by Alexis Jenni
They lay down on a patch of grass between two boulders that cast deep shadows. They stared up into an ink-black sky strewn with more stars than they had ever seen, except perhaps for one night they had spent together in France. They could see big stars, smaller ones and an infinite dusting of tiny stars that made the shadows shimmer. The air smelled of pine.
‘Back to where we started,’ said Eurydice, squeezing his hand.
‘A new start,’ said Victorien, pulling her to him.
He was trained not to sleep. He knew how to doze lightly, reduce his physical and mental activity to a minimum, as though hibernating, while remaining alert to sudden noises, voices, the crunch of gravel, the crack of branches. Eurydice slept with her head on his shoulder. His left arm cradled her, keeping his right hand on the gun, half out of its holster, the metal warm.
Between two sighs, he heard the sound of whispering voices. The murmurs came and went on the shifting night breezes, faded and returned. He thought he could make out Arabic, several voices in conversation. He did not know whether they were rebel djounnouds or mythical djinns. His hand moved over the warm steel, his index finger found the trigger. Still Eurydice slept, a wisp of hair over one eye, her body pressed against his. He watched her. She was breathing evenly, breathing into his neck, smiling. He felt himself harden. This is not the time, he thought, but at least it doesn’t make any noise. The whispering faded away.
Very gradually, the darkness brightened. He was woken by the Alouette, the bubble-cockpit helicopter flying high to avoid gunfire. The distant hum of the rotors stirred the pure morning air; the rosy sun glimmered on the transparent cockpit. On the ground they were still in shadow. Salagnon climbed up on one of the huge boulders and waved frantically. The Alouette responded by turning in small circles, then flew off. Victorien climbed back down and crouched next to Eurydice, who was wrapped in the rumpled haik, now stained with mud and grass. She looked at him with those penetrating eyes, which immediately transformed him into a furiously beating heart.
‘Good news. They’re going to find us alive.’
She opened the haik. She looked as she had in sleep, tender and slightly rumpled, smiling at him, and that smile meant for him alone hovered in the air, showing him with dazzling arrows of light that blinded him to everything but this: this floating smile meant for him alone.
‘Come over to me. Just until they arrive.’
They heard the sound of engines in the distance. Juddering along the track came a jeep, a half-track mounted with a machine gun, and two trucks. They waited for them next to the 2CV, having smoothed their hair and their clothes as best they could. Salagnon had tucked his gun back into his belt.
‘All this just for us?’ he said to the relieved lieutenant as he jumped down from the jeep and saluted.
‘The area is not secure, sir.’
‘I know. I’m the one who pins the little flags on the map.’
‘Let me say that again: it is not safe to travel alone, Capitaine, sir.’
‘But I’m not alone.’
The lieutenant said nothing and stared at Eurydice. She returned his stare, the haik wrapped around her like a shawl.
‘You’re Capitaine Salagnon, you survive everything,’ he sighed. ‘But you’ll see one day that immortality will weigh heavy.’
He went to supervise the 2CV being towed.
That guy is ten years younger then me, thought Salagnon, and he knows what he’s doing. We’re educating a generation of specialists in war. What will they do afterwards?
‘As we were heading to the post…’
‘The burj, sir, the burj,’ interrupted Chambol. ‘I insist on this word. In Arabic it means “tower”. It is a very powerful word in their language. It is a noble word that describes a sign in the desert.’
‘All right, fine, as we were heading to the… burj, we saw dead donkeys along the side of the road. Several of them in varying stages of decomposition.’
‘That’s the no-go area, sir.’
‘A no-go area for donkeys?’
‘The whole population has been moved out, no one is allowed through. We keep a careful watch to make sure there are no traffickers bringing supplies to the outlaws. Let them starve, let them come out of the woods and fight us. The rules are simple, Capitaine, they are what makes it possible to hold the region: it is a forbidden zone, therefore anyone found there is automatically classed as an outlaw.’
‘But donkeys?’
‘Donkeys are a means of transport in Algeria, therefore in the forbidden zone they are classed as enemy convoy.’
Salagnon bemusedly looked at Colonel Chambol, who was in deadly earnest.
‘During various skirmishes we’ve killed a number of donkeys that were carrying olives or wheat. You might think it’s a mistake, but it’s no mistake: we’re starving out the rebels.’
‘Have you ever seen these rebels?’
‘The rebels? Never. They’re probably not hungry enough to come out of the forest yet. But we’re waiting for them. Victory will go to those who have the patience to wait.’
‘Or maybe they’re not there.’
‘I’m sorry, I have to stop you there. We intercepted a donkey carrying weapons. The women leading it were wearing men’s shoes – that immediately aroused our suspicions. We killed them on the spot. When we examined the bodies we discovered they were actually men, and in the donkey’s panniers, under the sacks of couscous, there were two rifles. That dead donkey justifies all the others, Capitaine. We’re on the right track.’
‘I suppose you’re still tracking donkeys.’
‘We will go on tracking them. We will never give in. True grit is the greatest quality in a man. It is much more important than intelligence.’
‘I can see that. The truth is a long path strewn with dead donkeys.’
‘What do you mean, sir?’
‘Nothing, Colonel. I’m trying to make sense of everything.’
‘And are you succeeding?’
‘No. The bodies will keep piling up, I think,’ he smiled.
Chambol looked at him. He did not understand. He did not smile.
‘Why exactly are you here, Capitaine Salagnon?’ he asked eventually.
‘To intercept a katiba transporting real weapons.’
‘And you think we’re not capable of stopping them?’
‘A katiba is a unit of one hundred and twenty highly trained men, Colonel, armed to the teeth and extremely wary. At the very least, we’ll come in handy.’
‘Have it your way. But you could have spared yourselves the journey.’
Salagnon did not take the trouble to answer. The paratroopers moved into Chambol’s office, cleared a space, installed a field radio and a blackboard, unrolled maps. They clustered around Salagnon, who stood there, issuing no orders, simply waiting for everything to be set up. Chambol, his arms folded, stood fuming in the corner; visibly, very visibly, he disapproved.
‘Vignier, Herboteau?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘If you were the rebels, which route would you take?’
The two young lieutenants pored over the map. They studied it intently, their concentration obvious from their posture, one massaging the bridge of his nose, the other tugging his bottom lip between thumb and forefinger. They each took turns running fingers along the contour lines of the map, first here, then there, murmuring to each other as though undecided; they were showing that they were thinking; they were showing that they intended to respond to the question with a carefully considered answer. Alone, they would not have carried on so long, but they were thinking, while Salagnon watched.
Their uniforms aside, they looked nothing like each other. Two men could hardly be less alike than Vignier and Herboteau: one was tubby, the other scrawny; one garrulous and funny, the other pasty and withdrawn; one the son of a factory worker from Denain, the other the son of a bourgeois from Bordeaux; one earning, the other inheriting; yet by some miracle they got along famously, understood each oth
er perfectly, went everywhere together. The only thing they had in common was that both were paratroop lieutenants. They were twin reflections in a fairground mirror, they joked with each other; they had the same tics; one was small and fat, the other tall and lean.
Salagnon was fond of the two lads, who greeted each of his questions with deadly earnest. He had trained them. He liked to think he had taught them the hide-and-seek of war.
‘There, sir,’ said Vignier, running his finger along a narrow valley.
‘Or maybe there, sir,’ said Herboteau, tracing a different valley.
‘Two is two too many. You have to choose.’
‘How can you possibly know what these people think?’ grunted Chambol.
He had given up his office, but he could not bear for the paratroopers to behave as though he were not even present. The maps were spread out over the big desk. They had cleared it with no consideration. They were studying pairs of aerial photographs of the region using stereoscopic glasses. As though they could know the terrain without ever having climbed it. When all they had to do was ask. After all he, Chambol, was the focal point of all the posts in the region, and here they were pretending he did not exist, these men in their clownish combat uniforms, who refused out of bravado to wear steel helmets, so they could show off the ridiculous little caps perched on their bony skulls.
‘They can disappear at will. We never spot them.’
‘Despite all your posts?’
‘That just proves that they can disappear.’
‘Or that your posts are blind and useless.’
‘We control the sector.’
‘With all due respect, Colonel, you control fuck all. That’s why we’re here.’
‘They know the terrain. They melt into it like butter into hot bread. You won’t find anything.’
The simile fell flat. Salagnon stared at him in silence. The two lieutenants looked up and waited. The orderlies operating the radio slowed their movements; those next to the blackboard stiffened, standing almost to attention, in the hope of becoming invisible.
‘It’s bullshit, this thing about “knowing the terrain”, Colonel. People keep mentioning it, but it’s meaningless.’
‘This is their country. They know the terrain. They disappear at will before our very eyes.’
‘You’re talking about a hundred and twenty men transporting crates of arms and munitions. A convoy of donkeys, Colonel. They can’t hide behind a rock. Wherever it goes, it can be seen.’
‘I’m telling you, they know the terrain.’
‘Not one of these men comes from around here, most were born in the city like you and me; the others are from various regions. People only know the area they live in, and even then only if they walk around a lot. We’re not tracking shepherds but an army of men who are competent and cautious and who are trained to move about unnoticed. You guys up in the lookout posts, they never walk around, and worse, they sleep at night. They know nothing about the area where they’re based, they’re just waiting to be relieved.’
‘We’re talking about Arabs, and this is Algeria.’
‘Arabs aren’t genetically predisposed to having an intimate knowledge of Algeria, Colonel! Any Arab living in Algeria learns about it gradually, just like everyone else.’
Chambol rolled his eyes, exasperated.
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, Salagnon. You don’t know this country or its people.’
‘But I do know what it takes for an armed unit to cross a sector. Because I’m part of an armed unit. The world is the same for everyone, Colonel.’ He turned to his lieutenants. ‘Gentlemen?’
‘There!’ they said in concert, placing their fingers on one of the valleys.
‘This is preposterous,’ said Chambol. ‘That route would mean crossing the main road and passing close to one of our lookout posts.’
‘Yes, but it’s the shortest route, and they would be hidden by the forest for most of the time.’
‘But what about the road? The post?’
‘There are a hundred and twenty of them. They’re heavily armed. They can take it by force. But I suspect they’re betting that the lookout post won’t be a problem.’
‘Why would they think that?’
‘You said it yourself: your lookouts never spot them. They turn a blind eye. They look the other way. They’re not protecting the sector, they’re protecting themselves. Lookout posts simply serve to immobilize men, scattering them over a large terrain and, in doing so, turning them into targets. Their main job is surviving.’
‘Ridiculous.’
‘I couldn’t have said it better myself. So, lieutenants, where do we position ourselves?’
They drew a diagram on the blackboard, holding positions, drop zones, pick-up zones, under the mocking eye of Chambol.
‘Happy trapping, messieurs. We’ll expect you for dinner when you get bored of waiting.’
The paratroopers are lying against large boulders. They have taken cover along the crest of the ridge of limestone blocks that burn if you touch the side facing the sun. They dominate the wadi, where, in winter – is there a winter here? when summer comes it is quickly forgotten – a powerful river flows that is now no more than a rivulet. The banks are pockmarked with dark soil flourishing with rose-laurels, wild grasses whose dried flowers flicker in the sun, and trees; the trees along the riverbanks form a small forest, a dense thicket of gnarled branches, glossy leaves that run the length of the valley, forming a covert ideal for hiding. Far below, a gravel road winds down into the valley and fords the river by what may be a Roman bridge that is too wide for the stream trickling through, but is designed to cope with the flash floods and the rainstorms; then the road snakes up the far slope until it reaches the opposite ridge. There is a second unit there, hiding amid the confusion of boulders and grey shrubs that cast a tracery of fractured shadows. It is impossible to see them, even with binoculars. Their dusty combat fatigues blend into the scree that covers everything, the slope down, the opposite slope and, beyond that, the arid hills that stretch out for ever. Their camouflage hides them. The colours are washed out, the pleats worn and crumpled, the fabric threadbare and tattered in places; their green canvas straps are ripped. They are wearing work clothes. Even their guns are scratched and dented, just like tools that the hand uses most often. The limestone boulders they are lying on protect them from being seen, but not from the heat. Like lizards on a wall, they are motionless, their eyes narrowed to slits. They watch and wait. They doze from time to time. They have been here all night. They have felt the sun on their backs all day as it rose. They watched the sky flush purple, then pink, the clear blue of a French summer, and finally white, which it remains for the rest of the day, all the colours of sheet metal slowly heated until it is white-hot. Lying as still as they can, they are sweating.
If I could be truly still, thinks Salagnon during these long hours, perhaps I might not sweat at all, or at least I wouldn’t feel it. The body may not adapt, but it is possible to decide not to care. Heat has followed me around. I have spent my whole adult life sweating. But here, at least, I’m stewing in my own juice. In Indochine the very atmosphere was poisonous. The muggy air was oppressive. I felt myself fester as I was slowly steamed alive in the rancid sweat of all the people packed together. Here at least I am festering in my own sweat. And that is better.
They watched the edges of the dark forest, this rustling covert of dusty leaves. They were expecting a column of 120 armed men to emerge, then cross the road in broad daylight. They were waiting. One hundred and twenty men: given the scale of this war, it represented a whole army. Most of the time, there is nothing to be seen. You scour the countryside and find nothing; you know they are hiding. A jeep was ambushed on a deserted road as though the very rocks and scrubland had attacked it; the bodies of the passengers were found hacked to pieces by the roadside. This was what passed for a battle. The best they could do was overrun the village closest to the attack and interrogate ev
eryone they managed to capture. The suspects did not understand the questions and they did not understand the answers. This was what passed for a counter-offensive. So they were relieved to be expecting 120 armed men. It is better to fight than to live in constant fear of being taken by surprise. The young men lying between the rocks tried not to pass out from sunstroke, to control the beating of their hearts, to keep a flame burning in every muscle like a pilot light, ready to flare up when the column of 120 armed men finally broke cover.
Salagnon had set up the field radio under a scrawny mimosa tree; the antenna blended with the branches, nothing could be seen; any piece of metal that might gleam had been daubed with green paint and sprinkled with sand. Thirty kilometres away, two helicopters were waiting; the pilots were ready, sitting in the shade, ready to drop a section wherever it was needed, and to set off again to replace men here and there. Trambassac used helicopters in every operation now. He carefully planted tiny flags on his map, pinning them at higher altitudes represented by contour lines. He was informed by radio when they arrived. He created networks of little pins, played draughts on his map, boxing in the enemy, cutting off his route, waiting around a corner, surrounding him with pins. Meanwhile, out here, between the hot rocks, midpoint on the ringed horizon, men crawled over stones to fight. Trambassac jabbed a finger and men were transported to the point on the map where his finger landed.
Two Siko H34s could set down a unit anywhere. Thirty men is not a lot, but with enough punch, enough precision and equipped with automatic weapons, they could deal the fatal blow. The fifteen men carried in each helicopter knew that they could count on each other. A battalion made up of young men who know and respect each other is invincible, since none of them will dare back down in front of his friends, none of them will abandon the men he has fought with, the men he lives with, to do so would be to abandon himself.
Eyes half closed beneath his beret, Salagnon was waiting for something to move. On the white pages of the little pad he kept in his pocket, he drew the valley, sketched out the terrain in pencil, shaded, filled in the details, then turned the page and drew the same thing again. He sketched the valley so often he knew every hollow, every tree; he did not miss a single one of the shrubs that had been growing here for centuries. He thought that by working quickly, moving from one drawing to the next, he would notice anything that moved, he would see them coming. The radio operator next to him was half-asleep, cap pulled down over his eyes, leaning against the mimosa.