by Jack Ludlow
There was one inert body on the road but no sign of movement. The plane was taken far enough away to provide room for an emergency take-off, before the Frenchman spun it round and, with a feathering propeller, bumped along the less-than-even surface, taking them closer to the wrecked truck before turning back again to face the way he had come. Jardine was ready to jump out, his pistol in one hand, but he took a last searching look skywards before he executed it: if he was out of the plane and an enemy appeared, any pilot — and quite rightly — would take off, even if he could not get back aboard in time.
His feet had only just hit the ground when two very sad-eyed and dust-covered Italian soldiers emerged from behind the rolled-over truck, with their hands in the air. Searching and failing to see any weapons, he heard them both babbling away in what he took to be a plea to surrender.
A wave of his Colt had them on their knees, while behind him, even with an idling aircraft engine, he could hear de Billancourt laughing, albeit the Frenchman had his pistol out and aimed at the two men who were now looking skywards but praying.
Ignoring them, Jardine pushed past to the turned-over truck, to examine the boxes which had been thrown out, one of which had broken open, scattering its contents. There were no rifles or pistols, which he had half-expected, nor was it food.
The item Jardine picked up was something he had not seen for a long time; still the mere sight of it made him shudder and that made him climb into the truck. There he saw that all the containers were like the one he had found split open.
Back out again, he picked one of the items up; he took it back to the two kneeling Italians, a pair of badly uniformed unshaven louts who could only be drivers, and conscripted ones at that, both with that look in their eye that told him they were sure they were going to die.
He held up the gas mask and used the few Italian words he hoped would make sense, all from a trio of operas, wishing Vince was here now, because to get this wrong was not a good idea. Pointing hard at the mask, he barked his question.
‘Maschera! Tutti camion maschera?’
The eager nods chilled him instead of pleasing him.
‘Cappa impermeable,’ one of the drivers shouted in a desperate tone, he too pointing after the trucks, before gesturing something covering his body.
Gas masks and capes! He tried to calculate the number of these things that truck convoy must have been carrying and what it meant. Walking over to de Billancourt he showed the gas mask to him and the effect on the Frenchman was equally profound. He was also sharp enough to state an obvious act, which had not occurred to Jardine.
‘Gather up as many as you can, mon ami. We can fill the cockpits around us.’
That got the two drivers working, carrying gas masks under the threat of Jardine’s pistol and dropping the entire contents of the broken container into the cockpits. They had to leave room to fly and fight, but Jardine’s last act was to search one Italian and find some matches. He then unscrewed the turned-over lorry’s fuel tank cover and let some petrol spill out onto another mask till it was soaked. This was then stuffed into the pipe and lit, before running for the plane, its engine note already at a higher pitch.
The two drivers were running away as they took off and, with the flames taking rapid hold, the lorry went up with a whoosh as the wheels lifted and de Billancourt took them once more into the air.
‘This does not mean they even have brought such a thing to Ethiopia, Captain Jardine,’ Ras Kassa insisted, holding up one of the masks. ‘Or if they have it, they would be so insensitive to world opinion as to use it.’
‘Sir, the first thing you must make sure of when using mustard gas as a weapon is that your own troops are protected, and I would remind you that the Italians used it against the rebellious tribesmen in Libya. As for world opinion, that is something they have been happy to ignore up till now. It’s over a month since the League of Nations condemned the invasion of your country and what has changed? Nothing.’
‘The emperor will not make peace, will not see his country torn apart to salve the conscience of France and Britain.’
‘It shames me that they should even suggest it.’
Ras Kassa was referring to a sell-out plan cooked up by the two democracies, or rather the British foreign minister, Samuel Hoare and the French premier, Pierre Laval, to give the most fertile bits of Abyssinia to the Italians, with the sop of a corridor to the Red Sea for the Ethiopians. Leaked to the press, it had been roundly denounced by the public, while the two governments had bowed to the resultant pressure, forcing the politicians who had proposed it to resign.
‘Sir, it is not my intention to argue with you, that is not my place, but I suggest you have not seen the effect of this weapon …’
‘And you have?’
‘The effect, yes, on the men who faced it on the Western Front, but I have never experienced it myself.’
Ras Kassa held up the mask Jardine had shown him, one of the number he and the Frenchman had brought back, enough to protect his command but not his warriors. Others had gone to the casualty station doctor, the two Americans, Vince, and naturally one each for the men who had come across them, this at the insistence of the Ethiopian leader.
‘Perhaps it would have been better if you had brought us these and protective capes rather than guns.’
‘Can they be got anyway, perhaps by an appeal to the democracies? Surely they will not embargo those.’
‘In the quantity and time required, even for just the fighting men? I think not, and I fear, if you are right, my people are going to suffer a great deal. The only way to stop that is a complete victory over the Italian forces and, as I think you have already come to suspect, that is not happening as we hoped.’
‘I wondered if you were deluding yourself.’
‘No, Captain Jardine, but sadly, it is necessary to delude the nation and keep up the hopes of my people. The Italian corps we hoped to trap have evaded encirclement and are now part of a continuous defensive line of some strength.’
‘You won’t break through?’
‘Only if there is a miracle, and much as I love and respect my God, that I cannot see happening. However, we must try, and the invasion of Somaliland is progressing well.’
‘The cost, sir?’
‘How will this come, if it comes?’ the ras asked, holding up the mask again, unwilling to respond to Jardine’s question.
‘Ground canisters on the right wind were the normal method of delivery, but I believe the Italians used artillery shells in their North African provinces.’
Jardine was sure he could see the ras trying to calculate the potential effect; artillery argued it would be local and it was a gas that dispersed reasonably quickly, which might mean the effect would be contained. Conscious that he was inclined to think the man callous in his view of human life, he also had to remind himself that he was not responsible for the alternatives.
Reports of what the Italians had done in their Libyan provinces did not provide a happy prospect for Ethiopia: mass deportations, murderous concentration camps in which thousands of rebellious tribesmen and their families had perished, as well as summary executions. When it came to mass killing, the Fascist generals had what Vince would call ‘form’, and there was no reason to suppose they would not employ the same methods here.
Yet there was no way the front-line troops could be kept safe from the effects of mustard gas burning; rarely fatal, it was, however, totally incapacitating on exposed eyes and skin, while it was almost as if, in the shamma, the Ethiopian peasant army had come up with a garment providing less protection than even an army uniform, and that was useless.
‘Ask Mr Alverson to come and see me, Captain Jardine. This, whatever the other leaders say, is a story that must be got out to the world and quickly, without embellishment.’
What had not been calculated for was the use of science to improve delivery, and it was the troops pushing back the Italians in Somalia who were the first to suffer from a cloud
of mustard gas dropped on them from the air, a much more effective way to deploy the instrument of terror than had previously been known. From advancing with gusto, the troops of the eastern front were first stopped, then thrown into headlong retreat, unable to face what they said was the terrible rain that burnt and killed.
For weeks the Italians had been preparing a second offensive on the main northern front — Badoglio had been reinforced with more regular troops. It was also obvious by the increased air activity and the relentless bombing of Addis Ababa — as well as the road to the front — to interdict both men and supplies, and it was a fair assumption that having used gas once, they would do so again.
How much the spear- and bow-carrying warriors knew of what was coming Cal Jardine did not know; what he was aware of did not bring peace of mind. There was to be no withdrawal by the imperial armies to the high mountains, but at least they had given up useless assaults and were now waiting to be attacked. What reconnaissance could be undertaken showed the steady build-up of armoured units at the front, and the lines of attack could be in little doubt.
Finally, under pressure from his field commanders, Haile Selassie had ordered his troops pulled back from where the blows would fall, and allowed them to disperse to save lives. Yet it was only half a cake to Cal Jardine, given he also hoped the emperor would allow them a flexible ability to respond in the counter-attacks he was already envisaging.
As they had dispersed, so had Corrie Littleton: she was now in a new field hospital well back from the front, nearer Gondar, while Alverson was toing and froing to there, now he had his Rolls back. Cal Jardine and Vince Castellano stayed with Ras Kassa’s forward HQ, now leading a very tightly controlled group of a dozen young warriors in raiding, striking the Italian lines in different places and gathering intelligence.
They had, of course, to bow to the wishes of the ras: the job of their natives was to instil fear into their enemies by slitting the throats of the Italians, men who never left their front lines to raid themselves, while their British leaders sought prisoners who could be brought back for interrogation; to stop them being subsequently tortured and killed they were being passed back to Addis, ostensibly as presents for the emperor.
‘They might still pull it off, Tyler,’ Jardine insisted, when they got together for a meal — on a night of a full moon and a clear starlit sky, raiding was out of the question. ‘Scattered troops make them hard to find and bomb, and he has taken steps to keep secret where they are going to be concentrated.’
‘I’m no soldier, but as soon as Fatso’s boys attack they will have to concentrate, and in the open, yes?’
Jardine nodded. ‘That’s when they will get to see what Badoglio intends.’
‘You know, I don’t like the odds, guv.’ Vince insisted, having made no secret of his view that, even owning a mask, and now with an impermeable cape as well, he did not fancy mustard gas.
‘If he looks like he’s winning he’ll hold off, I think.’ There was no need to add what would come were the Italian assault to be held up.
‘Nightcap before I hit the sack?’ Alverson suggested, proffering yet more whisky. ‘I’m going back up to Gondar in the morning. I’m running out of film and my slaver has been asked to bring some in.’
‘I’m for that,’ Vince said, nodding to the bottle, ‘it’ll help me get a good night’s sleep.’
‘Don’t kid me, Vince,’ Jardine joked. ‘You love being up all night.’
‘Depends what I’m up, guv.’
There was no proper night’s sleep: the Italian artillery barrage started before dawn and it was ferocious, churning up the ground in front of their positions, sending earth and rocks skywards but killing few men — their enemies were no longer there. Virtually all that had been left out front, to fool the air reconnaissance the Italians relied on, were shammas supported by triangular sticks, backed up by a piquet; as a barrage it was mostly wasted.
By the time the sun came up Cal Jardine and Vince had been out observing for an hour, finally able to use field glasses to assess what was coming, though given the rate and density of shell there could be little doubt. They also knew exactly when the enemy were going to move, as the barrage lifted and crept forward. Ras Kassa Meghoum had been up as long as them, and they could see the vehicles he had kept back getting ready to pull out.
‘Time to go, guys,’ Alverson said from behind them. ‘Your carriage again awaits.’
The plan was sound: to once more let the Italians advance into a vacuum. By the time the Ethiopians engaged, the enemy would have begun to suffer the common gremlins of war — tanks no longer operable and broken into packets, troops in distended formation instead of tight brigades — merely because such discipline in an advance was difficult regardless of which nation was undertaking it, and the Italians had already shown they were not the best. Also, the concentration of the artillery when on the move could not be anything like what they were sending over now.
‘You two got a death wish?’
‘He has,’ Vince replied, nodding at Jardine.
‘Not bad gunnery,’ was the reply from Jardine, as they watched the churning of the ground move forward at a steady pace. ‘Mind, they’ve had a long time to get the ranges.’
‘I take it you want to be the last one here, Cal.’
Cars, including the Dodge of Ras Kassa, were behind them now; the warriors with whom they had so recently worked and the old man’s bodyguard were going too, and at a fast pace. ‘No. I was just living in the past for a bit.’
‘Present suits me better, old buddy.’
‘Me too, Tyler.’
They left as the creeping barrage inched up to the now abandoned site of the Ethiopian HQ, not looking back; whatever was going to happen in this war was going to be decided in the next few weeks, or maybe even days.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Not long after they reached the new HQ, halfway to Gondar, they heard the news and it was uniformly bad. On the main battlefront around Mek’ele, through the use of mustard gas, the Italians had completely unhinged Ethiopian resistance and the eighty-thousand-strong army of Ras Mulugeta. To call the act indiscriminate did not even begin to describe the damage inflicted. Discharged from special sprayers in the bomb bays of the Italian bombers, they flew in almost continuous formations that avoided the respite of temporary dispersal.
They had inundated the forces — which had concentrated, seeking to encircle them — inflicting terrible burns and causing a great number of warrior fatalities. Their actions, carried out over an ever-widening area as Mulugeta’s army fell back, also mutilated women and children and completely destroyed the livestock — sheep, goats and cattle, on which the survivors depended — while poisoning the very waters that irrigated their land and gave them a chance of life.
There was no news blackout on this; indeed, Emperor Haile Selassie sent out his own condemnation communique to the nations of the world, but the world, horrified as it might be, was not listening, or at least those that held the power and ability to act against Italy held their tongues. Lesser countries brought forward motions to condemn the use of gas to the floor of the League of Nations Chamber in Geneva, but if they got a resolution that was all it was: words.
Worse followed: a broken army trying to withdraw was at the mercy of a relentless pursuit, forced to abandon the best they had in equipment, and that was not much — a clutch of old tanks and artillery pieces, rifles, machine guns and ammunition — while being harried by every weapon in the Italian armoury. Gas-burnt bodies, unable to move, were mashed to pulp under tank tracks, groups seeking to make a stand were pulverised by field artillery or massed machine gun fire and conventional bombs, while any accumulation of warriors which even showed the ability to hold back the enemy advance was gassed into submission and further retreat.
‘I don’t know whether to tell the truth or lie, Cal.’
Sat at his typewriter, in a tent close to the newly set up casualty station, Tyler Alverson had lost hi
s air of distance to what was happening; he was not a man given to tears, but he was close now and he was angry too, in that frustrating way of someone who would love to have the power of decision, but lacked even the ability to persuade. He was also in possession of information that had come to him only by accident.
The Ethiopians, while condemning the use of mustard gas, were, quite naturally, seeking to play down both the rout of their forces and the level of their casualties, but the international doctors with the divisions around Mek’ele, retreating ahead of the army they served, had thought it only fair to alert their as yet unburdened colleagues with some idea of what they would face in the event they sustained the same level of defeat: an overwhelming number of casualties, too many to even begin to treat.
‘If these figures are true, then that’s what you should send out,’ Jardine said. ‘It helps make the case.’
‘Six thousand dead, twelve thousand wounded, Ras Mulugeta killed, his army a rabble, and that does not even begin to mention the effect on the civilians.’
‘How do they live wiv this back home, guv?’ asked a dejected Vince. ‘I just don’t get it.’
‘What you’ve got to ask yourself, Vince,’ said Corrie Littleton from just outside the tent flap, ‘is how are we going to deal with it when it comes our way?’
‘Which it surely must,’ Jardine agreed.
‘What does Kassa say?’ she asked.
Cal Jardine responded with a wry smile. ‘Right now he’s not saying much to me.’
‘Me neither,’ Alverson said, ‘which is pretty mean, considering.’
‘Considering what, Tyler? He doesn’t owe us anything.’
The journalist looked at his fellow American, now sat down out of tiredness. ‘Honey, take a look in a mirror and you will see something of what he owes. You should have gone home with your mother.’
