Elmer took several mouthfuls but then snarled, “Fer… fer… crissakes, give a… a chap something to sink… sink his teeth into. I’ve been… been eating camel dung, or what… whatever it was, for donkey’s years.”
The others laughed and Cliff went back to his stove.
Elmer looked over at one of the army cots which had been set up and got out, “I say. I… haven’t really slept since they… they put me in that portable med… medieval torture chamber.”
Cliff said, “Get this stew down and we’ll tuck you into beddy-by.”
Elmer snarled at him and then looked accusingly at Homer Crawford. He said, “What… what in the hell took you so long to clobber those blokes?”
Homer said, humorously placating, “There were twenty-one of them altogether and we didn’t want to hurt our fists.”
Later, when Elmer was snoring in complete exhaustion on the army cot tucked away in one corner of the not overly large hut, Homer, Bey, Kenny and Cliff sat around the folding camp table, finishing their own meal.
Kenny said, “What now?”
And Homer said slowly, poking at his stew with his fork, “We’ll address the djemaa de kebar tomorrow. Present a program for their spreading the word of El Hassan in this area, then make with a quick inspirational, slogan-shouting, address to the assembled multitude, and take off south.”
Bey made a motion of his head toward Elmer. “How about him?”
“We’ll rig up a bed in the back of the lorry. If it looks too tough for him, we’ll camp out in the boondocks somewhere until he’s more nearly recovered.”
Cliff said, “Why not take Elmer to Colum-Béchar and get him into a hospital? One of us could stay to watch over him and the rest could go on.”
Homer thought about it but shook his head. “No. Double reason. Colum-Béchar isn’t in our hands yet. There might be elements that would shoot their way into the hospital and finish you both off—not necessarily local people. The whole damn Reunited Nations has taken a preliminary stand against us, not to speak of the Arab Union. And not to speak of any remnant followers of our chum the mahdi—if any. Besides, it wouldn’t do for word to go out that one of El Hassan’s viziers was in hospital. El Hassan’s viziers are too tough to ever have to go to a hospital.”
Bey looked over at the door, which consisted of a soiled piece of homespun hanging like a curtain. He said, “We’d better take turns as guards tonight. It seems a remote chance, under the prevailing circumstances, but it’s possible that Abd-el-Kader, or some of his lads, might come a-calling. I’ll stand first watch for three hours.”
“Sounds like a good idea,” Homer said. “I’ll stand second watch.”
Bey shook his head. “Nope, not you. No one should see you doing guard duty. You’re El Hassan. I’ll wake Cliff in three hours.”
Cliff said, “Dammit, when we started this outfit why didn’t we pick me as El Hassan, instead of Homer? Hell, I’m bigger than he is.”
Bey snorted and picked up his Tommy-Noiseless and turned toward the door.
Kenny swatted at his arm and snarled, “A mosquito. How in the devil do mosquitos get onto these oases, five hundred miles into the desert?”
Cliff said, “They carry canteens.” He looked about the hut. “This is going to be some night. Sandflies, ticks, fleas, scorpions…”
“Scorpions!” Kenny protested. “I’m allergic to scorpions. Even the little ones make me break out in hives.”
“Well, start breaking then,” Cliff said sourly. “Didn’t you see those Saharan chickens running around the settlement? They keep them to scratch up and eat the sand scorpions. Otherwise these damn oases would be unliveable.”
“You mean they’re liveable now?” Kenny growled. “Hell, I’d rather live in Hoboken.”
Homer, Cliff and Kenny were just beginning to slip from their shoes, preparatory to knocking off, when Bey stuck his head through the door’s curtain and said, ironically, “Visitor.” He added in a lower voice, “He speaks Esperanto, the legal language of El Hassan’s domains.” He stuck a hand through the curtain and tossed a pistol onto the camp table. It had an oversized clip.
Homer looked down at it. “A Tokarev. Polish model,” he said. He looked up at Bey. “Wait a minute, then show him in. This is interesting.”
Homer, Cliff and Kenny shuffled back into their shoes and sat behind the camp table, Homer in the middle.
Bey held the curtain aside and a stranger entered. The three took him in.
The newcomer wore the Libyan tarboosh on his head and the white toga-like barracan, of that country, the ends of which were thrown over the left shoulder, toga-style.
He made the standard Arabic obeisance and said, in halting Esperanto, “I am Hassan el Akhdar of Tripoli and seek audience and to offer my services to El Hassan.”
The three looked at him for a long moment.
Finally, Kenny, to Homer’s left, said, also in Esperanto, “If it would suit you, make you more at your ease, you may address El Hassan in Russian.”
The other couldn’t help stare at him. “Russian!”
Kenny sighed and said, “You say you are from Tripoli but you wear the barracan prevalent in the Wadi Rumia of the Gebel country of the Fezzan. On top of which, you speak Esperanto, although admittedly, haltingly, as though you have been given a crash course. There are no scholars in the Gebel. In fact, I doubt if there’s anybody who can read in the Gebel. As one who has in his time studied anthropology, I would say that in spite of your complexion, which resembles that of an Ethiopian Hamitic tribesman, your skull shape leads me to suggest that you are either of Russian or Finnish ancestry. I can think of no reasons why the Finns would be interested in El Hassan.”
Colonel Serge Sverdlov took a deep breath, even as he inwardly cursed the inefficiency of the KGB department in charge of his cover. They should have come up with something else, obviously knowing practically nothing about the interior of North Africa.
However, his expression didn’t change. He said, in Russian, “Then El Hassan speaks Russian? I am admittedly surprised.”
Cliff Jackson said, offhand. “El Hassan speaks every language on Earth—of course.”
The colonel stared at him. Was the man a clown, to expect him to believe that?
But it was then that Homer Crawford spoke up for the first time. He said mildly, in Russian, “I note that you have the Leningrad accent. Please forgive me if I am hesitant in your idiom which is quite picturesque.”
Indeed, Homer Crawford was quite a linguist; aside from an imposing selection of Sahara tongues, including various lingua franca such as Swahili, Wolof of Senegal and Songhoi of the Niger bend, he also had excellent French and Spanish and a smattering of German. But, as a coincidence in this meeting, Russian—as Cliff knew—had especially intrigued him in college and he had taken four years of it. One of his favorite instructors had been from Leningrad.
The other was obviously taken aback.
Homer said politely, “Please draw up the other camp chair, there, and tell us that which you desire. We have had various other representatives from the Soviet Complex attend on us, but, admittedly, none so interestingly attired and disguised.”
Still cursing inwardly, Serge Sverdlov drew up the indicated folding chair. He’d probably be roasted for this fiasco, back in Moscow, but what had the fools expected, from Minister Kliment Blagonravov right on down? And especially Menzhinsky, in Tangier, who was supposedly an expert on North Africa. Though, admittedly, how in the name of Lenin could he be expected to know how they dressed in the Wadi Rumia of the Gebel country of the Fezzan, such information as was seemingly held in detail by El Hassan’s immediate group?
His cover was obviously already blown to the skies. All he could do was improvise.