Homer said, “Counting the two hundred you’ve captured, about a thousand.”
Bey stared at him. “A thousand! Out of the whole regiment and all the auxiliaries Ibriham brought down with him? That’s all that’s left?”
Homer shook his head. “The rest have defected to El Hassan.”
And Bey said indignantly, “Well, let ’em defect back again. Who in the hell wants a few thousand Arab Union legionaires behind their back? What would we do with them?”
But El Hassan was still shaking his head. “It’s one of the best propaganda bits that have dropped into our laps. How will it look in the world press when the word goes out that thousands of Arab Union troopers have gone over to us? We’ll do the same with them as the Romans used to do. If a bunch of German mercenaries came over to them, they shipped them down as garrison troops in Egypt. If a few thousand Syrians offerd their services, they sent them to Spain, and so on. That’s what we’ll do. We’ll send elements of these Arab Union soldiers down south, to Chad, Senegal, Nigeria, or wherever, under Ifriqiyah officers, of course, and garrison them down there.”
Bey said, “How about the other thousand who didn’t defect? We haven’t the food and water for them to keep them indefinitely in a prison camp. For that matter, we haven’t enough food and water for our own men. We’re up to our eyebrows in warriors from all over half North Africa, I mean Ifriqiyah.”
Homer said, “I’d say, subject to vote, of course, to send them back on foot to the Arab Union accompanied by enough trucks and ambulances to carry supplies, water, and their wounded. We’ll accompany them as far as, say, Ghadames, and let the Arab Union take over from there.”
Kenny grumbled, “And give them the chance to come back and fight us again, some day?”
It was the wiry Rex Donaldson who laughed at that. “Those poor blokes, after the fight they’ve had and after trekking half a thousand miles across the ergs on foot, couldn’t be talked into coming down here again by the silver-tongued Demosthenes.”
Isobel said slowly, thoughtfully, “Besides, they’ll spread around to their villages, their towns and cities and the word will go out that far from being massacred by El Hassan, as they deserved, they were treated for their wounds, and sent home with ample food and water. Someday, sooner or later, we’re going to have to take all of North Africa, including those areas now in control of the Arab Union. It won’t hurt for the people to know that they have nothing to fear from El Hassan, that he comes to liberate, not suppress.”
That decision passed. They sat back and thought some more.
Homer said finally, “We’re going to have to issue an Ifriqiyah Monroe Doctrine. No North African borders are to be altered through foreign intervention. No foreign military units are to be allowed in North Africa.”
Cliff took him in skepticaly and said, “But we’re the ones who are changing the borders. Hell, we’re assimilating whole former countries. Chad just came over, lock stock and barrel.”
Bey was surprised. “When?”
“Just this morning. The military dictatorship in the capital N’Djamena, they used to call it Fort Lamey, was overthrown bloodlessly.” Cliff shrugged his huge shoulders. “And the mobs opted for El Hassan.”
Kenny said, “That’s going to be a problem. Half the nomads down there are starving to death. As soon as we can, we’re going to have to spend some of this mineral wealth money we’re being begged to accept, on trucking in massive relief to the area.”
“That’ll come,” Homer agreed. “This Ifriqiyah Monroe Doctrine thing. It’ll apply to foreign non-North African, powers. Not to us. It was the same with the American Monroe Doctrine. It didn’t apply to the United States. It sent its troops in whenever it wanted. When Napoleon the Third sent French forces into Mexico to support the French puppet Emperor Maximilian, the Americans were embroiled in the Civil War. But as soon as it was over, the United States turned a baleful eye on old Napoleon and he got out in a hurry, leaving Maximilian in a lurch. But we Americans invaded Mexico and interfered with her internal affairs so often you’d think there was a revolving door on the border. We took the best territories they had, including Texas and California. The same with Cuba. We kept our troops there until everything on the island worth owning belonged to American corporations and the following governments, even after the troops left, were kept under our thumb, until Castro, that big villain, came along. Or look at Panama. It used to be part of Colombia, but when Colombia balked at some of the arrangements for a canal, the first Roosevelt backed a revolution in Panama and the Colombians were forced to cede the area. Then there were countries such as Nicaragua, Haiti, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic. Joining the American Marines was like getting a conducted tour of Latin America.”
“All right, all right,” Cliff said. “I’m in favor. An Ifriqiyah Monroe Doctrine. We take umbrage at any foreign troops in North Africa and any attempts to change any borders—except when we do it.”
The motion was carried.
They hadn’t worked out a constitution, as yet, but automatically they had fallen into a system where all votes were of equal value, including that of El Hassan himself.
Bey said then, “We’ve still got the problem of all these followers of El Hassan. We haven’t the resources to keep them in arms. Besides, they’re needed at home to take care of the flocks and to farm the oases, keep their embryo industries going, and, above all, to work in the new mines, on the irrigation projects, the dams and all the rest of the new developments. Besides that, with so many of them away, who knows what kind of banditry is going on back on their home territories?”
Homer considered it.
He turned finally to Isobel and said, “Take some notes on instructions to Guémama upon his return. He is to carefully select one thousand of the best warriors of all now gathered, who will serve as El Hassan’s elite corps. They must be of the type who are cool in combat and don’t froth at the mouth. They are to be of the type who can take orders and obey their officers. Preferably they are to be veterans who have possibly served in the past under the French, British or Spanish and hence know the workings of modern weapons. Especially to be located are those who can drive and repair vehicles. He is to seek these out and, with the assistance of those among them who were formerly non-coms in the foreign armies, begin their training, until the return of El Hassan and Bey-ag-Akhamouk, his Vizier of Defense.”
Isobel shot a quick look at him, but continued with her notes.
Homer went on, “Also he is to recruit goums, camel patrols, of twenty men each. And each of these are to be led by a responsible mokkadam, undivided in his allegiance to El Hassan and Ifriqiyah. These small harkas will be mounted upon hejin racing camels and will be the equivalent of the former Méharistes, the Desert Camel Corps of the Roumi. They shall patrol all the domains of El Hassan and protect the land from those who would raid, especially those who would attack the new irrigation works, the afforestation projects and so forth which El Hassan sponsors.”
He thought for a moment, then added, “Most likely, these goums will consist largely of the Tuaghi, since they know best the Sahara, but other capable warriors will not be excluded.” He paused again, before finishing up. “All others, after these have been selected, will return to their homes, until summoned again by El Hassan and they will carry the message of El Hassan wherever they go, to their own people, and all others.”
Bey scowled and said, “What the hell’s all this about?”