THE DESERTERS
The Odyssey of going on pump : Death in the desert : The Legion's
deserters : A disastrous flight in a motor-car : The tragic fate of an
Austrian engineer : In the Ghetto of Sidi-bel-Abbès : The business part
of desertion : Oran and Algiers : The Consulate as a trap : The
financial side of desertion : One hundred kilometres of suffering :
Hamburg steamers : Self-mutilation : Shamming : In the Suez Canal :
Morocco, the wonderland
Even Herr von Rader had the cafard--the fever to desert--and his good
humour diminished perceptibly under its influence. In low cunning the
equal of the oldest and craftiest légionnaire, he had quite got the
trick of decorating himself, and certainly got along much better than
most of the other recruits. But, as a veteran on the high road of life,
he had a very highly developed sense of the practical side of human
affairs. To take and not to give had always been his most sacred rule
of life; living without working was for him the acme of human
cleverness. Now, however, Herr von Rader began to reckon out for
himself, with a face that got longer and longer, the Legion's pet
arithmetic example: that he had to do an immense amount of work and got
little or no pay for it.
He found this very trying.
"My friend," he said to me once, "I'm off. I just guess I won't bother
you with details, but I'm sorry to have to tell you that this
honourable regiment will have to get on as best it can without me. I'm
going to clear out."
I warned him and kept telling him that it was utter folly to desert in
this happy-go-lucky way without civilian's clothes and without any
money.
Herr von Rader merely shook his head: "It's true enough that I've a
large balance of poverty! On the other hand, I've a thundering lot of
impudence--an absolutely immense and overwhelming quantity of
impudence--and I guess, in spite of everything, I'll take that little
pleasure trip and have a look at the neighbourhood. Somewhere round
here there must be a nigger tribe who would consider it an honour when
a chap like me with a real white skin does some swell conjuring for
them. Why, they'll jump at the chance of making me their medicine man.
Anyway, I'm off! If you're a wise man, you'll come too. It'll be fine
enough even if it does not last for long. And I'll tell you a secret:
in the sergeants' room the big service revolver is hanging comfortably
on the wall. I've a sort of an idea that that piece of property will be
off about the same time as me--on French leave! That's a great
consolation for me, quite apart from the fact that I shall be damned
glad to annoy that fool of a sergeant! Won't you come?"
I declined with thanks.
Herr von Rader now sought other followers. In every spare moment he
gathered a following from among the young men around his bed. They
lounged about and smoked cigarettes forging their plans for flight.
More than once I went and listened to them and more than once I gave
them a warning, but they were so wrapped up in their idea that all good
advice was quite wasted. They wanted to make a bee-line for the south,
marching only at night and avoiding all houses and villages. Then they
thought of going west and working through into Morocco. One of them had
found an old map of Northern Africa, and on this they had marked out
their route. Their bayonets and the revolver they were going to steal
were to be their weapons. They were not in the least afraid of Arabs or
Moroccans, and about provisions they didn't worry themselves very much,
as Herr von Rader cold-bloodedly pointed out that they were six strong
men and could easily procure the necessaries of life by force. In
reality they were very indifferent as to all these details. The only
idea that they had in their heads was that they would soon have done
with their wretched lives as légionnaires, and roam at large, free men
once more.
They were thoroughly infected with the fever for desertion, which was
ever to be found in the Legion. Plans for flight and their feasibility
were ever being discussed in whispers, and this formed a part of the
Legion's atmosphere--desertion was always the favourite topic of
conversation in quarters and in the canteen. This was only natural.
There is not a single man in the Legion who does not sooner or later
repent his folly, recognising that it was the maddest thing he ever did
in his life when he signed that ominous contract in the enlistment
bureau. He has to work as he never worked in his life before, and he
has less money in his pocket than in the most needy times of his civil
life. Even if he had been a miserable beggar, a wretched copper had not
such an enormous value in his eyes nor had it been so hard to earn as
in these days of poverty in the Foreign Legion. He is wretchedly poor,
living under the strictest military discipline, working hard and
getting less than nothing out of his life. At first the strangeness of
his surroundings has a certain charm: but the harder he has to work and
the oftener he becomes acquainted with the heavy penalties which no
légionnaire escapes for long, the quicker comes the lust for freedom.
The idea of flight gradually ripens in him. He talks about it with his
friends; in every spare moment he washes and cleans for the
non-commissioned officers to earn a few coppers, and every evening he
sits with the veterans, with the old grey-haired fellows who have
breathed the air of the Legion so long that they are no use for any
other sort of work, and who, as if under a spell, no matter how often
they have sworn never to don the red trousers again, always come back
again to the Legion. They know Algeria like the palm of their own hand
and gladly sell their priceless wisdom for a litre of canteen wine. But
in this case good advice is not worth much.
Money is the main necessity for flight. If good intentions counted for
anything in the matter, the percentage of deserters would reach a
fabulous figure; but the poor fellows who go out on foot, without a
penny in their pockets, very seldom get away and are generally brought
back in a few days by the gendarmes. Hunger and thirst almost always
drive them into the Arab villages or to the Spanish peasant settlements
on the main roads, which are so often patrolled that detection is
unavoidable. Then is the wisdom of the old légionnaire a vain thing
indeed--against enemies like hunger and thirst the truant can do
nothing.
In addition to the lust for freedom the légionnaire has generally got
the cafard: a feeling of hatred for anything connected with the Legion,
the extraordinary impulse which leads him to undertake the maddest and
most hopeless things rather than stay a day longer in the Legion. When
they are as ill as this the poor fellows run off no matter where,
without the slightest consideration or preparation.
The Legion has coined a special expression for this kind of desertion:
"Going on pump"--in French, "Aller au poump." An extraordinary word of
unknown origin.
You "go on pump." One evening as we sat in quarters cleaning our
leather equipment, an old légionnaire, an Austrian, suddenly got up.
"You damned set of fools," he cried, "I'm going out. I'm going on
pump."
As he spoke he buckled on his bayonet.
"I hope I'll never see the blasted lot of you again."
He went out and never returned.
Several weeks afterwards there was shown to us at roll-call the
photograph of a body that had been horribly maimed. It was the
Austrian. A patrol had found him by the Morocco frontier. The officer
in command, to whose equipment according to regulation a camera
belonged, had taken the photograph. Each company in the Legion got a
copy of this awful picture, in order to identify the corpse. The
regiment has quite a series of these pictures, all showing a man's
naked body, hacked about in the most appalling fashion. This is the
work of the Moroccan brigands, to whom the légionnaire, staggering
hither and thither under the influence of the cafard, is a real source
of joy. His uniform and bayonet are priceless possessions, easily won
with a few sword-strokes. Besides, there is the consideration that
Allah and his prophet reward a pious deed like torturing a dog of a
Christian.
Hundreds of légionnaires who have started out in cafard have met with
this awful death in the desert, martyred, maimed and tortured.
In general, however, the légionnaire finds going on pump, this flight
into the desert, this mad rush for freedom without any real goal and
without any sort of preparation, something quite natural that everybody
tries once at any rate in the course of his career. In cafard....
As a rule the men desert in little groups, without any equipment but
the uniform they wear and the bayonet that clanks at their side. They
go forth at night, before nine o'clock, while the barrack gates are
still open, and run, under cover of the darkness, madly through the
sandy vineyards. They are miserably cold in the chilly African night,
and the pangs of hunger soon assail them. But they keep going on: they
are accustomed to accomplish miracles of marching even when loaded with
the Legion's heavy baggage; without it they cover enormous distances.
Five minutes at the double with that long cat-like stride of the Legion
which never tires those who have once got the knack of it--and then
five minutes' marching. They go on like this without stopping all
through the night, and in the morning the truants are a good sixty
kilometres from the garrison. Arriving at some lonely farm or other in
the grey of the morning, they obtain a crust of bread and a sip of
wine. It is very seldom the sympathetic heart of the Spaniard that
takes pity on them: no, it is more often the bayonets which advise him
to be obliging and conciliatory. In the daytime the poumpistes hide
among the rocks or bury themselves in a deep hole in the sand. When
night comes on they start on their way once more, ever southwards,
keeping their bearings by the stars as they have learnt to do in the
Legion--for a very different purpose it is true. When they hear the
sound of horses' hoofs they take cover in deadly terror and lie for
hours, still as mice, until the patrol has long passed out of sight
below the horizon. Thus the days pass by. Bands of energetic and
enterprising runaways often terrorise the Arabs in the lonely
settlements for weeks on end, until the oppressed ones send for help
and a fight results in which the deserters are of course sadly worsted.
Desperate fellows "on pump," who are determined to reach Morocco at any
price, sometimes succeed in getting hold of a rifle. They have then a
weapon to defend themselves against the brigands. They cannot take
their own rifles with them, for with rifles they would never be allowed
to pass the barrack gates.
A tough old veteran, who knows the frontier, marches with the utmost
care. He knows that there is a triple row of tents, a quarter of a
kilometre apart. One dark night he creeps through. This operation takes
a long time to carry out. The tents, it is true, are a long way apart
from each other, and it seems easy enough to get through. But this is
only at first sight. For every 200 yards there stands a sentry guarding
the line till the next tent is reached.
The line of tents is almost endless. Were the deserter to attempt to
creep through direct or even in a slanting direction, he could not
possibly avoid being noticed by one of the sentries who are stationed
in a triangular arrangement. But he knows the trick. He creeps through
100 yards from a sentry and then strikes off at an angle of 45 degrees
until he reaches the next row. Then straight on once more and then off
again at an angle....
Now he works himself, crawling on his stomach and burying himself in
the sand for hours at a time, up to a tent in the outside line. He
steps silently into the tent, feels about with care--and he is the
possessor of a rifle and a cartridge-belt. Thus armed he has now a
chance of life and of getting safely across Morocco.
* * * * *
In most cases, however, after a few days of golden freedom, a freedom
consisting of perpetual marching and ceaseless hunger, the man on pump
meets his fate in the shape of a band of mounted "Goums,"[5] and finds
himself, after a very short space of time, looking down the muzzles of
their revolvers. He then has to go back the same way he came, fastened
by a long chain to one of the Goums' horses, panting and coughing with
the exertion of keeping up with the horse, which he must do if he
doesn't want to be dragged over the sand and stones. Thus he is taken
from station to station till the garrison is reached. If he is lucky
enough not to have lost any part of his equipment and has not been
absent more than a week, he is tried by the regiment, and gets off with
sixty days' cellule--solitary confinement in the dark. If, however, any
part of his uniform is missing, he is tried for theft and desertion by
the court-martial in Oran, which is noted for its Draconic sentences.
[5] "Goums" is the Legion's name for the Arab gendarmes.
"Traveaux forcés," penal servitude for years, is then his fate--a
penalty which usually means death, for there are very few constitutions
that can stand the terrible life in the penal settlements.
Rader and his friends were poumpistes of this type. One evening the man
of strong language and never-failing wit was missing when the roll was
called. Several others were reported missing from various rooms, and
the next morning the whole company knew that six Germans had deserted
_en bloc_.
The sergeant of our section made a list of the uniform and equipment
Herr von Rader had left behind. He cursed, as only a lazy sergeant in
the Legion can curse, his own personal bad luck because the six
deserters, being in his company, now gave him a lot of work and worry.
At the evening roll-call the colour-sergeant appeared in person in our
room and ordered Corporal Wassermann to take good care that no more of
the men under his charge deserted: otherwise he'd make it d----d hot
for him. The captain, however, sent for all the Germans in his company.
He made us a long speech in the company's bureau:
We had all served our time in Germany and we ought really to be content
with the life in his company. There was no flogging in the Legion! When
anybody thought he had a ground for complaint he should report himself
at once to the captain. The Legion was a regiment of foreigners, and
one nation was treated in exactly the same way as another: a German
soldier in it had naturally exactly the same rights as every one else.
He would be very sorry if his men took to deserting. It was quite
hopeless to try! A description of the deserters had been telegraphed
long ago to all the stations in Algeria, the police all along the coast
were on the look-out, and in a few days we should see the truants
brought back to the regiment.
"You only get into trouble when you desert, as it is very heavily
punished!"
"The whole thing is this," said Smith when we came back into our room.
"The cap'n is champion fencer of France, and thinks he must be always
practising in the fencing saloon! He hasn't the least idea what things
really look like in the company!"
Even a raw recruit knew much more of what went on in the company than
its leader. The non-commissioned officers took very good care that the
captain did not learn too much....
In reality the colour-sergeant and the non-commissioned officers were
all-powerful. The captain was merely what one might call the owner of
the business, who signed the punishment sheets and reports which his
managers laid before him, without bothering his head about details. The
non-coms had the mess-allowance in their hands, put down whatever men
they pleased on the punishment sheet for absolutely nothing at all, and
would very quickly have done to death any one who made a complaint,
even if at first he got his rights by complaining.
"By the beard of the Prophet," laughed Smith, "I'd like to see what
happened to the chap who made a complaint. Why, the whole bally lot of
non-coms would be down on him in less than no time, and in a couple of
weeks he'd be a Zephyr in the penal battalion. That's what happens when
you complain, Signor Capitano. But he's quite right about deserting is
our champion captain. We do see most of 'em again."
Then he went over to Rassedin and asked him if he thought that Rader
and the other five poumpistes would get away. Rassedin shook his head
and laughed, making with his thumb and forefinger that counting gesture
which means paying all the world over.
"No money," he said dryly.
The other veterans too thought that Rader and the other five were not
the sort of men who would succeed in surmounting the difficulties of a
flight unprovided with money.
The flight of the six comrades was an inexhaustible topic of
conversation in the company. Smith used to spin one yarn after another
of mad bids for freedom. Two of these histories I shall never forget.
While Smith was in the second battalion at Saida, there were two
brothers in his company, two Englishmen of good birth. The final and
maddest freak of their mad lives landed them in the Legion. When their
family learnt that they were wearing the Legion's uniform, they did all
they could to procure their freedom. In vain! Petitions to the French
Secretary of War were of no avail, and the English Consul in Algiers
naturally refused to intervene. Finally the two brothers were sent a
large sum of money and they tried their luck at deserting. They were no
farther than Saida station when they were arrested and marched back to
prison.
As soon as they were free again they made a second attempt at flight
and got as far as Oran. But their descriptions had been telegraphed
there and they were arrested as they were going on board the steamer.
This time they were sent for six months to the penal battalion.
The poor devils must have written despairing letters home. Their
relations were determined to get them free at any price. With an
English merchant as go-between, they bribed a Levantine, who hired an
automobile and waited days and days by Saida, in the neighbourhood
where the convicts had to work. After long delay the brothers succeeded
in escaping at night from their tent. They reached the appointed
rendezvous in safety, found the Levantine with his motor waiting for
them, and started off as quickly as the sand would allow. The
automobile, however, had attracted notice in Saida, and the military
authorities came at once on the idea that these dauntless deserters had
hit on the unusual method of flight by motor-car. Telegrams flew from
station to station, and the Arab police barricaded a narrow part of the
road a little north of Sidi-bel-Abbès, which passes at this point
through a rocky part of the country, absolutely impassable for
vehicles.
A short time afterwards the motor came up. The runaways took no notice
of the warnings of the gendarmes who rode to meet them, and crashed at
full speed into the pile of stones. The motor was overturned, the two
deserters being killed immediately. The Levantine was seriously injured
and brought into the hospital at Sidi-bel-Abbès, where he died a few
days later.
The other story is a really sad one.
An Austrian engineer had, as a young man, for some reason or other
enlisted in the Foreign Legion. After a while he managed to escape and
worked his way home to Austria again. He must have been a clever
fellow, for he soon gained a distinguished position in his profession.
Fortune smiled upon him. He made a notable invention, which made him a
wealthy man. Ambition led him to send the machine he had invented to
the World's Exhibition in Paris. In the distinguished engineer nobody
would recognise the deserter from the Foreign Legion--at least so he
thought. But cruel fate willed otherwise. Standing by his machine at
the exhibition he was recognised by an officer from his company who was
just then on leave in Paris.
The officer did his duty as a soldier and had the deserter arrested. At
one blow the man who had worked his way from the depths of poverty to
the top of his profession, who looked upon the days in the Legion as
merely a dark shadow on his life, became once more a légionnaire. A few
days in a Parisian military prison, a few hours' journey by rail in a
prisoners' compartment, the short sea-voyage to Oran, the cruel minutes
before the court-martial--and then perpetual, blunting work in an
Algerian mine, truly a living death. And thus this man had to live for
many a long month, till the horrible climate carried him off....
* * * * *
Flight from the Legion is always a risky and difficult undertaking,
risky since there is always the severest punishment waiting for the
deserter who gets caught. Even the possession of really plentiful means
is no guarantee for a successful flight. There are so many hindrances
to surmount, such a mountain of difficulties to be climbed.
To begin at the beginning.
The Ghetto of Sidi-bel-Abbès supplies the clothes. Buying civilian
clothes is the first chapter of a légionnaire's flight, the first part
of his preparations for which the would-be deserter needs not only
money but also a finely developed talent for haggling and bargaining.
To open negotiations is very easy: the légionnaire simply addresses a
passer-by in one of the little alleys and whispers to him that he knows
of some one who would perhaps buy civilian clothes. In one case in a
hundred the passer-by shakes his head and goes his way. In the
ninety-nine other cases he looks pleased, and in just such a whisper
tells the légionnaire to follow him into his house without attracting
attention. Once there, the bargaining begins. Heaps of old clothes are
fetched, until something is found somewhere about the customer's size.
Boots, shirt, collar, hat, and tie are all found. To an honest man of
business the transaction would seem somewhat strange.
These Ghetto transactions have an underlying principle of their own:
furnish as poor goods as possible at as high a price as you can get!
The buyer is already nervous at the prospect of his flight, so, in
spite of all, he pays an absolutely fabulous price. Fifty francs is
usually the price of an old suit, of which the trousers come, perhaps,
from Germany, the waistcoat from France, and the coat from Italy, and
which would be very dear at ten francs. The "business friend" next
claims a gold piece for allowing the légionnaire to change his clothes
in his house; a further gold piece arranges for the care of his
uniform, which a légionnaire who is at all careful will not be
persuaded so easily to leave in the lurch. For the deserter captured
without his uniform is tried for theft by court-martial, and the
military tribunal in Oran always passes sentence of a long term of
penal servitude. But the man of Israel is willing enough--provided he
gets a gold piece for it--to take care that the uniform and entire
equipment of his customer is safely preserved for the poor regiment.
Neatly bound together the uniform lies idle for a few days. Then, one
dark night, a youth from the Ghetto throws the parcel over the wall of
the barracks. A ticket has been pinned on beforehand, on which the name
and number of the owner has been written so that the gentlemen in the
quarter-master's office needn't cudgel their brains wondering how to
register this parcel from heaven.
All so considerate!
The runaway, however, wanders through the alleys of the Jewish quarter
and the streets of Sidi-bel-Abbès, taking great care to avoid
instinctively saluting the officers and non-coms he meets. His money,
with which he bought his civilian clothes, and of which there is still
enough for his railway journey and passage, is a mighty help to him.
He must not attract notice anywhere; he must bridle his tongue, lest
the curious French which is individual to the Legion betray him, and he
must act the rôle of the harmless traveller to a nicety. He naturally
cannot begin his journey from the station of Sidi-bel-Abbès, which is
watched by a commando of the Legion's non-commissioned officers day and
night. No, he must go on foot to one of the stations on the way to his
destination; the farther from Sidi-bel-Abbès he is, the less likely he
is to attract attention. So he makes a long night march, keeping a
sharp look-out for the patrols of Arab police. Then comes the railway
journey to a coast town. The only two towns that come in question are
Oran and the town of Algiers, since regular lines of steamers only run
from these two ports. Oran is mostly avoided, because it is so near to
Sidi-bel-Abbès, and because there are so many of the Legion's officers
to be met with there. The journey to Algiers, on the other hand, is
very expensive, and it often happens that the truant's money is
exhausted, and he lands there penniless. In this case German
légionnaires usually go to the German Consulate, but only receive the
stereotyped reply that there is no money at the Consul's disposal "for
purposes like this."
The Consulate is not only powerless to help them, but, into the
bargain, is one of the best and most efficient mouse-traps a French
gendarme could want. Old légionnaires always give you the same warning:
"For the Lord's sake don't go to the Consul in Algiers." If, in spite
of this, a deserter does go to the Consul, he is merely told that he
cannot possibly gain assistance there.
And now the trap begins to do its work. The police in Algiers know well
enough that there are a great many escaped légionnaires among the men
who come to the Consulate. When any one comes out looking in the least
bit suspicious, they receive him tenderly and inquire lovingly about
his papers. The deserter is then done for....
I should like to know whether the German Consul in Algiers has the
slightest idea that, in all innocence, he has been the ruin of so many
German légionnaires.
The runaway whose money has been swallowed up by the railway journey
and who cannot pay his passage over sea, must in most cases give
himself up for lost. It is generally only a question of a few days till
he is arrested. A careless word in a wine-shop, a lame excuse when he
seeks work and can show no papers--in short, the whole system of
denunciation which is so flourishing in Algiers very soon hands him
over to the police.
And even when he has money enough to pay his passage on one of the
Mediterranean lines, and has his ticket safe in his pocket, he is not
yet in safety. Most of the runaways who have succeeded in reaching
Algiers make the mistake of taking a passage on one of the German or
English lines of steamers, and is arrested at the eleventh hour as he
goes on board. It is on the foreign ships that they keep a specially
sharp eye. On the French boats, on the other hand, which ply between
Algiers and Oran, you don't need any papers or even a passport, because
the authorities look upon these boats as an internal French means of
communication.
The route from Algiers to Tunis is absolutely safe for the deserter.
There, nobody notices him in the enormous rush of the Levantine
traffic, and he needs no passport to cross to an Italian port. But the
expense is enormous.
Among the légionnaires who desert, the number of those who can escape
in civilian clothes by the comparatively safe way of the railway and
the Mediterranean boats is very small. Travelling costs money.... A
flight over the town of Algiers needs really quite a little
capital--150 francs at least. This is a very low estimate, for the
purchase of clothes alone takes about seventy francs. How few of the
men in the Legion can raise such a sum like this!
In most cases they are poor devils who have no one in the wide world
who could or would send them a sum of this sort; most of them never had
a franc to their name while they were in the Legion, to say nothing of
a gold coin. Men like this are seldom successful in their flight, even
when they spend months and months in preparation and discuss their
route a hundred times over with the veterans of the Legion. They don't
run blindly into the desert like the poumpistes, who don't really want
more than a few days of runaway freedom. Their way is also to the
coast. In uniform! On foot!
In these two expressions there is expressed the deserter's whole
difficulty. Although the distance from Sidi-bel-Abbès to the coast is
only about one hundred kilometres, not a very great stretch for a
légionnaire who is accustomed to long marches, it is beset with danger
for every yard of the way. The runaway can be recognised a long way off
by his uniform. True, he only marches by night. But the starlit nights
of Algeria are very bright, and he has to creep from rock to rock and
from hollow to hollow, to avoid being seen by the patrols. By day he
lies motionless in the sand. He suffers hunger and thirst for days on
end, and lives on fruits, which he steals when hunger drives him to
risk discovery.
When he has reached the coast in safety, the game of hide-and-seek
begins anew. He often lies for days in some little coast town, where
the Mediterranean tramp-steamers touch, concealed in a shed or in some
old boat on the shore, till a ship carrying the German or English flag
comes into port. He swims out to this ship in the middle of the night,
climbs on board, and hides in one of the ship's boats, or in the
coal-bunker. He first makes his appearance when the ship is on the high
seas as a more or less pleasant surprise for the captain. He is now
safe--they can hardly throw him overboard. There are, moreover, a great
many captains who shut their eyes when a runaway of this sort is
discovered, and even if the ship is still lying in port do not give him
up. There are some even who carry their humanity so far as to stand a
certain amount of unpleasantness with the authorities for his sake.
These are mostly German ships, and above all, ships from Hamburg.
Deserters from the Legion land over and over again in the old Hansa
town, and again and again you may read in the Hamburg daily papers that
deserters have arrived with such and such a ship, and have been taken
charge of by the police authorities. Now and then they go just as they
stand, in their uniform, with bayonet and all the rest of it, to the
paper's offices and tell the worried editor about their life and
sorrows in the Legion....
These are those who have had luck; the tiny proportion of penniless
deserters who are successful in their flight. Not freedom but prison
awaits the large majority at the finish of their attempt. The Arab
gendarmes are paid a bonus on the deserters they arrest, which amounts
to many thousand francs a year!
The regiment is acquainted with many other means of desertion, if by
"desertion" you understand every means by which the deserter can free
himself from work in the Legion. In the terrible heat of summer, when
the difference in temperature between day and night is simply enormous,
sickness, in many a grim form, stalks through Algeria. The drinking
water becomes infected, and typhoid sets in: the légionnaire who is
tired of active service can be pretty sure of a long spell of illness.
But to make quite certain he helps matters artificially--with an
extraordinary measure in vogue in the Legion: he drinks a mixture of
absinthe and milk. Every veteran in the Legion swears this hellish
drink never fails to bring on an attack of fever! The object of this
suicidal method of desertion is naturally to avoid work in the Legion
by a long spell of sickness--its object is always attained; mostly so
effectively that the man never takes his place on parade again, but
rests for ever in the Legion's cemetery!
In the same way self-mutilation may be met with: the chopping off of a
finger which renders the légionnaire unfit for active service. Others
simulate illness or madness. This the suspiciousness and brutality of
the doctors in the Legion renders very difficult. Now and then a
légionnaire with a will of iron manages to play the comedy of madness
successfully.
The means employed are sometimes rather drastic. Some years before I
entered the Legion, a Belgian served in my company who shammed for a
whole year. He dirtied the men's quarters in such a fashion that his
comrades fell upon him and ill-treated him in every possible way, but
he merely answered their curses and reprisals with an inane laugh.
Neither curses nor blows seemed to make the least difference to him.
This fellow had grit. He played his part as a lunatic, as unpleasant
for himself as well as for others, without ever wavering. They shut him
up, they compelled him to do the hardest work, they brought him into
hospital and wellnigh starved him or tortured him with drugs; he was
confined for weeks in the dark, he was sent to the hospital at Daya and
treated with cold water--all in vain! His method and his smile remained
unchanged! After thirteen months the doctors felt themselves
checkmated, gave up the job as hopeless and certified him mad. The
colonel, purely out of curiosity, sent for the lunatic, who must needs
have an attack of his particular malady in the regimental bureau
itself.
As soon, however, as he was home again in Belgium, he wrote postcards
to the officers and to several members of his company.... He had foiled
them all and they were the idiots! The most unmitigated ass of them in
his humble opinion was the regimental doctor! If possible the
surgeon-major in the Algerian corps was a bigger fool still!
Tremendous energy is, however, necessary to bring a sham of this sort
to a successful issue, and cases like this constitute a tiny minority.
The doctors in the Foreign Legion are both clever and suspicious and
the result is that there is always a good dose of Legion's brutality
included in their treatment. All those who reported themselves sick,
and hadn't some outward and visible sign of their ailment to show, were
treated from beginning to end as shams.
Our médecin-major was an especial terror to the légionnaires. I only
came into personal contact with him twice; the first time was on a
manoeuvre march when he refused me the medicine I wanted, and the
other time was when I was vaccinated. There was an epidemic of
small-pox in Sidi-bel-Abbès, and the whole of the Legion had to be
vaccinated as quickly as possible. We were marched by companies into
the great drill-hall where Monsieur le Major and his assistants were at
work. Such a method of vaccination as this man employed I have never
seen in my life and I have been vaccinated at least a dozen times. I am
acquainted with every method of vaccination, from the gentle
lancet-prick employed in Germany to the method in use in America, where
they pare away the skin with a piece of ivory. As our company marched
past the assembled doctors in Indian file I saw to my astonishment that
the men were bleeding severely. When my turn came I flinched
involuntarily--the doctor drove the lancet three times so forcibly into
my upper arm that a regular fountain of blood spurted out.
It was pure brutality. Nothing more or less. This was typical of the
man. It was his custom, the first time a man reported himself ill, to
send him back to his company and give him three days' arrest for
shamming. If the fellow appeared again he tried the effect of emetics
followed by a long period of starvation. The only time he was supposed
to be reasonable was when he saw symptoms of typhoid, which was his
special hobby.
The Legion was thoroughly afraid of the hospital! They were desperate
fellows indeed who tried shamming!
* * * * *
The topic of desertion from the Foreign Legion is wellnigh
inexhaustible. When the transports sail from Oran or Marseilles to
Indo-China with relief companies of the Legion on board, the Suez Canal
is a favourite means of deserting. According to the Canal regulations
the steamers must slacken speed in the narrow straits of Suez, and the
légionnaire takes the opportunity to jump overboard. He swims the short
stretch to land and is then safe. The sentries on the transports may
not use firearms in the international waters of the Suez Canal, and
therefore cannot fire on the deserter as he swims. Neither is
extradition from the English or Egyptian authorities to be feared.
Several of these transports from the Foreign Legion pass through the
Suez Canal every year, and these desertions are so frequent that the
Ghetto of Port Said pays a fixed price of ten shillings for the capital
service boots of the Legion!
Desertions _en masse_ occur now and then, but these may be classed
as mutinies rather than as desertions. In Southern Algeria, in the
loneliness of the desert, the garrison of some small fort occasionally
breaks out, marching for the Morocco frontier. The next bevy of troops
soon brings the runaways back again, and even if it comes to a shot or
two the superiority of the numbers against them soon brings the
mutineers to reason. A mutiny like this generally ends in the mutineers
being shot. An act of this sort is nothing else than an outbreak of
madness caused by the dreadful monotony of service on the lonely
stations in the desert. It is an outbreak of the cafard! The poor
devils should be treated by a doctor instead of being sentenced by a
court-martial.
The Foreign Legion is a fruitful field for hypnotic suggestion. In my
time a number of légionnaires deserted from Sidi-bel-Abbès, with the
intention of fighting their way through to Morocco. Morocco was just
then talked about till the idea became surrounded with a sort of halo.
The attempt itself was pretty hopeless--the men were driven to it by
the suggestive power of the words, "le Maroc."
Morocco was the Legion's fairyland, the land the soldier longed for.
Not a single day went by without a rumour of fighting in Morocco
raising excitement in the Foreign Legion to fever pitch. Dark
war-clouds were gathering on the horizon. From the frontier there came
continual reports of the intrigues of the pretender, and in the inland
of Morocco mighty battles were fought at short intervals. Among the
watchful officers of French Africa every one was certain that the
internal troubles in Morocco were not merely the petty splutterings of
the usual native fireworks, but the first sparks of a mighty bonfire.
The Foreign Legion knew of this; then all that was discussed in the
officers' mess filtered through to the regiment through its own various
private channels.
Orderlies came rushing into the barracks in a fever of excitement as
soon as they came off duty in the mess and told their friends in the
Legion all about the heated debates that had taken place and which all
revolved around Morocco. The servants of the staff officers brought
news of Moroccan visitors closeted with their masters; Spahis who had
served their time in the Morocco frontier garrisons and who were
quartered on the regiment on their way through to Oran, told how sharp
duty on the frontier now was, and how the garrisons were perpetually
being strengthened.
The veterans put their heads together and discussed the prospects of a
bloody war! They had wonderful stories to tell of the golden treasures
of Morocco, of the jewels that the better classes wore, and in their
fancy they pictured an Eldorado of plundered wealth and booty. These
mysterious rumours grew from day to day. More than half of the
regiment's officers were ordered to the little frontier towns, and it
was not unnatural when the Legion found in this a sure sign of fighting
to come. With a broad smirk, an orderly brought the news that the
colonel had engaged two masters to teach him Arabic, and it was easy to
see how proud he was of the enormous supply of ammunition which was
sent out from France. Recruiting began with zeal in the Spahi barracks
opposite. Arab recruits with their splendid horses joined daily.
Sections for telegraph duty went off to the frontier to see to the old
wires and to lay new ones; volunteers were called for to form a corps
for the heliographs, and veterans whose time was up got the tip from
one or other of the officers that it would be very much to their
advantage to stay on and not to take their dismissal just then....
In this roundabout way, through non-coms, orderlies, and soldier
servants, everything was perhaps very much distorted, but it all
sounded very probable and typical. The Legion is like a mighty
ear-trumpet--through its countless channels it gathers up the officers'
gossip and intrigues for its own uses, and really knows a good deal
about the state of affairs in Northern Africa; it knows that the
military circles at the head of affairs in Algeria have their own axe
to grind, and that the clever catch-phrase "pénétration pacifique" was
formed in an officers' club, and that greedy squinting at Morocco is as
old as the occupation of Algeria!
It was as if every one stood under the ban of a mesmerist. The longing
for "le Maroc" spread to the légionnaires, who gave practical evidence
of their longing for change and excitement, deserting in crowds. Most
of them met their deaths. The border tribes cut their throats.
Others had more luck. In the army of the pretender, the present Sultan,
Mulai Hafid, there used to be several officers who were once soldiers
of the Foreign Legion!