ours. Faster, it would seem
than the information could be dispensed by radio. El Hassan was here.
El Hassan was there. El Hassan was marching on Rabat, in Morocco; El
Hassan had just signed a treaty with the Soviet Complex; El Hassan had
been assassinated by a disgruntled follower. Or El Hassan was a
renegade Christian; El Hassan was a Moslem of Sheriffian blood, a
direct descendant of the Prophet; El Hassan was a pagan come up from
Dahomey and practiced ritual cannibalism; El Hassan was a Jew, a
veteran of the Israel debacle.

But this Colonel Ibrahim knew--the Tuareg had gone over to the new
movement en masse. Something there was in El Hassan and his dream that
had appealed to the Forgotten of Allah. The Tuareg, for the first time
since the French Camel Corps had broken their strength, were
united--united and on the move.

The Tuareg were everywhere. In most sinister fashion--everywhere. And
all were El Hassan's men.

Colonel Ibrahim fumed and wondered what kept his superiors from
sending in additional columns, additional armored elements. And, above
all, adequate air cover. Ha! Give the colonel sufficient aircraft and
he'd begin snuffing out bedouin life like candles--and bring the Peace
of Allah to the Ahaggar.

So Colonel Ibrahim fumed, demanded further orders from mum superiors,
and put his legionnaires to work on bigger and better gun
emplacements, trenches and pillboxes surrounding Fort Laperinne and
Tamanrasset.

* * * * *

El Hassan's personal entourage numbered exactly twenty persons. Of
these, five were his immediate English-speaking, Western-educated
supporters, Cliff, Isobel and the new Jack and Jimmy Peters and Dave
Moroka. Rex Donaldson had been sent south again to operate in Senegal
and Mali, to take over direction of the rapidly spreading movement in
such centers as Bamako and Mopti and later, if possible, in Dakar.

The other fifteen were carefully selected Tuareg, picked from among
Guemama's tribesmen taking care to show no preference to any tribe or
clan, and taking particular care to choose men who fought coolly,
unexcitedly, and didn't froth at the mouth when in action; men who
were slow to charge wildly into the enemy's guns--but slower still to
retreat when the going was hot. El Hassan was prone to neither hero
nor coward in his personal bodyguard.

They kept under movement. In Abelessa one day, almost in range of the
mobile artillery of the Arab Legion;