LIFE IN THE LEGION
^OLDIER'S POINT OF VIEW
FREDERIC MARTYN
Now I've come to my own again, Fed, forgiven, and known again, Claimed by bone of my bone again,
And sib to flesh of my flesh. ! The fatted calf's been dressed for me, But husks have greater zest for me, I think that pigs are best for me,
I'd go to those styes afresh.
(With Apologies to Mr. Kipling.)
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
IQII
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
Five years in the Legion and proud of it — Why swallow the exaggerations of a deserter who only served a few months ? — Men who join the Legion — Half the legionaries Alsa- tians— The chance that made me a legionary — A peculiar recruiting officer — Petrovski and his fur coat ... 9
CHAPTER H
To Marseilles per Rapide — Equalising the funds — We fall foul
of some officers — Arrested ..•••..23
CHAPTER HI
A night in the Salle de Police — We are promised the Zephyrs — The powers of a French sergeant — Punishments in the Legion 30
CHAPTER IV
Fort St. Jean — The sort of " wrong 'un " one finds in the Legion — Monsieur 1'adjudant — Binks in red breeches — " Two lucky numbers " — Tipping a sergeant — A mixed lot — The after-history of some of our fellow-recruits — The sight of the Cross of St. George and the feeling it provoked . . 37
CHAPTER V
Oran — One hundred vacancies a week in the Legion — A filthy hole — The man who got a medal for " pinching " the general's clothes 52
CHAPTER VI
A legionary's food — An uncomfortable night — Two tales of desertion — The true story of the Prussian prince — A recruit of sixteen and another of over fifty — The French as colony developers — Unwise generosity 60
CHAPTER VH
Knocked down for doing a man a good turn — An officer of the Russian Guards — First night at Sidi-bel-Abbes — Medical officers of the Legion ....... 73
6 CONTENTS
CHAPTER VHI
PACE
" Juice " — A beautiful wash — A legionary's kit — Potato peeling — An evening in the canteen — I meet a fellow-countryman — A stroll round the town — A weird drink . . . . 82
CHAPTER IX
Frenchmen from Germany — Linguists in the Legion — First taste of corvee — The " Hall of Honour " — A gallant feat of arms — What a regiment ! What men ! — Recruits' course easy, but marching a killing job 104
CHAPTER X
Bearding the colonel — " The education of a man in the best school " — In the probationary corporals' section — Promoted corporal and rise from a halfpenny to twopence a day . 114
CHAPTER XI
Embarkation for Tonkin — The " Marseillaise " — Desertions in the Suez Canal — Deserter killed at Singapore — Arrival at Haiphong — Uncertainty as to sex of waiter — Legionaries paint Haiphong — " Moneyed men " — Arrival at Phu-lang- Thuong — Marching through rice-swamps . . . 1 22
CHAPTER XH
Doi Van, rebel — A young woman leader — A narrow escape — De Nam — Our captain — Expedition against Cao-Thuong — The man with the medals . . . . . .135
CHAPTER XIH
The pirate fortifications — Sir Collins — The post of Nha-Nam — Reconnoitring a pirate stronghold — Bringing down a sentry — A horrible sight — A message from the pirates — Unsuc- cessful attack on the stronghold — " It was on this day in 1870 that my father was killed " — Another offer from the pirates 148
CHAPTER XIV
To Phu-lang-Thuong with sick and wounded — Tirailleurs Ton- kinois and their wives — " Ora pro nobis " — A deserted village — Poor Petrovski 169
CHAPTER XV
A Tonkin forest — Preparing for another go at the stronghold — A weird experience — Stronghold captured at last — De Tham still going strong — Twenty-seven years' war and not done yet — Struck down by " blackwater " — Invalided to Algeria 176
CONTENTS 7
CHAPTER XVI
PACK
Volunteers for Dahomey — Corporal Minnaert — An extempor- ised tricolour — " Thank you, Mr. Atkins, when the trooper's on the tide " — A colonial governor who was hanged for murder — Arab by choice — A comical king . . . .183
CHAPTER XVH
Colonel Dodds and the " tar-brush " — Painful marching — The surprise at Dogba — " Forking " work with the bayonet — " I am well hit " — " Twenty-five francs for every one of those niggers you bring down " — A sergeant-major among the Amazons — Burning the enemies' dead — Death of our gallant commandant — Europeans in the Dahomeyan army 194
CHAPTER XVHI
On the gunboats — Battle of G'bede — Appreciation of the Amazons — A novel use for a woman's breasts — A remark- able incident of the pursuit ...... 203
CHAPTER XIX
The brush at the bridge beyond Poguessa — Dahomeyans' smart handling of the Krupps — Spahis' ill-treatment of carriers — The crapaudine — Superior to blame in almost every case where struck by inferior — Beginning of the Great Thirst — Taking the trenches at Ouabomedi — A drenching in the night — Fighting for water 211
CHAPTER XX
Beaten off from the water — " All right, sergeant, I'm not ' routed ' yet " — An enterprising Amazon — On the edge of a disaster — Retreat — Some water at last — Mosquitoes day and night — An exciting sprint race between a Dahomeyan and a legionary — A wide-awake bugler — Reinforcements — Envoys from Behanzin — A miserable night — Taking the Kotopa forts — Nearly surprised — The Zodiac ring . . 221
CHAPTER XXI
Capture of Muako — Determined stand at Dioxoue — Piper Find- later anticipated — Taking of Kana — The Royal Palace — The House of Sacrifice — A description of a festival of slaughter — Dahomeyan idols 235
CHAPTER XXH
The final stage to Abomey — Behanzin sets the capital on fire and escapes — Liquor found — and lost — Triumphal return to Sidi-bel-Abbes 243
CHAPTER XXHI
Typhoid — Three weeks on the march — With the Mounted
Company at Ain-Sefra — Against the Touaregs . . .250
8 CONTENTS
CHAPTER XXIV
PAGE
Insanity in the Legion — The Cafard — The man who was colonel for two hours — Two grenadiers of the eighteenth century — Two ex-officers — An ex-inspector of police who burgled for fun — A cool captain — Ennui as an excuse for murder . . 25
CHAPTER XXV
Queer fish — A cold-blooded murderer — An officer of Uhlans — The professor who was " fond of war " — An ex-bishop in the Legion — " Keep the contents dry " — A German nobleman — Englishmen in the Legion — An ex-diplomatist — A French barrister — Recognised by the general — A suicide — An adventurous ranker — An Austrian ex-officer who got 30 days for desertion — And a German one who got two years — Ordered by his father to join the Legion — Sundry broken men — Low-class Legionaries — The scandal of the miserable pay 264
CHAPTER XXVI
History and constitution of the Legion — Percentages of different nationalities — Ages of Legionaries — Military value of the Legion — General de Negrier's opinion — Should Englishmen join ? —Conclusion 279
LIFE IN THE LEGION
CHAPTER I
Five years in the Legion and proud of it — Why swallow the exaggerations of a deserter who only served a few months ? — Men who join the Legion — Half the legionaries Alsa- tians— The chance that made me a legionary — A peculiar recruiting officer — Petrovski and his fur coat
I HAVE held a commission in the British Army and I have served in the ranks ; I have been a traveller in strange places ; I have lived a life full of vicissi- tude of sorts ; and — I was for five strenuous and not unhappy years in the French Foreign Legion.
I am proud of having been a legionary, and it has hurt me to read the misleading account of life in the Region given in a recent book written by a German deserter, who was admittedly but a few months in the corps and never got beyond the depot.
As the reviewers — among them a lady ! ! ! — seem to have swallowed the German deserter's exaggerations without even a gulp, I would like to ask them if they would expect to get a dependable picture of life in a British regiment from a " King's Hard Bargain " who happened to be a native of a country with which we had a long outstanding account to settle some day. I imagine not.
The burden of the deserter's complaint is that the Region is recruited from fugitives from justice
9
io LIFE IN THE LEGION
and " hard cases " generally, and that life in it is so unbearably hard that every legionary is always on the look-out for an opportunity to desert.
Life in the Legion is certainly very far from being a bed of roses ; but it must be remembered that the corps is always on service and that the lot of the pampered British soldier is not particularly downy in the same circumstances.
Fugitives from justice are indisputably to be found in the Legion, and, I may say, in pretty nearly every regiment of the British Army also. Perhaps the percentage is higher in the Legion, but it is certainly not high enough to warrant a song being made about it. Personally, if I wished to hide from the police of this or any other country, when they wanted badly to find me, I should be very careful indeed to keep away from the Legion — I rather fancy that it would be safer to try to get into the Metropolitan Police.
Broken men there are in the Legion in plenty ; but they are not men to sneer at. Their very presence in the corps proves that no matter what their offences against social law and convention may have been they are still entitled to call themselves " men." Most of these social wrecks join the Legion from motives that more befit the character of a man than either patriotism, gain, or glory : they join to regain their self-respect.
There are men, too, who join from pure love of adventure ; and of all recruits these are the least likely to be disappointed.
LIFE IN THE LEGION n
Lastly, among the foreigners, come those who enlist because they have been crossed in love. This is a fairly numerous class, and it furnishes most of the dissatisfied ones ; for dissatisfaction is pretty sure to come when they realise, as they all do sooner or later, that they have done a very foolish thing in sentencing themselves to five years' hard labour because they cannot have the moon. I have never been disappointed in love myself — I sometimes think that it would have been better for me if I had been — so my opinion as to what is the best thing for a man to do in such circum- stances is not worth much, but I think that if a blight of that sort fell upon me I should make haste to find another girl instead of inflicting unnecessary suffering on myself.
But the majority of men serving in the Foreign Legion are not foreigners at all from their own point-of-view. Something like half of the 8,000 men composing the Legion are Alsatians and Lorraines who insist that they are Frenchmen, although their birthplaces were annexed to Germany forty years ago. What do the Legiono- phobes say to this ? To the indisputable fact that about half of the men who enlist into this " disreputable " corps are moved to do so by patriotic motives in their very purest form !
It was pure chance that led me to the Legion. I had been a fool and had altogether lost conceit in myself. I found that sleeping with my conscience, or trying to sleep with it, was very painful. I
12 LIFE IN THE LEGION
mourned over brilliant prospects thrown away, and I wanted to leave this weary world but hadn't the pluck to put myself out of mess. If I hadn't come across the Legion I should probably have taken to drink and ended up in the gutter. And my salvation came to me by chance.
I was in Paris, and one morning I was passing along the Rue St. Dominique in an aimless sort of way, feeling fairly " fed-up " with the company of my miserable thoughts, when a man emerging suddenly from a doorway, at the moment when I was maundering past, cannoned against me and nearly knocked me off my feet.
" Pardon, monsieur," he said, with a low bow and a genial smile.
I raised my hat and smiled in acknowledgment, and the stranger passed on.
He was a man of striking and distinguished appearance, and his manner, though courteous to an extent that would not be understood by an untravelled Englishman, was somewhat imperious and condescending. His dress, too, betokened class : I mentally decided that the fur coat he was wearing would have been cheap at a hundred guineas.
I stood staring after him for a minute or two, so much had his appearance impressed me, and then I turned to look at the building he had come out of.
The first thing that caught my eye was a big placard, headed with the " Liberte, Egalite,
LIFE IN THE LEGION 13
Fraternite," of the French Republic, stating that men between the ages of eighteen and forty would be accepted for service in " La Legion etrangere " and directed enquirers to walk inside.
I walked inside. The doorway led into the head recruiting office of the French Army, and as soon as I read that placard, which I should not have noticed if the man in the fur coat had not run against me, I determined to be a legionary if they would let me.
Going up to a booby-hutch that had the lettering " Engagements Volontaires," painted above it I, with some little difficulty, attracted the attention of a soldier who was writing in the office on the other side of the partition.
He appeared to me, in my ignorance of French badges of rank, to be a private soldier with two exaggerated gold good conduct badges on his arm, but he was in reality sP sergeant-major — in the French Army a very important personage indeed.
' What is your pleasure, monsieur ? " he asked politely when he at last came to the enquiry window.
"I wish to enlist in the Legion etrangere," I said briefly.
' Your name, age and nationality ? "
When I had given him these particulars he directed me to go and stand outside a door lettered : " Commandant de Recrutement." After I had been there for perhaps a quarter of an hour the
14 LIFE IN THE LEGION
door was opened by the sergeant-major, who beckoned me to enter.
I found myself in a big bare office with a large table in the centre, at which was sitting a grizzled gentleman in uniform, with the galons of a colonel on his arm.
Without waiting for any instructions I marched across the room and stood " at attention " in front of him, after saluting in the orthodox military manner.
" Bien ! " he ejaculated genially, as he looked at me approvingly. " So you have served already, is it not so ? You know the ' position militaire,' and you have the bearing of a soldier."
' You are discerning, mon colonel," I replied. " I was for some years in a British hussar regi- ment."
He nodded amicably, as if he unreservedly accepted my statement and saluted me as a confrere.
" I am afraid that you will find life ' down there ' very different from life in a British cavalry regiment ; it is a great deal different from life in an ordinary French regiment for the matter of that," he remarked deprecatingly.
" It is understood, mon colonel."
" Monsieur has no doubt reflected over this step, and knows that the life will not appeal to any one who does not love the soldiering trade for its own sake. There are many, too many, who join the Legion with no sort of qualification for a
LIFE IN THE LEGION 15
soldier's life, and these men do no good to them- selves or to France by enlisting. I always try to impress upon every candidate that it is a step that should not be taken without much reflection." ' This is a peculiar sort of recruiting officer," thought I; his manner was dissuasive instead of the opposite, and I wondered as I stood there if recruits for the Legion were so plentiful that recruiting officers could afford to choke them off in this way.
" I have reflected, mon colonel," I replied mendaciously.
Upon this he dropped the formal " Monsieur " and called me " Mon enfant," just as if I were already one of his own men.
" Ah ! " he exclaimed, " you have done well, mon enfant. The Legion is a corps with glorious traditions and, to a soldier, to serve in it is a joy. Now, mon enfant, shall I be indiscreet in asking if you were an officer ' over there ' ? "
" I was, mon colonel."
" I was sure of it, and asked the question for a purpose. See you, the road to promotion in the Legion is broader and easier to travel to those who have worn epaulettes. Can you — pardon me, my friend, I have no personal doubts and am only fulfilling a duty imposed upon me by regula- tions— can you give me any proofs ? "
I hesitated. As a matter of fact, I couldn't give him any proofs that would fit in with the name he had before him.
16 LIFE IN THE LEGION
" I fear I have been indiscreet," he went on. " Monsieur has doubtless borrowed a name, and in so doing has, perhaps, done rightly ; but if the time comes, as I hope it will, when the colonel will talk about officer's rank, the nom d'emprunt must be discarded and the colonel taken into confidence. Till then one name is as good as another."
' You are good, mon colonel," I rejoined.
' Very well, then. You shall now go to see the doctor, and if he passes you as fit for service I will engage you."
He turned again to his papers, and the sergeant- major motioned me towards the door. I left the room with a high opinion of the urbanity of French officers, an opinion that became somewhat modified when I got to know them better, and found that the bulk was hardly equal to sample.
Then the sergeant-major ushered me into a waiting-room that was well-filled with a mis- cellaneous crowd of Frenchmen. These men were not conscripts, but recruits who had come up to join the army of their own accord so that they might get their military service over as early as possible, instead of letting the prospect dangle over their heads and interfere with the serious work of their lives.
Presently I was called into an inner room and told to strip. Then I was medically examined, not very strictly, I fancy, by a fat, genial surgeon- major wearing a pair of red uniform trousers and a white linen smock. While he was examining me
LIFE IN THE LEGION 17
he chucklingly chaffed me about my reasons for joining.
" These women ! these women ! " he said quizzically. ' What fine recruiting-sergeants they are ! How many engagements in the Legion would there be, I wonder, if it wasn't for women ? "
" None at all, monsieur le major," I said with a smile, " nor in any other regiment either."
" You are too smart, mon enfant," said the doctor, shaking a fat forefinger at me. "It is a terrible misfortune for a young man to be over- smart in any walk of life ; but in the army it is calamitous, for a man who lets it be seen that he is smarter than his superior officer has a dog's life of it."
" Pardon, monsieur le major," I said deprecat- ingly. " I was merely referring to the fact that every soldier must have had a mother. My mother is the only woman who has had anything to do with my enlistment."
" Ah ! " he ejaculated drily, and made no further remarks beyond such as were necessitated by the business in hand.
I knew the significance of that exclamation without any explanation : it meant that in his opinion a gentleman recruit who had not been driven to the Legion by an affair of the heart that had come undone, must have something dis- reputable in his past.
He passed me as being fit, and I was told to
i8 LIFE IN THE LEGION
come again next day to be formally engaged, and sent off to join.
Next morning when I turned up I found the man in the fur coat sitting all by himself in a corner of the waiting-room, and when I reported myself to the non-commissioned-officer he told me that " that aristocrat there " was also a recruit for the Legion, and that I had better go and introduce myself, as we would be travelling companions.
I didn't do as he suggested, for I had the ordinary Englishman's dislike to making the first advances to a stranger.
After a tiresome wait of more than an hour a non-commissioned-officer came and bawled out my name and " Petrovski." The man in the fur coat got up and went with me into the room where the colonel sat. Here we signed an ordinary printed form, but what it contained I do not know, as Petrovski was called upon to sign first, and dashed off his signature without reading a word. In face of this I didn't care to stop to examine the document myself, so carelessly scrawled my signature likewise.
" You will proceed to Marseilles by to-night's train from the Gare de Lyon," said the colonel as soon as we had signed, " and you will be met on arrival by a non-commissioned-officer, who will give you further orders. If you should happen to miss this non-commissioned-officer you should ask your way to the military depot
LIFE IN THE LEGION 19
and report yourselves there. You must remember that you are now soldiers of France, and that failure to report yourselves will entail your being proceeded against as deserters. I wish you bon voyage and ' good luck.' '
Then he got up, leaned over the table, and held out his hand — I cannot imagine an English recruiting colonel shaking hands with a newly- enlisted private soldier.
The sergeant-major now took charge of us again and conducted us to the outer office. Here we were given railway warrants to Marseilles, documents establishing our identity as soldiers of La Lbgion kir anger e travelling to join our depot in Algeria, and three francs each as subsistence money.
Each man got his own documents, so there was no necessity for us to travel in company unless we so desired ; but we left the office together and there and then commenced a close comrade- ship that continued through our depot days to the times when we found ourselves standing shoulder to shoulder in many a tight place, and on many an exhausting march, only ceasing when we shook hands and vowed eternal friendship on the day when we were both honourably dis- charged from the Legion, wearing the coveted mtdaille militaire, which is the French equivalent for the English medal for " Distinguished Conduct in the Field."
As soon as we emerged from the recruiting
20 LIFE IN THE LEGION
offices into the street the man in the fur coat stopped and faced me.
" My friend, I am charmed to make your acquaintance," he said in faultless English, with the pleasing intonation that is given to our somewhat harsh language by some foreigners who learn it in the nursery. " Will it be agreeable to you that we spend our last afternoon and evening in Paris together ? As you heard, within there, I call myself Ivan Petrovski ; and I, on my side, heard you answer to the name of Fred Brown. We will not exchange cards, my dear Brown, because I haven't got one, and I don't suppose that you have one either."
He laughed heartily as he said this, and I laughed in response. Then he took my arm in the foreign fashion and we moved off in company.
When we made our way to the Paris-Lyon Mediterranean Railway that evening we were fresh from a recherchi dinner at Cubat's, at that time probably the most expensive restaurant in Paris, and I felt as if I had known my companion for years instead of for less than twenty-four hours.
It is necessary to say that we had not only dined well but wisely, as otherwise the incident I am about to relate might engender doubts as to the sobriety of Petrovski, if not of myself.
The cabman who drove us to the station had a cough so bad that we could hear it above the sound of the traffic as we rolled along. When we arrived
LIFE IN THE LEGION 21
at our destination I looked at the man with some interest while Petrovski was paying him, and noticed that he was so poorly clad that he shivered with cold as he sat on the box.
I experienced a feeling of pity for the man, which might have prompted me to have given him an extra franc if I had been paying him, and was very flush of money at the time, but I couldn't imagine myself doing what Petrovski did, even if I had been a multi-millionaire.
He deliberately took off his fur coat and tossed it up to the cabman.
" Here, put this on, cocher ; it will keep you warm," he said as nonchalantly as if he were merely giving the man a cigar.
The cabman stared at him open-mouthed, but made no move to touch the coat.
" Put it on, I say," said Petrovski, in an im- perious tone that suggested his having been used to willing obedience.
The cabman laughed a short, bitter kind of laugh. " It's a poor joke, monsieur," he said.
Petrovski started forward as if he would pull the man off his box, and then suddenly turned round and walked into the station without another word.
' You could get a thousand francs on that coat at the Mont de Pietk" said I as I followed him. I had had my dealings with " my aunt," as the French name the national pawnshop, and knew what I was talking about.
22 LIFE IN THE LEGION
He looked at me contemptuously and shrugged his shoulders. " You English think too much of money," he said.
" We don't put poor devils of cabmen in the way of being run in by the police for being in unlawful possession of expensive fur coats," I retorted tartly. ' Who is going to believe that man when he tells the thieves' threadbare fairy tale about the coat being given to him by a gentleman unknown ? "
" My God ! I didn't think of that," he said as he rushed out of the station and shouted excitedly after the cabman.
But the cabby, who had resigned himself to the acceptance of the gift and was moving away, only whipped up his horse and departed as if he were trying the animal for the Grand Prix : he probably thought that the mad foreigner had changed his mind and wanted his coat back.
I have often speculated as to the further history of that cabman and that coat.
CHAPTER II
To Marseilles per " Rapide " — Equalising the funds — We fall foul of some officers — Arrested
WE made the journey to Marseilles in style, for Petrovski seemed to have money to burn, as the saying is, and had insisted upon paying first-class fares and the supplementary fare of about two pounds for sleeping berths. This appeared to me to be a wicked waste of fourteen or fifteen pounds, as the inconvenience of passing about twenty-four hours in the third-class of a slow train was nothing to men who had taken on our job, and I suggested that we ought to use our military railway warrants and save the fares for another day. But Petrovski waved my objections aside with a smile, and the remark that a sensible man never roughed it until he was obliged to do so. Consequently we travelled by quite a different train from the one we were supposed to take, which led indirectly to our roughing it in a way we little expected.
The first-class " rapide " landed us at Marseilles between nine and ten the next morning, some hours in advance of the time when our proper train would be due ; and as the military authorities would naturally not expect recruits to travel by a train composed exclusively of first-class
23
24 LIFE IN THE LEGION
carriages we found no non-commissioned-officer awaiting us. This didn't distress us at all, as we had foreseen it, and arranged to pass the day in having a look round Marseilles, returning to the station in the evening in time to meet the train we ought to have travelled by, so that we could save the non-commissioned-officer detailed to meet us from disappointment. If we had carried out this arrangement all would doubtless have been well, but we didn't carry it out, and so got ourselves into what might have been serious trouble.
As soon as we got out of the train Petrosvki suggested that we should go and buy clean shirts and then make our way to a hotel to have a bath, change, and take dejeuner. I objected to the hotel part, saying that it seemed to me to be quite an unnecessary expense to take rooms for the day, as we should have to do, and that we could just as well change in a public Turkish bath and have dejeuner at an inexpensive cafe.
Petrovski snapped his fingers at this, a manner- ism with him, and said that he didn't believe in making little economies when he had money in his pockets. I remarked drily that when two people travelled together the pace had to be that of the slower, and that if his pockets were bulging mine were not.
" Now look here, my friend," said he as he stopped suddenly and caught me by the arm. " We are to be close comrades, is it not so ? "
LIFE IN THE LEGION 25
I replied to the effect that such was my wish. ' Very well then. Just come in here," he said, as he dragged me into a waiting-room.
" Now then," he continued, shoving me into a seat, " show me what money you have."
I produced about nine pounds, most of which came from the sale of my personal belongings the day before.
" Put it there," he said pointing to the table.
I laid the money down, and he took out his note case, which he emptied, afterwards turning out his pockets.
Then he made a heap of all the money and proceeded to count it.
' The total is two thousand three hundred and forty francs," he said, when he had finished. " Now we'll divide it equally and so put an end to the money argument."
This was carrying good nature to a length that I was not prepared for, and I absolutely refused to entertain the idea at all.
' Very well then, my friend," he said coolly. " You shall take your money back, and I will take an equal amount. As to the rest I will make a present of it to the first person we meet who appears to be in want of it."
From what I had already seen of him I quite believed that he would do this, and so I choked down my aversion to sponging and took the forty-odd pounds that was my " share " of the joint purse. It would be as well after all, I thought,
26 LIFE IN THE LEGION
that I should have control of some of his money, as I might possibly make it last longer than he would.
In thus dividing with me Petrovski was only, in a way, anticipating a time-honoured custom of the Legion, for we found out afterwards that when one man of a section had money it was expected as a matter of course that every member of that particular section should share in his good fortune in some way or other.
We now sallied out, and, after buying clean shirts and collars at the first outfitter's we came to, took rooms for the day at the Grand Hotel Noailles, where we had a sumptuous dejeuner.
Then, big cigar in mouth and feeling very well satisfied with ourselves, we strolled round the town and put the Legion altogether behind us for the time being.
We spent a very pleasant day ; so pleasant that we did not like to bring it to a premature end, and agreed that we would not go to the railway station to meet the non-commissioned officer who would be awaiting the arrival of the slow train ; but would have one last night of freedom and report ourselves at the military depot in the morning.
To be absent without leave on the first night of our military service was making a bad start, but we were broad-minded men and assumed that, even in the Legion, a recruit would be allowed to sin in ignorance — once.
We returned to the hotel to have dinner, and
LIFE IN THE LEGION 27
somewhat unfortunately, as it turned out, took our seats at a table next to one at which there was a party of young naval and military officers in uniform.
They were at the coffee stage when we entered, and had seemingly been dining none too wisely, for they were more larky and boisterous than is considered good form in a first-class hotel.
The waiter suggested in a whisper, and with a meaning glance at our neighbours, that we would be more comfortable at a table a little further removed from them, but we only smiled indulgently, and I said that the gentlemen were not likely to annoy us in the least.
I was mistaken in this, however, for we had not got through our soup before they commenced flirting pellets of bread at one another, and some of the missiles missed their marks and reached our table instead^
Petrovski seemed to be much more put out by this than the occasion warranted, and he called the waiter and told him to inform " those gentlemen " that their bread bullets were making bull's-eyes on us every time.
We saw the waiter go and speak to them, but what he said had no effect, for presently a pellet caught Petrovski full in the eye.
This made my friend lose control of himself. He stood up so quickly that he almost upset the table, and seizing the basket containing bread, which the waiter had left on our table, he launched the
28 LIFE IN THE LEGION
contents piece by piece at the offending officers, making very good shooting indeed.
It unfortunately happened that the greatest sufferer from this bombardment was an infantry officer who had taken no part in the bread-throw- ing, and he was naturally very much hurt in his feelings. He promptly came over to Petrovski and slapped his face without any preliminary request for an explanation, or any of the usual courtesies. It was only an open-handed slap, the sort of blow that an Englishman would consider sheer waste of time, but Petrovski went mad over it. He picked up his glass, which was full, and dashed the contents into the officer's face, sending the glass itself after it as a kind of afterthought.
This led to something like a free fight between we two and the six officers, and the manager sent for the police, who contented themselves with taking the names of the officers but marched us off to the lock-up, our names, presumably, not being considered good enough. We didn't stay in the hands of the police long, however, for when they came to search us, and found our Legion papers, they handed us over to the military authorities to be dealt with, and we were un- ceremoniously shoved into the Salle de Police, or prisoners' room, of the nearest barracks.
It was a discreditable sort of a row, and at the time I thought Petrovski was an ass to let his temper get the better of him to the extent he had
LIFE IN THE LEGION 29
done. I was certain that I could not have been caught in the same way, and I retained this opinion until a week or two ago, when I happened to be one of a party of four lunching at a restaurant in London, much frequented by visitors on account of its supposed historical associations. One of the party was a staid respectable solicitor, a man of much more equable temper than I am even in these days, and, in somewhat similar circum- stances, he acted almost exactly as Petrovski had done. Since then I have not been so sure of myself, and intend to give festive hooligans who throw bread about a wide berth in future.
CHAPTER III
A night in the Salic de Police — We are promised the Zephyrs — The powers of a French sergeant — Punishments in the Legion
THE Salle de Police into which we were thrust to pass the night was a room about twenty-four feet by twelve, with a wooden guard-bed running along one of the longer sides.
On this place of repose there were stretched about a dozen soldiers with their clothes on, and about as many more were either sitting at the foot, walking about, or lying bunched up on the floor.
Our entrance seemed to cause a great deal of surprise, and the sergeant of the guard had no sooner closed the door on us than we found ourselves in the centre of a gesticulating group bent on rinding out who we were and what had brought us there.
Petrovski was sulky and uncommunicative, but I told them shortly that we were recruits for the Legion who had been struck by some officers in a cafe row, and had taken the liberty of hitting back.
When they heard this there was much shrugging of shoulders, one or two grim laughs, and many
30
LIFE IN THE LEGION 31
murmurs of " Poor Devils," " Conseil de Guerre," " Biribi " and " Zephyrs."
" Eh, but they are droll, these legionnaires," said a wizened-looking rive-foot-nothing infantry- man in a uniform that seemed to have been cast off by a much bigger man. ' They want to join the Zephyrs right off. ' Blues ' in the Zephyrs ! Oh, la ! la ! " and he laughed until he was in serious danger of being choked — by Petrovski.
Then I learned, in answer to enquiries, that a " Blue " was a recruit, and that the " Zephyrs " were punishment battalions stationed in the desert parts of Algeria, and consisting of the hardest cases in the whole French army.
I scouted the idea that we had done anything worthy of the Zephyrs, but I was grimly told that we should be lucky if we got off at that, seeing that the usual dose meted out to a soldier who struck an officer without hurting him was five years' travaux fords, or penal servitude.
I began to be sorry that I had enlisted.
That was a very trying night : There was not room on the guard-bed for more than half of us, and the cell was so badly ventilated that as time wore on the atmosphere became absolutely poisonous. Petrovski had philosophically squatted down in one of the corners and seemed to sleep, but I never closed an eye. I passed the weary hours sitting on the floor in conversation with an intelligent little chap who seemed to be as wakeful and as uncomfortable as I was myself.
32 LIFE IN THE LEGION
From him I gathered that he and his comrades were undergoing a minor punishment called " Salle de Police," his particular dose of eight days having been awarded him by a sergeant because his rifle was alleged to be dirty.
In the British army nobody under the rank of company commander may punish a man, and the company commander's power is limited to award- ing seven days' confinement to barracks ; but in the French army non-commissioned-officers may inscribe a man's name in the " Livre des Punitions," and though the sentence is subject to confirmation and revision by the captain of the company and the commanding officer, who are supposed to inspect the " Punishment Book " every day, confirmation is never refused and re- vision is invariably in the direction of increasing the punishment, it being an article of faith with French officers that non-commissioned-officers must be supported unless they are so clearly in the wrong as to make backing them up a glaring injustice.
This system is no doubt responsible for a certain amount of petty tyranny, but, even with that drawback, it is, I think, much more conducive to military efficiency than the milk-and-water methods of dealing with private soldiers that obtain in our army. It makes the French non- commissioned-officer a much more important personage than his English prototype, for men who have the power of punishment must of necessity
UFE IN THE LEGION 33
have more influence than those who have not, and the sense of responsibility it engenders makes the sous-officer a very dependable quantity when left to his own initiative in a tight corner.
While on the subject of punishments I may as well give full particulars regarding them, as such particulars will have to be given sooner or later.
The mildest punishment for an infraction of discipline is corvee, which is the French name for the pottering about barracks that in our army is called " Fatigue Duty." This punishment is dished out wholesale, the number of men under- going it at one time being somewhat regulated by the demand for fatigue men : if there is a lot of work to be done there will be a lot of men sentenced to corvee. No fault can be found with this, for the work has to be done, and if there were not enough men sentenced to corvee to do it good soldiers would have to be impressed, which always causes great dissatisfaction.
The next punishment in the scale is " Room Arrest," which practically answers to our " Con- finement to Barracks," with the exception that there is no punishment drill attached to it.
Then there is " Salle de Police," which also answers to our " Confinement to Barracks," with the difference that the men undergoing it have to sleep in their clothes, on the plank-bed in the guard-room.
It is within the power of the sergeant of the
34 LIFE IN THE LEGION
guard to make " Room Arrest " and " Salle de Police " very irksome indeed, for, as in our army, defaulters have to answer their names at the sound of the defaulters' call, which is blown at irregular times. I have known sergeants to keep the miserable defaulters on a perpetual run for hours together, by having the call blown every ten minutes or so, and, as failure to hear the call and answer one's name is invariably punished with imprisonment, a sergeant who sounds the call at less intervals than an hour is a well-cursed man.
" Ordinary Arrest " is a somewhat extraordinary punishment. Those undergoing it are kept in confinement all the time except when they are doing punishment drill, of which they get six hours daily. This is a very severe punishment indeed, which has no parallel in the British Army, and I am bound to say that it is often awarded for very trivial offences.
Then there is " Solitary Confinement," which is altogether different from anything that English people associate with the name : a legionary sentenced to " cellule " is kept in the cell all the time of his sentence and never leaves it for any purpose whatever. He gets no exercise, has noth- ing to read, not even a Bible, and couldn't read it if he had, for his cell is in semi-darkness, his food is reduced to about a third of what a duty-man gets, and every other day he gets nothing but half-a-ration of dry bread, and the cells are
LIFE IN THE LEGION 35
veritable dog-kennels, being only about seven feet long and half as wide.
I have nothing to say in defence of this punish- ment. To stigmatise it as barbarous is to put the case far too mildly ; it is absolutely inhuman. It is, however, reserved for serious offences, and a man can hardly get " cellule " without knowing what he is playing for. I have seen a recent story of a man who got sixty days of this punish- ment, but I fancy that this must be a mistake, as, in my time, no more than thirty days' " cellule " could be given, though, if the case was a very serious one, thirty days' " Ordinary Arrest " could be put on top of it.
The final punishment within the power of the colonel was deportation to the " Zephyrs " for six months, which meant six months of good con- duct, as no man is allowed to return from the penal section unless he has been six months clear of a report.
If the colonel thinks that the case merits more severe punishment still, he sends the man before the " Council of War," or court-martial, which sits permanently at Oran ; and there he may be sentenced to penal servitude or even death.
Any imprisonment by sentence of court-martial does not count for time, so that a man who might be unfortunate enough to get five years' penal servitude would have to serve his five years in the Region in addition. The legionaries call this extra time " Rabio," or makeweight.
36 LIFE IN THE LEGION
As to the punishment of the " crapaudine," or tying a man up until he resembles a frog and leaving him in the open, I really cannot see that the strong remarks that have been made about it are altogether just. No doubt the punishment is a brutal one ; but I never saw it inflicted except once, and that was in the field. It seems to me that a general on service has only the choice between taking an offender's life or subjecting him to a punishment that must be brutal if it is to deter others from offending. I have seen British soldiers on service " pegged out " — a punishment hardly less severe than the crapaudine.
After all, before howling about the severity of punishments in the Legion, it is necessary to remember that it is not a feather-bed crowd, and that punishments, to be effective, must be adapted to the thickness of the skin that they have to get through. Such punishments as are inflicted in the British Army for serious offences would not, in most cases, be severe enough to act as a deterrent upon men of the Legion.
y&Jft
CHAPTER IV
Fort St. Jean — The sort of " wrong 'un " one finds in the Legion — Monsieur 1'adjudant — Binks in red breeches — " Two lucky numbers " — Tipping a sergeant — A mixed lot — The after history of some of our fellow-recruits — The sight of the Cross of St. George and the feeling it provoked
THE next morning we were marched, in charge of an armed escort, along the busy water front to an old fort with a curious old lighthouse tower and a drawbridge. This was Fort St. Jean, which at that time was supposed, in connection with another decrepit-looking construction called Fort St. Nicholas, to defend the entrance to the harbour of Marseilles. I was told that the fort derived its name from the fact that it originally belonged to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, and there cannot be any doubt that parts of it are very ancient, but the fortifications seemed to me to be of a very distinct seventeenth century type, and I question very much if the Knights of Malta had anything to do with them. At the time I am writing of, the fort not only served as a halting place for Chasseurs d'Afrique, Legionaries, and sous-officers of Spahis and Turcos on their way to Algeria ; but it was also used as a military prison for troops of the home army, and as a
37
38 LIFE IN THE LEGION
convalescent depot for men invalided from Algeria for change of air.
The corporal of the escort was very surly, and we could get no opinion from him as to what was in store for us, but his manner was not reassuring, and it was evident that if he had told us his thoughts they would have indicated that we were in for a warm time.
I myself didn't think it possible that we could get off lightly, because even in our army the officer is always in the right, and I thought that this was certain to be more so in the French service. The Russian didn't seem to be worrying himself much, and merely remarked, when I asked him what he thought they would do with us, that he hoped they would give us some breakfast before leading us out to execution.
Our escort handed us over to the sergeant of the guard, who didn't seem to know what to do with us, and took us to the adjudant on duty.
I may here remark that an adjudant in the French army is not at all the counterpart of an adjutant in the British service, though the trans- lation is given in all the dictionaries. In the British army an adjutant is a big pot indeed, who practically commands a regiment, in matters of detail, by means of the Shibboleth, " By Order " ; but in the French army an adjudant is not a commissioned officer at all, and does not even rank as high as a warrant officer does with us,
LIFE IN THE LEGION 39
though he is sometimes addressed as " mon lieutenant."
As I write the word " adjudant " there comes to my mind a gallant fellow who held that grade in the Legion. If there was any fighting going on he was always on the premises, and it was a pretty regular thing to find complimentary mention of him in orders on the day following a skirmish or a battle. He was borne on the rolls of the Legion as a Belgian, but, as will be seen, he was a French- man who had adopted the Belgian nationality so that he could enlist into the Legion without producing his papers, as Frenchmen have to do.
When I was discharged I left him in the Legion, and thought that he had passed out of my life altogether, but he was brought into it again in rather a curious fashion. Some years after I had left the Legion I happened to be in Chalons, and got into conversation with an infantry sergeant, who, when he heard that I had served under the tricolour, volunteered the information that an adjudant of my old corps was to be tried by the local " Council of War " on the following day. I asked the man's name, but it conveyed nothing to me, and my interest evaporated.
Next morning, however, when taking a walk, I came full tilt agairst a military prisoner in the uniform of an adjudcu t of the Legion and wearing the medaille militaire, with other decorations. I didn't need to look at the prisoner twice ; it was the Belgian.
40 LIFE IN THE LEGION
I turned round and followed to the court, to which I had no difficulty in gaining admittance, and there I heard a wonderful story that sounded more like fiction than sober fact.
The evidence was to the effect that the accused had been a sergeant-major in an infantry regiment stationed at Verdun, I think it was, and that, having misused public money entrusted to his charge, he deserted and enlisted in the Legion under a false name and nationality. He was tried in his absence and sentenced to twenty years' penal servitude. Now, having been hon- ourably retired from the Legion with a pension after fifteen years' service, he had straightway returned to Verdun, repaid the money he had embezzled, and voluntarily given himself up to the military authorities to undergo his punishment. It was ordered that he should be re-tried, and it was this new trial that was now in progress.
The court was composed of a colonel, a com- mandant, a captain, a lieutenant, a sub-lieutenant, and an adjudant — there is always a non-com- missioned-officer on a French court-martial when the accused is a non-commissioned-officer or private — and they sat in a row on a magisterial bench, not round a table as in England. At either end of the row of officers stood a sentry in full dress with fixed bayonet.
When the evidence and the speeches of the government commissary, also an officer, and the
LIFE IN THE LEGION 41
counsel for the prisoner had come to an end, the court retired to deliberate.
They were absent but a few minutes when a sergeant in uniform, who acted as usher, suddenly called out : " The Council."
Instantly everybody in court stood up, and as the members of the court filed in again the sentries presented arms.
The members of the court took their places as before, the juniors farthest away from the president, but they remained standing, and with their heads covered.
" In the name of the French People," said the colonel, and the members of the court carried their hands to their kepis in salute.
" The court find the prisoner ' Not Guilty ' without a dissentient voice, and order his immedi- ate release from custody," the colonel continued.
Then they filed out again, and the proceedings were over.
I am happy to say that I was one of the first to shake my old comrade by the hand, and that we had a very merry dinner together that night. That is the sort of " wrong 'un " one finds in the Legion.
In strict justice he ought not to have been acquitted, of course, for he had undoubtedly been guilty of embezzlement, and his acquittal by a British court-martial would have been practically impossible ; but the French are very susceptible to sentiment, and it was no doubt repugnant to
42 LIFE IN THE LEGION
the feelings of the members of the court to put a stain on the character of a brave soldier that no pardon or remission of punishment could efface. In England he would certainly have been con- victed, though the punishment would in all probability have been remitted by the confirming authority, and the conviction would have been remembered long after the splendid expiation had been forgotten.
That is rather a long digression from the main track of my story, but I am not one of those who find the pen more comfortable in my hand than the sword, and I think I can tell my story best in this discursive and informal way.
Well, to get back to my story, the adjudant of the week looked at the documents that had been handed over with us, and then looked curiously at us.
" Have you spent all your money ? " he asked mockingly.
" No, monsieur," I replied.
" Don't ' monsieur ' me," he retorted sharply. " I'm no lousy pekin (civilian) that you should talk to me in that way. I've a handle to my name that I've earned. I'm ' monsieur 1'adjudant' and you'll do well to remember it."
" It shall be so, monsieur 1'adjudant," I replied meekly.
" What brought you to the Legion if you have money left after paying your own fares from Paris and cutting a dash at the best hotel in the place ? "
LIFE IN THE LEGION 43
" We enlisted for the fun of the thing, monsieur 1'adjudant," I replied.
" Nom d'un pipe ! you're a pair of humorous devils right enough, if you can see any fun hi the Legion," he said grimly. " Take them over to the Salle des Rapports, sergeant, and keep them there until monsieur le commandant sees them."
We saw monsieur le commandant in due course, and I thought I saw him again a year or two ago on the stage in " The Second in Command," for he was the very spit of the fine fellow who is the hero of that play as personated by Cyril Maude, with the exceptions that his hair was trimmed brush fashion and he wore red breeches.
Petrovski in his best grand seigneur manner was proceeding to argue out the matter of the assault on the officers, when the major held up his hand.
" I know nothing of that," he said, " and I don't want to know anything about it. The police simply charge you with creating a disturbance in the hotel, and I, personally, want to know why you didn't report yourselves to the non- commissioned-officer at the railway-station."
I thought that I could manage this development better than Petrovski, and so I chipped in before he could open his mouth.
" But certainly we are culpable, mon com- mandant, and have nothing to say beyond making an appeal to your benevolence," I said, deprecatingly. " We had hoped to make a career
44 UFE IN THE LEGION
in the Region, and if you take a serious view of the matter it will be the spoiling of two good soldiers."
" I believe you, mes enfants," he said, graciously, " and I am not going to take any notice of it at all ; but remember when you are amusing your- selves in future to keep away from places frequented by officers. Rompez (dismiss)."
" Nom de Dieu ! But you are two lucky numbers," said the sergeant when we got outside. " You ought to drink the commandant's health."
" Come and crack a bottle with us," said Petrovski impulsively.
The sergeant shook his head. " No, my good comrades, that is not allowed," he said ; " but I could perhaps find another sergeant to share a litre with me if I had the money."
Petrovski, who did everything en prince, promptly responded to this hint by pressing a twenty-franc piece into the sergeant's palm, much to the non-com. 's astonishment. He prob- ably expected a franc, which would have been sufficient to have bought half-a-dozen bottles of canteen wine, quite as good wine, by the way, as one would pay two shillings a bottle for in an English restaurant.
This was our introduction to the fact that non-commissioned-officers in the French army are open to be tipped. It has to be done delicately though, and the tipping is usually done by asking their acceptance of presents in kind, or, better still, by leaving the presents where they can find
LIFE IN THE LEGION 45
them. A packet of cigarettes, or of tobacco, a bundle of cigars, or a bottle of sealed wine, will never offend a sergeant or a corporal if given by a good soldier who is not likely to expect anything more than goodwill in return, but the goodwill of a non-commissioned-officer is very useful sometimes, and his ill-will is a misfortune always.
Let it not be inferred from this that it is necessary to bribe non-commissioned-officers in order to get them to treat one with decency, or that I personally made my way in the Legion by means of " creeping," because that is very far from the truth. It was generally the non- commissioned-officers who were most popular by reason of their fairness that received little atten- tions like this when a legionary got money from home, and though I did make many trifling gifts to non-commissioned-officers I don't think that I ever gave for any reason other than that which prompted me to buy wine or tobacco for my equals — in my time in the Legion nobody need go without a drink or a smoke as long as there was any one in his section who had tobacco or money.
The sergeant handed us over to a corporal, who conducted us to a barrack room, in which we found about a dozen men in plain clothes like ourselves. These were recruits for the Legion who had enlisted in provincial towns, no fewer than eight of them having come from Belfort, which, by reason of its proximity to the German frontier, seems
46 LIFE IN THE LEGION
to send more recruits to the Legion than any other place.
They were a very mixed lot indeed, and some of them seemed to be already regretting their bargains, if one could assume as much from their glum countenances. Afterwards, on board the boat, I got into conversation with two of these gloomy ones, and they told me an extraordinary story of their having been arrested on a trumped- up charge by the French police, and been given the choice between going to prison and joining the Legion.
I couldn't reconcile this tale with the recruiting officer trying to dissuade me from joining, and I don't believe it now, but I am bound to say that I heard much the same thing from others later on.
These two men were Germans, and, like many of their countrymen in the Legion, they turned out to be very unsatisfactory soldiers. They eventually deserted, and, after terrible hardships and many narrow escapes from the wild tribes of Morocco, got to Tangiers. Here they managed, with the assistance of a member of the crew, to stow away on an English steamer that was going to Malta and the Levant ; but, unfortunately for them, the ship had to call at Algiers, and the captain, having in the meantime discovered their presence on board and not sympathising with them, handed them over to the French authorities, who promptly handcuffed them to a gendarme apiece and sent them back to the Legion. What
LIFE IN THE LEGION 47
terrible hard luck that was ! And what a little thing brought it about ! If they had not met that benevolent member of the English steamer's crew they would have gone to the German consul, for they had already decided on that step, and he would have sent them home — consuls only refuse to help legionaries while they are on French territory — or if the benevolent individual's ship had been on its homeward instead of its outward voyage they would have got to Liverpool in place of getting to Algiers. I happened to be on guard when they were brought back, and I shall never forget the pity I felt for them when they told me their heartbreaking story of the sufferings they had undergone during their two months' absence. If they told that English captain anything like the tale they told me he must have been a flinty- hearted character to send the poor devils back. They were tried by court-martial, got two years' penal servitude each, and I never saw or heard anything more of them.
There was another member of that party of recruits whose after career was interesting in a different way. He didn't at all seem to fit his surroundings as I saw him for the first time that morning in the barrack-room at Fort St. Jean waiting for the morning " soup." He was dressed in an irreproachable frock coat, with an equally faultless pair of grey trousers, and his boots and tall hat were as shiny and correct as they make them. But what puzzled me most and raised my
48 LIFE IN THE LEGION
envy, at first sight of him, was the fact that he was wearing a shirt that was clean and glossy from the hands of the laundress. I couldn't understand that at all until we formed up that afternoon to be marched down to the boat, and then he appeared on parade carrying a portmanteau, and the mystery was solved. Fancy a man enlisting in the Foreign Legion and bringing a portmanteau with him ! He was supercilious, standoffish, and disdainful in his manner, and I always felt like a pitiful worm beside him ; but for all this, and though he was the most unpopular man I knew in the Legion, he was a rattling good soldier, and knew the trade from A to Z.
What country owned, or disowned, him, I don't know ; but it was rumoured that he had been an officer of the Austro-Hungarian General Staff, and it was chaffingly suggested that he was. perhaps, the missing Austrian archduke. He was certainly " stuck-up " enough to be an emperor, But, whatever he was, there could be no doubt of his being a man of extraordinary grit and resource, for he extricated a convoy in Tonquin from a most difficult position and was, most deservedly, promoted to a commission.
There was yet another of that crowd who deserves a few words. He was an outsider as far as apparel went, for he was literally in rags ; but he was an easy first favourite, both then and afterwards, as regards popularity, for he was one of those rare men that one seems to know
LIFE IN THE LEGION 49
intimately after having been in his company for five minutes. I don't think that I ever saw that man without a smile on his face — in fact, his nickname in the Legion was " The Smiling Swiss," and it used to be said that he couldn't look serious if he tried. He was the most good-humoured, simple, lovable lump of a man I ever met in my life — and he was the only man I ever heard of who made a fortune in the Legion. He became " ordonnance," or soldier-servant, to his captain, whom he accompanied on a visit to Algiers, and there he fell in with a wealthy French widow, who married him. That widow was a lucky woman.
We had not been in the barrack-room more than five minutes when a bugle sounded outside, and the corporal took two of the men away with him, presently returning with a wooden carrying tray containing mess tins and small loaves of bread.
I looked on anxiously while he was serving out the tins and the loaves, for I was very hungry and was doubtful as to whether I should find myself " in mess " ; but my fears were groundless, and I soon found myself trying to eat thick potato stew by the sole aid of my pocket-knife.
It was not at all bad, that stew, or " soup " as they call it, and I made a very satisfactory meal, while hoping that I should get nothing worse " over there."
After " soup " we invited our new comrades
50 LIFE IN THE LEGION
to come to the canteen to drink to our better acquaintance, and all of them but one accepted with alacrity. The exception was the swell in the frock coat, who politely, but freezingly, said that he did not desire to drink when Petrovski wound up his heavenly smile and asked him. Petrovski bowed and, as far as I know, never spoke to the man again.
We passed a joyous time in the canteen, filling up Spahis, Turcos, Chasseurs, and legionaries indiscriminately at a ridiculously small expense, for wine in a French canteen is cheaper than beer is in an English one, and stayed there until the corporal came, at about three o'clock, to rout us out to go down to the boat.
There were a lot of recruits at Fort St. Jean for the ordinary African corps of the French army, and more than a few bad characters bound for the Zephyrs, but it was only we of the Region that went by the mail packet that day.
As the boat passed the Chateau d'lf the univer- sality of " Monte Christo " was brought home to me by the fact that every man of our cosmo- politan crowd looked at it with interest, and seemed to be well acquainted with the story of the escape.
Then, just as we were clearing the harbour, there was another sight, one that brought a lump to my throat and made me intensely dissatisfied with myself : it was the British Mediterranean Fleet, with the Union Jack at every bow, and the
LIFE IN THE LEGION 51
cross of St. George floating proudly over every stern. I felt that I had wilfully thrown away my birthright : I had no concern with that flag for the next five years at least. I was a despicable renegade.
CHAPTER V
Oran — One hundred vacancies a week in the Legion — A filthy hole — The man who got a medal for "pinching" the general's clothes
WE left Marseilles between five and six on a Thursday evening and arrived at Oran just before noon on the following Saturday.
Oran is strongly fortified, but from the sea it looks so glaringly inoffensive and helpless that any one who judged its defences by what could be seen would have no hesitation in betting that it could be taken by a torpedo boat.
As soon as the packet touched the wharf a sergeant of the I/egion came on board and marched up to the forepart of the boat, where we were congregated looking over the side.
" I/egionnaires a moi " — legionaries come to me — he shouted in a strident parade voice as he stood in the middle of the deck and raised his right arm above his head.
This struck me as being a somewhat silly pro- ceeding, seeing that at least half of our party had no knowledge of French, but it answered all right, and after checking us off on a kind of way-bill he marched us off the ship, through the wide well scavengered streets of the town to Fort St. Theresa, which lies on a hill some distance behind.
52
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We must have looked curiously out of place, we fifteen men in assorted European clothes, as we marched through the throng of negroes, dark-skinned Arab men, and olive-complexioned Algerian women ; but we didn't seem to interest the populace a little bit. This surprised me at the time, but I ceased to wonder when the sergeant told me that about a hundred recruits passed through Oran in this way every week in the year. Just think of that : four or five thousand recruits per annum to fill the gaps in a force which never numbers more than twelve thousand and seldom exceeds eight thousand ! What an object lesson as to the risks of service in the Legion !
" How much farther, mon sergeant ? " asked Petrovski, who seemed to be a bit out of training and blown by the long uphill tramp.
" Just a bagatelle : about a kilometre," replied the sergeant, looking at him curiously. " They'll soon teach you ' down there ' to do thirty kilo- metres carrying a donkey-load on your back with less trouble than this little bit seems to be giving you."
" Ma foi, I'm afraid they won't do anything of the sort if the kilometres ' down there ' stand up on end like they do here," rejoined Petrovski.
" You'll see, my friend, you'll see," said the sergeant grimly.
I thought of this later when I used to see poor Petrovski doubling round and round the exercise- ground with the squad, puffing and blowing
54 UFE IN THE LEGION
most distressfully, and shedding his fat by the pint.
When we got to the fort we were inspected by an officer, and then shown into a dark filthy hole that might have been a salle de police at some time or other. The wooden guard-bed, on which there was a pile of dirty looking blankets, was the only fitting the room contained, and as soon as I saw the accommodation I not unnaturally jumped to the conclusion that this was the sort of thing we were to expect for the next five years, and was not at all pleased with the idea.
Being left to our own devices, after being cautioned against leaving the fort, Petrovski and I speedily found our way to the canteen and invited two thirsty-looking legionaries whom we found standing outside to show us the ropes.
They accepted the job with alacrity, and the trifle we spent filling them up with good red wine of Algeria was an excellent investment ; for they were a couple of merry fellows and, besides giving us much useful information, entertained us hugely with yarns of Region life in camp and barracks. Most of their stories had a woman in them some- where, but there was one that may well be re- produced here, especially as it happens to be true, in its main facts at any rate, though it may sound unconvincing.
One of them was wearing a medal, and I asked him what it was for.
LIFE IN THE LEGION 55
" Oh ! " laughed the other one, " he got that for pinching the general's clothes."
" Yes, that's right," said the man with the medal, grinning : " but it is you, my worthy man, who ought to be wearing it.' '
" Have another litre and tell us about it," I suggested.
" Eh, but you are good recruits," he remarked appreciatively as he held out his hand for the money. " We don't get many bons camarades like you come through here."
" So you want to know how I got this bit of ferblanterie (tinware), eh ? " he asked, as he settled himself in front of the fresh bottles and lighted his pipe, which he had filled from a packet of tobacco he had bought with our money without asking. I nodded assent.
' Well, it was owing to a general, who called himself Louis, but ought to have been named ' Cochon ' (pig). He didn't like the Legion, and when he was in command of our brigade on the manoeuvres of '82, he made us feel it. He annoyed us, and some of the boys made up their minds to annoy him. One fine morning, at the first note of reveille, he wriggled out of his sleeping-sack and looked for his breeches. They had disappeared, and so had every other bit of his clothing, and his camp equipment : he had nothing but what he stood up in, and that wasn't nearly enough to command a brigade in. Somebody had got into his tent, although there were two sentries of the
56 LIFE IN THE LEGION
Legion posted there all night, and made off with the whole of his kit. There was a terrible row, and the camp and every soldier in it was searched, but not a single article was found — and they never have been found to this day. The general was annoyed right enough, and the Legion was avenged when he appeared on parade looking a figure of fun in clothes borrowed from men bigger and smaller than himself. Oh, it was a gay sight, and even the officers hurt themselves trying to look solemn when they wanted to laugh. I had the bad luck to be on guard that night, and it was the guard that had to pay for all the fun. My friend Jules here was not of the guard, and though he had more of the fun than I had he had to pay nothing. I was sent away, with the others of the guard, to the extreme south, on the borders of the desert, and found myself in a miserable little blockhouse on an oasis a mile or two from Ras-el-Chel, at that time the worst station in the whole Legion.
' There were ten of us, with a sergeant and a bugler, in that blockhouse and we had nothing to do.
"It is not good to have nothing to do, and, at first, I thought that I would rather have been sent to the Zephyrs than to that blockhouse ; but I was mistaken, for I hadn't been there very long before the Oulad-Seghir Arabs made us as busy as we wanted to be.
" It was at Noel that they came down on us,
LIFE IN THE LEGION 57
thinking, no doubt, that as we generally got a few litres extra under our cartridge boxes at Christmas- time, they would have a better chance with us then.
" We of the blockhouse had a good supply of wine on that Christmas Day. I got four or five litres myself (7-9 pints) and when I went to sleep I wanted to stop asleep for a long time. But I didn't get a chance, because in the middle of the night the sergeant, who was a poor man at the drink, came and shook us until we roused up. We had no sooner opened our eyes than we heard the bugler on the roof cracking his lungs with the ' rouse,' the ' alarm ' and the ' regimental call.'
" We bounded up to the roof with our rifles in our hands, but no trousers on our legs, and lined up at the ' ready/
' Good,' said the sergeant, ' I was afraid that you were all too drunk. I came up here to smoke a pipe and found that the sentry had gone to bed with the rest of you. It would have been a bad job for us if I hadn't wanted that pipe. Look there ! ' and he pointed to the borders of the oasis where we saw moving figures and plenty of them. ' I had the " alarm " sounded just to remind those monkeys over there that they can't catch the Legion asleep, and the " regimental call " was blown on the off chance of its carrying to Ras-el-Chel and telling the company that there is business going on here."
" He sent us to put our trousers on then, and the
58 UFE IN THE REGION
Arabs gave us plenty of time to do it, for they didn't move until nearly seven o'clock, after we had been cursing them for hours for keeping us waiting.
" It was a good job for us that they didn't start earlier, for there were several hundreds of them with breech-loading rifles, and there would likely enough have been none of us left by daylight if they had had the sense to pour volleys into us before we could see well enough to pick them off. You see we hadn't enough ammunition on our side to waste it in volley firing.
1 They climbed up into the palm-trees all round and shot down on us, but that gave us a better chance at them, for we couldn't miss birds of that size, and every shot we fired brought one of them down.
" Our bugler was the first to lose his number : he was shot through the head as he stood in the angle of the parapet and remained standing up as if he were still effective.
' This gave us an idea, and as each man fell afterwards we propped him up behind with a bayonet and stood him against the parapet. When the sergeant went out we stuck his pipe in his mouth, and he looked regular life-like, only more determined. Soon there was a row of dead men guarding the blockhouse, and they looked so calm and confident that the Oulad-Seghir evidently thought it would be too risky to come to close quarters with us, and gave up the attempt on the
LIFE IN THE LEGION 59
post in disgust, so that when our company came to our rescue at the double there was nothing for them to do.
' Brave fellows, you have saved the post ! ' said our captain as he embraced the corporal and me, who were the only two left standing. But the worthy man was mistaken ; it wasn't us that had saved the post, it was those others standing stiff there at the ' ready ' — those others that he didn't embrace.
' The company marched past that line of dead defenders and saluted them, but the men were all laughing as they did it ; they couldn't help laugh- ing, for, my faith, those dead 'uns did look comical. " That's how I got this bit of tin, camarades, and my friend Jules here ought to have got it, because he was one of those who actually put the finger-blight on the general's clothes and buried them."
CHAPTER VI
A legionary's food — An uncomfortable night — Two tales of desertion — The true story of the Prussian prince — A recruit of sixteen and another of fifty — The French as colony developers — Unwise generosity
OUR evening " soup " on that Saturday was our first meal in Algeria, so this will be a convenient place to give general particulars as to the food of a legionary.
The daily ration given in kind, in Algeria, consisted of : —
Meat . . . . 300 grammes (about 10 ozs.)
Bread . . . . 750 „ ( „ 25 „ )
Coffee . . 16 „ ( „ J „ )
Sugar . . 21 „ ( „ f „ )
In addition to this issue in kind there was an allowance of eighteen centimes (nearly 2d.) a day for the provision of potatoes, vegetables, and wine — a quarter of a litre, or about half-a-pint, of which used to be issued about four times a week in my day.
There is a terrible monotony about the food, for every meal is very much the same and consists, ex- cept on rare occasions, of a dish called " soup " and bread. We would call this " soup " stew, and probably Irish stew, for it contains a lot of potatoes
and vegetables. It is palatable enough and very
60
LIFE IN THE LEGION 61
nourishing, as a rule, but I am afraid that the regulated ten ounces of meat per man does not find its way into it. There is a lot of leakage both from the rations in kind and from the messing allowance, as most of the sergeants-major and the " fourriers," or company-quartermaster-sergeants, reckon to have some pickings from these sources. I found this out for myself when I became a sergeant-major, and I had serious trouble with my fourrier because he thought I was depriving him of some of his legitimate perquisites. Further than this, the cooks take toll of the food passing through their hands.
After allowing for all this, however, there is plenty left to satisfy a normal man in the climate of Algeria, and those who say that the Legion is underfed are not telling the truth.
Personally, I cannot remember having ever eaten the whole of my ration of bread, and there were so many like me that there were men in my time who made a practice of collecting the uneaten bread and selling it to the natives, though to sell bread was an offence punished with eight days' imprisonment.
The only fault I ever found with the food was its want of variety, and that, it must be confessed, is a very serious fault.
A quarter of a litre, or about half-a-pint, of sweetened black coffee is brought to the legionary's bedside before he gets up in the morning, and with this some men take bread saved from the previous
62 IvIFE IN THE LEGION
day's allowance ; generally breaking it up and putting it into the coffee — making " slingers " of it, as the British soldier used to call the operation in the days before the present system of fancy messing came into vogue.
After this there was nothing till " morning soup ' at half-past nine. The second, and final, meal of the day was " evening soup " at five, which was very much like the morning meal.
We didn't get much sleep that night. The wooden guard-bed and the single blanket that was our sole bed-covering were so occupied already with creatures that resented our intrusion that our first night in Algeria was passed in such terrible discomfort that on the following day we hedged against a repetition of it by taking in as much wine as our stomachs would hold, which certainly made us indifferent to the attacks of the insects and oblivious to the hardness of our couch ; but in the morning I, at least, wished that I had put up with the insects, for I had a headache that made living very painful indeed — the horrible headache which always seizes the unseasoned indulger in the heavy wine of Algeria.
Our second day in Algeria, a Sunday, would have been a long wearisome day for us if it had not been for our two friends of the day before. They obligingly spent the whole day with us, drinking and smoking much at our expense, but giving us good value for what we spent on them in the shape of counsel and entertaining reminiscence.
LIFE IN THE LEGION 63
Among the stories told by them was a tale of desertion, related by Jules, which I will try to reproduce faithfully :
" But yes, my friends, I have made the pro- menade," said Jules in answer to a question as to whether he had ever attempted to desert. " It would have been an adventure to laugh at if it hadn't been that the man most concerned in it took it too seriously.
" We were marching with a convoy to Mascara, and the commandant was a pig who not only marched us too much but fed us too little. We cursed him among ourselves day after day, but nothing came of the cursing until we were within a short march of Mascara. Then a German fellow named Goerth went from one to the other and suggested that we should go off on a march of our own and try our luck in getting to Tripoli. Goerth spoke as if it was the easiest of things, that getting to Tripoli, and it is likely enough that he didn't know any more than we did, that Tripoli was five hundred miles away.
" He got a dozen of us to agree to go with him, and as we were crossing a stream we hid among the oleanders on the bank until the convoy passed out of sight, none of our comrades giving the alarm, for it was no business of theirs.
" When we could no longer see the tail of the convoy we came out of our hiding-places and Goerth took command of us as if he was a sergeant and we his squad. He ordered us to form up and
64 LIFE IN THE LEGION
fix bayonets, and, when we had done this, he marched us off to a small Arab encampment that we could see in the distance.
" He told us as we went along that we would tie up the men and enjoy ourselves until the evening, when we would march on again and seek other opportunities of the same sort,
" This seemed to us to be a very good programme and we advanced gaily. As we approached the encampment we could hear the women shrieking with terror, as the Arab women always do when we of the Legion get to close quarters with them, and the men turned out to meet us. There were only about half-a-dozen men, and they did not look as if they wanted to fight, so we thought we were going to do what we wanted without hurting anybody.
" The sheikh came up to us in a very friendly fashion, and told us that he was an old Turco who had served under the tricolour for many years. He said that it was a great happiness to him to see some of his good friends of the Legion, and he hoped that we would come into his tent and give him the pleasure of entertaining us. He spoke so like a good comrade that he quite got over our leader, who ordered us to pile arms and follow the old man into his tent. Here we got a good meal of couscous and milk. All the time we were eating it the old sheikh "comraded " us till we came to think that he was a very fine fellow indeed. We ate till we could hold no more
UFE IN THE IJEGION 65
and then lit our pipes, feeling very comfortable and well disposed towards the sheikh.
" All went very happily until Goerth looked out of the tent and saw the Arabs taking away our rifles and bayonets. Calling on us to follow him he rushed out and took his rifle from the man who was carrying it away. But we were too comfort- able to move, and nobody followed him out : we had eaten and drunk our fill, and our minds were not so set on Tripoli as they had been.
" Seeing that we did not come out, Goerth rushed back again, and, calling us a lot of filthy pigs and slandering our mothers, asked us if we intended to sit there and let the Arabs make prisoners of us.
" We told him that we didn't see why they shouldn't take us in ; they had treated us very well, and it was the least we could do to let them get twenty-five francs each for us, seeing that we intended to go back any way.
" This made Goerth curse and threaten, but we took no notice of him.
" ' They're not going to get twenty-five francs from me/ he said at last. ' If you lousy cowards won't go out and take those rifles back I'll blow my head off in front of your faces." ' That's your affair/ said one. ' If you've got an idea that way get on with it ; we don't mind/ said another.
' We of the I/egion, you see, believe that a man's life is his own private property, and nobody
66 UFE IN THE LEGION
would think of interfering with a comrade who had a fancy to end his engagement in the easiest way open to him.
" Goerth sat down facing us all, as we smoked there composedly, and took off one of his shoes. Then he put a cartridge into the rifle and, without saying another word to us, put the muzzle in his mouth and started groping for the trigger with his big toe.
" ' A little higher, comrade, a little higher," said one of us who was taking more interest in the affair than the rest.
" Goerth brought his toe higher and found the trigger. Then : Puff ! Crack ! and he was lying on his back with a hole as big as your fist in the top of his head. He was a fool, that fellow.
" Then the sheikh came in again, and he wasn't polite any more. He said several very rude things to us, so that we were sorry that we had let him have those rifles so easily ; but it was too late to be sorry then. We were also sorry later, that we had let Goerth shoot himself, because he became a nuisance to us, owing to the Arabs making us carry him all the way into Mascara, where they got twenty-five francs for him as well as for us, which would have annoyed Goerth greatly if he could have known about it."
I tell this gruesome yarn just as it was told to me, as nearly as I can. I learned afterwards that Jules was actually one of a party which really deserted as stated.
LIFE IN THE LEGION 67
Then, while we were on the subject, the man with the medal, whose name, if I recollect rightly, was Dubourg, told us another story which I verified later also.
When he was stationed at a post on the border of the desert, he said, three Germans belonging to the detachment disappeared. It was hardly believed at first that they could have deserted, for it was the height of summer, and it was difficult to realise that any sane man would have made off into the desert at such a time when death by thirst was almost a certainty, even if they escaped the bands of hostile Arabs known to be in the neighbour- hood ; but the fact that they had taken with them their arms, their kit, and their equipment, left no room for doubt.
Some days afterwards one of the runaways staggered back to the post, and going down on his belly at the first water he came to, drank greedily like a parched beast.
He was in a fearful state of exhaustion, and had cast away everything except his shirt, a pair of trousers, his rifle and his ammunition. He was taken before the officer commanding the detach- ment, who asked him sarcastically how he had enjoyed himself. Getting no reply to this question the lieutenant asked where were his comrades.
" One wouldn't come back, and I've put ' paid ' to the account of the other," he replied.
Then he went on to tell how the three of them, suffering terrible tortures from thirst and not
68 LIFE IN THE LEGION
being able to go on any further, notwithstanding the fact that they had thrown away all but their rifles, had sat themselves down to consider their position. The " dirty " Prussian who had persuaded the other two— Bavarians — to desert by telling them that he could certainly lead them to Morocco, was asked what he had to say for himself, and then the man who had come back had coolly announced to him that he was going to shoot him. The other made no attempt to defend himself, and the Bavarian carried out his threat by shooting him in cold blood.
Some friendly Arabs were sent out to search for the other Bavarian, and found him almost at the last gasp. When he was brought in he con- firmed all that the other man had said. The murderer was punished for the act of desertion only, it being held that he had justifiably killed the man who had led him astray.
Before we leave Oran let me tell the true story of the German prince who belonged to the Legion, a story which is set down in a recent book as a legend. It is nothing of the sort, for it is a fact that a member of the German royal house did serve in the Legion. His name, in the Legion, was Albert Friedrich Nordmann, and he died in the hospital at Geryville ; of disease, not of wounds, as stated in the " legend." His body was brought to Oran, whence a man-of-war, with flag at half- mast, carried it to Germany. That is all — there was no romance about the service in the Legion
LIFE IN THE LEGION 69
of this cousin of William II. ; no gallantry dis- played in action, no Cross of the Legion of Honour taken by the general from his own breast, and no Chevaliers of the Legion of Honour escorting the corpse. I did not know him myself, I was not even in the same regiment, nor were we contemporaries, but I have met men who did know him, and they described him to me as a very ordinary young man, whose only striking characteristic was his standoffishness and reserve. I have never heard anything about his motives for joining the Legion, but imagine that he must have done something to seriously displease his august relatives.
By the mail boat that arrived on Monday there came a further batch of recruits for the Legion* and this lot were more fortunate than we were, inasmuch as they didn't have to sleep at Fort St. Therese at all.
They were now thirty-five of us, and of these twenty, including Petrovski and myself, were sent to Sidi-bel- Abbes and the other fifteen to Saida, where are the headquarters of the second regiment.
Among the new arrivals were two men, whose presence with us indicated that the age limits were not very strictly observed in recruiting for the Legion. One of them I put down, even then when he was clean shaven and had dark hair, as being nearer fifty than forty ; and later, when he had grown a beard streaked with grey and the dye had worn out of his hair, leaving it
70 UFE IN THE LEGION
very mouldy looking indeed, I gave him con- siderabty1 over the half-century. The other one was a chubby boy without a hair on his face, or any sign of one, and he could certainly not have been more than sixteen.
Neither of these recruits could be expected to last long in the Legion if the life were one of such intolerable hardship as it has been represented to be, and the fact that they both lived to complete their engagements is, to my mind, fairly good evidence that service in the corps does not put a breaking strain on an ordinary constitution.
Sidi-bel-Abbes, the depot and headquarters of the First " Regiment of Strangers " is about as far from Oran as Dover is from London, but the West Algerian Company's trains could almost be beaten for speed by a bicycle ridden by a cripple, and the journey took us from early afternoon till late at night. In its early stages it was a very interesting journey to me. I had imagined that Algeria outside the towns was nothing else but sandy desert, and here I found myself moving leisurely through country dotted with white and yellow villages and country houses set in groves of citron, orange, date-palms, and fig-trees ; and surrounded by vineyards and well- tilled fields.
It was my first introduction to the fact — which I had opportunities of thoroughly digesting later on in other parts of Algeria, in Indo-China, and on the West Coast of Africa — that the French knock spots off the English in the matter of develop-
LIFE IN THE LEGION 71
ing and beautifying colonies. We are taught at school that the English are the boss colonising nation that the world has ever seen, and this is, of course, true as far as the extent of colonial possessions goes, but the French know a great deal better than we do what to do with colonies when they get them.
At every station there was a crowd of black and brown natives anxious to sell green figs, oranges, grapes, tobacco, cigarettes and big luscious melons. They were evidently open to barter, too, for signs were made to me at three several stations to exchange a particularly gorgeous flowing silk tie — which I had bought at Marseilles to give myself a flavour of the gaudy south — for fruit, and similar overtures were made to others of our party for various articles, pocket knives being special articles of desire. None of our party, however, had need to barter, or to buy either, for Petrovski, with the thoughtless generosity that seemed to be natural to him, invited every one to take whatever they fancied, and leave it to him to pay.
I begged him to limit his hospitality, for the men's own sakes, but he only laughed good naturedly and called me a regular old woman, while some of the men who could understand what I said looked at me as if I was trying to do them an injury.
I made a second attempt to stop the supply when I thought that they had taken as much as
72 UFE IN THE LEGION
would leave them any loophole of escape from the fate of bad little boys who steal green apples ; but my interference was taken in very bad part by the men, and received by Petrovski with laughter and a jocular " Don't be uneasy about us, granny." One of the Germans muttered that I was an uncomplimentary-adjectived sheep's-head, while another ejaculated the German equivalent for " dog's-tail " three times with much disgust, and even the smiling Swiss's merry look seemed to come undone.
Then I shut up, and all the rest of the way chuckled grimly to myself and got much comfort in thinking of the sort of experiences they were going to go through to teach them the wisdom of my words of warning.
With the exception of the moody Austrian — who sat in a corner seat on the side opposite to the platform, and stared perseveringly out of the window — and myself, they all gorged themselves unceasingly, replenishing supplies at every station, so that by the time we reached our destination I knew from previous experience in Egypt that the Austrian and myself were the only two of the party who could have been unconscious of our interior economy.
CHAPTER VII
Knocked down for doing a man a good turn — An officer of the Russian Guards— First night at Sidi-bel- Abbes — Medical Officers of the Legion
IT was about nine o'clock when the train drew into the station at Sidi-bel-Abbes. A sergeant and two corporals were on the platform awaiting us, and without any loss of time they set about forming us up to march us to the barracks. They did not seem to be in the best of tempers, and there was some pushing and shoving on their part to get the men quickly into their places.
" Gently, my friend, gently," said Petrovski remonstratingly, as the ergeant pulled him somewhat roughly from the rear to the front rank.
" Silence, you dirty pig," said the non-com- missioned officer brutally. "What do you think you have come here for ? You'll find yourself somewhere where the birds won't trouble you if you don't look out."
My friend cast a furious look at the sergeant, and I was afraid that he would say or do something that would provide the non-commissioned officer, who looked and spoke like an out-and-out bully, with a peg to hang a serious charge upon ; so, with great presence of mind, as I flattered myself, I
73
74 UFE IN THE LEGION
diverted Petrovski's thoughts into a different channel by bringing my leg forward and kicking him on the shin with my heel as hard as I could.
He let out with a howl of pain, and, before I had any suspicion of what was coming, landed me a crack on the jaw that sent me sprawling.
" All right, old chap," said I laughing, somewhat ruefully, I must confess, as I scrambled to my feet, " I asked for it, and there's no harm done."
Poor Petrovski looked a trifle abashed. He had knocked me down on the spur of the moment, but had no sooner done so than he saw through my motive in kicking him.
" I'm sorry, my friend," he said, simply.
But the blustering sergeant was not for letting the thing pass so easily. He applied the most injurious epithets to both of us, and swore that he would put us in the guard-room as soon as we got back to barracks. As Petrovski was now on his guard he took all the abuse in silence, though I could see that he had hard work to restrain himself. As for me, I had been in the British army, and giving back-answers to superiors, no matter what the provocation, was no game of mine.
" My God ! " said Petrovski, bitterly, to me as we marched side by side along the broad road that led to the barracks, " what humiliation and degradation we have let ourselves in for. Fancy being obliged to take everything that guttersnipes like that choose to fling at you, without having
LIFE IN THE LEGION 75
any chance to ram their cursed teeth down their ugly throats."
I saw that sympathy would do him harm, so I told him rather sharply that if he felt like that it was a sign that he had been let out of the nursery too soon, and he ought to have stayed at home until he grew up.
" Me ! " he exclaimed, indignantly striking his breast with his fist. " Me ! I have been an officer of the Czar's Guard since I was fifteen."
This was the first time that he had mentioned anything about his previous life, and he never referred to the subject again. It is probable that he regretted having been surprised into saying this much, for he was very reserved with me for some time afterwards. He was, and is still, a mystery to me, although he and I were on terms of affectionate intimacy for five years. What brought him to the Legion I can only conjecture. It certainly was not want of money, for, as I have already related, he had a good round sum in his possession when he enlisted, and he had regular remittances all the time he was serving. I do not think that he was in the Legion on a woman's account either ; he was too light-hearted for that. He did not appear to me to be stuffed with much military knowledge, and he was an execrable shot, but I am quite convinced, for all that, that he really was an officer in the Russian army, and not a disgraced one either. To this day I do not know his real name, but I identify him, in my own mind,
76 UFE IN THE LEGION
with a certain Russian major-general who is said to have gained his knowledge of the French army at first hand.
Having heard much as to the brutal treatment of Russian soldiers by their officers, a scathing remark as to his disinclination to take medicine he had prescribed for others rose to my lips, but I re- strained myself and merely said that every one could see he was a soldier, a remark which seemed to please him.
Then I changed the subject by drawing his attention to sounds of mandoline or guitar playing that were floating in the air, saying that my first impressions of the town were more Spanish than Oriental. He agreed, but our impressions at first sight were considerably modified when we saw the town a little more, for Sidi-bel-Abbes is distinctly an Oriental town, but there is a Spanish flavour about it, and it is no unusual thing to see a fandango being danced in the streets.
When we got to the barracks it was after tattoo, which is at nine o'clock, and as the big parade ground was practically empty we escaped the chaff and rude remarks that usually assail a new party of recruits.
I rather expected to find the sergeant carrying out his threat to put Petrovski and myself in the guard-room for fighting, but he showed him- self as being one of the barking but not biting sort and said nothing about it. This sort of non- commissioned officer gets very few men into trouble,
UFE IN THE LEGION 77
but he does not get ready obedience, as men get to know that no bite is likely to follow his bark. The non-commissioned officer who is most dreaded by men of the Legion is the one who bites without any preliminary bark at all ; this sort is very dangerous indeed. The non-commissioned officer most in favour is one who knows what he wants and never threatens without carrying his threats into effect. Men say they know where they are with a man like that, but they never can forecast what will happen to them when they are under the command of the other sorts.
Our names were called out in presence of an officer and then we were at once marched off to a barrack-room and left there for the night in charge of one of the corporals who had accompanied us from the station, who had a couple of old soldiers to assist him.
Personally I was ve*ry hungry, having had nothing but a couple of oranges since morning, and I had been confidently expecting a supper of some sort. Nothing was visible to my anxious eyes, however, and when the corporal started to undress himself and told us to look sharp and do the same as " I/ights Out " was not far off, I philosophically took my hunger to bed with me.
The bed was simply a tick filled with straw, the exact counterpart of the bed of the British soldier in those days, and the bolster was also stuffed with straw, very tightly. I am told that there are iron bedsteads in French barrack-rooms now-a-days,
78 LIFE IN THE LEGION
as there is a daily varied menu, but at the time I am writing of the bedstead was three planks laid upon two iron trestles which raised them about a foot from the ground. The bedclothing con- sisted of a sleeping-sack and two blankets ; they have no use for sheets in the Legion.
The room was only used for the reception of recruits and therefore had fresh tenants every few days, so it was not surprising that I found more company in my sleeping-sack than I cared for. I dropped off asleep, however, in spite of them, and would no doubt have slept well had it not been for the night-long disturbances caused by the fruitarians. I was awoke by the flowery curses of the corporal, who had been woke up by a groan- ing recruit for the purpose of being asked the situation of a certain place the recruit badly wanted to find, and after that the night was filled with repressed repinings from the recruits, unre- pressed curses from the corporal and the two old soldiers, and noises incidental to the hurried exits and leisurely returns of the afflicted ones.
It gave me an unholy feeling of satisfaction to see that Petrovski, who had taken the bed next to mine, was one of the worst sufferers, and I gave him no comfort when he dolefully whispered to me that he thought he had the black cholera. Instead of telling him that he had nothing worse than a big dose of concentrated essence of stomach- ache I informed him that I would not be at all surprised, and sympathetically added that it
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would be a bad job if it were so, for only about one per cent, of those attacked by black cholera recovered. What a pity it was, I continued, that he had not paid a little more attention to the advice given him by his " granny."
The man in the next bed to me on the other side heard my remarks upon the excessive mortality from black cholera, and as I spoke in French he understood them and they made him feel so much worse that he went and shook the poor corporal and begged him to send for the doctor, as he, and some others, would die unless something was done for them very quickly.
The corporal let out a few weird polyglot oaths, but apparently became convinced that something serious was the matter, for he got up, lit the lamp, and himself went for the doctor.
In about a quarter of an hour he returned with an officer whom I afterwards knew as Surgeon- Major Roux. The doctor came in hurriedly as if the corporal had been preparing him for a case of wholesale poisoning, but it did not .take him more than a minute or two to diagnose the case.
" I'll soon put you all right again, my children," said he good-humouredly. " Come with me, corporal, and I'll give you a little of something that will refresh them."
The corporal went with the doctor, and while he was away one of the unfortunates said that the proper remedy for the case was brandy, plenty of
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it, and no doubt that was what the doctor would send them.
I thought it possible myself that he would either give them brandy or opium, so I was as much surprised, though not as much disgusted, as any of them when the corporal returned with a big bottle of castor-oil and started serving it out in generous helpings.
Most of them declined, and some flatly refused, but they changed their minds when the corporal informed them that the doctor had said that it must either be castor-oil or eight days' salle de police.
I seldom saw any of that lot eating fruit after- wards.
This action on the part of the doctor may, at first sight, appear to bear out the hard things said of the medical officers of the Legion in a recent book, but I don't think that it was any- thing more than many English army doctors would have done in similar circumstances. I am quite unable to believe that a doctor of the Legion refused to give a suffering man on the march anything to relieve him, as stated in the book referred, to, and acted generally with such brutality as would be something like a disgrace to the medical profession. I was brought into close con- tact with three medical officers of the Legion — Surgeon-Majors Tanfin and Roux and Assistant Surgeon-Major Arragon — and I cannot imagine one of them acting in such a manner.
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Men are certainly punished with eight days' room arrest — which is simply confinement to barracks with extra fatigue duty, but without punishment drill — for reporting themselves sick without reasonable cause ; but this is a necessary provision for the prevention of shirking, and the same thing was punished by confinement to barracks in the British army in my time. It is quite possible, of course, for a really sick man to be punished in this way, owing to a doctor's mistake, but I never knew of a case. On the other hand I have known dozens of cases where men have gone sick and been excused duty for a day who have boasted afterwards that they only did it to get a rest.
CHAPTER VIII
"Juice " — A beautiful wash — A legionary's kit — Potato peeling — An Evening in the Canteen — I meet a fellow countryman — A stroll round the town — A weird drink
I WAS awakened in the morning by a voice shouting : " Au jus. Au jus." (To the juice.)
Opening my eyes I saw one of the old soldiers carrying a large jug in his hand and going from bed to bed pouring about half-a-pint of hot coffee into each man's tin mug as it was held out to him. The coffee was not at all bad, though it was milkless and hardly sweetened enough, and it quickly roused me up.
Reveille was sounded a few minutes afterwards, and the corporal exhorted us to " Show a leg," "Come, out o' that," in words almost the equivalent to those that an English corporal would use in similar circumstances. It is the privilege of a French corporal to be the last man of his squad to get out of bed, so that all the time he was driving us he was still lying snug himself ; and stayed so until we were all up and dressed.
" Where can I get a wash ? " I asked the corporal, not having noticed a lavatory on the barrack-room landing as is the case in English
barracks.
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" Never mind washing just now," he said with a grin, as if it tickled him. " You are going to have a beautiful wash presently."
Unwashed and unkempt as we were — and I, and all those who had started out with starched white shirts, looked particularly disreputable — we were taken over to the regimental office, where we were inspected by the adjutant-major, the regimental staff-officer corresponding to the Eng- lish adjutant, and then posted to companies, Petrovski and myself being fortunate enough to be sent to the same. From there we were taken to the bathhouse, where we got the beautiful wash promised by the corporal ; it consisted in our standing in a row, quite naked, while half-a- dozen legionaries threw buckets of cold water over us. This amused the legionaries immensely, and many coarse remarks were bandied about at our expense — I can't 'say that I felt much enter- tained myself.
From there we were marched to the stores to draw our kits, and very good kits they were, too. First of all we were fitted with a pair of red trousers each. They were hardly a Pimlico fit even, for they contained enough material to make a pair and a half as trousers are worn in the British army, but there was a lot of chopping and changing before every one was satisfied. Then came a double-breasted black tunic with red facings and green epaulettes with red fringe ; a blue great- coat or capote, which is made so that the skirts
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can be buttoned back to leave the thighs free, and is always worn when on the march, usually directly over the shirt ; a blue undress blouse or frock ; a red kepi with the I/egion's badge, a seven flamed grenade, in brass ; two white canvas fatigue suits ; two pairs of shoes, with the exact fitting of which great care was taken ; a pair of black leather gaiters ; two pairs of linen spats, such as are worn by our Highland regiments; shirts, towels, drawers ; a knapsack very much like the pattern discarded in the British army forty years ago ; a bag containing cleaning materials ; and, lastly, a blue woollen cummerbund to wind round the waist. This last is a most sensible article to provide for men who have to soldier in hot climates, for it does away with the necessity of wearing a cholera belt, and the support it gives to the back is a great comfort when marching. British soldiers serving in India and in Egypt often wear something of the sort, but the Govern- ment does not provide it.
Now what articles of an English soldier's kit are missing from the above list ? Why, socks. They don't wear socks in the Region. Some wear pieces of linen — called chausettes Russes, or Russian socks — wrapped round their feet, but the majority wear nothing at all between the bare feet and the leather.
When the kits had been issued we were told that there was an allowance of seventeen centimes a day, about a penny three-farthings, for the upkeep
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of underclothing and white suits, and that any- thing left of this allowance at the end of a quarter would be paid in cash after a reserve of thirty francs had been accumulated. There were very few legionaries who got any cash income from this source, but a few very careful men did manage to draw four or five shillings a quarter.
We were now allotted to our barrack-rooms and told to change into our drill suits at once and bring our civilian clothes to the company office when we had done so.
Petrovski and I were again drawn together, and with us in the same barrack-room were six other recruits, including the smiling Swiss, but not, I was glad to see, the unsociable Austrian.
The barrack-room we were sent to was a large one containing thirty beds, but there was nobody in it when we entered, the inhabitants being out at drill.
All the occupied beds had a card above them bearing the owner's rank, name and regimental number, with his kit neatly folded on the shelf, and the corporal who accompanied us told us to make ourselves at home on any of the beds not having these signs of being already bespoken. Petrovski and I took two adjoining ones, and at once set about changing.
When we had got into our white suits we took our plain clothes in our arms and went over to the company office together.
" Would you like me to sell your clothes for
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you," asked the sergeant-major. " I shall get a better price than you would, perhaps."
I replied that I would be glad to give the clothes to any one who would take them off my hands, and Petrovski echoed me. We were not sacrific- ing much, for civilian clothes fetch next to nothing at Sidi-bel-Abbes, and ours, though of the best, would probably not have fetched more than five shillings.
In exchange for the clothes the sergeant-major gave us some good advice that would have been well worth the money to a military greenhorn, but I, at least, did not need it at all. The only thing he said that particularly interested me was a remark that he would keep his eye on us and see that the captain was not allowed to be blind to our merits if we happened to have any.
As we were talking to him the Austrian came in carrying his portmanteau, which he had stuck to until now. The sergeant-major made him the same offer that had been made to us, but the Austrian replied to the effect that he did not wish to sell his civilian clothing just then, and that he would be obliged if the sergeant-major would keep the portmanteau in the company store for the present.
" Want to keep your line of retreat open, eh ? " said the non-commissioned officer banteringly. " No, my worthy man, that is . not permitted. Legionaries are not allowed to have any articles
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of civilian clothing in their possession, so you will have to dispose of that truck to-day."
Then he told us to go over to the hospital, on the side of the barrack square facing the gate, and wait there until we were required to pass the doctor, so we heard no more of the conversation.
The medical examination was a mere matter of form ; as far as I was concerned it consisted merely of the doctor asking me if I was all right and cautioning me to be careful in my dealings with the opposite sex.
When we returned to the barrack-room we found that the duty men had come in from drill and were hungrily waiting for the morning soup. There were two squads in the room, occupying separate ends, and two corporals. Each recruit was handed over to an old soldier, who was told off to show him how to pack his kit away on the shelf above his head, how to clean his arms and accoutre- ments and generally to act as a sort of dry-nurse to him.
The mentor who fell to my lot was a German named Swartz, a soldier of the first-class, who turned out to be a very decent fellow indeed. He and I got on famously together from the very start, for before we had got through the morning soup, which came up immediately, I discovered that he came from Cologne, and I was able to talk to him about his native place, having received much of my education at a place not far from there.
Petrovski was allotted to a Belgian named
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Dremel, who was a chum of Swartz, so we four formed quite a snug party.
Immediately after soup we were all, old soldiers as well as recruits, marched down to the cook- house to peel potatoes — another thing reminiscent of the British army, the only difference being that the French peel potatoes, and arrange the messing, by companies, while in the English army the rations are drawn and prepared for the cook-house by rooms. With all hands on the job, potato peeling never took more than a few minutes, but, short as was the time occupied, it was often a tight fit to get through with it before ten o'clock, when every company had to parade to hear the day's orders read.
After orders we recruits were taken over to the company stores again to receive our rifles, bayonets and accoutrements. We were told to spend the afternoon in getting these in good order, in readiness for a start at drill next morning ; and the afternoon was not too long for the job, for my things, at any rate, appeared to have been in stores for some time and were sadly out of order.
There is no pipeclay in the Region. All the belts and straps are of black leather, like those worn by our rifle regiments, and the getting them up is a slow and painful process, every part having to be heel-balled until it is as evenly polished as the heel of a new boot. Mine gave me a great deal of trouble, as I had never done anything of the sort before, and had declined Swartz' s offer to
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do it for me. I am afraid that when I laid the task aside as having been done satisfactorily my belts compared very unfavourably with those of the old soldiers, but the officers and non-com- missioned officers are not hypercritical with recruits, and I soon got into the way of shining them so that they looked as well as anybody's. The Gras rifle, though it was very dirty and neglected, gave me no trouble at all, as I already knew pretty nearly all there was to know about firearms, and the way I set about cleaning it elicited commendation from the corporal.
" You're the right sort of ' blue ' ' he said, as he watched me. " You won't be in the awkward squad long. You seem to know as much about a rifle as a captain-instructor."
After evening soup Petrovski and I invited the whole of the twenty-six occupants of the room besides ourselves, and the two corporals, to adjourn to the canteen to wet our acquaintance. We did not meet with a single refusal ; indeed I cannot remember meeting a teetotaler all the time I was in the Legion. I asked Swartz as to the propriety of inviting the corporals to come along, but was told that the proper way to stand treat to them was to stick a packet of cigarettes and a bottle of wine among their bedclothes.
The canteen was nothing more than a bare room with a zinc-covered counter or bar running along one side of it. Behind the counter was a comfortable-looking woman, who was neither
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young nor middle-aged, and not particularly good-looking. This was Madame la Cantiniere, the modern survival of the dashing, handsome Cigarette of " Under Two Flags." It is impossible to fancy this up-to-date vivandikre careering about on a high-spirited horse with a smart kepi perched roguishly over her ear. As a matter of fact she was knitting, and knitting as if she liked it. At her back were rows and rows of shelves filled with bottles and glasses.
About a dozen men were sitting and standing about, drinking and smoking, but they were doing both in a half-hearted sort of way, as if they were conscious that both wine and tobacco would have to be made to last a long time. The drink trade seemed to be in a state of stagnation.
When our lot trooped in Madame looked up hopefully, and then put down her knitting and advanced upon us with a gracious smile.
' You order what is necessary," said I to Swartz.
" See, my friend, how much do you want to spend ? " he asked. " Shall it be a litre and a packet of cigarettes to every two comrades ? "
" No," said I magnificently, " let it be a litre and a packet to every man. And don't forget two bottles and two packets for the corporals.
" Bah ! " interposed the pecunious Petrovski, throwing down a twenty franc piece. " Drink and tobacco a volonte — at pleasure — madame, if you please, to these good comrades as far as that
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will go. When that is down my comrade here — me — will give you another one."
As a pint of wine only cost something like a half-penny, or did in those days, in the canteen at Sidi-bel- Abbes, it did not require much calculation to forecast the state of that twenty-six men if they attempted to deal with that sixteen shilling piece : so, while the lady was serving the thirsty ones, I whispered to Petrovski that he was a blighting pestilence, and would be the cause of some of those men sleeping in the guard-room in their clothes for a few nights to come.
The irresponsible Russian's reply was a mere shrug of the shoulders and a disdainful look. He was not on very confidential terms with me just then.
English people do not associate drunkenness with the drinking of wine — red wine at any rate — and so it may not sound convincing to English ears to say that cheap wine is at the same time the greatest solace and the greatest curse of all troops serving in Algeria, not legionaries alone but soldiers of all arms.
The wine is good, very good, and the legionaries' appetite for it is only limited by their power of purchase. We read with something approaching awe of men who could make a practice of stowing away two or three bottles after dinner in the old drinking days, but a man who drank that quantity in the Region would be counted a moderate drinker if he had money in his pocket to buy more
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and went away without it. I knew men in the Legion who could walk comfortably to bed with a quantity equivalent to six or seven bottles inside them.
I was hob-nobbing quietly with Swartz when the sergeant-major of my company came in and beckoned to me.
" The sub-lieutenant wants to see you in the company office," he said, when I went over to him.
I drank up my glass of wine, told Petrovski and Swartz where I was going, and followed the sergeant-major out, wondering what the officer could want with me.
"What is the sub-lieutenant's name, chef" — the sergeant-major, I had learned already, is always addressed thus, — "and what does he want with me ? " I asked as soon as we got outside.
He mentioned a family name well known in the Indian Army, and said that all he knew about it was that the officer had seen my name when looking over the company roll, and had asked him to send for me.
When I entered the office a smart young officer who was sitting on the corner of the table got up and looked at me curiously.
I saluted and stood at " attention."
" Are you I^egionary Brown ? " he asked in English.
" Yes, sir."
" Well, I'm glad to make your acquaintance," he said, holding out his hand with a smile. " We
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don't get many Englishmen here as far as I can see, and you're the only one in this company. Sit down and let us have a chat."
He then turned to the sergeant-major and told him not to let us interfere with his arrange- ments, and the non-commissioned officer sat down at his table and went on with some work he was doing.
The officer betrayed no curiosity about my past or my motives for joining, which was of course only the natural attitude of a gentleman, and our conversation was mainly about the Legion itself. I ventured to remark that he seemed to have got quick promotion, when he astonished me by saying that he had only been in the corps himself for about two months.
" Did you join as an officer, then ? " I asked.
" Oh, yes," he replied. " It is not difficult for a man who has been an officer in a foreign army, and has left it for no cause reflecting on his honour, to get a direct commission in the Legion."
This was a revelation to me. I also might have joined as an officer perhaps if I had known the ropes, for I had been guilty of nothing else but folly, and had been honourably gazetted out of the British army. It was too late now, if for no other reason than that I had joined in a false name.
In the course of further conversation I learned the curious fact that I could not now get a com- mission unless I became a naturalised Frenchman, but that naturalisation was not insisted on in the
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case of those foreigners who got direct commissions. Furthermore, there were only two ways of getting a commission from the ranks. One was for gallantry in action and the other was by going through a course at the French military college of Saint-Maixent. This college is a French institu- tion that might well be translated to England as a remedy for the increasing shortage of officers. Entrance to it is gained by success in an open competitive examination confined to non-com- missioned officers, so that a commission in the French army can always be obtained by an ambitious non-commissioned officer who can prove his fitness for it. Saint-Maixent is a sort of rankers' Sandhurst, and if the same plan were adopted in England, in conjunction with the granting of a living wage to junior officers, it would lead many superior young men who do not care to enlist under present conditions to adopt the army as a profession, and we should get a class of ranker officers quite as good as the Sand- hurst-trained brand. That is the deliberate opinion of a Sandhurst man. At the present time promotion from the ranks in our army is practically non-existent for men without money or influence, commissions of the quartermaster class of course excepted.
We chatted on these subjects for the best part of an hour, and then the sub-lieutenant left me. The officers of the Region do not come much into contact with their men on ordinary barrack duty,
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most of the military training being left to the non-commissioned officers, and I did not see much more of him, as he was transferred to another battalion soon afterwards. I rather think, though, that he put in a good word for me, as the captain took more interest in me for the short time I was in the company than was to have been expected if he had not heard anything about me.
When I got back to the canteen I found that the proceedings there had become pretty lively. The room was now crowded. There was a tuneful party in one corner singing a glee in German, a favourite pastime with legionaries of that nationality, a dense smoke-fog filled the room, there was a heavy winey odour in the air, groups of men were talking loudly in the language that came easiest to them, which seemed to be more often German than anything else, and bursts of boisterous laughter were frequent.
Everybody seemed to be light-hearted, care- free, and happy. What struck me most was the absence of coarse language, and I found that this unsoldierlike decency was the rule in the Legion, not because there were any regulations on the point, but simply because the men did not care for meaningless obscenity. Ordinary curses were pretty frequent and free, but they were such as did not outrage one's sense of decency.
The lady behind the bar was taking no money. Those who wanted anything went up to the counter and got it without giving anything in
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return, and the only indication that the cantiniere was not giving it away was the fact that she tallied it on a slate as she served it.
Petrovski formed one of the group listening to an old legionary telling tales that kept his audience in roars of laughter. I joined the group round this raconteur, and was soon laughing like the rest at the witty and skilful relation of the comical situations brought about in the family of a probably mythical colonel of the Region by his young mother-in-law falling in love with his soldier-servant. A capital farce could be made out of the story as it was told that evening in the Legion canteen ; but it would have to be a French farce.
When the tale had come to an end Petrovski edged over to me and clapped me familiarly on the shoulder.
" Well, my dear granny, you were right about that money," he said good temperedly, " a twenty-franc piece goes a deuce of a long way here. I thought about what you said after you had gone, and sent out scouts to fetch some more fellows in, and now all this lot are helping to drink it."
' What do you say if we leave them to it and go out to have a look at the town ? " I said.
He replied to the effect that it was a good idea, but suggested that we had better ask our two dry-nurses to come with us to show us round.
Swartz and Dremel were quite agreeable, so we four slipped away quietly, and in about a quarter-
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of-an-hour's time were dressed in correct walking- out uniform : red trousers, tunic, kepi, and sword-bayonet. When we got to the barrack-gate the sergeant of the guard stopped us to find fault with the appearance of Petrovski and myself, and there was a lot of smoothing out of wrinkles and tugging of belts into position before he would allow us to pass. This was all pure uncalled-for officiousness, because both of us were dressed as smartly as the clothes would admit of, and a great deal more so than three out of four of the legionaries we met in the streets afterwards. It must be admitted, though, that our appearance would have raised a broad smile or two at Aldershot.
We did not see much of the town that night, for after promenading aimlessly in the main streets in company with thousands of soldiers and civilians who seemed to be just walking about to kill time, Swartz lured us down a labyrinth of dismal side streets to take us somewhere where, he said, we could get something that was fit for a Christian to drink. When he said this I thought that he was out after beer, and readily consented, for I could have done with something in that line myself, even though it might have been nothing stronger than lager. But when he had landed us inside a low disreputable bar, in a part of the town that legionaries were not supposed to frequent, he called for a quarter of litre of " Bapeli " and four glasses.
I have tasted many weird drinks in my time —
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including trade gin distilled from sawdust, " Scotch " whiskey made in Germany from potatoes, rice spirit, and the native-made fire- water of Indo-China — but I have never come across anything so fiery as the liquor that was served in response to that demand. It literally scorched my throat and made my palate tingle as if I had taken a mouthful of red pepper. One gulp of it was enough for me, and less suited Petrovski, who spat it out as soon as he had tasted it. I never made a second attempt at drinking it, but I afterwards bought many and many a litre of it, as I discovered that it was capital stuff for hardening the feet, and, whenever I could get it, I always poured some into my boots, after I had got my feet into them, before starting on a march.
" Look here, my friend," said Petrovski to Swartz, "did you bring us here to have a little joke with us ? "
" Don't you like it, then ? " asked the German in a surprised tone. " Why, it's splendid stuff. You'll get nothing stronger anywhere."
' We are not looking for anything stronger," said Petrovski drily, " show us some place where they sell something about a quarter as strong; our stomachs don't happen to be armoured."
A couple of red-cloaked 'spahis and three or four legionaries, who were drinking the same stuff and apparently enjoying it, looked at us curiously and grinned patronisingly, as if they were thinking
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that the taste for the " splendid stuff " would come to us in good time.
" Come along," said Petrovski, " I've had enough of it. Let us go somewhere and get a bit of supper before we go back to barracks. I haven't got used to that soup yet."
Petrovski and I moved towards the door while Swartz and the Belgian moved towards the bapeli left in our glasses.
"It's curious that you didn't like that good stuff," said Swartz. " Both of you drink spirits when you are at home, I suppose, and there's nothing wrong with that stuff you've just left, I assure you. It's made out of good fresh figs, and it's the dearest thing to drink that you can get : it costs twenty centimes the quarter litre in that place, and twice as much in the cafes."
' Twopence for half-a-pint was indeed a high price for a legionary to pay for his drink, so bapeli was only possible on special occasions for those who were living on their pay, and poor Swartz' disappointment at our lack of appreciation of the special treat he had offered us can be imagined.
" I don't know where to take you to now," he said, lugubriously, when he followed us outside. ' That twenty centimes was all I had, and I can't treat you any more."
' Yes you can, my boy," said I, handing him a five franc piece ; " only ask us what we'll have next time."
Petrovski saw my action, and handed a coin to
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his Belgian. ' You also may want to treat us, my friend," he said.
" Dart down here quick," said Swartz suddenly, as we were passing a dark narrow lane with mere hovels of houses on either side of it. " There's the picket just turning the corner in front."
" And why should we run from the picket ? " I asked, as I tore after him.
" It is eight days if you are caught in this part of the town, ' ' he said .
' You're a cheerful person to select as a guide to innocent recruits," I remarked, when we had slowed down after satisfying ourselves that the picket was not taking any interest in our pro- ceedings.
" Eh, but you would have come down here by yourselves, old comrade, and got caught by the picket for a certainty, if I hadn't brought you. What sort of a man is it, think you, who does not go at least once to a forbidden place ? "
" He's right enough," laughed Petrovski. " Speaking for myself, I shall probably go there again, though I must say that I'm not particularly struck with the neighbourhood."
When we reached one of the principal streets and were passing a brilliantly lighted cafe — in the main thoroughfare, at any rate, Sidi-bel- Abbes is thoroughly French — Petrovski led the way inside.
The waiter looked askance at us, and asked what we wanted in a " don't want your custom " kind of tone, but when Petrovski began to order
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him about in his cool, dictatorial tone, the man** manner changed completely, and he became respectful to the verge of servility. I am coated, with humility myself, and I rather resented my friend speaking to that waiter as if he were a slave, so I tried to temper Petrovski's harshness by being myself very affable and asking for what I wanted in the style of one asking a favour. The result was hardly satisfactory, inasmuch as the waiter completely ignored me, and Petrovski had to use his influence to get me a bottle of Bass that I had asked for four times in vain, after seeing the familiar red triangle hanging on the wall in a corner. I don't know why he should have been so disinclined to supply that bottle of beer, for they must have made a howling profit on it, seeing that it figured in the bill as half-a-crown's worth. I got my own back on that waiter though, for it fell to me to pay the bill, and I forgot to tip him, though he became amazingly civil when he discovered that the one who had been doing the ordering wasn't going to do the paying. There's a moral to this incident : it is that you are more likely to be kicked if you are humble and meek than if you are dictatorial.
There was another party of four legionaries in the cafe, and they appeared to be very much at home there. They were in the middle of what appeared to be a very elaborate dinner when we entered, and seemed to be very well-bred men if one might judge by their table manners and the
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tone in which they conversed. They never, from first to last, took the slightest notice of us.
" Do you know them ? " I asked Swartz.
' They're angehende corporate," he replied.
" Probationary corporals, are they ? " I said. " They seem to be doing themselves well."
' Yes," he said, " there's plenty of money in the probationary corporal section, and those four very likely dine here every night. You see there are a lot of swells in that section, and they get more money from home than the general run of us."
Then, in answer to my enquiries, he went on to tell me that there was a whole half-company of these sucking non-commissioned officers, and that they were selected generally from among those legionaries who had had previous military experi- ence in other armies, and could speak French well.
" You've been a soldier before, I think," he continued — I had never mentioned it — " and as you speak German as well as French, you ought to stand a good chance of promotion if you show any smartness."
I was vain enough to think that the smartness would not be wanting, and already saw myself a member of that select half -company.
We stayed in the cafe so long that we had to double to get to barracks in time for tattoo ; but the other party were still sitting leisurely over their coffee when we left. On my asking Swartz why they should not be in such a hurry as we
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were he told me that they had probably got leave to stay out of barracks till midnight, which any legionary who had been dismissed recruits' drill could get, though comparatively few applied for it except for nights when the Legion's band was playing in the town.
When we got back to the barrack-room we found most of our comrades feverishly engaged in clean- ing their traps for the next morning's parade, making up for the time lost in the canteen, and their work went on long after lights-out, to the droning accompaniment of one of the legionaries telling stories, after the manner of the Arabian Nights, and this story-telling was still in progress when I dropped off to sleep.
CHAPTER IX
Frenchmen from Germany — Linguists in the Legion — First taste of corvee — The " Hall of Honour " — A gallant feat of arms — What a regiment ! What men ! — Recruits' course easy, but marching a killing job
I WAS awakened next morning as on the morning before, by the cry of " Au Jus." Swartz had impressed upon me the advisability of being one of the first at the washhouse, as the accommodation was limited, and it was sometimes difficult to get a wash before parade, so I hopped out of bed at once without waiting to be hunted out by the corporal, and took my way downstairs the moment I had swallowed my coffee. I got a very satis- factory wash, and was grateful to Swartz for the tip, for most of the other recruits had to go on parade without any wash at all. After washing Swartz showed me the correct way to roll up my bed and fold the blankets neatly on top of it. Then, after sweeping under my bed — a part of the room- cleaning that every man had to do, the remainder being done by the orderly-man, which duty had to be taken by every one in turn — I was free to get ready for parade, and speedily wound my blue cummerbund round the waist of my white trousers, and put on my white jacket and cap. As the
fall-in for parade always sounds a quarter of an
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hour after reveille, and as it is necessary to go down to the ground-floor to get a wash, it is a very- busy time between reveille and the fall-in, and nobody gets ready much too soon.
We recruits of the last batch were formed into two squads with a probationary corporal in charge of each, and a corporal in command of the whole.
The barrack square is very little short of two acres in extent, and it was covered with men, probably as many as three thousand being on parade. There was not sufficient room for such a number to drill, of course, and I wondered what they were going to do. The point was soon settled by the battalions, and the different parties of recruits, with the exception of ours, marching out of the barrack-gate to the music of drums and fifes. We twenty were left behind and did our morning? s drill in a corner of the square.
We were first of all put through the movements of extending from the right, left and centre, and then, when we could get ourselves into the proper positions at the word of command, we occupied the remainder of the time with a form of physical exercises, something like our " extension motions." We were kept at this, with a " stand-easy " of about five minutes in every half -hour, until about eight o'clock. All the commands and explanations were given in both French and German, a practice rendered necessary by the fact that most of the German recruits, even those from Alsace-Lorraine, did not understand French — and more than half
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of the legionaries are of German nationality, if those from the conquered provinces are reckoned as such. If asked, however, what their nationality is, most Alsatians insist that they are French, though their native places were taken from France forty years ago. One of the recruits was a Levantine Greek, who understood neither French nor German, but the corporal was equal to explain- ing to him and giving him his native equivalents for the French words of command. It is astonish- ing what a number of extraordinary linguists there are in the Legion. Non-commissioned officers who can speak six languages are by no means rarities, and men who can converse in three tongues are to be found in almost every barrack-room. In that very company at the time I am writing of, there was a sergeant, a smart soldier, who was said to have been a professor of languages in a college in Switzerland. He was credited with knowing no fewer than twelve languages. He was certainly a master of those I spoke myself, and Petrovski told me that he had never heard a foreigner speak such good Russian, so it is likely enough that general report did not overrate his ability.
What struck me as being very wonderful was the fact that though a good percentage of recruits did not know any French at all when they joined, I never met, in all my time in the Legion, a man of six months' service who could not converse with ease in the sort of French that is spoken in the
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Legion barrack-rooms — which is not book French by any means.
At eight o'clock we were dismissed, and had nothing more to do, theoretically, till after morn- ing soup ; but in practice it worked differently. As we were trooping off to our barrack-rooms after being dismissed we were pounced upon by a ser- geant and kept hard at it for the next hour and a half, going round the barracks with wheelbarrows and brooms doing scavenging work. This was our introduction to the hated corvee. Generally the fatigue work of the barracks is done by men sentenced to extra corvee, and by men undergoing room-arrest and Salle de Police, but all these men were now out at drill ; and when there are no defaulters available, or there are not enough of them for the work to be done, the non-com- missioned officers impress the first men they come across, and those who have not mastered the art of dodging get very little free time.
After " La lecture du rapport/' or the reading of the orders of the day, we were kept at what is called " Theorie " until two o'clock. This in- struction ranges from the pay and provision regulations, through the drill books, to musketry instruction and explanations of regulations of all sorts, and is continued into the trained soldier stage. As far as the instruction to recruits is concerned, military knowledge is relegated to second place, and the time is mostly taken up by explaining the different badges of rank and the
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proper compliments to be paid to each, and impressing the standing orders on the men's minds.
On this first day the " Theorie " was very interesting to me, because it included a visit to the Museum, or " Salle d'honneur," as it is called, of the Legion. I read recently that this " Hall of Honour " is forbidden ground to the legionary. If this is so now, and I am very much inclined to doubt it, it was not the case in my time, for then every newly joined legionary was taken to visit it in order that he might be impressed by the feats of arms of his predecessors. It is difficult to believe that such a sure way of fostering esprit de corps should be abandoned, and I fancy that the state- ment must be a mistake.
The " Hall of Honour " is in a well-kept enclo- sure, walled off from the rest of the barracks, and is approached by a broad flight of steps. It is a very large room, with a painted ceiling, the work of a legionary, and the walls are literally covered with portraits of officers and men who have distinguished themselves, and with canvases of stirring scenes in the I/egion's history.
The adjudant-major, who was acting as show- man, drew our special attention to one of these pictures bearing the title " The Finish," and with soldierly feeling told us the story of the incident it commemorates — surely one of the most gallant feats of arms that the world has ever known.
It happened in Mexico, where the Legion left the bones of nearly two thousand of its members.
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On the 3oth April, 1863, 62 legionaries, with three officers, were acting as advance guard to a large convoy of provisions. They were attacked by a thousand Mexican cavalry, and fought their way to the hacienda of Camaron, where they barricaded themselves. The thousand cavalry were now joined by twelve hundred infantry, and the legionaries were confidently called upon to sur- render. Captain Danjou, who had lost his hand in the Crimea and now wore an artificial one, refused to entertain the idea, and the Mexicans advanced to the attack. Just think of it : two thousand two hundred men against sixty-five, and those sixty-five without a drop of water, although the heat was tropical. They defended themselves from eight o'clock in the morning until two o'clock in the afternoon, when a flag of truce again summoned them to surrender. Of the sixty-five there were but five now alive, and they were all desperately wounded. Who could expect men in their condition to stick out for terms ? And yet they did stick out. " We will only surrender," said the non-commissioned officer, who commanded the wounded other four, "if we are allowed to march out with our arms, and keep them." The Mexican colonel granted these terms, but when he found that the garrison consisted only of five wounded men, only one of whom was able to walk, he made a remark that he had not been fighting against men, but against demons.
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' This grand act of devotion was not in vain," concluded the adjudant-major, " for while the Third of the First was keeping that two thousand two hundred men employed the convoy got safely through. Soldiers of the Legion, remember the third company of this regiment and Camaron when it comes to your turn to fight."
In a glass case, under the picture, was the artificial hand of Captain Danjou.
Another picture to which our special attention was drawn, called " The Breach," illustrates an incident in Indo-China, where 390 legionaries gallantly held Tuyen-Quan against a Chinese army until a French brigade raised the siege thirty-two days afterwards. Of the 390 men in the place at the outset 190 were killed outright, and the majority of the others were wounded. The Chinese tried to take the place by assault no less than seven times, and on one of these occasions, commemor- ated in the picture, they blew up one of the most important of the defensive works with a mine, and a section of the Legion held the breach against them and prevented them getting in. A sergeant of the Legion acted as chief-engineer at Tuyen- Quan and constructed all the defensive works.
A whole book could be written round that museum of the Legion, and it would be a book well worth reading, too.
I was profoundly impressed by what I had seen, and I think that I was a much more valuable asset to France when I came out than when I
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went in. The finish to the adjudant-major's description of the Camaron fight looks, in print, a little unreal and theatrical, but in the actual delivery it was nothing of the sort. He was entitled to use that sort of language, for he had seen many stiff fights himself, and wore the Cross of the Legion of Honour.
" What a regiment ! What men ! " was Petrovski's remark to me as we trooped out of the " Hall of Honour " to resume the acquirement of such interesting facts as : " One red chevron denotes a soldier of the first class, two red chevrons distinguish a corporal, one gold chevron is a sergeant, two gold chevrons is the badge of a sergeant-major, an adjudant wears no chevrons, but carries a long sword like an officer," and so on.
From two till four we had foot drill, differing but little from our own infantry movements, and at four we were done for the day, with the excep- tion of shining up for the morrow, and washing our white suits, which by this time were rather grimy, although we had only worn them one whole day.
Learning wisdom from our experience of the morning, Petrovski and I successfully dodged a sergeant on the look-out for some one to find work for in the hour that still remained until soup time ; but most of the others were captured for corvee, and it seemed to grieve them very much, judging by the remarks they made when we saw them next, that we had escaped. It is a peculiar thing
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that men find misfortune easier to bear if their friends are unhappy also.
There are no washerwomen in the Region. Every man has to do his own washing unless he cares to pay some other man to do it for him. We were quite able to find the small amount necessary to get our laundry work done by deputy, but we had decided that we would not shirk anything, so after soup we took our way to the " lavabo," a concreted basin formed in a running stream that passed through the barracks. All round the brink of this reservoir were men smoking, singing, and laughing while doing their washing, and I rather enjoyed the experience, which was not in the least like work.
There were only two or three out of our twenty who had not been drilled in some other army, and by the end of the first week most of us were sufficiently advanced to take our place in the ranks, had we been allowed to do so.
He would be a lazy man who could find anything to complain of in that first week's training, and I should much like to hear the opinion of such a man after he had served as a recruit in a British cavalry regiment for a week. I am betting he would regard the Region recruit's course as a bed of ease by comparison.
The second week was a trifle harder, for we had now to march out to the drill ground of the Legion, which is some distance from barracks, and pass the morning in running drill. This training is un-
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doubtedly trying to a man out of condition, and the blubbery ones were completely done up by the time we returned to barracks for morning soup. But it was splendid physical training, and as the breathing spaces of about five minutes came frequently and the pace was no faster than our " double," I cannot see that it could possibly do any healthy man the slightest injury.
The really hard part of the training was the marching. There was no mistake about that being a killing job. The legionary has not only to carry his personal kit when on the march — he has also to load himself up with his tents, little tentes d'abri like those used by our own troops when on the march in the abortive expedition for the relief of General Gordon, and the cooking pots. When fully loaded every man has seventy or eighty pounds' weight on his back, and he has to carry this for twenty, twenty-five, or even thirty miles a day under a burning sun, with a halt of ten minutes in every hour. We started training for this by marching short distances with nothing to carry but our arms, and gradually increased weight and distance until we were doing about twenty miles a day under campaigning conditions. When we had got to this stage I cursed the day I enlisted, and I fancy most of the others were doing the same ; but the feeling of unbearable hardship got fainter with every march, and soon died away altogether.
CHAPTER X
Bearding the colonel — "The education of a man in the best school " — In the probationary corporals' section — Promoted corporal and rise from a half-penny to twopence a day — Volunteer for Tonkin
is a town of only about thirty thousand inhabitants, and Petrovski and I found life there very dull. We had seen all we wanted to see of the town before we had been there a week, and after that we only went out of barracks when we fancied a walk through the vineyards or a meal at a cafe, French or Arab, as the fancy took us.
" I've had enough of this," said Petrovski to me one day about three weeks after we had joined, as we were lying on our beds at " siesta " time — the summer programme had just commenced, and the time between ten and two was devoted to sleeping or keeping quiet in some other way, reveille being now at half-past four.
"I'm with you there," I replied. "I didn't come here for this dead-and-alive sort of life. I thought that there was always something moving here."
" lyet's go to Tonkin," said Petrovski, just as
if it was only a matter of buying tickets and going.
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" Righto," said I chaffingly, " when shall we start — to-morrow ? "
" We can't go to-morrow," he replied quite seriously, " but I fancy we might manage to start in a week or so. The sergeant-major told me this morning that there would be a draft going there within the next few weeks."
" We stand a healthy chance," said I. " We're not dismissed recruits' drill yet."
" I've got an idea that we can be dismissed recruits' drill to-morrow and get selected for the draft as well," he said in a bantering tone ; " but you'll have to play the leading part because you can talk more convincingly than I can, and know more about military matters. You see by the notice-board that the colonel is to-morrow going to inspect all the recruits that had joined for the past month. Well, my idea is that you should tackle the colonel, tell him that you know a lot more about soldiering than he does, and that you enlisted to soldier, not to hang about in this hole and be taught things that you know a lot better than your teachers."
" It's awfully good of you to cast me for the speaking part," I said drily. " I suppose you'll be off the stage during the prison act, too. Sixty days is about the least I could expect for that little bit. How would you like sixty days of hump- ing your kit in the sun for five hours a day, living on quarter rations, and passing the time when you weren't doing your heavy marching order drill
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in a dark and stinking cell. No, thanks, I've no fancy for conversing with colonels. I'll tackle the captain, if you like."
"The captain is no good," he replied; "the colonel is the man who can do the thing without asking anybody else, and if you are afraid to tackle him, I'm not. But I shan't be able to talk to him as well as you can, and I might fail where you would succeed."
" But where do you come in ? " I objected. " A soldier in any army is not allowed to ask privileges for anybody but himself, you know."
" That's all right. You ask for yourself. I shall be next to you in the ranks, and I'll simply say ' me, too ' to what you say."
" I might say something, but certainly not anything like what you suggest, if the colonel happens to speak to me," I said dubiously.
" Well, if you don't open 5rour mouth I shall, and if I bungle myself into that sixty days, I shall think kindly of you when I am sweating under those marching order drills."
He was not stating any improbability when he said that he would very likely make a mess of it, for at that stage of his military career under the French flag he had not mastered the proper way to speak to an officer, and it was almost any odds against the colonel listening to him sympathetically. It was almost any odds against his listening to me, either, for what Petrovski wanted me to ask was something that the colonel had probably never
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been asked on an inspection parade before, and the natural thing for him to do, if he were in a good temper, would be to refer me to my captain, with whom I should have a bad time for going to the colonel over his head.
If the thing had to be done, and things that Petrovski set his mind on generally got done, I had much better do it than he, and so it was arranged between us.
My heart failed me, though, when Colonel Wattringue, Commander of the Legion of Honour, and with a chest full of other decorations, stopped in front of me on parade next day. Luckily he made it easy for me by speaking first, or I don't think I should have carried out the arrangement. In Napoleon's days, we are told, the French common soldiers were allowed to write out peti- tions, or, more probably, got some one else to write them, and stick them on their bayonets, but that sort of thing doesn't go in these days.
When the colonel came to where I was standing shoulder to shoulder with Petrovski my captain said something to him that I did not catch, and the colonel stopped.
' What is your name, legionary ? " he asked.
" Brown, mon colonel."
' The Commandant de Recrutement at Paris has written to me about you. You have served in the British army, is it not so ? " ' Yes, mon colonel."
" Do you speak German ? "
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" I was educated in Germany, mon colonel."
" And what brought you here ? "
" I thought to see some war service, mon colonel."
' That will happen, mon enfant," he said smiling.
" Will you send me to Tonkin with the next draft, mon colonel ? " I blurted out. " I do not love this life in barracks."
" When you have nine months' service you may volunteer," he replied, and turned towards Petrovski as if to speak to him.
" Pardon, mon colonel," I said, and he turned to me again inquiringly.
" I am already a good shot, mon colonel," I continued, " and I can march like an old legionary " — which was not strictly true. " I have also been under fire many times. Could I not go with the next draft ? "
" We shall see," he replied benevolently, as he again turned to Petrovski.
" My name is Petrovski, I also wish to go to Tonkin, and I, too, speak] German, mon colonel," said the Russian in a breath, without giving the colonel time to open his mouth.
" I have heard of you, too," said the colonel. " You also have served, I am told. What brought you to the Legion ? "
" I came to get the education of a man in the best school, mon colonel."
" Good ! " said the colonel, looking pleased at
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the compliment. " Well, I cannot promise you anything, but I will keep my eye on you."
This was more satisfaction than we had any right to expect, but I was not sanguine of anything coming of it, and when, at the reading of the " rapport " next morning, we were astonished by hearing our two names and the Austrian's called out as having been posted to the pro- bationary corporals' section, it seemed that our chances of going out with the next draft were quite extinguished.
The change, however, satisfied us for the time being, and we both set about our new duties in earnest. We had now done with recruits' drill — in fact we had to assist in instructing the recruits ourselves now, as well as making ourselves ac- quainted with the ordinary duties of a corporal and studying the " Theorie " books.
Our new comrades were generally reserved about their previous lives, but from their manners, and from unguarded expressions that they let drop now and again, it was evident that a good many of them had served as officers in other armies. Many of them were Frenchmen who had served a term as non-commissioned officers in ordinary French regiments, and one at least had been a com- missioned officer in a French line regiment.
When we had been about a month at this work — a great part of my time being passed on the rifle-range assisting the musketry instructors — another surprise struck us at the reading out of
lao
" orders " : our names, with a number of others, were called out as having been promoted to the rank of corporal, the Austrian again being one of the lucky ones.
I imagine that there was favour of some sort in this promotion, for we left many behind in the corporals' school who were there before us, and it may be that Petrovski's bold idea of tackling the colonel was responsible for it. At any rate he claimed the credit, and I didn't think that I was entitled to contradict him.
Our pay as corporals was twopence a day, four times as much as we had been getting as soldiers of the second-class, and twice as much as the pay of a soldier of the first-class.
In the same day's orders the expected call for volunteers for Indo-China was published, and an intimation given that no man might volunteer unless he had nine months' service, and had not suffered imprisonment during that time.
I hardly thought it worth while to ask for my name to be put down in face of this restriction ; but Petrovski insisted that we ought to bring ourselves to the colonel's notice again, so we went to the sergeant-major, who, to our great surprise, took our names without demur, saying that the captain had told him to send in our names if we offered them. Although our names were down our chances did not look particularly rosy, for we learned that five times as many corporals as were required had put their names down. We
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were sent to the hospital for medical inspection, however, and augured from that that we were in the running. Another thing that made our chance look promising was the fact that we were not put in charge of squads, but were solely employed in assisting to knock recruits into shape.
CHAPTER XI
Embarkation for Tonkin — The "Marseillaise" — Desertions in the Suez Canal — Deserter killed at Singapore — Arrival at Haiphong — Uncertainty as to sex of waiter — Legionaries paint Haiphong — " Moneyed men " — Arrival at Phu-lang- Thuong — Marching through rice swamps
AT last, a fortnight after we had given in our names, we were informed that we were among the chosen ones.
Our heavy clothing was now taken away and lighter garments, with a white helmet instead of the kepi, issued in its place ; and, about a week afterwards, the draft, four or five hundred strong, paraded for departure, band and colours being formed up with us.
The colonel made a short speech of the " Soldiers, remember the glorious traditions of the Legion " order, while a crowd of the inhabitants stood outside looking through the railings ; and then we swung out through the gates with the band at our head playing the stirring march of the Legion, the music being almost drowned by the rousing cheers of our comrades whom we were leaving behind.
Few of us came back to that barracks again — probably more than half " settled down " for ever
in the jungles, swamps, and burial grounds of
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Indo-China, while many more became so broken in health that they were discharged as being unfit for further service without returning to the Legion's headquarters.
When we got to Oran we were met by the band of the Zouave battalion stationed there, and marched straight down to the troopship, which had come in that day from Marseilles with other troops on board, and was waiting for us.
We had no sooner got on board than the ship cast off its moorings and moved away from the wharf to the accompaniment of the "Marseillaise," played by the Zouaves' band and sung by the troops on board.
What a rattling war-song is that same "Mar- seillaise " ! We have nothing that comes anywhere near it as a patriotism-reviver, and I doubt if any other nation has either. Even we foreigners sang it with genuine enthusiasm, and, speaking per- sonally, it has made my blood tingle many a time. I cannot fancy an Englishman getting enthusiastic over the " Wacht am Rhein," nor a Frenchman or a German singing " Rule, Britannia " with fervour, but I have seen and heard men of almost every nation under the sun howl themselves hoarse over the " Marseillaise."
There were about seven hundred troops on board besides the Legion, and most of these belonged to the Marine Infantry. The French Infanterie de la Marine, by the way, is not a corps corresponding to our Royal Marine Light Infantry. The French
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regiments bearing this title do not serve on board ship — they are stationed at the French naval ports and in the colonies, and are no more marines, in our sense of the word, than any of our- line battalions are.
On board the troopship we got better food than an English soldier at sea gets, and we were allowed half a litre (seven-eighths of a pint) of wine a day per man. For the rest, life on a French trooper is very much like life on an English one, and it does not, therefore, call for any detailed description.
When we were passing through the Suez Canal we had to tie up to the bank for a night, and sen- tries, all of the Marine Infantry, were posted round the ship's sides to stop any legionary who might take it into his head to desert. In spite of these precautions two German legionaries got clear away in some unexplained manner, and a third got half-way along one of the hawsers that held us to the bank. Having got so far he was taken with a severe attack of funk, and, not being able either to go forward or to come back, was constrained to call for help. He was evidently under the im- pression that we were in the River Nile, for when I, with many others, ran up to the bow in response to his frenzied screams he was yelling " Crocodile ! Crocodile ! " with all the power of his lungs.
As a matter of fact nothing could be seen that should have alarmed him, and there seemed to be no valid reason why he should not have got to the bank all right. But he was paralysed with terror
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except as to his voice and kept on screaming that he could hold on no longer. At last one of the sailors went down the hawser hand over hand, carrying the end of a rope, which he fastened round the legionary's body.
When the sailor got back on board again an order was yelled to the man on the hawser to let go. He couldn't make up his mind to do this for some time, till a lot of persuasive remarks of sorts had been addressed to him, and when he did let go he went splash into the waters of the canal, letting out an ear-splitting shriek as he did so. The sailor who held the end of the rope chuckled gleefully at this result of his mischievous slackening of the rope, and his hilarity became contagious when the poor beggar of a legionary was " accidentally " let fall into the water a couple more times before being finally hauled on board. This would-be deserter was put in the cells, where he remained for the rest of the voyage, expecting to be tried by court-martial at the other end, but he was released without further punishment when he landed.
I know something about Egypt, and I have often speculated as to the adventures of the two men who got away. It is pretty certain that they often wished themselves back on board the trooper before they got to their homes again — if they ever did.
The nearest French port was Pingeh, the port of Saigon, in Cambodia, but we had to make a call at Singapore to coal. As we were standing into
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the harbour I overheard two legionaries making it up to " hop the twig " there if they got a chance. My strict duty as a non-commissioned officer was, of course, to place them in arrest, and I afterwards wished that I had done so ; but, both in the English army and the French, it was always a maxim of mine that an officer or a non-commis- sioned officer should never make any use of what he sees or hears by chance, except in very serious cases, and I did nothing.
We coaled from the wharf, so that any one who wanted to desert had only to cross one of the gang- ways to be on English soil and free, as no country gives up deserters.
It seemed an easy enough thing to do, to get over that few feet of gangway, but the attempt cost one of the poor fellows I had overheard his life, and the other a severe wound.
All along the rail of the ship on the shore side were sentries of the Marine Infantry, and two sentries were on each gangway. All these sentries had their rifles loaded and their bayonets fixed, and their orders were to fire at any soldier who attempted to leave the ship, if they could not reach him with the bayonet ; but on no account were they to fire upon or to pursue a man if he managed to reach the shore.
The legionaries, and the other troops as well, for all I know, were warned that these orders had been given, and were told to keep away from the shore side of the ship ; but in spite of this caution
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the two men I have referred to made a simultane- ous dash for freedom at different gangways, think- ing, probably, that the sentries would not shoot to hit, even if they fired at all. If the sentries had been legionaries this belief would have been justi- fied, for a legionary would never hit an escaping comrade if he could help it, though he would be sure to carry out his orders scrupulously by firing at him. The marine sentries, however, had no particularly kind feeling towards legionaries, for soldiers of the ordinary French regiments appear to think that " legionary " and " pig of a Prussian " are almost convertible terms, and they obeyed their orders to the letter.
The two Germans — it is safe to assume in nine cases out of ten, that a man who is trying to desert from the Legion is a German — had seized a moment when the stream of coal-carrying coolies had ceased to flow from some cause or other, and the gangways were empty. The sentries at one gang- way were taken unawares, and the would-be deserter was past them before either of them had guessed his intention. He was halfway down the gangway, and a few steps more would have carried him to safety, when one of the sentries brought his rifle rapidly to his shoulder, and, simultaneously, as it seemed, with the flash and the report, the poor fellow who was making a strike for liberty, pitched forward on his face, the top of his head being only a few inches from the free soil of the wharf, while the sentry who had
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fired at him was holding his jaw — he had been in such a hurry to fire that he had not taken time to jam the rifle-butt into his shoulder, and as the Gras rifle was a terrible kicker if held loosely, he got a crack on the jaw that made him use language so picturesque that there would be danger of its melting the type if I set it down here — that is if it got so far as the printer, which I am by no means sure of.
While this was going on the second German had made a rush at the second gangway, but the sentries there saw him coming and brought their bayonets down to the " charge." He either did not notice that they had done this or could not stop himself in time, for he ran clean on to the point of one of the weapons and received a dangerous wound in the abdomen. He was taken to the sick-bay and transferred to the miHtary hospital when we got to Saigon, but whether or no he eventually recovered I do not know, for I never heard of him again.
The other man was quite dead when taken up, having been shot through the heart, and his body was taken out to sea and cast overboard when we were beyond the three-mile limit.
This painful incident caused such bad blood between the legionaries and the marines that for the remainder of the voyage it was deemed advisable to keep them apart, and we were confined to one part of the ship while they were limited to the other.
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When we got to Saigon we disembarked. The Marine Infantry draft went into barracks, for their regiment was stationed there, whilst the legionaries and some details for corps not at Saigon went into camp outside the town.
What we landed at Saigon for I have no idea. We did absolutely nothing while there, and after a week's idleness we embarked on the same ship again and were taken to the mouth of the Red River, so-called because the ferruginous soil of its basin colours the water a dark brown, where the ship threaded its way through a regular maze of fantastic-looking rocks, eventually coming to an anchor in a natural harbour. There was con- siderable speculation as to the meaning of our stopping here, for it was clearly not a part where troops would be disembarked, but our curiosity was soon satisfied by an order to get ready for transfer to river boats next morning. The next day two river gun-boats, with three d^cks, like the " Lotus " and the " Water Lily " of our own Nile Expedition, came and took us off. After about six hours' steaming through the red muddy water we drew into a whar^ and were formed up and marched ashore. This was the town of Haiphong.
We marched up a beautiful wide street lined with trees — the Avenue Paul Bert — to the barracks which were situated right at the end of it in a road named after General de Negrier. It was
early evening when we arrived, and after we had i
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been told off to barrack-rooms, in which the sole furniture was a long wooden guard-bed, we were allowed to go out into the town. Petrovski and I went out together in search of a decent meal, and found it in a cafe not a stone's throw from the barracks. Here we were waited on by a clean handy native, whose sex we could not agree upon. He, or she, had a rather pleasing face and wore a chignon, so Petrovski addressed it as " my dear " and proceeded to chuck it under the chin on the sly, which seemed to amuse it very much.
Noticing furtive smiles on the faces of two Europeans, presumably French officials, who were dining at the next table, I expressed the opinion that my friend was making a fool of himself, and suggested that it was a waiter and not a waitress. Petrovski scouted the idea, so we decided to ask, assuming that as our order had been given in French that language would be understood.
" Look here," said I politely, when the next course was brought, " my friend and I cannot agree whether you are a gentleman or a lady. Would you mind settling the dispute ? "
" Com biet," replied the waiter imperturbably, at which the Europeans at the next table burst out laughing.
This struck both of us as being rather bad manners, and we looked our displeasure, at which one of the laughers bowed apologetically, and said :
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" Pardon, gentlemen, we could not help laugh- ing, because he said ' I don't know ' in answer to your question as to whether he is a man or a woman. He is a man, of course, but that is no reflection on you, because all new-comers have some difficulty in distinguishing the sexes here. Men and women dress pretty much alike, they both wear chignons, and they both smoke or chew tobacco."
After that Petrovski guarded against further mistakes by treating all Annamites as men until the contrary was proved.
We had a very satisfactory dinner, winding up with coffee and liqueurs, and the cost was only about three shillings each. Thoroughly com- fortable we strolled quietly back to barracks, when we met a rude shock. As soon as we put our heads inside the gate we were collared to take charge of piquets to go out and round up the bulk of our party, who were said to be painting the town a brilliant vermilion. The men had been making a first trial of shum-shum, a potent rice-spirit, and hundreds of them were riotously drunk. A fair number of them had to be carried to barracks and tied up when they got there to prevent them committing murder. It was mid- night before we were at liberty to lie down, and it seemed to me that I had only just dropped off to sleep when reveille went. It was four o'clock in the morning, and by five we were on the steamers again on our way further
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up the river, with no idea of our ultimate destination.
It was a very depressing day. We were so crowded on the gunboats that we had not room to move about freely, and the only scenery was long stretches of mud on either hand. That afternoon we arrived at a miserable hole called Hai-Duong, and here we remained for a wretched fortnight, making practice marches through the rice swamps that surrounded it. These rice swamps are cut up into sections by dams or causeways about a foot wide. Along these causeways we had to tramp in single file for miles, the soft earth becom- ing slush when a few men had passed over it. It was therefore impossible for many men to follow the same track, so we had to move over the country in parallel lines of sections. The only thing that broke the monotony of these abominable pro- menades was the frequent slipping and going flop, into the nine or ten inches of water that covered the rice, of some unfortunate or other, and these mishaps always caused more merriment than the incidents warranted. There was absolutely no excitement about these marches, for the country was perfectly quiet and there was no prospect whatever of shooting or being shot at. This sort of thing lasted until we were all so dissatisfied that the least thing would have caused a mutiny, but we got the order to move on before anything serious occurred. It was at Hai-Duong that some of our party felt like moneyed men. There is a coin
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current in Tonkin called a Sabuk. It is a little smaller than a farthing, and is made of some sort of brittle alloy. It has a square hole in the centre, so that it can be carried on a string or a piece of fibre. Our men discovered that seventy of these went to a penny, and many of them, for the mere pleasure of feeling that they had money and plenty of it in their pockets, turned all their French money into Sabuks, until the place was denuded of the coin.
Our next halt was at a place called Seven Pagodas, and here we learned that we were on our way to join the second battalion of the ist Regiment of the Legion.
The river scenery about here was a great improvement on that we had met with in the early part of the journey, as the shores were well covered with villages nestling among fruit trees and stately palms, with picturesque red-roofed pagodas showing here and there ; but as we were all utterly sick of the dawdling journey scenery had no charms for us. The journey from Hai- phong to Phu-lang-Thuong, the town we were bound for, could easily have been made in a single day, for the distance is only about sixty or seventy miles, and we were kept hanging about on the road for three weeks.
We got to our destination at last, and were split up among the companies of the battalion, Petrovski and I being posted to No. I Company.
It is unnecessary to load this narrative with
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history which every one can read elsewhere if they desire to read it at all, but it is well that I should devote a few lines to the situation in Tonkin at this time in order that my story may be understood. As a consequence of the campaign of 1883-5, China had renounced all rights of sovereignty over the country, and Ham-Nghi, the Emperor of Annam, had been exiled to Algeria, his brother Than-Thai being placed on the throne under French protection.
But the country had never been properly subdued, and bands of Black Flags, or so-called pirates, had established themselves in the almost impassable forests of the Yen-The district, and were allowed to do pretty much as they liked up to the time of which I am writing, the back end of 1889. The French Government had now come to the conclusion that some energetic steps must be taken to put them down, but up to the time of my arrival in Tonkin there had been no organised expedition to the Yen-The district.
, i'a r
CHAPTER XII
Doi Van, rebel — A young woman leader — A narrow escape — De Nam — Our captain — Expedition against Cao-Thuong — The man with the medals
WHEN I arrived at Phu-lang-Thuong the battalion of the Region there was engaged in scouring the country in the vicinity, and it was in one of these reconnaissances under lieutenant Meyer, of my company, that I saw the first shot fired in anger of the many I was to see during my service under the tricolour.
News had come in that a celebrated rebel leader named Doi Van was somewhere in the neighbour- hood with a strong band, and several parties were sent out to look for him. It was the party I was with that found him. We were on our way back to our quarters, and were passing a pagoda, when the lieutenant spotted a body of men on some low ground a good way to our front. By way of encouraging the pirates to come on the lieutenant posted the bulk of us in the pagoda and went on with the remainder to a point where he was exposed to the view of the enemy. As soon as the pirates saw this handful of legionaries they thought that they had a soft job on, and started to round them up. Then the lieutenant ordered us
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to start for the pagoda at the run, as if we were badly scared. The pirates, thinking that they had seen the whole force, advanced to the attack of the pagoda, led by a pretty and handsomely- dressed young woman on a horse. She was armed with a dainty Winchester carbine, and used it too, but she ran little risk from our bullets, as the lieutenant chivalrously ordered us not to fire in her direction. There were very few of us would have fired at her in any case.
Although the pirates outnumbered us by about ten to one, they did not stop long after they discovered that our party was not so weak as they had imagined, and though we followed them up when they drew off, we did not attain our object, which was the capture of their chief.
He was taken about a month afterwards, however, and executed. While he was lying in prison the young woman we had seen voluntarily surrendered herself and demanded to be executed with him. Her request was not granted — instead of being put to death, she was set free with no stain on her character, so to say.
The French authorities set great store on the capture of Doi Van. He had been a sergeant — Doi is the native translation of sergeant — of " Young Ladies," as the legionaries called the Tirailleurs Tonkinois, on account of their feminine appearance, and openly boasted that he had only joined the French service in order to study their military methods.
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I had a narrow escape of being killed in this preliminary skirmish. I had bent my head while I was undoing a fresh packet of ammunition, so that my neck was not occupying the back part of the collar of my coat, and while I was in this position a bullet went in at one side of the collar and came out of the other. Had I been holding my head up at that moment it is a practical cer- tainty that there would have been a vacancy for a corporal in No. I Company.
During the following summer the rebels became very enterprising, and even came down from their hiding-places and burned villages in actual sight of our barracks — but this was always done at night, and they took care to make off before troops could be got to the spot.
The principal man among the disaffected natives was one of the Kmperor Ham-Nghi's mandarins, named De Nam. He was to all intents and purposes king of the Yen-The district, for three villages out of every four recognised him as the representative of the dethroned monarch, and all the villages, whether they recognised him or not, were obliged to pay taxes to him, in return for which he protected them from the demands of the regular Government tax-gatherers. The troops could not get at him, for his stronghold was in the depths of the forest, and the French did not know where it was situated. No information on this point could be got from the natives, not even from those who did not hold in with him, for his cruel
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treatment of those he suspected of being in league with the French had thoroughly terrified every one who was possessed of useful information. I myself came upon some terribly gruesome evidence of this, which will be described in its proper place.
In the autumn of 1890, however, the French got some indications as to De Nam's stronghold, and it was decided that it should be found and destroyed.
The column sent out for this purpose was commanded by General Godin, but as it only numbered about seven hundred fighting men, it could hardly be called a general's command. On this column the I/egion was represented by my company, about one hundred strong, under Cap- tain Plessier.
On the night before we set out I was discussing matters with Petrovski. We were speaking in English, as we generally did when we were alone, as we leaned against the wall of the pagoda which served as a barrack. I had been saying that I would rather serve under our captain than under any other officer of the battalion, and remarked that if the Region didn't do its fair share in the coming operations it wouldn't be his fault.
Petrovski agreed, adding that the company had probably been selected because it was recognised that we had the best officers.
" Thank you for your good opinion, my friends," said a voice from round the corner, in almost perfect English, and the captain himself stood before us. " I was not eavesdropping," he
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continued laughingly ; " you were talking so loudly, and the night is so still that I could not help hearing you."
" You are an exception to the English proverb which says that listeners hear no good of them- selves, mon capitaine," I said, as we stood at " attention."
" I am flattered by your compliment," he said, " particularly as you English militaires are such terribly severe critics. Do they still believe in England that one Englishman is as good as ten Frenchmen, eh ? "
" No Englishman whose opinion would be of the slightest value ever did believe it," I re- torted, a trifle huffily.
" No, of course not, my friend," he said laugh- ingly. " It is only my little joke."
After some further conversation, which was mainly directed to Petrovski, he advised us to go to bed, and took his departure. This was the first intimation that I had of his speaking English, but he afterwards practised on me to a consider- able extent by conversing with me on indifferent subjects at every opportunity,
Next morning we paraded as soon as it was light. The column had been divided into three sections, the first of which was composed of our company, and about a hundred native riflemen. The other two sections were made up of Marine Infantry, a Mountain Battery of Artillery, and more " Young Ladies." We took different routes,
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the general idea being that the first and second sections should meet at a place called Tin-Dao and proceed to attack the village of Cao-Thuong, while the third section would take up a position from whence the pirates' retreat could be cut off.
After a floundering march we met the second section, which the general accompanied, between six and seven in the morning. The general now ordered our section to take the lead and search the villages as we went along. After about two and a half hours' march, following the direction that had been indicated to us, we came upon the fortified village of Cao-Thuong, which was sup- posed to be the abiding-place of one of De Nam's principal bands. It was situated in a clearing of the dense forest, and covered a fair amount of ground, so we calculated at first sight that it must be giving shelter to at least a thousand men with their families.
We approached it carefully in skirmishing order, expecting every moment to hear the whistle of bullets, but we got right up to the palisade without seeing or hearing anything, and in a few minutes afterwards we were inside. The place was deserted. I looked round in wonder. I had been expecting to see interior defences in keeping with the bamboo palisade which showed outside, and here were fortifications that might have been made by a man who had been taught at the School of Military Engineering. I thought that we would have had some difficulty in getting into that
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village if the pirates had stood their ground ; but the pirates turned out to have more military know- ledge than even the sight of these defences would lead one to suppose, and they had a better card to play than staying in the village.
From the top of a mound in the village the roofs of what appeared to be some ruined houses were seen at about a hundred yards' distance, and the detachment of native riflemen belonging to our section of the column was dispatched to set them on fire.
We had now been on our feet, for something like seven hours, and the general ordered a rest. We had piled arms, thrown our knapsacks off, and were preparing to enjoy ourselves generally when a shower of bullets came hurtling among us. The artillery mules stampeded, and we snatched up our arms and knapsacks in quick time, without any more thought of resting. Presently the tirailleurs who had been sent to fire the houses came back and reported that the bush was so thick that it was almost impossible to get to the place, but that one or two of their men had cut their way through the thick undergrowth and found that the supposed ruined cluster of houses was in fact a strong fort filled with men.
Our section of the column was now ordered to attack it, while the artillery dropped shells into it over our heads.
" I'll bet you drinks and tobacco for the two squads that my squad gets there before yours,"
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said Petrovski to me as we were forming up for the attack.
I accepted the bet, but pointed out that, seeing that the tirailleurs couldn't get there, it was extremely unlikely that either of our squads would arrive.
" We've got to find the way the people who are there got in," said Petrovski.
This, of course, was the obvious retort ; but finding the way used by the garrison was not so easy as talking about finding it, and it would be questionable tactics to use it if found, for it would be sure to be strictly guarded.
Our captain's idea at first was that we should chop our way through the bush with the " coupe- coupes " — a sort of machete — that we carried for the purpose, but after we had been some time at this we discovered that it would take a whole day at least to cut a practicable path. The bullets came whistling through the foliage all about us as we worked, but did us no damage, as they all, without exception, passed over our heads.
When the hopelessness of attempting to get to close quarters with the fort on that side was recognised, the commandant of our section of the column ordered both the legionaries and the tirailleurs to leave that part and try the other side. We made but little headway here, also, for some time, but at last a narrow path was discovered and we advanced along it in single file. We
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found this path so overgrown, and the thicket on either side of it so dense, that we made but little progress.
The captain was in front, armed only with a coupe-coupe, and when we came in sight of the clearing in which the enemy had established him- self, he stopped and ordered us to close up as much as possible, and rush out at the word of command. As soon, however, as the word was given, and we advanced to the attack at the run, we were re- ceived with such a heavy fire from tiers of loopholed walls that four of us went down at the moment of emerging into the open, and it was evident that before we could have got up to the walls the repeat- ing Winchesters with which the pirates were armed would have made short work of the lot of us. Under the circumstances it would have been sheer madness to have gone on, for the greater part of our force was still struggling through the thicket, so the captain wisely gave the order for us to retreat to cover again.
I and another man of my squad were picking up one of my men who had been badly wounded when the man who was assisting me pitched heavily forward, emitting a drunken sort of hiccough, and nearly knocked me over. He had been shot through the head, and my squad had now two men to carry through the thicket instead of one. Far back in the thicket the " retire "