran over the land mines two hours later, almost to the minute. There was a tremendous explosion that set off two other mines, and as the lorry rocked back on its springs, one of the front tyres burst and it swung broadside on to the road. The doors of the cabin had sprung open under the blast and from one of them the driver fell out and sprawled in the road. His mate, torn by fragments coming through the floor, remained where he was, moving weakly. The second lorry, slewing sideways to avoid running into the wrecked vehicle, dropped a wheel into the ditch and canted over sharply, its nose within inches of the first vehicle. As the crew scrambled clear there was a puff of smoke as the petrol leaking from the first lorry’s punctured tank was ignited by the flames licking the underneath of the vehicle and a ‘whoomph’ as it went up.

The driver of the second lorry was just struggling to get clear when the first pack gun fired. It was only a seven-pounder of antiquated design which had found its way to Somaliland from the North-west Frontier of India and, because of its age, had been relegated to the reserve and pushed into the dump above Eil Dif. But it still worked and, as the little shell struck, engine covers, wings, pieces of piping, fan, radiator and scraps of metal flew through the air. Just dropping to the ground to run for safety, the driver was hit at the back of the head by a piece of engine casing that shattered his skull and flung him into the ditch.

The Italians were still looking round for this new assailant when Gooch fired the second gun, aiming at the gap between the first and second lorries. Because of its age, this time the shell failed to explode, but it nevertheless removed the rear wing of the second lorry and buried itself in the engine of the third lorry, bringing that to a stop too, so that the whole road was jammed.

Barracca was standing up in his car, halfway along the column, staring ahead. He gestured angrily at one of his aides. ‘Get up there,’ he ordered. ‘Get that road clear!’

It was easier said than done and, from the crest, Harkaway and Danny watched the panic below as lorries tried to back away from the fire. The second lorry’s tyres had now also caught fire and a thick pall of black smoke began to rise from the burning rubber.

The Somalis were behaving well and none of them had fired. Harkaway was anxious to spring his trap properly and he was staring backwards with the binoculars down the road to where Grobelaar waited. In the distance, half a mile beyond Barracca’s last lorry, they could see small figures swarming down out of the hills and across the road. Yussuf s people were blocking the road as he had ordered. But there was still no sign of the explosion and he began to frown. Without the gully smashed and the surface of the road holed, Barracca could escape.

‘Come
on,
Kom-Kom,’ he said aloud.

Even as he spoke, he heard a dull thud and saw a smoke ring lifting slowly into the air. Turning, he saw Tully watching him. Down below in the gorge, the Italians were trying to take up positions to protect themselves from something they knew was coming but hadn’t yet appeared. Because they didn’t know the direction, they were confused. But Barracca was an old soldier and his aides had not been idle. Already, a group of native levies were assembling among the stranded lorries, clutching rifles. They were looking in the direction from which the pack guns had fired and Harkaway could see Gooch and his teams struggling to reload. They seemed to be having difficulty and within seconds they could be overwhelmed.

Harkaway smiled and signed to Danny just below him on the slope with the battery and the loose wire. At his wave she touched the battery terminal.

The faces of the men in the gorge lifted, horrified, as the new explosion came from above their heads. For a while, to Danny it seemed as if nothing had happened and they had failed. Small rocks and stones were arcing into the air and beginning to bounce down the slope through the swelling cloud of brown smoke; and, having moved closer to the point of explosion than she should have done, afraid she might not do correctly what she had to do and terrified that Harkaway would be disappointed in her and scourge her with his tongue, she cowered now as small stones and earth rained down on her. As the shower stopped, she looked up. The pinnacle of rock was still standing and she began to pray, terrified of Harkaway’s rage if they failed. Then she realized that the pinnacle was no longer upright, but was slowly tilting outwards towards the road.

As it moved further and further, it cracked in the middle and broke in two, and a tremendous yell went up from the Somalis lining the crest that was echoed by one of horror from the men in the valley. It crashed across the slope in a cloud of dust and a shower of debris and went roaring downwards, - carrying with it a whole landslide of rocks, stones and scree that thundered down to the road and crashed into the gorge. The driver of a lorry directly beneath looked up in horror as he saw it coming and tried to leap from his cab. But with the door half open, it was struck by a bounding boulder that slammed it shut, neatly severing his fingers, then the whole cabin crumpled and bent beneath the weight of the rocks, stones and earth that piled down on it.

By this time the whole crest was lined with men who had begun to set the very slopes rattling down on the men in the defile. With the sides rearing at an angle of almost ninety degrees, the Italians had no chance. The men above them could set virtually the whole hillside moving, and boulders began to hurtle and bounce into the ravine in blinding clouds of dust and loose shale, to break bones, bring blood and send men flying. Sheer terror threw the Italians into confusion as the rocks swept them off their feet, and clanged against the sides of lorries, smashing wings, buckling wheels and wrenching at fenders.

Still no one fired from above, though the Italians, hidden by the rising cloud of dust, were shooting blindly into the air at their hidden attackers. Gradually, however, the stones began to stop bouncing and rolling and the dust began to settle and the running figures below began to appear again.

‘Now!’ Harkaway roared and, bending over the Bren gun, Tully fired a long burst into the valley. Immediately, the whole crest erupted into flame; and the men below, still wondering which way to face, still staring horrified at the great landslide of earth and rocks that had cut off the rear half of the column from the front half, began to fall like ninepins. Diving under their vehicles, they began to fire back but, as they did so, mortar bombs began to fall among them. There weren’t many and they weren’t even well aimed but they were coming regularly and were landing among the scree that bordered the road, flinging fragments of metal and stone to smash windscreens and tear into flesh.