The Praetorians (47 page)

“You can't expect me to arrest the General-Delegate or his director of political affairs!”

“Why not?”

“You must be off your head!”

Marindelle hung up and, with his blood-stained handkerchief, wiped his face. By the Clos Salembier he had almost been lynched by the crowd and had had to abandon his car which was blazing.

On Monday, December
12
th, while the journalists who had accompanied de Gaulle to Tizi-Ouzou were at lunch, Pasfeuro was called to the telephone. Malistair was on the other end of the line.

“Try and get back to Algiers right away, and bring Françoise with you. They're shooting again and the Kasbah is up in arms. The C.R.S. aren't doing a thing about it.”

Pasfeuro suggested Villèle should come with them.

“No, I'm going to go on covering the official tour. These incidents . . . always mountains out of molehills . . .”

“Come now, Villèle, it's back there that things are happening! You're not scared, are you?”

“Don't you understand, you great oaf, that town which is in flames is still my town and that I couldn't bear to see it?”

“Are you frightened of your feelings?”

“No, of my reactions.”

 * * * * 

In the Rue du Divan the car that had been turned over was still burning, and the smell was suffocating. Pasfeuro, Malistair and Françoise Baguèras walked past some garrison soldiers, looking very pale and nervous, their rifles still hot in their hands. They had just fired on a crowd and killed for the first time.

This crowd was still on the other side of the car: about a hundred young Moslems in blue jeans, brandishing clubs, rusty iron bars, hatchets, muttering as they pulled back with their dead and wounded.

“Not a very pretty sight,” said Françoise.

On the left was an alleyway ending in a flight of stairs, in which the rain mingled with the refuse. A man of about forty, dressed like an office worker, clutched at the three journalists. At first they took him for a European and only realized he was a Moslem when he opened his mouth:

“Do you want to see what's going on up there? Come on, you won't be in any danger.”

In front of them rose the stairs. Pasfeuro and Malistair hesitated.

“Now that we've got this far . . .” Françoise muttered, swinging her bag.

In the wake of their guide they crossed the deserted Randon market-place and came up against a hysterical mob streaming between the walls like a torrent in spate. On the balconies the women were screaming savagely.

The crowd, bristling with flags, exhibited a body carried at arm's length.

Extremely handsome, extremely smart in his suède jacket and moccasins, a young Moslem—a Kabyle for sure—dragged the three journalists out of the torrent and into a little Moorish café. He spoke without any accent: only three days earlier he had still been in France where he was completing his education.

“I've something to show you,” he shouted to the three journalists.

Above a huge building with a faded white cupola, the synagogue of the Kasbah which overlooks the whole of Algiers, a big F.L.N. flag was being hoisted.

“Remember this day and hour,” the boy in the suède jacket went on, gripping Françoise by the arm. “It's the
11
th of December
1960
, the time is
4
.
45
, and the F.L.N. flag is flying over Algiers.”

“I'll remember it for the rest of my life,” Françoise replied in a low voice, at the same time disengaging her arm.

Malistair took her by the shoulder and embraced her, while Pasfeuro, with eyes closed, listened to the great yell of joy coming up from the crowd and remembered another crowd and other yells—those he had heard on the
13
th of May. . . .

 * * * * 

The lieutenant stood to attention in front of Major Esclavier, his shoulders hunched, his chin jutting forward. He was twenty-four years old and had recently won the Légion d'Honneur.

“The rebel flag is flying over Algiers, sir. What do we do now?”

It was exactly a month ago that the lieutenant's brother had been killed while capturing an F.L.N. flag during an assault.

Esclavier hung his head.

“Nothing.”

But he was frightened lest this man's face, in its owner's anguish, should turn back into the face of a child and stream with tears, afraid lest this child should collapse and never forgive himself for having lost control of his nerves in front of a senior officer whom he admired and made a hero of.

Esclavier corrected himself.

“Nothing . . . for the moment.”

Then the young face relaxed and beamed.

But Esclavier suddenly fancied he heard the grating laugh of Captain Boisfeuras. There was nothing but the wind and the rain mingled with melting snow, and two tattered Arabs, sheltering behind a wall, sharing a single cigarette-
stub.

*
The Ministry of the Armed Forces (translator's note).

*
General Salan, nicknamed the Tojun (translator's note).

*
A unit of the Army of National Liberation, equivalent to a company (translator's note).

*
Détachement d'intervention héliporté
—usually about ten heavy machines placed at the disposal of a fighting unit to transport its men over short distances (translator's note).

*
One of the six administrative districts into which Algeria was divided according to the Soummam Valley conference of August
1956
(translator's note).

*
Gouvernement Provisoire de la République Algérienne
—the Algerian Nationalists' political movement (translator's note).

*
Section administrative spéciale
—rural counterpart of the
Section administrative urbaine
, which functions only in the towns (translator's note).

*
Confédération Générale des Travailleurs Algériens
—Algerian trade union (translator's note).

*
Armée de Libération Nationale
—the rebel National Liberation Army, an offshoot of the
Comité Révolutionnaire pour l'Unité et l'Action
, formed in early
1954
(translator's note).

*
Organisation Politico-Administrative
—political section of the F.L.N. (translator's note).

*
Moslems serving under the French colours (translator's note).

*
Front de Libération Nationale
—political counterpart of the A.L.N. (translator's note).

*
Union Nationale Républicaine—
a party supporting General de Gaulle (translator's note).

*
Rassemblement du Peuple Français
, formed by de Gaulle in
1947
—an organization which claimed to be a movement for the regeneration of France rather than an ordinary political party (translator's note).

*
The Free French Forces of the Second World War (translator's note).

*
Direction de la Sécurité du Territoire
—police organization corresponding more or less to the Special Branch of Scotland Yard (translator's note).

*
Union pour le salut et le renouveau de l'Algérie Francaise
—the party founded by Soustelle in March
1956
(translator's note).

*
Compagnie Républicaine de Sécurité
—mobile riot squads, formed since the Second World War (translator's note).

*
Section Française de l'Internationale Ourrière
—the Socialist Party founded by Léon Blum in
1924
(translator's note).

*
Association Générale des Étudiants
, equivalent to the English National Union of Students (translator's note).

*
Section administrative urbaine
—the counterpart of the S.A.S. (
Section administrative spéciale
). The S.A.U. functions only in the towns, the S.A.S. in country districts (translator's note).

*
Société Nationale de Recherche et d'Exploitation des Pétroles en Algérie
. C.R.E.P.S., a similar oil prospecting company, is affiliated to the
Régie Antonome des Pétroles
(translator's note).

*
Compagnie de Recherche et d'Exploitation des Pétroles Sahariens
(translator's note).

*
Ben Bella was a member of the Algerian External Delegation, captured by the French when the aircraft in which they were returning from Morocco was forced to put down on October
22
nd,
1956
(translator's note).

*
Organisation Commune des Régions Sahariennes
—an administrative organization for the Sahara (translator's note).

*
Mouvement pour la Triomphe des Libertés Démocratiques
—the Movement for the Triumph of Democratic Liberties, founded by Messali Hadj in
1946
(translator's note).

*
Shanghai was originally built on a former mud-bank.

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