CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN

Armurerie, EMT [État-major tactique, Tactical Command Post], La Légion Étrangère, Sidi-bel-Abbès, Algeria, January 3, 1964, noon

The heat in the armory was rising by the hour and would become unbearable by mid-afternoon. The Gebirgsjägers were beginning to realize the extent of their predicament. In their crucial haste to get away from the Mossad commandoes pouring into the barracks building during the night, all they had been able to think about was getting to a defensible location and obtaining necessary arms. Now, with dry mouths, parched throats, and empty stomachs, they had to deal with other necessities.

“Why don’t they come after us?” Hugues asked.

He was sweating profusely and had soaked his Legionnaire shirt. He felt feverish.

Antoine said, “Because they don’t have to. They can just sweat us out, or starve us out, or let our thirst force us to give in and to go with them without a fight.”

“Did you find anything to eat or drink in the building when you reconnoitered?”

“No. There is no faucet for running water, not even a toilet. There is no food storage here.”

Serge asked, “So, Gruppenführer, what are our options?”

“Between slim and none,” Antoine replied with his usual candor and alacrity.

Hugues said, “What if I find a way to sneak out and see if I can find food and water or an escape route?”

“I think we should all stay together through this whole thing,” Serge said.

“Hugues has the germ of an idea, Serge. Why don’t you take first watch for any attack or suspicious activity? Hugues and I will go over every inch of the building to determine if there is a hidden tunnel, a sewer passage, or a way to sneak out to a different building. I don’t think we’re likely to find anything, but we can’t just give up.”

“Yes, sir,” Serge said, standing at attention.

Antoine and Hugues made a cursory tour of the building and determined immediately that the option of sneaking out by entering the outdoors was not feasible. The armory sat alone at the end of the parade ground with no less than fifty feet between it and any other building. By Legion regulation, the surroundings should be pristine clean and free of any debris, trash containers, garages, or vegetation. The policy had not been adhered to with anything near perfection, but they would be like sitting ducks in a shooting gallery if they tried that route. They proceeded to tear up floors and ceilings to see if there was a crawl space out of the building. There was not enough room for a man even to crawl in any under floor or above ceiling space, and none of the small spaces led anywhere except around the space itself. Their efforts on the basement floor were more work, but also somewhat more successful.

They found the fairly large utility pipes and were able to follow them to the left side of the concrete foundation walls under the floor. There was enough space around the piping that a man could slither on his belly. It would be very difficult going, but it was not impossible. The work was backbreaking and time-consuming. Both men were approaching heat exhaustion, and dehydration was beginning to take its toll.

Antoine said, “Our shifts can only be about half an hour long, or we will get exhausted and too weak to be useful. It will take a lot of time; and we have precious little of that; but let’s try. I’ll go relieve Serge, and he can do a half-hour turn.”

He removed a 100 Santeem [Fr. Centime] Dinar coin and said to Hugues, “Let’s flip for which one of us takes the next turn. After that, we will rotate digging and guard shifts among all three of us. All right?”

“No problem.”

They flipped, and Hugues won. Antoine would take over digging in half an hour, and Serge would go next, then Hugues again. Hugues lay down on the concrete floor and was asleep in minutes. Serge—the strongest of all of them—came down the steps and began the arduous task of making a tunnel to the foundation wall. He moved much more quickly than the other two had. By 1400, there was a passageway to the wall. Now the problem was to break through the thick wall and see what conditions were like under the parade ground above.

The only tools available to them in the armory were entrenching tools. Each small shovel lasted only about an hour before breaking up or becoming so bent that it was useless. The walls were very thick and had rebar reinforcements every eight inches. Antoine worried about the amount of noise they were creating and about the glacial slowness of their progress. They were all worried about their physical condition. The longer they worked the hotter it got, and the more exhausted, famished, and dehydrated they became.

On Antoine’s watch at 1530, he saw an Israeli commando dash across the parade ground and situate himself behind a stone pillar and a stone flower bed.

“We have action,” he called to his comrades-in-arms.

“We better stop digging and all of us come up and watch for a while. Maybe this is the time we get to fight instead of trying to be sappers or combat engineers,” Serge said. “The attempts to get through that four-foot thick concrete foundation are futile.”

“Even if the Jew-dogs don’t attack, we can’t just sit here until we are too weak to fight. That’s what they want us to do, Antoine,” Hugues said.

“I agree. It’s a good day to die,” Antoine said. “We need to let them commit themselves a little more; so, we at least know where some of them are before we take them on. We have to make it a good day for as many of them to die as possible; so, the day is not wasted, meine Brüder.”

Serge and Hugues nodded their agreement.