by Wilbur Smith
Penrod left the tent and looked up the valley toward the passes that flanked Baratieri’s command post and Arimondi’s deployment, cursing. Groups of askari choked the paths. The wounded were being carried back to the camp in good order, but two hundred yards behind them was a mass of bodies, men pursued and pursuing and hopelessly tangled. The two Italian guards had disappeared.
Penrod lifted his field glasses. His gaze was caught by a small tableau up on the slope above the path: a white officer and a group of askari attempting to offer covering fire to the retreat. It was Nazzari and some of his men from the Eighth Battalion. As Penrod watched, the squad kept up an astonishing rate of fire, giving some of the askari enough cover to tumble by and below them toward the camp. Ethiopian riflemen took up positions on the opposite side of the gorge and began to concentrate their fire on them. Nazzari still held his ground.
“You’ve done enough, Nazzari, fall back,” Penrod said, his jaw clenched.
Three of Nazzari’s men had been hit. One was obviously dead and one of the others continued to fire as best as he could as he lay slumped on the slope.
More Ethiopians were approaching their position from above. Still, neither Nazzari nor his men moved. As Penrod watched, Nazzari took out three of the attackers with his revolver. He was about to be overwhelmed. Penrod took a step forward and Ryder grabbed hold of his arm.
“He’s too far away. You can’t help him.”
The lance of one of the Ethiopian infantrymen plunged into Nazzari’s thigh. He staggered, lifted his revolver and blew out his own brains.
Penrod lowered his binoculars, then reached into the press of men beginning to swirl through the camp and grabbed an askari by his shoulder.
“What happened?”
The man said something Penrod could not understand. Ryder translated his frightened gabble in a monotone.
“He says Albertone’s left flank was turned. Officers all dead or captured. General Dabormida went north, so no protection. Ethiopian cavalry has broken the center.”
Penrod released him. “These men are all going to be slaughtered unless they make a fighting retreat.”
“And we’ll be killed with them unless we get out of here,” Ryder replied. “Are you coming?”
Penrod lowered his binoculars. “No, not yet.”
“But what about Amber?” Ryder said.
Penrod felt her name like a brand on his heart. He looked at the men surging toward them, the fleeing troops breaking around the camp. Some of the askari NCOs were ordering the men to form up around them, but with little success. Others were carrying their wounded and dying officers from the field. It seemed no commissioned officers had survived. Where they stood, the campfires and baggage carts of Albertone’s retinue provided a bulwark against the surge of men struggling back from the battlefield and their pursuers.
Penrod checked his revolver. “You may go ahead, or remain, but I will not walk away from this. Not yet.”
Ryder hesitated. Penrod could guess his thoughts. Ryder knew he had a much better chance of rescuing Amber with his help.
“Very well,” he said at last with a growl.
“Try not to get in the way,” Penrod said, then grabbed hold of one of the askari running by him. “Do you speak Italian? Arabic?”
Neither language worked and Penrod shoved the man back into the flow of soldiers, then he heard himself hailed by name. A man was struggling toward him through the crowd and Penrod put out his hand and hauled him clear. It was Ariam, the sergeant he had raced in Massowah. He had a deep wound across his cheek and his left arm hung awkwardly. His skin was ashy with exhaustion and his white jacket was streaked with dust. Penrod could read the story of his battle in his wounds, the wide stain across his chest—the same russet as his sash—where he had carried a wounded man.
“Ariam! Captain Nazzari is dead.”
The sergeant lowered his head, grief and exhaustion weighing him down like a stone. “I had hoped . . . Effendi, he was the last. All the officers are gone. We are like a snake with our head cut off.”
“What now?” Ryder asked.
“These askari fought at Kassala and Coatit,” Penrod said quickly. “They need only a moment to steady themselves. Sergeant, you will gather the surviving NCOs and men of the Eighth Battalion now. Follow my orders and we may yet save some of them from this rout. Are you willing?”
Already the sergeant seemed to be regaining his strength. He listened carefully to Penrod’s instructions and his breathing steadied. As soon as Penrod had finished, he saluted and began to bark out orders, calling men out of the fleeing pack by name. Some of the Ethiopian warriors were already at the edge of the camp and engaging the routed askari.
“Ready, Sergeant?”
“Ready, effendi!”
The sergeant had managed to pull perhaps fifty men from the throng. Their injuries seemed to be light and Penrod was pleased to see four or five NCOs among them. The men were split into four groups and given their orders.
The mass of the pursuing Ethiopians was almost upon them, slashing at the askari who choked the path in front of them like men slicing through thorn bushes. The pursuit was as disorganized and leaderless as the retreat.
“Fix bayonets!” Penrod shouted and unsheathed his cavalry saber. The blade felt alive in his hand.
Ariam was watching him like a hawk, his wounds forgotten and his whole body taut with purpose.
“Wait for it, wait for it,” Penrod snapped. The rout was dividing around them. He could do nothing for the men fleeing along the northern edge of the camp, but if they were lucky, the askari fleeing down this southern path might have a chance. The mass of the Ethiopian advance guard was coming level with them.
“Charge!” Penrod shouted.
He led some forty askari with him against the flanks of a force at least three times that number, but the Ethiopians were too focused on their prey to be aware of the threat. They were blocked by the baggage wagons and steep southern slopes that turned the path into a killing ground. Penrod picked an officer by his lion’s mane headdress and attacked with a sweeping cut that severed the man’s carotid artery just below his left ear. On either side of him the askari provided ample proof of their training, thrusting their steel into belly and chest.
The air stank of sweat and blood, and the Ethiopians, surprised by the force and ferocity of the attack, fell back. Penrod spun right. A flash of steel glimmered to his left. He rocked backward and felt the curved blade of the shotel slice through the fabric of his jacket. He parried blows to his thigh and shoulder as his attacker exploited the impossible angles of attack the curved blade offered, and spun away from Penrod’s sweeping counter strike. He too wore a lion’s collar.
Penrod thrust forward, swinging the saber upward with such force the Ethiopian could not turn the blow with his shield. The glimmering steel point ripped him up from groin to rib cage. He collapsed onto the ground. Penrod changed his grip and drove the saber through the man’s heart.
As Penrod withdrew his blade, he sensed a movement to his left. An infantry swordsmen was descending on him, his blood-spattered shamma billowing behind him. Penrod’s blade caught for a fatal second against the ribs of his dead foe. The blade that would kill him was swinging toward his neck. Then the man fell back and away onto the dust. Penrod turned in time to see Ryder Courtney lowering his rifle.
“On me!” he shouted, and the askari disengaged from the remains of the Ethiopian attackers. The askari who had not formed part of the attack opened up a steady volley with their rifles, their numbers swelled now by men who had escaped the headlong rout.
The mass of the Ethiopian troops, finding their path impeded, were swinging around to the north of the camp. But, hampered by the tents, cooking fires, animals and servants, their advance was becoming blocked. No coordinated attempt was made to flank Penrod’s position. More men, some supporting wounded comrades, were finding their way back behind the protection of Penrod’s rifles.
Ariam formed the men into tw
o platoons and they began to retreat in good order. Penrod called the sergeant to him.
“When you are clear of any pursuit, scatter your men into small groups. Do not use the supply routes. Travel by night, post guards in the day and get to Asmara as quickly as you can.”
The sergeant saluted, then, with a slight hesitation, put out his hand, and when Penrod shook it, he said, “Thank you, effendi.”
“Go with God,” Penrod answered and Ariam went to join his men.
“Done winning your latest VC yet?” Ryder asked. His pack was already on his shoulder. “Because I think it’s time we got out of here.”
“King Umberto does not give out VCs. I shall have to make do without a matching pair,” Penrod replied coolly.
A rifle round kicked up a spurt of dust between them. The Ethiopians who had overwhelmed Nazzari and his men had noticed the pocket of resistance and its source, and were finding their range.
Penrod picked up his pack. “Now we can go.”
•••
After two hours Ryder called a halt under a lone juniper. The shade would provide both refuge from the afternoon sun and some little concealment for them from any bands of Ethiopians searching for survivors of the battle.
“I do not need to rest,” Penrod said.
Ryder held out his canteen toward him. “Did you have friends in the battle?”
Penrod took the canteen and allowed himself a mouthful of water. He rolled it around his mouth before he swallowed, then sat down in the dust next to Ryder.
“I knew many of the officers.”
Ryder did not offer condolences, nor did he take the chance to remind Penrod what he thought of European armies on colonial adventures. Instead he drank and carefully stoppered the canteen.
“The blonde child you saw at camp was my daughter—mine and Saffron’s. Amber has not married.”
Penrod did not react at once, but when he spoke, his voice was icy. “Do you think I am more likely to save her knowing that?”
Ryder sighed deeply. “No. I think you would do anything to save her, married or not. But we are facing odds of at least six to one, judging by the attack on my camp. If we are going to die trying to save Amber, you should know she remained faithful to you, even when she thought you were dead.”
“Very well. What can you tell me of this man who abducted her?” Penrod asked at last.
Ryder shared what little he knew. How he had met Bill in Addis and had found him a useful and skilled addition to the camp, but never liked or trusted him. He gave a brief description of his assault on the trail to Addis before the great muster, and the revelations of the doctor.
Penrod listened intently. “So this man who calls himself Peters, he first appeared in Bohemia?”
“According to the doctor, yes,” Ryder said, stowing the canteen in his belt pouch. “Why?”
Penrod only shook his head and they got to their feet, but a dark and seemingly impossible suspicion had begun to bloom in his heart. “Did you tell him I was alive and in Tigray?” he asked.
“You? No. I told Saffron you were alive and she told Amber, so I suppose he may have heard you and I met here. Why?”
Penrod only shook his head.
At the top of the next incline Penrod turned and looked back toward the plain of Adowa. At first he thought he saw a thick mist reaching up the slopes on either side of the battlefield. He lifted his field glasses and looked. It was not mist, but smoke. The Ethiopians were driving out any Italian soldiers remaining in the field by setting fire to the grass and vegetation. Penrod could imagine the scene, the wounded not allowed to die quietly among their fellows, but forced to their feet by the choking smoke, wandering through the horrid tableau of the dead into the arms of their foes.
Amber opened her eyes. Her head pounded and at first she could only make out patterns of light and shade. She was lying on some sort of bed. She tried to move. She was not tied down, and as far as she could tell her limbs were whole. She was sore and trembling and her head ached with an intensity that almost blinded her. She raised herself up and squeezed her eyes shut as a fresh wave of pain broke over her, then very carefully traced her fingers over the back of her head where the pain seemed worse. No swelling that she could feel, and no blood.
Just a bump, she told herself firmly. She carefully opened her eyes again and, moving as little as possible, looked around her.
It was a traditional round hut, though small, less than twenty feet in diameter. The final foot of the wall before it reached the thatched roof was open wickerwork that allowed the light to pour steeply into the room, casting deep shadows.
As Amber’s vision adjusted, she began to make out the shapes of crates and baskets, rolls of cloth leaning against the walls, rough hessian sacks, plump with grain, small banded chests and steamer trunks. The central area had been cleared. On the rough earth floor stood a small rosewood table and a pair of elegant dining chairs. She felt the sheet of the bed on which she was sitting: soft cotton. And it was a proper bed too, with a head and foot, a mattress and a silk comforter. The door was closed. Next to the stove was a mahogany washstand, complete with a porcelain ewer and bowl decorated with small pink roses.
Amber stood up shakily and went over to the washstand. She found clean water in the jug and she poured a little over her hands and splashed her face, before glancing in the mirror and smoothing her hair from her face. Then she began to explore the chamber. It was a cave of stolen delights. At least the search took her mind off her pounding headache and her aching limbs. She dragged one of the chairs to the end of the bed and clambered shakily on top of it. Pulling herself up onto the tips of her toes, she peered out through the wicker. The air was chill and thin. She could just make out the distant mountaintops, purple against the pale sky. She lowered herself onto the flat of her feet and leaned against the walls of her prison. It had been evening when she saw Dan—evening on the second day of her capture. Had they killed him? She prayed they had not.
It was day now. Whatever Bill had planned for her, it was obviously not immediate execution. What did he want from her? Why risk the attack?
An hour or so later she heard the bar across the door being lifted. A girl of no more than fourteen slipped into the chamber. Amber caught a brief glimpse of the world outside: a dusty courtyard, the shape of other buildings, the figures of two guards, their rifles in their hands, standing by her door.
“I hope you are well,” she said to the girl.
“Thanks be to God I am well,” the child answered. “And you?”
“Thanks be to God I am well.”
The girl was carrying a basket of bread and a beaker of some warm liquid. It steamed slightly. For a moment Amber could not place the fragrance competing with the sour yeastiness of the injera, then she realized with wide-eyed surprise that it was the smell of Earl Grey tea. The girl was already returning to the door.
“Sister,” Amber said, softly but urgently, “where are we?”
The girl blinked. “In the mountains,” she said in a husky whisper, then disappeared back into the sunlight before Amber could ask anything else.
She thought about throwing the tea to the ground, grinding the bread under her heel, but she was painfully hungry. Whatever the day held for her, she decided, it would be better for her if she faced it on a full stomach. Only when she was eating did she notice a small, polished wooden box on the table next to her. She opened it very carefully. The box held within it a beautiful, mask-like ivory carving of a man’s face.
•••
After Amber had eaten her meal, she heard a knock at the door. Considering it was barred from the outside, this almost made her laugh, then she noticed an envelope pushed underneath. She waited for a moment, but no further sound came from outside, so she left her seat and went to pick up the envelope. It was thick, heavy paper and her name was written on it in a graceful copperplate. She returned to her chair and put the last of the injera in her mouth before she cracked the seal and unfolded
the pages. It was a short note. Her host apologized for having to take such extreme measures to win her compliance. Amber almost choked. He went on to say in similarly formal language that he would dine with her that evening. He would be grateful if she took the opportunity to dress for dinner and said all the feminine apparel and jewelry in the room were at her disposal.
For a long time Amber stared into the gloom of her prison and considered the letter held loosely in her hand. Then she made her decision and began to open up the chests and cases surrounding her. She took her cue from the formal language of the note itself and selected a long and heavy skirt in scarlet silk, and a sky-blue bodice with loose lace-trimmed sleeves, laced at the front. As she dressed she wondered to whom these clothes had belonged. An Italian officer’s wife or daughter, perhaps.
The bodice was a little tight across her chest, but the fit was close enough. The skirt hung down to the floor, and she found a pair of velvet slippers, worked with silver thread. They fitted her perfectly. She debated changing them for a little pair of boots, but those were loose on her small feet. They might seem sturdier, but in the slippers she would be able to run more quickly. Then she turned her attention to her hair, brushing and twisting it high, and fixing it in place with some little silver combs she had discovered. Looking at herself in the mirror, she felt a certain amount of pride, then laughed. She remembered going to the Gheziera Club in Cairo and feeling so uncomfortable and trapped in clothes much like these. Now she was as formally dressed as she had ever been, about to dine with her murderous kidnapper yet feeling remarkably at ease. Her years in the wilderness had somehow given her the poise and confidence of a young duchess. So be it. She began to test the stiffness in her shoulders, teaching herself to move without wincing.
Toward the middle of the afternoon the bar was lifted from the door and the servant girl came in again with another, even younger girl. Amber did not attempt to talk to them, but instead watched, fascinated, as they placed a linen cover over the table, and added candlesticks, plates, cutlery, glasses, napkins, and all the paraphernalia of fine European dining produced on an isolated hilltop in the middle of the Tigray highlands.
