THE VOICE OF THE LEGION
It was all far worse even than Max had expected; and the next few days
were a nightmare. The resemblance between the girl and her mother--once
his mother, whom he had as a boy adored--made the effect more gruesome.
Josephine Delatour was coarse minded and sly, inordinately vain, caring
for nothing in life except the admiration of such men as she had met and
mistaken for gentlemen. Her way of receiving the news of her change of
fortune disgusted Max, sickened him so utterly that he could not bear to
think of her reigning in Jack Doran's house. She was torn between
pleasure in the prospect of being rich, and suspicious that there was a
plot to kidnap her, like the heroine of a sensational novel. She did not
want to go to America. She wanted to stay in Sidi-bel-Abbés and triumph
over all the women who had snubbed her. She boasted of her admirers, and
hinted that even without money she could marry any one of a dozen young
officers. But the one for whom she seemed really to care--if it were in
her to care for any one except herself--was the namesake of whom Max had
heard laughing hints.
At the time it had not occurred to him that the name of the alleged
"cousin" must be Delatour; but so it was though the dark young man with
the waxed moustache spelled his name differently, in the more
aristocratic way, with three syllables. When Josephine boasted that,
though he was from a great family, with a castle on the River Loire, he
called himself her cousin, Max realized that the Lieutenant of Spahis
must be a son or nephew of the de la Tour from whom Rose and Jack had
taken the château. So far, however, was Max Doran from being elated by
this tie of blood, that he mentally dubbed his relative a cad. It was
all he could do to persuade Josephine not to tell Raoul de la Tour that
she had come into money, and a name as aristocratic as his own--in fact,
that she was qualifying as a heroine of romance. Only by appealing to
the crude sense of drama the girl had in her could she be prevented from
stupidly throwing out bait to fortune-hunters. But having wired again to
Edwin Reeves, and hearing that Mrs. Reeves, already in Paris, had
started for Algiers, a plan occurred to Max. He advised Josephine, if
she thought that de la Tour cared for her, to tell him that she was
giving up work in the Hotel Splendide; also that she was leaving
Sidi-bel-Abbés forever; and then see what he would say. What he did say
was such a blow to the girl's vanity that, when she was sure he had no
intention of marrying a poor secretary, she flung the dazzling truth at
his face. Repentant, he tried to turn his late insults into honest
lovemaking; but the temper of the lynx was roused. Never having deeply
loved the man, she took pleasure in using her claws on him. In taunting
him with what he might have had, however, she let the identity of the
newsbringer leak out.
De la Tour then warned her passionately against _le jeune aventurier
Americain_, and almost frightened the girl into disbelieving the whole
story. But proofs were forthcoming, and with the landlord's wife, who
enjoyed sharing a borrowed halo, Josephine Delatour--or Josephine
Doran--went to Algiers to await Mrs. Reeves's arrival. Meanwhile, with
the money she procured from Max, the girl planned to buy herself a
trousseau, and eventually departed, rejoicing in her lover's
discomfiture. Whether or no this attitude were safe with such a man
remained to be seen. As for Max--the messenger who had brought the
tidings--since he showed no desire to flirt with her, Josephine saw no
reason to be interested in him. Besides, she could hardly believe that
he was not somehow to blame for having kept what ought to have been hers
for his own all these years. She had not loved her supposed father and
mother, who had interfered with her pleasure, disapproving of what they
called her extravagance and frivolity.... There was no grief to the girl
in learning that the Delatours were not her parents.
Nor did it seem to Josephine that gratitude was due Max for resigning in
her favour. She was greedily ready to grab everything, without thanks,
just as her lynx-prototype would snatch a piece of meat, if it could get
it, from another lynx. She grudged the years of luxury and pleasure
which she ought to have had; and could she have realized that she had
made of Lieutenant de la Tour an enemy for Max Doran, she would have
been glad. It was right that two men should quarrel over a woman.
While he was arranging Josephine's affairs, Max saw nothing of Sanda
and Colonel DeLisle. He had thought it best to take up his quarters at
another hotel, and his only communication with them was by letter. He
wrote Sanda that when his business was finished he would make up his
mind what to do; but in any case he hoped that he might be allowed to
bid her and Colonel DeLisle farewell. In answer, came an invitation from
the Colonel to see the Salle d'Honneur of the Legion, the famous gallery
where records of its heroes were kept. "That is," (Sanda said, writing
for her father) "if you are interested in the Legion."
"If he were interested in the Legion!" Already he was obsessed by
thoughts of it. Sidi-bel-Abbés, which at first had struck him as being a
dull provincial town, now seemed the only place where he could have
lived through his dark hours. Elsewhere he would have felt surrounded by
a gay and happy world in which a man with his back to the wall had no
place. Here at Sidi-bel-Abbés was the home of men with their backs to
the wall. The very town itself had been created by such men, and for
them. For generations desperate men, sad men, starving men, of all
countries--men who had lost everything but life and strength--had been
turning their faces toward Sidi-bel-Abbés, their sole luggage the secret
sorrow which, once the _Legion_ had taken them, was no one's business
but their own.
Max Doran could not go into the street without meeting at least a dozen
men in the Legion's uniform, who seemed akin to him because of the look
in their eyes; the look of those cut off from what had once meant life
and love. What they were enduring was unknown to him, but he was somehow
at home among them. And the day Josephine went away, before he had yet
made up his mind to the next step, for the first time he heard the music
of the Legion's band.
It was in the afternoon, and he had strolled outside the Porte de
Tlemcen into the public gardens for the music, only because he had an
hour to pass before his appointment in the Salle d'Honneur. In winter
the band played in the Place Carnot, but on this soft day of early
spring the concert was announced for the gardens beloved by the people
of Sidi-bel-Abbés. They were beautiful, but to Max it seemed the beauty
of sadness; and even there, outside the wall which dead Legionnaires had
built, everything spoke of the Legion. Men of the Legion had planted
many of the tall trees of the cloistral avenue, whose columnar trunks
were darkly draped with ivy. Men of the Legion swept dead leaves from
the paths, as they swept away old memories. Men of the Legion walked in
the gray shadow of the planes, as they walked in the shadows of life.
Men of the Legion rested on the rough wooden benches, staring absently
at mourning plumes of cypresses, or white waterfalls that fleeted by
like lost opportunities. Yes, despite the flowers in the myrtle borders
it was a place of sadness, and of a mournful silence until the musicians
brought their instruments into the curious bandstand formed of growing
trees. Then it seemed to Max that he heard the Legion speak in a great
and wonderful voice.
As by studying a hive one feels the mysterious governing spirit, so he
felt the spirit of the Legion in its music, its restlessness, its
longings, its passions, and its ambitions, uttered and cried to heaven
in prayers and curses. As individuals the men were dumb, guarding their
secrets, striving to forget; and it was as if this smothered fire,
seeking outlet, had sprung from heart to heart, kindling and massing all
together in a vast, white-hot furnace. The music opened the doors of
this furnace, and the flames roared upward to the sky. In the dazzling
light of that strange fire, secrets could be read, if the eyes that saw
were not blinded. Bitterness and joy were there to see, and the blending
of all passions through which men ruin their lives, and need to remake
their souls. Yes, that was the Legion's call. Men came to it, in the
hope of remaking their souls. With his own drowned in the music of pain
and regeneration, Max went to the Salle d'Honneur to meet Colonel
DeLisle.
He knew where to find it, next to the barracks; a small, low building of
the same dull yellow, set back in a little garden with a few palms and
flowerbeds. Inside the gate was a red, blue, and white sentry box. But
Max entered unchallenged, because at the door of the house stood the
colonel, who came down a step to meet him. "Monsieur Doran!" he
exclaimed cordially, holding out his hand.
"Will you still offer me your hand, sir," Max asked wistfully, though he
smiled, "even if I've no name any more, and no country that I can claim?
Mademoiselle DeLisle has told you?"
"She has told me," echoed the elder man, shaking the younger's hand with
extra warmth. "I congratulate you on the chance of making a name for
yourself. I think from what I hear, and can judge, that you will do so,
in whatever path you choose. Have you chosen yet?"
"Not yet," Max confessed. "Neither a name nor the way to make it. Nor
the country most likely to make it in."
"As for that"--and Colonel DeLisle smiled--"we of the Legion are more
used to men without names and without countries than to those who have
them. Not that your case is allied to theirs. Shall we go in? I want to
thank you, as I've not been able to do yet, for your chivalrous
behaviour to my daughter. She has told me all about that, too--_all_.
And I had a feeling that this room, in which our Legion commemorates
honourable deeds, would be a place where you and I might talk."
As he spoke he led Max into a short corridor, at the end of which hung a
large frame containing portraits and many names of men and battles with
the crest of _la Legion Etrangére_ at the top. Pushing open a door at
the right, DeLisle made way for his guest. "Here are all the relics that
are to us men of the First Regiment most sacred," he said. And as he
passed in, he saluted a flag preciously guarded in a long glass case:
the flag of the regiment decorated with the Cross of the Legion of
Honour on an historic occasion of great bravery. An answering thrill
shot through Max's veins, for in them ran soldier blood. Involuntarily
he, too, saluted the flag and its cross. Colonel DeLisle gave him a
quick look, but made no comment.
Two out of the four walls were covered with portraits of men in uniforms
ancient and modern; paintings, engravings, photographs; and the
decorations were strange weapons, and torn, faded banners which had
helped the Legion to make history. There were drums and weird idols,
too, and monstrous masks and great fans from Tonkin and Madagascar, and
relics of fighting in Mexico. On the long table lay albums of
photographs, and upon either side were ranged chairs as if for officers
to sit in council.
"Whenever we wish to do a guest honour, we bring him here," said the
colonel. "We are not rich, and have nothing better to offer; except,
perhaps, our music."
"I have already heard the music," answered Max. "I shall never forget
it. And I shall never forget this room."
"Such music wakes the hearts of men, and helps inspire them to heroic
acts like these." Colonel DeLisle waved his hand toward some of the
pictures which showed soldiers fighting the Legion's most historic
battles. "I am rather proud of our music and our men. This room, too,
and the things in it--most of all the flag. My daughter has spent hours
in the Salle d'Honneur looking over our records. Presently she will join
us. But I wanted to thank you before she came. Corisande is a child,
knowing little of the world and its ways. Some men in your place would
have misunderstood her--in the unusual circumstances. But you did not.
You proved yourself a friend in need for my little girl, on her strange
journey to me. I wish in return there might be some way in which I could
show myself a friend to you. Can you think of any such way?"
The voice was earnest and very kind. A great reaction from his first
prejudice against the speaker swept over Max. Beneath this one voice
which questioned him and waited for an answer, he heard as a deep,
thrilling undertone the voice of the Legion which had called to him
through the music to come and share its bath of fire. A sudden purpose
awoke in Max Doran, and he knew then that it had been in the background
of his mind for days, waiting for some word to wake it. Now the word had
come. All his blood seemed to rush from heart to head, and he grew
giddy: yet he spoke steadily enough.
"I have thought of a way, Colonel DeLisle!"
"I am glad. You have only to tell me."
"Accept me as one of your men. Let me join the Legion."
"Mon Dieu!" The Legion's colonel was taken completely by surprise. Max
had thought he might perhaps have expected the request, but evidently it
was not so. The dapper little figure straightened itself. And from his
place beside his adored flag, Colonel DeLisle gazed across to the other
side where, close also to the flag, stood the young man he had wished to
serve. Max met his eyes, flushed and eager and, it seemed, pathetically
young. There was dead silence for an instant. Then DeLisle spoke in a
changed tone: "Do you mean this? Have you thought of what you are
saying?"
"I do mean it," Max replied. "I believe I have thought of it ever since
I saw those men of all countries getting out of the train to join the
Legion. I felt the call they had felt. But it is stronger to-day. I know
now what I want. In the Salle D'Honneur of the Legion I decide on my
career."
"Decide!" the other repeated. "No, not that, yet! You have got this idea
into your head because you are romantic. You think you are ruined and
that the future doesn't matter. You will find it does. This is no place
for poetry and romance--my God, no! It's a fiery furnace. In barracks we
should burn the romance out of you in twenty-four hours."
"If I've got more in me than any man who loves adventure ought to have,
then I want it burned out," said Max.
"Adventures will cost you less elsewhere," almost sneered DeLisle.
"I don't ask to get them cheap," Max still insisted. "Though I've got
nothing to pay with, except myself, my blood, and flesh, and muscles."
"That's good coin," exclaimed the elder, warming again. "Yet we can't
take it. You may think you know what you mean. But you don't know what
the Legion means. I do. I've had nearly twenty years of it."
"You love it?"
"Yes, it is my life. But--I have to remind you, I entered it as an
officer. There is all the difference."
"At least I should be a soldier. I know what a soldier's hardships are."
"Ah, not in the Legion!"
"It can't kill me."
"It might."
"Let it, then. I'll die learning to be a man."
DeLisle looked at his companion intently. "I think," he said, "you are a
man."
"No, sir, I'm not," Max contradicted him abruptly. "I used to hope I
might pass muster as men go. But these last days I've been finding
myself out. I've been down in hell, and I shouldn't have got there if I
were a man. I'm a self-indulgent, pining, and whining boy, thinking of
nothing but myself, and not knowing whether I've done right or wrong. If
the Legion can't teach me what's white and what's black, nothing can."
The colonel of the Legion laughed a queer, short laugh. "That is true,"
he said. "I take back those words of mine about poetry and romance.
You've got the right point of view, after all. And you are the kind of
man the Legion wants, the born soldier, lover of adventure for
adventure's sake. You would come to us not because you have anything to
hide, or because you prefer barracks in France to prison at home, or
because some woman has thrown you over," (just there his keen eyes saw
the young man wince, and he hurried on without a pause) "but because
we've made some history, we of the Legion, and you would like a chance
to make some for yourself, under this"--and he pointed to the flag whose
folds hung between them--"_Valeur et Discipline!_ That's the Legion's
motto, for the Legion itself must be _Dieu et Patrie_ for most of its
sons. I've done my duty as a friend in warning you to go where life is
easier. As colonel of the First Regiment, I welcome you, if you
sincerely wish to come into the Legion. Only----"
"Only what, sir?"
"My daughter! She wanted me to help you. She'll think I've hindered,
instead."
"No, Colonel. She hoped I'd join the Legion."
DeLisle looked surprised. "What reason have you for supposing that?"
"Interpreting a thing she said, or, rather, a thing she wanted to say,
but was afraid to say for fear I might blame her some day in the
future."
"She, knowing nothing of the Legion, recommended you to join? That is
strange."
"She knew a little of me and my circumstances. I'd been a soldier, and
there seemed only one convenient way for a man without a name or country
to start and become a soldier again. Miss DeLisle saw that."
"You're talking of me?" inquired Sanda's voice at the half-open door.
Both men sprang to open it for her. As she came into the Salle
d'Honneur, she seemed to bring with her into this room, sacred to dead
heroes of all lands, the sweetness of spring flowers to lay on distant
graves. And as she stepped over the threshold, like a young soldier she
saluted the flag.
"I have just said to Colonel DeLisle that you would approve of my
joining the Legion," Max explained. "Have I told him the truth?"
The girl looked anxiously from one man to the other. She was rather pale
and subdued, as if life pressed hardly even upon her. "You guessed what
I wouldn't let myself say in the train the other day!" she exclaimed.
"But--you _haven't_ joined, have you?"
"Not yet, or I shouldn't be here. The Salle d'Honneur is for common
soldiers only when they're dead, I presume."
"But you could become an officer some day, couldn't he, father?"
"Yes," replied Colonel DeLisle. "Every soldier of the Legion has his
chance. And our friend is French, I think, from what you've told me of
his confidences to you. That gives an extra chance to rise.
France--rightly or wrongly, but like all mothers--favours her own sons.
Besides, he has been a soldier, which puts him at once ahead of the
others."
"I shouldn't trade on that! I'd rather begin on a level with other men,
not ahead of them," Max said hastily. "My object would be not to teach,
but to learn--to cure myself of my faults----"
The colonel drew a deep breath, like a sigh. "We do cure men sometimes,
men far more desperate, men with souls far more sick than yours. There's
that to be said for us."
"His soul isn't sick at all!" Sanda cried out, in defence of her friend.
"Perhaps he thinks it is." Colonel DeLisle looked at Max as he had
looked after those chance words of his about a woman.
"_Do_ you think that, Mr. Doran?" the girl questioned incredulously. "I
shall be disappointed if you do."
"Don't be disappointed. I do not think my soul is sick. I want to see
how strong it can be, and my body, too. But you mustn't call me 'Mr.
Doran' now, please. It isn't my name any more. Colonel DeLisle, may I
ask your daughter to choose a name for a new soldier of the Legion? It
will be the last favour, for I understand perfectly that after I've
joined the regiment, as a private soldier, you can be my friends only at
heart. Socially, all intercourse must end."
"Oh, no, it wouldn't be so," Sanda cried out impulsively, though the old
officer was silent. "It wouldn't, if I were not going away."
"You are going away?" Max was conscious of a faint chill. He would have
found some comfort in the thought that his brave little travelling
companion was near, even though he seldom saw and never spoke to her.
"Not home to the aunts! I told you I'd never go back to live with them,
and my father wouldn't send me. But there's to be a long march---- Oh,
have I said what I oughtn't? Why? Since he _must_ know if he joins?
Anyhow, I can't stay here many days longer--I mean, for the present. I'm
to be sent to a wonderful place. It will be a great romance."
"Sanda, it is irrelevant to talk of that now," Colonel DeLisle reminded
his daughter.
"Forgive me! I forgot, father. May I--name the new soldier, and wish him
joy?"
DeLisle laughed rather bitterly. "'Joy' isn't precisely the word. If he
hoped for it, he would soon be disillusioned. You may give him a name,
if he wishes it. But let me also give him a few words of advice.
Monsieur Doran----"
"St. George!" broke in Sanda. "That is to be his name. I christen him,
close to the flag. Soldier, saint, slayer of dragons." She did not add
"my patron saint," but Max remembered, and was grateful.
"Soldier Saint George, then," DeLisle began again, smiling, "this is my
advice as your friend and well-wisher: again, I say, why should you not
take advantages you have fairly earned? My men are wonderful soldiers. I
suppose in the world there can be none braver, few so brave; for they
nearly all come to heal or hide some secret wound that makes them
desperate or careless of life. They are glorious soldiers, these
foreigners of ours! But at the beginning you will see them at their
worst in the dulness of barrack life. There are all sorts and
conditions, from the lowest to the highest. You may happen to be among
some of the lowest. Why not start where you are entitled to start? When,
in being recruited, you are asked to state your profession, you're at
liberty to say what you choose. No statement as to name, age, country,
or occupation is disputed in the Legion. But once more, let me advise
you, if you write yourself down "Soldier," things can be made
comparatively easy for you."
"I thank you, sir, and I will take your advice in everything else. But I
don't want things made easy."
"You may regret your obstinacy."
"Oh, father," pleaded Sanda, "wouldn't you be the very one to do the
same thing?"
"In his place," said Colonel DeLisle, shrugging his shoulders, "I
suppose I should do what he does. What _I_ might do, isn't the question,
however. But I've said enough.... Now I have to get back to barracks.
For you, Sanda, this must be 'good-bye,' I fear, to the friend of your
journey."
"My friend for always," the girl amended, holding out her hand to Max.
"And I'd rather say 'Au revoir' than 'Good-bye'; we shall meet
again--away in the desert, perhaps."
She caught her father's warning eye and stopped. "Good-bye,
then--Soldier of the Legion."
"If he doesn't change his mind," muttered DeLisle. "There's still time."
Max looked from the girl to the flag in its glass case.
"I shall not change my mind," he said.