Mack Reynolds: The Best Ye Breed

One of the newsmen said, “Why particularly the northern machine gun emplacement? That southern one looks weaker.”

Bey said, “Because their aircraft will probably come in from the north. We want to get at least one of the flac rifles in place to greet it.”

Meg came up to Homer Crawford. She and Doctor Smythe had improvised a field hospital including ten cots and an operating table. She said, an element of pathos in her voice, “My… fiancé is the tall one.”

Homer looked at her and said, “Yes, we know, Meg. And assume that he would have taken measures to attempt to prevent them from using the fission weapons.”

She turned and went back to Doctor Smythe who stood there at the cots, scowling at the prospect of more bloodshed. He had three teams of stretcher bearers on hand.

Guémama and his Tuaghi started over the rugged reg at a trot, spreading out as they went. Bey followed, half way between the two groups. He was armed solely with a holstered pistol. In his hands he carried a bull-horn.

One of the photographers, gathering up his equipment, said to Homer, “What’s that thing for?”

“He’ll be able to keep in touch with the riflemen as they advance.”

“Anything he says into that will be heard by the other side too.”

Homer smiled grimly, “I doubt if any of them speak Tamaheq.”

He slung the heavy flac rifle over a shoulder and motioned with his head to his ammunition carrier. Cliff, armed with a sniper’s rifle, complete with telescopic sight, took his place about ten meters to one side. He was Homer’s immediate cover, as Lon Charles was Kenny’s.

A movie photographer with a hand-held camera started after Homer and his two assistants. He was very nattily dressed in sports clothes, a sun helmet on his head.

Homer stopped and said, “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

“With you.”

“It’s going to be a little hot where I’m going.”

The photographer looked him in the face and said, “It’s my job, Doctor Crawford. I’m from CBS.” He couldn’t have been more than in his mid-twenties.

Homer shrugged it off wearily and started ahead. “I hope you’re more experienced than you look,” he said. “Keep as near to the ground as you can get—whether you’re on your feet, running, or on your belly, crawling.”

Isobel came running up. She grabbed him quickly, missed his mouth and ran her kiss along his cheek. “Come back, Homer.”

He grinned a tense grin at her. “I’ll have to,” he told her. “I’ve got some unfinished business. You.”

He turned and headed after Bey’s men, bent low. Cliff flanked him to the right, running the same way. The posture of combat men running toward fire.

In the distance ahead, a machine gun stuttered. The Tuaghi skirmishers melted into the landscape, behind rock or desert bush, or into gullies.

“They’re just finding the range,” Homer called over to Cliff.

Fifteen minutes later, the three of them, including Homer’s ammunition carrier, were in a small wadi, peering over its rim. The desert seemed empty before them. They could hear Bey’s voice boom through the bull-horn. To the far left, a tribesman suddenly broke from his cover, scurried forward a few meters, and flopped behind a large boulder.

They were inching forward, crawling, wriggling on their bellies, making quick dashes. So far, so far as they knew, no casualties had been sustained.

Homer muttered, “That Major Ryan isn’t as sharp as the sergeant seemed to think. He shouldn’t move any of his heavy guns, but he could bring more of his riflemen over to this end of his entrenchments. At this stage, they’d probably be more effective than the machine guns.”

Cliff said, “Maybe Lon was right about that cognac. I wish the hell I had a nip of it right now.”

“Come on,” Homer said. “Let’s make a run for that next depression. We’re getting within range now. And by this time they’ve spotted the fact that we three, and probably Kenny’s crew, are carrying something bigger than a rifle. They’ll be laying for us.”

They sprinted for the hole he had indicated and barely made it. Slugs whistled above them.

“They’re experienced all right,” Homer muttered. “And damned good marksmen with that gun.”

To their right, a Tuareg jumped to his feet and made a dash and flopped down on his belly. The enemy gun had chattered again.

“They’re not being careful with their ammo,” Cliff said. “They must have plenty. Aren’t we near enough to take a pot at them with your flac rifle?”

“No,” Homer said, gauging the distance.

Cliff wriggled a bit higher and peered through his telescope. He adjusted it carefully, threw a cartridge into the breech, took his time aiming and squeezed off a round.

Homer looked over at him.

Cliff grinned and said, “They’re damn well dug in, but I just thought I’d remind them to keep their heads down.”

They could hear Bey’s voice booming over the reg again. Far to the left, they saw Kenny, his Tuareg ammunition carrier and Lon Charles, make a dash. They flopped down in a small cloud of dust.

“Jesus,” Cliff said in alarm. “Did one of them take a hit?”

Homer brought up his binoculars. “No. But they’re getting closer faster than we are. Let’s get to that next clump of rocks.”

“Wait a minute,” a voice from behind them said, short of breath. It was the photographer, who had been squirming along behind, ignored. His sports clothes were a rumpled and torn mess.

Homer and Cliff stared at him.

He said, bringing up his camera, “How about letting me get a few feet of El Hassan and his Vizier of the Treasury in action?”

Cliff closed his eyes and shook his head. He said. “What a way to make a living. Should I say cheese?”

Homer Crawford, his face in exhaustion, stood on the ridge of the rectangle and stared out over it. His flac rifle had fallen to the ground beside him. Cliff sat on the sand and gravel, panting, and wiping sweat from his face and neck with a dirty handkerchief.

Before them was devastation. The burnt-out helio-jet was still smoldering at one end of the entrenchments, so near one of the machine gun nests that it had almost crashed atop it. In the enclosure, one of the lorries was also burning and the jeep was a shot-up wreck.

About a dozen of the mercenaries were gathered together, those still standing, with their hands behind their necks. The others, wounded, sat or were stretched out on the sand. The remaining of Guémama’s camelmen, jubilant, were about them, jeering and sometimes mockingly threatening them with their rifles or arm daggers.

Jeeps and trucks from the fort were beginning to arrive, their occupants in high excitement.

Isobel came hurrying up the hill to them. She stopped before Homer, checked quickly with her eyes to see that he was all right and then Cliff. Relief swept over her face.

“What happened?” she gasped.

“They caved in after Kenny hit the rescuing aircraft with a couple of bursts,” Homer said. “But it was all over anyway.”

Isobel said, in a gush, “Homer, it’s the happy ending. The radio says that Casablanca, Rabat, Algiers and even Tunis have all declared for El Hassan.”

Homer shook his head wordlessly.

Kenny trekked up the hill from below and stood for a moment, catching his breath. One of his arms was in an improvised sling. Doctor Smythe and Meg McDaid hadn’t arrived as yet.

Homer said to him, “How many casualties?”

Kenny Ballalou took a deep breath and got out, “Three of the Tuaghi dead, seven more took hits, most of them not too bad. And… Guémama took his final one when he rushed that machine gun with his grenades. But I guess you saw that in your binoculars.”