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25. east of here. How he got there I can't tell you. The natives said he
just walked up unaccompanied, unbounded, unpursued. He's got a
bullet or something in the top of his head and I'm going to lug it out.
And then, my boy, with any luck at all, he'll very soon be able to
answer you any question you like to put him. Speech and memory
will return at the moment the pressure on the brain ceases."
"Will he remember up to the time the bullet hit him, or since, or
both?" asked Strong.
"All his life, up to the moment the bullet hit him, certainly," was
the reply. "What happened since will, at first, be remembered as a
dream, probably. If I had to prophesy I should say he'd take up his
life from the second in which the bullet hit him, and think, for the
moment, that he is still where it happened. By-and-by, he'll realise
that there's a gap somewhere, and gradually he'll be able to fill it in
with events which will seem half nightmare, half real."
"Anyhow, he'll be certain of his identity and personal history and
so forth?" asked Strong.
"Absolutely," said the surgeon. "It will be precisely as though he
awoke from an ordinary night's rest.... It'll be awfully interesting to
hear him give an account of himself.... All this, of course, if he
doesn't die under the operation."
"I hope he will," said Strong.
"What do you mean, my dear chap?"
"I hope he'll die under the operation."
"Why?"
"He'll be better dead.... And it will be better for three other
people that he should be dead.... Is he likely to die?"
26. "I should say it's ten to one he'll pull through all right.... What's
it all about, Strong?"
"Look here, old chap," was the earnest reply. "If it were
anybody else but you I shouldn't know what to say or do. As it's you,
my course is clear, for you're the last thing in discretion, wisdom and
understanding.... But don't ask me his name.... I know him.... Look
here, it's like this. His wife's married again.... There's a kid....
They're well known in Society.... Awful business.... Ghastly
scandal.... Shockin' position." Captain Strong took Doctor John
Williams by the arm. "Look here, old chap," he said once again.
"Need you do this? It isn't as though he was 'conscious,' so to speak,
and in pain."
"Yes, I must do it," replied the doctor without hesitation, as the
other paused.
"But why?" urged Strong. "I'm absolutely certain that if M----,
er--that is--this chap--could have his faculties for a minute he would
tell you not to do it.... You'll take him from a sort of negative
happiness to the most positive and acute unhappiness, and you'll
simply blast the lives of his wife and the most excellent chap she's
married.... She waited a year after this chap 'died' in--er--that last
Polar expedition--as was supposed.... Think of the poor little kid
too.... And there's estates and a ti---- so on...."
"No good, Strong. My duty in the matter is perfectly clear, and it
is to the sick man, as such."
"Well, you'll do a damned cruel thing ... er--sorry, old chap, I
mean do think it over a bit and look at it from the point of view of
the unfortunate lady, the second husband, and the child.... And of
the chap himself.... By God! He won't thank you."
27. "I look at it from the point of view of the doctor and I'm not out
for thanks," was the reply.
"Is that your last word, Williams?"
"It is. I have here a man mentally maimed, mangled and
suffering. My first and only duty is to heal him, and I shall do it."
"Right O!" replied Strong, who knew that further words would
be useless. He knew that his friend's intelligence was clear as crystal
and his will as firm, and that he accepted no other guide than his
own conscience....
As the three men sat in the moonlight that night, after dinner,
Captain Strong was an uncomfortable man. That tragedy must find a
place in the human comedy he was well aware. It had its uses like
the comic relief--but for human tragedy, undilute, black, harsh, and
dreadful, he had no taste. He shivered. The pretty little comedy of
Lord Huntingten and Sir Montague and Lady Merline, of two years
ago, had greatly amused and deeply interested him. This tragedy of
the same three people was unmitigated horror.... Poor Lady Merline!
He conjured up her beautiful face with the wonderful eyes, the rose-
leaf complexion, the glorious hair, the tender, lovely mouth--and saw
the life and beauty wiped from it as she read, or heard, the ghastly
news ... bigamy ... illegitimacy....
The doctor's "bearer" came to take the patient to bed. He was a
remarkable man who had started life as a ward-boy in Madras. He it
was who had cut the half-witted white man's hair, shaved his beard
and dressed him in his master's spare clothes. When the patient was
asleep that night, he was going to endeavour to shave the top of his
head without waking him, for he was to be operated on, in the
morning....
28. "Yes, I fully understand and I give you my solemn promise,
Strong," said the doctor as the two men rose to go in, that night.
"The moment the man is sane I will tell him that he is not to tell me
his name, nor anything else until he has heard what I have to say. I
will then break it to him--using my own discretion as to how and
when--that he was reported dead, that his will was proved, that his
widow wore mourning for a year and then married again, and had a
son a year later.... I undertake that he shall not leave this house,
knowing that, unless he is in the fullest possession of his faculties
and able to realise with the utmost clearness all the bearings of the
case and all the consequences following his resumption of identity.
And I'll let him hide here for just as long as he cares to conceal
himself--if he wishes to remain 'dead' for a time."
"Yes ... And as I can't possibly stay till he recovers, nor, in fact,
over to-morrow without gross dereliction of duty, I will leave a letter
for you to give him at the earliest safe moment.... I'll tell him that I
am the only living soul who knows his name as well as his secret.
He'll understand that no one else will know this--from me."
As he sat on the side of his bed that night, Captain Strong
remarked unto his soul, "Well--one thing--if I know Monty Merline as
well as I think, 'Sir Montague Merline' died two years ago, whatever
happens.... And yet I can't imagine Monty committing suicide,
somehow. He's a chap with a conscience as well as the soul of
chivalry.... Poor, poor, old Monty Merline!..."
THE WAGES OF VIRTUE
29. CHAPTER I
SOAP AND SIR MONTAGUE MERLINE
Sir Montague Merline, second-class private soldier of the First
Battalion of the Foreign Legion of France, paused to straighten his
back, to pass his bronzed forearm across his white forehead, and to
put his scrap of soap into his mouth--the only safe receptacle for the
precious morsel, the tiny cake issued once a month by Madame La
République to the Legionary for all his washing purposes. When
one's income is precisely one halfpenny a day (paid when it has
totalled up to the sum of twopence halfpenny), one does not waste
much, nor risk the loss of valuable property; and to lay a piece of
soap upon the concrete of Le Cercle d'Enfer reservoir, is not so much
to risk the loss of it as to lose it, when one is surrounded by
gentlemen of the Foreign Legion. Let me not be misunderstood, nor
supposed to be casting aspersions upon the said gentlemen, but
their need for soap is urgent, their income is one halfpenny a day,
and soap is of the things with which one may "decorate oneself"
without contravening the law of the Legion. To steal is to steal, mark
you (and to deserve, and probably to get, a bayonet through the
offending hand, pinning it to the bench or table), but to borrow
certain specified articles permanently and without permission is
merely, in the curious slang of the Legion, "to decorate oneself."
Contrary to what the uninitiated might suppose, Le Cercle
d'Enfer--the Circle of Hell--is not a dry, but a very wet place, it being,
in point of fact, the lavabo where the Legionaries of the French
30. Foreign Legion stationed in Algeria at Sidi-bel-Abbès, daily wash
their white fatigue uniforms and occasionally their underclothing.
Oh, that Cercle d'Enfer! I hated it more than I hated the peloton
des hommes punis, salle de police, cellules, the "Breakfast of the
Legion," the awful heat, monotony, flies, Bedouins; the solitude,
hunger, and thirst of outpost stations in the south; I hated it more
than I hated astiquage, la boîte, the chaussettes russes, hospital,
the terrible desert marches, sewer-cleaning fatigues, or that
villainous and vindictive ruffian of a cafard-smitten caporal who
systematically did his very able best to kill me. Oh, that accursed
Cercle d'Enfer, and the heart-breaking labour of washing a filthy
alfa-fibre suit (stained perhaps with rifle-oil) in cold water, and
without soap!
Only the other day, as I lay somnolent in a long chair in the
verandah of the Charmingest Woman (she lives in India), I heard the
regular flop, flop, flop of wet clothes, beaten by a distant dhobi upon
a slab of stone, and at the same moment I smelt wet concrete as
the mali watered the maidenhair fern on the steps leading from Her
verandah to the garden. Odours call up memories far more distinctly
and readily than do other sense-impressions, and the faint smell of
wet concrete, aided as it was by the faintly audible sound of wet
blows, brought most vividly before my mind's eye a detailed picture
of that well-named Temple of Hygiea, the "Circle of Hell." Sleeping,
waking, and partly sleeping, partly waking, I saw it all again; saw Sir
Montague Merline, who called himself John Bull; saw Hiram Cyrus
Milton, known as The Bucking Bronco; saw "Reginald Rupert"; the
infamous Luigi Rivoli; the unspeakable Edouard Malvin; the
marvellous Mad Grasshopper, whose name no one knew; the truly
31. religious Hans Djoolte; the Russian twins, calling themselves Mikhail
and Feodor Kyrilovitch Malekov; the terrible Sergeant-Major Suicide-
Maker, and all the rest of them. And finally, waking with an actual
and perceptible taste of soap in my mouth, I wished my worst
enemy were in the Cercle d'Enfer, soapless, and with much rifle-oil,
dust, leather marks and wine stains on his once-white uniform--and
then I thought of Carmelita and determined to write this book.
For Carmelita deserves a monument (and so does John Bull),
however humble.... To continue....
Sir Montague Merline did not put his precious morsel of soap
into his pocket, for the excellent reason that there was no pocket to
the single exiguous garment he was at the moment wearing--a
useful piece of material which in its time played many parts, and
knew the service of duster, towel, turban, tablecloth, polishing pad,
tea-cloth, house-flannel, apron, handkerchief, neckerchief, curtain,
serviette, holder, fly-slayer, water-strainer, punkah, and, at the
moment, nether garment. Having cached his soup and having
observed "Peste!" as he savoured its flavour, he proceeded to
pommel, punch, and slap upon the concrete, the greyish-white tunic
and breeches, and the cotton vest and shirt which he had
generously soaped before the hungry eyes of numerous soapless but
oathful fellow-labourers, who less successfully sought that virtue
which, in the Legion, is certainly next to, but far ahead of, mere
godliness.
In due course, Sir Montague Merline rinsed his garments in the
reservoir, wrung them out, bore them to the nearest clothes-line,
hung them out to dry, and sat himself down in their shadow to stare
at them unwaveringly until dried by the fierce sun--the ancient
32. enemy, for the moment an unwilling friend. To watch them
unwaveringly and intently because he knew that the turning of his
head for ten seconds might mean their complete and final
disappearance--for, like soap, articles of uniform are on the list of
things with which a Legionary may "decorate" himself, if he can,
without incurring the odium of public opinion. (He may steal any
article of equipment, clothing, kit, accoutrement, or general utility,
but his patron saint help him and Le Bon Dieu be merciful to him, if
he be caught stealing tobacco, wine, food, or money.)
Becoming aware of the presence of Monsieur le Légionnaire
Edouard Malvin, Sir Montague Merline increased the vigilance of his
scrutiny of his pendent property, for ce cher Edouard was of pick-
pockets the very prince and magician; of those who could steal the
teeth from a Jew while he sneezed and would steal the scalp from
their grandmamma while she objected.
"Ohé! Jean Boule, lend me thy soap," besought this stout and
dapper little Austrian, who for some reason pretended to be a
Belgian from the Congo. "This cursed alfa-fibre gets dirtier the more
you wash it in this cursed water," and he smiled a greasy and
ingratiating grin.
Without for one second averting his steady stare from his
clothes, the Englishman slowly removed the soap from his mouth,
expectorated, remarked "Peaudezébie,"[#] and took no further
notice of the quaint figure which stood by his side, clad only in
ancient red Zouave breeches and the ingratiating smile.
[#] An emphatic negative.
33. "Name of a Name! Name of the Name of a Pipe! Name of the Name
of a Dirty Little Furry Red Monkey!" observed Monsieur le
Légionnaire Edouard Malvin as he turned to slouch away, twirling the
dripping grey-white tunic.
"Meaning me?" asked Sir Montague, replacing the soap in its
safe repository and preparing to rise.
"But no! But not in the least, old cabbage. Thou hast the cafard.
Mais oui, tu as le cafard," replied the Belgian and quickened his
retreat.
No, the grey Jean Boule, so old, so young, doyen of
Légionnaires, so quick, strong, skilful and enduring at la boxe, was
not the man to cross at any time, and least of all when he had le
cafard, that terrible Legion madness that all Legionaries know; the
madness that drives them to the cells, to gaol, to the Zephyrs, to the
firing-party by the open grave; or to desertion and death in the
desert. The grey Jean Boule had been a Zephyr of the Penal
Battalions once, already, for killing a man, and Monsieur Malvin,
although a Legionary of the Foreign Legion, did not wish to die. No,
not while Carmelita and Madame la Cantinière lived and loved and
sold the good Algiers wine at three-halfpence a bottle.... No, bon
sang de sort!
M. le Légionnaire Malvin returned to the dense ring of labouring
perspiring washers, and edged in behind a gigantic German and a
short, broad, burly Alsatian, capitalists as joint proprietors of a fine
cake of soap.
Sacré nom de nom de bon Dieu de Dieu de sort! Dull-witted
German pigs might leave their soap unguarded for a moment, and, if
they did not, might be induced to wring some soapy water from
34. their little pile of washing, upon the obstinately greasy tunic of the
good M. Malvin.
Légionnaire Hans Schnitzel, late of Berlin, rinsed his washing in
clean water, wrung it, and took it to the nearest drying line.
Légionnaire Alphonse Dupont, late of Alsace, placed his soap in the
pocket of the dirty white fatigue-uniform which he wore, and which
he would wash as soon as he had finished the present job.
Immediately, Légionnaire Edouard Malvin transferred the soap from
the side pocket of the tunic of the unconscious Légionnaire Alphonse
Dupont to that of his own red breeches, and straightway begged the
loan of it.
"Merde!" replied Dupont. "Nombril de Belzébutt! I will lend it
thee peaudezébie. Why should I lend thee soap, vieux dégoulant?
Go decorate thyself, sale cochon. Besides 'tis not mine to lend."
"And that is very true," agreed M. Malvin, and sauntered toward
Schnitzel, who stood phlegmatically guarding his drying clothes. In
his hand was an object which caused the eyebrows of the good M.
Malvin to arch and rise, and his mouth to water--nothing less than
an actual, real and genuine scrubbing-brush, beautiful in its
bristliness. Then righteous anger filled his soul.
"Saligaud!" he hissed. "These pigs of filthy Germans! Soap and
a brush. Sacripants! Ils me dégoutant à la fin."
As he regarded the stolid German with increasing envy, hatred,
malice and all uncharitableness, and cast about in his quick and
cunning mind for means of relieving him of the coveted brush, a
sudden roar of wrath and grief from his Alsatian partner, Dupont,
sent Schnitzel running to join that unfortunate man in fierce and
impartial denunciations of his left-hand and right-hand neighbours,
35. who were thieves, pigs, brigands, dogs, Arabs, and utterly merdant
and merdable. Bursting into the fray, Herr Schnitzel found them, in
addition, bloedsinnig and dummkopf in that they could not produce
cakes of soap from empty mouths.
As the rage of the bereaved warriors increased, more and more
Pomeranian and Alsatian patois invaded the wonderful Legion-
French, a French which is not of Paris, nor of anywhere else in the
world save La Légion. As Dupont fell upon a laughing Italian with a
cry of "Ah! zut! Sacré grimacier," Schnitzel spluttered and roared at a
huge slow-moving American who regarded him with a look of pitying
but not unkindly contempt....
"Why do the 'eathen rage furious together and imagine a vain
thing?" he enquired in a slow drawl of the excited "furriner," adding
"Ain't yew some schafs-kopf, sonny!" and, as the big German began
to whirl his arms in the windmill fashion peculiar to the non-boxing
foreigner who meditates assault and battery, continued--
"Now yew stop zanking and playing versteckens with me, yew
pie-faced Squarehead, and be schnell about it, or yew'll git my goat,
see? Vous obtiendrez mon chèvre, yew perambulating prachtvoll
bierhatte," and he coolly turned his back upon the infuriated German
with a polite, if laborious, "Guten tag, mein Freund."
Mr. Hiram Cyrus Milton (late of Texas, California, the Yukon, and
the "main drag" generally of the wild and woolly West) was
exceeding proud of his linguistic knowledge and skill. It may be
remarked, en passant, that his friends were even prouder of it.
At this moment, le bon Légionnaire Malvin, hovering for
opportunity, with a sudden coup de savate struck the so-desirable
scrubbing-brush from the hand of Herr Schnitzel with a force that
36. seemed like to take the arm from the shoulder with it. Leaping round
with a yell of pain, the unfortunate German found himself, as Malvin
had calculated, face to face with the mighty Luigi Rivoli, to attack
whom was to be brought to death's door through that of the
hospital.
Snatching up the brush which was behind Schnitzel when he
turned to face Rivoli, le bon M. Malvin lightly departed from the
vulgar scuffle in the direction of the drying clothes of Herren
Schnitzel and Dupont, the latter, last seen clasping, with more
enthusiasm than love, a wiry Italian to his bosom. The luck of M.
Malvin was distinctly in, for not only had he the soap and a brush for
the easy cleansing of his own uniform, but he had within his grasp a
fresh uniform to wear, and another to sell; for the clothing of ce bon
Dupont would fit him to a marvel, while that of the pig-dog Schnitzel
would fetch good money, the equivalent of several litres of the thick,
red Algerian wine, from a certain Spanish Jew, old Haroun Mendoza,
of the Sidi-bel-Abbès ghetto.
Yes, the Saints bless and reward the good Dupont for being of
the same size as M. Malvin himself, for it is a most serious matter to
be short of anything when showing-down kit at kit-inspection, and
that thrice accursed Sacré Chien of an Adjudant would, as likely as
not, have spare white trousers shown-down on the morrow. What
can a good Légionnaire do, look you, when he has not the article
named for to-morrow's Adjutant's inspection, but "decorate
himself"? Is it easy, is it reasonable, to buy new white fatigue-
uniform on an income of one halfpenny per diem? Sapristi, and
Sacré Bleu, and Name of the Name of a Little Brown Dog, a litre of
wine costs a penny, and a packet of tobacco three-halfpence, and
37. what is left to a gentleman of the Legion then, on pay-day, out of his
twopence-halfpenny, nom d'un pétard? As for ce bon Dupont, he
must in his turn "decorate" himself. And if he cannot, but must
renew acquaintance with la boîte and le peloton des hommes punis,
why--he must regard things in their true light, be philosophical, and
take it easy. Is it not proverbial that "Toutes choses peut on souffrir
qu'aise"? And with a purr of pleasure, a positive licking of chops, and
a murmur of "Ah! Au tient frais," he deftly whipped the property of
the embattled Legionaries from the line, no man saying him nay. For
it is not the etiquette of the Legion to interfere with one who, in the
absence of its owner, would "decorate" himself with any of those
things with which self-decoration is permissible, if not honourable.
Indeed, to Sir Montague Merline, sitting close by, and regarding his
proceedings with cold impartial eye, M. Malvin observed--
"'Y a de bon, mon salop! I have heard that le bon Dieu helps
those who help themselves. I do but help myself in order to give le
bon Dieu the opportunity He doubtless desires. I decorate myself
incidentally. Mais oui, and I shall decorate myself this evening with a
p'tite ouvrière and to-morrow with une réputation d'ivrogne," and he
turned innocently to saunter with his innocent bundle of washing
from the lavabo, to his caserne. Ere he had taken half a dozen steps,
the cold and quiet voice of the grey Jean Boule broke in upon the
resumed day-dreams of the innocently sauntering M. Malvin.
"Might one aspire to the honour of venturing to detain for a
brief interview Monsieur le Légionnaire Edouard Malvin?" said the
soft metallic voice.
"But certainly, and without charge, mon gars," replied that
gentleman, turning and eyeing the incomprehensible and dangerous
38. Jean Boule, à coin de l'oeil.
"You seek soap?"
"I do," replied the Austrian "Belgian" promptly. The possession
of one cake of soap makes that of another no less desirable.
"Do you seek sorrow also?"
"But no, dear friend. 'J'ai eu toutes les folies.' In this world I
seek but wine, woman, and peace. Let me avoid the 'gros bonnets'
and lead my happy tumble life in peaceful obscurity. A modest violet,
I. A wayside flow'ret, a retiring primrose, such as you English love."
"Then, cher Malvin, since you seek soap and not sorrow, let not
my little cake of soap disappear from beneath the polishing-rags in
my sack. The little brown sack at the head of my cot, cher Malvin.
Enfin! I appoint you guardian and custodian of my little cake of
soap. But in a most evil hour for le bon M. Malvin would it disappear.
Guard it then, cher Malvin. Respect it. Watch over it as you value,
and would retain, your health and beauty, M. Malvin. And when I
have avenged my little piece of soap, the true history of the last ten
minutes will deeply interest those earnest searchers after truth,
Legionaries Schnitzel and Dupont. Depart in peace and enter upon
your new office of Guardian of my Soap! Vous devez en être joliment
fier."
"Quite a speech, in effect, mon drôle," replied the stout Austrian
as he doubtfully fingered his short beard au poinçon, and added
uneasily, "I am not the only gentleman who 'decorates' himself with
soap."
"No? Nor with uniforms. Go in peace, Protector of my Soap."
And smiling wintrily M. Malvin winked, broke into the wholly
deplorable ditty of "Pére Dupanloup en chemin de fer," and pursued
39. his innocent path to barracks, whither Sir Montague Merline later
followed him, after watching with a contemptuous smile some mixed
and messy fighting (beside the apparently dead body of the
Legionary Schnitzel) between an Alsatian and an Italian, in which the
Italian kicked his opponent in the stomach and partly ate his ear,
and the Alsatian used his hands solely for purpose of throttling.
Why couldn't they stand up and fight like gentlemen under
Queensberry rules, or, if boxing did not appeal to them, use their
sword-bayonets like soldiers and Legionaries--the low rooters, the
vulgar, rough-and-tumble gutter-scrappers....
Removing his almost dry washing from the line, Sir Montague
Merline marched across to his barrack-block, climbed the three
flights of stone stairs, traversed the long corridor of his Company,
and entered the big, light, airy room wherein he and twenty-nine
other Legionaries (one of whom held the very exalted and important
rank of Caporal) lived and moved and had their monotonous being.
Spreading his tunic and breeches on the end of the long table
he proceeded to "iron" them, first with his hand, secondly with a tin
plate, and finally with the edge of his "quart," the drinking-mug
which hung at the head of his bed ready for the reception of the
early morning jus, the strong coffee which most effectively rouses
the Legionary from somnolence and most ineffectively sustains him
until midday.
Anon, having persuaded himself that the result of his labours
was satisfactory, and up to Legion standards of smartness--which
are as high as those of the ordinary piou-piou of the French line are
low--he folded his uniform in elbow-to-finger-tip lengths, placed it
with the paquetage on the shelf above his bed, and began to dress
40. for his evening walk-out. The Legionary's time is, in theory, his own
after 5 p.m., and the most sacred plank in the most sacred platform
of all his sacred tradition is his right to promenade himself at
eventide and listen to the Legion's glorious band in the Place Sadi
Carnot.
Having laid his uniform, belt, bayonet, and képi on his cot, he
stepped across to the next but one (the name-card at the head of
which bore the astonishing legend "Bucking Bronco, No. 11356.
Soldat 1ère Classe), opened a little sack which hung at the head of
it, and took from it the remains of an ancient nail-brush, the joint
property of Sir Montague Merline, alias Jean Boule, and Hiram Cyrus
Milton, alias Bucking Bronco, late of Texas, California, Yukon, and
"the main drag" of the United States of America.
Even as Sir Montague's hand was inserted through the neck of
the sack, the huge American (who had been wrongfully accused and
rashly attacked by Legionary Hans Schnitzel) entered the barrack-
room, caught sight of a figure bending over his rag-sack, and crept
on tiptoe towards it, his great gnarled fists clenched, his mouth
compressed to a straight thin line beneath his huge drooping
moustache, and his grey eyes ablaze. Luckily Sir Montague heard the
sounds of his stealthy approach, and turned just in time. The
American dropped his fists and smiled.
"Say," he drawled, "I thought it was some herring-gutted weevil
of a Dago or a Squarehead shenannikin with my precious jools. An' I
was jest a'goin' ter plug the skinnamalink some. Say, Johnnie, if yew
hadn't swivelled any, I was jest a'goin' ter slug yew, good an' plenty,
behind the yeer-'ole."
41. "Just getting the tooth-nail-button-boot-dandy-brush, Buck,"
replied Sir Montague. "How are you feeling?"
"I'm feelin' purty mean," was the reply. "A dirty Squarehead of a
dod-gasted Dutchy from the Farterland grunted in me eye, an' I
thought the shave-tail was fer rough-housin', an' I slugged him one,
just ter start 'im gwine. The gosh-dinged piker jest curled up. He jest
wilted on the floor."
The Bucking Bronco, in high disgust, expectorated and then chid
himself for forgetting that he was no longer on the free soil of
America, where a gentleman may spit as he likes and be a
gentleman for a' that and a' that.
"I tell yew, Johnnie," he continued, "he got me jingled, the
lumberin' lallapaloozer! There he lay an' lay--and then some. 'Git up,
yew rubberin' rube,' I ses, 'yew'll git moss on your teeth if yew lie so
quiet; git up, an' deliver the goods,' I ses, 'I had more guts then yew
when I was knee high to a June bug.' Did he arise an' make good? I
should worry. Nope. Yew take it from Uncle, that bonehead is there
yit, an' afore I could make him wise to it thet he didn't git the bulge
on Uncle with thet bluff, another Squarehead an' a gibberin' Dago
put up a dirty kind o' scrap over his body, gougin' and kickin' an'
earbitin' an' throttlin', an' a whole bunch o' boobs jined in an' I give
it up an' come 'ome." And the Bucking Bronco sat him sadly on his
bed and groaned.
"Cheer up, Buck, we'll all soon be dead," replied his comrade,
"don't you go getting cafard," and he looked anxiously at the angry-
lugubrious face of his friend. "What's the ordre du jour for walking-
out dress to-day?" he added. "Blue tunic and red trousers? Or tunic
and white? Or capote, or what?"
42. "It was tunic an' white yesterday," replied the American, "an' I
guess it is to-day too."
"It's my night to howl," he added cryptically "Let's go an' pow-
wow Carmelita ef thet fresh gorilla Loojey Rivoli ain't got 'er in 'is
pocket. I'll shoot 'im up some day, sure...."
A sudden shouting, tumult, and running below, and cries of "Les
bleus! Les bleus!" interrupted the Bronco's monologue and drew the
two old soldiers to a window that overlooked the vast, neat,
gravelled barrack-square, clean, naked, and bleak to the eye as an
ice-floe.
"Strike me peculiar," remarked the Bucking Bronco. "It's another
big gang o' tenderfeet."
"A draft of rookies! Come on--they'll all be for our Company in
place of those poumpists,[#] and there may be something Anglo-
Saxon among them," said Legionary John Bull, and the two men
hastily flung their capotes over their sketchy attire and hurried from
the room, buttoning them as they went.
[#] Deserters.
Like Charity, the Legionary's overcoat covers a multitude of sins--
chiefly of omission--and is a most useful garment. It protects him
from the cold dawn wind, and keeps him warm by night; it protects
him from the cruel African sun, and keeps him cool by day, or at
least, if not cool, in the frying-pan degree of heat, which is better
than that of the fire. He marches in it without a tunic, and relies
upon it to conceal the fact when he has failed to "decorate" himself
with underclothing. Its skirts, buttoned back, hamper not his legs,
43. and its capacious pockets have many uses. Its one drawback is that,
being double-breasted, it buttons up on either side, a fact which has
brought the grey hairs of many an honest Legionary in sorrow to the
cellules, and given many a brutal and vindictive Sergeant the chance
of that cruelty in which his little tyrant soul so revels. For, incredible
as it may seem to the lay mind, the ingenious devil whose military
mind concocts the ordres du jour, changes, by solemn decree, and
almost daily, the side upon which the overcoat is to be buttoned up.
Clattering down the long flights of stone stairs, and converging
across the barrack-square, the Legionaries came running from all
directions, to gaze upon, to chaff, to delude, to sponge upon, and to
rob and swindle the "Blues"--the recruits of the Légion Étrangère,
the embryo Légionnaires d'Afrique.
In the incredibly maddeningly dull life of the Legion in peace
time, the slightest diversion is a god-send and even the arrival of a
batch of recruits a most welcome event. To all, it is a distraction; to
some, the hope of the arrival of a fellow-countryman (especially to
the few English, Americans, Danes, Greeks, Russians, Norwegians,
Swedes, and Poles whom cruel Fate has sent to La Légion). To
some, a chance of passing on a part of the brutality and tyranny
which they themselves suffer; to some, a chance of getting civilian
clothes in which to desert; to others, an opportunity of selling
knowledge of the ropes, for litres of canteen wine; to many, a hope
of working a successful trick on a bewildered recruit--the time-
honoured villainy of stealing his new uniform and pretending to buy
him another sub rosa from the dishonest quartermaster, whereupon
the recruit buys back his own original uniform at the cost of his little
all (for invariably the alleged substitute-uniform costs just that sum
44. of money which the poor wretch has brought with him and
augmented by the compulsory sale of his civilian kit to the clothes-
dealing harpies and thieves who infest the barrack-gates on the
arrival of each draft).
As the tiny portal beside the huge barrack-gate was closed and
fastened by the Corporal in charge of the squad of "blues" (as the
French army calls its recruits[#]), the single file of derelicts halted at
the order of the Sergeant of the Guard, who, more in sorrow than in
anger, weighed them and found them wanting.
[#] In the days of the high, tight stock and cravat, the recruit was supposed to be
livid and blue in the face until he grew accustomed to them.
"Sweepings," he summed them up in passing judgment. "Foundlings.
Droppings. Crumbs. Tripe. Accidents. Abortions. Cripples. Left by the
tide. Blown in by the wind. Born pékins.[#] Only one man among
them, and he a pig of a Prussian--or perhaps an Englishman. Let us
hope he's an Englishman...."
[#] Civilians.
In speaking thus, the worthy Sergeant was behaving with
impropriety and contrary to the law and tradition of the Legion.
What nouns and adjectives a non-commissioned officer may use
wherewith to stigmatise a Legionary, depend wholly and solely upon
his taste, fluency and vocabulary. But it is not etiquette to reproach
45. a man with his nationality, however much a matter for reproach that
nationality may be.
"Are you an Englishman, most miserable bleu?" he suddenly
asked of a tall, slim, fair youth, dressed in tweed Norfolk-jacket, and
grey flannel trousers, and bearing in every line of feature and form,
and in the cut and set of his expensive clothing, the stamp of the
man of breeding, birth and position.
"By the especial mercy and grace of God, I am an Englishman,
Sergeant, thank you," he replied coolly in good, if slow and careful
French.
The Sergeant smiled grimly behind his big moustache. Himself a
cashiered Russian officer, and once a gentleman, he could appreciate
a gentleman and approve him in the strict privacy of his soul.
"Slava Bogu!" he roared. "Vile bleu! And now by the especial
mercy and grace of the Devil you are a Légionnaire--or will be, if you
survive the making...." and added sotto voce, "Are you a degraded
dog of a broken officer? If so, you can claim to be appointed to the
élèves caporaux as a non-commissioned officer on probation, if you
have a photo of yourself in officer's uniform. Thus you will escape all
recruit-drill and live in hope to become, some day, Sergeant, even as
I," and the (for a Sergeant of the Legion) decent-hearted fellow
smote his vast chest.
"I thank you, Sergeant," was the drawled reply. "You really
dazzle me--but I am not a degraded dog of a broken officer."
"Gospodi pomilui!" roared the incensed Sergeant. "Ne me
donnez de la gabatine, pratique!" and, for a second, seemed likely to
strike the cool and insolent recruit who dared to bandy words with a
46. Sergeant of the Legion. His eyes bulged, his moustache bristled, and
his scarlet face turned purple as he literally showed his teeth.
"Go easy, old chap," spoke a quiet voice, in English, close beside
the Englishman. "That fellow can do you to death if you offend him,"
and the recruit, turning, beheld a grey-moustached, white-haired
elderly man, bronzed, lined, and worn-looking--a typical French army
vielle moustache--an "old sweat" from whose lips the accents of a
refined English gentleman came with the utmost incongruity.
The youth's face brightened with interest. Obviously this old
dear was a public-school, or 'Varsity man, or, very probably, an ex-
British officer.
"Good egg," quoth he, extending a hand behind him for a
surreptitious shake. "See you anon, what?"
"Yes, you'll all come to the Seventh Company. We are below
strength," said Legionary John Bull, in whose weary eyes had shone
a new light of interest since they fell upon this compatriot of his own
caste and kidney.
A remarkably cool and nonchalant recruit--and surely unique in
the history of the Legion's "blues" in showing absolutely no sign of
privation, fear, stress, criminality, poverty, depression, anxiety, or
bewilderment!
"Now, what'n hell is he doin' in thet bum outfit?" queried the
Bucking Bronco of his friend John Bull, who kept as near as possible
to the Englishman whom he had warned against ill-timed causticity
of humour.
"He's some b'y, thet b'y, but he'd better quit kickin'. He's a way-
up white man I opine. What's 'e a'doin' in this joint? He's a gay-cat
and a looker. He's a fierce stiff sport. He has sand, some--sure. Yep,"
47. and Mr. Hiram Cyrus Milton checked himself only just in time from
defiling the immaculate and sacred parade-ground, by "signifying in
the usual manner" that he was mentally perturbed, and himself in
these circumstances of expectoration-difficulty by observing that the
boy was undoubtedly "some" boy, and worthy to have been an
American citizen had he been born under a luckier star--or stripe.
"I can't place him, Buck," replied the puzzled John Bull, his quiet
voice rendered almost inaudible by the shouts, howls, yells and cries
of the seething mob of Legionaries who swarmed round the line of
recruits, assailing their bewildered ears in all the tongues of Europe,
and some of those of Asia and Africa.
"He doesn't look hungry, and he doesn't look hunted. I suppose
he is one of the few who don't come here to escape either
starvation, creditors, or the Law. And he doesn't look desperate like
the average turned-down lover, ruined gambler, deserted husband,
or busted bankrupt.... Wonder if he's come here in search of
'Romance'?"
"Wal, ef he's come hyar for his health an' amoosement he'd go
to Hell to cool himself, or ter the den of a grizzly b'ar fer gentle
stimoolation and recreation. Gee whiz! Didn't he fair git ole
Bluebottle's goat? He sure did git nixt him."
"Bit of a contrast to the rest of the gang, what?" remarked John
Bull, and indeed the truth of his remark was very obvious.
"Ain't they a outfit o' dodgasted hoboes an' bindlestiffs!" agreed
his friend.
Straight as a lance, thin, very broad in the shoulders and narrow
of waist and hip; apparently as clean and unruffled as when leaving
his golf-club pavilion for a round on the links; cool, self-possessed,
48. haughty, aristocratic and clean-cut of feature, this Englishman
among the other recruits looked like a Derby winner among a string
of equine ruins in a knacker's yard; like a panther among bears--a
detached and separated creature, something of different flesh and
blood. Breed is a very remarkable thing, even more distinctive than
race, and in this little band of derelicts was another Englishman, a
Cockney youth who had passed from street-arab and gutter-snipe,
via Reformatory, to hooligan, coster and soldier. No man in that
collection of wreckage from Germany, Spain, Italy, France, and the
four corners of Europe looked less like the tall recruit than did this
brother Englishman.
To Sir Montague Merline, fallen and shattered star of the high
social firmament, the sight of him was as welcome as water in the
desert, and he thanked Fate for having brought another Englishman
to the Legion--and one so debonair, so fine, so handsome, cool and
strong.
"There's Blood there," he murmured to himself.
"His shoulders hev bin drilled somewheres, although he's
British," added the Bucking one. "Yep. He's one o' the flat-backed
push."
"I wonder if he can be a cashiered officer. He's drilled as you
say.... If he has been broke for something it hasn't marked him
much. Nothing hang-dog there," mused Legionary John Bull.
"Nope. He's a blowed-in-the-glass British aristocrat," agreed the
large-minded Hiram Cyrus, "and I opine an ex-member of the
commishunned ranks o' the British Constitootional Army. He ain't
niver bin batterin' the main-stem for light-pieces like them other
hoodlums an' toughs an' smoudges. Nope. He ain't never throwed
49. his feet fer a two-bit poke-out.... Look at that road-kid next 'im! Ain't
he a peach? I should smile! Wonder the medicine-man didn't turn
down some o' them chechaquos...."
And, truly, the draft contained some very queer odd lots. By the
side of the English gentleman stood a big fat German boy in knicker-
bockers and jersey, bare-legged and wearing a pair of button-boots
that had belonged to a woman in the days when they still possessed
toe-caps. Pale face, pale hair, and pale eyes, conspired to give him
an air of terror--the first seeming to have the hue of fright, the
second to stand en brosse with fear, and the last to bulge like those
of a hunted animal.
Presumably M. le Médicin-Major must have been satisfied that
the boy was eighteen years of age, but, though tall and robust, he
looked nearer fifteen--an illusion strengthened, doubtless, by the
knickerbockers, bare calves, and button-boots. If he had enlisted in
the Foreign Legion to avoid service in the Fatherland, he had quitted
the frying-pan for a furnace seven times heated. Possibly he hoped
to emulate Messieurs Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego. In point
of fact, he was a deserter (driven to the desperate step of fleeing
across the French frontier by a typical Prussian non-commissioned
officer), and already wishing himself once more zwei jahriger in the
happy Fatherland.
Already, to his German soul and stomach, the lager-bier of
Munich, the sausage, zwieback, and kalte schnitzel of home, seemed
things of the dim and distant past, and unattainable future.
Next to him stood a gnarled and knotted Spaniard, whose face
appeared to be carven from his native mahogany, and whose ragged
clothing--grimy, oily, blackened--proclaimed him wharfside coal-
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