The Wages of Virtue Part 16

In the next bed lay the Russian, Mikhail. Queer, shy chap. What a voice, and what a complexion for a recruit of the Foreign Legion! How extraordinarily alike he and his brother were, and yet there was a great difference between their respective voices and facial expressions....

Another queer story there. They looked like students.... Probably involved in some silly Nihilist games and had to bolt for their lives from the Russian police or from Nihilist confederates, or both. It was nice to see how the manlier brother looked after the other. He seemed to be in a perpetual state of concern and anxiety about him.

Beyond the Russian recruit lay the mad Legionary known as the Gra.s.shopper. What a pathetic creature--an ex-officer of one of the most aristocratic corps in Europe. In fact he must be a n.o.bleman or he could not have been in the Guides. Must be of an ancient family moreover.

Besides, he was so very obviously of _ceux qui ont pris la peine de naitre_. What could his story be? Fancy the man being a really first-cla.s.s soldier on parade, manoeuvres, march, or battlefield, and an obvious lunatic at the same time.... Poor devil!...

Next to him was the other Russian, and then Edouard Malvin, the nasty-looking cad who appeared to be Rivoli's chief toady. His neighbour was the fat and dull-looking Dutch lad (who was to display such unusual and enviable moral courage)....

Footsteps resounded without, and the Room-Corporal entered with a clatter. Turning down his blanket, as though expecting to find something beneath it, he disclosed some bottles, a few packets of tobacco and cigarettes, and a little heap of coins.

"Bonheur de Dieu vrai!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "'Y'a de bon!" and examined the packets for any indication of their orientation. "'Les deux Russes,'"

he read, and broke into a guinguette song. Monsieur le Caporal loved wine and was _un rama.s.seur de sous_. These Russians were really worthy and sensible recruits, and, though they should escape none of their duties, they should be regarded with a tolerant and non-malicious eye by Monsieur le Caporal. No undue share of corvees should be theirs.... No harm in their complimenting their good Caporal and winning his approval--but, on the other hand, no bribery and corruption. Mais non--c'est tout autre chose!

As the Corporal disrobed, the Gra.s.shopper rose from his cot, crouched, and hopped towards him.

The Corporal evinced no surprise.

"Monsieur le Caporal," quoth the Gra.s.shopper. "How can a Cigale steer a gunboat? ... I ask you.... How can I possibly dip the ensign from peak to taffrail, cat the anchor or shoot the sun, by the pale glimmer of the binnacle light? ... And I have, for cargo, the Cestus of Aphrodite...."

"And _I_ have, for cargo, seven bottles of good red wine--beneath my Cestus of Corporal--so I can't tell you, Gra.s.shopper," was the reply....

"Va t'en! ... You go and ask Monsieur le bon Diable--and tell him his old _ami_ Caporal Achille Martel sent you.... Go on--_allez schteb'

los_--and let me sleep...."

The Gra.s.shopper hopped to the door and out into the corridor....

Rupert fell asleep....

As John Bull had prophesied, he was awakened by yells of "_Au jus! Au jus! Au jus!_" from the garde-chambre, the room-orderly on duty, as he went from cot to cot with a huge jug.

Each sleepy soul roused himself sufficiently to hold out the tin mug which hung at the head of his bed, and to receive a half-pint or so of the "gravy"--which proved to be really excellent coffee. For his own part, Rupert would have been glad of the addition of a little milk and sugar, but he had swallowed too much milkless and sugarless tea (from a basin) in the British Army, to be concerned about such a trifle....

"Good morning. Put on the white trousers and come downstairs with me,"

said John Bull, as he also swallowed his coffee. "Be quick, or you won't get a chance at the lavatory. There's was.h.i.+ng accommodation for six men when sixty want it.... Come on."

As he hurried from the room, Rupert noticed that Corporal Martel lay comfortably in bed while the rest hurriedly dressed. From time to time he mechanically shouted: "Levez-vous, mes enfants...." "Levez-vous, a.s.sa.s.sins...." "Levez-vous, scelerats...."

After each of his shouts came, in antistrophe, the anxious yell of the garde-chambre (who had to sweep the room before parade) of "Balayez au-dessous vos lits!"

Returning from his hasty and primitive wash, Rupert noticed that the Austrian recruit was lacing Rivoli's boots, while the _Apache_, grimacing horribly behind his back, brushed the Neapolitan down, Malvin superintending their labours.

"Shove on the white tunic and blue sash," said John Bull to his protege--"and you'll want knapsack, cartridge-belt, bayonet and rifle.... Bye-bye! I must be off. You'll have recruit-drills separate from us for some time.... See you later...."

--3

Legionnaire Reginald Rupert soon found that French drill methods of training differed but little from English, though perhaps more thorough and systematically progressive, and undoubtedly better calculated to develop initiative.

It did not take the Corporal-Instructor long to single him out as an unusually keen and intelligent recruit, and Rupert was himself surprised at the pleasure he derived from being placed as Number One of the _escouade_ of recruits, after a few days. His knowledge of French helped him considerably, of course, and on that first morning he had obeyed the Corporal's roar of "_Sac a terre_," "_A gauche_," "_A droit_," "_En avant, marche_," "_Pas gymnastique_," or "_Formez les faisceaux_," before the majority of the others had translated them. He also excelled in the eating of the "Breakfast of the Legion," which is nothing more nor less than a terribly punis.h.i.+ng run, in quick time, round and round the parade-ground. By the time the Corporal called a halt, Rupert, who was a fine runner, in the pink of condition, was beginning to feel that he had about shot his bolt, while, with one or two exceptions, the rest of the squad were in a state of real distress, gasping, groaning, and coughing, with protruding eyeb.a.l.l.s and faces white, green, or blue. During the brief "cigarette halt," he gazed round with some amus.e.m.e.nt at the prostrate forms of his exhausted comrades.

The Russian, Feodor, seemed to be in pretty well as good condition as himself--in striking contrast to Mikhail, whose state was pitiable, as he knelt doubled up, drawing his breath in terrible gasps, and holding his side as though suffering agonies from "st.i.tch."

'Erb was in better case, but he lay panting as though his little chest would burst.

"Gawdstrewth, matey," he grunted to M. Tou-tou Boil-the-Cat, "I ain't run so much since I last see a copper."

The _Apache_, green-faced and blue-lipped, showed his teeth in a vicious snarl, by way of reply. Absinthe and black cigarettes are a poor training-diet.

The fat Dutch lad, Hans Djoolte, appeared to be in extremis and likely to disappear in a pool of perspiration. The gnarled-looking Spaniard drew his breath with noisy whoops, and stout Germans, Alsatians, Belgians and Frenchmen gave the impression of persons just rescued from drowning or suffocation by smoke. Having finished his cigarette, the Corporal ran to the far side of the parade-ground, raised his hand with a shout, and cried, "_A moi_."

"Well run, _bleu_," he observed to Rupert, who arrived first.

Before the "breakfast" half-hour was over, he was thoroughly tired, and more than a little sorry for some of the others. M. Tou-tou Boil-the-Cat was violently sick; the plump Dutchman was soaked from head to foot; many a good, stout Hans, Fritz and Carl wished he had never been born; and Mikhail Kyrilovitch distinguished himself by falling flat in a dead faint, to the contemptuous and outspoken disgust of the Corporal.

It was indeed a kill-or-cure training, and, in some cases, bade fair to kill before it cured. One drill-manoeuvre interested Rupert by its novelty and yet by its suggestion of the old Roman _testudo_. On the order "_A genoux_," all had to fall on their knees and every man of the squad, not in the front rank, to thrust his head well under the knapsack of the man in front of him. Since, under service conditions, knapsacks would be stuffed with spare uniforms and underclothing, and covered with tent-canvas, blanket, spare boots, fuel or a cooking-pot, excellent head-cover was thus provided against shrapnel and sh.e.l.l-fragments, and from bullets from some of such rifles as are used by the Chinese, African, Madagascan, and Arab foes of the Legion. Interested or not, it was with unfeigned thankfulness that, at about eleven o'clock, Rupert found himself marching back to barracks and heard the "_Rompez_" command of dismissal outside the _caserne_ of his Company. Hurrying up to the _chambree_ he put his Lebel in the rack, his knapsack and belts on the shelf above his bed, and lay down to get that amount of rest without which he felt he could not face breakfast.

"Hallo, Rupert! Had a gruelling?" enquired John Bull, entering and throwing off his accoutrements. "They make you earn your little bit of corn, don't they? You feel it less day by day though, and soon find you can do it without turning a hair. Not much chance of a chap with weak lungs or heart surviving the 'Breakfast of the Legion,' for long. You see the point of the training when you begin the desert marches."

"Quite looking forward to it," said Rupert.

"It's better looking back on it, on the whole," rejoined the other grimly.... "Feel like breakfast?" he added in French, remembering that the more his young friend spoke in that tongue the better.

"Oh, I'm all right. What'll it be?"

"Well, not _bec-fins_ and _peche Melba_ exactly. Say a mug of bread-soup, containing potato and vegetables and a sc.r.a.p of meat. Sort of Irish stew."

"_Arlequins_ at two sous the plate, first, for me, please," put in M.

Tou-tou Boil-the-Cat, whose small compact frame seemed to have recovered its normal elasticity and vigour.

As he spoke, the voice of a kitchen-orderly was raised below in a long-drawn howl of "_Soupe! A la Soupe!_" Turning with one accord to the garde-chambre the Legionaries bawled "_Soupe!_" as one man, and like an arrow from a bow, the room-orderly sped forth, to return a minute later bearing the soup-kettle and a basket of loaves of grey bread. Tin plates and utensils were s.n.a.t.c.hed from the hanging-cupboards, and mugs from their hooks on the wall and the Legionaries seated themselves on the benches that ran down either side of the long table.

"'Fraid you'll have to stand out, Rupert, being a recruit," said John Bull. "There's only room for twenty at this table."

"Of course. Thanks," was the reply, and the speaker betook himself to his bed, and sat him down with his mug and crust.

With cheerful sociability, 'Erb had already seated himself at table, and was beating a loud tattoo with mug and plate as he awaited the administrations of the soup-laden Ganymede.

Suddenly the expansive and genial smile faded on 'Erb's happy face, as he felt himself seized by the scruff of his neck and the seat of his trousers, and raised four feet in the air.... For a second he hovered, descended a foot and was then shot through the air with appalling violence to some distant corner of the earth. Fortunately for 'Erb, that corner contained a bed and he landed fairly on it.... The Legionary Herbert Higgins in the innocence of his ignorance had occupied the Seats of the Mighty, had sat him down in the place of Luigi Rivoli--and Luigi had removed the insect.

"Gawd love us!" said 'Erb. "'Oo'd a' thought it?" as he realised that he was still in barracks and had only travelled from the table to a cot, a distance of some six feet....

Mikhail Kyrilovitch lay stretched on his bed, too exhausted to eat. It interested and rather touched Rupert to see how tenderly the other Russian half raised him from the bed, coaxed him with soup and, failing, produced a bottle of wine from behind the _paquetage_ on his shelf, and induced him to drink a little....

"Potato fatigue after this, Rupert," said John Bull as he came over to the recruit, and offered him a cigarette. "Ghastly stuff you'll find this black Algerian tobacco, but one gets used to it. It's funny, but when I get a taste of any of the tobaccos from Home, I find my palate so ruined that I don't enjoy it. Seems acrid and strong though it's infinitely milder...."

The Kitchen-Corporal thrust his head in at the door of the _chambree_, roared "_Aux palates_" and vanished. Trooping down to the kitchen, the whole Company stood in a ring and solemnly peeled potatoes. Here, at any rate, Mikhail Kyrilovitch distinguished himself among the recruits, for not only was his the first potato to fall peeled into the bucket, but his peel was the thinnest, his output the greatest. Standing next to him, Rupert noticed how tiny were his hands and wrists, and how delicate his nails.

"Apparently this is part of regular routine and not a corvee," he remarked.

"Mais oui, Monsieur," replied Mikhail primly.