The Praetorians (23 page)

“It's good for the digestion,” the imposing Montserrat woman had said, “and, besides, we promised.”

But by the time everyone was ready, and Paulette had changed her blouse three times, and Conchita had gone home to put on another dress, and the brats had been gathered together with imprecations and cuffs on the ear, a good hour had elapsed.

The Lopez family and their guests tagged on to the procession of veterans coming from Guyotville, who had been driven up in lorries as far as the front door. Many Moslems had joined them, with their turbans, their medals and their sticks. Joyfully, they marched off at a light-infantry pace and called everyone “Lieutenant.”

A loudspeaker yelled:

“Europeans, Moslems, shoulder to shoulder, as in the front line. . . .”

This was greeted by a roar of enthusiasm. The excitement was mounting and the crowd was ready to applaud any slogan.

“We want a Public Safety government,” the loudspeaker yelled again.

“Yes, a Public Safety government,” Pablo Lopez shouted back, louder than the others.

Then he turned to his future son-in-law, who had his arm round Paulette and was taking advantage of the jostling to stroke her breasts.

“Hey, you, soldier-boy! Do you know what it means, a Public Safety?”

“No,” Xavier woefully replied. “At Clermont I didn't go in for politics.”

“It isn't politics, you nitwit, it's for French Algeria!”

Mingling with the war veterans, the Lopez family, who had lost no more than two or three kids and a grandfather, arrived in front of the war memorial.

The road and stairways leading to the Government General were black with flag-waving crowds which overflowed on to the terraces of the buildings and clung to the iron railings.

Xavier felt deafened and stunned by the strident cry of “
Al-gé-rie-Fran-çaise
” emitted by the motor-horns. He would have liked to be sitting on a bench in the cool shade of an oak- or chestnut-tree at home, and doing what all fiancés do on the day of their betrothal, holding Paulette's hand, kissing her, talking to her about the future. From desire he was veering to sentiment.

There was a violent surge forward and the young couple found themselves separated. Generals Salan, Jouhaud, Allard, Massu and Admiral Auboyneau had just arrived to lay a wreath of red roses. A passage had to be cleared for them through the crowd. General Salan looked flushed, “as though he had just been popped into a stockpot,” Xavier thought to himself.

The crowd started yelling: “Up the army!”

A bearded man in paratrooper's uniform was perched on the base of the memorial.

“Where does that chap come from?” Xavier asked a young man in shirt-sleeves with a tricolour band round one arm.

“Don't you know him? That's Lagaillarde.”

And suddenly distrustful:

“But what about you, where do you come from? From France? You ought to be in the army.”

“I've been playing at soldiers for the last eighteen months; that's a long time.”

And suddenly furious:

“With all this bloody silly business of yours I'll still be at it three years from now. And what about you?”

The young man with the armband replied, in a rather embarrassed manner:

“My call-up's been suspended, but I'm going to volunteer.”

“You haven't by any chance seen a girl with black hair and a red polka-dot blouse?”

“There must be thousands of girls with black hair and polka-dot blouses out in the street today. Look, there's one.”

“That's not the one I mean.”

“She'll do as well as any other!”

 * * * * 

Boisfeuras clutched Esclavier by the arm.

“Look! The Tojun is up to one of his tricks.”

Still standing on the base of the memorial, Lagaillarde was bending down towards the Commander-in-Chief who had just laid his wreath. Salan nodded his head, then made a sign of acquiescence and murmured: “Don't overdo it.”

The bearded man jumped down and gave a signal to some youths, one of whom was carrying a flag which hung down to his heels, then they all raced off up the stairway in the direction of the Forum.

The veterans started putting away their banners prior to going back home. Better get a little rest: tomorrow was the big day.

Some tear-gas bombs exploded, emitting a thick smoke which affected eyes and throat.

Esclavier caught the eye of Colonel Puysanges, who was standing behind the C.-in-C. He gave the captain a mocking grin. Esclavier leant towards Boisfeuras:

“We've got to warn Glatigny. Where is he?”

“In the Rue d'Isly, with the Vigilance Committee. But we'll
never be able to get through this crowd. It's hemming us in. Who chucked the tear-gas bombs?”

“The C.R.S.”

The crowd gave a long wail:

“Down with the C.R.S.!”

Boisfeuras bumped into Adruguez who, in espadrilles, was setting off up the stairway with his team.

“Where are you going?”

“They've already come to blows up there. The C.R.S. are being pelted with paving-stones and are falling back.”

“Christ Almighty!” said Esclavier. “And my company's in reserve behind the Government General!”

“What are your orders?” Boisfeuras enquired.

“Only one: don't fire, whatever happens.”

The two captains fell into step with the student. The tear-gas was spreading in a thick cloudy sheet; they had to put handkerchiefs over their mouths. Boisfeuras chuckled:

“Just as though we were off to rob a bank! Try and get through to Glatigny from the Government General.”

“Nothing ever turns out as planned.”

“If it did it wouldn't be a revolution!”

The captains came out into the Forum, where the C.R.S. were taking cover from a hail of stones behind their trucks. Forgetting he was in civilian clothes, Xavier had followed the two officers. In this disturbance they still represented for him a certain form of law and order. He noticed with some pleasure that he was not frightened, but he was anxious to find Paulette. “She must have gone back home. I'll tell her what happened.”

The C.R.S. fell back behind the railings, but a few minutes later they broke out and, with more tear-gas bombs, succeeded in clearing part of the Forum which had been invaded by the demonstrators. Then, once more, they withdrew behind the shelter of the railings.

Boisfeuras and Esclavier took advantage of this to race over to their men, who were leaping out of trucks, short-butt rifles or sub-machine-guns in their hands.

Xavier Fortanelle had lost them. He found himself, spitting
and coughing, in the midst of the over-excited youths who once again surged forward in a fresh assault.

“Come on, chaps, the paratroops are with us!”

“Up the army!”

The demonstrators were now thrusting against the paratroops who gently held them off.

“Well, what do we do now, sir?” Sergeant-Major Pieron asked Esclavier. “With a few blows of a rifle-butt we could soon make this lot pipe down.”

“We must let them through,” Boisfeuras replied.

Esclavier protested:

“You're mad, Julien!”

“We're a day or maybe only a few hours ahead of schedule, but what difference does it make? If we don't bring it off today, tomorrow the crowd's enthusiasm will have subsided. Puysanges and the Tojun have double-crossed us, but we can forestall them. Quick, run up to one of the offices and ring up Glatigny. I'll stay below and take command of the company.”

The C.R.S. opened a gap in the railings to let Esclavier slip through. He raced up the great marble staircase, taking four steps in each stride, and opened at random the door of an office in which two typists lay cringing in an armchair, crying their eyes out.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “I thought everyone was on strike.”

One of the typists gave a great sob which sounded more like a neigh.

“We're under contract; they told us if we didn't turn up we'd be sacked.”

Esclavier grabbed the telephone and tried to get through to the Rue D'Isly. But there was no one on the switchboard.

One of the typists disentangled herself from the armchair.

“Captain, there's a direct line in the office next door.”

A stone shattered the window-panes. Esclavier was already in the other room. Through a large bay-window he could see the sun-drenched Forum which the crowd was beginning to invade. But between it and the small groups of Lagaillarde and Adruguez, who were hesitating in the face of the paratroops, there still remained a wide empty space.

“They'll lose their nerve, just you watch,” Sergeant Molintard said to Péladon and Videban.

Like a judo expert, he ducked down in front of a demonstrator who had just stumbled forward. Then, slipping behind him, he gave him a shove.

“Go on, then, you sod!”

But Lagaillarde, followed by some of his men, had already reached the railings with Puydebois, who was wearing on his breast the red heart surmounted by a cross and who was accompanied by his henchmen with their shoulders tucked in. They all started shaking the railings under the amused eyes of the paratroopers who had opened their ranks wide to let them through.

“Hey, you oafs,” Sergeant-Major Pieron shouted. “If you can't manage with your hands why not use a lorry?”

The C.R.S. came charging back and a volley of tear-gas bombs forced the assailants off the railings on to which they were clinging.

Out of breath, Xavier Fortanelle reached Boisfeuras.

“I've caught up with you at last, sir.”

“So what?” Boisfeuras replied in his rasping voice. “Can you drive a G.M.C.?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Jump into that one.” He pointed to a sand-coloured truck belonging to the
10
th Regiment standing twenty yards away.

“Get it going and head straight for the railings!”

“But, sir——”

“Do you want to seize the Government General, yes or no?”

“Well, you know, I'm from Clermont-Ferrand.”

“Get going, and make it snappy.”

Xavier Fortanelle, understanding nothing of what was going on, and therefore reverting into a good soldier who obeys any order he is given, climbed into the driving seat and started up the engine. Lagaillarde, Puydebois and a few others joined him and clambered on to the step.

The lorry gradually gathered speed and crashed into the railings, which caved in.

The demonstrators were now in the inner courtyard.

“Well, I never!” said Xavier, mopping his brow with the back of his hand.

He wanted to report back to Captain Boisfeuras, but the officer had disappeared. The assailants had already launched another vehicle against the iron shutters and glass doors of the buildings which still resisted them.

With crowbars, other groups were smashing in the wind-screens and doors of some official cars parked in the courtyard.

Adruguez seized Xavier by the arm:

“Well, are you coming? It's not over, you know. We're in front of the Government General, but we're not inside it.”

Up on the first floor Esclavier had managed to get through to Glatigny.

“Listen, Jacques, it's really serious. They're trying to seize the Government General. Your veterans? They packed up and went home. It's the young ones who burst through. No, of course the paratroops didn't fire on them; they even let them through. It's nothing, just a window-pane that has just smashed to smithereens. The chaps who started it? How many of them? Four or five hundred, not more, but the whole of Algiers is behind them now. The crowd's roaring down below. . . . Hundreds of footsteps rushing up the stairs. Wait, I'll go and see. . . . That's it, they've got inside. What a shambles! Lagaillarde has just appeared at the cornice on the fifth floor. Can you hear the roar? It's shaking the windows. You'll try to get here at once? Hurry up, they're pinching our
coup d'état.
Who? The Tojun, of course, and Puysanges. Bonvillain? He's doing nothing, he's talking!”

Esclavier hung up in a fury and went back into the office where the two secretaries sat crouching in the same armchair.

“Have you got anything to drink here?”

“Yes, Captain,” one of them replied in a timid voice, “some orangeade.”

Esclavier looked at his watch. It was ten past seven in the evening.

The crowd that had broken into the offices was beginning to ransack them. Files, with their contents scattering in the breeze,
typewriters, card-indexes, furniture, were pitched out of the windows.

Xavier Fortanelle was now following Lagaillarde and Adruguez, Lagaillarde because he was in uniform and Adruguez because “there is something about his face.”

No one asked him who he was or what he was doing there. They were already used to him. With them he ascended the great marble staircase and entered the office of Maisonneuve, the chief of staff of the Resident Minister, where a certain number of high officials had gathered together.

Xavier did not know any of them, but he could see how uneasy they all seemed, the officials and the insurgents alike. There was a big tall girl beside him, swinging her bag. He asked her:

“What do we do now?”

Françoise Baguèras offered him a cigarette.

“I wish you could tell us! On one side there are your little pals who have seized the G.G., and don't know what to do about it, and on the other these handsome gentlemen who would like nothing better than to have it seized, but not by you!”

Xavier sank into a big green leather armchair. The arrival of General Massu, fuming, an ugly expression on his face, his great beak of a nose thrust forward underneath his shaggy eyebrows, made him leap to his feet again. He had just remembered that he was only Corporal Fortanelle, on unauthorized leave and, moreover, in civilian clothes! His pal Antestieu, who had put on a smart suit to seduce a girl and was then caught, had been given a month in prison.