The Centurions

by Jean Larteguy

  One afternoon Philippe put his arms round her; she did not struggle but returned his kisses with clumsy ardour. He arranged to meet her in the barn below; they met. In the heady smell of the hay, with their ears pricked for the slightest noise, like animals lying in wait, they clumsily embraced and were suddenly carried off by the raging torrent of their desire.

  From time to time a bat on its darting flight would brush against their intertwined bodies. Philippe could feel the girl’s loins tremble beneath his hands and a fresh surge of desire overwhelmed him.

  When he climbed back to the lumber-room, limp with fatigue and with the smell of the crushed straw and their love-making fresh in his nostrils, the wireless operator handed him a signal: it was an order for him to liquidate an Abwehr agent, a Belgian passing himself off as a refugee, who had been taken on as an agricultural labourer in a number of farms.

  The peasants were chatterboxes; they loved to talk about what they were doing and hinted that their barns were not only used for the purpose of storing hay. Three of them had just been arrested and shot. This they owed to the Belgian in the Abwehr.

  The wireless operator was also keen on the servant girl and jealous of Philippe’s success. He sniggered:

  “All on one day—bloodshed, ecstasy and death!”

  The wireless operator was an educated man: a lecturer at Edinburgh University.

  The Belgian was working on a neighbouring farm; after supper his employer asked him in for a drink, to give the two other farm-hands time to dig a grave behind the dung-heap.

  Philippe waited by the door of the living-room, hugging the wall. He had butterflies in the stomach and his dagger felt slippery in his sweaty palm.

  He would never be able to kill the Belgian. How had he managed to get mixed up in this damned business? He should have listened to his father and stayed behind with him, sheltered by his books instead of playing at hired assassins.

  The man came stumbling out, impelled by a shove from the owner of the farm. He had his back turned to Philippe, who sprang forward and buried the dagger between his shoulder-blades, as he had been taught during his commando training. But the blow lacked sufficient strength. Philippe had to repeat it several times over while the peasant sat astride the man’s waist to prevent him from fighting back. A filthy butchery! They emptied the Belgian’s pockets. Orders had been given for his papers to be sent back to London. Then they tipped the body into the hole by the dung-heap.

  Philippe went and vomited behind a low wall.

  Bloodshed, ecstasy and death . . .

  When he got back to the farm he caught the wireless operator in the act of fornicating with the servant girl. In the arms of this ginger-headed runt, she was heaving the same sighs of pleasure as she had with him an hour or two before. At first his feelings were hurt but he resolved to be cynical about it and came to an arrangement with the operator whereby they each made use of the girl in turn.

  Philippe Esclavier succeeded on his second mission, which he carried out on his own, but was arrested before he could even embark on his third.

  He had been dropped in with Staff-Sergeant Beudin. The Germans, who had got wind of the operation, were waiting for them on the ground. Beudin, who landed in a stream, managed to escape, but Philippe had a pair of handcuffs snapped round his wrists before he was even able to unfasten his parachute harness and draw his revolver.

  He was conducted forthwith to the Préfecture at Rennes and brought before the Gestapo. After being tortured, he had been deported to Mathausen camp.

  In his barrack-room there was a skinny little Jew without family or country who had sided with the Communists for some sort of protection. That was what had saved him from the gas chamber. His name was Michel Weihl. The Communist organization within the camp had entrusted him with the task of obtaining information on the newcomer.

  “He’s a Free French agent from London who was dropped in by parachute,” Weihl had reported one evening to the man responsible for that particular barrack-room, a certain Fournier.

  “Then he may as well be left on the list of the detachment that’s leaving for the salt mines.”

  Weihl had warned the newcomer. Esclavier had then gone to Fournier and told him that he was the son of the Front Populaire professor.

  Fournier had been staggered. The name of Esclavier was still held in great repute among the left and extreme-left wing. But so as not to show his surprise, he had replied:

  “The Socialists are a soft bourgeois lot. If you want us to help you, you’ll have to join our ranks, the Communists.”

  Philippe Esclavier had agreed to this and his name had been taken off the list. But during the whole of his captivity he had continued to serve the Communists who constituted the only efficient hierarchy in the camp.

  What they demanded of him sometimes defied all the rules of the accepted moral code. As a Communist, he might have considered himself absolved by reason of the higher interests of the cause for which he was fighting. But he had never been a Communist, he had only cheated in order to survive; all he had been was a dirty bastard.

  • • •

  Boisfeuras’s harsh grating voice brought him back to the Muong-Phan basin:

  “Day-dreaming, Esclavier? It’s not good for a prisoner to take refuge in the past. He loses his grip, goes into a decline. Come on, I’ll show you where we hang out.”

  Esclavier and the new arrivals reached the huts and sank down on to the bamboo bunks. They heaved a sigh of well-being. It was dry, clean and warm.

  Glatigny had propped himself up on his elbows as Esclavier came in.

  “Hallo,” he said to himself, “here’s that proud brute without his dagger or his long-barrelled Colt . . . and without Raspéguy for once.”

  Esclavier had recognized Glatigny. He bowed slightly from the waist with the affected elegance of a man of the world.

  “Hallo, it’s you, my dear fellow. How’s the C.-in-C.? And his daughter, that dear girl Martine?”

  Glatigny reflected that some day or another he would have to bash Esclavier’s face in, but that this was hardly the moment. He had almost done so one evening in Saigon, when he had prevented Martine, the general’s daughter, from going out with the captain. Esclavier would have made her drink too much and maybe taken her to an opium den, then he would have slept with her, and next morning he would have laughed in her face like the big hoodlum he was.

  Glatigny fell back on his bunk and Esclavier went and lay down close at hand.

  “All the same, I was surprised,” the paratrooper went on, “not to say extremely surprised, that you should have come and joined us.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning that you’re not just a G.H.Q. puppet or the duenna of that dear Martine, but also . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “But also perhaps . . . an officer . . .”

  Esclavier sprang to his feet and went to fetch Lescure who was standing stock-still with a vacant expression in his eyes and his arms swinging loosely by his side.

  With infinite care, not to say gentleness, Esclavier made him lie down and placed a kitbag under his head.

  “He’s raving,” he said. “He’s lucky; he doesn’t realize that the French Army has been beaten by a handful of little yellow dwarfs because of the stupidity and inertia of its leaders. And you yourself must have felt this so strongly, Glatigny, that you abandoned them and came and joined us, ready to commit yourself in our company.”

  Lescure sat up with a start and, stretching out his hand, began burbling:

  “Here they come, here they come, all green like caterpillars! They’re swarming all over the place, they’re going to eat us up! Quick, for Christ’s sake—some chickens, some ducks . . . And while you’re about it, why not some partridges, also some thrushes, some pheasants and some hares. We’ve got to let fly with everything we’ve got, to crush the
caterpillars which are going to devour the whole wide world!”

  Immediately afterwards he fell asleep and his face was once more the face of the dreamy, immature adolescent who liked Mozart and the symbolist poets. And from the depths of his madness there came to him the opening bars of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.

  • • •

  Daylight had transformed the absurd, hostile world of the previous night and the smell of hot rice rose in the still morning air. The prisoners, who now numbered thirty or so, were gathered round a basket of woven bamboo full of snow-white rice steaming gently in the sun. Some tea had been poured out for them in empty bully-beef tins, but this was simply an infusion of guava leaves. A few mouthfuls of rice sufficed to appease their hunger now that their stomachs had shrunk so much.

  The bo-dois ate the same rice and drank the same tea. They appeared to have forgotten their victory in order to commune together in this elementary rite. The sun rose higher and higher in the pewter-coloured sky, the glare became painful, the heat suffocating. Somewhere in the distance an aircraft dropped a stick of bombs.

  “The war’s still on,” Pinières remarked with satisfaction.

  With his large paw he kept squashing the mosquitoes on his red-tufted chest. He looked at a sentry as though he longed to strangle him; that skinny neck was a temptation . . . The war was still on.

  Unconsciously, the bo-dois stiffened and resumed their surly attitude; the morning’s truce had come to an end.

  Lacombe had gone off with a big handful of rice wrapped up in a banana leaf, which he tried to hide. With a nudge of his elbow Esclavier made him drop the rice, which fell in the mud.

  “It’s my rice, after all,” Lacombe began to whine.

  “Try and behave yourself in the future.”

  A sentry had angrily advanced on the paratroop captain, lifting his rifle butt to strike him, then he had held back; the slogan of the policy of leniency had deterred him just in time. He now drew the other soldiers’ attention to the spilled rice and jabbered furiously. Esclavier gathered he was saying something about colonialism and the people’s rice.

  Glatigny could not help admiring his comrade for having tried to impose a certain standard of behaviour on the group.

  Then he relapsed into his day-dream and strove to remember: he had been a prisoner for two days, so it was now the 8th of May. What would Claude be doing back in Paris? She loved the smells of the markets and the colour of the fruit. He pictured her stopping for a moment in front of a stall in the Rue de Passy. Marie was with her, because, in the eyes of the old cook, she had never grown up and was still incapable of managing her life by herself. Claude thrust her bottom lip out slightly and in her low distinguished voice politely asked the prices. And Marie buzzed about behind her:

  “I’ve got some money, milady, let me see to it.”

  Claude turned round towards her:

  “But, Marie, supposing I can’t pay you back; there’s still no news of the captain.”

  “I’ll stay on; I’ll take some job or other in a restaurant. For once they’ll get some decent food. The children belong to me just as much as to you.”

  The wart above Marie’s lip quivered with indignation.

  A newspaper-boy went past shouting out the latest bulletin: “Dien-Bien-Phu fallen; no news of the seven thousand prisoners or three thousand casualties.”

  The little countess with the doe-like eyes suddenly turned aside and started weeping silently. The passers-by stared at her in astonishment. Marie rounded on them with rage in her heart; she felt like burying her teeth in them and shouting in their faces that at this very moment her captain was dead . . . or perhaps even worse off.

  • • •

  In the afternoon they watched the arrival of the three hundred officers who had been taken prisoner at Dien-Bien-Phu. Those who were on the staff or who had been captured at General de Castries’ H.Q. had had time to make a few preparations. They all wore clean uniforms and their haversacks contained a change of clothing and provisions. They gave the impression that their presence there, amongst all the others, was only by mistake.

  Suddenly Raspéguy’s powerful voice rang out. He had just caught sight of one of his officers, in a dirty vest and with a filthy bandage round his leg, tied up to a tree because he had jostled a sentry of the People’s Army.

  “You bastards! What about the rules of war? What do you think you’re doing, tying my men up like prize pigs being taken to market?”

  Raspéguy was suddenly beginning to find some use for the rules of war which he himself had never observed. On occasion he had been known to conclude his orders with the brief injunction: “Don’t be too inhuman.” In actual fact he always wrote out his directives after the operations were over and exclusively for the benefit of his superiors.

  He was followed by General de Castries, downcast because he had not been able to die and pass into the realm of legend.

  His cheeks were sunken, his features drawn, and the khaki bush-shirt which hung on his shoulders looked several sizes too big for him. He wore the red forage cap of the Moroccan Spahis and a Third Regiment scarf. Behind him came “Moustache,” his batman, a huge Berber whiskered like a Janissary.

  The general had reached a little stream of clear water flowing between muddy banks at the foot of the camp. The Vietnamese believed this water could kill. It had needed Communism and war to induce them to venture into these cursed mountains with clear-flowing rivers.

  Moustache had seventeen years’ service behind him and knew his job. From his haversack he brought out a clean, well-pressed uniform, bush-shirt and trousers, and a leather toilet case.

  Castries took off the shirt he was wearing. He heard a noise behind him and turned round. It was Glatigny.

  They had known each other for a long time and their families had intermarried at various stages.

  The general lisped with great distinction and detachment:

  “Ath you thee, old boy, it’th all over. Yethterday, at theventeen hundred hourth, I gave the order to theath fire. Marianne IV fell at nine in the morning. The Vieth were thtrung out along the river to the eatht. There wath nothing left but the thentral strong-pointh with three thousand wounded piling up in the dug-outh, not to mention the corptheth. I reported to Hanoi at thixteen thirty hourth. Navarre had left for Thaigon and I got on to Cogny who told me: ‘Whatever happenth, no white flag, but you’re at liberty to take any decision you conthider fit. Do you thtill think a break-out’s impothible?’ It’th crazy. They never realized what wath going on. They must find thome tholution at Geneva. In three months we’ll be releathed.”

  It was curious how this word Geneva seemed suddenly fraught with hope. Glatigny repeated it under his breath and found there was something magical about the very sound.

  The general finished shaving. He handed his shaving-brush still covered in lather to Glatigny, who suddenly realized how dirty and stubbly he was and to what extent he had forgotten how important personal appearance is to a cavalry man. In 1914 cavalry officers used to shave before going into action. In modern warfare all those rites were ludicrous; it was not enough to be well-born, smart and clean; first of all you had to win.

  “I’ll soon be thinking exactly like Raspéguy and Esclavier,” the captain said to himself.

  But Castries was already passing him his razor and metal shaving-mirror.

  “Im! Im!” the sentry behind them yelled. “Silence! Forbidden you speak to general!”

  Castries paid no attention to this interruption.

  “You see, all the divisions we were containing at Dien-Bien-Phu will now pour down into the delta which is rotten through and through. Hanoi’s liable to be surrounded before the rains start.”

  “Im! Im!” The sentry was getting impatient.

  “We’ll have to come to terms. The Americans could have intervened before; now it’s too late.”

&
nbsp; Glatigny was enjoying the feel of the lather on his face, the gliding of the razor over his skin. He had the sensation of shedding a mask and being able to resume his own identity at last.

  A can-bo, an officer or under-officer with the offensive accent of a brothel attendant, brusquely interrupted them:

  “No talking with general: you there, rejoin comrades at once, mau-len.”

  Glatigny had finished shaving. Castries handed him his toothbrush and his tube of toothpaste, but he did not have time to use them; urged on by his superior, the sentry gave him a shove. He rejoined his comrades: Boisfeuras, who was eavesdropping on the bo-dois’ conversation; Esclavier and Raspéguy looking strangely alike, each with the same lean, wiry body and unruffled expression, and the same slight tension in every muscle.

  Raspéguy grinned pleasantly:

  “So you managed to find one of your own sort again?”

  The prisoners remained in the Muong-Phan basin for a couple of weeks. They were split up into separate teams and that was how Captains Glatigny, Esclavier, Boisfeuras and Lacombe, and Lieutenants Merle, Pinières and Lescure found themselves condemned to live together for several months. They were presently joined by another lieutenant, an Algerian called Mahmoudi. Withdrawn and silent, he prayed twice a day facing in the direction of Mecca. Boisfeuras noticed that he made several mistakes and prostrated himself out of time. He therefore inquired:

  “Have you always said your prayers?”

  Mahmoudi looked at him in astonishment:

  “No, not since I was a child. I only began again after being taken prisoner.”

  Boisfeuras peered at him with his almost colourless eyes.

  “I should like to know the reasons for your renewed fervour—a purely personal interest, I assure you.”

  “If I told you, sir, that I did not know myself, or at least did not know exactly, and that you wouldn’t enjoy hearing what I feel . . .”

  “I don’t mind hearing anything . . .”

  “Well, it seems to me that this defeat at Dien-Bien-Phu, where you”—he laid particular emphasis on the “you”—“have been beaten by one of your former colonies, will have considerable repercussions in Algeria and will be the blow which will sever the last links between our two countries. Now, Algeria cannot exist apart from France; she has no past, no history, no great men; she has nothing except a different religion from yours. It’s through our religion that we shall be able to start giving Algeria a history and a personality.”