In the Foreign Legion Part 19

His long neck was surmounted by a head like that of a bird of prey, continually turning from side to side so as not to miss an opportunity of stealing something from his comrades. He had a vile mouth under his enormous nose. In a whining tone he swore all day long at providence in general and the Legion in particular. n.o.body could resist his volubility and he was the first, the last, and the only legionnaire who ever succeeded in never doing any work.

The explanation of his French nickname, "Via.s.se," was that the india-rubber man repeated the Yiddish phrase of lament, "Wie haisst!"

about ten times in one sentence. Once when he made a complaint about something or other to the captain, the latter had thrown up his hands in despair and called out, "Via.s.se, via.s.se, sacre nom de Dieu!

toujours via.s.se--what does the fellow want?" The whole regiment laughed at "Monsieur Via.s.se"; he was never called by his real name, Abramovici, but officers and corporals called to him: "Eh, Via.s.se, come here!" He never worked. He was only saved from punishment by his inherent gift of humour. He was very tall, his arms nearly reaching to the ground. If one of his superiors ever ventured to give him any work to do, the scraggy "india-rubber man" appeared to personify a whole Ghetto. His eyes grew large and staring, the nose purple, and the head moved backwards and forwards like a pendulum.

Then Via.s.se took a deep breath, and a mad flow of words poured from his vile mouth, while the long arms, with the outspread claw-like fingers, waved frantically in the air.

"... Wie haisst! nom de Dieu, de bon Dieu de la Legion--d.a.m.n me, why should I work myself to death? I've had to drill the whole forenoon and have got nix to eat but a poor soup. I'm a stricken man and will have to get some extra food if I am not to fall down dead like a dog, you jewel of a sergeant. Wie haisst! I am a ruined man if I don't get some food at once. Well?"

It is impossible to repeat it all. Words fail me when I try to reproduce my friend Abramovici's grand flow of language. In one respect he was indeed a friend to me; no one ever made me laugh as much as he did. On the day of his arrival with the depot-train from Oran, I happened to hear when the sergeant of the company for the first time ordered him to do some work. Abramovici nearly got a fit at this unheard-of demand. His arms waved frantically in the air like a windmill, and wild words flowed from his mouth.

The poor sergeant wished to put in a word sideways. He wished to give a quiet command, he wanted to get furious. But he could not. He could only see with numb astonishment the lurid red nose, he turned away to get out of the reach of the "windmill arms," and at last fell down on the nearest bed with a horrible Arab oath, and laughed as he had never laughed before in his life. When he at last recovered his breath again, he said in broken German: "Oh, Gott in Himmel, cet homme la, zu viel sprechen.--Talks too much."

But Abramovici went on jabbering, until at last his harangue ended in laments to the G.o.d of his Fathers.

This was the way he always got off--one so seldom hears a laugh down there that Monsieur Via.s.se was highly appreciated by officers and men.

He called me his friend. He began our friendship with the conventional question:

"Wie haisst! will you give me a cigarette?"

Many a cigarette the Roumanian Jew from Berlin got from me, as long as there was silver in my pocket. In return he a.s.sured me of his high esteem, and when longing for a smoke called me "Herr Baron." When with the silver pieces the cigarettes came to an end, our friendship suffered a little in consequence.

I myself lived in a state of continual irritation. The least trifle put me into such a rage that I can hardly credit it to-day. Often enough I would tear down my "paquetage" from the shelf, destroying what had been wearisome work, just because some trousers or jacket did not seem to be folded correctly. It had been nothing else but "cafard" when I had roared at the captain because the doctor refused to give me an opiate on the march--it was exactly the same "cafard" in a milder form when I roared at this or that comrade just because he was in my way when I was busy polishing. My vexation, my irritability, my brooding was the madness of the Foreign Legion.

No legionnaire escapes from it.

The rest of my comrades in the room all had at different times the "cafard" more or less seriously.... Crowded together like horses in a bad stable the men became dangerous. They fought over the quarter of a litre of the Legion wine that was apportioned to us every second day, and watched with ridiculous suspicion that the next man did not get more than he did; one quarrelled over a piece of bread; one took one's neighbour for a thief who wanted to steal a bit of black wax for leather polishing. If one man got more work to do than his neighbour, he cried murder and roared out about protection, and favouritism, and vicious preference.

This was the atmosphere in which the Legion whims were developed. It was really strange how many of the legionnaires had a screw loose, often only harmless peculiarities, but which could increase to madness.

All idiocy in the Legion is called "cafard." A legionnaire is gloomy, sitting sullenly on his bed for hours, speaking to no one. If you ask him what is the matter, he will answer with a gross insult. He sits thinking all the time and does the queerest things. He has the "cafard."...

His madness may turn into a senseless explosion or fit of fury; men suffering from "cafard" will run a bayonet through their comrade's body, without any reason, without any outward cause. Sometimes they rush out into the desert, sometimes they tear every piece of their outfit into rags, just to vex themselves and others thoroughly.

The "cafard" is at its worst in the hot season when the sun burns down relentlessly from the cloudless, deep blue sky, with the strange greenish colouring of the horizon peculiar to Algeria. Then the barrack-yard of the Foreign Legion lies deserted. It is so hot that the stones on the yellow clayey ground seem to move in the glimmering overheated air. The legionnaire sentries wear the flowing white neck-protector, and have stuffed wet cloths into their kepis.

In the soldiers' quarters the legionnaires lie on their mattresses and take their siesta, the strictly prescribed rest from 11 A.M. until 3 P.M. The white man is a useless object in the sun-blaze of the hot season. In the infernal heat of the soldiers' rooms the "cafard" has often been the cause of great disaster. It has often happened that during the siesta legionnaires have suddenly jumped out of the window, three stories high, without any outward cause whatever.

Once (very likely when affected with "cafard") I wrote down during the siesta a description of what our men's room looked like. These few lines are the only thing I ever wrote in the Legion:

"I lay on my bed half naked. The room was as hot as a stove, filled with the stench of perspiration. A brilliant strip of sunlight played through the long room from window to window. Oh, the heat, the heat.

Even the walls felt hot. In the bare, whitewashed room the men lay groaning on their beds in all kinds of possible and impossible positions. Some were swearing, others quarrelling--nothing brings on the "cafard" so quickly as physical suffering. Two Spaniards were quarrelling in the loud gesticulating manner of their race; a German in the next bed had fallen asleep, and was muttering words of German in his dream. He was dreaming of his mother. In the other corner of the room a Frenchman was shouting frantically to some one to give him a brush--his own brush was lost. His bed neighbour hummed a marching song, half in Arabic, half in French, always with the same refrain:

"'Si le caporal savait ca, il dirait: Nom de Dieu.'

"Another man slowly and automatically rubbed his leather straps, a third one informed everybody that the sergeant was a rogue and was working him to death. Here the German awoke. Disturbed in his sleep he yelled out: 'Shut up you beggars.' And the Frenchmen and Spaniards began to curse on hearing German words.

"'Monsieur le Caporal'[4] sat up slowly and tiredly and, leaning on his elbow, said in a low tone of voice:

[4] "Monsieur le Caporal" was Corporal Wa.s.sermann's nickname, because in the eyes of the legionnaires he was far too particular in his manners and language when giving orders.

"'A little silence, please.'

"The Spaniards laughed and a Frenchman said under his breath, the d.a.m.ned 'casque a pique,' meaning the Prussian helmet, might leave honest legionnaires in peace during siesta.

"The corporal did not move. In his quiet even tone he went on speaking: 'Silence. You all know that during siesta all noise is forbidden.

Legrand, for using the epithet "casque a pique," I punish you with two days' barrack arrest. You are not serving in a French line regiment, but in the Foreign Legion. You understand, do you not, that in the Foreign Legion no man is taxed with his nationality. And in every respect it is very unwise to vex your corporal. ca y est.'

"At that the legionnaire laughed and quiet reigned once more.

"My G.o.d, the heat was terrible. Then all at once a slashing, metallic sound. One of the Spaniards had pulled down the long bayonet that always hangs over a legionnaire's bed, and was in the act of a.s.saulting his countryman and comrade. The corporal sprang between the two and sent one flying to the right, the other to the left. In a second the whole place was in an uproar. The two Spaniards threw themselves upon each other, anxious to kill each other. The other legionnaires laughed and howled out through it all....

"At last the signal, 'Debout, legionnaires, debout!' 'Up, up!' sounded down in the yard. The siesta was at an end."

This is what I wrote while lying half naked in my bed, groaning at the heat. The description has the advantage of the impressions of the moment. This was what happened when the "cafard" was at its "best."

Then again whole numbers of soldiers are affected by it in the same way. The legionnaires of half a company would put their heads together, planning some act of desperation. One time it would be mutiny en ma.s.se, at another time desertion in a body. This madness is well known wherever a company of legionnaires is stationed. In some kind of form it is always present. It is the cause of the horrible tattooing, of drinking and brawling; it is the reason for that peculiar longing for continual change, that restlessness typical of the Foreign Legion.

The legionnaires are themselves not aware what influence the "cafard"

has on them. When an old legionnaire says grumpily, "J'ai le cafard,"

he is just telling his neighbours to keep clear of him, that he has a bad fit of the blues, that it is advisable for his comrades to leave him alone. He has no idea that a hidden power, like unto madness, is making him act in such a manner, he only believes himself to be in a bad humour. But the bad humour rises and increases, often driving him to murder, more often to suicide. The legionnaire cannot foresee the effects of the "cafard." The typical "cafard demoniacs," the old grumpy fellows who do their duty like machines and at other times hardly speak at all, are instinctively feared, as if their comrades knew that at any moment the least trifle could lead to an outbreak of the dormant madness.

I have witnessed such an explosion (that is the proper term for it). We had a man in our company who had served for many years in the Legion.

He was a Frenchman and had worn the Legion's uniform for more than ten years. He got out of our way whenever he could, and when his duties were over, slunk away into lonely corners of the barrack-yard. Every fifth day he left the barracks, on pay-day, to return reeling, evidently drunk, just before evening muster. He never was rowdy, but silent as usual, he threw himself upon his bed. Where he went to, where he bought his wine, with whom he drank it, n.o.body knew.

One pay-day, when the half of our company was on guard-duty, he for once came back too late. The barrack-gates had long been closed; Smith and I were still sitting on the bench in front of the guard-room, the sergeant and the other legionnaires were lying inside on their bunks.

All at once the sentry at the gate called the officer on duty with the laconic report:

"Sergeant--la porte!"

The gate! Swearing, the man came with his keys. Outside stood the grumpy old legionnaire, swaying from side to side and his kepi at the back of his head.

"Bertillon?" the sergeant said, unlocking the gate. "You ---- old pig, you ought to know by this time when to come home."

Bertillon staggered in and remained standing in front of the sergeant.

"Be off with you and get into your quarters!" he commanded. "You can be jolly glad that your own company is on guard duty, else you would have been locked up at once. Allez--schieb' los!"

The old legionnaire stared at the sergeant. Suddenly, without saying a word, he hit him right in the face with his fist.

"Aux armes!" the reeling sergeant yelled. Bertillon had pulled out his bayonet and was slashing and hitting at every one, roaring like a wild beast. A terrible tussle ensued. We were twelve to one, but it took us more than a quarter of an hour to get the upper hand of the "cafard"

madman, and every one had been more or less wounded by his bayonet. At length we contrived to throw blankets over his head, and strapping him up like a parcel, we threw him into the prison.

On opening the cell the next morning he was found dead. At the post-mortem examination the army surgeon stated that the bursting of an artery in the brain had been the cause of death.

These are the worst cases of "cafard."

Generally the peculiar malady of the Foreign Legion shows itself in all kinds of peculiar whims. Smith's comical reciting of the Koran chapters was such a whim. Many developed some kind of fixed idea.