SPRING CAME TO ALGERIA IN MARCH, with a nightingale in full song among the empty shell cases in the dilapidated garden of our new villa in the outskirts of the town. A species of self-protective reticence had grown among our Arab friends, separating us from such as Dr Kessous, who had now come to the conclusion that they had little to hope from us, and that whatever the outcome of the war they were destined to remain as they always had been – second-class citizens of France. Since, in order to survive, the proletariat must at least cling to their optimism, our Arab workers remained unjustifiably in good heart, fully convinced that we should continue to reward their labour with our protection and take them with us when and wherever we went. This blind and unreasoning cheerfulness was their best weapon in the propaganda war waged by the French, and made them popular with our troops.
As far as we were concerned the war had ground to a halt, leaving us with absolutely nothing to do. Section members condemned to patrol the port did so, although there was really nothing there to watch over. Routine visits to units were quietly allowed to lapse. The FSO was rarely seen, remaining, according to report, most of the day in bed. Leopold now effectively ran the section, as I assumed he had always planned to run it; but having grasped at the substance he found he had caught the shadow. He held the power but there was nothing whatever to do with it. In despair he applied for a transfer to a divisional section, where whatever action the inert First Army had to offer was presumably to be found. When I asked what news there was of that job I was supposed to have been given at AFHQ, he grinned as if in secret triumph. ‘You can forget about it,’ he said. ‘You’ve been lost in the files again.’
Fortuna and his friends circulated boldly as ever with our stickers on the windscreens of their cars, to be saluted by our MPs if inadvertently stopped at checkpoints. Most weekends he gave a party at which half the section would get uproariously drunk. If AFHQ wanted information about our area, it came through him, and any visiting nabob from Algiers would be respectfully escorted to one of his houses to be softened up with richly garlicked food and vintage champagne. Bou Alem of the Sûreté repeatedly warned me of the terrible reprisals arranged for the Arabs as soon as we were withdrawn, and repeatedly and with a feeling of cowardice and shame I was obliged to explain to him that while the Arabs’ fate might concern me personally, no one who had the slightest power or influence in our Army could possibly care less.
Left virtually to my own devices, there was nothing to prevent my going off on long trips of exploration of the Algerian hinterland, and this I did. Once again I was to discover how extremely under-populated the country was, and I rode for hour after hour over empty roads without any sign of human presence.
In the beginning I was surprised to find how ‘un-African’ it was, but I soon decided that visually it was neither African nor European, but something unique. The outstanding feature of this landscape was its splendid oak forests, with glades stretched to infinity between the stands of majestic trees. This aspect of it reminded me of engravings in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century books devoted to the Italian scene.
The absence of human intrusion outside the coastal strip made for the presence of an abundant fauna. I rode as quietly as I could along the empty roads, coasting softly in neutral gear with the engine switched off down the long, winding slopes, and in this way frequently took the animals by surprise: a brace of elegant foxes and – I could hardly believe it – a single jackal, traipsing dutifully like a well-trained dog through the buttercups. Deer were everywhere, wild boars frequently spotted at the edge of woods, and once I saw a sow chased through an open glade by her litter of sportive piglets. The best of the birds were of the flashing subtropical variety, such as bee-eaters, rollers or orioles, displayed like bright toys or Christmas-tree ornaments against the rich but sedate foliage of the oaks. The surprise of the day, and of these trips taken as a whole, was a covey of great bustard, like colossal partridges, the largest of which might have weighed thirty pounds. Some were in the roadway and could barely hoist themselves into the air before I was upon them. The last of our native birds were hunted to extinction by East Anglian squires using greyhounds who could run them down before they became airborne. The Arabs told me that they were bold and aggressive birds that would attack any man who wandered near their nests.
Innumerable flowers grew in these untouched, lonely places. In early March blue dwarf irises invaded snowfields of narcissi, but later in the month many orchids came into flower; the lilac or purple bee, fly and spider ophrys in the full sun, and butterfly orchids in the shade of the oaks which, as I coasted slowly down the road, looked as though thousands of white butterflies had settled among last year’s fallen leaves.
On these expeditions I always took a packet of tea, and sometimes, about midday, spotting an Arab hut on a mountainside, I would climb up to it, and if a male came out to meet me, show him my provisions and suggest we might share them. The offer was always accepted with enthusiasm. Quite often on these occasions an egg or two would be produced to complete the meal. And in this way – two simple men trying to make themselves heard, and understand each other above the vociferous singing of nightingales – a pleasant and indulgent hour would be passed.