The Burning Sky (29 page)

‘Sittin’ in their barracks, guv. Makes you wonder who
we’ve been fighting for – not that ponce of an emperor?’

‘You a Bolshevik, Vince?’ Alverson asked.

‘Not bloody likely.’

‘Would these guys have made a difference, Cal?’

‘Might have done used wisely, Tyler, it’s too late to tell, but I can’t see them making much of one now.’

The American just nodded at that; no degree in maths was needed to work out that from the original forces Haile Selassie had fielded – guesses ranged from half- to
three-quarters
of a million men – he now only had a fraction left, while his enemies were near to their full original strength and had been reinforced. There would be a battle and maybe the Lion of Judah and some of his warriors believed in a miracle; Cal Jardine did not.

What followed did nothing to change that opinion: a week of parades, banquets and ceremonies, at a time when the advancing Italians were defensively vulnerable, threw away what little chance existed, which caused Alverson to opine that what Haile Selassie was doing was mere posturing for the hope of a future: in short, he was prepared to sacrifice anyone and everyone to maintain a tenuous claim to his throne.

By the time the attack was launched, Pietro Badoglio was ready and waiting, and the result was a foregone conclusion: the Ethiopians were routed – but it was what happened in the rear areas that occupied Jardine, Alverson and Vince. The Italian air force, not for the first time, deliberately bombed the field hospital, and one of the casualties was Corrie Littleton.

From their position observing the battle, the trio had seen the aircraft fly over and had heard the crunch of high explosives. It was only when the emperor admitted defeat and broke off the battle that they found out the extent of the damage to a hospital that had yet to start receiving casualties. It was only the needs of her bodily functions that saved Corrie Littleton.

The latrine tent for females had been set well apart from the main treatment tents, the top of which were marked with huge red crosses to tell flyers of their function. It was as if the Italians had used them as aiming points, for there were smashed bodies everywhere, orderlies of both sexes, and nothing left of beds, operating tables or medicines but wreckage around a series of deep craters.

Corrie had been found unconscious and suffering from injuries caused by blast and flying debris, with a broken arm and a gash in her back that had been covered with an antiseptic pad, then bandaged. By the time the trio got to her she was on a stretcher, while streaming past them were the broken elements of the last Ethiopian field army, and gone with them in the general panic and fear of a gas attack were what medical orderlies had survived, including the ones who had treated her.

‘You thinking what I’m thinking, Cal?’ Alverson asked, as Jardine bent over to examine her; he had seen enough battlefield wounds in his time to realise she was still very much alive but needed help.

‘There’s no doctors left, guv,’ called Vince as he approached from his inspection of the actual hospital
tents; there had been two, both Ethiopians. ‘They took the full blast, poor sods.’

‘The whole thing is falling apart,’ the American added. ‘And that will include what medical services still exist.’

‘Then we have to get her to Addis, Tyler, it’s the only place with a properly equipped hospital.’

‘Cal. That’s where the Italians are going.’

‘Where else can we get help?’

‘British Somaliland sounds good to me, brother.’

Cal Jardine looked up and nodded, for he knew what Alverson was saying: it was all over bar the shouting. There was nothing left, at least in an organised sense, to stop the Italians now and they would not be kind to those who had aided their enemies. It was time to get out of the country.

‘We’d have to go through Addis anyway, it’s the only road. We’ll just have to hope Badoglio is as cautious as he has been up till now.’

‘They’re bound to bomb the Addis-to-Gondar road.’

‘I know, but unless you can find a plane, we have no choice. Vince, go back into that wreckage and see if you can find any morphine sulphate, bandages, anything we might need – you know what.’

They had to carry Corrie Littleton into the little dusty town of Maychew, which was a slow struggle. Alverson, on the advice of Cal Jardine, had parked the Rolls out of sight, which had been like a harbinger of the coming debacle, on the good grounds that if the army broke, there was no guarantee someone, regardless of the endemic honesty of the locals, would not steal his car.

The loading of their kit was hurried and, with the
stretcher lashed across the rear and the three men crowded in the front, they joined the throng of people, warriors, soldiers of the Imperial Guard and fleeing civilians on the crowded road north. Even then they were pushed aside as, from behind them, came the motorised convoy of the emperor.

He, too, was in a Rolls-Royce, a beige coupé. They watched as the Lion of Judah, the King of Kings, the Emperor of Ethiopia, looking like a toy human being, drove by, his gaze unblinking and straight ahead, acknowledging no one to right or left, his face as impassive as it had been before he sent his vastly outnumbered troops into battle. Yet it was the face of a beaten man.

Just how beaten was not long in coming. Badoglio had finished the battle by gassing the survivors who had congregated around a lake, massacring thousands. The road to Addis Ababa was open.

I
t took five days to get to Addis, so slow was the road, crowded with refugees – no cheerful warriors now, but people who bore their burdens as a weight heavier than they truly were. Their patient woke up before they parked for the first night to sleep, that only possible when they had stilled her cries of pain with the morphine sulphate, which dulled all her senses. Unable to properly diagnose, apart from the obvious, what Corrie Littleton was suffering from, all three knew that treatment was essential; they could only hope they would get to a proper hospital in time.

Dirty, unshaven, hungry from lack of food and thirsty, with Corrie Littleton going in and out of consciousness, Addis Ababa, when they finally got there, was nothing like it had been before, a thriving African city. It having been severely bombed, and being the place where the wounded warriors made for, they naturally found the hospital full to
bursting – the corridors were six deep in wounded and the doctors struggling to cope.

Getting their attention was near to impossible and the notion of her being treated wishful thinking: the place was overwhelmed, medicines were scarce and the wounds of others much more serious. The only thing they established, and it was the badgering American who did it while Jardine argued unsuccessfully with the medical reception, was the presence of a facility at the Imperial Palace.

‘We have a bit of juice, Cal, we have to use it,’ Alverson insisted.

‘He’s right, guv, this much they owe us,’ said Vince, to back the American up.

‘Which means it’s down to me to ask?’

‘Yup. Of all of us,
Ras
Kassa owes you the most.’

‘We don’t even know if he’s still alive.’

‘Then,’ Alverson said, ‘it’s time to find out.’

The roads to the Imperial Palace were blocked off and they had to manoeuvre the car through a throng of supplicants just to get to the line of green-uniformed troops holding them at bay. Later, Tyler Alverson was of the opinion that it was the car that got them through, that Rolls-Royce flying eagle, because, as he put it, ‘We looked like shit!’ Whatever, the troops made an opening and they entered – once they were away from the keening of those seeking help – an oasis of calm.

The pink-tinged stone-built palace stood in verdant, well-watered gardens; although not of the stature of the European buildings it was modelled on, in a city like Addis it was by far the most imposing dwelling: only the churches
outdid it in size. The odd thing was, the place was intact – untouched by the war that had now been raging for five months, in a city that had been repeatedly bombed.

‘I’d ’ave made sure this was the first place I went for,’ Vince said as they left the empty boulevard and drove through the twin wrought iron gates.

It was Alverson who answered. ‘I reckon the Italians are thinking ahead. Why destroy the most comfortable billet in town when you want to lay your weary head there? When Badoglio gets here, you can bet your ass this will be his new home.’

They pulled up in front of the portico to be greeted by an officer Jardine recognised: it was the same
French-speaking
captain he had met at Gondar when seeking to get to Aksum to find Ma Littleton. Obviously about to ask the purpose of their presence, he was alerted by a groan from Corrie Littleton who, waking yet again, began to writhe from deep pain. With nothing approaching haste the officer walked across the gravel on crunching boots to inspect her, his face showing no emotion.

‘She requires treatment, and immediately,’ Jardine said.

‘The hospital is—’

‘I know where it is and I know it’s full,’ Jardine interrupted, looking around as if to underline the difference between this place and the stinking, crowded charnel house they had just left. ‘You have medical facilities here.’

‘For the private use of the imperial family and the officials of the government.’

Cal Jardine had been unaware of that fact; Alverson, for
all his skill in questioning, had not elicited the information, yet it could not be said to come as a surprise. He had learnt very early on how callous the Ethiopian high-born were about the lower orders and nothing he had seen since altered that view. If there had ever been any doubt, the way they threw them into battle ill-equipped and tactically ignorant would have proved the point.

He had a vision then of the pint-sized emperor as he had driven past them on the Addis to Gondar road, and he wondered whether his lack of response to his broken, retreating followers was really despair at the defeat. Could it be indifference, could it be all he saw was people who were obliged to lay down their lives for his crown and his continuing hold on power? It was a proposition that did nothing for his temper, and his voice was cracked with fury as he responded.

‘The imperial family might be better served looking after some of their subjects than themselves. Then maybe they would win a war instead of losing one.’

The man’s nostrils flared angrily: he saw an insult to his sovereign and he was not mistaken. Fearing his temper was going to underline an already decided-upon refusal, Jardine suddenly recalled he still carried the pass he had received from
Ras
Kassa. Reaching into his shirt pocket he pulled it out.

‘You recognise this, Captain, I am sure.’

‘It is no longer valid,’ he replied, as Corrie Littleton groaned again.

Opening it, Cal Jardine made a show of examining it. ‘I cannot see how – there is no end date. Are you saying
the
ras
no longer has any sway?’ Hesitation allowed him to press home his point. ‘I assume the man who signed this still holds the offices he held when it was written? Or are you saying your country no longer has a government?’

In employing the tone of voice he was using, Cal Jardine was working on instinct, and also on how the man had reacted previously in the face of this pass: this was a staff johnny before him and, in his experience, they were of the type who cared more for their position and prospects than anything else.

If service in the British army had taught him anything it was that the slippery types, the grovellers, unquestioning of even the most absurd orders, were the ones who got to the top. This captain was of that type and would hesitate to question someone of the stature of
Ras
Kassa Meghoum for the very simple fear that it might block his future advancement. The fact that his army was beaten, that in essence it would soon cease to exist, and his country was falling apart around him would probably not come into consideration.

‘The pass does not apply here, this is the Imperial Palace.’

It was like playing poker again and there was something in the eyes that made Jardine go straight for an outright bluff. ‘Please ask
Ras
Kassa Meghoum to come and tell me that personally.’ The man blinked, and encouraged, Jardine added, ‘And be assured, I have the means to make him aware of any impediment to his wishes.’

Stood still for several seconds, no doubt weighing the effect of all the alternatives on his own future, the captain
suddenly snapped, ‘Wait here.’ Cal went back to the Rolls, and a patient now moaning continuously, while he went inside.

‘How do you know he was here?’ Alverson asked.

‘Wild guess, brother,’ he replied, leaning over Corrie Littleton. Her face was drained of blood, and even if he was not a medic he could see her condition was deteriorating. He brushed a hand across her brow to move aside her unruly hair. ‘And if it doesn’t work, I don’t know what we’ll do.’

‘Captain Jardine, Mr Alverson.’ The deep voice identified the speaker, and just as he turned to respond he caught sight of Vince’s face, furious at not being acknowledged. Knowing his friend was capable of saying something offensive, he being no respecter of authority, he spoke quickly. ‘And Mr Castellano,
Ras
.’

He was facing him by the time the
ras
added an indifferent, ‘Of course,’ while behind him came the sound of moaning.

‘Miss Littleton is seriously wounded and requires treatment.’

The sound she made and those words brought what appeared to be enlightenment; clearly the captain, who had emerged behind the
ras
, had not told him of the reason his presence was required.

‘There is no hope that the hospital will be able to save her.’

‘Save her?’

‘Yes, sir, if she is not treated she will die.’

The stream of whatever tongue the
ras
was using had
soldiers rushing to take the stretcher, and somewhere in there was a reprimand for the captain, judging by the way his facial skin went tight. The eyes, when they flicked towards the source of the rebuke, had Cal Jardine thinking it would be unwise to turn his back on the man.

‘Gentlemen, you must too come inside.’

Vince gave the Ethiopian aristocrat a full glare. ‘I’ll assume that includes me, guv.’

‘The emperor and his family will leave the country and seek to gather international support for our cause. He has asked that, with my language skills, I accompany him.’

‘By what method?’ Alverson asked.

‘He dare not fly, Mr Alverson, it is too dangerous with enemy fighters so numerous. He will take the train to Djibouti.’

‘On a line which might be bombed,’ Jardine said. ‘Not to mention the train itself.’

‘As would a long convoy of cars and trucks, Captain, and on crowded roads it would move too slowly.’

Washed, fed and watered, they were sitting on a veranda at the rear of the Imperial Palace. Given the birdsong, the flowers, even the buzzing of pollinating bees, it was hard to think they were in the midst of a war. The convoy mentioned was telling: Haile Selassie was not getting out empty-handed. The train would have not only his family on board, but also his followers, his treasury and anything of value he could get away. It was hard to blame him: he was going into an uncertain exile and if he left anything the Italians would only steal it.

‘The French will let him through?’

‘That has been arranged.’

About to say something, Jardine stopped himself: Djibouti was likely to leak like a sieve. If the train journey had been arranged, then the Italians would find out about it and send every plane they had to make sure it did not get through – five hundred miles, over three hundred planes, it might be suicidal. Achieve that and they would decapitate the government in exile and make a cakewalk of the takeover. But they must have weighed up the risks; his voicing an opinion would change nothing.

‘And you, gentlemen,’ the
ras
said, smiling as his eyes moved to include Vince, sitting slightly apart. ‘What are your plans?’

‘That depends of the health of Miss Littleton,’ Jardine replied, which got him a look from his companions, with Vince saying, much to the confusion of their host, ‘It Happened One War.’ No one, least of all an irritated Cal Jardine, bothered to enlighten him, and in any case, a servant entered to bend over and whisper in his ear.

‘Miss Littleton is doing well. The emperor’s own doctor has treated her wounds and given her a blood transfusion. Her wound will heal and he has set her arm properly. So, my question.’

‘I can do no more here, can I,
Ras
?’

‘No, Captain Jardine, but you, Mr Alverson, perhaps.’

‘No point, sir: whatever I see and want to report, the Italians will not let me send out.’

That induced a pained expression: up till now none of them had openly referred to the obvious. The Italians
would be sitting soon where they were sitting now.

‘I could try to get you on the imperial train.’

Thankfully, there was enough doubt in his tone to make a refusal easy for Cal Jardine, and in this he was going to override anything the others might say: he had no notion to travel on a train he was sure would not get through.

‘I think we had already decided to make for Hargeisa by car, sir, but we will not do that unless Miss Littleton is well enough to travel.’

‘Unless …’ Alverson added before pausing; he did not need to say more. If the Italians, who had yet to advance, did so, they might have to get out and damned quick, even if it put her at risk.

‘It would be interesting to know when the doctor thinks Miss Littleton is up to such a journey.’

That was two weeks away, yet they were in no danger because the Italians did not move with anything like alacrity. On the radio, Vince listened, and translated for the others, as Marshal Badoglio announced what he called ‘The March of the Iron Will’, which got the soubriquet ‘bollocks’ from the Londoner, given there was nothing to stop what he called the ‘Piedmontese bastard’: there was no love lost between the various provinces of old Italy or the people who lived in them. Kassa had got them houses in a palace annexe and there they waited, played cards and talked in between visiting a recovering patient.

‘Strikes me, Cal, that we have been together quite a
while and yet I know hardly anything about you.’

‘Let’s leave it that way, shall we?’

‘Your father, who was he? Your mother too … you don’t talk about them.’

‘Spanish flu.’

‘Sorry,’ Alverson replied; that epidemic in 1918 had killed millions.

‘So how come you speak French and German so well?’

‘My father was an international trader, Tyler. We spent several years in Marseilles and the next stop to make his money was Hamburg. It’s simple.’

‘And your military service?’

‘Is a closed book. Deal the cards.’

Looking at his hand, Alverson said, in a slightly sour tone, ‘If your old man was as good at business as you are at poker he must have left you a pile.’

Marshal Pietro Badoglio was furious, but he dared not show it even in front of his most trusted staff. He wanted to curse Il Duce, to say in public what he had always thought of him: that he was a posturing buffoon whose only gift was to appeal to the basest members of Italian society, while people like Badoglio merely tolerated the upstart swine. But that might get back: he could not trust anyone.

In his hand he had an answer to a request he had made to bomb the train he knew Haile Selassie was about to board. His troops were marching in triumph towards the Ethiopian capital, meeting little resistance, which made him the most potent soldier in Italy. True, Graziani had won in
the south, but under his overall command. The fat-bellied swine Mussolini, who dared to wear a military uniform to which he was not entitled, had refused a reasonable request. How could he call himself a soldier?