CHAPTER IV
THE CANTEEN OF THE LEGION
FROM the Canteen, a building in the corner of the barrack-square, proceeded sounds of revelry by night.
"Blimey! Them furriners are singin' 'Gawd save the Queen' like bloomin' Christians," remarked 'Erb as the little party approached the modest Temple of Bacchus.
"No, they are Germans singing 'Heil dir im Sieges-Kranz,' replied Feodor Kyrilovitch in English.
"And singing it most uncommonly well," added Legionary John Bull.
"Fancy them 'eathens pinchin' the toon like that," commented 'Erb. "They oughtn't to be allowed. … Do they 'old concerts 'ere? I dessay they'd like to 'ear some good Henglish songs. …"
Reginald Rupert never forgot his first glimpse of the Canteen of the Legion, though he entered it hundreds of times and spent hundreds of hours beneath its corrugated iron roof. Scores of Legionaries, variously clad in blue and red or white sat on benches at long tables, or lounged at the long zinc-covered bar, behind which were Madame and hundreds of bottles and large wine-glasses.
Madame la Vivandière de la Légion was not of the school of "Cigarette." Rupert failed to visualise her with any clearness as leading a cavalry charge (the Drapeau of La France in one hand, a pistol in the other, and her reins in her mouth), inspiring Regiments, advising Generals, softening the cruel hearts of Arabs, or "saving the day" for La Patrie, in the manner of the vivandière of fiction. Madame had a beady eye, a perceptible moustache, a frankly downy chin, two other chins, a more than ample figure, and looked, what she was, a female camp-sutler. Perhaps Madame appeared more Ouidaesque on the march, wearing her official blue uniform as duly constituted and appointed fille du régiment. At present she looked. … However, the bow of Reginald Rupert, together with his smile and honeyed words, were those of Mayfair, as he was introduced by Madame's admired friend ce bon Jean Boule, and he stepped straight into Madame's experienced but capacious heart. Nor was the brightness of the image dulled by the ten-franc piece which he tendered with the request that Madame would supply the party with her most blushful Hippocrene. 'Erb, being introduced, struck an attitude, his hand upon his heart. Madame coughed affectedly.
"Makes a noise like a 'igh-class parlour-maid bein' jilted, don' she?" he observed critically.
Having handed a couple of bottles and a large glass to each member of the party, by way of commencement in liquidating the coin, she returned to her confidential whispering with Monsieur le Légionnaire Luigi Rivoli (who lolled, somewhat drunk, in a corner of the bar) as the group seated itself at the end of a long table near the window.
It being "holiday," that is, pay-day, the Canteen was full, and most of its patrons had contrived to emulate it. A very large number had laid out the whole of their décompté—every farthing of two-pence halfpenny—on wine. Others, wiser and more continent, had reserved a halfpenny for tobacco. In one corner of the room an impromptu German glee party was singing with such excellence that the majority of the drinkers were listening to them with obvious appreciation. With hardly a break, and with the greatest impartiality they proceeded from part-song to hymn, from hymn to drinking-song, from drinking-song to sentimental love-ditty. Finally Ein feste burg ist unser Gott being succeeded by Die Wacht am Rhein and Deutschland über Alles, the French element in the room thought that a little French music would be a pleasing corrective, and with one accord, if not in one key, gave a spirited rendering of the Marseillaise, followed by—
"Tiens, voilà du boudin
Tiens, voilà du boudin
Tiens, voià du boudin
Pour les Alsaciens, les Suisses, et les Lorraines,
Pour les Belges il n'y en a plus
Car ce sont des tireurs du flanc..." etc.,
immediately succeeded by—
"As-tu vu la casquette
La casquette
Du Père Bougeaud," etc.
As the ditty came to a close a blue-jowled little Parisian—quick, nervous, and alert—sprang on to a table, and with a bottle in one hand, and a glass in the other, burst into the familiar and favourite—
"C'est l'empereur de Danemark
Qui a dit a sa moitié
Depuis quelqu' temps je remarque
Que tu sens b'en fort les pieds..." etc.
"C'est la reine Pomaré
Qui a pour tout tenue
Au milieu de l'été …"
the song being brought to an untimely end by reason of the parties on either side of the singer's table entering into a friendly tug-of-war with his feet as rope-ends. As he fell, amid howls of glee and the crashing of glass, the Bucking Bronco remarked to Rupert—
"Gwine ter be some rough-housin' ter-night ef we're lucky," but ere the mêlée could become general, Madame la Cantinière, descending from her throne behind the bar, bore down upon the rioters and rated them soundly—imbeciles, fools, children, vauriens, and sales cochons that they were. Madame was well aware of the fact that a conflagration should be dealt with in its earliest stages and before it became general.
"This is really extraordinarily good wine," remarked Rupert to John Bull.
"Yes," replied the latter. "It's every bit as good at three-halfpence a bottle as it is at three-and-six in England, and I'd advise you to stick to it and let absinthe alone. It does one no harm, in reason, and is a great comfort. It's our greatest blessing and our greatest curse. Absinthe is pure curse—and inevitably means 'cafard.'"
"What is this same 'cafard' of which one hears so much?" asked Rupert.
"Well, the word itself means 'beetle,' I believe, and sooner or later the man who drinks absinthe in this climate feels the beetle crawling round and round in his brain. He then does the maddest things and and ascribes the impulse to the beetle. He finally goes mad and generally commits murder or suicide, or both. That is one form of cafard, and the other is mere fed-upness, a combination of liverish temper, boredom and utter hatred and loathing of the terrible ennui of the life."
"Have you had it?" asked the other.
"Everyone has it at times," was the reply, "especially in the tiny desert-stations where the awful heat, monotony, and lack of employment leave one the choice of drink or madness. If you drink you're certain to go mad, and if you don't drink you're sure to. Of course, men like ourselves—educated, intelligent, and all that—have more chance than the average 'Tommy' type, but it's very dangerous for the highly strung excitable sort. He's apt to go mad and stay mad. We only get fits of it."
"Don't the authorities do anything to amuse and employ the men in desert stations, like we do in India?" enquired the younger man.
"Absolutely nothing. They prohibit the Village Négre in every station, compel men to lie on their cots from eleven till four, and do nothing at all to relieve the maddening monotony of drill, sentry-go and punishment. On the other hand, cafard is so recognised an institution that punishments for offences committed under its influence are comparatively light. It takes different people differently, and is sometimes comic—though generally tragic."
"I should think you're bound to get something of the sort wherever men lead a very hard and very monotonous life, in great heat," said Rupert.
"Oh yes," agreed John Bull. "After all le cafard is not the private and peculiar speciality of the Legion. We get a very great deal of madness of course, but I think it's nearly as much due to predisposition as it is to the hard monotonous life. … You see we are a unique collection, and a considerable minority of us must be more or less queer in some way, or they wouldn't be here."
Rupert wondered why the speaker was "here" but refrained from asking.
"Can you classify the recruits at all clearly?" he asked.
"Oh yes," was the reply. "The bulk of them are here simply and solely for a living; hungry men who came here for board and lodging. Thousands of foreigners in France have found themselves down on their uppers, with their last sou gone, fairly on their beam-ends and their room-rent overdue. To such men the Foreign Legion offers a home. Then, again, thousands of soldiers commit some heinous military 'crime' and desert to the Foreign Legion to start afresh. We get most of our Germans and Austrians that way, and not a few French who pretend to be Belgians to avoid awkward questions as to their papers. We get Alsatians by the hundred of course, too. It is their only chance of avoiding service under the hated German. They fight for France, and by their five years' Legion-service earn the right to naturalisation also. There are a good many French, too, who are 'rehabilitating' themselves. Men who have come to grief at home and prefer the Legion to prison. Then there is undoubtedly a wanted-by-the-police class of men who have bolted from all parts of Europe and taken sanctuary here. Yes, I should say the out-of-works, deserters, runaways and Alsatians make up three parts of the Legion."
"And what is the other part?"
"Oh, keen soldiers who have deliberately chosen the Legion for its splendid military training and constant fighting experience--romantics who have read vain imaginings and figments of the female mind like 'Under Two Flags'; and the queerest of Queer Fish, oddments and remnants from the ends of the earth. …" A shout of "Ohé, Grasshopper!" caused him to turn.
In the doorway, crouching on his heels, was the man they had left lying on the settee at Carmelita's. Emitting strange chirruping squeaks, turning his head slowly from left to right, and occasionally brushing it from back to front with the sides of his "forelegs," the Grasshopper approached with long, hopping bounds.
"And that was once an ornament of Chancelleries and Courts," said John Bull, as he rose to his feet. "Poor devil! Got his cafard once and for all at Aïn Sefra. There was a big grasshopper or locust in his gamelle of soup one day. … I suppose he was on the verge at the moment. Anyhow, he burst into tears and has been a grasshopper ever since, except when he's a Jap or something of that sort. … He's a grasshopper when he's 'normal' you might say."
Going over to where the man squatted, the old Legionary took him by the arm. "Come and sit on my blade of grass and drink some dew, Cigale," said he.
Smiling up brightly at the face which he always recognised as that of a sympathetic friend, the Grasshopper arose and accompanied John Bull to the end of the long table at which sat the Englishmen, the Russians, and the American. …
Yet more wine had made 'Erb yet more expansive, and he kindly filled his glass and placed it before the Grasshopper.
"’Ere drink that hup, Looney, an' I'll sing yer a song as'll warm the cockles o' yer pore ol' 'eart," he remarked, and suiting the action to the word, rose to his feet and, lifting up his voice, delivered himself mightily of that song not unknown to British barrack-rooms—
"A German orficer crossin' the Rhine
'E come to a pub, an' this was the sign
Skibooo, skibooo,
Skibooo, skiana, skibooo."
The raucous voice and unwonted British accents (for Englishmen are rare in the Legion) attracted some attention, and by the time 'Erb had finished with the German officer and commenced upon "'Oo's that aknockin' on the dawer," he was well across the footlights and had the ear and eye of the assembly. Finding himself the cynosure of not only neighbouring but distant eyes, 'Erb mounted the table and "obliged" with a clog-dance and "double-shuffle-breakdown" to the huge delight of an audience ever desiring a new thing. Stimulated by rounds of applause, and by the cheers and laughter which followed the little Parisian's cry of "Vive le goddam biftek Anglais," 'Erb burst into further Barrack-room Ballads unchronicled by, and probably quite unknown to, Mr. Kipling, and did not admit the superior claims of private thirst until he had dealt faithfully with "The Old Monk," "The Doctor's Boy," and the indiscreet adventure of Abraham the Sailor with the Beautiful Miss Taylor. …
"Some boy, that compatriot o' yourn, John," remarked the Bucking Bronco, "got a reg'lar drorin' room repertory, ain't 'e?" and the soul of 'Erb was proud within him, and he drank another pint of wine.
"Nutthink like a little—hic—'armony," he admitted modestly, "fer making a swarry sociable an' 'appy. Wot I ses is—hic—wot I ses is—hic—wot I ses is—hic. …"
"It is so, sonny, and that's almighty solemn truth," agreed the Bucking Bronco.
"Wot I ses is—hic—" doggedly repeated 'Erb.
"Right again, sonny…. He knows what 'e's sayin' all right," observed the American, turning to the Russians.
"Wot I ses is—hic—" repeated 'Erb dogmatically. …
"'Hic jacet!' Monsieur would say, perhaps?" suggested Feodor.
'Erb turned upon the last speaker with an entirely kindly contempt.
"Don't yer igspose yer hic-norance," he advised. "You're a foreiller. You're a neathen. You're a pore hic-norant foreiller. Wot I was goin' ter say was …" But 'Erb lost the thread of his discourse. "Wisht me donah wos 'ere," he confided sadly to Mikhail Kyrilovitch, wept with his arm about Mikhail's waist, his head upon Mikhail's shoulder, and anon lapsed into dreams. Feodor roused the somnolent 'Erb with the offer of another bottle of wine, and changed places with Mikhail. 'Erb accepted this tribute to the attractiveness of his personality with modesty, and with murmured words, the purport of which appeared to be that Feodor was a discriminating heathen.
As the evening wore on, the heady wine took effect. The fun, which had been fast and furious, grew uproarious. Dozens of different men were singing as many different songs, several were merely howling in sheer joyless glee, many were dancing singly, others in pairs, or in fours; one, endeavouring to clamber on to the bar and execute a pas seul, was bodily lifted and thrown half-way down the room by the fighting-drunk Luigi Rivoli. It was noticeable that, as excitement waxed, the use of French waned, as men reverted to their native tongues. It crossed the mind of Rupert that a blindfolded stranger, entering the room, might well imagine himself to be assisting at the building of the Tower of Babel. A neighbouring party of Spaniards dropping their guttural, sibilant Legion-French (with their ze for je, zamais for jamais, and zour for jour) with one accord broke into their liquid Spanish and Nombre de Dios took the place of Nom de Dieu, as their saturnine faces creased into leathery smiles. Evidently the new recruit who sat in their midst was paying his footing with the few francs that he had brought with him, or obtained for his clothes, for each of the party had four bottles in solemn row before him, and it was not with the clearest of utterance that the recruit solemnly and portentously remarked, as he drained his last bottle—
"Santissima Maria! Wine is the tomb of memory, but he who sows in sand does not reap fish," the hearing of which moved his neighbour to drop his empty bottles upon the ground with a tear, and a farewell to them—
"Vaya usted con Dios. Adios." He then turned with truculent ferocity and a terrific scowl upon the provider of the feast and growled—"Sangre de Cristo! thou peseta-less burro, give me a cigarillo or with the blessing and aid of el Eterno Padre I will cut thy throat with my thumb-nail. Hasten, perro!"
With a grunt of "Cosas d'España," the recruit removed his képi, took a cigarette therefrom and placed it in the steel-trap mouth of his amigo, to be rewarded with an incredibly sweet and sunny smile and a "Bueno! Gracias, Senor José. …"
Letting his eye roam from this queer band of ex-muleteers, brigands and smugglers to another party who were wading in the wassail, it needed not the loud "Donnerwetters!" and rambling reminiscent monologue of a fat brush-haired youth (on the unspeakable villainies of der Herr Wacht-meister whose wicked schadenfreude had sent good men to this schweinerei of a Legion, and who was only fit for the military-train or to be decapitated with his own pallasch) to label them Germans enjoying a kommers. Their stolid, heavy bearing, their business-like and somewhat brutish way of drinking in great gulps and draughts—as though a distended stomach rather than a tickled palate was the serious business of the evening, if not the end and object of life—together with their upturned moustaches, piggish little eyes, and tow-coloured bristles, proclaimed them sons of Kultur.
Rupert could not forbear a smile at the heavy, philosophical gravity with which the speaker, ceasing his monologue, heaved a deep, deep sigh and delivered the weighty dictum that a schoppen of the beer of Munich was worth all the wine of Algiers, and the Hofbrauhaus worth all the vineyards and canteens of Africa.
It interested him to notice that among all the nationalities represented, the French were by far the gayest (albeit with a humour somewhat macabre) and the Germans the most morose and gloomy. He was to learn later that they provided by far the greatest number of deserters, that they were eternally grumbling, notably bitter and resentful, and devoid of the faintest spark of humour.
His attention was diverted from the Germans by a sudden and horrible caterwauling which arose from a band of Frenchmen who suddenly commenced at the tops of their voices to howl that doleful dirge the "Hymne des Pacifiques." Until they had finished, conversation was impossible.
"Not all foam neither, Miss, please," murmured the sleeping 'Erb in the comparative silence which followed the ending of this devastating chant.
"What's the penalty here for drunkenness?" asked Rupert of John Bull.
"Depends on what you do," was the reply. "There's no penalty for drunkenness, as such, so long as it leads to no sins of omission nor commission. … The danger of getting drunk is that it gives such an opportunity to any Non-com. who has a down on you. When he sees his man drunk, he'll follow him and give him some order, or find him some corvée, in the hope that the man will disobey or abuse him—possibly strike him. Then it's Biribi for the man, and a good mark, as well as private vengeance, for the zealous Sergeant, who is again noted as a strong disciplinarian. … I'm afraid it's undeniably true that nothing helps promotion in the non-commissioned ranks so much as a reputation for savage ferocity and a brutal insatiable love of punishing. A knowledge of German helps too, as more than half the Legion speaks German, but harsh domineering cruelty is the first requisite, and a Non-commissioned Officer's merit is in direct proportion to the number of punishments he inflicts. Our Sergeant-Major, for example, is known as the 'Suicide-maker,' and is said to be very proud of the title. The number of men he has sent to their graves direct, or via the Penal Battalions, must be enormous, and, so far as I can see, he has attained his high and exceedingly influential position simply and solely by excelling in the art of inventing crimes and punishing them severely—for he is a dull uneducated peasant without brains or ability. It is this type of Non-com., the monotony, and the poverty, that make the Legion such a hell for anyone who is not dead keen on soldiering for its own sake. …"
"I'm very glad you're keen," he added.
"Oh, rather. I'm as keen as mustard," replied Rupert, "and I was utterly fed up with peace-soldiering and poodle-faking. I have done Sandhurst and had a turn as a trooper in a crack cavalry corps. I wanted to have a look-in at the North-west Frontier Police in Canada after this, and then the Cape Mounted Rifles. I shan't mind the hardships and monotony here if I can get some active service, and feel I am learning something. I have a few thousand francs, too, at the Crédit Lyonnais, so I shan't have to bear the poverty cross."
"A few thousand francs, my dear chap!" observed John Bull, smiling. "Crœsus! A few thousand francs will give you a few hundred fair-weather friends, relief from a few hundred disagreeable corvées, and duties; give you wine, tobacco, food, medicine, books, distractions—almost anything but escape from the Legion's military duties as distinguished from the menial. There is nowhere in the world where money makes so much difference as in the Legion—simply because nowhere is it so rare. If among the blind the one-eyed is king, among Legionaries he who has a franc is a bloated plutocrat. Where else in the world is tenpence the equivalent of the daily wages of twenty men—twenty soldier-labourers? Yes, a few thousand francs will greatly alleviate your lot in the Legion, or expedite your departure when you've had enough—for it's quite hopeless to desert without mufti and money."
"I'll leave some in the bank then, against the time I feel I've had enough. … By the way, if you or your friend—er—Mr. Bronco at any time. … If I could be of service … financially …" and he coloured uncomfortably.
To offer money to this grave, handsome gentleman of refined speech and manners was like tipping an Ambassador, or offering the "price of a pot" to your Colonel, or your Grandfather.
"What do you mean by corvée and the Legion's menial duties, and soldier-labourers?" he continued hurriedly to change the subject.
"Yesterday," replied Sir Montague Merline coolly, "I was told off as one of a fatigue-party to clean the congested open sewers of the native gaol of Sidi-bel-Abbès. While I and my brothers-in-arms (some of whom had fought for France, like myself, in Tonkin, Senegal, Madagascar, and the Sahara) did the foulest work conceivable, manacled Negro and Arab criminals jeered at us, and bade us strive to give them satisfaction. Having been in India, you'll appreciate the situation. Natives watching white 'sweepers' labouring on their behalf."
"One can hardly believe it," ejaculated Rupert, and his face froze with horror and indignation.
"Yes," continued the other. "I reflected on the dignity of labour, and remembered the beautiful words of John Bright, or John Bunyan, or some other Johnnie about, 'Who sweeps a room as unto God, makes himself and the action fine.' I certainly made myself very dirty. … The Legionaries are the labourers, scavengers, gardeners, builders, road-makers, street-cleaners, and general coolies of any place in which they are stationed. They are drafted to the barracks of the Spahis and Turcos—the Native Cavalry and Infantry—to do jobs that the Spahis and Turcos would rather die than touch; and, of course, they're employed for every kind of work to which Government would never dream of setting French regulars. I have myself worked (for a ha'penny a day) at wheeling clay, breaking stones, sawing logs, digging, carrying bricks, hauling trucks, shovelling sand, felling trees, weeding gardens, sweeping streets, grave-digging, and every kind of unskilled manual corvée you can think of—in addition, of course, to the daily routine-work and military training of a soldier of the Legion—which is three times as arduous as that of any other soldier in the world."
"Sa—a—ay, John," drawled the Bucking Bronco, rousing himself at last from the deep brooding reverie into which he had plunged in search of mental images and memories of Carmelita, "give yure noo soul-affinity the other side o' the medal likewise, or yew'll push him off the water-waggon into the absinthe-barrel."
"Well," continued John Bull, "you can honestly say you belong to the most famous, most reckless, most courageous regiment in the world; to the regiment that has fought more battles, won more battles, lost more men and gained more honours, than any in the whole history of war. You belong to the Legion that never retreats, that dies—and of whose deaths no record is kept. … It is the last of the real Mercenaries, the Soldiers of Fortune, and if France sent it to-morrow to such a task that five thousand men were wastefully and vainly killed, not a question would be asked in the Chamber, nor the Press: nothing would be said, nothing known outside the War Department. We exist to die for France in the desert, the swamp, or the jungle, by bullet or disease—in Algeria, Morocco, Sahara, the Soudan, West Africa, Madagascar, and Cochin China—in doing what her regular French and Native troops neither could nor would do. We are here to die, and it's the duty of our officers to kill us—more or less usefully. To kill us for France, working or fighting. …"
"’Ear, 'ear, John!" applauded the Bucking Bronco. "Some orator, ain't he?" he observed with pride, turning to Mikhail who had been following the old Legionary with parted lips and shining eyes. "Guess ol' John's some stump-speecher as well as a looker. … Go it, ol' section-boss, git on a char," and he smote his beloved John resoundingly upon the back.
John Bull, despite his years and grey hairs, blushed painfully.
"Sorry," he grunted.
"But indeed, Monsieur speaks most interestingly and with eloquence. Pray continue," said Mikhail with diffident earnestness.
John Bull looked still more uncomfortable.
"Do go on," said Rupert.
"Oh, that's all," replied John Bull. … "But we are the cheapest labourers, the finest soldiers, the most dangerous, reckless devils ever gathered together. … The incredible army—and there's anything from eight to twelve thousand of us in Africa and China, and nobody but the War Minister knows the real number. You're a ha'penny hero now, my boy, and a ha'penny day-labourer, and you're not expected to wear out in less than five years—unless you're killed by the enemy, disease, or the Non-coms."
"Have you ever regretted coming here?" asked Rupert, and could have bitten his tongue as he realised he had asked a personal and prying question.
"Well, I have re-enlisted twice," parried the other, "and that is a pretty good testimonial to La Légion. I have had unlimited experience of active service of all kinds, against enemies of all sorts except Europeans, and I hope to have that—against Germany[1]—before I've done."
"But what about all the Germans in the Legion, in that case?" enquired Rupert.
"Oh, they wouldn't be sent," was the reply. "They'd all go to the Southern Stations, and the Moroccan border, or to Madagascar and Tonkin. Of course, the Alsatians and Lorraines would jump for joy at the chance."
Conversation at this point again became more and more difficult in the increasing din, which was not diminished as 'Erb awoke, yawned, stated that he had a mouth like the bottom of a parrot's cage, that he was thoroughly blighted, and indeed blasted, produced a large mouth-organ, and rendered "Knocked 'em in the Old Kent Road," with enthusiastic soul and vigorous lungs.
Roused to a pinnacle of joyous enthusiasm and yearning for emulation, not only the little Parisian, but the whole party of Frenchmen leapt upon their table with wild whoops, and commenced to dance, some the carmagnole, some the can-can, some the cake-walk, and others the bamboula, the chachuqua, or the "singe-sur-poele." Glasses and bottles crashed to the ground, and Legionaries with them. A form broke.
Above the stamping, howling, smashing, and crashing, Madame's shrill screams rang clear, as she mingled imprecations and commands with lamentations that Luigi Rivoli had departed. Pandemonium increased to "tohuwabohu." Louder wailed the mouth-organ, louder bawled the Frenchmen, louder screamed Madame, loudest of all shrilled the "Lights Out" bugle in the barrack-square—and peace reigned. In a minute the room was empty, silent and dark, as the clock struck nine.
§2
"You'll be awakened by yells of 'Au jus' from the garde-chambre at about five to-morrow," said John Pull to Rupert as they undressed. "As soon as you have swallowed the coffee he'll pour into your mug from his jug, hop out and sweep under your bed. The room-orderly has got to sweep out the room and be on parade as soon as the rest, and it's impossible unless everybody sweeps under his own bed and leaves the orderly to do the rest."
"What about food?" asked the other, who had the healthy appetite of his years and health.
"Oh—plain and sufficient," was the answer. "Good soup and bread; hard biscuit twice a week; and wine every other day—monotonous of course. Meals at eleven o'clock and five o'clock only. … By the way unless your feet are fairly tough, you'd better wear chaussettes russes until they harden—strips of greasy linen bound round, you know. The skin will soon toughen if you pour bapédi, or any other strong spirit into your boots, and you can tallow your feet before a long march. Having no socks will seem funny at first, but in time you come to hate the idea of them. Much less cleanly really, and the cause of all blisters."
Rupert looked doubtful, and thought of his silk-sock bills. Even as a trooper he had always kept one silk pair to put on after the bath which followed a long march. (There are few things so refreshing as the vigorous brushing of one's hair and the putting of silk socks on to bathed feet after a heavy day.)
"Good night, and Good Luck in the Legion," added John Bull as he lay down.
"Good night—and thanks awfully, sir, for your kindness," replied Rupert, and vainly endeavoured to compose himself to sleep on his bed which consisted of a straw-stuffed mattress, a straw-stuffed pillow, and two thin raspy blankets. …
Mikhail Kyrilovitch sat on his bed whispering with his brother, about the medical examination of recruits which would take place on the morrow.
"Well, we can only hope for the best," said Feodor at last, "and they all say the same thing—that it is generally the merest formality. The Médecin-Major looks at your face and teeth and asks if you are healthy. It's not like what Ivan and I went through in Paris. … They wouldn't have two searching medical examinations unless there appeared to be signs of weakness, I should think."
When the room was wrapped in silence and darkness the latter arose.
"Good night, golubtchik," he whispered, "and when your heart fails you, remember Marie Spiridinoff—and be thankful you are here rather than There."
Mikhail shuddered.
Anon, every soul in the room was awakened by the uproarious entrance of the great Luigi Rivoli supported by Messieurs Malvin, Borges and Bauer, all very drunk and roaring "Brigadier vous avez raison," a song which tailed off into an inane repetition of—
"Si le Caporal savait ça
Il dirait 'nom de Dieu,’"
in the midst of which the great man collapsed upon his bed, while, with much hiccupping laughter and foul jokes, his faithful satellites contrived to remove his boots and leave him to sleep the sleep of the just and the drunken. …
Anon the Dutch youth, Hans Djoolte, sat up and looked around. All was quiet and apparently everyone was asleep. The conscience of Hans was pricking him—he had said his prayers lying in bed, and that was not the way in which he had been taught to say them by his good Dutch mother, whose very last words, as she died, had been, "Say your prayers each night, my son, wherever you may be."
Hans got out of bed, knelt him down, and said his prayers again. Thenceforward, he always did so as soon as he had undressed, regardless of consequences—which at first were serious. But even the good Luigi Rivoli, in time, grew tired of beating him, particularly when the four English-speaking occupants of the chambrée intimated their united disapproval of Luigi's interference. The most startling novelty, by repetition, becomes the most familiar commonplace, and the day, or rather the night, arrived when Hans Djoolte could pray unmolested. … Occupants of less favoured chambrées came to see the sight. The escouade indeed became rather proud of having two authentic lunatics. …
- ↑ Written in 1913.—Author.