The Secret War

by Dennis Wheatley

  The dark man smiled as the dishevelled fugitives came panting up to him; bringing his heels together, he gave the Fascist salute as he introduced himself. “Lieutenant Count Giulio Dolomenchi.”

  Still sobbing, Valerie held out the child towards him. “Look!” she gasped. “Look what you’ve done! How could you?”

  He made a little gesture of distress and spoke in Italian. “Signorina, we are at war. Think, too, of what these barbarous people would have done to you had I not seen the wreckage of your plane. I risked the lives of my men and myself to land here on the chance that I might be in time to save white airmen from mutilation.”

  She knew enough Italian to catch the drift of what he said, and felt that his argument was unanswerable. Her pity for the child fought with her gratitude at the thought of the inexpressible horrors from which Lieutenant Count Dolomenchi had rescued them.

  Lovelace was already stammering their thanks and the Lieutenant glanced at him quickly. “You are English—are you not?—but you can tell me about yourselves later. Into the plane, please, now. They will be shooting at us again and we shall get sunstroke if we remain here much longer. Signorina, that child is dead, I fear, so you had better leave it.”

  It was true. The little Danakil had ceased to moan and struggle. Its life-blood had drained from it and the small body now lay limp in Valerie’s arms. She laid it down in the grass and, after a last sorrowful glance, turned towards the war-plane.

  The crew of Italian airmen helped them up into the narrow cabin. Lieutenant Count Dolomenchi mounted to the pilot’s seat; the machine taxied forward, bumped a little, and they were in the air again. The desert was still and lifeless below them as they climbed. Where the village had been there was now only a pile of blackened ash with a few wisps of smoke curling up from it.

  Christopher was staring down at the ruin they were leaving behind them. “How quickly it burnt once it caught fire,” he muttered to Lovelace.

  One of the airmen overheard him and said in English: “I used explosives first—just to scare them out—but once we saw you running from the village I dropped one of our new incendiary bombs to finish it.”

  “I thought as much,” Lovelace nodded. “From the frightful glare it must have been a pretty big chap.”

  “No, no, quite small.” The Italian smiled. “They weigh only one kilo, about two English pounds, but they are thermite and develop a heat of 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Anyone within ten yards of one when it bursts would be scorched to death instantly. They would bore a hole through the steel decks of your most heavily-armoured battleships, and come straight out through their bottoms too, as easily as a rifle bullet would go through an orange.”

  Lovelace would have liked to have heard more of this new weapon, but the Italian excused himself with the plea that he and his comrades must continue the reconnaissance upon which they were engaged.

  The war-plane was now well above the level of the towering cliff, and turned north-by-west in the direction of Dessye. As further ranges of cliffs appeared, they climbed higher and higher while the observers took innumerable photographs of the wild gorges, and hardly discernible goat tracks, beneath them.

  The three passengers had fallen silent. They were now feeling the reaction from the excitement of their escape and the minor misfortunes resulting from their grim ordeal. All of them were badly bruised from the blows they had received, and had numerous small cuts from knives and spears upon their backs and thighs.

  Many of the fleas which had attacked them in the hut were still upon them, and although they had not been exposed to the sun for any length of time, its rays were so strong that they had been badly scorched about their necks and shoulders.

  As the reconnaissance progressed they lapsed into a semi-stupor. Their bodies ached, itched and burned intolerably, yet they were too dead-beat to do anything but crouch on the narrow seats they had been given and pray that the flight would soon be over.

  Once the English-speaking Italian roused them and, pointing downwards with a grin, said, “Look, we are over Dessye.”

  Lovelace peered down. From the air the place appeared much as Diredawa had that morning except, that it was somewhat larger and set in a valley among mountains instead of in a plain. There were the same round native tuculs; the same cluster of whitish tin-roofed buildings and churches in its centre; the same lack of plan in its straggling outlay. In the rarefied mountain air, however, this landmap stood out with startling clearness, and he could see swarms of ant-like creatures moving about their business below. To one side of the town several hundred white tents and marquees had been erected; regular lines of little oblong things near them could only be rows of stationary tanks and lorries. The rumour that the Italians had taken Dessye was true, then.

  As they flew on they passed over an artillery park and veering northward saw a long, long, snake-like stream of slowly moving transport emerging from the entrance of a mountain pass. Evidently the invaders were forming a new base at the Emperor’s old headquarters before pushing on again. They still had a hundred-and-fifty miles to go, though, Lovelace reckoned, before they could enter Addis. Their recent progress had been remarkable, but they were very far from having won as yet.

  He closed his eyes and dropped back in his seat: too tired and ill to watch the scene beneath them any longer. Valerie and Christopher were huddled up in an uneasy doze opposite to him. None of them noticed when the plane changed its direction again, after having made three-quarters of a great circle from Assab, over Diredawa and Dessye, to head back towards the Red Sea. They did not open their eyes again until it landed at a large, military aerodrome.

  Lovelace climbed stiffly out and, seeing the long rows of hangars with the white houses of quite a considerable town beyond in the distance, asked where they were.

  “Assab, our port in Southern Eritrea,” said Count Dolomenchi. “It is a devilish place, but while the war lasts one must put up with such discomforts.”

  “Assab,” repeated Lovelace dully. “Then we’re only just over the border from French Somaliland. Jibuti, from where we started this morning, can’t be much more than a hundred miles along the coast from here. We could get there overnight if there’s a steamer sailing, and make a fresh start for Addis Ababa to-morrow.”

  Dolomenchi shook his handsome head. “Observe the condition of the Signorina and the young man who supports her. Yourself, too, you look almost all-in.”

  It was true. Lovelace glanced behind him and saw that Christopher was now holding Valerie up, although he could hardly stand himself.

  “Come.” The Count took Valerie’s other arm. “In one of the Air Force cars I shall take you all to the hospital. Bed is the place for you at the moment.”

  The hospital to which he took them was a brand-new building on the edge of the town. It was airy, clean and equipped in the most up-to-date manner. Its personnel was entirely military, but Lieutenant Count Dolomenchi seemed to know them all.

  The doctors greeted him with Fascist salutes and a hearty welcome; the Italian nurses smiled and lingered as long as they were able in his vicinity. His request for beds which, as they were for foreign civilians might well have been rejected had it come from a lesser personality, was instantly granted. Was he not Dolomenchi of the Death Squadron, one of the heroes of the Italian Expeditionary Force, the gay and gallant airman who had been twice decorated for his feats of valour at the taking of Adigrat and the storming of Mount Aradam?

  Valerie was taken to the nurses’ ward and the others to a ward for officers. Willing hands assisted them to remove their tattered clothes. Their bruised and blistered bodies were washed, bandaged, and poulticed with witch-hazel.

  Christopher, utterly played out, submitted to the ministrations of the orderlies in silence. His whole body was racked with pain, the skin of his neck, shoulders, arms and back was stretched so taut it looked as though it might burst, and it burned intolerably.

  When he had been put in the next empty bed to Lovelace he rallied a
little, and said: “First thing to-morrow we’ll have to see about buying another plane.”

  The Italian doctor overheard him and smiled. “I think it will be some time before you need bother about that.”

  “But we can’t stop here,” Christopher protested. “It’s of vital importance that we should reach Addis Ababa at the earliest possible moment.”

  The doctor shrugged. “That is unfortunate, as it is quite impossible for you to resume your journey in your present state. Give me your arm, please.”

  “We must,” insisted Christopher feverishly. “We must! So much depends on our arriving there in time. How long did you mean to keep us here?”

  “You have had a ghastly grilling, and some of your wounds may be septic, but, if no complications set in, I’ll have you up and about again in a fortnight or three weeks.” The doctor plunged the hypodermic needle into Christopher’s arm and sent him, still muttering, off to sleep.

  CHAPTER XIX

  THE SECRET OF THE SECOND NILE

  For seven days they were kept in bed. Both Valerie and Christopher had second-degree burns and for the first forty-eight hours, suffered the same agony as if they were being grilled before a slow fire, but, as thousands of similar cases had passed through the hands of the hospital staff since the opening of the campaign, they received expert treatment and were able to get some sleep without the assistance of morphia on the third day.

  Lovelace was burnt, too, although less badly, owing to his previous acclimatisation in the tropics, and he would have recovered earlier than the others had it not been for a small wound in the calf of his leg which gave considerable trouble because it had been inflicted by a poisoned Danakil spear.

  In the next bed to him Christopher fretted badly. They must get on, he insisted whenever the nurses’ backs were turned. Paxito Zarrif was already in Addis Ababa, and the first of May was the date fixed for the signing of the concession. They had been shot down in the Danakil country on April the 18th. It was now the 22nd … the 23rd … the 24th. Unless they left at once there would be no time to plan any attempt against Zarrif which would have a reasonable chance of success. Money was no object. They must charter or buy another plane; buy one for preference, in order that their movements might be free from the surveillance of a hired pilot.

  Fortunately, they had their passports on them when they crashed in the desert, so, although they had lost their luggage, they had no difficulty in proving their identity, and Christopher was able to cable New York for a credit to be opened in his name at the Banco Italiano in Assab.

  On the eighth day after their arrival they were both allowed to get up and went into the town together, where they purchased immediate necessities, but, with all his money, it proved impossible for Christopher to hire or buy another plane. There were hundreds of machines, yet every one of them was either the property of the Italian Air Force or required for some special purpose by the Government. They telegraphed to Jibuti and found that no planes were available there either; but in neutral French Somaliland Christopher was able to make dollars talk. He got in touch with the United States Consul and asked him to purchase an airworthy plane, regardless of its price. The Consul got busy and reported a four-seater, equipped with a variable-pitch propeller for sale at a sum that would have bought a Schneider Cup winner. Christopher bought it and arranged for it to be piloted over next day so that they might fly it to Addis Ababa, starting in the cool early hours of the following morning, but he had reckoned without their hosts.

  Each day the debonair Lieutenant Count Dolomenchi had called at the hospital to inquire after them, leaving gifts of tropical flowers and fruit. He had also called upon Valerie and obtained permission to sit at her bedside each evening after his day’s flying was done. When he had realised that she was Valerie Lorne, the famous American airwoman, his courtesies had turned to unbounded admiration. To have rescued her became a double honour, and he insisted that she should dine in his mess on her tenth night in Assab, as the doctor agreed that she should be well enough by then.

  She protested that it was impossible, that she had no clothes, and that her hair was in a hopeless mess, but he had brushed her objections aside with a gay laugh.

  “The matter of your hair is easily settled. It takes all sorts to make an army, you know—bricklayers, farmers, porters, clerks, and even criminals—there is a professional burglar in my own unit, an amusing fellow. I shall easily find you a hairdresser—as for clothes—you shall see!” and he departed impulsively to beat up the town.

  When Christopher and Lovelace appeared to make known their plans, they found invitations for this gala awaiting them too, and the latter insisted that it was quite out of the question to cut the party.

  Christopher was furious at this fresh delay, but he agreed that the extra twenty-four hours of enforced convalescence would make them all the fitter for their journey, and on the ninth day, when their new plane arrived, Dolomenchi was able to have it thoroughly overhauled for them in his squadron’s workshop.

  Early next evening a surprisingly attractive selection of dresses arrived for Valerie, brought by a local dressmaker who made the necessary alterations to one of them on the spot.

  An hour later a hairdresser, in the uniform of a corporal, presented himself and informed her that, as he had spent two years with Duraye in London, she might have every confidence in him.

  Their generous host also provided the two men with fresh drill suits and sent a car to bring them all out to the air force mess at eight o’clock.

  In her brief career as an airwoman Valerie had been the heroine of many ovations but never one like this. The Italian officers were all practical airmen who had a professional understanding of her records. Moreover it was months since many of them had even seen an attractive white girl of their own class. The band struck up as she entered but it was drowned in cheers and the cheers continued until she thought that they would never stop.

  She was the only woman present. A distinguished General who had been asked to meet her sat on her left and the Commandant of the aerodrome on her right. All down the long tables there were rows of tanned boyish faces smiling an enthusiastic appreciation of her presence.

  After dinner the health of the King of Italy was drunk, those of Il Duce, Signor Mussolini, the President of the United States, and King Edward VIII of England: then that of Valerie, as an inspiration to the airmen of all nations and their most honoured guest.

  The glasses rang; the young men pounded on the tables and shouted plaudits as they drank the toast.

  She stood up to reply and ended by saying that her only wish was to see them, with honour, safely home again in their beautiful Italy which all who had ever seen it must surely love.

  When she sat down the General had to lend her his big handkerchief; for the thought was unbearable to her that many of these splendid boys might leave their bones in the burning deserts of North-East Africa.

  As they left the dinner-table for the big ante-room, Valerie was surrounded by a swarm of young men; all anxious for a few words with her. Those who could not get near because of the crush fastened on Christopher, who, as her fiancé, took on some of her reflected glory, while Lovelace was carried away into a corner by the General.

  For a little they talked of conditions in the interior of Abyssinia as Lovelace had given it out that he and his friends were on their way to join a Red Cross unit; a fiction which pleased the Italians as the more neutral whites there were behind the enemy lines the more chance their own wounded and prisoners had of receiving decent treatment.

  “Have you been stationed here long, sir?” Lovelace inquired in Italian.

  “No,” the other replied quickly. “I am recently transferred from the southern front where I was serving under General Graziani.”

  “You found it interesting, of course? Any soldier would.”

  The Italian stroked his grey moustache and his brown eyes twinkled. “Naturally. I was stationed in Italian Somaliland for a number of year
s before the war, too, so I know the country and the people.”

  “Did you find that the Somalis compare well with other native troops?”

  “Yes, splendidly. The “Lions of Juba,” as they call themselves or Doubats as we term them, are magnificent fellows. Incurably lazy as a people but they’re great fighters. A Doubat will walk fifty miles in a day and swim a couple of rivers infested with crocodiles if you offer him a chance of cutting an enemy’s throat. They’re handsome chaps and their women are really beautiful. Black, of course, but without any trace of the thick lips and the flattened nose of the negro. They’d shoot anyone who attempted to interfere with their women without a second thought and their wives follow them up to within a mile or two of the battle line. The Abyssinians are their hereditary enemies, so we’ve had more Somali volunteers offering to fight with us than we’ve known what to do with.”

  Lovelace sipped the drink that stood beside him. “As almost the entire population of the Ogaden province are Somalis I suppose they’d prefer to see it under Italian rule than continue to be fleeced by the Negus’s tax-gatherers.”

  “Naturally. Their own people further south, over the frontier, know we treat them fairly. They’re Mohammedans, too, and they detest the Abyssinians’ pseudo-Christianity. For years past the people of the Ogaden have only been kept in subjection by a reign of terror which is maintained by the Negus’s Amhara soldiery.”

  “How’s the war going down there?”

  “As well as can be expected,” replied the General non-committally. “Our progress on all fronts appears spasmodic because each time we gain a victory roads must be built through these trackless wastes to carry our supplies, before we can launch a new attack and clear a further section of the country. In the south we are opposed to Ras Nasibu, the Governor of Harar, who is by far the finest soldier among the Abyssinian Commanders. Ras Seyoum, in the Tigre, took a little handling because he is the real, lion-hearted type of Chief we have always heard about; a brave savage, shrewd, courageous and possessing real intitiative, but the others are a joke, little better than stupid children. They get drunk each night and fill their bellies with raw meat while they boast of what their fathers did in the way of killing forty years ago.”