Mack Reynolds: The Best Ye Breed

“Damned if I know,” Homer said. “Let’s see what’s going on.” He drove the hoverlorry toward the administration building.

Isobel came running out anxiously, to be followed at slower pace by Jimmy Peters.

The four emerged from the lorry and grinned at the girl.

She said, looking as though she didn’t know which one of them to grab and hug first, “You’re all right?” Her eyes went to Bey and they were wide. “You’ve been wounded. What happened?”

“I should have zigged instead,” he told her. “I’m all right.”

She grabbed Homer’s arms. “Elmer?”

He put his arms around her and bussed her firmly. “He’s in the back of the truck. Mostly exhaustion.”

Cliff said, “He’s eating us out of house and home. Where’s the Doc? Hey, how about me? I’ve known you longer than Homer has.”

Jimmy Peters came up with his shy, slow smile. “It’s about time you blokes got back. This place has become a bedlam. Elmer’s all right, what?”

Isobel said hurriedly, “I’ll get Doctor Smythe and a couple of nurses,” and started to turn.

But, from the back of the hoverlorry, Elmer said, “The hell with the bloody nurses—unless they’re good looking. I can walk.”

He had managed to get out of the desert vehicle from the rear. He looked emaciated, the appearance enhanced by the clothes Homer and the others had brought for him. They were several sizes too large and he looked like a black scarecrow.

They hurried toward him, Isobel and Jimmy Peters muttering soothing inanities.

Bey said, “Hey, here I am. I feel worse than he does. All’s wrong with him is he’s hungry and sleepy.”

They ignored him and shortly the whole group moved toward the administration building, Elmer being aided by Jimmy and Isobel.

Elmer grinned at her. “You look even better than I remembered, old girl. You haven’t got a friend have you?”

“Yes,” she said, “You. Oh, Elmer, you’re so thin!”

He grinned again, even as he stumbled along. He still didn’t have complete control of his legs, which had been cramped so long. He said mockingly, “Oh, indeed? I saw the way you leeched onto Homer.”

They disappeared into the administration building.

Across the square, in the door that led into the non-commissioned officer’ billets, Captain Bazaine watched. When they were gone, he turned and sauntered into the non-com mess where Sean Ryan and Bryan O’Casey were slumped in ennui over age-old copies of European magazines, largely French and German.

They looked up at his entry and Sean said, “Something new?”

“I think that El Hassan has appeared on the scene. It’s the same hoverlorry we passed on the other side of In Salah. There’s five of them now. Two seem wounded.”

The other two sat erect.

Sean’s eyes went right and then left as he considered it. He said finally, “We can’t push them. Tomorrow, we’ll check to find if it’s really El Hassan. What does he look like?”

Raul sank down into a chair. “I couldn’t tell which is which. They don’t act as though any single one is especially the leader. Two of them are big brutes. All blacks, of course.” There was the faintest of sneers on his Gallic face.

Bryan said, “Let’s find Lon and see if he located that spot north of town where we’ll make our stand until the plane comes.”

Raul nodded and said, “If there’s five of them now, most likely they rescued that follower who’d been captured up north. In which case, El Hassan’s stock in this part of the world will have zoomed. We had better get about our business before this whole area, including Adrar, with our helio-jet, goes over to him.”

Sean said, “Yes, damn it. But I’m thinking that we have to make doubly sure it’s really El Hassan, before we can move.”

In the morning, Sean Ryan strolled over to the administration building and to Isobel Cunningham’s office. He had a minimum of difficulty getting in to see her in spite of the fact that her reception room was packed with both European-suited whites, and native garbed tribesmen.

When her guards had passed him, he found her at her desk, looking, as usual, harassed with overwork. Her two secretaries didn’t even bother to look up at his entry. They were, at long last, beginning to get into routine.

Sean touched the bill of his cap with his swagger stick and told her good morning.

She nodded and said, “What can I do for you, Major?”

“The rumor has it that El Hassan has returned… with his viziers.”

“That is correct, Major.”

“Obviously, he must be up to his eyes in detail that has accumulated.”

“Yes. Obviously. Dakar has come over to us, which means all of Senegal. And such major towns as Colum-Béchar, Laghouat, Ouargla and Touggourt. Everywhere, El Hassan’s people are triumphant.”

Inwardly, Sean Ryan winced. Colum-Béchar was to the north of Adrar and quite considerably. However, he managed to smile and say, “Congratulations, but I am thinking that, if anything, he will more than ever need an adequate bodyguard.”

Isobel sighed and looked down at the sheafs of paperwork before her. She said, “He has been informed of your presence and proposition and undoubtedly will interview you within a few days.”

“Beggin’ your pardon, but… no sooner?”

“El Hassan is very busy, Major.”

He touched his swagger stick to his cap again, did an about face and left.

That night, the three mercenary officers and Sergeant Lon Charles were able to raise Saul Saidi on their tight-beam radio.

He listened to the news of El Hassan’s return and to their fears that their aircraft, their potential escape mechanism, would be overrun at Adrar.

He said impatiently, “Adrar is now in the hands of El Hassan’s adherents but we have established a safe cover. All is confusion and the pilots have managed to assure the local El Hassan heads that the helio-jet belongs to their supreme leader and that as soon as they receive word from him they are to fly it down to Tamanrasset.”

Sean said, “But the town it was to have taken us to is reported to have been overrun as well.”

Saidi said, impatience in his voice, “It is a long distance craft and capable of flying you all the way to Tunis or Tripoli. Get about your task before those cities too fall. The El Hassan movement is flooding north like a tidal wave. His presence is not even needed. The people are acting on their own initiative, in his name.”

When the Levantine had finalized his message, Sean flicked the set off and looked at the others. He growled, “I’m wishing the spalpeen himself was down here. It’s enough to choke the pooka.”

Lon Charles said, “Maybe we ought to call it quits, man. That greaseball don’t give a damn if we get out of here or not. Just so we lower the boom on this El Hassan.”

Bryan glowered at him. “Two hundred ounces of gold,” he said. “And another hundred and fifty for Meg. You know what that comes to in your American dollars? About seventy thousand, I’ve taken risks before, but never for anything like that much.”

Raul Bazaine flicked his cute mustache. “Ow!,” he said.

It was four anxious days later that the mercenary officers were summoned to the presence. A French speaking camelcorps man came to summon them.

They had been ready. In fact, they had been ready since Sean Ryan had seen Isobel Cunningham. They followed the Tuareg tribesman, as militarily spruce as they could make themselves.

As they proceeded over the sandy parade ground in the direction of the administration building, Sean said, out of the side of his mouth, “And where is the sergeant?”

Raul Bazaine said, “Without doubt, in the town, drinking that miserable date wine.”