The Centurions (5 page)

The interrogation went on:

“You were captured at Marianne II. You were in command of the strong-point. How many men did you have with you?”

“I don't know.”

“Are you thirsty?”

“No.”

“Then you must be hungry. You'll be given something to eat presently.”

“I don't feel hungry either.”

“Is there anything you need?”

If he had been offered a cigarette, Glatigny would not have been able to refuse, but the Vietminh did not do so.

“I feel sleepy,” the captain suddenly said.

“I can understand that. It was a tough fight. Our soldiers are smaller and less strong than yours, but they fought with more spirit than you did because they're willing to lay down their lives for their country.

“You're now a prisoner of war and it's your duty to answer my questions. What was the strength of Marianne II?”

“I've already given you my name, my Christian name, my rank, everything that belongs to me. The rest isn't mine to give and I know of no international convention that obliges officer prisoners to provide the enemy with information while their comrades are still fighting.”

Another heavy sigh from the Vietminh. Another deep puff at his cigarette.

“Why do you refuse to answer?”

Why? Glatigny was beginning to wonder himself. There must be some ruling on this matter in military regulations. Every eventuality is provided for in regulations, even what never comes to pass.

“Military regulations forbid a prisoner to give you information.”

“So you only fought because military regulations obliged you to do so?”

“Not only for that reason.”

“In refusing to talk, then, perhaps you're abiding by your sense of military honour?”

“You can call it that if you like.”

“You have an extremely
bourgeois
conception of military honour. This honour of yours allows you to fight for the interests of the bloated colonials and bankers of Saigon, to massacre people whose only desire is peace and independence. You are prepared to wage war in a country which doesn't belong to you, an unjust war, a war of imperialist conquest. Your honour as an officer adjusts itself to this but forbids you to contribute to the cause of peace and progress by giving the information I request.”

Glatigny's immediate reaction was typical of his class; he assumed an air of haughtiness. He was remote and disinterested, as though he was not personally involved at all, and slightly disdainful. The Vietminh noticed this; his eyes glinted, his nostrils dilated and his lips curled over his teeth.

“His French education,” Glatigny reflected, “must have weakened his perfect control over his facial expression.”

The Vietminh had half risen from his seat:

“Answer! Didn't your sense of honour oblige you to defend the position you held to the last man? Why didn't you die defending the ‘peak of your fathers'?”

For the first time in the conversation the Vietminh had used an expression translated directly from Vietnamese into French: the “peak of your fathers” for “your ancestral land.” This minor linguistic problem took Glatigny's mind off the question of military honour. But the little man in green persisted:

“Answer! Why didn't you die defending your position?”

Glatigny also wondered why. He could have done, but he had thrown the grenade at the Viets.

“I can tell you,” the Vietminh went on. “You saw our soldiers who looked puny and undersized advancing to attack your trenches, in spite of your artillery, your mines, your barbed-wire entanglements and all the arms the Americans had given you. Our men fought to the death because they were serving a just and popular cause, because they knew, as we all know, that we have the Truth, the only Truth, on our side. That is what made our soldiers invincible. And because you didn't have these reasons, here you are alive, standing in front of me, a prisoner and vanquished.

“You
bourgeois
officers belong to a society which is out of date and polluted by the selfish interests of class. You have helped to keep humanity in the dark. You're nothing but obscurantists, mercenaries incapable of explaining what they are fighting for.

“Go on, then, try and explain! You can't, eh?”

“We're fighting, my dear sir, to protect the people of Viet-Nam from Communist slavery.”

Later on, when discussing this reply with Esclavier, Boisfeuras, Merle and Pinières, Glatigny was forced to admit that he was not quite sure how it had occurred to him. In actual fact Glatigny was only fighting for France, because the legal government had ordered him to do so. He had never felt he was there to defend the Terres Rouges plantations or the Bank of Indo-China. He obeyed orders, and that was that. But he had suddenly realized that this reason alone could not possibly seem valid to a Communist. A few fleeting thoughts had flashed through his mind, some notions as yet undefined: Europe, the West, Christian civilization. These had occurred to him all at once and then he had had this idea of a crusade.

Glatigny had scored a direct hit. The narrowed eyes, the dilated nostrils, every feature of the funny little man now expressed nothing but pure, relentless hatred, and he had difficulty in speaking:

“I'm not a Communist, but I believe that Communism promises freedom, progress and peace for the masses.”

When he had recovered his self-control, he lit another cigarette. It was Chinese tobacco and had a pleasant smell of new-mown hay. The Viet went on in the declamatory tone to which he seemed to be partial:

“Officer in the pay of the colonialists, you are for that very reason a criminal. You deserve to be tried for your crime against humanity and to be given the usual sentence: death.”

It was fascinating. Boisfeuras was absolutely right. A new world was being revealed, one of the principles of which was: “Whoever opposes Communism is
ipso facto
a war criminal beyond the pale of humanity: he must be hanged like those who were tried at Nuremberg.”

“Are you married?” the Vietminh asked. “Are your parents alive? Any children? A mother?

“Think of their grief when they learn that you have been executed. Because they can't imagine, can they, that the martyred people of Viet-Nam will pardon their torturers? They will mourn their dead husband, their son, their father.”

The act was becoming tiresome and in poor taste.

The Vietminh fell silent for a moment to fill his soul with compassion for this poor French family in mourning, then went on:

“But President Ho knows that you are sons of the French people who have been led astray by the American colonialists and imperialists. The French people is our friend and fights by our side in the camp of Peace. President Ho who knows this has asked the civilian population and combatants of Viet-Nam to stifle their righteous anger towards the prisoners and to apply a policy of leniency.”

“In the Middle Ages,” Glatigny reflected, “they used this same word ‘apply,' but in a different context.”

“We shall take good care of you; you'll get the same rations as our soldiers. You'll also be taught the Truth. We shall re-educate you by means of manual labour, which will enable you to emend your
bourgeois
education and redeem your life of idleness.

“That is what the people of Viet-Nam will give you as a punishment for your crimes—the Truth. But you must repay this generosity by complying with all our orders.”

Glatigny liked the commissar better when he was carried away by his hatred, for by restoring his normal reactions this hatred at least made him human. When he became smarmy and sanctimonious like this, he frightened and at the same time fascinated him. This sad little man, who hovered about like a ghost in clothes several sizes too large for him and who spoke about Truth with the vacant gaze of a prophet, plunged him back into the termite nightmare. He was one of the antennae of the monstrous brain which wanted to reduce the world to a civilization of insects rooted in their certainty and efficiency.

The voice went on:

“Captain Glatigny, how many men did you have with you in your position?”

“I feel sleepy.”

“We could easily find out simply by counting the dead and the prisoners, but I would rather you told me.”

“I feel sleepy.”

Two soldiers came in and one again tied up the captain's arms, elbows, wrists and fingers. They did not forget the running noose round his neck. The political commissar looked at the
bourgeois
officer with disdain. Glatigny—the name reminded him of something. He was suddenly brought back to the Hanoi Lycée. He had read the name somewhere in the history of France. There was a famous war leader called Glatigny, a man of murder, rape and passion, who had been made a constable by the king and who had died for his royal master. The sad young man was not only part of the Vietminh, a cog in an immense machine. All his recollections as a little yellow boy bullied by his white school-fellows flooded back into his mind and brought him out in a sweat. He could now humiliate France right back to her remote past and he was so afraid that this Glatigny might not be a descendant of the constable's, which would balk him of this strange triumph, that he refused to ask him.

“Captain,” he declared, “because of your attitude all your colleagues who were taken prisoner with you will likewise be tied up and they'll know that they owe this to you.”

The guards dragged Glatigny off to a deep ravine in the heart of the jungle.

There was a hole there, six feet long, two feet wide, three feet deep: a classical fox-hole which could easily serve as a grave. One of the guards checked his fetters, then stood him over the hole. The other loaded his submachine-gun.

“Di-di
,
di-di
,
mau-len.”

Glatigny took a pace forward and lowered himself into the trench. He lay stretched out on his numb and fettered arms. Above him the sky looked particularly clear through the foliage of the tall trees. He closed his eyes, to die or else to sleep . . .

Next morning they hauled him off and shackled him to his comrades. The man in front of him was Sergeant Mansard who kept repeating:

“We don't hold it against you, you know, sir.”

And to reassure him, he began talking through clenched teeth about Boulogne-Billancourt where he was born, about a dance-hall on the banks of the Seine adjoining a gas station. He used to go there every Saturday with girls whom he knew well since he had been brought up with them. But their pretty dresses, their lipstick suddenly gave them fresh confidence, which made him feel shy.

When Glatigny took command of the battalion, Mansard had not thought much of him. In the eyes of the ex-machinist he was nothing but a high-class gent from G.H.Q. Saigon. Now, with clumsy tact, the N.C.O. tried to make him see that he regarded him as being on his side and that he was proud his captain had not bowed his head before the little apes.

He rolled over towards Mansard and his shoulder brushed the sergeant's. Thinking he was cold, Mansard pressed up against him.

Stretched out in the paddy-field, where the mud mingled with the flattened stubble, the ten men huddled close together. Every so often they dozed off, woke up with a start in the damp night, then sank back again into their nightmares.

Esclavier held on to Lieutenant Lescure by his webbing belt. Lescure was raving; he might have got up and started walking straight ahead, giving that yell of his: “They're attacking, they're attacking! Send over some chickens . . . some ducks!”
*
He would not have obeyed the Vietminh sentry who told him to stop and would have got himself shot.

Lescure was quite calm at the moment; every so often he gave a little whimper, like a puppy.

In the depths of the darkness a Jeep could be heard slithering along the muddy track, its engine labouring, racing and fading in jerks. It sounded rather like a fly in a closed room knocking against the window-panes. The engine stopped, but Esclavier who had woken up waited hopefully for the familiar noise to start up again.

“Di-di
,
di-di
,
mau-len.”

The sentry's words of command were accompanied by a few mild and “lenient” blows with the butt of his rifle, which set the shapeless mass of prisoners in motion.

But a voice now addressed them in French:

“On your feet! Get up! You've got to come and push a Jeep of the Viet-Nam People's Army.”

The tone was patient, certain of being obeyed. The words were distinct, the pronunciation surprisingly and at the same time disturbingly perfect. Lacombe struggled to his feet with a sigh and the rest followed suit. Esclavier knew that Lacombe would always be the first to display obedience and eagerness, that he would turn the other flabby, baby-pink cheek to curry favour with the guards. He would be the model prisoner to the point of turning stool-pigeon. He would flatter the Viets to earn a few privileges, but above all because they were now on top and because he always obeyed the stronger side. To excuse his attitude in the eyes of his comrades, he would try to make them believe that he was hoodwinking the gaolers and exploiting them for the common good.

Esclavier had known this type of man only too well in Mathausen camp. All the inmates there had had their individuality steeped in a bath of quicklime, and all that remained was the bare essentials. Those simplified creatures could then be put into one of three categories: the slaves, the wild ones and what Esclavier with a certain amount of scorn called “the fine souls.” Esclavier had been a wild one because he was anxious to survive. Lacombe's true character was that of a slave, a “boy” who would not even steal from his master, who would never make a bid for freedom. But he wore the uniform of a French Army captain and he had to be taught how to behave even if it killed him.

A slim figure wearing a fibre helmet towered over Esclavier and the voice, which by dint of being so precise sounded disembodied, made itself heard again:

“Aren't you going to help your comrades push the Jeep?”

“No,” Esclavier replied.

“What's your name?”

“Captain Philippe Esclavier, of the French Army. What's yours?”

“I'm an officer of the People's Army. Why do you refuse to carry out my orders?”

It was not so much a reproach as the statement of an inexplicable fact. With the painstaking care of a conscientious but circumscribed schoolmaster the Vietminh officer was trying to understand the attitude of the big child lying at his feet. Yet the method had been drummed into him in the training schools of Communist China. First of all he had to analyse, then explain and finally convince. This method was infallible; it was part and parcel of the huge perfect whole which Communism represents. It had succeeded with all the prisoners of Cao-Bang. The Viet bent over Esclavier and with a touch of condescension explained:

“President Ho-Chi-Minh has given orders for the People's Army of Viet-Nam to apply a policy of leniency towards all prisoners led astray by the imperialist capitalists . . .”

Lescure made as if to wake up and Esclavier took a firmer grip on his belt. The lieutenant did not realize, and perhaps never would, that the French Army had been defeated at Dien-Bien-Phu; if he woke up suddenly he would be capable of strangling the Vietminh.

The
can-bo
went on:

“You have been treated well, you will continue to be, but it's your duty to obey the orders of the Vietnamese people.”

In curt, ringing tones, imbued with violence, anger and irony, and seething with revolt, Esclavier replied for all to hear:

“We have been living in the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam for only a few hours but we are already in a position to appreciate your policy of leniency. Instead of killing us off decently, you're letting us die from exhaustion and cold. And on top of this, you demand that we should be full of gratitude for good old President Ho and the People's Army of Viet-Nam.”

“He'll get us all killed, the silly bastard,” Lacombe reflected. “It was hard enough persuading him to surrender, and now he's starting all over again. But all I ask is to understand this popular republic of theirs. That's the only line to take, now that it's all over and we can't do a thing about it.”

Esclavier did not stop there. This time, fortunately, he spoke for himself:

“I refuse to push the Jeep. You can look upon that as my personal choice. I would rather be killed on the spot than die by slow degrees, demean myself and perhaps become corrupted in your narrow universe. So please be good enough to give the orders to finish me off straightaway.”

“That's done it,” Lacombe said to himself. “A couple of sentries will force him to his feet with their rifle-butts, drag him off to the nearest ravine and put a bullet through his head That will put an end to Captain Esclavier's insolence.”

But the
can-bo
did not lose his temper: he was beyond anger.

“I'm an officer in the People's Army of Viet-Nam. I have to see that President Ho's orders are properly carried out. We are poor; we haven't many medical facilities or clothing or rice. First of all we've got to provide our own combatants with supplies and ammunition. But you will be treated in the same way as the men of our people in spite of your crimes against humanity. President Ho has asked the people of Viet-Nam to forgive you because you have been led astray and I shall give orders to the soldiers guarding you . . .”

This speech was so impersonal, so mechanical, that it suggested the voice of an old priest saying Mass. Lescure, who was once a choir-boy and had just woken up, responded quite naturally: “Amen.” Then he burst out into a long strident laugh which ended up in a sort of breathless panting.

“My comrade has gone mad,” said Esclavier.

The Vietminh had a primitive horror of madmen, of whom it is said that the
mah-quis
*
have devoured their brain. The people's democracy and the declarations of President Ho were of no more avail to him. The darkness was suddenly thronged with all the absurd phantoms of his childhood, with that seething populace that inhabits the waters, the earth and the heavens and never leaves man alone and in peace for an instant. The
mah-quis
slip through the mouths of children, they try to steal the souls of the dead.

He was frightened but, so as not to show his fear, he said a few words to one of the sentries and went back to his Jeep. He switched on the engine; the prisoners all round him started to push. The wheels lifted out of the ditch, the engine started purring; all the
mah-quis
of darkness were exorcized forthwith by the reassuring sound of the machine, that brutal music of Marxist society.

“
Di-di
,” said the sentries, as they led the prisoners back, “now you can sleep.”

 • • • 

The
mah-quis
had devoured Lescure's brain. During the week before the surrender the lieutenant had not stopped taking maxiton pills, which were included with the rations, and had eaten very little proper food. Lescure had a thin, lanky body, blotchy skin and lacklustre hair. There was nothing to qualify him for an army career. But he was the son of a colonel who had been killed on the Loire in
1940
. One of his brothers had been executed by the Germans and another was condemned to a wheelchair ever since receiving a shell burst in the spinal column at Cassino.

Unlike his father and two brothers, all robust military animals, Yves Lescure delighted in a mild form of anarchy. He was fond of music, the companionship of friends, old books with fine bindings. As a token of loyalty to the memory of his father, he had gone to Coetquidan School, and of those two years spent in the damp marshes of Brittany, among somewhat limited but efficient and disciplined creatures, he retained a depressing memory of an endless succession of practical jokes and inordinate physical effort. This had left him with the impression that he would never be equal to a task for which he had such little inclination.

But to please the casualty of Cassino, to enable him to go on living in the war through the medium of himself, he had volunteered for Indo-China and, without any preliminary training, had dropped into Dien-Bien-Phu—a feat that his disabled brother would have longed to perform had he been able. Lieutenant Lescure had derived little pleasure from the experience.

Esclavier had seen him come down on one of those wonderful evenings that occur just before the rainy season, looking like a bundle of bones in his uniform, having forgotten his personal weapon, and with an expression of utter bewilderment on his face.

The heavy Vietminh mortars were pounding away at Véronique II and the clouds drifting low in the overcast sky were fringed with gold like gypsy shawls.

He had reported to Esclavier: “Lieutenant Lescure, sir.”

Dropping his haversack at his feet—a haversack containing books but no change of clothing—he had looked up at the sky:

“Beautiful, isn't it?”

Esclavier, who had no time for “day-dreamers,” had curtly replied:

“Yes, very beautiful indeed. The parachute battalion holding this position, of which I am in command, was six hundred strong a fortnight ago; there are now ninety of us left. Out of twenty-four officers, only seven are still in a condition to fight.”

Lescure had apologized at once.

“I know I'm not a paratrooper, I haven't much talent for this sort of warfare, I'm clumsy and inefficient, but I'll try to do my best.”

Lescure, who was scared stiff of not being able “to do his best” had taken to maxiton a few days later. He had taken part in every attack and counter-attack, more oblivious than courageous, living in a sort of secondary state of consciousness. One night he had gone off into no-man's-land to rescue a sergeant-major who had been wounded in the legs.

“Why did you do that?” the captain had asked him.

“My brother would have done it, only he can't any longer. By myself, I couldn't even have attempted it.”

“Your brother?”

And Lescure had explained quite simply that it was not himself who was at Dien-Bien-Phu, but his brother Paul who was wheeled round Rennes in an invalid chair. His courage was Paul's, but the clumsiness, the sunsets, the fear—those were all his own.

Since then the captain had begun to keep an eye on him, as the N.C.O.s and privates in his company had already done for some time.

For Véronique, as for all the other positions that were still holding out, the “cease-fire” had come into effect at seventeen-hundred hours. It was then Lescure had collapsed, yelling:

“Quick, some ducks, some chickens! They're attacking!”

Esclavier had continued to keep an eye on him.

 • • • 

In the middle of the night they were woken up and had to abandon the half-light of the paddy-field for the pitch-black darkness of the forest. They followed a path through the jungle. Branches kept lashing their faces; the slimy earth slid from under their feet or else suddenly swelled into a hard mound against which they barked their shins. They had the impression they were going round and round in an endless circle.

“
Di-di
,
mau-len
,” the sentries kept shouting.

The darkness began to fade. They emerged at first light into the Muong-Phan basin.

Esclavier recognized the figure of Boisfeuras outside the first hut. They had untied his hands; in a bamboo pipe he was smoking some
thuoc-lao
, a very strong tobacco which was cured in molasses. A sentry had given it to him after he had exchanged a joke or two with him in his own dialect.

“Want some?” Boisfeuras asked in his rasping voice.

Esclavier took a few puffs which were so harsh that they made him cough. Lescure started yelling his war-cry:

“Some chickens, some ducks!”

And he made a rush at a sentry to grab his weapon. Esclavier held him back just in time.

“What's the matter with him?” Boisfeuras asked.

“He's gone off his head.”

“And you're acting as his nurse?”

“Sort of . . . Where are you quartered?”

“In the hut with some of the others.”

“I'll join you.”

Lescure had calmed down and Esclavier held him by the hand like a child.

“I'll bring Lescure with me. I can't leave him on his own. During the last fortnight this choir-boy, this wet rag, has surpassed even himself. He has performed more acts of courage than the rest of us put together—and do you know why? To please a cripple who lives ten thousand miles away and won't ever know a thing about it. Is that good enough for you?”

“And it's to save his skin that you didn't try and escape?”

“There's nothing to stop me now; the others will take care of Lescure. We might have a go at it together. The jungle's your home ground. I remember the lectures you gave us when we were due to be dropped into Laos during the Japanese occupation. You used to say: ‘The jungle is not for the strongest, but for the wiliest, the one with most stamina, the man who can keep his head.' And we all knew you said this from personal experience. Have you got any plan in mind?”