The Secret War

by Dennis Wheatley

  Blatta Ingida Yohannes accepted the situation, but insisted that he should call for them first thing on the following morning. He would take them to see the French and English schools where the children of the Abyssinian aristocracy were being educated on modern lines. In the meantime he would see about securing suitable personal servants for them, to look after them during their stay, and attach a special police guard to them in case they wished to walk in the town; but he begged that they would confine themselves to the European quarter.

  The moment he had gone Christopher gave a despairing groan. “What with servants, and police guards, and that fellow hanging round us all the time, we’ll never succeed in getting at Zarrif even if we can find him.”

  “We’ll manage somehow,” Lovelace said grimly. “These people have plenty of low cunning, but we whites have far better brains. It’s not difficult to trick them, and I’ve been thinking, if we can’t trace Zarrif through the American Legation we’ll probably be able to get a line on him through his friend Ras Desoum. You go off and have your rest now; you’re looking rotten.”

  “Yes, I feel it too. See you later, then.”

  As Christopher left the room Valerie looked across at Lovelace. “So we’re off on this murder game again, it seems.”

  Lovelace gave her a quick glance and began to fiddle with a new pipe he had bought. “When Zarrif shot down your plane in the Danakil country he did it with the deliberate intention of murdering us all, so, quite apart from the fact that the Millers of God have ordered his execution, to my mind he deserves all we mean to give him.”

  “Yes—yes,” she nodded wearily. “I know,”

  He stroked his small, upturned moustache and went on slowly: “You’re not quite so keen now on this Crusade—as you used to term Christopher’s mission—are you? It’s a grim business and I’ve wished all along you were safely out of it. Listen, Valerie. Why not fly back to Jibuti this evening. We’ll beg, borrow, or steal some reliable chap from one of the Legations to go with you.”

  She shook her head. “No. I can’t leave Christopher—or you. When I think of my darling Count Dolomenchi and that nice young Abyssinian who was here just now, too, I am more certain than ever that anyone like Zarrif, who deliberately pulls the wires to make them wish to cut each other’s throats, deserves death a hundred times. I’m just tired—that’s all. When I’ve rested for a bit I’ll feel better.”

  He realised that her affectionate mention of the Count implied no more than friendship, but all the same, as she made it, Lovelace was conscious of a little twinge of jealousy. She stood up and, as he watched her leave the room, he checked his thoughts sharply. He knew he had no right to think of her that way at all. She was Christopher’s. Yet he wished, as he had never wished for anything in his life before, that she were free so that he could tell her how much he loved her.

  That evening a car with two special guards picked them up and ran them out to the United States Legation. It was some way from the centre of the town and, like those of the other nations, stood in a fine, walled, private park on land which the Emperor had generously presented for the purpose.

  Rudy Connolly received them with shouts of joy and introduced them to his colleagues. For Christopher and Valerie it was grand to find themselves among their own people again, and Lovelace was made equally welcome. It would have been a thoroughly delightful evening if each of them had not had to act a part and endeavour to conceal their secret anxieties.

  They posed as tourists who, being in Egypt, had just flown up for a few days out of curiosity, to see Addis now that it played such a prominent part in the world’s news.

  When Christopher cornered Connolly after dinner, the diplomat said that, of course, he knew Paxito Zarrif by reputation, but he had heard nothing of his being in Addis. So far, inquiries among his friends had proved fruitless, but native spies had been put on the job and perhaps some information might come in the following day.

  Connolly showed some professional reticence in speaking about the war. He admitted to knowing that the Italians were actually in Dessye, although the Abyssinians refused to acknowledge it; and said that as far as their own information went, the Emperor was with his troops somewhere between Addis and his old headquarters. Fresh levies were still moving through from the far west to his support, and it was thought that he would hold up the Italians at a point where the road dipped suddenly from the terrific heights of the Abyssinian central ranges to the fringe of the plains bordering the Danakil country.

  “Are there any landing-places for aeroplanes on the Dessye road?” Christopher asked.

  Connolly stared at him in surprise. “Good Lord, no! but why?”

  “I’d like to go there. See a little of the fighting.”

  “I wouldn’t try it if I were you. They won’t let you, anyway, without a pass, and I don’t think they’d grant you one for a second. The front’s somewhere out there now, and they wouldn’t even let a single newspaper man go within a hundred miles of the actual operations.”

  “Never mind. Say I could get a pass,” Christopher went on doggedly. “How long would it take me to get there by road?”

  “You could reach Dessye itself, if the road were open all the way, in about three days. That is, if the weather remains as it is at the moment, and given a good stout lorry with plenty of hired men to pull it out of the gulleys whenever it gets stuck. If the weather breaks, as it may now at any time, you might be ten days on the road, and once the rains have really set in it becomes quite impassable. Honestly, you’d be mad to attempt it. Even if you could get a pass and managed to get to the front all right, as the rains are due, you’d be caught there and unable to get back.”

  “Thanks,” said Christopher. “I was only asking out of curiosity,” and he turned the conversation into other channels.

  When they were back in the hotel Christopher faced the others just as they were sitting down to a night-cap in their private room.

  “Look here. I’ve thought it all out. Nobody but the Emperor can sign that concession, and he’s still at the front; somewhere down the Dessye road. Zarrif must be with him at his new headquarters or on his way there. These Abyssinian officials are bribable, you say. Well, I don’t care what it costs, but we’ve got to get a pass and reach the Emperor so that we’re on hand to deal with Zarrif when he tries to do his stuff.”

  “But we can’t use the plane for that,” exclaimed Lovelace, “and to talk of covering a hundred miles of this ghastly country in two days any other way is sheer madness.”

  “I don’t care,” Christopher said tersely. “I’ll buy a dozen lorries and leave each one as it gets stuck for another of the convoy, offering a big reward to the driver who gets through first. It’s got to be done.”

  CHAPTER XXI

  THE FLOWERING OF THE PASSION VINE

  Lovelace had warned the others that Blatta Ingida Yohannes would probably call for them at some godless hour next morning to take them sight-seeing. They were not surprised, therefore, to be knocked up at half-past five, but, when they met an hour later at breakfast, Valerie complained bitterly.

  “Yes, filthy practice, isn’t it?” Lovelace agreed. “But early rising is the custom here. The Emperor always holds his first Cabinet Meeting of the day at five o’clock, except when he has to propitiate his fanatical priesthood by being in church.”

  “We’ve got such a lot to do, and such a devil of a long way to go, we need every moment,” Christopher said shortly. “These extra hours may prove invaluable.”

  “You mean to tackle Yohannes about a pass as soon as he turns up?” Lovelace asked.

  “Yes, and if he can’t give us one I’ll bribe my way up from him to the fellow who can. Will you see about getting the lorries and staff for the journey? Don’t spare money. I’ve got plenty. I brought it in case of just such an emergency as this.”

  “Here comes the young man,” cut in Valerie.

  Lovelace glanced over his shoulder. “By Jove! you’re right, and he�
��s only half-an-hour late. That’s the height of punctuality for an Abyssinian.”

  The young, Europeanised native came hurrying towards them across the dining-room, a happy smile on his coffee-coloured countenance. He seemed bubbling over with some secret excitement which he found it hard to contain.

  After greetings had been exchanged, Christopher came out with his request at once. “Look here, I understand we have to get a pass to motor out towards Dessye; but I want one. Can you fix it for us?”

  Yohannes gave him a quick furtive look. “Why should you wish to go there?”

  “To see something of the front.”

  The Abyssinian shook his head. “That is impossible. It is forbidden.”

  Christopher hedged cleverly. “Well, it’s not exactly the front we’re interested in, but the Emperor. We’re all tremendous admirers of the Emperor, and I’d pay a very high price indeed for the privilege of being allowed to offer him my sympathy in his troubles.”

  “Behold, then! your wish shall be granted.” Blatta Ingida Yohannes spread out his thin hands and began to laugh uproariously. “I have just come from the Emperor. He returned last night from the front.”

  The reason for the young man’s suppressed excitement was immediately apparent. Lovelace thanked his gods that they were to be spared the journey. For Christopher it was something of an anti-climax, but he was quick to realise the reason of the Emperor’s return; he had come back to keep his appointment with Zarrif on the first of May. That meant that Zarrif was in Addis after all, or would certainly be there by the following day. Valerie, with the same thought in her mind, asked: “Why has the Emperor returned so unexpectedly?”

  “Because the rains, which are expected so soon now, will put a stop to the fighting. He has summoned a council of his Rases for the day after to-morrow, doubtless to make arrangements for securing further supplies of munitions and training new bodies of troops through the rainy season. Directly he has a moment he will receive you. He has said so. In the meantime it is his wish that I should show you everything. Come! let us go.”

  They set off at once in Blatta Ingida Yohannes’ car, which pulled up at the first filling-station. The Abyssinian explained regretfully that he had forgotten to bring out any money, so Christopher, suppressing a smile at what Henrick Heiderstam had told them the day before of this Abyssinian custom, paid a pound for the usual four-and-a-half-gallon tonika of petrol. They then proceeded on their way through the hilly, well-wooded town, which had far more the appearance of an ill-planned suburb than of a capital city.

  The War Office, when they passed it, proved to be, not as they might have expected a hive of activity, but a small, tumble-down, almost deserted building, and on Valerie remarking that it hardly looked as if a war was in progress at the moment, Blatta Ingida Yohannes shrugged indifferently.

  “All power is centralised in the person of the Emperor, and he is so remarkable a man that he can dictate three letters to different secretaries at the same time. Each ministry has its office, but only for a few clerks; the Ministers are in constant attendance at the Palace, and it is there that every decision on even the most minor matters is taken. See, there it is upon the hill. That is Gibbi, where the Emperor lives and works when he is in Addis Ababa.”

  In the distance the Palace appeared little more than a rambling mass of buildings clustered upon a high mound which dominated the whole town. As they approached it, Blatta Ingida Yohannes pointed out the dome of the old Emperor Menelik’s tomb, the long roof of the Audience Hall, and, between them, the present Emperor’s Observation Tower; below these spread a higgledy-piggledy collection of roofs and courtyards sufficient to accommodate the population of a good-sized town. Thousands of white-robed or khaki-clad figures were in constant movement behind the palings which separated the first great court from the street. Here was the explanation of the deserted War Office; all the brain-power and nervous force of Abyssinia was concentrated in Gibbi.

  A little further on they met a strange procession. It was headed by a big, black-bearded man, riding on a mule, and beneath an open umbrella which an attendant held over his head. His helmet, shoulders, knees and elbows were decorated with great tufts of lions’ fur so that in the distance he had the appearance of some kind of animal. A nearer view, however, showed that the fur was sewn on to a frock-coat of rich brocade, laced with tarnished gold embroidery. Several sinister-looking necklaces dangled on his chest, and altogether he was an amazing spectacle of barbaric valour. Behind him there rode several hundred warriors, somewhat less spectacularly clad, then, in a ragged column, marched at least a thousand men and children, some of whom carried modern rifles, but most armed only with spears and cutlasses, slung, as is the Abyssinian fashion, at their right hips.

  “That was the Dedjazmatch Maskassa,” Blatta Ingida Yohannes remarked, as he steered his car round the tail-end of the column.

  “Is he off to harass the Italians during the rains?” Lovelace asked, thinking of the contrast between this ill-equipped rabble, which must be a fair sample of the bulk of the Abyssinian forces, and a detachment of the smart European-trained Imperial Guard they had just passed outside the palace.

  “Oh, no. The Emperor would like him to go, but cannot compel him, as he is one of our great feudal chieftains, and, for some reason of his own, he does not wish to take part in the war for the moment.”

  “What on earth was he doing with all those armed followers, then?” Christopher inquired.

  Blatta Ingida Yohannes shrugged. “He had been to visit a friend, I expect, or is going to do a little shopping in the town. Whether you have five men or five thousand, it is still the custom here for your entire retinue to accompany you wherever you go. Only the younger members of good families who have been educated, like myself, have given up the practice as yet.

  “I am hoping that you will lunch at my house to-day,” he went on after a moment. “We go now to inspect the Menelik and Ras Makonnen Schools, but we will drive out there afterwards.”

  As he was virtually their host on behalf of the Emperor, no other course was open to them but to accept his invitation, and for the next four hours they had to hold their frayed nerves in check as well as possible while they visited the two schools which are the pride of the small progressive element in Abyssinia.

  In the first all lessons were given in English, and in the second in French. The young pupils spoke these languages quite frequently, and asked a thousand questions of the visitors. The class-rooms, dormitories and kitchens were clean and orderly, the curriculums carefully thought out and on a par with the highest standards of modern European education. Christopher felt that these bright, happy, knowledgeable boys and girls were the living proof of what the Emperor could do if only he were given time, money, and peace; but Lovelace saw these schools for the children of the Abyssinian aristocracy in more correct proportion, as only two oases of civilisation in a vast wilderness of barbarism.

  Each time they had to leave the car to walk round or mount flights of stairs they felt the strain on their hearts which ensued from the least effort at this great altitude. Ordinarily Valerie would have taken immense interest in all that she was seeing, but her acute anxiety about the immediate future was too great. Half the time she felt that she was talking sheer nonsense, through inability to concentrate her thoughts on anything but the terrible events that the next few hours might have in store for her, and the other half she was fighting to control her laboured breathing. Christopher, too, talked only in nervy, spasmodic bursts, being almost entirely occupied with his secret thoughts. Lovelace alone managed to maintain at least an outward appearance of calm, polite interest in the things they were being shown.

  Afterwards, on their way to another quarter of the town, they passed several of the Legations: clusters of buildings like good-sized villages set in spacious, walled parks that the Emperor had presented to the foreign governments.

  Blatta Ingida Yohannes pointed out a number of them and, driving on, arrived twent
y minutes later at his house. It was a square bungalow with the usual array of huts and lean-tos about it; all enclosed by a high wall and separated from its neighbours by patches of partially cultivated ground shaded in places by blue-gums.

  The house possessed only one reception room, but this its owner showed them with some pride. It was furnished with fumed oak of the variety obtainable from the cheaper shops in the Tottenham Court Road, but probably imported at very considerable expense. There were two long shelves of well-thumbed books, a relic of their host’s student days, and a porcelain stove fitted in one corner as a gallant attempt to carry a French atmosphere into this benighted corner of Africa.

  The effort was interesting but pathetic, for these European furnishings looked completely out of place, lacking, as they did, a natural background.

  Two white-robed servants produced a meal, the principal course of which was vod with intshera, and Blatta Ingida Yohannes gave his visitors their first lesson in eating this staple Abyssinian dish. The vod was a highly seasoned stew and the intshera a kind of biscuity unleavened bread. The process consisted of breaking off a piece of intshera, then pouring some of the vod upon it and getting the resultant mess into one’s mouth while spilling as little as possible.

  Valerie was surprised that an apparently cultured man should think it amusing to teach his visitors to feed in such a disgusting manner, but Lovelace knew that if it had been their misfortune to have had to accept the hospitality of one of the old-school Abyssinian nobility they would have had to eat raw meat and show their appreciation afterwards by loud, and to Europeans offensive, noises.

  The meal suffered an unexpected interruption. Bugles blew and klaxons suddenly sounded. It was an air-raid warning.