by Norman Lewis
The universally recognized greetings in Arabic pass between us and are repeated many times in the usual way. I shift my stool round to sit at Sidi Omar’s side, pick up Soualah’s book, in which numerous passages are underlined, and make a start with what I have to say, sticking to a dozen basic verbs covering this life’s most important occasions, which appear in every page of the Koran. The saint listens attentively with the slightly wincing expression of one who hears great music being played badly. Sometimes he adds a correction, and rarely he even nods his approval. After a while he takes the book from me, closes it, and sets it aside. ‘Parlons français,’ he says, and then in good French, ‘I made a vow only to speak the language of my people, but God is very understanding, and will realize that exceptional circumstances can arise. Tell me about your trouble.’
I tell him, and he agrees to help. ‘I’ll go down to Filfila and talk to them,’ he says.
‘And I can tell my chief there’ll be no more trouble?’
‘Not from the Arabs. You’ll have plenty from the French. We too, but soon they’ll be gone.’
‘They’ll be gone, Sidi Omar?’
‘Quite positively.’
‘Why are you so sure of that?’ The opinion voiced by an Arab of great prestige must be examined with respect. Based on the old adage that there’s no smoke without fire, Field Security NCOs are instructed to be on the alert for rumours, and when there is little else to report, a kind of cottage industry springs up in many sections devoted to their manufacture. These in due course will be incorporated in the FSO’s weekly report to GHQ, to be sifted through and analysed in due course by specialists in this nebulous area of intelligence. Sidi Omar’s viewpoint can be taken as reflecting that of a high proportion of local Arabs.
‘Because of the prophecy.’
This is a little disappointing. I hoped for some hint of an uprising, a jihad of guerrillas in the mountains, but I nod, hoping to make it evident that I am impressed. In these mountains a saint’s prophecy is nearly as solid an affair as a battalion training in secret.
‘God tested us with too many good harvests, and we were corrupted. People drank wine, they wore garments of silk and listened to profane music. Young men were permitted to see their wives’ faces before marriage, and rich men selfishly refused to marry more than one wife.’
‘I’m sorry, Sidi Omar, but what’s wrong with a little pleasure? Why be so austere?’
‘It pays,’ Sidi Omar says. ‘In the long run. We’ll be here in a thousand years’ time, and where will the French be? They were the lesson sent by the Almighty to cure us of our bad habits. My predecessor Sidi Mohammed Ben Farhas appealed to God to bring us to our senses. I imagine what he had in mind was a few bad harvests, but what we got was the French. But for a hundred years only, the Almighty made clear. And that’s nearly up. A few more years, and we’ll be free of them.’
20TH JANUARY
Visit to the base depot, where the news is that all continues to go well. I have seen a newly arrived Captain Rogers, second in command, and one of the few officers so far encountered to have a good word for the Arabs. He was astonished a few days ago by the arrival at the base of the saint in person, at which all the Arabs stopped work for a brief session of prayer, followed by a lengthy harangue pronounced by Sidi Omar. The saint was entertained by the officers to tea, served in Army style from a large brew-can, and asked with considerable dignity to be allowed to take the used-up leaves with him when he left. Rogers is inclined to judge people by the reception they get from dogs, whose powers of instinctive evaluation he believes to be more acutely developed than ours, and he was particularly impressed when one of their dog-handler’s Alsatians made a beeline for him with obvious delight. At all events, not only has the thieving stopped, but work at the depot has speeded up since the visit. Rogers has had a pat on the back from AFHQ, and has put in a good word for us in consequence, news of which reached me in the form of lukewarm congratulations from the FSO — Leopold being present.
There was a singular footnote to this particular interview, for, before dismissing me, the FSO suddenly turned on one of his broad and crinkling smiles — a facial contortion from which the muscles take seconds to recover, accepted by us now as heralding momentous news. ‘Ah yes, Sergeant. In future you will refer to me not as Captain Merrylees, but as Captain Fitz Clarence.’
‘Is that order to cover all references made to you, sir, including those made to Allied personnel?’
‘For the moment, no. But that in future will be my name so far as all non-Allied personnel are concerned.’
A strange business indeed.
12TH FEBRUARY
Relations with the Arabs continue to go downhill, as evidenced by the following incidents.
THURSDAY
British soldiers who had been drinking anisette in the Bar Jules came out and assaulted several passing Arab girls. Veils were torn from their faces and in one case a soldier put his hand up a girl’s skirts. These assaults were encouraged and cheered by French passers-by.
FRIDAY
A party of drunken soldiers went into the mosque without removing their boots — as requested by a notice at the door. One of them pissed against a wall, and when the old Imam protested a mug of beer was emptied over his head. Later that day I visited the Bar Jules and saw the owner Vachon, who took me with evident pride into his kitchen where the anisette is made up in an operation taking no longer than five minutes. He laughingly said that it was lucky for him that the pharmacy happened to be next door.
SUNDAY
A jeep doing an estimated seventy miles per hour along the Charlesville Road ran over and killed an Arab child, and failed to stop. On the same day in the main street here an armoured vehicle smashed into the side of an Arab horse-drawn cart. The cart was wrecked and one horse suffered a broken leg and had to be destroyed. The sergeant driving the armoured vehicle threw about five pounds’ worth of francs at the Arab involved, and drove off.
The fact is, we are beginning to copy the attitudes of the French who are out to persuade us that Arabs don’t matter. The old recommendation that is said to have held good in Egypt — if you happen to run a gyppo down, be sure to back over him — has found its way here. The Arab has no rights. You can arrest one, go through his house, and no warrant is necessary, and if his womenfolk happen to be maltreated while this is going on, no one will raise an eyebrow.
Mohammed Kobtan’s house was attacked, and all his windows smashed, one day last week. For two reasons. One, because he is an Arab, and the police are ordered in such cases to look in the other direction. Two, because he is the town’s only successful Arab merchant. He buys and sells sardines, and this is the time — to some extent with our assistance — for his competitors, who employ gangsters to do their work for them, to settle old scores. Whether the FSO realizes it or not, our section supports the gangsters — posing with success as ardent Gaullists — and keeps them in business. Captain Bouchard is perfectly frank and fairly amiable about this. ‘I am sorry, Messieurs. I am informed that these gentlemen are your friends. They take no notice of me. There is nothing I can do about it.’
21ST FEBRUARY
In an attempt to close up the growing rift between us and the Arabs of Philippeville, I took up the idea put forward by Dr Kessous of giving our blessing to a species of friendship club to be started by a small number of influential Arabs. The object would be to provide an opportunity to make social contact with Arabs in their own homes. As it is, Arabs remain an unknown quantity to most Allied soldiers, and Kessous and many of his friends believe that there is no better way of re-establishing good relations and correcting damaging propaganda than by exposing us to traditional Arab hospitality.
When I mentioned this germ of a project to Leopold, he said, ‘Steer clear of it. We’re not interested,’ and whatever Leopold says goes for the FSO these days. However, the section has no clear-cut policy in any direction, no fixed viewpoint, and very little direction. In fact we drif
t along, and mentioning to Leopold next day the possibility of dining at the house of a rich Arab, he was full of enthusiasm. This being so, I went back to Kessous, and told him that I thought his proposal was a very good thing.
Four founder-members are suggested for our friendship club, Dr Kessous, Mohammed Kobtan, Ahmed Meksen of the Mairie, and an engaging and enthusiastic young taxi-driver called Hadef. Dr Kessous will represent the tiny handful of the professional elite, Mohammed Kobtan the almost equally limited business element, Meksen — so often addressed as Meknes — the Arab official world that little more than exists, and the exuberant Hadef the several thousand members of the proletariat.
Of these four men I have personal reservations only about one — Dr Kessous. I find him almost excessively ambitious, and therefore — so far as I am concerned — inevitably lacking in humour. Another thing that has not particularly recommended him to me is the display of a set of photographs taken while on the pilgrimage to Mecca, of the successive stages of the public amputation of a thief’s right hand. These photographs, although technically satisfactory, are so gruesome that they have even been turned down by Life. I cannot bring myself to feel any deep affection for a man who could concentrate on his photography at such a time, but for all that he is a natural leader, and much respected by his co-religionists.
Mohammed Kobtan and Ahmed Meksen are admirable in every way, simple, dignified and generous, but of the men in our pilot scheme Hadef the taxi-driver is in some ways the most remarkable. He is exceptionally handsome — the double almost of the French film star Charles Boyer — and although he spends much of his spare time hanging about the bars round the port getting sozzled on anisette, he is a great reader — an intellectual by local standards — regarded by the French police as a potential subversive, not only because he owns a collection of Reader’s Digests in the French version, but lends these to any seeker after knowledge who shows an interest in them.
A curious fact has emerged from recent discussions with these men when such matters as national prejudices are brought up. Something has convinced them that the main stumbling block to better East-West relations in their case is the seclusion of their womenfolk. They all assure me that the women themselves are responsible and are constantly chided by their menfolk for their backwardness in insisting on wearing the veil. Kessous, a Koranic scholar, says that there is nowhere in the Koran that the practice is upheld, and that the old Imam, who is greatly venerated through having elected to become a eunuch in furtherance of his religious life, has pronounced in favour of the veil’s abandonment.
The current flirtation with Western freedoms is undoubtedly at the back of an extraordinary party attended by Kobtan, Meksen, Hadef and myself at Kessous’ house. This was the equivalent of English five o’clock tea, at which in the normal course of events men only meet to talk politics, sip coffee and nibble almond and honey cakes. Something made me suspect that this was a special occasion, and sure enough, after a few moments of desultory conversation four black-shrouded and extremely animated forms burst into the room. These were the wives, primed for a symbolical break with the past.
They were all young and spirited, two of them, Mesdames Kessous and Kobtan, although clearly not French, have non-Semitic faces, extremely pale skins, and light brown hair. I suspect them of being Berbers, and it also occurred to me that the possession of a wife of highly European appearance might have some status advantage for a prominent Muslim. Meksen’s wife was undoubtedly an Arab, and Hadef’s turned out to be a negress he had acquired while living in the deep south. All four girls seemed highly intelligent and had plenty to say for themselves. Madame Hadef had a great sense of humour. When she mentioned that it was the first time that any men apart from her husband had seen her face, and I asked her how she felt about it, her reply was, ‘Well, at the moment I’m blushing, but my skin being the colour it is, I don’t imagine you’ve noticed.’
The upshot of this meeting was that we should start the ball rolling with a typical Arab-style lunch, if this could be arranged, for members of the section, and take it from there.
23RD FEBRUARY
Called to AFHQ Algiers for a meeting with a Major Bright, who is somebody in an undisclosed branch of Intelligence. He is rather grand, and with the patrician manner — as is often the case — goes a certain informality. He tells me to ‘grab a pew’ and says, ‘I’ve only just heard of you. I don’t know why. They tell me you can cope with the lingo here.’
I tell him about my struggles with the Algerian brand of Arabic, and he nods in sympathy. ‘What do you people in FS actually get up to?’ he asks. ‘I imagine they keep you pretty busy.’ When I tell him the true nature of our activities, he shakes his head in disbelief. ‘Sometimes I ask myself,’ he says, ‘Can we win this war?’
Tea and biscuits are brought. ‘To cut a long matter short,’ he says, ‘we need you here. We depend entirely on interpreters, and I needn’t tell you how unsatisfactory that can be. I imagine you wouldn’t be overwhelmed with grief at the prospect of being spirited away from Philippeville and given something useful to do with us?’
I show proper enthusiasm at the prospect, and he says, ‘Very well then, that’s a deal. I suppose you’d better go back to your section and keep them happy for a few days while I twist all the necessary wires together. I’ll be getting in touch with your FSO.’
Leaving his office, I feel sure that no more will be heard of this.
28TH FEBRUARY
A mission to deliver supposedly highly secret documents to our Tunisian frontline section. They are extremely pessimistic about the outcome of the campaign, particularly after the rout of the Americans at Kasserine. We sit late into the night hitting the Tunisian wine and listening to the thud and thump of distant shelling. The section is no longer allowed to include any comment on the morale of the troops in its reports, and we agree that, whatever they may tell the people back home, we are facing an Army which is too good for us, which is better trained, better equipped, and above all better endowed with fighting spirit. There is no hope of an advance until we can build up a crushing superiority.
This FSO likes to dress up — or rather likes his section members to do so. A sergeant has just been induced to disguise himself as an Arab — without a word of the language — and try to reach Tunis and report back on the situation there. Nobody expects to hear of him again.
2ND MARCH
The get-together lunch with the Arabs has fallen through. After accepting, Captain Merrylees appears to have had afterthoughts, and made an excuse to pull out. Nevertheless, the FSO and half the section were entertained at a party for someone’s anniversaire on the same day given by Fortuna at his house next to the brothel. Roast wild boar as usual, champagne by the bucketful, and quickest-on-the-draw contest between Fortuna and Leopold, which Leopold only narrowly lost.
A narrow escape for Hadef round about the time when all this was happening, when his taxi was sprayed by machine-gun fire at the moment of passing Fortuna’s farm on the Charlesville Road. He heard nothing of the firing but suddenly saw a line of holes in his right-side door. A warning to him, he says, to keep his place.
3RD MARCH
Do any of the section members accept bribes or gifts from Fortuna? Something I’m never likely to know. Whatever’s done in this direction would be with great discretion. Fortuna’s not stupid enough to try to stuff thousand-franc notes in anybody’s pocket.
I went to talk to him today at the farm from which Hadef may or may not have been fired upon. The subject for discussion was the milice populaire. He is the local commandant, and Bou Alem handing me a list of the membership mentioned that every single man had done a stretch in prison.
Reception affable in the extreme. He grasps me and it is impossible to evade his embrace. ‘Tu es plus qu’un frère pour moi,’ he says. He is concerned about my appearance. I don’t look well. ‘Et la santé — ça va bien? Vraiment? Ah, je suis content.’
We get down to business. It’s abo
ut the milice populaire, I say.
‘The milice populaire. Sure. Yes, go on.’
‘Do you have any regular authorization to wear those armbands?’
‘No. Should we?’
‘I think you should.’
‘Well, I’ll see to it straight away. And thanks for bringing it up. To be on the safe side, I’ll tell the boys to take their armbands off until the official say-so comes through.’
Unfortunately — hard as it is to admit it to oneself — he is likeable, this small man with his triangular, rueful face, his Chaplinesque shuffle and his quatre-cents-coups smile. The section as a whole are included in his blanket gratitude. ‘Vous m’avez tous sauvé la vie,’ he says, whenever given the opportunity. We have all dragged him from under the guillotine, and this salvation has given him a kind of emotional claim on us.