Raffaele settles down to the task at hand, fitting the bricks to hold the pipe that will feed water to the goat pen. The mortar is grainy and the handmade bricks uneven, but he manages to lay the courses, one on the next, encasing the length of iron pipe and making it fast.
Raffaele catches Nedjar looking over his shoulder as he scrapes away excess mortar and strikes the joint with the wooden handle of his trowel. “Lt. Ferrand, you should take a look at this, sir,” he says, raising his head.
The lieutenant returns and peers over Raffaele’s shoulder as well. “I wish we’d had you here from the start, legionnaire,” he says warmly. “You make the rest of us look sloppy.”
Sgt. Katsourianis follows a moment later, his face clouded. On seeing the sergent, Ortu pipes up, “Kat, Mador’s big as me. Why don’t you give him the mitrailleur and let me carry the potato thrower?”
“I’m gonna take both your weapons away and give you each a bag of rocks, Silvio,” Kat replies before moving off to join Sgt. Müller, standing next to Sánchez a short distance away. The two sous-officiers keep their voices low as they talk – the faces on both men are grim, but there is little time to dwell as the pace picks up once again with Ferrand’s return.
Pyotr settles in to watch the mechta. Villagers still observe the paras warily as they move about the douar, stopping to gather in small groups, to point and talk quietly amongst themselves. A young boy, maybe six or seven, emerges from the house and looks about before running off to the east, in the direction of the mechtas on the other side of the oued. Otherwise the building is still as Pyotr watches, flies buzzing in his ears and eyes..
Sister Courcy smiles as Pyotr describes his schooling. “I spent almost a year and a half at the Sorbonne for my nursing training, before the army field hospital school in Lyon.” She rubs an alcohol swab on a boy’s arm before delivering the vaccination. “I lived in Paris for about five years altogether, before the army.” The boy winces slightly as the needle penetrates his arm, while Sister Courcy describes her favorite bistros and cafés in the Quartier Latin, mostly little family places, several that Marcel has visited. “What I wouldn’t give for a decent cup of coffee at the Café de la Paix,” she says with feeling as she cleans up her gear before moving on to the next house.
The work on the cistern and the pen takes about four hours to finish – it’s late-afternoon as the tired, sweating legionnaires are rejoined by their comrades from Sgt. Altmeier’s section, along with Lt. Ramadier, back from their patrol. The two officers, Ferrand and Ramadier, confer privately as the paras clean up and Zabana, the SAS harki readies a string of donkeys with now-empty packs for the trip back to the outpost at the bottom of the oued. Marcel and the nursing sister finish the vaccinations, examining several of the villagers along the way for various ailments and injuries, from pink eye to broken bones, before joining the gathered legionnaires and the SAS lieutenant’s stock for the march back to the trucks.
Most of the paras are subdued as they pull at pack straps or weapon slings. Sister Courcy draws lingering looks from most of the men – if she notices she doesn’t react, pulling on her own pack after unstrapping her carbine from the webbing. Lt. Ferrand is speaking with several of the Arabs from the village as Lt. Ramadier announces, “First section, lead off...”
