Harkaway's Sixth Column (32 page)

Tully gave him a shocked look.
‘Aren’t
we staying here?’

‘I’m going after Guidotti.’

‘Count me out.’

‘I’ll need a radio operator.’

Harkaway spoke coolly, quite indifferent to Tully’s feelings. Tully glared. He knew he’d go with Harkaway but he said nothing and shuffled off to the radio truck.

‘Those bloody people have got Fort San Rafaelo now,’ the general said. ‘Inside Abyssinia, Charlie. It’s a pity we can’t turn the buggers loose on the Germans in North Africa.’

Colonel Charlton placed a newspaper in front of him. ‘Have you seen this, sir?’ he asked.
‘Cape Argus.
Flown up by the South African Air Force. Wye’s given it the full treatment. I understand it’s in all the papers back home, too, to say nothing of the Salisbury, Nairobi and Mombasa rags.’

ITALIAN DEFEATS IN EAST AFRICA, the headline read. ROUTED BY AMATEUR ARMY. WHO IS COLONEL HARKAWAY?

The story pulled no punches. It appeared that the Sixth Column was defeating the Italians on its own. There was a photograph of Harkaway, a snatched one by Russell, showing him with one arm raised, transposed on to a photograph of the Somalis so that he appeared to be giving them orders. There was another picture of a lorry-load of black soldiers armed with rifles and wearing a mixture of robes and British and Italian uniform, and finally one of the column of lean men on foot carrying spears followed by their women and animals.

The general put on his spectacles and began to read aloud. After a while he lifted his eyes. ‘These newspaper chaps certainly know how to put it across, don’t they?’ he said. He tapped the sheet. ‘No mention of our people, I notice.’

It always irritated him when newspapermen picked out the spicy bits and forgot the orthodox soldiers without whose efforts no spare column could even exist.

‘Inclined to exaggerate a bit, too, aren’t they?’ he went on. ‘After all, they were hitting troops we’d already demoralized, and they’ve made no mention of the fact that the Italians had lost all air support because
we’d
destroyed it on the ground.’

‘Even so - ‘ Charlton murmured.

The general looked up, then he nodded. ‘Even so,’ he agreed.

‘There’s an interview with a woman, too, sir,’ Charlton went on. ‘On the inside pages. Missionary by the name of Ortton-Daniells. South African called Grobelaar, too, it seems. The
Cape Argus
is making a lot of him, of course.’

‘Could
they
tell us anything about this blasted Harkaway?’

‘Thought of that, sir,’ Charlton said. ‘I got Intelligence to send someone to talk to them. They could tell him no more than appears in the paper.’

The general continued reading. ‘I see he’s still calling himself “colonel”,’ he growled.

Charlton smiled. ‘Doubtless, when he comes under a proper command, he’ll be happy to revert to major. For the moment, he probably considers it best to remain as he is. Question of face perhaps.’

As they talked a sergeant from Signals appeared with a flimsy.

The general scanned the message. ‘It’s from
him,
Charlie,’ he said. ‘He’s asking our help. Nice of him to acknowledge that we exist. They’ve lost Guidotti and would like the air force to do a recce. Well, I think we can handle that. Ask ‘em to drop a few bombs, too, while they’re at it. Whatever they can spare. Can we raise anything to send to them?’

‘How about the Rajputs, sir? We have a company going spare. We can also manage a company of the Transvaal Scottish.’

‘Right. Rustle ‘em up. Give ‘em a couple of armoured cars, a Signals section and a few Engineers, and send ‘em off. Warn the air force not to drop bombs on ‘em.’ The general frowned. ‘Strikes me,’ he admitted, ‘that it was a good job we gave this damned Harkaway some rank. At least we can now give him a decoration or something. We shall have to, of course. The feller’s not only fought battles, he’s organized ‘em
and
raised his own troops. But we’ll play it down. Don’t like Irregulars getting all the kudos. After all, they’re really only a flea-bite in the end, whether they’re Lawrence of Arabia, Orde Wingate or this chap Harkaway. The real fighting’s always done by ordinary troops and always was.’

The fort at Djuba was beginning to look tidy at last. The dead had all been buried - Gooch separately and with the benefit of a crude cross - and the bones of the horses killed in Pavicelli’s desperate charge had been picked clean by vultures. Harkaway seemed indifferent and spent his time poring over captured maps.

‘I want a small column forming, Sergeant,’ he told Catchpole. ‘We shall need a radio link set up here in the fort to keep contact with Jijiga and we shall be taking the armoured cars, all the lorries we can muster and three companies of the Boys. Can we raise that many?

‘Just, sir. It’ll not leave many here but, after all’ - Catchpole paused, thinking of the slaughter - ‘there won’t be no trouble here now, will there?’

The column moved off the following day, a line of rolling, lurching trucks followed by the usual raggle-taggle column of men on foot. Everybody possessed a rifle now, however, because their numbers were smaller and they’d picked up large quantities at the fort.

Harkaway led in a scout car. It was a still, sultry day and ahead of them lay the naked plain, beyond it the hills, piling up in pyramids and domes, their hazy crests merging into a single range. Harkaway stared at them narrow-eyed. He had to get to Guidotti before he reached their shelter.

During the afternoon they found the body of an Eritrean soldier which had been hurriedly buried in a shallow grave and dug up again by hyenas, then that of an Italian sergeant who had wandered off into the bush, got lost and been left behind. His shirt and shorts were filled to bursting point and the skin of the tumid body inside was shining as it stretched tighter and tighter.

‘Twinkletoes is losing control,’ Harkaway observed.

Later, a South African Blenheim passed over them and as it disappeared they heard the thud of bombs ahead.

‘They’ve found Guidotti,’ Catchpole said.

They halted for the night at a waterhole. A nomad tribe was there with its flock of goats and sheep and they greeted Harkaway’s’ column with grins and called Harkaway
Tillik Sau,
the Abyssinian words for Chief. He was beginning to feel better now. The near-disaster at Djuba was fading and his confidence was returning with a new certainty of his luck.

He summoned the herdsmen to the car and asked them if they’d seen the Italians. They had. The Italians were not far away, and the herdsmen confirmed Harkaway’s suspicion that they were distressed and running out of petrol.

‘We’ve got ‘em,’ Harkaway said.

‘You said that before,’ Tully reminded him flatly.

As they squatted by the fire, the radio began to cheep. Tully rose to his feet and crossed to the radio truck. A few minutes later he came back, a startled look on his face, a piece of paper in his hand.

‘They’ve given you the bloody DSO,’ he said. ‘Immediate.’

Harkaway smiled. ‘Now they’ll
have
to confirm the commission,’ he said. ‘Even when they find I’m only a corporal. They commissioned me in the field and decorated me in the field.’

‘That’s all you bloody wanted, wasn’t it?’ Tully said bitterly. ‘I notice there’s nothing for me and Goochy.’

Harkaway smiled. ‘I can recommend you,’ he said. ‘How about an MC? Nice purple and white ribbon on your chest. I’ll write out a recommendation at once,’

‘Do you know how to?’

‘I’ve seen it done.’

Tully was immediately suspicious. ‘Where?’

Harkaway gave one of his cold smiles and said nothing. Taking the message pad, he began to scribble. As he handed it back, Tully stared at it.

‘It thanks them for the DSO,’ Harkaway said cheerfully, ‘claims it’s an honour, and very modestly says that I feel that what we’ve done couldn’t have been done without your help and that I would like to recommend you for the Military Cross.’

Tully looked awed and Harkaway smiled.

‘I’ll now write out the citation. It shouldn’t take long.’

The general stared at the message with a frown.

‘Good God,’ he said, ‘this bloody man’s got a cheek! He’s recommending chaps for gongs now.’

‘He’s done it correctly, sir,’ Charlton pointed out. ‘You’ll notice that. Regrets the absence of Army Form W 2121 and hopes a signal flimsy will do as well. Everything’s above board and as commanding officer he has every right to do it.’

‘I suppose he has,’ the general admitted. He frowned again. ‘I wish we knew a bit more about the bloody man, though. I hope to God he isn’t some pansy who was dismissed the service for interfering with boy entrants.’

Charlton smiled. ‘At least, sir, he couldn’t have been dismissed for cowardice.’

‘I still don’t like it,’ the general mused. ‘Even this name of his is too much of a good thing. I bet he’s some relation of old Mac Tremayne. That family always had the nerve of the devil. Mac was your boss in the last lot, wasn’t he? I suppose we couldn’t get in touch with the family and ask ‘em if they know anything about this one, could we?’

As they prepared to move off the following morning, Tully picked up the news that the Duke of Aosta, besieged in Amba Alagi, had sent envoys to Diredawa for a parley. It seemed to indicate he was seeking a way of throwing his hand in. Then there was a whole batch of other messages including one gem which announced to the East African army at large that hippopotamus could now be shot in the Atbara, a delight that was countermanded within the hour with ‘For “Now” read “Not”.’

‘Italians can be killed,’ Harkaway said dryly. ‘But not big game. We’re back with the army.’

Messages addressed directly to the Sixth Column indicated that the South African Air Force had spotted Guidotti two days before just to the north and bombed his column. Another informed them that the help and medical supplies they’d asked for were on their way. That didn’t please Harkaway too much, because the column was under the command of a major of the Rajputs who would inevitably be senior to him.

His run of luck, he decided, had ended. From now on he’d have to conform. But with a DSO and a major’s crown on his shoulder, he felt he could manage that. He might even admit who he was. There’d be a few quiet whistles at the information but there was a war on and people were inclined to overlook errors of behaviour in wartime. The last message confirmed that the recommendation for Tully’s gong had been passed to the right quarters.

‘If you never do another bloody thing,’ Harkaway said, ‘you can retire on it to Bognor Regis, with a better pension than you’d have got as a private soldier.’

During the day, the wind got up and filled the air with flying dust and peppered their skin like buckshot. It clung to their sweating skins, caking their lips and sticking to their nostrils and the corners of their eyes, and the vehicles filled with it so that it lay in the folds of their clothes and ended up as usual by giving them all paste-like masks that cracked in the wrinkles round their mouths as they spoke.

The wind held on until the sun went down, then it died suddenly and they camped in a strange calm, exhausted less by driving than by the wind and the flying grit. Making a circle of their vehicles, they built fires and the bully beef came out of the tins in a greasy rush.

Tully packed it away glumly. ‘I’m getting bloody sick of this,’ he said sullenly.

Harkaway said nothing, staring into the fire with faraway eyes.

‘You’re
not, are you?’ Tully said.

‘No.’ Harkaway spoke brusquely.

‘You love it, don’t you?’

‘When it’s over, my little friend,’ Harkaway said in a harsh dry voice, ‘we shall be part of the army again. There’ll probably be some feller in charge who’s never done anything more than sit at the end of a telephone line. Some little shit in starched shorts and shirt with a paintbox of colour on his chest who’s never tasted the sand and the grit we’ve tasted. He’ll tell you what to do and get away with it because, even if he’s only that, he’s senior to you. Have you thought of that?’

Tully muttered something but he didn’t press the point.

Harkaway went on in a dreamy voice. ‘I’ve enjoyed running my own show,’ he said. ‘They always say you enjoy independent command, even if you’re only a lance-corporal. Well, I have and I’m not looking forward to going back to being told what to do. I’ll probably join one of these funny outfits they’re raising at home. Commandos, aren’t they? I reckon I could do it, don’t you?’

‘Yes, you bastard,’ Tully said sourly. ‘I expect you could. Bloody well, too. I only hope I’m not with you.’

The following morning, an Ethiopian came in with the news that Guidotti and his little column had come to a stop by a waterhole twenty miles further on. They were almost out of petrol.

Harkaway called Catchpole to the fire.

‘I’m going to scout forward, Sergeant,’ he announced. ‘I’ll find out just where they are, then we’ll move right round the bastards so they can’t run again. There’ll be no fight.’

‘I hope you’re right,’ Tully said. ‘I’m sick of fighting.’

Catchpole could read morse if it were sent slowly and they arranged for him to listen out for them, and organized a group of simple code words to indicate whether he was to stay where he was or follow in their tracks.

‘Right,’ Harkaway said. ‘Get in, Tully.’ He looked round for Abdillahi. ‘You want to come too?’

Abdillahi grinned. ‘In the name of Allah, the compassionate, the merciful, I am proud to, effendi.’

The wind had disappeared completely as they set off and the land lay dead and still like an exhausted tawny lion. There was a lot of scrub in front of them, cut up by lanes through which they could see the tracks of Italian lorries, and they moved slowly, bumping and rolling over the large stones, the scrub brushing against the sides of the vehicle.

They pushed forward another mile or so, and dropped down to a dried-out river bed. As they clattered across the stones, Harkaway’s eyes were all round him. Abdillahi sat clutching his rifle in the rear seat and Tully dozed alongside Harkaway, stupefied by the pounding of the sun.