"Espionage, Dave says. He's afraid some of these characters might be
in with the Arab Union and inform on us."
"Well, that makes some sense," Homer nodded.
"Does it?" Isobel grumbled.
He shot an irritated glance at her again and said impatiently, "Can't
the poor guy do anything right?"
"My woman's intuition is working," Isobel grumbled.
* * * * *
Dave Moroka came into headquarters tent without introduction. He was
one of the half dozen who had permission for this. He had a sheaf of
papers in his left hand and was frowning unhappily.
"What's the crisis?" Homer said.
"Scouts coming up say your pal Bey-ag-Akhamouk is on the way.
Evidently, with a big harka of Teda from the Sudan."
"Great." Homer crowed. "Now we'll get going."
"Ha!" Dave said. "From what we hear, a good many are camel mounted.
How are we going to feed them? Already some of the Songhai Kenny
brought up from the south have drifted away, unhappy about supplies."
"Bey's a top man," Homer told him. "The best. He'll have some ideas on
our tactics. Meanwhile, we can turn over most of his men to one of the
new recruits, and head them down to take Fort Lamy. With Fort Lamy and
Lake Chad in our hands we'll control a chunk of Africa so big
everybody else will start wondering why they shouldn't jump on the
bandwagon while the going is good."
Dave said, "Well, that brings up something else, Homer. These new
recruits. In the past couple of days, forty or fifty men who used to
be connected with African programs sponsored by everybody from the
Reunited Nations to this gobblydygook outfit Cliff and Isobel once
worked for, the AFAA, have come over to El Hassan. The number will
probably double by tomorrow, and triple the next day."
"Fine," Homer said. "What's wrong with that? These are the people
that will really count in the long run."
"Nothing's wrong with it, within reason. But we're going to have to
start becoming selective, Homer. We've got to watch what jobs we let
these people have, how much responsibility we give them."