THE FOREIGN LEGION
It was midday at Sidi Bel-Abbes in Algeria. Two French officers were
sitting in front of a cafe at the wide cross-roads in the centre of
the town. One of them was Captain Tavernay, a man of forty-seven,
tall, thin, with a brown face worn and tired by the campaigns of
thirty years, the other a young lieutenant, M. Laurent, fresh and
pink, who seemed to hare been passed out but yesterday from the school
of St. Cyr. Captain Tavernay picked up his cap from the iron table in
front of him and settled it upon his grizzled head. Outside the town
trees clustered thickly, farms were half-hidden amongst groves of
fig-trees and hedges of aloes. Here there was no foliage. The streets
were very quiet, the sunlight lay in dazzling pools of gold upon the
sand of the roads, the white houses glittered under a blue, cloudless
sky. In front of the two officers, some miles away, the bare cone of
Jebel Tessalah sprang upwards from a range of hills dominating the
town, and a speck of white upon its shoulder showed where a village
perched. Captain Tavernay sat looking out towards the mountain with
the lids half-closed upon his eyes. Then he rose deliberately from his
chair.
"If we walk to the station," he said, "we shall just meet the train
from Oran. A batch of thirty recruits is coming in by it. Let us walk
to the station, Laurent."
Lieutenant Laurent dropped the end of his cigarette on to the ground
and stood up reluctantly.
"As you will, Captain," he answered. "But we should see the animals
soon enough at the barracks."
The words were spoken in a voice which was almost, and with a shrug of
the shoulders which was quite, contemptuous. The day was hot, and
Lieutenant Laurent unwilling to move from his coffee and the shade
into that burning sunlight. Captain Tavernay gazed mildly at his
youthful junior. Long experience had taught him to leave much to time
and little to argument. For himself he loved his legionaries. He had a
smile of indulgence for their faults even while he punished them; and
though his face seldom showed the smile, and his punishments were not
unjustly light, the culprits none the less knew it was there, hidden
somewhere close to his heart. But then he had seen his men in action,
and Lieutenant Laurent had not. That made all the difference. The
Foreign Legion certainly did not show at its best in a cantonment.
Amongst that motley assemblage--twelve thousand men, distinct in
nationality as in character, flung together pell-mell, negroes and
whites, criminals, adventurers, silent unknown men, haunted by
memories of other days or tortured by remorse--a garrison town with
its monotony and its absinthe played havoc. An Abyssinian rubbed
shoulders in the ranks with a scholar who spoke nine languages; a
tenor from the Theatre de la Monnaie at Brussels with an unfrocked
priest. Often enough Captain Tavernay had seen one of his legionaries
sitting alone hour after hour at his little table outside a cafe,
steadily drinking glass after glass of absinthe, rising mechanically
to salute his officer, and sinking back among his impenetrable
secrets. Was he dreaming of the other days, the laughter and the
flowers, the white shoulders of women? Was he again placing that last
stake upon the red which had sent him straight from the table to the
nearest French depot? Was he living again some tragic crisis of love
in which all at once he had learned that he had been befooled and
derided? Captain Tavernay never passed such a man but he longed to sit
down by his side and say, "My friend, share your secret with me; so
will it be easier to bear." But the etiquette of the Foreign Legion
forbade. Captain Tavernay merely returned the salute and passed on,
knowing that very likely his legionary would pass the night in the
guard-room and the next week in the cells. No; the town of Sidi
Bel-Abbes was not the place wherein to learn the mettle of the
legionary. Away to the south there, beyond the forest of trees on the
horizon's line, things were different. Let Lieutenant Laurent see the
men in their bivouacs at night under the stars, and witness their
prowess under arms, _ces animaux_ would soon become _mes enfants_.
Therefore he answered Lieutenant Laurent in the mildest voice.
"We shall see them at the barracks, it is true. But you are wrong when
you say that it will be soon enough. At the barracks they will be
prepared for us, they will have their little stories ready for us,
they will be armed with discretion. But let us see them descend from
the train, let us watch their first look round at their new home,
their new fatherland. We may learn a little, and if it is ever so
little it will help us to know them the better afterwards. And at the
worst it will be an amusing exercise in psychology."
They walked away from the cafe, and strolled down the Rue de Mascara
under the shady avenue of trees, Tavernay moving with a long, indolent
stride, which covered a deal of ground with a surprising rapidity,
Laurent fidgeting along discontentedly at his side. M. Laurent was
beginning, in fact, to regret the hurry with which he had sought a
commission in the Foreign Legion. M. Laurent had, a few months ago, in
Paris, imagined himself to be irrevocably in love with the wife of one
of his friends, a lady at once beautiful and mature; M. Laurent had
declared his passion upon a suitable occasion; M. Laurent had been
snubbed for his pains; M. Laurent in a fit of pique had sought the
consolation of another climate and foreign service; and M. Laurent was
now quickly realising that he was not nearly so heartbroken as he had
fancied himself to be. Already while he walked to the station he was
thinking that, after all, Paris was endurable, even though one
particular woman could not refrain from a little smile of amusement
when he crossed her path.
Captain Tavernay had timed their walk accurately. For as they reached
the station the train was signalled.
"Let us stand here, behind these cases," said Tavernay. "We shall see
and not be seen."
In a few moments the train moved slowly in and stopped. From the
furthermost carriage the detachment descended, and, following a
_sous-officier_ in the uniform of the Legion, walked towards the cases
behind which Tavernay and his companion were concealed. In front came
two youths, fair of complexion and of hair, dressed neatly, well shod,
who walked with a timidity of manner as though they expected to be
questioned and sent packing.
"Who can they be?" asked Laurent. "They are boys."
"Yet they will give their age as eighteen," replied Tavernay, and his
voice trembled ever so slightly; "and we shall ask no questions."
"But they bear no marks of misery. They are not poor. Whence can they
come?" Laurent repeated.
"I can tell you that," said Tavernay. He was much moved. He spoke with
a deep note of reverence. "They come from Alsace or Lorraine. We get
many such. They will not serve Germany. At all costs they _will_ serve
France."
Lieutenant Laurent was humbled. Here was a higher motive than pique,
here was a devotion which would not so quickly tire of discipline and
service. He gazed with a momentary feeling of envy at these two youths
who insisted, at so high a price, on being his compatriots.
"You see," said Tavernay, with a smile, "it was worth while to come to
the station and see the recruits arrive, even on so hot a day as
this."
"Yes," replied Laurent; and then "look!"
Following the two youths walked a man tall and powerful, with the
long, loose stride of one well versed in sports. He held his head
erect, and walked defiantly, daring you to question him. His hands
were long and slender, well-kept, unused to labour, his face aquiline
and refined. He looked about thirty-five years old. He wore a light
overcoat of a fine material, which hung open, and underneath the
overcoat he was attired in evening dress. It was his dress which had
riveted Laurent's attention; and certainly nothing could have seemed
more bizarre, more strangely out of place. The hot African sun poured
down out of a cloudless sky; and a new recruit for the Foreign Legion
stepped out of a railway carriage as though he had come straight from
a ball-room. What sudden disaster could have overtaken him? In what
tragedy had he borne a part? Even Laurent's imagination was stimulated
into speculation. As the man passed him, Laurent saw that his tie was
creased and dusty, his shirt-front rumpled and soiled. That must needs
have been. At some early hour on a spring morning, some four or
five days ago, this man must have rushed into the guard-room of a
barrack-square in some town of France. Laurent turned to Tavernay
eagerly--
"What do you make of him?"
Tavernay shrugged his shoulders.
"A man of fashion, who has made a fool of himself. They make good
soldiers as a rule."
"But he will repent!"
"He has already had the time, and he has not. There is no escort for
recruits until they reach Marseilles. Suppose that he enlisted in
Paris. He is given the fare. At any station between Paris and
Marseilles he could have got out and returned."
The man in evening-dress walked on. There were dark shadows under his
eyes, the eyes themselves were sombre and alert.
"We shall know something of him soon," said Tavernay. He watched his
recruit with so composed an air that Laurent cried out--
"Can nothing astonish you?"
"Very little," answered Tavernay, phlegmatically. "Listen, my friend.
One day, some years ago, a captain of Hussars landed at Oran. He came
to Bel-Abbes with a letter of introduction to me. He stayed with me.
He expressed a wish to see my men on parade. I turned them out. He
came to the parade-ground and inspected them. As he passed along the
ranks he suddenly stopped in front of an old soldier with fifteen
years' service in the Legion, much of which fifteen years had been
passed in the cells. The old soldier was a drunkard--oh, but a
confirmed drunkard. Well, in front of this man my young Captain with
the curled moustaches stopped--stopped and turned very pale. But he
did not speak. My soldier looked at him respectfully, and the Captain
continued his inspection. Well, they were father and son--that is all.
Why should anything astonish me?" and Captain Tavernay struck a match
and lighted a cigarette.
The match, however, attracted attention to the presence of the
officers. Four men who marched, keeping time with their feet and
holding their hands stiffly at their sides, saw the flame and remarked
the uniforms. Their hands rose at once to the salute.
"Ah! German deserters," said Tavernay. "They fight well."
Others followed, men in rags and out of shoe-leather, outcasts and
fugitives; and behind them came one who was different. He was tall and
well-knit, with a frank open face, not particularly intellectual,
on the other hand not irretrievably stupid. He was dressed in a
double-breasted, blue-serge suit, and as he walked he now and then
gave a twist to his fair moustache, as though he were uneasy and
embarrassed. Captain Tavernay ran his eyes over him with the look of a
connoisseur.
"Aha!" said he, with a chuckle of satisfaction. "The true legionary!
Hard, finely trained, he has done work too. Yes! You see, Laurent, he
is a little ashamed, a little self-conscious. He feels that he is
looking a fool. I wonder what nationality he will claim."
"He comes from the North," said Lament. "Possibly from Normandy."
"Oh, I know what he is," returned Tavernay. "I am wondering only what
he will claim to be. Let us go outside and see."
Tavernay led the way to the platform. Outside, in front of the
station, the _sous-officier_ marshalled his men in a line. They looked
a strange body of men as they stood there, blinking in the strong
sunlight. The man in the ruffled silk hat and the dress-suit toed the
line beside a bundle of rags; the German deserters rubbed elbows with
the "true legionary" in the blue serge. Those thirty men represented
types of almost all the social grades, and to a man they were seeking
the shelter of anonymity in that monastery of action, the Foreign
Legion.
"Answer to your names," said the _sous-officier_, and from a paper in
his hand he began to read. The answers came back, ludicrous in their
untruth. A French name would be called.
"Montaubon."
And a German voice replied--
"Present."
"Ohlsen," cried the _sous-officier_, and no answer was given.
"Ohlsen," he repeated sharply. "Is not Ohlsen here?"
And suddenly the face of the man in the serge suit flashed, and he
answered hurriedly--
"Present."
Even the _sous-officier_ burst into a laugh. The reason for the pause
was too obvious; "Ohlsen" had forgotten that Ohlsen was now his name.
"My lad, you must keep your ears open," said the _sous-officier_.
"Now, attention. Fours right. March!"
And the detachment marched off towards the barracks.
"Ohlsen," said Tavernay, and he shrugged his shoulders. "Well, what
does it matter? Come!"
"Ohlsen" was Tony Stretton, and all the way along the Rue Daya to the
barracks he was longing for the moment when he would put on the
uniform and cease to figure ridiculously in this grotesque procession.
None the less he had to wait with the others, drawn up in the
barrack-square until Captain Tavernay returned. The Captain went to
his office, and thither the recruits were marched. One by one they
entered in at the door, answered his questions, and were sent off to
the regimental tailor. Tony Stretton was the last.
"Name?" asked Tavernay.
"Hans Ohlsen."
"Town of enlistment?"
"Marseilles."
Tavernay compared the answers with some writing on a sheet of paper.
"Yes, Marseilles. Passed by the doctor Paul as sound of body. Yes,"
and he resumed his questions.
"Nationality?"
"Swede."
Captain Tavernay had a smattering of most languages, and he was
greatly inclined to try his new recruit with a few questions in the
Swedish tongue. But the etiquette of the Legion forbade. He went on
without a smile--
"Age?"
"Thirty."
"Vocation?"
"Fisherman."
Captain Tavernay looked up. This time he could not help smiling.
"Well, it is as good as any other," said he; and suddenly there was a
sound of cries, and three soldiers burst out of a narrow entrance on
the further side of the parade-ground and came running across the
square to the Captain's quarters. Both Tavernay and Stretton looked
through the door. There was not a tree in that great square; the
sunlight poured down upon the bare brown space with a blinding
fierceness. All the recruits but Stretton had marched off; a second
ago it had been quite empty and very silent. Now these three men were
hurrying across it, shouting, gesticulating with their hands. Stretton
looked at them with surprise. Then he noticed that one of them, the
man running in the middle and a little ahead of the others, carried a
revolver in his hand and brandished it. Moreover, from the look of his
inflamed face, he was shouting threats; the others were undoubtedly
shouting warnings. Scraps of their warnings came to Stretton's ears.
"Mon Capitaine!" "Il veut vous tuer!" "Rentrez!" They were straining
every muscle to catch the threatening soldier up.
Stretton strode to the door, and a voice behind him cried--
"Halt!"
It was Tavernay who was speaking.
"But he is already halfway across the square."
"Halt!"
And there was no disobeying the command. Captain Tavernay walked to
the door.
"A Spanish corporal whom yesterday I degraded to the ranks," said he.
"Half a pint of _aguardiente_, and here's the result."
Captain Tavernay stepped out of the door and leisurely advanced
towards the running men. He gave an order, he raised his hand, and the
two soldiers who warned him fell back and halted. Certainly Captain
Tavernay was accustomed to obedience. The Spanish ex-corporal ran on
alone, straight towards Tavernay, but as he ran, as he saw the officer
standing there alone, quietly waiting his onslaught, his threats
weakened, his pace slackened. He came to a stop in front of Tavernay.
"I must kill yon!" he cried, waving his revolver.
"Yon shall kill me from behind, then," said Tavernay, calmly. "Follow
me!" And he turned round, and with the same leisurely deliberation
walked back to his room. The ex-corporal hesitated and--obeyed. He
followed Captain Tavernay into the room where Stretton stood.
"Place your revolver on the table."
The Spaniard again obeyed. Tavernay pushed open the door of an inner
room.
"You are drunk," he said. "You must not be seen in this condition by
your fellow-soldiers. Go in and lie down!"
The Spaniard stared at his officer stupidly, tottering upon his limbs.
Then he staggered into the Captain's room. Tavernay turned back to
Stretton and a ghost of a smile crept into his face.
"_C'est du theater_," he said, with a little shrug of the shoulders.
"But what would you have, monsieur?" And he spoke to Stretton as to
an equal. "You are astonished. It is very likely not your way in
your-fishing-boats," he continued, with a chuckle. Stretton knew very
well that he meant "army." "But there is no Foreign Legion amongst
your--fishermen." He laughed again; and gathering up his papers
dismissed Stretton to the tailor's. But after Stretton had taken a few
steps across the parade, Tavernay called him back again. He looked at
him with a very friendly smile.
"I, too, enlisted at Marseilles," he said. "One can rise in the
Foreign Legion by means of these"--and he touched lightly the medals
upon his breast. This was Tony Stretton's introduction to the Foreign
Legion.