The Centurions

by Jean Larteguy

  Her misgivings returned, but gently, like the sound of the rain, and, like the rain, they seemed to share her secret.

  Souen had made the tou-bi a gift of her first fault against the Party, almost as though it was her virginity. As a result of this she felt vaguely distressed and at the same time filled with wonder.

  When Dia came back the following morning, Esclavier was asleep and still being attended by an exhausted and radiant little Miss Souen. He put a hand on the patient’s forehead and felt his pulse. The fever had abated. With a final effort, by summoning up all his strength, Esclavier had managed to reach the threshold of the tenth day.

  Dia felt like laughing out loud, singing and dancing. Death had been warded off, humanity was the richer by a man’s strength. That night he had prayed to the Lord for Esclavier’s soul and all the time the Lord, with a great chuckle, was busy curing the captain. He was immensely pleased.

  “He’s saved,” Dia told the nurse. “I can’t get over it. He saved himself all on his own, without my medicine . . .”

  “Don’t you think . . .”

  She stopped short. For the pleasure of scoring over the black man, she had almost revealed her theft of the emetine.

  When Dia bent over Esclavier to examine him more closely, she started forward as though intent on defending her patient. Dia looked at the girl and was astonished to see that she was no longer an insect, that there was something warm, triumphant emanating from her, that her eyes sparkled and her nostrils quivered. Life was coursing once more through her veins.

  “It can’t be possible,” Dia said to himself. “She’s showing every symptom of being in love!”

  In the four years he had been at this hospital he had never seen such a thing: a Vietminh woman falling for a prisoner. He felt like being very gentle with her, calling her “little sister” and telling her to be extremely careful because she risked death, and Esclavier as well, if anything occurred between them. For the moment Esclavier was quite incapable of doing the least thing, but she, Souen, was aglow with love; it was as visible as a firefly in the dark.

  When he went back to Lescure, Dia was singing. He seized the slender lieutenant by the elbows and dandled him in the air like a child:

  “Two miracles have happened,” he chanted. “Blessed be the Holy Virgin and all the angels and all the demons of hell. Esclavier should have died last night; this morning he’s alive, alive and kicking, his fever’s almost gone; and that little brute Souen has fallen in love with him and is beaming like a candle. Love has come into the big Vietminh hospital of Thu-Vat for the first time, like a ray of sunshine on the termites. Perhaps they’ll all die of it.”

  By the evening Esclavier was much better. He no longer brought everything up and cheerfully gulped down every cup of tea that Souen made him. Dia brought him a tin of condensed milk which he was keeping for a special occasion. It still bore the label: “Gift of the American Red Cross.”

  When Souen came back next morning, she found that the captain, while attempting to sit up, had fallen off his bunk. Stark naked, with one elbow resting on an emaciated leg, he looked sheepish and at the same time furious. She could not help laughing.

  “Well, well, well,” said Esclavier, “that’s the first time I’ve heard you laugh. I thought you all had something cut out of your throats.”

  She helped him climb back on to his bunk and experienced a fresh tremor as she felt Esclavier’s arm round her shoulder. She tried to reason with him:

  “That’s not very nice of you, Eclapier . . .”

  The captain peevishly corrected the pronunciation of his name:

  “Esclavier. Captain Philippe Esclavier of the 4th Colonial Parachute Battalion . . .”

  “There are no captains here, or paratroops. There are just tou-bis, prisoners to whom we’re applying President Ho’s policy of leniency . . .”

  “Oh, balls!”

  Exhausted, the captain fell asleep. Souen pulled the bedclothes over him and ran her fingers over his forehead. He was called Philippe. She repeated the name: Philippe . . . Philippe . . . He had big grey eyes, as luminous as the sea on certain mornings in the Baie d’Along. For a moment she imagined herself sleeping in his arms, like her sister with the major, then instantly dismissed the idea. Philippe was just a tou-bi, an enemy of her people.

  • • •

  That evening Souen attended the political education meeting which was held once a week for the personnel of the hospital under the presidency of the director, Doctor Nguyen-Van-Tach, a member of the Central Committee.

  As usual, the meeting began with a collective self-examination undertaken by Nguyen-Van-Tach. He reproached himself in the name of his comrades for the insufficient efficiency of the hospital and emphasized the fact that even if the armistice was signed at Geneva, the struggle would go on until every vestige of capitalism disappeared from the earth.

  Some of the participants then accused themselves of minor faults, promised to make amends and made solemn resolutions that were utterly out of proportion to their misdemeanours. The usual routine.

  Souen was sitting in the front row and for the first time the doctor noticed how beautiful she was: a butterfly that had just emerged from its chrysalis and was stretching its new wings in the sun.

  All the desires he had suppressed since he had joined the People’s Army—high-spirited young girls, iced beer, unreserved friendships with men like Dia, the click of mah-jong pieces in Chinese shops—came flooding back like a whiff of magnolia on a June evening in Pnom-Penh. He would have liked to hold Souen tight in his arms and caress her long eyelashes with his lips.

  He mastered his emotion and cleared his throat.

  “I must congratulate our comrade Souen,” he said, “for the great forbearance with which she has looked after a prisoner in spite of the disgust and contempt this mercenary inspired in her . . .”

  “No,” said Souen.

  There was a heavy silence. One never protested when praise was meted out to one but, on the contrary, it was customary to lower one’s eyes and assume a modest, startled air of embarrassment.

  “No, Comrade Tach, I’m not worthy of your praise. It’s my duty to inform you that in the course of this task I committed a serious fault. In your absence, when the tou-bi was going to die, I took it on myself to take a phial of emetine and inject him with it. My pride tempted me to put my own interpretation on President Ho’s directives on the policy of leniency . . . But today you have made me aware of my fault, for I should have known this medicine was reserved for our valiant combatants. I beg leave to be removed from my post.”

  Souen had spoken on the spur of the moment, to be relieved of her sin, and she was already regretting it, for she was going to be separated from her tou-bi.

  Doctor Nguyen scrutinized his audience but no one showed either anger or compassion. They were all waiting for him to give a sign of the one or the other. Souen was really gorgeous, sitting bolt upright, her face raised towards him, offering herself for punishment.

  He had some difficulty in assuming the injured tone to suit the occasion:

  “Comrade Souen, I must give you a severe reprimand. I see, however, that you recognize the gravity of your fault. Your past record and political background speak for the purity of your intention. I feel partly responsible myself for having allotted you these extra tasks which might have warped your judgement to such an extent that you allowed yourself to put your own interpretation on our beloved leader’s decisions. You will remain in your post and deal with the tou-bis instead of tending our glorious combatants. That will be your punishment.”

  Only then did everyone manifest his compassion.

  “I shall be seeing Philippe again,” Souen said to herself, “I shall be with him every day.”

  A thrill of delight ran through her.

  Next day Dia, for whom the walls of the hospital had ears, heard
all about it. He discussed it with Lescure.

  “That silly little Souen might have killed Esclavier with her emetine! Emetine jolts the heart; and now she believes she saved him. She’s as blindly in love as a schoolgirl. It will turn out badly for her in the end, badly for both of them perhaps. Have you ever been in love, Lescure?”

  Lescure bent his head over the piece of bamboo he was carving into a shepherd’s flute:

  “A cousin of mine. I told her and she started squirming about in her chair as though she was sitting on a packet of pins. And she laughed and laughed . . . After that, only tarts. I was quite popular at the Panier Fleuri in Hanoi. I used to play the piano for them. Esclavier’s a lucky dog!”

  Dia peeled a banana pensively.

  “I’m very fond of you,” he said all of a sudden. “I’d like to keep you here with me. We’re left in peace, we only talk when we feel like talking. You’ll soon be able to play me that flute of yours. But the director of the hospital is beginning to think you’re not so very mad. He’s talking of sending you back to Camp One.”

  “But I am mad, Dia. I can show him.”

  “I’ll bring him in for a consultation. We’ll arrange a little scene for him.”

  Next day, when Dr. Nguyen-Van-Tach came into the hut, Lescure pretended to be asleep. He woke up with a start:

  “Boy,” he shouted, “mau-len! Make tea at once, I shout for you the whole time, you good-for-nothing!”

  Dia crept up behind the director with a bowl of tea.

  “He’s very over-excited this evening. Here, hand him the tea, I’ve put some bromide in it.”

  “Come on, boy, mau-len!”

  Nguyen-Van-Tach was furious. Dia gently reasoned with him:

  “Come, sir, he’s mad, and you’re a doctor . . . an excellent doctor, moreover. Hand him this bowl of tea. He doesn’t know you have beaten the French Army at Dien-Bien-Phu.”

  “I’d like you to cure him so that he learns. It’s really too easy a position.”

  “Madness is often an easy solution for those who take refuge in it.”

  And thus it was that Lescure stayed on at the hospital and was served tea by the director.

  Esclavier quickly recovered his strength. His skin lost its strange colour. In addition to his improved “régime” rations, Souen brought him fruit, guavas and slices of fresh pineapple, and enriched his rice with chicken or sometimes little chunks of fat pork cooked in sugar.

  Relieved by her confession and by the absolution that had followed, she devoted herself whole-heartedly to her nursing duties, little realizing that her attitude towards the prisoner was that of a congai in love. She forgot all her Marxist vocabulary and the “peace of the people” to ask him more personal questions.

  “What is Paris like?”

  Esclavier tried to think.

  “It’s very beautiful and very dirty, very rich and very poor, There’s a wood on either side of it: Vincennes where the poor go, Boulogne which is for the rich.”

  “And where did you go?”

  “To the Luxembourg, where the students go—who are poor, but who all believe that one day they’ll be rich and famous.”

  “Are French girls pretty?”

  “Today’s the 18th July, isn’t it? The beaches will be crowded with golden-skinned girls, laughing, splashing about in the water, playing with rubber balls, who are in love, or believe they are, or pretend they are. When they come back from the beach, they put on bright-coloured dresses and reflectively sip long iced drinks while pretending to understand a boring boy who talks to them about Sartre but who has gentle eyes. And it’s his eyes they look at. Our lovely young French girls don’t know there’s a war going on.”

  He suddenly looked at the little Vietnamese girl with her plaits, her collar buttoned up to her chin, in her dull-green uniform:

  “But you’re also lovely, Souen, you’re also golden-skinned . . . and you’re at war!”

  “I’m at war for my people.”

  “Our pretty girls dance, drink, eat, play in the sun and make love for the sole pleasure of their selfish bodies.”

  He was lying on his bunk, propped up on his elbows, with his head resting in his hands; and through his mind scampered the slender girls of his country, the merry, eager girls tasting of sugar and vinegar.

  Souen squatted by the head of the bed. Esclavier turned towards her and gently stroked her hair. He felt deep affection and friendship for his little Vietnamese sister in uniform who was suffocating with him in this hut among the blazing limestones, who, like him, had known war and all its horrors and who had been moved by human suffering. To make her ugly, she had been given a helmet and tunic several sizes too big for her, and her magnificent hair had been knotted into two long plaits which hung down to her shoulders. She had been forbidden to be a woman.

  Esclavier drew Souen closer to him and her cheek brushed against his. She gave a little sob and shut her eyes. She was trembling from head to foot and she felt as if she was drowning in an emerald-green sea which was warm and cool at one and the same time; then everything seemed as simple as love, as simple as death.

  She loved her tou-bi; her defences were down. She would do whatever he wished. She would risk death in order to please him; she would steal to get him better food; she would escape with him if he asked her. She would be his little congai, like her sister with the major, and if ever he left her she would kill herself.

  She ran her damp finger over the captain’s brow and the last memory she had of him was his big grey eyes and the desire she fancied she read in them. In fact it was only astonishment.

  A bo-doi had come to tell Souen that the director wanted her. He had thrust his head through the door of the hut and had seen her with her cheek against the tou-bi’s; he had witnessed her treachery against the people when she had caressed him. He had crept away without a sound to notify his superiors.

  Souen rose to her feet.

  “I’m going to fetch your meal,” she said, “I’ll be back at once.”

  “She’s a nice little thing,” Esclavier said to himself. “When I’m released, I must try and send her a little present.”

  But it was a bo-doi who brought him his meal.

  Doctor Nguyen-Van-Tach had called a meeting of the camp vigilance committee to interrogate Souen. They were eight in number, including three women, and the meeting was held in a hut with an armed guard outside the door.

  Souen faced them, standing bareheaded and stiffly to attention.

  The bo-doi who had caught her out delivered his evidence.

  Yes, he had seen Comrade Souen pressed amorously against the prisoner; yes, she had certainly stroked his face. Did he think sexual intercourse had previously taken place between them? No, he did not think so. Comrade Souen had her uniform jacket buttoned up and the prisoner just had his arm round her shoulder.

  The head nurse rose to her feet.

  “Can you state, Comrade Souen, that you have never had the slightest sexual intercourse with the prisoner Esclavier?”

  “Yes, I can.”

  “Yet because of him you stole a phial of emetine?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you . . .” she hesitated before uttering the horrible, obscene word “. . . in love with him?”

  “Yes.”

  Doctor Nguyen broke in. Once again he was anxious to save the little fool and tried to help her.

  “This prisoner, who is classified as a dangerous type, tried to take advantage of you in a moment of weakness, was that it?”

  “No. He doesn’t come into it, he doesn’t even know I love him. I was the one who leant over him, I was the one who caressed him, just as the bo-doi told you.”

  The head nurse broke in again in her icy, insinuating, knowing voice:

  “Comrade Souen, think carefully now before answering. Would your way
wardness have led you to commit the sexual act with the prisoner?”

  Souen dropped her deferential attitude towards this dried-up, hypocritical, ignoble old woman who had always hated her:

  “Yes, comrade, I would have done it. I would have lain down beside him and since I am young and pretty he would have made love to me.”

  “And for that infamous physical contact which is punishable by death . . .”

  “It’s not an infamous contact, it’s love.”

  “For this infamous contact you were prepared to betray the confidence of your people, and of the Party and the army . . .”

  “I wouldn’t have betrayed anyone. I love this man; I’m only happy when I’m by his side. If you gave me my freedom I would go back to him. I don’t know what’s happened, but apart from him nothing else exists . . .”

  “Do you repent?” the director asked.

  “Repent?”

  She looked absolutely amazed.

  “But how can a woman repent of being in love?”

  Nguyen could do nothing more for her. To have interceded again would have appeared suspicious. He made a proposal that Souen should be expelled from the Party forthwith and sent to a re-education camp for an indefinite period of time. This was tantamount to a death-sentence. No one, man or woman, white or Vietnamese, had ever returned from those forced labour camps. Souen knew this. It was one of those things that were discussed in undertones in the divisions.

  The proposal was accepted by the majority. The members of the committee withdrew and for a moment Doctor Tach was left alone with Souen.

  “I wanted to help you,” he told her, “and avoid such a severe measure being taken against you. But if you mend your ways, in a few months you may be reprieved.”

  “Doctor Tach, I’d like to see him just once more. He must be asleep now, he won’t even notice. Just once more . . .”