That Devil's Madness (19 page)

‘Pretty, isn't she?' the man in the next bed said. ‘She was the first thing I saw when they brought me here. I thought I'd gone to heaven and she was one of the angels. The name's Joseph, by the way.'

Louis smiled weakly. ‘Louis. How long have I been here?'

‘Few days. They weren't sure you were going to make it at first, but you did okay once they drugged you up. How're you feeling now?'

‘Tired.'

‘Well, that's to be expected. When I first came here I was sure…'

But Louis had already fallen asleep.

#

When they stopped the morphine Louis thought he would die. Cold one minute and hot the next, his nose ran and his stomach cramped, and he couldn't control the twitching of his legs. He vomited constantly, but worst of all was the constant liquid diarrhoea over which he had no control – never had he felt so ashamed as when the nurses changed him. Days blended into nights and separated again, until one morning he found he could eat a little and keep that down. His stomach no longer cramped and the diarrhoea stopped, but still Louis' leg wouldn't heal and he was sure they would amputate. The doctor reassured him but Louis had seen men who'd lost one or both legs, and he would watch the face of nurses who debrided his leg each day, looking for a change of expression, a sign that his leg too had become gangrenous.

One day a nurse brought him a cup of coffee and a letter from Therèse. He leaned back against his pillows and unfolded the sheets of paper –
fields left fallow from lack of men … influenza epidemic … our four youngest, our beautiful babies, struck down. Marius also … Gilbert and Antoine, staying with Bernadette, escaped infection … Francois and Marius recovered but very weak … little Theódore and Etienne, and their baby brother Pierre, were buried beside each other by the chestnut trees …
Louis' hand shook. He knew he should react, cry, but it was as if all his tears had been sucked out of his body to form the mud of Verdun. His hand shook harder and drops of coffee split over the edge of the cup onto his hand, gathered down to his wrist where they clung for an instant, then dropped onto the letter, smearing the ink into the tears he was unable to shed.

#

Imez received four day's furlough and came to see him, and Louis was shocked to hear his friend was still at the Front. Imez had lost his eldest son and little daughter in the influenza epidemic, and this time the two men were able to talk about that.

One day, they brought in a man and his dog. That a man had taken his dog to war caused a stir in the ward, but when Louis heard the whole story, he could only marvel. The man was from Algeria, and had had no intention of taking his dog with him to the front, but when the ship took his master from him, the dog had jumped into the sea and swum to follow him. They'd hauled the dog on board, and he'd followed his master to the trenches. When a German shell buried the man in mud the dog had dug him out, then run for help, so that now no one could possibly think of separating the two companions. The dog lived in the hospital kitchen, and the nurses took him for a walk each day, bringing him to his master for a visit every afternoon.

At night, when the lights were out and the only sounds that could be heard were the moans of men fighting demons, and the coughing fits of gas victims, Louis thought of Imez pulling him through the icy mud, saving his life, even though many said an Algerian would rather stab a Frenchman in the back than help him. And he remembered Merzoug teaching a young boy to read the land. And because he no longer believed in prayer, he wished instead, and what he wished most was that this war really be
la der des ders –
the last of the last.

Then one day the doctors decided he was strong enough to be moved to a hospital in Paris. There, they explained, he would need an operation on his leg. They explained that they believed he had a
cul-de-sac
wound, common in those times when a piece of shell or shrapnel would take with it a minute piece of filth-soaked uniform, which would become dislodged during the arduous trip to the aid station, or the bumping of ambulances on shell-holed roads. While they'd removed the piece of shell, they now suspected there may be a tiny piece of cloth wedged in the broken bone, which prevented his leg from healing. It had formed a track of pus around the bone, putting pressure on the break. To save his leg, they'd have to re-break the bone and removed a section of it, and the Paris hospital was better equipped to do this.

#

When Louis came out of the anaesthetic he felt for his leg. It was still there. The wound had been drained and cleaned, and would heal, but the bone was now shorter – he would walk with a limp. But that didn't bother him, for he felt reborn. That night, for the first time in many months, he slept without dreaming.

He took interest in the goings on of the ward, and read the newspapers, becoming more and more appalled with the propaganda written there. When he read in the
Petit Journal
that some of the ‘accommodation at Verdun was fairly comfortable', and included central heating and electricity, he threw down the paper in disgust and cursed all journalists. He waited for the day they would remove the splint and he could get up and walk again.

When that morning finally arrived, it turned into an unimpressive event. He put his good leg to the floor, and with the help of a cane rose from the edge of the bed. Took a step forward. The room spun. Darkened. He fainted.

He tried again that afternoon, and everyday walked a little further. He had a pronounced limp, and couldn't manage without a cane, but at least he still had both his legs. More worrying to him was the constant shortness of breath brought on by the slightest exertion, but the doctors weren't worried – after all, he'd been lying in bed for months so it was to be expected, and would improve in time. Meanwhile, his soldiering days were over – after two years of fighting, he was finally going home.

#

On the 11
^th
of November of the next year Therèse gave birth to a long awaited daughter, and Louis fluctuated between elation and despair. At last a girl had been born to the family, a child that to Louis personified all that was good and pure and innocent, but the world was still at war. Men were still crawling through blood-soaked mud and finding security beneath the decomposing corpses of their brothers, and that Louis could not forget. He would gently touch his finger to the little clenched fist of this daughter they had named Odette, and when she grasped his finger in return, he would promise her that he would always protect her.

As the months passed, he spoiled her more and more, unashamedly. He was still too weak to do more than the simplest jobs around the farm, and so would often look after Odette while Therèse, Marius and the boys went out at dawn to return, exhausted, at sunset.

Marius understood that Odette's innocence was a balm to Louis' demons, and so in his eyes the child was a blessing. Therèse fluctuated between worrying that Louis was spoiling the child too much, and being thankful Odette was helping Louis forget the war. Gilbert, Antoine and Francois, now young boys of twelve, nine and eight respectively, saw their new sister as a doll to be played with at the end of long back-breaking days. Odette would smile and gurgle any time one of her brothers entered the room, so that each believed himself to be her very favourite.

A year later they celebrated Odette's first birthday with cake and a day off work, while in a railway carriage parked at Compiègne in northern France, Germany signed an end to the war.

16

On the morning of Wednesday December 20th, Madame Lesage knocked on Steven's door.

‘Is she gone?'

‘
Oui.
Gone to the press office, just as you said she would.'

Steven nodded; Nicolette's behaviour was becoming predictable. When she'd learnt the previous day of the massive blackout that was crippling all of France, as well as part of Britain, she'd paced up and down the pressroom in front of the telex machines, sure she was missing out on some vital piece of news. No amount of coaxing from Steven convinced her to leave. He'd even tried to pull rank, reminding her that she was here to get
Algerian
stories, and that what was happening in France should be of no concern to her, but she'd insisted she had a feeling that this was no ordinary blackout, and Steven was learning not to argue with her ‘feelings' – he would never win. It was only when he told her about an interview he'd arranged with one of Boumedienne's staff that she agreed to leave the pressroom and accompany him. That she had made straight for the pressroom again this morning was no surprise to him.

‘But the blackout,' the woman continued, ‘it's over. She'll not be gone long.' She handed Steven a shopping bag. ‘It's all as you asked.'

When Lesage left, Steven went to the phone in the hall and rang the
Crédit Populair d'Algérie,
to check whether a transfer of funds he was expecting had been deposited into Frank Taylor's account. Back in his room, he locked the door and closed the curtains, then put on a pair of leather gloves. From the shopping bags he withdrew an ordinary briefcase. He checked for a receipt, read it and put it in the shopping bag. He removed the label from the handle of the briefcase and put it with the receipt. Then he checked the briefcase inside and out. Satisfied that there were no markings, he put it to one side. And as he worked he quietly whistled Lennon's
Imagine
. He hid the shopping bag with the receipt and tag under his pillow, opened the curtains and left his room via the French doors, carrying the briefcase. A short while later he reached the
Crédit Populair d'Algérie

#

Steven walked down the street where Madame Lesage's house was situated, turned a corner and entered a tobacconist. He bought a packet of cigarettes and walked back the way he'd come. Satisfied the street was empty, he went into the garden then his room via the French doors.

The briefcase contained a number of newspapers with a large envelope hidden between them. He opened this and took two wads of US notes – $20,000 in all. He removed $5000, put the rest of the money back in the envelope and hid it once more amongst the newspapers. Locked the briefcase and put it on the floor by his bed. The key he put on the bedside table. Then, from the money he had removed, he put $500 in each of two envelopes, one for Madame Lesage, the other to Amoud, his driver, and put these beside the key. The rest he would need for the next few days' expenses. That done, he removed his gloves and waited.

The knock came just a few minutes later. ‘Someone to see you.'

He opened the door. A woman, totally covered by the white
haik
and veil the women of Algiers favoured, stood behind Lesage. Steven opened the door wider and pointed to the briefcase. The woman picked it up, as well as the key, and with a nod to them both, left.

Steven gave Lesage the shopping bag from under his pillow. ‘Burn this,' he said. She nodded, then went to the bedside table and pocketed the envelopes. ‘Can you take it to Amoud now?'

Again Lesage nodded. The front door slammed and Nicolette came hurrying in.

‘I told you, didn't I?' She brushed past Lesage, brandishing a newspaper. ‘I knew something was going on.'

‘What, in France?'

‘Well, no. I was wrong about the place, but look.
Le Monde
got the story.'

‘Make sense, will you?'

‘Yesterday in
Le Monde.
They had an item about an arms-drop gone wrong. I told you Jean-Paul was on to something.'

‘In France?'

‘No, here. Listen:
Benyahia Mohamed Sadek – ex soldier of French army – maquisard – double agent – 48 years old – tea salon in centre of Algiers –
that's here, Steven. Here.
Five accomplices – Kabyle coast – parachuted from Hercules C-130. Arms, explosives and munitions.
Why didn't
we
know about this?'

‘Well, if it happened yesterday…'

‘It didn't – not all of it, anyway. They're only reporting it now. It was on the night of the 10
^th
to 11
^th
. Why didn't we know? We should have listened to Jean-Paul.'

‘Well, for a start, we were still in Marseille that night.'

‘It gets worse, listen.
Journalists taken to see arms and security of area Tuesday 19
^th
December. In Constantine.
That's yesterday.' She threw the newspaper on the bed. ‘We should have been there, Steven. Why didn't we know? DJ must have known about this. Why didn't he tell us? I'm sure it's linked to that runner Jean-Paul was telling me about, and they haven't caught him yet. We could have gone, instead of interviewing that idiot you found who didn't have anything to say anyway.'

‘Okay, calm down. Jean-Paul didn't say anything either.'

‘Jean-Paul's in Egypt till tomorrow.'

‘Well, it's no big deal. You're getting way too excited over this whole thing.'

‘I want to go to Constantine.'

‘We'll go. Maybe when Boumedienne—'

‘No, not “when” anything. Now.'

‘You're been ridiculous.'

‘No, I'm not. Look, we don't know how much longer Boumedienne's going to last. Could be days, could be weeks. If we fly, we can get to Constantine in just over an hour. We can be there and back in no time.'

‘Get real, Nicky. You really think you're going to waltz into a town that you haven't been in since you were a kid, ask a few questions, and find out all about this supposed gunrunner? The only thing you'll achieve is getting yourself killed.'

‘I know it's not that easy – I'm not totally stupid! But I could find Jamilah, ask for her help. She'd know people, she'd help.'

Steven sighed. It was obvious she wasn't going to let this go.