Achmed Abdullah

“ But Balloche remembered his experience with the Berbers, and he left the villages to one side.
He kept on traveling South. He had a vague idea that somewhere there he would find a land which would welcome him ... him and the little girl. There was never a doubt of this quest in his heart. His past life seemed washed clean by the dry, clear heat of the desert days, the biting chill of the desert nights. He had even forgot Canichon le Mak', the young brother whom he had loved with a peculiar, brutal love. There was nobody in all the world but the little child—“Aziza” she said was her name. ”

“ Escragnolles and Canichon le Mak' fell dead, hit by a dozen bullets. Balloche returned the fire. Then he ran. The Berbers did not trouble about following him. They left him to the tender mercies of the desert.
To his dying day Balloche could not make for himself a true picture of the days that followed. He had a vague knowledge of running and stumbling and falling, always falling. He also remembered how some fool had mistaken his lungs for an anvil and had beaten it with a dull, thudding, cruel hammer. Then he must have become insane. ”

“ Then one night the camel had stumbled and broken a leg, and the jackals had attacked and devoured it. And she had lost her way. She had dragged her pained body through the pitiless sands, hungry, thirsty, suffering. Finally she had reached the edge of the forest. And now (she gave Balloche this to understand thoroughly) she was going to adopt him for good and he was never to leave her. ”

“ They thought that they must be near one of the ksours of the Berbers. And so once more they stiffened their backs and their spirits to the long, dragging desert-pull ahead. Once more they burst into profane song.
On the fifth day they had eaten their last morsel of food. They stumbled and fell, weak, played out. Their feet were sore and blistered, their lips cracked and bleeding. And of course there were rage and despair and quarrels.
Canichon le Mak' insulted Ossetti, the Corsican. Ossetti made a savage lunge with his bayonet. And so Balloche killed him, to protect his brother. ”

“ For back there, in Africa, distance lends roseate enchantment even to an Apache. The sun of Tunis and the Outer Desert sheds sweet halos around their unholy heads. There is a despatch once in a while ... the story of a desert fight ... a hero ... a martyr ... oh, les braves gens ... and the Guillotine is cheated of another prospective customer.
Balloche made a point of boasting that ten times he had deserved capital punishment. As a delicate advertisement of this fact he had a guillotine tattooed on his left shoulder, with the name of his last victim below ... ”

“ They had really deserted in a spirit of bravado. The murder of the sergeant was too small a thing to upset their equanimity. The thought of escape and return to Marseilles had come afterwards. And now they were just a little bit disappointed. The yellow, sun-scorched erg seemed to grimmace at their new-found liberty.
They marched on, carelessly eating their scant provisions and taking long pulls at their water-canteens without thought of the wide desert ahead. Then, on the third day, a little cloud of regret fell on them. Balloche admitted that he had lost his way. ”

“ They had eaten all there was to be eaten. They had forced the young girls to wait on them and to dance for them. They had lifted the veils of the married women. And then, in the true spirit of Apaches, they had soiled the well, polluted the mosque, hacked down a dozen date-trees or so, and cut off the beard of the aged village priest.
Therefore, when the three showed their hated uniforms and their hated white faces, the Berbers knew that it was a special sending of All-Merciful Providence. They ran toward them, opening fire with their long-barreled flint matchlocks. ”

“ But towards noon they complained that the tropical sun was biting through their heavy boots and blistering their feet so they stopped and erected a low, improvised shelter-tent with the help of their Lebels and bayonets and tunics. Then they fell asleep, and they had pleasant cool dreams of rivers of absinthe and white wine running down mountains of bouillabaisse.
In the evening they found a filthy camel-wallow. They fought over the green, reeking, putrid slime. Ristorucci, one of the Corsicans, was killed in the scuffle. The other five drank and slept. ”

“ He sat down on the ground, holding the little body in his arms, and so she fell into a gentle sleep, with her hands firmly clasped around his neck, with her face on his shoulder.
And Balloche thought of years gone by. He remembered how his mother had caressed him when he had hurt himself, and how she had sung him to sleep. ”

“ He kept on with his meal. Then there was another half-suppressed sob, and a few broken words in the Arabic. But this time they did not sound like abuse. Balloche looked up and raised his eyebrows questioningly. She spoke rapidly and pointed at the food.
He grinned and threw her over a handful of dates. She ate ravenously. Then he thought that he could once more risk approaching her. He took the water-canteen, walked over to her, and knelt on the ground beside her. He slipped his left arm around her shoulders and helped her to sit up, holding the canteen to her cracked lips. ”

“ Then she pointed at her left leg. He examined it carefully, afraid of hurting her, looking at her every few seconds with a roughly kind word and a reassuring gesture. Her ankle was badly wrenched, and her arms and legs were scratched and cut by dagger-grass and camel-thorn. He massaged the swollen joint and tore his tunic into strips. Then he bandaged her as well as he could.
Suddenly the child reached up and threw her arms about his neck. She kissed him. And Balloche, the murderer, blushed. ”

“ ON the night before, they had shot the sergeant, plundered the commissary tent, filled their water-canteens, and deserted.
Somewhere to the Northeast was Tripoli and the open sea. Thence perhaps a chance to escape to Marseilles. And who could find them there? Let them try to dig out half a dozen rats from a thousand holes. ”