The Mack Reynolds Megapack

by Mack Reynolds

  Homer Crawford’s eyebrows went up. “What is your solution? The fact is that the United States has a hundred or more times the educated Negroes than any other country.”

  Donaldson said, doggedly, “The British Commonwealth has done more than any other element in bringing progress to Africa. She should be given the lead in developing the continent. A good first step would be to make the pound sterling legal tender throughout the continent. And, as things are now, there are some seven hundred different languages, not counting dialects. I suggest that English be made the lingua franca of—”

  An excitable type, who had been first to join in the laughter at Sandell, now jumped to his feet. “Un moment, Monsieur! The French Community long dominated a far greater portion of Africa than the British flag flew over. Not to mention that it was the most advanced portion. If any language was to become the lingua franca of all Africa, French would be more suitable. Your ultimate purpose, Mr. Donaldson, is obvious. You and your Commonwealth African Department wish to dominate for political and economic reasons!”

  He turned to the others and spread his hands in a Gallic gesture. “I introduce myself, Pierre Dupaine, operative of the African Affairs sector of the French Community.”

  “Ha!” Donaldson snorted. “Getting the French out of Africa was like pulling teeth. It took donkey’s years. And now look. This chap wants to bring them back again.”

  Crawford was knuckling the table. “Gentlemen, Gentlemen,” he yelled. He finally had them quieted.

  Wryly he said, “May I ask if we have a representative from the government of the United States?”

  A lithe, inordinately well dressed young man rose from his seat in the rear of the hall. “Frederic Ostrander, C.I.A.,” he said. “I might as well tell you now, Crawford, and you other American citizens here, this meeting will not meet with the approval of the State Department.”

  Crawford’s eyes went up. “How do you know?”

  The C.I.A. man said evenly, “We’ve already had reports that this conference was going to be held. I might as well inform you that a protest is being made to the Sahara Division of the African Development Project.”

  Crawford said, “I suppose that is your privilege, sir. Now, in accord with the reason for this meeting, can you tell us why your organization is present in Africa and what it hopes to achieve?”

  Ostrander looked at him testily. “Why not? There has been considerable infiltration of all of these African development organizations by subversive elements.…”

  “Oh, Brother,” Cliff Jackson said.

  “… And it is not the policy of the State Department to stand idly by while the Soviet Complex attempts to draw Africa from the ranks of the free world.”

  Elmer Allen said disgustedly, “Just what part of Africa would you really consider part of the Free World?”

  The C.I.A. man stared at him coldly. “You know what I mean,” he rapped. “And I might add, we are familiar with your record, Mr. Allen.”

  Homer Crawford said, “You’ve made a charge which is undoubtedly as unpalatable to many of those present as it is to me. Can you substantiate it? In my experience in the Sahara there is little, if any, following of the Soviet Complex.”

  An agreeing murmur went through the room.

  Ostrander bit out, “Then who is subsidizing this El Hassan?”

  Rex Donaldson, the British Commonwealth man, came to his feet. “That was a matter I was going to bring up before this meeting.”

  Homer Crawford, fully accompanied by Abe Baker and the rest of their team, even Elmer Allen, burst into uncontrolled laughter.

  V

  When Homer Crawford, Abe Baker, Kenny Ballalou, Elmer Allen and Bey-ag-Akhamouk had laughed themselves out, Frederic Ostrander, the C.I.A. operative stared at them in anger. “What’s so funny?” he snapped.

  From his seat in the middle of the hall, Pierre Dupaine, operative for the French Community, said worriedly, “Messieurs, this El Hassan is not amusing. I, too, have heard of him. His followers are evidently sweeping through the Sahara. Everywhere I hear of him.”

  There was confirming murmur throughout the rest of the gathering.

  Still chuckling, Homer Crawford said, a hand held up for quiet, “Please, everyone. Pardon the amusement of my teammates and myself. You see, there is no such person as El Hassan.”

  “To the contrary!” Ostrander snapped.

  “No, please,” Crawford said, grinning ruefully. “You see, my team invented him, some time ago.”

  Ostrander could only stare, and for once his position was backed by everyone in the hall, Crawford’s team excepted.

  Crawford said doggedly, “It came about like this. These people need a hero. It’s in their nomad tradition. They need a leader to follow. Given a leader, as history has often demonstrated, and the nomad will perform miracles. We wished to spread the program of the African Development Project. Such items as the need to unite, to break down the old boundaries of clan and tribe and even nation, the freeing of the slave and serf, the upgrading of women’s position, the dropping of the veil and haik, the need to educate the youth, the desirability of taking jobs on the projects and to take up land on the new oases. But since we usually go about disguised as Enaden itinerant smiths, a poorly thought of caste, our ideas weren’t worth much. So we invented El Hassan and everything we said we ascribed to him, this mysterious hero who was going to lead all North Africa to Utopia.”

  Jake Armstrong stood up and said, sheepishly, “I suppose that my team unknowingly added to this. We heard about this mysterious El Hassan and he seemed largely to be going in the same direction, and for the same reason—to give the rumors we were spreading weight—we ascribed the things we said to him.”

  Somebody farther back in the hall laughed and said, “So did I!”

  Homer Crawford extended his hands in the direction of Ostrander, palms upward. “I’m sorry, sir. But there seems to be your mysterious subversive.”

  Angered, Ostrander snapped, “Then you admit that it was you, yourself, who have been spreading these subversive ideas?”

  “Now, wait a minute,” Crawford snapped in return. “I admit only to those slogans and ideas promulgated by the African Development Project. If any so-called subversive ideas have been ascribed to El Hassan, it has not been through my team. Frankly, I rather doubt that they have. These people aren’t at any ethnic period where the program of the Soviet Complex would appeal. They’re largely in a ritual-taboo tribal society and no one alleging any alliance whatsoever to Marx would contend that you can go from that primitive a culture to what the Soviets call communism.”

  “I’ll take this up with my department chief,” Ostrander said angrily. “You haven’t heard the last of it, Crawford.” He sat down abruptly.

  Crawford looked out over the room. “Anybody else we haven’t heard from?”

  A middle-aged, heavy-set, Western dressed man came to his feet and cleared his throat. “Dr. Warren Harding Smythe, American Medical Relief. I assume that most of you have heard of us. An organization supported partially by government grant, partially by contributions by private citizens and institutions, as is that of Miss Isobel Cunningham’s Africa for Africans Association.” He added grimly, “But there the resemblance ends.”

  He looked at Homer Crawford. “I am to be added to the number not in favor of this conference. In fact, I am opposed to the presence of most of you here in Africa.”

  Crawford nodded. “You certainly have a right to your opinion, doctor. Will you elucidate?”

  Dr. Smythe had worked his way to the front of the room, now he looked out over the assemblage defiantly. “I am not at all sure that the task most of you work at is a desirable one. As you know, my own organization is at work bringing medical care to Africa. We build hospitals, clinics, above all medical schools. Not a single one of our hospitals but is a school at the same time.”

  Abe Baker growled, “Everybody knows and values your work, Doc, but what’s this bit about being opp
osed to ours?”

  Smythe looked at him distastefully. “You people are seeking to destroy the culture of these people, and, overnight thrust them into the pressures of Twentieth Century existence. As a medical doctor, I do not think them capable of assimilating such rapid change and I fear for their mental health.”

  There was a prolonged silence.

  Crawford said finally, “What is the alternative to the problems I presented in my summation of the situation that confronts the world due to the backward conditions of such areas as Africa?”

  “I don’t know, it isn’t my field.”

  There was another silence.

  Elmer Allen said finally, uncomfortably, “It is our field, Dr. Smythe.”

  Smythe turned to him, his face still holding its distaste. “I understand that the greater part of you are sociologists, political scientists and such. Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I do not think of the social sciences as exact ones.”

  He looked around the room and added, deliberately, “In view of the condition of the world, I do not have a great deal of respect for the product of your efforts.”

  There was an uncomfortable stirring throughout the audience.

  Clifford Jackson said unhappily, “We do what we must do, doctor. We do what we can.”

  Smythe eyed him. He said, “Some years ago I was impressed by a paragraph by a British writer named Huxley. So impressed that I copied it and have carried it with me. I’ll read it now.”

  The heavy-set doctor took out his wallet, fumbled in it for a moment and finally brought forth an aged, many times folded, piece of yellowed paper.

  He cleared his throat, then read:

  “To the question quis custodiet custodes?—who will mount guard over our guardians, who will engineer the engineers?—the answer is a bland denial that they need any supervision. There seems to be a touching belief among certain Ph.Ds in sociology that Ph.Ds in sociology will never be corrupted by power. Like Sir Galahad’s, their strength is the strength of ten because their heart is pure—and their heart is pure because they are scientists and have taken six thousand hours of social studies. Alas, high education is not necessarily a guarantee of higher virtue, or higher political wisdom.”

  The doctor finished and returned to his seat, his face still uncompromising.

  * * * *

  Homer Crawford chuckled ruefully. “The point is well taken, I suppose. However, so was the one expressed by Mr. Jackson. We do what we must, and what we can.” His eyes went over the assembly. “Is there any other group from which we haven’t heard?”

  When there was silence, he added, “No group from the Soviet Complex?”

  Ostrander, the C.I.A. operative, snorted. “Do you think they would admit it?”

  “Or from the Arab Union?” Crawford pursued. “Whether or not the Soviet Complex has agents in this part of Africa, we know that the Arab Union, backed by Islam everywhere, has. Frankly, we of the African Development Project seldom see eye to eye with them which results in considerable discussion at Reunited Nations meetings.”

  There was continued silence.

  Elmer Allen came to his feet and looked at Ostrander, his face surly. “I am not an advocate of what the Soviets are currently calling communism, however, I think a point should be made here.”

  Ostrander stared back at him unblinkingly.

  Allen snorted, “I know what you’re thinking. When I was a student I signed a few peace petitions, that sort of thing. How—or why they bothered—the C.I.A. got hold of that information, I don’t know, but as a Jamaican I am a bit ashamed of Her Majesty’s Government. But all this is beside the point.”

  “What is your point, Elmer?” Crawford said. “You speak, of course, as an individual not as an employee of the Reunited Nations nor even as a member of my team.”

  “Our team,” Elmer Allen reminded him. He frowned at his chief, as though surprised at Crawford’s stand. But then he looked back at the rest. “I don’t like the fact that the C.I.A. is present at all. I grow increasingly weary of the righteousness of the prying for what it calls subversion. The latest definition of subversive seems to be any chap who doesn’t vote either Republican or Democrat in the States, or Conservative in England.”

  Ostrander grunted scorn.

  Allen looked at him again. “So far as this job is concerned—and by the looks of things, most of us will be kept busy at it for the rest of our lives—I am not particularly favorable to the position of either side in this never-warming cold war between you and the Soviet Complex. I have suspected for some time that neither of you actually want an ending of it. For different reasons, possibly. So far as the States are concerned, I suspect an end of your fantastic military budgets would mean a collapse of your economy. So far as the Soviets are concerned, I suspect they use the continual threat of attack by the West to keep up their military and police powers and suppress the freedom of their people. Wasn’t it an old adage of the Romans that if you feared trouble at home, stir up war abroad? At any rate, I’d like to have it on the record that I protest the Cold War being dragged into our work in Africa—by either side.”

  “All right, Elmer,” Crawford said, “you’re on record. Is that all?”

  “That’s all,” Elmer Allen said. He sat down abruptly.

  “Any comment, Mr. Ostrander?” Crawford said.

  Ostrander grunted, “Fuzzy thinking.” Didn’t bother with anything more.

  The chairman looked out over the hall. “Any further discussion, any motions?” He smiled and added, “Anything—period?”

  Finally Jake Armstrong came to his feet. He said, “I don’t agree with everything Mr. Allen just said; however, there was one item where I’ll follow along. The fact that most of us will be busy at this job for the rest of our lives—if we stick. With this in mind, the fact that we have lots of time, I make the following proposal. This meeting was called to see if there was any prospect of we field workers co-operating on a field worker’s level, if we could in any way help each other, avoid duplication of effort, that sort of thing. I suggest now that this meeting be adjourned and that all of us think it over and discuss it with the other teams, the other field workers in our respective organizations. I propose further that another meeting be held within the year and that meanwhile Mr. Crawford be elected chairman of the group until the next gathering, and that Miss Cunningham be elected secretary. We can all correspond with Mr. Crawford, until the time of the next meeting, giving him such suggestions as might come to us. When he sees fit to call the next meeting, undoubtedly he will have some concrete proposals to put before us.”

  Isobel said, sotto voce, “Secretaries invariably do all the work, why is it that men always nominate a woman for the job?”

  Jake grinned at her, “I’ll never tell.” He sat down.

  “I’ll make that a motion,” Rex Donaldson clipped out.

  “Second,” someone else called.

  Homer Crawford said, “All in favor?”

  Those in favor predominated considerably.

  * * * *

  They broke up into small groups for a time, debating it out, and then most left for various places for lunch.

  Homer Crawford, separated from the other members of his team, in the animated discussions that went on about him, finally left the fascinating subject of what had happened to the Cuban group in Sudan, and who had done it, and went looking for his own lunch.

  He strolled down the sand-blown street in the general direction of the smaller market, in the center of Timbuktu, passing the aged, wind corroded house which had once sheltered Major Alexander Gordon Laing, first white man to reach the forbidden city in the year 1826. Laing remained only three days before being murdered by the Tuareg who controlled the town at that time. There was a plaque on the door revealing those basic facts. Crawford had read elsewhere that the city was not captured until 1893 by a Major Joffre, later to become a Marshal of France and a prominent Allied leader in the First World War.

  By chance h
e met Isobel in front of the large community butcher shop, still operated in the old tradition by the local Gabibi and Fulbe, formerly Songhoi serfs. He knew of a Syrian operated restaurant nearby, and since she hadn’t eaten either they made their way there.

  The menu was limited largely to local products. Timbuktu was still remote enough to make transportation of frozen foodstuffs exorbitant. While they looked at the bill of fare he told her a story about his first trip to the city some years ago while he was still a student.

  He had visited the local American missionary and had dinner with the family in their home. They had canned plums for desert and Homer had politely commented upon their quality. The missionary had said that they should be good, he estimated the quart jar to be worth something like one hundred dollars. It seems that some kindly old lady in Iowa, figuring that missionaries in such places as Timbuktu must be in dire need of her State Fair prize winning canned plums, shipped off a box of twelve quarts to missionary headquarters in New York. At that time, France still owned French Sudan, so it was necessary for the plums to be sent to Paris, and thence, eventually to Dakar. At Dakar they were shipped through Senegal to Bamako by narrow gauge railroad which ran periodically. In Bamako they had to wait for an end to the rainy season so roads would be passable. By this time, a few of the jars had fermented and blown up, and a few others had been pilfered. When the roads were dry enough, a desert freight truck took the plums to Mopti, on the Niger River where they waited again until the river was high enough that a tug pulling barges could navigate, by slow stages, down to Kabara. By this time, one or two jars had been broken by inexpert handling and more pilfered. In Kabara they were packed onto a camel and taken to Timbuktu and delivered to the missionary. Total time elapsed since leaving Iowa? Two years. Total number of jars that got through? One.