The Second Life of Doctor Albin

by Raoul Gineste

  The Foreign Legion is composed of soldiers of all ages and conditions. The majority of them conceal their identity under false names. No one worries about their lives. They disappear as suddenly as they emerged, not even leaving a slight foam on the surface of the human wave. As for him, the colleagues who had accompanied him scarcely knew him, and the orderlies even less. A decapitated cadaver would be found wearing his insignia. The pockets of his clothing would contain numerous evidences of identity. Who would take it into his head to have the slightest suspicion?

  His body, it is true, would probably be transported to Paris and the coffin would be opened before his closest acquaintances, but in the three or four months that had gone by, decomposition would have done its work, and it would then be difficult for any doubt to arise. How could a half-putrefied and headless cadaver be recognized? The clothing and items found on him would be irrefutable witnesses. The particularity of decapitation was eminently favorable to the complete success of his plan. Apart from the facial features furnishing numerous indications, Dr. Larmezan had once taken anthropomorphic measurements of his skull in the anthropological laboratory, but that certain data would have been rendered useless by the saber of a pirate!

  After mature reflection, and making all his preparations, he resolved to attempt the adventure.

  The next day, at dawn, a cannonade burst forth from all the positions, soon followed by the long crepitations of rifle fire. He confided the care of the wounded to his two young colleagues, had his horse saddled, and set off upriver.

  The fusillade, which gradually became more distant, proved that our troops were gaining ground. There was, in any case, no risk, as long as he stayed behind the French lines. The post attacked the day before was a few kilometers from his camp; it did not take him long to reach it. Smashed palisades and a burning house at the entrance to the village indicated the location of the battle.

  He went into the rubble, and the most horrible spectacle met his eyes. Mutilated and decapitated cadavers lay here and there in pools of coagulated blood. Some were entirely naked, others half-stripped, as if some alert had interrupted the bandits.

  He had seen floods of blood flow, and autopsies and the amphitheaters had shown him human remains a hundred times more deformed, and yet he was shaken by a quiver of fear. He thought about the true heroes, that elite intelligence, his friend, the unfortunate Commandant Rivière, who had suffered a similar fate.

  That thought brought him swiftly back to his plan. He overcame his repugnance and chased away the vague terror that had enveloped him. One crime more to the account of those barbarians made no difference, and the reputation of Dr. Albin would benefit from it. He had edified the glory of his life on an error; the glory of his death might as well be a lie; the old man would thus be complete. Anyway, the deceit would not harm anyone; it only consisted of a substitution of individuality; had not the unfortunate legionnaire whose place he was taking really been massacred? Instead of being listed as dead, he would be considered as missing—which, in this merciless conflict, came to exactly the same thing.

  He had made these last reflections while examining the cadavers minutely. One of them, especially, had attracted his attention. It was almost naked and had no apparent wound. Doubtless he had been taken prisoner and decapitated immediately. The section of the neck was so neat that the savant biologist, used to carrying out experiments on guillotined heads that were frequently badly cut, could not help remarking on it.

  “Monsieur de Paris could take some lessons here,” he murmured. “The head of that poor devil would have been an admirable subject of study for a transfusion of blood.”

  He continued his examination. The whiteness of the skin and the quality of the underwear indicated a certain origin. The summary measurements he made, the approximate age that he calculated, the color of the tegument and hair, all seemed to confirm the choice.

  Hazard is favoring me, he thought. I probably won’t encounter a similar concordance again. Now it’s a matter of finding some wounded, so that I can send my men away, and come back here.

  He immediately resumed his march. The village seemed deserted, but frightened faces glimpsed in several places proved that the inhabitants were hiding. As he progressed, the signs of a recent combat were multiplied; the cadavers of indigenes and Chinese regulars were strewn on the road. A few marine fusiliers, gathered in haste and arranged along a barrier, were awaiting the sepulcher. He had barely passed past the last habitations when he perceived, under the scintillation of bayonets, a somber mass that seemed to be guarding a position. To avoid any mistake, he waved his Red Cross flag. A navy surgeon hastened to come to meet him.

  “You’ve arrived at a good time,” he said. “Several of my men are more or less seriously wounded, and I’d be glad to evacuate them. We might receive orders to advance at any moment.”

  He immediately had the marines loaded on to cacolets, and resumed the route to the field hospital.

  “I’ll accompany my orderlies to the other side of the village,” he said, as he was about to depart. “There’s a house there that was recently built, and I want to check to see whether there are any wounded in the vicinity. Then I’ll come back to put myself to your disposal.”

  “If we’re still here,” the navy surgeon replied.

  “In any case, leave the rest of your wounded under a good guard; we’ll be back in four or five hours.”

  As soon as he arrived at the site of the ambush he told his men that he was going to rejoin his colleague, instructing them to effect the transport as soon as possible and then come back. When he had seen them disappear he swiftly dismounted, went into the tragic house, rapidly put on a check costume in the English style and his operating blouse, which he had brought in his saddlebag, cut the beard that he had allowed to grow, and then set about dressing the chosen cadaver.

  As he was taking off the legionnaire’s undershirt he perceived a small bag suspended from the stump of the neck. He detached it, put it in his pocket and immediately went back to work. The rigidity of the body rendered it singularly arduous; it required a great deal of effort to dress the limbs and the trunk in his own underclothing and his braided uniform, which he had previously stained with blood. He eventually succeeded, and dragged the decapitated man to the road. Taking off the soiled blouse, he replaced it with a dust-coat, put a green veil over his colonial cap, remounted his horse, and disappeared in the direction of Hanoi.

  The orderlies were bringing back the ambulance when he passed close by, forcing the gallop. The two young colleagues and the personnel were heading for the wounded.

  “Jacques Liban, correspondent of the American newspapers, Messieurs,” he sniggered, although he was much too far away for anyone to hear him.

  The victory of Son-Tay had enthused the European population of Hanoi. The correspondent of the American newspapers, who claimed to be arriving from Haiphong, collected all the details with an urgency that his profession was sufficient to justify. He learned thus that an irreparable loss had afflicted the victorious army. The celebrated Professor Albin, a victim of his heroic devotion, had been found dead on that glorious day.

  Surprised by pirates, or perhaps indigenes, at the entrance to a village he had thought deserted, he had been decapitated by the savages and found a few hours afterwards by his orderlies. His death, as soon as it was known, had not gone unpunished for long. The village had been burned to the last hut, and everyone hiding there had been massacred pitilessly. Of the obscure legionnaires who had given their lives for an adopted fatherland, not a word was breathed.

  A few days later, the mysterious journalist read a telegram from the government ordering everyone to do everything possible to recover Dr. Albin’s head and embark his remains on the next steamer bound for Marseilles.

  “That’s also the one I shall take,” he murmured. “I shall have the honor of accompanying those famous relics.”

  But when, on the eve of the departure, the correspondent was informed
that the head of the illustrious surgeon had finally been recovered, he had all the trouble in the world hiding his surprise.

  “The word impossible isn’t French!” he sniggered.13

  The fashion in which the remark was greeted reminded him that it was neither the time nor the place for joking about such a grave subject, so he judged it prudent to shut up, and remained pensive.

  Chapter III

  The Indo-China, which had disembarked Dr. Albin at Haiphong, was destined to take is glorious remains back to the motherland. When the gunboat transported the coffin to the steamer the troops and the crews rendered the military honors, the cannon thundered as a sign of mourning, and all the flags were lowered to half mast.

  Among the passengers who followed the transshipping operation with a respectful curiosity from the height of the deck, Jacques Liban, agitated by the most various sentiments, his gaze lost over the low-lying coast of the Delta, was reflecting on the tragic and deceptive adventure.

  “Dr. Albin is dead,” he murmured, “but as long as he isn’t buried, the life and personality of Jacques Liban will remain vague, indecisive and problematic. I hadn’t reckoned on the head. The body alone won’t furnish any conclusive data while that accursed head might compromise it. If Larmezan takes it into his head—and it can’t fail to occur to him—to take its anthropometric measurements, he can boldly demonstrate that it’s not his master’s.”

  “The reply can be made to him, to be sure, that if there was an error with the head, the body found in the environs of Son-Tay is indubitably that of the famous surgeon, but the door opened to doubt might lead to the truth. Bah! So much irrefutable evidence will remain—the disappearance, the underwear, the clothing, the documents contained in the pockets—that the cadaver, with or without the head, can’t fail to be officially recognized and buried as such. Anyone who dared to suppose the truth would be taken or a madman.

  “No one, except for Jacques Liban, knows the reasons that Dr. Albin had for disappearing!”

  Nevertheless, it would have been preferable if things had happened exactly as he had anticipated.

  The steamer had raised anchor and moved off. The mariners, standing on the yard-arms of their ships, launched a last hurrah. The passengers and crew of the Indo-China responded by waving their hats and handkerchiefs. Jacques Liban, isolated in a corner, was still thinking about the cadaver saluted by such honors.

  To what infamous and mysterious individual might it really belong?

  He took out of his pocket a yellowed letter, the sole object found in the bag hung around the legionnaire’s bloody neck, and reread it for the twentieth time.

  You’re right, Paul; one can escape human justice but that of heaven and death, as you’ve recognized, is the just and necessary denouement. But do not attempt to take your own life. A war is being fought far from here; the Foreign Legion does not require any identity papers; take another name, another nationality, another age, enlist and then fall on some battlefield, and merciful God, after you have given him repentance, will soon grant you death. Then…only then, will I have the strength to forgive you, for you will have proved your sincerity to me.

  Your unhappy mother,

  Gilberte

  The surname had been neatly excised with a pen-knife.

  What abominable crime had been able to wrench such a monstrous wish from a mother?

  The steamer reached the open sea. Jacques Liban would soon find himself at table with the ship’s officers who had known Dr. Albin; he locked himself in his cabin, shaved himself cleanly, darkened his complexion slightly, re-dyed his hair and side-whiskers, whose black had become blond, increased his height with high-heeled shoes and put on tinted spectacles. His check costume, red neckerchief and English accent completed the transformation.

  A subtle observer would only have been able to observe the resemblance if he had had a capital interest in doing so, and the observation would not have led to any result. The American passenger, therefore, responded to the bell without the slightest anxiety. Hazard placed him next to the officer responsible for escorting the remains of the scientist who had died on the field of honor. The conversation revolved almost exclusively around the dramatic episode of the battle of Son-Tay. The officer’s version contained amplifications and precise details unknown to the American.

  “How was the head found?” he hazarded.

  “That cost us a great deal of trouble and blood,” the narrator replied. “The Minister’s orders were formal; it was necessary to recover it at all costs. A strong column charged with going up the Red River explored both banks. Numerous villages suspected of being favorable to the pirates were destroyed, and notable recalcitrants imprisoned or shot. Our troops finally found a dozen heads planted on spikes in the vicinity of Hung-Hoa; they were brought back to Son-Tay, where the hospital staff recognized the head of their courageous chief; besides which, it fitted admirably to the stump of the neck.”

  The passenger had listened to the story with equivocal signs and frowns.

  “The Black Flags are brigands,” he declared. “They finish off the wounded, torture prisoners and decapitate them; I’d like them to be killed to the last man; but it’s perhaps regrettable that unarmed indigenes were subjected to the punishment of a crime of which they might be innocent.”

  “The indigenes,” the officer replied, “are almost all accomplices of the cruel pirates, the vile dregs of the yellow race.”

  “They doubtless believe that they’re defending their independence, while you—I mean all the European nations—are only defending interests.”

  “We’re defending civilization and progress,” declared the Commandant, who was presiding over the table, sternly.

  “Oh well, I’ll admit that the indigenes merited being massacred—but that search must have cost the lives of several of your own.”

  “The column didn’t sustain heavy losses,” the officer relied. “Ten dead and thirty wounded, at the most.”

  “At the most! At the most!” the foreigner ventured, prey to the most vivid agitation. “Celebrated as the victim was, the head wasn’t worth such a price, as Dr. Albin himself would agree. If it were necessary to shed so much French blood to avenge each of the obscure heroes who fall victim to their duty every day, wars would become odious butchery and there wouldn’t be enough tears and mourning-dress for the mothers of France.”

  Angry and malevolent gazes welcomed these reflections; the guests whispered among themselves.

  The officer shrugged his shoulders. “Go give lessons in humanity to those who slaughter Indians, lynch negroes and massacre Chinese workers to suppress competition,” he responded, curtly.

  “Monsieur,” observed the Commandant, “there ought not to be irritant words at table; I beg you not to recommence.”

  From that moment on the imprudent stranger was held in suspicion. No one any longer addressed a word to him, and people affected to avoid him. Even the servants approached him in a disdainful fashion, and it was with a sigh of satisfaction, a month later, that he finally perceived the Byzantine tower of Notre-Dame de la Garde.

  The ship entered the lazaret, and the Commandant, assembling the passengers, told them a few minutes later that they had been subjected to six days quarantine. A single exception had been made for the remains of Dr. Albin and the escorting officer.

  Jacques Liban was profoundly affected by that measure; he was in haste to return to Paris, where not only did he desire to attend the funeral of the glorious surgeon, but could draw upon the considerable sum of money that he had left on deposit there. His resources had run out; he barely had enough to get back to the capital, and in order to do that he would have to sell the few objects of value that remained to him.

  He spent that period of observation plunged in a mortal ennui, devouring all the newspapers he could procure. He successively learned, by that means, about the tributes rendered on the disembarkation of the coffin, the official reception at the Gare de Lyon, the unanimous vote in
the Chambre, decreeing that the State would met the funeral expenses, and then the formal identification of the cadaver by his relatives and Dr. Larmezan.

  The joy that the last news caused him was not exempt from a hint of bitterness. The illusions he had had regarding the moral value of is favorite pupil evaporated. Dr. Larmezan, it is true, had as much interest as he did in his master’s disappearance being irrevocable!

  The Indo-China obtained clearance on the very eve of the obsequies in which Jacques Liban wanted to take part at any price. Disembarked at eight a.m., he sold his watch for a derisory price, exchanged his colonial cap for something more appropriate, and had his hair and side-whiskers dyed again. Then, regretfully contemplating the total sum of 145 francs he had left, which obliged him to keep his frayed Yankee outfit, he ran to the railway station, took the express, arrived in Paris at eight o’clock the next day, did not wait to reclaim his trunk, and leapt into a cab.

  The funeral was scheduled for ten o’clock. The coachman, stimulated by the promise of an exceptional tip, took him to Dr. Albin’s town house at top speed.

  Funeral hangings decorated the coaching entrance and the interior courtyard, which preceded his laboratory, transformed into a chapel of rest. The crowd had already been admitted to file past the coffin. He joined the queue, and penetrated, his heat gripped by an indescribable emotion, into the vast room where an entire happy life of labor had flowed by.

  The setting was worthy of Professor Albin. The high shelves, encumbered with their alchemical apparatus, formed a strange décor well made to strike the imagination. In the middle, a raised catafalque, an ancient sarcophagus sustained by sphinxes, surrounded by silver lamps in which blue flames were burning, covered with palms, laurels, wreaths and flowers, bore the coffin of precious wood, and displayed the illustrious scientist’s ermine-trimmed red robe and decorations. A tricolor flag, its shaft broken, lay dramatically at the foot of the stage. An insipid odor of wax and flowers weighted upon the ambient air, and students in frock-coats mingled with marine infantrymen, bayonets fitted, formed a guard of honor.