in contact with the insurgents.'
We shook hands; I felt like one of the Three Musketeers. It was one of those moments that led to guys getting killed for the greater good.
'How'd you get mixed up in this, Georgie?' I asked as we piled into the staff car.
'My younger brother, Jerome, and several of his friends are involved. He took me into his confidence, and knowing that Colonel Baril was in favor of the Allies, it was only natural that I became his liaison. It means a great deal to us, to be able to join the fight against the Germans.'
'Is your kid brother in the army too?'
'The army? Oh no, he is a student at the university. He is studying philosophy. You will meet him this morning. He is one of the leaders of the students.'
Now, I always thought I had a good sense of the odds for or against me when things got tough. Back in Boston, when I was walking a beat, they were usually in my favor, unless I did something stupid, like walking alone in Chinatown after rousting a couple of tong boys. In England, I'd kept a low profile when I could. I did make a side trip to occupied Norway, but that was personal, so it didn't really count. But as we got into the car, I began to calculate. There was me, Harding, and this French kid who probably spent more time trimming his moustache than cleaning his rifle. We were way out in front of the U.S. Army, heading into an enemy capital, to help a bunch of spies and college kids-philosophy students, no less-take over a military headquarters. I did the math as best I could, and determined that our odds of survival were roughly equivalent to that of the Red Sox winning the World Series.
'Are you a baseball fan, Major?' I asked Harding.
'Sure. Ever since West Point I've been a big fan of the New York Yankees.'
'Figures.'
Chapter Three
The staff car got waved through a couple of roadblocks without a question. Harding said he would've had those guards court-martialed if they were in his army. I thought they did a fine job.
We crested a ridge and saw the city of Algiers rising up from the harbor on a gently sloping hillside. There were a few tall hard-edged modern buildings, but mostly I saw whitewashed two- and three-story, softly rounded structures that looked like they'd grown straight out of the stony ground. The whiteness was intensified as they reflected the light of the morning sun in the sky. It was a clear day, and the Mediterranean was a deep shimmering blue, broken only by the wakes of warships that seemed to cut across the water in every direction. Up here it was quiet, the opposite of what I expected an invasion morning to sound like.
'Not much fighting going on,' I commented.
'General Mast and Colonel Baril bought us some time,' Harding said. 'We've gotten ashore safely, but there are still organized French forces in the city and all around us. We need to get this settled, now.'
'And how are we going to accomplish that, Major?' I asked.
'Well, Boyle, I've got two tricks up my sleeve. The first is a letter from General Giraud calling upon all French soldiers to rally to the side of the Allies.'
'General Giraud?' asked Georgie, clearly puzzled. 'What has he to do with this?'
'Giraud escaped from Vichy France recently and is with General Eisenhower at Gibraltar, organizing plans for French forces in North Africa to join the Allies.'
'General Giraud is a fine officer,' Georgie said with a shrug, 'even a hero. But he is no longer on active duty. Why would anyone obey his orders?'
'Ike is counting on it,' Harding said, evading the question.
'That may be. But for the majority of officers, any such order will have to come via the chain of command. Some of us wish for vengeance on the Germans badly enough to disregard it, but most will follow the orders they receive from a superior officer.'
'But you said yourself this Giraud guy is a hero-' I said.
'There are only two things that will work,' Georgie cut in. 'Either General Juin or some other senior official orders resistance to cease, or your army arrives very soon in overwhelming force, leaving no choice but to surrender and join the Allies.'
'So you don't place much stock in General Giraud?' I asked.
'The decision must be made by the proper French authority or on the battlefield. Those are the only honorable choices. A retired officer hand-picked by the Americans, or worse, the British, will not be obeyed.'
I knew the French and the Brits didn't always get along, especially since the British Navy had shelled the Vichy French fleet at Mers el- Kebir to keep it from falling into the hands of the Germans.
'I mean no offense, of course…' Georgie said, looking a little embarrassed.
'None taken,' said Harding, in a tone of voice that let you know he was really steamed.
'I hope your second trick is a show-stopper, sir,' I said.
'You're the other trick, Boyle. I thought General Juin might be impressed when he learns that General Eisenhower sent his favorite nephew to meet him.'
Georgie eyed me, then Harding. I could tell he was trying to figure out if he could trust his command of the English language.
'General Eisenhower is your uncle?'
'Well, Georgie, he is, sort of. We're connected on my mother's side. I think we're really second cousins once removed or something, but since he's older I've always called him Uncle Ike.'
Georgie drove on without saying anything, through a neighborhood of European style homes and gardens.
He finally turned and looked at Harding. 'So your mission, Major, is to convince General Juin to surrender due to the influence of a retired French officer and the distant relative of an American general?'
There was silence for a moment while Harding did a slow burn. 'I will inform General Juin of the massive Anglo-American forces just landed upon his shores, and convince him that resistance is not only futile, but will needlessly delay the liberation of France!'
'Very well, Major. I hope for your success, perhaps even more than you do.'
Harding didn't answer. He settled further down in the back seat and stared out the window. I could tell he had hoped for a more enthusiastic response. I didn't know how serious he was about using me with Juin. Uncle Ike wasn't all that famous and nephews-twice removed are a dime a dozen, so the two of us put together weren't exactly overwhelming. It seemed the odds were stacked against us.
Georgie turned a corner and we entered a small village. The signpost said LAMBIRIDI, which was the town just outside Algiers.
'General Juin's villa is just a few kilometers-' Georgie slammed on the brakes as a roadblock came into view. Two trucks were pulled across the road. Armed men with black armbands ran up to the car as it skidded to a stop.
'Who are these guys?' I asked.
'SOL,' Georgie said disgustedly. 'Service d'Order Legionnaire. Vichy fascist militia. They worship the SS, and do whatever dirty work Vichy asks of them.'
Before Georgie could finish, the doors of the staff car were flung open and rifles pointed at our heads, accompanied by more excited French chatter than I'd ever heard. One pair of hands grabbed my Thompson while someone else took me by the collar and hauled me out of the front seat.
'Americain!' I hollered, trying to form the rest of the little French I knew into a full sentence. The next thing I knew, the flat of a rifle butt slammed into my head and plastered me against the side of the car. My legs buckled, as I tried to grab onto something to keep my head from hitting the pavement. It always bothered me that in the movies a guy got knocked clean out when someone smacked him in the head. Then he'd wake up later, rub his head a bit, and go on like nothing had happened. I knew something about getting hit in the head. It was very painful, there was usually a lot of blood, and if you were knocked out there was a good chance you weren't going to wake up again.
