by John Harris
Then Gooch assembled the mortars and showed how they could be packed on the backs of mules or camels. With the assistance of Grobelaar, who over the years had also picked up a smattering of Somali dialects, Danny had to be everywhere at once. Among their recruits they picked up a few who had served with the British along the coast or worked on British ships and they even found an ex-interpreter from the Royal Navy, so that the spreading of the word became easier.
By this time the camp in the hills was a great sprawling area of men, women, children, camels, mules, horses, sheep and goats, because many of the men had brought their families and their flocks with them. Occasionally there were disputes over ownership and a few fights, but on the whole they were settled with little blood being let. Harkaway raged through the camp, swinging his fists and feet to separate the brawlers, and curiously they accepted his word as law. Most of them had brought their own food but, with the great bawling mass of animals and people, eventually it was clear something would have to be done. Either they would have to disperse or set about the Italians.
With Eil Dif emptied of Italians, the Free British thankfully dug out their vehicles again and Tully set up the radio. The news staggered them. The South Africans from Bura in Kenya were advancing at a tremendous speed towards Mogadiscio. A second column from Garissa had joined up with them and, meeting at the Juba River, had defeated the Italians to take Jelib and Margherita. In the north heavy fighting was still going on round Keren.
In British Somaliland, there appeared to be no Italian activity at all beyond obvious preparations to retreat. Yussufs spies reported that the Italians were burning paper in Bidiyu, and if they were burning documents in Bidiyu, they would certainly be burning them in the more distant Hargeisa and Berbera and other places to the east. And burning documents could only mean that they were preparing to retreat, though for the moment there was no movement, and certainly no aggressive forays into the wilder areas of the countryside. Once more the Duce’s writ ran only where his soldiers were gathered in numbers and the Italian commanders were making sure of their safety by sticking to their bases.
Harkaway had become curiously distant from the rest of them. He listened regularly to the radio reports, both from London and from Kenya, Rhodesia and South Africa, and he seemed particularly interested in the news of British air raids.
‘Have any of you,’ he asked unexpectedly, ‘seen any Italian aeroplanes lately?’
They stared at him for a moment, then looked at each other. Nobody appeared to have seen anything of the Regia Aeronautica for some time and it seemed to please Harkaway.
‘They’ve got none,’ he said. ‘That’s why. They’ve all been destroyed on the ground. If they’d had any, you don’t mean to tell me they wouldn’t have come looking for us. We’re big enough to see now and they know we’re here. Yet we’ve twice hit at them and we’ve kidnapped one of their senior officers but they’ve sent nothing after us. I think we can afford to take a few more risks. It’s time for the Free British to take the field.’
‘I’d rather slip down to Mombasa,’ Gooch growled. ‘And see the war out there.’
Harkaway studied him for a moment then he shrugged. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Shove off.’
Gooch growled. ‘I can’t go on me own.’
‘Why not? Kom-Kom’s taught you to drive. Take one of the lorries and a rifle and go.’
‘What about my share of the silver and the dollars?’
‘Take that, too,’ Harkaway said offhandedly. ‘I hope it lasts a long time. Three months from now you’ll have spent it. You’re the type. Perhaps it’s best. You were never totally reliable.’
‘I’m a trained soldier!’ Gooch exploded.
‘The only thing you were expert at was persuading housewives to provide you with suppers and their daughters to lower their knickers for you.’
‘You said we were going south!’ Gooch persisted.
‘For God’s sake, man!’ Harkaway snapped. ‘You wanted loot, didn’t you? What you’ve got so far’s not worth a damn. But now we’ve got the whole of Italian East Africa to go at. Not just native silver. But what the Italians had too! Good European gold watches. Trinkets. Italian money.’
‘Which will be worth nothing in no time,’ Danny said dryly, ‘if they’re kicked out of the war.’
Harkaway gave her a sharp look but he didn’t argue. ‘Italian lorries and cars,’ he went on. ‘Yours for the taking. Italian silk shirts and suits. Italian wine and brandy. You can make your fortune.’
Gooch was clearly tempted. He was far from being a quick-witted man and Danny could see him being manoeuvred in a way that drew her sympathy. Her intelligence made her want to warn him because she suspected Harkaway was manoeuvring them all in the same way, but her heart was now entirely Harkaway’s and she couldn’t bring herself to protest.
‘When do you reckon it’ll be over?’ Gooch asked.
‘Month or two,’ Harkaway said. ‘No more. After North Africa, nobody can come to their help. They’re as good as out of the war.’
Gooch nodded. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll stay on.’
As he moved away, Danny edged closer to Harkaway. ‘That was cheating,’ she said quietly. ‘Suppose you’re right? Suppose he does pick up loot. He can’t sell it here and he couldn’t carry enough south to make a fortune.’
Harkaway’s hand touched hers. ‘It’ll dawn on him eventually,’ he said. ‘Until then, let’s make use of him.’
‘Do you make use of everybody, George?’
Harkaway stared at her. He was a tall man but she was tall, too, slender and angular, especially since their exertions in the heat had removed some of the flesh. For a long time his eyes held hers then he moved away without saying anything.
The following day they learned that Moyale had been captured by the Abyssinians and that the South Africans had entered Mogadiscio. Bardera, inland on the Juba River, had also been captured and one wing of the advance was already heading north, so that the Italians were being swept into a net. Then they learned that, terrified of being cut off, the Italians in British Somaliland were beating a retreat back up the Strada del Duce from Berbera towards Hargeisa. The capital’s ancient streets and white houses were being left for the British navy from Aden and they were expected any day.
As Harkaway made his plans, it was noticeable now that he didn’t bother to ask the others what they thought.
To their fury, the brightest of the Harari and Odessi men were told to hand over their rifles. Their protests welled up and filled the air.
Harkaway waved his hands and turned to Danny. ‘Tell them,’ he said, ‘that we have better weapons for them.’
As she did so, he turned and pulled the cover from one of the Vickers, which he had set up facing a small hill.
‘Tell them they will be using these weapons,’ he said. ‘And that they will see their bullets killing their enemies.’
He bent over the Vickers and pressed the trigger, swinging the gun on its tripod as he did so. Tracer bullets lifted in brightly coloured arcs that provoked breathless gasps as they tore lumps from the hillside and ricocheted into the air.
‘Tell them,’ Harkaway went on, and he sounded like a salesman at a fair, ‘that they will learn to fire these other guns.’
‘You’re taking a chance,’ Gooch warned. ‘Giving machine guns to wogs.’
‘They’ve got to learn to use ’em some time,’ Harkaway said in a flat voice. ‘We can’t leave it all to you. We’ve now got ten machine guns and you can’t fire the lot.’
‘What do we want ten machine guns for?’ Tully asked.
‘Because rifles won’t be big enough for what we’re going to do.’
As Harkaway turned away, Tully looked at Gooch. Harkaway had always been aloof, keeping himself separate from his companions in a way that suggested they weren’t fit companions for a man who’d been well educated.
‘What about stoppages?’ Gooch called out. ‘I can just see these ham-fisted
bastards trying to clear a stoppage.’
‘They won’t have to,’ Harkaway said over his shoulder. ‘You’ll do that. All they’ll do is spray what they’re told to spray. We now have more ammunition than we know what to do with.’
‘That bugger’s getting too bloody big for his boots,’ Gooch complained to Tully as Harkaway moved out of earshot. ‘He’s beginning to behave like a sergeant-major or a brand new second-lieutenant. They’re both known for having too much lip.’
Nevertheless, what Harkaway wanted was done. With the aid of oaths and cuffs about the head, they managed to persuade the Somalis to fire in short sharp bursts and not to waste ammunition. They picked up the idea surprisingly quickly, though Harkaway allowed none of them to strip a gun.
‘That’ll come in good time,’ he said. ‘First, we need camels.’
‘What do we need camels for?’ Grobelaar demanded.
‘Never mind what we need ’em for. Get ’em. Together with donkeys, mules, horses, even women if they can carry loads.’
Harkaway was becoming obsessed with his idea of hammering the Italians and nobody seemed to have the courage to stand up to him. Camels, horses, mules and asses were mustered, paid for by the Maria Theresa dollars they had captured, and they milled round the wells near Eil Dif, bawling and stinking to high heaven, surrounded by the herds of sheep and goats which Harkaway said he wanted as food for his men. Hearing what was in the wind, he was joined by more young men, coming in large numbers now, Rer Alis and Mudus from the south, even a few Mijjerteins and Omar Mahmouds from Italian Somaliland. There were also a few Abyssinians, remnants of patriot bands broken up by skirmishes with the Italians, who even brought their own firearms, and deserters from the battalions of native levies from along the borderlands who were itching to get their own back on the men who had conscripted them into their army. They were an ill-trained, ill-armed, ill-equipped and ill-disciplined rabble whom Harkaway had persuaded to rally round him only by promoting tribal rivalry, inferring one lot were better than the next. As the numbers grew, feeding them became a problem, and Harkaway was well aware that they would have to make a move soon because the Bur Yi Hills had been almost scoured clean.
The others watched him as he worked, puzzled, conscious of his single-mindedness and wondering what was in his mind.
‘Your ideas seem to be growing a little,’ Danny commented dryly.
Harkaway ignored her. He was a natural leader and nobody questioned his authority, least of all the Somalis. By this time, they had forgotten loot in their delight in their new weapons and were eager for more action. He had even formed a private little group which he called the Imperial Guard, led by Abdillahi; they included the first men they’d taught to use a rifle or drive a lorry, and they would have followed him anywhere.
Meanwhile the little pack guns had been assembled. They were only small weapons but Gooch made them work and the Somalis leapt and danced as he aimed one of them at the old houses on the edge of the town. Mud bricks, timbers and stones flew and a wall collapsed with a roar and a welling cloud of dust.
‘Now show them how to do it,’ Harkaway said.
Danny watched him, a worried look on her face. There was a commanding manner about him now that she’d never noticed before and she saw that the others didn’t argue but leapt to do as he bid them. She could only put it down to some inborn quality he possessed, because there was nothing else to make them, beyond a hidden drive that kept him going. It was an inner source of energy that was enough to carry them all along, but in his brooding yellow eyes there was a look that troubled her. She voiced her fears to Grobelaar.
‘What’s he up to, Kom-Kom?’ she asked.
Grobelaar gave her his shadowy smile and touched her hand. ‘Better ask him, man,’ he said.
Harkaway made no attempt to conceal what was in his mind. ‘With the British coming down from the Sudan into Abyssinia and Eritrea,’ he said, ‘and Kom-Kom’s South African friends moving up from Kenya, the Italians are bound to draw in their horns. They’re bound to retreat on their centre, and their centre isn’t British Somaliland and certainly not Berbera, Hargeisa or Bidiyu. They’ll pull back because they haven’t a cat in hell’s chance of staying where they are. That road from Berbera to Jijiga’s going to be busy. That’s where the Sixth Column will be.’
He was talking less like a junior NCO and more like a general now. Danny eyed him curiously.
‘What’s it all for?’ she asked.
‘To kill Italians, of course.’
‘There’s no need to kill them, man,’ Grobelaar said. ‘They’re going, anyway.’
‘They’ll go faster if we encourage them.’
Danny studied him, an anxious expression on her face. ‘What are you hoping to get out of this, George?’ she asked.
He had been deep in thought and he started and turned to look at her. ‘Nothing,’ he said.
‘Nobody takes the sort of risks you’re taking, just for the pleasure of saying you chased off Italians who were going anyway.’
‘It’s our job to chase them.’ His face was grim. ‘I’m going to stop up the Strada del Duce. Before they know it, it’ll be the Strada degli Inglesi. Our road. Just watch me, my white-breasted Bronwen. We have the advantage all the way now. I’m going to stop ’em on the Bidiyu side of the Wirir Gorge.’
‘Why there?’
‘Because at that point the road’s a good ten feet above the surrounding scrubland. They won’t pull off it to pass anything that’s blocking it, because if they did, they’d never get back on. It’s narrow, see, so they can’t even turn round. I’m going to split their column so that those in the rear will be concerned only with reaching the front and getting to safety. The rest will be ours. We’ll get the lorries off the road into the scrub and disappear.’
‘You said you couldn’t get off the road there.’
Harkaway’s smile was pitying. ‘I said they wouldn’t because they couldn’t get back on, which is different. All we have to do is lower them with ropes. There’ll be enough of us.’ He gestured at Grobelaar standing nearby. ‘Kom-Kom’s done this sort of thing before, I’m sure.’
She stared at him, her eyes on his face. ‘You can’t do it,’ she said. ‘You won’t have time. Bidiyu’s too close. They’d be bound to radio and Guidotti’ll send help.’
‘He’ll arrive too late,’ Harkaway smiled. ‘Because I’ve a few tricks up my sleeve to stop him. There’s a gully passes under the road eight miles back for a start, to stop the water coming off the hills when it rains washing the road away. I know it’s there because the Engineers laid it in 1939, and I was one of them. At the moment, it’s stuffed up with mud and sand and various other kinds of refuse. A touch of explosive there will blow a hole twenty feet wide. That should stop Twinkletoes coming from Bidiyu. It’ll also stop anybody who manages to get his vehicle turned – assuming that he could or would want to – from returning to Bidiyu.’
‘How are you going to get there?’ Danny asked. ‘You can’t move all these men, all these vehicles across the desert. The Italians would spot you at once. And you can’t go along the road. They have posts every few kilometres, connected by radio to Bidiyu.’
‘I’m not going across the desert. And I’m not going by the road. I’m going over the hills. We did it before.’
‘On foot,’ Grobelaar pointed out. ‘You’ll never get this lot over. There aren’t any roads. There was talk in the Public Works Department before the war of building one but, because there was no path to work from, they decided not to bother.’
‘Shows how little you civil service chaps know,’ Harkaway said with tired patience. ‘Yussuf says he’s taken his sheep and goats along it.’
‘Lorries aren’t sheep and goats!’
Harkaway seemed weary of the arguing. ‘They thought Stonewall Jackson couldn’t get his troops over the hills in the Shenandoah Valley campaign. But he did.’
‘How do you know about Stonewall Jackson and the Shenandoah Valle
y campaign?’ Danny asked.
‘It’s prized above rubies at Sandhurst?’
She was staring at him narrow-eyed now. ‘How do you know about Sandhurst? Were you at Sandhurst.’
He ignored the question. ‘Good type, Jackson. Very religious. You and he would have got on well. He smote them hip and thigh until they didn’t know where he was coming from next. That’s what I’m going to do.’
‘You’ll never do it.’
‘Just watch me.’
Her eyes on his face, she tried to read his mind. ‘And what are the camels and the horses and the mules for?’
He grinned at her, a wolfish grin that was frightening. ‘To pull the lorries if necessary, my little Jesus waif. That’s what for.’
As the days went by, Harkaway grew more morose, like a torpid yellow-eyed eagle, relaxed in broody silence. Yet he never seemed still. He had now started showing the Somalis how to fire a mortar. He wasn’t concerned with their accuracy, only that they knew how to feed the bombs into the steel tube and keep out of the way. The accuracy could be provided by himself, by Tully or Gooch, even at a pinch by Grobelaar who had worked with the army long enough to understand them. When he started teaching them to throw the little Japanese grenades, even Tully objected.
‘They’ll kill their bloody selves,’ he protested. ‘Probably me, too.’
‘No, they won’t,’ Harkaway insisted. ‘Not the way I plan it. Just teach ’em that when you pull the pin it blows up and they have to get rid of it. It won’t matter about timing.’
Tully looked at Gooch.
‘I dunno what them Italians are expecting,’ he said. ‘But I bet it ain’t what they’re going to get.’
By this time, convoys of troops were moving back along the road from Berbera and they noticed they were beginning to increase in size. The radio informed them that the South Africans had not stayed long in Mogadiscio but, swinging north, had reached Villagio del Duca degli Abruzzi eighty miles inland and were now heading for Bulu Burti, while another column, splitting off at Jelib, was pushing on to Lugh Ferrandi.
