I Came, I Saw Part 9

Relations with the Arabs continue to go downhill, as evidenced by the following incidents.

THURSDAY.

British soldiers who had been drinking anisette in the Bar Jules came out and a.s.saulted several pa.s.sing Arab girls. Veils were torn from their faces and in one case a soldier put his hand up a girl's skirts. These a.s.saults were encouraged and cheered by French pa.s.sers-by.

FRIDAY.

A party of drunken soldiers went into the mosque without removing their boots - as requested by a notice at the door. One of them p.i.s.sed against a wall, and when the old Imam protested a mug of beer was emptied over his head. Later that day I visited the Bar Jules and saw the owner Vachon, who took me with evident pride into his kitchen where the anisette is made up in an operation taking no longer than five minutes. He laughingly said that it was lucky for him that the pharmacy happened to be next door.

SUNDAY.

A jeep doing an estimated seventy miles per hour along the Charlesville Road ran over and killed an Arab child, and failed to stop. On the same day in the main street here an armoured vehicle smashed into the side of an Arab horse-drawn cart. The cart was wrecked and one horse suffered a broken leg and had to be destroyed. The sergeant driving the armoured vehicle threw about five pounds' worth of francs at the Arab involved, and drove off.

The fact is, we are beginning to copy the att.i.tudes of the French who are out to persuade us that Arabs don't matter. The old recommendation that is said to have held good in Egypt - if you happen to run a gyppo down, be sure to back over him - has found its way here. The Arab has no rights. You can arrest one, go through his house, and no warrant is necessary, and if his womenfolk happen to be maltreated while this is going on, no one will raise an eyebrow.

Mohammed Kobtan's house was attacked, and all his windows smashed, one day last week. For two reasons. One, because he is an Arab, and the police are ordered in such cases to look in the other direction. Two, because he is the town's only successful Arab merchant. He buys and sells sardines, and this is the time - to some extent with our a.s.sistance - for his compet.i.tors, who employ gangsters to do their work for them, to settle old scores. Whether the FSO realizes it or not, our section supports the gangsters - posing with success as ardent Gaullists - and keeps them in business. Captain Bouchard is perfectly frank and fairly amiable about this. 'I am sorry, Messieurs. I am informed that these gentlemen are your friends. They take no notice of me. There is nothing I can do about it.'

21ST FEBRUARY.

In an attempt to close up the growing rift between us and the Arabs of Philippeville, I took up the idea put forward by Dr Kessous of giving our blessing to a species of friends.h.i.+p club to be started by a small number of influential Arabs. The object would be to provide an opportunity to make social contact with Arabs in their own homes. As it is, Arabs remain an unknown quant.i.ty to most Allied soldiers, and Kessous and many of his friends believe that there is no better way of re-establis.h.i.+ng good relations and correcting damaging propaganda than by exposing us to traditional Arab hospitality.

When I mentioned this germ of a project to Leopold, he said, 'Steer clear of it. We're not interested,' and whatever Leopold says goes for the FSO these days. However, the section has no clear-cut policy in any direction, no fixed viewpoint, and very little direction. In fact we drift along, and mentioning to Leopold next day the possibility of dining at the house of a rich Arab, he was full of enthusiasm. This being so, I went back to Kessous, and told him that I thought his proposal was a very good thing.

Four founder-members are suggested for our friends.h.i.+p club, Dr Kessous, Mohammed Kobtan, Ahmed Meksen of the Mairie, and an engaging and enthusiastic young taxi-driver called Hadef. Dr Kessous will represent the tiny handful of the professional elite, Mohammed Kobtan the almost equally limited business element, Meksen - so often addressed as Meknes - the Arab official world that little more than exists, and the exuberant Hadef the several thousand members of the proletariat.

Of these four men I have personal reservations only about one - Dr Kessous. I find him almost excessively ambitious, and therefore - so far as I am concerned - inevitably lacking in humour. Another thing that has not particularly recommended him to me is the display of a set of photographs taken while on the pilgrimage to Mecca, of the successive stages of the public amputation of a thief's right hand. These photographs, although technically satisfactory, are so gruesome that they have even been turned down by Life. I cannot bring myself to feel any deep affection for a man who could concentrate on his photography at such a time, but for all that he is a natural leader, and much respected by his co-religionists.

Mohammed Kobtan and Ahmed Meksen are admirable in every way, simple, dignified and generous, but of the men in our pilot scheme Hadef the taxi-driver is in some ways the most remarkable. He is exceptionally handsome - the double almost of the French film star Charles Boyer - and although he spends much of his spare time hanging about the bars round the port getting sozzled on anisette, he is a great reader - an intellectual by local standards - regarded by the French police as a potential subversive, not only because he owns a collection of Reader's Digests in the French version, but lends these to any seeker after knowledge who shows an interest in them.

A curious fact has emerged from recent discussions with these men when such matters as national prejudices are brought up. Something has convinced them that the main stumbling block to better East-West relations in their case is the seclusion of their womenfolk. They all a.s.sure me that the women themselves are responsible and are constantly chided by their menfolk for their backwardness in insisting on wearing the veil. Kessous, a Koranic scholar, says that there is nowhere in the Koran that the practice is upheld, and that the old Imam, who is greatly venerated through having elected to become a eunuch in furtherance of his religious life, has p.r.o.nounced in favour of the veil's abandonment.

The current flirtation with Western freedoms is undoubtedly at the back of an extraordinary party attended by Kobtan, Meksen, Hadef and myself at Kessous' house. This was the equivalent of English five o'clock tea, at which in the normal course of events men only meet to talk politics, sip coffee and nibble almond and honey cakes. Something made me suspect that this was a special occasion, and sure enough, after a few moments of desultory conversation four black-shrouded and extremely animated forms burst into the room. These were the wives, primed for a symbolical break with the past.

They were all young and spirited, two of them, Mesdames Kessous and Kobtan, although clearly not French, have non-Semitic faces, extremely pale skins, and light brown hair. I suspect them of being Berbers, and it also occurred to me that the possession of a wife of highly European appearance might have some status advantage for a prominent Muslim. Meksen's wife was undoubtedly an Arab, and Hadef's turned out to be a negress he had acquired while living in the deep south. All four girls seemed highly intelligent and had plenty to say for themselves. Madame Hadef had a great sense of humour. When she mentioned that it was the first time that any men apart from her husband had seen her face, and I asked her how she felt about it, her reply was, 'Well, at the moment I'm blus.h.i.+ng, but my skin being the colour it is, I don't imagine you've noticed.'

The upshot of this meeting was that we should start the ball rolling with a typical Arab-style lunch, if this could be arranged, for members of the section, and take it from there.

23RD FEBRUARY.

Called to AFHQ Algiers for a meeting with a Major Bright, who is somebody in an undisclosed branch of Intelligence. He is rather grand, and with the patrician manner - as is often the case - goes a certain informality. He tells me to 'grab a pew' and says, 'I've only just heard of you. I don't know why. They tell me you can cope with the lingo here.'

I tell him about my struggles with the Algerian brand of Arabic, and he nods in sympathy. 'What do you people in FS actually get up to?' he asks. 'I imagine they keep you pretty busy.' When I tell him the true nature of our activities, he shakes his head in disbelief. 'Sometimes I ask myself,' he says, 'Can we win this war?'

Tea and biscuits are brought. 'To cut a long matter short,' he says, 'we need you here. We depend entirely on interpreters, and I needn't tell you how unsatisfactory that can be. I imagine you wouldn't be overwhelmed with grief at the prospect of being spirited away from Philippeville and given something useful to do with us?'

I show proper enthusiasm at the prospect, and he says, 'Very well then, that's a deal. I suppose you'd better go back to your section and keep them happy for a few days while I twist all the necessary wires together. I'll be getting in touch with your FSO.'

Leaving his office, I feel sure that no more will be heard of this.

28TH FEBRUARY.

A mission to deliver supposedly highly secret doc.u.ments to our Tunisian frontline section. They are extremely pessimistic about the outcome of the campaign, particularly after the rout of the Americans at Ka.s.serine. We sit late into the night hitting the Tunisian wine and listening to the thud and thump of distant sh.e.l.ling. The section is no longer allowed to include any comment on the morale of the troops in its reports, and we agree that, whatever they may tell the people back home, we are facing an Army which is too good for us, which is better trained, better equipped, and above all better endowed with fighting spirit. There is no hope of an advance until we can build up a crus.h.i.+ng superiority.

This FSO likes to dress up - or rather likes his section members to do so. A sergeant has just been induced to disguise himself as an Arab - without a word of the language - and try to reach Tunis and report back on the situation there. n.o.body expects to hear of him again.

2ND MARCH.

The get-together lunch with the Arabs has fallen through. After accepting, Captain Merrylees appears to have had afterthoughts, and made an excuse to pull out. Nevertheless, the FSO and half the section were entertained at a party for someone's anniversaire on the same day given by Fortuna at his house next to the brothel. Roast wild boar as usual, champagne by the bucketful, and quickest-on-the-draw contest between Fortuna and Leopold, which Leopold only narrowly lost.

A narrow escape for Hadef round about the time when all this was happening, when his taxi was sprayed by machine-gun fire at the moment of pa.s.sing Fortuna's farm on the Charlesville Road. He heard nothing of the firing but suddenly saw a line of holes in his right-side door. A warning to him, he says, to keep his place.

3RD MARCH.

Do any of the section members accept bribes or gifts from Fortuna? Something I'm never likely to know. Whatever's done in this direction would be with great discretion. Fortuna's not stupid enough to try to stuff thousand-franc notes in anybody's pocket.

I went to talk to him today at the farm from which Hadef may or may not have been fired upon. The subject for discussion was the milice populaire. He is the local commandant, and Bou Alem handing me a list of the members.h.i.+p mentioned that every single man had done a stretch in prison.

Reception affable in the extreme. He grasps me and it is impossible to evade his embrace. 'Tu es plus qu'un frere pour moi,' he says. He is concerned about my appearance. I don't look well. 'Et la sante - a va bien? Vraiment? Ah, je suis content.'

We get down to business. It's about the milice populaire, I say.

'The milice populaire. Sure. Yes, go on.'

'Do you have any regular authorization to wear those armbands?'

'No. Should we?'

'I think you should.'

'Well, I'll see to it straight away. And thanks for bringing it up. To be on the safe side, I'll tell the boys to take their armbands off until the official say-so comes through.'

Unfortunately - hard as it is to admit it to oneself - he is likeable, this small man with his triangular, rueful face, his Chaplinesque shuffle and his quatre-cents-coups smile. The section as a whole are included in his blanket grat.i.tude. 'Vous m'avez tous sauve la vie,' he says, whenever given the opportunity. We have all dragged him from under the guillotine, and this salvation has given him a kind of emotional claim on us.

He wants to show me round. The house is an ugly, tasteless villa with pretentious modern furniture in chromium, steel or gla.s.s. Several equally sad-looking, middle-aged henchmen mooch silently in the background.

'Something out here'll probably interest you,' he says, and he takes me to see an old oil-cellar in the garden. 'We cleared it out when the raids started, to turn it into a shelter.' We go down some steps and I find myself in a long narrow chamber with the most wonderful Roman mosaics lining the walls, the kind of thing I've only seen before in a museum. We stop in front of a panel showing a garden with peac.o.c.ks and three Roman girls standing with their arms round each other's shoulders, listening to another playing a lyre.

'What do you think of it?' he says.

'I've never seen anything like it.'

'Would you like to have it?'

'I don't understand you.'

'Say the word, and it's yours. It doesn't interest me.'

I laugh, still uncertain whether or not he means it. 'I carry all my worldly goods in a kitbag,' I say. 'It's a nice gesture but you're talking about a ton of masonry.'

'That picture's on plaster only a centimetre thick. I could have it taken off for you in an hour or two.'

'I'd still need a truck,' I said.

'Well anyway,' he says, 'the offer stands. If ever you change your mind it'll be here for you.'

The matter of the milice populaire will go into my report, but I'm fairly certain that it will go no further than Captain Merrylees.

Chapter Eighteen.

SPRING CAME TO ALGERIA in March, with a nightingale in full song among the empty sh.e.l.l cases in the dilapidated garden of our new villa in the outskirts of the town. A species of self-protective reticence had grown among our Arab friends, separating us from such as Dr Kessous, who had now come to the conclusion that they had little to hope from us, and that whatever the outcome of the war they were destined to remain as they always had been - second-cla.s.s citizens of France. Since, in order to survive, the proletariat must at least cling to their optimism, our Arab workers remained unjustifiably in good heart, fully convinced that we should continue to reward their labour with our protection and take them with us when and wherever we went. This blind and unreasoning cheerfulness was their best weapon in the propaganda war waged by the French, and made them popular with our troops.

As far as we were concerned the war had ground to a halt, leaving us with absolutely nothing to do. Section members condemned to patrol the port did so, although there was really nothing there to watch over. Routine visits to units were quietly allowed to lapse. The FSO was rarely seen, remaining, according to report, most of the day in bed. Leopold now effectively ran the section, as I a.s.sumed he had always planned to run it; but having grasped at the substance he found he had caught the shadow. He held the power but there was nothing whatever to do with it. In despair he applied for a transfer to a divisional section, where whatever action the inert First Army had to offer was presumably to be found. When I asked what news there was of that job I was supposed to have been given at AFHQ, he grinned as if in secret triumph. 'You can forget about it,' he said. 'You've been lost in the files again.'

Fortuna and his friends circulated boldly as ever with our stickers on the windscreens of their cars, to be saluted by our MPs if inadvertently stopped at checkpoints. Most weekends he gave a party at which half the section would get uproariously drunk. If AFHQ wanted information about our area, it came through him, and any visiting nabob from Algiers would be respectfully escorted to one of his houses to be softened up with richly garlicked food and vintage champagne. Bou Alem of the Srete repeatedly warned me of the terrible reprisals arranged for the Arabs as soon as we were withdrawn, and repeatedly and with a feeling of cowardice and shame I was obliged to explain to him that while the Arab's fate might concern me personally, no one who had the slightest power or influence in our Army could possibly care less.

Left virtually to my own devices, there was nothing to prevent my going off on long trips of exploration of the Algerian hinterland, and this I did. Once again I was to discover how extremely underpopulated the country was, and I rode for hour after hour over empty roads without any sign of human presence.

In the beginning I was surprised to find how 'un-African' it was, but I soon decided that visually it was neither African nor European, but something unique. The outstanding feature of this landscape was its splendid oak forests, with glades stretched to infinity between the stands of majestic trees. This aspect of it reminded me of engravings in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century books devoted to the Italian scene.

The absence of human intrusion outside the coastal strip made for the presence of an abundant fauna. I rode as quietly as I could along the empty roads, coasting softly in neutral gear with the engine switched off down the long, winding slopes, and in this way frequently took the animals by surprise: a brace of elegant foxes and - I could hardly believe it - a single jackal, traipsing dutifully like a well-trained dog through the b.u.t.tercups. Deer were everywhere, wild boars frequently spotted at the edge of woods, and once I saw a sow chased through an open glade by her litter of sportive piglets. The best of the birds were of the flas.h.i.+ng sub-tropical variety, such as bee-eaters, rollers or orioles, displayed like bright toys or Christmas-tree ornaments against the rich but sedate foliage of the oaks. The surprise of the day, and of these trips taken as a whole, was a covey of great bustard, like colossal partridges, the largest of which might have weighed thirty pounds. Some were in the roadway and could barely hoist themselves into the air before I was upon them. The last of our native birds were hunted to extinction by East Anglian squires using greyhounds who could run them down before they became airborne. The Arabs told me that they were bold and aggressive birds that would attack any man who wandered near their nests.

Innumerable flowers grew in these untouched, lonely places. In early March blue dwarf irises invaded snow-fields of narcissi, but later in the month many orchids came into flower; the lilac or purple bee, fly and spider ophrys in the full sun, and b.u.t.terfly orchids in the shade of the oaks which, as I coasted slowly down the road, looked as though thousands of white b.u.t.terflies had settled among last year's fallen leaves.

On these expeditions I always took a packet of tea, and sometimes, about midday, spotting an Arab hut on a mountain-side, I would climb up to it, and if a male came out to meet me, show him my provisions and suggest we might share them. The offer was always accepted with enthusiasm. Quite often on these occasions an egg or two would be produced to complete the meal. And in this way - two simple men trying to make themselves heard, and understand each other above the vociferous singing of nightingales - a pleasant and indulgent hour would be pa.s.sed.