The Wages of Virtue Part 5

A swaggering, strutting Sergeant emerged from the neighbouring regimental offices, roared "_Garde a vous_," brought the recruits to attention, and called the roll. As prophesied by Legionary John Bull, the whole draft was a.s.signed to the Seventh Company, recently depleted by the desertion, en ma.s.se, of a _cafard_-smitten German _escouade_, or section, who had gone "on pump," merely to die in the desert at the hands of the Arabs--several horribly tortured, all horribly mangled.

Having called the roll, this Sergeant, not strictly following the example of the Sergeant of the Guard, looked the draft over more in anger than in sorrow.

"Oh, Name of the Name of Beautiful Beelzebub," bawled he, "but what have we here? To _drill_ such worm-casts! Quel metier! Quel chien d'un metier! Stand up, stand up, oh sons of Arab mothers and pariah dogs,"

and then, feigning sudden and unconquerable sickness, he turned upon the Corporal in charge with a roar of--

"March these sacred pigs to their accursed sties."

As the heterogeneous gang stepped off at the word of command, "_En avant. Marche!_" toward the Quartermaster's store of the Seventh Company, it was clear to the experienced eye that the great majority were "Back to the army again," and were either deserters, or men who had already put in their military service in the armies of their own countries.

In the store-room they were endowed by the _Fourrier-Sergent_, to the accompaniment of torrential profanity, with white fatigue-uniforms, night-caps, rough shirts, harsh towels, and sc.r.a.ps of soap. From the store-room the squad was "personally conducted" by another, and even more terrible, Sergeant to a washing-shed beyond the drill-ground, and bidden to soap and scour itself, and then stand beneath the primitive shower-baths until purged and clean as never before in its unspeakable life.

As they neared the washing-shed, the bare idea of ablutions, or the idea of bare ablutions, appeared to strike consternation, if not positive terror, into the heart of at least one member of the squad, for the young Russian who had been addressed by his twin as Mikhail suddenly seized the other's arm and said with a gasp--

"Oh, Fedichka, how can I? Oh Fedia, Fedia, what shall I do?"

"We must trust in G.o.d, and use our wits, Olusha. I will..."

But a roar of "Silence, Oh Son of Seven Pigs," from the Sergeant, cut him short as they reached the shed.

"Now strip and scrub your mangy skins, you dogs. Sc.r.a.pe your crawling hides until the floor is thick in hog-bristles and earth, oh Great-grandsons of Sacred Swine," he further adjured the wretched "blues," with horrible threats and fearful oaths.

"Wash, you mud-caked vermin, wash, for the carcase of the Legionary must be as spotless as the Fame of the Legion, or the honour of its smartest Sergeant--Sergeant Legros," and he lapped his bulging chest lest any Boeotian present should be ignorant of the ident.i.ty of Sergeant Legros of the Legion.

Walking up and down before the doorless stalls in which the naked recruits washed, Sergeant Legros hurled taunts, gibes, insults, and curses at his charges, stopping from time to time to give special attention to anyone who had the misfortune to acquire his particular regard. Pausing to stare at the tall Englishman in affected disgust at the condition of his brilliant and glowing skin, he enquired--

"Is that a vest, disclosed by scrubbing and the action of water? Or is it your hide, pig?" And was somewhat taken aback by the cool and pleasant reply,

"No, that is not a new, pink silk vest that you see, Sergeant, it really is my own skin--but many thanks for the kind compliment, none the less."

Sergeant Legros eyed the recruit with something dimly and distantly akin to pity. Mad as a March hare, poor wretch, of course--it could not be intentional impudence--and the Sergeant smiled austerely--he would probably die in the cells ere long, if _le cafard_ did not send him to the Zephyrs, the firing-platoon, or the Arabs. Mad to begin with! Ho!

Ho! What a jest!--and the Sergeant chuckled.

But what was this? Did the good Sergeant's eyes deceive him? Or was there, in the next compartment, a lousy, lazy "blue" pretending to cleanse his foul and sinful carcase without completely stripping? The young Russian, Mikhail, standing with his back to the doorway, was unenthusiastically washing the upper part of his body.

Sergeant Legros stiffened like a pointer, at the sight. Rank disobedience! Flagrant defiance of orders, coupled with the laziest and filthiest indifference to cleanliness! This vile "blue" would put the Legion's clean shirt and canvas fatigue-suit on an indifferently washen body, would he? Let him wait until he was a Legionary, and no longer a recruit--and he should learn something of the powers of the Sergeant Legros.

"Off with those trousers, thou mud-caked flea-bitten sc.u.m," he thundered, and then received perhaps the greatest surprise of a surprising life. For, ere the offending recruit could turn, or obey, there danced forth from the next cubicle, with a wild whoop, his exact double, who, naked as he was born, turned agile somersaults and Catherine-wheels past the astounded Sergeant, down the front of the bathing-shed, and round the corner.

"Sacre Nom de Nom de Bon Dieu-de-Dieu!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Sergeant Legros, and rubbed his eyes. He then displayed a sample of the mental quickness of the trained Legionary in darting to the neighbouring corner of the building instead of running down the entire front in the wake of the vanished acrobat.

Dashing along the short side-wall, Sergeant Legros turned the corner and beheld the errant lunatic approaching in the same literally revolutionary manner.

On catching sight of the Sergeant, the naked recruit halted, and broke into song and dance, the latter being of that peculiarly violent Cossack variety which constrains the performer to crouch low to earth and fling out his legs, alternately, straight before him.

For the first time in his life, words failed Sergeant Legros. For some moments he could but stand over the dancer and gesticulate and stutter.

Rising to his feet with an engaging smile--.

"ca va mieux, mon pere?" observed the latter amiably.

Seizing him by arm and neck, the apoplectic Sergeant Legros conducted this weird disciple of Terpsich.o.r.e back to his cubicle, while his mazed mind fumbled in the treasure-house of his vocabulary, and the armoury of his weapons of punishment.

Apparently there was method, however, in the madness of Feodor Kyrilovitch Malekov, for a distinct look of relief and satisfaction crossed his face as, in the midst of a little crowd of open-mouthed, and half-clothed recruits, he caught sight of his brother in complete fatigue-uniform.

Gradually, and very perceptibly the condition of Sergeant Legros improved. His halting recriminations and imprecations became a steady trickle, the trickle a flow, the flow a torrent, and the torrent an overwhelming deluge. By the time he had almost exhausted his vocabulary and himself, he began to see the humorous and interesting aspect of finding two lunatics in one small draft. He would add them to his collection of b.u.t.ts. Possibly one, or both of them, might even come to equal the Mad Gra.s.shopper in that role. Fancy more editions of La Cigale--who had provided him with more amus.e.m.e.nt and opportunities for brutality than any ten sane Legionaries!

"Now, do great and unmerited honour to your vile, low carcases by putting on the fatigue-uniform of the Legion. Gather up your filthy civilian rags, and hasten," he bawled.

And when the, now wondrously metamorphosed, recruits had all dressed in the new canvas uniforms, they were marched to a small side gate in the wall of the barrack-square, and ordered to sell immediately everything they possessed in the shape of civilian clothing, including boots and socks. Civilian clothing is essential to the would-be deserter, and La Legion does not facilitate desertion.

That the unfortunate recruits got the one or two francs they did receive was solely due to the absence of a "combine" among the scoundrelly Arabs, Greeks, Spanish Jews, Negroes, and nondescript rogues who struggled for the cast-off clothing. For the Englishman's expensive suit a franc was offered, and compet.i.tion advanced this price to four.

For the sum of five francs he had to sell clothes, hat, boots, collar, tie, and underclothing that had recently cost him over fifty times as much. That he felt annoyed, and that, in spite of his apparent nonchalance, his temper was wearing thin, was evidenced by the fact that a big Arab who laid a grimy paw upon his shoulder and s.n.a.t.c.hed at his bundle, received the swift blow of dissuasion--a sudden straight-left in the eye, sending him flying--to the amus.e.m.e.nt and approval of the sentry whose difficult and arduous task it was to keep the scrambling, yelling thieves of old-clo' dealers from invading the barrack-square, and repentant recruits from quitting it.

When the swindle of the forced sale was complete, and several poor wretches had parted with their all for a few _sous_, the gate was shut and the weary squad marched to the offices of the Seventh Company that each man's name and profession might be entered in the Company Roll, and that he might receive his _matricule_ number, the number which would henceforth hide his ident.i.ty, and save him the trouble of retaining a personality and a name.

To Colour-Sergeant Blanc, the tall English youth, like most Legionaries, gave a _nom d'emprunt_, two of his own names, Reginald Rupert. He concealed his surname and sullied the crystal truth of fact by stating that his father was the Commander-in-Chief of the Horse Marines of Great Britain and Inspector-General of the Royal Naval Horse Artillery; that he himself was by profession a wild-rabbit-tamer, and by conviction a Plymouth Rock--all of which was duly and solemnly entered in the great tome by M. Blanc, a man taciturn, _tres boutonne_, and of no imagination.

Whatever the recruit may choose to say is written down in the Company lists, and should a recruit wax a little humorous, why--the Legion will very soon cure him of any tendency to humour. The Legion asks no questions, answers none, takes the recruit at his own valuation, and quickly readjusts it for him. Reconducted to the Store-room of the Seventh Company, the batch of recruits, again to the accompaniment of a fusillade of imprecations, and beneath a torrential deluge of insults and oaths, was violently tailored by a number of non-commissioned officers, and a fatigue-party of Legionnaires.

To "Reginald Rupert," at any rate, the badges of rank worn by the non-commissioned officers were mysterious and confusing--as he noted a man with one chevron giving peremptory orders in loud tone and bullying manner to a man who wore two chevrons. It also puzzled him that the fat man, who was evidently the senior official present, was addressed by the others as "_chef_," as though he were a cook. By the time he was fitted out with kit and accoutrement, he had decided that the "chef" (who wore two gold chevrons) was a Sergeant-Major, that the men wearing one gold chevron were Sergeants, and that those wearing two red ones were Corporals; and herein he was entirely correct.

Every man had to fit (rather than be fitted with) a red kepi having a bra.s.s grenade in front; a double-breasted, dark blue tunic with red facings and green-fringed red epaulettes; a big blue greatcoat, or _capote_; baggy red breeches; two pairs of boots; two pairs of linen spats, and a pair of leather gaiters. He also received a long blue woollen c.u.mmerbund, a knapsack of the old British pattern, a bag of cleaning materials, belts, straps, cartridge-pouches, haversack, and field flask.

To the fat Sergeant-Major it was a personal insult, and an impudence amounting almost to blasphemy, that a kepi, or tunic should not fit the man to whom it was handed. The idea of adapting a ready-made garment to a man appeared less prominent than that of adapting a ready-made man to a garment.

"What!" he roared in Legion French, to the fat German boy who understood not a word of the tirade. "What? Nom d'un petard! Sacre Dieu! The tunic will not easily b.u.t.ton? Then contract thy vile body until it will, thou offspring of a diseased pig and a dead dog. I will fit thee to that tunic, and none other, within the week. Wait! But wait--till thou has eaten the Breakfast of the Legion once or twice, fat sow...."

A gloomy, sardonic Legionary placed a kepi upon the crisply curling hair of Reginald Rupert. It was miles too big--a ludicrous extinguisher.

The Englishman removed it, and returned it with the remark, "ca ne marche pas, mon ami."

"_Merde!_" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the liverish-looking soldier, and called Heaven to witness that he was not to blame if the son of a beetle had a walnut for a head.

Throwing the kepi back into the big box he fished out another, banged it on Rupert's head, and was about to bring his open hand down on the top of it, when he caught the cold but blazing eye of the recruit, and noticed the clenched fist and lips. Had the Legionary's right hand descended, the recruit's left hand would have risen with prompt.i.tude and force.

"If that is too big, let the sun boil thy brains and bloat thy skull till it fits, and if it be too small, sleep in it," he remarked sourly, and added that thrice-accursed "blues" were creatures of the kind that ate their young, enc.u.mbered the earth, polluted the air, loved to _faire Suisse_,[#] and troubled Soldiers of the Legion who might otherwise have been in the Canteen, or at Carmelita's--instead of being the valets of sons of frogs, nameless excrescences....

[#] To drink alone; to sulk.

"Too small," replied Rupert coolly, and flung the cap into the box.

"Valet? I should condole with a crocodile that had a clumsy and ignorant yokel like you for a valet," he added, in slow and careful French as he tried on a third cap, which he found more to his liking.

The old Legionary gasped.

"Il m'enmerde!" he murmured, and wiped his brow. He, Jules Duplessis, Soldat 1ere Cla.s.se, with four years' service and the _medaille militaire_, had been outfaced, browbeaten, insulted by a miserable "blue." What were the World and La Legion coming to? "_Merde!_"

While trying on his tunic, Rupert saw one of the Russians hand to the other the tunic and trousers which he had tried on. Apparently being as alike as two pins in every respect they had adopted the labour-saving device of one "fitting on" for both.