Mack Reynolds: The Best Ye Breed

“Very well. Then the point remains that North Africa is not as yet ready for the communist movement. It does not as yet have the foundations. Even those comparatively advanced countries such as Algeria. They have far, far to go. Indeed, in some parts of the interior, feudalism and even elements of slavery still exist.”

“So what are we to do, at this stage?”

Blagonravov nodded before finishing off his latest vodka. He said, “It is the belief of the Central Committee and Number one, that this El Hassan, evidently a charismic character beyond the ordinary, can bring advance to North Africa more quickly than the largely corrupt and opportunistic military elements now in control. Our present line, then, is to support him. Let him come to power. Let him utilize whatever forces he can bring to bear, including the cooperation of the Reunited Nations, to bring North Africa into the 21st Century. When he has done so, then North Africa is ready for our propaganda.”

“I see,” the colonel said.

“That was the task of Comrades Baker and Anton before you. They gave their lives for the world revolution. You are to take their places.”

Serge Sverdlov frowned. “Nothing more?”

“Yes, something more. You are to insinuate yourself into their inner circles as Anton did. Work your way as close to El Hassan himself as is possible. When you are well established, then we will infilter other Party members and you will make every effort to make them prominent in the government of El Hassan as well. This will continue, indefinitely, and until the day arrives when we will be ready for our coup d’état and take over.”

The other stared at him. “But Comrade, I am a white man. El Hassan proclaims the black, the Hamitic, the dark skinned Arabs and Berbers. The Caucasians are an anathema.”

Blagonravov laughed his humorless, heavy laugh.

“My dear Serge, you are unacquainted with the latest in cosmetic surgery and related sciences. We have drugs today which can change the pigmentation of your skin—it is reversible, of course, and you can change back later. We will not make you as black as a Senegal or Bantu, but you will be as dark as the average member of El Hassan’s immediate clique. Seemingly, ah, touched with the tar brush, as the American Southeners say. Your somewhat too light hair will be cut short and dyed black. You will have a supply of dye to renew the treatment as often as necessary.”

The minister laughed with heavy joviality. “My dear Serge, you are about to become a nigger.”

They had cornered the remnants of the forces of Colonel Midran Ibrahim, of the Arab Union, in a wadi, not far north of Tazerouk which boasted one of the few wells of potable water which the colonel’s forces had still held at the time Fort Laperrine and Tamanrasset had been taken by storm by the Taughi and other rampaging tribesmen of El Hassan.

The more proper name of a wadi is oued since it implies a fissure in the earth which channels off water when there is any and that is seldom in the Ahaggar, the land of the Tairog Tuareg and possibly the most desolate area on earth save Antarctica. When the occasional deluges of rain precipitate—and there can be years between when not a single drop is seen—the wadi becomes a rushing river, sweeping everything before it and woebetide he so foolish as to have placed his encampment at its bottom. Otherwise, it is dry, baked hard by the sun, and for this reason often used as a road through the erg, the shifting sand dunes of the Sahara, or the reg, the areas of the desert covered by gravel. The wadis split up the land into deep, and sometimes wide, cracks and fissures and are somewhat the equivalent of the arroyos of the American Southwest and of Mexico.

Bey-ag-Akhamouk and Kenny Ballalou, both of El Hassan’s immediate staff, with a force of local Tuaghi and Teda tribesmen from the south were having little in the way of difficulty. The Egyptian colonel, obviously shaken by his defeat and trying desperately to escape north, had entered the wadi to obtain greater speed. He had a half dozen desert lorries, two hover jeeps and two light armored cars. Bey and Kenny were not sure of the exact number of infantrymen, but it probably numbered several hundred. Certainly, no more.

They were whip-lashing the Arab Union force, up and down the wadi for a distance of approximately a kilometer. Bey-ag-Akhamouk, with a flac rifle and two heavy machine guns and perhaps a score of riflemen, were dug in beyond a bend in the wadi, to the south. Behind another bend to the north was Kenny Ballalou with another flac rifle, another machine gun and another score or so of tribesmen.

The flac rifle was probably the most universal hand portable firearm ever devised. It combined the virtues, if virtues they could be called, of the recoilless light cannon, the bazooka, the heavy machine gun, and a light anti-tank gun. The clip held twenty rounds, which were armor piercing and explosive. Short of a heavy tank, they would take any motorized military vehicle. And the ergs of the Sahara do not lend themselves to even medium tanks, not to speak of heavy ones.

In short, the flac rifles were competent to hold anything that Colonel Midran Ibrahim had at his command.

Almost from the moment the ambush was sprung, the Arab Union forces dissolved into hysteria. They had already been fleeing for long hours from the debacle they had left behind them, in terror of being flushed by the hordes of Tuaghi camelmen. The Tuareg! The Forgotten of Allah! The Apaches of the Sahara! The Sons of Shaitan! And El Hassan’s most devoted followers—to a man. The Arab Union trucks were insufficient to carry more than their water and supplies and a few wounded officers. Their tanks, their artillery, the gun carriers, the Soviet Complex equipment that had been their pride as the crack regiment of the Arab Union, had all been abandoned at Fort Laperrine and Tamanrasset. They were fugitives in an area that has been named the end of the world and their refuge was the better part of a thousand miles to the northeast.

For the first hour or two, Bey and Kenny had whip-sawed them back and forth, up and down the wadi. Spurred on by officers and non-coms almost as terrified as they were themselves, the Arab Union soldiers would charge up the wadi, only to be met by a curtain of fire they could not resist. Back they would head in the opposite direction, only to be met at the next bend by another sheet of flame.

Individuals and sometimes small groups would attempt to scale the wadi banks but to do so they could carry with them naught but holstered handguns, or rifles or submachine guns slung over their shoulders, their hands needed to climb. At the top they would be knocked off as soon as they appeared by Bey-ag-Akhamouk’s snipers, settled comfortably behind rocks or thorny bush. The tribesmen were at a pinnacle of glee. Now this was the manner in which to fight the Arab Union and the Arabs who for long centuries had come south to conduct their razzias , to round up the men to be herded north for the slave markets, to violate the women and steal the goats and camels. “Yes, this was the way to fight them, rather than to dash wildly into the fire of their automatic weapons, their tanks, or to submit to the bombings of their aircraft. Wallahi! But El Hassan and his viziers would sweep the Sahara of the troops of the Arab Union and bring the Peace of Allah to all.

Bey groaned inwardly. Like the veteran combat man he was, he did not like indiscriminate, useless slaughter. Victory was necessary but to the extent possible the fewer casualties inflicted the better. But he knew why the crazed enemy failed to surrender, though confronted with an impossible situation. They were more terrified of falling into the hands of the Tuaghi alive than they were of death. They, when they were successfully advancing across the Sahara, in their strength, with the support of their armor and motorized artillery, had not conducted themselves exactly as benevolent liberators.