by Robert Irwin
Chapter Six
‘Have you ever thought of suicide, Philippe?’ The colonel’s question seems to have been prompted by his prolonged contemplation of the sands and now he reluctantly turns away from those sands to let his eyes gaze into mine. The whites are large and brilliant. They seem to belong to some sacred animal – perhaps a panther chained to the pillar of an Egyptian temple.
‘Never, my colonel. That is, not since Dien Bien Phu. In the last days at Dien Bien Phu I thought about it every day.’
‘Ah, yes. Tell me once more about what you saw at Dien Bien Phu.’ And he turns back to gazing on the sands as I make another attempt to describe what I saw and felt during those fifty-five days in the spring of 1954. I tell him about the continuous rumbling barrage of the artillery on the hills around us which went through the bones as vibration even when one could not hear it. It never stopped in all those fifty-five days. I describe the weird labyrinth of waterlogged subterranean trenches whose walls in the last days were infested by long white maggots which burrowed over from the impromptu mass graveyard close by the airfield. In those dark passages one might encounter a Meo tribesman in traditional warrior gear or one of the Rats of Nam Yum in a uniform looted from a dead paratrooper, or one of the Ouled Nail madames from the army’s mobile field brothel. All of these our subterranean friends had been trapped in the enemy’s closing of the noose round our fort. Little hollows had been scooped out from the sides of the main passages and served as wards for the wounded, as store rooms and as wayside chapels.
Colonel Joinville listens attentively. It is just these details that he wants to hear. He does not want the standard précis of the siege itself, for after all, though he was not at Dien Bien Phu, he is, like so many of us here, an old Indochina hand himself. He was with De Lattre de Tassigny on the Red River Delta Campaign. Then he came out here and, as he describes it, at the age of fifty-four he fell in love for the first time. He fell in love with the Sahara. As he said to me a few weeks ago, ‘I should like to make love to all this, these fierce blues and yellows, this horizon line and these dunes whose crests seem to have beem sculpted with an invisible knife. To make love to it all … I should not say that it was impossible … only I have not discovered the way yet …’
But now it is I who am talking. I describe the Legion’s last pitiful attempt to celebrate Camerone Day with Vinogle wine concentrate. I recall Mercier leaning against the mud wall with a stethoscope to his ear listening to the sound of the little yellow men burrowing their way towards us. And there were the human bombs, suicide squads who came over the wires, arms stretched out towards us smiling and nervously attempting to conceal the explosives which they had strapped to their chests. And those last sordid days when we fought among ourselves for soap and razor blades. Half our commanding officers seemed to have had nervous breakdowns or committed suicide already. Naturally I thought of it too. Only I should have liked to have found a razor blade …
And here Colonel Jean-Marie Joinville stops me.
‘But you have not thought of suicide since?’
‘Not since. No.’
‘It is not a bad thing to think of. Surely it is impossible that such atrocious suffering should have no meaning. If there is one thing that I am certain of it is that the meaning of human existence is closely bound up with the transference of suffering. I should like to take some of your pain from you.’
I make a sort of shrugging gesture which he may interpret as meaning that he is welcome to it. The colonel has said that, when he dies, he would like to be buried in these beloved sands of his. I should like to bury him in them.
The photographer – attached to the Services des Renseignements photographiques militaires – is waiting for us at the foot of the stairs. I know him. I have seen him working with Chantal in the records section. Together Chantal and he pore over the thousands of passport-sized photos, checking and breaking down the month’s body count and labelling the heads on the table.
After conferring with the photographer and Captain Delavigne, Joinville hands his képi, white wool cape and swagger stick to Corporal Buchalik and hurries off to change. That cloak always makes me laugh. The men love it – and him of course. A real aristocrat, just like his old commander, De Lattre de Tassigny. It was an aristocrat, General Henri de Navarre who sent me to Dien Bien Phu and another, Colonel Christian de Castries, who actually presided over the bloody shambles. And now here in Algeria, they are everywhere, men like our former commander-in-chief, Raoul Salan, mandarins and military Jesuits. In his white cloak Joinville likes to appear among his men as Crusader and mystic. Yet I think it absurd, for in fact the colonel is short, close-cropped, muscle-bound and overweight (though even the paunch is muscle-bound). In fact he looks very like me.
In any case, today Captain Delavigne, who is responsible for liaison with the Algiers Ministry of Information, is determined that we are to present a different image. No képi, no fourrageur epaulettes, no Croix de guerre. The word from Algiers is that the public want to see men of action, relaxed, utterly informal but tough. They want to see an image of future victory. The fashion this year is for camouflage-striped combat fatigues and green berets. That is what we are seeing in the glossies. The ‘Lizard’ forage cap is an acceptable alternative to the beret and since Colonel Bigeard redesigned our uniforms, the trouser leg is nicely tailored and ever so slightly flared. Bigeard is another old Indochina hand. We all came out here. Salan the mandarin, Massu the victor of the Battle of Algiers, Trinquier the counter-insurgency expert, Argoud the tough-talking hero of the paras. We are all here in Africa, keen to apply the lessons we learned from Ho Chi Minh and General Giap. Only the lessons I have learned are different from the lessons they have learned.
When the colonel reappears, we all pile in after him into the committee room. A corner is selected by the photographer and while he fiddles about with his flash, a map is spread across the table. Cigarettes are distributed in the corners of mouths and heads are arranged over the map. I find myself standing next to Captain Rocroy, but the colonel calls me out -
‘I don’t want you in this picture, Philippe. I don’t want the faces of intelligence people in this picture. So not you and not Chantal.’
He takes my place in the huddle of officers and self-consciously rolls his sleeves up. The tattooed number appears. After covering the retreat to Dunkirk, Joinville joined the Maquis, was captured and sent to Matthausen, escaped from Matthausen, joined the Free French in North Africa, fought against Vichy in Syria and finally pioneered guerrilla operations in the jungles of the Indochina Delta before finding peace of a sort in the desert. That tattooed number on his arm is his reply to insinuations that he might be a colonialist oppressor and a crypto-fascist.
It is going to make a good photo. The striped bars of sunlight from the shutters spread over the men in their camouflage kit making them look like a pack of beasts posed over their kill in the jungle. Short hair, scars, hard jaw lines, the pipe hovering over the map and pointing to some decisive spot, the heads bowed in concentrated unanimity. It seems incredible that this army will lose this war, but it will. I was in a similar photo taken in this command bunker at Dien Bien Phu. I appear just behind Bigeard, who was presiding over the morning’s briefing. We looked relaxed, but formidable. The reporter who took it went out on one of the last planes to get off the airstrip. I think the picture appeared in Life with the caption ‘French Para Colonels make plans for crushing offensive against the Reds’. Here, too, in Fort Tiberias, at this very table, in a few years’ time commissars of the People’s Army will be holding their briefing session. But now the cameraman’s task is done and they all break away from their studiedly relaxed tableau. I spoil it for Delavigne by telling him, ‘I prefer the more formal type of military picture. You know – where the back row are standing, the senior officers are on chairs and the front row are cross-legged in front of them and we have a few dead fellagha splayed out in front of us as trophies.’
Captain Delavign
e gives me a dirty look. We spread ourselves round the tables in the committee room. We are a ‘fine body of fellows’. My fellow officers would rather die than allow the honour of the Legion to be sullied. Legio patria nostra. On the other hand, they would not lift a finger to save the honour of an Arab woman. They are the black heart of white Africa. The colonel and Chantal go off to fetch the guests who will be sitting in on our conference.
Chantal reappears with a bundle of files. Then Joinville enters accompanied by Major Quénault of the Eighth Foreign Legion Parachute Regiment and our three civilian guests. I am startled to see Raoul Demeulze among them. Raoul smiles briefly in my direction. I had not known that he was in the fort. I recognize one of the others as Potier, a big shot in the Oran Chamber of Commerce, but the third man I have never seen before. Potier wears the Knights of Vercingetorix golden-eyed tie-pin, and now I notice that though none of us is wearing military decorations, Joinville also displays the Vercingetorix tie-pin.
There is always an elegant carriage clock placed beside the blotter at the colonel’s place, so that he may pace out the day’s agenda. Today the colonel carries in an armful of objects which he carefully places beside the carriage clock – a small samovar, a scorpion in a bottle and a sand rose. The colonel explains that he has brought along these objects for the purpose of demonstrating something -
‘All will be revealed at the end of the meeting, gentlemen.’ And he smiles gently. The colonel is famous for such eye-catching, mystificatory gestures.
‘You may smoke.’ Then the pained look of one who has been drawn into politics only by his duty as a Christian gentleman comes over Joinville’s face –
‘If you will turn to item one on the agenda –’
Surely the matter has been decided in advance? Important issues on the agenda usually are. Joinville will have taken soundings with the majors. But we will have to go through the forms of consultation on item one, before turning to the problem of the possible traitor in Fort Tiberias. Then we have matters arising from the testing of de Gaulle’s first H-bomb at Reganne some hundreds of miles to the south of us. We will be responsible for policing the necessary evacuation of tribesmen in the region. Then there is a run of items concerning desertions and the disciplining of other ranks. Al-Hadi’s death has been scribbled on as a late addition to the agenda.
‘Our guests have a tight schedule. They have to be in Constantine by evening and cannot be with us long. Not all of you will have met them, though Major Quénault of our own Legion is I am sure familiar to us all – by reputation at least.’
Major Quénault grins wolfishly at us. A real thug, but a good man to have on your side in a brawl. The colonel continues -
‘I do not think that there is any need even to name the civilian participants at our meeting. It is enough to say that they represent a broad spectrum of interests in Algiers, Constantine and Oran. The fewer who know that we have been talking to them the better. It therefore seemed desirable that they confer with us here in the Security Panel rather than addressing the officers’ corps as a whole. For the same reason they will remain in this room until the moment their transport is ready to take them on to Constantine. I must say that in my conversations with them, I have become conscious that what they have to say is of the utmost importance for all our futures. Gentlemen, the Turks are at the gates of Constantinople!’
And at that moment Joinville does indeed resemble a Byzantine scholar who has been roused from deep contemplation of the Neoplatonic Triads by the roar of Turkish artillery beyond the walls. He mutely gestures to Raoul who takes the floor.
‘Thank you. I won’t waste your time. I know, Colonel, that you can answer for every man assembled here. We all have the best interests of France at heart. But what are those interests? I have now to ask you all in this room what, in your opinion, would the Legion’s attitude be if there were to be a breakdown in civil order in Algiers – having regard particularly to the possibility of civilian casualties among the piednoir population? I think that here we are envisaging the possibility of widespread demonstrations in the coming months. In such circumstances the future of white Algeria might hang on a knife edge.’
‘Here at Fort Tiberias, this is where Western civilization makes its stand,’ murmurs Joinville. ‘I only wish it were better worth defending.’
Raoul acknowledges this with a quick smile and continues –
‘More generally, I must ask would the army as a whole view with favour a new direction in the administration of metropolitan France? I do not think that anyone can be unaware of the widespread unease that is being caused by what some have termed “de Gaulle’s sell-out in Algeria”. We may deplore it, but we do not gain anything from ignoring the fact. There is talk in some quarters of the need for a demonstration in strength by responsible parties. Major Quénault has with him a list of para colonels which he will show you if required. The officers on that list have expressed concern about the dangers to public order and the possibility of civilian casualties in the sort of situation that we are envisaging. The gendarmerie won’t act to clear the streets unless they have their cover guaranteed by the army. It is not possible to envisage the use of conscripts against Frenchmen in the cities. So now, naturally, we have come down here to discover what the attitude of the Legion will be.’
Raoul sits down. The brilliant white eyes of the colonel swivel round the darkened room. Everyone is alert and they have been listening intently. Raoul’s speech was uncharacteristically circumspect, but we all know what he is talking about – insurrection, coup d’état, demonstrations by piednoir militias and youth groups, designed to draw out the army into a proclamation that it cannot fire on the civilian population. This proclamation would in turn only be the prelude to a coup against de Gaulle and his ministers in mainland France. Our Fifth Compagnie Portée de la Legion may have a crucial role to play in all this. The words were turgid, mealy-mouthed even, but my fellow officers are sharing an unspoken vision with Raoul – of proclamations posted on the walls, pamphlets fluttering down from office blocks, barricades going up, tanks cruising down the streets. Yes, and then the heady days of successful revolution, the women hugging the troops and climbing on to the tanks with garlands of flowers, the indiscriminate gestures of affection and solidarity, the days of hope.
A traitor among the traitors, I sit listening to these men talking in pompous and measured terms of betraying their country, doomed muddlers having to consort with student agitators and over-excited grocers. It seems to me that the ghosts of Dien Bien Phu whisper from the shadows of the room calling on them to avenge the shame brought upon French arms in Indochina. I see here the slow step of the Legion towards disaster. They think that this decision will cleanse them of shame and indecision. But they have no understanding of the material bases of change or of the necessity for a revolutionary proletariat, so their putsch is really kitsch. Those who do not move in the direction in which the historical process is moving are condemned to impotence. I am not without compassion for them, but it will be as if their lives had never been.
Joinville too has his forebodings.
‘Too many Hungarians in this company,’ he mutters enigmatically.
Looking round the room, I can see that I am surrounded by friends. Been through good times and rough times with them. Shared quite a few beers. I am glad that I have had the courage to betray them. Some would say that with Rocroy in particular I have a bond, a thing created by words, but too strong for words. Rocroy has become for me in Algeria what Mercier was in Vietnam. Out in the Jebel hunting the fellagha, Rocroy and I have talked not only about families, fatigues and women, but ultimate things. We have talked until it might seem that we have truly reached the bottom of things (not the sort of talk one has with a woman), but yet there is always a false bottom to my mind. Rocroy and I share a smile across the table now. What I do not share with Rocroy is my knowledge of him as one of those engaged in maintaining through violence the expropriation and oppression of the miserab
le people to whom this land rightfully belongs. The roundups, the tortures, the rapes – a few beers and some disarming confidences aren’t going to change that.
For sure, some people would say that I have been brainwashed by the Viet Minh, but look at these men, the prisoners of their class and social circumstances! What is this freedom? Who is not conditioned? Life brainwashes everyone. My masters at the re-education centre at Lang Trang on the Gulf of Tonkin simply took out what my parents, the lycée and Saint-Cyr put in. In my opinion the result has been a considerable gain in objectivity.
Chantal is the only one to speak plainly. She speaks of giving the Reds and so-called liberal intellectuals a bloody nose. As she speaks Joinville cringes into his seat at the vulgarity of this plain talking. (The Joinvilles are old money, while the de Serkissians are of course new money.) Cutting her short, Joinville winds up our circumspect little plotters’ debate –
‘No final answer can be given at this meeting. It seems to me that we are always marching to the sound of an invisible drum. It is distant in the wilderness, but always audible if we but pause to really listen. It is not for me to say who plays that drum, but we must all consult our consciences and that is not a thing which is done in haste. Are there any more questions?’
Rocroy whispers to Delavigne that, yes, he would like to know when we are going to get on to the sand rose, scorpion and samovar, but Joinville does not hear this –
‘In that case we proceed to item two on the agenda.’
Well it is time now for me to present my report on the security – or rather lack of security – of communications between the fort and Algiers. My report is at least as dull as anything that has gone before. Privately I exult at being able to ladle all this rubbish out, but I take care to keep my voice as dull as my message. It is all in the most general terms. My report calls for a heightened awareness of security needs. Alarmism would be out of place and I emphasize the need for more time and cross-checking.
