The Praetorians (6 page)

Mahmoudi was bluffing. He had no right to take such a decision. But he knew that the former levies who had joined the band would follow him, for to them he was still the captain. The younger ones were on the side of the man from Prague.

 * * * * 

Atarf hesitated. Mahmoudi heard the smack of his palm against the butt of his sub-machine-gun. Was he going to kill him?

They were both lying flat and it was as difficult for the
Chaouia
to disengage his weapon as it was for himself to fire his revolver.

Atarf heaved a deep sigh, as though he were expelling all the air in his lungs, then scuttled off under cover. He had obeyed.

A savage joy overcame Mahmoudi. It was akin to the violent pleasure derived from possessing a woman against her will, or the breaking-in of a stallion.

He had just brought Atarf to heel.

 * * * * 

A little spotter plane hedge-hopped over the valley and dropped a smoke bomb on the rocky mound.

“Down, everyone!” Mahmoudi yelled.

Followed by a few men, he plunged into the brushwood at the bottom of the wadi. A few minutes later the
81
-calibre mortar-shells began bursting on the rocks with a noise of shattering china.

It was half past eight in the morning, it would not be completely dark till nine o'clock in the evening. They had over twelve hours to wait in their funk-holes, like beasts at bay.

 * * * * 

Radio reception was bad; perched on a hummock, as was his habit, Raspéguy had great difficulty in maintaining contact with his companies as they gradually advanced along the slopes of the valley.

Sitting cross-legged and crouching over his map, with the field telephone in his hand, he yelled:

“Hullo, is that you, Pinières? I can hardly hear you. Speak slowly. What's your position?”

“I've reached the
7
th Infantry Regiment Company. What a mess, sir! Sheer butchery! They might at least have taught these poor lads to defend themselves.”

“The officers?”

“An old lieutenant who's whimpering and a young second lieutenant who's fuming.”

“Send the second lieutenant along to me. What about the
fells
?”

“Vanished.”

“They're lying low. We'll have to dig them out with a fork, like snails. Over and out.”

“Hold on, sir! Three
fells
have just surrendered with their weapons.”

“Send them along to me as well. Hullo, Orsini? Orsini, what's going on your end?”

“Not so good, sir. Four of my men bumped into some
fells
under cover. Five
fells
were blown to bits, but three of my men as well.”

“Hullo, Jérémie. Speak up, Jérémie.”

“Captain Jérémie here, sir. We've drawn a blank. But there's been some movement: broken branches, scraps of paper lying around, cartridge-cases . . .”

“Boisfeuras Company, your position?”

“At the bottom of the wadi. Three degrees left of what remains of the marabout. We're making for the mound. We've come across four of their dead, with their arms beside them.”

“That means the others can't be far off. Send me all the papers found on the bodies, and get into position on the mound.”

“Patrols, sir?”

“No, stay where you are.”

Raspéguy called up all his companies one after another. With the support company the same had happened as with Orsini. Five paratroopers had run into six
fellaghas
hiding up
in the undergrowth; three paratroopers killed, two wounded, and the
fellaghas
who had received some grenades were blown to pieces.

“Almost even numbers,” said Raspéguy as he tapped his map.

Captain Naugier, who was acting as adjutant in Major Beudin's absence, blew his nose. He always had a cold. This was calculated to annoy the colonel, who could bear only people who were fighting fit. “In Raspéguy's outfit, in order to have the right to die, you've got to be in the best of health.” This saying of Esclavier's, uttered in a harsh voice in front of a group of new recruits, had become one of the traditional jokes which, together with a few legends and battle reports, constituted the folklore of the
10
th Colonial Parachute Regiment.

“Well, Naugier, what do you make of it?”

Naugier shrugged his shoulders.

“Nothing much. It's a bit of a snafu.”

He took a little bottle out of his pocket and, not without a certain ostentation, put some drops into his nose.

Naugier wanted to resume command of his company; he did not like his post at Regimental H.Q. He would explain quite seriously, in a careful, almost pedantic voice, which the whole regiment took pleasure in imitating: “I'm allergic to the old man at close quarters. He gives me a cold in the nose.”

The second lieutenant from the
7
th Infantry Regiment turned up. He snapped to attention and saluted.

“Reservist Second Lieutenant”—he had stressed the first word—“Yvon Lamazière, reporting for duty, sir.”

Raspéguy slowly raised his head from the map. He rose to his feet and returned the salute, squaring his shoulders.

“Good morning to you, monsieur.”

Lamazière was surprised at the great man's politeness and courtesy; he thought he was going to have to deal with a brute.

Naugier sighed to himself:

“The old man's going to do his act again.”

The captain had been a victim of it. He was then serving in the colonial artillery; one evening with Raspéguy had made him abandon his guns for the sub-machine-gun and knife of the
paratrooper. When he was in a good mood, which sometimes happened, he admitted he had had nothing to grumble about.

“We've just been counting up your losses,” Raspéguy went on. “They're extremely heavy. The G.O.C. East Constantine will be arriving at any moment.

“Twenty reservists killed, including one second lieutenant, forty wounded, and meanwhile the Government has just announced that the rebellion has been practically quashed. This is going to take some explaining. Do you think you could tell me the reason for these losses?”

The second lieutenant cleared his throat. He had a broad head, a lightly tanned skin, close-cropped hair, short nails, a forthright expression.

“A chief scout or a Commie,” thought Raspéguy, who was always fascinated by this sort of man.

In a voice which trembled with suppressed emotion and sometimes grew as shrill as a woman's or as resentful as that of a schoolboy who has been unjustly punished, the second lieutenant gave a brief account of the engagement and the conditions under which it had taken place, then he added:

“I must admit, sir, that the men were unwilling to fight. They don't understand this sort of war. They were not able to defend themselves because they had received no training. They were cowardly, but for the last six months they had been footslogging all over the mountains without seeing a soul and their heart wasn't in it. We haven't any leaders. The officers who know how to fight and command and win the confidence of their men are all with the paratroops, not with us. The Raspéguys, the Bigeards, the Jean-Pierres and Buchouds are not made for the likes of us. . . . But there are forty thousand of us. We're the real France, not you. I apologize, sir.”

Raspéguy then addressed him by the familiar
tu
:

“Now that you've started you'd better go on and get it all off your chest. It's important, my lad.”

Naugier drew closer. This time the colonel was not putting on an act. His eyes were screwed up into narrow slits, the nostrils of his great beak were quivering.

With deep feeling Lamazière went on with his story, hanging his head. Every so often he kicked at a twisted stump growing at his feet.

“Second Lieutenant Barrestac was killed because his men let him down. He was my best friend, the sort of friend you make in an hour and keep for a lifetime. We exchanged books and lent each other money, even when it wasn't necessary, just for the pleasure of exchanging something more between us, like boys lending their pen-knives or fountain-pens. At Cherchell we had been taught how to behave in every situation, but when three hundred well-armed
fells
spoiling for a fight fall on your neck it's a bit different. When that happens there must be someone in command; you need to hear a confident voice in which you can trust because it's the voice of a man who knows how these things are and that it's never so frightening as you think.

“Our company commander was an old lieutenant whom everyone called Totoche and who used to go drinking with the men. Our colonel was busy wooing the rich settlers. He was approaching retirement and was after a job. But you people, the great fighters in camouflage uniform, who tot up your scores and are given medals, you whom everyone in Algiers applauds and who get all the girls, you might at least have taught us how to wage war. But you've never been willing to deal with us and that's why, this morning, twenty men have had their throats slit like sheep.”

“Wouldn't you like to transfer to the paratroops?”

“No.”

“Or join me?”

“It would be the same thing.”

“Go and fetch your kit and come back here. At least you'll see how we set to work.”

“At your orders, sir.”

The second lieutenant snapped to attention, saluted, then started back down to the valley. Raspéguy sat musing over his map. Captain Naugier came and crouched by his side.

“You know, Naugier, it's serious what that lad told me. We've got five officers per company and they're all capable of commanding a hundred and fifty men; but those chaps haven't got
one . . . and their colonel, I'll bet you anything, can't even read a map. We have created a sect of fighters apart from the army, but that's not the way you win a war like the Algerian war, or remake a country. All you do is get yourself hated.

“That's why Esclavier left us and Boisfeuras got himself killed on that dune near Foum el Zoar. Let's change the subject. It won't be long before the general arrives. Here are the orders: our reinforcements must be in position. We're clearing out of the valley. All the companies are to climb back on to the ridges.”

“But, sir——”

“We're going to block the exits. Tonight the
fells
will try and make a break-out, and that's when we'll get them.

“I have no wish to lose a hundred men killed or wounded; that's what it would cost us to mop up the undergrowth. Too high a price!”

“We shan't be able to block all the exits; there aren't enough of us.”

“The other regiments will be here.”

“They'll reduce our score.”

“What of it? Do you think that's so important, our score? You heard what the lad told us. In our outfit we tot up scores, meanwhile they get their balls cut off, bleating like lambs.”

A helicopter brought in General Marrestin. The machine came and landed with the grace of a dragon-fly near the black regimental pennant bearing the motto “I dare.” The general was a wiry, fussy little man, with a nervous tic that showed whenever he felt anxious. He was reputed to be a brilliant striking-force theoretician and his only wish was to be on a combined-operations staff. He was known to be ambitious and was said to be intelligent; he had no friends, but had accomplices in all the key posts in the National Defence. His lips were thin; his blue, almost opaque, eyes reflected neither passion nor pity nor tenderness.

General Marrestin regarded Algeria as lost. He therefore considered extremely dangerous the steps taken by a part of the army to adjust itself to revolutionary warfare and guerrilla combat. Politics, in his opinion, should be confined to a very
small number of generals and should in no way concern senior officers, and still less junior ones. But revolutionary warfare meant politics at section-leader and duty-corporal level. More than once he had declared, at dinners and receptions, that the first step to be taken to save the army from anarchy was to dissolve the two parachute divisions and put Colonel Raspéguy on the retired list.

Like a jack-in-the-box, the general sprang out of the Alouette, briefly shook hands with the colonel, who had advanced to greet him, and rushed over to the map.

“Well, what's the position?”

Raspéguy pointed out the valley with his finger:

“The
fells
are in there, sir. At the moment we're bringing out the dead and wounded of the
7
th Infantry Regiment.”

“No journalists about?”

“No.”

“I want this affair to be kept absolutely secret. On orders from Paris. What are you waiting for to finish them off right away?”

“Right away, sir? It would cost a good hundred dead and wounded.”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“The Viets—the
fells
, I mean—have gone to ground among the rocks at the bottom of the wadi. We'd have to drag them out one by one. If we wait until nightfall they'll come out.”

“They might and they mightn't.”

“It's not in their interest to wait until we get further reinforcements and they're more tightly hemmed in.”

“This business has been going on long enough, Raspéguy. In Paris as well as Algiers they want it finished and done with before the day is out. We shall attack the valley with artillery and napalm, and in three hours' time you'll go over the terrain with a fine tooth-comb. We've got one of the largest scores of the year here.”

“It can't be done, sir.”

“What do you mean?”

“It can't be done. Have you looked at the terrain? Artillery and napalm in a spot like this won't have any effect at all.
How many times did they try it in Indo-China! We've got to out-manœuvre them, sir.”

“I've given you an order, Raspéguy. See that you carry it out.”