In the Foreign Legion Part 26

"Yes, there is a letter for you," he answered. "You can have it as soon as I have done relieving the sentries. En avant--marche!"

A new period of anxious waiting and torturing expectation.... At last the corporal of the guard came back and put his hand in his pocket:

"Voila!"

On the white envelope I saw the characters of the handwriting I knew so well. I went out into the square which was now empty, as the prisoners had been locked up in their cells again. I read and read--again and again....

Love stretched out its hand to the lost soldier of the Legion and spoke to him of happiness to come. Long years hence when the legionnaire would be no longer a legionnaire. The letter's many pages bore traces of tears. I wanted to tear off my uniform, that brand of slavery condemning me to inactivity. Within me all was in a whirl. In the darkness of the ugly court I dreamed dreams of the past and hopes of the future so hopelessly far off. During the four hours from watch to watch I sat motionless in the prison-yard.

In these few hours there came to me that energy which meant the beginning of a new life. Then it was my turn for sentry duty again. And then I sat down at the small table in the guard-room while the corporal and the other men slept, and wrote an endless letter with the corporal's pencil on the back of report forms. Page upon page....

The next day a letter from my mother came; a letter that neither asked questions nor held reproaches. It only spoke of love and anxiety for me. This letter solved the riddle of how my whereabouts had been discovered. After long months of waiting and wondering the people who loved me got the idea that I might be in the Foreign Legion, since the last letter they received from me had been dated from the French fortress, Belfort. My mother wrote to the general in command of the fortress and to the French Secretary of War. The answer was long delayed, but at last the news came that I had joined the Foreign Legion at Sidi-bel-Abbes--that I was the legionnaire number 17889!

With that hour in the Arab prison which brought me the first letter, the days of suffering began. I performed my duty and did my work like a machine, thinking of nothing but the letters which the next post would bring me. I hardly spoke a word to anybody in those times. When I was off duty I went for long walks in the still paths by the fortifications in order to be alone. Finally only one idea governed my thoughts: Flight!

Week after week I received letters every day, begging and beseeching me to have patience. I was to remember that all hopes for the future would be shattered if I was caught deserting. Better to wait for years than to risk everything. But I could not wait. And one day there came a registered letter from my mother. When I opened it, I held banknotes for a large sum of money in my hand....

This meant freedom! I crossed the court of the barracks as one in a dream. This money in my pocket meant new life for me--my mother had for the second time given me life. I knew what a sacrifice this money meant; how hard it must have been for my mother with her tiny widow's pension to sc.r.a.pe together such a sum of money for me. And all at once a wave of happiness overcame me--I should be free! I should be able to thank those loving ones who were helping me....

I got that letter at five o'clock in the afternoon. I was just off duty and had come back to the barracks, having been pulling out weeds in the Legion's cemetery. That should be my last bit of work as legionnaire.

Not a single hour I intended to wait. There was no more rest for me in the land of Sidi-bel-Abbes. In our quarters my comrades were sitting at supper as I came back from the regimental post-bureau, and Smith was much surprised at my eating nothing, and at my putting on at once my extra uniform. He looked suspiciously at me, as if he had an idea that I had something out of the way on my mind. I would have been only too glad to say a last good-bye to the old bugler who had been a true friend to me in his rough way, but he was sitting at table with the rest of the men. When I had finished dressing and had quietly taken my letters and the few trifles I wanted to take with me out of my knapsack, Smith came up and lay down on his bed as usual after supper.

"Good-bye, old man," I whispered. "You've been a good fellow."

Smith did not move. Only his eyes lighted up....

"Got money?" he asked gently.

"Yes."

"Then it's all right. Good-bye, sonny--good-bye!"

As I went out the other men were sitting on the benches doing the various odd jobs which were part of life in the Legion. They rubbed and polished--polished and rubbed. At that time they were hardly more to me than a pa.s.ser-by in the street. Now, I confess, the face of every one of them is indelibly burnt into my brain.

I was to be subjected to a final annoyance.

The sergeant of the guard stopped me at the gate of the barracks, because in my excitement I had b.u.t.toned up my overcoat on the wrong side. He said he had a good mind to turn me back for my carelessness.

"Nom de Dieu! you pig, don't you know that this month the overcoats are b.u.t.toned on the right side?"

But he let me go. Through the crowd of legionnaires I hurried down the promenade. The first place I had to go to was the "Credit Lyonnais,"

the famous French bank which had a branch in Sidi-bel-Abbes near the Place Sadi Carnot. The greater part of my money consisted of Belgian banknotes, which naturally were not in circulation in Algeria, and I thought I should be able to have them changed at the bank more quickly and cheaply than anywhere else. There I made a mistake. The clerk at the counter explained in a roundabout way that Belgian banknotes were of no use to them, and that it would cost a lot of money to send them to Paris. He was only greedy, of course (everybody in Sidi-bel-Abbes is), and trying to get an especially high commission out of me. Perhaps he thought that a legionnaire should be too pleased at having so much money to bother about a few francs more or less. There he was in error.

I replied I should complain to the colonel of my regiment that the only bank in Sidi-bel-Abbes tried to overcharge a simple soldier. Whereupon this greedy clerk of a world-famous bank grumblingly took my notes and gave me French money for them.

Through the brightly illuminated main streets, saluting officers right and left, I hurried to the Ghetto. In the very first alley of the Ghetto I met an old fellow who looked promising. I tapped him on the shoulder.

"Eh! Civilian clothes?"

The Jew raised his forefinger warningly.

"Can't sell to legionnaires."

I turned on my heels and went slowly on. But he was after me already.

"How much?"

"Twenty francs."

"Fifty!"

"Thirty."

"Forty-five!"

"Look here," I said. (The conversation was held in bad Algerian French, of course.) "I'll give you forty francs, and that settles it. But I've got to have those clothes quick."

The Jew looked at me dubiously, and held out the palms of his hands.

One could not be mistaken about the gesture: he had his doubts about my solvency. So I rea.s.sured the old man by showing him a few gold pieces.

Now the son of Israel was quite satisfied, and led me a few steps farther on into a house. A tiny little lamp was smoking in a foul-smelling room.

"Sarah!" called out my companion.

An old woman came hobbling out of a neighbouring room, and when she heard what was wanted went off and fetched a heap of clothes. Amongst them there was a suit which looked fairly respectable. It fitted me pretty well, and in the natural order of things we began haggling again. Fifty francs changed hands.

Then I gave the Ghetto man another gold piece.

"Now hurry up and get me a hat somewhere, a pair of boots, a collar and a tie."

But here the fat old woman with her shrill voice began to make difficulties. I was bringing misfortune on them. It was after business hours anyway. I must not stay in the house any longer--it was far too dangerous. "Allez vous en--allez vous en!"

The old lady began to get on my nerves, and I went willingly enough. At the corner I waited for the old Jew. In ten minutes he came back, and said that he could for twenty francs get me a really good outfit, boots, an extra collar, a good hat and a pair of gloves; for an extra twenty he could procure an excellent revolver. He got the money, and after a short time came back with two bundles.

At the end of the next street there was the high wall of the fortifications. From the inside I could climb over easily enough. The drop to the ground on the other side was a pretty big one, but I landed unhurt in the sand, in the middle of a palm grove. From the open windows of a villa close to the grove a flood of light streamed, and I could hear the merry sounds of a waltz. I could see the couples dancing. Many officers were amongst them. But there was no danger of being seen; it was pitch dark among the palms. In feverish haste I tore off my uniform and put on the civilian clothes. They fitted me well. It was quite a strange feeling fastening a collar and tie once more....

And when I had changed I nailed uniform and overcoat, and boots and belt, and everything to a palm with the bayonet, wondering who would find them in the morning!

I drew on my gloves and my toilet was complete. In the villa the band (it was the Legion's band too) was playing a German waltz: "Das ist das susse Madel...."

With a feeling very much akin to fright I walked to the nearest gate in the fortification walls. The soldiers on guard there, however, did not take the slightest notice of me. This gave me more confidence. Slowly and unostentatiously I crossed the promenade as though I were merely a respectable citizen out for a stroll. Legionnaires were promenading everywhere. More than once I had to turn and make a detour to avoid meeting non-commissioned officers of my own company. It was an exciting walk. At last I had pa.s.sed through the main streets and came to a suburban road leading straight to the railway station. The little station was quite deserted. I looked carefully about me to see whether anybody was watching me, and then climbed down the steep embankment to the railroad tracks, leading straight to the north to Oran.

In the meantime it had become quite dark. From afar the lights of the station and of the switch-signals were shining; the lines themselves lay hidden in pitch-darkness. I began to run. At first I kept stumbling over the sharp stones between the rails and once I fell at full length.

Soon, however, I got the hang of the thing, springing from sleeper to sleeper. I ran as hard as I could. A quarter of an hour, half an hour.

Then I had to stop, coughing and out of breath. It was beginning to drizzle. The landscape was cloaked in inky darkness and there was only a faint gleam of light on the horizon far behind me to show where Sidi-bel-Abbes lay.... As far as I could tell I must have covered about five kilometres. My feet were paining me. I drew off one of my boots and found that there were long rows of nails sticking up inside and that the soles were damp with blood. I tore up my handkerchief and made a pad from the rags to cover the nails. But the horrible little monsters bored through even this. Anyhow, it was far better than before. I examined the revolver in my pocket and it was a pleasant surprise to find that it was a capital weapon, a Browning pistol. The old Jew, who certainly knew nothing about weapons, had, with the revolver, atoned for his sins in the matter of boots!

Once more I started forward. My feet had to get accustomed to the nails whether they liked it or not. From now on I kept up an alternate double and walk, husbanding my strength as I had learnt to do in the Legion, running five minutes at the double and then walking five minutes, always following the railway's bee-line for the north. Once I heard the roar of a train behind me and lay down flat in the sand by the rails.

Thus hour after hour went by. I had already pa.s.sed three stations, which merely consisted of a few houses which lay there deserted in the darkness. As I pa.s.sed a lonely signal-house a dog began to bark and I started off in deadly terror, running like a madman till I had left the beast tearing at his chain far behind me. How thankful I was for the silence and darkness.... I breathed with difficulty, I had been running so hard. My clothes were soaked with sweat, and when I stopped for a moment to rest, an icy shiver pa.s.sed over my whole body. But I pulled myself together, for I wanted to reach a medium-sized station, where it would not be so noticeable when I took a ticket for Oran.