The Burning Sky (22 page)

‘He must have dropped it.’

The response was larded with sarcasm. ‘And along comes an innocent Englishman, out for a stroll in the desert, who just happens to find it. But he does not find the owner to return it, then forgets he had it in the first place. How strange.’

‘I must compliment you on your command of English, Major,’ Jardine replied, aware that there was not a lot he could say and he needed time to think, because this he had not bargained for. That wallet made his position, precarious to begin with, so much more so.

‘Then perhaps since I have no trouble understanding, you would care to enlighten me as to where the lieutenant is, not to mention the men he commanded?’

‘I have no idea, but I did tell you I slipped across the border illegally by engaging with a camel caravan doing likewise, a most villainous crew who assured me the border crossing was not guarded.’

‘Somalis or Ethiopians?’

‘Neither, but they were Muslims.’

‘No doubt they enlightened you as to the tenets of the Koran.’

‘It was informative to observe them, yes.’

‘And was this caravan carrying anything, Mr Jardine?’

He had to be careful: the Italians must have informants in Ethiopia, but how numerous and active they were was to him a mystery. There was one notion worth a try.

‘I fear they might have been involved in the slave trade
and were returning from the coast, having sent on their despicable consignment to the markets of Arabia.’

‘Empty?’

It was like playing poker, seeking in little inflections in the voice and the way his eyes and hands moved to detect if he knew the answer to the question or was just probing.

‘The camels were loaded, but with what I do not know.’

‘Three days after Soradino went missing, his area commander requested to be sent up a reconnaissance aircraft from our
Regia Aeronautica
to look for him. I take it you know what a vulture is, Mr Jardine? When he saw them in large numbers it was enough to make our pilot curious, so he flew very low over a range of hills and was sure he could see a field of bodies being picked clean by the birds.’

‘Perhaps he was mistaken – from the air they could be animals.’

‘Fortunately the land to the east is flat, and there he put down his light aircraft to go and investigate, to find he was indeed correct: they are human remains, much scattered, chewed at by other animals and bones bleached by the sun. Yet there are scraps of uniform left and they are, when examined, the same as those worn by the askari levies Lieutenant Soradino commanded.’

‘How shocking! What do you think happened?’

The voice became quite terse. ‘Soradino was an idiot, a fellow convinced he was a genius when in truth he was a dolt, sent to Assab to fester in a place he could do no harm. Now he is dead and you have the poor fool’s
wallet, so perhaps you can tell me what to think.’

As the major had been speaking, and he had not raised his voice at all, Jardine had become aware of the scratching of the pen at the other table; a glance sideways showed the soldier-clerk was indeed taking notes, so he must speak English too. Then the youngster looked up and stared at him through his round, steel-rimmed spectacles, though that did not last: he went back to his scribbling as d’Agostino continued.

‘What did you plan to do with this wallet, which still has a sum of lire in it, so you are no thief?’

‘I had a vague idea to send it back to Italy, but I confess I had not thought that through.’

‘So you would like me to believe that you were not involved in those deaths?’

‘I was most certainly not.’

‘Then it is such a pity, Mr Jardine, that I do not believe you.’

‘I take it you do not have the bodies?’

‘No.’

‘Then all you have is that wallet, Major d’Agostino, and my assertion, truthful even if you do not believe it, that I found it. You have no evidence I was anywhere near this supposed area where you say these bodies were found. Naturally, if you have lost some of your men, I have sympathy, but what I do not have is guilt, and you do not have the evidence to counter what I insist is the truth, which I trust a court will uphold.’

The intelligence man threw back his head and laughed, his sharp nose pointing to the roof of the tent and his body
shaking with mirth. ‘How English that is, the land of fair play and justice, is it not, Spinetti?’

‘It is, sir,’ the clerk replied, tonelessly.

‘Our lad, Arturo here, studied in London, at your School of Economics and he loves your country very much.’ The laughing stopped and the face darkened. ‘Which is why he is a private soldier in the army, instead of a
professore
in some university, for, pity of pities, Arturo is not a good son of the new Italy. “Evidence” you say, Mr Jardine, as if there is going to be some kind of trial before a judge. But this is an area under military control and I am, unfortunately for you, both judge and jury. Would you care to hear my verdict?’

‘If it will amuse you,’ Jardine replied; there was no doubt what it was going to be.

‘We are about to take Aksum, and when we do, when our general rides in triumph into the old capital of the country, I will give you to him as a gift. As a spy, you should be shot, but I think you are also a murderer; so, Mr Jardine, we will either hang you in front of General De Bono and the citizens of Aksum, or behead you, to tell them what happens to those who kill Italian officers.’

He turned to the clerk, Arturo, and snapped, ‘Make sure you write that clearly. Now call for the guards to take him away.’

T
here was only one consolation for Jardine as he squatted in his empty tent: there was no sign they had caught Vince or Tyler Alverson, so he had a reasonable hope that they had got clear. He had already peered through the
tied-up
flap of his tent to see an armed guard there, pacing to and fro, wisely a couple of yards away – too far for him to be suddenly grabbed and subdued. Lifting the groundsheet and the bottom of the rear canvas had shown him the soles of another pair of moving sentinel boots, which meant that the sides of the tent were also covered by their criss-cross movement.

From outside came noise and a great deal of it: shouting, the sounds of lorries revving, reversing and driving off in low gear, of motorbikes popping as they departed, and the odd car as well, which he had to assume was the moving of the headquarters. That was a major operation, this being the central directing brain of an army several hundred
thousand strong, which would require a vast amount of staff organisation.

Quite apart from the officers who planned every metre of movement, feeding and supply, there would be aides to the general officers, the heads of the various branches, a mass of clerks, telephonists plus radio operators, quartermasters, batmen, mess servants, military police, cooks and at least a headquarters company of infantrymen to provide perimeter security and guards.

When he was finally fetched out, the scene that greeted him was vastly different: the great marquees were gone, as were the vehicles and bikes from the motor pool, leaving only a few tents for the remainder of the pioneer company responsible for ensuring the site was clear and that nothing had been left behind. The men of that unit were now emptying the sandbags – which had formed the forward perimeter defence – into the dugouts of the latrines, filling the air with the smell of human filth. Wild dogs had started to root around the periphery looking for anything edible.

Of more import to Jardine was the escort of four infantrymen and an NCO designated to accompany him to Aksum. Between the encampment and that city, on a
near-windless
day, the dust hung in the air, the residue of the massive military movement. As they marched, the same peasants he had seen in the fields the day before were out again now, but instead of tending to their crop they were sadly surveying the ruin brought on by the invading army marching over their once-ploughed fields, the only redress to glare at the military police controlling the continuing stream of traffic.

The appearance of the
marquesa
on a white horse came as a real surprise. She looked imperious in a white cloak to keep off the dust, her blonde hair tied back, and she acted like that too, as she galloped over the Ethiopian peasants’ land with a total disregard for their presence, hooves kicking up great clods of what had been irrigated earth.

Spotting his party she hauled on her reins and came towards them, stopping before him with the sun at her back, which forced the now-stationary Jardine – his escorting NCO had called a halt and saluted – to narrow his eyes to even see her silhouette, his nose wrinkling, this time at the stable smell of the impatient mount, which was pawing and jagging its head, straining her grip on the reins.

‘They make you march like a common criminal?’ she asked, again with that slight impediment. Recalling the title d’Agostino had used, it suddenly came to Jardine she was possibly not Italian, but Spanish.

‘The major thinks me that.’

‘No,’ she replied, tugging to keep her horse still. ‘He can see you are a soldier, he has told me so.’ Then she reprised that throaty chuckle he had heard previously. ‘And I have observed you are a gentleman. Were you a soldier?’

‘Name, rank and number,
Marquesa
,’ he joked, ‘is all I am allowed to say.’

‘I am not interrogating you.’

‘Now that is a damn shame.’

‘For a man who is shortly to die you have a surprising lack of anxiety.’

The horse moved with such force she was obliged to let it spin, but she still had the sun at her back.

‘We all die at some time. Tell me,
Marquesa
, what is the rest of your title?’

‘De Alanatara.’

‘Spanish?’

‘
Si
.’

‘I am curious about your relationship with Major d’Agostino.’

‘Who is also the Count of Terni. But now you are interrogating me.’

The NCO, who had hitherto stood silently, now coughed, then barked at his men, not surprising given they were staring with a degree of interest at the
marquesa
, and also not at attention but slouching. Jardine ignored the hint he should shut up and move on.

‘Am I allowed to continue doing so?’

‘No. I think it best you go to your fate.’

‘Does the notion of that fate sadden you, at all?’

‘I am not sure.’

‘That is something; I would be disappointed if it pleased you.’

‘For an Englishman, you are more forward than many I have met.’

‘You obviously have met too few Scotsmen.’

‘You are Scottish?’ Jardine nodded. ‘Do they die with more bravery than Englishmen?’

‘No. When it comes to that we are the same carefree bunch.’

‘I will be interested to see if that is true.’

Her heels moved and she hauled on the reins, the horse breaking into an immediate trot. The NCO, hitherto indifferent, was now obviously cross, because he pushed Jardine to get him moving.

If breaking up an army camp involved much organisation, the relocating of one was just as chaotic. An advance party of staff officers had entered Aksum on the heels of the fighting men to secure the buildings that could be used for what, in the British army, would be called the various GSO branches – the best accommodation, of course, secured for the commanding general, with his chief of staff next, in a pecking order that supposedly designated quality in strict order of rank.

Arturo Spinetti found himself in a two-storey sort of inn, run by a fat fellow of hand-wringing obsequiousness, overseeing the unloading, from a lorry, of the filing cabinets that went everywhere with the department of which he was a part. Major d’Agostino had no hand in the setting up of his branch HQ, he was too busy trying to ensure himself, and who Spinetti thought of as his aristocratic blonde tart, a decent billet in which to eat and sleep, this place not being to his mind of a standard he felt was his due.

There were also two lieutenants of the SIM attached to De Bono’s HQ, but they had just told their NCOs to get on with it, before setting off to find out if there was a decent brothel in Aksum. Those non-commissioned officers, a sergeant and two corporals, were more intent on finding a place to drink than actually performing
their duties, so, as the only private soldier around, Spinetti had been left to curse the Italian army, Benito Mussolini, the Fascist Grand Council and the Horn of Africa, while, as he saw it, being left holding the
bambino.

He needed to sort out an office for the major, the best room and coolest, of course, with another for himself close enough to be at the bastard’s beck and call. That had to be capacious enough to contain the filing cabinets full of intelligence reports, most of them of no use whatsoever, which would mean an argument with the lieutenants.

They would complain, when it came to an office, he had looked after himself, not them; like d’Agostino they would sleep elsewhere – living above the place of work was not to be tolerated if one wanted a decent night’s sleep, a woman as company and the ability to begin work at an hour of one’s own choosing.

He had sorted out a shared billet for the NCOs, a secure room for the English prisoner and, last but not least, a place for him to lay his head, and all the while his enforced host was dogging his heels, rubbing his hands with worry and asking in very broken Italian how he was to be paid for the services he was providing.

Jardine, who arrived with his escort, got a dank cellar, a place with a stout door which would have to be secured by a baulk of wood jammed against it in the temporary absence of a lock or a padlock and hasp. Asked to continue guarding him, the escorting NCO furiously refused: his orders were to fetch the prisoner to this place, then rejoin the headquarters
company. Spinetti had to beg him for an hour so he could sort out the rest of what was needed, given he feared to leave Jardine without anyone to guard him.

That included the securing and laying of a field telephone as well as a visit to the quartermaster to indent for the supplies to sustain the whole unit, plus one prisoner. There he found such chaos, he was told to make the inn owner feed them for now; a padlock and hasp would be delivered to him when they could find one, a promise he did not believe for one second. Back at the inn, with the escort gone, Spinetti, the least martial of men, was obliged to touch the pistol in his holster to get Jardine some food and drink, then he had to deliver it.

‘You lived in London.’

‘I studied there, yes,’ Spinetti replied, ‘and I got a degree.’

He took off his steel-rimmed glasses and wiped them on a handkerchief, his face doleful. ‘Not that it has served me much, just to have chosen England over an Italian university is seen as a crime in my country – unpatriotic.’

‘Conscripted?’ The clerk nodded. ‘I wonder if you could do me a favour and ask the owner something.’ That got a suspicious look. ‘It’s a simple question. There was a party of Americans here, I just wonder if they have left.’

The young man, in appearance a studious type, stood thinking. Lean to the point of being spare, he had a pallid face, though not an unattractive one. Spinetti looked gentle and Jardine thought he would smile a lot if his life were not, to him, so rotten.

‘Americans?’

‘Yes. If they are still here, I need them to know I am a prisoner.’

‘I could get into trouble.’

‘Call it the wish of a dying man.’

‘
Infamita!
’ he spat, before looking at Jardine. ‘You should be tried by a court, even if it is a military one.’

‘If my Americans are still around, maybe I will be.’

Odd that he felt uncomfortable lying to this young fellow; he really wanted to know if Alverson and Vince, as well as the Littletons, had got away, which would be some small solace for what he was about to face.

‘Then I will ask.’

‘I also need something to sleep on, maybe the bedroll on my donkey?’

‘I’ll see what I can do.’

Jardine pushed at the door when the clerk left: given he was no soldier he might not have secured it properly, but it would not budge. Looking at the food he had been brought, he surmised the owner to be limited in his culinary skills: it was the same meal he had eaten before going out to spy on the Italians. He had barely got halfway through when the clerk returned carrying, disappointingly, a straw-filled paillasse.

‘Your Americans left in a big car, two ladies and two men.’

‘Thank you, Arturo.’

The use of his name made him smile. ‘Mr Jardine, I am not part of this, I hope you know that.’

‘You don’t hide it very well.’

That seemed to please him, producing a sly smile.

Major Umberto d’Agostino had been drinking and so had his blonde mistress, though not, it appeared, as much as him, for he was actually unsteady. Spinetti registered he was in his dress uniform, unarmed, having attended a celebratory meal held for the senior officers; she, his guest, was wearing high heels, a loose black dress with two very thin shoulder straps, a set of pearls round her neck and a clutch bag in her hand, while her hair had been expertly dressed by someone; maybe Aksum was not such a backwater after all.

Spinetti, trying to sort out his office, knew from experience the major was a man who liked his wine and brandy; indeed, thanks to his CO’s batman he had tasted quite a bit of the personal stores d’Agostino insisted went everywhere he did: not only wine, but whole Parma hams, good olive oil, various kinds of wheat to make good bread and fresh pasta, cheeses which taxed the ingenuity of all to keep them fresh.

He was not alone in this: it seemed every officer in the Italian army wished to have some home comforts along, and to accommodate those, certain things an army might need had been left in Asmara to provide the space. A stern commander would have stopped such actions if he had not been one of the worst culprits himself, and Emilio De Bono had his fawning staff officers to care for him as well – sleek, well-connected aides who saw to it that whatever bed he slept in was comfortable and that he was allowed a proper night’s rest, free from his military concerns. Naturally, their own comfort was not ignored.

‘The prisoner is secure?’

‘I have done my best, sir. The door lock is broken and there are no padlocks in the quartermaster’s stores, sir; I asked.’

The major rolled his eyes, the clerk thought for effect, to impress his mistress. ‘Spinetti, are you an idiot? Go out and find one. There must be a shop in Aksum which sells them.’

‘I cannot find the petty cash tin and that is the reason I cannot pay the owner of this place for the food he has given the prisoner and I.’

‘Pay him! Tell him if he asks to be paid he will be shot! And if you find a shop with a padlock and hasp just take it and tell the owner to come and fit it or I’ll have his head off too. Now, fetch a lantern and take me to the prisoner.’

‘Can I come?’ the
marquesa
asked, rubbing d’Agostino’s cheek.

‘What for?’ he demanded, suspiciously.

Spinetti looked away and waited for the explosion: these two had a fiery relationship, especially when the major had been drinking, given the
marquesa
was such a flirt. In an army of Italian officers never shy of showing their gallantry, that led to a great deal of tempestuous dispute, which only exposed the innate jealousy of d’Agostino’s nature and the delight his mistress took in playing on that. He hated to see men pay her compliments, and she sought them out on purpose to torment him.

‘He’s going to die tomorrow, Umberto. Let him see your woman before he goes so he will know what he is giving up. He is, after all, a handsome fellow and, I think,’ she dug him in the ribs, then, ‘he is quite a man for the ladies.’