Early in April a young, black-haired French officer-candidate named Henri Francois Maillot deserted his comrades in the 504th Transport Battalion, and went over to the Algerian rebels with a truckload of guns and ammunition. His reason soon became apparent: Maillot was a Communist.
Last week the 5O4th, made up mostly of green young conscripts from Paris, was flushing out a rebel detachment near Orleansville. After a quarter-hour's firing they came upon five rebel dead, one of them a European with henna-dyed hair. Something about him looked familiar. When soldiers daubed his hair with black liquid dye, there was no disguising the features...
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