L'AFRIQUE
Transport of recruits on the railway : What our ticket did for us and
France : The patriotic conductor : Marseilles : The gate of the French
Colonies : The Colonial hotel : A study in blue and yellow : On the
Mediterranean : The ship's cook : The story of the Royal Prince of
Prussia at Saida : Oran : Wine and légionnaires : How the deserter
reached Spain and why he returned
Next morning we assembled on the parade-ground. A sergeant distributed
silver pieces amongst us, a franc for each man, that being the meagre
subsistence allowance given us for the long voyage to the
Mediterranean. Besides, each man was given a loaf of bread.
Then a corporal marched us to the railway station. The loaf of bread
under my arm prompted me to look persistently at the ground. I was
afraid of reading in the eyes of the passers-by wonder, surprise, or,
worse still, compassion.
The corporal took us to the Marseilles train, gave us his blessing,
smoked a cigarette, and waited patiently until the train started. We
travelled alone. But France ran no danger of losing her recruits on the
way. The fact that we were intended for the Foreign Legion was written
on our military ticket in howling big red letters. The conductor
watched with great care. He was a Frenchman and a patriot and had his
suspicions that these new sons of France might have the perfidy to
break faith and leave the train at some place other than Marseilles. He
therefore kept a sharp look-out--occupying a good strategic position
right in front of our car--whenever the train stopped at stations. The
thing would have been impossible, anyway; with that ticket one could
never have passed the platform barriers. Said Herr von Rader: "They
know all about their business. We are just little flies, don't you see,
sonny, and this fine invention of a ticket is the thread wound about
our little legs. We're prisoners, brother mine!"
When we left the train at Marseilles, we saw our patriotic conductor
run along the platform, signalling excitedly to a sergeant at the gate.
"I've got them! Here they are!" was the meaning of this human
semaphore. The conductor was a taxpayer and took good care that France
should receive her dues.
The sergeant and a corporal received us lovingly. The corporal took
charge and marched us through the town, while the sergeant trotted
along the sidewalk at a respectful distance. Without doubt he had no
desire that any one should connect him with us. He was quite right. We
did not look pretty and the night on the train had not enhanced what
little beauty we may originally have possessed.
Along the immense water-front of the port of Marseilles we marched; in
the midst of a swarming throng of men, amongst a cosmopolitan human
machine in full working blast. Past Arabs carrying heavy burdens and
fat Levantines lazily strolling about, surrounded by Frenchmen of the
south, always gesticulating, ever talking. Ship lay by ship. Elegant
steam yachts were moored alongside of unkempt tramp-steamers, whose
neglected appearance told of the troubles of money-making on the high
seas. There were Levantine barques with funny round sails, whose crews
were dressed in flannel shirts of two exclusive colours: a screaming
red and a howling blue. Sailing-ships of some hundred different rigs
lay there in line, enormous elevators discharged their unceasing flow
of grain, and a colossal swivel bridge hung high in the air on her
single pillar, seeming to defy all laws of gravitation.
Casks, barrels, boxes, sacks went flying through the air, past our
noses, shoved, pushed, thrown, bundled about, propelled by the heavy
fists of men who apparently could not work without a tremendous amount
of yelling and screaming. Surely the combined noises of fifteen large
cities cannot equal the hellish babel of Marseilles' water-front.
We had to walk more than an hour before we reached the little fort,
once the nucleus of Marseilles' harbour defence, whose sole purpose now
is that of a gate through which to pass recruits for the colonial
armies of France. Fort St. Jean it is called. Over the mediæval
drawbridge of the fort we marched. An enormous oaken door was opened by
a couple of sentries. As we entered, a volley of whistles and yells
greeted us--the salute for the new légionnaires of France. On the
time-worn pavement of the courtyard were crowded in a dense mass the
soldiers of the African corps who were waiting for the next troopship.
Spahis and Zouaves and Tirailleurs, who crowded round us like a swarm
of bees.
"Oh, la la, les bleus pour la Légion!" (Here are the blues for the
Legion.)
"Why are we called blues?" I asked a Spahi corporal who happened to
stand near me.
"Blues?" he said. "Oh, well, that means recruits. Officially recruits
are called 'les jeunes soldats,' young soldiers, but in the army we say
the blues."
"Wonder what it means," I said.
The corporal lit a new cigarette and explained: "The origin of the name
is uncertain. My captain told me once that it represented an old army
tradition from Napoleonic times. The soldiers of Napoleon wore very
stiff cravats to give shape to the high collars of their uniforms.
These cravats are said to have been torture. They held the head like a
vice, and it took a long time to get used to them. The recruits
actually got blue in the face with these cravats round their necks, to
the immense amusement of the old soldiers, who made fun of them: Aha,
the blues--look at the blues!"
Herr von Rader (in my memory he always figures as "Herr von Rader")
gave me a nudge:
"Say, old chap, take a look at the fellows with the colossal pants!"
The Spahis were at their toilette, arranging their spacious red
trousers in picturesque folds. Herr von Rader looked at them with great
wonder.
"My soul--what waste! Why, it's astonishing. Out of a single pair of
these pants I could make pants for a whole family and have a fine skirt
left for my grandmother!"
Then came the Spahi's sashes. Two men helped each other at this
important part of their toilet. One Spahi would fasten the blue sash,
seven feet in length, and about half a yard in breadth, to his hip, and
turn quickly about while his comrade held the other end, keeping the
sash tight and tense until his brother-in-arms was rolled up in it. The
Spahis seemed to attach great importance to the sit of their sashes,
smoothing and tightening and re-tightening them with amusing coquetry.
The great gloomy courtyard was one mass of soldiers. From a gallery a
non-commissioned officer read off a string of names from a pay-roll,
and in squads the soldiers went up the stairs to receive their
travelling allowance. We recruits stood in a corner, not knowing what
to do or whom to report ourselves to. Finally a corporal exhorted us to
go to the devil. We were in the way. It would not be our turn for a
long time. We could wait, we should wait, being nasty recruits, blues,
nom de Dieu. Mumbling further things descriptive of how he despised
blues he went off. Then came soldiers, carrying on boards long rows of
little tin bowls. The Spahis and Zouaves crowded at once round the
steaming pots, but Herr von Rader hurled himself in the fray, and
captured portions for all of us. It was thus that I made the
acquaintance of "la gamelle," the venerable tin eating bowl of the
French army, baptized "la gamelle" centuries ago. I was tasting for the
first time the soup of the French army, a mixture of bread and
greenstuffs and small pieces of meat. The cooking of this soup was an
ancient, time-honoured custom. The musketeers of Louis XIV., of
Cardinal Richelieu and Cardinal Mazarin prepared their soup in the very
same fashion.
Lounging about the place we came to the canteen of this curious army
hotel, and made our way through a labyrinth of wine-casks, which were
massed in front of the little door. There was an awful din inside. We
sat down at one of the long tables and were served with the French army
wine at fifteen centimes a bottle. Good wine, too, but it was
impossible to enjoy it quietly, the Lord of the Canteen, a fat little
man with greedy eyes, being eager for business--second-hand clothes
business.
He pestered us unceasingly with his offers and demands. Herr von Rader
sold his boots for half a franc, after a great deal of haggling, since
he wanted the half-franc badly, but objected to going barefooted. The
owner of the canteen, however (who evidently thought the buying of good
boots at half a franc a good thing), solved the difficulty. Out of some
corner he conjured a pair of shoes such as the French Zouaves wear.
Although they were in a bad state of dilapidation, Herr von Rader
figured out that four bottles of wine could be exchanged for fifty
centimes, and the boots changed owners....
Of my possessions, the fat man desired my overcoat. He complimented me
on my overcoat. An exceedingly beautiful overcoat--such an overcoat as
a poor man like he, the fat man, would be very glad to have. When I
entered the Legion I would have to sell it and I would be sure not to
get more than two francs for it. He would give me four. I never would
get as much as that in Algeria, he said. Half an hour he talked to me
in the vain endeavour to talk me out of the overcoat. But the "poor
man" had a much too prosperous look about him. Moreover, a Zouave
whispered in my ear that the cochon of a canteen-keeper was getting
rich by his little "business." So I told him to go to a place which we
generally consider hot and disagreeable. Then the fat man tried it with
the others, and made excellent bargains. For a few copper pieces he
bought many things, for the twentieth part of their value, boots and
coats and pocket-books. The Swiss recruit even sold his trousers. He
got five sous for them. He got a pair of old French infantry trousers
into the bargain since he had to have some sort of compensation for
these very necessary garments. The fat man's greedy eyes had a happy
light in them and he bought whatever he could lay his hands on.
There was money to be made even out of the poor devils of recruits for
the Legion!
I preferred the open air. Leaving the wine and laughter behind me I
walked through the fort and climbed up to the bulwarks. The cannon had
vanished; where once they had been mounted there grew little tufts of
grass on the gravel. I was quiet and lonesome on the old battlements.
They commanded a view of the whole of Marseilles. The city and the port
were enveloped in a curious yellowish light, the bright yellow of the
South. Through a veil of yellow I saw the enormous massive
street-blocks of Lower Marseilles, and far away the little villas of
the suburbs, their flat roofs reflecting a multitude of colours, with
an ever-dominating leitmotiv of yellow. The harbour seemed far away and
its noises were dimly audible. The ship masts, the elevators, the
bridges looked tiny and delicate as the threads of a giant spider's
web.
South of my bulwark there was the ocean and peace. Between the walls of
St. Jean and the vis-à-vis, an ochre-coloured rocky promontory, there
was a stretch of deep blue water, of the most beautiful blue in all the
world.
Herr von Rader had followed me. He didn't say a word, but sat quietly
on the wall swaying to and fro, like a pendulum. From time to time he
spat to the whispering waters below. And how pleased he was when he
managed to hit a fisherman. But not a word he said.
Little I cared for Herr von Rader and his contempt of the world. What a
strange thing this ocean-bound fortress was! The mighty walls now
enclosed but an inn. The fort had been turned into an inn in its old
days. Its artillery had been sold for old iron long ago. It had ceased
to be a fighting machine. It was a resting-place, an hotel for the
recruits of France's colonial army to pass a day and a night until the
troopship carried them to Africa or French Indo-China or Madagascar.
Every day of the year the old fort received new guests--for a day and a
night. Many thousands of men had lodged in it....
Fort St. Jean was France's gate for her colonial soldiers. For a few
the gate to the Legion of Honour, for the majority the gate to
suffering and misery and sickness, to a nameless grave in the hot sands
of Africa.
I wondered whither my road would lead me, in what manner I should
perish....
* * * * *
The packet boat on which we were transported to Africa had left
Marseilles.
Holding my hands to my ears, so that I might not hear a French word or
a French sound and be reminded that I was a légionnaire, I stood in the
bows staring at the wonders of Marseilles. There were a number of
little islands wrapped in blue mist, playing hide-and-seek, until the
sun appeared. Now the game was over and the veil of mist disappeared.
The hills and the houses lay glorious in an ocean of colour. There was
a rocky island with an ancient gloomy castle. I knew it to be the
prison of Monte Christo, the great adventurer of the elder Dumas, and I
felt very much as the imprisoned Count of Monte Christo must have felt.
Marseilles disappeared. Ocean and sun arranged a wonderful play for a
poor devil of a légionnaire. Far out to sea the sun would try to catch
the little waves, throwing floods of brilliant light on pearly
cascading water. And then the little waves escaped again, amidst fun
and laughter, and ran off to inspect our ship. They struck the ship's
sides and seemed very much surprised that they were so solid. They said
so plainly enough, making a great deal of noise and fuss about it. But
they soon became good-humoured again and told the nicest stories about
fairy palaces of the deep and the peace of the ocean. Unthinkingly I
had taken my hands down, and heard my new comrades quarrelling amongst
themselves. The wine had not been fairly divided.
The spell was broken.
I recognised now well enough that I was standing on one of the lowest
steps of the world's ladder, but I had not expected contempt, disdain
and rough treatment to touch me so soon. The ship's cook began it.
"Nix comprends," cried the cook. The old packet of the "Compagnie des
Messageries Maritimes," on which we made the voyage across the
Mediterranean to Oran, had made a miserable bargain when hiring that
cook. The thing was called Jacques. It even answered occasionally to
its name if it felt like it. It was malicious, wondrously versed in
profanity, addicted to lying, and very filthy.
The first day there was nothing to eat for us until evening. At three
o'clock in the afternoon of the second day we were still waiting, very
hungry indeed, for our first meal, and I thought it time to have a talk
with Mr. Jacques. I told him that our board was paid for and that we
wanted something to eat. Quick, too.
The thing answered with a nicely chosen assortment of oaths. He swore
like a--well, like a man from Marseilles. He was pleased to inform me
that according to his opinion dirty légionnaires were expressly made to
do a lot of waiting. If he should happen to have spare time on his
hands, he might try and get something to eat for us. But he was not
quite sure whether or not he would have time!
Now this pleased me. I knew to a nicety how to arrange matters with
this thing.
"Well, my son," I said lovingly, "won't you please take a look at these
eight comrades of mine? They are Germans and cannot talk French. But
they are very good at smashing things. They're quite experts at that
sort of thing. See how they are looking at you? I rather think they are
going to beat you horribly."
"Allez donc!" remarked the cook dubiously. He seemed uneasy.
"They are Prussians. Very likely they'll kill you. I am going to help
them at it."
The cook took a look at me and a second look at the "Prussians." He was
rather pale and seemed to think that he was up against it. First he
cursed volubly, then he dived into his dark hole of a kitchen and
fetched out a tin filled with macaroni, a number of loaves of bread,
and a bucketful of wine--about a gallon. There were no knives, however,
exactly four forks for nine men, and one little drinking-cup.
The other day one of these packets foundered somewhere on the Algerian
coast. I sincerely hope it was the packet I crossed on, and that
Jacques the cook was drowned....
* * * * *
On the evening of the second day a visitor came to us from the
first-class part of the boat. He was a sergeant in the Foreign Legion
and ventured among the third-class passengers to have a look at his new
recruits. Being a Belgian, he could not talk German with them, and so I
had the honour of conversation with him for a couple of hours.
Yes, the Germans made fine soldiers, although they were very
thick-headed. Such an obstinate race! It would be best for me if I
foregathered with Frenchmen only in the Legion. My French needed
cultivating badly, said the sergeant. Then he ordered a bottle of wine
and talked about the Legion. Lies, mostly. One of his stories is worth
the telling however.
In 1880 a young German enlisted in the Legion. He was an excellent
soldier, spoke a brilliant French, and was considered a good fellow. A
detachment of the Legion, of which he was a member, was suddenly
attacked by Arabs near Saida. The commanding officer, a lieutenant, was
severely wounded, and all of the non-commissioned officers killed at
the first attack. Now the young German took command and led a furious
onslaught on the attacking Arabs, managing to hold out until help came.
Shot in the breast he was carried into camp, and the colonel of the
regiment gave his own Cross of the Legion of Honour to the dying man.
The young German asked the surgeon whether he had a chance of life. The
doctor said yes, of course. But, finally, the new Chevalier of the
Legion of Honour was told the truth and thereupon demanded a short
interview with his commanding officer.
Telegrams went flying between the little desert station and the capital
of Germany.... In the evening the légionnaire died. A week later a
veiled lady appeared in Saida to take the body to the Fatherland.
Chevaliers of the Legion of Honour escorted their dead comrade, and the
French flag covered the coffin. The young German had been a royal
prince of Prussia!
"Do you actually believe this yarn?" I asked the sergeant.
"It's an absolute fact!" said he, very serious and very much offended.
The same story was told me, with slight variations, many times in the
Legion. The "royal prince of Prussia" is part and parcel of the
unwritten history of the Legion, told from légionnaire to légionnaire,
and I have often wondered how much truth there may be in the legend.
Very likely the man of Saida had been a German aristocrat, the black
sheep of some good family, and in the course of time and telling the
Legion had made him a royal prince of Prussia.
* * * * *
Oran came in sight. Nine recruits promptly lined up on deck, staring
with wondering eyes at the land to whose shores destiny had sent them
to work and wage war for strangers, for a nation whose language even
they did not understand. Sandstone cliffs formed a rugged coast-line.
From their heights batteries were firing. The target was pontooned in
the sea at a distance of about 5000 yards from the shore. But the
columns of water thrown up by the bursting shrapnel never reached it.
The old sergeant shrugged his shoulders.
"I am not interested in any shooting but in ours," he said; "anyway, at
shooting with the old Lebel gun the Legion can beat any on earth."
He was at least loyal to his Legion, the old grey-haired sergeant, even
if he did tell so many lies....
The batteries were at any rate excellently masked. It was quite
impossible to detect their positions. Even when the old sergeant showed
me where they were mounted, I could see nothing. High up on the crags
the heavy cannon had been built in, behind little sandhills, flanked by
large rocks, the whole arrangement looking so very much like nature
that none could have suspected that it was artificial. The positions of
the guns were perfect.
We gained the harbour. Suddenly the cliffs opened out East and West,
leaving an enormous gap. Out jumped, as from a conjurer's box, the
fortress of Oran, a maze of flat-roofed houses on hilly ground. The
inner harbour was ridiculously small, just a little square, its room
quite taken up by twelve torpedo-boats, two small cruisers and half a
dozen merchant ships. We had hardly touched the pier when a corporal
jumped on board. The famous corporal of the French army, the
maid-of-all-work, the busy French corporal who attends to everything
and has more real work to do than all the officers of a company
together. He read off our names from a list and marched us off to
quarters.
It was a novel scene that met our gaze. Negroes, sparingly attired in
loin-cloth and red fez, hurried past in a strange shuffling quickstep,
carrying enormous loads on their heads; taciturn Arabs stood around,
wrapped from head to foot in white burnous-cloth; officers promenaded
with their women-folk and occasionally some fine lady would give us a
look of curiosity and compassion. A Spahi orderly galloped by on a
foaming horse and yelled in high amusement:
"Bonjour, les bleus!"
We were marched across the city square. The surroundings and houses had
nothing typical about them until we began to pass through little alleys
and byways, where naked black children were playing and rolling in the
dirt and filth.
Then the sand came. The fine African sand that plays such a rôle in a
légionnaire's life. But the road was an ideal road, hard as stone under
its sandy covering. A generation of légionnaires, now long dead, had
built this road leading to the barracks high up in the hills. The road
swept in mighty curves along the cliffs. After an hour of marching we
came to some very antiquated barracks. They were a counterpart of Fort
St. Jean in Marseilles, one of the military hostelries for the many men
needed to feed France's colonial stomach. In the courtyard a lieutenant
called the roll and seemed very much amused when the new French
soldiers answered to their names with a stentorian German: "Hier!"
We were assigned a nasty little hole of a room. A long wooden bench ran
along one side. The bare boards, fifteen feet long and six feet broad,
were to form our bed. There was a pitcher of water in one corner and a
pile of thin brown blankets lay in another. The earthen floor was
covered with half-smoked cigarettes and rubbish.
After dark I slipped out, glad indeed to leave the wooden bench. The
unventilated little hole was not good enough for a dog! I found a snug,
quiet little corner in the courtyard and lay down, wrapped in my
overcoat--for about five minutes. Then shadowy figures in the uniform
of the Legion paid me a visit.
Yes, a fine evening. Brilliant idea of mine, to sleep in the open air.
Filthy place, those quarters for recruits! Yes, nom d'un pétard! The
shadowy figures were old légionnaires, on special duty to keep the
barracks in order. Did I like the Algerian wine? They wanted to know. I
did not know anything about it? Impossible! Did I know that the price
of a "litre," of a full quart, was but four sous even up here on the
hills? Remarkably fine wine!
"It's a pity [described with a variety of choice epithets] that we
haven't the [here followed a similar ornate flow of oaths] four sous.
And the canteen isn't closed yet!"
Small wonder that then I made my first purchase in Africa. Several
bottles of wine.
... Somebody knocked at a door hard by, attracted by the jingling of
bottles presumably. The knocking was quite modest at first. Then it
became imperious.
"Who is it?" I asked.
"Oh, that's Reddy. He's thirsty, I suppose," said one of the
légionnaires. "He's in the lock-up."
My new friends seemed to regard "being in the lock-up" as the most
natural thing that could happen to a légionnaire. We all went to the
door of the cell. There was a small air-hole high up in the wall and
presently a hand holding a tin cup appeared.
"Fill up!" a gruff voice demanded.
One of the légionnaires climbed on another's shoulders and emptied the
contents of half a bottle into the tin cup.
"That's all right!" said the poor prisoner.
"What is he locked up for?" I wanted to know.
This the story.
In the Legion he was nicknamed Reddy, being the happy possessor of a
flaming head of red hair. Reddy was a veteran who had ten years of
service to his credit and knew well enough that he was no good for
anything in all the world except soldiering in the Legion. Ten years is
a long time. But, when he was sent to the lonely old barracks on the
Oran cliffs to play at housekeeping for recruits, a great desire for
liberty came upon him. For hours together he would stare at the ocean.
Finally he walked quietly down to the harbour on a fine evening and
took his pick amongst the fishermen's boats. He did not waste time in
considering whether or not the Arab proprietor of the chosen boat would
like his proceedings. Such things as boats' chains did not worry Reddy.
A large stone did the business. Reddy gave the boat a shove, hoisted
sail, and sailed joyfully away. Spain was not far, and luck was with
the deserter. In exactly seventeen hours the légionnaire reached the
Spanish coast. He had landed at a very desolate spot, but after hunting
about he managed to find fishermen's huts. Presently he was the guest
of rough coast Spaniards, who did not quite know what to make of the
man in red breeches. He got dried fish and nice clear water to live on.
Reddy had forgotten all about civilian life, but in his dreams of
freedom dried fish and water had not cut a special figure. He did not
like it. He changed his mind, however, when a pretty Spanish girl
appeared. The girl happened to be the wife of the man who had fed
Reddy. The légionnaire neither knew nor cared. He chatted with the girl
for an hour or so in a mixture of French and bits of Spanish and
sign-talk, enjoying himself well enough until the husband joined in the
conversation with a big knife. A gorgeous fight ensued. The other
fishermen assisted their friend and Reddy had a hard run for it. But he
reached his boat and got safely away, cursing freedom, Spain, and dried
fish. For some time he cruised about and finally decided definitely
that freedom was no good. In twenty-five hours he was back in Oran. The
Arabian fisherman (who had seen the boat coming and wanted to talk
things over) received a series of mighty kicks from Reddy in lieu of
payment. Then the disgusted deserter reported to his commanding
officer. He explained that he had jumped into the boat just for fun,
that a big wind--a horrible storm, sir--had torn the boat from its
chain and carried it out to sea. "Yes, sir, I nearly starved...."
The captain happened to be a man with a sense of humour and Reddy got
off with twenty days' imprisonment.
"Damned lucky fellow, that! It's a wonder that he was not sent to the
penal battalion. That means dying by inches, you know," said the
légionnaires, and uncorked the last bottle.
I stared at them. They laughed about Reddy's luck. They thought his
adventure very funny, this tragical adventure of a man who knew how to
fight for the freedom he desired and then did not know what to do with
liberty when he had gained it.
My God, ten years in the Foreign Legion!...