Castelani threw back his head, inflated his lungs and let out a bellow that seemed to echo against the clear high desert sky.
"Fall in!" and the sprawling figures scrambled into frenzied activity, grabbing weapons and adjusting uniforms as they formed ragged ranks beside each truck.
"My children," said Aldo Belli, as he began to pace down the line.
"My brave boys," and he looked at them, not really seeing the mis-buttoned tunics, the stubble on their chins, nor the hastily pinched-out cigarettes behind the ears. His vision was misted with sentiment, his imagination dressed them in burnished breastplates and horsetail plumes.
"You are thirsty for blood?" the Colonel asked, and threw back his head and laughed a reckless carefree laugh. "I will give you buckets of it," he said. "Today you will drink your fill. The men within earshot shuffled their feet and glanced uneasily at each other. There was a definite preference for Chianti amongst them.
The Count stopped before a thin rifleman, still in his teens, with a dark shaggy mop of hair hanging out from under his helmet.
"Bambino," said the Count, and the youth hung his head and grinned in sickly embarrassment. "We will make a warrior out of you today," and he embraced the boy, then held him off at arm's length and studied his face. "Italy gives of her finest, none are too young or too noble to be spared sacrifice on the altar of war." The boy's ingratiating grin changed swiftly to real alarm. -Sing, bambino, sing!" cried the Count, and himself opened "La Giovinezza" in his soaring baritone while the youth quavered uncertainly below him. The Count marched on, singing, and reached the head of the column as the song ended. He nodded to Castelani, too breathless to speak, and the Major let out another bull bellow.
"Mount up!" The formations of black-shirted troopers broke up into confused activity as they hurried to the cumbersome trucks and climbed aboard.
The Rolls-Royce stood in pride of place at the head of the column, Giuseppe sitting ready at the wheel with Gino beside him, his camera at the ready.
The engine was purring, the wide back seat packed with the Count's personal gear sports rifle, shotgun, travelling rugs, picnic hamper, straw wine carrier, binoculars, and ceremonial cloak.
The Count mounted with dignity and settled himself on the padded leather. He looked at Castelani.
"Remember, Major, the essence of my strategy is speed and surprise. The lightning blow, swift and merciless, delivered by the steel hand at the enemy's heart." Sitting beside the driver in the rear truck of the column, eating the dust of the forty-nine trucks ahead, and already beginning to sweat freely in the oven heat of the steel cab, Major Castelani inspected his watch.
"Mother of God," he growled. "It's past eleven o'clock.
We will have to move fast if we At that moment, the driver swore and braked heavily, and before the truck had come to a halt, Castelani had leapt out on to the running board and climbed high on to the roof of the cab.
"What is it?"he shouted to the driver ahead.
"I do not know, Major," the man shouted back.
Ahead of them the entire column had come to a halt, and Castelani braced himself for the sound of firing certain that they had run into an ambush. There was confused shouting of question and comment from the drivers and crews of the stranded convoy, as they climbed down and peered ahead.
Castelani focused his binoculars, and at that moment the sound of gunfire carried clearly across the desert spaces, and the swift order to deploy his field guns was on Castelani's lips as he found the Rolls-Royce in the lens of his binoculars.
The big automobile was out on the left flank, racing through the scrubby grass, and in the back seat the count was braced with a shotgun levelled over the driver's head.
Even as Castelani watched, a flock of plump brown francolin burst from the grass ahead of the speeding Rolls, rising steeply on quick wide wings. Long blue streamers of gunsmoke flew from the muzzles of the shotgun, and two of the birds exploded in puffs of soft brown feathers, while the survivors of the flock scattered away, and the Rolls came to a halt in a skidding cloud of dust.
Castelani watched Gino, the little Sergeant, jump from the Rolls and run to pick up the dead birds and carry them to the Count.
Torco Dio!" thundered the Major, as he watched the Count pose for the camera, still standing in the rear of the Rolls, holding the dangling feathered brown bodies and smiling proudly into the lens.
There was a rising feeling of despondency and alarm in the Ras's army.
Since the middle of the morning, through a day of scalding heat and unrelenting boredom, they had waited.
The scouts had reported the first forward movement of the Italian force at ten o'clock that morning, and immediately the Ras's forces had moved forward into their carefully prepared positions.
Gareth Swales had spent days selecting the best possible ground in which to meet the first Italian thrust, and each contingent of the wild Ethiopian cavalry had been carefully drilled and properly cautioned as to the sequence of ambush and the necessity of maintaining strict discipline.
The chosen field was situated between the horns of the mountains, in the mouth of the funnel formed by the debouchment of the Sardi Gorge. It was obvious that this was the only approach route open to the Italians, and it was nearly twelve miles wide.
The attackers must be led in close to the southern horn of the funnel, where the Vickers machine guns had been sited on the rocky slopes, and where a minor water course had chiselled its way down to the plain. The water course was dry now, and it meandered out into the plain for five miles before vanishing, but it was deep and wide enough to conceal the large contingents of Harari and Galla horsemen.
This mass of cavalry had been waiting all day, squatting beside their mounts in the sugar-white sand of the river bed.
The two separate factions had been diplomatically separated. The Harari were placed at the head of the trap, nearest the rocky slope of the mountain with the Vickers gunners hidden on their flank in strong posts amongst the rocks.
The Galla, under the scar-faced Gerazmach in the blue sham ma were grouped farther out on the open plain at a point where the dry water course turned sharply and angled out towards the grassland.
Here in the bend, the banks were still steep enough to conceal fifteen hundred mounted men. These, with almost three thousand of the Ras's own cavalry, formed a formidable offensive army especially if thrown in unexpectedly against and unbalanced enemy. The mood of the Ethiopians, ever sanguinary, was aggravated by the many hours of enforced inactivity, crouching without cover from the blinding sun on a white sand bed which reflected its rays like a mirror. The horses were already distressed by the heat and lack of water while the men were murderous.
Gareth Swales had contrived a net, using the natural wide curve of the water course, into which he hoped to lure the Italian column. Two miles farther out in the plain, beyond where he now stood on the turret of the Hump, a fold of ground concealed the small band of mounted men who were to provide the bait. They had been waiting there since the scouts had first reported the Italian movement early that morning.
Like everybody else they must by this time be restless, bored and thoroughly uncomfortable. Gareth wondered that this huge amorphous body of undisciplined, independent, spirited hills men had so long maintained cohesion. He would not have been surprised if by this stage half of them had lost interest and had set off homewards.
The only person who was occupied and seemed happy enough was Jake Barton, and Gareth lowered his binoculars and regarded what he could see of him with irritation. The front upper half of that gentleman was completely hidden within the engine compartment of Priscilla the Pig, and only his legs and backside protruded. The muffled strains of "Tiger Rag" whistled endlessly added to Gareth's irritation.