SECRET ARMIES
38
sworn to
penalty
silence
when
with death as the penalty for indiscretion. The
employed is usually administered in American
it is
the basic
gangster fashion. Each member is allotted to a
unit of the military organization, and assigned to a secretly for
tified post for training. One of these posts discovered by the
"cell,"
Surete Nationale was in an old boarding house run by two
ancient spinsters with equally ancient guests who spent their
time in rockers, knitting and reading and not dreaming that
underneath the porch on which they sat so tranquilly was a for
tress with enough explosives to blow the whole street to smith
ereens. Into this particular fortification, the cell members would
steal one by one after the old maids had retired, entering by a
concealed door three feet thick and electrically operated.
There are two different kinds of cells in the Cagoulards,
"heavy"
and
"light"
ones.
They
differ in the
number
the quantity of armaments assigned to them. The
eight men equipped with army rifles, automatics,
of
men and
"light"
cell
has
hand grenades,
one has twelve men simi
and one sub-machine gun; the
armed but with a machine gun instead of a sub-machine
larly
gun. Three cells form a unit, three units a battalion, three bat
talions a regiment, two regiments a brigade and two brigades
a division of two thousand men. The battalions (one hundred
and fifty men) are subdivided into squads of fifty to sixty men
with ten to twelve cars at their disposal for quick movement
throughout the city. These automobile squads are given intensive
"heavy"
training.
Members
are not required to pay dues, for enough money
industrialists and the German and Italian Govern
comes in from
need of collecting money from members
for operating expenses. Every effort is made to function without
written communications. No membership cards are issued. No
ments
to eliminate the
tices of meetings, drill
and
rifle
practice are issued verbally,
and