Chapter 12: The Green Hell

Lieutenant Colonel Jules Piccard glanced up from the document he had been studying and gazed at me for a few seconds. “Do I know you from somewhere, Sergent- chef Soissons?”

“Yes sir. I was with DILE when your regiment was inspected about five years ago.”

He nodded. “Ahh yes, that’s it. I never forget a face although I often disremember a name.” He looked back at the papers on his desk. “At some time during your career you have offended someone who is in a position to give orders to a Lieutenant Colonel. Can you think who that could be?”

“No sir, although I did once miss a Camerone Day parade...”

“That would be it...”

“But I was later absolved of all blame as I’d been drugged by...” I said before again being interrupted by Colonel Picard.

“Yes, I recall the incident. Didn’t the female shoot you?”

“No sir. My friend leapt in front of me as she pulled the trigger and he took the bullet meant or me.”

“He must have been a good friend.”

“He was the very best, Sir.”

There was a moment of silence as I remembered Ferdi’s sacrifice before Lieutenant Colonel Picard resumed speaking.

“Usually I would send you to whichever unit of the regiment that had the most need of you but I have been instructed, ordered in fact, to appoint you to a particular post. However, I see you have just completed three years as an instructor at Castelnaudary. That might have some bearing on why I have been ordered to send you to the Jungle Warfare Training Centre at Camp Szuts.” He saw the look of shock surprise and horror on my face. “You know of the place?”

“Yes sir. I caught malaria there when I was with DILE.”

“Well, in that case you not only know what to expect, but should know what measures to take to avoid reinfection.” He franked the posting order with the regimental stamp then signed and handed me the paper. “Fortunately you will be among friends as Capitaine Champignon is Deputy Camp Commander. I believe you and he have served together?”

When I heard the Chevalier was at Camp Szuts I was most surprised as I thought him in Limoges with 2 REI. Nevertheless I was happy to be serving with him again, and glad that he had been promoted.

“Welcome to the jungle, Philippe. For purely selfish reasons I am pleased that you are here, although I know it is not the posting you would have wanted.” The Chevalier greeted me with a warm smile and a firm handshake.

“Congratulations on your promotion, Chevalier,” I said as we shook hands.

“I believe my promotion was to appease the conscience of the person who was ordered to post me here,” he said. “Legionnaires of Three REI know this place as the Sin Bin. Every man serving at Camp Szuts is being punished for misdemeanours of one sort or another. Colonel Picard uses punishment and rewards with consummate skill to get the most and best from his men. The most sought after posting is at the Space Centre at Kourou. The mortar and reconnaissance platoons are permanent fixtures as internal security, and of course Regimental Head Quarters is there as well. There is a combat company at Saint-Laurent-du-Maron on the border with Surinam and another one at Cayenne. Naturally, the Cayenne posting is a better one than Saint-Laurent. The other company of the regiment, the Heavy Equipment Company (Compagnie d’Equipement, CE) is building and maintaining the East Road, also known as Route Nationale Two, from Cayenne to the Brazilian border at Saint-Georges-de-l’Oyapock. Trouble makers or malcontents can find themselves moved from the ‘good posting and dispatched to a worse post, eventually, should they not mend their ways, they end up here at the Jungle Warfare Centre Camp Szuts for a spell of three months. However, you and I are here for the remainder of our service, which is just under three years for me...”

“And a little over four years for me,” I said glumly.

“I know what caused me to be banished,” the Chevalier said. “André Masséna took exception to me snooping around his and his son’s Liechtenstein bank and got concerned I might find his account number and inform the Bank of France. There was little chance of that happening but André Masséna doesn’t take chances and got me out of the way, but what have you done to deserve this posting?”

I explained the ins and outs of Lorenzo and Chloe Masséna’s divorce and my part in getting evidence to prove Lorenzo Masséna’s adultery.

“By the way you speak of Masséna’s former wife I suspect you were doing more favours for her than just obtaining incriminating photographs?” he said, a hint of asperity in his voice.

I blushed. “Yes, we had an affair, but although Lorenzo Masséna ruined my chances of being re-engaged as an instructor it was because I provided the photographic evidence of his adultery, not because Chloe and...”

“His father may have suspected. André Masséna is the person who has used his considerable political clout to have you and me banished to this Green Hell,” said the Chevalier bitterly.

“But André Masséna couldn’t have known. Lorenzo Masséna had no idea I was having an affair with his wife, so neither could his father.”

“He wouldn’t have to know, merely suspect, to come after you. When anyone in his family is involved in anything that might lead to adverse publicity he takes a keen interest and makes plans to either hush up the scandal or neutralise the threat. Consider yourself neutralised, and be thankful not to have been neutered, as some of his opponents have been!”

I shrugged. “What is done is done. Chloe has got her divorce and Masséna was the guilty party as he was cheating before she was.”

“I don’t think it matters who casts the first stone when it comes to adultery. If both parties have committed adultery then in the eyes of the law they are equally guilty.” He said. “But it is just as well that the law is blind as I wouldn’t want to see you cited as co-répondant in a divorce case.” He smiled and patted me on the back. “But that was then and this is now and we are both here until our respective enlistments expire. I doubt you will re-engage for another five years?”

“No way! The reason for extending my service to twenty years was to become an instructor. I knew that after completing the three year tour with the Regiment of Instruction I would have to serve at least a year with another unit before applying for re-selection as an instructor. I had no reason to believe I wouldn’t be selected and planned to stay in Castelnaudary for the rest of my service. I then intended finding a partner, somewhere to live, and a job to fall into when discharged. Masséna’s unfair appraisement of me blew that plan out of the water of course.”

“Well, you will be here for the rest of your service and there are plenty of local females who would willingly be your partner, although you wouldn’t be able to buy a property and live off camp, and there is precious little work around here for Europeans.”

“I don’t intend living abroad, but where are all these willing females?”

“About eight kilometres away in the small town of Regina, but the willing females are all ‘working girls!’”

The Chevalier explained the set up at Camp Szuts. He was in charge of the Jungle Warfare Training Centre but Camp Szuts’ Commanding Officer was Captain Budould, who also commanded the Heavy Equipment Company currently working on Route Nationale 2, the road between Cayenne and the Brazilian border at Saint-Georges-de-l’Oyapock. There was about 15 Kilometres of the road left to construct. Bulldozers, Graders, Scoop loader earth movers Trenchers, Compactors, Concrete mixers and a variety of Backhoe vehicles were working at the road head, with tarmac layers and heavy rollers housed at Camp Szuts and a few mechanics to keep the vehicles in good condition ready for when required.

There are two seasons in French Guiana. The Wet Season and the Damp Season, and it is hot and oppressively humid all year round. The Wet Season is from December to June, the wettest month being May. The Damp Season is July to November. During the four wettest months of the year (March, April, May and June) road construction is curtailed and Jungle Warfare Training is suspended. Camerone Day is celebrated of course, although often the Recitation and Parade are conducted during a cloudburst. It is also during these months that leave is granted to the men at Camp Szuts. Even the reprobates and black sheep of the regiment at Camp Szuts are entitled to leave, which is mostly spent in the flesh pots of Cayenne.

Jungle Warfare and Survival Training Courses take place during the Damp Season -- July to November. 3 REI served in Madagascar for eleven years and have been in French Guiana for almost as long, the regiment also served throughout the eight years of the First Indochina War. Consequently members of the regiment are well used to living, working, and fighting in a tropical rain forest environment and practically any man in the regiment could act as an instructor in Jungle Warfare and Survival. However, it falls to the miscreants of the Papillon Platoon, as the men sent to Camp Szuts as a punishment call themselves, to be the instructors although most NATO units, other than the UK who have their own Jungle Warfare School in Belize, bring their own instructional staff. Courses were of two weeks duration and several courses could be running concurrently.

There’s a lot of tropical rain forest surrounding Camp Szuts!

“Capitaine Budould prefers to be at the road head with the construction company, consequently he allows me to run this place as I see fit, even though he is officially the Camp Commandant.” We were seated in the Chevalier’s office at Camp Szuts as the Chevalier gave me more details of the situation in French Guiana. “He will be returning to France at the end of this year and by then Route Nationale Two should be completed and the Heavy Equipment Company will either be redeployed elsewhere in French Guiana or be disbanded. I might be made Camp Commander when that happens as I doubt Colonel Picard will want to send another officer to take over command.” The Chevalier paused and glanced at me. “You have probably noted the absence of SNCOs here, other than yourself of course?”

It had struck me that the highest rank I had seen, apart from the Chevalier, were caporals, and I nodded my head. “Why is that?”

“Colonel Picard does not like sending SNCOs here as it reflects badly on the man chosen. This is a punishment assignment, so it follows that anyone serving here has sinned in some way or another and it will look bad on their records for those poor souls who are paragons of virtue but lost the raffle and get posted here. Colonel Picard probably thanked God that you and I have been exiled to Camp Szuts for the duration of our service as he doesn’t have to make the decision to send perfectly respectable men here and risk them having a black mark against their name when their service records are accessed. To many senior officers Camp Szuts is regarded as the Legion’s Devil’s Island!”

“I would have thought serving in the Heavy Equipment Company would also be considered as a punishment posting; do they have a deficiency of SNCOs?” I asked.

“Quite the contrary,” said the Chevalier. “The company has a full complement of officers, SNCO’s and men, thanks to the amount of time they spend up country. They eat better than us at Camp Szuts and have other amenities available to them. Some men would rather stay up country during the wettest four months of the wet season rather than come to Camp Szuts.” He grinned when he saw the incredulity on my face. “I will let Sergent-chef Delgardo or Capitaine Budould explain the paradox when they arrive in March.”

The men banished to the Jungle Warfare Training Centre called themselves ‘Papillons’ (butterflies) after the character in the book written by Henri Charrière who had been imprisoned on Devil’s Island penal colony. In fact there had been many more penal colonies on mainland French Guiana. The convicts were employed collecting butterflies that were sold to butterfly collectors all over the world by the penal colony authorities. The Papillons of the Jungle Warfare Centre wore a tattoo of a butterfly on their forearms and also had made a flag incorporating the red and green colours and seven flamed grenade of the Foreign Legion with a silhouette of a butterfly. They proudly paraded with their Papillon standard on Camerone Day and Bastille Day.

I had arrived at Camp Szuts during the Wet Season and when the heavens opened, which happened with an alarming frequency, I had never experienced rain like it. When DILE inspected Camp Szuts five years before it had been during the Damp Season and compared to what the Wet Season threw at me now it was the difference between a pond and an ocean. The warm rain was so heavy you couldn’t see more than a metre ahead and the downpours started and stopped as if some Celestial Being was operating a tap. I wondered how any work could be carried out under such conditions, but the Heavy Equipment Company men just shrugged when I asked them.

“So long as you keep out of the deepest mud, or at least have a winch on a truck handy, we get by. We can’t lay concrete or asphalt, and sometimes foundations get washed away, but by and large it is only like working under a medium warm shower on full output!”

During the Wet Season the major tasks at Camp Szuts were making sure the drainage channels were free of debris, replacing between the frequent heavy downpours any roofing that leaked, and keeping foodstuffs and paperwork dry. After a few months I was fully acclimatised and spent as much time out in the rain as sheltering from it. We all went bare chested, and in fact many legionnaires working around the camp just wore swimming trunks and thick rubber soled leather sabots. (A sandal type shoe having a sabot strap over the instep.)

Naturally I was concerned about getting malaria again, but maybe I now had immunity or, probably nearer the truth, the pools of standing water were no longer part and parcel of the camp site. An effective drainage system had improved the health of the area along with regular spraying of any likely place mosquitoes would be breeding. The roadway and footways on the camp were asphalted, and the glutinous clinging mud of my previous visit was now a distant memory. However the unpaved and non-tarmacked roads, or rather tracks, off camp were nigh impassable for wheeled traffic during the wettest months, and foot power and undersized donkeys transported people and supplies from one place to another without too much trouble, other than for the donkeys of course.

As I was the only SNCO on site for 8 months of the year the Chevalier appointed me deputy Company Quarter Master Sergent (CQMS), deputy to the CQMS of the Heavy Equipment Company, Sergent chef Delgado, who I didn’t meet until the wettest months of the wet season.

“I’m appointing you Commissary Sergent, as I know you have the skills required to run the supply chain, and you also know your way around the procedures in place. After all, it was you who had a hand in their introduction,” The Chevalier said and then gave a sly grin. “So, when DILE come to inspect they will find everything in apple pie order as well as being squeaky clean!”

I was also in charge of the communication section, such as it was.

As deputy CQMS I ensured the army rations sent from Cayenne were of good quality and the correct amounts. The foods supplied were in the main basic composition rations. The cooks — none of them volunteers or trained — employed in the mess hall were nowhere near Cordon bleu, nor even pitch black, standard. The men grumbled at the monotonous and flavourless cuisine. Even Anglos would have complained had there been any on site, and Anglos have no taste at all when it comes to food. Fortunately, I had learned from CQMS Delgardo why his men were so pleased with the cuisine served in the Heavy Equipment Company cookhouse, and put some of his actions into practise for the benefit of the inhabitants of Camp Szuts.

Delgardo was Portuguese and could converse with the locals who inhabited the land alongside the Oyapock river that formed the border between French Guiana and the Brazilian state of Amapá, formerly Portuguese Guiana. Many of them had a few words of Portuguese and Delgardo had fewer words of Arawak. Delgardo paid the locals to hunt, farm, fish, and then prepare the food produced for his men. He also ensured that locally obtained alcohol and sexual favours were available, so no wonder the men of the Heavy Equipment Company habitually wore satisfied expressions on their faces.