The Centurions

by Jean Larteguy

  “All this stinks of rebels,” he said. “Is this what you pinched from the flatfoots, Boisfeuras? Well, when are we going to act on it? You’ve at least got some addresses. Get moving; the strike’s in two days’ time and in this box we may have the names of the men who are organizing it.”

  “There’s nothing in it,” said Boisfeuras, “but the usual informers’ statements, out-of-date political stuff, no reliable evidence, nothing but hearsay . . . So-and-so is said to have done this or that . . . So-and-so is said to be in such-and-such a place . . .”

  Raspéguy flared up impatiently:

  “Get to work! These men may have been marked down rightly or wrongly but among them there’s bound to be a few who haven’t got a clean conscience. We’ll round them up and have a little talk . . .”

  “The curfew’s been lifted for the last two hours, sir,” Marindelle pointed out, “the birds will have flown and as soon as we round up the first one the Arab grape-vine will sound the alarm. We’ve got to arrest the whole lot or else none at all. We could let the other regiments have the addresses of the ones living outside our sector.”

  “To hell with that! We’ve got the cards and we’re going to hang on to them.”

  “The curfew starts at midnight,” Boisfeuras observed. “Five minutes past midnight would be a good time to begin the operation since, legally, our birds will think they’re safe from a police search at that hour.”

  “We must think this out carefully,” said Raspéguy. “Bucelier, move over to the blackboard! And take that expression off your face, haven’t you ever seen a blackboard before? The captain will read you out the names on the cards and you’ll write them down in chalk; Marindelle, you’ll pin-point the addresses on the town map. We’ll divide the suspects up into areas, one area to each company. We should be able to have the whole lot in the bag in less than half an hour. I want all company commanders to report to me at thirteen hundred hours. I’ll go and warn them now in any case and see how they’re settling down.”

  Raspéguy strode off, happy to escape from the schoolroom atmosphere; he had spent most of his childhood playing truant.

  He drove through Bab-el-Oued in his Jeep as though he owned the district and hooted loudly as he went past the “casa de los Martinez.” A shutter opened and Concha, not yet properly awake, with her young breasts escaping from her blouse, appeared at the window.

  “I must try and find a minute or two this afternoon,” he reflected.

  Then, on second thoughts, he said to himself:

  “But why shouldn’t I go and visit her at home? I’m the boss of Bab-el-Oued now.”

  • • •

  Boisfeuras was busy reading out the cards and Bucelier, who was fed up with this job, did his best to make the chalk grate as he inscribed the names on the blackboard.

  “Hallo,” Boisfeuras suddenly exclaimed, “here’s a good one, filled in on both sides, and with far less hearsay evidence than usual:

  Si Millial, belonging to a big family in the Ksour, university graduate, studied at the Sorbonne, has always taken an active part in nationalist movements. During the war made contacts with the German and Italian services, then, after the landing, with the American O.S.S. Arrested while working for this organization and sentenced to only five years’ imprisonment for collaborating with the enemy, the Americans having intervened in his favour.

  In 1948, almost immediately after his release, attended the Youth Congress at Prague, where he spoke against the crimes of French colonialism. Later reported in Iraq, Syria, the Lebanon and Cairo.

  Still owns a flat in Paris, on the Quai Blériot. Large private income, but insufficient to account for his standard of living and travelling.

  Appears to have risen to the leadership of the F.L.N. extremely quickly, although there has been no trace of him since 1 November 1954, the date of the outbreak of the rebellion.

  The name Si Millial rang a bell in Boisfeuras’s mind. He remembered now: that madman Arcinade had mentioned him.

  The captain turned the card over, paused for a moment, then handed it to Marindelle.

  “Any interest to you?”

  The bottom line was underlined in red:

  When in Algiers, Si Millial is said to live at 12, Passage des Dames, the address of Christiane Bellinger, a lecturer at the Faculty; she is believed to be his mistress.

  Marindelle had gone as white as a sheet and the card trembled in his fingers. This card was one of the few which bore an official identity photograph, full and side face, taken in the prison at Lambèse. Amar had hardly changed at all since then, but the set expression gave no hint of his lively intelligence or charm.

  Chalk in hand, Bucelier waited impatiently.

  “Leave me this card,” said Marindelle. “I’ll deal with this case myself.”

  Boisfeuras took up another card and began reading out:

  “Arouche, dentist, 117 Rue Michelet . . . M.T.L.D. . . .”

  At five minutes past midnight about twenty Jeeps set out from the 10th Regiment barracks and drove straight into the deserted city, each with three armed men on board. Each team had been given a name, an address, and in some cases a photograph.

  At the company commanders’ meeting Raspéguy had made himself quite clear:

  “Cast your nets wide, round them all up, and if any of them don’t like it . . .”

  He made a sweeping gesture with his hand.

  “No rough stuff, mind you, but I don’t want any escapes . . .”

  With a serious air Esclavier inquired:

  “What if they ask to see our search warrants?”

  Raspéguy turned on him:

  “This is no time for joking. We’re at war.”

  Major de Glatigny had tried to have as little as possible to do with this operation, which he assumed to be necessary but which he found extremely unpleasant on account of its police-like aspect.

  Boudin had had to leave for France at short notice, his mother having fallen seriously ill. Glatigny had taken his place and his new duties enabled him to confine himself to billeting and supplies and to communications between the various companies.

  As the first Jeeps started off, he was lying on his camp-bed smoking a stubby pipe. He tried to remember if military regulations, which provided for every eventuality, had envisaged that a regiment in a French town, in peace-time, without a state of emergency being proclaimed, without an official proclamation being made by the Government, could be invested with all civil and military powers, including those of every branch of the police . . . No, that had never been foreseen.

  The arrival of Marindelle interrupted his thoughts.

  “Well, how far have you got?” he inquired, unconsciously emphasizing that he was not whole-heartedly with them.

  Marindelle was looking rather odd. His expression aged him, suddenly revealing that he was over thirty and had suffered a great deal of hardship.

  “Jacques, I want to ask you a favour.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “A personal favour . . . I want you to come with me on a search.”

  “You can have my Jeep and my driver. I don’t see what use I could be myself.”

  “I want you to come with me to Christiane Bellinger’s. That’s where Si Millial, one of the leaders of the rebellion, is hiding out.”

  Glatigny leaped to his feet.

  “What! It’s not possible! Police rumours . . . You can’t trust those chaps an inch. Don’t forget, you were listed as a Communist. I only know Christiane slightly, but all the same I could see that she’s a very gentle, warm-hearted girl. Now Si Millial is the man who has organized terrorism and brought it to a fine art.”

  “I’ve met this Si Millial at her house. He quoted Camus to me—Les Justes—and yesterday I shook his hand as though he was a friend—that hand which is responsible for every bomb that’s exploded in A
lgiers. We listened to the gramophone. He likes Mozart as much as I do.”

  “But Christiane doesn’t know his real identity, surely?”

  “Yes, she does. She reproaches me for being a policeman, but consents to his massacring women and children. The Communists are quite right to treat their intellectuals like calves, to castrate them and fatten them up, because they know their fine principles will allow them to be as foul as they like, without giving them the slightest twinge of conscience.”

  “Don’t get so worked up about it.”

  “Jeanine was a dirty little strumpet, and now this girl has led me up the garden path with her humanistic attitude, while the bombs were going off all the time. She’s made me an accomplice of the terrorists.”

  “All right. I’ll come with you.”

  That was another of those eventualities that had not been catered for in army regulations.

  • • •

  Marindelle and Glatigny went to Christiane’s house with an escort of two paratroopers. There was a light on in the drawing-room.

  Marindelle posted the two men on either side of the entrance, with orders to fire on anyone who tried to come out, then he opened the heavy studded door with the key that Christiane had given him.

  The drawing-room light shone out on to the staircase, illuminating the blue-patterned tiles. Christiane’s voice called out:

  “Is that you, Yves?”

  “Yes, I’ve brought a friend of mine with me. I’ve told him about Amar and he’d like to meet him.”

  Amar was sitting in an arm-chair thumbing through an art book which he held in his chubby hands. A glass of whisky stood on a table by his side.

  He looked up, smiled at Marindelle and rose to his feet.

  “Nice to see you again, Captain.”

  All of a sudden he noticed that the two officers were in battle order; their caps, which they had not taken off, made their faces leaner than ever; each had a revolver and a knife hanging from his webbing belt.

  “I’m glad to find you’re still here, Si Millial,” said Marindelle. “For a moment I was afraid you might have changed your address.”

  Amar glanced at the window . . . then at the door. The window had a grille on it; by the door stood the major with his hand on his holster.

  He had been caught in the hide-out which he believed to be invulnerable. His lucky star, his baraka, had let him down again. But his nimble mind had been trained by long years of clandestine living to react properly to the most unexpected situations.

  “It remains to be proved, Captain, that I’m Si Millial”—he glanced at his wrist-watch—“I must remind you that it’s now half past twelve and the law forbids you to make a search at this time of night. However, out of regard for Christiane, I am willing to prove my identity.”

  He sat down again, but Glatigny noticed he kept glancing at the telephone. He locked the drawing-room door from the inside and came and stood by the receiver.

  “Yves, I find your manners intolerable, and your friend’s too,” Christiane exclaimed. “I thought you were too intelligent to be jealous. Si Millial . . .”

  She had no time to correct herself and went scarlet in the face.

  Si Millial rose to his feet, stretched out his stubby little arms and in a calm, almost amused voice declared:

  “I’ve made two mistakes, gentlemen. I’ve confided in a woman and I’ve slept in a bed. Let me telephone my lawyer, Maître Boumendjel, then you can bring in the policemen who are with you.”

  He moved towards the telephone, but Glatigny intercepted him.

  “Those aren’t policemen at the door, sir, they’re paratroopers; you’re not being detained, you’re a prisoner of war and you are not entitled to a lawyer.”

  “What are you going to do with me?”

  “Interrogate you,” said Marindelle, “until no more bombs go off in Algiers, until the strike has failed, until the last terrorist in your network has been wiped out.”

  Christiane kept glancing alternately at Marindelle and Si Millial.

  “Amar, these men are mad. You told me you belonged to a political party, but surely you, a man of peace, an enemy of violence, have never had anything to do with bombs?”

  “My right hand, my dear Christiane, does not know what my left is doing. I make war as best I can. If I were in the position of the French, I wouldn’t need bombs, but I’ve no other means at my disposal. What difference do you see in the pilot who drops cans of napalm on a mechta from the safety of his aircraft and a terrorist who places a bomb in the Coq Hardi? The terrorist requires far more courage. You’re a woman and too tenderhearted; you are open-minded but without conviction, and besides . . . you’re not one of us.

  “Gentlemen, I’m at your disposal.”

  Marindelle summoned one of the paratroopers who came and handcuffed Si Millial. He stretched out his hands and turned to Glatigny.

  “I didn’t know you handcuffed prisoners of war?”

  “Yes, when they’re not in uniform.”

  Marindelle was the last to leave. He collected a suitcase with a few clothes and a briefcase stuffed with documents from Si Millial’s room. He put the key down on the chest of drawers, then marched out without a word. Christiane made no attempt to hold him back. Yet she had been pregnant for the last week.

  • • •

  Glatigny and Marindelle brought their prisoner back to the dilapidated old palace which served as their regimental head-quarters. They made him sit down on a camp-bed in a corner of Glatigny’s office.

  The major then settled down in front of his small square table. He unscrewed the cap of his fountain-pen and took out a clean sheet of paper. He felt ill at ease and could not decide how to begin the interrogation.

  “Your name?” he asked.

  Si Millial appeared indifferent, almost amused, as he sat there with his manacled hands in front of him. This was not his first interrogation, nor the first time he had had handcuffs round his wrists. Like an earnest pupil, he replied:

  “Amar Si Millial, but also Ben Larba, Abderhamane . . . I’ve used at least a dozen names in the last five years. But thousands of Algerians also know me by the name of ‘Big Brother.’”

  Glatigny put down his pen. He suddenly remembered the Vietminh political commissar who had interrogated him for the first time in the tunnel which served as an air-raid shelter. He had had the same reactions as him: the fountain-pen, the sheet of paper . . .

  “Are your handcuffs bothering you, Si Millial?”

  “A little.”

  Glatigny went over and unfastened the steel bracelets which he then tossed into a corner of the room.

  “As you can imagine, Si Millial, we don’t find this sort of work particularly pleasant. We would much rather be fighting you on equal terms up in the mountains; but you’ve forced us to wage this sort of war.”

  “I agree, Major, your conception of military honour must be a bit of a disadvantage in this sort of . . . work, as you call it. Why don’t you hand me over to the police?”

  Once again Glatigny was reminded of the Vietminh, who had also been sarcastic about military honour, as displayed by colonial officers.

  “Stick to the rules of the game, Major. Send for my lawyer, and the police inspector of this area and his constables, to draw up a warrant for my arrest, for we’re not in a state of emergency. Then your conscience will be at rest and you will have observed your code of military honour.”

  “No,” Marindelle burst out. “Our bourgeois conception of honour, we left behind us in Indo-China in Camp One. We’re now out to win, and we’re in much too much of a hurry to saddle ourselves with such ridiculous conventions. Our diffidence, our indecision, our pangs of conscience are the best weapons you could use against us; but they won’t work any longer.”

  A long silence ensued; the lamps began to dim, faded away to a few re
d filaments, and then went out completely. Marindelle spoke up again in a more confident tone:

  “Si Millial, we want to know who’s responsible for the general strike. We’ve got to have his name.”

  “My honour as a soldier prevents me from replying. In our army I’ve got the rank of colonel.”

  A rectangle of dark blue sky appeared through a shattered pane in the window. A Jeep drove off outside. The signallers repairing the power plant could be heard cursing the “useless bloody contraption.”

  The rasping voice of Boisfeuras came to their ears:

  “Well, have you got it going? Bring in some lamps.”

  The harsh light of the hurricane lamp that Boisfeuras was carrying drew closer, casting flickering shadows on the walls; presently, enclosed in this circle of light, they settled by the side of the bed, so close together that they were almost touching.

  “Well, Marindelle,” Boisfeuras observed, “I see you found the bird in his nest. This is Si Millial, isn’t it? Why haven’t you tied him up? With all these light failures, he could make a break for it. Have you searched him? What about his luggage?”

  Marindelle showed him the briefcase and the suitcase on the table.

  “Get up, Si Millial,” said Boisfeuras. “Come on, on your feet! Take off your jacket, your tie and belt and shoes. Bucelier, take all this stuff away and put it in my office. Don’t forget the briefcase or the suitcase.”

  Si Millial now looked ridiculous, as he stood there in the shaft of light holding his trousers up with both hands.

  “The address of the letter-box? Come on, be quick about it!”

  “I’m a colonel, I’m entitled to my rights.”

  “Out in Malaya, Si Millial, I once picked up a Japanese and stripped him down to his under-pants. He also told me he was a general. I had it inscribed on his tomb: ‘General Tokoto Mahuri, War Criminal.’

  “Well, are you going to come clean?”

  Si Millial was disconcerted by this forthright, brutal treatment; until then he had held all the cards; but Boisfeuras brought him back to the harsh reality of his position: that of a terrorist without any safeguard.