He clicked the set off and then looked down at it. His dour face broke into a rare grin. “Now there’s an ambition I’ve had for donkey’s years,” he said aloud. “To hang up on a really big mucky-muck.”
IV
Following the attack of the unidentified rocketcraft, El Hassan’s party was twice again nearly flushed by reconnoitering planes of unknown origin. They weren’t making the time they wanted.
Beneath a projecting rock face over a gravel bottomed wadi, the two hover-lorries were hidden, whilst a slow-moving helio-jet made sweeping, high-altitude circlings above them.
* * * *
The six stared glumly upward.
Cliff Jackson who was on the radio called out, “I just picked him up. He’s called in to Fort Lamy reporting no luck. His fuel’s running short and he’ll be knocking off soon.”
Homer Crawford rapped, “What language?”
“French,” Cliff said, “but it’s not his. I mean he’s not French, just using the language.”
Bey’s face was as glum as any and there was a tic at the side of his mouth. He said now, “We’ve got to come up with something. Sooner or later one of them will spot us and this next time we won’t have any fantastic breaks like Homer being able to knock him off with a Tommy-Noiseless. He’ll drop a couple of neopalms and burn up a square mile of desert including El Hassan and his whole crew.”
Homer looked at him. “Any ideas, Bey?”
“No,” the other growled.
Homer Crawford said, “Any of the rest of you?”
Isobel was frowning, bringing something back. “Why don’t we travel at night?”
“And rest during the day?” Homer said.
Kenny said, “Parking where? We just made it to this wadi. If we’re caught out in the dunes somewhere when one of those planes shows up, we’ve had it. You couldn’t hide a jackrabbit out there.”
But Bey and Homer Crawford were still looking at Isobel.
She said, “I remember a story the Tuaregs used to tell about a raid some of them made back during the French occupation. They stole four hundred camels near Timbuktu one night and headed north. The French weren’t worried. The next morning, they simply sent out a couple of aircraft to spot the Tuareg raiders and the camels. Like Kenny said, you couldn’t hide a jackrabbit in dune country. But there was nothing to be seen. The French couldn’t believe it, but they still weren’t really worried. After all a camel herd can travel only thirty or so miles a day. So the next day the planes went out again, circling, circling, but they still didn’t spot the thieves and their loot, nor the next day. Well, to shorten it, the Tuareg got their four hundred camels all the way up to Spanish Rio de Oro where they sold them.”
She had their staring attention. “How?” Elmer blurted.
“It was simple. They traveled all night and then, at dawn, buried the camels and themselves in the sand and stayed there all day.”
Homer said, “I’m sold. Boys, I hope you’re in physical trim because there’s going to be quite a bit of digging for the next few days.”
Cliff groaned. “Some Minister of the Treasury,” he complained. “They give him a shovel instead of a bankbook.”
Everyone laughed.
Bey said, “Well, I suppose we stay here until nightfall.”
“Right,” Homer said. “Whose turn is it to pull cook duty?”
Isobel said menacingly, “I don’t know whose turn it is, but I know I’m going to do the cooking. After that slumgullion Kenny whipped up yesterday, I’m a perpetual volunteer for the job of chef—strictly in self-defense.”
“That was a cruel cut,” Kenny protested, “however, I hereby relinquish all my rights to cooking for this expedition.”
“And me!”
“And me!”
“O.K.,” Homer said, “so Isobel is Minister of the Royal Kitchen.” He looked at Elmer Allen. “Which reminds me. You’re our junior theoretician. Are we a monarchy?”
Elmer Allen scowled sourly and sat down, his back to the wadi wall. “I wouldn’t think so.”
Isobel went off to make coffee in the portable galley in the rear of the second hovercraft. The others brought forth tobacco and squatted or sat near the dour Jamaican. Years in the desert had taught them the nomad’s ability to relax completely given opportunity.
“So if it’s not a monarchy, what’ll we call El Hassan?” Kenny demanded.
Elmer said slowly, thoughtfully, “We’ll call him simply El Hassan. Monarchies are of the past, and El Hassan is the voice of the future, something new. We won’t admit he’s just a latter-day tyrant, an opportunist seizing power because it’s there crying to be seized. Actually, El Hassan is in the tradition of Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, or, more recently, Napoleon. But he’s a modern version, and we’re not going to hang the old labels on him.”
Isobel had brought the coffee. “I think you’re right,” she said.
“Sold,” Homer agreed. “So we aren’t a monarchy. We’re a tyranny.” His face had begun by expressing amusement, but that fell off. He added, “As a young sociologist, I never expected to wind up a literal tyrant.”
Elmer Allen said, “Wait a minute. See if I can remember this. Comes from Byron.” He closed his eyes and recited:
“The tyrant of the Chersonese
Was freedom’s best and bravest friend.
That tyrant was Miltiades,
Oh that the present hour would lend
Another despot of the kind.
Such bonds as his were sure to bind.”
Isobel, pouring coffee, laughed and said, “Why Elmer, who’d ever dream you read verse, not to speak of memorizing it, you old sourpuss.”
Elmer Allen’s complexion was too dark to register a flush.
Homer Crawford said, “Yeah, Miltiades. Seized power, whipped the Athenians into shape to the point where they were able to take the Persians at Marathon, which should have been impossible.” He looked around at the others, winding up with Elmer. “What happened to Miltiades after Marathon and after the emergency was over?”
Elmer looked down into his coffee. “I don’t remember,” he lied.
* * * *
There was a clicking from the first hover-lorry, and Cliff Jackson put down his coffee, groaned his resentment at fate, and made his way to the vehicle and the radio there.
Bey motioned with his head. “That’s handy, our still being able to tune in on the broadcasts the African Development Project makes to its teams.”
Kenny said, “Not that what they’ve been saying is much in the way of flattery.”
Bey said, “They seem to think we’re somewhere in the vicinity of Bidon Cinq.”
“That’s what worries me,” Homer growled. He raked his right hand back through his short hair. “If they think we’re in Southern Algeria, what are these planes doing around here? We’re hundreds of miles from Bidon Cinq.”
Bey shot him an oblique glance. “That’s easy. That plane that tried to clobber us, and these others that have been trying to search us out, aren’t really Reunited Nations craft. They’re someone else.”
They all looked at him. “Who?” Isobel said.
“How should I know? It could be almost anybody with an iron in the North African fire. The Soviet Complex? Very likely. The British Commonwealth or the French Community? Why not? There’re elements in both that haven’t really accepted giving up the old colonies and would like to regain them in one way or the other. The Arab Union? Why comment? Common Europe? Oh, Common Europe would love to have a free hand exploiting North Africa.”
“You haven’t mentioned the United States of the Americas,” Elmer said dryly. “I hope you haven’t any prejudices in favor of the land of your adoption, Mr. Minister of War.”
Bey shrugged. “I just hadn’t got around to her. Admittedly with the continued growth of the Soviet Complex and Common Europe, the States have slipped from the supreme position they occupied immediately following the Second War. The more power-happy elements are conscious
of the ultimate value of control of Africa and doubly conscious of the danger of it falling into the hands of someone else. Oh, never fear, those planes that have been pestering us might belong to anybody at all.”
Cliff Jackson hurried back from his radio, his face anxious. “Listen,” he said. “That was a high priority flash, to all Reunited Nations teams. The Arab Union has just taken Tamanrasset. They pushed two columns out of Libya, evidently one from Ghat and one from further north near Ghademès.”
Homer Crawford was on his feet, alert. “Well…why?”
Cliff had what amounted to accusation on his face. “Evidently, the El Hassan rumors are spreading like wildfire. There’ve been more riots in Mopti, and the Reunited Nations buildings in Adrar have been stormed by mobs demonstrating for him. The Arab Union is moving in on the excuse of protecting the country against El Hassan.”
Kenny Ballalou groaned, “They’ll have half their Arab Legion in here before the week’s out.”
Cliff finished with, “The Reunited Nations is throwing a wingding. Everybody running around accusing and threatening, and, as per usual, getting nowhere.”
Homer Crawford’s face was working in thought. He shook his head at Kenny. “I think you’re wrong. They won’t send the whole Arab Legion in. They’ll be afraid to. They’ll want to see first what everybody else does. They know they can’t stand up to a slugging match with any of the really big powers. They’ll stick it out for a while and watch developments. We have, perhaps, two weeks in which to operate.”
“Operate?” Cliff demanded. “What do you mean, operate?”
Homer’s eyes snapped to him. “I mean to recapture Tamanrasset from the Arab Union, seize the radio and television station there, and proclaim El Hassan’s regime.”
The big Californian’s eyes bugged at him. “You mean the six of us? There’ll be ten thousand of them.”
“No,” Homer said decisively. “Nothing like that number. Possibly a thousand, if that many. Logistics simply doesn’t allow a greater number, not on such short notice. They’ve put a thousand or so of their crack troops into the town. No more.”
Cliff wailed, “What’s the difference between a thousand and twenty thousand, so far as five men and a girl are concerned?”
The rest were saying nothing, but following the debate.
Crawford explained, not to just Cliff but to all of them. “Actually, the Arab Union is doing part of our job for us. They’ve openly declared that El Hassan is attempting to take over North Africa, that he’s raising the tribes. Well, good. We didn’t have the facilities to make the announcement ourselves. But now the whole world knows it.”
* * * *
“That’s right,” Elmer said, his face characteristically sullen. “Every news agency in the world is playing up the El Hassan story. In a matter of days, the most remote nomad encampment in the Sahara will know of it, one way or the other.”
Homer Crawford was pacing, socking his right fist into the palm of the left. “They’ve given us a rallying raison d’etre. These people might be largely Moslem, especially in the north, but they have no love for the Arab Union. For too long the slave raiders came down from the northeast. Given time, Islam might have moved in on the whole of North Africa. But not this way, not in military columns.”
He swung to Bey. “You worked over in the Teda country, before joining my team, and speak the Sudanic dialects. Head for there, Bey. Proclaim El Hassan. Organize a column. We’ll rendezvous at Tamanrasset in exactly two weeks.”
Bey growled, “How am I supposed to get to Faya?”
“You’ll have to work that out yourself. Tonight we’ll drop you near In Guezzam, they have one of the big solar pump, afforestation developments there. You should be able to, ah, requisition a truck, or possibly even a ‘copter or aircraft. You’re on your own, Bey.”
“Right.”
Homer spun to Kenny Ballalou. “You’re the only one of us who gets along in the dialect of Hassania. Get over to Nemadi country and raise a column. There are no better scouts in the world. Two weeks from today at Tamanrasset.”
“Got it. Drop me off tonight with Bey, we’ll work together until we liberate some transport.”
Bey said, “It might be worth while scouting in In Guezzam for a day or two. We might pick up a couple of El Hassan followers to help us along the way.”
“Use your judgment. Elmer!”
Elmer groaned sourly, “I knew my time’d come.”
“Up into Chaambra country for you. Take the second lorry. You’ve got a distance to go. Try to recruit former members of the French Camel Corps. Promise just about anything, but only remember that one day we’ll have to keep the promises. El Hassan can’t get the label of phony hung on him.”
“Chaambra country,” Elmer said. “Oh great. Arabs. I can just see what luck I’m going to have rousing up Arabs to fight other Arabs, and me with a complexion black as …”
Homer snapped at him, “They won’t be following you, they’ll be following El Hassan…or at least the El Hassan dream. Play up the fact that the Arab Union is largely not of Africa but of the Middle East. That they’re invading the country to swipe the goats and violate the women. Dig up all the old North African prejudices against the Syrians and Egyptians, and the Saudi-Arabian slave traders. You’ll make out.”
Cliff said, nervously, “How about me, Homer?”
Homer looked at him. Cliff Jackson, in spite of his fabulous build, hadn’t a fighting man’s background.
Homer grinned and said, “You’ll work with me. We’re going into Tuareg country. Whenever occasion calls for it, whip off that shirt and go strolling around with that overgrown chest of yours stuck out. The Tuareg consider themselves the best physical specimens in the Sahara, which they are. They admire masculine physique. You’ll wow them.”
Cliff grumbled, “Sounds like vaudeville.”
Isobel said softly, “And me, El Hassan? What do I do?”
Homer turned to her. “You’re also part of headquarters staff. The Tuareg women aren’t dominated by their men. They still have a strong element of descent in the matrilinear line and women aren’t second-class citizens. You’ll work on pressuring them. Do you speak Tamaheq?”
“Of course.”
Homer Crawford looked up into the sky, swept it. The day was rapidly coming to an end and nowhere does day become night so quickly as in the ergs of the Sahara.
“Let’s get underway,” Crawford said. “Time’s a wastin’.”
* * * *
The range of the Ahaggar Tuareg was once known, under French administration, as the Annexe du Hoggar, and was the most difficult area ever subdued by French arms—if it was ever subdued. At the battle of Tit on May 7, 1902 the Camel Corps, under Cottenest, broke the combined military power of the Tuareg confederations, but this meant no more than that the tribes and clans carried on nomadic warfare in smaller units.
The Ahaggar covers roughly an area the size of Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia and Maryland combined, and supports a population of possibly twelve thousand, which includes about forty-five hundred Tuareg, four thousand Negro serf-slaves, and some thirty-five hundred scorned sedentary Haratin workers. The balance of the population consists of a handful of Enaden smiths and a small number of Arab shopkeepers in the largest of the sedentary centers. Europeans and other whites are all but unknown.
It is the end of the world.
Contrary to Hollywood-inspired belief, the Sahara does not consist principally of sand dunes, although these, too, are present, and all but impassable even to camels. Traffic, through the millennia, has held to the endless stretches of gravelly plains and the rock ribbed plateaus which cover most of the desert. The great sandy wastes or ergs cover roughly a fifth of the entire Sahara, and possibly two thirds of this area consists of the rolling sandy plains dotted occasionally with dunes. The remaining third, or about one fifteenth of the total Sahara, is characterized by the dune formations of popular imagination.
It was th
rough this latter area that Homer Crawford, now with but one hover-lorry, and accompanied by Isobel Cunningham and Clifford Jackson, was heading.
For although the spectacular major dune formations of the Great Erg have defied wheeled vehicles since the era of the Carthaginian chariots, and even the desert born camel limits his daily travel in them to but a few miles, the modern hovercraft, atop its air cushion jets, finds them of only passing difficulty to traverse. And the hovercraft leaves no trail.
Cliff Jackson scowled out at the identical scenery. Identical for more than two hundred miles. For twice that distance, they had seen no other life. No animal, no bird, not a sprig of cactus. This was the Great Erg.
He muttered, “This country is so dry even the morning dew is dehydrated.”
Isobel laughed—she, too, had never experienced this country before. “Why, Cliff, you made a funny!”
They were sitting three across in the front seat, with Homer Crawford at the wheel, and now all three were dressed in the costume of the Kel Rela tribe of the Ahaggar Tuareg confederation. In the back of the lorry were the jerry-cans of water and the supplies that meant the difference between life and mummification from sun and heat.
Cliff turned suddenly to the driver. “Why here?” he said bitterly. “Why pick this for a base of operations? Why not Mopti? Ten thousand Sudanese demonstrated for El Hassan there less than two weeks ago. You’d have them in the palm of your hand.”
Homer didn’t look up from his work at wheel, lift and acceleration levers. To achieve maximum speed over the dunes, you worked constantly at directing motion not only horizontally but vertically.
He said, “And the twenty and one enemies of the El Hassan movement would have had us in their palms. Our followers in Mopti can take care of themselves. If this movement is ever going to be worth anything, the local characters are going to have to get into the act. The current big thing is not to allow El Hassan and his immediate troupe to be eliminated before full activities can get under way. For the present, we’re hiding out until we can gather forces enough to free Tamanrasset.”
The Mack Reynolds Megapack Page 77
