In the Foreign Legion Part 10

"Quoi! Nom de Dieu--balayez au-dessous vos lits!" (Thunder and lightning! Sweep up under your beds.)

The etiquette of the Legion in these things holds very strictly to old tradition; every legionnaire had to sweep under his bed, while the cleaning of the room was the work of the orderly on duty, who could of course not begin this work until the floor beneath the beds had been swept. That was the reason of all the "Quois" and "Nom de Dieus!" The man had every cause to be excited and angry. He had to drill like the others, and it was no trifle to have to sweep a large room, to dust and to fetch water; everything within ten minutes. And it had all to be in tip-top order, for a few minutes before commencing drill the colour-sergeant inspected quarters and if anything was not in order in the room the corporal was punished.

And when the corporal was punished, he of course took care that his men were run in as well.

Punctually at 6 A.M. we recruits mustered in the barrack-yard in drill uniform: white linen suit, blue sash, knapsack, cartridge-belt and rifle--uniforms and leather trappings of shining brightness. The almost pedantic cleanliness of the Legion, the coquetry of each individual legionnaire to put a certain amount of "chic" into his uniform, was the first thing Corporal Wa.s.sermann's vanity had taught us.

In the quick easy marching pace of the Legion we went out to the "Plateau," a large open s.p.a.ce near the negro quarter, surrounded by olive-trees and red African oaks. The yellow clayey ground was stamped hard by the marching of many thousands of legionnaires. On the one side of the "Plateau" was the "village negre," the negro town. Close to the drill-ground the mosque, in proud white splendour, towered above the miserable, half-ruined huts of the negro quarter, and hour by hour sounded loudly from its minaret the priest's call to prayer:

"All'il Allah. G.o.d is great...."

"Arre, arre--go on, go on," yelled the Arabs, who drove their heavily laden donkeys across the place with much scolding and beating. By the side of the donkeys, like the beasts, heavily burdened, walked Arab women, the legs bare to above the knee, but the face modestly covered as prescribed by the teachings of the Prophet. Only a small portion of the forehead was left free by the veil, and this was painted with a bright red round spot of henna, the sign of the married woman.

The Arabs glanced at us with timid side looks and hastened to pa.s.s on.

Half-naked Arab and negro children raced about trying with comical "grandezza" to imitate the martial steps, and shouted Arab words at us which very likely were gross insults, until Corporal Wa.s.sermann picked up stones and drove them away.

"Formez les faisceaux. Sac a terre." (Pile arms. Lay down your knapsacks.)

"Pas gymnastique!" (At the double!) "En avant. Marche!"

With this the daily routine began. It was the famous "Legion's breakfast," the lung-training of "double time."

In the form of a wide square we went round the drill-ground, five minutes, ten minutes--un, deux, un, deux--always in sharp time. The corporal, a splendid runner, ran at the head, teaching us the trick on which everything depended here, to overcome the critical moment of lung exhaustion, to get the "second wind." Even if the breath came and went in short pumping gasps, if the eyes pained, and one commenced to stumble from exhaustion, one ran on until the lungs had got used to the extra exertion, until one had the feeling of being a machine, and could go on running for ever. Then came the command "A volonte"--(as you please)--and a race finished thirty minutes' exercise.

This is the Legion's breakfast.

It has cost many a man his lungs.

Pause. The tormented lungs worked in short hard gasps. It was impossible to stand still. One was obliged to walk up and down quickly in order to gradually quieten the pumping lungs.

The body had to expend all the strength it could in this morning drill.

Swedish gymnastics, "le boxe," formed the alternative to this doubling.

The training progressed very quickly. All the recruits had served in some of the world's armies, and the first rudiments of military wisdom had been drilled into them long ago. Three-quarters of my fellow-recruits were Germans, who did not understand any French, and to whom the French commands were Greek. Continual repet.i.tion was here necessary.

"A gauche--gauche means left about," explained the corporal, and repeated it ten times, until "gauche" had been mastered. The most necessary French expressions were very quickly learnt by this most natural of all methods.

A hot sun burned down on us. Ten times during a single forenoon every st.i.tch of clothes on one's body was soaked with perspiration, and ten times it dried again. In the pauses one stood about, smoking hand-twisted cigarettes, the inevitable cigarette of the Legion smoked in every free moment, and by which the pause is measured according to the old custom of the Legion? The pause was the duration of a cigarette. When the corporal had finished smoking his cigarette he slowly walked to a distance of about one or two hundred metres and lifted his hand:

"A moi."

That meant we were to run up to him and recommence work.

"I've never run so d----d fast in all my life," was Herr von Rader's continual lament. "I've an idea the suckers here are mistaking me for an express train!"

At 11 A.M. we marched back to barracks. Knapsack and cartridge-belt were thrown into the "paquetage," and dead tired we threw ourselves upon our beds. But after a few short minutes, the soup signal rang out from the barrack-yard.

"A la soupe, legionnaires, a la soupe, soupe, soupe."

"Soupe ..." every one yelled. Woe if the orderly of the room did not rush to the kitchen, and woe if he did not reappear with the soup-kettle in the twinkling of an eye! In everything connected with food a genuine legionnaire stands no nonsense--he has too often suffered starvation on marches and campaigns not to appreciate "la gamelle."

The morning soup, the first of the two daily meals, was the same every day: Bread soup, boiled together, with potatoes and vegetables, and a piece of meat. With it the grey-white French military bread was served, and every other day a quarter of a litre of heavy red wine. The food was eaten off tin plates at the two long tables in our quarters. There was, however, not room enough for all at the tables. The question of seats the Legion's etiquette decided; the privilege of sitting down at table belonged to the old legionnaires.

After the soup the kitchen corporal rushed from room to room:

"Aux patates--aux pommes de terre!" (To the potatoes!)

The whole company marched down to the kitchen, and standing in a large circle peeled the day's supply of potatoes. Every one had to peel--he who had no pocket-knife had to make shift with a sharpened spoon-handle! The purchase of a pocket-knife was an exorbitant luxury on a wage of five centimes a day....

In the afternoon the old legionnaires went off on long marches or to field practice, or were ordered to "corvee," to work with spade and pick, whilst the recruits had instruction. At 5 o'clock in the afternoon, after a second "soupe," which was exactly like the first, the official free time of the legionnaire began.

But in reality the most tiresome work of all now began--cleaning and washing!

Rifle cleaning, cleaning of uniforms, polishing the leather parts of the uniform. Leather! Even now I still think with a gentle shudder of the leather of the Legion, of the cartridge-belt and pouch! There is such a lot of trouble and work connected with these leather belts! The vainest "neuvaine" does not spend so much time over the whole of her toilette as does the legionnaire over the polishing of his cartridge-belt! The procedure was unutterably ridiculous, in the highest degree pedantic and unpractical, being irksome beyond all measure. You melted black wax over a match and put it on the leather.

Then this wax had to be properly rubbed in with a flat piece of wood, till it was evenly distributed. Then began the real polishing with an a.r.s.enal of different rags. It took two hours to make cartridge-belt and pouch shine properly, till the legionnaire's vanity was satisfied....

Unpractical and old-fashioned as the "astiquage" is, it belongs to the etiquette of the Legion and is sacred. I had a special hatred of it and considered myself infinitely smart when I bought a bottle of leather dressing and simply painted my belts with it instead of working at them for two hours. It looked very well and was at all events more durable.

But Corporal Wa.s.sermann almost fainted when he saw it. He tore the belt out of my hand, and in a fit of rage ran round to all the men's rooms, to show the other corporals what horrible things happen in this sinful world. A painted cartridge-belt! The old soldiers of the companies came running up and with many "merdes" and "noms d'un chien" surveyed in petrified astonishment the greenhorn who had been so audacious as to attempt to supplant the sacred "astiquage" of the Legion by painting!

"But it is more practical," I said at length to the fuming corporal in the vain attempt to appease him.

"Mais, ca ne marche pas!" he shrieked. "That will never do. If you were an old soldier and not a recruit, you would be locked up for ten days!"

The greatest plague, however, was the washing. The white uniform had of course to be washed every day. In the back barrack-yard was the "lavabo," a large reservoir built of concrete, with cold running water, called in legionnaire's wit "cercle d'enfer" (h.e.l.l's circle). Every free hour the legionnaires stood shoulder to shoulder around the reservoir, in a large circle, shirt-sleeves turned up, with flushed and perspiring heads. Behind those washing other legionnaires waited patiently until a place at the reservoir became vacant. There they washed, rubbed, beat and rinsed until darkness set in. The white linen uniforms, the underclothing, and the linings of the uniforms had to be washed in cold water and with little soap. The small piece of soap which each man received once a month was not nearly enough, and few things were railed at as much as the lack of soap. Scarcely had one turned round, when lo and behold! the soap was gone.

Nothing represented the poverty of the Legion so much as this "lavabo."

The man who possessed a brush, an ordinary "washing-brush," and with this could simplify the work of washing, was as much envied as if he had been a millionaire--to lend such a brush was looked upon as an act of the greatest friendship! For drying purposes lines were hung up near by, and when one had hung up the wet clothes, one waited patiently until they were dry. A man who was careless or impatient, and who did not do so but went away, might afterwards survey the place on the line where his washing had been hanging--the wash itself was gone, had disappeared, been spirited away.

With the half-dry wash one returned to the room, laid one's blanket on the table and "ironed" trousers and tunics by smoothing them with the sharp edge of the drinking-mug until they were free of creases. The poor devil of a legionnaire thus needed an hour for a piece of work which could have been done in a few minutes with the help of a flat-iron. But the foreign legionnaire is far too poor to possess such a treasure as a flat-iron....

The object of our training was twofold: the training for prodigious marching performances, and the education of the individual to complete military independence. The working programme of the Foreign Legion, the whole of its military value, is embodied in these two ideas:

Brilliant marchers--independent soldiers.

In addition to these two advantages we have the financial consideration, on which the Foreign Legion's existence depends--the advantage of cheap, splendidly trained mercenaries, with whom the most daring military operations can be undertaken without consideration of the sacrifice of life involved. No nation, no parliament asks for an account of the dead. The Legion marches and acts independently, dies without attracting attention.

The legionnaire can march. Forty kilometres a day is the fixed minimum performance. He must be able to do that, day by day, without interruption, without a day of rest, for weeks on end. That is the object of his training from the very beginning--the daily "pas gymnastique," the "double timing" in the long springy running stride of the Legion, the initiatory practice for marching. Several times every week the men must make practice marches over a distance of at least twenty-four kilometres, with full equipment, at the Legion's pace of five kilometres per hour, which has always remained the same. The only object of the practice marches is to teach the recruits steady quick marching. They neither end with a small manoeuvre, nor have they exercises such as scouting, or exploring the country by means of patrols. It is nothing but simple marching at a prescribed pace, a tramping onwards to fulfil a given task. The "marches militaires," as the practice marches are called, usually commence at midday, when the sun is at its hottest, after a hard morning's drill, so as to represent a practical exercise. On one of the military roads which branch off from Sidi-bel-Abbes in all directions, the march goes on until the twelfth kilometre is reached, and then the men are marched back again.

On the march a legionnaire may carry his rifle as he pleases, either shouldered or by the strap, just as is most comfortable to him; he may take off his knapsack if it hurts him, and carry it in his hand; he is not ordered when to open his coat or when to shut it. The officers do not worry the marching legionnaires with paltry orders, and they are allowed to sing or to smoke as they please. When there is a large puddle on the road, or when one side of the road is stony, the column turns off of its own accord and marches where the road is best. In the course of many a whole-day march I have not heard a single word from the officers, no orders except the short whistle signals, which mean: "Column, halt!" and "Column, forward march!" As soon as the signal sounds for a halt, the front rows form front without orders, and every man sits or lies down during the halt as suits him best. The marches are regulated by the one principle: March as you like, with crooked back or toes turned in, if you think that nice or better, but--march!

It is always being drummed into the legionnaire that he is intended for nothing else in this world except for marching. If the pangs of hunger are gnawing at his stomach or thirst parches his tongue, that is so much the worse for him, but is no sort of a reason for his not marching on! He may be tired, dead tired, completely exhausted--but he must not stop marching. If his feet are bleeding and the soles burn like fire, that is very sad--but the marching pace must not be slackened. The sun may burn till his senses are all awhirl, he must go on. His task in life is to march. The greatest crime that he can commit is to fail on the march. There is no such thing as an impossible marching performance for the regiment of foreigners. Each individual is inoculated with the one idea, it is hammered into him, that he has to march as long as he can control his legs. And when he can no longer control them, then he must at least try to crawl.

It is a merciless system, which, however, produces wonderful soldiers.

Inseparable from the march of the Legion is the baggage of the legionnaire.