The Wages of Virtue Part 9

As he gabbled, the Greek scrubbed at Rivoli's boots with a rag and the palm of his hand. Evidently the retinue of the great man had been augmented by one who would be faithful and true while his patron's strength and money lasted. As, at the head of his band of henchmen and parasites, the latter hero turned to leave the barrack-room with a shout of "_Allons, mes enfants d'Enfer,_" he bent his lofty brow upon, c.o.c.ked his ferocious eye at, and turned his haughty regard toward the remaining recruits, finishing with Reginald Rupert:

"I will teach useful tricks to you little dogs later," he promised.

"You shall dance me the _rigolboche_, and the _can-can_," and swaggered out....

"Nice lad," observed Rupert, looking up from his work--and wondered what the morrow might bring forth. There should be a disappointed Luigi, or a dead Rupert about, if it came to interference and trouble.

"Sure," agreed Legionnaire Bronco, seating himself on the bed beside his beloved John Bull. "He's some stiff, that guy, an' I allow it'll soon be up ter me ter _con_duct our Loojey ter the bone-orchard. He's a plug-ugly. He's a ward-heeler. Land sakes! I wants ter punch our Loojey till h.e.l.l pops; an' when it comes ter shootin' I got Loojey skinned a mile--sure thing. _J'ai Loojey ecorche un mille_.... Nope, there ain't 'nuff real room fer Looje an' me in Algery--not while Carmelita's around....

"Say, John," he continued, turning to his friend, "she up an' axed me las' night ef he ever went ter the Canteen an' ef Madam lar Canteenair didn't ever git amakin' eyes at her beautiful Looje! Yep! It _is_ time Loojey kissed hisself good-bye."

"Oh? What did you tell her?" enquired John Bull. "There is no doubt the swine will marry the Canteen if he can. More profitable than poor little Carmelita's show. He _is_ a low stinker, and she's one of the best and prettiest and pluckiest little women who ever lived.... She's so _debrouillarde_."

"Wot did I say? Wal, John, wot I ses was--'Amakin' eyes at yure Loojey, my dear.' I ses, 'Madam lar Canteenair is a woman with horse-sense an'

two eyes in 'er 'ead. She wouldn't look twice at a boastin', sw.a.n.kin', fat-slappin', back-stabbin', dime-show ackerobat,' I ses. 'Yure Loojey flaps 'is mouth too much. _Il frappe sa bouche trop,_' I ses. But I didn't tell her as haow 'e's amakin' up ter Madam lar Canteenaire all his possible. She wouldn't believe it of 'im. She wouldn't even believe that 'e _goes_ ter the Canteen. I only ses: 'Yure Loojey's a leary lipper so don't say as haow I ain't warned yer, Carmelita honey,'

I ses--an' I puts it inter copper-bottomed Frencho langwago also. Yep!"

"What did Carmelita say?" asked John Bull.

"Nix," was the reply. "It pa.s.ses my com*pre*hension wot she sees in that fat Eye-talian ice-cream trader. Anyhaow, it's up ter Hiram C.

Milton ter git upon his hind legs an' _fer_bid the bangs ef she goes fer ter marry a greasy orgin-grinder ... serposin' he don't git Madam lar Canteenair," and the Bucking Bronco sighed deeply, produced some strong, black Algerian tobacco, and asked High Heaven if he might hope ever again to stuff some real Tareyton Mixture (the best baccy in the world) into his "guley-brooley"--whereby Legionary John Bull understood him to mean his _brule-gueule_, or short pipe--and relapsed into lethargic and taciturn apathy.

"How would you like a prowl round?" asked John Bull, of Rupert.

"Nothing better, thank you, if you think I could pa.s.s the Sergeant of the Guard before being dismissed recruit-drills."

"Oh, that'll be all right if you are correctly dressed. Hop into the tunic and red breeches and we'll try it. You're free until five-thirty to-morrow morning, and can do some more at your kit when we return.

We'll go round the barracks and I'll show you the ropes before we stroll round Sidi-bel-Abbes, and admire the wonders of the Rue Prudon, Rue Montagnac, and Rue de Jerusalem. Our band is playing at the Military Club to-night, and the band of the Premiere Legion etrangere is the finest band in the whole world--largely Germans and Poles. We are allowed to listen at a respectful distance. We'll look in at the _Village d'Espagnol_, the _Mekerra_, and the _Faubourg des Palmiers_ another time, as they're out of bounds. Also the _Village Negre_ if you like, but if we're caught there we get a month's hard labour, if not solitary confinement and starvation in the foul and stinking _cellules_--because we're likely to be killed in the _Village Negre_."

"Let's go there now," suggested Rupert eagerly, as he b.u.t.toned his tunic.

"No, my boy. Wait until you know what _cellule_ imprisonment really is, before you risk it. You keep out of the _trou_ just as long as you can.

It's different from the Stone Jug of a British regiment--very. Don't do any _rabiau_[#] until you must. We'll be virtuous to-night, and when you must go out of bounds, go with me. I'll take you to see Carmelita this evening at the Cafe de la Legion, and we'll look in on Madame la Cantiniere, at the Canteen, before the Last Post at nine o'clock....

Are you coming, Buck?"

[#] Time spent in prison or in the Penal Battalions--which does not count towards the five years period of service.

And these three modern musketeers left the _chambree_ of their _caserne_ and clattered down the stone stairs to the barrack-square.

CHAPTER III

CARMELITA ET CIE

"Those boots comfortable?" asked John Bull as they crossed the great parade-ground.

"Wonderfully," replied Rupert. "I could do a march in them straight away. Fine boots too."

"Yes," agreed the other. "That's one thing you can say for the Legion kit, the boots are splendid--probably the best military boots in the world. You'll see why, before long."

"Long marches?"

"Longest done by any unit of human beings. Our ordinary marches would be records for any other infantry, and our forced marches are incredible--absolute world's records. They call us the '_Cavalerie a pied_' in the Service, you know. One of the many ways of killing us is marching us to death, to keep up the impossible standard. Buck, here, is our champion."

"Waal, yew see--I strolled crost Amurrica ten times," apologised the Bronco, "ahittin' the main drag, so I oughter vamoose some. Yep! I can throw me feet _con_siderable."

"I've never been a foot-slogger myself," admitted Rupert, "but I've Mastered a beagle pack, and won a few running pots at school and during my brief 'Varsity career. What are your distances?"

"Our minimum, when marching quietly out of barracks and back, without a halt is forty kilometres under our present Colonel, who is known in the Legion as The Marching Pig, and we do it three or four times a week. On forced marches we do anything that is to be done, inasmuch as it is the unalterable law of the Legion that all forced marches must be done in one march. If the next post were forty miles away or even fifty, and the matter urgent, we should go straight on without a halt, except the usual 'cigarette s.p.a.ce,' or five minutes in every hour, until we got there. I a.s.sure you I have very often marched as much as six hundred kilometres in fifteen days, and occasionally much more. And we carry the heaviest kit in the world--over a hundred-weight, in full marching order."

"What is a kilometre?" asked the interested Rupert.

"Call it five furlongs."

"Then an ordinary day's march is about thirty miles without a halt, and you may have to do four hundred miles straight off, at the rate of twenty-five consecutive miles a day? Good Lord above us!"

"Yes, my own personal record is five hundred and sixty miles in nineteen days, without a rest day--under the African sun and across sand...."

"I say--what's _this_ game?" interrupted Rupert, as the three turned a corner and entered a small square between the rear of the _caserne_ of the Fourth Company and the great barrack-wall--a square of which all exits were guarded by sentries with fixed bayonets. Round and round in a ring at a very rapid quick-step ran a dismal procession of suffering men, to the monotonously reiterated order of a Corporal--

"A droit, _droit_. A droit, _droit_. A droit, _droit_."

Their blanched, starved-looking faces, glazed eyes, protruding tongues and doubled-up bodies made them a doleful spectacle. On each man's back was a burden of a hundred pounds of stones. On each man's emaciated face, a look of agony, and on the canvas-clad back of one man, a great stain of wet blood from a raw wound caused by the cutting and rubbing of the stone-laden knapsack. Each man wore a fatigue-uniform, filthy beyond description.

"Why the h.e.l.l can't they be set ter sutthin' useful--hoein' pertaties, or splittin' rails, or chewin' gum--'stead o' that silly strain-me-heart and break-me-sperrit game on empty stummicks twice a day?" observed the Bucking Bronco.

Every panting, straining, gasping wretch in that pitiable _peloton des hommes punis_ looked as though his next minute must be his last, his next staggering step bring him crashing to the ground. What could the dreadful alternative be, the fear of which kept these suffering, starving wretches on their tottering, failing legs? Why would they _not_ collapse, in spite of Nature? Fear of the Legion's prison? No, they were all serving periods in the Legion's prison already, and twice spending three hours of each prison-day in this agony. Fear of the Legion's Hospital? Yes, and of the Penal Battalion afterwards.

"What sort of crimes have they committed?" asked Rupert, as they turned with feelings of personal shame from the sickening sight.

"Oh, all sorts, but I'm afraid a good many of them have earned the enmity of some Non-com. As a rule, a man who wants to, can keep out of that sort of thing, but there's a lot of luck in it. One gets run in for a lost strap, a dull b.u.t.ton, a speck of rust on rifle or bayonet, or perhaps for being slow at drill, slack in saluting, being out of bounds, or something of that sort. A Sergeant gives him three days' confinement to barracks, and enters it in the _livre de punitions_. Very likely, the Captain, feeling liverish when he examines the book, makes it eight days' imprisonment. That's not so bad, provided the Commander of the Battalion does not think it might be good for discipline for him to double it. And that again is bearable so long as the Colonel does not think the scoundrel had better have a month--and imprisonment, though only called 'Ordinary Arrest,' carries with it this beastly _peloton de cha.s.se_. Still, as I say, a good man and keen soldier can generally keep fairly clear of _salle de police_ and _cellule_."

"So Non-coms. can punish off their own bat, in the Legion, can they?"

enquired Rupert as they strolled toward the main gate.

"Yes. The N.C.O. is an almighty important bird here, and you have to salute him like an officer. They can give extra corvee, confinement to barracks, and up to eight days' _salle de police_, and give you a pretty bad time while you're doing it, too. In peace time, you know, the N.C.O.s run the Legion absolutely. We hardly see our officers except on marches, or at manoeuvres. Splendid soldiers, but they consider their duty is to lead us in battle, not to be bothered with us in peace. The N.C.O.s can do the bothering for them. Of course, we're pretty frequently either demonstrating, or actually fighting on the Southern, or the Moroccan border, and then an officer's job is no sinecure. They are real soldiers--but the weak spot is that they avoid us like poison, in barracks."

"We're mostly foreigners, of course," he continued, "half German, and not very many French, and there's absolutely none of that mutual liking and understanding which is the strength of the British Army.... And naturally, in a corps like this, they've got to be severe and harsh to the point of cruelty. After all, it's not a girls' school, is it? But take my advice, my boy, and leave the Legion's punishment system of starvation, over-work, and solitary confinement outside your 'experiences' as much as possible...."

"I say--what a ghastly, charnel-house stink," remarked the recipient of this good advice, as the trio pa.s.sed two iron-roofed buildings, one on each side of the closed main-entrance of the barracks. "I noticed it when I first came in here, but I was to windward of it I suppose. It's the bally limit. Poo-o-oh!"

"Yes, you live in that charming odour all night, if you get _salle de police_ for any offence, and all day as well, if you get 'arrest' in the regimental lock-up--except for your two three-hour turns of _peloton des hommes punis_. It's nothing at this distance, but wait until you're on sentry-go in one of those barrack-prisons. There's a legend of a runaway pig that took refuge in one, gave a gasp, and fell dead.... Make Dante himself envious if he could go inside. The truth of that Inferno is much stranger than the fiction of his."

"Yep," chimed in the American. "But what gits my goat every time is _cellules_. Yew squats on end in a dark cell fer the whole of yure sentence, an' yew don't go outside it from start to finish, an' thet may be thirty days. Yew gits a quarter-ration o' dry bread an' a double ration of almighty odour. 'Nuff ter raise the roof, but it don't do it.

No exercise, no readin', no baccy, no nuthin'. There yew sits and there yew starves, an' lucky ef yew don't go balmy...."