opened with a soft plop. He picked and tipped each glass in turn so there was no overspill when he poured, before handing her one glass, raising his own.
‘ Prost! ’
As they both sipped he wondered if she really knewwhat she was proposing to take part in. It was not some game, it was deadly, but against that her fellow Jews needed all the help they could get because Jardine had a very strong feeling things were going to get worse. Elsa Ephraim was very young, but she was also stunningly beautiful and that was always an asset in anything clandestine. Yet the truth was, such a decision did not lie with him.
‘When you finish your drink, I will call for a cab to take you home.’ Seeing her face fall, and wondering at the real reason, he added gently, ‘But I will arrange for you to meet someone, and it is for him to decide if you can be of use.’
CHAPTER FIVE
‘R esearching Abyssinia is not easy, young Jardine,’ Geoffrey Amherst said, waving his pipe to emphasise the point, and also coughing, a regular feature of his conversation, given he had been gassed in the Great War. ‘Little has been written about the place in a military sense, don’t you know.’
‘I found that out for myself, sir. There are books by intrepid travellers which tell us about the people and the culture, but the only operations which provided any enlightenment on tactics, Magdala and Adowa, went back to the last century.’
‘Don’t discount those, laddie, because they do provide a degree of illumination.’
Magdala had been the name given to a British punitive expedition undertaken in 1868 by Lieutenant General Robert Napier and units from the Indian army to rescue a number of hostages – missionaries and thetwo diplomats sent to arrange their release. That resulted not only in a comprehensive victory but also in the death of the then emperor, who took his own life rather than surrender.
The Italian campaign of the 1890s, which ended with total defeat at Adowa, had been a fiasco brought about by a distant, posturing politician, crowing about Italy’s right to colonies, insisting on a battle the local commander did not want to fight. Out of twenty thousand Italians engaged, nearly two-thirds had become casualties, a humiliation which brought down the home government and for decades cured the nation of the idea of foreign adventures. It had also raised the Emperor Menelik, whose men had won the battle, to mythical status. It was that debacle Mussolini was looking to avenge.
‘Napier bribed his way to victory,’ Amherst said, as he rolled out a map on his table, ‘and, of course, he made it obvious he had no desire for conquest, just for rescue, so he was able to split the tribes rather than unite them. Very tribal is Ethiopia, which needs to be borne in mind.’
Jardine was looking around the book-lined study at the endless volumes on military history, memoirs, campaign studies, plus the owner’s own works on battlefield tactics and strategy, before turning back to the man himself: slim, balding, with a thin moustache – the pipe was a mistake given his afflicted chest. Introduced to him by a cousin many years past, Jardine had found him a rather pernickety fellow, very confident of his own opinions on matters military, with the caveat that he was a clever bugger and usually right. The man had one quality thatmade him valuable right now: he was always willing to share his view and to proffer advice.
‘Did you know old Menelik had Russian advisors at Adowa?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Ignored them completely when they advised him to refuse battle. If he had not enjoyed such overwhelming numerical superiority the Italians might have won.’
Jardine referred to the Italian order of battle, which he had shown the older man earlier; tellingly, though he raised an eyebrow, he did not ask from where it had come. ‘Mussolini is taking no chances now.’
‘You going out to advise them, laddie?’
‘No, sir,’ Jardine replied with a
‘ Prost! ’
As they both sipped he wondered if she really knewwhat she was proposing to take part in. It was not some game, it was deadly, but against that her fellow Jews needed all the help they could get because Jardine had a very strong feeling things were going to get worse. Elsa Ephraim was very young, but she was also stunningly beautiful and that was always an asset in anything clandestine. Yet the truth was, such a decision did not lie with him.
‘When you finish your drink, I will call for a cab to take you home.’ Seeing her face fall, and wondering at the real reason, he added gently, ‘But I will arrange for you to meet someone, and it is for him to decide if you can be of use.’
CHAPTER FIVE
‘R esearching Abyssinia is not easy, young Jardine,’ Geoffrey Amherst said, waving his pipe to emphasise the point, and also coughing, a regular feature of his conversation, given he had been gassed in the Great War. ‘Little has been written about the place in a military sense, don’t you know.’
‘I found that out for myself, sir. There are books by intrepid travellers which tell us about the people and the culture, but the only operations which provided any enlightenment on tactics, Magdala and Adowa, went back to the last century.’
‘Don’t discount those, laddie, because they do provide a degree of illumination.’
Magdala had been the name given to a British punitive expedition undertaken in 1868 by Lieutenant General Robert Napier and units from the Indian army to rescue a number of hostages – missionaries and thetwo diplomats sent to arrange their release. That resulted not only in a comprehensive victory but also in the death of the then emperor, who took his own life rather than surrender.
The Italian campaign of the 1890s, which ended with total defeat at Adowa, had been a fiasco brought about by a distant, posturing politician, crowing about Italy’s right to colonies, insisting on a battle the local commander did not want to fight. Out of twenty thousand Italians engaged, nearly two-thirds had become casualties, a humiliation which brought down the home government and for decades cured the nation of the idea of foreign adventures. It had also raised the Emperor Menelik, whose men had won the battle, to mythical status. It was that debacle Mussolini was looking to avenge.
‘Napier bribed his way to victory,’ Amherst said, as he rolled out a map on his table, ‘and, of course, he made it obvious he had no desire for conquest, just for rescue, so he was able to split the tribes rather than unite them. Very tribal is Ethiopia, which needs to be borne in mind.’
Jardine was looking around the book-lined study at the endless volumes on military history, memoirs, campaign studies, plus the owner’s own works on battlefield tactics and strategy, before turning back to the man himself: slim, balding, with a thin moustache – the pipe was a mistake given his afflicted chest. Introduced to him by a cousin many years past, Jardine had found him a rather pernickety fellow, very confident of his own opinions on matters military, with the caveat that he was a clever bugger and usually right. The man had one quality thatmade him valuable right now: he was always willing to share his view and to proffer advice.
‘Did you know old Menelik had Russian advisors at Adowa?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Ignored them completely when they advised him to refuse battle. If he had not enjoyed such overwhelming numerical superiority the Italians might have won.’
Jardine referred to the Italian order of battle, which he had shown the older man earlier; tellingly, though he raised an eyebrow, he did not ask from where it had come. ‘Mussolini is taking no chances now.’
‘You going out to advise them, laddie?’
‘No, sir,’ Jardine replied with a
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