The big Californian looked at him in pretended awe. "A poet no less,"

he said.

"Shut up," Homer said. "What's the news?"

The fact of the matter was, he was becoming increasingly impatient of the continual banter expected of him by Cliff and even the others. As original members of the team, they expected an intimacy that he was finding it increasingly difficult to deliver. Among other things, he wished that Cliff, in particular, would mind his att.i.tude when such followers as Guemama were present. The El Ha.s.san posture could be maintained only in never to be compromised dignity.

Bey had once compared him to Alexander, to Homer's amus.e.m.e.nt at the time. But now he was beginning to sympathize with the position the Macedonian leader had found himself in, betwixt the King-G.o.d conscious Persians, and the rough and ready Companions who formed his bodyguard and crack cavalry units. A King-G.o.d simply didn't banter with his subordinates, not even his blood-kin.

Cliff scowled at him now, at the sharpness of Homer's words, but he made his report.

"Our old pal, Sven Zetterberg. He's gone out on a limb. Because of the great danger of this so-far localized fight spreading into world-wide conflict--says old Sven--the Reunited Nations will not tolerate the combat going into the air. He says that if _either_ El Ha.s.san or the Arab Legion resort to use of aircraft, the Reunited Nations will send in its air fleet."

"Wow," Homer said. "All the aircraft we've got are a few slow-moving heliocopters that Kenny brought up with him."

Dave Moroka snapped his fingers in a gesture of elation. "That means Zetterberg is throwing his weight to our side."

Homer was on his feet. "Send for Kenny and Guemama and send a heliocopter down to pick up Bey and rush him here. He shouldn't be more than a day's march away. I wonder what Elmer is up to. No word at all from him. At any rate, we want an immediate council of war. With Arab Legion air cover eliminated, we can move in."

Cliff said sourly, "It's still largely rifles against armored cars, tanks, mobile artillery and even flame throwers."

All the old hands were present. They stood about a map table, Homer and Bey-ag-Akhamouk at one end, the rest cl.u.s.tered about. Isobel sat in a chair to the rear, stenographer's pad on her knees.

Bey was clipping out suggestions.

"We have them now. Already our better trained men are heading up for Tema.s.sinine to the north and Fort Charlet to the east. We'll lose men but we'll knock out every water hole between here and Libya. We'll cut every road, blow what few bridges there are."

Jack Peters said worriedly, "But the important thing is Tamanra.s.set.

What good--"

"We're cutting their supply line," Bey told him. "Can't you see?

Colonel Ibrahim and his motorized column will be isolated in Tamanra.s.set. They won't be able to get supplies through without an air lift and Sven Zetterberg's ultimatum kills that possibility. They're blocked off."

Jimmy Peters was as confused as his brother. "So what? to use the Americanism. They have both food and water in abundance. They can hold out indefinitely. Meanwhile, our forces are undisciplined irregulars.

We gain a thousand recruits a day. They come galloping in on camel-back or in beat-up old vehicles, firing their hunting rifles into the air. But we also lose a thousand a day. They get bored, or hungry, and decide to go back to their flocks, or their jobs on the new Sahara projects. At any rate, they drift off again. It looks to me that, if Colonel Ibrahim can hold out another week or so, our forces might melt away--all except the couple of hundred or so European and American educated followers. And, cut down to that number, they'll eliminate us in no time flat."

Homer Crawford was eying him in humor. "You're no fighting man, Peters. Tell me, what is the single most fearsome enemy of an ultra-mechanized soldier with the latest in military equipment and super-firepower weapons?"

Jimmy Peters was blank. "I suppose a similarly armed opponent."

Homer smiled at him. "Rather, a man with a knife."

The expressions of the Peters brothers showed resentment. "We weren't jesting."

"Neither was I," Homer rapped. He looked around at the rest, including Bey and Kenny. "What happens to a modern mechanized army when it runs out of gasoline? What happens to a water-cooled machine gun when there is no water? What use is a howitzer when the target is a single man in ten acres of cover? Gentlemen, have any of you ever studied the tactics of Abd-el-Krim or, more recently still, t.i.to? Bey, I a.s.sume you have."

He had their attention.

"During the Second War," Homer continued, "this Yugoslavian t.i.to tied up two n.a.z.i army corps with a handful of partisans--guerrillas. The most modern army in the world, the German Panzers, tried to ferret him out for five years, and couldn't. There are other examples. The Chinese operating against the j.a.ps in the same war. Or one of the cla.s.sic examples is Abd-el-Krim destroying two different Spanish armies in the Moroccan Rif in the 1920s. His barefoot men, armed with rifles, took on Primo de Rivera's modernized Spanish armies and trounced them."

Bey said, "Homer's right. Our only tactics are guerrilla ones."

Homer Crawford looked at Guemama, who had been standing in the background, unfamiliar with the language these others spoke, but holding his dignity. Crawford said, diplomatically, "And what sayest thou, O chieftain of the Tuareg?"

Guemama was gratified at the attention. He said in Tamaheq, "As all men know, O El Ha.s.san, we now outnumber by thrice the Arab _giaours_ may they burn in Gehennum. Therefore, let us rush in and kill them all."

Bey shuddered.

Homer Crawford nodded seriously. "Ai, Guemama, that would be the valorous way of the Tuareg. But the heart of El Ha.s.san forbids him to sacrifice the lives of his people. Consequently, we shall use the tactics of the desert jackal. Instruct those of your people who are most cunning, to infiltrate Tamanra.s.set in the night. Let them not carry arms for they may well be searched by the Arab _meleccha_."

The Tuareg chieftain was intrigued. "And what shall they do in Tamanra.s.set, El Ha.s.san? Suddenly seize arms, one night, and rise up in wrath against the Arab dogs and kill them all?"

Homer was shaking his head. "They will address themselves to the Haratin serfs and spread to them the message of El Ha.s.san. They will be told that in the world of El Ha.s.san each man shall be free to seek his own destiny to the extent his mind and abilities allow. And no man shall be the less because he was born a serf, and no man the more because he was born to wealth or power in the old days."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Aiii," Guemama all but moaned. "But such a message--"

"Is the message of El Ha.s.san, as all men know," Homer Crawford said flatly. He turned to Kenny Ballalou. "Kenny, take over this angle. We want as many propagandists in that town as possible. It's already choked with refugees, most of them not knowing what they're fleeing.

We might get recruits there, too. But mostly we want to appeal to the sedentary natives in town. They've got to get the dreams, too. Promise them schools, land ... I don't have to tell you."

"Right," Kenny said.

Isobel said, "Maybe I ought to get in on this, too. The women might do a better job than men on this slant. It's going to take a lot to get a Tuareg bedouin to sink to talking to a Haratin on an equal basis."

Bey and Homer had bent back over the maps, but before they could get back into the details of guerrilla warfare against Colonel Ibrahim and his legionnaires, they were halted by a controversy from without.

"What now?" Homer growled. "This camp is getting to be like a three-ring circus."

The entrance flap was pushed aside and three of Bey's Sudanese tribesmen half escorted, half pushed a newcomer front and center.

It was Fredric Ostrander, natty as usual, but now in khaki desert wear. He was obviously in a rage at the three rifle-carrying nomads who had him in charge.

Bey spoke to the Teda warriors in their own tongue. Then to Homer in Tamaheq, which he a.s.sumed the C.I.A. man didn't know, "They picked him up in the desert in a hover-jeep. He was evidently looking for our camp." He dismissed the three bedouin with a gesture.

Ostrander was outraged. He snapped at Homer Crawford, "I demand an explanation of this cavalier attack upon--"

His face expressionless, Homer held up a hand to quiet the smaller man. He looked at Jack Peters and raised his eyebrows. "_Kion li la fremdul diras?_"

Jack, serious as ever, replied in Esperanto, then turned to the American C.I.A. man and said, "El Ha.s.san has requested that I translate for him. He speaks only the official language of North Africa to foreign representatives. Undoubtedly, sir, you have proper credentials?"

Had Fredric Ostrander been of lighter complexion, his color would have undoubtedly gone dark red.

"Look here, Crawford," he snapped. "I'm in no mood for nonsense. The State Department has sent me to your headquarters to make another attempt to bring some sense home to you. As an American citizen, owing alliance--"

Homer Crawford spoke in Esperanto to Jack Peters who nodded seriously and said to Ostrander, "El Ha.s.san informs you he owes alliance only to the people of North Africa whose chosen leader he is."