The Praetorians

by Jean Larteguy

  “I received a very nice letter from him, the only one that moved me. He thanked me personally because Julien, he said, ‘had got him out of the shit.’ He identified me with him. And yet I don’t think he had understood Julien either. . . . But please go on.”

  “Our colonel was in a difficult position. He was being accused of using certain methods and at the same time not getting the job done, of having too many casualties and of using his men too sparingly. In Algiers the High Command was bent on breaking him, and G.H.Q. in Paris, which had no difficulty in modelling its attitude on that of the Head of State, was all set to take action on the downfall of this young colonel who had risen from the ranks and not been to any military academy.

  “Luckily, to protect Raspéguy, we had our friend Jacques de Glatigny at the Elysée. He had everything that was required: tradition, birth and breeding. At a pinch the régime could reproach him for having helped it to seize power, but Glatigny had succeeded in being forgiven for this service.

  “Urgent, confidential, secret and top-secret signals were piling up on the colonel’s deal table.

  “Now, so long as Meskri was not unearthed and eliminated, so long as he held the rebels in his grip of iron, they would never come out of their holes.

  “Captain Marindelle was acting temporarily as our intelligence officer, but he belonged to Divisional Headquarters. He was recalled to Algiers. Yet another dirty trick on Raspéguy! He was informed that the helicopters could not remain at his disposal indefinitely.

  “It was then he asked Captain Boisfeuras to deal with Meskri. Like many of us in Algeria, your son had sometimes been obliged to do certain jobs which until recently were within the province of the policeman and not the army officer.

  “As long as Julien believed that our action would lead to a positive victory, that we could urge the Algerians towards a form of independence from which France would not be excluded, he accepted these tasks. But after the 13th of May he had realized that we were on the wrong tack. He therefore applied to fall into line and to take command of a company.

  * * * *

  “I was operated on at Ilghérem, because I couldn’t be moved, and was then transferred to hospital in Oran.

  “Ten days later I was already much better; Captain Boisfeuras came to see me, bringing fruit, champagne, cigars, cigarettes and even some flowers—Min, who came with him, had both arms fully laden.

  “‘I’ve put paid to Meskri,’ he told me all of a sudden. ‘I didn’t want to be mixed up in that sort of business any longer, but out of friendship for Raspéguy I agreed. The old man was up against it. It’s odd, but in that soldier seasoned in revolutionary warfare and all its snares there still remains a foundation of superstition which comes from his Basque mountains. In front of me, in a fit of temper against a white father, he broke the rosary he had been given at his first communion and flung it down at the feet of the priest, a poor wretch who had forgotten that God was never a collaborator. You had been seriously wounded and you know how fond he is of you. The regiment had just suffered heavy losses without much to show for it. Raspéguy was not far from attributing all this bad luck to his act of sacrilege.

  “‘I couldn’t bear the idea of a gang of vermin getting the better of such a man . . . and then it was preying on his mind so much, that silly business about the rosary! So, Philippe, I once again resumed what I had sworn never to do again.’

  “Julien uncorked a bottle of champagne with a nervous gesture and spilt some of it, although you must know better than anyone, sir, the fantastic dexterity of your son, the dexterity of a cat which can turn somersaults in a china shop without breaking a single cup.

  “A nurse came to give me an injection. She gave a shriek at the sight of the champagne and, above all, the cigarettes, which I had been strictly forbidden. Julien sent her packing with a coarse remark, which was likewise not his usual manner. He despised women, but always showed the greatest courtesy towards them. After which he told me how he had caught Meskri.

  “‘I knew,’ he went on, ‘that when Meskri was working as a driver at the Annexe of Foum el Zoar he often used to call on a shopkeeper, a certain Abderahmane. He was even said to be engaged to his daughter, but Meskri was certainly not the sort of man to saddle himself with a woman in the middle of a war. He had simply made this a pretext for his countless visits.

  “‘In the middle of the night I burst in on Abderahmane. Min dealt with him somewhat forcefully, and two hours later we got our hands on a cache full of arms and mines.

  “‘Nothing had been seen of Meskri for a week, but his orders arrived every day. Someone came and slipped a piece of paper under a stone at the entrance to one of the plantations, either during the day or at night, no one knew which.

  “‘I sat up to watch with my Nung. We both hid behind a wall. At daybreak a Negro from the palm-grove, leading a blind donkey, came and deposited the piece of paper. It was an order to members of the A.L.N. not to leave their hide-outs at any price and to await further instructions. This Negro couldn’t read, but he led us to a small grocer’s shop frequented by the drivers of the big trucks that transport the oil men’s equipment.

  “‘A truck had arrived at Foum el Zoar on the previous day, coming from Tiradent, and had left again that very morning for the south. It was loaded with prefab huts.

  “‘From a helicopter we spotted it on the track and then landed right in front of it. The driver knew nothing, but he copped it from us and so did his mechanic. The latter admitted that on each trip he called on Basram, a former captain in the levies, to collect messages or instructions. Basram was an important figure; he had been Vice-President of the Public Safety Committee of the Sahara; he was the friend and adviser of General Murcelles and no one could doubt his loyalty to France.

  “‘But I took a risk: I arrested the old captain. He did not talk, but one of his servants proved more forthcoming: Meskri was his son!

  “‘Our luck was in. While we were smashing down the walls with picks and throwing grenades into the wells, I saw a figure dash out of the house. I fired at its legs. The figure toppled over. I first of all thought it was a woman rushing off to give the alarm or warn a fugitive. But under the veil there was Meskri. He had no weapon on him. My bullet had shattered his kneecap.

  “‘Meskri was a good-looking chap of thirty-two or thirty-three, with a fine, intelligent face. His wound was hurting him like hell, but he still had the nerve to give me the sharp edge of his tongue. Imitating the Vietnamese accent, he said:

  “‘“Well, Capting Boisfeuras, you velly happy now? You’re idiots. You wipe out Si Mellial or even me, lbn Basram, otherwise known as Belaid, alias Meskri. We were the sort of men who could endow the Algerian nation with a structure akin to yours. But you come to terms with a series of poor wretches who’ll take your place until they themselves are swept away by ignorant, vainglorious Young Turks, who’ll have the wool pulled over their eyes by everyone, the Russians as well as the Americans. Give me something to drink!”

  “‘I handed him my water-bottle. Then he asked for a cigarette, which I lit for him.

  “‘“There’s something else I want to tell you, Captain. My father is still loyal to France, or rather to the army. But he understood what I was trying to do, and to avoid having this plantation ruled one day by a sot like Sheik Sidi Ahmou he agreed to help me.”’

  “Boisfeuras knocked back three glasses of the warm champagne, one after another:

  “‘Suddenly, you know, I felt I’d had enough. All this muck was rising in my gorge, and also our May 13th setback. But while Meskri, with diabolical ingenuity, was holding out the spittoon for me and in any case was telling me the truth—at least his version of the truth—a dozen of his men, coming from one of the neighbouring houses, were climbing the plantation walls to come and rescue their chief.

  “‘I just had time to throw myself flat on the floor. With my first bullet I p
ut an end to Meskri, solely on account of Raspéguy, because I felt quite sure at that moment that the young fellagha chief would get away with it again. I didn’t give a damn about dying, maybe I even hoped I would die.

  “‘A patrol of paratroopers, hearing the shindy, came rushing over at once.

  “‘Then there was more killing, and wounded men shrieking, clasping their bellies or spewing up blood, then dead bodies lying under tarpaulins.

  “‘Meskri was carrying the whole organization plan on him. A damn good job it was too! A simple but efficient communication system. A series of hide-outs provided with water and food supplies to last out three months. Rallying points in the middle of the desert. Radio stations, including one at the Zair well, and that’s the reason you were caught out. An enormous budget, because One-eyed Abdallah had got his hands on all the funds of the zaouia of Sidi Ahmou.

  “‘I handed the plan over to Raspéguy. This time he’s going to make the rebels come out into the desert. I’m going back to Foum el Zoar for the final battle. The colonel wanted to appoint another company commander so that I could get some rest.

  “‘Me get some rest! But how could I find any rest now?’

  “Boisfeuras went on drinking, spilling his champagne on my bedclothes.

  “‘On my way from La Senia aerodrome,’ he said in a different tone of voice, ‘I thought of my ancestor, Huon Boisfeuras, the great Reiter who crushed the porcelains of the Summer Palace under his hobnailed boots, and, another time, of the journey I made in the north of China, near Mukden, and the horseman I encountered.

  “‘I was driving along a pot-holed road in an old Ford when I saw a Mongol appear in the long grass with his shaggy little pony, his pointed fur hat, his felt boots, his quiver and double-tension bow. It was just like a picture by Chow Mong Foo. There was nothing lacking, neither the faint breeze which bent the grass, nor the streams swollen by the winter snows which bubbled merrily around us, nor, farther on, the bark hut surrounded by goats and children.

  “‘Then a convoy of Japanese artillery clattered past, pulled by its trucks and tractors, and the horseman disappeared into the steppes.

  “‘Like Huon, like the Japanese, like Si Mellial, like Meskri, we have crushed ancient civilizations underfoot, but we, the French, have had the hypocrisy to pretend that we were trying to defend them.

  “‘Those camels slaughtered in the middle of the dunes!’

  “He rose to his feet:

  “‘Good-bye, my brother in misfortune. You’ve got out of the mire, don’t go back to it. . . .’

  “He gave a little wave and disappeared.

  “Two days later Captain Julien Boisfeuras was killed.”

  “In what circumstances exactly?” the old taipan asked, still with his eyes shut.

  “Even for this incident of such recent date there are already several versions.

  “Meskri’s second-in-command lost his head and ordered all his men to make for the desert—which was exactly what we wanted. He was hoping he would be able to take refuge with them in the Moroccan Sahara, where the F.L.N. had set up a base camp. But since he was short of camels and had no vehicles, he had the idea of borrowing ours.

  “The point nearest the frontier was Ilghérem, where the colonel had his command post; up to then one could only get there via Foum el Zoar, where your son was stationed with his company. A large proportion of the vehicles had been parked at the foot of the ksar.

  “On October 23rd, at five in the afternoon, the air force informed Captain Boisfeuras that eighty kilometres south of his position, in the middle of the forbidden zone, they had just picked out a fairly big encampment of nomads with their tents, their camels and their flocks. The aircraft had flown over them almost at ground level, but the nomads had made no attempt to take cover. In any case, they appeared to be unarmed.

  “Boisfeuras notified Raspéguy by W.T. and, leaving two platoons on guard at Foum, flew out by helicopter with two other platoons to the nomad encampment.

  “A hundred well-armed rebels were waiting for him. For they were waiting in order to enable the main band to seize the ksar at Foum el Zoar, make off with the vehicles and under cover of darkness drive the two hundred kilometres which separated them from the frontier.

  “They were what remained of the deserters of the Camel Corps company. They knew they could expect no mercy, that if they were captured they would be shot, so they were firmly resolved to fight to the death.

  “Boisfeuras had brought with him a young reporter from the Army Photographic Service who had asked to accompany him. Convinced it was going to be a simple control operation, he did not think there would be any danger.

  “No sooner had the helicopters taken off again than the rebels, drawing their weapons out of the tents, fell on the sixty paratroops.

  “The engagement took place at the foot of a dune, among the rearing camels, the tent pickets, the panic-stricken goats. . . .

  “The camel men had the advantage of numbers and surprise, but were only armed with muskets, whereas our paratroopers, better trained in hand-to-hand fighting, all carried sub-machine-guns.

  “After a few minutes, having lost half their personnel, the rebels decided to withdraw and tried to reach the summit of the dune overlooking the encampment.

  “They were hoping, by gaining a little distance, to be able to use their long-range weapons, an F.M. and a heavy machine-gun, pin the paratroops down on the ground and, as soon as night fell, pull out with their camels.

  “But, already warned by W.T., the helicopters were on their way back from Ilghérem with a detachment of reinforcements which they landed on the other side of the dune.

  “That was when Boisfeuras launched the assault, followed by Min. Bullets were kicking up the sand all round him. The machine-gun, which the camel men had at last managed to set up, fired belt after belt.

  “Seeing their captain rush forward, the paratroopers were surprised at first, for he had given no orders to attack. They were busy digging in, dragging their wounded under cover and setting up a grenade-thrower.

  “Boisfeuras had considerable standing in their eyes, and the manner in which he had just captured Meskri had endowed him with the halo of those solitary heroes whose adventures fire the imagination of children and soldiers.

  “They hesitated for a moment and then followed him, while the setting sun dyed the dune a glowing pink.

  “Boisfeuras was not rushing blindly to his death, that’s a false account. For the last time he shammed it. He fell flat, got up again, crept forward with that speed and agility for which he was renowned.

  “Having come within a hand’s throw of the machine-gun, he calmly tossed over a couple of grenades. At that moment he was hit and toppled over in the sand. But his two grenades had found their target and the machine-gun was silenced.

  “The photographer had followed him. Why? Later on he said: ‘Because of the expression on the face of that little captain who, in the dying rays of the sun, went forward all alone to attack a machine-gun without bothering if he was followed or not.’ He took the photograph of Julien dying in the sand. Your son, sir, suffered only a few moments, surrounded by his men and with his gun in his hand. In the distance there was a sound of firing. The remnants of the Adrar Camel Corps company were being executed.

  “Raspéguy arrived with the reinforcements, but too late. Julien had given up the ghost. The photographer who had crouched down by the captain’s side told me he had heard him say, while still propped up on one elbow: ‘Life, what an idiotic dream!’ After which he rolled over with a deep sigh of relief.

  “My twenty paratroopers will state on oath that they heard him say: ‘Victory is his who dares the most,’ which sounds very much like the regimental motto: ‘I dare.’

  “The paratroops collected all the enemy weapons, all the corpses, and, as a sort of barbaric homage to their leader, piled
them up at their captain’s feet. Many of them were in tears.

  “That’s all I know, sir. I can’t tell if Julien really wanted to die; it’s quite possible, after all. In any case, he made a success of his death, since, through it, he has become a symbol.”

  Esclavier fell silent, then in a strangled voice:

  “I envied him and I think I have understood his lesson. For us, the captains in these wars which we could only lose, the hated defenders of a bourgeois order which indulges in the luxury of a clean conscience while obliging us to protect its privileges, there was nothing left but to die or disappear, for we had ceased being useful and were becoming dangerous.”

  Lying beside him on the mat, her body close to his, Irène flung her arm round his shoulder:

  “The living are the only ones that count, Philippe, and you’re alive and so am I. . . .”

  “Maybe you’re right, mademoiselle,” old Boisfeuras gently observed. “The Greeks thought the same as you do. But the Chinese believe that it is still more important not to lose face, even while dying. I’m speaking, of course, of the old Chinese, not the Communists—even though there’s a lot to be said on this subject.

  “Julien didn’t lose face and I’m glad of that.”

  “In any case,” Esclavier went on, “Raspéguy had his great victory.

  “While Boisfeuras lay dying, the rebels captured Foum el Zoar, seized the vehicles and, in the middle of the night, with all their lights extinguished, set off along the track which passes fifteen kilometres from Ilghérem before turning off towards the frontier.

  “With his two companies and the remnants of mine he intercepted them out in the desert. He himself was in command.

  “The battle lasted until dawn. Three or four rebel groups tried to make for the Moroccan Sahara. Our jeeps hunted them down and destroyed them. The frontier was not clearly defined and I couldn’t swear that . . . Yet there was no protest from Morocco. But I think my friend Marindelle might be able to explain the strange reticence of Rabat on that score.”