FOUR EYES
Beyond the barracks of the Legion, going toward the Porte de Tlemcen,
and opposite the drill-ground and cavalry barracks of the Spahis, there
is a sign: _Bureau de Recrutement_.
Early in the morning after taking his resolution, Max walked down the
narrow, lane-like way which led off from the Rue de Tlemcen and the long
front wall of the Legion's barracks, and found the door indicated by the
sign.
In a bare office room, furnished with a table and a few benches, sat a
corporal, busily writing. He looked up, surprised to see such a visitor
as Max, and was at some trouble to hide his amazement on hearing that
this well-dressed young man, evidently a gentleman, wished to enlist in
the Legion. Opening off the outer room, with its white-washed walls and
display of posters tempting to recruits, was another office, the _Bureau
du Commandant de Recrutement_, and there Max was received by a
lieutenant, older than most of the men of that rank in the English or
American armies. Something in his manner made Max wonder if the officer
had been told of him and his intention by Colonel DeLisle. At first he
put only the perfunctory questions which a man entering the wide-open
gate of the Legion may answer as he chooses. But when in its turn came
an inquiry as to the recruit's profession, the officer looked at Max
sharply yet with sympathy.
"No profession," was the answer; a true one, for Max's resignation had
already taken effect.
"At present, but--in the past?" the lieutenant encouraged him kindly.
"If you have military experience, you can rise quickly in the Legion."
For good or ill, Max stuck to yesterday's resolve, knowing that he might
be weak enough to regret it, and anxious therefore to make it
irrevocable. "I have done some military service," he explained, "enough
to help me learn my duties as a soldier quickly."
"Ah, well, no more on that subject, then!" and the lieutenant sighed
audibly. "Yet it is a pity, especially as you are of French birth and
parentage, though brought up in America. Your chance of promotion
would--but let us hope that by good luck something may happen to give
you the chance in any case. Who knows but both your countries may be
proud of you some day? Is there--nothing you would care to tell me about
yourself that might enable me to advise you later?"
"Nothing with which it is necessary to trouble you, my Lieutenant."
"_Bien!_ It remains then only for you to be examined by the _medecin
major_. You have nothing to fear from his report. _Au contraire!_"
In an adjoining room two men were already waiting the arrival of the
doctor, who was due in a few minutes. One, evidently a Frenchman, with a
dark, dissipated face, volunteered the information that he was a
chauffeur, whose master had discharged him without notice on account of
an "unavoidable accident" at a small town within walking distance of
Sidi-bel Abbés. The other, a blond boy who looked not a day over
sixteen, announced that he was an Alsatian who had come to Algeria as a
waiter in a restaurant car, on purpose to join the Legion, and escape
military service as a German. "I shall serve my five years, and become a
French subject," he said joyously. "Take hold of my arm. Not bad, is it,
for biceps? For what age would you take me?"
"Seventeen," replied Max, adding a year to his real guess.
But it was not enough. The girlish face blushed up to the lint-coloured
hair, cut _en brosse_. "I call myself eighteen," said the child. "Don't
you think the doctor will believe me when he feels my muscle?"
"I think he'll give you the benefit of the doubt," Max assured him,
smiling.
"No trouble about _my_ age!" exulted the chauffeur. "I am twenty-seven."
He looked ten years older. But a recruit for the Legion may take the age
as well as the name he likes best, provided the _medecin major_ be not
too critical.
Both his companions were keenly curious concerning Max, and considered
themselves aggrieved that, after their frankness, he should choose to be
reserved. They put this down to pride. But the Legion would take it out
of him! All men were equal there. They had heard that among other
things.
Before the stream of questions had run dry through lack of
encouragement, the door was thrown open, and in walked the doctor, a
big, jovial man, accompanied by the middle-aged lieutenant who had shown
interest in Max, and a weary-faced clerk plunged in gloom by a bad cold
in the head. As they entered, the two officers looked at Max, and
glanced quickly at each other. They had evidently been speaking of him.
But his examination was left till the last. The chauffeur of
"twenty-seven" and the waiter of "eighteen" were passed as physically
fit--_bon pour le service_: and then came the turn of the third recruit,
whose pale blue silk underclothing brought a slight twinkle to the eye
of the jolly _medecin major_. Max wished that it had occurred to him to
buy something cheaper and less noticeable. But it was too late to think
of that now. At all events, he was grateful for the tact and
consideration which had given him the last turn.
"Magnifique!" exclaimed the doctor, when he had pinched and pounded Max,
sounded heart and lungs, and squeezed his biceps. "Here we have an
athlete." And he exchanged another glance with the lieutenant.
The clerk scribbled industriously and sadly in his book, as Max dressed
himself again; and the ordeal was over. When the third recruit of the
day had been given a paper, first to read, and then to sign with his new
name, his contract for five years to serve the Republic of France was
made and completed. Maxime St. George was a soldier of the Legion.
He, with the ex-chauffeur and the ex-waiter, was marched by a corporal
through a small side gate into the barrack square; and the guard,
sitting on a bench by the guardhouse, honoured the newcomers with a
stare. The chauffeur and the waiter got no more than a passing glance,
but all eyes, especially those of the sergeant of the guard, focussed on
Max. Apparently it was not every day that the little gate beside the
great gate opened for a gentleman recruit. Max realized again that he
was conspicuous, and resigned himself to the inevitable. This was the
last time he need suffer. In a few minutes the uniform of the Legion
would make him a unit among other units, and there would be nothing to
single him out from the rest. He would no longer have even a name that
mattered. In losing his individuality he would become a number. But for
a moment he felt like a new arrival in a Zoo: an animal of some rare
species which drew the interest of spectators away from luckier beasts
of commoner sorts.
The trio of recruits stood together in an unhappy group, awaiting orders
from the regimental offices; and the news of their advent must have run
ahead of them with magic speed, swiftly as news travels in the desert,
for everywhere along the front of the yellow buildings surrounding the
square, windows flew open, heads of soldiers peered out, and voices
shouted eagerly: "_Voilà les bleus!_" There were only three newcomers,
and the arrival of recruits in the barrack square was an everyday
spectacle; but something to gaze at was better than nothing at all. Men
in fatigue uniform of spotless white, their waists wound round with wide
blue sashes, came running up to see the sight, before _les bleus_ should
be marched away and lose their value as objects of interest by donning
soldier clothes. Max recalled the day of his début at West Point, a
humble, modest "Pleb." This huge, gravelled courtyard, surrounded on
three sides by tall, many-windowed barracks, and shut away from the Rue
de Tlemcen by high iron railings, had no resemblance to the cadets'
barracks of gray stone; but the emotions of the "Pleb" and of the
recruit to the Legion were curiously alike. The same thought presented
itself to the soldier that had wisely counselled the new cadet. "I must
take it all as it comes, and keep my temper unless some one insults me.
Then--well, I'll have to make myself respected now or never."
"_Les bleus! Voilà les bleus!_" was the cry from every quarter: and
discipline not being the order of the moment for Legionnaires off duty,
young soldiers and old soldiers gathered round, making such remarks as
occurred to them, witty or ribald. _Les bleus_ were fair game.
As a schoolboy, Max had read in some book that, in the time of Napoleon
First, French recruits had been nicknamed "les bleus" because of the
asphyxiating high collars which had empurpled their faces with a
suffusion of blood. Little had he dreamed in committing that fact to
memory that one day the name would be applied to him! Thinking thus, he
smiled between amusement and bitterness; but the smile died as a voice
whispered in his ear: "For God's sake don't sell your clothes to the
Jews. Keep them for me. I'll get hold of them somehow."
The voice spoke in French. Max turned quickly, and could not resist a
slight start at seeing close to his, the face which had seized his
attention days ago in the railway station.
The man who had then been dressed in dusty black was now a soldier of
the Legion, in white fatigue uniform, like all the rest: but the dark
face and night-black eyes had the same arresting, tragic appeal. After
this whisper, the Legionnaire drew back, his look asking for an answer
by nod or shake of the head. Max caught the idea instantly. "By jove!
the fellow has made up his mind to desert already!" he thought. "Why? He
hasn't the air of a slacker."
There was no language he could choose in this group made up from a dozen
countries, which might not be understood by one or all. The only thing
was to trust to the other's quickness of comprehension, as the speaker
had trusted to his. He held out his hand, exclaiming: "_C'est vous, mon
ami! Quel chance!_"
The ruse was understood. His handclasp was returned with meaning. Every
one supposed that _le bleu_ of four days ago and _le bleu_ of to-day
were old acquaintances who had found each other unexpectedly.
There was no chance for private speech. A quick fire of interrogation
volleyed at the three recruits, especially at Max. "Are you French? Are
you German? Are you from Switzerland--Alsace--Belgium--Italy--England?"
Questions spattered round the newcomers like a rain of bullets, in as
many languages as the countries named, and Max amused himself by
answering in the same, whenever he was able.
"How many tongues have you stowed in that fly-trap of yours, my child?"
inquired a thin, elderly Legionnaire with a long nose and clever,
twinkling eyes. No nation but Holland could have produced that face, and
it was unnecessary that the speaker should introduce himself as a
Dutchman. "Fourteen years have I served France in the Legion. I have
been to Madagascar and Tonkin. Everywhere I have found myself the
champion of languages, which is only natural, for I was translator in
the State Department at home--a long while ago. But if you can speak
eleven you will get the championship over me. I have only as many
tongues as I have fingers."
"You beat me by six," laughed Max, and the jealous frown faded.
"Encore un champion!" gayly announced the round-faced youth who had
jocosely asked Max if he were a Belgian. "Voilà notre joli heros,
Pelle."
"Quatro oyos" ("Four Eyes") added a Spaniard. "Papa van Loo can beat you
with his tongue; Four Eyes beats with his fists."
Sauntering toward _les bleus_, with the manner of a big dog who deigns
to visit a little one, came a man of average height but immense girth.
His great beardless face was so hideous, so startling, that Max gaped at
him rudely, lost in horror. Nose and lips had been partly cut away. The
teeth and gums showed in a ghastly, perpetual grin. But as if this were
not enough to single him out among a thousand, a pair of black,
red-rimmed eyes had been tattooed on the large forehead, just above a
bushy, auburn line overhanging the eyes which nature had pushed deeply
in between protruding cheek and frontal bones.
"Good heavens!" Max blurted out aloud; and the Dutchman cackled with
laughter. "You're no Frenchman, boy!" he loudly asserted in English.
"Now we've got at your own jargon. Go away, Mister Pelle, you're
frightening our British baby. Or is it Yankee?"
An angry answer jumped to the tip of Max's tongue, but he bit it back.
So this living corpse was Pelle, the champion boxer of the Legion, who
would fight the Frenchman!
The new recruit was ashamed of the sick spasm of disgust that closed his
throat. He felt that it was a sign of raw youth and amateurishness, as
when a medical student faints at first sight of the dissecting table. He
feared that his face had betrayed him to these soldiers, many of whom
had hardened their nerves on battlefields. Somehow he must justify
himself, and force respect from the men who greeted Van Loo's cheap wit
with an appreciative roar.
Pelle was the only one who did not laugh. He came lumbering along in
silence as if he had not heard; but Max saw that the boxer was aiming
straight for him. The newly christened St. George stood still, waiting
to see what the dragon would do. Within three feet of the recruit the
hero of the Legion came to a stop and looked the slim figure in civilian
clothes slowly over from head to foot, as Goliath may sarcastically have
studied the points of David. The whole group was hypnotized, enchanted,
each man in white praying that it might be five minutes yet before the
corporal returned to shepherd his three lambs. Much can happen in five
minutes. Battles can be won or lost! and at anything Pelle might do,
under provocation, the powers that were would wink. Not an officer below
the colonel but had money on the match which was to come off in the
barrack square to-morrow.
All four eyes of Quatro Oyos seemed to stare at the insignificant shrimp
of a recruit. Max had but two eyes with which to return the compliment,
but he made the most of them. Pelle was not only hideous: he was
formidable. The big square head and ravaged face were set on a strong
throat. Chest and shoulders were immense, the arms too long, the
slightly bowed legs too short. Up went a sledgehammer hand, coated with
red hair, to scratch the heavy jowl contemplatively, and Max thought of
a gorilla.
"So you don't think I'm pretty, eh?" the boxer challenged him, and Max
started with surprise at sound of the Cockney accent, which came with a
hissing sound from the defaced mouth. Pelle was an Englishman!
The start was misunderstood, not only by the champion of the Legion, but
by the surrounding Legionnaires, who tittered.
"Sorry if I was rude," remarked Max, with an air of nonchalance, to show
that he was ready for anything.
"That's no way to apologize," said Pelle. "Don't look at me like that.
You'll have to learn better manners in the Legion."
"A cat may look at a king," retorted the recruit. "And as for manners, I
won't ask you to teach them to me."
"Why, you damned little Yankee spy, do you want to be pinched between my
thumb and finger as if you was a flea?" bellowed the boxer.
"Try it, and you'll find the flea can bite before he's pinched," said
Max. His heart was thumping, for despite his knowledge of _la boxe_ he
knew that he might be pounded into a jelly in another minute. This man
was a heavyweight. He was a lightweight. But whatever happened he would
show himself game; and at that instant nothing else seemed much to
matter.
Somewhat to his surprise, Pelle burst out laughing. "Hark to the
bantam!" he exclaimed in French--execrable French, but a proof that he
was no newcomer in the Legion. "If you weren't a newspaper spy, my
chicken, I'd let you off for your cheek. But we have heard all about
you. Lieutenant de la Tour of the Spahis knows. He's told every one. It
doesn't take long for news to get to the Legion. I'm going to teach you
not to write lies about us for your damned papers. We get enough from
Germany. So I shall make chicken jelly of you. See!"
"All right. Come on!" said Max, more cheerfully than he felt. For his
one chance was in his youth and the method he had learned from the
lightweight champion of the world.
A ring formed on the instant, to screen as well as to see the spectacle.
Here would be no rounds timed by an official, no seconds to encourage or
revive their men. The encounter, such as it was, would be primitive and
savage, asking no quarter and giving none. But Max felt that his whole
future in the Legion depended on its issue.