When we arrived at the depot we were at once divided into small
parties, each of which was sent to a company for drill. I was attached
to No. 1 Company, and though four others of my comrades came to it with
me they did not remain there long. Two of them were Belgians, one an
Alsatian, and the fourth a Pole. All spoke French well, and it was very
soon seen that they had learned something about drill already in other
armies, and, therefore, they were sent almost at once to the battalions
on service at the edge of the great desert. Thus it was that I found
myself the only member of the detachment in No. 1, and of this I was
very glad, for my last experience with them had not been of the most
pleasant kind.
And now let me put on record the only complaint I have to make about my
life at Saida. On account of my speaking English all agreed that I must
be an Englishman, and the Englishman is well hated abroad. Consequently
on the drill ground and in the barrack room I was continually addressed
by the expressive sobriquet of "English pig." Now "cochon anglais"
is not a nice nickname, and though I dared not resent it from the
corporals and other sub-officers I made up my mind that from my equals
in rank it was not to be endured. There was a big Alsatian in my squad
who was most persistent in insulting me, though I had often tried to
explain to him that I was neither a pig nor an Englishman. With him,
therefore, I resolved to deal, confident that, if I could put a stop
to his insolence, the rest would be quiet enough. I determined, as he
was my superior in age, strength, weight, and length of arm, that it
would be only right to take him unawares and, if possible, finish the
business before he could quite understand what I was about. For three
or four days after settling this matter in my mind I got no opportunity
such as I wished for. Seeing me take the nickname quietly, for I no
longer even remonstrated with him, the Alsatian went further than
before and raised my anger to boiling point. At last the chance came.
As I entered the room one afternoon I noticed lying near the door a
rather large billet of wood. The corporal was out, so were most of
the men, and those who remained, five or six in number, were lazily
lounging in various attitudes about the room. I put aside rifle, belt,
and bayonet, for I had just come in from a punishment parade--that is,
an extra parade ordered to men for some slight irregularity--and looked
straight at the big brute, as if to challenge him.
"Ah, my fine fellow, how do English pigs like punishment parades in
this weather?" he began.
"As well," I answered, picking up, carelessly as it were, the billet,
"as Alsatian dogs like this." And I brought the heavy block down upon
his head with all my strength. The cap, though utterly destroyed,
saved his head, but still he was so stupefied by the sudden assault
and by the force of the blow that I had time to strike him again and
again. The others jumped up quickly and seized me, crying out that the
Alsatian was dead. And, indeed, he looked as if he were dead, for his
head was covered with blood, and one almost imagined that his brains
would protrude through the wounds. However, after some time he came to
himself again, and truly no one was better pleased than I, for as I
cooled down I began to be fearful of consequences.
When the corporal heard about the affair he told the sergeant, the
sergeant went to the captain, and the captain came down to investigate
the matter for himself. I told him how I was continually annoyed, and
when he asked me why I struck the other when off his guard, I pointed
out that to do so gave me the only chance of revenge. He measured us
both with his eyes and seemed to agree with me. Anyway, the Alsatian
was sent to get his wounds dressed and I was ordered extra drills,
extra fatigues, and to remain altogether in barracks for a fortnight.
Now I wondered how I got off so lightly. Well, in the Foreign Legion a
fight between men of the same squad is not considered half so serious
as one between men belonging to different squads, just as no one minds
so much about a fight between brothers as about one between members
of separate families. If a soldier of No. 1 squad beats a soldier of
No. 2 all the men of No. 2 will look for revenge, and all the men of
No. 1 will know that, and, therefore, at any moment thirty or more men
may be, to use an expressive phrase, "into" one another with Nature's
weapons and anything lying handy that will do a man damage. Sometimes
when the quarrel is more serious than usual--as, for instance, when it
is about women--bayonets may be used, but, indeed, the soldier very
seldom has recourse to his accustomed weapons in a fight with comrades.
But if a dispute arises between a battalion of zephyrs and another of
the Foreign Legion there is but one way of restoring order--call out
the cavalry and the guns.
As the Alsatian and I belonged to the same squad the captain contented
himself with punishing me slightly and warning us both against a
renewal of the quarrel. The story went around, and I don't believe I
was called an English pig ever afterwards except by an Irishman or an
Irish-American, who, of course, spoke only in jest.
Our company consisted of from 160 to 200 men. Sometimes it was strong
for a week after the arrival of a number of recruits, then again it
would go down as a squad or two departed for the regiment. My squad
varied, I think, from ten to seventeen, and, taking us all round, we
weren't very bad, as soldiers go. What language did we speak? French on
the drill ground and on duty and in reply to superior officers; amongst
ourselves a Lingua Franca, made up chiefly of French, especially the
Argot, but with a plentiful admixture of German, Spanish, Italian,
Portuguese, and other languages, including in some squads even Russian,
Turkish, and Arabic. What I say now refers not merely to the depot
but to the Foreign Legion in general: every battalion, every company,
I might almost say every squad, had its own peculiarity of idiom;
Sapristi and Parbleu gave place often to Caramba, Diavolo, and Mein
Gott. In fact, before I was six months in the Legion I could swear
fluently in every European language except English; the only English
curse they taught me was Goddam.
The _sous-officiers_ were pretty strict with us in the depot, but the
punishments were not too severe. The favourite one was to keep you
altogether in the barrack and compel you to sleep during the night in
your ordinary uniform on a plank bed in the guard room. That was the
worst of it, in the day no one minded the confinement to barracks--for
what was the use in wandering about a dirty town if one had no money in
his pocket, and our pay did not last long?--but in the night the plank
bed was not an ideal resting-place. I did not get into much trouble,
the row with the Alsatian was my chief offence, and what kept me right
was the dread of sleeping in the guard room at night.
We drilled every day except Sunday, but there is no use in telling
about that, as drill is the same all the world over. Our drill
instructors were certainly eloquent--all had copious vocabularies--and
the wealth of abuse and cursing that any of them could expend in an
hour's work was, indeed, extraordinary. While I was unable to fully
understand I felt angry; by the time I understood every word I was too
philosophical to care. Moreover, I am sorry to have to say that I was
rapidly acquiring a fairly extensive vocabulary of my own, and every
time I heard a curse directed at myself I thought one for the benefit
of the drill instructor's soul. It's a tradition in every army just
as it is in every navy, fighting and mercantile, that nothing can be
got out of men without bad language, and I do believe that there is a
good deal of truth in the tradition. One would fancy that skippers and
sergeants wish to familiarise their men with the names at least of the
lower regions and their ruler, in the firm belief that the men will
at some time make the acquaintance of both. That's as it may be; at
anyrate we learned a good deal more than our drill from our instructors.
We had a remarkably fine band. It was chiefly composed of Germans,
I think, and it does seem strange that ten years after the
Franco-Prussian war the majority of a French regimental band should
be composed of the sons of the men who crushed Napoleon the Third at
Sedan. The band played very often in the square, and every evening that
it turned out I felt no desire to leave the barrack. I don't understand
music but I like it. In the square the women and children of the depot
used to walk about listening, talking and laughing; the officers' wives
at one side and the wives of the _sous-officiers_ at another. As for
us, we lounged about at a short distance and made remarks, not always
in the best taste, about the women of both classes. A good deal of
quiet, oh, very quiet, flirtation used to go on, and this gave rise
amongst us to rather broad jests and hints. Of course, many people from
the town came in also, and these we considered fair game as well. One
very fat man, accompanied by a tall, extremely thin woman, evidently
his wife--they seemed to have no children--came regularly at least
three times a week to listen to the music. If he and his lady knew all
the fun they provided for us and the jokes uttered at their expense, I
fancy that the square would never see them again. What they did not
know did not trouble them, and so they came as long as I remained in
the depot and I daresay for long enough after I left it.
A very important consideration with a soldier, as with any other man,
is his food. I think we got nearly enough--that is, the fellows who
were used to it got enough--but the poor devils who were not used to
slops and bread were badly off, especially those who, like myself, had
schoolboy appetites. I have seen--this was in the battalion--veterans
leaving part of their rations untouched and young soldiers, men under
twenty-five, hungry the whole day long. Early in my soldiering I
learned the blessed consolation of tobacco. Often when I was more
hungry after a meal than before it, the soup and bread rather exciting
my stomach than satisfying it, I have smoked till no sensation of
emptiness remained. I don't know what a soldier in a Continental army
would do without tobacco. Nearly all our scanty pay went to buy it,
and, wretched stuff as it was, I have never enjoyed the best Havana as
I used to enjoy the delicious smoke when all work and drill for the
day were over and the pipe of comfort and blessed forgetfulness made
paradise of a barrack room.
We were good enough to one another. If the Spaniard had no tobacco he
could generally get some, unless it were too scarce indeed, and then
he had to be satisfied with half-a-dozen puffs from every pipe in the
room. I say the Spaniard advisedly, for he was always without money;
he had such an unfortunate trick of getting into trouble and losing
his pay. At the same time I too have had to do with the whiffs when
I longed for a pipeful of my own, and when you wanted to feel the
taste of the weed in your mouth it was very good to get even them.
When tobacco was very scarce with all we had more than one device for
getting a smoke; but there, these are only silly things, not that they
seemed silly to us at the time.
While at our drill we were the most obedient fellows in the world, so
were we too when doing the ordinary work of the soldier. But when the
day's labour was done we were not to be ordered about at the will of
any sergeant or corporal. Well they knew it too. Why, when a squad in
No. 2 Company was bullied--out of hours, be it well understood--by
their corporal a strange thing occurred. The corporal was found one
afternoon--at least the corporal's body was found--in one of the
latrines, and it was quite evident to the doctors that he had been
suffocated. Suspicion fell at once upon the squad he commanded, but,
and this was the strange thing, every one of them could prove that it
was impossible for him to have hand, act or part, in the business,
for some were on guard, and others were at drill, and others--rather
peculiar, wasn't it?--had been directly under the eyes of the
sergeant-major of the company. There was a sentry near the latrine,
who, of course, had not left his post, and this man could tell within
five minutes the time the corporal entered. He saw no others enter
at or about the same time, but that was easily explained: a large
hole had been broken through the back of one of the compartments, and
half-a-dozen men could easily get through this in as many seconds,
and, once in without being observed, the rest was easy. Nobody was
ever even court-martialled for the murder, and, though many might be
able to guess the names of the murderers, he would be a fool who did
his guessing within earshot of even a corporal. One thing is certain,
we had a fairly quiet time afterwards while I was in the depot, not
that we weren't sworn at and abused just as much on parade--oh yes,
we were--but when the quiet time came the _sous-officiers_ had sense
enough to leave us to ourselves. Well, it's all over now. The man who
carried the business through died in Tonquin--he was a Russian--and he
will turn up again in this narrative as ringleader of one of the most
exciting incidents of my life.
I did not form any friendships in the depot. True, there were fellows
in the squad whom I liked better than others, but I never showed
preference even for them. One thing chiefly prevented me from making
friends: I was beginning to learn something about the world and
its ways, or perhaps I should say about human nature, for with us
conventionality was dropped when the belt came off for the last time
in the evening and we spoke very freely to one another. If you liked
something in a comrade's words or acts you told him so; if you disliked
anything you were equally outspoken. Did a thought enter your mind
worthy of being communicated, in your opinion, to the rest it made no
difference whether it were immoral, or blasphemous, or against the
law, or contrary to discipline, out it came, and generally with a
garnishment of oaths and obscene expressions. We very seldom spoke of
what is good, except to laugh at and revile it. When we saw a woman
evidently very fond of her husband we said: "Ah, she is throwing dust
in his eyes; she has more than one lover." If we noticed a husband very
devoted to his wife, why, it was certain that the devotion was only an
excuse for watchfulness. Everything good was looked on with suspicion;
everything bad was natural, right, and obviously true.
We were always looking forward to the future. When in the depot we
yearned to be with the regiment; afterwards, when with the regiment in
the south of Algeria, I found my comrades and myself thinking eagerly
of the chances of going to the East. Life in Tonquin could not be so
monotonous; there was always fighting going on, and in any case you
got the chance of looting on the sly after a battle or even a petty
skirmish. This looking forward is, however, common to most men, but we
had a special reason for it, inasmuch as we were never comfortable or
content, our lives being made up for the most part of work and drill
and punishment, with an occasional fight, which wonderfully enlivened
the time for those who had not to pay for it.
When we had learned our drill pretty well the officers began to take
more interest in us. Don't imagine that they were kind and nice to us,
that they complimented us on our smartness and intelligence, or that
they even dreamt of standing us a drink in the canteen. Oh no; they
were somewhat worse than the sergeants, and if their language was not
so coarse it was equally cutting and abusive. By this time, however, we
were case-hardened, and, besides, we knew that at last we were leaving
the depot for ever, and the excitement induced by the expected change
was in itself a source of joy. We who were about to go went around
smiling and in good humour with ourselves and all the world. The men
who knew that their stay would last for some time longer consoled
themselves with the thought that at last it too must come to an end.
Simple philosophy, wasn't it? but wonderfully comforting.
We speculated about the battalions, about the stations, about the
Arabs, about the Moors, about the war in Tonquin, about everything
that we could think of as possibly affecting our after-life. I, mere
schoolboy that I was, was one of the most excited, and indulged in the
most extravagant fancies and dreamt the most extraordinary dreams.
At last the glorious day came. We were aroused at three o'clock in the
morning, had finished breakfast, and were on the parade-ground at a
little after four in full marching order. There we were addressed in a
farewell speech by the commandant, who called us "my children," as if
he cared especially for each and all of us. I had almost to smile, but
a smile at such a time would surely entail punishment.
The band played us out of the gate, and off we marched, about 200
strong, all in good health and spirits, for the little station where
lay the battalion for which we were designed.