Back to the cell window.
Ten minutes to eight…
From somewhere in the distance he heard a few words of command and the steady thud of marching feet. But he could not see from whence it came. Perhaps it was his execution squad. They must have fallen in by now.
More feet. But these were closer and there were not so many of them. They were approaching along the stone corridor outside his cell. He turned and gazed at the door.
Another sound. This time, the slap of a hand against the magazine of a rifle. That would be the sentry sloping arms. A muffled voice. The door was being unlocked.
It seemed to open very slowly. In a half crouching position, Tovak pressed himself against the wall. For a moment, he could not see very well. Sweat had oozed from his forehead and on to his eyeballs. He blinked to clear them.
Captain Monclaire was standing in front of him. And behind the captain, two corporals.
The sight of his company officer made Tovak suddenly feel a little stronger, a little braver. Monclaire had that effect on men.
Monclaire said: “Any requests, legionnaire?”
It was a formal question, spoken formally.
“None, mon capitaine.”
Tovak was surprised by his own voice. It sounded harsh and utterly unfamiliar. As though some strange and earthbound spirit had taken control of his vocal chords.
“No further letters?”
“I wrote my last letter yesterday, mon capitaíne.”
That had been his letter to Annice. The letter, which had told her that they would never meet again.
Monclaire nodded. Then he said more softly: “Your time has come. It will be easier if you have courage. With courage, all things become easier…”
He hesitated, as if uncertain. It was unusual for the normally precise and confident Frenchman.
Then he added: “There is a saying that cowards die many times in their lives. But the valiant taste of death but once. It may help just a little if you remember it.”
Tovak recalled the phrase. It emerged from among the dim and muddled memories of his schooldays. And perhaps it was true. How many times had he suffered all the terrors of death in this cell? Could the reality be as terrible as the anticipation? Probably not. Tovak felt something akin to courage start flowing through his veins.
He was almost glad when the two corporals fell in on each side of him and, with Monclaire leading, they marched out into the parade ground.
The sun was rising fast, but as yet it did no more than hint at the full heat of the day. The air had a clean sparkle. It reminded Tovak of the early summer in Bohemia, when he had spent a holiday with Annice on the lush banks of the Elbe…
They moved towards the rifle range. It was there that all such business was transacted, with a human being serving as the target.
They were ready for him. Magnificently ready. Tovak found himself studying the preparations for his own end with real curiosity.
In front of the high wall, shielded with sandbags to a height of nine feet, a wood stake had been driven into the ground. Twenty paces from the stake the firing squad was assembled, with a lieutenant on the right flank. Tovak thought: “They look worried and nervous. They don’t want to kill me. Everyone is sorry for me. But no one can do anything about it because the military law says I must die.”
They halted facing the stake.
Monclaire made a signal with his hands. Tovak turned round. One of the corporals seized his wrists and strapped them to the wood. The other did the same with his ankles. The bonds were too tight. But that, Tovak told himself, was only a temporary inconvenience.
He looked again at the firing squad. They were at the repos position and they were fingering the barrels of their Lebels uneasily. Those rifles had been loaded for them by the lieutenant—a single round in the breech of each, one of them a blank. Which was a pretty farce. A farce because it utterly failed in its object of making it impossible for any one of the eight men to know for certain that he had helped to kill. The theory was that each man could say to himself: “I might have had the blank.”
But in fact any trained legionnaire knew the moment he squeezed the trigger whether he was firing a loaded cartridge. A blank had practically no recoil.
Tovak turned his attention to Monclaire. The captain was pulling a length of black linen from a side pocket. Tovak was glad of the darkness when it was wrapped round his eyes.
He was blind now. But his other senses were very much alive. He heard the retreating feet of Monclaire and the two corporals. Then he heard them stop after they had taken a dozen paces. He heard the lieutenant clear his throat. He heard the first command: “Gare a vous!”
Then the click of the squad coming to attention. Another order, and Tovak knew they had their Lebels pressed against their shoulders. They would be taking first pressure on the triggers and peering along the leaf sights.
Suddenly Tovak thought: “I’m no longer afraid… I must be a brave man…”
Clong!
It was the clock. He had heard the clock again. The timing was good. But then the Legion always timed everything well. And he was glad he had been able to hear that mournful chime again. It was like a funeral toll. Very fitting.
He heard the last command clearly enough. And he thought: “The lieutenant’s voice is shaking,” He even heard the volley of the Lebels in the infinitesimal moment before he died…
CHAPTER 2
THE WOMAN
Evening in Sadazi. The eternal evening of Morocco. Stars so clear and so bright that a man feels he has only to stretch up to grasp them. The whole of the sky a diamond-clustered cloak. A cool breeze sweeping westwards from the blue mass of the Atlas Mountains.
The clock chimed over the barracks.
Clong!
It had sounded eleven times since the moment when Tovak heard it for the last time. Now Tovak lay in a shallow and undistinguished grave, amid many similar graves. But his story had not ended. Sometimes, by the single and inevitable act of dying, a man can start a chain of strange events. Events more important than anything for which he was responsible when he lived.
It was so with Tovak, the Czech.
And to follow them, we must leave the barracks. We strike north, walking through the small European area. Then into the much larger native quarter of the town. At first, the streets are comparatively wide. This is where the more prosperous Arabs live. But after a few minutes they narrow into mere alleys, bounded on either side by overhanging sandstone hovels and occasional cafés and wineshops. It is here that the legionnaires seek relaxation. It is here and in one of the wineshops that we must pause…
Legionnaire Rex Tyle held his glass of Algerian wine to the light. Then, as though facing grim duty, he put it to his lips.
The thin red liquid went down in a couple of swift and audible gulps. That done, Rex leaned his elbows on the table. There was an unaccustomed note of strain in his usually forthright American voice.
“I didn’t like it, Pete,” he said to the broad shouldered, blond legionnaire who was sitting opposite him. “It was no blank that was in my Lebel, and I don’t go for killing a guy like Tovak.”
Pete Havers smiled without humour.
“You’re not alone in that. I was in the firing squad, too. And I didn’t have the blank, either. It was a filthy job, but it’s best to forget about it.”
There was a touch of cynicism in Pete’s cultured and very English tones.
Rex said: “Hell… even a Limey can’t forget a thing like that. Ain’t you got no feelings?”
Rex tried to sound indignant, but he did not succeed. He knew that Pete’s apparent indifference was no more than a projection of his natural reserve. And, in turn, Pete knew that Rex’s more volatile personality was deeply upset by the macabre event of that morning.