In the Foreign Legion Part 12

The greater part of the company mustered generally at 1 P.M. in the barrack-yard, and the sergeant "du jour" chose working parties, each of which was in charge of a corporal. That was something quite different to the military service. Indifferent as I must have been at that time, I nevertheless always noticed the sulky and disgusted faces the men made when they went to this work. In small groups we marched out of the barracks, armed with broom, pick and shovel.

The Legion was there to work, and from the legionnaire one could ask things impossible in other French troops. If one saw a soldier working in Sidi-bel-Abbes, then he was sure to be a legionnaire. Arab Spahis or French soldiers of the line, who were also stationed in Sidi-bel-Abbes, had never such work to do as we did, and which should have been done by scavengers and navvies. That was the privilege of the Foreign Legion.

From the Arab Spahis, that is to say from the natives, such work was not demanded. On the other hand, the Legion had often to supply men to put the forage of the "Spahis" under cover. That may sound paltry, but it is just these small things that characterise the way the legionnaire is taken advantage of. He is just good enough for any kind of work.

We swept the public park of the town for the citizens of Sidi-bel-Abbes, whilst the gardeners stood idly by, watching us and ordering us about; we rooted out the undergrowth, and cleansed the brook which ran through the botanical gardens from mud and refuse. We emptied the drains in the officers' houses; we did scavengers' work in the filthy slums of the town.

Once I was a member of a detachment that had to clean the sewers in the Arab prison. The work was loathsome beyond measure. We had taken with us a large barrow with casks, and had to haul from underneath the floors of the cells and prison rooms the large tin pans, and carry them to the barrow. We performed this disgusting work, whilst in the prison yard the loafing Arab rabble prowled around and made jokes at our expense.

Sunday only was free from work, free from all kinds of service. We were not even mustered. And the legionnaire lies the whole blessed Sunday in bed. Towards evening he goes to the Jardin Public to listen to the concert given by the regimental band. He goes there because it is the Legion's custom--but he would much rather sleep on....

CHAPTER VI

"THE LEGION GETS NO PAY"

The money troubles of the Legion : Five centimes wages : The cheapest soldiers of the world : Letters from the Legion : The science of "decorating" : The industries of the legionnaires : What the bugler did for a living : The man with the biscuits : A thief in the night : Summary lynch law : Herr von Rader and La Cantiniere : "The Legion works--the Legion gets no pay!"

The poor fellows who enlisted because they had no money to buy a crust of bread made the biggest mistake of their lives when they thought to finish with their troubles by entering the Legion.

Without exception every man in the Legion had his money troubles.

Money was a thing of immense value in the Foreign Legion. The possession of a few francs made an enormous difference and created in the midst of the Legion's red-trousered equality the finest social grades and distinctions. Not only the value but also the power of money was enhanced in the Legion. Copper pieces meant a great deal here.

Copper pieces purchased a few "litres" of wine, or a nocturnal carouse, or a subst.i.tute to help in doing hard work. The legionnaire with a little money was on quite a different footing to the man who had none.

Ra.s.sedin, the wealthy Ra.s.sedin, was a prince in a surrounding of poor devils. A wide gap parted him from the other men. They flattered him to get into his good graces and accepted gladly his insolence, if there were but a few sous or a few good cigarettes to be had. Of our quarters he was the king. He reigned supreme. He was obeyed in all matters. It was too funny to see how his comrades hurried themselves when this man, the incarnation of the G.o.d of Mammon in the Legion, happened to express a wish, and how they then went off with beaming faces to the canteen to change the couple of sous they had earned into wine. The self-confidence with which the Belgian bore the dignity of his wealth (and what enormous wealth are a few thousand francs to a legionnaire!) was, considered by itself, only funny. But many a time I suspected that Ra.s.sedin, who knew so well what a frightful death was waiting for him, despised the petty greed of them all from the bottom of his heart.

Money rules even in the Foreign Legion!

The pay is five centimes daily, which is about one cent or one halfpenny. Exactly the fiftieth part of the daily pay of an American regular. The twenty-fourth part of a British soldier's daily pay. The comparison is grotesque.

When one considers, however, that the man who enlists in the Foreign Legion sells his skin and is a "paid" mercenary, the comparison becomes astounding. The average legionnaire finds out in a remarkably short time that he has been a fool to enlist, that he is the victim of a system very near akin to slavery, that he is a working man without wages, a labourer without pay. An old French proverb says: Business is getting the other man's money!

And very substantial values is La France getting out of the legionnaire. With this poorly paid Legion, the French Republic protects the boundaries of her territory in Algeria and conquers the southern deserts step by step--in the everlasting wars in French Tonquin the Legion's troops are always ready for service. Fighting is not the only work of the Foreign Legion, however. Only one-half of the legionnaire is a real soldier. The other half of him is workman, carpenter, builder, road-maker. He works hard and he is so cheap a workman that no Chinese coolie can compete with him. He receives board and clothes and a cent a day--the cheap soldier of the Legion, this funny soldier of "fortune." He can be made use of in the most terrible climates, for the most risky operations, simply because n.o.body troubles his head about him and because his officers have no account to render for his life or death.

The sum of money which his work with pick and shovel, with mason's trowel and carpenter's axe has saved the French Government in all these years must be enormous. And if a bullet, or sunstroke, or typhoid fever, or dysentery carries away a legionnaire, the only expense he is the cause of is the making of a hole in the sand. So cheap! Truly, France's Foreign Legion is a well-paying enterprise! Glorious soldiers and successful workmen are remarkably cheap at five centimes a day....

Every five days the legionnaire gets his wages paid. He holds five copper sous in his hand and must decide whether to buy cigarette tobacco, or cleaning materials, or a bottle of wine. It is only enough for one of these three. The purchase of a box of matches, which are monopolised in Algeria and cost five centimes, is a very grave financial problem. Therefore matches are scarce. Nowhere in the world is one so often asked for a match as in the streets of Sidi-bel-Abbes and in the Legion's barracks.

No wonder that the possession of a few silver pieces is something truly great for a legionnaire; no wonder that men like Ra.s.sedin rule as kings. Nowhere can the lesson of the value of money be so thoroughly learned as in the Foreign Legion.

The money troubles of the Legion are, of course, ridiculously petty troubles.

The luckiest man (considered from the Legion's point of view) is he who has kept up some sort of communication with home. The most appalling letters are then written to parents and relations and friends. Usually the poor devil of a letter-writer exaggerates a little, and his descriptions of famine and hardships are most moving. They must be very hard-hearted people indeed who do not acknowledge the receipt of such a letter with a small postal order. Then there is joy in the land of Sidi-bel-Abbes. For a day, or a few days, or even a week, the prodigal son with the postal order lives like a king. He has his boots cleaned for him, and would not dream of making his own bed as long as his money lasts. A comrade does that for him, and in reward is graciously permitted to share a drink. C'est la Legion! To play the "grand seigneur," if it is but for a day, is the average legionnaire's dream of happiness. He thinks it the finest thing in all the world to play at having a servant, if it's but for a day.... And this is the surest sign of the legionnaire's abject poverty. These lucky ones who receive a postal order occasionally represent the creme de la creme, the elite of society in the Foreign Legion. The others have to help themselves. They must "decorate themselves!"

This "decorating" is a fine art in the Foreign Legion. It is a mixture of work, cunning, brains, and theft.

"Decorate yourself!"

That is the sum total of an old legionnaire's wisdom, and these two words are the only advice that he gives, or indeed can give, to the newcomer. Make your life in the Legion as easy as possible is the meaning of this advice; take care that your tobacco-pouch stays full, that your uniform is in order and your kit complete, that you have as often as possible the three sous necessary for your litre of wine.

The way in which this "decorating" is carried out is a purely personal affair....

My friend the bugler used to make gaudy "ceintures" from coloured pieces of cloth and old leather-work, belts with crests and b.u.t.tons of the Legion. He found good customers for his belts amongst the Arabs and occasionally amongst Spanish workmen in the little wine-shops of Sidi-bel-Abbes. In his special methods of decorating the old legionnaire developed an extraordinary business instinct. His transactions were not at all simple. An Arab never parts with hard cash--after the time-honoured manner of his kind. So the bugler had to "trade." He would exchange his gaudy rags for a pair of pretty golden-bossed Arabian shoes, or a grotesquely carved Arabian stick, or a morocco purse of fine leather-work. Then Smith would const.i.tute one of the legionnaires on orderly duty in the officers' mess his agent.

Paying customers could easily be found amongst the young officers. The final result was always the same: many litres of the sweet heavy wine of Algeria into which all the copper coins of the Legion invariably change.

A legionnaire of the fourth company was generally known as "l'homme des biscuits!" His speciality was to gather in all the companies the biscuits given out twice weekly to complete the bread ration. They were like ship's biscuit and extremely hard. Most of the men would not touch them. So the biscuit man had a capital gathering ground, and in some cunning way, which he carefully kept secret, he took sack upon sack of these biscuits out of the barracks. In the market-place of Sidi-bel-Abbes he found plenty of customers. Others, less inventive, confined themselves to cleaning and washing for comrades better off than they. In some way every one tried to "decorate himself."... The main object in a legionnaire's life is the getting together of a few coppers.

Decorating meant also occasional theft.... In matters of stealing the Legion draws the line very sharply. The theft of equipment, to replace lost or stolen parts, was considered absolutely respectable and gentleman-like. There was no other remedy, as the man who loses something is punished severely.

Thieving "decorating" is a very simple thing and quickly learned.

"I've lost a pair of trousers!" cries the recruit in despair.

"That's nothing," says the old legionnaire.

"Curse it, what shall I do then?" wails the new-comer.

"Decorate yourself, you fool," says the old hand.

Whereupon the recruit (after receiving detailed instructions from the wise old soldier) walks into the back yard, where the washing is hanging out to dry, and waits in a dark corner with great patience for an auspicious moment. A lightning s.n.a.t.c.h and a pair of somebody's trousers hanging innocently on the line are his. He has decorated himself. It's immoral, of course. It's theft right enough. It's deplorable ... but it is most convenient. The Legion does not worry about small matters of right or wrong. The Legion says: Each for himself; why didn't you keep an eye on your washing, you fool!

Now such a single theft of a single pair of trousers naturally is but the first link in a long chain of trouser-stealing. The man who has been robbed has no other remedy than doing likewise. And so on.... In a very few days hundreds of pairs of trousers change owners, until somewhere in the long chain some one is struck who buys himself a new pair. Somehow or other it all comes right!

The Legion considers this sort of theft sportsman-like and gentlemanly, a thing permitted, and it is a "point d'honneur" to be smart enough not to get caught by the rightful owner.

But woe to the legionnaire who should ever extend his decorating operations to tobacco or money or even bread. The whole company would form a self-const.i.tuted detective corps and find the culprit out very soon. The rest would be--silence and hospital!

During one of the very first nights an ugly scene took place which showed only too well how a thief is treated in the Legion. In the middle of the night furious shouting made me jump out of bed. Sleepily I looked about me. Around Ra.s.sedin's bed stood a group of cursing and gesticulating soldiers. I went up to them. Smith and three others were holding in grips of iron a fourth man who could hardly speak for terror. His face was white as chalk. Ra.s.sedin stood there in his shirt, staring hard at the man caught.

"You're from the tenth company?"

"Yes," stammered the man.

"What in h.e.l.l are you doing in the eleventh then?"

"Been drinking--got into the wrong quarters--let me go----"

In the meantime all the men in the room had gathered and were standing around the group.

"Nom de Dieu--what a dirty fellow!" said Ra.s.sedin. "Listen, you chaps.

I had my money in my trousers and my trousers were under my pillow.

Just now I felt something moving near me, jumped up and caught hold. Do you know what I caught? This chap's hand. What do you think of that?"