by John Harris
There were a few false alarms. A car, two lorries and a motorcycle and sidecar passed, but there was no indication from Danny waiting higher up the road that any of them contained Di Peri.
‘She’s slipped up,’ Gooch muttered. ‘The bastard’s home and in bed by now.’
‘Wait!’
Gooch continued to grumble but ten minutes later they saw the quick flash of a torch in the darkness and as they scrambled from the ditch, a dark figure appeared alongside them. It was Yussuf.
‘He comes, effendi,’ he whispered.
The lights of Di Peri’s car appeared, moving down the slope, then, as it paused to turn towards his quarters, Harkaway stepped forward, swinging the red lantern.
‘Alto la!’
The car slowed to a stop. Harkaway could see two dark figures in the front of the vehicle.
‘E questa la macchina del Commandante di Peri?’ He had got the correct words from Danny and had practised them half the afternoon.
‘Sì.’ The answer came briskly. ‘E il Commandante di Peri en persona.’
Reaching out, Gooch yanked at the handle of the driver’s door. Suspecting something was wrong, the chauffeur began to reach for a weapon and Gooch hit him hard at the side of the head with the butt of his pistol. While Di Peri’s attention was caught by what was happening at the driver’s side, Harkaway yanked the other door open and, grabbing the Italian brigadier by the collar, yanked him back in his seat and placed the muzzle of his revolver against his temple.
‘In the back, Goochy,’ he snapped.
As Grobelaar dragged the unconscious driver into the ditch, Gooch scrambled into the rear seat to place his pistol at the base of Di Peri’s skull while Harkaway snatched the Italian’s pistol from his belt and fell into the rear of the car beside him.
‘Okay,’ he said as Grobelaar slipped into the driver’s seat. ‘Let’s go!’
As the vehicle began to move forward, they saw Tully’s group quietly melting away into the shadows.
Not far ahead there was a traffic control point. Coming towards them from the barrier where it had just been halted was a lorry, but it passed without stopping and the man who stepped into the road at the control point shone a torch on to the brigadier’s car to pick out the pennant flying on the bonnet. For a second they held their breath as he paused and Gooch jammed the muzzle of the pistol hard against the base of Di Peri’s skull. But the man with the torch seemed satisfied and stepped back to wave them on.
‘There’s another traffic point on the edge of the town,’ Harkaway said. ‘Keep the bastard quiet, Goochy.’
Di Peri wasn’t arguing, however, and sat quietly, his hands in his lap, his mouth tight.
Wondering if the chauffeur would have recovered sufficiently to raise the alarm or whether the control point they’d just passed might have suspected something and telephoned ahead, they approached the second traffic point warily, Harkaway ready to start shooting. But there was no sign of alarm and, after a brief pause, the red lantern which had appeared was whipped away and the car waved on. As they reached the outskirts of the town, Harkaway grinned, his teeth showing in the light from the dashboard.
‘Okay, Kom-Kom,’ he said. ‘Turn up the wick.’
A mile outside the town, Grobelaar swung off the road into the flat scrubland, circling until he reached the road at the other side of the huddle of buildings. Bumping back on to the asphalt, they roared for half an hour towards Eil Dif, seeing nothing but occasional camels or herds of sheep and goats beyond the fringes of the road. Once they saw the glowing eyes of a hyena and once a small dik-dik, green-grey in the light, leaping from a thorn bush to disappear among the scrub.
Eil Dif was silent as they thundered through. They had informed no one there apart from Yussuf and his daughter, not even Chief Abduruman, so they could give nothing away if the Italians appeared. At the turn-off into the hills, a group of young warriors was waiting for them, armed with rifles. As Di Peri was pushed out of the car, they uttered sharp yells of pleasure.
‘Away you go, Goochy,’ Harkaway said briskly. ‘Get him up into the hills. Let him know that if he causes trouble, we’ll set the Boys on him.’
‘He has no need to,’ Di Peri said calmly in English. ‘I understand your language perfectly.’
‘Well done, Commandante,’ Harkaway said cheerfully. ‘Right, Goochy. Get going, I’ll watch your rear.’
As Gooch, the Italian brigadier and the young Somalis vanished into the darkness, Grobelaar drove the car on for another mile then, with his jack-knife, punctured the petrol tank. Taking his handkerchief from his pocket, he saturated it in petrol and, setting fire to it, tossed it into the pool soaking into the sand. The blast as it went up almost removed his eyebrows.
Recovering himself, he set off back down the road, trotting slowly, lathered with perspiration. Just before he reached the spot where he’d left Harkaway, he saw headlights approaching. Glancing back he saw the glow where the Lancia burned and, diving for the side of the road, hid among the rocks. A moment later a lorry-load of men hurtled past. He watched the lights disappear into the darkness then turned off into the hills and began to climb.
Tully arrived at daylight, his group carrying the Bren.
Di Peri was sitting gloomily among the rocks, his breeches ending in stocking feet because Harkaway had taken his boots for his own use. Tully grinned at Harkaway. ‘So we got him,’ he said.
‘We got him,’ Harkaway said. ‘And just be careful what you say because he understands English.’
‘Probably sold ice cream in the Old Kent Road before the war,’ Tully observed. ‘It worked like a dream.’
‘Not yet,’ Harkaway pointed out. ‘Danny isn’t back yet.’
There was a long anxious wait, but as the sun was setting they saw Danny’s angular figure appear on the skyline and they all stood up to wait for her. She had managed to remove some of the blacking from her skin and it showed only in her ears and in the corners of her eyes.
Harkaway grinned and, as she ran down the slope, he flung his arms round her, swung her round, her sandalled feet in the air, and planted a smacking kiss on her lips. She stared at him as he released her and her hand went to her mouth. She was still staring at him as Tully, Gooch and Grobelaar came forward to insist on offering their own salutes.
‘Di Peri?’ Guidotti said. ‘Not Commandante Ruffo di Peri?’
Piccio nodded.
‘Are you telling me he’s been abducted?’
Piccio nodded again. ‘His car was stopped between his headquarters and the house where he lives,’ he said. ‘By men wearing Italian uniforms.’
So much, Guidotti thought, for Forsci’s big talk. Guidotti was a modest man and Forsci’s self-importance was always irritating. It almost made up for the bad news they’d received the previous night. South African troops had defeated the Italians on the Juba River well inside Italian Somaliland and were heading now at full speed towards Mogadiscio. With Libya and half Cyrenaica gone and the British probing forward into Eritrea and Ethiopia, Guidotti couldn’t see much help coming for Somaliland. Mogadiscio would undoubtedly fall and the South Africans would then turn north across the plain towards Jijiga to cut off everybody in British Somaliland who couldn’t slip away into Ethiopia.
Guidotti couldn’t see much future for himself and, without doubt, unless he was dead, his brother must also feature among the countless prisoners of war taken in the north.
The fear that it might all lead to reprisals by the natives against the Italians came again and he was determined not to permit atrocities in his area in retaliation. They would all now reap what had been sown by Graziani in Ethiopia. Following an attempt on his life, all the male members of the leading families had been shot or deported and now, according to the reports that reached Bidiyu, the Italians were beginning to fear Abyssinian vengeance. He had no wish for such a state to exist in his own area but he had a feeling it had already started because Di Peri’s second-incommand, convinced that the pe
ople of Eil Dif had been involved, had managed to find six of them, including the chief, with British-made Martinis and had shot the lot.
‘Abduruman?’ Harkaway said. ‘They shot him?’
‘Together,’ Yussuf replied, his voice harsh, ‘with five of our finest young men.’
‘Not your finest,’ Harkaway corrected brusquely. ‘They’re in the hills with us.’
‘Boys then,’ Yussuf conceded. ‘But fine boys. On the threshold of manhood. Boys who would become shield carriers within months.’
‘What are you trying to tell me,’ Harkaway asked. ‘That you want your young men back? That you’re throwing your hand in?’
Yussuf’s old eyes stared milkily at him. ‘We are Habr Odessi,’ he said. ‘We don’t retreat from our enemies at the first setback. When Mohammed bin Abdullah Hassan, whom your soldiers called the Mad Mullah, defied your armies in 1915, the Habr Odessi were among his supporters. But we now have no chief. Abduruman was a good man, but he was old and only carried a rifle because he was a chief. He couldn’t fight. He could barely walk. But we need leadership.’
‘Well, elect yourself a new chief.’
‘We have elected one.’
‘You?’
‘No, effendi. You!’
Harkaway stared at Yussuf for a moment, then he gave his cold smile. ‘Chiefs have to have a herd of goats and sheep,’ he said. ‘They have to live here and have wives and children.’
‘You have lived here, effendi,’ Yussuf pointed out. ‘For many moons now. And you are a strong young man. A herd could be bought with the money you have taken from the Italians, and there is one who would be your wife. I know this, and Allah would grant you sons.’
The old man’s head inclined slightly towards Danny. Like the others, she had been listening but now she looked, startled, at Harkaway for his reaction. For a long time he was silent then he gave a bark of laughter and turned away.
‘You go and elect yourself somebody else, Yussuf,’ he said. ‘You, for instance. If I remember rightly, you rather fancied the job. But not me. I have things to do.’
Yussuf stared at him for a long time then, with a movement that was like a shrug, he turned away and began to limp back towards Eil Dif. Harkaway’s eyes were on Danny.
‘Christ,’ he said, ‘the things they say.’
‘Yes.’ She stared back at him boldly. ‘The things they say. Am I so ugly that the idea’s ridiculous?’
Harkaway eyed her for a long time, then he too turned away. ‘No,’ he said shortly. ‘You aren’t ugly. And it isn’t ridiculous.’
Three
The shootings at Eil Dif seemed to stir the Somalis to anger more than anything that had happened so far. Up to that point, everything had been fun, a joyous killing that was more like hunting than war. Now, however, among the Habr Odessi and their associated clans, hatred had entered into the conflict.
A dozen of them slipped away from the camp in the hills to avenge Abduruman. He meant little to them personally and was related to none of them but they were a difficult, quarrelsome people and war was in their blood. They even went so far as to recruit several of the Harari to their cause and, finding a patrol of Italians camped by their lorry in the bush near Gugubi, fell on them and butchered the lot. Most of the Italians were killed in their blankets. The officer, in his pyjamas, emerged from his tent, to find himself face to face with a tall grave Somali, with a blue-black handsome face who drew back his arm, bared his teeth and lunged with the spear he held. Two Somalis from Hargeisa who had been acting as guides were held down and had their eyes cut out and their arms hacked off before the bodies were slashed and stabbed.
The Italians had not died without taking the lives of four of the tribesmen, however, and when the Somalis reported what had happened Harkaway was livid.
‘Ma’alish,’ the leader said, unconcerned. ‘It is the will of Allah. He orders all things and writes each man’s fate in the book of life.’
‘He doesn’t write mine,’ Harkaway snapped to Danny as she translated. ‘So tell them that from now on they do as they’re told. They haven’t been trained to get killed in piffling little skirmishes. They’ve been trained for battle. They’re soldiers and soldiers do as they’re told.’
‘You can’t push them too far, George,’ Danny protested.
‘I can push them as far as I like,’ he snapped. ‘And it doesn’t require a mewling woman with a Bible to tell me so!’
Despite Harkaway’s fears, the raid had done less harm than he thought. Down in the south, the news had reached Colonel Charlton and as he appeared in his commanding officer’s tent, the general looked up testily. His army was on the move and he had a lot to think about.
They had already run into the scorched summer plains where there wasn’t a leaf or a blade of grass, the wind-flattened earth bone-white or a burning red that stung the eyes, the termite mounds like grotesque towers, the thorn trees with their skeletal branches grey and brittle alongside the shrivelled aloes. Outside his headquarters the wind was stirring up dust as fine as face powder, the discouraging landscape almost entirely the same colour, the sun beating down vertically to create distant mirages among the waste of rocks, and plaster the dust into masks on the sweaty faces of the struggling soldiers.
‘I’m busy, Charlie,’ the general said shortly. ‘Is it important?’
Colonel Charlton smiled. ‘It might be, sir. It seems I was wrong about the natives of Somaliland.’
‘You mean they’ve turned on the Italians?’
‘Hardly that, sir. Not yet. But something’s stirring. I got it through the navy in Aden via Berbera. Boats still sneak across.’
The general frowned. He was impatient. British forces had crossed the border of Africa Orientale at five main points – near Mount Belaya, from Kassala in the Sudan, and from Wajit, Bura and Garissa along the Kenyan border.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘What have you heard?’
Charlton’s manner was cheerful. ‘We’ve been hearing reports of Italian patrols being butchered and convoys being attacked,’ he said. ‘Chiefly along what they choose now to call the Strada del Duce – the road from Jijiga to Berbera via Bidiyu and Hargeisa.’
‘Well, that’s a help,’ the general said. ‘Who’s doing it? The natives?’
‘Reports say they’re well organized, whoever they are. But there’s another curious report. Of an Italian brigadier kidnapped at Gura. Right outside his own headquarters.’
The general began to show more interest. ‘Kidnapped? That’s a new one.’
‘By white men, sir.’
The general put down his pen. ‘Renegade Italians? Anti-fascists?’
‘That’s something we haven’t come across in this part of the world, sir. The report’s vague but it says they’re British.’
‘British? Have Cairo been sending people in without informing us? They’re forming raiding parties in England. I know. Commandos, they’re called. Churchill’s idea. Have they sent some out here?’
‘Aden knows nothing, sir. Neither does the navy.’
‘Could they be a party left behind in the retreat last August?’
‘I’ve been through the returns, sir. No large groups were left behind.’
The general reached out for his pen. ‘Handle it, Charlie,’ he said shortly. ‘Try to find out more about them. If there is somebody there operating behind the Italians’ lines, it’s up to us to get in touch with ’em. We might be able to help. Get the air force to land arms or something. Let me know how it shapes up.’
When Yussuf next appeared, he said that Di Peri’s men had left Gura to head back towards Jijiga, and it began to seem important to find out what was happening in the world, because the small group of Somalis they’d gathered round them had suddenly begun to increase.
It was clear the word had gone round and more seemed to be arriving every day. Not only Habr Odessis and Hararis, which were septs of the Aidegallas and Habr Yuris, but also men from other areas – even Rer Ibrahims,
who were Ogadens from Abyssinian Somaliland – men of every shade and colour, men from the sub-tribes and restless nomads who had spent their lives scanning the horizon for the rain that rarely came. Inter-tribal fighting and raiding had once constituted the Somalis’ national sport and a life devoted to looting seemed irresistible to them. Victory meant riches and wives, death a paradise peopled by houris. They were far from averse to fighting the Italians, especially now the Italians were being defeated.
There were Warsanglis and Dolbehantas, Abr Awals and Habr Toljals from the north-east. With them came men of the sub-tribes, Mahmoud Gerads, Esa Mahmouds, Illas, Ilialoes, Hawiyas, Diris, Yahellis, Gadabursis, Issas and Esas. They came in ones and twos and groups, all looking for the chance of killing someone. War had been stamped out in the Somalilands since the death of the Mullah and they had grown weary of peace.
Abdillahi grinned as he watched them arrive, his evil smiling eyes wrinkling. He had the simplicity of a child, a wide-eyed, wicked, handsome child. ‘Praise be to Allah,’ he said to Harkaway. ‘The lord of the world, the compassionate, the merciful. He has given us armies.’
Some of the Habr Yunis from the Tug Argan area had British rifles picked up after the battle there, but for the most part the Somalis had little else but spears, pangas and curved swords, and a few museum pieces kept hidden from the days when the Mullah had rampaged through the country. The rifles they received – though they were only Martinis – made them dance with joy.
They armed all they could. They were remarkably quick on the uptake and, with Gooch to watch over them, became surprisingly skilful in a matter of days. Those who understood the sights explained to those who didn’t, while spear-men, noted for their ability to throw, were encouraged to throw stones which they hurled for incredible distances, and these men, though they were not allowed to touch them, had the little Italian grenades explained to them.
