Dennis Wheatley - The Secret War

The meal suffered an unexpected interruption. Bugles blew and klaxons suddenly sounded. It was an air raid warning.

Everybody abandoned their food and ran out into the street. Six great, silver planes were sailing high above the town. They circled slowly, keeping perfect formation, divided, each turning in its own track, and then flew round again.

A few anti aircraft guns opened up and did a little ineffective shooting. The scene was enlivened by a small company of ragged warriors evidently on their way to the front. They had dyed their shaman a pinkish brown in the muddy streams of the mountains through which they had passed, so as not to provide such an easy target for the Italian snipers, and each carried a small sack containing enough grain and dried meat to last him a month. The sight of the planes seemed to drive them into a frenzy. They waved their long sabres round and round their heads, screamed all the things they would do to the Italians when they got them, foamed at the mouth, and those who had guns let off their ancient pieces.

An officer on a bicycle dashed up to the leader of the rabble and began to expostulate angrily with him. As Yohannes informed his charges, the Emperor had given strict orders that ammunition was not to be wasted in such a senseless manner.

No bombs fell. The Italians flew off again towards Dessye, evidently content with photographing any new concentration of troops which might be forming in the area of the city,

'When shall we be able to see the Emperor?' Christopher asked when the meal was resumed. He liked the young Abyssinian; preferred him in many ways to the quick witted, debonair Italian officers he had met at Assab, because he preferred simple to complex personalities and happened to be completely free of all colour prejudice, but they had not yet discovered where Zirrif was, and time was slipping by. Any excuse to break up this sight seeing party must be utilized.

'Ishe naga ishe naga.' Yohannes shrugged, snapping his strong white teeth into a raw paprika, which flamed red among the dessert. 'Tomorrow the day after. What does it matter now that he has returned? He will be very occupied for a little, but he forgets nothing and will send for you in due time. Let us sit for a while in the garden, then I will take you to see the broadcasting station and our beautiful prison.'

The garden proved to be a stockaded quadrangle boasting a dozen fruit trees, but completely devoid of flowers or grass. It was, in fact, a chicken run with the unusual addition of a family of goats, one of which was tethered to the trunk of each tree.

With the skinny fowls pecking the bare earth about their feet they lounged there, in faded deck chairs, for an hour. Yohannes kept up a happy monologue about the Emperor's plans for civilizing his people; the others, while appearing to give polite attention, were fretting to get away but quite unable to think of any plausible reason that they could give for their presence being instantly required elsewhere in Addis.

In due course, still inwardly fuming, they were driven to see the broadcasting station. It was a fine building but quite deserted. Those treacherous Italians had built it, Yohannes explained, with a view to jamming the Abyssinian Government's own station when the trouble came. Naturally they had to be dispossessed, but they had taken certain vital parts of the mechanism with them, so no one could use it, and the Abyssinians had to remain content with their own less powerful station.

The prison, like many other hastily begun buildings in Addis, was still unfinished. It would be very fine and beautifully sanitary when it was done, no doubt, the visitors agreed. In the meantime, Yohannes declared angrily, all the workmen who were engaged upon it had had to go off to this wicked war.

Valerie and Christopher were duly sympathetic, but Lovelace knew that the whole thing was a deliberate deception got up to pander to the sympathies of the League of Nations. Five years before he had managed to get into one of the real prisons, a courtyard surrounded with rows of cages where the wretched malefactors, often only imprisoned for debt, lived in an unbelievable state of filth and horror. Chained in pairs, or sometimes singly, with just enough loose chain to enable them to crawl out into the main courtyard, they were entirely dependent for food on what their relatives chose to bring, and were dying by the score of typhus. That the same thing was still going on he had little doubt, as Yohannes refused his request to take them to see some of the prisoners who would occupy these delightful premises when completed.

At last they got back to the hotel, but still they could not shake off Blatta Ingida Yohannes. He proposed to dine with them and take them to see something of the night life of Addis later,

while Lovelace and Valerie entertained the pleasant, but unwelcome, guest to drinks. Christopher telephoned to the American Legation.

On his return he told Lovelace, in an aside, that Connolly had no definite news but that some white guests were believed to be staying in Ras Desoum's palace. He was having the place watched and would report further late that evening or early the following morning. It seemed that there was nothing more they could do for the moment.

Christopher engaged Blatta Ingida Yohannes for a few moments during which Lovelace was able to pass on the news to Valerie.

`All right,' she said. 'If we've got a respite in this hellish business, let's enjoy ourselves. Our host's a terribly nice little man in his way. After we've had dinner we'll go round the town with him and try to forget what we're here for.'

Lovelace shook his head. `I don't think you'll like it. The films at the cinemas are six reel melodramas, and the two bars are the sort of places I think you'd find it rather embarrassing to be in. The native quarter's ruled out, anyway, as quite impossible for you to visit at any time.'

`Did you see most of these places when you were here before?' she asked.

'Yes. I went round with a few friends and I've rarely spent a more boring evening. The few French jazz dance bars are more dreary than anything you could find in provincial England, and the native high spots are terrible. There's nothing to drink except fetch, that sickly kind of honey wine we had for lunch, or talla, which tastes like bad beer; nothing to listen to except tuneless native music; and nothing to look at, as, from some strange prudery, the Abyssinian women remain sedate and clothed up to their necks even in these haunts of vice and squalor.'

`In that case I'd much rather not go,' Valerie agreed. 'We'll wriggle out of it somehow.'

Valerie now occupied the attention of Yohannes for a little, while Lovelace held a brief consultation with Christopher.

`If it's as you say, she'd best not go,' Christopher said at once. `But I'm worried; worried out of my wits. We've lost a day a whole day doing nothing. If I stay here all evening I'll go crazy. Besides if none of us goes the boy friend will think it funny. Someone's got to stand by the wire in case a message comes through from the Legation. Will you do that, and keep Valerie company, while I go round the town with him? There's just a chance I might near something of Zirrif in one of these places.'

As they went in to dinner Yohannes suddenly remembered the servants he had engaged for them but these were found to be still squatting patiently upon the steps of the hotel, where they had been waiting for the last twelve hours. The troop consisted of two Dallas, a hunchbacked Shoan, and a gentle eyed Mohammedan Harari who was to act as their interpreter.. Lovelace gave them some money, as an earnest of good faith, and dismissed them all until the following morning.

For dinner they ate mutton again but the excellent coffee made up somewhat for the poorness of the meal. Afterwards Christopher went off as arranged with Yohannes while Lovelace and Valerie returned to their private sitting rooms.