The Best Ye Breed

XI EL HASSAN

Homer Crawford at the wheel, Bey-ag-Akhamouk, Kenny Ballalou and Cliff Jackson were heading westward from In Salah to Adrar, in one of the two original hoverlorries which Homer’s Sahara Division, African Development Project of the Reunited Nations, team had driven through half the Western Sahara. All except Cliff Jackson had been over this route time and time again. Cliff was appalled. He, Isobel and Jake Armstrong had largely worked along the Niger river and had seldom seen the desert proper.

“Jesus,” he said. “This is the ass-hole of creation.”

“I’ve often wondered where it was located,” Bey murmured.

Kenny laughed and said to Cliff, “Man, you’re lucky we didn’t take the other route, southwest to Kidal and then north through Bidon Cinq and Poste Weygand. The Tuaghi call the route between Tamanrasset and Kidal the Land of Fear and Thirst. That’s where you get the simoons, or perpetual sandstorms, which blow all day, every day. During the day hours, you can’t eat. As soon as you open a tin of food, even though you’re inside your vehicle, it’s smothered in sand. The only possible way you can get something to eat, during the day hours, is to munch on some bits of dried bread, by squeezing your body up against the car on the lee side. Even then, you can feel the sand gritting between your teeth.”

They had by-passed In Salah, to keep from being spotted by anyone who might recognize El Hassan and his closest advisers, and shortly passed Hi Tahaidour, going through the famous Bois pétrifié, one of the largest petrified forests in the world.

Cliff gaped at the circumference of the boles of trees which had fallen millennia ago.

Bey chopped out a short laugh. “Something, eh? The whole Sahara was once tropical in vegetation. And not so long ago as all that, either. They’ve got cave and cliff paintings throughout the desert, something like those Cro-Magnon cave paintings in southern France and northern Spain. They portray not only men but such animals as giraffes, mammoths and hippopotami.”

Homer Crawford said, “It’s something that must give a boost in morale to Ralph Sandell, over there at Bidon Cinq, with his afforestation project. I hope the hell he’s all right. Supporting reforestation of the Sahara is going to be one of the biggest feathers in El Hassan’s cap, if we can keep it going.”

Bey said, “I told Isobel to have Guémamaa send one of his first organized goum camel patrols with a really reliable mokkadam over to guard Sandell’s seedlings and transplants. Later, we’ll send other goums to the rest of the afforestation projects, but Ralph’s trees are the most exposed.”

Homer said,“I hope the hell you told Jimmy Peters to issue them ample funds. We don’t want any of our people sponging on the project, not to speak of looting or having our camelmen enjoying a quick unwelcome roll in the hay with the local girls—if any hay’s available in those parts. Or girls, for that matter.”

“I did.” Bey nodded.

The sun burned down outside in such wise that it was impossible to look out through the windows without their very dark sun glasses. The white sand reflected the light like mirrors.

There was no road, properly speaking. Roads are impossible in most of the central Sahara. It is seldom that a vehicle spots the tracks of another car or truck before it. The sand has blown over them in less than half an hour. Instead, the French engineers who originally surveyed the routes, placed a steel petroleum barrel approximately every half a kilometer, filled with stones so that they wouldn’t blow away. One drives across the Sahara by going from one steel drum to the next. And woebetide the man who gets off the track and becomes lost in the erg or on the reg.

In the old days, when the French controlled the area, they made it a rule that no vehicle could leave one town, or military post, for another without reporting. The officials would then radio ahead that the vehicle was on its way. If they didn’t show up on schedule, the French sent out aircraft to search for them. Sometimes they found them.

Out of a clear sky, Kenny said, “Where’re we going to have our capital city? We’ve got to have some seat of government, where we can have embassies, welcome trade missions, that sort of thing.”

They all thought about it.

Bey said, “I’m in favor of keeping on the move, the way we did when we were infesting Tamanrasset. That way, no potential enemy ever knows where El Hassan might be. A tent city. Oh, house trailers and that sort of thing too, for outsiders who couldn’t exist without airconditioning, refrigerators, and all that. But something that could be moved every week or so, or even more often.”

Homer shook his head. “You can’t run a viable government, in this age, on the move. In no time flat, we’re going to be so deep in paperwork and all the secretaries and clerks and what not that goes with it, that we couldn’t possibly haul them all around. Personally, I’m in favor of Tamanrasset.”

Cliff looked over at him and said, “Why that hole? We’re going to be getting into IBM machines and everything else before we’re through. Why not, say, Dakar? It’s a relatively modern city.” He smacked his lips. “Restaurants, nightclubs and all.”

Homer shook his head. “Tamanrasset is centrally located, so far as we’re concerned. And it’s remote. Hard to get at, isolated in the middle of the Sahara. Timbuktu, or even Lhasa, Tibet, wouldn’t be much more inaccessible to those we’d rather not see. Including the armed forces of enemies.”

Bey said, in rebuttal, “A division of paratroopers could be vomited down on Tamanrasset a couple of hours after they left whatever base they started from. We’re figuring on a permanent force of some one thousand men, as the core of our army—if that’s what you could call it. They wouldn’t last minutes before a division of paratroopers. Hell, these days an airborne division even carries along heavy tanks and artillery.”

Homer accepted that, but said, “Our thousand men wouldn’t wait. We’d all melt into the erg. You saw what happened at Fort Laperrine to Colonel Ibrahim’s motorized regiment, and they were desert-trained troops. How would you like the logistics problems of supplying a full division of paratroopers in the Ahaggar Sahara? They need seas of oil, endless supplies, food being only one. A division soaks up water like a sponge. Where would it come from? The few wells and springs about Tamanrasset? Or would they have to fly it in? Can you imagine flying in enough water for twenty thousand men? You’d have your work cut out flying enough tankers to give your soldiers water to brush their teeth with. And meanwhile, the moment that first parachute blossomed out, we’d be on our way to some other town a few hundred miles off.”

He looked over at Cliff. All four of them were sitting in the spacious front seat of the hoverlorry.

“Dakar? Now there we’d be sitting ducks, right on the sea. They could drop elements to block the railroads and the paved highways in Senegal, and we’d never get our people out. Besides that, even if we weren’t attacked, we’d be bedeviled by multitudes of newsmen and foreign delegations until they ran out of our ears, and one of our deals is to keep El Hassan and his government mystery figures. We wouldn’t remain mysteries overnight, in a big center such as Dakar, Algiers, Casablanca, or wherever—if and when we take them, and thus far we haven’t as yet taken a single major city.”

Pools, lakes, oceans of mirage shimmered and danced before them continually. The sun reflected off the dancing mirages and shot through their eyes, in spite of the sun glasses. At times, the landscape ahead was so covered with mirage that they had the impression of driving across a gigantic beach toward a surf which retreated endlessly with the outgoing tide—a tide which moved faster than one could drive.

“What’re we going to do once we get up into Chaambra country?” Cliff said, his voice sour. “I’m beginning to think Bey was right. We should have brought along at least a couple of hundred of our best Tuaghi in some of those captured Arab Union trucks.”

Homer shook his head. “With that many men, we’d wind up in a pitched battle with Abd-el-Kader’s clan and all the rest of the Chaambra to boot. We’ll play it by ear. Question around until we find where his encampment is, then decide what to do. It might entail nothing more than snaking into his camp early some morning and rescuing Elmer and getting the hell out without a shot being fired.”

Bey chuckled quietly at that.

After a drawn-out silence, Kenny said, “What was this bit about the Swedes advancing us ten million in gold-backed kronor? I didn’t even know the Swedes were on the gold standard.”

Homer laughed lowly and said, “They’re not, and tried to give us an argument. But we held fast. Ifriqiyah. is going to accept no paper money, as such. There hasn’t been a really stable paper money since the Second World War. The United States got going early in the trend. Following the war, they had most of the gold in the world buried at Fort Knox. Against it, they started printing billions of dollars in paper money, supposedly backed by the gold. They’d soon printed several times as much paper as they had gold. With it, they bought up most of what was valuable in Canada and one hell of a lot of Europe. The gold in Fort Knox began to melt away, as some foreign countries demanded it for the paper they had accumulated. Nothing was backing fifty dollars or so in paper money but the word of Uncle Sam, and after awhile they reneged on that and refused to cover their paper with any gold at all. Obviously, inflation then set in with a vengeance. Everybody seemed surprised that the dollar would buy only a fraction of what it used to. The other countries got wise after a time and began doing the same thing; that is, printing paper money to pay off their debts. So the inflation became world wide. No currency was backed by anything more than the smell of stale urine.”

Kenny said, “What’s all that got to do with the Swedish kronor?”

Homer said, “Like I said, Ifriqiyah isn’t going to accept paper for its raw materials. It might not necessarily be backed by gold; alternative valid commodities are acceptable, such as silver, platinum, uranium and other precious metals. We’d even accept one of the strangest backings of currency I’ve ever heard of. The Bulgarians are the biggest producers of attar of roses in the world. Invaluable as a base for perfumes, of course. They stash large amounts of it in bank vaults and buy commodities abroad backed by the attar.”

Cliff said worriedly, “Trouble is, Homer, we’d soon have on hand all the gold, silver, and platinum in the world. These industrialized nations have to have copper, iron, bauxite, lead, zinc, just as badly as they have to have oil.”

And Homer said, “Don’t worry. We’ll be spending it as fast as we get it. We’ll maintain a balanced budget. We’ll expend each year on imports all that we take in on exports. We want no aid, particularly no military aid, and we want no long term credits. We’ll pay our way as we go. We’ll have temporary credits, working both ways, of course, since it would be difficult to handle international business otherwise.”

Bey said, “The way those trade delegations were beginning to swarm into the vicinity of Tamanrasset, even before we’d taken the town, we’re going to have to spend like crazy to keep up with them. What’ll we be buying?”

“One hell of a lot of things,” Homer told him, statisfaction in his voice. “Road making equipment, oil drilling and refining machinery, mining equipment from prospecting instruments to the most modern mining machinery.”

Kenny growled, “Why don’t we make our own?”

“Because the highly developed industrial nations can do it better and cheaper, they have the technology and the highly skilled engineers, technicians and workers. Later, as we get more settled in, we’ll import refining plants, smelting plants, so that instead of exporting crude oil, we’ll export gasoline and petrochemical products, and ingots of iron and aluminum, rather than iron ore and bauxite.”

Kenny was still in argument. “Why not put up plants to process the aluminum ingots? We could manufacture the products from it that are now being made in Common Europe, Japan and America.”

“Same answer,” Homer said. “Because they’re too far ahead of us already and there’s more than enough manufacturing capacity in the world; in fact, too much.”

Cliff said, “Once we get going, how about aid from us to the other developing countries?”

Homer said slowly, “I’d say, let’s see about that when the time comes but my first reaction is to hang back. Except in extreme cases, such as famine, I don’t believe in it. It doesn’t work, certainly not to the profit of the country getting the aid. The best example is the race between India and China. India, which hadn’t even been devastated by war, the way China was, got its independence about the same time China threw out Chiang Kai-Chek. India received billions from a dozen countries, particularly the United States and the Soviet Complex, in everything from outright grants to long term loans. At the end of thirty years, she was worse off than when she started and up to her ass in debt. China received practically no aid, except a little from Russia in the early years before she split with them. Instead, she put her people to work and at the end of thirty years China was a respected world power. She was no longer threatened with famine and flood. There was a network of railroads, roads and airlines linking the country. The warlords were a thing of the past and China was a single entity for the first time since Kubla Khan and the Mongols. No, I’m inclined to think that every time a developed country offers so-called aid to a developing one, they have some ulterior motive in the background. Backward countries need ‘aid’ from the rapacious advanced ones like they need an extra hole in the head.”

Bey said, “You know, talking about gold, it occurs to me that there’s possibly quite a bit of it in the realm-to-be of El Hassan. Since Carthaginian days the caravans from Timbuktu carried gold across the Sahara. Where did it come from? Where were the mines that the ancients drew their gold from in North Africa? Look at all the gold the Pharaohs had. Where’d it come from?”

Kenny said, “When we get back, we’ll send Cliff looking for it. He’s Vizier of the Treasury.”

Cliff ignored him and said to Homer, “We’ve been talking pretty fast and free about all these raw materials we are going to sell. But how about the companies that currently own them?”

Homer shook his head. “They’ve long since been nationalized, Cliff. When these pseudo-socialist governments took over, or the military dictatorships, the first thing they did was to confiscate national resources. When our people take over, in turn, from them, they remain the property of the state. And at this stage of the game, at least, we’re the state.”

A few miles to the west of Crawford and his hoverlorry a small convoy was approaching. It consisted of a hoverjeep and two desert lorries, with their outsized wheels, suitable for travel over the roughest reg and to some extent through the erg.

Sean Ryan and his company of mercenaries had picked the vehicles up in Adrar, one of the last oases of any size, as they headed down into the complete wastes. Uniforms and weapons, carefully hidden away, with the vehicles, in a small native warehouse, had also awaited them. The uniforms for the three officers were quite acceptable and typical of desert wear. Those of the men differed radically, and no two were exactly alike. For instance, pants ranged from the short-shorts affected by Israeli troops, to the below-knee length type the British customarily utilized in hot climates, to full length khaki or denim trousers usually seen on Americans. It was all part of the cover. They were supposedly a more or less unorganized group of mercenaries who had banded together to offer themselves as bodyguards to El Hassan.

Captain Raul Bazaine had supervized equipping the trucks and jeep. There were to be jerricans of petrol sufficient to take them half again as far as was necessary to get to the next point where fuel was available. There were jerricans of water sufficient for at least four gallons per person, each jerrican to be refilled every time water was available along the route. There were some ten shovels. There were tools and spare parts for each of the vehicles, from spare springs to spare carburetors. There were sufficient spare tires, mounted on wheels and attached to the sides of each vehicle, to have put an entire new set on each truck. On the roofs of the trucks were carried three types of sand mats to be put under the wheels, if a vehicle became stuck. One type was that most commonly used by desert trucks and were old sections of steel landing-strips, left over from the days of Rommel, Montgomery and Patton. There were also wire mats about twenty inches wide and fifteen or twenty feet long, and these could be rolled up and put on the luggage carriers. Finally, they had steel ladders, just long enough to fit between the front and rear wheels. When the back wheels climbed up on these, the driver was usually out of trouble. They also, of course, had a considerable supply of canned and dehydrated food, rations for at least a month.

The three vehicles, when underway, looked like a gypsy caravan, with pots, pans, jerricans, tires, tents and a multitude of other necessities bound everywhere there was an empty space. The jeep was monopolized by the officers and Meg, and ten of the mercenaries occupied each of the trucks. There was ample room; the vehicles were large as desert trucks went.

Sean, Bryan and Raul Bazaine had immediately contacted the two pilots awaiting them as soon as the group had gotten in from Algiers. They were French and Raul knew them both. Sean and Bryan instantly accepted them for what they were, pilot mercenaries. In fact, later, over wine in one of the canteens, they found that they knew a good many colleagues in common. It was a time for reminiscences and a time for the last drinks that Sean’s expedition would probably enjoy for quite a while. South of Adrar, there were precious few Europeans or other whites, and the Moslem doesn’t drink alcohol.

The hoverjet, carefully placed under canvas in an improvised hangar on the edge of the airfield, had proven satisfactory. It would most surely carry the full twenty-five of them if too much equipment wasn’t taken along. And they didn’t figure on carrying much equipment, save weapons, once the job was done. All else would be abandoned.

They headed southeast toward In Salah. The pilots reassured them about one thing they’d had in mind. It would hardly do for a convoy such as their own, twenty-five persons, all armed to the teeth, save Megan, all looking the tough customers they were, to be intercepted by the local military. But there evidently was no local military. The whole area was in a state of chaos. The Algerian government, in at least temporary confusion, was pulling its small outposts back further north. Too many had already defected to El Hassan. And although there were bands of El Hassan adherents here and there and the other place, they had not as yet coalesced to the point of taking over the few centers. No, twenty-four well-armed veterans had little to fear. Nevertheless, they kept on the alert.

Sergeant Lonzo Charles, now wearing a well-worn green beret, to the amusement of the others, drove. Megan McDaid, attired in a chic denim desert travel outfit from an Algiers shop, sat beside him. Sean Ryan and Bryan O’Casey were in the rear, their automatic rifles with their thirty round clips, handy. Raul Bazaine, who had taken on plenty of cognac the night before, was in the second truck, stretched out on several blankets and groaning his regrets. A hangover, Sean and Bryan had inwardly decided, must be something in this broiling sun. They felt virtuous, having stuck to the excellent Algerian wine the night before.

Lon Charles said over his shoulder, “Dust up ahead. Not much. Must be a single vehicle.”

It was the first traffic that they had thus far run into, though they had been some hours on the road.

Both Sean and Bryan quietly took up their weapons, checked them, threw cartridges into the firing chambers, and set the safeties, then put the guns down again.

Bryan said to the driver, “Remember what Captain Bazaine said. When you meet another vehicle in the desert, you always stop and exchange greetings, ask if they’re having any difficulties, and swap information on the road ahead.”

“Yes, sir,” Lon said.

The approaching vehicle turned out to be a moderate sized desert hoverlorry, containing four blacks, all dressed in khaki desert uniform rather than in native attire.

The small convoy dragged to a halt when it came abreast of the other vehicle and so did the hover-lorry.

A door in the lorry opened and a smiling head protruded from the driver’s side. It was a handsome negro, by the looks of him, somewhere in his early thirties. He said something in a language none of those in the jeep understood.

Lon Charles shook his head but grinned back in friendly fashion.

All four of the blacks in the lorry were in the wide front seat. One of them leaned over the driver a little and called out in French.

The three whites had that language, but Sean whispered, “Hold it. I’d like to know if they speak English.”

So Lon Charles called out, “Man, don’t you talk no English?”

All four of the hoverlorry occupants got out, stretching, and approached the jeep, smiling.

One of them said, “I speak English. How’s it going with yawl? Everything okay?”

“Sure,” Lon said. “We just come through Adrar this morning. Everything’s fine. You got lots of gas and water?”

“Yeah, thanks,” the other told him. “We’re having no trouble at all. And you folks’ll find the road fine between here and In Salah.”

Sean said, in a whisper, “Ask him the whereabouts of El Hassan.”

So Lon said, “Man, you wouldn’t know the whereabouts of El Hassan, would you?”

The other’s face went blank and he said, “Why would you enquire about El Hassan? May his life be as long and flowing as the tail of the horse of the prophet.”

“Oh, oh,” Bryan murmured. “El Hassan men.”

Lon said cheerfully, “We’re looking for to join up with him.”

The faces of the four blacks were empty, though not unfriendly. The speaker said, “But three of you, including the Sitt are white. And the others, back in the trucks?”

Lon said, “They’re white too. But we figure, before it’s all over, El Hassan is going to need all sorts.”

The other shook his head in disbelief but said, “The last we heard about El Hassan, he was in Tamanrasset, his new capital. It’s about a thousand kilometers and a spell from here but you can pick up any supplies you need in In Salah.”

The four returned to the hoverlorry and got back in and, after a friendly wave from the driver, the desert vehicle took off.

Before they started up again themselves, Sean said thoughtfully, “None of those four were Africans.”

Meg looked around at him. “How do you mean? They were all as black as Lon, here.”

Sean grunted acceptance of that but said, “Lon isn’t an African either. He’s an American. That chap who was speaking English had an American Southern accent you could hang your hat on.”

Bryan said, his head cocked questioningly, “And how about the others?”

Sean shook his head. “They all projected an—how would you put it?—an educated, sophisticated air.” He hesitated before adding, “And I’m after wondering if we just ran into El Hassan and some of his intimates.”

Bryan snorted. “Unescorted, out here in the wilds?”

Sean shrugged and said to Lon Charles, “Let’s get going, man dear.”

Further up the trail, Bey was saying to Homer Crawford, “What do you think?”

“Damned if I know. That black driver spoke with a New York or New Jersey accent. There must have been twenty-five or so of them altogether.”

“And from what I could make out of those in the trucks behind, as we passed, as tough a bunch as I’ve ever seen in Africa.” Kenny muttered. It had been he who had spoken to Lon Charles.

“Hell, it’s not important,” Cliff said. “Isobel and Guémamaa can handle them. There’s only twenty-five. They might have a couple of machine guns in those trucks, but certainly nothing heavier than that. One of our armored cars could do the lot in.”