Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

In the darkness, Durieux, a soldier of the second class, sought his sub-unit among the fires of a Chasseur Parachute Regiment. It was a long search, for the fires had been built to protect their communities against the cold of the Algerian night. Having just routed a fellagha band, the regiment was now in bivouac near a friendly Muslim village. The fires were built of fig trees from an orchard ruined by the rebels. The burning logs and branches gave off a blue smoke sweet enough to nauseate Durieux. He wondered at the strong stomachs of these veterans who were drinking coffee, playing belote, or resting within its sickly coils. The firelight played upon the camouflage-dappled jumping smocks of the paras, so that in the shadows they appeared as a pride of leopards, gorged with prey.

     ‘I’m looking for the seventh stick,’ said Durieux, finally stopping at a fire a little apart from the others, as though to denote its exclusiveness.

     ‘Don’t bother to look any further,’ said a first-class soldier who was lying on his back, scorching the rubber soles off the expensive jumping boots with which the French War Ministry had sought to protect his feet from the hazards of parachute descent. ‘Who are you?’

     ‘My name is Durieux.’

     ‘I am Rossi.’

     Rossi spoke with a lilting Corsican accent. He did not rise to perform the obligatory ceremony of shaking hands, but extended an arm that was long even in proportion to the length of his body. The firelight betrayed a predatory face, emphasizing the prominence of chin and cheekbone.

     ‘Where can I dump my kit?’ asked Durieux.

     ‘There’s the baggage truck,’ said Rossi, pointing with the toe of his boot.

     Durieux walked to the lorry indicated and thankfully relieved himself of a kitbag, big pack, side pack and sub-machine gun. When he turned round an armed sentry was standing behind him. Durieux had neither seen nor heard his approach. He introduced himself and they shook hands. Then Durieux went back to his new unit. The paras were still sprawled about the fire.

     Durieux himself would have liked to have a place by the fire: there would have been plenty of room had the paras taken the trouble to make a place for him. He would have liked to ask them to do so, but he was still uncertain of his welcome. So he compromised instead by leaning over Rossi and warming his hands at the leaping flames. It was then that Rossi seemed to sense Durieux’s hesitation.

     ‘Have you eaten?’ asked Rossi.

     ‘Yes, thank you,’ said Durieux, grateful for the implication of friendship behind the invitation. ‘I ate my travel rations: they gave me sausages and bread and cheese . . .’

     The paras now knew for certain that Durieux was a ‘blue’: for the French Army always travels on sausages, bread and cheese; only a recruit would have thought the matter worth mentioning.

     ‘Bugger the sausages,’ said Rossi, smiling. ‘What sort of wine went with the rations? Was it condensed piss? Or Algerian vinegar? Or perhaps it was French? Haven’t you just come from France?’

     ‘Yes, I was posted here direct from training school,’ said Durieux. ‘I’m afraid that I don’t drink wine, but I think the stuff they gave me was condensed.’

     ‘Sobriety — health,’ said another para, a Negro. ‘You’ve been reading the anti-alcoholism posters on the Paris Métro. My name is Maréchal. I don’t drink wine either.’

     ‘I don’t drink at all,’ confessed Durieux.

     ‘That man drinks beer and when he can’t get beer he drinks eau-de-Cologne and when he can’t get either he drinks his own water because he pisses pure alcohol,’ said Rossi. ‘He can outdrink me, but I can stuff more women.

     ‘What neck,’ said Maréchal. ‘That depends on how much I’ve had to drink.’

     ‘When we get back to base we’ll line up ten tails from the military brothel and see which of us gives up first,’ said Rossi. ‘In the meantime, what did you do with that wine, Durieux?’

     ‘It’s still in my canteen. You can have it if you like.’

     ‘I intend to.’

     Rossi held out his hand: it was huge, but well-proportioned, afforested to the knuckles with black hair. The veins were a prominent purple tracery beneath the olive skin. Durieux unclipped the canteen from his belt and placed it in the expectant hand. He was hoping that Rossi, in return, would move over and make a place for him by the fire, but the Corsican merely uncorked the canteen, and submerged the neck within his lips.

     ‘They told me at the depot it was not safe to drink unless one diluted it with water,’ said Durieux.

     Rossi replaced the stopper in the canteen; then he placed it carefully on the ground.

     ‘Durieux, are you telling me how to drink Vinogèle?’

     ‘No,’ said Durieux. ‘I’m just telling you what they told me at the depôt.’

     ‘That was crap,’ said Rossi. ‘Don’t give me that sort of crap, Durieux.’

     Rossi took the stopper out of the canteen and resumed his drinking. His lips were now stained dark red, making a thin red weal across his face; Durieux was irresistibly reminded of a tale about vampires that he had once read in a book of mediaeval bestiary.

     ‘Do you come from Paris, Durieux?’ asked Maréchal, his deep voice spanning the fire.

     ‘No, I was born in Lyons,’ said Durieux. ‘I was a student in Paris.’

     ‘An educated bastard,’ said Rossi.

     ‘What did you study?’ asked Maréchal.

     ‘I read journalism at the Press polytechnic.’

     ‘A superior bastard,’ said Rossi.

     ‘Did you work for a newspaper?’ asked Maréchal.

     Durieux did not reply at once. It was equally embarrassing to face Rossi’s hostility or Maréchal’s questions. Yet there was something about Maréchal that made Durieux wish to go to Maréchal’s side of the fire. He sensed, however, that Rossi would regard this as a retreat and he was already determined not to retire before the implacability of Rossi.

     ‘I wrote for several newspapers,’ he compromised.

     ‘What newspapers?’ asked Rossi.

     ‘Various newspapers,’ said Durieux.

     ‘Did you enjoy journalism?’ asked Maréchal.

     ‘Yes,’ said Durieux. ‘I was very happy as a journalist: it gave me a sense of fulfilment.’

     ‘You’ll be an unhappy soldier if you don’t answer my questions,’ said Rossi. ‘And you will lack more than a sense of fulfilment.’

     Durieux suddenly realized that he had gained a conversational advantage by seeming to ignore Rossi intentionally, and he at once sought to exploit his advantage.

     ‘Your conversation bores me,’ said Durieux to Rossi.

     ‘Bugger off,’ said Rossi.

     ‘It’s a pleasure,’ said Durieux.

     He was grateful for this opportunity to retire without appearing to retreat and he walked round the fire until he reached the Negro’s side. Maréchal, he noticed, wore the same symbols of courage and service as did Rossi. His ribbons included the Croix de Guerre, Exterior Theatres of Operations, with five Palms; the Colonial Medal with bars for the Indo-China campaigns, including Dien Bien Phu; and the Wounded Badge with two Stars. Maréchal made no move to allow Durieux to seat himself before the fire.

     ‘What did you do before you joined the army?’ asked Durieux, by way of a conversational opening.

     ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph,’ said Maréchal softly. ‘Don’t you know that this isn’t the army? We are the paras.’

     ‘I thought that was a joke, not a distinction,’ said Durieux.

     ‘It’s no joke when the green light goes on and you feel the crap run out between your legs,’ said Maréchal.

     ‘That’s true,’ admitted Durieux. ‘It’s even true in training, so God knows what it’s like in action. What did you do before you joined the paras?’

     ‘That’s right,’ said Maréchal. ‘Before I joined the paras I was in the army.’

     ‘And before that?’

     ‘I don’t remember a time before that,’ said Maréchal. ‘I can’t remember a time before that.’

     ‘You must remember something.’

     ‘Only what I want to forget. I remember growing up on the docks of Toulon; I remember going to gaol in Marseilles.’

     ‘Is that all?’

     ‘That’s a good question, “Is that all?” Isn’t that enough? I remember begging as a child and stealing as a boy. I remember the army teaching me to read. When the army taught me all it knew I joined the paras.’

     ‘What will you do when you leave the army — I mean the paras?’

     ‘When that time comes I won’t have to do anything.’

     ‘You mean that you’ll sign on until you have a pension?’

     ‘No, I’ll sign on until I don’t need a pension.’

     ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand you.’

     ‘I mean that I’ll stay in the paras until I’m dead, or until I’m killed. I would rather be killed.’

     As he spoke, something in the fire exploded with a hollow roar, and scattered burning embers over the recumbent paras. They jumped up, brushing the sparks from their uniforms in a melee of swearing and singeing.

     ‘That was a crap trick, Rossi,’ shouted someone.

     ‘Get stuffed,’ said Rossi.

     “What a man,’ commented Maréchal. ‘He’s a real hard case.’

     Maréchal said this in such a way that made Durieux realize the Negro had a strong affection for the Corsican. And he realized that Rossi’s earlier jesting had sprung from the same source. Despite their contrasting characters, the two men were bound by a form of mutual admiration. To Durieux, however, it appeared to be an admiration of the worst in each other.

     ‘What was it that blew up?’ asked Durieux.

     ‘Your canteen,’ said someone.

     ‘A canteen bomb,’ said someone else. ‘That’s a new idea even for the paras.’

     ‘Rossi must have corked that canteen as tight as a virgin’s vagina for it to explode like that,’ said another.

     They spoke with an air of expectancy, as though the explosion were a prelude to further entertainment. Durieux realized that he was expected to provide that entertainment. The canteen had been cast in the fire as, in another age but in the same army, a gauntlet might have been cast upon the ground. And so, in support of a tradition that he despised, Durieux walked back round the fire to Rossi. He was trying to keep the backs of his knees stiff with each step, like a terrier stalking to a contested lamp post. He was feeling much as he had felt before making his first jump, when first seeing the green light flash on, knowing that he was the next member of the stick to jump against reason into a windy void.

     Rossi had not changed his position: he lay on his back still, boots towards the fire, sparks smouldering in his parachute smock. He did not trouble to beat out the sparks, but inhaled their acridity.

     ‘Was that my canteen you threw on the fire?’ asked Durieux.

     ‘Yes.’

     ‘Is that your idea of a practical joke?’

     ‘Go stuff yourself.’

     ‘That would be anatomically impossible.’

     Durieux was wondering if there were some way in which he could laugh off the incident.

     ‘Bugger off,’ said Rossi.

     ‘Why did you throw my canteen in the fire?’

     Durieux was remembering that he had asked such questions at the lycée, when bigger boys cast his history books into the mud.

     ‘Because it was empty.’

     ‘Was that your way of thanking me for the wine?’

     ‘No, it was my way of making sure you wouldn’t be bored.’

     Durieux was now looking down into Rossi’s face. The bold structure of the bones now seemed satanic. He could have stamped on the face, but the thought gave him no confidence.

     ‘There are other ways of keeping boredom at bay,’ said Durieux.

     ‘I agree. You could, for example, have told me which newspapers you scribbled for.’

     ‘Why should I?’

     ‘Why not, unless you have something to hide?’

     ‘I have nothing to hide.’

     ‘Not even in your trousers,’ said Rossi, raising his voice. ‘I’ll bet he worked for a woman’s periodical. I’ll bet he wrote one of those columns advising impatient virgins how to get themselves stuffed. Then he took his own advice and joined the paras.’

     The other members of the seventh stick were enjoying this exchange. They were writhing like the smoke in an ecstasy of mirth. They flailed the air with their red berets and chivvied the ground with their boots.

     ‘All right, if you want to know, damn you,’ shouted Durieux. ‘I wrote for
France Nouvelle. And I wrote for l’Humanité. I wrote against the war in Indo-China. I wrote against the war in Algeria. I believe in an Algerian Algeria. I
am against the colonists. I oppose the army’s policy. I support the National
Liberation Front. I believe the real leader of the Algerian people is Ferhat
Abbas. That is what I have written. What do you make of that?’

     ‘That you are a member of the party,’ said Rossi.

     ‘Yes, I am a party member.’

     ‘Then what are you doing in the paras?’ asked a para. Durieux was surprised to see that the para who spoke was unmistakably an Algerian Muslim.

     ‘It is the duty of the party members to spread their doctrine among the workers, wherever they are, no matter what uniform they wear,’ said Durieux.

     ‘We are not workers; we’re paras,’ said the Muslim para.

     ‘You’re members of the proletarian class and I am a member of the proletarian party,’ said Durieux.

     When he spoke, Durieux felt this to be true, but it did not sound convincing, even to himself.

     ‘You’ve got it all wrong,’ said Maréchal in his deep and gentle voice. ‘The only classes in the seventh stick are the first and second grades, the NCOs and the officers, but we all go up the same way and come down the same way, which is a form of equality.’

     ‘Durieux is not convinced,’ said Rossi. ‘He is not convinced because he carries a party card. Have you brought your party card with you, comrade Durieux? Do please show us your party card, comrade Durieux.’

     Durieux unbuttoned the right breast pocket of his parachute smock, his fingers fumbling with the stiffness of the new canvas.

     ‘This is my party card,’ he said, holding it high, that all might see it. ‘I am more proud of this card than of this badge.’

     When he said this, Durieux tapped the silver-nickel badge that was pinned to the flap of his right breast pocket. The badge consisted of an opened parachute flanked by wings. Cynics said the wings had been added to remind the wearer that he might one day have need of them, for parachute-packing is not an exact science, and parachute packers have been known to err. The badge meant that Durieux’s parachute had six times successfully responded to his pull at the ripcord, with himself dangling from the rigging lines, fluttering to earth like an autumn leaf discarded from the military tree.

     ‘Is it a real party card?’ asked Rossi. ‘It’s not like any party card that I ever saw. I’ll bet it’s a forgery.’

     ‘See for yourself,’ shouted Durieux, thrusting the card close to the Corsican’s face.

     Rossi spat very deliberately, and very messily, upon Durieux’s party card. The other paras, who had guessed what was to come, shouted with laughter.

     ‘I’m going to make you lick that card clean,’ said Durieux.

     He reached down for the nape of Rossi’s neck with his left hand. His intention was to force the Corsican’s nose into the spittle. But Rossi jerked Durieux’s heels from beneath him. Durieux pitched forward, falling over Rossi. Durieux could have clutched at Rossi to save himself, but he still held on to the party card and would not let it go. The restraining hands of two paras, one at either side of Rossi, were all that saved Durieux from falling into the fire.

     One of the paras who held Durieux spun him roughly about, so that he stumbled away from the fire. His first concern was for the party card. It was scorched — as were the fingers that held it — and Rossi’s spittle was bubbling on the cardboard. Durieux wiped the card clean, using great care, with his handkerchief. He placed the card back in his breast pocket and buttoned it beneath the parachute badge. Only then did he return to Rossi, who was still lying beside the fire.

     ‘Now you won’t be able to make me lick it off,’ said Rossi.

     ‘I’ll do better than that,’ promised Durieux. ‘Get up, Rossi.’

     ‘Enchanted by the invitation, comrade Durieux.’

     Rossi arose with the muscular tension of a caged leopard at feeding time. Durieux almost regretted having issued the invitation. Rossi was tall, but he did not tower above Durieux; he was broad, yet not significantly wider than Durieux; but he was unmistakably the more aggressive.

     Looking at Rossi, Durieux could not believe that his opponent possessed the fighting instincts of a mere man: it was as though the Corsican belonged spiritually to another species. The leopard-skin pattern upon his parachute smock might have been an outward expression of his character.

     Yet Durieux was no coward, nor was he easily intimidated. So he fired his right fist into Rossi’s face and caught the Corsican on the mouth. His knuckles made a wooden sound against Rossi’s teeth. Rossi rode the blow, swaying back from the hips upon which his hands still rested, but his lips split like an over-ripe tomato. Blood flowed from them and ran down his chin like wine. Rossi ran his tongue over the blood: he seemed to savour the taste; he was smiling.

     Then Rossi struck Durieux a terrible blow that landed midway between crutch and waist. Durieux had never been hit so hard before, though he had become an amateur boxer in his student days in order to gain popularity and engender self-confidence. But he had never even imagined that it was possible to be hit so hard. The blow took all pleasure out of anger, out of fighting, out of life itself. Durieux’s head went down until it was level with his knees. He folded up so fast that Rossi’s second blow — a right cross — landed on his temple. Instead of breaking Durieux’s jaw, as Rossi had intended it should, the blow split his scalp. He was felled to the ground as a bullock is felled by a humane killer. His head suddenly became enormous and empty: the echoes of the blow rang through his brain like the angelus bell in a church tower. He felt the blood move stickily from his split scalp and trickle down his forehead. He felt as though all feeling were at an end.

     Then Durieux realized that he was still capable of having such primitive feeling as pain. He could still hear, despite the sounding in his ears, despite the lights behind his eyes, despite the knotted cramp of his intestines. And Durieux became intensely relieved that he could still experience these things.

     If he hits me like that again, thought Durieux, he will undoubtedly kill me. If by chance he does not kill me I shall be crippled for life. Even if he fails to kill or cripple me I shall be permanently disfigured. None of these things is going to help propagate Marxist-Leninist doctrines.

     Therefore, Durieux continued when he could hear himself thinking, I must somehow save myself. The best thing I can do is lie still and let him think that he has knocked me out. If everyone believes that Rossi has knocked me out they will not expect me to get up and fight him again. The fight is over. Even the best boxers get themselves knocked out, especially by a lucky blow. There is no dishonour in that. I struck the first blow. I have shown them all that I am not afraid of Rossi. I was disabled by a foul blow and knocked out by a lucky blow. It was almost an accident. I have now earned my place by the fire. I believe that I really must have been knocked out. I am only just coming to my senses. That is why I am only now able to think clearly. I was knocked out, but I bear Rossi no ill-will. The fight is finished.

     ‘He’s shamming,’ said Rossi.

     ‘He’s shagged,’ said someone.

     ‘Balls,’ said Rossi. ‘I was playing with him. I only used my fists. I want to have some fun out of this fight. It’s a long time since I fought a Viet.’

     ‘He isn’t a Viet,’ said someone else. ‘He’s only a commie.’

     ‘Viet or commie,’ said Rossi, ‘I’m going to beat the crap out of him. I’ll teach the depôt to send us commies.’

     ‘They probably didn’t know he was a commie,’ said someone else. ‘You know how the bastards infiltrate.’

     ‘They’ll know he’s a commie when I’ve finished with him,’ said Rossi.

     Durieux felt a sudden pain in his side; and he was flung over on his back. The kick had landed sickeningly just below his ribs. Durieux was relieved that Rossi was wearing rubber-soled jumping boots and not the steel-tipped infantry issue.

     ‘Don’t kick him,’ said a voice, Maréchal’s voice.

     ‘He’s a subversive,’ said Rossi. ‘I could kick him to death and get congratulated for it. I caught him encouraging us to read left-wing journals, didn’t I? Wasn’t he about to encourage us lads to desert?’

     ‘That’s a load of bull,’ said Maréchal. ‘You needled him until he produced his party card.’

     ‘I knew he was a commie,’ said Rossi. ‘I can smell the bastards out as surely as I can smell the bogs.’

     ‘Perhaps he’s an ex-commie now,’ said someone. ‘It looks as though you did him in.’

     ‘He’s firing at the flank,’ said Rossi.

     ‘He’s been shamming for a long time then,’ said someone else. ‘Not everyone has a head as thick as yours, Rossi.’

     ‘I’ll hold a light under his mug and see if he moves,’ said Rossi.

     Durieux could smell the brand from the fire as Rossi approached him. It was so close that he inhaled the sweet smoke, and felt the heat glow against his eyelids. He decided that it was time to groan as a preliminary to feigning a return to consciousness. Rossi kicked him again, but mildly this time, an exploratory kick. Durieux raised his head slightly, let it loll back, and opened his eyes. Rossi threw the blazing brand back into the fire.

     Durieux groaned again. He rolled his eyes and raised himself on one elbow. The recovery, he decided, must be very gradual; otherwise Rossi might take it as an invitation to renew the fight. He groaned and sank back again.

     ‘Commies,’ said Rossi. ‘I could crap a better commie.’

     Maréchal stood up and walked over to where Durieux lay. He was carrying his canteen and he offered it to Durieux.

     ‘Drink this,’ said Maréchal.

     ‘He doesn’t drink,’ said Rossi in a mincing voice. ‘And it’s quite possible that he doesn’t poke either.’

     ‘He’ll learn to do both,’ said Maréchal. ‘And to fight. He’s got a lot to learn.’

     Durieux took the canteen, not because he wanted to drink, but because to lie there drinking would prolong the period before he must rise. So he drank slowly. He found that he was drinking neat pastis. The liquorice taste was unmistakable even though he had not tasted it before. He spluttered and coughed as the liquid ran down his throat and surged into his stomach. But he suddenly felt a great deal better.

     This stuff is liquid fire, thought Durieux. It’s like napalm. What do you know of napalm? he asked himself out of journalistic habit. Nothing, he admitted, or very little, but I’d like to have some for Rossi, he told himself. I’d like to see that bastard burn.

     ‘Go easy with that stuff, man, if you aren’t used to it,’ he heard Maréchal warning him.

     ‘It will do him good,’ said Rossi. ‘It may even put some guts into the miserable little sod.’

     Accepting this as encouragement, Durieux took another long drink from the canteen before returning it to Maréchal. Then he looked directly at Rossi. Durieux forced himself to be no longer afraid of Rossi.

     ‘Shut your dirty trap, Rossi, or I’ll shut it for you,’ he announced.

     ‘Want some more?’

     ‘I’ll smash your mug in,’ said Durieux.

     He lurched to his feet and as suddenly sat down again, for the ground appeared to rise with him. He got to his knees and became conscious of pain where Rossi had struck the blow. Durieux fell forward and was violently sick in the fire: yellow bile that bubbled and spluttered. Everything tasted and stank of aniseed. But when he had wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, Durieux felt much better.

     ‘Now I’ll finish him off,’ said Rossi.

     ‘Shut up,’ said Maréchal. ‘He’s beaten up already. Leave the poor bastard be. What’s the matter with you, man? Can’t you find anyone of your own weight to fight?’

     ‘Are you looking for a boy beneath your blanket?’ asked Rossi.

     ‘You know me,’ said Maréchal.

     ‘Why else should anyone want to protect a commie from what’s coming to him?’ asked Rossi.

     Durieux had at last succeeded in staying on his feet. The stars of the African night were duplicated in his head. The pastis had entered his blood stream.
‘I’m going to have your guts for a tie,’ he told Rossi.

     ‘He’s as pissed as a Pole,’ said Maréchal.

     ‘I can lick any man in this stick,’ announced Rossi.

     ‘Except me,’ Maréchal reminded him.

     ‘I can lick you in a stand up and smash down fight,’ shouted Rossi. ‘Who cares about wrestling?’

     ‘I care, man,’ said Maréchal. ‘I like to wrestle sometimes.’

     ‘I’m going to do you both,’ announced Durieux, approaching them at a stagger. ‘I’m going to do the whole world.’

     ‘You’re too ambitious,’ said Maréchal. ‘Has anyone got some black coffee?’

     Someone handed over a mug of black coffee and Maréchal gave it to Durieux. Durieux spilled some of the coffee down the front of his uniform; it mingled with the stains of his blood, now drying out brown, and merged well with the dapple-camouflage pattern. Maréchal tapped up a loosely-packed cigarette out of a crumpled blue paper packet and pushed it between Durieux’s sagging lips. Durieux sat down heavily again, spilling more coffee. Maréchal took a glowing stick from the fire and lit the cigarette for Durieux. Durieux drew the smoke deep down inside himself and blew it out through his nostrils only. The smoke seemed to soothe the ache in his entrails. He could not remember having smoked a cigarette that tasted so well. He took a drink of the coffee and scalded his mouth. When he looked up again, Rossi and Maréchal had resumed their respective places by the fire.

     Looking at this ring of backs from the outside, Durieux became conscious of the invisible thread that held the men together, for they had nothing in common save their corps. They were of many races, including Arabs and Annamites, but their lives depended on the same thread: a nylon ripcord. It bound them as securely as fetters bind a chain gang. It was an experience that had melted and moulded them into a supra-national breed. The word ‘international’ came into his mind. He tried to thrust it out. He finished the coffee, lit one of his own cigarettes, and lay back on the grass. It was not just the jumping that welded them as one, he thought. Durieux himself had made the regulation six training jumps; he wore the same badge and beret that distinguished these men from the rest of the army. But he was in the paras, yet not of the paras. He wondered if they would ever accept him.

     They have created a new society, thought Durieux. A society in which all men are equal, save those who can best smash in the face of a comrade who are therefore more equal than others. A society which is entered by pulling a parachute handle. A society whose philosophy is suspended from a ripcord. The society which battens upon battle. A society of fear for the fearless. A society for the propagation of death. They are a brotherhood, thought Durieux. They are savages. The phrase ‘noble savage’ came to his mind and he tried to thrust it out. They are submen who make believe they are supermen, Durieux told himself.

     A woman came into the firelight. She was a Muslim: she wore black and her feet were bare. She wore no veil and her face was beautiful, or so it seemed in the firelight. The woman was followed by an elderly man who carried a basket. Some of the paras rose and went to their kitbags for dirty shirts and underclothing. They tied these into bundles, attached numbered metal tags, and threw them into the old man’s basket.

     Durieux sponged the blood off his head by dipping his handkerchief into what was left of the coffee. He was waiting for the woman without knowing that he waited. She came, followed by the old man, and spoke to Durieux in Arabic. The woman’s calves were level with his head: she had well-shaped legs but they were slightly bandy. Durieux had read that Algerian Muslims often grew up to have legs like this as a result of malnutrition in childhood: he had even written of such things.

     Durieux was now looking closely at the woman’s legs and thinking, not of her starving childhood, but of her attractive womanhood, and of his own unsatisfied manhood.

     The woman repeated her question. When Durieux looked into her face he saw that she was still a girl really: perhaps a year or two older than himself. Her eyes became enormous: black and lustrous beneath the hood of her burnous.

     ‘Do you speak French?’ asked Durieux.

     The woman looked down into his face: she laughed and turned away. Durieux stretched out his right hand and caught her by the ankle: all that he wanted at that moment was to detain the woman and her ankle was nearest to his hand. She tried to draw her leg away, but Durieux’s grip was too firm.

     When he touched the woman’s leg a strange thing happened to Durieux: for it seemed as though his hand had acquired a will of its own: and he watched it rise higher and higher. The hand travelled up the woman’s leg, rested in the warm hollow behind her knee, and then resumed its progress up her thigh. The woman struck at the hand, vainly, and then stood quite still. Durieux realized that the hand, his own, was now embedded in the soft flesh inside the woman’s thigh. Durieux was surprised at the behaviour of his own hand.

     The elderly Muslim came up and shouted in Durieux’s face; he waved his right fist and then began to speak in French.

     ‘Not good,’ said the old man. ‘This is not good. This is not a good thing at all you do. No just. Not permitted. This good woman. Take your hand away, please. Not good. Please to take hand away, sir. Not good. I make much trouble if you not take away your hand, sir.’

     ‘Shut up,’ said Durieux.

     Durieux realized that the paras had turned their backs to the fire and were watching him: the flickering light of the fire recorded no expression on their faces: they were simply watching. Durieux realized that they were not moralizing upon the matter: they were simply assessing his reaction to the old man’s threat; they were judging the situation by their own standards.

     He released the woman’s thigh and spiralled to his feet. His head was throbbing wildly and he steadied himself by an enormous effort of will. The old man opened his mouth: perhaps to voice his thanks. Durieux struck the old man across the Adam’s apple with the heel of his hand; this was how Durieux had been taught to strike an enemy in the unarmed combat lessons he had received at the parachutists’ primary training school; and he wished that he had remembered to strike Rossi in that way.

     The old man gave a choked cry and dropped his head. The basket fell from his grasp, spilling out the dirty linen. The nape of the old man’s neck was exposed as he fell: Durieux rabbit-punched the neck and the old man pitched to the ground, as Durieux had so recently done, where he lay still.

     The eyes of the woman had grown even greater during the fight, but she had not moved, nor cried out. Now she screamed and fled. She was a poor runner: Durieux pursued and easily overtook her. He tripped the woman with his foot and she fell forward upon her face. Durieux knelt upon her: he drove his right hand up between her sweating thighs and twisted his fingers amid the pubic hair. The woman whimpered and lay still, all her muscles slack.

     ‘I’m going to have you, chicken,’ Durieux told her. ‘Do you understand me?’

     The woman said nothing and Durieux turned her over so that she lay upon her back. He forced her legs wide apart: the palms of her hands were pressed flat against the earth. She was panting.

     A hand fell upon Durieux’s straining shoulder and turning, he saw, with complete indifference, that Rossi was standing behind him.

     ‘You’ve got a nerve,’ said Rossi. ‘You can’t do the woman out here. If an officer passed by he might feel himself forced to interfere. He might even take her for himself.’

     ‘She’s mine,’ said Durieux. ‘I’m going to have her.’

     ‘Take her if you want it so badly,’ said Rossi. ‘But do it somewhere out of sight.’

     Durieux dragged the woman to her feet. She did not resist, but began to address Rossi in a quietly-impassioned voice. Durieux felt a surge of jealousy:
the first personal emotion he had felt for the woman, because he considered her to be his prize.

     ‘Shut your gob, you bitch,’ he shouted at the woman.

     ‘She says that her husband is serving France with the Army,’ said Rossi. ‘What did you tell her?’

     ‘I said in that case he shouldn’t mind his wife also doing a little service for France.’

     ‘Bugger your husband,’ Durieux told the woman, ‘and bugger the French Army. I’m a para and I’m going to do you.’

     ‘That’s putting the thing plainly,’ said Rossi. ‘I hope you realize you could go inside for this? It might even mean a court-martial.’

     ‘To hell with it,’ said Durieux.

     ‘So long as you realize what you’re doing.’

     ‘I’ll chance it.’

     Rossi walked back to the fire, where the paras waited silently for him to speak, desiring his verdict.

     ‘The boy’s as randy as a goat,’ announced Rossi. ‘He’s determined to have the woman, so good luck to him, I say. I like his spirit. He’s gone so far now that there’ll probably be trouble anyway, so let him have his fun and let’s all join in. The only way to play this thing safe is for us all to have a bash. The colonel can’t send the whole stick to Colomb-Bechar, not for a little thing like poking a Muslim tart. So what do you say, lads?’

     ‘I say poke her,’ said someone. ‘It’s a good way of keeping warm on a cold night.’

     ‘Then let’s rape in comfort,’ said Rossi. ‘We’ll fix up a light in the back of one of the trucks. Yours will do, Lustac, because you’ve got a portable spotlight. It’s always more fun to be able to see what one is riding. I’ll donate my meat sack and we’ll do the thing well. The paras always violate women in style.’

     They all rose and went to one of the fifteen-hundredweight lorries. The driver uncoupled the cord of his portable spotlight and hung it from the iron framework that supported the canvas roof. Rossi spread his sleeping bag on the iron floor. The other paras gathered about the tailboard: they were already awaiting their turn with the woman.

     Durieux found himself standing beneath the tailboard among them, holding the woman’s hand as though they were lovers. He had held the hand of a girl in Paris, in much the same way, only a week before, and now he was reminded of it. Durieux began to shake uncontrollably: he was beginning to wish that he had never touched the Muslim woman.

     ‘Up you go,’ Rossi said to him, ‘and don’t take all night over it. Remember there’s thirty willing lads out here waiting to finish what you begin.’

     Durieux handed the woman up into the back of the truck: he thought it strange that so courtly an act should precede her violation. Then he pulled himself up after because, at the sight of the woman lifting her legs over the tailboard, the paras had already begun to lose patience. He looked back over the tailboard and saw the expectant faces massed in the darkness.

     ‘Lower the canvas if you’re feeling bashful,’ suggested Maréchal.

     Durieux slipped the webbing bands that held the canvas furled: it unfolded stiffly. He did not look into Maréchal’s eyes. As the canvas fell, the paras raised an ironic cheer.

     It was almost with reluctance that Durieux turned to the woman. She was lying on the sleeping bag: her clothes were drawn up above naked thighs and her legs were spread wide. The woman’s eyes were like coals igniting within the heat of a fire.

     ‘What are you waiting for?’ she asked in French. ‘Get on with it. Do you think this has never happened to me before?’

     ‘You bitch,’ said Durieux. He knelt upon the opened thighs and slapped her lightly across the cheeks. ‘Why did you make all that fuss?’

     ‘Because I knew that I would have thirty men, not just one, on top of me before the night was over. How do you think I shall feel in the morning? And why did you have to strike my father? He is an old man. You could have paid him money for me, couldn’t you? But you must hit him. You Frenchmen. You French soldier. You para.’

     ‘I’m sorry,’ said Durieux.

     ‘What’s the matter?’ she jeered. ‘Are you frightened? Did you never have a woman before? Are you really a man?’

     ‘I’ll show you whether I’m a man or not,’ promised Durieux.

     When it was over, Durieux lay exhausted and began to kiss the woman. She smoothed the hair back from his forehead and wiped it clean of sweat with her sleeve. She was smiling.

     Then Rossi pushed his head beneath the canvas.

     ‘Come on, Durieux,’ shouted Rossi. ‘One bash is all you’re allowed. Share and share alike with the woman and the risk. That’s equality for you. And don’t make a meal of it.’

     ‘Get stuffed,’ said Durieux.

     ‘That’s just what I can’t do while you’re still on the job.’

     ‘I’m coming.’

     He stood up slowly, fastening his flies and not looking down for fear of seeing the woman’s face.

     ‘Goodbye, you para you,’ she said.

     Durieux was about to reply when Rossi’s head again appeared under the canvas.

     ‘Are you knotted in her or something?’ asked Rossi.

     ‘I’ve done with her,’ said Durieux. ‘She’s all yours, Rossi.’

     He went to the back of the truck, lifted the canvas, and vaulted over the tailboard.

     ‘You made the whole truck rock, you young goat,’ shouted Rossi.

     ‘I could see the springs flexing,’ said Lustac. ‘They weren’t designed for that sort of treatment.’

     ‘You must have had an embarkation leave before you came to Algeria,’ said someone else. ‘Fancy having all that lead left in your pencil.’

     ‘Perhaps he was saving his load to make Algeria French,’ said Maréchal, showing his big white teeth.

     ‘I’ll do my best,’ promised Durieux.

     He walked slowly back to the fire: there was plenty of room now that all the paras were waiting by the tailboard. He added some fresh logs and carelessly kicked the embers into renewed life with the rubber soles of his jumping boots. He wondered what the quarter-master would have to say when he handed them in for repair. Then he threw himself down by the blaze. He was now very tired, almost dazed and dreaming, but he noted with surprise that his head had ceased to ache.

     Rossi came back to the fire and sprawled beside the flames. He kicked something over to Durieux.

     ‘Take that.’

     ‘What is it?’ asked Durieux, too tired to turn his head.

     ‘A spare canteen: you’ve earned it.’

     ‘Thank you.’

     Then Maréchal came and sat on Durieux’s other side. Something appeared to be troubling him, for Durieux could see his eyes rolling in the darkness.

     ‘Mohammed,’ called Maréchal. ‘Are you there, Mohammed?’

     The old Muslim, whom Durieux had struck, came into the firelight. He carried his head stiffly, inclined to one side. Durieux was relieved to see the old man alive; but he avoided his eyes.

     ‘I want five francs from each of you for the old man,’ said Maréchal. ‘No, ten francs from you, Durieux, because you started the trouble and had first bash at the woman. Fair enough?’

     ‘New francs or old?’ asked Rossi, whose eyes were closed.

     ‘New francs, you miserable bastard,’ said Maréchal.

     ‘Bugger off,’ said Rossi, giving him the coins.

     Durieux also paid, but silently. Maréchal added his own five francs and then turned to the old man.

     ‘Listen, Mohammed,’ he said. ‘I’ve arranged to make a collection for you and your daughter, so each of the lads will pay you five francs. That will make one hundred and fifty francs in all. You must divide that with your daughter because you have both suffered equally. That’s fair enough, isn’t it?’

     The old man replied in Arabic: his voice was high and he gesticulated a great deal.

     ‘If you went to the colonel and complained he would laugh at you,’ Maréchal told the old man. ‘If you went to general headquarters in Algiers you might get five hundred francs, or you might get nothing. In any case, you would have to bear the expense of the journey, the trouble of legal proceedings for you and your daughter, and even if you won it would be at least a year before you got any money. Moreover, the paras would cease to give you their dirty washing so you would lose business. Now I’m offering you seventy-five new francs apiece. I know that’s not a fortune, but you’ve been beaten before, and as for your slut of a daughter, well, she’s been shagged before. What she’s had tonight will just help to satisfy her until her man gets back.’

     ‘There is no call to insult my daughter,’ said the old man. ‘She has been unfortunate: that is all. I will take the money.’

     The old man took the coins. He hobbled over to the queue behind the truck with his left hand outstretched, for that hand was already unclean to him as a Muslim. The other paras had already been briefed by Maréchal and, as each man descended from the truck, there was a chink of coins.

     ‘Mind you divide the money equally with your daughter,’ called Maréchal. ‘I shall ask her tomorrow if she received her share and, if you keep one franc of her money for yourself, you’ll get a beating from me for nothing.’

     ‘I shall not cheat her,’ the old man shouted, in French, so that all might understand. ‘What do you think I am? Do you not think it bad enough for me to take money for my daughter’s body? Do you think that I would also cheat her?’

     None of the paras attempted to answer the old man.

     Presently they were all back about the fire and there was still room for Durieux. The driver, Lustac, helped the Muslim woman descend from his truck and she went limping off into the darkness with her father. The old man had recovered the basket of dirty washing: he supported his daughter with one arm and carried the basket in the crook of the other.

     Lustac uncoupled the spotlight from the back of the truck and stowed it away, before refurling the canvas at the back. Then he came over to the fire with the sleeping bag and threw it to Rossi.

     ‘What a shambles,’ said Rossi, holding it at arm’s length. ‘I think I’ll sleep on the grass tonight; otherwise I might wake up and find myself pregnant.’

     Durieux took the party card from his breast pocket. He held it high above the fire, so that all might recognize the card for what it was. The paras were watching, not looking directly at the card, but again sitting in judgement.

     Durieux parted his fingers and allowed the card to fall into the flames. It blazed briefly; then charred to a grey film. He took a stick from the fire and destroyed the ash.

     Durieux was twenty-two years old at the time of this incident. He had been six years in the party. He had been six months a para.