Jordi

Atheist, anarchist, Spanish refugee;
a bit of a lad. La légion étrangère
was a let-off for a loutish connerie.
Here is his version of Dien Bien Phu:

“I got hotter and thirstier with no sleep
as the base shrank and the noise
became a bad film. Nothing to drink.
Water reserved for nurses to splash over
leurs culs élégants like eau de Cologne.
Drunk Viet-Minh materialised and died,
forgetting like somnambules what fear is.
The more they died the more they came.
Marx cast gut courage for class war
like ball bearings for heavy industry.
I dodged shells that chased me
like a vengeful god, and fired to miss
to spite my officers; no wish to kill
or die for La France. Nulle part où chier.
I saw the dead fly up and wave at me;
shells shook out mass shallow graves,
so up they flew and down they thudded
into the dust. I had to mind my step
on bloated bodies and live shells.

The chief was holed up in a bunker
with his right-hand man. The Viet-Minh
lobbed a grenade into the ventilation shaft;
it exploded in the right-hand man’s lap;
aux couilles. He was done for,
a fountain of blood and gore
splattering all over his chief,
who tripped out into the smoke
to pluck a pristine-clean silk hanky
from his breast pocket and dangle
a surrender worthy of his blue blood
and the officer class at Saint Cyr.
I laughed, discreetly.
I was going to live.”