An Army At Dawn
“PRIMUS IN CARTHAGO“Go for the Swine with a Blithe Heart”FROM the tall windows of his corner office in the Hôtel St. Georges, Eisenhower stared out at a city going about its business with little regard to war. The shrill whine of electric trolleys muffled the muezzins’ call to prayer and the chatter of schoolgirls in blue uniforms pouring from the École Ste. Geneviève. In the salon de coiffure outside the hotel’s front entrance, Arabs worked their worry beads and sipped coffee with extended pink...y fingers; the solitary barber’s chair displayed a manufacturer’s stamp showing it had been made in St. Louis. Algerian cavalrymen clopped past on their white chargers, followed by an open truck with bandaged soldiers just arrived from Tunisia. In the hotel corridors squads of barefoot, broom-wielding Arab women whisked furiously at muddy bootprints, to small effect. The rich odor of Thanksgiving dinner wafted from the St. Georges dining room: roasted peacock, cabbage, and peas, served with a credible Algerian rosé.For officers long trapped in Gibraltar’s subterranean gloom—such wraiths were marked by their pallor and hacking coughs—sunny Algiers offered a pleasant respite.MoreLess
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