by Jack Ludlow
The Italian fighter seemed to stagger almost, as though its engine had lost power, then it banked as smoke began to pour out from the cockpit area. So fast was it moving that only imagination could picture what was happening to that pilot, but what was obvious was the way the Ethiopian was following him down as he lost altitude, firing short bursts into the burning enemy.
The explosion of the Fiat hitting the earth made the ground around them shake, but the aircraft noise did not diminish. The Potez came flashing low overhead, slightly banked, and the pilot had taken off his flying helmet. Even at a hundred and twenty miles an hour the waving hand, the blond hair and, Alverson was sure, the gleaming teeth of Count Henri de Billancourt were plain to see.
Corrie Littleton was screeching her thanks and jumping up and down as the Frenchman came over for a victory roll, but as soon as he disappeared she went back to her tasks. Tyler Alverson got no more than a look, and a grim one at that.
The site the Italian commander had chosen was, as long as his ammunition and water lasted, in a reasonably good place. The rate of fire on both sides had dropped – to be expected, since to just keep going was a useless expenditure of ammunition – but Critini kept up sporadic mortar fire at a conserving rate, given it was his most effective deterrent weapon. He also wasted no time in seeking to get away a small party of his most fleet-footed askaris to test out an escape route.
Jardine and Vince grabbed rifles from a couple of the returning tribesmen and sought to pick them off, while the machine guns were employed from both sides of the pass. Dodging from boulder to boulder, or seeking shelter behind the scrub that covered the valley floor, made them hard targets, but to cheers, one by one they were brought down, aided by intelligent fire from Aswan’s men opposite.
‘Fitawrari Yoannis wishes to know what will happen now,’ Shalwe asked, pointing to the man in question, who had got back to safety but seemed to want to stay well away from the professional soldier advising him.
The reply was angry. ‘Tell him to look.’
The Carro Veloce CV35s were using their tracks to turn in tight circles, noses pointing north, while some of the askaris were levering a large rock out of the way that blocked the exit route.
‘This is no time to be snooty, is it?’ Vince said. ‘He knows he’s cocked up, guv, an’ he wants your help.’
‘That’s a boot up the arse you owe me, Vince,’ Jardine replied after a pause, for his friend was right.
‘I’d settle for a pint of Bass.’
‘I’ll let you have a sip of water.’
‘Right now that will taste as sweet as best bitter.’
A skin was called for and they both drank from it, refreshed even if it was body temperature warm.
‘OK. They are going to try and break out with those tanks, but if you look at the valley floor I think they will have a tough time of it.’
‘Too many boulders.’
‘Not just that, Vince, it’s bloody uneven. At best they will be slow, so I want you to stay here with half a dozen rifles, and once the tanks are out, keep up a steady fire on the Italian perimeter to stop the infantry following. Use the machine guns if you have to, but we are short on ammo for those. I am going to take Yoannis and most of his men further up the pass. Shalwe, tell Fitawrari Yoannis that we need some grenades and his men are to do what I do. And tell him as well, don’t fire off rifles, it will be a waste of bullets.’
Jardine crawled away to the sound of tanks moving, their engines, lacking silencers, roaring, a sound that echoed and was magnified as it bounced off the faces of the surrounding hills. Slowly, in single file, they emerged from the defensive perimeter and it was obvious what Jardine had said was true.
Tanks were good over rough ground but this was more than that: it was horrendous for such small armoured vehicles powered by not very strong engines, with boulders forcing the drivers to try and take routes that were too steep even for their tracks, and that was before one side dropped into the depressions unseen by a driver peering through a narrow, metal-armoured slit, which gave him no sideways vision.
Regardless of Jardine’s instructions, some of Yoannis’s warriors were wasting ammo on the tank armour, but that, pinging on the side and exaggerated in what must be a baking hellhole of an interior, was enough to keep those driver slits closed. They were well away from the main Italian position now, and behind them they could hear the steady crack of rifle fire as the men with Vince kept up enough of a threat to ensure that infantry did not support the tanks.
It only took one to break down and get into trouble to show what would happen. Tank Number Three got stuck, and regardless of how hard it revved and bucked to and fro, stuck it stayed. Those to the rear tried to go round it and that meant a second tank ended up in difficulty, though it looked as though the driver was about to reverse and extricate himself, this while those to his rear stopped to see if he could manage it, for if he could not, they must reverse.
Now it was Cal Jardine on his feet and waving, as he plunged down the hillside, firing off single shots from his sub-machine gun, more for effect than to kill. With no turret to swing, the CV35s were sitting ducks from the rear, their machine guns only able to fire forward in a constrained arc, which he avoided by coming in behind them. He was yelling as hard as he could to draw the attention of those he was leading, as he dragged a pin out of a grenade and jammed it into the track of the rear tank, diving under the spitting machine guns to get out of the way of the blast.
The explosion sounded tremendous, but it was the clanking sound of a destroyed metal track that was music to Cal Jardine’s ears. Now his sword-wielding warriors were on top of the tank, beating with the flat of their blades on the armour, while one sought to lever open the hatch to drop in a grenade, another jabbing his weapon through the driving slit. The Italian gunner should have kept up his fire, if only to aid those ahead of him, but either he or the driver panicked and the hatch swung open, with two hands coming out as the first one tried to surrender.
He was grabbed by the hands of his enemies and dragged onto the side of the tank, where one yanked at his hair while another caught hold of his feet, then the sword came flashing down to take his head off in one sweep, with his driver being lugged into daylight just in time to see his mate die. His screams seemed as ear-splitting as the explosion of that grenade, but they were stopped as he too was decapitated. Jardine was shouting as loud as he could to let him be and take him prisoner; it was wasted breath.
One by one they moved up the line of tanks and each crew suffered the same fate, which sickened a man who knew that to seek to interfere was to risk the same himself. These warriors had their blood up and for them this primitive form of retribution was the norm, not some exception. Someone must have had the means to light a fire, for first one tank burst into flames, then another, with Jardine now yelling for them to get clear before the ammunition went up. By the time they left, all six tanks were ablaze.
Down the pass Vince could see the smoke and he knew that the Italian commander would see it too, so he called on his riflemen to cease fire; those askaris were going nowhere. Yet even he, and he considered himself immune, nearly puked when some of Yoannis’s warriors came loping along carrying Italian heads, which they threw in a blood-dripping arc into the enemy defences.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Down below, Major Critini, arm now in a sling, was on his radio, a piece of equipment not functioning well because of the high surrounding hills, seeking aid from headquarters to extricate the remainder of his battalion from the Dembeguina Pass, aware merely by the garbled replies that his messages were not being fully understood. His remaining officers, two lieutenants being wounded, had reported to him that casualty numbers were high, supplies of ammunition adequate, and water supplies were worrying, given they were trapped in a spot that intensified the heat of the sun.
He was thanking God, and he was a deeply religious man, that he was in command of native troops, for when it came to forbearance they
were streets ahead of his fellow Italians. Those tankers’ heads, thrown in amongst European soldiers, might have induced panic; in his Eritreans it got a response of loud whistles, which he hoped his enemies understood to be derision.
He had been attacked at dawn and his withdrawal had occupied no more than two hours, so he knew there would be no shade for a long time, but his men were used to the heat and being thirsty; his officers, being Italian, less so. He told them to get some kind of shelter constructed where they could take turns in getting out of the sun, and to drink small amounts frequently; they would be no good to him woolly and confused with dehydration.
Up above him Cal Jardine was seeking him out through his field glasses – decapitate the enemy and they are more easily overcome – but Critini was too wily a bird to expose himself to either another wound or death. Visible, though, was the long sliver of the antenna of his radio, sticking up above a rock and waving slightly in the gentle breeze. Then it disappeared, indicating the transmission was over, which had Jardine cursing his lack of mortars.
Calling over Shalwe he sent him to Yoannis with a request, one that was answered in the shape of four warriors younger than most of their fellows. In fact, they looked to be hardly meaningfully into their teens, but they had the eagerness and gaiety of youth added to their natural warrior spirit, and once it was made plain what was wanted they seemed to vie to be the one to do it alone. What Jardine was asking for was potentially suicidal and he wanted them to be gifted what safety was possible by numbers: as long as one succeeded, that would suffice.
It is one of the burdens of command that you accept some of your men might die and Jardine had no time for the nonsense spouted by others that you should never ask your men to do what you would not do yourself. Yes, in extreme circumstances, you must share the same risks, but in battle proper command is vital; only idiots threw their lives away with the kind of foolhardy bravery that left their men leaderless.
It took time to explain to these youths what he wanted, and he had to make sure they knew how to use a grenade and how to time the gap between pulling the pin, throwing it and making certain they were not caught by the blast. Most of all, he stressed they had time and they should take it – the last thing he wanted was a stupid rush that would result in utter failure.
‘Think you are hunting the lion,’ he had Shalwe tell them, pleased at the eager nods such an allusion received: they knew a thing like that required stealth and that was the easiest way of explaining to them the need for that now.
The hardest thing to do was to persuade them to relinquish their shammas: it seemed to be seen as a mark of shame to discard it, but Jardine had already observed how the white garment made every man he was with an easy target if they exposed themselves; divested of those, in just loincloths and with their coffee-coloured skin, the boys blended more with their surroundings. He was tempted to tell them not to smile either: they had very good white teeth, as well as a ready propensity to show them.
For those on the hillsides water and ammunition were plentiful, given the mouth of the pass was under the control of the Ethiopians. Food came too, though less welcome was Tyler Alverson, his Leica camera round his neck. He arrived, with an escorting regular officer and a pair of bearers carrying his tripod as well as a kitbag, in such a useless fashion he drew fire from below. He then went on to complain the Italians were too far away and too well camouflaged by nature to get a good picture.
‘Well, forgive me,’ Jardine responded. ‘I’ll just nip down and ask them to stand up and come closer.’
‘Pity they chucked away all those heads,’ Vince remarked. ‘That would have made for a good snap.’
That was explained to Alverson, who, if he was fazed by the thought of it, did not let on. ‘No prisoners, eh?’ Jardine just shook his head. ‘You know what that means? The Italians won’t take any either.’
‘What makes you think they would have anyway, Tyler? How are our boys doing, Vince?’
‘They’re stuck and need some help.’
Jardine got onto one knee and spayed a whole magazine into the enemy position, aware, through his peripheral vision, that his boys used that wisely. The defenders’ heads being kept down, they had taken the opportunity to dart forward, but one exposed himself too long, bullets pinging around him as Jardine changed his magazine. It was Vince who saved him, firing off five rounds rapidly.
Having concentrated on what they could see, the askaris missed one of the others. He was close to his target and threw, as Alverson later described it in print, like a World Series pitcher. The grenade hit the top of the rocks behind which the radio was situated, but the bounce took it on. By the time the operator moved it was too late for him, he was blown away like a thrown sack of spuds, but more important, the Italians were now very likely without communications, so they could no longer keep their Divisional HQ aware of their situation.
‘Captain Jardine,’ Shalwe shouted from beside a chest-heaving, sweating messenger. ‘More tanks, bigger tanks are coming.’
‘Take charge here again, Vince – same drill. Shalwe, tell Yoannis to get half his men following and you come too.’ Jardine was moving before he realised Alverson was on his heels. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’
‘I gotta see this.’
‘See what?’
‘Whatever it is you’re planning.’
‘I don’t have a plan, I’m reacting.’
‘And I thought you were a military genius.’
‘Take my advice, Tyler, if you ever come across one, stay clear – they tend to get themselves killed.’
‘Can I come with you?’
‘On your head be it.’
Even in his elevated position, Jardine could not move without attracting rifle fire, but being dressed in khaki clothing he at least blended with the surrounding features. Not Alverson in his white linen suit, which got him a string of loud curses. But it was not his fault, really: the two bearers he had brought along just saw their job as following wherever Alverson led. What they did not do was see any need to crawl like the man they were serving, and they had stood up to tag along. It was almost as if the Italian commander guessed such activity was important: he used his mortars again, which he had being doing sparingly to conserve rounds, the first projectile bursting too close for comfort and showering both Jardine and the American with bits of rock, one of which cut Jardine’s cheek.
‘You’re bleeding,’ Alverson said.
‘And you are a bleeding nuisance.’
‘Don’t hold back, bud, tell me what you really think.’
Dabbing at his dust-covered cheek, Jardine had to laugh. ‘Why do you do this, Tyler, risk getting yourself killed?’
‘I could ask you the same question.’
‘So we’re both stupid.’
‘And then some, brother.’
‘Tell those bloody bearers of yours to keep their heads down.’
‘You speak the lingo?’ Jardine’s head shake was superfluous. ‘No, neither do I, but I can tell you this, those guys can run, so we won’t lose them.’
Jardine was up and off like a greyhound out of trap 6, which left Alverson struggling to follow, so he waved his bearers forward and they showed a nice turn of speed as they swept past him, with him crawling in their wake to a point where he could stand up and walk.
‘So what we got?’ he gasped.
‘Tanks, probably Fiat 3000s.’
‘That bad?’
‘They have turrets, Tyler.’
‘Explain.’
‘The tanks we destroyed before only had forward-firing machine guns. Turreted tanks, and these have 37 mm cannon, can bombard the hills, both sides. They have good power sources too, and can get over obstacles those little CV35s had to try and get round. We can’t stop them the same way and I doubt we can do it without incurring losses.’
‘And if they get through, our friend back there gets clear?’
‘Yes, and worse, the pass is useless to Ras Kassa’s fo
rces, not that I think it’s as good an opportunity as he does.’ Seeing the need to say more, Jardine added, ‘Anyone with a brain will have already sealed the other end with artillery and machine guns.’
‘Which they are struggling to overcome elsewhere.’ As they moved, Alverson explained what he had already witnessed, adding the work Corrie Littleton was doing. ‘She is one resilient dame.’
‘I never doubted that, Tyler.’
Given that terse response, it seemed churlish to add what had happened with de Billancourt; that could wait.
‘Hear that?’ Jardine asked.
Alverson had to listen for a while before he picked up what was being alluded to, the growling sound of tank engines. Jardine had broken into a run again, though at less than the previous pace, while behind them came a stream of Yoannis’s warriors, with Jardine shouting out to Shalwe to tell them not to show themselves until he could assess the situation. It made no odds: the sound of cannons being fired was the next thing he heard as the Italian tanks put rounds into the hillsides just for safety.
Jardine stopped and called forward Shalwe, telling him to pass on the message to take cover and do nothing. ‘And tell Yoannis I will personally put a bullet in him this time if he does not do as I ask.’
If the young interpreter nodded, it was not with the kind of emphasis which implied he was going to accurately pass on that message: whatever, the fitawrari would either obey or see his men suffer, because the cannons on the Fiat 3000s could be deadly, either through direct contact or through ricocheting rock splinters, and the Ethiopians had nothing that could lay a finger on them. The last thing Jardine wanted was for Yoannis to try to really engage, for if he did that nothing would be achieved but dead warriors. Also, if they were coming, there had to be significant infantry support.
The sound now was of four roaring tank engines and regular cannon fire. Looking out from behind cover, Jardine saw the more powerful Fiats either push boulders aside or, because they were vertically sprung, just go over them, the front of the tank rising to a seemingly impossible angle, protruding out from the obstacle being crossed, until the nose dropped with a bone-jarring crunch onto the angled front track.
