by James A. Cox
Meanwhile, we can turn over most of his men to one of thenew recruits, and head them down to take Fort Lamy. With Fort Lamy andLake Chad in our hands we'll control a chunk of Africa so bigeverybody else will start wondering why they shouldn't jump on thebandwagon while the going is good."
Dave said, "Well, that brings up something else, Homer. These newrecruits. In the past couple of days, forty or fifty men who used tobe connected with African programs sponsored by everybody from theReunited Nations to this gobblydygook outfit Cliff and Isobel onceworked for, the AFAA, have come over to El Hassan. The number willprobably double by tomorrow, and triple the next day."
"Fine," Homer said. "What's wrong with that? These are the peoplethat will really count in the long run."
"Nothing's wrong with it, within reason. But we're going to have tostart becoming selective, Homer. We've got to watch what jobs we letthese people have, how much responsibility we give them."
Homer Crawford was frowning at him. "How do you mean?"
"See here," the wiry South African said plaintively, "when El Hassanstarted off there were only a half dozen or so who had the dream, asyou call it. O.K. You could trust any one of them. Bey, Kenny, Elmer,Cliff, this Jake Armstrong that you've sent to New York, RexDonaldson, then Jimmy and Jack Peters and myself. We all came in whenthe going was rough, if not impossible. But now things are different._It looks as though El Hassan might actually win._"
"So?" Homer didn't get it.
"So from now on, you're going to have an infiltration of cloak anddagger lads from every outfit with an interest in North Africa.Potential traitors, potential assassins, subversives and what not."
Homer was scowling at him. "Confound it, what do you suggest? Thatthese Johnny-Come-Latelies be second-class citizens?"
"Not exactly that, but this isn't funny. We've got to screen them. Thetrouble with this movement is that it's a one-man deal, and has to be.The average African is either a barbarian or an actual savage, oneethnic degree lower. He wants a hero-symbol to follow. O.K., you'reit. But remember both Moctezuma and Atahualpa. Their socio-economicsystems pyramided up to them. The Spanish conquistadores, being oldhands at sophisticated European-type intrigue, quickly sized up thesituation. They kidnaped the hero-symbol, the big cheese, and laterkilled him. And the Inca and the Aztec cultures collapsed."
Homer was scowling at him unhappily.
Dave summed it up. "All we need is one fuzzy minded commie from theSoviet Complex, or one super-dooper democrat who thinks that El Hassanstands in the way of _freedom_, whatever that is, and bingo a coupleof bullets in your tummy and the El Hassan movement folds its tentslike the Arabs and takes a powder, as the old expression goes."
"You have your point," Homer Crawford admitted. "Follow through, Dave.Figure out some screening program."
* * * * *
Cliff came in. "Hey, Homer. Guess what old Jake has done."
"Jake Armstrong?"
"He's swung the Africa for Africans Association in New York over tous. They've raised a million bucks. What'll we do with it? How can heget anything to us?"
"We'll have him plow it back into publicity and further fund raisingcampaigns," Homer said. "That's the way it's done. You raise somemoney for some cause and then spend it all on a bigger campaign toraise still more money, and what you get from that one you plow into astill bigger campaign."
Cliff said, "Don't you _ever_ get anything out of it?"
Dave and Homer both laughed.
Cliff said, "I've got some still better news."
"Good news, we can use," Homer said.
* * * * *
The big Californian looked at him in pretended awe. "A poet no less,"he said.
"Shut up," Homer said. "What's the news?"
The fact of the matter was, he was becoming increasingly impatient ofthe continual banter expected of him by Cliff and even the others. Asoriginal members of the team, they expected an intimacy that he wasfinding it increasingly difficult to deliver. Among other things, hewished that Cliff, in particular, would mind his attitude when suchfollowers as Guemama were present. The El Hassan posture could bemaintained only in never to be compromised dignity.
Bey had once compared him to Alexander, to Homer's amusement at thetime. But now he was beginning to sympathize with the position theMacedonian leader had found himself in, betwixt the King-God consciousPersians, and the rough and ready Companions who formed his bodyguardand crack cavalry units. A King-God simply didn't banter with hissubordinates, not even his blood-kin.
Cliff scowled at him now, at the sharpness of Homer's words, but hemade his report.
"Our old pal, Sven Zetterberg. He's gone out on a limb. Because of thegreat danger of this so-far localized fight spreading into world-wideconflict--says old Sven--the Reunited Nations will not tolerate thecombat going into the air. He says that if _either_ El Hassan or theArab Legion resort to use of aircraft, the Reunited Nations will sendin its air fleet."
"Wow," Homer said. "All the aircraft we've got are a few slow-movingheliocopters that Kenny brought up with him."
Dave Moroka snapped his fingers in a gesture of elation. "That meansZetterberg is throwing his weight to our side."
Homer was on his feet. "Send for Kenny and Guemama and send aheliocopter down to pick up Bey and rush him here. He shouldn't bemore than a day's march away. I wonder what Elmer is up to. No word atall from him. At any rate, we want an immediate council of war. WithArab Legion air cover eliminated, we can move in."
Cliff said sourly, "It's still largely rifles against armored cars,tanks, mobile artillery and even flame throwers."
* * * * *
All the old hands were present. They stood about a map table, Homerand Bey-ag-Akhamouk at one end, the rest clustered about. Isobel satin a chair to the rear, stenographer's pad on her knees.
Bey was clipping out suggestions.
"We have them now. Already our better trained men are heading up forTemassinine to the north and Fort Charlet to the east. We'll lose menbut we'll knock out every water hole between here and Libya. We'll cutevery road, blow what few bridges there are."
Jack Peters said worriedly, "But the important thing is Tamanrasset.What good--"
"We're cutting their supply line," Bey told him. "Can't you see?Colonel Ibrahim and his motorized column will be isolated inTamanrasset. They won't be able to get supplies through without an airlift and Sven Zetterberg's ultimatum kills that possibility. They'reblocked off."
Jimmy Peters was as confused as his brother. "So what? to use theAmericanism. They have both food and water in abundance. They can holdout indefinitely. Meanwhile, our forces are undisciplined irregulars.We gain a thousand recruits a day. They come galloping in oncamel-back or in beat-up old vehicles, firing their hunting riflesinto the air. But we also lose a thousand a day. They get bored, orhungry, and decide to go back to their flocks, or their jobs on thenew Sahara projects. At any rate, they drift off again. It looks to methat, if Colonel Ibrahim can hold out another week or so, our forcesmight melt away--all except the couple of hundred or so European andAmerican educated followers. And, cut down to that number, they'lleliminate us in no time flat."
Homer Crawford was eying him in humor. "You're no fighting man,Peters. Tell me, what is the single most fearsome enemy of anultra-mechanized soldier with the latest in military equipment andsuper-firepower weapons?"
Jimmy Peters was blank. "I suppose a similarly armed opponent."
Homer smiled at him. "Rather, a man with a knife."
The expressions of the Peters brothers showed resentment. "We weren'tjesting."
"Neither was I," Homer rapped. He looked around at the rest, includingBey and Kenny. "What happens to a modern mechanized army when it runsout of gasoline? What happens to a water-cooled machine gun when thereis no water? What use is a howitzer when the target is a single man inten acres of cover? Gentlemen, have any of you ever studied thetactics of Abd-el-Kri
m or, more recently still, Tito? Bey, I assumeyou have."
He had their attention.
"During the Second War," Homer continued, "this Yugoslavian Tito tiedup two Nazi army corps with a handful of partisans--guerrillas. Themost modern army in the world, the German Panzers, tried to ferret himout for five years, and couldn't. There are other examples. TheChinese operating against the Japs in the same war. Or one of theclassic examples is Abd-el-Krim destroying two different Spanisharmies in the Moroccan Rif in the 1920s. His barefoot men, armed withrifles, took on Primo de