Monclaire turned his attention to Annice. She was standing in the roadway, calm, disinterested. His voice grated as he said: “I hope you are satisfied with your work, madame. But I am afraid you will not be able to see much more. I am going to take you back into Adaa’s house and lock you in a room.”
The Arabs sensed that a new conflict was taking place between the Legion officer and the white woman. They ceased to press forward. The medley of their tongues became momentarily still. And as a result, her voice was produced with startling clarity.
“You have made a mistake. I was prepared to come with you to the barracks, since I had no choice. But I am not prepared to be locked up like a common prisoner. There is a limit to what I can accept.”
“It is for your own safety.”
“Safety! It is not me that the Arabs are threatening, monsieur capitaine!”
Once again Monclaire found himself breathing hard.
He put a hand on her elbow, intending gently but firmly to guide her inside. She shook herself free. Her slim body was visibly trembling and tortured by fury.
“Don’t touch me—murdering swine…!”
Monclaire decided he had had enough. Hitherto, he had tried to ignore her wild insults, attributing them to a highly emotional state of grief. He was no longer prepared to make any such allowance.
He beckoned to Sergeant Zatov.
“Take her into the house,” he said. “Tie her hands and lock all doors.”
Zatov rubbed his beard. With the sun on it, it looked as if it was on fire. Looking at Monclaure, Zatov asked slowly: “Have I permission to use force, capitaine?”
Monclaire nodded. There was no time to waste on further attempts at persuasion. A swift glance showed him that the Arabs had paused. That was because they were watching what happened to the woman. When that was settled, they would press forward again. And against them the two lines of legionnaires looked pitifully, almost ridiculously, thin. If the legionnaires were not to be submerged by the mob, they would have to seize the initiative. They would have to act quickly, so as to frighten the Arabs.
Zatov extended a huge hand. It came down on Annice’s left shoulder. He gave an effortless flick of his wrist, and she was propelled round on her heels, facing the house. The two operations were completed within a second. She had no opportunity to react. Not until Zatov tried to push her forward.
Then she kicked backwards. Her shoe dug into the tender fibre just below Zatov’s knee. He grunted with pain. An ugly shadow came into his eyes.
Like most big men, Sergeant Zatov had a deceptive temperament. In the normal way he appeared to be essentially good-natured, even though he was given to blustering. But the blustering was an integral part of his function as an N.C.O. It was when he was crossed that the basic Zatov emerged—a man given to uncontrollable rages, which he afterwards regretted. It was one of those rages which had caused him to kill a man when, long ago, he was a lieutenant in the Russian army. After deserting, he had been fortunate to reach west Europe. More fortunate still, to get into the Legion. For here his of violence did not matter so much, and his experience as an officer had led him quickly to the Corporals’ School at Saida, in Algeria. Within a few months of being promoted corporal, he had received the third red galon of sergeant.
Although Zatov did not know it, there had been several occasions when his name had been considered for a Legion commission. Always it had been regretfully dismissed, his file marked “Temperamentally unstable.”
It was this instability, this wildness under provocation, which led to disaster now.
As the pain seared up his leg, Zatov felt the familiar clicking in his brain. As though the flimsy bolts of self-control were being picked away. He heard the rush of blood, as he had heard it so often before. And he became conscious of only two facts. A woman was making him seem ridiculous. The woman must suffer.
Zatov was surprisingly agile for a man of such bulk, and he demonstrated the fact now. As Annice twisted to face him, he sprang forward. The back of his right hand flicked across her face. The blow caught her slightly to one side of her forehead—and as she was already turning, the effect was to make her spin completely round before sprawling, face down, on the ground.
He stood over her, his barrel-like chest rising and falling.
But—and this was typical of Zatov—his fury had vanished. It vanished the moment that he struck her. Now he knew shame and regret. Zatov had less compunction about striking a woman than most other Europeans. He could not accept them as being on the same mental or social level as men. Yet, as he looked down on her prostrate form, he realised that his wild temper had created a situation that could be most serious both for him and the entire section.
The probability was emphasised by Monclaire. His voice cut through the fetid air.
“Sergeant Zatov! Stand away from that woman! There may be…”
His words were drowned by the Arabs.
The Arabs had been completely silent during Zatov’s attack, and for a few seconds after. Now a fresh and still more menacing roar rose from their disordered ranks. It was a roar of completely genuine rage. The white woman, they all knew, was an enemy of the Legion and a champion of their cause. Now, before their indignant eyes, she had been brutally assaulted.
On either side the Arabs were within five or six yards of the Legion files, and were again threatening to surge forward.
Monclaire switched his attention from Zatov to the immediate danger.
Because of the comparatively great width of the street, it had been necessary for the legionnaires to space out so that there was a gap of several feet between each man. The Arabs looked like infiltrating between them. Monclaire knew that if that happened the result would certainly be slaughter. Each legionnaire would be isolated and surrounded. And, realising there was little chance of being detected, plenty of the mob would be willing to push a knife into their ribs.
Monclaire waited for the tumult to die down. He counted on the fact that there was usually a brief spell of pregnant silence before any rabble made a decisive rush. That would be the vital psychological moment when counter measures would be most effective.
The silence came.
It was broken by Monclaire’s command.
“Baionetes!”
The legionnaires groped for their scabbards. There was an ugly hissing sound as each man drew twenty inches of dull carbonised steel out of a leather covering. There was a short series of clicks as the bayonets were clipped under the Lebel barrels.
“Fusil!”
The Lebels were raised to a firing position, each man cuddling the butt of his rifle into his shoulder. And at the same time there was a noise like a faint and hesitant knocking as the safety catches were pressed forward to the free position.
Then Monclaire’s voice was heard again—this time in Arabic. He spoke the awkward tongue in slow, simple phrases. But his tones had the penetrating ring of the parade ground.
“If any Arab takes so much as another step forward, the legionnaires will open fire,” he called. “Your safety is in your own hands. Leave this area immediately.”
It was both a warning to the mob and an order to the legionnaires.
And at first it seemed as though it would at least stabilise the situation until help came from the barracks, for there was an uneasy shuffling among the Arabs.
Until those in the least danger decided to be brave. Until those well removed from the front decided to make a forward rush, pushing the others towards the Lebels.