CHAPTER 48

“IT SHOULDN’T TAKE US very long. I’m probably as fast as your mule,” Yohannes said as they stopped for a moment of rest. “But it’s been a hard day.”

“Has Yifru heard about the bombings against the Red Cross?”

“Yes, and he also knows that Marco is dead. He thought you were too. That’s why he sent me to find out.”

“Marco died saving my life,” Ceseli said as she started to choke up.

“Let’s talk later, Ceselí. I can’t talk and run.”

In the distance Ceseli could hear the howling of the hyenas. She thought of the compound garden. Strange, she had never heard the hyenas. She wondered if they were just a bad joke. But tonight, hearing their howls, she knew this was no joke. “I didn’t mean for you to have to take me to safety.”

“Yifru certainly does. Remember on the ride north?”

“You wondered why he ever let me go.”

“But he thought it necessary. I cannot second guess my uncle.”

Ceseli looked at him smiling to herself. There had been a time when she had said almost the same thing about Bruno Zeri. She wondered where he was as she pulled her burnoose tighter. It was very late when they reached the emperor’s cave.

Yifru came out immediately. “Thank you. She’s okay?”

“She’s alive,” Yohannes answered. “I’m not saying she’s okay.”

Yifru helped her off the mule holding her tightly in his embrace and letting her dissolve into dry heaves of sobbing. “Go ahead and cry. It’s good for you,” Yifru said, taking a large white handkerchief from his uniform’s pocket. It was a long time before she regained her composure. “Now you need to rest. We’ll be moving at daybreak. You can ride, can’t you?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I’ll ask Yohannes to watch out for you.”

“Please don’t do that. I can take care of myself and Yohannes has already done enough,” she smiled. “And I need to get back to my job.”

“We need your help, Ceseli.”

The next day, the twenty thousand survivors of Haile Sellassie’s once proud army were straggling toward Lake Ashangi carrying the wounded on crude litters made from tree branches. When they stopped to rest, Ceseli had time to change the dressings on those she expected to survive. “I don’t have enough supplies to help everyone,” she lamented.

“Do what you can. Anything is better than what we had without your help,” Yifru said, encouraging her. Yifru knew that although the emperor might have overcome his immediate post-battle shock, he was so isolated from the reality of his situation that he could delude himself about organizing a new army when he reached Dessie.

Haile Sellassie met with his surviving rases arguing about the possibility of another attack. Yifru, listening, looked around him, realizing what a small group it now was. Statistics of how many men had been lost meant little to the Ethiopians. They could easily see that their numbers had been woefully depleted, ammunition was virtually exhausted, and their morale was dismally low.

Yet, despite the tragedy of the moment, it was a glorious morning. The graduated terraces that sloped down to the basin and the lake were festive with green corn waving as if in greeting. The approaches to the lake had no cover or protection as the long column of men approached the open plain. They were trying to put as many miles as possible between themselves and the Italians.

Yifru held open the car door as the emperor got out. He donned a khaki cloak and allowed his anxious chiefs to press a steel helmet on his head. Standing at his side, Yifru thought of the moment when he was crowned, the moment when he was at the zenith of his power and seemed invincible. Now five years and six months later, his soldiers stumbled along the difficult mountain tracks, like automata.

Suddenly they heard the roar of engines coming in from their right. Then the Caproni bombers were directly overhead. The deadly bombs began to explode among the dense mass of fugitives who bent double and clapped their hands over their ears as if they had been caught in a heavy hailstorm. Men and animals alike were blown to bits or fatally burned. The survivors of the imperial guard, who had fought so valiantly at Maytchaw, died in the cornfields, the easy targets of an enemy that had lost all sense of decency.

Yet there was no time for emotion. Soon after the survivors had resumed the march toward the town of Quoram, a messenger brought news that the Eritrean Askaris were already there. So they turned right for Dessie, where ammunition and supplies had already arrived.