“And just so as to be able to say ‘you Frenchmen,’ you prostrate yourself twice a day in prayer which is absolutely meaningless?”
“More or less, I suppose. But I should have liked, even in this defeat, to be able to say ‘we Frenchmen.’ You people never let me.”
“And now?”
“Now it’s too late.”
Mahmoudi appeared to think the matter over. He had a long narrow head with a determined jaw, a slightly hooked nose and tranquil eyes, and his fringe of black beard trimmed into a point made him look like the popular conception of a Barbary pirate.
“No, perhaps it isn’t too late, but something will have to be done quickly—unless of course a miracle occurs.”
“You don’t believe in miracles?”
“In your schools they made a point of destroying whatever sense of wonder or belief in the impossible I had.”
• • •
Mahmoudi continued to pray to a God in whom he no longer believed.
Glatigny also fell into the habit of kneeling down and praying twice a day to his God, but he had faith and this was manifestly clear.
Lieutenant-Colonel Raspéguy, who felt ill at ease with the senior officers, came and joined them whenever he could. He was only really in his element among the subalterns, captains and N.C.O.s. He always went barefoot—by way of training, he claimed, with a view to further operations. But he never mentioned what sort of operations. He would sit on the edge of a bunk and trace mysterious figures on the earth floor with a sliver of bamboo. Occasionally he would burst out:
“Why the hell did they have to dump us in this damned basin? Christ Almighty, it’s unthinkable . . .”
On one occasion Glatigny tried to put forward the High Command theory that Dien-Bien-Phu was the key to the whole of South-East Asia and had been from time immemorial.
“Listen,” Raspéguy said to him, “you’re quite right to stand up for your lord and master, but now you’re with us, on our side, and you don’t owe him anything more. Dien-Bien-Phu was a foul-up. The proof of it is, we lost.”
Sometimes the colonel would go up to Lescure and then turn round to Esclavier and ask:
“How’s your crackpot? Any better?”
He regarded his favourite captain with a certain amount of distrust and wondered if he was only looking after the madman the better to prepare his escape, his “midnight flit,” without even letting him know.
At the time of the surrender Raspéguy had wanted to attempt one last break-out; he had been refused permission. He had then assembled his red berets and told them:
“I’m granting every one of you your liberty. It’s every man for himself from now on. I, Raspéguy, am not prepared to be in command of prisoners.”
Esclavier was facing him at the time and the colonel had seen that peculiar glint in his eyes:
“So you’re giving me my liberty, are you? Well, you’ll see if I don’t take advantage of it . . . and all by myself.”
If he had had a son, he would have wanted him to be like the captain: “as tough as they come,” prickly and unmanageable, with a strong sense of comradeship, and so crammed with medals and feats of arms that if he had not curbed him a little he would have had even more than himself.
He went up to Esclavier and laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Philippe, don’t be a damned fool. The war’s not over yet, not by a long shot, and I’ll be needing you.”
“It’s every man for himself, sir, you said so yourself.”
“We’ll have a go at it together later on, when we’re ready, when everything’s right for it.”
• • •
On the third morning—while the prisoners were still at Muong-Phan—it began to rain. Water began to drip through the thatch on to their bunks.
Lacombe woke up and remarked that he was hungry. Then, turning round, he noticed that Esclavier’s place was empty. He felt there was something wrong and opened the haversack in which he had hidden six tins of baked beans. There were three missing. He woke up the others.
“Someone’s stolen my rations; I’d put them aside . . . for all of us . . . just in case. Esclavier must have taken them; he’s run out on us.”
“Pipe down,” Boisfeuras quietly said. “He’s decided to try his luck. We’ll keep his absence concealed as long as we can.”
Glatigny had come up to them:
“He didn’t take all the tins?”
“Almost all,” said Lacombe, whose flabby cheeks were quivering.
“He didn’t want to load himself down. Yet I advised him to take the whole haversack.”
“But. . . .”
“Didn’t you say you put those tins aside for all of us? Well, one of us needed them particularly badly . . .”
Pinières was furious. He turned to Merle:
“Esclavier might have let us know; we could have gone with him. But you know what he’s like: absolutely unco-operative, always does things on his own and trusts no one but himself.”
Mahmoudi, sitting cross-legged on his bunk, did not budge. He did not even try to get out of the way of the water dripping down on to his neck. Lescure was quietly singing a strange little ditty about a garden in the rain and a boy and a girl who loved each other but did not realize it.
The storm had broken in the middle of the night and it had suddenly turned as black as pitch, while the thunder rolled round the valley like a salvo of artillery. Two or three flashes of lightning ripped across the sky. Esclavier had leaped to his feet and crept up to Boisfeuras’s bunk.
“Boisfeuras!”
“What?”
“I’m off.”
“You’re mad.”
“I can’t stand it any longer. This storm, you see, there was a storm like this during my journey from Compiègne to Mathausen. There was a moment when I could have jumped out of the train through a badly fastened window in the carriage, but I waited in the hope of a more favourable opportunity.”
“You’re a damned fool. Can I help you in any way?”
“This is my plan: if I head due south I can reach the Méo village above Bam-Ou-Tio in a couple of nights. I once had a look round that part of the country, and the Méos were always friendly. They’re related to Tou-Bi, the head man of Xieng-Kouang. They’ll give me a guide. By following the crests of the mountains I’ll be able to reach the Nam-Bac valley in a fortnight or so and that’s where the operational base of the Crèvecœur column should be. If it isn’t there, I’ll push on to Muong-Sai. The Méos between the Na-Mou and Muong-Sai are all on our side.”
“They’re not, they’re against us.”
“You’re wrong. Last February they evacuated all the survivors of the 6th Laotian Light Infantry, including the wounded, right through the 308 Division lines. The Viets may hold the valleys, but the Méos hold the heights.”
“That was in February. Since then the Viets have overrun the highlands and conscripted the Méos. Your plan’s feasible, but there are the Viets to reckon with, the whole Vietminh world, Vietminh organization, the Vietminh intelligence service . . .”
“It can’t be true. No Méo has ever served any master except his own fantasy and has never been known to betray a guest.”
Glatigny, who had woken up and heard them whispering together, came over and joined them.
“I’m off,” Esclavier told him. “I’d be grateful if you would look after Lescure for me.”
“Can I come with you?”
“Impossible. There’s only the remotest chance of success, even for one man on his own. Boisfeuras doesn’t think I’ll get away with it, and he may be right.”
“Have you got any provisions?”
“No.”
Without a sound Glatigny went and got Lacombe’s kit-bag.
“This might come in useful. That fat swine won’t ever need it in an attempt
to escape.”
“Too heavy,” said Esclavier.
He only took three tins. Boisfeuras handed him a silver piastre which he carried strapped to his leg by a band of adhesive tape.
“This is the only currency the Méos recognize. You’ll either get yourself killed or be recaptured. Good luck.”
Esclavier gave him a tap on the shoulder.
“You were chasing her yourself, you old bastard, while pretending to defend her virtue. Just like the Viets. That was the best policy perhaps. Take good care of Lescure, Glatigny. He did something I could never have done—fought and showed courage for someone other than himself.”
Esclavier plunged out into the dark and was instantly soaked by the rain. There was a light flickering in the guard-post hut. The guard-post lay to the north; he would therefore have to move in the opposite direction and take cover in the jungle at once.
“Halt!”
The voice came out of the rain and the darkness.
Esclavier replied:
“Tou-bi, prisoner, very bad stomach.”
This was the password which enabled them to make the most of Vietminh modesty and leave their huts at night, for the “Hygiene Rule,” which was one of the four rules of a soldier in the People’s Army, decreed that “the natural functions had to be performed in private.”
The sentry let him pass and Esclavier clambered up a slope. He was swallowed up at once in the jungle; the creepers were like tentacles that tried to wrap themselves round him; the thorns were like teeth that tried to tear him to shreds. It was impossible for him to maintain a straight course; there was only one idea in his mind—to keep climbing so as to reach the ridge. Once there, he would be able to take his bearings.
Every now and then he almost collapsed from exhaustion; his eyelids felt like lead; he was tempted to lie down for a bit and go to sleep and resume his march a little later. But he remembered the window in the Compiègne train, squared his shoulders and pushed on. He was right not to have waited any longer before escaping. He knew how quickly a man can lose his strength in a camp where the work is hard and the food insufficient, and how quickly he can lose his courage in the demoralizing company of grousers who are more or less resigned to their condition as prisoners.
By daybreak he had reached the ridge and was able to rest. The valley no longer existed; it was lost in the mist. He was in the country of the Méos who live above the level of the clouds.
In the legendary days of the Jade emperors, the masters of the Ten Thousand Mountains, a dragon had come to China and laid waste the country. It had devoured the armies that were sent out against it and also the warriors clothed in their magic armour. The emperor had then made a promise that anyone who rid him of the dragon would be given his daughter’s hand in marriage and half the kingdom. The big dog Méo had slain the dragon and came to claim his reward. The emperor was unwilling to keep his promise but he also feared the dog’s strength. One of his counsellors had then suggested a subterfuge. Admittedly, he had promised half of his kingdom to whoever slew the dragon, but he had not specified which half. Why not the upper half? As for the daughter, there was no problem. The emperor had a large number of them and spent most of his time begetting even more.
Thus it was that the dog Méo was given the hand of the emperor’s daughter in marriage and, as a dowry, all the land in the empire that lay above the level of the clouds. His descendants, the Méos, wore a silver dog-collar in memory of him. They loved animals, lived in the highlands and, because they were after all descendants of the Jade Emperor, looked down on all the other races, especially the Vietnamese of the deltas.
Esclavier was extremely fond of the Méos even though they were so dirty that their squat little bodies, with calves as thick as a Tibetan sherpa’s, were always jet black. They never mixed with the lowlanders, the servile and ingratiating Thais, they admitted no social or family organization; some of them even declined all form of communal life. They kept to their mountain ridges, the last anarchists of the world.
The sun blazed down. Esclavier began to feel thirsty. He kept following the ridge of the mountain and in the afternoon a Fleet Air Arm “Corsaire” flew over him very low. He waved at it wildly, but the pilot did not see him. In any case what could he have done? He had to push on, alone and unaided, and the thought of himself, lost in the midst of the elephant grass, his throat parched with thirst, was strangely beguiling.
He bypassed the first Méo village he saw tucked away behind a mountain peak. He felt it was still too close to the Vietminhs and to Dien-Bien-Phu.
After a further three hours’ march he came across a ray: a section of the forest that had been burned down. In the cinders the Méos had planted some hard rice, vegetables and poppies. There were four women there, dressed in rags, with panniers on their backs, barefoot—their feet looked almost monstrous—with their calves encased in leggings. They were collecting vegetable marrows. Esclavier knew that he ought to push on farther, but he was at his last gasp, he felt terribly thirsty and it would soon be dark.
He went up to the women. They did not look at all scared but uttered little guttural exclamations and turned their broad flat faces towards him. They smelt so dreadful that he was almost sick.
“It must be a question of habit,” Esclavier said to himself. “At Véronique II, towards the end, I was hardly conscious of the stench of the corpses.”
A male Méo appeared, with his silver collar round his neck and a primitive hunting-bow in his hand. He was barefoot, his hair falling over his eyes, and wore a short jacket and black trousers.
Esclavier did not know how to communicate with him. He showed him the silver piastre and the sullen face came to life. The captain went through the motions of eating, bent down, plucked a marrow and bit into it. It was juicy and full of flavour.
“Tou-Le,” he said, “cousin Tou-Bi, village Bam-ou-Tio.”
The Méo made a sign that he had understood and walked ahead. They kept going until it was dark. Tireless, the Méo trotted along hair-raising paths which invariably followed the line of the steepest slope. He had to stop and wait for the Frenchman every two hundred yards.
At last they reached the village, a few thatch huts on low piles. The shaggy little mountain ponies, as tireless as their owners, stood with their heads inside the houses where the feeding-troughs were, the rest of their bodies in the open.
Tou-Le was there, indistinguishable from any of the others, a little older perhaps, a little more shrivelled, fossilized by age and opium. He recognized Esclavier at once and bowed low before him in token of his friendship. The captain was saved, he felt like laughing. The Méos and the highlands still belonged to the French. Boisfeuras was wrong, which was only to be expected since he did not know this region very well.
The Méos had killed a suckling-pig; it was roasting over the embers, exuding a delicious smell of grilled meat. The stodgy hot rice was spicy and dished up in little baskets. Esclavier knew the customs of the country; he rolled it into a ball between his fingers and popped it into his mouth after first dipping it in a red sauce.
The flames in the hearth cast flickering shadows on the inside walls of the hut and red glints were reflected in the eyes of the horses as they snorted and shook their chains.
Esclavier picked up a sliver of bamboo and, in the cinders in front of the fireplace, traced out the route he wanted to take to reach the Nam-Bac valley.
Tou-Le miraculously seemed to understand and showed his approval by nodding his head. He then brought out a bottle of choum. The two men gulped down the crude rice wine and belched like a couple of Chinese merchants.
Tou-Le suggested a pipe of opium, Esclavier refused with thanks. He was not used to the stuff and he was afraid he might be too tired to walk next day. Everyone said that Méo opium was the best that could be found in South-East Asia. But a paratrooper never indulged in it; that particular vice was the pr
erogative of naval or staff officers. The Méos all smoked it; for them it took the place of tobacco and appeared to have no harmful effects.
And so, while Tou-Le puffed at his pipe in the flickering light of the oil lamp and contentedly exhaled the thick pungent smoke, Esclavier fell asleep stretched out in front of the hearth.
A line of verse came back to him, a poem of Apollinaire’s:
Under Mirabeau bridge flows the Seine . . .
He would one day watch the Seine flow under Mirabeau bridge, as a free man, having escaped from this hell of green caterpillars which continued to haunt Lescure. He would smile at the first pretty girl he met and ask her out to dinner at a little restaurant on the Ile St. Louis . . .
A kindly hand was gently shaking him. With an effort he opened his eyes. A bo-doi was leaning over him; all he could see was his ready-made smile, his slit eyes and his helmet.
The impersonal voice started off:
“President Ho wants the French prisoners to rest after their long exertions . . .”
A nightmare had insinuated itself into his dream. The young girl took him gently by the hand; she caressed him and he fancied he saw in her rather sad eyes that she was ready to surrender.
But the bo-doi continued to shake him gently:
“President Ho is also anxious that the prisoners should not catch cold. Accept this blanket offered you by a soldier of the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam so that after a good sleep you may recover the strength which you have wasted in vain.”
Esclavier sat up with a start. Tou-Le had disappeared and he saw a sentry standing at the entrance to the hut, his bayonet glinting in the moonlight . . .
The Centurions Page 7