The Praetorians

by Jean Larteguy

  “Raspéguy here, who are you?”

  “Captain Bigelot, the Sector Intelligence Officer.”

  “Please repeat your information.”

  “At the foot of Jebel Doukane, at the entrance to a little valley, a company from the sector has run into the fellaghas.”

  “Its position?”

  “27°5' south, 12°8' north.”

  With a gesture of impatience Raspéguy called for his map.

  “I can already see what’s happened. A few shots, the fells have done a bunk and your chaps can’t get over it.”

  “Not at all, sir. The company has been completely surrounded, and the fells are killing off our chaps; it was their first engagement. They’re bringing up all the general reserves, the 4th C.P.R. and the 1st Foreign Parachute Regiment. It isn’t just a hundred rebels this time, but three or four hundred, maybe more.”

  “Leave the band to me. I’m twenty kilometres from the valley. I want all the available helicopters at once. Get in touch with Ain Arnat. There’s something fishy about this business.”

  “What do you mean, sir?”

  “Instead of making for their bases, a band as strong as this halts right out in the open to come to grips with a company? It’s either a trap or else the chap in command of the fellaghas is a bloody fool.”

  With his large racket-shaped paw, Raspéguy crushed a mosquito that was biting his neck. He felt that this fight would not be like the others, that the losses would be heavy. Like a miser, he was frightened of spending his capital, these agile supple soldiers whom he had knocked into shape with jealous eagerness.

  He stuffed his pipe with a few cigarettes, did not light it and began issuing his orders. Already a plan was taking shape in his head. He wanted to engage the band in open country. In the undergrowth and wadis it would cost too many lives.

  A message came in from Ain Arnat.

  “You’ll have a D.I.H.* in half an hour’s time. Clear a landing-strip for it.”

  The three companies closest to Jebel Doukane—ten kilometres as the crow flies—had left their haversacks behind and without taking time to fill their water-bottles were trying by means of a forced march to reach the valley where the fight was on. Pinières was in the lead, Orsini behind him and, bringing up the rear, Boisfeuras’s company—it continued to be known by the name of its former captain. Raspéguy had worked out their route on the map, then called up the three company commanders by W.T. one after the other.

  “I’d give a normal unit three hours to cover these ten kilometres. You’ve got to do it in two. Good hunting.”

  * * * *

  The fellaghas, under cover of the rock-slides that blocked the valley, had opened fire at point-blank range on the slumbering columns of the 7th I.R.: twenty dead, forty or so wounded, and the survivors had scattered and gone to ground in the undergrowth.

  A young reservist second lieutenant whose platoon was intact wanted to make an attack on a machine-gun which, with its raking fire, was keeping the company pinned down and preventing it from pulling out. But his men did not follow him and he went forward alone until a bullet doubled him up. He dragged himself behind a rock without a single one of his men, who were nevertheless fond of him, venturing out of cover to help him. He died alone cursing them. On passing out from Cherchell, this second lieutenant had wanted to join the paratroops, but his family’s entreaties dissuaded him from applying.

  Unable to advance or retire, or to risk the slightest move, the company, commanded by an elderly lieutenant who was frightened out of his wits, continued to suffer heavy losses without inflicting any on the enemy.

  “It’s like shooting down rabbits,” exclaimed Mahmoudi in disgust. He had taken cover behind a rock next to one of the big kattiba leaders, bristling with hand-grenades and daggers, who was directing the fire of the machine-gun.

  “That’s all the French are,” said the big-wig, “a lot of rabbits.”

  He made an obscene gesture with his arm, took a pair of brand-new binoculars from their case and stepped out of cover to inspect the terrain.

  “They’re not all rabbits,” said Mahmoudi under his breath.

  He remembered some of his companions in Camp One: Esclavier’s big cruel mug, Boisfeuras, Glatigny, as smart as ever even in his rags, and Merle with whom he had stolen some molasses.

  Mahmoudi was not in command of the band; if he had been he would never have allowed this company to be attacked, for it meant revealing their position unnecessarily just for the brutal pleasure of killing a few boys who did not know how to hold a rifle and slitting the throats of a few wounded crying out for pity, with the result that already a whole divison under arms was on their tracks.

  The band was simply responsible for escorting him to Jebel M’Zouia, where another group would take him in charge. From there, in ten days’ time, he would be able to reach Kabylia. After a few months spent with Krim Belkacem and in the camps of the Kef he had been appointed military leader of Willaya 4* where things were not going as well as they should.

  Willaya 4 was the bastion of the rebellion and for the past four months its leader, Ahmed Ziad, had been doing exactly as he liked. He always had a perfect excuse for not reporting when summoned by the G.P.R.A.,* and was said to have destroyed his wireless transmitter so as to be left in peace.

  Mahmoudi, who had secret orders to liquidate him and take his place, was bringing him another transmitter. Ziad, a highlander about fifty years of age, a cunning, cruel man, whose powerful clan had roots throughout Greater Kabylia, was not going to be easy to deal with.

  All of a sudden Mahmoudi had a feeling of alarm; he pricked up his ears, inhaled the damp morning air and peered up into the sky.

  The big kattiba leader, who was strutting about like an admiral on his rocky platform, spun round like a top and collapsed with a bullet in his head. Mahmoudi had thrown himself flat on his stomach behind his rock and the binoculars landed by his feet. After wiping them he focused them carefully. At the other end of the narrow valley he saw some men in caps and camouflage uniform advancing by short bounds without ever breaking cover for more than a few seconds.

  Someone touched his shoulder. It was Atarf, chief of the band, who had crept uphill to reach him. A former law student in Paris, he had just come from a military training college at Prague and this was his baptism of fire. It was in French that he addressed Mahmoudi:

  “You see, the dogs are bringing reinforcements up. But it’s not serious. The valley’s too narrow for their aircraft to be used. I’m leaving a platoon behind me, which should be enough to contain the troops coming up for some time. We shall break through the company that is facing us. It’s already sufficiently damaged, it won’t put up much resistance.”

  Two bullets whistled over their heads. Mahmoudi lowered the binoculars.

  “Do you know what they’re called, brother, those troops who have just arrived? Raspéguy’s Wolves. You can recognize them by their peaked caps. They have killed off over a thousand of our men. If they’ve shown up at the north of the valley it means they also hold the other end. Maybe they forgot to teach you that sort of thing in Prague. Listen!”

  In the distance a roar of engines was accompanied by a whirr of blades.

  “Helicopters. They’re dropping a company on each of our flanks. The trap is closing in.”

  Mahmoudi’s mobile face contracted:

  “I told you to leave this company of wash-outs alone and first get to your bases, as you’d been ordered to do. You couldn’t resist playing the hero. Do you know what the Viets used to do when one of their officers made such a big mistake? They sent him forward with a bamboo pole with a charge of dynamite on the end of it, to blow up the barbed-wire entanglements of a post. If he didn’t go the political commissar bumped him off. Didn’t they ever tell you that on the other side of the Iron Curtain?”

  * * * *

&nb
sp; The man from Prague, lying flat on his face, his cheeks scratched by the thorny brushwood, had lost all his arrogance. An hour earlier he had curtly reminded Mahmoudi that he alone was in command.

  Tall and athletic as a rugger player, he had close-cropped hair, blue eyes and fair skin. He was a Berber from the Aurès, a Chaouia, insolent, crafty and vain, proud of his freshly acquired knowledge and the few military and political Czech techniques that had been drummed into him during the hours he was not chasing after women. In Czechoslovakia the women were plump and as fair as beer, merry girls with a weakness for the officers of the Algerian Liberation Army. But their language was incomprehensible. Fortunately, some of them spoke French, as Macha did.

  The memory of her body made him tremble against the rock, and at the same time he felt completely bereft and wanted to be sick.

  “Well,” said Mahmoudi, “better make up your mind. What do you intend to do?”

  “We could still try and break through!”

  “And be a sitting target? Not on your life. You’ll go and see all the leaders in your group, and these are the orders you’ll give them: everyone is to split up into little sections of five or six and make for cover, the wadis and undergrowth. Strict orders not to fire until the last resort. After going to ground we’ll wait for nightfall and between sunset and moonrise we’ll try to break through at various points simultaneously. The signal: two rifle-shots, a pause, then another shot. Rallying-point: the Mahlef mechtas at the foot of Jebel M’Zouia.”

  “Do you think we’ll get away with it?”

  “At best we’ll save a hundred or so men of the two hundred and fifty for whom you were made responsible.”

  “And the rest?”

  “For the dead the French have a large grave dug by the prisoners, that’s to say our chaps who agree to work with them. A few sacks of quick-lime are poured in and that’s the end of it. The French are keen on hygiene and have a delicate sense of smell. Krim Belkacem and Boussouf will publish a bulletin claiming a victory.”

  “But it’s true, it has been a victory: a French company wiped out and the barrier crossed without one of our men being lost!”

  “You had nothing to do with the crossing of the barrier, nor had your men. . . . You were simply told: ‘You’ll cross it on such and such a day at such and such an hour, the alarm system will not be working, the mines will have been removed and the high-tension wires cut.’ A twinge of conscience cunningly exploited, some promises that we have no intention of keeping, a renegade to his race and an imbecile general—that is what enabled us to bring it off. The company of reservists, that’s another story: they didn’t even know how to hold a rifle, and they had no inclination to fight.”

  “You’re always ready to find excuses for the French and to belittle us. Why are you with us, anyway?”

  “Because I want the independence of my country, and because I know we shall obtain it. And, besides, I’ve got a score to settle. Is that sufficient reason for you?”

  Mahmoudi suddenly broke into Arabic, and his voice was harsh and insulting:

  “Go and issue my orders, be quick about it, then come back here. Bring me back my team, the W.T. and three men.”

  “Do you realize to whom you’re talking in that tone of voice?”

  “You’re relieved of your command for incapacity. You can still serve as a liaison agent, but, even so, remember what I told you about the Vietminh.”

  Mahmoudi was bluffing. He had no right to take such a decision. But he knew that the former levies who had joined the band would follow him, for to them he was still the captain. The younger ones were on the side of the man from Prague.

  * * * *

  Atarf hesitated. Mahmoudi heard the smack of his palm against the butt of his sub-machine-gun. Was he going to kill him?

  They were both lying flat and it was as difficult for the Chaouia to disengage his weapon as it was for himself to fire his revolver.

  Atarf heaved a deep sigh, as though he were expelling all the air in his lungs, then scuttled off under cover. He had obeyed.

  A savage joy overcame Mahmoudi. It was akin to the violent pleasure derived from possessing a woman against her will, or the breaking-in of a stallion.

  He had just brought Atarf to heel.

  * * * *

  A little spotter plane hedge-hopped over the valley and dropped a smoke bomb on the rocky mound.

  “Down, everyone!” Mahmoudi yelled.

  Followed by a few men, he plunged into the brushwood at the bottom of the wadi. A few minutes later the 81-calibre mortar-shells began bursting on the rocks with a noise of shattering china.

  It was half past eight in the morning, it would not be completely dark till nine o’clock in the evening. They had over twelve hours to wait in their funk-holes, like beasts at bay.

  * * * *

  Radio reception was bad; perched on a hummock, as was his habit, Raspéguy had great difficulty in maintaining contact with his companies as they gradually advanced along the slopes of the valley.

  Sitting cross-legged and crouching over his map, with the field telephone in his hand, he yelled:

  “Hullo, is that you, Pinières? I can hardly hear you. Speak slowly. What’s your position?”

  “I’ve reached the 7th Infantry Regiment Company. What a mess, sir! Sheer butchery! They might at least have taught these poor lads to defend themselves.”

  “The officers?”

  “An old lieutenant who’s whimpering and a young second lieutenant who’s fuming.”

  “Send the second lieutenant along to me. What about the fells?”

  “Vanished.”

  “They’re lying low. We’ll have to dig them out with a fork, like snails. Over and out.”

  “Hold on, sir! Three fells have just surrendered with their weapons.”

  “Send them along to me as well. Hullo, Orsini? Orsini, what’s going on your end?”

  “Not so good, sir. Four of my men bumped into some fells under cover. Five fells were blown to bits, but three of my men as well.”

  “Hullo, Jérémie. Speak up, Jérémie.”

  “Captain Jérémie here, sir. We’ve drawn a blank. But there’s been some movement: broken branches, scraps of paper lying around, cartridge-cases . . .”

  “Boisfeuras Company, your position?”

  “At the bottom of the wadi. Three degrees left of what remains of the marabout. We’re making for the mound. We’ve come across four of their dead, with their arms beside them.”

  “That means the others can’t be far off. Send me all the papers found on the bodies, and get into position on the mound.”

  “Patrols, sir?”

  “No, stay where you are.”

  Raspéguy called up all his companies one after another. With the support company the same had happened as with Orsini. Five paratroopers had run into six fellaghas hiding up in the undergrowth; three paratroopers killed, two wounded, and the fellaghas who had received some grenades were blown to pieces.

  “Almost even numbers,” said Raspéguy as he tapped his map.

  Captain Naugier, who was acting as adjutant in Major Beudin’s absence, blew his nose. He always had a cold. This was calculated to annoy the colonel, who could bear only people who were fighting fit. “In Raspéguy’s outfit, in order to have the right to die, you’ve got to be in the best of health.” This saying of Esclavier’s, uttered in a harsh voice in front of a group of new recruits, had become one of the traditional jokes which, together with a few legends and battle reports, constituted the folklore of the 10th Colonial Parachute Regiment.

  “Well, Naugier, what do you make of it?”

  Naugier shrugged his shoulders.

  “Nothing much. It’s a bit of a snafu.”

  He took a little bottle out of his pocket and, not without a certain ostentation, put some drops i
nto his nose.

  Naugier wanted to resume command of his company; he did not like his post at Regimental H.Q. He would explain quite seriously, in a careful, almost pedantic voice, which the whole regiment took pleasure in imitating: “I’m allergic to the old man at close quarters. He gives me a cold in the nose.”

  The second lieutenant from the 7th Infantry Regiment turned up. He snapped to attention and saluted.

  “Reservist Second Lieutenant”—he had stressed the first word—“Yvon Lamazière, reporting for duty, sir.”

  Raspéguy slowly raised his head from the map. He rose to his feet and returned the salute, squaring his shoulders.

  “Good morning to you, monsieur.”

  Lamazière was surprised at the great man’s politeness and courtesy; he thought he was going to have to deal with a brute.

  Naugier sighed to himself:

  “The old man’s going to do his act again.”

  The captain had been a victim of it. He was then serving in the colonial artillery; one evening with Raspéguy had made him abandon his guns for the sub-machine-gun and knife of the paratrooper. When he was in a good mood, which sometimes happened, he admitted he had had nothing to grumble about.

  “We’ve just been counting up your losses,” Raspéguy went on. “They’re extremely heavy. The G.O.C. East Constantine will be arriving at any moment.

  “Twenty reservists killed, including one second lieutenant, forty wounded, and meanwhile the Government has just announced that the rebellion has been practically quashed. This is going to take some explaining. Do you think you could tell me the reason for these losses?”

  The second lieutenant cleared his throat. He had a broad head, a lightly tanned skin, close-cropped hair, short nails, a forthright expression.

  “A chief scout or a Commie,” thought Raspéguy, who was always fascinated by this sort of man.

  In a voice which trembled with suppressed emotion and sometimes grew as shrill as a woman’s or as resentful as that of a schoolboy who has been unjustly punished, the second lieutenant gave a brief account of the engagement and the conditions under which it had taken place, then he added: