Harkaway's Sixth Column (4 page)

‘Not too many wreaths for the dead,’ he instructed Colonel Piccio, his chief of staff. ‘We wouldn’t wish to be too ostentatious.’

He walked to the table and, pouring two glasses of the recently departed Englishman’s cool Muscadet, handed one to Piccio.

‘To the Duce,’ Piccio said loyally.

Guidotti smiled. ‘And to
us,
Piccio. You, me, Di Sanctis and the rest of us. After all, the Duce spends
his
time in Rome in considerable comfort. We’re the ones who do the work.’

Piccio clicked his heels. ‘To
us,
Excellency,’ he agreed. ‘I think we have this place well under control with little likelihood of trouble.’

‘Who could cause it?’ Guidotti asked. ‘There is no one.’

Well, almost no one.

By this time, the men in the cave above Eil Dif had almost forgotten the war.

The plan to hit at the Italians had finally been abandoned. There was no longer the thump of bombs, the thud of artillery or the flickering light of gunfire in the sky at night.

They had seen lorries approaching from the north-east that were full of British prisoners, and Italian vehicles were now moving freely backwards and forwards along the long straight road with the slow trains of camels while, overhead, aeroplanes droned in safety across the brassy sky.

The Italians were in control. The war was over in that part of the world.

Undisturbed except for the wild cackle of a hyena or the scuffle as an occasional dik-dik or gerenuk slipped among the rocks, they were quite unconcerned. Once they smelled leopard and heard its throaty roar in the night but they saw no sign of anything but troops of baboons that sat among the rocks watching them.

‘Bloody things,’ Tully said. ‘Once when we were out on an exercise near Sheikh the bastards attacked us.’

‘What did you do?’ Gooch leaned back lazily, a cigarette in his mouth.

‘We chucked rocks at ‘em.’

‘Stop ‘em?’

‘No. The bastards chucked ‘em back.’

During the afternoon, they took the Bedford down to Eil Dif, the back full of empty petrol cans.

The people occupying Eil Dif were Habr Odessi, a clan of the great northern tribe of Aidegalla, and they found the chief in the coffee house in the marketplace, an emaciated old man with a shock of greying hair and one leg crippled from a sword slash thirty years before when the Mad Mullah was terrorizing the country. He stood leaning on his staff listening politely as Harkaway explained in barrakee hausa what they had to offer for the privilege of using the tribe’s waterhole, then he gestured at one of the waiting Somalis who vanished and returned with a tall smiling villain of a man with a limp. He wore a long robe, an embroidered cap like a tarboosh and an over-large pair of western boots devoid of laces.

‘Hello, Chief,’ he said in English.
‘Salaam aleikum. Ma nabad bal
Is it peace?’

‘Wa aleikum, salaam,’
Harkaway replied.
‘Wa nabad.
It is peace. You speak English?’

‘Yes, effendi. We have palaver?’

‘We wish to replenish our water,’ Harkaway said. ‘We also wish to barter for fresh meat.’

‘We have meat to sell, effendi. How much do you offer?’

Harkaway produced several tins of boot polish. ‘Very good,’ he explained. ‘You polish your sandals. Like this.’

He pushed forward the toe of his boot, carefully rubbed up for the occasion. ‘Very good,’ he said again. ‘Your women like it.’

The limping man smiled and shook his head. ‘Effendi, I am Yussuf abu Jibril. But I am known to the English sailors as Shovel Joe. I stoker in ships from Aden. My mother Arab. My father Abyssinian. I speak English good. I go many times Cape Town. Once London. All white people have boots like that. I see it. It is worth nothing.’

Harkaway studied the Somali silently. It was not uncommon for a Somali to go to sea, returning after several years with a suit, a stiff collar and a valise full of money and trinkets bought in Cape Town or Alexandria, and then to abandon them all for the nomad life of his ancestors, complete with camels and a herd of sheep and goats and wearing the tobe, the traditional dress of the country, which was nothing more than fifteen feet of Manchester cotton cloth worn like a toga.

‘We’re up against a business tycoon here,’ he muttered to the others. Turning to the Somali he asked, ‘How much do you want then, Joe?’

Yussuf shrugged. ‘What have you got, effendi? We are a poor people. All Somalis are poor people. It is the will of Allah, though I sometimes wonder why, if Allah is so merciful, he created Somaliland so empty. I leave the sea because too hard work and I hurt my foot. Perhaps I become chief when Italians come to Eil Dif. Chief Abduruman already much old, and I speak also Italian, you see. Many times into Massawa and Mogadiscio.’

Harkaway glanced at the others. Yussuf abu Jibril might well be a useful ally. He thrust the tins of boot polish at him. ‘Might as well keep them,’ he said. ‘Give ‘em to your wives. Polish their navels.’

Yussuf smiled but offered nothing in return, and, glancing again at the others, Harkaway went on briskly.

‘Tell your chief we have guns to sell,’ he said.

Gooch and Tully glanced at each other. Harkaway was a private sort of person and they never knew what he was thinking - usually because he was way ahead of them - but this was unexpected.

‘Life’s hard,’ Harkaway went on. ‘Not much meat. Goats and sheep hard to come by.’ His arm swept the desert. ‘Buck out there. Dik-dik and gerenuk. Even some kudu in the hills. Good eating but hard to catch. Run fast. Faster than a man can run. Further than he can throw spear. Gun stop them. Gun powerful.’

Yussuf smiled. ‘Where are these guns? You take us to them?’

‘No.’ Harkaway smiled back. ‘We bring them to you.’

Harkaway didn’t bother to explain his impulsive offer and no one attempted to ask him. It had always been assumed that Harkaway was the brains of the group and it was an indication of his potential that they didn’t argue.

The following day, when they headed down to Eil Dif, hidden beneath the water skins in the back of the lorry were three of the ancient Martinis.

‘We show you.’ Harkaway gestured at Tully as the tribesmen appeared, watching warily. ‘Set up a target, Paddy.’

Tully walked away from the village and placed a bully beef tin they had brought with them on a small boulder. Harkaway lay down on the sand and took aim. As the crack of the shot echoed in the ruins of the old houses behind them the can jumped into the air to land on the earth with a puff of dust.

‘Your people throw a spear that far?’ he asked.

The men behind him were silent, leaning forward on their spears, covetously watching the rifle, their eyes glinting with menace.

‘You show?’ Yussuf indicated the young men. ‘Sure.’ Harkaway picked a tall young Somali with a lean, intelligent face and handed him the rifle. The Somali backed away but between them Harkaway and Yussuf got him on the ground with the rifle to his shoulder.

The can was set up again, the sights were explained and the Somali fired. The can remained where it was.

‘He yanked at the trigger,’ Gooch said. ‘He didn’t squeeze.’

Harkaway took the young tribesman to one side. ‘What him name him?’ he asked Yussuf.

‘He Abdillahi. He speak small-small English. He fireman one-time, like me. One year. Me many.’

‘Right. You tell Abdillahi.’ Harkaway took the rifle and demonstrated. ‘Butt well into the shoulder and up against the cheek. Left hand well down the barrel. Right hand holding the narrow part of the stock. Then you squeeze the trigger. Once for the first pressure. Then again for the second. Tell him to try it again.’

Yussuf explained carefully, his thin black hands fluttering over the rifle as the young Somali held it. This time, though the can didn’t jump, the bullet threw up a puff of dust only a few feet to the right.

‘Better,’ Harkaway said. ‘Go over it again.’

The Somali’s third shot came within a foot of the can.

‘Near enough to bring down a buck. And he could do better if he were closer.’ Harkaway went to great lengths to explain the use of the sights. ‘You’ll need some ammunition to practise with, of course. Nobody can shoot without practice.’ He held out a sack containing cartridges. ‘Much as you like. Fire a few off. Two days from now you’ll be bringing buck down like clay pipes at a fair.’

Yussuf went into a huddle with the old chief and several of the young men. Behind them the women of the village stood in a small group, chattering in shrill voices. Then the ex-fireman turned round.

‘How many women you want in exchange, effendi?’

Tully licked his lips but Harkaway shook his head.

‘Not women. Money.’

‘No have money, effendi.’

‘Gold? They have gold in Abyssinia. Don’t tell me none ever found its way down here. Or silver. You’ve got silver. I’ve seen your women wearing bangles and anklets.’

‘Effendi -’ Yussuf smiled his sly smile - ‘when the English retreated to the sea, they left arms and equipment at the Tug Argan. I hear of a young boy in Hargeisa with three rifles he find.’ His face wrinkled. ‘Besides, effendi, what is to stop our young men following you and taking them for ourselves?’

There was a long silence then Grobelaar bent, his hand over his face. When he straightened up again he held up his hand. Between his fingers he held his glass eye. A chorus of ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ broke from the young men and women and Grobelaar smiled, his face oddly lopsided with its empty eye-socket.

‘Fine fetish,’ he pointed out. ‘You can tell your young men I shall always leave my eye behind me so that I can see if anyone comes.’

They haggled for another ten minutes, then a price was agreed, less than they’d expected but enough. The ex-fireman disappeared and returned soon afterwards with a leather bag full of silver bangles and necklets. The rifles changed hands.

‘Now you want women?’ Yussuf asked, smiling. ‘Perhaps they earn their bangles back.’

Tully looked at Gooch; Gooch looked at Grobelaar, who looked faintly embarrassed.

‘Leave me out, man,’ he said.

Yussuf indicated a group of girls. They were all slim, their robes tight over their hips and breasts, their dark head-cloths shading exquisitely moulded faces and black spaniel eyes.

‘Somali woman always obey her man,’ he said. ‘Make good wife.’

They drove back up the hill, all of them satisfied with the morning’s work.

‘That was a good idea about the eye, Kom-Kom,’ Harkaway said.

‘I’ve done it before,’ Grobelaar explained. ‘It always works. They know there’s a trick somewhere but they’re never prepared to chance it.’

Gooch was eyeing the leather bag full of trinkets. ‘Them bracelets’ll fetch a bit in Mombasa,’ he commented.

‘If you sell ‘em in Mombasa,’ Harkaway said, ‘you’ll be a damn fool. They’d bring only beer money there. Save ‘em and sell them in London when you go home. The society girls will go for that sort of thing in a big way.’

‘How do you know?’

Harkaway gave him a cold look. ‘I haven’t always been a bloody soldier.’

‘Gentleman ranker out on the spree.’ Gooch grinned. ‘Damned from here to eternity.’

Three days later, a party of Habr Odessi herders from Eil Dif came on a party of Illas, a clan belonging to the Harari Kibal group, using the waterhole at Daraba they called El Wak, the Wells of God, which they considered belonged to the Habr Odessi. They were well aware that the previous year when the rains were slow to come and the country was drying up into a drought, the Harari had been
selling
their water. Which was fine for the Harari but, when there was no money, hard for the Habr Odessi whose herds died. Stumbling on the Illas, therefore, the Habr Odessi from Eil Dif were in no mood to be forgiving. They had been seeking game and were hungry, and across the back of one of their camels a dead gerenuk was slung, its head swaying to the camel’s movement. Like all Somalis, the herdsmen were avaricious and saw no reason to share the facilities they considered their own with anyone else, least of all the Harari. They were armed with spears and were quite ready to use them, and the discovery of Harari at their waterhole was a challenge to them. There were more of the Harari than there were of the Habr Odessi, but the Habr Odessi were highly-strung, stoic over pain, treacherous when necessary and, with a contempt for death, were cunning and patient, with fierce eyes that burned like fires with the suggestion of unrest.

For a while they talked quietly together then they meekly offered salaams and went on their way. The next morning, however, they returned with ten others, appearing out of the greyness of the early morning. With them was Abdillahi, the young man Harkaway had taught to use the ancient Martini. While the others watched, he moved quietly away with his camel. The rest waited, while the Illas eyed them warily, expecting a rush.

No rush came. The young man lay down on the sand in the eye of the appearing sun, as he had learned when stalking a foe. He was difficult to see and the Illas could not make out what he was up to. Then his rifle cracked and one of the Illas standing by his camel fell backwards, a glittering red fountain pulsing from his chest as the heavy lead bullet from the Martini struck him. Immediately, two more rifles fired. One of the bullets went winging over the desert but the other struck one of the Illas in the leg, smashing the bone and bringing him down. Immediately, the other Habr Odessi rushed forward, wielding their spears. When they had finished, there were two more dead Illas, one of them a boy of thirteen.

The surviving Illas, who had scattered into the surrounding desert, came together as the sun lifted higher to cast its glittering white light over everything, and swore vengeance. They had no need to find the Habr Odessi at one of their waterholes. Ma men had been killed and Ma women had been left to die, and that was sufficient excuse. The Harari tribe, of which they were a sept, were as vain, cruel and vengeful as the Habr Odessi and they had not failed to hear of the white men who were selling rifles.

A fortnight later, near the Tug Wirir, Gooch and Tully, scouting unwillingly towards the road to watch the Italian lorries, were stopped by an old man who indicated that he wished to talk business.