The Praetorians

by Jean Larteguy

  The former sector commander will not be present at the take-over ceremony; he was killed a fortnight ago while strolling across the street between his command post and the villa which, in his prudent fashion, he had had fitted out like a miniature fortress. A rifle-bullet in the head, and that was the end of Colonel Fourrest.

  The 108th is a regiment of discontented reservists. The officers are mediocre, the food poor, recreation non-existent and the missions frequently dangerous.

  Every week a convoy leaves N along the winding mountain roads to supply a certain number of posts or resettlement camps tucked away in the cork forest.

  Ambushes, raids, mines are a regular occurrence, resulting sometimes in one or two killed, but more often in wounded.

  I am personally responsible for maintaining wireless contact with the convoy and after four months of this I listen to the re-transmission in clear of this little war as calmly as if it was the broadcast of a game of football or a wrestling match.

  In reserve there’s the 1st Motorized Legion Battalion. It’s an old unit, reliable but unwieldy, which has a reputation for gallantry, discipline and attention to its creature comforts.

  The battalion is only used for the toughest assignments. For the rest of the time the legionaries, who are quartered down on the beach, go bathing or boozing, build wooden hutments and lovingly prepare for their two great feasts: Christmas and the anniversary of the battle of Camerone.

  I must also mention the presence in this sector of a mounted Spahi regiment. Every year (with the exception of this year) it is paraded through Paris on 14 July. They are magnificent specimens, whether in full dress or in battle order, and the two horsemen in burnouses who mount guard at the entrance to their quarters at the far end of the town cut a really dashing figure. The cavalry are a world apart; the officers train for horse-shows, organize point-to-points and entertain one another just as though the war did not exist.

  The only time the Spahis took part in a raking operation they charged fifty strong, with swords drawn, against a poor wretch armed with a shot-gun.

  Lieutenant Mastialin, who witnessed it, asserts that this charge was extremely spirited. Unfortunately, the victim was not a fellagha but one of our auxiliaries who had been allowed to keep his shot-gun.

  Apart from this, these cavalrymen are very pleasant chaps and when they invite you to their mess they serve whisky and tinned food in fine glassware and china.

  After the usual little ceremony—inspection of the troops, saluting the flag, a ritual to which the military tribe still attaches great importance—we were entitled to a drink. Flanked by Lieutenant-Colonel Hanne, who commands the 108th, and the Spahi colonel Morfaix de Jusseau, Raspéguy was introduced to all the officers one after another.

  In camouflage uniform and cap, slim-waisted and broad-shouldered, hook-nosed, with a mobile mouth and close-cropped hair, he was the absolute archetype of those great paratroop colonels, a mixture of condottiere, monk and conspirator. His voice is as rough as those little mountain wines, his tone bantering and little short of plain vulgar.

  After shaking hands all round, he turned to face us and, sitting on the edge of the table, said:

  “Well, now. We’re in rather a particular situation here. Everything is run by the rebels. They wander around as they like, attack whenever they feel like it, occupy whole stretches of the country, hold the people in the palms of their hands. So we’re nothing more than an occupying garrison installed in a few points in enemy territory. I shall have no reinforcements. I shall have to manage with you, and you alone, but there’s got to be a change. That’s all.”

  Accompanied by the two officers who had come with him, Captain Naugier and Second-Lieutenant Lamazière, he then proceeded to the troops’ dining-hall, called for some of the stew, tasted it, then flung it away, spattering the feet of the cook and the messing officer.

  “It’s so filthy that even I can’t stomach it.”

  Then, rolling his shoulders, he strode off.

  10 August 1959

  Every morning Colonel Raspéguy, in track-suit, his elbows tucked into his sides, unescorted and unarmed, goes for a ten-kilometre run round N.

  The soldiers laugh about it, but even so they’re impressed by this nerve or indifference. The messing officer has been replaced by young Quartermaster-Sergeant Pieron, who is spending the surplus amassed by his predecessor over the last year, with the result that the men are having fresh food and fish.

  The colonel has made a tour of the sector, visiting every post and resettlement camp. In theory, the whole population is assembled in eight camps, the rest of the territory, the big cork forest, being a forbidden zone—that’s to say a rebel zone.

  At Camp Five, the most lamentable of all—it consists of old tents and huts made of branches—the colonel asked the officer in charge, as he drew his attention to the inmates padding about in their slippers:

  “What do they do all day?”

  “Nothing, sir.”

  “And at night-time? Well, I’ll tell you; at night-time they turn into fellaghas and come and shoot up your post. . . . I know them: if they didn’t do that they’d die of boredom.”

  15 August 1959

  First operation with the new colonel. Quite a few casualties. A company of the poor old 108th was heavily engaged as they climbed out of their trucks.

  Raspéguy turned up as the dead and wounded were being carried off. He told the others:

  “Three of your comrades were killed through lack of physical training. They had all the time in the world to jump down from the truck and take cover in a ditch, but, like you, they were slow and weighed down by their equipment. I forbid you to get yourselves killed so stupidly. You’ll do an hour’s physical training every morning.”

  Second-Lieutenant Lamazière keeps looking everywhere for rebel prisoners—real ones, he greedily demands! The fate of the poor clods we’ve surrounded doesn’t seem to interest him very much. On the other hand, he is mad about fifteen or so fells who were surprised by the legionaries in a sort of rest camp they had set up two kilometres off a disused road. He goes to the prison every day and talks to them for hours in Arabic.

  26 August 1959

  The Moslem commando has come into being. The fifteen prisoners have filed smartly out of prison and headed for the clothing stores.

  I’m not at all sure what Lamazière told them, but I know the commando’s motto: “War on Want,” and their pay: eight hundred francs a day. No nonsense in this business about integration, a French Algeria or any of the other slogans still in fashion.

  Lamazière has settled with his fifteen chaps under canvas two kilometres outside N, where the mountains seem to join the sea.

  In the course of a chikaia, which lasted a whole day, the commando elected its leader, a certain Belhanis, to whom Raspéguy on his own authority has given the rank of cadet and the functions of political commissar.

  The few Frenchmen who still live in N are anxious and say that, no matter how they’re dressed, fells always remain fells—that’s to say, brigands. One fine day, they declare, these chaps will come and slit their throats while they’re lying in bed after giving the password to the sentries who guard the European houses.

  I would do nothing to prevent them from slitting the throat of the manager of the canning factory, a big fat blubber-lipped Levantine who owns the three cafés in the town, the four grocers’ shops and the two coasters and makes us pay through the nose for everything.

  I hinted to the naval officer in charge that Bayadian is an arms smuggler. It didn’t work, because that sailor has no sense of humour, always wants proof of everything and considered my remark in bad taste seeing that he enjoys the charms of Bayadian’s daughter, who is said to be as hairy as a door-mat.

  1 September 1959

  Twenty-four years ago today Master Edouard Mussy went to the town hall of Aix and
reported the birth of his first-born, Marcel-Julien. In other words, today is my birthday. Master Mussy sent me a money order for twenty-five thousand francs and I stood my pals a round of drinks. I also invited Second-Lieutenant Lamazière, a nice fellow, more of a boy scout than a paratrooper.

  The Moslem commando now numbers thirty men divided into three sticks. Lamazière has recruited a whole gang of rowdies who were the terrors of N. Tomorrow night he’s off into the forbidden zone. I’m very much afraid he might not come back. His chaps will let him down or slit his throat. I think Belhanis has got an ugly mug.

  Before he left us I took Lamazière aside and asked him:

  “Do you really believe we can win this war and hang on to Algeria?”

  He looked at me in astonishment:

  “We can only win this war by promising independence, but independence within a given framework, with guarantees for the Europeans and by maintaining close ties with France. My commando has a double purpose: to wage war on the fellaghas with their own methods and on their own ground, but also to train leaders for independence.”

  “Out of your ex-rebels and street-Arabs?”

  “What were Ben Bella and Krim Belkhacem at the beginning of the rebellion?”

  I have a feeling our friend Lamazière is labouring under a strange delusion. I advised him to cling tight to his carbine.

  “I’m leaving without any weapon,” he replied.

  “You’re mad, but why?”

  “To show them I trust them.”

  There must always be men of this sort in an army to rehabilitate the profession. And what’s more, this chap’s a reservist. A good little leader with sturdy legs, a moon-shaped face, forget-me-not-blue eyes, a heart as stout as a portcullis, but who can never stop looking after others and, by the same token, causing disaster.

  8 September 1959

  The company that got so badly mauled shortly after the colonel’s arrival, the 3/2 of 108, in other words the third company of the second battalion of the 108th regiment, has just been in action again.

  But there has been a great change.

  The reservists showed their teeth and it was the enemy who took to their heels. They can’t get over their courage. Raspéguy came and congratulated them and has decided to turn them into shock troops, which flattered them.

  The Moslem commando came back with a dozen prisoners, fifteen weapons recovered, and valuable Intelligence on the rebel organization in the zone.

  I must say I can’t quite understand why these former fellaghas haven’t rejoined their old friends. Lamazière has tried to explain this to me:

  “It’s not so much the F.L.N. that attracts them as war itself, adventure—‘knocking about,’ as Colonel Raspéguy would say. But they also need a cause to fight for—their own cause, of course; they’re like us and can’t be content only with adventure.”

  10 September 1959

  Colonel Raspéguy has just decreed that the Moslem commando will wear the cap and camouflage uniform of the paratroops. The chaps in the 3/2 are furious and want the same.

  16 September 1959

  De Gaulle spoke on the radio. His voice reached us as though from a great distance. Although he was brought back to power by the integrationists, he is now proclaiming self-determination. The regular officers are in two minds about this, but Raspéguy put it to them:

  “Why should self-determination bother us? It’s up to us to prove that the Moslems want to remain French. Of course, if it was put to the vote in N just now, it would be a hundred per cent fellagha. But we’re going to change all that, aren’t we, gentlemen?”

  A new major arrived this evening, another paratrooper. It’s that man Esclavier, who has been in the papers quite a lot recently. He is going to be operational second-in-command to the colonel.

  The lads of the 3/2 already know all about him, his war record and exploits. They discuss him with the other reservists as though he was already their property. The cavalrymen still keep to themselves, the legionaries are the same as they’ve always been, but the 108th is divided: half in favour of Raspéguy, whom they call Pierrot, and the other half sullen or openly hostile.

  28 October 1959

  We’re preparing a big operation. Its code-name will be Aldudes, the village from which the colonel comes.

  Raspéguy, who was offered some paratroops as reinforcements, rejected them and instead asked for Algerian levies, quoting that proverb which, ever since Kipling’s day, has been brought in to clinch an argument:

  “The Afghan wolf is hunted with an Afghan hound . . .”

  I’m extremely busy and am horrified to note that I’m no longer bored, that I don’t think so much about my “goat-girls” and that I find myself waiting for several days before answering the letters which the less unfaithful of them go on sending me.

  The colonel has explained his field signals system to me. It’s remarkable but requires extremely well-trained troops: everyone is on the same wave-length, so that each unit, company or even platoon knows what is going on in the higher formation and can follow the battle.

  We’re going to start out from the coast and make our way up to the crests overlooking it, then climb down the other side, passing through zones in which no French soldier has set foot for three years.

  Yesterday we received the mimeographed instructions which have been distributed to the officers and the troops.

  “By order of Colonel Raspéguy, Grand Officer of the Légion d’Honneur, commanding N sector. In the course of operation Aldudes, which will take place from 1 November to 15 December:

  “All officers, no matter what their rank, will march with their men, carry their own equipment and draw the same rations.

  “At any moment, and without prior notification, the conduct of the operation may be modified, platoons and companies detached from their unit and employed on special missions.

  “Each man will carry three days’ rations, three units of ammo, one blanket, a bivouac tent, two bottles filled with water or coffee. Alcoholic drinks are strictly forbidden.”

  * * * *

  A soldier at the Wadi R’hia post has just committed suicide. The garrisons are relieved only every three months, receive only one monthly visit from the convoy, and live right next to a resettlement camp which is completely controlled by the F.L.N.

  When they go anywhere near it they are met with a volley of stones and sometimes rifle-bullets. They live in the midst of their cork-trees, surrounded by hate. They are bored, make mountains out of the smallest molehills, and then one fine day they put the barrels of their rifles in their mouths and press the triggers with their big toes.

  In the mess Raspéguy commented briefly on the incident:

  “In the units I’ve commanded I’ve never had a man commit suicide, because the men always had something to do.”

  Unlike the colonel, who goes from one resettlement camp to another, makes speeches, launches appeals, Major Esclavier keeps apart from everything that is not strictly a military matter.

  Esclavier takes the companies over one after another and goes off into the forest with them for three days on end. He eats, sleeps, lives with his men and teaches them “the little tricks that prevent you from getting yourself killed like a donkey”: how to jump out of a truck while still on the move; to shoot without aiming, to post choufs—look-out men—at every halt and encampment, to reconnoitre a stretch of country, to muffle one’s equipment, to set an ambush . . . and, from the hunted, to turn into the hunter.

  Captain Naugier deals with the town of N. His work is exceedingly mysterious.

  16 November 1959

  It’s cold and it’s raining. For the last week I’ve been shivering in my sodden clothes. We march and march through these cork-trees, we cross ravines full of brushwood, nothing happens; then all of a sudden we’re in the middle of a swift, sharp fight. The men no
longer grumble, no longer drag their feet or report sick since witnessing the stroke of madness, the piece of bluffing, the demonstration of wild courage that Colonel Raspéguy and Major Esclavier have just given the troop.

  A battalion of the 108th, a battalion of levies and the Legion had managed to surround about a hundred fellaghas. To complete the encirclement, we had to hold a little rocky crest which controlled a sort of ravine, and therefore occupy it with one or two groups armed with automatic weapons. But time was short, the fellaghas had discovered the gap in the net and were rushing in that direction. The colonel’s helicopter, an old Bell—known as “the Mule” because it often refuses to start up in the mornings—appeared and hovered right over the crest, a yard above the rocks. Raspéguy and Esclavier jumped down, each with a carbine in his hand, and the helicopter flew off again.

  We were all down below, in a sort of basin covered in brushwood and hemmed in on all sides by the rocks. We could clearly see the two officers outlined against a sky across which black clouds were drifting in the wind.

  I watched them through binoculars. The colonel broke up some cigarettes and filled his pipe. The fellaghas opened fire on them; taking their time, Raspéguy and Esclavier settled down behind an outcrop of rock, not lying flat but in a kneeling position, and started firing back.

  Figures kept falling all round them; at one moment the rebels, who had scaled the rock, were almost on top of them and had to be driven off with grenades.

  Not a single fellagha succeeded in passing through that side and breaking out of the cordon.

  When it was all over, the helicopter came to pick Raspéguy and Esclavier up again and flew straight over us.

  In a single movement, every man in all three battalions rose to his feet, brandishing his weapon, and cheered at the top of his voice—myself included. Next to me, the commander of the Legion kept muttering: