In the Foreign Legion Part 8

Smith grinned in answer: "Room? Nom d'un petard, what do we want room for? The litre is the main thing, sonny!"

Pushing through the crowd he reached the bar and held up a forefinger with a serious face. This seemed to be a well-known signal to the young woman behind the bar. Without saying a word she took three copper pieces from the bugler, giving him in exchange a full bottle of wine and two gla.s.ses. "Madame la Cantiniere" could not be over twenty years old. Like a queen seated on her throne she held sway behind her bar and ruled the crowd of noisy, yelling legionnaires in quiet authority, imposing and comical at the same time.

Madame la Cantiniere was the sutler of the Foreign Legion. Old tradition demands that a woman should keep the Legion's canteen.

"Madame la Cantiniere de la Legion" usually is married, but she is the official head of the canteen and not her husband. The business belongs to her. On the march and in the field she wears the blue sutler's uniform and follows the regiment with her little sutler's waggon.

On a bench in the corner Smith found seats for us, and had two big gla.s.ses filled (the Legion does not waste time drinking out of small winegla.s.ses!)--had the gla.s.ses filled before we sat down.

"Here's luck," he said. "There's no such thing as luck in this place, but one keeps on wishing for it just the same. Here's luck, Dutchy!"

He emptied his gla.s.s at a gulp, wiping his soft fair moustache in great satisfaction. _And_ he refilled his gla.s.s at once.

"The wine's good. And that's all right. Sonny, there are miles and miles of vineyards round this here Sidi-bel-Abbes. The hilly ground near the Thessala mountains is a single large vineyard. There are times in Algeria when they let the wine run on the street. It's so plentiful and cheap that it isn't worth the casks. There would be no Legion, I tell you, if it wasn't for the cheap wine!"

With wondering eyes I surveyed the men in the canteen and the canteen itself. The smoke of many hundreds of cigarettes filled the place with a heavy bluish vapour. The noise was indescribable. One had to yell to be understood by one's neighbour, a quietly spoken word would have been lost in the turmoil. Everybody was yelling and everybody seemed to be in high glee. The legionnaires were having what they considered a good time. They jumped on the tables, kicking and dancing, jingled their gla.s.ses, threw empty bottles about and made fun of everybody and everything. Every minute the uproar increased. These hard-faced, hard-eyed men were like children at some forbidden game, trying to get as much fun as possible while the teacher was away.

Suddenly a man with a wonderfully clear and strong voice began singing a love-song. Noise and tumult ceased at once. I listened in amazement.

A legionnaire sang for his comrades, in a beautiful tenor voice, in a voice reminding me of great singers I had heard long ago. A poor devil of a legionnaire possessed a voice many a singer would have envied. He sang a French song, every verse closing pitifully:

L'amour m'a rendu fou....

The song of a lover who had loved and lost, a song of love and ladies, of love's delights and love's misery, sung in the canteen of the Foreign Legion.

With burning eyes I looked at the listening throng of men in red and blue until I saw nothing but their shadowy outlines like a far-away _fata Morgana_--I was lost in a dream of memories.

Absolute quiet reigned. The song held these men of rough life and rougher manners spellbound; the glorious mellow voice, now clear as a trumpet, now low and sweet as a woman's caress, must have appealed to every heart. The song was at an end:

L'amour m'a rendu fou....

For a moment, for a few seconds, all remained hushed. And then one would think that these men were ashamed of having been so soft-hearted.

A legionnaire jumped on a table and yelled:

"Silence.... No more fool songs for us! Vive le litre!"

"Le litre!" ... a hundred men roared. The shouting and the uproar and the noise commenced anew. Blacky, the negro, had come in and was soon dancing the dance of his race. He was a master of the turnings and twistings of the cake-walk. There were universal yells of appreciation as he bent backwards, high-stepping grotesquely. Blacky was much applauded and seemed to be a very happy n.i.g.g.e.r. Madame la Cantiniere did a roaring trade. The copper pieces were continually jingling on the tin-covered surface of the bar. La Cantiniere was a very busy woman this evening, pa.s.sing many hundreds of wine bottles to her thirsty clientele of legionnaires. Gla.s.ses were broken, pieces of gla.s.s lay everywhere on the tables and on the floor, and here and there little red pools of wine had formed. The fun grew fast and furious and the noise almost unbearable.

My friend the bugler had emptied gla.s.s after gla.s.s and was in high good humour.

"Why, it is the regiment's holiday!" he laughed.

The "fifth day" it was--pay-day. The Legion's humour called pay-day the regimental holiday. This humour was somewhat grim in view of the fact that pay in the Legion meant but five centimes a day, twenty-five centimes for the pay-roll period of five days. Twenty-five centimes are almost exactly five cents in American, or twopence-halfpenny in English money.

So the Legion's "holiday" was at the bottom of all the noise and fun in the canteen! These men in the Legion measured the pa.s.sing of time by their miserable pay-days only. Such a fifth day marked the glorious epoch when two comrades could buy exactly five "litres" of wine for their joint pay. Certainly such frivolity punished itself: there was no money left for the next five days' tobacco. So wise men in the Legion buy the customary package of tobacco for three sous, and drink but one bottle of wine every five days. This is what the soldier of the Foreign Legion works for: One bottle of wine and one package of tobacco every five days!

Shrilly a signal sounded through the noise--lights out! Madame la Cantiniere held up her hand, made a funny little bow, and said with a smile:

"Bonsoir, messieurs.--Good night, gentlemen."

The Legion teaches obedience.... In a very few seconds the canteen was empty and everybody was hurrying across the drill-ground to quarters.

When roll-call had been finished in our quarters and everybody had gone to bed, I quietly left the room. Sleep did not appeal to me that night.

The still of night lay over the barrack-yard. The white moonlight shone on the bare walls of the barracks. The stars of far south glittered in their trembling beauty. I stared up into the splendour of the heavens and brooded over happiness far away--pa.s.sed--dead....

I heard footsteps and saw a shadow moving somewhere on the other side.

And over there a trembling awkward voice sang softly:

L'amour m'a rendu fou....

Far into the night I crouched in a corner of the Legion's barrack-yard.

The first days, the first weeks of life in the Legion were quite sufficient to render me immune against strange things and strange sights. Sometimes it seemed to me as if my nerves were quite dulled.

Every day brought monstrous sights and hideous impressions. I shuddered at unheard-of things and wondered at these strange specimens of humanity. But the next moment some new horror made me forget what I had just seen.

In a few minutes' walk with the bugler round the barrack-yard one could meet with a variety of sights like the following:

A legionnaire ran past us, shrieking in extreme pain, splashed with blood. He had cut off the forefinger and middle finger of his right hand so as to be unfit for active service.

A poor crippled Arab, bent with age, stopped when he saw us. He was evidently on his way to the kitchen buildings to beg for food. In his hands he carried a Standard oil-can. A Standard oil-tin as receptacle for food in connection with an Arab, Algeria and the Foreign Legion struck me as something distinctly new. But there was more to follow. In very broken German the Arab addressed us:

"Gut' Tag, legionnaires. Cigarette! Ick sein deutsch--Magdeburg gewesen--1870."

The man had fought in the great Franco-German war and had been in Magdeburg as a prisoner of war!

Hardly had I recovered from my surprise when a pa.s.sing legionnaire made me stare in horror. The man had the grinning image of a skull tattooed on his forehead! He smiled at my frightened face and was evidently very pleased at the impression he had made. I remember saying to the bugler how horrible it was that a man should disfigure his face for life in such a manner, and I remember that Smith only shrugged his shoulders in reply.

"Why, that's nothing," he said. "Tattooing of that kind is quite customary in the Battalion of the Disciplined."

I could not agree with the bugler, I could not see a mere freak in this horrible tattoo-mark. To me it spoke of hope lost for ever, of a life so dreadful that a man no longer cared whether he was disfigured or not.

Pleased with the notice he attracted, the legionnaire with the skull on his forehead walked up to us and spoke to me:

"Eh, recruit, do you want to see something that very old legionnaires only have got?"

He showed me a tobacco-pouch, apparently made of fine soft leather:

"This is made of the breast of an Arab woman," said the man of the skull. "It is a very good tobacco-pouch. Made it myself. There are only seven in the whole regiment now. Chose--n'est-ce pas? That is something worth seeing!"

With a grin of vanity he walked away.

"Tobacco-pouch--an Arab woman's breast--my G.o.d, what is the meaning of this?" I asked of the bugler.

Smith told me all about those horrible pouches. The man of the skull had not lied. During the last insurrection of Arabs in Algeria, in grim warfare far in the South, Arabian women had horribly mutilated the bodies of legionnaires and inflicted horrible tortures on the wounded.

The soldiers of the Legion, maddened, thirsting for revenge, gave quarter to no Arab woman during those times. They retaliated in kind.... Of the horrible deeds they committed the dreadful tobacco-pouches gave evidence.

On the same day I witnessed for the first time the prisoners' march of punishment. I stood aghast.