The Best Ye Breed

XIII EL HASSAN

After Homer Crawford, Bey, Cliff and Kenny had bypassed Colum-Béchar, the largest town in the northern Sahara and the furtherest south the French had pushed their Trans-Saharan narrow gauge railroad, a century earlier, they headed eastward toward Figuig, the Mountains des Ksour—and Chaambra country. And now they dropped their attempts to keep secret their presence. It was necessary that they learn the whereabouts of Abd-el-Kader and of Elmer Allen, if he still survived.

There was no way to accomplish this without asking questions of every traveler they met, of every sedentary zenata working the date palms and gardens of the few and far between oases. They didn’t reveal their identity, but, on the other hand, there was no manner in which they could keep the locals from jumping to conclusions. They were going to have to move fast or the suspicions of their identity were going to filter through to Abd-el-Kader and his Chaambra and the four of them were in no position to meet head on, the full forces of the Ouled Touameur clan, not to speak of whatever other Chaambra elements he had already recruited to his horsetail banner and to the green pennant of the Moslem in jehad.

What they learned, bit by bit, was disconcerting.

Elmer Allen was indeed still alive, or, at least, had been so until quite recently. Abd-el-Keder had imprisoned him in a round iron birdcage-like affair in which it was impossible to either stand up, stretch out, or even sit. He was given a minimum of garbage in the way of food and enough dirty water to sustain life. The cage was portable and Elmer Allen was being hauled from town to town, from nomad encampment to oasis, and displayed to all as an example of the power of Abd-el-Kader, the newly proclaimed mahdi, and the weakness of the upstart, El Hassan. For here was his closest vizier, powerless before the strength of Abd-el-Kader.

Elmer, from the talks of those who had seen him thus displayed was philosophically enduring the camel dung, stones and mud thrown at him, along with the jeers and laughter at each stop. But Homer and his three companions all knew, inwardly, that it was only a matter of time. A man could not long survive out in the open sun in this climate without shade or headdress. Could not keep from coming down with hemma, one of the endemic fevers of the area, drinking such water and living in his own filth, since the cage, it was told, was never cleaned. Nor, for that matter, was it impossible that some enraged tribesman, perhaps seeking to gain merit in the eyes of the mahdi, might rush in near enough to the cage to spear or knife the prisoner, or even to crush in his head with a stone larger than those ordinarily thrown.

There was other news. The claim of Abd-el-Kader to be the newly arisen mahdi had spread over the northern Sahara and the African lands bordering the Mediterranean. And now to Chaambra country were pouring marabouts and khatibs, muezzins and ulemas, muftis and dervishes, imams, hezzabs and even some green turbaned ones of Shorfu blood, descendents of Hasan, son of Fatima, daughter of Mohammed. For while it is true that there is no equivalent to priests and clergymen in Islam, that is not to say there are no religious officials and holy men of every strata.

It was said to be the greatest djemaa el kebar ever known to man, nor was it only the usual council of elders and chiefs of the Chaambra but one which would be attended by all nomad leaders yearning to drink the milk of war against the false El Hassan, who, as all men knew, was a tool of the hated Roumi whites who would destroy the old ways of the desert.

At the last news, Homer looked thoughtful as they drove along.

He said, “I think I know where this djemaa el Kebar of Abd-el-Kader will be held. There’s a traditional oasis where the Chaambra tribes, the Mouadhi, Bou Rouba, Berazga and Ouled Fredj, meet every few years for a conference. It’s where we first came in contact with our boy, Adb-el-Kader. Not too long ago, at that. He was all hot to form raiding parties against the new dams, the afforestation preserves, the irrigation projects, roads and so forth. I was able to fox him with a bit of karate and haul him off to the slammer but we were hardly out of sight before the corrupt bastards in Colum-Béchar let him loose again.”

“Yeah,” Kenny said, “Bey and I were around, and Elmer and Abe Baker, for that matter. You think they’ll hold this new gathering there?”

“Almost sure to.”

“Now, wait a minute,” Bey said. “You’re not figuring on inviting yourself to that hoedown are you?”

Homer looked over at him. “That’s where Elmer’d be, cage and all.”

“Sure,” Bey said in disgust. “And every Moslem religious fanatic from Egypt to Morocco. They’d tear us apart. They know damn well that El Hassan, though giving lip service to Islam, is their kiss of death, if he ever comes to power.”

Homer said, without denial, “Our ultimate rejection of Mohammedism is a basic of the El Hassan movement. But at this stage we can’t do it openly. Actually, it will wither away eventually of its own accord. It’s already doing so. Among the educated elements in Tangier, Casablanca, Algiers, Cairo and the other centers they pretend to follow Islam but actually are no more Orthodox Moslems than the average educated American is a fundamentalist Christian. Who in America today believes literally in the books of Genesis? Only the most ignorant, largely located in the benighted Bible Belt of the South. And the Q’ran is even more nonsensical than the early chapters of the Bible. Let me see if I can quote that sutra describing Paradise, the Garden of Allah.

He narrowed his eyes and recited. “… the water of the brooks is never bad; the rivers of milk are always fresh; the rivers of wine are a delight; the rivers of honey are pure, the faithful lie on carpets of brocaded richness, and they are shaded by trees which let down their fruits of themselves. The just shall be served in silver goblets and served by boys eternally young; at their feet will run streams of limpid water; they will have as wives dedicated virgins with round breasts, big black eyes, and complexions like ostrich eggs hidden with care in the sand; and concubines specially created for them, having been touched by neither man nor genie .”

“Jesus,” Cliff muttered, “What does an ostrich egg hidden in the sand look like?”

Homer said, “Or that bit from Mohammed about women. God has created two things for the pleasure of man: woman and perfumes. Your women are your field. Go to your field and plough it as often as you like. How can one attribute to God, as his offspring, woman who, because of her lack of reason, is always ready to quarrel without motive?”

He snorted. “Now consider that crap. Obviously, the Islamic position on women, the fact that they have no souls, not having been created by Allah, and will hence not go to Paradise, but will be replaced there by houris, especially created for the men, is ridiculous. The Islamic position on women can’t endure in an advanced society. Women’s lib, in its time, will come to Islam as it did the West. And take that description of Paradise. It makes about as much sense as the Biblical one. Heaven with its streets of gold. Maybe that Paradise makes sense to an uneducated nomad, but to his city living, educated, sons and daughters?”

“All right, all right, so you’ve wooed us away from Islam, get back to the point,” Bey said. “We can’t go busting into that nest of fanatics, all four of us, and come out as anything more than chunks of meat to be eaten with the couscous.”

Homer said, “We have one advantage. El Aicha, the elder of the Ouled Fredj tribe, and, as such, the senior member of the djemaa el kebar, has no particular admiration for our boy Abd. He’s old enough to remember the French occupation and, seemingly, instinctively knows that the old days will never return. Remember, he sided with me, when I had my run-in with Abd-el-Kader, even lending me his sword? He’ll hold off the hotheads and crackpot religious leaders long enough for us to have our say.”

“Yeah,” Kenny said gloomily. “And then they’ll slit our throats. Or maybe not bother. Just hand us over to the womenfolk for the usual castration and related bits of torture, desert style.”

Homer said, “I’ve got the germ of an idea. Listen…”

Homer Crawford had been correct. The djemaa el Kebar was being held in the traditional location. But this one differed greatly from the one Crawford’s team had come up against the first time. It must have been three times the size, and it was obvious that at least half of the assembled tribes-men were other than Chaambra. Their tents spread out from the small oasis far into the desert and hammada, the rocky uplands between the mountains.

There were religious speakers everywhere, with varying sized crowds of listeners, the numbers seemingly dependent upon just how hysterical the marabout or muezzin might be. Those who frothed at the mouth, rolled their bloodshot eyes up to the point of disappearance and jerked uncontrollably, were highest in demand. As the Americans drove on, their windows rolled up to make identification more difficult, they even passed dancing, spinning and whirling dervishes, going through their ecstatic, violent dancing and pirouetting, together with howling dervishes with their vociferous chanting and shouting.

“Beats a state fair all hollow,” Cliff muttered unhappily. “Why the hell didn’t I become a garbage man like my sainted mother wanted? Do you know what a garbage man makes in San Francisco these days?”

Nobody bothered to answer him. Bey and Kenny looked as glum as he did. Homer was inwardly rehearsing his speech to come.

The djemaa el kebar pavilion, a large, ornate awning strung on a dozen sturdy posts, was located on the far side of the oasis, at a point where the craggy, black hammada came down to its edge. Heavy rugs covered the sands beneath it and leather hassocks, in yellow, green and red, those thick, heavy cushions preferred to chairs in desert lands, provided seating for the chiefs and other assembled dignitaries. Amidst the hassocks were scattered narghileh water pipes and brass dishes of dried dates for refreshment.

Obviously, the djemaa el kebar was already in session.

A considerable number of other vehicles were in the encampment, including desert trucks and buses, which had evidently brought in pilgrims and the curious from considerable distances, so the new vehicle was not as out of the way as all that, despite the fact that it was the only hoverlorry represented. The native-owned transportation was aged, rusted, weathered and battered.

Homer Crawford was able to drive up to the entry of the open pavilion, to stop there, drop the lift lever of the vehicle and let it flatten to the sand. The four of them got out, their Tommy-Noiseless, .10 caliber submachine guns, with their clips of two hundred rounds of high-velocity explosive shells, slung over their shoulders.

The entry was guarded by two Chaambra tribesmen. One bore a World War Two .30 caliber carbine. The other had an anachronistic muzzle loading musket with its six foot long barrel, made a century and more before to be especially adapted to firing from camel back. It would have brought several hundred dollars from any collector in Common Europe or America, enough to have bought the bearer a few of the latest model automatic rifles.

To the right of the entry, about ten yards, was the iron bird-cage the four newcomers had heard about. It was hanging from a wooden tripod of stakes dug into the sand, and in it was Elmer Allen. He was nude and filthy beyond description.

His head was bare to the Sahara sun and his cracked lips were thick with sun sores. His eyes were bleary with exhaustion but he was able to look up and mutter, “It’s about time you chaps got here.”

Homer Crawford could feel a well of nausea inside but he played the role of El Hassan and looked straight ahead. Bey gave Elmer a quick nod and Kenny gave him a wink which he probably couldn’t see, but no one spoke to him.

The two guards looked hesitant and confused at the determined march of the four and did nothing to halt them. Already a crowd was gathering behind, most of them armed warriors of the Chaambra. Within moments, there would be thousands. The murmur was going through them, El Hassan… El Hassan … El Hassan…

The chiefs and headmen of the djemaa el kebar, in session, were seated in a half circle. All of them were elderly, save one, all dressed in ceremonial desert garb. In the center position sat El Aicha. As a chief of Maraboutic ancestry and hence a holy man as well as the elder of the Ouled Fredj tribe of the Chaambra, he presided. So old as to look senile—he wasn’t, as Homer well knew.

But to his dismay, Homer Crawford recognized Abd-el-Kader seated in the place of honor next to El Aicha. This could only mean that his claim to being the mahdi was being recognized, or was about to be. The young warrior chieftain was attempting to suppress his satisfaction at seeing El Hassan and three of his closest adherents in this spider’s web. Abd-el-Kader was a perfect figure of desert man. His eyes were those of the Sahara hawk, piercing and aggressive. His posture was straight and strong. From his turban, white as the snows of the Atlas, to his yellow leather boots, he wore the traditional clothing of the Chaambra and wore them with pride. Beneath his white burnoose he wore a gandoura of lightweight woolen cloth and beneath that a longish undershirt of white cotton, similar to that of the Tuareg but with shorter and less voluminous sleeves.

Bey, Kenny and Cliff came to a respectful halt but Homer Crawford took another two steps forward. He touched forehead, lips and heart in the graceful gesture of greeting and said, “Aselamu, Alekum, O El Aicha, May your life be as long and lustrous as the beard of the Prophet.” He then turned to the chieftains to the left and right of the aged desert leaders and saluted them as well. “Ssalam-o ’alaykoom.”

El Aicha hesitated but then made standard greeting in reply. “Salaam Aleikum, O El Hassan, and what will you here at the great ekhwan of your… enemies?”

Homer looked at him evenly and said, “O El Aicha, as each man knows, there are no enemies of El Hassan amongst the true dwellers of the Sahara. Only a few false pretenders who stand in the way of the great movement to bind together all Ifriqiyah. And it is to confront such pretenders and great liars that El Hassan and his three most trusted viziers have come.”

Abd-el-Kader had had enough. His face suffused with anger now, he came to his feet. He said, snarl in his voice, “Verily, he who names himself El Hassan is audacious. Wallahi! But as all men can see, he has placed himself at the mercy of the Chaambra and who among us can feel mercy for this Son of Shaitan?”

Homer Crawford didn’t deign to look at him. Instead, his eyes were level on those of El Aicha. He said, “As before, O El Aicha, we demand the right of strangers in your camp to a trial by combat to determine who are false, El Hassan and his followers, or the self-proclaimed mahdi, who opposes the uniting of all the lands and the bringing of the blessings of Allah to all the people.”

Abd-el-Kader was furious. He well remembered his defeat at the hands of Crawford, his being humbled before his tribesmen of the Ouled Touameur clan.

“With what weapons?” he snapped.

Homer looked at him for the first time. “Verily, that is a problem. The last time we fought, it was with swords, a weapon of the past with which you are acquainted, as all men know, but with which I am but passingly familiar. But, to the other extreme, are my own weapons, which are the product of the new ways. Bismillah, thus be it. Verily, it is as unreasonable for you to attempt to fight with our weapons as it is for us to fight with yours. Observe, O chieftains of the desert.”

He stepped quickly to one side of the pavilion which faced upon the hammada. A hundred feet into the rocky area stood a lone gnarled baobab tree. Homer unslung the Tommy-Noiseless, switched it to full automatic, and cut loose. He was well aware that Abd-el-Kader and some of his warriors were equipped with automatic weapons, usually such as Sten guns and other left-overs from the wars of yesteryear. But they were unacquainted with such as the Tommy-Noiseless.

He fired a full hundred rounds of the tiny, explosive .10 caliber loads, in a Götterdammerung of sound that had even those veteran tribesmen, veterans of a hundred desert raids, wincing. And the hardwood tree, almost impossible to cut down with ordinary bedouin tools, became a heap of splinters and sawdust.

Homer reslung his gun, turned and shrugged hugely. “Bismillah,” he said. “A single such weapon could wipe away a whole harka of warriors. Verily, it would be unfair to use the weapons of El Hassan—with which all of his followers are rapidly being armed—as it would be to utilize the sword.”

El Aicha fingered his thin white beard, thus allowing himself to hide his amusement.

“Then what is the alternative, O El Hassan, provided that the djemaa el kebar agrees to your challenge?”

“That the contestants strip to the waist and unarmed enter the hammada. There they will meet in man to man combat and who issues forth is found the victor.”

Abd-el-Kader was no coward but he had witnessed before the abilities of this El Hassan to fight with hand and foot and wanted no more of it.

He said, contemptuously, “The mahdi does not descend to common brawl with every verminous black come out of the southern erg. I refuse to enter the hammada, stripped like an Ouled Nail prostitute. Instead, I shall summon my guards and we will dispose of these upstarts.”

A murmur went through the assembled chiefs and headmen and largely it was derogatory but none spoke up. The followers of Abd-el-Kader were on hand in their thousands.

It was Bey who stepped forward, his face expressing surprise, and saying, one hand lifted. “Verily, the, ah, mahdi, if mahdi he be, has misunderstood El Hassan and his challenge. El Hassan does not suggest that he meet the, ah, mahdi, in single combat. But that he and his viziers retire to the hammada and that the whole of the Ouled Touameur clan, which Abd-el-Kader leads, follow after them. And they who emerge will have triumphed, as will be obvious to all men.”

Silence fell like a curtain as the assembled djemaa el kebar, including El Aicha and Abd-el-Kadar, bug-eyed the four khaki clad black Americans.