The Praetorians

by Jean Larteguy

  “‘Feelings are high against Restignes, who is accused of sometimes playing the F.L.N. game. To avoid an incident—in case the crowd turns on him or some hothead tries to assassinate him—we have just had him driven under escort to the property he owns in the Chelif Plain. He went quite quietly, incidentally. You’d do well to follow his example.

  “‘To help you bear this temporary exile I have just given permission for your wife Claude, who has repeatedly requested it, to come out and join you at Ouargla. . . . This will put a stop to certain rumours which make out that you are seeing rather too much of a young Moslem girl who was recently arrested for carrying bombs.

  “‘This is by far the best solution all round, don’t you think? Good-bye, my dear fellow.’

  “Puysanges hung up.

  “Three jeeps had just stopped in front of the villa, laden with military police.

  “I at once rang up Boisfeuras at the Government General. The line was probably being tapped, but that couldn’t be helped.

  “He confirmed that the legionaries were piling out of their trucks to replace our men, but he hadn’t worried about it, thinking we knew about this change, which was, after all, quite normal.

  “I told him in a few words what had happened, and I didn’t have to spell them out for him!

  “‘I see,’ he said. ‘I’ll stop the legionaries coming in. I’ll leave Pieron to argue it out, and meanwhile take twenty chaps along the secret corridor between the Government General and Region Ten H.Q. I’ve got the keys.

  “‘Salan and Puysanges have just gone back. We’ll nab them in the dining-room with the whole of their staff.

  “‘Meanwhile you assemble all the officers of the division who are wandering about the sector and put them in the picture. We’ll create a committee, and send a few more generals down the drain. But hurry up about it.’

  “Glatigny had the other receiver glued to his ear.

  “He snatched the instrument out of my hand.

  “‘Hello, Boisfeuras. Glatigny here, and I’m still in command of the 10th Regiment detachment in Algiers. I order you to let the legionaries through. You’ll take your companies back to Zeralda. I hold you personally responsible for the execution of this order.

  “‘I will never agree to men of the same army firing on one another, nor to officers forming committees or soviets and calling discipline and unity in question. Our aim is not to seize power but to bring back de Gaulle. Esclavier agrees with me.’

  “Glatigny looked me straight in the eye; I hung my head. The dozen officers who were there with us felt relieved. Everything was fitting into place. At the same time they longed to be off as quickly as possible, to escape from us because we had become infected with the plague.

  “I couldn’t resist the temptation of telling them that the door was wide open.

  “Still glued to the telephone, Glatigny went on:

  “‘Yes, Esclavier agrees with me, and so do all the others who are here, yes, even Mahmoudi, because first and foremost Mahmoudi is a French officer. . . .’

  “Mahmoudi had not voiced his agreement; he had simply turned his back. This time we had lost him for good.

  “Glatigny hung up a few moments later and turned round to us:

  “‘Do you know what Boisfeuras replied?—“I took you for men, and you’re nothing but good soldiers. . . .” He’s submitting, however. He’s going to hand in his resignation to the Public Safety Committee, rejoin our companies tonight at Zeralda and leave with them for Z tomorrow morning. But he doesn’t feel like seeing us again. . . .’

  “Dia shook his great head:

  “‘I don’t like the idea of that wonderful crowd in the Forum being left in the hands of men like Puysanges. They hate it and are frightened of it. It’s all going to turn out badly. I shall go back to Z, but it makes me sick at heart. Maybe the new-born infant would have died in any case, but one never knows. . . .’

  “Glatigny then tried to get in touch with Bonvillain. Warned in advance by Puysanges, Bonvillain refused to intervene in our favour. He had the makings of a politician, since he had the politician’s chief characteristic: cowardice.

  “He even came out with this unfortunate phrase which I should have liked to stuff down his throat:

  “‘If I hadn’t remembered your glorious past I might have believed you were traitors.’

  “That afternoon Glatigny and I had become traitors to comrades on whom we were relying or who were relying on us, to women who had repeatedly told us they loved us, to Moslems and Christians alike, to those who wanted a French Algeria and those who wanted the country to be independent. . . .”

  * * * *

  Major Jacques de Glatingy was packing with the almost finicky care of an old soldier and especially a cavalryman. In the bottom of his kitbag he stuffed the few books which he always carried with him: a Bible, a dictionary, an anthology of French poetry, La Cité Antique by Fustel de Coulanges, Les Siècles Obscurs du Maghreb by Gautier, Terrasse’s History of Morocco and Grosset’s History of China. He wrapped the framed photographs of his wife and children in a newspaper. Then he tore up a sheaf of paper covered in his fine handwriting, also an identity photograph of Aicha with a big smile on her face, and put the little crucifix on the table back in its case: the only keepsake he had of Colonel de Glatigny who was killed at Chemin des Dames.

  The sound of voices reached his ears from the room next door, which was Esclavier’s.

  He suddenly felt extremely tired. He had never known such weariness in the whole of his life; he sat down on the edge of his bed, with his head in his hands. “Men who have no faith and who commit suicide,” he thought to himself, “must find themselves in this sort of state: having no urge to move or to think, watching life slip by as an old fisherman watches the flow of a stream in which he will never catch anything again.”

  There was a knock on the door and, without waiting for a reply, Captain Mahmoudi came in. He snapped to attention, saluted, took a chair and sat down.

  “I suppose, sir, nothing will induce you to reconsider your decision?”

  With an effort Glatigny raised his head:

  “No, nothing.”

  He was surprised himself by the steadiness of his voice.

  “I only want to give you some information. For the first time in ages the Moslems have believed in the promises we have made. In the willayas, which are receiving no further instructions from outside, there’s complete collapse. Even in Tunis and Cairo the important leaders are wondering if they haven’t taken the wrong course and are trying to resume contact with certain French circles.”

  “That’s very interesting, but it doesn’t concern me. Since this morning Colonel Puysanges has centralized all the Intelligence and Psychological Warfare services. He’s the one you ought to go and see.”

  “It’s not Colonel Puysanges I followed, it’s not in his name but in yours that I made certain promises.”

  “I’m only a soldier, Mahmoudi, and I obey orders, however painful it may be.”

  “By embarking on this course of action, by rebelling against the legal Government, you have ceased to be a mere soldier. It’s from fear that you’re taking refuge behind military discipline, fear of part of yourself—the part that loves Aicha—fear of adventure, fear of calling in question the idea you have been taught of what an officer’s rôle should be. That idea is no longer up-to-date, nor is this war, as you know perfectly well. Restignes on the balcony of the Forum would have meant winning over all my brothers en masse.”

  Mahmoudi spoke calmly, without a trace of anger. But his lips were dry, as though chapped, and he kept passing his tongue over them.

  “I think, sir, we’re now quits. You got me out of Fort l’Empereur and I brought some Moslems along to the Forum! You’re abandoning the country . . . so am I.”

  “You’re not going to Germany?”r />
  Mahmoudi made a gesture with his hand.

  “We’ll see. At the moment there are no boats or planes; meanwhile I’m meant to report to Mostaganem base depot. Now about Aicha. I’ve just seen her. I locked her up in her room and my batman is not going to let her out in any circumstances.”

  The memory of Aicha and their last embrace—it was the night before—awakened the major. He gave a start and shed his torpor. Mahmoudi went on:

  “Aicha will come with me to Germany and from there we’ll go on to Switzerland. Switzerland is the place, all right, isn’t it?”

  “The place for what?”

  “For abortions. In her love for you Aicha confused any amount of things: her desire for emancipation, her need to redeem her treachery and also a sort of snobbery. She had as her lover—as her husband, she thought—a paratroop major who bore a great name and was going to reconcile all her brothers at loggerheads. She was the one who wanted this child, she told me so herself. For her, too, everything has collapsed. At any other time I would have killed you, perhaps I shall one day . . . but not because of Aicha.

  “You see, we Arabs are also developing. We now attach more importance to ideas, to principles, than to our women’s virginity.”

  Mahmoudi rose to his feet and with a kick sent the chair flying across the room, but he mastered his feelings, gave a smart salute and walked out.

  * * * *

  “But speak up for yourself,” Isabelle said to Esclavier, who lay stretched out on his bed puffing a cigarette. “It’s a lot of lies!”

  “What is?”

  “What my husband has just told me, he and Arcinade!”

  “What did they tell you?”

  “That you were in touch with Restignes and Ferhat Abbas and that under cover of saving Algeria you were preparing her downfall. They’ve just decided to send you away from Algiers.”

  “That’s correct; I leave for Arzeu this evening or tomorrow morning to attend a course and perfect my military knowledge in matters of amphibious operations. . . .”

  “Arcinade even spoke of high treason.”

  “He’s perfectly right. I am guilty of high treason for having taken part in a plot whose aim was to overthrow the Government by force. But Arcinade too . . . you, everyone. . . . You were all in this plot.”

  “Now, please. . . .”

  She was wringing her hands:

  “You look quite indifferent, as though this business didn’t concern you, didn’t concern us, at all.”

  Esclavier threw his cigarette on to the tiled floor, got up, crushed it out with the heel of his boot, then came over to Isabelle and took her hands.

  “Now listen to me. I hoped in all good faith to save Algeria by letting Restignes in on our plot. . . .”

  She was triumphant:

  “As you see, you were wrong or you were led astray.”

  “I was wrong. I believed the heads of the army and the French of Algeria were more intelligent and generous than they are. I believed, my dear Isabelle, that your fellow-countrymen would realize that they could not indefinitely maintain their privileges at a ratio of one against ten, while the whole world is up in arms against us. By a miracle Europeans and Moslems were just beginning to understand each other. Even I, believe it or not, since they’ve been behaving like donkeys and braying in the Forum, since I’ve heard their hearts beating . . . even I was beginning to love them, these French Algerians of yours. They have been muddled and buggered about—it’s the only word for it—by families like yours. Towards the Arabs, too, my attitude had improved. I no longer regarded them as dirty riff-raff, but first and foremost as men, and at the same time I came to admire them for their courage and the tenacity with which they are fighting against us. They were victims, just as the French Algerians were.

  “It’s all too stupid and I’m fed to the teeth with the whole business. I may be made for war, but not for politics. I don’t give a damn about what may happen to your lot, the army and its leaders. This is where the real bastards take over—Arcinade and the rest of them, the tuppenny-ha’penny plotters, the ‘brainy’ colonels, the trumpery generals. But I’m going back to my sort, to Raspéguy and all the others who make war and nothing else. They may be a little circumscribed, but they suit me.

  “I’m through.”

  He snatched his hands away from Isabelle’s. Tears were coursing down the young woman’s cheeks.

  Esclavier felt embarrassed and grunted:

  “Anger suited you better. You’ll find other chaps who’ll think as you do, who’ll espouse your quarrels, but as far as I’m concerned it’s all over, don’t count on me any longer.”

  The captain then made a strange gesture, which Isabelle could never forget. He took her hand, kissed it, passed it over his face, his forehead and mouth, then went back and lay down on the bed.

  Isabelle left the villa. Downstairs Adruguez was waiting for her in a car.

  “Where shall we go?” he asked.

  “Anywhere you like, take me anywhere you like.”

  * * * *

  Looking very pale, and wearing a uniform which was as impeccable as ever but no longer bore the paratroops’ badge, Major de Glatigny, followed by an orderly carrying his kitbag, got into the car which was to drive him to the aerodrome. He saluted as he took leave of his comrades, but did not say a word.

  * * * *

  Esclavier spent the whole night drinking with Pinières and Dia; he slept it off on the following day, and it was only after another twenty-four hours had passed that he took a plane for Oran.

  At Arzeu a colonel drove him to a little hut on the edge of the sea and asked him not to leave camp. The landing course was not due to begin for another month.

  As he watched the sea breaking on the rocks, the colonel said:

  “You’re not under arrest. If I abide by the regulations I have no right to forbid you to go out for a stroll wherever you like. But I imagine you belong to this new type of officer who spurns rules and regulations, and who therefore cannot claim the same rights as the other officers.

  “I’ve got to send in a daily report on your activities. Yet I’m not a policeman. All the subalterns are bubbling over with excitement since they heard you were here.”

  His twisted, scarred old mug suddenly broke into a smile which made it almost bearable:

  “I say, is it true what they say, that you stuck a sub-machine-gun into Salan’s ribs and that’s why he turned Gaullist?

  “I, too, am a veteran of Free France, but I think one’s job ought to come before one’s personal feelings. An officer serves the State, never a single individual, however great he may be. Anyway, when de Gaulle arrives—and that won’t be long now, it seems—he’ll get you out of this hole. Your meals will be brought in from the mess, and I’ll call in and see you from time to time.

  “I rang up Raspéguy to tell him you were here. As I said before, I have no right to forbid you to see other military personnel or civilians, but if it gets about, then I’ll be for the high jump, and I like it here. They’ve at last got used to my ugly mug.”

  At Koufra one side of the colonel’s face had been carried off by a mortar shell. It had been patched up with flesh from his buttocks, which made him look really odd.

  The young subalterns said that he sweated from his bum at the same time as his face.

  His wife, a Chinese tart he had picked up in a brothel in Hanoi, by way of making up for having married him, saw fit to sleep with all the other officers in the camp. And since he knew he would never find another and he needed her, the colonel resigned himself to this.

  * * * *

  A car flying the pennant of General de Bassonneuve came and met Major de Glatigny at Ouargla aerodrome. It was dry and hot and, although the windows were closed, the seats were covered in a thin layer of sand. The car passed some huge lorries heading for Hassi-Mess
aoued, laden with pipes, prefabricated huts, planks and bags of cement.

  The general’s A.D.C., a captain with greying temples, who wore the red epaulettes and Croix du Sud of the Saharan troops, said in a disillusioned voice:

  “The masters of the desert are now the oil companies. The old Sahara of Antinea and the veiled Touaregs died out some centuries ago. We people, the romantic offspring of Foucauld and Psichari, came tiptoeing in here and looked after it with loving care. We repaired frescoes in the Tassili des Ajjers; we collected arrow-heads carved in the Great Eastern Erg; we did our best to maintain, for what they were worth, the language, customs and social structure of a bygone age. But Antinea was rudely awakened by a driller covered in mud who lived in an air-conditioned hut. In two years the oil people have destroyed our work of fifty years.”

  “Does that shock you?”

  “It hurts rather than shocks, like a sacrilege committed by an ignoramus. We had assumed the outlook of museum curators and ethnologists. Maybe that was where we went wrong.

  “But what’s the latest in Algiers?”

  “Everyone seems united round General Salan and the Public Safety Committee which has appealed to General de Gaulle.”

  “I must apologize for not driving you straight to your quarters, but the general wants to see you at once.”

  The captain gave a melancholy smile, like that of an emaciated monk.

  “I believe he’s having some difficulty with the prefect and he would like to be informed of the political and military situation.”

  “And you, Captain, what do you think about it?”

  “I’m only on the staff provisionally. In a month I’ll be back with my Camel Corps company, which is on patrol in the Hoggar. I don’t understand any of this business. In a month, sir, on my camel and guided by the stars, I shall be moving with my Chaombas down to the loop of the Niger.”