ELEVEN

 

The mountains of Algeria were peppered with valuable minerals. Mines generated a large portion of the tax revenue that the French needed to rebuild after the Nazi occupation that had destroyed many of their cities and much of their public infrastructure during World War II.

The El-Halia Sulfur mine east of Philippeville was owned by a family of Spanish settlers that had come to Algeria at the turn of the century. It was a small concern but it provided a healthy income and dozens of jobs for the surrounding communities both pied-noir and Muslim. It was a tunnel mine which was rare for Sulfur mines in Northern Africa. Open pit mines were safer and allowed for the use of heavy machinery to extract the mineral. However in this mine the vein of Sulfur ore was deep in a mountain side and required multiple shafts to harvest. It had to be mined by hand, and that meant jobs. There was, of course, ethnic tension between the two communities but they had learned to get along by simply staying out of each other’s business and keeping to themselves.

The mine compound was surrounded by a barbed wire fence and only had one guarded entrance that was used both by the employees and the trucks that carried the Sulfur to a processing plant near the city of Constantine. Three armed guards patrolled the compound, and there was a stash of weapons that were kept under lock and key that could be used by the employees if the mine was every attacked by rebels or thieves seeking its weekly payroll. Many years had passed since anyone had been bold enough to attempt to break the security, and the miners carried on their day to day work without concern of outside intervention.

It was the yellow dust that really concerned them. It stung their lungs and assaulted their sense of smell. Rotten eggs and pig shit were the most common descriptions. One never really grew used to it, they would say. Being Sulfur and used in most munitions, the mineral was also quite flammable, especially in dust form. The miners went to great length to prevent open flames and sparks in the mine. Electric lights had been used since their invention and that greatly reduced accidents. Air was pumped deep into the mine where the miners worked. Vent shafts were cut into the rock to allow the yellow dust to be pumped out and prevent dangerous build-ups that could blind the miners and choke them to death.

The FLN sapper that visited the mine that day had penetrated the barbed wire fence the night before and stayed hidden from the morning patrol. Saadi had instructed him personally on how to enter the compound and where to go. The sapper waited until the miners arrived for the day shift. Unlike the night shift which was made up of mostly Muslim workers, the day shift was staffed with pied-noir miners. Both shifts preferred to be ethnically divided when they worked. It prevented arguments between the miners.

When the sapper was sure the last of the Muslim miners had left the compound, he crawled to one of the ventilation shafts and detached the metal hood leading to the air pump. He pulled out a Molotov cocktail from the canvas bag he had brought with him. He used the American lighter that Saadi had given him to light the end of the gasoline soaked rag and dropped the bottle down the shaft. Then he jumped up and ran for the perimeter fence.

A guard spotted him as he ran and opened fire with his submachinegun. The sapper was hit three times and fell into the barbed wire fence where he died just as the Molotov cocktail hit the bottom of the air shaft. The bottle broke and the burning rag ignited the gasoline just as Saadi said it would. A ball of flame ignited the yellow dust. It wasn’t an explosion that killed the miners inside but rather a wall of flame that incinerated any in its path and sucked up all the available oxygen suffocating anyone lucky enough to avoid the fire. The destruction was complete and killed eighteen pied-noir miners.

The affect that the FLN had hoped for was not the death of the miners, although it did make the headlines of the Algerian newspapers, but the dividing of the community. The pied-noir blamed the Muslims just as the FLN had planned and exacted their revenge in a raid that killed four Muslim families, including children.

 

 

Trinquier was issuing orders to his company commanders when his radioman approached. “Colonel, I’ve picked up a distress call from a pied-noir colony at El-Halia mine twenty kilometers to the east. It seems there has been an explosion. Many settlers were killed and wounded. They are requesting military assistance.”

“Jesus, can’t these people do anything for themselves?” said Trinquier.

Trinquier considered for a moment and looked over at Bruno standing nearby. He did not want Bruno around to witness what was going to be required in Philippeville. He turned to the radioman and said, “Tell the miners we will be sending help.”

“Yes, sir,” said the radioman.

Trinquier walked over to Bruno and said, “Hell of a morning.”

“Yeah. Hell is a good word to use,” said Bruno. “Do we know who did it?”

“We have our suspicions. We will find out,” said Trinquier. “I was wondering if you could do me a favor?”

“Of course. What do you need?”

“As you can see, my hands are quite full here with this mess. We just received a distress call from the El-Halia mine complex. I was hoping you could take a platoon up there and investigate.”

“Absolutely,” said Bruno.

“Excellent,” said Trinquier.

 

 

It was late in the afternoon when the five truck convoy carrying Bruno and a platoon of paratroopers rolled up the hill toward the El-Halia community. Black smoke rose from the mining complex. The fire inside the mine was yet to be extinguished and would probably burn for several more days until the surviving workers sealed off the entrance and air vents to starve the fire of oxygen.

The neighborhood next to the mine was quiet. Bruno found it strange that there was nobody on the street, not even children. Communities usually pulled together with families visiting each other for comfort after a disaster such as the one reported. But here… there was nothing… not a soul in sight.

The first truck pulled to a stop on the edge of the community and Bruno stepped out. He motioned for the sergeant to deploy the men. The paratroopers were formed into six fire teams and moved on to the community streets. Still nothing. The sergeant motioned for a corporal and his team to enter one of the houses.

The team moved up and the corporal knocked on the front door. There was no answer. He looked back at his sergeant and shrugged. The sergeant motioned for him to be more assertive. The corporal kicked in the front door and the team entered. Two minutes later they came back out. Another shrug from the corporal revealed that the house was empty.

The paratroopers kicked in doors and entered houses until they finally came upon a door that they couldn’t kick in. They moved around the back of the house and found the back door too was blocked from the inside. They continued around the house until they found a bathroom window. It was too small for anyone on the team to fit through. They called the smallest paratrooper in the platoon to the house, broke the window with the butts of their guns and boosted the small paratrooper in through the opening.

He fell headfirst into the bathtub under the window. Fortunately, his helmet protected his skull from cracking against the porcelain. He gathered himself and cautiously moved through the house. He saw the problem right away. Someone had stacked all the furniture in the living room up against the front door preventing it from being opened. The same was true with the back door.

He moved down a hallway and opened the door to each room until he found one that was locked. He kicked it in, breaking the doorframe. He entered. It was dark, the curtains drawn tight. He moved around the end of the bed and saw a European woman huddled with her two small children. She looked terrified like she and her children were going to die. He tried to reassure her that he meant no harm. She asked one simple question, “Muslim?”

The paratrooper shook his head. She seemed to take a breath but kept her children tight in her arm. “I am going to get help,” he said in French.

Her eyes went wide again and said, “Muslims?”

“No,” he said. “No Muslims. I promise.”

Tears streamed down her face and she heaved out a cry of relief. The paratrooper could not help but feel for the woman. He moved back into the hallway, wiped the tears from his eyes with the sleeve of his uniform and cleared the furniture from the front door.

 

 

Within an hour, Bruno felt he had a pretty clear picture of what had happened in the little community of El-Halia…

 

When the dust had cleared from the initial mine explosion, the security guards found the body of the dead sapper. He was clearly North African and the Quran in his pocket demonstrated that he was a practicing Muslim. There were no other identification papers on the man and no way of knowing who, if anybody, had sent him to destroy the mine. But the guards and the pied-noir that gathered around the corpse had already drawn their own conclusions.

The peaceful relationship between the Muslim miners and the pied-noir miners had been disintegrating over the last year, especially as the cry for Independence increased. The pied-noir were afraid that Independence in a Muslim state would mean the destruction of their way of life and potentially the death of their families. The Muslims had argued that they all could live in peace once the French had gone. The pied-noir believed they knew better.

The French government had taken the best farms away from Muslim families that had lived on them for generations. The Muslims were compensated but not until after the land was auctioned off at a sharp discount to the colonists as an incentive for settling in Algeria. The Muslims were not allowed to bid on their own farms in a public auction.

Once Independence was achieved the Muslim families would surely want their land back. The pied-noir had worked hard to improve the land and weren’t about to give it back to the Muslims. It would mean civil war in which the pied-noir militias would be vastly outnumbered and outgunned.

Fist fights had broken out between the miners and had to be broken up by the mine’s security guards. Things had gotten so bad that the mine owner had demanded that all weapons within the community be locked up until things had settled down. He was the only one with the key.

In a weekend boxing match sanctioned by the mine as a way to blow off steam the Muslim community pitted their best fighter against the pied-noir’s best fighter. The pied-noir fighter was a mountain of muscle from Northern Germany. He beat the Muslim fighter to a pulp before the referee and three other pied-noir pulled him off the unconscious fighter. The Muslim fighter died two days later.

The pied-noir were smug. They had made their point. And it was the Muslims that now feared them. So much so, they had blown up the mine with a large portion of the pied-noir inside so they could even the odds in the village. It was obvious to everyone. It was also untrue. The FLN had sent the sapper with the mission to blow up the mine and divide the community. He had succeeded.

The pied-noir were enraged by the attack and had retaliated against the Muslims killing several in a most brutal manner. The Muslims vastly outnumbered the pied-noir. A mob of over one thousand Muslims descended on the pied-noir community and killed everyone they could find. Only six Pied-Noir families had survived by barricading themselves inside their homes and putting out the fires from the Molotov cocktails hurled through the windows.

The European woman’s husband tried to sneak out and go for help. He had been caught in the streets and torn apart by the Muslims. She wept over his remains when she finally found what was left of him. It was more than she could take and later that night when she was alone in her home, she hung herself in her kitchen orphaning her two small children.

 

 

Bruno radioed in his report to Trinquier. He told the colonel the story of El-Halia as best as he could piece it together. After the massacre the majority of the Muslims had fled the town and hidden in the hills afraid of French Army reprisals. Slowly, they were coming back and occupying their homes. They were very wary of the paratroopers that patrolled their streets. The Muslims’ anger had turned to fear.

Trinquier repeated the words he had been told by Massu, “We cannot let this stand.”

Bruno knew what he meant. Justice needed to be swift and overwhelming to keep the Muslims from being emboldened and continuing their attacks on the pied-noir community, and to keep the Independence movement from growing.

Bruno was a patriot and loved his country of which Algeria had been a part for over one hundred years. It was not unlike the American Civil War where a large segment of the country had grown distasteful of the union and wanted to go their separate ways. He believed in democracy and the right to self-determination. They were principles that had made his country the envy of Europe and the world.

He had fought the Viet Minh in Indochina because they wanted to leave the French Union. Cambodia, Laos, Tunisia and Morocco were in the process or had all already left the union. But Algeria was different. It was considered part of France not just a colony. And now the Algerians too were fighting for their freedom. France was falling apart. It was at war with itself, fighting against the very principles on which the new Republic had been founded.

Bruno knew that he needed to act quickly if he was going to take action. He avoided letting his desire for a combat command influence his decision. He was not afraid to disobey orders from his superiors if he thought they were unjust or just plain stupid. In fact, Massu and Trinquier were not his commanders. He was still considered an observer. Part of him wanted to go back to Paris and forget this ever happened. But that was a coward’s path and Bruno was no coward.

As the sun rose the next morning, Bruno issued orders to the platoon to round up as many of the Muslim men as could be found. Within an hour, one hundred and fifty prisoners were herded into the town square.

The trials were quick, often only lasting a minute or two. Evidence was shallow at best. Blood stains on the hands or shirt were enough to convict a man. Bruno ordered them all to be hanged.

The women wailed and shrilled their tongues in unison as they watched the French paratroopers carry out Bruno’s orders. Bruno stood at parade rest the entire time with eyes staring straight ahead and his face solemn and unmoving… except for a slight twitch on the left side of his face that he could not control. He was showing the Muslims French justice and determination. He was the face of France.