John Robb - I Shall Avenge!

“You are not looking in the right direction, capitaine . See…”

She was pointing beyond the Arabs and slightly to the left of them. He was puzzled. He saw only the distant and shabby façade of a familiar building.

“There’s only the hotel there, madame .”

“And who live in the hotel?”

He glanced at her cautiously.

“European residents, mostly. Also a few tourists who are stupid enough to make a camel trek out here. But you know that.”

“Yes, I know. But I’ll be more precise. There are twenty-two white people in the Hotel Afrique at this moment, including eight women and five children.”

“I’m aware of it.”

“And the hotel has just been occupied by a strong force of armed Touaregs. Were you aware of that?”

Tobacco smoke caught in his throat. He coughed compulsively and was ashamed at the betrayal of emotion. When he had recovered, he said, as casually as he could: “Then they will soon be put out of the hotel. And they will be answerable to a military court. That hotel is reserved to white residents.”

“Your knowledge of recent events is as outmoded as your conception of racial privileges, monsieur capitaine . You see, the entire twenty-two residents are prisoners of the Touareg people. They are confined to the hotel…

“And, capitaine , understand this—unless the garrison quit Sadazi by midnight they will be killed! All of them will die. The women and the children, perhaps, will die quickly. The men may be less fortunate.”

Her words were delivered without special emphasis. They came as an indisputable statement of fact. Like a simple mathematical equation.

Monclaire felt her eyes upon him. He turned to meet the challenge. She was smiling. But, by some weird physical perversion, the smile had taken away her beauty. It was transitory, but it was nonetheless ghastly. Monclaire felt a desire to shudder. Suddenly she had become the negation of all that was traditionally implied by the term woman.

He said: “If you have really been so wicked as to mislead the Arabs into taking such a course, then you will pay dearly, Madame Tovak. And so will the Arabs. It will be a matter of a few moments for me to send a patrol to the hotel to ensure the safety of the Europeans.”

Monclaire moved back towards the desk. His hand went out to the handbell there. He intended to send for Lieutenant Gina and give the necessary orders immediately.

But her voice stopped him.

She said: “If you do that, the Europeans will be killed immediately. They will be killed before your wretched patrol has left the barracks. And their bodies will be spiked on your barrack railings for all to see.”

A paralysis seized Monclaire. It froze and made useless each bodily muscle. His hand remained outstretched. It was as though he were posing in a grotesque charade. Only gradually did mobility return. And only after deliberate effort. A heavy drum beat in his brain. It thumped out a message that said: “ It’s the truth … it’s the truth …”

He knew that she was not lying. No woman could speak that way under the impetus of an empty threat.

Slowly, very slowly, he went to the chair. He slumped heavily into it. He stared at Sergeant Zatov, who was standing beside the door. The focal point of his vision was Zatov’s red beard. But he did not see either the beard or the man. He saw twenty-two civilians, eight of them women and five children, who were on the brink of being butchered. They were civilians for whose safety he, as acting commandant, was responsible.

He saw just how easy it must have been for this crazy but well educated woman to have imposed her satanic plan upon illiterate and semi-literate Arabs,

He saw how the cruel strokes of fate had helped to serve her purpose. That scene in the wineshop, which must have immediately become a sensation among the native population. The maltreatment of her in Rue St. Jean, which was witnessed by hundreds. The consequent riot in which many Arabs were killed and maimed. All this, added to the already existing unrest over the Tutana oil line, made fertile ground for one who was skilled m the craft of undercover warfare.

And it had started less than thirty-six hours before with the execution of Legionnaire Tovak. Damn Tovak! He was an insignificant fellow. He was a very frightened fellow. Yet this woman had loved him so much that she was ready to stir the cauldrons of hell to avenge his death.

She was speaking again. Her voice came from far off, as if he were listening to words spoken in a nightmare. She was saying: “I see that you understand me, capitaine . The garrison has no choice. It must leave—for I’m sure you would not want the death of so many innocents upon your hands…”

Monclaire turned his head towards her. Suddenly, his brain cleared. He cursed himself for allowing it to become dazed under shock. He had overlooked the obvious master card that he held. But he saw it now.

He said: “ Oui , I understand you very well I also know that without your influence the Arabs of Sadazi could never have conceived such evil. And without your presence, they will be lost. They are to be deprived of that presence. As I said when you first entered this room, you are under arrest. But I am not sending you to Oran for deportation. You are far too dangerous. I am holding you here, in a cell, while I prepare a report for Algiers. Further action will rest with the High Command there, but I have no doubt that it will be drastic and…”

The corpse of Major Baya was recalled to his mind.

Baya had died because he had wanted to give Algiers the full facts of the day’s riots—and more. It was vital that the Command did not know anything until the trouble had been settled. Yet, if Annice Tovak were handed over to them, the full and awful story of the riot would be revealed. There would be no chance of playing it down. And they would know that the order to depart for Tutana had been ignored…

“You are worried, capitaine ?”

Her tones mocked him as they cut across his thoughts. She added: “Perhaps you have realised that my version of what happened today would not reflect much credit on you?”

He started. She laughed.

“No, capitaine , I am not psychic. And I do not possess secret information. It is just an obvious deduction, isn’t it? But the question will not arise. Before we came into the barracks we gave very precise orders for our safety.”

He did not need to be told. He knew now what they were.

“You mean… the civilians in the hotel…”

“But exactly! If we—all three of us—do not leave here unharmed by sundown, half of the Europeans will die. The others will remain alive while you reconsider your position. It would be better to let us go, capitaine …”

For the second time that afternoon Monclaire knew absolute defeat. He thought that perhaps it was because he was fighting on unfamiliar ground. In a conflict of guns between armed men he was equal to most situations. The military arts had become almost elementary to him. He could foresee an enemy’s tactical deployments. He was seldom at a loss for the correct counter-move.

But this…

This was not an open fight. This was a fight in which the politics of blackmail, barbaric hate and shadowy subterfuge were the main factors. And in which the lives of innocent and helpless people had become the enemy’s bastion.

The evacuation of Sadazi?

Unthinkable. As well as making impossible the protection of the oil line, such a retreat might easily strike a deathblow at the entire French Colonial Empire. Under such a loss of prestige there would be unrest and uprisings throughout the African possessions from the Cameroons to Tunisia.