CHAPTER 36

WHILE CESELI WAS THINKING of ways to help the Ethiopians, Bruno Zeri nudged his mule forward. He did not suffer from vertigo, or at least he never had, but he was reluctant to look down at the steep gorge below. The narrow path appeared to be non-existent, but the mule didn’t seem to mind.

After the invasion, Zeri had gone with General Oreste Mariotti. Zeri respected Mariotti as a bold and fearless officer. They were now less than fifty miles northeast of their destination of Makalle.

It was about 9:30 in the morning, when the Italian column entered the Ende Gorge, a narrow, east-west ravine about half a mile long. The stiff-fezzed Eritrean Askaris were in the front followed by recently recruited and undrilled Danakil tribesmen who were watching for the enemy. Flanking parties marched on each side of the column. Then came the mules carrying Mariotti, his staff, and finally Zeri. A long supply train followed.

Despite the peacefulness of the morning, Mariotti was worried. Something didn’t jibe with the birds chirping and twittering in the bushes. As the column moved forward, he noticed a ridge right in front of him and straight across the path his army must take.

“Mount the heavy guns,” he ordered, blowing his whistle, never changing his stern expression.

Hurrying to obey the order, a non-commissioned officer had taken only three steps before a burst of rifle fire hit him in the groin and right knee. Zeri’s orderly was hit in the ankle and grabbed the mule’s neck to stop his fall. Zeri jumped off the mule and using it as a shield, held tightly to the reins.

“Avanti! Take cover!”

Machine gun fire started, but it was difficult to locate its source. The tree covered walls of the gorge were so steep and so narrow that echoes distorted the direction of the sound.

The Ethiopians had chosen an excellent position from which to close off the gorge at both ends and obliterate the Italian column, almost at their leisure.

Zeri watched as waves of Ethiopians, whooping and yelling, came storming down the hillsides, like an angry sea crashing against a rocky headland. They rushed forward, their white and angry eyes glaring as they yelled in unison:

“Adowa!”

“Adowa!”

“Adowa!”

The Italian guns were drowned out by the crescendo of their war cries. Bullets made no impression on the densely packed ranks. The blood splattered against their white shammas, but as soon as one wave fell, another began.

Seeing this massacre, some of the Danakil tribesmen, who were part of the Italian column, bolted toward the rear, throwing down their rifles and running helter-skelter, trying to escape from the brutal assaults and the gorge.

Zeri watched as the white Italian officers stepped into line across the gorge cutting off their escape. Seeing this, Zeri wasn’t sure whether the Danakils were trying to avoid fighting their brother Africans, or trying to escape. Firing directly into these soldiers, the Italian officers forced them back to their fighting positions.

When the fighting stopped soon after nightfall, the Italians knew that their prospects were bleak. Escape was impossible. There were probably more than five thousand Ethiopians poised on the parapets with nothing stopping them from continuing their slaughter until the entire Italian column was wiped out.

“It’s hopeless,” Mariotti said. “Let’s pray God won’t abandon us.” Then, he turned and took a Beretta from his saddlebag. “I think you should have this,” he said.

“I’m not any good,” Zeri said, looking at the pistol.

“If you had said that earlier, I would have found someone to teach you. But it’s not against the enemy. It’s for you. Put the barrel in your mouth and pull the trigger. The Ethiopians are said to emasculate their prisoners,” Mariotti said. “I can’t imagine that would be much fun.”

The emasculation bit was in the propaganda booklets distributed to the Italian troops. Zeri doubted its veracity, but took the Beretta.

“And now get some sleep and hope you can give it back to me tomorrow.”

As the first light began to filter into the narrow gorge, Zeri woke from a troubled doze. He felt himself nervously waiting for the outcry that would signal the new assault. He watched the desperate men all around him looking up toward the heights of the gorge. As they cocked their rifles they were tense and agitated. Were they all thinking the same thoughts, Zeri wondered? Was he ready to die? Is anyone ever ready to die alone in a foreign land? To die for what was another man’s dream, another man’s madness?

As the light increased, the silence continued. Zeri began to realize that there would be no fighting. They had been released from death. He knew that the Ethiopians were no longer on their ramparts. With victory in their grasp, they had withdrawn during the night. In their minds, they knew that there was no reason to fight: They had already won.