In the Foreign Legion Part 2

"Eh!"

And then, making a wry face, he yelled, in a coa.r.s.e sing-song:

"Nous sommes les legionnaires d'Afrique...."

Half an hour later three new recruits of the Foreign Legion, the recruit Schneider, the recruit Rader and the recruit Rosen, sat in a little room belonging to the quarters of the 31st French Regiment of Line. All three were Germans. Rader opened the conversation.

"My name's Rader. Pretty good name, ain't it, though it isn't my name, of course. I might have called myself von Rader--Baron von Rader--while I was at it, but I ain't proud. What's in a fine name, I say, if you've got nothing to fill your stomach with? No, the suckers may call me Rader. My real name is Muller. Can't use it! Must have some regard for the feelings of my people...."

"I mustn't hurt their delicate feelings," he repeated with a great roar of laughter.

Then a long knife on the table attracted his attention. He took it up, mimicked the pose of a grand tragedian, opened his mouth and swallowed the knife, as if twelve-inch blades were his favourite repast. All at once the knife lay upon the table again, only to vanish in the coat-sleeve of Herr von Rader and appear again rather abruptly out of his left trousers pocket.

"I'm an artist," Herr Rader, alias von Rader, alias Muller said with a condescending smile. "A good one, too. Strictly first cla.s.s. Why, these monkeys of Frenchmen don't know nothing about art! Would they appreciate a true artist? Not a bit of it. Boys, since I hopped over the frontier and made long nose at the German cop I left on the other side with a long face, I haven't had much to eat. Remarkably less than was good for my const.i.tution. So Herr von Rader went to the dogs--to the Foreign Legion, I meant to say. What's the difference--if they don't treat me with proper respect, I'll be compelled to leave them again. On French leave! Scoot, skin out, bunk it--see?"

Then Herr von Rader fished a number of mysterious little boxes out of innumerable pockets, inspected them carefully, turned round to mask his artistic preparations, turned to us again--and his wide-opened satyr-mouth emitted a sheet of flame! Little Schneider (he was very young) stared at the phenomenon with startled eyes.

"Grand, ain't it?" said Herr von Rader quietly. "I've a notion that this c.o.o.n isn't going to waste his resources on French Africa. Oh no!

Some fine day I'll give the n.i.g.g.e.rs of Central Africa a treat. I'll go partners with some big chief and do the conjuring part of the business.

Heap big medicine! There's only one thing worrying me. How about drinking arrangements? Palm-wine, ain't it? Boys, if only they have such a thing as beer and k.u.mmel down there!--Say, old fellow (he turned to me) what do you think about this French absinthe?"

I mumbled something.

"Awfully weak stuff!" said Herr von Rader sorrowfully. "No d--d good!"

If the comical fellow had known that, with his drollery and his fantastic yarns, he was helping me to battle with my despair, I suppose he would have been very much astonished....

There was a good deal of story-telling: about the hunger and the misery of such "artistes" of the road; about the little tricks and "petty larcenies," by means of which the ever-hungry and ever-thirsty Herr von Rader had managed to eat occasionally, at least, on his wanderings over the roads of many countries; about drinking and things unspeakable.

Most of the stories, however, told of hunger only, plain and simple hunger.

Then Schneider's turn came. His story was very simple. A few weeks ago he was wearing the uniform of a German infantry regiment garrisoned at Cologne. He was then a recruit. One Sunday he had gone drinking with some other recruits and together they made a great deal of noise in the "Wirthshaus." The patrol came up. As the non-commissioned officer in command put Schneider under arrest, the boy shoved his superior aside, knocked some of the soldiers of the patrol down and took to his heels.

When he had slept off the effects of his carouse in a corner, he got frightened and decided on flight. A dealer in second-hand clothes gave him an old civilian suit in exchange for his uniform. As a tramp he wandered till he reached the French frontier, and some other tramps showed him how to get across the frontier-line on a dark night. In the strange country hunger came and----

"We always talked about the Legion. All the other Germans on the road wanted to enlist in the Legion. Anyway, I never could have gone home again. My father would have killed me."

"No, he wouldn't," said Herr von Rader wisely. "You would have got all sorts of good things. It's all in the Bible. Yes, it is...."

The door opened and a sergeant came in.

"Is the legionnaire Rosen here?"

I stood up.

"The lieutenant-colonel wishes to speak to you. Come along to the parade-ground."

"... Keep your hat on," said the lieutenant-colonel. He spoke pure German. "No, you need not stand at attention. I have heard of you and would like to say a few words to you. I have served in the Foreign Legion as a common soldier. I consider it an honour to have served in this glorious corps. It all depends on yourself: men of talent and intelligence have better chances of promotion in the Legion than in any other regiment in the world. Educated men are valued in the Legion.

What was your profession?"

"Journalist ..." I stuttered. I felt miserable.

The stern grey eyes looked at me searchingly. "Well, I can understand that you do not care to talk about these things. However, I will give you some advice: Volunteer for the first battalion of the Legion. You have a much better chance there for active service. We are fighting a battle for civilisation in Algeria and many a splendid career has been won in the Legion. I wish you good luck!"

He gave me his hand. I believe this officer was a fine soldier and a brave man.

Herr von Rader of the merry mind and the unquenchable thirst slept the easy sleep of light-hearted men; I heard the German deserter groan in his sleep and call for his mother. All night long I lay awake. The events of my life pa.s.sed before me in mad flight. I was once more a boy at college; I saw my father standing by the dock at Bremerhaven and heard his last good-bye and my mother's crying.... Back to America my waking dreams carried me; I saw myself a young cub of a reporter, and remembered in pain the enthusiasm of the profession, my enthusiasm--how proud I was, when for the first time the city editor trusted me with a "big thing," how I chased through San Francisco in cabs, how I interviewed big men and wormed details out of secretive politicians ...

how I loved this work and how sweet success had tasted. Lost, lost for ever.

Forget I must--I tried to think of the time in Texas, the life on the Brazos farm, where hundreds of negroes had learned to respect me--after a little shooting and more kindness shown them in their small troubles; I tried to glory in remembrance of hard riding and straight shooting, of a brutal but gloriously free life. Why should I not live a rough life now? I should be on active service in the Legion. Crouching down behind my rifle in the firing-line, waiting for the enemy. I would have a life of excitement, a life of danger. Hurrah for the wild old life!

Grant me adventures, Dame Fortune!

But fickle Lady Fortune would not grant even a night's oblivion. During the long night I fought with a wild desire to scream into the darkness the beloved name.... I fought with my tears----

CHAPTER II

L'AFRIQUE

Transport of recruits on the railway : What our ticket did for us and France : The patriotic conductor : Ma.r.s.eilles : The gate of the French Colonies : The Colonial hotel : A study in blue and yellow : On the Mediterranean : The s.h.i.+p's cook : The story of the Royal Prince of Prussia at Saida : Oran : Wine and legionnaires : How the deserter reached Spain and why he returned

Next morning we a.s.sembled on the parade-ground. A sergeant distributed silver pieces amongst us, a franc for each man, that being the meagre subsistence allowance given us for the long voyage to the Mediterranean. Besides, each man was given a loaf of bread.

Then a corporal marched us to the railway station. The loaf of bread under my arm prompted me to look persistently at the ground. I was afraid of reading in the eyes of the pa.s.sers-by wonder, surprise, or, worse still, compa.s.sion.

The corporal took us to the Ma.r.s.eilles train, gave us his blessing, smoked a cigarette, and waited patiently until the train started. We travelled alone. But France ran no danger of losing her recruits on the way. The fact that we were intended for the Foreign Legion was written on our military ticket in howling big red letters. The conductor watched with great care. He was a Frenchman and a patriot and had his suspicions that these new sons of France might have the perfidy to break faith and leave the train at some place other than Ma.r.s.eilles. He therefore kept a sharp look-out--occupying a good strategic position right in front of our car--whenever the train stopped at stations. The thing would have been impossible, anyway; with that ticket one could never have pa.s.sed the platform barriers. Said Herr von Rader: "They know all about their business. We are just little flies, don't you see, sonny, and this fine invention of a ticket is the thread wound about our little legs. We're prisoners, brother mine!"

When we left the train at Ma.r.s.eilles, we saw our patriotic conductor run along the platform, signalling excitedly to a sergeant at the gate.

"I've got them! Here they are!" was the meaning of this human semaph.o.r.e. The conductor was a taxpayer and took good care that France should receive her dues.

The sergeant and a corporal received us lovingly. The corporal took charge and marched us through the town, while the sergeant trotted along the sidewalk at a respectful distance. Without doubt he had no desire that any one should connect him with us. He was quite right. We did not look pretty and the night on the train had not enhanced what little beauty we may originally have possessed.

Along the immense water-front of the port of Ma.r.s.eilles we marched; in the midst of a swarming throng of men, amongst a cosmopolitan human machine in full working blast. Past Arabs carrying heavy burdens and fat Levantines lazily strolling about, surrounded by Frenchmen of the south, always gesticulating, ever talking. s.h.i.+p lay by s.h.i.+p. Elegant steam yachts were moored alongside of unkempt tramp-steamers, whose neglected appearance told of the troubles of money-making on the high seas. There were Levantine barques with funny round sails, whose crews were dressed in flannel s.h.i.+rts of two exclusive colours: a screaming red and a howling blue. Sailing-s.h.i.+ps of some hundred different rigs lay there in line, enormous elevators discharged their unceasing flow of grain, and a colossal swivel bridge hung high in the air on her single pillar, seeming to defy all laws of gravitation.

Casks, barrels, boxes, sacks went flying through the air, past our noses, shoved, pushed, thrown, bundled about, propelled by the heavy fists of men who apparently could not work without a tremendous amount of yelling and screaming. Surely the combined noises of fifteen large cities cannot equal the h.e.l.lish babel of Ma.r.s.eilles' water-front.

We had to walk more than an hour before we reached the little fort, once the nucleus of Ma.r.s.eilles' harbour defence, whose sole purpose now is that of a gate through which to pa.s.s recruits for the colonial armies of France. Fort St. Jean it is called. Over the mediaeval drawbridge of the fort we marched. An enormous oaken door was opened by a couple of sentries. As we entered, a volley of whistles and yells greeted us--the salute for the new legionnaires of France. On the time-worn pavement of the courtyard were crowded in a dense ma.s.s the soldiers of the African corps who were waiting for the next troops.h.i.+p.

Spahis and Zouaves and Tirailleurs, who crowded round us like a swarm of bees.

"Oh, la la, les bleus pour la Legion!" (Here are the blues for the Legion.)

"Why are we called blues?" I asked a Spahi corporal who happened to stand near me.