The Centurions by Jean Lartéguy Page A

enough persuading him to surrender, and now he’s starting all over again. But all I ask is to understand this popular republic of theirs. That’s the only line to take, now that it’s all over and we can’t do a thing about it.”
    Esclavier did not stop there. This time, fortunately, he spoke for himself:
    â€œI refuse to push the Jeep. You can look upon that as my personal choice. I would rather be killed on the spot than die by slow degrees, demean myself and perhaps become corrupted in your narrow universe. So please be good enough to give the orders to finish me off straightaway.”
    â€œThat’s done it,” Lacombe said to himself. “A couple of sentries will force him to his feet with their rifle-butts, drag him off to the nearest ravine and put a bullet through his head That will put an end to Captain Esclavier’s insolence.”
    But the
can-bo
did not lose his temper: he was beyond anger.
    â€œI’m an officer in the People’s Army of Viet-Nam. I have to see that President Ho’s orders are properly carried out. We are poor; we haven’t many medical facilities or clothing or rice. First of all we’ve got to provide our own combatants with supplies and ammunition. But you will be treated in the same way as the men of our people in spite of your crimes against humanity. President Ho has asked the people of Viet-Nam to forgive you because you have been led astray and I shall give orders to the soldiers guarding you . . .”
    This speech was so impersonal, so mechanical, that it suggested the voice of an old priest saying Mass. Lescure, who was once a choir-boy and had just woken up, responded quite naturally: “Amen.” Then he burst out into a long strident laugh which ended up in a sort of breathless panting.
    â€œMy comrade has gone mad,” said Esclavier.
    The Vietminh had a primitive horror of madmen, of whom it is said that the
mah-quis
* have devoured their brain. The people’s democracy and the declarations of President Ho were of no more avail to him. The darkness was suddenly thronged with all the absurd phantoms of his childhood, with that seething populace that inhabits the waters, the earth and the heavens and never leaves man alone and in peace for an instant. The
mah-quis
slip through the mouths of children, they try to steal the souls of the dead.
    He was frightened but, so as not to show his fear, he said a few words to one of the sentries and went back to his Jeep. He switched on the engine; the prisoners all round him started to push. The wheels lifted out of the ditch, the engine started purring; all the
mah-quis
of darkness were exorcized forthwith by the reassuring sound of the machine, that brutal music of Marxist society.
    â€œ
Di-di
,” said the sentries, as they led the prisoners back, “now you can sleep.”
    Â â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢Â 
    The
mah-quis
had devoured Lescure’s brain. During the week before the surrender the lieutenant had not stopped taking maxiton pills, which were included with the rations, and had eaten very little proper food. Lescure had a thin, lanky body, blotchy skin and lacklustre hair. There was nothing to qualify him for an army career. But he was the son of a colonel who had been killed on the Loire in 1940 . One of his brothers had been executed by the Germans and another was condemned to a wheelchair ever since receiving a shell burst in the spinal column at Cassino.
    Unlike his father and two brothers, all robust military animals, Yves Lescure delighted in a mild form of anarchy. He was fond of music, the companionship of friends, old books with fine bindings. As a token of loyalty to the memory of his father, he had gone to Coetquidan School, and of those two years spent in the damp marshes of Brittany, among somewhat limited but efficient and disciplined creatures, he retained a depressing memory of an endless succession of practical jokes and