“Why one official language? Why not several?” Cliff scowled. “Say Arabic, here in this area. Swahili on the East coast. And, say, Songhoi along the Niger, and Wolof, the Senegalese lingua franca, and—”
“You see,” Peters interrupted. “Already you have half a dozen and you haven’t even got out of this immediate vicinity as yet. Let me develop my point.”
Homer Crawford was becoming interested. “Go on, Jack,” he said.
Jack Peters pointed a finger at him. “To be the hero-symbol we have in mind, El Hassan is going to have to be able to communicate with all of his people. He’s not going to be able to speak Arabic to, say, a Masai in Kenya. They hate the Arabs. He’s not going to be able to speak Swahili to a Moroccan, they’ve never heard of the language. He can’t speak Tamaheq to the Imraguen, they’re scared to death of the Tuareg.”
Homer said thoughtfully, “A common language would be fine. It’d solve a lot of problems. But it doesn’t seem to be in the cards. Why not adopt as our official language the one in which the most of our people will be able to communicate? Say, Arabic?”
Jack was shaking his head seriously. “And antagonize all the Arab hating Bantu in Africa? It’s no go, Homer.”
“Well, then, say French—or English.”
“English is the most international language in the world,” Moroka said. But his face was thoughtful, as those of the others were becoming.
The West Indian was beginning to make his points now. “No, any of the European languages are out. The white man has been repudiated. Adopting English, French, Spanish, Portuguese or Dutch, as our official language would antagonize whole sections of the continent.”
“Why Esperanto?” Cliff scowled. “Why not, say, Nov-Esperanto, or Ido, or Interlingua?”
Jimmy Peters put in a word now. “Actually, any one of them would possibly do, but we have a head start with Esperanto. Some years ago both Jack and I became avid Esperantists, being naïve enough in those days to think an international language would ultimately solve all man’s problems. And both Homer and Isobel seem to have a working knowledge of the language.”
Homer said, “So have the other members of my former Reunited Nations team. That’s where those books you found came from. Elmer, Bey, Kenny…and Abe…and I used to play around with it when we were out in the desert, just to kill time. We also used it as sort of a secret language when we wanted to communicate and didn’t know if those around us might understand some English.”
“I still don’t get the picture,” Cliff argued. “If we picked the most common half a dozen languages in the territory we cover, then millions of these people wouldn’t have to study a second language. But if you adapt Esperanto as an official language theneverybody is going to have to learn something new. And that’s not going to be easy for our ninety-five per cent illiterate followers.”
Isobel said thoughtfully, “Well, it’s a darn sight easier to learn Esperanto than any other language we decided to make official.”
“Why?” Cliff said argumentatively.
* * * *
Jack Peters took over. “Because it’s almost unbelievably easy to learn. English, by the way, is extremely difficult. For instance, spelling and pronunciation are absolutely phonetic in Esperanto and there are only five vowel sounds where most national languages have twenty or so. And each sound in the alphabet has one sound only and any sound is always rendered by the same letter.”
Dave Moroka said, “Actually, I don’t know anything at all about this Esperanto.”
The West Indian took him in, with a dominating glance. “Take grammar and syntax which can take up volumes in other languages. Esperanto has exactly sixteen short rules. And take vocabularies. For instance, in English we often form the feminine of a noun by adding ess—actor-actress, tiger-tigress. But not always. We don’t say bull-bulless or ghost-ghostess. In Esperanto you simply add the feminine ending to any noun—there’s no exception to any rule.”
Jack Peters was caught up in his subject. “Still comparing it to English, realize that spelling and pronunciation in English are highly irregular and one letter can have several different sounds, and one sound may be represented by different letters. And there are even silent letters which are written but not pronounced like the ugh in though. There are none of these irregularities in Esperanto. And the sounds are all sharp with none of such subtle differences as, say, bed/bad/bard/bawd, that sort of thing.”
Jimmy Peters said, “The big item is that any averagely intelligent person can begin speaking Esperanto within a few hours. Within a week of even moderate study, say three or four hours a day, he’s astonishingly fluent.”
Isobel said thoughtfully, “There’d be international advantages. It’s always been a galling factor in Africans dealing with Europeans that they had to learn the European language involved. You couldn’t expect your white man to learn kitchen kaffir, or Swahili, or whatever, not when you got on the diplomatic level.”
Cliff Jackson was thinking out loud. “So far, El Hassan is an unknown. Rumor has it that he’s everything from a renegade Egyptian, to an escaped Mau-Mau chief, to a Senegalese sergeant formerly in the French West African forces. But when he starts running into the press and they find that Homer and his closest associates all speak English, and most of them with an American accent, there’s going to be some fat in the fire.”
“And El Hassan will have lost some of his mysterious glamour,” Homer added thoughtfully.
Even Moroka, the South African, was beginning to accept the idea. “If El Hassan, himself, refused in the presence of foreigners ever to speak anything but Esperanto, the aura of mystery would continue.”
Jimmy Peters, elaborating and obviously pushing an opinion he and his brother had already discussed, said, “We make it a rule that every school, both locally taught and foreign, must teach Esperanto as a required subject. All El Hassan governmental affairs would be conducted in that language. Anybody at all trying to get anywhere in the new regime would have to learn the official inter-African tongue.”
“Oh, brother,” Cliff groaned, “that means me.” He brightened. “We haven’t any books or anything, as yet.”
Isobel laughed at him. “I’ll take on your studies, Cliff. We have a few books. Those that Homer and his team used to kill time with. And as soon as we’re in a position to make requests for foreign aid of the great powers, Esperanto grammars, dictionaries and so forth can be high on the list.”
With a sharp cry, almost a bark, a figure jumped into the entrance and with a bound into the center of the tent, sub-machinegun in hand. “All right, everybody. On your feet. The place is raided!”
Dave Moroka leaped to his feet, his hand tearing with blurring speed for his holstered hand gun. “Where’s that bodyguard?” he yelled.
VII
“Hold it,” Homer Crawford roared, jumping to his own feet and grabbing the South African in his arms. He glared at the newcomer. “Kenny, you idiot, you’re lucky you don’t have a couple of holes in you.”
Kenny Ballalou, grinning widely, stared at Dave Moroka. “Jeepers,” he said, “you got that gun out fast. Don’t you ever stick ’em up when somebody has the drop on you?”
Dave Moroka relaxed, the side arm dropping back into its holster. Homer Crawford released him and the South African ran a hand over his mouth and shook his head ruefully at Kenny.
Isobel and Cliff crowded up, the one to kiss Kenny happily, the other to pound him on the back.
Homer made introductions to Dave Moroka and the Peters brothers.
“I’ve told you about Kenny,” he wound it up. “I sent him over to the west to raise a harka of Nemadi to help in taking Tamanrasset.” He joined Cliff Jackson in giving the smaller man an affectionate blow on the shoulder. “What luck did you have, Kenny?”
Kenny Ballalou rubbed himself ruefully. “If you two will stop beating, I’ll tell you. I didn’t recruit a single Nemadi.”
Homer Crawford looked at him.
Kenny s
aid to the tent at large. “Anybody got a drink around here? Good grief, have I been covering ground.”
Isobel bustled off to a corner where she’d amassed most of their remaining European type supplies, but she kept her attention on him.
Dave Moroka said, his voice unbelieving, “You mean you haven’t brought any assistance at all?”
Kenny grinned around at them. “I didn’t say that. I said I didn’t recruit any of the Nemadi. I never even got as far as their territory.”
Homer Crawford sank back onto the small crate he’d been using as a chair before Kenny’s precipitate entrance. “O.K.,” he said, “stop dramatizing and let us know what happened.”
Kenny spread his hands in a sweeping gesture. “The country’s alive from here to Bidon Cinq and south to the Niger. Bourem and Gao have gone over to El Hassan and a column of followers was descending on Niamey. They should be there by now. I never got as far as Nemadi country. I could have recruited ten thousand fighting men, but I didn’t know what we’d do with them in this country. So I weeded through everybody who volunteered and took only veterans. Men who’d formerly been in the French forces, or British, or whatever. Louis Wallington and his team were in Bourem when I got there and—”
“Who is Louis Wallington?” Jack Peters said.
Homer looked over at the Peters brothers and Dave Moroka. “Head of a six-man Sahara Development Project team like the one I used to head.” His eyes went back to Kenny. “What about Louis?”
“He’s come in with us. Didn’t know how to get in touch, so he was working on his own. And Pierre Dupaine. Remember him, the fellow from Guadeloupe in the French West Indies, used to be an operative of the African Affairs sector of the French Community? Well, he and a half dozen of his colleagues have come in and were leading an expedition on Timbuktu. But Timbuktu had already joined up too, before they got there—”
“Wow,” Homer said. “It’s really spreading.”
Cliff said, “Why isn’t all this on the radio?”
Isobel had brought Kenny a couple of ounces of cognac from their meager supply. He knocked it back thankfully.
Kenny said to Cliff, “Things are moving too fast, and communications have gone to pot.” He looked at Homer. “Have any of these journalists found you yet?”
“What journalists?”
Kenny laughed. “You’ll find out. Half the newspapers, magazines, newsreels and TV outfits in the world are sending every man they can release into this area. They’re going batty trying to find El Hassan. Man, do you realize the extent of the country your followers now dominate?”
Homer said blankly, “I hadn’t thought of it. Besides, most of what you’ve been saying is news to us here. We’ve been keeping on the prod.”
Kenny grinned widely. “Well, the nearest I can figure it, El Hassan is ruler of an area about the size of Mexico. At least it was yesterday. By today, you can probably tack on Texas.”
Jimmy Peters, serious faced as usual, said, “Things are moving so fast, we’re going to have to run to keep ahead of El Hassan’s followers. One thing, Homer, we’re going to have to have a press secretary.”
“Elmer Allen was going to handle that, but he’s still up north,” Isobel said.
“I’ll do it. Used to be a newspaperman, when I was younger,” Dave Moroka said quickly.
Isobel frowned and began to say something, but Homer said, “Great, you handle that, Dave.” Then to Kenny, “Where’re your men and how well are they armed?”
“Well, that’s one trouble,” Kenny said unhappily. “We requisitioned motor transport from some of the Sahara Afforestation Project oases down around Tessalit. In fact, Ralph Sandell, their chief mucky-muck in those parts, has come over to us. But we haven’t got much in the way of shooting irons.”
Homer Crawford closed his eyes wearily. “What it boils down to, still, is that a hundred of those Arab Legionnaires, with their armor, could finish us all off in ten minutes if it came to open battle.”
* * * *
El Hassan continued moving his headquarters, usually daily, but he eluded the journalists only another twelve hours. Then they were upon the mobile camp like locusts.
And David Moroka took over with a calm efficiency that impressed all. In the first place, he explained, El Hassan was much too busy to handle the press except for one conference a week. In the second place, he spoke only Esperanto to foreigners. Meanwhile, he, Dave Moroka, would handle all their questions, make arrangements for suitable photographs, and for the TV and newsreel boys to trundle their equipment as near the front lines as possible. And, meanwhile, James and John Peters of El Hassan’s staff had prepared press releases covering the El Hassan movement and its program.
Homer, to the extent possible, was isolated from the new elements descending upon his encampment. Attempting anything else would have been out of the question. At this point, he was getting approximately four hours of sleep a night.
Kenny Ballalou was continually coming and going in a mad attempt to handle the logistics of supplying several thousand men in a desert area all but devoid of either water or graze, not to speak of food, petroleum products and ammunition.
Isobel and Cliff were thrown into the positions of combination secretaries, ministers of finance, assistant bodyguards, and all else that nobody else seemed to handle, including making coffee.
It was Isobel who approached a subject which had long worried her, as they drove across country, the only occupants of one of the original hover-lorries, during a camp move.
She said, hesitantly, “Homer, is it a good idea to give Dave such a free hand with the press? You know, there are some fifty or so of them around now and they must be influencing the TV, radio, magazines and newspapers of the world.”
“He seems to know more about it than any of the rest of us,” Homer said, his eyes on the all but sand-obliterated way. “We’re going to have to move more of the men south. We simply haven’t got water enough for them. There’d be enough in Tamanrasset, but not out here. Make a note to cover this with Kenny. I wonder where Bey is, and Elmer.”
Isobel made a note. She said, “Yes, but the trouble is, he’s a comparative newcomer. Are you sure he’s in complete accord with the original plan, Homer? Does the El Hassan dream mean the same to him as it does to you, and…well, me?”
He shot her an impatient glance, even as he hit the lift lever to raise them over a small dune. “You and Dave don’t hit it off very well. He’s a good man, so far as I can see.”
Her delicate forehead wrinkled and her pixie face showed puzzlement. “I don’t know why. I get along with most people, Homer.”
He patted her hand. “You can’t please everybody, Isobel. Listen, something’s got to be done about this king-size mob of camp followers we’ve got. Did you know Common Europe sent in a delegation this morning?”
“Delegation? Common Europe—?”
“Yeah. Haven’t had time to discuss it with you. They found us just before we raised camp. Evidently, the British Commonwealth and possibly the Soviet Complex—some Chinese, I think—are also trying to locate us. Half of these people are without their own equipment and supplies, but that’s not what worries me right now. We used to be able to camouflage our headquarters camp. Dig into the desert and avoid the aircraft. But if a group of bungling Common Market diplomats can locate us, what’s to keep the Arab Legion from doing it and blessing us with a stick of neopalm bombs?”
Isobel said, “Look, before we leave Dave. Did you know he was confiscating all radio equipment brought into our camp by the newsmen and whoever else?”
Homer frowned. “Well, why?”
“Espionage, Dave says. He’s afraid some of these characters might be in with the Arab Union and inform on us.”
“Well, that makes some sense,” Homer nodded.
“Does it?” Isobel grumbled.
He shot an irritated glance at her again and said impatiently, “Can’t the poor guy do anything right?”
“My wom
an’s intuition is working,” Isobel grumbled.
* * * *
Dave Moroka came into headquarters tent without introduction. He was one of the half dozen who had permission for this. He had a sheaf of papers in his left hand and was frowning unhappily.
“What’s the crisis?” Homer said.
“Scouts coming up say your pal Bey-ag-Akhamouk is on the way. Evidently, with a big harka of Teda from the Sudan.”
“Great.” Homer crowed. “Now we’ll get going.”
“Ha!” Dave said. “From what we hear, a good many are camel mounted. How are we going to feed them? Already some of the Songhai Kenny brought up from the south have drifted away, unhappy about supplies.”
“Bey’s a top man,” Homer told him. “The best. He’ll have some ideas on our tactics. Meanwhile, we can turn over most of his men to one of the new recruits, and head them down to take Fort Lamy. With Fort Lamy and Lake Chad in our hands we’ll control a chunk of Africa so big everybody else will start wondering why they shouldn’t jump on the bandwagon while the going is good.”
Dave said, “Well, that brings up something else, Homer. These new recruits. In the past couple of days, forty or fifty men who used to be connected with African programs sponsored by everybody from the Reunited Nations to this gobblydygook outfit Cliff and Isobel once worked for, the AFAA, have come over to El Hassan. The number will probably double by tomorrow, and triple the next day.”
“Fine,” Homer said. “What’s wrong with that? These are the people that will really count in the long run.”
“Nothing’s wrong with it, within reason. But we’re going to have to start becoming selective, Homer. We’ve got to watch what jobs we let these 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 Hassan started off there were only a half dozen or so who had the dream, as you 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, Rex Donaldson, then Jimmy and Jack Peters and myself. We all came in when the going was rough, if not impossible. But now things are different. It looks as though El Hassan might actually win.”
The Mack Reynolds Megapack Page 82
