“Pass the word to the others,” I called to Wickersham and Gurung’s tent. “We’re not traveling until the temperature goes up. It’s fifty below. Not safe to move.” Chamonix rolled over in his sleeping bag and muttered some elegant French profanity. The sun played lightly on the side of the tent—very lightly.
Chamonix boiled water for the rations over the small stove. In the next tent Puckins was doing sleight-of-hand tricks for Gurung. Gurung gave amused yelps.
The ascetic old legionnaire whistled tunelessly. For the first time since I had known him, the muscles at the ends of his mouth had unconsciously bunched upward. My curiosity was aroused.
“Why all the radiant good cheer? Fifty below doesn’t usually hit people that way.”
Torn from his thoughts, he looked up at me puzzled. “I don’t know. Perhaps it’s we’re out here—free of them. Free of noncombatants who retain us, and more often than not, betray us. No one’s really free of them, I guess, but at least out here I can cultivate the illusion. Yes, for the moment I’m free of their fickle hypocrisy, and among warriors whose codes are simple, often constant.”
Chamonix poured the hot water into the ration wrapper and stirred it into the freeze-dried contents. The aroma of pork and rice filled the tent. He remained quiet for a time but I sensed he wasn’t through.
“It’s more than that. Funny, no? How some things can set you thinking. This useless little burner reminds me of my wife and Algeria.”
“Wife? I didn’t know you had a wife.” I knew very little about his private life. He’d revealed only the barest minimum of personal background to apply for the assignment.
“A wife and child, both dead.”
He became silent again. I knew not to prod him.
“She used to cook over a small burner for me, not a gas one, though. She was Moslem, you know. Very pretty… big, liquid brown eyes. The French army discouraged such marriages, especially when officers were involved. Our marriage was totally against regulations, but my colonel understood. Unlike many, he knew you can’t fight for long in a country without becoming involved with it. ‘You can do far worse in La Légion,’ he used to say.”
He handed me the steaming ration.
“It had all started after I had graduated from St. Cyr and requested posting to the First Foreign Parachute Regiment in Algeria. Rumor had it they were fighters and knew something about this new phenomenon, guerrilla warfare.
“The rumor was right on both counts. Many of the legion’s paratroop officers were Indochina veterans who, as prisoners of war, had been indoctrinated in Viet Minh ways. They had abandoned the quantitative approach of the rear-echelon generals to warfare. That view was that any insurrection could be stopped by pouring immense numbers of men and munitions over a problem. These Indochina vets had formulated a new doctrine, la guerre révolutionnaire. That doctrine worked by offering a revolution of its own.
“You must see the stage on which this drama was played. Sector Q of Algeria—where I was stationed—contained several small towns, numerous vineyards, and many cork plantations. Beneath the lazy Mediterranean sun, Moslems cut settlers’ throats, and settlers cut Moslems’ throats. Yet in reality, each group needed the other. Corruption riddled many local governments, more perhaps than usual for metropolitan France, less than usual for North Africa. Algeria was something worth saving. It had grown productive through the settlers’ efforts since the nineteenth century. The Moslems had demonstrated a belief in common ideals with France and proven their courage and loyalty alongside French troops in World War One and World War Two.
“The fellaghas, the communist-backed insurgents of the FLN, promised a new order—one perfect and glorious order. This new order would redistribute wealth, integrate the society, and put incorruptible men in power. The points that the fellaghas made were valid, their promises knowing lies. But it was a wonderful banner to fight under, this dream.
“Enough of politics,” said the legionnaire, dismissing the concepts with a flick of his mitten.
“You can’t fight a dream with the tarnished status quo. La guerre révolutionnaire offered a revolution of its own, which aimed to set straight the wrongs of old Algeria. We recruited from the captured fellaghas. They were the fighters and idealists. Many fellaghas weren’t interested in communism, just a new Algeria with political rights equal to Frenchmen. I recruited a Moslem commando company. It wasn’t easy to win them over but I did. We did.
“‘Put your faith in me, lads,’ I promised them wholeheartedly. ‘I won’t leave you in the lurch. I’ll shed my blood right along with yours. Together we will fight for one country from Dunkirk to Tamanrasset. I give you my word.’
“The Moslem commando company worked far more effectively than our troops did. After all, it was their home ground. Hassim, their elected commanding officer, grew from a comrade in arms to a brother. Lean, with the chiseled features of a born leader, he had studied to be a doctor before the FLN had sent him to Prague for training. We spent months in the field setting ambushes in the wadis for FLN kattibas—companies—and fending FLN bullyboy tax collectors from the small settlements. Through Hassim I met and eventually married, with his blessing, Fatima, his sister.
“My colonel managed to clean up the governmental corruption in the sector. Settlers and wealthy Arabs alike had been lining their pockets at Algeria’s expense. Hassim and I attended to the fellaghas. Within three months, FLN activity had become a mere trickle where it had been a torrent.
“My daughter, Odette Aicha, was born at the end of my first year in Sector Q.”
He looked up at the top of the tent. I knew the light well-being had gone from Chamonix as quickly as it had come.
“The FLN, which had always spiced its dream with terrorism, turned to it full scale. The carnage sickened my most hardened NCOs. It was a sort of tantrum, I guess. They couldn’t win by vote or military action so they showed they’d be grisly spoilers of anyone else’s dream. A tantrum can wear some people into submission, too.
“They’d go into cafés with machine guns and mow down everyone—Europeans, Arabs, anyone, it didn’t matter. Fatima and baby Odette were in an outdoor café one day. Cafés were an Algerian institution, everyone patronized them. Fatima was sipping mint tea one moment, she and the baby were bloody lumps of meat the next.”
He gave a short sob, then regained control.
“I could have understood, though not justified, it being some perverse form of revenge against me. But it wasn’t revenge. They were just people in a café. Hassim and I hunted down these particular FLN terrorists ourselves. After capture, they laughed at our revulsion at their act. “That is the way to win, Frenchmen, in these times,’ one had said. Hassim had them executed fellagha fashion. They died very painfully, very slowly. I felt no remorse; the punishment fit the crime.
“The terrorists were right. La guerre révolutionnaire required the courage and insight of those in Algeria, and the resigned conviction of those at home. My country betrayed me and the Moslems that believed in me. All I could ever promise the Moslem company was that the French army would fight until a conclusive victory… or defeat. But self-indulgent France did not have the resolve of its soldiers. France, I learned, talked high principles and sought the luxury of world adulation. It was willing to conduct crusades as long as they didn’t prove too inconvenient. Terrorism put the soldier’s burden of courage on all civilians—and worse, it threatened to spread to France. In other words, France could be high minded as long as the going didn’t get too distasteful. Sordid situations required emotional commitments. The average Frenchman didn’t want the front page of his evening paper upsetting his digestion. Crusades were fine at a distance, but all-consuming conflicts were a bother.