by Norman Lewis
He wants to show me round. The house is an ugly, tasteless villa with pretentious modern furniture in chromium, steel or glass. Several equally sad-looking, middle-aged henchmen mooch silently in the background.
‘Something out here’ll probably interest you,’ he says, and he takes me to see an old oil-cellar in the garden. ‘We cleared it out when the raids started, to turn it into a shelter.’ We go down some steps and I find myself in a long narrow chamber with the most wonderful Roman mosaics lining the walls, the kind of thing I’ve only seen before in a museum. We stop in front of a panel showing a garden with peacocks and three Roman girls standing with their arms round each other’s shoulders, listening to another playing a lyre.
‘What do you think of it?’ he says.
‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’
‘Would you like to have it?’
‘I don’t understand you.’
‘Say the word, and it’s yours. It doesn’t interest me.’
I laugh, still uncertain whether or not he means it. ‘I carry all my worldly goods in a kitbag,’ I say. ‘It’s a nice gesture but you’re talking about a ton of masonry.’
‘That picture’s on plaster only a centimetre thick. I could have it taken off for you in an hour or two.’
‘I’d still need a truck,’ I said.
‘Well anyway,’ he says, ‘the offer stands. If ever you change your mind it’ll be here for you.’
The matter of the milice populaire will go into my report, but I’m fairly certain that it will go no further than Captain Merrylees.
Chapter Eighteen
SPRING CAME TO ALGERIA in March, with a nightingale in full song among the empty shell cases in the dilapidated garden of our new villa in the outskirts of the town. A species of self-protective reticence had grown among our Arab friends, separating us from such as Dr Kessous, who had now come to the conclusion that they had little to hope from us, and that whatever the outcome of the war they were destined to remain as they always had been — second-class citizens of France. Since, in order to survive, the proletariat must at least cling to their optimism, our Arab workers remained unjustifiably in good heart, fully convinced that we should continue to reward their labour with our protection and take them with us when and wherever we went. This blind and unreasoning cheerfulness was their best weapon in the propaganda war waged by the French, and made them popular with our troops.
As far as we were concerned the war had ground to a halt, leaving us with absolutely nothing to do. Section members condemned to patrol the port did so, although there was really nothing there to watch over. Routine visits to units were quietly allowed to lapse. The FSO was rarely seen, remaining, according to report, most of the day in bed. Leopold now effectively ran the section, as I assumed he had always planned to run it; but having grasped at the substance he found he had caught the shadow. He held the power but there was nothing whatever to do with it. In despair he applied for a transfer to a divisional section, where whatever action the inert First Army had to offer was presumably to be found. When I asked what news there was of that job I was supposed to have been given at AFHQ, he grinned as if in secret triumph. ‘You can forget about it,’ he said. ‘You’ve been lost in the files again.’
Fortuna and his friends circulated boldly as ever with our stickers on the windscreens of their cars, to be saluted by our MPs if inadvertently stopped at checkpoints. Most weekends he gave a party at which half the section would get uproariously drunk. If AFHQ wanted information about our area, it came through him, and any visiting nabob from Algiers would be respectfully escorted to one of his houses to be softened up with richly garlicked food and vintage champagne. Bou Alem of the Sûreté repeatedly warned me of the terrible reprisals arranged for the Arabs as soon as we were withdrawn, and repeatedly and with a feeling of cowardice and shame I was obliged to explain to him that while the Arab’s fate might concern me personally, no one who had the slightest power or influence in our Army could possibly care less.
Left virtually to my own devices, there was nothing to prevent my going off on long trips of exploration of the Algerian hinterland, and this I did. Once again I was to discover how extremely underpopulated the country was, and I rode for hour after hour over empty roads without any sign of human presence.
In the beginning I was surprised to find how ‘un-African’ it was, but I soon decided that visually it was neither African nor European, but something unique. The outstanding feature of this landscape was its splendid oak forests, with glades stretched to infinity between the stands of majestic trees. This aspect of it reminded me of engravings in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century books devoted to the Italian scene.
The absence of human intrusion outside the coastal strip made for the presence of an abundant fauna. I rode as quietly as I could along the empty roads, coasting softly in neutral gear with the engine switched off down the long, winding slopes, and in this way frequently took the animals by surprise: a brace of elegant foxes and — I could hardly believe it — a single jackal, traipsing dutifully like a well-trained dog through the buttercups. Deer were everywhere, wild boars frequently spotted at the edge of woods, and once I saw a sow chased through an open glade by her litter of sportive piglets. The best of the birds were of the flashing sub-tropical variety, such as bee-eaters, rollers or orioles, displayed like bright toys or Christmas-tree ornaments against the rich but sedate foliage of the oaks. The surprise of the day, and of these trips taken as a whole, was a covey of great bustard, like colossal partridges, the largest of which might have weighed thirty pounds. Some were in the roadway and could barely hoist themselves into the air before I was upon them. The last of our native birds were hunted to extinction by East Anglian squires using greyhounds who could run them down before they became airborne. The Arabs told me that they were bold and aggressive birds that would attack any man who wandered near their nests.
Innumerable flowers grew in these untouched, lonely places. In early March blue dwarf irises invaded snow-fields of narcissi, but later in the month many orchids came into flower; the lilac or purple bee, fly and spider ophrys in the full sun, and butterfly orchids in the shade of the oaks which, as I coasted slowly down the road, looked as though thousands of white butterflies had settled among last year’s fallen leaves.
On these expeditions I always took a packet of tea, and sometimes, about midday, spotting an Arab hut on a mountain-side, I would climb up to it, and if a male came out to meet me, show him my provisions and suggest we might share them. The offer was always accepted with enthusiasm. Quite often on these occasions an egg or two would be produced to complete the meal. And in this way — two simple men trying to make themselves heard, and understand each other above the vociferous singing of nightingales — a pleasant and indulgent hour would be passed.
Chapter Nineteen
IN THE MIDDLE OF April I had a car accident, and when I awoke some time later in the 100th General Hospital it was to find Leopold’s face, a vaguely sinister angel from an El Greco background afloat somewhere above me in the unfocused shapes of the tent.
‘The story is this,’ he said. ‘You have a fractured skull and a few other things that don’t count for much. We’re going into Tunis right behind the assault troops in about two weeks’ time. If you’re on your feet by then, OK. If you’re not, you’re off the section. We’ve been picked out for the biggest FS operation to date. We’re in business at last.’ The long El Greco face sharpened with thoughts of military adventures, and acquisition. ‘We can’t afford to be a man short at a time like this,’ he said.
‘I’ll be there whatever happens,’ I assured him.
Some hours later I saw the MO and explained the situation to him. He was entirely sympathetic to the extent of agreeing to a minor falsification of the records. A skull officially fractured meant a minimum of a month in hospital, but if the nature of the injury in the register were altered to concussion I could go as soon as I could stand on my feet. The MO wa
rned me that if this were done I should deprive myself of an infinitely small disability pension.
The section left for Tunis on 4 May, the first British troops entered the city on the morning of the 7th, and at about the same time I set off alone, riding a motor cycle. I suffered from no feelings of discomfort, but was handicapped by being obliged to drive the machine — which fortunately possessed a foot gear-change — with one hand, due to fractured ribs on the left side. Apart from this I was inconvenienced by a loss of balance that only took effect when I got off the motor bike and prevented me from standing still.
On the whole I managed fairly well. The roads were perfect until Souk El Arba. I slept in a field there, got up at dawn, and within two or three hours reached Béja, sixty miles from Tunis. Here I had bad trouble with truckloads of Germans who had either been disarmed and directed to the rear, or were actually trying to escape. They were strangely exuberant and, seeing the lone motor cyclist in the road, one after another drove straight at me, and in one instance I landed in the ditch — this possibly being my nearest escape from death in the war. After Medjez el Bab the battlefield began, cratered everywhere, and littered with numerous shattered or burned-out tanks. The bodies — where they could be reached in the wreckage — had been removed, but in each case helmets had been left to provide a tally.
Casualty clearing stations had been established in the villages, each one with rows of bloodstained stretchers stood against the wall to dry in the sun, recurrent accents of bright colour in an otherwise drab and desolate landscape.
By mid-morning I was in Tunis, alert in a mind’s eye anticipation of a Brussels after Waterloo, delivered over to the crashing of church bells, to flower-throwing, Te Deums and Caesarian triumphs. But what dominated the scene was a great sprawl through the streets and the squares of the city of thousands of unconscious British soldiers — I counted over fifty lying on the steps of a single church — a Goyaesque muddle of bodies and bottles and wine vomit. The crowds, surging without direction hither and thither, trod them underfoot, and the MPs dragged them from under the tracks of tanks and heaved them like sacks of potatoes over the tailboards of the lorries waiting to take them away. If this, I asked myself, was the British in victory, how would they have appeared in defeat?
The Army was on its way elsewhere, to Cap Bon where there was a final battle to be fought, and the crowds watching from the roadside seemed apathetic. In all probability to avoid the innumerable drunks, most of the young women had gone home, leaving a glum collection of the middle-aged and elderly of both sexes, who had had enough of the war. It was astonishing to discover that numerous German soldiers were included among these onlookers, still free to come and go as they pleased, and a greater surprise still, in the first bar where I tried to buy a beer, to be elbowed from the counter by the Germans that had taken over the place. A group of them were roaring a marching song. Thus it remained for the rest of this day and the next, the British celebrating victory, and the Germans making the best of defeat, each in their own way.
Movement Control directed me to our headquarters in an elegant suburb at the better end of the boulevard. This villa until a day or two before had housed Gestapo personnel, and they had created in it a little haven of pseudo-Bavarian Gemütlichkeit, with drinking-steins decorated with jocose faces, and rackfuls of carved pipes, beery wall-mottoes, and clocks from which small rustic German figures popped as the hour chimed to execute a few clog-dance steps before being jerked back out of sight.
This place was the reverse of sinister, and the hatchet-faced men — as we supposed them to be — who had lived here must have left it with real regret. They had gone off in a hurry, leaving a cupboard stuffed with a huge variety of jams, with innumerable condoms — some with fanciful additions — and an assortment of feathered hats. Personal correspondence had been overlooked too, in the haste of departure, including letters waiting to be posted. This showed the writers on the whole as sensitive men, caring sons and devoted fathers. ‘Persuade Mutti to take regular meals … Magda’s friends sound to me rather wild. Please take care.’ Friends and relatives were reassured as to the correspondent’s health and the future of the cause. ‘The exercise is good for me. I’ve never felt so fit … of course the going’s been hard, but I see a break in the clouds.’ One Kriminalsekretär was distressed by the condition of the Arab population. ‘I’ve never seen such poverty. To tell you the truth it thoroughly depresses me.’
It was Leopold’s moment of triumph, his apotheosis, and he could hardly contain himself for delight. After so many barren months in Philippeville relieved only by weekly orgies chez Fortuna, this unimaginable prize had fallen to us. A great, mysterious and inviolate oriental city was ours for the taking. The first thing was to settle in and, overbrimming with good humour, Leopold allocated the sleeping quarters. Up to this we had lived to some small extent under the dead hand of the Crimean War, from which time we were assured a regulation had survived that prohibited Other Ranks billeted upon civilians from sleeping in beds. In each villa, therefore, which we had previously occupied, the beds were removed to allow us to sleep, as in the days of Florence Nightingale, on the floors. But now it seemed even to Leopold unreasonable that we should be denied the modest degree of comfort that had been enjoyed by the Gestapo.
Amid this general euphoria a single note of warning was struck. Captain Merrylees — now FitzClarence — announced that to mark our entry into Tunis he would shortly be changing his name again, but had not decided to what. Next, smiling dangerously, he issued an edict imposing a curfew upon us. The front door would be locked at 11 p.m. He kept his pistol ready by his bed, he said, and might decide to fire through his bedroom window, overlooking the door, at anyone who tried to enter after that time.
No one was quite sure how to take this. Was it supposed to be some sort of stupid joke, or had this strange, confused man drifted so far from the shores of reality that he was capable of putting such a threat into action? As Leopold, shaking his head, remembered, even in the relative calm of the first days in Philippeville there had never been any question of working to a time-table, and that our duties there had occupied us as much by night as by day.
9TH MAY
Chaos in Tunis is in no way diminished, and as so far no duties have been assigned to us there is little to do but roam the streets. Yesterday the last of the drunks had been carted away before midnight, but today shows promise of producing as heavy a crop as ever, as fresh Eighth Army troops arrive, set up camps in the neighbourhood and soldiers flock into town. Sometimes there is more Hogarth than Goya in the aspects of intoxication. I saw soldiers streaming into a wine-shop, drinking from the necks of bottles as they came out, then almost within seconds falling senseless. One man, unable to remove a cork, smashed the neck off the bottle, and emptied it, the jagged glass to his lips.
The movement of our fighting troops along the avenue de Paris is settling to something more like a parade, with the top brass showing off. Every soldier must feel the need to do something to assert his individuality in the terrible anonymity of Army life, and this is an impulse that has led in the Eighth Army to unusual results. We get away with brown shoes, unorthodox headgear and odd badges. In the Eighth Army the officers go in for polka-dotted scarves and corduroys. Astonishing that even a general should suffer from the same ambition to stand out in the crowd, to the extent — as one does — of wearing in this sweltering heat a battle blouse with a fur collar.
There are as many Germans to be seen as ever — but not a drunken one so far. They form groups to sing their aggressive songs, some of them having removed their badges of rank, although inexplicably their uniforms remain neat and well-pressed. They treat us with amused disdain, rather as British officers at the time of the Indian Mutiny might have viewed momentarily victorious sepoys.
I go into a pub full of them, and attract a little cold curiosity by having to pace backwards and forwards to keep my balance. Hardly any of the British speak a word of German, but one in
three of the Germans has a fair amount of English, and this can be even fluent and colloquial, as in the case of one of them who debars my access to the crowded bar and says, ‘Fuck off.’
Served in the end, I make for a corner and there find a defeated adversary who has no objection to talking to me. He is small, and superior in manner with thick pebbled spectacles, and gives me the impression of never having smiled in his life. He appears to be short of cash, accepts a drink from me and a conversation in 50-50 German and English begins. Drinking my beer, he obviously tries to put a brake on his contempt, but starts off, ‘As an army, you are nothing. This is an episode of no importance. An interlude.’ He does not see the Afrika Korps as defeated. They have responded to the need for strategic adjustment. The outcome of the war, he says, will be decided in Russia, and at this point I agree with him.
His battle career has been a dramatic one, making him sound like the personification of some Teutonic myth. He volunteered for action on the Russian front, collected five wounds — ‘I’m like a sieve with bullet holes,’ he says — and frostbite that removed two toes. He was then sent to North Africa, where he found the war sluggish and unentertaining, and he had applied to be returned to Russia. Apart from the Germans, he says, the Russians are the only soldiers worth anything. ‘When we advanced,’ he says, ‘we had orders to take no prisoners and kill all the wounded. If you left a wounded man alive he would come round eventually and start shooting again. I live only for war,’ he adds. ‘There is no other experience in life to equal it.’
Strangely, he is obsessed by the knowledge that months will probably pass before his mother hears that he has survived after he disappears into a PoW camp, and he presses on me a piece of paper giving an address in Switzerland through which she may be reached with news of him. Suddenly the obsidian Teutonic heart softens. ‘Do this for me,’ he says, and he takes off his wristwatch and tries to make me take it in payment.