Assignment Madeleine

by Edward S. Aarons

  Durell had finished eating when he heard the distant sound of a motor. He stood up at once, holding his carbine ready, and studied the shattered landscape. To the northwest, where Baroumi was located, was a low range of brownish hills. Somewhere in the folds of the land close ahead was the village. Behind them was the twisted, rocky terrain they had just covered. Up to this moment, they had seen nothing living and heard nothing whatever of man.

  The motor sound came from a plane. It came from the east, but it flew too far to the north for the pilot to spot them. The harsh sunlight flashed brilliantly on the yellow fuselage of the machine. It was an L-51, a light reconnaissance plane, and Durell wondered if it had flown in from the coast to Marbruk. If it had, his departure by truck might have been premature.

  A dull thudding sound came from behind the low hills ahead. The plane circled in the sky over there. Smoke scarred the blue-white sky. It lifted in a black, greasy cloud, untouched by any wind.

  L’Heureux stood up awkwardly because of the way his hands were tied, and walked over to join Durell.

  “Baroumi is over there,” the prisoner said. “I wonder what’s going on. That’s a French Army plane.”

  “We’ll find out about it when we get there.”

  “Aren’t you going to wait until dusk?”

  "Yes," Durell said. “Sit down. And stay away from the girls."

  Next he heard the sound of truck motors coming down from the hills to the north. There was more than one, but until they carne into sight along the narrow road, he couldn’t be sure. He counted three, then four, moving in a slow convoy. The figures of men trotted along after the slowly rolling vehicles. None of the men looked like French troops. There was too much lack of discipline in their movement. Durell swung back to L’Heureux again.

  “What do you make of them?”

  “You need help?” L'Heureux sneered. “You know damned well they're rebels."

  Durell nodded. “If you make one sound to attract their attention, you’re a dead man. Understand?”

  “I thought you were supposed to take care of my hide,” L’Heureux said, grinning.

  “Don't count on it too much.”

  The trucks rolled closer. There was a sudden whining and thunder in the sky, and Durell saw the incredible flash of a fighter jet swooping up over the range of hills and then banking down over the convoy on the road. Rockets boomed and a louder explosion followed the drop of an antipersonnel bomb. One of the trucks careened crazily and went off the road and slammed headlong into a high outcropping of rock. Men spilled from it like shattered dolls. A few of them got up and ran for cover. The rest of the convoy had stopped. There was a small huddle of men who seemed to be tied together, and Durell lifted his field glasses to study the scene. The huddle of men were prisoners, mostly Arabs in robes and burnooses, although there were patchwork French Army uniforms among them.

  The jet screamed overhead in a wide sweep and went back for another pass at the rebel convoy. Quick, repetitive noises came from its wing guns. Through the glasses, Durell saw spurts of rock and sand spout in regular patterns along the road into the parked trucks. Most of the guerrillas were already out of sight, hidden by rocky cover and ditches nearby. The truck that had crashed was burning now, sending a. thick column of smoke straight up into the white sky.

  The prisoners remained in a huddle like sheep in the middle of the road. Durell had no doubt they were being covered by the men hidden along the highway. They were caught helplessly between two fires, and it was impossible that the pilot of the jet could distinguish their predicament. The jet made one more sweep, and the prisoners went down like grass before the blade of a scythe. Durell lowered his glasses. There was a taste of acid in his mouth.

  Chet Larkin stood beside him. “That was plain murder,” he whispered.

  Durell looked at the vanishing jet. “He didn’t know that.”

  “Isn’t there anything we can do?”

  “Nothing, except stay here where they can’t spot us.”

  Durell looked at him quickly. Chet seemed to be little more than a boy. The shock of what he had just witnessed had made him pale. He said quietly, “The prisoners were Moslems, presumably loyal to the French. The rebels don’t want any of that. They fight it with terror. If the jet didn’t get those poor devils, the rebels would have had some amusement with them tonight before executing them. They don’t have very pretty methods of torture. In a way, they were lucky to end the way they did. Quickly.”

  “Maybe we could make a rush for it and grab one of the trucks.”

  “There are about a hundred rebels down there. It’s four hundred yards from here to the road, over a clear slope. We have just two carbines.”

  The jet was gone, screaming away to the north. It would be back in Algiers in a matter of minutes. The liaison plane showed as a glistening flash of yellow in the sky over the brown hills, and then that, too, vanished. The guerrilla troops straggled back to their trucks.

  “Everybody up,” Durell said. “Get behind these rocks. They’ll be passing this way in a few minutes.” He looked at the prisoner. “Remember what I told you, Charley.”

  L’Heureux looked angry for some reason. “You still going on to Baroumi?”

  “Certainly. We’ve got to get to the bank, remember?”

  L’Heureux lost his scowl and laughed.

  The guerrilla harkas reassembled and rolled by their hiding place without incident. When they were gone, Durell left Chet to guard the prisoner and walked alone to the wrecked truck beside the road. It was still burning, and it was far beyond hope of salvage. The scattered bodies on the road had been left where they had fallen in the blazing sun. In a few minutes the place would not be pleasant. He looked up as a shadow flirted over him and saw the first of the turkey vultures in the white-hot sky. The rebels had picked up all the arms that had been strewn about. He picked up a grenade on one of the bodies and pocketed it, seeing it was of American manufacture. He wondered wryly by what devious channels it had reached this place and those dead hands.

  He walked back to where the others rested in‘ the shade of a small gully. L’Heureux was talking persistently to Madeleine in a low voice, although Chet was supposed to have kept him under gun point, away from the redheaded girl. Chet was arguing softly with Jane, and L’Heureux had taken the chance. Durell announced they would wait in this spot until just before dusk before going on to Baroumi.

  Once more that afternoon the yellow liaison plane came circling over the brown hills, but it was too far away for them to attract its attention. And once, to the rear, a trick of terrain and wind brought them the irregular beat of gunfire somewhere.

  Durell drank little of the brandy and a swallow or two of water and smoked the last of his cigarettes. He was accustomed to waiting. He knew that patience during the ordeal of boredom and waiting was a prime requisite in his business. He thought of Deirdre. He thought of Orrin Boston and Hadji el-Abri. Boston was gone now, fallen in the silent war, but someone else would inevitably take his place, because Orrie’s job was still unfinished. It was only a straw, el-Abri said, perhaps of no significant weight. A small episode woven into the desperate pattern of vast and terrifying events. But he remembered the Kabyle’s estimate of that straw. No man could say which straw would tip the delicate balance of events toward peace or toward war.

  Durell did not regret being here. It was his job. He could not conceive of doing anything else.

  At four o’clock Chet Larkin reached a decision. His throat still ached where L’Heureux had stabbed at him With that brutal judo cut. His head ached from the sun and the heat. His thirst was enormous, but he had taken no more water than Durell, turning the bulk of his share over to Jane. If things went wrong at Baroumi, they would be in real trouble, he thought. He knew that Durell was thinking about the rebel harka that had come this way, and he wondered what they had been up to. Then he decided it didn’t matter. Right now he had to tell Jane what he had decided to do. He felt better about it no
w, having made up his mind once and for all. Back there in Marbruk he had made a mistake. He had been blind not to know that what he had told her was all wrong.

  He got up and walked over to where Jane sat with her back against a dark red boulder. She looked tired, almost ill. There were deep shadows under her eyes, and her face still had that pallor of impending heat exhaustion. He could not read the expression in her eyes when she looked up at him and he sat down beside her.

  “You keep watching him,” he said.

  “Who?”

  “L’Heureux.”

  “Maybe he fascinates me,” Jane said flatly.

  He sighed. “Jane, this is silly.”

  “You’re the one who’s being silly. Over nothing at all. Absolutely nothing.”

  “You’re lying,” he said. “And you know it.” He paused, trying to find a way to begin over again. It seemed impossible. During this day she had gone somewhere totally beyond his reach. She was like a different person, one he didn’t know at all. Her eyes regarded him without seeming to see him. As if she were looking through him, and he wasn’t really there for her to see.

  She was like a sleepwalker, he thought, dazed by the heat, the exhaustion of their morning ordeal, by what she had seen happen on the road. “Jane, listen. Are you listening to me?"

  “Of course I’m listening.”

  “Last night I was willing to do anything you asked. Anything, you understand. I was ready to give up something I’ve worked for all my life. This chance to work out here on the geophysical teams is something I’ve always wanted to do. I wanted to be on my own, especially after the way things were all last year in Houston, living in your house. You know what I mean. Your house, your friends, your car. I don’t ever want to be dependent on anyone like that.”

  “You really mean being dependent on my father, don’t you?’

  “Yes, I guess so. And on you, too.”

  “You never needed me, Chet."

  “I didn’t many you for your money, if that’s what you mean.”

  “I know that.”

  “But I do need you, Jane. I need you with me, beside me, helping me, maybe. I need to have the feeling that you and I are like—well, like one person. But it isn’t that way, and it never will be that way. I thought maybe there could be a compromise. But everything has to be the way you want it. Soft and easy. Have fun and drink and run around with the country club crowd and let your father do the work.”

  Jane turned her head slowly to look at him. “What are you trying to say, Chet? We’ve been over all that. You’re exaggerating things and you know it. I just want what I think is best for us. I’m not a child. And I’m not a fool. I know what the world is like. Tomorrow we can all be ashes. Why not enjoy what we can get today?”

  “Jane, listen—”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re always castigating yourself about imaginary things. Like those Middle Ages monks who wore hair shirts and tormented themselves for their ideals. But this is the twentieth century and there’s death in the air for all of us.”

  “That doesn’t mean a man has to stop and just fold his hands and wait to die because some maniac might push a button on the other side of the world, Jane. Don’t you see, we can’t play and have fun every day of our lives because it might happen. I thought last night I was ready to give in and do things your way. But I’ve been thinking about going back—you know, to Texas, and all that—I’ve been thinking about it all day.”

  “There’s nothing to think about,” she said coldly. “We’ll go back, if we ever get out of this."

  “No, Jane,” he said. “You’re wrong. I’ll get you to Algiers, somehow. I promise you that. But I won’t go on that plane with you.”

  Her eyes were simply blank. “What does that mean?”

  “If you insist on going home, I can’t stop you. But I wish you wouldn’t. I wish you would stay here with me, where my job and my work is. I only want you here with me as my wife, Jane. I love you. You know that. But it you insist on leaving me, I can’t go with you.”

  “Are you deserting me?" she whispered.

  “It’s the other way around, isn’t it?”

  “You know how I hate this place.”

  “But it won’t be forever, Jane. Don’t you see that?

  Maybe just another year—”

  “A year!”

  “—and there’s a future here for me, a reputation to build in the field I want to work in for the rest of my life. I can’t give it up.”

  “And I can’t stay,” she said flatly. “Not now, especially not now.” She wasn’t going to tell Chet about the baby. Not ever, as far as she was concerned. She felt betrayed. She had been so sure of Chet. But he was different now. She searched his face, looking for any sign of the change in him. She didn’t understand him at all.

  “You don’t love me anymore, is that it?” she said slowly.

  “You know that's silly. You know I do.”

  “Just because I went with Charley and he got nasty—”

  “No, not because of him. Not at all.”

  “Yes, it is,” she insisted. “That’s what made you change. You think I’m a tramp, just because he tried to get funny with me, a man like that, who's been in prison so long—”

  “Jane, please—”

  She got up and walked away from him.

  He didn’t go after her.

  He was through with chasing after her, he told himself.

  They reached Baroumi just before sunset and waited in a small ravine in the hills for the desert dusk to deepen. The road into the Arab village was empty. Nobody moved in the douar.

  A few stunted pines grew in the ravine, with ragged grass cropping out on the stony slopes. In the village itself, some date palms showed their plump yellow-green tops above the mechtas. Durell left the others in the ravine and walked forward with the carbine and field glasses to the top of the slope, where he could look down on a barley field and another grove of date palms and a vineyard into the market place.

  The shadows were long and deceptive. A hot wind blew from the arid south, shaking the shaggy palms. He saw nothing. Nothing moved. There was no sound. Nobody waited in the market place. Smoke curled lazily from a burned-out hut nearby, and the barley in the field looked as if it had been trampled by a company of running men.

  Durell’s mouth tightened as he swept the small settlement with his field glasses. Baroumi looked utterly deserted. Then something moved at last, slinking in the shadows of an alley off the market place. He saw it was a dog. The dog was dragging something out of sight. He kept watching. The dog was a thin, ribby mongrel, hauling his morsel out of the alley to settle down beside it. It was the body of a Moslem woman, dressed in a torn and dusty black gown, her veil off, her lanky black hair dragging in the dust. He turned the glasses elsewhere. Now he saw the pockmarks of bullets scarring the houses and more evidence of fire and looting.

  But surely, he thought, somebody had been left alive in the douar.

  He saw nothing in motion except the dog.

  There was a communal well in the market place, and to the left was a second collection of houses indicating another spring. Glass suddenly glittered in reflection of the setting sun, and he adjusted the focus of his lenses. It was a red Ford truck of ancient vintage. It stood alone behind one of the houses that seemed larger than die rest. It didn’t look damaged. It simply seemed to be abandoned.

  Looking down at the village, he had the feeling he had seen all this before. Especially the house with the truck behind it.

  He studied the road twisting into the northern hills toward the coast. Nothing moved except a dozen buzzards picking at things that lay in the roadside ditches. Then the wind shifted, and Durell smelled the town, and in the wind were the odors of charred wood, and of death.

  He turned and went back to his party. Chet was covering L’Heureux with his carbine.

  “There's a truck in the village,” Durell said. “It may not have any gas
in it, and it may not work at all, but it’s the only one I can see. There's nothing else.”

  “Can we go down there?” Madeleine asked.

  “There doesn’t seem to be anything to stop us.” Durell looked “I don’t think there’s anyone left alive.”

  Madeleine touched her throat. “Was it the raid?”

  “They were all killed or taken prisoner by the extremists.”

  the extremists? Why not the French? Or el-Abri?"

  “Baroumi was el-Abri’s home. It was his douar,” Durell said. “I was here before, a long time ago. Years ago. His parents lived here, and el-Abri took me to visit them.”

  He turned to Chet. “Can you hold things quiet here for half an hour?”

  “Are you going in alone?” Chet asked.

  “I’ll take Madeleine with me,” Durell said.

  “I don't want to see what’s down there,” the girl said quickly.

  “Maybe you’d better. Just to see what Charley’s friends can do.”

  Her face was pale. Then she shrugged. Durell turned to where L’Heureux had settled down, sitting on the rocky ground. The big blond man looked disinterested.

  “Which well has the money in it?” Durell asked.

  “I’d have to show you, chum,” L’Heureux said. “And why should I?”

  ”I’ll convince you later,” Durell said.

  He started off with Madeleine down the scrubby slope toward the village. Long shadows reached ahead of them, and the sky to the west was suddenly aflame with brilliant color from a distant sandstorm. To the east, the first stars shone in the purpling sky.

  They crossed the barley field and passed several burned-out mechtas. In front of one hut was a man, sprawled in death. A dead woman and a child lay to one side of the road. A grenade had caught them. Durell said nothing. Madeleine turned her head and looked the other way.

  Nobody challenged them except a bony dog that came whining up and ay down on its belly and looked at them with yellow eyes. The silence of death hung over the village of Baroumi. The shadows thickened into solid dusk as they reached the market place Durell had studied with his field glasses. No one was here. There were several more Arab bodies, men and women killed indiscriminately in bloodlust. There seemed to be no vehicles other than the one Ford truck he had spotted from the hillside. The village itself was small, with a population of not more than two hundred people, and of the two hundred, not one remained in the vicinity. Those who were lucky enough to escape the massacre had taken to the hills for good, Durell thought.