Next night at the time when all good légionnaires should be in
barracks, Schneider failed to answer the roll call.
In such a case the Legion officials, disregarding the half-dozen
different causes that may make a man break his leave, look upon him
as a deserter.
By morning, Schneider's description had been telegraphed to Oran,
eighty miles away, and the railway officials and road patrols
notified, also the Arab police.
Schneider did not turn up next day. He had deserted or else he was
dead.
Jacques believed that he must have done away with himself.
Schneider, being his friend, would have told him had he intended to
make his escape; then there was a matter of the letter to the girl, a
farewell letter. Yes, there could be no doubt--he had committed
suicide and was hidden away in some ditch somewhere.
He mourned for his friend all day, and in the evening, strolling into
the town, he spent five centimes on the _Echo d'Oran_, thinking there
might be some news of his vanished friend. Later on, he strolled
into the shop of a friend of his, Moccata by name, a Jew clothier,
rag and rubbish dealer and fence.
I do not accuse Jacques of using Moccata in the latter capacity, I
simply state the fact that this gentleman was a fence; he was also a
most picturesque individual, with the grey beard of a prophet.
Despite his many and shady activities, he always had time for a chat
with Jacques if the latter called. He had a kindness for Jacques,
who had once done him a service, and Jacques in return had a great
respect for Moccata's astuteness and knowledge of the highways and
byways of Sidi-bel-Abbès.
He had come to ask him his opinion of the Schneider business.
"The man has made his escape," said Moccata, "without any manner of
doubt--you are quite wrong. If he had committed suicide, the body
would have been found. Bless you, there's no hiding anything away in
Sidi-bel-Abbès, what with the police always hunting for runaways and
criminals and the Arab boys poking about in every lane and ditch for
bits of old metal and rubbish-- Ah, ha!"
He struck himself on the knee as though he had remembered something
all of a sudden. Then he rose up and went into a corner of the shop,
searched amongst the rubbish there and produced a bundle.
He unrolled it, exposing a blue full-dress légionnaire's coat, red
trousers and sash.
"I was coming home last night," said Moccata, "with a sack containing
some old clothes, when I stumbled against a bundle. It was in the
lane opening from Mustapha Street; the things were rolled up and tied
together with the sash. I popped them in the sack. It was stupid of
me to touch them. You know the law is heavy on anyone helping a
légionnaire to escape, and to be in possession of a légionnaire's
uniform might cast suspicion on one, but to tell the truth, my
friend, I could not let the things lie; all my life I have been
dealing in old clothes; it is not the profit I make from them, but
the feeling I have for them that prevents me from leaving even an old
hat lying in the street if I can pick it up. My father dealt in old
clothes before me and his father before him, it runs in the family.
So there you are. I picked the things up. I could not let them lie,
and now I do not know what to do with them."
"You had better hide them," said Jacques. Then he went off.
There was no doubt in his mind now. Schneider was not dead, he had
escaped. The only thing to account for a uniform cast away like that
was an escaped légionnaire, and no other légionnaire had escaped or
attempted escape.
Schneider had been playing a part all along. Jacques, as he walked
back to the barracks, revolved matters in his mind. He remembered
how, several months ago, Schneider had suddenly made friends with
him; he remembered those conversations about escape, and he saw how
artfully this scamp had pumped him on the matter; then came the
question of the girl.
The girl and the old lady had come to Sidi-bel-Abbès to help in the
business, and he blushed to think of the part he, Jacques, had
played; he remembered that speech of his, honest and spoken from the
heart, and the way in which the girl had received it, rushing from
the room to hide her merriment, and remembering this, Jacques swore a
great oath to be revenged. Schneider had played him false, that was
bad; he had placed him in a ridiculous position, that was worse.
Then as he drew near the barrack gate, an idea struck him. He went
straight to the officers' quarters, and the colonel happening to be
in, Jacques had a five minutes' interview with him.
At ten minutes past ten he left the colonel, carrying with him a
written order that made him virtual master of all the outlets of
Algeria; he went to his room, fetched his blue overcoat, and going to
the garage, secured a motor-car. A few minutes later he was being
driven to Oran, where he arrived shortly before one o'clock in the
morning.
He went to the Police Bureau and found that the boat for Marseilles
was due to start at nine o'clock, and at eight o'clock he had taken
his stand on the quay, close to the gangway of the steamer.
It was the ill-fated _General Chanzy_, and the last of the cargo was
going on board to the tune of the winch pawls and the shouting of the
red-fezzed negro stevedores. The quay presented a brilliant
spectacle beneath the intense blue of the morning sky; a company of
Spahis bound for Senegal were lining up by the troopship that was to
take them, the crying of the Arab children at play answered the
crying of the gulls fishing in the harbour, and here came the first
of the passengers for the Marseilles boat, a stout, bearded
Frenchman, who might have been Tartarin of Tarascon himself, in
tweeds, wearing a sun helmet and followed by two negro porters
carrying his luggage. After him came a French family, two American
ladies in blue veils and a tall Englishman with side whiskers, a rare
bird to find nowadays, and recalling to mind the "typical" Englishman
who used to figure in the old Palais Royal farces. Then came some
Germans, and lastly what Jacques was waiting for.
Madame Seraskier, Mademoiselle Seraskier and their maid. The women
were all veiled and the maid was carrying a dressing-bag. There was
no sign of Schneider. Jacques was not looking for him.
He drew close to the gangway, and as Madame Seraskier placed her hand
upon the rail, he advanced, raised his _képi_ and said:
"I see, madame, that you have changed your maid."
The stout Frenchman, who had taken his place on the boat deck of the
_General Chanzy_, and who was in the act of lighting a cigar, was
treated to a spectacle. He saw the légionnaire corporal raise his
hat to an old lady, the old lady fall in a faint, and the old lady's
maid drop the dressing-bag she was carrying, pick up her skirts and
run, pursued by the légionnaire. He saw her captured and handcuffed,
and then he saw the old lady and her daughter led off by the police.
Then the boat started, carrying him off, to wonder for ever what
could have been the meaning of it all and how it all ended.
It ended in a court-martial at Oran, where Schneider was condemned to
a year of the penal battalion, not for having run away, but for
having lost his uniform, and Jacques, who knew where that uniform
was, said nothing. Wicked of him, perhaps, but with that I have
nothing to do. I am simply telling this story to cast a sidelight on
the character of Jacques.
As for the character of Schneider, the regimental surgeon, a
hard-bitten French colonial officer with a terrible eye for the truth
of things, summed it up for me:
"Schneider joined the Legion, as we discovered at the court-martial,
for no reason. He was suffering from the European disease that
afflicts, mostly, well-to-do men, and which is confined almost
entirely to the continent of Europe, the disease that makes a man go
off and commit suicide or join the Legion--for no reason. He is
tired of life. These men are nearly always of high intelligence, but
they have no belief in a God, and as in the case of Schneider, they
often keep no faith with a friend. They are very crafty. We have
had several of them in the service and I speak from knowledge.
"When Schneider, after a couple of months of Algeria, began to
dislike the business, he determined to make an end of it; but knowing
that it was next to impossible to escape by ordinary ways, he
enlisted his old mother and his sister in his service. No heart, you
see.
"I believe what is wrong with men like him is a brain that tires of
ordinary stimuli and seeks for new sensations; well, he is receiving
plenty of them in the criminal battalion, building roads down there
in the south. It is a remedy that will cure him, if it does not kill
him."