y rate, they drift off again. It looks to me
that, if Colonel Ibrahim can hold out another week or so, our forces
might melt away--all except the couple of hundred or so European and
American educated followers. And, cut down to that number, they'll
eliminate us in no time flat."

Homer Crawford was eying him in humor. "You're no fighting man,
Peters. Tell me, what is the single most fearsome enemy of an
ultra-mechanized soldier with the latest in military equipment and
super-firepower weapons?"

Jimmy Peters was blank. "I suppose a similarly armed opponent."

Homer smiled at him. "Rather, a man with a knife."

The expressions of the Peters brothers showed resentment. "We weren't
jesting."

"Neither was I," Homer rapped. He looked around at the rest, including
Bey and Kenny. "What happens to a modern mechanized army when it runs
out of gasoline? What happens to a water-cooled machine gun when there
is no water? What use is a howitzer when the target is a single man in
ten acres of cover? Gentlemen, have any of you ever studied the
tactics of Abd-el-Krim or, more recently still, Tito? Bey, I assume
you have."

He had their attention.

"During the Second War," Homer continued, "this Yugoslavian Tito tied
up two Nazi army corps with a handful of partisans--guerrillas. The
most modern army in the world, the German Panzers, tried to ferret him
out for five years, and couldn't. There are other examples. The
Chinese operating against the Japs in the same war. Or one of the
classic examples is Abd-el-Krim destroying two different Spanish
armies in the Moroccan Rif in the 1920s. His barefoot men, armed with
rifles, took on Primo de Rivera's modernized Spanish armies and
trounced them."

Bey said, "Homer's right. Our only tactics are guerrilla ones."

Homer Crawford looked at Guemama, who had been standing in the
background, unfamiliar with the language these others spoke, but
holding his dignity. Crawford said, diplomatically, "And what sayest
thou, O chieftain of the Tuareg?"

Guemama was gratified at the attention. He said in Tamaheq, "As all
men know, O El Hassan, we now outnumber by thrice the Arab _giaours_
may they burn in Gehennum. Therefore, let us rush in and kill them
all."

Bey shuddered.

Homer Crawford nodded seriously. "Ai, Guemama, that would be the
valorous way of the Tuareg. But the heart of El Hassan forbids him to
sacrifice the lives of his people. Consequently, we shall use the
tactics of th