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"We have experts who understand these matters," the aide said dismissively.
"What do we do?"
"We cannot leave them lying about like so many fallen toy soldiers. These are
Frenchmen. Oh, to see them with their proud red berets in the dirt."
"It is asphalt."
"Dirt. Asphalt. The outrage knows no name."
"We must act quickly to contain this matter, before the Americans learn of it
and lodge a protest."
"Has there been no word from Washington?"
"Not yet. But soon. That is why you must act instantly."
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"I should never have listened to that bouffon," moaned the president of
France.
"What clown?"
"The minister of culture."
"He is not such a clown. He has spearheaded the drive against the detestable
Franglais, he has banished-"
"Enough. Enough. Order our Foreign Legionnaires to storm the Bastille."
"You mean the Blot."
"I mean to see this matter ended before that bouffon calls to complain," the
French president said testily.
"The culture minister?"
"No. The President of the United States."
COLONEL JEAN-GUY BAVARD of the French Foreign Legion had a stock answer for
what had brought him to enlist in the toughest, hardest-fighting and most
disreputable outfit in all Europe.
"It is a long story."
It wasn't. But that gruff comment was enough to turn away all questions. That
it was a long story was the timehonored evasion men of the French Foreign
Legion used against prying reporters or too-curious temporary girlfriends.
Thus, no one ever learned that Colonel Bavard had joined the French Foreign
Legion because of a gastrointestinal irregularity.
Cheese gave him gas. Not any common gas, but the most malodorous, ferocious
gas imaginable. He had only to nibble a corner of Chevrotin, sometimes only
inhale the pungency of Brie, when his bowels would churn and boil and begin
venting.
It was acutely embarrassing. It drove off lonely women, lost children and
hungry dogs. Even flies avoided Colonel Bavard when he was enveloped in a
noxious cloud of his own making.
There were only two humane solutions. Give up cheese or join the French
Foreign Legion, which would take anyone, no matter his sins or quirks. Colonel
Bavard naturally chose the latter course of action.
After all, what self-respecting Frenchman could survive without cheeses? To
dwell Brieless was unthinkable. And to be deprived of Rambol and Camembert?
Not to mention the sublime La Vache qui Rit?
Colonel Bavard had served with distinction in Kuwait and Rwanda, and elsewhere
in the Frenchspeaking world. He had won countless medals for accepting
surrenders. That some of those surrendering to Colonel Bavard were his own men
was beside the point. Enemy surrenders far, far outnumbered comrades-in-arms
who threw themselves gasping on the tender mercies of Colonel Jean-Guy
Bavard.
So it was only natural that in their darkest hour, his fellow countrymen would
turn to him.
"We have chosen you for this mission for a reason," the commander of the
French Foreign Legion told him in his headquarters office.
Colonel Bavard saluted snappily. "I am prepared to die for my nation."
"We need an officer who can lead his men into the darkest quarter of hell."
"I have no fear."
"Your objective is the Blot."
"It is France's."
"It is already France's. Technically we own fiftytwo percent. Or our
unfortunate banks do."
"Then I will destroy it."
"We can accomplish that with an atomic bomb, and may we do so at a later point
as a lesson to others who would inflict their inferior culture upon us."
Then they handed him a pair of goggles with the lenses crisscrossed by
impenetrable black electrical tape.
"What is this for?"
"To protect your eyes."
"From what?"
"The terror of the Blot," they told him solemnly, and Colonel Bavard felt a
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slow chill creep up his stiff Gallic spine.
"But how will I lead if I am blind?"
"We will guide you by radio from a hovering command helicopter."
"What about my men?"
"They, too, will be similarly goggled."
"That is fine, but how will they follow me?"
His commander allowed himself a slow smile. "You have hit upon the very reason
why you have been chosen for this mission, mon Colonel."
And his commander handed Colonel Bavard a blue wedge of malodorous Roquefort.
"Excuse me," Colonel Bavard said, squeezing his cheeks together. Too late. The
room was perfumed with the toil of his sensitive intestines.
"Bon appetit!" said his commander, clapping a respirator over his lower face.
WHEN HE EXPLAINED the mission to his men, Colonel Bavard told them it had an
extremely low pucker factor.
In military parlance the world over, this meant that the mission was a
low-danger one. The pucker factor being the degree to which the anal sphincter
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