Harkaway's Sixth Column (13 page)

‘We will learn to use the guns of the white man,’ Harkaway told them. ‘We will kill the Italians who have brought war to your country. We will take their clothes and their weapons and their vehicles. We will capture their silver and gold.’

‘Suppose,’ Chief Daoud asked from where he stood watching on the side surrounded by Harari elders, ‘suppose we fail?’

‘Suppose,’ Chief Abduruman asked from where
he
stood in the middle of a group of Habr Odessi elders, ‘that instead of us killing them, they kill
us.’

‘They won’t,’ Harkaway explained, and Danny’s hands flew as she clattered into the dialect. “The art of war, as your warriors will tell you, is surprise. If they don’t expect us, they can’t win.’

The two chiefs were still doubtful but then, from the group of women who stood watching, arose a contemptuous crying sound. Others joined in and the group started swaying, first the Harari women then the Habr Odessi, slapping the flats of their hands against their mouths until their shrieks became a fierce ululation. The sound excited the young men. One of them leapt into the air and spun like a ballet dancer, his shock of hair flopping over his eyes.

‘Are you men or women?’ one of the women shrieked.

‘We are men!’

More young men started leaping into the air until the whole lot were prancing about, waving their rifles and shouting. It took a good half hour to calm them down.

‘I reckon this is going to be a long job,’ Tully observed.

‘No, it isn’t,’ Harkaway said. ‘It hasn’t got to be. We haven’t time. Danny, go and tell those bloody women to keep their stupid traps shut. They’ve done their job and many thanks. Now it’s up to us.’

The women were led away and they began to train the troops. Harkaway got the men into a line again and village boys started to set up stones and bottles and cans. None of them were hit but a few of the younger men who were quicker to learn than the others managed, with the aid of Abdillahi, their first successful recruit, to throw up puffs of dust within a foot of their target.

‘A few more days,
jong,’
Grobelaar said, ‘and they’ll be hitting ‘em.’

The following day, one of the young Odessi hit the can he was aiming at. At least, they thought it was the can he was aiming at. It might have been the next in line but as the can jumped he threw down his rifle and leapt into the air, while a great shriek of joy came from the watching women.

Harkaway leapt forward. ‘Tell him to pick up that bloody rifle!’ he roared. ‘You don’t chuck a rifle down in the dust like that! You look after it! You cherish it! You wrap the breech in your robe! You keep the muzzle clear of dust and grit! Tell him that!’

As Danny spoke the women started wailing, and the young man’s proud grin died as he sheepishly picked up the rifle.

‘Now tell him to get down there and hit it again. And when he’s done it, to stay there quietly.’

The young man lay down again and with his third shot hit the can again, proving that even if the first shot had been a fluke, he was at least getting the hang of it. What was more, he remained where he was. His success even seemed to stir the others to try harder and by the end of the day they had six young men who could hit their target more or less at will.

‘Keep ‘em at it,’ Harkaway said. ‘We’ve not only to get ‘em to hit things, we’ve also got to stop ‘em shooting when we tell ‘em to. When we’ve got ‘em shooting properly, we’ll teach ‘em how to fire volleys.’

‘Volleys?’ Gooch stared. ‘Volley firing stopped in the bloody Boer War.’

‘Well, it’s going to start again,’ Harkaway said coolly. ‘Leave it to them, and they’ll work their way through every scrap of ammunition we possess in half an hour. Volley firing’ll preserve ammunition and in volley firing some of the targets always go down, so that every man who’s pulled a trigger can claim he was the one who hit it. He often isn’t but who’s to know? It’s good for morale. Besides, it’s discipline we want. March ‘em up and down a bit. Drill’s good for the soul.’

Gooch was soon working at it, with the aid of Yussuf and Danny, marching a squad of young men up and down the dusty marketplace, halting them, about-turning them, making them mark time and stand still. For the active tribesmen, totally unused to discipline, it was difficult. They preferred to express their anger or their pleasure with wild leaps and yells but Gooch was managing to keep them quiet and making them stop and start when he told them to. They were hardly the Guards, and their halts were invariably on the wrong foot but he got them into a squad and marching in threes.

‘We’ll never get ‘em wheeling into line proper,’ he pointed out as Harkaway appeared.

‘We’re not rehearsing the Trooping of the Colour,’ Harkaway said. “They’re guerrillas. So long as they can shoot straight. So long as they stay quiet when we tell ‘em to. So long as they keep their heads down until we tell ‘em to shove ‘em up. So long as they hold their fire until we tell ‘em to let go, and stop when we tell ‘em to stop. That’ll be enough.’

By the end of the week, they had a squad of twenty of the keenest and most intelligent men whom they considered they could safely use. They had been careful to pick ten from each tribe so there should be no jealousy and no grumbling, and their ages ranged from sixteen upwards, lean-faced men with skins of different hues and dusty hair, often daubed into ringlets with red mud. Their eyes were bright and their grins were wide and, while their line was never quite straight and they couldn’t march in step, they could use a rifle and they did as they were told. There was a lot of grumbling from those who hadn’t been chosen but Harkaway got Danny to explain that they’d be chosen when they were good enough, in the hope that it would encourage them to try harder.

By this time, Grobelaar had managed to teach Gooch and Tully to drive. With the British soldier’s wariness of being caught for something that wasn’t his job, neither of them had been keen.

‘Why do we have to?’ Tully asked. ‘I once tried and it didn’t work. I hit a tram.’

‘For Christ’s sake,’ Harkaway fumed. ‘There aren’t any bloody trams here! There’s nothing but desert. Hundreds of miles of it. And we might capture a lorry carrying a load of whisky and need someone to drive it.’

In the end Grobelaar had them both able to handle the Bedford, and, what was more surprising, four of the young tribesmen, too.

Their gear-grinding was enough to make your hair stand on end and the chief problem was to stop them pounding along at full speed. Grobelaar had to explain that the desert floor was uneven, and that driving too fast could break a spring. Gradually it sank in and the day came when Grobelaar, driving the Lancia, led a convoy of two of what the Somalis called ‘Iron Camels’, at slow speed round Eil Dif, one driven by a Habr Odessi and one by a Harari.

The sight prompted the women to shriek and start dancing, and the young men began to leap and twist in the air in their delight and pride. The two drivers stopped as Grobelaar stopped - jerkily and uncertain, but they stopped -and climbed down to stand at attention alongside their vehicles, looking like a couple of black storks and grinning all over their faces.

‘The Boys,’ Harkaway said proudly. ‘Our Boys.’

11

It seemed to be time to move. In the Western Desert, Bardia was being bombarded and the British were at the gates of Tobruk, while round Eil Dif the Somalis were growing restless and itching to use their new weapons to kill somebody.

Gooch was working over a rifle, cleaning it and wiping it with gun oil so that it had the smell of workshops and lathes. Staring along the sights, he removed the bolt to check the barrel for the patches of rust that showed dark against the shining steel, and put his nose to the barrel and sniffed, like a woman with scent. ‘They smell different after they’ve been fired,’ he said. ‘Sour. But good.’

Tully was bent over the radio. He had been keeping himself to himself for some time, eyeing Danny sullenly, following her everywhere she went with hungry eyes. As he worked, she sat outside with Grobelaar, watching the sun go down, both of them curiously placid and unwilling to move much.

‘BBC,’ Tully said and they all swung round as he turned up the volume.

The news still mostly concerned the great victory in the Western Desert. Since it was the only one the British could so far boast, inevitably they were making a lot of it, and the broadcast included an interview with a British officer who had watched.

‘The whole of the southern defences have been encompassed,’ he said. ‘And we’re now breaking in from the north. Ten thousand prisoners have been taken and God knows how many more are coming in . . .’ It made them itch to be part of it.

It had always been their intention to attack the first reasonable-sized, underguarded convoy that came their way. Convoys of arms were always heavily protected and, since their blowing of the Wirir Gorge, so were petrol lorries. Maize, skins, fruit and other convoys, however, didn’t merit such close concentration and the seventeen-vehicle convoy leaving Jijiga at the end of December contained maize, dates and coffee for the troops in Bidiyu, Hargeisa and Berbera.

It was Yussuf who brought news of it. Where he got his information no one knew, but Yussuf felt he had as much right to share in the success of the young Habr Odessi as Chief Abduruman or anybody else. He’d travelled towards Jijiga, and talked at the frontier post at Wajale where they had all the information about convoys. Nobody, least of all a none-too-bright corporal of one of Brigadier Ruggiero Ruffo di Peri’s Gruppo Bandas, the locally raised soldiers the Italians used for the dirty little jobs they preferred not to handle themselves, considered Yussuf, with his dusty blanket, limp and greying hair anything but a nosy villager.

‘Maize,’ he announced on his return to Eil Dif. ‘And dates and coffee. Our young men and their families will enjoy the maize. Will there be more rifles?’

‘That’s up to your young men,’ Harkaway said.

Gooch drew a deep breath. ‘Think we’ll pull it off?’ he asked.

Harkaway eyed the excited young Somalis squatting in the dust, holding their ancient rifles between their bent knees. There weren’t many of them but they were the brightest and best and they were eager to prove their skill and courage.

‘It all depends on that article,’ he said.

Danny was talking to them, speaking quietly but forcefully and the Somalis were listening eagerly. They considered her strange because they regarded white women who showed their legs or wore trousers not as women at all, but as miraculous beings who were able to conceive and produce children by some form of magic. Nevertheless, they liked women with shape, especially behind, so that their girls often padded out their clothes like a bustle. Since Danny was well endowed in every department, they were prepared to admire her.

She was lecturing them on the need for absolute obedience.

‘Without obedience,’ she said, ‘many may die. With obedience, you will enrich yourselves, and your wives and children will eat well. We have taken the place of your chiefs. We have not usurped their power. They are still your chiefs but they have given their leadership to us willingly and freely and you must do as we tell you. Your lives depend on it.’

‘Think they’ll do as they’re told?’ Harkaway asked as they made their plans.

Danny eyed him worriedly. ‘They should, I’ve stressed that their chiefs have given their power to us. Otherwise -’ She shrugged.

Harkaway put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it. She gave a little shudder and looked up at him unhappily.

‘We’ll need you, too,’ he said, giving her behind a little pat. ‘Willing to come?’

‘Yes.’

‘Not afraid?’

‘No.’

‘If it goes wrong, the Italians could get you.’

‘The Italians are noted for their good manners.’

‘But not for their morals. Most of ‘em behave like randy ferrets. You might be killed.’

‘I had to learn great chunks of Isaiah as a girl and that’s enough to put strength into anybody. I have faith.’

Harkaway gave a little frown. ‘I sometimes wish I had,’ he said.

‘Let me give you faith.’

He met her eyes. ‘The sort of faith I want,’ he said enigmatically, ‘has nothing to do with God.’

That night the young men who had been selected for the raid performed the fuqera, the bragging battle dance of the Ethiopians that they’d picked up from across the border, stamping, slapping their thighs and clapping their hands, their voices low and menacing as they moved with weird and grotesque contortions of the body. The other young men joined in, separate but part of the pride, and then the women, their voices raised in high-pitched wails.

There was no need for wheeled transport. The young Somalis could travel almost as fast across the hills on their stork-like legs as the British soldiers could travel in their lorry. Harkaway was in a sweat that they wouldn’t turn up. But they did. As the Bedford rolled into a carefully chosen hiding place to the north of Guidotti’s Strada del Duce, among the rocks black faces appeared, split by wide white grins.

‘I just hope,’ Harkaway said quietly, ‘that when we hit those Eyeties, the buggers have something worth taking.’

As it happened they were luckier than they knew, probably even than they deserved.

At the last moment, General Forsci in Jijiga, as concerned as Guidotti with the deteriorating situation in the Western Desert and its effect on Africa Orientale, added a petrol lorry to the convoy. Finally, because Somaliland was not self-supporting and the events in North Africa had caused delays in the movement of food down from Abyssinia, among the maize, dates and skins there was also a box containing one thousand Maria Theresa dollars to pay the merchants in Berbera for sheep and goat meat.

Despite the extra value of the convoy, however, Forsci didn’t consider, with eighteen lorries, each with an armed guard and the whole lot under the command of a lieutenant of the Bersaglieri of the Savoia Grenadiers, that there was any need to increase the escort. Eighteen native askaries, all Eritreans and all well-trained, an armoured car carrying a machine gun and a crew of four Italians at the front and a sergeant and a machine-gun crew in the rear lorry, he felt, ought to be enough to hold off anybody, especially since there had been no further signs of hostility along the Strada del Duce since the blowing of the Wirir Gorge. Since that event, a new post had been built there, consisting of a wired compound, a small brick-built fort containing a nervous Italian sottotenente and twenty Eritrean askaris, connected by telephone to other posts east and west. The idea was for neighbouring posts to send help in the event of attack, while help moved up to
them
from other posts further along the line, all the way back to Jijiga or Bidiyu in a sort of ‘when-father-turns-we-all-turn’ manoeuvre, each post supporting the next in line in either direction, no matter which way the danger came.