Harkaway's Sixth Column (29 page)

For days as he had crossed the Abyssinian border, he’d been aware of the dust cloud on the horizon that meant they were being pursued, and he was glad to link up with the garrison of Fort San Rafaelo at Djuba. His men were at the end of their tether, but it looked very much as though they were going to have to fight there.

There had been a fortification at Djuba, where a spider’s-web of camel tracks came together, since before Christ, because this was border country where slave traders, bandits and nomad families had fought pitched battles for centuries over the wells that pierced the limestone outcrop. King Theodore had built a fort there to guard his southern borders against the hated white men, but the British general, Napier, had destroyed it in 1868, only for the Italians to rebuild it in 1938.

It was a whitewashed square structure now, with twenty-foot walls, except at the back where, because of the shortage of building material, a wall of logs and stones had been scaled down in the belief that the enemy would never get the chance of attacking the place from the rear. It had latticed windows, machicolations, firing slits on its parapet and a high tower at one corner. Inside the fort was a large parade ground with a well which supplied fresh if brackish liquid but unfortunately it was not fitted with a very good pump so that the business of obtaining water was long, hot and arduous. Large barrack rooms and offices were situated round the inside of the walls, their flat roofs forming the walk from which the parapet could be manned but, though attempts had been made by Major Pavicelli, its commander until the arrival of Guidotti, to make it like home, it still remained a bare empty box devoid of comfort, and full -especially at that moment - of nervous anxieties about attack.

Despite its size, Guidotti was well aware that it wasn’t big enough for modern warfare. It was surrounded by a zariba of thorn bushes and a barbed wire entanglement, but the barbed wire, like everything else, was in short supply and the low wall at the back worried him. Some former commander had made himself a small garden there, near a group of thorny acacias, so he could sit in the shade in the evening, and a small door had been let into the wall, which was reached by a passage alongside one of the large barrack rooms. Guidotti had had the door barricaded for safety but he recognized it as a danger point; and, in addition, because of the danger of their vehicles being spotted by aircraft and bombed, they had had to disperse them outside the log wall among the trees. Hard up against the walls on this side were sheds for the herd of cattle, sheep and goats which were kept to provide fresh meat.

The approaches to the fort had been cleared to give a field of fire but the scrub had not been pushed back far enough and, beyond the clearing, could hide an army. In addition, just outside the wire was a khor, a sandy river bed edged with tough grass. When the rains came, it carried water but, at the moment, apart from a few large stagnant pools, it was dry, and as Guidotti well knew, could offer protection for anyone about to storm the fort.

As he studied his position, Guidotti didn’t fancy his chances. He had had the wooden bridge across the khor hacked down but, while these ridiculous little fortresses were fine against tribesmen with ancient weapons, he well knew that the column coming up from the south was well armed, because it was largely armed with Italian guns.

He stood on the ramparts studying the town and the flat-roofed bazaars where traders bowed on their prayer rugs and gave thanks to Allah that the Italians would soon be gone. Since his arrival he had spent his time putting up extra wire to keep out all the natives except the old women who did the washing and looked after the herd of cattle. There was an Italian arch in the little town bearing a date to show how long the area had been occupied and Guidotti reflected bitterly that it didn’t really add up to much.

As the sun sank and the bright brassiness of the heavens faded to jade green and then to lemon yellow, the land outside the fort remained silent, changing with the colour of the sky from gold to salmon pink and then to purples and greys. There were Abyssinians and border Somalis near the waterhole, fine-looking nomads grazing their flocks on the scanty pasturage of the interior, and over the silent air came the faint tinkle of camel bells. Guidotti could see the shadowy shapes passing endlessly through the light cast by the fires, and their smell came to him, bitter and smoky, to pervade the whole interior of the fort.

‘Have you finished the wire?’ he asked Piccio.

‘Yes, Excellency. But there isn’t much.’

‘Weapons?’

‘Set up, sir.’

‘How about the troops?’

Piccio shrugged. ‘They’re nervous. I’m not sure I’d depend on them. The Abyssinians will throw in their hand if they get a chance, and even the Eritreans are not what they were. If rations run short - ‘

‘Rations won’t run short!’ Guidotti gestured. ‘And those people out there are worse off than we are. Besides, we shan’t be here long. I propose to stay only until our people are rested, then move further north with Pavicelli towards the Duke of Aosta.’

Piccio frowned. ‘We’d better hurry, I think, sir,’ he said. ‘Fortresses are always dangerous and sieges can become disasters.’

Some time after midnight, on the orders of Piccio, Guidotti was roused by a nervous askari. Dressing hurriedly, he climbed with Piccio to the tower. It stood sixty feet above the ground and it was possible to see for miles.

Piccio pointed. In the distance, a long line of pinpoint lights from fires was strung across the desert in a vast half circle. As Guidotti stared at them, Piccio touched his arm and gestured again. Guidotti stared in the direction of his pointing finger. In the north, too, were lights in another vast semi-circle and it was clear the two semi-circles were endeavouring to join up.

‘They’ve arrived,’ Piccio said.

Guidotti didn’t have to ask who.

The Sixth Column slipped into its place quietly and efficiently. On the right, the town of Djuba lay in a huddle of whitewashed mud buildings, the roads leading to it studded with embarrassed-looking eagles, laurels, and bundles of fasces. There was also an area of iron pickets and rusting barbed wire protecting from jackals and hyenas the neglected sun-baked graves of a dozen Italian soldiers who had fallen when the country had been taken over. Above them rose a headstone chiselled in Italian: ‘To the men of Cerutti’s column who died in the shadow of the Roman eagles at Djuba in combat with the barbarous foe.’

Staring at the fort, Harkaway hardly saw them.

‘Got the bastard,’ he said with satisfaction.

Gooch made a growling sound of disagreement. ‘If you ask me,’ he said heavily, ‘you’re expecting a lot outa those Boys of yours. The buggers might be able to fire rifles but they aren’t trained for attacking a fort.’

‘I’m not looking for trained soldiers,’ Harkaway said flatly. ‘What I want is
untrained
soldiers. The Boys are tough and silent and for the sort of fighting I want they’re just the job. They’ll carry spears, pangas and anything else that takes their fancy, so long as it’s sharp, shines and is likely to put the fear of God into the Italians. To make it better we’ll go in after dark.’

Gooch remained unconvinced. ‘Night attacks always end in a bloody shambles,’ he said.

‘This one won’t. And once we’re inside, I’m going to let the Boys loose. Everything they can get’s theirs. That’ll make ‘em go. They’ve behaved themselves well up to now and they’re itching to have a go in their own way. This time they’re going to. When the Eyeties see ‘em coming up the stairs and round the corners they’ll think it’s Adowa all over again.’

‘What’s Adowa, for God’s sake, you toffee-nosed bastard?’

‘Adowa’s where their army was wiped off the face of the earth by the Abyssinians in 1896. We’ll let ‘em know we’ve been joined by several thousand Abyssinians - ‘

‘A hundred’s nearer the mark.’

‘They don’t know that.’

‘Suppose the bastards get out of hand?’

Harkaway smiled. ‘So much the better,’ he said. ‘The Eyeties’ bloody bandas were given carte blanche to rob and rape, and they’ll think it’s their turn and won’t wait to find out.’

That night, with Piccio behind him, Guidotti stamped briskly round the ramparts of the fort, trying to look more confident than he felt. He was urging the need for constant alertness on the sergeant of the guard, when they heard a whistle. Almost at once there was a crash and a blinding flash just outside the fort that threw up a cloud of dust and stones.

Guidotti looked at Piccio. ‘They’ve got artillery,’ he said.

They realized at once that the missile had come from a mountain gun. The weapon was small and of ancient vintage but, firing vertically, was more suited to throw its shells into the fort than guns with a flat trajectory.

Two more shells arrived almost at once, gouging out chunks of the mud-brick wall. As they struggled to fill the gaps with rubble they were expecting more shells, but surprisingly none came and they were just deciding that that was the end of the cannonade when another shell arrived, this time from the east side of the fort.

‘They have
two
batteries!’ Piccio gasped.

Three more shells fell in quick succession, none of them doing much damage, then there was another long silence.

They were still nervously peering to the east when three shells arrived from the north.

‘They have artillery all round us,’ Piccio said.

As it happened - as Guidotti immediately suspected -Harkaway had sent a single small gun careering madly round the fort firing from different directions to cause confusion and alarm. As it returned, Sergeant Catchpole jumped from the lorry, grinning.

‘That’ll puzzle the bastards,’ he announced.

The following day, Guidotti stared from the fort, his eyes narrow. There was little he could see, because the besiegers were well hidden in the hollows, the scrub and the dried river bed. But here and there he could see small columns of smoke from cooking fires and once they heard the high-pitched ululation of Somali singing. As dusk fell they waited for the bombardment to start up again but when it came it was different. There was a distant pop and a few seconds later there was a flash in the courtyard and a tremendous nerve-shattering crash.

‘Mortar,’ Piccio gasped. ‘And one of ours, too, by the sound of it.’

The mortars, smooth-bored and of low muzzle velocity, were not very accurate but they could lob their bombs over the walls without difficulty and, with the size of the courtyard, couldn’t miss.

Running to the tower, Guidotti peered through one of the firing slits. ‘They can’t be that close,’ he said.

‘They could be,’ Piccio pointed out, ‘if they moved up during last night and lay low all day in the khor.’

Guidotti glanced quickly at him. The idea of lying in the khor through the full heat of the day appalled him. On the other hand he knew the enemy comprised Somalis for the most part and they were well used to the heat. Piccio was trying to make out just where the mortar was concealed when they heard another pop and there was another crash in the courtyard behind them and the shouts of alarmed askaris.

‘We’ll send out a force to drive them away,’ Guidotti said, but Piccio turned worried eyes to him.

‘Excellency,’ he said, ‘if we send native troops, they’ll bolt. And we can’t afford to risk our Italian grenadiers.’

There was sense in what he said and Guidotti withdrew the suggestion. As they ran down the stone steps to the courtyard, there was another crash. Metal fragments gouged plaster from the walls and Guidotti fell the last few steps to sprawl on his face with Piccio on top of him. As he scrambled to his feet, another bomb fell and he had to fling himself down once more. As he got to his feet again, there was a whistle which he recognized as a shell, and a chunk was knocked off the tower so that the flag he’d insisted should be kept flying day and night canted sharply to one side.

‘Gunfire now,’ Piccio gasped.

The mortar bombs were coming in a shower when, just as Guidotti was beginning to wonder how many there were, they stopped as suddenly as they’d started.

The inside of the fort was silent as the grave. Lights appeared. Only two men, one a native levy, had been killed, but six had been wounded, three seriously. The damage had not been extensive but the short bombardment had been nerve-racking.

They were just clearing up the debris when the mortar bombardment started again. This time there were only six bombs and they all came together, landing in a salvo in the courtyard to kill another man and wound two others.

Ordering everybody under cover, Guidotti called Piccio into Pavicelli’s office to discuss what they could do to counter the mortarings.

‘We can’t mortar back,’ Piccio pointed out. ‘We don’t know where they are unless they mortar us in daylight.’

Guidotti frowned, almost in tears with despair as he leaned over the plan of the fort spread on the desk. He was still struggling to set his senses in order when he became aware of shouting outside.

‘Now what?’

Smelling smoke and hearing the crackle of flames, he dropped the map and rushed into the courtyard. The stables were alight and the haystore was burning furiously. Pavicelli’s native cavalrymen were leading blindfolded horses into the courtyard through the smoke.

‘The old women,’ Pavicelli panted. ‘The old women who look after the cattle! They must have planted some sort of device. We can’t get at it. The whole lot’s going up!’

While Guidotti was trying to make sense of what was happening, the mortaring started again. Ten bombs fell, one after the other in a long salvo that cracked and rattled inside the courtyard. A horse screamed and shouting started. By dawn, Guidotti’s nerves were completely on edge. The inside of the fort was blackened with smoke, the cavalrymen tramping around in a sodden mash of mud, ash and charred straw.

Guidotti was still depressed by the night’s events when Piccio appeared, white-faced, to announce that they had lost the small herd on which they relied for fresh meat.