Heritage: A Thrilling Work of Historical Fiction from the author of PANGOLIN by Peter Driscoll

Author:Peter Driscoll [Driscoll, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Silvertail Books
Published: 2023-11-29T16:00:00+00:00

29

Mohamed switched off the radio at the end of the news bulletin with a gesture that was almost violent. He went back to pacing up and down the tiny room, a naturally active animal confined in too little space. The others watched him in silence, seated round the table. A man on the verge of anger commanded wary respect, even from men such as Belkacem Krim and Halim Ferradj. Only the fourth man had given no hint of nervousness: another Mohamed, with the surname of Boukharouba. A relative newcomer to the Party, a stern, taciturn young man with a thin moustache and cold green eyes, he preferred to style himself by his nom de guerre, which was Houari Boumedienne.

Mohamed Bouhari reached the end of the room, stopped and turned. ‘She’s fifteen minutes late,’ he said flatly.

‘She was probably held up by the crowds,’ Halim said. ‘You shouldn’t worry.’

‘How do you know she didn’t blow herself up? Why did that bomb go off early, anyway?’

Halim shrugged. ‘There must have been something wrong with the timer.’

‘And so the warning wasn’t in time. And so we have killed six people by accident – a thing nobody is going to believe. The French propagandists portray us as murderers, and we play right into their hands. Blowing up children isn’t my way of fighting a war.’

‘From now on it will have to be,’ said Krim. ‘You know what the Committee has decided.’

He returned Mohamed’s stare unsmilingly. He had made no secret of his dislike ever since Mohamed’s defection from the Kabylia commando, and it was all the stronger for his inability to retaliate. Their roles were now oddly reversed. Finally driven out of his mountain stronghold by the French, Krim was in exile in Tunis. He, now, was the ‘office boy’ who had brought orders to Mohamed as leader of the Algiers wilaya, the FLN’s regional command. It was not a job that appealed to him much.

‘Terror must be fought with terror,’ he continued, as Mohamed glanced impatiently at his watch again. ‘Our civilians are in the front line already. Suspects are being tortured, villages destroyed. Now it’s the turn of the pieds noirs. They’ve got to learn that they are involved in this war whether they like it or not. We must make them afraid to walk the streets. This city must become a battleground.’

‘Impossible,’ Mohamed muttered. ‘It would be like inviting the army in to destroy us. They’re itching for a free hand against us as it is. Only the politicians in France restrain them.’

‘I agree.’ Boumedienne spoke for the first time. ‘You can’t employ the tactics of a maquis in the city. Out in the bled we can hit and run, hide, live off the land. Here . . .’ He gestured at the walls around them. ‘Here they know the physical limits of your territory. They can cut you off, starve you out. They’d burn down the Casbah if you provoked them far enough.’

‘Exactly!’ Mohamed said, glad of this unexpected ally. ‘You want us to make war on a whole population.

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