In the Foreign Legion Part 1

In the Foreign Legion.

by Erwin Rosen.

PROLOGUE

Once upon a time there was a young student at a German University who found life too fresh, too joyous, to care very much for professors and college halls. Parental objections he disregarded. Things came to a climax. And the very next "Schnelldampfer" had amongst its pa.s.sengers a boy in disgrace, bound for the country of unlimited possibilities in search of a fortune....

The boy did not see very much of fortune, but met with a great deal of hard work. His father did not consider New York a suitable place for bad boys, and booked him a through pa.s.sage to Galveston. There the ex-student contracted hotel-bills, feeling very much out of place, until a man who took a fancy to him gave him a job on a farm in Texas.

There the boy learnt a good deal about riding and shooting, but rather less about cotton-raising. This was the beginning. In the course of time he became translator of a.s.sociated Press Despatches for a big German paper in St. Louis and started in newspaper life.

From vast New York to the Golden Gate his new profession carried him: he was sent as a war correspondent to Cuba, he learned wisdom from the kings of journalism, he paid flying visits to small Central American republics whenever a new little revolution was in sight. Incidentally he acquired a taste for adventure. Then the boy, a man now, was called back to the Fatherland, to be a journalist, editor and novelist. He was fairly successful. And a woman's love came into his life....

But he lost the jewel happiness. The continual fight for existence and battling for daily bread of his American career, so full of ups and downs, was hardly a good preparation for quiet respectability. Wise men called him a fool, a fool unspeakable, who squandered his talents in light-heartedness. And finally a time came when even his wife to be could no more believe in him. The jewel happiness was lost....

The man at any rate recognised his loss; he recognised that life was no longer worth living. A dull feeling of hopelessness came over him. And in his hour of despair he remembered the blood of adventure in his veins. A wild life he would have: he would forget.

He enlisted as a soldier in the French Foreign Legion.

That man was I. I had burned my boats behind me. Not a soul knew where I was. Those who loved me should think that I was dead. I lived the hard life of a legionnaire; I had no hopes, no aspirations, no thought for the future; I worked and marched, slept, ate, and did what I was ordered; suffered the most awful hards.h.i.+ps and bore all kinds of shameful treatment. And during sleepless nights I dreamed of love--love lost for ever....

Some five hundred years I wore the uniform of the Legion. So at least it seemed to me.

Then--the great change came. One day there was a letter for me.

Love had found me out across a continent. I read and read and read again.

That was the turning-point of my life. I broke my fetters, and I fought a hard fight for a new career....

Now the jewel happiness is mine.

ERWIN ROSEN

HAMBURG, 1909

CHAPTER I

LeGIONNAIRE!

In Belfort : Sunrays and fear : Madame and the waiter : The French lieutenant : The enlistment office of the Foreign Legion : Naked humanity : A surgeon with a lost sense of smell : "Officier Allemand" : My new comrades : The lieutenant-colonel : A night of tears

Another man, feeling as I felt, would have preferred a pistol-bullet as a last resource. I went into the Foreign Legion....

It was evening when I arrived in the old fortress of Belfort, with the intention of enlisting for the Legion. Something very like self-derision made me spend the night in the best hotel.

Awakening was not pleasant. The sunrays played hide-and-seek upon the lace of the cover, clambered to the ceiling, threw fantastic colours on the white little faces of the stucco angels, climbed down again, crowded together in a s.h.i.+ning little heap, and gave the icy elegance of the room a warm tone. Sleepily I stared at their play; sleepily I blinked at the enormous bed with its splendid covering of lace, the curious furniture, the wonderful Persian rug. Then I woke up with a start and tried to think. A thousand thoughts, a thousand memories crowded in upon me. Voices spoke to me; a woman's tears, the whispering of love, a mothers sorrow. And some devil was perpetually drumming in even measure: lost, lost, lost for ever....

For the second time in my life I felt the Great Fear. An indescribable feeling, as if one had a great lump in one's throat, barring the air from the lungs; as if one never could draw breath again. I had once experienced this fear in the valley of Santiago de Cuba, when one of the first Spanish sh.e.l.ls from the blockhouse on San Juan Hill burst a few feet from me. This time it was much worse.

Ah well, one must try to forget!

I dressed with ridiculous care, paid my bill in the "bureau," and earned a lovely smile from madame for my gold piece. Ah, madame, you would hardly flash your pretty eyes if you knew! The head waiter stood expectant at the door, bending himself almost double in French fas.h.i.+on.

He reminded me of a cat in bad humour.

I gave him a rather large silver piece.

"Well, my son, you're the last man in this world who gets a tip from me. Too bad, isn't it?"

"Je ne parle pas...."

"That's all right," said I.

I walked slowly through the quaint narrow streets and alleys of Belfort. Shop after shop, store after store, and before each and every one of them stood flat tables packed with things for sale, taking up most of the pavement. Here was a good chance for a thief, I thought, and laughed, marvelling that in my despair the affairs of the Belfort storekeepers could interest me. Mechanically I looked about and saw a house of wonderful blue; the city fathers of Belfort had built their new market-hall almost wholly of sapphire-blue gla.s.s, which scintillated in the rays of the sun, giving an effect such as no painter has as yet been able to reproduce. I felt sorry that a building of such beauty should be condemned to hold prosaic potatoes and greenstuff. Vivacious Frenchmen and Frenchwomen hurried by hustling and jostling each other in the crowded streets.... Don't hurry about so.

Life is certainly not worth the trouble!

Ironical thoughts could not alter matters, nor could even the most wonderful blue help me to forget. I must get it over.

A very young-looking lieutenant came up the street. I spoke to him in my rusty college French:

"Would you please to direct me to the recruiting office of the Foreign Legion?"

The officer touched his "kepi" politely and seemed rather astonished.

"You can come with me, monsieur. I am on the way to the offices of the fortress."

We went together.

"You seem to be German?" he said. "I may be able to a.s.sist you. I am adjutant to the general commanding the fortress."

"Yes, I am German, and intend to enlist in the Foreign Legion," I said, very, very softly. How terribly hard this first step was! I thought the few words must choke me.

"Oh, la la...." said the officer, quite confounded.

He took a good look at me. I seemed to puzzle him. Then he chatted (the boy was a splendid specimen of French courtesy) amiably about this and that. Awfully interesting corps, this Foreign Legion. He hoped to be transferred himself to the "etrangers" for a year or two. Ah, that would be magnificent.

"The Cross of the Legion of Honour can be earned very easily in Southern Algeria. Brilliant careers down there! Oh, la la! Eh bien, monsieur--you shall wear the French uniform very soon. Have you anything particular to tell me?"

Again that curious glance.

I answered in the negative.