The Praetorians

by Jean Larteguy

  Abdallah gave a faint shudder, which Marindelle noticed. In actual fact the marabout was merely a convenient screen, and Hocène nothing at all. The military chief was Meskri, who had come by way of Morocco.

  “Now you’re going to help us.”

  “I don’t know anything,” said Abdallah.

  He had been vainly trying to co-ordinate his thoughts ever since the four paratroopers—this was two hours or five hours ago, he wasn’t sure—had pounced on him, tied him up and bundled him into a jeep.

  All he remembered was the strangled cry of his bodyguard Aziz as his throat was cut and, from the direction of the dunes, the laughing cry of a hyena.

  “We’ve got all the time in the world,” Marindelle went on quietly, “and, besides, we know how to make even the most obstinate fellows talk. . . .”

  “The treatment,” Abdallah sneered.

  “Oh, no . . . we consider that a brutal, vulgar method. On the other hand, we’re in no way obliged to give you anything to drink. . . .”

  “I don’t know anything; I’m merely Sidi Ahmou’s secretary.”

  “One of my men has gone off to Algiers with your photograph and fingerprints. Tomorrow he’ll contact us by wireless. We’ve also asked for an enquiry to be undertaken into the fifteen years that Sidi Ahmou spent outside North Africa.”

  Marindelle called out to a young paratroop sergeant with a pink-and-white choirboy complexion:

  “Don’t let the prisoner out of your sight. You’re not to hit him even if he insults you. But don’t give him anything to drink.

  “We’ll be back in an hour. Come along, Boisfeuras. Let’s get a little fresh air out on the balcony and open a box of rations.”

  The two captains left the room.

  “Have you been up to no good?” the sergeant asked the prisoner in a gentle voice. “You know, if you take my advice you’ll do better to come clean. The little captain with his feet on the table, that’s Boisfeuras. When his Chinaman goes into action it’s not so pleasant! It was Captain Boisfeuras who liquidated Si Mellial. You’ve heard of Si Mellial? I wasn’t there myself, but they still talk about it in the regiment.”

  Abdallah closed his eyes. It was Si Mellial who had made him join the F.L.N. after he had broken with Messali-Hadj and his party, and now he was in the hands of his executioner!

  “So you knew Si Mellial, did you?” the sergeant went on. “Everyone knows everyone else in the rebellion, like us in the parachute regiments. You don’t come from here? It won’t do you any good to conceal it. Tomorrow we’ll have all the information. I say, it seems that sheik of yours makes an absolute packet with his blessings. I’ve heard he charges three thousand a go! Couldn’t he have let you have one on tick?

  “You’re going to need it. . . . But perhaps you don’t believe in all that old-fashioned nonsense.”

  The sergeant drew out his water-bottle, which he carried in a holder on his belt, and took a deep gulp.

  “I put powdered coffee in it,” he explained, still in the same gentle tone. “It doesn’t taste too bad and it’s nice and refreshing. Where did you meet Si Mellial?”

  Out on the terrace Marindelle turned to Boisfeuras:

  “You don’t look very happy. It’s a fascinating business, this, yet it doesn’t seem to interest you at all.”

  Boisfeuras tossed aside his empty sardine tin which clattered on to the uneven flagstones.

  “Can you tell me what’s the use of all this? If this chap Abdallah talks we may be able to follow up the thread. We’ll put some chaps in clink, bump off a few others, destroy one or two bands, go through the place with a fine tooth-comb . . . and then move off. In a few weeks, or months, the rebellion will be in full swing again . . . you know, like scum which always comes back in a fishpond. . . .

  “Then we’ll start all over again, and then one day we won’t come back any more, it will all be over. We’ve already lost this war, back in Algiers, on the 13th of May. We shan’t be able to win it out here.

  “We’ve made three unforgivable mistakes: we never saw the thing through to the end; we brought de Gaulle back to power; we never managed to unite together round one idea and purpose.”

  Three rifle-shots rang out, followed by two rapid bursts of a sub-machine-gun and the muffled explosion of a grenade. Some truck headlights went on in the palm-groves. The dogs started barking.

  “This is it,” said Marindelle. “Let’s go and have a closer look.”

  In the light of an electric torch, Staff-Sergeant Hocène of the Adrar Camel Corps company lay writhing in a pool of blood. Next to him was his musket and, already covered in a tarpaulin, the body of the paratrooper he had shot dead.

  “It’s Hocène all right,” said a big sergeant-major of the guard-post. “And to think he was hiding out only a few yards away!”

  “Put him on a stretcher and take him to the ksar at once,” Boisfeuras ordered. “Then send for the medical orderly to dress his wounds; Dia’s at Ilghérem, he won’t be able to get here till tomorrow morning.”

  “What are you going to do with him?” asked Marindelle. “Interrogate him?”

  “No, simply talk to him. Did you see his face? He’s done for; his nostrils are already pinched. A burst in the kidneys and in the stomach.”

  A little later in the ksar:

  “Shall I give him some morphine?” asked the medical orderly, a reservist who was serving his time.

  “No,” said Boisfeuras, “it’s pointless.”

  Hocène was looking anxiously at the captain, whose face reminded him of Indo-China. A breakdown in the power plant plunged them into darkness and by shifting his head slightly the staff sergeant could see the vast darkness of the Sahara through the window. He remembered the little bonfires they used to build on the march, made of roots which they dragged up from the sand, and the cauldron in which the water was boiled for the tea, and Lieutenant Ardes, who used to crouch over the flames dreaming of the girl he loved back in France and whose photograph he had once shown him.

  The captain’s voice rose in the darkness:

  “Why did you come out of your hide-out, and with your musket, your uniform and red cartridge-cases, as though you were about to surrender?”

  It was suddenly much easier to reply:

  “They all used to come to the grocer’s to buy contraband Spanish absinthe: Colour-Sergeant Marie, Staff-Sergeant Thomasi, Sergeant-Major Hurlot; they kept saying I was the one who killed the lieutenant, Colour-Sergeant Pélissier, Sergeants Poiret and Julien, that I was a dirty dog and they should have realized it long ago.

  “And I listened to all this from behind the partition.

  “It wasn’t me, it was Meskri and Abdallah who slit Lieutenant Ardes’s throat. Yet they had promised me . . .

  “They dragged him off with the European warrant officers to the Achtam well. It was with a knife that Meskri killed Lieutenant Ardes, because he had spat on him, while Abdallah put bullets into the heads of the colour-sergeant and the two sergeants. After that they threw them down the well.”

  The wounded man was panting for breath, and when the light came on again Boisfeuras saw the blood-streaked froth that had formed in the corners of his lips.

  “You speak French very well, Hocène.”

  The wounded man tried to sit up on the stretcher.

  “Twenty years’ service, sir, recommended for promotion.”

  “Why did you get mixed up in this business?”

  Hocène embarked on a long explanation about family ties, women, children, a miscarriage of justice, about so-and-so who had said such-and-such a thing, about someone else who had said just the opposite . . . a real Berber chikaia, incoherent and incomprehensible to anyone except a specialist. Suddenly he stopped, as though he realized how pointless it all was.

  “I’m in pain, sir.”

  Boisfeuras repeated
his question:

  “Why did you leave your hide-out?”

  “I wasn’t in command of the detachment any longer. Meskri took all the men. He paired them off in groups of two or three with others who came from Algeria or Morocco. And you know what he said to me? It was to teach them how to wage war as it should be waged nowadays, because we, the old hands, didn’t know anything about it! This afternoon One-eyed Abdallah came to inform me that I was going to be sent to Morocco, to a camp, for instruction—me, Hocène, with twenty years’ service, the Médaille Militaire and seven mentions in dispatches! I wanted to show him what it was to be a soldier; I came out and fired on three of your men who were passing by. . . .”

  “Who’s Meskri?”

  “He’s the military leader. He thinks he knows everything. He too was in Indo-China, as a corporal. The Viets captured him, and he spent four years with them, but not as a prisoner; he was the one who came and talked to the levies in the camps.”

  “What about Sheik Sidi Ahmou?”

  “Meskri and Abdallah refer to him as ‘Old Beard.’ They say they need him but that he’s more stupid than a hartani.”

  “A hartani?”

  “A Negro who draws up water from the wells to irrigate the dates.”

  “Where are your men?”

  “Manarf, I don’t know, sir, all over the place. . . . It was all prepared in advance. There were iron tanks and guerbas hidden in the sand, but far from the wells and the tracks.”

  “Did Meskri take many men off with him?”

  “A great many, I believe, with a W.T. set.”

  “Where is this set installed, Hocène?”

  “At the sheik’s, behind the mosque. With that set you can get through to Morocco.”

  “Do you know where Meskri is now?”

  “He’s el shaitan, the devil. He never sleeps in the same place, he’s to be found everywhere and nowhere. . . . Oua allahou aalamou” (but God is the wisest).

  The wounded man was beginning to rave. Boisfeuras called for the medical orderly.

  “Tell me, Doc, how long do you think he can last?”

  “Maybe two hours, maybe six.”

  The orderly bent over the wounded man.

  “He’s becoming delirious. In any case, with this heat he’s done for and even your Dia and his witch-doctor’s potions wouldn’t pull him round.”

  “Give him some morphine, a stiff dose.”

  “Euthanasia?”

  “Call it what you like.”

  “I have no right to do that.”

  “One of the advantages of war is that you can indulge in certain things you would often love to do in civilian life but which aren’t allowed: like helping a poor devil to die quietly. Before you leave this room, Doc, I want him to be dead. Then you’ll go down to the village. You know that grocer’s where you can get Spanish absinthe. A whole lot of W.O.s will be there and will question you.

  “You’ll tell them that Hocène died in the ksar before he could say a word and that I was furious about it.”

  “I don’t like telling lies, sir.”

  “Do you really want to be forced to give an overdose of morphine to pals you like and are fond of? Why did you join the paratroops if it wasn’t to find some pals?”

  “I was fed up with the hypocrisy. We used to do on the sly what you people do in broad daylight. But the sort of warfare you practise, sir, sometimes gives me the creeps.”

  “Me too, Doc, especially as I know it’s not getting us anywhere.”

  “Then why . . . ?”

  “There are still the pals to think of. Get busy with that needle and then go and have your absinthe. But mind your step, it’s pretty strong stuff.”

  * * * *

  One-eyed Abdallah was locked up in the cellar till the morning, but first of all the young sergeant swept his torch over the floor which was thinly carpeted with sand. He came across a scorpion and crushed it with his heel. Abdallah found it difficult not to curse him, but his tongue was swollen with thirst.

  When, on the following morning, he was brought back to the room with the organigram in it he could not open his eyes. He was handed half a pint of water which he gulped down; it was salty. His stomach burned, but he could see clearly. Quite a few changes had been made in the pyramid.

  In the space above his photograph there was a name: Meskri; and in the blank space a question mark. Farther down, the photograph of Staff-Sergeant Hocène had been crossed out in red pencil. He felt outraged, for Meskri was under his orders, whatever he said, and not the other way round. Marindelle was watching him closely.

  “We’ll continue our conversation where we left off,” said the captain. “Your particulars have just come in from Algiers. What a dish! Your name is Braham Zakkar. You’re a Kabyle and you went to the École Normale in Algiers. You were a school-teacher at Bordj Menaiel. After joining up you lost an eye in Italy . . . but in a street-fight with some Americans. You were transferred and posted to Sétif. You were there when the revolt broke out. You disappeared. You were picked up at M’Sila. Sentenced to twenty years in prison, reprieved after three years. You were a member of the O.P.A. and then the M.T.L.D.*

  “After being with Messali Hadj you became one of Hocène Lahouel’s henchmen. Then you cropped up in Ben Bella’s special organization. Your presence was reported in the Maghreb Bureau in Cairo and you worked for a time with Colonel Hatem, the Egyptian Minister of Special Services and Information. Later on you fell foul of those little pals of yours. When Morocco became independent you settled there, in Goulimine. You were in the running once again, but, since you were still rather suspect, for this operation in the Sahara you were put under Meskri’s orders.”

  “No, I wasn’t,” said One-eye. “Meskri’s only a former corporal.”

  “We know that, but even so he went through four years’ indoctrination with the Vietminh and in China. And that’s no joke.”

  “That’s what he says, but he was never in China.”

  Too late Abdallah realized he had fallen into the trap. The interrogation went on, full of snares and pitfalls. Inch by inch, the rebel felt he was losing ground. When he was on the point of fainting he was given a mouthful of water to drink. The paratroopers took it in turns to question him and, since they now knew that his weak point was pride, they pretended to regard him as an underling of no importance and kept mentioning the name of Meskri.

  Min woke Boisfeuras, who was having a siesta under his mosquito net. Squatting on his heels by the camp-bed, he spoke to him in the dialect of the Haute Région which the captain alone could understand:

  “At the Annexe I saw an Arab who was peeling an apple in a different way from you folk. He held the knife as the Delta people or the Chinese do. But he noticed I was watching him. So he flung down the apple and made off.”

  “Quick,” said Boisfeuras. “It may well be our Meskri. Didn’t he live four years with the Viets, time enough to pick up their habits?”

  Meskri had disappeared. He was known at the Annexe by the name of Belaid. The Saharan Affairs captain, for whom he had been working as a driver for the last four months, was pleased with him. “The first one I’ve come across who doesn’t drive like a maniac and who looks after his vehicle,” he said.

  Belaid accompanied the captain on all his tours, which enabled him at the same time to carry out his own.

  Boisfeuras and Marindelle went up to the bordj of Ilghérem to report to Colonel Raspéguy.

  There they found Esclavier, Pinières and almost all the company commanders of the regiment.

  The colonel first received Boisfeuras and Marindelle and listened to them closely, merely remarking:

  “And high time too. The general’s coming out here; he wants to ask Algiers for our immediate recall.”

  “What’s biting him?” asked Marindelle.

  “It’s t
he result of a communal protest on the part of the marabout and the head of the mission, the Reverend Father Roger. It seems there has been some torturing! The general’s coming with the two priests. So I must ask you to stay here with me.”

  “In that case,” said Marindelle, “we can deal straight away with the W.T. set which is operating from that old wretch Ahmou’s place. We were planning to wait a bit so as to monitor his signals, but since we’ve got to act quickly . . .”

  The colonel summoned all the company commanders into the operations room.

  “We have less time than I thought,” he said.

  He drew their attention to the map on the wall with its white and yellow marks.

  “There are twenty thousand nomads living in this zone. In one week from now they’ve all got to be rounded up with their flocks at Foum el Zoar, Melsa and Ilghérem. We shall prepare three resettlement camps. It doesn’t matter how rough-and-ready they are, the important thing is to organize water and food supplies. Esclavier, you’ll see to that. Good day, gentlemen.”

  * * * *

  As he stepped out of the aircraft, the general pretended not to see the hand that Raspéguy held out to him:

  “Colonel, I’ve got to talk to you in private about some extremely serious matters that have just come to my knowledge.”

  “You mean being tarred with the same brush, as I mentioned the other day, sir? Well, since everyone’s in danger of that, let’s make this a family meeting. Bring your two priests along; I’ve got my captains.”

  Draped in his vast blue robes and wearing the black turban, Sidi Ahmou towered above the weedy little white priest. The latter had a wizened face and a pointed chin adorned with a sparse beard. His deep-set eyes had that harsh gleam that is often to be seen in those who would rather pass judgement on their fellow-men than try to understand and love them.

  The colonel ushered the newcomers into the room which served as his office and posted two sentries outside the door, with their legs wide apart and their fingers on the triggers of their sub-machine-guns.

  Sarcastically, the general enquired: