The Burning Sky

by Jack Ludlow

  ‘Tell them what they are to do, but not to move until we begin firing.’

  Again came that high-pitched calling, with Jardine waiting to see if it provoked a response. Lacking that, after a decent wait, he nodded and got to one knee, firing as soon he had sight of the positions he hoped the enemy occupied, the ras beside him doing likewise, though to Jardine, exposing himself too much.

  ‘Down,’ he shouted, as this time the riflemen up ahead did respond, firing at will, which at least allowed him to sneak a look and fix their positions using the muzzle flashes and smoke. One side of the ravine elevated enough to give them cover firing down, making it hard for anyone below to return shot in an effective way. Numbers he tried to guess by individual discharges but it could only be an estimate.

  Choice? Stay put and wait for Vince to bring up a mortar, which he would have had to unpack and prepare. He would also have to find the panniers with the ammunition, which could take ages given his lack of German. Option two, seek to winkle out the men who tried to ambush them with no clear idea of their numbers, leading warriors who were certain to be less well trained in the use of weapons than those they were facing.

  The sun on his back was baking and enervating, but that also applied to his opponents, who would think, if he failed to come forward, they had the upper hand. Unconscious thoughts came to him again.

  Whoever is in command up there has no idea of what weapons we are carrying; in fact, if he wanted to take the time, Jardine could unpack two machine guns and spray the whole hillside at will, mixing it with multiple mortar fire, deadly in rocky terrain. So whoever he was, good sense said that as soon as the first mortar shell landed amongst them he should get out quick unless he had the means to respond in kind.

  ‘More orders, Ras: keeping as much cover as they can, get your chaps to move forward as far as I do. I want to see if he has any more firepower than rifles, and if he has, we need to withdraw.’

  ‘Can we not just charge them?’

  ‘You could lose half your men, maybe all of them.’

  ‘Men get killed in war,’ Ras Kassa replied callously.

  ‘Not when I can help it,’ Jardine snapped, pointing to the hill opposite. ‘There’s a wounded man over there too; we have to get him out to where he can be looked at.’

  ‘My friend,’ the Ethiopian leader said gravely, ‘he will wait, because he will know he has to, and die if he must without complaint. God will care for him as he cares for us all.’

  Jardine declined to respond to that. ‘Twenty-feet advance, no more. Make sure they know that and get them to pick their cover fast. If they go on, they are at risk from hand grenades as well as bullets.’

  He had no idea if the ras passed on that message in its entirety and there was nothing he could do about his ignorance. What he did know was that if the bugger in front of him had a mortar, this was the time to use it. Wait till your enemy is in the open and coming from a known position. Range it to drop in front of that point and it will be right in amongst them, causing carnage.

  The tactics of whoever was in command up ahead were not great: he had fired off his rifles at too extended a range. He should have let those searching come on until he was sighted, so they were closer, better targets, more likely to be either killed or wounded with much further to go to get back to safety, a retreat compounded by the need to care for their casualties.

  Would they take those now? Would these Ethiopian warriors do what was required? It was galling not to be able to effectively communicate exactly what he wanted, and Jardine promised that one of his first tasks after this would be to learn some basic universal words that everyone could understand – even with fifty languages, there had to be some commonality or nothing would ever get done.

  There was no shout: that would only alert the opposition a second in advance. The signal for everyone was his actions, and he stood to set off a short burst, not really aimed, given half his attention was on looking for his next bit of cover. When he moved, he had to worry about keeping his footing on loose, rock-filled earth. Twenty feet does not sound like much, but when you are running uphill exposed to gunfire it turns into an eternity.

  There was no thought of potential pain as he threw himself behind a second boulder just as bullets pinged off the crest. Ras Kassa was beside him a second later, plucking at his red cloak where a bullet had torn it, which made Jardine wonder why the old sod was still wearing something so easy to see.

  ‘I guess from the fire we have received we are facing about platoon strength – under thirty effectives. I suspect our enemy has nothing other than what he has employed, which would have been sufficient if he had caught us unawares, and I think he has no idea of what we can counter with. He set himself the task of closing the path to the next oasis and making it so bloody to get through we would withdraw. When that failed he fell back on the hope of denying us the trail. I think if we press him he will retire.’

  ‘Then let us do that.’

  ‘Wait for the mortar, Ras.’

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  In good cover, at no seeming risk and with time to think, Jardine was not impressed with the opposition, or at least not with whoever was in command. First he had allowed his presence to become known; second, he had taken no action following on from the single gunshot fired by Corrie Littleton, which surely indicated an awareness of the threat. He had adopted the fixed tactic of the ambush so that his relative strength would count for more.

  Yet if the need was to block the trail, he would have been better to have sealed off the point of entry where, with rifles effective at long range and over a field of fire with no cover, provided he had water – and he had an oasis, albeit a distant one, at his back – he could have sat there for ever while inviting the warriors from the caravan to attack him over open ground.

  Another option was to radically alter his dispositions in a set of ravines and a folding gully that obviously extended a long way, by seeking a better, more camouflaged position from which to launch an initial attack, then using a series of short, sharp engagements allied to partial pullbacks to draw his enemy into the kind of sapping and continuous losses necessary to clear the route, which would remain blocked, with the caravan stuck and thirsty for an indefinite amount of time. If that could be extended long enough, they would have to head back for the coast and the job would be done.

  Now he was staying put when falling back was a sounder tactic, given the amount of cover available on these boulder-strewn, scrub-covered hillsides, that being the best way to confuse the opposition. All this thinking was predicated on them being Italian, or at least local Somali recruits led by one or more officers of Mussolini’s army, who did not seem too blessed with brains.

  The aim was blockage, yet he had elected for carnage, which, while no doubt satisfying, rendered complex what should have been simple. He was now in a firefight with a force greater than his own, in terrain that made them, in effect, equal, albeit the man in command would think they, in the defensive position, had the upper hand.

  ‘He knew we were coming by this route,’ Ras Kassa said.

  ‘You came this way with a hundred empty camels and the same number of Shewan warriors, so there is a very high chance you were seen. Word was picked up about the landing of a cargo at Zeila, where this slave route ends. What would an Ethiopian caravan be on its way to collect with an invasion imminent? Sherlock Holmes it’s not.’

  ‘Ah, the great detective; I had his stories read to me.’

  ‘Ras, we need half your men to get higher up the hillside unseen, the rest to keep up a slow rate of fire to pin the enemy and keep him thinking we are stuck. I want us above them when that mortar comes into play, ready to inflict casualties when they break cover.’

  ‘And if they do not?’

  ‘Then we’ll mortar them till they do.’

  ‘We are running out of daylight, Captain Jardine, would it not be better just to attack?’

  ‘Once we have shifted this lot we can go on i
n starlight, or, if we must, the caravan can camp where they are overnight.’ Jardine looked the older man right in the eye. ‘This is your show, not mine, but I am advising you that exposing your men will get many of them killed, and it is not a course I would recommend.’

  ‘And if darkness comes and our enemies are still before us?’

  ‘Then I expect him to withdraw, but I would wait until dawn to find out.’

  ‘My men are good fighters in the dark.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it, Ras, but if they are askaris holding the ground before us, they will be that too. Of course, if you order an attack, I am not going to interfere, these are your men.’

  ‘I will wait till darkness falls, but when that happens, Captain Jardine, I suspect I will have more fighting knowledge than you, and it is I who will personally lead my men using nothing but knives. We will clear the way by stealth.’

  ‘Your decision.’

  The scrabbling sound to their rear showed a Shewan with a skin of water, for which Jardine especially was grateful; he also brought a message for his ras.

  ‘Your man has set up the mortar on flat ground and needs someone to range for him.’

  That was not going to be easy from where he was, and damned difficult if he moved: thanks to those mounds at the entrance, the higher he went the less Vince could see of him; sending messages back and forth was too slow and he was too far away to hear a shout. Mortar fire was most effective when it was quick and continuous, while it was also true it was not the most accurate weapon in creation, that oddly adding to its effect: you never knew where the next incoming round was going to land.

  ‘I need your red cloak, Ras, or part of it,’ Jardine said, unwrapping his own white headdress. ‘And a stick long enough to signal. The message that should go back to Vince is up fifty for white, drop fifty for red, multiply by times shown, bang on with both, and I still need your men getting elevation to pour in volley fire when they break cover.’

  The red cloak came off to be handed over, though finding a stick long enough was harder: not much grew to a height in this barren place. How the ras managed to convey that message to his men he did not know, he could only hope it was done accurately. The sun was dropping and, at the speed it does near the equator, the intense heat easing with it.

  Up ahead the enemy commander must be feeling content: his tactics would seem to be producing the intended result, if not in the anticipated manner. The caravan was static, as were those attacking his position, and he could anticipate no change the next day.

  Jardine was worried that the sun would disappear before they were ready, because he could not range-find for Vince in the dark, and if they did get some rounds off they were not going to have much time to dislodge the enemy. Finally ready, he raised both colours to tell Vince to commence firing, an act that proved his opponent, whatever else he had, exercised control over his men: there was no useless firing at a flapping cloth.

  He was too far off to hear the odd plop a mortar round makes when it is dropped for detonation, but he could imagine Vince, having dropped the shell, sticking his fingers in his ears and ducking to get clear, then he heard the ‘whoosh’ it made as it passed overhead, which required him to time the point at which he must expose himself to observe the fall. Vince had to be careful, had to fire at near maximum range, afraid of being too short and dropping a round on his own side, but in his caution he was excessive.

  Set as it was and at low elevation, the round landed way beyond the target, so far that it was a guess how much it had to be reduced, with Jardine jabbing up the red cloak three times, on the last attracting fire, which at least showed how alarmed the enemy was at the introduction of the weapon.

  Frustration followed as Vince made the necessary adjustment, sacrificing length of range for increased elevation in a weapon that was short on that anyway, five to six hundred yards being about the limits of effectiveness for a 50 mm model. The second round showed Jardine had overdone his signals: it landed between the enemy position and him, which made very dangerous his looking out from cover to observe, and it was only just in time that he got his head back to avoid a fusillade of dislodged stones and earth.

  The white flag went up, with Jardine wondering if those ahead would think he was trying to surrender; what came next disabused them if they thought that. It seemed to Jardine to be right on the button and he raised both signals to a torrent of enemy rifle fire.

  Vince was profligate, firing off ten rounds inside two minutes, a measure of drift due to spinning and a bit of breeze ensuring none of the high-explosive shells landed in the same place, and that was how long it took to break the defence, brought home to Jardine as Ras Kassa’s men opened fire from above him, pouring rifle rounds into an enemy forced to make themselves a target in order to retreat.

  Both the signals went up again to tell Vince to cease fire, and if the remainder of the Ethiopian warriors did not understand what he shouted out, they knew to follow him once he stood up and rushed forward, his weapon burping in short three-round bursts. Even with the noise of guns going off he could hear the Shewan war cries; high, controlled keening screams designed to strike fear into an enemy heart. Magazine empty, Jardine stopped to reload, which let those following him pass. By the time he made the enemy position it was overrun, and lacking bayonets or more ammunition, rifle butts were raining down on the heads of what were, by their greenish uniforms, Italian askaris.

  Not being understood now was again a problem: he wanted people to interrogate, he needed information on how much was known about the caravan and the weapons he was carrying, but all his commands to halt the killing were ignored. He actually had to stand over one wounded man and protect him from what was a massacre as the Shewan clubbed their enemies to death.

  The light was going now, the sun hitting the edge of the earth, but enough was left to show the broken, blood-covered body of an Italian officer, a lieutenant by his rank badges. He had been hit by mortar fire and there would be no questioning him.

  And then it was over, the bodies were being stripped, the knives were out to mutilate them, and he was shouting at Ras Kassa to stop the mayhem and not having much effect. The older man’s eyes were afire with as much bloodlust as those he led and he had thrown his head back to start calling out in that high-pitched voice what Jardine could only think was a victory chant.

  Between Jardine’s spread legs was a man whimpering in terror, and more than once he was obliged to deflect a Shewan who wanted to kill him.

  Alverson brought his camera up to view the field of conflict at dawn, as below the caravan was being loaded, prior to moving on. There were few trees of any height but one bore the body of the Italian officer, though the American only knew what it was because Jardine had told him. Hanging by its feet, the naked cadaver swung above a dark patch of earth, which had been a pool of black blood where it had drained from the myriad cuts inflicted on the dead body.

  Overnight, hyenas had torn at the head and torso, turning it to a bloody pulp with bones exposed where their massive jaws had crunched and stripped them of flesh, but they had been given so many bodies to feed on they had not finished the task. Now, with the morning heating up, the site was beginning to attract flies in the hundreds, soon to be thousands. What was left would be picked at by carrion throughout the day and the sun would do its work, so that by the time night came again only bones would be left.

  He trained the lens of his Leica on what had been a battlefield. If there had been emotion for such a sight, the man had seen too much to be affected by it now; it was news and his job was to show the world what war really meant.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’

  ‘Corrie, what the hell are you doing here?’

  ‘I had to come and look.’

  ‘Did you?’ She nodded, her hand to her mouth. ‘Happy now?’

  ‘Is this what this war is going to be like?’

  ‘Honey, this is what all wars are like.’

  ‘They should be buried, not just le
ft.’

  Tyler Alverson sighed. ‘They don’t care anymore and neither do the ras and his boys.’

  ‘What do you think happened to that Somali kid after Jardine finished questioning him?’

  ‘Take it to the limits of your imagination, Corrie, then go a little further.’

  ‘Why didn’t Jardine intervene?’

  ‘Why didn’t I? Why didn’t you?’ Alverson asked as he clicked the camera. ‘Because you don’t; you just accept these people have their ways, and if the tables were turned the same would happen, and the best thing to do is pray, when it’s you, you’re already dead.’

  ‘They’re savages.’

  ‘Who, when I left, were saying their prayers to a God they have worshipped for two thousand years.’

  ‘Will they print those at home?’

  ‘No. These are for the exhibition I will hold one day, photographs at which our fellow Americans will look with deep fascination. That is if I can find somebody to develop the damned things.’ Looking over her shoulder Alverson jerked his head. ‘Caravan’s moving, time to rejoin them.’

  ‘His name was Alberto Soradino and he commanded the garrison at Assab, which is on the southern border of Italian and French Somaliland. Soradino was a lieutenant in the 3rd Bersaglieri Regiment, stuck in a dead-end spot, and I should think going mad, while up north all his regimental friends were getting ready for a glorious invasion.’

  Jardine passed over his wallet, which Corrie Littleton took off him.

  ‘There’s a photograph in there, I think of his mother.’

  ‘God!’

  ‘No good asking for his help, is there? Alberto believed in him and look where it got him.’

  ‘What will she be told, his mother?’

  ‘Missing in action, presumed dead.’

  ‘No body?’ she asked, handing back the wallet, which Jardine put in his kitbag.