Timeslip Troopers

by Théo Varlet

“Yes, I would,” said the Englishman. “I’ll take gander at Metz.” And, turning on his heels, he headed for the store-house, behind which his apparatus was garaged. The other three officers followed him.

  “Send the cameraman with him, so that he can bring back a few snaps,” Monocard whispered to the lieutenant. “That aviator’s capable of coming back and telling us that it’s still Metz.”

  Renard had spotted the photographer Lénac in front of the kitchens; the latter had extracted a magnificent beef bone, and was delicately extracting the marrow to spread on a slice of bread.

  “Do you have your apparatus, Lénac? Leave that bone and go with the aviator.”

  Lénac went pale. “It’s just…I’ve never been up in a plane, Lieutenant. I’d be afraid of coming a cropper...”

  But he had to obey the order, and the unfortunate Lénac was green with terror as he approached the aircraft, whose engine was already turning over, with his camera slung over his shoulder.

  “Strap me in tightly, Monsieur Englishman,” he begged, as he climbed into the cockpit.

  “Call me Lieutenant,” Bennsbury replied, severely.

  The propeller roared; the aircraft rolled away, took off, and soared into the sky, heading north.

  VI. Orange Picking

  Meanwhile, thanks to the initiative of Duranton, the chief cook, and the tacit authorization of Adjutant Etcheverry, a new supply party had set out, half an hour earlier—well-armed, this time—in order to bring back a few oranges from the little wood that had sprung up so opportunely south of the village. Its return was to procure new subjects for astonishment.

  Attracted by the preparations for the aircraft’s departure, a certain number of men emerged from the barracks to which they had been ordered and spread around the square in front of the tower. There were also emissaries from work-parties and the guard posts, armed with mess-tins.

  Cipriani was running around, exasperated. “What are you doing? You were forbidden to come out!”

  “It’s ten-thirty, sergeant; we’ve come for some soup!”

  “No excuses! Go back in!”

  Renard, who was talking to Monocard and the major not far away, intervened.

  “Let them be, Cipriani; it’s not important, for the moment. And you, Duranton, why isn’t the soup ready?”

  “Because I haven’t received any supplies today, Lieutenant. I’ve sent out a scavenging party...”

  “No matter—don’t wait for them. Open the tins of bully beef...”

  On the far side of the square, however, exclamations overlapped.

  “It’s the Moroccans!”

  “Arbis!”

  “It’s a circus!”

  “What are the troopers bringing back?”

  In fact, a singular procession appeared, coming around the corner of the infirmary. Behind the six men of the supply party, whose bags were stuffed with oranges and whose rifles were shouldered, some twenty white-clad horsemen were advancing two by two. Their swarthy faces, with serious masculine features, mostly bearded, were framed by the flaps of vast burnooses fastened around the temples by ornamental metal bands, and which hung loosely over the rumps of the black or bay chargers with long tails. By way of weapons, some carried bows and the others, equipped with shields of painted wood, had naked scimitars or long bamboo spears with triangular iron heads, each ornamented with a ribbon of green silk.

  Having arrived in the square, their leader raised his bare arm, where silver bracelets clinked together. The lined up in the sunlight, saluting the nonplussed officers and re-sheathing their scimitars. Not a single slap was heard.

  “Lieutenant,” said Nénesse, coming forward from the scavenging party. “We found these fellows in the orange wood.”

  And, in the midst of a dazed silence scarcely troubled by whispers and the furtive footsteps of newcomers hurrying in response to the news, Nénesse, a veteran of the African army, related the adventure.

  While their companions were picking oranges, he and another man had advanced as far as the edge of the wood. Instead of the familiar landscape—devastated fields and villages, then the forest, and Dieulouard in the distance—they had the sea before them “as blue as a telegram form,” and also, to the right, a vast bare yellow plain, in which, two or three kilometers away, stood a host of white tents. There were perhaps two hundred of them: an entire camp, with fires lit and horsemen cutting capers. A nearby patrol had spotted them and come running, at a gallop. Confident of their Lebels, the six men had closed ranks in the shelter of the orange trees and stood their ground. The leader of the “spahis” had seemed astonished to see them and, speaking Arabic, had demanded to know whether they were enemies or friends of “the people over there”—presumably the Boche in Metz. Nénesse, who knew Arabic, had replied with an invitation to bring his troop to visit his mates in Port-sur-Seille, and the other had brought his “spahis” trustingly.

  For the poilus, the interpretation of this arrival was simple: a reinforcement of Moroccan cavalrymen. The sub-officers had a difficult job holding back the crowd of curiosity-seekers who were pressing around the horsemen, while Renard, de Lanselles and the major, sensing a new mystery, continued the interrogation, with Nénesse as translator. The leader with the silver bracelets had dismounted, and greeted Renard in the Oriental style—index-finger to the forehead, then the lips, and then the breast—replied to him while looking him in the eye.

  “Who are you?”

  “I am Ali, and I command these men for the glory of my master and Allah.”

  “Who is your master? General Gouraud?”7

  Nénessse had to make Ali repeat his worrying reply before being able to translate it correctly.

  “My master is Abful Khan, the noble Emir, who is himself obedient to the holy successor of the Prophet, Caliph Haroun-al-Djézir.

  Renard shook his head despondently and continued: “How many men do you have at your disposal?”

  “Four thousand horsemen—the finest army on Earth. We’re going to lay siege to the infidels, and with Allah’s aid, reconquer the city our forefathers possessed.”

  “Tch!” the major put in. “The Moroccans possessed Metz now? At any rate, they’re not very well armed. I’m afraid they’ll run into a firestorm.”

  De Lanselles told him to be quiet, and Renard continued.

  “What do you call that city?”

  “Don’t you know, O stranger who has come to join us in the Sacred Cause? It’s Valencia—Valencia the Beautiful.”

  The three officers looked at one another.

  “So we’re in Spain now!” said Monocard.

  “Yes, but not in 1917—in 1920…at least,” Renard replied. “Anyhow, it’s very strange! The Spaniards have allowed themselves to be invaded by Moroccan Riffs? The division of Morocco hasn’t done them much good. Just as long as the French have held Casablanca. So tell me, Ali...”

  Questions followed about Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia—but the Arab leader did not have any idea that France had ever possessed any colony in Africa.

  “We must be much further in the future than I thought,” the lieutenant murmured, in a low voice. “What revolutions and catastrophes can have occurred? Do you have artillery?”

  Incomprehension on the leader’s part.

  “Rifles, at least?”

  As Nénesse strove to make Ali understand that they were talking about firearms, a sudden crackle of Lebels was heard from the direction of the Seille, and then, almost immediately, the rattle of machine guns.

  “It’s the Boche! We’re firing at them...”

  An effervescence ran through the crowd of poilus. The Arab horses pranced and whinnied, and their riders, while restraining them, seemed scarcely more reassured.

  The attentive officers lent an ear to the fusillade, which had already ceased.

  “That’s odd,” Monocard mused. “The Boche haven’t fired a single shot.”

  “Ha!” Renard replied. “There are no more Boche—there are only Valencians. Go a
nd see what’s happening, Cipriani.”

  Reassured as to the outcome of the attack, the men crowded around the cavaliers, and established friendly relations by means of gestures. Five or six Arabs accepted cigarettes, but it was obviously the first time they had smoked and seen lighters. They seemed to have fallen from the moon, and the simplest things amused them like children. They plunged their fingers into a tin of sardines that Duranton offered them and gobbled them down; the oil ran into their beards. Suddenly, clucks of joy erupted from the poilus around the apprentice smokers; one of them, manipulating a kerosene lighter, had just set fire to his burnoose. The soldiers hastened to put it out.

  The hilarity continued, and the two officers deigned to smile at the grotesque incident—the major laughed out loud. Then Monocard frowned, and uttered an irritated exclamation, on seeing two armed poilus appear, who were joking and herding before them a dozen individuals dressed in strange outfits.

  “Oh no!” the sublieutenant fulminated. “I’ve had my fill of these masquerades. I said nothing the other day to the oaf parading around in a dinner-jacket and a top hat, but this is too much! If the colonel...Go on, hurry up and take that off.”

  “But lieutenant, they’re prisoners!” exclaimed Cipriani, who was marching behind the little troop. “We’ve just disarmed them.”

  No ordinary prisoners, at any rate! Their faces were covered by some sort of steel-mesh hood, allowing nothing to be seen but their glittering eyes and formidable black moustaches; their torsos were enclosed in pale leather cassocks garnished with iron plates, with similar gauntlets and boots.

  Mocking gibes burst forth on all sides.

  “Their new helmets aren’t much good.”

  “They’re mad, these Boche! They no longer have anything to wear.”

  Carried away by professional habit, Monocard interrogated them in German. Who were they? From what corps? “Come on you load of Ostrogoths—what language do you speak?”

  They limited themselves to rolling bewildered eyes, their expressions terrified at the sight of the Arab horsemen, who had gathered together and drawn their scimitars, ready to fall upon them. The officers had to intervene to hold them back—but, furious at seeing their prey escape, the Orientals set about insulting the newcomers with grand gestures. The latter, realizing that they were being protected, replied in kind, and for five minutes there was an interchange of invective above the heads of the troopers, who were bellowing to make them shut up.

  In the midst of the frightful din, Adjutant Etcheverry, a Basque, came up to Renard and shouted in his ear: “Lieutenant, the prisoners speak Spanish!”

  They would be able to interrogate them, then. But first, when the noise had died down, one of the armed men who had brought them described their capture.

  Twenty men had advanced from the distant city on reconnaissance. As they were not carrying rifles, but bows and swords, they had been allowed to approach as far as the Seille—the barbed wire on the other bank had vanished—and then the French had opened fire. When they had all fallen, there was a charge—but only four were dead. The others got up again, and seven were able to run off, while the nine here present were captured.

  The arrival of the airplane, the drone of whose engine had been approaching for several seconds, mingled with the distant tolling of bells, caused the interrogation to be forgotten. The apparatus wheeled over the square in such a fashion as to land on the esplanade, behind the presbytery. At the sight of it, however, the Arabs and the Spaniards, abandoning their invective, uttered a combined howl of fright. The riders leapt of their horses, frightened by the sound of the engine, and invoked Allah. The others, on their knees, made the sign of the cross repeatedly, imploring the Virgin and all the saints.

  “Well,” said the major, “they’re a bit behind the times, your men of 1920. One would think they’d never seen a biplane.”

  The cameraman was the first to climb down from the cockpit into the middle of a gathering crowd. He was radiant. “It’s charming, my friends! What a beautiful trip! We caused a sensation: all the inhabitants were cheering us, all the bells were ringing! Above the market, though, we were attacked. A volley of projectiles...” And he pointed to a dozen arrows hanging by their barbed tips from the fabric of the apparatus.

  His mates joked: “But they have wooden tips, your arrows, Crab-face!”

  “All the same, they could easily have wounded me. I hope you’ll mention me in your report, Lieutenant!”

  Renard sent him to develop his photographs right away, and, having ordered Cipriani to clear the vicinity of the airplane, he walked over with Monocard and the major to the Englishman, who was methodically stuffing a pipe.

  “Well, Monsieur Bennsbury, have you seen Metz?”

  Without turning a hair, the Englishman declared: “That’s not Metz. It’s a cinema town, like Hollywood—but they play hard; they fire arrows. There are mountains, great rivers and the sea, with distant islands. It all looks very similar to Spain.”

  “It is Spain—and Valencia. The Arabs told us that.”

  “Valencia, yes—but I didn’t see the railway, or the station, or steamships in the harbor.”

  “Of course!” muttered the major. “There’s been an earthquake.”

  No one cleared up his misconception, but they followed his suggestion that they take advantage of the shade of the office, for the sun was becoming increasingly ardent. Five minutes later, Lénac, stimulated by the prospect of the croix de guerre—nothing less—brought them his photographs, developed and still moist.

  They were passed from hand to hand.

  They confirmed what the aviator had said. De Lanselles, who had traveled in Spain, recognized on one of them the silhouette of the Balearics on the marine horizon; the mountains—the Sierra de Cuenca, the Sierra de Gudar—the Guadalaviar and Xucar rivers, and the coast, corresponded tell to the environs of Valencia. It was, however, impossible to recognize the city itself in that city in the Moorish style, from which radiated, instead of a railway and highways, vague tracks streaking an arid countryside, rocky to the south, dotted with gardens and woods to the north.

  “All the same, it’s Valencia. No doubt about it.”

  “But what year are we in?” muttered the lieutenant. 1920? 1930?”

  “Let’s put an end to this confusion,” declared de Lanselles. “The Arabs must know the date, and the prisoners too.”

  They summoned Ali, with Nénesse as interpreter.

  The question seemed to astonish the man in the silver bracelets. He replied nevertheless, out of politeness.

  “He says,” the old African warrior reported, after having him repeat it three times, “that’s it’s the year 719 of the Hegira.”

  “719?”

  “Yes, yes. 719.”

  Renard wiped his forehead, astounded. “Thanks,” he said. “Take him back outside. Send the adjutant in, with all the prisoners.”

  “We’re not in the future, then!” exclaimed the sublieutenant. “We’re in the past! I can’t remember the exact date when the Hegira began, but it was around six hundred and some. Six and seven are thirteen. Thirteen hundred and something. We’d be in the 14th century!”

  “Oh, that sun, that sun!” said the major. He was no longer talking about earthquakes.

  The aviator smoked his pipe, without saying a word.

  Etcheverry brought in the prisoners, already half-reassured by the conduct of the poilus, who had fed them and give them something to drink. Several of them, caught in mid-swap, were already wearing the regulation helmets of the trenches instead of their mail head-dresses.

  The oldest one was asked first, then the other eight—and the adjutant, rolling his incredulous eyes, reported their invariable replies. It was the year of grace 1341, Wednesday, June 29.

  The two officers had difficulty concealing their disturbance. The aviator choked on his pipe smoke. Thévenard launched a resounding: “God damn it! What about my chick? She’s in the genitals of her remotest grandf
ather!”

  Monocard was the first to pull himself together. “We need to send a reconnaissance party to the city,” he declared.

  “That’s what I was about to propose,” Renard replied, going out of the office in order to give the necessary orders.

  He stopped momentarily on the doorstep. In the furnace-like atmosphere, dominating the voices of the poilus in the square, the north wind was bringing the sound of bells. In Valencia, that Medieval Valencia frightened by the airplane, the tocsin was still sounding.

  Part Two

  THE JUNCTION

  I. Tortorado & Co.

  The curfew had sounded an hour ago. Valencia was resting beneath the warm night, and the sleepers, fleeing the mosquitoes, were breathing on the terraced roofs, for no breeze agitate the long palm fronds falling back into the gardens like foliage of bronze—like the minarets and domes of the cathedral. In the entire area enclosed by the ramparts, only two lights were shining: at a window in the University near the Eastern Gate, and on the first floor of the fortress-palace that rose up in the center of the city like an acropolis. Constructed long ago by the Moors, in the times of their splendor, modeled on the Alhambra in Grenada, in order to serve as both a fortified tower and the Emir’s residence—with gardens, arcades and fountains—since the Spanish reconquest, the tower had sheltered the personnel of the Holy Office: Dominican monks and their hirelings, torturers and executioners, notaries, scribes and archivists.8

  In the little room whose window was emitting one of the lights that we have just seen shining, three individuals were assembled. A stout green wax candle—the color of the Inquisition—illuminated four walls, once gleaming with mosaics but presently whitewashed with chalk, like everything in the edifice that might be reminiscent of the dissolute luxury and superstitions of the pagans. Its only ornament was a crucifix in black wood, on which a life-sized Christ displayed wounds painted with a realism that modern sensibilities would have found hideous.

  The individual sitting beneath the Christ in a wicker armchair, whose enormous pimply nose spoiled a white ascetic face, wore the tonsure and the black and white robe of the Dominicans. He was the Grand Inquisitor of Valencia, Fray Luiz Alcover de Tortorado. His eyes lowered and his hands inside his large sleeves, he was listening to the police reports that were being read, in a high-pitched and monotonous voice, by the notary Fernando Arcos. Their companion, the clerk Martinez, sat at a table in front of a leaden inkwell and a sheaf of parchment, ready to write.