The Centurions by Jean Lartéguy Read Free Book Online Page B

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.
    â€œCaptain,” 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.
    â€œDi-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:
    â€œWe 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.

2
CAPTAIN ESCLAVIER’S SELF-EXAMINATION
    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.
    â€œDi-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