Harkaway's Sixth Column (7 page)

Guidotti muttered something about General Forsci never being likely to leave the luxurious quarters he’d made for himself in Jijiga for a town like Bidiyu, and certainly not until the occupation of British Somaliland was more advanced and there was a greater degree of good Roman comfort.

‘This is bad,’ he said. ‘It indicates carelessness and it’s my wish that Italian troops should not show carelessness. You heard what the British said when we entered the war. They said they would provide us with more of the ruins for which Italy was famous. They regard us with contempt, Piccio.’

‘Excellency.’

‘Italian soldiers can fight as well as any other soldiers.’ Guidotti was working up to a fine show of bad temper. ‘This is the sort of thing that gives the English opportunity to laugh at us. There must be no more of it! Inform all commanders to be alert.
Everybody
must be alert, down to the merest local levy. What if the British should hear of it?’

As it happened, the British heard of it within days.

The Horn of Africa was full of Somali spies for both sides and news travelled swiftly across country by the grapevine. They knew in Mogadiscio what had happened the following day and two days later it was over the Kenya border.

The British forces there, making probes in their armoured cars to worry the victorious but still very nervous Italians, had plenty to keep them occupied, and there wasn’t a great deal of comfort. Enduring the shortages of medical supplies, cigarettes and mail, they had sat in their damp patches of borderland throughout the winter as the rain came down like stair rods, outnumbered, but - as Guidotti was well aware - utterly contemptuous of their enemy, and the information that a triumphal column put up one day had been blown down the next sent the dirty, shabby men guarding the frontier into gales of laughter.

‘Split it into three,’ they shouted.

‘Brought down a hundred yards of wall.’

‘Mussolini’s head almost brained the sentry guarding the flag.’

The British general in command looked up from his papers at the man who brought the news to his headquarters.

‘Who did it, Charlie?’ he asked with a smile.

Colonel Edward Charlton smiled back. He was a Rhodesian lawyer who had found himself in the army because of his services in the last war and his knowledge of the country, and his chief function was to be dogsbody for the general. With his placid nature and his washtub of a stomach he was not a fighting soldier and didn’t pretend to be.

‘That’s one thing we haven’t found out yet, sir,’ he said. ‘I expect we will eventually.’

‘What exactly happened?’

Charlton described as much as he knew, and the general laughed.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘it’s nice to know we’ll have friends when we go back.’

‘Will we go back, sir?’ Charlton asked.

‘You bet your life we will, Charlie. But this is very much a sideshow - a bow and arrow war compared with the Western Desert. David against Goliath, if you like. All the same -’ the general frowned ‘- I wish we could get just enough elastic to make a sling, and anything that indicates we have support is welcome. Any chance of raising the locals?’

Charlton shrugged. ‘Doubt it, sir. Our information suggests that they’ve taken to the Italians quite happily.’

‘Hm.’ The general frowned. ‘They always were a treacherous lot. They kept us busy for twenty years up to and after the last war. Mad Mullah. Heard of him?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Charlton said. ‘I have. I get the impression that the warlike spirit’s dissipated a little since then, though.’

The general waved a hand. ‘I’m not so sure. Still it’ll be up to you to find out. Do what you can if you get the chance. The more the merrier. We haven’t all that many men.’

Guidotti was inclined to consider the bombing of the victory column as an attempt by some disaffected Somali still loyal to the British to show his disapproval of the new regime. Since obviously a bomb would have had to be prepared by someone of intelligence from Berbera, however, he contacted Captain Scaroni, of the navy, in command there, and got him to set up a search. But, since the Somali intelligentsia had left almost to a man with the British in August, all that remained were the shopkeepers and traders who were perfectly happy under Italian rule, just as they would have been under any rule so long as trade continued.

Guards were doubled, officers and NCOs were warned to be on the
qui vive
in case of further attempts to undermine Italian rule, but when nothing happened it was assumed that it was an isolated incident and gradually they began to relax.

Unfortunately, just when Guidotti had decided he had everything under control again, the feud between the Habr Odessi and the Harari erupted once more, and quite by chance Colonel Piccio drove smack through the middle of a skirmish across the Strada del Duce that holed one or two lorries and caused their crews to duck hurriedly.

Guidotti listened to Piccio’s account with a frown. The Somalis, he had soon discovered, weren’t very fussy about who was running their country and most of them had gathered from the Eritreans and the Somalis from Italian Somaliland that the Italians were easier to work with than the British. They brought trade in mutton, milk, grain, hides, cloth and incense, which they used in the churches they built; they were not against sitting down with a chief for a cup of tea; and they laughed, sang and were honest about their need for women. The British were cold, proud, detached and hard; they never enthused about anything; and they maintained their frozen faces whatever happened, unmoved by the excitement or the laughter of the Somalis, whom it was known they despised.

Nevertheless, scuffles such as Piccio was now describing seemed to have been few and far between under their administration in recent years, and Guidotti’s job was concerned with law and order along the Strada del Duce from Jijiga to his headquarters in Bidiyu, so that groups of Somalis shooting at each other could not only create a danger to Italian troops but could also cause trouble for General Guidotti.

He had no wish for trouble. He was young and he was ambitious. One day perhaps he could become a marshal like Graziani or Balbo, perhaps a governor of one of Italy’s new colonies. He had a beautiful wife in Rome and two small daughters he adored, and it was only the thought of eventually having them with him, of living in comfort, that enabled him to be away from them so often and for so long. It was over a year since he’d seen them and he itched to prove himself so that he could be rewarded. If by nothing else, he thought wistfully, then perhaps by home leave, though, after Taranto, only God knew how he was going to get across the Mediterranean.

‘Tell me again,’ he said to Piccio.

‘We ran into crossfire across the Strada del Duce,’ Piccio said. ‘Nobody was hurt but we had to set up a machine gun and pepper the slopes. We found one dead Somali, a lot of spent cartridges - and
this.’

He indicated an ancient Martini rifle which lay on Guidotti’s desk.

‘British,’ Guidotti observed.

‘Undoubtedly, Excellency. The British army mark is on the butt. And the cartridge cases we found were of British manufacture.’

‘There can be no mistake? In its day, the Italian army has also used Martinis.’

‘Only our native levies, Excellency.’

‘What’s to stop native levies deserting and selling their weapons?’

‘Sir, we were in a crossfire. They weren’t shooting at us, though we were in danger of being hit. We decided, Di Sanctis and I, that there were around a dozen rifles firing across the road. We would surely know if a dozen men had deserted.’

Guidotti frowned. ‘Then if not from deserters, where
did
they get them?’

‘Could it be that the British set up a dump somewhere in this area to supply native troops and that the local tribesmen have found it?’

‘Twelve rifles is hardly a dump,’ Guidotti said. ‘Perhaps it’s nothing. Perhaps just a tribal quarrel. If it
is
some Englishman, then we’ll catch him. He’ll be begging for mercy before we’ve done with him.

Piccio was unconvinced. ‘In the meantime, Excellency, shouldn’t we double the guards on the convoys passing along the road to Berbera?’

"The arms convoys passing along the road to Berbera are already under heavy guard.’

‘There’s petrol, Excellency.’

‘The Somalis don’t steal petrol,’ Guidotti pointed out. ‘It can’t be used with camels and so far I’ve seen no other form of transport away from the coast.’ He frowned. ‘In any case, petrol lorries also carry an armed guard. On the orders of General Forsci at Jijiga. And since they travel in groups of ten, that means ten armed men with them, under the command of a sergeant.’

‘Sir -’ Piccio gestured ‘- that’s the petrol for the coast. But every evening we have one lorry which brings petrol for our personal use here in Bidiyu. That’s guarded by one armed man only.’

‘The driver also has a weapon in the cab.’

‘Two then, sir. But if a serious attempt were made on it, two men would hardly be enough.’

Guidotti frowned. ‘Very well then,’ he conceded. ‘Let’s have it accompanied by a second vehicle. Or have Jijiga send the lorry through every two days so they can travel in twos.’

‘Sir, General Forsci claims he hasn’t sufficient transport for that. I’ve already discussed it with his transport officer. It’s one lorry or nothing. It makes the journey here in the evening, unloads during darkness and returns in the early morning so that General Forsci has its use during the day.’

‘General Forsci is a narrow-minded -’ Guidotti stopped and smiled, remembering General Forsci was his superior in rank. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Then we’d better send something to Jijiga in the late afternoon which can return with the lorry in the evening and be available for our use during the following day. If General Forsci can do this, so can we!’

‘Sir, we have only one spare vehicle. A car. A Lancia. And at the moment that has a broken spring.’

Guidotti was growing angry. ‘Very well, then,’ he snapped. ‘As soon as the spring is repaired, send it to General Forsci to accompany our lorryload of petrol. Until then, we shall just have to take a chance. Perhaps this skirmish that worries you so much was nothing, anyway. We’ve seen no sign of enmity from the natives. The war’s over. The land’s at peace. There’s no more resistance.’

In that, however, he was dead wrong.

The need for petrol was growing urgent. Without it, they couldn’t move and they’d been prodigal in its use since they’d arrived at Shimber Addi. Nobody liked walking in the heat and they’d used the truck to collect water and meat, even for Tully and Gooch to visit the girls Yussuf had found for them. With Yussuf still hostile, they needed it more than ever.

Something had to be done and, since they’d already discovered that petrol went regularly from Jijiga to Bidiyu, they decided to find out exactly when. It was a risk they had to take if they were to survive.

Driving Tully and Harkaway to a spot near the main road before first light, Grobelaar dropped them and headed back to Eil Dif.

‘We’ll be here a week from now, Kom-Kom,’ Harkaway said as the lorry started to move. ‘And keep an eye on that stupid bastard, Gooch.’

As the lorry rattled off, they began to climb into the hills that overlooked Guidotti’s Strada del Duce. By afternoon, they were staring down at the Wirir Gorge, a slit in the red rocks where the road started to drop down to Bidiyu. Italian working parties had cleared the fallen rocks that had always plagued the road, a neat stone edge had been built and a concrete marker post had been erected.

‘Make a nice job of ‘em, don’t they?’ Tully said. ‘Roman eagle and the usual firewood and chopper.’

They found a niche in the rocks and erected a tarpaulin. It was cold enough at night to make them shiver as they huddled together to sleep, but there were stunted trees with which to make fires. They were always glad to see the sun next morning, however - just as they were glad to see it disappear after a whole day of its blazing heat watching the road.

Occasional camel trains plodded through the gorge, the cries of the drivers - ‘Ei! Ei! Huh-hu-hu-hu!’ -- drifting up to the watching men like the barking of the baboons they occasionally saw. For the most part, the Italian lorries from Jijiga or Berbera travelled in small convoys, guarded by soldiers, and once they saw a car roar past containing four men in different uniforms.

‘Germans,’ Tully said. ‘One of the buggers is wearing an iron cross.’

Harkaway nodded. ‘Watson said there were a few liaison officers with ‘em,’ he agreed.

The week dragged. His face coated with the dust which stuck to the sweat, Harkaway frowned as an Italian convoy roared past.

‘We can’t tackle that many,’ he said.

Then they noticed that each evening just before dark a single lorry passed. It went by every night at speed, but only when, on the fourth day, it roared by with its tarpaulin flapping loose did it dawn on them that it was carrying cans of petrol.

‘Two men,’ Harkaway breathed. ‘Just two men! We could fix
two
of the bastards.’

Two days later the same camel train that had visited Bidiyu moved slowly from Eil Dif south through the foothills of the Bur Yi to Guidotti’s Strada del Duce. Guidotti’s lorries passed them without their drivers even noticing them, because there were plenty of other camel trains on the road, moving towards Berbera.

As the vehicles roared past, the flying grit they lifted settled on the dusty hides of the camels, in the folds of the travellers’ clothing, and in the wrinkles of their skin. The perspiration made it stick so that they were masked like mummies, a layer of moist dust like mud on their faces. After their fashion, the camels grunted and belched and farted as they plodded slowly along the road. On their backs they carried the same bundles of hides that had been to Bidiyu.

As they halted to drink from a water skin, the tallest of the drivers looked round. ‘This is the place,’ he said.

He gestured with his head at the entrance to the Wirir Gorge whose sides towered over the road. The fierce white light of the sun reflected dazzlingly from the rocks and made the place look clinical and sterile.