The Scot’s reply was sharp with exasperation. “Och, I know that, mon. Meanwhile, to confine myself to the military essentials you love so much, the lad and that hound of his are still about and as long as they are, I do not think we’re altogether safe. I need not remind you of what he did to us last night.”
The Frenchman this time was quick to reply, the voice somewhat animated now, since it had an opportunity of indulging both an individual and national gift of irony, “Is it that I detect in you a volte face, mon cher? And you are now out of love with last night’s cause, and come to the end of a romantic affair? It would be not unwelcome that it should be so because I, and I think our Chairman as well, feared you favoured enough the boy and would not like to see him caught.”
The Scot did not answer at once. He puffed at his pipe so that the glow in the bowl fell on his brow and once or twice he half-kicked the ground at his feet, before he resumed, “I have nae changed my view about that laddie one wee bit. I tell you, as I told our Chairman back there, that whate’er the consequences, I would not stand for his killing except in fighting. But as long as I’m an officer in this terrible army of yours I have no option but to think of the safety of even our murderous rabble!”
“A murderous rabble, mon cher? And our army and not yours?” The question mark in the voice was so clear that it almost stood visible, scribbled high and bright in the dark above the firelight between the two officers and François. “Is that what this army of freedom and liberation has become for you? I have a regard exceptional for you I would not like to lose. I might understand your hesitations but I would not like to hear you talk like that before the Chairman again. Above all, mon cher friend Ecossais, I would beg it of you to pay attention to what you say aloud. I beg it of you as a comrade in arms that when we catch the boy—as catch him we will, of that I do not doubt myself—you will not try to protect him, not in the smallest particular of speech or action, because if you do I am not sure that your own life will be your own for long.”
All this was uttered with such seriousness that it came near to touching on a long suppressed world of emotion in the French officer, as if he himself was afraid of what he might be called upon to do if that situation came about.
The Scot, who struck François as not only articulate but extremely observant, fastened on to it at once as if there were hope of support in an underlying ambiguity in the mind of his fellow officer. He asked almost gaily, which one imagines was his characteristic way of defying situations of peril and preventing them from depriving him of his self-control and vision. “Do I detect a warning, a threat, a promise or all three in what you say, my guid gentleman of France? And may I add that you do surprise me. We in Scotland were always brought up to think that the officers and gentlemen of France first brought chivalry into war in Europe and were models of how this uncivilised business could be done in a civilised way. I would have thought you would be the one person to be on my side. I can only tell you that the history of Scotland is full of stories of young lads just like this lad we are hunting. I tell you the Scottish people would not be what they are today if there had not been in every generation, ever since it occurred to the Scots to think of themselves as Scots, plenty of laddies prepared to behave just as this one has behaved. He’s a bonnie fechter and a breed we honour even in our worst enemies!”
There was a long silence before the Frenchman answered, ignoring the last part of the Scot’s declamation and concentrating only on what was obviously of great concern to him, “You asked whether you detect a warning, a threat or a promise, mon cher. Well perhaps all three. The warning is from me, your comrade in arms, but the threat is from the situation and the promise in that . . .” He paused before drawing back as from the edge of an abyss in his own mind to return gravely to his first point. “Perhaps I should explain how serious I find your situation. If our Chairman found that you had become a danger to what he calls the wider plan that has brought us here and ordered you to be liquidated and I was told to do the liquidating, evidently it goes to say of itself, it would be extremely distasteful.”
For a second time in one sequence of thought he did not finish a sentence and even for François, perhaps, there seemed a greater menace implied in this failure than there could have been in any threat that he could have openly expressed.
The Scot replied, too gruffly to suggest that there was any great degree of comfort for himself in his own words, “I do not believe you, mon. I came into this freely and feel myself a free man who can go freely if I find that this army is not the army I came to join.”
“How naïve is it that you can be?” the Frenchman observed, more crisply, now that he was dealing with the irony of their situation itself. “You heard the Chairman say last night that only our version of what has happened here must be allowed to go out into the world. Do you think he will permit an officer who permits himself the bourgeois luxury of differing with his political superior, to return to the world to give it his version—a far more fatal version than even that young boy could manage?”
“But dammit, mon, if I give my word of honour that I wouldn’t speak of what has happened?” the Scot asked, concerned as he was baffled by the Frenchman’s persistence. “Vile as I might think the things are that we’ve done, I’m not going to add another level of vileness to it by betraying people with whom I’ve fought. Why, I would be betraying myself even more than I might have done already!”
“I repeat, how naïve is it that you can be,” the Frenchman’s tone was reproving now. “That is a risk which our Chairman will be incapable of taking; an example he cannot permit. At the first sign of public dissension from you he will take a view most grave of the affair. I will tell you why. Dissension in an officer so well liked as you is dangerous especially because to the contrary of what you think, eighty per cent of the men we lead, amateur soldiers that they still are, are as full of amateur emotions as you over what has happened and your example could be as infectious as the pest. He will, I assure you of it, have no alternative but to make an example of such an example, and without hesitation at all make to liquidate you.”
There followed a silence which may not have been as long as it felt to François, guilty of lying there fascinated in this new, strange way and not getting on with his own urgent mission and call of duty. It was significant that the pause apparently was over-long for the Frenchman’s liking as well. For a while he watched his opposite number intently, his glass eye fixed in one unchanging glitter in the firelight, as his life had been fixed on a single course within, while the Scot sat there puffing with a measured calm at his pipe, that was also significant considering how quick his responses had been before.
Clearly he was taking what he had just heard most seriously, pondering it with a native shrewdness that made the Frenchman’s charge of naïveté a strangely limited and technical one, and wondering perhaps whether he had not already told his fellow officer too much about himself and whether he should continue to tell him more. He was obviously not going to talk until he had answered a range of new questions and doubts to himself.
It was the Frenchman therefore who spoke first, this time with something almost warm if not pleading in his travel-stained voice. “I know, mon cher, that you do not like our Chairman. I think it is only because you do not understand him and know him as I do. For example, believe me he was of a sincerity absolute when he told you last night that he is taking life on such a large measure now because he wants to save the taking of far more life later.”
There followed a long military exposition by the Frenchman in support of the Chairman’s actions. It dwelt on the need for gaining time for the vast supplies and reinforcements coming up behind them to catch up without being observed; the absolute necessity of complete surprise for attacking and overwhelming the great mining city so that it could be held as a self-contained base for future operations; also the capture of the railway line so that they had a line of supply to the Congo, to Zambia and Broken Hill on the Tanzan
ian border, and from there on to the ports of the East Coast of Africa. That done they could settle down to a long “gentleman’s war” and take proper prisoners and care for the wounded, which would satisfy even his Scottish friend’s tender heart. But until then they had no option but to kill everyone in their way. In that manner far less life would be lost than by sparing people in what his Scottish friend most misguidedly thought was a merciful and humane way now. Was there not an English expression about being cruel to be kind? Well, this was what it was all about.
The Scot listened without interruption and, even then, hesitated before he said, François thought rather bleakly, “What you say, my guid friend—I recognise how guid a friend you’re trying to be—what you say may be logical in a purely military sense but this is more than a military matter. You see, like so many of your countrymen I fear you have a genius for being logical on a partial, or even a false hypothesis. Therefore the conclusions you come to inevitably are only partially true, if not wholly false. The trouble not only with all you militarists but you French today is that you know only a logic of the mind and forget the logic of the heart. You seem to have forgotten what one of your greatest, Pascal, once said, ‘the heart has reasons which the mind does not know of’. You see, once the French spirit was important to us Scots, especially one like me who studied philosophy and the humanities at university. It seemed to be so complete. For instance, among many other great instances, it had not only Descartes to speak for reason as reason must be spoken for; it also had Pascal to speak for the heart. But you have all thrown Pascal out of the window, and kept only the Descartes of yourself by your dying national fire.”
The Scot paused perhaps as if he felt he had said enough, but on reflection went on. “Would it make sense to you if I told you that it was not just for reasons of the mind but also of the heart that I came to join you? Like you I have fought in one world war because I hate tyranny and want to see men free and equal everywhere. Having grown up in the slums of Glasgow as I have, I came out of the war determined to help create a world in which no social or racial or religious discrimination or injustice could exist. Would you believe it if I told you I came here because I was urged by a new movement in the church of my country to . . .”
“You would not surprise me at all, my friend,” the Frenchman hastened to interrupt. “The churches have always been highly professional in persuading men that they can kill others in the name of God. I have the greatest admiration for their skill in this regard. That goes without the saying of it.”
“Ye canna be thinking of the church as I do,” the Scot was stung where he obviously liked it least. “Of course the churches have often failed the purpose for which they were established. I dinna speak of those. I speak for a new church to come that will serve its original religious purpose by creating a new brotherhood of men, through a total involvement with the lives of the exploited and oppressed. And I promise you it was this new voice that assured me I was needed for a campaign of limited violence so that a better order could replace the old. That is why I am here. But how can a better order come about if we begin it in this brutal way? Even you must see the nonsense it is, to say the least of it, when you count and consider all those babies and women we killed, all those people we’ve destroyed these last twenty-four hours whom I am certain have never even heard of the injustice, let alone experienced the injustices under the class systems and tyrannies we have come to overthrow. None of them could ever have constituted any danger to us, in spite of what our Chairman says. Unless this becomes from now on the campaign of limited violence I was promised, I shall . . .” The Scot paused as if warned just in time that he had said enough and ended, François thought rather conscious of being feeble and afraid, “Well, I shall just have to think again.”
“Think and think again as much as you like, mon cher,” the Frenchman commented as if encouraged by this obvious sign of caution in the Scot. “But please, I beg it of you confine yourself to thinking.”
The Scot behaved as if he had not heard him and added earnestly, “I shall look upon this attack in the morning as a test. Help me to see it is carried out as a proper military operation that can stand up to examination in the light of any world day, let alone our own conscience. Surely we can now give our enemies a chance to surrender, take prisoners-of-war and proper care of the wounded. If we can do that tomorrow I shall know we are engaged on the campaign of limited violence to which I am pledged. And . . .”
He got no further. A third, “How naïve can you be?” broke from the Frenchman, who sounded not so much impatient as in a state of intellectual despair. “A campaign of limited violence? Oh mon cher, once you start on the way of violence there is no limit to violence until the greatest violence of all has subdued the lesser violence. You talk almost as if there are villians in the piece of life that is our lot and fail to see that it is the life itself that is the villain. I am afraid all my experience tells me that we human beings can only ever be cured from using violence by some system so strong that it can unite the world by force into one powerful society and keep it united and disciplined and in a state of order by force. That is why I am here. That is why I came from the Orient with our Chairman because I know that he represents the one force in the world which can unite the world in this way and that once he has accomplished his objective, you will be amazed by the moderation and tolerance the men he serves will bring to the life of the world.”
“So we are to be like a ‘tea-leaf’ who cracks a safe,” the Scot answered wryly, “and justifies his stealing by saying it was so that he could live honestly ever after.”
The French officer started as if to protest but was stopped by the Scot saying, quickly, “Forget it, mon, it’s not important,” and hastening on, apparently now fully aware of the danger of prolonging the discussion on a personal plain and so seeking safety in generalisation. “I think you are uttering one of the oldest heresies in life, thinking that you can achieve the right end by the wrong means. I remember reading at my university that, long ago, one of the great men of this China you admire, said ‘the right end can only be achieved by the right men serving it in the right way and at the right time’. I would agree with you that we all have the right end in mind but are you certain that we are serving the right men in the right way, let alone at the right time? The question is important to me, you see, because I came into this as a matter of conscience and nothing else, and let us leave it at that.”
However, the Frenchman, who obviously had come to care what the Scot thought of him, would not leave it at that but asked surprisingly tentatively in one so accustomed to command, “Would it surprise you if I told you that it is a matter of conscience to me as well?”
“Aye, it might, or it might not but I expect it will in the end,” the Scot replied. “It depends what you mean by conscience, mon.”
“The conscience of duty,” the Frenchman answered promptly and for the first time with some show of emotion as if he were touching on something beyond reason in himself at last. “The duty of a soldier to be obedient to higher command. The conscience of duty that comes out of the knowledge that always war is organised chaos and that it relapses into greater chaos if there is no obedience to higher command.”
“That, mon,” the Scot said rather sadly, “is too partial a conscience for my definition. I do not want to sound a prude but a conscience is not a conscience unless it is entire and includes sensibility of the highest values of which life is capable. I had an old professor of philosophy at my university who defined conscience as the voice of truth in man calling on him always to see life steadily and live it whole. Unless your higher command is so high that it is no longer of this world I might find your conscience somewhat a cripple of a conscience. But let us forget it, mon,” this last said with a return to a bantering tone and a certain pleading playfulness.
“I would willingly forget it, mon cher,” the Frenchman replied almost as if speaking to himself, “but there is something in all this
that will not forget me. Look, I have often asked myself why I go on being a soldier and do not leave it all, for there can be no one on this earth alive who has seen more of fighting than I have seen, and believe me I do not like the killing part of it. I am a professional and pride myself on killing no more than is absolutely necessary for the purpose. I do not even hate the people I fight against. Hate and killing for killing’s sake, mass slaughter and war on civilians, only came to war when the civilians themselves and their self-righteous amateurs joined in. But that is by the way. What I would wish to say is that very early on in life I found I had a gift for war. It is not a gift that I chose or a gift I sought. It is a gift that chose me. A gift inextricable, as Virgil might have said. You see why I say it is life that is the villain?
“In the beginning I thought I would follow this gift with honour. I come from what you would call a family very Catholique. Contrary to what people think, in the army of a republican and anti-clerical France, it was a disadvantage very great to be not even very, but just a little Catholique. All the best careers were given to officers of the people who were anti-religious and sons of the anti-clerical establishment of the Republic. That is why I was forced to find a career not in the regiments in which my family had served France for generations but in the Foreign Legion in Africa. Even so I did it enthusiastically because there I thought this gift of mine could serve both God and France. I need not go into the details but in the fighting in North Africa before many years, from what I saw, God as far as I was concerned was the main casualty. Yet there was still France. I still believed in France and all that France stood for, the highest kind of civilisation I could serve with honour. All the feeling I had before in God now just went into believing in France. I cannot tell you how this belief was shaken by the capitulation of France in the last war, and by Vichy. But still as part of the Resistance in France I found still beating a pulse of the France in which I believed. But when the war was over and I was back with the Foreign Legion serving in Indo-China, there France became the second great casualty, and then there was nothing.
A Far Off Place Page 16
