The Madonna of the Atlas

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: Non, je ne regrette rien. Rating: K Time: Season five and elsewhen.

Captain Richard Castle checked to saddle, bridle and other tack for his mount, Onyx. Satisfying himself that all was well, he mounted and walked Onyx back along the line of the troopers in his squadron.

The Great War had led to the collapse of three empires: Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia. After losing the civil war to the Communists, many Russians had fled and had mainly gone to France. Enough Russian cavalrymen had fled to allow the Foreign Legion to raise a cavalry regiment. More than two thirds of Castle's squadron were Russians.

He approached 1 Troop. Its commander was Sous-Lieutenant Jobert, the only other commissioned cavalry officer in the squadron. He was only two years out of the military academy of St. Cyr but he had spent a year fighting the Rif in Morocco. That was a very hard school for a young officer to learn in, but he had.

Castle and Jobert exchanged salutes. Then Castle inspected the troop. Just behind Jobert was the two- man team for the Chauchat light machine gun. Castle cursed to himself. It had taken the generals in Paris the whole of the Great War to make the changes to turn the Chauchat from a useless piece of merde to a merely usually useless piece of merde. The troopers had Lebel rifles over their shoulders, Castle noted. The worthless Berthier carbines were now gone. Despite the lessons of the Great War, generals in Paris still looked forward to massed cavalry charges with every soldier wielding a saber and using carbines only when absolutely necessary. The Legion had learned to fight on foot with rifles and use horses to get from place to place.

2Troop was commanded by Adjutant Chernoff, a Russian. Chernoff had fled from Russia when Wrangel's White Army had been defeated by the Reds. He had been a cavalry captain in the Czar's Imperial Guard and entered the Legion's first cavalry unit. His knowledge and bravery had seen him promoted to Adjutant, but Castle felt he would not long be a warrant officer, and would soon be a commissioned officer. Given that he had recently married the daughter of an aristocratic French cavalry general, Castle was sure Chernoff would be a colonel before Castle was a major.

Chernoff gave Castle a sharp salute and a smile. As usual, Chernoff was perfectly turned out, freshly shaved and bathed, and if Castle's nose was correct, doused with cologne. Also, as usual, Chernoff's troop was perfectly turned out. Castle felt that the troop looked better than it actually was.

3 Troop was commanded by sergent-chef John Smith. In spite of his name, Castle was sure that English was not his native language. Smith did speak over a dozen languages, all badly. Some said he was a jewel thief on the run from the police and his partners. Others that he was a ruined American millionaire hiding from his creditors. Castle thought he was a Balkan hobo of some sort with a minor gift for languages. Smith was an old sweat who had been in the Legion since 1910 and knew every trick for avoiding work and killing people that there were. His troopers never fooled him on anything and had long since stopped trying. They were very good at killing.

Next was the machine gun troop with two Hotchkiss heavy machine guns, carried on pack horses. Sergent Brodski, a Pole was in charge. Allegedly he had served in the German Army, the Russian Army and the Austro-Hungarian Army on the eastern front, deserting whenever it suited him. Brodski himself was remarkably closed mouthed about himself.

Castle looked at one of the horses carrying ammunition. "Legionnaire Giamatti's horse's load is loosely tied on the left. The ammo will fall off in a mile." Castle sighed as Giamatti retied the load. He could have inspected the loads blindfolded and known Giamatti's was done wrong somewhere.

Next was an attached artillery troop consisting of a single 65 millimeter mountain gun, broken down into several parts so it could be borne by several horses. Sergent Doukas who was Greek and very good with a knife was in charge. Castle didn't know how good he was with artillery as he hadn't seen the gun in action.

Then there was the pack train, nominally under Surgeon-Captain Maine who sat on his horse like a loosely loaded sack of potatoes. He was a good doctor though. The actual work of supervising the pack horses that carried the squadron's food, water, ammunition, medical supplies and whatnot was left to Caporal Jeune, a Belgian ex-pimp. Somehow, Jeune always looked well fed. But, everything was there when needed and Jeune did have a way with the Berbers who led the packhorses.

Lastly were two dozen mounted Berbers, descendants of the inhabitants of North Africa before the Arabs invaded centuries before. They wore native clothing but carried French rifles and as much ammunition as they could carry. They were the squadron's scouts. Tariq, their youthful leader smiled at Castle.

"Are we ready, Captain Castle?" He asked in Berber.

"Almost, my good friend. There is one more to join us." Castle answered, also in Berber.

As if on cue, the main gate of Fort Zinderneuf opened and the last member of the party rode out. The morning desert sun shone on her chestnut curls and lightly lit her pale skin and her perfect cheekbones. She wore a khaki shirt, and trousers, making her indistinguishable from a Legionnaire at any distance. But up close it was obvious that the American writer Katherine Beckett was a woman and what a woman she was. She rode a magnificent white Arab stallion with another following her as a remount. Behind her a small Arab boy was perched atop her packhorse.

Castle wondered how she had ever managed to get the generals in Paris or Algiers to allow her to accompany his squadron. Then he laughed to himself. All she needed the bend the generals to her will was a smile, a wink with her gorgeous hazel eyes and perhaps a small wiggle of her perfect derriere.

Not that she was unused to the rough and tumble life. She had served as a nurse on the Isonzo Front in Italy and had gone to the foremost trenches to bring wounded men back to the hospitals. After the Great War she had gone to Paris and mixed with the expatriate writers and artists who had flocked there. Her book about her experiences in the Great War had made her rich and famous. Her writings about the "lost generation" that followed the Great War had made her a literary icon.

He noted that she had a Lebel rifle in a scabbard on her horse and an American .45 Colt strapped to her hip, as well as a bandoleer of ammunition for both weapons over her shoulder. Oddly, Castle also carried an American .45 which he had gotten from a wounded American Army officer in exchange for a really good bottle of brandy. He had always hoped the American got as much use from the brandy as he had from the Colt.

As Beckett approached him, he bowed lightly to her. "Do you wish to travel at the head of the column, Miss Beckett? You won't be bothered by the dust and the sand kicked up by the horses."

She smiled but shook her head. "I think I'll just ride in whatever part of the column that suits me, Captain. But thank you."

Castle took his place at the head of his squadron and gave the order to march. As the squadron moved out at a walk, the Berber scouts moved out at a gallop. They would cover the head of the column, the flanks and the rear so the tiny French force wouldn't be surprised. At least that was the theory.

The first day of a patrol was always the slowest. No matter how experienced everyone was, things always went wrong. Horses managed to lose horseshoes now matter how carefully they had been checked, small sores were found on the horses, pack loads shifted uncomfortably on pack horses, ammunition or other supplies fell from damaged packs, but on this patrol, at least, only minor problems arose.

They arrived at the small deserted oasis of Siwa two hours before nightfall. Each night, when possible, a Legion force would build a parapet of stones around their encampment. This had been done hundreds of times at Siwa, but each time the Arabs would scatter the stones so that the Legionnaires must gather the stones and build their parapet anew.

The horses were hobbled, the machine guns and the cannon were set up, and the men scattered to bring in the rocks to build the parapet. Luckily, the Arabs hadn't been interested in moving the largest rocks any great distance away. When the parapet was built, stones about the size of a man's head were placed on top. Hopefully, in the dark, Arab riflemen wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a head and a stone.

While Castle had been supervising all of this, Miss Beckett had been making coffee. From the smell, Castle could tell it was far better than what the Republique provided for her soldiers.

"Would you like some coffee, Captain Castle?" She asked as he passed her.

He knew it would be best to decline, but the smell of the coffee was too enticing. Not to mention the smell of the beautiful American. He nodded and sat with her.

"I put a bit of vanilla in my coffee. Would you like some?"

He shook his head. "Black coffee for me, thank you."

"That'll keep you awake." She teased.

"Perhaps. But a Legionnaire who sleeps lightly is less likely to end up dead."

She changed the subject. "How did an Englishman end up in the French Foreign Legion?"

He couldn't deny being English. He had spoken to her in English before he learned she spoke perfect French. "It's considered inappropriate to ask that of a Legionnaire." He replied stiffly.

She shrugged. "Many people have thought that I do inappropriate things. And I do."

He thought back to the early summer of 1914. That slut Meredith had enticed him into her bedroom. At the worst possible moment, James and Joyce had walked in on them. Meredith had screamed and said he had attacked her. His life changed in an instant. All of his friends believed Meredith. She was one of them and he was not. He was expelled from university and his middle-class parents, who had struggled and sacrificed to help him advance in the world, were devastated. He had left England for France.

Then the war had begun.

He decided to tell her a half truth. "I was in France when the war began, Miss Beckett. All of a sudden there were soldiers marching everywhere, flags of all the allied nations being waved, bands playing patriotic tunes. I enlisted."

"You're English. Why not enlist in your own army?"

He shrugged. "Youthful stupidity. Everyone thought the war would be over in a few weeks. Months at the most. Soldiers were telling their loved ones, "Don't worry. We'll be home before the leaves fall." I didn't want to miss the war by going all the way back to England." Which was true if not the complete truth.

"Why stay in after the war?"

"I found I had a calling as a soldier. I entered the front lines in 1915 as an ordinary soldier of the Legion. I emerged from the war in November 1918 as a captain. I really had nothing better to do."

"Would you care to have dinner with me, Captain? I assure you the food that I brought is far superior to what you'll be eating."

Sadly, he shook his head. "There's a saying: Horses first, men second, officers third, self, last. I don't want to eat better than anyone else." He added with a smile. "The horses would be upset."

Dinner was cooked and eaten, and the fires put out by last light. Once it was fully dark, and before the moon was up, the machine guns and the cannon were re-sited. That way any Arab observer would not know where they were positioned. At the same time, the Berber scouts slipped over the parapet and quickly vanished into the night. They would position themselves some hundreds of meters away to watch for an attack.

Castle woke at ten o'clock as he usually did, to make his rounds. As he rolled out of his blankets, he heard Miss Beckett whisper to him. "Is everything all right, Captain."

"Yes." He whispered back. "I'm going to make my rounds and check on the sentries." He was back in half an hour and was asleep a minute after that.

He was woken by a short burst of machine gun fire, which he recognized as coming from the Hotchkiss gun in the north side of their perimeter. A short burst from a Chauchat quickly followed. Tightly controlled chaos followed for a minute as Legionnaires moved to their posts, non-commissioned officers bellowed orders, horses stomped and bursts of fire lit the night. Castle could see his men firing into a shadowy mass some two hundred meters from them. The entire squadron was awake now and everyone was firing, from all parts of the perimeter.

"I don't see any muzzle flashes out there. "Sergent-chef Smith said. "We should be taking fire."

Castle began yelling. "Cease fire! Cease fire!"

The cry was taken up by the troop commanders and NCOs. In a minute all was quiet.

"Flare guns. Get some flare guns." Castle ordered.

Caporal Jimenez produced three flare guns and flares. Castle took one, and Smith took one. "On three we fire. One, two, three."

Three flares arced into the night sky, then the flares burst, bathing the ground in an eerie light.

"The Arabs are all wearing white burnooses." Jimenez said.

"White burnooses, like hell." Castle spat. "Those are sheep."