"How are you coming along there?" he called, merely to stop the music, and Jake's tousled head emerged, one cheek smeared with black oil. think I've found it," he said cheerfully. "A lump of muck in the carb," and he wiped his hands on the lump of cotton waste that Gregorius handed him. "What are the Eyeties up to?"
"I think we've got a small problem, old son," Gareth murmured softly, turning once more to resume his vigil, and his expression for once was serious and concerned. "I must admit that I banked on the old Latin dash and swagger to bring them charging down here without a backward glance."
Jake came across from his car and clambered up beside J Gareth. The two armoured cars were parked at the extreme end of the curved water course, just before it lost its identity and vanished into the limitless sea of grass and rolling sandy hills. Here the banks of the river were only just enough to cover the hulls of the two cars, but they left the turrets partially exposed. A light cover of cut Thorn branches made them inconspicuous, while allowing them to act as observation posts for the crews.
Gareth handed Jake his binoculars. "I think we've got ourselves a really wily one here. This Italian commander isn't rushing. He's coming on nice and slow, taking his time," Gareth shook his head worriedly, "I don', like it at all."
"He's stopped again," Jake said, watching the distant dust cloud that marked the position of the advancing column.
The dust cloud shrivelled, and subsided.
"Oh my God!" groaned Gareth, and snatched the binoculars. "The bastard is up to something, I'm sure of it. This is the seventh time the column has halted and for no apparent reason at all. The scouts can't work it out and nor can I. I've got a nasty hollow feeling that we are up against some sort of military genius, a modern Napoleon, and it's making me nervous as hell." Jake smiled and advised philosophically, "What you really need is a soothing game of gin. The Ras is waiting for you." As if on cue, the Ras looked up brightly and expectantly from the ammunition box set in the small strip of shade under the hull. He had laid out a pattern of playing cards on the lid which he had been studying. His bodyguard were grouped behind him.
They also looked up expectantly.
"They've got me surrounded," groaned Gareth. "I'm not sure which one is the most dangerous that old bastard down there, or that one out there." He raised the binoculars again and swept the long horizon below the mountains. There was no longer any sign of dust.
"What the hell is he up to?" In fact this seventh halt called by Count Aldo Belli was to be the briefest of the day, and yet one of the most unavoidable.
It was in fact an occasion of the utmost urgency, and while the Count's portable commode was hastily unloaded from the truck carrying his personal gear, he twisted and wriggled impatiently on the back seat of the Rolls while Gino, the batman, tried to comfort him.
"It is the water from those wells, Excellency," he nodded sagely.
Once the commode had been set up, with a good view of the distant mountains before it, a small canvas tent was raised around it to hide the seat from the curious gaze of five hundred infantry men.
The job was completed, only just in time, and a respectful and expectant hush fell over the entire column as the Count climbed carefully down from the Rolls and then dashed like an Olympic athlete for the small lonely canvas structure and disappeared. The silence and expectation lasted for almost fifteen minutes and was shattered at last by the Count's shouts from within the tent.
"Bring the doctor!" Five hundred men waited with all the genuine suspense of a movie audience, speculation and rumour running wildly down the column until it reached Major Castelani. Even he, convinced as he was that he had seen it all, could not believe the cause of this fresh delay, and he went forward to investigate.
He arrived at the tent to find the Count and his medical advisers crowded around the commode and avidly discussing its contents. The Count was pale, but proud, like a new mother whose infant is the centre of attention. He looked up as Castelani appeared in the doorway, and the Major recoiled slightly as, for a moment, it seemed the Count might invite him to join in the examination.
He saluted hastily, taking another step backwards.
"Has your Excellency orders for me?"
"I am an ill man, Castelani," and the Count struck a pose, drooping visibly, his head lolling weakly. Then slowly he drew back his shoulders, and his chin came up. A wan but brave smile tightened his lips. "But that is of no account.
We advance, Castelani. Onwards! Tell the men I am well.
Hide the truth from them. If they know of my illness, they will despair. They will panic." Castelani saluted again. "As you wish, my Colonel."
"Help me to the car, Castelani," he ordered, and reluctantly the Major took his arm. The Count leaned heavily upon him as they crossed to the Rolls, but he smiled gallantly at his men and waved to the nearest of them.
"My poor brave boys," he muttered. "They must never know. I will not fail them now." What the hell is happening out there?" fretted Gareth Swales, glancing up anxiously at Jake on the turret of the car above him.
"Nothing!" Jake assured him. "No sign of movement." don't like it," reiterated Gareth morosely, and his expression hardly altered as the Ras let out one of his triumphant cries and began laying out his cards.
"I don't like that either," he said again, and reached for his wallet before the Ras reminded him. While the Ras shuffled and dealt the next hand, he continued his conversation with Jake.
"What about Vicky? Nothing from that quarter either?"
"Not a peep, "Jake assured him.
"That's another thing I don't like. She took it too calmly.
I expected her to put in an appearance long ago despite my orders."
"She won't be coming," Jake assured him, raising the binoculars again and sweeping the empty horizon.
"I wish I was that confident," muttered Gareth, picking up his cards.
"I've been expecting to see her car driving up at any minute.
It isn't like her to sit meekly in camp, while the action is going on out here. She's a front-ranker, that one.
She likes to be right there when anything is happening."
"I know," Jake -agreed. "She had that mean look in her eye when she agreed to stay at the gorge. So I just made sure she wasn't going to use Miss Wobbly. I took the carbon rod out of the distributor." Gareth began to grin. "That's the only good news I've had today. I had visions of Vicky Camberwell arriving in the middle of a fire fight."
"Poor bloody Italians," observed Jake, and they both laughed.
"Sometimes you surprise me. Do you know that?" said Gareth, and he drew a cheroot from his breast pocket and tossed it up to where Jake stood. "Thanks for" looking after what is mine, "he said. "I appreciate that." Jake bit the tip off the cigar, and gave him a quizzical look as he flicked a match across the rough steel of the turret and held the flame in his cupped hands to burn off the sulphur.
"They are all mavericks until somebody puts a brand on them.
That's the law of the range, old buddy," he answered, and lit the cigar.
Vicky Camberwell had selected five full-grown men from the Ras's camp attendants, rewarded each one with a silver Maria Theresa dollar, and worn each of them down to the fine edge of exhaustion. One after the other, they had taken hold of Miss Wobbly's crank handle and turned it like a squad of demented organ-grinders while Vicky shouted encouragement and threats at them from the driver's hatch, her eyes blazing and cheeks fiery with frustration.
After an hour of this she was convinced that sabotage had been employed to keep her safely out of the way, and she began to check out Miss Wobbly's internal organs. She was one of those unusual women who liked to know how things-worked, and throughout her life had plagued a long series Of mechanics, boyfriends and instructors with her questions. It was not enough for her to switch on a machine and steer it. She had made herself an excellent driver and pilot, and in the process she had acquired a fair idea of the workings of the internal combustion engine.