summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/40479-0.txt
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
Diffstat (limited to '40479-0.txt')
-rw-r--r--40479-0.txt7904
1 files changed, 7904 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/40479-0.txt b/40479-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..027ce20
--- /dev/null
+++ b/40479-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,7904 @@
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40479 ***
+
+IN THE FOREIGN LEGION
+
+
+BY
+
+ERWIN ROSEN
+
+
+LONDON
+DUCKWORTH & CO.
+HENRIETTA ST. COVENT GARDEN
+1910
+
+_All rights reserved_
+
+Printed by BALLANTYNE & CO. LIMITED
+Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, London
+
+
+
+
+PROLOGUE
+
+
+Once upon a time there was a young student at a German University who
+found life too fresh, too joyous, to care very much for professors and
+college halls. Parental objections he disregarded. Things came to a
+climax. And the very next "Schnelldampfer" had amongst its passengers a
+boy in disgrace, bound for the country of unlimited possibilities in
+search of a fortune....
+
+The boy did not see very much of fortune, but met with a great deal of
+hard work. His father did not consider New York a suitable place for
+bad boys, and booked him a through passage to Galveston. There the
+ex-student contracted hotel-bills, feeling very much out of place,
+until a man who took a fancy to him gave him a job on a farm in Texas.
+There the boy learnt a good deal about riding and shooting, but rather
+less about cotton-raising. This was the beginning. In the course of
+time he became translator of Associated Press Despatches for a big
+German paper in St. Louis and started in newspaper life.
+
+From vast New York to the Golden Gate his new profession carried him:
+he was sent as a war correspondent to Cuba, he learned wisdom from the
+kings of journalism, he paid flying visits to small Central American
+republics whenever a new little revolution was in sight. Incidentally
+he acquired a taste for adventure. Then the boy, a man now, was called
+back to the Fatherland, to be a journalist, editor and novelist. He was
+fairly successful. And a woman's love came into his life....
+
+But he lost the jewel happiness. The continual fight for existence and
+battling for daily bread of his American career, so full of ups and
+downs, was hardly a good preparation for quiet respectability. Wise men
+called him a fool, a fool unspeakable, who squandered his talents in
+light-heartedness. And finally a time came when even his wife to be
+could no more believe in him. The jewel happiness was lost....
+
+The man at any rate recognised his loss; he recognised that life was no
+longer worth living. A dull feeling of hopelessness came over him. And
+in his hour of despair he remembered the blood of adventure in his
+veins. A wild life he would have: he would forget.
+
+He enlisted as a soldier in the French Foreign Legion.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+That man was I. I had burned my boats behind me. Not a soul knew where
+I was. Those who loved me should think that I was dead. I lived the
+hard life of a légionnaire; I had no hopes, no aspirations, no thought
+for the future; I worked and marched, slept, ate, and did what I was
+ordered; suffered the most awful hardships and bore all kinds of
+shameful treatment. And during sleepless nights I dreamed of love--love
+lost for ever....
+
+Some five hundred years I wore the uniform of the Legion. So at least
+it seemed to me.
+
+Then--the great change came. One day there was a letter for me.
+
+Love had found me out across a continent. I read and read and read
+again.
+
+That was the turning-point of my life. I broke my fetters, and I fought
+a hard fight for a new career....
+
+Now the jewel happiness is mine.
+
+ERWIN ROSEN
+
+HAMBURG, 1909
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+ PAGE
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+LÉGIONNAIRE!
+
+In Belfort : Sunrays and fear : Madame and the waiter : The
+French lieutenant : The enlistment office of the Foreign Legion
+: Naked humanity : A surgeon with a lost sense of smell :
+"Officier Allemand" : My new comrades : The lieutenant-colonel :
+A night of tears 1
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+L'AFRIQUE
+
+Transport of recruits on the railway : What our ticket did for
+us and France : The patriotic conductor : Marseilles : The gate
+of the French Colonies : The Colonial hotel : A study in blue
+and yellow : On the Mediterranean : The ship's cook : The story
+of the Royal Prince of Prussia at Saida : Oran : Wine and
+légionnaires : How the deserter reached Spain and why he
+returned 16
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+LÉGIONNAIRE NUMBER 17889
+
+French and American bugle-calls : Southward to the city of the
+Foreign Legion : Sidi-bel-Abbès : The sergeant is not pleased :
+A final fight with pride : The jokes of the Legion : The wise
+negro : Bugler Smith : I help a légionnaire to desert : The
+Eleventh Company : How clothes are sold in the Legion : Number
+17889 35
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE FOREIGN LEGION'S BARRACKS
+
+In the company's storeroom : Mr. Smith--American, légionnaire,
+philosopher : The Legion's neatness : The favourite substantive
+of the Foreign Legion : What the commander of the Old Guard said
+at Waterloo : Old and young légionnaires : The canteen : Madame
+la Cantinière : The regimental feast : Strange men and strange
+things : The skull : The prisoners' march : The wealth of
+Monsieur Rassedin, légionnaire : "Rehabilitation" : The Koran
+chapter of the Stallions 48
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE MILITARY VALUE OF THE FOREIGN REGIMENTS
+
+A day's work as a recruit : Allez, hurry up! : The Legion's
+etiquette : A morning's run : The "cercle d'enfer" and the lack
+of soap : The main object of the Legion's training : Splendid
+marchers : Independent soldiers : Forty kilometres a day :
+Uniform, accoutrements, baggage, victualling : The training of
+the légionnaire in detail : The légionnaire as a practical man :
+Specialties of the Legion : Programme for a week in the Legion :
+The légionnaire as a labourer 77
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+"THE LEGION GETS NO PAY"
+
+The money troubles of the Legion : Five centimes wages : The
+cheapest soldiers of the world : Letters from the Legion : The
+science of "decorating" : The industries of the légionnaires :
+What the bugler did for a living : The man with the biscuits : A
+thief in the night : Summary lynch law : Herr von Rader and la
+Cantinière : "The Legion works--the Legion gets no pay!" 105
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE CITY OF THE FOREIGN LEGION
+
+The daily exodus to town : Ben Mansur's coffee : The Ghetto :
+The citizens of Sidi-bel-Abbès and the légionnaires : How the
+Legion squared accounts with the civilians : A forbidden part of
+the town : Primitive vice : A dance of a night : The gardens :
+The last resting-place of the Legion's dead 117
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+A HUNDRED THOUSAND HEROES--A HUNDRED THOUSAND VICTIMS
+
+The hall of honour : A collection of ruined talents : The battle
+of Camaron : A skeleton outline of the Legion's history : A
+hundred thousand victims : A psychological puzzle : True heroes
+: How they are rewarded : The chances of promotion : The pension
+system of the Foreign Legion 135
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+"MARCH OR DIE!"
+
+The Legion's war-cry : A night alarm : On the march : The
+counting of the milestones : Under canvas : The brutality of the
+marches : The légionnaire and the staff doctor : My fight for an
+opiate : The "marching pig" : The psychology of the marches :
+Excited nerves : The song of imprecations 155
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE MADNESS OF THE FOREIGN LEGION
+
+An unpleasant occurrence : The last three coppers : The Roumanian
+Jew from Berlin : Monsieur Viaïsse : The Legion's atmosphere : The
+Cafard demoniacs : Bismarck's double : Krügerle's whim : The
+madness of Légionnaire Bauer : Brutal humour : A tragedy 176
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE DESERTERS
+
+The Odyssey of going on pump : Death in the desert : The
+Legion's deserters : A disastrous flight in a motor-car : The
+tragic fate of an Austrian engineer : In the Ghetto of
+Sidi-bel-Abbès : The business part of desertion : Oran and
+Algiers : The Consulate as a trap : The financial side of
+desertion : One hundred kilometres of suffering : Hamburg
+steamers : Self-mutilation : Shamming : In the Suez Canal :
+Morocco, the wonder-land 197
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A CHAPTER ON PUNISHMENTS
+
+The return of the poumpistes : The scale of punishments in the
+Legion : Of spiteful non-commissioned officers : The Legion's
+axiom : Sad history of Little Jean : The punishment machine :
+Lost years : A légionnaire's earnings in five years--francs,
+127.75 : The prisons in the Foreign Legion : Pestilential
+atmosphere : Human sardines : The general cells : Life in the
+prison : On sentry duty among the prisoners 226
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+SOME TYPES OF VICE
+
+A variety of human vices : The red wine of Algeria : Shum-Shum :
+If there were no wine 248
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+MY ESCAPE
+
+In the Arab prison : The letter : Days of suffering : Flight! :
+The greedy "Crédit Lyonnais" : Haggling in the Ghetto : The palm
+grove as a dressing-room : On the railway track : Arab policemen
+: Horrible minutes : Travelling to Oran : Small preparations :
+On the steamer _St. Augustine_ : Marseilles : Ventimiglia : Free
+ 255
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+J'ACCUSE
+
+Two years after : Shadows of the past : My vision : Public
+opinion and the Foreign Legion : The political aspect of the
+Foreign Legion : The moralist's point of view : The "Legion
+question" in a nutshell : A question the civilised world should
+have answered long ago : Quousque tandem...? 274
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+LÉGIONNAIRE!
+
+In Belfort : Sunrays and fear : Madame and the waiter : The French
+lieutenant : The enlistment office of the Foreign Legion : Naked
+humanity : A surgeon with a lost sense of smell : "Officier Allemand" :
+My new comrades : The lieutenant-colonel : A night of tears
+
+
+Another man, feeling as I felt, would have preferred a pistol-bullet as
+a last resource. I went into the Foreign Legion....
+
+It was evening when I arrived in the old fortress of Belfort, with the
+intention of enlisting for the Legion. Something very like
+self-derision made me spend the night in the best hotel.
+
+Awakening was not pleasant. The sunrays played hide-and-seek upon the
+lace of the cover, clambered to the ceiling, threw fantastic colours on
+the white little faces of the stucco angels, climbed down again,
+crowded together in a shining little heap, and gave the icy elegance of
+the room a warm tone. Sleepily I stared at their play; sleepily I
+blinked at the enormous bed with its splendid covering of lace, the
+curious furniture, the wonderful Persian rug. Then I woke up with a
+start and tried to think. A thousand thoughts, a thousand memories
+crowded in upon me. Voices spoke to me; a woman's tears, the whispering
+of love, a mothers sorrow. And some devil was perpetually drumming in
+even measure: lost, lost, lost for ever....
+
+For the second time in my life I felt the Great Fear. An indescribable
+feeling, as if one had a great lump in one's throat, barring the air
+from the lungs; as if one never could draw breath again. I had once
+experienced this fear in the valley of Santiago de Cuba, when one of
+the first Spanish shells from the blockhouse on San Juan Hill burst a
+few feet from me. This time it was much worse.
+
+Ah well, one must try to forget!
+
+I dressed with ridiculous care, paid my bill in the "bureau," and
+earned a lovely smile from madame for my gold piece. Ah, madame, you
+would hardly flash your pretty eyes if you knew! The head waiter stood
+expectant at the door, bending himself almost double in French fashion.
+He reminded me of a cat in bad humour.
+
+I gave him a rather large silver piece.
+
+"Well, my son, you're the last man in this world who gets a tip from
+me. Too bad, isn't it?"
+
+"Je ne parle pas...."
+
+"That's all right," said I.
+
+I walked slowly through the quaint narrow streets and alleys of
+Belfort. Shop after shop, store after store, and before each and every
+one of them stood flat tables packed with things for sale, taking up
+most of the pavement. Here was a good chance for a thief, I thought,
+and laughed, marvelling that in my despair the affairs of the Belfort
+storekeepers could interest me. Mechanically I looked about and saw a
+house of wonderful blue; the city fathers of Belfort had built their
+new market-hall almost wholly of sapphire-blue glass, which
+scintillated in the rays of the sun, giving an effect such as no
+painter has as yet been able to reproduce. I felt sorry that a building
+of such beauty should be condemned to hold prosaic potatoes and
+greenstuff. Vivacious Frenchmen and Frenchwomen hurried by hustling and
+jostling each other in the crowded streets.... Don't hurry about so.
+Life is certainly not worth the trouble!
+
+Ironical thoughts could not alter matters, nor could even the most
+wonderful blue help me to forget. I must get it over.
+
+A very young-looking lieutenant came up the street. I spoke to him in
+my rusty college French:
+
+"Would you please to direct me to the recruiting office of the Foreign
+Legion?"
+
+The officer touched his "kepi" politely and seemed rather astonished.
+
+"You can come with me, monsieur. I am on the way to the offices of the
+fortress."
+
+We went together.
+
+"You seem to be German?" he said. "I may be able to assist you. I am
+adjutant to the general commanding the fortress."
+
+"Yes, I am German, and intend to enlist in the Foreign Legion," I said,
+very, very softly. How terribly hard this first step was! I thought the
+few words must choke me.
+
+"Oh, la la...." said the officer, quite confounded.
+
+He took a good look at me. I seemed to puzzle him. Then he chatted (the
+boy was a splendid specimen of French courtesy) amiably about this and
+that. Awfully interesting corps, this Foreign Legion. He hoped to be
+transferred himself to the "étrangers" for a year or two. Ah, that
+would be magnificent.
+
+"The Cross of the Legion of Honour can be earned very easily in
+Southern Algeria. Brilliant careers down there! Oh, la la! Eh bien,
+monsieur--you shall wear the French uniform very soon. Have you
+anything particular to tell me?"
+
+Again that curious glance.
+
+I answered in the negative.
+
+"Really not?" the lieutenant asked in a very serious tone of voice.
+
+"No, monsieur, absolutely nothing. I have been told that for the
+Foreign Legion physical fitness is the only thing required, and that
+the recruiting officers cared less than nothing about the past lives of
+their recruits."
+
+"You're quite right," said the lieutenant; "I asked in your own
+interest only. If you had special military knowledge, for instance,
+your way in the Legion could be made very easy for you."
+
+Some time later I understood what he meant. Now I answered that I had
+served in the army like all Germans.
+
+Meanwhile we had reached a row of small buildings. Into one of them the
+lieutenant went with me, up a flight of steep, rather dirty stairs,
+into a dingy little office. At our entrance a corporal jumped up from
+his seat and saluted, and the officer spoke to him in a low tone. Then
+my little lieutenant left and the corporal turned to me.
+
+"Eh, enter la Légion?" he said. "Mais, monsieur, you are not dressed
+like a man desiring to gain bread by becoming légionnaire! Votre nom?"
+
+I reflected for an instant whether I should give my right name or not.
+I gave it, however. It did not matter much.
+
+"Eh, venez avec moi to the others. The médecin major will be here in a
+minute."
+
+So saying the corporal opened a door and gave me a friendly push. I
+drew back almost frightened. The atmosphere of the close little room
+was unspeakable. It was foul with the smell of unwashed humanity,
+sweat, dirt and old clothes. Long benches stood against the wall and
+men sat there, candidates for the Foreign Legion, waiting for the
+medical examination, waiting to know whether their bodies were still
+worth five centimes daily pay. That is what a légionnaire gets--five
+centimes a day. One of the men sat there naked, shivering in the chill
+October air. It needed no doctor's eye to see that he was half starved.
+His emaciated body told the story clearly enough. Another folded his
+pants with almost touching care, although they had been patched so
+often that they were now tired of service and in a state of continuous
+strike. An enormous tear in an important part had ruined them
+hopelessly. These pants and that tear had probably settled the question
+of the wearer's enlisting in the Foreign Legion.
+
+A third man, a strong boy, seemed very much ashamed of having to
+undress. These poor men considered nudity a vile and ugly thing,
+because, in their life of poverty and hunger, they had forgotten the
+laws of cleanliness. They were ashamed, and every move of theirs told
+it. There, in the corner, one of the men was shoving his shoes
+furtively as far as possible under the bench, that the holes in them
+might not be seen, and another made a small bundle of his tattered
+belongings, thus defying inspection.
+
+A dozen men were there. Some of them were mere boys, with only a shadow
+of beard on their faces; youths with deep-set hungry eyes and deep
+lines round their mouths; men with hard, wrinkled features telling the
+old story of drink very plainly. Nobody dared to talk aloud. Occasional
+words were spoken in a hushed undertone. The man beside me said softly,
+the fear of refusal in his eyes:
+
+"I've got varicose veins. D'you think they'll take me...?"
+
+My God, the Foreign Legion meant hope for this man--the hope of regular
+food! The daily five centimes were for him wages well worth having!
+
+The atmosphere was loathsome. I stared at this miserable crowd of
+hopeless men, at their filthy things, at their hungry faces; I felt
+like a criminal in the dock. My clothes seemed a mockery....
+
+After what seemed an eternity of waiting the officers came in. A fat
+surgeon, an assistant and my lieutenant. I would have given something
+to have asked this doctor why in all the world these men could not be
+given a bath before examination....
+
+First the doctor pointed at me.
+
+"Undress!"
+
+While I was undressing, the officers kept whispering together, very
+softly, but I could hear that they were talking about me, and that the
+lieutenant said something about "Officier Allemand."
+
+I smiled as I listened. It was very funny to be taken for a quondam
+German officer. I suppose they took me for a deserter; it certainly
+must have been rather an unusual event to find a well-dressed man
+enlisting in the Legion.
+
+The well-dressed man felt annoyed at this curiosity, this openly shown
+pity. It was absolute torture to me. How very ridiculous it all was--I
+fumbled at my watch-chain, trying to take off the little gold
+sovereign-case in order to open my waistcoat--I fumed at the stares of
+the officers who should have been gentlemen.... The looks of the doctor
+said plainly:
+
+"Humph, the fellow actually wears fine underclothes!"
+
+Why should they stare at me? Had I not the same right as these other
+poor devils to go to perdition in my own way? Why should they make it
+so hard for me in particular? Then I understood how human their
+curiosity was, and how ridiculous my irritability. The first step was
+made. I began slowly to understand what it meant to enlist in the
+Foreign Legion as a last refuge.
+
+I stood there naked before the médecin major, who adjusted his
+eye-glass as if he had a good deal of time to spare, and who took a
+long look at me. I stared quietly back at him. You may look as long as
+you wish, I thought, you fat, funny old fellow with a snub nose. You
+surely aren't going to complain of my physical condition.
+
+"Bon," said the doctor.
+
+A clerk wrote something in a book. This finished the ceremony. The
+doctor did not bother about such trifles as examining the lungs, heart
+or eyes. He was for simplifying things. Monsieur le major decided with
+a short look in each case, as the other men took their turn. Three men
+were refused. An old woman could have diagnosed their condition at a
+glance--they were cases for a hospital, and their doing military
+service was absolutely out of the question. The man with the varicose
+veins, however, was at once accepted. Bon! I could see how happy he was
+over his good fortune, and I envied him. The man had hope....
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Before a small window in the wall we new recruits waited, half an hour,
+an hour. At last the window was opened and the corporal put out his
+head.
+
+"Snedr!" he called.
+
+Nobody answered.
+
+"Snedr!!" he yelled, getting angry.
+
+Still no reply.
+
+Finally the lieutenant appeared beside the corporal, and looked over
+his list.
+
+"Oh," he said, "the man does not understand. Schneider!"
+
+"Here!" answered one of my new comrades at once.
+
+"Your name is Schneider?" the lieutenant asked.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Very well, in French your name is pronounced Snedr. Remember that!"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Sign your name here."
+
+The man signed. One after the other the new recruits were called to the
+little window, and each signed his name, without bothering to look at
+what he signed. I came last this time. The lieutenant gave me a sheet
+of hectographed paper, and I glanced quickly over its contents. It was
+a formal contract for five years' service in the Foreign Legion between
+the Republic of France and the man who was foolish enough to sign it.
+There were a great many paragraphs and great stress was laid on the
+fact that the "enlisting party" had no right upon indemnification in
+case of sickness or disability, and no claim upon pension until after
+fifteen years of service.
+
+"Have you any personal papers?" the lieutenant asked me suddenly.
+
+I almost laughed in his face--he was such a picture of curiosity. In my
+German passport, however, I was described as "editor," and I had a
+notion that this passport was much too good for an occasion like this.
+While searching my portfolio for "personal papers" I happened to find
+the application form of a life insurance company, with my name filled
+out. I gave this to the lieutenant with a very serious countenance. It
+was good enough for this. The officer looked at the thing and seemed
+quite puzzled.
+
+"Oh, that will do," he finally smiled, and gave me the pen to sign.
+
+I signed. And under my name I wrote the date: October 6, 1905.
+
+"The date was unnecessary," said the lieutenant.
+
+"Pardon me," I answered. "I wrote unthinkingly--it's an important date
+for me."
+
+"By God, you're right," said he.
+
+In single file we were marched to the barracks. One of the French
+soldiers who met us on the way stopped, and threw up his hands in
+laughing astonishment:
+
+"Eh!"
+
+And then, making a wry face, he yelled, in a coarse sing-song:
+
+"Nous sommes les légionnaires d'Afrique...."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Half an hour later three new recruits of the Foreign Legion, the
+recruit Schneider, the recruit Rader and the recruit Rosen, sat in a
+little room belonging to the quarters of the 31st French Regiment of
+Line. All three were Germans. Rader opened the conversation.
+
+"My name's Rader. Pretty good name, ain't it, though it isn't my name,
+of course. I might have called myself von Rader--Baron von Rader--while
+I was at it, but I ain't proud. What's in a fine name, I say, if you've
+got nothing to fill your stomach with? No, the suckers may call me
+Rader. My real name is Müller. Can't use it! Must have some regard for
+the feelings of my people...."
+
+"I mustn't hurt their delicate feelings," he repeated with a great roar
+of laughter.
+
+Then a long knife on the table attracted his attention. He took it up,
+mimicked the pose of a grand tragedian, opened his mouth and swallowed
+the knife, as if twelve-inch blades were his favourite repast. All at
+once the knife lay upon the table again, only to vanish in the
+coat-sleeve of Herr von Rader and appear again rather abruptly out of
+his left trousers pocket.
+
+"I'm an artist," Herr Rader, alias von Rader, alias Müller said with a
+condescending smile. "A good one, too. Strictly first class. Why, these
+monkeys of Frenchmen don't know nothing about art! Would they
+appreciate a true artist? Not a bit of it. Boys, since I hopped over
+the frontier and made long nose at the German cop I left on the other
+side with a long face, I haven't had much to eat. Remarkably less than
+was good for my constitution. So Herr von Rader went to the dogs--to
+the Foreign Legion, I meant to say. What's the difference--if they
+don't treat me with proper respect, I'll be compelled to leave them
+again. On French leave! Scoot, skin out, bunk it--see?"
+
+Then Herr von Rader fished a number of mysterious little boxes out of
+innumerable pockets, inspected them carefully, turned round to mask his
+artistic preparations, turned to us again--and his wide-opened
+satyr-mouth emitted a sheet of flame! Little Schneider (he was very
+young) stared at the phenomenon with startled eyes.
+
+"Grand, ain't it?" said Herr von Rader quietly. "I've a notion that
+this coon isn't going to waste his resources on French Africa. Oh no!
+Some fine day I'll give the niggers of Central Africa a treat. I'll go
+partners with some big chief and do the conjuring part of the business.
+Heap big medicine! There's only one thing worrying me. How about
+drinking arrangements? Palm-wine, ain't it? Boys, if only they have
+such a thing as beer and kümmel down there!--Say, old fellow (he turned
+to me) what do you think about this French absinthe?"
+
+I mumbled something.
+
+"Awfully weak stuff!" said Herr von Rader sorrowfully. "No d--d good!"
+
+If the comical fellow had known that, with his drollery and his
+fantastic yarns, he was helping me to battle with my despair, I suppose
+he would have been very much astonished....
+
+There was a good deal of story-telling: about the hunger and the misery
+of such "artistes" of the road; about the little tricks and "petty
+larcenies," by means of which the ever-hungry and ever-thirsty Herr von
+Rader had managed to eat occasionally, at least, on his wanderings over
+the roads of many countries; about drinking and things unspeakable.
+Most of the stories, however, told of hunger only, plain and simple
+hunger.
+
+Then Schneider's turn came. His story was very simple. A few weeks ago
+he was wearing the uniform of a German infantry regiment garrisoned at
+Cologne. He was then a recruit. One Sunday he had gone drinking with
+some other recruits and together they made a great deal of noise in the
+"Wirthshaus." The patrol came up. As the non-commissioned officer in
+command put Schneider under arrest, the boy shoved his superior aside,
+knocked some of the soldiers of the patrol down and took to his heels.
+When he had slept off the effects of his carouse in a corner, he got
+frightened and decided on flight. A dealer in second-hand clothes gave
+him an old civilian suit in exchange for his uniform. As a tramp he
+wandered till he reached the French frontier, and some other tramps
+showed him how to get across the frontier-line on a dark night. In the
+strange country hunger came and----
+
+"We always talked about the Legion. All the other Germans on the road
+wanted to enlist in the Legion. Anyway, I never could have gone home
+again. My father would have killed me."
+
+"No, he wouldn't," said Herr von Rader wisely. "You would have got all
+sorts of good things. It's all in the Bible. Yes, it is...."
+
+The door opened and a sergeant came in.
+
+"Is the légionnaire Rosen here?"
+
+I stood up.
+
+"The lieutenant-colonel wishes to speak to you. Come along to the
+parade-ground."
+
+"... Keep your hat on," said the lieutenant-colonel. He spoke pure
+German. "No, you need not stand at attention. I have heard of you and
+would like to say a few words to you. I have served in the Foreign
+Legion as a common soldier. I consider it an honour to have served in
+this glorious corps. It all depends on yourself: men of talent and
+intelligence have better chances of promotion in the Legion than in any
+other regiment in the world. Educated men are valued in the Legion.
+What was your profession?"
+
+"Journalist ..." I stuttered. I felt miserable.
+
+The stern grey eyes looked at me searchingly. "Well, I can understand
+that you do not care to talk about these things. However, I will give
+you some advice: Volunteer for the first battalion of the Legion. You
+have a much better chance there for active service. We are fighting a
+battle for civilisation in Algeria and many a splendid career has been
+won in the Legion. I wish you good luck!"
+
+He gave me his hand. I believe this officer was a fine soldier and a
+brave man.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Herr von Rader of the merry mind and the unquenchable thirst slept the
+easy sleep of light-hearted men; I heard the German deserter groan in
+his sleep and call for his mother. All night long I lay awake. The
+events of my life passed before me in mad flight. I was once more a boy
+at college; I saw my father standing by the dock at Bremerhaven and
+heard his last good-bye and my mother's crying.... Back to America my
+waking dreams carried me; I saw myself a young cub of a reporter, and
+remembered in pain the enthusiasm of the profession, my enthusiasm--how
+proud I was, when for the first time the city editor trusted me with a
+"big thing," how I chased through San Francisco in cabs, how I
+interviewed big men and wormed details out of secretive politicians ...
+how I loved this work and how sweet success had tasted. Lost, lost for
+ever.
+
+Forget I must--I tried to think of the time in Texas, the life on the
+Brazos farm, where hundreds of negroes had learned to respect me--after
+a little shooting and more kindness shown them in their small troubles;
+I tried to glory in remembrance of hard riding and straight shooting,
+of a brutal but gloriously free life. Why should I not live a rough
+life now? I should be on active service in the Legion. Crouching down
+behind my rifle in the firing-line, waiting for the enemy. I would have
+a life of excitement, a life of danger. Hurrah for the wild old life!
+Grant me adventures, Dame Fortune!
+
+But fickle Lady Fortune would not grant even a night's oblivion. During
+the long night I fought with a wild desire to scream into the darkness
+the beloved name.... I fought with my tears----
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+L'AFRIQUE
+
+Transport of recruits on the railway : What our ticket did for us and
+France : The patriotic conductor : Marseilles : The gate of the French
+Colonies : The Colonial hotel : A study in blue and yellow : On the
+Mediterranean : The ship's cook : The story of the Royal Prince of
+Prussia at Saida : Oran : Wine and légionnaires : How the deserter
+reached Spain and why he returned
+
+
+Next morning we assembled on the parade-ground. A sergeant distributed
+silver pieces amongst us, a franc for each man, that being the meagre
+subsistence allowance given us for the long voyage to the
+Mediterranean. Besides, each man was given a loaf of bread.
+
+Then a corporal marched us to the railway station. The loaf of bread
+under my arm prompted me to look persistently at the ground. I was
+afraid of reading in the eyes of the passers-by wonder, surprise, or,
+worse still, compassion.
+
+The corporal took us to the Marseilles train, gave us his blessing,
+smoked a cigarette, and waited patiently until the train started. We
+travelled alone. But France ran no danger of losing her recruits on the
+way. The fact that we were intended for the Foreign Legion was written
+on our military ticket in howling big red letters. The conductor
+watched with great care. He was a Frenchman and a patriot and had his
+suspicions that these new sons of France might have the perfidy to
+break faith and leave the train at some place other than Marseilles. He
+therefore kept a sharp look-out--occupying a good strategic position
+right in front of our car--whenever the train stopped at stations. The
+thing would have been impossible, anyway; with that ticket one could
+never have passed the platform barriers. Said Herr von Rader: "They
+know all about their business. We are just little flies, don't you see,
+sonny, and this fine invention of a ticket is the thread wound about
+our little legs. We're prisoners, brother mine!"
+
+When we left the train at Marseilles, we saw our patriotic conductor
+run along the platform, signalling excitedly to a sergeant at the gate.
+
+"I've got them! Here they are!" was the meaning of this human
+semaphore. The conductor was a taxpayer and took good care that France
+should receive her dues.
+
+The sergeant and a corporal received us lovingly. The corporal took
+charge and marched us through the town, while the sergeant trotted
+along the sidewalk at a respectful distance. Without doubt he had no
+desire that any one should connect him with us. He was quite right. We
+did not look pretty and the night on the train had not enhanced what
+little beauty we may originally have possessed.
+
+Along the immense water-front of the port of Marseilles we marched; in
+the midst of a swarming throng of men, amongst a cosmopolitan human
+machine in full working blast. Past Arabs carrying heavy burdens and
+fat Levantines lazily strolling about, surrounded by Frenchmen of the
+south, always gesticulating, ever talking. Ship lay by ship. Elegant
+steam yachts were moored alongside of unkempt tramp-steamers, whose
+neglected appearance told of the troubles of money-making on the high
+seas. There were Levantine barques with funny round sails, whose crews
+were dressed in flannel shirts of two exclusive colours: a screaming
+red and a howling blue. Sailing-ships of some hundred different rigs
+lay there in line, enormous elevators discharged their unceasing flow
+of grain, and a colossal swivel bridge hung high in the air on her
+single pillar, seeming to defy all laws of gravitation.
+
+Casks, barrels, boxes, sacks went flying through the air, past our
+noses, shoved, pushed, thrown, bundled about, propelled by the heavy
+fists of men who apparently could not work without a tremendous amount
+of yelling and screaming. Surely the combined noises of fifteen large
+cities cannot equal the hellish babel of Marseilles' water-front.
+
+We had to walk more than an hour before we reached the little fort,
+once the nucleus of Marseilles' harbour defence, whose sole purpose now
+is that of a gate through which to pass recruits for the colonial
+armies of France. Fort St. Jean it is called. Over the mediæval
+drawbridge of the fort we marched. An enormous oaken door was opened by
+a couple of sentries. As we entered, a volley of whistles and yells
+greeted us--the salute for the new légionnaires of France. On the
+time-worn pavement of the courtyard were crowded in a dense mass the
+soldiers of the African corps who were waiting for the next troopship.
+Spahis and Zouaves and Tirailleurs, who crowded round us like a swarm
+of bees.
+
+"Oh, la la, les bleus pour la Légion!" (Here are the blues for the
+Legion.)
+
+"Why are we called blues?" I asked a Spahi corporal who happened to
+stand near me.
+
+"Blues?" he said. "Oh, well, that means recruits. Officially recruits
+are called 'les jeunes soldats,' young soldiers, but in the army we say
+the blues."
+
+"Wonder what it means," I said.
+
+The corporal lit a new cigarette and explained: "The origin of the name
+is uncertain. My captain told me once that it represented an old army
+tradition from Napoleonic times. The soldiers of Napoleon wore very
+stiff cravats to give shape to the high collars of their uniforms.
+These cravats are said to have been torture. They held the head like a
+vice, and it took a long time to get used to them. The recruits
+actually got blue in the face with these cravats round their necks, to
+the immense amusement of the old soldiers, who made fun of them: Aha,
+the blues--look at the blues!"
+
+Herr von Rader (in my memory he always figures as "Herr von Rader")
+gave me a nudge:
+
+"Say, old chap, take a look at the fellows with the colossal pants!"
+
+The Spahis were at their toilette, arranging their spacious red
+trousers in picturesque folds. Herr von Rader looked at them with great
+wonder.
+
+"My soul--what waste! Why, it's astonishing. Out of a single pair of
+these pants I could make pants for a whole family and have a fine skirt
+left for my grandmother!"
+
+Then came the Spahi's sashes. Two men helped each other at this
+important part of their toilet. One Spahi would fasten the blue sash,
+seven feet in length, and about half a yard in breadth, to his hip, and
+turn quickly about while his comrade held the other end, keeping the
+sash tight and tense until his brother-in-arms was rolled up in it. The
+Spahis seemed to attach great importance to the sit of their sashes,
+smoothing and tightening and re-tightening them with amusing coquetry.
+
+The great gloomy courtyard was one mass of soldiers. From a gallery a
+non-commissioned officer read off a string of names from a pay-roll,
+and in squads the soldiers went up the stairs to receive their
+travelling allowance. We recruits stood in a corner, not knowing what
+to do or whom to report ourselves to. Finally a corporal exhorted us to
+go to the devil. We were in the way. It would not be our turn for a
+long time. We could wait, we should wait, being nasty recruits, blues,
+nom de Dieu. Mumbling further things descriptive of how he despised
+blues he went off. Then came soldiers, carrying on boards long rows of
+little tin bowls. The Spahis and Zouaves crowded at once round the
+steaming pots, but Herr von Rader hurled himself in the fray, and
+captured portions for all of us. It was thus that I made the
+acquaintance of "la gamelle," the venerable tin eating bowl of the
+French army, baptized "la gamelle" centuries ago. I was tasting for the
+first time the soup of the French army, a mixture of bread and
+greenstuffs and small pieces of meat. The cooking of this soup was an
+ancient, time-honoured custom. The musketeers of Louis XIV., of
+Cardinal Richelieu and Cardinal Mazarin prepared their soup in the very
+same fashion.
+
+Lounging about the place we came to the canteen of this curious army
+hotel, and made our way through a labyrinth of wine-casks, which were
+massed in front of the little door. There was an awful din inside. We
+sat down at one of the long tables and were served with the French army
+wine at fifteen centimes a bottle. Good wine, too, but it was
+impossible to enjoy it quietly, the Lord of the Canteen, a fat little
+man with greedy eyes, being eager for business--second-hand clothes
+business.
+
+He pestered us unceasingly with his offers and demands. Herr von Rader
+sold his boots for half a franc, after a great deal of haggling, since
+he wanted the half-franc badly, but objected to going barefooted. The
+owner of the canteen, however (who evidently thought the buying of good
+boots at half a franc a good thing), solved the difficulty. Out of some
+corner he conjured a pair of shoes such as the French Zouaves wear.
+Although they were in a bad state of dilapidation, Herr von Rader
+figured out that four bottles of wine could be exchanged for fifty
+centimes, and the boots changed owners....
+
+Of my possessions, the fat man desired my overcoat. He complimented me
+on my overcoat. An exceedingly beautiful overcoat--such an overcoat as
+a poor man like he, the fat man, would be very glad to have. When I
+entered the Legion I would have to sell it and I would be sure not to
+get more than two francs for it. He would give me four. I never would
+get as much as that in Algeria, he said. Half an hour he talked to me
+in the vain endeavour to talk me out of the overcoat. But the "poor
+man" had a much too prosperous look about him. Moreover, a Zouave
+whispered in my ear that the cochon of a canteen-keeper was getting
+rich by his little "business." So I told him to go to a place which we
+generally consider hot and disagreeable. Then the fat man tried it with
+the others, and made excellent bargains. For a few copper pieces he
+bought many things, for the twentieth part of their value, boots and
+coats and pocket-books. The Swiss recruit even sold his trousers. He
+got five sous for them. He got a pair of old French infantry trousers
+into the bargain since he had to have some sort of compensation for
+these very necessary garments. The fat man's greedy eyes had a happy
+light in them and he bought whatever he could lay his hands on.
+
+There was money to be made even out of the poor devils of recruits for
+the Legion!
+
+I preferred the open air. Leaving the wine and laughter behind me I
+walked through the fort and climbed up to the bulwarks. The cannon had
+vanished; where once they had been mounted there grew little tufts of
+grass on the gravel. I was quiet and lonesome on the old battlements.
+They commanded a view of the whole of Marseilles. The city and the port
+were enveloped in a curious yellowish light, the bright yellow of the
+South. Through a veil of yellow I saw the enormous massive
+street-blocks of Lower Marseilles, and far away the little villas of
+the suburbs, their flat roofs reflecting a multitude of colours, with
+an ever-dominating leitmotiv of yellow. The harbour seemed far away and
+its noises were dimly audible. The ship masts, the elevators, the
+bridges looked tiny and delicate as the threads of a giant spider's
+web.
+
+South of my bulwark there was the ocean and peace. Between the walls of
+St. Jean and the vis-à-vis, an ochre-coloured rocky promontory, there
+was a stretch of deep blue water, of the most beautiful blue in all the
+world.
+
+Herr von Rader had followed me. He didn't say a word, but sat quietly
+on the wall swaying to and fro, like a pendulum. From time to time he
+spat to the whispering waters below. And how pleased he was when he
+managed to hit a fisherman. But not a word he said.
+
+Little I cared for Herr von Rader and his contempt of the world. What a
+strange thing this ocean-bound fortress was! The mighty walls now
+enclosed but an inn. The fort had been turned into an inn in its old
+days. Its artillery had been sold for old iron long ago. It had ceased
+to be a fighting machine. It was a resting-place, an hotel for the
+recruits of France's colonial army to pass a day and a night until the
+troopship carried them to Africa or French Indo-China or Madagascar.
+Every day of the year the old fort received new guests--for a day and a
+night. Many thousands of men had lodged in it....
+
+Fort St. Jean was France's gate for her colonial soldiers. For a few
+the gate to the Legion of Honour, for the majority the gate to
+suffering and misery and sickness, to a nameless grave in the hot sands
+of Africa.
+
+I wondered whither my road would lead me, in what manner I should
+perish....
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The packet boat on which we were transported to Africa had left
+Marseilles.
+
+Holding my hands to my ears, so that I might not hear a French word or
+a French sound and be reminded that I was a légionnaire, I stood in the
+bows staring at the wonders of Marseilles. There were a number of
+little islands wrapped in blue mist, playing hide-and-seek, until the
+sun appeared. Now the game was over and the veil of mist disappeared.
+The hills and the houses lay glorious in an ocean of colour. There was
+a rocky island with an ancient gloomy castle. I knew it to be the
+prison of Monte Christo, the great adventurer of the elder Dumas, and I
+felt very much as the imprisoned Count of Monte Christo must have felt.
+
+Marseilles disappeared. Ocean and sun arranged a wonderful play for a
+poor devil of a légionnaire. Far out to sea the sun would try to catch
+the little waves, throwing floods of brilliant light on pearly
+cascading water. And then the little waves escaped again, amidst fun
+and laughter, and ran off to inspect our ship. They struck the ship's
+sides and seemed very much surprised that they were so solid. They said
+so plainly enough, making a great deal of noise and fuss about it. But
+they soon became good-humoured again and told the nicest stories about
+fairy palaces of the deep and the peace of the ocean. Unthinkingly I
+had taken my hands down, and heard my new comrades quarrelling amongst
+themselves. The wine had not been fairly divided.
+
+The spell was broken.
+
+I recognised now well enough that I was standing on one of the lowest
+steps of the world's ladder, but I had not expected contempt, disdain
+and rough treatment to touch me so soon. The ship's cook began it.
+
+"Nix comprends," cried the cook. The old packet of the "Compagnie des
+Messageries Maritimes," on which we made the voyage across the
+Mediterranean to Oran, had made a miserable bargain when hiring that
+cook. The thing was called Jacques. It even answered occasionally to
+its name if it felt like it. It was malicious, wondrously versed in
+profanity, addicted to lying, and very filthy.
+
+The first day there was nothing to eat for us until evening. At three
+o'clock in the afternoon of the second day we were still waiting, very
+hungry indeed, for our first meal, and I thought it time to have a talk
+with Mr. Jacques. I told him that our board was paid for and that we
+wanted something to eat. Quick, too.
+
+The thing answered with a nicely chosen assortment of oaths. He swore
+like a--well, like a man from Marseilles. He was pleased to inform me
+that according to his opinion dirty légionnaires were expressly made to
+do a lot of waiting. If he should happen to have spare time on his
+hands, he might try and get something to eat for us. But he was not
+quite sure whether or not he would have time!
+
+Now this pleased me. I knew to a nicety how to arrange matters with
+this thing.
+
+"Well, my son," I said lovingly, "won't you please take a look at these
+eight comrades of mine? They are Germans and cannot talk French. But
+they are very good at smashing things. They're quite experts at that
+sort of thing. See how they are looking at you? I rather think they are
+going to beat you horribly."
+
+"Allez donc!" remarked the cook dubiously. He seemed uneasy.
+
+"They are Prussians. Very likely they'll kill you. I am going to help
+them at it."
+
+The cook took a look at me and a second look at the "Prussians." He was
+rather pale and seemed to think that he was up against it. First he
+cursed volubly, then he dived into his dark hole of a kitchen and
+fetched out a tin filled with macaroni, a number of loaves of bread,
+and a bucketful of wine--about a gallon. There were no knives, however,
+exactly four forks for nine men, and one little drinking-cup.
+
+The other day one of these packets foundered somewhere on the Algerian
+coast. I sincerely hope it was the packet I crossed on, and that
+Jacques the cook was drowned....
+
+ * * * * *
+
+On the evening of the second day a visitor came to us from the
+first-class part of the boat. He was a sergeant in the Foreign Legion
+and ventured among the third-class passengers to have a look at his new
+recruits. Being a Belgian, he could not talk German with them, and so I
+had the honour of conversation with him for a couple of hours.
+
+Yes, the Germans made fine soldiers, although they were very
+thick-headed. Such an obstinate race! It would be best for me if I
+foregathered with Frenchmen only in the Legion. My French needed
+cultivating badly, said the sergeant. Then he ordered a bottle of wine
+and talked about the Legion. Lies, mostly. One of his stories is worth
+the telling however.
+
+In 1880 a young German enlisted in the Legion. He was an excellent
+soldier, spoke a brilliant French, and was considered a good fellow. A
+detachment of the Legion, of which he was a member, was suddenly
+attacked by Arabs near Saida. The commanding officer, a lieutenant, was
+severely wounded, and all of the non-commissioned officers killed at
+the first attack. Now the young German took command and led a furious
+onslaught on the attacking Arabs, managing to hold out until help came.
+Shot in the breast he was carried into camp, and the colonel of the
+regiment gave his own Cross of the Legion of Honour to the dying man.
+The young German asked the surgeon whether he had a chance of life. The
+doctor said yes, of course. But, finally, the new Chevalier of the
+Legion of Honour was told the truth and thereupon demanded a short
+interview with his commanding officer.
+
+Telegrams went flying between the little desert station and the capital
+of Germany.... In the evening the légionnaire died. A week later a
+veiled lady appeared in Saida to take the body to the Fatherland.
+Chevaliers of the Legion of Honour escorted their dead comrade, and the
+French flag covered the coffin. The young German had been a royal
+prince of Prussia!
+
+"Do you actually believe this yarn?" I asked the sergeant.
+
+"It's an absolute fact!" said he, very serious and very much offended.
+
+The same story was told me, with slight variations, many times in the
+Legion. The "royal prince of Prussia" is part and parcel of the
+unwritten history of the Legion, told from légionnaire to légionnaire,
+and I have often wondered how much truth there may be in the legend.
+Very likely the man of Saida had been a German aristocrat, the black
+sheep of some good family, and in the course of time and telling the
+Legion had made him a royal prince of Prussia.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Oran came in sight. Nine recruits promptly lined up on deck, staring
+with wondering eyes at the land to whose shores destiny had sent them
+to work and wage war for strangers, for a nation whose language even
+they did not understand. Sandstone cliffs formed a rugged coast-line.
+From their heights batteries were firing. The target was pontooned in
+the sea at a distance of about 5000 yards from the shore. But the
+columns of water thrown up by the bursting shrapnel never reached it.
+The old sergeant shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I am not interested in any shooting but in ours," he said; "anyway, at
+shooting with the old Lebel gun the Legion can beat any on earth."
+
+He was at least loyal to his Legion, the old grey-haired sergeant, even
+if he did tell so many lies....
+
+The batteries were at any rate excellently masked. It was quite
+impossible to detect their positions. Even when the old sergeant showed
+me where they were mounted, I could see nothing. High up on the crags
+the heavy cannon had been built in, behind little sandhills, flanked by
+large rocks, the whole arrangement looking so very much like nature
+that none could have suspected that it was artificial. The positions of
+the guns were perfect.
+
+We gained the harbour. Suddenly the cliffs opened out East and West,
+leaving an enormous gap. Out jumped, as from a conjurer's box, the
+fortress of Oran, a maze of flat-roofed houses on hilly ground. The
+inner harbour was ridiculously small, just a little square, its room
+quite taken up by twelve torpedo-boats, two small cruisers and half a
+dozen merchant ships. We had hardly touched the pier when a corporal
+jumped on board. The famous corporal of the French army, the
+maid-of-all-work, the busy French corporal who attends to everything
+and has more real work to do than all the officers of a company
+together. He read off our names from a list and marched us off to
+quarters.
+
+It was a novel scene that met our gaze. Negroes, sparingly attired in
+loin-cloth and red fez, hurried past in a strange shuffling quickstep,
+carrying enormous loads on their heads; taciturn Arabs stood around,
+wrapped from head to foot in white burnous-cloth; officers promenaded
+with their women-folk and occasionally some fine lady would give us a
+look of curiosity and compassion. A Spahi orderly galloped by on a
+foaming horse and yelled in high amusement:
+
+"Bonjour, les bleus!"
+
+We were marched across the city square. The surroundings and houses had
+nothing typical about them until we began to pass through little alleys
+and byways, where naked black children were playing and rolling in the
+dirt and filth.
+
+Then the sand came. The fine African sand that plays such a rôle in a
+légionnaire's life. But the road was an ideal road, hard as stone under
+its sandy covering. A generation of légionnaires, now long dead, had
+built this road leading to the barracks high up in the hills. The road
+swept in mighty curves along the cliffs. After an hour of marching we
+came to some very antiquated barracks. They were a counterpart of Fort
+St. Jean in Marseilles, one of the military hostelries for the many men
+needed to feed France's colonial stomach. In the courtyard a lieutenant
+called the roll and seemed very much amused when the new French
+soldiers answered to their names with a stentorian German: "Hier!"
+
+We were assigned a nasty little hole of a room. A long wooden bench ran
+along one side. The bare boards, fifteen feet long and six feet broad,
+were to form our bed. There was a pitcher of water in one corner and a
+pile of thin brown blankets lay in another. The earthen floor was
+covered with half-smoked cigarettes and rubbish.
+
+After dark I slipped out, glad indeed to leave the wooden bench. The
+unventilated little hole was not good enough for a dog! I found a snug,
+quiet little corner in the courtyard and lay down, wrapped in my
+overcoat--for about five minutes. Then shadowy figures in the uniform
+of the Legion paid me a visit.
+
+Yes, a fine evening. Brilliant idea of mine, to sleep in the open air.
+Filthy place, those quarters for recruits! Yes, nom d'un pétard! The
+shadowy figures were old légionnaires, on special duty to keep the
+barracks in order. Did I like the Algerian wine? They wanted to know. I
+did not know anything about it? Impossible! Did I know that the price
+of a "litre," of a full quart, was but four sous even up here on the
+hills? Remarkably fine wine!
+
+"It's a pity [described with a variety of choice epithets] that we
+haven't the [here followed a similar ornate flow of oaths] four sous.
+And the canteen isn't closed yet!"
+
+Small wonder that then I made my first purchase in Africa. Several
+bottles of wine.
+
+... Somebody knocked at a door hard by, attracted by the jingling of
+bottles presumably. The knocking was quite modest at first. Then it
+became imperious.
+
+"Who is it?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, that's Reddy. He's thirsty, I suppose," said one of the
+légionnaires. "He's in the lock-up."
+
+My new friends seemed to regard "being in the lock-up" as the most
+natural thing that could happen to a légionnaire. We all went to the
+door of the cell. There was a small air-hole high up in the wall and
+presently a hand holding a tin cup appeared.
+
+"Fill up!" a gruff voice demanded.
+
+One of the légionnaires climbed on another's shoulders and emptied the
+contents of half a bottle into the tin cup.
+
+"That's all right!" said the poor prisoner.
+
+"What is he locked up for?" I wanted to know.
+
+This the story.
+
+In the Legion he was nicknamed Reddy, being the happy possessor of a
+flaming head of red hair. Reddy was a veteran who had ten years of
+service to his credit and knew well enough that he was no good for
+anything in all the world except soldiering in the Legion. Ten years is
+a long time. But, when he was sent to the lonely old barracks on the
+Oran cliffs to play at housekeeping for recruits, a great desire for
+liberty came upon him. For hours together he would stare at the ocean.
+Finally he walked quietly down to the harbour on a fine evening and
+took his pick amongst the fishermen's boats. He did not waste time in
+considering whether or not the Arab proprietor of the chosen boat would
+like his proceedings. Such things as boats' chains did not worry Reddy.
+A large stone did the business. Reddy gave the boat a shove, hoisted
+sail, and sailed joyfully away. Spain was not far, and luck was with
+the deserter. In exactly seventeen hours the légionnaire reached the
+Spanish coast. He had landed at a very desolate spot, but after hunting
+about he managed to find fishermen's huts. Presently he was the guest
+of rough coast Spaniards, who did not quite know what to make of the
+man in red breeches. He got dried fish and nice clear water to live on.
+Reddy had forgotten all about civilian life, but in his dreams of
+freedom dried fish and water had not cut a special figure. He did not
+like it. He changed his mind, however, when a pretty Spanish girl
+appeared. The girl happened to be the wife of the man who had fed
+Reddy. The légionnaire neither knew nor cared. He chatted with the girl
+for an hour or so in a mixture of French and bits of Spanish and
+sign-talk, enjoying himself well enough until the husband joined in the
+conversation with a big knife. A gorgeous fight ensued. The other
+fishermen assisted their friend and Reddy had a hard run for it. But he
+reached his boat and got safely away, cursing freedom, Spain, and dried
+fish. For some time he cruised about and finally decided definitely
+that freedom was no good. In twenty-five hours he was back in Oran. The
+Arabian fisherman (who had seen the boat coming and wanted to talk
+things over) received a series of mighty kicks from Reddy in lieu of
+payment. Then the disgusted deserter reported to his commanding
+officer. He explained that he had jumped into the boat just for fun,
+that a big wind--a horrible storm, sir--had torn the boat from its
+chain and carried it out to sea. "Yes, sir, I nearly starved...."
+
+The captain happened to be a man with a sense of humour and Reddy got
+off with twenty days' imprisonment.
+
+"Damned lucky fellow, that! It's a wonder that he was not sent to the
+penal battalion. That means dying by inches, you know," said the
+légionnaires, and uncorked the last bottle.
+
+I stared at them. They laughed about Reddy's luck. They thought his
+adventure very funny, this tragical adventure of a man who knew how to
+fight for the freedom he desired and then did not know what to do with
+liberty when he had gained it.
+
+My God, ten years in the Foreign Legion!...
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+LÉGIONNAIRE NUMBER 17889
+
+French and American bugle-calls : Southward to the city of the Foreign
+Legion : Sidi-bel-Abbès : The sergeant is not pleased : A final fight
+with pride : The jokes of the Legion : The wise negro : Bugler Smith :
+I help a légionnaire to desert : The Eleventh Company : How clothes are
+sold in the Legion : Number 17889
+
+
+A bugle sounded. I was lying on the bare ground in a corner of the
+courtyard, dozing in that strange borderland between sleeping and
+waking. The bugle bothered me. The sounds were familiar, but my sleepy
+brain could not place them. Again and again the calls sounded and half
+dreaming I searched my memory.
+
+Now I remembered. It was the réveillé, the morning call of the American
+army. No, there could be no mistake--one never forgets the quick
+nervous air of the American regular's morning call, nor its impressive
+text:
+
+ I can't get 'em up,
+ I can't get 'em up,
+ I can't get 'em up in the morning!
+ I can't get 'em up,
+ I can't get 'em up,
+ I can't get 'em up at all!
+
+The old familiar sounds very naturally suggested old remembrances. I
+dreamt of a misty morning and a hammock slung between two mango-trees,
+somewhere in the valley of Santiago de Cuba, and a very tired war
+correspondent listening sleepily to the morning call floating over from
+the tents of the Sixth Cavalry hard by. A hazy recollection of
+fantastical foreign legions and broken fortunes crept into the dream.
+But surely there were no such things. Little Smiley, trumpeter of "B"
+troop of the Sixth, was sounding the morning call in his funny,
+drawn-out fashion--of course it was Smiley:
+
+ I can't get 'em up at all....
+
+It was but a dream. Awakening, I sat up and stared about me. Where was
+I, anyway? No mango-trees here, no tents, no Sixth Cavalry. And very
+slowly I realised that Cuba and war corresponding were things of the
+past, that the pebble-stones of the courtyard were part and parcel of a
+French barrack and the soldiers in flaming red trousers running about
+in the courtyard had a perfect right to call me their comrade. There
+had been no mistake however about the morning call. There it sounded
+for the third time: "I can't get 'em up"--the réveillé of the U.S.
+regulars!
+
+The riddle's solution was rather simple: The "get 'em up" signals of
+the French and the American army are exactly the same.
+
+For three days we stayed at the old barracks high up on the cliffs near
+Oran. On the third day the packet brought a new batch of recruits for
+the Foreign Legion, twenty men, most of them Germans. We were all
+bundled into a rickety little railway train and, at an average speed of
+about fifteen miles an hour, we raced towards the South, to
+Sidi-bel-Abbès, the recruiting depot of the Foreign Legion, and
+headquarters of the Legion's first regiment, the "Premier Etranger."
+
+It took us six hours to reach Sidi-bel-Abbès. As the distance was about
+eighty miles, I considered this a very poor performance and felt
+personally aggrieved by the train's slowness. I had yet to learn that
+from now on time would be no object to me. After leaving Oran our train
+crawled through beautiful gardens and pretty little villas. The gardens
+were followed by long stretches of fields and farmhouses, and then at
+last civilisation vanished. The desert sands of Africa claimed their
+right. The burning sun shone upon wavy lines of endless sandhills, upon
+naked sand.
+
+After six hours' ride we arrived in Sidi-bel-Abbès. The little station
+was swarming with men in the uniform of the Foreign Legion. At the
+primitive little platform gate stood a guard of non-commissioned
+officers, carefully watching for would-be deserters.
+
+A corporal took charge of us and we fell in line to march to the
+Legion's barracks.
+
+This first march through the streets and byways of Sidi-bel-Abbès was a
+strange experience. The city of the Foreign Legion seemed to be
+composed of peculiar odours and yellow colours in many varieties. I
+tried to classify the Sidi-bel-Abbès smell, but the attempt was a
+miserable failure. The strangely sweet scents coming from everywhere
+and nowhere, which apparently had a very composite composition, defied
+a white man's nose. They were heavy, dull, oppressive; now reminding
+one of jasmine blossoms, now of mould and decay. In an atmosphere of
+yellow floated these scents. The atmosphere was yellow; yellow were the
+old-fashioned ramparts of Sidi-bel-Abbès, built by soldiers of the
+Legion many years ago; yellow was the fine sandy dust on the streets;
+glaring yellow everywhere. The green gardens on the town's outskirts
+seemed but animated little spots in a great compact mass of yellow. Far
+away in the background the colossal ridges of the Thessala mountains
+towered in gigantic shadows of pale yellow. Even the town's buildings
+flared up in bright yellow. The people of Sidi-bel-Abbès, adapting
+themselves to nature in mimicry, must needs paint their houses yellow!
+There were a few other colours, but the universal yellow swallowed them
+up without mercy.
+
+Between long rows of stately palms and through shady olive groves we
+marched. An omnibus rattled past. All the seats were occupied by Arabs.
+The white splendour of a mosque shone from afar. On the balcony of its
+high minaret a Mohammedan priest in flowing white robes slowly walked
+to and fro, sharply outlined against the sky. The mosque was far away,
+but I could hear the priest's sonorous voice calling to prayer:
+
+"All' il Allah.... God is God."
+
+We passed through the ancient gates of the city, which was surrounded
+with thick, clumsy walls, encircling all Sidi-bel-Abbès. The old walls
+had seen plenty of fighting. In their time they had been very useful to
+the small garrison in the continuous struggle with the Beni Amer, who
+had again and again tried to retake the place. Along the large
+well-kept road we marched. Suddenly, at a turning, the barrack
+buildings loomed up on both sides of the road--the Spahis' cavalry
+barracks and the quarters of the Foreign Legion.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+In single file we marched through a small side entrance alongside of
+the cumbrous barrack gate. On a long bench near the gate the guard was
+sitting. They stared at us, grinning stupidly. Their sergeant, with his
+hands in pockets and a cigarette between the teeth, sized us up,
+apparently inspecting our physique as if he were taxing a herd of
+cattle. Then he passed judgment.
+
+"Pas bon!" he remarked laconically to the corporal who escorted us. "No
+good!" An ugly welcome it was. I stared at the immense gravel-covered
+barrack yard and its scrupulous cleanness, at the immense buildings and
+their naked fronts, at the bare windows. Why, this must be a madhouse
+and I--surely I must be a madman, who had to live for five years (five
+years said the contract) in a place like this. A weird feeling crept
+over me. I must have lost my way. The moor had caught me. I was lost in
+the jungle. Shut in by these walls I must spend my life. Must I live
+among these uniformed human machines, amongst unthinking, unfeeling
+automatons? My head swam. A feeling of despair came over me....
+
+Everywhere in the barrack buildings windows were thrown open, and
+légionnaires put their heads out, yelling:
+
+"Eh--les bleus! Bonjour, les bleus!"
+
+From all sides they came at a run, calling out to each other joyously,
+"Les bleus." Our arrival appeared to be an amusement that should not be
+missed. Hundreds of légionnaires gathered around us, while we were
+waiting for orders in front of the regimental offices. The contrast
+between the snowy neatness of their white fatigue uniforms and our
+shabby attire was very much in their favour. We stood a crossfire of
+questions, answers and jokes.
+
+"Hello! Hadn't enough to eat, eh?" somebody yelled in German.
+
+"That's as may be," replied Herr von Rader in cutting sarcasm. "You
+didn't come to the Legion because you had too much money, did you?"
+Applause and laughter greeted this answer.
+
+"Any one from Frankfort amongst you?" another asked. "Merde!" said he,
+as nobody replied and turned and walked off.
+
+Then came a surprise. A negro in the uniform of the Legion stalked up
+to me, regarding me dubiously, shaking his head as if he was not quite
+sure what to make of me.
+
+"Talk U.S.?" he asked finally.
+
+"Guess I do," I said.
+
+"Golly," yelled the nigger, "here's another! You'se a h---- of a d----
+fool! Doucement, doucement, white man--now, don't get mad. You'se
+surely is a fool! What in h---- you want to come here for?"
+
+The humour of the situation struck me. Besides, I always rather liked
+darkies.
+
+"What did _you_ come here for?" I asked him.
+
+"Me?" said the nigger disgusted, "me? This child's been fooled, see?
+I'se in Paris (this here nigger's been 'bout pretty much) and a great
+big doggone Paris cop nabbed me, see? Oh, 'bout nuffing particular.
+I'se been having a swell time in one ob dem little Paris
+restorangs--sweet times, honey! I'se kissed all the girls and I'se
+kicked eberyding else. Say--it was a mess. But this here cop got in and
+he got me all right--no flies on the Paris cops, honey! In the station
+house they done a lot of talking to this here nigger, 'bout French
+penitentiaries, mostly. They did done tell me, it was penitentiary or
+Legion. This child stuck to the American Consul, o' course. Say, he was
+no good either. Says he, he done got no time to go fooling wid fresh
+niggers. Take yer medicine, says he. Which I did--taking the Legion.
+Nix penitentiary for me. That's what this child come here for, sonny!
+Bet yer a cigarette you'se be as sick of them Legion people in 'bout
+four weeks as this nigger is, sure. No good. Nix good. D---- bad!"
+
+"I knew that before," said I.
+
+"Then you'se sure done gone crazy, to come he-ar, sonny. Wait a bit,
+white man. I'se going to tell Smith. He's an American. He's all right.
+So long!"
+
+And in the shambling gait of his race he walked hurriedly away. One of
+the recruits hailed from Munich. He was in high debate with another
+Bavarian légionnaire....
+
+"You're from Munich, you fool? There's no beer here!" the old
+légionnaire yelled. "Why didn't you stay in Munich and stick to the
+beer, eh? Isn't it bad enough if one Munich fool drinks their sticky
+old wine? Why, I've almost forgotten how a 'Masskrug' looks, and what
+the 'Hofbraühaus' is like. It's a sinful shame, it is. Yes, there's no
+beer here. You'll be surprised, you will!"
+
+I was still laughing at the two légionnaires from the city of beer and
+"Steins" when an old soldier started talking to me very softly.
+
+"Won't you give me your suit of clothes? You must sell it, you know,
+and you will not get more than a few sous for it."
+
+I looked at the man. "Why do you want my clothes?" I asked him.
+
+"To get away! I must get out of this! My God, if I had civilian
+clothes, I might get through. I'd run away at once and I am pretty sure
+I could manage to sneak out of Algeria. You'll give me your suit, won't
+you? This is about my only chance. I'll never have enough money to buy
+a suit. Is it all right? As soon as you are uniformed, I'll come for
+the suit. I can easily find out in what company they are going to put
+you."
+
+Again the man looked at me with scared, pleading eyes, anxiously
+waiting. He was evidently in deadly earnest. I was deeply impressed. He
+meant to desert, of course. I had read enough about the Foreign Legion
+to know that desertion from that corps was a desperate and perilous
+undertaking. This poor devil was determined to risk it and--I could
+help him. It occurred to me that, in a very short time, I might feel
+very much as he felt now. Certainly he should have my clothes....
+
+"You can have them and welcome."
+
+"That's the best piece of luck I've had since I came to this
+'verdammte' Legion," said the man. He was a German, a Pomeranian, I
+should say, judging from the dialect he spoke.
+
+Meanwhile Black (John William Black was the negro's very appropriate
+name) had come back, with a bugler who looked as much like a "Yank" as
+anybody could look.
+
+"So you're American?" the bugler asked.
+
+"About half of me is," I said.
+
+"Oh, German-American! I see. That's all right. It's pretty tough work
+here in the Legion; well, you'll see for yourself. I'm mighty glad to
+talk U.S. to a white man. The nigger's no good--you know you're not,
+Blacky!--and me and him are the only two Americans in this damfool
+outfit. Blacky's always kicking up a row about something, and he spends
+most of his time in prison, and when he's not there he generally
+manages to get drunk. Beat's me, on what! He's a pretty hard case,
+ain't you, Blacky?"
+
+"Shoore--I--am, you son-of-an-old-trumpet!" grinned the negro.
+
+"I wonder what company you'll be assigned to," continued the
+"son-of-an-old-trumpet." "If the sergeant should ask you whether you
+had any preference, tell him you would like to be assigned to the
+eleventh. That's my company. We could play poker. I could show you the
+ropes, too. Life's no snap in this outfit, you know!"
+
+"Aren't there any other Americans in the Legion?"
+
+"Oh yes, about twenty. There are seven with the fourth battalion of the
+first, somewhere in Indo-China. The second regiment of the Legion in
+Saida has thirteen or fourteen American légionnaires. Two of them are
+sergeants, and one is colour-sergeant; McAllister is his name. He's a
+good man. Yes, about twenty boys from the States have a hand in this
+Legion business!"
+
+"Garde à vous!" commanded the sergeant, coming out of the regimental
+offices. "Attention!"
+
+The roll was called and we were divided up amongst two companies, the
+third and the eleventh. I was assigned to the eleventh--"la onzième."
+We marched across the drill-ground to one of the barrack buildings. In
+the storeroom of the eleventh company underwear and white fatigue
+uniforms, woven from African "Alfa" fibres, were issued to us. Then
+each man got a nightcap. These rather unsoldierly caps were worn by all
+of the légionnaires in the cold African nights. Soap and towels the
+sergeant-major also distributed, remarking that we seemed to be badly
+in need of soap, which certainly was true. We were then marched off to
+a small house at the back of the drill-ground. Its one room contained a
+number of primitive shower-baths. While we were bathing, a sergeant
+watched at the door, critically inspecting and exhorting us again and
+again:
+
+"Bon Dieu, get a good wash! Be sure you get a thorough wash!"
+
+After we had dressed in the fatigue uniforms he commanded: "Take your
+civilian clothes under your arms," and led us to a little side entrance
+of the barracks. A sentinel opened the door--and hell broke lose.
+Arabs, Levantines, Spanish Jews, niggers beleaguered the door, and the
+sentinel had to use the butt of his rifle--he seemed to like the job
+though--to keep them from getting in. In many languages they yelled,
+gesticulating with hands and feet, jumping about, making a horrible
+noise. At first I had no idea what it all meant. Then I understood.
+They wanted to buy our clothes ... that was all. They got very excited
+over the business and seemed to think they could buy our things for a
+copper piece or two. Finally the sergeant acted himself as our agent
+and arranged prices.
+
+Even then it was a good thing for them. Any second-hand clothes dealer
+in any of the world's large cities would have looked at the scene with
+the blackest envy. A good suit of clothes fetched two francs, boots
+eighty centimes, white shirts and cravats were thrown into the bargain.
+Every one of the native "men of business" knew well, of course, that
+the recruits were forced to sell at once. Civilian clothes are not
+allowed to be kept in the Legion. None of the recruits got more than
+three or four francs for his things. It was a great piece of swindling.
+I was saved the trouble of bartering with the native riff-raff. The
+légionnaire who took an interest in my clothes turned up, while the
+sergeant was busy at the door, pulled my clothes-bundle softly from
+under my arm, stuffed it under his jacket and walked away in a hurry.
+Next day he was missed, Smith told me....
+
+Our next visit was to the eleventh company's office, where our names
+and professions were entered on the company's lists. It was nothing but
+a matter of form. Herr von Rader declared that his father was the
+Chancellor of the German Supreme Court and that he himself was by
+profession a juggler and lance-corporal of marine reserves. And the
+colour-sergeant put it all down in the big book without the ghost of a
+smile.
+
+Each of us was given a number, the "matricule" number of the Foreign
+Legion. Our names mattered nothing. We were called by numbers: My
+number was 17889.
+
+From now on I was merely a number, a strict impersonal number.... They
+number men in penitentiaries. It was just the same in the Legion. I had
+got what I wanted. The great Legion's impersonality had swallowed me
+up. What was my name now?... Number 17889....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE FOREIGN LEGION'S BARRACKS
+
+In the company's storeroom : Mr. Smith--American, légionnaire,
+philosopher : The Legion's neatness : The favourite substantive of
+the Foreign Legion : What the commander of the Old Guard said at
+Waterloo : Old and young légionnaires : The canteen : Madame la
+Cantinière : The regimental feast : Strange men and strange things :
+The skull : The prisoners' march : The wealth of Monsieur Rassedin,
+légionnaire : "Rehabilitation" : The Koran chapter of the Stallions
+
+
+The eleventh company's storeroom was in a state of siege. We besieged
+the place, pushing and being pushed, hunting for standing room, but
+everywhere standing in somebody's way. The "non-coms" had very soon
+exhausted their vocabulary of strong language and could only express
+their feelings in fervent prayers that fifteen thousand devils might
+fly away with those thrice confounded recruits--ces malheureux bleus. A
+corporal, two sergeants, a sergeant-major and half a dozen légionnaires
+detached for storeroom work continually fell over each other in their
+haste to get done at last with the trying on of uniforms and with the
+issue of the kit. Countless jackets and pants were tried on; they put
+numerous "képis" upon our sinful heads, and again and again they
+anathematised our awkwardness in priceless adjectives. In big heaps the
+property of our future Legion life was dealt out to us; red pants and
+fatigue uniforms, blue jackets and overcoats, sashes, knapsacks,
+field-flasks, leather straps and belts, a soldier's kit in a
+bewildering jumble.
+
+"Ready!" said the sergeant-major at last with a grin of relief. "And
+that's something to be thankful for. Here, Corporal Wassermann, take
+them away. Voilà! Off with your mess of recruits. Try and make
+légionnaires out of the beggars. Yes, you'll find it a big contract. I
+wish you joy, Corporal Wassermann."
+
+"En avant, marche!" commanded the corporal. Once more the
+non-commissioned officers of the storeroom told us exactly what they
+thought of us and where they wished us to go. Their remarks were
+extremely pointed and expressive of their disgust.
+
+We mounted three flights of stairs and the passing légionnaires of the
+company stared at us in curiosity.
+
+Through a long corridor we marched, until the corporal kicked a door
+open and led us into a big room, our future quarters. We looked about
+our new home. Twenty beds were in the room, ten on one side, ten on the
+other, perfectly aligned. In the middle of the room stood two big
+wooden tables and long benches, scoured gleaming white. Everything in
+the place was scrupulously neat and clean. A rack in the corner held
+our rifles. Suspended from the ceiling, over the tables, there was a
+cupboard--the "pantry" of our quarters. It struck me as very practical.
+Knives and forks, the men's tin plates and tin cups, our bread rations
+were kept there. Half a dozen légionnaires were sitting on bunks and
+benches, cleaning their rifles and polishing their leather belts--our
+comrades.
+
+Corporal Wassermann, lying in his bunk puffing a cigarette, took a good
+long look at us. He was little more than a boy.
+
+"Eh bien," he said, "I am your corporal. You will have to learn French
+as quickly as possible. That's very important. Keep your ears open and
+listen to everything that's said. That is the right way to go about it.
+We shall begin drilling to-morrow. To-day you will have to arrange your
+bunks and things. I shall arrange your bunks in such a fashion that
+each of you shall be placed between two old légionnaires. You've only
+got to watch how they fix their things and do the same. It is all very
+simple. When you have finished arranging your stuff, you can do what
+you please."
+
+Then he assigned a bunk to each of us and went off whistling. To the
+canteen, of course.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+"Hallo!" said Smith. He had just come in. "That's all right. So you've
+not only been sent to the eleventh, but to my room as well. And that's
+all right. That's my bunk over there at the window. Take the one next.
+It's been given to a recruit already, you say? Oh, kick him out, kick
+him out. What do you suppose the corporal cares where you bunk. I'll
+fix it with him. And that's all right. I'm going to call you Dutchy.
+Now don't object, because I'm going to call you Dutchy anyhow, see?"
+
+He was evidently pleased. So was I. From the start I had taken a liking
+to this man with the sharply cut features and the curious air of
+infinite knowledge. The pasteboard card on his bed said:
+
+ "Jonathan Smith, No 10247, soldat 1ère[1] classe."
+
+ [1] The Foreign Legion and the French army in general make a
+ distinction between first-class privates and second-class
+ privates. The first-class private has the grade of a
+ lance-corporal.
+
+He was the company's bugler, and had nine years' service in the Foreign
+Legion to his credit. Fever and privation and vice had engraved hard
+lines in his face, and when he rolled his cigarettes in French fashion,
+his hands trembled just a little. His hair was quite grey. He had
+fought against Chinese pirates in French Indo-China, he had campaigned
+in Madagascar and won the French medal for bravery on colonial service.
+During this campaign he had been shot in the shoulder and had had a
+severe attack of jungle fever. There was no garrison in Algeria, be it
+on the Morocco frontier, be it on the Sahara line, where he had not
+been stationed once at least. He was a perfect encyclopædia of all
+things connected with the Legion. He could swear fluently in English,
+German, French, and Arabian, and had even acquired a pretty fair
+knowledge of Chinese expressions of disgust. He was friend and brother
+to several Arabs with doubtful characters, he could recite whole
+chapters of the Koran by heart, and knew a great deal about Morocco.
+Which will be seen later on.
+
+He was in fact a man well worth knowing.
+
+From the very beginning there was a perfect understanding between us.
+He volunteered the information that he was a native of California and
+had "seen a few things in his life." I answered with the bare statement
+that I was a German, and had lived in the United States for some years.
+Both remarks were the basis for a tacit agreement to keep within the
+limits of strict impersonality.
+
+He lay on his bunk, and I tried to get some order in my newly issued
+belongings.
+
+"Your shoulders have been drilled into shape somewhere?" said Smith.
+
+"They were."
+
+"States?"
+
+"No, Germany."
+
+"Oh, I see. Thought you might have been in the U.S. army. Wish I had
+stuck to it."
+
+"Have you tried the Legion's tobacco yet?" he continued.
+
+We rolled ourselves cigarettes from strong, black Algerian tobacco, and
+Smith stretched himself comfortably on his bunk with his knees drawn
+up, his cap pulled down over his eyes. Smoking contentedly, the old
+soldier preached me the Legion's wisdom:
+
+"There's no money here--the pay is not worth speaking of, I mean.
+There's a lot of work. It's a hard life all round. That's the Foreign
+Legion. There's no earthly reason why any man should be fool enough to
+serve in this outfit, unless he's specially fond of being underfed and
+overworked. When I come to think of it--I don't know what the dickens
+made me stay nine years! Because there's something doing once in a
+while, I suppose. Well, I'll stick it out for the pension now. Anyway,
+you've joined the Legion--more fool you--you're here and you can make
+up your mind that you are here to stay. And you must look at things in
+the right way. Legion life can be stood right enough, if you don't let
+yourself be worried by anything at all, if you're as ice-cold as
+Chicago in January, and if you're lucky enough to see something doing.
+Whether we march against the Arabs or Chinese (there's a battalion of
+us in Indo-China, you know) or to 'Maroc' at last, that's all the same,
+but it's good to be on the move in the Legion. Then a légionnaire's
+life ain't half bad. Don't ever forget, though, to have your feelings
+frozen into an iceblock. Don't let anything bother you. No use getting
+mad about things here. Just say to yourself: 'C'est la Légion.' When
+you're dead played out, and you think you can't stand it any longer;
+when the fever's got you by the neck; when you're sitting and fuming in
+the 'cellule' (that's the prison, Dutchy), or when some sergeant's
+giving you hell--grin, sonny, and say to yourself: 'C'est la Légion!'
+That's the Legion. Do your work and don't worry. If any of the fellows
+get fresh, hit quick and hit hard--c'est la Légion. And don't forget
+that the main thing in this Foreign Legion business is neatness and
+cleanliness. You want to have your things in order, you want to be
+neat. So!"
+
+He rummaged in the bundle of uniform things on my bed, pulling out one
+by one jackets, pants, shirts, &c., and folding them with astonishing
+quickness. I watched him in wonder. This old soldier with his big rough
+hands had fingers as clever as any chambermaid's. Piece after piece he
+folded rapidly, smoothing every crease with almost ridiculous care.
+Each of the folded pieces he measured, giving each the same length,
+from the tips of his fingers to his elbow. Finally he erected with
+these bundles, upon the shelf at the wall over my bed, an ingenious
+structure of uniforms, the "paquetage" of the Legion. The légionnaire
+has no clothes-chest like the American regular. To get over this
+difficulty he invented his "paquetage," which is a work of art, solving
+the military problem of how to stow away several uniforms in a compact
+space without crumpling them.
+
+With half-shut eyes the bugler stood in front of my bunk and regarded
+his handiwork.
+
+"And that's all right," he said. "That's a 'paquetage,' how it should
+be. It's 'fantasie,' pure 'fantasie,' Dutchy dear. Making 'fantasie'[2]
+it is called in the Legion, if one tries to be always 'très chic' and
+'parfaitement propre,' to be a swell. Yes, that's the Legion. We are
+lazy by preference, but we're always neat. Always!"
+
+ [2] This curious expression of the Foreign Legion is, of
+ course, an imitation of the Moorish "fantasia."
+
+The "paquetage" was not the only miracle. I was very much impressed by
+the way every bit of available space was put to the utmost use. A
+légionnaire keeps his linen in his haversack. For his letters, his
+books, for the few other articles of private property he possesses, he
+finds room in his knapsack; his brushes and his polishing-rags are
+carefully stored away in a little sack which hangs on the wall. Even
+the most trivial of his belongings has its appointed place. A
+légionnaire keeps his kit in such perfect order that he can find
+everything in the dark.
+
+While I was making my bed, the bugler looked on for a while, grinning
+all the time. Finally he couldn't stand it any longer. He pulled the
+blankets and the sheets I had spread out away again and started showing
+me how to make a bed "à la Légion." Bed-making was another of the
+Legion's tricks. In a few seconds Smith had arranged the bed-clothes in
+wonderful accuracy, blankets drawn tight as a drum, pillows placed in
+mathematical exactness.
+
+"Merde!" he said, "that's how we légionnaires fix our bunks. It's easy
+enough."
+
+"Merde?" I asked, "what does 'merde' mean, anyway?"
+
+It was a French word unknown to me. Smith used it continually,
+underlining his remarks with it, so to speak. He seemed to like it. He
+pronounced it with much care, lovingly. Naturally I thought that it
+must be some especially forceful invective, the more so as the
+sergeant-major in the storeroom (who certainly had not been in good
+humour) had said "merde" about five hundred times in ten minutes. And
+the other légionnaires in the room liked it apparently no less. The
+"merdes" were always flying about....
+
+"Well, what is this 'merde'?"
+
+Smith nearly had a fit.
+
+"Merde?" he yelled, laughing as if he had suddenly gone crazy, "what
+'merde' means? Why, you owl, 'merde' is ----."
+
+He used a word which certainly does not exist in the vocabulary of
+polite society, an old Anglo-Saxon substantive, describing a most
+natural function and expressing huge disgust when used as an invective.
+
+This little word is the favourite substantive of the Foreign Legion. It
+is _the_ substantive of the Legion! The English Tommy rejoices in his
+time-honoured adjective "bloody," the American revels in his precious
+"damned," the Mexican cavalryman enjoys his malignant hissing
+"caracho," and the légionnaire is distinctly unhappy without his
+well-beloved "merde." It's the most used word in the Foreign Legion. It
+has suffered curious derivations: Merdant, merdable.... It has a happy
+home in all French regiments--it is part and parcel of the French
+army's soldier-talk. The Legion worships it. Out of it the légionnaire
+has even fabricated a verb. When an officer gives him a "dressing
+down," the légionnaire says simply and devoutly:
+
+"Il m'enmerde!"
+
+The French army's primitive substantive of disgust is very ancient. It
+is time-honoured, it is classical.
+
+At Waterloo the commander of Napoleon's Old Guard is said to have
+replied to the challenge to surrender, pompously: "The Old Guard dies,
+but it does not surrender!" In the French army, however, it is an old
+tradition that he simply yelled:
+
+"Merde!"
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Invectives of all descriptions were used with much vigour in our
+quarters just now. The old légionnaires took a delight in kicking the
+clumsy recruits about. In drastic terms they told them exactly what
+they thought of them, of their past, of their families, of their
+future. They felt very sorry (so they said) for the poor old eleventh
+company having been buncoed into taking such an awful pack of useless
+recruits. Many were the fools they had seen in the Legion, but never
+such idiots as we were. Pretty fellows, those recruits! A nice
+assortment of pigs! Fine times they (the poor old légionnaires) would
+have, living in the same quarters with these "bleus."
+
+"Why--there's one of 'em sitting on my bed. What's this bow-legged
+monkey doing on my bunk? Get off! Get off quick, son of a jackal! Do
+you suppose that my bunk's a manoeuvring-ground for dirty recruits?"
+
+The old légionnaires knew their business, however. Abuse alone was not
+good enough. They wanted to see practical results. So they explained to
+the "bleus" that recruits, and especially such recruits as now present,
+could never manage to build a "paquetage" without help. That was a
+foregone conclusion. Said one of them:
+
+"Can't you see that? If such a thing as intelligence had a place in
+your empty heads, you would have seen long ago that you needed help.
+Who's going to help you? We are. We old légionnaires will help you--we
+who know everything and can fix anything. But we're thirsty, you see.
+Tant de soif! Such a thirst. I put it to you: Is it right that
+recruits, recruits, mind you, who have just sold their clothes and got
+a lot of money in their pockets, should look on and say nothing, while
+their betters are dying of thirst. Is it right, eh?"
+
+There the others joined in: "Allons donc pour un litre--let's drink a
+litre in the canteen."
+
+The arguments of the old fellows met with enormous success. At frequent
+intervals old and young légionnaires left the quarters to pay a visit
+to the canteen and render homage to the immortal "litre" of the Foreign
+Legion. The whole performance was an old custom. Old légionnaires
+always rejoice when new recruits arrive--anticipating many pleasant
+walks to the canteen....
+
+One of the recruits, a Swiss, on returning from the canteen found that
+the greater part of the kit on his bed had disappeared. Almost
+everything was gone. A complete uniform, a fatigue suit, an overcoat
+and several other things were missing. The Swiss, scared to death,
+asked every man in the room if he had seen his things. But his kit had
+vanished.
+
+The old légionnaires gathered about his bunk. Very likely he had lost
+part of his outfit while coming up the stairs, they said. They told him
+that one must look after one's kit in the Legion. If he could not find
+the missing uniforms, he would be certain to be sent to prison at the
+very least. He might even be punished with deportation into the penal
+battalion. Losing part of the uniform was the very worst crime known in
+the Legion.
+
+The Swiss ran up and down the stairs hunting for his lost uniforms, but
+naturally found nothing.
+
+Again the old légionnaires talked to him. They played their part very
+well.
+
+"You're a poor devil," they said. "We're sorry for you. We'll try and
+help you. It's a very difficult case, but we might be able to do
+something. The non-commissioned officer of the third company's
+storeroom is a pretty decent fellow. He'll do something for an old
+légionnaire. We'll try him. There's just the chance that he will give
+us the stuff you have lost from his stock of uniforms--for a little
+money. He's fond of making something on the quiet. Five francs would
+do, and what are measly five francs anyway, if they are the means of
+saving you from prison?"
+
+The poor devil was glad enough to get off with paying five francs. It
+was just what he had got for his clothes.
+
+... Very soon the old soldiers came back. That good fellow of a
+sergeant had given them everything needed! Faultless new uniforms! And
+the Swiss recruit thanked the old thieves profusely.
+
+Personally I was angry at the shabby trick played on the poor devil. I
+had known from the very outset that it was only a trick. The rascals
+had stolen the recruit's uniforms, and had then sold him back his own
+things! It certainly was no business of mine, and I did not interfere.
+In a way the comic side of the thing appealed to my sense of humour,
+but it was a nasty trick all the same. While I was wondering whether I
+should tell that fool of a Swiss how he had been done, one of the old
+légionnaires happened to sit down on my bunk.
+
+"Get off my bed!" I said.
+
+Blank astonishment was written on the man's face.
+
+"What d----d cheek for a raw recruit. You impertinent ..."
+
+"My bed's my bed. Get off. Sit on your own bed. Just now you raised a
+row because one of us was sitting on yours. Get away from here and be
+quick about it."
+
+The old légionnaire rose slowly.
+
+"Viens là bas!" he yelled. "Come down below to the yard with me. I'll
+teach you that a good-for-nothing recruit should respect an old
+soldier. Come down!"
+
+Together we descended the stairs, a few other légionnaires following.
+The bugler was amongst them.
+
+"Give him hell," he said. "Look out for his feet!"
+
+I was very pleased with myself. It was bad enough to be in the Legion,
+but one could at least play the man....
+
+At the back entrance of the company's quarters, in a small alley-way,
+we found a quiet spot to settle our little difference. He kicked
+furiously in French fashion, and I barely managed to escape. Then we
+closed in and in a second were rolling over and over on the
+gravel-covered ground. Now one had the upper hand, now the other. My
+antagonist's strength surpassed mine by far. I could do but very little
+in his iron grip. I began to wonder how many of my ribs would survive
+the fray. But all at once I got the upper hand. Again and again he
+tried to get a grip of my throat, but I caught his hand every time. We
+rolled over and over. My strength was fast sinking. At the last moment
+almost, I noticed a big stone on the ground quite near his head. I
+wrested my hand free. Seizing my antagonist by the hair, I pounded his
+head against the stone as hard as I could. Once--twice--four times....
+His grip relaxed....
+
+"Assez!" he yelled, "enough."
+
+"Très bien," the onlooking old légionnaires said, "very good."
+
+The bugler was disgusted. (So was I.) "Now that's the Legion all over.
+I wonder why the people here can't box like Christians instead of
+rolling about like pigs. You've licked him, though. And that's all
+right."
+
+The man I had "fought" with rose with some difficulty and walked up to
+me. We shook hands....
+
+"You were in the right when you ordered me off your bed," he said.
+"Parbleu, that was a good idea with the stone. Eh, you'll be a good
+légionnaire very soon. We men of the Legion quarrel often, but at heart
+we're always comrades. C'est la Légion! I propose we return to our
+quarters again...."
+
+And in the room we brushed the dust from each other's uniforms, like
+old friends....
+
+ * * * * *
+
+"You're tired, I guess," said the bugler with a grin. "Let's go and
+have a litre."
+
+I had no objection.
+
+"I am paying for this," he declared, as we crossed the drill-ground.
+
+The regimental canteen was in a small building in a corner of the
+barrack square. We opened the door and--I at least must have looked
+very much surprised. There was an awful noise in the little room. A
+great many soldiers were talking and laughing and singing and yelling
+in many languages; in German, French, English, Italian and
+Spanish--there was the jingle of many bottles and glasses. As we
+entered a German was singing:
+
+ Trinken wir noch ein Tröpfchen
+ Aus dem kleinen Henkeltöpfchen,
+ Oh, Suss ... a ... na!
+
+In sharp marching rhythm a Frenchman sang the refrain of one of the
+Legion's songs:
+
+ Le sac, ma foi, toujours au dos ...
+
+The canteen was crowded. Hundreds of légionnaires in white fatigue
+uniforms or in blue jackets sat on the long benches, drinking,
+laughing. On the wooden tables bottles stood in long rows and deep red
+wine sparkled in the glasses.
+
+"There's no room here," I said.
+
+Smith grinned in answer: "Room? Nom d'un pétard, what do we want room
+for? The litre is the main thing, sonny!"
+
+Pushing through the crowd he reached the bar and held up a forefinger
+with a serious face. This seemed to be a well-known signal to the young
+woman behind the bar. Without saying a word she took three copper
+pieces from the bugler, giving him in exchange a full bottle of wine
+and two glasses. "Madame la Cantinière" could not be over twenty years
+old. Like a queen seated on her throne she held sway behind her bar and
+ruled the crowd of noisy, yelling légionnaires in quiet authority,
+imposing and comical at the same time.
+
+Madame la Cantinière was the sutler of the Foreign Legion. Old
+tradition demands that a woman should keep the Legion's canteen.
+"Madame la Cantinière de la Légion" usually is married, but she is the
+official head of the canteen and not her husband. The business belongs
+to her. On the march and in the field she wears the blue sutler's
+uniform and follows the regiment with her little sutler's waggon.
+
+On a bench in the corner Smith found seats for us, and had two big
+glasses filled (the Legion does not waste time drinking out of small
+wineglasses!)--had the glasses filled before we sat down.
+
+"Here's luck," he said. "There's no such thing as luck in this place,
+but one keeps on wishing for it just the same. Here's luck, Dutchy!"
+
+He emptied his glass at a gulp, wiping his soft fair moustache in great
+satisfaction. _And_ he refilled his glass at once.
+
+"The wine's good. And that's all right. Sonny, there are miles and
+miles of vineyards round this here Sidi-bel-Abbès. The hilly ground
+near the Thessala mountains is a single large vineyard. There are times
+in Algeria when they let the wine run on the street. It's so plentiful
+and cheap that it isn't worth the casks. There would be no Legion, I
+tell you, if it wasn't for the cheap wine!"
+
+With wondering eyes I surveyed the men in the canteen and the canteen
+itself. The smoke of many hundreds of cigarettes filled the place with
+a heavy bluish vapour. The noise was indescribable. One had to yell to
+be understood by one's neighbour, a quietly spoken word would have been
+lost in the turmoil. Everybody was yelling and everybody seemed to be
+in high glee. The légionnaires were having what they considered a good
+time. They jumped on the tables, kicking and dancing, jingled their
+glasses, threw empty bottles about and made fun of everybody and
+everything. Every minute the uproar increased. These hard-faced,
+hard-eyed men were like children at some forbidden game, trying to get
+as much fun as possible while the teacher was away.
+
+Suddenly a man with a wonderfully clear and strong voice began singing
+a love-song. Noise and tumult ceased at once. I listened in amazement.
+A légionnaire sang for his comrades, in a beautiful tenor voice, in a
+voice reminding me of great singers I had heard long ago. A poor devil
+of a légionnaire possessed a voice many a singer would have envied. He
+sang a French song, every verse closing pitifully:
+
+ L'amour m'a rendu fou....
+
+The song of a lover who had loved and lost, a song of love and ladies,
+of love's delights and love's misery, sung in the canteen of the
+Foreign Legion.
+
+With burning eyes I looked at the listening throng of men in red and
+blue until I saw nothing but their shadowy outlines like a far-away
+_fata Morgana_--I was lost in a dream of memories.
+
+Absolute quiet reigned. The song held these men of rough life and
+rougher manners spellbound; the glorious mellow voice, now clear as a
+trumpet, now low and sweet as a woman's caress, must have appealed to
+every heart. The song was at an end:
+
+ L'amour m'a rendu fou....
+
+For a moment, for a few seconds, all remained hushed. And then one
+would think that these men were ashamed of having been so soft-hearted.
+A légionnaire jumped on a table and yelled:
+
+"Silence.... No more fool songs for us! Vive le litre!"
+
+"Le litre!" ... a hundred men roared. The shouting and the uproar and
+the noise commenced anew. Blacky, the negro, had come in and was soon
+dancing the dance of his race. He was a master of the turnings and
+twistings of the cake-walk. There were universal yells of appreciation
+as he bent backwards, high-stepping grotesquely. Blacky was much
+applauded and seemed to be a very happy nigger. Madame la Cantinière
+did a roaring trade. The copper pieces were continually jingling on the
+tin-covered surface of the bar. La Cantinière was a very busy woman
+this evening, passing many hundreds of wine bottles to her thirsty
+clientèle of légionnaires. Glasses were broken, pieces of glass lay
+everywhere on the tables and on the floor, and here and there little
+red pools of wine had formed. The fun grew fast and furious and the
+noise almost unbearable.
+
+My friend the bugler had emptied glass after glass and was in high good
+humour.
+
+"Why, it is the regiment's holiday!" he laughed.
+
+The "fifth day" it was--pay-day. The Legion's humour called pay-day the
+regimental holiday. This humour was somewhat grim in view of the fact
+that pay in the Legion meant but five centimes a day, twenty-five
+centimes for the pay-roll period of five days. Twenty-five centimes are
+almost exactly five cents in American, or twopence-halfpenny in English
+money.
+
+So the Legion's "holiday" was at the bottom of all the noise and fun in
+the canteen! These men in the Legion measured the passing of time by
+their miserable pay-days only. Such a fifth day marked the glorious
+epoch when two comrades could buy exactly five "litres" of wine for
+their joint pay. Certainly such frivolity punished itself: there was no
+money left for the next five days' tobacco. So wise men in the Legion
+buy the customary package of tobacco for three sous, and drink but one
+bottle of wine every five days. This is what the soldier of the Foreign
+Legion works for: One bottle of wine and one package of tobacco every
+five days!
+
+Shrilly a signal sounded through the noise--lights out! Madame la
+Cantinière held up her hand, made a funny little bow, and said with a
+smile:
+
+"Bonsoir, messieurs.--Good night, gentlemen."
+
+The Legion teaches obedience.... In a very few seconds the canteen was
+empty and everybody was hurrying across the drill-ground to quarters.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+When roll-call had been finished in our quarters and everybody had gone
+to bed, I quietly left the room. Sleep did not appeal to me that night.
+The still of night lay over the barrack-yard. The white moonlight shone
+on the bare walls of the barracks. The stars of far south glittered in
+their trembling beauty. I stared up into the splendour of the heavens
+and brooded over happiness far away--passed--dead....
+
+I heard footsteps and saw a shadow moving somewhere on the other side.
+And over there a trembling awkward voice sang softly:
+
+ L'amour m'a rendu fou....
+
+Far into the night I crouched in a corner of the Legion's barrack-yard.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The first days, the first weeks of life in the Legion were quite
+sufficient to render me immune against strange things and strange
+sights. Sometimes it seemed to me as if my nerves were quite dulled.
+Every day brought monstrous sights and hideous impressions. I shuddered
+at unheard-of things and wondered at these strange specimens of
+humanity. But the next moment some new horror made me forget what I had
+just seen.
+
+In a few minutes' walk with the bugler round the barrack-yard one could
+meet with a variety of sights like the following:
+
+A légionnaire ran past us, shrieking in extreme pain, splashed with
+blood. He had cut off the forefinger and middle finger of his right
+hand so as to be unfit for active service.
+
+A poor crippled Arab, bent with age, stopped when he saw us. He was
+evidently on his way to the kitchen buildings to beg for food. In his
+hands he carried a Standard oil-can. A Standard oil-tin as receptacle
+for food in connection with an Arab, Algeria and the Foreign Legion
+struck me as something distinctly new. But there was more to follow. In
+very broken German the Arab addressed us:
+
+"Gut' Tag, légionnaires. Cigarette! Ick sein deutsch--Magdeburg
+gewesen--1870."
+
+The man had fought in the great Franco-German war and had been in
+Magdeburg as a prisoner of war!
+
+Hardly had I recovered from my surprise when a passing légionnaire made
+me stare in horror. The man had the grinning image of a skull tattooed
+on his forehead! He smiled at my frightened face and was evidently very
+pleased at the impression he had made. I remember saying to the bugler
+how horrible it was that a man should disfigure his face for life in
+such a manner, and I remember that Smith only shrugged his shoulders in
+reply.
+
+"Why, that's nothing," he said. "Tattooing of that kind is quite
+customary in the Battalion of the Disciplined."
+
+I could not agree with the bugler, I could not see a mere freak in this
+horrible tattoo-mark. To me it spoke of hope lost for ever, of a life
+so dreadful that a man no longer cared whether he was disfigured or
+not.
+
+Pleased with the notice he attracted, the légionnaire with the skull on
+his forehead walked up to us and spoke to me:
+
+"Eh, recruit, do you want to see something that very old légionnaires
+only have got?"
+
+He showed me a tobacco-pouch, apparently made of fine soft leather:
+
+"This is made of the breast of an Arab woman," said the man of the
+skull. "It is a very good tobacco-pouch. Made it myself. There are only
+seven in the whole regiment now. Chose--n'est-ce pas? That is something
+worth seeing!"
+
+With a grin of vanity he walked away.
+
+"Tobacco-pouch--an Arab woman's breast--my God, what is the meaning of
+this?" I asked of the bugler.
+
+Smith told me all about those horrible pouches. The man of the skull
+had not lied. During the last insurrection of Arabs in Algeria, in grim
+warfare far in the South, Arabian women had horribly mutilated the
+bodies of légionnaires and inflicted horrible tortures on the wounded.
+The soldiers of the Legion, maddened, thirsting for revenge, gave
+quarter to no Arab woman during those times. They retaliated in
+kind.... Of the horrible deeds they committed the dreadful
+tobacco-pouches gave evidence.
+
+On the same day I witnessed for the first time the prisoners' march of
+punishment. I stood aghast.
+
+Behind the quarters of the fourth company, in a small square between
+barrack building and wall, about thirty men were marching in a
+continuous circle, to the sharp commands of a corporal:
+
+"À droit--droit; à droit--droit; right about, march; right about,
+march."
+
+The prisoners marched round their narrow circle in fast quick-step,
+almost at a run, with backs deeply bent. Their knapsacks were filled
+with sand and stones, every man carrying a burden of from seventy to
+eighty pounds. All the prisoners had a hard strained look on their
+faces. Their fatigue uniforms were torn and soiled. Guards with fixed
+bayonets stood at the corners of the square, guarding the marching
+prisoners.
+
+The term prisoner must not be misunderstood. These men were not
+criminals. The légionnaires marching in the "peloton des hommes punis"
+had been punished with a term of imprisonment for small offences in the
+matters of discipline. They were not only put into prison, but also had
+to march on their ridiculous march of punishment for three hours every
+day, the stones in their knapsacks causing bad sores on their backs.
+These men, punished for some paltry military offence, were certainly
+treated as if they were criminals of the worst description.
+
+I tried to imagine what I should feel and what I should do if a
+sandsack were put on my back and I were driven round in this maddening
+march.... It was dangerous to think of these things.
+
+"Allez, let's go," said the bugler. "We all go to prison some time or
+another and it's not right to stare at the prisoners. They feel bad
+enough as it is."
+
+Stranger than the strange surroundings were many of the men of the
+Legion themselves.
+
+On the bunk opposite mine, the little pasteboard card customary in the
+Legion described the owner as follows:
+
+ JEAN RASSEDIN
+ 12429
+ SOLDAT PREMIERE CLASSE.
+
+Rassedin was a Belgian. He worked as clerk in the regimental offices.
+Shortly before "soup-time" in the afternoon his day's work was
+finished. Then he would come running into quarters, tearing off his old
+white barrack uniform as fast as he possibly could, throwing his things
+pell-mell on the bed. In a very few moments he had put on the uniform
+prescribed for town. For the "soup" he didn't care. He never had his
+meals in quarters. He went away at once after he had changed his
+uniform and never returned before two o'clock in the morning, having a
+"certificate of permanent permission" to leave the barracks. His manner
+was haughty. If one of his comrades tried to speak to him about
+something or other, he usually turned away without answering. Or he
+said:
+
+"M'en fou--I don't care for anything. Leave me alone."
+
+Monsieur Rassedin, légionnaire, took his meals in the best hotel of the
+town and spent more money than any other man in Sidi-bel-Abbès.
+Rassedin was a rich man. From the standpoint of the Foreign Legion, his
+wealth was the wealth of Croesus. He had been a non-commissioned
+officer in a Belgian cavalry regiment, had deserted for reasons unknown
+and joined the Legion. After being a légionnaire for a time, he got the
+news of the death of a rich relative, who had left him all his
+wealth.... So Monsieur Rassedin, légionnaire, had become rich. He
+always carried a few thousands francs about him. Three men of the
+company were employed by him to keep his things in order and to do all
+the cleaning and polishing for him. In the regimental office he paid
+the other clerks to do his work. He naturally preferred reading novels
+to copying lengthy reports. As he could afford to pay substitutes, the
+thing could easily be done. His family had succeeded in getting him a
+pardon granted for deserting. Monsieur Rassedin could have gone back to
+Belgium long ago, but he did not care to return to his native country.
+As soon as he had finished his term of five years' Legion service, he
+signed on again for another five years.
+
+The reason?
+
+"Disease," Smith said, when I asked him. There certainly was no
+question concerning men or things of the Legion that the man from
+California could not answer. "The poor devil's suffering from syphilis.
+Got it in Madagascar. I asked him once why in thunder he did not get
+out of this confounded Legion.
+
+"'Bugler,' he said in answer. 'You are an old légionnaire and I don't
+want to have trouble with you. But remember: You go your own way, and
+I'll go mine. Don't trouble me with your fool's remarks. There is
+poison in my body and in a few years I shall be very sick. No, I prefer
+putting a bullet through my brains in the Legion to returning to my
+country and then having to peg out. You'll die somewhere in the sand,
+my friend--I shall die strictly in my own fashion. What is the
+difference? Now come on, bugler. Want a bottle of champagne?'"
+
+Everybody in Sidi-bel-Abbès knew Rassedin, even the little black
+children in the streets. Many a time he used to throw franc pieces
+amongst them.
+
+In quarters Rassedin hardly spoke to anybody. His comrades were afraid
+of him. He was a man of enormous strength and had the reputation of
+fighting on the least provocation. But he could be very good-natured.
+Hardly a day passed without some old soldiers of the company coming to
+our quarters in search of Rassedin. They would simply rub their throats
+in pantomime:
+
+"Rassedin, tant d' soif.--Heap big thirst."
+
+Then Rassedin grinned and searched his pockets for copper pieces....
+
+Then there was Latour, a Frenchman, serving his second year. Daily
+he received letters, a very unusual thing in the Foreign Legion;
+love-letters from a woman who was waiting for him five long years.
+Latour, who had committed a crime in France, expiated his deed in the
+Foreign Legion. He served solely for the purpose of "rehabilitation."
+
+Sentences of the Civil Court are in France entered in the personal
+papers of the criminal. Without his papers he cannot get work.
+Naturally employers are shy of taking men who have been in conflict
+with the law and such a man very seldom succeeds in finding work. It is
+a barbarous system. Ten years must elapse before such a man is
+considered rehabilitated and "clean papers" are issued to him. If a man
+is willing to serve in the Foreign Legion, however, the term of
+rehabilitation is shortened to five years, and after five years'
+service new papers are given to him. He has then a new start in civil
+life after five years instead of ten.
+
+Like many other French légionnaires, Latour was serving for
+rehabilitation.
+
+The strangest man of all, however, seemed to me this man Smith,
+American, légionnaire, philosopher. I have always believed, and believe
+yet, that he actually loved the Legion, that he could not part from the
+strange life there. He could speak Arabic like a native. Many a time
+when we were lying in our bunks, he would mumble to himself in Arabic
+for hours. If I, in curiosity, asked him what he was about, he would
+say:
+
+"Oh nothing, Dutchy. I'm a bit off my base. I very often am, you know."
+
+But occasionally he would straighten up and sit down beside me, talking
+of strange things, reciting whole chapters of the Koran. Like this:
+
+"Well, sonny, know anything about the Chapter of the Prophet's
+Stallions?"
+
+"You don't? Listen."
+
+"When of an evening the stallions, standing on three feet and placing
+the tip of their fourth foot upon the ground, were brought before the
+Prophet, he said: 'I have loved the love of things of this earth more
+than I have loved all thoughts of the things of heaven, and I have
+wasted the time in feasting my eyes on these horses. Bring them to me.'
+And when the horses were brought to him, he began cutting off their
+legs, one by one, saying: 'All' il Allah....'"
+
+"Yes, Dutchy, the Koran's something interesting." Many chapters of the
+Koran I have learned from Smith.
+
+Such things happened every day. But soon the enormities lost their
+power of fascination. A host of new impressions were forced upon me,
+until the senses were dulled and one soon got wonderfully
+indifferent--absolutely indifferent....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE MILITARY VALUE OF THE FOREIGN REGIMENTS
+
+A day's work as a recruit : Allez, hurry up : The Legion's etiquette :
+A morning's run : The "cercle d'enfer" and the lack of soap : The main
+object of the Legion's training : Splendid marchers : Independent
+soldiers : Forty kilometres a day : Uniform, accoutrements, baggage,
+victualling : The training of the légionnaire in detail : The
+légionnaire as a practical man : Specialties of the Legion : Programme
+for a week in the Legion : The légionnaire as a labourer
+
+
+When in the twilight of awakening day the first red-hot rays of African
+dawn penetrated through the windows of our quarters, the
+"garde-chambre," the man on duty there, arose noiselessly. He took good
+care not to make a noise, not from any delicacy of feeling on his part,
+but from the knowledge of the dire punishment which awaited him if he
+inconsiderately disturbed the sleep of his comrades. For the hours of
+sleep are a "Holy of Holies" to the légionnaire. When Herr von Rader
+was on duty for the first time, and in getting up made a slight noise,
+boots (heavy military boots!) were thrown at his head from all parts of
+the room, as a somewhat urgent reminder to be quiet.
+
+In a few minutes the orderly returned from the kitchen dragging with
+him a large earthenware jug, lighted the petroleum lamp which hung in
+the middle of the room, and his voice then sounded loudly through the
+room:
+
+"Au jus." (Sauce.)
+
+The sauce was coffee, strong, black, excellent coffee. Mechanically
+each légionnaire sat up in bed, and leaning on his arm mechanically
+felt behind him for the "quart," the tin mug, which hung on a hook at
+the head of the bed, handing it to the orderly, who went from bed to
+bed with his large jug and poured out coffee. The strong mixture soon
+dispelled all sleepiness, and when the shrill trumpet-blasts of the
+"réveillé" sounded from the barrack-yard, they all jumped out of bed.
+
+Now began a "Tohuwabohu" (pandemonium) of noise and hurrying to and
+fro. In half an hour the recruits had to muster in the yard. Corporal
+Wassermann, who liked to remain in bed until the last moment, called
+out continually:
+
+"Le--e--vez-vous donc.--Get up."
+
+Then he thundered out the famous "Allez, schieb' los!" of the Legion.
+The curious term has been introduced by German légionnaires and has
+passed into the vocabulary of Algerian French. Not only the soldiers
+continually used this funny mixture of German and French, but Arabs and
+negro children in the street, when they wanted to hurry each other up,
+shrieked out: "Allez, schieb' los!"
+
+"Allez, schieb' los! Pas du temps. No more time!" roared the corporal.
+The day began with hurry and scurry. The primitive lavatory was on the
+ground floor of the barracks and one was obliged to run up and down
+four flights of stairs in order to wash oneself. There was not a minute
+to spare. The boots had to be brushed; the blankets and mattresses of
+the bed had to be folded neatly and piled up at the foot of the bunk.
+Whilst this was being done the orderly shouted excitedly:
+
+"Quoi! Nom de Dieu--balayez au-dessous vos lits!" (Thunder and
+lightning! Sweep up under your beds.)
+
+The etiquette of the Legion in these things holds very strictly to old
+tradition; every légionnaire had to sweep under his bed, while the
+cleaning of the room was the work of the orderly on duty, who could of
+course not begin this work until the floor beneath the beds had been
+swept. That was the reason of all the "Quois" and "Nom de Dieus!" The
+man had every cause to be excited and angry. He had to drill like the
+others, and it was no trifle to have to sweep a large room, to dust and
+to fetch water; everything within ten minutes. And it had all to be in
+tip-top order, for a few minutes before commencing drill the
+colour-sergeant inspected quarters and if anything was not in order in
+the room the corporal was punished.
+
+And when the corporal was punished, he of course took care that his men
+were run in as well.
+
+Punctually at 6 A.M. we recruits mustered in the barrack-yard in drill
+uniform: white linen suit, blue sash, knapsack, cartridge-belt and
+rifle--uniforms and leather trappings of shining brightness. The almost
+pedantic cleanliness of the Legion, the coquetry of each individual
+légionnaire to put a certain amount of "chic" into his uniform, was the
+first thing Corporal Wassermann's vanity had taught us.
+
+In the quick easy marching pace of the Legion we went out to the
+"Plateau," a large open space near the negro quarter, surrounded by
+olive-trees and red African oaks. The yellow clayey ground was stamped
+hard by the marching of many thousands of légionnaires. On the one side
+of the "Plateau" was the "village nègre," the negro town. Close to the
+drill-ground the mosque, in proud white splendour, towered above the
+miserable, half-ruined huts of the negro quarter, and hour by hour
+sounded loudly from its minaret the priest's call to prayer:
+
+"All'il Allah. God is great...."
+
+"Arré, arré--go on, go on," yelled the Arabs, who drove their heavily
+laden donkeys across the place with much scolding and beating. By the
+side of the donkeys, like the beasts, heavily burdened, walked Arab
+women, the legs bare to above the knee, but the face modestly covered
+as prescribed by the teachings of the Prophet. Only a small portion of
+the forehead was left free by the veil, and this was painted with a
+bright red round spot of henna, the sign of the married woman.
+
+The Arabs glanced at us with timid side looks and hastened to pass on.
+Half-naked Arab and negro children raced about trying with comical
+"grandezza" to imitate the martial steps, and shouted Arab words at us
+which very likely were gross insults, until Corporal Wassermann picked
+up stones and drove them away.
+
+"Formez les faisceaux. Sac à terre." (Pile arms. Lay down your
+knapsacks.)
+
+"Pas gymnastique!" (At the double!) "En avant. Marche!"
+
+With this the daily routine began. It was the famous "Legion's
+breakfast," the lung-training of "double time."
+
+In the form of a wide square we went round the drill-ground, five
+minutes, ten minutes--un, deux, un, deux--always in sharp time. The
+corporal, a splendid runner, ran at the head, teaching us the trick on
+which everything depended here, to overcome the critical moment of lung
+exhaustion, to get the "second wind." Even if the breath came and went
+in short pumping gasps, if the eyes pained, and one commenced to
+stumble from exhaustion, one ran on until the lungs had got used to the
+extra exertion, until one had the feeling of being a machine, and could
+go on running for ever. Then came the command "A volonté"--(as you
+please)--and a race finished thirty minutes' exercise.
+
+This is the Legion's breakfast.
+
+It has cost many a man his lungs.
+
+Pause. The tormented lungs worked in short hard gasps. It was
+impossible to stand still. One was obliged to walk up and down quickly
+in order to gradually quieten the pumping lungs.
+
+The body had to expend all the strength it could in this morning drill.
+Swedish gymnastics, "le boxe," formed the alternative to this doubling.
+The training progressed very quickly. All the recruits had served in
+some of the world's armies, and the first rudiments of military wisdom
+had been drilled into them long ago. Three-quarters of my
+fellow-recruits were Germans, who did not understand any French, and to
+whom the French commands were Greek. Continual repetition was here
+necessary.
+
+"A gauche--gauche means left about," explained the corporal, and
+repeated it ten times, until "gauche" had been mastered. The most
+necessary French expressions were very quickly learnt by this most
+natural of all methods.
+
+A hot sun burned down on us. Ten times during a single forenoon every
+stitch of clothes on one's body was soaked with perspiration, and ten
+times it dried again. In the pauses one stood about, smoking
+hand-twisted cigarettes, the inevitable cigarette of the Legion smoked
+in every free moment, and by which the pause is measured according to
+the old custom of the Legion? The pause was the duration of a
+cigarette. When the corporal had finished smoking his cigarette he
+slowly walked to a distance of about one or two hundred metres and
+lifted his hand:
+
+"A moi."
+
+That meant we were to run up to him and recommence work.
+
+"I've never run so d----d fast in all my life," was Herr von Rader's
+continual lament. "I've an idea the suckers here are mistaking me for
+an express train!"
+
+At 11 A.M. we marched back to barracks. Knapsack and cartridge-belt
+were thrown into the "paquetage," and dead tired we threw ourselves
+upon our beds. But after a few short minutes, the soup signal rang out
+from the barrack-yard.
+
+"A la soupe, légionnaires, à la soupe, soupe, soupe."
+
+"Soupe ..." every one yelled. Woe if the orderly of the room did not
+rush to the kitchen, and woe if he did not reappear with the
+soup-kettle in the twinkling of an eye! In everything connected with
+food a genuine légionnaire stands no nonsense--he has too often
+suffered starvation on marches and campaigns not to appreciate "la
+gamelle."
+
+The morning soup, the first of the two daily meals, was the same every
+day: Bread soup, boiled together, with potatoes and vegetables, and a
+piece of meat. With it the grey-white French military bread was served,
+and every other day a quarter of a litre of heavy red wine. The food
+was eaten off tin plates at the two long tables in our quarters. There
+was, however, not room enough for all at the tables. The question of
+seats the Legion's etiquette decided; the privilege of sitting down at
+table belonged to the old légionnaires.
+
+After the soup the kitchen corporal rushed from room to room:
+
+"Aux patates--aux pommes de terre!" (To the potatoes!)
+
+The whole company marched down to the kitchen, and standing in a large
+circle peeled the day's supply of potatoes. Every one had to peel--he
+who had no pocket-knife had to make shift with a sharpened
+spoon-handle! The purchase of a pocket-knife was an exorbitant luxury
+on a wage of five centimes a day....
+
+In the afternoon the old légionnaires went off on long marches or to
+field practice, or were ordered to "corvée," to work with spade and
+pick, whilst the recruits had instruction. At 5 o'clock in the
+afternoon, after a second "soupe," which was exactly like the first,
+the official free time of the légionnaire began.
+
+But in reality the most tiresome work of all now began--cleaning and
+washing!
+
+Rifle cleaning, cleaning of uniforms, polishing the leather parts of
+the uniform. Leather! Even now I still think with a gentle shudder of
+the leather of the Legion, of the cartridge-belt and pouch! There is
+such a lot of trouble and work connected with these leather belts! The
+vainest "neuvaine" does not spend so much time over the whole of her
+toilette as does the légionnaire over the polishing of his
+cartridge-belt! The procedure was unutterably ridiculous, in the
+highest degree pedantic and unpractical, being irksome beyond all
+measure. You melted black wax over a match and put it on the leather.
+Then this wax had to be properly rubbed in with a flat piece of wood,
+till it was evenly distributed. Then began the real polishing with an
+arsenal of different rags. It took two hours to make cartridge-belt and
+pouch shine properly, till the légionnaire's vanity was satisfied....
+
+Unpractical and old-fashioned as the "astiquage" is, it belongs to the
+etiquette of the Legion and is sacred. I had a special hatred of it and
+considered myself infinitely smart when I bought a bottle of leather
+dressing and simply painted my belts with it instead of working at them
+for two hours. It looked very well and was at all events more durable.
+
+But Corporal Wassermann almost fainted when he saw it. He tore the belt
+out of my hand, and in a fit of rage ran round to all the men's rooms,
+to show the other corporals what horrible things happen in this sinful
+world. A painted cartridge-belt! The old soldiers of the companies came
+running up and with many "merdes" and "noms d'un chien" surveyed in
+petrified astonishment the greenhorn who had been so audacious as to
+attempt to supplant the sacred "astiquage" of the Legion by painting!
+
+"But it is more practical," I said at length to the fuming corporal in
+the vain attempt to appease him.
+
+"Mais, ça ne marche pas!" he shrieked. "That will never do. If you were
+an old soldier and not a recruit, you would be locked up for ten days!"
+
+The greatest plague, however, was the washing. The white uniform had of
+course to be washed every day. In the back barrack-yard was the
+"lavabo," a large reservoir built of concrete, with cold running water,
+called in légionnaire's wit "cercle d'enfer" (Hell's circle). Every
+free hour the légionnaires stood shoulder to shoulder around the
+reservoir, in a large circle, shirt-sleeves turned up, with flushed and
+perspiring heads. Behind those washing other légionnaires waited
+patiently until a place at the reservoir became vacant. There they
+washed, rubbed, beat and rinsed until darkness set in. The white linen
+uniforms, the underclothing, and the linings of the uniforms had to be
+washed in cold water and with little soap. The small piece of soap
+which each man received once a month was not nearly enough, and few
+things were railed at as much as the lack of soap. Scarcely had one
+turned round, when lo and behold! the soap was gone.
+
+Nothing represented the poverty of the Legion so much as this "lavabo."
+The man who possessed a brush, an ordinary "washing-brush," and with
+this could simplify the work of washing, was as much envied as if he
+had been a millionaire--to lend such a brush was looked upon as an act
+of the greatest friendship! For drying purposes lines were hung up near
+by, and when one had hung up the wet clothes, one waited patiently
+until they were dry. A man who was careless or impatient, and who did
+not do so but went away, might afterwards survey the place on the line
+where his washing had been hanging--the wash itself was gone, had
+disappeared, been spirited away.
+
+With the half-dry wash one returned to the room, laid one's blanket on
+the table and "ironed" trousers and tunics by smoothing them with the
+sharp edge of the drinking-mug until they were free of creases. The
+poor devil of a légionnaire thus needed an hour for a piece of work
+which could have been done in a few minutes with the help of a
+flat-iron. But the foreign légionnaire is far too poor to possess such
+a treasure as a flat-iron....
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The object of our training was twofold: the training for prodigious
+marching performances, and the education of the individual to complete
+military independence. The working programme of the Foreign Legion, the
+whole of its military value, is embodied in these two ideas:
+
+Brilliant marchers--independent soldiers.
+
+In addition to these two advantages we have the financial
+consideration, on which the Foreign Legion's existence depends--the
+advantage of cheap, splendidly trained mercenaries, with whom the most
+daring military operations can be undertaken without consideration of
+the sacrifice of life involved. No nation, no parliament asks for an
+account of the dead. The Legion marches and acts independently, dies
+without attracting attention.
+
+The légionnaire can march. Forty kilometres a day is the fixed minimum
+performance. He must be able to do that, day by day, without
+interruption, without a day of rest, for weeks on end. That is the
+object of his training from the very beginning--the daily "pas
+gymnastique," the "double timing" in the long springy running stride of
+the Legion, the initiatory practice for marching. Several times every
+week the men must make practice marches over a distance of at least
+twenty-four kilometres, with full equipment, at the Legion's pace of
+five kilometres per hour, which has always remained the same. The only
+object of the practice marches is to teach the recruits steady quick
+marching. They neither end with a small manoeuvre, nor have they
+exercises such as scouting, or exploring the country by means of
+patrols. It is nothing but simple marching at a prescribed pace, a
+tramping onwards to fulfil a given task. The "marches militaires," as
+the practice marches are called, usually commence at midday, when the
+sun is at its hottest, after a hard morning's drill, so as to represent
+a practical exercise. On one of the military roads which branch off
+from Sidi-bel-Abbès in all directions, the march goes on until the
+twelfth kilometre is reached, and then the men are marched back again.
+
+On the march a légionnaire may carry his rifle as he pleases, either
+shouldered or by the strap, just as is most comfortable to him; he may
+take off his knapsack if it hurts him, and carry it in his hand; he is
+not ordered when to open his coat or when to shut it. The officers do
+not worry the marching légionnaires with paltry orders, and they are
+allowed to sing or to smoke as they please. When there is a large
+puddle on the road, or when one side of the road is stony, the column
+turns off of its own accord and marches where the road is best. In the
+course of many a whole-day march I have not heard a single word from
+the officers, no orders except the short whistle signals, which mean:
+"Column, halt!" and "Column, forward march!" As soon as the signal
+sounds for a halt, the front rows form front without orders, and every
+man sits or lies down during the halt as suits him best. The marches
+are regulated by the one principle: March as you like, with crooked
+back or toes turned in, if you think that nice or better, but--march!
+
+It is always being drummed into the légionnaire that he is intended for
+nothing else in this world except for marching. If the pangs of hunger
+are gnawing at his stomach or thirst parches his tongue, that is so
+much the worse for him, but is no sort of a reason for his not marching
+on! He may be tired, dead tired, completely exhausted--but he must not
+stop marching. If his feet are bleeding and the soles burn like fire,
+that is very sad--but the marching pace must not be slackened. The sun
+may burn till his senses are all awhirl, he must go on. His task in
+life is to march. The greatest crime that he can commit is to fail on
+the march. There is no such thing as an impossible marching performance
+for the regiment of foreigners. Each individual is inoculated with the
+one idea, it is hammered into him, that he has to march as long as he
+can control his legs. And when he can no longer control them, then he
+must at least try to crawl.
+
+It is a merciless system, which, however, produces wonderful soldiers.
+
+Inseparable from the march of the Legion is the baggage of the
+légionnaire.
+
+The French foreign soldier marches with an equipment called the "tenue
+de campagne d'Afrique." He wears splendidly made laced boots, white
+duck trousers held together at the ankles by means of leather gaiters,
+and the "capote," the heavy blue military cloak. The cloak is put on
+over the shirt, without any coat underneath, and its tails are buttoned
+back behind, so that thighs and knees are left free, and an
+untrammelled gait rendered possible, just as with the French soldiers.
+The only difference is that the légionnaire wears the "ceinture" round
+the body, the blue sash, about four metres long, of fine woollen cloth,
+which not only gives the body a firm support, but also does service as
+a tropical belt, indispensable in the sudden changes of temperature in
+Africa, where the glowing hot day is followed by an icy cold night. The
+red "képi" has a white cover, and, as further protection against the
+sun, a thin linen cloth-the "couvre-nuque," neck-cloth--is buttoned on
+to the "képi," covering the neck, ears and cheeks. There are
+consequently in the Legion comparatively few cases of sunstroke, which
+may sound rather surprising.
+
+He carries a rifle and a bayonet, two hundred to four hundred
+cartridges, cartridge pouch and knapsack, and the "sac." This knapsack
+is made of black varnished canvas with a unique system of straps, and
+has hardly any weight of its own. On the march it contains two complete
+uniforms, the légionnaire's linen and polishing cloths, partly in the
+inside and partly in "ballots," in carefully prescribed bundles. Tent
+canvas and blanket encircle the knapsack in a long roll. The
+collapsible tent-sticks are stuck in at the side. On the top is
+fastened the "gamelle" and fuel for the bivouac fire. In addition each
+man also carries one of the saucepans of the company or pioneer's
+implements. Knapsack, rifle and equipment altogether weigh almost fifty
+kilogrammes; no soldier of any other army carries such a load.
+
+With this kit he marches over sand under a burning sun, on very scanty
+rations. In barracks he gets a cup of black coffee on rising in the
+morning. At ten o'clock he gets his forenoon soup, at about 5 P.M. his
+afternoon soup. Two meals a day, both consisting of soup, in which are
+boiled all sorts of vegetables, a small piece of meat, and now and then
+a special vegetable as an extra, spinach, carrots or such-like. With
+this he eats the French military bread, a grey kind of bread which is
+very easily digested, undoubtedly nutritious, sufficient and palatable.
+When marching, however, the meat rations are dropped, and food consists
+almost exclusively of rice and macaroni. As a substitute for the bread
+he is served with a kind of hard ship's biscuit.
+
+Marching always commences in the early hours after midnight. It then
+goes on uninterruptedly, with the hourly halts for rest of five
+minutes, until the task has been completed. This is a peculiarity of
+the Legion from which there is no deviation, even when in the field. Be
+the distance ever so great, it is covered in _one_ march.
+
+The Légionnaire marches....
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The Foreign Legion, as an old troop of mercenaries, works like a
+machine. The newly recruited human material is quickly adapted to the
+old, faultlessly working parts. In barrack life and on the drill-ground
+the officers stand in the background. For these stages they are
+superfluous, and their work is confined to paper reports or to an
+occasional visit to the drill-ground. While I was serving in the
+Foreign Legion I only came into close touch with the officers of my
+company on the march. We scarcely knew them; the captain came into the
+company's office in the forenoon, and was not seen again for the rest
+of the day. The education of the men and their whole training is left
+to the non-commissioned officers, above all to the corporals. They were
+themselves once trained in the same service and possess, with rare
+exceptions, great talent in training their men to be independent.
+
+The system of the marches is brutal; the légionnaire must expend what
+there is in him of vital energy and human strength, but in the military
+service he is treated as a soldier, as a valuable soldier, whom one
+does not worry with pedantic demands and paltry red-tape affairs, but
+treats him in a sensible, I might say loving, manner, in order to draw
+from him the utmost he is capable of. From the military point of view
+he is really well treated.
+
+During my training I did not once hear a word of bad language, and if a
+strong expression was used, it was done in fun. Every morning and every
+afternoon nine recruits of the eleventh were taken to a secluded spot,
+a shady avenue near the Plateau, and were taken in hand by a corporal
+and a légionnaire, première classe.
+
+Every movement was explained to us, the purpose of every manoeuvre
+illustrated precisely, so that we knew why we had to make this or that
+exercise. The smallest details were all explained. It was not
+considered a crime if in lining-up one man was a trifle farther forward
+than the other; but if any man was awkward at boxing, that was
+considered a very serious thing, and he was drilled by himself until he
+grasped the fact that boxing was a most important matter, which
+sharpened wits and nerves. In the pauses the instructors spoke to us
+and explained a hundred little things. The gun had to be carried across
+the shoulder in a certain place, because that was the easiest way of
+carrying and balancing it. We were obliged to work hard, but never had
+the feeling of being bothered with anything unnecessary. It was
+practical work, the reason for which every one understood.
+
+This was repeated on a larger scale when drilling in companies.
+Everything was directed towards the practical and useful; one was not
+drilled mechanically, but by practical methods. The company drill was
+hardly ever conducted by the officers, but by the colour-sergeant of
+the company.
+
+Here the training of the individual to independence stepped in. In the
+course of the day every man was given a problem which he had to solve:
+the estimating of distances, the search for cover or ambush.... For
+instance, ten men were told off as a scout-patrol, and had to reach a
+certain spot without being seen. At the goal the whole company
+assembled, and every légionnaire could watch for himself how the
+scout-patrol carried out their task. Their movements were criticised by
+the watching légionnaires; in great excitement they debated if another
+way did not offer better cover, or if the patrol should not have
+remained longer at one point to get a wider range of view for their
+observations. This military criticism was looked upon with favour, and
+sergeants and corporals regularly took part in the discussion. This
+introduced into the hard service a suggestion of sport and individual
+interest, stirring the ambition and giving interest to the work. For
+all that the general work of the troop was not neglected and drill was
+not despised when necessary. To my mind the firing discipline, for
+instance, was perfect.
+
+"Being practical" was the leading principle of the whole training. Each
+man knew the length of his steps and knew that he required 117 or 120
+or 125 steps to walk 100 metres. In interesting instructive lessons in
+the field the légionnaire learnt not only the rudiments of map-reading,
+but was taught to illustrate a report by a sketch, if it was only a
+rough one. The corporals took special pains with the talented and
+educated légionnaires, stirring their pride and ambition to achieve
+something out of the common. One had the feeling of working for a
+sporting competition. On clear, starry nights the company was often
+alarmed and marched into the surrounding country of Sidi-bel-Abbès. Far
+out in the open field we stopped. These exercises were conducted by our
+first lieutenant. He gathered the légionnaires round him in a circle
+and explained to them the constellations, their movements and their
+relation to each other. This was repeated so often till even the
+greatest dunce could find his bearings by means of the Pole-star and
+the Great Bear.
+
+Personal interest was brought into the soldier's work. One became
+independent, one knew the Why and the Wherefore. Again and again
+rifle-pits were dug, and sporting ambition urged us to work quicker
+than the next section.
+
+There was equal competition at the frequent drills in throwing up
+earthworks, and with wonderful rapidity entrenchments were built up of
+haversacks filled with sand. It was like watching a match to see the
+"escouades," the different sections of the company, endeavouring to be
+the first to have their tent up. With one pull they had the tent-cloth
+out of the knapsack, and fitted the sticks together; every one had his
+own piece of work--the one buttoned the tent canvas together, the other
+stretched the sides down tight, and the next one drove in the pegs. And
+like a miracle the little tent grew out of the ground. My squad held
+the record in tent-building with seventy seconds. It was looked upon as
+a matter of honour to turn out with the greatest speed and exactness,
+one was proud of being able to form square on the march in a few
+seconds. One ran like mad at the command "A genoux!"--an interesting
+manoeuvre, the purpose of which was to save oneself from bursting
+shells and volley fire. When the command "A genoux!" (Down on the
+knees!) sounded the whole line in long strides moved closely together,
+every single man fell on his knees and put his head as far under the
+knapsack of the man in front of him as possible, each one crowding
+close to his neighbour. No head, no back was visible, nothing but a
+compact mass of knapsacks. The head of each man was protected by the
+knapsack of the man in front, this and his own knapsack protecting him
+from shells and shrapnel. The "sac," with its contents of soft uniforms
+and underlinen, was proof even against a rifle-bullet.
+
+Everything was practical. All the bother with the "paquetage," the
+paltry and exact folding up of equipment according to a prescribed
+plan, meant in reality prompt readiness at shortest notice. The
+légionnaire has no wardrobe and is obliged to put a host of things into
+a ridiculously small space with methodical neatness. But the result of
+all this is that he can find every piece in the dark and stands with
+his kit packed according to marching regulations ten minutes after the
+alarm.
+
+The Legion understands its soldiering business. One must admit that. It
+shoots brilliantly. The general regulations for the computation of the
+shooting range are absolutely ignored by the Legion. But every man
+tests his gun over every range until he knows exactly, when given a
+distance, how his own gun shoots over it: at four hundred yards, a
+hand's-breadth up, and a hand's-breadth to the left ... and so on. The
+shooting-range at Sidi-bel-Abbès is never unoccupied, cartridges are
+not stinted, and a company would feel very unhappy if at least half of
+its men were not first-class shots. Money prizes are even given. I once
+got a prize of ten francs....
+
+On the other hand, it is on the rifle-ground that one can see how the
+légionnaire is treated as a man. He is supposed to be a badly treated
+man, a desperate man, one not to be trusted. As a soldier the
+légionnaire must shoot, shoot much. As a desperate man he ought not to
+have arms in his possession. But the Legion has found a compromise. A
+corporal stands behind every légionnaire who shoots on the range,
+watching the shooter's every movement. From the same reason even the
+sentinels do not get any cartridges. The non-commissioned officer in
+command of the guard receives a small box with ammunition, locked and
+sealed and only to be opened in case of necessity. Is a sentinel
+attacked, then he must defend himself with his bayonet until he can
+alarm the guard and bring the officer on duty to the rescue with
+cartridges. Such things are significant. But they do not prevent the
+légionnaire from being a splendid soldier.
+
+Individual training--Boer tactics--practical instruction ... that is
+the Legion. And it marches. Now and then its marching powers are
+increased artificially. The "compagnies montées" one with each
+regiment, companies mounted on mules, have even done seventy kilometres
+a day. Every two men have a mule. The one rides and takes the baggage
+of his comrade marching alongside with him on the mule. Then they
+change about. The mounted companies lie far in the south and follow up
+the hostile Arabs with colossal forced marches.
+
+But on the whole "la Légion" depends on its legs. These brilliant
+professional soldiers march....
+
+ * * * * *
+
+I will give you, naturally translated, my company's weekly programme as
+it was hung up on the blackboard every Saturday:
+
+ Monday 6-7 Boxing.
+ 7.30-10 Company drill.
+ 12 Military march.
+
+ Tuesday 6-7 Gymnastics.
+ 7.30-10 Skirmishing.
+ 11-12 Instruction in hygienic rules in the field.
+ 1 Work under the quartermaster's direction.
+
+ Wednesday 5.30-6.30 Boxing.
+ 7 Company musters for bathing.
+ 8-11 Mending uniforms, preparation for inspection
+ by the colonel.
+
+ Thursday 5.30 March to the shooting-range.
+ 12-1 Instruction in first-aid to wounded.
+ 1.15 Work under the quartermaster's orders.
+
+ Friday 5 Military march.
+ 1-2 Instruction in taking cover in flat ground.
+ 2.30 Work under the quartermaster's orders.
+
+ Saturday 5.30 Run over six kilometres.
+ 8-11 Company drill.
+ 12 Cleaning of barracks and quarters.
+ 4 Inspection of the barracks by the colonel.
+ The men stand beside their beds in duck suit.
+
+N.B.--At the 11 o'clock muster each morning a part of the uniform, to
+be named each day by the adjutant, has to be presented for inspection.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Inseparable from the Legion's military value is the Legion's work.
+
+Not so very long ago Sidi-bel-Abbès was a sand-heap, on which only a
+"marabout" stood, the tomb of a pious saint, to which the Arab hordes
+of the Beni Amer made pilgrimages. At that time strange men came,
+gathered round the brand new flag of the Legion and convinced the sons
+of Amer in bloody battles that it would be good for their health to
+move farther south. These strange men built roads and burned bricks.
+They built solid fortification walls, drained that horrid little
+rivulet Mekerra, which flowed so sluggishly through the sand, and which
+smelt so badly; they laid out gardens and planted olive-trees. The
+barracks, the public buildings, most of the dwelling-houses arose under
+the hands of these industrious mercenaries.
+
+The légionnaire was always and is always still a workman. The heaviest
+work of the Foreign Legion is done on the smallest military stations in
+Algeria, down in the south, on the borders of the Sahara, where every
+day's bodily work means loss of health to a European. There the working
+column turns out day by day with pick and spade to build roads, whilst
+perhaps in an Arab village a few hours distant the civil authorities
+are distributing "relief" in the form of natural products to loafing
+Arabs. Eighty per cent. of Algeria's brilliant roads have been built by
+the Legion.
+
+The trowel is thrust into the légionnaire's hand. There, now you are a
+mason. He builds barracks for the troops and offices for the civil
+administration. He breaks the stones with which the roads are repaired.
+He performs the pioneer work of Northern Africa at a wage which a
+coolie would scoff at.
+
+His strength is made full use of. A grotesque example of this is the
+custom prevailing in the 2nd Regiment, stationed in Saida, to allow
+légionnaires to work for private people in the town. They, of course,
+get less wage for this than a common workman would ask for, but that in
+itself would not be so bad, because even the few francs a day mean
+wealth to a légionnaire. The peculiarity, however, the typical side of
+the whole affair, is that these workers have to hand over a part of
+their day's earnings to the funds of their company. The company
+enriches itself through their work.
+
+In the garrison life of Sidi-bel-Abbès the work of the Legion took
+grotesque forms. In my life I have spent several weeks on end in the
+saddle; while still very young I struggled for existence in the United
+States; I have suffered from hunger and cold, and for months I have had
+shivering fits of malaria--but I never experienced to such a degree the
+feeling that my physical strength was being pumped out of me to the
+last drop as during the time I spent in Sidi-bel-Abbès. I was always
+tired and every free moment found me stretched out at full length on my
+camp bed. During work I had the ambition (which to-day appears to me
+ridiculous) to be second to none in strength and endurance. Scarcely,
+however, was the work ended, when the bodily and mental depression set
+in.
+
+My captain was quite right when one day at inspection he stood still in
+front of me and said disapprovingly to the sergeant: "Il a maigri
+beaucoup!" (He has got very thin!)
+
+"Mais il fait son service," replied the sergeant. (He does his work.)
+
+That was of course the principal thing.
+
+The getting thin and feeling tired had their own good reasons. Like all
+légionnaires I was a working animal. Early in the morning the hard
+military service began. The afternoon brought the "corvée" work, and
+the evening the ridiculous small jobs of the barrack routine. The word
+"corvée," which literally means drudgery and in the military sense
+"work," I will not forget as long as I live, and will never read it
+again without shuddering. "Corvée" was a component part of almost every
+day in the Legion. The work was often so hard that every bone and every
+muscle in my body ached, often it was simply ridiculous and depressing.
+
+The greater part of the company mustered generally at 1 P.M. in the
+barrack-yard, and the sergeant "du jour" chose working parties, each of
+which was in charge of a corporal. That was something quite different
+to the military service. Indifferent as I must have been at that time,
+I nevertheless always noticed the sulky and disgusted faces the men
+made when they went to this work. In small groups we marched out of the
+barracks, armed with broom, pick and shovel.
+
+The Legion was there to work, and from the légionnaire one could ask
+things impossible in other French troops. If one saw a soldier working
+in Sidi-bel-Abbès, then he was sure to be a légionnaire. Arab Spahis or
+French soldiers of the line, who were also stationed in Sidi-bel-Abbès,
+had never such work to do as we did, and which should have been done by
+scavengers and navvies. That was the privilege of the Foreign Legion.
+
+From the Arab Spahis, that is to say from the natives, such work was
+not demanded. On the other hand, the Legion had often to supply men to
+put the forage of the "Spahis" under cover. That may sound paltry, but
+it is just these small things that characterise the way the légionnaire
+is taken advantage of. He is just good enough for any kind of work.
+
+We swept the public park of the town for the citizens of
+Sidi-bel-Abbès, whilst the gardeners stood idly by, watching us and
+ordering us about; we rooted out the undergrowth, and cleansed the
+brook which ran through the botanical gardens from mud and refuse. We
+emptied the drains in the officers' houses; we did scavengers' work in
+the filthy slums of the town.
+
+Once I was a member of a detachment that had to clean the sewers in the
+Arab prison. The work was loathsome beyond measure. We had taken with
+us a large barrow with casks, and had to haul from underneath the
+floors of the cells and prison rooms the large tin pans, and carry them
+to the barrow. We performed this disgusting work, whilst in the prison
+yard the loafing Arab rabble prowled around and made jokes at our
+expense.
+
+Sunday only was free from work, free from all kinds of service. We were
+not even mustered. And the légionnaire lies the whole blessed Sunday in
+bed. Towards evening he goes to the Jardin Public to listen to the
+concert given by the regimental band. He goes there because it is the
+Legion's custom--but he would much rather sleep on....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+"THE LEGION GETS NO PAY"
+
+The money troubles of the Legion : Five centimes wages : The cheapest
+soldiers of the world : Letters from the Legion : The science of
+"decorating" : The industries of the légionnaires : What the bugler did
+for a living : The man with the biscuits : A thief in the night :
+Summary lynch law : Herr von Rader and La Cantinière : "The Legion
+works--the Legion gets no pay!"
+
+
+The poor fellows who enlisted because they had no money to buy a crust
+of bread made the biggest mistake of their lives when they thought to
+finish with their troubles by entering the Legion.
+
+Without exception every man in the Legion had his money troubles.
+
+Money was a thing of immense value in the Foreign Legion. The
+possession of a few francs made an enormous difference and created in
+the midst of the Legion's red-trousered equality the finest social
+grades and distinctions. Not only the value but also the power of money
+was enhanced in the Legion. Copper pieces meant a great deal here.
+Copper pieces purchased a few "litres" of wine, or a nocturnal carouse,
+or a substitute to help in doing hard work. The légionnaire with a
+little money was on quite a different footing to the man who had none.
+
+Rassedin, the wealthy Rassedin, was a prince in a surrounding of poor
+devils. A wide gap parted him from the other men. They flattered him to
+get into his good graces and accepted gladly his insolence, if there
+were but a few sous or a few good cigarettes to be had. Of our quarters
+he was the king. He reigned supreme. He was obeyed in all matters. It
+was too funny to see how his comrades hurried themselves when this man,
+the incarnation of the God of Mammon in the Legion, happened to express
+a wish, and how they then went off with beaming faces to the canteen to
+change the couple of sous they had earned into wine. The
+self-confidence with which the Belgian bore the dignity of his wealth
+(and what enormous wealth are a few thousand francs to a légionnaire!)
+was, considered by itself, only funny. But many a time I suspected that
+Rassedin, who knew so well what a frightful death was waiting for him,
+despised the petty greed of them all from the bottom of his heart.
+
+Money rules even in the Foreign Legion!
+
+The pay is five centimes daily, which is about one cent or one
+halfpenny. Exactly the fiftieth part of the daily pay of an American
+regular. The twenty-fourth part of a British soldier's daily pay. The
+comparison is grotesque.
+
+When one considers, however, that the man who enlists in the Foreign
+Legion sells his skin and is a "paid" mercenary, the comparison becomes
+astounding. The average légionnaire finds out in a remarkably short
+time that he has been a fool to enlist, that he is the victim of a
+system very near akin to slavery, that he is a working man without
+wages, a labourer without pay. An old French proverb says: Business is
+getting the other man's money!
+
+And very substantial values is La France getting out of the
+légionnaire. With this poorly paid Legion, the French Republic protects
+the boundaries of her territory in Algeria and conquers the southern
+deserts step by step--in the everlasting wars in French Tonquin the
+Legion's troops are always ready for service. Fighting is not the only
+work of the Foreign Legion, however. Only one-half of the légionnaire
+is a real soldier. The other half of him is workman, carpenter,
+builder, road-maker. He works hard and he is so cheap a workman that no
+Chinese coolie can compete with him. He receives board and clothes and
+a cent a day--the cheap soldier of the Legion, this funny soldier of
+"fortune." He can be made use of in the most terrible climates, for the
+most risky operations, simply because nobody troubles his head about
+him and because his officers have no account to render for his life or
+death.
+
+The sum of money which his work with pick and shovel, with mason's
+trowel and carpenter's axe has saved the French Government in all these
+years must be enormous. And if a bullet, or sunstroke, or typhoid
+fever, or dysentery carries away a légionnaire, the only expense he is
+the cause of is the making of a hole in the sand. So cheap! Truly,
+France's Foreign Legion is a well-paying enterprise! Glorious soldiers
+and successful workmen are remarkably cheap at five centimes a day....
+
+Every five days the légionnaire gets his wages paid. He holds five
+copper sous in his hand and must decide whether to buy cigarette
+tobacco, or cleaning materials, or a bottle of wine. It is only enough
+for one of these three. The purchase of a box of matches, which are
+monopolised in Algeria and cost five centimes, is a very grave
+financial problem. Therefore matches are scarce. Nowhere in the world
+is one so often asked for a match as in the streets of Sidi-bel-Abbès
+and in the Legion's barracks.
+
+No wonder that the possession of a few silver pieces is something truly
+great for a légionnaire; no wonder that men like Rassedin rule as
+kings. Nowhere can the lesson of the value of money be so thoroughly
+learned as in the Foreign Legion.
+
+The money troubles of the Legion are, of course, ridiculously petty
+troubles.
+
+The luckiest man (considered from the Legion's point of view) is he who
+has kept up some sort of communication with home. The most appalling
+letters are then written to parents and relations and friends. Usually
+the poor devil of a letter-writer exaggerates a little, and his
+descriptions of famine and hardships are most moving. They must be very
+hard-hearted people indeed who do not acknowledge the receipt of such a
+letter with a small postal order. Then there is joy in the land of
+Sidi-bel-Abbès. For a day, or a few days, or even a week, the prodigal
+son with the postal order lives like a king. He has his boots cleaned
+for him, and would not dream of making his own bed as long as his money
+lasts. A comrade does that for him, and in reward is graciously
+permitted to share a drink. C'est la Légion! To play the "grand
+seigneur," if it is but for a day, is the average légionnaire's dream
+of happiness. He thinks it the finest thing in all the world to play at
+having a servant, if it's but for a day.... And this is the surest sign
+of the légionnaire's abject poverty. These lucky ones who receive a
+postal order occasionally represent the crème de la crème, the élite of
+society in the Foreign Legion. The others have to help themselves. They
+must "decorate themselves!"
+
+This "decorating" is a fine art in the Foreign Legion. It is a mixture
+of work, cunning, brains, and theft.
+
+"Decorate yourself!"
+
+That is the sum total of an old légionnaire's wisdom, and these two
+words are the only advice that he gives, or indeed can give, to the
+newcomer. Make your life in the Legion as easy as possible is the
+meaning of this advice; take care that your tobacco-pouch stays full,
+that your uniform is in order and your kit complete, that you have as
+often as possible the three sous necessary for your litre of wine.
+
+The way in which this "decorating" is carried out is a purely personal
+affair....
+
+My friend the bugler used to make gaudy "ceintures" from coloured
+pieces of cloth and old leather-work, belts with crests and buttons of
+the Legion. He found good customers for his belts amongst the Arabs and
+occasionally amongst Spanish workmen in the little wine-shops of
+Sidi-bel-Abbès. In his special methods of decorating the old
+légionnaire developed an extraordinary business instinct. His
+transactions were not at all simple. An Arab never parts with hard
+cash--after the time-honoured manner of his kind. So the bugler had to
+"trade." He would exchange his gaudy rags for a pair of pretty
+golden-bossed Arabian shoes, or a grotesquely carved Arabian stick, or
+a morocco purse of fine leather-work. Then Smith would constitute one
+of the légionnaires on orderly duty in the officers' mess his agent.
+Paying customers could easily be found amongst the young officers. The
+final result was always the same: many litres of the sweet heavy wine
+of Algeria into which all the copper coins of the Legion invariably
+change.
+
+A légionnaire of the fourth company was generally known as "l'homme des
+biscuits!" His speciality was to gather in all the companies the
+biscuits given out twice weekly to complete the bread ration. They were
+like ship's biscuit and extremely hard. Most of the men would not touch
+them. So the biscuit man had a capital gathering ground, and in some
+cunning way, which he carefully kept secret, he took sack upon sack of
+these biscuits out of the barracks. In the market-place of
+Sidi-bel-Abbès he found plenty of customers. Others, less inventive,
+confined themselves to cleaning and washing for comrades better off
+than they. In some way every one tried to "decorate himself."... The
+main object in a légionnaire's life is the getting together of a few
+coppers.
+
+Decorating meant also occasional theft.... In matters of stealing the
+Legion draws the line very sharply. The theft of equipment, to replace
+lost or stolen parts, was considered absolutely respectable and
+gentleman-like. There was no other remedy, as the man who loses
+something is punished severely.
+
+Thieving "decorating" is a very simple thing and quickly learned.
+
+"I've lost a pair of trousers!" cries the recruit in despair.
+
+"That's nothing," says the old légionnaire.
+
+"Curse it, what shall I do then?" wails the new-comer.
+
+"Decorate yourself, you fool," says the old hand.
+
+Whereupon the recruit (after receiving detailed instructions from the
+wise old soldier) walks into the back yard, where the washing is
+hanging out to dry, and waits in a dark corner with great patience for
+an auspicious moment. A lightning snatch and a pair of somebody's
+trousers hanging innocently on the line are his. He has decorated
+himself. It's immoral, of course. It's theft right enough. It's
+deplorable ... but it is most convenient. The Legion does not worry
+about small matters of right or wrong. The Legion says: Each for
+himself; why didn't you keep an eye on your washing, you fool!
+
+Now such a single theft of a single pair of trousers naturally is but
+the first link in a long chain of trouser-stealing. The man who has
+been robbed has no other remedy than doing likewise. And so on.... In a
+very few days hundreds of pairs of trousers change owners, until
+somewhere in the long chain some one is struck who buys himself a new
+pair. Somehow or other it all comes right!
+
+The Legion considers this sort of theft sportsman-like and gentlemanly,
+a thing permitted, and it is a "point d'honneur" to be smart enough not
+to get caught by the rightful owner.
+
+But woe to the légionnaire who should ever extend his decorating
+operations to tobacco or money or even bread. The whole company would
+form a self-constituted detective corps and find the culprit out very
+soon. The rest would be--silence and hospital!
+
+ * * * * *
+
+During one of the very first nights an ugly scene took place which
+showed only too well how a thief is treated in the Legion. In the
+middle of the night furious shouting made me jump out of bed. Sleepily
+I looked about me. Around Rassedin's bed stood a group of cursing and
+gesticulating soldiers. I went up to them. Smith and three others were
+holding in grips of iron a fourth man who could hardly speak for
+terror. His face was white as chalk. Rassedin stood there in his shirt,
+staring hard at the man caught.
+
+"You're from the tenth company?"
+
+"Yes," stammered the man.
+
+"What in hell are you doing in the eleventh then?"
+
+"Been drinking--got into the wrong quarters--let me go----"
+
+In the meantime all the men in the room had gathered and were standing
+around the group.
+
+"Nom de Dieu--what a dirty fellow!" said Rassedin. "Listen, you chaps.
+I had my money in my trousers and my trousers were under my pillow.
+Just now I felt something moving near me, jumped up and caught hold. Do
+you know what I caught? This chap's hand. What do you think of that?"
+
+"Voleur!" cried the bugler. "Thief!"
+
+The word acted like a signal. All at once fists were clenched, a
+bayonet gleamed, a struggle arose, and a dozen men rolled on the
+ground. The scene lasted for perhaps a minute. Then all was still--the
+man from the tenth company lay there gasping and covered with blood.
+His face was black, so terribly was it bruised. A blow from the bayonet
+had split his cheek and a stream of blood flowed over his blue jacket.
+The guard came up and the fellow was carried into hospital.
+
+"He wanted to steal my money! He wanted to decorate himself!" said
+Rassedin grimly. "For the present we've decorated him!"
+
+The man lay in hospital for weeks. That was the end of it. That night's
+lynch-law in our quarters was not inquired into. The punishment of the
+thief rests in the hands of his comrades. So decrees the custom of the
+Legion....
+
+ * * * * *
+
+When it came to "decorating," Herr von Rader was in his element. The
+Legion's little ways had nothing mysterious for him. In a week the
+whole Legion knew him and respected him as a man of brains and
+resource. Every evening he went across to the canteen. Money he had
+not. But he juggled untiringly with empty wine-bottles, performed the
+most difficult conjuring tricks with absinthe glasses, and used to tell
+Madame la Cantinière (who understood a little German) the funniest
+stories. Very soon he succeeded in making a deep impression on that
+worthy lady, the queen over so many desirable wine-casks. She found the
+clever Herr von Rader amusing, and she did something that she had never
+done before in her life. She gave the man of many tricks a gratis
+bottle of wine every evening, and into the bargain the change out of an
+imaginary ten-sous piece. Madame's Portuguese husband had no idea of
+this little secret of his wife's kind heart. Anyway, he need not have
+troubled himself: Herr von Rader had not the slightest intention of
+endangering Madame la Cantinière's conjugal fidelity--he only loved her
+wine....
+
+Thus did Herr von Rader decorate himself with his glib tongue and his
+clever fingers. The soldiering part of his work was easy enough for
+him. Herr von Rader got on better under the flag of the Legion than all
+the other recruits. Sometimes, however (when Madame la Cantinière was
+in a bad temper or her Portuguese husband kept too sharp an eye on
+her), even Herr von Rader would fall into a thoughtful mood. Then he
+would rub away angrily at his leather equipment and propound practical
+philosophy. Something like this:
+
+"Nom de Dieu!" (Herr von Rader was already quite at home with the
+curses of the French language.) "Nom de bon Dieu! This Legion is no
+good. Nix good. Now, for an intelligent man like me there is a bottle
+of wine and a cigarette easily to be had anywhere in the world. You'll
+admit that! Is it easy here? It is not! I've got to waste a lot of
+thinking and fine art just to keep in cigarettes.... This Legion's
+rotten. I've been had. They've swindled me! I'll tell you what, mein
+Freund: I'm going to skin out. This boy is going to run away...."
+
+He did "skin out," some time afterwards. For it the cheerful Herr von
+Rader was to suffer the whole immeasurably hard punishment system of
+the Legion.
+
+Even this cheerful fellow, who knew so well how to help himself, and in
+consequence was far better off than the other men in the Legion, was
+troubled by the simple problem of the Foreign Legion! A problem which
+so many of the Legion's soldiers have tried to reason out with so many
+head-shakings. A problem which once an Arabian Spahi put very plainly
+in a few scornful words:
+
+"The Legion works--the Legion gets no pay!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE CITY OF THE FOREIGN LEGION
+
+The daily exodus to town : Ben Mansur's coffee : The Ghetto : The
+citizens of Sidi-bel-Abbès and the légionnaires : How the Legion
+squared accounts with the civilians : A forbidden part of the town :
+Primitive vice : A dance of a night : The gardens : The last
+resting-place of the Legion's dead
+
+
+En ville! Off to Sidi-bel-Abbès! Every afternoon shortly before six
+o'clock there began a very exodus from the Legion's barracks to the
+town. A légionnaire would rather clean and polish for an hour after
+lights out in the semi-darkness of the night-lamp than miss his stroll
+to town. The daily walk in Sidi-bel-Abbès was part of the Legion's
+sacred tradition. At five o'clock the gigantic gates of the barracks
+were closed and only a little side door remained open. Here the
+sergeant of the guard posted himself and carefully inspected everybody
+who wanted to go out, so that the Legion's reputation for chic should
+not suffer. The uniform to be worn in town was prescribed every day by
+a special regimental order; each légionnaire had to wear the same
+uniform, red trousers and blue jacket or white trousers and blue
+overcoat, and everybody took an especial pride in looking as trim and
+smart as possible.
+
+Three thousand soldiers of the Legion used to stroll about the streets
+of Sidi-bel-Abbès every evening. For me this daily walk was a wondrous
+change from the Legion's routine. Above the gleam of the electric arc
+lamps shone the starry glory of a southern sky. Little black boys in
+white breeches, whose countless folds might have told endless stories
+of stolen trifles they had concealed, lounged at the street corners and
+cried the evening paper, the _Echo d'Oran_; Arabs in white burnouses,
+carrying in their hands the dangerous Arabian sticks, in which they
+find a never-failing missile, stood motionless, silently watching with
+looks of suspicion the "Rumis," the white foreigners who will always
+remain foreigners to them and whose customs they will never be able to
+understand. All Sidi-bel-Abbès was promenading; citizens of the town,
+officers and civilians of the "Bureau Arabe" with their womenfolk. In
+between came the Legion's heavy soldier-steps and the sound of gently
+rattling bayonets.
+
+Four streets, which run exactly north, south, east, and west, to Oran,
+Daya, Maskara, and Tlemcen, divide the town at right angles. They are
+the main streets in which the European shops and fashionable cafés lie.
+For private financial reasons the légionnaire does not buy in these
+shops and in the fashionable cafés he is badly treated. The légionnaire
+has no business in the main streets--from the honest citizen's point of
+view.
+
+Between the blocks of the main streets, however, a labyrinth of small
+courts and alleys is hidden. There the Spanish Jews and Arabs live,
+there trading and bargaining goes on incessantly.
+
+In this maze of dark alleys the men of the Legion were at home, in the
+treacherous wineshops which depended on the custom of the soldiers.
+"Bar de la Légion," or "Bar du Légionnaire," or "Bar de Madagascar"
+these hovels called themselves. Good wine is ridiculously cheap in
+Algeria. But out of the légionnaires extra money must needs be made.
+They were given a brew in the wineshops made from grapes which had been
+pressed already two or three times and to which a little alcohol lent
+flavour and "aroma." Beside the wineshops were Mohammedan restaurants
+in which one could eat "kuskus" and "galettes," tough pancakes with
+honey; restaurants in which knives and forks were looked upon as
+accursed instruments, which doubtless the devil of the Rumis must have
+invented for devilish purposes unintelligible to a true believer.
+Poverty and filth reigned in these places, but they were good enough
+for the poor despised légionnaire. One café in this quarter had an
+individuality of its own, depending exclusively on the custom of the
+Legion. In a corner by the theatre a pretty little Spanish girl had put
+up a wooden hut and filled it with rickety old chairs, to be treated
+and used with great care, given her in charity probably somewhere or
+other merely to get rid of them. There she sold coffee to the soldiers
+of the Legion. This little woman had a good eye for business. Her
+coffee was, 'tis true, merely coloured hot water and not especially
+good water at that, but the soldier of the Legion willingly drank it,
+for Manuelita's coffee was very cheap indeed, and a pretty smile and a
+coquette glance went with each cup. When business was slack the hostess
+would even chat a little. These tactics secured for the sly little
+Spaniard the faithful custom of the légionnaires. La Légion made love
+to Manuelita unceasingly.... The old légionnaires stole flowers for
+her, and if somewhere in Tonquin or on the Morocco border plundering
+had been going on, Manuelita would some months later be sure to receive
+the finest presents, stolen for her by her old friends of the Legion
+and carried about all the time in knapsacks. The Legion was grateful to
+Manuelita. She was the great exception. Besides her and Madame la
+Cantinière there was no woman in the town of the Foreign Legion who
+would even in her wildest dreams have deigned a légionnaire worthy of a
+glance.
+
+Smith would never have patronised this Café de la Légion. He knew
+something much better. To him I owed my acquaintance with Ben Mansur's
+coffee. His was a Moorish coffee-house. Finely coloured mosaics formed
+Arabian proverbs on the floor and against the walls there were long
+marble benches. Arabs crouched on these benches and smoked comfortably
+gurgling narghiles--the incarnation of quietude and silence. For hours
+they sat over a single cup of coffee, whose purchase gave them also,
+according to Arabian custom, the right of spending the night on the
+marble benches. In stolid silence they played "esch schronsch"--chess.
+
+One seldom saw a soldier of the Legion here, for Ben Mansur only spoke
+Arabic. Smith, however, was his bosom friend, and these two always
+greeted one another solemnly with deep bows, with their arms folded on
+the breast in Arab fashion.
+
+Ben Mansur's coffee was a dream of fairyland. All day and all night
+charcoal glowed in the ancient Moorish stove in the corner, and in a
+wonderful octagonal copper kettle, which must have done service for
+generations of Arabs, there simmered boiling water. A silver can
+contained a thick coffee brew, a kind of extract. From this Ben Mansur
+filled the little clay cups half full and poured in boiling water. Then
+he conjured dreamland into the tiny little cups, adding a drop here and
+a drop there from mysterious bottles, a drop of essence of oranges, a
+drop of hashish oil and a drop of opium. Ben Mansur's coffee, with its
+wonderful aroma and the restful oblivion which that little cup gave,
+was a wonder never to be forgotten. Smith and I used to sit on the
+marble benches by the hour, legs crossed in honour of the customs of
+our host's race. Before us stood the water-pipe of the Orient, a
+"narghile," filled with wonderful tobacco very different from the
+products of the Algerian tobacco monopoly. Ben Mansur would never take
+more than two sous, which is two cents, for both of us, no matter how
+many pipes we smoked or how many cups of coffee we drank. This was his
+idea of hospitality.
+
+Then again I used to wander with Smith through the dirty streets of the
+Jewish quarter, where the rubbish-heaps lay in the open streets and the
+atmosphere was tainted with every variety of smell. At the corners thin
+Spanish Jews, with the sharp features common to their race, haggled
+over a bargain; Algerian Jews walked stately through the alleys, in
+long flowing robes of blue and brown silk, men of importance who held
+the wealth of the country in their hands as the go-betweens of the
+world's trade and the riches of Algeria. Wealth and power dwelt in this
+miserable quarter of Sidi-bel-Abbès under the shell of poverty with
+which Israel is so fond of surrounding itself.
+
+In the Ghetto of Sidi-bel-Abbès no trifle is so small that it is not
+worth haggling about, and no proposition paltry enough to come amiss to
+the man of the Ghetto, whose love of money is so great that he does not
+despise even the Legion's small copper pieces. The Ghetto and the
+Foreign Legion have quite lively business connections, consisting
+principally in the change of small currency notes. Many banknotes which
+originally formed the kernel of a légionnaire's letter from home have
+wandered into the mysterious channels of Jewish trade. The Ghetto of
+Sidi-bel-Abbès has earned a small fortune in these small transactions.
+A légionnaire is seldom much of a man of business and he certainly is
+always in a big hurry to get his dollar or his five marks or his five
+pesetas changed into francs and centimes--so he submits with more or
+less grace to fantastic rates of exchange, getting little more than
+three francs for a dollar and about four francs for a "fünf Mark
+Schein." All other business of the Ghetto with the soldiers of the
+Legion is equally profitable--for the other man, be it understood, not,
+of course, for the légionnaire. Very often men of the Legion steal,
+under cover of darkness, silently through the little streets of the
+Jewish quarter carrying big bundles of brown woollen blankets and blue
+sashes, stamped in the middle and at the corners with the Legion's
+stamp in white paint, which marks them clearly as regimental property.
+But what's in a stamp! It can be got rid of easily enough with good
+will and a little turpentine....
+
+Anything that a légionnaire may want to sell the second-hand merchants
+of Sidi-bel-Abbès buy; at prices below contempt, it is true, but all
+the same they buy it. The small silver coins of the Ghetto have been
+the ruin of more than one soldier of the Legion who in a fit of rage
+sold his uniform to the obliging trader and paid the penalty with a
+long term of imprisonment.
+
+Thus the interests of the Ghetto and the interests of the Legion are
+identical in a small way, and as a result the Ghetto man and the
+soldier are quite friendly with each other.
+
+The honest citizen of Sidi-bel-Abbès, however, a half-caste of Spanish
+or Levantine or French extraction, is anything but fond of the
+red-trousered foreigner. He despises the Legion and its men from the
+bottom of his heart and has quite forgotten that the very same Legion
+built his town for him in the beginning; that there would be no
+Sidi-bel-Abbès if there had been no Legion.... His woman-kind draw
+their skirts close about them when they meet a légionnaire in the
+streets, as if he were plague-stricken. He himself--why, he has managed
+to bring it about that the officers' mess is now merely used as an
+evening club, while the officers have to dine in hotels, in order that
+the honest citizen may make a little money out of them. The
+sub-lieutenants dine in one hotel, the first lieutenants in another,
+the unmarried captains and higher officers patronise a third. Every
+hotel had to have a share in the spoils, of course! The honest citizen
+is very indignant when the regimental band does not give a concert
+three times weekly for him; he has his public parks swept by the Legion
+and takes good care that all the provisions for the three thousand
+soldiers are bought in the town itself and nowhere else. For the
+trifling purchases which even a poor devil of a légionnaire sometimes
+makes he keeps a specially rubbishy class of article and charges double
+prices for it.
+
+The regiment of foreigners is a very good thing for the honest citizen
+of Sidi-bel-Abbès, but nevertheless he despises the Legion and the
+légionnaire--this citizen of the Foreign Legion's town.
+
+He takes good care, however, not to express his feelings of dislike too
+openly to Monsieur le Légionnaire, for he has more than once learnt
+that the men in red trousers are not to be trifled with. That they are
+much better left alone, in fact. The much-tried patience of the Legion
+has its strongly defined bounds and sometimes it gives way. When the
+Legion is not occupied in Tonquin or Madagascar or some such lovely
+neighbourhood, the regimental band gives a concert several times a week
+in the Place Sadi Carnot. The good man of Sidi-bel-Abbès always found
+this concert very fine, but what he did not like about it was that
+besides himself thousands of légionnaires promenaded in the Carnot
+square, enjoying the band's music as much as the civilians.
+
+One day the honest citizen drew a cordon of police around the Place
+Sadi Carnot, with orders to let no soldiers pass, and thought he would
+now have the music all for himself....
+
+The légionnaires were struck dumb with astonishment at this unheard-of
+impudence and the Arabian policemen felt very uncomfortable. News of
+the "outrage" was sent to barracks and in a very few minutes the men of
+the Legion were assembled in full force, discussing in fifteen
+different languages the evident impossibility of living in peace with
+the honest citizen of Sidi-bel-Abbès. All at once an old soldier gave
+the word of command:
+
+"En avant par colonne du régiment--marche!"
+
+The Arabian policemen tumbled to right and to left, the citizens of
+Sidi-bel-Abbès vanished as if by a conjuring trick into the side
+streets, and in five minutes there was not a single soul in civilian
+clothes to be seen on the Place Sadi Carnot. The men in red trousers
+held the field in triumph.
+
+Since they were in fine humour and out for a real good time they
+promptly smashed up all the chairs on which the ladies and gentlemen of
+Sidi-bel-Abbès had been sitting, made a pile of them and lit up a grand
+bonfire while the regimental band played its gayest marches.
+
+In the meantime a deputation of citizens had rushed to the colonel of
+the regiment and made a great noise about these horrible légionnaires.
+The colonel merely laughed.
+
+"My good sirs," said he, "it is now eleven o'clock. My men have leave
+till midnight. In another hour all will be over."
+
+"But they have burnt the chairs," wailed the deputation.
+
+"I'm very glad they have not burned anything else," laughed the
+colonel. "You leave my men in peace and they'll let you alone."
+
+Since that time the honest citizen of Sidi-bel-Abbès has been rather
+more careful in his treatment of the Legion. It is true that an order
+of the town council says that a légionnaire can only get a ticket for
+the gallery in the town's theatre, but if a légionnaire with
+superfluous money wants a seat in the stalls, he can nevertheless get
+it. The honest citizen has learnt to respect the Legion's feelings.
+
+But, under the surface, the citizen's contempt of the Legion naturally
+remained. The soldier of the foreign regiment puts out the fires which
+break out in Sidi-bel-Abbès, he saves the citizens and their goods when
+the stream of the Mekerra becomes a roaring torrent in the rainy
+season, and he protects the helpless townspeople when the descendants
+of the Beni Amer try to institute the Jewish persecutions they are so
+fond of.... He does all that. But the poor devil of a mercenary has no
+money, and this is the Mortal Sin.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+One quarter of the town was taboo to us légionnaires, strictly
+forbidden under a penalty of a month's imprisonment: the "village
+nègre," the negro town, the home of every sort of disease and crime.
+The beasts in human forms which house there had more than once killed a
+légionnaire to rob him of his sash or some such trifle.
+
+Forbidden things always have a mysterious power of attraction, and I
+was burning with curiosity. Slowly, keeping a sharp look-out for
+patrols, I crossed the big drill-ground one night and turned, close
+behind the mosque, into the maze of huts. It was a pitch-dark night,
+and I kept falling over the dirt-heaps and tripping in the holes in the
+hard trodden ground.
+
+At last I saw lights. The main street of the village nègre lay before
+me, a narrow little alley. I could have touched the walls on either
+side with outstretched arms. The miserable low houses were half in
+ruins, and irregular holes took the place of doors and windows. The
+alley, but a few paces long, was brightly illuminated by the light of
+half a dozen torches stuck in holes in the walls.
+
+In this narrow space the vice of Sidi-bel-Abbès was hidden. Songs and
+cries and shrieks filled the air. Before the huts women were sitting,
+poor prostitutes, who sold themselves for a few coppers and a drink of
+absinthe. Here was vice in its most primitive form. The night was cold.
+Braziers with glowing coals stood before every hut, and women crouched
+over them that they might better warm their bodies at the warmth of the
+fire. Modesty seemed to be a thing unknown. A negress with a figure
+full of strength lay there stretched at full length almost naked, with
+the warmth-giving firepan beside her. She was too worn out or too lazy
+to speak, she merely invited the passers-by with a gesture to come into
+her hut. Near her a Frenchwoman, in whose face her awful life had cut
+deep furrows, sat in a torn silk dress on the bare ground. Beside them
+Arabian girls crouched, children almost, the copper bangles on their
+arms and legs showing that they were from the far South. Italian women,
+with the characteristic gold earrings of their race, and Spaniards,
+with oily shining hair, quarrelled in high-pitched voices. The blazing
+light of the torches gave their faces an uncanny look. In the midst of
+these miserable women moved the scum of the population of
+Sidi-bel-Abbès. There were negroes in ragged linen coats who in daytime
+carried heavy burdens on their backs and spent their evenings regularly
+in the village nègre. Spanish labourers chattered and gesticulated with
+the Spanish girls. It was the meeting-place of the poor and the
+wretched, a corso of humanity at its worst.
+
+My bayonet rattling gently against the steel sheath startled the men
+and women. When they saw that they only had to deal with a single
+légionnaire and not with one of the much-feared patrols, they cried out
+to me from all sides--in a curious patois of low French mixed with
+Arabic. The little I understood of it was quite enough. The language of
+the légionnaire leaves nothing wanting in the way of force and
+clearness--the language of the village nègre was filth condensed. Two
+negresses began to quarrel as to whether a common légionnaire could be
+in possession of even one sou, a weighty question which was answered in
+the negative amid much laughter. The Frenchwoman, who was anything but
+sober, poked me in the ribs and begged me, hiccoughing, for a "petite
+absinthe." Obscene gestures and drunken cries everywhere. And in the
+corner there leaned in dignified repose an Arab policeman.
+
+It smelled of moschus and heavy sweet Arabian cigarettes. In Arabic the
+alley was called the Street of the Seven Delights. Smith had told me
+that. One could but shudder at the contemplation of the seven
+delights....
+
+Then the comedy became clear to me. The honest citizen of
+Sidi-bel-Abbès despised the soldier of the Legion--but he tolerated the
+horrors of the village nègre.
+
+Short commands sounded from afar and the steady steps of a patrol drew
+near. If I was discovered, it meant prison for me, so I dived into the
+protecting darkness of a small by-street. Stumbling and falling
+continually I felt my way forward in the pitchy darkness, till I heard
+low voices. The alley took a sudden turn.
+
+I found myself in the court of a Moorish house. Arabs in white robes
+crouched and squatted on the ground smoking their narghiles. Most of
+them hardly looked up as I came in, and an old man with a long white
+beard nodded and smiled to me.
+
+On the glowing fire stood a copper kettle with bubbling hot water, and
+an old negro was making tea for the Arabs. On the wall on one side of
+the court a cloth was hung up, of fine brocade, with golden embroidery,
+on a ground of red and yellow, in fantastical arabesques. Many cushions
+were spread on the white sand. The Arabs themselves sat on finely woven
+yellow mats. At respectful distance from the men girls stood and
+lounged about, wondrous youthful forms with veil-like robes and
+countless copper ornaments on arms and legs, which tinkled at their
+slightest movement. All were sipping tea out of tiny little cups. All
+at once I heard English words, an old nursery rhyme:
+
+ Humpty-Dumpty sat on a wall,
+ Humpty-Dumpty had a great fall,
+ And all the king's horses and all the king's men
+ Could not put Humpty-Dumpty together again.
+
+Startled, I turned round and saw in the folds of an Arabian burnous the
+face of a white woman with fair hair and features who must once have
+been beautiful. Smoking an Arabian cigarette, she nodded dreamily with
+a happy smile and ever anew she would sing the nursery rhyme....
+
+Suddenly a girl sprang up, bracelets jingling, a child almost, of the
+pure Arabian type. Fascinated, the Arabs and the other women stared at
+her; so still it was that one could hear the sound of one's own
+breathing. The girl let the thin veil of a garment she was wearing fall
+down to her hips and stood immobile as a statue for a minute or two,
+her arms stretched out, the head proudly thrown back, her eyes shining
+in triumph--courting admiration. She reminded me forcibly of a bronze
+statuette I had possessed in days gone by....
+
+Very slowly the child of the South began to dance. The delicate veil
+swayed and waved in ever-changing folds around her body of pure copper
+colour. Her dancing was wondrously graceful--it was beautiful beyond
+dispute. A strange scene it was, enhanced by the very bright colours
+and the heavy sweet smells of mysterious perfumes.
+
+I stared in wonder at the dancing of this child of Nature and the
+wonderful rhythm of her movements. Faster grew the dance, the swinging
+and circling and posing. Suddenly the girl seized one of the torches
+and swung it in broad circles around her head. The firelight fell with
+its ruddy glow on her shining hair of black-blue. The hissing torch
+seemed to be enveloped in the swaying veil; ever faster grew that mad
+whirling. After a final lightning circle of the torch the girl fell
+down exhausted....
+
+A low murmur of applause arose from among the Arabs and many silver
+coins were thrown to her on the mat.
+
+The woman who had sung the English nursery rhyme sat there as one
+stunned; she had forgotten herself and forgotten her surroundings. "My
+God," she kept on murmuring, "my God...."
+
+I stole away and went slowly home to barracks, worn out.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+A flowery belt of gardens surrounds the town. In broad alleys, which
+had been trenches in days gone by, stood groups of palm-trees and olive
+groves, planted by the soldiers of the Legion many years ago in the
+short intervals of peace. The botanical garden of Sidi-bel-Abbès had
+also been founded by the foreign mercenaries, and, to this day, the
+Legion has the right to gather flowers from the beds of the Jardin
+Public for its dead, and sends three soldiers daily to keep the paths
+in order and work for the gardener. In return for this the regiment
+considers the Jardin Public its own private property, and on Sundays
+that wonderful garden, with its wealth of foliage and flowers, is the
+scene of a red-trousered invasion. Not very far from the Jardin Public
+lies the regimental garden, where the Legion raises its vegetables and
+plants its potatoes. I found it very funny when I was for the first
+time commandeered to carry dung in the Legion's garden--it seemed to me
+a most peaceful occupation for a modern mercenary.... Far out stretches
+the long line of flower gardens, with their narrow foot-paths shaded by
+olive-trees. Right at the end of the town, where the gardens come to an
+end and the sand begins, there lies the cemetery of Sidi-bel-Abbès. Its
+showy monuments, its well-kept flower-beds, and its silent groups of
+trees do not give it any particular claim to individuality. If you pass
+through the churchyard, however, you will come to a large open space.
+Many hundreds of grave mounds lie there. The black wooden crosses are
+one like the other. This is the last resting-place of the Foreign
+Legion's dead. The Legion's churchyard. I was once commandeered to work
+there. An aged corporal, who lived in a cottage in a corner of the
+cemetery, and in the days of his old age filled the post of
+grave-digger to the Legion, gave me gardening tools and a watering-can.
+I walked along the long rows of graves, pulling out weeds and watering
+the grass. An indescribable feeling of loneliness overcame me.
+
+So impersonal, so poor, so barren are those graves! They lie quite
+close together as if even in death the légionnaires must be drawn up in
+line for parade. The crosses are so small, so roughly painted, that one
+cannot get over the feeling that sordid economy is practised even on
+the last resting-place of the légionnaire. The crosses are hung with
+wreaths made of glass beads and with an artificial flower here and
+there. The name of the dead man is written on a small piece of board
+and underneath the name stands his number. To this comes the laconic
+addition: "Légion étrangère." I felt sorry for these poor fellows who
+even in the last sleep of death had to bear a number which reminded one
+of a convict prison. I went from cross to cross and read the various
+names. Almost every nation in the world has contributed to the graves
+in the cemetery of the Foreign Legion, though the German names on the
+little crosses have a large majority.
+
+A regiment of dead soldiers lies buried here. But it is only a small
+fraction of the Legion's dead. The others sleep somewhere in the sands
+of Africa--where they fell. Thirteen hundred légionnaires lie buried in
+Mexico. Hundreds and thousands rot in the swamps of Madagascar.
+Indo-China has been the death of hundreds of others.
+
+The wind swept the dead leaves which fluttered across from the cemetery
+of respectability over the graves of the légionnaires. I looked at the
+endless line of grave mounds and at the meaningless numbers. And I
+thought of an old German song:
+
+Verdorben--gestorben.... Ruined--dead!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+A HUNDRED THOUSAND HEROES--A HUNDRED THOUSAND VICTIMS
+
+The hall of honour : A collection of ruined talents : The battle of
+Camaron : A skeleton outline of the Legion's history : A hundred
+thousand victims : A psychological puzzle : True heroes : How they are
+rewarded : The chances of promotion : The pension system of the Foreign
+Legion
+
+
+Close by the prison, parted from the little square of sand and gravel,
+which formed the prisoners' exercise-ground, by a low brick wall, there
+stands the Legion's hall of honour.
+
+A tiny little door is built into the wall and bears the inscription
+"Salle d'honneur." Day and night there stands a sentry with fixed
+bayonet before the regiment's holy of holies. For the soldiers of the
+Legion it is forbidden ground, and the officers only gather there on
+festive occasions.
+
+Late one evening I stole through the little gate. The sentry on duty
+was a man of my own company, whom I bribed with a packet of cigarettes
+to let me through.
+
+I found myself in a tiny garden. Fantastic figures in mosaic work
+covered the ground; everywhere were dense groups of palms and laurels,
+and a broad flight of steps led up to the vestibule in Moorish style.
+As I entered the hall a flood of colour met my gaze. The walls of the
+enormous room were covered with pictures. Flanking the entrance were
+the life-size portraits of two légionnaires, the one in modern African
+campaigning kit, and the other in the uniform of 1815, of the "Légion
+d'Hohenlohe." On the walls were the portraits of all the regiment's
+commanders and of the officers killed in battle. The names of the dead
+were inscribed on a marble slab in golden letters.
+
+I noticed with astonishment that the Foreign Legion's list of
+commanding officers contained many names unmistakably German. There
+were the Colonels Stoffel, de Mollenbeck, Conrad, de Hülsen, and Meyer.
+And in very good company were these German soldiers of fortune: the
+list showed the names of some of France's most famous soldiers and
+generals. Each of them had at some time or other commanded the Foreign
+Legion, each had won his first military laurels leading the regiment of
+strangers: men famous indeed, the Legion's pride: MacMahon, Canrobert,
+Bazain, de Négrier, Saussier....
+
+Numerous pictures of battles represented episodes in the fights in
+which the Legion had taken part, and now and again among these
+paintings were real works of art. A number of these pictures come from
+the brush of Captain Cousin, while the allegorical frescoes on the
+ceiling are the work of an artist who wore the red breeches and blue
+coat of a common soldier. The légionnaire Hablutzel--the artist who
+decorated the Salle d'honneur--was a humble ranker.
+
+In the French Army the Legion's varied talents are famous, and there
+are several stories besides that of this humble artist. The history of
+the Legion can tell of many such as he.
+
+Five years ago the officers determined to build a new mess. There was
+only one objection to the fulfilment of this wish: the regimental
+coffers were wellnigh empty. It was the colonel's idea to seek help in
+the regiment itself. In spite of the fact that the garrison at that
+time consisted of only one battalion, it was found on inquiry to
+contain no less than seven architects. These seven soldiers became once
+more seven artists, and executed the plans for the new officers' mess.
+They agreed on the style of a Tonquin pagoda. Among the Norwegians of
+the regiment were several carpenters who were experts in artistic
+woodwork; there were more than enough builders and masons to be found,
+and the bankrupt owner of a brickfield was glad enough to return for a
+time to his old profession and assume the direction of a section told
+off to make bricks. In a few weeks the mess was ready--its cost was
+solely that of the raw material.
+
+The seven architects then once more shouldered their rifles.
+
+There is another famous instance. In one of the countless fights in
+Southern Algeria, a company got cut off from the main column and
+suffered heavy losses in a scrap with the Arabs. The number of wounded
+was very great, and nothing could be done for them, as the doctors and
+bearers were with the main column. At last the captain in the thick of
+the firing called out to his men:
+
+"Are there any doctors among you?"
+
+Three légionnaires at once stepped forward. One was a graduate of the
+Sorbonne, another had gained the diploma of the University of Zurich,
+and the third had attained to the rank of M.D. at a German University.
+
+Less strange, perhaps, but just as interesting, is the fact that for
+the building of a fort in the Legion three fortification experts
+reported themselves from a single company: two quondam Austrian pioneer
+officers, and a lieutenant from the British Royal Engineers.
+
+General de Négrier, who loved the Legion, used to say that les
+étrangers had three inestimable advantages: they were brilliant
+fighters, they marched till they dropped, and--there was nothing that
+they could not do. He would undertake to build an engine with his
+légionnaires; from their ranks he could assemble the faculties of a
+university; there were men among them who could not only fight through
+a war, but they could also write its history.
+
+The fact that the Foreign Legion's band is the best in the French army,
+and that it came back covered with glory every time it went to Paris to
+give concerts, is another proof of the many-sidedness of the Legion's
+talents. Many an artist who once played in the orchestra of one of the
+world's famous theatres afterwards carried the Legion's trumpets on his
+heavy-laden haversack.
+
+I hardly need to emphasise the fact that these légionnaires, who, by
+virtue of their professions and social standing, belonged to a
+different class of society, always represented the exceptions, and that
+the majority of the men in the Legion were very simple fellows, whose
+past had nothing at all interesting about it. It is always the
+exceptions that one notices. An editor of the _Temps_, who visited
+Sidi-bel-Abbès and struck up a chance conversation with me, said in
+astonishment:
+
+"I was speaking just now to a professor of Greek, and now you're a
+journalist. Is the Legion then a collection of ruined talents?"
+
+In between the paintings in the Salle d'honneur there stand the
+Legion's memorial tablets, with the names of the battles in which the
+Legion took part written on them: forty-eight great battles, fought in
+all corners of the earth, from Indo-China in the East to Mexico in the
+Far West. The most disastrous fight in the annals of the regiment was
+that of Camaron, in Mexico, on April 30, 1863.
+
+A creepy souvenir of this fight lies on a little table in the Salle
+d'honneur--an embalmed human hand. It is the hand of Captain Danjou,
+who was in command of a detachment of sixty men from the third company
+of the Legion who were killed to a man at Camaron. Over two thousand
+Mexican irregulars set upon the detachment in the neighbourhood of the
+village of Camaron. The detachment fought its way through the hostile
+cavalry to a farmhouse, entrenched itself there, and held out for a
+whole day against the overwhelming odds. Five times were they called
+upon to surrender, and five times was the answer--"Merde!"
+
+When the Mexicans at last took the house by storm, they found heaped up
+before the door a pile of dead. The few survivors were badly wounded. A
+few hours later relief came. But the French troops only found a heap of
+dead. Beside the captain's body lay his severed hand.
+
+Weapons from all countries adorned the walls of the Salle d'honneur.
+Straight Mexican swords and curved Arabian scimitars of pliant steel
+hung side by side; beside poisoned arrows from Madagascar there were
+old-fashioned bayonets which had done all sorts of bloody work in the
+Legion's service. In the Salle d'honneur there are souvenirs of almost
+a century of battles.
+
+The Foreign Legion was founded in the year 1831 under the name of "The
+African Auxiliaries."
+
+The continual fighting in Algeria used to decimate the French troops
+posted there. In the reign of King Louis Philippe the idea was started
+of reviving the mediæval institution of mercenaries, and of raising
+troops for service in Africa composed entirely of foreign adventurers.
+A Belgian adventurer who called himself Baron de Boëgard, with no
+particular authority, but still without active opposition on the part
+of the King's generals, collected around him a band composed of the
+doubtful characters of all nations. He assumed the title of
+lieutenant-general, and finally succeeded in persuading the military
+authorities that his fellows would make capital stuff for service in
+Algeria. About 4000 men took the oath of allegiance on the French
+colours in Marseilles and embarked for Africa. The French troops there
+turned up their noses at these tattered soldiers, and the hostile Arabs
+called them mockingly "the Bedouins from France,"[3] because they were
+so poor and ragged. The new-comers, however, plundered with such
+voracity as to astonish even the French troops, who were anything but
+scrupulous, and they were capital fighters into the bargain. A royal
+edict, dated March 10, 1831, sanctioned their incorporation in a
+Foreign Legion of their own under the name of the Legion Etrangère, on
+the pattern of the Légion d'Hohenlohe, which fought at the time of the
+Restoration. The regiment consisted of seven battalions, divided
+according to the different nationalities of the men:
+
+ 1st, 2nd, and 3rd battalions Swiss and Germans.
+ 4th battalion Spaniards.
+ 5th battalion Italians.
+ 6th battalion Belgians and Dutchmen.
+ 7th battalion Poles.
+
+ [3] The Arabs who had established themselves in the towns
+ used to despise the vagabond Bedouins.
+
+After a short time the authorities left off separating the various
+nationalities from each other and contented themselves with teaching
+the foreigners the French words of command as quickly as possible.
+
+A period of fighting now began for the Legion such as no regiment in
+the world has ever experienced.
+
+Even in its first fights in Algeria the regiment suffered heavy losses.
+Then the King of France lent the Foreign Legion to the Queen Regent
+Christina of Spain to fight against the Carlists. For their services in
+Spain the Legion was to have been given 800,000 francs, but this sum
+was never paid. On the other hand, 3500 of the 4000 légionnaires fell
+in action. A bare 500 returned to Africa half starved and in rags.
+
+New recruits joined--there has never been a lack of men ready to serve
+in the Foreign Legion. Algeria was conquered after ceaseless fighting,
+in which the battles of Condiat-Ati, M'Shomesh, Constantine, and
+Zaatcha were only the more important fights in an endless campaign.
+Even at this period of its existence the Legion grasped the fact that
+its mission was not only to furnish soldiers, but also pioneers,
+labourers, and city-builders. They worked hard, building town after
+town, and there is to-day no city in French Northern Africa in which
+the first European building was not built by légionnaires. In the
+Crimean War the Legion was ordered to Russia, where, in the Battle of
+the Alma, it was the first regiment to come under fire and fought with
+great bravery. In General Canrobert's despatches 29 officers and men of
+the Legion were mentioned for bravery in the Battles of the Alma and
+Inkerman. In the siege of Sebastopol the Foreign Legion was very much
+to the fore and was cordially hated by the Russians. The besieged
+called them "the leather-bellies," from the great African
+cartridge-pouches which they wore in front. In the Crimea their losses
+were enormous, and Napoleon III. rewarded their services by
+naturalising a number of the Legion's officers and men.
+
+At that time the Legion never experienced years of peace, only months
+of peace at the most, and even these were few and far between. Les
+étrangers were hardly home from the Crimea when a rebellion among the
+Algerian Arabs broke out, which led to the famous Arab expedition. The
+mighty battle of Ischeriden brought the tribes of Beni Jenni, Beni
+Raten, and the Beni Amer into subjection. The regiment had a few
+hundred more to add to its list of dead and had won new honours, only,
+as a real regiment of mercenaries, to be transferred to a new field of
+battle. Real wandering Ahasvers were these African mercenaries. This
+time it was to Italy, to Magenta, that they were ordered. Again they
+came back, their numbers diminished by a thousand or more, and had to
+start once more from Sidi-bel-Abbès on an expedition against the
+natives in Morocco.
+
+Thus passed the year 1860. During the next two years the Legion was
+engaged in desultory fighting against the Arabs and Bedouins without,
+to their great disgust, bringing off any grande affaire.
+
+In February the Legion embarked for Mexico and witnessed the disastrous
+events of the short imperial period. They made roads, working hard, and
+occasionally brought off some mad exploit with the greatest bravery,
+adding that day at Camaron to the Legion's roll of honours. The result
+of the Mexican campaign, as far as the Legion is concerned, is best
+shown by their losses: 1918 men dead and missing; 328 died of their
+wounds; and 1859 met their deaths from various illnesses.
+
+On coming back to Algeria the Legion filled up its ranks once more and
+was scattered in little detachments over the province of Oran to play,
+for the sake of variety, the part of settlers, digging wells, building
+villages, and laying roads--till the year 1870. In the Franco-German
+War the Legion first came into action at Orleans. All the German
+légionnaires had, however, been left in Africa. After the conclusion of
+peace the Legion helped in the putting down of the Commune, where so
+much blood was shed, and made itself thoroughly hated in Paris.
+
+As had been the case since the foundation of the Legion, fights in
+Algeria began once more. The rebellion of the Kaid Si Hamze, in the
+year 1871 and the years following, brought them fresh campaigns. While
+de Négrier was colonel of the regiment he mounted a part of the Legion
+on mules, to be able to cover greater stretches of country, a system
+which has been kept up to this day, and which formed one of the first
+examples of mounted infantry. Till the year 1883 the légionnaires
+remained in Africa, and enjoyed a period of comparative quietude, which
+only brought a few Arab rebellions and a few dozen skirmishes. Then,
+however, they started off once more on their travels. The Far East,
+Tonquin, was the scene of a colonial war against a brave enemy and a
+murderous climate. The victories of Bac-Ninh, Hong-Hoa, Soc-Nam, and
+Chu are so many days of fame for these foreign mercenaries, whose
+regimental history during these fifty years will never meet its equal.
+In the year 1892 we find the Legion in Dahomey fighting against King
+Behanzin, in the year 1895 in Madagascar. At the present date we hear
+of the regiment chiefly in Morocco.
+
+This is merely a short sketch, a skeleton outline of the Legion's
+history--one of the most notable histories that any soldiers'
+chronicler can point to, the story of a band of homeless adventurers.
+Their pay was always ridiculously small, their punishments barbarous,
+and the discipline that they were subject to more than hard. And yet
+there were always thousands of recruits willing to shed their life's
+blood, who did not serve under the Legion's flag merely to earn their
+living, but formed one of the best bodies of troops in the world. What
+misery and misfortune must there be in Europe to bring thousands and
+thousands of poor and desperate men flocking to the Legion's standard,
+whose total in the eighty years of the regiment's existence must add up
+to an overwhelming figure. I have been through all the French books on
+the Legion to try and find the exact figure, but without success. The
+exact strength of the Legion has always been kept well to the
+background. The two regiments have now and then reached an enormous
+strength. Beauvoir, for instance, mentions that in the year 1895 a
+single company in Sidi-bel-Abbès was 4864 men strong.
+
+He gives the nationalities of the Legion in that year as follows:
+
+ Alsatians 45 per cent.
+ Germans 12 "
+ Swiss 8 "
+ Belgians 7 "
+ Frenchmen 5 "
+ Spaniards 5 "
+ Italians 5 "
+ Austrians 4 "
+ Dutchmen 4 "
+ From various countries 5 "
+
+The average strength of the two battalions varies between 8000 and
+12,000 men. The percentage of deaths from illness, above all fever, is
+extraordinarily high, and when to this we add the many thousands killed
+in battle, and consider that desertions are very frequent, we come to
+the astounding conclusion that in eighty years a good deal over a
+hundred thousand men have served under the Legion's flag.
+
+In giving this figure I make no claim to accuracy. It may be far below
+the mark or again it may be a few thousands too high.
+
+Be that as it may, a mighty army of men of all nations has served in
+the Foreign Legion, working hard and suffering the most awful hardships
+under an iron discipline that punishes even the most trivial offences
+with the hardest of punishments. The pay has never been higher than it
+is now; not enough to purchase even the trifles which a soldier needs
+to clean his uniform and equipment, to say nothing about his personal
+needs, be they ever so small. The assertion that these hundred thousand
+men have made the French Government a present of their work and
+strength during all these years, and all too often of their lives, is
+no exaggeration. Even though the history of the Foreign Legion, the
+history of that ever-fighting band of men, reads like a romance of
+mediæval times, one is easily led to look at the matter from the French
+standpoint and to make the pharisaical assertion so commonly believed
+in France, that the Foreign Legion is the scum of humanity, useless
+human rubbish which has been turned into useful dung for colonisation,
+if one may use the expression, in the service of improvement.
+
+The modern thinker is much more inclined to ask himself in wonderment
+how it came that year after year so many men were willing to sell their
+lives for a country that was not their own. These thousands have not
+even had the inducement of high wages.
+
+Here we stand before a riddle, before some mysterious force which
+convinced these thousands of desperate men that the African Foreign
+Legion was their last refuge. The mighty deeds of the Legion are still
+more of a riddle. All these men have been clever enough to discover
+sooner or later what a very poor sort of bargain they made when they
+enlisted, and the Legion has always been a hotbed of seething
+discontent. As it is to-day, so has it always been; the only subject of
+conversation in the Legion is an endless discussion of that
+all-important question: how and when to desert. The légionnaire has
+enriched the French language with a variety of strange curses to give
+expression to his rage at the tyranny and infamous treatment of which
+he is the victim. It is really a marvel that these discontented
+fellows, soldiers who were always on the eve of deserting, always
+forgot their grievances when they came under fire.
+
+One or two were perhaps men of the type which frequently occurs in the
+Legion of to-day, who only enlist to meet death in a form which appeals
+to their fancy, and who volunteer for one dangerous expedition after
+another till they meet the bullet for which they are so eager. But
+these have always been the exceptions. To the others fighting has
+always been a delight.
+
+... A detachment of men are stationed in an isolated fort. The heat of
+the sun is merciless, the hard work unbearable and the monotony of duty
+gets on their nerves: the whole garrison becomes restless and can only
+be kept in order with the greatest difficulty. Then comes the command
+to turn out: there is a prospect of soldiering in earnest: the men are
+beside themselves with joy--when they have to fight they are relieved
+from slavery.
+
+This enthusiasm and passion to get at the enemy is the redeeming
+feature of many a ruined life. It acts as a safety-valve: otherwise the
+men could never stand the deadly monotony of their lives.
+
+The soldiers of the Legion have never yet fought just because they had
+to fight, or because their officers urged them on to it or because they
+had to defend their own wretched lives. The history of the regiment can
+only tell of glorious attacks, of furious charges made with a bravery
+that absolutely disregards danger and death. These poor adventurers
+have their own individual ideas of honour for which they are proud to
+give their lives and which the only French general who ever understood
+the Legion expressed in a few enthusiastic words. It was General de
+Négrier who said:
+
+ Some soldiers can fight--the légionnaire can die.
+
+That is the légionnaire's idea of honour: his own individual idea. He
+will never hear the signal for retreat. I have so often heard the
+murmur of discontent which runs through the ranks when the hated call
+is heard at a manoeuvre. Eleven times in its history has the Legion
+refused to obey when the signal for retreat was blown.
+
+In France the performances of the Foreign Legion have always been
+recognised. It is true that the recognition has taken no substantial
+form. Its officers have always reaped the reward of quick promotion,
+but the légionnaire himself has always remained a poor devil without
+pay and without the slightest hope for the future.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Five centimes daily wages!
+
+On paper the légionnaire is paid seven centimes a day. That's what
+stands in the French army list. Two centimes daily are, however,
+deducted for messing, so that the real wages are five centimes per
+diem. After the "second congé," when he has five years' service behind
+him, his wages are raised to ten centimes daily; a corporal gets twenty
+centimes--a scale of pay which has perhaps a parallel in the Chinese
+army, certainly nowhere else in the world.
+
+As a set-off against this miserable payment the French books on the
+subject draw attention to the chance of quick advancement. This,
+however, is a trifle contradictory to the actual facts of the case. In
+the Foreign Legion at present among a round three hundred officers
+there is only one who is not a Frenchman, a quondam officer in the
+Austrian army, who worked his way up from the ranks. Even among the
+non-commissioned officers the percentage of foreigners is very small.
+It can easily be understood that the colonel lays some stress on the
+fact that the non-coms shall be Frenchmen: this, however, renders the
+prospect of promotion for a foreigner proportionately small.
+
+It is only now and again that a foreigner rises further than the rank
+of corporal. When he is specially talented he may become a sergeant but
+hardly ever reaches the rank of colour-sergeant. An exception to this
+rule is made in the case of officers who have been turned out of other
+armies. For these, the Foreign Legion has special regulations. They are
+not asked to show any papers nor are inquiries made into the reasons
+why they were originally dismissed: all that is required is a
+photograph showing him in uniform. They are then let off all recruits'
+work and are sent to the "peloton des élèves caporaux," the
+non-commissioned officers' school, are in eight weeks corporal, and in
+four months sergeant. It is, however, a great rarity when one of these
+men rises any further.
+
+Often enough one hears that the Legion's pension is a liberal one. The
+Legion has a right to a pension after fifteen years of service, and
+then he gets 500 francs a year. That sounds very fine. The fact,
+however, remains that a man who spends fifteen years in all sorts of
+climates, and who works for fifteen years with the energy required of a
+légionnaire, can easily amass a small fortune. Another interesting fact
+is that very few légionnaires are capable of serving fifteen years.
+They die long before the time is up: either from fever, overwork, or an
+enemy's bullet.... No, the Legion's pension system is a mockery.
+
+The only sort of compensation that remains is the Cross of the Legion
+of Honour and the Médaille militaire, with both of which goes a sum of
+money; in the case of the Cross of the Legion of Honour a very
+considerable one. These distinctions, however, are so seldom conferred
+that they can hardly be taken into the question as representing a
+complement to the miserable pay, or as a possibility of earning
+anything other than coppers in the Legion.
+
+The only tangible reward that those heroes, to whose deeds of honour
+the Hall of Honour bears witness, have earned has been:
+
+Five centimes a day--those glorious days included.
+
+And what is the end of it all? The légionnaire's life in the Legion
+begins with the motto, "Work without pay," and at the end of it he
+stands in the street like a beggar, and does not know what in the world
+to do for a living. Even in the rare cases in which the climate and the
+hardships he has undergone have not ruined his constitution, and his
+health is still good, he is quite helpless.
+
+I have spoken with hundreds and thousands of these légionnaires who
+have served their time as they lounged about the courtyard of the
+barracks in Sidi-bel-Abbès, rejoicing that they had done with the
+Foreign Legion for ever. They were dressed in a dark blue suit, which
+is served out from the quartermaster's office to those who have served
+their time, being made of an ugly blue stuff, which looks like blue
+sacking. Of course their clothes did not fit them in the least, the
+trousers being either too long or too short, and the coat looked like a
+sack, for how could one expect them to take any trouble about a good
+fit in the quartermaster's office. As head-gear they wore an enormous
+flat cap, such as the sailors in the ports on the Mediterranean wear.
+This suit, together with boots, a single pair of socks and a shirt, was
+all that they possessed after five years of service.
+
+They had also the right of travelling free of charge to any town in
+France, and were given a franc a day as long as their journey lasted.
+No légionnaire, however, is transported to his real home, which is
+generally outside France. The majority, with grim humour, chose some
+town in the far north, generally Dunkirk, in order that the journey
+might be as long as possible. As a result of this the Mayor of Dunkirk
+wrote and begged the French Minister of War not to send any more
+légionnaires there. The authorities had not the faintest idea what to
+do with them; in Dunkirk there was not even enough work for the
+townsmen themselves.
+
+A légionnaire who has served his time is thus absolutely helpless,
+being stranded penniless in a totally strange town. His clothes are
+such as to prevent him applying for any work but that of a labourer,
+and the only papers he has to show are his certificates of dismissal
+from the Foreign Legion, which are worth very little in France. There
+are plenty of fine speeches made about the glorious Foreign Legion in
+the French Republic, but there is a prejudice against having anything
+to do with a légionnaire in the flesh there. Everywhere he is shown the
+door, and the poor devil begins a terrible course of starvation.
+
+How often have I seen these men come back again with a batch of
+recruits to Sidi-bel-Abbès, and their old comrades mockingly asking
+them why they were in Africa once more. It was always the same old
+story: for days and weeks and even months starving and half perished
+with cold they had struggled against their fate, and gone from house to
+house seeking work until their clothes were mere rags and their boots
+were worn out. Finally, they had despaired of ever finding work, and
+had begun to coquet with the thought that in the Legion they had at
+least had enough to eat, with the result that in a few days they had
+sought out the nearest recruiting-office, and had bound themselves for
+a further five years of slavery.
+
+This after five long years of work--the gratitude of France.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+"MARCH OR DIE!"
+
+The Legion's war-cry : A night alarm : On the march : The counting of
+the milestones : Under canvas : The brutality of the marches : The
+légionnaire and the staff doctor : My fight for an opiate : The
+"marching pig" : The psychology of the marches : Excited nerves :
+"Cafard" : The song of imprecations
+
+
+Weeks passed. Recruit time was over, and I was serving with the troops.
+
+From the very beginning I was anxious to do my duty as well as I could.
+The real soldier's duties were a pleasure to me, and like the other
+légionnaires who daily debated the chances of receiving marching
+orders, I longed with fantastical impatience for active service.
+
+The Legion always seemed to me to be in a state of feverish impatience,
+always on the jump, always expecting marching orders. The regiment's
+traditional fiery military spirit infected even the youngest recruits.
+When vague rumours of a new rising of the Arabs on the Morocco frontier
+penetrated to the barracks, or when the _Echo d'Oran_ with the laconic
+brevity of official telegrams announced new skirmishes in Indo-China,
+the news spread like wildfire through the Legion's quarters. Everywhere
+you could see groups of légionnaires, speaking of their hopes of at
+last receiving marching orders. When an especially exciting report had
+been spread, they sometimes stood in crowds before the regimental
+offices, waiting for one of the clerks to rush down the stairs with the
+news:
+
+"Faites le sac."
+
+Pack your knapsacks! This is the old ominous war-cry that sounds from
+room to room when the Legion mobilises, the dry business-like password
+calling the Legion to its military business.
+
+The thirst for adventure, which is an element of the Legion, as
+inseparable from it as poverty and hard work, always lay in the air.
+
+For the first time I heard the alarm sounded in the middle of night. I
+jumped up out of my sleep in a fright. "Aux armes!" the bugle sounded
+from the barrack-yard. The sergeants and corporals rushed through the
+barracks crying the alarm, "Aux armes!"--To arms!
+
+All at once the stillness of the night was turned into a perfect
+pandemonium--shouting and yelling and roaring sounded from room to
+room, the barracks were in an uproar.
+
+"Faites le sac. En tenue de campagne d'Afrique," the corporals shouted,
+and renewed rejoicing answered them.
+
+The "African field equipment" was not such a simple thing, and in spite
+of all the yelling and shouting we worked with feverish excitement, for
+in ten minutes we had to stand in the barrack-yard ready for marching.
+There was singing and whistling everywhere while the knapsacks were
+packed and everybody wondered whether we were going "au Maroc" at last
+or whether the Arab tribes of the South were in rebellion again. The
+cartridge-cases were brought from the magazine and their covers burst
+open with hatchets. The packets of cartridges were thrown from man to
+man. We tore off the cardboard covering and ... saw that they were
+blank cartridges.
+
+"Merde!" roared Corporal Wassermann.
+
+Roaring and singing stopped as if by magic. As blank cartridges only
+were served out, it could but be a question of a short manoeuvre and
+the Legion would not dream of working up enthusiasm for an ordinary
+"marche militaire." In this case the short manoeuvre march really
+extended over three hundred kilometres--three hundred kilometres to the
+South, three hundred kilometres back again; a total distance of six
+hundred kilometres, which is about four hundred miles....
+
+By the light of a lantern the companies formed up in the barrack-yard.
+In a moment the baggage and ammunition carts were packed, because the
+Legion always carries sharp ammunition on the march to be prepared for
+any emergency. Then we went out into the night to the tune of the
+Legion's march.
+
+Any one who has once heard the march of the Legion will never forget
+it, its peculiar sharp rhythm broken by the bugles' storm signal. The
+Legion's band is forbidden to play it in the garrison or on the
+parade--the regimental march is played before the enemy or on long
+marches.
+
+Sidi-bel-Abbès woke up as soon as the band commenced to play in the
+quiet streets; windows were thrown open and out of the corners all the
+riff-raff of the sleeping town came into view: miserable-looking white
+men and dirty negroes looked at the marching company with sleepy eyes
+in high astonishment. In a few minutes we were out of town and marched
+along the yellow sandy road in dim moonlight. The marching order was in
+column of four as is customary in the Legion.
+
+I marched in the first row of fours of my company. In the front the
+four drummers plodded along close behind our captain's white horse.
+Abreast of the captain walked Lieutenant Garde-Jörgensen, a Dane, a
+soldier of fortune....
+
+The silent march into the night was trying for my burning curiosity,
+and I did a most unmilitary thing:
+
+"Where are we going to, Lieutenant?" I asked.
+
+The officer nearly burst with laughter.
+
+"I don't know myself where we are going to," he said. "If you were an
+old légionnaire you would not ask, my boy. We are marching. We are
+probably marching for a long time. We are always marching. We never
+know if we are only going to manoeuvre or to meet the enemy. That's
+how it is. Tiens! will you have a cigarette?"
+
+The first rows were laughing and Smith was shouting in his deep voice:
+
+"Le sac, ma foi, toujours au dos."
+
+Renewed laughter. Every one was talking and wondering where we were
+marching to and how long the march would last. Some of them thought it
+was nothing but a night march; others discussed the probability of
+"real work" being in sight.
+
+"What do you think you know about it?" said Smith to me with a grin.
+"Nothing. We march, sonny, and that's all there is to do. God and the
+colonel know what's going to come of it."
+
+We heard the clatter of a galloping horse and turning our heads
+curiously we saw a bright spot on the uniform of the rider, sparkling
+like a star. The rider was the Commander-General of Algeria, and the
+shining spot on his breast was the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour.
+
+"Oh, la la," said Smith, shaking his head. "Tell you what, Dutchy, if
+the old man himself has got up in the middle of the night you may send
+your little legs a message to get ready for a lot of work. Now we shall
+march, sonny. You can bet your bottom dollar on that. The old man there
+means manoeuvring, heaps of it, or--Arabs."
+
+Milestone after milestone passed by and the jokes ceased very soon, as
+the marching regiment settled down to business. Silently the regiment
+tramped onwards. The knapsack pressed heavily; heads went down and
+shoulders bent low to spread the heavy weight on the back; the
+gun-straps cut into the shoulders until one's right arm was almost lame
+and the painful prickly feeling caused by the non-circulating blood had
+grown permanent.
+
+After the first ten kilometres a shrill signal-whistle sounded and the
+whole company wheeled off to the roadside to rest in long line for five
+minutes. I pulled off my knapsack and threw it upon the ground with a
+feeling of relief, joyful at getting rid of the heavy weight for a few
+minutes. To my great astonishment, the other men kept their knapsacks
+on their backs and at once threw themselves at full length on the
+ground. Later on I did the same. The halt was so short that one lost
+priceless seconds in taking off and strapping on the knapsack, seconds
+only, but even seconds are precious for the marching légionnaire.
+
+Five minutes is but a short span of time. But never in my life has a
+time of rest seemed so delicious, so beneficial, so reviving as when I
+lay stretched out on the hot African sand for those pitifully short
+five minutes....
+
+The company wheeled into column again and trudged forwards on the
+endless road, whose straight sameness was only interrupted by the
+mile-stones. With each mile it became quieter in the marching rows. The
+legs and back were strained to the utmost, and a word spoken appeared a
+waste of energy. One seemed to be a machine, marching on mechanically
+behind the man in front when once put in motion; each man was
+sufficiently occupied with himself. If any one in utter weariness took
+a step to the right or a step to the left out of marching line, he got
+an oath hurled at him--you were so tired that even the slight touch of
+your comrade swaying out of line was an extra burden to the tormented
+body.
+
+When the morning mists and the bitter cold of the dawn were followed by
+the hot burning sun, we had accomplished a march of forty kilometres,
+and the time came when our legs refused to do any more. When the signal
+sounded for rest, we fell down helpless, and when we started marching
+again, it looked as if a crowd of invalids and old men were slowly
+wandering down the road. The worn-out legs revenged themselves for the
+hard usage they had received. During the halt the flow of blood was
+hemmed in the limbs. Standing on one's feet again, one felt a sharp
+stinging pain in the soles. Every step was torture. For five minutes
+afterwards one crawled along as best one could, till one became once
+more an unfeeling automaton.
+
+Again the slow progress past the milestones. At eleven o'clock in the
+morning we reached a little village. The marks on the last milestone
+said that we were fifty kilometres from Sidi-bel-Abbès. We passed by
+the old rickety houses of the village, and at a given signal the
+regiment halted, the companies forming up on the dry, sandy piece of
+ground to the left of the street.
+
+Then followed the command: "Halt!" and immediately afterwards the
+order: "Campez!"
+
+In a moment we had piled our arms. The knapsacks were thrown to the
+ground and the folding tent-supports and the tent-covers pulled out.
+Then the corporal of each section stepped out of the line, holding the
+tent-poles high above his head to mark the tent line for the whole
+company. Again a short command, and in a few seconds the waste surface
+of sand was covered with little white tents.
+
+It was a miracle. We were so well drilled and each individual knew his
+part so well that it only took a few seconds to pitch a tent. With
+surprising quickness the long rows of soldiers were turned into a tent
+encampment and five minutes afterwards the officers' tents were pitched
+in a final row. In the meantime Madame la Cantinière had hauled out of
+her sutler's cart folding tables and benches, ready to do a roaring
+trade with the tired-out légionnaires. The heavy Algerian wine was
+indeed a blessing after such a march and the poor devil who in these
+marching days did not possess a few coppers felt poor indeed.
+
+In ten minutes the narrow trenches for cooking were dug out and in
+twenty places camp fires flared up simultaneously. The patrol marched
+round and round the white "soldiers' city." The food, consisting of
+macaroni and tinned meat, was greedily devoured.
+
+After this the quiet of utter exhaustion reigned in the camp. The
+légionnaires lay huddled together in the tiny tents, on blankets spread
+out on the ground, covered with their cloaks, while the knapsacks
+served for a pillow. The rifles were brought into the tents and tied
+firmly together with a long chain by the corporal of each squad, who
+fastened the end of the chain to his wrist as a further precaution, for
+the Arabs had a habit of creeping through the lines on a dark night and
+stealing the much-coveted weapons from the tents. The patrols of the
+Legion have standing orders to challenge an Arab only once at night and
+then to fire. Even in this first night the watch caught a thief. The
+Arab was badly treated and he was delivered up to the civil authorities
+in the village the next morning in a horrible condition.
+
+By seven o'clock in the evening the whole camp was fast asleep,
+sleeping the sleep of exhaustion.
+
+An hour after midnight, in the flittering light of a magnificent starry
+sky, the companies formed up and continued the route to the South. This
+march lasted eight days. On one day the troops covered forty
+kilometres, making up the average again the next day with fifty
+kilometres. The monotony of this march and the physical strength and
+endurance it claimed of each of us cannot be described. At last, at the
+beginning of the real desert, we depended on the oasis-wells with their
+poor supply of water to quench our thirst, and the want of water was
+added to our sufferings. At night, when starting on the march, the
+field-flasks were filled. The distribution of water was conducted under
+sharp supervision. Every man got two litres of dirty, muddy water.
+Company orders warned us to save up half a litre for the morrow's
+"soupe." On camping next day every légionnaire had to give up half a
+litre of water to the mess of his company for cooking purposes. Whoever
+had emptied his field-flask during the heat and weariness of the march
+and was unable to deliver any water only got a handful of raw rice
+given him; he had to get it cooked as best he could.
+
+This is one of the many brutal rules in force on these marches and
+there is method in it. Contrary to most of the légionnaires, I have
+always seen the necessity for the hard marching discipline. Troops that
+have to march in such droughty country must be able to economise their
+water rations. This is simply a law of necessity. There is another
+brutal feature of the Legion's marches: cruel at first sight but it is
+really kindness to the men. A légionnaire who faints on the march is
+tied to the baggage-cart. A pole is pushed through the sides of the
+cart at about the height of a man's arms and the légionnaire roped to
+it by the shoulders. The pole keeps him in a standing position--the
+cart rolls on. He either has to march or he is dragged along the uneven
+ground. Seeing the thing done for the first time, I was filled with
+indignation at the apparent brutality of this torture. But afterwards I
+understood. In the wars in the South the fighting value of the Foreign
+Legion depends solely on its marching capability. Very often the
+ambulance is not able to follow. If the légionnaire remains behind the
+company in the desert, if only a kilometre, he is irretrievably lost.
+Hundreds and hundreds of men incapable of marching have found a
+terrible end in this way. The Arab women, who are far more cruel than
+the men, soon surround the helpless man, who suffers a painful death,
+after being horribly mutilated and disfigured.
+
+Separation from the troops means death. This was not only the case at
+the time of the great Arab mutiny, which affected the whole of Algeria,
+but is the same to-day. Peace between the French and the Arabs down in
+the far south of Algeria is a myth. At the small military stations on
+the borders of the Sahara little skirmishes are a daily occurrence.
+When the station is alarmed and the thirty or forty men garrisoned
+there set out to pursue the pillaging Bedouin tribes, every légionnaire
+knows well that now he must march, or if he cannot march any more, he
+must die. March or die!
+
+Death at the hands of Arab women! The légionnaire does not count the
+Bedouin or the Arab as a personal enemy; he is rather grateful to the
+robber of the desert for being the cause of a little change and
+excitement in the terribly monotonous life on the border stations. But
+upon the Arab woman the old légionnaire looks as upon a devil. He
+thinks of the hellish tortures that wounded men have suffered at the
+hands of Arab women, he remembers the mutilated bodies of légionnaires
+who had died an awful death after being tortured for many hours.
+
+In the fourth year of his service, Rassedin had been ordered to one of
+the little Sahara stations, where he had seen much of the cruelty of
+the Arab women. Once a scouting party of his detachment found a
+skeleton in the sand of the desert. Shreds of a uniform showed that the
+skeleton had once been a soldier of the Legion. The skeleton's head was
+lying between the legs.... Another time the corporal of Rassedin's
+squad was missed at the morning call. In the evening he had taken a
+walk just in the neighbourhood of the station and had not returned.
+After a short search they found him.
+
+"He was dead. But even in death I could see the frightful agony in his
+wide-open eyes," Rassedin declared. "Both legs were broken and bent
+backwards. The lower part of his body was slashed to pieces, but none
+of his wounds was deadly. They must have tormented him for hours. From
+that time we made no difference between men and women in fighting, but
+shot down every one. How did we know that it had really been women who
+had tortured the corporal? The dead man clutched a piece of a glass
+bracelet in his hand, which he must have torn off the arm of his
+tormentor in the struggle. Such bangles are only worn by the Bedouin
+women."
+
+That is the reason why the légionnaire has come to look upon the Arab
+woman as the incarnation of the Devil. I have already recorded the
+story of the soldier with the skull tattooed on his forehead, who
+showed me a tobacco-pouch made out of a woman's breast....
+
+ * * * * *
+
+As an example of unnecessary, quite unjustifiable brutality I will tell
+you what I had to suffer personally during the manoeuvre march.
+Whether freezing under the thin blanket in the cold icy nights in that
+climate of quickly changing temperatures was the cause, or the bad
+water, or the physical over-exertion of the marches, at any rate I
+suffered from tormenting pains in the stomach. Every few minutes during
+the march I got cramps and could only painfully drag myself along,
+doubled up like a worm. When we got to camp my strength was done. I
+went to the doctor's tent accompanied by the "caporal du jour" with the
+sick list. The doctor, an army surgeon, whose name I unfortunately have
+forgotten, pulled the book angrily out of the corporal's hand, and
+roared at him:
+
+"On the march there are no sick men. Your company ought to know that."
+
+The corporal shrugged his shoulders. "By order of the captain!" he said
+laconically.
+
+Now the doctor turned to me.
+
+"What's wrong?"
+
+I briefly described the cramps in my stomach, and emphasised that I
+only wished to ask for something to relieve the pain, an opiate,
+perhaps, and that I intended to continue my duties.
+
+He looked at me for a moment, and then said contemptuously:
+
+"What do you know about opiates? To judge from your accent you are an
+Englishman."
+
+"No, monsieur le docteur, a German."
+
+"Well, I will tell you something. We know these little tricks. All the
+same if you're English, German or Hottentot, I take you to be quite a
+common simulator. I shall give you a certificate of being
+'non-malade'--not sick. Non-malade, corporal."
+
+I was crushed. Astonishment fought with anger. At the very moment when
+the doctor was speaking to me I was almost doubled up with pain. "Not
+sick!" That meant not only the loss of an opiate, but also heavy
+punishment. Any one who is declared by the doctor as "not sick" is at
+once held guilty of simulation, and punished with the usual four days'
+imprisonment.
+
+I saluted and said:
+
+"Non-malade, monsieur le docteur? Without any examination?"
+
+"Va-t-en!" roared the surgeon. "Get out of this."
+
+The corporal shook his head as we went through the camp, and advised me
+to be patient. He believed that I was in pain, and he knew that that
+"pig of a doctor" had already sent many a man to his doom. But a
+complaint would only make matters worse, he said. I did not answer and
+thought of the coming night. I should be tied to a peg in front of the
+watch-tent, and would be obliged to lie on the bare ground in the icy
+cold without any covering because I had been imprudent enough to ask
+for a little medicine. Maddening anger arose within me. When the
+corporal had made his report, my captain sent for me:
+
+"You have not been punished so far?"
+
+"No."
+
+"What is the reason of your simulating?"
+
+Then I lost control over myself, and in a fit of excitement hurled
+reproaches and accusations at the officer. The doctor was a fool and a
+disgrace to his profession. His diagnosis was an infamous and
+deliberate lie, and it was a disgrace that such people held authority.
+I do not remember everything I yelled out then, but it was a nice
+collection of the choicest epithets--rank insubordination! At length my
+attack of mad fury ended with my demanding to be taken before the
+commander of the regiment, and I threatened (this must have been very
+ridiculous) to complain to the French Minister of War.
+
+The captain listened to me quietly and said:
+
+"I believe that you have been badly treated. I will write a letter for
+you to the assistant surgeon, who will give you medicine. I should not
+advise you to send in a complaint to the regiment."
+
+Then after a pause:
+
+"What do you really expect? What do you want? We are in the Legion. You
+are a légionnaire--don't forget that again, légionnaire!"
+
+If I had not in my complete loss of self-control ventured to air my
+opinions in language unheard of in the Legion, I should very likely
+have left the ominous peg in front of the guard-tent as a dead man.
+
+Thanks to the opium pills of the assistant surgeon I was able, however,
+to march the next day with the others, but not without exerting every
+spark of my will-power. The time from one milestone to the other seemed
+endless. The expectation of the five minutes' rest at the fifth
+milestone was the power that drove me forward. I counted my steps in
+order to make me forget the pain in the mechanical occupation of
+counting. One hundred and twenty steps represented one hundred metres;
+when I had counted ten times one hundred and twenty, we had covered a
+kilometre, the fifth part of the road to rest....
+
+At last we reached our paradise, the few minutes of exhausted rest. And
+then the torment began afresh....
+
+The manoeuvres in a desert covered with peculiarly sharp stones,
+three hundred kilometres south of Sidi-bel-Abbès, occupied exactly
+eight hours, and from the standpoint of the Legion they were
+superfluous and consequently useless. The development of the
+firing-line, the skilled search for cover, the rush of the bayonet
+attack, the understanding of all the orders, the complete discipline
+under fire, are things which, in the never-ending practical military
+training of this fighting regiment, become part and parcel of the
+légionnaire's flesh and blood. The closing manoeuvre was (I heard our
+captain discussing these matters with Lieutenant Garde) nothing more
+than a small private entertainment on the part of our colonel, who
+wished to show off with his regiment; a military amateur dramatic
+performance. On the other hand, the commander-general had said to his
+adjutant that it was a great pleasure to him to give his légionnaires
+an "airing." The regiment had already idled about barracks for six
+months, and might in the end forget that its real home was amongst the
+sand of the desert, and that it had no other object in life than to
+march, march a lot, to go on marching.
+
+The légionnaires knew this fad of the general's well enough, and never
+called him anything else but the "marching pig." The fat sergeant of
+our first "peloton" used to say, with great lack of respect:
+
+"As soon as I see the fellow I feel tired...."
+
+When the general was still colonel and in command of the first
+regiment, he once met a drunken légionnaire in one of the side streets
+of Sidi-bel-Abbès. The man, only just capable of saluting, got the mad
+idea to address his colonel.
+
+"Eh, mon colonel," he stammered, "I am still very thirsty. Ten sous,
+mon colonel."
+
+The colonel treated him to a stony stare.
+
+This look out of the hard eyes turned the légionnaire sober in a
+moment, and a brilliant idea struck him.
+
+"You know I am the best marcher in my company, mon colonel."
+
+At this the colonel smiled and gave him a five-franc piece.
+
+It is these little anecdotes and the rough jokes in the jargon of the
+Legion that are typical of the great weight laid on the marching
+performances in the Foreign Legion, without regard to the wear and tear
+of the human machine, without consideration of the many lives that are
+lost.
+
+Even General de Négrier, the only commander that the Legion loved
+because he loved the Legion and knew how to come into personal touch
+with each légionnaire, knew no mercy in the matter of marching. When he
+was commander of the Foreign Legion he did everything in his power for
+his troops. Each légionnaire was allowed to come to him with his
+personal affairs, every wounded man was a hero in his eyes, a brave
+man, for whom he could not do enough. But when he saw an exhausted
+légionnaire stumble out of the ranks and collapse during the terrible
+marches in Madagascar, the expression in his face became hard and
+pitiless. That was a grievous crime in his eyes. Then he would cry out
+the three words that have since become a proverb of the Legion:
+
+"March or die!"
+
+Marches which no European commander would attempt are nothing out of
+the common; they are the basis on which the Foreign Legion has won its
+laurels. But they are also the foundation for illness, decline, and
+death.
+
+In each of these marches is embodied the principle of absolute
+disregard for human life. The possibility of such disregard is one of
+the chief advantages of the Foreign Legion in the eyes of the
+authorities. From a military point of view the marches of the Legion
+are splendid, a triumph of training and discipline; from a humane
+standpoint they are the height of unprincipled exploitation. No New
+York Jewish clothes-dealer, who keeps hundreds of people at starvation
+wages at the sewing-machines, does such a splendid piece of business as
+"la Légion," which for a mere nothing saps the life from thousands of
+human creatures. It is not the cruelties of the penal battalion, not
+the brutality of punishments, not the poor devils who for some mere
+trifle are shot under martial law, that illustrate best the horrors of
+the Legion system. It is the marches that do this; the marches of the
+Foreign Legion condemn the system of the Foreign Legion!
+
+Our manoeuvre march of 600 kilometres occupied sixteen days. On the
+stages in the far south the rations consisted almost entirely of rice,
+and to the hardships of the daily 40 kilometres the pangs of hunger
+were added. In spite of that the distance daily covered remained the
+same.
+
+I still suffered from pains in my stomach. To-day it is a puzzle to me
+how I managed to march 300 kilometres in this condition in the burning
+sun and to stand the cold during the nights. But others were no better
+off. They marched with open wounds in their feet; with blisters between
+neck and shoulder-blades, where the straps of the heavy knapsack
+pressed; with eyes inflamed by the sun; with severe bronchial troubles;
+with bleeding and festering sores on their thighs. Many limped, and
+most marched bent wellnigh double, sunk together--a miserable, pitiful
+sight. Surly, silent, raging bitterness pictured in the hard lines of
+the face and in the tired eyes, we stamped onwards. The only words
+heard were curses.
+
+Our nerves were strained to bursting-point. Over the whole troop lay
+the strain of over-exertion, bodily and mental nerve-sickness. The
+Foreign Legion has manufactured a special expression of its own for
+this mental state--"Cafard."
+
+The "cafard" reigned. The "cafard" of the Foreign Legion, a near
+relative to tropical madness, is a collective name for all the
+inconceivable stupidities, excesses and crimes which tormented nerves
+can commit. The English language has no word for this condition. In
+"cafard" murder hides, and suicide and mutiny; it means self-mutilation
+and planless flight out into the desert; it is the height of madness
+and the depth of despair.
+
+Many nights we were roused from sleep by a pandemonium of noise.
+Légionnaires--légionnaires in "cafard"--jumped round the tents in the
+dim light of the watch-fires, roaring the old Legion song out into the
+night. The "song" commenced with abusing the corporal and went on
+through the whole scale of charges up to the commander-general--in a
+horrible Legion French, of which the chief advantage was its
+extraordinary power of detailed expression. No officer was passed over
+in this song and each one was carefully mentioned by name, so that
+there might be no mistake....
+
+The song was painted with insults in rainbow colours. The insinuation
+that Captain So-and-So kept up his private harem with the funds of the
+company was one of the most harmless, and with the assertion that he
+was an old monkey, the register of the regiment commander's sins only
+began.
+
+At the top of their voices the "cafard" madmen shrieked this song of
+insubordination out into the still night, until the camp became lively.
+With many oaths the sentries tussled with the mad singers, and from out
+of the darkness bawling voices roared applause.
+
+Such things were not taken seriously. The "singers" were bound to pegs
+in front of the guard-tent over the night, to give them a chance to
+cool down, and they had to join their companies at day-break--to march
+on.
+
+When we got back to Sidi-bel-Abbès, our uniforms and our spirits were
+in sad condition....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE MADNESS OF THE FOREIGN LEGION
+
+An unpleasant occurrence : The last three coppers : The Roumanian Jew
+from Berlin : Monsieur Viaïsse : The Legion's atmosphere : The Cafard
+demoniacs : Bismarck's double : Krügerle's whim : The madness of
+Légionnaire Bauer : Brutal humour : A tragedy
+
+
+In the interval between the terrible exertions of the great manoeuvre
+march and a period of hard work in the sewers of the Arab prison of
+Sidi-bel-Abbès, something I had long been dreading occurred. Even by
+changing my few gold pieces into the smallest of coppers, I could not
+spin them out eternally. One fine day the sum of my riches consisted of
+three thick, round copper pieces. Although big and heavy, they were not
+worth more than a few cents.
+
+I lay stretched out on my bed, tired and vexed. Smith, who, being a
+bugler, was not obliged to waste his strength in cleaning Arab sewers,
+was chaffing me. He thought it a great joke to inquire with friendly
+solicitude about the unpleasant details of my work.
+
+I did not like his raillery. Wishing for revenge, I remembered with
+grim humour that the state of my finances would be of a certain
+interest to my friend Smith.
+
+"Hallo, bugler," said I.
+
+Smith, lounging on his bed, muttered something about privileged sons of
+the Prophet--and inquired if the Arab convicts had been satisfied with
+my work?
+
+"Bugler, I've no more money!" I said.
+
+He jumped up from his bed, looking at me aghast.
+
+"What d'you say?"
+
+"My money is finished."
+
+Smith's face grew long.
+
+He was evidently thinking of the countless casks of wine lying stored
+in Sidi-bel-Abbès.... All at once his face cleared. He had found a way
+out of the difficulty.
+
+"Send for some more!" he advised.
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"Nonsense," said the bugler, with the happy confidence of the Legion.
+"They'll send you some, a légionnaire always gets something sent him.
+Shall I help you to write a real, nice, touching letter, Dutchy?"
+
+Again I shook my head. But the bugler would not let me off so easily.
+Going through the different grades of relationship, he inquired as to
+my connections. When I declared with intentional spitefulness that they
+were all as poor as church mice, he swore a little in Arabic and
+thoughtfully repeated a chapter of the Koran, treating of the duties of
+friendship. A little inspired by this, he asked for a whole hour about
+my former friends. I told him that they were either dead or on the
+point of starvation. The bugler thought this ridiculous, but with much
+tact did not continue the subject, coming, no doubt, to the conclusion
+that I had either killed somebody or robbed a bank in good old Germany.
+Nothing but that could keep a légionnaire from writing begging letters!
+
+I let the philosopher keep his opinion.
+
+After thinking deeply for a time, he muttered nothing but a resigned,
+"C'est la Légion."
+
+After a while he asked: "And is there really nothing left?"
+
+Without saying a word, I pulled out my three copper pieces.
+
+Then a slight smile spread over his face. "Do you know, we'll buy drink
+with that," he said softly. As we went down the stairs to the canteen,
+he wisely proposed buying two half-bottles instead of a whole one, for
+the half-bottles were always filled three-quarters full by Madame la
+Cantinière. In this way we got the fullest measure possible for the
+three coppers.
+
+My friend the bugler emptied the bottle with great respect, till not a
+drop was left. Then he became sad again, but said in a comforting way:
+
+"Inschallah--and if we haven't any money, sonny, then we've got none.
+But if I were you, I should after all write to somebody for a little
+brass----"
+
+Only now, in my utter destitution, did I really recognise my position.
+The few pieces of silver I had still had in my possession, which in
+former times would just have been sufficient for a few theatre tickets
+or a few hundred cigarettes, had, in the land of Sidi-bel-Abbès, been a
+fortune, and had saved me from much wearisome, petty work. Thanks to
+them, I had been able, after long marches or heavy fatigue duty, to go
+straight into town without having to bother about polishing and
+washing. The smallest coin could purchase release from these
+burdens--now all this was at an end. For hours after I came off duty,
+I, like the others, stood at the wash-tub, or tediously polished my
+leather-work.
+
+My horizon had narrowed; now it only encircled the drill-ground,
+barrack-yard, and my bunk in the Legion's quarters. I spent hours lying
+on my bed and staring at the whitewashed wall opposite, with the long
+shelf on which the knapsacks were packed. My interests were now quite
+taken up by all the petty, trifling considerations of the Legion. I
+quarrelled with the others whether it were really my turn to fetch
+fresh water in the big earthenware jug; I disputed the highly important
+matter of sweeping underneath my bed, and it was a question of vital
+interest to me whether I was ordered to scrub the bench or the large
+table at the great Saturday cleaning.... The bench was so much easier
+to do.
+
+The days all passed in the same monotonous manner. The grey sameness
+tired the brain and made one indifferent to the little considerations
+and small services that people should render to each other when living
+such a hard life, crowded into so small a space. Everywhere the worst
+side of human nature showed itself, and even the greatest fool was soon
+clever enough to find out the bad points of the man who worked beside
+him by day and slept next to him at night. Petty malice, ill-natured
+gossip, ridiculous intrigues formed the atmosphere of the Legion.
+
+I learnt to know a great deal about human nature, and what I learnt was
+not inspiriting. With the exception of jolly Herr von Rader, Abramovici
+was the only man I knew who had a spark of humour left in him. He was
+the queerest character in the room. He declared he was a Roumanian, but
+only spoke German, and that with a terrible Berlin accent, which was,
+to say the least, very strange in a Roumanian. When questioned as to
+his religion, he told the corporal that he was a "pork-eating" Jew. I
+suppose he meant that he had no delicate convictions.
+
+The man was tall and very thin and appeared to be made of india-rubber.
+His long neck was surmounted by a head like that of a bird of prey,
+continually turning from side to side so as not to miss an opportunity
+of stealing something from his comrades. He had a vile mouth under his
+enormous nose. In a whining tone he swore all day long at providence in
+general and the Legion in particular. Nobody could resist his
+volubility and he was the first, the last, and the only légionnaire who
+ever succeeded in never doing any work.
+
+The explanation of his French nickname, "Viaïsse," was that the
+india-rubber man repeated the Yiddish phrase of lament, "Wie haisst!"
+about ten times in one sentence. Once when he made a complaint about
+something or other to the captain, the latter had thrown up his hands
+in despair and called out, "Viaïsse, viaïsse, sacré nom de Dieu!
+toujours viaïsse--what does the fellow want?" The whole regiment
+laughed at "Monsieur Viaïsse"; he was never called by his real name,
+Abramovici, but officers and corporals called to him: "Eh, Viaïsse,
+come here!" He never worked. He was only saved from punishment by his
+inherent gift of humour. He was very tall, his arms nearly reaching to
+the ground. If one of his superiors ever ventured to give him any work
+to do, the scraggy "india-rubber man" appeared to personify a whole
+Ghetto. His eyes grew large and staring, the nose purple, and the head
+moved backwards and forwards like a pendulum.
+
+Then Viaïsse took a deep breath, and a mad flow of words poured from
+his vile mouth, while the long arms, with the outspread claw-like
+fingers, waved frantically in the air.
+
+"... Wie haisst! nom de Dieu, de bon Dieu de la Légion--damn me, why
+should I work myself to death? I've had to drill the whole forenoon and
+have got nix to eat but a poor soup. I'm a stricken man and will have
+to get some extra food if I am not to fall down dead like a dog, you
+jewel of a sergeant. Wie haisst! I am a ruined man if I don't get some
+food at once. Well?"
+
+It is impossible to repeat it all. Words fail me when I try to
+reproduce my friend Abramovici's grand flow of language. In one respect
+he was indeed a friend to me; no one ever made me laugh as much as he
+did. On the day of his arrival with the depot-train from Oran, I
+happened to hear when the sergeant of the company for the first time
+ordered him to do some work. Abramovici nearly got a fit at this
+unheard-of demand. His arms waved frantically in the air like a
+windmill, and wild words flowed from his mouth.
+
+The poor sergeant wished to put in a word sideways. He wished to give a
+quiet command, he wanted to get furious. But he could not. He could
+only see with numb astonishment the lurid red nose, he turned away to
+get out of the reach of the "windmill arms," and at last fell down on
+the nearest bed with a horrible Arab oath, and laughed as he had never
+laughed before in his life. When he at last recovered his breath again,
+he said in broken German: "Oh, Gott in Himmel, cet homme là, zu viel
+sprechen.--Talks too much."
+
+But Abramovici went on jabbering, until at last his harangue ended in
+laments to the God of his Fathers.
+
+This was the way he always got off--one so seldom hears a laugh down
+there that Monsieur Viaïsse was highly appreciated by officers and men.
+
+He called me his friend. He began our friendship with the conventional
+question:
+
+"Wie haisst! will you give me a cigarette?"
+
+Many a cigarette the Roumanian Jew from Berlin got from me, as long as
+there was silver in my pocket. In return he assured me of his high
+esteem, and when longing for a smoke called me "Herr Baron." When with
+the silver pieces the cigarettes came to an end, our friendship
+suffered a little in consequence.
+
+I myself lived in a state of continual irritation. The least trifle put
+me into such a rage that I can hardly credit it to-day. Often enough I
+would tear down my "paquetage" from the shelf, destroying what had been
+wearisome work, just because some trousers or jacket did not seem to be
+folded correctly. It had been nothing else but "cafard" when I had
+roared at the captain because the doctor refused to give me an opiate
+on the march--it was exactly the same "cafard" in a milder form when I
+roared at this or that comrade just because he was in my way when I was
+busy polishing. My vexation, my irritability, my brooding was the
+madness of the Foreign Legion.
+
+No légionnaire escapes from it.
+
+The rest of my comrades in the room all had at different times the
+"cafard" more or less seriously.... Crowded together like horses in a
+bad stable the men became dangerous. They fought over the quarter of a
+litre of the Legion wine that was apportioned to us every second day,
+and watched with ridiculous suspicion that the next man did not get
+more than he did; one quarrelled over a piece of bread; one took one's
+neighbour for a thief who wanted to steal a bit of black wax for
+leather polishing. If one man got more work to do than his neighbour,
+he cried murder and roared out about protection, and favouritism, and
+vicious preference.
+
+This was the atmosphere in which the Legion whims were developed. It
+was really strange how many of the légionnaires had a screw loose,
+often only harmless peculiarities, but which could increase to madness.
+
+All idiocy in the Legion is called "cafard." A légionnaire is gloomy,
+sitting sullenly on his bed for hours, speaking to no one. If you ask
+him what is the matter, he will answer with a gross insult. He sits
+thinking all the time and does the queerest things. He has the
+"cafard."...
+
+His madness may turn into a senseless explosion or fit of fury; men
+suffering from "cafard" will run a bayonet through their comrade's
+body, without any reason, without any outward cause. Sometimes they
+rush out into the desert, sometimes they tear every piece of their
+outfit into rags, just to vex themselves and others thoroughly.
+
+The "cafard" is at its worst in the hot season when the sun burns down
+relentlessly from the cloudless, deep blue sky, with the strange
+greenish colouring of the horizon peculiar to Algeria. Then the
+barrack-yard of the Foreign Legion lies deserted. It is so hot that the
+stones on the yellow clayey ground seem to move in the glimmering
+overheated air. The légionnaire sentries wear the flowing white
+neck-protector, and have stuffed wet cloths into their képis.
+
+In the soldiers' quarters the légionnaires lie on their mattresses and
+take their siesta, the strictly prescribed rest from 11 A.M. until 3
+P.M. The white man is a useless object in the sun-blaze of the hot
+season. In the infernal heat of the soldiers' rooms the "cafard" has
+often been the cause of great disaster. It has often happened that
+during the siesta légionnaires have suddenly jumped out of the window,
+three stories high, without any outward cause whatever.
+
+Once (very likely when affected with "cafard") I wrote down during the
+siesta a description of what our men's room looked like. These few
+lines are the only thing I ever wrote in the Legion:
+
+"I lay on my bed half naked. The room was as hot as a stove, filled
+with the stench of perspiration. A brilliant strip of sunlight played
+through the long room from window to window. Oh, the heat, the heat.
+Even the walls felt hot. In the bare, whitewashed room the men lay
+groaning on their beds in all kinds of possible and impossible
+positions. Some were swearing, others quarrelling--nothing brings on
+the "cafard" so quickly as physical suffering. Two Spaniards were
+quarrelling in the loud gesticulating manner of their race; a German in
+the next bed had fallen asleep, and was muttering words of German in
+his dream. He was dreaming of his mother. In the other corner of the
+room a Frenchman was shouting frantically to some one to give him a
+brush--his own brush was lost. His bed neighbour hummed a marching
+song, half in Arabic, half in French, always with the same refrain:
+
+ "'Si le caporal savait ça, il dirait: Nom de Dieu.'
+
+"Another man slowly and automatically rubbed his leather straps, a
+third one informed everybody that the sergeant was a rogue and was
+working him to death. Here the German awoke. Disturbed in his sleep he
+yelled out: 'Shut up you beggars.' And the Frenchmen and Spaniards
+began to curse on hearing German words.
+
+"'Monsieur le Caporal'[4] sat up slowly and tiredly and, leaning on his
+elbow, said in a low tone of voice:
+
+ [4] "Monsieur le Caporal" was Corporal Wassermann's nickname,
+ because in the eyes of the légionnaires he was far too
+ particular in his manners and language when giving orders.
+
+"'A little silence, please.'
+
+"The Spaniards laughed and a Frenchman said under his breath, the
+damned 'casque à pique,' meaning the Prussian helmet, might leave
+honest légionnaires in peace during siesta.
+
+"The corporal did not move. In his quiet even tone he went on speaking:
+'Silence. You all know that during siesta all noise is forbidden.
+Legrand, for using the epithet "casque à pique," I punish you with two
+days' barrack arrest. You are not serving in a French line regiment,
+but in the Foreign Legion. You understand, do you not, that in the
+Foreign Legion no man is taxed with his nationality. And in every
+respect it is very unwise to vex your corporal. Ça y est.'
+
+"At that the légionnaire laughed and quiet reigned once more.
+
+"My God, the heat was terrible. Then all at once a slashing, metallic
+sound. One of the Spaniards had pulled down the long bayonet that
+always hangs over a légionnaire's bed, and was in the act of assaulting
+his countryman and comrade. The corporal sprang between the two and
+sent one flying to the right, the other to the left. In a second the
+whole place was in an uproar. The two Spaniards threw themselves upon
+each other, anxious to kill each other. The other légionnaires laughed
+and howled out through it all....
+
+"At last the signal, 'Debout, légionnaires, debout!' 'Up, up!' sounded
+down in the yard. The siesta was at an end."
+
+This is what I wrote while lying half naked in my bed, groaning at the
+heat. The description has the advantage of the impressions of the
+moment. This was what happened when the "cafard" was at its "best."
+
+Then again whole numbers of soldiers are affected by it in the same
+way. The légionnaires of half a company would put their heads together,
+planning some act of desperation. One time it would be mutiny en masse,
+at another time desertion in a body. This madness is well known
+wherever a company of légionnaires is stationed. In some kind of form
+it is always present. It is the cause of the horrible tattooing, of
+drinking and brawling; it is the reason for that peculiar longing for
+continual change, that restlessness typical of the Foreign Legion.
+
+The légionnaires are themselves not aware what influence the "cafard"
+has on them. When an old légionnaire says grumpily, "J'ai le cafard,"
+he is just telling his neighbours to keep clear of him, that he has a
+bad fit of the blues, that it is advisable for his comrades to leave
+him alone. He has no idea that a hidden power, like unto madness, is
+making him act in such a manner, he only believes himself to be in a
+bad humour. But the bad humour rises and increases, often driving him
+to murder, more often to suicide. The légionnaire cannot foresee the
+effects of the "cafard." The typical "cafard demoniacs," the old grumpy
+fellows who do their duty like machines and at other times hardly speak
+at all, are instinctively feared, as if their comrades knew that at any
+moment the least trifle could lead to an outbreak of the dormant
+madness.
+
+I have witnessed such an explosion (that is the proper term for it). We
+had a man in our company who had served for many years in the Legion.
+He was a Frenchman and had worn the Legion's uniform for more than ten
+years. He got out of our way whenever he could, and when his duties
+were over, slunk away into lonely corners of the barrack-yard. Every
+fifth day he left the barracks, on pay-day, to return reeling,
+evidently drunk, just before evening muster. He never was rowdy, but
+silent as usual, he threw himself upon his bed. Where he went to, where
+he bought his wine, with whom he drank it, nobody knew.
+
+One pay-day, when the half of our company was on guard-duty, he for
+once came back too late. The barrack-gates had long been closed; Smith
+and I were still sitting on the bench in front of the guard-room, the
+sergeant and the other légionnaires were lying inside on their bunks.
+All at once the sentry at the gate called the officer on duty with the
+laconic report:
+
+"Sergeant--la porte!"
+
+The gate! Swearing, the man came with his keys. Outside stood the
+grumpy old légionnaire, swaying from side to side and his képi at the
+back of his head.
+
+"Bertillon?" the sergeant said, unlocking the gate. "You ---- old pig,
+you ought to know by this time when to come home."
+
+Bertillon staggered in and remained standing in front of the sergeant.
+
+"Be off with you and get into your quarters!" he commanded. "You can be
+jolly glad that your own company is on guard duty, else you would have
+been locked up at once. Allez--schieb' los!"
+
+The old légionnaire stared at the sergeant. Suddenly, without saying a
+word, he hit him right in the face with his fist.
+
+"Aux armes!" the reeling sergeant yelled. Bertillon had pulled out his
+bayonet and was slashing and hitting at every one, roaring like a wild
+beast. A terrible tussle ensued. We were twelve to one, but it took us
+more than a quarter of an hour to get the upper hand of the "cafard"
+madman, and every one had been more or less wounded by his bayonet. At
+length we contrived to throw blankets over his head, and strapping him
+up like a parcel, we threw him into the prison.
+
+On opening the cell the next morning he was found dead. At the
+post-mortem examination the army surgeon stated that the bursting of an
+artery in the brain had been the cause of death.
+
+These are the worst cases of "cafard."
+
+Generally the peculiar malady of the Foreign Legion shows itself in all
+kinds of peculiar whims. Smith's comical reciting of the Koran chapters
+was such a whim. Many developed some kind of fixed idea.
+
+The cook of my company was an old légionnaire who had served in the
+Legion for fifteen years and was soon to be pensioned off; his fixed
+idea was that he was Bismarck's double. His name was Schlesinger. Like
+the German Prime Minister, he had the stature of a giant, and in his
+heavy face with the bald head, in the sharp eyes, there certainly was a
+slight resemblance to the features of the "man of iron." The Legion,
+being good-natured and having a great sense of humour, did old
+Schlesinger the favour of never calling him anything else but
+"Bismarck."
+
+Herr von Rader was the first one to draw my attention to him. He had
+heard of the cook's peculiarity and ... forthwith rushed to the
+kitchen. He lounged about the door till the cook, getting suspicious,
+came to see if the intruder intended stealing. Hardly had von Rader
+seen him, when he called out in astonishment: "Good gracious! that
+surely must be Bismarck!"
+
+The cook drew himself up majestically and smiled condescendingly.
+
+"Such a likeness!" in a surprised voice from von Rader.
+
+"Very like--n'est-ce pas?" said Schlesinger, highly flattered.
+
+"Really wonderful! You surely must be a relation of the Bismarck
+family?"
+
+"That may be," nodded the cook, very much pleased. This was quite a new
+idea. It had never entered his head that he might be related to
+Bismarck.
+
+"You're certainly a relation," said von Rader in a tone of conviction,
+"an illegitimate."
+
+"Très possible--très possible," the cook murmured, proud and happy.
+"Are you a young soldier?" he asked the man who had put the wonderful
+idea into his poor old légionnaire's head.
+
+"That's so," groaned von Rader. "I am like you, and have once been
+something better. My father" (von Rader lowered his voice to a whisper
+as if he were disclosing the greatest secret), "my father was a count!"
+
+Bismarck was much impressed by his announcement.
+
+"And now I must starve in the Legion," added von Rader sadly.
+
+"Pas ça," said Schlesinger, and, disappearing into the kitchen, he
+returned with a large piece of roast pork. "Tiens, camarade. To-morrow
+we will talk again about--about our ancestors. Mais--say nothing."
+
+"Nothing," assured von Rader, putting his finger to his lips.
+
+From that day the pseudo-Bismarck and the pseudo-count were seen
+together almost daily, and von Rader always had a piece of meat in his
+knapsack, when we had to eat dry bread in the drill pause.
+
+If any one called the cook "Schlesinger" he was deeply offended and did
+not answer; even the officers called him Bismarck.
+
+There was another légionnaire I cannot forget--Little Krügerle. His
+whim was--to steal grapes. A very funny idea, for Krügerle never ate
+grapes himself; he did not like them. With great trouble he got them
+into the barracks and then gave them away.
+
+His one idea was to steal the grapes.
+
+This was his cafard, his special rage against the possessors of
+vineyards. But his cafard had its own tale....
+
+Grapes were worth very little in Algeria, but when every year at the
+grape harvest three thousand légionnaires strolled in the evenings
+along the paths beside the vineyards, when each légionnaire ate about
+five pounds of grapes, taking another ten pounds under his cloak--then
+the Spanish grape-farmers grew angry. They sent a deputation to the
+colonel, declaring that his légionnaires were worse than a
+locust-plague. The colonel abused them all and sent out a command that
+all who transgressed again would be punished. The légionnaires
+laughed--were a little more careful, but stole quite as many grapes as
+formerly. Seeing that it would not do like this, the Spaniards engaged
+Arabs, gave them small-shot guns and told them not to spare the
+offenders. The following morning the army surgeon was much astonished,
+on going his daily round, to find sixty-five légionnaires wounded by
+small shot.
+
+The extraction of all the small shot took so much time that he got
+furious and went to the colonel and complained. The latter, having an
+idea what was the matter, examined the "invalids," who promptly told a
+great story of having been suddenly attacked by Arabs. The colonel
+laughed and ordered them all to be locked up for four weeks on bread
+and water.
+
+Now the Spaniards were left in peace, because the grapes were not worth
+while being shot and locked up for, the légionnaires said sadly.
+
+But from this time dated little Krügerle's cafard. Every day he went
+out to steal grapes. With the greatest patience and cunning he crawled
+about in the vineyards and stole grapes. Once he was shot and ran right
+back to the barracks and into the soldiers' room. Five minutes later,
+all the fifteen men there were busily occupied in digging the countless
+shot out of their comrade's back--with pocket-knives!
+
+Krügerle underwent the operation with more or less tranquillity--but it
+was worth suffering a little; if he had gone to the surgeon, four weeks
+of cellule arrest would have been his lot.
+
+He swore great oaths--but went stealing grapes again the following day.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The germ of madness, of tragedy, always lies hidden in the cafard. I
+was a witness of the following tragedy.
+
+In our room in the corner by the window an Austrian had his bed. His
+name was Bauer. He had joined the company with a new batch of recruits,
+shortly after I did, in good health, fresh and curious like all the
+other recruits: an average man, who did not easily learn the French
+words of command, but did his work conscientiously. Week by week he got
+quieter. Stupidly he did his work and spoke to nobody. In his free time
+he sat on his bed moodily staring in front of him. Now and then he
+would be punished for neglecting his uniform, but this did not seem to
+make any impression on him at all. He returned from prison as moody as
+before. Nobody took any notice of him. All at once the poor quiet
+creature became the centre of attraction, an object of ridicule and
+enmity, and for weeks the gossip of the Legion's quarters.
+
+Suddenly Bauer was attacked by a most ravenous appetite. If possible he
+was quieter than formerly; but when the midday soup appeared, he fell
+over it like a wild animal, devouring it greedily, and greedily he
+watched us while we were eating. When we had finished, he crept up to
+the table, examining the empty dishes in the hope of finding a few
+drops left. After this he would rush down to the kitchen to the old
+cook to beg some leavings from him. The other men in the room were so
+brutalised by their own misfortunes in life that they only looked upon
+this poor devil as a clown to serve for their amusement.
+
+They threw pieces of bread into corners, and yelled with pleasure when
+Bauer crawled about on all-fours under the beds to look for the coveted
+morsel. They poured petroleum into his soup, and were wild with delight
+when the poor fellow nevertheless emptied the dish greedily.
+
+Day by day Bauer grew worse. From the other soldiers' quarters, even
+from the other companies, the légionnaires came at soup-time to our
+room to inspect the prodigy. All the time he sat crouching on his bed,
+smiling vacantly and gobbling down whatever he could get. He would gnaw
+at the dry bone held out to him by a légionnaire with the same grin as
+he would chew a piece of hard leather given to him by another man. It
+was the beginning of insanity....
+
+Soon the whole regiment was talking about the man with the unappeasable
+appetite. If any one wished to have a joke, they brought the glutton a
+dry crust or a piece of hard Legion biscuit, just to watch him devour
+it. For weeks these scenes occurred, without the authorities thinking
+it necessary to interfere.
+
+The end came suddenly. One day we only found half-chewed crusts on our
+table instead of the usual daily portion of bread. Bauer had stolen
+away from his work and eaten our rations!
+
+The légionnaires threw themselves upon him--where their own comforts
+were concerned it was no joking matter. One of them struck the poor
+devil, who, biting and scratching and hitting at every one, shrieked
+like a madman. The watch was roused, and the poor fellow, chained hand
+and foot, was carried across to the infirmary.
+
+Three days after, the eleventh company conducted a small black cart to
+the grave-yard of Sidi-bel-Abbès. In the rudely made coffin on the cart
+lay the remains of Légionnaire Bauer. In the infirmary he had smashed
+his head against the wall.... At the grave the captain said briefly, in
+a cold voice: "Recevez les derniers adieux de votre chef et de vos
+camarades."
+
+This was his funeral sermon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE DESERTERS
+
+The Odyssey of going on pump : Death in the desert : The Legion's
+deserters : A disastrous flight in a motor-car : The tragic fate of an
+Austrian engineer : In the Ghetto of Sidi-bel-Abbès : The business part
+of desertion : Oran and Algiers : The Consulate as a trap : The
+financial side of desertion : One hundred kilometres of suffering :
+Hamburg steamers : Self-mutilation : Shamming : In the Suez Canal :
+Morocco, the wonderland
+
+
+Even Herr von Rader had the cafard--the fever to desert--and his good
+humour diminished perceptibly under its influence. In low cunning the
+equal of the oldest and craftiest légionnaire, he had quite got the
+trick of decorating himself, and certainly got along much better than
+most of the other recruits. But, as a veteran on the high road of life,
+he had a very highly developed sense of the practical side of human
+affairs. To take and not to give had always been his most sacred rule
+of life; living without working was for him the acme of human
+cleverness. Now, however, Herr von Rader began to reckon out for
+himself, with a face that got longer and longer, the Legion's pet
+arithmetic example: that he had to do an immense amount of work and got
+little or no pay for it.
+
+He found this very trying.
+
+"My friend," he said to me once, "I'm off. I just guess I won't bother
+you with details, but I'm sorry to have to tell you that this
+honourable regiment will have to get on as best it can without me. I'm
+going to clear out."
+
+I warned him and kept telling him that it was utter folly to desert in
+this happy-go-lucky way without civilian's clothes and without any
+money.
+
+Herr von Rader merely shook his head: "It's true enough that I've a
+large balance of poverty! On the other hand, I've a thundering lot of
+impudence--an absolutely immense and overwhelming quantity of
+impudence--and I guess, in spite of everything, I'll take that little
+pleasure trip and have a look at the neighbourhood. Somewhere round
+here there must be a nigger tribe who would consider it an honour when
+a chap like me with a real white skin does some swell conjuring for
+them. Why, they'll jump at the chance of making me their medicine man.
+Anyway, I'm off! If you're a wise man, you'll come too. It'll be fine
+enough even if it does not last for long. And I'll tell you a secret:
+in the sergeants' room the big service revolver is hanging comfortably
+on the wall. I've a sort of an idea that that piece of property will be
+off about the same time as me--on French leave! That's a great
+consolation for me, quite apart from the fact that I shall be damned
+glad to annoy that fool of a sergeant! Won't you come?"
+
+I declined with thanks.
+
+Herr von Rader now sought other followers. In every spare moment he
+gathered a following from among the young men around his bed. They
+lounged about and smoked cigarettes forging their plans for flight.
+More than once I went and listened to them and more than once I gave
+them a warning, but they were so wrapped up in their idea that all good
+advice was quite wasted. They wanted to make a bee-line for the south,
+marching only at night and avoiding all houses and villages. Then they
+thought of going west and working through into Morocco. One of them had
+found an old map of Northern Africa, and on this they had marked out
+their route. Their bayonets and the revolver they were going to steal
+were to be their weapons. They were not in the least afraid of Arabs or
+Moroccans, and about provisions they didn't worry themselves very much,
+as Herr von Rader cold-bloodedly pointed out that they were six strong
+men and could easily procure the necessaries of life by force. In
+reality they were very indifferent as to all these details. The only
+idea that they had in their heads was that they would soon have done
+with their wretched lives as légionnaires, and roam at large, free men
+once more.
+
+They were thoroughly infected with the fever for desertion, which was
+ever to be found in the Legion. Plans for flight and their feasibility
+were ever being discussed in whispers, and this formed a part of the
+Legion's atmosphere--desertion was always the favourite topic of
+conversation in quarters and in the canteen. This was only natural.
+There is not a single man in the Legion who does not sooner or later
+repent his folly, recognising that it was the maddest thing he ever did
+in his life when he signed that ominous contract in the enlistment
+bureau. He has to work as he never worked in his life before, and he
+has less money in his pocket than in the most needy times of his civil
+life. Even if he had been a miserable beggar, a wretched copper had not
+such an enormous value in his eyes nor had it been so hard to earn as
+in these days of poverty in the Foreign Legion. He is wretchedly poor,
+living under the strictest military discipline, working hard and
+getting less than nothing out of his life. At first the strangeness of
+his surroundings has a certain charm: but the harder he has to work and
+the oftener he becomes acquainted with the heavy penalties which no
+légionnaire escapes for long, the quicker comes the lust for freedom.
+
+The idea of flight gradually ripens in him. He talks about it with his
+friends; in every spare moment he washes and cleans for the
+non-commissioned officers to earn a few coppers, and every evening he
+sits with the veterans, with the old grey-haired fellows who have
+breathed the air of the Legion so long that they are no use for any
+other sort of work, and who, as if under a spell, no matter how often
+they have sworn never to don the red trousers again, always come back
+again to the Legion. They know Algeria like the palm of their own hand
+and gladly sell their priceless wisdom for a litre of canteen wine. But
+in this case good advice is not worth much.
+
+Money is the main necessity for flight. If good intentions counted for
+anything in the matter, the percentage of deserters would reach a
+fabulous figure; but the poor fellows who go out on foot, without a
+penny in their pockets, very seldom get away and are generally brought
+back in a few days by the gendarmes. Hunger and thirst almost always
+drive them into the Arab villages or to the Spanish peasant settlements
+on the main roads, which are so often patrolled that detection is
+unavoidable. Then is the wisdom of the old légionnaire a vain thing
+indeed--against enemies like hunger and thirst the truant can do
+nothing.
+
+In addition to the lust for freedom the légionnaire has generally got
+the cafard: a feeling of hatred for anything connected with the Legion,
+the extraordinary impulse which leads him to undertake the maddest and
+most hopeless things rather than stay a day longer in the Legion. When
+they are as ill as this the poor fellows run off no matter where,
+without the slightest consideration or preparation.
+
+The Legion has coined a special expression for this kind of desertion:
+"Going on pump"--in French, "Aller au poump." An extraordinary word of
+unknown origin.
+
+You "go on pump." One evening as we sat in quarters cleaning our
+leather equipment, an old légionnaire, an Austrian, suddenly got up.
+
+"You damned set of fools," he cried, "I'm going out. I'm going on
+pump."
+
+As he spoke he buckled on his bayonet.
+
+"I hope I'll never see the blasted lot of you again."
+
+He went out and never returned.
+
+Several weeks afterwards there was shown to us at roll-call the
+photograph of a body that had been horribly maimed. It was the
+Austrian. A patrol had found him by the Morocco frontier. The officer
+in command, to whose equipment according to regulation a camera
+belonged, had taken the photograph. Each company in the Legion got a
+copy of this awful picture, in order to identify the corpse. The
+regiment has quite a series of these pictures, all showing a man's
+naked body, hacked about in the most appalling fashion. This is the
+work of the Moroccan brigands, to whom the légionnaire, staggering
+hither and thither under the influence of the cafard, is a real source
+of joy. His uniform and bayonet are priceless possessions, easily won
+with a few sword-strokes. Besides, there is the consideration that
+Allah and his prophet reward a pious deed like torturing a dog of a
+Christian.
+
+Hundreds of légionnaires who have started out in cafard have met with
+this awful death in the desert, martyred, maimed and tortured.
+
+In general, however, the légionnaire finds going on pump, this flight
+into the desert, this mad rush for freedom without any real goal and
+without any sort of preparation, something quite natural that everybody
+tries once at any rate in the course of his career. In cafard....
+
+As a rule the men desert in little groups, without any equipment but
+the uniform they wear and the bayonet that clanks at their side. They
+go forth at night, before nine o'clock, while the barrack gates are
+still open, and run, under cover of the darkness, madly through the
+sandy vineyards. They are miserably cold in the chilly African night,
+and the pangs of hunger soon assail them. But they keep going on: they
+are accustomed to accomplish miracles of marching even when loaded with
+the Legion's heavy baggage; without it they cover enormous distances.
+Five minutes at the double with that long cat-like stride of the Legion
+which never tires those who have once got the knack of it--and then
+five minutes' marching. They go on like this without stopping all
+through the night, and in the morning the truants are a good sixty
+kilometres from the garrison. Arriving at some lonely farm or other in
+the grey of the morning, they obtain a crust of bread and a sip of
+wine. It is very seldom the sympathetic heart of the Spaniard that
+takes pity on them: no, it is more often the bayonets which advise him
+to be obliging and conciliatory. In the daytime the poumpistes hide
+among the rocks or bury themselves in a deep hole in the sand. When
+night comes on they start on their way once more, ever southwards,
+keeping their bearings by the stars as they have learnt to do in the
+Legion--for a very different purpose it is true. When they hear the
+sound of horses' hoofs they take cover in deadly terror and lie for
+hours, still as mice, until the patrol has long passed out of sight
+below the horizon. Thus the days pass by. Bands of energetic and
+enterprising runaways often terrorise the Arabs in the lonely
+settlements for weeks on end, until the oppressed ones send for help
+and a fight results in which the deserters are of course sadly worsted.
+
+Desperate fellows "on pump," who are determined to reach Morocco at any
+price, sometimes succeed in getting hold of a rifle. They have then a
+weapon to defend themselves against the brigands. They cannot take
+their own rifles with them, for with rifles they would never be allowed
+to pass the barrack gates.
+
+A tough old veteran, who knows the frontier, marches with the utmost
+care. He knows that there is a triple row of tents, a quarter of a
+kilometre apart. One dark night he creeps through. This operation takes
+a long time to carry out. The tents, it is true, are a long way apart
+from each other, and it seems easy enough to get through. But this is
+only at first sight. For every 200 yards there stands a sentry guarding
+the line till the next tent is reached.
+
+The line of tents is almost endless. Were the deserter to attempt to
+creep through direct or even in a slanting direction, he could not
+possibly avoid being noticed by one of the sentries who are stationed
+in a triangular arrangement. But he knows the trick. He creeps through
+100 yards from a sentry and then strikes off at an angle of 45 degrees
+until he reaches the next row. Then straight on once more and then off
+again at an angle....
+
+Now he works himself, crawling on his stomach and burying himself in
+the sand for hours at a time, up to a tent in the outside line. He
+steps silently into the tent, feels about with care--and he is the
+possessor of a rifle and a cartridge-belt. Thus armed he has now a
+chance of life and of getting safely across Morocco.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+In most cases, however, after a few days of golden freedom, a freedom
+consisting of perpetual marching and ceaseless hunger, the man on pump
+meets his fate in the shape of a band of mounted "Goums,"[5] and finds
+himself, after a very short space of time, looking down the muzzles of
+their revolvers. He then has to go back the same way he came, fastened
+by a long chain to one of the Goums' horses, panting and coughing with
+the exertion of keeping up with the horse, which he must do if he
+doesn't want to be dragged over the sand and stones. Thus he is taken
+from station to station till the garrison is reached. If he is lucky
+enough not to have lost any part of his equipment and has not been
+absent more than a week, he is tried by the regiment, and gets off with
+sixty days' cellule--solitary confinement in the dark. If, however, any
+part of his uniform is missing, he is tried for theft and desertion by
+the court-martial in Oran, which is noted for its Draconic sentences.
+
+ [5] "Goums" is the Legion's name for the Arab gendarmes.
+
+"Traveaux forcés," penal servitude for years, is then his fate--a
+penalty which usually means death, for there are very few constitutions
+that can stand the terrible life in the penal settlements.
+
+Rader and his friends were poumpistes of this type. One evening the man
+of strong language and never-failing wit was missing when the roll was
+called. Several others were reported missing from various rooms, and
+the next morning the whole company knew that six Germans had deserted
+_en bloc_.
+
+The sergeant of our section made a list of the uniform and equipment
+Herr von Rader had left behind. He cursed, as only a lazy sergeant in
+the Legion can curse, his own personal bad luck because the six
+deserters, being in his company, now gave him a lot of work and worry.
+At the evening roll-call the colour-sergeant appeared in person in our
+room and ordered Corporal Wassermann to take good care that no more of
+the men under his charge deserted: otherwise he'd make it d----d hot
+for him. The captain, however, sent for all the Germans in his company.
+
+He made us a long speech in the company's bureau:
+
+We had all served our time in Germany and we ought really to be content
+with the life in his company. There was no flogging in the Legion! When
+anybody thought he had a ground for complaint he should report himself
+at once to the captain. The Legion was a regiment of foreigners, and
+one nation was treated in exactly the same way as another: a German
+soldier in it had naturally exactly the same rights as every one else.
+He would be very sorry if his men took to deserting. It was quite
+hopeless to try! A description of the deserters had been telegraphed
+long ago to all the stations in Algeria, the police all along the coast
+were on the look-out, and in a few days we should see the truants
+brought back to the regiment.
+
+"You only get into trouble when you desert, as it is very heavily
+punished!"
+
+"The whole thing is this," said Smith when we came back into our room.
+"The cap'n is champion fencer of France, and thinks he must be always
+practising in the fencing saloon! He hasn't the least idea what things
+really look like in the company!"
+
+Even a raw recruit knew much more of what went on in the company than
+its leader. The non-commissioned officers took very good care that the
+captain did not learn too much....
+
+In reality the colour-sergeant and the non-commissioned officers were
+all-powerful. The captain was merely what one might call the owner of
+the business, who signed the punishment sheets and reports which his
+managers laid before him, without bothering his head about details. The
+non-coms had the mess-allowance in their hands, put down whatever men
+they pleased on the punishment sheet for absolutely nothing at all, and
+would very quickly have done to death any one who made a complaint,
+even if at first he got his rights by complaining.
+
+"By the beard of the Prophet," laughed Smith, "I'd like to see what
+happened to the chap who made a complaint. Why, the whole bally lot of
+non-coms would be down on him in less than no time, and in a couple of
+weeks he'd be a Zephyr in the penal battalion. That's what happens when
+you complain, Signor Capitano. But he's quite right about deserting is
+our champion captain. We do see most of 'em again."
+
+Then he went over to Rassedin and asked him if he thought that Rader
+and the other five poumpistes would get away. Rassedin shook his head
+and laughed, making with his thumb and forefinger that counting gesture
+which means paying all the world over.
+
+"No money," he said dryly.
+
+The other veterans too thought that Rader and the other five were not
+the sort of men who would succeed in surmounting the difficulties of a
+flight unprovided with money.
+
+The flight of the six comrades was an inexhaustible topic of
+conversation in the company. Smith used to spin one yarn after another
+of mad bids for freedom. Two of these histories I shall never forget.
+
+While Smith was in the second battalion at Saida, there were two
+brothers in his company, two Englishmen of good birth. The final and
+maddest freak of their mad lives landed them in the Legion. When their
+family learnt that they were wearing the Legion's uniform, they did all
+they could to procure their freedom. In vain! Petitions to the French
+Secretary of War were of no avail, and the English Consul in Algiers
+naturally refused to intervene. Finally the two brothers were sent a
+large sum of money and they tried their luck at deserting. They were no
+farther than Saida station when they were arrested and marched back to
+prison.
+
+As soon as they were free again they made a second attempt at flight
+and got as far as Oran. But their descriptions had been telegraphed
+there and they were arrested as they were going on board the steamer.
+This time they were sent for six months to the penal battalion.
+
+The poor devils must have written despairing letters home. Their
+relations were determined to get them free at any price. With an
+English merchant as go-between, they bribed a Levantine, who hired an
+automobile and waited days and days by Saida, in the neighbourhood
+where the convicts had to work. After long delay the brothers succeeded
+in escaping at night from their tent. They reached the appointed
+rendezvous in safety, found the Levantine with his motor waiting for
+them, and started off as quickly as the sand would allow. The
+automobile, however, had attracted notice in Saida, and the military
+authorities came at once on the idea that these dauntless deserters had
+hit on the unusual method of flight by motor-car. Telegrams flew from
+station to station, and the Arab police barricaded a narrow part of the
+road a little north of Sidi-bel-Abbès, which passes at this point
+through a rocky part of the country, absolutely impassable for
+vehicles.
+
+A short time afterwards the motor came up. The runaways took no notice
+of the warnings of the gendarmes who rode to meet them, and crashed at
+full speed into the pile of stones. The motor was overturned, the two
+deserters being killed immediately. The Levantine was seriously injured
+and brought into the hospital at Sidi-bel-Abbès, where he died a few
+days later.
+
+The other story is a really sad one.
+
+An Austrian engineer had, as a young man, for some reason or other
+enlisted in the Foreign Legion. After a while he managed to escape and
+worked his way home to Austria again. He must have been a clever
+fellow, for he soon gained a distinguished position in his profession.
+Fortune smiled upon him. He made a notable invention, which made him a
+wealthy man. Ambition led him to send the machine he had invented to
+the World's Exhibition in Paris. In the distinguished engineer nobody
+would recognise the deserter from the Foreign Legion--at least so he
+thought. But cruel fate willed otherwise. Standing by his machine at
+the exhibition he was recognised by an officer from his company who was
+just then on leave in Paris.
+
+The officer did his duty as a soldier and had the deserter arrested. At
+one blow the man who had worked his way from the depths of poverty to
+the top of his profession, who looked upon the days in the Legion as
+merely a dark shadow on his life, became once more a légionnaire. A few
+days in a Parisian military prison, a few hours' journey by rail in a
+prisoners' compartment, the short sea-voyage to Oran, the cruel minutes
+before the court-martial--and then perpetual, blunting work in an
+Algerian mine, truly a living death. And thus this man had to live for
+many a long month, till the horrible climate carried him off....
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Flight from the Legion is always a risky and difficult undertaking,
+risky since there is always the severest punishment waiting for the
+deserter who gets caught. Even the possession of really plentiful means
+is no guarantee for a successful flight. There are so many hindrances
+to surmount, such a mountain of difficulties to be climbed.
+
+To begin at the beginning.
+
+The Ghetto of Sidi-bel-Abbès supplies the clothes. Buying civilian
+clothes is the first chapter of a légionnaire's flight, the first part
+of his preparations for which the would-be deserter needs not only
+money but also a finely developed talent for haggling and bargaining.
+To open negotiations is very easy: the légionnaire simply addresses a
+passer-by in one of the little alleys and whispers to him that he knows
+of some one who would perhaps buy civilian clothes. In one case in a
+hundred the passer-by shakes his head and goes his way. In the
+ninety-nine other cases he looks pleased, and in just such a whisper
+tells the légionnaire to follow him into his house without attracting
+attention. Once there, the bargaining begins. Heaps of old clothes are
+fetched, until something is found somewhere about the customer's size.
+Boots, shirt, collar, hat, and tie are all found. To an honest man of
+business the transaction would seem somewhat strange.
+
+These Ghetto transactions have an underlying principle of their own:
+furnish as poor goods as possible at as high a price as you can get!
+The buyer is already nervous at the prospect of his flight, so, in
+spite of all, he pays an absolutely fabulous price. Fifty francs is
+usually the price of an old suit, of which the trousers come, perhaps,
+from Germany, the waistcoat from France, and the coat from Italy, and
+which would be very dear at ten francs. The "business friend" next
+claims a gold piece for allowing the légionnaire to change his clothes
+in his house; a further gold piece arranges for the care of his
+uniform, which a légionnaire who is at all careful will not be
+persuaded so easily to leave in the lurch. For the deserter captured
+without his uniform is tried for theft by court-martial, and the
+military tribunal in Oran always passes sentence of a long term of
+penal servitude. But the man of Israel is willing enough--provided he
+gets a gold piece for it--to take care that the uniform and entire
+equipment of his customer is safely preserved for the poor regiment.
+Neatly bound together the uniform lies idle for a few days. Then, one
+dark night, a youth from the Ghetto throws the parcel over the wall of
+the barracks. A ticket has been pinned on beforehand, on which the name
+and number of the owner has been written so that the gentlemen in the
+quarter-master's office needn't cudgel their brains wondering how to
+register this parcel from heaven.
+
+All so considerate!
+
+The runaway, however, wanders through the alleys of the Jewish quarter
+and the streets of Sidi-bel-Abbès, taking great care to avoid
+instinctively saluting the officers and non-coms he meets. His money,
+with which he bought his civilian clothes, and of which there is still
+enough for his railway journey and passage, is a mighty help to him.
+
+He must not attract notice anywhere; he must bridle his tongue, lest
+the curious French which is individual to the Legion betray him, and he
+must act the rôle of the harmless traveller to a nicety. He naturally
+cannot begin his journey from the station of Sidi-bel-Abbès, which is
+watched by a commando of the Legion's non-commissioned officers day and
+night. No, he must go on foot to one of the stations on the way to his
+destination; the farther from Sidi-bel-Abbès he is, the less likely he
+is to attract attention. So he makes a long night march, keeping a
+sharp look-out for the patrols of Arab police. Then comes the railway
+journey to a coast town. The only two towns that come in question are
+Oran and the town of Algiers, since regular lines of steamers only run
+from these two ports. Oran is mostly avoided, because it is so near to
+Sidi-bel-Abbès, and because there are so many of the Legion's officers
+to be met with there. The journey to Algiers, on the other hand, is
+very expensive, and it often happens that the truant's money is
+exhausted, and he lands there penniless. In this case German
+légionnaires usually go to the German Consulate, but only receive the
+stereotyped reply that there is no money at the Consul's disposal "for
+purposes like this."
+
+The Consulate is not only powerless to help them, but, into the
+bargain, is one of the best and most efficient mouse-traps a French
+gendarme could want. Old légionnaires always give you the same warning:
+"For the Lord's sake don't go to the Consul in Algiers." If, in spite
+of this, a deserter does go to the Consul, he is merely told that he
+cannot possibly gain assistance there.
+
+And now the trap begins to do its work. The police in Algiers know well
+enough that there are a great many escaped légionnaires among the men
+who come to the Consulate. When any one comes out looking in the least
+bit suspicious, they receive him tenderly and inquire lovingly about
+his papers. The deserter is then done for....
+
+I should like to know whether the German Consul in Algiers has the
+slightest idea that, in all innocence, he has been the ruin of so many
+German légionnaires.
+
+The runaway whose money has been swallowed up by the railway journey
+and who cannot pay his passage over sea, must in most cases give
+himself up for lost. It is generally only a question of a few days till
+he is arrested. A careless word in a wine-shop, a lame excuse when he
+seeks work and can show no papers--in short, the whole system of
+denunciation which is so flourishing in Algiers very soon hands him
+over to the police.
+
+And even when he has money enough to pay his passage on one of the
+Mediterranean lines, and has his ticket safe in his pocket, he is not
+yet in safety. Most of the runaways who have succeeded in reaching
+Algiers make the mistake of taking a passage on one of the German or
+English lines of steamers, and is arrested at the eleventh hour as he
+goes on board. It is on the foreign ships that they keep a specially
+sharp eye. On the French boats, on the other hand, which ply between
+Algiers and Oran, you don't need any papers or even a passport, because
+the authorities look upon these boats as an internal French means of
+communication.
+
+The route from Algiers to Tunis is absolutely safe for the deserter.
+There, nobody notices him in the enormous rush of the Levantine
+traffic, and he needs no passport to cross to an Italian port. But the
+expense is enormous.
+
+Among the légionnaires who desert, the number of those who can escape
+in civilian clothes by the comparatively safe way of the railway and
+the Mediterranean boats is very small. Travelling costs money.... A
+flight over the town of Algiers needs really quite a little
+capital--150 francs at least. This is a very low estimate, for the
+purchase of clothes alone takes about seventy francs. How few of the
+men in the Legion can raise such a sum like this!
+
+In most cases they are poor devils who have no one in the wide world
+who could or would send them a sum of this sort; most of them never had
+a franc to their name while they were in the Legion, to say nothing of
+a gold coin. Men like this are seldom successful in their flight, even
+when they spend months and months in preparation and discuss their
+route a hundred times over with the veterans of the Legion. They don't
+run blindly into the desert like the poumpistes, who don't really want
+more than a few days of runaway freedom. Their way is also to the
+coast. In uniform! On foot!
+
+In these two expressions there is expressed the deserter's whole
+difficulty. Although the distance from Sidi-bel-Abbès to the coast is
+only about one hundred kilometres, not a very great stretch for a
+légionnaire who is accustomed to long marches, it is beset with danger
+for every yard of the way. The runaway can be recognised a long way off
+by his uniform. True, he only marches by night. But the starlit nights
+of Algeria are very bright, and he has to creep from rock to rock and
+from hollow to hollow, to avoid being seen by the patrols. By day he
+lies motionless in the sand. He suffers hunger and thirst for days on
+end, and lives on fruits, which he steals when hunger drives him to
+risk discovery.
+
+When he has reached the coast in safety, the game of hide-and-seek
+begins anew. He often lies for days in some little coast town, where
+the Mediterranean tramp-steamers touch, concealed in a shed or in some
+old boat on the shore, till a ship carrying the German or English flag
+comes into port. He swims out to this ship in the middle of the night,
+climbs on board, and hides in one of the ship's boats, or in the
+coal-bunker. He first makes his appearance when the ship is on the high
+seas as a more or less pleasant surprise for the captain. He is now
+safe--they can hardly throw him overboard. There are, moreover, a great
+many captains who shut their eyes when a runaway of this sort is
+discovered, and even if the ship is still lying in port do not give him
+up. There are some even who carry their humanity so far as to stand a
+certain amount of unpleasantness with the authorities for his sake.
+
+These are mostly German ships, and above all, ships from Hamburg.
+Deserters from the Legion land over and over again in the old Hansa
+town, and again and again you may read in the Hamburg daily papers that
+deserters have arrived with such and such a ship, and have been taken
+charge of by the police authorities. Now and then they go just as they
+stand, in their uniform, with bayonet and all the rest of it, to the
+paper's offices and tell the worried editor about their life and
+sorrows in the Legion....
+
+These are those who have had luck; the tiny proportion of penniless
+deserters who are successful in their flight. Not freedom but prison
+awaits the large majority at the finish of their attempt. The Arab
+gendarmes are paid a bonus on the deserters they arrest, which amounts
+to many thousand francs a year!
+
+The regiment is acquainted with many other means of desertion, if by
+"desertion" you understand every means by which the deserter can free
+himself from work in the Legion. In the terrible heat of summer, when
+the difference in temperature between day and night is simply enormous,
+sickness, in many a grim form, stalks through Algeria. The drinking
+water becomes infected, and typhoid sets in: the légionnaire who is
+tired of active service can be pretty sure of a long spell of illness.
+
+But to make quite certain he helps matters artificially--with an
+extraordinary measure in vogue in the Legion: he drinks a mixture of
+absinthe and milk. Every veteran in the Legion swears this hellish
+drink never fails to bring on an attack of fever! The object of this
+suicidal method of desertion is naturally to avoid work in the Legion
+by a long spell of sickness--its object is always attained; mostly so
+effectively that the man never takes his place on parade again, but
+rests for ever in the Legion's cemetery!
+
+In the same way self-mutilation may be met with: the chopping off of a
+finger which renders the légionnaire unfit for active service. Others
+simulate illness or madness. This the suspiciousness and brutality of
+the doctors in the Legion renders very difficult. Now and then a
+légionnaire with a will of iron manages to play the comedy of madness
+successfully.
+
+The means employed are sometimes rather drastic. Some years before I
+entered the Legion, a Belgian served in my company who shammed for a
+whole year. He dirtied the men's quarters in such a fashion that his
+comrades fell upon him and ill-treated him in every possible way, but
+he merely answered their curses and reprisals with an inane laugh.
+Neither curses nor blows seemed to make the least difference to him.
+
+This fellow had grit. He played his part as a lunatic, as unpleasant
+for himself as well as for others, without ever wavering. They shut him
+up, they compelled him to do the hardest work, they brought him into
+hospital and wellnigh starved him or tortured him with drugs; he was
+confined for weeks in the dark, he was sent to the hospital at Daya and
+treated with cold water--all in vain! His method and his smile remained
+unchanged! After thirteen months the doctors felt themselves
+checkmated, gave up the job as hopeless and certified him mad. The
+colonel, purely out of curiosity, sent for the lunatic, who must needs
+have an attack of his particular malady in the regimental bureau
+itself.
+
+As soon, however, as he was home again in Belgium, he wrote postcards
+to the officers and to several members of his company.... He had foiled
+them all and they were the idiots! The most unmitigated ass of them in
+his humble opinion was the regimental doctor! If possible the
+surgeon-major in the Algerian corps was a bigger fool still!
+
+Tremendous energy is, however, necessary to bring a sham of this sort
+to a successful issue, and cases like this constitute a tiny minority.
+The doctors in the Foreign Legion are both clever and suspicious and
+the result is that there is always a good dose of Legion's brutality
+included in their treatment. All those who reported themselves sick,
+and hadn't some outward and visible sign of their ailment to show, were
+treated from beginning to end as shams.
+
+Our médecin-major was an especial terror to the légionnaires. I only
+came into personal contact with him twice; the first time was on a
+manoeuvre march when he refused me the medicine I wanted, and the
+other time was when I was vaccinated. There was an epidemic of
+small-pox in Sidi-bel-Abbès, and the whole of the Legion had to be
+vaccinated as quickly as possible. We were marched by companies into
+the great drill-hall where Monsieur le Major and his assistants were at
+work. Such a method of vaccination as this man employed I have never
+seen in my life and I have been vaccinated at least a dozen times. I am
+acquainted with every method of vaccination, from the gentle
+lancet-prick employed in Germany to the method in use in America, where
+they pare away the skin with a piece of ivory. As our company marched
+past the assembled doctors in Indian file I saw to my astonishment that
+the men were bleeding severely. When my turn came I flinched
+involuntarily--the doctor drove the lancet three times so forcibly into
+my upper arm that a regular fountain of blood spurted out.
+
+It was pure brutality. Nothing more or less. This was typical of the
+man. It was his custom, the first time a man reported himself ill, to
+send him back to his company and give him three days' arrest for
+shamming. If the fellow appeared again he tried the effect of emetics
+followed by a long period of starvation. The only time he was supposed
+to be reasonable was when he saw symptoms of typhoid, which was his
+special hobby.
+
+The Legion was thoroughly afraid of the hospital! They were desperate
+fellows indeed who tried shamming!
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The topic of desertion from the Foreign Legion is wellnigh
+inexhaustible. When the transports sail from Oran or Marseilles to
+Indo-China with relief companies of the Legion on board, the Suez Canal
+is a favourite means of deserting. According to the Canal regulations
+the steamers must slacken speed in the narrow straits of Suez, and the
+légionnaire takes the opportunity to jump overboard. He swims the short
+stretch to land and is then safe. The sentries on the transports may
+not use firearms in the international waters of the Suez Canal, and
+therefore cannot fire on the deserter as he swims. Neither is
+extradition from the English or Egyptian authorities to be feared.
+
+Several of these transports from the Foreign Legion pass through the
+Suez Canal every year, and these desertions are so frequent that the
+Ghetto of Port Said pays a fixed price of ten shillings for the capital
+service boots of the Legion!
+
+Desertions _en masse_ occur now and then, but these may be classed
+as mutinies rather than as desertions. In Southern Algeria, in the
+loneliness of the desert, the garrison of some small fort occasionally
+breaks out, marching for the Morocco frontier. The next bevy of troops
+soon brings the runaways back again, and even if it comes to a shot or
+two the superiority of the numbers against them soon brings the
+mutineers to reason. A mutiny like this generally ends in the mutineers
+being shot. An act of this sort is nothing else than an outbreak of
+madness caused by the dreadful monotony of service on the lonely
+stations in the desert. It is an outbreak of the cafard! The poor
+devils should be treated by a doctor instead of being sentenced by a
+court-martial.
+
+The Foreign Legion is a fruitful field for hypnotic suggestion. In my
+time a number of légionnaires deserted from Sidi-bel-Abbès, with the
+intention of fighting their way through to Morocco. Morocco was just
+then talked about till the idea became surrounded with a sort of halo.
+The attempt itself was pretty hopeless--the men were driven to it by
+the suggestive power of the words, "le Maroc."
+
+Morocco was the Legion's fairyland, the land the soldier longed for.
+Not a single day went by without a rumour of fighting in Morocco
+raising excitement in the Foreign Legion to fever pitch. Dark
+war-clouds were gathering on the horizon. From the frontier there came
+continual reports of the intrigues of the pretender, and in the inland
+of Morocco mighty battles were fought at short intervals. Among the
+watchful officers of French Africa every one was certain that the
+internal troubles in Morocco were not merely the petty splutterings of
+the usual native fireworks, but the first sparks of a mighty bonfire.
+
+The Foreign Legion knew of this; then all that was discussed in the
+officers' mess filtered through to the regiment through its own various
+private channels.
+
+Orderlies came rushing into the barracks in a fever of excitement as
+soon as they came off duty in the mess and told their friends in the
+Legion all about the heated debates that had taken place and which all
+revolved around Morocco. The servants of the staff officers brought
+news of Moroccan visitors closeted with their masters; Spahis who had
+served their time in the Morocco frontier garrisons and who were
+quartered on the regiment on their way through to Oran, told how sharp
+duty on the frontier now was, and how the garrisons were perpetually
+being strengthened.
+
+The veterans put their heads together and discussed the prospects of a
+bloody war! They had wonderful stories to tell of the golden treasures
+of Morocco, of the jewels that the better classes wore, and in their
+fancy they pictured an Eldorado of plundered wealth and booty. These
+mysterious rumours grew from day to day. More than half of the
+regiment's officers were ordered to the little frontier towns, and it
+was not unnatural when the Legion found in this a sure sign of fighting
+to come. With a broad smirk, an orderly brought the news that the
+colonel had engaged two masters to teach him Arabic, and it was easy to
+see how proud he was of the enormous supply of ammunition which was
+sent out from France. Recruiting began with zeal in the Spahi barracks
+opposite. Arab recruits with their splendid horses joined daily.
+Sections for telegraph duty went off to the frontier to see to the old
+wires and to lay new ones; volunteers were called for to form a corps
+for the heliographs, and veterans whose time was up got the tip from
+one or other of the officers that it would be very much to their
+advantage to stay on and not to take their dismissal just then....
+
+In this roundabout way, through non-coms, orderlies, and soldier
+servants, everything was perhaps very much distorted, but it all
+sounded very probable and typical. The Legion is like a mighty
+ear-trumpet--through its countless channels it gathers up the officers'
+gossip and intrigues for its own uses, and really knows a good deal
+about the state of affairs in Northern Africa; it knows that the
+military circles at the head of affairs in Algeria have their own axe
+to grind, and that the clever catch-phrase "pénétration pacifique" was
+formed in an officers' club, and that greedy squinting at Morocco is as
+old as the occupation of Algeria!
+
+It was as if every one stood under the ban of a mesmerist. The longing
+for "le Maroc" spread to the légionnaires, who gave practical evidence
+of their longing for change and excitement, deserting in crowds. Most
+of them met their deaths. The border tribes cut their throats.
+
+Others had more luck. In the army of the pretender, the present Sultan,
+Mulai Hafid, there used to be several officers who were once soldiers
+of the Foreign Legion!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A CHAPTER ON PUNISHMENTS
+
+The return of the poumpistes : The scale of punishments in the Legion :
+Of spiteful non-commissioned officers : The Legion's axiom : Sad
+history of Little Jean : The punishment machine : Lost years : A
+légionnaire's earnings in five years--francs 127.75 : The prisons in
+the Foreign Legion : Pestilential atmosphere : Human sardines : The
+general cells : Life in the prison : On sentry duty among the prisoners
+
+
+"Nom de Dieu!--voilà les poumpistes!" cried the sergeant of the guard
+at the barrack gates. Every one sprang up. We of the guard (my company
+was on guard that day) crowded round the gate; the adjutant
+vaguemestre, the regimental postmaster, ran out of his little office
+opposite the guard-room; a couple of officers came up, and légionnaires
+streamed out from everywhere in a wild rush for the entrance to the
+barracks.
+
+"The poumpistes have come back!" they cried to each other.
+
+It was in fact the truants from our company, poor Rader and his five
+friends. They were indeed a pitiful sight. Two gendarmes brought them
+in. They were all six bound together by a thin steel chain. Their dirty
+uniforms hung around them in rags; they were faint and emaciated and
+looked dead tired. Their faces were scarred. Rader had a blood-stained
+bandage round his right arm. In their eyes you could read the deadly
+fear of the punishment that awaited them.
+
+They had, of course, been treated pretty badly by the gendarmes. They
+looked round them shyly, ashamed of their helplessness and of their
+fetters. Herr von Rader alone had not lost his sense of humour.
+
+"How are you? Glad to see you!" he said to the sergeant! "I am back
+again all right."
+
+In the little bureau of the officer of the day the two gendarmes had
+their depositions taken and received the usual receipt from the
+regiment for the safe delivery of the deserters. They withdrew looking
+very pleased with themselves, for this receipt was worth 25 francs,
+entitling them to their reward.
+
+The poumpistes were kept waiting in front of the guard-room, still
+joined together by the chain. When Herr von Rader noticed me, he
+greeted me with many head-shakings:
+
+"Damned rotten business!" he said quite loud. "Mein Freund, they didn't
+make me a medicine man after all. The conjuring didn't work! All at
+once five damned Arab gendarmes rode up to us, holding their revolvers
+under our noses. I couldn't conjure them away.... Positively couldn't!
+Well, and then we had to walk back. Say, I don't care much about
+promenading when I am tied to a horse's tail. And the beggar of a horse
+did run, I can tell you--and I behind it--because I was tied to its
+tail, see?"
+
+"Silence!" commanded the sergeant. "No talking here."
+
+When the formalities of the surrender were over, the six deserters (I
+was one of the guard who escorted them with fixed bayonets) were
+marched off to prison.
+
+The keys rattled. The sergeant of the guard considered it necessary to
+give vent to his bad humour in many superfluous remarks about "the
+dirty, ragged, good-for-nothing lot of poumpistes, whom the penal
+battalion would soon cure of skinning out," and gave Rader, who was the
+last to cross the cell's threshold, a mighty kick. Rader fell at full
+length. Then the heavy door swung to behind them....
+
+A few years ago Herr von Rader and his companions would have been
+sentenced to quite a curious kind of punishment which was at that time
+considered in the Foreign Legion to be a radical cure for deserters--a
+kind of mediæval torture which, by the way, was not kept for deserters
+solely, but came into use very often. This was the "silo" and the
+"crapaudine."
+
+The silo consisted of a funnel-shaped hole in the ground, broad at the
+top and pointed towards the bottom. A regular funnel. Into this hole,
+used as a cell for solitary confinement, the misdoers would be thrown,
+clad only in a thin suit of fatigue clothes, without a blanket or any
+protection at all against the rain or against the sun, at the mercy of
+the heat by day and the cold by night. The poor devils would be left
+for several days in this "prison." They could not lie down, for the
+bottom part of the hole was only one or two feet square. They spent day
+and night alternately standing and crouching, now in pouring rain, now
+in the burning sun. They very soon became ill from the foul vapours.
+When at length they were taken out of the silo, they could neither walk
+nor stand and had to be carried into hospital. Now and then a silo
+prisoner died in his hole.
+
+They say in the Foreign Legion that it was General de Négrier who
+abolished the silo. When he was inspecting Saida, he found a row of
+fifteen silos, one beside the other, and every single one occupied.
+
+He had the unfortunates taken out and they fell down in a dead faint on
+coming into the fresh air. Thereupon the general had every one of the
+silos filled up before his own eyes and forbade the silo penalty ever
+being used again.
+
+A more primitive but perhaps a still more brutal torture was the
+crapaudine. The man to be punished was simply tied up into a bundle and
+thrown into a corner, his hands and feet being tied together on his
+back, till they formed a sort of semicircle. Such a crapaudinaire lay
+there helpless day and night, totally unable to move. The most he could
+do when he tried very hard was to roll from one side to the other. For
+a quarter of an hour a day he would be set free and got bread to eat
+and water to drink. A day and a night in the crapaudine was enough to
+deprive a man of the use of his limbs--several days gave him his
+quietus.
+
+This penalty has also been abolished. It exists still in a milder form.
+In the field and on the march an offender is often punished by being
+bound to two posts driven into the ground.
+
+To-day the punishments in the Legion are not quite as cruel as they
+once were. At any rate their cruelty is not quite so apparent. Rader's
+friends got off with fourteen days' prison, while he himself, after
+waiting in prison an age for his trial, was sentenced by court-martial.
+The poor fellow had lost his cap and belt and got a year's penal
+servitude for "theft of equipment." What happened to him there I have
+never heard.
+
+There is no fixed penalty for desertion. In general the poumpistes are
+treated pretty mildly and sentenced, when they happen to be recruits,
+to 40 to 120 days' prison. Only when they are recruits. The veterans
+are always brought before the court-martial. But this is merely the
+general rule; if, for instance, a deserter has managed to get for some
+reason or another into the sergeant's or some other non-commissioned
+officer's "black books," the charge against him will be certain to
+include the loss of some part of his uniform, even when this is not in
+the least the case. The Foreign Legion has its own ideas of the
+subjects of pains and penalties.
+
+Viewed from the surface of things, there actually is a sort of scale of
+punishment. At the beginning comes extra corvée, which is quite bad
+enough. For little omissions in the daily routine, for a paquetage not
+quite accurately put together, or for a button not polished well
+enough, the offender can be sentenced by the sergeant of his section to
+perform the heavy duties of the corvée, while his comrades are making
+their repairs or having instructions. As long as I served in the Legion
+I was never punished for a fault of my own, not even with extra
+corvée--I took good care not to give the slightest excuse for
+punishment. More than once, however, I made the acquaintance of general
+corvée. This was our sergeant's speciality. When he inspected our
+quarters in the morning and found some petty excuse for finding fault,
+he did not bother with details, but just said:
+
+"Eh, corporal! A dirty, nasty room! Disgusting! The whole lot of you
+extra corvée this afternoon, under your supervision, corporal!"
+
+Whereupon the corporal cursed and every fellow in the room
+anathematised the sergeant as a "sale cochon"--a filthy swine. As the
+"swine," however, was clothed with the bristles of authority, the extra
+corvée had to be performed in spite of all curses and anathemas.
+
+Pretty nearly as frequent as this was confinement to barracks. This
+comes next in the scale of punishments and is always connected with
+"salle de police." Salle de police is only another name for the general
+cells in the prisons. Above all the offenders are not allowed to leave
+the barracks in their spare time. In other respects they do their duty
+as usual. When their day's work is finished, however, at five o'clock,
+they are called out every half-hour and sometimes every quarter of an
+hour to the drill-ground, where their names are called over by the
+sergeant of the guard. Any one who happens to miss one of these
+roll-calls finds himself in prison for a week. In their fear of not
+hearing the signal the men have not a single minute's quiet, and can
+hardly find time to clean their kit for the morrow. At nine o'clock, at
+the evening roll-call, they must report themselves in the guard-room,
+and are shut up in the salle de police for the night--in the general
+cells, which are filled to overflowing. Sleep among the crush of men
+and in that nauseating atmosphere is only possible for a few hours,
+when the tired body demands its right in spite of the disgusting
+surroundings. Next morning at five they are dismissed and have to
+perform the usual routine work with the rest of the company. Eight
+days' "salle de police" are looked upon as a very light punishment--a
+sure sign that the average légionnaire's susceptibilities are not all
+too fine.
+
+Salle de police was something quite in the ordinary run of affairs for
+us: confinement to barracks was a part of life in the Legion. In our
+quarters I was the only man who had not made its acquaintance, and that
+was the merest chance, luck plain and simple.
+
+No one excited himself about extra corvée and confinement to barracks.
+Every single man in the Legion had, however, a mighty respect for the
+prison.
+
+Prison, arrest in the regimental lock-up, is the Legion's real
+punishment. Imprisonment in the Legion is made up of the hardest work
+possible, and living under the most awful sanitary conditions; one can
+only form an idea of what this punishment is like when one has had a
+look at the Legion's prisons.[6]
+
+ [6] See close of chapter.
+
+Next comes "cellule," solitary confinement on starvation diet.
+
+Then come the "Zephyrs," those condemned to the penal battalion. Every
+two or three weeks a transport of Zephyrs left the barracks in old
+ragged uniforms. In the battalion itself they have to wear the
+coffee-brown clothes of the convict.
+
+"The sections for the reformation of incorrigibles" is the official
+name for this battalion, and deportation to the Zephyrs is the severest
+punishment which can be put into execution without the authority of a
+court-martial. The official grasp of the meaning of the word
+incorrigible is, however, a trifle strange sometimes. Under the
+strictest surveillance these unfortunates carry on pioneer work in the
+far south. They make roads, they dig wells, they build new stations in
+the most unhealthy parts of Algeria, far removed from all civilisation.
+They have to work as even a légionnaire, to whom the hardest work is so
+familiar, would only work under the sternest compulsion. And if extra
+pioneer work is needed in the south, if, for instance, a new road is to
+be built, the battalion's numbers increase with amazing rapidity. It is
+really astonishing how the number of incorrigibles in the Legion
+increases just when the military administration needs men--for work!
+
+"Much work--many Zephyrs!" says the Legion's proverb.
+
+The scale finishes with the heavy military punishments, from penal
+servitude to the death sentence, and here the decision of the Algerian
+court-martial in Oran is final. Its sentences are renowned for their
+pitiless severity. To be brought before this court-martial the
+légionnaire need not have committed any very grave offence. It is
+enough if he has lost some part of his uniform.
+
+In a well-known French historical work on the subject of the Foreign
+Legion, Roger de Beauvoir writes:
+
+"Each of the two discipline sections is 150 men strong: of these 300,
+200 at least are in the penal section for selling part of their kit.
+It used to be the custom to 'let the stomach pay' for this offence,
+_i.e._, the offender was put on bread and water till he had replaced
+the lost equipment from the mess allowance that was saved. This
+punishment was finally considered too barbarously old-fashioned, and
+the court-martial took its place, which passes sentence of six months'
+imprisonment. The légionnaires long for the old régime!"
+
+And thereby hangs a tale.
+
+A very sad story, too.... No sensible man will attempt to dispute the
+fact that iron discipline is essential for the lurid mixture of human
+material in the Legion. If the justice of the Foreign Legion was in
+practice what it is in theory--stern but just--one could not say a word
+against it. It is, however, only just in theory, in the intention of
+the military law-makers. In reality it is the justice of unlimited
+tyranny; made so by the individual tyranny of officers and
+non-commissioned officers in individual cases, and in general by an
+obstinate tenacity to the letter of the law.
+
+Every French officer and every French court-martial acts under the
+time-honoured assumption that the légionnaire makes a brave soldier,
+but is in all other respects a thoroughbred rogue and knave, and that
+one cannot go far wrong in assuming the worst about him. The word of a
+superior is always accepted as proof of guilt. There is no better
+illustration of this than the everlasting heavy penalties which are
+meted out for "theft of equipment." This sort of theft exists, of
+course. Theft is not a thing to be very much wondered at when the men's
+wages are five centimes a day.
+
+But many hundreds of innocents are punished for this offence in the
+course of a year.
+
+The favourite trick of non-commissioned officers, when they have a
+spite against a man, is to inspect his kit suddenly. Some trifle or
+other, a tie or a couple of straps, are quite sure to be missing and
+then there is the _casus belli_! "Lost is stolen--sold!" Thus the
+axiom of the Legion's authorities, against which the most positive
+assertions are of no avail. Now and then an offender of this sort is
+leniently treated, and let off by the regiment with sixty days'
+imprisonment; in the majority of cases, however, he is tried by the
+court-martial.
+
+A typical case: "Jean the Unlucky" was the nickname of a young
+Frenchman in my company who had been sentenced in his second year of
+service to six months in the penal section for stealing a sash. He
+swore he was innocent, and as far as I can tell he spoke the truth, as
+his mother sent him twenty francs every month. Thus he was quite well
+off according to Foreign Legion ideas, and certainly need not have
+risked a heavy penalty by selling his ceinture for a few sous. The
+probabilities were in favour of his innocence, but that did not help
+him. He was sentenced. He survived his six months in the hell of the
+penal battalion and was then sent back to his company.
+
+And now his troubles really began. At the time of his trial he had, in
+his rage at the false accusation, made more than one biting remark
+about our adjutant and his little ways. This the colour-sergeant never
+forgot. In spite of the fact that Little Jean was a quiet fellow, who
+did his duty to the best of his ability, a good soldier and a capital
+shot, he kept wandering backwards and forwards between the prison and
+the company, the company and the prison. Nothing he could do was right.
+Sometimes his boots were not properly cleaned, sometimes his bed was a
+centimetre out of the dead straight line in which beds must stand, and
+at another time he had not stood properly at attention at roll-call.
+Such were Little Jean's grave offences against the holy spirit of the
+Legion's discipline--ridiculous accusations, which bore the stamp of
+spite so plainly that even our careless captain should have noticed it.
+
+These human machines punished automatically, without feeling, without
+thinking for an instant. The sergeant's reports demanding punishment
+for Little Jean's awful sins were signed automatically. When the
+sergeant put him down for eight days' confinement to barracks, the
+captain mechanically increased the penalty to eight days' imprisonment,
+because Jean le malheureux, coming from the penal section, had
+naturally a very bad reputation. Then came the commander of the
+battalion, who, not caring to be outdone in matters of discipline,
+doubled the dose. The sergeant's modest eight days' confinement to
+barracks had now grown to sixteen days' imprisonment.
+
+But now came the embodiment of authority in the regiment in the person
+of the colonel. This colonel had his own ideas as to how one should
+treat the pernicious elements in the regiment:
+
+"Second-class soldier Jean Dubois, No. 14892, 11th company, is
+sentenced by the colonel to 40 days' imprisonment for continued
+slackness and insubordination."
+
+That was read to us the next time the regimental orders came out.
+
+You see, the machine worked admirably. Its mechanism runs with
+wonderful accuracy. Any one who took an interest in the matter could
+work the whole thing out in advance. Dubois did this. He knew well
+enough what was waiting for him--from day to day he became quieter,
+from day to day sadder, so that at length he hardly spoke at all to his
+comrades. He could do nothing to protect himself; he hadn't even enough
+energy left for flight. Good Lord, he had long lost that little bit of
+energy he had, lost it--somewhere down south in the sunburnt wastes,
+where the penal battalion works and suffers.
+
+The machinery ground on.... Eighty days' imprisonment was Little Jean's
+next dose. After that he got sixty days' cellule--just for a change. If
+you consider only the number of days, you might think he had got off
+pretty cheaply this time. Not a bit of it. These sixty days were days
+of starvation. For cellule means hunger and emaciation--awful hunger
+and awful emaciation.
+
+After his sixty days of diet cure Dubois came back to the company for
+just a week, if I remember rightly. Then the machine began to work
+again. This time it was a month he got.... Thirty days'
+imprisonment--for this incorrigible and insubordinate subject! No, one
+really cannot be surprised that the colonel lost all patience. So he
+refused to confirm the punishment and sent the black sheep of the
+company to trial by court-martial. And once more the machine began to
+do its work.
+
+Two years' imprisonment, two years' penal servitude in a fortress, for
+Jean le malheureux!
+
+With the next batch of convicts they carried him off to Oran. I have
+heard nothing of him since--I do not know how he fared as a convict. In
+my unconquerable optimism I am ready to assume that this two years'
+interregnum did not do particular harm to Little Jean's health and that
+he returned home, having done his duty by the Foreign Legion, dapper
+and cheerful as he used to be. Even this supposition gives us a very
+pretty bit of arithmetic.
+
+ Jean Dubois' original period of service 5 years
+
+ Extra service for time spent in the
+ penal battalion 6 months
+
+ Ditto for regimental punishments 7 months
+
+ Ditto for imprisonment in fortress 2 years
+ ---------------
+ Total time Jean Dubois had to serve
+ in place of his original five years 8 years 1 month
+
+In this optimistic piece of arithmetic my optimism even goes so far as
+to assume that Jean the Unlucky, during his two years of imprisonment
+and during the rest of his period of service, did not incur any
+additional penalties.
+
+If I, however, compel myself to consider his career from a pessimistic
+point of view, the sum works out much more prettily. Dubois had not a
+very strong constitution and it is quite possible that the penal
+battalion, plus imprisonment, plus starvation, plus despair, quite
+finished him off. In that case the loss of a blue scarf, a spiteful
+sergeant and the crass stupidity of a series of officers have been the
+death of him.
+
+But if Jean Dubois really got over his years of prison--when he returns
+home (he is a Frenchman!) his strength will not be worth much in the
+workaday world.
+
+While I think of it. There is yet another very pretty piece of
+arithmetic. Little Jean was a thoughtful man. When he comes back home
+after his long years of Legion he will perhaps sit down and work out
+how much he has earned in these eight, long, hard years.
+
+The example would look like this:
+
+ Francs
+ First year of service, 5 centimes a day 18.25
+ Second year of service, 5 centimes a day 18.25
+ Third year of service, 5 centimes a day 18.25
+ Fourth year of service, 10 centimes a day 36.50
+ Fifth year of service, 10 centimes a day 36.50
+ ------
+ Grand Total 127.75
+
+The other three years? In these Little Jean worked free, gratis, for
+nothing. These three years were "rabiau," as they say in the Legion, of
+no use, superfluous. In his three "rabiau" years Little Jean naturally
+got no pay. Why should a convict get paid?
+
+So you see Little Jean's earnings amounted to the grand total of 127
+francs 75 centimes--earned in eight years. Besides all this, this
+worthless fellow had been fed all this time! And clothed into the
+bargain.
+
+Yes--c'est la Légion!
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The prison in the barracks at Sidi-bel-Abbès used always to loom before
+me like a threatening spectre.
+
+On both sides of the entrance to the barracks, close to the road, but
+separated from it by a high wall, lay the two little houses with their
+flat tin roofs which caught the sun's rays so pitilessly. Inside there
+were rows and rows of cell doors in the long narrow corridors. The
+single cells were a little more than three yards long and one yard
+broad; the general cells were perhaps five yards square. There was no
+light, and a little hole in the wall and an opening over the door were
+the sole means of ventilation. The floor was flagged or of clay. There
+was a wooden bench in each cell, a water-jug, and an old tin pail. The
+single cells and the general cells were exactly alike in their
+"fittings"--whether five men or fifty were shut up in these cells made
+no difference! They got, according to the regulations, one water-jug
+and one pail! I was never (and even to-day that is a satisfaction to
+me) shut up in the Legion's prison. But I have seen enough, when I was
+on guard there, to have had quite enough of the prison without any
+nearer experience of it.
+
+I repeat: five yards square, thirty, forty, or more occupants: an
+air-hole nine inches in diameter high up in the walls and a tiny crack
+over the door.
+
+Any of these cells would at once be condemned by a veterinary as unfit
+even for a pigsty!
+
+Before réveillé at five o'clock in the morning all the sentries on
+guard were marched up to the prison, and the sergeant opened the cells,
+whereupon an awful stench streamed out. He read out the names from the
+prison register, and the prisoners came out of the cells into the
+passage as their names were called. Then they began to clean up. The
+pails were carried by two men, accompanied by a sentry, to the sewer
+openings in the barrack-yard. When the bigger cells were over-filled
+(and this was almost always the case) they looked awful. The room was
+like a sewer, flooded, pestilential.... To clean the cells there were
+only a couple of old brooms in the prison. A few pails of water were
+flooded over the floor, carelessly and hurriedly, for the sergeants did
+not care about wasting too much time on the "prisonniers." A little
+water and a few strokes with the broom! What is not washed away
+trickles through the cracks and crannies in the stone floor and forms a
+new basis for pestilence.
+
+The bowl of black coffee which forms the légionnaire's breakfast is not
+given to the prisoners. They get no breakfast. They are allowed to wash
+themselves at the basin in the corridor. Then they are led out to work,
+on an empty stomach, frozen through by the chilly African night spent
+uncovered on a hard wooden bench, and faint from breathing in that
+pestilential atmosphere.
+
+All those who were sentenced to short terms of imprisonment were
+commandeered to clean up the barrack-yard, to split wood, and to break
+stones. The prisoners with longer sentences, and those in cellule, had
+to go out to the "march of punishment," marching round in a small
+circle for two hours on end, carrying heavy bags of sand, now and then
+doubling for the sake of variety. When the corporal in command was in
+bad temper he made them go through a course of Swedish gymnastics into
+the bargain. This was tremendous work when burdened with the heavy
+sack, and it strained the muscles and nerves in a way that nothing else
+could.
+
+At ten o'clock the prisoners were given soup. They never got full
+rations, since as long as they were in prison their mess allowance
+ceased as well as their pay.
+
+The soup is thin, and the piece of meat which swims in it is as small
+as may be.... Their bread rations consist of half of what they get in
+the company. The prisoners in solitary confinement are placed on
+starvation diet. Their soup consists of hot water with little bits of
+potatoes and bread-crusts, and they only get this every other day. In
+the interval they have to live on bread--on a quarter of the Legion's
+bread rations. One must have seen how terribly emaciated these poor
+fellows become in a few days to be able to do justice to the barbarity
+of a system which has three main ideas: undernourishment, overwork,
+frightful sanitary conditions.
+
+After they have finished "dinner," their work begins again. The drill
+suits had got dirty, and bore signs of the nights they had gone
+through. The operation, too, of emptying the tin pails cannot be
+performed without the suits being considerably the worse for it. But
+the drill suits were only changed when an inspection by the colonel was
+imminent, and clean underclothes were a luxury absolutely unknown in
+prison.
+
+The sergeants on guard always considered it an important part of their
+duties to treat the prisoners as badly as possible. In the prison it
+simply rained curses. Many sergeants took an especial delight in
+inspecting the prisoners every three hours throughout the night. They
+had to come out into the yard, and the sergeant read their names and
+numbers by the light of the lantern, taking as long about it as he
+could, while the poor wretches had to stand there motionless in their
+thin clothes for half an hour in the cold night air. This would be
+repeated three or four times a night. In this way the sergeant manages
+to while away his dreary night on guard, and had in addition the
+pleasing sense of having played his little part in the regiment's
+system of justice. Under discipline in the Foreign Legion they
+understand a series of variations, improvements or otherwise, on the
+mediæval systems of torture.
+
+It is merely the petty offences against discipline that are punished in
+these hovels.
+
+I was on the watch in the narrow corridor of one of these prisons,
+pacing to and fro on the cold flags with fixed bayonet. Eight hours
+before the poumpistes, Rader and the rest of them, had been brought in.
+Through the narrow opening between the wall and the prison, a little
+strip of starlit sky could be seen, and down the narrow passage the
+cold night wind howled. But it could not drive away the pestilential
+stench which hung heavy over the prison and which was perpetually being
+increased by the vapours from the ventilation holes and the tiny
+openings in the cellules. This awful smell tortured my nerves and
+rendered sentry-go in the prison anything but pleasant.
+
+Besides Rader and his fellow-deserters, there were forty others in the
+general cell. When at ten o'clock at night the sergeant inspected the
+prison and the cells were opened, I saw how the men lay huddled
+together on the wooden benches, man to man, like sardines packed in a
+tin. But in spite of this scarcely twenty out of the forty prisoners
+could find room on the bench. The others crouched in the corners,
+sleeping with their knees drawn up to their chins; several lay on the
+bare floor, filthy though it was. It was freezing cold for them in
+their thin drill clothes. The prison blankets they had been given were
+hardly worth calling blankets, ancient rags, so thin that one could see
+through them like a veil and so small that the men had the choice of
+covering their feet or their bodies; the blankets were not big enough
+to do both. They were stiff with dirt and most of them were alive with
+vermin. In the daytime they were just thrown into a corner of the cell.
+
+It was no wonder that the men who had just been shut up in this cell
+could not sleep. Once I heard Rader ask gently who was doing sentry. He
+must have stood on the shoulders of one of his comrades to be able to
+reach the ventilation hole, which was high up in the wall. When I
+answered it was I, he said he could not stand it any more in
+there--hadn't I a cigarette? I spitted a packet of cigarettes on my
+bayonet and handed it up to him.
+
+"Keep up your pecker, old man," I whispered.
+
+"Good Lord, good Lord ..." was the reply, in a pitiful tone which
+hadn't even a touch of Rader's droll humour left in it.
+
+The sound of groans and curses reached me continually from the cell;
+all spoke very gently for they knew that they would be severely
+punished if a noise was heard. It is a prison custom for the sentry in
+the corridor to let the butt of his rifle fall loudly on the floor when
+he hears the sergeant coming. This is a warning signal. When in their
+excitement they spoke a little louder I could now and then hear through
+the opening what they were saying. In eloquent French, one of the
+prisoners, whose accent proclaimed him to be a man of education, was
+complaining of life in the Legion, and all was still in the cell while
+the ringing voice spoke in passionate excitement.
+
+Snatches of what I heard are still fixed in my memory:
+
+"My God, if I could only die!--My friends, I've always done my duty
+here.--I've marched and marched and marched for four long years.--For
+four years I've borne burdens, exposed to wind and weather, and have
+tired my strength.--Four long years! Yes, I've lost my tie, oh, la la,
+a thin blue rag worth a couple of centimes--and was marched off to
+prison! I'd stolen the tie, I'd sold it--who believes the word of a
+légionnaire! _Mea culpa_, my friends!"
+
+"_Mea maxima culpa!_" repeated the speaker quietly. "'Tis true one has
+never been much use and has made a monstrous thing of one's life--you
+and I and all of us! And why not? That's all past and done with now.
+All the same--I'm ashamed of the country in which the Foreign Legion
+can exist. I'm a Frenchman. But I say: Damn the Legion, damn the land
+of the Legion...."
+
+And over all there hung the pestilential vapours in the tiny room with
+the crowded humanity within.
+
+When I was relieved at midnight the sergeant asked: "Anything unusual?"
+
+"No, nothing special," I answered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+SOME TYPES OF VICE
+
+A variety of human vices : The red wine of Algeria : Shum-Shum : If
+there were no wine
+
+
+It was always a marvel to me that neither cards nor dice played the
+slightest part in the life of the Legion, in sharp contrast with the
+important part they take in the life of the English Tommy, and
+especially of the American soldier, who is an incorrigible gambler. On
+a little station in Texas a detachment of sly old regulars in the
+course of the single night that they were quartered there cleaned out
+all the cowboys of the neighbourhood. I was one of the victims. But
+that's another story.... Anyhow, the Legion is free from the vice of
+gambling. This is perhaps hardly to be wondered at; five centimes
+wages. The possibility of winning or losing five centimes is hardly
+worth a throw of the dice.
+
+In its place all the vices of almost every nation in the world can be
+found in the Foreign Legion. This is not saying too much; I've looked
+on.
+
+Vicious influences are, however, much stronger in Indo-China and in
+French Tonquin, where the garrisons of the various stations are all
+drawn from the Legion. Veterans like Smith used to tell me things about
+the life in Tonquin that almost made my hair stand on end. In the
+inland districts the stations are quite small, and a few légionnaires
+have to look after a large number of natives. The entire system of
+justice on such a station, including the power of life and death, lies
+in the hands of a couple of young officers and a few sergeants and
+corporals. Surrounded by all possible human vices in their very worst
+forms, to whose influence the deadly monotony inevitable on one of
+these stations is added, the men live exposed to constant danger
+occasioned both by the intrigues among the natives and the murderous
+climate. The one seeks relief in spirits, the other swears by opium.
+The fact that opium-smoking plays an important part in the life of the
+French Navy and among the French Army officers in the Colonies has been
+made public often enough already: every veteran in the Legion knows
+well enough that in Toulon and Marseilles there are countless opium
+dens which depend solely on the custom of French officers. These opium
+dens were thoroughly discussed in the French press during the trial of
+the midshipman Ullmo.
+
+The habit of opium-smoking has, in nearly all cases, been acquired in
+Indo-China. Spirits, opium, and loneliness form the fruitful soil in
+which the Legion's vice takes root. In solitary cases even the officers
+come under its influence. When this happens the results are sometimes
+very terrible....
+
+Among the garrisons of Indo-China the most notorious used to be those
+of Sui-can and Bac-le. A certain Lieutenant Duchesne, who was later
+killed in battle, many say by his own men, and the fact that the bullet
+hit him in the back goes to prove the truth of this statement, has made
+his name immortal in the Legion in this connection. Though he has been
+dead several years, one still hears of his cruelty. His légionnaires
+were all forced to submit themselves to his vicious freaks, resistance
+being punished with the penal section, which is ten times worse in
+Tonquin than those in Algeria. The obedient, however, were promoted.
+
+Even to-day the same sort of thing can be found here and there in
+Indo-China. There are always stories like this to be heard in the
+Legion, adjutants and sous-officiers being freely named who are said to
+owe their promotion to the vicious preference of some officer or other.
+A good deal is perhaps spiteful gossip, but the stories are so
+frequent, and the details given are so minute, that there must be a
+certain amount of truth in them.
+
+In addition to these outside influences, a further cause of depravity
+is the involuntary celibacy to which the légionnaire is subjected. And
+this celibacy has its origin in a financial consideration: the five
+centimes per day.
+
+... One always comes back again to the same point from which one
+started.
+
+Whoever really knows the Foreign Legion, whoever takes the trouble to
+probe the depths of its misery and sin, of its brutality and vice,
+always comes back, like a man walking in a circle, to the same source
+of all its ills: the pitiful wage that's not worth calling a wage which
+this business enterprise pays: this infamous business enterprise that a
+chivalrous nation has so long tolerated and tolerates still.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+All human vices are to be found in the Legion. And first among the
+minor ones comes drunkenness. This takes the first place, occurring
+most frequently and being the most characteristic and easily indulged,
+in a country where the price of a litre of heavy wine varies between
+ten and twenty centimes.
+
+ Das ist ja eben das Malheur:
+ Wer Sorgen hat, trinkt auch Likör.
+
+"The man who has troubles, drinks"--Algerian wine, or in Indo-China a
+horrible spirit, which is distilled, I believe, from rice and which
+rejoices in the name of "Shum-Shum," and has the advantage of an
+uncommonly high percentage of alcohol. It has only one drawback, and
+that is its infernal smell, which delicate European noses cannot stand.
+The légionnaire, however, drinks it: while drinking he holds his nose,
+since he hardly values its aroma as he does its alcohol. I have often
+heard old légionnaires singing the praises of Shum-Shum. One could get
+accustomed to its smell, they said, and it made one very, very drunk.
+
+The droll verses of the old German humourist, Wilhelm Busch, with their
+subtle point, might have been written for the Legion. How they drank in
+the canteen of the Foreign Legion in Sidi-bel-Abbès. The litre--a litre
+of wine--took the place of the current coinage. Thus it was nothing
+unusual for a légionnaire, when asked to wash for a comrade well
+endowed with this world's goods, to raise one finger: that meant, of
+course, a litre.
+
+"If we hadn't wine...." I shall never forget Smith's pet expression.
+
+There are no statistics on this point. I am, however, quite certain
+that a good half of the miserable wages paid to the Foreign Legion are
+spent in purchasing the red wine of Algiers. In addition to this,
+nine-tenths, nay ninety-nine-hundredths of the notes and postal orders
+which the légionnaires are continuously sent by anxious parents and
+relations in Europe go to swell the coffers of Madame la Cantinière.
+
+This is in no sense an accusation. When one considers the life of the
+soldier of the Legion with understanding, one recognises that no one in
+the world has more cares than he, no one a better right to his few
+hours of oblivion. Yes, the African légionnaire has a hard life, and
+drunkenness in his case is really almost excusable. I only want to show
+what a prominent rôle the red wine of Algeria does play in the life of
+the Legion. It is, it is true, the most general vice, but it is the
+only means of obtaining a few moments of bliss, and the sole source of
+pleasure.
+
+Wine is the cause of a great many punishments. Drunkenness is a "sale
+offense," to use the soldier's expression, a dishonourable offence that
+is severely punished, and which continually furnishes the penal section
+with new material.
+
+As an instance of this I will give you the story of a man in my
+company, a Belgian named Lascelles. At regular intervals he got a
+postal order for a small sum sent him from some relative in Europe. On
+receiving his money, he vanished as soon as he came off duty and did
+not come back to the barracks again for at least twenty-four hours. As
+long as his coppers lasted, he used to go from wine-shop to wine-shop
+and empty bottle after bottle. On his return he would be immediately
+locked up for overstaying his leave of absence; generally, however, to
+celebrate the event he had made a great disturbance, and committed a
+series of more or less grave offences, for each of which he was
+punished singly. Every month the time he spent in prison grew longer
+and longer, beginning with a trifling eight days and increasing to a
+month's solitary confinement. In between whiles, Lascelles was a
+capital soldier, who did his work willingly enough. When, however, his
+name was read out at roll-call--a postal order for Lascelles--one could
+be sure that a day later would find him in prison once more. In a few
+months he had worked his way up the regimental scale of punishments,
+and then came the inevitable end and he was sent off to the penal
+section.
+
+Lascelles' misfortunes were at any rate his own fault. It often
+happens, however, that spiteful sergeants in the Legion take advantage
+of a man's love of drink to work his ruin.
+
+A sergeant has a spite against a man and waits patiently for the day
+when he comes into the barracks in a state of intoxication. He then
+follows him to his quarters and gives him some order or other. The man
+feels how needless and spiteful this is, and, being hardly in a
+condition to think of danger, answers with a curse. This is just what
+is wanted. Even when the man is sober enough to do what he has been
+ordered, he is severely punished for his curse. Should he continue to
+be "insubordinate" he comes before the court-martial.
+
+This is a very old trick in the Legion, and only recruits or very old
+légionnaires under the influence of drink and suffering at the same
+time from the cafard are caught by it. The average légionnaire is
+careful, and, drunk or sober, obeys every order no matter how furious
+he may be. "Nix Zephyrs pour moi," he says.
+
+"Ah yes, there is another side to the proverb, 'If there were no
+wine....'"
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Every vice was represented there. The most brutal egotism and boundless
+avarice ruled that hard life. One grudged one's comrade a crust of
+bread, a sip of wine, or a piece of meat. The man who had a few
+shillings sent him was an object of hate and envy.
+
+Intrigue--slander--lying--theft--the Legion brings all the bad points
+in a man's character to full development.
+
+Whose fault is it?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+MY ESCAPE
+
+In the Arab prison : The letter : Days of suffering : Flight! : The
+greedy "Crédit Lyonnais" : Haggling in the Ghetto : The palm grove as a
+dressing-room : On the railway track : Arab policemen : Horrible
+minutes : Travelling to Oran : Small preparations : On the steamer
+_St. Augustine_ : Marseilles-Ventimiglia : Free
+
+
+The days came and the days went, and with every day I understood more
+what it meant to be a légionnaire in Africa.
+
+The knowledge so gained was not pleasant.
+
+One day I was on guard in the Arab prison of Sidi-bel-Abbès, an ugly,
+gloomy building in the middle of the town. An old retired sergeant of
+the Legion was overseer of the Arab prison, and with the help of two
+gendarmes kept the Arab prisoners in strictest order. The prison was
+always crowded with native sinners, for the petty thefts in the
+market-place and the constant fights in the negro quarter kept the
+cells of that grey building near the Place Sadi Carnot always full. The
+native prisoners had often made trouble, and mutinies had been quite
+frequent. The last outbreak had been very serious, so since that time
+the Legion had sent a guard every day to the Arab prison consisting of
+a corporal and six men.
+
+My rifle with fixed bayonet over my shoulder, I kept pacing slowly on
+the top of the broad wall surrounding the prison in an enormous square.
+The sun burned down pitilessly. In the tiny courtyard small groups of
+Arab prisoners cowered in the sulky silence of inactivity. All talking
+was forbidden in the prison. The overseer's sharp words of command now
+and then, and the ring of my steps on the stones of the wall, sounded
+into the silence. Mechanically I followed the path prescribed for
+"sentry-go," marching round and round the prison square.
+
+From the high wall I had a view of all Sidi-bel-Abbès. The town was
+like a city of the dead in this frightful heat. The blinds in all the
+houses were pulled down and there was not a soul to be seen in the
+streets. In the hot, trembling air the faint outlines of the mountains
+of Thessala glittered in the far distance. There was not a breath of
+wind.
+
+Two légionnaires in white fatigue uniforms turned into the street
+leading to the prison. They were men from our company, bringing us our
+evening soup. They called out something to me that I could not
+understand and I acknowledged it with an indifferent nod. Then they
+knocked at the gate of the prison and had to wait an age till the
+overseer opened it with his jingling bunch of keys and they could carry
+their soup-pail into the guard-room. Some minutes later one of them
+came into the yard by the guard-room and beckoned to me to come nearer
+to him. As I approached, I saw that he held a white something in his
+hand.
+
+"Eh, une lettre pour toi!" he cried. "Here's a letter for you."
+
+Very much annoyed I called down to him to hurry up and get out of this.
+It was too hot for practical jokes. I never got letters....
+
+"But here is one," said the man. "Your name, your company, your
+number--everything all right! La la--I'm off--I'll give your letter to
+the corporal. May Allah better your bad temper! Sapristi, how hot it
+is!"
+
+I had to wait half an hour until I was relieved. Those were terrible
+minutes. A letter--a letter for me? It seemed almost impossible. There
+was nobody in the world who could or should know where I was or what I
+was doing. The blood rose in hot waves to my head--and all at once I
+recognised that there was only one human being who could have written
+to me--that her love was not dead.
+
+Slowly the seconds, the minutes went by. I waited in indescribable
+suspense. The sun was sinking. The houses of Sidi-bel-Abbès were bathed
+in its ruddy glow. Below me in the prison yard I heard a noisy
+chattering in guttural Arabic. The prisoners were being given their
+food and were then allowed to speak. The poor devils' chatter seemed to
+pierce my brain; that buzzing noise down below hurt me, until I could
+not stand it any longer.
+
+"Be quiet there!" I cried.
+
+There was immediate silence. A gendarme called out to me that I had
+made a mistake and that talking was allowed. "Pas defendu de parler,"
+he said to the prisoners, and the Arabs looked up at me with angry
+eyes.
+
+And I had to go on waiting, waiting....
+
+This awful suspense seemed to have lasted for hours when the corporal
+at last came to relieve me. The conventionality of passing orders and
+sentry instructions was being gone through; we were on service and it
+was contrary to all discipline--but I could not wait any longer.
+
+"You've a letter for me, corporal?" I asked.
+
+"Yes, there is a letter for you," he answered. "You can have it as soon
+as I have done relieving the sentries. En avant--marche!"
+
+A new period of anxious waiting and torturing expectation.... At last
+the corporal of the guard came back and put his hand in his pocket:
+
+"Voilà!"
+
+On the white envelope I saw the characters of the handwriting I knew so
+well. I went out into the square which was now empty, as the prisoners
+had been locked up in their cells again. I read and read--again and
+again....
+
+Love stretched out its hand to the lost soldier of the Legion and spoke
+to him of happiness to come. Long years hence when the légionnaire
+would be no longer a légionnaire. The letter's many pages bore traces
+of tears. I wanted to tear off my uniform, that brand of slavery
+condemning me to inactivity. Within me all was in a whirl. In the
+darkness of the ugly court I dreamed dreams of the past and hopes of
+the future so hopelessly far off. During the four hours from watch to
+watch I sat motionless in the prison-yard.
+
+In these few hours there came to me that energy which meant the
+beginning of a new life. Then it was my turn for sentry duty again. And
+then I sat down at the small table in the guard-room while the corporal
+and the other men slept, and wrote an endless letter with the
+corporal's pencil on the back of report forms. Page upon page....
+
+The next day a letter from my mother came; a letter that neither asked
+questions nor held reproaches. It only spoke of love and anxiety for
+me. This letter solved the riddle of how my whereabouts had been
+discovered. After long months of waiting and wondering the people who
+loved me got the idea that I might be in the Foreign Legion, since the
+last letter they received from me had been dated from the French
+fortress, Belfort. My mother wrote to the general in command of the
+fortress and to the French Secretary of War. The answer was long
+delayed, but at last the news came that I had joined the Foreign Legion
+at Sidi-bel-Abbès--that I was the légionnaire number 17889!
+
+With that hour in the Arab prison which brought me the first letter,
+the days of suffering began. I performed my duty and did my work like a
+machine, thinking of nothing but the letters which the next post would
+bring me. I hardly spoke a word to anybody in those times. When I was
+off duty I went for long walks in the still paths by the fortifications
+in order to be alone. Finally only one idea governed my thoughts:
+Flight!
+
+Week after week I received letters every day, begging and beseeching me
+to have patience. I was to remember that all hopes for the future would
+be shattered if I was caught deserting. Better to wait for years than
+to risk everything. But I could not wait. And one day there came a
+registered letter from my mother. When I opened it, I held banknotes
+for a large sum of money in my hand....
+
+This meant freedom! I crossed the court of the barracks as one in a
+dream. This money in my pocket meant new life for me--my mother had for
+the second time given me life. I knew what a sacrifice this money
+meant; how hard it must have been for my mother with her tiny widow's
+pension to scrape together such a sum of money for me. And all at once
+a wave of happiness overcame me--I should be free! I should be able to
+thank those loving ones who were helping me....
+
+ * * * * *
+
+I got that letter at five o'clock in the afternoon. I was just off duty
+and had come back to the barracks, having been pulling out weeds in the
+Legion's cemetery. That should be my last bit of work as légionnaire.
+
+Not a single hour I intended to wait. There was no more rest for me in
+the land of Sidi-bel-Abbès. In our quarters my comrades were sitting at
+supper as I came back from the regimental post-bureau, and Smith was
+much surprised at my eating nothing, and at my putting on at once my
+extra uniform. He looked suspiciously at me, as if he had an idea that
+I had something out of the way on my mind. I would have been only too
+glad to say a last good-bye to the old bugler who had been a true
+friend to me in his rough way, but he was sitting at table with the
+rest of the men. When I had finished dressing and had quietly taken my
+letters and the few trifles I wanted to take with me out of my
+knapsack, Smith came up and lay down on his bed as usual after supper.
+
+"Good-bye, old man," I whispered. "You've been a good fellow."
+
+Smith did not move. Only his eyes lighted up....
+
+"Got money?" he asked gently.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then it's all right. Good-bye, sonny--good-bye!"
+
+As I went out the other men were sitting on the benches doing the
+various odd jobs which were part of life in the Legion. They rubbed and
+polished--polished and rubbed. At that time they were hardly more to me
+than a passer-by in the street. Now, I confess, the face of every one
+of them is indelibly burnt into my brain.
+
+I was to be subjected to a final annoyance.
+
+The sergeant of the guard stopped me at the gate of the barracks,
+because in my excitement I had buttoned up my overcoat on the wrong
+side. He said he had a good mind to turn me back for my carelessness.
+
+"Nom de Dieu! you pig, don't you know that this month the overcoats are
+buttoned on the right side?"
+
+But he let me go. Through the crowd of légionnaires I hurried down the
+promenade. The first place I had to go to was the "Crédit Lyonnais,"
+the famous French bank which had a branch in Sidi-bel-Abbès near the
+Place Sadi Carnot. The greater part of my money consisted of Belgian
+banknotes, which naturally were not in circulation in Algeria, and I
+thought I should be able to have them changed at the bank more quickly
+and cheaply than anywhere else. There I made a mistake. The clerk at
+the counter explained in a roundabout way that Belgian banknotes were
+of no use to them, and that it would cost a lot of money to send them
+to Paris. He was only greedy, of course (everybody in Sidi-bel-Abbès
+is), and trying to get an especially high commission out of me. Perhaps
+he thought that a légionnaire should be too pleased at having so much
+money to bother about a few francs more or less. There he was in error.
+I replied I should complain to the colonel of my regiment that the only
+bank in Sidi-bel-Abbès tried to overcharge a simple soldier. Whereupon
+this greedy clerk of a world-famous bank grumblingly took my notes and
+gave me French money for them.
+
+Through the brightly illuminated main streets, saluting officers right
+and left, I hurried to the Ghetto. In the very first alley of the
+Ghetto I met an old fellow who looked promising. I tapped him on the
+shoulder.
+
+"Eh! Civilian clothes?"
+
+The Jew raised his forefinger warningly.
+
+"Can't sell to légionnaires."
+
+I turned on my heels and went slowly on. But he was after me already.
+
+"How much?"
+
+"Twenty francs."
+
+"Fifty!"
+
+"Thirty."
+
+"Forty-five!"
+
+"Look here," I said. (The conversation was held in bad Algerian French,
+of course.) "I'll give you forty francs, and that settles it. But I've
+got to have those clothes quick."
+
+The Jew looked at me dubiously, and held out the palms of his hands.
+One could not be mistaken about the gesture: he had his doubts about my
+solvency. So I reassured the old man by showing him a few gold pieces.
+Now the son of Israel was quite satisfied, and led me a few steps
+farther on into a house. A tiny little lamp was smoking in a
+foul-smelling room.
+
+"Sarah!" called out my companion.
+
+An old woman came hobbling out of a neighbouring room, and when she
+heard what was wanted went off and fetched a heap of clothes. Amongst
+them there was a suit which looked fairly respectable. It fitted me
+pretty well, and in the natural order of things we began haggling
+again. Fifty francs changed hands.
+
+Then I gave the Ghetto man another gold piece.
+
+"Now hurry up and get me a hat somewhere, a pair of boots, a collar and
+a tie."
+
+But here the fat old woman with her shrill voice began to make
+difficulties. I was bringing misfortune on them. It was after business
+hours anyway. I must not stay in the house any longer--it was far too
+dangerous. "Allez vous en--allez vous en!"
+
+The old lady began to get on my nerves, and I went willingly enough. At
+the corner I waited for the old Jew. In ten minutes he came back, and
+said that he could for twenty francs get me a really good outfit,
+boots, an extra collar, a good hat and a pair of gloves; for an extra
+twenty he could procure an excellent revolver. He got the money, and
+after a short time came back with two bundles.
+
+At the end of the next street there was the high wall of the
+fortifications. From the inside I could climb over easily enough. The
+drop to the ground on the other side was a pretty big one, but I landed
+unhurt in the sand, in the middle of a palm grove. From the open
+windows of a villa close to the grove a flood of light streamed, and I
+could hear the merry sounds of a waltz. I could see the couples
+dancing. Many officers were amongst them. But there was no danger of
+being seen; it was pitch dark among the palms. In feverish haste I tore
+off my uniform and put on the civilian clothes. They fitted me well. It
+was quite a strange feeling fastening a collar and tie once more....
+
+And when I had changed I nailed uniform and overcoat, and boots and
+belt, and everything to a palm with the bayonet, wondering who would
+find them in the morning!
+
+I drew on my gloves and my toilet was complete. In the villa the band
+(it was the Legion's band too) was playing a German waltz: "Das ist das
+süsse Mädel...."
+
+With a feeling very much akin to fright I walked to the nearest gate in
+the fortification walls. The soldiers on guard there, however, did not
+take the slightest notice of me. This gave me more confidence. Slowly
+and unostentatiously I crossed the promenade as though I were merely a
+respectable citizen out for a stroll. Légionnaires were promenading
+everywhere. More than once I had to turn and make a detour to avoid
+meeting non-commissioned officers of my own company. It was an exciting
+walk. At last I had passed through the main streets and came to a
+suburban road leading straight to the railway station. The little
+station was quite deserted. I looked carefully about me to see whether
+anybody was watching me, and then climbed down the steep embankment to
+the railroad tracks, leading straight to the north to Oran.
+
+In the meantime it had become quite dark. From afar the lights of the
+station and of the switch-signals were shining; the lines themselves
+lay hidden in pitch-darkness. I began to run. At first I kept stumbling
+over the sharp stones between the rails and once I fell at full length.
+Soon, however, I got the hang of the thing, springing from sleeper to
+sleeper. I ran as hard as I could. A quarter of an hour, half an hour.
+Then I had to stop, coughing and out of breath. It was beginning to
+drizzle. The landscape was cloaked in inky darkness and there was only
+a faint gleam of light on the horizon far behind me to show where
+Sidi-bel-Abbès lay.... As far as I could tell I must have covered about
+five kilometres. My feet were paining me. I drew off one of my boots
+and found that there were long rows of nails sticking up inside and
+that the soles were damp with blood. I tore up my handkerchief and made
+a pad from the rags to cover the nails. But the horrible little
+monsters bored through even this. Anyhow, it was far better than
+before. I examined the revolver in my pocket and it was a pleasant
+surprise to find that it was a capital weapon, a Browning pistol. The
+old Jew, who certainly knew nothing about weapons, had, with the
+revolver, atoned for his sins in the matter of boots!
+
+Once more I started forward. My feet had to get accustomed to the nails
+whether they liked it or not. From now on I kept up an alternate double
+and walk, husbanding my strength as I had learnt to do in the Legion,
+running five minutes at the double and then walking five minutes,
+always following the railway's bee-line for the north. Once I heard the
+roar of a train behind me and lay down flat in the sand by the rails.
+Thus hour after hour went by. I had already passed three stations,
+which merely consisted of a few houses which lay there deserted in the
+darkness. As I passed a lonely signal-house a dog began to bark and I
+started off in deadly terror, running like a madman till I had left the
+beast tearing at his chain far behind me. How thankful I was for the
+silence and darkness.... I breathed with difficulty, I had been running
+so hard. My clothes were soaked with sweat, and when I stopped for a
+moment to rest, an icy shiver passed over my whole body. But I pulled
+myself together, for I wanted to reach a medium-sized station, where it
+would not be so noticeable when I took a ticket for Oran.
+
+The rain soon stopped again. And now the moon began to shine fitfully
+through the gaps in the clouds, even this faint light being much more
+than I cared about. A terrible fear of being seen by a police patrol
+came over me. All at once the country became hilly. On either side of
+the rails there lay mighty rocks, great jagged boulders of sandstone,
+and I rejoiced in the shelter they gave me. I had been running for some
+minutes between the rocks when I heard a strange noise. At first I
+thought it was another train. But as the sound grew nearer and grew
+clearer I knew what it was: galloping horses!
+
+Through a gap in the rocks I could see the fine white line which marked
+the road. It was scarcely a hundred yards away from the railway. On
+this road a patrol was coming along at a gallop....
+
+Had the police already seen me? Just before, where the country was
+flat, my silhouette must have stood out sharply defined against the sky
+in the moonlight.
+
+In a paroxysm of fear I crawled in between two rocks and held my breath
+to listen. The horses drew nearer and nearer, the beat of their hoofs
+on the roadway ringing out loud and clear. Peeping out of my
+hiding-place I could see the dark forms of horses and their riders. Now
+they were up with me. I heard a sharp exclamation in Arabic. The three
+men pulled up their horses and came to a halt.
+
+I pulled out my pistol. The barrel shone in the moonlight. I hastily
+covered up the weapon with my coat, for fear it should betray my
+hiding-place. Then I carefully cocked the pistol and felt whether the
+cartridge-frame was in order. A feeling of icy calmness came upon me. I
+made up my mind not to stir from my hiding-place and not to fire until
+the gendarmes were quite close to me in their search. I considered the
+matter carefully. Two full cartridge-frames I took in my left hand,
+ready to refill the chamber. My idea was to empty the magazine in quick
+shooting in order to get in as many shots as possible before they
+recovered from their surprise.
+
+Down below some one lit a match. It burned for a moment only. I heard
+one of the gendarmes laugh. Then the three men galloped forward again.
+One of them must have asked his comrades for a match....
+
+The noise of the galloping horses was soon lost in the distance, but
+for a long time I sat trembling from head to foot between the two
+rocks. The tears of over-excitement were running down my face as I put
+up the pistol. I could have yelled for joy that this awful danger was
+over. When I stood up again, I fell back against the rocks. My
+trembling knees could not support my body....
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Les Imberts was the name of the station. It was forty-two kilometres
+distant from Sidi-bel-Abbès; in seven hours I had covered a distance of
+about thirty English miles. When at four o'clock in the morning I
+reached the station and deciphered its name and its distance from
+Sidi-bel-Abbès in the darkness, there was not a human being to be seen.
+The stillness of night still lay upon everything. A few hundred yards
+from the station a number of freight cars stood. I jumped into one of
+them and studied, lighting one match after another, the Algerian
+time-table which my careful mother had sent me. The first train to Oran
+went at a few minutes past five.
+
+The first thing to be done was to care for my outer man a little. I
+climbed out of the car again and found, after a long search, a barrel
+half full of water standing under a shed. Day was just breaking. After
+a very hurried wash I hid again in one of the cars, brushing my clothes
+and cleaning my boots with my handkerchief. I was very glad of the
+extra collar which my friend of the Ghetto had purchased. Finally I had
+a look at myself in my tiny looking-glass. It would do! Indeed, the
+effect was not half bad. It would do very well; decently dressed people
+were scarce in Algeria....
+
+At five o'clock I started on a roundabout route for the station. A
+dozen people stood waiting on the platform, amongst them an Arab
+policeman leaning lazily against the wall. I went straight up to the
+ticket office.
+
+"Oran--première classe!"
+
+"Sept-soixante," said the official. "Seven francs and sixty centimes."
+
+I jumped into the nearest first-class compartment, and found to my joy
+that it was empty. The train started off. During the two hours' journey
+from Les Imberts to Oran I brought my dress into decent order and
+smoked innumerable cigarettes to drive away my sleepiness. At the
+barrier in Oran a sergeant of Zouaves and a corporal of the Legion were
+watching for deserters, but they didn't take the slightest notice of
+me.
+
+Until ten o'clock I wandered about the town. Then I went to the office
+of the French Mediterranean line and took a second-class ticket for
+Marseilles. The passenger boat _St. Augustine_ was due to start at
+five in the afternoon.
+
+All at once I became very sleepy. I could hardly keep my eyes open, but
+I had not the courage to go to an hotel and rest there for a few hours.
+So I went into a restaurant and enjoyed a long-drawn-out French dinner
+and a bottle of heavy Burgundy. Suddenly I remembered that it would
+look suspicious if I started on a sea voyage without any luggage. For a
+few francs I procured a big valise whose paste-board sides looked
+really "the same as leather," and bought newspapers at every corner to
+stuff my "luggage" with.
+
+At a few minutes to five I went on board the steamer. With a cigarette
+between my lips and a bundle of newspapers under my arm I walked up and
+down the deck, read _Le Rire_, and did all I could to assume a
+careless mien. In reality I was in a very serious situation. The
+question was: Had a telegram from the regiment with my description
+reached Oran already or not?
+
+The half-hour struck, but the _St. Augustine_ was still in dock.
+Police came and went. All at once I felt myself go pale as death; a
+patrol of four Zouave sergeants was coming up the gangway. They went
+over the whole ship, looking carefully about them. Then they
+interchanged a few words with the captain and went on again....
+
+I was just beginning to breathe again, when a gendarme came up to me
+and asked, saluting courteously:
+
+"Monsieur is a Frenchman?"
+
+"Non, monsieur, an Englishman," I answered quietly, and smiled at the
+gendarme in spite of the icy fear gripping at my heart.
+
+If he should chance on the idea of asking for my papers I was lost!
+
+"Your name, please?"
+
+"Eugene Sanders."
+
+"Profession?"
+
+"Engineer--from Tlemcen--on the way to Nice."
+
+"Thank you."
+
+... After a few minutes the ship's bell rang out, the gangways were
+pulled in, and the screw began to revolve. I went into my cabin and
+went to sleep. During the whole of the sea voyage I had not a single
+thought, not a single hope, not a single fear--I merely slept.
+
+As the _St. Augustine_ ran into harbour in Marseilles, a new
+difficulty presented itself. What would the custom-house say to my
+valise filled with paper? Luggage of this sort would have made anybody
+suspicious.
+
+Chance came to my aid. A number of boats crowded around the ship, and
+several boatmen climbed on board to offer their services as porters,
+and so on. I went up to one of them and told him that I wanted to be
+put on shore as quickly as possible. Could he do it?
+
+"For five francs," the fellow said.
+
+"All right. Row me over."
+
+My satchel I left on board to avoid the customs inspection.
+
+A gangway had already been let down from the side of the steamer, and I
+stepped down into the boat with my boatman. Ten minutes later I stood
+on the "quai" in Marseilles. In another five minutes I had found a cab
+and was on my way to the station. Half an hour later I was seated in a
+compartment of an express train for the Riviera.
+
+A Riviera journey in the darkness.... Toulon flew past--Cannes. In Nice
+I could hear even in the railway-train the noise of the carnival which
+was nearing its end--the platform was covered with confetti. We reached
+Monaco--Monte Carlo, with its brilliantly illuminated casino.
+
+At last we reached Ventimiglia: the first Italian station!
+
+It was one o'clock in the morning. I stormed into the telegraph-office
+and despatched two telegrams to my two dearest....
+
+Free--free again!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+J'ACCUSE
+
+Two years after : Shadows of the past : My vision : Public opinion and
+the Foreign Legion : The political aspect of the Foreign Legion : The
+moralist's point of view : The "Legion question" in a nutshell : A
+question the civilised world should have answered long ago : Quousque
+tandem...?
+
+
+Two years have passed.
+
+They were years of fighting and years of toil. Years in which I burnt
+much midnight oil, and in which every tiny success meant worlds to me.
+My personal attitude towards the Foreign Legion was a rather peculiar
+one at first. For several months I forced myself never even to think of
+the time when I was in the Legion. Those times should merely be to me a
+dim shadow of the past.
+
+I looked upon them as an ugly page that I should only too gladly have
+torn out of the book of my life: since, however, I could not rid myself
+of them in this way I avoided ever opening the book at this page....
+But the past which we should like to forget has an unpleasant way of
+forcing itself upon us, unbidden and against our will.
+
+Often as I lay back in my arm-chair in an idle quarter of an hour,
+scenes from my life in the Legion mingled dimly with the blue smoke of
+my cigarette. An endless procession of légionnaires would pass before
+me, a procession of men loaded like beasts of burden, their backs bent
+almost double, panting and gasping as they struggled forward in the
+sand: I could see their staring eyes, their rounded backs. I felt the
+tortures they were undergoing, how they struggled forward till their
+last ounce of strength was spent: even their groans were audible to me.
+Every one of these men seemed to look at me with hatred. You sit there
+in your arm-chair? In an atmosphere of culture? Amongst beautiful
+things of art? You belong to us! Off to your place, légionnaire, on the
+wing of the first row of fours in the eleventh company. Quick march,
+légionnaire, or die! When I spent a golden coin on some amusement I
+seemed to see the hands of the légionnaires, trembling claw-like hands,
+grasping for my money and trying to rend it from me. Gold! Wealth
+unheard of after the miserable coppers of the Legion! Give it to us,
+said those fingers, give it to us! Have you forgotten our five
+centimes, légionnaire?
+
+My imagination worried me.
+
+I gave a part of the story of my life price, and after much hesitation
+wrote this book. I have only described the ordinary routine of life in
+the regiment of foreigners as I myself experienced it. It is merely a
+tiny part of what every légionnaire undergoes.
+
+I wanted to show the légionnaire--how he lives, and how he must work. I
+did not dream of being able to warn foolish young fellows about the
+Legion. It is impossible to warn a fool. But I thought, and think
+still, that a true and exact description of the French Foreign Legion
+would perhaps help to put an end to an institution which is a disgrace
+to civilised humanity, and which should be to the civilised nations of
+to-day as unintelligible as the slave trade.... And above all I wanted
+to get rid of those visions which troubled me.
+
+In considering the Foreign Legion one must above all be careful not to
+go to work with common-places, nor to start from general axioms. The
+idea is so prevalent that the soldiers of the Foreign Legion are lost
+and ruined men, even criminals--morally and practically useless at
+best. A good-for-nothing lot of fellows who are no loss to anybody.
+
+One is apt to dispose of the légionnaire in a few trite remarks. Men of
+learning write from their arm-chairs to the papers about "the hirelings
+who have sold themselves into slavery, thus helping to revive the
+feudal system of the Middle Ages." If, however, the question were more
+closely inquired into, I am sure that it would be found that these
+rogues and vagabonds are not, in reality, quite so bad. True, I can
+bring forward no positive proof of this. There are no statistics about
+the Foreign Legion, and I am in no better position than any other human
+being to bring forward authentic material. There are not even official
+figures about the strength of the two regiments. I admit, willingly
+enough, that a large percentage of the men in the Foreign Legion really
+deserve the callous summing up that one is wont to apply to the whole
+regiment. All that I have seen and heard in Africa, however, has
+convinced me that the other and greater part of the men in the Foreign
+Legion are anything but the lost souls one imagines them to be. They
+come into the Legion as poor workmen. Their story is the sad one of the
+vagabond workman who had to starve on the French high road, because he
+could not speak the language. It is these men who have always formed
+the heart of the Foreign Legion. It is the pangs of hunger that drives
+men into the Foreign Legion--French and English, Germans and Italians,
+Spaniards and Austrians, men of all countries, men of all races. Yes,
+hunger is a most efficient recruiting sergeant for the Foreign Legion.
+
+The hungry man who seeks a refuge in the Foreign Legion gets, it is
+true, his daily bread; he is, all the same, disgracefully swindled. It
+cannot be repeated often enough how hard the légionnaire has to work,
+how miserable his existence is, how he gives his whole strength for a
+wage that is not worth mentioning. We are so practical in our modern
+ideas of life; every workman knows well enough the exact value of his
+work in the current coin of the realm, and takes advantage of every
+opportunity of getting a higher wage. And, in an age which is ever
+improving the standard of living, and which has so absolutely changed
+the ideas of the poorer classes, how is it possible that a business
+concern like the Foreign Legion--it is really nothing but a business
+concern, a commercial undertaking--can always get hundreds and
+thousands of labourer-soldiers, for a wage compared with which the
+wages of the tiniest village are riches?
+
+The results are startling when one compares the Foreign Legion with the
+world's two other mercenary armies, those of America and England, both
+of which countries, by-the-by, take great care to keep up a certain
+moral standard among their soldiers. These two armies, in sharp
+contrast to the Foreign Legion, pay their soldiers exceptionally well.
+The least that an American regular receives is thirteen dollars a
+month; the English Tommy gets a shilling a day. And these are soldiers
+and not workmen. They are mercenaries, like the légionnaire, but at any
+rate they are well-paid mercenaries.
+
+The miserable wages, together with the existing conditions of life in
+the Legion, are enough to convince even a Frenchman that the existence
+of the Foreign Legion is a sin against the very first principles of
+humanity--and has been for eighty years. In the sand of Algeria, in the
+swamps of Madagascar, in the fever-pested plains of Tonquin, in the
+valleys of Mexico, there lie these men of every nation, these men who
+have died in the Foreign Legion, who have sold their lives for their
+rations and five centimes a day.
+
+If one leaves the dead in peace and only considers the living, one
+reaches the same conclusion: robbery, and robbery of the destitute at
+that! A sin against every principle of humanity! Oh, thrice accursed
+Legion: forcing inexperienced young fellows into its ranks, who would
+never join did they know what lies before them; absolutely callous as
+to the value of human life, forcing its soldiers to conditions of life
+which must ruin their health for ever!
+
+It is not for this alone that the Legion is answerable. It is also
+answerable for the vices of the Legion, for it is the life in the
+Legion that has brought the tiny seeds of these vices to full bloom.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+About the political aspect of the Foreign Legion there can be no two
+opinions.
+
+The Foreign Legion is an antiquated, ridiculously out-of-date survival
+of the feudal system of the Middle Ages, with all the disadvantages of
+the mercenary system, but without the romantic halo which in days gone
+by hung around the soldiers of fortune.
+
+According to modern ideas, it is absolutely monstrous that one of the
+most cultured nations of the world should have in its pay a corps
+composed of men of all nationalities, and who are, as is generally
+acknowledged, very often foreign deserters, who enlist to save
+themselves from starvation. Their colours bear the unsatisfying motto,
+"Valeur et Discipline." The inscription on the national flag, "Honneur
+et Patrie"--"For Honour and our Country"--could hardly be given to
+these "mixed pickles." But these two words, "Valeur" and "Discipline,"
+are pregnant with meaning. Comparisons with the English and American
+armies are not only of interest as far as the pay is concerned; there
+is in all respects a vast difference between these two armies and the
+Foreign Legion. Only men of British birth can join the British army.
+The American army takes foreigners into its ranks, but only those who
+possess the so-called first papers, _i.e._, have sworn before a
+magistrate that they intend to become American citizens after the
+prescribed five years. The American mercenary is looked upon as an
+American citizen and has to take the oath of allegiance. The Foreign
+Legion, on the other hand, knows no oath at all. The printed bit of
+paper that the recruit for the Foreign Legion signs is merely a
+contract, a statement of the conditions of service. This contract is
+the only chain which fetters the légionnaire to the Legion--a contract
+which, according to every one of our modern ideas of international law,
+is null and void. To-day, in international law, contracts opposed to
+public morality are much talked about, and what could be more immoral
+in every sense of the word than this contract that the French Republic
+makes with its recruits, this contract in which what is got out of a
+man and what he is paid stand in such an unsatisfying relation to each
+other.
+
+As I have said before, there can be no two opinions about the Foreign
+Legion. Every one with sound ideas of political economy must agree that
+it is an unheard-of condition of affairs when a nation is allowed to
+receive the deserters and criminals--I speak now of that other half of
+the Foreign Legion--of the States surrounding it, indeed from all the
+States in the world, with open arms, and to make use of them on
+principle for a special military organisation. One cannot speak too
+strongly about this transaction, which is a piece of military
+blackguardism with something more than despicable about it. And not
+only the feudalism of the Middle Ages survives in the Foreign Legion
+but also the morals of those times, when a poor devil enlisted because
+he did not know of anything better to do with his life: of those times
+when a deserter was valued because he made a pair of arms and legs the
+less in the opposing force. In the Foreign Legion's enlistment bureaux
+a recruit gets a special welcome when he announces that he is a
+deserter, and is then looked upon as a really valuable addition to the
+corps. It is also a fact that France offers sanctuary to all criminals
+who fly from justice. The Foreign Legion will only give up
+murderers--every other kind of criminal is safe there. And France's
+selfish reason for this is that she can thereby fill the ranks of a
+regiment that is always fighting for France and which is always ready
+to do the hardest work for her in the most unhealthy climates. The
+average Frenchman has, during the Legion's eighty years of existence,
+contented himself with attributing the successes of the Foreign Legion
+to the French flag, and has always looked upon the Foreign Legion as a
+profitable and patriotic institution. It is only quite of late that the
+Foreign Legion has come to be looked upon in France as a problem.
+To-day the Foreign Legion is not an institution that every Frenchman
+considers quite in the natural order of things. Even the French
+Ministry of War has busied itself with the "Legion problem." It could
+not, however, quite make up its mind to give up the Legion. The
+possibility of employing a soldier who receives five centimes a day,
+and who can be made use of for all sorts of dangerous undertakings in
+the worst of climates, is too great a temptation.
+
+Perhaps the real reason for this tenacity is that France, who is so
+proud of her military traditions, finds it hard to bring herself to
+dissolve a corps which has been in existence for more than eighty years
+and which has been led by many a famous general and marshal of France.
+
+It has been suggested that it would be a good idea to change the method
+of recruiting. Passports should be demanded to make sure that the
+recruit had not got into trouble with the authorities of his own
+country. Deserters from the armies of other countries should on no
+condition be accepted.
+
+There is a diversity of opinion about these suggestions in French
+military circles. One party asserts that with the deserters the Foreign
+Legion would lose the flower of its strength, the soldiers who have
+been trained in other armies. The other side urges that if the pay were
+raised and the time the men must serve in order to qualify for a
+pension shortened, the adventurous life in the Foreign Legion and the
+hope of promotion would always bring more than enough good stuff from
+all nations for service under the Legion's flag. In these debates the
+military point of view is the only one of importance and since,
+considered from this point of view, the Legion has always borne itself
+splendidly, things have been left as they were. All suggestions for a
+change in the organisation of the Legion have naturally been made very
+quietly. All the same the Legion has, of late, come very much before
+the public in France.
+
+There is no doubt that they are beginning to look at the Foreign Legion
+a little critically in France. The number of those who doubt that the
+country is right in keeping up this barbarous institution is growing
+daily. Referring to the great mutiny of the soldiers of the Legion at
+Saida, Jaurès wrote in the _Humanité_:
+
+"The Foreign Legion will doubtless be a source of everlasting
+difficulty to us; the idea of forming a body of troops for the French
+army from foreign deserters is at any rate an unusual one."
+
+This is a step in the right direction. They are beginning to talk about
+the problem of the Foreign Legion. Its existence is no longer
+considered absolutely natural. The question has been raised. If the
+Foreign Legion did not exist, and some member of the French parliament
+were to suggest the formation of a corps of foreign mercenaries,
+preferably foreign deserters, the suggestion would doubtless be
+received with indignation. The tactless politician would be sure to be
+confronted with the somewhat obvious remark that it would be unworthy
+of the dignity of France to gather a band of foreigners under the
+tricolour to defend French soil. One would hear some very pretty
+speeches on the subject. That sort of thing can be tolerated in the
+Balkan States or in Venezuela or Honduras, but not in our proud France.
+Some deputy or other would be certain to warn the nation--the warning
+is a very obvious one--that other States could institute Foreign
+Legions, filling their ranks with French deserters. Think of the
+shudder that would pass through the land at the idea of English ships
+manned by, or German colonies conquered by, French deserters.
+
+... The Foreign Legion lives upon its past. The Frenchman is accustomed
+to it and hardly notices what an anachronism it is.
+
+The problem of the Legion is so easy. It can be divided into two
+questions:
+
+Is it fair to pay a man who works really hard a daily wage of five
+centimes?
+
+Is it fair to make use of a poor devil's misfortunes, or the fact that
+he has got into trouble with the authorities of his native land, in
+this way for national purposes?
+
+The answer to these questions is not difficult.
+
+In later years especially, the French Government has made a clean sweep
+of many French institutions that seemed to be incompatible with the
+fair fame of France. One can be quite sure that it will in course of
+time be recognised that the Foreign Legion must be done away with.
+
+One is only tempted to ask: How long will it last?
+
+_Quousque tandem...?_
+
+
+ Printed by BALLANTYNE & CO. LIMITED
+ Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, London
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of In the Foreign Legion, by Erwin Rosen
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40479 ***
generated by cgit v1.2.3 (git 2.25.1) at 2026-08-08 16:36:25 +0000