Dennis Wheatley - The Secret War

Lovelace inquired their opinion of the outcome of the war. They both began to talk at once, but the Belgian was more fluent and won the day. `In less than a week the rains will come. The Italians will be bogged; their communications will be cut, their leading troops will be massacred piecemeal and there will be a stalemate for six months. After that they will advance again, but the Emperor will have had time to reorganize his forces and secure fresh supplies of munitions. The Abyssinians all believe that the League will intervene before then, though, and that Britain will come in on their side. Anyhow, my job's safe for another year, at least.'

'How about air raids? Aren't the Italians making things pretty unpleasant here?'

The young man shook his fiery red head. `There was a great scare at first, but the Italian planes never seem to do much except reconnoitre. They bombed Harar and Dessye some time back, but only as a sort of demonstration, I imagine. They killed a few civilians, but they didn't do much damage. All sorts of nonsense has been written in the Press about their deliberate destruction of hospitals, and so on. That has occurred in isolated cases, but it's not deliberate. The Red Cross used to be the sign of a brothel in Abyssinia. It still is outside the principal towns. Directly the blacks learned that Europeans regarded it as immune from attack, they painted it on everything. You'll see thousands of red crosses plastered all over Addis.'

Valerie shivered in her light, tropical clothes. Lovelace noticed it and said: `We need some more suitable kit. There's plenty of time before lunch. We'd better go out and buy it.'

'Mohamedally,' said the Dutchman. `That is the place for you to go. Anyone will tell you where to find it. The store is the only one worth while in Addis, and they have branches all over the country.'

Leaving their new friends lolling in the bar, as though time had no significance, they set off on foot to do their shopping.

It was a bright, sunny day, but the temperature seemed almost arctic after the stifling heat of Assab and Jibuti. As they trudged up the steep gradients they found themselves not only cold but oppressed and breathless.

`We should have taken a taxi,' Lovelace said. `I'd forgotten that Europeans never walk more than a few hundred yards here. This place is 8,000 feet above sea level, and that means a big strain on the heart.'

They found Addis Ababa, or rather the small scattered European quarter, to be a place of staggering contrasts. Three storey, stone blocks rose, here and there, among a jumble of tin roofed, brick bungalows and mud walled huts thatched with straw. In the irregular pen space that formed its centre delicatessen shops were selling luxury tinned foods, such as caviare and aparagus, imported from Europe, while before their doorsteps native women squatted, displaying for sale mouldy looking fruit and vegetables, miserable little heaps of parched corn, and handfuls of red peppers. There were two cinemas, two indifferent looking cafes, the Perroquet and the La Secret. Khaki clad, White topee’d policemen at the junctions of the roads were laying about them with heavy, hippopotamus hide whips the only method, apparently, of driving the pedestrian population out of the way of the traffic, ,which was mostly composed of smart taxis driven with reckless speed by fuzzy headed Abyssinians. Mohamedally's store provided them with most of their requirements, all at fantastically expensive prices, at Christopher paid without a murmur. He was too cold and too worried about the necessity of finding Zarrif, now that they were at last in Addis, to argue. He questioned the turbaned Indian who attended to them, and the policemen in the streets, without result. Lovelace took him by the elbow.

`Look here,' he said, `you lost the ether pistol with 'which you meant to kill him when we were taken by the Danakils. We'll have to use ordinary automatics, and 'we must get another brace of those before we can do anything; even if we can find out where he's got to.' Christopher agreed, and they walked over to an oil shop which displayed for sale a most extraordinary collection of weapons : scimitars that had possibly been used to lop off the limbs of Crusaders; poisoned spears such as the Mahdi carried when they surrounded general Gordon in Khartoum; ancient arquebuses which had been new when Cardinal Richelieu was besieging La Rochelle; long barrelled, beautifully inlaid pieces from Arabia; wide mouthed blunderbusses for firing handfuls of old nails; tenth hand rifles made for a dozen wars of the last century, and, quite incongruously among these museum exhibits, a few modern automatics.

For a quarter of an hour they stood examining the goods among drums of paint and turpentine. Lovelace came away with a heavy, blue barrelled Mouser, Christopher with an ultra modern, snub nosed, American automatic, Valerie with a small but handy Browning, and each had acquired as much ammunition for their weapons as they could carry without inconvenience.

Heavy fatigue still upon them, they carried their numerous parcels to a taxi and drove back to the hotel, where they changed into their new, ill fitting, but warmer clothes.

At lunch they were given mutton, and Valerie commented upon it, as she had hardly tasted meat since they left Alexandria.

'I am glad that Madam is pleased,' said the Eurasian head waiter brightly. `We have mutton every day.'

'And nothing else,' added Lovelace bitterly. 'I remember that when I stayed in Addis for the Emperor's coronation.'

They had coffee upstairs in their private sitting room. Christopher returned at once to the necessity for finding Zirrif.

'Well, we're here at last,' he said. 'But d'you realise it's the 28th? We've only got two clear days left to work in. We've got to act quickly now or it'll be too late. Somehow we've got to run Zirrif to earth and fix him once for all. If we don't, the concession will go through, and you both know what that means.'

`How about trying the United States Legation?' Lovelace suggested thoughtfully. `They must have a big staff here, and somebody there may be able to put us on to him.'

'Splendid!' Christopher's dark eyes lit up with their old fanatic gleam. He turned to the door, `I'll go down and call them up now,'

It was a long time before Christopher returned. He as breathless and paler than ever from having run upstairs, but his handsome face was alight with excitement.

`We're in luck,' he panted. 'Rudy Connolly is one f the secretaries at the Legation. He's a friend of line. He’s asked us out there to dine this evening. In the meantime he'll pump all his colleagues for us. One of them is certain to know where Zarrif’s staying. Men like that can't hide themselves in a small place like this.'

Sitting down, he put his hand up to his heavily pounding heart, and went on jerkily : `Gad ! the telephone service here you'd never believe it. They call the operator by name and have to ask after the health of his wife and family before he'll even consent to give you the first wrong number.'

Lovelace grinned. `I know. It's a ragtime country, isn't it? If I were you, though, I'd take it easy. The height here plays the very devil with Europeans. Don't exert yourself more than you absolutely have to, and do everything you've got to do as slowly as you can. If you're feeling dicky, why not have a lie down on your 'bed?'

`Good idea,' Christopher panted, but at that moment a house boy arrived to announce that Blatta Ingida Yohannes, a representative of the Emperor, was below and wished to see them.

`Ask him to come up,' Lovelace said at once. Then: explained to the others that Blatta meant `wise' and as a civil title ranking one higher than Ato. It could taken as Esquire; the next rank above it being Kantiba, or Knight.

The Abyssinian proved to be a pleasant young man dressed in European clothes. His hair was oiled back, his face clean shaven, and he spoke French with an easy fluency.