Free The Mysteries of Algiers by Robert Irwin

– had no idea what use it would be. This ledge is narrow and goes up to the ceiling. I suppose that it was created by irregular boxing in of the laundry pipes. It is two foot wide, four foot long and about three foot high. It is not going to be comfortable. Indeed it resembles the detention cells we use for other ranks. I am going to spend the night here. While legionnaires tramp below I have time to think. It is all I have.
    Now what the hell do I do? I listen to the legionnaires passing below me. Their snippets of conversation do not help. They have not been told much of anything really. They don’t know what has happened to the colonel or to me. We have not been seen. The gates of the fort are closed. All leave is cancelled. Most of the reconnaissance patrols have been cancelled too.
    I stretch out on the ledge and think. It is my curse that I always think several things at once. So I think how am I ever going to come off this ledge and get out of here. But I also go over the events at the security meeting and I think about Chantal. There are never less than two chains of thought running simultaneously.
    In the last three days I have tortured a man and then murdered him. I have killed three others. The colonel I sort of respected and liked and murdered. But murder is not murder when it is committed by an agent of the people. It is an execution. I have also systematically betrayed the woman I was sleeping with. But I consider myself superior to a woman like Chantal. I can appreciate her and her values. In a way I admire them I suppose, but I am also opposed to them.
    Many a schoolboy would see nothing wrong in Chantal’s oath to carry the values of D’Artagnan on into the twentieth century – quite the contrary. But this requires a little thought. What are D’Artagnan’s values? He is a royalist. Chantal is a royalist. In Chantal’s eyes there has been no legitimate government in France since 21 October 1791. D’Artagnan is an old-fashioned Catholic. Chantal is an old-fashioned Catholic. He is a traditionalist. Chantal is a traditionalist. They are both fervent patriots. D’Artagnan believed in taking justice into his own hands, for did he not supervise the execution of Milady de Winter? Chantal and her friends see nothing wrong in that too. The sword, the axe and the horse are their symbols. Their blood and their faith have given them the right to rule over the Arabs.
    In the dark shadow world of Chantal and D’Artagnan, we stand on the edge of a forest which seems to stretch into infinity and we are filled with unassuageable yearnings. Deep in the forest we dimly glimpse the candlelit windows of a chapel. Smoke from a peasant’s cottage straggles across the face of the moon. There is the premonitory sound of a huntsman’s horn, and then another and another, and we see the horsemen flickering between the trees on the fringes of the forest, cavaliers in scarlet capes fringed with gold. Steel helmets glint gold under the torchlight, silver under the moonshine. The white banner with the golden lilies of France has been unfurled. The oriflamme has been presented to the virginal bride who stands before the altar in the forest chapel. What are we yearning for? Sacred mysteries? Or old simplicities?
    So Chantal, toiling over badly cyclostyled records in a jerry-built office block in dusty Algiers, dreams of a marriage of the blood and the soil. But for myself, I am for the sullen peasants who watch these cavaliers ride by. When surly Jacques stands his ground and refuses to doff his cap to the fine huntsmen, I am shoulder to shoulder with Jacques.
    To get out of here, I might move to the edge of the ledge. Then, when one of the troopers comes down the corridor, I might drop on him, overpower him without a sound, drag him into the laundry room, put on his uniform. Then with the képi pulled deep over my face, I would march across the parade square and talk my way through the gate. That’s ludicrous. It is not so very